These Mysterious Euskarians

kondaira |  Euskara has never been in contact with the Berber dialects that are currently spoken in the Maghreb. However, it has similar words to the ones of those languages that perhaps were introduced in Euskara through the Iberian language.
 

According to the theory of the Proto-Basque expansion that took place after the last Ice Age, which is based on the most recent research on Archaeogenetics, those similarities could be due to migrations of Proto-Basque human groups to Africa. This ancient population could leave words and even Basque verbal morphemes during the miscegenation process with the Hamitic peoples of northern Africa that have been kept in their languages until the present day. 

Thus, it can be explained the existence of Basque words in Berber, Guanche (Canary Islands), Somali, Ethiopian and in old Egyptian (they are all Hamitic languages), as well as the vigesimal numeral system that is kept in the Tachelhit dialect of Berber. 

 

Due to those similarities between Basque and Hamitic words, there was proposed the Basque-Berber theory which considered Euskara as related to Berber. This theory was abandoned some years ago since the similarities found were only lexical or lexicographical while they are very different today, as in the past, when concerning syntax and grammar. However, some similarities are observed especially in the verbal articulation as well as the usage of some particles, as stated above.

The Basques May Not Be Who We Think They Are

discover |  In terms of historical genetics these assumptions result in the Basque population be used as a “reference” for the indigenous component of the European ancestry which reaches back to the Last Glacial Maximum, and expanded from the Iberian refugium after the ice retreated. One of reasons for the assumption of Basque antiquity & purity are genetic peculiarities of the Basques. Foremost among them is that the Basque seem to have the highest frequency of Rh- in the world, primarily because of the high frequency of the null allele within the population (it is a recessively expressed trait). Rh- is very rare outside of Europe, but its frequency exhibits a west-east gradient even within the continent. It has been suggested that the mixing of Rh- and Rh+ blood groups reflects the mixing of hunter-gatherers and farmers in after the Ice Age. The map above the illustrates the frequencies of this trait, and you can see how the Basque region is cordoned off. It’s an old map because blood group were widely collected in the early 20th century. Because of the early knowledge of this heritable trait you have a lot of weird anthropological theories which hinge around blood group genetics having emerged in the early 20th century. But even as late as the mid-90s L. L. Cavalli-Sforza reported in The History and Geography of Human Genes using classical markers that the Basques exhibited some distinctiveness. Over the years with the rise of Y and mtDNA phylogenetics this distinctiveness has taken a hit. I think the data have a tendency of confirming expectations, or it is often interpreted as such. But the recent story of the R1b haplogroup strongly implied that the Basques are no different from other west Europeans, and are likely the descendants of Neolithic farmers themselves! A new paper in Human Genetics supports the contention that the Basque are just like other Europeans, A genome-wide survey does not show the genetic distinctiveness of Basques:

Basques are a cultural isolate, and, according to mainly allele frequencies of classical polymorphisms, also a genetic isolate. We investigated the differentiation of Spanish Basques from the rest of Iberian populations by means of a dense, genome-wide SNP array. We found that F ST distances between Spanish Basques and other populations were similar to those between pairs of non-Basque populations. The same result is found in a PCA of individuals, showing a general distinction between Iberians and other South Europeans independently of being Basques. Pathogen-mediated natural selection may be responsible for the high differentiation previously reported for Basques at very specific genes such as ABO, RH, and HLA. Thus, Basques cannot be considered a genetic outlier under a general genome scope and interpretations on their origin may have to be revised. 

Universality and Diversity in Human Song

reuters |  From love songs to dance tunes to lullabies, music made in disparate cultures worldwide displays certain universal patterns, according to a study by researchers who suggest a commonality in the way human minds create music. 

The study, published on Thursday, focused on musical recordings and ethnographic records from 60 societies around the world including such diverse cultures as the Highland Scots in Scotland, Nyangatom nomads in Ethiopia, Mentawai rain forest dwellers in Indonesia, the Saramaka descendants of African slaves in Suriname and Aranda hunter-gatherers in Australia. 

Music was broadly found to be associated with behaviors including infant care, dance, love, healing, weddings, funerals, warfare, processions and religious rituals. 

The researchers detected strong similarities in musical features across the various cultures, according to Samuel Mehr, a Harvard University research associate in psychology and the lead author of the study published in the journal Science. 

“The study gives credence to the idea that there is some sort of set of governing rules for how human minds produce music worldwide. And that’s something we could not really test until we had a lot of data about music from many different cultures,” Mehr said. 

Penn State University anthropology professor Luke Glowacki, a study co-author, said many ethnomusicologists have believed that the features in a given piece of music are most heavily influenced by the culture from which the music originates. 

“We found something very different,” Glowacki said. “Instead of music being primarily shaped by the culture it is from, the social function of the piece of music influences its features much more strongly.” 

The full paper.

Did Adolph Reed Jr. Just Now Call Bullshit on the ADOS Agenda?

newrepublic |  This way of thinking about injustice and what does and doesn’t call for remedial action has its roots in enforcement of anti-discrimination law in the 1960s and 1970s. Identifying disparate treatment or outcomes that correlate with racial difference can be a critical step in validating a complaint. However, the inclination to fixate on such disparities as the only objectionable form of inequality can create perverse political incentives. We devote a great deal of rhetorical and analytic energy to the project of determining just which groups, or population categories, suffer or have suffered the worst. Cynics have sometimes referred to this brand of what we might term political one-downsmanship as the “oppression Olympics”—a contest in which groups that have attained or are vying for legal protection effectively compete for the moral or cultural authority that comes with the designation of most victimized. 

