No more 'bitterly polarized' congress! Both House and Senate voted nearly unanimously for so-called Russia sanctions (419-3 and 98-2). The bill harms Russia, Europe, and the US, but mainly it effectively nullifies the 2016 election and returns us to being slaves of the neocons-Paul Craig Roberts...(Trump defeated the entire Swamp in 2016 and this is their payback. We're back to being slaves of Washington Post, NY Times, and war profiteers)

In its nearly unanimous support of neocons and the Endless War Industry via so-called Russia sanctions (98-2 in the Senate, and 419-3 in the House)--the united US political class eagerly condemned US taxpayers to lifelong slavery. The US no longer has elections. What passes for elections are easily nullified. 

July 30, 2017, "PCR: "The New Russian Sanctions Bill Is Washington's Monument To Its Criminality," Zero Hedge, Paul Craig Roberts, author

Authored by Paul Craig Roberts

"The Congress of the United States by almost unanimous votes in both House and Senate has made it clear that Congress would rather destroy the President of the United States and to increase the risk of nuclear war than to avoid conflict with Russia by normalizing relations.

The vote on the new sanctions makes it pointless for President Trump to veto the bill, because it passed both houses by far more than the two-thirds vote required to over-ride the president’s veto. The only thing Trump can achieve with a veto is to prove the false charge that he is in league with Vladimir Putin.

The new sanctions bill forecloses the possibility of reducing the rising tensions between the two major nuclear powers. It also shows that whatever interest Congress has, if any, in reducing the threat of war and in avoiding a break with Europe over the sanctions, Congress has a much greater interest in continuing to collect campaign contributions from the powerful and rich military/security complex and in playing to the growing hatred of Russia that is encouraged by the US media.

This reckless and irresponsible action by the US Congress makes completely clear that Washington has intentionally chosen conflict with Russia as the main element of US foreign policy. Perhaps now the Russian government will abandon its cherished illusion that an accommodition with Washington can be reached.

As I have written on many occasions, the only way Russia can achieve accommodation with Washington is to surrender and accept American hegemony. Any further resistance of the Russian government to this obvious fact would indicate dangerous delusion on the part of the Russian leadership.

The fig leaf Congress chose for its violation of diplomatic protocols and international law is the disproven allegation of Russian interference in behalf of Trump in the US presidential election. An organization of former US intelligence officers recently announced that forensic investigation has been made of the alleged Russian computer hacking, and the conclusion is that there was no hack; there was an internal leak [by "someone working in the EDT time zone"], and the leak was copied onto a device and Russian “fingerprints” were added. There is no forensic evidence whatsoever that shows any indication of Russian hacking.

It is all made up, and everyone alleging Russian hacking knows it.
.  
There is no difference between the allegation of Russian hacking and Hitler’s allegation in 1939 that “last night Polish forces crossed our frontier,” Hitler’s fig leaf for his invasion of Poland.

That Congress uses a blatantly transparent lie to justify its violation of international law and intentionally worsens US relations with both Russia and the EU proves how determined Washington is to intensify conflict with Russia
.
Expect more false allegations, more demonization, more threats.

War is in the cards."

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Added: Evidence of a leak, no evidence of a 'hack':

7/24/17, "Intel Vets Challenge ‘Russia Hack’ Evidence," Consortium News

"In a memo to President Trump, a group of former U.S. intelligence officers, including NSA specialists, cite new forensic studies to challenge the claim of the key Jan. 6 “assessment” that Russia “hacked” Democratic emails last year."

"The Key Event

July 5, 2016: In the early evening, Eastern Daylight Time, someone working in the EDT time zone with a computer directly connected to the DNC server or DNC Local Area Network, copied 1,976 MegaBytes of data in 87 seconds onto an external storage device. That speed is many times faster than what is physically possible with a hack. 

It thus appears that the purported “hack” of the DNC by Guccifer 2.0 (the self-proclaimed WikiLeaks source) was not a hack by Russia or anyone else, but was rather a copy of DNC data onto an external storage device. Moreover, the forensics performed on the metadata reveal there was a subsequent synthetic insertion – a cut-and-paste job using a Russian template, with the clear aim of attributing the data to a “Russian hack.” This was all performed in the East Coast time zone."...

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Added: So-called US sanctions against Russia are first aimed at erasing 2016 voters, reminding them that they're slaves, have no voice, and don't get to decide elections. Harming Russia, Europe, and America are secondary goals. Trump humiliated the entire Swamp in 2016; The Swamp believes it can't survive unless it stifles Trump's administration in its cradle-Spengler, David P. Goldman, 7/28/17

July 28, 2017, "Trump’s 'America First' vs. McCain’s 'America Last'," Spengler, David P. Goldman, PJ Media 

"Not the supposed protectionist Donald Trump, but the “free trade” wing of the Republican Party has taken the United States into a trade war that it can only lose. New sanctions against Russia passed by the House and Senate last week force Europe into a de facto alliance with Russia against the United States, and by extension with China as well. It is the dumbest and most self-destructive act of economic self-harm since the United States de-linked the dollar from gold on August 15, 1971, and it will have devastating consequences. 

The charade in the House and Senate may embarrass Trump, but it also poses a threat to European energy supplies as well as an extraterritorial intrusion into European governance. Berlin, Paris and Rome will conspire with Moscow to circumvent the sanctions while attacking the United States at the World Trade Organization and other international fora.... 

The sanctions will hurt Russia, but not nearly as much as they will hurt the United States over the long term. The White House envisioned sanctions as a bargaining chip, to be used to persuade Moscow to behave in the Ukraine and to limit the ambitions of its Iranian ally of convenience. In their present form, however, the president will have no authority to remove sanctions imposed by Congress. That turns a feint into a threat. Wars have been started over less....

Not Trump, but his detractors have given Moscow a degree of leverage over Western Europe to which it has not aspired since the height of the Cold War in 1983, when Soviet premier Yuri Andropov considered a pre-emptive Russian attack in response to Western plans to deploy medium-range missiles in Germany.

