Here, Paul Craig Roberts presents two columns with very differing conclusions. In his first, he decides that “Trump Is Being Moved Aside So That Conflict with Russia Can Proceed.” Further on he states that Congress is doing two bad things. One is that Congress is serving their campaign contributors in the military/security complex by being tougher with Russia, thus keeping alive the threat that Americans denied health care may no longer get it, with the massive military/security budget sopping up all the money that might otherwise might have gone to health care. If Trump vetos this encroachment on presidential power, Congress and the presstitute media will present the veto as absolute proof that Trump is a Russian agent and is protecting Russia with his veto. If he doesn’t veto the bill, Trump will have thrown in his hand and accepted that he cannot reduce the dangerous tensions with Russia. Two days ago, PCR heard a staged “interview” between two women on NPR’s “All Things Considered” (which PCR terms “all things are never considered”). It was a propaganda show focused on Trump’s expression of disappointment in Jeff Sessions, whom Trump mistakenly appointed Attorney General. Now jumping to PCR's second column of the same date, “A Ray of Hope.” It is built around the immense damage caused to Europe by American sanctions. Here below are some of the European’s response to the latest sanctions: Confronted with a new round of sanctions against Russia, Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission told Washington that the time has passed when Washington can put its interests first and Europe’s last. The new sanctions have devastating economic and political consequences for Europe. Juncker said that if Europe’s “concerns are not taken into account sufficiently, we stand ready to act appropriately within a matter of days.” The German and French foreign ministries added their support to Juncker. The German foreign ministry said: “It is not in the Americans’ right to judge or stipulate which way European companies may engage in cooperation with any third parties – particularly, with Russian energy companies.”

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Trump Is Being Moved Aside So That Conflict with Russia Can Proceed

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July 26, 2017 | Categories: Articles & Columns |

Trump Is Being Moved Aside So That Conflict with Russia Can Proceed

Paul Craig Roberts

What is the Congress up to with their stupid bill that imposes more sanctions and removes the power of President Trump to rescind the sanctions that President Obama imposed? 

Congress is doing two things. One is that Congress is serving their campaign contributors in the military/security complex by being tougher with Russia, thus keeping the orchestrated threat alive so that Americans denied health care don’t start looking at the massive military/security budget as a place to find money for health care.

The other is to put President Trump in a box. If Trump vetos this encroachment on presidential power, Congress and the presstitute media will present the veto as absolute proof that Trump is a Russian agent and is protecting Russia with his veto. If Trump does not veto the bill, Trump will have thrown in his hand and accepted that he cannot reduce the dangerous tensions with Russia.

In other words, the bill is a lose-lose for Trump. Yet Republicans are supporting the bill, thus undermining their president.

Yesterday I heard an orchestrated, staged “interview” between two women on NPR’s “All Things Considered” (on NPR all things are never considered). It was a propaganda show focused on Trump’s expression of disappointment in Jeff Sessions, whom Trump mistakenly appointed Attorney General.

When Trump nominated Sessions, the Democrats and the presstitutes went berserk. Sessions was “unqualified,” a “racist,” blah-blah. But now Sessions is the hero of the presstitutes and Democrats. They love him, because he has sold out Trump on the question of the justification for an investigation of Trump as a suspect “Russian agent” by an independent prosecutor who happens to be a member of the anti-Trump ruling establishment.

In other words, Sessions, who has been beat up previously by the establishment, is too afraid to do his job.

In other words, Trump had, as I predicted, no idea what he was doing when he chose his government.

So now he suffers for his ignorance.

What was the point of the staged NPR interview between the two women? The point was that Sessions, unlike Trump, respects the rule of law whereas Trump wants to bend the law in order to cover up for himself. The interview was staged so that without the two women having to say it, Trump’s anger at Session was proof that Trump was guillty of some illigitimate “Russian connection.”

In other words, it was carefully constructed innuendo. Who constructed the innuendo? NPR’s women were just reading from a script.

As far as I can tell, there is no one in Trump’s government who is loyal to Trump or who is willing to back Trump’s effort to stop provoking the Russians and to cease serving as Israel’s military force in the Middle East. As far as I can tell not only the Democratic Party but also the Republican Party supports the left-wing’s view that Trump’s election was illegitimate, because he was elected by the votes of illegitimate people—“the deplorables” to use Hillary’s term.

Who are “the deplorables?” They are the remnants of the American working class. They are the people whose jobs were sent overseas to Asia by the global US corporations in order to enrich their shareholders and executives via higher profits from lower labor costs. They are the people who in order to stay afloat had to rely on debt in place of the missing income and whose debt is now so high that they have no disposable income. A huge proportion of the American population is incapable of raising a measly $400 without having to sell personal possessions.

In other words, they are refugees from a destroyed American middle class.
Trump stood up for them against the rich who ruined them, and now the rich are going to ruin Trump.

It will teach a lesson. Henceforth in the United States no one will dare to stick up for the American people. America is not for Americans any more than the world is for the peoples of the world. America and the world are for the One Percent. No one else. Russia, China, and Iran are in the way, and, thus, they are on Washington’s hit list.

It is heartbreaking to watch the Russians continue to believe, lesson after lesson to the contrary, that they can reach a deal with Washington. This unrealistic hope will destroy Russia. The Russian government will continue to grasp at straws and be put off guard.

It is utterly amazing that the Russian government can believe after its extensive history of being left hanging in the wind by its agreements with Washington that any agreement with Washington is worth anything.

Perhaps Russia is aware of the evil that they face in Washington. Perhaps the Russian emphasis on diplomacy is just a way of gaining time to get prepared for the war that Washington intends to bring to them.

There is little doubt that the great and wonderful beacon of light that is Democracy in Washington, also known as the government of the “exceptional” people and the “indispensable” country, is lost in hubris and arrogance and will destroy life on earth.

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A Ray of Hope — Paul Craig Roberts

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July 26, 2017 | Categories: Articles & Columns |

A Ray of Hope

Paul Craig Roberts

America has been a discouraging landscape ever since the neoconservatives took over US foreign policy during the Clinton regime and started the two decades of war crimes that define 21st century America and ever since US corporations betrayed the US work force by moving American jobs to Asia.

The outlook became darker when the Obama regime resurrected the Russian Threat and elevated the prospect of military conflict between the nuclear powers.

As Europe is caught in the middle, in normal circumstances European countries would have insisted that Washington cease the gratuitous provocations of Russia. But normal circumstances have not existed. Since the end of WW2, European countries have been vassals without independent economic and foreign policies. Europe hosts US military bases that threaten Russia. 

Europe has backed Washington’s wars of aggression against Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Washington’s air attacks on provinces of Pakistan, and Washington’s use of Saudi Arabia to fight its proxie war against Yemen. 

Europe has backed Washington’s gratuitous economic sanctions against Iran and Russia, sanctions that have cost Europe much and Washington little. Accustomed to having its way with Europe, Washington commits Europe without even consulting the vassal governments. 

Now it seems Washington’s extraordinary arrogance and hubris has resulted in overreach. Confronted with a new round of sanctions against Russia, Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission told Washington that the time has passed when Washington can put its interests first and Europe’s last.

The new sanctions have devastating economic and political consequences for Europe. Juncker said that if Europe’s “concerns are not taken into account sufficiently, we stand ready to act appropriately within a matter of days.” 

The German and French foreign ministries added their support to Juncker. The German foreign ministry said: “It is not in the Americans’ right to judge or stipulate which way European companies may engage in cooperation with any third parties – particularly, with Russian energy companies.” 

