Nov 152019
 
 November 15, 2019  Posted by at 6:59 pm Primers Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,


Johannes Vermeer View of Delft 1660-61

 

Roger Stone convicted on all counts. I’m reading through them and see WikiLeaks all over. And yes, he may have been lying about all sorts of things, his contacts with Randy Credico, what he knew when etc etc. But one thing must again be made clear: Stone never had any direct contact with Assange, let alone in some plot to release information that could damage Hillary Clinton.

We can be sure of that because as I’ve said multiple times, Assange has said that did not take place, and Assange couldn’t afford to lie, because the slightest little lie would have turned potential whistleblowers (the real kind, not the fake CIA agent one we see today) away from leaking anything to WikiLeaks. And WikiLeaks was Julian’s life’s work.

He would never have risked that, and he didn’t need to. Moreover, in 2016, the time the Roger Stone story plays, he was still in the Ecuador embassy in London, relatively secure and with all the equipment he wanted at his disposal. The Stone verdict reads like a verdict of WikiLeaks too, but only on the surface, and that only because Assange has been silenced.

Robert Mueller in his utterly failed investigation at the end still left two strains open which he insinuated were true, but which both were possible only because the accused were unable or unlikely to defend themselves: the “Russians”, in particular a group of 13 unnamed GRU “hackers”, and Julian Assange. As I said back then, Mueller is a coward and a liar for doing that, and for not acknowledging what a failure he is.

 

Other than that, today the ‘hearing’ of Marie Yovanovich, former US ambassador to Ukraine, when combined with Wednesday’s ‘testimonies’ of Bill Taylor (career diplomat and acting United States ambassador to Ukraine) and George Kent (Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs), has started to paint a pretty solid picture of what is going on.

That is, the Deep State or whatever you want to call it, represented by all these people, was dead set on continuing the US policies that led to the Maidan coup against elected president Yanukovich. It involved Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Victoria Nuland and Geoffrey Pratt, plus scores of other “public servants”.

It was always directed towards antagonizing Vladimir Putin, and they expected to be able to keep doing it. When Trump came and said: wait a minute, their rear guard was mobilized. And now we have this whole Quid Pro Quo drama, which Nancy Pelosi yesterday renamed Bribery, because too many simple Americans can’t even understand one single Latin term, and because it sounds so much more ominous.

But really, I said it before, Adam Schiff opened on Wednesday with talk of Russia aggression, “In 2014, Russia invaded a United States ally, Ukraine, to reverse that nation’s embrace of the West, and to fulfill Vladimir Putin’s desire to rebuild a Russian empire.”, while Taylor followed right behind with “If we withdraw or suspend or threaten to withdraw our security assistance” to Ukraine, it sends a “message to Ukrainians, but its just as important to the Russians who are looking for any sign of weakness”.

That’s the tenor that Marie Yovanovich also operates within. It’s a wolf pack, it’s a state within a state. They all owe their status and salaries to antagonizing Russia. But it was them, representing the US, who started the Maidan mayhem in 2013/14, not Russia. Nuland herself admitted the US spent $5 billion on that coup. She just used another word.

And then Putin outsmarted them all by taking Sevastopol, and he did it without a single shot being fired. Boy, they must have hated that. But many of them still remained in place, or in similar places, and that’s exactly what Trump didn’t want any longer. As we speak, Schiff can try and present Yovanovich as some sort of brave life long “servant” to the US, but she hasn’t exactly been complimenting her new president.

 

Is it outrageous for a president to want to have people who represent him/her, instead of holdovers from other administrations, who don’t? Of course not, a president has full authority in firing and appointing ambassadors. I’m more asking myself: what took you so long?

Trump today has a choice of continuing the failed Obama approach in Ukraine, trying to establish the country as some stronghold vs Russia and even get it into NATO, or he can initiate peace talks with Putin and Zelensky and other leaders in the region. Which choice would you prefer? “Putin’s desire to rebuild a Russian empire”, as Schiff put it, is nonsense. Putin simply doesn’t want Ukraine, which borders Russia, to be used as threat to his country.

