U.S. Bourgeois Political and Media Elites In A Tizzy Because Trump Said Mean Things About One Of Their Number

Tongues are clucking and fingers are wagging at Donald Trump, the current president of the U.S. (and thus the man in charge of maintaining and expanding U.S. global dominance and preserving the hegemony of billionaires everywhere possible) for insulting Mika Brzezinski.

For something like 99.999% of the world's population, Mika Brzezinski is an unknown person. But U.S. political and media elites, who genuinely feel themselves to be at the center of the universe, have the attitude that they are "everybody." In fact, the words "everyone" and "everybody" have been used in regard to this pathetic contretemps.

For days on end now, if you turn on a radio or television, or look at a news website, you're deluged with the scandal du jour, Trump's Meanness to Mika. The U.S. media actually thinks this is something Important. (Apparently any club, or stick, or twig, with which to beat on Trump, will do.) The Washington Post, the hometown "news"paper of the capital city of the global U.S. empire, has numerous articles on its homepage devoted to this trivial story, all breathless in their outrage, shock, and indignation at the caddish, "inappropriate" (the mildest term of condemnation being used in the deluge of denunciations against Trump) behavior of Trump.

Brzezinski is where she is because her Daddy was the notorious imperialist apparatchik Zbigniew Brzezinski, a Polish emigre who harbored a lifelong hatred for and grudge against Russia. Brzezinski was the Man with the Plan to sucker-punch the Soviet Union by luring it into invading Afghanistan. In fact, it  is true to say that if it hadn't been for U.S. machinations, the Soviet Union probably would never have invaded that country. The U.S. conspired to place a regime hostile to the S.U. in power in Afghanistan. Brzezinski, who was the "National Security" Advisor to U.S. president James Earl Carter, advised Carter that the Soviets could be sucked into a war in Afghanistan to bloody their nose, as it were, and as "payback" for the U.S.' self-inflicted Vietnam War (really Indochina War, as the U.S. devastated Cambodia and Laos in addition to destroying Vietnam) debacle.

Brzezinski is the co-host of a pointless TV show on MSNBC, hosted by her lover, Joe Scarborough, called, modestly, "Morning Joe." Scarborough was previously a Republican Congressman, so of course he is a right-winger. This ego trip program is centered around Scarborough spouting his opinions- and he has opinions on every topic, free of any special insight or edifying analysis- with others sitting around a table on a studio set to chat, and with power-system guests, meaning various politicians, polemicists, and what passes for "experts" in the pantheon of the U.S. propaganda system.

Scarborough was a Trump enthusiast and booster, but once the bourgeois elite turned against Trump with a vengeance, Scarborough duly sailed his little media boat with the tide and turned against Trump. So both he and his lover/co-host turned into harsh critics of Trump.

Eventually Trump responded as he always does when he perceives hostility or even resistance, with insults. He called Dear Mika "dumb," and this was taken as something beyond the pale by the blatherariat and various politicians. He claimed she turned up at Mar-a-Lago, Trump's personal Florida Xanadu, with her paramour, bleeding from her face from recent plastic surgery. Trump says the duo repeatedly sought admission through the Magic Gates, and were repeatedly turned away. The media elite were duly aghast at the unflattering comments about one of their own. Republican politicians weighed in, harrumphing that Trump should can the trash talk, as it was unseemly, beneath the dignity of the president (it's certainly not beneath Trump's personal dignity!) and, of course, "a distraction" from important matters, like gutting Medicaid for millions of people, lavishing billions in tax reductions on the ultra-rich, neutralizing the Environmental Protection Agency, increasing the military budget by 11%, and so on. (In that case, let's hope the "distractions" continue for however long Trump remains inflicted on the world as U.S. Emperor.)

Scarborough/Brzezinski then retailed a story asserting that Trump's minions threatened them with a hatchet job in the so-called "National Enquirer," controlled by Trump's longtime friend, admirer, and ally, David Pecker, unless they apologized to Trump and called him to beg him to spike the story. The Washington Post helpfully provided an op-ed slot for Joe and Mika to feed this story to the public.

