Sympathy for the Devils...

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Re: Sympathy for the Devils...

Post by blindpig » Thu Apr 20, 2023 2:32 pm

Biden DOJ Indicts Four Americans For “Weaponized” Free Speech

Image

The Biden administration’s Department of Justice has just charged four members of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP) for conspiring to act as agents of Russia by using speech and political action in ways the DOJ says “weaponized” the First Amendment rights of Americans.

The Washington Post reports:

Federal authorities charged four Americans on Tuesday with roles in a malign campaign pushing pro-Kremlin propaganda in Florida and Missouri — expanding a previous case that charged a Russian operative with running illegal influence agents within the United States.



The FBI signaled its interest in the alleged activities in a series of raids last summer, at which point authorities charged a Moscow man, Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov, with working for years on behalf of Russian government officials to fund and direct fringe political groups in the United States. Among other things, Ionov allegedly advised the political campaigns of two unidentified candidates for public office in Florida.



Ionov’s influence efforts were allegedly directed and supervised by officers of the FSB, a Russian government intelligence service.



Now, authorities have added charges against four Americans who allegedly did Ionov’s bidding through groups including the African People’s Socialist Party and the Uhuru Movement in Florida, Black Hammer in Georgia, and an unidentified political group in California — part of an effort to influence American politics.


AFP reports that the conspiracy charges carry a sentence of up to ten years, with three of the four APSP members additionally charged with acting as unregistered agents of Russia which carries another five years.

“Russia’s foreign intelligence service allegedly weaponized our First Amendment rights – freedoms Russia denies its own citizens – to divide Americans and interfere in elections in the United States,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen in the DOJ’s press release regarding the indictments, adding, “The department will not hesitate to expose and prosecute those who sow discord and corrupt U.S. elections in service of hostile foreign interests, regardless of whether the culprits are U.S. citizens or foreign individuals abroad.”

Looks like the United States has decided to dispense with those freedoms as well.


The superseding indictment containing these charges consists of a lot of verbal gymnastics to obfuscate the fact that the DOJ is prosecuting US citizens for speech and political activities in the United States which happen not to align with the wishes of the US government. The grand jury alleges that the aforementioned Ionov “directed” these Americans to “publish pro-Russian propaganda” and “information designed to cause dissention in the United States,” which is about as vague and amorphous an allegation as you could possibly come up with.

For the record Omali Yeshitela, the founder and chairman of the African People’s Socialist Party and one of the four Americans named in the indictment, has adamantly denied ever having worked for Russia. Earlier this month before charges were brought against him, the Tampa Bay Times quoted him as saying, “I ain’t ever worked for a Russian. Never ever ever ever. They know I have never worked for Russia. Their problem is, I’ve never worked for them.”

But it’s important to note that this should not matter. Under the First Amendment the government is forbidden to abridge anyone’s freedom to speak however they want and associate with whomever they please, which necessarily includes being as vocally pro-Russia as they like and promoting whatever political agendas they see fit, whether that happens to advance the interests of the Russian government or not. The indictment alleges that the four Americans engaged in “agitprop” by “writing articles that contained Russian propaganda and disinformation,” but even if we pretend that’s both (A) a quantifiable claim and (B) a proven fact, propaganda and disinformation are both speech that the government is constitutionally forbidden from repressing.

It’s not reasonable for the government to just dismiss the First Amendment on the grounds that it is being “weaponized”. You can’t have your government dictating what speech is valid and what counts as “agitprop” and “disinformation”, because they’ll always define those terms in ways which benefit the government, thus giving more power to the powerful and taking power away from the people. You can’t have your government dictating what political groups are legitimate and which ones are tools of a foreign government, because you can always count on the powerful set such designations in ways which benefit themselves.


There’s also the brazen hypocrisy of it all. The US government is constantly engaging in foreign influence operations with outfits like the National Endowment for Democracy, which was set up to help foment coups and color revolutions and advance US information interests overtly in ways the CIA used to do covertly.

As commentator Brian Berletic noted on Twitter, “The US through the National Endowment for Democracy has created armies of organizations carrying out malign influence operations around the world including here in Thailand. When the Thai government attempts to stop this activity, the US embassy shouts ‘free speech.’ Thailand’s government and others around the world could easily cite this move by the US Justice Department to target and uproot US-funded organizations doing exactly this and worse.”

So for the US government to now claim it’s legitimate to start throwing US citizens in prison for a decade because they published “propaganda” for another country is absurd, and more than a little scary. The most powerful government in the world needs more political dissent at home, not less, and here they are trying to turn it into a crime.

When they claim the members of the APSP published “propaganda” and promoted “dissention”, what they really mean is that they engaged in speech and political activism that the US government does not like. The spinmeisters will try to spin it, the legal mumbo-jumbo will try to obfuscate it, but that’s what’s happening. Don’t let them conceal this from you. They’re not worried about Russian propaganda, they’re worried you’ll stop listening to US propaganda.

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2023/04/19 ... ee-speech/

Ain't nothing like war to make what was unacceptable acceptable. Those folks weren't doing nothing that I don't do here...uh-oh.

As noted, the US actually does this sort of thing all over the world and especially in nations declared 'enemies of democracy', which is to say those who will not kow tow to the hegemon.

In this the only difference between Biden and Trump is that Orange Man would invoke this for speech about him. Given the gravity of this move by the current regime that is about irrelevant.
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Re: Sympathy for the Devils...

Post by blindpig » Sat Apr 22, 2023 3:49 pm

PSL Editorial — How the Biden administration is helping to kill the planet
Liberation StaffApril 22, 2023 17 2 minutes read
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Today is Earth Day, which the Biden administration marked with a hollow declaration that “For our children and grandchildren, we must stand united in our effort to save our only home.” But just over the course of the last year the administration has taken several major steps that brought us even deeper into the climate crisis.

