JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: TURKEY'S ERDOGAN CLAIMS HARD PROOF OF US-LED COALITION'S SUPPORT OF ISIS - IMPORTANCE OF CRIMINALS LIKE ERDOGAN IN PLEA-BARGAINS TO BRING DOWN EVEN BIGGER CRIMINALS

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

People who work to inform themselves all know this.

However, it is nice to have confirmation from the top.

Especially since our corporate press has deceived the majority of our population on this for years.

____________________

Response to another comment: “A gutless coward and flip flop who supported ISIS and still supports Al Qaida. A nasty bully…”

Yes, however, in a criminal court case it is common for the state to use a criminal to bring down another, perhaps greater, criminal.

Indeed, in North America, such "plea bargains" are everyday events.

A lot fewer bad guys would go to jail without them.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: OBAMA AFTER WEEKS OF PHONY OUTRAGE ABOUT RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE THINKS NOTHING OF RUNNING DOWN THE LEADER OF ONE OF BRITAIN'S TWO MAJOR PARTIES - AN ARROGANT HYPOCRITE IF EVER THERE WAS ONE

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

“The outgoing US President said Mr Corbyn is to the left of Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders”

Why in God's name is The Independent quoting Obama about the nature of a British leader?

I would think a British paper would avoid doing so if only for the reason that Obama's words intrude into Britain’s internal affairs.

It is none of his business, and even more so now that is leaving office soon.

I think this is called an effort at "poisoning the well."

And isn't that just so interesting coming, as it does, from a man who for weeks has made unsubstantiated accusations about Russia having interfered in an American election, of course echoing the voice of the record-setting sore loser he supported?

But a British paper should be ashamed also because Obama has been almost nothing but wrong for eight solid years - wrong about nearly everything from his bloody rampage through the Middle East and his industrial-scale enterprise in extrajudicial killing to his asinine stunt of flying around America in Air Force One at public expense to campaign for Hillary Clinton, the most corrupt person ever nominated by a major American political party.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: COLUMNIST SAYS NETANYAHU'S RESPONSE TO UN RESOLUTION WILL ONLY ISOLATE ISRAEL - A STATE WHICH HAS MADE ITSELF INTO AN INTERNATIONAL JOKE - A VERY DARK JOKE - LEADERSHIP RESEMBLING THE LIKES OF PAPA DOC'S OLD RETINUE

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY RACHEL SHABI IN THE INDEPENDENT

Israel has pretty much become an international joke, albeit a joke in very poor taste.

Its leaders - with men like Netanyahu, the mass killer, and Lieberman, the ex-bar room bouncer - resemble nothing so much as the leadership retinue from some ridiculously unimportant third-world country parading around in grand style and pompous self-importance. I am reminded of the late Papa Doc of Haiti and his retinue.

However, it is a bitter joke, and not a funny one, when you kill thousands, hold millions against their will for half a century, regularly freely steal what belongs to others, and pass laws which resemble something from the 16th century.

The very idea of these ominous clowns lashing out at others just because they were finally embarrassed by the international community, whom they scorn anyway, discovering them in one of their many acts of vandalism and savagery does indeed make a dark and bitter joke.

It all resembles Al Capone in court accusing the cops who arrested him of being crooked.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: PUBLIC IGNORANCE OF THE NEOCON WARS AND OF MUSLIMS - HOW CORPORATE NEWS WORKS TO NOT INFORM US - A ROLE FOR CIA - DARK CASE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

Response to Another reader’s comment: “Did Muslims kill millions around the world? did Muslims started all these conflicts? did Muslims turn millions in to refugees?  Are Muslims occupying other people's lands? did Muslims invade?”

People in general just do not grasp this basic fact.

Why?

Consider the "news source” you are reading.

Does anyone think it ever once ran a true story on Iraq or Syria or Libya or Iran or, indeed, Israel? Or on ISIS or al-Nusrah or al Qaeda?

Also on Bush or Blair or Cameron or Trump or Corbyn or Clinton or even Brexit?

There has been a continuous deluge of propaganda and misinformation for 15 years of the Neocon Wars.

The Independent, The Guardian, the BBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, The Times, ABC, CBS - you name it, and it is the same, both in corporate and state sources in the West.

After all, there are only a very limited number of significant "news sources" in most Western countries today, owing to corporate mergers, and the propaganda specialists at CIA and the Pentagon play them like musical instruments.

Pretty hard to overcome such an immense created cloud of untruth.

But as soon as we have some glimmers of truths reaching the general public from either sources such as Sputnik and RT or from some of the better alternative media on the Internet, you can see for yourself the relentless attacks mounted against "fake news” and “Russian propaganda.”

It is, quite literally, a war, a word in phony words, and that is something the folks at CIA or the Pentagon or Israel's various Ministries are seriously practiced experts in.

Further note.

The New York Times, which so many people regard as a definitive source on many topics, was only recently found out to be passing every single story that it runs on Israel and its neck of the woods by the official Israeli Censors before being published.

The Times even acknowledged the fact.

Well, the official Israeli Censor is certainly assurance of accurate reporting, isn't it? The very folks who tightly keep and manipulate the truths of a half century of illegal occupation and abuse of 6 million souls.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: NETANYAHU'S GOVERNMENT OF THUGS SAYS IT WILL GO ALL OUT TO RETALIATE FOR "SHAMEFUL" UN RESOLUTION PASSED AGAINST ILLEGAL SETTLEMENTS - INSANE OUTRAGE OVER BEING CAUGHT STEALING HOMES AND TOLD TO STOP

​COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

Retaliation for what?

The world’s once doing one, little, tiny thing right about Israel's grotesque policies and laws around state theft of homes and farms?

What a bizarre view of the world and of ethics Israel has.

They steal other people's homes and farms and pass criminal law to justify it.

And they simply can't stand it if anyone notices what they are doing and says that it is illegal, which, of course, it is.

But it is the big, bad ugly world out there who, just for reminding them of the wrong they do, requires retaliation.

The foundation of modern Israel has been a nightmare none of us will recover from. It is a constant source of visible injustice and terror, but we are not supposed to say a word because - and this makes so much sense to any logical person - an entirely different people in an entirely different land in a different continent treated Jews horribly three-quarters of a century ago.

We must tolerate watching 6 million people held for more than half a century with no rights, no votes, no hope, and endless abuse. They, in fact, live a form of living death that I'm not sure isn't just about as hideous as what was done in that other place by that other people long ago.

They suffer threats and restrictions and periodic outbursts of horrible violence at the hands of the thugs running modern Israel.

And, on top of it all, the miserable Palestinians can't even enjoy the simple security of home ownership, the thugs deciding periodically to reach out and seize more.

Would any of us tolerate that kind of behavior in our own lands? Of course not. It is the absolute essence of the absence of the rule of law, genuine law, not the kind of sets of twisted words Israel regularly cobbles together and calls law.

I really do not think the old USSR at the worst period of its history, behaved in any more terrible fashion than what we see today in Israel, that supposed beacon in the Middle East as its apologists like calling it.

And this all done hiding behind the protective skirts of Mommy, Mommy in the form of a brutal, contemporary America, an imperial power which has killed at least two million people in the last 15 years or so of the Neocon Wars, wars largely inflicted for Israel's benefit.

JOHN CHUCKMAN ARTICLE: AND TO ALL, A GOOD NIGHT

Reposted for the holiday season...

AND TO ALL, A GOOD NIGHT

A Contemporary Christmas Tale

John Chuckman

It was only a matter of time before Santa Claus himself came under the Neanderthal-eyed scrutiny of American intelligence. After all, Santa’s citizenship is unknown, and he crosses borders with no passport or other form of identification. No one knows whether he even has a valid pilot’s license.

