#larouchepac

Also on Friday, the news broke that Comey and McCabe ally James Baker (no apparent relation to the former Secretary of State for President George H.W. Bush by that name) and FBI attorney Lisa Page, who sent a series of Trump loathing texts to Mueller counterintelligence deputy Peter Strzok, had resigned. Baker announced he was going to start writing for the Democrat deep state mouthpiece site Lawfare, run by Comey’s pal Benjamin Wittes. It was unclear what Page’s plans were, besides hiring a lawyer to defend herself against possible criminal charges after the widely anticipated IG report is released.

Two key advisers to former FBI Director James Comey are leaving the bureau.

James Baker, who served as the FBI's top lawyer before being reassigned in December under the agency's current director Christopher Wray, resigned on Friday, The New York Times reports.

Lisa Page, another FBI official who served as an adviser to Comey and his deputy at the bureau, Andrew McCabe, on various legal issues, is also resigning, the Times reported.

Baker told the newspaper in an interview that he would be joining the Brookings Institution to write for its Lawfare blog focused on national security.

The FBI official has reportedly been investigated as part of a Justice Department review into the potential sharing of classified information with reporters, though he has not been charged.

-- The Hill

Meanwhile, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's arrogant line equating Congressional oversight with 'extortion' or Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) demand that he stop stonewalling document requests or resign went over like a lead balloon -- outside the legacy media/Democratic Party echo chamber. Rosenstein is trying to hide behind lofty rhetoric about defending the separation of powers between the Executive and Congressional branches of government, but he has been exposed as a slippery bureaucratic operative and enabler of the soft coup inside the FBI to get Trump. The announced postponement of the IG report so inspector Horowitz can pursue certain leads related to the Obama DOJ's handling of the Clinton emails investigation is hardly good news for Rosenstein, as he was up to his eyeballs in protecting Mrs. Clinton from justice along with Comey and McCabe. 

It remains to be seen how long the dirty deep state games can go on -- likely at least through the 2018 midterms prove disappointing for the Democrats and their slim hopes of impeaching Trump. Mueller may find a higher court more amenable to his efforts to coerce Manafort into false confessions of colluding with Russians to manipulate the 2016 presidential race. Fusion GPS plant and fake Russian spy Natalia Veselnitskaya who famously presented none of the Russia-related dirt she'd promised on Hillary Clinton during her brief June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump Jr., presidential son in law Jared Kushner and Manafort, will go on spinning tales.

Media outlets which have pushed the RussiaGate story hard like NBC News will keep having to retract some of their fake news about federal warrants obtained to wiretap Trump attorney Michael Cohen. And the desperation of deep staters like Comey, McCabe, James Clapper and John Brennan to deflect from their corruption and falsifying of intelligence to prop up the fraudulent Russian election meddling narrative will only grow. Especially if Trump successfully defies the pressure coming from the neocons within his own cabinet to get the United States embroiled in Saudi Arabia and Israel's failing Syria war against Iran (and by extension, Russia), while making peace alongside the Chinese on the Korean Peninsula. Or if the President is able to use his proxies to expose the British deep staters who have used chemical false flag hoaxes in Salisbury and Douma to block Trump's campaign promise of improving relations with Moscow. -- JWS

Seoul Has High Hopes for the Trump-Kim Summit

May 3, 2018 (EIRNS)—In a Seoul reception today for more than 100 representatives from the foreign diplomatic corps and international organizations, to brief them on last week’s historic summit between North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and South Korea’s Moon Jae-in, Seoul’s Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said that her government expects that the upcoming summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un will offer a solution to fundamentally resolving the North Korean nuclear issue, and to bringing about lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula, Yonhap reported today.

“We very much want the success and the outcome of the South-North (Korean) summit to lead into the U.S.-North Korea summit,” Kang said. “We very much expect the leaders of the U.S. and North Korea to put everything on the table, foremost the nuclear issue, and come up with an agreement that provides a fundamental solution—a peaceful, fundamental, complete solution—to the North Korean nuclear issue and also a way for lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula.”

Kang expressed her gratitude for the many messages of support and congratulations that Seoul had received from at least 90 foreign governments, on the occasion of the Kim-Moon summit. They “encourage us even more to work closely with the U.S. for the success of the U.S.-North Korea summit,” Kang said. “But the work doesn’t end there. The nuts-and-bolts work of implementing the agreement that comes out will require another level of diplomatic engagement all around.”

