![\"\"](\"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/ts.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nBy Justin Raimondo<\/p>\n
The ringmaster of the Russia hearings profits from his antics<\/strong><\/h3>\nThe House Intelligence Committee\u2019s reenactment of the McCarthy hearings dramatized Marx\u2019s famous aphorism that history repeats itself, \u201cthe first time as tragedy, the second as farce.\u201d The only thing this circus was lacking was ringmaster Rep. Adam Schiff (D-California\u201d) rising to declares that \u201cI have in my hands a list!\u201d<\/p>\n
War was on the minds and lips of the Democrats.\u00a0Rep. Denny Heck<\/a>\u00a0(D-Washington) compared Hillary Clinton\u2019s loss to the 9\/11 attacks, because the killing of over 2,000 people on American soil is\u00a0just like<\/i>\u00a0the publication of emails that exposed the corruption at the heart of Democratic party politics. Oh, and \u201cthe attack didn\u2019t end on Election Day\u201d \u2013 because isn\u2019t that a Russian hiding under your bed?<\/p>\nIf political humor, albeit unintentional, is your shtick, there was plenty of that: my own favorite was Rep. Jackie Speier \u2013 from where else but California? \u2013 likening Vladimir Putin to\u00a0a tarantula spider<\/a>\u00a0who has \u201censnared in his web\u201d a whole list of Trump supporters, including Wilbur Ross, the Commerce Secretary, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Echoing a common phrase at the hearing, she declared that alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election was \u201can act of war<\/a>,\u201d although she gave no hint as to when the shooting will start.<\/p>\nRep. Andre Carson (D-Indiana)\u00a0asked<\/a>: \u201cIs an iron curtain is descending across Europe?\u201d Yes, the Russians are going to rebuild the Berlin Wall \u2013 and make Angela Merkel pay for it. Of course, the US-erected iron curtain of anti-Russian sanctions doesn\u2019t come into it. Carson also took up a favorite Democratic theme: the GOP platform had been \u201cchanged\u201d at the insistence of Trump supporters,\u00a0a falsehood that\u2019s been debunked<\/a>\u00a0yet still persists. What happened was that an attempt to insert a paragraph calling for sending \u201clethal weapons\u201d to Ukraine \u2013 which had never been in there in the first place \u2013 was defeated. But in the War Party\u2019s campaign of innuendo and fake news, facts don\u2019t matter: what matters is the effort to equate dissent from a foreign policy of perpetual aggression with \u201ctreason.\u201d<\/p>\nRep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) spent most of his time referring to the \u201cdirty dossier\u201d published by BuzzFeed, which has long been discredited, and\u00a0bringing up<\/a>\u00a0the names of various Trump supporters, asking FBI Director Comey if they were targets of the investigation into Russian influence on the elections \u2013knowing perfectly well that Comey would not and could not answer. The idea was simply to bring up the names in a forum in which they couldn\u2019t defend themselves: that\u2019s what the politics of innuendo is all about.<\/p>\nAside from Schiff, the Speier-Carson-Castro trio, posing as defenders of our national security, were among the shrillest in their insistence that the Trump administration is a nest of Russian spies. Which is ironic, since the\u00a0Daily Caller\u00a0<\/i>recently\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0an odd coincidence:<\/p>\n\u201cBrothers Abid, Imran, and Jamal Awan were barred from computer networks at the House of Representatives\u00a0Thursday<\/span><\/span>, The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group has learned.<\/i><\/p>\n\u201cThree members of the intelligence panel and five members of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs were among the dozens of members who employed the suspects on a shared basis. The two committees deal with many of the nation\u2019s most sensitive issues, information and documents, including those related to the war on terrorism.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n
Those three intelligence panel members are Speier, Castro, and Carson. Now aren\u2019t you reassured that our national security is in their capable hands?<\/p>\n