Pecker rules a stable of pseudo-newspapers, burlesque versions of actual newspapers, that are placed weekly in racks right at tens of thousands of supermarket checkout lines. Thus millions of people see their covers and lurid headlines every week, and are at least subliminally influenced by them. Pecker's rags, with their drumbeat of Trump-boosting covers during the campaign for the presidency, no doubt aided Trump's "victory." (He actually lost to Clinton by 2.9 million votes, but under the bizarre system of U.S. "democracy," he won in the so-called Electoral College, which is what counts, not who people actually vote for.) [1]

Trump's side denied the Scarborough/Brzezinski extortion story, but it seems credible to me.

The Epitome of Elegance: the very debonair David Pecker

Even though Trump is besieged by hundreds of media voices and political hacks, he apparently never tires of punching back, and indeed of picking new fights, gratuitously, as when he speciously attacked the Mayor of London in the wake of a terrorist attack there on June 3. [2] I don't see Trump tiring of the constant conflict, because he thrives on it. Unlike what is often said about bullies, he is no coward. In fact, he's a lot gutsier than his predecessor, Barack "The Drone Assassin" Obama, who always, always, shied away from taking on the GOP, and made numerous attempts to appease them. Likewise he rewarded Israeli prime minister Binjamin Netanyahu for heaping years of abuse and insults directed at him with a 10-year, $38 billion dollar gift of U.S. weapons, paid for by American taxpayers. [3]

One could expect no end to the media's high dudgeon against Trump's rudeness to Mika until another factoid comes along for Trump's power establishment enemies to wax indignant and outraged over. Sure enough, something came along, in the form of a dopey 28-second video of Trump tackling someone at a burlesque "professional wrestling" show, with a CNN logo superimposed on the "victim's" head. Trump tweeted the video (allegedly the work of a known white racist) and the media were off to the races again. CNN issued a pained statement about Trump inciting violence against journalists and neglecting the duties of the presidency.

 And all the while, the major propaganda offensive, "Russian meddling/interference in Our Democracy" has been non-stop political theme music for months now. The Democrats and most of the corporate media (and the prime movers behind this campaign, the secret police agencies FBI, CIA, and FBI that are the beating fascist heart of the Deep State) hope to build that into a crescendo that will oust Trump from the White House.

We shall see. This should be interesting. For the objective, perspicacious analysis that reveals the hidden truth, check back here regularly.

Poor Mika and Joe! Bullyboy Donald keeps PICKING on them!

MEANEST President EVER! He hurt Mika's feelings! And he exterminated Native Americans! And lots of Filipinos! And overthrew governments and imposed murderous fascist regimes in those countries! And he NUKED two defenseless cities! And laid waste to Vietnam and Cambodia and Laos! And... Oh wait, that was other presidents. Never mind.....

1]  An example of Pecker using the rags he controls to help Trump was his publication during the GOP presidential primaries of a photo of Ted Cruz's fascist fanatic father next to CIA agent (not CIA officer) Lee Harvey Oswald, with the imputation that Cruz senior was involved in the JFK assassination, for which Oswald was the fallguy. When Trump picked up on this, he was roundly denounced by much of the media blatherariat, who are ever-alert and allergic to any examination of that assassination. (The picture proves nothing about Cruz senior's involvement with the JFK hit, of course.) Ted Cruz was also running for the GOP nomination for president at the time.

For a timely description of Pecker, his "career" as a purveyor of media garbage, and his intimate ties to Trump, see "The National Enquirer’s Fervor for Trump ," The New Yorker, July 3, 2017 issue.


2]  See "Anti-Muslim Bigot & Demagogue U.S. President Trump Slimes London Mayor After Terrorist Attack," June 5, 2017.

