Step Right Up! See the Amazing Anti-Trump Contortionists Defy the Laws of Anatomy and Reason!
If you’ve been asking yourself where all the carnival barkers and side-show contortionists have gone, wonder no longer! They have joined the elite media and vast swathes of the US bureaucracy, especially intelligence and federal law enforcement.
The examples are uncountable, but two are of particular moment today. The first relates to Operation Telling the Truth Slowly (Very Slowly), which relates to a counterintelligence operation mounted against the Trump campaign. You’ll remember that the original response, 14 months ago, to Trump’s allegation that he had been “wiretapped” was outraged denial. Said denials no longer being plausible have required massive contortions to create a new narrative. The barkers at the NYT are promoting the show, based on leaks from US law enforcement and intelligence. Well, yes, a US intelligence asset located in Britain was sent out to contact Carter Page and George Papadopolous, because of their suspect Russian ties. Michael Flynn was also targeted because despite his vitriolic anti-Russia rhetoric in a book, he shared a table with Putin once at an RT function.
But this wasn’t a campaign directed at the Trump campaign! Oh–quite to the contrary! According to the whatever-is-worse-than-execrable-and-then-whatever-is-worse-than-that James Clapper, with the WaPo serving as chief barker now, this was intended to PROTECT Trump from insidious Russian influences. Which of course had to be accomplished by never telling him that his hangers on were being investigated.
There is widespread speculation about who the individual pointed at Page and Papadopolous was. The Republicans in Congress are demanding to know the name, which has sent the deep staters and their barkers (e.g., Ben Witless, I mean Wittes) into paroxysms of rage. Krugman went so far as to assert that demanding the revelation of this name is treason.
Um, the NYT article has released leaked information about just about everything about the guy but his shoe size. (That’s probably tomorrow’s exclusive.) . Certainly every intelligence agency in the world from whom we would want to protect his identity already knows who he is–and did so probably even before the leaks. So it is beyond superfluous to conceal his identity–except to buy the FBI and CIA and others some time and perhaps the chance to cover their sorry asses.
I actually take comfort in their rage. It means they are very, very afraid.
What is interesting is Carter Page’s silence. All he has to say is: “I met the following people”–and let the frenzy begin! He wouldn’t be disclosing any intelligence, because he would not represent, nor would he know, who was a US source. That he remains silent suggests he is scared.
Or of course some intrepid journalist could ask him (perhaps dropping a name like, I dunno, Stefan Halper)!
I know. I’m so droll.
One last thing on this. The conventional reporting, especially on the pro-Trump side, is that there was a spy in the campaign. This is misleading (based on what we know) and they should stop saying so NOW to avoid providing a convenient straw man for the anti-Trumpers to knock down.
I think what happened is more analogous to The Sting, or another classic con. Someone was sent to set up a mark. In this case, the marks were Page and Papadopolous, After they were set up, they could serve as a pretext to mount a counterintelligence operation that wormed into the Trump campaign via their communications, and the communications of everyone they communicated with.
The second contortion act, involves yesterday’s meeting between Merkel and Putin. Now, non-contortionists with a modicum of sense of shame and intellectual consistency would blast her for meeting with their alleged arch enemy, whom they claim happens to be the root of all evil in the world. But, what is clear is that despite all of their ravings about Putin as part of their jeremiads against Trump, that in their minds Trump is the arch enemy and the root of all evil in the world. Putin is just a convenient stick to beat him with, and when that stick doesn’t work, they will pick up another.
But instead she is being lionized, and being credited for reasonably working with Putin to oppose Trump’s anti-Putin measures (such as threatening to block Nord Stream) and Trump’s move on the Iran deal. FFS, if Trump had met with Putin the anti-Trump lot would be barking that it is because he was selling out the West, and that he is the equivalent of the South Seas Cannibal. Merkel is making cooing noises at Russia and Putin–primarily out of her narcissistic pique at Trump–and saying how important it is for Germany to have a good relationship with Russia.
Merkel says to applause that good relations with Russia are important to Germany. Which is exactly what Trump has said about Russia and the US–only to have this thrown back in his face as evidence of his being Putin’s pawn.
If Trump said or did any of these things the barkers would be screaming. SELLOUT. TRAITOR. COLLUSION. IMPEACH HIM–THEN BURN HIM AT THE STAKE!
And tell me: how is Making America Great Again anti-western? If anything, it is a muscular assertion of Western primacy by a Gulliver who is unwilling to be tied down by Europutians. I would argue that in fact, Germany is far less part of the West than the US, and has been since before Arminius slaughtered three Roman legions in the Teuteborg Forest. (I may well write a post on this. Suffice it to say that German thought has always been decidedly opposed to Anglo-Saxon, French, and Italian thought, and two world wars show exactly how and why.) Meaning that making America great again is far more pro-Western than Making the EU Great ever will be, given that it is a crypto-socialist Trojan Horse for German ambitions.
I also note that Merkel is–get this–reaching out to Xi as an ally on free trade.
This is such utter bullshit that even my 800 SAT score scatalogical vocabulary is utterly inadequate to do it justice. Yet all of the carnival barkers not only eat it up, they regurgitate it. (This also happened in spades at Davos.)
So we see why all the contortions are necessary. Every argument must be bent and twisted and contorted in order to support the anti-Trump crusade, even though doing so violates the rules of logic, the rules of evidence, and basic human decency.
