Now that is rich, a “bi-partisan” poll, wherein bi-partisan means there is no difference between the Republican establishment and the Democratic establishment, found that half of Americans think the US is in real danger of becoming an authoritarian country.What I find surprising is that the number is so low.What planet are the other half occupying?What is even more laughable is that the poll was conducted by “stink tanks” formed under the auspices of George W. (the constitution is just a God damned piece of paper) Bush and Joe (I am a Zionist) Biden.Well no shit Shakespeare.
What a joke the people most responsible for the dismantling of Democracy in America conducted a poll and found Americans are losing faith in their own government.From CityWatch:
Excerpt:
RESISTANCE WATCH: Half of Americans think the United States is in “real danger of becoming a nondemocratic, authoritarian country.” A majority, 55 percent, see democracy as “weak” — and 68 percent believe it is “getting weaker.” Eight in 10 Americans say they are either “very” or “somewhat” concerned about the condition of democracy here.
These are among the sobering results of a major bipartisan poll published Tuesday that was commissioned by the George W. Bush Institute, the University of Pennsylvania’s Biden Center and Freedom House, which tracks the vitality of democracies around the world… (I’m going to barf).
“We hope this work can be a step toward restoring faith in democracy and democratic institutions,” Bush said in a statement. (Ha, ha what a laugh) The concern about the condition of democracy inside the United States transcends the tribal divide between Republicans and Democrats, with majorities across races, genders, age groups, levels of education and income brackets expressing fear. (Those majorities are the people who have no representation in government)
Hey dipsticks you don’t have to pay millions to your stink tanks, the GW Bush Institute and the Biden Center and (cough, cough) Freedom House to figure out why Americans believe that our government has been taken over by fascist forces like the RNC and DNC. Here’s a twenty-year study that doesn’t cost you anything. From City Watch LA:
Excerpt:
Have you ever felt like the government doesn’t really care what you think?
Professors Martin Gilens (Princeton University) and Benjamin I. Page (Northwestern University) looked at more than 20 years’ worth of data to answer a pretty simple question: Does the government represent the people?
Their study took data from nearly 2000 public opinion surveys and compared it to the policies that ended up becoming law. In other words, they compared what the public wanted to what the government actually did. What they found was extremely unsettling: The opinions of the bottom 90% of income earners in America has essentially no impact at all.
Princeton University study: Public opinion has “near-zero” impact on U.S. law.
Gilens & Page found that the number of Americans for or against any idea has no impact on the likelihood that congress will make it law. “The preferences of the average American appear to have only a miniscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”
One thing that does have an influence? Money.While the opinions of the bottom 90% of income earners in America have a “statistically non-significant impact,” Economic elites, business interests, and people who can afford lobbyists still carry major influence.
Nearly every issue we face as a nation is caught in the grip of corruption. From taxation to national debt, education to the economy, America is struggling to address our most serious issues. Moneyed interests get what they want, and the rest of us pay the price.
They spend billions influencing America’s government. We give them trillions in return. In the last 5 years alone, the 200 most politically active companies in the US spent $5.8 billion influencing our government with lobbying and campaign contributions. Those same companies got $4.4 trillion in taxpayer support — earning a return of 750 times their investment.
It’s a vicious cycle of legalized corruption. As the cost of winning elections explodes, politicians of both political parties become ever more dependent on the tiny slice of the population who can bankroll their campaigns.
To win a Senate seat in 2014, candidates had to raise $14,351 every single day... In return for campaign donations, elected officials pass laws that are good for their mega-donors, and bad for the rest of us.
Our elected officials spend 30-70% of their time in office fundraising for the next election. When they’re not fundraising, they have no choice but to make sure the laws they pass keep their major donors happy — or they won’t be able to run in the next election. Until it’s addressed, Corruption will continue to block progress on every issue.
That’s right these bought and paid for politicians can’t understand why the American people hate them. The Democratic Party in particular can’t figure out why their dogs (the Democratic voters) won’t eat the dog food they give them. Both parties are corrupt beyond repair and they still can’t understand why the voters voted for an outsider like Donald Trump to be President.
They are still trying to breathe life into their “Russian collusion” hot air balloon that won’t fly. It’s a lie, a stinking, rotting lie devised before the election as an insurance policy against a Trump Administration and the people know it. America’s founders wrote the Declaration of Independence to declare the states’ independence from the monarchical rule of Great Britain and what we got was an oligarchical rule from the billionaires who own our politicians. From Caitlin Johnstone atConsortium News:
Excerpt:
America Celebrates Lateral Move From Monarchy To Corporate Rule
Today America celebrates its liberation from the shackles of the British Crown and the beginning of its transition into corporatist oligarchy… Fireworks will be set off, hot dogs will be consumed, and a strange yellow concoction known as Mountain Dew will be imbibed by patriotic high-fiving Yankees eager to celebrate their hard-fought freedom to funnel their taxes into corporate welfare instead of to the King.
In trouncing King George’s red-coated goon squad, you made it possible for the donor class to slowly buy up more and more control of your shiny new government, allowing for a system of rule determined not by royal bloodlines, but by wealth bloodlines. Now instead of your national affairs being determined by some gilded schmuck across the pond, they are determined by the billionaire owners of multinational corporations and banks…
The elite class secured its stance as British Rule 2.0 by throwing their money behind politicians who they knew would advance their interests, whether those interests are in ensuring that the arms and munitions they manufacture get used frequently, the expansion of predatory trade policies, keeping tax loopholes open and keeping taxes on the wealthiest of the wealthy very low, deregulating corporations and banks, or enabling underhanded Wall Street practices which hurt the many for the benefit of the few…
So if you’ve ever wondered why seemingly common sense matters like a living wage and healthcare as a right consistently get shot down by your government, this is why… The oligarchs can keep that from happening by continually escalating income inequality. They use their massive political power to repress the minimum wage, to undermine the power of unions, and to continually pull more and more energy away from socialist programs and toward the corporate deregulation of neoliberalism.
America is a corporatist oligarchy dressed in drag doing a bad impression of a bipartisan democracy. Sometimes it doesn’t even keep its wig on; a recent party at the Hamptons saw Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump, Kellyanne Conway and Charles Koch mixing it up with Chuck Schumer and George Soros. When they’re not dining on champagne and rare fillet together, these people pretend to be locked in a vicious partisan battle that is “tearing the nation apart,” but at Lally Weymouth’s annual Southampton summer party the act stops and the oligarchs frolic together like children.
1776 turned out to be nothing other than a transition from one form of exploitative rule to another, but who knows? Maybe a year in the not-too-distant future will see America celebrating a real Independence Day.
Let’s hope that sometime in the near future there is a real Independence Day, but in the meantime the Oligarchs are calling in their chits and demanding their puppets in the US Senate rein in President Trump’s advances toward peace. They are demanding the Senate bestow some kind of legitimacy on their corrupt FBI’s concocted Russian collusion crap report. From The Hill:
Excerpt:
Senate panel upholds finding that Russia backed Trump, contradicting House
The Senate Intelligence Committee has unequivocally upheld the conclusion of the intelligence community that Russia developed a "clear preference" for then-candidate Donald Trump in the 2016 election and sought to help him win the White House.
