In Donald Trump’s first four years as president, he will not only choose three judges for the Supreme Court, he’ll also pick five of the seven members on the Fed Board of Governors. It would be impossible to overstate the effect this is going to have on the nation’s economic future. With both houses of Congress firmly in the GOP’s grip, we could see the most powerful central bank in the world transformed into a purely political institution that follows the diktats of one man.

Critics may think that is a vast improvement over the present situation in which the Fed conceals its allegiance to the giant Wall Street investment banks behind a public relations cloud of “independence”, but the idea of one man controlling the price of the world’s reserve currency and, thus, the price of financial assets and commodities across the globe, is equally disturbing. Already we have seen how the Fed’s determination to enrich its constituents has resulted in one titanic asset-price bubble after the other. Imagine if that power was entrusted to just one individual who could be tempted to use that authority to shape economic events in a way that enhanced and perpetuated his own political power. Even so, after seven years of a policy-induced Depression that has increased inequality to levels not seen since the Gilded Age, we think it is high-time that the president use his power to choose the members who will bring the bank back under government control. Here’s more background from the LA Times:

“Donald Trump leveled unprecedented criticism at the Federal Reserve during the campaign. As president, he could get to quickly reshape it … Trump will have the opportunity to appoint as many as five new members to the seven-person Fed Board of Governors during his first year and a half in office. That includes a new chairperson to replace Janet L. Yellen, whose term expires in early 2018…

Trump hammered Yellen in the final months of the (presidential) campaign, accusing her of keeping the benchmark rate “artificially low” to help fellow Democrats President Obama and Hillary Clinton.

“I think she is very political and to a certain extent, I think she should be ashamed of herself.” Trump told CNBC in mid-September. At the first presidential debate two weeks later, he declared that “the Fed is being more political than Hillary Clinton.”

And Trump’s final campaign video included images of the Fed and Yellen, casting her has part of the “political establishment” that has “bled our country dry.”…

“Never before have we had an incoming president not just criticize how Fed policy has been executed … but accuse the Fed chair of undermining the institution by being in political cahoots with his opponent and the White House,” (James) Pethokoukis said. “We’re off the grid into uncharted territory.”… (Trump hammered the Federal Reserve as a candidate. As president, he could quickly reshape it, LA Times)

We can safely assume that the Supreme Court is going to reflect Trump’s corporate-friendly laissez-faire attitude towards big business, the question is: What can we expect from the Central Bank once it becomes the White House’s flunky?

That’s hard to say, mainly because Trump frequently espouses two seemingly contradictory views at the same time.

What do I mean by that?

I mean, that on the one hand, Trump is a big cheerleader for non-interventionist, free market capitalism, but on the other, he is a committed rightwing populist who seems to thrive on the support of the masses, which is clear when he things like this:

“You know who gets hurt the most (by Yellen’s easy money policies)? The people that went through 40 years of their life and saved a hundred dollars every week (in the bank)…..They worked all their lives to save and now what happens is they’re being forced into an inflated stock market and at some point they’ll get wiped out.”

So, how will Trump’s populism shape his views on who should or should not be a member of the Fed?

We don’t know, but we do know that monetary policy is going to change dramatically from the last eight years of unproductive experimentation because Trump has surrounded himself with industry leaders who ascribe to an entirely different philosophy than the one currently in practice. Check this out from monetary analyst Tommy Behnke:

“Some of today’s most reasonable mainstream economic voices are included in (Trump’s) inner circle. These names include David Malpass of Encima Global, who co-signed a letter with Jim Grant opposing the Fed’s “inflationary” and “distortive” quantitative easing program; John Paulson of Paulson & Co., who made billions from shorting the housing market before the Great Recession; Andy Beal, a self-described “libertarian kind of guy” who blames the Fed for the credit crisis; and the Heritage Foundation’s Stephen Moore, who told CSIN in 2012 that he is a “very severe critic” of the Fed’s “incredibly easy-money policies of the past decade.”

While none of Trump’s economic advisers are by any means Austrians, they are far more hawkish than most of Presidents Bush and Obama’s past economic advisers.” (Why President Trump Will Fumigate the Fed, Mises Institute)

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Trump, who is no fan of the Fed’s bond buying program called QE, has admitted he thinks stocks are in a bubble suggesting that he will probably take a more conservative approach to monetary policy. Even so, that doesn’t change the fact he’s going to have to opportunity to personally select the FOMC’s ruling majority, which means that he’ll be in a position to demand their loyalty as a condition of their hiring. Does anyone seriously doubt that Trump would rather control the Fed himself than keep it in the clutches of the cutthroat Wall Street banks?