Yonhap reported that Seoul is already seeking to hold a high-level dialogue with the D.P.R.K. in mid-May to discuss ways to implement the results of last week’s summit. President Moon had called for rapid implementation of the steps that can be taken right away, while others may have to be delayed due to international sanctions placed on the North.

A special presidential commission for just this purpose has been established and has already had its first meeting, headed by Moon’s chief of staff Im Jong-seok, presidential spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom announced. Aside from Im, a number of other government ministers will also participate.

Three sub-commissions have been established as well, to address improving inter-Korean relations, denuclearizing the North, and promoting bilateral communications. The task force on inter-Korean relations will immediately address the possibility of cross-border cooperation in forestry, an area in which the North urgently needs help.

LaRouche: "A Four-Power Agreement Can Create a New World Credit System" May 3, 2018 The British Empire and allied forces have launched a series of coordinated attacks globally, designed to ensure that no lasting coalition for development and peace is formed around the planet's four leading powers—Russia, China, India and the United States. These attacks include escalating provocations intended to unleash surrogate war in the Middle East (Iran and Syria); in Ukraine; and on the Korean Peninsula—all designed to ultimately escalate to a global war of the U.S. against Russia and China.

At the same time, and with closely choreographed timing, those same British forces have escalated their witch-hunt against President Donald Trump, resorting to fishing expeditions as transparently egregious as they are dangerous. The latest is the leaked threat that Special Counsel Robert Mueller may subpoena President Trump to answer his also-leaked 40 questions, should the President refuse to do so "voluntarily."

President Trump himself answered pointedly in a tweet this morning: "There is no Obstruction of Justice (that is a setup & trap). What there is is Negotiations going on with North Korea over Nuclear War..."

To put a sharp point on it: The British drive for war and the British drive to overthrow the President of the United States, are parallel operations with a single strategic objective. There can be no successful defense of the Presidency against the Mueller dirty operation, without also stopping the drive to use Iran, Syria, Korea, and Ukraine to unleash war against Russia and China. Conversely, the British drive for war and overthrowing the entire Westphalian system by ripping valid international law to shreds with military strikes and wars, cannot be stopped without defeating the Mueller-FBI coup against President Trump.

Democrats, Republicans and Independents alike—as well as people in other nations—need to wake up to this fact, before it is too late. You cannot choose which part of the single, British operation you wish to oppose, and which you wish to support, based on your sincerely-held ideological prejudices.

The time has come for morality guided by science, in the manner exemplified by Lyndon LaRouche's proposal for a Four-Power agreement.

LaRouche's first major public presentation of this policy idea came in a Dec. 3, 2008 Forum for Strategic and Security Studies in New Delhi, India, where he was a featured speaker. LaRouche later expanded on the strategy in an Oct. 10, 2009 address titled "A Four-Power Agreement Can Create a New World Credit System," delivered to the Seventh Annual Session of the World Public Forum Dialogue of Civilizations, held on the Island of Rhodes in Greece. LaRouche summarized this Rhodes speech in remarks he delivered to a private luncheon for diplomats in Washington, D.C. less than a month later, on Nov. 4, 2009.

In reading the following brief excerpt from those luncheon remarks, we remind the reader that they were made nearly four years before Chinese President Xi Jinping announced his policy of the New Silk Road, today known as the Belt and Road Initiative.

"It was my job [at Rhodes] to present clearly what a Four-Power agreement among the United States, Russia, China, and India, and other countries brought into the same agreement, would mean for the planet. It would mean that we would have a convention, an agreement on forming a new system, scrapping the present monetary system, which can be scrapped because it is already bankrupt...

"Russia and China were on the verge of a negotiation, in this period, in which China has a trillion-dollar obligation of the United States, which is owed to China... What happened between the negotiations between Russia and China, was essentially an arrangement to utilize the legitimate debt which China is owed against the United States' promises, and to use that, to monetize it, by investing it in something productive, which would be useful for Asia. And a very large-scale project of transportation and related systems, was agreed upon between Russia and China.

"The intent was not to stop there: The intent is to extend this kind of agreement to Southeast Asia generally, and to include India. The intention of some of us, is to bring the United States into the same arrangement. Because, the combined power of the United States, Russia, China, India, and nations who wish to be associated with them in this kind of venture, is the greatest financial, economic power on the planet. If that planetary power decides to do what must be done, we can reorganize and rebuild the world, and shift quickly from a downward process, into an upward process. That's our option.

