Wednesday, September 16, 2020

Trump vs. systemic congressional/military/media corruption

 


 Watching the Republican neocon warmongers flee Trump’s Republican Party and rush into the open arms of the war mongering Democratic Party made it evident that our government is systemically corrupt, greedy, and incompetent.  Politicians from both parties are imposing Disaster Capitalism on the suffering American people while lavishing Wall Street Banks and the donor class with trillions in Covid-19 emergency funding.   

In spite of the massive amount of suffering the American people are going through, Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell dismissed congress for their annual month-long August vacation.  The government ordered shutdown has resulted in over 20 million jobs lost many never to return. 

The last emergency package expired the day before congress left for vacation leaving millions facing eviction, foreclosure, hunger, inability to pay for necessities like phones and car payments as well as being left with the responsibility to educate their children.  But congress just couldn’t be bothered, off they went.

Due to the government imposed quarantine there has been a huge spike in depression, alcoholism and drug addiction plaguing the American people.  Many have suffered and died from delayed medical treatment or surgeries.  Many with addictions have suffered from prohibition of in-person AA meetings, psychiatrist appointments and physical contact and interaction.

For those who have lost their insurance due to job loss, Nancy Pelosi’s answer is for congress to make sure those insurance premiums are paid.  For those who fall between the chasm-sized cracks, you’re on your own.

One would think any decent government under these circumstances would at least entertain the idea of universal healthcare instead of our Wall Street profit driven nightmare that the American people have had to endure for generations.  Ahh, but one would be wrong, congress just can’t be bothered.

However, rain or shine or dead of night, there’s one thing the corrupt congressional/military/media industrial complex really, really cares about, it is defeating and removing Donald J. Trump from office.  So desperate are they to remove Trump that nothing else matters, not Covid, not job loss, not cities burning to the ground, not hunger and homelessness, for those congress just can’t be bothered.  From Revolver News:

 Excerpt:

Neocons Levy False Attacks on Trump to Distract From Hideous Waste of Blood and Treasure Overseas

For the past two days, the press and the entire political establishment have crawled out of the fetid swamp to launch one of their most deranged attacks yet on President Trump. They’ve accused him of the grave offense of ridiculing America’s fallen soldiers.

This attack has only one goal. They do not want you, dear reader, to actually think deeply about who has really used and abused American’s bravest soldiers. The answer, unambiguously, is our utterly failed ruling class. America’s corrupt ruling class has recklessly sacrificed the precious blood of our brave warriors not for the betterment of America, but for the enrichment of Washington.

The claim, as reported by Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic, is this: 

When President Donald Trump canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris in 2018, he blamed rain for the last-minute decision, saying that “the helicopter couldn’t fly” and that the Secret Service wouldn’t drive him there. Neither claim was true.

Trump rejected the idea of the visit because he feared his hair would become disheveled in the rain, and because he did not believe it important to honor American war dead, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day.

In a conversation with senior staff members on the morning of the scheduled visit, Trump said, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” In a separate conversation on the same trip, Trump referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed.

On Memorial Day 2017, Trump visited Arlington National Cemetery, a short drive from the White House. He was accompanied on this visit by John Kelly, who was then the secretary of homeland security, and who would, a short time later, be named the White House chief of staff. The two men were set to visit Section 60, the 14-acre area of the cemetery that is the burial ground FOR THOSE KILLED IN AMERICA’S MOST RECENT WARS.

Kelly’s son Robert is buried in Section 60. A first lieutenant in the Marine Corps, Robert Kelly was killed in 2010 in Afghanistan. He was 29. Trump was meant, on this visit, to join John Kelly in paying respects at his son’s grave, and to comfort the families of other fallen service members. But according to sources with knowledge of this visit, Trump, while standing by Robert Kelly’s grave, turned directly to his father and said, “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?” [The Atlantic]

There is, of course, no evidence that this ever happened. Goldberg cites only unnamed sources who have refused to go on the record. Plenty of on-the-record people deny it. Even Donald Trump’s mortal enemy, John Bolton, denied the charge.

Jeffrey Goldberg, who wants to tar Donald Trump as hostile to the troops, has far more of a claim to be the mortal enemy of the American people. As a major neocon propagandist, Goldberg pushed false claims and false narratives to drag the United States into the disastrous War in Iraq.

In 2002, Goldberg published an award-winning article pushing the false narrative that Saddam Hussein was in kahoots with Al Qaeda. In another article, he furthered the false idea that Hezbollah and Saddam Hussein might be aligned, and Hezbollah would act as an Iraqi proxy in the event of war. Hezbollah, as a Shiite militia backed by Iran, actually hated Saddam.

Goldberg was one of the Iraq war’s chief cheerleaders and enablers. Today, it’s obvious that war was a tragic waste. Thousands of our bravest, most patriotic Americans were killed or horrifically maimed. To ask what those soldiers died for is not mockery. It is an essential question, one whose answer should fill all Americans with overwhelming rage against the corrupt, permanent ruling class.

Goldberg also accuses Trump of not wanting veteran amputees to participate in his 4th of July military parade. Aside from the fact that this is almost assuredly vicious calumny, a far more worthy question would be why America has so many veteran amputees (almost 1,700 from Iraq and Afghanistan combined).

The answer, of course, is people like Jeffrey Goldberg: Leaders who through vanity, stupidity, and dishonesty drove America into far-off wars that didn’t serve the country’s interests, and then perpetuated them for years with no plan for actual victory.

Trump is fighting to conserve American blood and treasure, while Goldberg and his allies are fighting to throw more of it down the drain in pointless and endless foreign wars. At his perch as chief propagandist at The Atlantic, Goldberg has done nothing but agitate for more endless wars.

In 2016, Goldberg helped ignite the Russia hoax, calling Trump a Putin puppet because he didn’t see why U.S. troops should act as human shields for European states that are unwilling to defend themselves. In 2019, Goldberg profiled former Defense Secretary James Mattis in a piece meant to shame Trump for trying to bring U.S. troops home from Syria.

