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Crapp's avatar

James Clapper. Human version of The Clap. Often invisible, never good.

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Landru's avatar

That is outstanding! True scary , funny at the same time ha.

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Crapp's avatar

Why thanks. :)

Caitlin’s work is the truly outstanding piece here though. As always. She’s been consistently killing it for years. Remarkable output.

(I’m being Irish and difficult in accepting compliments!)

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free_spirit's avatar

Haa! I thought I was the only one that made the clap joke about that guy

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Thierry Bruno's avatar

The countries of the collective West are governed by traitors corrupted by the psychopaths in Washington. What more can be said?

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Jeano's avatar

I’d like to add one more thing to this—keep your friends close but your enemies closer. It am6 be a good thing that the US is going into Australia in the sense that then they can keep an eye on us. Cuz you know damn well, that if we aren’t LET in, we’ll sneak in. And cause trouble in the dark, like we do everywhere. And we KNOW that when our arrogant soldiers get on your land, that your populous comes to hate us. And anything that breaks the “goodwill” other nations have towards us, the better the Asian initiatives have of success. Sooooo, make lemonade.

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Mikhael's avatar

Why Clapper isn't in jail is beyond me. Obviously lying to congress in full view of the public they serve doesn't mean anything. But that's not news.

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Feral Finster's avatar

Congress wanted to be lied to.

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bill wolfe's avatar

Ah, we've come a long way sicken then. Now House Democrats are threatening Matt Taibbi with jail for telling them the truth and deriding the leak of Pentagon papers 2.0!

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Feral Finster's avatar

The irony being that, if Twitter were censoring the McResistance or the spooks were making up fake interference stories for the explicit purpose of getting Trump re-elected, those same Team D goodthinkers would be singing a very different tune.

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Nancy in NC's avatar

But you or I would be under the jail. Equality under the law? What a joke.

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Jo Waller's avatar

AUKUS makes Oz and the UK alike lap dogs of US hegemony. You're right though Oz is going come out of it worst and as badly as Taiwan will and Ukraine has, the US military machine doesn't give a sh£t about any of us.

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Alexander's avatar

It's not just Oz and the UK ... most of NATO countries other than Turkey and Hungary are also Uncle Satan's bag and butt lickers

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Jo Waller's avatar

Indeed

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Basil Rathbone's avatar

The US Hegemony Juggernaut just keeps rolling over everything and anyone in its path, regardless of what anyone thinks or dares say. It's immune to all criticism. It hears nothing but its defenders in the DC swamp and their media sycophants. And by now the US media is all sycophants, except the sliver of critics in independent media such as Caitlin and a handful of others on the internet.

The war machine pays no attention to any of them, except to have them censored, shadow banned or otherwise silenced, which it's now doing with renewed vigor and determination, with billions of $$$ of funding coming from multiple quarters. It's the new, improved totalitarianism! Americans, except the usual few suspects, are not going to "wake up" to any of this. They aren't going to "rise up." They'd have already stopped the proxy war in Ukraine if they were inclined to awaken and arise. There are just too many new shows and sports extravaganzas to behold daily to devote time trying to stop the destroyers of everything that lives and breathes so they can maintain total power over all. There are just so many hours in a day, you know.

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CarbonCopy's avatar

This is unfortunately very true. Sad that the whole world can burn down in full view while a bunch of airheads are concerned with the next episode of whatever (I don't have a name I don't watch TV) and meanwhile the fire outside their windows rages on!

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Feral Finster's avatar

Ever seen "Don't Look Up"!"?

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Basil Rathbone's avatar

Twice. What most people seem to miss about it is that it's not only about impending climate chaos and serial catastrophes, but also it's about the increasing probability of nuclear war, extinction of us all, end of civilization. Either one will wipe us out. Many are seeing that as a good thing. Oh, the irony.

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Feral Finster's avatar

The other irony is that it isn't the mouth-breathing MAGA set that is charging towards nuclear holocaust, but the self-styled Best And Brightest, the credentialed and highly educated, the Folks Who Believe The Science.

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Basil Rathbone's avatar

Most mouth-breathers don't have any real power, while the "best and brightest" believe power is best expressed by destroying everything standing in your way. Russia, China, Iran--they must be eliminated. And then we all die? So be it. Power has spoken.

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Feral Finster's avatar

Further evidence that they believe that they are entitled to rule as a matter of Divine Right.

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Landru's avatar

Being from the u.s. (lower case for disrespect) I should not voice my opinion other than to say, every Australian should be very afraid. First order of business should be to ban every u.s. citizen from entry into Australia. That won't by itself solve the problem however it will give a pause to an insane position.

Caitlin is right in her comparison of Australia to Ukraine, the massive sale of weapons is coming and most likely far more than anyone knows. I would love to be wrong however, history tells me..........

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CarbonCopy's avatar

I laughed at first because it was so criminally obvious at your opener "In 2013 Clapper committed perjury by telling the Senate under oath that the NSA does not knowingly collect data on millions of Americans, only to have that lie exposed by the Edward Snowden leaks a few months later." because once again the Criminal gets a free lunch and Edward? Well we all know what became of him!

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Indu Abeysekara's avatar

What happened to Edward Snowdon? He is living a normal life in Moscow - if only Julian Assange could have done the same...

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CarbonCopy's avatar

And what do you think would happen to him if he came back to the states?