"The key thing has to be: the United States, Russia, China, and India. Without an agreement among those four nations, such a recovery of the world is not possible. With those four nations, and other nations—such as, immediately, Southeast Asia, Korea, Japan, and so forth—other nations come in, and now we're talking about the possibility of a general program, of creating a new, world fixed-exchange-rate system, as a credit system, not a monetary system, but a credit system of fixed-exchange rate agreements, for long-term cooperation, in infrastructure investments, which will be drivers for the development of productive investments.

Russia Charges Yulia Skripal Being Held Hostage in U.K., Subjected to ‘Psychological Manipulation’

April 18, 2018 (EIRNS)—Speaking at today’s meeting of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Russian Ambassador Alexander Shulgin charged that Yulia Skripal, daughter of former Russian GRU colonel turned British double agent Sergei Skripal, is being held hostage by British authorities. She is being hidden from the media and the public, “her whereabouts are unknown,” and neither Russian authorities nor her relatives can see her. Nor, Shulgin said, is Miss Skripal—a Russian citizen who had come from Russia to visit her father in England when the March 4 poisoning took place—being allowed to return to Russia to undergo medical examination and treatment, TASS reported him as saying.

The only conclusion to be drawn is that Yulia Skripal is a hostage, being “held by force on the territory of the United Kingdom, subjected to psychological manipulations.”

Members of the Russian delegation to the meeting also charged that it’s likely that British medical workers put both Sergei and Yulia Skripal into an “induced coma deliberately, which gave them the opportunity to collect biological material and manipulate the state of their health, even without consulting them.”

The British Empire Can No Longer Hide Its Crimes On every front of the U.K.'s panicked effort to stop President Trump's intention to bring the U.S. into friendly relations with Russia and China, the lies can no longer be covered up. This is true in the Russiagate hoax launched by MI6 operative Christopher Steele; the Skripal hoax run by the same MI6 circle; and the Douma chemical attack hoax created by the British funded and controlled White Helmet terrorists. Across the U.S., Europe, and around the world, leading figures and governments are telling the bloody British Empire that it is wearing no clothes.

Even in the U.K. itself, the stench of the imperial lies can no longer be tolerated. Former British Ambassador to Syria Peter Ford, who has been an outspoken opponent of the war on Syria, has now gone on Fox News in the U.S., with Tucker Carlson, reporting that the chemical attack in Douma never happened, and that President Trump's advisors "have served him extremely badly" by not informing him that the White Helmets are simply part of the terrorist operation. Back in London, the Empire's The Times has discovered, to its horror, that the former head of the Special Air Services (SAS), Maj. Gen. John Holmes, who led the SAS during the first Gulf war, has now joined the British Syria Society, headed by Ambassador Ford, and is demanding dialogue with Assad. This past Monday, Lord West, the former First Sea Lord, Admiral and Chief of British Defense Intelligence, went on BBC to debunk the idea that Assad used chemical weapons, pointing to the absurdity of doing so upon purely military grounds, since he was winning and it served only the terrorists interests.

China's foremost journalist, Yang Rui, this week stepped beyond the usually-reserved Chinese commentary on world strategic affairs to equate the claim of a chemical attack to justify the allied bombing of Syria to the Nazi stunts used to launch invasions and atrocities, emphasizing that the White Helmets are killers, and that China and Russia will stand firmly together against this and any further criminal wars. He warned that the human race must reverse the collapse into a "post-truth world."

Across Europe, the EU is splintering in the face of British lies. The EU Foreign Ministers on Monday failed miserably in an effort to pass a resolution supporting the British-French-US attack on Syria, with eight countries refusing to support it, including Italy, Belgium, And Austria.

In the U.S., eleven Republican Congressmen forwarded a criminal complaint to the Department of Justice for "investigation of potential violation of federal statutes" by the primary assets of the British MI6 coup attemt against Trump: the disgraced former FBI chief James Comey and his equally disgraced deputy Andrew McCabe; Hillary Clinton (for disguising her financing of the infamous Steele dossier); Obama's Attorney General Loretta Lynch; and two current FBI agents Strzok and Page who plotted to peddle the British lies against Trump.

