Speaking out against “forever war”

For the past three years Justice people in Raleigh, NC, have been gathering every Tuesday – that’s 156 weeks in a row — at the Federal Bldg. in Raleigh to call Sen. Thom Tillis to account for his knee-jerk support for “forever war” and the cruel injustices that go with it.

Yesterday (February 11th) two members of Veterans For Peace Triangle, Dale Herman and Ray McGovern, gave very short talks which were video-ed. They merit wider circulation.

Requiem for Joe Biden

By Ray McGovern, Feb. 12, 2020

His coming political demise, as in New Hampshire yesterday, was easy to see.  Joe Lauria and I saw it coming and posted this piece five months ago:

If the Facts Come Out, it Could Spell the End for Joe Biden
September 21, 2019
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/09/21/if-the-facts-come-out-it-could-spell-the-end-for-joe-biden/
Two months later, it was an even easier call:

Bye-bye Biden
By Ray McGovern, November 20
https://raymcgovern.com/?s=Bye-Bye+Biden

If a former general in India could see how Pelosi and her aged advisers were shooting themselves, and their favorite Joe Biden, in the foot, why was the entrenched Democratic leadership not able to see it?

Is it perhaps because, like Biden himself, they had long since reached the age of “statutory senility”?

Good riddance re Biden; what was he thinking?  His erstwhile supporters, though, owe him an apology for political misfeasance.  Was Nancy afraid to wake up Steny Hoyer and ask him to quiz the Bidens about their caper in Ukraine?

NEED SOMETHING UPLIFTING? WATCH THIS VIDEO.

An Award Ceremony Like No Other: Jeffrey Sterling honored for Integrity
By Ray McGovern

Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence (SAAII) annual award is always a poignant occasion to congratulate the winner and to catch up with others, including earlier winners, struggling for Justice against tougher and tougher odds.  Coleen Rowley (laureate in 2002) and her team saw to it that this year’s ceremony at Moffat House in Washington on Jan. 15, 2020 was an occasion of exceptional warmth, solidarity, and humor . (More about SAAII can be found on its website: samadamsaward.ch.  For more about Jeffrey and this year’s award see:  
https://consortiumnews.com/2020/01/12/whistleblower-jeffrey-sterling-who-went-through-kafkaesque-trial-wins-2020-sam-adams-award/ )

Below is the link to the video recording of the affair, filmed by Paul Williams of Shoot First Pictures.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qghZdm2LK0E&feature=youtu.be  (52 minutes)

With this year’s award, Jeffrey Sterling brings to five the number of award recipients imprisoned for exposing government abuse (not counting 2013 Sam Adams laureate, Ed Snowden, who was made stateless and has been marooned in Russia for more than six years). Worst still, Julian Assange (2010) and Chelsea Manning (2014) remain in prison, where UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer has reported they are both being tortured.

Richard Nixon Twice Had Mideast Peace in His Grasp: A Personal Reminiscence

By Richard H. Curtiss, June 1994
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs
https://www.wrmea.org/1994-june/a-personal-reminiscence-richard-nixon-twice-had-mideast-peace-in-his-grasp.html

The late Richard Curtiss was a highly decorated US Foreign Service Officer, who witnessed up-and-close much of what he reports.  His insights are of particular interest today, looking back on the tragedy of missed opportunities for justice and peace in the Middle East and how they were sabotaged — as prelude to Trump’s attempted give-away of Palestinian rights in the deal he announced last week.

Adam Schiff: Credulous Congressman

By Ray McGovern, January 24, 2020

Five days after President Trump took office, I had an opportunity to brace House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff personally about evidence that Russia “hacked” into the DNC.  He had repeatedly given that canard the patina of flat fact during an address at the old Hillary Clinton/John Podesta “think tank,” The Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Fortunately, the cameras were still on when I approached Schiff during the Q&A:  “You have every confidence but no evidence, is that right?” I asked him. ( https://raymcgovern.com/2017/01/31/thats-bogus-ray-mcgovern-pwns-congressman-schiff-on-russian-hacking-fairy-tale/  ) —  2 minutes

The canard was just barely at the duckling stage back then.  So, to give Schiff the benefit of the doubt, he may have put misplaced confidence in the Gang of Three — CIA/Brennan-FBI/Comey-National Intelligence Director/Clapper — con-men all.  They were, in any case, telling Schiff what he wanted to hear.

