“А судьи кто?” (“Who are these judges?” – Griboedov, Woe From Wit)
Dear Readers:
Today I have this piece by reporters Yury Zainashev and Dmitry Alexandrov, reporting out of Tbilisi, Gruzia. Where the American government continues its efforts to get rid of the current Gruzian government and replace it with one led by their puppet, Mikhail Saakashvili. The latest gambit in the American playbook is one they have employed before, and it works every time: They would like to have a say in the composition of Judges in the Higher courts. Why is this important? Just think about it for a second…
During the Ukrainian Maidan, for example, it helped to have several Judges in one’s pocket, because such judges can rule later that the “coup” was actually completely legitimate and followed all the norms of the nation’s Constitution. In theory, one would also love to control the target nation’s prosecutors as well as judges. With the entire legal system under one’s belt, one can do pretty much anything that one wants to do. Just ask Hunter Biden if you don’t believe me!
All of this is by way of introducing the breaking news: The American State Department has laid sanctions against four high-ranking Gruzian judges, accusing them of corruption. Corrupt judges – horror! Such a thing could never happen in the Land of the Free.
This latest scandal in American-Gruzian relations began just over a week ago. This was the first time in history, ever, that Washington had imposed sanctions against Tbilisi. Four members of the Gruzian Highest Court, their vaunted “Third Branch of the Government” and “Guarantors of the Constitution” were sanctioned and placed on the American Blacklist. That is to say, these four guys can no longer apply for American visas. Nor can members of their families or close relatives. [Well, that sounds perfectly fair to me!]
And the names of the four unlucky judges are (hand me the envlope, please): Mikhail Chinchaladze, Levan Murusidze, Iraklii Shengelia, and Valerian Tsertsvadze. (That last name, in particular, is a real tongue-twister!) As part of my due diligence, which I always do, I scanned the internet for photos of these judicial wrong-doers. First Levan…
Goodness! Who can blame the Americans for sanctioning this beast? He shouldn’t be sanctioned, so much as hunted for his pelt. Or maybe preserved in a museum as the ultimate missing link between man and ape.
Oh wait! Sorry, that’s a different Levan. Our Judge Levan is the mild-mannered semi-balding guy on the right.
So, I was able to find a picture of everyone except Shengelia. We’ll have to just stipulate that he is human and not some half-beast creature who shies away from cameras.
So, what exactly is America’s beef against these four? In the words of State Department Blinking Head, Antony Blinken, these judges misused their office for personal gain. And in so doing, they undermined the supremacy of the law and undercut public faith in regard to the justice system. And Blinken, as an American official, has every right to make such sweeping high-fallutin’ pronouncements in regard to a different country, whose language he does not speak, and whose history he does not know.
Well, to be sure, as the reporters point out, Blinken probably did not compile this list on his own. He’s too busy for that. Most likely, he ordered Kelly Degnan, his Ambassador in Tbilis, to prepare the Blacklist.
Degnan, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Chelsea Clinton, declared that the U.S. continues to support the striving of the Gruzian people to join the EU and be integrated into the Western world. The sanctions were imposed for this purpose, a kind of tough love. Degnan went on to opine that Gruzian judges must be free to conduct their work without pressure, threats, or interference. In order to achieve this goal, it is necessary to apply pressure, threats and interference. That makes total sense! All part of the Hegelian Dialectic, a high philosophical system of thought employed by the Big Brains in the American State Department.
How Did The Government React?
Next we move on to the question, how did the Gruzian political leadership respond to this naked coercion against their beloved elected judges?
Not well, apparently. Last Thursday morning (just a week ago), three major political leaders responded quite tartly, pointing out to Blinken that these punishments were imposed without due process or even any evidence or proof. Ilya Darchiashvili, who heads the Foreign Ministry, wrote, in an open letter to Blinken: “We hope that the State Department will either provide some proof [of these charges], or re-think its decision. Otherwise, the Gruzian government and the people of Gruzia will interpret what happened as putting pressure on an independent court of a sovereign state, as well as crude interference in its affairs, and this will harm the friendly ties between Gruzia and the U.S., which have persisted for many years.”