Supposedly it was Trump who ignored the exigencies of international relations in favor of domestic political theater. Yet it is the Establishment wing of the Republican Party and its Democratic allies who combined to embarrass the president, without a moment’s consideration of the consequences of their actions. Among Washington’s elite, Trump Derangement Syndrome has nothing to do with ideology. It is about jobs and patronage. This is not hypocrisy. It is chutzpah. 

Trump humiliated the Democrats and the Establishment rump of the Republican Party last November. The losers now face the prospect of permanent exile from political life. Writing in the Times Literary Supplement July 25, historian Edward Luttwak predicted a Trump dynasty lasting sixteen years, in which Ivanka Trump Kushner would succeed her father. “No wonder that leading Democrats and non-Trumpers continue to act hysterically even eight months after the election. President Trump’s plan threatens to exclude them all from office until long past their retirement age,” Luttwak wrote. 

The hopes of high office of the defeated Establishment can be realized only by stifling the Trump administration in its cradle.

That is the motivation behind the Black Legend of Russian collusion that continues to occupy the waking hours of the American media while putting most Americans to sleep. As Sen. McCain said after the Senate vote July 27, the sanctions “respond to Russia’s attack on American democracy….We will not tolerate attacks on our democracy. That’s what this bill is all about."... 

Now, for narrow political reasons, Trump’s enemies propose to undo the whole structure of relationships that won the Cold War and drive Europe into the arms of the Russians and Chinese. I do not believe for a moment that McCain and Schumer have a clue about this—they are like the “sleepwalkers” in Christopher Clark’s brilliant history of the outbreak of the First World War—but if I were a Russian operative, I would try to invent someone like John McCain, if McCain did not already exist."
 

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755 of of 1000+ US diplomatic staff in Russia must leave. 455 will remain-AFP...(Positive fallout from Deep State sanctions v Russia and Europe-US taxpayers certainly don't need 1000+ 'diplomats' in Russia. Thanks, Vlad!)

July 30, 2017, "755 US diplomats must leave Russia: Putin," AFP, Moscow 

"President Vladimir Putin said 755 US diplomats must leave Russia and warned ties with Washington could be gridlocked for a long time, in a move Sunday that followed tough new American sanctions.

The Russian foreign ministry had earlier demanded Washington cut its diplomatic presence in Russia by September to 455 -- the same number Moscow has in the US.

"More than a thousand people were working and are still working" at the US embassy and consulates, Putin said in an interview with Rossia-24 television.

"755 people must stop their activities in Russia."

Putin added that an upturn in Russia's relations with Washington could not be expected "any time soon".

"We have waited long enough, hoping that the situation would perhaps change for the better," he said.

"But it seems that even if the situation is changing, it's not for any time soon."

On Thursday, the US Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill to toughen sanctions on Russia for allegedly meddling in the 2016 US presidential election and for its annexation of Crimea in 2014. Iran and North Korea are also targeted in the sanctions bill.

The law now goes to President Donald Trump who had made an improvement in ties with Russia a plank of his election campaign. Moscow on Friday ordered the US to slash its number of diplomats in Russia to 455 and froze two embassy compounds -- a Moscow summer house and a storage facility in the city-from August 1.

In December, the then US president Barack Obama ordered out 35 Russian diplomats and closed down two embassy summer houses that Washington said were being used by Moscow for espionage."

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NY Times is so emotionally attached to the lie about intel 'community consensus' that it sticks with it even after issuing a correction admitting it wasn't true. They and pals Google and WaPo know they can't win on a level playing field. Their only option is algorithm, purging the landscape of all opposing views-Consortium News, Robert Parry

July 28, 2017, "The Dawn of an Orwellian Future," Robert Parry, Consortium News

"Exclusive: The U.S. mainstream media continues to spread its own “fake news,” like the falsehood about an intelligence community “consensus” on Russia-gate “hacking,” as algorithms begin to marginalize dissent, reports Robert Parry."

"It seems that The New York Times can’t let a good lie lie. Even after being pushed into running an embarrassing correction retracting its false claim that there was a consensus of all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia hacked Democratic emails and made them public to help Donald Trump defeat Hillary Clinton, the Times is back suggesting exactly that.

The Times’ current ploy is to say the Russian hacking claims are the “consensus” judgment of the U.S. intelligence community without citing a specific number of agencies. For instance, on Friday [7/28/17], the Times published an article by Matt Flegenheimer about the U.S. Senate vote to prevent President Trump from lifting sanctions on Russia and deployed the misleading phrasing:

“The Trump administration has opposed the sanctions against Russia, arguing that it needs flexibility to pursue a more collaborative diplomacy with a country that, by American intelligence consensus, interfered in last year’s presidential election.”

So, instead of explaining the truth – that the Jan. 6 “Intelligence Community Assessment” was the work of a small group of “hand-picked” analysts from three of the agencies under the watchful eye of then-CIA Director John Brennan and beneath the oversight of then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper – the Times opts to give its readers the misleading impression that there was a “consensus” within the U.S. intelligence community.

In other words, unless a Times reader knows the truth by having read it at a non-mainstream media outlet such as Consortiumnews.com, that reader would continue to believe that all 17 intelligence agencies were in agreement on this foundational point in the Russia-gate affair.

Marginalizing Dissent

And the continuation of this willful deception comes as the Times and other mainstream media outlets make progress in their plans to deploy Internet algorithms to hunt down and marginalize what they deem “fake news,” including articles that challenge the mainstream media’s power to control the dominant news narrative.

A report by the World Socialist Web Site found that “in the three months since Internet monopoly Google announced plans to keep users from accessing ‘fake news,’ the global traffic rankings of a broad range of left-wing, progressive, anti-war and democratic rights organizations have fallen significantly.”

