343 Comments
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JMaryH's avatar

I don't have a distress level high enough to register for this: "Rumors continue to circulate about the possible incipient publication of a classified annex to Durham’s investigation." So let me get this straight -- all these reports the great unwashed are allowed access to, always say "nothing to see here." But in the redacted footnotes the TRUE tale is told, but no one EVER gets held accountable? What a terrible, terrible joke this system is.

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Rather Curmudgeonly's avatar

Names are always redacted you see. To do otherwise would be to expose people for their incompetence or in rare occasions that actual culpability.

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JMaryH's avatar

It's time Americans knew the truth -- having an investigation by an IG or even Special Counsel is more of the same. They win, we lose.

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GAVEMartin's avatar

Appears more and more as if they are investigating themselves when we read this history. Can we just clear out a few departments and make it illegal to use acronyms?

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JMaryH's avatar

Apparently we can make things illegal up the wazoo but they tend to disregard pesky little trivia like the law.

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GAVEMartin's avatar

Bingo...have we checked communications on all those "pulled security clearances"? Mike Pompeo might develop a rash without his info-tap. Just how do you enforce some of this stuff?

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DancingInAshes's avatar

Seymour Hersh, a friend of Hillary Clinton, was revealed to have passed information to her from an unknown third party source during the fall of Qaddafi through the Benghazi incident timeline.

The information he sent to her via email clearly came from a source that could only have been the NSA or CIA, and thus the information was highly classified.

The DoJ, IG, and everyone else spent zero hours investigating how a "journalist" had access to highly classified material that he was sending to Hillary Clinton via unclassified email.

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JMaryH's avatar

That's just it. They know the dirty little secret. Nothing is enforced. For them. We're the chumps who actually pay a parking ticket because... well, isn't that the law?

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Cheryl Knapp's avatar

Check out the drawing "The System Investigates Itself" by Boardman Robinson. (google, Grok, Chat GPT) He drew it in 1921 BTW.

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rob Wright's avatar

I like it, an idea man!

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Cheryl Knapp's avatar

Tried to forward an image of the drawing but was unable to. It seems to be unavailable on searches now? In the past I was able to find it on Libcom.org illustrating an article "A Conceptualization of the Law in the Manifold of Work" but that was found on a search engine, and apologies am not savvy enough to find it again.

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GAVEMartin's avatar

Thanks for trying! I am probably More not tech savvy.

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Mike R.'s avatar

The actual hardworking--view the collapse and disintegration of the Republic through the windshield--reality of free Americans vs. the manufactured lie (psyop) and hypocritical faux social concern that covers the D.C./CCP/Brussels/ Davos crowds looting of lives-labor and natural resources.

We the People have seen billions poured into a public education system that can't teach a child to read. Problems of grave social concern used as a front to drain billions in tax treasure without result or solution. American industry gutted and the economy looted. Civil society in collapse. Senseless assault and drug addled criminal looting encouraged and applauded as "revolutionary". Can We the People continue to believe the disintegration and slow collapse isn't being orchestrated?

The violation of the lines of moral demarcation--as in the hubris that allows elected political leadership to perpetrate a lie capable of holding a free people captive for decades--hurl both the guilty and the innocent into a realm of chaos--consequences and human damage. That's what a lie does. If Obama--the Clintons--Cheney/Bush--Epstein perps and all the attendant thugdom were exposed and jailed tomorrow nothing would change. Until We the People shake off the poisonous reality of the psyop--remember who we are--recognize within ourselves--and embrace the principles of the Revolutionary War that created this Republic there will be no change forthcoming. Want a strong America--be a strong American.

We the People are in the middle of an international war against free peoples everywhere. Don't believe me--look at Europe. Or Canada. The only available healthy human reality I see is the one enshrined in our Constitution. It is the core reality and the only engine of survival remaining.

RACKET/Taibbi/Kirn -- and those present here-are fighting to create the truth/fact solutions based national conversation that will lift the "electronic" curtain smothering the American future. Truth speakers yes!!

I'm suggesting that I/we need a reconsideration and realignment of our relationship to the destructive amorality laying waste to American life. Focus on the morally bankrupt--yes. Justice yes. But also a conscious individual reconnection with the foundational pillars that define our Republic. The horror of Starmer's England/Europe is the wake-up call. It's happening.