The French foreign ministry said: the sanctions “contradict international law” due to their “extraterritorial reach.”

Europe views the sanctions as a tool of US industrial policy that elevates US business interests over Europe’s business interests. 

Let’s hope that Washington’s arrogance will not permit Washington to back down and that Europe will give Washington the finger and disengage from the American Empire. Without Europe to host its military bases and to parrot its propaganda, Washington’s ability to threaten Russia would significantly decline. Indeed, a continuation of the hostile threatening attitude toward Russia would leave Washington isolated in the world. No country wants the risk of experiencing nuclear war merely for the sake of Washington’s unilateralism.

The encounter of Trump with Vladimir Putin came nearly seven months after Trump was inaugurated in the White House. Over that period, large sections of the US media ran an unrelenting campaign accusing Trump of being a Russian stooge and alleging that Putin ordered an interference operation in last year’s US election to benefit Trump. As a member of the Election Defense Alliance I have been exposed to a lot of voting hacking …all of them carried out by individuals in charge of U.S. voting places. Although I am not presently active, my friends in Tucson have dedicated their lives to fight election hacking. Want to learn more? Find the small book “Looser Take All – Election Fraud and the subversion of democracy 2000-2008 edited by Mark Crispin Miller (my chapter begins on p. 116). As being both an election-integrity person – and a physicist – I cannot imagine how someone sitting in Moscow could hack American elections better than the crooked individuals in charge of the U.S. voting places. However, the despicable U.S. mainstream media were providing fake news created by the military/industrial/security mafia, who intend dominate the whole world or die in a holocaust of nuclear fireballs. Of course, that would mean that our children and grandchildren would never get to grow up. That hurts me the most. The article below is the best ever on this subject, exposing the reason why all U.S. TV News reported the same claim i.e., that 17 U.S. intelligence agencies have reported that the U.S. election was hacked by Russians. Finally, the New York Times was forced to correct an article by one of their announcers, thus confessing that the intelligence “assessment was made by just four intelligence agencies, not 17: i.e., the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency.” And later it was discovered that those four agencies hadn’t even enough data to come to a conclusion; rather those people who fed the news were “hand picked”. And yet many TV announcers continue to using 17 number, for fear of offending their military/industrial/security masters.

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MSM, Still Living in Propaganda-ville

July 6, 2017

Exclusive: The stakes in U.S.-Russia relations could not be higher – possible nuclear conflagration and the end of civilization – but the U.S. mainstream media is still slouching around in “propaganda-ville,” says Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

As much as the U.S. mainstream media wants people to believe that it is the Guardian of Truth, it is actually lost in a wilderness of propaganda and falsehoods, a dangerous land of delusion that is putting the future of humankind at risk as tension escalate with nuclear-armed Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses a crowd on May 9, 2014, celebrating the 69th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany and the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Crimean port city of Sevastopol from the Nazis. (Russian government photo)

This media problem has grown over recent decades as lucrative careerism has replaced responsible professionalism. Pack journalism has always been a threat to quality reporting but now it has evolved into a self-sustaining media lifestyle in which the old motto, “there’s safety in numbers,” is borne out by the fact that being horrendously wrong, such as on Iraq’s WMD, leads to almost no accountability because so many important colleagues were wrong as well.

Similarly, there has been no accountability after many mainstream journalists and commentators falsely stated as flat-fact that “all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies” concurred that Russia did “meddle” in last November’s U.S. election.

For months, this claim has been the go-to put-down whenever anyone questions the groupthink of Russian venality perverting American democracy. Even the esteemed “Politifact” deemed the assertion “true.” But it was never true.

It was at best a needled distortion of a claim by President Obama’s Director of National Intelligence James Clapper when he issued a statement last Oct. 7 alleging Russian meddling. Because Clapper was the chief of the U.S. Intelligence Community, his opinion morphed into a claim that it represented the consensus of all 17 intelligence agencies, a dishonest twist that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton began touting.

However, for people who understand how the U.S. Intelligence Community works, the claim of a 17-agencies consensus has a specific meaning, some form of a National Intelligence Estimate (or NIE) that seeks out judgments and dissents from the various agencies.

But there was no NIE regarding alleged Russian meddling and there apparently wasn’t even a formal assessment from a subset of the agencies at the time of Clapper’s statement. President Obama did not order a publishable assessment until December – after the election – and it was not completed until Jan. 6, when a report from Clapper’s office presented the opinions of analysts from the Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency – three agencies (or four if you count the DNI’s office), not 17
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Lacking Hard Evidence

The report also contained no hard evidence of a Russian “hack” and amounted to a one-sided circumstantial case at best. However, by then, the U.S. mainstream media had embraced the “all-17-intelligence-agencies” refrain and anyone who disagreed, including President Trump, was treated as delusional. The argument went: “How can anyone question what all 17 intelligence agencies have confirmed as true?”

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper (right) talks with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office, with John Brennan and other national security aides present. (Photo credit: Office of Director of National Intelligence)

It wasn’t until May 8 when then-former DNI Clapper belatedly set the record straight in sworn congressional testimony in which he explained that there were only three “contributing agencies” from which analysts were “hand-picked.”

The reference to “hand-picked” analysts pricked the ears of some former U.S. intelligence analysts who had suffered through earlier periods of “politicized” intelligence when malleable analysts were chosen to deliver what their political bosses wanted to hear.

On May 23, also in congressional testimony, former CIA Director John Brennan confirmed Clapper’s description, saying only four of the 17 U.S. intelligence agencies took part in the assessment.

Brennan said the Jan. 6 report “followed the general model of how you want to do something like this with some notable exceptions. It only involved the FBI, NSA and CIA as well as the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. It wasn’t a full inter-agency community assessment that was coordinated among the 17 agencies.”

After this testimony, some of the major news organizations, which had been waving around the “17-intelligence-agencies” meme, subtly changed their phrasing to either depict Russian “meddling” as an established fact no longer requiring attribution or referred to the “unanimous judgment” of the Intelligence Community without citing a specific number.

This “unanimous judgment” formulation was deceptive, too, because it suggested that all 17 agencies were in accord albeit without exactly saying that. For a regular reader of The New York Times or a frequent viewer of CNN, the distinction would almost assuredly not be detected.

For more than a month after the Clapper-Brennan testimonies, there was no formal correction.

A Belated Correction

Finally, on June 25, the Times’ hand was forced when White House correspondent Maggie Haberman reverted to the old formulation, mocking Trump for “still refus[ing] to acknowledge a basic fact agreed upon by 17 American intelligence agencies that he now oversees: Russia orchestrated the attacks, and did it to help get him elected.”

New York Times building in New York City. (Photo from Wikipedia)

When this falsehood was called to The assethe Times’ attention, it had little choice but to append a correction to the article, noting that the intelligence “assessment was made by four intelligence agencies — the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency. ssment was not approved by all 17 organizations in the American intelligence community.”

The Associated Press ran a similar “clarification” applied to some of its fallacious reporting repeating the “17-intelligence-agencies” meme.

So, you might have thought that the mainstream media was finally adjusting its reporting to conform to reality. But that would mean that one of the pillars of the Russia-gate “scandal” had crumbled, the certainty that Russia and Vladimir Putin did “meddle” in the election.