Even short of that cynical view, a central focus on group-level disparities can lead to mistaken diagnoses of the sources and character of the manifest inequalities it identifies. And those mistaken diagnoses, in turn, can reflect damaging class and ideological biases that ultimately undercut the struggle for social justice and equality. In this column and later ones, I will examine facets of this problem and its entailments. A key point of departure here is the study I published in 2012 with Columbia University public health Professor Merlin Chowkwanyun, explicating how what we call the “disparitarian perspective” has distorted discussion of the impact of the New Deal on black Americans.

BootyJudge and Harriot Had a Slap Fight, McWhorter Earns His Blue Check by Calling It Out

TheAtlantic |  A beautiful illustration of the difference between Twitter and the real world is the viral status of Michael Harriot’s attack on Mayor Pete Buttigieg in The Root as a “lying MF.”

theroot |  I don’t enjoy fighting. I don’t even fight very well. In fact, if I combined my amateur fist-fighting record, my jiu-jitsu sparring, all of my slap-boxing exhibitions, and the time Zevalon Jackson slapped me for talking smack while running a Boston on her in spades, my winning percentage is well below .500. But I believe fisticuffs are a legitimate way to settle disputes while arguments are usually pointless exercises to get one party to proclaim why the other party is wrong. I’d rather you beat me up.

So when I received a text message from South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign about an article I wrote, I genuinely hoped that he was going to send four or five of his thugs over to rough me up and that would be it. (And if you don’t believe there are Pete Buttigieg supporters out there willing to throw hands, then you probably aren’t on Twitter. I think they should call themselves the “Pete Patrol.” Or the “Buttigang.”)

I figured one of his surrogates would argue with me for a few minutes and I could continue my day trying to be a thorn in the side of white supremacy (The third thing you should know is that I actually keep a small photo of the mouse from Pinky and the Brain beside my bed that says: “What are you going to do today, Michael?” The answer is always the same: “Fuck with white people.”)

Luckily, as soon as I agreed to take a phone call, the phone rang. The voice sounded vaguely familiar and I knew it wasn’t a surrogate or a campaign volunteer when the person said:

“I don’t think I’ve ever been called a ‘lying motherfucker’ before.”

It was Pete Buttigieg.

Well, I thought. Maybe he does want to fight.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, Dying Time's Here....,

courier-journal |   Somewhere deep in Mexico's remote wilderness, the world’s most dangerous and wanted drug lord is hiding. If someone you love dies from an overdose tonight, he may very well be to blame.

He's called "El Mencho."

And though few Americans know his name, authorities promise they soon will.

Rubén "Nemesio" Oseguera Cervantes is the leader of Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación, better known as CJNG. With a $10 million reward on his head, he’s on the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s Most Wanted list.

El Mencho’s powerful international syndicate is flooding the U.S. with thousands of kilos of methamphetamines, heroin, cocaine and fentanyl every year — despite being targeted repeatedly by undercover stings, busts and lengthy investigations.

The unending stream of narcotics has contributed to this country’s unprecedented addiction crisis, devastating families and killing more than 300,000 people since 2013.

CJNG’s rapid rise heralds the latest chapter in a generations-old drug war in which Mexican cartels are battling to supply Americans’ insatiable demand for narcotics.

A nine-month Courier Journal investigation reveals how CJNG's reach has spread across the U.S. in the past five years, overwhelming cities and small towns with massive amounts of drugs.

kctv5 |   As the officer in charge of COMBAT, Jackson County’s Drug Trafficking Task Force Dan Cumming deals with a lot of dangerous people.

“About 100% of what we recover, if you follow it back far enough up the drug train so to speak, comes from Mexico and is cartel related,” Cummings said.

Just last week, COMBAT worked a case at the request of Independence police.

A tip led them to a Kansas City, Missouri street where a search warrant led to the seizure of tires filled with meth.

“My guess is that’s the way it was shipped from Mexico to Kansas City,” Cummings said.

Cartels get creative when smuggling drugs in customs and border protection has a few recent examples.

Fentanyl in a vehicle transmission, heroine in a gas tank, marijuana inside a car door and cocaine in clay figurines.

Cummings says he’s seeing more cartel related drug busts in Kansas City now than he has in his 35 plus years in law enforcement.

“We switched from meth labs to Mexican cartels,” Cummings said.

kmbc |   Two Mexican nationals have been sentenced in federal court for their roles in a conspiracy that distributed more than 14 kilograms of heroin in the Kansas City metropolitan area, some of which is believed to have resulted in overdoses and deaths.

Julian Felix-Aguirre, 46, and Martin Missael Puerta-Navarro, 38, were sentenced in separate hearings before U.S. District Judge Gary A. Fenner on Wednesday. Felix-Aguirre was sentenced to 24 years and seven months in federal prison without parole. Pueta-Navarro was sentenced to 14 years and eight months in federal prison without parole.

fox4kc |  "No where is immune," said Erik Smith with the Drug Enforcement Administration. "There are people who become dependent on controlled substances and have need to satisfy that addiction, and any place there is a consumer, an addict or user, somebody will supply that drug for that."

The DEA special agent in charge said feeding the demand for drugs in Johnson County goes well beyond teenage drug dealers.

Smith said Mexican cartels really are living here in Johnson County.

"Historically, a decade ago, two decades ago, a lot of cartels would limit themselves to the inner city," he said. "But as they become more established and they become more wealthy, it's quite common to see them branching out into suburban areas including Johnson County."

How the DEA Invented NarcoTerrorism...,

propublica  |  On Sept. 11, 2001, when
 American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon, DEA agents were among the first to respond, racing from their headquarters, less than half a mile away. A former special agent named Edward Follis, in his memoir, “The Dark Art,” recalls how he and dozens of his colleagues “rushed over … to pull out bodies, but there were no bodies to pull out.” The agency had outposts in more than 60 countries around the world, the most of any federal law-enforcement agency. And it had some 5,000 informants and confidential sources. Michael Vigil, who was the DEA’s head of international operations at the time, told me, “We called in every source we could find, looking for information about what had happened, who was responsible, and whether there were plans for an imminent attack.” He added, “Since the end of the Cold War, we had seen signs that terrorist groups had started relying on drug trafficking for funding. After 9/11, we were sure that trend was going to spread.”

