As part of her ideological war to reclaim the GOP for neocons, the now-deposed House leader falsely denied her role in a tale designed to block withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Trump's lasting legacy will be how he changed some of the old thinking in the Republican Party, specifically about endless wars. It is not Liz Cheney's Party anymore, and all of us are better off.
Likewise, the ineffective police response to rioting coupled with police enforcement of lockdowns has changed old thinking about policing and the state.
I don't follow the thought here. If they wanted to stop the riots, it'd be over in a month. It's not the police's fault but their masters. Our whole justice system has needed an overhaul for years, but not by this defund strategy. The political parties are the masters of the police (I think) and whoever is in power pulls their strings. It's the power that the puppet masters extract from the government players and system that is the problem from what I can tell. I'm willing to see it another way but as yet haven't seen the compelling evidence. Name calling ain't it.
I wasn't implying that you did any name calling. It seems to be the rule of the day though and it's hard to move forward, as I imagine is their intention. It's been great to see people on these threats honestly laying out their cases. I've learned a lot.
The stark contrast between police behavior in the summer riots and with regard to lockdowns has made it clear that they do indeed follow orders and that it is time to expose state-legitimizing myths such as "the rule of law," one of many faux ideals used to induce public tolerance of the increasing malfeasance of the justice system, top to bottom. The number of law and order conservatives who, in one year, have gone sour on police is head-spinning.
"If they wanted to stop the riots, it'd be over in a month." By the same reasoning, Nazification could have been over in a month if only "the masters" had called it off. They aren't going to; ruination takes time. Recommend this chilling excerpt from "They Thought They Were Free; The Germans, 1933-1945."
I am one of those people who have had a "head-spinning" awakening. Not that I wasn't aware of much of this, but not to the level I keep getting it. When my (former) friends and neighbors finally come clean and say they'd prefer a socialist or even communistic future, I realize just how unaware I am and have been. I still believe I don't "get" it. That's one reason I'm commenting here. By the way I LOVE your, "it is time to expose state-legitimizing myths such as "the rule of law," one of many faux ideals used to induce public tolerance of the increasing malfeasance of the justice system, top to bottom." That has my mind spinning in many different thought processes.
I'm not sure if you've followed any of Jordan Peterson's work. His debates and lectures about being christian have also given me much to chew on. The idea that we need the christian myths and stories to bring us together as a culture has some weight and merit to me. I bring that up to say that I think the myth of "law and order" as an important ideal to shoot for. When I go out to climb a mountain, I might be able to see the mountain at the start but as I get in the thickets I'm following a route based on what's in my mind and intuition. Often I've ended up on other peaks or on other excursions, all starting with a structural idea of plan.
Anyway, thank you for these thoughts. I'm going to be chewing on some of them for the next few hours or days.
Now that I've got your attention, I recommend Stephen Kinzer's "The Dulles Brothers" as an appetizer to start a feast of chewing! Peterson is a good man and I'm glad he is recovering from a long bout of personal suffering.
If you drop the word "leftwing" from your closing sentence, it would then be accurate, except that it leaves out agency; the media is acting in the interests of the ultra-rich who use the divide and conquer strategy to keep us all from joining together to remove the chains they have bound us all with. This isn't a left/right issue, it's an ultra-rich against the rest of the world issue, and always has been.
Disagree. The ultra rich have been co-opted by the left. The media is overwhelmingly leftist as I'm sure you know. The leaders of BLM define themselves as "trained marxists". They are not ultra rich. They are using fictional "systemic racism" to redefine the marxist class struggle. Their intention is violent revolution. They have all said as much in print and on national broadcasts. Do you know of any conservative members of the media who support "critical race theory"? I don't.
You know how to tell you're the good guys? When all the massive multi-national corporations that have questionable hiring, firing, healthcare, worker's rights, and safety track records, when celebrities with a huge problem of pedophilia and sexual misconduct promote and sponsor your cause and your Revolution has corporate sponsorship. At least this revolution has dope corporate sponsors! - from a Tim Pool tweet. The ultra rich from the media, Hollywood, big tech, oligarchs all support THE LEFT!
I keep seeing this "they are not left" excuse again and again on Glenn and Jimmy Dore's comment section. It's amazing type of delusion. And I am saying this as someone who recognizes that the current "left" is not "liberal". Jimmy Dore, Glenn etc are classical liberals - anti-censorship, anti-war and so on. But you trying to excuse the "left" as if the left is super pure and cannot have authoritarians is just delusional.
There's a reason why Jeff Bezos, Amazon, Walmart SUPPORT leftist causes like raising the minimum wage. It's an easy way for them to get rid of small business competition. They know they can afford it but small businesses can't.
You don't address Nosh's points and trying to diminish his ideas aren't helpful either. Please make your point clearer. I'd like to read it as well. I'm interested in this dialogue.
This is exactly where the story needed to go. A great swath of small "r" republicans resemble 1960's Democrats whereas a like number of DEMOCRATS are a half step behind J. Edgar Hoover. The former can be worked with and the latter will shame and villify you into obedience. There's an untold story here and political offiliation shouldn't be stopping Glenn from telling it.
It isn't DJT's party either, strictly speaking. It belong's to the Republican voter, not the Republican establishment, and WE used DJT to remind them of it. And so it continues.
I'm not convinced of this. It's easier to see that the Democrat Party, with full cooperation from the media and now corporations, manipulates its voters into thinking whatever is most profitable for the Party apparatus. The Republican Party wants that same power, they just don't have access to it, for the most part, and so the voters that call themselves Republicans believe its a more organic group.
What Republicans desperately craved is a fighter who would stand against the Democrat propaganda juggernaut, and that was Trump. I don't think they used him so much as it was symbiotic, and to the extent that he is a voice for Republicans, then Republicans are happy to let him take the Party in the direction he chooses.
It was Trump that used tariffs as a potent weapon, when the vast majority of Republicans would have considered themselves in favor of free and open markets. And it was Trump who wanted to end US military presence around the globe, when most Republicans were totally fine with existing policy.
I was very wary of DJT's tariff strategy, but 1) it WAS working, and 2) the difference between domestic "fair" trade (i.e. the (relatively) free market), and international is that the other side of the "trade" is not subject to the same "fair" restrictions put upon our traders.
The subject is book-sized complicated, of course, but the owner (i.e. manager) of the world's reserve currency cannot allow imbalance forever. That we have for so long is only due to the immense private wealth naturally created over centuries in a (relatively) free market by individual players acting in their rational SELF-interest, something dis-allowed in the worlds Authoritarian Socialist regimes.
I seriously love Glenn. Dude is legit. He and I are on separate sides of the political spectrum on paper, but he is an absolute inspiration.
There has been no other person who’s had a bigger impact on my critical thinking than Glenn. Hope that others support his work financially as well. We need him to continue to expose the elites for what they are!
John Solomon's journalism is excellent. In fact, it reminds me of GG's "calmer" columns, if you get my meaning. Also, if I am not mistaken, John Solomon is to The Hill what Glenn Greenwald is to The Intercept. Am I right?
And to watch the feigning lovefest on the democratic side for Liz Cheney and her "bravery" and "speaking truth to power" is truly gross. Just based on that alone it seems that the right decision was made to take her out of the Conference Chair position, not to mention everything else that Glenn stated.
Neocon war criminals like Bush, Liz Cheney, flint Michigan poisoner Rick Snyder, losers from Lincoln Project, actual white supremacists like Richard Spencer are all supporting one side. That alone should way up some people that they are on the wrong side.
It sickens me to no end that she was in any role in the leadership. The GOP cannot afford to be that out of step with its voters.
Glad she's ousted, but dammit, the RINOs have got to go. I'm sure that the Democrats would LOVE to have another neocon (emphasis on con, as in conartist) on their team. Go be awful over there, Liz.
Unfortunately, the GOP *is* that out of step with its voters. And has been for a very long time. The swampy establishment still to this day cannot comprehend Donald Trump or the populist movement he launched. That they are still expending so much political capital attempting to discredit him and his supporters only reinforces their isolation.
Cheney's deliciously inglorious takedown -- and especially her replacement with Stefanik -- is a significant step in the right direction but the party still has a long, long way to go. Beginning with McConnell.
"And has been for a very long time." 100 years, give or take. Coolidge, Reagan, Trump are the only respite. (A few non-POTUS classical liberals along the way, but way too few.)
And Cheney's takedown, like McCains, is GLORIOUS, not inglorious. In the manner of righting long-time wrongs.
Hopefully she has more integrity and will not be blinded by support of Trump.
Remember Trump assassinated Iran's national hero, Soleimani who defended Shiites from Sunny/ISIS/Al Qaeda genocide, mishandled completely virus (600,000 dead so far) and believes that Biden is not hard enough in support of horror on Palestinians. He was also stupid enough by not pardoning Assange - his strongest witness in dangerous and still ongoing Russia-gate scam of the century.
There are many valid criticisms of Trump like not pardoning Assange, failing to drain the swamp, banning bump stocks etc. But blaming him with "mishandled completely virus" and killing a literal terrorist Soleimani is pure TDS.
1. Soleimani was responsible for the deaths of over 600 U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Plus he orchestrated the Benghazi embassy attacks.
2. And I really need to spend some time to debunk the COVID handling bullshit because it keeps getting repeated. As a Canadian, US death numbers are not an outlier once you consider:
1. The US population is on average over 30lb overweight compared to the rest of the world with significant comorbidities (In the United States, 36.5 percent of adults are obese. Another 32.5 percent of American adults are overweight. In all, more than two-thirds of adults in the United States are overweight or obese).
Among men, the prevalence of obesity was over 8 percentage points lower in Canada than in the United States (24.3% compared with 32.6%) and among women, more than 12 percentage points lower (23.9% compared with 36.2%):
12 and 8 percentages are fairly higher in comparison - especially when we are talking about percentages. USA which has 9-10x the population of Canada, 12% makes a very big difference.
2. has very old population similar to Italy (though this is similar to Canada too)
3. has CRAZY amounts of tourism during winter. You think any tourists come to Canada in Winter? Or do they prefer doing to warmer places in US? Canadian tourism in winter is significantly lower due to extreme cold weather. Almost all the trips for cruise ships, water parks (Disney), famous cities, national parks etc happen in USA. The snow season in Canada prevents all those.
> The number of tourists from overseas countries (countries other than the United States) rose to 7.1 million arrivals (+454,000) in 2019, while the number of US tourists to Canada rose to 15.0 million (+554,000). The summer months—June through September—were the peak months for tourism arrivals from overseas to Canada, representing 51.9% of all arrivals from overseas during 2019. By comparison, the peak months for tourism arrivals from the United States were May to October, with 68.8% of all US tourist arrivals to Canada.
> Canadian residents returned from 4.8 million trips abroad in December, up 2.9% from the previous month. Of these 4.8 million trips, 3.8 million were to the United States, up 3.3% from November. Almost three-quarters of these trips to the United States were made by car. Same-day car trips across the border edged up 0.4% to 1.8 million in December, while the number of return trips from overnight car trips rose 9.4% to 966,000. The number of plane trips to the United States rose 1.5% since November to 877,000. This was 4.7% higher than in December of the previous year. In December, travel to overseas countries by Canadian residents rose 1.8% to 1.1 million trips—the highest level on record for the month of December.
Now lets look at the opposite for tourism to USA:
> In 2019, the number of international tourist arrivals to the U.S. stood at almost 80 million after being on the rise for over a decade. 47.88 of that came from Americas (Canada being the first followed by Mexico).
> In 2019, there were approximately 20.72 million overseas visitors from Canada to the United States. The visitation figures from Canada peaked in 2013 when the U.S. received a total of 23.41 Canadian citizens across its borders. In 2019, Canada placed first in terms of the most visitors from one nation to the United States, followed closely by fellow U.S. neighbor, Mexico.
A large number of Canadians in the Niagara region also cross the border for simple stuff like cheaper goods. Nobody does the opposite.
Also international travellers from Canada often fly through US but not vice versa. When I have to visit my home in South Asia, it's always cheaper for me to fly through US. This is not true for the opposite.
And even the ones who visit places in Canada like Toronto and Niagara Falls visit New York too. And a lot of tourists come from Canada who visit places in south like Florida. Anecdotal - I know 3 families here with whose retired members all spend their winters in Florida and another family which spends it in Austin Texas.
4. Canada has VERY VERY low population density in all cities and population of 1/10th of US. This density is even bigger factor for COVID and crazy dense cities. US also has the third-highest population in the world. Look at the population density of the 10 highest dense municipalities in Canada (highest is 5,492.6 people per square kilometre in Vancouver, B.C.):
Now compare it to USA. Top 50 cities amongst them all are ALL signifiantly higher than the Canadian numbers. New York City alone is 10,431.1 people per square kilometre, San Francisco is 6,658.9, Boston is 5,143.4):
5. New York was been found to be the origin of virus variant for majority of the US states - something Governor Cuomo played a big role in. Plus back in March, the American Health Care Association told Cuomo, Wolf, Murphy, Whitmer etc to stop ordering infected patients into nursing homes. The governors ignored the AHCA and removed their own family from nursing homes while forcing others:
From leftist NYTimes who hate Trump: "Travel From New York City Seeded Wave of U.S. Outbreaks: The coronavirus outbreak in New York City became the primary source of infections around the United States. That helped to fuel outbreaks in Louisiana, Texas, Arizona and as far away as the West Coast. The findings are drawn from geneticists’ tracking signature mutations of the virus, travel histories of infected people and models of the outbreak by infectious disease experts":
6. Plus millions of illegal immigrants who stay in packed apartments and don't want to get check ups done at doctors because they don't want to get caught.
Trump banned travel from China and then Europe in January while everyone called him racist and DeBlasio and Pelosi were telling people to go dance in China town in MARCH! Leftists praised scientists like Fauci who disagreed with travel ban, first told him masks don't work and covid doesn't spread from human to human transmission only to flip flop few months later.
If it weren't for Trump's speeding up the vaccine process by removing regulations, you would be having the same fate as Canada - here we don't even make our own vaccine and are now begging other countries for vaccines. While Biden came in office lying claiming there was no vaccine before he took office - a blatant lie. Trump specifically said everyone will have vaccine available by April - and news media called him a liar. Guess what, he was right.
He gave you temporary hospitals and even 2 naval medical ships with thousands of beds - which governors didn't even use because they loved putting covid patients in nursing homes. He got you ventilators to all the states that needed them faster than expected.
Everything against what everyone was reporting and constantly obstructing. When he talked about using a patented UV light tech to clean and wash insides of covid patients (scientific term), leftists took that as him telling people to "inject cleaning products". That's the problem with TDS. They never took him seriously but always took him literally.
Only thing I guess Trump could have done differently is told people to take this opportunity to get healthy and start working out, losing weight and eating healthy. But that would be called fatphobia in today's "big & beautiful" world.
An old fucking man got constantly beat up by media, democrats every fucking day for 5 years, his wife getting mocked for her accent, his daughter being called a c*nt on live TV, lost his brother in the middle of all this - something everyone also made fun of and he still got this done while being called a racist.
Do you think you yourself could have closed the border if everyone ran with calling you racist and xenophobic and even the "scientific" experts like Fauci and WHO were saying the exact opposite to do? Put yourself in his shoes and be honest.
Keep believing that. Trump launched nothing. He harnessed an organic populous shift. That shift doesn't go away whether or not Trump remains in the equation.
Dude, you have so much TDS, I can smell it from Canada. I am sure Trump launched himself so he could lose 3 billion of his net worth (Forbes) and gave away 100% of his half a million presidential salary every year so he could get himself and all his associated banned from everywhere.
Meanwhile Obamas are now multi millionaires with a $16 million mansion in a majority white neighborhood along the ocean while they bitch about racism and climate change. And can't forget their multi million dollar Netflix propaganda shows.
Good riddance to Liz Cheney. Of course this story or another needs to list ALL of those that spread the false story and the media that breathlessly blasted it out with their megaphones. Textbook propaganda machine. Disgusting.
Thank you -- Biden and his handlers are doing exactly the same, unfortunately. No wander that they embraced a despicable Liz Cheney and GOP pro-ear lunatics:
Top priorities of corrupt Biden administration is not to prevent financial scandals but to try to make sure that the DNC/CIA scam of the century -- the Russia-gate hoax -- will NOT / will NEVER be fully acknowledged.
Team Biden Flogs Russian 'Interference' in U.S. Vote, No Matter What Its Intel Agencies Say -- By Paul Sperry May 07, 2021
In his big speech last week, President Biden complained about “Russia's interference in our elections” but his intelligence community, led by his appointee Avril Haines, right, says there wasn't any.
The Biden administration is misquoting its own intelligence findings on Russia – because the lying team of Obama-Biden-Hillary concocted the immense and dangerous Russia-gate hoax. As a result we have now double Cold Wars (with Russia and with China – and with support of some GOP lunatics)
The biggest problem is neo-con/lib control and use of the Central Imperial Agency. It needs to be gutted, publicly. I'm talking show trials. Who will do that? Biden?
You anti-war Democrats should have voted for the candidate who, by being the CIA's main target, could have done it. But your TDS was more important to you.
When are otherwise classical liberals of the "left" going to wake up, and stop trying to use the State to end poverty (it never will) and redristribute wealth (the attempt of which always results in greater unfairness than that of luck and individual difference in the first place)?
DNC will NEVER EVER let Tulsi get the nominee. Not in 2020, not in 2024. It takes a harsh, blunt and flawed man like Trump who fought the Republican Party to win the nominee to defeat these establishment types. There's a reason why he was called Teflon Don. Tulsi is way too nice. She needs to do what she did to Kamala in the debates 100X more. Funny thing is that she might have better chance winning the nominee as a Republican than DNC.
Though I am not her fan because she's a gun grabber. But I can respect her.
"But I can respect her." I know how important the 2nd is to you, M. CNNisFakeNews (Me, too). Having respect for a "gun-grabber" (your words) is a very hard thing to do, I know. You might be right, and if so, and she doesn't "modify," I'll be the first to offer my mea culpa. Your statement here speaks well of your open mind.
But she probably won't take the Republican VP offer, and I don't see the Democrats choosing her, which is actually a good thing, because she would be a much more dangerous "gun-grabber" as a Dem, wouldn't she.
The reason I can respect her is that she has shown a certain willingness to change her mind on topics. So I think if she sits down with someone like Steven Crowder and discusses 2A, she might be able to change her mind.
Arrogant, people pleaser yes. Narcissistic no. It's impossible to be narcissistic if you are a people pleaser. Plus I have seen random videos of him doing nice things to strangers which he didn't have to do, nor did any other president did. Many years ago, he stopped his secret service car in the middle of nowhere to shake hands with the fire fighters who had gathered to wave at him. And this old reddit thread (Now deleted) from before he got elected President asking everyone how Trump was in person got thousands of replies, all positive:
He is a flawed man with often poor judgement in hiring decisions - not firing people fast enough - Barr, Wray, Gina Haspel, Durham (???). But as you said, I do believe he genuinely loves his country and wanted to do the best for people.