The story would have to go back to square one and the major news organizations would have to begin reporting on whether or not there ever was solid evidence to support what had become a “certainty” – and there appeared to be no stomach for such soul-searching. Since pretty much all the important media figures had made the same error, it would be much easier to simply move on as if nothing had changed.

That would mean that skepticism would still be unwelcome and curious leads would not be followed. For instance, there was a head-turning reference in an otherwise typical Washington Post take-out on June 25 accusing Russia of committing “the crime of the century.”

A reference, stuck deep inside the five-page opus, said, “Some of the most critical technical intelligence on Russia came from another country, officials said. Because of the source of the material, the NSA was reluctant to view it with high confidence.”

Though the Post did not identify the country, this reference suggests that more than one key element of the case for Russian culpability was based not on direct investigations by the U.S. intelligence agencies, but on the work of external organizations.

Earlier, the Democratic National Committee denied the FBI access to its supposedly hacked computers, forcing the investigators to rely on a DNC contractor called CrowdStrike, which has a checkered record of getting this sort of analytics right and whose chief technology officer, Dmitri Alperovitch, is an anti-Putin Russian émigré with ties to the anti-Russian think tank, Atlantic Council.

Relying on Outsiders

You might be wondering why something as important as this “crime of the century,” which has pushed the world closer to nuclear annihilation, is dependent on dubious entities outside the U.S. government with possible conflicts of interest.

President Donald Trump, being sworn in on Jan. 20, 2017. (Screen shot from Whitehouse.gov)

If the U.S. government really took this issue seriously, which it should, why didn’t the FBI seize the DNC’s computers and insist that impartial government experts lead the investigation? And why – given the extraordinary expertise of the NSA in computer hacking – is “some of the most critical technical intelligence on Russia [coming] from another country,” one that doesn’t inspire the NSA’s confidence?

But such pesky questions are not likely to be asked or answered by a mainstream U.S. media that displays deep-seated bias toward both Putin and Trump.

Mostly, major news outlets continue to brush aside the clarifications and return to various formulations that continue to embrace the “17-intelligence-agencies” canard, albeit in slightly different forms, such as references to the collective Intelligence Community without the specific number. Anyone who questions this established conventional wisdom is still crazy and out of step.

For instance, James Holmes of Esquire was stunned on Thursday when Trump at a news conference in Poland reminded the traveling press corps about the inaccurate reporting regarding the 17 intelligence agencies and said he still wasn’t entirely sure about Russia’s guilt.

“In public, he’s still casting doubt on the intelligence community’s finding that Russia interfered in the 2016 election nearly nine months after the fact,” Holmes sputtered before describing Trump’s comment as a “rant.”

So, if you thought that a chastened mainstream media might stop in the wake of the “17-intelligence-agencies” falsehood and rethink the whole Russia-gate business, you would have been sadly mistaken.

But the problem is not just the question of whether Russia hacked into Democratic emails and slipped them to WikiLeaks for publication (something that both Russia and WikiLeaks deny). Perhaps the larger danger is how the major U.S. news outlets have adopted a consistently propagandistic approach toward everything relating to Russia.

Hating Putin

This pattern traces back to the earliest days of Vladimir Putin’s presidency in 2000 when he began to rein in the U.S.-prescribed “shock therapy,” which had sold off Russia’s assets to well-connected insiders, making billions of dollars for the West-favored “oligarchs,” even as the process threw millions of average Russian into poverty.

Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, who pushed for the Ukraine coup and helped pick the post-coup leaders.

But the U.S. mainstream media’s contempt for Putin reached new heights after he helped President Obama head off neoconservative (and liberal interventionist) demands for a full-scale U.S. military assault on Syria in August 2013 and helped bring Iran into a restrictive nuclear agreement when the neocons wanted to bomb-bomb-bomb Iran.

The neocons delivered their payback to Putin in early 2014 by supporting a violent coup in Ukraine, overthrowing elected President Viktor Yanukovych and installing a fiercely anti-Russian regime. The U.S. operation was spearheaded by neocon National Endowment for Democracy President Carl Gershman and neocon Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, with enthusiastic support from neocon Sen. John McCain.

Nuland was heard in an intercepted pre-coup phone call with U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt discussing who should become the new leaders and pondering how to “glue” or “midwife this thing.”

Despite the clear evidence of U.S. interference in Ukrainian politics, the U.S. government and the mainstream media embraced the coup and accused Putin of “aggression” when ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine, called the Donbas, resisted the coup regime.;

When ethnic Russians and other citizens in Crimea voted overwhelmingly in a referendum to reject the coup regime and rejoin Russia – a move protected by some of the 20,000 Russian troops inside Crimea as part of a basing agreement – that became a Russian “invasion.” But it was the most peculiar “invasion,” since there were no images of tanks crashing across borders or amphibious landing craft on Crimean beaches, because no such “invasion” had occurred.

However, in virtually every instance, the U.S. mainstream media insisted on the most extreme anti-Russian propaganda line and accused people who questioned this Official Narrative of disseminating Russian “propaganda” – or being a “Moscow stooge” or acting as a “useful fool.” There was no tolerance for skepticism about whatever the State Department or the Washington think tanks were saying.

Trump Meets Putin

So, as Trump prepares for his first meeting with Putin at the G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, the U.S. mainstream media has been in a frenzy, linking up its groupthinks about the Ukraine “invasion” with its groupthinks about Russia “hacking” the election.

Washington Post columnist David Ignatius. (Photo credit: Aude)

In a July 3 editorial, The Washington Post declared, “Mr. Trump simply cannot fail to admonish Mr. Putin for Russia’s attempts to meddle in the 2016 presidential election. He must make clear the United States will not tolerate it, period. Naturally, this is a difficult issue for Mr. Trump, who reaped the benefit of Russia’s intervention and now faces a special counsel’s investigation, but nonetheless, in his first session with Mr. Putin, the president must not hesitate to be blunt. …

“On Ukraine, Mr. Trump must also display determination. Russia fomented an armed uprising and seized Crimea in violation of international norms, and it continues to instigate violence in the Donbas. Mr. Trump ought to make it unmistakably clear to Mr.Putin that the United States will not retreat from the sanctions imposed over Ukraine until the conditions of peace agreements are met.":

Along the same lines, even while suggesting the value of some collaboration with Russia toward ending the war in Syria, Post columnist David Ignatius wrote in a July 5 column, “Russian-American cooperation on Syria faces a huge obstacle right now. It would legitimize a Russian regime that invaded Ukraine and meddled in U.S. and European elections, in addition to its intervention in Syria.”

Note the smug certainty of Ignatius and the Post editors. There is no doubt that Russia “invaded” Ukraine; “seized” Crimea; “meddled” in U.S. and European elections. Yet all these groupthinks should be subjected to skepticism, not simply treated as undeniable truths.

But seeing only one side to a story is where the U.S. mainstream media is at this point in history. Yes, it is possible that Russia was responsible for the Democratic hacks and did funnel the material to WikiLeaks, but evidence has so far been lacking. And, instead of presenting both sides fairly, the major media acts as if only one side deserves any respect and dissenting views must be ridiculed and condemned.

In this perverted process, collectively approved versions of complex situations congeal into conventional wisdom, which simply cannot be significantly reconsidered regardless of future revelations.

As offensive as this rejection of true truth-seeking may be, it also represents an extraordinary danger when mixed with the existential risk of nuclear conflagration.

With the stakes this high, the demand for hard evidence – and the avoidance of soft-minded groupthink – should go without question. Journalists and commentators should hold themselves to professional precision, not slide into sloppy careerism, lost in “propaganda-ville.”