He doesn’t want missiles stationed there etc. And the people he supports in the Donbass region? They’re Russian nationals, who got caught up on the “wrong” side of a new border in the downfall of the Soviet Union. If he had let them down, his entire nation would have never forgiven him. Not a hard choice to make.

Of course, in the background noise to all of this, there’s the fact that Russia has far surpassed the US in arms manufacturing. For one tenth of the cost they produce weapons that are 10 times more effective. That what the Deep State and its platoons of “public servants” like Bill Taylor and Marie Yovanovich hate most of all.

And they would never clamor for toning it down a little, for peace negotiations, for detente. Because that would threaten all of their paychecks.

 

And that is what I got from Wednesday’s and today’s ‘hearings’, that is the picture that shines through. It doesn’t mean to me that Trump is such a great president or anything, god almighty no, but that even if or when he tries to tone things down, this is the backdraft he gets. And that is mighty scary if you ask me.

Marie Yovanovich is sitting there complaining about some conspiracy against her, while A) Trump has every right to fire her and B) she’s been talking trash against him behind his back. If Trump loses in 2020 and the Dems want to restore that whole Deep State thing, by all means, and it’ll be legal too. But what’s happening now is not.

Adam Schiff and the Democrats are trying to make it look as if Trump does all these crazy and illegal things to try and influence the next election, while at the same time they have spent 2+ years and $40 million on the Mueller report that came up yawningly empty, and seamlessly went into Ukrainegate, which is also as hollow as a black hole.

Just switched on the footage again, and there’s some woman reciting how Yovanovich has 33 years of service, and it’s terrible she was fired from her job, but wouldn’t that always be, and isn’t it always, dependent on a person’s political leanings? That after 33 years you may not be able, or trusted, to properly represent a new president’s views? Should that president then step down because you did all those years or should you look for another job?

But not, Yovanovich presents herself as non-partisan. Well, opinions on that vary. And the president the American people elected doesn’t think she is. And that’s what counts today. What Bill Taylor and Marie Yovanovich show us this week, is that there may not just be a Deep State, but also a Shallow State.

Moreover, there is no such a thing as a president for life in the US and for very good reason. So why all the fuss about Yovanovich not being able to be an ambassador for life? I just don’t get it.

 

 

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Home Forums The Shallow State

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  • #51340

    Johannes Vermeer View of Delft 1660-61   Roger Stone convicted on all counts. I’m reading through them and see WikiLeaks all over. And yes, he ma
    [See the full post at: The Shallow State]

    #51341
    J.A.Kosmos
    Participant

    It all seems like nonsence. Can they really hope to get Trump out with this. Maybe, or maybe Michael Hudson is right, listened to an interview with him today by SNA radio, that Trump is the Democrats favorite choice for president because he’s the only one who can get through all the deregulation for the finance sector and push through lots of reforms that put the last nails in the coffin of the middle class without loosing popularity and then he can be sacrificed when they crash the economy to gobble up all the assets of the indebted masses, companies and the state. Or thats my interpretation of what he meant in other words.

    On a side note have you listened to Matt Taibbi and Katie Halpers Apodcast Useful Idiots Raül? Think you might enjoy it, they take the same stance as you on Trump hence the name of the pod. Really funny and with great guests. Check it out if you have’nt.

    #51342
    zerosum
    Participant

    “Nuland herself admitted the US spent $5 billion on that coup.”
    It sure is nice to be able to print money.
    It wont be so nice when the printing press runs out of ink.

    #51343
    VietnamVet
    Participant

    Since the 1970’s oil shocks; there has not been enough cheap energy to increase economic growth. Each time the true price increased it hits a declining maximum cost that crashes the global economy. Exporting manufacturing to regions with low labor costs and financialization allowed Washington DC, Wall Street and City of London to play the Empire Game. Destroy democracies and replace nation states with a corporate supra-institutions. The first generation sons and daughters of the borderlands became its bureaucrats. Working Americans deplorable, dying of despair.

    But the Great Game is a fool’s errand. Nothing is what it seems. Democrats are corporate enablers not the people’s party. Donald Trump is an ugly American Oligarch with all of his toxic cultural delusions. Only he would steal Syria’s oil and not foresee the ultimate defeat of North and South Carolina National Guard armored units sent to protect the oil fields in the middle of an empty desert, hundreds of miles from the coast, surrounded by enemies and supplied only by air. “They are Expendable”.