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Rather Curmudgeonly's avatar

Bureaucracy by its very nature buries accountability.

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Martha Durham's avatar

A "Bert and I" reference. Gold.

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JMaryH's avatar

I'm with you, I think it's happening. It's going to be ugly and very hard work. What's demoralizing is those the biggest microphones are on the side of status quo. It's up to us to slowly build momentum -- and to CAREFULLY vet anyone we gift with our vote, from the small city officeholder to the President of the United States.

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Dr. Dre's avatar

Bert and Me and the Bluebird II! I was so excited to meet Marshall Dodge at our lecture bureau's NYC office over 50 yrs ago. He was soooo handsome;-)

Not sure if we ever signed him, but his records (w/ Rev. Bryan) were a prep-school necessity!

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Susan's avatar

AND our tax dollars pay for it.

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Matt L.'s avatar
1dEdited

The next ‘drip’ to drop will be CIA reveal that foreign governments (intel) agencies knew of the Trump/Russiagate scheme. I expect it will reveal Canada, Britain, and much of the EU intel agencies knew of the attempted Trump take-down in advance of Crossfire Hurricane launch. Wiping out Trump served Globalists aims (Hi Soros!) & kept the MSM airwaves overseas, squarely against Trump. That is a clear motive. I detest I even have to preface this way for next part - but 10/7 it seems have clouded many people’s critical thinking.

My gut says Israel INTEL knew also, but if so, this would (likely) be suppressed by the Trump administration, and Donald will instead use it against Bibi to get his way, if he hasn’t already. This seems plausible to me. The deep state knows it has lost credibility, but it and Trump would be reckless to allow the only ‘democracy’ in the Near East neighborhood to be soiled, or fuel any further anti-Israel conspiracies. Not after USA and Israel tight cooperation vs. Iran, and USA-Israel co-hedge against oil flow destabilization in the region. As our esteemed Walter Kirn would attest, undermining Israel/Mossad is not how the ‘story’ can be presented to public, even if that is the truth, because the costs to America are too great.

Anyone notice the Left leaning governments in UK, France and Germany have all called this week to recognize a Palestinian State? Maybe each can start a new Diaspora and offer Palestinians homelands in Bavaria, the Cotswold and the French Riviera. These countries haven’t yet caught up w/ the zeitgeist. Suggest they pay a call to Brasil 🤷

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Venividivici's avatar

JMary, I guess now we know what it feels like to be another country the CIA and other US intelligence agencies messed with.

These people are all gross and the worst part: They will all, all of them, get away with it. They always do. There are never any consequences for the "Beautiful People"

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DancingInAshes's avatar

The only protection Brennan and Clapper and Comey have is that if they're allowed to get burned, current and future people in their positions will be much less willing to engage in partisan illegal activities on behalf of elected officials and other high-ranking bureaucrats. Neither the GOP or DNC establishment wants a D.C. where elected mannequins have to pay attention to the actual law due to their subordinates fearing the consequences of breaking it on their behalf.

It would be good for everyone if these ghouls get burned, and thus disincentivize future bad (treasonous) behavior from powerful people in D.C.

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DaveL's avatar

True, and do we really need secret police? We had J.Edgar Hoover basically blackmailing everyone through illegal surveillance, the Dulles brothers overthrowing governments, Iran-Contra misbehavior, Weapons of Mass Destruction as a pretext for invading countries, and now the secret police actively undermining an elected president. Get rid of them!

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Noam Deplume, Jr. (look,at,me)'s avatar

Claims of WMDs seem to really move the ball on higher ticket items. Do we really think Iran is over? "Intelligence" should save us money, not squander it on ghostly possibilities.

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David Webb's avatar

Connecting the dots on your comments :

We need the "secret police undermining elected president(s)" and '"The J. Edgar Hoover(s) blackmailing everyone" so that the "The Weapons of Mass Destruction' (i.e., lies)" function effectively as "pretext(s) for invading countries (plural)" .

