The inevitable end result of our last 56 years

[John Cotter]

1 hour ago, Kirk Gallaway said:

John, The sanctions were decided by Congress, and both houses approved them.Trump had to go along. I remember  a big proponent was  Trump Secretary of State, Tucker Carlson's own Mike Pompeo, who Tucker he hints saw the JFK files and said "It's all here" the CIA killed JFK! I believe.

True,  we have to dummy down to grasp it, and no one whose looked at them has ever said that. And it sounds like novice BS, but it's reasoned more BS out to more people is a good thing!

Ok, Had to get that little dig in! JMO

John, I saw I believe your niece Kerry Kondon making the  rounds on a late night talk show, to promote "Banshees". She's beautiful, intelligent and very charming! I love to hear her talk! She mentioned her family of 5, 2 older sisters, and she's attending the Oscar ceremony with her younger brother!

 

 

Kirk,

Kerry Condon is my first cousin's daughter - not my niece, unfortunately, but I'm going to bask in the reflected glory anyway.

Her father, Niall, my first cousin, always reminded me of Jimmy Cagney in looks and manner. 

Many thanks to you and @Chris Barnard  for your most kind compliments. 

 

Edited February 4, 2023 by John Cotter

[Jeff Carter]

Russiagaters:

 but if for every error and every act of incompetence one can substitute an act of treason, many points of fascinating interpretation are open to the paranoid imagination. In the end, the real mystery, for one who reads the primary works of paranoid scholarship, is not how the United States has been brought to its present dangerous position but how it has managed to survive at all.

source of quote is deeply ironic in context of “last 50 years”.

[Paul Rigby]

Richard Hofstadter 😅

[Mark Knight]

7 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Remember when Benjamin Cole and Jeff Carter were raving about Bill Barr's wonderful Durham Report, (before Michael Sussman's acquittal) claiming that Durham's investigation had proven that Russiagate was a hoax? 🤥

That flamer ranked among Ben and Jeff's greatest Education Forum hits, along with their claims that Trump's J6 mob attack on Congress wasn't really a coup attempt.  

Durham's dud is worse than it looks — and now Trump suddenly doesn't want to talk witch hunts
Trump’s attempt to bring disrepute to the Mueller report just backfired spectacularly

By LUCIAN K. TRUSCOTT IV
Columnist
PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 4, 2023 6:01AM (EST)

 It all goes back to Trump's obsessions.

The thing that you've got to remember about Trump, bless his black heart, is that his obsessions invariably take him to places he would rather not have gone. In fact, the entire reason John Durham was ever appointed by Attorney General William Barr as a Special Counsel to look into the origins of Robert Mueller's Russia investigation in the first place had to do with Trump's obsessions. He was obsessed that the entire thing, which he famously and repeatedly called the Russia! Russia! Russia! witch hunt, was a plot by the FBI to get him. So, Trump had Barr appoint Durham to investigate the investigators. Put another way, Trump weaponized the Justice Department to pursue his perceived enemies in the FBI, beginning with his nemesis James Comey, the former head who first opened the investigation into the Trump campaign's ties to Russia way back in July of 2016.

The Durham investigation, as it became known over the last four years, has been in the news a lot recently. Durham was appointed in May 2019 to investigate the so-called Crossfire Hurricane FBI counterintelligence investigation, as well as the Mueller investigation, which ran from May 2017 to March 2019. A year into Durham's investigation, at a Department of Justice press conference, then-attorney general Barr said what he was trying to do was "get to the bottom of what happened in 2016," which is interesting in and of itself, because the only investigation taking place in 2016 was the FBI's.

Durham wasted four years — twice as long as Mueller's probe — and God-only-knows how many taxpayer dollars without convicting anyone of wrongdoing (he lost both cases he brought to court) or establishing the conspiracy Trump and Barr had long said lay behind the Russia investigation. Our first clue is the date in Barr's statement above: 2016. Trump was convinced that the FBI, and in particular James Comey, was out to get him. Trump put Comey through what amounted to a loyalty test soon after he took office, inviting him to dinner, and while Comey was there, under the influence of the splendor of the White House and the power of being in Trump's presence, asking him if he could go easy on Michael Flynn, who had resigned as Trump's national security adviser the previous day when it became known that he had lied to Vice President Mike Pence about his conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in December of 2016. Comey demurred, and Flynn went on to be indicted and convicted of lying to the FBI about the same matter. Trump apparently never forgave Comey, especially after Comey testified before the House Intelligence Committee the following month that the Trump campaign had secretly been under investigation since July 2016. Trump fired him just two months later, on May 9, and was infuriated when he found out that Comey had flown on a government jet back to Washington after his termination.

Oh, what a web is woven when you start digging. Durham went after the Mueller investigation and ended up finding out that there actually was good cause for the FBI to investigate the Trump campaign's connections with Russians. Go figure. Trump's attempt to bring disrepute to the Mueller report by getting Barr to appoint a special counsel to investigate the investigators has backfired spectacularly. Two indictments of minor characters, two not-guilty findings by juries, several resignations from the special counsel staff in protest over Durham's methods, and no holes whatsoever blown in the Mueller investigation. 

https://www.salon.com/2023/02/04/durhams-dud-is-worse-than-it-looks--now-suddenly-doesnt-want-to-talk-witch-hunts/

I just finished reading this article. QUITE informative. "Russiagate" began with a report from the Australian embassy to the US embassy, which then reported the information to the FBI.