3]  Two caveats to the Obama Cowardly Bully thesis. One is that he was a reactionary, who never had any intention of even trying to enact progressive policies. All his campaign rhetoric to the contrary was standard  Democratic Party deception, perfected over several decades by that vile gang. Second, one wonders if he was trying to "triangulate" in the manner of his predecessor as president, fellow accomplished-con-man Bill "Mass Murderer Times 4" Clinton. Clinton outflanked Congressional Republicans on their right, gutting welfare and instituting 60 new Federal death penalty crimes, among other things. Then-leader of the House GOP, the political mountebank Newt Gingrich, felt compelled to go along. Obama tried something similar with his healthcare "reform," devised originally by the far-right wing Heritage Foundation. To his surprise, the Republicans in Congress adamantly refused to provide even a single vote for it. Apparently Obama hadn't read the news reports of Senate GOP Boss Mitch McConnell stating the Republican priority for the Obama regime- to ensure its "failure." The fact that the Gang Of Plunderers announced in advance their plan for total obstructionism wasn't enough to stop Appeaser-In-Chief Obama from repeatedly trying to craft rightwing legislation they would support. And when Obama was first elected, the Democrats held majorities in both Congressional chambers, and could have enacted progressive legislation. But then, this is a party that has had ample opportunities to repeal the anti-labor Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, which is a key factor in the destruction of labor unions in the U.S. Yet they never had.

Unions that continue to support the Democratic Party are the equivalent of abused wives who never leave their abuser.

Still, the thesis stands. Obama consistently kow-towed to the powerful (like the financial industry) and took out his wrath on the weak, such as when he ordered the assassination of the 16-year-old son of Anwar al-Awlaki (who was driven into exile by the FBI and became a propagandist for al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula) and arranged for the Egyptian secret police to break the arm of peace agitator Medea Benjamin in retaliation for interrupting one of his orotund, mendacious speeches. Or keeping political prisoner and then Army soldier Chelsea Manning naked for a year in a Marine Corps brig prior to being railroaded for revealing U.S. crimes to the world via a document transfer to WikiLeaks. Or the incredible persecution of Julian Assange. Or many more examples. For an excellent documentary on some of the lengths the U.S. has gone to "neutralize" Assange, using Britain and Sweden (and even Assange's native Australia) as willing puppets, see "Sex, Lies and Julian Assange," by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation 4 Corners Program. It used to be available free on youtube, but now you have to pay. I downloaded it before that happened.

For Medea Benjamin, See "Obama Has Egyptian Military Regime Break American Peace Activist's Arm," March 8, 2014, and "Medea Benjamin’s Arm 'Wakes Me Up Every Single Night in Pain,'*" July 2, 2014.

China Joins U.S. As Outlaw Nation

China’s claims over huge swaths of the South China Sea are illegal under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

So ruled the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, Netherlands. [1]

China is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and thus is legally obligated under that treaty to abide by decisions of the Court. [Fat chance.]

In reaction to the Court's ruling, China's government and media (which is part of the government) have gone into paroxysms of denunciation and hysterical vows to ignore the ruling. Even before the official ruling, Chinese propagandists were issuing crazed rants, for example a front-page editorial spewed out the day before the Court issued its decision, by the so-called People’s Daily, blaring a conspiracy theory line that the case was a US and Philippine plot against China, a sneaky trap set by the US and the Philippines with the Court acting as an accomplice.

[I might interject here that, contrary to my somewhat misleading title, China isn't just now becoming an outlaw nation. Its invasion and absorption of Tibet was a criminal act also. And it has long been guilty of numerous, severe abuses of human rights. Oh, and it invaded Vietnam in 1979, an act of unprovoked aggression. (Actually the "provocation" was that Vietnam had the temerity to overthrow the mass murdering Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. The U.S. was also mad at Vietnam for doing that.)]

China did not defend itself in the Court, obviously because it knew it didn't have a leg to stand on legally or factually, and it had already determined in advance that it would ignore the Court's decision. China claims, absurdly, that most nations support its illegal position on the series of disputes in the South China Sea.