Such high-flown formulations mask the essence of what is actually going on: The Americans have not really hidden their desire to overthrow the current leaders of Gruzia and replace them with their beloved puppet, Mikhail Saakashvili. To this end, they have been fomenting Color Revolution in the Caucasian Republic. No flowery words about “friendly ties” can change this basic fact. If it wants to survive, then the existing government needs to find a way to fight back.
[to be continued]
Awful Avalanche 
They need to say the US is trying to overthrow the government and to use them as cannon fodder against Russia. Not once but repeatedly until people are spitting at US officials and their NGO scum in the streets.
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I wish. But that would take some guts. The current Gruzian government don’t have those kind of guts, I think, plus they are not ready to burn their bridges yet, like Lukashenko did in Belorussia. Plus, their whole state ideology is centered around the idea of loving American and getting into the EU.
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Of the many destructive things that comes out of US, the destruction of the international and many national legal systems is one of the worst.
The Dutch perhaps being one of the most obvious – in one case around 2016 one Dutch International court awarded a $3 billion fine to go from Russia to Ukraine only to have the case not only overturned by another Dutch international court but the Second court made it quite clear that the first court had no jurisdiction on the case whatsoever.
The Dutch handling of MH17 was quite bizarre (which I guess is why the “guilty” verdict got so little press coverage).
The US legal system seems designed as a business tool to gain dishonest advantages rather than a method to see fair play. And that is how the US works outside the US too. The Assange case has had some astonishing legal tricks played (and promptly banned by UK – but only after the loop hold had been used to allow the court to arrest Assange).
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I saw an interesting episode on youtube of Judge Napolitano’s show. In which the Judge stated quite categorically (as a former Judge and legal scholar) that Assange’s arrest was 100% illegal, and the charges against him have no merit. He cited as case law the “Pengaton Papers” case, which ruled that Ellsberg was a publisher, not a collector of information. And exactly the same applies to Assange, as a publisher. Strictly according to case law, he never should have been touched.
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And that is just the US side of things. The outrageous things that went on in Sweden and UK could easily fill a book each. Even Spain gets in on the act.
The disturbing thing is how European court systems get distorted simply by US interests.
Holland is worst
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Yes, I agree, it’s disgusting that these so-called “sovereign” nations allow their judicial systems to be corrupted by American whims. Without an independent court system, there is no true independence for a nation. They might as well just apply to be States of the United States of America.
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… Degnan went on to opine that Gruzian judges must be free to conduct their work without pressure, threats, or interference. In order to achieve this goal, it is necessary to apply pressure, threats and interference. …
You’ve called that one perfectly, Yalensis. My government, hypocritical in the extreme, acts more like a mafia than any “Republic”.
I’m constantly sickened by the heavy-handed capriciousness meted out to allies and adversaries alike. The US is truly a “Rogue State”, and the sooner it gets its ass kicked, the better it will be for the entire rest of the world.
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Mafia is a good description of the way the U.S. acts around the world. Shakedowns, threats, robbery, torture and assassinations….
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interesting:
Relying on OCCRP research? Which obviously wouldn’t matter, if it did not touch special US interests, like pushing former USSR states into the lap of the EU.
This stuff irritates me for longer now. …
https://www.occrp.org/en/daily/17494-us-sanctions-four-georgian-judges-for-corruption
The group has allegedly been blocking reforms required to deepen Georgia’s ties to the European Union. Murusidze and Chinchaladze are associated with a powerful body called the High Council of Justice, the supreme oversight body of the country’s judicial system
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IF USA go on like this, Georgia will end up by liking Russia better for its more frank approach
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I know, right? With Russia, at least, people knew where they stood and what the rules were. There was stability. With the Americans there is just chaos and no boundaries.
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Tsertsvadze is perfectly pronounceable to me, but if Levan Number One had been a judge, I’m fairly certain the Imperialist States of Amerikastan would never have dared sanction him. He could certainly break Bidet’s blue-eyed bumchum Blinky in half with one hand.
