The Speaker, already one of the richest members in Congress, has become far richer through investment maneuvers in Big Tech, as she privately chats with their CEOs.
"Can even the hardest-core Democratic partisan loyalist justify this blatant conflict of interest and self-dealing?"
Why actively deny it when you can simply passively ignore it? It's not like the MSM will be all over this. Too busy with hard hitting stories on our dementia-ridden President selecting a flavor of ice cream.
Thats the wrinkle. I could understand if they were reporting on this stuff and calling it out but they are actively working for the DNC at this point.
What else could we believe after the Hunter Biden posts were suppressed on social media and other media outlets. The media are the biggest whores in the USA, I used to think it was the lawyers and the politicians but it is obvious the media are even cheaper whores who sold out their customer base for personal fame.
The media is the IDEOLOGICAL STATE APPARATUS FOR THE REPRODUCTION OF THE IDEOLOGY OF THE RULING CLASS. It is doing exactly what it was designed and supposed to do.
THhe MEDIA is an IDEOLOGICAL STATE APPARATUS for the REPORODUCTION of the IDEOLOGY OF THE RULING CLASS. It is doing exactly what it was designed to do. It's like getting mad at grass growing.
Media wasn't designed for propaganda and isn't supposed to, but it has been corrupted to become so. Learn to recognize propaganda and rebut it, and they'll lose their influence. Self correcting problem. Propaganda only survives in an incompetent society.
"Media wasn't designed for propaganda and isn't supposed to,"--Mr. Watson
Elementary my dear Watson, look into Operation Mockingbird.
Operation Mockingbird
In 1948 Frank Wisner was appointed director of the Office of Special Projects. Soon afterwards it was renamed the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC). This became the espionage and counter-intelligence branch of the Central Intelligence Agency. Wisner was told to create an organization that concentrated on "propaganda, economic warfare; preventive direct action, including sabotage, anti-sabotage, demolition and evacuation measures; subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance groups, and support of indigenous anti-Communist elements in threatened countries of the free world."
Later that year Wisner established Mockingbird, a program to influence the domestic American media. Wisner recruited Philip Graham (Washington Post) to run the project within the industry. Graham himself recruited others who had worked for military intelligence during the war. This included James Truitt, Russell Wiggins, Phil Geyelin, John Hayes and Alan Barth. Others like Stewart Alsop, Joseph Alsop and James Reston, were recruited from within the Georgetown Set. According to Deborah Davis, the author of Katharine the Great (1979) : "By the early 1950s, Wisner 'owned' respected members of the New York Times, Newsweek, CBS and other communications vehicles."
In 1951 Allen W. Dulles persuaded Cord Meyer to join the CIA. However, there is evidence that he was recruited several years earlier and had been spying on the liberal organizations he had been a member of in the later 1940s. According to Deborah Davis, Meyer became Mockingbird's "principal operative".
One of the most important journalists under the control of Operation Mockingbird was Joseph Alsop, whose articles appeared in over 300 different newspapers. Other journalists willing to promote the views of the CIA included Stewart Alsop (New York Herald Tribune), Ben Bradlee (Newsweek), James Reston (New York Times), C. D. Jackson (Time Magazine), Walter Pincus (Washington Post), Walter Winchell (New York Daily Mirror), Drew Pearson, Walter Lippmann, William Allen White, Edgar Ansel Mowrer (Chicago Daily News), Hal Hendrix (Miami News), Whitelaw Reid (New York Herald Tribune), Jerry O'Leary (Washington Star), William C. Baggs (Miami News), Herb Gold (Miami News) and Charles L. Bartlett (Chattanooga Times). According to Nina Burleigh, the author of A Very Private Woman, (1998) these journalists sometimes wrote articles that were commissioned by Frank Wisner. The CIA also provided them with classified information to help them with their work.
After 1953 the network was overseen by Allen W. Dulles, director of the Central Intelligence Agency. By this time Operation Mockingbird had a major influence over 25 newspapers and wire agencies. These organizations were run by people such as William Paley (CBS), Henry Luce (Time Magazine and Life Magazine), Arthur Hays Sulzberger (New York Times), Helen Rogers Reid (New York Herald Tribune), Dorothy Schiff (New York Post), Alfred Friendly (managing editor of the Washington Post), Barry Bingham (Louisville Courier-Journal) and James S. Copley (Copley News Services).
The Office of Policy Coordination (OPC) was funded by siphoning of funds intended for the Marshall Plan. Some of this money was used to bribe journalists and publishers. Frank Wisner was constantly looked for ways to help convince the public of the dangers of communism. In 1954 Wisner arranged for the funding the Hollywood production of Animal Farm, the animated allegory based on the book written by George Orwell.
According to Alex Constantine (Mockingbird: The Subversion Of The Free Press By The CIA), in the 1950s, "some 3,000 salaried and contract CIA employees were eventually engaged in propaganda efforts". Wisner was also able to restrict newspapers from reporting about certain events. For example, the CIA plots to overthrow the governments of Iran and Guatemala.
Canceling the Constitution: Biden Hailed for Violating Law
Jonathan Turley, The Hill August 8, 2021
During the 2020 presidential campaign, then-candidate Joe Biden told voters that the choice between him and Donald Trump was between the lawful and the lawless. He called for voters to support “the rule of law, our Constitution,” a choice repeated mantralike by the media to “end Trump’s assault on the rule of law.” Now, six months into his presidency, Biden is openly flouting the Constitution with a knowingly invalid extension of the eviction moratorium — and some law professors and advocates on the left are cheering him for it.
A few weeks ago, the Supreme Court ruled on the authority of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to impose a nationwide moratorium on the eviction of renters during the pandemic. Some of us criticized the CDC order as unconstitutional. The reason is the breathtaking authority claimed by the CDC under a federal law that gives it the power to “make and enforce such regulations as in [its] judgment are necessary to prevent the introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable diseases.”
I have long been a critic of such unchecked and undefined authority in pandemics. This, however, is a particularly chilling example. It would give the CDC authority over huge swaths of our economy to avoid even the possibility of the “introduction” or spread of a disease. It means that a Constitution designed to prevent tyranny and authoritarianism becomes largely irrelevant if you put on a white lab coat. After all, the law was designed to control disease, not democracy, as a public health priority.
Well #NoChildLeftBehind left all children behind so now the new normal is Left Behind. Gatto in his book #TheDumbingDownof America - US?- has now been achieved so propaganda is free to roam through all their empty minds. Listen to folks talk in public. Meaninglessness prevails.
"It is not education, of course, but as political indoctrination it will be highly effective.
Blame it on the early indoctrination in the imperial system.
The results of this indoctrination campaign are already evident."--H. L. Mencken
. . . . .
From an essay by John Taylor Gatto – 09/2003
Mass schooling of a compulsory nature really got its teeth into the United States between 1905 and 1915, though it was conceived of much earlier and pushed for throughout most of the nineteenth century. The reason given for this enormous upheaval of family life and cultural traditions was, roughly speaking, threefold:
1) To make good people.
2) To make good citizens.
3) To make each person his or her personal best.
These goals are still trotted out today on a regular basis, and most of us accept them in one form or another as a decent definition of public education’s mission, however short schools actually fall in achieving them. But we are dead wrong. Compounding our error is the fact that the national literature holds numerous and surprisingly consistent statements of compulsory schooling’s true purpose. We have, for example, the great H. L. Mencken, who wrote in The American Mercury for April 1924 that the aim of public education is not to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence. . . . Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim.. . is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States . . . and that is its aim everywhere else.
An uneducated one. Education for all will lead to education for none. Read Plato on Socrates dialogue on education titled Laches. On pdf. Education is about drawing out not STUFFING IN!
Unfortunately it is far worse than that. It’s more about psychology than education. You assume if people understood tyranny they would oppose it. A significant portion of the population understands it full well and craves it. The psychological motivation is what drives that craving, not ignorance. Sure there are some oblivious fools but they want to be oblivious. They just want to be fed and have a roof and be pain free and if handing over their sovereignty is what is required they will do so.
Stanley Milgram has established the problem is obedience to authority Which is a learned mentality, and is as you say a subliminal phenomena.
Such indoctrination can be overcome by mindful self reflection. The "subconscious" IS available to the thinker who understands what he is finding. The concept of 'opening doors' of the "mental mansion" and seeking out other metaphorical objects within these interior rooms (of the subconscious).
Two kinds of tyranny -- that which benefits you and that which doesnt. Every tyrant in history won power by convincing others it benefits them. We're all basically selfish. Politicians understand that,
I enjoy Biden, I love his facial gestures as he struggles for words. He has a - oh my God I hope I’m not screwing up - look on his face.
I also enjoy the gushing praise of MSM, they look so silly and I think they giveaway that they feel silly and are embarrassed that the old man needs propped up - it is beneath their highfaluting ideal for journalism.
.... justify this blatant conflict of interest ....
There's no conflict of interest. The interests of the Democratic Party and Big Tech are perfectly aligned. Big Tech will control what people say (and think) and in return, the Democrats will enact regulations to suppress any new tech startups. It's a win-win.
Some people complain that this is Fascism, but it's actually woke Neo-fascism. My only advice to other commenters is to take this opportunity to express your appreciation for the benign despotism of our new Tech Overlords.
Re-education camps have received a bad press. But we became overly complacent that the American Education System would always limit the number of people who could read, thus protecting them from dangerous foreign ideas. But now, people can simply click on a video from Russia that promotes disrespect towards our illustrious leaders. Re-education camps may be the only anti-dote.
You may be a wild boar, yet you are a bore for sure. Until recently, Amerika had a decent educational system with good teachers. Before they WOKE up, there were honest efforts made to teach children. However, since it became impossible to correct, to restrain, to discipline, or toss out the disruptive children, teachers seems to have resigned themselves to simply putting in their time and hoping for a juicy retirement package. Poor parenting and bad decisions have left many young people ill-prepared for life in a civilized society.
It's a shame that videos do not use their own alphabets like the books do. And those sneaky Russians and Chinese are increasingly succeeding in producing dumb enough videos to keep exceptional populace attempting to elect trumps.
For decades it's been cheaper to import fully educated experts than educating the natives. Natives were usually in charge of keeping their tradition alive, you know like dancing, singing, smoking etc. So historically, what went around comes around.
It's also safer to maintain order for the rulers. The imported ones stay quiet keeping their H1Bs in safes in case of fire, and the dumbed down locals are busy with what you've described. The rulers win.
Certain statistics further make clear that universities, all of which receive considerable taxpayer money, including from the federal government, are not only overtly ideological projects but are also unmistakably hostile to conservative (or even simply non-left-wing) viewpoints. A 2020 study by The Harvard Crimson determined that only 1.46% of the faculty self-identified as conservative, with faculty campaign contributions also flowing overwhelmingly to Democrats. Students on campuses across the country are self-censoring; free speech at universities is consistently evaporating; and speakers who even remotely challenge prized left-wing orthodoxies are shouted down or barred from speaking.
Hey look over here while we pass $12T in spending bills $9T of which are going to bail out DNC states who have been mis-spending and mis-budgeting for decades and this will allow them to keep giving out jobs to their friends (while providing no real value to society either) and growing the rolls of people on the government tit. So now you have lifer DNC cities like NYC with a budget the size of a state like Florida's.
That is completely and totally unsustainable. Good news for NYC though, Biden is going to use Federal tax $ (harder to track and be kept accountable) to bail out NYC.
We are moving towards #DavidFosterWallace's corporate year names. The year of the DEPEND UNDERGARMENT was one of them current at the time of the action in the novel. Soft ice-cream? What is hard ice-cream?
Oh yes Brad...it is quite remarkable that there is no Edit button on substack...even for the author! When I have enough typos I will delet the whole comment and Repost with edits...
It is not worth it for your comment ... jeeze, it's got a 120 upvotes!!!
U could look at these comments from a different POV. A person reveals and oozes far more than they ever intended by the language they speak and write. It reveals the way they think so you know beforehand who you are replying or dealing with
And you could learn to spell "you" Jane. I can certainly anticipate your biases and smiling arrogance. Are you from Georgia? Southerners are so friendly to your face...
My eight years in south Georgia I learned to appreciate their Janus like personlities.
So yes his language has deteriorated from when I learned English and got reprimanded at home for a mistake like that. God forbid my parents could hear me now!
Well my elementery English teachers would have failed me in my education. So I am conditioned but then if I adhere to it no one now understands me. god forbid I should use a sentence with a restricted clause in it.
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”—Lord Acton
The U.S. Governmnet is absolutely corrupt.
Let me be perfectly clear here. My critique is not against the constitutional republic established in 1789. My critique is of the corruption that has subverted the Constitution of the United States of America. I am a proud patriot of the principles that founded this great nation. Especially the superbly eloquent Declaration of Independence, which excites my heart everytime I read it!
From Republic to Corporatist State
The Revolutionary War began with the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. The US Constitution was ratified in 1788, establishing a republic.
Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company 1886, through an error (?) of the Court Recorder (citing obiter dictum unlawfully) began a progression of Supreme Court rulings that asserted that Corporations had the same legal rights as human beings citing the 14th Amendment as the relevant ground for that assertion.
By 1900 the corporations had used this doctrine to amass the huge fortunes that give them the ability to effectively buy the government of the United States. Therein was spawned the Corporatist State. This effectively ended the constitutional republic.
