MOSCOW—Saying that he had been “totally blindsided” by the revelations from the recently released findings of the Mueller investigation, a shocked Vladimir Putin reportedly came to the realization Tuesday that he didn’t conspire with Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign after all. “What the hell? I worked so hard on this—if I wasn’t colluding with the Trump campaign, who the hell was I colluding with?” said the dumbfounded Russian president, growing increasingly angry as he scrolled through his email inbox and recounted his numerous efforts at covert communication with individuals who he had thought were high-ranking Trump officials, but now he suspected were bots or anonymous internet trolls.
“Man, it seemed so legit. I can’t believe I let myself get conned like this. I spent so much time emailing back and forth with DonaldTrump46@hotmail.com about compromising the democratic voting process, and now it turns out it was all fake? And we spent so much time gathering all that kompromat on the wrong people. Goddammit, I feel like I’ve wasted my life.” At press time, Putin was frantically double-checking that Russia had assisted in propping up a dictator in Syria and not some other country.
At the April 5 online vigil to demonstrate support for Julian Assange and to send up a loud international shout to discourage Ecuador and the UK from bowing to U.S. pressure to hand him over. Ray reviewed the bidding and provided informal commentary. The interviewers were Joe Lauria and Elizabeth Lea Vox. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnwgQhBSEqI Ray’s segment came at the start of the multi-hour vigil; his comments run for the first 16 minutes, after which he, Joe, and Elizabeth cross-talk until minute 33:25.
Fulton Armstrong advises that La Jornada, one of Mexico’s leading national newspapers, has frontpaged a translation of VIPS’ Memorandum of April 4 to President Trump, urging caution regarding Venezuela. Here is the link to the article in La Jornada: https://www.jornada.com.mx/ultimas/2019/04/07/intervenir-en-venezuela-llevara-a-la-guerra-con-rusia-alertan-a-trump-9094.html And the link to the earlier VIPS Memo is here: https://consortiumnews.com/2019/04/04/vips-urge-trump-to-avoid-war-in-venezuela/) Fulton Armstrong was principal drafter of the VIPS Memo; he been National Intelligence Officer for Latin America, and also National Security Council Director for Inter-American Affairs. La Jornada placed the VIPS Memo at the center of its front page today, Sunday, under the headline: Intervenir en Venezuela llevará a la guerra con Rusia, alertan a Trump (“Tump is warned that intervention in Venezuela could lead to war with Russia.”) Here’s how La Jornada introduced its readers to VIPS, below which we offer an informal English translation:
El grupo Veteranos Profesionales de Inteligencia por la Cordura (VIPS, por sus silgas en inglés) advierte en el presente memorando al gobierno del presidente estadunidense Donald Trump que su intento de interferir en Venezuela puede acabar provocando una guerra entre Estados Unidos y Rusia. VIPS fue fundado en 2003 y su primera declaración, redactada en el mismo formato y enviado al entonces presidente estadunidense George W. Bush y su gobierno, fue una disertación para refutar los argumentos y distorsiones que utilizó dicha administración para justificar la invasión a Irak.
“The group Veteranos Profesionales de Inteligencia por la Cordura (VIPS, by its initials in English) warns in its current memorandum to the government of U.S. President Donald Trump that his attempt to intervene in Venezuela could end up provoking a war between the U.S. and Russia. VIPS was founded in 2003 and its first memorandum, written in the same format and sent to then-U.S. president George W. Bush and his government, was a commentary refuting the arguments and distortions which that administration used to justify the invasion of Iraq.”
The Spanish translation of the text of the Memo follows that lead-in.
A German translation is expected to be posted in a day or two on a prominent German website.
Any ideas as to how to circumvent the censors in the U.S.?