Just this past year the ruling class whose interests Goldberg so assiduously represents pushed a dubious intelligence leak to try to undermine America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, a withdrawal that arguably should have happened 18 years ago.

The D.C. swamp doesn’t want you thinking about the blood and treasure wasted on these ruinous conflicts. They don’t want you to think about the billions of dollars they have siphoned off of the massive defense contracts necessary to fund these endless foreign conflicts.

And they most assuredly don’t want you to think about the countless brave patriots ripped away prematurely from their families and communities. Instead, they’re desperate to distract Americans with ridiculous claims about what the President supposedly said two years ago. The American people will not fall for their dirty tricks in November.

Trump’s response to the anonymous Pentagon allegations was anything but defensive.  In true Trump form, The Donald exposed the military industrial complex for the parasites they are.  From La Rouche.pub: 

Excerpt:

Trump Insists ‘We’re Getting Out of the Endless Wars,’ Leaving Pentagon Bigwigs Disgruntled 

Sept. 8, 2020 (EIRNS)—President Donald Trump made pointed remarks yesterday opposing “endless wars,” calling for bringing “our soldiers home,” and blasting the military-industrial complex for wanting to prolong wars.

He spoke at a Labor Day press conference. The further, unspoken background to his charges, includes elements in military and civilian networks backing actual insurrection. This was addressed directly, and denounced, Sept. 5, by Col. Richard Black (ret.), at the Schiller Institute international conference (see separate slug).

Trump said to the reporters,

“Biden ... sent our youth off to fight in these crazy endless wars. It’s one of the reasons the military—I’m not saying the military is in love with me; the soldiers are. The top people in the Pentagon probably aren’t because they want to do nothing but fight wars so that all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay happy.

But we’re getting out of the endless wars.... And I said, ‘That’s good. Let’s bring our soldiers back home. Some people don’t like to come home. Some people like to continue to spend money.’ One cold-hearted globalist betrayal after another, and that’s what it was.”

Trump’s comments sparked outrage from across the political spectrum from neo-conservative Bill Kristol to California Democrat Ted Lieu. CNN’s Ryan Brown called Trump’s remarks “an unprecedented public attack by a sitting U.S. president on the leadership of the U.S. military.”

At the very least, Brown and the others glaringly ignored the most obvious facts of life: the well-known revolving door between the military and defense establishment on one side and the defense industry, through which retired officers and former senior defense officials take jobs with defense contractors for salaries several times their retired pay.

Between 2008 and 2018, at least 380 high-ranking Pentagon officials were hired by top defense contractors after leaving public office, including 25 generals, 9 admirals, 43 lieutenant generals and 23 vice admirals, according to a report by the Project On Government Oversight (POGO), reported recently by RT.

These howling critics were in turn reminded by journalist Glenn Greenwald and conservative journalist Mollie Hemingway of President Gen. (ret.) Dwight Eisenhower’s warning about the military-industrial complex in his farewell speech to the nation in 1961.

These reporters tweeted about this. Trump then re-tweeted their information. Hemingway wrote in one of her tweets. “Trump’s words today about the military industrial complex’s power in the Pentagon evoke Eisenhower’s warning of same in his 1961 farewell address. Worth rereading today as that complex runs its information op.” Hemingway included a link to the text of Eisenhower’s address hosted by Yale Law School.

Nothing that ails the American people can be cured without ending the endless wars that have robbed a generation of a chance to attain the American dream of finding a decent life-sustaining job.  The ruling class do not concern themselves with the suffering of the masses.  While congress languished on yet another lengthy paid vacation at their palatial summer homes the plight of the American hardly entered their psyche. 

What did occupy their attention with an immediacy and urgency that were missing when discussing an emergency financial aid for the American people, was the opportunity to use the pandemic to overthrow the elected government of Nicholas Maduro in Venezuela.  From Mint Press:

 Excerpt:

Why is the US Government Using Stolen Cash To Pay Doctors in Venezuela?

The US government is using cash stolen from the Venezuelan government as part of a hearts and minds campaign on behalf of opposition figure Juan Guaidó.

Venezuelan doctors currently fighting COVID-19 are receiving funding from an unlikely source: U.S. backed coup leader Juan Guaidó. Health workers, who sometimes earn less than $20 per month, are receiving $100 dollars monthly from the self-declared president of Venezuela.

Where is Guaidó getting all this money from? The U.S. government, who, in turn, is using the billions of dollars it has confiscated from Venezuela to fund his latest political stunt.

The right-wing opposition inside Venezuela announced it was planning on distributing more than $18 million to the country’s 62,000 health professionals over the next three months; around $300 per person.

The money for the campaign comes from Venezuelan government assets and accounts in the United States, which the Trump administration has frozen as part of its ongoing war against the government of Nicolas Maduro, although it has not been disclosed exactly where from, only that it has come from Venezuelan “sovereign funds.”

Part of that war has meant recognizing Guaidó — a previously virtually unknown politician — as the legitimate president of Venezuela. Economic warfare against the country began in earnest under President Obama, who declared and redeclared a formal state of emergency across the United States due to the “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security” Venezuela supposedly posed.

However, the sanctions regime was drastically ramped up by President Trump, who has time and again declared his intention to overthrow Maduro. Sanctions have led to a near total worldwide blockade of Venezuela, with any company or nation trading with it cut off from the lucrative U.S. market.

Trump has blocked the importation of lifesaving cancer and diabetes medicines, as well as medical instruments, leading to an estimated 100,000 deaths according to former UN Special Rapporteur Alfred de Zayas.

Declared illegal by the United Nations, the sanctions have also stopped Venezuela exporting its primary product: oil. Due to the threat of U.S. sanctions, insurance companies have refused to work with Venezuelan oil companies, and without insurance, oil tankers cannot enter foreign ports. The result of the sanctions has been economic devastation for the country.

Since January 2019, Guaidó has attempted five separate, unsuccessful coups against the government, all with vocal U.S. backing. Though he is presented in Western media as a progressive social-democrat, or even a socialist, his party’s platform of mass privatization would be more reasonably compared to that of General Pinochet’s Chile.

