Welcome to Suspicious Angels

For most of us, the result on November 5 was a real shocker. Despite what the polls predicted, American voters, 66% of those eligible to vote, trooped to the polls and pronounced the verdict: throw the bums out. And they did. Giving a thumbs down to the whole team which dashed the hopes of the sitting vice-president Kamala Harris. Let’s start with the bottom line. Donald Trump received the most votes (76.5 million vs 74 million for Harris), beating Kamala handily in 31 states including all 7 swing states. Adding to the catastrophic defeat at the top of the ticket, the Democrats saw Republicans make inroads not only in traditionally red states, but reliably blue ones as well. Take New York state, blue to its core, in 2020 Trump received 37% of the vote while Joe Biden captured 61%. No surprises there. But look what happened this year. Trump walked away with 44% of the vote, a 7% increase while Harris at 56% lost 5% of Biden’s stash.

So far we’ve been looking at the voters who actually went to the polls and voted. What about that tranche of eligible Americans who stayed home or went fishing in 2024 after voting in 2020. How did that work out for Harris? Judge for yourself. In 2020, Biden ended up with 81 million votes according to “certified” results. In 2024 Harris only pulled in 74 million votes. 7 million less than Biden. Did all those democratic votes go to Trump? In 2020 Trump received 74 million votes. While in 2024, he received 76 million votes, only 2 million more. That leaves 5 million democratic votes recorded in 2020 but MIA in 2024.

There are two alternate theories for what happened to 5 million democratic votes between 2020 and 2024. For conspiracy theorists, did Joe Biden really get the 81 million votes the bean counters in Washington reported? A more realistic view would probably point in another direction. There were 2 million democratic voters who “held their noses” and voted for Trump. The remaining 5 million who voted for Biden in 2020 and were sorely disappointed by Harris didn’t vote for either candidate.

How to explain such a reversal? President Reagan had the answer. One simple question that drove Jimmy Carter out of the White House in 1980. On campaign stops, Ronald Reagan would ask the crowd—”Are you better off than you were 4 years ago“? Then as now, the overwhelming response was: Hell no.

When it comes to simple but successful messaging, Bill Clinton’s rode “It’s the economy stupid” into two terms in the White House. Pollsters claim that Americans decide who to vote for in the grocery store when they’re standing in the check-out line. Why is that important?

In 2023 over 50% of the 120 million households in America, had an annual household income that was less than $75,000. For them going to the grocery store has become a hair-raising experience. The prices of staples like milk, eggs and butter have skyrocketed. Worse still “shrinkflation” has left hapless shoppers shaking their heads. Ever reach for a 5-pound bag of sugar and find that it’s only 4 pounds. What hasn’t changed is the price.

Since inflation has taken a big chunk out of take-home pay, millions of Americans reach for their high-interest credit card. But wait credit card interest rates have risen 40% since 2021. The Biden/Harris administration ushered in rate hikes on most of the services U.S. households have come to rely on. Interest rates on mortgages up 114%, student loan interest rates almost doubled from 4% to 7%, energy prices soared out of sight and state and local tax hikes have put a further strain on household budgets. U.S. consumers are in a sour mood as they watch their debt loads increase. Household debt currently is an eye-popping 17.94 trillion. [Federal Bank of New York] What they probably didn’t want to hear was a democratic convention and its presidential candidate proclaiming joyful times ahead absent the policies to make it happen.

American voters expect all candidates for elected offices, especially presidents, to make promises, the more extravagant the better. And Trump didn’t let them down. How about his promise to end the Ukrainian war in 24 hours or to deport millions of undocumented immigrants on day one. When Trump doesn’t end the war or deport millions on day one will that hurt his popularity? Aside from a few mainstream media pundits who will tut, tut over it, the vast majority of voters won’t remember and won’t care. That’s how it goes. The same voters who demand promises seldom if ever hold it against the victors when they fail to deliver. Even Joe Biden made promises from his basement in 2020. He promised to raise the minimum wage to $15/hour and he promised a public option in Obamacare. After he was elected, both promises disappeared down the black hole where presidential campaign promises go never to be seen again. Kamala’s made a few unconvincing promises —something she called the “opportunity economy.” Most Americans were unimpressed, preferring a few more dollars in their paychecks.