Although his image is well known, there is no official photograph on file with American border control, and he has never been fingerprinted or body-searched. Most disconcerting of all, he delivers parcels to children all over the world, including the children living in the Axis of Evil. His intentions with this activity are not understood beyond some fuzzy generalization about kindness and generosity to all. Clearly, here was the world’s largest unplugged pipeline to potential terrorists.

It was only after receiving no response to several urgent letters from the State Department requesting an immediate meeting in Washington that a decision was made to approach Santa’s North Pole solitude. As usual in such matters with the people now running America, a wing of America’s most lethal killing machines was employed for the purpose. You never know what you might encounter in such a forbidding place.

As the planes first zoomed over the icy silence of the North Pole workshop, one of the pilots decided to swoop down for a closer look. He was one of those daring fly-boys, and his tail struck the only wire for thousands of miles around, the North Pole Telegraph, sending his plane hurling into the workshop in a ball of flames with tons of ammunition and missiles exploding.

Santa and Mrs. Claus rushed out of their snow-blanketed gingerbread house to see what was happening, trying to calm the terrified reindeer running from their stable at one end of the house. The elves, too, scurried towards the stable, trying to stop the reindeer from running or flying off.

Above, in the dark vault of sky, the other pilots observed the explosion and saw missile trails smoking into the air. They also saw the frantic activity below and quickly concluded their comrade had come under anti-aircraft attack. So they swooped down in attack formation, rapid-fire canon tearing into everything ahead of them.

Most of the reindeer fell in the snow, spurting warm blood across the bluish-white surface. Most of the elves, too, fell gasping for life. Mrs. Claus received a wound in the head and instantly fell limp. Santa tried heroically to reach his wife but realized the situation was hopeless and turned, running into the darkness accompanied by Prancer, the only surviving reindeer.

The only witness to the massacre is one surviving elf now living somewhere in Canada under an assumed identity, fearful for his life. It is only from his testimony that we know anything about Santa’s fate.

Realizing the horrific mistake they had made, the pilots dropped white phosphorus bombs with the intention of incinerating all evidence. The entire North Pole lit up and Santa and Prancer could be seen in the distance on a huge block of ice drifting off into the dark sea, the ice everywhere cracked and weakened by the combined effects of white phosphorus and years of global warming.

Within in a few hours, the beating sound of a black helicopter approached Santa and Prancer. The elf, from his hiding place in a snowdrift, could only make out intermittent sounds across the howling coldness, but it seems armed men emerged from the helicopter, shot Prancer and shackled Santa, shoving him into the dark, beating machine. The elf heard a word that sounded like Guantanamo and Santa has not been heard from since. Reports of his fate reached the International Red Cross and organizations like Amnesty International, leading to inquiries, but these have been met only with silence from American authorities.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THROWING A BIGGER SPOILED-BRAT FIT THAN HILLARY CLINTON? YES FROM AN ISRAELI MINISTER OVER A MERE AMERICAN ABSTENTION FROM VOTING ON A FAIR AND PROPER UN RESOLUTION - NOTE ON ISRAEL AND USSR

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN SPUTNIK AND IN THE INDEPENDENT

"Israel Abandoned by US to Most Hostile Enemies" Israeli Minister Yoav Galant

Please, first, they are only hostile because Israel behaves like a mafia state much of the time.

What else do you call it when a state actually regularly steals the property of neighbors? And passes spurious laws to allow it to do so?

And that theft is on top of constant abuse and mistreatment of millions who have no rights and no votes and constant threats and arrests and killings.

Considering its miniscule size, it is pretty accurate to call Israel the least law-abiding country on earth.

Nice to see, on just one matter of an outrageous new law, that the world’s powers have said “no” about something to the gang of thugs running Israel. And America for once has abstained from, rather than vetoed, a fair and moderate Security Council Resolution.

And the claim that Israel has been "abandoned" is so ridiculous, it could make people fall on their knees, doubled-up in laughter, much as with some of Hillary Clinton’s most “Twilight Zone” claims.

One abstention in one UN vote is abandonment? A completely just issue being voted too.

Israel just received a 10-year assistance package for 38 billion dollars (yes, that’s with a “b”) - an astounding amount of money, and it is more, immensely more, than America gives any other state, including many genuinely needy ones.

And that’s only the beginning of what this resource-eating, black hole of a country receives.

For example, it just was voted another 600 million dollars for its “iron dome” defense system.

And it receives countless privileges, week-in and week-out, from ease of access to free trade to technology transfers.

The Israeli Minister sounds very much like an unpleasant child who throws a fit over not getting two ponies for Christmas.

________________________

Response to another reader’s comment in The Independent:

Israel a beacon in the region?

You've been drinking the Kool-Aid.

Israel’s influence is the cause of much of the Mideast's horrors.

The worst anti-democratic governments there are Israel's close friends.

Israel, like Saudi Arabia, is repulsed by the very idea of real democracy or equal human rights anywhere near its borders.

Six million people have been held for over half a century with no votes and no rights and not even allowed integrity of property ownership.

Well, the USSR truly was never worse than that.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: SOMEONE WRITES THAT THERESA MAY SHOULD STOP WORSHIPPING ISRAEL - YES BUT SHE'S ONLY PURSUING WHAT BLAIR AND CAMERON DID TOO: THE BENEFITS OF BRITAIN'S ISRAEL LOBBY

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RINF

Christmas Memo to Theresa May: Stop worshipping Israel, learn the ugly truth … and find a new speechwriter!

Yes, but all May does is to continue along the course established by Tony Blair and very much continued by David Blair.

Israeli influence over UK governments now is pretty much on a level with its influence in the United States.

And it has little to do with genuine sympathies or common views or concerns for democracy and rights.

It has to do with the whole complex system of rewards and punishments maintained by the Israel Lobby.

Rewards, as in good press coverage and generous campaign contributions.

Punishments, as in the threat of nasty press coverage and generous contributions for your opponents.

I believe, in Britain, Tony Blair was the first to totally buy into the efforts. After all, his disgusting man’s support for the destruction of Iraq, killing hundreds of thousands, had to do with this very matter.

Cameron's secret support for the horrors of Syria was more of the same.

All these bloody efforts and more are part of the American effort to create the birth of a new Middle East, Washington’s term to describe the creation of a blood-drenched cordon sanitaire around its nasty little Mideast colony - the colony and the efforts going towards it being the root cause of all the bloody Neocon wars in the Mideast.

It does take a real leader to stand up against such pressures, but real leaders are always scarce and, right now, we have absolutely none of them.

France’s President Hollande was even worse, although now his grotesque bowing and scraping and universally ineffectual efforts in everything have knocked him out of politics.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: WEAK CALL BY LABOUR PARTY'S JEREMY CORBYN FOR BRITAIN TO SUSPEND "SOME" MILITARY SUPPLIES TO SAUDI ARABIA

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RINF

"UK Must Suspend Some Military Supplies To Saudi Arabia: Corbyn"

Some?

Please, Mr. Corbyn, that is a bit insipid.

I thought you had more fire in your breast than that when I supported your leadership against ruthless establishment attacks.

Britain might just as well be selling weapons to Nazis as to Saudi Arabia.

There is no difference, none at all.

And such weapons! Cluster bombs to shred families in Yemen.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE POSSIBLE ROLE OF CIA IN THE KILLING OF THE RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR TO TURKEY - IT ISN'T ONLY THE TURKS WHO THINK THIS MAY BE THE CASE

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER

The CIA came to mind for me, too, with news of the Russian Ambassador’s death in Turkey.