The assessment, announced in an unclassified summary released Tuesday, represents a direct repudiation of the committee’s counterpart in the House — and of President Trump himself, who has consistently rejected assertions that Moscow sought to bolster his candidacy through its election interference…
The so-called "intelligence community assessment," or ICA, is a "sound intelligence production," according the Senate panel..."
Senate investigators also rejected the notion that the ICA was inappropriately influenced by politics, as some of Trump's supporters have alleged… The committee says it reviewed "thousands of pages of source documents" and interviewed all the relevant officials who were involved in developing the ICA, from agency heads and managers to line analysts—and "heard consistently that analysts were under no politically motivated pressure to reach any conclusions…"
Move on, nothing to see here. Our spooks weren’t politically motivated, we asked them and they said no. Sounds like a case of “if you can’t dazzle them with your brilliance, baffle them with your bullshit.” Who can trust the Deep State “intelligence” agencies who have been only consistent in one thing, being wrong? Wrong on “911 terrorist warnings” wrong on “weapons of mass destruction,” wrong on the many mass shootings where the perpetrators were well-known to and associated with the FBI or CIA and we’re supposed to believe them now?? From TheAnti-Media:
Excerpt:
Former US Ambassador: Intel Report on Russian Interference “Politically Motivated”
Prominent journalists and politicians seized upon a shabby, politically motivated, “intelligence” report as proof of “Russian interference” in the U.S. election without the pretense of due diligence, argues Jack Matlock, a former U.S. ambassador in Moscow.
I spent the 35 years of my government service with a “top secret” clearance. When I reached the rank of ambassador and also worked as Special Assistant to the President for National Security, I also had clearances for “codeword” material. At that time, intelligence reports to the president relating to Soviet and European affairs were routed through me for comment.
I developed at that time a “feel” for the strengths and weaknesses of the various American intelligence agencies. It is with that background that I read the January 6, 2017 reportof three intelligence agencies: the CIA, FBI, and NSA.
This report is labeled “Intelligence Community Assessment,” but in fact it is not that… The report states that it represents the findings of three intelligence agencies: CIA, FBI, and NSA, but even that is misleading in that it implies that there was a consensus of relevant analysts in these three agencies.
In fact, the report was prepared by a group of analysts from the three agencies pre-selected by their directors, with the selection process generally overseen by James Clapper, then Director of National Intelligence (DNI). Clapper told the Senate in testimony May 8, 2017, that it was prepared by “two dozen or so analysts—hand-picked, seasoned experts from each of the contributing agencies.”
If you can hand-pick the analysts, you can hand-pick the conclusions. The analysts selected would have understood what Director Clapper wanted since he made no secret of his views. Why would they endanger their careers by not delivering?
What should have struck any congressperson or reporter was that the procedure Clapper followed was the same as that used in 2003 to produce the report falsely claiming that Saddam Hussein had retained stocks of weapons of mass destruction. That should be worrisome enough to inspire questions, but that is not the only anomaly.
Unusual FBI Participation
During my time in government, a judgment regarding national security would include reports from, as a minimum, the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) of the State Department.The FBI was rarely, if ever, included unless the principal question concerned law enforcement within the United States…
What did I notice when I read the January report? There was no mention of INR or DIA! The exclusion of DIA might be understandable since its mandate deals primarily with military forces, except that the report attributes some of the Russian activity to the GRU, Russian military intelligence. DIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, is the U.S. intelligence organ most expert on the GRU. Did it concur with this attribution? The report doesn’t say.
The omission of INR is more glaring since a report on foreign political activity could not have been that of the U.S. intelligence community without its participation…This is where due diligence comes in. The first question responsible journalists and politicians should have asked is “Why is INR not represented? Does it have a different opinion? If so, what is that opinion?
The second question should have been directed at the CIA, NSA, and FBI: did all their analysts agree with these conclusions or were they divided in their conclusions? What was the reason behind hand-picking analysts and departing from the customary practice of enlisting analysts already in place and already responsible for following the issues involved?
As I was recently informed by a senior official, the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence Research did, in fact, have a different opinion but was not allowed to express it. So the January report was not one of the “intelligence community,” but rather of three intelligence agencies,two of which have no responsibility or necessarily any competence to judge foreign intentions.
The second thing to remember is that reports of the intelligence agencies reflect the views of the heads of the agencies and are not necessarily a consensus of their analysts’ views. The heads of both the CIA and FBI are political appointments…
Prominent American journalists and politicians seized upon this shabby, politically motivated, report as proof of “Russian interference” in the U.S. election without even the pretense of due diligence. They have objectively acted as co-conspirators in an effort to block any improvement in relations with Russia, even though cooperation with Russia to deal with common dangers is vital to both countries.
Ouch, seems the highly political report used by the Senate Intelligence Committee is just a load of crap compiled by and for the special interests who want to derail any cooperation between Russia and the U.S. that would cut into their highly lucrative defense contracts.
Oh those wily Russians are at it again, not only did they interfere with America’s Presidential election, now they’ve installed a Socialist president in Mexico! Oh the horrors! From Strategic Culture:
Excerpt:
Andrés Obrador Becomes President of Mexico: Good Prospects for Russian-Mexican Relations
Until now, it has been generally believed that the era of left rulers in Latin America was over. In December 2017, Sebastián Piñera of the National Renewal party, won in Chile after right-wing forces came to power in Argentina (2015) and Brazil (2016). Three leading economies of the continent had right-wing governments. It all changed on July 1 with the sweeping victory held by Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the candidate representing the country’s Left.
His party Morena, the National Regeneration Movement (Movimiento Regeneración Nacional), was formed only in 2014 to lead Obrador to victory over other candidates from political parties that have ruled the country for the entire century. Now he has enough power for implementing drastic changes. The Mexican revolution took place 101 years ago. This is the first time the Left have come to power.
One of the president-elect’s promises was standing up to Donald Trump if need be. His election is a blow to the United States influence in Latin America. The US and newly elected Mexican presidents don’t see eye-to-eye on NAFTA, bilateral trade and border security.
During the race, Obrador had to deny the rumors that originated from the United States, not Mexico, that he had received money from Moscow. As in the course of the 2016 US election, the invented stories were spread around. Then US National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said he had seen “signs” of Russia’s meddling into Mexican election campaign. The affirmation was left unconfirmed as the official offered no details but US Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL), Bob Menendez (D-NJ), and Tim Kaine (D-VA) lost no time to chime in.
So did Enrique Ochoa Reza, the chairman of the Mexican Institutional Revolutionary Party that lost the election. Rumors remained rumors but media did its part to make people believe the concoctions were true. Andres Obrador used the strongest weapon against lies – humor. He jibed the stories to win even more popular support…
Its economy is strongly linked to NAFTA – the economic union US President Trump wants to end so much, replacing it with separate deals. Perhaps, this is the time for Mexico to diversify its economic partners.
Russia, China and other BRICS nations can offer a good alternative to the rocky relationship with the northern partner having become so unpredictable recently. Obrador’s victory may provide an impetus to the development of Russian-Mexican ties, including energy, security and political interaction on the global stage.