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).

Because I have a relatively small readership, I have sometimes separated my posts by as much as two weeks so that more of you will find my important ones. But this weekend is different. It has to do with the sudden cry that Syria must be bombed to ground in order to save its people. Of course, that is absurd, but thanks to the military-industrial-security complex and the lies of the despicable mainstream media, this is where the U.S. is now headed. So please read my last two posts before tackling this very important, but long, essay by Glenn Greenwald. Wake up America!

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Trump In Freefall Collapse

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April 9, 2017

Trump In Freefall Collapse

Glenn Greenwald explains the hypocrisy of the US political class and the removal of constitutional restraint on the power of the presidency. What he misses, perhaps, is the power of the Deep State. It required less than 100 days for Deep State propaganda to completely reverse President Trump’s announced policy of normalizing relations with Russia and removing the US from the Syrian conflict that Washington initiated. It is a far-fetched notion that the US has an accountable government. 

https://theintercept.com/2017/04/07/the-spoils-of-war-trump-lavished-with-media-and-bipartisan-praise-for-bombing-syria/

Here below you will read that "Trump has betrayed us all." And your response will likely be "you're kidding me" or "what has the blogger been smoking." But although I am a fan of The Saker, I don't follow him daily. Today, I was clued in by Paul Craig Roberts, who most of you should know by now is the best provider of the REAL news of the day, rather than that of the lying "mainstream meadia" whose job is to deceive the American people. If you don't want to believe this, please ALSO read my previous re-post of an especially good article reviewing the history of the insane U.S. neocons who want a nuclear war with Russia, a war that none of us, including our children and grandchildren, may survive ...unless more Americans finally understand the threat and fight those who push for it.

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Less than a month ago I warned that a ‘color revolution ‘ was taking place in the USA.  My first element of proof was the so-called “investigation” which the CIA, FBI, NSA and others were conducting against President Trump’s candidate to become National Security Advisor, General Flynn.  Tonight, the plot to get rid of Flynn has finally succeeded and General Flynn had to offer his resignation.  Trump accepted it.

Now let’s immediately get one thing out of the way: Flynn was hardly a saint or a perfect wise man who would single handedly saved the world.  That he was not.  However, what Flynn was is the cornerstone of Trump’s national security policy.  For one thing, Flynn dared the unthinkable: he dared to declare that the bloated US intelligence community had to be reformed.  Flynn also tried to subordinate the CIA and the Joint Chiefs to the President via the National Security Council.  Put differently, Flynn tried to wrestle the ultimate power and authority from the CIA and the Pentagon and subordinate them back to the White House.  Flynn also wanted to work with Russia. Not because he was a Russia lover, the notion of a Director of the DIA as a Putin-fan is ridiculous, but Flynn was rational, he understood that Russia was no threat to the USA or to Europe and that Russia had the West had common interests.  That is another absolutely unforgivable crimethink in Washington DC.

The Neocon run ‘deep state’ has now forced Flynn to resign under the idiotic pretext that he had a telephone conversation, on an open, insecure and clearly monitored, line with the Russian ambassador.

And Trump accepted this resignation.

Ever since Trump made it to the White House, he has taken blow after blow from the Neocon-run Ziomedia, from Congress, from all the Hollywood doubleplusgoodthinking “stars” and even from European politicians.  And Trump took each blow without ever fighting back.  Nowhere was his famous “you are fired!” to be seen.  But I still had hope.  I wanted to hope.  I felt that it was my duty to hope.

But now Trump has betrayed us all.

Remember how Obama showed his true face when he hypocritically denounced his friend and pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.?  Today, Trump has shown us his true face.  Instead of refusing Flynn’s resignation and instead of firing those who dared cook up these ridiculous accusations against Flynn, Trump accepted the resignation.  This is not only an act of abject cowardice, it is also an amazingly stupid and self-defeating betrayal because now Trump will be alone, completely alone, facing the likes of Mattis and Pence – hard Cold Warrior types, ideological to the core, folks who want war and simply don’t care about reality.

Again, Flynn was not my hero.  But he was, by all accounts, Trump’s hero.  And Trump betrayed him.

The consequences of this will be immense.  For one thing, Trump is now clearly broken. It took the ‘deep state’ only weeks to castrate Trump and to make him bow to the powers that be.  Those who would have stood behind Trump will now feel that he will not stand behind them and they will all move back away from him.  The Neocons will feel elated by the elimination of their worst enemy and emboldened by this victory they will push on, doubling-down over and over and over again.

It’s over, folks, the deep state has won.

From now on, Trump will become the proverbial shabbos-goy, the errand boy of the Israel lobby.  Hassan Nasrallah was right when he called him ‘an idiot‘.

The Chinese and Iranian will openly laugh.  The Russians won’t – they will be polite, they will smile, and try to see if some common sense policies can still be salvaged from this disaster.  Some might. But any dream of a partnership between Russia and the United States has died tonight.

The EU leaders will, of course, celebrate.  Trump was nowhere the scary bogeyman they feared.  Turns out that he is a doormat – very good for the EU.

Where does all this leave us – the millions of anonymous ‘deplorables’ who try as best we can to resist imperialism, war, violence and injustice?

I think that we were right in our hopes because that is all we had – hopes.  No expectations, just hopes.  But now we objectively have very little reasons left to hope.  For one thing, the Washington ‘swamp’ will not be drained.  If anything, the swamp has triumphed.  We can only find some degree of solace in two undeniable facts:

1. Hillary would have been far worse than any version of a Trump Presidency.
2. In order to defeat Trump, the US deep state has had to terribly weaken the US and the AngloZionist Empire.  Just like Erdogan’ purges have left the Turkish military in shambles, the anti-Trump ‘color revolution’ has inflicted terrible damage on the reputation, authority and even credibility of the USA.

The first one is obvious.  So let me clarify the second one.  In their hate-filled rage against Trump and the American people (aka “the basket of deplorables”) the Neocons have had to show their true face.  By their rejection of the outcome of the elections, by their riots, their demonization of Trump, the Neocons have shown two crucial things: first, that the US democracy is a sad joke and that they, the Neocons, are an occupation regime which rules against the will of the American people.  In other words, just like Israel, the USA has no legitimacy left.  And since, just like Israel, the USA are unable to frighten their enemies, they are basically left with nothing, no legitimacy, no ability to coerce.  So yes, the Neocons have won.  But their victory is removes the last chance for the US to avoid a collapse.

Trump, for all his faults, did favor the US, as a country, over the global Empire.  Trump was also acutely aware that ‘more of the same’ was not an option.  He wanted policies commensurate with the actual capabilities of the USA.  With Flynn gone and the Neocons back in full control – this is over.  Now we are going to be right back to ideology over reality.

Trump probably could have made America, well, maybe not “great again”, but at least stronger, a major world power which could negotiate and use its leverage to get the best deal possible from the others.  That’s over now.  With Trump broken, Russia and China will go right back to their pre-Trump stance: a firm resistance backed by a willingness and capability to confront and defeat the USA at any level.

I am quite sure that nobody today is celebrating in the Kremlin.  Putin, Lavrov and the others surely understand exactly what happened.  It is as if Khodorkovsy would have succeeded in breaking Putin in 2003.  In fact, I have to credit Russian analysts who for several weeks already have been comparing Trump to Yanukovich, who also was elected by a majority of the people and who failed to show the resolve needed to stop the ‘color revolution’ started against him.  But if Trump is the new Yanukovich, will the US become the next Ukraine?

