Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Cartoon
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

Freedom Rider: The Phony Ukraine Scandal
Margaret Kimberley, BAR editor and senior columnist
02 Oct 2019
Freedom Rider: The Phony Ukraine Scandal
Freedom Rider: The Phony Ukraine Scandal

Trump’s clumsy and stupid attempts to link Joe Biden and son to corruption in Ukraine has given Democrats a chance to revive their discredited Russiagate crusade.

“Trump didn’t know how to leave well enough alone.”

The blatant interference in the affairs of Ukraine is just one of the Barack Obama era scandals that the corporate media chose to cover up. In 2014 the United States culminated a decades long project to realize a so-called color revolution in Ukraine. Along with partner NGOs they assisted far right forces in overthrowing that country’s elected president. Ukraine is a failed state with an ongoing civil war because of this effort to pry it away from Russian influence and include it in NATO, the European Union and any other U.S./European axis configuration. 

Ukraine is in the news again but for all the wrong reasons. The same people who covered up the deadly power grab are now making hay out of Donald Trump’s foolishness. Trump is nothing if not consistent. He is a vindictive, thin skinned, dim witted bully who always sees himself as the aggrieved party. 

His sense of victimization prevented him from appreciating that he defeated the charges of Russian collusion meant to continue the anti-Russian foreign policy consensus. On July 24 Russiagate lost much of its political potency when Robert Mueller’s disastrous testimony proved that the narrative was a fraud.

“Ukraine is a failed state with an ongoing civil war because of this effort to pry it away from Russian influence.”

On July 25 the bull in the china shop president created an in for his enemies when he raised the issue of Joe Biden’s conflicts of interest in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelensky, the newly elected president of Ukraine. Biden’s son was given a $50,000 per month position on the board of a Ukrainian fracking company after the coup. The obvious conflict of interest was just one aspect of the Ukraine story that the media covered up.

Just one day before the phone call the Democrats put the nail in the Russiagate coffin when they forced Robert Mueller to testify. Mueller had clearly and publicly made clear that he did not want to appear. Russiagate was a ginned up scandal and Mueller’s stumbling performance proved it. Trump had won a significant victory. 

“Biden’s son was given a $50,000 per month position on the board of a Ukrainian fracking company after the coup.”

Instead of letting sleeping dogs lie he asked a foreign head of state to investigate another presidential candidate. Joe Biden is a walking disaster on his own. He is nearly as stupid and graceless as Trump but the Democratic Party is desperate to win with a neoliberal candidate who will please rich party donors and Wall Street. Biden’s disastrous debate performances and dubious activities should disqualify him but the Democrats are sticking with him for now.

If he ended up winning the nomination the Republicans could have easily raised the issue of his son’s business dealings and his own foolishness in publicly bragging about his role in dismissing a Ukrainian prosecutor. Instead Trump snatched defeat from the jaws of victory with an act that was at the very least inappropriate and possibly illegal.

The defeated Democrats are thus able to resurrect an impeachment effort because of Trump’s gift to them. Unlike the Russiagate narrative they have Trump’s own words and bad judgement to use against him. 

“Trump snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.”

For the next year the Democrats will indulge in phony outrage because Trump didn’t know how to leave well enough alone. The real Ukraine scandal, the bipartisan attack on another nation’s sovereignty, will be unaddressed by the culprits and their media friends.

Unfortunately the truth of foreign involvement in the 2016 election will not be investigated thanks to Trump’s hamfisted attempt to strike back at those who tried to thwart him. Ukrainians provided false evidence used to prosecute Paul Manafort, a man whose corruption was tied not to Russian collusion, but to the bipartisan effort to destabilize that nation. Russiagate is in fact the story of the Democratic Party involving “five eyes” intelligence agencies who helped the Hillary Clinton clique in their effort to create dirt that would delegitimize Trump. That is why Trump also spoke to the Australian prime minister about investigating Robert Mueller. His clumsy attempt was found out of course but no one should forget that foreign interference in 2016 was a Democratic Party project.

Donald Trump cannot be the center of analysis regarding Ukraine or any other issue. It is tempting to make the racist oaf the focus but the bipartisan war party is responsible for the damage done to Ukraine. Barack Obama, Joe Biden, John Kerry, the late John McCain and the rest of the Democratic and Republican party establishment all had a hand in creating an ongoing crisis. Trump and his fellow foreign policy amateur Rudy Giuliani will be the public face of this story but the worst partners in crime are again being let off the hook. 

Margaret Kimberley’s Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com . Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.       

COMMENTS?