  

But other intelligence agencies saw the DEA’s sources as drug traffickers — and drug traffickers didn’t know anything about terrorism. A former senior money-laundering investigator at the Justice Department told me that there wasn’t any substantive proof to support the DEA’s assertions.

“What is going on after 9/11 is that a lot of resources move out of drug enforcement and into terrorism,” he said. “The DEA doesn’t want to be the stepchild that is last in line.” Narco-terrorism, the former investigator said, became an “expedient way for the agency to justify its existence.”

The White House proved more receptive to the DEA’s claims. Juan Zarate, a former deputy national-security adviser, in his book, “Treasury’s War,” says that President George W. Bush wanted “all elements of national power” to contribute to the effort to “prevent another attack from hitting our shores.” A few months after 9/11, at a gathering of community anti-addiction organizations, Bush said, “It’s so important for Americans to know that the traffic in drugs finances the work of terror. If you quit drugs, you join the fight against terror in America.” In February 2002, the Office of National Drug Control Policy turned Bush’s message into a series of publicservice announcements that were aired during the Super Bowl. Departing from the portrayal of illegal narcotics as dangerous to those who use them — “This is your brain on drugs” — the ads instead warned that getting high helped terrorists “torture someone’s dad” or “murder a family.”

In the next seven years, the DEA’s funding for international activities increased by 75 percent. Until then, the agency’s greatest foreign involvement had been in Mexico and in the Andean region of South America, the world’s largest producer of cocaine and home to violent Marxist guerrilla groups, including the FARC, in Colombia, and the Shining Path, in Peru. Both groups began, in the 1960s and early ‘70s, as peasant rebellions; before long, they started taxing coca growers and smugglers to finance their expansion. The DEA saw the organizations as examples of how criminal motivations can overlap with, and even advance, ideological ones.

Long Overdue Time to Cut Part of the Deep State Funding Chain

 npr |  President Trump says he plans to designate Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, a move that is stoking fears in Mexico that American authorities would use the label to justify a military response across the border against the cartels. 

"I will be designating the cartels," Trump said in an interview with former Fox News Channel host Bill O'Reilly, who raised the issue of the U.S. sending drones into Mexico. Trump did not comment on the idea, but he said the terrorist designation is underway. 

"I have been working on that for the last 90 days. You know, designation is not that easy, you have to go through a process, and we are well into that process," Trump said.

Former diplomat and Mexico expert Jana Nelson told NPR that as Trump's comments have spread, worries have deepened in Mexico that the designation could lead to military action. 

"It has generated some concern in Mexico that the U.S. will actually send the military into Mexico, and if not boots on the ground itself, then perhaps drones to combat drug cartels," said Nelson, a Wilson Center political analyst who is based in Mexico City.

Thank You For Giving Me the Strength, Conviction, and Abject Lucidity

The Democratic Party plays an indispensable role in America's political machinery.  It wields the dominant "narrative shaping" power in America in terms of controlling the state and setting policy. without the More importantly, without the existence of the Democratic Party, the US could no longer maintain the pretense that it's a "democracy." 

If the Democratic Party disintegrates, the US will be revealed for what it really is -- a one-party state ruled by a narrow alliance of business interests. Thus, the party's "narrative shaping" power is revealed as largely theatrical. 

The Democratic Party doesn't exist to fight for change, but only to pose as a force which one fine distant day might possibly bestir itself to fight for change. The essential service it renders to the US power structure -- lies not in what it does, but in its mere existence: by existing, and doing nothing, it pretends to be something it's not; and this is enough to relieve despair to let the system portray itself as a "democracy." 

 As long as the Democratic Party exists, suggestible Americans will believe they have a "democracy" and a "choice" in how they are ruled. They will not despair, and will not revolt.  

So long as they have this hope for "change from within the system." 

From the system's point of view, this mechanism serves as the ultimate safety valve.  The Democratic Party narrative insures that a despairing but still suggestible populace, will never coalesce into rebellion. It guarantees that no serious change to the system will be mounted. The modern Democratic Party wasn't designed to play that role..

The Democratic Party is not the "lesser evil;" it is an auxiliary subdivision of the same evil. To understand the American political system, one must step back and regard its operation as an integrated whole. 

The system can't be properly understood if one's study of it begins with an uncritical acceptance of the 2-party system, and the conventional characterizations of the two parties. (Indeed, the fact that society encourages one to view it in this way, is a warning that this perspective should not be trusted.)

If one focuses on the efforts of the few outspoken dissenters, it's easy to feel that the Democratic Party is somewhat less evil than the GOP. But in the larger picture, the Democratic Party invariably submits to what its bosses promulgate and the entire range of permissible thought and public discourse shifts to the right. 

The overall function of the Democratic Party is not to fight, it is to shape and to drive the ever-rightward-moving process. Just as the Harlem Globetrotters need their Washington Generals to make their basketball games properly entertaining, Republicans need the Democratic Party for effective staging of the political show.

The Democratic Party is permitted to exist because its vague hint of eventual progressive change keeps large numbers of people from bolting the political system altogether. If the Democratic Party ever actually threatened any sort of serious change, it would be disbanded. The fact that it is fully accepted by the corporations and political establishment tells us at once that its ultimate function must be wholly in line with the interests of those ruling .elites.

For the Democratic Party to even begin to serve as a vehicle for opposing the absolute rule of capital, it would at a minimum have to be capable of acknowledging the conflict that exists between the interests of capital and the rest of the people; and of expressing a principled determination to take the side of the people in this conflict.