These three were merely sideshows, however, because the head clown was undoubtedly the ranking Democrat on the committee, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-California). Schiff\u2019sopening statement<\/a>\u00a0is a model of McCarthyite smear-mongering. His first target is Carter Page, an oil company consultant tangentially associated with the Trump campaign, who is attacked by Schiff for the \u201ccrime\u201d of criticizing US foreign policy in a speech delivered while on a trip to Russia. He then cites the unverified (and largely nonsensical) \u201cdossier\u201d compiled by MI6 agent Christopher Steele, who paid his informants for dirt on Trump, to the effect that Page had a secret meeting with a Putin confidante. Page was supposedly rewarded financially in a murky sale of the Russian gas giant Rosfnet: he was also supposedly offered \u201cdocuments\u201d to be published by WikiLeaks, \u201cwhich give the Russians deniability.\u201d<\/p>\nLet\u2019s stop here and ask a question: Why would the Russians offer Page \u201cdocuments\u201d that portray Hillary Clinton in a unfavorable light \u2013 presumably the Podesta\/DNC emails \u2013 if WikiLeaks was going to publish them anyway? But logic has nothing to do with Schiff\u2019s conspiracy theory: the idea is to simply make \u201clinks\u201d based on a\u00a0bought-and-paid-for<\/a>\u00a0\u201cdossier\u201d and smear as many people associated with the Trump campaign as possible.<\/p>\nSo what was the price of all this? What did the Russians want? According to Schiff, a Trump foreign policy that \u201cde-emphasizes Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine and instead focuses on criticizing NATO countries for not paying their fair share.\u201d As \u201cproof\u201d of this sinister plot Schiff notes that Page, Paul Manafort, and other Trump supporters \u201cattended the Republican convention\u201d (!) in Cleveland where Russian ambassador Sergey Kisylak was also present. Kisylak was there along with 80 other ambassadors at an event dubbed \u201cGlobal Partners in Diplomacy<\/a>.\u201d Similar events, staged to acquaint foreign diplomats with the American democratic process, have been staged since the 1980s. Clearly a case of espionage.<\/p>\nSchiff then goes into the by now familiar trope about how the GOP platform was \u201cchanged\u201d to remove a section calling for the provision of \u201clethal defensive weapons\u201d to Ukraine, which would be \u201cagainst Russian interests.\u201d To begin with, there was never any such provision in the platform, so it could not have been \u201cremoved.\u201d<\/p>\n
Secondly, Schiff is betraying his own rather specialized interests here: on July 18, 2013,\u00a0a fundraiser for Schiff\u2019s reelection campaign<\/a>\u00a0was held at the home of Ukrainian arms dealer Igor Pasternak in Washington, D.C. Price of admission: $2,500 a head, and $1,000 for guests. Why is Pasternak such a fan of Schiff\u2019s?<\/p>\nThe answer may be found in a\u00a0Washington Times<\/i>\u00a0story published in January, headlined \u201cUkraine Desperate for Surveillance Equipment in Stand Off With Russia<\/a>,\u201d which details the efforts of the Ukrainian government to get around the Obama administration\u2019s reluctance to provide them with the \u201cdefensive weapons\u201d Schiff is so eager to shower them with. Yet the\u00a0Times<\/i>\u00a0tells us that Pasternak has somehow managed to get around the prohibition imposed by the administration, at least to a limited extent:<\/p>\n\u201cIn the meantime, a private, State Department-approved transaction has a Montebello, California, company, Worldwide Aeros, set to erect eight sensor-mounted towers that would deliver immediate surveillance along the southeastern border this winter.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201c\u2019This system will provide a much more robust capability to detect incursions into their territory,\u2019 said Drew Shoemaker, vice president of government relations for Aeroscraft, a division of Worldwide. \u2018It detects with the radar and then confirms with the camera.\u2019<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cWith a maximum range of 40 miles, the Elevated Early Warning System, he said, \u2018can look quite a distance into whatever territory they are looking at. They can track movements of goods and services in and out of the rebel-held territories. There\u2019s still a large of amount of military equipment in there.\u2019<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cUkraine eventually may opt for blimplike aerostats with even more powerful ranges.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cWorldwide Aeros was founded by a Ukrainian-born engineer, Igor Pasternak, who has won Pentagon contracts to develop different sizes and shapes of airships.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n