There’s no doubt that the distributional effects of the Fed’s policies helped catapult Trump into the White House. Millions of working class Americans who are sick of the monetary “trickle down” policies and the job-eviscerating trade agreements found a way to express their frustration in the candidacy of Donald Trump. Their collective rage suddenly exploded at the ballotbox on November 8 pushing the real estate tycoon to a victory over opponent Clinton in what many are calling the political upset of the century. Trump tapped into that wellspring of anger and frustration by denouncing the “failed and corrupt political establishment” in which both Hillary Clinton and the Fed feature prominently. Now he’s going to take it to the next level by launching a surprise attack on the Fed which will leave Wall Street stripped of its power-agency and left to fend for itself. This is a blurb from the New York Times:

“A core view of many Trump advisers is that the extended period of emergency policy settings has promoted a bubble in the stock market, depressed the incomes of savers, scared the public and encouraged capital misallocation,” said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics. “Right now, these are minority views on the F.O.M.C., but Trump appointees are likely to shift the needle.” (With Trump in Power, the Fed Gets Ready for a Reckoning, New York Times)

They’re going to “shift the needle” alright, then they’re going to drive it through the serpent’s heart. The Fed has had every opportunity to show where its loyalties lie and it has sided with Wall Street every single time. There’s a reason why 95 percent of all income gains in the last eight years have gone to the one percent, while working people have struggled just to put food on the table. Just like there’s a reason why stocks have tripled in value in the last eight years while wages and incomes have stagnated and the economy has slowed to a crawl. It’s the policy, stupid.

This is what it must feel like to be on Death Row, to be waiting for the moment when the iron door clangs open for the last time and four burly guards escort you arm-in-arm to the room where your life will be extinguished. That same sense of dread hangs over the presidential election of 2016.

No one is happy about the election and no one anticipates better days ahead. America’s ‘glory days” appear to be in the rearview mirror while the steady downward slide seems to be gaining pace. This year’s presidential campaign has brought all the anger, anxiety and frustration bubbling to the surface. Nerves are raw, people are on edge, and the trepidation is so thick you could cut it with a knife. All the recent surveys tell the same story: Americans are sick of the mudslinging, sick of the scandals, sick of the recriminations, sick of the two party duopoly, and sick of the two candidates, the two most distrusted and reviled candidates in the country’s 230 year history. This is from the New York Times:

“An overwhelming majority of voters are disgusted by the state of American politics, and many harbor doubts that either major-party nominee can unite the country after a historically ugly presidential campaign, according to the final pre-election New York Times/CBS News Poll…

With more than eight in 10 voters saying the campaign has left them repulsed rather than excited, the rising toxicity threatens the ultimate victor. Mrs. Clinton, the Democratic candidate, and Mr. Trump, the Republican nominee, are seen as dishonest and viewed unfavorably by a majority of voters…

After weeks of Mr. Trump’s accusations that the election is “rigged,” a little more than six in 10 of his supporters say they will accept the results as legitimate if he loses. More than a quarter of Mr. Trump’s supporters say they will probably not accept the outcome if Mrs. Clinton is declared the winner, and nearly 40 percent of them say they have little or no confidence that Americans’ votes will be counted properly.”
(Voters Express Disgust Over U.S. Politics in New Times/CBS Poll, New York Times)

The growing sense of desperation in America today is palpable and it goes far beyond this one, isolated election cycle. The steady erosion of confidence in the nation’s main institutions is evident in Congress’s public approval ratings which seem to be stuck in single-digit territory. The public probably feels equal contempt for the Loretta Lynch Justice Department which is loaded with Clinton toadies that have done their best to quash any investigation into the illicit pay-to-play machinations at the Clinton Foundation. And, let’s not forget the media which has lost whatever shred of credibility it managed to salvage after its myriad of war-promoting lies about WMD, mobile weapons labs, aluminum tubes and Assad’s imaginary chemical weapons attacks, attacks that were invented from whole cloth at one of Washington’s many neocon think tanks where these fake ideas are typically hatched. The Forth Estate’s latest gambit is an idiotic attempt to prove that Vladimir Putin is trying to hack our thoroughly-corrupted Third World voting system to achieve some nebulous political gain. What a joke.