One of the main tools the federal government has to implement climate policy is the permitting process for new fossil fuel ventures. Many executive branch agencies play a role in this process, and have the power to withhold approval for new drilling, pipelines, etc.

One such agency is the Bureau of Land Management, which is responsible for the vast tracts of land owned by the federal government. When a fossil fuel company wants to carry out activities on federal land, it needs to seek a permit from the BLM. From the beginning of Biden’s presidency until early this year, the BLM approved 6,430 permits for gas or oil drilling. This is even more than the 6,172 permits issued in the same period of time during the Trump administration.

The rate at which these permit applications are approved is astounding. For example, between October 2021 and October 2022, fossil fuel corporations were approved in nearly 90% of the cases they requested permission to drill. It is absurd to talk about a transition to clean energy while planet-killing oil and gas executives are given free reign to expand production.

When it comes to offshore drilling, the Biden administration is no better. Even as he moved to secure passage last August of the environmental measures included in the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden made massive concessions that took us in the wrong direction. One of the most glaring is Lease Sale 257, which opens up 80.8 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico to drilling. This sale, the largest ever in the United States, had been halted by a federal judge on the basis that it did not conform with the National Environmental Policy Act. The administration accepted the inclusion of a provision in the IRA that would force the Department of the Interior to go ahead with the sale anyway.


The construction of pipelines has been a key flashpoint in the struggle to stop climate change. Residents of areas the pipelines travel through have united with environmental activists nationwide to wage fierce struggles against this key form of fossil fuel infrastructure. In spite of this type of opposition, the Biden administration has moved to approve the Mountain Valley Pipeline. Just last week, the U.S. Forest Service gave the green light for construction to go forward in the Jefferson National Forest. And last month, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also signed off on the pipeline. Both of these agencies fall under the president’s authority as head of the executive branch.

Defenders of the Biden administration excuse these destructive actions on the basis that they are part of a clever political strategy – Biden has to give these concessions, they argue, so that he is able to implement environmentally friendly policies in other areas. But this approach has no hope of succeeding in time to prevent climate change from devastating the globe. There is no alternative to breaking the power of the fossil fuel capitalists and fundamentally reorganizing the way society produces and uses energy.

https://www.liberationnews.org/how-the- ... rationnews

Way back when I considered myself an environmentalist with socialist/anarchist sympathies. After almost 40 years of accelerating environmental decline, during which time I had joined almost every 'enviro org' you can think of, I had to give socialism a serious look. It wasn't easy, the cumulative propaganda of liberal phonies('Tragedy of the Commons), Malthus, anti-communist propaganda aimed at the environmentally concerned which blithely ignored concurrent capitalist practices made it a slow slog. Leaving a lot aside a couple things became apparent: 1)Socialism prioritizes human need and as science has made clear a healthy natural environment, including biodiversity, is a human need. Capitalism, the 'current arrangement', prioritizes profit, that'll never get us there. 2) Until other, more immediate human needs are met, and on a planetary basis, we as a species will not be able to manage the Earth in a manner which maximizes attainment of human needs. And 'manage' we must, like it or not it is the 'Anthropocene Epoch'. The longer we take the harder it will be and the less we will have to work with. Socialism or barbarism.

Pinning our hopes on the Democratic Party is foolish, stupid, lazy, futile, sinful, insane...I could go on.
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Re: Sympathy for the Devils...

Post by blindpig » Mon Apr 24, 2023 3:02 pm

The Biden Campaign's Deep State Conspiracy To Discredit The Hunter Biden Laptop
by Debs is Dead
lifted from a comment

Frankly I'm not sure where to post any more as 'not Ukraine' threads age for so long before being replaced that I doubt many but the most assiduous readers get to discover news which is actually vital to comprehending the Amerikan empire decline.
Not to worry I'll stick to the ancient rules & post here.

Which discloses former temporary CIA boss Michael Morell's conspiracy to discredit the Hunter Biden laptop tosh:

An all-time media blackout is in effect. We’re experiencing real-time Sovietization. by Matt Taibbi

It transpires that the infamous incident before the 2020 election in which 50 former intelligence officials signed an open letter declared a New York Post expose about Hunter Biden’s laptop to have the “classic earmarks of a Russian information operation” was instigated at the behest of the Joe Biden campaign. This at least is the allegation in a letter to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken released by Jim Jordan, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, and Subcommittee on the Weaponization of Government.

In that letter, which is not easy to find, you’ll see three snippets of dialogue from questioning of Morell, who appears to have organized the open letter. In the first snippet, he explains that the idea originated with a call from Blinken, then of the Biden campaign, and that absent that call, Morell wouldn’t have done what he did:

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In the second snippet Morell bluntly explains that he did it because “I wanted him to win,” him being Joe Biden.


The snippets are from congressional record. Matt has them, read them through the link above I provided.

Matt calls this the 'Sovietization' of Amerika a metaphor that I'm not particularly comfortable with as Soviet bureaucrats used to claim with some justification that their efforts to control information was in the people's interest. Anyway arguing over history rarely does anything more than cement the debaters to their particular position but Morell's corruption is too recent to be considered history given that Biden is hoping to run again.

Morell can make no such claim his move was outta self interest, he hoped to be appointed CIA director in a Biden presidency.

There is such a naive belief in the alleged worth of the so-called 'Amerikan experiment' which IMO has been corrupt from its outset, that getting out any information at all which discredits this most vicious of all empires is a vital job for those who say "Enough!" even if it is a naively recent dissatisfaction.

Read Taibbi's post and spread it about as far & wide as possible is my recommendation.

Posted by b on April 22, 2023 at 16:39 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/04/t ... .html#more
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Re: Sympathy for the Devils...

Post by blindpig » Wed Apr 26, 2023 3:05 pm

US Presidential Elections Are Children’s Entertainment: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

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So Democrats mostly don’t want Biden to run again, but he is running again, and also there won’t be any Democratic primary debates while he runs again? That seems even more undemocratic than most US presidential elections.