A party whose controlling elements are billionaires, lobbyists, fund-raisers, careerist apparatchiks, consultants, and corporate lawyers; that has stood by prostrate and helpless (when not actively collaborating) in the face of stolen elections, illegal wars, torture, CIA concentration camps, lies as state policy, and one assault on the Bill of Rights after the next, is not likely to take that position.

CommonDreams |   Former President Barack Obama reportedly told advisers behind closed doors earlier this year that he would actively oppose Sen. Bernie Sanders if the progressive senator from Vermont opened up a big lead in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary race.

"Publicly, [Obama] has been clear that he won't intervene in the primary for or against a candidate," Politico reported Tuesday. "There is one potential exception: Back when Sanders seemed like more of a threat than he does now, Obama said privately that if Bernie were running away with the nomination, Obama would speak up to stop him."

We Thank You for the Gift of Companionship in Times Like These

PCR |  Former US Attorney Joe diGenova predicts that US Justice (sic) Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report on the Obama regime’s FISA court violations and US Attorney John Durham’s criminal investigation of the Russiagate hoax perpetrated by the CIA, FBI, Democratic National Committee, and presstitute media will be “very bad for people in the Obama administration. . . . it’s going to be devastating . . . it’s going to ruin careers.” 

For the sake of accountable government, I hope that Mr. diGenova is right. But I have my doubts. Cabinet departments and government agencies are not very good at investigating themselves. Attorney General Barr’s job is to protect his department. He knows, and will be often told, that to bring indictments against Justice Department officials would discredit the Justice Department in the public’s mind. It would affect the attitude of juries toward DOJ prosecutions. John Durham knows the same thing. He also knows that he will create a hostile environment for himself if he indicts DOJ officials and that when he joins a law firm to capitalize on his experience as a US Attorney, he will not receive the usual favors when he represents clients against DOJ charges. Horowitz knows that his job is to coverup or minimize any illegalities in order to protect the Department of Justice from scandals.

In Washington coverups are the rule, and the DOJ coverup might already have begun. One sign of a coverup is to announce a future release date of the report. This has now occurred with Horowitz’s report on the FISA violations. The purpose of such announcements is to allow the report to be discredited in advance and to be old news by the time it appears. 

Another sign of a coverup is the use of leaks to shift the focus from high level officials to lowly underlings, and this has happened with the Horowitz report, which has leaked that a low level FBI attorney is under criminal investigation for allegedly falsifying a document related to the surveillance of former Trump campaign official Carter Page in 2016. According to the leak, the FBI attorney has acknowledged that he did alter the document. In other words, it seems we are being prepared for a false story that the plot against Trump originated in lower levels and not with CIA Director John Brennan, FBI Director James Comey, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, and the rest. This is the way the coverups of the US torture prison, Abu Ghraib, in Iraq was handled and the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. Only the underlings take the hit as if they were in charge acting on their own, independently of their superiors.

Another sign that a coverup is in place is Attorney General Barr’s assurance that Jeffrey Epstein killed himself and that evidence to the contrary is just a series of coincidences that, misunderstood, resulted in a conspiracy theory. Caitlin Johnstone gives this short shrift. https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/11/23/barr-says-epstein-died-by-a-series-of-coincidences-ending-all-conspiracy-theories-forever/ 

Barr claims to have personally reviewed security footage that no one entered the area where Epstein was imprisoned. Previously we were told that the security cameras were not turned on, so what security footage did Barr review? Can the rest of us see the “evidence”?

Consensus Views of the Interagency...,

ronpaulinstitute |  The most shocking thing about the House impeachment hearings to this point is not a “smoking gun” witness providing irrefutable evidence of quid pro quo. It’s not that President Trump may or may not have asked the Ukrainians to look into business deals between then-Vice President Biden’s son and a Ukrainian oligarch.

The most shocking thing to come out of the hearings thus far is confirmation that no matter who is elected President of the United States, the permanent government will not allow a change in our aggressive interventionist foreign policy, particularly when it comes to Russia.

Even more shocking is that neither Republicans nor Democrats are bothered in the slightest!

Take Lt. Colonel Vindman, who earned high praise in the mainstream media. He did not come forth with first-hand evidence that President Trump had committed any “high crimes” or “misdemeanors.” He brought a complaint against the President because he was worried that Trump was shifting US policy away from providing offensive weapons to the Ukrainian government!

He didn’t think the US president had the right to suspend aid to Ukraine because he supported providing aid to Ukraine.

According to his testimony, Vindman’s was concerned over “influencers promoting a false narrative of Ukraine inconsistent with the consensus views of the interagency.”

I Love It When Their Best Efforts Backfire...,

kunstler |  Perhaps The New York Times has hooked up to a direct line of Burisma’s product as they flood the darkened arena with eerie blue gaslight. Friday, they featured a story — Russia Inquiry Review Is Said to Criticize F.B.I. but Rebuff Claims of Biased Acts — geared to make readers think that the entire FBI FISA warrant hair-ball came down to one lowly lawyer chump named Kevin Clinesmith messing with an email. Later, Times reporter Adam Goldman, posted this howler on Twitter.

These truthless assertions are meant to let both the CIA and the FBI off-the-hook for opening the “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation on bogus evidence they furnished to the FISA judges. Both Goldman’s news story and his tweet omit the name of the company that packaged and retailed the Russia Collusion narrative: Fusion GPS — the company that Robert Mueller testified to having no knowledge of in his July House appearance.

That oafish attempt to get out ahead of the IG’s report was followed by, whaddaya know, a Times op-ed penned by none other than Glenn Simpson, the impresario of Fusion GPS (and his partner Peter Fritsch), The Double-Barreled Dream World of Trump and His Enablers, aimed at re-selling their shopworn Russia collusion story to distract from any attention that voters might be paying to Ukraine’s collusion in the scheme to overthrow the 2016 US election and the Bidens’ grifting operation following the 2014 CIA / State Department sponsored overthrow of Ukraine’s government.

