Getting up to date on a world in crisis

Posted on by November 10, 2019

An enforced absence has caused the blog to go quiet at a time when the world is at a crisis point.

Britain is at the start of a Brexit election campaign which will change the face of Europe, possibly forever and not only puts the prospect of any sort of “United States of Europe” at risk, but threatens the existence of the EU as a political entity.

In Australia, a country rich in resources, especially energy (unlimited coal, 1/3 of the worlds uranium, world largest exporter of natural gas etc), both major parties seem to be competing with each other to commit resource suicide and join Venezuela in squandering such advantage by turning away from using those natural resources at all. With the body politic seemingly infected with the Green obsession, it seems only a matter of time until this new economics ruins the economy and leads to unrest. Tensions with China over the relationship of Australia with long-time ally the US has  Australia being called upon to choose between the two.

Far beyond all that in importance, however, and purely because its stability is the rock on which world stability rests, is the situation involving the USA and the past and current attempts to remove an elected president from office.

Whilst every region mentioned must be discussed, the immediate need must be to concentrate on the United States., where the 4-year attack on the campaign, candidacy and now the presidency of Donald Trump is reaching its crisis point and over 100 years of relative presidential stability is in danger of being smashed. 

The United States Catastrophe

It surely cannot now be denied that the United States is at a watershed moment right now. Possibly a real turning point in its political history, unlike previous corrupt decades or centuries where the actual institutions remained intact and the state of the country could snap back into the constitutional republic it always was intended to be.

Australian Perspectives has published a number of posts about the opposition to the Trump presidency, especially as it covered the supposed key inquiry, that of ex-FBI chief Robert Mueller, which was supposed to settle everything. It not only did not do that – not being able to show a single Trump team member colluding with Russia – but its failure, coinciding with the Trump Attorney General Barr ordering an enquiry into the origins of the original investigation into Trump, has created turmoil amongst those opposed to Trump.

Absolutely huge conflicts now threaten to tear the politics of the US apart and must be covered. There is far too much for one post but this introductory post will outline the problems for the US, its people and its permanent political class. As relatively brief outlines, many strongly-held political positions will be challenged and the relevance to other countries, including my own, will be shown. 

The political class at peak engagement. Or is it panic?

The investigation by Attorney General Bar and his prosecutor John Durham into the origins of the FBI-led investigation into the Trump campaign and presidency has been announced as now being a criminal investigation.  Media allied to the anti-Trump forces (not only members of the Democratic party but insiders within the intelligence community, the Department of Justice and the FBI) have responded in opposition. Barr was changed from “well-respected” into a Trump lackey early on, from at least the time when he talked about “spying” being done on the Trump campaign. John Durham had never been anything other than respected everywhere when used by all sides of politics, but now his “reputation” is up in the air, so far as the media and Democratic sources are concerned. That criminal investigation has the potential to have momentous impact and, going by the responses by former (Obama) heavyweights in the anti-Trump Resistance from within the CIA and intelligence community generally, the Department of Justice and the FBI, they are nervous of its impact as it relates to them and their management of the pre-Trump presidential era.

Of more immediate concern to the anti-Trump forces, though, is the imminent release of the report of Inspector General Horowitz into the Justice Department and FBI approach to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA Court) the U.S. federal court established and authorized to oversee requests for surveillance warrants against foreign spies inside the United States. Warrants were taken out against a number of Trump campaign workers, some of which were allegedly based on the unverified Steele dossier. A taste of what is being leaked about the possibilities of the contents of the report can be seen here.

Ukraine and a “whistleblower” takes over from the Russian Operative allegation

More – far more – will be posted on this long and sorry tale of the whistle blower. It’s doubtful if a single extra post can cover it, as its ramifications for those putting it up are potentially immense,

Rather like a leaker as whistleblower, the man named as the one complaining about a Trump phone call to Ukraine president on 25 July, is bogged down and failing, even though it was used as the cause for the Democrats to create an actual Impeachment inquiry intended to get Trump impeached and removed from office.

It started going badly almost immediately because Trump did the unexpected – he released the transcript of the call, this rendering the (coordinated?) media claims of malpractice redundant. “Asked the Ukraine president 8 times” was false as was a lot of the rest of the claims. Even the “begging a favour…investigate Joe Biden’s son” left out hundreds of words showing Trump wanted the Ukraine interference in the US election of 2016 investigated first and “that” was the favour!. That the complaint was 2nd and 3rd hand came out quickly and it was revealed that the supposed whistle blower had first come to the Democrat-led committee which had two ex-colleagues of his on the staff. This and that the report form was secretly changed and backdated to allow the complaint in the first place caused some suspicion too. Releasing the transcript did all that or else a single narrative would have run and run.

More will come on these and many other topics. It is a moveable feast and there are multiple changes every single day.  The hardest thing to deal with is that three major debates are taking place at the same time. While the Democrats are having to concentrate on this, their impeachment inquiry, the Horowitz Inspector General report gets closer and the Durham investigation has the potential to break the American political system wide open, not to mention shattering the perception of the public towards the CIA and other iconic institutions. 

The one matter which has an almost imminent threat to put everything in the air is the sensational turn to which the Mueller charges against retired Lt General Michael Flynn have moved. That will be a vital topic for the near future.

Inspector General report on James Comey condemns many

Posted on by September 4, 2019

The US Dept of Justice Inspector general’s report of 30 August, on former FBI-head James Comey and his memos, completely trashes any of his remaining claims to professional integrity.  By the report laying out what he and others plotted and planned against Donald Trump personally, it destroys the reputations of the other involved leaders of FBI, Dept of Justice, Intelligence and CIA.

Even after this initial setup of Trump on 7 January 2017 he had some room for an honest reassessment of the information gleaned from the Trump meeting. Yet he doubled down and added more evidence to show him a wholly discredited man.

Comey lies about a defensive briefing

This OIG report on James Comey memos also proves many things about the nature  and knowledge of the actions by Comey and other Obama top administration figures, possibly including Obama himself.  In particular, it lays bare the direct involvement and the lies of Comey. He long claimed that he was an honest broker, keen to give a “defensive briefing” to the President-elect, continuing this deception even after his dismissal in his sworn evidence to Congress on June 8 2017. In paragraph 3 of his prepared statement to Congress he held to the claim that it was a defensive briefing.

That this is and always was untrue is shown by the just-released IG report where something a lot closer to the truth is exposed. I say “closer to the truth” because it was obviously an action to capture statements from Trump who they considered “a liar” (Comey in various records to Congress) or someone who would “misrepresent what happened in the encounter” (IG report p 18). We can forget the idea of just letting him know in a “defensive briefing” claim (on oath!).

