Why not respond in kind? There's evidence that the REPUBLICANS rigged the vote

Yesterday, I had much to say about the insane Texas case filed by Ken Paxton (who clearly covets a Trump pardon). But the words wouldn't come. Ever have one of those bad dreams where you feel a need to scream but you can't make a sound? I felt muffled by my own disgust, like a man trying to sing through a mouthful of vomit.

 

Everyone on librul teevee keeps telling us that Paxton's bizarre trick won't work, yet no-one quite believes these blandishments. Admit it: You feel fear. We all do. Maybe it's not a rational fear, but we're feeling it nonetheless. 

 

What unnerves many is the widespread nature of this delusion. Trump has taught us, once again, that a lie repeated become truth in the minds of many. Even if the Supreme Court refuses to hear the case -- a decision which could come within hours -- a ludicrously false narrative has captured the imagination of half the nation. 

 

Hate to say it, but Erick-Woods Erickson has compiled the best brief rejoinder to this legal laughingstock:

Let me explain just how absurd this case is:

• Texas can cite no cases at all in its claim that it has standing to sue the states for the administration of their own internal elections.

• Texas alleges the other states changed election laws due to the pandemic without the legislature’s blessing. You know one state not being sued that did that? Texas.

• The states allege it is illegal to count ballots received after election day. Several of the states making that claim also do that.

• Their expert argues a sign of voter fraud is that it is not likely Trump 2016 voters would vote for Biden in 2020. The expert also uses dubious statistical modeling comparing Clinton to Biden.

• The Missouri amicus all but says they don’t necessarily agree with Texas’s legal statements, but the case is so important the Supreme Court should hear it.

• Texas could not even get its Solicitor General — the man who argues on behalf of the state before the Supreme Court — to sign onto the lawsuit. That’s how frivolous it is.

This will persuade the fool and the gullible, but these are not meritorious arguments, particularly when many of the states on the plaintiff’s side of the lawsuit have done similar things and thus have unclean hands.

Here's my big idea: One of the blue states should respond in kind. An AG in (say) California or New York or Maryland should "pull a Paxton." There is evidence that various red states using ES&S devices rigged the election to favor the Republicans (not just Trump). This evidence is far more persuasive than anything in Paxton's pack of prevarications. 

 

Texas, for example. The following comes from Patrick Svitek of the Texas Tribune: 

Trump has won Zapata County — just north of the Rio Grande Valley along the border — by 6 points, 53% to 47%, per SOS results.

Last two presidential elections there were Clinton +33 and Obama +43.
This is a small county, but that's obviously a swing. Vote counts:

2020 — Trump: 2,032 | Biden: 1,820
2016 — Clinton: 2,063 | Trump: 1,029
2012 — Obama: 2,527 | Romney: 997 

Now that's evidence of election fraud. Maybe not conclusive evidence, maybe not the kind of evidence your geometry teacher demanded of you, but certainly better evidence than anything you'll get from Kenny Paxton.

A writer named Alison Greene has been looking at the situation in Kentucky. Yes, Kentucky. She has done some detailed digging, and has found evidence that someone "salted" the results to insure a McConnell victory. Her thread is long but fascinating: I am giving you much of it, though not all of it. Go here for the full experience.

On my continuing quest to understand how Mitch McConnell, who had an approval rating of 18%, managed to win reelection by 57%, I dug even deeper🤔

The deeper I dig, the more I find the numbers out of Kentucky hard to swallow🙄

Here's a follow up on Kentucky's election results👇

My previous thread noted how many Kentucky Dems voted Republican. Folks said "This is just Kentucky voters"

But if Kentucky voters typically cross party lines it also provides cover to easily hide vote flipping. And HUGE numbers of Dems voted Republican.

Take Breathitt County👇

In Breathitt Mitch got 234% more votes than they had registered Republicans
Amys votes only represent 17% of registered Dems

They'll still say "Its just Kentucky. Look at voting history"

Well, HISTORY shows 2 counties who NEVER before voted for Mitch gave him BIG wins in 2020👇

Mitch NEVER won in Elliott or Wolfe Kentucky.
But in 2020 he won these counties with mind boggling results🧐

WOLFE COUNTY
Mitch Votes=1912
Registered GOP=943

McGrath Votes=945
Registered Dems=4527

ELLIOTT COUNTY
Mitch=1958
Registered GOP=860

McGrath=868
Registered Dems=4276

And since my original thread on Kentucky I've found even more anomalies. To further verify Kentuckys data I also looked at Dems numbers to see if their votes made sense

THEORY: When a Kentucky Dem voted for Amy they also voted for Biden

But thats NOT quite what the data shows👇

Out of 120 counties in Kentucky, Amy McGrath got MORE votes than Joe Biden in 119 counties.

In 99% of the counties it appears voters went into the voting booth and voted for Amy McGrath AND Trump?

Really?
A Trump voter who then votes for the Democratic woman candidate?

Huh🤔

Did Amy get more votes than Biden cause more folks voted in the Senate race?
Nope

550 more people voted in the Presidential race.

Senatorial Votes: 2,134,446
Presidential Votes: 2,134,996

Btw, 550 is a tiny & oddly round number🤔
(especially as compared to even smaller states)

I only had one explanation...the whole country watched the #MoscowMitch race but noone expected Biden to beat Trump in KY
So IF they manipulated votes did they siphon off slightly MORE votes from Biden to Trump?

But I think Dominion is a distraction👇

It so happens that Kentucky didn't use Dominion machines. 20% of Kentucky's counties used ES&S machines though.

In the top 6 counties where McConnell got the biggest % of votes vs registered Reps ALL used ES&S machines...even the 2 counties where historically Mitch NEVER won.

Now I know this thread is about Kentucky but since I'm bringing up ES&S
👉Lindsey Grahams SC uses ES&S in each county
👉Most Maine voters ballots go through an ES&S machine
👉Texas uses ES&S (& rejected Dominion)
👉Iowa uses ES&S
👉& Florida

Just sayin...

Now back to Kentucky😉

Even though Trumps vote flipping scheme is one way, it's not the only way to help a candidate in an election. What if you also wanted to add voters to the voting rolls? All those added votes would inflate the totals for the candidates you're helping.

But how do you detect that?

I decided to look again at Breathitt Kentucky.
👉Breathitt used ES&S machines
👉& it's where Mitch had the biggest number of votes compared to registered Republicans

So I looked at the population of Breathitt and compared it to the registered voters and it sure does look odd👇

  According to census data
👉Breathitts population is 13,116
👉Approximately 23% of the population is 19 & under. So let's estimate 20% as under 18
👉That gives us approximately 10,500 old enough to vote

Yet KY Board of Electors says Breathitt has 11,497 registered voters?

huh🤔

But how would they add voters to voting rolls? You'd need an opportunity.

Coincidentally we know...

THE SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE CONCLUDED ELECTION SYSTEMS IN ALL 50 STATES WERE TARGETED BY RUSSIA

Russia wouldn't do it for shits & giggles. Could they have added names?

Some may say that by questioning results in Kentucky we're adding to Trumps narrative. But let's face it, Trumps incessant claims of voter fraud seem a lot like projection. And swing states who used Dominion machines mostly voted for Trump. So is Dominion a distraction from ES&S?

And Trump may keep screaming about fraud but this speaks more to corruption.

Trump may not have won but who believes he didn't try?

In 2016, Hillary won 65M in the popular vote.
Trump may have expected to win with 70M votes if it wasn't for the overwhelming turn out for Joe👏🌊

And Trump may have lost but Senators still won...
👉Mitch in KY
👉Lindsey in SC
👉Cornyn in TX
👉Ernst in IA
👉Collins in ME

Between ES&S machines, voter suppression, DeJoy's postal hijinks, Russian interference & Trump...
we're supposed to just accept this as a normal election?

Ironically, in 2019, the same day that a bi-partisan Senate committee released a report saying that Russia had hacked into our election systems...guess who moved AGAIN to block consideration of election security legislation by Democrats...

Yep, of course Mitch McConnell🤬

#MoscowMitch has done everything in his power to block election security
He's taken💰from vendors such as ES&S
He's got multiple ties to Russia
He laughed in Amy McGraths face during the debate...cause he knew the fix was in

How do we just ignore red flags in Kentucky's results?