The sanctions imposed by the US and the EU have prompted Moscow to expand contacts with other world economies. Russia has a strong diplomatic presence in such countries as Brazil, Venezuela, Columbia, Argentina, Mexico, Chile, and Cuba…
Russia’s strongest trade relationships are Brazil and Mexico, which together account for about half of all of Russian trade in the continent. The Russian twin-engine MC-21 short-to-mid-range airliner with a capacity for between 150-211 passengers offers a potential lucrative deal Mexico has paid interest in.
In January, the Mexican Association of Importers and Exporters (ANIERM) opened its trade office in Moscow. Mexico is eager to explore a partnership with Russia to purchase and assemble helicopters. Mi-35M and the Mi-28NE combat helicopters as well as Mi-17 military transport rotary wing aircraft are under consideration. Russia’s Lukoil energy giant has won two tenders to expand its drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Grupo Maseca and Nemak are operating in Russia.
Experts believe that Obrador’s election is a good chance to spur the Russian-Mexican cooperation in all spheres. President Putin also expressed hope that with Andrés Obrador at the helm, the bilateral relationship will get a new impetus. The two leaders will meet at the upcoming G20 summit, scheduled for November 30–December 1 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
And what does our great leader, President Trump have to say about Mexico’s election of President Obrador? He says congratulations. From ElPais:
Excerpt:
Trump congratulates Mexico’s new president: “I look forward to working with him”
Donald Trump, who has been coming down hard on Mexico over immigration and trade ever since he reached the White House, struck a conciliatory tone on Sunday night and congratulated the winner of the Mexican presidential election, the leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Some of the most contentious issues between both countries include a renegotiation of the NAFTA trade agreement, which is currently blocked, and Trump’s promise to build a border wall that will be paid for by Mexicans.
Speaking on Fox News Sunday, US National Security Advisor John Bolton said about Trump and López Obrador that “in this kind of context, having the two leaders get together may produce some surprising results.”
“I think President Trump will follow through with the same pattern he’s used with other foreign leaders. They look forward to meeting with him, sitting down and talking about these things,” added Bolton in reply to a question about López Obrador’s support for Mexican migrants who cross into the US…
A few months ago, López Obrador – or AMLO, the acronym he is known by – stated that there was one issue on which he and Trump were in agreement: that Mexican workers’ wages have to go up. AMLO, who won the election with a coalition whose main member is his own Morena party, is now being observed with equal doses of hope and misgivings by the rest of the continent.
Congratulations indeed. Maybe a real Independence Day will come in the near future for America and the world. A new day is dawning, one that will wash away the filth left behind by the past two administrations that served as handmaidens for the billionaires who installed them. Perhaps an Independence Day will arrive that finds America as an agent of peace instead of the agent of war and destruction across the world for the benefit of the banks and the military industrial complex.
Rejoice America and the world, a new, real Independence Day is on the horizon. In the meantime George W. Bush and Joe Biden can pay their stink tanks to conduct polls to tell them the obvious. Americans believe they left us on the brink of fascism and voted for Donald Trump to turn the Titanic around.
Anatomy of a corporate, fascist takeover in America
“I served in all
commissioned ranks from second lieutenant to Major General. And during that
period I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business,
for Wall Street and for the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for
capitalism. I suspected I was just part of the racket all the time. Now I am
sure of it.” ~ Major General Smedley Butler
Make no mistake about it, Trump did not win his first
election because he appealed to Republican right wing nationalists, he won
because Republican voters and Democratic voters rejected their establishment
forever-war parties to vote for Trump.We are the “deplorables” the media has branded as racist White Supremists,
bitter and clinging to our bibles.
These fugitives from the two major parties joined ranks in
2016 to “dump the war parties,” the liars and cheats funded by Wall Street
Banks to ravage working Americans and drain every penny from their accounts and
leave them without any representation or say in how our tax dollars are
spent.There is over $21 trillion dollars missing at the Pentagon yet every year they pass another trillion in
the National Defense Authorization Act to provide Crack Cocaine for thePentagon.
This amalgam of scum that has seized control over our government
is neither Liberal nor Conservative, it is Fascism at its worst. Holding a bible and wrapped in a flag in
order to confuse and deceive they support every coup, every bombing of
civilians, every kill list, every assassination, every CIA torture site, every
sanction that kills millions of innocent civilians. Yet they begin their evil work each day with
a prayer.
President Trump beat them at their
own game in 2016 and again in 2020.
These Fascist Oligarchs could not allow Trump to finish dismantling the
fascist structures of the US
Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academe-Think-Tank
(MICIMATT) complex.
In the name of God, these disciples of Satan exact horror,
death and destruction at home and across the globe. These frauds never miss a chance tout their
piety before cameras claiming we are a Judeo Christian nation that is spreading
Democracy. But if it is Democracy they
are offering why do people in their targeted countries fight till death to
remove the interlopers from their country?
Why? Because as Smedley Butler
said, the military are used by the Oligarchs “as high-class muscle men for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the
bankers.”
In his first inaugural address,President Trump recognized the carnage congress has spread across
America:
Excerpt:
Today’s ceremony, however, has very
special meaning. Because today we are not merely transferring power from one
Administration to another, or from one party to another – but we are transferring power from Washington, D.C. and giving it back
to you, the American People.
For too long, a small group in
our nation’s Capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have
borne the cost. Washington
flourished – but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered – but the jobs left,
and the factories closed. The
establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country.
Their victories have not been your
victories; their triumphs have not been your triumphs; and while they celebrated in our nation’s Capital, there was little to
celebrate for struggling families all across our land.
That all changes – starting right
here, and right now, because this moment is your moment: it belongs to
you. It belongs to everyone gathered here today and everyone watching all
across America. This is your day. This
is your celebration. And this, the
United States of America, is your country.
What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but
whether our government is controlled by the people…
January 20th 2017, will be
remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again. The forgotten men and women of our country
will be forgotten no longer. Everyone is
listening to you now. You came by the tens of millions to become
part of a historic movement the likes of which the world has never seen before.
At the center of this movement is a
crucial conviction: that a nation exists to serve its citizens. Americans
want great schools for their children, safe neighborhoods for their families,
and good jobs for themselves. These are the just and reasonable demands
of a righteous public.
But for too many of our citizens, a
different reality exists: Mothers and
children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted-out factories scattered
like tombstones across the landscape of our nation; an education system,
flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of
knowledge; and the crime and gangs and drugs that have stolen too many lives and
robbed our country of so much unrealized potential.
THIS AMERICAN CARNAGE STOPS
RIGHT HERE AND STOPS RIGHT NOW.