The Disastrous Woodrow Wilson Regime
Woodrow Wilson was by far the worst president in the modern era, He was a stupid man and a puppet of Col Edwen House and a cabal of international bankers who wanted to establish draconian rule over the US by instituting a private consortium of bankers now known as the Federal Reserve. This consortium is neither federal, nor are there any reserves. It is run by a private cartel, whose policies are based on usury and fiat paper money with no backing (such as gold or silver)
This scheme destroyed the nation’s financial system and has led to several recessions and depressions. Our national debt is now in the tens of trillions of dollars due to this bogus monetary system.....
Gen. Mark Milley Compared Trump Supporters To Nazis: ‘These Are The Same People We Fought In World War II’
General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, compared supporters of former President Donald Trump to Nazis, according to a new book.
Milley, who has been widely criticized for being “woke,” claimed that Trump was preaching “the gospel of the Führer” when he contested the results of the 2020 election and claimed that Trump had led the U.S. to the brink of its own “Reichstag moment,” a reference to an incident in 1933 that Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler used to consolidate political power in Germany.
New York Magazine reported:
… the general’s worries grew rapidly as the president plunged the nation into chaos following Election Day. Seven days later, Milley got a call from “an old friend” with an explicit warning that Trump and his allies were trying to “overturn the government.” Milley was confident that any attempts by Trump to hold on to power would be thwarted, because the military wouldn’t go along. “They may try, but they’re not going to fucking succeed,” he told aides. “You can’t do this without the military. You can’t do this without the CIA and the FBI. We’re the guys with guns.”
The book says that Milley responded to the January 6 riot by saying, “These guys are Nazis, they’re boogaloo boys, they’re Proud Boys. These are the same people we fought in World War II.”
The report concludes by saying that Milley told Michelle Obama on Biden’s inauguration day that “no one has a bigger smile today than I do. You can’t see it under my mask but I do.”
A separate book documented a separate incident that happened with Milley when Trump was in office in which Milley snapped at Senior White House Adviser Stephen Miller after Miller warned Trump that far-left riots were destroying America last summer.
The allegations are made in a new book by a Wall Street Journal reporter who released excerpts to CNN, which reported:
During one Oval Office debate, senior Trump adviser Stephen Miller chimed in, equating the scenes unfolding on his television to those in a third-world country and claiming major American cities had been turned into war zones.
“These cities are burning,” Miller warned, according to the excerpts.
The comment infuriated Milley, who viewed Miller as not only wrong but out of his lane, Bender writes, noting the Army general who had commanded troops in Iraq and Afghanistan spun around in his seat and pointed a finger directly at Miller.
“Shut the f–k up, Stephen,” Milley snapped, according to the excerpts.
Milley stirred controversy during a recent hearing in front of Congress in which he said he wanted to understand “white rage” and that he found it “offensive” that he was being accused of turning the military “woke” because “we’re studying some theories that are out there.”
Related: WATCH: ‘I’ve Read Mao Tse-Tung. I’ve Read Karl Marx. I’ve Read Lenin. That Doesn’t Make Me A Communist’: Top-Ranking U.S. Military Official Defends Teaching Critical Race Theory
"thats just proof the right and the left are the same group of elite shitholes"--Iconoclast
How utterly fucking absurd that comment is.
If I said, 'the man in the moon shows up much better on a clear night with a full moon, than on a foggy night with a crescent moon.' Iconaclast would say: "thats just proof the right and the left are the same group of elite shitholes."
My pooint being that Milley was clearly threatening Trump supporters. Thus **the LEFT are the dangerous elite shitholes** --And the right are being threatened by said "shitholes" as per Iconoclast's colorful language.
Again, I am amazed and amused by Icono's bizarre and twisted thinking.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is characterized by repetitive, unwanted, intrusive thoughts (obsessions) and irrational, excessive urges to do certain actions (compulsions). Although people with OCD may know, they cannot help but express these bizzare thoughts.
Icono may have stated the point inartfully, but is essentially correct. Tyrants use politics as a means to an end -- for power to control society. Left or right is irrelevant, just a calculation of the mood of their audience. Miley is probably not a Marxist, but is every bit as evil. Focus on the actions, not the politics.
Well I’m sure if pogroms are necessary they’ll go there, but not with the army and police they have now.
Which does not mean it’s impossible.
As for Milley he doesn’t believe in anything but Milley. He is an American General, he got there by being a windsock. Also do note - money.
It is a common place in our military that our Generals never do anything except for money. If you have a good idea or improvement and “it doesn’t cost (read ‘make’) money then no General Officer will talk to you.”
In fact that’s a quote from a CENTCOM LTC to me. It wasn’t necessary for him to be quite so crass, but its the truth.
This is known widely.
So we don’t quite have Hitler here, we have sort of Mussolini. Probably not harmful unless challenged.
An interesting compilation of facts that I accept as true.
However, your conclusion that Trump is a good guy and Biden is a bad guy is completely unfounded.
It's kind of stressful here this morning because they've trapped a pretty good sized boar. All the barking and squealing though reminds me of Democrats and Republicans making up stories about one another.
Russiagate is another fraud. Gotta put that in here because ...
"However, your conclusion that Trump is a good guy and Biden is a bad guy is completely unfounded."--Zwiebel
Preposterous! The 2020 presidential election was rigged specifically to defeat Trump and install Biden as the meat-puppet of the cabal of corporatist oligarchs who rigged the election.
The Conspirators:
> Michael Podhorzer, AFL-CIO director.and the Architect of the Conspiracy to steal the 2020 Presidential Election
> Zachary Paul Wamp, Republican U.S. Representative for Tennessee’s 3rd congressional district from 1995 to 2011.
> Ian Bassin, Executive Director Protect Democracy.
> Anat Shenker-Osorio is a strategic communications consultant based in Oakland, CA.
> Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Facebook.
> Amber McReynolds, CEO for the National Vote At Home Institute and coalition.
> Tom Lopach, CEO center for voter information.
> Hannah Fried, ‘All Voting is Local’ National Campaign Director.
> Wendy Weiser, voting-rights expert at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU.
> Laura Quinn, CEO and a co-founder of Catalist voter data and related data services.
> Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
> Jack Dorsey, CEO Twitter.
> Dick Gephardt, Democratic former House leader turned high-powered lobbyist.
> Nelini Stamp, the Working Families Party’s national organizing director.
> Neil Bradley, U.S. Chamber of Commerce executive vice president and chief policy officer.
> Angela Peoples, director for the Democracy Defense Coalition.
> Art Reyes III, the founding Executive Director of We The People.
> Jeff Timmer, Lincoln Project consultant.> John Engler, Head of Business Roundtable – lobbyist.
> Van Langevelde,policy adviser and deputy legal counsel for the Michigan House Republican Policy Office,
There we have it; the Who, when, and how, of the greatest scandal ever perpetrated in American history. One that put a usurper into the office of the presidency. The current illegal regime of Biden-Harris.
"The 2020 presidential election was rigged specifically to defeat Trump and install Biden as the meat-puppet of the cabal of corporatist oligarchs who rigged the election."
Perhaps, maybe even probably. How does this show that Trump is a "good guy"?
Presidential elections have been rigged since at least 2000, probably even further back than that, all in service to the Oligarchy. Are you really trying to suggest Trump is not an Oligarch?
Yeah, remember when his $5 billion for the wall was fiscally irresponsible? Now you’re spending trillions in kickback grift corruption pay to play without any skepticism from the corrupt media at all. But it’s the same thing Trump did right genius?
Trump and the GOP did spend too much but most of it was meaningful and beneficial to the American people. Biden and the swamp are spending exponentially more money in 6 months on absurd pork laden liberal garbage.
Kwame Kilpatrick?! Big fuckin' deal. Who the fuck cares?
That is nothing compared to this treasonous agenda:
John Kerry reveals Biden's devotion to radical 'Great Reset' movement
In June 2011, elites at important international institutions such as the World Economic Forum and the United Nations launched a far-reaching campaign to “reset” the global economy.
The plan involves dramatically increasing the power of government through expansive new social programs like the Green New Deal and using vast regulatory schemes and government programs to coerce corporations into supporting left-wing causes.
The two justifications for the proposal, which has been aptly named by its supporters the “Great Reset,” are the COVID-19 pandemic (the short-term justification) and the so-called “climate crisis” caused by global warming (the long-term justification).
According to the Great Reset’s supporters, the plan would fundamentally transform much of society. As World Economic Forum (WEF) head Klaus Schwab wrote back in June, “the world must act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions. Every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to tech, must be transformed. In short, we need a ‘Great Reset’ of capitalism.”
Internationally, the Great Reset has already been backed by influential leaders, activists, academics and institutions. In addition to the World Economic Forum and United Nations, the Great Reset movement counts among its the International Monetary Fund, heads of state, Greenpeace and CEOs and presidents of large corporations and financial institutions such as Microsoft and MasterCard.
[.....]
“And yes, it [the Great Reset] will happen,” Kerry continued. “And I think it will happen with greater speed and with greater intensity than a lot of people might imagine. In effect, the citizens of the United States have just done a Great Reset. We’ve done a Great Reset. And it was a record level of voting.”
Kerry later argued that the Great Reset is necessary to slow the “climate crisis” and that “I know Joe Biden believes … it’s not enough just to rejoin Paris [the Paris Climate Accords] for the United States. It’s not enough for us to just do the minimum of what Paris requires.”
Kerry also said that because of the Great Reset movement, he believes “we’re at the dawn of an extremely exciting time” and that “the greatest opportunity we have” to address social and economic problems is “dealing with the climate crisis.”
These and the other comments made by Kerry at the WEF event are made more important by the fact that Kerry’s role in a Biden administration would involve working with the very same international institutions that have already expressed their support for the Great Reset on climate change.
This isn’t the first time Kerry has thrown his weight behind the Great Reset. At a June World Economic Forum virtual event, Kerry said the coronavirus pandemic was “a big moment” that opened the door for the Great Reset and that, “The World Economic Forum – the CEO capacity of the Forum – is really going to have to play a front and center role in refining the Great Reset to deal with climate change and inequity — all of which is being laid bare as a consequence of COVID-19.”
The evidence is now crystal clear about Biden’s connection to the Great Reset. He, John Kerry and the rest of the Biden administration are planning to bring the Great Reset to the United States. And if they are successful, the country will never be the same.
The pandemic was a test to see if the government could use emergency powers to subvert the constitution and it worked. If you would’ve told me a year ago that the SCOTUS would allow swat teams to shut down houses of worship I would have thought you were describing a futuristic movie.
Of course the Great Reset agenda explains everything the Biden regime has been doing for the last six months, inviting illegal aliens to crash the border, now using the military to cart them into cities all around the nation and pay for their settling in, The taknin og the economy, the weird woke cabinet the regime put together, including that fruitcake Gen Miley. His Rainbow cabinet chosen for "diversity" over merit. It is insane...but it is insane on purpose. To destroy America within so it can be easily merged into the Global Technocratic Tyranny desinged by Klaus Schwab and the Davos Gang.
The citizens of this nation had better wake up soon, or it will be a done deal,
This is the Neo-Marxist agenda, in your face if you just open your eyes!
Iconoclast has a pathological hatred of Donald Trump that skews his perspaective so that the most trivial thing can be thrown at Trump as evidence he was a "bad orange man"
I would wager the quarter with "In God We Trust" emblasoned on it that he is a Democrat and a stinking Bidenista.
This is a comment on this stupid exchange not directly a response to anyone in particular.
I know Iconoclast already knows that the Oligarchy is funneling wealth upward. Jimmy Dore's interviews with Dylan Ratigan (on youTube) are over a year old now.
But we're still pretending that the fight between Trump and Pelosi (Biden isn't smart enough) will in anyway at all benefit the Average American.
I believe the most compelling part of Acton's observation bears repeating, since it is often obscured by the 'absolute power corrupts absolutely' part...
"I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favorable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way against holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it."
I would add:
"Power corrupts inevitably, even in the smallest of increments, by the most innocuous stewards."
IMHO, that pretty well explains the gangrene and putrification which defines our body-politic in the here and now. (With apologies to the handful of our public-servants who have managed to resist this ideological pandemic.)
Maybe Trump noticed Europe's negative interest rates a year earlier? I wouldn't put all the blame on Biden, but just 47 year's worth. He may well be at the helm when it all falls down. Karma is a beatch.
Biden's calls to break up / crack down on Big Tech are merely the DNC signaling that Silicon Valley needs to cough up some more donations and insider info. It's humorous that people think the corporations are in charge here. Money follows power, and the power to tax, to regulate, to prosecute, to imprison or even kill is a hell of a power.
Corporations are in charge to a great extent and Citizens United gave them greater in charge power. Who finances the campaign's of politicians? Big business, ergo, our government makes their interests first on their to do list.
I'll agree that it is an incestuous relationship, but push comes to shove and DC wins, hands down, every time. Technically, we've been economically fascist since the 1930's and as time passes the State is bringing more and more of the cultural institutions under its control, but particularly the media. Everybody likes to throw the term fascism around as an insult and epithet, but the reality is we've been living in a fascist system (as defined by Mussolini) for a long time.
I can't agree that it has always been this bad. At one time the democrats supported unions and the working class, no more. That slid away slowly over decades and Clinton really shifted that party to the right and ended it with overturning Glass-Steagall and passing NAFTA. I know that corporations have always played a big role in our government, but Citizen's United made it a lot worse. Our news is corporately owned, and I really fail to see the degree of power either party can have with such tremendous outside influence, and that influence is not coming from the people.