A leaked contract between Guaidó and U.S. mercenary Jordan Goudreau that stipulated that the ex-Green Beret would oversee the creation of a private death squad, ruthlessly putting down any dissent to his rule in the event of a successful coup, also suggests a more than passing resemblance to Latin American style fascism. Four more organizers of the botched May coup were arrested in Colombia last week.

While Guaidó enjoys overwhelming support from both Democrats and Republicans (despite Trump labeling him “the Beto O’Rourke of Venezuela” for his vapidity), he is not a popular figure inside his own country, unable to go anywhere without crowds of enraged people forming.

Despite receiving a standing ovation from both parties at Trump’s State of the Union address in February, when he flew back to Caracas after a tour of the West, he was accosted by airline staff, pelted with trash from onlookers, covered in beer and other, less pleasant liquids and chased into his car to shouts of “traitor,” “murderer” and “fascist” from travelers.

THIS INCIDENT WAS UNIRONICALLY DESCRIBED IN THE WESTERN PRESS AS BEING “GREETED BY A THRONG OF CHEERING SUPPORTERS.” Recent polls from opposition-sympathetic pollsters show he has the backing of between three to four percent of Venezuelans, depending on the wording of the question.

Groomed from a young age by the U.S. government, Guaidó first came to public attention as a leader in the U.S.-backed student protests of 2007. Since then he has continually flown back and forth between Caracas and Washington for meetings, training, and negotiations.

With a flailing economy and a weak currency, a $10 monthly stipend for health workers currently battling the COVID-19 outbreak will certainly be a huge benefit to them. While the country’s initial coronavirus response successfully kept out a pandemic, returning immigrants helped spread the disease to the point where the country is experiencing around 1,000 new daily cases, with 460 total deaths nationwide.

While the crisis has worsened, it is orders of magnitude better than neighboring countries such as Ecuador and Bolivia, where the country’s neoliberal rulers have let the pandemic rage almost unabated. Meanwhile, U.S. favorite Brazil has the second highest number of deaths of any country, at nearly 130,000, its president Jair Bolsonaro continually downplaying and denying the virus’ lethality, despite contracting it himself. We are “at the mercy of a deranged lunatic. This is no exaggeration,” wrote independent outlet Brasil Wire, despairing at his actions.

With a hotly-contested election coming up in November, many commentators on both right and left are warning of foreign interference. Venezuela, too, has its own elections this winter, Maduro inviting international observers from the U.N. and E.U. to oversee the vote, and pardoning over 100 opposition figures involved in political violence and coups.

Still, those who are so outraged at the prospect of potential foreign meddling in domestic affairs appear unconcerned with the U.S.’ latest attempt to bribe the Venezuelan population into supporting regime change with its own government’s (stolen) money.

So, just like they are doing in Venezuela, the CIA is using the excuse of the pandemic in order to overthrow the elected government in America using the money that has been stolen from US taxpayers through “pandemic relief.”  It is the perfect ruse for stealing money for covert activity.

In Venezuela the CIA’s puppet president Guido was given money by for “… a contract between Guaidó and U.S. mercenary Jordan Goudreau that stipulated that the ex-Green Beret would oversee the creation of a private death squad, ruthlessly putting down any dissent to his rule…”

So who are Antifa?  Who are Black Lives Matter?  Are they the equivalent to the U.S. mercenary Jordan Goudreau’s “creation of a private death squad, ruthlessly putting down any dissent to the systemic corruption of ruling class?”  

There was a caller into C-SPAN’s Washington Journal program some time ago who made such a salient point.  Although the subject was abortion, it pertains to what is happening today.   

C-span caller June 30th

“These callers who love the unborn and hate the born.  God said, “How can you claim to love that which you have not seen and hate that which you do see?”  Right now we have Black Lives Matter.  How many of them are out there trying to make provisions to take care of the born?  No, but they can take away food stamps and care for the living but they love the unborn.  That’s hypocrisy.”

“Again, how can you claim to love that which you have not seen and hate that which you do see?”

He’s so right.  So what is it that Antifa and Black Live Matter want?  Are they demonstrating against the genocide of black lives in America’s war zones of Yemen, or Iraq, or Syria, or Venezuela, or and of the multitude of nations devastated by the CIA?  Or, is this the CIA bringing a color revolution to America?  From PaulCraig Roberts:

 Excerpt:

America’s Color Revolution

I have provided evidence that the military/security complex, using the media and the Democrats, intends to turn the November election into a color revolution…  The CIA is very experienced at color revolutions, having pulled them off in a number of countries where the existing government did not suit the CIA.  

As we have known since CIA Director John Brennan’s denunciations of President Trump, Trump doesn’t suit the CIA either. As far as the CIA is concerned, Trump is no different from Hugo Chavez, Nicolas Maduro, Charles de Gaulle, Manuel Zelaya, Evo Morales, Viktor Yanukovych, and a large number of others. 

Russiagate was a coup that failed, followed by the failed Impeachgate coup.  Faced with Trump’s reelection and the realization that upon reelection Trump will be able to deal with the treason against him, the Deep State has decided to take him out with a color revolution.

The evidence of a color revolution in the works is abundantly supplied by CNN, MSNBC, New York Times, NPR, Washington Post and numerous Internet sites funded by the CIA and the foundations and corporations through which it operates, all of which are committed to Trump’s ejection from the Oval Office. 

The American public does not realize the extent to which the institutions of a free society have been penetrated and turned against freedom. All of these media organizations are establishing the story in the mind of Americans that Trump will not leave office when he loses or steals the election and must be driven out.

Emails are arriving from readers in the UK and Europe reporting that the British and European media are at work preparing the acceptability of the CIA’s color revolution against President Trump…

The scenarios for what the American, British, and European media assume to be a necessary color revolution to drive Trump from office are:

Trump loses the election, refuses to leave office and must be dislodged or democracy is lost.

Trump wins the election by fraud and must be dislodged or democracy is lost.

The scenarios do not accommodate Trump actually winning the election by the vote of the people.  That outcome is outside the possibilities. According to the media, Trump can only lose or steal the election. 