In a broader sense the "pretext" is that we have a "democracy"; if the pretext can't be created or sustained legally it will be done illegally. Otherwise public support for'/acquiescence in foreign 'policy' (which mostly consists of senseless, illegal "interventions'), falls apart. Which sometimes does happen, but in almost every case too late -- thanks to what passes for 'journalism in the legacy media. Lives in the hundreds of thousands/millions are lost (see the "Cost of War Project" below) along with any accountability. Consequently Collective memories are erased. Its a built-in, structural system ensuring a "Rinse and Repeat" cycle of endless wars, over-thrown democracies and all sorts of mischief which just happens to be manifest today in the Middle East, including a genocide, and a proxy war in Ukraine -- and, of course, coming soon in a theatre 'near you', in Taiwan and China. https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/figures/2023/IndirectDeaths

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JMaryH's avatar

Except from what I'm seeing of their bitter, twisted, faces, they are descending into the characteristics and personality traits of the inbred. I guess that's a consolation, right?

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RV's avatar

We have known some of what they are since Vietnam and disregarded the shenanigans because we were afraid of the USSR. Now it seems our intelligence agencies have become the KGB.

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Nathan Woodard's avatar

That's actually a really good point (what it feels like to be another country) that I somehow failed to register until you said it.

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Han's avatar

if you read the mueller report in detail, you find all information is in the footnotes.

the first section has all kinds of allegations that appear to be true and actionable but when you look at the footnotes there’s things like… conflating different conversations with different people in different locations on different days… into a single sentence or paragraph.

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JMaryH's avatar

The MOST alarming thing about the Mueller report, which I pored over, was that the footnotes over and over and over referenced articles from the NY Times, the WaPo and other unreliable news sources. I would have felt better if I'd seen the National Enquirer referenced. I have never been more horrified to understand that our Intelligence agencies count on NEWSPAPERS for their information (albeit they themselves have leaked the phony stories to the papers). What do the Intelligence agencies actually DO ,except subsume themselves in plots worthy of a Mean Girls sequel????

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Han's avatar

it is how operations work.

* plant a story in a newspaper, one that presents only the desired narrative

* watch public reaction and modify their views with more narrative

* refer to that newspaper story as evidence that the narrative is true.

this method dates back to at least the Civil War. i personally believe Ben Franklin did a lot of it but its hard to say

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Tom Birkeland's avatar

Exactly! WMDs, Covid's origin, election integrity, Hunter's laptop etc. etc. etc. - it's all the same playbook. Control the narrative, create consensus and then do what you want- unconstitutionally and secretly.

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DancingInAshes's avatar

This was why Bezos bought the Washington Post. Doing so helped him secure a $600M AWS contract with the CIA, and I'm assuming he was betting on getting contracts with the NSA, DIA, FBI, etc. as well.

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DarkSkyBest's avatar

This is why I am begging for a graph/illustration at some point, that depicts the dates of get-togethers at the White House and documented instructions regarding the approved “product,” and the then “reporting” published throughout media based on “sources not free to comment,” etc.

Their media had a role to play, and they could not have succeeded without them.

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Vet nor's avatar

Information was handed to TNYS, WaPO etc from. CIA/FBI a circular cesspool seems to becoming g a circular firing squad.

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DaveL's avatar

Appears both types of institutions are merging into one.

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rob Wright's avatar

Somebody's chickens are coming home to roost.

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bobD111's avatar

A joke where the punchline is classified.

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JMaryH's avatar

Exactly. No wonder we are not laughing.

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GAVEMartin's avatar

Secrets kept for the Bumblers and Bumbled.

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craazyman's avatar

OK Boomers . . .

this is the old Andy Kaufman cannonball skit.

"DON'T LOOK AT ME!" hahah ahahahahaha ahhahahaahah ROTFLMAO

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DMC's avatar

sounds about right

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Hynek Dvorak's avatar

You forgot to mention Peter Strozk wiping out the entirety of his social media history…

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Craig Ryan Close's avatar

I thought it interesting that the deletions include everything on the Way back archives. Hopefully outside sources have screen scraped all these liar's posts.

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rtj's avatar

Wasn't Taylor Lorentz's daddy or grandaddy the owner and originator of the Wayback?

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Craig Ryan Close's avatar

Naw, relationship is urban myth. She is a hypocrite though for expunging her online history, while attacking others.

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HorizonD7's avatar

Strozk is such a well-known participant in "Russia Russia!" that I have to believe numerous copies of his social media comments have been saved.

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BookWench's avatar

And he & Lisa Page got some multi-million dollar payout for all the brouhaha over their actions.

These people not only do whatever they want -- smirking all the way -- they profit from it!