Follow the money. Pasternak is selling the Ukrainians military hardware, and is doubtless eager to sell them more \u2013 paid for by US taxpayers, of course. According to news reports, Pasternak is\u00a0deeply involved<\/a>\u00a0with the Ukrainian government\u2019s military production, which is seeking to eliminate its dependence on Soviet era military hardware:<\/p>\n\u201cOn\u00a0Jan. 3<\/span><\/span>\u00a0[2017], as part of a long-term plan to adopt NATO military standards, Ukraine took a step toward ditching this Soviet military carryover.<\/i><\/p>\n\u201cUkroboronprom, Ukraine\u2019s nationalized defense industry conglomerate, announced a partnership agreement between the Ukrainian defense manufacturer Ukroboronservis and the U.S. company Aeroscraft to produce in Ukraine a variant of the US M16 assault rifle.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201c\u2019The M16 project was conceived some time ago, as the Ukrainian armed forces, border guards, and National Guard will with time switch to NATO standards,\u2019 Aeroscraft founder and CEO Igor Pasternak said during a\u00a0Jan. 3<\/span><\/span>\u00a0press conference in Kyiv.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\nPasternak raises thousands for Schiff, and Schiff raises millions for Pasternak. It\u2019s a sweet deal all around.<\/p>\n
Schiff bloviates that his campaign to restart the cold war with Russia is an ideological crusade: \u201cWe are involved in a new battle of ideas,\u201d he avers. \u201cNot Communism versus capitalism, but authoritarianism versus democracy.\u201d Yet this\u00a0is<\/i>\u00a0about capitalism \u2013 crony capitalism of the sort that enriches both Schiff and Pasternak. As Major General Smedley Butler put it in 1935: \u201cWar is a racket<\/a>.\u201d And Schiff is one of the biggest racketeers in Washington.<\/p>\nThe cynical, absurd campaign to tar the Trump administration as a Russian plot to take over America is based on noting but lies, innuendo, political opportunism, and naked greed. Trump famously pledged to \u201cdrain the swamp\u201d that is Washington, D.C., and it was inevitable that Schiff, one of the nastiest of the swamp creatures, would arise from the muck screeching in protest.<\/p>\n
Let him. He and his party are consigning themselves to the margins of American politics. Their loony conspiracy theories are so far removed from the concerns of ordinary Americans that the distance can only be measured in light years.\u00a0Polls show<\/a>\u00a0that even the majority of Democrats don\u2019t think Trump\u2019s relations with the Russians involved illegality: independents and Republicans disbelieve Schiff\u2019s tales of Russian plots by an overwhelming majority. No normal person\u00a0cares\u00a0<\/i>about Russia: but the Democratic activist base is very far from normal.<\/p>\n
If political humor, albeit unintentional, is your shtick, there was plenty of that: my own favorite was Rep. Jackie Speier \u2013 from where else but California? \u2013 likening Vladimir Putin to\u00a0a tarantula spider<\/a>\u00a0who has \u201censnared in his web\u201d a whole list of Trump supporters, including Wilbur Ross, the Commerce Secretary, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Echoing a common phrase at the hearing, she declared that alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election was \u201can act of war<\/a>,\u201d although she gave no hint as to when the shooting will start.<\/p>\n Rep. Andre Carson (D-Indiana)\u00a0asked<\/a>: \u201cIs an iron curtain is descending across Europe?\u201d Yes, the Russians are going to rebuild the Berlin Wall \u2013 and make Angela Merkel pay for it. Of course, the US-erected iron curtain of anti-Russian sanctions doesn\u2019t come into it. Carson also took up a favorite Democratic theme: the GOP platform had been \u201cchanged\u201d at the insistence of Trump supporters,\u00a0a falsehood that\u2019s been debunked<\/a>\u00a0yet still persists. What happened was that an attempt to insert a paragraph calling for sending \u201clethal weapons\u201d to Ukraine \u2013 which had never been in there in the first place \u2013 was defeated. But in the War Party\u2019s campaign of innuendo and fake news, facts don\u2019t matter: what matters is the effort to equate dissent from a foreign policy of perpetual aggression with \u201ctreason.