Bigger doesn't imply better. Bigger often is a sign of obesity, of lost control, of overcomplexity, of cancerous cells
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May the source be with you, but remember the KISS principle ;-) Bigger doesn't imply better. Bigger often is a sign of obesity, of lost control, of overcomplexity, of cancerous cells |
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"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"
Who will
guard the guards themselves?
There is a country within the country in the USA. It can be called "Classified America". It has population of around 5 million people and controls the other 320 million. Almost 5 million people is more more then 1% of population. And now it becme a formidable political force that strives to become a kingmaker. much like Praetorian Guard in ancient Role it is clearly out of control of elected government and has its own, sometimes nefarious agenda. All-in-all this is the fastest growing part of media-military-industrial complex.
After creation such powerful agencies as FBI adn CIA inevitable try to to extent and enhance there position and influnece4 and this process logically leads that at some point they start to control bigger and bigger chunk of the US political life and the institution of Presidency become mostly a decoration, a Potemkin village to provide legitimacy for the ruling elite represented by the "deep state" with the intelligence agencies in the driving seat. It took CIA less then 20 years to reach this point from its creation by President Truman and 1963. John Edgar Hoover was the first FBI director who dies in his position in 1972 at the age of 77 with no previous President able to depose him, because of dirt he collected on them.
A January 2016 report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence says more than 4.9 million people in the USA have some sort of government security clearance. About 1.4 million of those have "top secret" clearance.... Most security clearances are held by government workers. They hold 2,757,333 "confidential/secret" clearances and 791,200 clearances designated as "top secret." Contractors claim 582,524 "confidential" clearances and 483,263 "top-secret" ones. There is another general category of people who hold 167,925 "confidential/secret" clearances and 135,506 top-secret. See Security clearances held by millions of Americans for more details.
This "inner state" represented by holders of security clearance controls such areas of US public life as two most important newspapers (NYT, WaPo) several TV channels (MSNBC, CNN) as well as (if we believe recent stories about ) elections. That might well be a sign that the "national security state" has gone rogue and the tail is wagging the dog.
A security clearance is granted to an individual and generally recognizes a maximum level of clearance. Exceptions include levels above compartmentalized access or when an individual is cleared for a certain type of data. The President of the United States may be given access to any government or military information that they request if there is a proper "need to know", even if they would not otherwise be able to normally obtain a security clearance were they not the President. Having obtained a certain level security clearance does not mean that one automatically has access to or is given access to information cleared for that clearance level in the absence of a demonstrated "need to know".[12] The "need-to-know" determination is made by a 'disclosure officer,' who may work in the office of origin of the information. The specified "need to know" must be connected to the prospective user's mission, or of necessity for the integrity of a specified security apparatus. the system is pretty Bisantium and include multiple levels tha tparciallyh intersect
Among other things Top secret clearance required to access:
Such compartmentalized clearances may be expressed as "John has a TS/SCI", whereby all clearance descriptors are spelled out verbally. For example, the US National Security Agency once used specialized terms such as "Umbra",[17][18][19] This classification is reported to be a compartment within the "Special Intelligence" compartment of SCI.[20] The various NSA compartments have been simplified; all but the most sensitive compartments are marked "CCO", meaning "handle through COMINT channels only".
The US Department of Defense establishes, separately from intelligence compartments, special access programs (SAP) when the vulnerability of specific information is considered exceptional and the normal criteria for determining eligibility for access applicable to information classified at the same level are not deemed sufficient to protect the information from unauthorized disclosure. The number of people cleared for access to such programs is typically kept low. Information about stealth technology, for example, often requires such access.
Area-specific clearances include:
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Jan 13, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
As FBI Ramped Up "Witch Hunt" When Trump Fired Comey, Strzok Admitted Collusion Investigation A Joke
A Friday report in the New York Times revealing that the FBI supercharged its Trump-Russia collusion investigation after President Trump fired FBI director James Comey appears to have backfired - especially when one reviews internal FBI communications from the time period in question.
The Daily Caller 's Chuck Ross has made a brilliant observation, noting Peter Strzok - then the FBI's deputy chief of counterintelligence, admitted to his FBI lawyer mistress, Lisa Page, that there was no merit to the investigation.
Nine days after Comey was fired and the DOJ "sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia," Strzok texted Page on May 18, 2017: "You and I both know the odds are nothing. If I thought it was likely I'd be there no question. I hesitate in part because of my gut sense and concern there's no big there there. "
It is unclear from The Times report what information was used as a predicate to open the investigation. The article suggests that the FBI had long considered the move and that Comey's firing and Trump's subsequent comments marked a tipping point.
...
A source close to Strzok told The Daily Caller News Foundation on Jan. 26, 2018, shortly after the text was released, that the message reflected Strzok's concern that the FBI would not find evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia . - Daily Caller
The Times' explanation for the FBI's rationale that Trump may have been a Russian asset consists of Trump's call for Moscow to release Hillary Clinton's emails an election debate, and allegations contained within the unverified Steele Dossier. The Times was also quick to note that Trump may have "unwittingly fallen under Moscow's influence," to temper the accusation that he was an agent of a foreign power. In short, weak sauce.
It's no wonder Strzok was hesitant to join Mueller's team.
Interestingly, another series of Strzok-Page texts refers to "coordinating investigation" after Strzok apparently met with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who both recommended Comey's firing, then authorized the special counsel probe.
As Ross notes in The Daily Caller , there were other text messages that between Strzok and Page which raise suspicion over whether the FBI was working on a "gotcha" against Trump.
" And we need to open the case we've been waiting on now while Andy is acting ," Strzok texted Page the day Comey was fired, referring to then-deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe.
Meanwhile, Page - who served as McCabe's deputy, provided some additional color on the text messages during her July 2018 congressional testimony, suggesting that the "case we've been waiting on" text referred to an investigation separate of the obstruction probe we already knew about.
"Well, other than obstruction, what could it have been?" one lawmaker asked Page in her interview, details of which were published by The Epoch Times on Friday.
" I can't answer that, sir. I'm sorry ," she replied.
"If I was able to explain in more depth why the Director firing precipitated this text, I would," she continued while declining to say if the text message referred to an obstruction of justice investigation or something more. - Daily Caller
That said, Page admitted that Comey's firing prompted the text exchange.
"So the firing of Jim Comey was the precipitating event as opposed to the occupant of the Director's office?" asked one lawmaker.
"Yes, that's correct," replied Page.
Meanwhile, The Times went to great lengths to imply that the FBI was justified in their ratcheted-up collusion investigation - failing to mention who started the probe, who led it, and more importantly - waiting until the 9th paragraph to mention the fact that it turned up nothing .
"No evidence has emerged publicly that Mr. Trump was secretly in contact with or took direction from Russian government officials. An F.B.I. spokeswoman and a spokesman for the special counsel's office both declined to comment."
VideoEng_NC
"It is unclear from The Times report what information was used as a predicate to open the investigation."
Should be pretty simple with one question. "Was it Hillary who was the responsible party to open an investigation on Trump?". About as direct as it gets & we already know the answer.
adampeart
TDS sufferers hate Trump so bad that they have become (at 70%) pro-warmonger. Pathetic. I guess that I shouldn't be surprised. They were fine with Black Jesus starting wars, overthrowing governments and bombing brown people for 8 years.
Teeter
McCabe initiated the investigation. Nobody likes McCabe, so he is likely to be the one guy that gets thrown under the bus. Of course what he knows may protect him to some extent... they won't want a trial.
Duc888
Sedition? Treason?
Yippie21
7 Days in May.... except for current version we use the DOJ and FBI! Interesting times.
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Jan 13, 2019 | www.unz.com
MK-DELTABURKE , says: July 23, 2018 at 12:40 pm GMT
@Cagey Beast Yup. Furthermore, CIA is organized crime and organized crime is CIA. CIA recruits and runs agents in favored criminal syndicates in every illicit trade: drugs, child sexual trafficking, arms, fraud, bustouts, extortion, money laundering. Their purpose is not to interdict the trade but to control it.CIA manages transnational organized crime to top up their budget for unauthorized clandestine operations, like killing JFK.
CIA protects its criminal proteges with their chartered impunity. They call off law enforcement with the magic words national security or 'sources and methods.' If the plan gets exposed, CIA's criminal cutouts insulate the agency from exposure.
RFK knew how it works. RFK junior explained the reason for RFK's focus on organized-crime until CIA whacked him. That's why his book was made to sink without a ripple.
https://popularresistance.org/the-mass-media-will-not-review-rfk-jr-s-book-why/
Evenfurthermore, CIA is the government and the government is CIA. Decades ago Fletcher Prouty showed that CIA's deepest-cover illegal moles are embedded in our own government. Every agency with repressive capacity is infiltrated with focal points, who report to CIA handlers without the other agency's knowledge.
https://ratical.org/ratville/JFK/ST/ST.html
Of course Israel is trying to infiltrate it -- they understand the levers of power.
Assange has got some mighty stinkers in his insurance file. All we can do is hope they're enough to destabilize the CIA Reich that has ruled America since 1949.
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Jan 13, 2019 | www.unz.com
Halper , says: July 23, 2018 at 6:52 pm GMT
CIA is boosting the volume of its anti-Russian vilification because more and more CIA assets are getting flushed out. Stephan Halper is an obvious spook. Page is the corniest traitor since Lee Harvey Oswald .Daniel Rich , says: July 23, 2018 at 10:35 pm GMThttps://dailystormer.name/is-carter-page-a-cia-spook/
Strzok has clearly got a dotted-line report to his real boss in CIA :
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/07/22/a-review-of-the-doj-fbi-fisa-application-release/
Publius Tacitus is incorrect, though, in making a distinction between the Obama administration and the intelligence community. Obama is a third-generation CIA spook he's a CIA spokesmodel, not a head of state (see Andrew Krieg's Presidential Puppetry.)
@peterAUS It's impossible to asses [correctly] who's influenced by what, but it seems that telling lies doesn't work that well any longer. You can find some numbers in the following article: Democracy Dies in Debt? US News Outlets Slashing Staff Left and Right -- Link to Sputnik.Bill the Cat , says: July 24, 2018 at 12:06 am GMTExcerpt : "A Pew Research analysis on Monday found that more than a third of the US' largest newspapers and more than a fifth of its largest digital outlets experienced layoffs between January 2017 and April 2018."
To add to the list of things that the Russians had on Hillary . IIRC, she was Sec of State at the time the US election-meddling-and-color-revolution brigade tried to rig the Russian elections against Putin.skrik , says: July 24, 2018 at 1:59 pm GMTPutin does not seem to be the sort to let emotion be more important than policy, but I've always wondered that to the small extent the Russians did take a pop at Hillary's campaign, if it didn't bring a bit of a smile to Putin's face to know he was just giving back the hits he'd already taken from her.
Hillary of course was incompetent in having America interfere in Russian elections. That campaign never had a chance as Putin is a lot more popular in Russia than Hillary is in America. So, she took a pot shot at a rival world leader knowing (or at least some smart people did) that it would have no effect and that Putin would win that election anyways. And of course Hillary the Arrrogant could never imagine that another player in the game would get to take a turn, and that others might interfere in her election, and she knew she'd run and she knew she'd rig the Dem party to get the nod, in the same way the NED and the Soros NGO's tried to interfere in Russia.
@NorthgunnerMulegino1 , says: July 24, 2018 at 9:55 pm GMT'ruling class', 'elites'
I share your sentiments [in a slightly different vernacular]; of course they, the usurping 'rulers' are neither a class nor in any way 'elite,' but who/what ever they are [jews, oligarchs, 'simply' psychopaths or 'true' spawn of Satan], they do seem to be 'in control.' Proof of that is the coordinated criminal actions of 'the West.'
Find "CIA is the government and the government is CIA" above; it's the obvious place to expect a ccc = covert criminal cabal to establish itself. Add to that the truly weird concept of having spies a) out of all control and b) with apparently unlimited power. We 'shall know them by their deeds' which is almost unrelievedly a 'bad look.' Odd is that the 1st mention of any conspiracy that I heard of was that of 'jewish banksters ruling the world.' We since know that such was pilloried by the CIA, but it seems to me to be a case of the tar-baby: The more they [CIA, jews] howl/deny, the guiltier they prove themselves to be. rgds
I would say that what is affecting the western establishment elites at this juncture is not mere dementia but the madness which arises from acts of pure, hellish evil. These people are the Gadarine swine of the contemporary era; a good portion of them appear to be Satanic perverts and pedophiles, if we are to judge from recent revelations. I am not being hyperbolic when I write that Antichrist's reign has been postponed. They had imagined it would be installed by November of 2016 and this is driving them to despair. They hate Trump because his election blocked their lord and master's ascent and they hate Putin because he represents the great restraining power.Cagey Beast , says: July 24, 2018 at 10:16 pm GMT@yurivku He's of course is a bone in DC's throat, but his level of intelligence and real power seem to be extremely low.Jeff Stryker , says: July 25, 2018 at 4:12 am GMTYes, he's a golden chandelier stuck in the belly of the Beast. I think he's quite smart, in his own way, but can only do so much on his own. He also has some bad ideas and makes enemies when it isn't necessary but he's still the only hope for change at the centre of the American empire.
@skrik Be that as it may, Romper Stomper took place 30 years after the Vietnam War began. The reverberations of the war were felt in Australia long afterwards.Jeff Stryker , says: July 25, 2018 at 4:27 am GMT@peterAUS That's an armchair rugby referee for you, encouraging a Civil War in a country he's probably never set foot. What do you believe would change its policy towards Oz.Jeff Stryker , says: July 25, 2018 at 4:31 am GMTIf you remember when Reagan broke the air-traffic control union strikes and 30,000 of them immigrated to Oz in 1981, what would happen would be that many qualified Americans would come to Australia and take Australian jobs.
That's how such unrest would affect you.
At any rate, the US would still have the same grip on popular culture (If not financial markets) and Vegemite would not suddenly replace McDonald's everywhere.
Also, though the Asians seem to slowly taking over your economy anyhow, if the US military was busy suppressing a civil war and Asian countries might get aggressive towards you militarily.
@peterAUS The Asians might get more aggressive if the US military suddenly found itself preoccupied with a Civil War.peterAUS , says: July 25, 2018 at 5:12 am GMTAsia is taking over your country economically anyhow but they might get a bit anti-social if suddenly the US were to lose all capacity to maintain its presence in your hemisphere.
@Jeff Stryker O.K.skrik , says: July 25, 2018 at 6:15 am GMTGood luck.
@peterAUSRobinG , says: July 25, 2018 at 6:18 am GMTI know, for your types. Feels comfortable
Aw, don't go all wussy -- you're acting like a wounded suitor. I suppose it was my rejection of your
I'd need to trust you and then we'd have a long chat somewhere in open public place
Similr to which you you offered Backstay
Have a quiet chat somewhere in a park, for example. Just two of us. Two
Try this google ; that the sort of place you had in mind? It's also reputedly a secret entrance to an ASIO bunker but I suppose you know that; I call attempted entrapment.
@skrik . ? ccc = 'great financial consortiums' ?yurivku , says: July 25, 2018 at 6:52 am GMT"As a matter of fact, the composition of the governments is predetermined, and their actions are controlled by great financial consortiums."
J. V. Stalin, Questions & Answers to American Trade Unionists: Stalin's Interview With the First American Trade Union Delegation to Soviet Russia
Pravda September 15, 1927 ___________(h/t, J.S.)@Cagey Beaststandall , says: July 25, 2018 at 7:39 am GMTthink he's quite smart, in his own way, but can only do so much on his own
But I think he's stupid, ignorant, spineless (as well as most of POTUSes), the only difference is -- he's not completely belongs to DC. Probably it's better than if Clinton was on his place, but who knows, Trump can make any stupid thing
@exiled off mainstreet I agree.skrik , says: July 25, 2018 at 9:31 am GMT@RobinGAnon [243] Disclaimer , says: July 25, 2018 at 2:30 pm GMTccc = 'great financial consortiums' ?
G'day, q.possibly and glad you responded. Yeah sure, Stalin is 'close;' it's why some suggest oligarchs, but it demonstrably falls a bit short. My ccc = covert criminal cabal, each word of the highest significance; let's examine each one:
[COED:] covert = not openly acknowledged or displayed -- this is 100% true, since they operate from 'behind a curtain' of deliberate secrecy. Not declaring who they are is a lie of omission, then see after cabal below. Before moving on, let's consult Cicero:
mendaci neque quum vera dicit, creditor
= A liar is not to be believed, even when speaking the truth. That's never a 'good look,' and leads to the next:
criminal -- self-evident, then:
[COED:] cabal = a secret political clique or faction. Øarchaic a secret intrigue .
ORIGIN
C16 (denoting the Kabbalah): from French cabale, from medieval Latin cabala (see Kabbalah).Finally [COED:] Kabbalah (also Kabbala, Cabbala, Cabala, or Qabalah = the ancient Jewish tradition of mystical interpretation of the Bible .
I allow myself to propose an exactly apposite example of the latter: 'Xxx promised it to us!' -- Where Xxx comes directly from some "mystical interpretation of the Bible." 'Nuff said?
More? IF it were only "great financial consortiums" THEN one would need to explain the criminality, since I'm pretty sure oligarchs *could* work legally. Then, the 'normal' consortiums' business is to 'make money' [and cheating and/or theft may be sort of 'normal'], but the ccc goes *far* past that into [mass-]murdering for spoil, quite/most often for oil and/or *soil* . The latter is within Nuremberg class = supreme international criminality. That may complete the loop and explain why covert in the 1st place.
I wrote above that I would 'revisit' lies; here's a partial quote:
But it remained for the yyy, with their unqualified capacity for falsehood,
Feel free to 'guess' at the yyy, then I assert QED rgds
Great article. Good to read someone not suffering from dementia!Jeff Stryker , says: July 25, 2018 at 3:00 pm GMT@peterAUS Good luck?EugeneGur , says: July 25, 2018 at 3:18 pm GMT@peterAUSPoupon Marx , says: July 25, 2018 at 5:05 pm GMTOr who are the guys, in Ukrainian Armed Forces, presently engaged against Donbass?
Besides those in "volunteer battalions", which tend to be nationalistic with distinct Nazi overtones, people in the regular Armed Forces are there for the money. There are very few paying jobs in today's Ukraine, so men enlist and hope for the best.
the ratio hate/don't care shall shift, hard and fast. Not in Russian favor, I suspect.
That could've been the case in 2014. Today I very much doubt it. Even the Right Sector people are fed up with the current power in Kiev, and even the dumbest nationalists are beginning to realize what a deep hole the country is in. Normal people all over the South-East are hoping and praying for the Russians to come. The problem is the Russians aren't coming.
The moniker "journalist" should immediately by banished by replacement of "reporter", as in report the facts and observations, not interpretations or personal opinions.Eagle Eye , says: July 25, 2018 at 5:18 pm GMT@AuthenticjazzmanAuthenticjazzman , says: July 25, 2018 at 6:51 pm GMTI am not a Scientologist, but I consider [L. Ron Hubbard] to be one of the most brilliant minds of the twentieth century
Interesting point. Serious question -- in your view, what else (other than psychotropic medication) was Hubbard "brilliant" about?
@Eagle Eye " In your view what else was Hubbard brilliant about?"peterAUS , says: July 25, 2018 at 6:53 pm GMTWell for example his bizarre sounding concepts regarding the sources of mankind, and the history of this insane planet, which are repeatedly ridiculed and labeled as absurd by the PTB, who of course have their own turf to defend, and their own concepts which they do not want to be brought into question.
AJM
@EugeneGur Well can't say I disagree with the comment.Cratylus , says: July 26, 2018 at 5:49 am GMT
Or, better, can't provide any concrete evidence to the contrary, especially re the second paragraph.The thing is, nationalism is a peculiar feeling.
So, while thisNormal people all over the South-East are hoping and praying for the Russians to come.
could be true, the rest of Ukraine could get into quite the opposite.
But, as you say
The problem is the Russians aren't coming.
so it's all academic.
Now, speaking of
people are fed up with the current power .
one could feel, probably, the same in Donbass.
Things aren't great there either.In any case the conflict is there, frozen for the moment (not for the people along the front line) and can erupt, again, when the US Deep State wants it.
Interesting times.
@Michael Kenny If one wants a clear example of the Russophobic or Putinophobic hysteria infecting the West, one need go no further than this demented fellow. And to that he adds a conspiracy theory about the gangsters ruling over it all.Uncle Bee , says: July 26, 2018 at 12:06 pm GMT@Cyrano Imagine if the WMDs get you attacked rule applied to Israel?Jeff Davis , says: July 26, 2018 at 3:17 pm GMT@seeing-thru You got it 100% Right my friend. That's the best reality-connected assessment of the Donald's performance that I've read. I'm going to swipe it for reuse elsewhere. Thank you, and may the force be with you.seeing-thru , says: July 26, 2018 at 5:58 pm GMT@Jeff Davis Glad you liked it. Yeah, go ahead use it any which way. BTW, my fear is that the Donald may not be able to succeed because of the massive line-up of forces against him. The whole lunatic asylum is out of their cages, snarling and clawing and planning all sorts of stuff to bring him down. Let us wish him success.Apolonius , says: July 26, 2018 at 9:54 pm GMT@Vojkan Bravo Vojkane!Jeff Davis , says: July 27, 2018 at 6:24 pm GMT@Lauri TörniMalcontent , says: July 29, 2018 at 8:59 pm GMTSo standing up for American citizens is considered a "mentally insane" thing?
You are utterly and completely out of your mind, virtually from another planet, another reality. A textbook example of insanity. The fact that you don't recognize it, simply confirms the fact.
The Deep state is not, repeat not , the American people.
Regarding the Intel community: There are the guys in the trenches. these are honorable guys. Then there is the leadership. The current leadership is on notice to behave itself, on account of the new "Sheriff" in town. The corrupt politicized leadership from the Clinton/Bush/Obama regimes however, now out of power, are attempting to overthrow the legitimately elected president of the United States. In so doing, they are pursuing treason-lite.
Clapper, Brennan, and Hayden are already full-on war criminals: Iraq & torture. Now, in their attempt to destroy the Trump presidency, they are adding betrayal of democracy and betrayal of the Constitution of the United States to their criminal resume. These are evil men who think it is their job to run the United States from behind a malleable (gutless?) figurehead who does what they tell him to do.
As I said in my original post, it is fascinating to observe people like you, utterly dominated -- brain-raped really -- by a neocon/neoliberal narrative that has reduced them to robotic -- even willing -- slaves of the 1%. Good for you. Enjoy. The others, who prefer self-mastery to self-enslavement, will benefit from your choice of enslavement.
That is what all of this boils down to; Trump treating Americans like s*hit in front of the whole world, while praising Russia and Russians.
The IC war criminals/traitors should not be equated with or allowed to hide anonymous behind the majority population of decent Americans. Which is what simpletons like you enable and then fall for.
I fully understood all the concerns for what the Left is doing to people and to the society.
Trump praises Israel and says that, "Securing Israel's safety is our most important task" not a peep comes from the Trump-supporters?!
Some Trump supporters do object. Others however grasp the political reality of Jewish political influence in the US. Politically incompetent simpletons like yourself think Trump should commit political suicide by taking on the Jews.
The Jews/Israel will be dealt with -- or not -- later, when Trump has secured his presidency. And then, the rebalancing of the US-Israeli relationship will not be grounded in hostility to the Jews, but will be more along the lines of America First.
Never ever did I expect, that it would be the Trump-supporters surfacing as the fifth column, giving the "finishing touch" to the destruction of American citizens.
The above is pure paranoid, "the sky is falling", TDS whackadoodle.
The Liberals seem to have woken up,
The country is in the throes of a cultural war between the bubble-wrapped snowflakes and "real" people. Thankfully, the "real" people will win, precisely because they have the advantage of being reality-connected. The snowflakes will benefit as well -- you will benefit -- by the resulting opportunity to reconnect with reality.
Good luck, best wishes, Trump is rapidly changing the world for the better.
And let me add: The Soviet Union is a quarter century gone, and with it Soviet Communism. Putin is the preeminent statesman of our times. Go to YouTube and listen to what he says. He and Trump, aligned, are a force for good in the world. Peace with Russia is coming, and with it a new era of peace and prosperity in the world.
Which leaves me to echo your closing comment:
Are you ever going to be able to comprehend this?
(Answer: Probably not for another six years, if ever.)
@Cyrano Are you joking? Russia is the second largest nuclear arsenal in the world.Malcontent , says: July 29, 2018 at 9:01 pm GMT@Jeff Davis Bravo! Exactly my thoughts!peterAUS , says: July 29, 2018 at 9:27 pm GMT@Jeff DavisJeff Stryker , says: July 30, 2018 at 8:09 am GMTThankfully, the "real" people will win, precisely because they have the advantage of being reality-connected.
Ah, good.
The last time when "real" people won against the US "Deep State" was let me see .well shame on me, can't think of it.
Let's see after the fall of the Wall:
Yugoslavia, then Serbia proper .no
Afghanistan .no .
Ah Iraq .no ..
Lybia no .
Syria well not so sure.Ah, yes, those weren't Americans. Yeah.
I got concerned for a bit; all good now.
No need to think about M.A.D. anymore. (Re)focus on fishing. Snapper, preferably.@peterAUS Australia's problem is going to be an Asian economic overclass you Australians always obsess about country's located halfway around the world first the UK now the US.Jeff Stryker , says: July 30, 2018 at 8:15 am GMTyou're worried about blacks in the US in the ghetto's wealth inequality while Chinese business elite reduce you to paupers IN Australia and eventually you go the way of the black aborigines.
But you cannot see that because you're focused on US cultural colonization or things you have seen in Hollywood films.
@peterAUS Sorry, countries not country's.James Bacque , says: Website July 31, 2018 at 7:16 pm GMTPoint is that in the sixties you were still obsessed with the British Empire though you are a bit of a lost colony now you are obsessed with the United States, another waning Empire.
Pretty soon the Chinese will have you sleeping in your cars and you will still be focused on the state of blacks in the US ghetto and inequality in America.
But see, the US won't be the problem in Australia. China will.
You compare yourself to the United States because it is a similar former British colony and white settler nation but it is Asia that will stomp you.
She is most likely onto something important. My solution is that most people are double-minded because it suits us to lazily allow our leaders to control us while we (somewhat) hypocritically condemn them for faults and errors which profit us.peterAUS , says: July 31, 2018 at 8:18 pm GMTSt Paul, Shakespeare and Montaigne all complained of their own double-mindedness.
I hope that a column of mine on this topic will appear soon in The U.R.
James Bacque Penetanguishene ON
@James Bacqueskrik , says: August 1, 2018 at 3:18 pm GMTmost people are double-minded because it suits us to lazily allow our leaders to control us while we (somewhat) hypocritically condemn them for faults and errors which profit us ..
I guess you are onto something here.
It could go a bit deeper, though, as:
. most people are double-minded because it suits us to allow our betters to lead us while we (somewhat) hypocritically condemn them for their and our faults and errors which profit us.
@Jeff StrykerJohnj , says: August 2, 2018 at 11:48 pm GMTBut you cannot see that because you're focused on US cultural colonization or things you have seen in Hollywood films You compare yourself to the United States because it is a similar former British colony and white settler nation
If I may intercede, no, and that twice.
1. peterAUS, if my interpretation is correct, sees the world through 'military blinkers,' is assumed not to notice China et al. except as one 'enemy' among many, and probably thinks that ~100 F35s, xxx new warships, yyy new submarines and zzz new 'armoured cars,' costing the Aus-taxpayer nose-bleeding squillions will 'save his/their bacon.' As such, peterAUS cannot be addressed as any valid representative of 'the great Aus-unwashed.'
2. That great Aus-unwashed, hoovering up the trash err, sorry for the US-speak; hoovering up the horrendous rubbish 'presented' to them via their '1984-style telescreens' err, one-finger flat-screen distraction devices [when not actual television sets], is largely unconscious of any 'real world.'
Since the CIA-sponsored coup of 1975, the country has been 'going to the dogs' at an increasing rate. The sheople glory under their 'Lucky Country' delusion, not even knowing its full import: Lucky not to be even partly aware. Yeah sure, the corrupt&venal MSM+PFBCs [= publicly financed broadcasters] try to revive 'the yellow peril' scare, but that's just standard 'Bernays haze' scare mongering, to keep the proles from thinking: Der, they [as peterAUS] didn't think. rgds
PS The great Aus-unwashed, as any 'Western' citizen, has zero choice; so-called 'Western democracy' allows for as good as zero 'citizen input.' The 'choice' of Trump should be put down to an aberration -- some 'clever-clogs' manipulators -- *not* Russians -- pulled off a coup. But as they used to say: "Better red than dead;" better Trump than HRC.
Do we have a democracy? Or even representative government? So what happened to our jobs off-shored. Who approved that? Who approved 100 million legal immigrants in the last 50 years?Johnj , says: August 3, 2018 at 12:10 am GMTWhy does anyone accept our stilted self-image, especially Diana?
@Lauri Törni Good God, this Lauri reads the NYT and has the gall to post it as proof of her opinions. So that means she is nuts and brainwashed.Ace , says: September 15, 2018 at 5:55 pm GMTOutstanding article.Ace , says: September 15, 2018 at 7:59 pm GMTOn the point about the "world's greatest prison population" note that some one-third of the federal prison population consists of illegal alien criminals and the large U.S. black criminal underclass commits crimes at a higher rate than everyone else, so there are more blacks in our prisons. Oh, the horror.
If other nations enjoyed large illegal immigrant populations and a large black criminal underclass we would see similar inflated prison populations.
Spare us the silliness on this score as well as the "regular massacres of school children" garbage. No doubt you'll enlighten us with your anti-gun views on American gun nuts at a later time. I wait with bated breath.
Still, you almost got a lock on insightful commentary these days.
@Lauri Törni Liberals fight for the existence of Americans?james bacque , says: Website October 24, 2018 at 6:51 pm GMTAmazing. Do you intend to live on our planet or are you just visiting?
Ron UnzThis is a very good blog, column, whatever, because it illuminates with the light of reason the mass madness of the Washington crowd, and probably much of the American population. See the New Yorker article in the current issue about the utility of caregivers lying to and/or deceiving demented patients to keep them content. That is what is happening now in the USA and your failure to understand my explanation for it, in my essay on double-mindedness, which I sent you last summer, I mind very much. You could lead the way out of the mess if you would re-read that essay and try to understand it.
I am a very ordinary guy and I understand it. Please try again. The world needs this.
Jim Bacque
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Jan 13, 2019 | www.unz.com
MK-DELTABURKE , says: July 22, 2018 at 8:25 pm GMT
@Cagey Beast Aspen Institute does make attempts at outreach, but they invariably cock it up by eliciting, recruiting, or suborning every single person they bring in. The shitheads even tried to do it to me. You would think they'd have a dossier saying I hate those cobags.Cagey Beast , says: July 22, 2018 at 10:58 pm GMTTheir fundamental problem is, Aspen Institute is CIA. Their first and only instinct is to use people like toilet paper. They don't want popular support. They want agents in complete control.
@MK-DELTABURKE Exactly.skrik , says: July 23, 2018 at 8:59 am GMTAspen Institute is CIA.
Yes, the Aspen Institute is the CIA and the CIA is the Aspen Institute. Or, to be more precise, the CIA is the armed wing of Washington's permanently governing technocratic party, in the same way the KGB was the armed wing of the Soviet Communist Party.
Poor Julian Assange is likely going to be in their hands not too long from now. The citizen of one Five Eyes country will be arrested by another and then sent off to the imperial metropole, to be kicked around like a political football. The rest of us Anglosphericals are expected to cheer or remain silent. Either is acceptable.
@TGPancho Perico , says: July 23, 2018 at 10:27 pm GMTthere is nothing at all mindless or demented about them
Me: Oh yes there is; by *them* I don't mean "Zuckerberg, others" but the actual rulers of 'the West,' then see this:
Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
Consider also:
Aspen Institute is CIA
and [perhaps most critically] this:
may depend on support for Trump from Israel and the Pentagon!
Now, I term the actual rulers of 'the West' the ccc = covert criminal cabal. Of course they are in hiding -- acting from 'behind the curtain,' as some have it -- it has to be that *dishonest* way -- for them. Among their most notable 'fruits' are the JFK murder, USS Liberty outrage, inside-job 9/11 psyop and the utterly wicked destruction of Libya/Gaddafi, just 4 of many. The extended list is looong, and note that the 1st 3 in my list demonstrate the ccc 'murdering their own' -- except that to the ccc, anybody not actually in the ccc itself is not 'their own' but only exploitable/disposable objects. Of course the ccc causes lies to be promulgated, hence the Lügenpresse . Neoliberalism/austerity must also come from the ccc, causing misery wherever it's forced upon us, we the people. One of the spivs in suits who 'sold' neoliberalism to the Aus people called it 'economic rationalism' and jeered: 'What would you rather -- irrational economics?' Another ccc modus operandi item is coercion as demonstrated by the downstream effects of Downer's "Get a briefing!" -- which shows us that the CIA et al. is a 'command conduit' if not a command originator. What I'm trying to illustrate here is that the ccc does not merely operate like a mafia, it *is* a mafia, and one of the author's "may depend on" items suggests a name for this mafia, namely: Khazar. That's our miserable world, deliberately made that way by that mafia; if that's not 'mindless and demented' what is? rgds
@MK-DELTABURKE The Aspen Institute is CIA, but the CIA is an organization created and controlled by the globalist conspirators at the Council on Foreign Relations, mostly the Rockefellers and other banksters.
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Jan 12, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Pre IPO Swap New York, NY 1/12/2019
Did you know that the CIA has its own Venture Fund? And did you know that Venture fund was key in starting Facebook and Google? As explained in the book Splitting Pennies – the world is not as it seems.