Two other promises — a $6,000 tax credit for newborns only and a $25,000 subsidy for first time home buyers only — never caught on with the electorate. If your kid is older than his birth or you’re on your second home buy, Kamala has nothing to offer you.

On two foreign policy issues that have dogged the Biden/Harris administration, Harris showed the same resistance to the demands of the electorate: she failed to convince even her base much less republicans that she had a solution to the Ukraine disaster. Instead, when she did mention it, she echoed the Biden administration’s failed policy — “[I] will stand strong with Ukraine and our NATO allies.” Trouble is 66% of all Americans want the U.S. to back down, force a peace treaty on Ukraine immediately and then in America’s time-honored tradition — vamoose. On the subject of Israel’s brutal war, the best she could do was to repeat the Biden fairy tale that Israel had a right to defend itself. Nor would she promise to stop sending weapons to Israel. Instead, voters heard statements that sounded like thin gruel — “I will do everything in my power to end the war in Gaza.” As if daring three quarters of her own party who “express a negative view of Israel’s actions [pollster lingo for butt out America]” along with 60% of independents to challenge her. Which they did in droves by either not voting or voting for Trump.

One thing for sure: it was the economy that doomed the democrats. Look no further than Trump snagging a majority of working-class voters. They became outliers in a democrat party that pledges its allegiance to suburban women, LBGTQ voters, professionals and college graduates — the new “rock stars” in the democratic firmament.

Sound familiar? Here’s how the big poobahs in the democrat party thought they had the winning strategy for Hillary Clinton in 2016. “For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin.”[Chuck Schumer, Senate Majority leader] Nice try, Chuck, how did that work in 2016, same way it worked out in 2024.

The mood of Americans as November 5 hove into view probably tells us all we need to know about the results — on that day 3/4 of voters were downright angry and dissatisfied about the direction of the country, one half strongly disapproved of Biden and 46% said they were worse off in the last four years than voters in all previous exit poll have reported. Who can blame them. Harris was joined at the hip to an administration blamed for a widespread cost of living crisis in housing, healthcare and child care, two intractable wars costing U.S. taxpayers billions, an increasing immigration crisis. The mystery is not why Harris lost but how in the world she managed to snag 74 million votes.

The best obituary on the democratic 2024 catastrophe came from Bernie Sanders albeit eight years too late: “It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them. While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they’re right.”

Trump may have won and Harris lost but think about it, the real losers are the American people. Promises made, promises broken. It’s the tale of every election since 1945. Whoever makes the most convincing promises wins. As history teaches us — when the winner walks into the Oval Office, the promises fly out the window.

Voters wanted change. And something did change — the other arm of the war party took over. What didn’t change was the misery: a healthcare system that excels in only one thing —making money, a financial system controlled by billionaires, an energy sector whose middle name is price-gouging and who despite record profits still receives an annual $15 billion taxpayer-funded subsidy (in 2020 Biden handed over an additional $15 billion in federal relief; why not they’re owned by Wall Street, one of Biden’s major donor) let’s not forget to add to this list of federally-endorsed giveaways the growing intrusiveness of the government in alliance with private tech companies like Google and Facebook and a myriad of others intent on eliminating privacy along with free speech and other constitutional guarantees.

What we do know is that Trump won and Harris lost. What many Americans don’t know yet is that as the democratic clown car moves out and the republican clown car moves in, the commitment to business as usual remains steadfast regardless of which party wins. The billionaires who fund the candidates will decide. Count on it. For the people it’s just another day in a high-class banana republic.