Google’s strategy is to downgrade search results for targeted Web sites based on a supposed desire to limit reader access to “low-quality” information, but the targets reportedly include some of the highest-quality alternative news sites on the Internet, such as – according to the report – Consortiumnews.com.

Google sponsors the First Draft Coalition, which was created to counter alleged “fake news” and consists of mainstream news outlets, including the Times and The Washington Post, as well as establishment-approved Web sites, such as Bellingcat, which has a close association with the anti-Russia and pro-NATO Atlantic Council.

This creation of a modern-day Ministry of Truth
occurred under the cover of a mainstream-driven hysteria about “fake news” and “Russian propaganda” in the wake of Donald Trump’s election.

Last Thanksgiving Day, the (Washington) Post ran a front-page article citing accusations from an anonymous Web site, PropOrNot, that identified 200 Web sites — including such Internet stalwarts as Truthdig, Counterpunch and Consortiumnews — as purveyors of “Russian propaganda.”

Apparently, PropOrNot’s standard was to smear any news outlet that questioned the State Department’s Official Narrative on the Ukraine crisis or some other global hot spot, but the Post didn’t offer any actual specifics of what these Web sites had done to earn their place on a McCarthyistic blacklist. 

An Orwellian Future

In early May 2017, the Times chimed in with a laudatory article about how sophisticated algorithms could purge the internet of alleged "fake news" or what the mainstream media deems to be “misinformation.”

As I wrote at the time, “you don’t need a huge amount of imagination to see how this combination of mainstream groupthink and artificial intelligence could create an Orwellian future in which only one side of a story gets told and the other side simply disappears from view.”

After my article appeared, I received a call from an NPR reporter who was planning a segment on this new technology and argued with me about my concerns. However, after I offered a detailed explanation about how I saw this as a classic case of the cure being far worse than the disease, I was not invited onto the NPR program.

Also, as for the relatively small number of willfully produced “fake news” stories, none appear to have traced back to Russia despite extensive efforts by the mainstream U.S. media to make the connection. When the U.S. mainstream media has tracked down a source of “fake news,” it has turned out to be some young entrepreneur trying to make some money by getting lots of clicks.
 
For instance, on Nov. 26, 2016, as the anti-Russia hysteria was heating up in the weeks following Trump’s election, the Times ran a relatively responsible article revealing how a leading “fake news” Web site was not connected to Russia at all but rather was a profit-making effort by an unemployed Georgian student who was using a Web site in Tbilisi to make money by promoting pro-Trump stories. 

The owner of the Web site, 22-year-old Beqa Latsabidse, said he had initially tried to push stories favorable to Hillary Clinton but that proved unprofitable so he switched to publishing anti-Clinton and pro-Trump articles whether true or not.

While creators of intentionally “fake news” and baseless “conspiracy theories” deserve wholehearted condemnation, the idea of giving the Times and a collection of Google-approved news outlets the power to prevent public access to information that challenges equally mindless groupthinks is a chilling and dangerous prospect.

Russia-gate Doubts

Even if the Russian government did hack the Democratic emails and slip them to WikiLeaks – a charge that both the Kremlin and WikiLeaks deny – there is no claim that those emails were fake. Indeed, all evidence is that they were actual emails and newsworthy to boot.

Meanwhile, U.S. government accusations against the Russian network, RT, have related more to it covering topics that may make the Establishment look bad – such as the Occupy Wall Street protests, fracking for natural gas, and the opinions of third-party presidential candidates – than publishing false stories.

In some cases, State Department officials have even made their own false allegations in attacking RT.

The current Russia-gate frenzy is a particularly scary example of how dubious government conclusions and mainstream media falsehoods can propel the world toward nuclear destruction. The mainstream media’s certainty about Russia’s guilt in the disclosure of Democratic emails is a case in point even when many well-informed experts have expressed serious doubts — though almost always at alternative media sites.

See, for instance, former WMD inspector Scott Ritter’s warning about lessons unlearned from the Iraq debacle or the opinions of U.S. intelligence veterans who have questioned the accuracy of the Jan. 6 report on Russian hacking.

Perhaps these concerns are misplaced and the Jan. 6 report is correct, but the pursuit of truth should not simply be a case of grabbing onto the opinions of some “hand-picked” analysts working for political appointees, such as Brennan and Clapper."...

[Ed. note: Personal email accounts of  "security experts" Brennan and Clapper have been hacked by teenagers. The teens also re-routed Clapper's home phone: 1/13/2016, "Hacker hits US spy chief James Clapper's personal accounts," BBC...Jan. 13, 2016, "Hackers took over Director of National Intelligence's phone and personal email," ComputerWorld.com, Darlene Storm...Oct. 19, 2015, "CIA boss John Brennan's personal email 'hacked'," BBC]

(continuing): "Truth should be subjected to rigorous testing against alternative viewpoints and contradictory arguments.

That has been a core principle since the days of the Enlightenment, that truth best emerges from withstanding challenges in the marketplace of ideas. Overturning that age-old truth – by today unleashing algorithms to enforce the Official Narrative – is a much greater threat to an informed electorate and to the health of democracy than the relatively few times when some kid makes up a bogus story to increase his Web traffic.

And, if this new process of marginalizing dissenting views is successful, who will hold The New York Times accountable when it intentionally misleads its readers with deceptive language about the U.S. intelligence community’s “consensus” regarding Russia and the Democratic emails?"

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Among comments

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Re: Bellingcat-Atlantic Council disinformation site, and US taxpayers fund Al Qaeda:

"Abe July 28, 2017 at 7:38 pm 

Fake “citizen investigative journalist” Eliot Higgins of the Atlantic Council’s Bellingcat disinformation site has been propagating the narrative that the April 2017 Khan Shaykhun incident was the result of an “air-dropped Sarin bomb”. 