By putting in a Special Prosecutor we can expose the truth.

A Special Prosecutor would look at ALL machine vendors not just ones Trump points us to.
They'd look at ALL States not just ones where Trump lost.
A Special Prosecutor won't ignore Trump asking Governors to change results & appointing DeJoy to disappear ballots.

They investigate

By focusing on all vendors ES&S may come to light
By focusing on all states the truth behind these Senate races may come out
And investigating may reveal whether Trump REALLY had 70M people vote for him?

An investigation could prove Bidens legitimacy AND expose the GOP's games

There's evidence of hugger-mugger elsewhere, as well -- particularly in Florida. Since this post has already reached a Brobdinagian length, I shall discuss Florida at another time.

 

As established above, and in previous posts, the real problem is not Dominion's system (which provides a paper trail) but ES&S. 

 

Bottom line: I second the call for a special prosecutor. We need a genuine bipartisan effort. Such an investigation will serve four purposes: 

 

1. It will assure the seccessionist Trumpian hordes that their issue is being addressed.

 

2. The end result will, I trust, clear Biden.

 

3. A thorough investigation MAY expose what the GOP has been doing for decades.   

 

4. An investigation may lead to election reform legislation, and perhaps an amendment. We need paper ballots. We also need to end caging, gerrymandering, and long voting lines. If Voter ID cards will make the other side happy, then so be it.

Until then: If the Supreme Court does decide to hear Paxton's case, it would behoove a blue state AG to file an exactly similar case questioning the results in Texas, Florida, Kentucky and elsewhere. When will the Dems learn to hit back? Why aren't Dems as furious about ES&S (which really did have a Venezuela connection) as the Republicans are about Dominion?

Spooks for Trump: The Israeli-Russian partnership

Even before the election of Donald Trump, a narrative took hold in Liberal-Land -- the narrative of Spooks vs. Trump, the idea that the intelligence community is, and always has been, dead-set against the rise of Trumpism. Fascism may threaten, but our spies will save us. Voices as disparate as John Brennan, Louise Mensch and Malcolm Nance have made this theory into a liberal credo.

(I will confess that it was a little shocking to see Rob Reiner -- Meathead himself! -- interviewing CIA head honchos about Trump's corruption.)

But the intelligence community was never a monolith. There is a "spooks FOR Trump" contingent within the American, British and Israeli intelligence services. The most obvious examples: Michael Flynn (former head of the DIA) and Cambridge Analytica. Largely staffed by former MI6 agents, CA often worked for the American intel community.

Here's a recent example of the "Spooks for Trump" phenomenon:

Former top CIA official Michael Scheuer, who was once in charge of the Bin Laden unit before being pushed out, is a QaNon believer

Scheuer's wife, Alfreda Frances Bikowsky, is CURRENTLY a top CIA official with access to highly classified intel. https://t.co/5j5FTYuACC pic.twitter.com/65DCI14NSe

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) July 16, 2020

("Those who do not believe Qanon..." Yeesh. Didn't QAnon promise us that Mueller would put Hillary in jail?)

Let us continue with our "Spooks for Trump" theme: Did you know that Barbara Ledeen is on Lindsey Graham's staff? Barbara is wife to Michael Ledeen, who -- ages ago -- was identified as CIA by an Italian court. (Barbara seems to be quite the operative in her own right.) Graham wants to grill Mueller, which means that the questions will surely be prepared by Barbara Ledeen.

Now let's talk about the Israeli role in getting Trump re-elected in 2020. As we've noted in an earlier post, the Israeli right considers Trump a godsend. They know that he will acquiesce to the annexation of much of the West Bank, something that Joe Biden would never countenance.

The Israeli links to Trump's corruption are, of course, a touchy subject. Although most will prefer to avoid the topic altogether, one cannot ignore the work of Black Cube on behalf of Trump.

The barrier separating the Israeli government from a "private" spy shop like Black Cube is very thin and very permeable. This is standard operating procedure the world over: Spies often set up a "private" firm in order to pursue goals which must be kept plausibly distant from the official Powers-That-Be.

By the way: Superlawyer David Boies was the one who hired Black Cube to try to save Harvey Weinstein's ass. The more I look into Boies, the spookier he seems. Right now, he's the lawyer for Virgnia Roberts Giuffre, who falsely claims to be a "victim" of Jeffrey Epstein. Despite her many lies, our media still treats her as a goddess. Think about it: If she truly cares about the rights of sexual abuse victims, why is she represented by the lawyer for Harvey freakin' Weinstein?

But Black Cube is hardly the sole Israeli connection to the Trump story. There's much more.

Seth Abramson's Proof of Conspiracy points to the important links between Eric Prince and Israeli spies during 2016. It's a complex tale, so you may want to skim the following excerpts -- although I hope that some of you will actually try to digest this stew, as opposed to just getting a whiff of it:

As Prince licked his wounds and considered his next moves, he was developing close ties to the Israeli government as well as to strongmen across the Middle East, with Haaretz reporting that Prince’s “deep Israeli connections” came to include a long-standing business relationship with Ari Harow -- former bureau chief and chief of staff to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu -- and another with Dorian Barak, Harow’s onetime business partner.

Abramson describe the legal trouble that Harrow got into a couple of years ago. I'll skip that part.

From 2012 on, Prince will hold an investment stake in a company co-managed by Harow and Barak, and by dint of his association with the two men he begins investing in Israeli security companies as well. Barak also tries -- it isn’t known whether successfully or not -- to get Prince to join billionaire Vincent Tchenguiz as a major investor in a new investment project: SCL Group, the parent company of the Trump campaign’s data firm, Cambridge Analytica. Tchenguiz is known as well for being a close business associate of Dmitry Firtash, who is himself a business associate of 2016 Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Tchenguiz is also an investor in Black Cube and Terrogence, two Israeli intelligence companies that will intersect consequentially with the Trump campaign, transition, and administration (see chapters 3, 4, and 8). Black Cube, in particular, has ties to the Israeli government through many employees who are former members of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), and its advertising “openly” features its “ties to Israeli spy agencies, including Mossad,” according to the New Yorker.

(I know, I know -- Abramson is no easy read. Sorry about that. Proof of Conspiracy is an extremely important work, but it does make your eyes water.)

I've written about Tchenguiz before: See here and here. He was one of the key owners of SCL, the parent company of Cambridge Analytica. He's also financially entangled with Dmitry Firtash, the criminal oligarch who connects Trump and Manafort to Putin.

Tchenguiz is a British real estate tycoon, and SCL wasn't a big source of income. Some say it lost money. If that is so, then we must ask: Just why was he involved in Cambridge Analytica, a firm dedicated to subverting democracy?

Allow me to quote from one of my earlier posts:

It may be worthwhile to note here that Russian oligarchs love to park their money -- or launder it -- in real estate located in western countries.

Cambridge Analytica does very sensitive work for the western intelligence services, despite the financial links to Russia. This may be the ghastliest security hole in the history of intelligence. In order to create such a hole, the Russians would have needed to recruit western moneymen to act as fronts.

Now let's get back to Proof of Conspiracy.

Abramson's book discusses another "private" Israeli intelligence firm called Terrogence, which has not received the kind of attention bestowed on Black Cube. (Why? Probably because Black Cube involved itself in the Weinstein scandal. Hey, sex sells.) But Terrogence played a role in a behind-the-scenes maneuver that few now recall, thought it was Big News at one time:

On July 15, 2016, Soviet-born U.S. businessman Sergei Millian...contacts George Papadopoulos on LinkedIn.

On August 23, Millian sends a Facebook message to Papadopoulos -- which Papadopoulos will insist to the special counsel’s office he has no recollection of -- telling him that he wants to “share with [him] a disruptive technology that might be instrumental in your political work for the campaign.” Papadopoulos meets Millian twice more after this offer of campaign assistance, once in November 2016 and once at Trump’s inauguration in January 2017, apparently to discuss, among other things, a possible consulting partnership. The partnership -- Millian’s idea -- does not go forward.

