Trump impeachment won't happen, faked for the news bulletins

[TonyGosling]

We Live in Hysteric Times: What Trump’s Impeachment Really Means
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/12/21/we-live-in-hysteric- times-what-trumps-impeachment-really-means/

James George Jatras December 21, 2019 “America is a corpse being consumed by maggots. Liberals are rooting for the maggots. Conservatives are rooting for the corpse.” @Vendee_Rising

For a century and a half American political life has been the exclusive preserve of the duopoly of Democrats and Republicans, also known as the Evil Party and the Stupid Party. (If something is both Evil and Stupid, we call that “Bipartisan.”) But the familiar Evil-Stupid dichotomy doesn’t even begin to describe the descent into national dysfunction and galloping irrationality that characterizes the Trump impeachment hysteria.

Media chatter now centers on the nuts-and-bolts questions of “what’s next?” Will House Speaker Nancy Pelosi send the articles of impeachment over to the Senate? (Yes. Even one of the legal “scholars” enrolled in the impeachment lynch mob avers that Trump isn’t actually impeached until the Senate receives the articles.) Who will be the trial managers? (Who cares.) Will there be a “real trial,” with witnesses? (It hardly matters.) Will Trump be removed? (Unlikely unless some bolt from the blue flips 20 GOP Senators.) Will impeachment be the Democrats’ albatross going into November 2020? (Most polls show independents are turned off, but there’s still almost a year to go.)

None of these questions, which are meaningful only in a mental universe of the Evils and the Stupids shadowboxing over a partisan allocation of political spoils, touch upon the grim – and occasionally sardonic – symptoms of America’s seemingly unstoppable terminal slide.

With Trump’s impeachment it’s time to say goodbye to yesteryear’s Team Evil and Team Stupid. Say hello in 2020 to Team Maggot and Team Corpse!

Even though Trump has not turned out to be the transformative and restorative president that many of his supporters might have hoped for, he certainly will be (assuming he survives impeachment, which he probably will) the lesser of evils in November 2020 compared to whoever ends up as the Maggot Party nominee. Worse from his opponents’ point of view, he remains a toxic avatar of the old America they thought would be well and truly laid to rest for ever and ever, amen, when Hillary Clinton came into her kingdom. That having misfired in 2016, partisans of that legacy America’s marginalization, displacement, and eventual extinction can’t breathe easy while Trump remains in office lest he, however unlikely in view of his failures of performance, serve as a catalyst for revival of the historic American nation facing loss of its birthright: an organic, uncontrived, living ethnos characterized by European, mainly British origin (a/k/a, “white”); Christian, mainly Protestant; and English-speaking, as augmented by members of other groups who have totally or partially assimilated to it. The certified victim classes standing on the threshold of the permanent, total power that eluded them three years ago are haunted by the knowledge that there’s still lots of them Muricans in red MAGA hats rallying to Trump out there in Flyover Country ….

In short, Democrats hate Trump not so much for what he’s done (which, contrary to what his passionate supporters think based on his Tweets, isn’t much) but as an expression of an amorphous dread that by some mysterious populist alchemy he might still breathe life back into the Corpse Party’s deplorable base. With that in mind, here are a few things to note as we cruise on into Bizarro World:

“What do you mean ‘we,’ white man?” As the impeachment spectacle unfolded in the House, one could not fail to be touched by the hushed, heartfelt reverence with which Democrat after Democrat cited the sage words of the Founding Fathers: Madison especially, but also Jefferson and Washington. No doubt they can hardly wait for this spectacle to be over so they can go back to denouncing the Founders as dead, racist, Christian, patriarchal, “Anglo,” and (presumably) heterosexual slaveholders in wigs and knee-breeches whose memory should be expunged from the historical record. It’s instructive to glance at the members of the House Judiciary Committee who – solemnly, reluctantly, and prayerfully, they assure us! – voted out articles of impeachment in the name of “the American people.” But which “people” might that be? Of the 23 Democrats who voted, only four even arguably fit the heritage American, male profile of the Founding Fathers. The “gender balance” (as it’s ungrammatically called nowadays) on the voting majority side of the Committee is 12-11. That’s not quite up to Barack Obama’s exhortation that “every nation on earth” should be “run by women,” but it’s progress in that direction! (Just imagine how much more serene the world would be if all countries were ruled by peaceniks like Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Condi Rice, Susan Rice, Samantha Power, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Michèle Flournoy, Evelyn Farkas, etc., plus a bevy of Deep State Democrats now installed in Congress.) By contrast, the 17 Republicans on the Committee have approximately the same demographic composition they’d have had in 1950 – and aside from the inclusion of two women, that of the First Congress seated in 1789.
In short, in the Congressional Maggot Caucus the approaching Dictatorship of Victims defined by race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, language, religion, migratory status, etc., is already becoming a reality, and they voted to get rid of Trump. Members of the Corpse Caucus defending him still belong demographically and morally to the declining legacy America, though they’d never, ever admit it. Impeachment is thus more than just the latest iteration of the years-long anti-constitutional coup to overturn a presidential election, though it is that too. Even more fundamentally, it’s a coup against the people whose identity, traditions, and values the Constitution was intended to ensure for themselves and their posterity.

