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.

Adolph Reed Talks w/Krystal Ball - PROTECT BERNIE!!!

What THE Whole and Entire Buck?!?!?!?!

PCR |  With the entirety of the presstitute media endeavoring to turn second-hand hear-say into an impeachable offense, do not expect to hear any contrary news. Such as:

This on Zero Hedge: Adam Shifty Schiff involved in illegal sodomite drug den EXPOSED: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-10-20/adam-shifty-schiff-involved-illegal-sodomite-drug-den-exposed 

This on en Volve: BOMBSHELL: Feds Investigating Adam Schiff’s ‘Disturbing Behavior’ At Ed Buck’s Sex House Of Death!: https://en-volve.com/2019/10/09/bombshell-feds-investigating-adam-schiffs-disturbing-behavior-at-ed-bucks-sex-house-of-death/ 

This on Infowars: NBC MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT, FRIEND OF ADAM SCHIFF ARRESTED FOR SEXTING 9-YEAR-OLD: https://www.infowars.com/nbc-medical-correspondent-friend-of-adam-schiff-arrested-for-sexting-9-year-old/ 

This on thefederalist.com: Adam Schiff’s Star Witness Just Admitted Burisma Should Be Investigated For Corruption: https://thefederalist.com/2019/11/13/adam-schiffs-star-witness-just-admitted-burisma-should-be-investigated-for-corruption/?utm_campaign=ACTENGAGE

California Dem Congress"man" Swallowell Loose As a Goose?

NYPost |  A congressman from California became the butt of everyone’s joke for appearing to fart on live television Monday night.

Rep. Eric Swalwell was mid-sentence on MSNBC’s “Hardball with Chris Matthews” when it sounded like he let ‘er rip.

“Chris, so far the evidence is uncontradicted that the president used taxpayer dollars to help him cheat —” Swalwell says with a pause, as the noise is clearly heard, “— an election.”

But the 39-year-old Democrat, who’s been in Congress since 2013 and sits on the House Judiciary Committee, was quick to deny the apparent tummy troubles.

“It was not me!!!!!” he texted a BuzzFeed News reporter. “Ha. And I didn’t hear it when I was speaking.”

Twitter users cried foul.

“It is real you can tell the pause he takes to push it out,” one person wrote.

Another noted, “The slight pause as he realizes he can’t hold it in any longer is pure gold.”

“Hardball” issued its own cheeky explanation, blaming the fart faux pas on a production snafu.

“Sorry to disappoint the conspiracy theorists – it was the #hardball mug scraping across the desk,” the show’s Twitter page posted. “Get yours today and let’s get back to the news!”

By Tuesday morning, #fartgate was trending on social media.

Prince Andrew Fitna Get Epsteined...,

Toldja "America's Sweetheart" Would Buss It Wide Open and Drop It Like It's Hot!!!

View this post on Instagram

BREAKING NEWS

A post shared by Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) on Nov 17, 2019 at 4:31pm PST

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MK Exclusive: Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy demands answers from ABC News re: Epstein

A post shared by Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) on Nov 17, 2019 at 4:13pm PST

Old Fat Nasty Rascal Lied Like a Dog and Sweated Like a Pig!!!

 

“I didn’t sweat at the time because I had suffered what I would describe as an overdose of adrenalin in the Falkland’s War when I was shot at.”

Prince Andrew disputes claims he had a sweaty dance with a woman who made allegations against him https://t.co/gfKvOEFG9p #Newsnight pic.twitter.com/7ZKscPB5lX

— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) November 16, 2019

summit |  The Duke of York was attempting to rebut allegations that his relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein included the provision of trafficked underage girls, including Virginia Roberts-Giuffre who was 17 at the time she alleges Prince Andrew had sex with her.

The royal attempted to debunk one of Roberts-Giuffre’s claims, that he was sweating profusely during a dance between the two at a London nightclub, by claiming that he had suffered a medical condition which prevented him from sweating.

