Was the Pecker Gang "Extorting" Jeff Bezos or "Negotiating" With Him? BOTH!

Currently there is a tiff between The World's Richest Man, Amazon.com Supremo Jeffrey Bezos, and The World's Sleaziest Man, David Pecker, Boss of Bosses at a tawdry racket named American Media Inc. (Sooo, patriotic, that name!) AMI publishes smarmy, sensationalist rags sold at supermarket checkout stands, the most notorious of which is named the "National Enquirer." It specializes in ginned up sex scandals and celebrity gossip. Its target audience is bored housewives and others with low intellectual standards attracted by the tawdry. [1]

An AMI executive and an AMI lawyer sent letters to the lawyer of the investigator Bezos had assigned to find out how AMI got photos and private emails of him and his mistress. These two threatening to publish nude photos of Bezos (which they described in detail) UNLESS Bezos agreed to issue a public statement retracting his claim that AMI had a political motive in going after him, which they called "libel," and stuck to that position in future. More tellingly, AMI demanded that Bezos stop investigating how they obtained his emails and the photos. In other words, a classic case of both blackmail and extortion.

Rather than knuckling under to this criminal extortion/blackmail attempt, Bezos went public with it, exposing AMI's action.

The result in the establishment jabbersphere has been an avalanche of quizzical questions, Is It Or Isn't It Extortion? AMI, after a period of silence where they imitated a deer frozen in oncoming headlights, recovered their composure and said they were merely "negotiating" "in good faith," just a perfectly normal business practice! Much of the jabbersphere made it a He Said He Said story.

But that won't wash with this fact set.

Kidnappers negotiate ransom payments. Hostage-takers negotiate their demands. Criminals can negotiate in the commission of their crimes. Happens all the time. A bank robber can demand X amount of money, and be told it's not available, and settle for a lesser amount.


Blackmailers and extortions ALWAYS negotiate with their victims! They present their demands, and the victims respond. There is a back-and-forth about terms and conditions. Likewise with kidnappers.

The backstory here is that Bezos owns The Washington Post newspaper, which has been relentless in documenting Trump's endless firehose of lies, and is also upset that Trump is allowing the Saudi Arabian regime to get away with murdering one of their contributors, the Saudi Jamal Khashoggi. Pecker is a close friend and ally of Trump, who during the campaign used the rags he controls to relentlessly promote Trump every single week, and denigrate Trump's Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. Furthermore, AMI made illegal undeclared campaign contributions in the form of paying off at least one woman Trump has sexual relations with, by buying exclusive rights to her story and then not publishing it, effectively silencing her. AMI subsequently entered a plea agreement with Federal prosecutors. In return for no criminal charges being brought, AMI agreed to cooperate with their investigation, and to commit NO MORE CRIMES for a period of three years.

The fact that AMI tried to blackmail Bezos into ceasing to investigate how they obtained their material on him, led Bezos to believe that Trump had obtained or given it to them to use to embarrass him and pressure him to jerk the Washington Post's leash and ease up on criticizing Trump. Another suspicion was that Saudi Arabia was involved. Pecker put out, at company expense, a preposterous 100-page glossy magazine positively glorifying the murderous "crown prince" of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, who has been bombing Yemen and starving its population with essential U.S. help, and who ordered the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi last year.

What a WONDERFUL tyrant!

The commentator Glenn Greenwald, who usually is trenchant and on-the-mark in his analyses, made a logically flawed argument about the case to say that it wasn't clear if it was extortion, it was in a grey area, because it happens all the time that people accuse each other of libel and then arrange to stop libeling each other. Except Bezos was NOT being libeled by AMI (AMI CLAIMED Bezos was libeling AMI by asserting they had a political motive in attacking him- which they obviously do), and Bezos never claimed they were libeling him. They published the true fact that he was having an affair, with whom, and of course embarrassing photos that are really of him are not libelous.

The "business model" of AMI is extortion and blackmail, coercing celebrities wishing to avoid career-damaging embarrassment to provide juicier "dirt" on others or to cooperate in other ways. Unsurprising that the sleazy Pecker is pals with the mega-grifter Trump. Trump attracts to himself like a dustmop collecting dirt dodgy and disreputable hustlers like Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen the Fixer, political mountebank and saboteur Roger Stone, and novice grifter Michael Flynn, who was in the pay of Turkey. Trump has frequently broken the law over the years, and he and his family have committed tax fraud for years and defrauded their tenants, as documented by the New York Times.  [2]

A number of Trump's appointed government officials have committed multiple acts of graft and corruption and malfeasance, such as his first EPA head Scott Pruitt, his first Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, Ben "$30,000 Office Chair We Paid For" Carson, and others.

Previous regimes did a better job of hiding their moral corruption than this gang.

An example of the fine "journalism" produced by "American" Media, Inc. 

The barracuda bares its teeth: David Pecker, Sleaze Personified.

"You dirty little PECKER!"

1] There are other "titles" in AMI's staple of garbage publications. All peddle celebrity gossip and fluff, sexual titillation, and sensationalistic nonsense. These include a cheesier version of the Time Inc. magazine People, named Us (sic!). They used to publish an absurd supermarket tabloid, Weekly World News, which relentlessly promoted- in all seriousness, NOT tongue-in-cheek- fake stories of extraterrestrial aliens on earth, complete with cooked-up photos. The people who churned out this brain-poison for the lower uneducated classes were Harvard graduates. Cynical, soulless, amoral graduates, I presume. Calling such garbage, peddled year after year, and not as satire or irony, is properly viewed as psychological warfare against credulous members of the hoi polloi. Keep them dumb and distracted and confused. 

2] See from the New York Times, "Trump Engaged in Suspect Tax Schemes as He Reaped Riches From His Father," October 2, 2018; "11 Takeaways From The Times’s Investigation Into Trump’s Wealth," October 2, 2018, and "4 Ways Fred Trump Made Donald Trump and His Siblings Rich." October 2, 2018, among other articles.

World's Richest Man Uses His Newspaper To Threaten Politicians- Jeffrey Bezos of Amazon

Jeffrey Preston Bezos, the World's Richest Man [1], likes to pretend that he's a hands-off owner of the Washington Post, a conceit that the bourgeois propaganda system (aka "the media") respectfully indulges him in. The Post is the elite daily paper of the of the empire's capital city, Washington, D.C. So it could be called The Daily Diary of U.S. Imperialism.

Unsurprisingly, turns out that's a lie.

Today he used his paper to send a warning/threat to politicians in New York City who are outraged at the $3.7 billion dollar bribe that the governor of New York State, Andrew "Son of Mario" Cuomo, and the NYC mayor, Bill "Big Liberal" deBlasio, handed Bezos to locate part of his operation in the city- something astute observers thought he was going to do out of necessity without bribes. (Since both Cuomo and deBlasio have presidential ambitions, and such ambitions could be aided by favorable treatment by Bezos' paper, that is one possible motive for the gigantic bribe in the form of tax exemptions and other emoluments.)