    Last September, a drone attack cut Saudi’s oil production by 50% and the USA was 10 minutes away from a World War with Iran. Both disappeared down a memory hole. One big mistake and the whole edifice crashes. Or to paraphrase Ernest Hemingway; “How does it end? Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”

    #51345
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Johannes Vermeer View of Delft 1660-61

    Ah, that picture; I couldn’t let this thread go without commenting on; View of Delft; glorious clouds and all…
    😉

    #51350
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Vermeer. I am impressed.

    Followed the top level report on Stone, and everything looks in order. The accusations are real, and the proof is evident: either they have it or they don’t. Looks like they had it.

    Not sure what he was thinking, since talking to Wikileaks isn’t a crime. Talking to the campaign isn’t a crime. Talking to Congress isn’t a crime. Yet he felt the need to lie about it all, apparently to everyone, as a first reaction and way of life. As a K-Street dirty trickster, they’d probably pull his card and banish him from D.C. if he DIDN’T lie about everything always, which only shows the double standard.

    Generally, taking money from Ukraine, channeling it, hiding it from your taxes, lying about why you got it, it’s just a way of life, like the lake house. Unless you’re Manafort. Oh wait, he did that in ‘14. It was still a way of life then, everyone approved, it wasn’t until ‘17 they retroactively made it a crime a cared about it. Lying to Congress, I don’t know, about “weapons of mass destruction and ties to al-qeada” that cost us $100T and killed maybe 6M people? I see no crime here, not even 30 days. Clapper who says they have never spied on any American person? Gosh, he lied to Congress! Heavens. And he’s still walking around, eating 5-star meals, paid for by being a cooing expert on CNN. Comey lied to Justice Department about there not being an investigation, about leaking, etc, along with McCabe, and whaddya know? No crime! It’s only when you’re on ONE side, only one, that laws exist for you.

    See, I wouldn’t know that, because they always exist for me. Put the wrong shigles on your house: go to court! Pay the fine or go to jail! Do NOT lie to a policeman, oh nevermind, he’ll purjure himself and write you a ticket anyway, then stand if from of the judge, his brother-in-law and golfing partner, and perjure himself again. For $100 dollars. And if you fight he WILL commit a crime, write false tickets, threaten witnesses and WILL get you in jail somehow to make his point. But not for them.

    “A more wretch hive of scum and villainy you will never see.”

    So they only reserve that sort of thing for us. …And for him. Anyone he’s talked to, anyone he’s met. And since they’re all dirty criminals, there’s endless (backward) leverage to use on them, should they make the ill-advised attempt to represent the American people not the Deep, Steady State, that is to say the Status Quo, the CFR and Atlantic Council, the Soros’ of the world, who as Kunstler pointed out, funded the whole thing and the murders of some 30,000 people for his amusement.

    Wouldn’t want to stop that and go home! Wouldn’t want to spend that $100T on water for Flint!

    So I wonder, did they hope Mr. T would obstruct and tamper and pardon Stone? A play on Trump’s adherence to “loyalty”, since their other plans didn’t work? No way to know. But since he seems to have done the crime, there we are, justice served, which is the sharp disadvantage the good guys have: they are forbidden the tactics of the bad guys. And yet they prevail.

    No, they can’t get him out with this. Nor will Trump “clean things up” more than casually, extending the collapse, making it slower. If Americans want it cleaned up, they will have to clean their hearts. So just as said, they will allow him, promote him, demand him, to make every mistake, especially and exclusively war, corporate power, spying, and to destroy the middle class, and obstruct, or as we see, impeach him, should he make the mildest attempt to stop war, reign in the spying, and give the middle class their (tax) money back. So when you look back it will look like all the other Presidents, because it IS all the other presidents, who to greater or lesser degreee tried the same thing against the Deep State, enemies of the people. But if the people love it so much they join in the attacks to be pro-war, pro CIA, pro-spying on themselves, who am I to say?

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