Foreign interference in our deMOCKracy. Even more absurd than Democrats’ presumption in lip-synching the venerable principles of an American constitutional tradition they despise almost as much as they loathe the ethnos that ordained and established it is their feigned horror – horror! – that Trump’s phone chat with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky realized the Founders’ worst fears of foreign influence over American domestic politics. Leaving aside the fact that Ukraine under Zelensky’s predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, did try to queer the 2016 election in favor of Hillary, and that Hunter and Joe Biden are crooks, the Maggoteers’ ability to maintain a straight face of shocked indignation smack in the middle of a souk, a flea market, a bazaar where both domestic and foreign interests buy, sell, and trade favors like vintage baseball cards is nothing less than heroic.
While the bipartisan leadership has not yet taken up the helpful suggestion that barcodes be affixed to legislators’ foreheads so that interested persons and organizations can conveniently scan prices and self-checkout, they have provided a helpful guide to what are called “Congressional Member Organizations (CMOs),” also called coalitions, study groups, task forces, or working groups. Memberships in many but not all CMOs serve as virtual barcodes for potential (mostly legal) campaign donors, including, in the case of “friends of” this or that foreign country, contributions from ethnic compatriots who are US citizens, or at least are supposed to be. Here’s a partial selection:

Argentina Caucus, Armenian Issues Caucus, Azerbaijan Caucus, Bangladesh Caucus, Bosnia Caucus, Brazil Caucus, Cambodia Caucus, Central America Caucus, Colombia Caucus, Congressional Caucus on Bulgaria, Croatian Caucus, Czech Caucus, Ethiopian-American Caucus, Ethnic and Religious Freedom in Sri Lanka, EU Caucus, Friends of Australia Caucus, Friends of Denmark Caucus, Friends of Egypt Caucus, Friends of Finland Caucus, Friends of Ireland Caucus, Friends of Liechtenstein Caucus, Friends of New Zealand Caucus, Friends of Norway Caucus, Friends of Scotland Caucus, Friends of Spain Caucus, Friends of Sweden Caucus, Friends of the Dominican Republic Caucus, Friends of Wales Caucus, Georgia Caucus, Hellenic Caucus, Hellenic Israel Alliance Caucus, House Baltic Caucus, Hungarian Caucus, India and Indian Americans Caucus, Iraq Caucus, Israel Allies Caucus, Israel Victory Caucus, Kingdom of Netherlands Caucus, Korea Caucus, Kyrgyzstan Caucus, Macedonia and Macedonian-American Caucus, Moldova Caucus, Mongolia Caucus, Montenegro Caucus, Morocco Caucus, Nigeria Caucus, Pakistan Caucus, Peru Caucus, Poland Caucus, Portuguese Caucus, Qatari-American Strategic Relationships Caucus, Republican Israel Caucus, Romania Caucus, Serbian Caucus, Slovak Caucus, Sri Lanka Caucus, Taiwan Caucus, UK Caucus, Ukraine Caucus, U.S.-Bermuda Friendship Caucus, U.S.-China Working Group, U.S.-Japan Caucus, U.S.-Kazakhstan Caucus, U.S.-Lebanon Friendship Caucus, U.S.-Philippines Friendship Caucus, U.S.-Turkey Relations and Turkish American, Uzbekistan Caucus, Venezuela Democracy Caucus

Recalling Your Working Boy’s years at the State Department – where there still exists no “American Interests Section” – the reader can search the above in vain for anything that looks remotely like “Friends of the United States of America.”

Russia! Russia! Russia! In fact, the Democrats’ core impeachment narrative – Russia bad, Ukraine good – is itself an example to which American policy is in the grip of foreign antipathies and attachments against which the Father of Our Country warned us in his 1796 farewell address:
“[N]othing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest.”

In his closing statement before the impeachment vote House Judiciary Chairmaggot Adam “Captain Ahab” Schiff, in his frenzied hunt for the Great Orange Whale, provided a textbook example of what Washington feared:

“[W]e should care about our allies. We should care about Ukraine. We should care about a country struggling to be free and a Democracy. We used to care about Democracy. We used to care about our allies. We used to stand up to Putin and Russia. We used to. I know the party of Ronald Reagan used to. ‘Why should we care about Ukraine?’ But of course it’s about more than Ukraine. It’s about us. It’s about our national security. Their fight is our fight. Their defense is our defense. When Russia remakes the map of Europe for the first time since World War II by dint of military force [JGJ: Well, there was Kosovo, but never mind …] and Ukraine fights back, it is our fight too.”

Indeed, one wonders how hysterical Democrats missed accusing Trump outright of treason, which actually is specified as grounds for impeachment in Article II, Section 4. After all, as described by Schiff, didn’t Trump’s actions constitute (under Article III, Section 3) “adhering” to our evil enemies the Russians, and “giving them aid and comfort”? It’s an open and shut case of a capital crime – and the House Majority Whip is ready to get the rope! (Really, how did the Democrats miss this? Maybe GOP stupidity has migrated to the other side of the aisle…)

It is noteworthy that not a single House Republican dared or even cared to question Schiff’s framing of the issue, which was bolstered by witnesses from the permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic establishment, including Trump’s appointees. Nor is any Republican Senator likely to point out the inconvenient truth that we have no defense treaty with Ukraine, which thus is not really our “ally.” Partisanship is the variable; Russophobia is the constant. The sole retort from Trump’s establishment defenders: He released the aid to Ukraine, including the Javelin missiles Obama denied them! He’s every bit the warmonger you want him to be! So there!

Thus, even with Trump’s almost (at this point) certain survival of a Senate impeachment trial, the relevant foreign inveterate antipathies and passionate attachments will remain entrenched. (Not just in the case of Ukraine/Russia but with respect to the rest of the world our habitual hatreds and fondnesses remain firmly in place and are unlikely to change for the balance of Trump’s presidency, if ever. Trump’s Korea initiative is on life support. Israel/Iran is a flashpoint that could explode at any time: “Israel, even less than the US, cannot take casualties. A couple of bull’s eyes, a lot of Israelis go back to Brooklyn. The 82 million people in Iran have no place else to go.”)