The Empire is badly bruised, but is not yet destroyed. The moment of opportunity to crush it, once and for all, is at hand — but their desperation can not be ignored. The post-World War II order established through the United Nations, to prevent another world war, is to be abolished in a new "East vs. West" military confrontation under British control. Prime Minister Theresa May last November called for a new "Global Britain,", and, leaving nothing to the imagination, said, "the task for global Britain is clear.... To defend the rules-based international order against irresponsible states that seek to erode it..., chief among those... is, of course, Russia.... I have a very simple message for Russia: we know what you are doing. And you will not succeed."

Gen. Sir Nick Carter, whom May appointed as the new Chief of the Defense Staff in March, has declared Russia to be the "arch-exponent" of "exploiting the seams between peace and war... [practicing] corrupt business practices, cyber-attacks, assassination, fake news, propaganda and indeed military intimidation."

But the dying British Empire is indeed naked without the U.S. functioning as their "dumb giant," as was the case with Obama and Bush in the White House, waging wars of mass destruction across the Mideast and bankrupting the Western financial system through speculation and wars. Trump can and must be persuaded to act on his best impulses — to befriend Russia, and to join fully in China's New Silk Road. To that end, the LaRouche Political Action Committee this week will reprint an updated version of the mass circulation pamphlet "America's Future on the New Silk Road — LaRouche's Four Laws: The Physical Economic Principles for the Recovery of the United States."

The entire escalation of this "legal assassination" of President Trump is the work of Special Counsel, and corrupt former FBI Director, Robert Mueller. Mueller has now gone far, far beyond his mandated investigation of the 2016 election, because that "Russiagate" investigation failed. His aim now is to charge the President with anything, to bring him down. Mueller merely referred the task of executing the raids against Trump attorney Michael Cohen, to the New York U.S. Attorney. That U.S. Attorney, a Trump appointee, has already been forced to recuse himself from the case — prosecution of Cohen is turned back over to Mueller, who will try to force the President's personal attorney of 25 years to turn against him.

If Donald Trump were a Saudi Prince, Robert Mueller would be protecting him. If he were CEO of Wells Fargo bank, Mueller would be negotiating a non-prosecution agreement with him. But he is President of the United States, and opposes the constant war policies of British geopoliticians.

The new attack on the President and Constitution followed his attempt, 10 days ago, to order the National Security Council and Joint Chiefs of Staff to withdraw the United States military from Syria. Mueller's attack is linked directly to the hoax of a chemical weapons attack in Syria, by the British-run "White Helmets" so-called first responders organization, who collaborate with the jihadi terrorists in Syria.

In March 2017 when President Trump said "regime change in Syria is not our mission," the staged chemical weapons attack on children in the city of Khan Sheikhoun occurred to change his mind, and the British Defense Secretary convinced Defense Secretary James Mattis to attack Syria with cruise missiles. Mattis admitted recently there was no evidence. Now when President Trump says, "We're leaving Syria, soon," the White Helmets stage another chemical attack, and Britain and France demand war on Syria.

Anyone can see this could lead — for no purpose — to a new world war, which will be unsurvivable.

This is the war policy which is the aim for which the "legal assassin" Mueller has been deployed against the President and the Constitution. Congressional leaders like Senators Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell have reacted by defending Mueller's actions. Any Member of Congress who does this should be thrown out.

The LaRouche Political Action Committee is mobilizing to stop Mueller, and the war drive, with an urgent national broadside. It says, "In 2013, when Obama threatened war with Russia over Syria, the American people intervened, raised the roof of Congress, and stopped it. That is what is needed now.... Stop the drive to war and shut down Robert Mueller now."

They see that geopolitical order being replaced by China's new paradigm of cooperation of great powers for the progress of all nations and the productivity of their peoples: the Belt and Road Initiative of new infrastructure projects and poverty eradication. They want China contained, the Belt and Road put under City of London rules, but cannot make that happen. They want China's ally Russia confronted and even challenged to fight.

They face disaffected British populations and a determined and widely-backed leader in Labour's Jeremy Corbyn, who fights their geopolitical policies and the financial crimes of the City of London financial imperial banking center. They want Corbyn tarred a "Kremlin stooge" by the tabloids and driven out.

They continue to see strong resistance to London geopolitical from President Donald Trump. After 18 months of non-stop attacks on Trump originating from British intelligence services, aimed to break him or remove him, he continues to favor great-power cooperation, and is gaining in American public backing.

And they face, very soon, a new crash of the London-Wall Street banking cabal worse than 2007-08. The British imperial answer to that threat has always been war.