Please join the conversation on Black Agenda Report's Facebook page at http://facebook.com/blackagendareport

Or, you can comment by emailing us at [email protected]

2020 Election

Trending

Elizabeth Warren Wants Green Bombs, not a Green New Deal
Parallels Between Black and Palestinian Struggles
Cory Booker Hates Public Schools
Bill Cosby Should Have Been Denounced by Black America Long Ago
The Black Wall Around Barack Obama: Who Does It Protect Him Against?
How Complacency, Complicity of Black Misleadership Class Led to Supreme Court Evisceration of the Voting Rights Act

Related Stories

Political Theology, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and the Limits of Social Democracy
Danny Haiphong , BAR contributor
Political Theology, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and the Limits of Social Democracy
23 October 2019
Universal equality has always run counter to the United States’ anti-Black and settler colonial roots.
The Corporate Democrats’ (and Alicia Garza’s) Get-Sanders Slanders
Glen Ford , BAR executive editor
The Corporate Democrats’ (and Alicia Garza’s) Get-Sanders Slanders
03 October 2019
Once the Bernie Sanders threat has subsided, Elizabeth Warren will be required to further neuter herself to allay the fears of billionaire Democrat
Alicia Garza attacks Jill Stein at Behest of the Working Families Party and the Non-Profit Industrial Complex
Danny Haiphong , BAR contributor
Alicia Garza attacks Jill Stein at Behest of the Working Families Party and the Non-Profit Industrial Complex
02 October 2019
Servile to corporate power, Garza repeated the racist “Bernie Bro” trope to vilify the most multiracial base of the Democratic Party.
Biden and the Black Vote 
Ann Garrison , BAR contributor
Biden and the Black Vote 
18 September 2019
Older Black voters appear to buy into the idea of Biden’s “electability,” a farce engineered by Democratic elites that is likely to give us four mo
Bernie Wants to Seize the Means of Electricity Production
Johanna Bozuwa
Bernie Wants to Seize the Means of Electricity Production
04 September 2019
Bernie Sanders wants to take private profit out of the energy grid as part of his comprehensive Green New Deal plan.
Kamala Harris is the Face of the Democratic Party’s Protest Campaign against Bernie Sanders
Danny Haiphong , BAR contributor
Kamala Harris is the Face of the Democratic Party’s Protest Campaign against Bernie Sanders
04 September 2019
Harris’ candidacy has since day one operated as a protest campaign against Bernie Sanders.
The People Who Think Bernie Is Moderate
Annie Lowrey
The People Who Think Bernie Is Moderate
04 September 2019
To socialist candidates, even the left-most Democrat isn’t left enough.
Is Warren Talented Enough to Betray the People as Masterfully as Obama?
Glen Ford , BAR executive editor
Is Warren Talented Enough to Betray the People as Masterfully as Obama?
29 August 2019
Elizabeth Warren is seen as a counter Bernie Sanders, but she will melt (like Joe Biden and Kamala Harris) if she stops raising Democrats’ expectat
The Quiet Death of the “White Bernie Bro” Attack
Carl Beijer
The Quiet Death of the “White Bernie Bro” Attack
28 August 2019
A majority of Sanders supporters are non-white, in contrast to all the other top tier candidates, including Kamala Harris.
Why the Rich Want to Bury Bernie, the Not-Really-Socialist 
Glen Ford , BAR executive editor
Why the Rich Want to Bury Bernie, the Not-Really-Socialist 
15 August 2019
Sanders is fighting capitalist austerity, not capitalist rule, but austerity is ruling class policy, so the Democratic Party must stop him.

More Stories


  • “Booming” Economy Means More Bad Jobs and Faster Race to the Bottom
    Glen Ford , BAR executive editor
    “Booming” Economy Means More Bad Jobs and Faster Race to the Bottom
    05 Dec 2019
    For the past 30 years, no matter which party has been in power, the US economy has produced more and more “bad” jobs – because the Race to the Bottom is ruling class policy.
  • Freedom Rider: Liberals Love the Military
    Margaret Kimberley , BAR editor and senior columnist
    Freedom Rider: Liberals Love the Military
    04 Dec 2019
    Self-styled liberals believe they are a better class of people than Trump, but are bigger supporters of unjust wars than the so-called “deplorables.”
  • Colin Kaepernick Shows that American Innocence is a White Supremacist Sport
    BAR Contributing Editor Danny Haiphong
    Colin Kaepernick Shows that American Innocence is a White Supremacist Sport
    04 Dec 2019
    The Black struggle for dignity and self-determination will forever be criminalized as a problem by the white elite and their hirelings in the Black misleadership class.
  • Millions Die in Congo While the UN Keeps the Peace
    Contributing Editor Ann Garrison
    Millions Die in Congo While the UN Keeps the Peace
    04 Dec 2019
    The UN Peacekeeping Mission has been in Congo for 20 years without protecting the people or the peace.
  • Boss Tweet’s Blitzkrieg 
    BAR Poet-in-Residence Raymond Nat Turner
    Boss Tweet’s Blitzkrieg 
    04 Dec 2019
    I wake in a cold sweat, scrambling for the internet— What salvoes were let loose while we slept?  How badly Bombed is the safety net? What rights are left?
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us