The report WAS NOT RELATED to the "Steele Dossier."

Ben... Matthew... if you will take the time to actually READ this article, you'll understand what I'm talking about.

If you choose NOT to read the article, even thought it MIGHT conflict with your own biases, that's on you. I read everything I can on these topics, because I want to speak/write from an informed perspective. But you have the right to choose to be uninformed, if that suits your purposes.

Now have a great day!

[John Cotter]

I came across this series of tweets today. It accurately reflects my thoughts on the politics of our western pseudo-democracy:

1/ I know it sounds sensationalist but I do genuinely believe most political parties and governments are modern equivalents of organised crime, evolved to perfectly evade law enforcement (by controlling it) and adapted to maximum power and gain by monopolising levers of power.

2/ Following advancement of DNA evidence & RICO style cases, there was no place left in the world for the Tony Sopranos & Michael Corleones. Their ilk moved into positions of establishment power, offering them unprecedented legal insulation along with even greater power & riches.

3/ The ability to influence and control markets that they can pre-emptively invest in or short can bring untold riches. And, of course, the power to put forward or shoot down laws that threaten them makes them almost invincible (so long as they stay in favour).

4/ The only price they pay is they must take part in 2 charades. The first is elections - completely dominated by established parties and impenetrable to outsiders. At best, elections are to decide which of the criminal parties take power. At worst, they are meaningless farces.

5/ The second charade is simply that they have to act like normal people and not criminals to maintain the pretence upon which the whole enterprise depends. But that's not altogether difficult for people who are often psychopaths.

6/ Now, not every politician is like this. Many are low-end enforcers (even if they hold high office) and may never know they work for the mob. Others are fronts much like Junior Soprano was the face of the Soprano crime family while its real boss hid in the shadows.

7/ And every so often there is a genuinely good person who becomes a politician having fallen for the pretence. Invariably, that person gets gobbled up and spat out. All of this is why I don't vote. We don't need better politicians. We need an entire new world.           

https://twitter.com/raggedlines/status/1621479410493800454?s=20&t=4-ztMhJwpe8uHBb6-Ez7Ew

Edited February 4, 2023 by John Cotter

[Matt Allison]

 

[Benjamin Cole]

Regarding Durham's prosecutions and lack of convictions:

I regard the defendants as exonerated, and most likely, should have never been prosecuted. 

If the federal government, which runs a panopticon state, cannot prove someone guilty...then the case must be weak at best. 

Again, I wonder about the defendant's legal bills, and if anyone can withstand federal prosecution, aside from the wealthy. 

Peter Navarro, a relatively minor player in the Trump follies, a former professor and middle-class guy, is being prosecuted. He said, "I'll be eating dog food when this is over, if I stay out of prison." 

To a man, the legal profession says a defendant would be crazy to rely on a public defender in a complicated legal case. 

 

 

[Matthew Koch]

8 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Regarding Durham's prosecutions and lack of convictions:

I regard the defendants as exonerated, and most likely, should have never been prosecuted. 

If the federal government, which runs a panopticon state, cannot prove someone guilty...then the case must be weak at best. 

Again, I wonder about the defendant's legal bills, and if anyone can withstand federal prosecution, aside from the wealthy. 

Peter Navarro, a relatively minor player in the Trump follies, a former professor and middle-class guy, is being prosecuted. He said, "I'll be eating dog food when this is over, if I stay out of prison." 

To a man, the legal profession says a defendant would be crazy to rely on a public defender in a complicated legal case. 

 

 

 

[Benjamin Cole]

1 hour ago, Mark Knight said:

I just finished reading this article. QUITE informative. "Russiagate" began with a report from the Australian embassy to the US embassy, which then reported the information to the FBI.

The report WAS NOT RELATED to the "Steele Dossier."

Ben... Matthew... if you will take the time to actually READ this article, you'll understand what I'm talking about.

If you choose NOT to read the article, even thought it MIGHT conflict with your own biases, that's on you. I read everything I can on these topics, because I want to speak/write from an informed perspective. But you have the right to choose to be uninformed, if that suits your purposes.

Now have a great day!

I read the confusing article. 

I see a lot of conjecture, and talk of Russian cyber-hacking efforts.

The Russian "bots, trolls and social influences" hoax has been exposed. There was no meaningful Russian social media effort to subvert the 2016 election. 

Were some Russian intel assets hacking away? I assume so, and I assume the US does the same thing. 

Did the Russians hack HRC's e-mail? Maybe---it turns out that is conjectural. Evidently (from what I understand) hacking software is "public domain" so to speak. So, "human-intel" may or may not have confirmed the Russians hacked HRC's e-mails.

