https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/taibbi-russiagate-trump-putin-mueller-and-targeting-dissent-w517486

Not as informative as Greenwald's recent piece on Hamilton 68, but you just gotta love Taibbi's style.

"By an extraordinary coincidence, virtually all the "anti-system" movements and candidates that so terrified the political establishment two years ago have since been identified as covert or overt Russian destabilization initiatives, puppeteered from afar by the diabolical anti-Western dictator, Vladimir von Putin-Evil."


And on this decade's most effective propaganda effort so far, the Hamilton 68 dashboard:

"That these people now are being upheld as heroes of liberalism is incredible. Only a few short years ago they were widely derided as the very dumbest people in the country, raving paranoiacs who humped every false lead from Niger to Ahmed Chalabi's hotel suite in order to justify invasions, torture, secret prisons and the establishment of a monstrous, intractable, and illegal surveillance regime. And now we're letting these same people dominate every news cycle when this time, years early, they're already admitting they might be wrong?"

*promote

i would like to say a few things.

first,
i would personally like to welcome my anti-war democrats back to the party.it appears it only took voting in the worlds most successful used car salesmen and professional internet troll to get you fuckers to get off the bench.

saved a seat for ya!../pats seat

second,
while i can admire this woman's passion and self righteous indignation,i refuse to accept her moral condescension,because for all her flowery and bombastic condemnation of anyone who voted for trump was a vote for:racism,sexism,bigotry and hatred,and implies she has deep understanding the motivations for voting trump.

i submit that she does not.
i submit that she is a hypocrite.

i submit that while she decries her anger and outrage at the moral ineptitude of her fellow americans for failing to rebuke an obviously unqualified candidate,who openly used racist and sexist rhetoric to appeal to our most base fears and anxieties.

she was missing the main point.the main reason.

so while she stood upon her ivory tower aghast at the horror unfolding in front of her on election night,she STILL did not get it.

she watched in horror as her fellow americans ignored trumps obvious racism.
ignored the sexism.
ignored the proto-fascist verbiage.
ignored the narcissism and petty tantrums.
ignored pretty much everything leading an election night into the surreal and absurd.

because she didn't get it,and obviously STILL doesn't get it.

because voting trump was not a vote for:racism,sexism,bigotry or hatred.
a vote for trump was a "fuck you" vote.
a trump vote was a "no confidence" vote.

now of course there are those who are racists,and sexist and are most certainly bigots and hateful fuckheads..of course.

and there are those who are diehard rightwing republicans...of course.

but the majority of those who voted trump are NOT those people.the majority of americans have..for forty fucking years..tried to utilize a system to counter correct the political establishment only to get fucked in the ass by the very same system they were trying to correct.

you can go look for yourselves.it looks like a clock pendulum.swinging dem and then back to repub and then back again.

and what did the american people get?
nothing.
nada.
zip.
zilch.

they got:
expanding wars.
stagnant wages and jobs.
higher taxes.
higher living costs.
drone strikes and secret prisons.
a two tiered justice system.
private prisons.
debt peonage.

and a government bought and paid for by:big banks,wall street,military industrial complex and multi-national corporations.

all this while the american middle class fell off the map into poverty and working poor.

so while those who voted trump may be politically unsophisticated,they are most certainly not dumb.

they got it.
and they finally understood that the system that they had been raised to believe was "by the people,for the people" no longer functioned at that capacity.

so the very same people who voted for obama and his "hope and change" campaign.
voted trump.
the people who had become politically engaged by the message that sanders brought to the table,either stayed home,or voted trump.

this was a protest vote.
plain and simple.

your fellow americans just nuked the system.
because it was the SYSTEM that was corrupt and no longer was functioning.

i find their choice just as terrifying as you do,but i have to admire the audacity to just nuke the entire system.

but can you really blame them?
they tried for decades to course correct,but the two party dictatorship had a stranglehold,and they served not 'we the people" but money and power.so our fellow americans utilized their one power given to them by the constitution.

and the hypocrisy here is that when bush was in office the left was losing their shit,and rightly so,but when obama was in office all we heard was crickets....and a disturbing silence from the left.(i realize this is an over generalization.there of course was some noise coming from the left).

and this woman is so out of touch that she is convinced that voting trump was a social issue matter?

i am sorry sweetheart,but some things are just not that simple,and condescending from your ivory tower,prattling on about social constructs as if you have been given some moral authority to judge others,only serves to solidify your own tiny and secluded echo chamber.where everybody can smell their own farts and pat themselves on the back for how clever they are,without ever having to critically examine ones own position.

which just means that she will never..ever..get it.

that is my .02 anyways.
take it for what it is worth.

>> ^bcglorf:

>> ^marbles:
>> ^bcglorf:

And meanwhile you lament the loss of monsters like Saddam, Gaddafi and Assad. Well done.