Possible campaign slogans:

“Biden 2024: Eh you know you’ll vote for me anyway ya losers.”

“Biden 2024: Because fuck you, that’s why.”




No I will not be supporting any US presidential candidate. Not because I don’t think Australians have any business involving themselves in US political affairs (we absolutely do), but because the elections are fake and the next president will with absolute certainty be another corrupt imperialist monster. I won’t be picking any favorites in the next WWE event either.

The only reason to pay attention to a US presidential election is to highlight the elite manipulations that go into it to help people understand that the game is rigged. Once you get sucked in to cheering for actual candidates you’ve lost sight of what’s really happening, like someone who got so drawn in to the movie that they forget they’re sitting in a theater.

Only the most trustworthy empire managers get anywhere near the presidency, because the stewardship of a globe-spanning empire is too important to be left in the hands of the voters. Being in that office is itself the greatest sign of corruption you’ll ever see. People talk about CIA involvement in presidents like Bush Sr or Obama and I’m like, “It gets so much worse than that, mate: did you know he was the president of the United States?”



The clear message from the US security state is that intelligence cartel insiders like Mike Morell are allowed to interfere in US elections and orchestrate brazen psyops to circulate disinformation because they want a particular candidate to win, but ordinary Americans are not. If you do it it’s disinformation and a threat democracy which calls for more internet censorship and possible criminal charges; when Mike Morell does it it’s no big deal.



Tucker Carlson is a virulent empire propagandist who’s probably responsible for more anti-China sentiment in the US than anyone alive. He’s got well-documented overlaps with the CIA and has helped keep Americans roped into the mainstream two-party system. That said, his firing suggests that he probably did become unacceptably inconvenient for the powerful in some way. The mass media are for propaganda first and profit second, and if you’re not useful enough at the first it doesn’t matter how good you are at generating the second.

Carlson is not antiwar in any meaningful way, but from an antiwar perspective I can’t see any reason to be happy about his ouster. The guy who opposed brinkmanship with Russia because he wants to focus on brinkmanship with China will be replaced by someone who wants brinkmanship with both.

Murdoch is not your friend. The Murdoch media empire did not oust Carlson to advance human interests or make the world a nicer place. That seems a safe bet to me.



Every time I criticize Tucker Carlson I get all these wounded and upset responses from people reacting like I just punched their best friend. Don’t cultivate parasocial relationships with rich TV pundits, it’s gross.



It’s crazy how US empire managers are talking about war with China more as a probability than a possibility, and it’s also crazy how they’re talking about it like it’s just something that would passively happen (like rain or an earthquake) instead of something they’re knowingly accelerating toward.

It’s like saying “Yeah unfortunately it looks increasingly probable that I’m going to get into a fight with the guy sitting in front of me on the plane, he really takes exception to the way I keep slapping the back of his head,” or “It appears that I’ll be crashing into the brick wall up ahead in a few seconds; there is nothing I can do about this problem but keep my foot on the gas and brace for impact.”

If there’s a war between the US alliance and China it won’t be something that just passively “happens”, it will be the result of US empire managers knowingly choosing to steer things in that direction day after day, year after year, while refusing every off-ramp that comes up.

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2023/04/26 ... ve-matrix/

Elections which appear legitimate but are functionally meaningless are yet another aspect of the Founding Fuckhead's imitation of ancient Rome.

I disagree with the profit/propaganda dichotomy. This is capitalism, ya know, and not serving the propaganda needs of the government(the tool of the ruling class) will result in lack of 'access' and other in conveniences. The trick, which FOX mastered and I expect will repeat, is to find the sweet spot.
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Re: Sympathy for the Devils...

Post by blindpig » Wed May 03, 2023 3:25 pm

Whither Black Voters in 2024
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist 03 May 2023

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Joe Biden Bethel AME Church in Wilmington, Delaware, June 1, 2020. (Photo: Jim Bourg/Reuters)

The duopoly trap for the 2024 election has been set, but Black voters can refuse to step into it.

President Joe Biden recently announced his reelection campaign with a video, rather than with the kind of public event that one would expect from an incumbent president. Of course if the incumbent is an 80-year old showing signs of cognitive decline, with an approval rating of only 39% , a stealth campaign announcement was in order.

Yet despite all these deficiencies, Biden could win again. He has already asked Democratic Party fundraisers to begin the process of raising $1 billion . If history is any guide, they will do just that. And in case anyone doubted, the Biden campaign held a two day fundraising strategy session for the deep pocketed, mega check bundling crowd who cast their votes before anyone else gets to have a say.

The ruling class, the 1%, the oligarchy, call them what you will, are making sure they get what they want, but what about everyone else? Specifically, what about Black people? Where do they stand politically, and what do they stand to gain from this election? Aside from stating the obvious, that they don’t want a republican president, no one is asking questions about what they want or need. For a long time Black politics has amounted to little more than wanting to keep republicans out of office and the end result has been catastrophic. In 2024 the people must finally free themselves from the duopoly trap and make demands.

A recent study showed that Black workers in New York City have the highest unemployment rate of any demographic group, with a dismal 12% unemployment rate. Other non-white workers have unemployment rates between 6.5% and 7.5%, while white New Yorkers have an unemployment rate of only 1%. These terrible statistics are surely indicative of the state of Black people all over the country. Yet there is no political outcry on their behalf in New York or anywhere else.

One would think that a presidential campaign would be the perfect opportunity to raise the issue of the state of Black America. Instead it is an opportunity for the Black misleadership class to do what they do best, namely, to act as the buffer between their people and their bosses in the ruling class, the ones who raise $1 billion to get the president of their choice. They aren’t raising money because they have nothing better to do with their time. They want their agenda acted upon, an agenda that is at odds with the needs of struggling Black people.

