by Eric Zuesse for The Saker Blog
In the December 4th statement that was made by Stanford University law professor Pamela Karlan was this:
We have become the shining city on a hill. We have become the nation that leads the world in understanding what democracy is. One of the things we understand most profoundly is it’s not a real democracy, it’s not a mature democracy if the party in power uses the criminal process to go after its enemies. I think you heard testimony, the Intelligence Committee heard testimony about how it isn’t just our national interest in protecting our own elections. It’s not just our national interest in making sure that the Ukraine remains strong and on the front lines so they fight the Russians there and we don’t have to fight them here.
It’s also our national interest in promoting democracy worldwide, and if we look hypocritical about this, if we look like we’re asking other countries to interfere in our election, if we look like we’re asking other countries to engage in criminal investigations of our President’s political opponents, then we’re not doing our job of promoting our national interest in being that shining city on a hill.
She said: “We have become the shining city on a hill.” Here is a list of just a few of the democratically elected presidents and prime ministers in foreign countries whom the U.S. regime overthrew, by coups, in order to install brutal dictatorial regimes there that would do sweetheart deals with America’s international corporations. Also, unsuccessful, merely attempted, U.S. coups are discussed there.
Furthermore, the scientific studies of whether the U.S. Government is controlled by the public (a democracy) or is instead controlled only by its very wealthiest (an aristocracy) are clear: this country is an aristocracy, not a democracy at all, except, perhaps, in the purely formal senses of that term — our great Constitution. Far-right judges have recently been interpreting that Constitution in the most pro-aristocratic, anti-democratic, ways imaginable, and this might have something to do with why the scientific studies are finding that the U.S. is now a dictatorship. And this fact, of America’s now being a dictatorship, was blatantly clear in America’s last Presidential election, which was actually a s‘election’ by Americas’ billionaires — not by the American public.
How, then, can Professor Karlan be respected about anything, if she lives in a dictatorship (by its aristocracy) and is deluded to think that it’s still (which it never was completely) a democracy?
Furthermore: her statements about Ukraine are equally deluded. She is obviously unaware that the Obama Administration started planning its coup against Ukraine in 2011 and started implementing it in the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine on 1 March 2013, and started in June 2013 soliciting bids from U.S. companies to renovate at least one building in Crimea for use by the U.S. Navy to replace Russia’s main naval base — which Russian naval base was and is in Crimea — by a new U.S. naval base to be installed there.
The craziest thing of all about Karlan’s statement, however, is this part: “It’s not just our national interest in making sure that the Ukraine remains strong and on the front lines so they fight the Russians there and we don’t have to fight them here.”
Imagine if someone said, “It’s not just our national interest in making sure that the Mexico remains strong and on the front lines so they fight the Americans there and we [Russians] don’t have to fight them here.”
If a Russian were to assert that, would the statement be any more justifiable than what Karlan said regarding Ukraine? Of course not! Even an idiot can recognize this fact. But Karlan can’t.
On December 5th, the anonymous “Moon of Alabama” blogger, whose opinions and predictions turn out to have been correct at perhaps the highest rate of anyone on the internet, headlined “The Delusions Of The Impeachment Witnesses Point To A Larger Problem” and he not only pointed out the “delusional” beliefs of Professor Karlan (“One must be seriously disturbed to believe such nonsense. How can it be that Karlan is teaching at an academic level when she has such delusions?”), but he noted that:
—
How is it in U.S. interest to give the Ukraine U.S. taxpayer money to buy U.S. weapons? The sole motive behind that idea was greed and corruption, not national interest:
[U.S. special envoy to Ukraine] Volker started his job at the State Department in 2017 in an unusual part-time arrangement that allowed him to continue consulting at BGR, a powerful lobbying firm that represents Ukraine and the U.S.-based defense firm Raytheon. During his tenure, Volker advocated for the United States to send Raytheon-manufactured antitank Javelin missiles to Ukraine — a decision that made Raytheon millions of dollars.
The missiles are useless in the conflict. They are kept near the western border of Ukraine under U.S. control. The U.S. fears that Russia would hit back elsewhere should the Javelin reach the frontline in the east and get used against the east-Ukrainians. That Trump shortly held back on some of the money that would have allowed the Ukrainians to buy more of those missiles thus surely made no difference.