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Leslie Deak's avatar

That was a whole scandal. Strozk's termination was legit and he should never have gotten a cent in compensation. I say this as a retired attorney who represented federal employees in similar -- but meritorious -- cases.

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Richard Fahrner's avatar

Did Strozk employ the same guy that deleted Hilary's 33,000 emails?

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Enticing Clay's avatar

I think Mueller came at Papadopoulos for the same thing.

---

Papadopoulos faced two charges: making false statements and obstruction of justice.

The affidavit states that Papadopoulos "knowingly and willfully [made] materially false statements" to the FBI and "there is probable cause to believe" that the deletion of his Facebook account was done "with intent to obstruct and impede the FBI's ongoing investigation."

https://abcnews.go.com/US/documents-detail-trump-campaign-adviser-set-meeting-russians/story?id=50811524

---

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GAVEMartin's avatar

Mr. "Settlement"

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Mark Donaghey's avatar

He didn't "wipe out" a damned thing: the NSA has it all, according to Edward Snowden. DNI Gabbard needs to crack that NSA archive wide open, right now. If the NSA refuses to obey a direct order from the (allegedly) top official of the US "Intelligence Community(TM)", then who does the NSA actually answer to?

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ChrisC's avatar

The document drops by Gabbard seem masterful. 1st drop - vehement denials. Oops, there's more - excuse making, "it wasn't me". Whistleblower drop - "it was the other guys". Getting someone to flip is the key, and she is working that angle like a pro with a drip, drip, drip of damning info, boxing the perps into a corner.. If only one person has to do time, I vote for Comey.

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Victoria Bell's avatar

Call me greedy, but surely there are enough orange jumpsuits available for all these creatures. Obama, of course, would need a specially tailored, bespoke version, but that could be arranged.

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GAVEMartin's avatar

pinstripes??? to show status.

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Victoria Bell's avatar

As usual, GAVE, excellent suggestion. I don't really care what his taylor dresses him in, as long as he's in the slammer.

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Richard Fahrner's avatar

Obamas will have the "button down" rear hatch feature.

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Dr. Dre's avatar

With a crease!

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Alan Domzalski's avatar

Yep, I'd love to see that smirk wiped from Comey's face

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Leslie Deak's avatar

Yea but ... don't you just really want to see Brennan just twisting in the wind? He deserves everything bad that should happen to him!

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Alice Ball's avatar

💯💯💯 Comey is a tool, but Brennan is the truly evil one. Federal prison please God.

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zg100's avatar

Couldn't agree more strongly. For me personally it's not close - even in this group, Brennan really stands out. I still can't believe that guy ran the CIA.

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Alice Ball's avatar

Obvious criminal.

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William Morrison's avatar

1) It wasn't us!

2) Okay, we did it but it was only a couple of people

3) We were trying to save the country

4) If you don't agree with what we did you must be a fascist.

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ScottyG's avatar

Maybe his daughter can defend him. I hear she’s a killer lawyer…for the defense.

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rob Wright's avatar

Now THAT'S funny!!

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DancingInAshes's avatar

Remember that Brad Pitt and Kevin Bacon movie from the late 90s. "Sleepers" or something like that?

Brad Pitt plays a prosecutor who colludes with the defense of two boyhood friend mobsters who murdered a retired guard of a boy's penitentiary who had raped them.

In the movie, he was doing it out of justice. In real life, Comey's daughter works for higher powers to compromise the legal system when necessary.

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rob Wright's avatar

I don't know, that's a tough one. I tend to lean Brennan.

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ChrisC's avatar

It is a tough one. Knowing Comey's history makes me pick him. Maybe Matt can do a special report - "Why Comey is a shitstain, who should have never been hired as a janitor, much less the head of the FBI"

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Richard Fahrner's avatar

Remember Gabbard is declassifying all she can. It can then be used by a grand jury for possible indictment support. They can read the dirt...

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DancingInAshes's avatar

Her declassifying it reminds me of one of Snowden's interviews where he stated that keeping everything classified allows the guys within the system to subvert the justice system by denying the release of any evidence based on national security grounds.

By declassifying it, as you said, it can actually be used in front of a grand jury and no one other than the president can try to reclassify it to keep it hidden.

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Noitavlas's avatar

Comey, Brennan and Rice, not necessarily in that order...