For many readers especially on this comes as no surprise, as you are well aware of the octopus that wraps its tentacles around the globe. But it may surprise you how active In-Q-Tel is and how chummy they are with the rest of the VC community. It's as if they are just another VC, but with another purpose. Let's look at some of the stats, from Crunchbase:
Here's a list of recent investments
If you dig back you won't see Google or Facebook on there – which is company policy for retail consumer investments that can impact the public (it's kept secret behind an NDA). Here's how it works – In-Q-Tel may invest in your startup but there's a big catch. First, you have to sign an NDA which is enforced strongly – that you are not to disclose your partner. Second, you must agree to 'cooperation' when it comes to information sharing now or down the road, such as location data on people using Facebook, Google, or other systems – perhaps only to feed it into a big data brain at Palantir. Or perhaps for more street level surveillance. The surveillance is known by fact, not conspiracy theory – but by fact – due to the disclosure of classified documents by Edward Snowden. If it were not for Snowden, we could only guess about this. The name of the main program is PRISM but there are many others.
For those in the VC community that are deep in the know- the "Deep VCs" like Peter Thiel for example, the Snowden revelations would come as no surprise. MUST READ – No Place To Hide – the story of the NSA, PRISM, and Snowden (written by Greenwald).
But for others, it may come as a surprise that not only the CIA has its own VC fund, but that it sits on many corporate boards alongside many Wall St. firms and other VCs.
And of course, they always do well.
Let's consider the doors they opened for Google, or in the case of Google it was more like the doors that were closed. Google was not the best search engine, it was not superior technology – it wasn't even really very good. It just became a monopoly and crushed the competition. Many wonder how they were able to do it, and that this is part of the Entrepreneur "Magic" that few have. Well we can say in the case of Google there was no Magic they had a helping hand from a friend in the deep shadows. Google wanted to become huge – the CIA wants information (they always do, so we don't use the past tense 'wanted'). So it was a cozy and rational partnership – in exchange for making the right handshakes at the right time, allowing Google to become a global behemoth, all they needed to do was share a little information about users. Actually, a lot of information. No harm in that, right?
But in doing so Google violated itself as well as prostituted its model and its users. Google still does this and is not nearly as flagrant as its brother Facebook, however Google shares more detailed 'meta data' which is actually more useful to Echelon systems like Palantir that rely on big data, not necessarily photos of what you ate for breakfast (but that can be helpful too, they say).
The metaphor is making a deal with the devil; you get what you want but it comes at a price. And that's the price users pay to Google – they get service 'free' but at a huge cost, their privacy. Of course – this is all based on the concept of Freedom which really does exist in USA. You don't have to use Google – there are many alternatives like the rising star Duck Duck Go :
But who cares about privacy; only criminals, hackers, programmers, super wealthy (UHNWI) and a few philosophers.
Google remains the dominant search platform and much more. Google exploits niche by niche even competing with Amazon's Alexa service.
The argument here is that Google wouldn't be Google without the help of the CIA. This isn't our idea it's a fact, you can read about it here on qz.com:
Two decades ago, the US intelligence community worked closely with Silicon Valley in an effort to track citizens in cyberspace. And Google is at the heart of that origin story. Some of the research that led to Google's ambitious creation was funded and coordinated by a research group established by the intelligence community to find ways to track individuals and groups online. The intelligence community hoped that the nation's leading computer scientists could take non-classified information and user data, combine it with what would become known as the internet, and begin to create for-profit, commercial enterprises to suit the needs of both the intelligence community and the public. They hoped to direct the supercomputing revolution from the start in order to make sense of what millions of human beings did inside this digital information network. That collaboration has made a comprehensive public-private mass surveillance state possible today.
There you have it – Google is the child of the digital revolution of the surveillance state. Why spy, when you can collect data electronically and analyze with machine learning?
The new spy is the web bot.
And the investors in Google did well – so that's the investing story that matters here. It pays well to have friends in high places, and in dark places. Of all the investments In-Q-Tel made, almost all of them have done very well. That doesn't mean that Palantir is going to grow to the size of Google, but it does provide natural support should a company backed by In-Q-Tel run into problems.
By the time Facebook came out, digital surveillance was already in the n-th generation of evolution, and they really stepped up their game. In the creepiest examples, Facebook doesn't necessarily (and primarily) collect data on Facebook users – it does this too. But that's just a given – you don't need to perform surveillance on someone who gives all their data to the system willingly – you always know where they are and what they are doing at any given moment. The trick is to get information about those who may try to hide their activities, whether they are real terrorists or just paranoid geniuses.
How does Facebook do this? There are literally hundreds of programs running – but in one creepy example, Facebook collects photos that users take to analyze the environment surrounding. Incidentally, the location data is MUCH MORE accurate than you see on the retail front end. So you get the newspaper and see a gift in your mailbox for your birthday – you take a photo because the ribbons are hanging out. What shows up in the background? All kinds of information. What the neighbor is doing. License plate of the car driving by. Trash waiting to be picked up by the street. A child's toy left by the sidewalk. You get the picture. Facebook users have been turned into sneaky little digital spies! While they are walking around with their 'smartphones' (should be called 'dumbphones') scrolling their walls and snapping photos away – they are taking photos of you too. That means, Facebook collects data for the CIA about users who don't have Facebook accounts. This is the huge secret that the mainstream media doesn't want to tell you. Deleting your Facebook account will do nothing – every time you go out in public you are being photographed, video recorded, and more – all going into big data artificial intelligence for analysis.
But here's the best part. You own it! The CIA may have a bad reputation but it is part of the US Government, and thus – profits go back to the Treasury (those which are declared) or at least they are supposed to. Considering this, why is there a stigma about even talking about In-Q-Tel when in fact we should be more involved in any US Government operation when it is technically owned by the people and funded by taxpayers? Meaning, do taxpayers have rights to know what goes in in taxpayer funded entities, like In-Q-Tel? The big difference between In-Q-Tel and the CIA is that In-Q-Tel functions just like any other VC – they disclose most of their investments, they attend conferences, they accept business plans. You can literally submit your idea to In-Q-Tel and get funding. Of course, like any VC there's a very small chance of being funded.
So what's an investor's take on this story? In-Q-Tel is not Freddie Mac there is nor a quasi-government entity; it's not an NGO and there is no implicit guarantee that In-Q-Tel's deals will do any better than Andreessen Horowitz .
However, their deals do very well. Companies they fund not only have the backing of the CIA explicitly, it's not only about business – it's about national security! Under that guise, it's no wonder that companies like Google and Facebook rocket to the top.
We are not suggesting that investors double down on In-Q-Tel bets. We are only suggesting that at a minimum, we follow what they do. It's a data point – a good source of information. And the best part is that it's public.
Their most recent investment is in a virtual reality company in Boca Raton, FL called Immersive Wisdom:
Immersive Wisdom® is an enterprise software platform that allows users to collaborate in real-time upon diverse data sets and applications within a temporal and geospatially-aware Virtual, Mixed, and Augmented Reality space. Immersive Wisdom is hardware-agnostic and runs on VR, AR, as well as 2D displays. Regardless of geographic location , multiple users can be together in a shared virtual workspace, standing on maps, with instant access to relevant information from any available source. Users can simultaneously, and in real time, visualize, fuse, and act upon sensor inputs, cyber/network data, IoT feeds, enterprise applications, telemetry, tagged assets, 3D Models, LiDAR, imagery and UAV footage/streaming video, providing an omniscient, collaborative view of complex environments. Immersive Wisdom also acts as a natural human interface to multi-dimensional data sets generated by AI and machine learning systems. The platform includes a powerful SDK (Software Developer Kit) that enables the creation of customer-specific workflows as well as rapid integration with existing data sources/applications.
Cool stuff for sure – but it's in early stages. Pre IPO Swap suggests real Pre IPO 'unicorns' not because of size, but because of the right mix of risk and reward. https://preiposwap.com/pitch " style="color:#0d2e46; text-decoration:underline">See why we think so in our pitch.
In any analysis, it's worth watching In-Q-Tel, which is a top source of funding and investment data we watch on www.preiposwap.com/ ">https:// www.preiposwap.com/ " style="color:#0d2e46; text-decoration:underline">Pre IPO Swap.
To get real-time updates on companies like this, companies that In-Q-Tel invests in - www.preiposwap.com/follow ">http:// www.preiposwap.com/follow ">follow our blog free.
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Jan 04, 2019 | theintercept.com
Veteran NBC/MSNBC Journalist Blasts the Network for Being Captive to the National Security State and Reflexively Pro-War to Stop Trump
A VETERAN national security journalist with NBC News and MSNBC blasted the networks in a Monday email for becoming captive and subservient to the national security state, reflexively pro-war in the name of stopping President Donald Trump, and now the prime propaganda instrument of the War Machine's promotion of militarism and imperialism.
As a result of NBC/MSNBC's all-consuming militarism, he said, "the national security establishment not only hasn't missed a beat but indeed has gained dangerous strength" and "is ever more autonomous and practically impervious to criticism."
The NBC/MSNBC reporter, William Arkin, is a longtime prominent war and military reporter, perhaps best known for his groundbreaking, three-part Washington Post series in 2010, co-reported with two-time Pulitzer winner Dana Priest, on how sprawling, unaccountable, and omnipotent the national security state has become in the post-9/11 era. When that three-part investigative series, titled "Top Secret America," was published, I hailed it as one of the most important pieces of reporting of the war on terror, because while "we chirp endlessly about the Congress, the White House, the Supreme Court, the Democrats and Republicans, this is the Real U.S. Government: functioning in total darkness, beyond elections and parties, so secret, vast and powerful that it evades the control or knowledge of any one person or even any organization."
Arkin has worked with NBC and MSNBC over the years and continuously since 2016. But yesterday, he announced that he was leaving the network in a long, emphatic email denouncing the networks for their superficial and reactionary coverage of national security, for becoming fixated on trivial Trump outbursts of the day to chase profit and ratings, and -- most incriminating of all -- for becoming the central propaganda arm of the CIA, the Pentagon, and the FBI in the name of #Resistance, thus inculcating an entire new generation of liberals, paying attention to politics for the first time in the Trump era, to "lionize" those agencies and their policies of imperialism and militarism.
That MSNBC and NBC have become Security State Central has been obvious for quite some time. The network consists of little more than former CIA, NSA, and Pentagon officials as news "analysts"; ex-Bush-Cheney national security and communications officials as hosts and commentators; and the most extremists pro-war neocons constantly bashing Trump (and critics of Democrats generally) from the right, using the Cheney-Rove playbook on which they built their careers to accuse Democratic Party critics and enemies of being insufficiently patriotic, traitors for America's official enemies , and abandoning America's hegemonic role in the world.
MSNBC's star national security reporter Ken Dilanian was widely mocked by media outlets for years for being an uncritical CIA stenographer before he became a beloved NBC/MSNBC reporter (where his mindless servitude to his CIA masters has produced some of the network's most humiliating debacles ). The cable network's key anchor, Rachel Maddow, once wrote a book on the evils of endless wars without congressional authorization, but now routinely depicts anyone who wants to end those illegal wars as reckless weaklings and traitors .
Some of the most beloved and frequently featured MSNBC commentators are the most bloodthirsty pro-war militarists from the war on terror: David Frum, Jennifer Rubin, Ralph Peters, and Bill Kristol (who was just giddily and affectionately celebrated with a playful nickname bestowed on him: "Lil Bill"). In early 2018, NBC hired former CIA chief John Brennan to serve as a "senior national security and intelligence analyst," where the rendition and torture advocate joined -- as Politico's Jack Shafer noted -- a long litany of former security state officials at the network, including "Chuck Rosenberg, former acting DEA administrator, chief of staff for FBI Director James B. Comey, and counselor to former FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III; Frank Figliuzzi, former chief of FBI counterintelligence; Juan Zarate, deputy national security adviser under Bush."
As Shafer noted, filling your news and analyst slots with former security state officials as MSNBC and NBC have done is tantamount to becoming state TV, since "their first loyalty -- and this is no slam -- is to the agency from which they hail." As he put it: "Imagine a TV network covering the auto industry through the eyes of dozens of paid former auto executives and you begin to appreciate the current peculiarities."
All of this led Arkin to publish a remarkable denunciation of NBC and MSNBC in the form of an email he sent to various outlets, including The Intercept. Its key passages are scathing and unflinching in their depiction of those networks as pro-war propaganda outlets that exist to do little more than amplify and serve the security state agencies most devoted to opposing Trump, including their mindless opposition to Trump's attempts (with whatever motives) to roll back some of the excesses of imperialism, aggression, and U.S. involvement in endless war, as well as to sacrifice all journalistic standards and skepticism about generals and the U.S war machine if doing so advances their monomaniacal mission of denouncing Trump. As Arkin wrote (emphasis added):
My expertise, though seeming to be all the more central to the challenges and dangers we face, also seems to be less valued at the moment. And I find myself completely out of synch with the network, being neither a day-to-day reporter nor interested in the Trump circus.
To me there is also a larger problem: though they produce nothing that resembles actual safety and security, the national security leaders and generals we have are allowed to do their thing unmolested . Despite being at "war," no great wartime leaders or visionaries are emerging. There is not a soul in Washington who can say that they have won or stopped any conflict. And though there might be the beloved perfumed princes in the form of the Petraeus' and Wes Clarks', or the so-called warrior monks like Mattis and McMaster, we've had more than a generation of national security leaders who sadly and fraudulently have done little of consequence. And yet we (and others) embrace them, even the highly partisan formers who masquerade as "analysts". We do so ignoring the empirical truth of what they have wrought: There is not one county in the Middle East that is safer today than it was 18 years ago. Indeed the world becomes ever more polarized and dangerous.
Windrem again convinced me to return to NBC to join the new investigative unit in the early days of the 2016 presidential campaign. I thought that the mission was to break through the machine of perpetual war acceptance and conventional wisdom to challenge Hillary Clinton's hawkishness. It was also an interesting moment at NBC because everyone was looking over their shoulder at Vice and other upstarts creeping up on the mainstream. But then Trump got elected and Investigations got sucked into the tweeting vortex, increasingly lost in a directionless adrenaline rush, the national security and political version of leading the broadcast with every snow storm. And I would assert that in many ways NBC just began emulating the national security state itself – busy and profitable. No wars won but the ball is kept in play.
I'd argue that under Trump, the national security establishment not only hasn't missed a beat but indeed has gained dangerous strength. Now it is ever more autonomous and practically impervious to criticism. I'd also argue, ever so gingerly, that NBC has become somewhat lost in its own verve, proxies of boring moderation and conventional wisdom, defender of the government against Trump, cheerleader for open and subtle threat mongering, in love with procedure and protocol over all else (including results). I accept that there's a lot to report here, but I'm more worried about how much we are missing. Hence my desire to take a step back and think why so little changes with regard to America's wars.
In our day-to-day whirlwind and hostage status as prisoners of Donald Trump, I think – like everyone else does – that we miss so much. People who don't understand the medium, or the pressures, loudly opine that it's corporate control or even worse, that it's partisan. Sometimes I quip in response to friends on the outside (and to government sources) that if they mean by the word partisan that it is New Yorkers and Washingtonians against the rest of the country then they are right.
For me I realized how out of step I was when I looked at Trump's various bumbling intuitions: his desire to improve relations with Russia, to denuclearize North Korea, to get out of the Middle East, to question why we are fighting in Africa, even in his attacks on the intelligence community and the FBI. Of course he is an ignorant and incompetent impostor. And yet I'm alarmed at how quick NBC is to mechanically argue the contrary, to be in favor of policies that just spell more conflict and more war. Really? We shouldn't get out Syria? We shouldn't go for the bold move of denuclearizing the Korean peninsula? Even on Russia, though we should be concerned about the brittleness of our democracy that it is so vulnerable to manipulation, do we really yearn for the Cold War? And don't even get me started with the FBI: What? We now lionize this historically destructive institution?
That an entire generation of Democrats paying attention to politics for the first time is being instilled with formerly right-wing Cold Warrior values of jingoism, über-patriotism, reverence for security state agencies and prosecutors, a reckless use of the "traitor" accusation to smear one's enemies, and a belief that neoconservatives embody moral rectitude and foreign policy expertise has long been obvious and deeply disturbing. These toxins will endure far beyond Trump, particularly given the now full-scale unity between the Democratic establishment and neocons .
photosymbiosis1 hour agoJust remembered something about Arkin. This book: Code Names: Deciphering U.S. Military Plans, Programs and Operations in the 9/11 World January 25, 2005 by William M. Arkin https://books.google.com/books/about/Code_Names.html?id=KXLfAAAAMAAJ In particular there was this one exercise called Vigilant Guardian, run by NORAD, simulating terrorist attacks by hijackers which, curiously enough, happened to be in operation on the very day the Saudi hijackers were actually conducting such attacks:
NORAD's next Vigilant Guardian exercise, in 2001, will actually be several days underway on 9/11 (see (6:30 a.m.) September 11, 2001). It will include a number of scenarios based around plane hijackings, with the fictitious hijackers targeting New York in at least one of those scenarios (see September 6, 2001, September 9, 2001, September 10, 2001, and (9:40 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 COMMISSION, 2004; VANITY FAIR, 8/1/2006]http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=vigilant_guardian However, what's interesting from Arkin's book, as I recall, is that this operation name was then reused in Afghanistan (a very rare practice, apparently, to reuse an operation name, but perhaps if you wanted to hide the original program, etc...), in 2003 or so - here's a NYT article about Vigilant Guardian in Afghanistan: https://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/20/magazine/where-the-enemy-is-everywhere-and-nowhere.html It's just one of many stories that makes one wonder exactly how much pre-warning the Bush Administration had about the 9/11 attacks, and whether there was a deliberate decision to allow the hijackers to seize control of the planes without any interference. It did save the Bush presidency, it did open the door to the Iraq invasion, and the Saudi intelligence services were involved with helping the hijackers. All very suspicious, really. Point being, Arkin's book is one of the few sources that lay out all those covert/overt program names, and is a real treasure for anyone interested in the history of that era.
bobhope1: 2 hours ago
Dysnomia 3 hours agoThis has been clearly obvious for several years. Goebbels would be proud.
open_hearted_jade 2 hours agoIf there were some kind of political realignment (similar to the realignment that took place in the 60s and 70s where racist white Democrats became racist white Republicans) where neoconservatives and warmongers become Democrats, and the Republican Party becomes the party of, surely not peace, but at least moderation in foreign military intervention, that might not be too bad, or at least not too much worse than the earlier post-9/11 status quo.
But I'm afraid this shift in discourse heralds something worse than that. So-called "liberal" media's embrace of neoconservatism and imperialism is likely to have the effect of narrowing the Overton window on issues of war and peace, making genuine anti-war positions even more unthinkable and beyond the pale. There will increasingly be no place for public anti-war discourse.
The single greatest threat to human freedom in the world today is the U.S. national security state. Inculcating public reverence for the state is perhaps the most dangerous thing that a media organization could do.
Tom_Collins 2 hours ago ( Edited )Neoliberal media has always embraced boundary transgression, always embraced invasiveness, always embraced adventurism, always embraced war.
... ... ...
AtheistInChief 3 hours ago...America as the single biggest threat to world peace, right? https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/08/07/polls-us-greatest-threat-to-peace-world-today.html
Lawrence_Hill 4 hours ago ( Edited )Fox is a racist bully. MSNBC is poison, & CNN is a joke. If nothing else, Trump is right about one thing. The American media is the enemy of the people.
Michael_Wilk 4 hours agoDo we remember way back in the 80's/Reagan admin war involvement in the El Salvador civil war when NBC anchor Tom Brokaw openly questioned the US's support for death squad leader D' Auboissan's terror regime on the air? Shocking! A Walter Cronkite-Vietnam War moment Brokaw supposed, maybe?
I remember that in all the hullabaloo that followed one of our ruling class commented that Brokaw was being $5 million a year not to say such subversive things. Lesson learned, Brokaw nor any other gainfully employed MSM tool has made the same mistake again, and now Brokaw has emeritus status in the NBC "News" hierarchy.
That comment opened my eyes for the first time to the reality of American MSM...
TimN 5 hours agoThat an entire generation of Democrats paying attention to politics for the first time is being instilled with formerly right-wing Cold Warrior values of jingoism, über-pat riotism, reverence for security state agencies and prosecutors, a reckless use of the "traitor" accusation to smear one's enemies, and a belief that neoconservatives embody moral rectitude and foreign policy expertise has long been obvious and deeply disturbing.I have to take issue with your use of the word 'formerly' in describing Cold War values. They are still very much right-wing. They never stopped being right-wing, nor did the current and former government and security state apparatchiks polluting the airwaves with their lies.
haugeneder 6 hours agoThe neo-con and neo-lib argument against this unfortunate reveal of things present, and things to come: "But Trump! Trump!" I didn't think I'd see things unravel so quickly, but Goddamn. Years ago, whilst this reactionary putsch was still in it's infancy, my mom would listen to the "news" on the local CBS affiliate, and many times I heard her gasp and say, referring to the "reporters" jabbering, "My God, they're a bunch of dopes!" The dopes are ascendant; stupid, scared, violent-minded, and very well-paid.
Tlaloc 7 hours agoGreat piece. America is on the precipice and there are few who care -- very few. Time for an great economic depression -- not recession -- to shift the ground or open it to swallow us whole.
Art 6 hours agoInteresting that we might be seeing a shift on both parties, the republicans finally embracing their libertarian side (long being a part of the republican party) and the neocons trying to find a new home on the democratic party. I wonder where the progressive side of the DNC will go, they might be the ones pushed out of any national party :(
Dysnomia 3 hours ago[...] the progressive side of the DNC [...] might be the ones pushed out of any national partyFuck that! They're headed for permanent electoral failure on every occasion they put forward neocons on any ballot. We, The People, Are Fed Up With Neo-Cons and Neo-Libs!
johnanderson 7 hours ago ( Edited )Unfortunately, I think it's more likely that we'll see a shift only on the Democratic side. Democratic Party leadership has basically always been neoconservative supporters of the national security state, but there has been some resistance within the rank and file. The narrowing of the Overton window we're seeing will make such resistance increasingly beyond the pale.
But I don't think the Republican Party, in terms of leadership or rank and file, will become more "libertarian" (in the American sense of that word) or less pro-war. I think there's likely to be greater consensus among the political class in favor of U.S. imperialism generally, and Trump, to the extent he occasionally makes moves in the opposite direction, is a convenient foil to bring that about.
open_hearted_jade 2 hours agoThere is no "means test" for the empire military spending supports energy supplies supports international banking supports global corporatism but the democrats will help republicans squeeze the peons with excessive education costs, unaffordable health care premiums and copays, expensive housing, and social security cutbacks because they are playing the same elite economic game against the majority true the democratic leadership has a better stance on abortion and a generally more rainbow-flavored social agenda. Because they want this stuff for their own social class however economic policy will be at our expense ... just watch Pelosi and Company
Mona 7 hours agoBut the democrats will help republicans squeeze the peons with excessive education costs, unaffordable health care premiums and copays, expensive housing,....Those costs rise for one reason...
trailgrub 7 hours ago ( Edited )...And here's Joe Biden: ""Paul Ryan was correct when he did the tax code, what was the first thing we have to go after, Social Security and Medicare. Now we need to do something about Social Security and Medicare. It's the only way to find room to pay for it." Biden is after means testing and other "adjustments" slashing SS, as endorsed by his pal. Paul Ryan. (This is called Republican Lite.)
And then there's Nancy Pelosi with her neoliberal austerity economics; her budget rules that would preemptively block a #GreenNewDeal & #MedicareForAll : https://theintercept.com/2019/01/02/nancy-pelosi-pay-go-rule/
photosymbiosis 8 hours ago ( Edited )Thanks for publishing this story, Glenn, and putting your perspective on it. We've known for a long time that NBC & MSNBC "have become ground zero for these political pathologies of militarism and servitude to security state agencies." Before Comcast purchased them, General Electric owned these networks for many years. The public's interests are the last thing on their minds when they do "news reporting."
Have you watched when MSNBC's "prime time" talk shows are doing live sports-like camera angles, moves, and shots in their studio, trying to make it look all-the-more sensational on your TV screen? I mean, they're doing these intricate camera shots, rapid switching between cameras, zooming, panning, trying to make it look like a high-production-value shoot, and it looks like they've hired some live sports producers and technical directors to make this pathetic illusion on the air. All this shit for talking heads. Rotf-lmao.
What's next? Slow-motion HDTV instant replays of Rachel Maddow, utilizing zoomed-in camera shots of her mouth, when she's spraying spittle into her guests' faces? That's what happens when she launches into her infamous hissy fits.
The round table MSNBC uses in their cheap studio is only 4 feet in diameter. In other words, they're shooting these live action shots of people talking around an itty-bitty little table, and they're doing all this intricate camera work with approximately 8 cameras to make it look 'sensational', action-packed, and thrilling. Instead, it's extremely ugly, stupid, idiotic, disgusting, and ridiculous. It's not sensational. It's a disgusting cocktail of vomit, puss, and diarrhea.
I need reliable sources of news and weather so I can live my life sustainably with dignity while I maintain my values. My pride and dignity are invaluable to me. All these a-holes are doing for me is raising my blood pressure and pissing me off. That's why I read The Intercept. I'd like to have the option to just sit back and watch TI's reporting on a news channel someday SOON, if possible.
Again, what's our msm network news alternatives, besides Fox news, and why are they so pathetic? CBS news: Les Moonves in particular has cheered the Trump phenomenon, telling investors in 2016 that the Trump campaign "may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS." -- https://theintercept.com/2017/02/24/cbs-fcc-trump/ -- Moonves got fired and lost his pension -- The longtime chairman-CEO was forced out Sept. 9, 2018 amid a cascade of sexual assault and misconduct allegations. "The CBS board of directors has denied former chairman-CEO Leslie Moonves any of the $120 million severance he was due under his employment contract after conducting a five-month internal probe of his conduct and the corporate culture at CBS Corp." -- https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/tv/ct-ent-les-moonves-denied-severance-20181217-story.html ABC news: Who owns ABC? Walt Disney bought ABC 22 years ago. Exactly, we're in Disneyland.
Fred_Cowan 8 hours agoSome basic facts:
The US military presence in the Middle East has nothing to do with national security (i.e protecting American citizens from military attack by foreign nations, or even with disrupting the activities and funding of terrorist groups like ISIS or Al Qaeda, groups we financed and armed as part of the overthrow Assad strategy).
It has everything to do with controlling the region's oil flow and propping up regimes like Saudi Arabia who agree to invest the majority of their oil money in Wall Street banks. This is called petrodollar recycling, a strategy devised in the 1970s. Here is a foundational document discussing the plan, from 1974: https://search.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1974LONDON16506_b.html
"CENTRAL THESIS, BASED ON BELIEF THAT THERE IS NO EARLY PROSPECT OF BREAKING OIL CARTEL, IS THAT WE SHOULD SEEK EARLY DIALOGUE WITH PRODUCERS TO WORK OUT ARRANGEMENTS WITH ALL OR SOME OF THEM TO (A) INDEX PRICE OF OIL AND (B) BRING THEM INTO RECYCLING MECHANISM IN ORDER TO SHARE THE RISK. SECOND PAPER LARGELY DUPLICATES FIRST, THOUGH IT DOES ADD SOME STRESS ON LONGER RANGE PROBLEM OF MASSIVE SURPLUS OF OPEC COUNTRIES, ESTIMATED AT $400 BILLION BY 1980, FOR WHICH NO SOLUTION IS PROPOSED OTHER THAN NEW INTERNATIONAL RECYCLING AGENCY PROPOSED IN BOTH PAPERS."One key point is that the proponents of this scheme in the United States, be they Democrats or Republicans, have zero interest in replacing fossil fuels with wind and solar and battery storage. That would sour the whole deal; nobody would buy Saudi oil. Of course the Russkies, the stated enemy, don't want to see Europe go 100% renewable either, any more than the Clinton-Bush-Obama-Trump Administrations did. The Russia-US conflict is mostly over who gets to sell gas to Europe, and neither dealer wants the addict to kick the habit, right?
This is a very consistent policy, year-to-year.
Now, why can't the corporate media honestly discuss this? Because they are the corporate establishment's propaganda monkeys, little more, regardless of whether they work at MSNBC or at FOX.
Oh, and this is why #Resist Trump is so nonsensical, when those supporting that them want to install a Joe Biden or Kamela Harris, who would continue right on with this status quo, i.e. blocking the development of renewable energy and continuing the idiotic military entanglements in the Middle East.
Mona 8 hours agoReal News vs "fake news" is almost impossible to find and dissect. Even looking for real reporting beyond echoing is hard to find. The real problems are ignored or misstated to the extent real solutions are impossible. Not just security and endless wars but every aspect of civil existence, education, healthcare, you name it. We exist in an echo-chamber where real knowledge and understanding have been all but banished.
Mona 1 hour ago@Tom Collins & Art
"Yeah one wonders if [Snowden's] cover would have been blown so decisively had he done it anonymously through Wikileaks"
No need to wonder! Snowden made clear -- explicitly stated-- he wanted Greenwald and Poitras, and not Wikileaks. He deeply desired journalists to exercise judgment over what should be released to the public and did not want a data dump.
Further, he insisted on outing himself , and did so several days after the first document was published. At his behest, Poitras videotaped a 20-minute video of him taking responsibility, which was then posted at The Guardian. He did this, among other reasons, to spare his co-workers from suspicion and investigation.
DC_Reade 8 hours agoCitizen 4 won the Oscar for best documentary in 2013 or '14. It's all Snowden, Greenwald, Poitras, and other real players.
Mona 6 hours agoIf the only way someone can manage to frame any of these issues is as "Fox vs. MSNBC" or "Trump Corruption vs. Washington Establishment Defenders of Democracy", they've assented to a two-valued action-reaction Pavlovian conditioned response loop.
No way should that be confused with a process of independent thought.
Unsurprisingly, I don't read one mention in the above post to any of the specifics of the content in Glenn Greenwald's remarks, or to any of the observations made by Arkin in his email resignation.
You're too busy fitting everyone with Team Jerseys tailored to your preconceived ideas.
MiltonWiltmellow 6 hours ago ( Edited )"This article does not inform."
Oh, it does lots of informing, you just don't like what it informs us of, to wit, the first paragraph:
A VETERAN national security journalist with NBC News and MSNBC blasted the networks in a Monday email for becoming captive and subservient to the national security state, reflexively pro-war in the name of stopping President Donald Trump, and now the prime propaganda instrument of the War Machine's promotion of militarism and imperialism . As a result of NBC/MSNBC's all-consuming militarism, he said, "the national security establishment not only hasn't missed a beat but indeed has gained dangerous strength" and "is ever more autonomous and practically impervious to criticism."Any substantive response, Milton?
Tom_Collins 5 hours agoAny substantive response, Milton?As always, Mr. Greenwald's description is hyperbolic and bordering on unhinged. As DC_Reade suggested, I read Arkin's email. You should too. It seemed more like a Montaigne Essaiy or a reflective note for posterity than a thundering repudiation of MSNBC.
Mr. Greenwald turns it into a typical Greenwald crie du guerre™ against the evil Deep State (a term which he appears to have mercifully discarded. Too Foxy I suppose.) Here's his problem. Crying "wolf" only works for awhile. Eventually it becomes part of the information flood drowning everyone. Any bit of flotsam is as good as another.
DC_Reade 4 hours ago ( Edited )What's your point again? Do you even know?
Tom_Collins 4 hours ago ( Edited )Excerpts from Arkin's email:
"Seeking refuge in its political horse race roots, NBC (and others) meanwhile report the story of war as one of Rumsfeld vs. the Generals, as Wolfowitz vs. Shinseki, as the CIA vs. Cheney, as the bad torturers vs. the more refined, about numbers of troops and number of deaths, and even then Obama vs. the Congress, poor Obama who couldn't close Guantanamo or reduce nuclear weapons or stand up to Putin because it was just so difficult. We have contributed to turning the world of national security into this sort of political story. I find it disheartening that we do not report the failures of the generals and national security leaders. I find it shocking that we essentially condone continued American bumbling in the Middle East and now Africa through our ho-hum reporting..."
"...I argued endlessly with MSNBC about all things national security for years, doing the daily blah, blah, blah in Secaucus, but also poking at the conventional wisdom of everyone from Matthews to Hockenberry. And yet I feel like I've failed to convey this larger truth about the hopelessness of our way of doing things, especially disheartened to watch NBC and much of the rest of the news media somehow become a defender of Washington and the system..."
"...For me I realized how out of step I was when I looked at Trump's various bumbling intuitions: his desire to improve relations with Russia, to denuclearize North Korea, to get out of the Middle East, to question why we are fighting in Africa, even in his attacks on the intelligence community and the FBI. Of course he is an ignorant and incompetent impostor. And yet I'm alarmed at how quick NBC is to mechanically argue the contrary, to be in favor of policies that just spell more conflict and more war. Really? We shouldn't get out Syria? We shouldn't go for the bold move of denuclearizing the Korean peninsula? Even on Russia, though we should be concerned about the brittleness of our democracy that it is so vulnerable to manipulation, do we really yearn for the Cold War? And don't even get me started with the FBI: What? We now lionize this historically destructive institution?..."
https://medium.com/@ggreenwald/full-email-from-william-arkin-leaving-nbc-and-msnbc-1fb0d1dc692b
Yes, William Arkin does go on to be gracious and complimentary of some of his (former) colleagues at NBC. Arkin mantains his professional composure. His critique of the focus and practices of NBC/MSNBC News is tempered and reasoned. But the critique is scathing, nonetheless.
Mona 3 hours agoYou are missing Milton's point altogether. Like "Craig Summers", MW expects that his word alone is enough to dismiss the editorial/investigative/analytical work put in by Greenwald, Arkin or anyone else on the topics considered most important by the U.S. State Department.
When MW or CS weigh in on these things to dismiss or diminish these stories/opinions/facts with the wave of a hand or incorrect reading (and absolutely nothing of substance), we are supposed to defer to them respectfully and re-consider the respect we have developed for the professionalism, dedication and personal/career risks taken on by the people who bring us these stories that are inconvenient to the establishment government and media actors.