Do you have a citation for that claim?
Meanwhile 1.5 million dead civilians in Iraq, untold thousands of dead civilians from drone attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, hundreds of innocents locked up and tortured at secret prisons all over the world, terror bombings in North Africa, yeah... you've got the moral high-ground here.

And your problem is you hold Saddam guiltless for the Iraqi dead. You hold the Taliban and Al Qaeda guiltless for the Afghan and Pakistani dead. You hold Al Shabab guiltless for the Somali dead. You hold Gaddafi guiltless for the Libyan dead.
What kind of twisted world view do you have were you reject the evidence for the above, but fully and enthusiastically embrace the guilt of those fighting against Saddam, Gaddafi, the Taliban, Al Qaeada and Al Shabab?


Fuck you. That's 3 times now in this thread you've made the same baseless accusations against me. Fuck you. You want to ignore the world wide terrorism and murder that you support, so be it.

Using your standard, we should be invading/bombing China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and half of the world. And to go further, China, Russia, and whoever else should be invading/bombing the US trying to install the type of government they think we should have.

What kind of "twisted world view" is that?

>> ^marbles:

>> ^bcglorf:

And meanwhile you lament the loss of monsters like Saddam, Gaddafi and Assad. Well done.

Do you have a citation for that claim?
Meanwhile 1.5 million dead civilians in Iraq, untold thousands of dead civilians from drone attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, hundreds of innocents locked up and tortured at secret prisons all over the world, terror bombings in North Africa, yeah... you've got the moral high-ground here.


And your problem is you hold Saddam guiltless for the Iraqi dead. You hold the Taliban and Al Qaeda guiltless for the Afghan and Pakistani dead. You hold Al Shabab guiltless for the Somali dead. You hold Gaddafi guiltless for the Libyan dead.

What kind of twisted world view do you have were you reject the evidence for the above, but fully and enthusiastically embrace the guilt of those fighting against Saddam, Gaddafi, the Taliban, Al Qaeada and Al Shabab?

>> ^bcglorf:


And meanwhile you lament the loss of monsters like Saddam, Gaddafi and Assad. Well done.


Do you have a citation for that claim?

Meanwhile 1.5 million dead civilians in Iraq, untold thousands of dead civilians from drone attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, hundreds of innocents locked up and tortured at secret prisons all over the world, terror bombings in North Africa, yeah... you've got the moral high-ground here.

I find the Libyan uprising inspiring and would like to see them succeed in their revolution. I have no problem with the UN playing a supporting role in this conflict. I'd (obviously) be against occupation, ground forces, IMF/World Bank style imperialism, the building of bases and/or the encroachment upon the sovereignty of a liberated Libya.

I guess the question is whether or not we should take the situation at face value or not. Iraq was obviously bullshit from the start, from it's bogus 9/11 and WMD motivations, to the outrageous no-bid contracts and lavish military spending, to it's secret prisons and torture methods, to the gang of corporations that lined up around the block to make a buck. It lacked international support and clarity as to what it's intentions were.

I'm not seeing any of those telltale signs of bullshit here. This situation is not a unilateral US action. It has broad international support. It's purpose is defined and limited in scope, and I don't see the carpetbaggers lining up. If there is evidence to suggest this is another Iraq cluster fuck, I'd like to hear it, but for the moment, I suppose I am "pro war", or at least pro revolution.

Ron Paul is 89% right in this instance.

Torture bad. Assassination bad. Secret prisons bad. Military courts bad. Immunity to whistle blowers good. Corporate/Preventative war bad. Collateral damage bad. Occupation/puppet governments bad.

China's exploitation based, pollution heavy economy is great for CEOs, executive boards and other profiteers whom are insulated from negative externalities; not so much for the rest of us. It is instructive that RP sees this as a positive model of capitalism. It is not.

RP is no Chomsky, but he has a decent handle on the symptoms. What he doesn't seem able to do is to connect the dots to see the bigger picture.

Follow the money. Who benefits from these wars? Big Oil, Halliburton and Military industries are the primary beneficiaries. If you want to get the government out of the war business, get the profiteers out of government. Curb the lobbyists, reform campaign finance laws and reverse the corrupt 5 to 4 supreme court ruling that gives corporations unlimited anonymous influence over our system. I understand that this is easier said than done.

Give the system back to the people and let us decide our own foreign policy.

>> ^blankfist:

Awesome speech. He's right on 100% of what he's saying. 100%.

I urge you the liberal socialists to put forth a candidate that can and will make change. Not false change. All that they do is move around the pawns, and never actually put the real pieces in play.

Not further perpetrate illegal activities under the guise of FISA, Patriot Act, and the fake closing of secret prisons.