No, Hillary, Putin is not gaming the system like you did in the primaries with Bernie Sanders, nor did he put a gun to your head and force you to delete the 33,000 missing emails from your private server. That was your handiwork Ms. Clinton, although you have a done a masterful job in deflecting attention from yourself and passing the buck for your own sleazy, criminal activities onto Moscow.

But, back to the media. This from Gallup:

“Americans’ trust and confidence in the mass media “to report the news fully, accurately and fairly” has dropped to its lowest level in Gallup polling history, with 32% saying they have a great deal or fair amount of trust in the media. This is down eight percentage points from last year.

Gallup began asking this question in 1972, and on a yearly basis since 1997. Over the history of the entire trend, Americans’ trust and confidence hit its highest point in 1976, at 72%, in the wake of widely lauded examples of investigative journalism regarding Vietnam and the Watergate scandal. After staying in the low to mid-50s through the late 1990s and into the early years of the new century, Americans’ trust in the media has fallen slowly and steadily. It has consistently been below a majority level since 2007…

Bottom Line:…the slide in media trust has been happening for the past decade. Before 2004, it was common for a majority of Americans to profess at least some trust in the mass media, but since then, less than half of Americans feel that way. Now, only about a third of the U.S. has any trust in the Fourth Estate, a stunning development for an institution designed to inform the public.” (Americans’ Trust in Mass Media Sinks to New Low, Gallup)

“Designed to inform the public”???

You gotta be kidding? Droopy confidence in the media is a triumph for ordinary working people who have begun to see through the charade of “unbiased coverage” and realize that the corporate owners of the press manipulate the news to shape perceptions and maintain their stranglehold on power. That’s what’s really going on, and that’s why a growing number of people have swarmed to Donald Trump’s campaign. They see Trump’s lack of political correctness as a sign that he is not owned by the Washington oligarchy of racketeers who invent teleprompter candidates like Obama and Clinton who are never certain what they actually believe until they see it printed in bold letters on the screen in front of them.

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To large extent, Trump owes his shocking rise to the top of the GOP ticket to the fact that he shoots from the hip and that the media hates him. What was once a liability, has become an asset as trust for the despised media has plunged to depths never seen before.

But that doesn’t explain what’s really driving this election and why are the American people so overcome by desperation?

It’s all about economic insecurity. It’s all about the fact that standards of living are slipping, that an entire generation is bogged down with student debt, that all the good-paying jobs have been shipped to other countries, that family incomes are shriveling, that a good portion of the population feel threatened by immigration, that health care costs have skyrocketed, that retirement plans have been postponed, and that the great bulk of the nation’s wealth has been transferred to the 1 percent plutocrats and Wall Street landsharks who dictate policy through their Congressional lackeys and their allies at the Federal Reserve. That’s what the election is really all about.

People are waking up to the fact that the American dream is dead, that the US is no longer the land of opportunity, and that the lives of their children are going to be worse than their own, far worse. This is why everyone is so upset, so frustrated, so hopeless. They are looking for a political ally who will address their needs, and instead they get bromides on transgender bathrooms or “glass ceilings” or any of the other soothing slogans the Democrats use to pacify the masses and to keep them in the flock. Only now it’s not working as well. Now a sizable portion of the blue collar vote has shifted into Trump’s camp mainly because they see through the phony Democrat rhetoric and all the job-eviscerating free trade deals they’ve pushed for years. Trump has skillfully tapped into the collective psyche of millions of working people who feel the Democratic Party tossed them under the track-hoe 30 years ago and never looked back. And, he’s right, too. The Dems have sold out their supporters, and it’s only going to get worse under Clinton, or should we say, Madame TPP. Here’s how Nile Bowie summed it up in a recent article at CounterPunch:

Without a shred of evidence and against the expressed wishes of his superiors at the Department of Justice, the head of the nation’s most prestigious law enforcement agency announced the reopening of an investigation into the mishandling of classified material by Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton. The surprise announcement was delivered last Friday by FBI Director James Comey who knew that the action would create a cloud of suspicion around Clinton that could directly effect the outcome of the election.

Recent surveys suggest that that indeed has been the case, and that Hillary is now neck in neck with GOP contender Donald Trump going into the home-stretch of the bitterly contested campaign.