Flynn was very much the cornerstone of the hoped-for Trump foreign policy.  There was a real chance that he would reign in the huge, bloated and all-powerful three letter agencies and that he would focus US power against the real enemy of the West: the Wahabis.  With Flynn gone, this entire conceptual edifice has now come down.  We are going to be left with the likes of Mattis and his anti-Iranian statements.  Clowns who only impress other clowns.

Today Neocon victory is a huge event and it will probably be completely misrepresented by the official media.  Ironically, Trump supporters will also try minimize it all.  But the reality is that barring a most unlikely last-minute miracle, it’s over for Trump and the hopes of millions of people in the USA and the rest of the world who had hoped that the Neocons could be booted out of power by means of a peaceful election.  That is clearly not going to happen.

I see very dark clouds on the horizon.

The Saker

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Original here:
http://thesaker.is/the-neocons-and-the-deep-state-have-neutered-the-trump-presidency-its-over-folks/

There is now no solid evidence that Russia has hacked the US Presidential election, nor is it likely that such evidence will ever be produced. In any event, John McAfee will guide you through the dark ways that hacking is done. You may be suprised.

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https://youtu.be/aDTKKmBjlwE

In this episode of Politicking, political activist, tech pioneer and CEO of MGT Capital Investments John McAfee joins Larry King to bring us his valuable insight regarding issues of cybersecurity and the ominous encroachment of mass surveillance and vulnerability of big government agencies. But first, Bill Marczak, senior research fellow at the Citizens Lab at the University of Toronto's School of Global Affairs, explains his frightening discoveries in the field of phone-commandeering spyware in the course of his activism with Bahrain Watch.

Following the release of an FBI report outlining Russia’s alleged role in hacking the 2016 election, Larry King sat down to talk with tech pioneer John McAfee to discuss the current state of cybersecurity.

McAfee is no stranger to cybersecurity. As the developer of the first commercial antivirus program, he has been a major player in the industry for the past 50 years. He is also the CEO of MGT Capital Investments, and an outspoken former presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party.

Based on all of his experience, McAfee does not believe that Russians were behind the hacks on the Democratic National Committee (DNC), John Podesta’s emails, and the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. As he told RT, “if it looks like the Russians did it, then I can guarantee you it was not the Russians.”

The Joint Analysis Report from the FBI contains an appendix that lists hundreds of IP addresses that were supposedly “used by Russian civilian and military intelligence services.” While some of those IP addresses are from Russia, the majority are from all over the world, which means that the hackers constantly faked their location.

McAfee argues that the report is a “fallacy,” explaining that hackers can fake their location, their language, and any markers that could lead back to them. Any hacker who had the skills to hack into the DNC would also be able to hide their tracks, he said

“If I was the Chinese and I wanted to make it look like the Russians did it, I would use Russian language within the code, I would use Russian techniques of breaking into the organization,” McAfee said, adding that, in the end, “there simply is no way to assign a source for any attack.”

However, McAfee does see a problem with the National Security Agency (NSA) being able to listen in on every conversation and read every text message and email of every American. Rather than focusing on disrupting the bad guys in foreign countries, McAfee thinks that “all of that effort has been placed on a country that is afraid of its own citizens.”

He claims that the only way he has been able to fully block the NSA from infecting his phone with spyware is by using a flip-phone too old to be hacked. He even goes as far as to call the iPhone the “ultimate spy device.”

As for the future, McAfee’s biggest fear is that the role of the NSA will change under a President Donald Trump.

“Donald Trump wants the DOJ to head a national task force of law enforcement agencies to create our cybersecurity,” he says.

McAfee predicts that if President-elect Trump follows through with that intention, the FBI will end up heading the NSA, as they are the lead technologists within the DOJ.

McAfee thinks that idea is a recipe for disaster, warning “we don’t need one more attacker, that attacker being our own government.”

https://www.rt.com/usa/372219-larry-king-mcafee-cybersecurity/

In several of my blog posts I’ve remarked on the difference between Stalin’s “iron curtain” created to keep Russians and members of conquered eastern European countries from learning how much better life was in the west (at that time) …and Obama’s new “iron curtain” preventing the average American from knowing that (1) things are actually better in Russia than they are in the US and (2) the truth of the American role in Syria …i.e. arming murderous terrorists groups known as Daesh, Islamic State (IS), ISIS, ISIL, etc. …whereas the lying US “mains stream media” has been claiming that the murders have been the is work of Assad and Putin’s Russia. So the only way for any American to decide which of the two “iron curtains” is true, and which is a lie, is to compare your evening news with the journalism of someone continuously working on the far side of Obama’s “iron curtain.” For that purpose, the following column by The Saker below will bring you up to date as of December 17, 2016.

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There are clear signs that the Neocons running the AngloZionist Empire and its “deep state” are in a state of near panic and their actions indicate they are truly terrified.

The home front

One the home front, the Neocons have resorted to every possible dirty trick on the book to try to prevent Donald Trump from ever getting into the White House: they have

• organized riots and demonstrations (some paid by Soros money)
• encouraged the supporters of Hillary to reject the outcome of the elections (“not my President”)
• tried to threaten the Electors and make them either cast a vote for Hillary or not vote at all
• tried to convince Congress to refuse the decision of the Electoral College and
• they are now trying to get the elections annulled on the suspicion that the (apparently almighty) Russian hackers have compromised the election outcome (apparently even in states were paper ballots were used) and stolen it in favor of Trump.

That is truly an amazing development, especially considering how Hillary attacked Trump for not promising to recognize the outcome of the elections. She specifically said that Trump’s lack of guarantees to recognize the outcome would threaten the very basis of the stability of the US political system and now she, and her supporters, are doing everything in their power to do just that, to throw the entire electoral process into a major crisis with no clear path towards resolution. Some say that the Democrats are risking a civil war. Considering that several key Republican Congressmen have said they do support the notion of an investigation into the “Russian hackers” fairy tale, I submit that the Republicans are doing exactly the same thing, that this is not a Democrat vs Republican issue, but a “deep state vs The People of the USA” issue.

Most experts agree that none of these tactics are going to work. So this begs the question of whether the Neocons are stupid, whether they think that they can succeed or what their true objective is.
My guess is that first and foremost what is taking place now is what always happens when the Neocons run into major trouble: they double down, again. And again. And again. That is one of the key characteristics of their psychological make-up: they cannot accept defeat or, even less so, that they were wrong, so each time reality catches up to their ideological delusions, they automatically double-down. Still, they might rationalize this behavior by a combination of hope that maybe one of these tricks will work, with the strong urge to do as much damage to President-Elect Trump before he actually assumes his office. I would never underestimate the vicious vindictiveness of these people.
What is rather encouraging is Trump’s reaction to all this: after apparently long deliberations he decided to nominate Rex Tillerson as his Secretary of Defense. From a Neocon point of view, if General Michael Flynn was bad, then Tillerson was truly an apocalyptic abomination: the man actually had received the order of “Friend of Russia” from the hands of Vladimir Putin himself!
Did Trump not realize how provocative this nomination was and how it would be received by the Neocons? Of course he did! That was, on his part, a totally deliberate decision. If so, then this is a very, very good sign.