Citizens United doesn't matter when the media acts as a fourth arm of government and Silicon Valley censors unpopular political speech. It wasn't the Super PACs that drove the 2020 election. It was the unrelenting lies in the press.
It all matters, as does the passage of Citizens United which gave corporate America a bigger say in the political arena, and more control over our elected officials.
Corporations are just groups of people, like unions, PACs, armies, churches, and such. It's a way to leverage individual preferences, operationally or politically. Eventually, the preferences of the greatest numbers of opinions prevail. The better organized consensus is usually better for society than the mob.
See, Operation Mockingbird. The National Security State recruited the legacy media as their propaganda arm in 1948. The people of the US have been indoctrinated cradle to grave for 75 years..
"Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it"--George Snatayana
I am aware that the CIA has done many terrible things, overturned governments, killed leaders of state, and has been responsible for millions of deaths. I know that Iran no doubt would be a democracy today if the son of Teddy Roosevelt had not wiped away Mosaddegh with lies and innuendo. I am well aware of who we are and what we have done on a world wide level while we play on and play up our virtues.
It would be easier to come up with a list of cultural institutions that aren't beholden to the government or scared into submission. Charities, higher ed, media, the sciences, the arts, even religious organizations are all getting in line. They're either taking government money or scared of being shut down for being "non-essential."
Can't agree that Citizens United is the boodie man. We already have too many pols attacking the 1st Amendment. If the court had decided against CU, the next logical step is Congress could decide that INDIVIDUALS can't spend their own money to engage in political advocacy. I'd rather have a system where all campaign spending must be published on the internet within a couple of days. Better to have uber transparency than limits on speach.
The 2010 Supreme Court decision further tilted political influence toward wealthy donors and corporations.
January 21, 2020 will mark a decade since the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, a controversial decision that reversed century-old campaign finance restrictions and enabled corporations and other outside groups to spend unlimited funds on elections.
While wealthy donors, corporations, and special interest groups have long had an outsized influence in elections, that sway has dramatically expanded since the Citizens United decision, with negative repercussions for American democracy and the fight against political corruption.
What was Citizens United about?
A conservative nonprofit group called Citizens United challenged campaign finance rules after the FEC stopped it from promoting and airing a film criticizing presidential candidate Hillary Clinton too close to the presidential primaries.
A 5-4 majority of the Supreme Court sided with Citizens United, ruling that corporations and other outside groups can spend unlimited money on elections.
Quite right. They just want big tech to do their bidding, then everything will be hunky dory. We even have Ms. Circle Back acknowledging the WH is flagging post they want big tech to remove for failure to tow the admin's approve narrative. https://mobile.twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1415725320381079569
If someone competent enough takes this to Supreme Court, this would get actioned. SCOTUS has previously ruled that government pushing a library or book store to remove a book or else face punishment is not allowed and makes them a state actor.
Same with Fauci's email where he's emailing with Zuckerberg on their covid dashboard which led to censoring people.
Glenn correctly points out: "As I've documented before, the Supreme Court has ruled that the First Amendment's free speech guarantee is violated when government officials pressure or coerce private actors to censor for them. That is exactly what the Biden WH is doing with Facebook:"
The Pelosis and their pals live a lifestyle that 99% of Americans cannot even imagine. Nearly every night powerful politicians attend lavish parties paid for by various lobbying groups (i.e. paid for by taxpayers). Pelosi has commandeered military jets for her personal travel. Politicians stay at publicly funded magnificent residences on America's most beautiful public lands, residences that are off limits to the rest of us. If Americans knew the truth about our political elites, imo, there really would be a revolution.
Correction, the Pelosis aren't just in the 1%, they're in at least the richest 0.1%, and MAYBE in the richest 0.01% - I haven't checked. This is VASTLY more wealth than the minimum required to be in the top 1%.
BTW, Pelosi doesn't live in any government funded housing - unless you count her graft - as she lives in a huge mansion atop Telegraph Hill (or in the very close proximity thereof) on a private street normal citizens aren't allowed to drive on.
I didn't say live in, I said stay in. As, when they are on vacation (of course, their entire lives are a vacation). As for Pelosi's SF home, I mean mansion, several years ago, it was conservatively estimated to be worth 55 million dollars.
Actually, Pelosi's "mansion" is atop Presidio Heights, situated in a gated "cul-de-sac" called "Presidio Terrace. It's been home to some of the richest and most powerful people in SF: including: Sen. Feinstein, former SF mayor:Joseph Alioto..etc. Though there is a guard at the entrance of the enclave, I believe last year, that a few folks managed "vandalized" her garage door with red graffiti and a "Pigs Head".
Her other abode of note in CA. is her exclusive 5 acre Napa Vineyard Estate on Zinfandel Lane, close to where Google's Eric Schmitt, Tom Steyer and former Governor Jerry Brown reside. It's valued from 5-25 million, but realistically closer to the 25 million valuation.
She and her Husband also own several other pieces of property in SF: including being partners in a downtown office building. Her actual wealth most probably far exceed even the "Open Secrets" estimate of $115 million - since all of congress is allowed to report a estimated "range" of assets - which I would guess for her and Pauli, is probably in the $150+ million level....and as Glenn highlights in his piece above.. growing rapidly.
And this "the people's public servant" representative happens to also be my Congress person, since I live in SF as well. Lucky me..... NOT!
Well...she would have to literally die, or become even more incapacitated than she is now to allow another person to occupy her district. This is due to the fact that she has an intractable and well entrenched 'machine' behind her: vestiges of the uber-powerful Brown-Burton cosa nostra.
She basically "inherited" her seat in 1987 from Sala Burton who was dying of colon cancer and set up Nancy to claim her seat. After that, with the entrenched democratic political machinery firmly behind her, she never really had to run against a viable contender since then. This is precisely why she became so powerful so fast within the parties hierarchy. Almost all the political donations she raised since 1987 have gone into her personal "war chest", amassing huge sums of excess campaign "contribution" $$$$ to then be utilized in bolstering her influence and power. In fact, her real skill as a longtime politico has basically come from being able to raise hundreds of millions of dollars - hence the impression that she's a highly "skilled" legislator, when her only real quantifiable organizational abilities is rustle up and then distribute large sums of cash within the party - which is the lifeblood of these wholly "undemocratic" gangster political parties. .
I've often thought about one of the core broken pieces of our representative democracy is that it takes a certain skill set to actually get elected, and then another skill set to create good legislation.
And think of the numerous areas of expertise that are needed (not least of which are those that understand "Big Tech") and it's not a surprise that we end up with so many wrong-headed bills.
So, take a bunch of charismatic narcissists and stick them in a room, and what do you end up with? Congress.
Not every single one of them is bad, but most of them are.
1%, or .01%, my comment was that 99% of Americans cannot even imagine how high the most powerful politicos live. For the rest of us, going to a formal elaborate dinner party held at a terribly expensive and exclusive restaurant or hotel, is something we do once in a while if we're lucky. For many Americans the only extravagant parties they ever go to are weddings or their own high school prom. If Americans had any idea how lavish the lifestyles are of the politicians who are supposed to be serving us, not themselves, Americans would be sickened.
Thanks for adding all that detail... MAYBE we can get her voted out this next go-round. ...I've tried; I've worked not less than three campaigns against her, and I DO NOT live in the district!
Having spoken with people who live in the district, those who defended her all said - 100% of them - that they vote for her because while most actively hate her, they perceive that her position of speaker is surely bringing THEM some perks, she's "bringing home the bacon." Yet, when asked, NONE of them have ever been able to cite a single thing that would qualify in that regard.
...I managed to get a significant number of these people to reconsider their support of her, but it wasn't enough to get anyone else elected yet. ... PERHAPS Glenn's article will help. ...I'll be bookmarking it and in the future printing a copy to bring with me as I wear out my shoes trying to "help her retire."
Reminds you of the scene in the movie (REDS) where the people are marching outside an elite party in Moscow. Of course they're trampled, shot and attacked by a cavalry charge against a peaceful march.
OK, at least now we know why the companies cited in the article destroyed Parler and banned all mention of Hunter’s laptop. Private convos with Pelosi.
The Parler situation is ominous. If there are no consequences for such blatant anti competitive practices, whether or not there was actual collusion, big tech will emboldened to do it again and ratchet it up a notch. With leaders like Pelosi there is no reason to think there will ever be an accounting.
Remember when the Democrats used to screech about too much money in politics and self-enriching politicians? If there were any lingering doubts that the Democrat party is now firmly in the camp of the elites, this should settle it. For sale to the highest bidder.
There is a fusion of ideological extremism (far left Marxism, led by Obama) and eye-watering corruption/criminality by the two main establishment parties, but in particular the Democratic Party. Together their allegiance forms an elite.
The two groups appear to have struck a Faustian bargain. One group is addicted to money. The other, to power. Both despise the concept of the US Constitution, as it restrains them from pursuing their goals. Essentially, they need each other to survive/prosper.
The institutional corruption has always been there, especially the bi-partisan rot in the US Congress (a thoroughly corrupted institution), however the true extent of it was not visible to most citizens until Trump was elected in 2016.
The thing that frightens them the most is that they now know that their criminality and corruption cannot be hidden. It is now known by millions of citizens, Trump's 75 million voters being a very good example.
What concerns me - as Glenn's article demonstrates, and Psaki's frightening comments about goveenment targeting of speech on social media seems to confirm - is the arrogant and brazen way that this elite is exploiting power. They do not appear to understand the reality of their situation - they are exposed and being watched, daily, by millions of extremely angry and disgusted citizens.
There does not appear to be a calm voice in the room, a mafia consiglieri if you will, pointing out that intimidating and threatening a citizen body that large (at least 75 million, many heavily armed) and in such a brazen and arrogant manner, may create a situation that the crooks cannot control, and which risks threatening their money and power.
Without that calm voice, history shows us what can happen when criminal gangs and ideologues take over nation states. Anyone who thinks it can't happen in America is delusional. It IS happening, right now, in front of our eyes.
The American Republic is an experiment , precisely because it was designed to prevent crooks and power hungry tyrants taking over. Sadly, the current gang in DC is the historical norm, not an exception. Xi's CCP is by history's standard, entirely normal. As was the Roman Imperial hegemony. That's what so many people fail to understand.
The Republic cannot survive on its own steam. It is not a normal creature.
America needs a miracle. That miracle is the dismantling of the elite alliance that I have referred to above. How that happens, I cannot tell. But it needs to happen fast and soon, or the lights will go out in America quickly. Once that happens, we don't enter unknown territory. In fact, we revert back to the historical norm, a dystopian nightmare of centralised power,.state intimidation and worse, as well as enforced citizen subservience.
Sorry for the long post, but like many, the unravelling situation in the US is very worrying and I needed to share my thoughts.
The US Constitution established a Republic. The FORM is repulican. Yes the democratic mechanism is employed in which the representatives of the federal government are chosen in general elections. But as far as the presidency is concerned even that process is tempered by the republican process of an Electoral College to make the final decision of who will become the president.
As has been noted by Mr.Africanus in his excellent commentary, a large portion of the US politicians are not at all satisfied with the system created by the United States Constitution and have taken it upon themselves to rule by fiat, while attempting to give the perception of adherence to the Constitution. This burlesque has become more and more obvious in the years since President Trump was elected President.
Trump's unique approach was singularly constitutional in manner, which created a distinct contrast to what had come before. It showed an unfavorable light on the people in power taking advantage of the system like a party of drunken pirates. Once seen in the light of day these scoundrels left an indelible image on the patriots who support President Trump. These cockroaches can scamper back under the rug and behind the closed doors of their offices, but they are now identified as a group and as specific individuals.
They are now like cornered rats...much more dangerous than ever before because they now fear the repercussions of their hubris and folly.
We have heard their recent murmerings of threats against the Trump supporters from both Biden and his supposed henchman General Milley the Woke.
Comedian Mort Sahl called Bill Cosby a sellout in the 1960s, and he’s only gotten worse. “The Cosby Show” was nothing more than “Father Knows Best” in blackface.
The only time the MSM, an arm of the Democrat party, ever cares about legislators illegal, unethical, or questionable, stock trading is when those legislators have an "R" after their name. Case in point: Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler just before the runoff elections in Georgia. https://www.ajc.com/politics/a-timeline-of-investigations-into-perdue-loeffler-stock-trading/L6TU65WK5JBFXKDC4YWBKGGNPU/ The only stories Glenn cites concerning Pelosi's stock trading are from Fox Business and Bloomberg, no exactly the most widely read media. Can you imagine 60 Minutes doing an expose' on the Pelosis? Neither can I.
> Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina and former Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler of Georgia, all Republicans, drew scrutiny for their own pandemic trading last year as well.
But leaves out Dianne Feinstein and Nancy Pelosi who did the exact same thing.
The article mentions Tom Malinowski but only puts "D-N.J." next to his name but puts the full "Republican" and "GOP" next to other names. A Ctrl+F for "Democrat" gets zero hits.
Another great article by Glenn. Anyone who can't see four inches in front of their face (or excuses it in the name of "proper politics") is going to get what they deserve. Pelosi is scum.
I'm weary of the whole government elitists ( all of them) and frankly tired of reading about this every day, but wondering WHO in power is addressing the issues. Certainly there is no evidence of anyone trying to clean up the swamp. So do we just keep talking or is there a solution ever?
I appreciate the weariness. I want solutions as well. But until there is a solution (I ain't holdin' my breath), I want to see all these stories. More importantly, I want to see the stories start to appear in more media outlets. Again, I expect nothing from the MSM. But if the Greenwalds and Taibbis of the world keep beating the drum there's hope that some of it will land.
