What's More Disgusting

than a hickey on a hemmoroid?

Answer: The Alliance For Securing Democracy:
http://securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/about-securing-democracy

This is a very special alliance between foreign policy Neoliberals and Neocons. Check out "The Team", starting with Michael Chertoff:
http://securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/team/advisory-council

The Atlantic article "Donald Trump's Defenders On The Left":
https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/534534/

And the nitty gritty from The Intercept, two key figures:

The Democrat, Laura Rosenberger, served as a foreign policy adviser for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and chief of staff to two Obama national security officials. The Republican is Jamie Fly, who spent the last four years as counselor for foreign and national security affairs to one of the Senate’s most hawkish members, Marco Rubio; prior to that, he served in various capacities in the Bush Pentagon and National Security Council.

But wait! There's more!

Thus, alongside Jake Sullivan (national security adviser to Joe Biden and the Clinton campaign), Mike Morrell (Obama’s acting CIA director) and Mike McFaul (Obama’s ambassador to Russia) sit leading neocons such as Mike Chertoff (Bush’s homeland security secretary), Mike Rogers (the far-right, supremely hawkish former congressman who now hosts a right-wing radio show); and Bill Kristol himself.

Caution! Not for faint hearts or weak stomaches! You have been warned!
https://theintercept.com/2017/07/17/with-new-d-c-policy-group-dems-conti...

[Edit for clarity. The author of The Atlantic article is Peter Beinart, former editor of The New Republic and was a Senior Fellow for The Council On Foreign Relations:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Beinart]

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Bisbonian's picture

“anything remotely progressive.” To the contrary, Democrats in Congress have opposed Trump’s agenda more militantly than did congressional Democrats during the Reagan and George W. Bush years.

I think someone doesn't understand what "progressive" is. Generally it means coming up with a way forward...even if you have to do it while fighting against being dragged backwards.

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"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X

Meteor Man's picture

@Bisbonian Retreat hell! I'm advancing to the rear!

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

@Meteor Man

So, how long before they finally vanish into those rears? I keep waiting!

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

@Bisbonian

a synonym for "liberal," but without the free market connotation. It ain't. It's a favorite term of the Democratic Leadership Council and New Democrats. The first offshoot of the DLC was the Progressive Policy Institute, headed by Will Marshall, one of the DLC's first two full-time employees.

As head of the Progressive Policy Institute, Marshall was also one of the signatories of the 2003 PNAC letter, urging Bush to invade Iraq. Well, since Bush needed no urging to do that, the letter, which was published in the New York Times for the American public to read, was for the purpose of giving Bush cover, much as Powell's UN speech was used.

No one names their politics a synonym for "backward." And neither "forward," which was New Democrat Obama's 2012 campaign slogan, nor "backward" is a specific concept. Almost new legislation can be seen as "forward." Don't Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, both neoliberals, and Glenn Greenwald, a longtime critic of neoliberals, all self-identify themselves and/or the policies they prefer as "progressive?" Sanders, too? So, exactly what does "progressive" mean? Is "progressive" the Chance the Gardener of political terminology?

Because "progressive is usually used either as a synonym for "liberal" and also as a synonym for "neoliberal," I try to avoid the term, except for discussing it as a term, as I am in this post.

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Alligator Ed's picture

@HenryAWallace otherwise it will remain nebulous and ultimately forgettable. I agree with your comment, but the new movement, whatever it is or will be, needs an unambiguous name. I don't know what that would be. But as you point out correctly, using "progressive" reverts to "liberal", in turn reverting to the intolerable center. We must be careful in nomenclature, lest we come up with a name as unattractive as the "Edsel" Ford.

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@Alligator Ed

everyone knew exactly what an Edsel consisted of and connoted. I don't think the same can be said of the term "progressive." It can't possible describe the political philosophies of both Greenwald and Hillary? Or can it? Because I've just started wondering about the entire pundit cadre, too, including those with whom I tend to agree. Maybe especially those with whom I tend to agree.

https://caucus99percent.com/content/liberals-must-not-say-liberal-left-p...