I might be mistaken, but I get the feeling that Trump is willing to accept the Neocon challenge and that he will fight back. For example, his reaction to the CIA accusations about Russian hackers was very telling: he reminded everybody that “these are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction”. I think that it is now a safe bet to say that as soon as Trump take control heads will roll at the CIA.

[Sidebar: is it not amazing that the CIA is offering its opinion about some supposed Russian hacking during the elections in the USA? Since when does the CIA have any expertise on what is going on inside the USA? I thought the CIA was only a foreign intelligence agency. And since when does the CIA get involved in internal US politics? Yes, of course, savvy observers of the USA have always known that the CIA was a key player in US politics, but now the Agency apparently does not even mind confirming this openly. I don't think that Trump will have the guts and means to do so but, frankly, he would be much better off completely dissolving the CIA. Of course, that could get Trump killed – messing with the Fed and the CIA are two unforgivable crimes in the USA – but then again Trump is already very much at risk anyway, so he might as well strike first].

One the external front

On the external front, the big development is the liberation of Aleppo by Syrian forces. In that case again, the Neocons tried to double-down: they made all sorts of totally unsubstantiated claims about executions and atrocities while the BBC, always willing to pick up the correct line, published an article about how much the situation in Aleppo is similar to what took place in Srebrenica. Of course, there is one way in which the events in Aleppo and Srebrenica are similar: in both cases the US-backed Takfiris lost and were defeated by government forces and in both cases the West unleashed a vicious propaganda war to try to turn the military defeat of its proxies into a political victory for itself. In any case, the last-ditch propaganda effort failed and preventing the inevitable and Aleppo was completely liberated.

The Empire did score one success: using the fact that most of the foreign forces allied to the Syrians Putin will soon liberate Palmyra once again, but until this happens the reoccupation of Palmyra is rather embarrassing for the Syrians, Iranians and Russians. (Hezbollah, Iranian Pasdaran, Russian Spetsnaz, etc.) were concentrated around Aleppo, the US-backed Takfiris succeeded in breaking the will of the Syrians, many of whom apparently fled in panic, and first surrounded and then eventually reoccupied Palmyra. This will be short lived success as I completely agree with my friend Alexander Mercouris who says that

It seems exceedingly unlikely to me that the Daesh movement towards Palmyra was undetected by the various Syrian, Iranian and Russian intelligence agencies (at least once source reports that Russian satellites did detect it) and I therefore conclude that a deliberate decision was made to temporarily sacrifice Palmyra in order to finally liberate Aleppo. Was that the correct call?
Definitely yes. Contrary to the western propaganda, Aleppo, not Raqqa, has always been the real “capital” of the US backed terrorists. Raqqa is a relatively small town: 220,000+ inhabitants versus 2,000,000+ for Aleppo, making Aleppo about ten times larger than Raqqa. As for tiny Palmyra, its population is 30,000+. So the choice between scrambling to plug the holes in the Syrian defenses around Palmyra and liberating Aleppo was a no-brainer. Now that Aleppo has been liberated, the city has to be secured and major engineering efforts need to be made in order to prepare it for an always possible Takfiri counter-attack. But it is one thing to re-take a small desert town and quite another one to re-take a major urban center. I personally very much doubt that Daesh & Co. will ever be in control of Aleppo again. Some Neocons appear to be so enraged by this defeat that they are now accusing Trump of “backing Iran” (I wish he did!).

The tiny Palmyra was given a double-function by the Neocon propaganda effort: to eclipse the “Russian” (it was not solely “Russian” at all, but never mind that) victory in Aleppo and to obfuscate the “US” (it was not solely “US” at all, but never mind that) defeat in Mosul. A hard task for the tiny desert city for sure and it is no wonder that this desperate attempt also failed: the US lead coalition in Mosul still looks just about as weak as the Russian lead coalition looks strong in Aleppo.

Any comparison between these two battles is simply embarrassing for the USA: not only did the US-backed forces fail to liberate Mosul from Daesh & Co. but they have not even full encircled the city or even managed to penetrate beyond its furthest suburbs. There is very little information coming out of Mosul, but after three months of combat the entire operation to liberate Mosul seems to be an abject failure, at least for the time being. I sincerely hope that once Trump takes office he will finally agree to work not only with Russia, but also with Iran, to finally get Daesh out of Mosul. But if Trump delivers on his promise to AIPAC and the rest of the Israel Lobby gang to continue to antagonize and threaten Iran, the US can basically forget any hopes of defeating Daesh in Iraq.
Our of despair and spite, the US propaganda vilified Russia for the killing of civilians in Aleppo while strenuously avoiding any mention of civilian victims in Mosul. But then, the same propaganda machine which made fun of the color of the smoke coming out of the engines of the Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov (suggesting that she was about to break down) had to eat humble pie when it was the US navy’s most expensive and newest destroyer, the USS Zumwalt, which broke down in the Panama canal and had to be immobilzed, while the Kuznetsov continued to do a very good job supporting Russian operations in Syria.

Over and over again, the AngloZionist propaganda machine has failed to obfuscate the embarrassing facts on the ground and it now clearly appears that the entire US policy for the Middle-East is in total disarray and that the Neocons are as clueless as they are desperate.

The countdown to January 20^th

It is pretty obvious that the Neocon reign is coming to an end in a climax of incompetence, hysterical finger-pointing, futile attempts at preventing the inevitable and a desperate scramble to conceal the magnitude of the abject failure which Neocon-inspired policies have resulted in. Obama will go down in history as the worst and most incompetent President in US history. As for Hillary, she will be remembered as both the worst US Secretary of State the US and the most inept Presidential candidate ever.

In light of the fact that the Neocons always failed at everything they attempted, I am inclined to believe that they will probably also fail at preventing Donald Trump from being sworn in. But until January 20^th, 2017 I will be holding my breath in fear of what else these truly demented people could come up with.

As for Trump, I still can’t figure him out. On one hand he nominates Rex Tillerson in what appears to be a deliberate message of defiance against the Neocons, while on the other hand he continues to try to appease the Israel Lobby gang by choosing a rabid Zionist of the worst kind, David M. Friedman, as the next US ambassador to Israel. Even worse then that, Donald Trump still does not appear to be willing to recognize the undeniable fact that the US will never defeat Daesh as long as the anti-Iranian stance of the Neocons is not replaced by a real willingness to engage Iran and accept it as a partner and ally.

Right now the Trump rhetoric simply makes no sense: he wants to befriend Russia while antagonizing China and he wants to defeat Daesh while threatening Iran again. This is lunacy. Still, I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but somebody sure needs to educate him on the geopolitical realities out there before he also end up making a total disaster of US foreign policy.
And yet, I still have a small hope.

My hope is that the latest antics of the Neocons will sufficiently aggravate and even enrage Trump to a point where he will give up on his futile attempts at appeasing them. Only by engaging in a systematic policy of “de-neoconization” of the US political establishment will Trump have any hopes of “making America great again”. If Trump’s plan is to appease the Neocons long enough from him to be sworn in and have his men approved by Congress – fine. Then he still has a chance of saving the USA from a catastrophic collapse, but only as long as he remains determined to ruthlessly crack down on the Neocons once in power. If his hope is to distract the Neocons by appeasing them on secondary or minor issues, then his efforts are doomed and he will go down the very same road as Obama who, at least superficially, initially appeared to be a non-Neocon candidate and who ended up being a total Neocon puppet (in 2008 the Neocons had placed their bets on McCain and they only infiltrated the Obama Administration once McCain was defeated).