PP 17-18 of IG Report

In any case, the contextual facts are that since early in 2016, if not 2015,there were very heavy investigations going on into the Trump campaign and its supposed Russian interference. That there was involvement by overseas intelligence services is undoubted and the Guardian, the most favourable to the Obama administration, claims it as defensive of national security but there are others where the actual nature of that involvement is yet to be determined, from them being innocent observers and reporters of activity, to actual high-level participation in an effort to smear the Trump administration through a fraudulent use of these intelligence services.

The dossier (part only) was merely the pretence for a meeting

As for the purpose of the meeting, the dossier was the key. But only a small part of it. There is much evidence to show that multiple media outlets were in possession of the Steele Dossier – the whole dossier – and had refused to publish it because it was not, could not and, to date, still hasn’t been verified. This meeting was instantly publicised in the media and Clapper even made a public comment about it. Within days CNN was shouting it loud and then Buzzfeed published the whole dossier. By going to the IG report itself for the claims as to the origin of the meeting purpose – it was supposedly to put the ‘salacious’ information to Trump – we see it was not to warn him of its existence as Comey and others claimed, but to gauge his reaction to it and to use that reaction to further their investigations against him and others.

Why show only the salacious part of the dossier? Worried about publication about to take place? Why wouldn’t they give him some of the really damaging parts of it if all they wanted was to get his immediate response? No, it doesn’t fit, especially as James Clapper the head of the office for National Intelligence, for one, was briefing, CNN journalist Jake Tapper of the existence of the dossier anyway. The House Intelligence Memo of 22 March 2018 gives a record of its Clapper evidence where he admitted to it.

Unlike the Comey evidence to Congress on June 8, 2017 where he claims he recorded it because he thought Trump would lie about what was said, it is admitted in the report that they wanted to record his comments as it might help their investigations which he – and others no doubt – thought of as serious an investigation as a FISA-level one! Defensive briefing for Trump’s benefit?

The Trump reply demanded a change of course, not doubling down

The worst part of it all was that if (and only if) this group of people leading the charge against Trump and co were objective players and not biased or closed  to new facts, the actual response of Donald Trump would have resulted in a check to the thinking  of Comey and co.

The immediate and clear denial by Donald Trump of every part of the “salacious” claims would bring a true investigator to a halt for reassessment. In many investigations, including some of the most serious of all, immediate responses of that kind, given without time for preparation, forewarning etc are treated as being of high evidentiary value.

What did Comey and the others do? Certainly no reassessment of any evidence against Trump. Nor, as one would expect to be demanded, was there any new assessment of the dossier claims themselves or of the credibility of their author Christopher Steele.   No, the action by Comey and others was to double down and continue as if those denials had never occurred. It was as if the Steele dossier stood unchallenged.

Comey and Co did more than just ignore the Trump denials. They moved onto another long-term target, the Trump National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn. Among the grave doubts about the combined attack on Flynn are that they included the notorious Mueller team members previously excoriated for prosecutorial misconduct and the whole prosecution itself is now subject to serious challenge.

Comey, in his arrogance, actually boasted out loud – and on record – of his deliberate misleading of Flynn in  order to dissuade him from gaining either legal advice or to alert the White House of the Comey team plans to interview Flynn. Comey seemed amused by Flynn not having the opportunity to get this “usual” advice.

It should be noted that the Comey attitude and actions in relation to the Flynn interview are not the only faults of that process by any means, nor is his part in it the major one. No, people far higher than him, possibly at the highest level of all, are carrying much more blame for any injustices perpetuated against Flynn. Due to the latest challenge though, we shall have to wait a while to see how that plays out.

More revelations are coming out day by day. The full Inspector General’s report into FISA Court abuse is due at any time. And Attorney-General Barr has prosecutors working on investigations and incidents trying to determine how the investigations got started and so on. What this interim report on Comey has done, however, is to brand Comey as acting in bad faith and it should (but probably won’t) condemn him forever as a partisan and in a class of ”leader” of the FBI to which only Hoover himself has so far been admitted. 

Wall Street v Main Street is the key to understanding the USA v China latest

Posted on by August 27, 2019

The determination of the Trump administration to take on China as a manipulator in trade and finance is at a key stage. Yet it should be explained why he has so much internal opposition from politicians and corporations and unless the conflicted loyalties to Wall Street as against Main Street are laid out, it cannot be put into proper perspective. The distinction is clear now and must be taken into consideration.

While we have known about “globalism” as a concept, and as an industrial label, for many years (the “world car” etc ), the left doesn’t hold its opposition to it on its own now. In this modern era the left supports (and is funded by) billionaires who profit from the new order and for whom the one world, no borders type of social system resonates and is praised. By contrast, adhering anew to the descriptor of “Nationalist”, or more often used (by both supporters and critics) “Populists” is anathema to them. For the new world order, it is as shown in the previous post, Clinton cabinet member Robert Reich laid out the new economics quite clearly, including this especially:-

“…there will be no national products  or technologies, no national corporations, no national industries. There will no longer be national economies, at least as we have come to understand that concept..” and so on 

Why Main Street, why Wall Street?

Used to differentiate the new Wall Street economy from the old economy, that traditional economy was the one which made things, traded things, both internally and internationally. It was the engine of production in each country and through which mutual benefit allowed export trades (yes “free” or tariff-managed trade) to continue when mutually beneficial to the various countries.

It is a narrative that contrasts that Main Street with the modern “Wall Street”. This latter grouping doesn’t merely trade the shares of the traditional corporations on the value of their productivity, efficiency, profits etc, but now, with the traditional hedging (on the trading of actual products) morphing into the broad derivatives per se. And it is solidly international, with multi-national corporations being the key; where various parts of its organisation are in various countries, often far from its nominal head office.

Corporations operate out of multiple countries, tax havens and so on, but it is only in relatively recent years that we realised that the idea of national boundaries have been rejected and in recent decades that those same “national” corporations rejected “country” or “nation” and now have no loyalty to anything but profit and shareholders. As recent financial crises came and went, especially the Global Financial Crisis, with its derivatives crash, the idea of Too Big to Fail, the crisis of the Eurozone, with the Greece bailout etc, only then did the issue come clearly into public consciousness.

But it was the loss of jobs and industries from various countries that made the big leap from consciousness to demands for action; from supposedly cyclical downturn to structural revolution leading to destruction of whole communities. This last was accompanied by political surrender to globalism, with the “those jobs aren’t coming back” and “what, do you have a magic wand”. In the new corporate world the production and, most importantly, the jobs, became mere inputs into the corporation business, with no mooring to any part of any country or to any particular country at all.

Trump and the change

Trump had been in favour of taking on China for decades and campaigned on bringing jobs back and so on, but this last on jobs was laughed at by his predecessor. Even many  economists doubted that anything would succeed and politically it was treated as impossible.

This opposition to Trump, however, further illuminates forces within the US and other economies which are also advantaged by the status quo and fighting hard against any change. Certainly being against any changes that made labour more expensive or was particular as to area of production. Under Obama there had been very large imports of labour for the Big Tech corporations, even as millions of Americans graduated in computer sciences each year, In some cases there was a replacement policy where imported labour was to replace Americans actually in work!