The solution is for voters to vote these fucks out.
The problem is the two parties control 99% of the voting system. They control 99% of the media messaging. They control 99% of the people who can rule or who can make rules.
One day people will look back at DJT being the first break in the wall of elitism in DC.
It is the first and only time in the history of our country a person has gone from NO ONE politically all the way to the top. That is why he was such a threat to the elitists. Worse yet he would speak directly to the people and cut out the media, which made him a huge threat to them.
I don't believe a single thing anyone who has been in DC for more than 5 years tells me. I am 100% sure that 100% of it is not being told to the people to help the people gatekeeping information and power.
"The solution is for voters to vote these fucks out."
I can't remember a single Federal election in my lifetime where either the incumbent fuck stayed or was replaced by yet another fuck. The system was constructed to maintain this dynamic.
Accordingly, I stopped voting decades ago, with the exception of Ron Paul in 2008 and a write-in for 2012.
I simply refuse to participate in a political system that elevates vermin such as Bush II, Obama, Clintons, Trump and Biden to the top of the cesspool. By participating, one legitimizes the system and implicitly consents to the outcome: thus a vote for Clinton was consent to be ruled by Trump, and vice versa.
For the last century or so, election turnouts are around 55%, with 2020 purportedly an exception at 62%.
I would like to see voter turnout plummet, to reflect the fact that the Federal government is utterly corrupt, tyrannical and lawless, with nearly its every act in direct contradiction to the Constitution and morality, and is therefore illegitimate.
I'm not sure at what level of voter turnout it would finally lose its penumbra of legitimacy, but I see that as the only viable, and peaceful, way for us to regain our freedom and prosperity from the parasitic swine who rule us.
If people no longer wish to be ruled by fucks, they need to stop voting for them.
I've voted in every election since I turned 18, I'm 41 now, and would always argue with a buddy of mine who did not vote, would tell him that by not voting you let the system win. I've come to the conclusion that I was so not correct, no matter who you vote for that person will be terrible as anyone who is running for office is an egotistical sociopath. 2020 will be the last election in which I voted, happily wrote in Bernie Sanders, as I did in 2016, as he is one of the very few politicians who seem to actually give a shit about the non-elites in this country. Who else is there to vote for? Dems want to turn this country into some Philip Dickian reverse racism dystopia and Repubs, well, I have no idea what they want as all they do is react to what the Dems are doing or you have McConnell looking creepy, can tell he came into office long ago as he is not photogenic at all lol, while supposedly plotting sinister shit. Our entire system is beyond depressing, best bet is to turn off the news, shit rots all of our brains.
Your original position on voting was correct, just insufficient; it's not enough to just vote, one also has to be engaged at many levels, and especially at being correctly informed (which is increasingly hard to accomplish).
We need _physical_action,_ as in, in-the-streets...
If true, the only recourse is violent revolution. ... You up for manning the battlements yourself? Facing the drones? You and your homies got something to handle the modern sound weapons?
When voting is over, the bloodshed won't be far behind.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
Until the gunfire starts, I'm gonna keep voting like my life depends on it, because it does.
(Of course, that doesn't mean that _all_ I'm gonna do about it is vote! I'm also going to protest in the streets, and, whenever possible AND helpful to (re?)gaining political power in the hands of The People, shutdown roads and bridges and ports, and disrupt business as usual.)
"some of us are strapped up and ready" - sorry icon but I just had to comment as that almost split me in half. I'm picturing you and that new Bill fella as a functioning unit, gray hair and all. With Amy in the back as a combat medic.
"the trades cannot be declared illegal unless it can be proven that either Pelosi acted on non-public information"
Nancy talks to tech CEOs while her husband trades tech stocks. Nancy can be trusted not to pass inside information to her husband because Nancy is a liberal and liberals are infallible. It is misogynistic and dangerous to question her behavior. Leftist bootlickers will soon be soon be squealing for big tech to censor people who do it.
If the federal judiciary were not as corrupt as the other two branches of the federal government (the legislative and now the executive under the illegitimate Biden regime)
There are clear legal avenues for trust busting and influence peddling by members of the government:
Rule 406. Habit; Routine Practice...
Evidence of a person’s habit or an organization’s routine practice may be admitted to prove that on a particular occasion the person or organization acted in accordance with the habit or routine practice. The court may admit this evidence regardless of whether it is corroborated or whether there was an eyewitness.
It seems the laws are good but judges don't enforce them. The judges are appointed by the politicians they are supposed to police.
Unaccountable judges are supposed to resist undue political influence, bias and corruption because their superior moral and intellectual fortitude. People who are of supposedly superior intellect and education seem no better than the rest of us in terms of ethics - the superior intelligence gives them the ability to game the system better than any average person. Unchecked power will probably quickly corrupt any judge who is honest to begin with. Corrupt judges need to be identified just like corrupt politicians but media corporations work hard to prevent that. The oligarch-owned Washington Post says "Democracy dies in darkness". This is a promise not a warning.
You are probably right. I recall reading about democrats threatening lawyers who were going to represent Trump in his efforts to challenge the election results and they likely threaten prosecutors as well. Lawyers, prosecutors and judges are the best suited to fight corruption but they don't have the balls, or are complicit in it. Judges are happy to crack the whip on powerless citizens but fear those above them. Justice is blind to corruption. Corporate media is mute. The checks and balances aren't working.
Yeah people gotta stop voting for the "lesser of two evils". You are admitting that people like Biden, Pelosi and Schumer are super evil, which they are. These people do not deserve your vote.
First, we need to clean up the election process, or voting don't mean shit.
What will it take??? Hell if I know, it might take a revolution, nothing else has worked for the last 50 years of dealing with the swamp creatures. They blatantly took out President Trump with the rigged 2020 election.
Now the illegitimate Biden regime is ensconced in the White House as the oligarchy's Meat-puppet. Looks like they got us in a bag and it's all sewn up.
Yes, ranked choice voting is FAR superior, but BEWARE! It _can,_ and in California _has_ been coopted by the removal of candidates at the ends of counting rounds. This is not only unnecessary, it can and does directly contradict the arguments FOR RCV by eliminating the very people who might well win the next round of counting... That, of course, is the very point of removing candidates along the way!
I'm highly suspicious of RCV. The fiasco in NYC certainly dis nothing to lessen my wariness. I might be convinced by the right system, but I have so little trust that pols will put forward one that isn't gamed for incumbent interests.
Within hours of the AZ Senate announcing a hearing expected to provide a significant update to their forensic audit, we get this from the corporate press:
The lie persists because it is effective. The proles are easily misdirected. A lie told often enough becomes "truth" and therefore nearly impossible to deconstruct. Thank you, MSM.
The Guardian is the NY TIMES if Britain, the Neo-Marxist Corporatist Propaganda rags supreme. They lead the mainstream packs in both nations. They are all monkeyboys throwing turds from their gilded cages.
"Can even the hardest-core Democratic partisan loyalist justify this blatant conflict of interest and self-dealing?"
Why actively deny it when you can simply passively ignore it? It's not like the MSM will be all over this. Too busy with hard hitting stories on our dementia-ridden President selecting a flavor of ice cream.
Thats the wrinkle. I could understand if they were reporting on this stuff and calling it out but they are actively working for the DNC at this point.
What else could we believe after the Hunter Biden posts were suppressed on social media and other media outlets. The media are the biggest whores in the USA, I used to think it was the lawyers and the politicians but it is obvious the media are even cheaper whores who sold out their customer base for personal fame.
Shame on them all.
The media is the IDEOLOGICAL STATE APPARATUS FOR THE REPRODUCTION OF THE IDEOLOGY OF THE RULING CLASS. It is doing exactly what it was designed and supposed to do.
It isn’t even the media. It’s a political activist apparatus masquerading as the media.
Nice catch
THhe MEDIA is an IDEOLOGICAL STATE APPARATUS for the REPORODUCTION of the IDEOLOGY OF THE RULING CLASS. It is doing exactly what it was designed to do. It's like getting mad at grass growing.
Just plain ol Goebbels who masterminded it for Hitler. And they said Trump was a dictator? Hmmmmm. Methinks PROJECTION defense mechanism here.
Nice catch
Media wasn't designed for propaganda and isn't supposed to, but it has been corrupted to become so. Learn to recognize propaganda and rebut it, and they'll lose their influence. Self correcting problem. Propaganda only survives in an incompetent society.
"Media wasn't designed for propaganda and isn't supposed to,"--Mr. Watson
Elementary my dear Watson, look into Operation Mockingbird.
Operation Mockingbird
In 1948 Frank Wisner was appointed director of the Office of Special Projects. Soon afterwards it was renamed the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC). This became the espionage and counter-intelligence branch of the Central Intelligence Agency. Wisner was told to create an organization that concentrated on "propaganda, economic warfare; preventive direct action, including sabotage, anti-sabotage, demolition and evacuation measures; subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance groups, and support of indigenous anti-Communist elements in threatened countries of the free world."
Later that year Wisner established Mockingbird, a program to influence the domestic American media. Wisner recruited Philip Graham (Washington Post) to run the project within the industry. Graham himself recruited others who had worked for military intelligence during the war. This included James Truitt, Russell Wiggins, Phil Geyelin, John Hayes and Alan Barth. Others like Stewart Alsop, Joseph Alsop and James Reston, were recruited from within the Georgetown Set. According to Deborah Davis, the author of Katharine the Great (1979) : "By the early 1950s, Wisner 'owned' respected members of the New York Times, Newsweek, CBS and other communications vehicles."
In 1951 Allen W. Dulles persuaded Cord Meyer to join the CIA. However, there is evidence that he was recruited several years earlier and had been spying on the liberal organizations he had been a member of in the later 1940s. According to Deborah Davis, Meyer became Mockingbird's "principal operative".
One of the most important journalists under the control of Operation Mockingbird was Joseph Alsop, whose articles appeared in over 300 different newspapers. Other journalists willing to promote the views of the CIA included Stewart Alsop (New York Herald Tribune), Ben Bradlee (Newsweek), James Reston (New York Times), C. D. Jackson (Time Magazine), Walter Pincus (Washington Post), Walter Winchell (New York Daily Mirror), Drew Pearson, Walter Lippmann, William Allen White, Edgar Ansel Mowrer (Chicago Daily News), Hal Hendrix (Miami News), Whitelaw Reid (New York Herald Tribune), Jerry O'Leary (Washington Star), William C. Baggs (Miami News), Herb Gold (Miami News) and Charles L. Bartlett (Chattanooga Times). According to Nina Burleigh, the author of A Very Private Woman, (1998) these journalists sometimes wrote articles that were commissioned by Frank Wisner. The CIA also provided them with classified information to help them with their work.
After 1953 the network was overseen by Allen W. Dulles, director of the Central Intelligence Agency. By this time Operation Mockingbird had a major influence over 25 newspapers and wire agencies. These organizations were run by people such as William Paley (CBS), Henry Luce (Time Magazine and Life Magazine), Arthur Hays Sulzberger (New York Times), Helen Rogers Reid (New York Herald Tribune), Dorothy Schiff (New York Post), Alfred Friendly (managing editor of the Washington Post), Barry Bingham (Louisville Courier-Journal) and James S. Copley (Copley News Services).
The Office of Policy Coordination (OPC) was funded by siphoning of funds intended for the Marshall Plan. Some of this money was used to bribe journalists and publishers. Frank Wisner was constantly looked for ways to help convince the public of the dangers of communism. In 1954 Wisner arranged for the funding the Hollywood production of Animal Farm, the animated allegory based on the book written by George Orwell.
According to Alex Constantine (Mockingbird: The Subversion Of The Free Press By The CIA), in the 1950s, "some 3,000 salaried and contract CIA employees were eventually engaged in propaganda efforts". Wisner was also able to restrict newspapers from reporting about certain events. For example, the CIA plots to overthrow the governments of Iran and Guatemala.
https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKmockingbird.htm
https://youtu.be/Z6Hm0Sla65E?t=26
https://youtu.be/rrY93p0SYfc?t=12
https://youtu.be/sYISgHPymEE?t=76
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Canceling the Constitution: Biden Hailed for Violating Law
Jonathan Turley, The Hill August 8, 2021
During the 2020 presidential campaign, then-candidate Joe Biden told voters that the choice between him and Donald Trump was between the lawful and the lawless. He called for voters to support “the rule of law, our Constitution,” a choice repeated mantralike by the media to “end Trump’s assault on the rule of law.” Now, six months into his presidency, Biden is openly flouting the Constitution with a knowingly invalid extension of the eviction moratorium — and some law professors and advocates on the left are cheering him for it.
A few weeks ago, the Supreme Court ruled on the authority of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to impose a nationwide moratorium on the eviction of renters during the pandemic. Some of us criticized the CDC order as unconstitutional. The reason is the breathtaking authority claimed by the CDC under a federal law that gives it the power to “make and enforce such regulations as in [its] judgment are necessary to prevent the introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable diseases.”
I have long been a critic of such unchecked and undefined authority in pandemics. This, however, is a particularly chilling example. It would give the CDC authority over huge swaths of our economy to avoid even the possibility of the “introduction” or spread of a disease. It means that a Constitution designed to prevent tyranny and authoritarianism becomes largely irrelevant if you put on a white lab coat. After all, the law was designed to control disease, not democracy, as a public health priority.
You people need to read this entire article:
https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/566836-canceling-the-constitution-biden-hailed-for-violating-rule-of-law
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What if its goal is really to demolish the real estate rental industry?