The conjectures of Higgins and fake “chemical weapons expert” Dan Kaszeta have been endorsed by the American, French and israeli governments, despite the fact that there is no actual evidence of an air dropped chemical bomb impact at Khan Shaykhun. 

The available evidence points to a false flag Sarin incident perpetrated by the same Western-backed Al Qaeda terrorist forces who previously launched a Sarin attack in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta in 2013.

Higgins has repeatedly attacked the reporting and analysis of veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, defense technologies expert Theodor Postol, and former United Nations weapons inspector Scott Ritter.

Higgins’ latest screed at the Bellingcat blog:

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2017/07/28/khan-sheikhoun-seymour-hersh-learned-just-write-know-move/
Higgins and Kaszeta have a long history of mistake-filled reporting on both the Brown Moses and Bellingcat blogs. Higgins appears to be capable of little more than name-calling and citing his own erroneous reporting as “evidence” of his pro-NATO narratives."

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Re: How to avoid jumping on the wrong bandwagon: 

"Joe Tedesky July 28, 2017 at 8:09 pm 

What you report Mr Parry is of the upmost importance. As I said on another comment, garbage in, is garbage out. Without honest truthful reporting, the average citizen is at a loss to analyze any of our world’s current events, and there jumps on the wrong bandwagon. Thanks Robert Parry for keeping me informed. Joe"

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Re: RT less biased than NY Times:

"SteveK9 July 28, 2017 at 7:53 pm 

Personally I read RT. There is some bias, but in my judgment it is much less than the NY Times (I stopped reading the Times after WMD and Iraq)."

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Re: Robert Parry is the patriot they sentimentally claim Maddow is:

"Jessejean July 28, 2017 at 8:14 pm

God, this is really chilling. I’ve gotten used to the MSM being liars, and certainly learned in the 60’s the lengths the military would go to to cover its bloody, corrupt ass, but somehow, using fucking math to do the same thing gives me nightmares. Possibly it’s because the web is where I’ve turned to from the “nightly news propaganda”. And partly because Google has replaced radio, tv, newspapers, and magazines for me. If they start limiting or blocking truth dig, counterpunch and this amazing site, my search for truth will go….. Where? Keep punching Robert. You are the patriot they always sentimentally claim Maddow is."

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2011 NDAA enhanced 24/7 government sanctioned, taxpayer funded propaganda in an era of permanent undeclared war was an act of treason:

"LJ July 28, 2017 at 8:40 pm

President Bubba Clinton signed The Telecommunications Act of 1996 which started this process . What is happening now seems a logical outcome after GW Bush and the NeoCons put this nation on a constant War footing without any Declarations of War, except for the nebulous “War on Terror”. How can you keep this up without propaganda?. Constant propaganda. When Obama signed the NDAA of 2011 it contained riders that created an office of disinformation in the Pentagon to condition stories in the press so they were more favorable to aggressive Executive actions without Declaration of War. Constant Propaganda in Peacetime. Obama and all the Senators and Congressmen and women who agreed to this committed an act of treason in my opinion. Yes ,we are indeed on the verge of an Orwellian world at least with regards to the dissemination of information over the web. I’ve always felt a bit like the Noble Savage in Huxley’s Brave New World, another dystopian nightmare. Perhaps I’ll whip myself for good measure or maybe I’ll just quit reading news entirely. Probably neither. Peace in our times."

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Ditch Mitch---"Root and Branch." If the so-called Senate Majority Leader had any decency, he would resign. The rationale for why conservatives across the country should support Republican Party candidates and enable the GOP to control Congress was completely shattered by the 49-51 vote delivered by Mitch McConnell-Jeff Crouere, Townhall, 7/29/17

"The lack of GOP leadership in the Senate will result in real pain for the American people...McConnell has allowed the Senate to delay action on dozens of Trump administration nominees."... 

July 29, 2017, "Ditch Mitch," Jeff Crouere, Townhall 

"Yesterday morning, the rationale for why conservatives across the country should support Republican Party candidates and enable the GOP to control Congress was completely shattered. By losing a 49-51 vote, the Republican led U.S. Senate failed a pass a “skinny” repeal of Obamacare, condemning the nation to more suffering from the horrors of socialized medicine.

It was a stunning failure for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who was tasked with crafting legislation that would attract at least 50 Republican votes. In the end, McConnell was only able to muster 49 Republican votes, so the reform measure failed. Three turncoat Republicans joined all 48 Democrats to defeat the best chance to repeal at least some of the most offensive aspects of Obamacare.

It was a bitter defeat for the GOP, the President and all healthcare reform supporters. Now, health insurance premiums and deductibles will continue to increase. Insurance companies will continue to withdraw from certain states and choices for struggling Americans will become more limited.

For Americans who do not want health insurance, they will continue to be mandated to buy the product. Others who cannot afford the skyrocketing premiums will have to pay an outrageous fine to the IRS. In addition, many employers will be forced to trim the number of full time workers to escape their expensive Obamacare coverage mandate. Thus, the lack of GOP leadership in the Senate will result in real pain for the American people. 

Most of the blame for this debacle rests squarely on the shoulders of Majority Leader McConnell. Since the November 2016 election of Donald Trump as President, McConnell has had over eight months to develop legislation that would pass the Senate. With such an embarrassing failure, McConnell should be removed as Senate Majority Leader. Republicans need a leader who can deliver for not only the country, but also for the Republican Party.

Mitch McConnell has enjoyed over 10 years as Republican Party leader in the Senate. First as Minority Leader and since January of 2015 as Majority Leader. In that time, he has not been an advocate for conservative reform. In the presidential election, he was not a strong advocate for Donald Trump. In fact, he spent the entire presidential campaign trying to distance himself from the populist oriented GOP nominee.

McConnell is the ultimate insider, he is a creature of the swamp that controls the Beltway and our federal government. As a Senator for 33 years, McConnell long ago ceased being a reformer and became part of the dreaded Republican Party establishment. He is ill-suited to promote Donald Trump’s “drain the swamp” agenda.