The final stage to which the Wall Street v Main Street “contest” had reached prior to Trump entering into office was well-described by Sundance of the Conservative Tree House in a June 2019 article (Please read the lot, including the links)

The collapse of U.S. manufacturing did not happen accidentally.  The rust-belt was not created accidentally.  NAFTA was not designed accidentally.  The back-door to the U.S. market was not created accidentally. Middle-class jobs were not lost accidentally.  Wages did not stagnate accidentally….  All of these results were brought about by specific design.

He linked to international traders, China, the US Chamber of Commerce and all those groups, corporations and nations relying on cheaper labour from overseas than in their own country. Not only that as an objective reality, but that it was actually designed to be that way. Whether that is completely accurate or not, it cannot be denied that when these changes were proposed or planned every one of them facilitated actions by the globalists which resulted in flow-on effects detrimental to local labour and the economic bottom line of the US and other nation states to which it applied (ie loss of industrial activity). Until Trump, there was no real effort to ameliorate the effects of what was happening to America over that time frame.

That is the great change of today, as it seems that the terms of the real debate are quite narrow. Not simplistic as in a Pro/anti Trump argument or even an effort to get back to the relative international trading calm of earlier days.

Whether those parts of the USA where work, mines and manufacturing have come back are completely thanks to that apparent Trump “magic wand” or not, the things we are not short of are vested interests. Plenty of them. But the idea of the Wall Street/.Main Street divide must always be kept in the centre when gauging and analysing the actions of those interests. The bloody mindedness or otherwise of each or any party will be a recurring theme which must be put through this prism to make further sense of it. Because it is such a major issue and such a challenge to a 30-year status quo in international trade, appropriate attention must be given to the China/US trade challenge of today, and its effect on many countries, including Australia. Export-oriented countries fear this challenge to their prosperity of those easy days, times where their independence was whittled away and China became more and more the leader and not the follower (or even partner). However, Trump highlighting the issue and (apparently) proposing a solution, might separate those export-oriented/ dominated ones who are screaming blue murder about the Trump measures and might find the willing partners Trump was looking for.   

CPAC in Australia – Implications for the future

Posted on by August 21, 2019

The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC)  came to Australia in August for the first but, they say, not the last time. Part of the American Conservative Union’s operation which had been going since 1964, the CPAC conferences in the United States have been addressed by Republican presidents from their beginning until this year and both leading politicians and party heavyweights have been their speakers and guests for a fully mainstream (and well-known) conservative organisation.

Left attack and the usual memes – racism,  Islamophobia – all there

The recently defeated, left wing Australian Labor Party, aided and abetted by the captive left political media, immediately took to smearing the conference and its speakers in what seemed to be a pre-emptive strike. Perhaps they were trying to take advantage of a supposed lack of public awareness of CPAC and its history to brand it to set their hostile narrative.

In their Alinsky-like smearing of CPAC and attempt to set a negative narrative about it, the left went in with both feet, embarrassing themselves in the process but actually  having an opposite effect of publicising it and ensuring that it resonated with its intended audience. Attacks were answered by conservative commentators, it was subsequently publicised widely and tentative early ticket sales were followed by a flood, resulting in a sell-out.

The biggest mistake it seemed, was attempting to smear them as being akin to the worst of extreme right neo-Nazis, trying to brand attendees with “racism”, “Islamophobe” and other tags used as convenient smearing tools by even mainstream leftist politicians in the USA and elsewhere.

Leading the charge was American-born Australian Senator Kristina Keneally, a former premier of the state of New South Wales and current Senator for that state. Note that the CPAC speakers list was overwhelmingly rock-solid mainstream conservative. Led by the CPAC Chair Matt Schlapp, speakers included Representative Mark Meadows, leader of the US House Republican Freedom Caucus. US House Representative Matt Gaetz, Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Brexit Party, Judge Jeanine Pirro of Fox News and a host of Australian politicians and commentators, serving and retired, including ex-Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

The main Keneally target early on was Raheem Kassam, ex publisher of Breitbart London and a well known figure in conservative circles. He had sent some intemperate tweets some years ago but that was enough for Keneally to demand that Australian politicians and others have nothing to do with any organisation that would host him. Some of the material used against him was as silly as this (from a Guardian journalist): ‘Steve Bannon once referred to Kassam as “my head guy in Europe”’. Yes, that’s how ridiculous it was. Keneally remained the front for the Labor Party and she continued it on social media, aided mightily by the Guardian and the taxpayer-funded ABC network.

The conference itself, however, was a resounding success as far as it went, with packed houses and hopes for the future – in the near and medium term. The fact that it was a true “conservative” conference and not a centre-right wing political ‘party’ conference has implications for that part of the ruling Liberal Party/National party coalition which is closer to the left and greens (and which was conspicuous by its absence).

The challenge to the present rigid political system

The Australia political process has some features differing from other western political systems. It has compulsory voting, leading to upwards of 90% actually voting  and the other major factor is that it has compulsory preferential voting, meaning that votes for every candidate have to be listed in order of preference and eliminated until a final candidate gets 50% plus 1 of the vote to win. The system has also featured only those two major party blocs to dominate every electoral contest since the 1920s. There have been other minor parties but overall control of parliament (and government) has been in the hands of the two major party blocs

What has been hard if not impossible to move has been the loyalty of the voting populace to go away from these major parties and vote for any other grouping in large numbers. In the Australian experience, there has been only rigid voting along party lines.

Where CPAC identity could make a difference.

Whilst the rigid party boundaries have held, political cracks have appeared. On the left, the Labor party has been harried by the Greens and on the right it seems that these same factors have split the conservative coalitions of the past, necessitating a debate about what a “conservative party” really is, especially in the USA. 

In parts of Australia the nominally right wing Liberal party has also seen an increasing fracture of allegiances, especially as it surrounds environmental issues. This is very serious in the largest state of New South Wales, where there has been close to open warfare within the party and the national/state voting bloc is holding together only very shakily. Recent history has shown how serious that has been with some factions openly touting Green issues as against a formal conservative view and even assisting in the sabotage of a former Prime Minister. The election on May 18 this year brought all that out in the open with Prime Minister Morrison being attacked by his predecessor Turnbull, a solid core member of the left-leaning/green faction.

It was that faction and Morrison himself which were notably absent from the Australian CPAC conference and some factional warriors were openly hostile to it – as expected; Craig Kelly, one of their conservative targets for de-selection from the parliament, was listed as a speaker at CPAC.

The importance of the CPAC presence, though, was to give a relatively huge impetus to a new coalescing of open conservatives getting together in a formal way and to lay out a practical intellectually-grounded political program. At the very least, it will provide intellectual mooring to ongoing political work as a group. If a recent attempt to isolate them from the Liberal Party – which had been their centre for generations – was to succeed, it would give them a jumping off point to create a political entity which could realistically challenge for government in the future.

