“I rise today with a sense of responsibility and duty to the people who have elected me, a sense of duty to this country, a sense of duty to the constitution of the United States of America. I rise today Mr Speaker to call for the impeachment of the President of the United States of America for obstruction of justice. I do not do this for political purposes Mr Speaker”
- Congressman Al Green, US House of Representatives, 17th May 2017
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“I think it’s getting to the point of Watergate size and scale…and a couple of other scandals that you and I have seen…it’s a centipede and the shoe continues to drop…”
- Senator John McCain, International Republican Institute, 17th May 2017
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/05/17/politics/john-mccain-watergate-trump/
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"I have never heard…an elected member of Congress say that we should have no relations with Russia at all - presumably that would include nuclear weapons control. When I see a Democrat asking what are the Russians doing in the White House anyway…what they are doing is the national security of our nation, because what’s at stake here is a proposal by Putin of Russia, by Trump of America, to join hands in an alliance against international terrorism.
If you’d have asked me a few days ago ‘what’s the number one threat to the United States today?’ I would have said international terrorism…if you asked me that today, I would say it’s this assault on President Trump. Let's be clear - what he's being accused of is treason…
…In 2016, President Obama worked out a deal with Russian President Putin for military cooperation in Syria. He said he was going to share intelligence with Russia, just like Trump and the Russians were supposed to do the other day. Our department of defence said it wouldn't share intelligence. And a few days later, they killed Syrian soldiers, violating the agreement, and that was the end of that. So, we can ask, who is making our foreign policy in Washington today?"
- Professor Steven Cohen - Professor of Russian studies at Princeton and NYU
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47076.htm
***
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defence with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together"
- President Eisenhower, from his final address to the nation, 1961
***
“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902–1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents”
- Major General Smedley Darlington Butler, US Marine Corps, 1935 - at the time the most decorated soldier in US military history. Author of ‘War is a Racket’.
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“This is a turning point in American history because of the bold and brazen interference in American elections and the threat to democracy itself. For the first time in US history, the intelligence services and the main stream media, essential parts of the deep state, have openly colluded to intervene in and overturn the results of the electoral process, flawed and flailing as it is…There is a conspiracy here and it is not between the bizarre but quintessentially American Trump and the Russians. There is a story, a scary one, being played out, but it is not the one reported in the dissembling media. To the observer, it is interesting to see how easily the masses are led by the nose ring, but they always have been throughout history, so it should surprise only the naive who think it doesn't happen here.
‘This isn't Kansas anymore, Toto’”
- From ‘M’ - a fellow reader of the Financial Times, a subscriber to this blog, and a guy who very helpfully sends me his thoughts from time to time
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“Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state”
- Noam Chomsky, ‘Media Control – The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda’
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Finally, if you are wondering what I think:
“If Trump were to achieve rapprochement with Russia, it would destroy the hegemony and the money-making machine of some very powerful people - people who are used to being in control. If these people can get rid of him - they will - and ‘truth’ has absolutely nothing to do with it. This is about ‘power’”
- MarkGB