The other nations whose feet China has been stomping on regarding their territorial claims and rights of free navigation and fishing, are Malaysia, Japan, Indonesia, Thailand, Brunei, Taiwan (which China insists is a mere "province" of China), and Vietnam, that last one a country China has repeatedly invaded over the centuries, including in 1979 with the connivance of the Carter regime of the U.S.  [2]

China is a lovely neighbor, eh?

Only the Philippines had the guts to bring suit (so far) against China. It filed the case last year.
China is trying to grab undersea oil and gas, as well as hog the fish in the area. It has been caught illegally fishing in the territorial waters of other nations in the region. In return, its navy chases the fishing boats of other countries out of international waters, which it illegally claims as Chinese territorial waters.

Part of China's scheme has been creating artificial islands, reinforced with military runways and bases, around which it then claims territorial waters. The Court rejected this tawdry scam in its ruling.  [3]

But the Court, lacking a navy, has no enforcement powers over China, It can't even freeze Chinese assets or bar China from the international financial system -only the U.S. has those powers.

There is a superceding law over all the formal laws and treaties in "international relations." It's an unwritten law; The Law of the Jungle. The principle of that "law" is, Might Makes Right.

In other words, as long as you can get away with it, it's "legal." Because you just declare it so.
Put another way, the powerful decide what the rules are, regardless of what's written down on some piece of paper they solemnly signed and ratified (aka a "treaty").

Such as when the regime of Bush the Younger declared U.S. torture wasn't torture, merely "enhanced interrogation techniques," a smarmy, slimy euphemism persisted in to this day by the U.S. corporate propaganda system, known by the opaque and evasive term, "the media."

And invading Iraq on a trump-up, transparently fraudulent pretext wasn't criminal aggression. (But the U.S. has been invading places since 1812. It's a tradition, you see.)

Speaking of the U.S, so far the U.S. response to China's contemptuous spitting on its international obligations under the treaty it signed, has been quite muted. Nothing from Obama, or even John "Skull and Bones" Kerry, the U.S. Secretary of State. Just an anodyne, milquetoast burp from State Department chief mouthpiece John Kirby, saying, while not being able to comment yet on the merits of the case, the U.S. supports the rule of law and peaceful efforts to resolve maritime disputes. (The merits were already decided, Kirby, by the body empowered to decide them! And the Court vote was 5-0. Sounds pretty definitive to me.)

Highlights of the absurd, evasive, head-ducking press release from State Department Chief Flack Kirby:

"The United States strongly supports the rule of law. " [Actually it only supports it when it's in the U.S. "interest." Otherwise fuck the law. See for example invasion of Iraq, torture, subversion and overthrow of "hostile" government, assassinations, gross human rights violations domestically and abroad, etc. In fact, the U.S. doesn't even respect its own domestic laws or Constitution. Its police are virtually above the law, for example. Its police and secret police routinely violate the "guaranteed" rights of the Constitution, and always have. Officials break numerous laws all the time with impunity. If a big enough scandal erupts from lawbreaking, such as Reagan's criminal Iran-contragate conspiracy, a price is paid- namely "embarrassment." Man, if "embarrassment" were the only penalty for crimes, I'd be a bank robber! (Not really. Unlike the people in power here, some of us have a moral compass.)]

More from Kirby:

“In the aftermath of this important decision, we urge all claimants to avoid provocative statements or actions,” he said, splitting the non-existent difference. Now you all behave yourselves.

"We are still studying the decision and have no comment on the merits of the case... As provided in the Convention, the Tribunal’s decision is final and legally binding on both China and the Philippines. The United States expresses its hope and expectation that both parties will comply with their obligations." [My emphases. So even-handed! The ruling went almost totally against China. And why does the U.S. "have no comment on the merits of the case"? The merits have been decided, you just effectively admitted, Kirby.]