OftenWrongSeldomInDoubt 9 hours ago"As DC_Reade suggested, I read Arkin's email. "
Cool, Milton, and what are your substantive comments on this part:
My expertise, though seeming to be all the more central to the challenges and dangers we face, also seems to be less valued at the moment. And I find myself completely out of synch with the network, being neither a day-to-day reporter nor interested in the Trump circus. To me there is also a larger problem: though they produce nothing that resembles actual safety and security, the national security leaders and generals we have are allowed to do their thing unmolested. Despite being at "war," no great wartime leaders or visionaries are emerging. There is not a soul in Washington who can say that they have won or stopped any conflict. And though there might be the beloved perfumed princes in the form of the Petraeus' and Wes Clarks', or the so-called warrior monks like Mattis and McMaster, we've had more than a generation of national security leaders who sadly and fraudulently have done little of consequence. And yet we (and others) embrace them, even the highly partisan formers who masquerade as "analysts". We do so ignoring the empirical truth of what they have wrought: There is not one county in the Middle East that is safer today than it was 18 years ago. Indeed the world becomes ever more polarized and dangerous. Windrem again convinced me to return to NBC to join the new investigative unit in the early days of the 2016 presidential campaign. I thought that the mission was to break through the machine of perpetual war acceptance and conventional wisdom to challenge Hillary Clinton's hawkishness. It was also an interesting moment at NBC because everyone was looking over their shoulder at Vice and other upstarts creeping up on the mainstream. But then Trump got elected and Investigations got sucked into the tweeting vortex, increasingly lost in a directionless adrenaline rush, the national security and political version of leading the broadcast with every snow storm. And I would assert that in many ways NBC just began emulating the national security state itself – busy and profitable. No wars won but the ball is kept in play. I'd argue that under Trump, the national security establishment not only hasn't missed a beat but indeed has gained dangerous strength. Now it is ever more autonomous and practically impervious to criticism. I'd also argue, ever so gingerly, that NBC has become somewhat lost in its own verve, proxies of boring moderation and conventional wisdom, defender of the government against Trump, cheerleader for open and subtle threat mongering, in love with procedure and protocol over all else (including results). I accept that there's a lot to report here, but I'm more worried about how much we are missing. Hence my desire to take a step back and think why so little changes with regard to America's wars. In our day-to-day whirlwind and hostage status as prisoners of Donald Trump, I think – like everyone else does – that we miss so much. People who don't understand the medium, or the pressures, loudly opine that it's corporate control or even worse, that it's partisan. Sometimes I quip in response to friends on the outside (and to government sources) that if they mean by the word partisan that it is New Yorkers and Washingtonians against the rest of the country then they are right. For me I realized how out of step I was when I looked at Trump's various bumbling intuitions: his desire to improve relations with Russia, to denuclearize North Korea, to get out of the Middle East, to question why we are fighting in Africa, even in his attacks on the intelligence community and the FBI. Of course he is an ignorant and incompetent impostor. And yet I'm alarmed at how quick NBC is to mechanically argue the contrary, to be in favor of policies that just spell more conflict and more war. Really? We shouldn't get out Syria? We shouldn't go for the bold move of denuclearizing the Korean peninsula? Even on Russia, though we should be concerned about the brittleness of our democracy that it is so vulnerable to manipulation, do we really yearn for the Cold War? And don't even get me started with the FBI: What? We now lionize this historically destructive institution?bluecurl3 9 hours agoThis is SO validating to read! Surely no other ruler in history with a cute butt and polite voice ordered killings in 56 countries in one year. I want someone to discuss this without accusing me of being pro-Rump. I guess, the Rachel Maddows of the world cannot criticize Hillary/Obama for expanding every awful thing for which the good people of the world hated Bush.
There are two giant problems in the world today-
1. the scale of people who lost their homes and countries because of the good guy's wars and
2. climate change which the good guy's 27,600 odd bombs of 2016 might or might not have exacerbated. After all, each bomb costs upward of $10,000,000. Who is measuring the greenhouse gases released by them?The media needs to be equally adversarial to 'liberal' governments as they are to 'conservative' ones, so that majority parties cannot take credit for granting me bathroom and bedroom permissions that are surely my personal domain! The media must shed light on whether it is bad to tell 'aliens' not to cross a border or it is bad to win a Nobel Peace prize before raining bombs on brown people in other countries, never separating children from families, when blowing up ten civilians for every 'target' we extra-judicially decided to label as militant.
So thank you for this article!!
Xavi 8 hours agoGotta hand it to the neocons, soon after the Vietnam debacle (I served 3 tours there), and Watergate, they quickly licked their wounds and devised a new playbook that, over time, would become a 'Project for the New American Century'. First things first, get rid of the draft. Go professional, and then only a very minuscule percentage of Americans have skin in the game, meaning their own sons and daughters at risk, while the rest of America can focus on the more important things, like watching the Housewives of New Jersey, New York, Beverly Hills, etc. etc., or sports, or the newest fashions, or the current fad diets, or the newest Trump tweet, bla bla bla.
Next, and this is genius because it incorporates that great American pastime, greed, spread all of that endless supply of taxpayer money around to each and every State, County, and municipality in the form of jobs tied to the military industrial complex. Now, lots of Americans have skin in the game, as long as the lobbyists, politicians, government and the military can provide a pipeline of endless wars and conflicts. Of course, in order to provide and maintain the patina of morality and righteousness, a subservient and corporate controlled media is vital.
And finally, silence and denigrate any meaningful opposition. As Kierkegaard stated, "Once you label me you negate me." Hence the long, ongoing labeling of opposition with terms like traitor, anti-American, unpatriotic, (insert name or country here) sympathizer. The sad part of all of this, too many Americans are gullible enough to swallow this crap, hook, line and sinker, as long as they get their daily ration of manna.
firstpersoninfinite 9 hours agoOrwellian times.
firstpersoninfinite 8 hours agoNo, it's not rocket science. Otherwise you couldn't have proven Greenwald's point with your own views about "supporting" the security state so easily. You missed the entire point of the article, which is that the neocons and the neoliberals support the same cast of nefarious personalities that got us into the Middle East, over and over again. Why is NBC/MSNBC normalizing right-wing radicalism? Because they've joined hands with neocons and neoliberals to support the military/industrial complex. Your argument is akin to someone claiming that their Communion wafer is more holy than anyone else's because it has the Pope's imprint on it.
Dysnomia 2 hours agoNeocons, like Irving Kristol, Bill Kristol's father, were leftists in the 1930's. It's not a difficult term to come to terms with, historically. I don't wonder why anyone questions what Trump is doing. I never said such a thing.
What Trump has done during his first two years in office has not been questioned by the mainstream press at all. Only the imbecile tweets and the gaffes are of any interest to the citizens of such a redoubtable empire as our own. A friend of mine who fights anti-wolf and anti-bear laws in Montana, laws sent down by the Trump administration, says that these are the same laws they fought during 8 years of Obama. The mainstream of both parties are the two sides of the same coin. So I agree with the "role reversal."
DC_Reade 10 hours agoI think the problem is not that supporting the "deep state" is becoming a convenient excuse to oppose Trump, but that opposing Trump is becoming a convenient excuse to support the deep state.
photosymbiosis 11 hours agoBravo, William Arkin. I only wish that you could have found some way for you to resign on the air in the middle of a broadcast. (I've been wishing such a scenario for decades. Preferably featuring one or more news anchors.)
Incredible that the USA has spent trillions of dollars in a game of whack-a-mole that's been extended over the entire globe with no time limitations, occasionally interspersed with declarations of surprise that the nation faces more emergent terror threats than ever. We spend more money on the military and warfare than we spent during the Cold War. And all that was required to trigger this spiral into perpetual militarism was a single special operation carried out 17 years ago by a small team of not-particularly-elite commandos who hijacked four airliners, thereby obtaining the one-time ability to repurpose three of them into cruise missiles.
By now, it should be no surprise that other large nations have taken notice of the American assumption of entitlement to police the world and begun their own rearmament campaigns. Also worth noting that the focus on the Terror Threat has served as the rationale for massive investment in a level of surveillance technology that's unknown in human history. As for the norms and values that international law was supposedly intended to provide for governments everywhere, all of that went out the window in 2003, with the unprovoked invasion of Iraq by the Benevolent Hegemon Hyperpower. American scolding of other nations for their armed territorial incursions and imperial designs has rung awfully hollow, ever since.
The emphasis on massive military escalation to deal with terrorism outbreaks is reminiscent of the War on Drugs- which, it should be noted, also remains largely in effect, notwithstanding occasional feints toward de-escalation. And we all know what the War on Drugs did in terms of empowering the criminal elite that it was supposed to eliminate.
What's that all about? The leaders of this country- and for that matter, the supposed leaders of the rest of the world- aren't leading. To me, almost all of them look like they're running from something: they're running from fossil fuels addiction and its toxic blowback, looming climate catastrophe, natural resource depletion, maldistribution of wealth and neglect of the commons.
Benito_Mussolini 10 hours agoWhat's the central reason MSNBC is so pro-war? Because the shareholders in its parent corporation, Comcas, have a deep vested interest in militarism, arms sales, and the capture of natural resources around the word:
Comcast, a large cable operator, completed its purchase of a majority stake in NBCUniversal from General Electric in January 2011. The cable giant bought the rest of NBCUniversal in February 2013. NBCUniversal is the parent company of MSNBC, as well as NBC, Bravo, USA and other channels.https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-asks-who-owns-msnbc_us_572e3d0fe4b0bc9cb0471df1 https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/CMCSA/holders/
Comcast major holders, $US:
- Vanguard Group, Inc. 10,965,964,846
- Blackrock Inc. 10,179,872,652
- State Street Corporation 5,785,488,229
- Capital World Investors 5,427,547,692
- Massachusetts Financial Services Co. 4,787,803,825
Lockheed Martin major holders, $US:
- State Street Corporation 13,394,660,471 Vanguard Group, Inc. (The) 6,210,096,924
- Capital World Investors 5,098,130,465
- Blackrock Inc. 5,084,573,828
- Bank of America Corporation 2,826,426,091
ExxonMobil major holders, $US:
- Vanguard Group, Inc. (The) 26,661,034,588
- Blackrock Inc. 21,669,998,686
- State Street Corporation 16,964,902,104
- Northern Trust Corporation 4,566,789,988
- Bank Of New York Mellon Corporation 4,420,622,076
It pretty obvious once you look at the value of an outfit like Blackrock's investments in media, arms, and oil - they don't want any stories told on MSNBC that would threaten the profit margins of Exxon, Lockheed or Comcast.
The only real solution is government enforcement of anti-trust legisation which would require the likes of Comcast, TimeWarner(CNN) and NewsCorp(FOX) to divest their media holdings, creating dozens of independently owned outfits not beholden to some corporate master who won't let them discuss important topics like, say NAFTA....
johnnyred 11 hours agoThe only real solution is government enforcement of anti-trust legislationHopefully, MSNBC will be smart enough to provide a friendly platform for ex-government officials. It means a great deal to government officials to know their influence, public visibility (and associated appearance fees) will continue into their retirement. I don't watch MSNBC, so I don't know if they have implemented this strategy, but the pictures in the article seem encouraging.
Somewherearoundtikrit 11 hours agoWar is touted exclusively by those who've never experienced it. Get rid of the generals, put in some infantry casualties, those who've lost a limb or two.
Then we can have some informed comment.Tom_Collins 11 hours agoMeanwhile, over at The Guardian, "In these critical times..." their "editorial independence" is in sincere need of your donation. They're just 80K away from their million dollar goal! Pardon me while I retch. Julian Assange is still being robbed of his freedom. In these critical times indeed. Thank you Glenn.
Tom_Collins 11 hours agoThe Guardian can get its funding from the organizations for whom they carry water. Not a damn cent from me. After they caved in on the Snowden files, I was done with them for good.
Somewherearoundtikrit 11 hours agohttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/04/surreal-moment-guardian-destroyed-snowden-files
Yeah one wonders if his cover would have been blown so decisively had he done it anonymously through Wikileaks, but I think they were onto him anyway. Ultimately the information got out, and media orgs like The Guardian were exposed for their fealty to the national security state(s).
Orville 6 hours agoSpeaking of leaks, whenever I hear "water carrier," this inevitably comes to mind https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JGfXiIXTpE0
MyInnocuousUsernameWasBanned 9 hours agoCryptome wouldn't have censored the releases, as WikiLeaks has. Still WikiLeaks continues to be one of the world's premier journalistic outlets.
tigertiger 8 hours agoWas anyone else surprised by how long it took them to get to a million? I've seen Kickstarters for video games that got to a million faster. The slow pace of the fundraising seemed like a rebuke. I was hoping they'd never hit a million.
And I say all of that as someone who has recurring donations set up for about a dozen podcasts and blogs. The nonprofit/fundraiser model is the way to go, but I also think that publicly owned media outlets, or privately owned but public-interest-minded news organizations, while editorially independent, can't be totally contemptuous of their reader/donors.
I would never donate to the Guardian for a million reasons, but to pick just one: they have played the lead role in smearing Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters as dangerous radicals and anti-Semites.
And I would never donate to The Intercept, for instance, because of the crucial role it has played in promoting Russiagate and amplifying voices like Mattathias Schwartz's. (I'll never stop reminding people that Schwartz non-jokingly advocated here for what would essentially be a coup -- Obama "putting a hold on the transfer of power" -- after the most recent presidential election. The Intercept published that. Amazing.) And the face of the Intercept, arguably, is no longer Greenwald but Mehdi Hasan, who publishes rank propaganda smearing peace activists as "Bashar al-Assad Apologists" who revere human rights abusers as "heroes." (Again: the Intercept published that. Amazing.)
My favorite line from that Arkin email is the one about the tension between worship of "officialdom" and respect for "public yearnings." To political elites and reporters (including the experts at the Intercept who spent a week running PR for Nancy Pelosi's speaker bid, and who constantly write off the 2016 election as a consequence either of sinister foreign interference or of the squalid bigotry, stupidity and ugliness of non-coastal Americans), officialdom always wins, and "public yearnings" are just the bleatings of deplorables.
If Glenn's excellent reporting was removed from this site, The Intercept would be as deserving of Arkin's critique as NBC and the Guardian are.
TravisTea 11 hours agoThey didn't hit their million, which they wanted before the end of the year, but they're still begging. Not for lack of trying, that 'give us money!' pop up has to be about the loudest, most intrusive of it's kind I've ever seen.
And yes, TI is only marginally less repulsive (thanks to Glenn, Lee Fang, and Jon Schwartz). It amazes me that an outlet owned by a bajillionaire constantly begs for money. I guess they think it makes them more 'populist' or something- 'look, the peons are sacrificing their pennies to help us!'.
Carlaly 11 hours agoAs an American author (and journalist) once wrote:
"Man is the only Patriot. He sets himself apart in his own country, under his own flag, and sneers at the other nations, and keeps multitudinous uniformed assassins on hand at heavy expense to grab slices of other people's countries, and keep them from grabbing slices of his . And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for the 'universal brotherhood of man' -- with his mouth."
-- Mark Twain, Man's Place in the Animal World (1896)
P.S. As always, thank you very much, Mr. Greenwald (and thank you, Mr. Arkin).
Mona 11 hours agoJust vindicates what you have been saying all along. Although I expect the denialists will dismiss Arkin as some anti-American, anti-troop stooge of Putin.
Tom_Collins 11 hours ago"The cable network's key anchor, Rachel Maddow, once wrote a book on the evils of endless wars without congressional authorization, but now routinely depicts anyone who wants to end those illegal wars as reckless weaklings and traitors."
She's just coming home. Liberals have long been dominated by hawks (after all, Vietnam was a Democrats' war, albeit Nixon/Kissinger took the war crimes up to 11.)
Maddow long ago described herself as a "national security liberal."
Which leads to yet another element of Ms. Maddow's portfolio: the daughter of an Air Force captain who served stateside during the Vietnam War, she is an admitted defense-policy wonk. "I'm a national security liberal, which I tell people because it's meant to sound absurd," she said. "I'm all about counterterrorism. I'm all about the G.I. Bill."https://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/17/arts/television/17madd.html
brer_rabbit 11 hours ago ( Edited )Madcow would like nothing more than to see open war with Russia.
Tom_Collins 11 hours agomaddcow . . my laugh of the day.
brer_rabbit 11 hours agoIt's a common refrain in far-right reaches of the Internet. I almost felt bad for saying it, but that's what she's become on the topic of Russia.
open_hearted_jade 11 hours agoYes, whenever is see her, or Anderson Cooper, or any of these guys for that matter (which is rare . . usually for a few minutes to catch a glimpse of the latest environmental disaster, mass shooting, or whatever) my first thought always goes to question the kind of upbringing that could have produced such vapid people, who enthusiastically shame themselves on a daily basis for money. What must they think of their audience?
Tom_Collins 11 hours agoMaddow is less respected by an awakening public -- therefore she must be a conservative right winger. Didn't you learn anything after 1945?
endlesswar 11 hours agoYou've made made totally missing the point into a trolling form of art. Bravo.
PatrickShaw 6 hours agoAttacking an extreme right wing president from the right, while lauding unrepentant war criminals like Bush and McCain. Just about sums up what it means to be a liberal in this day and age.
xochtl 12 hours agoMSNBC and their national security contributors do not speak for liberals. They never invite liberal voices on who are anti-war/pro diplomacy.
brer_rabbit 12 hours ago ( Edited )Still, that a network insider has blown the whistle on how all this works, and how MSNBC and NBC have become ground zero for these political pathologies of militarism and servitude to security state agencies, while not surprising, is nonetheless momentous given how detailed and emphatic he is in his condemnations.perfect summary
clawhammerjake 13 hours ago. . if they mean by the word partisan that it is New Yorkers and Washingtonians against the rest of the country then they are right.bingo
Steeeve 13 hours ago ( Edited )War is a business decision.
TheManj 13 hours ago ( Edited )I've been consistently surprised that anyone is still watching these things. Personally, I've already divested from special-interest funded media outlets and the DNC for that matter. It's always interesting when I run across someone parrotting their viewpoints though.
pedinska2 13 hours agoThe greatest scam of the millennium, after cruptocurrency, was the use of Trump Derangement Syndrome to pervert "progressives" into acolytes of the security establishment.
Benito_Mussolini 13 hours agoActually, TDS wasn't used in the original perversion so much as it was used as the cement to keep it firmly in place.
I lay blame for much of the greatest scam of the millenium on Obama with his drone policies, expansion of our involvement in the ME, retention of the same Smartest Guys in the Room who tanked our economy and wholesale conversion of liberals into acceptance of further erosion of our Constitutional rights with his warm embrace of the same criminals running the security state when torture became de rigueur. He was just so darn pretty and eloquent they had no choice but to believe all the lies dripping from those sexy lips. And have you seen Michelle's arms???!? /s
Erelis 13 hours agoTo herd people, it's more effective to use both the carrot (Obama) and the stick (TDS). The fact that progressives needed to be herded is a testament to their numbers and success.
bluecurl3 4 hours agoThis essay is critical for every American to read. No exaggeration. NBC/MSNBC has become the proverbial spear tip in the march toward nuclear war with Russia. Every day, step by step, brick by brick, they are laying the foundation for the justification of war--in fact, for needing and demanding war, almost any war, but more particularly with Russia. Let's remember that when Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq, 72% of Americans supported it to according to Gallup. That didn't happen overnight with some big propaganda event.
Mike5000 13 hours agoPerhaps, but I would suggest that Iran has become the most desired target for a war, and due in no small part to the aggressive advocacy for such a war by Israel and Saudi Arabia, and their subservient boot-licking, ass kissing American politicians. I'm all for pulling our troops out of Syria, but mark my word, Bibi and his zionist war-hawks will seize the opportunity to bomb the hell out of Syria, and use it as a pretext to launch attacks against Iran.
PresumptuousInsect 13 hours agoMaddow is not really pro-war or anti-war. She is just pro whatever Clinton and Pelosi happen to be pushing this week. It's a shame. She's a good presenter but hopelessly biased.
Erelis 13 hours agoI think she is more enthralled to the people who are paying her.
Bill_Owen 10 hours agoMaddows rhetoric and reporting is pro-war regardless of her motivations. She uses the language of aggression and conspiracy and accusation in describing the Russians and other Americans such as Jill Stein. She without exception imputes malevolent motives on "the enemy" which is Russia leading to a truly a bizarre clip telling Americans in somber and concerned tones that Russia and N. Korea share a border. The conspiracy has been exposed.
MyInnocuousUsernameWasBanned 9 hours agoWhat is it, exactly, about Hillary Clinton that enthralls Rachel Maddow so much that she now pretty much spends her days building a case (in-the-sky) for war on Russia? Seems pathological somehow.
William 13 hours agoLook at how her ratings and salary have been affected by her transformation. She's gone from "cable news anchor" to "superstar." The Russiagate scam has also given dozens of mediocrities like Seth Abramson a chance to be noticed and to feel important. Even the writers on the Intercept's "intelligence" beat have been doing some sort of Tom Clancy cosplay for the last two years. It's profitable and fun to be one of these people, as long as you don't have a nagging sense of shame.
Tom_Collins 11 hours agoIndeed, none of this is new. I read Norman Solomon's and Martin Lee's UNRELIABLE SOURCES: A GUIDE TO DETECTING BIAS IN NEWS MEDIA back when I was in college in the late 80s and they cite General Electric's ownership of NBC (before there was an "MSNBC") uncritically:
General Electric's Influence on NBC GE is by no means a hands off owner of NBC. Lee and Solomon in their book Unreliable Sources have detailed how GE insisted on the removal of references to itself in an NBC programme on substandard products. They also point out that NBC journalists have not been particularly keen to expose GE's environmental record and that TV commercials by a group called INFACT, urging a boycott of GE products, were banned by NBC as well as other television stations. NBC did however briefly report GE's indictment for cheating the Department of Defense which was reported more extensively in other media outlets. (Lee and Solomon 1990, pp. 77-81) Former NBC News Chief, Lawrence Grossman, claims that the head of GE, Jack Welch made it clear to him that he worked for GE and told him not to use terms such as 'Black Monday' to describe the stock market crash in 1987 because it depressed share prices such as GE's (Cited in Naureckas 1995). Todd Putnam, editor of National Boycott News, tells of how he was approached by the NBC's Today Show to do an interview about consumer boycotts. Their biggest boycott at the time was against General Electric and its nuclear defense contracts but the show wouldn't let him talk about that and was reluctant to have him mention boycotts against any large corporation preferring him to talk about "a boycott that was 'small,' 'local' and 'sexy'." (1991) Mark Gunther writing in American Journalism Review claims that references to General Electric's use of the bolts in an NBC Today Show on defective bolts in planes, bridges and nuclear plants, were edited out and only mentioned in a follow-up segment after criticism of the omission (1995, p. 40). In 1990 NBC Nightly News ran 14 minutes of coverage over three days of a breast cancer detection machine produced by GE, without mentioning that it was made by NBC's owners. The other two major television networks didn't bother to cover it at all. (FAIR 1991) Helen Caldicott who had been featured on the Today Show previously found that when she wrote her book If You Love This Planet, which used GE as a case study of an environmentally damaging company, her scheduled appearance was mysteriously cancelled (Anon. 1992). In 1987, one year after GE took over NBC, NBC broadcast a special documentary promoting nuclear power using France as a model. The promotion for the programme proclaimed that "French townspeople welcome each new reactor with open arms". The documentary won a Westinghouse sponsored prize for science journalism. (Westinghouse Electric Company also builds nuclear power stations.) Shortly after the documentary was screened, when there were a couple of accidents at French power stations and there was significant opposition to nuclear power amongst the French population (polls showed about one third opposed it), NBC did not report the story although some US newspapers did. (Lee and Solomon 1990, p. 78) Karl Grossman documents in Extra! (1993) how the programme What Happened? broadcast on NBC in 1993 gave a one sided account of the Three Mile Island nuclear accident and its aftermath. It showed local resident Debbie Baker saying that she was not as afraid of the nuclear plant as she used to be. However, according to Grossman, Baker, whose son was born with Down's syndrome 9 months after the accident and who has received $1.1 million in a settlement arising from the accident, was shocked at how the programme had been edited to imply her acceptance of the plant. She said she was still extremely uncomfortable with the plant and that what she had said was she felt safer since her groups set up a network of radiation monitors around the plant. Neither Baker's settlement nor the 200 or so others "made to families who have suffered injury, birth defects and death because of the 1979 accident" were mentioned. Instead a nuclear power industry expert was featured who said the plant's back-up safety systems worked successfully. When EXTRA! pointed out that no scientists critical of nuclear power appeared in the program, Jaffe [executive producer of the show] responded, 'That is correct. Maybe there is some misunderstanding. That show is not a journalistic show but an entertainment show to look into and to find out the reason and cause of various accidents and incidents.' (Grossman 1993, p. 6) NBC has not been alone in putting a positive spin on the Three Mile Island nuclear accident. On the tenth anniversary of the accident, the New York Times ran an anniversary article opposite the editorial page headlined "Three Mile Island: The Good News" which argued that the accident had been good for the nuclear power industry prompting better management and emergency planning. The paper did not report the fact that 2000 residents living near the plant had filed claims for cancer and other health problems they blamed on the accident, nor the 280 personal-injury settlements paid out to such claimants, nor the unusual clusters of leukemia, birth defects and hypothyroidism around the plant. (Lee and Solomon 1990, p. 210) This was not the first time Times reporting had fitted with General Electric's views. In 1986 the Times reported on the use of humans as subjects in tritium absorption experiments. Tritium is routinely handled by nuclear power plant workers. An early edition of the paper said: "The tritium study was financed by the Atomic Energy Commission and conducted by the General Electric Company at Richland, which abuts the Hanford [nuclear weapons] reservation." In the late edition the sentence ended after Commission and no longer named General Electric. (Tenenbaum 1990)
Art 11 hours agoSure, but the question then becomes: Why didn't the corporate networks and newspapers with whom NBC competed point these things out?
Tom_Collins 11 hours agoThat's what my father always said about media - that it was self-correcting. But he was wrong. They're all influenced by the same thing, namely the ultra-rich and their money.
Art 11 hours agoBut wouldn't another network stand to gain more clout from the ultra-rich, corporations, and their money from NBC's losing viewers/ratings due to exposure for their corrupt unwillingness to report negatively on their parent corporation's actions?
Midwest 14 hours agoThey share a huge fraction of investors, that's the problem.
TheManj 13 hours agoNothing has changed except that there is an outsider independent president. NBC was just as bad 20 years ago.
Phil 14 hours agoProject Mockingbird was publicly revealed years ago, but pretty much totally ignored by the audiences who lap contentedly from the MSM koolaid bowl.
PresumptuousInsect 14 hours agoWilliam Arkin is right on point with his email to MSNBC, especially when he says:
"And yet we (and others) embrace them, even the highly partisan formers who masquerade as "analysts". We do so ignoring the empirical truth of what they have wrought: There is not one county in the Middle East that is safer today than it was 18 years ago. "
In that same vein I have problems with MSNBC et al also covering the farewell speeches of outgoing Senators and Representatives which are full of warnings as to how the current system is "broken" [Paul Ryan, ClaireMcCaskill, Orrin Hatch, Jeff Flake, among many] and not calling them out.
It's ironic that these politicians who have gorged themselves on literally millions of dollars in campaign funding from Big Pharma, Defense Contractors, Energy, Big Banking, and even insider stock trading now feel compelled to warn us of graft and corruption they all fostered. These politicians get elected as nobodies, sell their votes, retire as millionaires, then have the nerve to tell us how corrupted our government has become as they check out to become Lobbyist's.
Orrin Hatch was a Senator for 42 years but last week he woke up one morning to find the Senate needs fixing? Paul Ryan was Speaker of the House and fiercely defended Trump but now as he leaves he's suddenly discovers that things aren't right in Washington? And what about all those who are still in office now – where are their warnings and concern? The answer is it's difficult to talk while you're in office stuffing your mouths at the trough.
Sadly, MSNBC and the media carry these farewell speeches with no comment except that they are all great public servants and their viewers soak it all up because to do otherwise would be unpatriotic. And the march of the lemmings to the voting booths continues.
shenebraskan 14 hours agoI am so glad to see this man speak out. For the longest time, war and the military budget has been a third rail in politics, and "support the troops!"--however hypocritical that slogan might be--has been a rallying cry as well as an accusation of treason/unAmericanism/communism, etc., for those who have had doubts. But finally we are starting to see signs of dissatisfaction with the status quo among the political class, and even antiwar bullet points listed on some platforms. There are even calls for diplomacy, a word that seemed to have been deleted from all U.S. dictionaries. I hope that Arkin's outcry serves to move this agitation forward.
Dunno if you noticed (I did because I watch State Department briefings), but when Brett McGurk resigned as Syria envoy, in a similar huff to McMaster, he bemoaned the loss of his colleagues at State and Pentagon. State Department has become another branch of the MIC, not a diplomatic corps. And I am not saying this is all because of Trump. Probably started when we "won" the Cold War.
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Jan 03, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
sgt_doom , , October 12, 2017 at 1:49 pm
Since this occurs within a similar timeframe to this most outstanding article and since yesterday was the 54th anniversary of October 11, 1963, this might also prove helpful:
21 Days . . . . .
On p. 255 of Geoffrey Shaw's fascinating book, The Lost Mandate From Heaven , he writes:
But did the president realize that the reporter's influence on policy had been given to him, at least in part, by State Department officials ?
Of course, Shaw was speaking of President John F. Kennedy, soon to be assassinated, whose policy was being attacked by David Halberstam, in complete lockstep with the State Department official who was feeding him that information: Averell Harriman.
Or that Robert Lovett, who had been his advisor on those appointments, was a trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation? (I'm sure JFK was aware that Lovett was an active partner with Brown Brothers Harriman -- Averell Harriman's partly owned firm with the Brown family -- but did JFK know that Lovett had married into the Brown family?)
On Oct. 11, 1963, President Kennedy signed NSAM 263, which set the stage for the withdrawal of American military advisors from South Vietnam.
After President Kennedy signed NSAM 263, he issued a memo to the State Department and some of their overseas offices, detailing the planned complete withdrawal of military advisors from South Vietnam, to begin in late November of 1963, and completed before the upcoming presidential election.
This memo was declassified by President Clinton in the late 1990s, but reclassified by President George W. Bush sometime in 2000. (I would have downloaded a copy, but never once considered that something which had been declassified would be reclassified -- something to my knowledge which had never occurred before. And having been a past holder of Top Secret Crypto and Satellite clearances, I have some familiarity with classification procedures.)
So twenty-one days after NSAM 263 and the State Department memo, President Diem is overthrown, and twenty-one days later, President Kennedy is overthrown.
21 Days . . . . .
Recommended Reading:
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Jan 02, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,
Cybersecurity "experts" in the United States have long alleged that "Russian bots" were used to meddle in the 2016 elections.
But, as it turns out, the authors of a Senate report on "Russian election meddling" actually ran the false flag meddling operation themselves.
A week before Christmas, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a report accusing Russia of depressing Democrat voter turnout by targeting African-Americans on social media. Its authors , New Knowledge , quickly became a household name. Described by the New York Times as a group of "tech specialists who lean Democratic," New Knowledge has ties to both the U.S. military and the intelligence agencies.
The CEO and co-founder of New Knowledge, Jonathon Morgan, had previously worked for DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) , the U.S. military's advanced research agency known for horrific ideas on how to control humanity . Morgan's partner, Ryan Fox, is a 15-year veteran of the NSA (National Security Agency) who also worked as a computer analyst for the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). Their unique skill sets have managed to attract the eye of authoritarian investors, who pumped $11 million into the company in 2018 alone, according to a report by RT .
Morgan and Fox have both struck gold in the " Russiagate " scheme, which sprung into being after Hillary Clinton blamed Moscow for Donald Trump's presidential victory in 2016. Morgan, for example, is one of the developers of the Hamilton 68 Dashboard, the online tool that purports to monitor and expose narratives being pushed by the Kremlin on Twitter. And also worth mentioning, that dashboard is bankrolled by the German Marshall Fund's Alliance for Securing Democracy – a collection of Democrats and neoconservatives funded in part by NATO (North AtTreaty Tready Organization) and USAID (United States Agency for International Development).
It is worth noting that the 600 " Russia-linked " Twitter accounts monitored by the dashboard is not disclosed to the public either, making it impossible to verify these claims. This inconvenience has not stopped Hamilton 68 from becoming a go-to source for hysteria-hungry journalists, however. Yet on December 19, a New York Times story revealed that Morgan and his crew had created the fake army of Russian bots, as well as several fake Facebook groups, in order to discredit Republican candidate Roy Moore in Alabama's 2017 special election for the U.S. Senate.
Working on behalf of the Democrats, Morgan and his crew created an estimated 1,000 fake Twitter accounts with Russian names, and had them follow Moore. They also operated several Facebook pages where they posed as Alabama conservatives who wanted like-minded voters to support a write-in candidate instead . In an internal memo, New Knowledge boasted that it had " orchestrated an elaborate 'false flag' operation that planted the idea that the Moore campaign was amplified on social media by a Russian botnet ." – RT
This scandal is being perpetrated by the United States media and has so far deceived millions, if not more. The botnet claim made a splash on social media and was further amplified by Mother Jones , which based its story on "expert opinion" from Morgan's dubious creation, Hamilton 68.
Things got even weirder when it turned out that Scott Shane, the author of the Tim es piece, had known about the meddling for months because he spoke at an event where the organizers boasted about it!