You may be wondering: Where's the Israeli connection? Here it is:

Less than six months after his fourth and final meeting with Millian, Papadopoulos will be approached in Tel Aviv by the founder of Terrogence, an Israeli business intelligence outfit dealing in digital marketing campaigns and intelligence services that could be considered “disruptive” technologies “instrumental” to those political campaigns willing to use them (see chapter 8). Millian is later revealed to be a key source -- if an “unwitting” one -- for much of the dossier compiled by former MI6 Russia desk chief Christopher Steele in 2016 and published in January 2017 by BuzzFeed News.

As you know, I've long speculated that the Russians got wind of Steele's effort and fed him disinfo (which would be standard procedure).

The important take-away here is that it sure as hell looks like the Israelis and the Russians were working together to get Trump elected. This partnership has become The Super-Important Thing We Must Never Mention. This is not the elephant in the room -- it's a secret conspiracy to push the elephant into the room.

No, I'm not saying that Putin and Netanyahu are partners in all things. I'm simply arguing that, when it came to the election of Donald Trump in 2016, Putin's and Netanyahu's interests converged.

They still converge.

(Putin is always careful to denounce anti-Semitism in public. Nevertheless, his ultra-nationalism and his paranoia suggest that his thoughts may one day turn toward pogroms. Stalin went in the same direction toward the end.)

The spookery continued after the election. By 2017, according to Abramson, Saudi Arabia had joined the party. You really should pay attention to the following, because the implications are profound:

On June 21, 2017, Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman becomes the heir apparent to the throne of his father’s kingdom, having just deposed his cousin Mohammed bin Nayef. The same month, an Israeli business intelligence company that “specializes in cyber espionage tools,” NSO Group, enters into a $55 million agreement with the Saudi government to give the Saudis Pegasus 3 -- proprietary software that will allow MBS and his father to “hack their citizens’ cell phones, and to listen to calls as well as conversations that take place near the phones.” While the NSO deal with Riyadh draws significant public attention, a November 2018 Times of Israel report will disclose that throughout 2017 “Israeli cyber spying companies [meet] several times with Saudi figures at European locations to talk about the sale of various [intelligence] technologies”—suggesting a new era of Israeli-Saudi coordination has begun, one that in short order will have substantial repercussions across the globe. That MBS intends to use such technology to destroy domestic opposition to his regime is evidenced by the fact that “in one [NSO-Saudi] meeting, Israeli representatives refused a Saudi request to identify the user behind an anti-regime Twitter account as a way of showing the ability of their technology” -- though NSO officials did agree to “demonstrate how [Pegasus 3] could take control of a brand-new iPhone [if] it was provided the phone’s number.

I put that last bit in boldface because I want you to ponder the implications. This software can control your phone. All they need is your number.

Think of it: Incriminating phone calls and texts could be made to and from your phone while you sleep. You may have child porn on your phone right now. You'd never know. With tech like this at their disposal, the bad guys can engineer all sorts of "October Surprise" scenarios.

I'm going to take the liberty of offering a huge chunk from Abramson's book. Again, you can skim this stuff -- but I'd advise you to make some coffee, sit down and pay attention. This story really does get interesting. And frightening.

The same month NSO sells Pegasus 3 to the Saudis, another -- or perhaps the same -- UAE-connected “Israeli businessman dealing in defense-related technologies who operates through Cyprus,” Charles Tawil, meets with George Papadopoulos. According to Papadopoulos, on June 8, 2017, Tawil, who identifies himself as a “pro-Trump citizen,” introduces him to Shai Arbel, co-founder of Israeli cyberintelligence company Terrogence, at the Crowne Plaza Tel Aviv City Center Hotel. As reported by the New Yorker, Psy-Group, Joel Zamel’s Israeli business intelligence outfit (see chapters 3 and 4), “emerged more directly from Terrogence” than did other spin-offs of the Israeli business intelligence pioneer, though the company’s first-in-its-field status means that not only Psy-Group but NSO is an heir to its inheritance. Per the New Yorker, “In 2008, [Terrogence co-founder Gadi] Aviran hired an Israel Defense Forces intelligence officer named Royi Burstien to be the vice-president of business development.… Burstien urged Aviran to consider using [online] avatars in more aggressive ways, and on behalf of a wider range of commercial clients. Aviran was wary. After less than a year at Terrogence, Burstien returned to Israel’s military intelligence, and joined an élite unit that specialized in PsyOps, or psychological operations.… [in 2014], Burstien founded Psy-Group.”

See? The distinction between "official" Israeli spooks and "private" Israeli spooks often looks like a legal fiction. We've seen the same trick in other countries, including this one.

Though Burstien is Psy-Group’s founder, Joel Zamel is its owner, via a Cyprus-based company called IOCO Limited. Zamel bases his company in Cyprus to make it easier for Arab states—which often eschew being seen doing business with an Israeli company—to become his clients.91 Psy-Group’s early work in 2016, which involves “mak[ing] money by investigating jihadi networks,” according to the New Yorker, is modeled on the business plan of Terrogence.

Also present at the June 2017 Terrogence-Papadopoulos meeting are several unnamed “founders of an Arabic language digital marketing company” and, according to Papadopoulos, multiple “ex-Israeli intelligence people,” raising the possibility that Papadopoulos is, as he will later say he suspects, meeting with representatives of foreign governments who are incognito. Another possibility is that he is meeting with representatives from Israeli business intelligence firms -- and perhaps their clients -- other than Terrogence. Papadopoulos will later say that the purpose of his meeting with Tawil, Terrogence co-founder Arbel, several Arab businessmen, and former Israeli intelligence officers with unclear affiliations was for the mysterious Israeli veterans to “pitch a social media manipulation operation … [that was] basically what they [the FBI] were accusing the Russians of doing regarding social media” during the 2016 presidential election.”

Papadopoulos is, at the time, so startled by the similarities between the Israeli and Russian interference operations presented to him (a similarity that in retrospect underscores the similarity between the work Zamel did for the Trump campaign and the crimes the Kremlin committed to aid the Trump campaign) that he begins to fear he will be “framed” for a crime if he agrees to go into business with the Israelis.

Whatever “deals” Tawil and Papadopoulos are working on in the summer of 2017, they clearly attract attention at the very highest levels of the Israeli government.

In retrospect, it is unclear why an Israeli business intelligence firm like Terrogence would be interested in an obscure energy consultant like George Papadopoulos, let alone for the Israeli government to invite Papadopoulos to an event that its prime minister was attending -- unless the Israelis believed or had been given reason to believe that Papadopoulos was still representing Trump’s interests long after he had officially left Trump’s employ.

Just like Roger Stone, eh wot?

There's much more, but I've already pilfered too much of Abramson's work. Inevitably, some hacks on Twitter have accused him of anti-Semitism, even though Abramson is Jewish. That claim won't wash. His citations are online, and his sourcing is both copious and convincing.

Fake news, Bloomberg, Biden, Bernie

Come on. Does Matt Drudge really think we're going to believe this?

“Sources close to Bloomberg campaign tell DRUDGE REPORT that candidate is considering Hillary as running mate, after their polling found the Bloomberg-Clinton combination would be a formidable force...,” the tweet continued, pointing to Drudge’s eponymous website, where the scoop was played in underlined type above the scroll and a bright-red all-caps headline.

Yes, I know that the Bloomberg camp did not issue a denial. They probably don't want to annoy the many Hillary fans who still exist in Camp D, and they certainly don't want to trigger the rabid Hill-haters in Camp R. The latter will be screech in equal horror at a confirmation or a denial: Any mention of the Clinton name evokes an autonomic response. From Bloomberg's standpoint, the best course of action would be not to mention the name "Clinton" at all.

It's sad. The name of one of our greatest presidents -- the only one to give us both prosperity and a balanced budget -- is now toxic, thanks to a decades-long propaganda barrage.

How would Drudge, and no-one else, learn of such a thing? This story is ridiculous on its face. Drudge concocted this little fantasia for two reasons: He is tossing raw meat to the Alt Right lions, and he seeks to trigger the godawful Bernie Bros.