Now the Washington Post is running an article claiming that Amazon was considering reneging on its promise to set up shop in the largest city in the U.S., which is a leading global technology center in its own right, a key consideration for Amazon, which of course as an Internet company needs large numbers of digital drone workers. It cited the gripes by NYC politicians as the reason for this alleged reconsideration. [2]

Of course this greedy asshole's bluff should be called.

Bezos' rag, and Cuomo and deBlasio, speak of "25,000 jobs" that hang in the balance. How many of these jobs would actually be high paying, and how many slots would be filled by workers moving to NYC from elsewhere, is never discussed by the hypesters.

Ironically, while Bezos is extorting New York, he's complaining that American Media Inc. is extorting him. (Probably it is. I'll deal with that in another essay.)

Amazon's new digs, if they come to fruition, will strain existing infrastructure, which it won't contribute to due to the tax "relief" it's being gifted, will displace existing businesses and tenants, and drive up rents in the area.

Big favor.

That's what happens in a dog-eat-dog society of "winners" and "losers."

"I'm so RICH it's FUNNY!"

1]  Bezos has been "the world's richest man" since at least July 2017. Most of his wealth is tied to the price of the stock of Amazon Corporation.  His wealth hit a peak of $150 billion (1,500 millions) last year. As of the beginning of 2019, it is estimated to be a mere $125 billion. 

But don't cry for him. As of today, his mound of moolah is back up to $134 billion. 

"Bloomberg Billionaires Index," February 8, 2019.

"These are the 50 richest people in the world right now," Business Insider, January 4, 2019.

2]  "Facing opposition, Amazon reconsiders NY headquarters site, two officials say," Washington Post, February 8, 2019, listed under the misleading heading "Virginia Politics.

A Night of Guff from Presidente Trump

Trump the Grump put on his best face- but the xenophobia and racism still poured out liberally from his noisehole at the annual "State of the Union address" before Congress, a key political ritual of the U.S. political rulers.

He made a big deal, once again, about the horrible tidal wave of murderous drug dealing migrants pouring across the southern U.S. border, and vowed for the 7,000th time to "build'a wall!" Trump campaigns on appeals to anti-Hispanic racism and xenophobia, and he campaigns permanently. This was the longest part of his speech.

Trump also couldn't resist complaining for the 2,796th time (give or take) about being investigated. He claimed the Mueller investigation would damage the U.S. economy (apparently a stab at humor that the audience missed- not really) and threatened/pleaded that if the House Democrats launched investigations of him, that would stymie the passage of legislation. (A good thing, in my opinion, since the only laws both ruling political cartel parties agree on these days are horrible- they invariably increase domestic repression and the military budget, and back U.S. imperialist crimes, such as the recent open attempt to overthrow the Venezuelan government, hailed by almost all Democratic party politicians in lock step with their Republican "rivals.")

Speaking of Venezuela, Trump took the opportunity to attack the government of Venezuela, while declaring the U.S. puppet Guaido the "legitimate" government, an act of naked subversion that both corporate capitalist parties fully support. And in the very next paragraph he used his denunciation of Venezuela to redbait the handful of genuinely leftist politicians in Congress: "Here, in the United States, we are alarmed by new calls to adopt socialism in our country. America was founded on liberty and independence — and not government coercion, domination and control. We are born free, and we will stay free. Tonight, we renew our resolve that America will never be a socialist country." 

This kind of vicious demonization goes back as far as the late 19th century in the U.S. The capitalist ruling class has always been fanatically ideological as far as that goes. You can find the same sort of verbiage at any point in the last 130 years or so. And before that there was ruling class hysteria about the French Revolution and the Haitian revolution. The U.S. is reactionary at its very core.

The power establishment's media "analyses" of Trump's speech were completely oblivious to the extremely reactionary nature of the screed. To them, hard right politics are just normal.

In addition to the redbaiting, which the bourgeois media failed to denounce of course, Trump took the opportunity to break a campaign promise on abortion. During his campaign he said he wanted the Supreme Court to reverse Roe v. Wade, and let each state decide its own abortion laws. Well no more. NOW he wants Congress to ban late term abortions. He attacked New York State specifically for a new law finally legalizing such abortions in the state, which Trump falsely claims in inflammatory rhetoric  that "the late-term abortion of children [sic]" has babies "ripped from the mother's womb moments from birth." This is the kind of demagogic lie that causes fanatics to murder abortion doctors.

But then, Trump has no problem with such violence.

Trump also called for "unity-" behind HIS policies, of course. Like every ruler, strongman, dictator, and "president," what Trump means by "unity," is "get in line and conform to my rules." Calling for "unity" doesn't mean "let's find a way to compromise together," it means "agree with ME!"

Of course the "opposition" party, the Democrats, agrees wth most of what Trump is doing and wants- like an ever-increasing military budget, shoveling endless billions into the maw of the military-industrial complex, and overthrowing "socialist" regimes, having a reactionary Supreme Court, lame regulation of business and light taxation of the rich. On those last two points, the differences between the parties are a matter of degree.

The Republican Congressmen leapt to their feet to bellow lusty cheers every two or three sentences of The Leader's Speech, some whistling in ecstatic enthusiasm. At one point the assembled party apparatchiks started chanting "USA! USA! USA!," a jingoistic standard.

No Trump speech or even off-the-cuff remarks would be complete without an absurd boast. Here's one from the speech: "If I had not been elected president of the United States, we would right now, in my opinion, be in a major war with North Korea." Now, certainly the situation is better than it was under Obama, or Bush, or Clinton. But Hillary Clinton is too cautious to have gotten into a war with North Korea. But to show how phony these rituals are, this ridiculous remark was NOT greeted by laughter.

As is standard for these rituals, the entry of El Presidente is treated like the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, with wild, prolonged cheering and a sustained standing ovation. The Big Man's exit is marked by another display of bombastically phony enthusiasm by the assembled political hacks of the Leader's own party.

 A CBS "News" propagandist deemed the ending "deep poetry" and a generous offer to the Democrats. Just what was this profound windup? A bunch of mawkish platitudes. After bragging about America defeating "communism" and battling "evil empires," here's what he said:

Here tonight we have legislators from across this magnificent republic. You have come from the rocky shores of Maine and the volcanic peaks of Hawaii. From the snowy woods of Wisconsin and the red deserts of Arizona. From the green farms of Kentucky and the golden beaches of California.
Together, we represent the most extraordinary nation in all of history. What will we do with this moment? How will we be remembered?

I ask the men and women of this Congress: Look at the opportunities before us. Our most thrilling achievements are still ahead. Our most exciting journeys still await. Our biggest victories are still to come. We have not yet begun to dream.

We must choose whether we are defined by our differences — or whether we dare to transcend them. We must choose whether we squander our inheritance — or whether we proudly declare that we are Americans: We do the incredible. We defy the impossible. We conquer the unknown.

This is the time to re-ignite the American imagination. This is the time to search for the tallest summit, and set our sights on the brightest star. This is the time to rekindle the bonds of love and loyalty and memory that link us together as citizens, as neighbors, as patriots. This is our future — our fate — and our choice to make.