Senate Demaggotic Leader Chuck Schumer gave the game away when he demanded that the World Greatest Deliberative Body receive testimony from cashiered National Security Adviser John Bolton and acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney but not from the man at the center of the whole Ukraine “drug deal” (as Bolton described it): Rudy Giuliani. Why wouldn’t the assembled Maggotrats jump at the chance to grill him under oath? Because he’d dole out the real dirt on Ukraine and its legendary corruption that would make a Nigerian prince blush. For the same reason, Corpsublicans won’t want to hear from him either, any more than they’re interested in whether the “sub-sources” of the Steele Dossier – whose identity the US Justice Department knows and who were available to the IG’s investigators – really had anything to do with the Russian government. We wouldn’t want to debunk all that yammering about “fake Kremlin dirt,” would we.

Meanwhile, back in what remains of America, regardless of how impeachment turns out, the lines of irreconcilable division deepen. Whether or not Trump is reelected (the politics look good for him, the demographics don’t) he will eventually be gone, whether in 2020, 2021, or 2025. He will almost certainly be the last Republican president, depending on when Texas goes the way of Virginia. One way or the other, we’ll soon see whether the corpse has any fight left in it.

[Whitehall_Bin_Men]

The Untold Story of the Trump-Ukraine ‘Scandal’: The Routine Corruption of US Foreign Policy
September 26, 2019 • 58 Comments
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/09/26/what-isnt-mentioned-about-the-tr ump-ukraine-scandal-the-routine-corruption-of-us-foreign-policy/

The impeachment offensive against Donald Trump is another symptom of a partisan disease that ignores an even greater malignancy, writes Joe Lauria.

By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News

The most crucial aspects of the Trump-Ukraine “scandal,” which has led to impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump, are not being told, even by Republicans.

Trump was very likely motivated by politics if he indeed withheld military aid to Ukraine in exchange for Kiev launching an investigation into Democratic presidential frontrunner Joe Biden, though the transcript of the call released by the White House between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelinsky does not make certain such a quid-pro-quo.

But what’s not being talked about in the mainstream is the context of this story, which shows that, politics aside, Biden should indeed be investigated in both Ukraine and in the United States.

We know from the leaked, early 2014 telephone conversation between Victoria Nuland, then assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, and Geoffrey Pyatt, then U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, that then Vice President Biden played a role in “midwifing” the U.S.-backed overthrow of an elected Ukrainian government soon after that conversation.

That’s the biggest crime in this story that isn’t being told. The illegal overthrow of a sovereign government.

As booty from the coup, the sitting vice president’s son, Hunter Biden, soon got a seat on the board of Ukraine’s biggest gas producer, Burisma Holdings. This can only be seen as a transparently neocolonial maneuver to take over a country and install one’s own people. But Biden’s son wasn’t the only one.


Left to right: Kerry, post-coup president Petro Poroshenko, Pyatt and Nuland, June 2014. (State Dept.)
A family friend of then Secretary of State John Kerry also joined Burisma’s board. U.S. agricultural giant Monsanto got a Ukrainian contract soon after the overthrow. And the first, post-coup Ukrainian finance minister was an American citizen, a former State Department official, who was given Ukrainian citizenship the day before she took up the post.

After a Ukrainian prosecutor began looking into possible corruption at Burisma, Biden openly admitted at a conference last year that as vice president he withheld a $1 billion credit line to Ukraine until the government fired the prosecutor. As Biden says himself, it took only six hours for it to happen.

Exactly what Biden boasted of doing is what the Democrats are now accusing Trump of doing, and it isn’t clear if Trump got what he wanted as Biden did.

Threats, Bribes and Blackmail

That leads to another major part of this story not being told: the routine way the U.S. government conducts foreign policy: with bribes, threats and blackmail.

Trump may have withheld military aid to seek a probe into Biden, but it is hypocritically being framed by Democrats as an abuse of power out of the ordinary. But it is very much ordinary.

Examples abound. The threat of withholding foreign aid was wielded against nations on the UN Security Council in 1991 when the U.S. sought authorization for the First Gulf War. Yemen had the temerity to vote against. A member of the U.S. delegation told Yemen’s ambassador: “That’s the most expensive vote you ever cast.” The U.S. then cut $70 million in foreign aid to the Middle East’s poorest nation, and Saudi Arabia repatriated about a million Yemeni workers.


Katharine Gun
The same thing happened before the Second Gulf War in 2003, as revealed by whistleblower Katharine Gun (who will appear Friday night on CN Live!). Gun leaked an NSA memo that showed the U.S. sought help from its British counterpart in signals intelligence to spy on the missions of Security Council members to get “leverage” over them to influence their vote to authorize the invasion of Iraq.

In 2001 the U.S. threatened the end of military and foreign aid if nations did not conclude bilateral agreements granting immunity to U.S. troops before the International Criminal Court.

More recently, the U.S. used its muscle against Ecuador, including dangling a $10 billion IMF loan, in exchange for the expulsion of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange from its London embassy.

This is how the U.S. conducts “diplomacy.”

As former UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros Ghali wrote:

“Coming from a developing country, I was trained extensively in international law and diplomacy and mistakenly assumed that the great powers, especially the United States, also trained their representatives in diplomacy and accepted the value of it. But the Roman Empire had no need for diplomacy. Nor does the United States. Diplomacy is perceived by an imperial power as a waste of time and prestige and a sign of weakness.”

This fundamental corruption of U.S. foreign policy, which includes overthrowing elected governments, is matched only by the corruption of a political system that exalts partisan political power above all else. Exposing this deep-seated and longstanding corruption should take precedence over scoring partisan scalps, whether Biden’s or Trump’s.

Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, Sunday Times of London and numerous other newspapers. He can be reached at joelauria@consortiumnews.com and followed on Twitter @unjoe .

If you value this original article, please consider making a donation to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this one.

Before commenting please read Robert Parry’s Comment Policy. Allegations unsupported by facts, gross or misleading factual errors and ad hominem attacks, and abusive or rude language toward other commenters or our writers will be removed. If your comment does not immediately appear, please be patient as it is manually reviewed. For security reasons, please refrain from inserting links and try to keep your comment to within 500 words.