As for Bloomberg: Apparently, black people are starting to switch from Biden to Mr. Stop N. Frisk. That...is...insane.

stop and frisk stats over the course of Mike Bloomberg's 12 years as NYC mayor:

2002: 97,296
2003: 160,851
2004: 313,523
2005: 352,348
2006: 506,491
2007: 472,096
2008: 540,302
2009: 581,168
2010: 601,285
2011: 685,724
2012: 532,911
2013: 191,851 https://t.co/QSg1uhTDRG

— Matt Binder (@MattBinder) February 11, 2020

Meanwhile, Anita Hill still won't forgive Joe Biden because Biden blocked a witness from testifying on her behalf -- a witness so weak, so easily discredited, that the Republicans were dying for the chance to cross-examine her. Like Ms. Hill, they haven't forgiven Biden for his refusal to put that witness on TV!

I generally vote the way black people vote, but let's face it: African Americans can be as easily bamboozled as any other voting bloc.

Bloomberg. I cannot freakin' believe it. I'll vote for the guy if I have to, but...jeez. Do I have to?

(That said, I must concede that Bloomberg's ubiquitous TV and YouTube commercials are superb. One of the all-time best ad campaigns. Genuinely artful. Those ads should be studied in cinema classes in every university. Biden and Warren -- who have nothing to lose at this point -- should use Bloomberg's ads as templates for their own attacks on Bernie.)

Finally! Biden has demanded that Bernie Sanders take responsibility for the ghastly online behavior of the Bernie Bros.

“You know me well enough to know if any of my supporters did that, I’d disown them. Flat disown them,” Biden said. “The stuff that was said online. The way they threatened these two women who are leaders in that Culinary union. It is outrageous. Just — just go online.”

I've been saying it since 2016. Sanders' supporters are monsters, and Sanders deserves to be held accountable. He's the King of the Monsters. He has never apologized for the hateful antics of H.A. Goodman and Cassandra Fairbanks and all of the other beasts. What the Bernie Bros did in Nevada last time was unforgivable.

In an exclusive interview airing Sunday on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” Biden said the Vermont senator “may not be responsible for it, but he has some accountability.”

No, Joe, no! That's not the way to make your point and that's not the way to win an election. You can't weaken your own argument with too many qualifiers. Go for the jugular.

Bernie is responsible. He could have put a stop to the vileness with one stern lecture addressed to his own followers, warning them to start behaving like human goddamned beings. The fact that he has not delivered such a lecture in four fucking years proves that Bernie himself deserves full blame for the many displays of dickishness conducted in his name.

Another point about Bernie...

Florida (29 electoral votes) - Guaranteed win for Trump if Bernie is the nominee simply because of the fact that Sanders praised and had/has a soft spot for Fidel Castro. Cubans make up 1.2 million people in Florida.

Pennsylvania (20 electoral votes) - Fracking supports 320,000+ jobs in the state. Sanders wants to outlaw fracking by 2025.

I don't see a scenario where Trump wins PA but loses Wisconsin and Michigan. It doesn't matter either way as Florida, Ohio, PA, and NC put him at 279

None of this will matter to the brainwashed Bros, who actually believe that they can win the election WITHOUT voters.

Here's an interesting follow-up comment:

I believe he'd be Corbyn 2.0 in the general, but you know what makes it hard for the public to see the disaster ahead? The near lack of urgency from other campaigns and the party in general, which serves as a tacit advertisement of his electability. They're not exactly doing anything vigorous to stop him Corbyning us, unless they have convention machinations in mind, which would be terrible because there are many ways of stopping him pre-convention

"Lack of urgency." Yes! "Tacit advertisement of his electability." Yes!

I'll say it again: Biden has to go for the jugular. Show some passion, dude. The Bernie Bros are never going to stop biting and snarling and mauling. Time to bite and snarl and maul back.

Barr's plan to put Joe Biden in jail. History's biggest frame-up is in the works.

We have a troubling report from Kyiv suggesting that William Barr may be readying an indictment of Joe Biden. The charges will be false, of course -- but they may stick, nonetheless.

Before we talk about this horrifying development, I must offer a few preliminary observations about the Attorney General.

Back when Dems were hoping that Barr would be one of the proverbial "adults in the room," I warned that he was a CIA operative with a history of deceit and underhanded behavior. Dems learned the truth -- the hard way -- when Barr lied about the Mueller report.

Digby understands why Barr is the most dangerous man in America: Barr is Trump with brains. Digby also punctures the myth that John Durham is a straight shooter.

This explains why his hand-picked special prosecutor, John Durham, broke every rule in the book by issuing his own statement saying he also disagrees with the IG's conclusions, hinting broadly that he's onto something big. If you can't remember a federal prosecutor ever talking about an ongoing investigation this way, it's because it simply isn;t done. Well, it hasn't been done. But at least it clarified that Durham is either a Rod Rosenstein-esque toady, afraid to stand up for himself, or another Trump partisan. A straight shooter wouldn't have broken that rule. Now we know.

Greg Sargent in the WP:

In saying those things, Barr is rewriting the story of 2016 in a subtle but consequential way. He’s implying that the FBI’s initial investigation was only motivated by what it had learned about the Trump campaign’s intentions with regard to coordinating with Russia’s electoral subversion effort.

But Barr is leaving out crucial facts and context. In fact, when the FBI launched this investigation, it had already developed an awareness that Russia was undertaking this attack on U.S. democracy — separate and apart from any Trump campaign involvement with it. This was a critical reason the FBI launched its investigation.

It's worse than that. The public is being brainwashed into believing that the FBI -- yes, the freakin' FBI -- is institutionally pro-liberal.

This insane assertion contradicts all experience, all history, all common sense. Virtually every book and article I've ever read about the Bureau has described it as a conservative institution that attracts conservative employees. From time to time, I've met people who have worked for the Bureau, and all of them were locatable somewhere on the right.

(I even met a former FBI guy -- a man who once held a prominent position -- who ended up on the Alex Jonesian lunatic fringe. Some of you may be able to guess who I'm talking about. Of course, I met a lot of weird people back in the 1990s.)

During the 2016 election, the only bias publicly demonstrated by the FBI was the decision to reveal the investigation into the Weiner laptop. That decision, which walloped Clinton, was probably forced on FBI Director Jim Comey by a pro-Trump contingent in the New York office. In fact, we now have confirmation that this FBI office was working with Rudy Giuliani.

When Comey made that announcemnt, Harry Reid and a whole lotta rank-and-file Dems accused Comey of pro-Republican bias. That accusation, though not really fair, has always been a lot more plausible than were the bizarre conspiracy theories later offered by the right. After all, Jim Comey was a registered Republican, and his actions effectively handed the presidency to Trump.

Logic tells us that, if the FBI really had been anti-Trump, the Bureau would have revealed that Trump was under investigation.

Moreover, FBI sources would not have told NYT reporters that the DNC hack was “was aimed at disrupting the presidential election rather than electing Trump.” (Do you remember that infamous pre-election article?) It was the FBI's obvious pro-Trump bias which led an enraged Christopher Steele -- who was sincerely worried that a Russian puppet would gain the presidency -- to leak the Dossier to David Corn.

Yet Americans are being bombarded with propaganda designed to convinced them that the Bureau was pro-Clinton. Insane! Reality is being turned upside-down. Any propaganda apparatus capable of selling that absurd idea can also convince the public that Puff the Magic Dragon is real.

The triumph of propaganda will allow Barr to transform the Justice Department into an instrument of tyranny -- an Inquisition into any perceived foe of Donald Trump. Barr is Trump's Cardinal Richelieu.

Yes, Barr will indict Joe Biden. You read it here first, unless you follow the Kyiv Post or Seth Abramson (who has discussed the matter in this thread).

Attorney General Barr and his toady John Durham have the power to convene a Grand Jury. There are rumors that this has already occurred. Strong evidence suggests that the target will be Joe Biden.

Not Hunter: Joe himself.

Joe Biden is in danger of going to prison on false charges. I'm not kidding.

This incredibly important article in the Kyiv Post should have sounded far more alarm bells than we've heard.

A memo allegedly leaked from the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine shows that prosecutors are accusing former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden of receiving “an unlawful benefit” from former Ukrainian Ecology Minister Mykola Zlochevsky’s Burisma Group, and oil and gas producer.