O just make it simple. They have finally gotten Goebbels
No Janet,
They had and have Edward Bernays who taught Goebbels every thing he knew.
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Well #NoChildLeftBehind left all children behind so now the new normal is Left Behind. Gatto in his book #TheDumbingDownof America - US?- has now been achieved so propaganda is free to roam through all their empty minds. Listen to folks talk in public. Meaninglessness prevails.
COMPULSORY SCHOOLING – INDOCTRINATION
"It is not education, of course, but as political indoctrination it will be highly effective.
Blame it on the early indoctrination in the imperial system.
The results of this indoctrination campaign are already evident."--H. L. Mencken
. . . . .
From an essay by John Taylor Gatto – 09/2003
Mass schooling of a compulsory nature really got its teeth into the United States between 1905 and 1915, though it was conceived of much earlier and pushed for throughout most of the nineteenth century. The reason given for this enormous upheaval of family life and cultural traditions was, roughly speaking, threefold:
1) To make good people.
2) To make good citizens.
3) To make each person his or her personal best.
These goals are still trotted out today on a regular basis, and most of us accept them in one form or another as a decent definition of public education’s mission, however short schools actually fall in achieving them. But we are dead wrong. Compounding our error is the fact that the national literature holds numerous and surprisingly consistent statements of compulsory schooling’s true purpose. We have, for example, the great H. L. Mencken, who wrote in The American Mercury for April 1924 that the aim of public education is not to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence. . . . Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim.. . is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States . . . and that is its aim everywhere else.
https://hybridrogue1.wordpress.com/2015/04/26/compulsory-schooling-indoctrination/
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Not in Europe though but soon.
You said " fill the young" so perhaps you need to remember Plato's Socratic Dialogue Laches on education. Education is to DRAW OUT not to STUFF IN!
An uneducated one. Education for all will lead to education for none. Read Plato on Socrates dialogue on education titled Laches. On pdf. Education is about drawing out not STUFFING IN!
Unfortunately it is far worse than that. It’s more about psychology than education. You assume if people understood tyranny they would oppose it. A significant portion of the population understands it full well and craves it. The psychological motivation is what drives that craving, not ignorance. Sure there are some oblivious fools but they want to be oblivious. They just want to be fed and have a roof and be pain free and if handing over their sovereignty is what is required they will do so.
Stanley Milgram has established the problem is obedience to authority Which is a learned mentality, and is as you say a subliminal phenomena.
Such indoctrination can be overcome by mindful self reflection. The "subconscious" IS available to the thinker who understands what he is finding. The concept of 'opening doors' of the "mental mansion" and seeking out other metaphorical objects within these interior rooms (of the subconscious).
"We have met the enemy and he is us" --Pogo
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Two kinds of tyranny -- that which benefits you and that which doesnt. Every tyrant in history won power by convincing others it benefits them. We're all basically selfish. Politicians understand that,
If you memorize the above and repost it every time you feel this way you will stop expecting anything different from them. A blessing.
Riven.
I enjoy Biden, I love his facial gestures as he struggles for words. He has a - oh my God I hope I’m not screwing up - look on his face.
I also enjoy the gushing praise of MSM, they look so silly and I think they giveaway that they feel silly and are embarrassed that the old man needs propped up - it is beneath their highfaluting ideal for journalism.
Biden's providing us a lot of meme material. Sucks for the country but good for entertainment.
.... justify this blatant conflict of interest ....
There's no conflict of interest. The interests of the Democratic Party and Big Tech are perfectly aligned. Big Tech will control what people say (and think) and in return, the Democrats will enact regulations to suppress any new tech startups. It's a win-win.
Some people complain that this is Fascism, but it's actually woke Neo-fascism. My only advice to other commenters is to take this opportunity to express your appreciation for the benign despotism of our new Tech Overlords.
"the benign despotism of our new Tech Overlords."--NoSuch
That might not last much longer if you have kept up with the latest from Biden and gen. Smilley...
Pogroms against Trump supporters could be on the way. Perhaps "Re-Education camps ala 'The Great Leap Forward'?
"woke Neo-fascism" -- Woke Neo-Marxism ,, both fit the bill.
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Re-education camps have received a bad press. But we became overly complacent that the American Education System would always limit the number of people who could read, thus protecting them from dangerous foreign ideas. But now, people can simply click on a video from Russia that promotes disrespect towards our illustrious leaders. Re-education camps may be the only anti-dote.
You may be a wild boar, yet you are a bore for sure. Until recently, Amerika had a decent educational system with good teachers. Before they WOKE up, there were honest efforts made to teach children. However, since it became impossible to correct, to restrain, to discipline, or toss out the disruptive children, teachers seems to have resigned themselves to simply putting in their time and hoping for a juicy retirement package. Poor parenting and bad decisions have left many young people ill-prepared for life in a civilized society.
"...have left many young people ill-prepared for life in a civilized society."
It's a good thing they don't live in a civilized society.
"What does it mean to be well adjusted in a profoundly sick society?" -- Jiddu Krishnamurti
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M. NoSuchCommentator, the "wild boar" satirist extraordinaire!
It's a shame that videos do not use their own alphabets like the books do. And those sneaky Russians and Chinese are increasingly succeeding in producing dumb enough videos to keep exceptional populace attempting to elect trumps.
That's right. The exceptional populace is to blame.
What an ass.
For decades it's been cheaper to import fully educated experts than educating the natives. Natives were usually in charge of keeping their tradition alive, you know like dancing, singing, smoking etc. So historically, what went around comes around.
It's also safer to maintain order for the rulers. The imported ones stay quiet keeping their H1Bs in safes in case of fire, and the dumbed down locals are busy with what you've described. The rulers win.
“I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: ‘O Lord make my enemies ridiculous.’ And God granted it.” – Voltaire
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Certain statistics further make clear that universities, all of which receive considerable taxpayer money, including from the federal government, are not only overtly ideological projects but are also unmistakably hostile to conservative (or even simply non-left-wing) viewpoints. A 2020 study by The Harvard Crimson determined that only 1.46% of the faculty self-identified as conservative, with faculty campaign contributions also flowing overwhelmingly to Democrats. Students on campuses across the country are self-censoring; free speech at universities is consistently evaporating; and speakers who even remotely challenge prized left-wing orthodoxies are shouted down or barred from speaking.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/a-modest-proposal-for-reining-in-woke-universities
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https://youtu.be/nus9mnbvflM?t=36
MKUltra, Jones Town and Propaganda
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Just more distraction to make us furious. For a little while today.
Hey look over here while we pass $12T in spending bills $9T of which are going to bail out DNC states who have been mis-spending and mis-budgeting for decades and this will allow them to keep giving out jobs to their friends (while providing no real value to society either) and growing the rolls of people on the government tit. So now you have lifer DNC cities like NYC with a budget the size of a state like Florida's.
https://nypost.com/2021/07/02/nycs-budget-is-the-size-of-floridas-but-de-blasio-doesnt-care/
In January the Post was reporting that NYC has 325,000 employees. For one city.
https://nypost.com/2021/01/17/de-blasios-budget-barely-whistles-past-the-graveyard/
That makes one city's employees a top 10 employer in the entire US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_employers_in_the_United_States
That is completely and totally unsustainable. Good news for NYC though, Biden is going to use Federal tax $ (harder to track and be kept accountable) to bail out NYC.
https://nypost.com/2021/05/11/de-blasio-spends-nyc-covid-funds-like-drunken-sailor-critics/
Your tax dollars at work...for someone else's benefit.
6 hours ago on hard-hitting Fox News
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-ice-cream-on-natonal-ice-cream-day
We are moving towards #DavidFosterWallace's corporate year names. The year of the DEPEND UNDERGARMENT was one of them current at the time of the action in the novel. Soft ice-cream? What is hard ice-cream?
The very definition of "soft serve".
"Can even the hardest-core Democratic ..."
*Can even the most hard core Democratic...*
I know...oh god aren't the grammar police a pain in the ass? but it has bothered me from the first time I read it...Forgive me.
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I would offer my kingdom for an "Edit Comment" button.
Oh yes Brad...it is quite remarkable that there is no Edit button on substack...even for the author! When I have enough typos I will delet the whole comment and Repost with edits...
It is not worth it for your comment ... jeeze, it's got a 120 upvotes!!!
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U could look at these comments from a different POV. A person reveals and oozes far more than they ever intended by the language they speak and write. It reveals the way they think so you know beforehand who you are replying or dealing with
And you could learn to spell "you" Jane. I can certainly anticipate your biases and smiling arrogance. Are you from Georgia? Southerners are so friendly to your face...
My eight years in south Georgia I learned to appreciate their Janus like personlities.
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Toynbee: In the disintegrating empire language deteriorates
Brad's use of language is far from deteriorated. An awkward phrase for an opening line? Come now Ms. Abbey, you stoop.
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So yes his language has deteriorated from when I learned English and got reprimanded at home for a mistake like that. God forbid my parents could hear me now!
Well my elementery English teachers would have failed me in my education. So I am conditioned but then if I adhere to it no one now understands me. god forbid I should use a sentence with a restricted clause in it.
More evidence that our federal government is a wholly corrupt deep state shit hole in bed with our media oligarchy.
WHY THE U.S. GOVERNMENT IS CORRUPT
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”—Lord Acton
The U.S. Governmnet is absolutely corrupt.
Let me be perfectly clear here. My critique is not against the constitutional republic established in 1789. My critique is of the corruption that has subverted the Constitution of the United States of America. I am a proud patriot of the principles that founded this great nation. Especially the superbly eloquent Declaration of Independence, which excites my heart everytime I read it!
From Republic to Corporatist State
The Revolutionary War began with the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. The US Constitution was ratified in 1788, establishing a republic.
Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company 1886, through an error (?) of the Court Recorder (citing obiter dictum unlawfully) began a progression of Supreme Court rulings that asserted that Corporations had the same legal rights as human beings citing the 14th Amendment as the relevant ground for that assertion.
By 1900 the corporations had used this doctrine to amass the huge fortunes that give them the ability to effectively buy the government of the United States. Therein was spawned the Corporatist State. This effectively ended the constitutional republic.
The Disastrous Woodrow Wilson Regime
Woodrow Wilson was by far the worst president in the modern era, He was a stupid man and a puppet of Col Edwen House and a cabal of international bankers who wanted to establish draconian rule over the US by instituting a private consortium of bankers now known as the Federal Reserve. This consortium is neither federal, nor are there any reserves. It is run by a private cartel, whose policies are based on usury and fiat paper money with no backing (such as gold or silver)
This scheme destroyed the nation’s financial system and has led to several recessions and depressions. Our national debt is now in the tens of trillions of dollars due to this bogus monetary system.....
https://thedissedent.page/2021/07/02/why-the-u-s-is-government-corrupt/
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Trump tried to burn it down and they destroyed him for it.
No, they destroyed us for our impertinence.
Oh, and the Republic too.
Its gone.
Gen. Mark Milley Compared Trump Supporters To Nazis: ‘These Are The Same People We Fought In World War II’
General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, compared supporters of former President Donald Trump to Nazis, according to a new book.
Milley, who has been widely criticized for being “woke,” claimed that Trump was preaching “the gospel of the Führer” when he contested the results of the 2020 election and claimed that Trump had led the U.S. to the brink of its own “Reichstag moment,” a reference to an incident in 1933 that Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler used to consolidate political power in Germany.
New York Magazine reported:
… the general’s worries grew rapidly as the president plunged the nation into chaos following Election Day. Seven days later, Milley got a call from “an old friend” with an explicit warning that Trump and his allies were trying to “overturn the government.” Milley was confident that any attempts by Trump to hold on to power would be thwarted, because the military wouldn’t go along. “They may try, but they’re not going to fucking succeed,” he told aides. “You can’t do this without the military. You can’t do this without the CIA and the FBI. We’re the guys with guns.”
The book says that Milley responded to the January 6 riot by saying, “These guys are Nazis, they’re boogaloo boys, they’re Proud Boys. These are the same people we fought in World War II.”
The report concludes by saying that Milley told Michelle Obama on Biden’s inauguration day that “no one has a bigger smile today than I do. You can’t see it under my mask but I do.”
A separate book documented a separate incident that happened with Milley when Trump was in office in which Milley snapped at Senior White House Adviser Stephen Miller after Miller warned Trump that far-left riots were destroying America last summer.
The allegations are made in a new book by a Wall Street Journal reporter who released excerpts to CNN, which reported:
During one Oval Office debate, senior Trump adviser Stephen Miller chimed in, equating the scenes unfolding on his television to those in a third-world country and claiming major American cities had been turned into war zones.
“These cities are burning,” Miller warned, according to the excerpts.
The comment infuriated Milley, who viewed Miller as not only wrong but out of his lane, Bender writes, noting the Army general who had commanded troops in Iraq and Afghanistan spun around in his seat and pointed a finger directly at Miller.
“Shut the f–k up, Stephen,” Milley snapped, according to the excerpts.
Milley stirred controversy during a recent hearing in front of Congress in which he said he wanted to understand “white rage” and that he found it “offensive” that he was being accused of turning the military “woke” because “we’re studying some theories that are out there.”
Related: WATCH: ‘I’ve Read Mao Tse-Tung. I’ve Read Karl Marx. I’ve Read Lenin. That Doesn’t Make Me A Communist’: Top-Ranking U.S. Military Official Defends Teaching Critical Race Theory
https://www.dailywire.com/news/gen-mark-milley-compared-trump-supporters-to-nazis-these-are-the-same-people-we-fought-in-world-war-ii
________________________________________
It is obvious that the Biden regime is cueing up for pogroms agains Trump suppoters. Stay alert, this is getting serious very quickly!