Along with his failure to pass the Obamacare repeal, McConnell has allowed the Senate to delay action on dozens of Trump administration nominees. What is the use of having Republican leadership of the Senate when its’ leader cannot produce any legislative accomplishments?

On the major items in the President’s agenda, the Senate has not been able to provide victories on even one of them, except the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. At least the House passed a healthcare reform bill, even though it was imperfect. Unfortunately, the Senate seems incapable of doing anything, which is why McConnell should be fired as Majority Leader. If he had any decency, he would resign his post, but we should not expect such a selfless act from a lifelong politician like Mitch McConnell.

Under McConnell’s leadership, the Senate has produced six months of worthless talk and debate, but no legislative victories for President Trump. If this continues the GOP will suffer the same result in the 2018 mid-term election as what happened in the 2006 election, after four years of Republican Party leadership of the Congress and the White House.

In that period, Republicans used their majorities to deliver more debt, grow government, increase federal regulations and bureaucracies, add entitlement programs and start a brand-new government department. Thus, the Republicans acted like Democrats and the base reacted by withdrawing support for the party.

Eventually, this GOP abandonment of their principles paved the way for the 2008 election of President Barack Obama and Democrat majorities in Congress. The result was a hard-left agenda and possibly the most damaging President in our nation’s history. 

Similarly, the current failures will probably ensure Democrats make gains in the 2018 mid-term elections and possibly take control of Congress. In this case, with the GOP Congress doing nothing, the GOP base will be demoralized and will not turnout in substantial numbers in the next election. In contrast, the left is stark raving mad about Donald Trump and is very energized to elect a Democrat Congress in 2018.

Liberals know that if Democrats are elected to Congress, they will deliver legislative victories for their base. For example, the stimulus bill and the “Affordable Healthcare Act” were rammed through in the first two years of the Obama presidency
.
In contrast, conservative voters should have no confidence that congressional Republicans will deliver anything of real substance. The sobering result is that no matter which political party controls Congress, the federal leviathan grows.

Until the Republicans remove ineffective leaders like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, they will accomplish absolutely nothing and only set the stage for the Democrats to achieve full power once again."

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Added: We understand that the GOP Establishment sees themselves as Democrats and certainly would love Democrat voters to be their constituents. Which is fine, except it leaves half the country's electorate without a political party. It would've stayed that way if Trump hadn't come along. 

"The GOP is run by men who find sincerely held Republican beliefs to be mildly embarrassing in a, “You can’t seriously believe that, can you?” sort of way."...

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Note to my Google babysitters: The crap you keep pulling still isn't working. You're still losers.







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Latest Russia sanctions severely harm Europe as well. Trump’s enemies led by Schumer and McCain intend for the sanctions to harm Trump (and therefore the American people) the most. The sanctions seek to undo whole structure of relationships that won the Cold War and drive Europe into arms of Russia and China. Trump humiliated the entire Swamp in 2016; The Swamp believes it can't survive unless it stifles Trump's administration in its cradle-Spengler, David P. Goldman, 7/28/17

July 28, 2017, "Trump’s 'America First' vs. McCain’s 'America Last'," Spengler, David P. Goldman, PJ Media 

"Not the supposed protectionist Donald Trump, but the “free trade” wing of the Republican Party has taken the United States into a trade war that it can only lose. New sanctions against Russia passed by the House and Senate last week force Europe into a de facto alliance with Russia against the United States, and by extension with China as well. It is the dumbest and most self-destructive act of economic self-harm since the United States de-linked the dollar from gold on August 15, 1971, and it will have devastating consequences. 

The charade in the House and Senate may embarrass Trump, but it also poses a threat to European energy supplies as well as an extraterritorial intrusion into European governance. Berlin, Paris and Rome will conspire with Moscow to circumvent the sanctions while attacking the United States at the World Trade Organization and other international fora. 

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), and their counterparts in the House of Representatives allowed their dudgeon against a sometimes provocative president to overwhelm their sense of self-preservation. The sanctions will hurt Russia, but not nearly as much as they will hurt the United States over the long term. The White House envisioned sanctions as a bargaining chip, to be used to persuade Moscow to behave in the Ukraine and to limit the ambitions of its Iranian ally of convenience. In their present form, however, the president will have no authority to remove sanctions imposed by Congress. That turns a feint into a threat. Wars have been started over less. 

The Democrats along with the McCain Republicans, it will be remembered, accused Trump of undermining the Atlantic Alliance, of isolating the United States, and of handing a diplomatic victory to Russia. Not Trump, but his detractors have given Moscow a degree of leverage over Western Europe to which it has not aspired since the height of the Cold War in 1983, when Soviet premier Yuri Andropov considered a pre-emptive Russian attack in response to Western plans to deploy medium-range missiles in Germany. 

Supposedly it was Trump who ignored the exigencies of international relations in favor of domestic political theater. Yet it is the Establishment wing of the Republican Party and its Democratic allies who combined to embarrass the president, without a moment’s consideration of the consequences
of their actions. Among Washington’s elite, Trump Derangement Syndrome has nothing to do with ideology. It is about jobs and patronage. This is not hypocrisy. It is chutzpah. 

Trump humiliated the Democrats and the Establishment rump of the Republican Party last November. The losers now face the prospect of permanent exile from political life. Writing in the Times Literary Supplement July 25, historian Edward Luttwak predicted a Trump dynasty lasting sixteen years, in which Ivanka Trump Kushner would succeed her father. “No wonder that leading Democrats and non-Trumpers continue to act hysterically even eight months after the election. President Trump’s plan threatens to exclude them all from office until long past their retirement age,” Luttwak wrote.