DeSantis is 100% the man. He's blunt like Trump but he's also calculated since he's a politician with experience running a state effectively. Trump needs to retire, I genuinely feel bad for not just him but his wife who got treated horribly by everyone. Dude needs to spent his remaining years away from all this nonsense.
Btw, my 2016 vote (primaries and POTUS) for DJT was the lesser of two evils. My 2020 vote for DJT was the first time since 1984 I actually voted FOR a candidate, as opposed to lesser of two evils. My first vote for RR in 1980, when I was 19, was because my girlfriend told me to. I don't like leaving some things to luck!
I actually like Milton Friedman's negative income tax (today called Universal Basic Income), but like Mr. Friedman said, it must completely replace ALL forms of Federal transfer payment, including Social Security, so I figure it is a few centuries away.
Liz Cheney is the poster child for the lying duplicitous war mongering neocons. Amazed the Republicans had a smidgen of spine and removed her. We must be a party of peace, prosperity and AMERICA FIRST.
Glenn, can you explain why it is that Republican neocons want to continue these endless wars? You alluded to Raytheon in the last sentence, and certainly there is material gain to be had by Washington from these wars. But what is the ideological explanation for why Republican neocons want to continue all this stuff? How does Liz Cheney directly benefit from remaining in Afghanistan?
That’s totally speculative. You may end up being right, and it wouldn’t surprise me. But I don’t understand the very dogmatic attachment to these wars—what is the why??? Is it money (somehow), is it ego (she hates Trump), is it ideology (eg some naive and crooked idea that it serves America to be in Afghanistan)???? What is the why?
I think with something as consistent as America's endless war policy you will not find a single why. You will instead find shared why's that converge on a shared goal.
Why does the military want war? It provides additional money to the Pentagon and more General promotion spots on the roster for officers wanting to rise through the ranks.
Why does Raytheon and McDonnell Douglas want endless war? Their job is to make money for their share holders. Take a look at their stock price since 2001.
Why does the CIA, NSA, FBI, DEA and other 3 letter agencies want war? Not only does it increase their budget, but it also creates a constant threat they can use to maintain the surveillance state through operations like Prism and the attack on encryption. If your goal is control over a population you don't trust and hold in contempt, fear is your best friend and endless war gives you that. Those who argued against forming these agencies to begin with feared just this. Remember, Congress did not want the FBI. TR created them while congress was out of session because he was a power hungry mad man.
Why do politicians support endless war? To gain the support of the groups I listed above. As a congresswomen, Liz Chaney get's money from defense contractors, support from dark agencies like the CIA against her political opponents. Support from the military for maintaining ever growing budgets and more opportunities for promotions in the ranks. Support from police because of the 1033 weapons transfer program.
That and there is an entire swaths of voting American's who believe anyone backed by these groups must be on the side of god and righteousness.
Sure, the people gets screwed, but they have nothing to do with who holds power in American or who gets elected anyway.
"Those who argued against forming these agencies to begin with feared just this."
A good non-war example of this is FDR's Social Security, which really was an attempt at "forced" savings ("capital" in other contexts!), inevitably morphed, over decades of Statist corruption, into 1) a tax on work, and 2) an elderly welfare program in which grandparents eat their grandchildren and their grandchildren's capital. Classical liberals, what few were around in the 30's, saw the writing on the wall.
My opinion: Theodore Roosevelt turned to Bonaparte because Theodore was terrified of anarchists. Subsequent presidents thought Hoover useful and terrifying. Greed and fear work well for the FBI.
Very good question. I suspect that it varies. You may already be aware of this but if we were to use other political figures as a baseline, it isn't uncommon for the military industrial complex to provide massive donations to candidates. That, effectively, buys their support when the time comes. These same organizations will pay exorbitant "speaking" fees to those political figures while they are in office and thereafter. The same is true for nearly every other major industry. If it were possible to elect representatives that are not already bought and paid for, we could actually pass legislation that prohibits this activity but I'm pretty sure that will never happen. Interest groups and donors set the agenda. The politicians are just following orders from those who put them in power. That is how I see it anyway.
I think you are half right. Of course, with such a HUGE Federal gov't. there are legions of politicians, not to mention hangers-on, apparatchiks, rent-seekers, suckers-of-public-teet, etc. that are in it for the payola. But the ideological mind-set of Statists that resides in their rotten anti-individual hearts is the other half.
And it was the only area of the US to entirely escape the 2008 recession. It's also the area where no government "workers" lost a nickel of wages during the lockdowns imposed on the rest of the nation.
Thank you. The list is endless -- I would always also include the coup in Honduras and now the endless stream of desperate people into the US. The same with Syria -- and destabilization of Europe by desperate Syrians...
Until you understand the nature of government, you can’t make sense of their specific actions.
Government is an inherently parasitical entity.
It’s only function to gain power and steal value (since it does not create value)
Not one thing that any politician says is what they really think. Some like Bernie are just better actors. Obama: great actor. Reagan: great actor. The ones that people think are genuine are just better actor. Trump: terrible actor.
The warring has virtually nothing to do with ideology. It has to do with the massive Albatross of the US government growing its power, the DOD growing its power, the defense contractors and DOD revolving door working to increase their power and wealth.
It’s why they embark on propaganda campaigns before and during wars. They need a false pretense for warring because most people would never go along with it for the real reasons it’s happening.
There is no aspect of any part of the government carried out for benevolent reasons. It’s an intrinsically evil entity the moment its functions go anything beyond protecting individual liberties.
In the entire history of governments, governments all end up corrupted. Yet it’s silly to blame government? After 10,000 years of failure, those with some sense ask “maybe the structure itself is the problem”.
Where do you think the idea of government came from? Trees? It’s not a natural phenomenon like earthquakes.
If there was no establishment clause, religions would be doing everything in their power to establish *their* religion (as they have and do). Does that mean we have the state regulate religion? Or make religion illegal? No, we make it illegal for the state to establish a religion or favor one over another or be involved in any way. The structure of an established religion is the problem
Same with anything else. The only proper function of government is protecting (not violating) individual liberties
Anything else is inherently corrupt, destructive, and based on violence - that some people will use the force of government to get their way.
But did you really choose Biden? Or did shenanigans choose him? I know my answer. I will believe in Santa Claus before I believe Biden got 12 million more "real" votes than Obama.
But did the carpenters really choose Biden? Or did shenanigans choose him? I know my answer. I will believe in Santa Claus before I believe Biden got 12 million more "real" votes than Obama.
We get the government we choose, whether we are cognizent or not. The people have certainly NOT insurrected, by political vote nor economic vote nor bloodily, in SO long that the mindless State seems to act on its own and will take decades to cut down, even if we actually started to cut it down. WE allow it, either by negligence (freedom isn't free) or by the intent of those like Cheney, whose hearts are rotten with power lust, and who are threatened by men of the people (the DJTs, who get destroyed by otherwise wise people like M. Art).
To neocons and neolibs, power and control are their own rewards. Direct benefit? They don't don't need no stinkin' direct benefit. It's in their rotten hearts.
I apologize also. But your response is vague, too. Can you identify the confusing part? Is it definition of terms? The reference to a famous (and inaccurate, but so a propos) line from Treasure Of The Sierra Madre?That power and control are just as rewarding to Statists as wealth? Or how a heart consumed with fear and hate can ruin a human brain?
This is a pretty blatant ad hominem to avoid the actual point being made. Nowhere did DialecticalAlchemist blame "the Jews"; he instead pointed to a small group of ideologues, some of whom are Jewish and some who are not.
He framed the words "Anglo-Zionist WASP's who love money". That instantly associates negatives with being jewish, wasp, or anglo, and implies they favor money above all.
Maybe those of you in the hitler youth have missed some of this stuff.
As if every single person involved in the invasion of Iraq / afghanistan was not a publicly confessed member of all the top Neo-Con think tanks including PNAC. Prove me wrong. Rumsfeld, Bush Sr, Bush JR, Powel, Rice, Cheney… And all those bible thumping John Hagee Texas voters who cosigned this philosophy. Deny that “A Clean Break” was real and partly written by Richard Perle…..What’s that? You cant? Go back to your Forward.com comment section praising BiBi, liar.
Wars are VERY profitable for all players involved -- the US foreign policy of both GOP and DNC oligarchs has been IDENTICAL for 70+ years.
The War Party (its GOP and DNC right wings) always needs financing -- hence "existential threats" are everywhere. It is very likely that destruction of Syria and Venezuela will escalate -- "to free its people."
Always remember St. Obama's declaration:
“Venezuela is fundamental threat to USA” -- declared Obama formally initiating regime change.
What he meant is “Socialism is a threat to capitalism”… hence imperial War-party endless wars -- against “godless” Bolivia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Syria, Cuba, China…..
Repeat: Wars are immensely profitable for leaders and donors of both wings of the US War Party. Defund US military terrorism
High ranking decision making members of institutional power within the US tend to view themselves as stewards and servants of US policy. Some do so cynically, some for personal gain, and some with genuine zealotry. Whether they are Adam Schiff or Liz Cheney, they both contribute to the Imperial Grand Strategy. Check out Chomsky's book "Hegemony or Survival", Chapter 2 if you want to see how these strategic aims around the world formed and why they are enforced. It's not just Republic neocons who want to continue these foreign policies, the ideology is very endemic to most institutional power.
Politicians don't write bills. Lobbyists do. The military industrial complex isn't just about wars. It's about wasting crazy money on overprices stuff and private contractors. An ordinary hammer might be worth $10. But when the same hammer gets bought through the military, it's worth $50 or other crazy amount.
I am a right winger who wants strong military. But I am also aware that the defence spending doesn't all get spent correctly - it gets wasted on bureaucrats, overpriced stuff and private contractors which are even more expensive and less accountable.
Look at what's happening in Afghanistan. Biden claims to remove the troops. But that's not the full story. He's moving the task to private contractors - 18000 of them.
Ellen - It is because Capitalism is the basis our ideology—far more important in the US than our proclaimed devotion to democracy. Capitalism demands endless growth and increasing profits, therefore Imperialism to extend our market power becomes inevitable. Lenin wrote the book on this: “Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism.”
Please also know that it isn’t just neocon Republicans that desire these endless wars but most Democrats, as well. Recall Obama inherited two wars, Afghanistan and Iraq, and he quickly expanded that to include Libya, Syria, Somalia, and supporting the Saudi war in Yemen.
Same old "Capitalism is evil" comment. And as usual I will copy paste my answer.
Capitalism is a system where you create a good or service useful to me and I pay you for it. If you don’t produce something useful or you create something defective, I don’t pay you and you go bankrupt. That’s capitalism.
Now please show me where this capitalism is? Is bailing out companies which don’t produce useful stuff capitalism? Is bailing out banks which made poor and corrupt decisions capitalism? Is giving subsidies to tech companies capitalism? Is telling tech companies to censor viewpoints capitalism? Nope. Those are all crony capitalism and much more closer to communism than capitalism (since the government is the one deciding who gets bailouts, who gets subsidies, who gets tax payer cash).
Do you have capital, M. Michelangelo? Do you even believe in individual property rights? Do you believe a currently poor individual should be allowed by society (State) to acquire over time a store of wealth (which might include stock), there-by pulling himself and his progeny out of poverty WITHOUT having to depend on you and your ridiculous definition of Capitalism, and all your fellow Statists, State power (i.e. stolen individual capital) being golden and unreserved.
Marx did a far better job of describing the dangers and failing of capitalism than Lenin ever did. Unfortunately, most people who say they hate Marx have never read anything he wrote whatsoever and only have the second-hand opinions of capitalists regurgitated through their media's propaganda.
Marxism in schools is how we ended up in this mess with shit like identity politics. The marxist take over is basically being exploited by the deep state to divide and conquer. The "leaders" of the useful idiot "progressives" need as many oppressor-oppressed relationships to divide and conquer the people.
So originally Marxism was based on ruling class oppressing the people. But the "leaders" figured out they could take it a step further by creating artificial oppressor-oppressed groups based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation and what not. Divide and conquer has been used for centuries to retain power because as long as the people keep fighting each other over things like race, sex etc, they ignore the real enemy - the establishment politicians and elites.
> How Marxist ideologues took over our culture. The Plot to Change America: How Identity Politics Is Dividing The Land of The Free: cultural marxism: Before Gramsci, Marcuse, Millett, and the rest, there were, of course, Marx and Engels. But seeing everything through the lens of economics and property produced blind spots for Marx and Engels and their followers, notably the role that race and ethnicity could play (and would go on to play) in the revolution to overthrow the ruling class.
Democracy would grow and grow improve. Until a point. Then it will start to make smaller and smaller sub groups the priority and continue to look the unders represented until has to make up this group. This is why any ideology which breaks you down into oppressed vs oppressor is deemed to destroy itself in the end.
And as I described to OP, there's no capitalism anywhere. Capitalism is a system where you create a good or service useful to me and I pay you for it. If you don’t produce something useful or you create something defective, I don’t pay you and you go bankrupt. That’s capitalism.
Now please show me where this capitalism is? Is bailing out companies which don’t produce useful stuff capitalism? Is bailing out banks which made poor and corrupt decisions capitalism? Is giving subsidies to tech companies capitalism? Is telling tech companies to censor viewpoints capitalism? Nope. Those are all crony capitalism and much more closer to communism than capitalism (since the government is the one deciding who gets bailouts, who gets subsidies, who gets tax payer cash).
Realizing you might not be up for "this whole brevity thing" let me elaborate:
You sound like a Marx scholar having figured him inside and out to be comfortable enough to use "marxist" as an expletive. Surely you can provide a few examples of your thorough rebuke of his most profound (and harmful, in your opinion, or they wouldn't be worth mentioning) assertions from Capital.
M. russian_bot, here's some brevity for you, since you are SO excited for it:
While I enjoy the substance you bring to this forum, you are an ad hominem bully, and I would sooner go back to full-time work than ever engage with you.
"Afghanistan has been the world's leading illicit drug producer since 2001."
"The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world. An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and BlackBerrys."
Same reason it was pushed in Russia by alpha males there, because no one wants to back the fuck down like its a prison yard, because everyone is watching.
Maybe I just need more caffeine this morning, but this strikes me as a low point in Greenwald's writing.
He states, "The issue is not merely that Cheney lied: that would hardly be news," and, indeed, it would not, and then he proceeds to not tell us what the power struggle that has led to her defeat is actually all about. Instead, he gives us a tale of her interest in power and in war that doesn't coherently intersect with Cheney's removal from the number 3 spot.
The reader is left wondering what his main point even was. Was it that she's a liar? No, that's not news and Greenwald admits "that would hardly be news." Was it that she's pro-war? That she's interested in power and not ethics? No, these would hardly be news, either. ...One is left with the impression Glenn _intended_ to tie her pro-war and power-lust agendas with her ouster somehow, but he didn't. -shrug- ...I've read better Greenwald articles.
Meanwhile, the big story of the day pertains to Israel's criminal and horrific acts of evil against helpless and innocent humans, but he's not talking about that.
And the big media story of the day continues to be Assange's predicament; his persecution is more of a threat to the current biosphere, humanity writ large, the American people, and even Glenn's pet topic, the media, than anything to do with Cheney's failure. And the SECOND big media story of the day - to continue to harp on Greenwald's pet topic - is how the media in the USA _continues_ to lie like a rug in support of Israel while Israel commits ethnic cleansing right in front of the world's face, and they fail to report it.
I sure would like to see Glenn turning his attention to subjects that matter.
I just wrote about Israel and Gaza two days ago. I've written about it dozens of times over the last decade. There's not a lot more to say. I think it matters that the NYT published false CIA stenography to try to prolong a war, and a key member of Congress is lying about her role in it - it certainly matters enough to warrant a short article documenting those lies and what really happened.
I have been wanting to compliment you for actually participating with your subscribers in the comment segment. The point you address in this brief and cogent article does matter, especially to those of us who have witnessed the political antics of the PNAC neo-CONservative ideologs and their stenographic sycophants masquerading as journalists. This jingoistic element seems to have numerous zealous adherents amongst your commentariat, as well as that of some other SubStack writers; Matt Taibbi comes to mind.
About 30 minutes ago I replied to one of your subscribers (NoSuchCommentator) and posted a citation to an article that I suggested might disabuse many herein of their apparent lack of historical context regarding the legacy of neo-CONservatism that Liz Cheney's political ideology is founded upon.
As a FORMER GOPer myself, I think this is an important story. I have a tremendous amount of regret over my initial support for the war in Iraq. I care more about getting things right than party line politics.
There is tons of rot in DC on both sides of the aisle.
But please write more about the absurdity in the entire western world (governments and media) of continuing to portray an apartheid, settler colonial entity committing crimes against humanity as the victim while condemning the occupied, helpless people as the perpetrators.
When war comes, there are victors and losers. The conquerors choose what the results will be. If you ever need more fodder for why a big defense budget is important, ask yourself what would have happened if Hitler had won.
The grandchildren of the Jordanians and Egyptians who tried to destroy the newly-created state of Israel nearly 80 years ago are only victims of their own corrupt leadership and their inbred hatred of Jews. Surprisingly, just this morning (5/17/2021) I heard one of the ever-liberal voices of NPR ask a UN representative if Hamas was not cynically attacking Israel with no hope of success because they know that the United Nations will, as always, support the survivors and rebuild Gaza. The UN representative artfully dodged the question. What you parrot, Naim, is the mindless and senseless nonsense of the radical Left and the hatred of radical Islam.
I've read your piece from two days ago about the AOC defense of Status Quo Democrats like Pelosi and against Yang - I saw that as a tangential tie-in to the Israeli attacks and more about AOC's capitulation to power.
As for "not a lot more to say," I both disagree and find it disappointing you think so since there are new generations of Americans just coming to their prime years who don't know the history and who seem to have little interest in supporting failed policies of the past - including, as I heard just earlier today on KPFA, how youngsters today are more approving of socialism than capitalism (a hopeful viewpoint insofar as it's true). And, repetition is important, and it's called "impressions" in advertising. . . I presume you're familiar with it.
I DO get it, though, that the defense of the innocent against the super-powerful seems to be an endless and thankless, Sisyphusian task. Yet, it needs to be done for there to be anything like justice in this world.
If you listen to KPFA you are a tool of the neo-Maoist state control club. Youngsters being fond of socialism is hopeful?! Egads, what a frightening statement.
I think they mean social democracy such as in Denmark. Bernie, while he calls himself a socialist, does not want a totalitarian state. That is what we nearly have now.
It certainly didn't take you long to switch the discussion from the article Glenn posted to your personal vendetta against the Jews, Art. You should establish your own page on Substack and see how many other haters are out there.
Thanks for uncovering the truth about our system of news coverage and two wings of war party complicities and how they work together to keep us in endless wars squandering money which could be used to rebuild our decayed cities. Baltimore could use a few bucks of the 750 billion or so Defense Department dollar per year spending and obviously needs Central Government help in addressing the year in and year out 300 plus murders per year.
It’s an ongoing American tragedy that neighborhood parts of such a small city 35 miles from the nation’s capital is more dangerous than many war torn countries.
The Media + Military/Intelligence Industrial Complex plus our Politicians working together is an important story.