Biden's age, health, and failure to act on behalf of the people, would disqualify him if this country really was the democracy that it claims to be. But it isn't a democracy and that becomes very obvious every four years. Will 2024 be another year of quadrennial fakery in which lesser evilism and supposed harm reduction will be used to mobilize voters who don't want what they're voting for, or will there be a true political mobilization?

Marianne Williamson and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. are vying for votes from progressives democrats, but history tells us that at the assigned moment, they will drop out and urge their supporters to back Joe Biden. After all that is what Jesse Jackson, Dennis Kucinich, and Bernie Sanders have done in the past. Black Agenda Report’s co-founder and comrade Bruce Dixon coined the phrase “sheepdog” to describe Bernie Sanders. Dixon correctly predicted that Sanders would fold his tent and urge his supporters to back Hillary Clinton in 2016. Sanders did the same in 2020 and stood down in favor of Joe Biden. Only the names have changed, the playbook remains the same.

While the scam and the sham continues, Black people have the greatest likelihood of experiencing negative outcomes. The group whose cohort is the most likely to be imprisoned, die at younger ages, survive on low wage work, or face discrimination of many kinds are not even being discussed as the president they gave 90% of their votes prepares to run again.

It is very obvious what is needed. There must be a mass movement which speaks to the needs of the 21st century. Without it Black political class figureheads like Congressman James Clyburn will be called kingmakers or some other meaningless drivel that is meant to fool us into thinking that he and his colleagues do anything to meet urgent needs.

The liberation movement which brought so many gains is now fetishized for cynical purposes. Every scoundrel in U.S. politics has marched across the Edmund Pettus bridge in Selma, Alabama, or shows up at Martin Luther King birthday events.

The duopoly trap gives white racists a safe haven and makes Black people afraid to do anything except vote for democrats they believe will win a general election. The strategy can fail as it did in 2016 when Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton, or it can “succeed” in 2020 when Jim Crow Joe wins the presidency but then gives Black people the back of his hand. The man who was marketed as “the most progressive president since FDR” is silent as emergency covid SNAP and Medicaid benefits expire. He famously took a knee in 2020 but as president allocated $30 billion for policing across the country.

Independent political formations with self-determination as an organizing principle are badly needed. The same people Biden depends on for campaign funds act against the interests of Black people. The check bundlers don’t want anything that Black people want to see realized, and therein lies the rub.

2020 4hould be the last year that Black people withstand the entreaties to prevent a Trump or DeSantis or fill-in-the-blank evil republican presidency without making demands of their own. Those strategies must begin now before Biden and other democrats treat Black voters as political dupes one more time.

https://www.blackagendareport.com/whith ... oters-2024

The South Carolina Democratic Party just made a Black woman their leader. Not cynical......

(Edit: Corrected date in final paragraph.)
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Re: Sympathy for the Devils...

Post by blindpig » Sat May 06, 2023 3:11 pm

First, an important snippet from Ms Johnstone:
Crazy how the response to Democrats saying “You have to vote for the corrupt warmonger with dementia or else America will be overrun by fascism” is mostly “Okay we’ll vote for the the corrupt warmonger with dementia” and not “Okay so we need to tear down the entire system then.”
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2023/05/06 ... ve-matrix/

*******

Hunter Biden’s laptop and democracy, US style

First the Nord Stream revelations, now the Hunter laptop cover-up. Could US president Joe Biden be looking any less credible?
Proletarian TV

Friday 5 May 2023



The video above features Alex Christoforou and Alexander Mercouris of the Duran discussing the issue of the Hunter Biden laptop cover-up and its impact on the US presidential election of 2020.

*****

Whilst Nato justifies its every brutal act of aggression around the world by claiming that it is all in the service of democracy, every day brings new evidence of just how far US democracy has degenerated back in its own yard.

In the run-up to the last presidential election, the camp of Joe Biden was eager to tamp down allegations about corruption and influence-peddling. Key to the allegations were emails on a laptop used by Biden’s son Hunter, detailing how he had introduced his Ukrainian business partner to his father, then vice-president Biden.

Things looked black for Biden’s election campaign.

But in the nick of time a letter surfaced, signed by 51 former intelligence officers, declaring categorically that the Hunter laptop scandal was the fruit of a Russian disinformation campaign and should be disregarded. This effectively squashed the story, which was obediently pulled by all the major social media platforms, thereby greasing the wheels for Biden’s path to the White House and the ousting of the much-reviled Donald Trump.

Now, though, with Biden presiding over the Ukraine fiasco and losing friends fast, the Biden clan’s dirty Ukrainian secrets are leaking out again. Worse yet for a regime struggling to retain some shred of credibility after the Nord Stream revelations, the conspiracy to cover up the Hunter laptop scandal is tainting the whole administration, including the now-secretary of state Antony Blinken.

In private sworn testimony, Mike Morell, who had been an acting CIA director under Biden, told the House judiciary committee that Blinken, now secretary of state, was the senior campaign official who had reached out to him three days after the New York Post published details of the story.

Egged on by Blinken, Morell rounded up as many intelligence officers as he could lay hands on, including John Brennan and Leon Panetta, getting them to put their names to a letter denouncing out of hand the Hunter laptop allegations as “Russian disinformation”.

In his testimony to the House, Morell made no bones about what motivated him to abuse his position as an acting CIA director by interfering with the election process in this way. He frankly admitted that he had cobbled together the letter because he wanted “to help vice president Biden … because I wanted him to win the election”.

Is it perhaps time for the well-financed National Endowment for Democracy to take a look at how democracy is faring back at home?

https://thecommunists.org/2023/05/05/tv ... ion-media/

But, but...Trump!
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Re: Sympathy for the Devils...