We are one nation – and their pain
is our pain. Their dreams are our dreams; and their success will be our success. We share one heart, one home, and
one glorious destiny…
President Trump held true to his promises and the Fascist
Oligarchs despise him for it. From the
day President Trump took office these traitors have conspired with the
CIA/FBI/MI6/Mossad to remove him from office so the carnage could resume. When all else failed they planned the
largest, most widespread election fraud the world has ever seen. This is nothing new in America, there have
always been those in government who conspire to remove presidents who do not
toe the Fascists’ line. From AmericansWho Tell the Truth:
Excerpt,
Major General Smedley Butler
Major General US Marine Corps,
Antiwar Activist: 1881-1940
“I
served in all commissioned ranks from second lieutenant to Major General. And
during that period I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for
Big Business, for Wall Street and for the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer
for capitalism. I suspected I was just part of the racket all the time. Now I
am sure of it.”
Biography
At the time of his death, Major
General Smedley Darlington Butler, also known as "The Fighting
Quaker", was the most decorated Marine in US history; he was the only
person to be awarded a Marine Corps Brevet Medal and a Medal of Honor for two
separate military actions. He had also
become an unrelenting voice against the business of war…
Prior to World War II, Butler spoke out against what he saw as
admiration for Fascism and for Italy´s leader Benito Mussolini. He
was punished for telling an unfavorable story about Mussolini, avoided
court-martial by accepting a reprimand. Because of his rank, he was
able to write his own reprimand and never apologized to Mussolini.
Butler retired from the military in
1931. By then, he was beginning to question US involvement in foreign
conflicts. He had come to believe that
war--in particular WWI--was really a profitable business for the few and at the
expense of thousands of lives. He
thought of himself as a cog in the imperialist war machine.
In a booklet titled War is a
Racket, Butler wrote, "In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the
profits of the conflict. At least 21,000
new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the
World War….How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle?....The
general public shoulders the bill. And what is this bill?
…Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds…For a great
many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I
retired to civil life did I fully realize it. Now that I see the
international war clouds gathering, as they are today, I must face it and speak
out."
War is a Racket grew out of a
series of speeches Butler gave to whatever group wanted to hear his views.
Though he faced criticism, Butler was
steadfast in his beliefs about war, US imperialism, and a growing Pro-Fascist
movement. He spoke frankly and honestly about his experiences and opinions,
and was very popular with the American public.
In 1934, Butler went before the
House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) to expose a conspiracy against
the government. He had been recruited by
a group of wealthy Pro-Fascists who had hoped to use him in a coup against
President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He went along, gathering intelligence
about the plot, and took it to Congress. Butler's assertions were not aggressively
pursued, and the matter was largely dismissed. However, an internal
report to Congress from HUAC confirmed the veracity of the plot.
Smedley Butler died in 1940, but
his presence is still very much alive.
The Boston, Massachusetts chapter of Veterans For Peace is named the
"Smedley D. Butler Brigade", and he is featured in the
documentary The Corporation.
Yes, Smedley Butler brought evidence of a conspiracy to
overthrow the elected President of the United States to congress where it was
summarily dismissed. You could say that
General Michael Flynn is today’s Smedley Butler. The Fascist Oligarchy embedded in our
government assassinated Flynn’s character, financially destroyed him and
physically imprisoned him for telling the truth. Trump pardoned Flynn. Flynn holding true to his oath to protect and
defend the constitution supports Marshall Law to stop this election theft from
happening. From NPR:\
Excerpt:
Backing Trump, Some Ex-Military Officers Spread Conspiracies, Urge
Martial Law
The first time Scott O'Grady made a
splash in the news the Air Force pilot had been shot down on a mission over
Bosnia in 1995. He survived in the woods by eating leaves, grass and bugs for
six days before he was rescued. He
returned to the U.S. a hero, was welcomed by President Bill Clinton and
appeared on the cover of Time magazine.
He's in the news again, this time
for different reasons.
The White House on Monday nominated O'Grady to be assistant
secretary of defense for international security affairs at the Pentagon.
But in a review of his public
statements, CNN found that O'Grady called former President Barack Obama and
some military generals "sworn socialists" in a radio interview. On
Twitter, he endorsed a tweet that called former Defense Secretary James Mattis
a "traitor." And he has backed
multiple conspiracy theories, retweeting the baseless claim that Hillary
Clinton and George Soros somehow helped facilitate foreign interference in last
month's election.
O'Grady's nomination still requires
Senate confirmation. Even if he clears
that hurdle, he's almost certain to be replaced when President-elect Joe Biden
becomes commander in chief next month.
O'Grady, who headed the group
Veterans for Trump during the campaign, is just one of several prominent,
retired military officials who have promoted some of the most outlandish
election conspiracy theories and, in some cases, voiced approval for martial
law.
In many cases, Trump has rewarded
their loyalty.
The best-known figure is
Michael Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general and Trump's first
national security adviser. Flynn lasted less than a month in that job and later
pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. Trump pardoned him on Nov. 25.
Less than a week later, on
Dec. 1, Flynn tweeted his support for the right-wing group, We The People,
which called on Trump to "immediately declare a limited form of Martial
Law, and temporarily suspend the Constitution and civilian control of these
federal elections, for the sole purpose of having the military oversee a
re-vote."
"WE ARE AT THE POINT
WHERE WE CAN ONLY TRUST OUR MILITARY TO DO THIS BECAUSE OUR CORRUPT POLITICAL
CLASS AND COURTS HAVE PROVEN THEIR INABILITY TO ACT FAIRLY AND WITHIN THE
LAW," THE GROUP SAID IN A STATEMENT.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, Army Gen. Mark Milley, has insisted the U.S. military will not be
involved in politics."We have
established a very long, 240-year tradition of an apolitical military that does
not get involved in domestic politics," Milley told NPR in October. "We want to ensure that there is
always civilian leadership, civilian control of the military, and we will obey
the lawful orders of civilian control of the military…"
Now, some former officers have gone
way beyond taking a partisan stance. In
some cases, they've made unfounded
accusations of treason against their political rivals and have called
for suspending the Constitution they once pledged to defend.
Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney recently made the bogus claim that U.S. special operations
forces were killed in Germany when they tried to take over a CIA computer
facility in Germany. HE ALLEGED,
WITHOUT ANY EVIDENCE, that THE CIA WAS
CONCEALING INFORMATION ABOUT VOTE FRAUD THAT FLIPPED BALLOTS FROM TRUMP TO
BIDEN.
THE CLAIM WAS SWIFTLY DEBUNKED, YET MCINERNEY HAS CONTINUED TO INSIST
IT'S TRUE…
McInerney flew more than 400 combat missions in Vietnam and served at
the Pentagon as the Air Force assistant vice chief of staff in the 1990s.
IN A RECENT EMAIL TO THE
MILITARY TIMES, MCINERNEY WROTE THAT TRUMP "WON IN A LANDSLIDE AND THE
DEMS LEFT SO MANY FOOTPRINTS THAT THIS TREASON MUST BE STOPPED!!!"