Of course, it is completely plausible.

Such a thing should not be plausible for a country such as America laying claims to democratic and human rights, but we all know, to America's great shame, that it is plausible. America's ugly history of dark acts makes it so.

The picture accompanying the article shows an event whose CIA connections have never been explored adequately, and certainly never will be, the Kennedy Assassination.

Of course, Turkey has its own motives for making charges which could be false.

Nevertheless, CIA was unquestionably involved in the failed Turkish coup, and its blunders have done the opposite of what was desired by bringing Turkey and Russia closer together. Were it not so, the CIA would have warned Erdogan of the unfolding coup rather than President Putin.

And ultimately Russian gas into Europe, something CIA and State Department have opposed for decades, will increase under the new Russian–Turkish relationship.

Efforts to disrupt such developments are what the psychopaths of CIA’s clandestine operations regard as attractive opportunities.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: ASKING AMERICA TO TRY TO UNDERSTAND RUSSIA MORE IS MUCH LIKE ASKING A GORILLA TO SIT UP STRAIGHT AT THE TABLE

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MARY DEJEVSKY IN THE INDEPENDENT

"America should try to understand it [Russia] a little more"

Well, now there's the understatement of the year.

But I think you must know, Mary Dejevsky, that it is not a lack of understanding creating all the turmoil in our world. It is deliberate bad intentions.

The kind of people capable of unleashing horrors like Syria and Iraq or creating coups against democratic governments, as in Ukraine, are not the kind of people susceptible to pleas of try to be more understanding.

Asking this of America's Neocons, and their servants like Obama and Hillary, is a bit like asking a gorilla to sit up straight at the dinner table.

Just silly.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: BILL CLINTON SAYS HILLARY COULD NOT PREVAIL OVER FORCES OF BOTH FBI AND RUSSIA - PERHAPS THE MOST IRRESPONSIBLE WORDS EVER FROM A FORMER PRESIDENT - THE CLINTONS READY TO SACRIFICE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND RULE OF LAW FOR PERSONAL BENEFIT

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RINF

Good God, this is beyond vomit-inducing.

Bill would have us see Hillary heroically battling titanic forces of evil, but going down bravely in the struggle because the monsters were just too much for the hero of the story.

Bill has been a liar all of his life, but this has to be the great white whale of all his tales.

Of course, if you want to understand why he is trying so hard, you have to know a bit about the relationship between these two twisted and corrupt people.

Many witnesses have told tales of Hillary raving at him, throwing objects at him, and becoming incoherently angry over the years.

Well, he doesn't live with her, but they do need to see each other sometimes about their many shared interests, like going to the cash dispenser of the ATM called the Clinton Foundation or coordinating their stories for avoiding taxes or other obligations.

I am sure he is trying desperately to avoid having his head caved in one of these days after virtually running her failed campaign and after all those years of arousing her fury with his endless sexual predation.

After all, she put up with all his decades of crap just to have power over him both in the governor's mansion and in the White House, often effectively making decisions, albeit bad ones, and to eventually slide into the political driver's seat as the sun set on his term.

And then to have what she so lusted after be snatched away.

They surely stand as one of the most bizarre couples in American history.

Further thought. This deliberate conflating of the FBI’s legitimate investigations of Hillary as Secretary of State and a fantasy tale of Russian hacking is wrong on many levels, and an intelligent man like Bill Clinton well knows that it is, yet he proceeds to retail it everywhere as valid information.

They have nothing to do with each other. The FBI was right to investigate when evidence appeared, and the only accurate criticism of their efforts is that they did not press a sound case.

There would, of course, have been none of this controversy had Hillary not broken numerous federal laws with her well-known shady practices as Secretary of State. That, of course, is the key fact the Clinton’s would have everyone lose sight of, Hillary’s arrogant disregard for rules and ethics in high office.

The business of Russian hacking is not only a red herring, it is a deliberate and unscrupulous use of old 1950s’ suspicions and fears about the Russians for the Clintons’ own benefit, damaging international relations for personal benefit. In other words, it represents yet more irresponsible Clinton behavior.

Furthermore, even were the tale true, it is irrelevant. Insider tidbits about shady inner workings of a political party are not state secrets. They are investigative reporting.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: WHY SYRIA HAS BEEN TREATED IN THE HORRIBLE FASHION THAT IT HAS - THE TERRIBLE POLICIES OF THE NEOCONS EMBRACED BY OBAMA

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN SPUTNIK

Syria was treated in this horrible fashion for largely one reason.

America has been creating for years a kind of cordon sanitaire around its Middle East colony, Israel.

That's what the illegal invasion and virtual destruction of Iraq was about.

America did not want to take the international pressure against another blatant invasion, so it selected this terrorist-horror in Syria.

It had some willing local partners to assist: Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Turkey. Also included was assistance from several NATO allies such as Britain and France.

A terrible shameful history of events made all the more shameful for being led by the Nobel-winning, first black man to be President.

This effort included the destruction of Libya and the killing of a man who had been a good leader for his people.

It includes the Saudi horrors inflicted on Yemen.

And it includes the coup which ended Egypt's only democratic government and the re-installation of a dictator.

If there is one thing Israel seriously dislikes, it is either democracies or independent-minded leaders anywhere near its borders.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: CHRISTMAS AND HANUKKAH FALL ON THE SAME DAY THIS YEAR - BUT THE ORIGINS AND MEANINGS OF THE TWO HOLIDAYS ARE VERY DIFFERENT DESPITE MODERN FESTIVITIES BEING SIMILAR

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY RACHEL SHABI IN THE INDEPENDENT

While modern festivities of the two holidays have many similarities, there are really fundamental differences in the origins and meanings of Christmas and Hanukkah.

Hanukkah marks a revolt by conservative Hebrew leaders against Hellenistic culture as reflected by the Seleucids who ruled them, one of the several fragment empires created after Alexander the Great.

At the time, Hellenistic culture was generally considered the most advanced and enlightened around. The culture of the Old Testament, at least those parts emphasized by conservative Jews such as the laws of Leviticus, were pretty much the opposite.

So, one level, while a celebration of freedom, on another, the event being celebrated was actually something of a step backward, not towards enlightenment.

Christmas celebrates birth and, more specifically, the birth of the coming of a new way of looking at things which puts away the old laws of the New Testament.

Early Christian thought reflects indeed some of the very Hellenistic culture rejected in the revolt of the Maccabees. Some of the sayings attributed to Jesus - eg, the Golden Rule - were already formulated by Hellenistic thinkers.

The early Christians were of course themselves Jews, but they were part of the ferment of the times against tradition-bound Judaism and the formation of groups and cults we see evidence of later in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

There were a number of such movements who rejected this or that aspect of traditional Judaism, and not just the followers of Jesus.

So, while the family suppers of today and lights and gifts are related practices, the origins and original meanings of the two holidays are almost diametrically opposed.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: MISSED IN ALL THE PHONY NOISE ABOUT RUSSIAN HACKING - A SERIOUS INTERNAL THREAT OVERLOOKED IN AMERICA - A THOUGHT-EXPERIMENT ON RUSSIAN HACKING

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE ON WASHINGTON BLOG

I don't believe there was hacking. I believe the DNC material was a leak.

However, let's just pretend for a moment that there was a hack, a Russian hack, and let’s do a kind of thought-experiment.

Then so what?

