Skip to main content

Home/ Socialism and the End of the American Dream/ Group items tagged Pence

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Paul Merrell

Julian Assange: Hillary Clinton, U.S. Intelligence Pushing Pence Takeover Of Presidency - 0 views

  • On the heels of the explosive release of Wikileaks’ “largest ever publication of confidential documents” originating from the CIA, Wikileaks editor Julian Assange recently revealed startling information regarding the intelligence community’s plans to impeach President Donald Trump and replace him with Mike Pence, his vice president. Assange, tweeting early Tuesday morning, claimed that two intelligence officials close to Vice President Mike Pence “stated privately this month that they are planning on a Pence takeover.” However, as Assange noted, they did not say if Pence was aware of the plan or if he had agreed to it. Perhaps more surprising was the revelation that the push for a “Pence takeover” goes beyond the intelligence community. Another tweet from Assange asserted that Hillary Clinton “stated privately this month that she is quietly pushing for a Pence takeover” as “Pence is predictable hence defeatable.”
Paul Merrell

Julian Assange on Twitter: "Two IC officials close to Pence stated privately this month... - 0 views

  • Julian Assange‏ @JulianAssange Mar 14 Follow Following Unfollow Blocked Unblock Pending Cancel More Share via Direct Message Copy link to Tweet Embed Tweet Mute @JulianAssange Unmute @JulianAssange Mute this conversation Unmute this conversation Block @JulianAssange Unblock @JulianAssange Report Tweet Add to other Moment Add to new Moment Two IC officials close to Pence stated privately this month that they are planning on a Pence takeover. Did not state if Pence agrees.
Paul Merrell

Pentagon Officials: No Actionable Intelligence From Yemen Raid - 0 views

  • The Trump Administration’s decision to continue hyping a failed Yemeni raid, despite all evidence to the contrary, as having netted a trove of intelligence continues to blow up in their face tonight, as Pentagon officials once again affirmed that the information gathered was minimal, and things they already knew about. Some equipment was recovered giving them some insight into tactics, but so far none of the laptops and cellphones seized has any useful information on it. This is in keeping with what other US officials said just two days prior, that no “actionable” intelligence was gathered in the raid, but is in direct contradiction to claims by President Trump last night at the Congressional address, and Vice President Mike Pence today, that “significant” intelligence was obtained. The first major foreign military operation on his term, President Trump has invested a lot of effort into portraying the operation as an unquestioned success. Repeated concessions from the military that there were myriad problems, and things didn’t go nearly as well as intended, have all been dismissed, with Trump continuing on with the success claims.
  • That we never really get good information on what the source of intelligence is for future raids means it’s likely impossible to ever conclusively prove no actionable intelligence came from Yemen, though the fact that the Pentagon keeps saying this is the case certainly lends credence to the idea that the operation, on top of all of its other failures, didn’t accomplish anything intelligence-wise.
  •  
    The Deep State keeps lobbing more shells at Trump.
Gary Edwards

Why the Ruling Class is So Upset About Edward Snowden » CounterPunch: Tells t... - 0 views