I am asking you to choose greatness. No matter the trials we face, no matter the challenges to come, we must go forward together.

We must keep America first in our hearts. We must keep freedom alive in our souls. And we must always keep faith in America’s destiny — that one nation, under God, must be the hope and the promise and the light and the glory among all the nations of the world.

Thank you. God bless you, and God bless America. Thank you very much.

Like I said, so much self-righteous, self-satisfied, self-aggrandizing boastful GUFF that's Made In The USA.

Billionaire Howard Schultz of Starbucks Creates National Unity With Announcement of Presidential Ambitions

With one brilliant stroke, the billionaire Howard Schultz has healed a fractured nation, creating common ground on which citizens of diverse and sharply conflicting views can unite.

Schultz announced his intention to run for president if the Democrats were so foolish as to nominate someone as that party's candidate that Schultz considers too far "left." Like maybe someone who wants, at long last, universal health care coverage under a single payer system. Schultz says "we can't afford it" But he does say "everyone has to right to access" health care, whatever that's supposed to mean, since "we can't afford it."  ("60 Minutes" interview, CBS.)

The American People answered as one: We don't want you for president.

A cascade of raspberries rained down on Schultz immediately upon his declaration of his willingness to "serve." No thank you, Everyone replied.

So let us take a moment to thank Howard Schultz, The Billionaire Unifier of a Divided Nation, for his "service."

"I can be your president. By the way, we can't afford health care for everyone." 

One Howard Schultz = 3,400 millionaires.

U.S Secretary of State Pompeo Appoints Fascist To Bring "Democracy" To Venezuela

Elliott Abrams is U.S. Imperialism's own Reinhard Heydrich. During the 1980s he directed the U.S. campaign of murderous state terror in Central America. Now he's been assigned by Michael Pompeo to bring freedom and democracy to the Venezuelan people- so claims Pompeo, Pence, virtually all Democratic and Republican politicians, and the global capitalist media in hyper-cynical mode of maximum dishonesty.

I can't describe Abrams horrifying record of crimes against humanity any better than Allan Nairn did today on Democracy Now, so just read or watch that here.

Architects of Mass Murder: Elliott Abrams and Reinhard Heydrich

"Allan Nairn: Trump’s Venezuela Envoy Elliott Abrams Is a War Criminal Who Has Abetted Genocide," Democracy Now, January 30, 2019.

China Should Follow the U.S.' Lead and Declare Hillary Clinton the "Legitimate President" of the U.S.

They would certainly be on firmer ground than the U.S. is in declaring Juan Guaidó president of Venezuela! Guaidó didn't get elected, didn't even run, he brazenly declared himself president the day after U.S. vice president and theocrat Michael Pence told him to, and then "swore himself in," whereas Clinton not only RAN for the office in 2016, she WON! By 2,900,000 votes! So by any democratic standard (democracy is what the U.S. imperialists in the government and media keep braying they want to bring to Venezuela) Clinton is the real president, and Trump is illegitimate, to use the word the U.S. applies to the fairly and democratically elected president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro. (Of course Pence actually lost too, as he was on Trump's ticket. Trump pretends that those 2,900,000 votes were all illegal immigrants somehow voting.)

Today thug imperialist John Bolton is threatening Venezuela not to "harm" Guaidó. Of course Guaidó should be immediately clapped into prison.

What If China Declared Nancy Pelosi President of the U.S. and Deemed Trump Illegitimate?

That's the equivalent of what the U.S. is doing to Venezuela. Simply outrageous.

The U.S. has just declared that the elected, LEGAL president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, isn't really the president because the U.S. has decided he is "illegitimate." The "real" president is a U.S. stooge Venezuelan politician (Juan Guaidó) whom the U.S. has decreed by imperialist fiat is now Venezuela's "interim president." It has lined up a score of lackey nations in Latin America ruled by reactionaries, and in Europe ruled by bourgeois toadies to U.S. power, to agree with this insane diktat, which the U.S. is now moving to forcibly impose on Venezuela through various means, including a military coup d'état.

But the U.S. is doing something more outrageous than what even China is doing in this thought experiment. The U.S. claims to be doing this in the name of "freedom and democracy." Declaring the elected president of another nation "illegitimate" and naming his replacement in the name of "freedom and democracy." This is Orwellian to a mind-bending extreme.

This is the same country that SO LOVES freedom and democracy that it is best buddies with Saudi Arabia, a nation ruled with an iron fist by an intolerant hereditary and totalitarian monarchy. Nothing "illegitimate" about THOSE rulers!

The horrible killer U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo called the Venezuelan government "morally bankrupt," "profoundly undemocratic" and- get this- "corrupt." Nice example of projection by a reactionary, an extremely common phenomenon.

The propaganda media of not just the U.S. but scores of lackey nations in Europe and Latin America are backing this grotesque imperialist aggression.

We're told that Britain, France, Germany, and Spain are falling in line behind the U.S.' move. Tells you all you need to know about the moral bankruptcy of the ruling classes of the Eurolackey states, as well as the emptiness of all their blather about "democracy" and respecting national sovereignty. All the aforementioned nations have a history as among the most vicious empires in history. All committed numerous acts of mass murder to enforce their imperial rule.

Those trying to defend Venezuelan independence are Mexico, Bolivia, Uruguay, and Russia. A weak group with little cohesion as a group.

Pompeo bulled into the UN to demand that other nations "pick a side," either for the U.S. coup and installation of its chosen puppet, or on the side of international law and respect for self-determination of people and for national sovereignty. That's not how he described it, of course, but that's what it is. What he said was the most mendacious propaganda imaginable, on a par with the U.S.' excuse for invading Iraq and Hitler's lies "justifying" the conquest of Poland.

But Russia and China will veto the U.S. ploy to get the UN Security Council to rubber-stamp its imperialist aggression. That won't stop the U.S. of course. The U.S. will simply attack the UN as a body that "doesn't work."

Anything that doesn't take orders from the U.S. is by definition broken.

In response to the U.S. declaring that he is no longer president and proclaiming its chosen lackey "interim president," the real president, Maduro, who was legitimately elected, broke off diplomatic relations (about time!) and ordered U.S. "diplomats" to leave. The U.S. is arrogantly refusing to remove its "diplomats," obviously and deliberately setting up a confrontation. "We're going to sit in your country and refuse to recognize your government," is what the U.S. is declaring in effect.

Outrageous. But not in the global capitalist media's telling.

The dire economic straits Venezuela is in is harped on, as if that is an excuse for overthrowing its government. NEVER mentioned is the fact that the U.S. has been systematically strangling Venezuela with economic warfare. Instead "economic mismanagement" is constantly blamed. I'm willing to believe that's a factor. Now can the propagandists ever explain say WHAT economic mismanagement they're referring to? They never say. Just the assertion is enough. [1]

1] It's the same way the U.S. "intelligence community" "determined" that Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee's computer server, the "evidence" being mere assertion of the claim. But actually it wasn't even "the intelligence community," but merely three "analysts" from the CIA, FBI, and NSA handpicked by Obama regime "Director of National Intelligence" James "Pinocchio" Clapper, the man who infamously testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee, that allegedly "oversees" the various secret police agencies, that the NSA does NOT gather all Americans' phone calls, when it fact it does. But repeatedly saying that the entire massive infallible trustworthy "intelligence community" "determined" it is more convincing to say, which is why "the" media keeps saying it, even though it's untrue.