With Antifa and Black Lives Matter now experienced in violent protests, they will be unleashed anew on American cities when there is news of a Trump election victory. The media will explain the violence as necessary to free us from a tyrant and egg on the violence, as will the Democrat Party.  The CIA will be certain that the violence is well funded.

Trump, isolated in his own government, which has failed to bring charges against the Obama regime officials who tried to frame the President of the United States and drive him from office—Barr and Durham represent The Establishment, not the President or law—will be cut off from Twitter, Facebook and from the print and TV media. 

All Americans and the world will hear is that Trump lost and must go or Trump won by vote fraud and must go. It will be impossible for Trump or anyone to refute the charges…The CIA, the National Endowment for Democracy, Radio Liberty, etc., have used color revolution against others who stood in the way of the American National Security State. Only Maduro has survived them.  So far.

The Secret Service cooperated with the CIA and the Joint Chiefs in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. What is a reelected President Trump going to do when the Secret Service refuses to repel Antifa and Black Lives Matter when they breach White House Security?  There is no doubt whatsoever that the Secret Service is penetrated by the CIA.  How else could President Kennedy have been assassinated? 

American Democracy is on the verge of being ended for all times, and the world media will herald the event as the successful overthrowing of a tyrant. 

Indeed, as Dr. Roberts points out there are “numerous Internet sites funded by the CIA and the foundations and corporations through which it operates, all of which are committed to Trump’s ejection from the Oval Office.”  One of those foundations is the Atlantic Council who recently held a workshop for top spooks.  So who is the Atlantic Council?  Looking at the “connections and funding” section of Wikipedia this is what I found: 

Excerpt: 

The Atlantic Council

Connections and funding:

The Atlantic Council has, since its inception, stated it is a nonpartisan institution, with members "from the moderate INTERNATIONALIST WINGS OF BOTH PARTIES" in the United States.[9] Despite its connections, the Council is by charter independent of the U.S. government and NATO, A REGISTERED 501(C)(3) NONPROFIT ORGANIZATION.[2]

In September 2014, Eric Lipton reported in The New York Times that since 2008, the US organization had received donations from more than twenty-five foreign governments. Lipton reports that a major donor Bahaa Hariri complained to the Council about the founding head of the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East calling the overthrow of Mohammed Morsi in Egypt a military coup. Four months later, the founding head resigned from her position.[10]

In 2014, The Atlantic Council produced a report promoting the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) -- a proposed trade-accommodation agreement between the European Union and the U.S. -- with the financial backing of FedEx, who were simultaneously lobbying Congress directly to decrease transatlantic tariffs.[11]

In 2015 and 2016, the three largest donors, giving over $1 million USD each, were US millionaire Adrienne Arsht (executive vice chair[12]), Lebanese billionaire Bahaa Hariri (estranged brother of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri[13]), and the United Arab Emirates.[14][15] THE UKRAINIAN OLIGARCH RUN BURISMA HOLDINGS DONATED $100,000 PER YEAR FOR THREE YEARS TO THE ATLANTIC COUNCIL starting in 2016.[16] The full list of financial sponsors includes many military, financial, and corporate concerns.[17]

THE LEADING DONORS IN 2018 WERE FACEBOOK AND THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT.[18] A report by the Center for International Policy's Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative of the top 50 think tanks on the University of Pennsylvania's Global Go-To Think Tanks rating index found that during the period 2014-2018 the Atlantic Council received the fourth-highest amount of funding from outside the United States compared to other think tanks, with a total of more than US$12 million from donors that included eighteen European nations, the European Union itself, NATO, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.[19]

Well now that we know who the Atlantic Council is and who funds them, let’s see what went on during the recent soirée they hosted for America’s top spooks.  From Mint Press: 

Excerpt:

Patriot Act Coauthor Michael Chertoff Touts More Election Security as Federal ID System Looms

Calls to overhaul the legacy bureaucratic systems of the U.S. with cutting-edge AI-driven mass tracking and surveillance technologies are intensifying AT THE TOP ECHELONS OF THE NATIONAL SECURITY STATE WITH ALL EYES ON THE 2020 ELECTION.

Keeping in line with the trend of governance consolidation taking place among current and former members of the American political establishment, such as the recent lovefest between ex-president George W. Bush and liberal elites, Michael Chertoff, once Bush’s DHS Secretary and coauthor of the Patriot Act along with two of his DHS peers sat DOWN AT AN EVENT HOSTED BY THE ATLANTIC COUNCIL ON WEDNESDAY TO CALL FOR A “STEPPED-UP RESPONSE TO ELECTION THREATS.”

Janet Napolitano and Jeh Johnson, both former DHS secretaries under Obama, joined Chertoff IN ENDORSING THE FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS OF A REPORT PUBLISHED BY THE HOST’S Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, titled “Future DHS Project.”

The study was sponsored by the Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), a military intelligence contractor with close ties to Michael Chertoff’s D.C.-based security advisory firm, the Chertoff Group, and Century Link; a defense telecommunications contractor, which was just awarded a disputed $1.6 Billion contract to manage core network and access services for the DoD.

The trio of former DHS heads warned that “Russia, China and Iran are actively interfering in the 2020 U.S. elections,” as outlined in an assessment issued by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) in August, which reportedly contains “detailed evidence” of the alleged interference.

Janet Napolitano, who last June stepped down as President of the University of California where she was directly implicated in the creation of a $175 million secret slush fund, said that the intelligence on Russian interference was “quite clear” and urged Trump to ramp up international sanctions and “deterrence.”

CHERTOFF, FOR HIS PART, DISMISSED THE PRESIDENT’S ABILITY TO DO ANYTHING about the purported Russian interference because of “credibility issues” and instead called for state and municipal authorities across the country to implement voting security measures themselves, such as new “OPTIONS FOR VOTERS TO CAST BALLOTS.”

A Federal ID to save us all

At a Virtual Collaboration Event that was taking place simultaneously and organized by the FedID, “the U.S. Government’s annual identity conference since 1995,” Gay Gilbert of the Department of Labor’s Office of Unemployment Insurance (OUI) delivered her remarks about the “perfect storm” for a federal ID system.