The american political systems seems to be highly dysfunctional (as is the case in most european countries), to put it mildly.
The things you describe are worrying facts, if you ask me. Not just for you, as a US citizen, but the entire world.
Now, I haven’t been to the US in a while, so maybe you can tell me whether any sane (my blog sources are obviously biased) person really ever believed the Russiagate crap. If yes, I am even more worried…
(Most americans I meet in Europe seem to be fine with Trump, so I thought it is a leftist journo thing and can be ignored)
Now, what do you mean with germany not beeing part of the west, and German thought being opposed to The rest?
Apart from the questionable fact that you are lumping anglo-saxons, french and Italians together (to which most members of these three respective groups would heavily disagree-trust me, I speak These languages and have even lived for a while in each of these countries and Work them repeatedly) you also use the ww1 and 2 (2 probably would not have happened without ww1) as evidence that germany doesn’t belong to the west.
Never mind the fact that in both wwars russia/the Soviet Union was an ally (and Italy was an ally of them Germans, whereas plenty of French also collaborated in Vichy)???
In addition, the west in the way you use it, is a cold war concept (and thus fairly recent) that would have been unfamiliar to most of the thinkers originating most of European thought. (It is of course different with the distinction between western and eastern christianity, which I assume is not what you have in mind).
I assume you are familiar with the book “the German Genius: Europe”s third rennaissance, the second scientific revoulution and the 20th century” by Peter Watson (Anglo-saxon). If not, I suggest it’s time…
Would be interesting to read your elaborations, as I am somewhat confused by this remark.
(I consider myself Austrian and German is one of my mother tongues…)
Comment by Viennacapitalist.com — May 20, 2018 @ 2:51 am
“doing so violates the rules of logic, the rules of evidence, and basic human decency.” Sounds like a great description of progressivism.
Comment by Andrew Stanton — May 20, 2018 @ 6:50 am
‘According to the whatever-is-worse-than-execrable-and-then-whatever-is-worse-than-that James Clapper’
The word ‘unspeakable’ was invented for just these people.
Maybe ‘John Brennan-like’ is what you’re looking for, but (and I can’t believe I’m going to write this) that would be unfair to John Brennan.
‘I actually take comfort in their rage. It means they are very, very afraid.’
This ominous phrase is now appearing on the fringe noticeboards: ‘Now comes the pain’.
Popcorn at the ready.
Comment by Global Super-Regulator on Lunch Break — May 20, 2018 @ 3:28 pm
Don’t get too upset by Merkel’s behaviour because she is an idiot. Without question, she is the worst chancellor of Germany (West or united) since the one who shot himself in a bunker in Berlin. Having destroyed her country’s future by bringing in over a million people who have absolutely no intention of ever changing their beliefs and are contemptuous of the citizens her government is supposed to be protecting, she has shown herself to be completely unbalanced on a number of issues. Sadly, there does not seem to be any end to the tragicomedy that Germany has inflicted upon itself.
Comment by Ben in Ottawa — May 20, 2018 @ 3:45 pm
contortion – and desperation
the standard leftie technique is to ramp up the screaming and lying on a logarithm scale when they’ve been caught.
here’s an article that essentially says the same thing as you, SWP
what I want to know is – what did the Australian, Downer, expect to get for his $25 million “donation” to the Klinton Krime Family Slush Fund???????
http://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/388549-stopping-robert-mueller-to-protect-us-all
At this point, there is little doubt that the highest echelons of the FBI and the Justice Department broke their own rules to end the Hillary Clinton “matter,” but we can expect the inspector general to document what was done or, more pointedly, not done. It is hard to see how a yearlong investigation of this won’t come down hard on former FBI Director James Comey and perhaps even former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who definitely wasn’t playing mahjong in a secret “no aides allowed” meeting with former President Clinton on a Phoenix airport tarmac.
With this report on the way and congressional investigators beginning to zero in on the lack of hard, verified evidence for starting the Trump probe, current and former intelligence and Justice Department officials are dumping everything they can think of to save their reputations.
But it is backfiring. They started by telling the story of Alexander Downer, an Australian diplomat, as having remembered a bar conversation with George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign. But how did the FBI know they should talk to him? That’s left out of their narrative. Downer’s signature appears on a $25 million contribution to the Clinton Foundation. You don’t need much imagination to figure that he was close with Clinton Foundation operatives who relayed information to the State Department, which then called the FBI to complete the loop. This wasn’t intelligence. It was likely opposition research from the start.
Comment by elmer — May 21, 2018 @ 9:47 am
law firm used by Obummer for 2016 campaign!!!!!! – maybe Michelle was running?? – funnels money from that “campaign” to ====== Fusion GPS!!
This is in addition to what was paid by the DNC and “her” campaign (you know, as in “I’m with “her””)
http://thefederalist.com/2017/10/29/obamas-campaign-gave-972000-law-firm-funneled-money-fusion-gps/
Obama’s Campaign Paid $972,000 To Law Firm That Secretly Paid Fusion GPS In 2016
Since April of 2016, Obama’s campaign organization has paid nearly a million dollars to the law firm that funneled money to Fusion GPS to compile a dossier of unverified allegations against Donald Trump.
Comment by elmer — May 21, 2018 @ 10:43 am
More on the mendacity of the NY Times article:
https://consortiumnews.com/2018/05/18/making-excuses-for-russiagate/
Comment by elmer — May 22, 2018 @ 7:31 am