To claim that it hurt U.S. national interests is nonsense.
It is really no wonder that U.S. foreign policy continuously produces chaos when its practitioners get taught by people like Karlan. …
The Democrats are doing themselves no favor by producing delusional and partisan witnesses who repeat Reaganesque claptrap. They only prove that the whole affair is just an unserious show trial.
In the meantime Trump is eliminating food stamps for some 700,000 recipients and the Democrats are doing nothing about it. Their majority in the House could have used the time it spent on the impeachment circus to prevent that and other obscenities.
Do the Democrats really believe that their voters will not notice this?
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(Of course, they do, and they might be right. After all, polls show that Democrats still believe that Barack Obama was a terrific President, just as Republicans believe that George W. Bush was a terrific President. The fact that both — and Trump himself —were/are among the worst in American history eludes the voters in both Parties. But though I disagree with his opinion on that particular matter, he’s just asking a question there, and I hope that his more optimistic take than mine turns out to be right, and that the voters — in both Parties — are coming to recognize that American politics right now is almost 100% a con-game, in both Parties.)
Why do people pay subscription-fees, to Jeff Bezos’s Washington Post, and to the New York Times, and to other media that are controlled by America’s billionaires, when far higher-quality journalism, like that of “Moon of Alabama” (and like the site you’re reading here) is freely available on the internet? Who needs the mainstream ‘news’-media, when it’s filled with such unreliable claptrap, as respects (instead of exposes) what persons such as Karlan say? Jonathan Turley is to be taken seriously, and he is at the very opposite end from Karlan’s opinions in the impeachment hearings (and regarding much else). (And the hearings-transcript in which both law-professors testified is here.) But the exception is Turley, and Karlan is far more the norm in the U.S.-media mainstream. And virtually all Democratic-Party propaganda-organs (‘the liberal press’) are playing up the Karlan claptrap. So: yes, I do think that “the Democrats [referring to the ones in the House of Representatives, of course] really believe that their voters will not notice this.” Most voters are just as “deluded” (misinformed by the ‘news’-media) as Professor Karlan is.
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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
Pretty good analysis. It seems fairly certain to me that the entire impeachment show is purely a stage production. Much like WWE wrestling is. Otherwise, by now at least, one of the ‘sides’ would have managed to at least accidentally land a blow (which they have not). Cannot speak much to the behind the scenes power struggle, however, except to say that it is most likely to establish control of what is left of the political system and social control structures. They also seem to be trying to drag this show along for as long as they possibly can, likely in attempt to buy time to reorganize in a bid to hold on to power. I say this because not even one of these nutjobs has managed to accuse one of the other nutjobs of anything which either actually exists at all or is actually a crime, when documented evidence does in fact exist of crimes of one sort or other having been committed by very nearly all of them.
Well they have (been committed..), and not until the evidence is brought to trial in the Ukraine can it be used as evidence against said party’s here in the states. And even if Rudy is trying to speed up the process over there, he still gets blamed for election interference over here.
Its the “if they do this we do that, and if they do that we do this” democratic strategy. Seems to work ok until someone dies or gets caught and becomes the fall guy, its 50/50 where the Bidens are concerned.
I haven’t followed any of this impeachment circus because it appears to be just that. A circus sideshow to distract the drones. I will polarize people which is likely the intention and while they are all fixated on this, other more important events go by unnoticed. Such as Trump cutting off 700,000 poor people from being able to know where their next meal is coming from. His economy is the greatest in U.S. history after all so they should have a job! And I don’t hear any noise being made about him sending 14000 more troops to the borders of Iran, all based on fake accusations. U.S. citizens need to drop whatever they are doing and step back. I mean way back, and just start looking at your country. Who runs it? How is your health care? Speaking of that how is your health? Is your country really a beacon on a hill, showing the way for other nations? Well, how many conflicts are they involved in? Are they bringing peace or war constantly? As things stand, there are an awful lot of people who cannot see the forest for the trees!
Yes, its a circus, clearly the bones of the ‘bread & circus’ act for the lowest quality masses are being thrown to the saker readers, but why? Why post stuff that has no relevance to life on earth.