I should also add that the real reasons the media is venerating Liz Cheney, and the actual causes of this civil war in the GOP - to return it to neocon control - also happen to be quite important.
Every single right winger I know in person wants the Neo-cons out of the freaking GOP. It's like we are finally watching the incompetent GOP grow a tiny bit of spine. While Trump wasn't perfect (he got duped by the CIA hoax of Syrian chemical attacks and bombed Syria during the russiagate nonsense), he did end up doing better than Bush and Obama on not starting a new war. That's what right wingers want - stop wasting money on wars and sending it to foreign countries and start spending it on Americans. Or simply stop taxing the shit out of everyone.
Plus when you have neocons like Liz Cheney, Bush etc and human pos Rick Snyder who poisoned Flint Michigan all supporting the Biden, it seems to show a shift happening in the GOP base. Hopefully Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell will follow next of leaving the GOP.
Read the comments on videos:
Neocons: we will leave the GOP.
GOP base: Here let me help you with the door
I swear the best response the GOP could give to this threat is "don't let the door hit ya on the way out".
This is literally like cancer threatening to leave a patient.
So basically? "You can't FIRE me! I QUIT!"
It's always nice when the trash takes itself out.
This whole neocons are beaten and bailing out of the ship all i can think is CHAD YES
This is very much in line with the "right wingers" I know, myself included I suppose. These war monger types are absurdly sure that they can take tanks and planes in to solve every geo political issue. Most all of the GOP neither worships the Trump calf nor wants to use war to win the world over. That is not what the media wants to classify the GOP as a party.
The latest party splinter is a fantastic list of Neo-Cons. It is so great they outed themselves so perfectly. They posted their supposed articles of faith that read like a Trump playbook and presidency and they don't even see it. Good riddance and hello to all who want a party that truly supports conservatives values that do not have swords as number one on the priority list.
other right wingers understand that quite a lot of the money spent on wars ends up in certain american pockets (liz for example). ultimately all will follow the money.
Not that SNL is ever all that great, but they had one thing right this weekend: they had "Liz Cheney" on "Weekend Update" highlighting that no one is behind her by having the comedienne playing her say that people should join her effort, because it was unstoppable now that she already had her Dad, her, Ann Romney, and like six other white women total on board.
There is nothing I would like better (outside of nuclear power plants in the USA) than to see both the GOP and the Dems split in half and left floundering. Let the Jew-haters, the cop-haters, and the USA haters take half the Dem voters. Let the never-say-die Dems keep the rest. Let the neocons recreate the Cheney Party and let the Trumpers continue with their hero worship. I'd love to see Rand Paul and Tulsi Gabbard create a "PEACE & PROSPERITY PARTY". They would get my vote, regardless of who topped the ticket.
Paul/Gabbard or Gabbard/Paul would make a wonderful administration, but NO Dem, of either split would ever vote for them. But I share your relish at party turmoil. It should ever be so.
(But thank you, thank you, thank you for your parenthetical.)
At this point in time, I just have one friend who is still proud to be called a Democrat. He tells me that "all the real doctors think Rand Paul is an idiot" and he will not consider the fact that Fauci approved and paid for gain-of-function experiments. My other Democratic friend (the one who says he is an Independent) hates Trump, refuses to concede America's economy was in great shape before the Fauci Flu ruined it, but he likes the idea of a Paul/Gabbard Party. Sometimes we err by thinking that all Democrats are mindless zombies: they've just been misled.
I avoid the MSM news as much as possible. That being said, practically every news story about Liz Cheney I have stumbled upon in the past few days is her quote, “I will never allow Donald Trump to become President again and live in The White House.”
Re-eeeah-ah-la-eyyy Ms. Cheney!
I would double down on getting Trump elected AGAIN just to stick it in her eye.
This deep, deep hatred of Trump is SO hysterical that it speaks to me of Pysop or some other player that I can't quite see because it seems robotic and implanted.
You are correct that it does not spontaneously come from the people affected themselves. It took me a long time to understand Russiagate, and then I saw "Social Dilemma".
The deep hatred is implanted by two forces - social media algos designed to generate profits, which highlight emotionally triggering content to achieve that aim, and the new media business model which rewards headlines and stories that demonize opponents.
It is not coincidence that in the 90's when Fox News pioneered this business model many conservatives HATED the Clintons. Now many liberals hate Trump. Of course, it elevated Trump to the presidency as well, because he knows how to play the heel. He leveraged these forces to his political advantage, to be sure, and that grows the effect and grows the hate.
I thought Russiagate was pretty well documented. The Clinton Foundation and the Democratic Party payed a number of groups with deep ties into our black ops organizations. The likes of the FBI and the CIA. The CIA misused the FISA warrant multiple times through Michael Flynn's fake relationship with a fake Russian spy in England. So I'm not following you that this was Fox News and Trump continuing the hatred, "He leveraged these forces to his political advantage, to be sure, and that grows the effect and grows the hate." There're a couple books that document all this with thorough research etc: "Fallout" and "Clinton Cash". Matter a fact it was Clinton Cash that first got the Clintons to create a diversion which ended up ensnaring Michael Flynn.
Who are the Clinton's in relationship with though. Their involvement with selling our uranium mines and such to the Russians, again is well documented. Are they just raping and pillaging and got the Psyop people into the loop and now they've figured out how to monetize that etc. There was a soft coup that occurred here in the US and we were the recipients of this black operation. Who is or are behind that. This is the question I'm chewing on.
In my thinking, one thing that drove the media to apoplexy is their high level of adoption of Twitter - both early on and then to a high degree now. They are most subject to the histrionics because they were engaged in social media, where the algos are triggering them on purpose. Then they write for their own publications and those went rapidly to the same extremes. In "Social Dilemma", they show how both the left and right have moved away from the center. But, it's also clear that the left moved first, starting in 2010, and then the right's move was about 4-5 years later - which to me speaks to earlier adoption of social media.
Didn't the left move first in 2011 with media manipulation because of the Tea Party response to the bizarre bank liquidity bail-outs and "Obamacare" single-payer scheme? That 2010 midterm was Americans seeing the writing on the wall, and racist (a Black can do no wrong) media went apoplectic with panic. THAT was the inflection point, when the Authoritarian State REALLY started acquiring assets and went "inward empiring," at the expense of the peeps. It took a few years, but just like slow motion dominoes, here came the high tech social media co-opt (or sign-up), The HRC/CIA/FBI/Brennan Russiagate, and then BOOM, the perfect crisis, a "pandemic" (apologies to the deceased, but the GodXi, his hired WHO, his control-freak American wanna-bes, and cover-his-ass Fauci's gain-of-function outlaw-research out-sourcing killed you, not people who rightfully put scare quotes around the scare word).
Sorry, I am posting before watching "Social Dilemma" so I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.
And sorry, M. Substack Commenter 34, if you think I hijack your excellent posts here.
Yes! The MSM can now spotlight her for all the wrong reasons, but the peeps will ken this truth, now or soon enough. And is that quote a threat of violence, Liz?
Agree with the statement, but probably not with the real reasons you would cite. Most of the legacy media and Big Tech have no liberal bias, merely a partisan one. Thus, anything that will splinter the only opposition to the authoritarian left, in the person of today's Democratic Party, is to be promoted. If Liz Cheney did not personally oppose Trump, few of her supporters would say anything.
I think the story has to be read in the context that the media is almost universally claiming that Ms Cheney losing her party leadership post is a testament to her integrity. So Mr. Greenwald's story, while not, as others have pointed out, earth shattering in nature, is still a worthwhile counterpoint to the monolithic mainstream media narrative. Propaganda can only be dismantled one small brick at a time.
That's not true nor fair Timothy, otherwise I wouldn't have read and listened, as well as responded to everything Greenwald has posted on substack, and even listened to his chats with his friend, and many didn't. So there. I just wish he would cover the news with a broader brush. I definitely could do with out drama which was quite evident yesterday. I suggested talking about the boarder crisis, and he can go in many directions on that one, or his reflections on the Biden administration. He's great on FOX which I've actually adopted as a news source, however I'm very aware of their biases, and avoid people like Hannity.
I think you mis-understand me, M. Fran. I am referring to those who criticise GG for 1) style, and 2) subject matter. I am just as guilty as you and many here for SUGGESTING, sometimes strongly, GG's next assignment, but I say at all times: You go GG, write anything you want to, and the great thing is, he and I DON'T have to agree on everything, even deeply held convictions on, for example Israel/Palestinian conflict.
See he's uniting the classical liberal in all of us (with exception, of course; looking at you, M. Jim F). Snowden exploded, and now GG has brought the classical liberal left (of which he is a part) from his lost Intercept, and introduced them to the classical liberal right (Capitalists and libertarians) here and now in this wonderful Substack platform. We are arguing and agreeing and disagreeing and learning who the real enemy is (the neo-con/neo-lib Statists). Some of us are learning that to be on the same side politically does not mean we have to like each other. Some of us are still learning the ad hominem fallacy. Some of us are finding new friends that have never ever voted the same way even once. One of us is trying to ramble less, even though he loves to. ;)
I want GG to do what he wants to do because that's what he does best, and man is he good at it.
Like your comment, especially the notion of "the real enemy" (the Neo brothers). I don't use the terms "left or right" any longer. In fact, I think their utility ended soon after their first designation in the National Assembly during the French Revolution. Neither the Democratic nor Republican parties act in the interest of the American people. It's important that along with GG we inform people of real issues and not the false narrative of the MSM or the spin of most politicians.
Yours, too! I hadn't thought about it that way re: the French Revolution. I'm going to review the history, and that of the Jacobins, in light of its "mis-interpretation" of our revolution's true classical liberalism. I'm thinking of the difference in the concepts of "equal-rights" vs. "equality." I think you are right that it is at the heart of today's left/right mis-definitions, and the mindless State growth and capture of what should be private sector purview (including political parties). I think the People have become confused, especially in the difference between so-called "positive rights" (Socialist slavery) and "negative rights" (Capitalist freedom).
Perhaps someday middle and high schoolers will learn these things, and be free and informed enough to decide for themselves.
Thanks, and yes, my "project" (scare quotes, because if you knew me (or if it has become all too clear by now), you would lol at the idea of me as a "project manager" or a changer-of-minds, but I dream!) is to repair the 100-200 year old schism in classical liberalism, ultimately uniting today's strands in much the same way that Silver and Cohn's 1923 novelty was used to unite Protestants and Catholics in 1932 Belfast's "outdoor relief" protests (The only time they ever protested together), only because it was the only tune both groups knew!
But here's my favorite no-bananas story: "The song was referred to in the film Only Angels Have Wings (1939), when Cary Grant asks Thomas Mitchell why a boat is not stopping at a particular port, Mitchell says, "They have no bananas", to which Cary Grant responds, "They have no bananas?!" and Mitchell answers, "Yes, they have no bananas." (Wikipedia)
I fear my ramble has missed your point, all of which I have found concise and true, in this forum anyway.
Btw, currently my project consists of singing the praises of discovered classical liberals like our GG. I doubt it will progress much further anytime soon; I'm obviously having too much fun.
Yes, that's clear; I'm serving the same role as a coach, mentor, or other adviser. Without clear-eyed, accurate criticism, none of us can reach our full potential, including me, you, and Glenn.
For the record, you sure seem like someone who works for David Brock. You push core DNC policies almost word for word, in every single thread, and the moment anyone in the DNC has any type of negatives associated with them you distance yourself and say "they aren't really left". You also never, not once, offer citations for any of the things you say/allege.
This thread is no different. You start the comments off with this gem -
"while Israel commits ethnic cleansing right in front of the world's face, and they fail to report it."
I challenge you to offer real evidence of "ethnic cleansing", because I see all the media talking about what is going in Israel 24/7. I bet you work for the government, because you allege things as 100% irrefutable fact with 0% evidence to support them, and then when challenged, shake off the challenge as something you don't even need to respond to.
You seem like the kind of guy still smoking mexican brick schwag joints and acting like they are Humboldts finest.
I feel like I am the only person on this entire forum who thinks the Snowden story was 100% overblown because all it did was confirm what Mark Klein had alleged years before.
Not a single thing changed for the better with the Snowden revelations by Glenn. The intelligence community is even more oppressive now than they were before.
Overblown in the sense that it didn't actually reveal anything new conceptually, especially for various intelligence services around the world, - absolutely!
That it had a much larger impact internationally than Klein's revelations largely due to Greenwald and Co. involvement cannot be unacknowledged. The US aggressively pursuing Snowden (and Assange) just show that what hurt was unequivocal confirmation to the world that it's being done on a global scale with impunity. The world governments could not ignore it. The public became aware and there could no longer be arguments that it was all "conspiracy theories".
Also, Klein's were during the Bush admin and so everything was "because Bush". Snowden's showed it didn't matter who was at power.
I don't disagree with your points but the results were a more oppressive intelligence community. How did the Snowden revelations help American citizens in any way given the results we see now?
It really is laughable how the media insists on ionizing Cheney. They desperately want to drive a wedge in the GOP. Everyone I know in the GOP were sick of her grandstanding. Her removal from leadership is as simple as her refusal to even try to be in step with the majority of the GOP caucus.
Read the comments on these videos. Vast majority of the right wingers (not the politicians) absolutely hate these neocons and want them out of the GOP asap:
Your observation is, in deed, on point and well thought out.
Regarding your mentioning of context, many herein appear to be a tad unfamiliar with Rep. Liz Cheney's inherited neo-CONservative legacy writ large. For those interested in a succinct historical primer, try giving the below cited article a comprehensive viewing; taking particular note of the roles played by high ranking neo-cons and their stenographic journalist associates.
Amazing. I remember reading this, but not in 2004, when I was still ready to "nuke" the world, so butt-hurt indignant I was at shooting aircraft at skyscrapers, just like OBL planned for me to be. In my defense, I did not want retribution; I wanted to forestall more madness of the type by reminding the world what would happen in response, just like OBL planned for me. I did not EVER want foreign regime change, nor 20-year wars of occupation, nor did, I think, very many fellow Americans. I was still ignoring the opportunists (neo-cons).
I love the conclusion. One thing left un-explicit, though, in "...reforming the profession itself, which inevitably relies on people" is that skeptical readers are the most important people. After all, they, or at least concern for their attention, started the "unraveling."
A fat, happy, complacent, un-attentive people destroy democracy AND journalism, since they leave their freedom and knowledge to the whims of the operators. And all issues (terrorism, pandemics, "pandemics") are used.
Btw, is mere "ambition" (Miller, Chalabi, etc.) the real source of neo-conservatism?
Thank you for actually taking a look at the article, considering it in its original context, and for responding. The singular attribution of "mere 'ambition'" as "the real source of neo-conservatism" seems a bit simplistic at present. The PNAC originators, many of whom are named in the article, were/are extremist political theorists within the conservative faction; they also birthed the "unitary executive" idiocy that still ferments a Constitutional imbalance within the three branches of our federal government.
You are welcome, but that's the last time I need be thanked for reading what you (and many here) offer. The gratitude is mine. (btw, my familial nickname is "The Reader." Get-togethers were boring, but books never were/are!).
You don't need to respond, but do you believe, as I do, that the Constitution will survive the "unitary executive," or is a rewrite necessary.
>"I think the story has to be read in the context that the media is almost universally claiming that Ms Cheney losing her party leadership post is a testament to her integrity."
I think the story has to be read in the context of Biden coastal elites waking up in bed with Liz Cheney. .. a chip off the old block.
That the media portrays this as a 'testament of *her* integrity' is missing the point.
Not being a consumer of ANY Main-Stream Media, as, I'd bet, a good fraction of Greenwald readers are, this assertion could have used at least a sentence or two:
"the story has to be read in the context that the media is almost universally claiming that Ms Cheney losing her party leadership post is a testament to her integrity"
"Context" is important, and assuming readers understand context of your assertions they way you do isn't a good practice and Glenn is not known for making that kind of assumption.
Israel has a right to defend itself. The only path to peace in the Mideast is for all of its countries to officially recognize Israel’s right to exist. Does that sound familiar? The Abraham accords. Unfortunately someone is Xiden’s cabinet has been feeding intel to Iran so that their terrorist proxies can kill Israelis. His initials are JK, and he’s been caught red-handed.
Why is dreaming of return laudable for Jews but pathological for Palestinians?
What the establishment Jewish narrative omits is that the vast majority of Palestinians forced from their homes committed no violence at all. Their presence was intolerable not because they had personally threatened Jews but because they threatened the demography of a Jewish state.
In June 1948, Ben-Gurion himself lamented the “mass plunder to which all sectors of the country’s Jewish community were party.”
In the decades since World War II, the international bodies that oversee refugees have developed a clear ethical principle: People who want to return home should be allowed to do so.
If Jews robbed en masse in the 1940s deserve reparations, surely Palestinians do too.
“I have no interest in building my life on the basis of attacks on Jews and making them fear they have no place here.”
In our bones, Jews know that when you tell a people to forget its past you are not proposing peace. You are proposing extinction.
Teshuvah: A Jewish Case for Palestinian Refugee Return (jewishcurrents.org)
Why is dreaming of return laudable for Jews but pathological for Palestinians?
What the establishment Jewish narrative omits is that the vast majority of Palestinians forced from their homes committed no violence at all. Their presence was intolerable not because they had personally threatened Jews but because they threatened the demography of a Jewish state.
In June 1948, Ben-Gurion himself lamented the “mass plunder to which all sectors of the country’s Jewish community were party.”
In the decades since World War II, the international bodies that oversee refugees have developed a clear ethical principle: People who want to return home should be allowed to do so.
If Jews robbed en masse in the 1940s deserve reparations, surely Palestinians do too.
“I have no interest in building my life on the basis of attacks on Jews and making them fear they have no place here.”
In our bones, Jews know that when you tell a people to forget its past you are not proposing peace. You are proposing extinction.
Teshuvah: A Jewish Case for Palestinian Refugee Return (jewishcurrents.org)
Are you REALLY that clueless, Art? Have you ever read about how Israeli children had to go to school in armored busses and how Arabs cut off the noses and ears of Jews they slaughtered when Israel became a nation? It is time for you to leave your fantasy world and look around.
Well, if you go back an EVEN number of years (or is it ODD?), until you get to 1948, when we find a new culprit, or is the U.N. just a front for old JEWISH "terrorism/freedom-fighting"?
You are right Israel has the right to defend itself and, if Biden hasn’t freed money to the Palestinian most likely a shower of Hamas missiles would not be heading to Israel.
Or maybe it was just another opportunity to write a story about the thing that actually annoyed him: the manufacture by government officials of a fake story and the stenographers in the MSM that publicized it for them.
I'm more than annoyed by the systemic murder - actually "ethnic cleansing" applies - of Palestinians presently underway by a government MY government is underwriting while hundreds of millions of my fellow citizens are worse-off in ways that that money could help address.
NOT ONLY do we have no business giving murderers and ethnic cleansers money we need for ourselves, but the lack of even rhetorical support for the murdered innocents is reprehensible.
Yet Glenn is "annoyed" by Cheney's entirely predictable behavior?