A bunch of true insights into the inner workings of the Clinton family-dominated Democratic Party were revealed to voters, with no national security matters being involved at all. Voters indeed were informed about something for a change.

Wow, that is just terrible, isn't it? Some truth revealed from behind of the phony public façade of a corrupt political party.

Could almost pass for what used to be called investigative journalism, couldn’t it?

And it came after a months-long storm of extremely biased, often dishonest, and frequently hateful 'reporting" by the corporate press and broadcasters in favor of the Clintons.

There were no exceptions to this this massive, coordinated effort by the corporate press, and indeed American corporate hi-tech companies, not really parts of the traditional press, such as Google or Facebook, joined right in the abuse of privileged positions. We've never seen its like before.

It does seem to me that the only genuinely serious concern for American voters should be that deadly threat from within their own society, that unrelenting effort to swing an election on false claims and innuendo. 

Not some facts revealed by someone with an ear to the wall of a corrupt organization.

This simple truth seems lost in the roaring noise of 1950s-style anti-Russian propaganda – all of it without a speck of proof.

But even were there some proof, the issue involved seems trivial compared to the monstrous one everyone ignores, a domestic press, a gigantic self-praising industry, which in fact closely emulates the behavior of the press in a tyrannical society.

And remember all of these abusive political behaviors were by companies whose privileged and profitable position in society results from America’s loose-to-non-existent regulation of monopolies, near-monopolies, and massive corporations. It is not owing just to their own intrinsic merit.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: PRIME EXAMPLE OF PLANTED STORY REPORTED AS NEWS - AND ONE DEPENDING UPON THAT MOST UNRELIABLE OF CHARACTERS BILL CLINTON - AMERICA'S UTTERLY CORRUPT FORMER FIRST FAMILY

COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY ANDREW BUNCOMBE IN THE INDEPENDENT

“The unlikely encounter between the former president and a newspaper editor happened in a New York book shop and had Bill Clinton saying: “FBI Director James Comey 'cost' Hillary the presidential election"

"Unlikely"?

"Happened"?

Would that be in the same sense of the words as used to describe Bill's utterly corrupt planned private assault on Attorney General Loretta Lynch while her plane waited on the tarmac of the Phoenix Airport some while back?

That happened just as the FBI was looking into the matters of Hillary’s use of private servers, Loretta Lynch being the FBI Director's direct boss and also being an Obama appointee.

Nothing with the Clintons happens by accident.

This was a created event to plant a story which The Independent reports as genuine news.

Further…

Now, there's a likely man to quote, Bill Clinton.

The kind of guy who was having sexual encounters in the Oval Office with a young intern.

And who lied about it countless times.

The guy who bombed Belgrade, a genuine war crime.

The guy whose FBI attacked the kooks in Waco with tanks and incinerated all 80 or so of them, including children. The guy who learned quickly about the horrors of Rwanda and ordered complete silence on the subject, who never lifted a finger to stop it.

The guy who appointed the hideous neocon, Madeleine Albright, as Secretary of State. She is most famous for her quote on a television interview. When asked about tens of thousands of Iraqi children dying under the embargo, she unblinkingly relied, "We think it is worth it."

The guy who is such a buddy of convicted pedophile, Jeffrey Epstein. Jeffrey, a billionaire with big money connections, actually assisted in setting up the crooked operation called the Clinton Foundation, which has served ever since as a kind of money machine paying out to the Clintons.

Jeffrey is famous for keeping a stable of underage girls for the use of visitors to his private island. Bill is recorded on flights logs of Jeffrey's private jet as visiting 28 times.

Jeffrey and friends also helped secure the Clintons' current dominance of the national Democratic Party, a dominance they hold owing entirely to the floods of money they bring in.

Bill Clinton's corruption is as deep and complete as Hillary's.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: POLL FINDS A MAJORITY OF AMERICANS THINK ELECTORAL COLLEGE SHOULD WAIT FOR MORE INFORMATION ON RUSSIAN HACKING - UNTIL THE LAST MOMENT THE PRESS STILL DESPERATELY TRYING TO STOP TRUMP

COMMENT TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

With all the phony polls created and used during the election, you might think the press would give up on them.

But, no, here we go again.

It is so easy to sabotage a poll of this nature, it is almost ridiculous.

The inclusion or exclusion of a single word in the question can change the count.

Besides, this is a pointless propaganda exercise even if the poll were valid.

The Electors are required, under the Constitution, to vote, full stop.

It is difficult to imagine what Constitutional authority could say, wait, or, go get more information first.

The poll is a useless exercise except for propaganda-laden papers like The Independent to have "one more kick at the can."

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: COMMENTS BY OBAMA CALLING INTO QUESTION NOT JUST HIS DEMONSTRATED FLAWED CHARACTER BUT HIS BASIC INTELLIGENCE

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER

"The Russians can't change us, or significantly weaken us. They are a smaller country, they are a weaker country…”

And you wonder why Obama thinks Russia hacked the DNC?

Or stole Crimea?

Or interfered in Syria?

In recent months, Obama has actually revealed what a mediocre intellect he has, in addition to his character and personality flaws.

He really is not all that intelligent, not really up to what the leader of so powerful a country should be.

Bill Clinton was quoted some years back in comments about "Obama just not having it," and, I don't like saying so, but he was clearly right. I thought Clinton wrong and nasty at the time, but he was correct.

Obama has always had a reputation for taciturnity and secretiveness.

When he was a lecturer at University of Chicago - a lecturer, never a professor - other people in the faculty commented on his not socializing at all. Faculty members made some effort, but he remained elusive as I’ve read from one of them.

His degrees from distinguished universities almost certainly reflect long-term policies in such American institutions to accept a quota of applicants whose academic achievement is not fully competitive simply because they belong to minorities, especially blacks.

They do the same thing in reverse on a limited scale: children of wealthy, influential families are admitted and even passed without meeting requirements. George Bush was an outstanding example, a genuinely dull-minded man with a really “connected” family. Of course, in return places like Yale later expect handsome endowments later.

I suggest that Obama’s behavior as a lecturer was part of a lifelong hiding from revealing his inadequacy. He is reasonably bright, but just not bright enough to have been doing what he was doing and, of course, what he is doing now.

The suspicion is further confirmed by his reputation for severely hating leaks and whistleblowers. He is said to be one of the most severe-minded Presidents on this issue.

He also generally has quiet little family suppers at the White House too. He is known for not being fond of the big dinners with lots of distinguished guests.

As the old saying goes, history is biography.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: BAN KI-MOON SAYS UN FOCUSES TOO MUCH ON ISRAEL - BUT BAN KI-MOON IS WASHINGTON'S MAN AND A REMARKABLY INEFFECTIVE SECRETARY-GENERAL - 95% OF EARTH'S PEOPLE ARE NOT AMERICANS - UN'S THWARTED PURPOSE OF PEACE UNDER MOON - ISRAEL AS AMERICA'S MIDEAST COLONY

COMMENT ON AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

"Ban Ki-moon says UN has 'disproportionate' focus on Israel"

Says the most ineffective United Nations’ Secretary-General in living memory.

Ban Ki-moon has done or said almost nothing meaningful during his entire term. In effectiveness terms, he is on a par with Angela Merkel or Francois Hollande.

There is a simple explanation: he is an American servant, not an independent-minded leader reflecting the opinions of the other 95% of humanity outside the United States.

The UN is supposed to be about peace, first and foremost, and Ban Ki-moon has been as silent as a church mouse about Obama's destructive, blood-drenched rampage through the Middle East and about his appalling creation and management of a systematic industry for extrajudicial killing by drone.