Gilbert, a 10-year veteran of the OUI, is in charge of processing unemployment insurance claims, which skyrocketed as a result of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act from an average 200,000 claims per week to over six million a week, REFERRED TO THE BILL AS AN “AMAZING MAGNET FOR FRAUDSTERS…”

Cyber Command Gets New Surveillance Powers Under Guise of Battling Election Meddling

US Cyber Command and the Pentagon are availing themselves of the Russian meddling narratives and added a few others to justify the creation of a cyberwar army with international and domestic capabilities via the National Guard.

The severe strain imposed by pandemic-response LEGISLATION AND A STALLED ECONOMY ON U.S. BUREAUCRATIC INSTITUTIONS IS OPENING THE DOOR FOR PRIVATE SECTOR companies like SAIC and Century Link, owered to undertake the massive overhaul of its ‘legacy’ systems to integrate emerging cloud-based, AI-governance and security structures...

The solution to these problems, they assert, is a new federal identity management system underpinned by a federal digital ID, which Benji Hutchinson, vice president of NEC Corp., believes is a trend that began in the aftermath of 9-11, that is now reaching critical velocity as a result of “pandemic things.”

The cost of chaos

A FEDERAL ID SYSTEM COMES HAND IN HAND WITH A FEDERAL POLICE FORCE, WHICH IS NOW IN THE OFFING AS CALLS TO “DEFUND THE POLICE” ARE dovetailing perfectly with efforts to implement an AI-driven mass surveillance apparatus by people like former Google and Alphabet CEO Eric Schmidt, who heads the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence NSCIA and who also, along with other Silicon Valley billionaires, funds organizations like the “bipartisan” New America, which looks to confront “the challenges caused by rapid technological and social change and seizing the opportunities those changes create.”

As Defense Bill Divides Senate, the Pentagon Shows a Crack in the Armor

The post 9-11 reality of the Department of Homeland Security may be coming to an end, but what lies ahead for the national security state?

Among those opportunities, apparently, is the 2020 U.S. presidential election, which another “bipartisan” organization, “convened” by New America senior fellow Rosa Brooks, called the Transition Integrity Project (TIP), has been “war-gaming” the election since its inception.

As Whitney Webb reports, TIP produced several “scenarios” in their table-top exercises about what would take place should there be a contested election or a Trump victory. In all outcomes, CHAOS ENSUES AND A NUMBER OF UNCONSTITUTIONAL MEASURES ARE TAKEN BY THE “NEVER TRUMPER” NETWORKS IN BOTH PARTIES TO GUARANTEE A BIDEN PRESIDENCY.

The “perfect storm” Gilbert talked about could very well spill over into the streets of America as election-day nears AND THE PANDEMIC-INDUCED COMA, THAT AFFLICTS THE AMERICAN ECONOMY WILL, no doubt, leave the most vulnerable among us in a precarious situation with only the POWER TO ACCEPT WHAT IS OFFERED BY THE EVER-ENCROACHING TENTACLES OF THE BURGEONING TECHNOCRATIC STATE COMPOSED OF MEMBERS OF THE ‘UNIPARTY’.

Betting on all horses

Pandemic things also figured in Chad Wolff’s “State of the Homeland” address at DHS headquarters on this same, eventful day. The acting head of DHS praised Donald Trump’s “decisive and rapid action” over the nation’s COVID-19 response, which “led to our federal government to pursue a whole-of-America response.”

Political rhetoric aside, Wolf echoed the same “concerns” presented by his predecessors at the Atlantic Council’s event in regards to the challenges presented by “new aggressive tactics” targeting the United States “through cyber and economic means…”

Former Google and Alphabet CEO, Eric Schmidt now chairs the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Innovation Advisory Board, in addition to his chairmanship of the NSCAI, is leading the charge to implement an AI-driven mass surveillance system, motivated by a desire to maintain U.S. technological hegemony in the 21st century. Like Gilbert and NEC’s Hutchinson, SCHMIDT HAS FOUND THAT THE CORONAVIRUS CRISIS HAS REMOVED MANY OF THE “OBSTACLES” PREVENTING ITS IMPLEMENTATION.

Indeed, Schmidt is well-positioned to take advantage. The Trump administration has suffered from a “failure of direction, a failure of leadership at pretty much every level of our government,” Schmidt declared last week on a podcast.

A data analytics company he backed and where he is also a board member, WAS HIRED BY THE BIDEN CAMPAIGN BACK IN APRIL 2019. Civis Analytics is comprised of a “group of engineers and statisticians,” LED BY OBAMA’S 2012 CAMPAIGN ANALYTICS CHIEF, DAN WAGNER, WHO WERE “CREDITED WITH PRODUCING OBAMA’S SURPRISING 5 MILLION-VOTE MARGIN OF VICTORY,” according to Bloomberg.

Just like in Venezuela where years of CIA/US sanctions have brought the people to their knees, the expected outcome is for the people to just accept whatever horrific deal the CIA offers through their puppet Guido. 

The same is happening in America where the CIA/US has shut down the entire economy then failed to offer relief before going on vacation.  Now they seem to believe that because the systemically corrupt congress failed to provide relief for the suffering American people before their vacation, the American people will accept whatever table scraps are offered upon Pelosi’s return, blaming Trump for their misery.

So just what is the choice of foreign policy that is laid before the American people?  From Consortium News: 

Excerpt:

Voting in a De-Facto Military State

Between Biden and Trump, U.S. voters have no alternative to our anxious empire’s lawless conduct abroad.

What are we in for on the foreign policy side come Nov. 3? Whoever wins this election, Joe Biden or Donald Trump, the answers before us are grim. For those who vote, the choice lies between a mentally impaired restorationist and a paralyzed captive of what some of us call the Deep State.

Think about this. The illiberal liberals, the only kind there are now, advertise Nov. 3 as the most decisive election in generations. This assertion is questionable even in the domestic context, but that is another conversation. As to the direction of U.S. foreign policy, there is no question: Between Biden and Trump, we are at bottom offered no alternative to our anxious empire’s conduct abroad.