For facts Pelosi is owned by ISRAEL, Trump is owned by Israel, who cares what happens?
They put in Pence, he’s owned by Israel.
No matter how you roll the dice the outcome is the same, Israel Wins, Israel always wins.
I think the reason Trump is silent on the Saudi (passport) holding shooters in Florida, is most of their rhetoric was against Israel, and Trump doesn’t want to die murder on the streets of USA to our support of Saudi/Israel butchers.
But getting back to this ‘impeachment circus’, it was clearly done to appease those who voted for Obama, its a bone for the DNC base, so why in the hell would SAKER PPL even care?
“… its a bone for the DNC base, so why in the hell would SAKER PPL even care? ”
If one goes to war knowing neither yourself, nor your enemy, only defeat is assured. If one goes to war knowing either oneself or your enemy, victory is only 50% assured. If one goes to war knowing oneself, and your enemy only then can victory be assured. Sun Tzu, The Art of War
AIPAC controls the DNC & RNC, so who exactly are the good guys here?
Sure you can quote sun-tzu all day long, but its not relevant.
It’s a circus show, to take your eye off “Sauron” (ISRAEL), and AIPAC/MOSSAD ‘Epstein’ who owns RNC&DNC, they own Trump, Biden, Pence, Pelosi, and Schiff, and they own Guliani, and they own the nice gal from Hawaii.
There’s nobody in the WASH-DC that isn’t owned by AIPAC, so pray tell us who is our enemy here? and who is our friend?
Lastly, since this is all about UKRAINE, which was a NULAND $5B USD cookie-operation COUP, to put Nazi’s in control of a soveriegn gov, but that’s not being discussed, either ‘off the table’ as CIA said in first day of hearings, that “National Security” over-rides USA politics. So Trump has no authority abroad, that he is just circus for USA, that CIA-MOSSAD rule the world & Ukraine.
CM
I agree. This is circus. Psywar prestidigitation designed to keep people’s minds occupied with junk so they miss the important stuff.
It’s to keep up the circus-act that the DEM & PUG party’s are different, even though both have the same owners – AIPAC.
Great article. Wapo, NYT and MSNBC nothing but propaganda now just repeating lies endlessly. While the impeachment circus has gone on, the Patriot Act was extended on a bi-partisan basis,
“…Ukraine remains strong and on the front lines so they fight the Russians there and we don’t have to fight them here.”
“we”???
Who in the hell is “we” in that sentence????
There is no “we”.
There is just Stanford University law professor Pamela Karlan and her big f’n mouth.
The world does not need any more dead children from wars based on lies.
Shut your mouth Pamela and stop trying to burn down the world.
Since Nuland’s 2014 coup, US ukraine is as independent of the US as Puerto Rico. This “foreign” bit is so bizarre. Why would Nuland’s team spent 5 billion dollars for get a “foreign” nation?
This “foreign” US ukraine is now a great tool for couping the homeland in 2019.
“it’s not a mature democracy if the party in power uses the criminal process to go after its enemies”
Did you hear that, Julian Assange?
Surely there must be enough amongst the fashionably permanently offended to get this harridan the heave-ho?
Please Assange exposed the emperor for having no clothes, and throughout all of history those that have done so, have paid dearly.
To expect any difference from the most evil empire ( descendants of East India Corporation ) is insane. Funny why in the hell was Assange in UK at his 11th free hour, at the very least he could have bailed to HK, or RU, or any free country; What was he thinking?
Just like OKC bomber McViegh, just like pirate-dred-roberts, an example must be sent to all; That you will die or rot in prison if you cross the EVIL-CORP line.
“USA democracy is hypocrisy” – malcolm-x 1960’s
“Democracy in USA is the difference between a wolf(repug) & fox(dem), one hides his intentions, the other displays, but both intend to eat you” – H.L. Mencken 1930’s
Best example of Democracy on Earth, is that ‘Democracy” of Palestine, as administered by Israel. Most people don’t realize that we are all Palestinians in the USA, or any of the 5-eye colonys, we’all tax-cows and meat for the ANZ owners of the Company.
The impeachment hearings are a distraction.