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Yeah I read that article too.
"a Wall Street Journal reporter who released excerpts to CNN"
thats just proof the right and the left are the same group of elite shitholes
"thats just proof the right and the left are the same group of elite shitholes"--Iconoclast
How utterly fucking absurd that comment is.
If I said, 'the man in the moon shows up much better on a clear night with a full moon, than on a foggy night with a crescent moon.' Iconaclast would say: "thats just proof the right and the left are the same group of elite shitholes."
My pooint being that Milley was clearly threatening Trump supporters. Thus **the LEFT are the dangerous elite shitholes** --And the right are being threatened by said "shitholes" as per Iconoclast's colorful language.
Again, I am amazed and amused by Icono's bizarre and twisted thinking.
__________________________________________________________________________
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is characterized by repetitive, unwanted, intrusive thoughts (obsessions) and irrational, excessive urges to do certain actions (compulsions). Although people with OCD may know, they cannot help but express these bizzare thoughts.
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Icono may have stated the point inartfully, but is essentially correct. Tyrants use politics as a means to an end -- for power to control society. Left or right is irrelevant, just a calculation of the mood of their audience. Miley is probably not a Marxist, but is every bit as evil. Focus on the actions, not the politics.
Milley may not have said that.
And if the wind changes I guarantee Milley will deny it. 😆
Listen none of these clowns are Himmler or Beria. Its the death of Stalin without Beria, Khrushchev or Zhukov.
"Milley may not have said that."--Warred
Nonsense! He is on video saying it. This clown has the power of the national security state in his hands while the Biden regime is in the White House.
THAT is all one needs to become a Himmler. Beria or Zhukov.
Do you guys think we are playing a board game here?!?
This is real life here and now...
WTF?
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Beria and his scheming were one of my first real deep dives into history of Russia when I was younger.
I don't think the people in America know much about him to be honest. Like the Russian Hoover crossed with GWB.
Well I’m sure if pogroms are necessary they’ll go there, but not with the army and police they have now.
Which does not mean it’s impossible.
As for Milley he doesn’t believe in anything but Milley. He is an American General, he got there by being a windsock. Also do note - money.
It is a common place in our military that our Generals never do anything except for money. If you have a good idea or improvement and “it doesn’t cost (read ‘make’) money then no General Officer will talk to you.”
In fact that’s a quote from a CENTCOM LTC to me. It wasn’t necessary for him to be quite so crass, but its the truth.
This is known widely.
So we don’t quite have Hitler here, we have sort of Mussolini. Probably not harmful unless challenged.
The history of Dominion and Smartmatic and how they rigged the 2020 election.
https://williamwhitten.substack.com/p/election-fraud-2020
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An interesting compilation of facts that I accept as true.
However, your conclusion that Trump is a good guy and Biden is a bad guy is completely unfounded.
It's kind of stressful here this morning because they've trapped a pretty good sized boar. All the barking and squealing though reminds me of Democrats and Republicans making up stories about one another.
Russiagate is another fraud. Gotta put that in here because ...
"However, your conclusion that Trump is a good guy and Biden is a bad guy is completely unfounded."--Zwiebel
Preposterous! The 2020 presidential election was rigged specifically to defeat Trump and install Biden as the meat-puppet of the cabal of corporatist oligarchs who rigged the election.
The Conspirators:
> Michael Podhorzer, AFL-CIO director.and the Architect of the Conspiracy to steal the 2020 Presidential Election
> Zachary Paul Wamp, Republican U.S. Representative for Tennessee’s 3rd congressional district from 1995 to 2011.
> Ian Bassin, Executive Director Protect Democracy.
> Anat Shenker-Osorio is a strategic communications consultant based in Oakland, CA.
> Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Facebook.
> Amber McReynolds, CEO for the National Vote At Home Institute and coalition.
> Tom Lopach, CEO center for voter information.
> Hannah Fried, ‘All Voting is Local’ National Campaign Director.
> Wendy Weiser, voting-rights expert at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU.
> Laura Quinn, CEO and a co-founder of Catalist voter data and related data services.
> Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
> Jack Dorsey, CEO Twitter.
> Dick Gephardt, Democratic former House leader turned high-powered lobbyist.
> Nelini Stamp, the Working Families Party’s national organizing director.
> Neil Bradley, U.S. Chamber of Commerce executive vice president and chief policy officer.
> Angela Peoples, director for the Democracy Defense Coalition.
> Art Reyes III, the founding Executive Director of We The People.
> Jeff Timmer, Lincoln Project consultant.> John Engler, Head of Business Roundtable – lobbyist.
> Van Langevelde,policy adviser and deputy legal counsel for the Michigan House Republican Policy Office,
There we have it; the Who, when, and how, of the greatest scandal ever perpetrated in American history. One that put a usurper into the office of the presidency. The current illegal regime of Biden-Harris.
https://thedissedent.page/2021/07/01/2020-presidential-election-fraud/
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"The 2020 presidential election was rigged specifically to defeat Trump and install Biden as the meat-puppet of the cabal of corporatist oligarchs who rigged the election."
Perhaps, maybe even probably. How does this show that Trump is a "good guy"?
Presidential elections have been rigged since at least 2000, probably even further back than that, all in service to the Oligarchy. Are you really trying to suggest Trump is not an Oligarch?
Zwiebel sings the Bollweevil Blues pealing his own skin to make his tears run.
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Zwiebel means onion in german.
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DJT was and is an OUTSIDER, not captured by the anti-Capitalist Statists.
THAT makes him the good guy.
Wake the fuck up.
Bullshit he spent like a drunken sailor too dont give me that horseshit.
By his 3rd year Trump was pulling bullshit left and right to try and shore up support for his re-election.
On his way out it was even worse. Pardoning Kwame Kilpatrick isnt draining the swamp ffs.
Yeah, remember when his $5 billion for the wall was fiscally irresponsible? Now you’re spending trillions in kickback grift corruption pay to play without any skepticism from the corrupt media at all. But it’s the same thing Trump did right genius?
Oh look its a trump sycophant unwilling to criticize their own godling
Im calling out his spending and theirs not greenlighting one and shitting on the other
get your lips off trumps butthole
Trump and the GOP did spend too much but most of it was meaningful and beneficial to the American people. Biden and the swamp are spending exponentially more money in 6 months on absurd pork laden liberal garbage.
Iconoclast, you are mentally ill.
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Wake up!
Hypocrisy eats Biden's weewee off and spits it out. it lands in the mud and sprouts a turdblossum
All hail to the cheapskate!!! Winkin blinkin still nods off during press conferences.
Got Save America from this usurper!
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Kwame Kilpatrick?! Big fuckin' deal. Who the fuck cares?
That is nothing compared to this treasonous agenda:
John Kerry reveals Biden's devotion to radical 'Great Reset' movement
In June 2011, elites at important international institutions such as the World Economic Forum and the United Nations launched a far-reaching campaign to “reset” the global economy.
The plan involves dramatically increasing the power of government through expansive new social programs like the Green New Deal and using vast regulatory schemes and government programs to coerce corporations into supporting left-wing causes.
The two justifications for the proposal, which has been aptly named by its supporters the “Great Reset,” are the COVID-19 pandemic (the short-term justification) and the so-called “climate crisis” caused by global warming (the long-term justification).
According to the Great Reset’s supporters, the plan would fundamentally transform much of society. As World Economic Forum (WEF) head Klaus Schwab wrote back in June, “the world must act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions. Every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to tech, must be transformed. In short, we need a ‘Great Reset’ of capitalism.”
Internationally, the Great Reset has already been backed by influential leaders, activists, academics and institutions. In addition to the World Economic Forum and United Nations, the Great Reset movement counts among its the International Monetary Fund, heads of state, Greenpeace and CEOs and presidents of large corporations and financial institutions such as Microsoft and MasterCard.
[.....]
“And yes, it [the Great Reset] will happen,” Kerry continued. “And I think it will happen with greater speed and with greater intensity than a lot of people might imagine. In effect, the citizens of the United States have just done a Great Reset. We’ve done a Great Reset. And it was a record level of voting.”
Kerry later argued that the Great Reset is necessary to slow the “climate crisis” and that “I know Joe Biden believes … it’s not enough just to rejoin Paris [the Paris Climate Accords] for the United States. It’s not enough for us to just do the minimum of what Paris requires.”
Kerry also said that because of the Great Reset movement, he believes “we’re at the dawn of an extremely exciting time” and that “the greatest opportunity we have” to address social and economic problems is “dealing with the climate crisis.”
These and the other comments made by Kerry at the WEF event are made more important by the fact that Kerry’s role in a Biden administration would involve working with the very same international institutions that have already expressed their support for the Great Reset on climate change.
This isn’t the first time Kerry has thrown his weight behind the Great Reset. At a June World Economic Forum virtual event, Kerry said the coronavirus pandemic was “a big moment” that opened the door for the Great Reset and that, “The World Economic Forum – the CEO capacity of the Forum – is really going to have to play a front and center role in refining the Great Reset to deal with climate change and inequity — all of which is being laid bare as a consequence of COVID-19.”
The evidence is now crystal clear about Biden’s connection to the Great Reset. He, John Kerry and the rest of the Biden administration are planning to bring the Great Reset to the United States. And if they are successful, the country will never be the same.
https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/528482-john-kerry-reveals-bidens-devotion-to-radical-great-reset-movement?rl=1
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The pandemic was a test to see if the government could use emergency powers to subvert the constitution and it worked. If you would’ve told me a year ago that the SCOTUS would allow swat teams to shut down houses of worship I would have thought you were describing a futuristic movie.
Yes Chris, this is very much like living in a dystopian movie.
It is sci-fi theater become real.
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Of course the Great Reset agenda explains everything the Biden regime has been doing for the last six months, inviting illegal aliens to crash the border, now using the military to cart them into cities all around the nation and pay for their settling in, The taknin og the economy, the weird woke cabinet the regime put together, including that fruitcake Gen Miley. His Rainbow cabinet chosen for "diversity" over merit. It is insane...but it is insane on purpose. To destroy America within so it can be easily merged into the Global Technocratic Tyranny desinged by Klaus Schwab and the Davos Gang.
The citizens of this nation had better wake up soon, or it will be a done deal,
This is the Neo-Marxist agenda, in your face if you just open your eyes!
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Iconoclast has a pathological hatred of Donald Trump that skews his perspaective so that the most trivial thing can be thrown at Trump as evidence he was a "bad orange man"
I would wager the quarter with "In God We Trust" emblasoned on it that he is a Democrat and a stinking Bidenista.
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tell me again why Trump says he hates the swamp and the dnc but pardoned Kwame Kilpatrick
Ill wait
I have never heard of Kwame Kilpatrick until you brought it up as a flogging device against Trump.
If it puts an itch in your nutsack, you tell the readership, not me.
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I have a pathological hatred for people lying to you and saying they are telling the truth.
The comedy of you saying I'm a democrat is one of the funniest things I've read
Whatever your politics, you are a secret agent for the corporatist oligachy . Laugh while you can monkeyboy.
Trashing Trump is the game of disinformants and dupes.
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JESUS H. CHRIST!
This is a comment on this stupid exchange not directly a response to anyone in particular.
I know Iconoclast already knows that the Oligarchy is funneling wealth upward. Jimmy Dore's interviews with Dylan Ratigan (on youTube) are over a year old now.
But we're still pretending that the fight between Trump and Pelosi (Biden isn't smart enough) will in anyway at all benefit the Average American.
Pull your head's out of each other's ass.
Only OUTSIDERS, like DJT, can save us now.
Wake up, M. Iconoclast, wake up!
Again feel free to justify Trump pardoning Kwame Kilpatrick, a lifer DNC politician who was jailed for corruption.
“I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: ‘O Lord make my enemies ridiculous.’ And God granted it.” – Voltaire
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I believe the most compelling part of Acton's observation bears repeating, since it is often obscured by the 'absolute power corrupts absolutely' part...
"I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favorable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way against holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it."
I would add:
"Power corrupts inevitably, even in the smallest of increments, by the most innocuous stewards."
IMHO, that pretty well explains the gangrene and putrification which defines our body-politic in the here and now. (With apologies to the handful of our public-servants who have managed to resist this ideological pandemic.)
TedInPDX, Thank you for the additional verbage in Lord Acton's message of the corrupting agency of political power.
To remain dedicated to the principles enunciated in our Declaration of Indipendence is the true valor of the Patriot.
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Do you remember President Trump's dire prediction during the first debate?
He warned that if Joe Biden became president, the country would fall into "a depression the likes of which you've never seen."
Yet the mainstream media buried President Trump's warning because they knew he was right.
They won't talk about the economic disaster we're about to face.
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Maybe Trump noticed Europe's negative interest rates a year earlier? I wouldn't put all the blame on Biden, but just 47 year's worth. He may well be at the helm when it all falls down. Karma is a beatch.
I wouldn't put any of the blame on Biden, he is braindead and being animated by his handlers with speedballs until he keals over...
Yea then the 25th takes over and the real Commie, Kamala gets the reins to the chariot.
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"wholly corrupt deep state shit hole"
Well stated.