According to the document, Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office also accuses Zlochevsky of offering Biden and former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry a share of Burisma Group’s profits.

Most Americans will not be able to understand just how audacious this lie is. First thing you have to know: Mykola Zlochevsky was a crook. (As I've noted in previous posts, he even looks like the Kingpin in Marvel Comics.) He was the corrupt former head of Burisma who, basically, robbed the company blind.

It's important to understand that Bursima was the victim. Too many American writers speak of Burisma as an innately evil enterprise. This is a smear -- a made-in-Russia lie. The Russians hate Burisma because, previously, Russians were in charge of Ukraine's natural gas. It was a very profitable enterprise -- one which gave Russia a great deal of leverage over Ukraine. Putin wants one of his 'garchs to run that show again.

Zlochevsky was exposed and ousted long before the company hired Hunter Biden to help rehabilitate the company's international image and allow it to do business in Western Europe. While Zlochevsky still ran the company, he had zero motive to attempt to bribe the American Vice President.

Joe Biden's taxes are a matter of public record. There's no "funny money" there -- if there were, we'd all know about it by now.

During the Obama administration, Joe Biden pressured Ukraine to can the corrupt prosecutor -- a shady character named Viktor Shokin -- who allowed Zlochevsky to get away with it. Zlochevsky's bank accounts in the UK were frozen, but the British case against him was stymied by Shokin's refusal to cooperate. That's one reason why Biden wanted Shokin fired.

Why on earth would Biden want Mr. See-No-Evil replaced, if Biden were the recipient of a Zlochevsky bribe? It makes no sense!

Zlochevsky's thievery started to come to light in 2012, when the Prosecutor General began to investigate him for money laundering and other crimes. This was before John Kerry was Secretary of State. By the time Kerry took on that job in 2013, pretty much everyone understood that Zlochevsky was no damned good; if memory serves, he was already out at Burisma by that point. Not long thereafter, he was forced to flee his home country.

Whatever you may think about Kerry, there is no way in hell the guy would have taken money from a known crook just after taking the oath of office as Secretary of State. Kerry is old and rich; he doesn't need the money. Moreover, he has always had a sterling reputation. If there was any corruption in his history, it would have come out in 2004, when the most ruthless oppo researchers in America examined every microsecond of that man's history. 

In short: This whole get-Biden narrative is utterly inane. Yet it will apparently have documentation to back it, and those documents will carry the imprimatur of the current Ukrainian government. (I told you not to trust Zelensky.)

Before we continue with the Kyiv Post article, you have to understand something else about Urkaine: Sergii Leshchenko is a true anti-corruption crusader -- probably the most trustworthy figure in the country. He's the one who exposed those obscene payments to Paul Manafort, a scandal which forced Manafort to step down as Trump's campaign manager.

Naturally, the pro-Trump and pro-Putin forces are out to destroy Leschenko's reputation.

(Don't mix up Sergii Leschenko with Yuri Lutsenko, the current Prosecutor General of Ukraine, who is not one of the good guys. The extra T in his name stands for Trump.)

Lawmaker Sergii Leshchenko published the memo on May 14. He said that the memo had been submitted by Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko’s team to U.S. President Donald Trump’s team and that he had received it from journalists working for a news site affiliated with Trump.

The leaked memo came in response to claims by Trump’s personal lawyer, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, that Leshchenko had been convicted of interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election on the side of the Democratic Party, claims that Leshchenko denies.

"Convicted"? Are they nuts?

Leschenko's Wikipedia entry -- which is very lengthy -- mentions no such conviction. Under Ukrainian law, would it be a crime if he had helped the American Democratic party? In fact, Leschenko did not aid the Democrats -- but he did expose those illegal payments to Paul Manafort, who went to jail. What Leschenko did was not interference: It was decency.

Basically, every time you hear a Republican claim that Ukrainians helped Hillary, it's a reference to the justice meted out to Paul Manafort -- a man whose own daughters have accused him of having people killed. The smear-merchants are setting the stage for a Manafort pardon.

Here is the bottom line:

Leshchenko cast doubt on the veracity of the claims about Biden and Kerry. He said he believed the memo to be part of what he alleged was a disinformation campaign by Lutsenko.

“Lutsenko seeks to use Ukraine as a bargaining chip in the battle between the Democrats and the Republicans in the U.S.,” Leshchenko said. “They have created a conspiracy theory that made us hostages to one person’s desire to keep his job. (Lutsenko) should not get Ukraine involved in this terrible scenario and should not take President-elect Volodymyr Zelenskiy hostage.”

Lutsenko has been accused of trying to curry favor with Trump by investigating Biden, Trump’s potential Democratic rival in the 2020 presidential election.

Unfortunately, the media -- including the mainstream media -- has sold the American public on the idea that Zelensky is some sort of anti-corruption crusader. He is anything but. He's the puppet of Ihor Kolomoisky, a villainous oligarch who has been secretly working with Rudy Giuliani.

Unfortunately, Barr will probably get away with relying on false documentation and testimony supplied by Zelensky's government.

My prediction: Joe Biden is going to be indicted. He may even go to prison.

It will be the biggest frame-up in history -- and even if it doesn't put Joe in jail, it will insure the re-election of Donald Trump. Manafort will probably go free. (So will Roger Stone, but that's a separate matter.)

Like the Silver Surfer heralding the coming of Galactus, infuriating meme-smears like this are preparing the way for the Mother of All Smears.

Conspiracies are real, my friends. The true conspirators are on the right -- always. The true victims of these conspiracies are always moderates and liberals. (Real conspiracies usually do not target those on the far left, who often play the "useful idiot" role.) Such was the situation in Germany when the Nazis came to power in the 1920s, and such is the situation in America right now.

Walter Schaub, former director of the Office of Government Ethics, offers an important thread on this topic, which I have taken the liberty of translating into normal prose.

As Attorney General, Barr is a threat to democracy. He has distorted facts and misled the public. He appointed Durham to run a concurrent investigation because he knew the Inspector General would debunk his conspiracy theories, and he needed someone he could control.

Durham revealed much about his own character when he issued a transparently political message challenging the IG's report before completing his investigation. Barr, who deceived the public about the contents of the Mueller report, has similarly tried to undermine the IG report.

Barr's crackpot theory boils down to the idea that the last administration tried to sabotage Trump's candidacy by keeping its investigation of Trump's campaign completely secret while colluding with Jason Chaffetz to leak information about its investigation of Hillary Clinton.

Barr bizarrely argues it'd be bad if a president abused his power to sabotage a rival's campaign with an investigation. The notion that Obama came anywhere near doing this is the debunked lunacy of pizzagate enthusiasts, but it's exactly what the "transcript" shows Trump did. Barr's comments also suggest a plan to take personnel actions against individuals tied to the investigation of Trump. Whether action is warranted or not, an Attorney General commenting on personnel actions that must be taken by lower level managers suggests the fix is in.

Whether he ultimately intervenes in personnel matters is almost beside the point. His remarks were intended to intimidate the DOJ attorneys and FBI agents investigating others associated with the president. And there's something far more ominous that his remarks have signaled.

Barr, who traveled the world looking for ways to defend the politician he serves instead of the rule of law, has also signaled he may use the criminal investigative apparatus of the state to go after perceived enemies of his boss -- weaponizing it as a tool of a political party. Even the mere suggestion that he would do this is a direct assault on democracy and a betrayal of the public trust. It is extremely dangerous and may chill legitimate investigations. It's the stuff of autocracies. It must not be tolerated. It cannot be tolerated in a republic.

(Barr even talks like an authoritarian. He said he'd ignore any ethics guidance he disagreed with. He ignored the 1st amendment and blamed "secularism" for society's ills. He told certain "communities" [wink] they need to show more respect or live without police protection.)

In this context, it's important to remember that Trump fired Sessions the day after the election because he would not stop the Russia investigation. A president firing someone for failing to treat him as though he is above the law should have been viewed as an impeachable act. Instead, Barr was greeted warmly as a stabilizing force by people who should have known better. But, as the beneficiary of a slow motion Saturday Night Massacre, Barr was hired to do what Sessions wouldn't do. He was hired for this moment in history.