William Barr May Be On A Covert Mission From The Bush Gang To Oust Trump

William Barr has been going through Senate confirmation hearings to be attorney general of the U.S. He got Trump to nominate him by sending unsolicited "legal opinions" to Trump's legal team defending Trump's firing of James Comey as FBI director as a presidential prerogative impervious to criminalization (such as by calling it the crime of obstruction of justice designed to interfere with the investigation of Trump and his associates for allegedly conspiring with Russia to win the presidential election). Barr even met with Trump himself.

What needs to be noticed is that Barr was an accomplice to the first president Bush as his attorney general. The Bush crime clan has been eager to destroy Trump ever since Trump rudely insulted the brothers Jeb and George Bush during the 2016 campaign and quashed Jeb's plan to become the third Bush president.

As Bush I's attorney general, Barr supported the outrageous pardons that Bush issued for the high-ranking Iran-Contra criminals on the eve of their trial. Talk about obstructing justice! This of course is never mentioned in all the talk of how "impeachable" it would be for Trump to issue pardons. Trump foolishly was deterred from pardoning Cohen and Manafort, and now he's paying for it in the case of Cohen, who has finally realized the obvious: that with Trump, loyalty is a one-way street. (Bush himself was at the center of the Iran-Contra conspiracy to sell arms to Iran and illegally provide weapons to the "contra" terrorists committing atrocities in Nicaragua from their bases in Honduras and Costa Rica. He pretended to know nothing.)

The ruling class Bush clan has a long history of engaging in covert operations. They have shown a penchant for ruthlessness. They are also extremely well-connected to the secret police organs of the Deep State, especially the CIA. George Herbert Walker Bush (Bush the Elder) was involved in the JFK assassination. He was a key figure in logistics and supplies for the Bay of Pigs invasion by a small army of CIA-sponsored Cuban exile terrorists. As director of the CIA, he helped arrange the murders of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt by the Chilean secret police of dictator Augusto Pinochet.

CIA officers ran George Herbert Walker Bush's presidential campaigns.

Prescott Bush, the father of George H.W. Bush, had lucrative financial dealings with the Third Reich, which he endeavored to conceal.

His grandson, George W. Bush (Bush the Younger), took advantage of the family's close ties to the corrupt and evil Saudi "royal" family to conspire to allow al-Qaeda terrorists to hijack and fly planes into Manhattan skyscrapers on September 11, 2001. The Saudi regime funded and ran the terrorists in the U.S., and then Bush had them spirited out of the U.S. The Twin Towers and also 7 World Trade Center were demolished on that date by preplanted explosives, as has been definitely proven.
In short, the Bushes are lifelong conspirators who have engaged in numerous criminal plots over the decades, only a few of which we know about.

I have a strong suspicion that Barr, who is 68, didn't suddenly decide to leave an extremely lucrative career "in the private sector" to run the Department of "Justice" again out of his "love" for the department, as various shills and reactionary associates of his have claimed. Far more likely that he is acting as yet another agent of the Bush power nexus whose mission is to defenestrate Trump.

The Bushes hold grudges. Barr is a close associate of the Bushes. It would be naive to discount the possibility that he has a dagger hidden under his cloak which he intends to slay Trump with.

Smiling faces show no traces

Of the evil that lurks within

Latest Demented Russiagate Conspiracy-Mongering Is So Over-The-Top That Mueller Publicly Denies It's True

For two years, most of the U.S. media have subjected the public to a frantic saturation campaign of agitpropaganda claiming that the president of the U.S., Donald Trump, is under the sway or control of Russia (a designated hostile foreign power), or is being blackmailed by Russia, or is in debt to Russia, or is directed by Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, or has a special relationship with Putin, or "colluded" with Russia to steal the presidential election from the rightful heir to the presidency, Hillary Clinton, or something or other that's sinister.

This campaign, which has had the dark hand of the secret police deep state involved, started in earnest ten days before Trump was sworn in as president. On January 10, 2017, Buzzfeed "News" published a sensational (in more than one sense of the word) "dossier" concocted by a former British secret policeman (veteran of MI6, the British "CIA,") Christopher Steele, that made lurid allegations against Trump, supposedly provided to Steele by Kremlin sources. The most obviously preposterous allegation was that Trump had paid prostitutes to urinate on a hotel bed in which the Clintons had previously slept, and the Russians had a video of this. (Notice one never hears about this claim anymore, except by late night U.S. tv comedians, who pretend it is a fact.) [1]

Since Trump lies so constantly and obviously, it must have been calculated by the perpetrators of this hoax dossier that Trump's denials would lack credibility with at least a large segment of the public.
It turned out that the Clinton campaign had paid for this dossier, a fact the Democrats spent a year denying, lying through their teeth.

Now Buzzfeed is at it again, with a false claim that Trump instructed his former fixer Michael Cohen to perjure himself to Congress regarding a Russian business deal.  [2]

We know it is false because no other than the very tight-lipped Russiagate special prosecutor, Robert S. Mueller III, has issued a statement saying so.  [3]

Buzzfeed, a tawdry website full of celebrity tittle-tattle and the most cheesy "clickbait," "stands by its story" nonetheless. It's editor stubbornly refuses to back down (as of yet), demanding Mueller be specific about what is false.

Obviously Mueller wouldn't bother issuing a denial if it wasn't to refute the main claim, the Trump suborned perjury.

Numerous media organs immediately grabbed Buzzfeed's false propaganda and ran with it. This is a pattern that has repeated over and over in the two-year-old Russiagate propaganda campaign. Major media organs have repeatedly aired ridiculous conspiracy theories, based on the flimsiest- or no- factual basis. [4]

The Mueller denial of the Buzzfeed article caused some media outlets to slam on the brakes and do a screeching U-turn. The Washington Post, a leading fount of Russiagate conspiracy speculation and favorite bulletin board for the Deep State secret police to plant its anti-Trump accusations, fretted that Buzzfeed was hurting "the" media's credibility. Worse, it wrung its hands over the fact that this isn't the first time some anti-Trump propaganda turned out to be false. Bizarrely, this ran under the heading, "Style." Huh? [5]

The silver lining in all this is that the U.S. corporate propaganda system, a gigantic brainwashing mechanism, is losing credibility. Ironic that it is occurring in political combat with a man, Trump, who tells ludicrous lies on a daily basis.