By inserting himself into the democratic process, Comey has ignored traditional protocols for postponing such announcements 60-days prior to an election, shrugged off the counsel of his bosses at the DOJ, and tilted the election in Trump’s favor. His action is as close to a coup d’état as anything we’ve seen in the U.S. since the Supreme Court stopped the counting of ballots in Florida in 2000 handing the election to George W. Bush.

It is not the job of the FBI to inform Congress about ongoing investigations. Comey’s job is to gather information and evidence that is pertinent to the case and present it to the DOJ where the decision to convene a grand jury is ultimately made. Comey is a renegade, a lone wolf who arbitrarily decided to abandon normal bureaucratic procedures in order to torpedo Clinton’s prospects for election. The widespread belief that Comey is a “good man who made a bad decision” is nonsense. He is an extremely intelligent and competent attorney with a keen grasp of Beltway politics. He knew what he was doing and he did it anyway. It’s absurd to make excuses for him.

In a carefully-crafted statement designed to deflect attention from his flagrant election tampering, Comey said this to his fellow agents:

“We don’t ordinarily tell Congress about ongoing investigations, but here I feel an obligation to do so given that I testified repeatedly in recent months that our investigation was completed,” Comey said. “I also think it would be misleading to the American people were we not to supplement the record.” (CNN)

Let’s take a minute and parse this statement. First: “We don’t ordinarily tell Congress about ongoing investigations.”

True, because it is not the FBI’s job to do so. The FBI’s job is to dig up evidence and refer it to the Justice Department. Comey is not the Attorney General although he has arbitrarily assumed her duties and authority.

Second: “I also think it would be misleading to the American people were we not to supplement the record.”

“Supplement the record”?

That’s a pretty suggestive statement, don’t you think? When someone says they’re going to supplement the record, you naturally assume that they’re going to add important details to what the public already knows. Obviously, those details are not going to be flattering to Hillary or there’d be no reason to reopen the case. So the public is left with the impression Comey is going to produce damning information that could lead to an indictment of Hillary sometime in the future.

This is precisely why normal protocols require that no new investigations be announced 60 days before an election. Why?

Because the public invariably assumes that “investigation” equals “guilt”. In other words, “The FBI wouldn’t be investigating Hillary unless they had some dirt on her. Therefore, I’d better not waste my vote on Hillary.”

This is the logic upon which Comey’s dirty trick rests. He knows the effect his announcement will have because he is law enforcements version of Karl Rove, a bone fide partisan who’s mastered the dark art of political sabotage.

And just in case Comey’s announcement didn’t produce the desired effect (by destroying Hillary’s chances for victory), a former assistant director at the FBI, Tom Fuentes, appeared on CNN shortly after the announcement was made with more explicit information. Here’s a clip from the interview:

“The FBI has an intensive investigation ongoing into the Clinton Foundation,” Fuentes said Saturday, citing current and former senior FBI officials as sources…

According to the CNN report, officials with the FBI and Justice Department met in Washington earlier this year to discuss opening an investigation into possible conflicts of interest between the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton State Department.”

(“Former FBI Official: FBI Has An ‘Intensive Investigation’ Ongoing Into Clinton Foundation“, Daily Caller)

Okay. So we’re no longer dealing with just classified emails. The FBI expanded its investigation and is now wading through the real sewage, the pay-to-play corruption scandal that surrounds that vast reservoir of illicit contributions known as the Clinton Foundation. In other words, the FBI is on to something big, really BIG. I can almost see them dragging poor Hillary off to the hoosegow in leg irons and shackles. Isn’t that the impression the above quote is supposed to produce? Here’s more from Fuentes:

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“Several FBI field offices and U.S. attorneys offices pushed for the investigation after receiving a tip from a bank about suspicious donations to the Clinton Foundation from a foreign donor, according to the report….” (Daily Caller)

“Foreign donors”, “suspicious donations”, smoky rooms, bundles of money. It all fits, doesn’t it? It’s all designed to increase suspicion and make Hillary look like a crook which, coincidentally, is the relentless mantra of the Trump campaign. Funny how the FBI and Trump appear to be reading from the same script, isn’t it? It’s almost like it was planned that way.

But what about the timing of all this? Is it really a coincidence or are Comey and Fuentes part of a one-two punch from the Trump campaign?

And, more important, what does the FBI actually have on Hillary? According to Fuentes:

“When the team looking at the Weiner computers went to the team of investigators who worked on the Clinton email case, and showed the emails to them earlier in the week, they said, “This is really significant. We need to take this to the Director.” (2:05 to 2:23 video)

Repeat: “This is significant”.