One way or another, we are headed for a crisis, the only open question whether the USA will come out of this crisis liberated or doomed.

Here I step aside and allow Michael Nevradakis to interview Paul Craig Roberts on the subject of Donald Trump and what he might due as President vis-a-vis US oligarchs, fake news, and Russia

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- MintPress News - https://www.mintpressnews.com -

Former Reagan Secretary Paul Craig Roberts: Oligarchs Are True Purveyors Of Fake News

Posted By Michael Nevradakis On December 19, 2016 @ 7:42 am In Inside Stories,National,Top Story | 10 Comments

ATHENS, Greece — The post-election climate in the United States has been nothing short of bizarre. Recount efforts in several states are being championed by Green Party candidate Jill Stein, accusations have repeatedly been made that the “Russian menace” influenced the presidential elections and the victory of Donald Trump, and that Russia is also behind an online disinformation campaign which the mainstream media describes as “fake news.”

One of the websites accused of delivering “fake news” is that of former assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury under President Ronald Reagan, Paul Craig Roberts. An author and analyst and former Wall Street Journal editor, Roberts has become a vocal critic of neoliberalism, austerity, and those who seek confrontation with Russia and China.

In this interview, originally aired on Dec. 8 on Dialogos Radio, Roberts discusses Trump’s electoral victory and Hillary Clinton’s defeat, what interests may be behind the electoral recount efforts, the “Brexit” vote and recent Italian referendum result, and the conflict in Syria. He also shares his reaction to the accusations of delivering “fake news.”

MintPress News (MPN): Why did Donald Trump win the election, and what does a Trump presidency mean for the United States and for the world?

 Paul Craig Roberts (PCR): We don’t know yet what it will mean. We know what we hope it will mean. Trump won because he spoke directly to the people in a way that they haven’t experienced in my lifetime. He told them that the ruling oligarchy did not and would not have their interests in mind, that they had been sold out with the oligarchy moving their jobs offshore to where labor is cheaper while still expecting from the unemployed American workforce to buy the products that are brought in from China and Indonesia and India and elsewhere. This resonated with people, as they have been experiencing this now for roughly a quarter of a century. There’s been no growth in real median family income in decades. Young people can’t find jobs to support an independent existence. The value of a university education is collapsing because there is no employment for that type of an education, and people realize that the economic policy of the country has been captured by the oligarchs and serves only a very few interests. The consequence has been a massive change in the distribution of income inside the United States. The United States now has one of the worst income distributions in the world. In fact, it’s worse than income distributions in many Third World gangster states.

[Trump] spoke directly to these things. He also said that he would not see the point of conflict with Russia, which no one sees in an era of thermonuclear weapons, and he also said that he didn’t understand the function of NATO, 25 years after the Soviet collapse. This also resonated with the public, because they understand that all of these supposed threats are bleeding them in order to put hundreds of billions of dollars into armaments industries. That’s the reason why he won the election, and the reason we are hopeful is that we assume he is sincere about this. We assume he’s sincere because of the fierce opposition he has from the ruling oligarchy and from their media “presstitutes,” who did anything they could to demonize Trump, to turn him into a “Putin agent,” and so forth. But the public ignored them, or at least enough of the public ignored them for Trump to carry almost all of the states except for a few really large cities on the coast.

MPN: Do you believe President-elect Trump will keep his campaign promises, and what do you make of his Cabinet selections thus far?

PCR: We don’t know if he will be able to. The oligarchy’s candidate, Hillary Clinton, lost, so the oligarchy lost the election, but they did not lose it by such a great margin that they’ve given up. They’re still in the fight, they’re still there. Trump has a billion dollars but they have trillions. They’re well-established. They have many, many servants and think tanks and university faculty and the media [on their side], and of course, the neoconservatives, who have dominated American foreign policy since the Clinton regime. So they’re still there, and Trump is in combat with these people.
Trump’s appointments, we don’t know whether they will support what he wants to do or not. If they support him, they are the type of people he needs. They are well-to-do, they’re self-confident, they don’t need money from the oligarchs, they don’t have to worry about their careers when they leave government. So he does have the kind of person you’ve got to have if you’re president, to bring about any change. So the real question is, will they support him or will they go with the oligarchs? We don’t know. We’ll have to wait and see what happens. We can’t judge them based on their past associations. I don’t think any of them are actual representatives of an oligarch’s agenda. So there’s a chance they will support him and that they will be strong enough people that he’ll have the government that will actually do something. But you can’t take it for granted, because as I said, the oligarchs lost but they weren’t routed. They’re still there.

MPN: What would a Hillary Clinton victory have meant for the United States and the world, particularly in terms of foreign policy?

PCR: It would have meant war with Russia and China and the end of life on Earth. She’s an insane warmonger, she demonizes Russia and the president of Russia, calling him the “new Hitler.” She said that the South China Sea is an area of the United States’ national interest. You can’t be more provocative than this, and if you have a president who convinces Russia and China that they’re going to be attacked, they’re not going to sit there and wait. So we really have escaped Armageddon by the defeat of Hillary Clinton. This would have been the worst possible outcome imaginable. Of course, it would have been bad on the other score — jobs, I mean, she’s the agent of the big banks, they made her rich! She and her husband have a personal fortune of $120 million, given to them by the oligarchs, and their foundation has $1.6 billion, also given to them but not just by domestic oligarchs, but by oligarchs abroad. [The Clintons] sold influence for money.

MPN: What is your reaction to the recount effort being led by Jill Stein? Who do you believe is behind all of these efforts?

PCR: The oligarchs, obviously. I mean, Jill Stein couldn’t get any funding for her presidential campaign, but she instantly got something like five or six or seven times the amount of funding she got for her entire campaign, for the recount! Where did that money come from? Not her supporters. And what this is about … the oligarchs were positioned to steal the election for Hillary. But they got deceived by their own propaganda, that she was the shoo-in winner, The New York Times telling them that it was 94 percent certain that she would be elected. They didn’t bother to steal the election, because they didn’t think they needed to. And they were shocked, everyone was shocked — that is, not the people voting for him, but the media, the oligarchs, the established interests. They were shocked by the election results, and so they’ve used Jill Stein, who really has no standing in this issue, since it doesn’t involve her campaign, she has no chance of benefiting from a vote recount. So they’re using this corrupt woman, who sold out the Green Party, to try and throw a monkey wrench into the Electoral College. The only states being recounted are the three that he won which he wasn’t expected to win [Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin], and his margin in these three states is not very great. They’re not recounting votes in states that he lost by small margins, only where he won by small margins. This is an effort to steal the election from the working class who elected him, and Jill Stein is part of it.

MPN: One of the reactions of the mainstream media has been to attack online news outlets which they claim are delivering so-called “fake news.” Your website was included on this list of alleged “fake news sites.” What’s your response to these claims, and who do you believe are the true purveyors of fake news?

PCR: We know the true purveyors are the media, the press prostitutes. We call them “presstitutes.” The mainstream media throughout the West is totally corrupt and has no integrity. What you see happening is that the independent internet media is taking away the oligarchy’s control over the explanations that people receive. So everywhere you see the subscription rates of newspapers falling dramatically, the viewers of TV programs falling dramatically, and internet readership rising. And so this is an effort to try to discredit the people who actually tell the truth by identifying them with Russia. They are hoping that all the demonization of Russia during Obama’s second term has aroused fears that the “Russian menace” is back, and they’re hoping this fear is substantial and that by associating those of us who challenge their lies, with Russia, they will discredit us.