Distraction from what? is the critical question.
Moon of Alabama is also clearly ‘limited opposition hangout’ of the highest order, I can always tell by the comments that are deleted.
This site is far more open.
It’s funny that “MOA” is used as a beacon of truth, when the truth is they too are clearly ‘owned’ by the tribe we cannot and don’t mention.
Moderator: Some evidence other than your “telling” would certainly be welcome.
Go to any or there threads/ops and make a comment that is anti-israel ( or anything that isn’t PRO ISRAEL )
You will immediately be labeled a ‘troll’, and permanently be banned.
On the other hand have good things to say about Trump or Bibi, and you will get confirmational circle-jerk.
I agree that the OP’s in general are ‘ok’ on MOA, but they use a consensus algo for banning comments, and its clear that HASBARA owns the comment majority.
This wouldn’t be tolerated, if it wasn’t the case that ANZ was hand feeding, as a fish always rots from top down.
bibi&facebook
Your opinions about MoA are about 180 degrees to my experience. Do you realize that MoA articles are standard part of the webmasters news feed here? And how can you read comments that are deleted?
Some more ‘evidence’ would be fine.
Cheers, Rob
facebook
I, and others, got banned from moa back in 2013 for discussing zionazism. Have not followed the site since then, but I do look in every once in a while curiosity gets the better of me when I see one of their articles at ich or spammed here. It looks on the surface the site owner has loosened up some in allowing anti-zionist opinions, but it also doesn’t surprise me that there still is hostility against those views and they still do censor them.
When bernhard banned me, he posted some very revealing things about his own views. Don’t have time atm to look up this material, but will some time later.
The man is in a country where he had to decide between spending his years in jail, or keeping his column up on the internet. He decided to keep his column up on the internet and I for one am glad for that.
And then, for those that actually read, there is plenty of anti-zionist material. It did not take me long to find this and some more following. It depends if one is skillful in commentary, but then again, I don’t comment there myself.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/12/cleanup-on-aisle-5.html?cid=6a00d8341c640e53ef0240a4a50b24200c#comment-6a00d8341c640e53ef0240a4a50b24200c
bibi
I concur. What you say about moa reflects what I see going on there.
From the other side of the Atlantic I’m watching in utter amazement at the theatre of DC. It is that I remember the deep division in the UK society when Margaret Thatcher was PM that I get some sense of the utter hatred that reigns. The Ukrainian question is just a means.
Just take a look at Nurse Ratched (aka Nancy Pelosi), that claims that ‘civilisation as we know it will end when Trump will be reelected’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoRH-WfrWbo&feature=youtu.be
(really, is she the grandma of Greta Thunberg?)
This whole impeachment case is based on thin air, ‘highly likely’ assumptions, accusations of deeds that the Obama administration did themselves, and a mountain of ‘hearsay’.
I don’t have a legal background, but imho ‘hearsay’ is trying to prove a case in a courtroom based on statements rendered outside the courtroom. Normally this is null and void, but in primitive societies like the USA and the UK anything is possible.
The continuing weeeping of the Dems that they didn’t get their WW3 wanting Cankles in the WH is rather amusing. So much for exceptionalism.
Cheers, Rob
Rob, as an American I often wonder how many people in my country actually take the impeachment farce seriously.
The people with whom I talk believe that they whole thing is a complete joke and a sign of a nation in terminal decline. But America is a large country with a huge population, so who knows. I wish I could trust the polls on this issue, but I don’t. For all I know it could be that a lot of Americans take it seriously. It is just as possible that most Americans know it is theater – and rather poor theater as well.
But for the average American like myself, there is simply no way to tell. And that, I suppose, is part of the design of a good disinformation campaign.
I see distress, fire sales, people half giving stuff away just to afford the next cupcake or twinkie, it don’t look good but makes a strong case against gvts ability to educate its citizens properly and fairly.
Its going to take a long time to dig out of this political mess.
Well somebody voted for dTrumpf, and somebody voted for the “Witch”, and obviously somebody put Pelosi in power.
All this is like the LGBT ‘genitalia wars’ been going on forever, once you take from people everything they own, and their dignity, then the only thing left is ‘virtual rights’, like the right to do as you wish in your bedroom.