Who "Debunked" Biden's $Multi-Million Influence Peddling in Ukraine?

sicsempertyrannis |  the MSM and online projects like the American Independent incessantly insist that the simple fact that Hunter Biden and his dear old dad, a "Union Man," solicited money in Ukraine and in China for services not rendered proves nothing, that nothing has been proven  against them and that any mention of these occurrences is evidence of harsh partisan rhetoric based on fantasy and equivalent to belief in the Loch Ness Monster.

 

Well, pilgrims I want to know who and what investigation or investigations cleared the Bidens of anything.

It is obvious that Hunter is qualified for employment as a bag man and not much else.  He has a law degree?  So what?  As in the matter of the qualifications of doctors, not all learn much in medical or law school.

"US Officials" say the Bidens are pure in heart and deed?  Hah!  Is it not clear that The Borg (foreign policy establishment) hate Donald Trump and will say anything possible to injure him?

"Debunked," "Discredited," "Conspiracy theories?"

Trickery in the press is the real truth, trickery intended to protect the only viable candidate in the Democratic Party field.

What is Driving the Hostility to Russia and Trump?

globalresearch |  I have long believed that the core hatred of Russia comes from the neocons and is to a large extent tribal or, if you prefer, ethno-religious based. Why? Because if the neoconservatives were actually foreign policy realists there is no good reason to express any visceral dislike of Russia or its government. The allegations that Moscow interfered in the 2016 presidential election in the U.S. are clearly a sham, just as are the tales of the alleged Russian poisoning of the Skripals in Winchester England and, most recently, the claimed assassination of journalist Arkady Babchenko in Kiev which turned out to be a false flag. Even the most cursory examination of the past decade’s developments in Georgia and Ukraine reveal that Russia was reacting to legitimate major security threats engineered by the United States with a little help from Israel and others. Russia has not since the Cold War ended threatened the United States and its ability to re-acquire its former Eastern European satellites is a fantasy. So why the hatred?

In fact, the neocons got along quite well with Russia when they and their overwhelmingly Jewish oligarchs and international commodity thieves cum financier friends were looting the resources of the old Soviet Union under the hapless Boris Yeltsin during the 1990s. Alarms about the alleged Russian threat only re-emerged in the neocon dominated media and think tanks when old fashioned nationalist Vladimir Putin took office and made it a principal goal of his government to turn off the money tap.

With the looting stopped by Putin, the neocons and friends no longer had any reason to play nice, so they used their considerable resources in the media and within the halls of power in places like Washington, London and Paris to turn on Moscow. And they also might have perceived that there was a worse threat looming. The Putin government appeared to be resurrecting what the neocons might perceive as pogrom plagued Holy Russia! Old churches razed by the Bolsheviks were being rebuilt and people were again going to mass and claiming belief in Jesus Christ. The former Red Square now hosts a Christmas market while the nearby tomb of Lenin is only open one morning in the week and attracts few visitors.

I would like to suggest that it is quite possible that the historically well-informed neocons are merely longing for the good old Bolshevik days in Russia. The fact is that much of Bolshevik state atheism was driven by the large overrepresentation of Jews in the party in its formative days. British journalist Robert Wilton’s meticulously researched 1920 study “The Last Days of the Romanovs” describes how David R. Francis, United States ambassador in Russia, warned in a January 1918 message to Washington that

“The Bolshevik leaders here, most of whom are Jews and 90 percent of whom are returned exiles, care little for Russia or any other country but are internationalists and they are trying to start a worldwide social revolution.”

Dutch Ambassador William Oudendyke echoed that sentiment, writing that

“Unless Bolshevism is nipped in the bud immediately, it is bound to spread in one form or another over Europe and the whole world as it is organized and worked by Jews who have no nationality, and whose one object is to destroy for their own ends the existing order of things.”

Russia’s greatest twentieth century writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, feted in the west for his staunch resistance to Soviet authoritarianism, suddenly found himself friendless by the media and publishing world when he wrote “Two Centuries Together: A Russo-Jewish History to 1972”, recounting some of the dark side of the Russian-Jewish experience. In particular, Solzhenitsyn cited the significant overrepresentation of Russian Jews both as Bolsheviks and, prior to that time, as serf-owners.

What is the Mindset Behind the Wolfowitz/Kagan Doctrine?

sicsempertyrannis |  A question for me is the motivation behind the antipathy of the American neo-liberals and neocons toward Russia.  There are a lot of Jews scattered among these groups.  Is it a group memory of Tsarist pograms that eats at them?  Israel does not seem to have a special problem with modern Russia.  Is it Russia's relentless persecution of homosexuals?   There are a lot of LGBTQ supporters among the two groups.  Or, do these people see Russia as a plausible geopolitical rival for the US?  Surely it cannot be as simple, or simpleminded as that.  The undying USSR as chimera? Perhaps it is that.

Trump Threatens to Overturn Costly Obamamandian Neoconservative Subversion of the Ukraine

moderndiplomacy |  One can’t understand the impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump unless one understands accurately what was happening in Ukraine and what the motivations were of the persons who were involved in U.S.-Ukraine policy, first under U.S. President Barack Obama, and then under his successor Donald Trump. Information will be presented here, about those matters, which probably won’t come up in the House impeachment hearings. These matters are likelier to be publicly discussed afterward, when the case goes to the Senate, but might be too ‘sensitive’ to be brought up even there — especially if they make both Democratic and Republican officials look bad, such as, for example, if both Democrats and Republicans had participated in a February 2014 coup against, and overthrowing, Ukraine’s democratically elected Government, and — if that happened, as we will show it did — how this fact might affect Trump’s relationship with Zelensky. So: a lot is to be shown here, and this will be information that the ‘news’-media have been hiding from the public, not reporting to the public. 