For the past two years, much less attention has been paid to the horrible policies of Trump, such as on the environment, where his EPA is increasing lethal pollution. We never hear about the awful tax "reform" at all. Apparently the corporate media secretly is pleased with these venal policies. So instead they have been trying to gin up a scandal based on painting Trump as a Russian agent (Rachel Maddow on MSNBC explicitly says exactly that) or stooge or puppet. They genuinely seem to believe he can be removed from office this way. Or maybe they are merely trying to hem him in. Whatever the case, the disarray among U.S. ruling elites must be greatly pleasing to China, which is stealing a march on the U.S. to supplant it as the dominant world power.

Way to go, fools!

It won't be the first time in history that stupidly by a complacent ruling class led to the downfall of an empire. Ruling classes long in power get overconfident and smug, it seems.

1]  "These Reports Allege Trump Has Deep Ties To Russia," Buzzfeed, January 10, 2017


2]  "President Trump Directed His Attorney Michael Cohen To Lie To Congress About The Moscow Tower Project," Buzzfeed, January 17, 2019, "updated" January 18.


3]  According to Peter Carr, a spokesman for Special Counsel Mueller, “BuzzFeed’s description of specific statements to the Special Counsel’s Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen’s Congressional testimony are not accurate.”


4]  One example of anti-Trump media immediately hopping on Buzzfeed's bandwagon: "IF TRUMP TOLD COHEN TO LIE, IMPEACHMENT IS COMING," Wired, January 18, 2019. Wired, which is supposed to be a digital technology magazine, is one of the most dishonest organs obsessively pushing the faux "collusion-election hacking-democracy interfering-Trump Russia conspiracy" narrative. And with every new cooked-up "bombshell revelation," the propagandists predict Trump's impeachment. How many times can a boy cry Wolf! before people stop listening? I guess if the people are Democratic Party partisans, the answer is an infinite number of times.


5]  "Style: BuzzFeed’s stumble is highest profile misstep at a time when press is under greatest scrutiny," Washington Post, January 19, 2019. Here are the first two paragraphs:

"BuzzFeed News’ apparently mistaken story about Michael Cohen and President Trump is the highest profile misstep yet for a news organization during a period of heightened and intense scrutiny of the press, as the special counsel’s office issued a thorough rebuke of the website’s story published Thursday.

"Reporters at the Guardian, CNN, McClatchy News and other outlets [INCLUDING THE WASHINGTON POST, THEY FORGOT TO MENTION] have published disputed, suspect or uncorroborated stories about Trump and the investigation swirling around him since special counsel Robert S. Mueller III began his probe 21 months ago. Each instance has elicited cries of 'fake news' from the president and his supporters, stoking the claim that the mainstream media is biased and irresponsible." Which of course it is.

The Washington Post "reported" that Russia has infected a Vermont electric utility with malware, a completely false story. It also ran a smear job on progressive media outlets, falsely claiming they were all in league with Russia. There are plenty of other examples.

Racist Reactionary U.S. President To Deliver Nationally Televised Speech Tonight Demonizing Poor Immigrants Fleeing U.S.-Created Hellholes

Trump, a racist demagogue, has effectively commandeered numerous television and radio organs this evening to deliver a vicious attack on Central American migrants fleeing the poverty and terror that the U.S. creates and enforces by violence in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.

Trump will continue to viciously smear these desperate migrants, who cannot even afford transportation but instead must walk a thousand miles or more to the U.S. border, as an invading horde of terrorists, criminals, and drug smugglers. He and his minions dismiss the women and children as props "pushed to the front" to dupe people.

"The" media, that is, the corporate propaganda system, has been falling all over itself to publicize the noxious propaganda speech Trump will deliver. As usual, they cannot give Trump enough coverage.

Trump is portrayed as a master manipulator, the same story told about the fascist president Ronald Reagan. In fact, both are virtually media creations. Without the media building them up, no one would know they exist. (Reagan of course is deceased.)

The migrants are portrayed as a "national security threat," verbiage "the" media adopts uncritically.  It is the U.S. that threatens them, even murdering their children, as it just did to two young Guatemalan children.

Of course, the U.S. has murdered countless tens of thousands (or more) children in its history, so the murder of two more by acts of depraved indifference homicide (denial of food, water, and timely medical care)  should not come as any surprise. An outrage, one of millions in U.S. history, but no surprise.

Trump is the equivalent of the Roman emperor Nero. A particularly noxious ruler, but one fundamentally of a piece with the empire he temporarily heads.

Santa Cop Is Coming To Town

You better watch out,
you better not shout
better not raise a ruckus in the street
I'm telling you why-
Santa Cop is Coming, to town.
He's making a list
and checking it twice
Gonna crack down on those he don't like-
Santa Cop is coming to town.
He sees you when you're walking
He knows if you're online
he knows if you've been "loyal" or not
it's a perfect surveillance state!
SOOO
You better not try
to change the state
cops know how to
put you in your place,
Santa Cop is Ruling, THIS TOWWWWN!

With Apologies from Jason Zenith for spoiling the Year's Most Important Shopping Season. (TM)

BBC Demonstrates How To Make Palestinians The Bad Guys

The BBC reported today that two Jewish colonialist conquerors were killed in the West Bank by a Palestinian "gunman." (Not an armed Palestinian patriot fighter, say.) But they cleverly left something out.

A few hours before that, Israeli Jewish troops conducted more of their ceaseless terror raids into the West Bank, murdering another three Palestinians on top of the tens of thousands they've murdered since 1948.

The picture looks a lot different when you include that fact. But the BBC is not in the business of providing objective news. It is in the business of political propaganda in the guise of news.

Political mythology claims the West Bank is under the control of collaborationist Palestinians called the "Palestinian Authority," headed by a corrupt leech named Mahmoud Abbas. He and his accomplices aided and abetted the murder of Yasir Arafat, by obstructing as long as possible the exhumation of Arafat's corpse to confirm the presence of radioactive polonium which the Israelis slipped into his food. Since then they've been as quiet as possible about the murder.

The PA's "security forces" are CIA-trained, which tells us all we need to know about the nature of those secret police thugs. Their job, like all CIA-trained "security forces" and "intelligence services" is the repression of the people they are assigned to contain.

Another way the BBC- and U.S. media too of course- cover up the fanaticism and imperialism of Israel is by never mentioning what the Israelis calls the West Bank- "Judea and Samaria." These fanatics are literally recreating something that existed over 2,000 years ago, combining ancient violent tribal supremacist ideology straight from the Old Testament with contemporary repressive military and police state technology.

Israel is indeed "part of the West" in the true sense of what that means- it is a nation of "white" imperialists conquering those designated as dark-skilled and subjugating them by force and violence and "settling" their lands, which hiding behind a facade of "democratic values."

[Thanks to Democracynow.org for reporting the facts the "venerable" BBC omitted from its version of reality.]

Mississippi Holds Fast To Racist Roots, Elects Confederate Gun Moll To U.S. Senate

White Supremacy Lives in Mississippi.

Parts of the U.S. corporate propaganda system (aka "the media") such as CBS radio network, are hailing the election of redneck racist Cindy Hyde-Smith to the U.S. Senate from Mississippi as "historic," NOT because she's a throwback to the 19th century Confederate States south, but because she's the "first woman elected to Congress from Mississippi," ever. In which case, they should be remarking on how extremely sexist Mississippi must be! This is the year 2018.