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Tags: Boutros Boutros-Ghali CN Live! Donald Trump Geoffrey Pyatt ICC Impeachment Joe Biden Joe Lauria Katharine Gun Victoria Nuland Yemen

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58 comments for “The Untold Story of the Trump-Ukraine ‘Scandal’: The Routine Corruption of US Foreign Policy”

TellTheTruth-2
September 29, 2019 at 18:17
The real question is: Would we be here today if Obama/Biden had not taken part in an illegal overthrow of Ukraine? If you follow actual events, the people of Crimea were so upset they voted, LAWFULLY, to return to Russia. The two Eastern regions of Ukraine voted to join Russia too; but President Putin refused to accept them.

The vultures also descended on Ukraine to make a profit and Hunter Biden was one of them and an honest prosecutor started to investigate, and Joe Biden blackmailed the “installed” President to fire him. When the people of Ukraine got fed up with the “installed” President, they voted a COMEDIAN, who ran as a joke, into office. Now the conspirators have a new ball game and, before this is over, the CORRUPTION will come out and impeachment will only speed it up.

So, bring on the impeachment and let the truth come out as it should. Before this is over, this could be the Dimms last Rodeo for a long, long time.


frank
September 30, 2019 at 18:12
Its all Russias fault


Ol' Hippy
September 29, 2019 at 11:14
Finally, mention of the illegal coup. Biden’s shady dealings to, maybe, shelter his kid. The whole mess stinks and smells of an op by the CIA. All while real whistleblowers languish in jails here and in the UK.


Sam F
September 29, 2019 at 09:24
The “fundamental corruption of U.S. foreign policy [is] the corruption of a political system” that extends throughout Congress and the executive, judiciary, and mass media. I am investigating large scale political racketeering in Florida, and have found that the federal judiciary is also completely corrupt, as are the mass media. The corruption is partisan, but it is led by factions of the rich making personal deals.

There are very serious defects in our Constitution that must be fixed as the primary cause of problems in this society. Severe accountability for corruption, torture, spying, and secret war (military, economic, or information war), as well as for manipulation of mass media, elections, and judiciary, must be part of the Constitution, which must also clarify the boundary between secrecy for defense and the crime of secrecy for aggressive wars never approved by the people. The Constitution must define military, economic, or information war, and clarify military power limits, and limits to the power of treaties.

It is a very small and pathological tyrant class whom we oppose, at least as much as in our Revolutionary War, working against us by ever modernized means of economic and information power, and the tools of that revolution are ever less available.


dean 1000
September 29, 2019 at 08:40
Great piece Joe. As you say “the biggest crime in this story isn’t being told. The illegal overthrow of a sovereign government.” Also damning links to Biden and Nuland.

Lesser facts the corporate media won’t mention are whether the CIA agent/whistleblower was involved in the 2014 overthrow of the Ukrainian government. If so, was he trying to protect himself, the CIA, or others?

Ya don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that Trump is the chief law enforcement officer of the US. The constitution requires presidents to “take care that the laws are faithfully executed.” Investigating corruption, crime or wrongdoing is not an impeachable offence.

The CIA/whistleblower has shot the democrats in the foot as well as himself. The democrats who have gone hog wild to impeach Trump are in dire need of a reality check.


boxerwar
September 29, 2019 at 16:48
50 Shades of Gray —

or how weapons sales and

Shadow Governments Suck Up

to the American Arms Industry

for Favors and Quid-Pro-Quo… .

SO MANY
BOMBS…

SO MANY

UNNESSISERY
DEATHS
.

WHO CARES
WHEN THERE’S
SO MUCH MONEY
TO BE MADE. …?


Trantorian
September 28, 2019 at 14:39
Biden and the neoliberals wanted the prosecutor to be more aggressive in getting rid of any remaining Russian influence. He didn’t think for a second that that Burisma, et al would be threatened. The brand new, US-installed neofascist government was more than willing to buy arms (the whole reason for the “loans”), use Monsanto seeds and Roundup, and become a new buffer state for the US.


PeanutBotticelli
September 28, 2019 at 07:51
The US president telling a foreign leader “I’m not giving you any aid unless you allow my cronies to corruptly and ruthlessly exploit the resources of your country” — that kind of bribe solicitation, which goes on constantly, whether it takes this explicit form or not, is not regarded as more remarkable then the fact that we breath aire, let alone anything improper, much less an impeachable offense.

The US president telling a foreign leader “I’m not giving you any aid unless you help me expose the corrupt way in which the resources of your country are already being ruthlessly exploited by the family of my opponent in this intra-oligarchical contest I’m in the middle of” is not only seen as improper but as the virtual end of the republic, an impeachable offense.

Two lessons follow:

(1) ruthlessly and corruptly exploiting the resources of a country dominated by the US is perfectly OK, while seeking to expose the facts is arch-criminal.
(2) soliciting bribes from foreign leaders is perfectly OK, as long as it ends up victimizing defenseless people, but woe onto you if you should victimize other elements with power.


Bryan Hemming
September 28, 2019 at 02:39
Joe Biden and John Kerry were not the only leading U.S. politicians with a vested interest in a change of government in Ukraine, John McCain, who bypassed Barack Obama in order to send arms to Ukraine, was supported financially by Arizona weapons manufacturers. Both Kerry and McCain encouraged right-wing thugs at Maidan Square demonstrations in Kiev. The whole Ukraine coup needs investigating, as do all the corrupt figures involved. But that’s not going to happen, as the list is too long.


Emma Peele
September 28, 2019 at 01:52
There is also the fact that the USA justice department is investigating the Russia gate ties to the Ukraine.