You are both socialists? That is the enemy of freedom.

But then again, while we argue the virtues of Socialism, and Capitalism, and whatever the fuck isms the rest of us get fucked over by the revenue man, and the Central Bank.

Only fools argue about small things when the money to run anything is right there, in the central bank and the military industrial complex.

Continue to argue about getting something from nothing. You people want free health care? With the current system who is going to pay for that? Who? That's right, the fucking tax payer. With all due respect, fuck that.

Health-care and many other things should not have a price in the first place. That's what is wrong with the system.

>> ^EndAll:
I at least contributed more than an "Exactly." and offered my opinions and perspective in a respectable manner, while you go the route of mocking me with snarky sarcasm and evade any real response to what I said.


Because I don't generally see any point in debating empty rhetoric with anything other than snark. Otherwise I'd be on LGF all day trying to convince people that Obama isn't a secret muslim, and Soros doesn't control the media.

This flourish of "the worlds wealthiest and most powerful people" is either misinformed, or just empty rhetoric. It's so easy to be willfully ignorant of actual achievements people make when you already hate them.

Here's a few things Obama has done thus far, that I'm not sure how they benefit the "most powerful":

• $19billion for electronic medical records
• Stopped the anti-missile defense plan in Poland
• The Obama administration and Russia announced plans to begin talks on a new START treaty to reduce nuclear arsenals to approximately 1,500.
• Signed an executive order to close CIA secret prisons.
• Signed an executive order to ban torture and subject all interrogations to Army Field Manual Standards that conform to the Geneva Conventions.
• $2,500.00 tax credit for college students
• $2billion for advanced car battery R&D
• $2 billion for Byrne Grants, which funds anti-gang and anti-gun task forces.
• Public Land Management Act of 2009 has put under federal protection more than two million acres of wilderness, thousands of miles of river and a host of national trails and parks. The conservation effort - the largest in the last 15 years - came with the stroke of a pen
• Obama's meetings with Turkish and Armenian officials, Turkey and Armenia announced plans to normalize relations.
• Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attended Gaza aid conference, pledging $900 million in aid in order to "foster conditions in which a Palestinian state can be fully realized."


There's more, but it apparently doesn't matter to a lot of people. Unless he's ended both invasions/occupations of Afgh/Iraq, personally kidnapped and murdered those responsible for the economic clusterfuck, landed Bush/Cheney in the Hague for war crimes, and given everyone a beautiful pony, he hasn't done shit!

A brief list I came across to jog your memory:
3/18/8 – Obama caught world-wide attention for his moving speech on race relations 7/24/8 - Obama lays the foundation for a new era of international relations and began inspiring renewed hope in American leadership during his campaign speech in Berlin 11/6/8 – Obama’s victory was hailed as a promise of hope for the world. 12/1/8 – Obama began plans to restore U.N. ambassador to cabinet rank. 1/22/9 - Appointed a Special Envoy for Middle East peace 1/22/9 – Ordered the closing of Guantanamo Bay 1/22/9 – Ordered comprehensive review of detention policies 1/22/9 – Prohibited use of torture 1/22/9 - Signed an executive order to close CIA secret prisons 1/23/9 – Lifted “Global Gag Rule” on international health groups 1/26/9 – Began to address climate change by increasing fuel standards for automobiles 1/26/9 – Appointed Special Envoy for Climate Change 1/27/9 - Signs Lily Ledbetter “Fair Pay” Act 2/1/9 – Expanded healthcare for children by signing SCHIP 2/5/9 - Again addressed energy conservation by increasing standards for appliances. 2/24/9 – Directed almost $1 billion for prevention and wellness to improve America’s health 2/25/9 - Initiated international efforts to reduce mercury emissions worldwide 2/27/9 – Committed to responsibly ending the war in Iraq 4/1/9 – Agreed to negotiation of a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia. 4/1/9 – Enhanced U.S. – China relations 4/2/9 - Led global response to the economic crisis through the G20, obtaining commitments of $1.1 trillion to safeguard the world’s most vulnerable economies 4/4/9 - Renewed dialog with NATO and other key allies 4/5/9 – Announced new strategy to responsible address international nuclear proliferation 4/13/9 – Began easing tension with Cuba through new policy stance 4/17/9 - Secured $5 billion in aid commitments "to bolster Pakistan's economy and help it fight terror and Islamic radicalism" 4/22/9 - Developed the renewable energy projects on the waters of our Outer Continental Shelf that produce electricity from wind, wave, and ocean currents. 5/8/9 – Proposed International Affaires budget that included funds to create a civilian response corps -- teams of civilian experts in rule of law, policing, transitional governance, economics, engineering, and other areas critical to helping rebuild war-torn societies; Provide $40 million for a "stabilization bridge fund," which would provide rapid response funds for the State Department to help stabilize a crisis situation. 6/4/9 - Gave historic address to the Muslim World in Cairo - "American is not at war with Islam" Foreign affairs experts insist that Obama's engagement with the Muslim world has been remarkable. "He has been able to dramatically change America's image in that region" 8/4/9 - Used DIPLOMACY to free 2 American journalists from a North Korea prison 9/18/9 - De-escalation of nuclear tension through repurposing of missile defense prompting Russia to withdraw its missile plan.