Post by blindpig » Mon May 08, 2023 3:34 pm

Blinken Deflects Blame For Russian Disinfo Letter on Hunter Biden’s Laptop
MAY 6, 2023

Image
Antony Blinken giving a press briefing, 2023. Photo: Oliver Contreras/AFP.

The laptop’s content shed light on details about potentially illegal activities by the US president’s son, ranging from parties with prostitutes to “business deals” involving the trading of cash for access to Joe Biden during his tenure as Barack Obama’s vice president.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has claimed that he was not behind a letter signed by 51 former intelligence officials in October 2020 that sought to discredit the Hunter Biden laptop story as part of a purported Russian disinformation campaign.

“[…] With regard to that letter, I didn’t – it wasn’t my idea, didn’t ask for it, didn’t solicit it. And I think the testimony that the former deputy director of the CIA [Central Intelligence Agency], Mike Morrell, put forward confirms that,” Blinken told a US news network.

When asked whether he accepts that the laptop is not Russian disinformation, the top US diplomat deflected the question, arguing that he is very busy with other matters.

“From my perspective, I’m not engaging in politics. I’ve got a lot on my agenda, things that we’ve just talked about — trying to help the Ukrainians in the Russian aggression against them, engaging with allies and partners around the world in dealing with some of the challenges posed by China. We have a situation now in Sudan. This has fully occupied my time. So that’s where my focus is,” Blinken said.

The remarks come after House judiciary chair Jim Jordan and House intel head Mike Turner said last week that the lawmakers are requesting information from Blinken after new testimony revealed the top diplomat’s ties to a statement falsely claiming that reports about Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop were Russian disinformation.
“We are examining the origins of the infamous public statement signed by 51 former intelligence officials that falsely discredited a New York Post story regarding Hunter Biden’s laptop as supposed Russian disinformation. As part of our oversight, we have learned that you played a role in the inception of this statement while serving as a Biden campaign advisor, and we, therefore, request your assistance with our oversight,” the two stressed in a letter to Blinken.
They added that their panels recently conducted an interview with former Deputy CIA Director Michael Morell, one of the 51 signatories to the above-mentioned statement, and that he testified that the intent of the statement was to help Joe Biden in a presidential debate and assist him in winning the election.

“Based on Morell’s testimony, it is apparent that the Biden campaign played an active role in the origins of the public statement, which had the effect of helping to suppress the Hunter Biden story and preventing American citizens from making a fully informed decision during the 2020 presidential election,” the letter read.

Jordan and Turned urged Blinken to provide information about communications related to the Hunter Biden story and the related statement no later than May 4.
The House panels are requesting Blinken’s assistance in a personal, not professional, capacity due to the events occurring prior to his confirmation as Secretary of State, when he worked as senior advisor to then-Democratic candidate Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, according to the letter.

‘Laptop From Hell’ Saga
The content of the so-called “laptop from Hell”, including naked photos and graphic videos of Hunter Biden, is part of the ongoing federal investigation into whether the US President’s son violated US laws when he engaged in financial and business dealings in foreign countries during his father’s vice presidency between 2009 and 2017.

In addition, federal agents are probing the younger Biden for reportedly obtaining what they claim is “sufficient evidence” to charge the 52-year-old with tax crimes and lying about his drug abuse to buy a gun.
President Joe Biden has repeatedly dismissed any knowledge of his son’s business activities, with most US news outlets and social media companies successfully shielding him from the laptop-related revelations ahead of the 2020 presidential election campaign, when they were written off as part of a “Russian disinformation operation.”
In 2022, however, two influential US newspapers made a U-turn, confirming that the laptop was authentic and that the damning information contained within the device was genuine.
(Sputnik International) by Oleg Burunov

https://orinocotribune.com/blinken-defl ... ns-laptop/
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Re: Sympathy for the Devils...

Post by blindpig » Wed May 10, 2023 2:33 pm

PSL Editorial — Will Biden reward right-wing blackmail in “debt ceiling” talks?
Liberation StaffMay 9, 2023 195 3 minutes read
Download PDF flyer https://flyer-generator.herokuapp.com/? ... sts/112845

Today, as the “debt ceiling” deadline approaches, Joe Biden hosted talks with Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy along with top House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries and their counterparts in the Senate. It is an absurdity that this meeting even took place.

The debt ceiling — the legal maximum the U.S. government is permitted by Congress to borrow — has been in place since 1917 and for decades had been raised routinely without incident every few years. But beginning in the Obama administration, Republicans have periodically threatened to refuse to raise the borrowing limit unless harsh austerity cuts are made.

There is clearly no democratic mandate for this deeply unpopular course of action. Most governments around the world do not have a mechanism like the debt ceiling — like any other large institution they simply borrow money to pay their debts as those debts become due. But because the Republicans were able to win a narrow majority in the House of Representatives, they are in a position to block any legislation on the matter from going forward.

By agreeing to negotiations, Biden is opening the door to severe cuts to social programs and legitimizing the right wing’s practice of using the threat of a government default as leverage to extract concessions. Biden administration officials insist they are sticking to their pledge to not negotiate over the debt ceiling. The administration argues that today’s talks were about negotiations over this year’s federal budget, not the debt ceiling. But because the concessions that Republicans are trying to extract around the debt ceiling are reductions in the budgets for crucial public programs, the distinction between the two topics under these circumstances is purely semantic.

The deep cuts that are now on the negotiating table are profoundly concerning for working people. By imposing a mountain of new, onerous paperwork sold to the public as “work requirements,” huge numbers of people would be kicked off of food stamps and TANF. The Republicans are also demanding the cancellation of the partial student loan forgiveness initiative the administration rolled out last year.

The rest of the cuts, according to the Republican proposal, would come from across-the-board spending caps. The amount allocated to “discretionary” items in the budget — essentially all programs other than Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare — would be frozen for 10 years such that the value would be eroded over time by inflation and ultimately be equivalent to an 18% cut. However, key Republican politicians have also suggested that they would not restrict allocations for war and anti-immigrant repression — sparing the Departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security from spending caps. Because of the massive size of these departments’ budgets, that would mean that everything else the government does would need to effectively be cut by 51%.