Hundreds of thousands of innocents have died amidst great destruction and countless injuries.

And all we’ve heard from Ban Ki-moon have been bromides, almost the kind of insipid stuff one expects from the Vatican, that establishment institution of establishment institutions which says nothing of significance, ever.

Well, Ban Ki-moon's speeches, all of them, might well have been sketched out in Washington for him, considering the lack of perspective, insight, and even truth they contain, to say nothing of the fact they ignore the views of the overwhelming mass of humanity living outside of the United States.

So, it is quite natural that he should speak this way about America's nasty colony in the Middle East, the colony which occupies illegally and oppresses millions, practices immense discrimination, and kills regularly.

If that isn't a fit topic of concern for an institution supposedly dedicated to peace, I don't know what is. And when the leader of such an institution speaks against it, he really speaks against a fundamental purpose of his own office. Without that purpose, he is a useless, smiling blubberer – which, in fact, pretty much sums up what we see in Ban Ki-moon.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: MORE NONSENSE ON THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE ANSWERED - TO KNOW WHAT IT TAKES TO CHANGE AMERICA'S RIGID CONSTITUTION IS TO UNDERSTAND WHY THIS PROVISION STILL GOVERNS ELECTIONS - THE RULES OF THE GAME

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY ERICH MCELROY IN THE INDEPENDENT

“If they do go their own way, they are known as ‘faithless electors’. But if enough of them decide to dump Trump it could cost him the presidency”

This is a really uninformed article.

Hillary Clinton said, after the 2000 election in which George Bush was elected with a minority of the popular vote, much the same thing Donald Trump did once about the Electoral College.

And, as in so many instances, she gave it a sound-bite and then made no effort to do anything about it.

Like it or not, this is the rigid Constitutional system under which America must operate until someone is willing to take on the immense task of changing it.

How hard would it be to change the Constitution?

The President must sign off. The Senate must sign off with a two-thirds majority vote. The House of representatives must sign off on it, again with a two-thirds majority vote. And there must be votes in all fifty states with a three-quarters majority of the states supporting the change.

There is an alternative path. A Constitutional convention of all the states may be called, but it must be called by two-thirds of the states. Any amendments approved by the convention must then be approved by a three-quarters majority of all states.

Does that make it clear why the system remains unchanged?

Could we please stop seeing such articles - there have been many in The Independent - whose only authentic use can be to frustrate people who do not understand the Constitution, really misinforming them and trying to demean Trump for matters about which he has nothing to do?

If you are playing a game or sport with a certain set of fixed rules - rules which all games and sports have - only a child or not-very bright person expects that the rules should be changed right in the middle of a match because they are not the ideal rules.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: FACEBOOK'S THIRD-PARTY "FACT-CHECKING" IS A DISGUISED BOOST TO A NEWS INDUSTRY IN ECONOMIC DECLINE - AND HOW IN GOD'S NAME IS CENSORSHIP-ENFORCING QUASI-MONOPOLISTIC FACEBOOK QUALIFIED TO SAY WHAT IS TRUE? - USING MARKET POWER TO SQUASH THE VIEWS OF OTHERS

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN ZERO HEDGE

The very idea of such an organized effort to “fact check” is absurd and anti-democratic.

And it is actually a disguised form of support for an uncompetitive, quasi-monopolistic industry, the mainline news industry, an industry which in fact is in decline owing to changed economic conditions.

And Facebook?

Good God, As one of its many glorious acts, Facebook removed pictures of a breast with early cancer which a woman thoughtfully had posted to help others understand and be observant.

Facebook is a ridiculous organization, qualified in no way to distinguish what is true or false or good or bad.

Facebook and its chief spokesman have exactly the ethics we expect from monopoly or quasi-monopoly companies.

They are simply heavy-handedly using their market power to enforce pretentious views and squash those of others.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: RUSSIAN "ACT OF WAR" NONSENSE - HILLARY AND THE ROLE OF SATAN IN HER DEFEAT - OBAMA'S REASONS FOR JOINING HILLARY'S TIRESOME SONG - AND A REALLY INTERESTING SPECULATION: WAS OBAMA AT THE BOTTOM OF IT ALL?

EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY ROBERT CORNWELL IN THE INDEPENDENT

"Will Russia’s act of war against American democracy bring Donald Trump down?"

Will Robert Cornwell's inability to write a thoughtful article bring him down as an Independent regular?

The answer to the second question apparently is no, because Cornwell just keeps returning with laughable, lamentable stuff, and the editors just keep running it.

Although I must say this latest cow plop sets a new record for poor journalism and lack of insight.

There has been no Russian "act of war" unless you are a believer in the delusional, semi-hysterical Hillary Clinton, a personality so warped that she just cannot admit she lost.

Had there been anything resembling “an act of war,” we would all be well aware of it, and not because of nutty claims and political muttering. We would know it from factual revelations and a real response commensurate with Obama’s piling of thousands of pieces of new military equipment in Eastern Europe owing just to phantom Russian aggression.

No, when Hillary loses, there has to be someone "out there" who caused her loss, because she knows she was ordained by God to be President and required only the formality of a vote by the people to get the promised title.

But Satan Interfered and he was taking the shape, devious creature that he is, of Vladimir Putin.

Hillary knows this as certainly as she knows that the Clinton Foundation is honest and well-run by Chelsea or that decades of rumors of husband Bill being a sexual predator on a scale with the late Jimmy Savile are just part of "the great right-wing conspiracy."

She knows all this with the same certainty she demonstrated at Benghazi and the sure hand in Libyan affairs that saw tens of thousands of women and their families die in Libya and Syria, those two being related since the operation she was running served to destroy a decent government in Libya while sending weapons and cutthroats to try destroying another decent government in Syria.

Just as she knows to a certainty that she did not steal her party's nomination from Bernie Sanders through all kinds of dirty tricks and vote rigging, even though you "deplorables" out there may believe otherwise owing to impartial academic analysis. After all, that analysis, too, would be the work of Satan in some form or another.

Hillary cannot grasp that people rejected her, that great numbers of people genuinely dislike her, that she was the worst candidate the Democrats could have run, so there must be another explanation for her loss.

And Obama is singing the same tiresome song with her, although doing so for different reasons. Despite his efforts for her in the election, the Obamas and the Clintons pretty much hate each other. We have many tidbits over the years firmly yielding that conclusion.

But Obama also hates Putin because Putin has made a hash of several of Obama’s “legacy efforts,” as in Syria and in Ukraine, truly embarrassing the inept Obama in all the world’s eyes. And, of course, any notion that Putin and Trump, the man who will drive his heels into everything Obama regards as an achievement, are in cahoots allows Obama the chance to throw a little mud at both. It really doesn’t count how pathetic the mud-throwing effort seems because here is a man whose entire eight years were marked by pathetic efforts.

There is another, far more remote possibility, but this is one which gives more credit to Obama perhaps than his other acts appear to warrant. This is one which at least no known facts rule out, and that is that Obama actually supported the DNC leaks – and I believe they were leaks, not hacks - to secretly get back at the much-hated Clintons, helping to defeat Hillary while seeming to support her and effectively ending their dynasty. It would definitely provide some warm and comforting chuckles during Obama’s retirement years.

Of course, if that were the case, he’d have to do everything to put people off the scent, and this nonsense about Russia, publicly supporting Hillary’s hallucinatory nonsense is perfect. It perhaps would be a small price to pay for massive private satisfaction, and the biggest genuine achievement of his time in office.

After all, the ugly Clintons remain the most powerful actors in the national Democratic party, owing to their big-money connections, and any move against them could be very costly.