Despite hysterically supportive major media, the "new Churchills" of London do not have the momentum they imagine for war confrontation. Not even in the UK — but for them, running America is always what counts most.

What is crucial now, is that President Trump and the United States choose the offer of China, the Belt and Road Initiative, and let its paradigm of productive economic progress rub off a bit.

Tax cuts, Wall Street deregulation have not and will not revive American growth from its long stagnation, or fill its huge infrastructure deficit. The actions proposed by EIR founder Lyndon LaRouche will, starting by breaking up Wall Street with a new Glass-Steagall Act. These actions, including the first national credit institution the United States has had since Franklin Roosevelt's RFC, are aimed at joining the United States into a global cooperation of sovereign nations for "the common aims of mankind."

Empire Spokesmen Launch Insane Warnings of Surprise Attacks from Russia and China

Feb. 22, 2018 (EIRNS)—The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has just issued a new report, “Coping with Surprise in Great Power Conflicts,” which insanely warns Americans to be on the alert for surprise attacks from Russia or China. And why should either of them stage a surprise attack on the United States, you ask? Because this study comes from the insane utopian school of the Rand Corporation, and the Andy Marshall who occupied a top position in the Pentagon from the Nixon years until 2015. This gang has contributed a particularly crack-brained current to neo-conservatism.

“The greatest vulnerability to strategic surprise today comes from the Russians and the Chinese because of the wide variety of tools available to them. Concerns abound that Russia will launch a surprise attack on the Baltic states of Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania. These NATO members are particularly vulnerable: militarily weak, geographically exposed, and internally divided by ethnic tensions. Russia frequently conducts nearby ‘snap’ exercises, which could be used as cover for attack preparations. Russia’s use of ‘gray zone’ operations could provide pre-invasion softening of the target.

“Concerns about China arise from the ‘Thucydides trap,’ the proposition that there is a high risk of war between a rising China and a status quo United States. Taiwan and the South China Sea are frequently cited as friction points. Although such a war looks irrational, it would not be unprecedented. China entered the Korean War against the United States in 1950 even though it had recently endured years of civil war and millions of casualties. It took on a nuclear power at a time when it had no nuclear weapons of its own and did this only five years after the United States had vanquished Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.”

If that convinces you that Russia or China are about to mount a surprise attack on the U.S., then there may be a job waiting for you among the computer brains of the Rand Corporation. But it’s another day’s work in puffing up the enemy image of China and Russia, combatting the New Silk Road that Americans are never supposed to hear about, and trying to undermine President Donald Trump.

Britain's Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA) on Jan. 25 issued instructions to America to "see Russia as a threat," and stated that "striking a grand bargain" of cooperation with Russia — for example, against international terrorism — "would implicitly accept that the current world order is no longer functional." The RIAA couldn't make it more clear. The British geopolitical world order depends on U.S.-Russia confrontation; the ultimatum to President-elect Donald Trump was delivered by the heads of the intelligence agencies already in a meeting of Jan. 6, 2017 at Trump Tower: Confront and attack Russia (and China) or we will scandalize you with this British dossier, and throw you out.

This is their criminal, actually treasonous act which is now being exposed. The world is living with its consequences, however, in the growing threat of actual thermonuclear war, and we will live with that until and unless this British-U.S. intelligence conspiracy is thoroughly broken up.

Some Representatives in Congress have now called for the next step — criminal investigation and potential prosecution of the intelligence officials who acted to block and disqualify President Trump from the Presidency, solely because of his policy towards Russia. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes called the conspiracy against Trump "That's something that happens in banana republics."

There have not actually been any banana republics in South America for some time, only republics cooperating with China and the BRICS and successfully becoming industrial and scientific leaders. In other words, violating the British geopolitical world order. And the presidents and former presidents of those republics — Brazil's Lula and Dilma Rousseff, Argentina's Fernandez de Kirchner, Ecuador's Correa — have been targeted for scandal and overthrow just as Trump was to be overthrown, and by the very same teams at FBI and CIA led by Robert Mueller, James Comey, et al.

Robert Mueller 30 years ago, as Boston U.S. Attorney, led the prosecutions attempting to eliminate Lyndon LaRouche as a political leader. LaRouche in 1984 was challenging the British geopolitical world order as no one else. He had influenced Ronald Reagan to offer U.S.-Russian missile defense cooperation in the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), and was moving great infrastructure projects and proposing international development banks to spread the revolutionary SDI military technologies into industry all over the world.