Biden's calls to break up / crack down on Big Tech are merely the DNC signaling that Silicon Valley needs to cough up some more donations and insider info. It's humorous that people think the corporations are in charge here. Money follows power, and the power to tax, to regulate, to prosecute, to imprison or even kill is a hell of a power.
Corporations are in charge to a great extent and Citizens United gave them greater in charge power. Who finances the campaign's of politicians? Big business, ergo, our government makes their interests first on their to do list.
I'll agree that it is an incestuous relationship, but push comes to shove and DC wins, hands down, every time. Technically, we've been economically fascist since the 1930's and as time passes the State is bringing more and more of the cultural institutions under its control, but particularly the media. Everybody likes to throw the term fascism around as an insult and epithet, but the reality is we've been living in a fascist system (as defined by Mussolini) for a long time.
I can't agree that it has always been this bad. At one time the democrats supported unions and the working class, no more. That slid away slowly over decades and Clinton really shifted that party to the right and ended it with overturning Glass-Steagall and passing NAFTA. I know that corporations have always played a big role in our government, but Citizen's United made it a lot worse. Our news is corporately owned, and I really fail to see the degree of power either party can have with such tremendous outside influence, and that influence is not coming from the people.
Citizens United doesn't matter when the media acts as a fourth arm of government and Silicon Valley censors unpopular political speech. It wasn't the Super PACs that drove the 2020 election. It was the unrelenting lies in the press.
It all matters, as does the passage of Citizens United which gave corporate America a bigger say in the political arena, and more control over our elected officials.
Corporations are just groups of people, like unions, PACs, armies, churches, and such. It's a way to leverage individual preferences, operationally or politically. Eventually, the preferences of the greatest numbers of opinions prevail. The better organized consensus is usually better for society than the mob.
See, Operation Mockingbird. The National Security State recruited the legacy media as their propaganda arm in 1948. The people of the US have been indoctrinated cradle to grave for 75 years..
"Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it"--George Snatayana
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I am aware that the CIA has done many terrible things, overturned governments, killed leaders of state, and has been responsible for millions of deaths. I know that Iran no doubt would be a democracy today if the son of Teddy Roosevelt had not wiped away Mosaddegh with lies and innuendo. I am well aware of who we are and what we have done on a world wide level while we play on and play up our virtues.
No, that was Eisenhower and Churchill. DO try to keep up.
holy shit thats an incredibly disingenuous summary of iran
wow
you must work for the government with that devotion to bullshit
Lee, I totally agree that we have become economically fascist. The article is evidence that is perfectly emblematic of this truth.
its amazing the amount of big government the dnc rammed through during the economic depression of the 30s
thats not to say none of it was good!
government isnt the answer its the problem
Yet you will not support OUTSIDERS.
Fascist since WWII, yes. As for "cultural institutions", you'll have to make a better case than you have on that one.
It would be easier to come up with a list of cultural institutions that aren't beholden to the government or scared into submission. Charities, higher ed, media, the sciences, the arts, even religious organizations are all getting in line. They're either taking government money or scared of being shut down for being "non-essential."
So right. Just look at what has happened to the Boy Scouts.
Can't agree that Citizens United is the boodie man. We already have too many pols attacking the 1st Amendment. If the court had decided against CU, the next logical step is Congress could decide that INDIVIDUALS can't spend their own money to engage in political advocacy. I'd rather have a system where all campaign spending must be published on the internet within a couple of days. Better to have uber transparency than limits on speach.
Transparency to the left is spying on calls even though the courts protect from this.
Never forget.
https://i.imgur.com/lMmiWKJ.jpeg
Citizens United Explained
The 2010 Supreme Court decision further tilted political influence toward wealthy donors and corporations.
January 21, 2020 will mark a decade since the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, a controversial decision that reversed century-old campaign finance restrictions and enabled corporations and other outside groups to spend unlimited funds on elections.
While wealthy donors, corporations, and special interest groups have long had an outsized influence in elections, that sway has dramatically expanded since the Citizens United decision, with negative repercussions for American democracy and the fight against political corruption.
What was Citizens United about?
A conservative nonprofit group called Citizens United challenged campaign finance rules after the FEC stopped it from promoting and airing a film criticizing presidential candidate Hillary Clinton too close to the presidential primaries.
A 5-4 majority of the Supreme Court sided with Citizens United, ruling that corporations and other outside groups can spend unlimited money on elections.
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/citizens-united-explained
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lol @ citizens united
you believed that dnc talking point?
reallly
Quite right. They just want big tech to do their bidding, then everything will be hunky dory. We even have Ms. Circle Back acknowledging the WH is flagging post they want big tech to remove for failure to tow the admin's approve narrative. https://mobile.twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1415725320381079569
If someone competent enough takes this to Supreme Court, this would get actioned. SCOTUS has previously ruled that government pushing a library or book store to remove a book or else face punishment is not allowed and makes them a state actor.
Same with Fauci's email where he's emailing with Zuckerberg on their covid dashboard which led to censoring people.
Glenn correctly points out: "As I've documented before, the Supreme Court has ruled that the First Amendment's free speech guarantee is violated when government officials pressure or coerce private actors to censor for them. That is exactly what the Biden WH is doing with Facebook:"
Thats all posturing. If the DNC wanted to regulate big tech then big tech wouldnt have suppressed Trump.
They paid in 2020 and the DNC will refuse to do any meaningful legislation. Ill bet $100 to charity of anyones choice.
Iconoclast reads...
That is the entirety of his substack profile.
I don't like secret agents in the midst of things...
The DNC doesn't run big tech. Big Tech runs the DNC
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The Pelosis and their pals live a lifestyle that 99% of Americans cannot even imagine. Nearly every night powerful politicians attend lavish parties paid for by various lobbying groups (i.e. paid for by taxpayers). Pelosi has commandeered military jets for her personal travel. Politicians stay at publicly funded magnificent residences on America's most beautiful public lands, residences that are off limits to the rest of us. If Americans knew the truth about our political elites, imo, there really would be a revolution.
Correction, the Pelosis aren't just in the 1%, they're in at least the richest 0.1%, and MAYBE in the richest 0.01% - I haven't checked. This is VASTLY more wealth than the minimum required to be in the top 1%.
BTW, Pelosi doesn't live in any government funded housing - unless you count her graft - as she lives in a huge mansion atop Telegraph Hill (or in the very close proximity thereof) on a private street normal citizens aren't allowed to drive on.
I didn't say live in, I said stay in. As, when they are on vacation (of course, their entire lives are a vacation). As for Pelosi's SF home, I mean mansion, several years ago, it was conservatively estimated to be worth 55 million dollars.
Actually, Pelosi's "mansion" is atop Presidio Heights, situated in a gated "cul-de-sac" called "Presidio Terrace. It's been home to some of the richest and most powerful people in SF: including: Sen. Feinstein, former SF mayor:Joseph Alioto..etc. Though there is a guard at the entrance of the enclave, I believe last year, that a few folks managed "vandalized" her garage door with red graffiti and a "Pigs Head".
Her other abode of note in CA. is her exclusive 5 acre Napa Vineyard Estate on Zinfandel Lane, close to where Google's Eric Schmitt, Tom Steyer and former Governor Jerry Brown reside. It's valued from 5-25 million, but realistically closer to the 25 million valuation.
She and her Husband also own several other pieces of property in SF: including being partners in a downtown office building. Her actual wealth most probably far exceed even the "Open Secrets" estimate of $115 million - since all of congress is allowed to report a estimated "range" of assets - which I would guess for her and Pauli, is probably in the $150+ million level....and as Glenn highlights in his piece above.. growing rapidly.
And this "the people's public servant" representative happens to also be my Congress person, since I live in SF as well. Lucky me..... NOT!
But the people who vote for her must know this and think it is all o.k. or she would keep getting re-elected.
Well...she would have to literally die, or become even more incapacitated than she is now to allow another person to occupy her district. This is due to the fact that she has an intractable and well entrenched 'machine' behind her: vestiges of the uber-powerful Brown-Burton cosa nostra.
She basically "inherited" her seat in 1987 from Sala Burton who was dying of colon cancer and set up Nancy to claim her seat. After that, with the entrenched democratic political machinery firmly behind her, she never really had to run against a viable contender since then. This is precisely why she became so powerful so fast within the parties hierarchy. Almost all the political donations she raised since 1987 have gone into her personal "war chest", amassing huge sums of excess campaign "contribution" $$$$ to then be utilized in bolstering her influence and power. In fact, her real skill as a longtime politico has basically come from being able to raise hundreds of millions of dollars - hence the impression that she's a highly "skilled" legislator, when her only real quantifiable organizational abilities is rustle up and then distribute large sums of cash within the party - which is the lifeblood of these wholly "undemocratic" gangster political parties. .
I've often thought about one of the core broken pieces of our representative democracy is that it takes a certain skill set to actually get elected, and then another skill set to create good legislation.
And think of the numerous areas of expertise that are needed (not least of which are those that understand "Big Tech") and it's not a surprise that we end up with so many wrong-headed bills.
So, take a bunch of charismatic narcissists and stick them in a room, and what do you end up with? Congress.
Not every single one of them is bad, but most of them are.
I daresay she would have to caught molesting little boys before they'd stop voting for her.
I address that in one of my comments in this thread.
Well that's a point are the elections really honest for people vital to the military/industrial/complex
Well that's a point are the elections really honest for people vital to the military/industrial/complex
Last time I checked - which was four or five years ago - wealth of $50M was what was required to be in the richest 0.1% in the USA.
1%, or .01%, my comment was that 99% of Americans cannot even imagine how high the most powerful politicos live. For the rest of us, going to a formal elaborate dinner party held at a terribly expensive and exclusive restaurant or hotel, is something we do once in a while if we're lucky. For many Americans the only extravagant parties they ever go to are weddings or their own high school prom. If Americans had any idea how lavish the lifestyles are of the politicians who are supposed to be serving us, not themselves, Americans would be sickened.
...All true, and I wasn't arguing; I was just pointing out how their lives are luxurious even far beyond just being in the top 1%!
Thanks for adding all that detail... MAYBE we can get her voted out this next go-round. ...I've tried; I've worked not less than three campaigns against her, and I DO NOT live in the district!
Having spoken with people who live in the district, those who defended her all said - 100% of them - that they vote for her because while most actively hate her, they perceive that her position of speaker is surely bringing THEM some perks, she's "bringing home the bacon." Yet, when asked, NONE of them have ever been able to cite a single thing that would qualify in that regard.
...I managed to get a significant number of these people to reconsider their support of her, but it wasn't enough to get anyone else elected yet. ... PERHAPS Glenn's article will help. ...I'll be bookmarking it and in the future printing a copy to bring with me as I wear out my shoes trying to "help her retire."
There should be. Our leaders and institutions are irredeemable
not to mention that they don't ever pay for gas or meals, and have free healthcare...
Reminds you of the scene in the movie (REDS) where the people are marching outside an elite party in Moscow. Of course they're trampled, shot and attacked by a cavalry charge against a peaceful march.
Now that I think about it I think the movie was actually "Dr Shivago* spelling?
Boy, those Russians and Medea Benjamin sure known how to let you know when you suck.
There is so little coverage, maybe that's why.
OK, at least now we know why the companies cited in the article destroyed Parler and banned all mention of Hunter’s laptop. Private convos with Pelosi.
The Parler situation is ominous. If there are no consequences for such blatant anti competitive practices, whether or not there was actual collusion, big tech will emboldened to do it again and ratchet it up a notch. With leaders like Pelosi there is no reason to think there will ever be an accounting.
Remember when the Democrats used to screech about too much money in politics and self-enriching politicians? If there were any lingering doubts that the Democrat party is now firmly in the camp of the elites, this should settle it. For sale to the highest bidder.
Now? It was confirmed that the party no longer supports even the middle-class with the policies of Bill Clinton...
The word "now" in your second sentence is redundant.
In the Dem dictionary: too much money in politics means the GOP has too much money.
It's such a dangerous period in the US.
There is a fusion of ideological extremism (far left Marxism, led by Obama) and eye-watering corruption/criminality by the two main establishment parties, but in particular the Democratic Party. Together their allegiance forms an elite.
The two groups appear to have struck a Faustian bargain. One group is addicted to money. The other, to power. Both despise the concept of the US Constitution, as it restrains them from pursuing their goals. Essentially, they need each other to survive/prosper.
The institutional corruption has always been there, especially the bi-partisan rot in the US Congress (a thoroughly corrupted institution), however the true extent of it was not visible to most citizens until Trump was elected in 2016.
The thing that frightens them the most is that they now know that their criminality and corruption cannot be hidden. It is now known by millions of citizens, Trump's 75 million voters being a very good example.
What concerns me - as Glenn's article demonstrates, and Psaki's frightening comments about goveenment targeting of speech on social media seems to confirm - is the arrogant and brazen way that this elite is exploiting power. They do not appear to understand the reality of their situation - they are exposed and being watched, daily, by millions of extremely angry and disgusted citizens.
There does not appear to be a calm voice in the room, a mafia consiglieri if you will, pointing out that intimidating and threatening a citizen body that large (at least 75 million, many heavily armed) and in such a brazen and arrogant manner, may create a situation that the crooks cannot control, and which risks threatening their money and power.
Without that calm voice, history shows us what can happen when criminal gangs and ideologues take over nation states. Anyone who thinks it can't happen in America is delusional. It IS happening, right now, in front of our eyes.
The American Republic is an experiment , precisely because it was designed to prevent crooks and power hungry tyrants taking over. Sadly, the current gang in DC is the historical norm, not an exception. Xi's CCP is by history's standard, entirely normal. As was the Roman Imperial hegemony. That's what so many people fail to understand.