Whistleblowers and the CIA. Plus: Giuliani's corrupt connection to Ukraine. (NEW AND IMPORTANT.)

I wanted the previous post (which debunks Ukraine/Biden conspiracy theories) to stay up for a couple of days. But so much is happening...!

First and foremost, there now appear to be "multiple" whistleblowers.

“IC WHISTLEBLOWER UPDATE: I can confirm that my firm and my team represent multiple whistleblowers in connection to the underlying August 12, 2019, disclosure to the Intelligence Community Inspector General,” the attorney, Andrew Bakaj, said in a tweet. “No further comment at this time.”

Mark Zaid, who also is a member of the original whistleblower’s legal team, confirmed to The Washington Post that the team is now representing a second whistleblower, who works in the intelligence community. The second individual has spoken to the inspector general of the intelligence community and has not filed a complaint. “Doesn’t need to,” Zaid said.

Doesn't need to? Tell me more!

At any rate, keep in mind that people in the intelligence community use spooky lawyers, which means that the "Deep State" conspiracy junkies are going to leap on Bakaj and Zaid.

Andrew P Bakaj, 36, is indeed a "former" CIA officer who formally served from 2012 to 2015. He is now running Compass Rose Legal Group. Interestingly, he once worked in the American embassy in Kiev. As a young man, Bakaj served on Capitol Hill (probably as an intern) for Chuck Schumer, Daniel Patrick Moynihan and -- wait for it -- Hillary Clinton.

Oh boy. You know what the rightwingers are going to do with all of that. "He's got Clinton cooties all over him!"

 From his firm's website:

Bakaj won DoD’s Investigator of the Year award in 2012 for his work on chemical weapons storage. He personally wrote both CIA and DoD agency regulations prohibiting reprisals against whistleblowers.

Bakaj says that he himself received wrongful termination for helping whistleblowers in a case that we don't know much about because the details remain classified.

The Liquid Natural Gas connection. What I'm about to lay out for you is very important, and almost nobody is talking about it. So PLEASE: Read carefully, double-check if you can, and spread the word.

First: We all got a nice giggle when Trump tried to deflect blame for the Zelensky call to Rick Perry. If I were in Trump's shoes, I wouldn't want to give people the impression that I was dumb enough to be hornswoggled by Rick freakin' Perry. I think I'd rather just take an impeachment.

The marvelous Wendy Siegelman decided to investigate further, and what she found is pretty damned amazing.

After reading this, you'll be asking the obvious question: Why is anyone talking about Hunter Biden? Rudy Giuliani is the one with deep and continuing business interests in Ukraine. Read Siegelman's piece and you'll get a good whiff of Giuliani's corruption.

I've taken the liberty of translating her Twitter-ese into conventional prose. The words below the asterisks are hers. I have improved the grammar slightly; if that decision bothers you, hit the link and read the original thread.

* * *

Trump's attempt to blame Rick Perry for his call to Zelensky is hilarious, but there is an underlying truth to his new narrative. No, Perry isn't responsible for Trump coercing Ukraine into supporting his campaign, but LNG is at the heart of the Ukraine scandal.

It's also why I've grown skeptical of the idea that the Ukraine scandal's supposed simplicity means it should be the focus of the House's impeachment inquiry. Yes, the corruptness of Trump's request to Zelensky is straightforward, but there's a much messier story underlying it.

Different members of the Trump administration saw a Liquid Natural Gas deal in Ukraine as a means to different ends, but for Trump, exporting LNG to Ukraine was closely associated with his frequent (incorrect) boasts about how America is now a net energy exporter, etc. It's also the thing Trump cites to when he claims 'nobody has been tougher on Russia than him.' While he's obviously wrong about the whole toughest on Russia part, Trump is right that this is one area – probably the only area – where his policies are genuinely adverse to Russia.

To grossly oversimplify everything: Russia has a lot of LNG that it supplies to Europe, and how reliant those European countries are on Russia for their total gas supply, and what pipelines Russia uses to transport the LNG to them, both have huge political ramifications. Ukraine's role in Europe's LNG politics is why Rick Perry and John Bolton were two of the heavy-lifters when it came to the negotiations with the new presidential administration in Ukraine. And it's why they were involved in the negotiations in July with Ukraine's security chair.

Back in May, Perry was subbed in last minute for Pence to attend Zelensky's inauguration. In part, it was a warning to Zelensky that he was being tested. But it is also the case that Perry was sent there, along with Sen Johnson and Volker, to discuss the LNG pipeline.

(Side note: check out that attendance list from the Ukrainian side. Why on earth would Ruslan Riaboshapka, an attorney, have been sent to an LNG meeting? Riaboshapka, btw, is also the guy Zelensky tapped to be his Chief Prosecutor. Who will lead any investigation into Biden.)

All of this negotiation over LNG pipelines and supply agreements is a normal part of politics. Yes, corruption is endemic in the LNG world, especially in developing nations, but there's nothing inherently wrong with what Perry/Bolton were doing in these LNG talks with Ukraine.

But what was happening in Ukraine wasn't just the usual LNG politics, because there was a monkey wrench that was interrupting the normal foreign policy process. That monkey wrench was Rudy Giuliani. Because Giuliani is the President's personal attorney. And he was in Ukraine operating on Trump's behalf.

But Trump doesn't pay Giuliani. Trump isn't paying for Giuliani's work in Ukraine. A Ukrainian-American LNG company is paying Giuliani for all his work in Ukraine.

Giuliani's actual client – his paying client – is Global Energy Producers. GEP's business is facilitating LNG export contracts to Ukraine. Which means that is also Giuliani's purpose in Ukraine. While simultaneously acting on behalf of the President of the United States.

"Conflict of interest" is an insufficient term for this abuse of power.

Giuliani was negotiating with the Ukrainians on Trump's behalf, while also try to help his clients score an LNG contract. All while Perry and Bolton are also negotiating with Ukraine on an LNG deal.

GEP is owned by Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman. They're the ones who got Giuliani in touch with Lutsenko, and who Giuliani sent to first make contact with Zelensky after his election. They're also the ones helping Giuliani in his quest to manufacture dirt on Biden in Ukraine.

Since 2016, Parnas and Fruman have gotten millions in funding from an unknown source, which they have used to donate millions of dollars to GOP campaigns and PACs. This, in turn, has given them a bit of access to some elected officials.

A world gone mad

It's always weird, but it's seldom this weird.

The Texas gun controller. Texas state legislator Tony Dale, beloved of the NRA, says that we can't allow Syrian refugees into this country because it would be too easy for them to get guns. No matter where you stand on gun control, this shit is funny.

“While the Paris attackers used suicide vests and grenades,” Dale wrote, “it is clear that firearms also killed a large number of innocent victims. Can you imagine a scenario were a refugees is admitted to the United States, is provided with federal cash payments and other assistance, obtains a drivers license and purchases a weapon and executes an attack?”

"A scenario were a refugees" -- behold the Texas school system at work!

What I want to know, Tonykins, is how refugees in France -- socialist, God-hatin', gun-controllin' France -- got automatic weaponry and grenades? (And why am I the only one who keeps asking that question?)

By the way: 750,000 refugees (of one sort or another) have been resettled in the US since the World Trade Center attacks, and not a one of them has been involved in domestic terrorism. Granted, two Iraqi refugees were arrested for aiding Al Qaeda back home -- but according to David Petraeus, those guys are now supposed to be our pals.

Speaking of refugees: This tweet speaks volumes...

Josh Rogin says that the big winner of the Paris attacks was Bashar Assad. This is a very carefully-written, very weasel-worded piece, insofar as it speaks highly of the anti-Assad rebels without telling you that ISIS and Al Qaeda are fully in charge of the rebellion in Syria, and will certainly take power if Assad goes. Rogin's article is carefully designed to give ill-informed readers the impression that Assad was somehow behind the terror in France:

Secretary of State John Kerry said Saturday what most Syrian opposition figures say repeatedly to anyone who will listen: Assad is the magnet for the terrorists, and Syria will never be free from terror until Assad is out of power.