My take on human-intel is the sources tell US intel what they want to hear, if only to stay on payroll. 

Who knows? A false flag op? Or, we only believe in false flag ops when convenient? 

Why were Secret Service phones wiped? To protect Trump? Really, James Murray, Secret service director and 24-year veteran of the service, ordered all the phones wiped...to protect Trump? The SS has long been regarded as an arm of the Deep State---but we are to believe they were converted into Trumpers in a few years? Does that hold water?

In other words, conjectures are lined up to produce a muddy picture at best. 

I still see nothing suggesting Trump was held sway by Putin, or anyone else for that matter. 

That's the core of the Russiagate hoax: There is no there, there. 

You can repeat "Trump colluded with Russia and subverted the election" ---but where are the facts? "Links" and "contacts" and "ties" do not mean anything. 

LHO is "linked" to Valery Kostikov and Dept 13 through their meeting in MC. CIA Director Woolsey says the Russians had LHO murder JFK, based in part  on that "link."  Do you buy that line of reasoning? LHO had been in Russia no less, another "tie." 

Kilimnik may or may not have been a GRU asset. But did Manafort know that? And all Russian citizens, like all Chinese citizens, are considered assets of the state-GRU.

Explain to me the US policy that was compromised during the Trump Presidency. 

[Benjamin Cole]

7 minutes ago, Matthew Koch said:

 

Mate says the defendants in the Durham prosecution were really guilty but got off on legal fine points and technicalities.

Maybe so, but I hold that no one is guilty unless convicted in a public court, with full legal representation.

As a civil necessity, I regard the defendants in the Durham prosecution as exonerated. 

I wonder what happens to the defendants and huge legal bills they must have. 

 

[Jeff Carter]

What was distinctive re: Durham was they have all been jury trials, rather than the coercive plea bargains utilized by Mueller.

[Matthew Koch]

1 minute ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Mate says the defendants in the Durham prosecution were really guilty but got off on legal fine points and technicalities.

Maybe so, but I hold that no one is guilty unless convicted in a public court, with full legal representation.

As a civil necessity, I regard the defendants in the Durham prosecution as exonerated. 

I wonder what happens to the defendants and huge legal bills they must have. 

 

I think it's interesting that Obama birther conspiracy and Russia Collusion both started with the Hillary Clinton Campaign.

I liked what they said about the facts being grey and the media on both sides attempting to represent it to their viewers as a slam dunk. There is a bigger game with Deep State and I honestly don't know if Durham is a good or bad actor. He drug his feet for a long time and made a weaker case than a lot of people expected. Reminds me of how Richard Benviniste who was on the 911 commission was Barry Seals lawyer and got his overcharged gun tossed, because that's how the government clears it's agents and assets is by over charging them and then getting the case dismissed or not guilty because the of the over charge.. So I don't know, other than the points Maté made that it was really a weaponization of the FBI being put on record. Now we are seeing that investigated by the Republican House (Church Committee) Funny thing Ben is that the Donk researchers seem to remember the Church Committee as a success instead of what current researchers at the time did, which was a further cover up for the Intelligence agencies... 

[Benjamin Cole]

2 minutes ago, Jeff Carter said:

What was distinctive re: Durham was they have all been jury trials, rather than the coercive plea bargains utilized by Mueller.

I disagree somewhat, but agree in another level:

Who can financially and personally withstand a federal prosecution? 

Often it goes like this: You can plea, and the case is over, and you know the result. You stop spending money and you do your time. 

Or...you can spend yourself silly, face an unending trial, and face 30 years in prison possibly, in a trial held in DC, in which many residents work for the federal government and which is perhaps the most heavily Donk district in the nation. 

I say the same in regards for the Durham defendants. They were exonerated...and who pays their legal bills? 

[Benjamin Cole]

2 minutes ago, Matthew Koch said:

I think it's interesting that Obama birther conspiracy and Russia Collusion both started with the Hillary Clinton Campaign.

I liked what they said about the facts being grey and the media on both sides attempting to represent it to their viewers as a slam dunk. There is a bigger game with Deep State and I honestly don't know if Durham is a good or bad actor. He drug his feet for a long time and made a weaker case than a lot of people expected. Reminds me of how Richard Benviniste who was on the 911 commission was Barry Seals lawyer and got his overcharged gun tossed, because that's how the government clears it's agents and assets is by over charging them and then getting the case dismissed or not guilty because the of the over charge.. So I don't know, other than the points Maté made that it was really a weaponization of the FBI being put on record. Now we are seeing that investigated by the Republican House (Church Committee) Funny thing Ben is that the Donk researchers seem to remember the Church Committee as a success instead of what current researchers at the time did, which was a further cover up for the Intelligence agencies... 

MK--

Well, prosecutorial agencies and committee "investigations" can be weaponized, and have been, and will be again by both parties. 

There is presently an unseemly affinity between the Donks, Deep State and media, a rough parallel to the right-wing of the 1950-90s. Rachel Maddow might as well set up an office inside the CIA (she has already, virtually).

Hey, now we have dueling witch-hunts! 

 

 

[Matt Allison]