What’s significant? Neither Comey nor Fuentes nor the more than year-long investigation has uncovered anything, unless you think the ridiculous rehash of the 15-year old Marc Rich investigation (which popped up on the FBI website this week) is “new news” that should alter the course of the election. This is pathetic. If they have something, show us. Otherwise, Ferme ta bouche.

Check this out from Thursday’s Wall Street Journal:

“As 2015 came to a close, the FBI and Justice Department had a general understanding that neither side would take major action on Clinton Foundation matters without meeting and discussing it first. …

The public-integrity prosecutors weren’t impressed with the FBI presentation, people familiar with the discussion said. “The message was, ‘We’re done here,’ ” a person familiar with the matter said.

Justice Department officials became increasingly frustrated that the agents seemed to be disregarding or disobeying their instructions.

Following the February meeting, officials at Justice Department headquarters sent a message to all the offices involved to “stand down,’’ a person familiar with the matter said….

“Nation state as a fundamental unit of man’s organized life has ceased to be the principal creative force: International banks and multinational corporations are acting and planning in terms that are far in advance of the political concepts of the nation-state.”

— Zbigniew Brzezinski, “Between Two Ages: The Technetronic Era”, 1971

“I’m going to continue to push for a no-fly zone and safe havens within Syria….not only to help protect the Syrians and prevent the constant outflow of refugees, but to gain some leverage on both the Syrian government and the Russians.”

— Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Third Presidential Debate

Why is Hillary Clinton so eager to intensify US involvement in Syria when US interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya have all gone so terribly wrong?

The answer to this question is simple. It’s because Clinton doesn’t think that these interventions went wrong. And neither do any of the other members of the US foreign policy establishment. (aka–The Borg). In fact, in their eyes these wars have been a rousing success. Sure, a few have been critical of the public relations backlash from the nonexistent WMD in Iraq, (or the logistical errors, like disbanding the Iraqi Army) but–for the most part– the foreign policy establishment is satisfied with its efforts to destabilize the region and remove leaders that refuse to follow Washington’s diktats.

This is hard for ordinary people to understand. They can’t grasp why elite powerbrokers would want to transform functioning, stable countries into uninhabitable wastelands overrun by armed extremists, sectarian death squads and foreign-born terrorists. Nor can they understand what has been gained by Washington’s 15 year-long rampage across the Middle East and Central Asia that has turned a vast swathe of strategic territory into a terrorist breeding grounds? What is the purpose of all this?

First, we have to acknowledge that the decimation and de facto balkanization of these countries is part of a plan. If it wasn’t part of a plan, than the decision-makers would change the policy. But they haven’t changed the policy. The policy is the same. The fact that the US is using foreign-born jihadists to pursue regime change in Syria as opposed to US troops in Iraq, is not a fundamental change in the policy. The ultimate goal is still the decimation of the state and the elimination of the existing government. This same rule applies to Libya and Afghanistan both of which have been plunged into chaos by Washington’s actions.

But why? What is gained by destroying these countries and generating so much suffering and death?

Here’s what I think: I think Washington is involved in a grand project to remake the world in a way that better meets the needs of its elite constituents, the international banks and multinational corporations. Brzezinski not only refers to this in the opening quote, he also explains what is taking place: The nation-state is being jettisoned as the foundation upon which the global order rests. Instead, Washington is erasing borders, liquidating states, and removing strong, secular leaders that can mount resistance to its machinations in order to impose an entirely new model on the region, a new world order. The people who run these elite institutions want to create an interconnected-global free trade zone overseen by the proconsuls of Big Capital, in other words, a global Eurozone that precludes the required state institutions (like a centralized treasury, mutual debt, federal transfers) that would allow the borderless entity to function properly.

Deep state powerbrokers who set policy behind the smokescreen of our bought-and-paid-for congress think that one world government is an achievable goal provided they control the world’s energy supplies, the world’s reserve currency and become the dominant player in this century’s most populous and prosperous region, Asia. This is essentially what Hillary’s “pivot” to Asia is all about.

The basic problem with Washington’s NWO plan is that a growing number of powerful countries are still attached to the old world order and are now prepared to defend it. This is what’s really going on in Syria, the improbable alliance of Russia, Syria, Iran and Hezbollah have stopped the US military juggernaut dead in its tracks. The unstoppable force has hit the immovable object and the immovable object has prevailed…so far.