As frequenters of this site are aware, subsequent years have turned up no concrete, technical evidence that the DNC was “hacked” — by Russia, or by anyone else.  The DNC emails were copied onto an external storage device before being given to WikiLeaks.  Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, whose ranks include two former NSA Technical Directors, have shown this to be the case, relying on the principles of physics and on the forensics that the FBI, for some reason, did not do.  (And, please, do not let adjectives like “debunked” be used in attempts to cast doubt on VIPS’ unchallenged — if often unwelcome — conclusions.)

I need to tell you right off the bat that the next video-clip is not from The Onion.  Rather, it shows a more recent example of Schiff’s incredible, incurable credulity, as he regaled some equally credulous young folks at the same “think tank” on Oct. 23, 2018 (hat tip to Rosie Memos @almostjingo for tweeting).  Chairman Schiff clearly has a nose for hot tips about his bete noire, Russian President Vladimir Putin.

This was abundantly that October day when he addressed a young audience at the same old Clinton/Podesta “think tank”.  Schiff said he had been told that Putin has one of his henchmen follow then-Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev around with a pillow to smother him in his sleep if he ever gets out of line.  ( See: https://raymcgovern.com/2018/11/24/adam-schiffs-incredible-incurable-credulity/ .)

There is not the slightest hint in the video that Schiff was speaking tongue in cheek. Equally sad, no one in the audience laughed.  (Where do they recruit such credulous young folks?).

But who gave Schiff the “intelligence” about the “pillow-carrier” poised to snuff out Medvedev?  Which of the Gang of Three might it have been?  U.S. Attorney John Durham surely has enough on his plate these days as he looks into the larger Russia-gate canard, of which “the-pillow-carrier-and-Medvedev” is but a small duckling. Nontheless, it seems possible we will learn the identity of the con who whispered the tale of the pillow into Schiff’s impressionable ear.

Postings on Impeachment

By Ray McGovern

Those interested in what Ray has been writing/saying over the past year about impeachment may wish to click on some of the links below, which we posted earlier as part of:
https://raymcgovern.com/2019/12/01/democrats-seek-to-redefine-crimes-to-reframe-the-trump-impeachment/ , with the subhead:

Impeachment For Cognoscenti, Dummies, and Those In Between

“We took some time today [Dec. 1, 2019] to search raymcgovern.com for some of the key articles on impeachment posted since Jan. 2019. We will group links to these articles chronologically under List A. Then we will compile a shorter (chronological) List B with links to postings of background related to impeachment, for those who may have missed key articles when they were posted here or elsewhere during 2019. You may prefer to go through List A, and List B as well, from the bottom up rather than top-down.”

LIST A

1 — Don’t Be Afraid, Nancy: IMPEACH
By Ray McGovern, Jan. 10, 2019
https://raymcgovern.com/2019/01/10/dont-be-afraid-nancy-impeach/

2 — More on Pelosi, the Reluctant Impeacher
By Ray, Jan. 11, 2019
https://raymcgovern.com/2019/01/11/more-on-pelosi-the-reluctant-impeacher/

3 — IMPEACH, Nancy!
By Ray, Jan. 17, 2019
https://raymcgovern.com/2019/01/17/impeach-nancy/

4 — Why is Pelosi Allergic to Impeachment”
By Ray, Jan. 19, 2019
https://raymcgovern.com/2019/01/19/why-is-pelosis-allergic-to-impeachment/

5 — Impeachment in Historical Perspective
https://raymcgovern.com/2019/01/20/impeachment-in-perspective/
On Jan. 20, 2019, we cited this highly instructive article depicting the salutary effects of impeaching President Andrew Johnson, even though conviction by the Senate failed by one vote.
Impeach Donald Trump Now, by The Atlantic’s Yoni Appelbaum
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/03/impeachment-trump/580468/

6 — Media Faced with Dilemma in Next Phase of Deep State-gate
By Ray, April 9, 2019
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/04/09/ray-mcgovern-unaccountable-media-faced-with-dilemma-in-next-phase-of-deep-state-gate/

Doubly interesting in retrospect. Who knows what happened to the Nunes referrals? Will William Barr and John Durham be able to put some spine into the president and persuade him to let it happen this time? Will Establishment media be able to keep pros like Professor Johnathan Turley and former NSA Technical Director William Binney off the TV screen?