Of course, I have to believe that their prominent position in the Democratic Party - and everyone’s implicit understanding of what a terrible mistake it was to run Hillary, plus the public’s insight gained from the Wiki-leak materials about how things were done - may well help secure the party’s continuing decline as a national political force.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: MORE ON "THE RUSSIANS DID IT" - NOW CLAIMED FBI HAS JOINED CIA BUT THIS SEEMS DOUBTFUL - NSA ONLY AGENCY WITH RAW DATA - AND NO ONE QUESTIONS THE INFORMATION ONLY THE SOURCE OF IT - TRYING TO OVERTHROW ELECTIONS BY RUMOR

EXPANSION OF COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY ADAM ENTOUS AND ELLEN NAKASHIMA IN THE INDEPENDENT

Response to another reader’s comment: “So, if I understand this correctly: The Independent is complaining that the Russians revealed what a US presidential candidate and her support team actually said? This used to be called 'investigative journalism' back in the day.”

Well said.

And The Independent ignores the mainstream press's relentless, lying attacks on Trump, but of course The Independent was an integral part of that unprecedented onslaught, absolutely devoid of journalistic principles.

It is highly interesting that no one ever challenges the validity of the actual information, challenging only the route by which the public received it. That fact alone is a rather telling indictment of principles and ethics for all concerned in the continuing controversy.

In the end, no matter what the details of how some information moved, the people voted, and Trump won.

Hillary and pathetic Obama just cannot get over the fact.

And they try everything they can to nullify the result, all of their efforts being far-fetched and lacking merit, besides being anti-democratic in intent.

Such high-minded politicians they are. Are we to think an election should be overturned by the unsubstantiated words of one or two appointed bureaucrats? Those offering us the very suggestion look like fools or thugs to everyone who thinks.

Further, we, in fact, have two versions of what FBI has said on the matter. I wouldn't know which to choose, but I suspect the first one – the one saying they saw no evidence - is the accurate one.

After all, the officials at the FBI are all just employees and appointees in the end with no real independence of action, and when the boss says jump, they jump.

Of course, what about the little matter of 15 other American intelligence agencies, none of which sees any evidence for this claim?

The NSA alone would be able to provide the pathways of this supposed transfer of information, but they haven’t said a word. CIA or FBI would only depend on them for basic data, having no parallel capability.

We also have important outside sources telling us that this claim is bogus, including:

http://alexanderhiggins.com/wikileaks-hillary-clinton-emails-leaked-by-pissed-bernie-backer-not-russia/

https://www.rt.com/op-edge/370465-russia-hacking-claims-nsa-binney/

https://sputniknews.com/us/201611021046973468-craig-murray-dnc-podesta/

So, when something looks like a duck, waddles like a duck, and sounds like a duck, it probably is one.

_____________________

Response to another reader comment: “Wikileaks, RT and Sputnik as your sources - you've got a great sense of humour, I'll give you that.”

They are at least as valid as The Independent, a proven source of heavy bias in the matters of Trump, Hillary, Corbyn, and Brexit.

Proven to anyone who has actually been reading, not cheering blindly.

Moreover, it is usually a sign of intelligence to judge from the contents rather than just the source.

In The Independent's case, it stands doubly condemned.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: OBAMA VOWS REVENGE FOR RUSSIAN HACKING - PRETTY SICK STUFF FROM THE WORLD'S MOST POWERFUL MAN - REVENGE OVER UNSUBSTANTIATED ASSERTIONS OF ONE POLITICAL HACK AT CIA?- SHADES OF JOE MCCARTHY WAVING HANDFULS OF BLANK PAPER HE CALLED LISTS OF TRAITORS - OBAMA'S MOTIVES AND HIS LIKELY SICKNESS

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY RACHAEL REVESZ IN THE INDEPENDENT

‘We need to take action and we will at a time and place of our choosing’

It just does not come more completely brainless than this.

And, given his powerful position, more irresponsible.

Take revenge?

For what?

For someone's assertion, unsupported by a scrap of proof?

An assertion by one political appointee at CIA who is not supported by any of the sister intelligence agencies or any physical evidence whatsoever? Even the otherwise pathetic John Kerry has backed off confirming this rubbish.

An assertion whose obvious motive is to get back at the winning candidate, someone you don't like?

This sick man, Obama - a failure in virtually everything he has attempted as President from domestic policy to foreign relations, and a man who has killed hundreds of thousands of innocents abroad, too - is also trying to get back at the government which thwarted his bad intentions in Syria and in Ukraine.

That government embarrassed him before the entire world in his pursuit of ill-considered policies.

Of course, he is trying to get back at Trump because Obama knows Trump is going to quickly extinguish most of what he has done, his sad little pile of stuff, his so-called legacy.

Well, here's Obama’s real legacy, making threats and calling names, threatening innocent people with an abuse of power. Of course, I think we can all agree that while profoundly stupid, this behavior of Obama seems almost elevated compared to his construction and oversight of an entire machinery for extrajudicial killing in many lands.

I am beginning to think Obama has gone mad, just adding to all the other deficiencies of his character and personality. Can he not see how ridiculous he is making charges and threats like this? Apparently not, which is a strong indicator of irrationality.

Here is a 2016 version of drunken old Senator Joe McCarthy waving handfuls of blank papers he calls lists and threatening what he calls traitors in the American government. Only the 2016 version sits in the Oval Office, and he has access to the nuclear launch codes.

This is deeply concerning behavior from a man in such a position.

And if the mainline press were not totally biased towards the war party of the neocons and its defeated candidate, the most corrupt and vicious person ever to run for President, it would be saying so, not giving credibility to blubbering insanity by covering it as though it were sound speech.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: IRAN'S SUPREME LEADER KHAMENEI SAYS ISRAEL WILL NOT EXIST IN 25 YEARS - BUT THIS IS NOT A NEW IDEA AND IT DID NOT ORIGINATE WITH KHAMENEI AND IT IS NOT A THREAT - BASIS FOR THE CLAIM

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY LIZZIE DEARDEN IN THE INDEPENDENT

Well, this is not a new idea.

The CIA did an internal assessment of Israel's prospects a few years back.

It concluded that Israel, as we know it, would not exist in twenty years.

There are many compelling reasons for this conclusion, but it is not in any way a threat, as The Independent tries making Khamenei's statement appear and as I am sure the fraudulent Netanyahu will claim.

Israel simply is an artificial construct, one out of step in the region in which it lives, a massively over-armed crusader state, with a poor highly-subsidized economy, and many of its most important citizens have dual passports and can leave when they wish.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: WHITE HOUSE SPOKESMAN JOSH EARNEST ACCUSES TRUMP AND ASSOCIATES OF LUCRATIVE RUSSIAN CONNECTIONS - THIS IS REALLY SICK STUFF COMING FROM SO HIGH A LEVEL - OBAMA AS LOW-LIFE

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN SPUTNIK

This is just sick, genuinely sick.

Here is a man in a high position in 2016 talking just as though it were 1958.

Now, he could not do this without a nod from Obama.

So here is an outgoing President castigating his successor in public, throwing rumors and innuendos at him without a shred of evidence, because, of course, if he had any evidence he would produce it, and in dramatic fashion.

Decent people do not do these things.

But a man who is responsible for deaths of several hundred thousand in Syria, Libya, Yemen, and elsewhere is anything but decent.

I do not think most people in the West have yet quite understood what a low-life Obama is.