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Grape Soda's avatar

I vote for Brennan. But it is close

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Venividivici's avatar

Nobody will do time. They never do.

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Kim's avatar

There is always hope! This feels really different.

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ELKFLA's avatar

But....but...Epstein!

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Evans W's avatar
2dEdited

Thanks for your dogged reporting on this Matt. You’re a national treasure.

You don't hate the media enough - you think you do, but you don't. https://x.com/Evans_Wroten

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Peter Maguire's avatar

Racket needs to reprint your 2020 Steven Schrage story on Stefan Halper. From Debate Gate (1980), to Palmer National Bank/Iran Contra (1983), to the South African-backed Renamo guerillas in Mozambique (1989), to charges for possession of crack cocaine (1994), decade after decade, Stefan "the Walrus" Halper, a CIA nepo baby, turns up like a bad penny. He, disgraced former MI6 head Richard “Dodgy Dossier” Dearlove and disgraced MI6 spy and “pee tape” progenitor, Christopher Steele, are the taproot of Russiagate. “Their story is both a tragedy and a farce—think Jason Bourne meets Austin Powers,” wrote Halper’s former student, Stephen Schrage. “Yet the damage they did is deadly serious.” Before the Walrus’s cover was blown, he secretly recorded Trump campaign officials and selectively leaked intelligence that even the FBI concluded was “not accurate” and “not plausible” to his friends and former students in the mainstream press. For his ham-handed efforts, the U.S. government paid Halper more than a million dollars. Like the increasingly opaque Epstein Affair, Russiagate should not be a partisan issue, but a matter of grave concern to all Americans who are tired of being divided by lies and played like rubes.

https://www.racket.news/p/the-spies-who-hijacked-america?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web

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PhilH's avatar

This is a British operation. The British have hated Russia and been playing the Great Game for many hundreds of years.

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Peter Maguire's avatar

They have forgotten more about Weltpolitik than we will ever know

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Victoria Bell's avatar

Dang, I can see that I'm not going to get much done today. Thanks for the link. I haven't had my Substack very long. What is the accepted practice for posting links like this to my stack?

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Peter Maguire's avatar

I added it as a footnote to my brief essay.

https://petermaguire.substack.com/p/the-united-states-truth-and-reconciliation

Schrage did a great job summarizing the sick chapter of American history, I don't think you can truly understand looking at Russiagate from the chronological top down.

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Liz LaSorte's avatar

What really pushes it further up our ass is that We the People pay for these criminals’ decent salaries, cushy pensions, healthcare, travel and all the other benefits that come with the job.

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Anne Emerson Hall's avatar

And they get a premium of some 34% because of being stationed in the DC area…because so many others are stationed there the cost of living is greater!

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DancingInAshes's avatar

Yep. We pay them to work against our interests and enrich themselves via book deals and media appearances.

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DaveL's avatar

It’s called influence peddling, and it goes further than just “enriching themselves.”

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Noam Deplume, Jr. (look,at,me)'s avatar

How would you handle an employee who cost you money, like a $2 trillion war? Promotion?

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JAE's avatar

What’s equally sickening in all of this is not just how arrogant the players are from Obama down that they could pull this off without consequences, but that the arrogance stems from knowing media would be their accomplice.

There never was any fourth branch, it was all a hoax.

Matt, you’re amazing, a national treasure to those who seek truth from all sides. A North Star along with other truth seekers for whom we can be thankful. If we don’t shine light on the deviants who wish to be our masters, we’re not consenting citizens but serfs.

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Carlos Marighella's avatar

You and Walter are not going to discuss Sydney Sweeney and her scandalous jeans ad that promotes fascism and eugenics? I'm disappointed because that is shaping up to be the story of the century.

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The Man Who Shouldn't Be King's avatar

I'm well past the point of finding it funny that half of my countrymen are absolutely batshit crazy.

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Kim's avatar

I have a lot of family that still think the NYT and MSNBC are news. I have lived with this burden for nine long years. It was killing me, but in the end, I just have to live :)

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Victoria Bell's avatar

Fascism, eugenics, racism, and racism. She deserves to be cancelled if anyone EVER did for the disgusting insistence of wearing her blue eyes and blonde hair. Only Joy Behar is allowed to wear blonde hair in public.

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Carlos Marighella's avatar

She should have worn brown contacts and a brunette wig.