He added: "This will be the last
free election we have and I predicted it on 2 Nov on the Steve Bannon
Show!"…
Nice to see that NPR is so “unbiased.” It is really rich to
hear the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. Mark Milley, say “We want to ensure that there is always
civilian leadership, civilian control of the military, and we will obey the
lawful orders of civilian control of the military…"
As usual this “civilian leadership, civilian control of the
military” as well as the constitution are fungible and subject to change as the
Fascist Oligarchs desire. Case in point General Lloyd Austin, currently on the
Board of Directors of Raytheon.Surprise,
surprise.From Common Dreams:
Excerpt:
'Bad News': Biden Picks Retired General and Raytheon Board Member Lloyd
Austin as Pentagon Chief
President-elect Joe Biden has
reportedly decided to nominate retired
Army Gen. Lloyd Austin—currently a member of Raytheon's board of directors—to
serve as Pentagon chief, a move that comes after initial frontrunner Michèle
Flournoy faced mounting opposition from progressive anti-war organizations and
activists.
Biden's rejection of Flournoy—a hawk and Booz Allen Hamilton board
member—was viewed as a positive by some progressive groups, but the
reported nomination of Austin was hardly welcomed with open arms.
"Tremendous gratitude to the
over 2,500 individuals who took action and contacted the Senate to block
Flournoy's appointment," CodePink,
part of a coalition of anti-war organizations that mobilized against Flournoy,
said late Monday. "Get ready, Gen. Austin, we're coming for you."
Danielle Brian, executive director
of watchdog group Project on Government Oversight, tweeted that Biden's selection of Austin—who served as
head of the U.S. Central Command during the Obama administration—spells
"BAD NEWS FOR CIVILIAN CONTROL [of the armed forces] and any real distance
from the military-industrial complex.
Others similarly raised alarm about
the selection of another retired general,
particularly one with close ties to the weapons industry, to lead the
Department of Defense amid a growing
push by the Democratic Party's left flank to cut the Pentagon's budget and
bring U.S. wars overseas to an end. According to Politico,
"Biden's transition team has appointed at least four retired generals or
admirals and a former top enlisted Marine."
While the president-elect has vowed
to suspend arms sales to Saudi Arabia and end U.S. support for the kingdom's
catastrophic assault on Yemen, "the
person Biden has reportedly picked to lead the Department of Defense is on the
board of Raytheon, a key supplier of bombs to the U.S.-Saudi war in YEMENTHAT HAS LOBBIED AGGRESSIVELY IN
OPPOSITION TO CURBS ON ARMS SALES TO THE SAUDI-LED COALITION," noted In
These Times reporter Sarah Lazare.
Because
he has been retired from the military for fewer than seven years, Austin—like
President Donald Trump's former Defense Secretary, retired Gen. Jim Mattis—MUST
RECEIVE A CONGRESSIONAL WAIVER TO SERVE AS HEAD OF THE PENTAGON…
Jon Rainwater, executive director
of advocacy group Peace Action, said Monday that Austin's current role on the board of Raytheon—one of the largest
military contractors in the world—is no mere "side issue" GIVEN THE
COMPANY'S STAKE IN ONGOING OVERSEAS CONFLICTS.
"Biden will quickly face calls to block arms sales to the [United
Arab Emirates] that include Raytheon missiles," noted Rainwater, who
said Congress must press Austin on such arms sales during his confirmation
hearings.
"The revolving door between
Pentagon and industry can easily impact policy," Rainwater added. "We have here a double whammy:
1) Concerns about generals instead of civilians in charge and, 2) Working for a mega-contractor who
benefits from some policies and whose profits are threatened by others…"
Civilian control of the military or Military Industrial
Complex control of the Pentagon?Of
course the Biden cabinet is shaping up to be a cabinet of Fascist Corporate
Execs promoting the financial largess that a Biden War Machine can
provide.As Caitlin Johnstone proffers,
why not bypass the person and just award the Corporations with powerful
positions.
Excerpt:
Biden Picks Raytheon Board Member To Lead The US War Machine
The mass media are reporting that
the Biden camp has selected former general Lloyd J. Austin III to be the next
secretary of defense, assuaging fears
among antiwar activists that the position would go to bloodthirsty psychopath
Michele Flournoy as commonly predicted.
As has become the standard ritual for Biden’s cabinet picks, the
mass media are holding a parade to celebrate
the fact that Austin would be the first Black chief of the US war machine while
virtually ignoring the murderous agendas he has facilitated throughout his
career.
As head of Central Command Austin actively campaigned to resurrect the
Pentagon’s spectacularly failed program of trying to arm “rebels” in Syria to
fight ISIS, and in 2014 he backed
immunity for US troops from war crimes prosecutions by the government of
Afghanistan.He helped spearhead the Iraq invasion,
and he is a member of the same private equity fund which invests in defense
contractors as Flournoy and Biden’s warmongering pick for Secretary
of State Tony Blinken.
Austin is also a member of the
board of directors for the war profiteering corporation Raytheon, where
he went immediately after his military career. Raytheon spends millions of
dollars a year actively lobbying the US government to advance policies which
are beneficial to the multibillion-dollar arms manufacturing giant, which of
course means lobbying for military
expansionism and interventionism. The previous Secretary of Defense Mark
Esper also worked for Raytheon, working for years as one of the top corporate
lobbyists in DC under the position “Vice
President for Government Relations“.
And you know what? I say why not.
Seriously, why not? Why shouldn’t the head of the US murder
machine come from a corporation which has made billions of dollars facilitating
war crimes in Yemen? Why shouldn’t the most depraved and bloodthirsty
regime on this planet have its depravity and bloodshed advanced by a
professional war profiteer? The mass
military slaughter of the US and its allies has only ever been about power and
profit, so why not be honest about it?
Hell, why stop there? Why not make
Raytheon itself the Secretary of Defense? Didn’t
the Supreme Court rule that corporations are people anyway? Make Raytheon
the Secretary of Defense, make Boeing Secretary of State, make Goldman Sachs
the Secretary Treasurer, make ExxonMobil the head of the EPA, make Amazon the
CIA Director and Google the Director of National Intelligence. Then
you’d have a completely honest face on the head of the US empire.
It’s absolutely insane that our
world is being dominated by war profiteers who actively push for more violence
and bloodshed because they make money selling the weapons used to perpetrate
it. It’s no less evil than if plutocrats were cruising the world murdering
people and selling their skins for money;
the same number of people would be killed for the same profit incentive, yet
people who would recoil in horror at that idea pay no mind to the fact that
functionally the same thing is happening with corporate powers like Raytheon.
The only difference between the US
war machine and a band of armed crooks murdering people for money is that the
US war machine does it at a far greater scale. As long as that’s going on
there’s no reason to pretend otherwise. Hopefully
people start looking past the smiley faced mask of the empire and begin opening
their eyes to the blood-spattered face beneath it.
President Trump promised to return power to the people and that
posed the greatest threat to the power structure the keeps the people in
continuous subjugation. The November 3rd
stolen election was a terrorist attack against the American people. The stolen
election was a terrorist attack against Americans’ fundamental right to
self-governance. From Pepe Escobar:
Excerpt:
A Biden Presidency Means ‘The Return of the Blob’
What happens on November 3rd? It’s
like a larger than life replay of the famous Hollywood adage: “No one knows anything.”
The Dem strategy is crystal clear, spawned by the gaming of election
scenarios embedded in the Transition Integrity Project and made even more
explicit by one of TIP’s co-founders, a law professor at Georgetown University.