Shane was one of the speakers at a meeting in September, organized by American Engagement Technologies, a group run by Mikey Dickerson, President Barack Obama's former tech czar. Dickerson explained how AET spent $100,000 on New Knowledge's campaign to suppress Republican votes, "enrage " Democrats to boost turnout, and execute a " false flag " to hurt Moore. He dubbed it " Project Birmingham ." -RT
There really was meddling in American democracy by " Russian bots. " Except those bots weren't run from Moscow or St. Petersburg but from the offices of Democrat operatives chiefly responsible for creating and amplifying the " Russiagate " hysteria over the past two years in a textbook case of psychological projection , brainwashing, and Nazi-style propaganda campaigns.
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Dec 27, 2018 | discussion.theguardian.com
RatioDecidend , 4 Jun 2018 01:33
This article is excellent and well overdue. All we need to do now is to wrench control of our mainstream media out of the hands of Corporate (foreign) control. We are being told to vote against ourselves in order for the few corporate elite to accrue massive wealth and power over us.RatioDecidend -> Lawrie Griffith , 4 Jun 2018 00:51MEDIA laws need to be very strict with very, very severe financial penalties for bias and propaganda. Certainly remove this concept of self regulation whereby they sit on their own disciplinary boards. Raise the standards of our media and allow us to retrieve some semblance of our democracy.
Without media control, how would corporations be able to manipulate and propagandise the populace with their own vested interests.
That is why governments are doing corporate bidding and getting fascist style surveillance of its people, in order to counteract the ability of the people to gain knowledge through the internet and vote against corporate control of our democracy.... nothing to do with terrorism which was caused mostly by corporate foreign extraction of wealth through weapon sales; resource acquisition, etc.
Oops, got to go, hope that makes sense.
It is back to control of our mainstream media by the very (foreign) corporations that are sucking out our wealth and putting nothing back.Corporate media ia all powerful. They insidiously permeate the populace with corporate views of Australia's financial and economy; infrastructure and every aspect of social life from birth to euthanasia with racism and religion thrown in for good measure.
Should a politician have the audacity to act against their corporate interests, they do not last long, without exclusions - PMs Whitlam and Rudd being prime examples.
This current mob of gutless underachieving dinosaur neo con nutters in govt, are completely turning over Australia to these Corporate (foreign) parasites and our prospect is not looking good.
Within no time we will be a Corporatocracy (as is the USA) and along with that comes 1% owning 99% of the wealth; third world poverty; crime through the roof; drugs out of control; public health and education a joke; public services non existent; legal system in disarray and entrenched with bias and inequity.
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Dec 23, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com
" ... born April 12, 1981) is an American politician of the Democratic Party serving as the U.S. Representative for Hawaii's 2nd congressional district since 2013. She was also a Vice Chair of the Democratic National Committee until February 28, 2016, when she resigned to endorse Senator Bernie Sanders for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination. Elected in 2012, she is the first Samoan American member and the first Hindu member of the United States Congress .
Gabbard served in a field medical unit of the Hawaii Army National Guard in a combat zone in Iraq from 2004 to 2005 and was later deployed to Kuwait. She previously served in the Hawaii House of Representatives from 2002 to 2004. When she was elected to the Hawaii House of Representatives at age 21, Gabbard was the youngest woman to be elected to a U.S. state legislature." wiki
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Major Gabbard, ARNG served in Iraq, is a woman, a Democrat, a person of color, a non-interventionist, a Hindu and a Pacific Islander of Samoan descent. What could be better?
If that thought fails I suggest Senators Rand Paul and Mike Lee as back-ups. pl
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsi_Gabbard
Posted at 10:14 AM in government , Politics | Permalink
I have followed Tulsi Gabbard off and on since 2016. Some blogs attack her mercilessly but she has a consistent approach, is admirably composed when under attack, and is one of the most courageous American politicians I've seen. That she is still there is achievement enough, though it would be good to see the sort of politics in the West in which such people could be in office.JJackson , a day agoWhile I would be delighted to see Gabbard as SecDef is there any chance she would get Senate Confirmed? From what I have heard from her she seems to have a realistic understanding of the World which would seem to bar her from the job.Pat Lang Mod -> JJackson , a day agoDefeatist!Patrick Armstrong , a day agoSounds good to me. Then she can become the first female POTUS (assuming actual scientific genders are still allowed) after Trump's 2nd term. (El Trumpissimo should have offered her the VP job, IMO.) (Meanwhile, we in Canada will be all agog about Trudeau III. Unless Comrade Lang establishes residence and votes the entire Trudeau spawn out forever.) Ah well, we can dream.Eugene Owens , 2 days agoShe has my endorsement. Selecting Gabbard would explode some heads in Washington on both sides. Although I think she would make a better replacement for National Security Adviser. Send the Mustache of Idiocy back to the AEI.The Porkchop Express , a day agoBrilliant ! Borg hates her, though. And not just because of her foreign policy views. She resigned as vice chair (if I recall correctly) of the DNC, particularly after being christened as the next Obama-like Dem pol, because she felt the DNC was being completely unfair to Bernie Sanders and I think it was well before anything came out in the news about what was happening. I'd love to see it but she angers the political class almost as much as Trump. Fingers crossed, though !Fred -> The Porkchop Express , 11 hours agoShe was smart is leaving. The DNC seems to be in some recurring trouble with multiple state parties and Obama's OFA.The Porkchop Express -> Fred , 10 hours ago
https://www.huffingtonpost....FredEric Newhill , a day agoOne hundred percent. In particular, the absolute balls it took to do that knowing the flaming wreckage that would be thrown her way. Says a lot about her character--ideology aside.
The Dems have not had the reckoning like the Rs did in 2016, but it's coming. To say nothing of the full airing of grievances between the Obama and Clinton camps. I read there is going to be something like 19 Dem debates, some in 2019 and some in 2020. I'm willing to wager it'll be far more nasty than the clown show the Rep. nomination was in 2016.
Gabbard would be an excellent choice, but she'd never do it. Can't be a Democrat and be that closely associated with the Orange Devil! Trump should pardon Flynn and then appoint him as Sec Def. Really demonstrate his independence from the swamp. That move just might cause enough heart attacks and strokes that the swamp would be drained in 48 hours.TTG , a day agoGabbard is well suited to support the implementation of a non-interventionist policy. I think she would do well as SecDef, but would she take it? Trump's best course of action now is to conduct a quiet search and get a firm commitment before announcing any possible candidates. Otherwise we'll see a repeat of the search for a new Chief of Staff.Guess who? -> TTG , a day agoReason-able indeed. Gagged to watch Michael R. Gordon last night on PBS news hour plant uber-neocon Sen. Cotton as the likely choice. (without mentioning that Cotton has been even more hawkish on Syria than Mattis...) Rand Paul is an interesting backup suggestion, esp. as I was puzzled he caved and went along with Pompeo for SoS. In any case, what an overdue change of course that any of the above suggestions would signal.Britam -> TTG , a day agoSir;Barbara Ann -> Britam , 5 hours ago
It would depend on what Gabbard sees as her ultimate goal. Being Secretary of Defense, under any President, would be a real career boost. Dealing with Trump would also toughen her up for waht I see as her eventual Armageddon level conflict with the Democratic National Committee if she aspires to higher office. There is also the chance that the Republican Party might try to 'poach' her from the Democrat Party. Even if Trump serves two full terms as President, she will still be young enough and tough enough to run for the top spot, from either party.Her ultimate goal will be release from Saṃsāra. In the meantime a career boost will doubtless be attractive, but only if accompanied by good Karma. Vice-chair of the DNC met the first criterion, but it appears she resigned when it failed to meet the latter. People who value their Karma are rare in life and all the more so in politics. She is an exotic flower to be sure.EEngineer , 2 days agoI've been watching her for years.She's been a vocal critic of the imperial project and the occupation of Syria from the beginning. I expect we'll see her make a run for the brass ring in 2024. Thumbs up.Artemesia -> EEngineer , a day agoWatched Kiersten Nielsen take a beating from retrograde congressmen yesterday on immigration, border protection, etx.; she never lost her composure -- well, maybe one tiny retort.exSpec4Chuck , a day agoIf Gabbard has half the presence of Nielsen, the American people -- and women -- can feel proud of their leaders. Again.
I believe she'd be a good SecDef, but I fear that her taking that position in the Trump administration would derail the potential she has for making a huge positive impact on the US political system. I would much rather see her announce early her candidacy for president in 2020 on the Democratic ticket. Hopefully Bernie Sanders will recognize that his age will be a serious impediment and will repay her support in 20016 by passing his torch (and mailing list) on to her for 2020. The Democratic Party needs an enema in the worst way and no one is in a better position to administer it than Gabbard.Patrick Armstrong -> exSpec4Chuck , a day agoToo soon. She'll lose to Trump. Next time. And the Dims have to have the craziness burnt out of them by another loss.Lauren Johnson -> Patrick Armstrong , a day agoSeems to me they are getting paid to lose -- like the losers in pro-wrestling.FarNorthSolitude -> exSpec4Chuck , 11 hours agoI agree that taking the position would probably ruin her chances going forward by association with Trump but I also believe the Presidential run is too soon. If Sanders health remains strong I think a Sanders/Gabbard ticket would win and set up a Gabbard run in 2024. I know of diehard Trump fans that would vote Sanders. Many working class are waking up to the raw deals they are getting.Chris Chuba , 2 days agoExcellent choice for that or any position in the Trump Administration but ... 1. not a doormat, 2. not a neocon, lunatic.MP98 , a day agoTrump will eventually surround himself with Wormtongue types (from Lord of the Rings). Neocons like Bolton who know that they will not always get their way but want to be in the Throne room to poison his mind with flattery and have a chance to get the glorious war they crave so much. He will likely appoint someone like Tom Cotton or Gen. Jack Keane. That is not what I want but that is what I expect.
AND she's a FOX !!A Tette , a day agohear! hear!georgeg , a day agoWould she be able to stand up to the neocon claptrap?.....Lauren Johnson , 2 days agoWould she be able to genuinely lead or be treated like a foreign body and walled off?Fredko , 2 days agoAgree. She's almost the lone voice against ME policy especially re Syria. Gets no pub. The Borgists would stomp all over her. Think DT ever heard of her?RaisingMac -> Fredko , 17 hours agoTrump interviewed her once already back in 2016: https://www.washingtontimes...Lauren Johnson -> Fredko , a day agoHe interviewed her during his transition period.Richard Barber , a day agoAnd Rep. Gabbard, being stupid, would take the job if offered. That's really the only reason I can think of that she would.
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Dec 22, 2018 | www.amazon.com
Robert P. Morrow 5.0 out of 5 stars Russ Baker thinks CIA George Herbert Walker Bush was involved in the JFK assassination. I agree. February 19, 2011 Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
I highly recommend this book. If anything Russ Baker goes very easy on the Bush Crime Family. For example google "Chip Tatum Pegasus" and you will find he is not mentioned in this book. Then there is the case of the 1980's Franklin pedophile ring and GHW Bush's associations with pedophilic pimp Lawrence E. King. Again, that is a whopping Bush family "secret" and it is not in this book.However, Baker does lay out a pretty google circumstantial case that GHW Bush may very well have been involved in the JFK assassination. May I quote Baker asking GHW Bush:
- -Some years ago you claimed not to remember where you were on the morning of Nov. 22, 1963? Have you since been able to recall?
- -Can you tell us about your decades-long friendship with George de Mohrenschildt, the man who was in and out of Lee Harvey Oswald's house on almost a daily basis in the year before the Kennedy assassination?
- -Did you, as characterized in an FBI memo, work as a CIA officer in tandem with Cuban exiles at the time of the Kennedy assassination?
- -Why have you never spoken publicly about the documented call you made to the FBI on Nov 22, 1963, in which you identified yourself fully and claimed to have information on a possible suspect in Kennedy's death? What was the purpose of that call, in which you mentioned your whereabouts at the time of the call, 1:45pm, as Tyler, Texas, i.e. about 99 miles away but just a short flight on the private plane on which you were traveling? Why did you tell the FBI that you were en route next to Dallas and would stay at the Sheraton there when you had already been at the Sheraton the night before--and right after that call flew to Dallas but only to switch planes and fly back immediately to Houston? Why were you giving the FBI the impression you would be staying in Dallas the night after the assassination instead of letting them know you had stayed there the night before the assassination?
- -Why was your own assistant at the home of the man you would finger as a suspect in the shooting, and why did he end up providing the man with an alibi? Was the ultimate purpose of that call not to cause the alleged suspect any permanent harm, but merely to use the call as an excuse to state in government files that you were in a place other than Dallas?
- -Since you claimed not to remember where you were when Kennedy was killed, how is it that after these FBI memos surfaced, your wife Barbara suddenly found and published an old letter placing you and her in Tyler, Texas shortly after the shooting?
On the day of the assassination, were you in touch with your friend and Republican running mate Jack Crichton, a military intelligence figure who was connected to figures forcing their way into the pilot car of Kennedy's motorcade? The same Crichton who controlled the man who served as the interpreter between Oswald's wife and police and reframed her words so as to implicate Oswald in Kennedy's shooting? The same Crichton who was working out of a secret underground communications bunker below the streets of Dallas?
The same Crichton whose secret military intelligence unit counted dozens of men who simultaneously held jobs as Dallas police officers? The same Crichton who did secret oil industry intelligence work in the Middle East while you did intelligence related oil industry work via your company, Zapata Offshore?
-Finally, do you know people who consider the events of November 22, 1963 to, in their minds, "reflect the very best of the American spirit?" You say almost nothing, ever, about the Kennedy assassination, even skipping over it in your own memoir, which details much more trivial events of the same year. Why is that? And why then, in your eulogy for former President Ford, a member of the increasingly-discredited Warren Commission, did you go out of your way to oddly praise him for promoting the increasingly-discredited "single bullet theory?" You said:
"After a deluded gunman assassinated President Kennedy, our nation turned to Gerald Ford and a select handful of others to make sense of that madness. And the conspiracy theorists can say what they will, but the Warren Commission report will always have the final definitive say on this tragic matter. Why? Because Jerry Ford put his name on it and Jerry Ford's word was always good."
Why did you, so bizarrely, smile when you uttered those words?
Now, with your Medal of Freedom, given you by a Democratic president who ran as an agent of change, you truly seem to be enjoying the last laugh."
James McDonald 5.0 out of 5 stars MSM is reporting the history of the dead Bush but you won't be told about the State Crimes. December 1, 2018 Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
I've had this publication for several years. It's important to point out I've not read this publication completely but rather I've used it for key search terms. If you don't have access using this kind of information, you are way behind the curve on how this platform can be used for research. It becomes even more vital in today's world of fake news reports as exampled by what we being presented with today. These same electronic e'books can be read on the computer too.A few example on how you can cut and paste the vital info is presented below:
lone gunman is a much more comforting notion in our democracy than a vast apparatus that can bring down presidents. Give us a simple explanation that easily encapsulates the horrible and then we can retain forever all that we have held to be true. If there was any genius in the Bush administration, it was the understanding that Americans did not want to confront complexities and had a great need of "bad guys" to blame for what had gone wrong.
Baker, Russ. Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America's Invisible Government, and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years . Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. Kindle Edition.
The Iraq War was not, and never had been, about an imminent threat to the safety of America and its allies; even Republicans like former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan were publicly acknowledging that it was mostly about oil.
Baker, Russ. Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America's Invisible Government, and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years (p. 3). Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. Kindle Edition.
The reason the Bushes are relevant today, even with W.' s exit from the national stage, is that the family and its colleagues and associates represent an elite that has long succeeded in subverting our democratic institutions to their own ends. And they will continue to do so unless their agenda and methods are laid bare to public scrutiny.
Baker, Russ. Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America's Invisible Government, and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years (p. 6). Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. Kindle Edition.
George William Bush acknowledged under oath -- as part of a deposition in a lawsuit brought by a nonprofit group seeking records on Bush's past -- that he was the junior officer on a three-to four-man watch shift at CIA headquarters between September 1963 and February 1964, which was on duty when Kennedy was shot. 6 "I do not recognize the contents of the memorandum as information furnished to me orally or otherwise during the time I was at the CIA," he said. "In fact, during my time at the CIA, I did not receive any oral communications from any government agency of any nature whatsoever. I did not receive any information relating to the Kennedy assassination during my time at the CIA from the FBI. Based on the above, it is my conclusion that I am not the Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency referred to in the memorandum."
Baker, Russ. Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America's Invisible Government, and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years (p. 11). Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. Kindle Edition.
Devine's role in setting up Zapata would remain hidden for more than a decade -- until 1965. At that point, as Bush was extricating himself from business to devote his energies to pursuing a congressional seat, Devine's name suddenly surfaced as a member of the board of Bush's spin-off company, Zapata Offshore -- almost as if it was his function to keep the operation running. To be sure, he and Bush remained joined at the hip. As indicated in the 1975 CIA memo, Bush and Devine enjoyed a "close relationship" that continued while Mr. Bush was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations nine years later. In fact, Devine even accompanied then-congressman Bush on a two-week junket to Vietnam, leaving the day after Christmas in 1967, a year before the Republicans would retake the White House. After being "out" of the CIA since 1953, Devine's top-secret security clearance required an update, though what top-secret business a freshman congressman on the Ways and Means Committee could have, requiring two weeks in Vietnam with a "businessman," was not made clear.
Baker, Russ. Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America's Invisible Government, and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years (pp. 13-14). Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. Kindle Edition.
There's more but I hope my review of this work and the value of it will be apparent.
I most strongly recommend this book for the research in the discovery of State Crimes Against Democracy.
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ReviewerY 5.0 out of 5 stars Tells how the Saudis for decades did dirty work the CIA didn't want to do itself (including ... May 12, 2015 Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
Probably a "must read". Tells how the Saudis for decades did dirty work the CIA didn't want to do itself (including Iran Contra), and they did it with the coordination and assistance of Poppy Bush and his companies. Describes "W" Bush as an incompetent who failed at numerous jobs that Daddy got him, and never succeeded at anything (other than marrying Laura and ending his alcohol addiction when she threatened to leave him) until he became Texas governor. Goes into detail about "W"'s draft dodging, and desertion of the Air Force Reserve without being court martialed.Randall M. 5.0 out of 5 stars If you want to understand what was really happening and how the American citizens have been betrayed and hoodwinked by the Bush's this is a great book. January 29, 2018 Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
From Samuel Bush late 19th century to Bush 43 the book reveals the double life of the Bush family. The connections and associations throughout a century leave little doubt that the Bush family is entwined in many of the most historical and tragic events of wars, politics and covert activities of the USA. If you want to understand what was really happening and how the American citizens have been betrayed and hoodwinked by the Bush's this is a great book.Bibliophiledw 5.0 out of 5 stars Don't Miss This One! Many skeletons in this Closet! Whew! August 5, 2016 Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
WOW! The closest I can come t o describing this is to say it is a multi-level, generational expose of "incestuous" relationships WITHOUT the sex! How can that be? Read it and learn. If I'd known how pervasive and of such longstanding and widespread these relationships.... I would've started with a 14' x 14' white board and diagrammed a kind of "family" tree and still would have had to write small! - really small. Someone said: "What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive." This is like THE largest can of worms; it was hard to keep track, but Russ Baker did and showed how each player was connected to the next - sometimes it was linear and other times it went sideways, but always came back to the beginning family of Bush. Oh my.Mayo Quin 5.0 out of 5 stars How the elites affect public policy and the course of history November 15, 2016 Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
The tangential names and places are fully explained in this book. The reality of elite dynasties (Bush, Rockefeller, Kennedy) is undeniable. These people affect our lives, often in ways only they know about. Connections are inherited, my friends. To get your feet wet, visit YouTube and watch one of the video interviews with author Russ Baker.Hoosier CheeseHead 5.0 out of 5 stars The seamy side of American politics exposed August 7, 2015 Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
An outstanding read, chock-full of background info on this dynastic American family.
Not flattering to them, but the allegations are mostly substantiated.
There are some questionable flights of speculation, which taint the book's general objectivity.
I was shocked to learn of the many ways in which the same prominent figures kept popping-up, complicit in the huge events of the past several decades (the Kennedy assassination, Watergate scandal, Nixon's downfall, etc.).
And Geo.H.W. Bush was the "Man Behind the Curtain", swirling in the murky background of every story.
My perception of BOTH Bush presidents has been fundamentally altered.
Fascinating.TLR 5.0 out of 5 stars Essential hidden history October 5, 2013 Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
Besides being an expose of the Bush dynasty, Baker demonstrates the close ties between many different groups that people tend to think of as being separate - Texas oilmen, military intelligence, Wall Street, FBI, CIA, the arms industry, organized crime, etc. It's a big revolving door, a huge network of the Old Boys Club. The elites of the world are interested in power and wealth, not in ideology.He offers a cautionary note about trusting declassified government documents:
"Allen Dulles once called CIA documents 'hieroglyphics.'...Dulles used to expound on such elements of tradecraft to his fellow Warren Commission members. On one occasion, he told them that no one would be able to grasp an intelligence memo except for those involved in its creation and their colleagues...When Thomas J. Devine, Poppy Bush's business partner and a former CIA agent, coyly suggested to me that the problem with journalists like myself is that 'you believe what you read in government documents,' he was referring to such deeply coded disinformation."
Stephen Courts 5.0 out of 5 stars Bush Family Of Secrdts January 18, 2012 Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
A must read book by noted journalist Russ Baker that documents the inherently obvious connections with the bush family and the CIA, oil billionaires, energy giants and many more conflicts of interest, particularly with Ken Lay and Enron. This is a book that reveals the true bush dynastry. For example, I was not aware of Prescott Bush's mentoring of Richard Nixon and his close relationship to President Eisenhower and how Prescott got Ike to put the young inexperienced Nixon on the 1952 presidential ticket. The entire sorid history of the bush's going back to post WW One and their support of the Nazi's in washing money for the 2nd World War. Allen Dulles figures prominantly in this terrific read. Don't be fooled by the gentel George H W Bush. His connections to the CIA go back way farther than he admits, and he figures prominantly in Iran Contra. George H W Bush is the only known individual who cannot account for where he was during the Coup D'Etat in November 1963. The man is a liar and a coward as well as a thief. Baker spends about 75 pages detailing George H W Bush's involvement in Watergate and the downfall of the Nixon administration. Well written and documented. This is a five star book and a must read for truth seekers. Stephen Courts
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Dec 22, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org
bevin , Dec 22, 2018 9:33:42 AM | link
The journalism scandals are just beginning.Craig Murray today publishes accounts from the "Integrity Initiative" showing that journalists in Scotland are receiving retainers of 2500 a month Sterling, plus expenses and payment for actual articles published.
And if this is going on in Scotland we can be quite sure that it is actually happening in North America and Europe, generally, and, of course, in the less prosperous parts of the world where standards of integrity are just as low as they are hereabouts.
We can be actually confident not just that the journalists in the MSM are on the payroll but that the invoices and accounts for their bribes are carefully preserved.
Murray's blog is almost always worth following, just as 'b's is. Yesterday more news about the Skripal case emerged: it seems that the British government was prepared well in advance for the sudden attack on Skripal.
What we are witnessing is the complete incompetence of those running the Empire. While malicious, indeed deadly, they simply cannot keep up with the critics of imperialism. Their power rests entirely on their ability to use force, both physical and financial. Their attempts to use social medias to their advantage are lame and ineffective. It seems clear to me that they will soon be reduced to using their power not just to hobble but to cripple critics- net neutrality is already finished.
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Dec 13, 2018 | craigmurray.org.uk
in Uncategorized by craig
The British state can maintain its spies' cover stories for centuries. Look up Eldred Pottinger, who for 180 years appears in scores of British history books – right up to and including William Dalrymple's Return of the King – as a British officer who chanced to be passing Herat on holiday when it came under siege from a partly Russian-officered Persian army, and helped to organise the defences. In researching Sikunder Burnes, I discovered and published from the British Library incontrovertible and detailed documentary evidence that Pottinger's entire journey was under the direct instructions of, and reporting to, British spymaster Alexander Burnes. The first historian to publish the untrue "holiday" cover story, Sir John Kaye, knew both Burnes and Pottinger and undoubtedly knew he was publishing lying propaganda. Every other British historian of the First Afghan War (except me and latterly Farrukh Husain) has just followed Kaye's official propaganda.
Some things don't change. I was irresistibly reminded of Eldred Pottinger just passing Herat on holiday, when I learnt how highly improbable left wing firebrand Simon Bracey-Lane just happened to be on holiday in the United States with available cash to fund himself, when he stumbled into the Bernie Sanders campaign.
Recent university graduate Simon Bracey-Lane took it even further. Originally from Wimbledon in London, he was inspired to rejoin the Labour party in September when Corbyn was elected leader. But by that point, he was already in the US on holiday. So he joined the Sanders campaign, and never left.
"I had two weeks left and some money left, so I thought, Fuck it, I'll make some calls for Bernie Sanders," he explains. "I just sort of knew Des Moines was the place, so I just turned up at their HQ, started making phone calls, and then became a fully fledged field organiser."It is, to say the least, very interesting indeed that just a year later the left wing, "Corbyn and Sanders supporting" Bracey-Lane is hosting a very right wing event, "Cold War Then and Now", for the shadowy neo-con Institute for Statecraft, at which an entirely unbalanced panel of British military, NATO and Ukrainian nationalists extolled the virtues of re-arming against Russia.
Nor would it seem likely that Bracey-Lane would be involved with the Integrity Initiative. Even the mainstream media has been forced to give a few paragraphs to the outrageous Integrity Initiative, under which the MOD-sponsored Institute for Statecraft has been given millions of pounds of taxpayers' money by the FCO to spread covert disinformation and propaganda, particularly against Russia and the anti-war movement. Activities include twitter and facebook trolling and secretly paying journalists in "clusters of influence" around Europe. Anonymous helpfully leaked the Institute's internal documents. Some of the Integrity Initiative's thus exposed alleged covert agents, like David Aaronovitch, have denied any involvement despite their appearance in the documents, and others like Dan Kaszeta the US "novichok expert", have cheerfully admitted it.
The mainstream media have tracked down the HQ of the "Institute for Statecraft" to a derelict mill near Auchtermuchty. It is owned by one of the company directors, Daniel Lafayeedney, formerly of D Squadron 23rd SAS Regiment and later of Military Intelligence (and incidentally born the rather more prosaic Daniel Edney).
By sleuthing the company records of this "Scottish charity", and a couple of phone calls, I discovered that the actual location of the Institute for Statecraft is the basement of 2 Temple Place, London. This is not just any basement – it is the basement of the former London mansion of William Waldorf Astor, an astonishing building. It is, in short, possibly the most expensive basement in London.
Which is interesting because the accounts of the Institute for Statecraft claim it has no permanent staff and show nothing for rent, utilities or office expenses. In fact, I understand the rent is paid by the Ministry of Defence.
Having been told where the Institute for Statecraft skulk, I tipped off journalist Kit Klarenberg of Sputnik Radio to go and physically check it out. Kit did so and was aggressively ejected by that well-known Corbyn and Sanders supporter, Simon Bracey-Lane. It does seem somewhat strange that our left wing hero is deeply embedded in an organisation that launches troll attacks on Jeremy Corbyn.
I have a great deal more to tell you about Mr Edney and his organisation next week, and the extraordinary covert disinformation war the British government wages online, attacking British citizens using British taxpayers' money. Please note in the interim I am not even a smidgeon suicidal, and going to be very, very careful crossing the road and am not intending any walks in the hills.
I am not alleging Mr Bracey-Lane is an intelligence service operative who previously infiltrated the Labour Party and the Sanders campaign. He may just be a young man of unusually heterodox and vacillating political opinions. He may be an undercover reporter for the Canary infiltrating the Institute for Statecraft. All these things are possible, and I have no firm information.
But one of the activities the Integrity Initiative sponsors happens to be the use of online trolls to ridicule the idea that the British security services ever carry out any kind of infiltration, false flag or agent provocateur operations, despite the fact that we even have repeated court judgements against undercover infiltration officers getting female activists pregnant. The Integrity Initiative offers us a glimpse into the very dirty world of surveillance and official disinformation. If we actually had a free media, it would be the biggest story of the day.
As the Establishment feels its grip slipping, as people wake up to the appalling economic exploitation by the few that underlies the very foundations of modern western society, expect the methods used by the security services to become even dirtier.
You can bank on continued ramping up of Russophobia to supply "the enemy".
As both Scottish Independence and Jeremy Corbyn are viewed as real threats by the British Establishment, you can anticipate every possible kind of dirty trick in the next couple of years, with increasing frequency and audacity
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Dec 20, 2018 | disobedientmedia.com
The CrowdStrike Connection
CrowdStrike is a high-profile cybersecurity firm that worked with the DNC (Democratic National Committee) in 2016 and was called in due to a suspected breach. However, CrowdStrike appears to have first started working with the DNC approximately five weeks prior to this and approximately just five days after John Podesta (Hillary Clinton's campaign manager for the 2016 election) had his Gmail account phished. Nothing was mentioned about this until after the five weeks had passed when the DNC published a press release stating that CrowdStrike had been at the DNC throughout that period to investigate the NGP-VAN issues (that had occurred three months before Podesta was phished).
Upon conclusion of those five weeks, CrowdStrike was immediately called back in to investigate a suspected breach. CrowdStrike's software was already installed on the DNC network when the DNC emails were acquired but CrowdStrike failed to prevent the emails from being acquired and didn't publish logs or incident-specific evidence of the acquisition event either, the latter of which is odd considering what their product's features were advertised to be even if they were just running it in a monitoring capacity .
There are additional questions to be asked about why Guccifer 2.0 went to the effort he did to fabricate Russian-themed evidence (discovered in 2017 and 2018 but largely ignored by the press), bizarrely supporting some of the most significant claims made by CrowdStrike just one day earlier.
If Mueller's attribution of Guccifer 2.0 to the GRU is correct, why would the GRU want to fabricate evidence to support CrowdStrike's allegations against Russia when another one of CrowdStrike's directors conceded they had no hard evidence at the time? This issue has not yet been adequately explained.
All of these oddities are relevant because one of the two CrowdStrike executives that had helped push the story to the press was a former department director at the FBI serving under Robert Mueller , and, judging on the fact they were dining together at an executive retreat after that individual had retired , it would seem that they are friends too.
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Dec 20, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Jesus Diaz via TomsGuide.com,
Believe it or not, all these faces are fake. They have been synthesized by Nvidia's new AI algorithm, a generative adversarial network capable of automagically creating humans, cats, and even cars.
Credit: Nvidia
The technology works so well that we can expect synthetic image search engines soon - just like Google's, but generating new fake images on the fly that look real. Yes, you know where that is going - and sure, it can be a lot of fun, but also scary . Check out the video. It truly defies belief:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/kSLJriaOumA
Nvidia Generative Adversarial Networks
According to Nvidia, its GAN is built around a concept called "style transfer." Rather than trying to copy and paste elements of different faces into a frankenperson, the system analyzes three basic styles - coarse, middle, and fine styles - and merges them transparently into something completely new.
Coarse styles include parameters such as pose, the face's shape, or the hair style. Middle styles include facial features, like the shape of the nose, cheeks, or mouth. Finally, fine styles affect the color of the face's features like skin and hair.
According to the scientists, the generator is "capable of separating inconsequential variation from high-level attributes" too, in order to eliminate noise that is irrelevant for the new synthetic face.
For example, it can distinguish a hairdo from the actual hair, eliminating the former while applying the latter to the final photo. It can also specify the strength of how styles are applied to obtain more or less subtle effects.
Not only the generative adversarial network is capable of autonomously creating human faces, but it can do the same with animals like cats. It can even create new cars and even bedrooms.
Credit: Nvidia
Nvidia's system is not only capable of generating completely new synthetic faces, but it can also seamlessly modify specific features of real people, like age, the hair or skin colors of any person.
The applications for such a system are amazing. From paradigm-changing synthetic free-to-use image search pages that may be the end of stock photo services to people accurately previewing hair styling changes. And of course, porn.
Ms No , 5 minutes ago link
Terminaldude , 21 minutes ago linkThey sure wish they had that when they created the instantly identified fake hack picture of dead Osama.
It was so bad, plus the pictures they combined to use it were already in the public domain. All the major networks ran the picture.
tragus , 21 minutes ago linkAnd of course false flags with Non-humans carrying out the terrorist attacks and never captured.
Plausible deniability... ?
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Dec 18, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
Former FBI Director James Comey appeared December 17th, 2018, for a second round of questions by a joint House committee oversight probe into the DOJ and FBI conduct during the 2016 presidential election and incoming Trump administration.The Joint House Committee just released the transcript online (full pdf below).
Director Blue blog's Doug Ross read through most of the septic backflow so you don't need to. You're welcome:
1. Double Standard: Obama vs. TrumpTrey Gowdy grilled Comey on his vastly different handling of comments by Trump and Obama. When Trump asked Comey whether he could see his way clear to easing up on Flynn, Comey memorialized the conversation in a memo and distributed it to his leadership team, including Andrew McCabe and James Baker.
However, when President Obama on 60 Minutes publicly exonerated Hillary Clinton's mishandling of classified information -- setting the stage for true obstruction of justice -- Comey did nothing. He never talked to the president about potential obstruction, he never memorialized his observations, and he didn't leak anything to the press. These were all things he did with Trump.
He might call it a "higher loyalty", but it looks to us peons like a true double-standard. Democrats get Wall Street Bankster treatment, while the rabble get tossed in the slammer.
2. According to Comey, Flynn had no right to counselThis is interesting:
Mr. Gowdy. Did Mr. Flynn have the right to have counsel present during that interview?
Mr. Comey. No.
Oooooooookay.
3. Comey confirmed McCabe called Flynn to initiate "entrapment"; contradicts himself on counselAnd:
Mr. Gowdy. Why not advise General Flynn of the consequences of making false statements to the FBI?
Mr. Comey. ...the Deputy Director [McCabe] called him, told him what the subject matter was, told him he was welcome to have a representative from White House Counsel there...
So Comey is saying that Flynn didn't have the right to counsel (item 2), and then states that he does have the right to a White House counsel attending the meeting.