\u201d<\/p>\n Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) spent most of his time referring to the \u201cdirty dossier\u201d published by BuzzFeed, which has long been discredited, and\u00a0bringing up<\/a>\u00a0the names of various Trump supporters, asking FBI Director Comey if they were targets of the investigation into Russian influence on the elections \u2013knowing perfectly well that Comey would not and could not answer. The idea was simply to bring up the names in a forum in which they couldn\u2019t defend themselves: that\u2019s what the politics of innuendo is all about.<\/p>\n Aside from Schiff, the Speier-Carson-Castro trio, posing as defenders of our national security, were among the shrillest in their insistence that the Trump administration is a nest of Russian spies. Which is ironic, since the\u00a0Daily Caller\u00a0<\/i>recently\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0an odd coincidence:<\/p>\n \u201cBrothers Abid, Imran, and Jamal Awan were barred from computer networks at the House of Representatives\u00a0Thursday<\/span><\/span>, The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group has learned.<\/i><\/p>\n \u201cThree members of the intelligence panel and five members of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs were among the dozens of members who employed the suspects on a shared basis. The two committees deal with many of the nation\u2019s most sensitive issues, information and documents, including those related to the war on terrorism.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n Those three intelligence panel members are Speier, Castro, and Carson. Now aren\u2019t you reassured that our national security is in their capable hands?<\/p>\n These three were merely sideshows, however, because the head clown was undoubtedly the ranking Democrat on the committee, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-California). Schiff\u2019sopening statement<\/a>\u00a0is a model of McCarthyite smear-mongering. His first target is Carter Page, an oil company consultant tangentially associated with the Trump campaign, who is attacked by Schiff for the \u201ccrime\u201d of criticizing US foreign policy in a speech delivered while on a trip to Russia. He then cites the unverified (and largely nonsensical) \u201cdossier\u201d compiled by MI6 agent Christopher Steele, who paid his informants for dirt on Trump, to the effect that Page had a secret meeting with a Putin confidante. Page was supposedly rewarded financially in a murky sale of the Russian gas giant Rosfnet: he was also supposedly offered \u201cdocuments\u201d to be published by WikiLeaks, \u201cwhich give the Russians deniability.\u201d<\/p>\n Let\u2019s stop here and ask a question: Why would the Russians offer Page \u201cdocuments\u201d that portray Hillary Clinton in a unfavorable light \u2013 presumably the Podesta\/DNC emails \u2013 if WikiLeaks was going to publish them anyway? But logic has nothing to do with Schiff\u2019s conspiracy theory: the idea is to simply make \u201clinks\u201d based on a\u00a0bought-and-paid-for<\/a>\u00a0\u201cdossier\u201d and smear as many people associated with the Trump campaign as possible.<\/p>\n So what was the price of all this? What did the Russians want? According to Schiff, a Trump foreign policy that \u201cde-emphasizes Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine and instead focuses on criticizing NATO countries for not paying their fair share.\u201d As \u201cproof\u201d of this sinister plot Schiff notes that Page, Paul Manafort, and other Trump supporters \u201cattended the Republican convention\u201d (!) in Cleveland where Russian ambassador Sergey Kisylak was also present. Kisylak was there along with 80 other ambassadors at an event dubbed \u201cGlobal Partners in Diplomacy<\/a>.\u201d Similar events, staged to acquaint foreign diplomats with the American democratic process, have been staged since the 1980s. Clearly a case of espionage.<\/p>\n Schiff then goes into the by now familiar trope about how the GOP platform was \u201cchanged\u201d to remove a section calling for the provision of \u201clethal defensive weapons\u201d to Ukraine, which would be \u201cagainst Russian interests.\u201d To begin with, there was never any such provision in the platform, so it could not have been \u201cremoved.\u201d<\/p>\n Secondly, Schiff is betraying his own rather specialized interests here: on July 18, 2013,\u00a0a fundraiser for Schiff\u2019s reelection campaign<\/a>\u00a0was held at the home of Ukrainian arms dealer Igor Pasternak in Washington, D.C. Price of admission: $2,500 a head, and $1,000 for guests. Why is Pasternak such a fan of Schiff\u2019s?