Hillary Clinton, bluntly, has
already called it: Dems must re-take the White House by any and all means and
under any and all circumstances.
And just in case, with a 5,000-word opus, she already positioned herself
for a plum job.
As much as Dems have made it very clear they will never accept a Trump victory,
the counterpunch was vintage Trump: he told the Proud Boys to “stand back”
– as in no violence, for now – but crucially to “stand by”, as in “get ready”.
The stage is set for Kill Bill
mayhem on November 3rd and beyond.
Say it ain’t so, Joe
Taking a cue from TIP, let’s game a
Dem return to the White House – with the prospect of a President Kamala taking
over sooner rather than later. That means, essentially, The Return of the Blob.
President Trump calls it “the
swamp”. Former Obama Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes – a mediocre
hack – at least coined the funkier “Blob”,
applied to the incestuous Washington, DC foreign policy gang, think tanks,
academia, newspapers (from the Washington Post to the New York Times), and that
unofficial Bible, Foreign Affairs magazine.
A Dem presidency, right away, will
need to confront the implications of two wars: Cold War 2.0 against China, and the interminable, trillion-dollar GWOT
(Global War on Terror), renamed OCO (Overseas Contingency Operations) by the
Obama-Biden administration.
Biden became the ranking member of
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1997 and was the chair in 2001-2003
and again in 2007-2009. He paraded as
total Iraq War cheerleader – necessary, he maintained, as part of GWOT – and
even defended a “soft partition” of Iraq, something that fierce
nationalists, Sunni and Shi’ite, from Baghdad to Basra will never forget.
Obama-Biden’s geopolitical
accomplishments include a drone war, or Hellfire missile diplomacy, complete
with “kill lists”; the failed Afghan surge; the “liberation” of Libya from
behind, turning it into a militia wasteland; the proxy war in Syria fought with
“moderate rebels”; and once again leading from behind, the Saudi-orchestrated
destruction of Yemen.
Tens of millions of Brazilians also will never forget that Obama-Biden
legitimized the NSA spying and Hybrid War tactics that led to the impeachment
of President Dilma Rousseff ,the neutralization of former President Lula,
and the evisceration of the Brazilian economy by comprador elites.
Among his former, select
interlocutors, Biden counts warmonger
former NATO secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen – who supervised the
destruction of Libya – and John Negroponte, who “organized” the contras in
Nicaragua and then “supervised” ISIS/Daesh in Iraq – the crucial element of
the Rumsfeld/Cebrowski strategy of instrumentalizing jihadis to do the empire’s
dirty work.
Obama’s Legacy of War, Repression and Inequality
It’s safe to game that a Biden-Harris administration will oversee a de
facto NATO expansion encompassing parts of Latin America, Africa and the
Pacific, thus pleasing the Atlanticist Blob.
In contrast, two near-certain
redeeming features would be the return of the US to the JCPOA, or Iran nuclear
deal, which was Obama-Biden’s only foreign policy achievement, and re-starting
nuclear disarmament negotiations with Russia. That would imply containment of Russia, not a new all-out Cold War,
even as Biden has recently stressed, on the record, that Russia is the “biggest
threat” to the US.
Woke Kamala in da house
Kamala Harris has been groomed to
rise to the top from as early as the summer of 2017. Predictably, she is all for Israel – mirroring Nancy Pelosi (“if this
Capitol crumbled to the ground, the one thing that would remain is our
commitment to our aid…and I don’t even call it aid…our cooperation with
Israel.”
Kamala is a hawk on Russia and
North Korea; and she did not co-sponsor legislation to prevent war against
Venezuela and, again, North Korea. Call her a quintessential Dem hawk. Yet Kamala’s positioning is quite clever,
reaching two diverse audiences: she totally fits into The Blob but with an added woke gloss (trendy sneakers, the
advertised affection for hip hop). And as an extra bonus, she directly connects
with the “Never Trumper” gang.
Never Trumper Republicans – operating especially in Think Tankland –
totally infiltrated the Dem matrix. They are prime Blob material. The ultimate neo-con Never Trumper has
got to be Robert Kagan, husband of Maidan cookie distributor Victoria “F**k the
EU” Nuland; thus the running joke in many parts of West Asia, for
years, about the “Kaganate of Nulandistan”.
Kagan, self-glorified and idolized as a star conservative intellectual,
is of course one of the co-founders of the dreaded neo-con Project for the New
American Century (PNAC). That subsequently translated into gleeful Iraq War
cheerleading. Obama read his books in awe. Kagan forcefully backed
Hillary in 2016. Needless to add, neo-cons of the Kagan variety are all rabidly
anti-Iran.
On the money front, there’s the Lincoln Project, set up last year by a
gang of current and former Republican strategists very close to, among others, Blob stars such as Daddy Bush and Dick
Cheney.A handful of
billionaires gleefully donated to this major anti-Trump super-PAC, including J.
Paul Getty’s heir Gordon Getty, the heir of the Hyatt hotel empire John
Pritzker, and Cargill heiress Gwendolyn Sontheim.
Those Three Harpies
The key Blob character in a
putative Biden-Harris White House is Tony Blinken, former deputy
national security adviser during Obama-Biden and arguably the next National
Security Adviser.
That’s geopolitics – with an important
addendum: former national security
adviser Susan Rice, who was unceremoniously dropped from the Vice-President
shortlist to Kamala’s profit, may become the next Secretary of State.
Rice’s possible contender is
Senator Chris Murphy, who in a strategy document titled “Rethinking the
Battlefield” predictably goes undiluted Obama-Biden: no “rethinking”, really, just rhetoric on fighting ISIS/Daesh and
containing Russia and China…
Close to Blinken is Jake Sullivan, who under the protective
wing of Hillary Clinton replaced Blinken as national security adviser in the
second Obama-Biden term. He will have a top place either in the National
Security Council or the State Department.
But what about The Three Harpies?
Many of you will remember The Three Harpies, as I coined them before the bombing and
destruction of Libya, and again in 2016, when
their remixed version’s push for a glorious sequel was rudely interrupted by
Trump’s victory.When
it comes to Return of the Blob, this is the 5K, 5G, IMAX version.
Of the three original Harpies, two – Hillary and Susan Rice – seem set
to snatch a brand new power job. The plot thickens for Samantha Power, former US ambassador to the UN and the author of
The Education of an Idealist, where we learn that such “idealist” rips Damascus
and Moscow to shreds while totally ignoring the Obama-Biden drone
offensive, kill lists, “leading from behind” weaponizing of al-Qaeda in Syria
re-baptized as “moderate rebels”, and the relentless Saudi destruction of
Yemen.
Samantha seems to be out. There’s a
new Harpy in town. Which brings us to the real Queen of the Blob.
The Queen of the Blob
Michele Flournoy may be the epitome of the Return of the Blob: the
quintessential, imperial functionary of what former CIA analyst Ray McGovern
brilliant christened MICIMATT (the
Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think-Tank
complex). The ideal imperial functionary
thrives on discretion: virtually no one knows Flournoy outside of the Blob, so
that means the whole planet.