The Bobbsey Twins* Reincarnated —Hubert Humphrey & Kamala Harris
[*Bobbsey Twins, fictional character featured in a series of children’s books]

On November 5,1968 President Lyndon Johnson departed the White House leaving his vice-president Hubert Humphrey to run for president as the democratic candidate.

On November 5, 2024, fifty-six years later, President Joe Biden departed the White House leaving his vice-president Kamala Harris to run for president as the democratic candidate.

Why is it important? Because history matters. In the case of Vice President Harris whose fate will be decided by voters next week, it may well be decisive. Both Humphrey and Harris have an eerie similarity when it comes to their ascension to the top spot on their respective tickets, the immediate cause being the downfall of their predecessors due to their catastrophic domestic and foreign policies. The vice-presidents in the best tradition of American politics were left to justify these wrong-headed policies. How they chose to do it is stunning in its similarity and tragic in the message it sends about America’s leaders.

Begin with the implosion of both Johnson and Biden. On March 31, 1968 in a televised speech to the American people, President Johnson announced his intention to vacate the Oval Office. “I shall not seek and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president…” Not a huge surprise when you consider, as most did not at the time, the mess he was in. Half a million U.S. soldiers fighting and dying in Vietnam, 20,000 already returning in body bags in a war the U.S. never had a chance of winning. Domestically, deadly riots were destroying major parts of inner cities and the economy was in free fall. His approval rating was 36%. Losing the presidency was not the issue, winning the nomination was.

Joe Biden faced a similar set of imponderables but unlike Johnson was dragged kicking and screaming to his announcement. He finally succumbed to the demands of party oligarchs, some of the same ones who had been supporting his wars in the first place. On July 21 (less than four months before the election) he announced “while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down…” Aside from doubts about his mental competency, the U.S. had become involved in two unpopular wars—the one in Ukraine which had already cost the American taxpayer $175 billion. The Israeli attack on Gaza which has led to the deaths of 42,000 civilians most of them women and children has horrified many Americans and made the US government complicit in what the International Court of Justice deems a “plausible” case of genocide by supplying Israel with armaments worth $20 billion. On the domestic front, although the Federal Reserve keeps up the happy talk on the economy, the American people aren’t buying it. To the question — In general, are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States at this time? It turned out that a resounding three-quarters of Americans were dissatisfied. [Gallup Poll, October 1-12] Is it any wonder that Biden’s approval rating when he was made to retire was 39%?

What a quandary for two hapless candidates. Of all the options available, the most promising of which was to campaign as clean slate candidates, they chose the least promising. Justifying and excusing the inexcusable. Here is Hubert Humphrey in 1968 excusing his failure to challenge his boss as the Vietnam quagmire soaked up more and more American blood and treasure. “The vice president of the United States is one of the president’s advisors. He is not president. And that’s the first thing he needs to learn.” Kamala went him one better and proved herself to be in need of a good therapist. When asked by the “ladies” of the View, “If anything, would you have done something differently than President Biden during the past four years?” She answered without hesitation “there is not a thing that comes to mind.“

While both sets of advisors reached for their blood pressure pills, the race was on to clean up the damage both had done to their election hopes. Stunningly they adopted similar mea culpas. First Humphrey on 9/30/1968 — “The policies of tomorrow need not be limited by the policies of yesterday. We must look to the future.” Then Kamala came to the plate with a real whooper — “My administration will not be a continuation of the Biden administration. I bring to this role my own ideas and my own experience. I represent a new generation of leadership on a number of issues and believe we have to actually take new approaches.“

Feel reassured yet?