China and trade. What is at stake

Posted on by August 19, 2019

The China/United States battles on trade and technology are the major issue facing the world right now and the implications of the outcome of this struggle are too momentous to ignore.

Concentration of production in one area of one (or a few) countries has been deliberate policy. It goes back many decades to a greater or lesser extent but the impetus for the globalist current heyday dates only from the early 90’s.

Remember at all times, those actions which the Clinton administration did to change international trade completely, were supported and enabled later by all succeeding US administrations – up to and until Trump.

Under Clinton two of the major changes were the creation of a trading regime controlled not by “careful and conscious engineering of competition to enable peaceful and productive commerce among peoples” as it had been post WWII, but  it now, in effect, “outsourced management of trade to private trading firms and banks” (Lynn in Cornered p207-8). In addition to that they added the final piece of the jigsaw which created the economic world we have today: the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Bill Clinton brought China into it, supposedly to use their integration into it as a way to have a “liberalising effect” on China. Yes, they said that and maybe they actually meant it. In any case, China as a potential large (and useful-on-cost) player had to be part of the new system.

That the disrupted world trade and economic systems are so much in the news today and that a major change (unseen since the early 1990’s) is well underway coincides with the Trump presidency and is led by it. It is a change which is relatively revolutionary in that far from being a Luddite-like reactionary move against inevitable “progress”, it is a move back to an historical, nation state trading system, a change from a flawed system, the elements of which were set out by Clinton man Robert Reich in his book The Work of Nations – in effect “Clintonomics” (1991, p1)(2)

…there will be no national products  or technologies, no national corporations, no national industries. There will no longer be national economies, at least as we have come to understand that concept.  All that will remain rooted within national borders are the people who comprise a nation. Each nation’s primary assets will be its citizen’s skills and insights. Each nation’s primary political task will be to cope with the centrifugal forces of the global economy which tear at the ties binding citizens together – bestowing even greater wealth on the most skilled and insightful, while consigning the less skilled to a declining standard of living.”

The changes led by the present US administration are a major effort to change a global system, and a chance to alter the seemingly unbroken movement by China to establish dominance over many facets of world trade. In effect to block the unintended consequences of that naïve Clinton move to admit China as a “partner”.

Space is too short here to fully expand on the gradual descent into the global control of trade and the globalisation of world economics from its early ideology expounded by Robert Reich but we all should be well aware of its status at the time Trump started challenging it. That Donald Trump had seen China as the major threat for many years is well-known and he also campaigned on it, but what we see in the world is enough evidence of the need, without Trump even being considered.

We know the recent history of China from the early 90’s and its membership of the WTO. Far from integrating into the “world system” as envisaged by the globalists, China has always retained its nation state status (as has Germany, for one, no matter how much it claims to be “Europe” – the evidence protecting industry and economic activity within the borders shows that clearly enough).

China did (& does still) use and abuse its “developing nation” exemptions from WTO rules, even as it joined in with currency manipulation, committed industrial espionage on a large scale, dedicated state subsidisation of industry – and exports, forced technology transfer etc -all well before Trump appeared as president of the USA.

China, did more, however, and moreover announced its plans publicly. Some missed seeing the danger

One Belt One Road and China 2025 Strategy

Announced in 2015, China’s  Made in China 2025 plan to be not merely competitive, but dominant and it is not merely in those areas listed, but “Made in China 2025 also targets traditional infrastructure sectors like shipping, rail transport and energy—as well as agricultural machinery”. In same article it is not just “catching up”; acute observers have seen that Made in China 2025 is a real danger in a trade war and it notes that the Trump administration is targeting the 2025 strategy as it relates to hostile intent as well as hostile actions. When you add the ongoing industrial espionage, currency manipulation, forced technology transfer and heavily subsidised industry (and exports), there is little wonder why the US and other countries see this as an alarming “initiative” as has been made clear.

“Made in China 2025 is a blueprint for transforming the country from a labor-intensive economy that makes toys and clothes into one that engineers advanced products like robots and electric cars. The Trump administration views it as an attempt to steal U.S. technology and control cutting-edge industries.”

Another major initiative of China, the One Belt One Road, is starting to look like a failure, a failure brought on by China and its actions in the South China sea, the Pacific and elsewhere after a once-keen coming on board by many countries who fell for its slogans. The now-typical Chinese bribe of billions has brought many nations within its sphere, including many Pacific nations, such as Papua-New Guinea, Fiji, Vanuatu and Tonga. Of course it has got to the stage where many nations dangle out the prospect of China money to force nations in the area (such as Australia) to jump in and subsidise it themselves. For many who have succumbed to the China money, however, an inability to repay loans has resulted in asset transfer, often ports and major national infrastructure. Reduction to vassal status, China military bases on their soil cannot be far away, going by Chinese aggression in the South China Sea.

America is said to be wary that this is all in line with a China intent to use it to help undermine the established international systems . China acting in its own interests and using its state power monopoly to do is isn’t unheard of. Quite the opposite and as shown in other posts it is known for it.

Even critics of the reaction to this China initiative such as Foreign Policy accept that China under Xi do intend to dominate “as the world’s most prestigious power”. It is hard to merely note this without making the obvious logical connection that this state role in the development of “political civilisation” logically will have the state power dictatorship of a communist regime driving it and all of its actions.

The key USA and China struggle

That the “wrongs” of China have been at the forefront for the Trump administration is a truism. After the campaigning on it, every action since the election of a Trump administration has been to question or challenge the China domination as they see it.

From the Davos meeting of January 2018, when Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin attended, the China-as-live-target was in evidence. In a talk with other high-level economists, Ross laid out very many complaints and proposals which have not only never been sidelined they have been reinforced. 

World Economic Forum Davos
Published on Jan 24, 2018

Particular attention should be paid to the following highlights:-

41.00              Massive China overproduction of steel & aluminium only possible in a country like China and warps a supposed free trading system.

50.00             Conventional, WTO actions against transgressors on dumping are a failure with country shopping, and trans-shipping (product through other countries) rife.

Now the US/China trade clash is at a vital stage. China has played most of the usual tricks that have succeeded with all previous challengers other than Trump. It is hard to deny that without a Trump around, the results would be the same as all the other attempts to change China. Lots of talk, “reduce your sanctions, then we’ll talk”, promises but with nothing being done in practice and the increasing domination rolling on. Then another “crisis” explodes into the open, more talks, and the inexorable move further in China’s favour.

Australia is a very good example for Americans to watch and to judge what it would be like if past US policy was continued and it allowed China to actually get dominant. The way China just happens to fail to honour Australian coal contracts, seemingly on a whim, sudden “rules” on imports, internal tariffs etc, sudden ‘faults’ being found at ports of entry. The Chinese policy stances have been likened to the meek China Panda interchanged on cue with a super-aggressive Chinese Dragon and both have  been seen in American and Australian difficulties.