...At least he tangentially mentioned the basic topic yesterday in a screed about AOC's idiocy regarding Yang... Not the kind of coverage I want him to focus on, but it's better than nothing. _This_ Cheney stuff? Why is it "above the fold" when there are some truly vital topics unfolding as we speak?
You are determined to beat that dog to death, Art. Look: everyone now knows that you are virtue-signaling and that you have no sense of history. Let other people discuss the article without turning this into an anti-semitic rant.
It is hard to take anyone serious that is okay with terrorists killing their enemy and then calling it ethnic cleansing when said enemy responds once provoked. It is akin to saying a black man was killed while robbing a home and thus the homeowner was performing ethnic cleansing.
I really like Greenwald, always have. but I think you're right. I would love to see him focus on more important issues, which he seems to be avoiding, as for Liz Cheney, a woman who adores a mass murderer, and calls him dad, well what do you expect.
I really would have liked for you to talk about the border crisis, BLM and the Chauvin trial, and about Biden and his son and China, although considering all the hate that happened yesterday maybe you shouldn't. It's not that I think the topics you cover, like this one, is not important, or interesting, just a broader brush when it comes to news issues would be nice.
I understand. I think there are some readers here who haven't been with me for that long so I'll take this opportunity to explain my philosophy of what I choose to write about. I try really hard to *avoid* being a generalized pundit, by which I mean someone who automatically weighs in on every important or weighty news event just because others are talking about it.
I've always focused on a small number of topics at once -- obviously ones I think are important - sometimes delving into just 3 or 4 discrete issues for months at a time. The reason is that I feel like when I hit the "publish" button, I'm creating a covenant with my readers where I'm staking claim to their time. It's essentially an announcement that I think it'd be worth your time to read what I've written rather than doing the infinite number of other things you can do with your time. That trust will only be maintained if I'm regularly producing something of high quality. It will be eroded if I start churning out things that I think are mediocre and can be found everywhere else, where I'm publishing just for the sake of "weighing in."
To make an article worthwhile to publish, I feel like I need two things: 1) in-depth, expert-level knowledge of the topic (rather than superficial knowledge of it); and 2) something unique to say that can enlighten, inform or provoke thought and debate, or bring attention to something that isn't getting attention, that one can't find elsewhere.
If, for instance, I were to spend time really delving into the border crisis in a way I feel I'd need to in order to write about it, it would come at the expense of something else: maybe less attention paid to the intensifying censorship efforts of political speech, or the continuous frauds being disseminated by major media outlets (which take a lot of time to dissect, research, debunk, etc.), or other civil liberties abuses in the name of the new Domestic War on Terror, etc.
I think large news outlets and news anchors have the obligation to report on everything important. But I don't think specific journalists or writers can think that way, because then you end up just spouting off on things where you haven't done the work that is necessary to make what you're saying reliable, informed and unique, where you just have superficial knowledge.
That I don't write about something doesn't mean I think it's unimportant: it might mean that, but more often it probably means I don't think I have things worth saying that justify staking claim to my readers' time. And I'm sure there will be topics that readers think are more important than the one I've chosen to write about on a given day (though, as this discussion reflects, readers will usually disagree amongst themselves as to which is The Most Important Issue). But what I try to do above all is ensure that whatever I've written has been worthwhile in helping people think about the world, question their assumptions and understand things. I think that focus on in-depth quality is more important than trying to cover every news event that is important.
Glenn, what you should write about is Cheney's role in *causing* the Capitol riot. I have put these facts together over the past few days, and "if this line of thought is true" Cheney has a lot of responsibility here.
We didn't get good answers for the longest time on why there wasn't sufficient support from the National Guard around the Capitol on Jan 6. We had some early testimony from Sund (Chief of Capitol Police) that he requested them and it was denied. Some on the right postulated Pelosi to be at fault, but the Sgts. at Arms for both Senate and House were involved, and there's no evidence Pelosi was ever directly consulted.
The best evidence now came from former acting Sec'y of Defense Miller in his comments the other day. He cited the primary factor in his thinking in denying Guard deployment was to avoid a perception of risk of a military coup. He also cited to avoid a Kent State type of protestor shooting, but that was secondary. Now, flash back to Sund's testimony, he cited that the reason he was given by the Sgts. at Arms for denying his request for Nat'l Guardsmen was that they too were very concerned about the "optics" of troops at the Capitol.
Why did Miller and the two Sgts. at Arms care so deeply about avoiding the perception and optics of a potential military coup? Well, on Jan 3, "all ten living defense secretaries" wrote a high-profile op-ed in the WaPo warning of the potential for one, and warned all involved to not involve the military in a political dispute. Miller was called out by name in this warning, in fact. It was the climate caused by this op-ed that made those in Washington, and particularly the three people that made the decision NOT to have Guard troops on the grounds of the Capitol on Jan. 6, fear at least "the optics" that there might be a military coup.
While protestors are responsible for their actions and those actions were illegal, it is admitted by all and clear from the firing of Sund and the Sgts. at Arms that the major deficiency that led to the storming of the Capitol was the failure of security. The number one failure of security was having insufficient National Guard presence. We have direct admission from one principal and a direct assertion from another that "the optics" of Guard troops being present were the rationale behind this decision.
And Liz Cheney was the principal force in the most public document that drove the climate of concern about "the optics."
As was revealed by a friend of Liz Cheney's in the New Yorker recently, the Jan 3 op-ed was her idea. She then orchestrated it through her father.
"If this line of thought is true", Liz Cheney's actions directly affected the decision to not have sufficient Guard involvement at the Capitol on Jan. 6, which allowed the storming of the Capitol to take place and she should be publicly held to account for this.
tl;dr Cheney hyperventilating about a military coup from Trump caused others to avoid placing sufficient Guard troops at the capital because of the optics, leading to the events of the Capitol riot (ifthislineofthoughtistrue).
>"I think there are some readers here who haven't been with me for that long so ..."
I hate to break it to you Glenn, but there are some readers who think you're a 'right wing culture warrior' Trump monkey on Putin's payroll. .. at least that's what they keep tell me!
If the right don't get you, the left will.
*btw, AOC has made clear her sympathies are with the plight of the Palestinians and sometimes it is better to let sleeping dogs lie and cut bait .. . rather than be the cause of a thousand more wrongs.
I knew you were going to say that, I knew it, and I do understand. To be honest too many left wing sites publish rants, and I've grown tired of them. Oh, well, as they say.
I think this is in the same vein as other recent posts about government actors making use of the lap dog media, particularly as it involves the Deep State.
You need to read the next sentence: “ It is that the entire media narrative about Cheney's removal from her House leadership role is a fraud. Her attacks on Trump and her party leadership were not confined to criticisms of the role played by the former president in contesting the validity of the 2020 election outcome or inciting the January 6 Capitol riot — because Liz Cheney is such a stalwart defender of the need for truth and adherence to the rule of law in politics.”
And you follow that up with “Israel’s criminal acts . . “. Try this: https://t.co/GYD8SZu2jS
Replace "I sure would like to see" with "The reader sure would like to see"
You don't speak for anyone but yourself, you know that right? You do not speak for me. I have no trouble at all understanding what the points being made are.
Every time I read your posts I ask myself who you are working for because there is no way you can be a true leftist.
Do everyone a favor, if you are going to mention ethnic cleansing and jews, please get it right. The rest of the world tried to ethnic cleanse the jews, not the other way around, despite what your media lying overlords tell you.
You mean the "helpless and innocent humans" (Hamas) who have been lobbing thousands of rockets into civilian areas f Israel killing innocent men, women and children??? I guess in you view Jews simply aren't human.
The problem for the neocons now is that while the Republican establishment may love them, the Republican base cannot stand them at this point. I mean do you think Republican voters would have gone with an obnoxious blowhard if they liked what the neocons were offering. Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton, was there any difference in economic or foreign policy? So, Donald Trump says he is for seriously reducing illegal immigration, getting us away from bad trade deals, and not starting any new wars. Now, the Republican establishment (I like to call them Republican Inc.) sees their opportunity. There is no way this Trump clown will win and everything he is advocating for will be discredited. Now is the time for the candidates to release their inner neocon. Full speed ahead! I will stop for a moment to allow Substack readers to enjoy the schadenfreude.
Now the establishment Republicans want to reclaim the party, but they have made five massive mistakes. First, they proved to be completely useless with their majority. “The wall idea is stupid, eVerify would be much more effective! Oh no, we are not actually going to introduce the bill and vote on it. That would involve work and might run counter to my golf buddies’ desire for cheap, off the books labor. Was there anything else you wanted? I’m just kidding. We only pretended to care, but don’t worry, we will pretend to care again in time for next election.” Second, the only real bill they passed was a corporate hand out, I’m sorry, I mean corporate tax cut. “Hey, the economy has undergone forty years of change and the corporate tax rate is massively different than when Regan cut it but I’m sure we can convince people that it will be exactly the same result.” Third, when opposing a man like Donald Trump it is best to act like a mature, responsible, levelheaded adult. So instead, they became petty, obsessive, conspiratorial, and constantly angry. Fourth, when you go on and on about your “principles,” it actually helps to have some principles. They would criticize Trump even after he did something they wanted and rarely give him praise for doing something they wanted. The neocons refused to ever defend him against the most baseless accusations. Russiagate anyone? They had no problem lying about him or slandering his voters. Which brings me to number five, they let Republican voters know just how much they hate them! It got to the point where the accusations and insults were so vile, you could not tell the difference between them and the Democrats. The neocons love to blab on and on about how they are “representatives” and how they need to protect Washington from the plebs. One problem, if your voters do not think you are “representing” them and they know you hate them, they do not have to vote for you.
I also really want an edit button on Substack. I keep having to delete and reposting my reply to fix typos.
And totally agree with the rest. There's a few TDS here who think everyone who voted for Trump must be a die hard Trump cultist. They forget that he seemed to be one of the only candidates who didn't seem to hate his own base. When you do 5 rallies a day right after getting out of the hospital, you really have to love your base. The difference between Trump supporters and haters is that his supporters take him seriously but not literally whereas his haters take him literally but not seriously.
I just wish he didn't make such poor hiring and not firing fast enough choices like Wray, Gina Haspel, Bolton, Barr, Durham etc. I guess he didn't realize how deep the swamp was.
This scum is as and as Bolton and that fact that so called Liberal media is lionizing this scum is disgrace. Anther proof that the media is not liberal or left, but pro war and very right wing when it come to continuation of imperial wars. Liz Cheney is a war criminal just like her father.
"53K US contractors in the Middle East versus -- for 35K troops" !!! What a lucrative business and worth unlimited donations to both DNC and GOP politicians. Highlighting just that "detail" -- tells it all....
A 1%-er War party with two right (DNC and GOP) wings -- gay marriage, abortion, "woke", and other imposed topics are just distractions to divide 99% of population into "red" and "blue" camps.
But brainwashed US citizen agitate "freeing" China and increasing hate of Moslems, Russians, Chinese, Martians - just to avoid thinking about our own beloved country. 1%-er overlords are playing us like a violin...
We need to agitate for freedom and democracy in – our beloved USA. Although near term hopeless -- I believe in multi-party system, unlike current one party monopoly with two right wings.
China raised 800 million of its citizens - from periodic mass starvation into middle class -- an unprecedented success -- while DNC and GOP oligarchs essentially eliminated middle class in the US -- a downward spiral for us and the US....
Who "agitates for freeing China"? No one. But why don't you ask Tibetans what they think of their overlords? How about the millions in forced labor camps? Bet they're pretty happy too. Mao only killed a hundred million or so, so let's all celebrate Communist dictators. Lol. India raised its population likewise, without killing a hundred million in the process. Communist China had to adopt capitalism to do it, along with stealing intellectual property for the past 40 years. The middle class in the US has not been "eliminated" except in the minds of far-left progressives and their media buddies who are trying to redefine class conflict to pursue "burning it down".
Falun Gong - a well funded anti-Communist "religion" and Adrian Zenz - a German evangelical anti-Semitic fundamentalist are not reliable sources for CIA's decade-long anti-China project
Trump's lasting legacy will be how he changed some of the old thinking in the Republican Party, specifically about endless wars. It is not Liz Cheney's Party anymore, and all of us are better off.
Likewise, the ineffective police response to rioting coupled with police enforcement of lockdowns has changed old thinking about policing and the state.
except the MSM keep saying it was an "insurrection", as if knuckleheads taking selfies while cackling like hyenas constitute an insurrection.
The months of BLM/Antifa riots were not labeled an insurrection.
I think by rioting, they are referring to the last summer riots.
I don't follow the thought here. If they wanted to stop the riots, it'd be over in a month. It's not the police's fault but their masters. Our whole justice system has needed an overhaul for years, but not by this defund strategy. The political parties are the masters of the police (I think) and whoever is in power pulls their strings. It's the power that the puppet masters extract from the government players and system that is the problem from what I can tell. I'm willing to see it another way but as yet haven't seen the compelling evidence. Name calling ain't it.
I wasn't implying that you did any name calling. It seems to be the rule of the day though and it's hard to move forward, as I imagine is their intention. It's been great to see people on these threats honestly laying out their cases. I've learned a lot.
The stark contrast between police behavior in the summer riots and with regard to lockdowns has made it clear that they do indeed follow orders and that it is time to expose state-legitimizing myths such as "the rule of law," one of many faux ideals used to induce public tolerance of the increasing malfeasance of the justice system, top to bottom. The number of law and order conservatives who, in one year, have gone sour on police is head-spinning.
"If they wanted to stop the riots, it'd be over in a month." By the same reasoning, Nazification could have been over in a month if only "the masters" had called it off. They aren't going to; ruination takes time. Recommend this chilling excerpt from "They Thought They Were Free; The Germans, 1933-1945."
https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html
I am one of those people who have had a "head-spinning" awakening. Not that I wasn't aware of much of this, but not to the level I keep getting it. When my (former) friends and neighbors finally come clean and say they'd prefer a socialist or even communistic future, I realize just how unaware I am and have been. I still believe I don't "get" it. That's one reason I'm commenting here. By the way I LOVE your, "it is time to expose state-legitimizing myths such as "the rule of law," one of many faux ideals used to induce public tolerance of the increasing malfeasance of the justice system, top to bottom." That has my mind spinning in many different thought processes.
I'm not sure if you've followed any of Jordan Peterson's work. His debates and lectures about being christian have also given me much to chew on. The idea that we need the christian myths and stories to bring us together as a culture has some weight and merit to me. I bring that up to say that I think the myth of "law and order" as an important ideal to shoot for. When I go out to climb a mountain, I might be able to see the mountain at the start but as I get in the thickets I'm following a route based on what's in my mind and intuition. Often I've ended up on other peaks or on other excursions, all starting with a structural idea of plan.
Anyway, thank you for these thoughts. I'm going to be chewing on some of them for the next few hours or days.
Now that I've got your attention, I recommend Stephen Kinzer's "The Dulles Brothers" as an appetizer to start a feast of chewing! Peterson is a good man and I'm glad he is recovering from a long bout of personal suffering.
It would be great if you are correct, but the jury is, as they say, still out; the pro-war sentiment runs as deep as racism.
Nonsense. Are you racist? Are you "pro-war"? Racism is pushed by leftwing media to create class divisions.
If you drop the word "leftwing" from your closing sentence, it would then be accurate, except that it leaves out agency; the media is acting in the interests of the ultra-rich who use the divide and conquer strategy to keep us all from joining together to remove the chains they have bound us all with. This isn't a left/right issue, it's an ultra-rich against the rest of the world issue, and always has been.
Disagree. The ultra rich have been co-opted by the left. The media is overwhelmingly leftist as I'm sure you know. The leaders of BLM define themselves as "trained marxists". They are not ultra rich. They are using fictional "systemic racism" to redefine the marxist class struggle. Their intention is violent revolution. They have all said as much in print and on national broadcasts. Do you know of any conservative members of the media who support "critical race theory"? I don't.
This is truly knee-slappingly delusional!
"The ultra rich have been co-opted by the left."
All I can say is, please wake up.
HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
You know how to tell you're the good guys? When all the massive multi-national corporations that have questionable hiring, firing, healthcare, worker's rights, and safety track records, when celebrities with a huge problem of pedophilia and sexual misconduct promote and sponsor your cause and your Revolution has corporate sponsorship. At least this revolution has dope corporate sponsors! - from a Tim Pool tweet. The ultra rich from the media, Hollywood, big tech, oligarchs all support THE LEFT!
I keep seeing this "they are not left" excuse again and again on Glenn and Jimmy Dore's comment section. It's amazing type of delusion. And I am saying this as someone who recognizes that the current "left" is not "liberal". Jimmy Dore, Glenn etc are classical liberals - anti-censorship, anti-war and so on. But you trying to excuse the "left" as if the left is super pure and cannot have authoritarians is just delusional.
There's a reason why Jeff Bezos, Amazon, Walmart SUPPORT leftist causes like raising the minimum wage. It's an easy way for them to get rid of small business competition. They know they can afford it but small businesses can't.
When the establishment agrees with your ideology, you aren't the resistance.
You don't address Nosh's points and trying to diminish his ideas aren't helpful either. Please make your point clearer. I'd like to read it as well. I'm interested in this dialogue.
Then how deep is racism? That is the trigger to jury selection.
Change is hard, but also inevitable.
This is exactly where the story needed to go. A great swath of small "r" republicans resemble 1960's Democrats whereas a like number of DEMOCRATS are a half step behind J. Edgar Hoover. The former can be worked with and the latter will shame and villify you into obedience. There's an untold story here and political offiliation shouldn't be stopping Glenn from telling it.
It isn't DJT's party either, strictly speaking. It belong's to the Republican voter, not the Republican establishment, and WE used DJT to remind them of it. And so it continues.
I'm not convinced of this. It's easier to see that the Democrat Party, with full cooperation from the media and now corporations, manipulates its voters into thinking whatever is most profitable for the Party apparatus. The Republican Party wants that same power, they just don't have access to it, for the most part, and so the voters that call themselves Republicans believe its a more organic group.
What Republicans desperately craved is a fighter who would stand against the Democrat propaganda juggernaut, and that was Trump. I don't think they used him so much as it was symbiotic, and to the extent that he is a voice for Republicans, then Republicans are happy to let him take the Party in the direction he chooses.
It was Trump that used tariffs as a potent weapon, when the vast majority of Republicans would have considered themselves in favor of free and open markets. And it was Trump who wanted to end US military presence around the globe, when most Republicans were totally fine with existing policy.
I was very wary of DJT's tariff strategy, but 1) it WAS working, and 2) the difference between domestic "fair" trade (i.e. the (relatively) free market), and international is that the other side of the "trade" is not subject to the same "fair" restrictions put upon our traders.
The subject is book-sized complicated, of course, but the owner (i.e. manager) of the world's reserve currency cannot allow imbalance forever. That we have for so long is only due to the immense private wealth naturally created over centuries in a (relatively) free market by individual players acting in their rational SELF-interest, something dis-allowed in the worlds Authoritarian Socialist regimes.
You nailed it!
I seriously love Glenn. Dude is legit. He and I are on separate sides of the political spectrum on paper, but he is an absolute inspiration.
There has been no other person who’s had a bigger impact on my critical thinking than Glenn. Hope that others support his work financially as well. We need him to continue to expose the elites for what they are!