Many Republican leaders now are fighting the attack on President Trump, which originated in British intelligence, and simultaneously pushing the British policy of sharp confrontations with Russia and China themselves! As the head of the well-known Munich Security Conference just observed, the Congress is preventing President Trump from urgent improvements in U.S.-Russia relations.

The American people, and their constituency leaders, have to intervene to save the nation, using the 2018 Congressional elections.

We need coordinated reinstatement of Glass-Steagall bank separation across the United States and Europe, before London and Wall Street take our economies into another, worse crash.

We need international agreements to build the most crucial new infrastructure worldwide, accepting China's leadership in its Belt and Road Initiative. America itself has huge deficits for urgent new economic infrastructure, and needs to form a national credit institution to participate; a new Rooseveltian Reconstruction Finance Corporation, or a Hamiltonian national bank.

And we could have an international agreement to develop new-technology defenses which work against thermonuclear missiles. It has recently been confirmed ("The British Sabotaged the Second Try for an SDI with Russia," EIR Daily Alert, Jan. 23, 2018) that Russia has been ready for 25 years to resume Reagan's SDI, with the United States, to develop real anti-missile defenses and new spin-off technologies — and that Britain has strongly opposed this.

Remember that after the crime of the two atomic bombings of Japan, nuclear weapons were never used during the Cold War—although there were many near-misses and lucky breaks. U.S. troops never fought Russian troops. Although U.S. and Chinese troops fought in Korea, the two nations were never actually at war. We had a very close call in the Cuban Missiles Crisis—civilization was only saved by the soon-to-be-assassinated President Jack Kennedy. But somehow, for forty years, the madmen who were legion on both sides were ultimately contained—often just barely so.

But are they contained now? Is this what you see in the current government shutdown, or in Durbin's obscene libel? Just the opposite! The meaning of "the Resistance" is that the lunatics have taken over the asylum, as in Edgar Allan Poe's "The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether." Their "strategy" is "bring it on!" "The worse the better!" Especially now when facts are about to be made public which explode the whole "Russiagate" hoax against President Trump and the Constitution. They hope against hope, that if they simply turn everything upside down and throw it out the window, maybe, somehow, that will lead to the removal of the hated President Trump.

A man who used his brains fully while living half of his adult life in the Cold War is Lyndon LaRouche. With uncanny accuracy, he forecast the way out from under the shadow of thermonuclear holocaust. The Belt and Road, the New Silk Road, is nothing but today's form of his vision going back to the 1960s. Even though it was never properly adopted by both the superpowers—although we came very close to that—his Strategic Defense Initiative nevertheless brought the Cold War to an end at the close of the 1980s, as LaRouche had so precisely forecast. LaRouche and his method, with his Four Laws which incorporate the SDI within his whole career as a groundbreaking scientist and economist, can bring us through this crisis in time to escape the disaster which threatens.

'Sharp Power' is NED Creation for a New Cold War

Jan. 22, 2018 (EIRNS)—"Sharp Power," the geopolitical neologism now being bandied about by the likes of Republican Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) against Russia and China, finds its roots in the bowels of the geopolitical thinktank, the National Endowment for Democracy. On Dec. 6, 2017, the NED held a day-long seminar, "Sharp Power, Rising Authoritarian Influence," which defined the parameters of the thought-object for a new generation. Earlier postings by the group indicate that the imperialists had been thinking along these lines since at least September of last year.

Until recently, during a previous Cold War, conflict between the superpowers had been characterized as either "hard," meaning military, or "soft," meaning cultural or academic efforts of subversion. Finding those descriptions too limited for today’s situation, the term "sharp" power was settled on—in their words, literally as a "catch-all term" for any form of influence which is not otherwise classifiable as hard or soft. As described in the conference literature,

"authoritarian influence efforts in young and vulnerable democracies are sharp in the sense that they pierce, penetrate, or perforate the information and political environments in the targeted countries."

By this description, then, Russia’s efforts at manipulation through media sources such as RT (or alleged Presidential election-rigging) are just as "sharp" as China’s efforts to raise the poor out of poverty, increase productivity by infrastructure construction, or improve living standards for the entire planet. From an article, "The Meaning of Sharp Power: How Authoritarian States Project Influence," by (conference participants) Christopher Walker and Jessica Ludwig, in Foreign Affairs from Nov. 16, 2017:

"The serious challenge posed by authoritarian sharp power requires a multidimensional response that includes unmasking Chinese and Russian influence efforts that rely in large part on camouflage—disguising state-directed projects as the work of commercial media or grassroots associations, for example, or using local actors as conduits for foreign propaganda and tools of foreign manipulation."