Neither totally renounced the hash both Johnson and Biden had made of their presidencies. Realizing he needed to put a little (very little as it turned out) distance between himself and Johnson, Humphrey added this disclaimer — “I would not undertake a unilateral withdrawal. To withdraw would not only jeopardize the independence of South Vietnam and the safety of other Southeast Asian nations. (the ‘domino theory’ was hugely popular among many of Johnson’s foreign policy advisors) it would make meaningless the sacrifices we have already made.” Kamala, on the other hand, was marching to the beat of a drummer that only she could hear. Wait for it folks, it’s coming the theme song of the whole bought and paid for congress and White House purchased by the Israeli lobby—”I will always give Israel the ability to defend itself and in particular, as it relates to Iran and any threat that Iran and its proxies pose to Israel.”

It gets worse, much worse. When Anderson Cooper asked: “What do you say to voters who are thinking about supporting a third-party candidate, or staying on the couch, not voting at all because of this issue [the genocide in Gaza]?” Her answer (word salad alert: died and been killed?): “I don’t know that anyone who has seen the images who would not have strong feelings about what has happened, much less those who have relatives, who have died and been killed. And I, and I know people and I’ve talked with people, so I appreciate that. But I also do know that for many people who care about this issue, they also care about bringing down the price of groceries.”

What? Admittedly she’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but swap the slaughter of thousands of Palestinians for affordable groceries? As Faustian bargains go, it’s a dilly.

So here we are on the cusp of the election. Like her long-ago twin, she has ignored the lessons of history. Her party platform is long on identity politics, short on the dangers of the world inching closer to nuclear annihilation. Perhaps today Americans do not want a new boss the same as the old boss. Did they ever? Fifty-six years later and nothing has changed — the same old lies and justifications. It didn’t work for Humphrey. Will it work for Harris?

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” [George Santayana, The Life of Reason, 1905]

How many presidents have been in office since 1945? Fourteen. How many have been in power? Zero. Heads of state in the US serve a necessary purpose and it has little to do with power. Mostly a focal point for Americans to rally around when it comes to natural disasters, school shootings or war. But the real center of power lies elsewhere — in the intelligence agencies (in sixty years the number of such secret agencies has doubled from 9 in 1964 to 18 in 2024) and in the military and their partners in the military industrial complex. Add to that the masters of the universe in business and finance, and a carefully selected group of think tank heavies and even a number of billionaires who bankroll both the republican and democratic parties.

Today we call it the deep state (aka the blob) a neocon-led gangster enterprise which promotes the fiction of US hegemony in a unipolar world.  A staple of the deep state is an aggressive foreign policy that has been instrumental in the placement of at least 750 U.S. military bases in 85 countries, in transforming NATO from a defensive alliance formed in 1949 at the start of the cold war into an offensive one making and losing wars all over the world.

Where does the president fit in?  His (or maybe hers after the November election) role in the deep state is to be a cheerleader for the corporate and financial interests that are vital to the longevity of the deep state. He is also a reliable mouthpiece for promoting the US empire as the global hegemon.

But what if he (or she) steps out of line? A big mistake as Chuck Schumer head poo-bah of the US Senate declared proudly in 2019.  No doubt he meant it as a warning to then-President Trump —“You take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.” Even the non-conspiracy-minded took note after the ham-handed CIA response to the attempt on Trump’s life in July. Could it be the deep state’s reaction to the idea of a second Trump administration?  Even CNN, a fervent supporter of the war hawks and neoconservatives that make up the deep state, expressed some skepticism about the handling of the assassination attempt—”Secret Service faces serious questions about security footprint and rooftop access at Trump event”

Let’s be clear about one thing. Trump’s unpredictability, his habit of saying the quiet part out loud unnerves the warmongers and those who profit from wars. After the US invaded Syria, another violation of international law this time on Obama’s watch, Trump officials tried to put a happy face on it. Trump’s defense secretary, a factotum of the deep state, took the usual way out — he lied: “Our mission is the enduring defeat of Isis.”  Trump was the truthteller that day: “We’re keeping the oil. We have the oil. The oil is secure. We left troops behind only for the oil.” Who knows what a second term of that unpredictability might mean for the deep state.