Naturally, the president who represents white supremacists, Donald Trump, campaigned for her.

Hyde-Smith is a reactionary racist in the mold of unreconstructed Confederate Jefferson Beauregard Session III. (Sessions recently made a teary exit as Attorney General of the U.S. on orders of the man who originally anointed him AG, president Donald J. "Jackass" Trump.)

Hyde-Smith went to high school at a so-called "private academy," one of the whites-only private schools set up by the incorrigible white racists of the South determined to maintain a system of quasi-apartheid. These schools were set up to avoid the racial integration being imposed at long last on Southern public school districts by the Federal courts. The descendants of slaves (who are also descended from slave owners who impregnated their slave "property") were for a century forced to endure a grossly inferior education system, deemed legitimate through the legal concept of "separate but equal" under prior Supreme Court doctrine. This mythology was finally abandoned by the Supreme Court under political pressure from the civil rights movement.

Hyde-Smith has posed proudly for photos in Confederate soldier regalia, including rifle. Her latest "gaffe" was informing an admirer that she'd happily attend a "public hanging" (i.e. a lynching of a black victim) "in the front row" with him. U.S. media, such as the awful CBS radio propaganda network, are passing this off as a "joke." Only she wasn't joking, so CBS was guilty of broadcasting disinformation in defense of a racist.

One wonders if CBS would pass off a remark such as "too bad Hitler didn't finish off the Jews" as a "joke." I doubt it. As always, "blacks" are at the bottom of the social pecking order in the U.S. And above all, the corporate propaganda system wants reactionary politicians to occupy the power slots, NOT anyone even slightly to the left, such as Hyde-Smith's Democratic opponent, Hyde-Smith is a Republican. In the South, the white racists- which is most whites in the South- migrated en massa from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party after the Texan Democrat and president Lyndon Johnson sheparded the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act through Congress, to ease somewhat the severe repression African-Americans live under in the Confederate states.

It is also a fact that the U.S. media virtually always covers for reactionaries and racists, bending over backwards to legitimize them.

Being a white racist, of course Hyde-Smith is also an awful reactionary on all political issues. [1]  Thus do the white racists of the "solid South" continue their tradition of packing the U.S. Congress with reactionaries who are enemies of human progress. (Just one example of thousands: for decades they prevented the passage of a Federal anti-lynching law, thus protecting their Southern "tradition" of torturing blacks and hanging them from trees or burning them alive, and passing around the body parts of the victims as souvenirs to the white mobs.)

Hyde-Smith in her native garb, as a warrior for slavery.

Hyde-Smith with Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant who appointed her to fill a U.S. Senate seat vacated by her reactionary racist predecessor Thad Cochran. Now she's been elected to a full term. Note the Mississippi state flag, which incorporates the stars and bars banner of the traitor slave nation, the Confederate States of America.

1]  For example, see "Rev. Barber: MS Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith Jokes About Hangings, But Her Policies Will Strangle the Poor," Democracy Now!, November 26, 2018.

The REAL Reason the White House Media Propagandists' Association Is Breaking With Its Own Tradition and Not Inviting a Comedian to Perform At Its Annual Celebration of Itself

It has been announced that a self-important propagandist group, the "White House Correspondents' Association," whose membership are the propagandists assigned by corporate propaganda outfits to "cover" the White House (i.e. the U.S. presidency), will not be inviting a comedian to entertain them in their tuxedos at their upcoming annual dinner, as they have done in past years. This is being blamed on the performance of comedienne Michelle Wolf at the last shindig of this group on April 28, 2018.

"The" media has taken this occasion to smear Wolf anew. They claim the "Association's" decision was because Wolf was "harsh," and that she made fun of Trump's White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders' appearance. Which she did NOT. In a 19 minute set, less than a minute and a half were about Sanders, and maybe two jokes referenced her appearance in some way, and they were MILD jokes. You can watch that segment on my youtube channel. [1] 

Wolf mocks Sanders' constant lying, and her vile politics. Apparently that is retrospectively unacceptable. Because when you watch the entire 19 minute performance, the audience laughs a lot, and heartily applauds at the ends. So Wolf actually went over well. 

But afterwards, there was a propaganda campaign attacking Wolf's set. Because she ended with a scathing critique of "the" media's symbiotic relationship with the horrid Donald Trump, landing square on the nose. She nails it. And then with a final throwaway line reminds everyone of the unwelcome fact that the people of Flint, Michigan were poisoned with lead in their water and that the situation there had still not been remedied. [2]

Too much truth for the behind-the-scenes bosses- the bastards.

1] See "All of Michelle Wolf's jokes about Sarah Huckabee Sanders at the 2018 White House Correspondents' Dinner." 

2] See "Michelle Wolf sticks it to the media for enabling Trump at the 2018 White House Correspondents' Dinner."

Wolf's entire set is posted by C-Span on youtube.com: "Michelle Wolf COMPLETE REMARKS at 2018 White House Correspondents' Dinner."

What They REALLY Mean When They Say "I Wish President Trump Would Tweet Less."

Republican politicians say this with some frequency. They trot out this stock phrase when they have to defend Trump, and/or justify their support for him and their refusal to criticize his latest outrage, whether something he said or something he did. Sometimes it's paired with advice that he focus more on "doing his job," i.e. doing more malicious actions that are part and parcel of the malign "Republican agenda." 

What they really mean is, I wish he'd stop being so explicit. It puts me on the spot, forcing me to defend insane and vicious statements, and threatens to arouse opposition to our horrible policies.

The "I wish he'd tweet less" trope is now being parroted by Republican voters in interviews with "the" media. When asked how Trump is "doing," or if he's "helping" them, they'll toss in the "wish he'd tweet less" line. 

What they really mean: I wish he'd stop saying what he thinks so I can continue to preserve my brain-dead illusions about who he is and what he wants to do.

The immoral GOP (Gang Of Plunderer) politicians are disciplined and fanatical and willing to be led by a narcissistic grifter mountebank who is irrational, erratic, and unpredictable, but who mostly delivers on their arch-reactionary, repressive, hyper-militaristic "agenda."  The Trump supporters among the populace- which apparently has increased in number to close to 50% of the population, amazingly enough- reject all the factual evidence, that is they reject reality- and insist on believing in the cons of Trump. Also his demagoguery appeals to their base instincts, their racial bigotry, their xenophobia, and their persecution complexes. Trump is a genius in one dimension of intelligence; emotional intelligence. Or to put it another way, he has great animal cunning, as all successful demagogues do, including the classic fascist dictators, Hitler and Mussolini. This confuses some people into seeing Trump as a fascist. He is an authoritarian and a bully. In terms of brutality, he actually hasn't outdone Obama The Drone Assassin or Bush The Torturer yet. But unlike them, he doesn't bother disguising his cruelties, but generally publicly revels in them. His base "base" is thrilled by a sense of vicarious vengeance against victims who have done them no harm. But by calling desperate, terrified refugees fleeing the Central American hellholes created by the U.S. "invaders," and holding publicity stunts to bellow about people murdered by illegal immigrants, Trump gives his bigoted, xenophobic followers an excuse to feel like victims of immigrants. Oh, and immigrants "stole" their jobs, employers didn't hire the immigrants to slash their own labor costs! 