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Alligator Ed's picture

@HenryAWallace The distinction you made about the Edsel and the DemonRATic party is straight on. All the public knows is that Dems are the "not TrumP" party. Now WTF does that mean when trying to get votes? 2016 answered that question nicely, and will do so again in 2018.

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Did I misread something due to cataract surgery?

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Meteor Man's picture

@on the cusp Like the old joke:
Slave Laborer: I can't make it in to work today, I'm having trouble with my eyes.

Boss: What's wrong with your eyes?

Slave Laborer: I can't see coming in to work today. (click)

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

@on the cusp

Wishing you a fast and full recovery.

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detroitmechworks's picture

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrbv40ENU_o]

Same shit different decade.

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

@detroitmechworks

for posting this great film of Tom Leher singing the song that makes the point that WWIII would only last an hour and a half.

And thank you for making this point:

Same shit different decade.

The brotherhood of big oil and psychopathic killers has been a Democratic and Republican fraternity all along.

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SnappleBC's picture

@detroitmechworks

Lord that man had so many hit songs!

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A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard

organizations similar to it. AT MOST, I can vote against both Republican and Democratic American politicians, all of whom allow people to corrupt them. And that assumes my vote will be counted and counted honestly.

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@HenryAWallace

taking action to destroy us and to destroy the planet at least malfeasant enough to be subject to criminal charges? Can't we bring criminal charges against a government that is that bad?

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@Linda Wood

If that were possible, we would have started with ALEC and the Bilderburg Group I think. Heck, maybe Bohemian Grove.

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Alligator Ed's picture

@Linda Wood in this country. Unlike many other countries where political rivals are jailed, in our country they are set free, allowed to roam and despoil as private citizens but no longer as government officials.

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Big Al's picture

Because it's owned by another billionaire.

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lotlizard's picture

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the article in The Intercept a couple of days ago really hit me hard

made clear that the dems were wedded to $$$$

and the war thrust that changes the subject from The New Climate Regime

reason why founders made sure no standing army in the constitution because monarchs use it to maintain power

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k9disc's picture

be more apt and have more legs than I, or anyone else has given credit for... I'll riff of of Cracked magazine for this one: How Half of America Lost It's !@#$ing Mind

Dukes and Dames, Counts & Countesses, all parading around at court.

It strikes from the Right, rural angst a la the Hunger Games and it strikes from the Left by offending the egalitarian and social justice ideals that are the basis of a healthy society.

Maybe we should be using language and metaphor that conjure up Royalty and aristocracy. We keep calling them Billionaires, Masters of the Universe -- these are the apex of capitalism.

Maybe we should be calling them tyrants and noblemen who treat people like chattel.

Nobody in America likes illegitimate authority, and we kicked the king's ass for a reason back in the day... just sayin'...

@DonMidwest

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“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu

@k9disc

Personally, I find two terms, The Parasite Class/The Psychopathic Class, to accurately cover all contingencies in this area.

They are certainly not 'elites' or forming any such category which implies they're 'the best of the best', merely lunatic and power-mad/greed-blinded blood-sucking horrors destroying civilization and the ability of the planet to support life and I do wish that people would stop flattering them with titles implying that they have any 'right' to do this by virtue of being our 'betters'. (Hah! Managed that without swears, lol!)

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

k9disc's picture

I think systemic argument is a key element of any messaging moving forward.

And that visceral pissed off feeling you get when you hear them mentioned as your betters? That's a feature, not a bug -- shit that's THE feature. It IS offensive.

The system we have is offensive and it breeds corporate and wealthy nobility. Psychopaths or not, they live under a different set of laws and a have a completely different scale of opportunity.

I have long been on the sociopath and psychopath framing, as it is true, but it hasn't taken hold, and I don't think it is an emotive and well framed argument for action. It's scary, for sure, but what do you do?

With fraudulent, hidden nobility -- the landed aristocracy, if you want to put everyone to sleep like in history class -- in a democratic republic, the answer is clear -- get together and take 'em down a peg.

