A Clean Well-Lit Place to Expand Your View — in Moscow

If you have time to kick back for a few minutes, and would like a refreshing overview of "these dark days of the Hoax" — I think you might enjoy my favorite RT show, Crosstalk with Peter Lavelle. Today we'll travel to Moscow and watch the wacky end-of-the-Hoax events through international eyes.

Lavelle hails from Beverly Hills, but launched his career in Moscow, where he has lived for many years. His half-hour round table hosts the most unique and eccentric international news personalities you're likely to find — Jimmy Dore has put in an appearance or two. Lavelle must have one hell of a rolodex.

Tonight’s very entertaining Roundtable, broadcast from Moscow, is titled “Russiagate: ‘Game Over.’” Lavell's guests are Russian political analyst Dmitry Babich (very smart and very sweet): Alexander Mercouris, British Editor of The Duran (a dry wit that defies description), and Don DeBar, a New York antiwar journalist and syndicated host of CPR Radio News.

So, what is the takeaway from this international discussion of the Mueller Report?

For me, one of the funniest bits came early in the show, when the discussion turned to the suspected crimes that sparked the special investigation, I hadn’t realized how cartoonish and absurd they must sound to the world until Dmitry Babich read them aloud. His commentary cracked me up. They also had fun with some of the redacted material from the newly released report. Their reaction to the persecution of General Michael Flynn was quite animated. It's not the first time I've heard that Flynn was doing precisely what his job demanded of him. So, the deep irony of the charges brought against him by lesser men found a particular resonance with the Roundtable.

One point of mystification for the Roundtable was that the Mueller Report was almost entirely focused on the Obstruction charges, and there was very little on Donald Trump's alleged collusion with Russia. “Did they forget what they have been investigating for the past two-and-a-half years?” asks Lavelle. “Shouldn’t there at least be an apology to the American people?” (I suspect Mueller knew before he started that Trump was not colluding, and didn't waste his time. Besides, that investigation might expose the FISA warrant.)

I was also amused that the Roundtable ran into the same dilemma that we do when researching actual facts and evidence in the case. The charges always fall apart due to the lack of evidence — true even from the very beginning. So, whenever the exoneration of Trump is the only logical conclusion, Lavelle would pull back defensively and say to the audience, “Look, it’s not that we think Donald Trump is a good guy. He’s done many bad things throughout the world. We're only talking about the Rule of Law, not about Trump.” Sound familiar? Even these journalists fear the accusations and backlash that come as a result of the manufactured hysteria of the Russia Hoax.

The Roundtable seemed completely bewildered by another aspect of the Mueller Report: The investigation into the most important parts of the case were omitted. Was this Muller’s entire investigative work product? Did he fail to investigate the key elements that were driving the charges that were made? The first elephant in the room, of course, was CrowdStrike and its shady reputation. Where are the logs from the DNC servers? Where is the evidence showing that a cyber crime had been committed? And where are the forensics analyzing that evidence, they wondered? There was, of course, never any evidence.

And for heavens sake, where is the critical investigation of the Steele dossier group? This was the entire basis for at least some of the wiretapping of Trump's Presidential campaign. Why weren’t the FISA Warrants included in the Report. Was information from the ensuing wiretaps passed on to the DNC or the Clinton campaign?

And why, the Roundtable wanted to know, did the media lash out so viciously at Attorney General Barr, after he ended his press conference? Was it because he mentioning that the DOJ would now investigate the rest of the story to complete the case archive?

::

The Roundtable discussion of this news event struck me as unusual. Then I realized I had never seen the Russia Hoax discussed in a responsible way by news media professionals — while employing critical thinking. It was pleasently disorienting, and that's when I decided to post the show here.

Crosstalk ends with a few surprises of its own. For example, what are the real costs of the Russia Hoax to the rest of the world? The costs to Europe and Russia alone exceed $100 billion dollars. How will that be handled, I wondered?

I’ll leave the rest for those who choose to watch the show.

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chuck utzman

TULSI 2020

but now I get online to watch it because Comcast dropped the entire RT channel for this area last December and even tho I complained loudly about it I only got very poor answers or none at all (even when I'm talking to the programming dept.)

I also never got an answer to my question about whether or not they had done this everywhere they operate or just in this northwest area.
I even asked if this also was also the case in Oregon and considering it is the State right below this one surely someone could tell me something one way or the other about that but that didn't happen.