Hollywood (ANZ) knows exactly what they’re doing, and its safe to say that 97% of the USA population buys into the game, so long as their is food at the store, and gas at the pump.
The USA people are the ‘boiled frog’ they are being systematically stripped to the bone, that’s why the circus acts, and the only protest you see that is publicly approved is the ‘right’ to castrate yourself.
AGREE Mike from Jersey
A large block of voters on both side will be taking a dim view of the std of conduct Pelosi etc are engaged and this constant obstruction and to refuse to accept the 2016 Pres result. That will cost them in 2020.
I suspect even if in 2016 another Republican President had got elected like Jeb/Cruz/Rubio etc… the Dems would be carrying on the same as the whole scenario revolves around this plan they had for a 16 year Obama -Hillary era where they would change America to what they wanted. But failed to understand what they want and what the voters wanted were different things.
I think that’s a remake from Hillary’s textbook of 016
When I heard Pamela Karlan’s statement – quoted above – I was shocked.
How could a Stanford professor seriously mouth such nonsense?
Are our best universities actually infested with people like this?
If they are it is a testimony to our cultural decline.
Re cultural decline:-
America has been in trouble since the early 60s.
Started with drugs availability and the war protestor movement which Clinton’s etc were part of.
The decline was exasserbated by 2 terms of Billy from 1993-2000 where he appointed all this vermin into positions in the system. Then Obama same.
Stanford / Berkley always had radicals – aka Patti Hurst/SLA & Una Bomber). But also part of the problems has arisen because the Republicans went further to the right in the 80s causing more polarization.
It will take time for these people to be flushed out and perhaps a war or natural disaster in California would work wonders.
One underlying fact of the cause of lot of the problems and general crime in US goes back to the 50 yrs of unrestricted immigration to the US to 1920 and since 1990 wherein any riff-raff from any country could get in and become citizen without screening/or little. This is where a lot of these people come from.
Lets hope things improve.
Oh, call the things what they really are. Aristocracy implies arete.
America is now a corporatist cosmopolitanist robberbaronist oligarchy.
Which is surprising. Most empires don’t degenerate to that point that fast, the only thing that makes sense is that the US is just the last “torch carrier” of something new – a “civilizational empire” – think about it, we didn’t have a new dark age ever since the fall of the roman empire, which means that technically western civilization was just an empire at an eternal civil war all this time
Spooky stuff, might have interesting implications for multipolarism when coupled with globalization.
Pamela S Karlan on Rate My Professors
https://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=2548052
“…crazy cat lady”
“…She peddled a skewed and twisted approach to law…”
“If you aren’t aligned with her political beliefs and her interpretation of the Constitution, lie. That’s the only way to pass this narcissist’s class. ”
Overall quality 1 of 5.
Students’ comments tell a lot about this professor, don’t they?!
This whole Trump Impeachment circus also raises some interesting possibilities for 2020 per my previous remarks on other articles.
Should GOP Senators rat on Trump and vote to impeach him there are several possibilities:-
1 – Those GOP Senators would themselves be finished politically and the whole matter would cause grass roots destruction of the the Republican Party. It would never recover.
2 – Mike Pence could pardon him (if it was required) and appoint Trump as Vice President then stand down thereby automatically reinstalling him and Trump reappoint Pence as Vice President. (This is interesting legal point and I’d like to hear this articles writers comments).
3 – Trump may succeed in having the US Supreme Court rule that any alleged conduct was not withing the scope of impeachment processes.
4 – Tulsi Gabbard is also likely to be turfed from the Dems in one way or another and I could foresee that perhaps Trump and her might run in 2020 as a Independent ticket (they both do not like these police action wars or like the swamp creatures) as revenge and wreck the Republican and Democrat chances by splitting both of their vote support.
5 – A large and key percentage of US voters on all sides will see this whole thing as a abuse of the system and will react accordingly at the next election.
Whatever happens in this circus there is potential for lasting damage to both sides.
The Democrats are making a fool of themselves over this with Pelosi and Schiff looking like circus clowns.
That will cost them credibility and votes and the Tulsi Bernie factors will also bleed a key block of votes off them for 2020.