The hopes of high office of the defeated Establishment can be realized only by stifling the Trump administration in its cradle. That is the motivation behind the Black Legend of Russian collusion that continues to occupy the waking hours of the American media while putting most Americans to sleep. As Sen. McCain said after the Senate vote July 27, the sanctions “respond to Russia’s attack on American democracy….We will not tolerate attacks on our democracy. That’s what this bill is all about. We must take our own side in this fight, not as Republicans, not as Democrats, but as Americans.” 

The notion that Russian machinations explain Trump’s electoral victory is fanciful, although Russia’s intelligence services no doubt sought targets of opportunity in the American electoral scramble. McCain’s outrage over the violation of America’s political virginity, though, rings rather hollow. Some of his friends, for example National Endowment for Democracy President Carl Gershman, publicly advocate regime change in Moscow, a topic that has been a matter of on-and-off public debate in Washington for years. A 2016 Defense Intelligence Agency document reported that Russia believes that the United States favors regime change. The U.S. supported the 2014 Maidan coup in Ukraine, which threatened Russia’s access to its Crimean warm-water port. America’s capacity to influence political events in and around Russia is vastly greater than Russia’s. 

After the fall of Communism, the dominant strain of American thinking held that the march of liberal democracy was unstoppable, and that it would transform the Muslim world as well as Moscow. I played a bit part in this project; in 1992, then Ambassador to Moscow Robert Strauss arranged for me to advise President Boris Yeltsin’s finance minister, Yegor Gaidar. Strauss did so at the behest of private equity investor Theodore Forstmann, who had funded a proposed study of the Russian economy. As it turned out I had little advice to give to the Yeltsin government, which was acting as a family office for various Russian oligarchs who divided up the Russian economy. The free-for-all of theft left the economy in ruins. One needed a large shopping bag full of currency to do ordinary shopping. A few hundred meters from the Kremlin, old people sold used clothing to buy food, and World War II veterans wore their medals to beg in the streets. No-one who had first-hand experience with Russia’s brief experience with democracy was surprised at Vladimir Putin’s subsequent popularity. The oligarchs continued to steal, but in a measured and organized fashion that allows ordinary life to proceed without catastrophic disruption. Putin rules Russia by means I sometimes find abhorrent, but his is a land where people don't talk of Ivan the Reasonable. 

An ideological residue of the utopian attitudes of the 1990s colors the Republican Establishment’s attitude towards Trump, but it does not really inform them. This is not about the U.S. elections, or Putin's nastiness, or freedom and democracy. It's about privilege and the pecking order in the Washington swamp. McCain and Schumer want to destroy Trump because a successful Trump administration would destroy them, and destroy the reputation of an entire generation of diplomats, intelligence officers, academics and military officers who achieved rank by promoting the export of democracy, nation building, counterinsurgency, and so forth. 

The trouble is that the Schumer-McCain combination has taken aim at Russia but inflicted collateral damage on the Europeans. The sanctions legislation in its present form allows the United States to impose heavy fines on European companies involved in energy infrastructure with Russia, and threatens several major projects now in progress, including the Nord Stream II natural gas pipeline, the Baltic Liquefied Natural Gas Project, and the Russia-Turkey Blue Stream pipeline, among others.

EC Commission chief Klaus Juncker warned July 27, “The U.S. bill could have unintended unilateral effects that impact the EU's energy security interests. If our concerns are not taken into account sufficiently, we stand ready to act appropriately within a matter of days. 'America First' cannot mean that Europe's interests come last.” 

The Trump administration has annoyed America’s trading partners previously by complaining about the exchange rate of the euro and about Germany’s trade surplus with the U.S. But those were cosmetic issues compared to sanctions which the Europeans see as a threat to essential economic interests. The French and German foreign ministries denounced the sanctions as a “violation of international law” and national governments as well as the European Commission are preparing as yet unspecified countermeasures.

Europeans suspect that the U.S. wants to sabotage Russian natural gas deliveries to Europe and replace them with LNG exports from the United States. Neither the Trump administration nor its opponents in Congress entertain such a Machiavellian agenda. On the contrary, the Trump administration initially supported sanctions against Russia as a bargaining chip, to be played to extract concessions from Moscow over the Ukraine, Iran and other matters of contention. The House and Senate bills in their present form effectively tie the president’s hands, turning what was a bargaining chip into a declaration of trade war. This would not be the first war to begin when what was intended as a feint was interpreted after the fact as a threat. 

Not Trump, but his domestic opponents have set in motion an unprecedented disturbance in Atlantic relations, and effectively put Berlin, Paris and Rome in the same camp with Moscow in opposing American policy. European governments are already consulting with Moscow about mechanisms to get around the sanctions. Russia has responded by expelling a large number of diplomats from the embassy in Moscow, but that is merely a symbolic gesture. There are more disagreeable measures that Moscow might take, such as providing advanced weapons to Iran, giving close air support to Iranian-controlled militias in Syria, and increasing military cooperation with China. Russia and China, as I have reported elsewhere, already back Iran’s international brigades of Shi’ites as a counter-toxin to Sunni jihadists shaken loose by America’s blunders in Iraq. 

America won the Cold War by driving a wedge between Russia and China, and by persuading a frightened Western Europe to point medium-range missiles at the Russian heartland. Russia sought to compensate for its economic inefficiency by turning Europe into an economic colony, and the most dangerous operations of the Cold War were undertaken to prevent this. Now, for narrow political reasons, Trump’s enemies propose to undo the whole structure of relationships that won the Cold War and drive Europe into the arms of the Russians and Chinese. I do not believe for a moment that McCain and Schumer have a clue about this—they are like the “sleepwalkers” in Christopher Clark’s brilliant history of the outbreak of the First World War—but if I were a Russian operative, I would try to invent someone like John McCain, if McCain did not already exist."

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John McCain given hero's welcome in Benghazi in April 2011, said critics of US bombing Libya should visit wonderful, free Benghazi. In Sept. 2012, heavily armed Islamist militants in "free" Benghazi attacked and set fire to the US Consulate and nearby CIA compound leaving 4 Americans dead

In April 2011, "Mr McCain called on critics of intervention to tour Benghazi to see a 'powerful and hopeful example of what a free Libya can be.'" On Sept. 11, 2012, heavily armed Islamist militants in Benghazi, Libya, attacked the US Consulate and a nearby CIA compound, killing 4 Americans.