This doesn't even address the recent nuclear de-escalation of Iran (they have revealed a heartofore hidden nuclear facility, and agreed to sell their weapons-grade nuclear material to Russia) due to DIPLOMACY. Neither does it address his wise actions in the Somali pirate situation, saving american lives.

Certainly that would have been part of the motivation but there was also the factor of the Western culture of selfishness and consumerism impeding directly on traditional Islamic values in the Middle East, and the use of secret prisons and rendition, obviously in addition to direct military intervention in sovereign Middle Eastern countries and the staging of coups.

^Thanks for the background, twiddles.

I don't have a problem with our government keeping some secrets. For example, keeping the identity of a covert field agent a secret is probably a good idea. However this administration is run like a freaking star chamber. Cheney refuses to divulge who attended his energy summit. White House aides refuse to testify before Congress. Abu Ghraib is kept hush-hush until a news organization exposes it. Secret prisons are all over the world, and so on. This White House acts like the Kremlin.

And when JFK had someone present evidence at the United Nations, it was REAL evidence.

@quantummushroom.
I like how you picked and choose what evidence the video used to support the points, then dissected that one example instead of looking at the whole issue.

" 2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Liberals want foreign invaders (as well as illegal aliens) to automatically be protected by American law. Abu Ghraib was an anomaly, not the norm."

They also talked about, Long prison sentences, general complacency for assassinations and the like. It's funny that you think Abu Ghraid is not the norm. You need to brush up on your history and current events. Your country has more secret prisons in various countries all over the globe than all other countries put together. Your general disdain for human rights is not limited to Abu Ghraid and illegal aliens... all one needs to do is go to a prison to see that (almost 50% of all your prisoners are there for personal addiction) , but thanks for participating.

"The surveillance of citizens is the one point that disturbs me most as it affects many more Americans than secret prisons. I would have liked to see how Kasich explains how good this is, and also legal. Another post-9/11 power grab that the public still would not know about if it hadn't been leaked to the press. ATT currently filters all their internet traffic and lets the NSA spy on it with no warrants or oversight!! How is this legal?

The interviewer's bias is readily apparent, the best way she could have responded was succinctly answer his questions with facts, no long speeches. They call this a news channel?"


Thanks for the news none of us would have ever known about. Wait no, it's common sense, not the hardest thing to figure out. OMG it's teh spies on teh internets...Son, just admit she prolly does meth, cause she's so strung out and boring to listen to, no one can follow what she's trying to say. Maybe she didn't respond with facts because facts disprove her wack theory. Maybe she knew what Fox News is, and had no business expecting reasonable people to listen to her meth-induced fantasies. You have been served.

I'm reading this book now, and I thought it was a shame she focused so much on trying to sell the book overall instead of answering the guy's questions.
Secret Prisons? We got none, right?

Remember those CIA rendition flights? They take you wherever in the world they want to torture you. No judge, no jury. Secret until somebody leaks it to the press. They even tried to kidnap a guy in Italy but their gov't found out. At least with the Gulags, everyone knew about them.

I find especially idiotic the question of what to do with these enemy combatants if we can't keep them in Guantanamo forever. Hey, I know, let's have a TRIAL where the gov't shows their evidence and lets the accused defend themselves against the charges. It's likely some people who have been rotting away in Guantanamo for 4 years haven't even been told why they are being held. Imagine living like that because some neighbor who hated you told the visiting US Army that you were a Taliban, and whoops, off you go. Does this situation more closely resemble a democracy or a fascist dictatorship, you tell me?

When she finally gets around to mentioning how the UK and Spain dealt with terrorists(following the law, regular trial), he just interrupts and laughs at her, then poses the question again as if she wasn't answering it. An inattentive viewer would just think she was going off on a tangent and didn't answer the question, being evasive because she can't answer directly.

The surveillance of citizens is the one point that disturbs me most as it affects many more Americans than secret prisons. I would have liked to see how Kasich explains how good this is, and also legal. Another post-9/11 power grab that the public still would not know about if it hadn't been leaked to the press. ATT currently filters all their internet traffic and lets the NSA spy on it with no warrants or oversight!! How is this legal?

The interviewer's bias is readily apparent, the best way she could have responded was succinctly answer his questions with facts, no long speeches. They call this a news channel?