  • the networks now compete with one another to generate outrage—not at the spying, mind you, but at Snowden for violating the law.
  • O’Reilly’s current position is that while a hero, Snowden should be placed on trial and judged by a jury. Which is to say, he should be apprehended abroad, brought back in handcuffs and treated to the same benefits of the U.S. judicial system enjoyed by a Bradley Manning or a Guantanamo detainee.
  • He broke the law! He told us: “Any analyst at any time can target anyone.”
  • ...24 more annotations...
  • “He took an oath,” thunders Dianne Feinstein
  • chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee (and thus someone complicit in the spying programs).
  • What she means by this is that he broke his pledge, made when he became an employee of the CIA contractor Booz Allen Hamilton—which helps handle the massive effort to monitor all of us daily—to conceal any secrets he obtained as an employee.
  • She is of course not referring to the oath he made at the same time, to uphold the Constitution of the United States, which says very clearly that “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated…”
  • Snowden has not merely revealed that the U.S. government has forced service providers Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube and Apple to share all their records with itself, in the form of mega-data that can only be accessed for content following the issuance of warrants from (secret) courts, in order to thwart real or imagined terrorist plots. He hasn’t merely shown that the NSA intercepts 1.7 billion electronic records every day (in order, of course, to thwart the terrorists). He has charged the following:
  • The FBI’s “Counterintelligence Program” (COINTELPRO), active from 1956 to 1971, collected information through wiretaps and other means with the specific objective of destroying civil rights and left-wing organizations.
  • Snowden indicates that those with that power can indeed gain access to what Bill Clinton recently called the “meat” of your communications.
  • That is, every word you’ve spoken on the phone recently, or maybe for several years; or test-messaged or instant-messaged online; can be accessed by government “analysts” at their whim.
  • in 2008, ABC News revealed that National Security Agency staffers enjoyed monitoring satellite phone sex involving U.S. officers in Iraq. It’s worth quoting at length.
  • “‘These were just really everyday, average, ordinary Americans who happened to be in the Middle East, in our area of intercept and happened to be making these phone calls on satellite phones,’ said Adrienne Kinne, a 31-year old US Army Reserves Arab linguist assigned to a special military program at the NSA’s Back Hall at Fort Gordon from November 2001 to 2003. Kinne described the contents of the calls as ‘personal, private things with Americans who are not in any way, shape or form associated with anything to do with terrorism.’ [...] Another intercept operator, former Navy Arab linguist, David Murfee Faulk, 39, said he and his fellow intercept operators listened into hundreds of Americans picked up using phones in Baghdad’s Green Zone from late 2003 to November 2007. ‘Calling home to the United States, talking to their spouses, sometimes their girlfriends, sometimes one phone call following another,’ said Faulk. [...] ‘Hey, check this out,’ Faulk says he would be told, ‘there’s good phone sex or there’s some pillow talk, pull up this call, it’s really funny, go check it out. It would be some colonel making pillow talk and we would say, ‘Wow, this was crazy,’ Faulk told ABC News.”
  • If that’s the way NSA analysts could deal with U.S. military officers in Iraq—fellow cogs in the system, fighting on behalf of U.S. imperialism—how much respect do you suppose they have for you and your privacy? For your security from their searches, their violations?
  • But the main issue is not your protection from phone-sex interlopers, but protection from those who want to do you harm.
  • “Any analyst at any time can target anyone. Any selector, anywhere… I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge, to even the President…”
  • One of its stated missions was to use surveillance on activists to release negative personal information to the public to discredit them. In many instances the agents succeeded, and they ruined lives. And their abilities to do so pale in comparison with the abilities of Obama’s NSA.
  • the Bush administration would be willing to learn a thing or two about domestic spying from the experts of the former Stasi. What ruling elite has ever gained more total information awareness about its citizens than the old German Democratic Republic?  And done it with such elegant legal scaffolding?
  • As historians such as Katherine Pence and Paul Betts have shown, the GDR authorities operated within scrupulously observed legal constraints. One sees this in the film Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others) produced in the reunited Germany in 2006. It depicts the surveillance culture of the former East Germany, leaving the viewer nauseated.
  • Everything according to law.
  • I thought of that film while reading the lead Boston Globe editorial on June 13. It concludes that the “policies that [Snowden revealed], however objectionable, are properly authorized” while Snowden himself “broke the law.”
  • It all, in my humble opinion, boils down to thi
  • U.S. to World: “You Must View Snowden as a Criminal, and Give Him Back”
  • Suddenly, the Cold War has reappeared. Snowden is charged with espionage, some of his critics alleging that he’s in the service of the PRC and/or Russia or other “enemies.” It in fact appears that Beijing and Moscow both were taken by surprise by this episode, and that both have attempted to handle Snowden’s unexpected presence carefully to avoid annoying the U.S.
  • The entirety of the ruling elite and the journalistic establishment are keen on defending the programs Snowden has exposed; keen on punishing him for his whistle-blowing; determined to vilify him as a punk, narcissist, egoist, attention-hungry ne’er-do-well (anything but a thoughtful man who made a moral choice that has enlightened people about the character of the U.S. government); feverishly working on damage control while anticipating more damning revelations; and determined to get those four laptops with their incriminating content back into the bosom of the national security state.
  • Thus, you see, he’s not a whistle-blower but a criminal.
  • No, there are us, and there are them. The tiny power elite that controls the mainstream press and cable channels, the corporations that dutifully hand over mega-data to the state (and then deny doing so to allay consumer outrage), the twin political parties, are sick to their stomachs that they’ve been so exposed. We in our turn should feel, if not terrorized, nauseated.
  •  
    This is a fun and enlightening read.  Extremely well written!  Maybe the most complete statement of both the facts of the Snowden - NSA disclosure event, and the mix of heartache and anger I feel about it.  Gut wrenching, nauseating and sick to my soul over what these clowns are doing to this great Republic, the Constitution, and the brief history of individual liberty this country represents.  Nicely written summary.
Paul Merrell

The Neocons and the "deep state" have neutered the Trump Presidency, it's over folks! (... - 0 views