But it is with the USA (& Trump in particular)  that China faces what is its greatest threat in decades. Continued, the US squeeze has hurt the Chinese economy and will continue to do so. All the good (peaceful) options are those of the USA right now, but convincing other nations, especially those of the export-dominant countries such as Germany will be hard.

Note: In a late  development, Yaroslav Trofimov wrote in the Wall Street Journal a worrying article where the backlash to the Chinese initiatives has brought out some serious Chinese counter proposals – even if shelved or dismissed – where serious confrontation has been proposed.    

Hong Kong Crisis. Australia must follow the (current) non-intervention policy of the USA

Posted on by August 14, 2019

Australia must be in full lockstep with the USA on this policy. There is no practical alternative. While everyone, including those of us with any history of dealing with Hong Kong and its citizens on a personal level are horrified at what we see happening there. An inevitable smashing of what they had and the prospect of even more terrible harm coming to the people we have met or know.

Yet as the well-respected American investigative blogger from the Conservative Tree House puts it nothing we do or even that the United States can do will alter the inevitable failure of the Hong Kong protests to even weaken mainland Chinese control over it let alone revive some freedoms lost since the end of British rule.

China has, and will have, full control over Hong Kong; and that’s the way it is.  This will not be reversed…If Hong Kong tries to resist Beijing, they will be crushed.  Hundreds more will be arrested and disappeared.  Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, will be killed.  There is already an ongoing flight of wealth out of Hong Kong as the smart and wealthy position their assets overseas to survive the arrival of Beijing’s storm troopers.

His pessimism about Hong Kong’s future structure and political controls is relevant also.

… The future for Hong Kong is dark.  It is not going to end in anything resembling what exists today.  Hong Kong will be Beijing 2.0, and will be entirely dominated by Chinese authoritarian rule.  The difference in 2019 is the speed at which it is happening.

Australians watched as our decades-long relationship with China became more and more important economically. Being a virtual quarry for China and its industry, the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 was more than partially solved for us by the Trillion-plus dollars spent by China in stimulating their economy. That meant buying $billions more of our raw material commodities. Then, as now, we have been increasingly reliant on China for the well-being of our economy.

It has had its downside, however, and along with China under President Xi ramping up its aggression in trade, the South China Sea military bases on disputed land, the pressure put on for its One Belt One Road initiative etc, relations have become more and more tense. The China 2025 plan to be dominant in many technology areas and being a major player in trade, have been leading up to a coming together of opposing interests, dominated by the United States and now, under Donald Trump, leading a very serious fight on trade.

One might possibly see the USA (& allies) coming into the latest Hong Kong unrest to try and put some pressure on China to relieve the repression of the Hong Kong protestors, just when China is being challenged or questioned throughout Asia and the west. Nothing could be more futile. The China dominance of Hong Kong and its systems in their entirety is inevitable and we know the unlimited violence with which China can try to enforce its will on its people in Hong Kong. Indeed such western efforts would be counter- productive, doing nothing for Hong Kong citizens yet damaging the very interests which are putting necessary pressure on China through the Trump actions on trade.

Investigative blogger Sundance from The Conservative Tree House sets out the reasons why the United States (& President Trump in particular) must not fall into what the blogger reasonably describes as a trap. It is very strongly recommended that you read the whole thing on that point. Sundance is wary (and not without reason) of many of the US institutions, whether it be official or commercial, globalism on trade being his particular focus. He sees grave danger in allowing this to divert President Trump from the present course of actions and the suspicion that certain parties will try to divert the US for just such reasons.

The key, though, is to remember that the fight with China on trade is the issue of our time, really and nothing must direct attention away from it, nothing must derail it and certainly nothing that will be ineffective, but could actually ensure more bloodshed. Already China is looking around to find scapegoats as a diversion – ironically at a time when Trump critics are damning him for NOT buying in to the Hong Kong protests on their side – but of course Trump can never do anything right in their eyes.

Why Hong Kong  must remain secondary to the battle on trade.

Remember that President Trump for better or worse has cast his mind and major policy direction towards the positon of China government policies vis-à-vis American economic wellbeing. The indisputable fact that all the ills for which Trump assails China – forced technology transfer, intellectual property theft, currency manipulation, heavy trade subsidies etc – are verified by most observers, it left – and still leaves – many of those with trade interests determined to stop it. No matter that Trump has held (and spoken about) these concerns for years, that he campaigned on them, many commentators have worried themselves that a “trade war” will be counter-productive. And it is damaging to those companies (often multi-nationals) who profit by manufacturing (and staffing) their enterprises overseas, many in China.

Forbes magazine recently gave some major reasons why there might be this not-so-honest opposition: –

“About 50% of China exports to the U.S. are actually exports by wholly foreign owned companies or joint ventures with Americans” and that this was a reason why “some 40% of U.S. companies are relocating at least some of their supply out of China” because of the Trump policies. That hits profits. A powerful motive at times.

Australia should not do anything that is not complementary to what is arguably the righteous USA position in this clash of the titans. It is the opinion of this writer that commodity-dependant nations such as Australia have far more to lose if coming against a China which had been allowed to succeed in damaging the US economy even more than it has already. If it actually became dominant as it wants by means of these attacks against the USA (aided and abetted by US corporations backing overseas cheap labour and import subterfuge) Australia and others will become the economic vassal states to the whims of China, the fate of which will be a lot like the mendicant status of certain states in Europe which must go cap in hand to the EU to survive on its largess.

Maybe Sundance had it right in the end (or at least gave a practical answer) as to what to do after a Chinese-Hong Kong takeover:

…start applying the Chinese tariffs on Hong Kong as soon as Beijing tanks arrive.

Note that while Hong Kong is the immediate urgent focus, the China trade danger in all its forms is what we must turn to next

Mueller evidence to Congress was a disaster for the Trump opposition

Posted on by July 25, 2019

This is a post to cover the important hearings of the US Congressional hearings of the Judiciary and Intelligence Committees of the US House of Representatives on 24 July, 2019. While the hearings might or might not put a final stake through the heart of the Mueller-Report-as-Trump-Death-Knell, the day was still a major turning point and this post is only a brief look at that aspect of the integrity of the Mueller investigation. More, much more, is to come on this.

Nonetheless, on 24 July, 2019, according to anyone of the left, including many lawmakers, it was all going to come together to finally sink Donald Trump. Robert Mueller the Special Counsel who was handpicked to investigate Trump on “Russian Collusion” in the 2016 election campaign was going to put the final nail in Trump’s political coffin. While his report, released in March, cleared Trump of actual collusion with Russia, a whole second volume was devoted to Obstruction of Justice and, we were told, that would be what finally got Trump.