The lies are getting harder and harder to keep straight with this egregious individual.
4. Comey lied about McCabe's conversation with FlynnWhen asked whether McCabe was trying to set Flynn up by asserting no counsel was needed in the interview, Comey claimed he was unaware of that critical fact. But McCabe, in a written memo, asserted that he told Flynn, "[i]f you have a lawyer present, we'll need to involve the Department of Justice".
In other words, McCabe was trying to ensure Flynn had no counsel present during the interview.
5. Comey still falls back on the Logan Act scam to justify his actionsYes, the Logan Act. When former secretary of state John Kerry meets with various Mullahs while President Trump is unwinding the disastrous Iran deal, there's no crime there !
But let Flynn, a member of the Trump transition team, have a perfectly legitimate conversation with a Russian diplomat, we get:
Mr. Comey. And I hesitate only with "wrong." I think a Department of Justice prosecutor might say, on its face, it was problematic under the Logan Act because of private citizens negotiating and all that business.
What a lying sack of gumbo. At the time, Flynn was not a private citizen. He was a member of the incoming administration, and had anyone bothered to prosecute prior transitions for similar "crimes", the entire Obama and Clinton posses would be breaking rocks at Leavenworth.
6. Comey Throws James Clapper Under the BusWhen asked by Jim Jordan about his private meeting with the President to brief him on a very tiny portion of the "salacious and unverified" (Comey's words under oath) dossier, Comey claimed ODNI James Clapper had orchestrated the entire fiasco.
Mr. Comey. ...ultimately, it was Clapper's call. I agreed -- we agreed that it made sense for me to do it and to do it privately, separately. So I don't want to make it sound like I was ordered to do it.
He wasn't ordered to do it, but it was Clapper's call.
Oooooooookay.
7. Jordan Torches Comey Over His Dossier CommentsI'll just leave this here. Comey may need to put some ice on that.
8. Comey Concealed Critical National Security Concerns About Flynn From the PresidentMr. Jordan. So that's what I'm not understanding, is you felt this was so important that it required a private session with you and the President-elect, you only spoke of the salacious part of the dossier, but yet you also say there's no way any good reporter would print this. But you felt it was still critical that you had to talk to the President-elect about it. And I would argue you created the very news hook that you said you were concerned about...
...it's so inflammatory that reporters would 'get killed' for reporting it, why was it so important to tell the President? Particularly when you weren't going to tell him the rest of the dossier -- about the rest of the dossier?
This is quite unbelievable: in a private dinner with the president, Comey neglected to mention that just three days earlier he had directed the interview of Trump's ostensible National Security Advisor.
Mr. Comey. ...at no time during the dinner was there a reference, allusion, mention by either of
us about the FBI having contact with General Flynn or being interested in General Flynn investigatively.Mr. Jordan. That was what I wanted to know. So this is not just referring to the President didn't bring it up. You didn't bring it up either.
Mr. Comey. Correct, neither of us brought it up or alluded to it.
Mr. Jordan. Why not? He's talking about General Flynn. You had just interviewed him 3 days earlier and discovered that he was lying to the Vice President, knew he was lying to the Vice President, and, based on what we've heard of late, that he lied tyour agents. Why not tell his boss, why not tell the head of the executive branch, why not tell the President of the United States, "Hey, your National Security Advisor just lied to us 3 days ago"?
Mr. Comey. Because we had an open investigation, and there would be no reason or a need to tell the President about it.
Mr. Jordan. Really?
Mr. Comey. Really.
Mr. Jordan. You wouldn't tell the President of the United States that his National Security Advisor wasn't being square with the FBI? ... I mean, but this is not just any investigation, it seems to me, Director. This is a top advisor to the Commander in Chief. And you guys, based on what we've heard, felt that he wasn't being honest with the Vice President and wasn't honest with two of your agents. And just 3 days later, you're meeting with the President, and, oh, by the way, the conversation is about General Flynn. And you don't tell the President anything?
Mr. Comey. I did not.
Mr. Meadows. So, Director Comey, let me make sure I understand this. You were so concerned that Michael Flynn may have lied or did lie to the Vice President of the United States, but that once you got that confirmed, that he had told a falsehood, you didn't believe that it was appropriate to tell the President of the United States that there was no national security risk where you would actually convey that to the President of the United States? Is that your testimony?
Mr. Comey. That is correct. We had an --
The more we learn, the dirtier a cop Comey ends up appearing.
9. Gowdy Destroys the Double Standard of Clinton vs. FlynnCheck this out:
10. Comey May Have Been Involved With the Infamous Tarmac MeetingMr. Gowdy. ...we are going to contrast the decision to not allow Michael Flynn to have an attorney, or discourage him from having one, with allowing some other folks the Bureau interviewed to have multiple attorneys in the room, including fact witnesses. Can you see the dichotomy there, or is that an unreasonable comparison?
Mr. Comey. I'm not going to comment on that. I remember you asking me questions about that last week. I'm happy to answer them again.
Mr. Gowdy. You will not say whether or not it is an unreasonable comparison to compare allowing multiple attorneys, who are also fact witnesses, to be present during an interview but discouraging another person from having counsel present?
Mr. Comey. I'm not going to answer that in a vacuum...
Another interesting vignette, this time from John Ratcliffe :
Mr. Ratcliffe. Okay. So it would appear from this that there had been some type of briefing the day before, with reference to yesterday, June 27, 2016, where you had requested a copy of emails between President Obama and Hillary Clinton.
Mr. Comey. I see that it says that.
Mr. Ratcliffe. ...The significance of that is, as we talked about last time, June 27th of 2016 was also the date that Attorney General Lynch and former President Bill Clinton met on a tarmac in Phoenix, Arizona. Do you recall whether or not this briefing was held at the FBI because of that tarmac meeting, or was it just happened to be a coincidence that it was held on that day? Mr. Comey. It would have to have been a coincidence. I don't remember a meeting in response to the tarmac meeting.
Muh don't know!
11. Comey confirms Obama knew Hillary Clinton was using a compromised, insecure email serverWell, spank me on the fanny and call me Nancy!
Mr. Ratcliffe. ...Hillary Rodham Clinton and President Obama were communicating via email through an unsecure, unclassified server?
Mr. Comey. Yes, they were between her Clinton email.com account and his -- I don't know where his account, his unclassified account, was maintained. So I'm sorry. So, yes, here were communications unclassified between two accounts, hers and then his cover account.
Mr. Ratcliffe. ...Did your review of these emails or the content of these emails impact your decision to edit out a reference to President Obama in your July 5th, 2016, press conference remarks?
If Trump had done 1/1,000,000th of this crap, he'd be -- yes -- breaking rocks in Leavenworth right now.
But there's no double-standard, rabble! Just keep buying iPhones and playing Call of Duty !
...Aaaaaaaaand I'm spent.Okay, done for now.
But let's recap the activities of Dr. "Higher Loyalty" Comey:
- Did not investigate the felony leak to the press of the conversation between the Russian Ambassador and Flynn.
- Did not advise Congress of the "investigation" into Trump-Russia collusion as required by statute.
- Lied to the FISA court -- another felony -- about Carter Page being "an agent of a foreign power".
- Wrote an exoneration memo for Hillary Clinton before more than a dozen witnesses, including Clinton herself, had been interviewed.
But, no, there's no double-standard for the aggressiveness of law enforcement when it comes to Democrats like Clinton and Obama.
Hat tip: BadBlue Uncensored News .
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Dec 17, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
24 minutes ago remove Share link Copy How you can tell that MSM is the front man for the CIA...nothing happens until MSM picks up the story
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Dec 15, 2018 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
Writers Silenced by Surveillance: Self-Censorship in the Age of Big Data Posted on December 15, 2018 by Yves Smith Nik Williams, the policy advisor for Scottish PEN, the Scottish centre of PEN International. We are leading the campaign opposing suspicionless surveillance and protecting the rights of writers both in Scotland and across the globe. Find out more on Twitter at @scottishpen and @nikwilliams2 . Originally published at openDemocracy
We know what censorship looks like: writers being murdered, attacked or imprisoned; TV and radio stations being shut down; the only newspapers parrot the state; journalists lost in the bureaucratic labyrinth to secure a license or permit; government agencies approving which novels, plays and poetry collections can be published; books being banned or burned or the extreme regulation of access to printing materials or presses. All of these damage free expression, but they leave a fingerprint, something visible that can be measured, but what about self-censorship? This leaves no such mark.
When writers self-censor, there is no record, they just stop writing or avoid certain topics and these decisions are lost to time. Without being able to record and document isolated cases the way we can with explicit government censorship, the only thing we can do is identify potential drivers to self-censorship.
In 2013, NSA whistle blower, Edward Snowden revealed the extent of government surveillance that enables intelligence agencies to capture the data of internet users around the world. Some of the powers revealed enable agencies to access emails in transit, files held on devices, details that document our relationships and location in real-time and data that could reveal our political opinions, beliefs and routines. Following these revelations, the UK government pushed through the Investigatory Powers Act , an audacious act that modernised, consolidated and expanded digital surveillance powers. This expansion was opposed by civil rights organisations, (including Scottish PEN where I work), technologists, a number of media bodies and major tech companies, but on 29th November 2016, it received royal assent.
But what did this expansion do to our right to free expression?
As big data and digital surveillance is interwoven into the fabric of modern society there is growing evidence that the perception of surveillance affects how different communities engage with the internet. Following the Snowden revelations, John Penny at the Oxford Internet Institute analysed traffic to Wikipedia pages on topics designated by the Department of Homeland Security as sensitive and identified "a 20 percent decline in page views on Wikipedia articles related to terrorism, including those that mentioned 'al Qaeda,' 'car bomb' or 'Taliban.'" This report was in line with a study by Alex Marthews and Catherine Tucker who found a similar trend in the avoidance of sensitive topics in Google search behaviour in 41 countries. This has significant impact on both free expression and democracy, as outlined by Penney: "If people are spooked or deterred from learning about important policy matters like terrorism and national security, this is a real threat to proper democratic debate."
But it doesn't end with sourcing information. In a study of Facebook, Elizabeth Stoycheff discovered that when faced with holders of majority opinions and the knowledge of government surveillance, holders of minority viewpoints are more likely to "self-censor their dissenting opinions online". If holders of minority opinions step away from online platforms like Facebook, these platforms will only reflect the majority opinion, homogenising discourse and giving a false idea of consensus. Read together, these studies document a slow erosion of the eco-system within which free expression flourishes.
In 2013, PEN America surveyed American writers to see whether the Snowden revelations impacted their willingness to explore challenging issues and continue to write. In their report, Chilling Effects: NSA Surveillance Drives US Writers to Self-Censor , PEN America found that "one in six writers avoided writing or speaking on a topic they thought would subject them to surveillance". But is this bigger than the US? Scottish PEN, alongside researchers at the University of Strathclyde authored the report, Scottish Chilling: Impact of Government and Corporate Surveillance on Writers to explore the impact of surveillance on Scotland-based writers, asking the question: Is the perception of surveillance a driver to self-censorship? After surveying 118 writers, including novelists, poets, essayists, journalists, translators, editors and publishers, and interviewing a number of participants we uncovered a disturbing trend of writers avoiding certain topics in their work or research, modifying their work or refusing to use certain online tools. 22% of responders have avoided writing or speaking on a particular topic due to the perception of surveillance and 28% have curtailed or avoided activities on social media. Further to this, 82% said that if they knew that the UK government had collected data about their Internet activity they would feel as though their personal privacy had been violated, something made more likely by the passage of the investigatory Powers Act.
At times, surveillance appears unavoidable and this was evident in many of the writers' responses to whether they could take actions to mitigate the risks of surveillance. Without knowing how to secure themselves there are limited options: writers either resign themselves to using insecure tools or choose to avoid the internet all together, cutting them off from important sources of information and potential communities of readers and support.
Literacy concerning the use of Privacy-Enhancing Technologies (oftentimes called PETs) is a vital part of how we protect free expression in the digital age, but as outlined by the concerns of a number of the participants, it is largely under-explored outside of the tech community: "I think probably I need to get educated a wee bit more by someone because I think we probably are a bit exposed and a wee bit vulnerable, more than we realize." Another was even more stark about their worries about the available alternatives: "I have no idea about how to use the Internet 'differently'".
When interviewed, a number of writers expressed concerns about how their writing process has changed or is in danger of changing as a result of their awareness of surveillance. One participant who had covered the conflict in Northern Ireland in 70s and 80s stated that they would not cover the conflict in the same manner if it took place now; another stopped writing about child abuse when they thought about what their search history may look to someone else; when they heard of a conviction based on the ownership of the Anarchist Cookbook, a participant who bought a copy for research shredded it. Further to this a participant stated: "I think I would avoid direct research on issues to do with Islamic fundamentalism. I might work on aspects of the theory, but not on interviewing people in the past, I have interviewed people who would be called 'subversives'."
These modifications or avoidance strategies raise a stark and important question: What are we as readers being denied if writers are avoiding sensitive topics? Put another way, what connects the abuse of personal data by Cambridge Analytica, the treatment of asylum seekers by the Australian government on Manus and Nauru, the hiding of billions of pounds by wealthy individuals as revealed in the Panama and Paradise Papers, the deportation of members of the 'Windrush Generation' and the Watergate scandal? In each case, writers revealed to the world what others wanted hidden. Shadows appear less dense if writers are able to explore challenging issues and expose wrongdoing free from the coercive weight of pervasive surveillance. When writers are silenced, even by their own hand, we all suffer.
Surveillance is going nowhere – it is embedded into the fabric of the internet. If we ignore the impact it has on writers, we threaten the very foundations of democracy; a vibrant and cacophonous exchange of ideas and beliefs, alongside what it means to be a writer. In the words of one participant: "You can't exist as a writer if you're self-censoring."
Thuto , December 15, 2018 at 4:18 am
Thanks Yves, this is an important topic. Although not explicitly laid out in the post, I'm inclined to believe any online research on PETs might single one out as a "Person of Interest" (after all the state wants unfettered access to our digital lives and any attempt by individuals to curtail such access is viewed with suspicion, and maybe even a little contempt).
I trust the takeaway message from this post will resonate with any person who holds what might be considered "heretical" or dissenting views. I'd also argue that it's not just writers who are willingly submitting themselves to this self-censorship straitjacket, ordinary people are themselves sanitizing their views to avoid veering too far off the official line/established consensus on issues, lest they fall foul of the machinery of the security state.
norm de plume , December 15, 2018 at 10:31 pm
Yes – not just 'writers' as in 'those who write for a living or at least partly define themselves as writers in either a creative or an activist sense, or both' – but all of us who do not perceive ourselves as 'writers', only as people who in the course of their lives write a bit here and there, some of it on public platforms such as this, but much of it in emails and texts to friends and family. It wouldn't be quite so bad if the surveillance was only of the public stuff, but we know better now – EVERYTHING is recorded and archived. Privacy may not be dead yet, but now exists only in carefully curated offline pockets, away from not just the phone and the laptop, but also the smart fridge's and the face-recognising camera's gimlet eye.
Staying with the 'not just' for a moment – the threat is not just government security agencies and law enforcement, or indeed Surveillance Valley. It is clear that if egghead techs in those employments are able to crack our lives open then egghead techs in their parent's basement around the corner may be capable of the same intrusions, their actions not subject to any of the official box-ticking govt actors with which govt actors must (or at least should) comply.
And it is not just the danger of govt/sinister 3rd parties identifying potential security (or indeed political or economic) threats out of big data analysis, but the danger of govt and especially interested third parties targeting particular known individuals – political enemies to be sure, but also love rivals, toxic bosses, hated alpha males or queen bitches, supporters of other football clubs, members of other races not deemed fully human,.. the list is as long as that of human hatreds and jealousies. The danger lies not just in the use of the tech to ID threats (real or imagined) but in its application to traduce threats already perceived.
And it's not just off centre political opining that could be used in such efforts. The percentages of internet users who have accused [people of using] porn sites suggests there would be some serious overlap between the set of well known and/or 'important' people and the set of porn hounds. Remember the cack-handed attempts to smear Hans Blix? Apparently no fire behind that smoke, but what if there was? The mass US surveillance of other parties prior to UN Iraq deliberations (from the Merkels down to their state-level support bureaucrats) was a fleeting and hastily forgotten glimpse of the reach of TIA, its 'full spectrum dominance', from the heights of top level US-free strategy meetings down to the level of the thoughts and hopes of valets and ostlers to the leaders, who may be useful in turning up references to the peccadilloes of the higher-ups 'go massive – sweep it all up, things related and not'
And it's not just the fear of some sort of official retribution for dissenting political activism that guides our hands away from typing that deeply held but possibly inflammatory and potentially dangerous opinion. Most of us (real writers or just people who write) need to hold down a job and increasingly HR depts don't just 'do a Google' on all potential appointees to important roles but in large concerns at least, use algorithmic software connected to the web and the Cloud to process applications.
This is done without human intervention at the individual level but the whole process is set up in such a way that the algorithms are able to neatly, bloodlessly, move applicants for whom certain keywords turned up matches (union or party membership, letters to the editor or blog posts on financial fraud, climate change vanguardism, etc) to the back of the queue, in time producing a grey army of yes people in our bureaucracies.
The normal person's ability to keep pace with (let alone ahead of) the tech disappeared long ago. So when a possible anonymising solution – Tor – crops up but is soon exposed as yet another MI/SV bastard love child, the sense of disappointment is profound. Shocked but not surprised.
Truly, we are surrounded.
Steve H. , December 15, 2018 at 5:57 am
"Then they got rid of the sick, the so-called incurables. – I remember a conversation I had with a person who claimed to be a Christian. He said: Perhaps it's right, these incurably sick people just cost the state money, they are just a burden to themselves and to others. Isn't it best for all concerned if they are taken out of the middle [of society]? "
We already know insurers have been using online searches to discriminate amongst the victimae. The married/unmarried differences in cancer treatments are a confirmation. Self-censorship is a rational decision in seeking information in a linked world. (I gave up on affording insurance, and I do searches for friends; the ads I get are amusing.)
It could be said that journalists have a professional duty, but as the man said, "If you believed something different, you wouldn't be sitting where you're sitting."
As the woman said, "If your business depends on a platform, your business is already dead."
(As for the above quote, check the provenance for the relevance.)
Yves Smith Post author , December 15, 2018 at 6:07 am
The quote is, "If your business depends on a platform, you don't have a business."
Steve H. , December 15, 2018 at 7:08 am
Thank you very much, I had searched and found the variant.
Seriously, do you have a link to the original (post? comment?) I quote you often on this. Or try to.
Yves Smith Post author , December 15, 2018 at 10:46 am
Aaaw ..Lambert may have quoted it in Water Cooler. We've both said it but mainly in comments.
Steve H. , December 15, 2018 at 11:10 am
That's exactly what happened.
I confess I do concatenate your quotes on occasion: "For a currency to function as a reserve currency is tantamount to exporting jobs." Some of your most illuminating statements are in side comments to linked articles.
Means I spend a lot of time reading the site. But then I get to recategorize most other current events sites as 'Entertainment.' And since they're not very, they've been downregulated.
Arizona Slim , December 15, 2018 at 10:11 am
Giving up on affording insurance. That should never happen.
Steve H. , December 15, 2018 at 10:55 am
My choice being shackled e'n more to chains of FIRE, or living a healthy happy life, rather than increasing my stress by fighting institutions, we're investing in ourselves. Good sleep, good food, good exercise.
The basis of our diet is coffee, with cocoa (7% daily fiber with each tablespoon) and organic heavy whipping cream (your fats should be organic (;)). That cream's not cheap; well, actually it is amazingly cheap considering the energy inputs. I'll be fasting soon to murder cancer cells, and fasting also costs, lets see, nothing.
That the best thing you can do is nothing, occasionally, is a strong offset to the institutional framework. Janet's been a nurse 40 years, and every day (truth) we get another instance of not wanting the probisci inserted. Even when we get M4A, we'll be cautious in our approach.
KPC , December 15, 2018 at 5:40 pm
Pure air, pure water, pure food leads to pura vida or the good life. Paraphrasing the Karma Sutra.
The Rev Kev , December 15, 2018 at 6:58 am
I suppose that here we are looking at the dogs that did not bark for evidence of self-censorship. Certainly my plans to take over the world I do not keep on my computer. I had not considered the matter but I think that a case could be made that this may extend further than just writers. The number of writers that cannot publish in the US but must publish their work in obscure overseas publications is what happens to those who do not seek to self censor. There are other forms of censorship to be true. I read once where there was an editorial meeting for either the Washington Post or New York Times when a story came up that would make Israel look bad. The people at the table looked around and without so much as a nod that story was dropped from publication. Now that is self-censorship.
But I can see this self censorship at work elsewhere. To let my flight take fancy, who will paint the modern "Guernica" in this age? Would there be any chance that a modern studio would ever film something like "The Day After" mentioned in comments yesterday again? With so many great stories to be told, why has Hollywood run itself into a creative ditch and is content to film 1960s TV shows as a movie or a version of Transformers number 32? Where are the novels being written that will come to represent this era in the way that "The Great Gatsby" came to represent the 1920s? My point is that with a total surveillance culture, I have the feeling that this is permeating the culture and creating a chilling effect right across the board and just not in writing.Tomonthebeach , December 15, 2018 at 1:31 pm
What we are experiencing censorship-wise is nothing new, just more insidious. It is not even a Left/Right politics issue. We just saw Trumpist fascist conservatives KILL the Weekly Standard (an action praised by Trump) for advocating the wrong conservativism. The shift in the televised/streamed media from news to infotainment has enabled neoliberal capitalism to censor any news that might alienate viewers/subscribers to justify obscene charges for advertising. Hilariously, even fascist Laura Ingram got gored by her own neolib ox.
Of course, a certain amount of self-censorship is prudent. Insulting, inflammatory, inciteful, hateful speech seldom animates beneficial change – just pointless violence (an sometimes law suits). Americans especially are so hung up on "free speech" rights that they too often fail to realize that no speech is truly free . There are always consequences for the purveyor, good and bad. Ask any kid on the playground with a bloody nose.
I would like to see some Google traitor write an article on the latest semantic analysis algorithms and tools. Thanks to the government, nobody but the FEDs and Google have access to these new tools that can mine terabytes of speech in seconds to highlight global patterns which might indicate plotting or organizing that might be entirely legal. I have been trying for years to get access to the newer unobtainable tools to help improve the development of diagnostic and monitoring self-report health measures. Such tools can also quickly scan journals to highlight and coordinate findings to accelerate new discoveries. For now, they are used to determine if your emails indicate you are a jihadist terrorist or dope peddler, or want to buy a Toyota or a Ford.
lyman alpha blob , December 15, 2018 at 5:07 pm
Where are the novels ?
Rhetorical I know, but Don DeLillo is quite good. It was in his novel Libra , although arguably from/about a different era at this point, where it first hit home to me that the Blob really does manipulate the media to its own ends all the time. And you can't swing a cat without hitting a terrorist in his books.
But to your point, DeLillo is pretty old at this point and I'm hard pressed to think of anyone picking up his mantle. And none of his novels, as brilliant as some of them might be, rise to the level of The Great Gatsby in the popular imagination to begin with.
cnchal , December 15, 2018 at 8:06 am
The surveillance people are the nicest, kindest human beings that have only your best interest at heart.
They would never break down your door and terrorize you for searching online for a pressure cooker and if you heard stories that they did that, the surveillancers have an answer for you, it's fake news, and if you persisted in not believing them, there are other methods of persuasion to get you to change your mind or at least shut up about it.
Carolinian , December 15, 2018 at 9:50 am
That pressure cooker story gets a lot of mileage. While there is undoubtedly a lot of surveillance it might be interesting to see a story on just how much of it leads to actual arrests on real or trumped up charges. Here's suggesting that the paranoia induced by books like Surveillance Valley is over the top in the same way that TV news' focus on crime stories causes the public to think that crime is rampant when it may actually be declining.
That said, journalists who indulge their vanity with Facebook or Twitter accounts are obviously asking for it. And the journalistic world in general needs to become a lot more technologically "literate" and realize that Youtube videos can be faked as well as how to separate the internet wheat from the chaff. Plus there's that old fashioned way of learning a story that is probably the way most stories are still reported: talking to people–hopefully in a room that hasn't been bugged.
Just to add that while the above may apply to America that doesn't mean the web isn't a much more sinister phenomenon in countries like China with its new social trust score. We must make sure the US never goes there.
Jeremy Grimm , December 15, 2018 at 3:36 pm
For your first sentence I think you are referencing:
The surveillance people are "the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being[s] I've ever known in my life." (ref. Statement by Major Marco about Raymond Shaw from 1962 and 2004 movies "The Manchurian Candidate"). ?
Maybe you need some refresher re-education.thoughtful person , December 15, 2018 at 8:25 am
Expression of minority opinions and surpressed information is not a safe activity, thus we self censor. However reality asserts itself and perhaps in those moments one can more safely express alternate points of view. As far as writing online i worry about the future – with everything recorded and searchable, will we at some point be facing round ups of dissidents? What kind of supression will stressed governments and corporate hierarchies do in the future?
juliania , December 15, 2018 at 2:51 pm
Solzhenitsyn's "The First Circle" is a case in point, and not about the future either.
William Hunter Duncan , December 15, 2018 at 10:43 am
I think the last blog post I wrote that was linked here at NC was called "TPP is Treason."
I was writing and was published on the Internet from 2011-2016. I continue to write, but I no longer publish anything online, I closed my Facebook account, and I rarely comment on articles outside of NC, especially anywhere I have to give up a digital-ton of personal info and contacts just to say a few words one time.
Goodness knows I do not worry a bit about fundamentalist Islamic militancy. Do I have any anxiety about jackbooted "law enforcement" mercenaries in riot gear and automatic rifles breaking down my door at the behest, basically, of the corporate/banking/billionaire, neoliberal/neoconservative status quo, my big mouth excoriating these elite imperialists, at the same time asset forfeiture laws are on the books and I can have EVERYTHING taken from me for growing a single plant of cannabis, or even having any cannabis in my house, or not, all they have to report to a complicit media and prosecutorial State is that I was growing cannabis when there was none.
Of course there is little danger of that if I am not publishing, and hardly anyone knows I ever have, and no one currently is paying any attention.
The fact in America at least is, as long as the status quo is secure, TPTB don't really care what I write, as long as they do not perceive it as a threat, and the only way they would is if a LOT of people are listening But still, there is nothing more terrifying on earth than America's Law/Corporate/Bank/Privatized Military/Media imperialist State, chilling to say the least, evidenced in the extreme by a distracted, highly manipulated and neutered citizenry.
Wukchumni , December 15, 2018 at 10:52 am
"My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular."
"If we value the pursuit of knowledge, we must be free to follow wherever that search may lead us. The free mind is not a barking dog, to be tethered on a ten-foot chain."
Adlai Stevenson
rjs , December 15, 2018 at 11:32 am
Caitlin Johnstone has written about her own self-censorship a few times; her's one:
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2018/10/16/self-censorship-where-the-real-damage-is-being-done/
shinola , December 15, 2018 at 12:08 pm
Siri? Alexa? Just volunteer.
Orwell was prescient. It just took a bit longer & is more commercialized than he anticipated.
Stratos , December 15, 2018 at 1:22 pm
So true. Surveillance sold as convenience -- -or "connection" (facebook and twitter, et. al.)
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Dec 08, 2018 | www.unz.com
anon [178] Disclaimer , says: December 4, 2018 at 11:43 am GMT
annamaria , says: December 7, 2018 at 2:45 pm GMT"You don't say; British Collusion to influence the 2016 US Presidential elections."MI6, along with elements of the CIA, was behind the Steele Dossier. Representatives of John Brennan met in London to discus before the go ahead was given. They later put Michael Steele onto the project; he was a guy with credible Russian contacts. Basically, the scam worked like this:
They funneled an MI6 intelligence file to Michael Steele (governments routinely keep such files on influential foreigners and what they are up to) so he could use his contacts to launder the information and make it appear that it came from sources within Russia; they then funneled the report back to elements of the FBI so they could use it to justify to the FISA court a spying campaign on Trump (the FBI illegally withheld the source of the document); they found nothing proving any Russian connection but they kept the spy program going; they tried justifying the spy program with a fake story involving a reliable asset that once passed information from Jimmy Carter's campaign to George H.W. Bush in an effort to help Reagan win the 1980 election; they later paid the asset nearly a quarter million dollars for his efforts using a fake "India-China" grant despite the grant running to 2018, the asset attempted to get a job in the Trump administration so he could act as a mole ; the Obama regime purposely mishandled information in regards to the spying program (ex: Michael Steele leaked his document to various news sources before the election and later lied to congress about it), ensuring it would leak to the press; the Obama regime illegally unmasked elements of Trump's personal contacts so they could clandestinely leak suggested targets off the record to the right people
They lost the election anyway, so they then planted dirt and negative press to make the document look legit – lies about Manafort meeting Assange (Guardian is funded by the British government to police the left), WaPo lies claiming a vast Russian conspiracy just as Trump came into office (it was an effort to delegitimize him and create calls for Hillary to take his place), leaking bank records, the special counsel .and leaking information on Trump policies to the media using a secret security clearance credentials program enacted by Obama. They also ran interference through CIA guys like Mark Warner in an effort to cover up the mole they planted; they falsely asserted this was a national security issue when the man's identity was well-known to the press and he was never an undercover spy like Jarret was, at least not in recent history.
To put this all into perspective, imagine the following scenario:
The government takes CCTV footage of you at a grocery store; in the background there is an attractive woman. The woman then goes missing. The government illegally reads your emails and finds that you like sexual jokes. The government then interviews a friend of yours who claims that you once made a risque rape joke back in college. They also plant a mole in your workplace who befriends you and reports back all of your politically incorrect humor. Then the cops find the woman's body and the government claims that you killed her because you were in the area at the time and you make bad jokes, which has been confirmed by multiple credible people. You look guilty, don't you? The government 1) took information out of context 2) laundered circumstantial evidence through a credible witness when they originally obtained it elsewhere using nefarious sources. That's what they did to Trump, but much much much worse.
@anon"MI6, along with elements of the CIA, was behind the Steele Dossier. "
– And don't forget the Skripals' affair and the relationships (via M16) between Mr. Steele and Mr. Skripal: https://thedeepstate.com/steele-skripal/
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Sep 21, 2018 | www.wsws.org
The New York Times published a fraudulent and provocative "special report" Thursday titled "The plot to subvert an election."
Replete with sinister looking graphics portraying Russian President Vladimir Putin as a villainous cyberage cyclops, the report purports to untangle "the threads of the most effective foreign campaign in history to disrupt and influence an American election."
The report could serve as a textbook example of CIA-directed misinformation posing as "in-depth" journalism. There is no news, few substantiated facts and no significant analysis presented in the 10,000-word report, which sprawls over 11 ad-free pages of a separate section produced by the Times.
The article begins with an ominous-sounding recounting of two incidents in which banners were hung from bridges in New York City and Washington in October and November of 2016, one bearing the likeness of Putin over a Russian flag with the word "peacemaker," and the other that of Obama and the slogan "Goodbye Murderer."
It acknowledges that "police never identified who had hung the banners," but nonetheless goes on to assert that: "The Kremlin, it appeared, had reached onto United States soil in New York and Washington. The banners may well have been intended as visual victory laps for the most effective foreign interference in an American election in history." The article begins with an ominous-sounding recounting of two incidents in which banners were hung from bridges in New York City and Washington in October and November of 2016, one bearing the likeness of Putin over a Russian flag with the word "peacemaker," and the other that of Obama and the slogan "Goodbye Murderer."
It acknowledges that "police never identified who had hung the banners," but nonetheless goes on to assert that: "The Kremlin, it appeared, had reached onto United States soil in New York and Washington. The banners may well have been intended as visual victory laps for the most effective foreign interference in an American election in history."
Why does it "appear" to be the Kremlin? What is the evidence to support this claim? Among the 8.5 million inhabitants of New York City and another 700,000 in Washington, D.C., aren't there enough people who might despise Obama as much as, if not a good deal more than, Vladimir Putin?
This absurd passage with its "appeared" and "may well have" combined with the speculation about the Kremlin extending its evil grip onto "United States soil" sets the tone for the entire piece, which consists of the regurgitation of unsubstantiated allegations made by the US intelligence agencies, Democratic and Republican capitalist politicians and the Times itself.
The authors, Scott Shane and Mark Mazzetti, complain about a lack of "public comprehension" of the "Trump-Russia" story. Indeed, despite the two-year campaign of anti-Russian hysteria whipped up in Washington and among the affluent sections of the upper-middle class that constitute the target audience of the Times , polls have indicated that the charges of Russian "meddling" in the 2016 presidential election have evoked little popular response among the
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Dec 10, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com
Col. LangI believe you are spot on in your analysis of the Trump methods. No doubt based on your personal observations up close of similar sole proprietor business hustlers. I think one problem that Trump methods face is that he needs people around him who can make things happen despite the byzantine ways of the vast federal bureaucracy who have their own agenda.
One thing that has puzzled me about Trump methods is his constant tweeting of witch hunt with respect to Mueller but his unwillingness to actually disclose what Brennan, Clapper, Comey, et al actually did by declassifying all the documents and communications among them. In your opinion what is he trying to accomplish with his method here?
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Aug 30, 2012 | www.theguardian.com
sanda1scuptorNYC , 30 Aug 2012 07:36Howard Zinn said, in a speech given shortly after the 2008 Presidential election, "If you don't know history, it's like you were born yesterday. The government can tell you anything." (Speech was played on DemocracyNow www.democracynow.org about Jan. 4, 2009 and is archived, free on the website.)sigil , 30 Aug 2012 05:49Being older (18 on my last Leap Year birthday - 72), I recall the NYTimes and CIA have had relationship with, and was caught having "planted CIA workers" as NYTimes writers. Within my adult lifetime, in fact.