Without understanding the reality of Obama’s coup in Ukraine, there is no way of honestly explaining Ukrainegate. The 1953 Iran coup produced, as blowback, the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979. Obama’s 2014 coup in Ukraine likewise is having its blowbacks, but of different types.

TRUMP’S PURPOSE IN THE 25 JULY 2019 CALL TO ZELENSKY

The argument to be presented here is that Trump, in this phone-call, and generally, was trying not only to obtain help with evidence-gathering in the “Crowdstrike” matter (which A.G. Barr is now investigating, and which also is the reason why Trump specifically mentioned “Crowdstrike” at the only instance in the phone-call where he was requesting a “favor” from Zelensky), but to change the policy toward Ukraine that had been established by Obama (via Obama’s coup and its aftermath). This is a fact, which will be documented here. Far more than politics was involved here; ideology was actually very much involved. Trump was considering a basic change in U.S. foreign policies. He was considering to replace policies that had been established under, and personnel who had been appointed by, his immediate predecessor, Barack Obama. Democrats are extremely opposed to any such changes. This is one of the reasons for the renewed impeachment-effort by Democrats. They don’t want to let go of Obama’s worst policies. But changing U.S. foreign policy is within a President’s Constitutional authority to do.

Trump fired the flaming neoconservative John Bolton on 10 September 2019. This culminated a growing rejection by Trump of neoconservatism — something that he had never thought much about but had largely continued from the Obama Administration, which invaded and destroyed Libya in 2011, Syria in 2012-, Yemen in 2015-, and more — possibly out-doing even George W. Bush, who likewise was a flaming neocon. Trump’s gradual turn away from neoconservatism wasn’t just political; it was instead a reflection, on his part, that maybe, just maybe, he had actually been wrong and needed to change his foreign policies, in some important ways. (He evidently still hasn’t yet figured out precisely what those changes should be.)

Joe Biden Constantly Forgetting He Only Plays a Political Tough Guy

WaPo | “I am disappointed, and quite frankly I’m angered, by the fact — he knows me, he knows my son. He knows there’s nothing to this,” Biden said. “Trump is now essentially holding power over him that even the Ukrainians wouldn’t yield to. The Ukrainians would not yield to, quote, ‘investigate Biden’ — there’s nothing to investigate about Biden or his son.”

A Graham spokesman declined to comment and said the senator was unavailable.

Trump’s personal attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani, who has been at the center of the House impeachment inquiry, claimed that Biden’s comment was a “threat” against Graham.

“This is getting to be more and more like my old mafia cases,” Giuliani wrote on Twitter, alluding to his time as a federal prosecutor. “They sure do sound like crooks.”

Graham, in a letter sent Thursday to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, asked for information related to calls between Biden, when he was vice president, and then-President Petro Poroshenko of Ukraine, as well as documents that referred to an investigation of Burisma.

In the Obama years, Biden played an integral role in pushing Poroshenko to crack down on corruption in Ukraine, pressuring him to fire a prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, who was widely seen as corrupt and not doing enough to undertake crucial investigations.

The efforts to oust Shokin were mounted in coordination with U.S. allies, and several Republican senators were on board at the time. Now, however, some Republicans are asserting that Biden was attempting to get rid of Shokin to protect his son, an assertion contradicted by the circumstances at the time.

Still, Biden’s aides at the time expressed concern about Hunter’s position on the board of Burisma, worried that it could create the perception of a conflict of interest. Biden took no action to discourage his son from remaining on the board.

I Once Thought Two Piece and a Biscuit was the Pink-Toe Bottom Dollar...,

sicsemper |  My father, a former intelligence person during WWII, explained to me that if a secret is to be preserved, two links in the chain of evidence, not just one, need to be broken.

Many of us predicted that Epstein, as a serial blackmailer of the rich and influential, would not live for very long in jail, yet I was still surprised at the speed of his demise. We discussed this in some detail in August.

https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2019/08/epstein-killed-himself-sure-he-did-cui-bono.html

I now note that two prison guards have been arrested and charged over apparent administrative failures surrounding Epsteins "suicide".

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/19/us/jeffrey-epstein-guard-charge/index.html

My fathers dictum suggests that the two guards are unlikely to stay alive if they were in any way willing accomplices in what was perhaps a murder.

Ghislaine Maxwell? If she is smart, she will bury herself in a kibbutz in deepest Israel. I don't think she has the ability to make the trade of her continued life in the West for silence.

The Imperial Beauracracy: It's a Big Club and You're Not in It!!!

diogenesmiddlefinger |  American voters have been introduced to the idea that the elected President of the United States can be accused of "undermining" foreign policy determined by the permanent bureaucracy, which spends billions of our tax dollars but is not even slightly interested in our input.

We've been told top bureaucrats who supposedly serve at the pleasure of the president are actually entitled to their jobs and firing them is a crime, with the president presumed guilty unless he can prove he had an acceptable reason for terminating or reassigning them.

We've learned that Made Men of the bureaucratic empire and its political wing, the Democrat Party, cannot be investigated for corruption unless the most exquisite preliminary rituals are followed and the investigators can demonstrate the absolute purity of their intentions.

Outside of Impeachment Theater, we've been told it's heroic for the bureaucracy to organize "resistance" against the elected president and congressional representatives, if the Washington empire disapproves of the voters' choices.

What Happened in Bolivia is a Coup. Period.

What happened in Bolivia is a coup. Period. The United States and other countries should not be interfering in the Bolivian people's pursuit of self-determination and right to choose their own government.

— Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) November 22, 2019

DNC True Knot Cannot Devour Tulsi's Shining

Politico |  “She sort of seems to be filling a pretty strange lane. Is there a part of the party that hates the party?” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.). “It’s a little hard to figure out what itch she’s trying to scratch in the Democratic Party right now.” 