There they go again, blaming those weaker than themselves instead of the actual culprits. What cowards they are.

"I talk so much and so loud and I fool soooo many people. It's terrific. It's terrific."

Trump Asserts Dictatorial Power To Change U.S. Constitution By Fiat, U.S. Media Response Lame

Right before elections for the House of Representatives and a third of the U.S. Senate, Trump is trying to whip up his "base" of white racists and xenophobes. He's doing it in at least two ways. With a week to go until the November 6 election, he is claiming the right to invalidate the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution by issuing an executive order abolishing it. The 14th Amendment states that anyone born in the U.S. is automatically a U.S. citizen. (About 30 other countries also do this, contrary to Trump's lie, repeated regularly over the years and again now, that the U.S. is the only country that does this. Oh, and it's "ridiculous" and it "has to stop" He portrays all such people as leeches.) Reactionaries call this "birthright citizenship," as if it is somehow different from citizenship of babies born in the U.S. whose parents are U.S. citizens. They also push a lie called "anchor babies," which the corporate media NEVER call them on. The idea is that citizen babies somehow make it impossible to deport their parents. A lie, as the U.S. has long deported parents with U.S. citizen children. Obama indeed deported thousands of such people.

As far as a president changing the basic law of the U.S., the Constitution, to his liking by his own edict, that is completely illegal. The Constitution specifies two ways in which it can be altered: either by a Constitutional Convention, of which there has only ever been one, the one that created the Constitution, or by a vote of two-thirds of the members of both chambers of Congress AND by ratification by three-quarters of the state legislatures. That is how all subsequent amendments after the first ten (the so-called Bill of Rights) have been enacted.

The media headlines should have been the first part of my title above, Trump Asserts Dictatorial Power To Change U.S. Constitution By Fiat. Instead the predominant media reaction was Hmm, can he do that? There would probably be a legal challenge.

 Not, BLATANTLY ILLEGAL POWER GRAB UNPRECEDENTED IN U.S. HISTORY! And saying "there would be a legal challenge" implies he COULD do it, and THEN people would have to take him to court to try and overturn it! (Keep in mind that the Federal courts are now stuffed with extreme reactionary judges courtesy of the Federalist Society, the GOP, and the Democrats' spinelessness and political fecklessness.)

It seems that the establishment "resistance" to Trump consists of placing all hopes on former FBI secret police chief Robert S. Mueller III pulling a rabbit out of his hat and proving that Trump is Putin's Puppet, a criminal stooge of Moscow. Good luck with that. That means there's no hope at all.

As former CIA secret police chief Michael Morell has stated, if there was evidence to that effect, it would have either been leaked by now, or uncovered by the horde of reporters frantically digging for dirt on Trump. Plenty of dirt has been found- David Cay Johnston and Wayne Barrett have spent years digging up a mountain of misdeeds by Trump- but "Russian collusion," like the piss tape, is a fantasy.


The second way Trump is agitating his vile supporters is by screeching about an "invasion" by a few thousand refugees fleeing the violence and poverty created there by the Obama-Hillary Clinton coup in that nation. These refugees are currently over a thousand miles from the U.S., at the Guatemalan-Mexican border. Trump publicly called for them to be gunned down, U.S. Border Patrol style. ("When they throw rocks like they did at Mexican military police I say consider that a rifle.") The U.S. Border Patrol isn't murderous enough already. Trump has to stoke more murders. Just as he called on cops to bash the heads of people they arrest into their patrol cars' doorframes. Just as he praised a Republican lout for body-slamming a reporter, a thug subsequently elected by the goons of the state of Montana to Congress. [1]

Trump also made a big show of sending 5,200 army troops to the U.S.-Mexican border, following that by announcing his alleged intent to sent 15,000 troops. Hey, why not make it a million, asshole?

To borrow from Lillian Hellman, we're in Scoundrel Time (again), in America.

Der Fuhrer, U.S. version. And he's even of German ancestry! (And believes he's superior because of it. Remember 

he wanted more Norwegians to immigrate to the U.S., and stop the flow from "shithole" -i.e. "non-white"- countries.)

                  Gee, I TRIED to overthrow Trump for you. [Robert S. Mueller III, another guy of German extraction.]

1] "Trump praises GOP congressman who assaulted reporter: 'Any guy that can do a body slam — he's my guy.'" USA Today, October 18, 2018.

Republicans Have Already Stolen Georgia Governor's Election Before Election Day

The GOP (Gang Of Plunderers) have gotten so good at stealing elections after over two decades of practice that now they can do it before there's even an election.

In the state of Georgia, the race for Governor of that Confederate, racist state is set to be stolen by the current state Secretary of State, Brian Kemp.

By the way, Kemp is the guy who oversees the election! Kind of like an African dictator, only white.
Kemp has put a "hold" on 53,000 registrations, 70% of them of blacks. JUST COINCIDENTALLY, his Democratic opponent in the race for Governor is a black woman.

In Georgia, the Republicans have purged 1.5 million people from the rolls from 2012-2015. That's 10% of the total registered voters.

Kemp is demagoging a justification by claiming the Democrats want illegal aliens to vote. A nice racist smear that goes down well with Southern whites. (And lots of other whites in the U.S., which is a very racist country.)

The Republicans have pioneered many ways to steal elections. They also close most of the polling sites in heavily Democratic areas. Of course the Georgian Republicans haven't missed that trick either.

The sickest thing is that the U.S. insists on boasting that it's the World's Best Democracy.

Saudis GIft U.S. With 2 Big Bribes To Buy Their Way Out of Khashoggi Murder

Saudi Arabia just gave $100 million to the U.S. Now they've pledged to up their oil production to whatever it takes to fill the void left by the Trump regime strangling Iranian oil exports. This caused the price of oil to drop 4% today October 23rd.

Determined to evade responsibility for the butchering of Jamal Khashoggi, a former adviser to the Saudi "royals" whose patrons were neutralized by the current tyrant, the "Crown Prince" Mohammed bin Salman, favorite son of "King" Salman, they have gone from issuing threats to paying bribes to the U.S. to evade sanctions.

Trump would love to help them out. For several weeks he shielded them. But he is being pulled by the political undertow of the U.S. political establishment and even Republican Senators taking a harder line.

But in the end, the most that might happen is that some of "Prince" Salman's powers will be trimmed. Even more unlikely would be his replacement by another designated heir to the throne.

Meanwhile U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven "King of the Foreclosure Fraudsters" Mnuchin went back on his promise not to attend an "investment conference" being hosted by the murderous "Prince" Salman, and went. This conference was boycotted by numerous heads of large multinational corporations and European officials. However many venal capitalists did attend, and they gave Salman a standing ovation. It's said they're mainly oilmen.