Lawlessness, war and more war, destructive interventions in the name of righteous humanitarianism: We have no one but ourselves to blame for what will confront us in the four years to come. The divisive, nonsensical distractions of identity politics, “intersectionalism,” and all such narcissistic preoccupations carry a cost: No word is spoken among “progressives” about America’s imperial adventures. The lives of our countless victims abroad do not matter. The structures of power remain unchallenged.

This election is indeed of great significance, in my view. Given the absolute absence of any check on Washington’s projection of hegemonic power, known politely as “global leadership,” it will force a question upon us it is long past time to pose: Do Americans live under a de facto military government?

Tenuous Civilian Control of Pentagon

Anyone who thinks this suggestion is extreme should consider how tenuous civilian control of the Pentagon has been for many years. The defense industries bought Capitol Hill long ago — this is documented fact, however seldom acknowledged. The military-industrial complex’s power over the executive is just as real but less defined, and it has been especially apparent since Trump began his presidential campaign in 2015.

Foreign policy took up several important planks in Trump’s platform, readers may recall. He campaigned promising to reduce the military’s presence abroad, end our wars of adventure, ease NATO into the history books, and make a constructive relationship with Russia out of the unnecessary hostilities Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, his secretary of state, left behind. These positions won him votes.

THEY WON HIM ENEMIES, TOO. A bevy of top national security officials and retired generals published open letters in The New York Times calling Trump a threat to national security. Michael Hayden, a retired general AND FORMER CIA DIRECTOR, SUGGESTED IN FEBRUARY 2016 THAT THE MILITARY WOULD REFUSE TO FOLLOW ORDERS IF TRUMP WERE ELECTED AND PURSUED HIS CAMPAIGN PROMISES.

Foiled Incumbent  

Unsurprisingly, we have seen virtually no progress toward Trump’s objectives since he took office in January 2017. The Pentagon and the national security apparatus have ignored, circumvented, or otherwise subverted his orders to withdraw troops from foreign theaters, notably Syria and now Germany. Relations with Russia have dramatically worsened. NATO still pretends it has a function in the post–Soviet era.

These failures have three causes.

One, Trump is surrounded by people vigorously, ideologically opposed to his foreign policy goals, chief among them John Bolton, briefly his national security adviser, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The only way to explain these appointments is to assume they were forced upon him. Trump, after all, doesn’t refer to the State Department as “the Deep State Department” for no reason. He is telling us something about his circumstances.

Two, Trump has proven impossibly erratic, saying one thing and doing another or doing one thing and later on saying another. This reflects his ignorance of the policymaking process and his near-complete lack of an intellectual framework through which to judge events and formulate strategies to sustain his objectives. Deal making in the fashion of a New York real estate developer simply doesn’t do it.

Three, Trump is far too conscious of his image. This prompts him to cave when the Pentagon or the spooks defy or circumvent him. In spring 2017, when the military contradicted his early efforts to deescalate in Syria, Trump entered his “my generals, my military” phase, saying he granted the Pentagon “total authorization” to act as it saw fit. With after-the-fact capitulations such as this, Trump has made himself a pushover for the hawks and Deep Staters who surround him.

There are a couple of things working in Trump’s favor. He’s to be credited for sticking with his original policy goals, even if they lie around him in ruins at this point. A second term might give him a chance to begin cleaning house and installing people who reflect his objectives.

In July Trump nominated Douglas MacGregor, a retired Army colonel, to replace loyalist Richard Grenell as ambassador to Berlin. MacGregor, like Grenell, is entirely on Trump’s page: He favors a reduced military footprint in the Middle East, a peace deal with the North Koreans and altogether a foreign policy to replace what now amounts to a military policy. A severe critic of NATO’s advance toward Russia’s borders, McGregor called the alliance a “zombie” in remarks made public last year.

But let us avoid mistaken judgments. First of all, a Situation Room stuffed to the rafters with Doug MacGregors is unlikely to bring the hamstringing of our 45th president to an end should Trump win a second term. The Deep State is also broad, and it has been both for a long time.

Second, when Trump took office a few of us argued that he was a peculiar messenger but held out the promise of a renovated foreign policy. I was among the erring. After three and some years, I don’t think Trump has the grounding or consistency to get any such thing done. Washington is simply too much for him.

More of the same under a second Trump term is my call — a muddled White House at odds with itself, no worthwhile shift in policy permissible. Russian President Vladimir Putin recently offered a pithy take on Trump and his people, as recounted by Pepe Escobar, the peripatetic free-lancer for Asia Times: “Negotiating with Team Trump is like playing chess with a pigeon: The demented bird walks all over the chessboard, shits indiscriminately, knocks over pieces, declares victory, then runs away.”

I do not know the veracity of Escobar’s account, but it will make four more messy, dangerous years if this is anything like what we have to look forward to should Trump carry the vote a few months from now. Through all the fog, “his generals” will remain “totally authorized.”

Biden & Renewed Interventionism  

There will be no such fog should Biden win in November, no ambiguity in his foreign policy plans. Biden promises a straight-ahead return to the policies that prevailed under Obama and Obama’s predecessors: a reclamation of “global leadership,” a renewed emphasis on interventions we justify, per usual, by casting ourselves as humanity’s archangels.

The wars and occupations will grind on, the extravagant Pentagon budgets will remain, the reigning Russophobia will remain.  Biden is already well on board with the emergent Sinophobia. 

The thought of a Biden presidency reminds me of the succession that followed the death of Leonid Brezhnev as the Soviet leader in 1982. The befuddled Yuri Andropov, who succeeded him, was a fill-in who came straight from the taxidermist and lasted 15 months. Biden is our Andropov. The take-home here: Those around Biden are the ones to watch, as they will have disproportionate power over policy. This will be a replay of the George W. Bush administration, to strike another comparison.

 Team Biden’s foreign policy advisers are vast in number. Foreign Policy counts more than 2,000 of them, organized into 20 working groups covering specific issues — arms control, defense, intelligence, humanitarian missions, and so on —and geographies: Europe, the Middle East, East Asia. These people come from consultancies, think tanks, the State Department, academia. There is a heavy layer of Obama administration holdovers and, of course, Pentagon bureaucrats, some quite senior.

