May 5th, 2019 News Round-Up

This is the week that was:

A desperate coup attempt in Venezuela by the hapless Juan Guaido ended embarrassingly for the plotters and their US string-pullers. How is it that such an unpopular, incompetent "regime" such as Nicolás Maduro's can be so resilient in the face of such opposition and amidst such glaring economic failure?

Perhaps it's simply the case that the achievements of the Bolivarians have been so significant for the formerly ignored and despised poor majority that said poor majority forgives the economic problems caused by the worldwide drop in the price of oil; the crippling US sanctions; the long-term campaign of sabotage by internal traitors and etc. It's true. Many other Venezuelans hate Maduro. Those who can afford to do so have exiled themselves. Of course, we must remember that 20% of Canadians support shit-head "conservative" parties and believe in all sorts of stupid garbage and state publicly that they'd like to see Justin Trudeau hanged for "treason." I rather suspect that a great deal of the anti-Maduro movement in Venezuela is comprised of the equivalent sort of human garbage as supports Scheer, Ford, Kenney, etc., etc., ad nauseum, here in Canada.

While Guaido was humiliating himself outside of an airport that his tiny band of corrupt army officers and duped rank-and-file soldiers hadn't even captured yet, Canada's own Crystia Freeland (she with the Nazi Grand-Pappy) was likewise humiliating herself with a self-important call for the bullshit "Lima Group" of US puppets to mobilize in support of the farce. I can't recall if any members of the "group" heeded her call. It doesn't matter one way or the other.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is currently in the United Kingdom's corrupt court system fighting extradition to a life of torture and imprisonment in the USA. He is wanted on charges of extreme journalism. You really have to hand it to the hegemonic propaganda system. Half of the so-called "progressives" in the West are prepared to let Assange be crucified for one blinkered reason or another.

1. "Assange is a rapist and should suffer whatever anyone has planned for him." This appears to be based on very thin gruel indeed. When you consider how extremely dodgy the behaviour of the UK and Sweden has been on this case, and you remember who Julian Assange actually is, and you still feel compelled to appear "woke" and leave him for the dogs, ... well, you've been played like a violin.

2. "Assange is responsible for Donald Trump by leaking the truth about Hillary Clinton." So what? Hillary's responsible for Trump by robbing Bernie Sanders of the nomination to gratify her own YUUUGE sense of entitlement. (As revealed by Wikileaks.)

3. "Julian Assange is an asshole." Who cares?

4. "I'm a moron in the USA's corporate media-system and I sincerely believe that there will be no untoward consequences for my so-called 'profession' just because I cheer on Donald-fucking-Trump (the unhinged, authoritarian, Putin-puppet) to lock-up Julian Assange and torture him forever. Because Assange isn't really a journalist. And Assange discomfited the powerful whereas I serve the powerful." And if you really believe that you really are a moron. You will find that the precedent against journalists extends to your cosseted realms and if you piss-off one sector of the oligarchy you will be destroyed and made an example of just like Assange was.

Zombie Russia-gate is staggering around, trying to get it's bearings. It's possible it could soon topple to the ground, or it could continue to stagger about, spreading disgust and horror in its wake. So far, the strategy of the proponents of this shit-for-brains conspiracy theory appear to be centered on the following:

1. "We haven't seen the full report." That's true. Nonetheless, what you HAVE seen is emphatically clear that there was NO COLLUSION. I put that in all-caps so that deluded sheeple can't pretend not to have read it. I'll repeat: NO COLLUSION.  Robert Mueller found no evidence of collusion. No evidence of even the possibility that there was collusion. Robert Mueller determined that there was NO COLLUSION. So all that stupid nonsense about Trump being treasonously in cahoots with Putin has to be put to rest and given a decent burial.

The idea that an ego-maniac, unprincipled, backstabbing, duplicitous creature like Donald Trump would find himself obligated to serve Vladimir Putin for his having provided some small service in getting him elected US President is ridiculous. Furthermore, it is absurd to imagine that the entire government/state apparatus of the USA would stand-down in mute inability as a president steered US policy to benefit Russia at the expense of their own country. And, anyway, any honest and sane accounting of Trump's actions as president show that he has NOT been serving Russia's interests in any case. 

2. "Well, anyway, the Mueller Report DOES show that Russia interfered in the election." First of all: So fucking what? Trump's policies are not all that different from standard Republican policies. (Which are really not all that different from standard Democratic policies.) Aside from the fact that crazed idiot Hillary Clinton might have started a war with Russia and gotten us all killed, it's simply also the case that the USA "meddles" in other countries' politics (to the point of invading them, overthrowing their governments and installing their own puppets) all the time. Secondly, we don't really know that the RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT of Vladimir Putin actually did anything. We know that PEOPLE IN RUSSIA created memes and groups on facebook. We also know that these Russian people charged fees to run ads on the pages of these facebook groups that they created. So it's quite possible that the Internet Research Agency really was just a "troll farm" to earn advertising dollars on the internet. The fact that the billionaire owner of the IRA knows Putin is not significant in itself. You'd be hard-pressed to point to a US billionaire who isn't known by the leaders of one (or both) of the two main parties in the USA. And, anyway, the idea that those ads were at all a factor in the 2016 election is imbecilic.

We don't know that Russian Intelligence (the GRU) had any involvement in obtaining the Podesta emails and the evidence of the DNC's and Hillary Clinton's corruption.

3. "Barr is a liar. Mueller says Trump wasn't 'exonerated.' Trump should be impeached for obstruction of justice and Barr should be punished for not appearing before Congress when subpoenaed." Fine. Do it. Go nuts. I even agree with you. Get going. Get a move on.

4. "Hey Russiagate Denialist! How can you rely on Mueller establishing 'no collusion' but then doubt Mueller's findings of Russian meddling? You can't have it both ways!" To which I answer: How can you conspiracy theorists pretend that Mueller's finding of NO COLLUSION never happened? But, more importantly I also answer that it's easy for Mueller to say shit about Russia. He knows that nobody in the GRU is going to be extradited to stand trial in the USA because of his indictments. He can say anything he wants about Russia with no consequences. (And, please note: It's telling that when one of the Russian actors named in one of Mueller's politically-timed indictments actually stepped forward to answer the charges in court, Mueller tried to brush them off.) However, if he indicts any US-American citizen for anything, he will have to prove his case in a court of law. And, what with there being no evidence of collusion, that wasn't going to happen.

At the end of the day, I don't know what (if any) involvement Putin had in the 2016 election. I do know that I don't care one way or the other. Both Hillary and Donald are scum. It's not worth ratcheting-up tensions between nuclear-armed countries just because one piece-of-shit might have lost to another piece-of-shit because of the possible actions of a third piece-of-shit.

Whew! That's a lot of typing. I'll put in some links later.