I'll add this, in all my phone calls to different departments, including going to the local store, I included in every conversation an accusation of modern day McCarthyism which got no response except for one call in particular where the guy I was talking with said (paraphrasing) 'I can see why you might be able to see it that way', but nothing further.

However most seemed ignorant of what was on Channel 81, sounding a bit surprised when I mentioned Chris Hedges' show, the 'Jesse Ventura' show, even mentioning his son,Tyrel with one, then after giving some credentials of people they are less likely to recognize I'd pull out the name I said surely they thought must be a 'commie', Larry King.

Fu*k Comcast but there is no other real viable alternative in this area.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

@aliasalias

...that I would take it hard if I lost RT. But I don't have cable. I have ROKU. It's a free channel if you have wifi.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato

@aliasalias SoCal also dropped RT within the last year, not entirely a surprise given the DeepState's propaganda against RT in the preceding several years. I knew it would be a waste of time contacting them to complain, and also knew I could access their shows online.

Oddly, just a few weeks before dumping RT, Spectrum also dropped France24, which was not bad in covering int'l news. Maybe that was why -- F24 giving somewhat better coverage, a somewhat larger perspective than CNN and Msnbc. But another case of being available online.

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Amanda Matthews's picture

look at our country and a damn good laugh about it all.

NYT use actual ex-FBI agent to warn readers of Barr’s ‘Russian disinfo tactic’ (with Soviet imagery)

The Mueller report didn’t just clear President Donald Trump of colluding with Russia, the New York Times said, it handed Russia’s Vladimir Putin the “ultimate victory.” If you thought otherwise, blame secret Soviet mind games.

In a New York Times op-ed, former FBI agent-turned CNN analyst Asha Rangappa argues that by conflating the terms “collusion” and “conspiracy,” Attorney General William Barr performed a bizarre Soviet trick on the American public, giving Putin his “ultimate victory.”

The trick, Rangappa explains, is called ‘Reflexive Control,’ a “uniquely Russian” concept that, put simply, involves drip-feeding an audience carefully-prepared words to make them reach the conclusion you want them to. That’s basically what PR is – only this time it’s “Russian” and, therefore, bad.

See, Rangappa makes the case that even though the Mueller report “did not establish that the Trump Campaign coordinated with the Russian government,” the real collusion is still spelled out in its pages.

*

In the meantime, Rangappa wants the average American to stay vigilant to Barr’s KGB hypno-waves, finishing with a stark warning:

“If we don’t, Mr. Putin has certainly won.”

https://www.rt.com/usa/457118-nyt-soviet-tactics-mueller-barr/

We used to laugh and say FBI meant Federal Butt Inspectors when we were little. If they think we’re truly this stupid, they couldn’t find their own asses with a map, written instructions, and help.

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

lotlizard's picture

@Amanda Matthews  
As saintly a couple as you’d ever want to meet.

Decades ago, including the years when this couple was bringing up seven kids, the FBI actually rented a house across the street from them and staffed it with a rotating schedule of agents to keep an eye on their activities and visitors.

The couple knew very well what was going on and got to recognize specific agents, at whom they would smile and wave hello.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

@Amanda Matthews

...once told me FBI stood for Fumbling Bumbling Idiots.

We used to laugh and say FBI meant Federal Butt Inspectors when we were little.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato

@Pluto's Republic Ned Beatty as a stereotypical CIA senior management meathead after the FBI has shot up his summer home, "FBI—Fuckin Ballbustin Imbeciles."

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It's available on YouTube, for now anyway. Lavelle talks a bit too much, but that's OK because the show is so refreshing. It's good to hear debate on the important stories by folks who are not reflexive Russophobes. There is an entire world out there in which the claims against Russia are debatable if not total fabrications. This world is far more believable than the isolated world of the US MSM. The Russians that I meet don't dwell on Russo-American relationships, but are saddened that the current state precludes any actions towards improvement. It turns out that Russia and the US are very alike in many aspects (with the exception of US global aggressiveness) than any other country in Europe is to the US. However almost nobody in Russia believes that Russian success is dependent on the US. Russians are very patient and see the that US flock of sheep in Europe will gradually pull away. It looks like Italy is firmly on that path. Meanwhile, Crosstalk is required viewing.

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Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.