For now, Biden is maintaining his position that he will not offer concessions over the debt ceiling. But his presidency so far is filled with examples of his tendency to compromise and capitulate in the face of headwinds from the right wing. For instance, Biden allowed his signature “Build Back Better” reform program to be hollowed out and then finally trashed by Senator Joe Manchin, and Biden failed to take meaningful executive action when abortion rights were shredded by the ultra-right Supreme Court.

His instinct is not to fight, even though that is exactly what is needed in the face of such a severe threat to the well being of millions of working people. But what transpires as we approach a debt default will be a highly complex affair subject to pressure from many different directions. With his administration’s popularity at a remarkably low level, Biden should remember that any concessions to this extortion will be completely unacceptable to tens of millions of people who oppose the anti-worker program of the right wing.

https://www.liberationnews.org/psl-edit ... rationnews

The problem with this piece is that it ain't Biden's 'instinct' nor his dementia that has stalled all those promises. They were never worth the paper they were written on. Biden was selected by Dem Central precisely for who he is, 'instinct' and all. And it would make little difference if they select Bernie, a token 'leftists', because that's not what the Democratic Party is all about. It is about preventing real progress for the working class. By pre-empting progressive action before it can even be presented to the public as a favorable alternative to the naked reaction of the Republicans desperately needed action is smothered in the cradle. Just as Biden assured his real base...

Our first problem is the Democratic Party. There is no changing the nature of this beast, every attempt has been squashed ruthlessly since 1968. The party will never even approach the opportunistic stance of the DSA, which would solve nothing anyway and indeed make matters worse by instilling false hope and rejection of the more radical measures which are necessary.

If history is any guide Biden will fold on this one too, there's easy money to be made on that bet. And you can rest assured that the cuts will not be coming from the Pentagon or the rest of the 'security' apparatus. Those are the cuts a real progressive would make.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Sympathy for the Devils...

Post by blindpig » Fri May 12, 2023 3:03 pm

NEW EVIDENCE OF THE VAST NETWORK OF CORRUPTION OF THE BIDEN FAMILY
May 11, 2023 , 1:08 p.m.

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James Comer, along with other Republicans from the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, accuse the president and his family of corruption (Photo: AFP)

House Republicans presented evidence of how members of the Biden family and their business associates created a network of more than 20 companies, most of which were limited liability companies formed during Joe Biden's vice presidency .

"Bank records show that the Biden family, their business partners, and their companies received more than $10 million from companies owned by foreign nationals. The Committee has identified payments to members of the Biden family from foreign companies while Joe Biden served as Vice President and, after he left public office, Biden tried to hide that amount in foreign payments," the Republicans say in a memo.

Here is a summary of the Biden corruption plot:

The Biden family received, and tried to hide, more than $10 million in payments from foreign nationals

*$1 million, previously undisclosed, in payments linked to Romania. "Between 2015 and 2017 Robinson Walker, LLC received $3 million from Bladon Enterprises Limited, Popoviciu's Cypriot company, which was later paid to members of the Biden family in a total sum of more than $1 million."
*Links with Romanian "influence peddling".
*A "network" of 20 LLCs created while Joe Biden was vice president with a "complicated corporate structure." The Biden family accounts earned $1.038 million from Robinson Walker, LLC in a series of 17 deposits, 16 of which were made while Biden was still in the White House. The payments went to associate James Gilliar, Hunter Biden, Hallie Biden, Owasco LLC and an "unknown Biden bank account."
*At least 15 of the LLCs were formed after Biden became vice president in 2009, several of which were owned or co-owned by Hunter.
*These LLCs accepted payments ranging from $5,000 to $3 million.
*The committee wants to know what legitimate business the Biden family was in.

https://misionverdad.com/nuevas-evidenc ... ilia-biden

Google Translator

Is this the politics of revenge or what?

Of course it is, revenge for the double impeachment of Trump ,and Russia-gate, a masterpiece of psych-ops tying Trump and Russia together in their own 'axis of evil' where recognition of the 'evil'of one requires dogmatic identification of the other likewise. Whadda twofer....

This in no way invalidates these accusations wholesale, we've known about at least some of Hunter's shenanigans for years.Some of it is probably hogwash too, generated under the idea of 'throw it all at the wall and see what sticks'. Only the naive are shocked, what is called 'corruption' is just doing business to the ruling class and it's only corruption if someone airs dirty laundry. One way or the other, they're all crooks, the lip service paid to the law cynical justification....Consider the behavior of the ruling class's government, which makes and breaks laws on the international level at it's own convenience. Ask Native Americans....

**********

Ilhan Omar Voted to Withdraw from Somalia, but She’s No Anti-Imperialist
Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor 10 May 2023

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Congresswoman Ilhan Omar is not the progressive she is thought to be. She follows US policy regarding her native Somalia and she has connections there which compromise her actions. True anti-imperialist politics are needed to help the people of Somalia escape from the US interference which has devastated that country.

On April 27, Ilhan Omar, the Somali American Congresswoman representing Minnesota’s 5th District, voted to withdraw all US troops from Somalia within a year’s time, but not because she’s any sort of anti-imperialist, not because they never should have been there in the first place, and not because the US is bombing the very terrorists it created by instigating a proxy war between Ethiopia and Somalia in 2006.

She simply and blandly said that a review of “our long-term strategy” in Somalia and Africa is overdue, that the resolution gave the US a year to withdraw “responsibly,” and that Somalia’s current president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, would wrap up the fight against Al Shabaab by then anyway. The latter assertion was ridiculous, given that the US commands and funds the Danab Brigade, the frontline Somali troops fighting Al Shabaab, and it's been escalating in Somalia for the past year. Hassan Sheikh Mohamud is cozy with Ilhan Omar, but he’s not in charge.