  • Less than a month ago I warned that a ‘color revolution ‘ was taking place in the USA.  My first element of proof was the so-called “investigation” which the CIA, FBI, NSA and others were conducting against President Trump’s candidate to become National Security Advisor, General Flynn.  Tonight, the plot to get rid of Flynn has finally succeeded and General Flynn had to offer his resignation.  Trump accepted it. Now let’s immediately get one thing out of the way: Flynn was hardly a saint or a perfect wise man who would single handedly saved the world.  That he was not.  However, what Flynn was is the cornerstone of Trump’s national security policy.  For one thing, Flynn dared the unthinkable: he dared to declare that the bloated US intelligence community had to be reformed.  Flynn also tried to subordinate the CIA and the Joint Chiefs to the President via the National Security Council.  Put differently, Flynn tried to wrestle the ultimate power and authority from the CIA and the Pentagon and subordinate them back to the White House.  Flynn also wanted to work with Russia. Not because he was a Russia lover, the notion of a Director of the DIA as a Putin-fan is ridiculous, but Flynn was rational, he understood that Russia was no threat to the USA or to Europe and that Russia had the West had common interests.  That is another absolutely unforgivable crimethink in Washington DC. The Neocon run ‘deep state’ has now forced Flynn to resign under the idiotic pretext that he had a telephone conversation, on an open, insecure and clearly monitored, line with the Russian ambassador. And Trump accepted this resignation. Ever since Trump made it to the White House, he has taken blow after blow from the Neocon-run Ziomedia, from Congress, from all the Hollywood doubleplusgoodthinking “stars” and even from European politicians.  And Trump took each blow without ever fighting back.  Nowhere was his famous “you are fired!” to be seen.  But I still had hope.  I wanted to hope.  I felt that it was my duty to hope. But now Trump has betrayed us all.
  • Remember how Obama showed his true face when he hypocritically denounced his friend and pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.?  Today, Trump has shown us his true face.  Instead of refusing Flynn’s resignation and instead of firing those who dared cook up these ridiculous accusations against Flynn, Trump accepted the resignation.  This is not only an act of abject cowardice, it is also an amazingly stupid and self-defeating betrayal because now Trump will be alone, completely alone, facing the likes of Mattis and Pence – hard Cold Warrior types, ideological to the core, folks who want war and simply don’t care about reality. Again, Flynn was not my hero.  But he was, by all accounts, Trump’s hero.  And Trump betrayed him. The consequences of this will be immense.  For one thing, Trump is now clearly broken. It took the ‘deep state’ only weeks to castrate Trump and to make him bow to the powers that be.  Those who would have stood behind Trump will now feel that he will not stand behind them and they will all move back away from him.  The Neocons will feel elated by the elimination of their worst enemy and emboldened by this victory they will push on, doubling-down over and over and over again. It’s over, folks, the deep state has won.
  • Where does all this leave us – the millions of anonymous ‘deplorables’ who try as best we can to resist imperialism, war, violence and injustice? I think that we were right in our hopes because that is all we had – hopes.  No expectations, just hopes.  But now we objectively have very little reasons left to hope.  For one thing, the Washington ‘swamp’ will not be drained.  If anything, the swamp has triumphed.  We can only find some degree of solace in two undeniable facts: Hillary would have been far worse than any version of a Trump Presidency. In order to defeat Trump, the US deep state has had to terribly weaken the US and the AngloZionist Empire.  Just like Erdogan’ purges have left the Turkish military in shambles, the anti-Trump ‘color revolution’ has inflicted terrible damage on the reputation, authority and even credibility of the USA.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • The first one is obvious.  So let me clarify the second one.  In their hate-filled rage against Trump and the American people (aka “the basket of deplorables”) the Neocons have had to show they true face.  By their rejection of the outcome of the elections, by their riots, their demonization of Trump, the Neocons have shown two crucial things: first, that the US democracy is a sad joke and that they, the Neocons, are an occupation regime which rules against the will of the American people.  In other words, just like Israel, the USA has no legitimacy left.  And since, just like Israel, the USA are unable to frighten their enemies, they are basically left with nothing, no legitimacy, no ability to coerce.  So yes, the Neocons have won.  But their victory is removes the last chance for the US to avoid a collapse. Trump, for all his faults, did favor the US, as a country, over the global Empire.  Trump was also acutely aware that ‘more of the same’ was not an option.  He wanted policies commensurate with the actual capabilities of the USA.  With Flynn gone and the Neocons back in full control – this is over.  Now we are going to be right back to ideology over reality.
  • Flynn was very much the cornerstone of the hoped-for Trump foreign policy.  There was a real chance that he would reign in the huge, bloated and all-powerful three letter agencies and that he would focus US power against the real enemy of the West: the Wahabis.  With Flynn gone, this entire conceptual edifice has now come down.  We are going to be left with the likes of Mattis and his anti-Iranian statements.  Clowns who only impress other clowns. Today Neocon victory is a huge event and it will probably be completely misrepresented by the official media.  Ironically, Trump supporters will also try minimize it all.  But the reality is that barring a most unlikely last-minute miracle, it’s over for Trump and the hopes of millions of people in the USA and the rest of the world who had hoped that the Neocons could be booted out of power by means of a peaceful election.  That is clearly not going to happen. I see very dark clouds on the horizon.
1 - 5 of 5
Showing 20 items per page