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William Morrison's avatar

A nose ring might have saved her.

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DancingInAshes's avatar

And maybe put on 40 pounds so thicc (fat) girls wouldn't feel shamed.

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Alice Ball's avatar

🤣

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Noitavlas's avatar

Let's not forget the other Joy...

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Jeff's avatar

Walter discussed it with Megyn Kelly yesterday! She's the best.

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Carlos Marighella's avatar

I saw that, and I liked Walter's commentary.

BTW, full disclosure...I am very much a progressive, but I have to agree with the right on this one; the left is losing its shit over nothing. And like any male, I like seeing attractive women in commercials and display ads. I can remember being smitten with countless models in commercials and ads for shampoo and pantyhose.

My only problem is that eugenics is making a comeback, and I'm afraid that will create a future space villain named Khan;)

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steven t koenig's avatar

If you are a progressive, you are partially responsible for the shit-show we are seeing now.

Thanks a lot.

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DaveL's avatar

Why be a progressive?

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Carlos Marighella's avatar

Because it's just my nature.

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Carlos Marighella's avatar

I try to make a lighthearted comment, and some asshole has to give me shit about it and make it sound as though this is my fault. Fuck you, Steven Koenig.

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Carlos Marighella's avatar

Now someone named Kevin felt the need to be an asshole. Fuck you, Kevin.

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Gerald Hanweck's avatar

The Babylon Bee scooped Matt yesterday on that one. Especially their point #7.

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Sally Newland's avatar

I'm an ex-advertising copywriter who is somewhat miffed that everyone is missing the text wordplay point of genes-jeans! I think it is pretty great as ad copy and to the lead writer, I raise my glass.

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Carlos Marighella's avatar

Yeah, I thought the same thing.

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Richard Fahrner's avatar

I love seeing all the tictok whiners: overweight, dyed hair, tattoo'd up, nose rings and most likely lesbians or transwomen. No wonder they dont like the ad....they were not asked to participate.

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Kevin's avatar

Hey Carlos. Ms. Sanger was a Nazi? Spend 30 seconds reading about the Socialist movement espousing feminism and eugenics and you should find pictures of Margaret Sanger. You might even find photos of the statues outside Planned Parenthood centers… Progressives, Socialists were the ones espousing this garbage. Same people who voted against the Civil Rights Act

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Kay Fearon's avatar

Walter talked about it with Megyn Kelly on her podcast yesterday.

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Noam Deplume, Jr. (look,at,me)'s avatar

Genetic inheritance is a social construction.

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HeathN's avatar

Not to mention there are millions of women all over that can pull off what Sweeney did in the ad, yet... rage fest... for clicks ... and well a distraction perhaps?

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Chip Vann's avatar

My Lord you are a God send Matt !! Keep on doing what you do brother...fantastic work!

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The Man Who Shouldn't Be King's avatar

NYT clutching its Pullet Surprise like a Lance Armstrong medal

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Tim's avatar

Pullet Surprise! Is that the banquet chicken served at the award dinner?

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Jim Leahy's avatar

Very strong. I like that.

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Kendall Frazier's avatar

I applaud the dogged work on this and believe you’ll get as close to the bottom of this as humanly possible. What I’m anxious to see is if breaks the back of the MSM leaving them no choice but to capitulate. I know they should but doubt they ever will.

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Richard Fahrner's avatar

Have faith and be positive. If the bad guys sense, by our capitulation, that they will get off then they will continue. I would rather swing for the fence, hammer them non-stop, all in the belief that we will see them pay for their misseeds. Then if we are knocked back, regroup and start over. This game is far from over. Hell look what Trump has been subjected to.

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Tomas Pajaros's avatar

John Durham . . . yeah what's up with that? No other person was better placed to bring all this out, years ago. What's up with that?

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Rather Curmudgeonly's avatar

As you can see here - the whistleblower was told, if you want to go on your own, you can, but we won't back you up. Understand that anyone employed in the federal government for any longer than 5 to 10 years will have had their spine dissolved.

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Sandra Pinches's avatar

Dissolving a spine that was sketchy to begin with is probably not a challenging operation.

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DancingInAshes's avatar

D.C. juror pool is the not so secret reason why Democrats, and federal employees doing illegal favors for Democrats, feel so empowered to brazenly break the law.