The Republic cannot survive on its own steam. It is not a normal creature.
America needs a miracle. That miracle is the dismantling of the elite alliance that I have referred to above. How that happens, I cannot tell. But it needs to happen fast and soon, or the lights will go out in America quickly. Once that happens, we don't enter unknown territory. In fact, we revert back to the historical norm, a dystopian nightmare of centralised power,.state intimidation and worse, as well as enforced citizen subservience.
Sorry for the long post, but like many, the unravelling situation in the US is very worrying and I needed to share my thoughts.
Stay safe out there, folks.
The US Constitution established a Republic. The FORM is repulican. Yes the democratic mechanism is employed in which the representatives of the federal government are chosen in general elections. But as far as the presidency is concerned even that process is tempered by the republican process of an Electoral College to make the final decision of who will become the president.
As has been noted by Mr.Africanus in his excellent commentary, a large portion of the US politicians are not at all satisfied with the system created by the United States Constitution and have taken it upon themselves to rule by fiat, while attempting to give the perception of adherence to the Constitution. This burlesque has become more and more obvious in the years since President Trump was elected President.
Trump's unique approach was singularly constitutional in manner, which created a distinct contrast to what had come before. It showed an unfavorable light on the people in power taking advantage of the system like a party of drunken pirates. Once seen in the light of day these scoundrels left an indelible image on the patriots who support President Trump. These cockroaches can scamper back under the rug and behind the closed doors of their offices, but they are now identified as a group and as specific individuals.
They are now like cornered rats...much more dangerous than ever before because they now fear the repercussions of their hubris and folly.
We have heard their recent murmerings of threats against the Trump supporters from both Biden and his supposed henchman General Milley the Woke.
Prepare, a call to the ramparts may be near.
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https://youtu.be/z4HvTEbpd48
Dominion Adjudication Function showing that the operator can indeed change what is on the ballot.
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Scipio, I like your comment so much that I posted the whole think in the comment section of my blog:
https://thedissedent.page/2021/07/14/an-historical-juncture-demanding-human-action/comment-page-1/#comment-223
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Wow. Thank you.
I love this analysis. Thank you, M. Scipio Africanus.
And they made Martha Stewart the scapegoat, who is a saint by comparison
Poor Martha had no political clout to leverage.
Maybe she just refused to pay the protection fee?
I suspect that's also what happened to Bill Cosby. Bill was openly criticizing the black culture, especially with his "Pound Cake" speech.
Comedian Mort Sahl called Bill Cosby a sellout in the 1960s, and he’s only gotten worse. “The Cosby Show” was nothing more than “Father Knows Best” in blackface.
Pelosi has no shame. With all her money, she should get a better plastic surgeon.
Alcoholism is hell on the skin.
I am sure she has the best. But after so much time, even the best cannot cover up the facial features earned.
Beauty is only skin deep
While ugly is to the bone
Beauty always fades away
While ugly holds its own
She's really scary looking. There's something to be said for aging gracefully.
"Sir, in your condition, I should call the POLeece."
"Madam, in your condition, I'd call a Plastic Surgeon."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7X-2kDBEyE&t=340s
The only time the MSM, an arm of the Democrat party, ever cares about legislators illegal, unethical, or questionable, stock trading is when those legislators have an "R" after their name. Case in point: Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler just before the runoff elections in Georgia. https://www.ajc.com/politics/a-timeline-of-investigations-into-perdue-loeffler-stock-trading/L6TU65WK5JBFXKDC4YWBKGGNPU/ The only stories Glenn cites concerning Pelosi's stock trading are from Fox Business and Bloomberg, no exactly the most widely read media. Can you imagine 60 Minutes doing an expose' on the Pelosis? Neither can I.
Here's another hyper biased article by Salon:
https://www.salon.com/2021/07/14/gop-rep-on-cyber-committee-dumped-msft-stock-shortly-before-10b-pentagon-contract-was-scrapped/
It states:
> Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina and former Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler of Georgia, all Republicans, drew scrutiny for their own pandemic trading last year as well.
But leaves out Dianne Feinstein and Nancy Pelosi who did the exact same thing.
The article mentions Tom Malinowski but only puts "D-N.J." next to his name but puts the full "Republican" and "GOP" next to other names. A Ctrl+F for "Democrat" gets zero hits.
FoxNews is pointing to an RNC person doing it today not Pelosi
https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/texas-rep-pat-fallon-dumped-microsoft-stock-pentagon-jedi-contract
Yup. Case made.
Another great article by Glenn. Anyone who can't see four inches in front of their face (or excuses it in the name of "proper politics") is going to get what they deserve. Pelosi is scum.
I'm weary of the whole government elitists ( all of them) and frankly tired of reading about this every day, but wondering WHO in power is addressing the issues. Certainly there is no evidence of anyone trying to clean up the swamp. So do we just keep talking or is there a solution ever?
I appreciate the weariness. I want solutions as well. But until there is a solution (I ain't holdin' my breath), I want to see all these stories. More importantly, I want to see the stories start to appear in more media outlets. Again, I expect nothing from the MSM. But if the Greenwalds and Taibbis of the world keep beating the drum there's hope that some of it will land.
The solution is for voters to vote these fucks out.
The problem is the two parties control 99% of the voting system. They control 99% of the media messaging. They control 99% of the people who can rule or who can make rules.
One day people will look back at DJT being the first break in the wall of elitism in DC.
It is the first and only time in the history of our country a person has gone from NO ONE politically all the way to the top. That is why he was such a threat to the elitists. Worse yet he would speak directly to the people and cut out the media, which made him a huge threat to them.
I don't believe a single thing anyone who has been in DC for more than 5 years tells me. I am 100% sure that 100% of it is not being told to the people to help the people gatekeeping information and power.
Vote?
How quaint.
The relationship of your vote to power now after 2020 is the relationship of the tooth fairy to your dentist.
The last vote has been cast. The Dems and the rest, including the GOP can’t climb off that electoral perch if they want to, and they don’t.
More parties don't help either. Trudeau has gotten away with 3 such scandals here in Canada.
"The solution is for voters to vote these fucks out."
I can't remember a single Federal election in my lifetime where either the incumbent fuck stayed or was replaced by yet another fuck. The system was constructed to maintain this dynamic.
Accordingly, I stopped voting decades ago, with the exception of Ron Paul in 2008 and a write-in for 2012.
I simply refuse to participate in a political system that elevates vermin such as Bush II, Obama, Clintons, Trump and Biden to the top of the cesspool. By participating, one legitimizes the system and implicitly consents to the outcome: thus a vote for Clinton was consent to be ruled by Trump, and vice versa.
For the last century or so, election turnouts are around 55%, with 2020 purportedly an exception at 62%.
I would like to see voter turnout plummet, to reflect the fact that the Federal government is utterly corrupt, tyrannical and lawless, with nearly its every act in direct contradiction to the Constitution and morality, and is therefore illegitimate.
I'm not sure at what level of voter turnout it would finally lose its penumbra of legitimacy, but I see that as the only viable, and peaceful, way for us to regain our freedom and prosperity from the parasitic swine who rule us.
If people no longer wish to be ruled by fucks, they need to stop voting for them.
I've voted in every election since I turned 18, I'm 41 now, and would always argue with a buddy of mine who did not vote, would tell him that by not voting you let the system win. I've come to the conclusion that I was so not correct, no matter who you vote for that person will be terrible as anyone who is running for office is an egotistical sociopath. 2020 will be the last election in which I voted, happily wrote in Bernie Sanders, as I did in 2016, as he is one of the very few politicians who seem to actually give a shit about the non-elites in this country. Who else is there to vote for? Dems want to turn this country into some Philip Dickian reverse racism dystopia and Repubs, well, I have no idea what they want as all they do is react to what the Dems are doing or you have McConnell looking creepy, can tell he came into office long ago as he is not photogenic at all lol, while supposedly plotting sinister shit. Our entire system is beyond depressing, best bet is to turn off the news, shit rots all of our brains.
Your original position on voting was correct, just insufficient; it's not enough to just vote, one also has to be engaged at many levels, and especially at being correctly informed (which is increasingly hard to accomplish).
We need _physical_action,_ as in, in-the-streets...
voters are generally not aware of any of this, 90% no clue. The vote for "stuff" so they won't vote these f---- out ever!
they (not the) vote for stuff
Voting is over.
If true, the only recourse is violent revolution. ... You up for manning the battlements yourself? Facing the drones? You and your homies got something to handle the modern sound weapons?
When voting is over, the bloodshed won't be far behind.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
Until the gunfire starts, I'm gonna keep voting like my life depends on it, because it does.
(Of course, that doesn't mean that _all_ I'm gonna do about it is vote! I'm also going to protest in the streets, and, whenever possible AND helpful to (re?)gaining political power in the hands of The People, shutdown roads and bridges and ports, and disrupt business as usual.)
That's right anti-Capitalist, "business" needs to be shutdown.
You are part of the Statist problem. You are a tool.
some of us are strapped up and ready
some of you are reading books
"some of us are strapped up and ready" - sorry icon but I just had to comment as that almost split me in half. I'm picturing you and that new Bill fella as a functioning unit, gray hair and all. With Amy in the back as a combat medic.
"the trades cannot be declared illegal unless it can be proven that either Pelosi acted on non-public information"
Nancy talks to tech CEOs while her husband trades tech stocks. Nancy can be trusted not to pass inside information to her husband because Nancy is a liberal and liberals are infallible. It is misogynistic and dangerous to question her behavior. Leftist bootlickers will soon be soon be squealing for big tech to censor people who do it.
See; Federal rule 406:
If the federal judiciary were not as corrupt as the other two branches of the federal government (the legislative and now the executive under the illegitimate Biden regime)
There are clear legal avenues for trust busting and influence peddling by members of the government:
Rule 406. Habit; Routine Practice...
Evidence of a person’s habit or an organization’s routine practice may be admitted to prove that on a particular occasion the person or organization acted in accordance with the habit or routine practice. The court may admit this evidence regardless of whether it is corroborated or whether there was an eyewitness.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/fre/rule_406
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It seems the laws are good but judges don't enforce them. The judges are appointed by the politicians they are supposed to police.
Unaccountable judges are supposed to resist undue political influence, bias and corruption because their superior moral and intellectual fortitude. People who are of supposedly superior intellect and education seem no better than the rest of us in terms of ethics - the superior intelligence gives them the ability to game the system better than any average person. Unchecked power will probably quickly corrupt any judge who is honest to begin with. Corrupt judges need to be identified just like corrupt politicians but media corporations work hard to prevent that. The oligarch-owned Washington Post says "Democracy dies in darkness". This is a promise not a warning.
I think the bigger problem is the prosecutors. How many of them would be willing to risk it all going after Queen Pelosi?
You are probably right. I recall reading about democrats threatening lawyers who were going to represent Trump in his efforts to challenge the election results and they likely threaten prosecutors as well. Lawyers, prosecutors and judges are the best suited to fight corruption but they don't have the balls, or are complicit in it. Judges are happy to crack the whip on powerless citizens but fear those above them. Justice is blind to corruption. Corporate media is mute. The checks and balances aren't working.
Yeah people gotta stop voting for the "lesser of two evils". You are admitting that people like Biden, Pelosi and Schumer are super evil, which they are. These people do not deserve your vote.
First, we need to clean up the election process, or voting don't mean shit.
What will it take??? Hell if I know, it might take a revolution, nothing else has worked for the last 50 years of dealing with the swamp creatures. They blatantly took out President Trump with the rigged 2020 election.
Now the illegitimate Biden regime is ensconced in the White House as the oligarchy's Meat-puppet. Looks like they got us in a bag and it's all sewn up.
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Yes, ranked choice voting is FAR superior, but BEWARE! It _can,_ and in California _has_ been coopted by the removal of candidates at the ends of counting rounds. This is not only unnecessary, it can and does directly contradict the arguments FOR RCV by eliminating the very people who might well win the next round of counting... That, of course, is the very point of removing candidates along the way!
I'm highly suspicious of RCV. The fiasco in NYC certainly dis nothing to lessen my wariness. I might be convinced by the right system, but I have so little trust that pols will put forward one that isn't gamed for incumbent interests.
Within hours of the AZ Senate announcing a hearing expected to provide a significant update to their forensic audit, we get this from the corporate press:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/15/kremlin-papers-appear-to-show-putins-plot-to-put-trump-in-white-house?fbclid=IwAR1Lnskv5apCJ-VAuJPj6AwpR6dp3ibmOsKag9LNQJA9zc-Jlsdov88tnvw
This lie is really getting tiresome.
The lie persists because it is effective. The proles are easily misdirected. A lie told often enough becomes "truth" and therefore nearly impossible to deconstruct. Thank you, MSM.
TheGuardian's back to Russia again? Good lord. Here's a few gems from them:
> Why Ivanka Trump’s new haircut should make us very afraid
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/18/why-ivanka-trumps-new-haircut-should-make-us-very-afraid
> The uproar over AOC's hair is a reminder that women can't win under the patriarchy
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/12/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-haircut-uproar-aoc-reminder-women-cant-win-under-the-patriarchy
Classics
The Guardian is the NY TIMES if Britain, the Neo-Marxist Corporatist Propaganda rags supreme. They lead the mainstream packs in both nations. They are all monkeyboys throwing turds from their gilded cages.
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"Let them eat ice cream."
As long as it's the store brand for the little people.