4/22/2011, "'Let's get this thing over with,' says McCain as he calls for more help for rebels in Libya," Daily Mail

"A day after the U.S. said it was deploying drones in Libya, Senator John McCain called for more help for Libyan rebels so that can 'get this thing over with.'...

The former Republican presidential candidate toured the rebel stronghold of Benghazi on Friday. 

He received a hero's welcome on his tour as rebel forces, locked in a deadly stand-off with forces loyal to strongman Moammar Gaddafi, gained ground in central Misrata.

Mr McCain said the drones would increase NATO's capability but not enough to make up a shortfall needed to break a 'significant degree of stalemate.'...

Mr. McCain called on critics of intervention to tour Benghazi to see a 'powerful and hopeful example of what a free Libya can be.' 


People waved American flags as a crowd of about 100 Libyans greeted McCain, the leading Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee."...












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Added: 9/11/2012, heavily armed Islamist militants in Benghazi, Libya attacked and set fire to US Consulate and nearby CIA compound leaving 4 Americans dead:

"On Sept. 11, 2012, heavily armed Islamist militants launched an organized attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, setting fire to buildings before all U.S. personnel could escape or reinforcements could arrive. The attackers later launched mortar rounds at a nearby CIA compound. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed in the violence, making it the first time since 1979 that a U.S. ambassador was killed in the line of duty."


-------------------------------

Comment: Every Neocon intervention has left its lucky recipients in worse horror than they were before the "intervention."







.......................

In celebration of the exit of GOP Establishment's Reince Priebus: 'It's Over,' by Roy Orbison

Originally released 1964


Lyrics, "It's Over,"  Roy Orbison

"Your baby doesn't love you any more
Golden days before they end
Whisper secrets to the wind
Your baby won't be near you any more

Tender nights before they fly
Send falling stars that seem to cry
Your baby doesn't want you any more
It's over

It breaks your heart in two, to know she's been untrue
But oh what will you do?
When she says to you
There's someone new we're through, we're through
It's over, it's over, it's over

All the rainbows in the sky start to even say goodbye
You won't be seeing rainbows any more
Setting suns before they fall, echo to you that's all that's all
But you'll see lonely sunset after all

It's over, it's over, it's over, it's over
It's over"

..................

"Songwriters: Bill Dees, Roy Orbison

© Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd., Barbara Orbison Music Company, Orbi-Lee Music, R-Key Darkus

For non-commercial use only.

Data from: LyricFind

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While Scaramucci was on TV denouncing leaks, White House staffers were texting me new leaks-Bloomberg reporter Josh Green

July 28, 2017, "Josh Green: White House Staffers Were Texting Me New Leaks While Scaramucci Was On TV Denouncing Leakers," Real Clear Politics, Tim Hains

"Author and 'Bloomberg' journalist Joshua Green tells CNN that while the new White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci was on TV Thursday morning threatening White House staffers for leaking info, some of the very same White House staffers were texting and emailing him new leaks about Scaramucci. One called Scaramucci's interview a "car crash.""



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Top 25 RINOS per Conservative Review Editors. (RINO=Republican In Name Only) #1 and #2 are of course Paul Ryan and John McCain. Democrats love these two. They work hard to put the Deep State first and Amercans last (There's simply no money in putting America first)

"CR Top 25 RINOS," Conservative Review (Not dated. Linked on 7/28/17 by Free Republic)

"How are the CR Top 25 RINOs calculated?"

"The top 25 politicians in Conservative Review’s Top 25 RINOs (Republican in name only) are determined by CR editors using a points system. A politician who receives a first-place vote is assigned 25 points, second-place votes receive 24 points, and so on."

"1) Paul Ryan (Wi)
2) John McCain (Az)
3) Lisa Murkowski (Ak)
4) Lindsey Graham (SC) (open primary)
5) Thad Cochran (Miss.) (open primary)
6) Mitch McConnell (Ky)
7) Orrin Hatch (Utah)
8) Kevin McCarthy (Calif.)
9) Lamar Alexander (Tenn.) (open primary)
10) Bob Corker (Tenn.) (open primary) 
11) Susan Collins (Maine)
12) Tom Cole (Ok.)
13) Jeff Flake (Az)
14) John Cornyn (Tx)
15) Peter King (NY)
16) Mike Simpson (Idaho)
17) Harold Rogers (Ky)
18) Don Young (Ak)
19) Rob Portman (Ohio)
20) Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Wash)
21) Johnny Isakson (Ga)
22) Richard Burr (NC)
23) Charlie Dent (Pa.)
24) Susan Brooks (Indiana)
25) Shelley Capito (W. Va.)

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*Comment: I added "open primary" to three states (SC, Miss., Tenn.), but there are likely more states with open Republican primaries. These are three I happen to know about without having to look it up. "Open" Republican primaries allow Democrat voters. This increases chances for RINOS, ie Deep State candidates. Open primaries really aren't Republican primaries, but states will claim they can't afford to run a closed primary. A recent example in which Democrats delivered the win to the RINO GOP primary candidate: the 2014 Mississippi open GOP primary and runoff. The Establishment candidate won the runoff by getting forty thousand democrat votes. They even bought some black Democrat votes as reported by NY Times, by Angelo Codevilla, and by 538.com ...............................

Added: Three articles: 538.com, Codevilla and NY Times about 2014 Mississippi Open GOP primary and runoff which was finally won by soliciting and even buying Democrat votes:

1. 538.com, 6/25/2014

June 25, 2014, "It looks like African-Americans really did help Thad Cochran Win," 538.com, Harry Enten. With "some forty thousand votes."

............................ 