7 — Fun From “The Onion”: Shocked Vladimir Putin Slowly Realizing He Didn’t Conspire With Trump Campaign
‘Who The Hell Was I Working With Then?’ Asks Russian President
https://raymcgovern.com/2019/04/10/shocked-vladimir-putin-slowly-realizing-he-didnt-conspire-with-trump-campaign/
April 10, 2019, citing The Onion; link:
https://politics.theonion.com/shocked-vladimir-putin-slowly-realizing-he-didn-t-consp-1833575011

8 — DNC-Gate: Patrick Lawrence Saw Through It From the Start
By Ray, April 18, 2019
https://raymcgovern.com/2019/04/18/dnc-gate-patrick-lawrence-saw-through-it-from-the-start/

9 — Russia-gate as Organized Distraction
By Ray, August 5, 2019
https://raymcgovern.com/2019/08/05/russia-gate-as-organized-distraction/
With small excerpt from Oliver Boyd-Barrett’s piece at:
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/07/29/russiagate-as-organized-distraction/

10 — Red ‘Whistleblower’ Herrings
https://raymcgovern.com/2019/09/28/red-whistleblowing-herrings/
Consortium News Live (CN), Sept. 27, 2019
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/09/27/watch-cn-live-tonight-with-katherine-gun-daniel-ellsberg-scott-ritter-ray-mcgovern-on-whistleblowing-the-iraq-war-and-impeachment-8-pm-edt/
(Ray’s segment goes from minute 7:55 to 44:40; the whole CNLive video is worth watching.)

11 — A “Whistleblower” Who Requires Quotation Marks
Ray gets one minute, October 3, 2019, on RT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwdJSlLPR2E&feature=youtu.be

12 — Attorney General Barr’s Posse Is Mounted, Armed, & Ready, Judging From Attempts to Pre-empt
By Ray, October 5, 2019
https://raymcgovern.com/2019/10/06/attorney-general-barrs-posse-is-mounted-armed-ready-judging-from-attempts-to-pre-empt/

13 — What’s Really at Stake with the ‘Whistleblower’ Coup
Ray interviewed for 30 min., October 8, 2019
https://raymcgovern.com/2019/10/08/whats-really-at-stake-with-the-whistleblower-coup-w-raymcgovern/

14 —The Ultimate Case For Trump’s Impeachment/Removal From Office
By Lawrence Wilkerson, October 23, 2019
https://lobelog.com/the-ultimate-case-for-trumps-impeachment-and-removal-from-office/#more-50694

15 — Impeach Trump: Yes … Because of the Bidens: No!
By Ray, Nov. 6, 2019
https://raymcgovern.com/2019/11/06/impeach-trump-yes-because-of-the-bidens-no/
Ray’s 1-minute part of the interview starts at min. 4 to the end.

16 — Bye-bye Biden
By Ray, Nov. 20, 2019
https://raymcgovern.com/2019/11/20/bye-bye-biden/
A General-turned-pundit from India Can Figure It OutIncludes excerpts from an article by Gen. Vnod Saighal.
(The article’s full text is at https://www.voltairenet.org/article208361.html )

17 — Ukraine For Dummies
By Ray, November 14, 2019
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/11/14/ray-mcgovern-ukraine-for-dummies/

18 — SCOTT RITTER: The ‘Whistleblower’ and the Politicization of Intelligence
By Scott Ritter, November 27, 2019
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/11/27/scott-ritter-the-whistleblower-and-the-politicization-of-intelligence/

19 — Democrats seek to redefine crimes to reframe the Trump impeachment
By Jonathan Turley, November 26, 2019
https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/471248-democrats-seek-to-redefine-crimes-to-reframe-the-trump-impeachment

+++++++++++++++

LIST B (Please meet James Clapper and John Brennan)

1 — Challenging Clapper at Carnegie
By Ray McGovern, January 4, 2019
https://raymcgovern.com/2019/01/04/challenging-clapper-at-carnegie/

2 — TRANSCRIPT: When Clapper Was Asked Real Questions
By Ray, January 6, 2019
https://raymcgovern.com/2019/01/06/transcript-when-clapper-was-asked-real-questions/

3 — A Look Back at Clapper’s Jan. 2017 ‘Assessment’ on Russia-gate
By Ray, January 7, 2019
https://raymcgovern.com/2019/01/08/a-look-back-at-clappers-jan-2017-assessment-on-russia-gate/

4 — Clap Trap re Those Very Bad Russians
By Ray, January 12, 2019
https://raymcgovern.com/2019/01/12/clap-trap-re-those-very-bad-russians/

5 — Russia-gate Evidence, Please
By Ray, January 15, 2019
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/01/15/russia-gate-evidence-please/