There had been a lot of toing and froing about whether or not a sitting President could  be indicted whilst still in office and even a finding of fact that an indictment after Trump left office was recommended would be a victory of sorts for Democrats and the left. Even if only as a blackening of his name, it would be electoral cannon fodder for the pending 2020 election campaign where the presidency itself would be at stake. The big prize they wanted, though, was to get Trump out of office now, something they had been trying to do ever since November 8, 2016 when despite all their efforts to deny him the presidency, their worst fears had been realised.

The release of the report in March hadn’t been enough, apparently. Not enough people had read it, there were doubts about a possible impeachment hearing. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was said not to be in favour of an impeachment which failed -fearful of it having an effect similar to the failed Clinton impeachment of the 1990’s which saw Bill Clinton returned to office. The Mueller report itself was just a part of the argument against Trump and with conflicting legal argument about its findings and their effect on impeachment, that very process wasn’t going anywhere it seemed.

Whether the Pelosi opposition was the reason or not, the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee under its aggressively anti-Trump chair Jerry Nadler decided to get Mueller there to give evidence to them (later including the Intelligence Committee in a separate hearing). This was the day when everything would change,

The Hearing

It seems as if much opinion on the outcome is united: Mueller is the one most damaged. Personally and professionally. Leaving aside the Twitterverse, which can be very vicious in its criticism, how about the major media, particularly the US political media.

Confused performance by Mueller in the Washington Examiner or Mueller’s Doddering, Stumbling Performance in The Federalist. Or a CNN panel: Shaky Performance.

Now this next is from a conservative website. No mistake about that, a very conservative web site, but there is no suggestion that any fact or quote in it is wrong:

Mueller’s testimony before Congress was painted as the Super Bowl of scandal hearings. NBC’s Savannah Guthrie gushed 36 hours before the event that “We are drawing closer tonight to what may be the most anticipated testimony on Capitol Hill in a decade.”

And then the testimony happened.

All the networks cancelled their regularly scheduled programming so every American could be riveted by Mueller. By the lunch break, even MSNBC was crestfallen. Analyst Jeremy Bash complained Mueller “seemed lost at times” and “sucked the life out of the report.” Brian Williams ruefully admitted “A lot of Democrats in particular used the D-word and branded this a disaster early on.” ABC’s Terry Moran bluntly said “Impeachment’s over.”’

Some journalists didn’t see it that way, though.

There were literally hundreds of Tweets from every part of the political spectrum, but the one I copy here was from a famous Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe. Search for him on Google or whatever and his enormous professional history pre-Trump is worth looking at. His Tweets and views post-Trump must be given whatever merit that the reader gives them according to your own research. However, Tribe posted this assessment of the Mueller evidence:

 

There is a lot more to come on Mueller and his report, the ramifications of it and the future of Donald Trump.There can be no doubt, however, that a major milestone was reached today.

I will close with the view of a great thinker and historian Victor Davis Hanson. In an interview with Laura Ingraham of the Fox network, he summed up the hearing this way.

‘Mueller wasn’t just confused, he was oblivious. So he knew nothing and it just sort of confirmed the narrative that he was the figurehead used by a partisan group that had hijacked his conservative name. And what we were left with was that Donald Trump railed occasionally, he rants, maybe even swears to his aides but he didn’t ever order or succeed in impeding an investigation, he didn’t not produce documents, he didn’t ever fire anybody. So what are we left with in the end, Democrats on the Committee were talking about Thought Crime.

‘It’s not against the law to think things. That’s a Soviet ..er..Orwellian tradition, that’s not an American jurisprudence tradition. We don’t convict people for thinking things…There’s no evidence that he did anything, but he had bad thoughts. That’s not going to fly…with new prosecutors…Durham, Horowitz , coming up and more importantly, they are going to have a real topic to discuss, there’s real collusion there. After all…what created Robert Mueller was the effort of Hillary Clinton through three firewalls to (start) it, the DNC (Democrat National Committee), (the law firm) Perkins Coie and (Fusion) GPS to hire a foreign national, Christopher Steele to hire other foreign nationals to warp a US election. That’s what it’s all about…..There never was anything else.’

The New Censorship – Everywhere a Threat to our Freedom- Part 1

Posted on by July 23, 2019

Australian telco shutdown of ATM and electronic commerce – If the elites have their way, you better get used to it.

When Australia got a nationwide shutdown of many ATM and electronic funds transfer facilities on 11 July, it got a taste of what the future might bring in certain circumstances. This time it was electronic bank and banking services in department stores, service stations, even Australia Post. For citizens of every kind, workers, businesses, even passers-by: if they wanted money to buy something, pay a bill, use a bank or an ATM, they found they couldn’t unless they had cash – and only if the person they were dealing with could take cash. Otherwise they couldn’t do what they had wanted  to do. Even if it was important or vital to do that, it wasn’t done because it couldn’t be done.

Think about that. For that hour or two, those people were cut off from daily life. Their day came to a halt. Imagine, for a moment or two, what it would be like if that cutting off was permanent!

Dependency.

Yes, it’s another indication or warning of how dependent we are on electronics and computers in our lives, but we have had those warnings and setbacks before. What makes this one (and every succeeding one) important is the signal it sends about our vulnerability to decisions of bad actors and what is at stake for us in an ever-expanding number of fields.

What we do know is that at least some of the “usual suspects” amongst nations with which we do not actually have friendly relations (or no official relations at all) might have the power to dramatically take down all our electronic systems, but we tend to skim over this threat as being unlikely. Firstly Australia has always had strong and powerful world powers as allies, nations which have always been first rank nations with resources to counter such attacks. We also have become used to dealing with world powers which are rational actors and thus the danger of mutual harm (the old MAD safety valve) has acted as a solid buffer/bulwark against such drastic, warlike actions. While certain nations are hardly in that unreasoning category, none as yet have been seen to being close to being so irrational as to risk such action which would cause the most severe responses by the most powerful nations in the world.

Significance relative to the powerful in society

What were the particular signals from this occurrence? In the case of the usual breakdowns/accidents and faults, or rare failures due to natural disasters (actions by other countries are nearly inconceivable), we know there is a communal response and the government is also backing us.

The reason why this shutdown of electronic facilities is convenient in its timing is that it is a very good insight into the possible future for some of us. While it is too complex an issue to be dealt with in its entirety in a short article, this virtual introduction to what looks to be coming to Australia has just had a brilliantly descriptive example put up for all to see.

In the western world what is happening to more and more people, to ordinary citizens whose only “fault”  was writing or saying things that angered the elites, is the threat and risk of actually being cut off from the society in which we live (and vote) just because we have upset that ruling elite.

In 2013 when the Obama administration was ramping up its attempt to impose societal non-person status on citizens in his Operation Choke Point plan (in brief, cutting companies off from the financial system when the Obama administration didn’t like them, such as payday lenders, gun companies and so on) social media giants and the Astroturf* boycott movement also was well under way trying to commercially cripple political opponents.