Failure to date by most GOP senators to firmly come out and support Trump is also making them being seen as unreliable in the eyes of the Republican voters who they should remember put Trump in in 2016 (and also didnt want anyone else that was on offer by the GOP like Jeb/Cruz/Rubio).
If the establishment Republicans think they will remove Trump via the Dem tactic then slip in someone like Ryan to run in 2020 they will find the whole plan will fail as Trump’s block of support pummels them.
The GOP will have to tread with extreme caution over this or face a backlash that will destroy them.
Problem with law is that it can get corrupted by those in power.
https://www.usa.gov/branches-of-government#item-211477
The whole situation is a serious abuse of power and misconstruction of power, exactly what is safeguarded in the constitution (the amended constitution). It was the core of the system.
It has all failed. And now they are attacking the core of the system – the constitution itself.
Over time all the branches of government have been taken over by secretive powers linked to secret societies the hidden british empire quickly established political praties to run things.
The judicial branch is a sad story. As we see an example of from the professor of law in the impeachment inquiry, one after another are simply puppets of falsification. To expand the view a little more, puppets are those appointed to the federal courts and Supreme courts as well. There has not been a president since JFK at least who were not an imposter to further the secretive powers and them only.
In constitutional matters even rulings by the supreme court are invalid as a result. I mean there could be rulings that are OK especially in the past, but they are not trustworthy today.
Trump is in fact replicating much of what JFK did and thats why he’s being attacked so much.
Remember that Trump was a teenager in is formative years when JFK was President.
Trump and others of that era know that a lot of what JFK tried to do was the right approach.
Highwayman.
I dont agree with that.
Pres. John F. Kennedy, besides being an extemely popular and excellent president in all matters, also was a liberal and open to radical ideas. Pres. Trump is conservative.
It is more like Trump is on a mission called the art of the deal.
As Pres John F. Kennedy spoke of peace and disarmament he was a true believer in world peace and disarmament and addressed the UN general assembly as a message of urgency in these matters.
While pres. Trump also speak of world peace and treaties with other countries it is to position a deal in favour of various US policies and “national interests” and perhaps to cash in a Nobel Peace Prize.
There is a copycat at work, but that copycat is a tool. Copies of past causes from various presidencies used as tools of a presidency. It is rather alarming that pres.
Example of
Trump has issued a presidential XO to ascertain free speach at universities, or funding will be withheld (state funding). That is a serious issue. Free speech is guaranteed by the constitution, the president has no say in that matter. Actually the president has the duty to arrest or restrain any one that obstruct or forcefully deny free speech. So send in the national guard to such a university! Arrest Zuckerberg! That is a presidential response! The only response within his duty as a matter of fact. So pres. Trump only make matters worse . And it gets a lot worse. The USMCA tradeagreement contain legalisation of censorship by the very techcompanies. There is probably a lot more to come in the setup of the Trump presidency. After 4 more years AOC will be at the helm of the democrat’s party and running for the president office. The policy is that of national socialism, a policy that was applied in the shadow of the Trump theater presidency, a true deception of the dictatorship plan run by the state and the corporation on a totalitarian level under a national socialist party.
Today10 Dec with the impeachment moving forward and looking at the Democrat politicians who are pushing it I can only wonder how such people could get elected (Pelosi, Schiff, Harris etc…). The voters in their electorates must be as stupid as those Congresspeople to elect them.
People like them would not get elected in UK Canada Australia or intelligent EU countries. They’d be laughed at if they ran. Its a sad reflection as to the depths things have sunk to in the US to have such a bunch running the House.
FDR, Truman, JFK and LBJ would be appalled at the current state of affairs. And Im surprised Carter (the last decent Dem President) and his VP Mondale hasnt come out telling them to pull their heads in.
There is more talk today about Hillary entering the the race BUT the problem she faces is that to win against any Republican candidate (Trump or other) she would need not only to perform adequately in a campaign (she didnt in 2016 due to health issues) but also have the support of Bernie, Tulsi and Yang voters (who pull 22% of Dem support) which she (or anyone else) is unlikely to get enough of to get over the line.
Factional splits within both parties are possible.
Its going to be an interesting year.