2. Angelo Codevilla, 6/30/2014

Establishment Republicans said buying black Democrat votes in Mississippi was “minority outreach:" "The (Wall St.) Journal’s Jason Riley endorsed it cynically as “minority outreach:”" 

6/30/2014, "The Ruling Class Went Down to Mississippi," Angelo M. Codevilla, Liberty Law site

"The mass of GOP and independent voters, having come to see themselves as disadvantaged and insulted by the ruling class, have increasingly supported anti-establishment candidates to challenge it in Republican primaries. Accurately, the Republican establishment sees this as a greater threat to themselves than any Democrats could be.

In the Mississippi primary, Republican establishmentarians from around the country solicited votes from Democrats to defeat the insurgent challenge to Senator Thad Cochran. Their arguments were the same ones used by the bipartisan ruling class that has ruled America for a generation:

The role of government is to generate benefits for its clients, 

and those who object are bad people.  

They paid many Democrat voters (nearly all black) so called “walking around money” for their votes, and have refused in many counties to let McDaniel aides examine the voter roles to see whether these voters were eligible to cast ballots.

The retail corruption is much less remarkable than the acquiescence therein of the establishment’s leadership – such as Karl Rove and The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page. This is very remarkable. Rove’s super-PAC, “Conservative Victory Project,” which played a leading role in recruiting Democrats for Cochran  exists explicitly to defeat insurgent Republicans everywhere.

The Journal’s editorial page, whose editorials and featured columnists mobilized opinion against the Mississippi insurgency, had done the same throughout this and previous years’ primaries. Rove’s post election commentary glossed over the vote-buying as if it had not happened, while the Journal’s Jason Riley endorsed it cynically as “minority outreach.” 

To Republican and independent voters who are dissatisfied with the direction of the country, the conflict between the pretenses and the actions of such as Rove and of the Journal added insult to injury. The Journal, for example, never loses an opportunity to declare itself the mortal enemy of “crony capitalism” as it decries the direction in which America has been headed, while the word “conservative” as part of the title of Rove’s super-PAC intentionally evokes the complex of sentiments of voters angry at the ruling class’s characterization of them as, well, the litany: “racist, greedy, stupid,” etc.

Indeed, the Republican Party’s very identity, the one, sole, argument it makes to persuade voters to vote Republican rather than Democrat, 

is that it will take the country

in a direction different from the one in which it has been going.

But, in the Mississippi primary, the Republican Establishment’s campaign was by and for crony capitalism, and employed the classic themes by which the ruling class has beaten down the rest of America.

To Mississippians white and black, the establishment’s message was: All this Tea Party talk about dangerous deficits and the need to cut spending is a threat to responsible officials’ capacity to bring you the jobs and federal assistance on which your prosperity depends. Orchestrating that message was Haley Barbour, former governor of Mississippi, former national chairman of the Republican Party, 

and arguably Washington’s biggest lobbyist.

Day to day operations were run by Stuart Stevens, formerly chief strategist in Mitt Romney’s 2012 national campaign, along with Henry and Austin Barbour, Haley’s nephews. There could be few better personifications of crony capitalism.

To the blacks, who, according to The New York Times’ FiveThirtyEight.com provided some forty thousand votes, the message was: 

"Don’t be intimidated by the Tea Party. . . . Mississippi cannot and will not return to the bygone era of intimidating black Mississippians from voting. We must rise up on Tuesday and have our voices heard on who will represent Mississippi in the U.S. Senate. VOTE THAD COCHRAN."

The Times reported the effect: Roger Smith, a black Democrat who said he was being paid to organize for Mr. Cochran, said, ‘I don’t know too much about [Cochran’s opponent] McDaniel other than what McDaniel is saying:

that he’s Tea Party, he’s against Obama, he don’t like black people.”

In short, those who oppose the way things are done in America are racists.  

You ought to hate them as they hate you.

Why do such things? Cui bono? Clearly such behavior by the Republican establishment has nothing to do with the role it claims for itself of opposition to the direction on which America has been taken in recent decades, never mind with anything “conservative.”

It has everything to do with maintaining its status, and that of its clients, within the ruling class.

The Mississippi primary confirmed yet again that, if America is to go in a direction other than the one of which some three fourths of American disapprove, it is compelled to do so with a vehicle other than the Republican Party."

----------------------------

"Angelo M. Codevilla professor emeritus of international relations at Boston University. He served as a U.S. Senate Staff member dealing with oversight of the intelligence services. His new book Peace Among Ourselves and With All Nations was published by Hoover Institution Press." Photo above from Liberty Law site.

============================

3. NY Times article, 6/24/2014: 

From NY Times article, a Black Mississippi Democrat says he was paid to organize for the Republican Establishment candidate in Mississippi's 2014 open Republican primary. Money from around the country poured in to help the Establishment candidate defeat the grassroots candidate. Liberal billionaire Mike Bloomberg gave as much as $500,000 to support the GOP Establishment candidate over the grassroots Republican:

6/24/2014, "Cochran Holds Off Tea Party Challenger in Mississippi," NY Times, Jonathan Weisman, Hattiesburg, Mississippi

"Roger Smith, a black Democrat who said he was being paid to organize for Mr. Cochran, said, “I don’t know too much about McDaniel other than what McDaniel’s saying: that he’s Tea Party, he’s against Obama, he don’t like black people.”

“You’re going to get one of the white guys in there,” he said. “You got to make a choice.”... 

With an unusual assist from African-American voters and other Democrats...Senator Thad Cochran on Tuesday beat back a spirited challenge from State Senator Chris McDaniel, triumphing in a Republican runoff and defeating the Tea Party in the state where the movement’s hopes were bright....

Mr. McDaniel, speaking in Hattiesburg, was angry, and he did not hesitate to say so. “There is something a bit strange, there is something a bit unusual about a Republican primary that’s decided by liberal Democrats,” he said."...

=======





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