The deep state’s enforcement arm might also be concerned about Trump’s proclivity to accuse NATO members of “ripping us [the U.S.] off.  In 2023, the U.S. paid 68% of NATO’s defense budget, close to $1 trillion. As NATO is essential to US plans for future wars, another Trump presidency strikes “fear and loathing” in the hearts and minds of war hawks who control the deep state.

President John F. Kennedy was another president who forgot his place in the ruling class food chain. After the 1961 CIA-run Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba turned into a “shit show” (phrase used by President Obama to describe another CIA misadventure this time in Libya), President Kennedy, who had actually authorized the plan, spoke openly about “splinter[ing] the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter[ing] it into the winds.” Piling one blunder on another, he also fired the devious, yet powerful CIA director Allen Dulles. Two years later, on November 22, he was assassinated in Texas. Three decades later, the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 was passed authorizing the review and release of all records related to the assassination by 2017. In a rare display of bipartisanship, both Trump and Biden have declined to release the 4,700 documents still sealed. Their refusal has “deep state” written all over it.

When it comes to the U.S. government, the question of “Who’s in charge?” can be answered in three words: the deep state. Running shotgun for this group of power-mad capitalists is the CIA. Operating outside of constitutional checks and balances, its highest priority is shredding the constitution, particularly the first amendment. It is allowed to operate any way it chooses because a little-known law, the Central Intelligence Act of 1949, exempts the CIA from all federal laws requiring the disclosure of the “functions, names, official titles, salaries or numbers of personnel employed by the agency” and gives it the power to spend money “without regard to the provisions of law and regulations relating to the expenditure of government funds.”

The CIA has virtually limitless power to invade or interfere in the affairs of other countries on the made-up excuse of restoring order, thwarting “aggression” or fighting terrorism. Have the results of their operations strengthened the U.S. militarily, economically or socially? History provides the answer. After 38,000 young Americans died in the undeclared Korean war back in 1953, the U.S. emerged empty-handed, with only an armistice to show for the appalling loss of both Korean and American lives. The U.S. was not so lucky in subsequent wars, it took fifteen years to hightail it out of Vietnam, ten years to lose in Iraq and twenty years before it gave up the ghost in Afghanistan. Another debacle is waiting in the wings as the U.S. continues its military and financial support of Ukraine’s failing proxy war with Russia. Trying to destroy Russia’s economy, the U.S. and its allies have slapped massive sanctions on it. Far from hurting the Russian economy the sanctions have reinvigorated it. Sanctions are never the answer as those targeting Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Syria, and China have also been a bust.

With failure on the battlefield the norm, who or what is keeping the deep state in business? The rich folks and their criminogenic enterprises, particularly arms manufacturers like Raytheon and Boeing, tech firms like Apple, Goggle and Meta, financial asset firms like Blackrock and Vanguard, and the biggest, most powerful U.S. financial institutions. U.S. officials brazenly admit that the deep state is designed to make the world safe for corporate profiteering anywhere in the world.

The deep state’s MO is to set the world on fire by interfering in the affairs of sovereign countries and deposing their leaders (Iraq, Libya) and when all else fails launching endless war (Vietnam, Afghanistan). Strange how the US marks its territory. One of their all-time favs is labeling countries authoritarian which in US parlance makes them a legitimate target for invasion or deposing their leaders. Countries like Venezuela, Iran, Iraq, Russia, and Libya have been so “blessed.” Funny thing they just happen to possess 50% of the world’s oil. Coincidence?