(* “Astroturf” is the term given to organised groups of activists falsely claiming to be “customers” of businesses in an effort to persuade that business that its real customers have an objection to an advertising or sales policy. This is in an effort to achieve a political outcome by damaging the commercial or political status of their target).

Soros-aligned Media Matters for America is a far left, anti-Fox group dedicated to fostering the left cause and, in practice, aiming to shut down all opposing voices and their narratives. While supposedly meaning to act through legal means, the boycotts, led by bots and willing astroturf helpers, have waged a decades-long war against Fox and its advertisers, none of which have seemed to work against Fox News Channel (FNC) through that means alone. The recent ones, against Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham have caused a FNC “back them to the hilt no matter what” response and FNC dominates cable news ratings as usual and is still the main focus of leftist loathing.

Escalation into social media. 

Relatively recently (ramped up significantly since 8 November, 2016) the social media giants Google, Facebook and Twitter have joined in this boycott movement, by choosing demonetising of those groups which arouse the wrath of the online critics. Some of the examples were arguably targeted at the extreme end of rightist commentary, none of such commentary falling foul of the 1st Amendment rights of Americans.

Suddenly, they acted in an obviously coordinated way and the way out web site InfoWars was suddenly deleted from all social media platforms, virtually at the same time. However, it was only a ground-breaker for the carnage, banning, de-platforming to come. Brendan O’Neill of Spiked Online summed it up well.

“So we’re now trusting the capitalist class, massive, unaccountable corporations, to decide on our behalf what we may listen to and talk about? This is the take-home message, the terrible take-home message, of the expulsion of Alex Jones’ Infowars network from Apple, Facebook and Spotify and of the wild whoops of delight that this summary banning generated among so-called liberals: that people are now okay with allowing global capitalism to govern the public sphere and to decree what is sayable and what is unsayable”.

This is only the start. As the growth of social media made the usual gatekeepers of public discourse virtually powerless, so rose the increasingly serious attempts by the elites and the left generally to stifle the new freedom of the citizen. The ramifications are huge for the freedom of the individual and it will be a recurring series here.

Attacks on Israel Folau arouses many Australians to stand up on free speech

Posted on by June 27, 2019

Australians are witnesses to an unusual phenomenon: a public fightback of the little people against those with power who are attempting to destroy a public figure who spoke out by quoting a religious tract. The way our self-selected “elites” went about trying to crush rugby superstar Israel Folau for his publishing of religious verses, caused what looks like a bloody nose being given to those supposed “leaders” of community thought who tried it on.

Condemning to hell “idolators”, “atheists”, “homosexuals” and others unless they repented of their sins, Folau, a deeply religious Christian from a Pacific Islander background, upset powerful lobby groups and organisations in Australia and they, like their counterparts overseas, set out to silence him on every platform.

Not content with seeing Folau have his multi-million dollar rugby contract torn up, his decision to go to court to try and have it overturned on the grounds of religious freedom enraged them. They then began a multi-fronted attack on him, his attempted fundraising and even to attack his wife and her employment, not for her commenting on the issue, but for merely posting his fund-raising web site on her social media page.

A Familiar Campaign

It is a style of campaign that is all too familiar to people living overseas, where such attempts to financially penalise wrong-think by losing jobs, losing advertising and even attempted banishment from the public square completely, all are well known – just search  “ad boycott of Fox”. While Soros-backed Media Matters for America has been dedicated to destroying Fox News for over a decade (and failing),  the new scam is having computer programs where a relative handful of people use a large number of social media accounts to flood advertisers with pro-forma “complaints.”  Commercial enterprises in this era don’t take long to fold, completely fooled into thinking that these “people” would even shop there let alone boycott them. The most well-known one today is the American Sleeping Giants group led by a Mark Rivitz and it has raised its head here before. Janet Albrechtson of the Australian gave it a withering assessment with which is hard to argue:-

“…Sleeping Giants despise people with different views. They talk openly about their white-hot hatred. They want people censored at least, but preferably sacked. They want to neuter the media platforms who host people with different views. And Sleeping Giants do it anonymously.”

In the Folau case, I doubt that a major campaign was even needed by groups such as Sleeping Giants, because the only group that objected to being mentioned in that religious tract by Folau has attracted its own group of enforcers for years. What had raised its head in 2017 during the plebiscite campaign for gay marriage laws was in evidence.

That vote resulted in a large majority for “Yes” and Australia got legislation to match. End of story? Er…no. Not quite. It seemed that corporations were on board to support it and push even their employees to be in favour of it. Some were even pressured to decide whether or not prominent Christians were proper people to be on their boards, hold senior positions in their companies etc. The idea of PC corporations in Australia has been noted here before, but now we have “green corporations” anti-homophobia corporations etc. Just ripe for the Folau case to break into the news cycle and for another challenger to be despatched into the shadows again.

Folau backlash & arrogance of his detractors

When Folau lost his contract, he decided to appeal on the grounds that his rights to religious freedom were being infringed. By using GoFundMe and seeking up to $3 million from that web site devoted to hosting people raising money for various causes, a furore ensued amongst the gay lobby and many other prominent “social justice” groups.

Qantas is run by a gay CEO who has led the gay-praise/pro-gay policy corporation for some years and who, with Qantas being the major sponsor of Rugby Australia, was informed instantly that action was proposed against Folau. Two other corporations, sponsoring netball in Australia and New Zealand, saw fit to notify the Netball groups that they did not approve of the “stance” of Maria Folau, a gross insult to her, seeing as she did not express any views at all, but merely listed the fund-raising phone number/web site on her social media page.

What made the criticism of Folau so different from a usual left/right or social justice/conservative divide, many sporting and political insiders also went against Folau, supposedly on the basis that he had millions so why need public donations. Folau is a man from the depressed south-western Sydney suburbs and has drawn himself to the top by his rugby skill and earned that money in his peak years, when having to accumulate the capital to tide him over for life. According to those objecting to the voluntary giving of money to fight the Folau cause, he should first lose all the money and capital he had saved in these peak years. The public being allowed to donate voluntarily was never a consideration for them.

What made the campaign against Folau such an outrage was the immediate publication of views that assumed that the opposition of the elites was the view of “the people”, that their noise was really the uprising of the people against Folau. How mistaken they were.

Elites determined that GoFundMe was not an appropriate site for Folau to raise money, that it was “a place to help sick children, not multimillionaire sportsmen”. “Social media expert” Ryan Shelley seemed typical of many:-

“the reaction to Folau’s crowdfunding campaign had been significant because it contrasted with the “Aussie battler spirit … where we’re always happy to help someone who is genuinely in need“.

“The outrage has come not so much from the underlying religious beliefs of Israel but from a mindset of this is someone who has a job that many, many people would dream of”.