I don't remember dancing at a club. I was at home. Which I remember precisely. And I don't sweat. #PrinceAndrew pic.twitter.com/8ApnC5uQpY

— damo_war (@damo_war) November 16, 2019

 

Still shaking my head at the train wreck of an interview that was #PrinceAndrew. I don't sweat and I don't party or make public displays of affection pic.twitter.com/gIZP0z7Uz3

— CrazyMummaBear (@CrazyMummaBear1) November 18, 2019

 

Why Did Prince Andrew the Duke of York Throw Himself Under the Bus?

NYTimes |  When members of the British royal family consent to warts-and-all television interviews about their troubled private lives, it generally has the effect of roiling the waters rather than calming them.

So when Prince Andrew set out to explain his friendship with the financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in a BBC interview broadcast Saturday night, it backfired predictably. 

Viewers were left shaking their heads at the wisdom of consenting to a polite-but-relentless grilling by the journalist Emily Maitlis in the first place. Many said they found his statements alternately defensive, unpersuasive or just plain strange.

Prince Andrew, also known as the Duke of York, repeatedly denied accusations by Virginia Roberts Giuffre that he had sex with her when she was 17 years old and had been offered to him by Mr. Epstein. Under insistent questioning by Ms. Maitlis, the duke insisted he had “no recollection” of meeting Ms. Giuffre. 

 But he could not explain the photograph taken in a London house that appeared to show him with his arm around the girl’s bare waist, and with Mr. Epstein’s former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, smiling in the background.

He disputed her account of an alleged meeting between him and Ms. Giuffre in a club in London. She has claimed that he sweated profusely while they danced, but he told the BBC that he could not have sweated while dancing with her at the time because he had a medical condition, dating from his combat tour in the Falklands War, that did not allow him to perspire.

Hinky-Assed Catholic Shite In the Amazon

quillette |  While Harris and other anthropologists in the United States continued to criticize Chagnon, his standing began to deteriorate on another front. From the moment he arrived in the Amazon, Chagnon maintained cordial relations with a missionary priest of the Salesians of Don Bosco. In fact, Chagnon and the priest became such good friends that the priest asked Chagnon to kill one of his fellow missionaries for him, a man who had broken his vows of celibacy by sleeping with a Yanomamö woman. The priest worried that this could bring shame to the Salesian order. Of course, Chagnon refused, and his refusal strained their relationship. Their relationship worsened when Chagnon discovered that the missionaries had been distributing shotguns to the natives and that these were being used in warfare. Furthermore, all of Chagnon’s recommendations for preventing measles outbreaks were ignored by the Salesians, who built missionaries and tried to have the Yanomamö concentrate around them, which helped the disease to spread rapidly. Their relationship finally collapsed altogether after Chagnon cooperated with a documentary that painted the Salesians in a less than flattering light. By the early 1990s, the missionaries were increasingly worried about Chagnon’s presence in the Amazon, especially when it came to light that the BBC and Nova would be producing a new documentary in the rainforest about his dispute with Marvin Harris. By the early 1990s, the Salesians were attempting to block his lifetime of fieldwork in the Amazon, and they successfully lobbied Maria Luisa Allais, the head of Venezuelan Indian Commission, to refuse him a permit he required for re-entry.

Then, in 1993, tragedy struck in the Amazon when gold miners crossed the border from Brazil and slaughtered a number of Yanomamö, including women and children. The explorer Charles Brewer-Carías was chosen to head a presidential commission into the massacre, and he wanted Chagnon on the commission as one of the few anthropologists in the world who spoke Yanomamö. When President Carlos Perez of Venezuela learned that Chagnon had been denied an entry permit, he telephoned the Ministry of Education and ordered them to issue Chagnon with one at once. A visibly nervous Maria Luisa Allais offered Chagnon his papers. That Chagnon went above the head of the Indian Commission and was now installed on the presidential commission investigating the massacre only infuriated the Salesians further. They believed that they ought to be the ones conducting the investigation. On the very first day of their investigation at the site of the massacre, a helicopter arrived bearing men armed with machine guns and a Salesian bishop, who ordered Brewer-Carías and Chagnon to leave. With the government on the brink of a coup and unwilling to enforce law and order in the deep interior of the Amazon, the commission to investigate the massacre quickly fell apart. Chagnon was left with lifelong regrets that there had been no justice for the dead.  Fist tap Dale.