People like the smile and the baritone voice, but sadly, owing to the constant manipulation of the American press, they are largely ignorant of his mass killing.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: ON THE CIA'S FALSE RUSSIAN HACKING ACCUSATIONS - THE RECORD OF CIA AS BOTH A FAILED ORGANIZATION AND A VERY POLITICAL ONE - AMAZON'S BEZOS AND WASHINGTON POST - OTHER LINKS

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY SEVERAL AMERICAN INTELLIGENCE VETS IN RUSSIA INSIDER

http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/us-intel-vets-dispute-russia-hacking-claims/ri18173

An excellent piece.

However, when they say: "a key mystery is why U.S. intelligence would rely on “circumstantial evidence” when it has the capability for hard evidence"

The authors surely are being generous.

The CIA has always been a highly political organization. Always.

And its long-term record of obtaining accurate information and properly assessing it has actually often been quite poor.

The best example is in its old annual assessment of the USSR. It was always grossly incorrect.

This was in part owing to poor work, but it was in part deliberately used to squeeze more money out of Congress for defense and intelligence. It was actually quite a game they used to play.

Truth never much counted, politics did.

By the way, when President Kennedy received his first CIA briefings, he made the memorable comment that there was little there that he had not already read in the New York Times.

It provides a good response to those criticizing Trump for saying he does not need the daily briefings because his (very smart) people are on top of things, the unspoken truth there being that CIA briefings are larded with stuff the CIA wants you to think, not necessarily what reality is. A real man of action does not waste time with that.

However, the CIA has two major branches, intelligence collection and assessment and clandestine operations.

While intelligence gathering has often been a failure, the clandestine branch - I don't want to say has been a success because that would be inaccurate but it has done a lot of damage over the years.

It failed in tasks such as killing Castro, but it helped engineer coups and overthrows in many places, including against democratic governments in Iran, Guatemala, Chile, and, of course in Ukraine.

It has always worked with the thugs and scum of the earth – as it does today in Syria – to bring disorder and destruction to many places.

Essentially, the guys who work for this branch resemble vicious college frat-boys who enjoy hurting and killing with impunity. In Vietnam, for example, these scum organized Project Phoenix during which 20,000 Vietnamese village leaders and such had their throats cut by guys crawling into villages on their bellies in the middle of the night.

Any society has a natural endowment of such psychopathic types, but they don’t all give them free rein and resources to enjoy themselves, except in the case of genuine war.

Readers may enjoy these discussions:

https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2009/05/31/why-the-cia-always-will-be-a-costly-flop/

https://chuckmanwords.wordpress.com/2015/03/13/the-cia-and-americas-presidents-some-rarely-discussed-truths-shaping-contemporary-american-democracy/

Please, also, keep in mind that the Washington Post is now owned by Jeff Bezos of Amazon fame.

Bezos, like other big American hi-tech guys - Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Google - has been in bed with the CIA for a while. All such companies at some point are made offers they cannot refuse ("in the national interest") to share information secretly and sometimes to slightly bend or slant operations in particular ways.

He is also a notorious partisan of Hillary Clinton, having assigned a team of reporters to dig dirt on Trump during the election.

Readers should also see these sources on the leaks:

http://alexanderhiggins.com/wikileaks-hillary-clinton-emails-leaked-by-pissed-bernie-backer-not-russia/

https://sputniknews.com/us/201612141048568197-nsa-whistleblower-binney-cia-lying-russia/

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-12/theres-psy-op-all-right-it-isnt-russians

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: LARRY LESSIG CLAIMS A NUMBER OF ELECTORS MAY NOT VOTE FOR TRUMP - HERE IS A PROFESSOR OFFERING DANGEROUS WISH-FULFILLMENT DREAMS AS FACTS - STUPIDLY TURNING UP THE FIRE ON A SEETHING POT - SOME IMPLICATIONS

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT

Oh, please, the author simply does not understand what he is saying.

The implications of a group of electors not voting with the popular choice in the 21st century are nothing less than immense.

First, the United States would be paralyzed, literally paralyzed, by suits and legal efforts.

The "selected" candidate would not even be able to meaningfully assume office.

Second, there would be something on the streets resembling the anti-war movement in 1969, at the very least.

Something even more serious is not to be ruled out with more than 200,000,000 guns in private hands there.

Certainly, the National Guard would be out on the streets everywhere and there would be shootings.

And, in the longer term, there would be political reprisal, big time.

A powerful Republican was quoted during the Clinton Impeachment that it was party pay-back for the nearly-done Nixon Impeachment.

That is how American politics works. It is visceral.

No sane politician wants to start that whole sequence of events going, even though right now there is all kinds of loose talk, such as Lessig’s, and thoughtless plots.

I am not saying Hillary is sane - in fact, I firmly believe that she is not - but hers is not the prerogative in these matters.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: THE PHONY CLAIM THAT FBI DIRECTOR COMEY'S LETTER DEFEATED HILLARY - FACTS AND PERSPECTIVE - HILLARY NEVER LOOKS IN THE MIRROR TO SEE HER OWN FAULTS - SHE WOULD HAVE BEEN A TERRIBLE LEADER

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY SAMUEL OSBORNE IN THE INDEPENDENT

"Renowned pollster Nate Silver said Ms Clinton would "almost certainly" be President-elect of the US if the election had been held on 27 October, the day before Mr Comey's announcement."

First, we all know that the polls were wrong many, many times. So how can you go back and compare polls with any meaning?

And I believe the polls were wrong because they were often done or commissioned to give engineered results, not true insight. It's an easy thing to do by playing with the sample used, and in at least one well-known case, there was a penetrating analysis done on a “fake news” site showing the flawed method in detail.

And the commissioning and publication of bent polls are just what we would expect, given the performance of the entire mainstream and corporate press during the election.

I never saw such a lack of all journalistic principles as newspapers and broadcasters exhibited during the entire election. The Independent, for example, was consistently and bizarrely biased in every sentence and photo and cartoon that it published.

And, in the case, cited above, of an analytically-demonstrated, truly bent poll, I recall The Independent featuring the very poll as though it were an important new insight, a revelation.

Second, any decent writer never, never starts a sentence with something like, "Renowned pollster Nate Silver." It is question-begging right from the start.

It attempts to give an unproved sense of authority to all that follows. It is, quite simply, a technique used by propagandists, tabloid stories, and fakes.

Third, FBI Director Comey simply did what he had to do. To ignore such discoveries would invite immediate attacks of special treatment. As it is, she did get special treatment. That airplane meeting between husband Bill and Comey's boss, the Attorney General, should have led to the Attorney General's impeachment. It was scandalous behavior beyond telling.

It is a pathetic tactic of Hillary's to blame him. She has no capacity for looking into the mirror and seeing why it is that she really lost.

Fourth, of course, this all ties in, too, with her babyish, whining, 1950s-style complaints about Russian hacking.

The fact is that the Russians, and likely a dozen intelligence services, got into her State Department servers, and they left not a trace because real professional hackers can do that, not leave a trace. A real tribute to her professional incompetence.

Yet somehow, in the mental landscape of Hillaryland, when it came to the DNC computers, it is now proved that the Russians did it. Utter nonsense. There would not be a trace if they had.

There is considerable informed speculation that the DNC hacks were the work of a Party insider. Lots of folks do not like this ugly-tempered, mean-spirited woman. It has even been speculated that Obama himself secretly might have commissioned such an effort, and I think that could have some substance to it.

Despite all the phony camera-op hugging between Obama and Clinton, they very much dislike each other. Bill and Hillary have made scathing comments about Obama to third parties, and if I’m aware of them, you can be sure Obama is. Who knows, but it sure would be a nice form of revenge to play as though you were supporting her while setting secret leg-traps.