I have had the same awakening to him. Amazed that a journalist still exists other than John Solomon.
John Solomon's journalism is excellent. In fact, it reminds me of GG's "calmer" columns, if you get my meaning. Also, if I am not mistaken, John Solomon is to The Hill what Glenn Greenwald is to The Intercept. Am I right?
Preach it! Thank you 🙏
And to watch the feigning lovefest on the democratic side for Liz Cheney and her "bravery" and "speaking truth to power" is truly gross. Just based on that alone it seems that the right decision was made to take her out of the Conference Chair position, not to mention everything else that Glenn stated.
Neocon war criminals like Bush, Liz Cheney, flint Michigan poisoner Rick Snyder, losers from Lincoln Project, actual white supremacists like Richard Spencer are all supporting one side. That alone should way up some people that they are on the wrong side.
It sickens me to no end that she was in any role in the leadership. The GOP cannot afford to be that out of step with its voters.
Glad she's ousted, but dammit, the RINOs have got to go. I'm sure that the Democrats would LOVE to have another neocon (emphasis on con, as in conartist) on their team. Go be awful over there, Liz.
Mittens is next.
Unfortunately, the GOP *is* that out of step with its voters. And has been for a very long time. The swampy establishment still to this day cannot comprehend Donald Trump or the populist movement he launched. That they are still expending so much political capital attempting to discredit him and his supporters only reinforces their isolation.
Cheney's deliciously inglorious takedown -- and especially her replacement with Stefanik -- is a significant step in the right direction but the party still has a long, long way to go. Beginning with McConnell.
"And has been for a very long time." 100 years, give or take. Coolidge, Reagan, Trump are the only respite. (A few non-POTUS classical liberals along the way, but way too few.)
And Cheney's takedown, like McCains, is GLORIOUS, not inglorious. In the manner of righting long-time wrongs.
Wonder if Tim Dillon can do a Liz Cheney parody too, blonde wig and all? My father the pharaoh lol. Good riddance to bad rubbish!
Did you see Tim Dillon's Meghan McCain skit? Died laughing.
Thank you - I know little about Stefanik.
Hopefully she has more integrity and will not be blinded by support of Trump.
Remember Trump assassinated Iran's national hero, Soleimani who defended Shiites from Sunny/ISIS/Al Qaeda genocide, mishandled completely virus (600,000 dead so far) and believes that Biden is not hard enough in support of horror on Palestinians. He was also stupid enough by not pardoning Assange - his strongest witness in dangerous and still ongoing Russia-gate scam of the century.
There are many valid criticisms of Trump like not pardoning Assange, failing to drain the swamp, banning bump stocks etc. But blaming him with "mishandled completely virus" and killing a literal terrorist Soleimani is pure TDS.
1. Soleimani was responsible for the deaths of over 600 U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Plus he orchestrated the Benghazi embassy attacks.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/qassem-soleimani-was-responsible-for-the-deaths-of-hundreds-of-american-soldiers
https://nypost.com/2014/06/20/how-irans-spy-chief-paid-for-the-benghazi-attack/
2. And I really need to spend some time to debunk the COVID handling bullshit because it keeps getting repeated. As a Canadian, US death numbers are not an outlier once you consider:
1. The US population is on average over 30lb overweight compared to the rest of the world with significant comorbidities (In the United States, 36.5 percent of adults are obese. Another 32.5 percent of American adults are overweight. In all, more than two-thirds of adults in the United States are overweight or obese).
Among men, the prevalence of obesity was over 8 percentage points lower in Canada than in the United States (24.3% compared with 32.6%) and among women, more than 12 percentage points lower (23.9% compared with 36.2%):
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db56.htm
12 and 8 percentages are fairly higher in comparison - especially when we are talking about percentages. USA which has 9-10x the population of Canada, 12% makes a very big difference.
2. has very old population similar to Italy (though this is similar to Canada too)
3. has CRAZY amounts of tourism during winter. You think any tourists come to Canada in Winter? Or do they prefer doing to warmer places in US? Canadian tourism in winter is significantly lower due to extreme cold weather. Almost all the trips for cruise ships, water parks (Disney), famous cities, national parks etc happen in USA. The snow season in Canada prevents all those.
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/200221/dq200221b-eng.htm
> The number of tourists from overseas countries (countries other than the United States) rose to 7.1 million arrivals (+454,000) in 2019, while the number of US tourists to Canada rose to 15.0 million (+554,000). The summer months—June through September—were the peak months for tourism arrivals from overseas to Canada, representing 51.9% of all arrivals from overseas during 2019. By comparison, the peak months for tourism arrivals from the United States were May to October, with 68.8% of all US tourist arrivals to Canada.
> Canadian residents returned from 4.8 million trips abroad in December, up 2.9% from the previous month. Of these 4.8 million trips, 3.8 million were to the United States, up 3.3% from November. Almost three-quarters of these trips to the United States were made by car. Same-day car trips across the border edged up 0.4% to 1.8 million in December, while the number of return trips from overnight car trips rose 9.4% to 966,000. The number of plane trips to the United States rose 1.5% since November to 877,000. This was 4.7% higher than in December of the previous year. In December, travel to overseas countries by Canadian residents rose 1.8% to 1.1 million trips—the highest level on record for the month of December.
Now lets look at the opposite for tourism to USA:
> In 2019, the number of international tourist arrivals to the U.S. stood at almost 80 million after being on the rise for over a decade. 47.88 of that came from Americas (Canada being the first followed by Mexico).
https://www.statista.com/topics/1987/travel-and-tourism-industry-in-the-us/#dossierSummary
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1012283/united-states-inbound-tourist-arrivals-by-region/
> In 2019, there were approximately 20.72 million overseas visitors from Canada to the United States. The visitation figures from Canada peaked in 2013 when the U.S. received a total of 23.41 Canadian citizens across its borders. In 2019, Canada placed first in terms of the most visitors from one nation to the United States, followed closely by fellow U.S. neighbor, Mexico.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/214764/number-of-visitors-to-the-us-from-canada/
A large number of Canadians in the Niagara region also cross the border for simple stuff like cheaper goods. Nobody does the opposite.
Also international travellers from Canada often fly through US but not vice versa. When I have to visit my home in South Asia, it's always cheaper for me to fly through US. This is not true for the opposite.
And even the ones who visit places in Canada like Toronto and Niagara Falls visit New York too. And a lot of tourists come from Canada who visit places in south like Florida. Anecdotal - I know 3 families here with whose retired members all spend their winters in Florida and another family which spends it in Austin Texas.
4. Canada has VERY VERY low population density in all cities and population of 1/10th of US. This density is even bigger factor for COVID and crazy dense cities. US also has the third-highest population in the world. Look at the population density of the 10 highest dense municipalities in Canada (highest is 5,492.6 people per square kilometre in Vancouver, B.C.):
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/170208/t001a-eng.htm
Now compare it to USA. Top 50 cities amongst them all are ALL signifiantly higher than the Canadian numbers. New York City alone is 10,431.1 people per square kilometre, San Francisco is 6,658.9, Boston is 5,143.4):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population_density
5. New York was been found to be the origin of virus variant for majority of the US states - something Governor Cuomo played a big role in. Plus back in March, the American Health Care Association told Cuomo, Wolf, Murphy, Whitmer etc to stop ordering infected patients into nursing homes. The governors ignored the AHCA and removed their own family from nursing homes while forcing others:
https://www.ahcancal.org/News/news_releases/Pages/Long-term-care-leaders-address-state-orders-on-hospital-admissions-to-nursing-homes.aspx
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1191811
From leftist NYTimes who hate Trump: "Travel From New York City Seeded Wave of U.S. Outbreaks: The coronavirus outbreak in New York City became the primary source of infections around the United States. That helped to fuel outbreaks in Louisiana, Texas, Arizona and as far away as the West Coast. The findings are drawn from geneticists’ tracking signature mutations of the virus, travel histories of infected people and models of the outbreak by infectious disease experts":
https://archive.is/fEPG7
6. Plus millions of illegal immigrants who stay in packed apartments and don't want to get check ups done at doctors because they don't want to get caught.
Trump banned travel from China and then Europe in January while everyone called him racist and DeBlasio and Pelosi were telling people to go dance in China town in MARCH! Leftists praised scientists like Fauci who disagreed with travel ban, first told him masks don't work and covid doesn't spread from human to human transmission only to flip flop few months later.
If it weren't for Trump's speeding up the vaccine process by removing regulations, you would be having the same fate as Canada - here we don't even make our own vaccine and are now begging other countries for vaccines. While Biden came in office lying claiming there was no vaccine before he took office - a blatant lie. Trump specifically said everyone will have vaccine available by April - and news media called him a liar. Guess what, he was right.
He gave you temporary hospitals and even 2 naval medical ships with thousands of beds - which governors didn't even use because they loved putting covid patients in nursing homes. He got you ventilators to all the states that needed them faster than expected.
Everything against what everyone was reporting and constantly obstructing. When he talked about using a patented UV light tech to clean and wash insides of covid patients (scientific term), leftists took that as him telling people to "inject cleaning products". That's the problem with TDS. They never took him seriously but always took him literally.
Only thing I guess Trump could have done differently is told people to take this opportunity to get healthy and start working out, losing weight and eating healthy. But that would be called fatphobia in today's "big & beautiful" world.
An old fucking man got constantly beat up by media, democrats every fucking day for 5 years, his wife getting mocked for her accent, his daughter being called a c*nt on live TV, lost his brother in the middle of all this - something everyone also made fun of and he still got this done while being called a racist.
Do you think you yourself could have closed the border if everyone ran with calling you racist and xenophobic and even the "scientific" experts like Fauci and WHO were saying the exact opposite to do? Put yourself in his shoes and be honest.
Thank you -- and - the Earth is flat !!
Wow, great rebuttal. I guess I was wrong for thinking you were one of the sane liberals Boris who could think objectively.
I think he is. And Soleimani might have been a mistake, blowback included.
The U.S. needs to vacate the ancient lands until the indigents deal with each other without outside influence, and learn to join the modern world.
Trump launched nothing but himself. It's all he can see. It's all he could ever see.
Keep believing that. Trump launched nothing. He harnessed an organic populous shift. That shift doesn't go away whether or not Trump remains in the equation.
Dude, you have so much TDS, I can smell it from Canada. I am sure Trump launched himself so he could lose 3 billion of his net worth (Forbes) and gave away 100% of his half a million presidential salary every year so he could get himself and all his associated banned from everywhere.
Meanwhile Obamas are now multi millionaires with a $16 million mansion in a majority white neighborhood along the ocean while they bitch about racism and climate change. And can't forget their multi million dollar Netflix propaganda shows.
Agreed!!
"Asking the Wrong Question About Liz Cheney. Don’t ask why we need to oust her. Ask why she was ever in leadership in the first place."
https://amgreatness.com/2021/05/06/asking-the-wrong-question-about-liz-cheney/
Grow a spine and take out the trash.
Thank you for continuing to document the duplicity in DC.
Good riddance to Liz Cheney. Of course this story or another needs to list ALL of those that spread the false story and the media that breathlessly blasted it out with their megaphones. Textbook propaganda machine. Disgusting.
The absolute best money I spend every month is on this subscription. Glenn speaks the truth. Such a rare thing nowadays.
Thank you -- Biden and his handlers are doing exactly the same, unfortunately. No wander that they embraced a despicable Liz Cheney and GOP pro-ear lunatics:
Top priorities of corrupt Biden administration is not to prevent financial scandals but to try to make sure that the DNC/CIA scam of the century -- the Russia-gate hoax -- will NOT / will NEVER be fully acknowledged.
Team Biden Flogs Russian 'Interference' in U.S. Vote, No Matter What Its Intel Agencies Say -- By Paul Sperry May 07, 2021
In his big speech last week, President Biden complained about “Russia's interference in our elections” but his intelligence community, led by his appointee Avril Haines, right, says there wasn't any.
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2021/05/07/team_biden_flogs_russian_interference_in_us_vote_no_matter_what_its_intel_agencies_say_776083.html?mc_cid=74007ffd5f&mc_eid=6198033111
The Biden administration is misquoting its own intelligence findings on Russia – because the lying team of Obama-Biden-Hillary concocted the immense and dangerous Russia-gate hoax. As a result we have now double Cold Wars (with Russia and with China – and with support of some GOP lunatics)
No accountability for the perpetrators of this crime on our country. Sad.
Thank you.
Correct -- not yet. But we need to continue to fight for the accountability of criminals.
The biggest problem is neo-con/lib control and use of the Central Imperial Agency. It needs to be gutted, publicly. I'm talking show trials. Who will do that? Biden?
You anti-war Democrats should have voted for the candidate who, by being the CIA's main target, could have done it. But your TDS was more important to you.
When are otherwise classical liberals of the "left" going to wake up, and stop trying to use the State to end poverty (it never will) and redristribute wealth (the attempt of which always results in greater unfairness than that of luck and individual difference in the first place)?
"You anti-war Democrats should have voted for the candidate who, by being the CIA's main target, could have done it."
Tulsi Gabbard was the obvious choice, not Trump.
DNC will NEVER EVER let Tulsi get the nominee. Not in 2020, not in 2024. It takes a harsh, blunt and flawed man like Trump who fought the Republican Party to win the nominee to defeat these establishment types. There's a reason why he was called Teflon Don. Tulsi is way too nice. She needs to do what she did to Kamala in the debates 100X more. Funny thing is that she might have better chance winning the nominee as a Republican than DNC.
Though I am not her fan because she's a gun grabber. But I can respect her.
"But I can respect her." I know how important the 2nd is to you, M. CNNisFakeNews (Me, too). Having respect for a "gun-grabber" (your words) is a very hard thing to do, I know. You might be right, and if so, and she doesn't "modify," I'll be the first to offer my mea culpa. Your statement here speaks well of your open mind.
But she probably won't take the Republican VP offer, and I don't see the Democrats choosing her, which is actually a good thing, because she would be a much more dangerous "gun-grabber" as a Dem, wouldn't she.
The reason I can respect her is that she has shown a certain willingness to change her mind on topics. So I think if she sits down with someone like Steven Crowder and discusses 2A, she might be able to change her mind.
Not on the ticket, M. Art. You shot yourselves in your feet.
Couldn't have said it better Amy. I voted Trump both times in spite of his obvious personality flaws.
Arrogant, people pleaser yes. Narcissistic no. It's impossible to be narcissistic if you are a people pleaser. Plus I have seen random videos of him doing nice things to strangers which he didn't have to do, nor did any other president did. Many years ago, he stopped his secret service car in the middle of nowhere to shake hands with the fire fighters who had gathered to wave at him. And this old reddit thread (Now deleted) from before he got elected President asking everyone how Trump was in person got thousands of replies, all positive:
http://archive.is/8TvxG
He is a flawed man with often poor judgement in hiring decisions - not firing people fast enough - Barr, Wray, Gina Haspel, Durham (???). But as you said, I do believe he genuinely loves his country and wanted to do the best for people.
DeSantis is 100% the man. He's blunt like Trump but he's also calculated since he's a politician with experience running a state effectively. Trump needs to retire, I genuinely feel bad for not just him but his wife who got treated horribly by everyone. Dude needs to spent his remaining years away from all this nonsense.
I love Tulsi! I believe you have missed my praise of her. And you are spot on about DJT.
My 2024 ticket (as of now, of course): DeSantis/Gabbard.
Btw, my 2016 vote (primaries and POTUS) for DJT was the lesser of two evils. My 2020 vote for DJT was the first time since 1984 I actually voted FOR a candidate, as opposed to lesser of two evils. My first vote for RR in 1980, when I was 19, was because my girlfriend told me to. I don't like leaving some things to luck!
Maybe, but she never got out of single digits in the polls so she was not as option
She got more delegates than Kamala Harris did!
Yup. Which tells you a lot about our current VP
Only modern VP with 0 (zero) delegates, I believe.
As if they would allow Tulsi anywhere near the nomination.
I actually like Milton Friedman's negative income tax (today called Universal Basic Income), but like Mr. Friedman said, it must completely replace ALL forms of Federal transfer payment, including Social Security, so I figure it is a few centuries away.
Liz Cheney is the poster child for the lying duplicitous war mongering neocons. Amazed the Republicans had a smidgen of spine and removed her. We must be a party of peace, prosperity and AMERICA FIRST.
The vote was 134–46, so a quarter of the GOP is still swamp water.
More importantly 75% voted to remove her from leadership
Rookie numbers! The 25% needs to be kicked out.
Then our minority will only exacerbate. (I know you are sarc here.)
Yep. Never underestimate the incompetence of RINOs.
Glenn, can you explain why it is that Republican neocons want to continue these endless wars? You alluded to Raytheon in the last sentence, and certainly there is material gain to be had by Washington from these wars. But what is the ideological explanation for why Republican neocons want to continue all this stuff? How does Liz Cheney directly benefit from remaining in Afghanistan?
She'll be sitting on the board of a defense contractor when she's voted out. That's how their game works.
And then, she'll lobby Congress. :)
That’s totally speculative. You may end up being right, and it wouldn’t surprise me. But I don’t understand the very dogmatic attachment to these wars—what is the why??? Is it money (somehow), is it ego (she hates Trump), is it ideology (eg some naive and crooked idea that it serves America to be in Afghanistan)???? What is the why?
I think with something as consistent as America's endless war policy you will not find a single why. You will instead find shared why's that converge on a shared goal.
Why does the military want war? It provides additional money to the Pentagon and more General promotion spots on the roster for officers wanting to rise through the ranks.
Why does Raytheon and McDonnell Douglas want endless war? Their job is to make money for their share holders. Take a look at their stock price since 2001.
Why does the CIA, NSA, FBI, DEA and other 3 letter agencies want war? Not only does it increase their budget, but it also creates a constant threat they can use to maintain the surveillance state through operations like Prism and the attack on encryption. If your goal is control over a population you don't trust and hold in contempt, fear is your best friend and endless war gives you that. Those who argued against forming these agencies to begin with feared just this. Remember, Congress did not want the FBI. TR created them while congress was out of session because he was a power hungry mad man.
Why do politicians support endless war? To gain the support of the groups I listed above. As a congresswomen, Liz Chaney get's money from defense contractors, support from dark agencies like the CIA against her political opponents. Support from the military for maintaining ever growing budgets and more opportunities for promotions in the ranks. Support from police because of the 1033 weapons transfer program.
That and there is an entire swaths of voting American's who believe anyone backed by these groups must be on the side of god and righteousness.
Sure, the people gets screwed, but they have nothing to do with who holds power in American or who gets elected anyway.
All true. In addition, a big bad scary enemy is useful to deflect calls for domestic reform.
"Those who argued against forming these agencies to begin with feared just this."
A good non-war example of this is FDR's Social Security, which really was an attempt at "forced" savings ("capital" in other contexts!), inevitably morphed, over decades of Statist corruption, into 1) a tax on work, and 2) an elderly welfare program in which grandparents eat their grandchildren and their grandchildren's capital. Classical liberals, what few were around in the 30's, saw the writing on the wall.
In a fiat currency system this is not true.