Flournoy is a former senior adviser
to the Boston Consulting Group; the co-founder of the Center for a New American
Security (CNAS); a senior fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center; under secretary of Defense during
Obama-Biden; favorite of top Harpy Hillary to be Pentagon chief after 2016; and
once again favorite to become Pentagon chief after 2020. The most delicious item on Flournoy’s CV
is that she’s the co-founder of WestExec Advisors with none other than Tony
Blinken…
Flournoy, more than Blinken, turned WestExec into a certified hit in
the Beltway MICIMATT profiting from virtually no P.R. and media blitzes, and
talking exclusively to think tanks.
Here’s a crucial glimpse of
Flournoy thinking. She clearly states that just a benign American deterrence
towards China is a “miscalculation”. And it’s important to keep in mind that Flournoy is in fact the mastermind of the
overall, failed Obama-Biden war strategy.
In a nutshell, Biden-Harris would
mean The Return of the Blob with a vengeance. Biden-Harris would be Obama-Biden
3.0. Remember those seven wars. Remember
the surges. Remember the kill lists. Remember Libya. Remember Syria. Remember
“soft coup” Brazil. Remember Maidan. You have all been warned.
Yes we are to believe that the people voted overwhelmingly
for a return to the Obama/Biden and Bush/Cheney Administrations. We are to believe that even though President
Trump won more votes from people of color than any Republican in history, Trump
lost. We are to blindly believe that
Americans overwhelmingly voted for one of the architects of trillions in
student loan debt that can never be discharged in bankruptcy court. We are to believe that the Senator who has sought
to destroy Social Security to pay for endless war beat the anti-war
candidate. Fat chance. From David Catron at American Spectator:
Excerpt:
What We Must Believe to Believe Biden Won
We must accept a perfect storm of
implausible anomalies and brazen irregularities.
The Democrats dismiss any mention
of the innumerable irregularities that tainted the general election as little
more than crackpot conspiracy theories. This
is a convenient way to avoid addressing serious questions raised by serious
observers, but it will further undermine confidence in key institutions
that form the foundation upon which the republic stands.
Public trust in government, media,
and even science was already declining before Election Day. This trend will
dramatically accelerate if Americans don’t get answers to questions such as the
following: Why would the voters deliver
the Democrats a comprehensive down-ballot drubbing yet hand the White House to
the worst presidential candidate in living memory?
The only bellwether county out of the 19 that Biden won is located in
Washington State, which long ago went to all mail-in ballots and one-party
rule. We are expected to believe that this is a coincidence.
The last time a Democrat “won” the presidency while his party sustained
a double-digit loss in the House was in 1960, during an election tainted by
probable vote fraud in Illinois and Texas. Still, we’re expected to believe
that Joe Biden achieved the same feat in 2020 with no skulduggery?
Moreover, as Juan Williams admits
in the Hill, “President Trump set a
record last week by attracting the highest percentage of the non-white vote of
any Republican presidential candidate in the last 60 years.” Yet we are
expected to believe that, despite the
worst showing among minorities of any Democratic nominee since JFK, Biden
surpassed Barack Obama’s record-breaking turnout by 10 million votes?
Biden’s “victory” seems even more
implausible after an audit of his performance in remarkably predictive
bellwethers. The Wall Street Journal reports that Biden had a nearly perfect
record of losses in counties whose election results have presaged presidential
winners for decades: “From 1980 through
2016, 19 of the nation’s more than 3,000 counties voted for the eventual
president in every election. Only one … backed President-elect Joe Biden last
week.”
So, a candidate who campaigned
from his basement lost 95 percent of these counties yet won the election?
What of the fabled bellwether Ohio? Last month, the New York Times advised that
if Trump didn’t win there it was over:
Four years ago, Mr. Trump built a particularly balanced coalition among
Ohio’s white voters, winning across education levels. But his support in the
state has waned over the past four years, particularly in the suburbs …
Columbus’s growth, and the expansion of suburbs and exurbs into what used to be
rural and blue-collar areas, might have once spelled an opportunity for Republicans.
But under Mr. Trump the Republican Party
has lost its footing among specifically these kinds of voters — and the growth
in Franklin County plays into Mr. Biden’s hands.
Well,
not so much. President Trump trounced Biden in Ohio, winning the state by 8.2
percent. Suddenly, AP demoted the state to a bit player in
presidential politics:
As Ohio goes, so goes the nation. That’s the way it had been in
presidential elections for more than half a century, until this year, when
Republican Donald Trump won a decisive victory in the state while losing the
presidency to Democrat Joe Biden. Biden
becomes the first president elected without carrying Ohio since fellow Democrat
John F. Kennedy in 1960. Trump’s statewide victory — his second, after
carrying Ohio in 2016 — brings an end to Ohio’s role as a presidential
bellwether and even puts its future as a battleground state in doubt.
What we are expected to believe
here is that the bellwether counties discussed by the Wall Street Journal and
the Buckeye State have been left behind by the rest of the nation in the long
march toward the mandatory lockdowns and mask mandates that Biden wants to
impose on the electorate. In reality, Trump
won Ohio and the vast majority of these counties because absentee ballots were
managed transparently according to long-standing and coherent guidelines in
place long before the election. The only bellwether county out of the 19
that Biden won is located in Washington State, which long ago went to all
mail-in ballots and one-party rule. We are expected to believe that
this is a coincidence.
This brings us to ground zero for election fraud — Pennsylvania. The
Commonwealth illegally changed its election rules before and during the voting
process. Essentially, the
Commonwealth Court and the Secretary of the Commonwealth ignored the General
Assembly and the U.S. Constitution to rig the election on behalf of Joe Biden.
The American Spectator’s Paul Kengor and Jeffrey Lord have covered this
chicanery here, here, here, and here. We are expected to believe that such
stories are conspiracy theories, despite videos showing Democrat
election officials evicting Republican election observers from vote-counting
locations and erecting physical barriers to prevent them from watching.
Finally, we come to the Smartmatic/Dominion software that
was used to tabulate votes in the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan,
Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. As this Fox interview with Trump
attorney Rudy Giuliani reveals, this software was developed in Venezuela and
banned from the U.S. a decade ago.
It’s now been brought back into the country under the aegis of a
subcontractor. Its major design feature is that it allows the vote counters
to calculate how many votes they need to win. Jeffrey Lord has more here. The Democrats want you to believe this is a
conspiracy theory. It isn’t. The Democrats knew they couldn’t beat Trump
honestly, so they’re stealing the election.
In the end, to accept Joe Biden as our
legitimate Chief Executive, we must believe the voters hammered the
Democrats in congressional, state, and local elections, yet decided to elect
the “leader” of their party president. We must believe that he
dramatically underperformed among minority voters, yet received 10 million more
votes than Barack Obama.
We must believe that virtually all
of the reliable election bellwethers were wrong. We must believe that all of
the elections in the swing states were conducted honestly and that the
Venezuelan software used to tabulate the votes was secure. All of this beggars
belief. Joe Biden may be inaugurated in January, but he certainly wasn’t
elected president.
Who you going to believe, your lying eyes or the Fascist
Oligarchs? Barack Obama’s first Chief of Staff was the Zionist Rahm Emanuel who
said “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that
is an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.”