Durham brought a case against Hillary Clinton's lawyer, the one who leaked the dossier to the FBI. He admitted in court that he outright lied to the FBI. D.C. jury found him not guilty.

Meanwhile, that same juror pool handed out hard time to non-violent Jan 6 participants, some of whom never even entered the capitol, like it was candy.

If you're a Democrat in D.C., or you're doing favors for Democrats, you can feel pretty confident knowing that a jury of your peers is statistically likely to include one non-Democrat at most, but due to the way juror selection works, you're just as likely to be facing 12 Democrats. Pretty comfy.

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Kath's avatar

Marc Elias, wasn't that the lawyer? I saw him on some eager YT'er channel... for someone who should be disbarred at a minimum, he thinks so very highly of himself. I hope they get him on something, anything.

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DancingInAshes's avatar

I think that was him. He has every reason to be confident if he’s gonna be facing a jury full of blue no matter who people

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GMT1969's avatar

DC deserves to be bankrupted. Move all of the major government offices out of there.

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Alvie Johnson's avatar

DancinginAshes - You speak an oh-so-obvious truth about the 92% Democrat voter jury pool in D.C. Trying to fairly conduct the nation's business in such a venue is laughable, except it's not funny, it's outrageous and disgusting.

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Dr. Dre's avatar

And D. C. wants to become a "state"!

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HeathN's avatar

I don't know how much blame Durham should get here, but there was really no chance in hell he had to get real traction in that investigation. Accountability doesn't exist in the deepest confines of our government apparatus. It's too big, bloated, and has as many nooks and crannies as a human brain.

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DancingInAshes's avatar

Durham was also going to have to make convictions stick when the juror pool votes 92% Democrat. D.C. population is 40% black, so convicting any former Obama official has an even slimmer chance of happening.

All it takes is 1-2 holdouts to refuse to vote guilty, and eventually the rest will give up. In D.C. though, it's more like 1-2 people trying to convince the other 10 that the blatantly guilty person deserves a guilty verdict, and being met with nothing but refusals.

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Dr. Dre's avatar

Sad but true.

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GAVEMartin's avatar

Turley commented that Durham moved at the speed of a glacier.

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HeathN's avatar

Good point.

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Alvie Johnson's avatar

HeathN - Instead of "nooks and crannies" a more incisive term might be "crooks and nannies."

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HeathN's avatar

lol - absolutely right.

I was thinking nooks and crannies considering how ridiculously compartmentalized information and tasks are in the GOV, but yeah, there's good reason for this, but still leads to a distortion on accountability.

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Fred's avatar

I think you mean crooks and nannies.

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Michael M's avatar

Someone please explain to me how ANYTHING will happen from this? Will any of these people go to jail? Absolutely not. Be tried? Nope. How bout lose their government pensions? Most likely no.

People who hate Trump (about half the country) and Trump voters, will always view this as a heroic quest and will bide their time until fully back in power, to do things just like this again. Having learned nothing because there hasn't been real consequences in this country in politics since around 1974.

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Phuckthephacts's avatar

The mere act of exposing this stuff could change hearts, minds and ultimately votes. I think the principals here should be prosecuted to the maximum extent of the law, but even if no one ultimately goes to jail Matt and his team are providing a critical public service. This is what real journalism looks like. Perhaps it will inspire the next generation of Taibbis and Shellenbergers, and that would be a very good thing.

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JAE's avatar

Your cynicism, while understandable, could be why we never do get any retribution. It’s a nihilistic attitude. For too long we’ve been happy to be serfs instead of citizens. Time the worm turns.

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Michael M's avatar

1st off I apologize if this came across as cynical. To be honest I really am just viewing it through the lens of pattern recognition . Perhaps where I become somewhat cynical , but hopefully not in a depressive Eeyore sort of way is when I try to imagine the Trump DOJ bringing a case against Comey or Brennan or Clapper etc into a Washington DC court with a jury chosen from 76% Democrat partisan and it getting past a Grand Jury.

I'd love to think if the evidence was there my fellow citizens would be willing to see it but sadly, I don't.

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JAE's avatar

No need to apologize, the cynicism is warranted in this case. However, I think with the demise of the media and its obvious complicity, plus dumping our defeatist attitudes and speaking out, there may be some hope. As I said it’s time the worm, or worms in this case, turned.

Look at the Sweeney debacle, it’s backfiring on them.