Ilhan Omar, the Squad, and the Gaetz campaign to end forever wars

Florida Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz had introduced the resolution , one in a series in his campaign to end “forever wars.” The first resolution called for withdrawing troops in Syria, and Gaetz suggested during the debate that the next will call for withdrawal from Niger.

The resolution went down 321 to 101, but it was just political theater anyway. It had no teeth and no one expected it to pass, but Gaetz was forcing House Reps to take a stand they might have to answer for in 2024, possibly to the tiny antiwar community but more likely to the “America First” community that Gaetz shares with Trump. Somali Americans are most highly concentrated in Ilhan Omar’s Minneapolis district, and she said that many of them supported the resolution.

Here’s what she arose to say during the debate, as recorded by C-SPAN, with a few paragraph breaks and spelling and grammatical corrections added:

"Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H. Con. Res. 30 , the Somalia war powers resolution. Mr. Speaker, I agree with the chairman, a real debate about U.S. policy in Somalia and in Africa is long overdue. It is debate that should include a serious discussion of our long-term strategy for supporting stability and self-governance. It should include clear-eyed analysis of U.S. counterterrorism policies, including air strikes and drones, and the consistent problem of civilian casualties of U.S. operations.

Congress is also overdue for a debate about the expansive use of the 2001 AUMF, which the executive branch claims includes operations in Somalia.

Mr. Speaker, the resolution before the House today does not address these significant issues. It is a narrow question of the withdrawal of a few hundred troops. Given President Hassan's renewed efforts to eradicate Al-Shabaab, the resolution does include a long enough timeline to ensure that operations that we are partnering with can be ended responsibly. While we should not mistake this poorly crafted resolution for an honest assessment of U.S. policy in Somalia, it is important that we support the question before us.

Mr. Speaker, I and many Somali Americans support this resolution, and I urge my colleagues to do the same."

Gaetz had introduced the resolution a month earlier, but only a handful of his Republican allies had co-sponsored it. During that time, many wondered how Ilhan Omar would vote, while the congresswoman, like the Progressive Caucus, remained strangely silent. The Caucus had quietly endorsed a yes vote on the resolution to withdraw from Syria, but only about half its members, including Omar, voted for it. The Caucus was silent in the runup to the Somalia resolution, and again, no more than half voted for it, but Omar and the rest of “The Squad” did.

Why didn’t Ilhan Omar force the issue of Somalia escalation?

Why wasn’t Ilhan Omar, a Somali American, the one to introduce this resolution, or a stronger one, and make a case for it in the press, instead of leaving that to Republican Matt Gaetz, a right-wing, immigrant-bashing, Trump-supporting China hawk? Why didn’t she press the Progressive Caucus to endorse it? And why was it left to Gaetz and rabid Republican Ryan Zinke to point out that there are now roughly 900 US troops in Somalia, twice the cap the White House last suggested in 2022?

Some answers might be found in Omar’s December 2022 trip to Somalia, where she was fêted as quite a celebrity, meeting with President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre, cabinet members, and parliamentarians. Voice of America reported that, at a dinner held in her honor and hosted by the prime minister, she congratulated the current government on its success at fighting Al Shabaab and called for further US collaboration in the fight—four months before voting on the Gaetz resolution to withdraw.

She seems to know her audience well, because the last thing Hassan Sheikh Mohamud wants is for the US to withdraw from Somalia. On May 15, Mohamud became Somalia’s president , and on May 16, the New York Times reported that Joe Biden had signed an order to redeploy troops to the country. On May 17, a Voice of America headline read “New Somali President Welcomes Return of US Troops .”

Shortly thereafter it was announced that Ahmed Hirsi, Ilhan Omar’s first husband and the father of her three children, became Senior Advisor to the new president.

The previous president, Mohammed Abdullahi Mohammed, better known as Farmaajo, had been trying to negotiate the departure of all foreign troops from Somalia and build a sovereign military, so he had to go, as Ilhan Omar urged .

In 2022, despite Farmaajo and his supporters’ protracted struggle for a popular one-person-one-vote election, he was defeated, in a corrupt, clan-based election , and Hassan Sheikh Mohamud returned to power. The IMF, where the US has veto power, had forced the election by threatening to cut off funding, needed to pay soldiers’ wages and essential services, if it wasn’t held.

It’s political science 101 that a country’s true sovereign controls its apparatus of force, and no Somali president has done that for a long time. US troops fund and command the Danab Brigade, the frontline Somali troops fighting Al Shabaab, the US and EU fund and train ATMIS (African Union Transition Mission in Somalia), the African Union peacekeepers, and the European Union Navy patrol Somalia’s coast, where they have no motivation to stop the toxic waste dumping and fish looting committed largely by European concerns.

On the day of the vote on the Gaetz resolution, Brown University released a report titled “Making Crisis Inevitable: The Effects of U.S. Counterterrorism Training and Spending in Somalia ,” in which they concluded that “The United States says its goals in Somalia are to eliminate Al-Shabaab and promote peace. This paper documents how U.S. counterterrorism policies are having the opposite effect and ensuring that the conflict continues in perpetuity.”

Somali American and Black Agenda Report contributor Jamal Abdulahi concurred. “It’s common knowledge among Somali nationalists,” he said, “that the presence of foreign troops exacerbates and prolongs the conflict.”

https://www.blackagendareport.com/ilhan ... mperialist

"Social Democrats' haven't changed a lick since 1914.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Sympathy for the Devils...

Post by blindpig » Sat May 13, 2023 2:52 pm

There he goes again...