@Ellen North

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“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu

@k9disc

I see your point, but a good deal of mine was that terming them as 'nobles' is framing them in a positive light, as well as referring to a system in which nobles once legitimately ruled over commoners, which is the kind of PR framing shift they need the public to accept for that pretense of legitimacy in so doing.

These are, at best and in my considered opinion, parasites who have no business draining and poisoning others and the global life support system because nobody can claim this as a 'divine right'.

We are either so done with 'might makes right' tyranny now capable of destroying life on the planet, and well into the process of doing so - or we are all just done, period.

At any rate, I'm personally darned if I'm going to give them complementary titles implying that it's OK for them - being the 'exceptional' ones - to do as they please to the rest of us.

But I'll bold what 'noble' means to me, from the definitions given as examples below, as your concepts may well be different.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/nobility

no·bil·i·ty (nō-bĭl′ĭ-tē)
n. pl. no·bil·i·ties
1. A class of persons distinguished by high birth or rank and in Great Britain including dukes and duchesses, marquises and marchionesses, earls and countesses, viscounts and viscountesses, and barons and baronesses: "The old English nobility of office made way for the Norman nobility of faith and landed wealth" (Winston S. Churchill).
2. Noble rank or status: Congress may not grant titles of nobility.
3. The state or quality of being exalted in character.
[Middle English nobilite, the quality of being noble, from Old French, from Latin nōbilitās, from nōbilis, noble; see noble.]

...

...no•bil•i•ty (noʊˈbɪl ɪ ti)

n., pl. -ties.
1. the noble class or the body of nobles in a country.
2. the state or quality of being noble.
3. nobleness of mind, character, or spirit.

4. grandeur.
5. noble birth or rank.
[1350–1400; Middle English nobilite

Even the untitled holding manors had responsibilities to their tenants/villagers and noblesse oblige obtained. (Even with a booster, have a terrible connection, often non-existent or virtually so, in the new place; below is all that showed just now, but it sorta very roughly covers it, although that snippet fails to cover those vulnerable most in need of direct and concrete assistance/support in times of trouble.)

Noblesse oblige
Noblesse oblige is a French phrase literally meaning "nobility obligates". It denotes the concept that nobility extends beyond mere entitlements and requires the person who holds such status to fulfill social responsibilities, particularly in leadership roles.
More at Wikipedia

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

He would find the threads of this alliance going back into the Clinton Presidency. You know, the point at which I realize that the CIA has been in charge of everything for a long time is the point at which I read Family of Secrets by Russ Baker. It doesn't matter who is Prez... as soon as this person sits down for the first time in the Oval Office, he/she gets the "now let's tell you who is really in charge" lecture by the CIA. In fact, Glen might have wanted to expand the peeking behind the curtain of this group... or maybe he shouldn't.

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"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin

@Fishtroller 02
the CIA has been in charge since before it existed in the sense that Allen Dulles was making fascism legally untouchable before he became the first director of the CIA:

https://www.panshin.com/trogholm/secret/rightroots/dulles.html

… Early in 1933, both Dulles brothers attended a meeting in Germany where German industrialists agreed to back Hitler's bid for power in exchange for his pledge to break the German unions. A few months later, John Foster Dulles negotiated a deal with Hitler's economics minister whereby all German trade with the United States would be coordinated through a syndicate headed by Averell Harriman's cousin. With the Nazis enforcing a favorable climate for business, the profits for Thyssen and other companies soared, and the Union Banking Corporation increasingly became a Nazi money-laundering machine. In 1934, George Herbert Walker placed Prescott Bush on Union Bank's board of directors, and Bush and Harriman also began to use the bank as the basis for a complex and deceptive system of holding companies.

The Hamburg-Amerika shipping line, which Harriman and Walker had controlled since 1920, had a particularly high degree of Nazi involvement in its operations. In 1934, a congressional investigation revealed it to have become a front for I.G. Farben's spying, propaganda, and bribery on behalf of the German government. Rather than advising Walker and Harriman to divest themselves of these tainted assets, Prescott Bush hired Allen Dulles to help conceal them. From 1937 on, the Dulles brothers would serve Bush and Harriman in all their covert dealings with Nazi firms. They also performed similar cloaking services for others, like the Rockefellers.