The call was made the day mueller report came out
US Attorney John Durham looking into Ukrainian involvement in 2016 election

“Durham has been Barr’s right hand as the two look into the complicated and classified issues surrounding how an investigation into the Trump campaign’s alleged ties with Russia — dubbed “Crossfire Hurricane” — got its start, though the U.S. attorney from Connecticut has been virtually silent since his selection.“

The entire democrats Russian ruse started in the Ukraine

I’m sure democrats are desperate to keep that investigation from finding the truth.


Sam F
September 29, 2019 at 09:31
Good point that the “democrats’ Russian ruse started in the Ukraine” as the software that stuffs fake Russian-sounding bits into internet packet headers was from Ukraine. I have found similar anti-Russia ruses in the racketeering scams of internet copyright piracy operations based in the West.


JoAnn
September 28, 2019 at 00:46
Yes, Nancy Pelosi, so without any honesty, says we don’t pressure other governments to get what we want. She clapped her hands when Trump announced sanctions against Venezuela. Just like with Congress’s prayer breakfasts,as they, all, know they have no intention of following Jesus’ or any other deity’s teachings. They just have no sense of shame.


Joe Tedesky
September 27, 2019 at 23:43
Well Joe thank you for telling it like it should be told. Although for the MSM to replicate your accurate style of reporting it would mean the MSM would have too tell the truth and that ain’t about happening anytime too soon in this era of ‘fake news’. Again thank you for taking us all back in time to what exactly Ukraine was all about and, that it was an illegal coup conducted under the guiding hand of the USA. By you taking us readers back to the origins of the Maiden Revolt or the USA instigated Ukrainian coup by another name you truly teach the giddy MSM celebrities something about adhering to the fundamentals. Joe you honestly put meaning to why journalism is a honorable profession… I mean that!

While I sit and contemplate too what strange strategy the Dem’s have where they aim an impeachment hearing towards the direction where a whole host of Obama Administration sins were committed is way beyond good logical comprehension to why a criminal gang would do this. What criminal would want you to revisit they’re crime scene? Only a criminal who would like you to believe that they are innocent of all accusations or, a criminal who is throughly convinced that you are laughably ill informed …or maybe a little bit of both. None the less the battle for the narrative is underway and, we the public are once again denied long awaited citizen unity. This time it’s so bad that even good olde fashion American politicking compromise is off the table. Why that’s downright un-American I tell ya!


Robert Emmett
September 27, 2019 at 20:35
Will this become another chapter in The Neverending Story (1984), about the Nothing, a darkness that destroys everything it touches? Or as it may also become known, blowback that just keeps blowing.

It seems The App-R-At-Us is geared mostly to bamboozle the (U.S.) public, & cover the asses of compromised assets.

Glad to read, Mr. Lauria, not all the secret decoder rings have gone haywire.

Ellipse
What was eclipsed
with an ellips-
is loose lips
sink ships or
pretzle-dented
gambits.

(App-R-At-Us sings:
Spy in the oval-room,
shoo fly shoo.
Buzz in the trans-
crypt, tell on you.
Cherry-pick evi-
dence, what we do.
Skip to the loo
with Biden.)

(MediaCorps sings:
Here we loop-de-loop;
here we go loop-de- lie.
Follow our trail of poop;
‘til up our own arse-
holes we fly.)


IvyMike
September 27, 2019 at 20:00
The same B.B. Ghali who outsmarted and used GHWB and Bill to further his interests in Somalia. Not only are we not trained in diplomacy, we not all that good at bribes and threats either.


SA Truther
September 27, 2019 at 18:50
Seems there are some other pertinent facts to consider if we’re to get a more global picture of this elephant.

Ukrainian anti-corruption activists, US allies, the International Monetary Fund and others faulted Shokin for his do-nothing approach to corruption in Ukraine. Hunter Biden was never under investigation as Trump has claimed. Mykola Zlochevsky, who owned Burisma Holdings, was under investigation. Hunter Biden joined the board of directors in 2014 and Britain had begun investigating Zlochevsky before Hunter Biden joined the board.

And so much more.


Martin
September 27, 2019 at 16:50
It shouldn’t be too hard to find out if those ukrainian funds were frozen on trump’s order (my guess is they weren’t).


Abby
September 27, 2019 at 22:15
The funds were frozen months before the phone call. Trump wanted NATO countries to do more. The funds were released so what’s the big deal?
BTW..Obama refused to sell the weapons to Ukraine because he didn’t want to ramp up tensions with Russia. Who thinks this is a good idea? Or that Ukraine should be allowed into NATO? Right on Russia’s border.
Another BTW… Russia is eventually going to start putting missiles in Cuba and others if this country continues with what its doing.


Ira Dember
September 27, 2019 at 16:07
A nation of thieves, thugs, liars and racketeers — at the top. America’s crime family. No wonder whistleblowers get pilloried — along with straight shooters and truth tellers like Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez.

This corrupt mess self-perpetuates while most folks wrap themselves in willing blindness, despite their own suffering, as long as it all seems like someone else’s problem.

It amounts to a pervasive cultural omerta, abetted by mainstream corporate news and entertainment — a bizarre bubble reality, hard to break. That is why I read outlets like Consortium News.


DavidH
September 27, 2019 at 14:44
If the Pubs were to become shocked by this (shocked I tell you), and blew it up on Fox, I wonder if Dems would pay any attention, or just do denial as per usual? Possible grist for unstoppable solidarity.

PLEASE KEEP THE DOWNLOAD/SAVE OPTION for CN Live! episodes!


Herman
September 27, 2019 at 14:44
Reading all the comments that concede Trump did something awful I would submit asking another president to find out if there is a crook in our midst is not a bad thing. Just another example, like the Clinton emails, where the real crimes are hidden and the imagined ones the ones people pay attention to. We need to keep our eye on the ball, in the case of Clinton it was the emails, not how they surfaced, and in this case it is the matter of corruption, not a request to find out if criminal behavior happened.