Kerry pointed out that over 300,000 have died in Syria, the vast majority at the hands of the Assad regime. He mentioned the barrel bombs, the torture of civilians in custody, the use of chemical weapons, all by Assad’s forces. Only if Assad steps aside can the world join together to fight against the Islamic State, he said.

Either Rogin or Kerry is lying here. Or both. This much is certain: Quite a few fibs have been packed into one tiny suitcase of a paragraph.

If you trace the claim that Assad caused "the vast majority" of Syrian civil war deaths, you'll find that the source is always some neocon group like WINEP. The atrocities against civilians are pretty much all committed by ISIS and al Qaeda. If Assad is killing lots and lots of ISIS and Al Qaeda warriors, I can only say "Bravo!": That's what he damned well ought to be doing, and we should be helping him do it. (Here's a fun research project: How many combatant deaths did Abraham Lincoln preside over during our civil war?)

It has now been established beyond reasonable argument that the rebels (Davie Petraeus' bestest buds) were the ones behind the chemical attacks.

The "proof" of Assad's torture comes from a dubious source code-named Ceasar, also known as Curveball II. (Besides, does the United States have any moral standing to talk about torture after what our CIA has done?)

Here's the truth about the barrel bombs.

Yet, it seems likely this clumsy, improvised weapon – supposedly dropped from helicopters – would be far less lethal than rocket-propelled bombs delivered from afar by jet planes or drones, the approach favored by the U.S. government and its “allies.”

Civilians would have a much better chance to seek safety in a bomb shelter before some “barrel bomb” is shoved out the door of a helicopter than when a sophisticated U.S.-made bomb arrives with little or no warning, as apparently happened to the victims of that wedding in Yemen.

And that is not to mention the U.S. bombs that involve depleted uranium, napalm, phosphorous and cluster munitions, which present other humanitarian concerns. However, while U.S.-assisted or U.S.-directed slaughters of civilians attract little attention in the mainstream U.S. media, there are endless denunciations of the Syrian government’s “barrel bombs.”

The propaganda drumbeat is such that the American people are told that they must support “regime change” in Syria even if it risks opening the gates of Damascus to a victory by the Islamic State and Al Qaeda terrorists.

Rogin, Kerry: I don't mean to seem impolite, but go fuck yourselves. Just a couple of goddamned hypocrites, both of you.

Speaking of death-from-above...

Destroying history. Remember how outraged you felt when you read about what ISIS is doing to precious historical sites in Syria? Why are you not similarly outraged to learn that we are doing the exact same thing in Yemen?

The Great Unspeakable Truth about terror. Why is it never permissible for anyone in this country to state the fact that our Saudi "friends" are the ones who funded ISIS and nurtured its creation?

In December 2009, Hillary Clinton noted in a confidential diplomatic memo that “donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide.” In October 2014, Joe Biden told students at Harvard’s Kennedy School that “the Saudis, the emirates, etc. … were so determined to take down [Syrian President Bashar al-] Assad and essentially have a proxy Sunni-Shia war … [that] they poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of tons of military weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad except the people who were being supplied were Al Nusra and Al Qaeda.”

Just last month, a New York Times editorial complained that Saudis, Qataris and Kuwaitis were continuing to funnel donations not only to Al Qaeda but to Islamic State as well.

Yet despite countless promises to shut down such funding, the spigots have remained wide open. The U.S. has not only acquiesced in such activities, moreover, but has actively participated in them. In June 2012, the Times wrote that the C.I.A. was working with the Muslim Brotherhood to channel Turkish, Saudi and Qatari-supplied arms to anti-Assad rebels.

Two months later, the Defense Intelligence Agency reported that Al Qaeda, Salafists and the Muslim Brotherhood dominated the Syrian rebel movement, that their goal was to establish a “Salafist principality in eastern Syria” where Islamic State’s caliphate is now located, and that this is “exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition” – i.e. the West, Gulf states, and Turkey – “want in order to isolate the Syrian regime.”

More recently, the Obama administration made no objection when the Saudis supplied Al Nusra, Al Qaeda’s official Syrian affiliate, with high-tech TOW missiles in support of its offensive in Syria’s northern Idlib province.

All quite true. Yet these facts are never allowed to enter into our national conversation on terrorism.

Joe Biden has a secret. Joe Biden must not run.

(Readers may want to pass along this post to others.)

I like Joe Biden. He'd make a good president. Most liberal readers of Confront and Conceal will come away with a much better impression of Biden than of Hillary.

But this man must not run for president.

He has a secret which very few people know. Quite by accident, I became one of the few.

The New York Times -- which has used both fair and foul means (often foul) to disrupt Hillary's ambitions -- has published a piece which indicates that Biden is considering a run. Maureen Dowd (whom I despise) followed up with a piece which spewed the usual anti-Clinton spew and then pushed for a Biden candidacy. (I'm sure that many of my readers will recall the things that Bob Somerby has had to say about Dowd.)

In that column, Dowd gives a detailed account of a private dialogue between the dying Beau Biden and his father. William Kristol (a man who is so damned despicable that he makes Dowd look lovable) rightly asks: Who was Dowd's source? Either she made up the whole thing, or a member of the Biden family confided in her.

Put all the clues together, and one message becomes clear: The neocons want Biden to run. At least, the NYT wants Biden to run -- and the NYT has become the journal of "liberal" neoconservatism.

But why? Biden is not a war guy. He's not a "We're an empire now" guy. I cannot believe that neoconservative interests would be better served by Joe Biden than by Hillary Clinton, who counts Robert Kagan among her friends and supporters.

No. The neocons are pushing Joe Biden to run for only one reason: He will be easier to defeat.

This is not your cue to make the usual jokes about Biden's propensity for gaffes. I'm talking about something different. Something you don't know. Something secret.

I've been sitting on this secret since 2008. I found out about it purely by accident from a source I trust. This post may offer a clue. (The post references "a man whose name you would know." That man was Dick Clark; the poor guy was in terrible shape.)

It was an odd feeling, sitting on this information throughout two election cycles, knowing that one well-timed post might have changed history. Despite my antipathy for Obama, I kept quiet.

Why? Because I like Joe Biden. That is to say: He takes the right stances on many issues, and he conveys the impression that he is usually a man of great integrity. Elections should be about policy, not about the personal piffle that seems to fascinate so many Americans.

In 2012, I disclosed the secret to someone who might be considered a Democratic insider. Don't get the wrong impression: I'm a D-level blogger and happy to be such; it's not as though I'm on friendly terms with many, or any, political insiders. Nevertheless, I wrote this particular "party man" a letter which revealed the potential problem, and -- somewhat to my surprise, and perhaps to his regret -- he replied. He said that, even if the truth came out, it probably would not hurt Obama in the election, because the secret did not concern Obama directly.

This blog will not discuss the secret in greater detail, although anyone with half a brain should be able to hazard a reasonable guess. Nobody asked me to write this post. I decided to write it because I have come to suspect that certain neocons already know the secret. That is why they are so desperate for Biden to run.

Disinformation daze

Has the disinformation ever been this obvious?

Gettin' Oren-ry. Here we have former Israeli ambassador Michael Oren claiming that Obama has "abandoned" Israel. Most of the article is behind a paywall, but that's not a problem, since there is no pressing reason to read beyond the first paragraph.

The Wall Street Journal, which published this nonsense, doesn't tell you that this very same Michael Oren has said some very revealing things in the recent past. For example, he told the Aspen Institute that Israel wants ISIS to win in Syria. Maybe that's why Obama has supposedly "abandoned" Israel: He doesn't want to down in history as the man who brought ISIS to power.

Holy Flaming Obama! Here we have The Hill claiming that Obama holds to a vehemently "anti-police" ideology. The evidence? The author quotes some incredibly tepid (and inarguable) words which the President uttered after the 2009 incident involving Harvard Professor Henry Gates. Also, Obama has allegedly stoked "racial flames" in Ferguson and Baltimore -- although, oddly enough, the author of this piece cannot quote one sentence of this allegedly inflammatory material.

I happen to live in Baltimore. I am pretty damned sure that not one black person in this town has said: "You know, I was going to sit quietly inside my home like a good negro -- but after Obama stoked the flames, I've decided to go out and burn down a few stores."