PSL Editorial – Biden follows Trump’s lead on border repression and militarization
Liberation StaffMay 11, 2023 249 5 minutes read
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Today is a momentous day for U.S. immigration policy – Title 42, the measure first imposed over three years ago that has become a centerpiece of border policy, is expiring. Title 42 constituted a near blanket ban, ostensibly for public health reasons, on people entering the United States to seek asylum. However, the Biden administration is rolling out a range of new repressive measures to take its place in yet another broken promise to the immigrant rights movement.

The administration announced that it would be deploying an additional 1,500 National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, bringing the total number of soldiers in the area to 4,000. Border Patrol and ICE are upping their capacity to hold thousands more migrants in their network of detention centers notorious the world over for inhumane conditions. Border Patrol opened two new holding facilities this week, and ICE is upping its capacity so it can jail 5,000 additional people.

In addition to militarization, the Biden administration is implementing a change to U.S. asylum policy that could make the system almost as restrictive as it was under Title 42. Under the new rule, no one who travels through a country other than their home nation before reaching the United States would be eligible to apply for asylum. A person from Guatemala, for instance, who travels through Mexico and then arrives at the Texas border, would be immediately deported. If it was an entire family that arrived, then they will be allowed to stay in the United States for a few weeks while wearing an ankle monitor until a perfunctory court hearing – a new practice called Family Expedited Removal Management.

Effectively the same policy was implemented under Trump in a move that was condemned by then-candidate Joe Biden and ultimately ruled illegal in court. The Immigration and Nationality Act guarantees the right of nearly anyone who reaches the United States to apply for asylum, and Biden’s policy is likely to be challenged on the same basis as Trump’s.

Biden’s broken promises

About 2.8 million people have been expelled from the country under Title 42. The policy quickly became a prime example of the blanket hostility to all immigrants and refugees that characterized the Trump administration, and which Biden pledged on the campaign trail to reverse. Biden’s official platform ironically read, “Offering hope and safe haven to refugees is part of who we are as a country.” The platform promised, “We will also eliminate unfair barriers to naturalization, reduce application backlogs, and make our immigration processes faster, more efficient, and less costly.”

But these were all lies – the type of lies that Democratic Party politicians always tell around election time to voters who care about immigrant rights. The administration finally got around to announcing its intention to end Title 42 expulsions last year, but this was put on hold after a judge’s ruling blocked the move from going forward. But when the administration’s luck in court turned around and a different judge ordered that Title 42 be discontinued, the government’s lawyers appealed the ruling!

While the Biden administration unveiled an immigration reform bill shortly after taking office, they knew full well that it would have no chance of passing unless the anti-democratic “filibuster” rule in the Senate was eliminated. It was purely a show to help Biden keep up the pretense of being a supporter of immigrant rights. Meanwhile, brutal violence escalated on the border, breaking out into public view when photos of Border Patrol officers on horseback with whips chasing down Haitian refugees caused outrage around the world in 2021.

Biden, a life-long politician, cynically views this issue in terms of how it will affect his electoral prospects. Clearly, his team views immigration as a liability – something that is a “winning issue” for Republicans on the campaign trail that he should try to avoid and deemphasize whenever possible. But to the extent this is true it is because he and the Democratic Party refuse to articulate a case for solidarity between U.S.-born and immigrant workers.

Immigrants arriving at the southern border are leaving situations where it is impossible for them to live a life with dignity, and often where their lives are in imminent danger. These situations exist in their home countries because of the actions of the same elites who also seek to deny a decent life to workers inside the United States. The vast wealth of American millionaires and billionaires is rooted not only in the exploitation of workers at home, but abroad as well. To facilitate the looting of countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa, the U.S. government orchestrates coups and carries out military interventions that sow chaos and instability.

The role of sanctions is especially critical at this moment. Many of those arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border are from Venezuela or Cuba, both of which are the target of all-out economic warfare that has only gotten worse in recent years. During the Trump administration, comprehensive sanctions were imposed on Venezuela targeting all of the most important aspects of the country’s economy, especially the oil industry. At the same time, the decades-long blockade of Cuba was intensified with 243 new measures and the outrageously false designation of the country as a “state sponsor of terrorism”. Biden has gladly kept these cruel policies in place, despite opposition from some members of Congress who point out that the economic devastation caused by U.S. sanctions is a major driver of migration.

No matter what side of the border you were born on, all workers want the same thing: a decent life where you are safe and your needs are met. And all workers have a common enemy that wants to make this impossible: the corporate executives and politicians who grow rich off of their suffering. Rather than fearing or hating immigrants, people born in the United States should lock arms with their fellow workers in struggle. The Democrats are unable to make this argument because it would require them to go after the bankers and CEOs who finance their campaigns, and to whom they are ultimately loyal.

A socialist approach to immigration

In the face of the racist demagogues who want to divide us, workers can unite around a program on immigration that both respects the rights of migrants and addresses the root causes that force them to flee their homes. Instead of the militarization, detention and brutality that the Biden administration is unleashing, socialists would approach the issue by:

1.Respecting the legal and human rights of asylum seekers and allowing them to enter the United States to pursue their claim

2.Ending sanctions and all other forms of intervention against Cuba, Venezuela, and all targeted countries, including the corporate pillaging of nations’ wealth

3.Granting legal status and full rights to all immigrants currently in the United States

The right wing will undoubtedly seek to turn the situation at the border into a central election-year issue – and their rhetoric will be echoed by many Democrats as well. There is no need to back down in the face of this fear-mongering that seeks to counterpose the well-being of one group of workers with the well-being of another. No matter where you were born, we can come together and demand full rights for all immigrants and asylum-seekers; and demand that jobs, housing, healthcare and all the other necessities of life are guaranteed to all.

https://www.liberationnews.org/psl-edit ... rationnews

Are any of the numerous campaign promises left unbroken?

"The Democratic Party is the piss which set the Republican dye in the country's fabric."

PS - Can Mr Shea get any of his theoretical libertarian proselytes to socialism on-board with the program above?
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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