Ray discusses this and other Russia-gate issues on a panel at the Left Forum. He provides Russia-gate background and status as of a year ago — including a guess as to who was the actual “intruder” into DNC emails; the CIA’s “obfuscation” offensive cybertool leaked to WikiLeaks and published on March 31, 2017; and why you may not have heard about any of this. June 2, 2018, 19 minutes (Ray’s remarks run from min. 6:30 to 25:35.) https://youtu.be/OtaZC4E5oeE
Why the keffiyeh? Ray had been on a Veterans For Peace delegation to Palestine in February/March 2017; often chooses to wear the keffiyeh as sign of solidarity with the Palestinian people, whom Israel could not dehumanize without the support of U.S. tax dollars.
Remind every Marine you know — especially those who may now be headed south: Gen. Smedley Butler was awarded TWO Medals of Honor, when he — like Mad-Dog Mattis — apparently found it fun “to shoot people.” Then he (Butler, not Mattis) came to his senses and realized he was being used. Here’s Butler:
I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all members of the military profession I never had an original thought until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of the higher- ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.” General Smedley Butler. USMC
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/03/opinion/venezuela-maduro-russia.html Still pushing regime change in Venezuela, as if meddling in Iraq, Libya, and Syria was just practice and Yankees will surely succeed this time around. Besides, “the Russians are coming — several are already there, despite Bolton’s travel ban. The nerve of them!
In yet another head-scratching move, a new report says Democrat operatives sent thousands of emails, many of which were published by WikiLeaks at a later date, despite knowing the DNC was under cyber attack from alleged ‘Russian hackers.’
The Daily Caller reports: DNC CEO Amy Dacey learned of the breach in late April 2016, but of the 27,000 DNC emails published by Wikileaks, fewer than 7,000 pre-date April 29. A Daily Caller News Foundation analysis of the published emails shows that the majority were written between May 5 and May 25 — after the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike was brought in to respond. [Emphasis added.]
The emails exposed dirty laundry that Democrats have said swayed the election in President Donald Trump’s favor. The emails might never have seen the light of day had the DNC enlisted law enforcement to immediately lock down its system after first detecting problems in late April.
Dacey and chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz decided not to call in the FBI and instead, about five days after the hack, enlisted the company CrowdStrike *** (See below) to perform investigation and remediation without consulting the DNC’s board, according to Donna Brazile. CrowdStrike implanted itself May 5, within a day of being asked, according to The Washington Post. In the intervening days, 5,800 new emails were written and captured.
For weeks after the highly-paid firm responded, the breach continued unabated. More than 16,000 emails later published by Wikileaks were written after May 5.
“The fact that newly-written emails continued to be captured weeks after the DNC’s top staff was well aware it had been breached raises questions about why Wasserman Schultz and Dacey did not turn to the FBI, and whether the FBI could have immediately stemmed the flow,” writes Daily Caller report Luke Rosiak. ++++++++++++++
*** Remember that Comey,during Congressional testimony, described CrowdStrike as a “private party/high-class entity.” But could it perform basic computer security — not to mention forensics? Good enough for government work, in one sense, we suppose.
But wasn’t CrowdStrike working for and paid by the DNC? Strange … or maybe not so strange, if you think it through.
And when the full text of Mueller’s report hits the street in the next week or two, it will also be worth remembering that, giving testimony to a friendly Senate Intelligence Committee, Comey said: “Bob Mueller is one of this country’s great, great pros.” https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/08/us/politics/senate-hearing-transcript.html
One can readily imagine Comey, Lynch, McCabe, Brennan, Strzok, Clapper, et al. sweating bullets at the possibility Muller has decided he must break the Omerta code — not out of any desire to surrender his own Deep State badge — but simply because there is far too much on the official record exposing Deep State machinations.
This would be no problem, of course, if Mrs. Clinton had won the election. Comey himself has admitted that he “was making decisions in an environment where Hillary Clinton was sure to be the next president.” That’s what they all thought; and that probably explains their lack of care in keeping their activities off the written record and out of computers. Elementary tradecraft goes out the window with these upper-echelon, “high-class-entity” charlatans, when they are sure that she, and they, are going to be the inevitable winners.