In a failing one it is.
My opinion: Theodore Roosevelt turned to Bonaparte because Theodore was terrified of anarchists. Subsequent presidents thought Hoover useful and terrifying. Greed and fear work well for the FBI.
Very good question. I suspect that it varies. You may already be aware of this but if we were to use other political figures as a baseline, it isn't uncommon for the military industrial complex to provide massive donations to candidates. That, effectively, buys their support when the time comes. These same organizations will pay exorbitant "speaking" fees to those political figures while they are in office and thereafter. The same is true for nearly every other major industry. If it were possible to elect representatives that are not already bought and paid for, we could actually pass legislation that prohibits this activity but I'm pretty sure that will never happen. Interest groups and donors set the agenda. The politicians are just following orders from those who put them in power. That is how I see it anyway.
I think you are half right. Of course, with such a HUGE Federal gov't. there are legions of politicians, not to mention hangers-on, apparatchiks, rent-seekers, suckers-of-public-teet, etc. that are in it for the payola. But the ideological mind-set of Statists that resides in their rotten anti-individual hearts is the other half.
I don't necessarily disagree. Ideology is a factor but the monetary benefits are more tangible.
That is how it IS.
And it was the only area of the US to entirely escape the 2008 recession. It's also the area where no government "workers" lost a nickel of wages during the lockdowns imposed on the rest of the nation.
Don't forget writing a book that no one buys but they got millions for.
Democrat warmongers do precisely the same things. Gun running in Libya? Radicalizing Egypt? Killing Khaddaffi? Obama and Killary.
Thank you. The list is endless -- I would always also include the coup in Honduras and now the endless stream of desperate people into the US. The same with Syria -- and destabilization of Europe by desperate Syrians...
Ellen J
Until you understand the nature of government, you can’t make sense of their specific actions.
Government is an inherently parasitical entity.
It’s only function to gain power and steal value (since it does not create value)
Not one thing that any politician says is what they really think. Some like Bernie are just better actors. Obama: great actor. Reagan: great actor. The ones that people think are genuine are just better actor. Trump: terrible actor.
The warring has virtually nothing to do with ideology. It has to do with the massive Albatross of the US government growing its power, the DOD growing its power, the defense contractors and DOD revolving door working to increase their power and wealth.
It’s why they embark on propaganda campaigns before and during wars. They need a false pretense for warring because most people would never go along with it for the real reasons it’s happening.
There is no aspect of any part of the government carried out for benevolent reasons. It’s an intrinsically evil entity the moment its functions go anything beyond protecting individual liberties.
Blaming government is silly. It's the equivalent of blaming the hammer for the sins of the carpenter.
In the entire history of governments, governments all end up corrupted. Yet it’s silly to blame government? After 10,000 years of failure, those with some sense ask “maybe the structure itself is the problem”.
Where do you think the idea of government came from? Trees? It’s not a natural phenomenon like earthquakes.
If there was no establishment clause, religions would be doing everything in their power to establish *their* religion (as they have and do). Does that mean we have the state regulate religion? Or make religion illegal? No, we make it illegal for the state to establish a religion or favor one over another or be involved in any way. The structure of an established religion is the problem
Same with anything else. The only proper function of government is protecting (not violating) individual liberties
Anything else is inherently corrupt, destructive, and based on violence - that some people will use the force of government to get their way.
But WE choose the gov't, by volition or negligence.
But did you really choose Biden? Or did shenanigans choose him? I know my answer. I will believe in Santa Claus before I believe Biden got 12 million more "real" votes than Obama.
Well, I think DJT got more legal votes.
But did the carpenters really choose Biden? Or did shenanigans choose him? I know my answer. I will believe in Santa Claus before I believe Biden got 12 million more "real" votes than Obama.
Best comment today!
We get the government we choose, whether we are cognizent or not. The people have certainly NOT insurrected, by political vote nor economic vote nor bloodily, in SO long that the mindless State seems to act on its own and will take decades to cut down, even if we actually started to cut it down. WE allow it, either by negligence (freedom isn't free) or by the intent of those like Cheney, whose hearts are rotten with power lust, and who are threatened by men of the people (the DJTs, who get destroyed by otherwise wise people like M. Art).
"he DJTs, who get destroyed by otherwise wise people like M. Art"
WTF?!
Whatever.
Sorry, M. Art. I agree I was a little gratuitous.
Sorry, M. Art. I thought you were anti-DJT. May I give you another chance?
Kudos for eliciting pearls of wisdom from Mr Timothy. Mr Timothy - You Rock, Sir!
"I won't get fooled again. No, no, no. Not again!"
(Only one correction: RR understood and agreed with you about gov't. You need to re-educate yourself there, M. Givemeliberty.)
To neocons and neolibs, power and control are their own rewards. Direct benefit? They don't don't need no stinkin' direct benefit. It's in their rotten hearts.
This is too vague for me. I’m sorry.
They serve the interests of their masters, and are richly rewarded for doing so. It's not complicated.
I apologize also. But your response is vague, too. Can you identify the confusing part? Is it definition of terms? The reference to a famous (and inaccurate, but so a propos) line from Treasure Of The Sierra Madre?That power and control are just as rewarding to Statists as wealth? Or how a heart consumed with fear and hate can ruin a human brain?
Have you ever heard of a white paper by PNAC? This is your why. The Anglo-Zionist WASP’s who love money and the idea that they and only they along with Israel are destined to rule mankind. https://greenwald.substack.com/p/liz-cheney-lied-about-her-role-in/comments
Yes. There we have it. It's the fault of the Jews. Heil Hitler.
This is a pretty blatant ad hominem to avoid the actual point being made. Nowhere did DialecticalAlchemist blame "the Jews"; he instead pointed to a small group of ideologues, some of whom are Jewish and some who are not.
He framed the words "Anglo-Zionist WASP's who love money". That instantly associates negatives with being jewish, wasp, or anglo, and implies they favor money above all.
Maybe those of you in the hitler youth have missed some of this stuff.
As if every single person involved in the invasion of Iraq / afghanistan was not a publicly confessed member of all the top Neo-Con think tanks including PNAC. Prove me wrong. Rumsfeld, Bush Sr, Bush JR, Powel, Rice, Cheney… And all those bible thumping John Hagee Texas voters who cosigned this philosophy. Deny that “A Clean Break” was real and partly written by Richard Perle…..What’s that? You cant? Go back to your Forward.com comment section praising BiBi, liar.
Do you dream being a guard at Auschwitz? Heil Hitler.
Power-mongers are party agnostic, they only give a fuck about their own little fiefdoms.
Wars are VERY profitable for all players involved -- the US foreign policy of both GOP and DNC oligarchs has been IDENTICAL for 70+ years.
The War Party (its GOP and DNC right wings) always needs financing -- hence "existential threats" are everywhere. It is very likely that destruction of Syria and Venezuela will escalate -- "to free its people."
Always remember St. Obama's declaration:
“Venezuela is fundamental threat to USA” -- declared Obama formally initiating regime change.
What he meant is “Socialism is a threat to capitalism”… hence imperial War-party endless wars -- against “godless” Bolivia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Syria, Cuba, China…..
Repeat: Wars are immensely profitable for leaders and donors of both wings of the US War Party. Defund US military terrorism
Ellen,
High ranking decision making members of institutional power within the US tend to view themselves as stewards and servants of US policy. Some do so cynically, some for personal gain, and some with genuine zealotry. Whether they are Adam Schiff or Liz Cheney, they both contribute to the Imperial Grand Strategy. Check out Chomsky's book "Hegemony or Survival", Chapter 2 if you want to see how these strategic aims around the world formed and why they are enforced. It's not just Republic neocons who want to continue these foreign policies, the ideology is very endemic to most institutional power.
Dang, M. ColorlessGreenIdeas. I'm jealous of your communication skills.
Politicians don't write bills. Lobbyists do. The military industrial complex isn't just about wars. It's about wasting crazy money on overprices stuff and private contractors. An ordinary hammer might be worth $10. But when the same hammer gets bought through the military, it's worth $50 or other crazy amount.
I am a right winger who wants strong military. But I am also aware that the defence spending doesn't all get spent correctly - it gets wasted on bureaucrats, overpriced stuff and private contractors which are even more expensive and less accountable.
Look at what's happening in Afghanistan. Biden claims to remove the troops. But that's not the full story. He's moving the task to private contractors - 18000 of them.
https://youtu.be/jIapQt75GyE
Ellen - It is because Capitalism is the basis our ideology—far more important in the US than our proclaimed devotion to democracy. Capitalism demands endless growth and increasing profits, therefore Imperialism to extend our market power becomes inevitable. Lenin wrote the book on this: “Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism.”
Please also know that it isn’t just neocon Republicans that desire these endless wars but most Democrats, as well. Recall Obama inherited two wars, Afghanistan and Iraq, and he quickly expanded that to include Libya, Syria, Somalia, and supporting the Saudi war in Yemen.
Same old "Capitalism is evil" comment. And as usual I will copy paste my answer.
Capitalism is a system where you create a good or service useful to me and I pay you for it. If you don’t produce something useful or you create something defective, I don’t pay you and you go bankrupt. That’s capitalism.
Now please show me where this capitalism is? Is bailing out companies which don’t produce useful stuff capitalism? Is bailing out banks which made poor and corrupt decisions capitalism? Is giving subsidies to tech companies capitalism? Is telling tech companies to censor viewpoints capitalism? Nope. Those are all crony capitalism and much more closer to communism than capitalism (since the government is the one deciding who gets bailouts, who gets subsidies, who gets tax payer cash).
Do you have capital, M. Michelangelo? Do you even believe in individual property rights? Do you believe a currently poor individual should be allowed by society (State) to acquire over time a store of wealth (which might include stock), there-by pulling himself and his progeny out of poverty WITHOUT having to depend on you and your ridiculous definition of Capitalism, and all your fellow Statists, State power (i.e. stolen individual capital) being golden and unreserved.
No. Capitalism demands individual property rights and individual freedom.
Lenin was wrong.
"OUR ideology"? YOURS maybe.
Marx did a far better job of describing the dangers and failing of capitalism than Lenin ever did. Unfortunately, most people who say they hate Marx have never read anything he wrote whatsoever and only have the second-hand opinions of capitalists regurgitated through their media's propaganda.
Marxism in schools is how we ended up in this mess with shit like identity politics. The marxist take over is basically being exploited by the deep state to divide and conquer. The "leaders" of the useful idiot "progressives" need as many oppressor-oppressed relationships to divide and conquer the people.
So originally Marxism was based on ruling class oppressing the people. But the "leaders" figured out they could take it a step further by creating artificial oppressor-oppressed groups based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation and what not. Divide and conquer has been used for centuries to retain power because as long as the people keep fighting each other over things like race, sex etc, they ignore the real enemy - the establishment politicians and elites.
I would recommend reading this:
https://americanmind.org/features/the-racial-marxism-of-blm/the-plot-to-change-america/
> How Marxist ideologues took over our culture. The Plot to Change America: How Identity Politics Is Dividing The Land of The Free: cultural marxism: Before Gramsci, Marcuse, Millett, and the rest, there were, of course, Marx and Engels. But seeing everything through the lens of economics and property produced blind spots for Marx and Engels and their followers, notably the role that race and ethnicity could play (and would go on to play) in the revolution to overthrow the ruling class.
Democracy would grow and grow improve. Until a point. Then it will start to make smaller and smaller sub groups the priority and continue to look the unders represented until has to make up this group. This is why any ideology which breaks you down into oppressed vs oppressor is deemed to destroy itself in the end.
And as I described to OP, there's no capitalism anywhere. Capitalism is a system where you create a good or service useful to me and I pay you for it. If you don’t produce something useful or you create something defective, I don’t pay you and you go bankrupt. That’s capitalism.
Now please show me where this capitalism is? Is bailing out companies which don’t produce useful stuff capitalism? Is bailing out banks which made poor and corrupt decisions capitalism? Is giving subsidies to tech companies capitalism? Is telling tech companies to censor viewpoints capitalism? Nope. Those are all crony capitalism and much more closer to communism than capitalism (since the government is the one deciding who gets bailouts, who gets subsidies, who gets tax payer cash).
"(such as how for a market to survive you need profit, hence needing increased access to capital, hence imperialism ultimately)"
No. Your third clause DOES NOT FOLLOW.
Lenin wrote on top of Marx and never denied his influence. Not sure what you mean by a "far better job". Have you read the work Chris G. cites?
Marx was wrong about Capitalism, too.
How so?
Realizing you might not be up for "this whole brevity thing" let me elaborate:
You sound like a Marx scholar having figured him inside and out to be comfortable enough to use "marxist" as an expletive. Surely you can provide a few examples of your thorough rebuke of his most profound (and harmful, in your opinion, or they wouldn't be worth mentioning) assertions from Capital.
M. russian_bot, here's some brevity for you, since you are SO excited for it:
While I enjoy the substance you bring to this forum, you are an ad hominem bully, and I would sooner go back to full-time work than ever engage with you.
"Afghanistan has been the world's leading illicit drug producer since 2001."
"The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world. An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and BlackBerrys."
I think the West did a pretty good job, overall, of helping SA develop its oil resources, and the West did not "steal" the wealth created.
Why couldn't we do the same for Afghanistan, if Afghanis want the wealth?
Same reason it was pushed in Russia by alpha males there, because no one wants to back the fuck down like its a prison yard, because everyone is watching.
You can beat they have major holdings in Haliburton and many other defense stocks.
That movie is based on a true story btw.
Maybe I just need more caffeine this morning, but this strikes me as a low point in Greenwald's writing.
He states, "The issue is not merely that Cheney lied: that would hardly be news," and, indeed, it would not, and then he proceeds to not tell us what the power struggle that has led to her defeat is actually all about. Instead, he gives us a tale of her interest in power and in war that doesn't coherently intersect with Cheney's removal from the number 3 spot.
The reader is left wondering what his main point even was. Was it that she's a liar? No, that's not news and Greenwald admits "that would hardly be news." Was it that she's pro-war? That she's interested in power and not ethics? No, these would hardly be news, either. ...One is left with the impression Glenn _intended_ to tie her pro-war and power-lust agendas with her ouster somehow, but he didn't. -shrug- ...I've read better Greenwald articles.
Meanwhile, the big story of the day pertains to Israel's criminal and horrific acts of evil against helpless and innocent humans, but he's not talking about that.
And the big media story of the day continues to be Assange's predicament; his persecution is more of a threat to the current biosphere, humanity writ large, the American people, and even Glenn's pet topic, the media, than anything to do with Cheney's failure. And the SECOND big media story of the day - to continue to harp on Greenwald's pet topic - is how the media in the USA _continues_ to lie like a rug in support of Israel while Israel commits ethnic cleansing right in front of the world's face, and they fail to report it.
I sure would like to see Glenn turning his attention to subjects that matter.
I just wrote about Israel and Gaza two days ago. I've written about it dozens of times over the last decade. There's not a lot more to say. I think it matters that the NYT published false CIA stenography to try to prolong a war, and a key member of Congress is lying about her role in it - it certainly matters enough to warrant a short article documenting those lies and what really happened.
Re: Glenn
I have been wanting to compliment you for actually participating with your subscribers in the comment segment. The point you address in this brief and cogent article does matter, especially to those of us who have witnessed the political antics of the PNAC neo-CONservative ideologs and their stenographic sycophants masquerading as journalists. This jingoistic element seems to have numerous zealous adherents amongst your commentariat, as well as that of some other SubStack writers; Matt Taibbi comes to mind.
About 30 minutes ago I replied to one of your subscribers (NoSuchCommentator) and posted a citation to an article that I suggested might disabuse many herein of their apparent lack of historical context regarding the legacy of neo-CONservatism that Liz Cheney's political ideology is founded upon.
Thank you for what you have chosen to do.
As Usual,
EA
Oh, my, here, here, and sign my name to this. And look how much he has to read!
As a FORMER GOPer myself, I think this is an important story. I have a tremendous amount of regret over my initial support for the war in Iraq. I care more about getting things right than party line politics.
There is tons of rot in DC on both sides of the aisle.
Phase 1 is noticing it. Phase 2 is the realization there are no sides, just those who have power and those who do not.
Thank you for doing so.
But please write more about the absurdity in the entire western world (governments and media) of continuing to portray an apartheid, settler colonial entity committing crimes against humanity as the victim while condemning the occupied, helpless people as the perpetrators.
I really appreciate your columns.
When war comes, there are victors and losers. The conquerors choose what the results will be. If you ever need more fodder for why a big defense budget is important, ask yourself what would have happened if Hitler had won.
The grandchildren of the Jordanians and Egyptians who tried to destroy the newly-created state of Israel nearly 80 years ago are only victims of their own corrupt leadership and their inbred hatred of Jews. Surprisingly, just this morning (5/17/2021) I heard one of the ever-liberal voices of NPR ask a UN representative if Hamas was not cynically attacking Israel with no hope of success because they know that the United Nations will, as always, support the survivors and rebuild Gaza. The UN representative artfully dodged the question. What you parrot, Naim, is the mindless and senseless nonsense of the radical Left and the hatred of radical Islam.
The UN is and always has been a joke. Dave Chappelle nails it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DLuALBnolM&t=174s
A U.N. colony?
But I agree, except for "helpless."
Where do 1000's of increasingly sophisticated rockets come from, Palestinian factories?
Thank you for replying.
I've read your piece from two days ago about the AOC defense of Status Quo Democrats like Pelosi and against Yang - I saw that as a tangential tie-in to the Israeli attacks and more about AOC's capitulation to power.
As for "not a lot more to say," I both disagree and find it disappointing you think so since there are new generations of Americans just coming to their prime years who don't know the history and who seem to have little interest in supporting failed policies of the past - including, as I heard just earlier today on KPFA, how youngsters today are more approving of socialism than capitalism (a hopeful viewpoint insofar as it's true). And, repetition is important, and it's called "impressions" in advertising. . . I presume you're familiar with it.
I DO get it, though, that the defense of the innocent against the super-powerful seems to be an endless and thankless, Sisyphusian task. Yet, it needs to be done for there to be anything like justice in this world.
Thanks again for taking the time to reply.
If you listen to KPFA you are a tool of the neo-Maoist state control club. Youngsters being fond of socialism is hopeful?! Egads, what a frightening statement.
KPFA used to be a great station. Used to be.
I think they mean social democracy such as in Denmark. Bernie, while he calls himself a socialist, does not want a totalitarian state. That is what we nearly have now.
But a totalitarian state is what a socialist ultimately begets. (I know you disagree; I don't mean to agravate.)
It certainly didn't take you long to switch the discussion from the article Glenn posted to your personal vendetta against the Jews, Art. You should establish your own page on Substack and see how many other haters are out there.
Thanks for uncovering the truth about our system of news coverage and two wings of war party complicities and how they work together to keep us in endless wars squandering money which could be used to rebuild our decayed cities. Baltimore could use a few bucks of the 750 billion or so Defense Department dollar per year spending and obviously needs Central Government help in addressing the year in and year out 300 plus murders per year.
It’s an ongoing American tragedy that neighborhood parts of such a small city 35 miles from the nation’s capital is more dangerous than many war torn countries.