It is those to whom these groups report who count. Biden’s inner circle appears to include Jake Sullivan (Obama loyalist, apostle of American exceptionalism), Antony Blinken (Obama man, Russophobe), Susan Rice (warmonger, Russophobe, liar in public), Samantha Power (the humanitarian interventionists’ Joan of Arc), Nicolas Burns (State vet, “global leadership” hack), and Michele Flournoy (Pentagon careerist, hawk). These are joined, let us not forget, by the scores of anti–Trump Republican warmongers who have recently colonized the Democratic Party.

There are a threat and two certainties here. This election could end up opening the way for the U.S. eventually to become in fact what it has long been in effect — a one-party state. The foreign policy consensus the Biden camp now represents could solidify to the consistency of granite. This should frighten all of us — more, in the long run, than the Trump regime’s evident and many ineptitudes.

 As to certainties, a Biden regime would force us back to an interim that began in response to the 2001 attacks and now ranks among the most disastrous foreign policy failures of the past 70 years, up there with the Vietnam War years.

In addition, this will be an administration more thoroughly wedded to the military than Trump’s first term has proven. At least with Trump there was contention, bureaucratic warfare, infighting, objection. There will be none between the Biden White House and the Pentagon.

Is there somebody to vote for on Nov. 3? Is any vote a vote for generals?

There isn’t going to be a presidential election in November, there is going to be a war.  The pain of this war, like all wars will be heavily borne on the innocent citizens.  Donald Trump isn’t taking on Joe Biden, he’s taking on the systemically corrupt congressional/military/media complex and the shadow government it spawned.  The House has returned this week from their month-long vacation, rested, tanned and refreshed.  Now Pelosi going to play hardball to get a Coronavirus relief package through. From Tom Luongo: 

Excerpt:

Pelosi’s Choice: Steal the Election or Be Destroyed

I’ve learned a few things about politics by watching my goats over the years. Herd queens have to be beaten to step aside. They won’t give up status willingly.  I saw this first hand when a vicious challenge ended with a broken horn, humiliation and blood. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is a tough old goat who is clearly making her last stand, facing the toughest fight of her political career.

Congress is at a crossroads over a stimulus package before the election. Pelosi has run out of good choices to force the Republicans into another bad deal, which is her trademark move. 

Internal squabbling and strategic missteps has her charting a most dangerous path.  The House returns to session today facing an impasse over another stimulus bill which see both sides entrenched in their positions.  Just under two months until the election, however, the big question is, “Who has the leverage?”

Pelosi always fronts that she’s on top of things. She rules House Democrats with an iron fist and somehow always manages to win these confrontations.  But this time may be very different. Why?  This time she has no leverage. This time the Republicans have the upper hand. Even Bloomberg had to admit that the situation is not in Pelosi’s favor, while talking about all of her options.

Among the unlikely events that could now break the deadlock: President Donald Trump changing tack amid alarm about poll numbers, a sudden reversal of economic indicators that have recently trended upward, and Pelosi or Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell facing a revolt by their own vulnerable, moderate members.

It isn’t that the economic situation is good. It is that there is simply no justification for continued abject panic over COVID-19 to keep people on the dole.  Public opinion has turned against Pelosi and the Democrats in places where they pushed too hard. PEOPLE WANT THEIR LIVES BACK AND FOR THE LOOTING AND RIOTING TO END.

Now they are faced with a stark choice: hope the polls are right and Joe Biden will be president on November 4th or challenge the election if they aren’t.  Neither of those choices leave Pelosi with any option to cave to Senate Republicans, especially as Mitch McConnell gave his people the opportunity to vote for something last week to take back to the voters.  All Chuck Schumer could do is filibuster.

It’s clear Pelosi’s strategy has been to allow destruction in battleground states and blame Trump for it. This was their cover story for forcing the Republicans to bail out failing Blue States whose economies were already in trouble regardless of the COVID-19 lockdowns. States like California and Illinois need massive bail outs to survive. 

Hell, California needs a lot more than money at this point…  Pelosi is now the villain in this political psycho-drama and all she’s doing is playing to her base, which is dwindling in real terms

Once talks break down completely and there is no hope of a deal, Trump will unlock some of the Treasury’s massive $1.57 trillion checking account as emergency spending while campaigning on Pelosi’s heartlessness.

It’s terrible economics but good politics. Pelosi can’t fold because she’ll lose control of the House. An internal struggle for leadership will emerge which she won’t survive, no matter how tough she thinks she still is.  Horns break. So do ribs. The Squad is out for her head.

Trump can’t fold because this is his opportunity to break the Democrats and show faith in the American people that they know who’s at fault for their misery.And as long as there is no signs of stress in the global banking system, which according to the Fed’s latest balance sheet reports there isn’t, Trump and Mnuchin have no need to cave to Pelosi’s ridiculous demands.

She’s already come down from $3.6 trillion to around $2 trillion. Trump has rolled back his offers thanks to improving economic statistics playing even harder ball with her.  Pelosi is finally facing a Hobson’s Choice: Cave and lose her power base within the party, hold firm and lose the election. Since they are prepared to challenge the results in any event, in her mind, this is no choice at all.

Yawza, that’s not the only ugly fruit of their evil labor that the corrupt congress/military/media complex is facing.  Their “Ace in the Hole” Coronavirus lock-down is being mightily challenged as unconstitutional.  From Jon Rappoport:

Excerpt:

Covid update: The grand Ohio legal case for our time, against kings on their thrones

The news is coming fast, the implications are titanic.

On Monday, I wrote about Thomas Renz, the Ohio lawyer who is taking on a case for a set of plaintiffs, against Ohio Governor Mike DeWine and the state of Ohio.

The charge: DeWine has created massive damage through lockdowns and other “containment measures” designed to stop the spread of the purported coronavirus.  Against DeWine, attorney Renz has mounted a legal case to defeat both Constitutional violations AND gross scientific fraud.