Brusselsexpats , 30 Aug 2012 05:49This is what the CIA reflexively does: insists that [...] it is an "intelligence matter".
In a sense the CIA is always going to be right on this one - "Central Intelligence Agency" - but only as a matter of nomenclature, rather than of any other dictionary definition of the word "intelligence".
Actually the collusion between the CIA and big business is far more damaging. The first US company I worked for in Brussels (it was my first job) was constantly being targeted by the US media for having connections to corrupt South American and Third World regimes. On what seemed like an almost monthly basis our personnel department would send round memos saying that we were strictly forbidden to talk to journalists about the latest exposé.kcameron , 30 Aug 2012 05:26It was great fun - even the telex operators knew who the spies were.
The line "'The optics aren't what they look like,' is truly an instant classic. It reminds me of one of my favorite Yogi Berra quotes (which, unlike many attributed to him, is real, I think). Yogi once said about a restaurant in New York "Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded." Perhaps Yogi should become an editor for the Times.AmityAmity , 30 Aug 2012 04:55British readers will no doubt be shocked -- shocked! -- to learn of cozy relations between a major news organization and a national intelligence agency.MiltonWiltmellow , 30 Aug 2012 02:40... ... ...
"'I know the circumstances, and if you knew everything that's going on, you'd know it's much ado about nothing,' Baquet said. 'I can't go into in detail. But I'm confident after talking to Mark that it's much ado about nothing.'
"'The optics aren't what they look like,' he went on. 'I've talked to Mark, I know the circumstance, and given what I know, it's much ado about nothing.'"
How can you have a Party if you don't have Party elites?
And how can a self-respecting member of the Party claim their individual status within the Party without secret knowledge designed to identify one another as members of the Party elite?
[Proles are] natural inferiors who must be kept in subjection, like animals ... Life, if you looked about you, bore no resemblance not only to the lies that streamed out of the telescreens, but even to the ideals the Party was trying to achieve. ... The ideal set up by the Party was something huge, terrible, and glittering -- a world of of steel and concrete, of monstrous machines and terrifying weapons -- a nation of warriors and fanatics, marching forward in perfect unity, all thinking the same thoughts and shouting the same slogans, perpetually working, fighting, triumphing, persecuting -- 300 million people all with the same face. The reality was decaying, dingy cities, where underfed people shuffled to and fro in leaky shoes... [ 1984 ,pp 73-74]
It makes no difference if an imagined socialist England, a collapsing Roman city-state empire, an actual Soviet Union, or a modern American oligarchy.
Party members thrive while those wretched proles flail in confused and hungry desperation for something authentic (like a George Bush) or even simply reassuring (like a Barack Obama.)
Non-elite members of the Party -- functionaries -- mistake their "secret" knowledge as professional courtesy rather than as perquisite and status marker. (I don't suppose it's a secret to anyone that the US CIA regularly plants stories in the NYTimes and elsewhere... unless you weren't paying attention in the strident disinfo campaign prior to the Iraq invasion.)
Manzetti has "no bad intent" because he is loyal to the Party.
Like all loyal (and very well compensated) Party members, he would never do anything as subversive as reveal Party secrets.
People can be detained for almost any reason these days!
After all, what's the future of a Party that lacks effective enforcement?
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Dec 09, 2018 | nomadiceveryman.blogspot.com
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/0EoOEw-hq-o/0.jpg
Posted by willyloman at 10:47 AM No comments:Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Pinterest George H. W. Bush
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Nov 20, 2018 | www.unz.com
annamaria, November 13, 2018 at 6:43 pm GMT
@Z-man The "wannabe Zionists (Bolton)" has been trying hard to show his loyalty to the Jewish State.Z-man , says: November 13, 2018 at 7:21 pm GMTThe latest tragicomic attempt by the mustached "person of easy morals": "John Bolton Says "No Evidence" Implicating Crown Prince On Khashoggi Kill Tape" https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-11-13/john-bolton-says-no-evidence-implicating-crown-prince-khashoggi-kill-tape
Comment section (David Wooten): "According to the crown prince himself, Trump's [Jewish] son-in-law gave him a secret list of his enemies -- the ones like Al Aweed who were tortured and shaken down for cash. Khashoggi might even have been on that list.
One or more of the tortured ones likely tipped off Erdogan, which is why Turkey only needed to enter the consulate, retrieve the recorded audio device they planted, and walk out with the evidence. Turkey also has evidence that puts MbS' personal doctor and other staff arriving in Turkey at convenient times to do the job -- and probably more. Khashoggi was anything but a nice person but Trump cannot say that or he'll likely be accused of involvement in his murder.
Dissociation is made far more difficult by the fact that Jared is a long time friend of Netanyahu who, like Jared, has befriended MbS .
Trump won't fire his son-in-law, so if Jared doesn't have the decency to resign on his own, he may well be responsible for Trump's downfall in addition to his own. Trump's silly daughter, Ivanka, needs to go to.
Were it not for the Khashoggi affair, fewer Republican seats would have been lost in the election."
-- Time for Bolton to send for the clairvoyant Theresa May who has managed to accuse Russia, and Mr. Putin personally, in the Skripals' poisoning n the absence of any evidence .
These people -- Bolton, May, Gavin Williamson and likes -- are a cross of the ever-eager whores and petty brainless thieves. To expose themselves as the willing participants in the ZUSA-conducted farce requires a complete lack of integrity.
Of course, there is no way to indict the journalist's murderers since the principal murderer is a personal friend of Netanyahu and Jared.
Jump, Justice, jump, as high as ordered by the "chosen."
By the way, why do we hear nothing about Seth Rich who was murdered in the most surveilled city of the US?
@annamaria A 1st grader can see that MbS was behind the murder of Kashoggi.annamaria , says: November 14, 2018 at 12:49 pm GMTTrump won't fire his son-in-law, so if Jared doesn't have the decency to resign on his own, he may well be responsible for Trump's downfall in addition to his own. Trump's silly daughter, Ivanka, needs to go to.
I've been hoping for this since they moved to Washington with 'big daddy'.
@Anon " crappy bedtime reading the woolyheadedness "Z-man , says: November 14, 2018 at 1:58 pm GMTHey, Anon[436], is this how your parents have been treating you? My condolences.
If you feel that you succeeded with your "see, a squirrel" tactics of taking attention from the zionists' dirty and amoral attempts at coverup of the murder of the journalists Khashoggi, which was accomplished on the orders of the clown prince (the dear friend of Bibi & Jared), you are for a disappointment.
One more time for you, Anon[436]: the firm evidence of MbS involvement in the murder of Khashoggi contrasts with no evidence of the alleged poisoning of Skripals by Russian government.
The zionists have been showing an amazing tolerance towards the clown prince the murderer because zionists need the clown prince for the implementation of Oded Yinon Plan for Eretz Israel.
The stinky Skripals' affair involves harsh economic actions imposed on the RF in the absence of any evidence , as compared to no sanctions in response to the actual murder of Khashoggi, which involved MbS according to the available evidence . Thanks to the zionists friendship with the clown prince, the firm evidence of Khashoggi murder is of no importance. What else could be expected from the "most moral" Bibi & Kushner and the treasonous Bolton.
@annamariaThe stinky Skripals' affair involves harsh economic actions imposed on the RF in the absence of any evidence, as compared to no sanctions in response to the actual murder of Khashoggi, which involved MbS according to the available evidence. Thanks to the zionists friendship with the clown prince, the firm evidence of Khashoggi murder is of no importance. What else could be expected from the "most moral" Bibi & Kushner and the treasonous Bolton.
Bears repeating.
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Dec 08, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org
ben , Dec 7, 2018 10:29:36 PM | link
OT, but current. Interview of Lamar Waldren, Historian, on the REAL H. W. Bush by Thom Hartmann.http://dl.thomhartmann.com/private/podcasts/2018_1207_thp-120718-hour1.mp3
One Amazon review:
Hugh Murray, February 12, 2014The main objection to the theory that the Mafia planned the assassination of President Kennedy has always been that it would not have had the power to cover-up its role in the murder. Nor would it have had the ability to control, curtail, and compromise the autopsy, to bamboozle all the media, to intimidate witnesses speaking to FBI agents, and to appoint a blue-ribbon commission that would issue a report with 26 volumes of documentary support, purporting to prove that the assassin was a lone-nut, never once mentioning the Mafia!
Because the Mafia clearly lacked such power, either the Warren Commission was correct in attributing the assassination to Oswald, or the cover-up and murder, were conducted by higher-ups in the US Government - like Lyndon Johnson, the CIA, the FBI, etc. Or, it was the work of Fidel Castro and/or the Soviets. Were that the case, the demand by the American public for retaliation would press our leaders to launch a large-scale invasion of Cuba, which could unleash World War III. To prevent nuclear war, American leaders chose to cover up the evidence of Communist conspiracy that culminated in Dallas. The American leaders chose cover-ups and deception in preference to the truth and nuclear war.
Waldron's purpose is to remove the chief obstacles to the view that the Mafia conspiracy resulted in the assassination of Jack Kennedy. Waldron notes that in the last days of the Eisenhower Administration, CIA and Mafia links were forged in plots to overthrow and assassinate the radical Fidel Castro in Cuba. With the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion in spring 1961, however, the newly inaugurated President Kennedy believed he had been misled by the CIA and proceeded to fire its leader, Allen Dulles. Many Cuban exiles blamed Kennedy for the failure of that mission because Kennedy had refused to support the landing with major air, and if necessary, American land support.
The Missile Crisis of the fall of 1962 nudged the world to the edge of nuclear war. Though some assumed there had been a "no invasion" pledge as part of the settlement, Waldron asserts that because Castro rejected inspection on Cuban soil, the no-invasion pledge was inoperative. Moreover, Kennedy ordered a halt to any American CIA collaboration with the Mafia, in part because his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy was leading the prosecution of organized crime, and had even used some extra-legal tactics to deport New Orleans Mafia leader, Carlos Marcello. Nevertheless, Pres. Kennedy still authorized clandestine plots to kill Castro, while simultaneously allowing top secret negotiations with the Castro regime to come to some accommodation. But if no progress in those negotiations were evident by the end of November 1963, Pres. Kennedy decided to aid a coup in Cuba staged by Gen. Juan Almeida, the head of the Cuban army and the number three official under Castro. In this coup, Fidel would be assassinated, and Almeida's new government would request military intervention from the US to complete the counter-revolution. The working date for that operation was 1 December 1963.
Unbeknownst to Kennedy and his new CIA leader, John McCone, however, the CIA's Director of Planning Operations, Richard Helms, now held the highest operational post in the agency. Helms knew of the previous CIA-Mafia collaboration toward eliminating Castro, and he ignored Kennedy's demand to cut ties with the Mafia. Instead, those earlier ties were retained and solidified between some CIA operatives and Mafia organizations in Florida (led by Santo Trafficante), Chicago (represented by Johnny Rosselli), and New Orleans (led by Marcello once he made it back to the US, probably flown in by pilot David Ferrie).
By linking the government approved assassination plots to kill Castro, with its own plots to kill Kennedy, the Mafia would make it impossible to unravel the truth without exposing the US government's own deadly secrets to the American people, AND exposing General Almeida in Cuba to the wrath of Fidel. Moreover, if the Mafia plot were successful, it could then plant false information implicating Castro as the culprit. This might lead to calls for invasion of Cuba, Soviet retaliation, and WWIII. The US government would then find it necessary to avoid war by covering up what really occurred in Dallas. Thus, the cover-up was not conducted by the Mafia, but by innocent American leaders bent upon avoiding atomic war: President Lyndon Johnson, Chief Justice Earl Warren, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, et al.
Waldron uses information garnered from tapes recorded for the FBI when Mafia chief Marcello was imprisoned; he confessed his role in the Kennedy assassination to a fellow inmate who was wearing a wire. The information was not released when originally recorded, nor in 1986 when the FBI operation concluded, nor in 1992 when the Congress passed the JFK Assassination Records Act. In 1998, the FBI released the information, but it was buried in a flood of less important documents released at the same time. Waldron's own research found the confessions in 2006 and in this book he makes an impressive case. Waldron asserts that the Mafia planned the assassination with plots in at least three cities that Kennedy would visit in the fall of 1963, and in each, a Lee Oswald-type patsy had been selected to deflect suspicion from the real killers. Chicago, Tampa-Miami, and Dallas were the three sites that Kennedy would visit where Mafia hit men were imported to crush Camelot. Waldron also refers to confessions by other Mafia leaders, including Trafficante, and Rosselli. Waldron is good at reminding readers of how, when Congress reinvestigated the Kennedy murder, several Mafioso leaders were killed in most brutal fashions the day before they were to testify. In addition, the wealthy white Russian who befriended the poor, "Marxist" Oswald in Dallas, George de Mohrenschildt, commited suicide the day before his scheduled testimony. Waldron reminds readers of the number of "coincidental" deaths when Congress reinvestigated the events in Dallas.
Waldron provided an excellent time-line studded with provocative tidbits of information. Thus, we learn that during the height of the Missile Crisis in the fall of 1962, Oswald, the "defector" to the USSR married to a Russian, gets a job in Dallas with a corporation performing sensitive photographic work for the US government, such as interpreting pictures of Cuban missile movements. (154) Furthermore, despite his "defection" and his later distribution of Fair Play for Cuba leaflets, Oswald was never placed on the FBI's Security Index.(250, 258) Another item to ponder: Waldron reveals that both Jack Ruby and Gen. Edwin Walker (the right-wing general whom Oswald allegedly shot at) were closeted homosexuals.(174) Of course, one could argue that in the 1960s almost all gays were closeted. In that era, if a man were openly homosexual, "out," he was either "in" prison or "in" a mental institution. Waldron also mentions the story of J. Edgar's alleged arrest for homosexuality.(231) Yet, Clay Shaw is barely mentioned in the book.
Before engaging in a general critique of the book, I shall point out some minor errors. Louisiana Congressman Hale Boggs, father of ABC and NPR commentator Cokie Roberts, was a US Representative, not a Senator.(31) Boggs WAS a member of the Warren Commission, but Louisiana Sen. Russell Long was NOT.(146) Also, Waldron asserts that "there were only two time periods when Oswald could have worked for Marcello as a runner: one in late April or early May 1963...and the other in late July, August, and ...September 1963,..."(181-82) But Oswald might have worked for Marcello much earlier, when he was a teenager living in New Orleans.
I disagree with Waldron's assessment that the investigation by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison hindered the investigation by mainstream media of the Kennedy assassination.(15) Though the jury quickly found Clay Shaw not guilty of conspiring to kill JFK, they told local reporters that they were convinced that JFK was a victim of a conspiracy. Garrison's prosecution showed the Zapruder film in the courtroom, eventually unwrapping it for all to see how Kennedy's head moved to the back and left when struck by the fatal shot. Under oath Dr. Pierre Finck described how doctors in Bethesda followed military orders at the expense of providing Kennedy a thorough autopsy. If the national media were hostile to Garrison, not all of the local outlets were so biased. Thus, when local news reporters pressed Atty. Dean Andrews (a Marcello atty., according to Waldron) after he was indicted by Garrison for perjury, Andrews initially sought to evade the reporter's questions. Finally he blurted out, "If they can kill the President, they can squash me like a roach." These are but a few of the revelations that were a consequence of Garrison's courage in challenging the Federal Government's narrative about the assassination.
At the outset of Garrison's prosecution of Clay Shaw, the Federal Government openly intervened to obstruct. US Attorney General Ramsey Clark announced that the Feds had already investigated Shaw and concluded he had nothing to do with the assassination! When was this investigation? Who investigated? Why did they investigate Shaw? The Feds did everything possible to obstruct the Garrison prosecution, so that crucial witnesses could flee Louisiana, and governors like Ronald Reagan of California and James Rhodes of Ohio, after consulting with federal officials, simply refused to extradite important witnesses like Gordon Novel. How could any DA win a case under such circumstances?
Even Waldron concedes, "Recently released FBI files show that in the late spring of 1967, Garrison twice privately considered indicting Marcello for the assassination of JFK but decided not to."(458) Waldron's thesis is that Marcello was guilty of the murder, and yet he claims that the only official who contemplated charging Marcello with that crime, simply hindered mainstream media investigations! Were those recently released FBI files that Waldron refers to intended to facilitate DA Garrison probe? Or to sabotage it? And had Garrison charged Marcello with killing Kennedy, would the mass media have been any more sympathetic to Garrison?
Waldron includes a most salient paragraph: "...declassified files now show that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and CIA Director Richard Helms immediately began a significant public relation counteroffensive, issuing detailed instruction on how to smear critics of the Warren Report.
For example, in a January 4, 1967, CIA memo in which the Agency gives 53-pages of specific instructions on how to counter the growing tide of books and articles questioning the `lone-nut' conclusion...In many ways, those PR counteroffensives by the FBI and CIA would last for decades, and some writers make the case that they continue even today."(14-15)
Garrison failed to convict Clay Shaw. I would contend because of the hostility of the Feds, there is no way Garrison could have convicted Marcello either. The national, main-stream media followed the marching orders of the federal government - orders issued softly through their agency operatives and friends.
Important in the "get Garrison" media campaign was journalist Walter Sheridan. Waldron maintains Sheridan was sent to New Orleans by Robert Kennedy. Why would Robert Kennedy seek to destroy a DA who at least considered charging Carlos Marcello, arch-nemesis of the Kennedys? And was Robert really the dominant figure in the autopsy of his brother at Bethesda, as maintained by Waldron?(399-401)
Because the thrust of Waldron's book is assassination by the Mafia, he mentions the murder of Guatemalan leader Castillo Armas in July 1957 by a "lone Communist" assassin, who then killed himself with the same weapon used to kill Armas. But there were rumors at the time that Armas had run afoul of the Mafia, and Rosselli was then in Guatemala.(94) Shortly after the Bay of Pigs, the strong man of the Dominican Republic, Rafael Trujillo was assassinated in what Waldron calls a gangland-type murder.(145) And since Waldron explicated MafCia assassinations, he might have expanded his all-to-brief accounts of two other assassination, even if the Mafia had nothing to do with them: - 1) the assassination of the Prime Minister in the newly independent Congo, Patrice Lumumba on 17 January 1961 (p. 136, though his name is misspelt in Waldron's index); and - 2) the assassination of South Viet Nam's Ngo Dinh Diem on 2 November 1963.(303) With Waldron's slight treatment of the latter, he evades speculation on the CIA's role in that murder and its effect on future American policy in Vietnam and any connection between Diem's demise may have had on events in Dallas. Because Waldron's thesis is that the Mafia had to blur the lines between two plots, an anti-Castro one in league with the CIA, and the one targeting JFK, he might have elaborated more on the CIA practices.
There are anomalies in Waldron's work. On the one hand, we read that: "The [New Orleans police lieutenant who talked to Oswald after his arrest with the FPCC in NO] also said that Oswald `liked the President,' a sentiment shared by most people who ever heard Oswald mention JFK;"(251) and :"...It's important to keep in mind that others such as Anthony Summers have documented that `nobody has ever made the flimsiest allegation that the authentic Lee Oswald had anything but good to say about John Kennedy' This is true of Oswald's interrogations, his media appearances, and his private talks."(338)
On the other hand, Waldron also reports that: "The head of the Ku Klux Klan told veteran newspaper report and editor Patsy Sims that he had met with Oswald in Atlanta. In her definitive history of the Klan, Sims writes that `one of her sources told her that Oswald, in the summer of 1963, had called on [Klan] Imperial Wizard James Venable in his office in Atlanta seeking the names of right-wing associates. Venable confirmed [to Sims] that he was fairly sure that Oswald had been there for that purpose.' Oswald indicated to Venable that he was on his way to Chicago. Klan leader Venable made his statement to Sims in the 1980s and it is difficult to see why Venable would make up an Oswald encounter since it tended to link Oswald with `right-wing associates,' thus potentially giving the FBI reason to interview or investigate them."
"In the 1960s, Klan leader Venable was close to an associate of Guy Banister, white supremacist Joseph Milteer, who lived in Georgia..."(286)
If this meeting did occur, it may have had more to do with the Banister-, Milteer-, far-right plot than about Oswald's personal opinion of Kennedy. Oswald may have simply been following Banister's instructions, as he had done when pretending to be a Castro-sympathizer handing out FPCC leaflets.
A related question: what was the connection between the Mafia and the racist, far-right? Clearly, some Cubans who had fled Castro's far-left oppression in Cuba, may have felt more comfortable with right end of the political spectrum. The KKK certainly inhabits that end. Milteer, who was taped predicting the assassination prior to events in Dallas, and then gloating about them, was clearly far-right. So did Milteer, who prediction of, and later gloating over, the assassination was tape-recorded. Moreover, Milteer declared that the conspiracy to kill Kennedy originated in New Orleans, backed by considerable sums, not all donated by right-wingers. Milteer mentioned only one Louisiana politician (311), but Waldron does not reveal that name. I will go on a limb to say that I suspect the politician was the leader of Louisiana's Plaquemines Parish (county), Judge Leander Perez.
In 1952 when Judge Perez decided to endorse the Republican ticket of Eisenhower and Nixon for President, Plaquemines Parish voted over 93% for the Republicans - the highest percentage of any county in the entire nation.(Glen Jeansonne, Leander Perez: Boss of the Delta, p. 194) In November 1960 when courts ordered desegregation of two New Orleans schools, Perez urged defiance, and allowed whites to escape their integrated school by attending schools in neighboring St. Bernard Parish (also Perez=dominated). In 1961 CORE began its Freedom Rides, where CORE members on buses attempted to integrate bus stations from Washington, DC, to New Orleans. Most were stopped by brutal mobs or arresting police, and one bus was burnt. This made national and international headlines. It was rumored (not Jeansonne's biography, but my memory is the source for the rest of this paragraph - HM) that Perez then induced George Lincoln Rockwell to travel from his base in Virginia through the same route as the Greyhound buses to New Orleans on his "hate bus." Rockwell was leader of the American Nazi Party. Before entering New Orleans, local police demanded that he cover some of the signs that decorated his van - "Kill Commies, Queers, and Jews!" When in May 1961 Rockwell and some of his uniformed crew were arrested for picketing the film "Exodus," there were rumors that Guy Banister, a one-time Acting Superintendent of the NO Police, paid his bail. When Judge Perez went to the Hotel Roosevelt's Blue Room (possibly the premier NO night spot at that time), Ted Lewis was performing. One of his signature acts was to sing "Me and My Shadow," while a Black dancer in black clothing danced as his shadow.
The judge was not happy with this integrated entertainment. Perhaps he was aware that Ted Lewis had been born, Theodore Friedman. To express his displeasure, the judge purposely broke glasses where the shadow was to step, causing the Black to cut his foot. In the spring of 1969 Judge Perez passed on. In Plaquemines Parish, two young Black men entered a store and announced they wanted to purchase liquor to celebrate the death of the Judge. They were quickly arrested and sentenced to 6 month's hard labor. After serving only a few months, the NAACP succeeded in curtailing the sentence.
Why would Marcello have a low-level racial extremist like Milteer aware of the plot to kill Kennedy if this were merely a Mafia operation? Does this make sense?
Let me describe several incidents related to the question I just posed. It is truly amazing how different our relatives can be from each other and from ourselves. By the late 1950s I had become an integrationist in my native New Orleans. This amounted to little more than speaking in favor of the idea in high school and then college. That changed in September 1960 when I was among the seven arrested in the first lunch-counter sit-in in New Orleans. It occurred at the large Woolworth's on Canal and Rampart Streets. When my father heard of the sit-in in progress, he left work to try to get me away. Police had cordoned off the counter area, and would not allow anyone to pass. With our arrests, and our names on p. 1 of the local paper and on national TV (we did not see it as we were still in jail), it was now clear to all that I was a nlover. Although I moved from my parents' home so as not to endanger them, it did not matter. They received phone calls in the middle of the night, threatening to bomb the home. Thank God we had no restrictive gun control laws back then. My father easily borrowed a gun and bullets from a co-worker. After a few months, the spotlight of hatred moved to the other end of the city, for in November Perez and others were instigating resistance to the court-ordered desegregation of two public schools. I was suddenly old news. My dad felt safe enough to return the gun. Upon getting it back, his co-worker asked my father, "Why did you borrow so many bullets? Only one would have done the job." I was not very popular.
But one relative sought to help, - my crazy uncle. Of course, he probably thought of me as his crazy nephew. After my arrest with CORE for integration, my uncle sought to restore honor to the family, by sending money to George Lincoln Rockwell's organization. As a young child I once overheard him moaning over some beers, "Oh, if only Hitler had won." My uncle had been in the merchant marine and had risked his life during WWII to get supplies to the nations fighting against the Axis. But he did not agree with FDR's foreign policy. Meanwhile, I had been convicted of a felony (the sit-in), and was trying to survive. I certainly was not seeking another arrest, but I did continue to participate in various demos throughout the 1960s, any one of which might result in an arrest. Finally, in 1969 my car was followed by a police helicopter, and when I let a passenger out of the auto, he was immediately arrested. I decided then it was time to leave my native city.
I would occasionally see that uncle when he visited my parents. He had a special greeting for me, "How are the burr heads doing?" This would rile me a little, but I knew him well enough just to roll my eyes. Sometimes he would speak with my dad, but sometimes he would address me, "Oh, that Bobby! They're gonna get that Bobby!" He was referring to Atty. Gen Robert Kennedy who seemed to be pushing integration. I just tried to ignore him.
After a few years, I moved back with my parents and got a job teaching 5th grade in a new, private school. Around lunch one day, Mrs. Flagg, another 5th grade teacher called me to her class room across the hall. Hers was enjoying a free period for lunch, and one of her pupils had brought in a new item, a transistor radio. She told me to listen. Most of her class was playing, making lots of noise, while she and I craned our necks above the 10-year-old and his radio. I heard the main points, but could not leave my class unattended for long.
When I returned to my class, I informed them that President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas. The class cheered. I was stunned. One girl placed her head on the table and cried. She was the exception. That was November 1963. Sometime after that, probably early 1964, I again encountered my uncle. "What did I tell you, huh? What did I tell you?" Honestly, I had no idea what he was talking about. Then he became more explicit, "Didn't I tell you they were going to get him?" Suddenly, shocked, I realized what he was referring to. Now, I tried a counter. "But you said they were going to get Bobby!" "Well, they got the other one instead." This time, exasperated, I finally asked, "Who is this `they' you keep talking about?" He quickly responded, "The mob out in the parish." By the mob, he meant Marcello; by "out in the parish," he meant Jefferson Parish. When he said this, my parents resided one block from the Airline Highway and the Church with the Neon Bible. We were only a few blocks from Jefferson Parish and Marcello's office in the Town and Country Motel. My uncle's response simply confirmed my view that my uncle was crazy. Who in early 1964 was linking Carlos Marcello to the Kennedy assassination? This sounded ever more absurd. When he said this, I had already earned a BA and an MA from Tulane University. My uncle had finished 5rd grade. I was a scholar. He drove a taxi. It was easy to dismiss his ravings. But years later I could only wonder, were they really ravings? Or was I too arrogant to accept information when it was handed to me?
Despite the occasional repetition and lack of footnotes, and a few minor errors, Waldron has written a book that will be difficult to ignore.
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Dec 05, 2018 | www.defenddemocracy.press
Operation Gladio – Full 1992 documentary BBCOriginally aired on BBC2 in 1992, 'Operation Gladio' reveals 'Gladio', the secret state-sponsored terror network operating in Europe. https://www.youtube.com/embed/GGHXjO8wHsAAlso readIntegrity Initiative: Organizing Neo-macarthyism and the new Cold War
See also:
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Dec 03, 2018 | www.unz.com
...First, let's look at a concrete example of our system manufacturing official narrative (aka "official truth" or "truth" -- note quotes ). I'm going to use The Guardian 's most recent blatantly fabricated article (" Manafort held secret talks with Assange in Ecuadorian embassy ") as an example, but I could just as well have chosen any of a host of other fabricated stories disseminated by "respectable" outlets over the course of the last two years. The " Russian Propaganda Peddlers " story. The " Russia Might Have Poisoned Hillary Clinton " story. The " Russians Hacked the Vermont Power Grid " story. The " Golden Showers Russian Pee-Tape " story. The " Novichok Assassins " story. The " Bana Alabed Speaks Out " story. The " Trump's Secret Russian Server " story. The " Labour Anti-Semitism Crisis " story. The " Russians Orchestrated Brexit " story. The " Russia is Going to Hack the Midterms " story. The " Twitter Bots " story. And the list goes on.
I'm not going to debunk the Guardian article here. It has been debunked by better debunkers than I (e.g., Jonathan Cook , Craig Murray , Glenn Greenwald , Moon of Alabama , and many others).
The short version is, The Guardian 's Luke Harding, a shameless hack who will affix his name to any propaganda an intelligence agency feeds him, alleged that Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign manager, secretly met with Julian Assange (and unnamed "Russians") on numerous occasions from 2013 to 2016, presumably to conspire to collude to brainwash Americans into not voting for Clinton. Harding's earth-shaking allegations, which The Guardian prominently featured and flogged, were based on well, absolutely nothing, except the usual anonymous "intelligence sources." After actual journalists pointed this out, The Guardian quietly revised the piece ( employing the subjunctive mood rather liberally ), buried it in the back pages of its website, and otherwise pretended like they had never published it.
By that time, of course, its purpose had been served. The story had been picked up and disseminated by other "respectable," "authoritative" outlets, and it was making the rounds on social media. Nonetheless, out of an abundance of caution, in an attempt to counter the above-mentioned debunkers (and dispel the doubts of anyone else still capable of any kind of critical thinking), Politico posted this ass-covering piece speculating that, if it somehow turned out The Guardian 's story was just propaganda designed to tarnish Assange and Trump well, probably, it had been planted by the Russians to make Luke Harding look like a moron. This ass-covering piece of speculative fiction, which was written by a former CIA agent, was immediately disseminated by liberals and "leftists" who are eagerly looking forward to the arrest, rendition, and public crucifixion of Assange.
At this point, I imagine you're probably wondering what this has to do with manufacturing "truth." Because, clearly, this Guardian story was a lie a lie The Guardian got caught telling. I wish the "truth" thing was as simple as that (i.e., exposing and debunking the ruling classes' lies). Unfortunately, it isn't. Here is why.
Much as most people would like there to be one (and behave and speak as if there were one), there is no Transcendental Arbiter of Truth. The truth is what whoever has the power to say it is says it is. If we do not agree that that "truth" is the truth, there is no higher court to appeal to. We can argue until we are blue in the face. It will not make the slightest difference. No evidence we produce will make the slightest difference. The truth will remain whatever those with the power to say it is say it is.
Nor are there many "truths" (i.e., your truth and my truth). There is only one "truth" the "official truth". The "truth" according to those in power. This is the whole purpose of the concept of truth. It is the reason the concept of "truth" was invented (i.e., to render any other "truths" lies). It is how those in power control reality and impose their ideology on the masses (or their employees, or their students, or their children). Yes, I know, we very badly want there to be some "objective truth" (i.e., what actually happened, when whatever happened, JFK, 9-11, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, Schrödinger's dead cat, the Big Bang, or whatever). There isn't. The truth is just a story a story that is never our story.
The "truth" is a story that power gets to tell, and that the powerless do not get to tell, unless they tell the story of those in power, which is always someone else's story. The powerless are either servants of power or they are heretics. There is no third alternative. They either parrot the "truth" of the ruling classes or they utter heresies of one type or another. Naturally, the powerless do not regard themselves as heretics. They do not regard their "truth" as heresy. They regard their "truth" as the truth, which is heresy. The truth of the powerless is always heresy.
For example, while it may be personally comforting for some of us to tell ourselves that we know the truth about certain subjects (e.g., Russiagate, 9-11, et cetera), and to share our knowledge with others who agree with us, and even to expose the lies of the corporate media on Twitter, Facebook, and our blogs, or in some leftist webzine (or "fearless adversarial" outlet bankrolled by a beneficent oligarch), the ruling classes do not give a shit, because ours is merely the raving of heretics, and does not warrant a serious response.
Or all right, they give a bit of a shit, enough to try to cover their asses when a journalist of the stature of Glenn Greenwald (who won a Pulitzer and is frequently on television) very carefully and very respectfully almost directly accuses them of lying. But they give enough of a shit to do this because Greenwald has the power to hurt them, not because of any regard for the truth. This is also why Greenwald has to be so careful and respectful when directly confronting The Guardian , or any other corporate media outlet, and state that their blatantly fabricated stories could, theoretically, turn out to be true. He can't afford to cross the line and end up getting branded a heretic and consigned to Outer Mainstream Darkness, like Robert Fisk, Sy Hersh, Jonathan Cook, John Pilger, Assange, and other such heretics.
Look, I'm not trying to argue that it isn't important to expose the fabrications of the corporate media and the ruling classes. It is terribly important. It is mostly what I do (albeit usually in a more satirical fashion). At the same time, it is important to realize that "the truth" is not going to "rouse the masses from their slumber" and inspire them to throw off their chains. People are not going to suddenly "wake up," "see the truth" and start "the revolution." People already know the truth the official truth, which is the only truth there is. Those who are conforming to it are doing so, not because they are deceived, but because it is safer and more rewarding to do so.
And this is why The Guardian will not be punished for publishing a blatantly fabricated story. Nor will Luke Harding be penalized for writing it. Luke Harding will be rewarded for writing it, as he has been handsomely rewarded throughout his career for loyally serving the ruling classes. Greenwald, on the other hand, is on thin ice. It will be instructive to see how far he pushes his confrontation with The Guardian regarding this story.
As for Julian Assange, I'm afraid he is done for. The ruling classes really have no choice but to go ahead and do him at this point. He hasn't left them any other option. Much as they are loathe to create another martyr, they can't have heretics of Assange's notoriety running around punching holes in their "truth" and brazenly defying their authority. That kind of stuff unsettles the normals, and it sets a bad example for the rest of us heretics.