In fact, much of the statement is written as if the Court decided nothing. It urges the parties to "clarify" their claims and "work together to manage and resolve their disputes." Well they tried that already, that's why the Philippines went to Court! China is openly defying the ruling of the Court, despite the fact that they signed a treaty agreeing to accept dispute resolution through the Court. Now what's the U.S. gonna do about it?  [4]

It has alliances, official and unofficial, with most of the countries on that list that China is pushing around. China has declared, quite furiously, that it intends to push ahead with its absorption of the various islands, reefs, rocks, and vast ocean area it claims as its property. The other nations cannot successfully confront China's military unless the U.S. military backs them up.

Best case scenario is that Obama steps up to the plate, and China backs down in a confrontation. But what happens in a decade or two, when China's military is stronger, maybe much stronger?

But there's no reason to assume Obama will even risk a confrontation at present. His punking out when Assad, the Butcher of Syria, crossed Obama's "red line" over using chemical weapons, does not inspired confidence. Obama is good at attacking the weak. Confronting even the somewhat strong is too risky for his taste. Backing down from China will be a green light for increasing Chinese aggressiveness.

They've thrown down the gauntlet to the U.S. So far the U.S. is pretending not to notice.



1]  The Court issued a press release and the judgment, which they call an "Award," as English .pdfs, July 12. Click on the indicated links for those. The judgment is 501 pages, by the way.

2]  I remember well how the Chinese dictator at the time in 1979, Deng Xiaoping, came to the U.S. to be officially feted by president "Jimmy" Carter, and immediately after Deng left, China invaded Vietnam. Being a "cynic," that is, someone who isn't brainwashed by the crap in this country, I thought at the time that there was probably some connivance between the U.S. and China, given the timing, and the grudge the U.S. held against Vietnam for not surrendering after the U.S. killed at least 3 million Vietnamese, dropped 6 million tons of bombs on Vietnam (three times the tonnage the U.S. dropped in World War II), permanently poisoned the land with defoliants contaminated with carcincogenic, neurotoxic, and DNA-damaging dioxins, and the commisions of numerous war crimes and atrocities. Carter said the U.S. didn't owe Vietnam any apology (much less reparations) because "the destruction was mutual." (Yeah, the U.S. bombed Vietnam, and Vietnam shot down some of the bombers. So it's even.)

The Carter regime of course lied through their teeth and denied they'd had the slightest inkling of the impending invasion. (And this with the massive U.S. global surveillance system. Even if the Chinese couldn't resist sharing their plan with the U.S. so they could mutually gloat in advance, U.S. communications intercepts and satellite and airplane surveillance couldn't possibly have missed the military build-up on Vietnam's borders and the preparations for invading.) As it turned out, the Vietnamese beat back the Chinese invaders.

Some years later, the sinister Count Dracula lookalike, Zbigniew Brzezinski, a Russian-hating Pole who was Carter's eminence grise as head of the "National Security Council," couldn't resist boasting about how Deng had told the American rulers of the impending invasion. The Carter regime imperialists couldn't have been happier.

Brzezinski, by the way, successfully plotted to lure the Soviet Union into invading Afghanistan, another crime he unwisely boasted about. [See Brzezinski in his own words, from Le Nouvel Observateur (France), Jan 15-21, 1998, although I can't vouch for the English translation. Also "THE STRATEGIC MIND OF ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: HOW A NATIVE POLE USED AFGHANISTAN TO PROTECT HIS HOMELAND," whose author interviewed Brzezinski, former CIA Director Robert Gates, who oversaw an operation to arm violent Afghan religious fanatics, the so-called Muhajideen, "Holy Warriors," starting six months before the Soviet invasion,  high government apparatchiks Walter Slocombe, David Aaron, Dennis Ross, Leslie Gelb, leading Democratic Party operative Bob Shrum,  Jim Mowrer, and journalist Hedrick Smith.

There are brief summaries of Brzezinski's anti-Soviet plot, which eventually culminated in the Afghanistan we have today, at "Brzezinski Vision to Lure Soviets into ‘Afghan Trap’ Now Orlando’s Nightmare," Huffington Post, June 10, 2016.