What can Georgia do? How about immediately signing an alliance with Russia including stationing Russian troops in country?
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That’s what I would do, if I were the Gruzian government. But unfortunately, they are not going to do that. They are in too deep with the Americans. Americans have their NGO’s, bought off most of the elite, and their dirty fingers in every pie. I hate to sound like such a pessimist. But, realistically there is very little the Gruzians can actually do except continue to try to maneuver, ineffectually.
Still, on the positive side: small nations like this are used to waffling around and performing cunning maneuvers, they can sometimes wear down a larger adversary.
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I add, while “these people” are technically my countrymen, that also applied to the quislings of Norway to Norwegians. Point being, while I am sure Norwegians have their faults, quislings were well outside the norm for Norway and so too in the USA.
As my great-grandfather said exiting his family from the conveying coffin ship and upon seeing the Irish ghetto of New York: “these are not our people”…and my family walked from New York in May, to Wisconsin…by October. All seven survived. We, the people of the USA are a better people than our rulers and their apparatchiks.
Our rulers in DC? “These are not our people” !!!
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Your ancestors sound like very tough dudes, good for them!
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“Team America, World Police — fuck yeah!” That seems to be the motto of the U.S. State Department these days. Srsly, how many “diplomats” does the U.S. have in place these days whose main pursuit is nastiness, not diplomacy? Starting right at the top, with Stinken (sic). The current ambassador to Russia goes to a lot of effort to be a shitheel in Moscow, amirite? And this Chelsea-looking cow… What a Karen! But perhaps not precisely, because she believes she IS the manager. In fact, that sums up the presumptuous demeanour of the U.S. — United States of Amerikaren.
What do the sanctions mean, anyway? The four judges can’t go to Disney? Boo-hoo. (The wrong Levan shouldn’t go to Disney because they’d never let him leave. The Mouse owns the “Shrek” property, right? I’m sensing a new headliner in a stage show version…)
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Last time I checked ‘Shrek’ is still a DreamWorks property. Not sure where you get the idea that Disney acquired the IP.
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Sheer laziness! Because everything is getting monopolised, especially in the communications sphere, and Disney is such a conglomerate, I made the guess that they’d own Shrek just like they do ABC. I didn’t bother to Guggle (sic) for the facts because it was just a throwaway quip on Y’s blog. And also, I’m a tight-arse who doesn’t want to pay for Internet service, so I leech off various free wifi hotspots close to where I live. Wasn’t worth going out to bask in the warm glow of the electronic waves just so I could be accurate. (I tend to pre-write these comments at home and post them later.) It’s the Internet, mate! If people limited themselves to the truth, half of everything that appears online would die stillborn.
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Glad you boys worked that out. Thanks for the factual correction, Joey. I like my version better anyhow, in which Disney acquires the P.T. Barnum Freak Show. Then they capture Levan #1 and put him on display as “The Missing Link Between Man And Ape” !
Shrek is better looking anyhow, than this gorilla. Because Shrek is not quite as hairy!
🙂
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Bukko, you have created something like 6 or 7 different memes in the course of a single comment! I like them all, and I am going to steal them, especially:
1.) Stinken Blinken, or maybe Stinky Blinky?
2.) Chelsea-looking cow, we’ll abbreviate that to CLC eventually and it will become a common internet meme.
3.) United States of Amerikaren…
4.) “Karen, honey, you can’t talk to the manager because you ARE the manager!”
I won’t comment on the Shrek controversy, leave you and Joey to duke that one out. But I like the mental image of Levan #1 going to Disney and not being allowed to leave… Let’s stipulate that the Disney Security Agency (DSA) captures Levan in a net and puts him as star attraction in their Freak Show. (We’ll stipulate that Disney has a freak show, because they acquired the rights to the P.T. Barnum show. Will that work for both you and Joey?)
We got some good material here..
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I just wanted to ask about that little detail. I otherwise have no dog in the fight. That’s it.
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No problem, Joey. We’re all cool.
Oh, and by the way, dog fighting is illegal and immoral.
Cock-fighting, on the other hand….
🙂
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