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C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play Publishing (USA). His debut novel, ZONE 23 , is published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org .
Manufacturing Truth
James Forrestal , says: December 3, 2018 at 6:26 pm GMT
Good piece. I think there's another layer, though.Kratoklastes , says: December 3, 2018 at 11:17 pm GMTThe truth or falsehood of individual facts about the physical world can often be determined with near-certainty. But when it comes to history, or "news" about current events/ politics, reality is much too complex to address directly. Too many individual facts to be comprehensible, let alone useful.
We must pick, choose, emphasize, or ignore particular elements, and arrange them into some kind of structure, in order to form a useful narrative. Or in the case of "news," the legacy media oligarchy largely performs this function for us -- we simply passively accept/ adopt their narrative. Or, in many cases, "choose" between the closely-related variants of that narrative offered by the "liberal" vs. "conservative" press.
This process of abstraction, simplification, and organization inevitably involves data loss. So no narrative is "true" in the same sense that individual facts about the real world are true. But some narratives incorporate large amounts of "facts" that are demonstrably false, and some are more useful/ descriptive/ predictive than others. No one engaged in this process is "objective." They -- or we -- are all in some way part of the story. It should be self-evident that some narratives are more useful to the perceived interests of owners of major media outlets than others, and that these will assume a much more prominent place in their coverage than ones that are deleterious to those interests.
Ideally, most people would take these factors into account when evaluating the "news," and maintain a much more skeptical attitude than they typically do. But there are several factors that prevent this.
One is simply time/ efficiency. These individual narratives, taken together, support -- and are supported by -- our overall worldview. There aren't enough hours in the day to be constantly skeptical about everything, especially since the major tools of distortion involved in constructing mainstream narratives tend to be selection bias/ memory-holing, with obvious lies about known facts (like the Guardian story referenced here) used only sparingly. It's simply not practical to to constantly consider potentially "better" narratives, and to reevaluate one's worldview based on these.
And which narrative we believe often has more to do with perceived social pressure/ social acceptability than with "truth." As you put it,
Those who are conforming to it are doing so, not because they are deceived, but because it is safer and more rewarding to do so.
Mass media pushing a common narrative creates an artificial perception of social consensus. Creating, or even finding, alternative narratives means fighting the inertia of this perceived consensus, and potentially suffering social costs for believing in the "wrong" one. The social role of narratives is largely independent of their "truth" -- if what you're "supposed" to believe is highly implausible, that actually gives it higher value as a signal of loyalty to the establishment.
It's probably best to maintain a resolutely agnostic attitude toward most "news" items, unless one is particularly interested in that particular event. " Why are they pushing this particular story?" "Why now ?" and " What are they trying to accomplish here?" are often more useful questions than "Is it true?"
It's not a new issue -- only exacerbated by the advent of mass visual media:
"Propaganda" -- Edward Bernays (1928)
"The Free Press"– Hilaire Belloc (1918)I get what Hopkins is trying to do here, but redefining terms (i.e., "truth") doesn't do what he thinks it does.Brabantian , says: December 3, 2018 at 11:18 pm GMTThe truth is not ' what most people think '; it's not ' what we are told to believe '; it's not ' the official narrative '.
There is a useful cautionary tale embedded in Hopkins' piece, but he doesn't tease it out properly.
Take this excerpt:
The truth is what whoever has the power to say it is says it is. If we do not agree that that "truth" is the truth, there is no higher court to appeal to. We can argue until we are blue in the face. It will not make the slightest difference. No evidence we produce will make the slightest difference. The truth will remain whatever those with the power to say it is say it is.
With significant caveats, it is a reasonable description of the way the political world works: if the political class decides that its interests are best served by declaring that a specific narrative X is 'true', it will obtain immediate compliance from about half the livestock, and can then rely on force (peer pressure; subsidy or taxation; state coercion) to get an absolute majority of the herd to declare that they accept the 'truth' of X .
If X is objectively false, too bad.
Try to run a legal argument based on the objective falsity of a thing that the political class has deemed to be true: you'll be shit outta luck.
This is highly relevant where I am sitting: here are two examples – one really obvious, one a bit less so (but far more important because of its radical implications).
Obvious Example: Drug Dogs
Recent research has shown that drug sniffing dogs give false positive signals between 60% and 80% of the time – i.e., in terms of identifying people who are in actual physical possession of drugs at any point in time, drug sniffing dogs perform worse than a coin toss.
Note that this is before considering that the dog's handler is often pointing the dog at a target that the handler thinks is likely to be carrying drugs. (Although in reality, drug dogs are paraded around at concerts and in public spaces, sniffing every passer-by).
However there is an Act of Parliament (capitalise all the magic words) that asserts that a signal from a drug sniffing dog is sufficient to qualify as what Americans call "probable cause" – i.e., reasonable suspicion for a search.
Does anyone think that evidence should be admissible if it results from a search conducted based on 'probable cause' derived from a method that produces worse outcomes than tossing a coin?
Judges will tie themselves into absolute epistemological knots to get that evidence admitted – and they will refuse to permit defence Counsel from adducing evidence about drug dog inaccuracy because since the defendant actually did have drugs in their possession, the dog didn't signal falsely.
In other words, the judge conflates posterior probability with prior probability; the prior probability that the dog is correct, is 10%-40%; this should not suffice to generate probable cause (or 'reasonable suspicion).
More Interesting Example: 'Representative' Democracy
In general, Western governments assert that their legitimacy stems from two primary sources: some founding set of principles (usually a constitution – written or otherwise), and 'representativeness' (including ratification of the constitution by a representative mechanism, for those places with written foundational documents).
The Arrow Impossibility Theorem [1,2] and the Gibbard-Satterthwaite Theorem [3,4], both show that there is no way of accurately determining group preferences using an ordinal voting mechanism.
What this boils down to, is that representativeness is a lie – and it's a lie before any consideration of voting outcomes ; it's a meta -problem (the problem that ordinal voting cannot do what it is claimed to do – viz ., accurately identify the 'will of the people'/'social preferences'/'what the people want').
Beyond the meta-problem, there is also the actual counting problem: no government has ever been elected having obtained the votes of an outright bare majority, i.e., 50%-plus-1 of the entire eligible franchise. (It's more like 25-35% for most parliamentary systems – for US presidential elections in the full-franchise period, the winner is voted for by 29% of the eligible population; you would be horrified to look at US Senate results).
So when the new unhappy lords (and their Little Eichmann bureaucrat enablers) promulgate laws based on assertions of legitimacy because of a constitutional Grundnorm and/or the representative nature of government both of those things are pretty obvious furphies; they are objectively not 'truth' and no amount of heel-clicking and wishing will make it so.
Which brings us to a key legal aphorism that has a jurisprudential history going back four centuries: Ratio legis est anima legis, et mutata legis ratione, mutatur ex lex – which dates from Milborn's case ( Coke 7a KB [1609]).
The reason for a law is the soul of the law, and if the reason for a law has changed, the law is changed .
What this means – explicitly – is that " no law can survive the [extinction of the] reasons on which it is founded ".
American courts re-expressed this as " cessante ratione legis, cessat ipsa lex " (the reason for a law having ceased, the law itself ceases) – e.g., in Funk v. United States , 290 US 371 (1933) in which Justice Sutherland opined –
This means that no law can survive the reasons on which it is founded. It needs no statute to change it; it abrogates itself . If the reasons on which a law rests are overborne by opposing reasons, which in the progress of society gain a controlling force, the old law, though still good as an abstract principle, and good in its application to some circumstances, must cease to apply as a controlling principle to the new circumstances.
(Emphasis mine)
Again: try running this argument in a court: " The asserted basis for all laws promulgated by the government, is provably false. Under a doctrine with a 4-century jurisprudential provenance, the law itself is void ."
See how far you get.
So Hopkins makes a good-but-obvious point – power does not respect either rights or truth; as such it does you no good whatsoever to have the actual truth on your side. He should have made the point better.
References (links are to PDFs of each paper)
[1] Arrow (1950). " A Difficulty in the Concept of Social Welfare " Journal of Political Economy 58 (4): 328–346
[2] Geanakoplos, John (2005). " Three Brief Proofs of Arrow's Impossibility Theorem " Economic Theory 26 (1): 211–215
[3] Gibbard (1973). " Manipulation of voting schemes: a general result " Econometrica 41 (4): 587–601.
[4] Satterthwaite (April 1975). " Strategy-proofness and Arrow's Conditions: Existence and Correspondence Theorems for Voting Procedures and Social Welfare Functions " Journal of Economic Theory 10: 187–217.
C J Hopkins, despite some good quotes and insights above, regrettably falls into the trap of peddling Derrida-tier relativistic nonsense, playing a word game about 'truth', as if 'truth' was not real merely because most people have strong incentives to avoid being devoted to itKratoklastes , says: December 3, 2018 at 11:28 pm GMTWhere you stand depends upon where you sit, etc., Karl Marx's dictums about economic and power positions shaping consciousness, and of course the century-old classic:
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.
from Upton Sinclair (1878-1968). Hopkins more or less repeats Sinclair when he says
Those who are conforming to [official truth] are doing so, not because they are deceived, but because it is safer and more rewarding to do so.
Despite selling-out truth to the relativism devil in some passages, Hopkins nevertheless creates some quotable, including the particularly insightful:
The powerless are either servants of power or they are heretics. There is no third alternative.
The following notion of Hopkins is seen now and then in the alt-sphere, but always bears repeating
It is important to realize that "the truth" is not going to "rouse the masses from their slumber" and inspire them to throw off their chains. People are not going to suddenly "wake up," "see the truth" and start "the revolution."
... ... ...
@TulipRobinG , says: December 4, 2018 at 12:21 am GMTThe coin of truth is iron and blood.
That's absolutely, 100% wrong.
Iron and blood are the tools used to force people to accept what isn't true. (Another way to tell: it was uttered by a fucking politician – a cunt who wanted to live in palaces paid for by the sweat of other people's brows).
Truth does not need violence to propagate itself: in a completely-peaceful system of free exchange, bad ideas (of which lies are a subset) will get driven out of the market place because they will fail to conform to ground truth.
Falsehood requires violence (arguably it is a form of violence: fraud is 'violent' because it causes its victims to misallocate their resources or to deform their preferences and expectations).
In a very real sense, truth does not need friends: all it requires is an absence of powerful enemies.
@James ForrestalJett Rucker , says: Website December 4, 2018 at 3:04 am GMTOccupation of the American Mind: Israel's Public Relations War in the United States
This film shows a great example of propaganda in action. Free to watch now and this link also includes a short version and a trailer.
When I tell any Truth, it is not for the sake of Convincing those who do not know it, but for the sake of defending those who Do.polistra , says: December 4, 2018 at 7:33 am GMT~ William Blake, 1810
The distinction is simple. We can't know the truth about distant and complex events like 9/11 or JFK unless we were directly involved, and those people are all dead. For big events we have to rely on, or ignore, the official accounts.The scalpel , says: Website December 4, 2018 at 1:07 pm GMTBut we CAN know the truth about our own situation, our own neighborhood, and our own families. The current riots in France are a concrete ASSERTION of local truth against the blatant and condescending official lies. The majority of France is getting poorer and suffering more from migrant crime. Macron insists that starvation is necessary to serve Gaia, and crime is necessary to serve Juncker. The people would prefer to have a leader that serves France.
@FB Scientific truth is limited by two factors – assumptions, and hidden variables. For example, we might drop a brick in a vacuum and believe that it falls at 9.8 m/s squared. Here, we make the assumption that the force of gravity is constant. And for most of history we were unaware of the hidden variable of relativity to the speed of light.DFH , says: December 4, 2018 at 4:05 pm GMTSo, assuming (LOL) that we are able to eliminate all assumptions and account for all hidden variables, there is a scientific truth. That is ASSUMING we are not just a simulation in someone elses computer!
Given all this, still, we can approach an approximation of truth that some can agree on. Here is where the trouble starts .
What is truth? – John 18:38FB , says: December 4, 2018 at 4:26 pm GMT@The scalpel LOL and then there is the 'observer effect' also especially in good old quantum mechanics in the end scientific truth does boil down to what 'some can agree on'Tulip , says: December 4, 2018 at 5:40 pm GMT@Kratoklastes Strength is the production of force over distance. That is to say, force is a quantifiable, physical phenomenon that, deconstruct it as much as you want, will hit you like a tsunami whether you believe it or not.TimothyPMadden , says: December 4, 2018 at 8:52 pm GMTForce only works because there is a real world that transcends philosophical bullshit and marketing.
The subjective piece is will: victory is attained when the enemies will to resist is crushed. Through the repeated use of physical force, eventually any enemy can be worn down and vanquished.
The world is finite, desire is infinite, and for every desire and appetite, there is a will. As multiple wills will that they attain their infinite desires in a finite world, there will always be a conflict of will, which will always ultimately be resolved by force. Which means ultimately, despite the rich imaginations and appetites of humans, and their related striving, physical force will ultimately rule the day, and conquer, condition, and constrain the mental life of mankind.
Of course, desire and appetite will not take no for an answer, and in their frustration, they will imagine, fantasize, and conceptualize rationales for why this is not so. This is the nature of our desires, and in good times of prosperity and peace, they may even bend our reason in the direction of these appetites and fantasies, until the instincts for self preservation and endurance rust, and are even forgotten. But like the moon revealed by a passing cloud, the perpetual war of human existence will inevitably reassert itself, and those that have prepared for the inevitable will vanquish those who were content to daydream when they should have been preparing.
What is truth ?The Scalpel , says: Website December 5, 2018 at 12:34 am GMTTruth is a word .
After reading the article and the aggregate comments, I am strengthened in my belief that the physics analogy of Schrödinger's cat is among the most useful (and notwithstanding the otherwise valid criticism of it in the comments). In the same way that the Oxford English Dictionary, for example, does not purport to define a given word, per se , but rather gives a detailed description of how the word has in fact been used over the years and centuries.
I refer to my version of Schrödinger's cat as counter-sense words or oscillating-contradictions .
Oscillating contradictions and cogno-linguistic manipulation
The primary means by which corporate supremacy, for example, is achieved and maintained in practice is via the maintenance and use of a small arsenal of about two dozen critical counter-sense or yo-yo -like words/terms that are asserted or claimed to mean either "X" or "Minus-X" at the option of the decision-maker.
Among the most important and sui generis (in a class of its own) is the word person which is held to mean a living, breathing being of conscience (literally a being of equity) with the rights, powers and privileges of such being ("X"), or else it can mean a corporate entity which is a notional/inanimate item of property to be bought and sold and otherwise traded for profit in the stock and financial markets ("Minus-X").
By way of example/demonstration of the ongoing cognitive manipulation process, if someone had managed to hit the judges of the U.S. Supreme Court with a blast of truth-ray just before they announced their decision in Citizens United, here is what we may have got instead:
[MORE]We here at the Supreme Court are part of what can be fairly and broadly referred to as an arm of the entrenched-money-power.
At certain times and under certain circumstances it is to our enormous advantage over you the masses that corporations be natural-persons-in-law with the rights, powers and privileges of a natural person or living being of conscience.
At other times and other circumstances it is to our enormous advantage over you the masses that corporations be items of property that can be actively bought and sold and traded for profit in the stock and financial markets.
Your laughable naiveté is manifest in your expectation that you are going to receive a definitive answer from this Court, or even that it is possible for us to give you one. Among the foundational purposes of this Court is to actively prevent that question from being answered definitively at all. The instant we give a definitive answer, the game is over.
Whatever answer we give you must perpetuate the systematized delusion that the same concept (corporate personhood) can mean either X (a living being of conscience), or minus-X (an item of property), depending on the ever-changing needs of the decider.
So our current answer is that a corporation is a natural-person-in-law with the rights, powers and privileges of a natural person, except when it isn't. We'll let you know next time whether that situation has changed in the meantime.
Essentially all counter-sense words/terms follow that same template .
Notwithstanding that the respective concepts are logically and objectively mutually exclusive , the judges of the Courts (and the broadly-defined financial-world/social-control-structure) maintain that it can be either or both , and we'll let you know if and when it becomes important.
So a corporate person has a right of free speech when giving money to influence political parties, but not to object to itself being sold as a piece of property in the stock and financial markets or when it is acquired in a merger or takeover financed by its own assets. If a corporation has the legal capacity and rights of a natural person, then how can it be owned as the legal property of another? The purpose of the Courts is to ensure that that question is never presented in that way.
After person , the remaining most significant counter-sense or yo-yo -like words are (surprise surprise) essentially all money-and-finance-based, and the most important among these is the word principal and its role in facilitating illegal front-loading or ex-temporal fraud (interest illegally and unlawfully compounded in advance).
Is the amount of principal the actual or net amount advanced by the creditor and received by the debtor for their own use and control?
Or is it the amount that the debtor agrees that they owe regardless of the amount received?
Is the amount of principal a question of fact ? Or of the agreement of parties ?
[Here is the premise / offer that is referenced immediately below:]
Lender (e.g., typical second-mortgage lender): "I will loan you $10,000 at 20% per annum provided that you sign and give to me a marketable security that claims or otherwise purports to evidence that I have loaned you $15,000 at 10% per annum, plus an undisclosed and unregistered side-agreement and cheque (check) back to me for a bonus or loan fee of $5,000 as a payment from the nominal proceeds."
In the process example used above, what is the principal amount of the loan? Is it $10,000 because that is the factual net amount invested by the creditor and received by the debtor for their own use? Or is it $15,000 because that is the amount that the debtor is required to falsely agree that they have received and owe as a condition of the loan? Or is it $20,000 because that is the total cash-equivalent/money assets ($15,000 mortgage + $5,000 cheque) that the debtor has to give to the creditor?
Is it a noun/fact ? Or is it an adjective/opinion merely pretending to be a noun? All debt and therefore money in the world today depends on the answer to that question that theoretically cannot exist.
Principal is a special type (and most significant form) of counter-sense word or oscillating contradiction where dictionaries normally only give one sense, while commercial practice defines the contrary. It would be very difficult to put the Whatever-the-debtor-agrees-that-they-owe sense into a dictionary, because the fraud against meaning (as well as the criminal law) is manifest in spelling it out, and ever more so in more specialized financial dictionaries.
So virtually every legal, financial, accounting, and ordinary English dictionary and/or regulation defines it to the effect "The actual amount invested, loaned or advanced to the debtor/borrower net of any interest, discount, premium or fees", while virtually every financial security in the real world at least implicitly incorporates the fraudulent alternative/contrary meaning.
This in turn allows the academic world to function on the rational/factual definition, while the markets maintain a wholly contradictory deemed or pretended reality, while both remain oblivious to the contradiction.
Thus principal means the nominal creditor's actual and net investment, unless it doesn't .
With this class of counter-sense word where there is a necessary and definitive answer, the real job of the judges of the Courts becomes to make certain that the question is never officially asked, and under no circumstances is it to be definitively answered.
With just one of these words you can theoretically steal the Earth . With a financial system that is relatively saturated with them, such becomes child's play . With these rules a group of competently-trained chimpanzees otherwise pulling levers at random could do as well as the so-called wizards of Wall Street .
And significantly, these oscillating contradictions enable the judges to be self-righteous in the extreme on behalf of the entrenched-money-power, while looting the little people of the product of their labour.
As in: You have received the principal amount ($10,000) and you are going to pay back the principal amount ($15,000) plus the ever-accumulating (and super-leveraged) interest upon it according to your contract, while the meaning of the word oscillates between fact and opinion – between a noun and an adjective – according to what the judge needs it to mean (or accommodate) at any given instant in time.
It seems impossibly obvious in this simple example, but with several of them orchestrated simultaneously or sequentially, anything can truly be made to mean anything .
A partial list of the most critical oscillating-contradicitions includes: loan, credit, discount, interest, rate-of-interest, agreement, contract, security, repay, restitution, etc., all of which mean either "X" or its conceptual opposite "Minus-X" at the option of the entrenched-money-power whose vast financial fortunes are founded on such cogno-linguistic arbitrage .
Here are what I believe to be four essential tools needed to triangulate reality via congo-linguistic parallax . The first two are mine, and the last two are from the American and English Courts, respectively.
1. Humans are highly cogno-linguistic . We perceive reality very largely as a function of the language that we use to describe it. Most everyone inherently believes and presumes that you have to be able to think something before you can say it. The greater reality is that, above a certain base level of perception and communication, you have to have the words and language by which to say something before you can think it .
2. The world is ever-increasingly controlled and administered by people who genuinely believe whatever is necessary for the answer they need. Administrative agents of the entrenched-money-power have solved the criminal-law enigma of mens rea or guilty mind by evolving or devolving (take your pick) into professional schizophrenics who genuinely believe whatever they need to believe for the answer they need, and who communicate among themselves subconsciously by how they name things. They suffer a cogno-linguistically-induced diminished capacity that renders them incapable of perceiving reality beyond labels .
3. Their core business model or modus operandi is the systematized delusion :
"A "systematized delusion" is one based on a false premise, pursued by a logical process of reasoning to an insane conclusion ; there being one central delusion, around which other aberrations of the mind converge." Taylor v. McClintock, 112 S.W. 405, 412, 87 Ark. 243. (West's Judicial Words and Phrases (1914)).
4.
One must not confuse the object of a conspiracy [to defraud] with the means by which it is intended to be carried out. Scott v. Metropolitan Police Commissioner [1974] 60 Cr. App. R. 124 H.L.
I have long since abandoned my search for truth, per se, since I came to realize that the best I can ever do is to constantly strive to move closer to it. With apologies to the physicists, Truth is the Limit of Infinite Good Faith .
@Tulip " which will always ultimately be resolved by force."redmudhooch , says: December 5, 2018 at 2:15 am GMTRight there is where you lost the plot. That statement is just your opinion and it cannot be proven true. The rest of your argument falls victim to this logical error.
" and those that have prepared for the inevitable will vanquish those who were content to daydream when they should have been preparing."
Also, just your opinion. For example, the "dreamer" might die still comforted by his/her dreams, while the "prepper" might waste his life witing for the "inevitable' that never arrives.
Truth shall set you free.For the First Time Since 9/11, Federal Gov't Takes Steps to Prosecute the Use of Explosives to Destroy WTCs
https://thefreethoughtproject.com/911-lawyers-petition-grand-jury-explosives/
In what can be described as a monumental step forward in the relentless pursuit of 9/11 truth, a United States Attorney has agreed to comply with federal law requiring submission to a Special Grand Jury of evidence that explosives were used to bring down the World Trade Centers.
The Lawyers' Committee for 9/11 Inquiry successfully submitted a petition to the federal government demanding that the U.S. Attorney present to a Special Grand Jury extensive evidence of yet-to-be-prosecuted federal crimes relating to the destruction of three World Trade Center Towers on 9/11 (WTC1, WTC2 and WTC7).
After waiting months for the reply, the U.S. Attorney responded in a letter, noting that they will comply with the law.
Some good documentary films here to watch for free:
http://metanoia-films.org/psywar/
Heres a couple more. Occupation of the American Mind is very good. All of John Pilgers films are great.
James Forrestal , says: December 5, 2018 at 3:58 am GMT
@Wizard of OzMy question/quibble relates to your objection to the use of sniffer dogs to establish probable cause for search because it is no better than a coin toss. That seems fallacious if, according to your figures, the dogs sniff 500 people and get excited by 10 of them of which 3 are correctly identified and 7 are false positives.
Yeah. The concepts of sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value might be very helpful in assessing this.
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Dec 03, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
Posa , 4 hours ago link
But the internet has largely disabled the gigantic CIA fog-machine. Thousands of skilled researchers quickly blow apart the propaganda line from the Deep State which is why there's an hysterical reach these days to shut down the 'net (but still keep it open enough to sell lots of stuff and nake money for the Predator Class).
Take the JFK assassination. One skilled researcher directs readers to the Warren Commission, where buried deep inside one volume is a finding that Oswald's rife was inoperable, certainly unable to function as a precise assassination weapon. Plus Oswald was a lousy shot to begin with. Yet Military sharpshooters had to add parts just to site the weapon and fire. This info in the WC pretty much excludes Oswald as the lone assassin. Without the 'net, how many people could find this info themselves.
9/11? Several researchers and web sites disclosed findings of a support network for the alQ hijackers run by Saudi intelligence and the Royal family (the 28 pages inside the Congressional 9/11 Inquiry); FBI informants providing financing, housing and other logistical support to the hijackers; CIA knowledge that alQ had entered the US 18 months before 9/11 and hid this knowledge etc.
Ditto for the OKC bombing (where local TV found bombs inside the Federal Building, which blew away the FBI narrative about McVeigh)... ditto for the FBI role in handing out explosives to the perps at the first WTC bombing etc. etc.
All this info, including news reports are up on the web even today... So with this kind of info available for large numbers of people to find, the only tactic left for the deep state psy-war operations to function is complete martial law in an Orwellian Police State. At that point the game is over and the US collapses as a nation.
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Dec 03, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
From Killing Kennedy To Kremlin Collusion - Deep State Forced Out Of The Shadows
by Tyler Durden Sat, 12/01/2018 - 20:15 150 SHARES Authored by Robert Gore via Straight Line Logic blog, The Deadliest Operation
Choose your battles wisely...
One month to the day after President Kennedy's assassination, the Washington Post published an article by former president Harry Truman.
I think it has become necessary to take another look at the purpose and operations of our Central Intelligence Agency -- CIA. At least, I would like to submit here the original reason why I thought it necessary to organize this Agency during my Administration, what I expected it to do and how it was to operate as an arm of the President.
Truman had envisioned the CIA as an impartial information and intelligence collector from "every available source."
But their collective information reached the President all too frequently in conflicting conclusions. At times, the intelligence reports tended to be slanted to conform to established positions of a given department. This becomes confusing and what's worse, such intelligence is of little use to a President in reaching the right decisions.
Therefore, I decided to set up a special organization charged with the collection of all intelligence reports from every available source, and to have those reports reach me as President without department "treatment" or interpretations.
I wanted and needed the information in its "natural raw" state and in as comprehensive a volume as it was practical for me to make full use of it. But the most important thing about this move was to guard against the chance of intelligence being used to influence or to lead the President into unwise decisions -- and I thought it was necessary that the President do his own thinking and evaluating.
Truman found, to his dismay, that the CIA had ranged far afield.
For some time I have been disturbed by the way CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of the Government. This has led to trouble and may have compounded our difficulties in several explosive areas.
I never had any thought that when I set up the CIA that it would be injected into peacetime cloak and dagger operations. Some of the complications and embarrassment I think we have experienced are in part attributable to the fact that this quiet intelligence arm of the President has been so removed from its intended role that it is being interpreted as a symbol of sinister and mysterious foreign intrigue -- and a subject for cold war enemy propaganda.
The article appeared in the Washington Post's morning edition, but not the evening edition.
Truman reveals two naive assumptions. He thought a government agency could be apolitical and objective. Further, he believed the CIA's role could be limited to information gathering and analysis, eschewing "cloak and dagger operations." The timing and tone of the letter may have been hints that Truman thought the CIA was involved in Kennedy's assassination. If he did, he also realized an ex-president couldn't state his suspicions without troublesome consequences.
Even the man who signed the CIA into law had to stay in the shadows, the CIA's preferred operating venue. The CIA had become the exact opposite of what Truman envisioned and what its enabling legislation specified. Within a few years after its inauguration in 1947, it was neck-deep in global cloak and dagger and pushing agenda-driven, slanted information and outright disinformation not just within the government, but through the media to the American people.
The CIA lies with astonishing proficiency. It has made an art form of "plausible deniability." Like glimpsing an octopus in murky waters, you know it's there, but it shoots enough black ink to obscure its movements. Murk and black ink make it impossible for anyone on the outside to determine exactly what it does or has done. Insiders, even the director, are often kept in the dark.
For those on the trail of CIA and the other intelligence agencies' lies and skullduggery, the agencies give ground glacially and only when they have to. What concessions they make often embody multiple layers of back-up lies. It can take years for an official admission -- the CIA didn't officially confess its involvement in the 1953 coup that deposed Iranian leader Mohammad Mosaddeq until 2013 -- and even then details are usually not forthcoming. Many of the so-called exposés of the intelligence agencies are in effect spook-written for propaganda or damage control.
The intelligence agencies monitor virtually everything we do. They have tentacles reaching into every aspect of contemporary society, exercising control in pervasive but mostly unknown ways. Yet, every so often some idiot writes an op-ed or bloviates on TV, bemoaning the lack of trust the majority of Americans have in "their" government and wondering why. The wonder is that anyone still trusts the government.
The intelligence agency fog both obscures and corrodes. An ever increasing number of Americans believe that a shadowy Deep State pulls the strings. Most major stories since World War II -- Korea, Vietnam, Kennedy's assassination, foreign coups, the 1960s student unrest, civil rights agitation, and civic disorder, Watergate, Iran-Contra, 9/11, domestic surveillance, and many more -- have intelligence angles. However, determining what those angles are plunges you into the miasma perpetuated by the agencies and their media accomplices.
The intelligence agencies and captive media's secrecy, disinformation, and lies make it futile to mount a straightforward attack against them. It's like attacking a citadel surrounded by swamps and bogs that afford no footing, making advance impossible. Their deadliest operation has been against the truth. In a political forum, how does one challenge an adversary who controls most of the information necessary to discredit, and ultimately reform or eliminate that adversary?
You don't fight where your opponent wants you to fight. What the intelligence apparatus fears most is a battle of ideas. Intelligence, the military, and the reserve currency are essential component of the US's confederated global empire. During the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump questioned a few empire totems and incurred the intelligence leadership's wrath, demonstrating how sensitive and vulnerable they are on this front. The transparent flimsiness of their Russiagate concoction further illustrates the befuddlement. Questions are out in the open and are usually based on facts within the public domain. They move the battle from the murk to the light, unfamiliar and unwelcome terrain.
The US government, like Oceania, switches enemies as necessary. That validates military and intelligence; lasting peace would be intolerable. After World War II the enemy was the USSR and communism, which persisted until the Soviet collapse in 1991. The 9/11 tragedy offered up a new enemy, Islamic terrorism.
Seventeen years later, after a disastrous run of US interventions in the Middle East and Northern Africa and the rout of Sunni jihadists in Syria by the combined forces of the Syrian government, Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah, it's clear that Islamic terrorism is no longer a threat that stirs the paranoia necessary to feed big military and intelligence budgets . For all the money they've spent, intelligence has done a terrible job of either anticipating terrorist strikes or defeating them in counterinsurgency warfare
So switch the enemy again, now it's Russia and China. The best insight the intelligence community could offer about those two is that they've grown stronger by doing the opposite of the US. For the most part they've stayed in their own neighborhoods. They accept that they're constituents, albeit important ones, of a multipolar global order. Although they'll use big sticks to protect their interests, carrots like the Belt and Road Initiative further their influence much better than the US's bullets and bombs.
If the intelligence complex truly cared about the country, they might go public with the observation that the empire is going broke. However, raising awareness of this dire threat -- as opposed to standard intelligence bogeymen -- might prompt reexamination of intelligence and military budgets and the foreign policy that supports them. Insolvency will strangle the US's exorbitantly expensive interventionism. It will be the first real curb on the intelligence complex since World War II, but don't except any proactive measures beforehand from those charged with foreseeing the future.
Conspiracy theories, a term popularized by the CIA to denigrate Warren Commission skeptics, are often proved correct. However, trying to determine the truth behind intelligence agency conspiracies is a time and energy-consuming task, usually producing much frustration and little illumination. Instead, as Caitlin Johnstone recently observed , we're better off fighting on moral and philosophical grounds the intelligence complex and the rest of the government's depredations that are in plain sight.
Attack the intellectual foundations of empire and you attack the whole rickety edifice, including intelligence, that supports it. Tell the truth and you threaten those who deal in lies . Champion sanity and logic and you challenge the insane irrationality of the powers that be. They are daunting tasks, but less daunting than trying to excavate and clean the intelligence sewer.
bogbeagle , 1 hour ago link
WTFUD , 25 minutes ago linkI sometimes wonder whether the Bond films are a psy-op.
I mean, the 'hero' is a psycho-killer ... the premise of the films is 'any means to an end' ... they promote the ridiculous idea that you can be 'licensed to kill', and it's no longer murder ... and they build a strong association between the State and glamour.
Bond makes a virtue out of 'following orders', when in reality, it's a Sin.
Norfry , 2 hours ago linkCan't remember which Section of MI6 Ian Fleming (novelist 007.5) worked but he came into contact with my Hero, the best double-agent Cambridge, maybe World, has Ever produced, Kim Philby. Fleming was a lightweight compared to him and was most likely provided the Funds, by MI6 to titillate the Masses, spread the Word of Deep State.
StarGate , 2 hours ago linkThe article makes many good points but still falls into use of distorting bs language.
For example, "after a disastrous run of US interventions" - well, they stole Libya's wealth and destroyed the country: mission accomplished; that's what they were trying to do. It was not an ""intervention", it was a f***ing war of aggression based on lies.
Well the good news is that folks now know there is deep State, shadow govt, puppet masters, fake news MSM mockingbird programming, satanic "musik/ pop" promoters, etc.
Not everyone knows but more know, and some are now questioning the Matrix sensations they have. That they have not been told the Truth.
Eventually humanity will awaken and get on track, how long it will take is unknown.
The CIA is a symptom of the problem but not the whole problem. Primarily it is the deception that it sows, the confusion and false conclusions that the easily led fill their heads with.
Now that you know there are bad guys out there...
Find someone to love, even if it is a puppy or a guppy. Simplify your needs, and commit small acts of kindness on a regular basis. The World will heal, it may be a rocky convalescence, yet Good triumphs in the end.
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Dec 02, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
Caius Keys , 6 hours ago link
Hadenough1000 , 4 hours ago linkCIA Officials Continue Efforts To Marginalize President Trump Via Washington Post
There is a particular transparency of motive which becomes clear, and reconciles all inquiry, when an interested observer accepts a particular media framework:
- The media outlet CNN provides for their domestic and international audience, the preferred position for all policy and points of advocacy from Hillary Clinton's Department of State.