The Media + Military/Intelligence Industrial Complex plus our Politicians working together is an important story.
Baltimore does not need more $ thrown at it. I lived there for 8 years its beyond saving.
The entire shithouse needs to go up in flames before it will get fixed.
I should also add that the real reasons the media is venerating Liz Cheney, and the actual causes of this civil war in the GOP - to return it to neocon control - also happen to be quite important.
Every single right winger I know in person wants the Neo-cons out of the freaking GOP. It's like we are finally watching the incompetent GOP grow a tiny bit of spine. While Trump wasn't perfect (he got duped by the CIA hoax of Syrian chemical attacks and bombed Syria during the russiagate nonsense), he did end up doing better than Bush and Obama on not starting a new war. That's what right wingers want - stop wasting money on wars and sending it to foreign countries and start spending it on Americans. Or simply stop taxing the shit out of everyone.
Plus when you have neocons like Liz Cheney, Bush etc and human pos Rick Snyder who poisoned Flint Michigan all supporting the Biden, it seems to show a shift happening in the GOP base. Hopefully Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell will follow next of leaving the GOP.
Read the comments on videos:
Neocons: we will leave the GOP.
GOP base: Here let me help you with the door
I swear the best response the GOP could give to this threat is "don't let the door hit ya on the way out".
This is literally like cancer threatening to leave a patient.
So basically? "You can't FIRE me! I QUIT!"
It's always nice when the trash takes itself out.
This whole neocons are beaten and bailing out of the ship all i can think is CHAD YES
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UMOXoDpxok
https://youtu.be/upWDr2dJjJI
This is very much in line with the "right wingers" I know, myself included I suppose. These war monger types are absurdly sure that they can take tanks and planes in to solve every geo political issue. Most all of the GOP neither worships the Trump calf nor wants to use war to win the world over. That is not what the media wants to classify the GOP as a party.
The latest party splinter is a fantastic list of Neo-Cons. It is so great they outed themselves so perfectly. They posted their supposed articles of faith that read like a Trump playbook and presidency and they don't even see it. Good riddance and hello to all who want a party that truly supports conservatives values that do not have swords as number one on the priority list.
other right wingers understand that quite a lot of the money spent on wars ends up in certain american pockets (liz for example). ultimately all will follow the money.
Not that SNL is ever all that great, but they had one thing right this weekend: they had "Liz Cheney" on "Weekend Update" highlighting that no one is behind her by having the comedienne playing her say that people should join her effort, because it was unstoppable now that she already had her Dad, her, Ann Romney, and like six other white women total on board.
100%!!! GOPe or UnaParty club for growth sellouts.
Our country has been sold out by Dems and Reps alike.
There is nothing I would like better (outside of nuclear power plants in the USA) than to see both the GOP and the Dems split in half and left floundering. Let the Jew-haters, the cop-haters, and the USA haters take half the Dem voters. Let the never-say-die Dems keep the rest. Let the neocons recreate the Cheney Party and let the Trumpers continue with their hero worship. I'd love to see Rand Paul and Tulsi Gabbard create a "PEACE & PROSPERITY PARTY". They would get my vote, regardless of who topped the ticket.
Paul/Gabbard or Gabbard/Paul would make a wonderful administration, but NO Dem, of either split would ever vote for them. But I share your relish at party turmoil. It should ever be so.
(But thank you, thank you, thank you for your parenthetical.)
At this point in time, I just have one friend who is still proud to be called a Democrat. He tells me that "all the real doctors think Rand Paul is an idiot" and he will not consider the fact that Fauci approved and paid for gain-of-function experiments. My other Democratic friend (the one who says he is an Independent) hates Trump, refuses to concede America's economy was in great shape before the Fauci Flu ruined it, but he likes the idea of a Paul/Gabbard Party. Sometimes we err by thinking that all Democrats are mindless zombies: they've just been misled.
I was like "I agree with this so much" and then I was like "who wrote this" and then I was like "of course"
That's exactly what I got out of you piece. The media is desperate to characterize this as a GOP civil war.
I avoid the MSM news as much as possible. That being said, practically every news story about Liz Cheney I have stumbled upon in the past few days is her quote, “I will never allow Donald Trump to become President again and live in The White House.”
Re-eeeah-ah-la-eyyy Ms. Cheney!
I would double down on getting Trump elected AGAIN just to stick it in her eye.
This deep, deep hatred of Trump is SO hysterical that it speaks to me of Pysop or some other player that I can't quite see because it seems robotic and implanted.
You are correct that it does not spontaneously come from the people affected themselves. It took me a long time to understand Russiagate, and then I saw "Social Dilemma".
The deep hatred is implanted by two forces - social media algos designed to generate profits, which highlight emotionally triggering content to achieve that aim, and the new media business model which rewards headlines and stories that demonize opponents.
It is not coincidence that in the 90's when Fox News pioneered this business model many conservatives HATED the Clintons. Now many liberals hate Trump. Of course, it elevated Trump to the presidency as well, because he knows how to play the heel. He leveraged these forces to his political advantage, to be sure, and that grows the effect and grows the hate.
I thought Russiagate was pretty well documented. The Clinton Foundation and the Democratic Party payed a number of groups with deep ties into our black ops organizations. The likes of the FBI and the CIA. The CIA misused the FISA warrant multiple times through Michael Flynn's fake relationship with a fake Russian spy in England. So I'm not following you that this was Fox News and Trump continuing the hatred, "He leveraged these forces to his political advantage, to be sure, and that grows the effect and grows the hate." There're a couple books that document all this with thorough research etc: "Fallout" and "Clinton Cash". Matter a fact it was Clinton Cash that first got the Clintons to create a diversion which ended up ensnaring Michael Flynn.
Who are the Clinton's in relationship with though. Their involvement with selling our uranium mines and such to the Russians, again is well documented. Are they just raping and pillaging and got the Psyop people into the loop and now they've figured out how to monetize that etc. There was a soft coup that occurred here in the US and we were the recipients of this black operation. Who is or are behind that. This is the question I'm chewing on.
In my thinking, one thing that drove the media to apoplexy is their high level of adoption of Twitter - both early on and then to a high degree now. They are most subject to the histrionics because they were engaged in social media, where the algos are triggering them on purpose. Then they write for their own publications and those went rapidly to the same extremes. In "Social Dilemma", they show how both the left and right have moved away from the center. But, it's also clear that the left moved first, starting in 2010, and then the right's move was about 4-5 years later - which to me speaks to earlier adoption of social media.
Didn't the left move first in 2011 with media manipulation because of the Tea Party response to the bizarre bank liquidity bail-outs and "Obamacare" single-payer scheme? That 2010 midterm was Americans seeing the writing on the wall, and racist (a Black can do no wrong) media went apoplectic with panic. THAT was the inflection point, when the Authoritarian State REALLY started acquiring assets and went "inward empiring," at the expense of the peeps. It took a few years, but just like slow motion dominoes, here came the high tech social media co-opt (or sign-up), The HRC/CIA/FBI/Brennan Russiagate, and then BOOM, the perfect crisis, a "pandemic" (apologies to the deceased, but the GodXi, his hired WHO, his control-freak American wanna-bes, and cover-his-ass Fauci's gain-of-function outlaw-research out-sourcing killed you, not people who rightfully put scare quotes around the scare word).
Sorry, I am posting before watching "Social Dilemma" so I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks.
And sorry, M. Substack Commenter 34, if you think I hijack your excellent posts here.
The data is from Pew's surveys and can be found on the web separate from the movie, btw.
Yes! The MSM can now spotlight her for all the wrong reasons, but the peeps will ken this truth, now or soon enough. And is that quote a threat of violence, Liz?
Agree with the statement, but probably not with the real reasons you would cite. Most of the legacy media and Big Tech have no liberal bias, merely a partisan one. Thus, anything that will splinter the only opposition to the authoritarian left, in the person of today's Democratic Party, is to be promoted. If Liz Cheney did not personally oppose Trump, few of her supporters would say anything.
I think the story has to be read in the context that the media is almost universally claiming that Ms Cheney losing her party leadership post is a testament to her integrity. So Mr. Greenwald's story, while not, as others have pointed out, earth shattering in nature, is still a worthwhile counterpoint to the monolithic mainstream media narrative. Propaganda can only be dismantled one small brick at a time.
It's as if GG's detractors will settle for nothing less than a Snowden event every week.
GG is a victim of his own success.
While a 'scoop' is the holy grail of journalism, there is a lot to be learnt by observing what happens right in front of our noses.
And even more importantly, getting the word out. Sometimes that takes repetition and re-visiting.
That's not true nor fair Timothy, otherwise I wouldn't have read and listened, as well as responded to everything Greenwald has posted on substack, and even listened to his chats with his friend, and many didn't. So there. I just wish he would cover the news with a broader brush. I definitely could do with out drama which was quite evident yesterday. I suggested talking about the boarder crisis, and he can go in many directions on that one, or his reflections on the Biden administration. He's great on FOX which I've actually adopted as a news source, however I'm very aware of their biases, and avoid people like Hannity.
I think you mis-understand me, M. Fran. I am referring to those who criticise GG for 1) style, and 2) subject matter. I am just as guilty as you and many here for SUGGESTING, sometimes strongly, GG's next assignment, but I say at all times: You go GG, write anything you want to, and the great thing is, he and I DON'T have to agree on everything, even deeply held convictions on, for example Israel/Palestinian conflict.
See he's uniting the classical liberal in all of us (with exception, of course; looking at you, M. Jim F). Snowden exploded, and now GG has brought the classical liberal left (of which he is a part) from his lost Intercept, and introduced them to the classical liberal right (Capitalists and libertarians) here and now in this wonderful Substack platform. We are arguing and agreeing and disagreeing and learning who the real enemy is (the neo-con/neo-lib Statists). Some of us are learning that to be on the same side politically does not mean we have to like each other. Some of us are still learning the ad hominem fallacy. Some of us are finding new friends that have never ever voted the same way even once. One of us is trying to ramble less, even though he loves to. ;)
I want GG to do what he wants to do because that's what he does best, and man is he good at it.
Like your comment, especially the notion of "the real enemy" (the Neo brothers). I don't use the terms "left or right" any longer. In fact, I think their utility ended soon after their first designation in the National Assembly during the French Revolution. Neither the Democratic nor Republican parties act in the interest of the American people. It's important that along with GG we inform people of real issues and not the false narrative of the MSM or the spin of most politicians.
Yours, too! I hadn't thought about it that way re: the French Revolution. I'm going to review the history, and that of the Jacobins, in light of its "mis-interpretation" of our revolution's true classical liberalism. I'm thinking of the difference in the concepts of "equal-rights" vs. "equality." I think you are right that it is at the heart of today's left/right mis-definitions, and the mindless State growth and capture of what should be private sector purview (including political parties). I think the People have become confused, especially in the difference between so-called "positive rights" (Socialist slavery) and "negative rights" (Capitalist freedom).
Perhaps someday middle and high schoolers will learn these things, and be free and informed enough to decide for themselves.
Re: Timothy Andrew Staples/pop122
"YES, we have no bananas."(:-}
Nothing like a concise ramble.
Pleased that you enjoyed the Judith Miller article and its documenting of the Cheney legacy.
As Usual,
EA
Thanks, and yes, my "project" (scare quotes, because if you knew me (or if it has become all too clear by now), you would lol at the idea of me as a "project manager" or a changer-of-minds, but I dream!) is to repair the 100-200 year old schism in classical liberalism, ultimately uniting today's strands in much the same way that Silver and Cohn's 1923 novelty was used to unite Protestants and Catholics in 1932 Belfast's "outdoor relief" protests (The only time they ever protested together), only because it was the only tune both groups knew!
But here's my favorite no-bananas story: "The song was referred to in the film Only Angels Have Wings (1939), when Cary Grant asks Thomas Mitchell why a boat is not stopping at a particular port, Mitchell says, "They have no bananas", to which Cary Grant responds, "They have no bananas?!" and Mitchell answers, "Yes, they have no bananas." (Wikipedia)
I fear my ramble has missed your point, all of which I have found concise and true, in this forum anyway.
Btw, currently my project consists of singing the praises of discovered classical liberals like our GG. I doubt it will progress much further anytime soon; I'm obviously having too much fun.
For the record, I am not a Greenwald detractor; I'm trying to encourage him to greater heights.
"...this strikes me as a low point in Greenwald's writing."
Oh...I THINK I see your point, but you CERTAINLY are a "detractor" of THIS article, n'est pas?
Yes, that's clear; I'm serving the same role as a coach, mentor, or other adviser. Without clear-eyed, accurate criticism, none of us can reach our full potential, including me, you, and Glenn.
Yikes. The ego!
Art, you should just be the writer and supplant Greenwald. That is what you are saying. Think of me as your coach and mentor, perhaps even an advisor.
WHO THE HELL WOULD WANT TO BE MENTORED BY A BUFFOON LIKE YOU SIR?
How altruistic of you... sarc off/
Okay, that sounds reasonable to me.
Sure, sure. I almost believe you! /sarcasm
For the record, you sure seem like someone who works for David Brock. You push core DNC policies almost word for word, in every single thread, and the moment anyone in the DNC has any type of negatives associated with them you distance yourself and say "they aren't really left". You also never, not once, offer citations for any of the things you say/allege.
This thread is no different. You start the comments off with this gem -
"while Israel commits ethnic cleansing right in front of the world's face, and they fail to report it."
I challenge you to offer real evidence of "ethnic cleansing", because I see all the media talking about what is going in Israel 24/7. I bet you work for the government, because you allege things as 100% irrefutable fact with 0% evidence to support them, and then when challenged, shake off the challenge as something you don't even need to respond to.
You seem like the kind of guy still smoking mexican brick schwag joints and acting like they are Humboldts finest.
Ha! They aren't smuggling the GREEN any more, are they!!! So much for "effective" "war" on drugs.
No worries, Governor Cokehead says he is going to give 300$ million for regulation.
None for the farmers, no tax breaks, just bigger more regulatory government.
I feel like I am the only person on this entire forum who thinks the Snowden story was 100% overblown because all it did was confirm what Mark Klein had alleged years before.
Not a single thing changed for the better with the Snowden revelations by Glenn. The intelligence community is even more oppressive now than they were before.
Overblown in the sense that it didn't actually reveal anything new conceptually, especially for various intelligence services around the world, - absolutely!
That it had a much larger impact internationally than Klein's revelations largely due to Greenwald and Co. involvement cannot be unacknowledged. The US aggressively pursuing Snowden (and Assange) just show that what hurt was unequivocal confirmation to the world that it's being done on a global scale with impunity. The world governments could not ignore it. The public became aware and there could no longer be arguments that it was all "conspiracy theories".
Also, Klein's were during the Bush admin and so everything was "because Bush". Snowden's showed it didn't matter who was at power.
I don't disagree with your points but the results were a more oppressive intelligence community. How did the Snowden revelations help American citizens in any way given the results we see now?
No argument there - the "deep state" or whatever you call it just says FU to the public. And the public meekly accepts it.
But I don't see though that the revelations themselves caused it. It would have gone regardless and quite possibly in a much speedier fashion.
It really is laughable how the media insists on ionizing Cheney. They desperately want to drive a wedge in the GOP. Everyone I know in the GOP were sick of her grandstanding. Her removal from leadership is as simple as her refusal to even try to be in step with the majority of the GOP caucus.
Lionizing, not ionizing. Although the error does create an interesting word picture
Poor Ms. Cheney. She has been hoist on her own petard, fallen on her own sword, and now, ionized by typo no less.
She's even lost the media!!!
(See, they used to "lionize" her.....)
Read the comments on these videos. Vast majority of the right wingers (not the politicians) absolutely hate these neocons and want them out of the GOP asap:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UMOXoDpxok
https://youtu.be/upWDr2dJjJI
And this piece: Asking the Wrong Question About Liz Cheney. Don’t ask why we need to oust her. Ask why she was ever in leadership in the first place.
https://amgreatness.com/2021/05/06/asking-the-wrong-question-about-liz-cheney/
The media and established lifer politicians are doing everything they can to make sure no outsider like Trump ever dares to try to get office again.
Of course, the media protects their allies, lifer politicians of political families who go back to the 70s and before.
Cuomos, Kennedy's, Cheney's, Bushes, the list goes on and on
They love monarchy-like heredity, don't they.
It maintains control nicely and neatly.
Re: NoSuchCommentator
Your observation is, in deed, on point and well thought out.
Regarding your mentioning of context, many herein appear to be a tad unfamiliar with Rep. Liz Cheney's inherited neo-CONservative legacy writ large. For those interested in a succinct historical primer, try giving the below cited article a comprehensive viewing; taking particular note of the roles played by high ranking neo-cons and their stenographic journalist associates.
https://nymag.com/nymetro/news/media/features/9226/
As Usual,
EA
Amazing. I remember reading this, but not in 2004, when I was still ready to "nuke" the world, so butt-hurt indignant I was at shooting aircraft at skyscrapers, just like OBL planned for me to be. In my defense, I did not want retribution; I wanted to forestall more madness of the type by reminding the world what would happen in response, just like OBL planned for me. I did not EVER want foreign regime change, nor 20-year wars of occupation, nor did, I think, very many fellow Americans. I was still ignoring the opportunists (neo-cons).
I love the conclusion. One thing left un-explicit, though, in "...reforming the profession itself, which inevitably relies on people" is that skeptical readers are the most important people. After all, they, or at least concern for their attention, started the "unraveling."
A fat, happy, complacent, un-attentive people destroy democracy AND journalism, since they leave their freedom and knowledge to the whims of the operators. And all issues (terrorism, pandemics, "pandemics") are used.
Btw, is mere "ambition" (Miller, Chalabi, etc.) the real source of neo-conservatism?
Re: Timothy Andrew Staples/pop122
Thank you for actually taking a look at the article, considering it in its original context, and for responding. The singular attribution of "mere 'ambition'" as "the real source of neo-conservatism" seems a bit simplistic at present. The PNAC originators, many of whom are named in the article, were/are extremist political theorists within the conservative faction; they also birthed the "unitary executive" idiocy that still ferments a Constitutional imbalance within the three branches of our federal government.
As Usual,
EA
You are welcome, but that's the last time I need be thanked for reading what you (and many here) offer. The gratitude is mine. (btw, my familial nickname is "The Reader." Get-togethers were boring, but books never were/are!).
You don't need to respond, but do you believe, as I do, that the Constitution will survive the "unitary executive," or is a rewrite necessary.
>"I think the story has to be read in the context that the media is almost universally claiming that Ms Cheney losing her party leadership post is a testament to her integrity."
I think the story has to be read in the context of Biden coastal elites waking up in bed with Liz Cheney. .. a chip off the old block.
That the media portrays this as a 'testament of *her* integrity' is missing the point.
*politics and Trump make strange bedfellows.
*politics makes strange bedfellows
Not being a consumer of ANY Main-Stream Media, as, I'd bet, a good fraction of Greenwald readers are, this assertion could have used at least a sentence or two:
"the story has to be read in the context that the media is almost universally claiming that Ms Cheney losing her party leadership post is a testament to her integrity"
"Context" is important, and assuming readers understand context of your assertions they way you do isn't a good practice and Glenn is not known for making that kind of assumption.