The Hawaii congresswoman’s presence on the debate stage is becoming a headache for the party as she uses the platform to appeal to isolationists, dissatisfied liberals and even conservatives. She has managed to secure a spot on the debate stage as more mainstream candidates like Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and Gov. Steve Bullock (D-Mont.) failed to meet polling and donor thresholds to participate. 

Gabbard met with Syrian President Bashar Assad in 2017 and has repeatedly attacked Clinton’s foreign policy views, grating on Democrats who’ve broadly supported the center-left international platform of Democrats in recent decades. 

“She has views on foreign policy that are so outside the mainstream as to be a real liability to the Democratic Party,” said another Democratic senator, who requested anonymity to candidly discuss the party’s issue with Gabbard. “It is corrosive to have folks on that stage who represent views that are clearly not right.” 

Gabbard’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment. 

While Gabbard isn’t exactly gaining traction in the polls, she does appear to have a loyal following. The vast majority of her support comes from male voters, according to FiveThirtyEight. She’s also more likely to attract support from Democratic primary voters who supported President Donald Trump in 2016, according to a November poll from The Economist/YouGov. 

 

When It Comes, Tulsi Won't Even Notice...,

washingtonexaminer |  The Democratic establishment despises the insurgent candidacy of Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii. From her decision to buck party orthodoxy and endorse Sen. Bernie Sanders in 2016 over Democratic National Committee favorite Hillary Clinton, to her constant criticisms of Democratic foreign policy mistakes, Gabbard has made herself no friends with the party elite. She's perfectly fine with that if it's required to put the people first. 

Still, this means establishment Democrats and their allies regularly smear and attack the Democratic congresswoman. But, as if we need more proof of how deranged the establishment’s hatred for Gabbard has become, the New York Times style section is now criticizing her… wardrobe? 

In a piece titled “Tulsi Gabbard’s white pantsuit isn’t winning,” Times style writer Vanessa Friedman savages the congresswoman for her choice of wardrobe. Friedman correctly notes that Gabbard has made the white pantsuit her defining campaign look, wearing the iconic outfit in most of the debates and much of her prominent campaign promotional material. 

Yet where Friedman goes seriously, sinisterly wrong is arguing that the look isn’t working, and sinking into deranged, hypocritical attacks on the congresswoman. Friedman argues that when Hillary Clinton wore white pantsuits, it was feminist and iconic, but when Gabbard does it, she is “using her white suits to tap into another tradition, latent in the public memory: the mythical white knight, riding in to save us all from yet another ‘regime change war.’” 

It gets worse. Friedman continues that Gabbard’s white pantsuits are “the white of avenging angels and flaming swords, of somewhat combative righteousness,” and the white of “cult leaders.” Friedman writes that Gabbard’s wardrobe “has connotations of the fringe, rather than the center.”

It's Not Just the CIA and the FBI - CONGRESS IS ROTTEN TO ITS CORE!!!

strategic-culture |  The developing story about how the US intelligence and national security agencies may have conspired to influence and possibly even reverse the results of the 2016 presidential election is compelling, even if one is disinclined to believe that such a plot would be possible to execute. Not surprisingly perhaps there have been considerable introspection among former and current officials who have worked in those and related government positions, many of whom would agree that there is urgent need for a considerable restructuring and reining in of the 17 government agencies that have some intelligence or law enforcement function. Most would also agree that much of the real damage that has been done has been the result of the unending global war on terror launched by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, which has showered the agencies with resources and money while also politicizing their leadership and freeing them from restraints on their behavior.

If the tens of billions of dollars lavished on the intelligence community together with a “gloves off” approach towards oversight that allowed them to run wild had produced good results, it might be possible to argue that it was all worth it. But the fact is that intelligence gathering has always been a bad investment even if it is demonstrably worse at the present. One might argue that the CIA’s notorious Soviet Estimate prolonged the Cold War and that the failure to connect dots and pay attention to what junior officers were observing allowed 9/11 to happen. And then there was the empowerment of al-Qaeda during the Soviet-Afghan war followed by failure to penetrate the group once it began to carry out operations.

More recently there have been Guantanamo, torture in black prisons, renditions of terror suspects to be tortured elsewhere, killing of US citizens by drone, turning Libya into a failed state and terrorist haven, arming militants in Syria, and, of course, the Iraqi alleged WMDs, the biggest foreign policy disaster in American history. And the bad stuff happened in bipartisan fashion, under Democrats and Republicans, with both neocons and liberal interventionists all playing leading roles. The only one punished for the war crimes was former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou, who exposed some of what was going on.

Colonel Pat Lang, a colleague and friend who directed the Defense Intelligence Agency HUMINT (human intelligence) program after years spent on the ground in special ops and foreign liaison, thinks that strong medicine is needed and has initiated a discussion based on the premise that the FBI and CIA are dysfunctional relics that should be dismantled, as he puts it “burned to the ground,” so that the federal government can start over again and come up with something better.

Lang cites numerous examples of “incompetence and malfeasance in the leadership of the 17 agencies of the Intelligence Community and the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” to include the examples cited above plus the failure to predict the collapse of the Soviet Union. On the domestic front, he cites his personal observation of efforts by the Department of Justice and the FBI to corruptly “frame” people tried in federal courts on national security issues as well as the intelligence/law enforcement community conspiracy to “get Trump.”

A Wholly Unselfconscious Choice to be Talking About Wealth Inequality...,

NYPost |  Not content with more than 10 million books sold, a Netflix deal in the high eight figures, a joint publishing advance with husband Barack worth $65 million, a highly profitable world tour, speaking fees that by now surely average around $500,000 per, and a recently acquired waterfront Martha’s Vineyard mansion purchased for $15 million, Michelle Obama is back with another craven money grab.