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Indu Abeysekara's avatar

Judging by what happened to Assange, what do you think will happen?

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YesXorNo's avatar

Oh Caitlin, this is one of your best articles. You have found a new beat.

If Australians would like to see how intelligent the US strategists are and the results of being a "partner" to their strategies and wars, in my recent article on the US Intel leaks and related matters, I provide a summary of what has happened in the lead up to and the process of the war in Ukraine. It is in the section titled "The Aftermath or Taking Stock". The summary is that partnering with the US in its foreign wars is a universally disasterous choice.

May Australia society learn from the folly of Europe.

The Effect of the US Intelligence Leaks

https://yesxorno.substack.com/p/the-effect-of-the-us-intelligence

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Patricia Blair's avatar

Americans should wake up to its government negative aggressive behavior, the cost to humans and the environment. Enemies are a choice! We are stuck in a rut!

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Nancy in NC's avatar

Some of us are awake and a fat lot of good that does. We are silenced and dismissed.

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Patricia Blair's avatar

Sad but true!

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William Paul's avatar

I wrote my senators & representatives about Ukraine. Feel free to borrow this.

Dear Representative Davids,

With the revelations in the Washington Post that Ukraine is losing 7 soldiers for every 1 Russian soldier, I think it is time to:

* Admit that Ukraine can’t win;

* It is immoral to make Ukraine fight to the last Ukrainian;

* Negotiations with Russia are 14 months overdue;

* China proposed peace. Why are we letting China act like the adult?

* Our media never told the truth about Ukraine, which means we don’t have a media; we have propaganda outlets, and it doesn’t make any difference if they are MSNBC or Fox;

* Social media censors debate, and this is unamerican. But we’ve had a lot of censorship and propaganda these past three years, and we are losing our country;

* We’ve wasted $113,000,000,000 creating hell on earth for the Ukrainians. This war didn’t need to happen, but no one wanted to listen to Russia for the last 30 years. Gorbachev and Jim Baker had a handshake deal that NATO would not expand east of Germany. That was before NATO added about 14 more countries. No one is following the Minsk Accords, either.

Question: what could that $113,000,000,000 have done in the U.S., for us? Aren’t there people still being poisoned in East Palestine, Ohio?

Further, didn’t the national debt go from $1 trillion to $31.6 trillion in the last forty years, as: families got deep into debt, crime skyrocketed, and race relations became worse? But we started wars all over the world since 2001. What the heck for?

We Americans want our money back.

We want our country back.

I could go on.

There are Republicans and Democrats like President Trump, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Ron DeSantis, Tulsi Gabbard, and many others who tell the truth about this proxy war. They understand that we are playing with nuclear Armageddon. And they know it is wrong for our “media” to lie to us about what has been going on for 14 months.

I won’t vote for any Republican or Democrat who supports this war, and I will vote for any Democrat or Republican who tells the truth, starts negotiating, and shuts it down.

I’m done. I’m done voting for “the lesser of two evils.” Anyone who supports this war is not “the lesser of two evils.”

We should have started leveling with the American people back in 2002. Well, better late than never.

I want to vote for you. Where do you stand on this apocalyptic, immoral, proxy war that we could end this week if we wanted to?

God bless you,

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Terry Byrne's avatar

WP: China proposed peace. Why are we letting China act like the adult?

=====

For the very simple reason that China, Russia, India, Brazil, South Africa, ... are the adults while the usa has been NOTHING but a war criminal, genocidal, lying, gangster, mass murdering, and all other possible evils "nation".

The usa has caused the Ukraine problem and every other world problem since the Founding Liars, Genocidists, Terrorists, ... .

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Terry Byrne's avatar

WP: We should have started leveling with the American people back in 2002.

======

When has the usa EVER levelled with the American people? It has been RANK propaganda from the Founding Liars to war criminal, "butcherer of women and children" biden. And every other war criminal, "butcherer of women and children" usa prez since washington.

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Landru's avatar

Australia , Ukraine comparison. The first response I get is, No it's Taiwan , Ukraine. Taiwan there would be instant war with little chance to profit from extended years of arms sales. Australia there would be at least several years of 100s of BILLIONs of weapons sales , plus the forced Australia/NATO spending globally. Caitlin has it right , Australia is the new Ukraine : (

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Doris Wrench Eisler's avatar

Well, Australians can take comfort in the fact that if it goes nuclear, there will be barely seconds difference in who takes the hit first - and the rest of us. In the meantime it's the grinding of Australian faces in the dirt that must hurt. That and the boring presence of Americans jumping up and down, trying to get Beijing's attention.

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Badbard Poetry's avatar

Right between the eyes. Always incisive, Caitlin for head of state!

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old guy in PA's avatar

The reach of the US war machine is mind boggling.

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bill wolfe's avatar

"grooming"! - Another brilliant metaphor! Flip the script on the right wingers. This needs to be done systematically!

BTW, while the right wingers are fixated on book burning, an icon of the "left" just did its part. I heard that Berkeley is shutting down libraries, allegedly to save money (while building $1 BILLION new computer science buildings) - Of course, the first on the list is the anthropology library. No need for that ancient human culture stuff. Students are conducting a sit in to block the move.

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Feral Finster's avatar

What you are seeing is a textbook example of sociopathy, organized.

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