<\/p>\n The answer may be found in a\u00a0Washington Times<\/i>\u00a0story published in January, headlined \u201cUkraine Desperate for Surveillance Equipment in Stand Off With Russia<\/a>,\u201d which details the efforts of the Ukrainian government to get around the Obama administration\u2019s reluctance to provide them with the \u201cdefensive weapons\u201d Schiff is so eager to shower them with. Yet the\u00a0Times<\/i>\u00a0tells us that Pasternak has somehow managed to get around the prohibition imposed by the administration, at least to a limited extent:<\/p>\n \u201cIn the meantime, a private, State Department-approved transaction has a Montebello, California, company, Worldwide Aeros, set to erect eight sensor-mounted towers that would deliver immediate surveillance along the southeastern border this winter.<\/i><\/p>\n \u201c\u2019This system will provide a much more robust capability to detect incursions into their territory,\u2019 said Drew Shoemaker, vice president of government relations for Aeroscraft, a division of Worldwide. \u2018It detects with the radar and then confirms with the camera.\u2019<\/i><\/p>\n \u201cWith a maximum range of 40 miles, the Elevated Early Warning System, he said, \u2018can look quite a distance into whatever territory they are looking at. They can track movements of goods and services in and out of the rebel-held territories. There\u2019s still a large of amount of military equipment in there.\u2019<\/i><\/p>\n \u201cUkraine eventually may opt for blimplike aerostats with even more powerful ranges.<\/i><\/p>\n \u201cWorldwide Aeros was founded by a Ukrainian-born engineer, Igor Pasternak, who has won Pentagon contracts to develop different sizes and shapes of airships.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n Follow the money. Pasternak is selling the Ukrainians military hardware, and is doubtless eager to sell them more \u2013 paid for by US taxpayers, of course. According to news reports, Pasternak is\u00a0deeply involved<\/a>\u00a0with the Ukrainian government\u2019s military production, which is seeking to eliminate its dependence on Soviet era military hardware:<\/p>\n \u201cOn\u00a0Jan. 3<\/span><\/span>\u00a0[2017], as part of a long-term plan to adopt NATO military standards, Ukraine took a step toward ditching this Soviet military carryover.<\/i><\/p>\n \u201cUkroboronprom, Ukraine\u2019s nationalized defense industry conglomerate, announced a partnership agreement between the Ukrainian defense manufacturer Ukroboronservis and the U.S. company Aeroscraft to produce in Ukraine a variant of the US M16 assault rifle.<\/i><\/p>\n \u201c\u2019The M16 project was conceived some time ago, as the Ukrainian armed forces, border guards, and National Guard will with time switch to NATO standards,\u2019 Aeroscraft founder and CEO Igor Pasternak said during a\u00a0Jan. 3<\/span><\/span>\u00a0press conference in Kyiv.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n Pasternak raises thousands for Schiff, and Schiff raises millions for Pasternak. It\u2019s a sweet deal all around.<\/p>\n Schiff bloviates that his campaign to restart the cold war with Russia is an ideological crusade: \u201cWe are involved in a new battle of ideas,\u201d he avers. \u201cNot Communism versus capitalism, but authoritarianism versus democracy.\u201d Yet this\u00a0is<\/i>\u00a0about capitalism \u2013 crony capitalism of the sort that enriches both Schiff and Pasternak. As Major General Smedley Butler put it in 1935: \u201cWar is a racket<\/a>.\u201d And Schiff is one of the biggest racketeers in Washington.<\/p>\n The cynical, absurd campaign to tar the Trump administration as a Russian plot to take over America is based on noting but lies, innuendo, political opportunism, and naked greed. Trump famously pledged to \u201cdrain the swamp\u201d that is Washington, D.C., and it was inevitable that Schiff, one of the nastiest of the swamp creatures, would arise from the muck screeching in protest.<\/p>\n Let him. He and his party are consigning themselves to the margins of American politics. Their loony conspiracy theories are so far removed from the concerns of ordinary Americans that the distance can only be measured in light years.\u00a0Polls show<\/a>\u00a0that even the majority of Democrats don\u2019t think Trump\u2019s relations with the Russians involved illegality: independents and Republicans disbelieve Schiff\u2019s tales of Russian plots by an overwhelming majority. No normal person\u00a0cares\u00a0<\/i>about Russia: but the Democratic activist base is very far from normal.<\/p>\n