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Enticing Clay's avatar

The big advantage of cynicism is doubt--critical thought. When cynicism is completely certain of itself, it's just depression. (No offense to the original poster)

When hope and happiness has more doubt and critical thought than cynicism, then cynicism has no point.

Personally, I'm going to the party with music and dancing.

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reality speaks's avatar

Absolutely agree. There will never be a word ever in the MSM about this and no DCJury will vote to convict. The Judges in DC will never allow the truth to come out.

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Gary Edwards's avatar

The legacy media is vaporizing for this reason. To le that's some proof of change.

The trick is whether these folks will succeed in the new media landscape.

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GAVEMartin's avatar

You haven't seen the election "monkey business" card yet. That will seal the deal. It is painful to put the entire story together and we are not there yet. The reason the decrepit-ones kept running (or saying they were going to run) was to protect themselves from prosecution only the (D) party shot that defense in the foot when they became desperate. Diane Feinstein was a wax figure wheeled around to the very end. Nancy will go the same way.

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Grape Soda's avatar

1963 was the watershed year.

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Doohmax's avatar

Beware the call for a Special Counsel. A Special Counsel investigation is where all evidence that could be made public goes to die….never to be seen again. Usually this evidence finds its way into a secret room in FBI headquarters.

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Rick Olivier's avatar

and the "burn bag"

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Martha Sutherland's avatar

God Bless Matt and the Racket team. Documenting the wilderness of mirrors within the IC re the ONGOING ( See Susan Miller’s bizarre interview from Matt’s post yesterday) multiple year conspiracy to take down a president AND coverup is vitally important for our survival as a free republic. The memory hole is alive and well. I thank Matt for detailing the factual historical record for posterity. I have worried about how the history of the post 9-11 world will be written and there is much room for correcting those inconvenient truths. How will our children and grandchildren really know what has happened: the lies, the coverups and the gaslighting for asking questions, all aided and abetted by big tech. Let us hope Racket continues to be the lodestar for factual record and not the legacy media. The NPR chief Tedtalk about “truths” you highlighted last week sent shivers down my spine. Thanks so much for all that you do.

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Jim's avatar

Well said!

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The Walrus's avatar

The readers comments from the Brennan/Clapper NYT article show you have a LONG way to go in convincing the brainwashed left

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Cosmo T Kat's avatar

Is it brainwashed or is it their version of reality which, in a ideology that suggests reality is subjective, differs from the real world? This is the most definitive sign of leftist mental instability.

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HeathN's avatar

Basically, at least in my view, subjective truth is the Left's preferred method to push back on resistance to their preferred outcomes in reality. Basically, subjective truth is a boolean truth, for the protagonist it is true, but for the antagonist, it is a lie.

Thus, subjective truth itself is a lie, since truth itself is meant to be universal. Truth should always be objective. Take air, or water, or food. Without air for longer than ~5 minutes (there are limited exceptions), a mammal will die; without water for longer than ~3 days, a mammal will die... you get the point. This is objectively true.

There are exceptions depending on tools and other ways to circumvent, but just as we stand alone as humans, we need those to survive. No Marxist/Progressive/Left can really argue that, they may still do it, but they will be of course dealing in falsehood.

I just make these points for sharing, not as an argument to your comment or anything. I just find it amazing what people engage in with subjective truth in order to either get out of trouble, gain power, curry favor... etc.

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Cosmo T Kat's avatar

Interesting and thanks for sharing your perspective.

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HeathN's avatar
1dEdited

One other thought... subjective truth is analogous to war. Well, anything that is boolean can be seen that way. The brainwashed left are literally at war with the side they see as adversarial. It's unfortunate, but the human race has conquered every other species of life - we are the dominant life form on this planet by and large. So, we fight each other.

From what I gather in various venues like social media, news, etc.., conservatives see reality for what it is, while the left/progressives see reality for what it should be. This is why the left are considered crazy. They see things that aren't true. They often fudge the facts to fit a narrative. We see this time and again.

I often wonder if we are seeing a more pronounced polar orientation with human social systems due to population size. Even while I was growing up in the 80s it didn't seem so polar. This Left-Right paradigm seems global now. Perhaps it is strictly a globalization issue, but that to me seems to be correlated with population size too due to resource consumption and the resulting competition amongst nations.

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