Here's Brzezinski's flippant dismissal of the immense "blowback" the U.S. and much of the rest of the world has suffered from the policy he sold to his stupid boss, president Carter:

“What was more important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Muslims or the liberation of central Europe and the end of the Cold war?”
("Afghanistan: The Soviet Union's Vietnam," Aljazeera, April 23, 2003.)

Carter was and has often been sold to the U.S. public as a "peanut farmer," but more pertinently he was a career naval officer who served on atomic missile submarines. He was steeped and marinated in the culture of U.S. imperialism and anti-Soviet ideology. He increased the military budget by 50% during his single four-year term in office, a fact that is never mentioned in the U.S.

Carter also initiated the contra terrorist war against Nicaragua. And before that, to get around Congress, he secretly had Israel supply arms to the dying regime of the evil dictator Somoza. On top of  that, Carter declared that the Shah of Iran, rated as the worst dictator in the world by Amnesty International when he was in power, as a "good friend." As with Somoza, he tried to save him (and was considered a weakling by U.S. fascists when that proved impossible).

Jimmy Carter, getting to live to a ripe old age in his 90s, unlike so many of his victims, has reinvented himself (with U.S. media help) as some kind of Great Humanitarian. Yeah, right.
By the way, Deng Xiaoping ordered the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. Hey, you can't make an omelet without breaking a few thousand eggs! (The "omelet" being the continual rule of bastards in power.)

3]  See for example, "China has reclaimed 3,200 acres in South China Sea, Pentagon says," PBS NewsHour, May 13, 2016. PBS is the Public Broadcasting Service, set up by the U.S. government and funded in part by large corporations and a slew of major haute bourgeois foundations, plus U.S. government money and viewer donations.

4]  I've reprinted the entire State Department press release here, so you don't have to have your ip address snatched up by the U.S. government and spyware planted on your computer.  But if you insist on verifying the accuracy of it, click on the title below:

Decision in the Philippines-China Arbitration
Press Statement
John Kirby
Assistant Secretary and Department Spokesperson, Bureau of Public Affairs
Washington, DC
July 12, 2016

The decision today by the Tribunal in the Philippines-China arbitration is an important contribution to the shared goal of a peaceful resolution to disputes in the South China Sea. We are still studying the decision and have no comment on the merits of the case, but some important principles have been clear from the beginning of this case and are worth restating.

The United States strongly supports the rule of law. We support efforts to resolve territorial and maritime disputes in the South China Sea peacefully, including through arbitration.

When joining the Law of the Sea Convention, parties agree to the Convention’s compulsory dispute settlement process to resolve disputes. In today’s decision and in its decision from October of last year, the Tribunal unanimously found that the Philippines was acting within its rights under the Convention in initiating this arbitration.

As provided in the Convention, the Tribunal’s decision is final and legally binding on both China and the Philippines. The United States expresses its hope and expectation that both parties will comply with their obligations.

In the aftermath of this important decision, we urge all claimants to avoid provocative statements or actions. This decision can and should serve as a new opportunity to renew efforts to address maritime disputes peacefully.

We encourage claimants to clarify their maritime claims in accordance with international law -- as reflected in the Law of the Sea Convention -- and to work together to manage and resolve their disputes. Such steps could provide the basis for further discussions aimed at narrowing the geographic scope of their maritime disputes, setting standards for behavior in disputed areas, and ultimately resolving their underlying disputes free from coercion or the use or threat of force.

Hooboy! This China thing is gonna be sticky! State Department 
Flack-in-Chief John Kirby. Maybe he should have taken the day off.

Self-fancied Master of International Intrigue Zbigniew Brzezinski.

"Peace and Love, Everybody!" James Earl "Jimmy" Carter.

Deng Xiaoping, erstwhile paramount ruler of China, 
finally deceased after a long, destructive life