Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves but even more importantly, Trump needs a new war. He needs his own war and he hasn’t started one yet. … - Allan Nairn

Because, well, partly those who set the rhythm of repetition, the rhythm of what facts get repeated day to day, in the highest profile media outlets, and the rhythm of repetition is basically everything in politics. Because under the American system, there’s no centralized state censorship, unlike the old Soviet system. So, almost everything, almost every atrocity committed in the U.S. system is on the public record somewhere, it’s somewhere in a library, it’s somewhere in a posting on the Internet, somebody has done a good investigative piece on it. It’s all out there somewhere .But unless it’s repeated, hammered away, day after day, on the big media outlets, it may be on the public record but it’s not in the public consciousness. And that’s all that matters in politics: What is in the public consciousness? And those that set the rhythm of repetition that determine the public consciousness — in this case, the media outlets like MSNBC and CNN, which today play an absolutely central role... have seized on this Russia scandal as their theme... they devote vast portions of their airtime to speculation about this Russiagate scandal, to the exclusion of hammering away on all these other themes about the outright decimation and crushing and theft of the American working class.... about what he’s doing to the health of Americans, to the environment, to the basic rights of Americans.

In the case of Guatemala, Abrams and the Reagan administration were approving the shipment of weapons, money, intelligence and the provision of political cover to the army of Guatemala as they were sweeping through the northwest Mayan highlands, wiping out 662 rural villages, by the army’s own count, decapitating children, crucifying people, using the tactics that in this era we associate with ISIS.

One of the big criticisms from the Trump types was that during the Obama administration to stage an operation, you had to go through lawyers at the National Security Council who had to sign off... certain operations... could be vetoed if they exceeded the permitted number of civilian casualties... The Bush Jr. White House also did that... When Trump came in, he said screw that, throw all the rules out the window. When you go in, you the Pentagon and CIA people on the ground, you have the authority to kill as many people as you feel you need to, as many people as you want. Go ahead, but get it over with quickly... That’s the Trumper approach. The other establishment approach is to accept some restraints... that have been imposed by... Congress over the years, still be willing to kill tons of civilians. You know, Abrams backed a genocide in Guatemala for God’s sake.