Naturally, the foreign policy establishment is upset about these new developments, and for good reason. The US has run the world for quite a while now, so the rolling back of US policy in Syria is as much a surprise as it is a threat. The Russian Airforce deployed to Syria a full year ago in September, but only recently has Washington shown that it’s prepared to respond by increasing its support of its jihadists agents on the ground and by mounting an attack on ISIS in the eastern part of the country, Raqqa. But the real escalation is expected to take place when Hillary Clinton becomes president in 2017. That’s when the US will directly engage Russia militarily, assuming that their tit-for-tat encounters will be contained within Syria’s borders. It’s a risky plan, but it’s the next logical step in this bloody fiasco. Neither party wants a nuclear war, but Washington believes that doing nothing is tantamount to backing down, therefore, Hillary and her neocon advisors can be counted on to up the ante. “No-fly zone”, anyone?

The assumption is that eventually, and with enough pressure, Putin will throw in the towel. But this is another miscalculation. Putin is not in Syria because he wants to be nor is he there because he values his friendship with Syrian President Bashar al Assad. That’s not it at all. Putin is in Syria because he has no choice. Russia’s national security is at stake. If Washington’s strategy of deploying terrorists to topple Assad succeeds, then the same ploy will be attempted in Iran and Russia. Putin knows this, just like he knows that the scourge of foreign-backed terrorism can decimate entire regions like Chechnya. He knows that it’s better for him to kill these extremists in Aleppo than it will be in Moscow. So he can’t back down, that’s not an option.

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But, by the same token, he can compromise, in other words, his goals and the goals of Assad do not perfectly coincide. For example, he could very well make territorial concessions to the US for the sake of peace that Assad might not support.

But why would he do that? Why wouldn’t he continue to fight until every inch of Syria’s sovereign territory is recovered?

Because it’s not in Russia’s national interest to do so, that’s why. Putin has never tried to conceal the fact that he’s in Syria to protect Russia’s national security. That’s his main objective. But he’s not an idealist, he’s a pragmatist who’ll do whatever he has to to end the war ASAP. That means compromise.

This doesn’t matter to the Washington warlords….yet. But it will eventually. Eventually there will be an accommodation of some sort. No one is going to get everything they want, that much is certain. For example, it’s impossible to imagine that Putin would launch a war on Turkey to recover the territory that Turkish troops now occupy in N Syria. In fact, Putin may have already conceded as much to Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan in their recent meetings. But that doesn’t mean that Putin doesn’t have his red lines. He does. Aleppo is a red line. Turkish troops will not be allowed to enter Aleppo.

The western corridor, the industrial and population centers are all red lines. On these, there will be no compromise. Putin will help Assad remain in power and keep the country largely intact. But will Turkey control sections in the north, and will the US control sections in the east?

“For any minimally conscious American citizen, it is absolutely evident that Donald Trump is not only facing the mammoth Clinton political machine, but, also the combined forces of the viciously dishonest Mainstream Media.”

-Boyd D. Cathey, “The Tape, the Conspiracy, and the Death of the Old Politics”, Unz Review

“The election is absolutely being rigged by the dishonest and distorted media pushing Crooked Hillary.”

-Donald Trump, Twitter

When was the last time the media threw 100% of its support behind one party’s presidential candidate? What does that say about the media?

Do you feel comfortable with the idea that a handful of TV and print-news executives are inserting themselves into the process and choosing our leaders for us? Is that the way democracy is supposed to work?

Check out this blurb from The Hill:

“The broadcast evening news programs ABC, NBC and CBS covered allegations against Trump by several women who claim he sexually assaulted them for more than 23 minutes on Thursday night. But revelations in the WikiLeaks dump of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta which included…sympathy for Wall Street, advocation for open borders and blatant examples of media collusion ….got a whole 1 minute and 7 seconds combined.”

Ratio of negative coverage of Trump to Clinton: 23:1

In print on Thursday, it was no better. The New York Times had 11 negative stories on Trump…But zero on Clinton/WikiLeaks.

Ratio: 11:0.” (Media and Trump bias; Not even trying to hide it anymore, The Hill)

The article in The Hill also refers to a survey by the Washington Post and ABC News that asks participants six questions about allegations of sexual misconduct by Trump, but zero questions about Podesta’s incriminating emails.

Is that what you call “balance”?