Snow job. A few days ago, the front page of Murdoch's Sunday Times featured an alleged news story which claimed that the Ed Snowden documents betrayed British spies to the Russians and the Chinese. Smears of this sort plug into the right-wing disinformation theme that Snowden did what he did because he was a filthy Putin spy all along.

Greenwald offers an impassioned rebuttal here. Basically, the Sunday Times piece relies on leaked information from unnamed British spooks. None of these claims are corroborated, some are provably wrong, and all are unlikely.

Snowden took no files with him when he left Hong Kong. (He had turned everything over to several journalists, including Greenwald.) The Sunday Times also falsely states that Greenwald's partner, David Miranda, "was seized at Heathrow in 2013 in possession of 58,000 “highly classified” intelligence documents after visiting Snowden in Moscow." This whopper was later deleted from the online version of the article.

As Greenwald notes:

This is the very opposite of journalism. Ponder how dumb someone has to be at this point to read an anonymous government accusation, made with zero evidence, and accept it as true.

I would note that nothing in the available Snowden documents (which mostly seem to be Powerpoint presentations) indicates that he attained any lists of covert agents. Nor is it likely that any such list would have been available to him. Snowden worked for Booz-Hamilton, an NSA contractor. The NSA is not the CIA. The CIA runs spies and places people under cover in foreign countries. The NSA is all about signals intelligence -- eavesdropping on your phone calls and internet usage. Thus, the Sunday Times article is unlikely on its face.

However, Snowden makes for an easy scapegoat. As part of its ongoing war on whistleblowers, the administration can blame Snowden for any damaging information which the Chinese and the Russians gained through other means.

Greenwald notes an interesting historical parallel: After Daniel Ellsberg released the Pentagon Papers, the Nixonites had friendly media sources float the story that Ellsberg was some sort of commie spy.

My mind flashed on another parallel -- Ireland. During the height of the Troubles in the 1970s, the British army used similar leaks (and even a few fake documents, which were shown to reporters on a "read but don't copy" basis) to convince American journalists that the Soviet Union was behind the IRA. This claim was a complete lie, yet it became widely believed all across the political spectrum. The purpose of the fib was to stop American Catholics from donating to the IRA.

That DIA report. This humble blog is hardly the only online watering hole to discuss the DIA report which revealed the role of "the west" (loosely defined) in the creation of ISIS. The truth has found a large audience. Thus, it became necessary to have a pseudo-journalist named Jacob Siegel cobble together a piece which consigns the DIA revelations to the category of -- you guessed it! -- "conspiracy theory."

Siegel's tactics are smarmy. He notes that the despicable Pamela Geller (for reasons of her own) has latched onto this document; therefore, anyone else who thinks that the DIA report is important must be in bed with Pam. You know what that argument is like? It's like saying that David Duke was once spotted eating the chili at Wendy's -- thus, if you've ever eaten the chili at Wendy's, you probably also like to march around in public while wearing a swastika. That's just logical, right?

Here's another example of smarm:

The intelligence report about Syria is just that — a report, It’s not a policy directive and there’s no proof that any action was taken based on its analysis. Nevertheless, people across the political spectrum are taking it as if it were a presidential order.

Nobody ever claimed that it was a policy directive. The point of any report is to describe what actually happened, and it is fair to presume that the DIA has pretty good resources when it comes to finding out the truth. It is also fair to presume the intelligence community is more likely to speak candidly in a secret document than in a public statement. The game Siegel is playing here comes under the heading of "Baffle 'em with bullshit."

Brad Hoff demolishes Siegel here.

As to the content of the DIA document itself, Siegal’s main point (after citing Cole) is that the DIA is actually pointing the finger exclusively at America’s allies like Turkey and Saudi Arabia, and that “the West” (and US) is somehow wholly separate from its own coalition. Joe Biden’s revealing comments at Harvard University are referenced, but his prior statements regarding support for the Syrian opposition are ignored: “We are working hand and glove with the Turks, with the Jordanians, with the Saudis, and with all the people in the region attempting to identify the people who deserve the help…” (and this is consistent with statements of other US officials).

The idea that US intelligence and military officials were far removed from the situation as allies armed the likes of Nusra, ISIS, and Ahrar Al-Sham, even while those officials all occupied the same “operations command center” (in Jordan and in Turkey), is absurd on its face. American government officials themselves told the New York Times of a joint Saudi/CIA program to arm the rebels beginning in 2012.

In truth, we did not need that DIA report to figure out the truth about ISIS. This humble blog was talking about that inconvenient truth well before the report became public. You can learn all you really need to know from studying the words of Michael Oren, as noted above. (I like Oren: His blabbiness is useful.) We also have the hard evidence in the video embedded below, which I strongly urge you to watch in full.

Since strained rationalization is my favorite form of humor, I would love to see Siegel try to consign this piece by Dan Sanchez to the "conspiracy theory" bin...

The Pentagon and the CIA, as well as Britain and France, have been training Syrian rebels in neighboring Jordan since at least October 2012, as reported by The Guardian.

As early as April 2012, the State Department under Hillary Clinton began supplying communications equipment to rebels, according to The Wall Street Journal.

I'm sure that Siegel would say that this equipment went only to the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA), a.k.a. the moderates. As we have seen in many previous posts, the FSA is largely a convenient fiction; Nusra and ISIS provide the real muscle in the Syrian civil war.

It is likely that, without this crucial early logistical aid from the US, the fractious and power-hungry opposition would have fallen apart, the bloody and ruinous civil war would have ended much earlier, and tens of thousands of violent deaths would have been prevented.

More to the point, the war would have ended before Syrian al-Qaeda (aka the Nusra Front) and ISIS could conquer much of Syria, and before ISIS could use its Syrian foothold to stage its conquest of the northwestern half of Iraq. By prolonging the war, the US gave the extremists the time, the space, and the chaos they needed to expand astonishingly.

The chief role of the Saudis and Qataris has been to bankroll the weapons shipments. Both Gulf States are dependent on American arms deliveries worth tens of billions of dollars every year.

What Sanchez is saying, Mr. Siegel, comes down to three simple words: Money is fungible.

Turkey and the Gulf States are client regimes, greatly dependent on American support. If Washington really wanted them to stop arming the rebels, a slight tug of the purse strings would quickly do the trick. With major policy questions like this, if Turkey and the Gulf States are doing something big, it is because it is okay with Washington. Even more likely, it is because it is exactly what Washington wants, and the US is simply using its proxies to do its dirty work.

But it hasn't just been a matter of proxies...

Since at least June 2012, the CIA has been in Turkey actively steering their delivery, as reported by The New York Times.

Yet by October 2012, heat-seeking, shoulder-fired, anti-aircraft missiles were being smuggled into Syria, as reported by The Wall Street Journal. And apparently, by early 2013, they didn’t even need to be smuggled.

These missiles can take down passenger jets.

We know who delivered them to the rebels and who paid for them. But where did these anti-aircraft missiles come from? According to the 2012 Journal report, mostly from Libya...

Even former CIA spokesperson Michael Morell semi-admits that the Syrian rebels got weapons from Libyan stores, although he expects us to buy into bullshit stories involving proxies. Here's the thing: The very same missiles made their way from the so-called Free Syrian Army to ISIS. Proof, one again, that the whole raison d'etre of the FSA is to provide a plausibly deniable mechanism by which American aid can reach the jihadis.

Friendly fire. You will note the unifying factor in all of these examples: If a disinformation story is to have an impact, it can't appear solely in a place like Fox News. The Fox newsfolk speak to people who never leave that intellectual ghetto. Fox has become a meme-trap; it is no longer a way for memes to escape into the wild.

In order for disinformation to work, it has to appear in places where liberals, moderates and conservatives might see and believe it. Venues like the NYT, Buzzfeed, Slate and The Guardian are very useful to the disinformers.

Not everything printed in those venues is a lie (although the NYT has gotten so bad lately that I'm not sure how different it would look if Roger Ailes ran the joint). Heavy-handed "top down" disinformation doesn't work nearly as well as the clever insinuation of misleading stories amid normal reportage.