Lavrov, Peskov Blame U.S. Opposition for Worsening Relations

Jan. 22, 2018 (EIRNS)—Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov blame U.S. opposition for preventing U.S. President Donald Trump from improving relations between Russia and the United States.

In an interview with Russian daily Kommersant, Lavrov said Trump was being forced to make anti-Russian decisions under the pressure of his national political opponents.

"When U.S. President Donald Trump received me in the White House, when he spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Hamburg and later they held telephone conversations, I did not see U.S. President Trump’s charge [mandate] for any sort of actions, which could undermine his election campaign slogans that he wanted good relations with Russia,"

Lavrov said, reported TASS. Lavrov attributed the U.S. stance towards Russia to three factors: the defeat of Hillary Clinton, the outside-the-system character of Donald Trump, and the need to explain why everything does not goes well for the United States in the international arena. Trump is forced into making anti-Russian decisions under such conditions, according to Lavrov.

"One should probably understand that under conditions, when bills are passed by the majority of votes (95%), the President comes to think not about the essence of the draft law, how real it is, legitimate or decent, but that his veto would be eventually overturned,"

Lavrov said.

"We are comforted that recently some members of the Congress, political circles in the United States and some diplomats acknowledge quietly in their confidential talks the absolute abnormality of such situation and the need to improve it."

Speaking on a TV show on the Rossiya 1 channel, Peskov blamed the domestic atmosphere in the United States as the cause preventing Trump from establishing good relations with Russia.

"I think so.... We are certain about it, because, while, let’s say, we are barely in a position to give estimations of internal politics inside the U.S., but, nevertheless, it is quite obvious that the internal climate, let’s put it this way, is rather unfriendly regarding our country,"

Peskov said.

China's Strong Response to U.S. Provocations

Jan. 22, 2018 (EIRNS)—China’s Foreign Ministry and Defense Ministry both issued strong objections to the violation of the 12-nautical-mile limit of Huangyan Island in the South China Sea by the missile destroyer USS Hopper, Global Times reported yesterday in an unsigned editorial. Global Times is published under the auspices of the Chinese Communist Party’s People’s Daily newspaper. Global Times sets out the evidence of growing U.S. alarm about China’s rise: 1) the U.S. National Security Strategy called China a “rival”; 2) the Pentagon gave more importance to competition with China and Russia than the fight against terrorism in its Jan. 19 National Defense Strategy, and 3) U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said the U.S. “mistakenly” supported China’s WTO membership in 2001. Global Times goes on, that the U.S. “needs to reckon with the returns and losses and take a high-stake move to turn its diplomacy with China from a controllable process into a gamble.  

“Neither China nor the U.S. will win if they enter into a Cold War. Those who advocate it, underestimate its repercussions on the U.S., which is unprepared for the risks and pain required to ‘Make America Great Again."...

“China’s pursuit of a win for all is not understandable to all Westerners, and may even be taken by some Americans as a scheme to evade U.S. containment. We should just let it be in terms of ties with the U.S.

“With fewer cards, the U.S. finds it difficult to confront China, and sending a naval vessel in the South China Sea is something easier.”

China can handle it, the editorial continues, and

“the U.S. is doomed to fail in this respect.... China is able to send more military vessels as a response and can take steps like militarizing islands. This can by no means bring honor to the Trump administration.”

Countdown to State of the Union: Will Trump Renounce Geopolitics?

With only eight days to go until the State of the Union, the battle for the soul of the Trump Presidency continues to rage. Despite Trump's personal inclination towards cooperation with Russia and China, the National Defense Strategy summary just released by Secretary Jim Mattis runs directly contrary in its inflammatory language towards those countries, stating that "great power competition" will be the primary focus of US national security. With this, rather than an end to geopolitics and a new era of "great power cooperation" as Helga LaRouche has demanded, this document fans the flames of a new Cold War which could swiftly provoke a thermonuclear WWIII.

As deep staters within the Bureau panic at the thought of their spying against the Trump campaign coming out with the memo drafted by Rep. Nunes, which is due to be declassified within days if not weeks, it isn't surprising that we see more flailing attempts at deflection. On Monday night, The Washington Post, Axios and others carried water for James Comey's successor Christopher Wray, who defended Comey's number two from Sessions urging him to fire Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. 

