Tag Archives: The swamp

Everyone Was Wrong About Trump, by Caitlin Johnstone

Posted on December 23, 2020 | 2 comments

Aside from his rhetoric, Trump has been pretty much a status quo president. From Caitlin Johnstone at caitlinjohnstone.com:

After weeks of speculation and desperate hopes that Donald Trump might be preparing to pardon NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and/or WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange before leaving office on January 20th, what the latest round of presidential pardons has delivered is about as far from that as you can conceivably imagine.

“In an audacious pre-Christmas round of pardons, President Trump granted clemency on Tuesday to two people convicted in the special counsel’s Russia inquiry, four Blackwater guards convicted in connection with the killing of Iraqi civilians and three corrupt former Republican members of Congress,” the New York Times reports.

I probably don’t need to tell my regular readers this, but a Trump pardon for Assange and Snowden is almost certainly not in the cards. Trump has done nothing but protect the imperial status quo the entire time he’s been in office and a pardon for either of those heroic government transparency advocates would be a deviation from his established patterns unlike anything he’s ever once demonstrated while in office. It’s good to pressure politicians to do the right thing even when they probably won’t, but it’s a safe bet that he won’t.

Trump’s entire term has revealed that virtually everyone, all across the US political spectrum, has been wrong about him. And it’s a testament to the power of media echo chambers that for the most part they remain just as wrong about him as they were four years ago

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Behind the Scenes in Swamptopia, by James Howard Kunstler

Posted on November 30, 2020 | Leave a comment

When it comes to the election, expect the unexpected. From James Howard Kunstler at kunstler.com:

Apart from the soporific side-effects of eating all that leftover turkey for three more days after Thursday’s celebration of gluttony, this holiday weekend was, news-wise, as still as the mummy’s tomb, or, rather, Joe Biden’s basement. Yet these post-election days are gravid with portent. The major newspapers and cable news platforms report nothing beyond their heartwarming narrative of Biden risin’ with Woke times a’comin’— but the casual observer senses powerful intrigues swirling backstage in Swamptopia. Something tells me the scene is about to liven up this week, even explode.

There is the matter of the Kraken. Perhaps Sidney Powell was not speaking just figuratively about the lurking monster of the deep. The Kraken, apparently, is an actual computer system developed by the Department of Defense (DOD) to ferret out malevolent computer programs as might be deployed in cyber-warfare… or janky elections. Miz Powell has had legal consort all year with General Mike Flynn, the former chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency railroaded on a fake charge by the FBI, now pardoned, free to speak and act. Do you suppose that Gen. Flynn does not know about the agency’s cyber-warfare capabilities? Or that he does not know skilled military technicians who can spell out, say, in a court of law, exactly how the Kraken might be put to use? Or how the Kraken intersects with the two CIA proprietary election hacking programs, Hammer and Scorecard?

Next, there is the matter of where these agencies stand with each other these days. It was not for nothing that the president sacked cheeky Sec’y of Defense Mark Esper and replaced him with Christopher Miller, a Special Forces warrior, lately, as Deputy Assistant Sec-Def, in charge of counterterrorism, Military Information Support Operations (MISO), Information Operations, unconventional warfare, irregular warfare, direct action, special reconnaissance, foreign internal defense, counter proliferation, sensitive special operations.

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Posted in Civil Liberties, Collapse, Crime, Cronyism, Government, Law, Politics

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“Washington Is Exhausted”: Swamp Gears Up For Post-Trump Power Orgy, by Tyler Durden

Posted on November 29, 2020 | Leave a comment

Thank goodness the swamp will be back and the “right” people will be running things. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

Washington elites are breathing a sigh of relief, as power players on both sides of the aisle gear up for ‘business as usual’ following a four-year disruption in swamp-activities – thanks to one Donald J. Trump, whose perhaps prematurely anticipated departure from the Oval Office has the DC establishment licking their chops.

“The classic friendly-rivals dinner party will be back, likely bigger than ever, with VIP guests from the Biden administration, a few formers from the Obama crowd, a senator or two seated next to a Supreme Court justice,” according to the Washington Post‘s Roxanne Roberts

Shoving the Uniparty’s collective excitement in our plebeian faces, Roberts writes in. full. stops. “Washington is exhausted. Washington is optimistic. Washington is desperate for change. The aristocracy of this city is ready to move on, daring to hope that the last four years was a fever that finally broke and life can get back to normal.”

Poor Washington.

“Normal, as in a respect for experience and expertise. Normal, as in civility and bipartisan cooperation. Normal, as in not wanting to punch someone in the face,” Roxanne continues.

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Which Side Are You On? by James Howard Kunstler

Posted on December 28, 2018 | Leave a comment

America’s corrupt economy and way of life are headed for a crack-up, regardless of anything President Trump may or may not do, but the mainstream media is blissfully oblivious. From James Howard Kunstler at kunstler.com:

You had to love the narrative that the financial media put over about the 1000-plus point zoom in the DJIA on Wednesday: that pension funds were “rebalancing” their portfolios. It dredged up the image of a drowning man at the bottom of the deep blue sea with an anchor in one hand and an anvil in the other, switching hands.

Thursday’s last minute 900-point turnaround was another marvelous stunt to behold. Somebody gave the drowned man a pair of swim fins to kick himself furiously to the surface for a gulp of air. The truth, of course, is that pension funds are sunk, however you balance their investment loads while they’re underwater. They over-bought stocks out of sheer desperation during ten years of near-ZIRP bond yields, and started rotating back into bonds as they crept above the ZIRP handle, and now with bond yields retreating, they’re loading up again on still-overpriced stocks that pretend to be “bargains.” Everybody knows that this will not end well for pension funds. Glug Glug.

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Posted in Business, Collapse, Cronyism, Debt, Economy, Environment, Financial markets, Government, Media, Morality, Pensions, Politics

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Three (3) Reasons Why Elections Don’t Matter, by Doug “Uncola” Lynn

Posted on November 8, 2018 | Leave a comment

Doug “Uncola” Lynn examines the trends and forces that render elections irrelevant. From Lynn at theburningplatform.com:

In so many ways, elections in America have become just another manifestation of bread and circuses; like watching a reality TV show when your house is on fire.  It’s why this article was almost named:

“The Inevitableness of Reality Requires Honesty and Acceptance”

Of course, the 2018 Midterm Elections will be analyzed ad nauseam, with other writers and pundits parsing it better than this blogger.  However, suffice it to say:  There was no Blue Wave and Trump has now solidified leadership of his Republican Party; at least more so than during the last two years of his administration.

In a raucous press conference the day after, Trump claimed victory and said his party “defied history to expand our Senate majority”. The president also said his focus in the days prior to the election remained on the senate and pointed out that most of the candidates for whom he campaigned had won their respective races.

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Posted in Crime, Debt, Economics, Economy, Government, Morality, Politics, Privacy, Surveillance

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