M. Art, would you please re-write this so I can uderstand what the heck you are saying?
Without an edit function, I couldn't fix "they way", but it should of course read "the way." HTH.
Got it. I should have been able to figure that out!
Israel has a right to defend itself. The only path to peace in the Mideast is for all of its countries to officially recognize Israel’s right to exist. Does that sound familiar? The Abraham accords. Unfortunately someone is Xiden’s cabinet has been feeding intel to Iran so that their terrorist proxies can kill Israelis. His initials are JK, and he’s been caught red-handed.
"Israel has a right to defend itself."
Israel started all this murder, of course, and it's not as if the two parties are equals; the Israelis have total control over everything.
Are you REALLY that clueless? Or, is it racism?
So if he disagrees with you, he's either clueless or a racist?
Palestinians have right to survive in illegally occupied East Jerisalem
So true, and true of within Israel, also.
Thank you, of course:
Why is dreaming of return laudable for Jews but pathological for Palestinians?
What the establishment Jewish narrative omits is that the vast majority of Palestinians forced from their homes committed no violence at all. Their presence was intolerable not because they had personally threatened Jews but because they threatened the demography of a Jewish state.
In June 1948, Ben-Gurion himself lamented the “mass plunder to which all sectors of the country’s Jewish community were party.”
In the decades since World War II, the international bodies that oversee refugees have developed a clear ethical principle: People who want to return home should be allowed to do so.
If Jews robbed en masse in the 1940s deserve reparations, surely Palestinians do too.
“I have no interest in building my life on the basis of attacks on Jews and making them fear they have no place here.”
In our bones, Jews know that when you tell a people to forget its past you are not proposing peace. You are proposing extinction.
Teshuvah: A Jewish Case for Palestinian Refugee Return (jewishcurrents.org)
https://jewishcurrents.org/teshuvah-a-jewish-case-for-palestinian-refugee-return/
------------------------------------------
Elie Wiesel's Israeli propaganda and the myth of Soviet genocide against the Jews - Immigrants as a Weapon (substack.com)
His book "The Jews of Silence" was created as part of Israel’s covert propaganda and influence program targeting American Jews.
https://yasha.substack.com/p/elie-wiesels-israeli-propaganda-and
Why is dreaming of return laudable for Jews but pathological for Palestinians?
What the establishment Jewish narrative omits is that the vast majority of Palestinians forced from their homes committed no violence at all. Their presence was intolerable not because they had personally threatened Jews but because they threatened the demography of a Jewish state.
In June 1948, Ben-Gurion himself lamented the “mass plunder to which all sectors of the country’s Jewish community were party.”
In the decades since World War II, the international bodies that oversee refugees have developed a clear ethical principle: People who want to return home should be allowed to do so.
If Jews robbed en masse in the 1940s deserve reparations, surely Palestinians do too.
“I have no interest in building my life on the basis of attacks on Jews and making them fear they have no place here.”
In our bones, Jews know that when you tell a people to forget its past you are not proposing peace. You are proposing extinction.
Teshuvah: A Jewish Case for Palestinian Refugee Return (jewishcurrents.org)
https://jewishcurrents.org/teshuvah-a-jewish-case-for-palestinian-refugee-return/
------------------------------------------
Elie Wiesel's Israeli propaganda and the myth of Soviet genocide against the Jews - Immigrants as a Weapon (substack.com)
His book "The Jews of Silence" was created as part of Israel’s covert propaganda and influence program targeting American Jews.
https://yasha.substack.com/p/elie-wiesels-israeli-propaganda-and
Are you REALLY that clueless, Art? Have you ever read about how Israeli children had to go to school in armored busses and how Arabs cut off the noses and ears of Jews they slaughtered when Israel became a nation? It is time for you to leave your fantasy world and look around.
"Israel started all this murder..."
Well, if you go back an EVEN number of years (or is it ODD?), until you get to 1948, when we find a new culprit, or is the U.N. just a front for old JEWISH "terrorism/freedom-fighting"?
You are right Israel has the right to defend itself and, if Biden hasn’t freed money to the Palestinian most likely a shower of Hamas missiles would not be heading to Israel.
Or maybe it was just another opportunity to write a story about the thing that actually annoyed him: the manufacture by government officials of a fake story and the stenographers in the MSM that publicized it for them.
I'm more than annoyed by the systemic murder - actually "ethnic cleansing" applies - of Palestinians presently underway by a government MY government is underwriting while hundreds of millions of my fellow citizens are worse-off in ways that that money could help address.
NOT ONLY do we have no business giving murderers and ethnic cleansers money we need for ourselves, but the lack of even rhetorical support for the murdered innocents is reprehensible.
Yet Glenn is "annoyed" by Cheney's entirely predictable behavior?
...At least he tangentially mentioned the basic topic yesterday in a screed about AOC's idiocy regarding Yang... Not the kind of coverage I want him to focus on, but it's better than nothing. _This_ Cheney stuff? Why is it "above the fold" when there are some truly vital topics unfolding as we speak?
You are determined to beat that dog to death, Art. Look: everyone now knows that you are virtue-signaling and that you have no sense of history. Let other people discuss the article without turning this into an anti-semitic rant.
It is hard to take anyone serious that is okay with terrorists killing their enemy and then calling it ethnic cleansing when said enemy responds once provoked. It is akin to saying a black man was killed while robbing a home and thus the homeowner was performing ethnic cleansing.
Thank you.
I really like Greenwald, always have. but I think you're right. I would love to see him focus on more important issues, which he seems to be avoiding, as for Liz Cheney, a woman who adores a mass murderer, and calls him dad, well what do you expect.
What are the important issues I'm avoiding?
Arizona election audit and persecution of patriotic citizens based on the fakes news of Jan. 6.
I really would have liked for you to talk about the border crisis, BLM and the Chauvin trial, and about Biden and his son and China, although considering all the hate that happened yesterday maybe you shouldn't. It's not that I think the topics you cover, like this one, is not important, or interesting, just a broader brush when it comes to news issues would be nice.
I understand. I think there are some readers here who haven't been with me for that long so I'll take this opportunity to explain my philosophy of what I choose to write about. I try really hard to *avoid* being a generalized pundit, by which I mean someone who automatically weighs in on every important or weighty news event just because others are talking about it.
I've always focused on a small number of topics at once -- obviously ones I think are important - sometimes delving into just 3 or 4 discrete issues for months at a time. The reason is that I feel like when I hit the "publish" button, I'm creating a covenant with my readers where I'm staking claim to their time. It's essentially an announcement that I think it'd be worth your time to read what I've written rather than doing the infinite number of other things you can do with your time. That trust will only be maintained if I'm regularly producing something of high quality. It will be eroded if I start churning out things that I think are mediocre and can be found everywhere else, where I'm publishing just for the sake of "weighing in."
To make an article worthwhile to publish, I feel like I need two things: 1) in-depth, expert-level knowledge of the topic (rather than superficial knowledge of it); and 2) something unique to say that can enlighten, inform or provoke thought and debate, or bring attention to something that isn't getting attention, that one can't find elsewhere.
If, for instance, I were to spend time really delving into the border crisis in a way I feel I'd need to in order to write about it, it would come at the expense of something else: maybe less attention paid to the intensifying censorship efforts of political speech, or the continuous frauds being disseminated by major media outlets (which take a lot of time to dissect, research, debunk, etc.), or other civil liberties abuses in the name of the new Domestic War on Terror, etc.
I think large news outlets and news anchors have the obligation to report on everything important. But I don't think specific journalists or writers can think that way, because then you end up just spouting off on things where you haven't done the work that is necessary to make what you're saying reliable, informed and unique, where you just have superficial knowledge.
That I don't write about something doesn't mean I think it's unimportant: it might mean that, but more often it probably means I don't think I have things worth saying that justify staking claim to my readers' time. And I'm sure there will be topics that readers think are more important than the one I've chosen to write about on a given day (though, as this discussion reflects, readers will usually disagree amongst themselves as to which is The Most Important Issue). But what I try to do above all is ensure that whatever I've written has been worthwhile in helping people think about the world, question their assumptions and understand things. I think that focus on in-depth quality is more important than trying to cover every news event that is important.
Glenn, what you should write about is Cheney's role in *causing* the Capitol riot. I have put these facts together over the past few days, and "if this line of thought is true" Cheney has a lot of responsibility here.
We didn't get good answers for the longest time on why there wasn't sufficient support from the National Guard around the Capitol on Jan 6. We had some early testimony from Sund (Chief of Capitol Police) that he requested them and it was denied. Some on the right postulated Pelosi to be at fault, but the Sgts. at Arms for both Senate and House were involved, and there's no evidence Pelosi was ever directly consulted.
The best evidence now came from former acting Sec'y of Defense Miller in his comments the other day. He cited the primary factor in his thinking in denying Guard deployment was to avoid a perception of risk of a military coup. He also cited to avoid a Kent State type of protestor shooting, but that was secondary. Now, flash back to Sund's testimony, he cited that the reason he was given by the Sgts. at Arms for denying his request for Nat'l Guardsmen was that they too were very concerned about the "optics" of troops at the Capitol.
Why did Miller and the two Sgts. at Arms care so deeply about avoiding the perception and optics of a potential military coup? Well, on Jan 3, "all ten living defense secretaries" wrote a high-profile op-ed in the WaPo warning of the potential for one, and warned all involved to not involve the military in a political dispute. Miller was called out by name in this warning, in fact. It was the climate caused by this op-ed that made those in Washington, and particularly the three people that made the decision NOT to have Guard troops on the grounds of the Capitol on Jan. 6, fear at least "the optics" that there might be a military coup.
While protestors are responsible for their actions and those actions were illegal, it is admitted by all and clear from the firing of Sund and the Sgts. at Arms that the major deficiency that led to the storming of the Capitol was the failure of security. The number one failure of security was having insufficient National Guard presence. We have direct admission from one principal and a direct assertion from another that "the optics" of Guard troops being present were the rationale behind this decision.
And Liz Cheney was the principal force in the most public document that drove the climate of concern about "the optics."
As was revealed by a friend of Liz Cheney's in the New Yorker recently, the Jan 3 op-ed was her idea. She then orchestrated it through her father.
"If this line of thought is true", Liz Cheney's actions directly affected the decision to not have sufficient Guard involvement at the Capitol on Jan. 6, which allowed the storming of the Capitol to take place and she should be publicly held to account for this.
tl;dr Cheney hyperventilating about a military coup from Trump caused others to avoid placing sufficient Guard troops at the capital because of the optics, leading to the events of the Capitol riot (ifthislineofthoughtistrue).
"If", Liz, I said "if".
>"I think there are some readers here who haven't been with me for that long so ..."
I hate to break it to you Glenn, but there are some readers who think you're a 'right wing culture warrior' Trump monkey on Putin's payroll. .. at least that's what they keep tell me!
If the right don't get you, the left will.
*btw, AOC has made clear her sympathies are with the plight of the Palestinians and sometimes it is better to let sleeping dogs lie and cut bait .. . rather than be the cause of a thousand more wrongs.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/14/opinion/bernie-sanders-israel-palestine-gaza.html
I knew you were going to say that, I knew it, and I do understand. To be honest too many left wing sites publish rants, and I've grown tired of them. Oh, well, as they say.
I disagree with you because there is nothing that makes me happier like watching a war criminal family go down.
I understand, but he got a new heart, and that really bothers me.
I think this is in the same vein as other recent posts about government actors making use of the lap dog media, particularly as it involves the Deep State.
You need to read the next sentence: “ It is that the entire media narrative about Cheney's removal from her House leadership role is a fraud. Her attacks on Trump and her party leadership were not confined to criticisms of the role played by the former president in contesting the validity of the 2020 election outcome or inciting the January 6 Capitol riot — because Liz Cheney is such a stalwart defender of the need for truth and adherence to the rule of law in politics.”
And you follow that up with “Israel’s criminal acts . . “. Try this: https://t.co/GYD8SZu2jS
You need less caffeine, not more. This subject is pretty important.
Bruh, his last post from yesterday was about Israel. Wakey Wakey.
It's just a nice summary of what many people don't know.
Wars were always horrific - that's hardly news.
Replace "the reader is left" with "I am left"
or
Replace "I sure would like to see" with "The reader sure would like to see"
You don't speak for anyone but yourself, you know that right? You do not speak for me. I have no trouble at all understanding what the points being made are.
All your emperors are naked.
Every time I read your posts I ask myself who you are working for because there is no way you can be a true leftist.
Do everyone a favor, if you are going to mention ethnic cleansing and jews, please get it right. The rest of the world tried to ethnic cleanse the jews, not the other way around, despite what your media lying overlords tell you.
You mean the "helpless and innocent humans" (Hamas) who have been lobbing thousands of rockets into civilian areas f Israel killing innocent men, women and children??? I guess in you view Jews simply aren't human.
The article was was about setting the record straight vs. media war party complicity.
Nothing matters more to me than the future of the US, and keeping people like Cheney out of power is one way to help.
Glenn is also not talking about the evil, horrific acts perpetrated by Hamas against innocent civilians and Israel's defense of it's citizens.
Assange's persecution, while indefensible, is not a BIG story at all. It has almost no impact on anything.
Thank you once again, Glenn. Lying was the polluted air Liz Cheney grew up breathing in her family.
Then again, Cheneys like shooting their friends.
Yes, probably hard to grow up Liz. Shoot or be shot.
PS: Am I the only one to see similarities between leading female pro-war advocates -- Hillary Clinton and Liz Cheney? ;-))
If Hillary Clinton is the Queen of Warmongers (and she is), Liz Cheney is the Princess.
It's a BIG UNIPARTY and you and I ain't in it.
The problem for the neocons now is that while the Republican establishment may love them, the Republican base cannot stand them at this point. I mean do you think Republican voters would have gone with an obnoxious blowhard if they liked what the neocons were offering. Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton, was there any difference in economic or foreign policy? So, Donald Trump says he is for seriously reducing illegal immigration, getting us away from bad trade deals, and not starting any new wars. Now, the Republican establishment (I like to call them Republican Inc.) sees their opportunity. There is no way this Trump clown will win and everything he is advocating for will be discredited. Now is the time for the candidates to release their inner neocon. Full speed ahead! I will stop for a moment to allow Substack readers to enjoy the schadenfreude.
Now the establishment Republicans want to reclaim the party, but they have made five massive mistakes. First, they proved to be completely useless with their majority. “The wall idea is stupid, eVerify would be much more effective! Oh no, we are not actually going to introduce the bill and vote on it. That would involve work and might run counter to my golf buddies’ desire for cheap, off the books labor. Was there anything else you wanted? I’m just kidding. We only pretended to care, but don’t worry, we will pretend to care again in time for next election.” Second, the only real bill they passed was a corporate hand out, I’m sorry, I mean corporate tax cut. “Hey, the economy has undergone forty years of change and the corporate tax rate is massively different than when Regan cut it but I’m sure we can convince people that it will be exactly the same result.” Third, when opposing a man like Donald Trump it is best to act like a mature, responsible, levelheaded adult. So instead, they became petty, obsessive, conspiratorial, and constantly angry. Fourth, when you go on and on about your “principles,” it actually helps to have some principles. They would criticize Trump even after he did something they wanted and rarely give him praise for doing something they wanted. The neocons refused to ever defend him against the most baseless accusations. Russiagate anyone? They had no problem lying about him or slandering his voters. Which brings me to number five, they let Republican voters know just how much they hate them! It got to the point where the accusations and insults were so vile, you could not tell the difference between them and the Democrats. The neocons love to blab on and on about how they are “representatives” and how they need to protect Washington from the plebs. One problem, if your voters do not think you are “representing” them and they know you hate them, they do not have to vote for you.
Off topic: Can we please get an edit function?
Only if the editing is identified, so as to be fair to pre-editing responders.
Besides, you don't need one, M. Matt330.
I actually deleted and pasted three times!
Oh, yeah! I keep forgetting you can do that.
I also really want an edit button on Substack. I keep having to delete and reposting my reply to fix typos.
And totally agree with the rest. There's a few TDS here who think everyone who voted for Trump must be a die hard Trump cultist. They forget that he seemed to be one of the only candidates who didn't seem to hate his own base. When you do 5 rallies a day right after getting out of the hospital, you really have to love your base. The difference between Trump supporters and haters is that his supporters take him seriously but not literally whereas his haters take him literally but not seriously.
I just wish he didn't make such poor hiring and not firing fast enough choices like Wray, Gina Haspel, Bolton, Barr, Durham etc. I guess he didn't realize how deep the swamp was.
"I keep having to delete and reposting my reply to fix typos."
Deceit! No wonder your "extemporaneous" prose is so golden!
This scum is as and as Bolton and that fact that so called Liberal media is lionizing this scum is disgrace. Anther proof that the media is not liberal or left, but pro war and very right wing when it come to continuation of imperial wars. Liz Cheney is a war criminal just like her father.
"53K US contractors in the Middle East versus -- for 35K troops" !!! What a lucrative business and worth unlimited donations to both DNC and GOP politicians. Highlighting just that "detail" -- tells it all....
A 1%-er War party with two right (DNC and GOP) wings -- gay marriage, abortion, "woke", and other imposed topics are just distractions to divide 99% of population into "red" and "blue" camps.
But brainwashed US citizen agitate "freeing" China and increasing hate of Moslems, Russians, Chinese, Martians - just to avoid thinking about our own beloved country. 1%-er overlords are playing us like a violin...
We need to agitate for freedom and democracy in – our beloved USA. Although near term hopeless -- I believe in multi-party system, unlike current one party monopoly with two right wings.
China raised 800 million of its citizens - from periodic mass starvation into middle class -- an unprecedented success -- while DNC and GOP oligarchs essentially eliminated middle class in the US -- a downward spiral for us and the US....
Who "agitates for freeing China"? No one. But why don't you ask Tibetans what they think of their overlords? How about the millions in forced labor camps? Bet they're pretty happy too. Mao only killed a hundred million or so, so let's all celebrate Communist dictators. Lol. India raised its population likewise, without killing a hundred million in the process. Communist China had to adopt capitalism to do it, along with stealing intellectual property for the past 40 years. The middle class in the US has not been "eliminated" except in the minds of far-left progressives and their media buddies who are trying to redefine class conflict to pursue "burning it down".
Pompeo's State Dept relied on End Times extremist @adrianzenz to accuse China of genocide (CIA’s decade-long anti-China strategy).
Grayzone’s review of Zenz's papers shows wanton data abuse, absurd manipulation of source material, fabrications & huge “errors”.
https://thegrayzone.com/2021/02/18/us-media-reports-chinese-genocide-relied-on-fraudulent-far-right-researcher/
That's right. It's all a right wing conspiracy. Uighurs don't really exist. There is no slave labor. So glad you solved that one.
Falun Gong - a well funded anti-Communist "religion" and Adrian Zenz - a German evangelical anti-Semitic fundamentalist are not reliable sources for CIA's decade-long anti-China project
So move. See ya.
There is no "middle class" under Communism.
Agree.