I should state out-front, that I don’t plan to vote for either candidate, Trump or Clinton, so my claims of “bias” are not grounded in support for one candidate or the other. I am simply ticked-off by the fact that the media honchos have pulled out all the stops and are inserting themselves in the process to produce the outcome they want.

That’s what you call “rigging” an election. When you turn on Washington Week (Gwen Ifil) on public TV and see an assembled panel of six pundits–three conservatives and three liberals–and all six turn out to love Hillary and hate Trump; you can be reasonably certain that the election is rigged, because that’s what rigging is. Rather than providing background information about the candidate’s position on the issues so voters can make an informed decision, the media uses opinionmakers to heap praise on one candidate while savagely denigrating the other. The obvious goal is to shape public opinion in the way that best suits the interests of the people who own the media and who belong to the establishment of rich and powerful elites who run the country, the 1 percent. In this case, the ruling class unanimously backs Hillary Clinton, that much is obvious.

Fortunately, the tide is turning on the mainstream media as people look to other, more reliable sources for their information. It should come as no surprise that people are more distrustful of media than ever before and that that a great many feel that the media is conducting a brutal class war against ordinary working people. Surely, anyone who has followed economic developments at all in the last seven years, knows that the policies of the Fed have created a yawning chasm between rich and poor that is only getting worse as long as the levers of power stay in the hands of establishment politicians. Hillary Clinton is certainly the worst of these establishment politicos. Aside from being the most widely-reviled candidate the Democrats have ever nominated, she is the embodiment of political corruption and cronyism. How is it, you may ask, that someone like Clinton was able to nab “upwards of $225,000 per speech” from Goldman Sachs if she wasn’t influence peddling?

Does it really matter what she said in these speeches?

Not to me. The huge sums of money prove beyond any reasonable doubt that Clinton is selling access, tacitly agreeing to “go easy” on the big Wall Street investment banks provided they keep her foundation’s coffers overflowing. What other possible explanation could there be?

Do as many Americans know about Hillary’s sordid dealings with Wall Street as know about Trump’s “alleged” sexual dalliances?

Of course not. It’s not even close.

Do they know that Clinton was the driving force behind the intervention in Libya and Syria, where hundreds of thousands of civilians have died and seven million have been internally displaced? Do they know she was involved in the toppling of a democratically-elected government in Honduras or that a number of prominent neocons, who dragged the US into war in Iraq based on WMD lies, now support her?

Nope.

Do people know that Hillary had proof that ISIS –America’s arch enemy– was being funded and supported by our allies, Saudi Arabia and Qatar and, yet, she never reported the news to the American people??

Here’s a damning clip from one of the Podesta emails:

“We need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to Isis and other radical groups in the region.”

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Remember when George W. Bush said that ‘We will treat the terrorists and the people who support the terrorists the same”?

Hillary must not have gotten that memo or we would have bombed Riyadh by now.

Do people know that there has never been a war that Hillary didn’t support, a job-killing “free trade” bill she didn’t back, or a civil liberties-eviscerating piece of legislation (Clinton voted for the original USA PATRIOT Act in 2001, as well as the revised version in 2006.) she wasn’t eager to sign?

Oh, but she does support “women’s reproductive rights” which makes her a big champion of personal freedom among her narrow demographic of successful, educated, white women. Excuse me, for not doing handstands.

Here’s another short clip from the WSWS:

“Hillary and Bill Clinton have accumulated a total of $153 million in speaking fees since Bill Clinton left the White House. Only the very naïve could believe that these vast sums were paid for the speeches themselves. They were payment for services rendered to the American financial aristocracy over a protracted period.” (In secret Goldman Sachs speeches, Clinton explains why the rich should rule, World socialist Web Site)

Get the picture? Hillary Clinton isn’t a candidate, she’s a franchise, a walking ATM machine. And her shady Foundation is nothing more than a vast recycling bin for illicit funds that pour into the political sausage-making machine in the form of contributions and magically transform themselves into special favors for the billionaire class.

Is the system rigged?

You’re damn right it is! Check this out from Zero Hedge under the heading of “73% Of Republicans Say Election Could Be “Stolen” As Trump Slams “Rigged Elections”:

“A Politico/Morning Consult Poll found that 41% of registered voters say that the election cold be stolen from Trump while 73% of Republicans fear the same.

The American electorate has turned deeply skeptical about the integrity of the nation’s election apparatus, with 41 percent of voters saying November’s election could be “stolen” from Donald Trump due to widespread voter fraud.