Nearly 10,000 small donors giving over $700,000 to the Folau GoFundMe campaign gave the lie to those seeing their anti-Folau view as being “representative” of the people. Then, suddenly, GoFundMe dropped Folau, claiming a breach of their guidelines, even though those guidelines included religious discrimination. GoFundMe has proven in the past to have very flexible “rules”, such as when changing them to allow a denial of a fundraiser for religious cake bakers in Oregon USA.

Briefly, in the aftermath to that closure of the GoFundMe page, the Australian Christian Lobby set up a fund and in only 2 days, approximately 20,000 donors raised $2 million for Folau’s legal case and it was shut off then with donations still coming in. Many of those little people voted with their wallets and purses to show Mr Shelley just ”who” were The People, it would seem. It was the usual suspects, no doubt, who were the ones to immediately complain (unsuccessfully) about the ACL lobby using its charitable status to raise funds for that evil Folau.

Everything redefined because of Folau?

It seemed that everyone and every group got stuck in. It energised this elite cabal in extraordinary ways. GoFundMe was suddenly shown to be limited in what it could raise money for, according to these people. Previous (& even current) fundraisers for Ferraris, travel overseas and what have you, should have been discontinued immediately, according to them (they weren’t).

Even the Law Council of Australia spoke up thanks to this one case, for the first time ever, expressing a worry about the ethics of crowd funding for legal cases. The leader of it said that Australia needs a nationwide review of ethical guidance and rules regarding crowdfunding for litigation. Not only has an Australian politician (a Green though) had an active crowdfunding page for her legal action posted with GoFundMe for months without any complaint, the legal profession has used professional legal-funding organisations for years now (all taking a cut of the legal damages awarded). It was all a bit rich but “Ultimately we need to protect the public and we need to protect the processes of our courts,” Mr Moses said.”

So this is where we are right now, with Folau in limbo, but with his legal action going on and funded plus an energised public ready to watch this to the end. After a recent election in which the supposed Quiet Australians did a Trump/Brexit and sprung their world view on an unsuspecting political and media class. who knows in what state this Folau case will leave Australia. Maybe this will be a new era where slogans and “silencers” such as throwing out the various “phobia!” challenges to free expression will be treated a little more seriously and that we, as a people, will not allow elites to control the debate.

Mueller Report is under the microscope. Konstantin Kilimnik is one reason why

Posted on by June 8, 2019

As alluded to in the previous post,  when the Mueller report is examined in detail, the question of what value is to be placed on it and the investigation upon which it is based is problematical, to say the least. As I have stated up front, knowing the background of Mueller and his team members, I never had much confidence that the report would be a complete answer to all the questions which were the cause of its creation. Nothing at all from the time of its release in March has caused me to change my mind one jot. Quite the opposite.

Every day, it seems, matters arise which tear into the credibility of the report and its authors, whoever they may be. There are so many investigative journalists and citizen journalists looking at this whole investigation that the credibility of the whole Mueller report is in danger of destruction based on its content and not just on the persons creating it. John Solomon from The Hill news outlet has an article showing an example of the problems with the report.

From some of the earliest pages in Volume 1 of the Report (and a downloadable version is available from this site), we have an assessment of Konstantin Kilimnik as “having ties to Russian Intelligence”:-

and it goes on in the report to mention Kilimnik repeatedly, and as always with his constant connections to one of the persons charged by Mueller, Paul Manafort, taints that connection by his alleged “ties to Russian Intelligence”.  

In the article by John Solomon of The Hill, this is shown to be not only a false, if not fraudulent characterisation of Kilimnik, but that this falsity was known to the Mueller team. Kilimnik was – for years – an intelligence source for the US government.

“hundreds of pages of government documents — which special counsel Robert Mueller possessed since 2018 — describe Kilimnik as a “sensitive” intelligence source for the U.S. State Department who informed on Ukrainian and Russian matters…

He interacted with the chief political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Kiev, sometimes meeting several times a week to provide information on the Ukraine government. He relayed messages back to Ukraine’s leaders and delivered written reports to U.S. officials via emails that stretched on for thousands of words, the memos show.

The FBI knew all of this, well before the Mueller investigation concluded.”

All this and more was in the hands of Mueller and the FBI itself and it is a matter for conjecture as to why none of this was ever mentioned in the Report. It is just added to an increasing number of cases where the report edits or leaves out information that might be relevant to an assessment of credibility or even relevant to question of culpability of a subject. Kilimnik worked for the the administration of former Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych, who is another villain in the piece, but this was well known to the FBI and US government.

(Former U.S. Embassy political officer ) Kasanof described Kilimnik as one of the few reliable insiders the U.S. Embassy had informing on Yanukovych. Kilimnik began his relationship as an informant with the U.S. deputy chief of mission in 2012-13, before being handed off to the embassy’s political office, the records suggest.…

“Three sources with direct knowledge of the inner workings of Mueller’s office confirmed to me that the special prosecutor’s team had all of the FBI interviews with State officials, as well as Kilimnik’s intelligence reports to the U.S. Embassy, well before they portrayed him as a Russian sympathizer tied to Moscow intelligence or charged Kilimnik with participating with Manafort in a scheme to obstruct the Russia investigation.”

Kilimnik is also shown as presenting Manafort with a supposed peace plan for the Ukraine (in Mueller Report pp139/140)

However, Solomon points out that State Department emails “showed Kilimnik first delivered a version of his peace plan in May 2016 to the Obama administration during a visit to Washington”.

(Kasanof) thanked Kilimnik for the detailed plan and added, “I passed the info to my bosses, who are chewing it over.” Kasanof told the FBI that he believed he sent Kilimnik’s peace plan to two senior State officials, including Victoria Nuland, Obama’s assistant secretary of State for European and Eurasian affairs.

So Kilimnik’s delivery of the peace plan to the Trump campaign in August 2016 was flagged by Mueller as potentially nefarious, but its earlier delivery to the Obama administration wasn’t mentioned.

The Mueller report often seems to leave more questions than it answers and one recurring theme is the presentation of certain matters as facts without showing Obama or Clinton campaign involvement/ knowledge. The question of ignoring exculpatory evidence will be examined as time goes on.

Mueller lawyers did charge Kilimnik with Obstruction of Justice and witness tampering over allegedly trying to get 2 witnesses to lie about lobbying, but the telephone calls from which we have the “evidence” don’t, on their face, show knowledge of falsity by Kilimnik. While the phraseology is suspicious, Manafort pleaded guilty to a raft of charges of which this was but one, and Kilimnik always remained in Europe beyond the reach of the US and thus his charges and their factual basis have not been tested in any US court.

This example of the questions arising by what Mueller himself described in his press statement of May 29 as being his “testimony”, isn’t such as would quieten congressional (or public) demands that he give evidence on oath to Congressional (or other) enquiries.