When the old Bolsheviks were caught accepting money from Germany to overthrow the Czar, they immediately launched an attack, declaring they the evidence were forgeries. Tried and true tactic, don’t defend– attack.

The Democratic Party and the media are doing it and people seem to be buying it.

As to the quid pro thing, Mr. Lauria does a great job of pointing out that is just business as usual.


jean-marie ignatowicz
September 27, 2019 at 18:22
Bringing the Clinton’s back, as CROOKED Hillary can be, she is a Free (woman) , having a Good Life, with this Bill and Epstein Friend, is there JUSTICE in US ? YES, there is ! But not Against CRIMINALS, Not against CORRUPTION, but for the one that was speeding on the road, passing a red light, driving without its seat belt… That is US, From Head to Toes, a CORRUPTED EVIL NATION !


montag2
September 27, 2019 at 14:27
Empires have only one reason for being, and that’s to enrich and empower the empire’s elite. That said, I understand why the U.S. uses its “diplomatic” corps to promote U.S. business interests. However, one of the most unremarked-upon details of Chelsea Manning’s leak of State Dept. cables was the extent to which the State Dept. tried to foist specific American businesses on other countries. They were effectively acting as the business agents for single multinationals, the names of which changed according the economic sector under attack. These were not generic suggestions to other countries to consider American businesses, but were targeted demands for access to foreign markets by individual, powerful companies. Criticisms of the Import-Export Bank center on similar exceptional treatment of our wealthiest corporations.

Operating in that fashion is a clear indicator of widespread and commonly-accepted corruption.


lou e
September 27, 2019 at 14:49
Amen; If I were the maximum leader and interested in evenhanded justice, Trump and Biden handcuffed together and punted out the door without a ‘chute would be efficient and effective. Oxford (the one in England) i believe has a motto “not only must justice be done, justice must be seen to be done”…


Abby
September 27, 2019 at 22:20
Hillary used the state department to fix foreign governments and people’s problems. After she interceded they conveniently made donations in the millions to her foundation. Congress and Obama told her not to do that and yet…

The IMF instilled heinous austerity measures on Ukraine and the elderly had to return to work. And since Obama’s Ukraine coup over 10,000 ethnic Russians in east Ukraine have been killed. The media doesn’t talk about that.


Piotr Berman
September 27, 2019 at 12:30
The last attempt at impeachment fails one litmus test of correct foreign policy (as applied for the last 10 years or so): would it make Putin happy*? Hard to quote Putin himself, but Russian commentators have a lot to laugh about. For example, commenting line-by-line the declassified conversation of two presidents, in which one is polite in a jolly way, and the other resorts to shameless bootlicking (guess who was doing what). That took 14 minutes on a video. Or an article pitying Zelensky “To give or not to give”. The first cruel dilemma of his presidency, so far he managed to finesse any hard choices. But now, he gives the kompromat on Biden, incurring wrath of Democrats and, who knows, the next Administration, or he does not, offending the current president. New satire keeps being posted.

*To those of you who spend the last years living under a stone: making Putin happy is BAD. Making him unhappy is worth every penny, even if there are a lot of them (e.g. “refurbishing our nuclear forces which now are in tip-top shape. Tip-top.” but many more funds will be spent to make them “exceedingly tip-top”).


Rob Roy
September 27, 2019 at 12:29
Kiers,
Viktor Yanukovych? That president wasn’t “Russian leaning,” in that he asked the EU for aid before he asked Putin. Those two presidents never liked each other. (Yanukovych: corrupt; Putin: not.) However, Russia was there for his escape when the US decided to take Ukraine for its own. Biden and son are as corrupt as Trump. All our presidents and veeps and secretaries of state are corrupt. (Well, Carter less so that the rest.) It’s not that we don’t have good people who run for president but the rich simply will not let them get on stage front and center or get elected. If the public were smart enough, they could elect an honest president, but they are not.


rosemerry
September 27, 2019 at 14:35
Spot on!!!!

Also,besides the fact of the multiple, non-Russiagate reasons to impeach Trump ((and have the joy of a Pence POTUS), and the thought of even running Biden at all as a candidate for POTUS,

“That’s the biggest crime in this story that isn’t being told. The illegal overthrow of a sovereign government. “


lou e
September 27, 2019 at 14:52
Good point in the last sentence. It is a sad commentary on the USSA when throwing darts at the phonebook will net the country a better president than what will fit through the political screen…


William H Warrick III MD
September 27, 2019 at 12:00
This will be the most disastrous mistake in the History of the Democrat party. This will explode in their faces and the only candidate not supporting it is Tulsi. She will pick up the pieces after she dispenses with Pocahontas over her lack of qualifications to be CiC and either there will be some new Party or a New Democrat Party. I don’t know what Bernie says about it but if he supports it Tulsi will win the Nomination and MAYBE make him the VP so he can concentrate on MC4A. Then she will wipe the floor with Trump.


Phree
September 27, 2019 at 12:28
Possibly, but I doubt it. Even the Dems will have a hard time screwing this up. Especially since the White House is now claiming advice of counsel in hiding the word-for-word transcript, thereby waiving attorney-client privilege. Trump’s hubris and ignorance has dug him a pretty deep hole this time.

Some Republicans will (and some already are) realize that they just can’t let something this blatant become acknowledged and approved Presidential conduct. The GOP would have already impeached a Dem based on the publicly available evidence of this stunt.

And I love Tulsi’s foreign policy. Unfortunately, the MSM has already entrenched the “Assad apologist” myth in the public discourse. I personally think Warren on domestic policy and Gabbard on Foreign policy would be the best ticket, sexists be damned.