Incidentally, Matt Tait @PwnAlltheThings and Comey's pals at Lawfare Blog led by Benjamin Wittes have insisted McCabe had no conflict of interest after his wife received campaign cash from Hillary Clinton crony Terry McAuliffe, due to McCabe only joining the investigation into Clinton's illegal home server and the classified data it contained after her failed Virginia state senate race. We now know from the second released batch of texts between Strzok and Page that Comey had given then Attorney General Loretta Lynch advance notice of his intent to clear Clinton from the charge of gross negligence in mishandling classified information. We also know Strzok and Page referred to McCabe affectionately as 'Andy' in their texts, which were exchanged on taxpayer funded, Bureau issued phones and thereby are not private communications.

Far from merely serving in an apolitical counterintelligence role, one that supposedly included deep expertise on Russian espionage, Strzok assisted in changing Comey's Congressional testimony from calling Clinton 'grossly negligent' to 'extremely careless'. In other words, Strzok helped his bosses Comey and McCabe pervert justice. Strzok and the Comey/McCabe crew spun Hillary's premeditated crime, which involved the destruction of hard drives and other evidence demonstrating a guilty mind after the fact, into carelessness. The hard drive smashing also occurred after Comey and McCabe's FBI gave out immunity deals to "aides Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson — two of Hillary Clinton's top former aides who went on to become her personal attorneys during the FBI's email investigation". -- JWS

FROM EIR DAILY ALERT

Jan. 19, 2018 (EIRNS)— Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has unleashed an operation that could quickly bring down the coup attempt by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his British controllers—and fully confirm the charges documented in the LaRouche PAC pamphlet documenting Mueller's crimes ("Robert Mueller Is an Amoral Assassin. He Will Do His Job if You Let Him.").

On Jan. 18, Nunes wrote a four-page classified memo, the so-called "FISA memo," documenting key elements gleaned from the material he had extracted, with great difficulty and with help from the courts, from the FBI and the Department of Justice (DOJ) on the MI6-Christopher Steele dossier and the role of the Fusion GPS "cash for trash" company, on behalf of the Democratic Party and the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, in leaking and circulating the dossier.

Reports had been circulating that the documents obtained proved many of the accusations made in the LaRouchePAC report, including that the discredited Steele dossier, unvetted and unsubstantiated, was the basis for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court ruling allowing the FBI to spy on the Trump Presidential campaign, and then on the President's team after he took office. The problem was, how to make this criminal activity public, and to force criminal charges against the perpetrators within the Barack Obama intelligence operation.

On Jan. 18, the House Intelligence Committee voted along party lines to allow every Member of Congress to read the classified four-page memo. Not one Democrat on the Committee voted for it, even though it would allow their fellow Democrats to read it.

Developments have moved very quickly since then, setting off a political firestorm in Washington. The hysteria among Democrats is reaching a fever pitch, with Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, charging that Nunes is on a campaign to undermine and discredit the FBI and our "law enforcement professionals," insisting that the memo is just a collection of inaccuracies and unfounded accusations. Various media outlets—Britain's Reuters most prominently—have gone so far as to suggest that Nunes is in league with the Russians, as Russian bots and Twitter accounts are promoting release of the memo under the hashtag #releasethememo.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) released a statement on Jan. 18 that began:

"The House must immediately make public the memo prepared by the Intelligence Committee regarding the FBI and the Department of Justice. The facts contained in this memo are jaw-dropping and demand full transparency. There is no higher priority than the release of this information to preserve our democracy."

On Jan. 20, Gaetz led 64 other Republicans who had read the memo in signing a letter to Nunes, urging its release, and saying,

"The audience of this document should not be limited to Members of Congress—the American people deserve to know the information it contains."

Other Republican congressmen who read the classified memo continue to publicly state their shock at what they read.

Speaking on Fox News, Gaetz asserted that "I think that this will not end just with firings. I believe there are people who will go to jail. I was very persuaded by the evidence." The entire Mueller investigation

"is a lie built on a foundation of corruption.... It is a real attempt to undermine the President.... It would be ludicrous if we allow the Mueller probe to go ahead."

Although Representative Nunes is not telegraphing his next move, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) told Fox TV: "This could happen real quick. Chairman Nunes is committed to getting this information to the public."