Who’s funding it? We don’t know, because the people who prepared this list, no one knows who they are. When the Washington Post gave it [the group PropOrNot] all that publicity, they very carefully did not say who these people are. It is a new internet site that didn’t exist before a couple of months ago. Who is funding it? I would say the National Endowment for Democracy, which is a U.S. State Department-funded [organization]. It could be the CIA. It could be George Soros. But it is an oligarch operation, which, of course, involves the military-security complex, because they are the greatest beneficiaries, in terms of money and power, of all the threats, all the wars. They want a Russian threat, for their budgets and for their police state powers. Those are the people who are most likely funding it, but it hasn’t worked! All it did was to provide people with 200 sites they could go to, to find out what the truth is!

I think it’s failed, but it shows the desperation of the oligarchs, and what they will do now is, they will use the people they still control, in the House and the Senate — the oligarchs will get some type of legislation passed that will put pressure on people who dissent from official lines of the oligarchy, that dissent from stories they plant in the “presstitute” media. And so it’s going to be perhaps harder to express dissent or tell the truth in the United States, but we’ll just have to see what they do to Trump. Some people say that he was always a fake, but that doesn’t make sense to me because the oligarchs didn’t need him when they had Hillary. And they clearly didn’t want Trump in the election. They tried to deny him the Republican nomination, and then they used the media against him in very vicious ways during the presidential campaign. Trump said once that he believes in revenge, and I hope he does. I hope he exacts revenge on the oligarchs.

MPN: What has been the aftermath of the Brexit vote for Britain, and have the doom-and-gloom scenarios regarding the impact on the British economy come to fruition?

PCR: No, of course not. The opposite! What’s happened with Brexit is, I think it’s been overturned. The United States is not going to permit Brexit, Washington won’t permit it. Now, this may change with Trump, but under Obama, you may remember he traveled to London to tell the British prime minister to forget all about leaving the EU. The EU is a creation of the CIA. It was created so that the United States could more easily maintain control of Europe. It’s easier to control the EU Commission than to control 20-something different governments. What has happened is, the United States government used three corrupt British judges that decided, “Well, the people may have voted, but you did not really have to pay attention to them, it’s all up to Parliament and Parliament can decide that we’re not [leaving].” And, of course, Washington is now lobbying the Parliament very hard, with promises and money and, no doubt, threats.

So I don’t think Brexit will happen, it’s being overturned. The notion that it would take two years to get out — when that came out, instantly I said, “They’ll never get out.” Two years is all Washington needs to overturn it. I think it’s already overturned with that court ruling. So we had three two-bit punk judges overruling the majority vote of the British people, and they call it democracy! What kind of democracy is it? That’s not a democracy, when three two-bit punk judges who don’t amount to anything overrule the majority vote of the British people! And they call it democracy, oh boy! What a joke! There are not any democracies in the West. Europe is a collection of American vassals. It’s been that way since World War II.

MPN: Italian voters recently voted no in a referendum on amendments to the nation’s constitution. What does this vote, in your estimation, mean for Italy and for Europe?

PCR: It’ll end up being overturned, like the Brexit vote. Just like they are trying to overturn Trump’s election! I mean, that’s what this vote recount is about. It’s the oligarchy trying to overturn the people’s will, just like the three judges in Britain, like what happened in Greece [in the July 2015 referendum]. The vote, in itself, doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. Brexit hasn’t happened, I don’t think it ever will. We don’t even know if Trump is going to be president. But that’s the whole purpose of the vote recount, to block it. They wouldn’t be doing it otherwise. They’ve got all kinds of agents to use, all kinds of things to do.

One of our best journalists, Chris Hedges, who has had to go independent because the prostitute media no longer will publish his work … he’s concluded that elections can’t change anything, only revolution can change things. I think that’s what the oligarchy is proving. They are proving that you can’t change things with elections, because it’s really not a democracy, it’s a facade, and when the people vote, in come the oligarchs and they overturn it one way or the other. How will they overturn the vote in Italy? I don’t know, but they’ll overturn it, or they’ll ignore it, or some judge will rule that Italian law is subject to EU law, that EU law is supreme. They can do all kinds of things.

MPN: Do you believe that we are heading toward that revolution that Chris Hedges spoke of?

PCR: I don’t know. It depends on the people. They don’t seem to be nearly as feisty as they used to be. In previous times in the United States, when we reached this kind of situation, the government was scared of the people and had to make concessions. I don’t see the government afraid of the people today. They’ve got a police state established, they’ve got internment camps built, they’ve militarized the police, the police are as well armed as the military, the police routinely shoot people down the streets. I just don’t know how hard the people have to be pressed. Maybe they just simply will cease to have any gain in their living standards and some slight declines over time but won’t actually be facing starvation and homelessness, as they have in the past. So who knows? I don’t know. But I don’t think they will succeed in changing anything with elections. Possibly, Trump being the kind of very strong-willed, determined, ego-type person that he is, that’s the kind of person you need for a leader if things are going to be changed. You can’t have some conciliatory, shrinking violet who wants to get along with everybody. You can’t get change out of that.

It could well be that Trump is already rich, he doesn’t need any more money, he has a big ego, and he wants to go down in history as the man who saved America, “Trump the Great.” So if he has that kind of a goal, then the oligarchs are up against a real formidable president. If he can find other people to back him, we can get some change. But it remains to be seen. We can’t know that in advance. That’s the hope. What the result is, we don’t know, but that’s the hope. The hope is … Trump has a huge ego, wants to be “Trump the Great,” wants to save America, and that that’s more important than having a few more billion dollars, that he doesn’t care about all these people, these oligarchs, they haven’t supported him. So maybe something will happen, we’ll just have to see. Maybe they’ll prove Chris Hedges wrong. But it’s hard to bet one way or another.

MPN: What’s your take on recent developments in Syria, including the attempted invasion of Syria by Turkish troops, and what do you believe we’ll see in Syria going forward in light of a Trump presidency?

PCR: As far as I can tell, the Russians and Syrians have won that war. They’ve defeated the Washington-supported ISIS. The Obama regime sent ISIS to Syria to overthrow [Syrian President Bashar] Assad when the Russians prevented our involvement. So that way we can pretend we don’t have anything to do with it. But I think the Russians, as I said, defeated ISIS. I think it could have happened much sooner, but [Russian President Vladimir] Putin kept pulling out, kept trying to appease the Europeans, hoping they would see they didn’t need to be American puppet states, but he seems now to have finished the job, more or less. I don’t think the Turks would be permitted to invade Syria, the Russians would just tell them no. And, I don’t think the Turks think they are a match for Russia or that the Turks are stupid enough to think Europe and the United States are going to come to their aid if they get in a war with Russia.

These nuclear weapons are very, very powerful. Russia can wipe out all of Europe in a few minutes. For these itty-bitty European politicians to be running around fomenting trouble with Russia, they’ve got to be insane. There’s no way Europe can come out of this. The same with the United States. Here we are demonizing Russia and China. These are powerful nuclear powers. We can’t possibly survive a conflict with them, no one can. It’s all insanity, it’s nonsense. Europe is unable to produce leadership that’s intelligent. Putin, he’s intelligent. For some reason the Chinese can produce intelligent leadership. Who in Europe has intelligent leadership? Nobody. Maybe we finally have it with Trump, we don’t know yet. But there’s not any intelligent leadership, none in Europe. 

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