No matter what the case, we can be glad this ugly political hack did not gain power. She is without redeeming qualities, has contempt for ordinary people and blacks, has a record of corruption without parallel in a candidate, a record of lying and incompetence, and she helped kill tens of thousands without so much as suffering a moist eye.

Trump is already demonstrating an intense get-the-job-done ethic that will be a refreshing change. It could be beneficial for many ordinary Americans, and it could halt some of the killing, and it could avoid war with Russia – genuine blessings, every one of these possibilities.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: TRUMP'S REJECTION OF RUSSIAN INFLUENCE IN ELECTION - WE ARE SEEING A CIA-STYLE DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN IN THESE MATTERS TO CLOUD THE SIMPLE FACT THAT THE PEOPLE ELECTED TRUMP

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY ADAM WITHNALL IN THE INDEPENDENT

“Donald Trump claims he 'doesn't believe' Russia helped him win election”

Well, not only does Trump not believe it, but tens of millions of others do not believe it because there is no proof.

And the real bottom line here is, even were there a scrap of truth here, so what?

He was elected by the American people, and this despite a huge propaganda campaign by the corporate press, including very much British papers like The Independent and The Guardian.

Dear Independent editors, what you are spreading with this kind of junk is part of a disinformation campaign.

Quite possibly one started by the CIA, who, in fact, are said to be feeling a little uneasy about Trump and the changes he might bring.

Now, there's a really good way to select a government, don't you think, the CIA?

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: MORE ON THE FAKE ISSUE OF FAKE NEWS - THE CORPORATE PRESS'S IRRESPONSIBILITY - JOE MCCARTHY AND HIS LIST OF 200 "COMMIES" IN THE STATE DEPARTMENT - THE UNSUPPORTED COMPLAINTS OF THE MOST CORRUPT PERSON EVER TO RUN FOR PRESIDENT

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MICK MEANEY IN RINF

Well said, Mick.

We have the startling example of what is likely the all-time great attack campaign by the press, ignoring every journalistic principle, the one conducted against Trump.

There has never been anything quite like it for relentless intensity and comprehensiveness.

And what happened? It failed, and Trump was elected.

The old fable of the boy who cried "wolf" too often definitely applies here.

So, too, does the traditional sympathy many people instinctively come feel for an underdog.

To say nothing of the revulsion many feel towards showy displays of the arrogance of power.

In the end, corporate journalism - and that is what all the mainline press and broadcasting are, corporate - cannot be honest journalism. It is literally impossible.

We see how even the new hi-tech internet companies - all started with undoubtedly good intentions - have terribly abused their power now that they are very large and established corporations. You name the firm - Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, Google, Apple, etc - and it is abusive and often drunk on its own power.

The press and broadcasting are not a whit different. Big corporations are big corporations, effectively all fairly powerful special interests.

This current attack on "fake" news and on legitimate non-American news sources is just sickening. It comes from what are special interests, the corporate press and officials of a political party aggrieved by its own failings.

That number of 200 “fake news” sites immediately struck me because it is close to the number drunken old Senator Joe McCarthy used to claim as the number of “commies” in the State Department whose names were supposedly on one of his secret lists, never even seen by anyone.

Often-drunk McCarthy who was trying to spark a failing political career with shocking claims, and he briefly succeeded.

He has long been totally discredited, but here is one of the best-known newspapers in America making a frighteningly similar claim. They do not even understand the source of their “information,” but they published anyway. Absurdly irresponsible.

Perhaps they, too, are trying to spark a flagging career, flagging in terms of traditional advertising revenue and in terms of readership vis-à-vis the alternate press, but I’m also quite sure they are serving the interests they always have served, interests such as CIA, special and corporate interests, and political insiders.

Not everything the alternative press does is sound or even responsible - although that is precisely the case for the corporate press already - but the alternative press exercises free speech, the single most important right there is in distinguishing a free society from an authoritarian one. In that sense, they are on the side of the angels.

And just reflect on the person who perhaps most strongly raises her voice against the alternative press and makes utterly unfounded claims about Russia, Hillary Clinton.

She is a bitter person, angry about not winning the one thing she has so long lusted after, and she has not an ounce of ability to engage in self-reflection about why that might have been the case. And that’s all besides having been the most patently corrupt candidate ever to run for the presidency.

JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: MORE ON PHONY CLAIMS OF RUSSIAN ELECTION INTERFERENCE - AMERICA'S APPALLING RECORD OF DOING JUST THAT TO OTHERS - THE UNSPOKEN REALITY OF ISRAEL'S INTERFERENCE - AMERICA AS THE WORLD'S GREAT HYPOCRITE

COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER

The United States is complaining about alleged foreign interference in its elections? That's rich.

Yes, exactly.

America has, non-stop, actively interfered in elections since WWII.

I'm not speaking of the numerous coups engineered against even democratic parties America did not like, coups in places such as Guatemala, Iran, and Chile.

And I'm not speaking of the assassinations and attempted assassinations of a number of leaders, such as Castro or Gaddafi or Allende or, as it has long been rumored, the serious attempt on de Gaulle.

There was also close, secret cooperation with dictatorships and juntas to suppress democracy in many places - these include the former military junta in Argentina which used to "disappear" dissidents, the PRI Party which ruled Mexico for seventy years of corruption, the Shah of Iran and the torture chambers of his Savak secret police, President Mubarak of Egypt who ruled a totally corrupt government for 30 years, President Ceausescu of Romania who was called by his people "the Dracula," and many, many others.

I am speaking of just plain interference on a large scale in other people's elections, and very much including elections in advanced countries such as those of Europe.

Young, promising politicians in any country of interest are spotted and given secret “pensions" early in their careers. To turn one down would not be viewed graciously and could easily spark future secret disinformation or other operations against you.

So, it is pretty much an offer you cannot refuse, but anyone taking it is instantly made vulnerable to future exposure much as by the revelation of a record of payments made to a spy in another country.

Favored foreign political parties get money channeled to them through many murky routes, as well as receiving favorable press treatment – all combined with avoiding an implicit threat of poor press treatment or a future manufactured scandal.

By the way, no country in fact more openly interferes with American elections and politics than does Israel, yet never a word is heard in America against, or even about, the fact, there always being great selectivity in any attack America makes against anyone abroad.  Israel interferes through both direct words and acts of its government and through the workings of the Israel Lobby. America’s well-financed and well-organized Israel Lobby acts almost as a kind of intelligence operation inside America aimed against politicians who might in any way question Israel, closely paralleling what the CIA does in other countries.

NGOs, run or at least financed by known CIA collaborators, such as George Soros, routinely play dark political games in many countries, all the while pretending to be doing good works.

Newspapers like the New York Times frequently act as CIA assets with the stories they run or the emphasis they give to stories. They have often hurt people's reputations through suggestive material planted by the CIA. In other cases, they build up the reputations of undeserving politicians.

The total amount of CIA and CIA assets’ cheap tricks and skullduggery done to the politics of other countries is, I am sure, phenomenal, yet whenever there is even a hint that another country might have done anything similar inside the United States, again except for the case of Israel, we get a storm of righteous indignation from American politicians, bureaucrats, and newspapers who, as if on cue, begin a campaign of nonsense.

Remember the American whining and outrage in 1996 over never-proved accusations that China had played secret games with American political fund-raising? Self-righteous chest-thumping about democracy went on and on, while, meanwhile, the CIA continued its regular and well-funded work of interfering in many democracies.

America is nothing if not the world’s greatest hypocrite.