Piotr Berman
September 27, 2019 at 12:34
This is what SHOULD happen, but that, historically, is not a good way to predict the future.


jean-marie ignatowicz
September 27, 2019 at 18:31
Is there anyone that has US printed in her Heart more Than Tulsi ? Medias are AFRAID of her, The way she CLEARLY exposes US Crimes, and say that This Must STOP !! Can you name another that has This COURAGE to Speak up For Americans INTERESTS ! Hey, forget The world for a while, and CARE for US CITIZENS FIRST !! Yes, Sanders has a Vision for US’s Future, and how to (deal) with AIPAC, The POISON !!


DMcClure
September 28, 2019 at 14:55
Tulsi and Andrew Yang, an unbeatable pair, to lead US forward!


OlyaPola
September 29, 2019 at 03:41
“Piotr Berman
September 27, 2019 at 12:34
This is what SHOULD happen, but that, historically, is not a good way to predict the future.”

The best way to predict the future is to facilitate it.


Jeff Harrison
September 27, 2019 at 11:48
Thanx, Joe. My observation about the typical reporting that gets done is that it always leaves crucial facts and/or context to create the American narrative. I think that what we are seeing now (and have been seeing) falls in the category of The Logic of Empire – i.e. we’ve got to keep running or they’ll catch on.


JOHN CHUCKMAN
September 27, 2019 at 11:32
Absolutely. Just the plain truth.


Herman
September 27, 2019 at 10:41
Mr. Lauria, what a great article. The one piece of your article is outrageous, bizarre and funny. Imagining the scenario you describe:

“post-coup Ukrainian finance minister was an American citizen, a former State Department official, who was given Ukrainian citizenship the day before she took up the post. ”

Imagine the scenario. Nuland: “So and so needs to handle this”. Poroshenko. “She’s not an Ukrainian citizen.” Nuland: “Fix it.” Poroshenko: “What’s in it for me.” Nuland’s whispered reply. Poroshenko, “Done.”

.


scrdmgl
September 27, 2019 at 12:47
These events were exposed (to no avail) by Russia and other sources.
Question to those who know World History, is it possible that the US regime is the most corrupt in recorded history? The most shocking part of it, is the fact that the wide majority of US citizens, don’t even consider America as an Empire. What a job of populace’s mental conditioning. The envy of Nazi Germany who never had anything so perfectly imposed over its population. From cradle to grave.


T
September 27, 2019 at 10:32
> to spy on the missions of Security Council members to get “leverage” over them to influence their vote to authorize the invasion of Iraq.

And the carrot and stick worked: a reporter who has covered the UN for many years was told by members of the delegations of some temporary members of the Security Council that they were indeed going to vote for the invasion. But the giant anti-war demonstrations unnerved their governments, so they didn’t.

(Of course, the Washington-London Coalition of the Billing went ahead and invaded, anyway. But at least there could be no pretense that this was anything but a massive war crime.)


B. James
September 27, 2019 at 10:22
Thank you for this much needed contribution/antidote to the heated coverage of the Ukraine/impeachment brouhaha, especially on the dirty doings of the Obama-Biden administration in Ukraine–the source of what is now being exposed in the whistleblower revelations.


Raymond Comeau
September 27, 2019 at 10:16
The Orange Revolution in Ukraine was supported by the USA, so people like Biden and his son would prosper.


Skip Scott
September 27, 2019 at 10:02
Great reporting by Joe Lauria on the crux of the issue. Another great article I just read by Caitlin Johnstone hits the nail on the head as well.


Jo Chapman
September 27, 2019 at 09:59
It wasn’t a transcript that the WH released. It was a summary. I think it’s pretty clear, with the verbatim transcript moved to prevent access, that there is no way the transcript would have been released. There will be a fight for Congress to get it.


Phree
September 27, 2019 at 12:31
Yes, I’ve been ripping my hair out when the press calls the summary that was released a “transcript.” One of the most important things in the whistleblower complaint is the confirmation that there is an actual word-for-word transcript. If the Trumpers released the summary thinking it was better than the actual transcript, one can only guess how bad the actual transcript is.


Bug Bond
September 27, 2019 at 16:43
There can’t be a “verbatim transcript” if the conversation wasn’t recorded by tape or a trained stenographer. This applies to every conversation in history.


kiers
September 27, 2019 at 09:52
Trump has created this scandal on purpose. It serves all of the right’s needs.

As an aside: when US says it wants “bilateral” trade relationships, it means……relationships amenable to extortion. Ivy league mobsters learn to call dirty deeds with fancy terms. Media complies. Voila….democracy!


Bob Van Noy
September 27, 2019 at 09:10
Great summation Joe as you keep CN readers on the cutting edge of American deplomacy and corrupt politics. Many Thanks…


Kiwiantz
September 27, 2019 at 08:51
Great article as usual Joe. Trumps just the current Don Coleone, Mob Boss that’s occupying the Whitehouse, just another stupid, two-bit Criminal, just like every previous POTUS before him? America has become a Banana Republic that’s without the Banana’s, run by Criminals hacks in charge of a Nation that’s vying for the title of the most corrupt Country on Earth, maybe it should it be renamed Crimerica? This pontificating, self righteous & hypocritical Country is run like a Mafiosi Crime Syndicate shaking down every other Nation on Earth for Oil & Natural resources, drunk on its waning power as a dying Empire of chaos & whose dangerous & reckless disregard for International Laws & blatant Foreign Policy abuses & War Crimes, is perhaps the greatest danger to Mankind, right up there with Climate Change? And the disgusting way the Ruling Elites in both Parties can hypocritically fawn over & support & protect this Whistle blower who dobbed in the Orange Headed Manchild & idiot savant, called Trump, hellbent on securing Trumps Impeachment but have treated heroes such as Edward Snowden & Julian Assange as Treasonous Traitors for exposing similar crimes committed by the US Mafiosi Country, defies belief & is disgustingly hypocritical? But I suppose you have to be the right kind of Whistleblower that can fit the corrupt narrative! America is rotting from the inside out, morally, spiritually & economically with it’s entire Financial System on the verge of economic collapse & no amount of Impeachment scullduggery, QE Money printing to infinity or Endless War creation is going to save the dying Empire of Chaos?