A few vignettes will tell you all you need to know about the power of the deep state. In 2008, William Burns was the US ambassador to Russia. Fearing the signals he was getting of U.S. moves against Russia, he sent a cable “Nyet means Nyet”’ to the foreign policy team in Washington predicting Russia’s response if the U.S. and NATO followed through with their plans to enlarge NATO up to Russia’s borders — “Russia is particularly worried that the strong divisions in Ukraine over NATO membership, with much of the ethnic-Russian community against membership, could lead to a major split, involving violence or at worst, civil war. In that eventuality, Russia would have to decide whether to intervene; a decision Russia does not want to have to face.” [“Nyet Means Nyet,” William Burns]

What a difference a big, fat promotion makes. In 2021, Biden appointed Burns CIA director, making him the virtual head of the deep state. Notice how his tune (and tone) changed: —”Putin is a bully and is going to continue saber-rattling from time to time… the Kursk offensive [Ukraine invades Russia in a failed offensive] is a significant tactical achievement. It’s not only been a boost in Ukrainian morale. It has exposed some of the vulnerabilities of Putin’s Russia and of his military… the United States has provided massive support for Ukraine throughout this war and we will continue to… [It is generally conceded even by the Pentagon that Ukraine is losing badly which Bill Burns undoubtedly knows but is afraid he will lose his job among other losses if he comes clean]

Maybe he’s just proficient at reading the historical tea leaves. Once upon a time way back in 1973, William Colby was appointed CIA director. He was the perfect choice as his career in the CIA marked him as the perfect American intelligence agent — a ruthless killer willing to go the max to accomplish whatever task his superiors ordered. In 1963, he oversaw the coup that murdered South Vietnamese President Diem when the U.S. determined it was time to get rid of him. From 1967 to 1972, he ran the Phoenix program which was an attempt to identify and destroy North Vietnamese soldiers and anyone the U.S. thought might be a sympathizer. Before it was discontinued, the Phoenix program killed 20,000 civilians many of them innocent peasants, using a variety of gruesome methods.

Maybe he had an epiphany but in 1975, he testified before the Church Committee, a Senate Select Committee, that was investigating abuses in Vietnam by the U.S. military and intelligence agencies, particularly the CIA. Colby made public a set of internal reports known as the “family jewels,” describing the CIA’s illegal activities including assassination plots and other dirty dealings. In 1976, a horrified President Ford fired him. To be clear, horrified not for the “dirty deeds” but for spilling the beans. Having committed the unpardonable sin of shining a light on some of the darkest corners of U.S. activities, he was ostracized from the intelligence community.

Based on what you’ve already learned about the CIA’s MO, the unfortunate end of ex-CIA director William Colby can be chalked up to business as usual. His body was found nine days after he was reported missing. Days earlier his canoe had also been found. According to the police, Colby had an irresistible impulse to go boating in the pitch dark while his half-eaten dinner was still on the table.

Murder and mayhem by American “patriots” aside, where do we go from here? The deep state still has its murderous fingers in many pies — whether in the Middle East, where the US is complicit in Israeli violations of international law, including but not limited to genocide, assassinations and ethnic cleansing or in Europe where taunting Russia risks all-out war between two nuclear-armed countries. The neocons who control the deep state whom President George H.W. Bush once described as “the crazies in the basement” are running amuck leaving wastelands where there used to be thriving countries, millions of displaced people where there used to be families and garrison states where there used to be sovereign nations.

For the U.S. the road ahead presents a surfeit of challenges. Once a creditor nation now the largest debtor nation in world history with a national debt of $35 trillion, the U.S. survives on the dollar being the world’s reserve currency. How long will that last?  The U.S. is rapidly losing friends around the world for its arrogance in becoming the world’s cop, for the wars it has started all over the world and for imposing sanctions on a multitude of countries. Not exactly sure-fire ways to win friends.

As if that isn’t enough, the U.S. has frozen Russian and Venezuelan money deposited in U.S. and European banks. Another name for this practice is stealing.  

Where does that leave the US, a declining empire that has gone from the most admired and respected country in the world to one of the most despised. Perhaps the US will suffer the same fate as other failing empires “leaving behind a mountain of squandered dollars and an ocean of blood.”  [“The Madness of Antony Blinken” Joe Lauria, Consortium News, September 24, 2024]