It goes without saying that Harriman, Walker, Bush, and Dulles were morally tainted by their connections with German firms like Thyssen and I.G. Farben, since they both funded and profited from Hitler's crimes against humanity. However, their entire enterprise was corrupt in a more subtle sense as well, in that its very basis was financial fraud on an unprecedented scale. That would have been true even if Hitler had never come to power. The real significance of adding the Nazis to the equation was that it upped the stakes, both increasing the potential rewards for the participants and forcing them into increasingly elaborate deceptions to conceal their frauds.

The part that I emphasized in bold type I think brings up a significant subject, the desperation of the deep state to prevent knowledge of their crimes. They continue, generation after generation, to live in fear of being brought to justice.

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@Linda Wood Well the way things are going now that they've got the Democratic Party fawning at their feet, the CIA can relax a bit and be less afraid. All the lights read GO! for more covert manipulations of the world to benefit the oligarchy.

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"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin

@Fishtroller 02
puzzled about why the voters for Hillary Clinton have fallen in love with the Clapper crowd of serial liars. I don't get it. Maybe I don't even believe it. Maybe the mainstream press and the paid writers at places like DailyKos just write it and attempt to create their own reality, Karl Rove-style.

I could see the voters for Hillary Clinton throwing all their energy into ending the Electoral College. I could understand that as well as assertive legal challenges on all of Trump's environmental and social initiatives. But the Russia thing makes no sense to me. So I don't even believe the CIA is on a roll. They may say they are in their endless postings to the mainstream press. But I don't think they are.

I think the CIA is more vulnerable now than ever because of people like Michael Flynn. I think there is a faction of the American military that is straight out defying them. And on any given Tuesday, Trump may just have enough of what he calls the CIA's failed policies.

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@Linda Wood Years ago when I was first on TOS, I brought up Russ Baker's book Family of Secrets, and talked about the Poppy Bush CIA connections etc. I was surprised to have a hail of flags come my way with warnings about how you are not allowed to post CT on the site. It was a mainstream book by a well known and respected reporter that showed how evil the Bush family is. So why would a group of Dems be unhappy with me posting about it? Just recently I realized that my current time out came after I talked about how the CIA was manipulating things and could have put false fingerprints (Russians) on hacked/revealed emails. Then I learn about Markos's past with the CIA. Just a theory, but I think there may be a little CIA hand playing over on that site.

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"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin

@Fishtroller 02
I have had the same feeling about the CIA and Markos. Toward the end of my reading and participating there, someone posted a link to this YouTube video about Markos speaking at the Commonwealth Club about the CIA, and after watching it, I realized my uneasy feelings were probably based on a reality somewhere on a spectrum between being an agent to being a dupe, but probably close to being a knowing participant.

Why would I feel that way? It was because his comments in this video about the CIA are so stupid, whereas he is clearly a skillful, articulate person.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eK6CinsGYC0

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@Linda Wood Well that certainly puts the confirm in my theory! Yikes!

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"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin

Meteor Man's picture

@Linda Wood Book review at Medium:

https://medium.com/dan-sanchez/the-dulles-brothers-and-their-legacy-of-p...

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

Wink's picture

@Meteor Man
state office building (S.O.B.) here named after one of those asshats. (sigh)

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the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

chuckvw's picture

The answer is... John McCain, the guy returning to the Senate to vote for Trumpcare while receiving platinum level care on the taxpayer's dime.

Maybe he'll surprise us, in which case I will retract and apologize.

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You should only listen to both sides when one side isn't totally full of shit. -Jim Jefferies

of angry deplorables & petty grifters stand any chance against this line-up of heavy hitters? What we see here is a naked display the Deep State in all its power and glory. Working tirelessly to advance the twin causes of corporate profit and perpetual warfare, this thoroughly bipartisan coalition of professional patriots intends to grind into dust any hope of detente with Russia.

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native