ML
September 27, 2019 at 08:40
Excellent, Joe Lauria! Full of facts, yet concise and to the point! Thank you, sir.


Michael Kent
September 27, 2019 at 08:31
We just saw ‘Official Secrets’ at the movie theater – the story of whistleblower Katharine Gun’s attempt to derail the Iraq war. It’s a riveting tale with a bad ending, as she heroically tried but failed to stop the killing of thousands of US and British troops as well as hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. The fact that I had never heard of Katharine Gun from that time in 2003 until her story recently came out on the big screen goes to show the complicity of the US and western press in stifling any dissent or deviation from the mainstream war consensus. That today’s media coverage of war – sheer state propaganda – is even worse than it was in 2003, is the most telling part of Katharine Gun’s narrative.


geeyp
September 27, 2019 at 07:38
With a hook or with a crook, Natalie Jaresko raked in millions and smiled her way through. As I recall, her soon ex-spouse was suing for divorce and showing some of the corruption that she was involved in, also found in court docs. Who would argue with wanting to get away from her? Her and Nuland are two examples of takers for all the dough they can steal from you and me. Plagerist Joe and Hunter, who was kicked out of the military for his drug of choice, are another two.


Adrian, Editor, J'Accuse News
September 27, 2019 at 07:01
Thank you for illuminating “the biggest crime in this story that isn’t being told. The illegal overthrow of a sovereign government.”

The press failure to tell the fuller truth of such matters is in high relief. And, we can see the mechanics of the media’s role – which applies to so much about this latest controversy among others to be fanned in recent years – in one word in the telephone conversation of Donald Trump – CrowdStrike.

Looking back to 2016 and CrowdStrike’s false attribution (not the first time Dmitri Alperovitch / CS did such a thing for its masters) – we see how the US media legitimizes the fraudulent elements of state narratives, forging this bogus attribution link into a key propellant in the great Russiagate hoax, helping create the US intell myth that grew like topsy. This is how intell agents and political insiders et al construct a scam via the media – one that has much in common with the smoke-and-mirrors of penny stock promotions.

As US cyber-security expert Jeffrey Carr noted at the time: “Major media outlets including the The Washington Post, CNN, NBC News, and PBS Newshour ran the story without fact-checking a single detail. Motherboard, Forbes, SC Magazine, and other media did the same.”

eg. (URLs are not included – but the articles should be simple to find using their titles, author and publication info) here’s an article in the Washington Post – typical of what appeared across the legacy media, and provided the fabricated “high confidence” pretext to blame Russia for the so-called DNC “hack”:

“Cybersecurity firm finds evidence that Russian military unit was behind DNC hack”, Ellen Nakashima, Washington Post, December 22, 2016

And here’s some of the early articles by American cybersecurity expert Carr debunking US intell and CrowdStrike’s claims – those trumpeted globally by the mainstream media coverage:

“FBI/DHS Joint Analysis Report: A Fatally Flawed Effort” – December 30, 2016 (LinkedIn)

“The GRU-Ukraine Artillery Hack That May Never Have Happened” – January 3, 2017 (LinkedIn)

“Crowdstrike Needs To Address The Harm It Caused Ukraine” – January 15, 2017 (LinkedIn)

In March 2017, VOA’s Ukrainian service picked up on the work of Carr and others – and exposed the scam. CrowdStrike was forced to walk back its false claims re the fabricated “Ukrainian artillery hack” – but, no matter, the lie had done its job. It enabled then-POTUS Obama to target Russia and it set in motion the false narrative of proof that Russia hacked the DNC. The numerous bogus news reports – in WaPo and elsewhere – have still to be retracted:

“Think Tank: Cyber Firm at Center of Russian Hacking Charges Misread Data” – March 21, 2017 (VOA News)

And we’ve all see how this, and other elements, together were used as ingredients in the Russiagate scam that some forces in America+ aim to carry forward with new illusions – enabled by a press that is not concerned with facts or truth. It’s up to ConsortiumNews – as you have done – and other independent and social media to inform the public about the illegal overthrow of the Ukraine, the CrowdStrike manipulation, Bill Browder / Mikhail Khodorkovsky / Jonathan Winer / John McCain et al’s “Magnitsky myth” and other such harmful schemes and/or crimes – to bring them to light, and to place them in context.


oneilbox
September 27, 2019 at 06:56
It may very well be that President Zelensky revealed in the newly released transcript of the Trump conversation, that there are ongoing investigations which are still classified, and related to matters discussed in your article.

“in addition to that investigation,
I guarantee as the President of Ukraine that all the
investigations.will be done_openly and candidly”

Many have assumed that Trump was initiating investigations, however, that does not preclude the possibility there have been prior communications initiated by Zelensky on the matters discussed in the phone convo. To whit would be considered confidential and appropriate under the Treaty with Ukraine on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters https://www.congress.gov/treaty-document/106th-congress/16/document-te xt


OlyaPola
September 27, 2019 at 04:59
“The Routine Corruption of US Foreign Policy”

Corruption/decay is a useful “organic” fertiliser.


Hmmm
September 27, 2019 at 00:37
Another very relevant example: The Obama administration’s apparent pressure on Ukraine in early 2016 to investigate Paul Manafort.


kiers
September 27, 2019 at 09:51
…..and Greg Craig getting off scot free for aiding a Russia leaning prez of Ukraine.


mary-lou
September 27, 2019 at 10:37
to ‘investigate’ – is this modern speak meaning conducting oppo-research?