The Corona Crisis hoax was created by the Fascist Oligarchy in
order to “do things that they could not do before” such as shut down the entire
economy plunging millions into abject poverty while engorging the fascist
oligarchs with taxpayer dollars. From RT:
Excerpt:
Billionaires’ ‘pandemic profits’ alone could pay for $3K stimulus
checks to EVERY American – report
American billionaires made so much money during the Covid-19 pandemic
that their profits since March are enough to give every US resident a $3,000
check without cutting into their pre-virus wealth, a new report shows.
Over the last nine months, the 651
billionaires who call the US home have increased their wealth by a whopping
$1.06 trillion, according to a report published Tuesday by
Americans for Tax Fairness and the Institute for Policy Studies. Far from being
negatively impacted by the pandemic-related economic shutdowns, the country’s
super-rich seem to have thrived amid the policies that have plunged so many
ordinary Americans into poverty.
Covid pandemic could push more than a BILLION people worldwide into
extreme poverty, UN warns
The billionaires’ wealth grew so much that they could cut “every man, woman and child in the country” a $3,000
stimulus check and “still be richer than they were nine months ago,”
ATF executive director Frank Clemente said in a Tuesday press release.
The report tracked the fat-cats’
profits from March 18, the approximate start date of the economic shutdowns,
through December 7. The vast majority
accelerated their accumulation of wealth even as ordinary Americans saw their
life savings slip through their fingers, losing jobs, businesses, and loved
ones to the one-two punch of the coronavirus and the political response.
After nine months of raking in the cash, the billionaires’ total wealth
had SOARED 36 PERCENT TO OVER $4 TRILLION – nearly twice the $2.1 trillion
in wealth held by the poorest 50 percent of Americans.
The monstrous cash-pile amounts to
double the two-year budget gap of all state and local governments, a figure
estimated to reach $500 billion thanks to the devastating effects of the
economic shutdowns on tax revenues. It
even approaches the massive sum the federal government spends on Medicare and
Medicaid – $644 billion and $389 billion in 2019, respectively, the report
claims.
While most working- and
middle-class Americans received a single stimulus payment of $1,200 as
part of March’s CARES Act pandemic bailout,
a promised second stimulus check has failed to materialize. The
expanded unemployment program that doled out $600 per week to newly-jobless
Americans came to an end in July, and while President Donald Trump issued
an executive order to bridge the gap with a less generous $300 weekly payment, Congress
has thus far refused to pass a second Covid-19 bailout package even as the rest
of the bailout programs are set to expire at the end of the year.
ONE OF THE CHIEF BENEFICIARIES OF THE FISCAL EXPLOSION HAS BEEN AMAZON
FOUNDER JEFF BEZOS, WHOSE PERSONAL FORTUNE INCREASED 63 PERCENT SINCE MARCH
as locked-down Americans turned to online shopping to meet their needs. The
retail tycoon faced sharp criticism over his company’s alleged mistreatment of
Amazon warehouse workers in the early days of the pandemic, but had he distributed his $71.4 billion
windfall among Amazon’s employees, workers would have received $88,000 each
while leaving their boss just as rich as he was before the coronavirus
outbreak.
And Bezos, said to be the richest
man in the US, wasn’t even the most blessed by Covid-19. That title goes to
Tesla billionaire Elon Musk, whose
wealth grew by an eye-popping 542 percent – from “just” $24.6 billion in March
to $143 billion by December. Musk is about to get quite a bit richer, too,
after his StarLink satellite company won a Federal Communications Commission
auction to deliver bandwidth to hundreds of thousands of rural Americans.
Senate Democrats circulated a
letter earlier this week demanding another $1,200 stimulus payment be part of
the Covid-19 aid package currently being debated in Congress. The party has balked at a
Republican-authored bailout proposal that would exclude individual payments and
include a five-year liability shield for corporations – a measure Vermont
Senator Bernie Sanders derisively dubbed a “get out of jail free card to
corporations.”
Sheesh, the CARES Act should be called the CARES about billionaires
Act. Those figures don’t even include
how much members of congress made using insider information during the “crisis.” Like Rahm Emanuel said a “crisis” allows
congress to do things they could not normally do. You know, like cut Social Security benefits
during a pandemic. From The Hill:
Excerpt:
Social Security Administration is preparing to bar 500,000 Americans
from getting benefits
Over the weekend, the Social
Security Administration (SSA) sent the Trump administration’s Office of
Management and Budget (OMB) a proposal that — if similar to a version leaked
earlier this year — will bar Social
Security benefits from hundreds of thousands of Americans. The document
that leaked suggests the proposal could ultimately prevent as many as 500,000
Americans from receiving benefits. Whether SSA can slip this
through the regulatory process before President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration
may depend on whether SSA and OMB respect the formal regulatory process.
If implemented, the regulation should be undone by the
Biden administration or overruled by Congress.
SSA’s proposal, as described in
press reports, would make it harder for older workers to receive Social
Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits. By law (not regulation), SSA is required to consider age, education and
work experience when determining whether a person meets the statutory definition
of disability.
That is, reflecting congressional intent, the current rules acknowledge
that older workers (for example, workers in their 50s) will have more
difficulty in adjusting to occupational requirements in the national economy
following the onset of a serious disability. SSA’s proposed new regulation
would likely undo these rules to a large extent, making it harder for older
workers to qualify.
I expect the SSA to use a lot of
misdirection and fiction to sell this proposal. The effort will likely center on the buzzword “modernization.” The agency will suggest that the “modern” economy provides many jobs
that even a displaced and disabled older worker can do.
But the issue is really not complicated. In a study published in
the Journal of Disability Policy Studies this year, I conclusively show severe
health problems are widespread among not only SSDI recipients but also among
applicants denied SSDI.
The widespread health problems
among SSDI applicants lead to very limited participation in the modern economy. About 73 percent of denied applicants
have little to no earnings (less than $100 a month). Labor market success
is even less common among those who are awarded SSDI. Further, labor market
success, while still uncommon, is more likely among younger SSDI applicants and
beneficiaries. Hence the need to take account of older age as reflected in the
law and current SSDI rules.
In short, SSA’s proposal to tighten
SSDI benefits fails to even advance past a very basic question about the
suggested policy: What is the point? Looking
at recent or modern data, the current system routinely denies
benefits to older individuals with serious health problems and diminished
prospects in the modern economy. Amplifying these outcomes by
trying to get even more denials is not a rational policy approach.
The proposal would also exacerbate
inequality in the United States along the lines of race and income. More than 25 percent of denied Social
Security disability applicants are Black, a percentage that far exceeds the
percentage of African Americans in the overall working age population.
Additionally, nearly 40 percent of denied applicants live in poverty.
SSA’s proposal to get more denials seems out of touch with regard to many of
the serious problems facing the country…
This elections wasn’t stolen by Democratic or Republican
voters. This election was stolen by
Fascist Oligarchs who despise Democratic ideals. The election was stolen by the same mass
murdering warmongers who stole the 2000 election. The stolen election isn’t right vs. left it
is a fascist oligarchy vs. the people.