“Becoming: A Guided Journal for Discovering Your Voice” is her new publishing venture.

Billed as a sequel of sorts to Obama’s best-selling memoir, this squat, slim volume, priced at $19.99, is Michelle “now provid[ing] you with the encouragement to find value in your own personal journey,” the publisher says.

“Printed on cream writing paper, with a grosgrain ribbon, foil-stamped cover, and removable half-jacket, ‘Becoming’ … includes thought-provoking prompts designed to help you reflect on your personal and family history: your goals, challenges and dreams; what moves you and brings you hope; and what future you imagine for yourself and your community.”

Axios |  "We need to stop believing that more and bigger is better. We are chasing the wrong things," former president Barack Obama told a Silicon Valley audience Thursday. 

Why it matters: Obama's warning has an added layer of meaning here, where the tech industry has grown powerful and rich by mastering the art of "scaling up."

The big picture: Speaking at Salesforce's Dreamforce conference, Obama traced many of the problems in today's society to uncertainty fueled by globalization and automation, along with an underlying misconception of what it takes to be satisfied.

• "What I also see is just this sense of anxiety and rootlessness and uncertainty in so many people some of which is fed by globalization and technology," he said. "So much of the political turmoil we are seeing right now has to do with people feeling materially insecure."

The bigger picture: Technology and globalization have "turbocharged" the anxiety, and we need to deal with the social issues that has created, he said.

• "Part of the goal of solving big problems is not just a matter of finding the right technical solution," he said. "Part of it is also finding out how do we restore some sense of our common values."

Umm-kay Then Private Bish-Boy Potato-Head Douche-Bag...,

mises |  On Tuesday, Congressional impeachment hearings exposed an interesting facet of the current battle between Donald Trump and the so-called deep state: namely, that many government bureaucrats now fancy themselves as superior to the elected civilian government.

In an exchange between Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) and Alexander Vindman, a US Army Lt. Colonel, Vindman insisted that Nunes address him by his rank.

After being addressed as "Mr. Vindman," Vindman retorted "Ranking Member, it's Lt. Col. Vindman, please."

Throughout social media, anti-Trump forces, who have apparently now become pro-military partisans, sang Vindman's praises, applauding him for putting Nunes in his place.

In a properly functioning government — with a proper view of military power — however, no one would tolerate a military officer lecturing a civilian on how to address him "correctly."

It is not even clear that Nunes was trying to "dis" Vindman, given that junior officers have historically been referred to as "Mister" in a wide variety of times and place. It is true that higher-ranking offers like Vindman are rarely referred to as "Mister," but even if Nunes was trying to insult Vindman, the question remains: so what?

Military modes of address are for the use of military personnel, and no one else. Indeed, Vindman was forced to retreat on this point when later asked by Rep. Chris Stewart (R-UT) if he always insists on civilians calling him by his rank. Vindman blubbered that since he was wearing his uniform (for no good reason, mind you) he figured civilians ought to refer to him by his rank.

Crackhead Hunter Biden Out in these Trailer Parks Bussin All Kinds of Nutz....,

arkansasonline |  DNA testing has established, “with scientific certainty,” that Hunter Biden is the father of an Arkansas baby, according to a motion filed Wednesday in Independence County on behalf of the child’s mother, Lunden Alexis Roberts.

Biden, son of former vice president Joe Biden, “is not expected to challenge the results of the DNA test or the testing process,” the filing states.

An attorney for Hunter Biden, former Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A hearing in the case was previously scheduled for Dec. 2 in Batesville.

The baby’s “paternal grandfather, Joe Biden, is seeking the nomination of the Democratic Party for President of the United States of America,” the mother notes. “He is considered by some to be the person most likely to win his party’s nomination and challenge President Trump on the ballot in 2020.”

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette posted a story early this afternoon about the DNA test-related court filing. Soon after, the Trump campaign tweeted out a link to the article, adding three words of its own: "Congratulations, Joe Biden!"

Hunter Biden, who initially denied having sexual relations with Roberts, eventually agreed to take a DNA test, according to documents filed by Roberts’ attorney, Clint Lancaster.

pic.twitter.com/VlSjr2savw

— Comfortably Smug (@ComfortablySmug) November 20, 2019

 

The FBI Got Prince Andrew in a Cold, Cold Sweat...,

Sorry about the irony of using this ABC News Video.

off-guardian |  The choking cloud of Jeffrey Epstein’s paedophilic legacy has been floating over the Atlantic for some time.  It does its best (or worst) in matters of US and British celebrity, warts and all. It has not, for instance, exempted the British Royal Family, whose cupboard stocked with misbehaviours and raunchiness got just more crowded with the antics of the Duke of York.

Prince Andrew’s performance on Saturday on the BBC’s Newsnight was an object study of how not to self-exonerate. The prince had been thick with Epstein, though hardly a luminary when compared to that particularly chocked address book. The meetings between them were sufficiently frequent to warrant questions.

Madeleine Aggeler reminds us: Mar-a-Lago in 2000; his presence at Epstein’s spacious abode in 2010; the foot massages from “two well-dressed Russian women” in 2013.

But when it came to alleged misdeeds, the prince can count himself high up in the rankings, with one of Epstein’s accusers, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, adamant that she was forced when underage to have sex with the royal on three separate occasions.

In September, it became clear that the FBI was conducting an investigation into Prince Andrew’s Epstein link.  As a member of the US Department of Justice revealed, “The US investigation is focusing on several potential victims in the hope that they can provide more details about Prince Andrew and his connection to the Epstein case.”

The level of Buckingham Palace’s seriousness regarding such claims is measured by the degree royal excursions are shortened.  The palace has not been quite so sympathetic to Prince Andrew as they might, a point made by the shortening of a golf vacation in Spain over the summer.