Update: A crucial part of this case is the DISCOVERY process. Attorney Renz and his colleagues would have the opportunity to sit down with key players in the COVID operation and grill them, in great detail, on matters of fact and science.

Imagine Fauci, Birx, Redfield in the room having to answer very probing questions UNDER OATH.

And the discovery proceedings would be made public, as they happen. Renz would be filing periodic reports with the court.

Another factor. The Ohio court, as part of its verdict, could grant PERMANENT INJUNCTIVE RELIEF. This means it could order the governor of Ohio to cancel the State of Emergency—thereby ending all orders and “containment measures” connected with the Emergency. No lockdowns, no mandatory masks, no mandatory distancing.

Yes, I’m aware that nothing is a slam-dunk in the judicial system. Fingers crossed. But this is a chance, an opportunity, a ray of light, a practical and real possibility.  Further, attorney Renz’s case is a model and a template for other lawyers, in other states and countries, who want to file similar cases.

When a government declares an Emergency, it must explain and justify it on the facts, not on lies and deceptions. Otherwise… The Constitution no longer exists.  The Law no longer exists.  In their place, there is a reversion to a time of arbitrary edicts, handed down from kings and their wise ones who must not be doubted or challenged.

On what rational basis has Governor Mike DeWine taken away the freedom of citizens? Where is his evidence? What is the quality of that evidence, beyond the mere claim that “experts are always right”?  In his law suit against Governor DeWine, attorney Renz takes up big questions:

·        What are the REAL COVID case and death numbers?

·        How much flim-flam has been deployed to cook those numbers?

·        What is the underhanded definition of a COVID case?

·        Why is the PCR test useless?

·        Can a strip of RNA stand in for a virus that isn’t defined?

·        Is this a pandemic or is it just “another flu season?”

These are just a few of the many questions attorney Renz raises in his lengthy Ohio court filing. He has shocking answers. They do not depend on the news or the assumed primacy of the Coronavirus Task Force or a sitting president or a presidential candidate or a political party or governors. The answers don’t depend on what Governor DeWine thinks or what he has been told.

You could compare this case to a proceeding in which the evidence of a law-enforcement lab is challenged purely on the merits of its findings. The name of the lab doesn’t matter. The government agency which houses the lab doesn’t matter. The so-called reputation of the lab doesn’t matter. What matters is a searchlight centering on fact and truth.

The serious nature of the Ohio proceeding is magnified, because at stake is the freedom of many, many citizens. Their liberty, as enshrined in basic Law, is on the line.

We’re at a crossroads. This case and what happens to it are of vital importance.

Attorney Renz is asking for a jury trial. Citizens would be empaneled to listen to a profound and detailed UNCOVERING of evidentiary fraud, on a truly massive scale. And then this jury would hear how the fraud is leveraging the lockdowns and the destruction of businesses and lives, and the removal of freedom.

This case puts its arms around the immediate future of the country, the Constitution, the basic concept of Law, the difference between a jury and a King, and whatever still remains of 1776.  This case dives into the difference between claims of science, and science, and who controls the distinction.  Winning this one would expose a scientific fraud so solid, so dense, the whole world would see an iron curtain of a century’s duration exploding in front of their eyes.

Victory requires one imperative: follow the Law.

CODA…BREAKING… More good news: federal judge declares Pennsylvania governor’s COVID restrictions unconstitutional.

Bricks are falling out of the walls of the American imprisonment—

 CBS News, Pittsburgh: “U.S. District Judge William Stickman IV, an appointee of President Donald Trump, sided with the plaintiffs. Stickman wrote in his ruling that the [Pennsylvania] Wolf administration’s pandemic policies have been overreaching, arbitrary and violated citizens’ constitutional rights…”

 FOX News: “The ruling found that [Pennsylvania Governor] Wolf’s restrictions that required people to stay at home, placed size limits on gatherings and ordered ‘non-life-sustaining’ businesses to shut down were unconstitutional.”

 In this case, the judge made his ruling strictly on Constitutional grounds. His conclusion is worth reading: 

“…even in an emergency, the authority of the government is not unfettered. The liberties protected by the Constitution are not fair-weather freedoms — in place when times are good but able to be cast aside in times of trouble. There is no question that this Country has faced, and will face, emergencies of every sort. But the solution to a national crisis can never be permitted to supersede the commitment to individual liberty that stands as the foundation of the American experiment. 

The Constitution cannot accept the concept of a ‘new normal’ where the basic liberties of the people can be subordinated to open-ended emergency mitigation measures. Rather, the Constitution sets certain lines that may not be crossed, even in an emergency. Action taken by Defendants [Governor Wolf] crossed those lines. It is the duty of the Court to declare those actions unconstitutional. Thus, consistent with the reasons set forth above, the Court will enter judgement in favor of Plaintiffs.”

NO emergency is so great that it supersedes individual liberty and freedom.

Even if the science underlying the official response to COVID were true (which it decidedly is NOT), it wouldn’t justify tearing away Constitutional and natural freedoms.  The resistance to tyranny is alive.

A million peaceful protestors in Berlin; 460,000 bikers riding into Sturgis, South Dakota, where Governor Kristi Noem has never locked down; numerous other protests the mainstream press refuses to cover; the new groundbreaking Ohio lawsuit filing I’ve been covering; untold millions of people who know what a sham and a crime the whole COVID operation really is…

Lights are coming on and the wind has changed direction.

The lights are coming on and the wind has changed direction indeed.  Trump is not running for reelection as president against Joe Biden.  President Trump is taking on the systemically corrupt congressional/military/media complex.   Imagine the Ohio Coronavirus lockdown court case, tried live in front of the American public with a jury made up of regular American citizens. 

Imagine the experts being cross examined on their science.  Imagine other scientists being called to refute them.  How do you prove there was a justification to impose an unconstitutional shutdown of the economy that has ruined untold lives?

This isn’t going to be an election, this is going to be a war.  At this point the ball appears to be in Trump’s court.  This will be Trump vs. systemic congressional/military/media corruption and it will be a fight to the death.