Salman the Younger Explains to Mnuchin Why They Had to Chop Up Khashoggi's Body: "He was a fat man, so we had to
cut him up into pieces no bigger than this. It would have been terrible if someone got a hernia carrying him."

FBI Finishes Another of Its Specialties, A Sham "Investigation" That Is Actually A Cover-Up

Under pressure from the public, the media, and Democrats, in that order of concern, Trump ordered the FBI on September 28 to conduct a limited "supplemental" background check as an addition to their previous checks that failed to report on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's debauched, violent youth.

Kavanaugh has undergone previous such checks in order to work in the Bush White House on sensitive political programs (such as torture) requiring lying and stealth, and when Bush rewarded him by planting him on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, the second most important court in the U.S. that in practice has the final word on many vital matters. (The Supreme Court refuses to even consider 90% plus of the cases litigants attempt to appeal to it. Contrary to popular delusion, one CANNOT "appeal all the way to the Supreme Court." Take four months of vacation time a year, the "Justices" only accept about 90 cases a year for review. And most of those are of minor import.)

The FBI was given just a week to carry out this latest whitewash. It finished two days early, on October 3rd. Senate boss Mitch McConnell then said there would be a vote by the full Senate on October 5th. The single copy of the FBI report would be reviewed in a "secure" room by a few Senators at a time, who would have to memorize its contents. (No cellphones or cameras allowed.) McConnell averred that this was "plenty of time" for the 100 Senators to review the report! ("The" media reported this absurdity matter-of-factly, as if there was nothing wrong with it.)

The FBI only interviewed 6 people: 4 friends of violent criminal Kavanaugh, a friend of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's ( whom he attempted to rape when she was 15), and Deborah Ramirez, who was molested by Kavanaugh at Yale University. (He shoved his bare genitals in her face.) The FBI ignored a list of 20 corroborating witnesses provided by Ramirez. They also failed to interview Kavanaugh or Dr. Ford. (Sparing Kavanaugh from committing a felony by lying to the FBI, which carries a five year prison sentence. Not that he would have been prosecuted. Unless the Democrats somehow take over the executive branch by winning the presidency. Kavanaugh's squirming evasions when asked repeatedly by a Democratic Senator on the Judiciary Committee if he would call for an FBI investigation clearly shows he is well aware of the peril of talking to the FBI.)

The FBI specializes in sham investigations when state crimes need hiding. Examples includes the CIA assassinations of John Kennedy (1963), Robert Kennedy (1968), Martin Luther King, Jr. (1968), its own massacre of the Branch Davidian cult in Waco, Texas, and numerous political assassinations and other crimes.

U.S. broadcast media has once again done a tremendous disservice by omitting the critical details and instead making it a "he said- she said" story. Not only Kavanaugh vs. Ford, but Republicans vs. Democrats. Republicans say enough time has been wasted (McConnell, and the awful Senator Lindsey Graham, a vicious, rabid cur), Democrats say the investigation was superficial and the vote is being rushed.

McConnell is the same guy who prevented the previous president, the Democrat Barack "The Drone Assassin" Obama from filling a Supreme Court vacancy for almost a year. Which makes McConnell's talk of "wasting time" and his rush now all the more galling. That vacant seat was filled by Trump appointee Neil Gorsuch, the spawn of Reagan EPA head and zealous anti-environmentalist Anne Gorsuch Burford.

Of course Kavanaugh was just one of 25 interchangeable, extreme reactionaries on the list of Supreme Court candidates the loathsome Federalist Society handed to Trump to pick from. Interesting that Trump chose a fellow sexual predator. He must have sensed a kindred soul. It has also been reported that Kavanaugh has lately adopted a "legal theory" of presidential immunity from prosecution- interesting, since he had exactly the opposite attitude when he was a henchman of Kenneth Starr's in Starr's Get Clinton operation. But I guess we must await a greater legal mind to come up with some legerdemain to show why Democratic Presidents should be subject to prosecution but not Republican ones.

Republicans Implacably Determined to Implant a Second Sex Offender on the Supreme Court

We now have credible assertions that Brett Kavanaugh was involved in drugging and gang-raping young women. This is the fourth claim of sexual "misconduct" ("the" media's preferred euphemism for his crimes) against Kavanaugh.

When (or if) he joins Clarence Thomas on the high court, there will be two known sex offenders in effect making laws. Both Thomas and Kavanaugh are extreme misogynists who are champing at the bit to repeal what is left of the weak "right" that women have to terminate their pregnancies instead of being treated as chattel and forced to bear children against their will.

The GOP (Gang Of Plunderers) from their chief, Donald J. Trump, himself a known serial sex offender and adulterer, on down, have responded by attacking the accusers, calling their painful recollections "smears" (a word Trump used and was echoed by Senate boss, the loathsome Mitch McConnell of Kentucky) and avowing that they refuse to "ruin" Kavanaugh's "life" by NOT implanting him on the Supreme Court! (This from reactionary dog, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, on one of the Sunday morning bourgeois political propaganda TV shows September 23.)

So far, we've had Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who Kavanaugh and his crony Mark Judge tried to rape when she was only 15. This is documented by therapist's notes from 2012. We have a letter from an attorney to Judiciary Committee member Dianne Feinstein, the senior Democrat on the Committee, about complaints from Federal employees against Kavanaugh, which Feinstein suppressed, as she suppressed Dr. Ford's information, refusing even to brief other Democratic Senators when they asked for the information.

Then there was a woman who described Kavanaugh's drunken assaults at Yale University, which included him thrusting his exposed genitals in her face.

Now we have a sworn affidavit from Julie Swetnick, who has a security clearance which she would


lose if she committed perjury by making a false claim. She relates Kavanaugh's involvement in drugging and gang-raping women.

The Republicans' response with each new expose of Kavanaugh has been shriller and more vicious attacks on the accusers, smearing them as politically motivated liars. (Part of their smearing is accusing the victims of "smearing" Kavanaugh, inverting reality.)

Much of "the" media, and not just Murdoch's Minions at Fox "News," are slanting their "coverage" in a sexist, misogynist direction. I will have more on this later.

So the United States under Trump is forcefully erasing what social progress there has been in recent years. Meanwhile, Facebook, Twitter, youtube, and Spotify, in the name of cracking down on "divisiveness," are banning and censoring progressive voices (as well as Alex Jones, the only one banned that "the" media mention). But the divisions are not creations of critics. They are real and fundamental aspects of U.S. society. It is the aggressive attacks on human rights by the reactionary power structure that causes divisions in the U.S., NOT Russian trolls or botnets- contrary to Democratic Party, corporate media, and secret police absurd assertions. Recall that Obama's "Director of National Intelligence," James "Pinocchio" Clapper, commissioned a custom "intelligence report" attacking the likes of RT and Abby Martin for "creating division" in America! What demented, demonic scapegoating by a pathological system!

Your next Supreme Court Justice: Unconvicted Felon Brett Kavanaugh