- The media outlet The Washington Post serves a similar purpose, however their specialized role is as a conduit for Barack "Hussein" Obama's Central Intelligence Agency.
Caius Keys , 4 hours ago linkArab brennan
was arab Obamas weaponizing king
dumbocrats you put Arabs in total power??? 😳😳
After the rapist Clinton's Arabs burned 3000 Americans to death???
what possibly could go wrong😜😜
CatInTheHat , 6 hours ago linkBushes love SA long time https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/05/12/its-time-to-stop-holding-saudi-arabias-hand-gcc-summit-camp-david/
"the rout of Sunni jihadists in Syria by the combined forces of the Syrian government, Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah, it's clear that Islamic terrorism is no longer a threat that stirs the paranoia necessary to feed big military and intelligence budgets . For all the money they've spent, intelligence has done a terrible job of either anticipating terrorist strikes or defeating them in counterinsurgency warfare"
Excuse me,but WTF??
It's the US,NATO, Israhell and Saudis that created ISIS, with the above mentioned spending BILLIONS to combat ISIS in Syria.
The war on terror is a hoax. The lame exploitation of Arabs and Islam to manufacture consent for war on Iraq, starting with Mossad planting of low yield thermal nuke weapons that brought the Towers down..Saudis were the patsies.
All of this with blessing of Zionists banksters and US Treasury& Fed Reserve.
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Dec 02, 2018 | jfkmurdersolved.com
Did the Bushes help to kill JFK?
If nothing else, these pages will show the reader the following:
- Although he does not recall when asked, George (Herbert Walker) Bush was in Dallas the day JFK was assassinated.
- Bush lies about the fact that he was a high-ranking CIA official at the time of JFK's death.
- Bush allowed the escape of a convicted terrorist from prison to go to work for him as an undercover CIA asset in Iran-Contra.
- Bush has released another convicted terrorist.
- Both these terrorists were present on Dealey Plaza on 11/22/1963.
- Both these terrorists were convicted for killing 73 people by blowing up an airliner.
- Bush is personal friends with a close associate of these convicted terrorists, who was also a participant in Iran Contra.
- Bush has taken a leading role as CIA official in structuring/organizing these terrorists in effective organizations.
Shall we say: "Only in America, the land of unlimited opportunities"?
================================================
+ All three generations Bush are members of a most powerful and most secret society. It's called The order of Skull and Bones. Those who want to learn more about Skull and Bones can do so by clicking here . Or read this book click here.
And those who argue that Skull and Bones is just a harmless fraternity or boy scout's club, may ask themselves whether it is okay for leaders of open and democratic societies, to be members of secret organizations whose agendas are not to be disclosed to the public.
"My senior year, I joined Skull & Bones, a secret society, so secret, I can't say anything more." George W. Bush, President of the United States See George W. Bush admitting his membership of Skull and Bones by clicking hereThe unauthorized biography of George H.W. Bush can be read here 
Where were you, George? + Prescott Bush (father of George) made his fortune by financing the war effort of Adolph Hitler together with his banking partners and fellow "bonesmen" Averell and Roland Harriman. Prescott was stripped of his holdings in the Union Banking Corporation in 1942 under the "Trading with the Enemy Act"."On March 19, 1934, Prescott Bush handed Averell Harriman a copy of that day's New York Times. The Polish government was applying to take over Consolidated Silesian Steel Corporation and Upper Silesian Coal and Steel Company from "German and American interests" because of rampant "mismanagement, excessive borrowing, fictitious bookkeeping and gambling in securities." The Polish government required the owners of the company, which accounted for over 45% of Poland's steel production, to pay at least its full share of back taxes. Bush and Harriman would eventually hire attorney John Foster Dulles to help cover up any improprieties that might arise under investigative scrutiny." Source: "Heir to the Holocaust" by Toby Rogers.
John Foster Dulles was the brother of Allen Dulles, the later CIA director, who was the architect - together with Vice President Richard Nixon and George Bush - of the Bay of Pigs invasion to overthrow Fidel Castro's Cuba. Allen Dulles was fired by President Kennedy because of the fiasco of the Bay of Pigs. Yet Allen Dulles was appointed by Lyndon Johnson to serve on the Warren Commission to "investigate" JFK's death.+ A vice-president of Empire Trust in Dallas was Jack Crichton (also president of Nafco Oil & Gas, Inc.) who was connected with Army Reserve Intelligence. In a 1995 book written by Fabian Escalante, the chief of a Cuban counterintelligence unit during the late 1950s and early 1960s, he describes that as soon as intelligence was received from agents in Cuba that Fidel Castro had "converted to communism," a plan called "Operation 40" was put into effect by the National Security Council, presided over by Vice-President Richard Nixon. Escalante indicates that Nixon was the Cuban "case officer" who had assembled an important group of businessmen headed by George Bush and Jack Crichton, both Texas oilmen, to gather the necessary funds for the operation.
In Dick Russell's book, The Man Who Knew Too Much (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers/Richard Gallen, 1992), at pp. 614-615, under a section called "Origins of the Cover-up" there is a description of a group of Dallas men who surrounded Marina Oswald as soon as her husband had been arrested, but before he was killed by Jack Ruby. These were intelligence operatives seeking out Russian speakers. Ilya Mamantov knew George Bush and spoke Russian. A geologist with Sun Oil, he received a call five hours after the assassination from Jack Crichton, who was at that time the president of Nafco Oil and Gas, Inc. and a former Military Intelligence officer then attached to Army Reserve Intelligence. Crichton was also director of Dorchester Gas Producing Co. with D.H. Byrd, who owned the Texas School Book Depository building and was a close friend of Lyndon Johnson.+ In 1968, six months after the assassination of Robert Kennedy, Prescott writes this letter (click here) to Clover Dulles, wife of Allen Dulles. Note that he blames the Kennedy's for the failure of the Bay of Pigs.
+ In the 1950's Prescott and the Harrimans are the founding fathers of CBS. In 1963, CBS reporter Dan Rather makes his career break with the Kennedy Assassination by lying to the American public that he sees JFK's head move violently FORWARD on the Zapruder film. To hear Dan Rather lying click here .The lie is possible, because the Zapruder film was bought by Time Life and kept lock and barrel from the public for 14 years. Time Life is founded and owned by Henry Luce, also a member of Skull and Bones. Luce had many friends, among them general Edward Lansdale, a known covert operative for the CIA. Henry's wife, Clare Booth Luce, Congresswoman, is a radical supporter of the Anti-Castro movement and personal friends with another high-ranking covert operative for the CIA and a resident from Fort Worth: David Atlee Phillips. Edward Lansdale and David Phillips are widely accepted as key planners of the JFK assassination. They are also exact matches for the "covert operations specialist"(Phillips) and the "top brass in military intelligence from Asia" (Lansdale) as described in Sam Giancana's biography "Double Cross" (to read the page click here ).
David Atlee Phillips and Edward Lansdale + David Atlee Phillips was the mastermind for the CIA staged coup by Pinochet in 1973, as well as the overthrow in 1954 of the Guatemala regime headed by Jacobo Arbenz. He is working closely with CIA officer E. Howard Hunt, another suspect in the plot to kill JFK and the leader of the infamous Watergate burglar team. In the 1950's and 1960's, Phillips is the CIA case officer for the anti Castro Cubans in Havana and Mexico City. He is also the CIA controller for Lee Harvey Oswald and James Files. James Files has confessed that he fired the shot into JFK's head from behind the picket fence on the grassy knoll in Dealey Plaza. This story is completely ignored by the mainstream media, which seems strange, because even if he were lying, one would expect some exposure. The star of David Atlee Phillips rises to CIA director of Covert Operations for the Western Hemisphere. According to his nephew Shawn Phillips, who is quite a famous musician, David Atlee Phillips confirmed to his brother James Atlee Phillips that he was in Dallas the day Kennedy died. To read Shawn's email: click here.+ Prescott Bush advised Eisenhower to run for President and then launched Richard Nixon into the Vice Presidency. Subsequently he was a major financer of Nixon's presidential campaign against Kennedy. Prescott Bush was an avid JFK opponent and Nixon has always been a puppet for the interests of the Bush family. To read the details click here .
Prescott Bush with President Dwight Eisenhower 
Prescott with his protégé Dick Nixon 
Prescott and Ike + George Herbert Walker Bush is one of the very few Americans who does not recall where he was when JFK was killed. Yet, the following document, recently declassified, places him very close to Dallas within 2 hours of JFK's assassination:But who says the Bush telephone call really came from Tyler, Texas? To his own admission, this document places Bush IN Dallas for the remainder of the day and night of November 22, 1963. He is implicating a political activist (James Parrott) in the process. Why did Bush want to keep his telephone call confidential? And why does he not remember it? Why did he give his warning AFTER the assassination, if he thought Parrott was a serious threat for Kennedy in Houston? Kennedy had just visited Houston the day before ! And why are the sources of this hearsay information unknown? Who told him this, if anyone? Or is this just a document to furnish Bush with an alibi and plausible denial? Thirty years later the same James Parrott that Bush was accusing is working on Bush's presidential campaign against Bill Clinton. 
"Figure that one out; if someone had tried to finger me for killing President Kennedy, that person would have been my worst enemy. See volume one and ten for damning evidence. The FBI agent that took Bush's call was Graham Kitchel, whose brother George Kitchel knew both de Mohrenschildt (Oswald's best friend in Dallas) and Bush. (NOTE: Graham was a favourite of FBI Director, J. E. Hoover who was briefing Bush of the CIA on November 23, 1963). On October 13, 1999, Adamson called Kenneth B. Jackson the FBI agent who investigated Parrott and received Bush's complaint. Mr. Jackson, refused to return Adamson's phone call. why? "
Source: Bruce Adamson"The greater our knowledge increases the more our ignorance unfolds."
+ Nixon admitted he was in Dallas, but gave conflicting accounts. To read about those conflicting accounts click here or click here .
Is there other evidence to tie Nixon to key players in the JFK assassination? Yes, there is! Look at this bombshell document that states Jack Ruby worked for Nixon: Click here . And Ruby was just a punk with no connections to anyone?+ One of the most tantalizing nuggets about Nixon's possible inside knowledge of JFK assassination secrets was buried on a White House tape until 2002. On the tape, recorded in May of 1972, the president confided to two top aides that the Warren Commission pulled off "the greatest hoax that has ever been perpetuated." Unfortunately, he did not elaborate. But the context in which Nixon raised the matter shows just how low he could stoop in efforts to assassinate the character of his political adversaries.
The Republican president made the "hoax" observation in the immediate aftermath of the assassination attempt against White House hopeful George Wallace, a long-time Democratic governor of Alabama. The attempt left Wallace paralyzed below the waist. Nixon blurted out his comments about the falsity of the Warren findings in the middle of a conversation in which he repeatedly directed two of his most ruthless aides, Bob Haldeman and Chuck Colson, to carry out a monumental dirty trick. He urged them to plant a false news story linking the would-be Wallace assassin -- Arthur Bremer -- to two other Democrats, Sen. Edward Kennedy and Sen. George McGovern -- possible Nixon opponents in that year's fall elections. "Screw the record," the president orders on at one point. "Just say he was a supporter of that nut (it isn't clear which of the two senators he is referring to). And put it out. Just say we have an authenticated report."
As well as helping to perpetuate the Kennedy assassination "hoax" by turning down Haldeman's proposal for a new JFK probe, Nixon had a major hand in perpetrating it. In November of 1964, on the eve of the official release of the Warren Report, private citizen Nixon went public in support of the panel's coming findings. In a piece for Reader's Digest, he portrayed Oswald as the sole assassin. And Nixon implied that Castro -- "a hero in the warped mind of Oswald" -- was the real culprit.
He claimed that Robert Kennedy, as attorney general, had authorized a larger number of wiretaps than his own administration. "But I don't criticize it," he declared, adding, "if he had ten more and -- as a result of wiretaps -- had been able to discover the Oswald Plan, it would have been worth it."
Whoops! The president apparently didn't realize his reference to "the Oswald Plan" didn't square with the government's official lone-killer finding. For if Lee Harvey Oswald had been solely responsible for the assassination, then there would not have been anyone for Oswald to conspire with about his "plan" -- on a bugged telephone, or otherwise. Was Nixon inadvertently revealing his knowledge that Mob leaders (Robert Kennedy's main wiretap targets) had a role in President Kennedy's slaying? Was such a belief based on information acquired as a result of Nixon's own solid ties to organized crime and the Mafia-infested Teamsters union? Source: click here .
+ A photograph exists of the Texas School Book Depository while the Dallas Police is sealing off the building. Among the bystanders is a civilian that could be a twin brother of George H.W. Bush.
+ George H.W. Bush is provably lying about his CIA career. He claims that his CIA directorship in 1976 was his first job for the CIA. Difficult to believe? Page 3 will show the proof for this lie. The truth is that he was actively involved in the preparation and financing of the ill faithed Bay of Pigs invasion, as a high ranking CIA official, at which time he made acquaintance with the now notorious CIA agent and Iran Contra operative Felix Rodriguez, a veteran of the Bay of Pigs and Operation 40.
... ... ...
CONCLUSIONS:
The plot to kill JFK originates from the very same forces that were working together on the Bay of Pigs and the plots to assassinate Fidel Castro: All these forces had their own reasons to recapture Cuba and to hate Kennedy, whom they also blamed for the failure of the Bay of Pigs.
These groups were
- The CIA with the approval of some of the highest government officials (like Johnson, Hoover, Ford and Nixon)
- The anti Castro Cuban exiles
- Mafiabosses Sam Giancana , Carlos Marcello and Santos Trafficante and
- wealthy industrialists and Texan oilmen like H.L. Hunt, Syd Richardson and Clint Murchison.
George H.W. Bush has documented connections to all four groups
Sam Giancana states in his biography that he knew Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon personally (to read the page click here ), as well as the aforementioned oil millionaires and George Demohrenshildt (to read the page click here ), , and that they planned the JFK assassination together. James Files, the confessed grassy knoll assassin who fired the fatal shot into JFK's head, did not only work for Sam Giancana, but was recruited in the CIA to train Cuban exiles for the Bay of Pigs, by none other than David Atlee Phillips. He claims that one of his later senior supervisors in covert operations was George H.W. Bush. Lyndon Johnson told his mistress Madeline Brown: "It was the CIA and the Oilboys". Bush was both ! In addition he was up to his neck in the Bay of Pigs and the anti Castro movement. What is the chance he could not have known about the plot?
David Atlee Phillips was also the CIA supervisor for Lee Harvey Oswald, a heroic man that was unwittingly chosen to take the blame as the patsy, while led to believe he was to penetrate the group of assassins in order to sabotage the plot and prevent JFK's assassination.
On November 22, 1963 a criminal power elite seized control through a coup d'etat and a subsequent cover up of the truth that lasts until today. This is because they strengthened their position ever since. The key to unlocking the truth lies in one of their most powerful assets: the mainstream media. That is why you were not aware of most of the above !
It is clear that Bush protected the cover-up, as well as individuals and CIA elements that were involved in the JFK assassination. Although the above may not be conclusive evidence for Bush's involvement or knowledge about JFK's murder, all together a bigger and more criminal picture than many of us dare to imagine, emerges, with a direct connection to the political situation of today.
"And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."
"A nation which has forgotten the quality of courage which in the past has been brought to public life is not as likely to insist upon or regard that quality in its chosen leaders today - and in fact we have forgotten."
"Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men."
"A man does what he must-in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures-and that is the basis of all human morality."
"A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on. "
John F. Kennedy
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Dec 01, 2018 | www.legitgov.org
George H.W. Bush dead at 94 | 01 Dec 2018
Former US President George H.W. Bush has died at age 94 in Houston, according to his spokesperson Jim McGrath.
Born into privilege and a tradition of service, Bush was a son of a senator, celebrated World War II combat pilot, student athlete, Texas oilman, Republican congressman, national party chairman, pioneering diplomat and spy chief [who likely oversaw the CIA assets assigned to the JFK kill team].
After his own 1980 presidential campaign came up short, he served two terms as Ronald Reagan's vice president before reaching the pinnacle of political power by winning the 1988 presidential election, soundly defeating Democrat Michael Dukakis.
After losing the White House in 1992, Bush became a widely admired political elder who leapt out of airplanes to mark birthday milestones.
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Dec 01, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com
Very informative post.kievite -> Mad_Max22It would be of great value to know what the underlying predicate crime(s) are that are sustaining Mueller's scorched earth approach to what looks to be 'all things Trump,' whether the crimes relate to counter intelligence jurisdiction (treason, espionage), illicit overseas business transactions relating to sanctions violations or something of that sort, or election law violations, the smoke of which got the whole Mueller jihad underway .
It certainly does give every appearance, at least from the outside perspective, of an investigation looking for a crime.
This would not be unusual in a Foreign Counter Intelligence case which are almost by definition open ended; it would be very unusual, in fact prohibited, in a criminal case where a factual predicate needs to be articulated that constitutes reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed.
It seems Mueller has been riding the FCI horse whither he pleases to round up interviews, compare them, and then take the chicken shit route of charging 1001 violations to leverage his way forward. If that seems to smell bad, it is because it does.
Precisely the same approach could have been taken vis a vis the Uranium mattter or any of the Clinton Foundation speaker forays into foreign lands and almost certainly a boatload of 1001 violations would have come into port.
So Muller reinvented the tactics used by Bolsheviks during the Great Purge period ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wi... )Most Stalin's political enemies were liquidated using the "foreign agent" charge.
Might be a good time to reread a book on "Moscow show trials" like
The prosecutor and the prey: Vyshinsky and the 1930s' Moscow show trials Arkadii V̆aksberg.The quote "History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce" might be applicable here.
Pat Lang Mod -> blue peacock , 15 hours agoIMO, Trump is not helping himself or the American people get to the objective truth by declassifying all the documents and communications. Unless all the documents are released unredacted, all we have are theories and speculation. And Trump will be on the losing end of that as the news media and their Deep State collaborators have all the means to drive the narrative and attempt to convict in the court of public opinion through constant innuendo.
In the mean time the Mueller investigation itself creates the crimes as pretty much most Trump associates have been indicted for perjury. Even Manafort was prosecuted for money laundering that took place over a decade ago .
There have been no claims from Mueller that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election.
Trump has stated that he doesn't want to declassify as the American people shouldn't know how corrupt their government is. This seems to contradict his Drain the Swamp rhetoric. With the Democrats gonna run the House come January. I think Trump will come under increased pressure from all sides. I don't believe the Mueller investigation will ever wind down until Trump is defeated either via impeachment or loss of the next presidential election.
I heard Dershowitz (my new hero) say the other day that Mueller may have created more crimes than existed before his inquiry.
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Aug 30, 2012 | www.theguardian.com
Here's a wonderful example of the NYT's propensity for re-writing history: http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2012/08/30/ny-times-scrubs-mention-cia-arming-syrian-rebels-177311/ Long live the memory hole.BillOwen , 30 Aug 2012 13:15The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence Victor Marchetti"It is the first book the federal government of the United States ever went to court to censor before its publication. The CIA demanded the authors remove 399 passages but they stood firm and only 168 passages were censored. The publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, chose to publish the book with blanks for censored passages and with boldface type for passages that were challenged but later uncensored."
There exists in our nation today a powerful and dangerous secret cult -- the cult of intelligence. Its holy men are the clandestine professionals of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Its patrons and protectors are the highest officials of the federal government. Its membership, extending far beyond governmental circles, reaches into the power centers of industry, commerce, finance, and labor. Its friends are many in the areas of important public influence -- the academic world and the communications media.
The cult of intelligence is a secret fraternity of the American political aristocracy.
The purpose of the cult is to further the foreign policies of the U.S. government by covert and usually illegal means, while at the same time containing the spread of its avowed enemy, communism. Traditionally, the cult's hope has been to foster a world order in which America would reign supreme, the unchallenged international leader.
Today, however, that dream stands tarnished by time and frequent failures. Thus, the cult's objectives are now less grandiose, but no less disturbing. It seeks largely to advance America's self-appointed role as the dominant arbiter of social, economic, and political change in the awakening regions of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. And its worldwide war against communism has to some extent been reduced to a covert struggle to maintain a self-serving stability in the Third World, using whatever clandestine methods are available.
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Nov 30, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,
Watergate had tragic Shakespearean overtones , with Nixon as King Lear, but Russia-Gate - perhaps the last gate America goes through on its giant slalom run to collapse - is but a Chinese Fire Drill writ large.
The reason? In 1973, we were still a serious people. Today, the most lavishly credentialed elite in history believe the most preposterous "stories," or, surely even worse, pretend to believe them for political advantage.
Now, an epic battle of wills is setting up as Robert Mueller's investigation concludes its business and its primary target, the Golden Golem of Greatness, girds his loins to push back. Behind the flimsy scrim of Russia collusion accusations stands a bewildering maze of criminal mischief by a matrix of federal agencies that lost control of their own dark operation to meddle in the 2016 election.
The US intel community (CIA, NSA, FBI, etc), with the Department of Justice, all colluded with the Hillary Clinton campaign and the intel agencies of the UK and Australia, to derail Mr. Trump as a stooge of Russia and, when he shocked them by getting elected, mounted a desperate campaign to cover their asses knowing he had become their boss.
The Obama White House was involved in all this, attempting to cloak itself in plausible deniability, which may be unwinding now, too. How might all this play out from here?
One big mystery is how long will Mr. Trump wait to declassify any number of secret files, memoranda, and communications that he's been sitting on for months .
My guess is that this stuff amounts to a potent weapon against his adversaries and he will wait until Mr. Mueller releases a final report before declassifying it. Then, we'll have a fine constitutional crisis as the two sides vie for some sort of adjudication.
Who, for instance, will adjudicate the monkey business that is already on-the-record involving misdeeds in the Department of Justice itself? Will the DOJ split into two contesting camps, each charging the other? How might that work? Does the Acting Attorney General Mr. Whitaker seek indictments against figures such as Bruce Ohr, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, et al. Will he also rope in intel cowboys John Brennan and James Clapper? Might Hillary find herself in jeopardy -- all the while on the other side Mr. Mueller pursues his targets, characters like Mr. Manafort, Michael Cohen, and the hapless Carter Page?
Or might Mr. Mueller, and others, possibly find themselves in trouble, as spearheads of a bad-faith campaign to weaponize government agencies against a sitting president? That might sound outlandish, but the evidence is adding up. In fact the evidence of a Deep State gone rogue is far more compelling than any charges Mr. Mueller has so far produced on Trump-Russia "collusion." An example of bad faith is former FBI Director James Comey's current campaign to avoid testifying in closed session before the House Judiciary and Oversight committees -- he filed a motion just before Thanksgiving. Mr. Comey is pretending that an open session would be "transparent." His claim is mendacious. If he were questioned about classified matters in an open session, he would do exactly what he did before in open session: decline to answer about "sensitive" matters on the basis of national security. He could make no such claims in a closed session. The truth is, his attorneys are trying to run out the clock on the current composition of the house committees, which will come under a Democrat majority in January, so that Mr. Comey can avoid testifying altogether.
There are other dicey matters awaiting some kind of adjudication elsewhere.
For instance, who is going to review the chain of decisions among the FISA judges who approved of warrants made in bad faith to spy on US citizens? Perhaps the shrinking violet, Mr. Huber, out in the Utah Prosecutor's Office of the DOJ, is looking into all that. He's been at something for most of the year (nobody knows what). He has to answer to Mr. Whitaker now, or the permanent AG who replaces him. And why is Mr. Trump dragging his heels on nominating a permanent AG? I suppose the FISA court matter will fall to the Supreme Court, but how does that process work, and how long might it take?
The potential for a stand-off exists that will confound any effort to untangle these things, and I can see how that might lead to an extraordinary crisis in which Mr. Trump has to declare some form of emergency or perhaps martial law to clean out this suppurating abscess of illegality and sedition .
That can only be the last and worst resort, but what if the US judicial system just can't manage to clean up the mess it has made?
Dickweed Wang , 1 minute ago link
Cloud9.5 , 15 minutes ago linkIf Trump doesn't go on a major offensive within the next couple of weeks he's fucked because once the new ... House is sworn in on January 3rd he will be dealing with so many different distractions at the same time it will make his attempt to fight back almost impossible...
MK ULTRA Alpha , 59 minutes ago linkIf Kunstler is right in his prediction of collapse. The Deep State is going to go the way of the Stasi. Systemic collapse will usher in a purge the scope of which none of us can fathom.
Duc888 , 40 minutes ago linkThe CIA was running the entire show. The FBI was the CIA's dog.
Stefan Halper has been mislabeled by MSM as an FBI informant. Stefan Halper is a CIA operative. He is the smoking gun.
Both the CIA and MI6 were colluding to prevent Trump from being elected and then working a coup after election.
It all leads back to former CIA director Brennan and national security advisor Clapper. Both worked under the authority of Obama, thus both believe what they were doing was authorized by Obama, particularly Clapper who took his marching orders from Obama. They both believed Clinton would win and everything would be brushed under the rug as usual.
Mueller is a cover up man and yes man with plenty of felonies. Rosenstein wrote the memo Comey needed to be fired, because he wanted to replace Comey with Mueller. Rosenstein worried Comey would talk, would begin to release data and start investigation to protect himself and the FBI, so when Trump refused to appoint Mueller to FBI director, Rosenstein appointed Mueller to take out Trump.
The MSM and everyone says how good Mueller is, but he's committed countless felonies and no one at the DOJ has honor to be an American. The DOJ is political and is against this nation, against the truth.
Sessions was cover up man and a yes man. He was also afraid of being indicted by Mueller. His main purpose was illegal immigration, that's all he cared about. He didn't care what happened to Trump and figured Pence would let him stay because of his mission on illegal immigration and cannabis. Sessions believed he would roll back the legalization of cannabis and Pence would follow him. Sessions believed Trump was soft on cannabis. That seems petty, but that's the way Sessions thought.
No one follows the law anymore, this has trickled down to the people. These people have set a bad example and the people have no respect for the system anymore.
The only way to make it respected again is for these criminals like Mueller, must be killed. But because of the malaise caused by the criminals no one cares about America anymore. No one cares enough to kill criminals like Mueller. The MSM is responsible for doing incredible damage to the character of our nation. It's because of them all of this happened because they will not tell the truth.
UselessEater , 36 minutes ago link" It all leads back to former CIA director Brennan and national security advisor Clapper. Both worked under the authority of Obama"
Brennan, the Muslim convert was Obama's handler for years. Obama was groomed by CIA to be the errand-boi-POTUS.
coaltar , 1 hour ago linkJust 6 corporations - all interlocking - own 95% of America's mainstream media. There's the problem. Evil controls the narrative and fools the public. For example, ANTIFA - who are they really, what are their roots, where do they come from? None of THIS will you get from the MSM:
https://europeansworldwide.wordpress.com/2018/11/15/ripping-the-red-mask-off-antifa/
... ... ...
Captain Nemo de Erehwon , 1 hour ago linkWhen you have a working brain, it's clear Trump is just another actor...
"The potential for a stand-off exists that will confound any effort to untangle these things... might lead to an extraordinary crisis in which Trump has to declare some form of emergency or perhaps martial law to clean out this suppurating abscess of illegality and sedition ..."
The crooks will not give up without a fight and Trump will have to call in the military?
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Nov 26, 2018 | www.unz.com
In Homage to Catalonia (1938), his memoir of the Spanish Civil War, George Orwell describes how his wife was rudely woken by a police-raid on the hotel room she was occupying in Barcelona:
In the small hours of the morning there was a pounding on the door, and six men marched in, switched on the light, and immediately took up various positions about the room, obviously agreed upon beforehand. They then searched both rooms (there was a bathroom attached) with inconceivable thoroughness. They sounded the walls, took up the mats, examined the floor, felt the curtains, probed under the bath and the radiator, emptied every drawer and suitcase and felt every garment and held it up to the light. ( Homage to Catalonia , ch. 14)
The police conducted this search "in the recognized OGPU [then the Russian communist secret-police] or Gestapo style for nearly two hours," Orwell says. He then notes that in "all this time they never searched the bed." His wife was still in it, you see, and although the police "were probably Communist Party members they were also Spaniards, and to turn a woman out of bed was a little too much for them. This part of the job was silently dropped, making the whole search meaningless."
Orwell's story suggests a new word to me: typhlophthalmism , meaning "the practice of turning a blind eye to essential but inconvenient facts" (from Greek typhlos , "blind," + ophthalmos , "eye"). But it's a long word, so let's call it typhlism for short. Shorter is better, because the term could be used so often today. Orwell's story is an allegory of modern Western politics and social commentary, where so many essential but inconvenient facts are "silently dropped" from analysis.
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Nov 26, 2018 | craigmurray.org.uk
hagar , October 24, 2018 at 10:51
Sharp Ears , October 24, 2018 at 13:00Sharp Ears,
Is this Kashoggi that has been butchered allegedly related to the biggest arms dealer in the world, Adnan Kashoggi? Who had the biggest super yacht in the world, and did he sell said super yacht to Donald back in the day?
Your super research skills could help me out this morning.
I have just been told by the secretary of the Prof. at the Beatson in Glasgow that the Secretary of State's new rules on cancer treatment with Medical Cannabis oil which is supposed to come into effect on the 1st of November does not apply to me. But will not tell me why I am excluded.
Is this another con by the Tory Gov. to make themselves look like a caring Gov. treating young children only?I can't find the criteria anywhere. Mind you I have difficulty focusing on anything at the moment while steam is coming out my ears in anger.
Maybe I should move to Israel to get a Medical Cannabis cure? NAE CHANCE!!!The deceased was the nephew of the arms dealer, Adnan.
The Heil has all the lurid family details.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6280767/Missing-Saudi-journalist-Jamal-Khashoggi-second-cousin-Princess-Dianas-lover.htmlNo wonder the establishment had Diana killed.
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Nov 24, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
If anybody had any doubts about the Washington's determination to give Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman a pass over allegations that he was involved with the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, President Trump put them to rest earlier this week when he released a statement praising Saudi Arabia, openly questioning the CIA and stressing the importance of the US-Saudi relationship (while also portraying Khashoggi as a suspicious and untrustworthy figure with ties to terror groups).And while rumors about a possible intra-family coup in Riyadh have been simmering since Khashoggi disappeared inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2 (with the latest reports surfacing earlier this week ), the notion that MbS's spurned relatives might rise up and exact their revenge for last year's brutal "corruption crackdown" at the Riyadh Ritz Carlton is looking increasingly improbable. In other words, as long as the international response to the Khashoggi incident is limited to countries that don't sell weapons to Saudi Arabia ending arms sales to the kingdom, then MbS will almost certainly survive.
And in the latest indication that the royal family - not to mention nearly all of the Saudis' regional allies - remains firmly behind the Crown Prince, even as the return of his uncle from exile has set tongues wagging about MbS' impending ouster, one senior prince recently told Reuters that the CIA's findings are "not to be trusted."
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Nov 25, 2018 | www.jfklibrary.org
"I am honored to have this invitation to address the annual meeting of the Dallas Citizens Council, joined by the members of the Dallas Assembly--and pleased to have this opportunity to salute the Graduate Research Center of the Southwest.
It is fitting that these two symbols of Dallas progress are united in the sponsorship of this meeting. For they represent the best qualities, I am told, of leadership and learning in this city--and leadership and learning are indispensable to each other. The advancement of learning depends on community leadership for financial and political support and the products of that learning, in turn, are essential to the leadership's hopes for continued progress and prosperity. It is not a coincidence that those communities possessing the best in research and graduate facilities--from MIT to Cal Tech--tend to attract the new and growing industries. I congratulate those of you here in Dallas who have recognized these basic facts through the creation of the unique and forward-looking Graduate Research Center.
This link between leadership and learning is not only essential at the community level. It is even more indispensable in world affairs. Ignorance and misinformation can handicap the progress of a city or a company, but they can, if allowed to prevail in foreign policy, handicap this country's security. In a world of complex and continuing problems, in a world full of frustrations and irritations, America's leadership must be guided by the lights of learning and reason or else those who confuse rhetoric with reality and the plausible with the possible will gain the popular ascendancy with their seemingly swift and simple solutions to every world problem.
There will always be dissident voices heard in the land, expressing opposition without alternatives, finding fault but never favor, perceiving gloom on every side and seeking influence without responsibility. Those voices are inevitable.
But today other voices are heard in the land--voices preaching doctrines wholly unrelated to reality, wholly unsuited to the sixties, doctrines which apparently assume that words will suffice without weapons, that vituperation is as good as victory and that peace is a sign of weakness. At a time when the national debt is steadily being reduced in terms of its burden on our economy, they see that debt as the greatest single threat to our security. At a time when we are steadily reducing the number of Federal employees serving every thousand citizens, they fear those supposed hordes of civil servants far more than the actual hordes of opposing armies.
We cannot expect that everyone, to use the phrase of a decade ago, will "talk sense to the American people." But we can hope that fewer people will listen to nonsense. And the notion that this Nation is headed for defeat through deficit, or that strength is but a matter of slogans, is nothing but just plain nonsense.
I want to discuss with you today the status of our strength and our security because this question clearly calls for the most responsible qualities of leadership and the most enlightened products of scholarship. For this Nation's strength and security are not easily or cheaply obtained, nor are they quickly and simply explained. There are many kinds of strength and no one kind will suffice. Overwhelming nuclear strength cannot stop a guerrilla war. Formal pacts of alliance cannot stop internal subversion. Displays of material wealth cannot stop the disillusionment of diplomats subjected to discrimination.
Above all, words alone are not enough. The United States is a peaceful nation. And where our strength and determination are clear, our words need merely to convey conviction, not belligerence. If we are strong, our strength will speak for itself. If we are weak, words will be of no help.
I realize that this Nation often tends to identify turning-points in world affairs with the major addresses which preceded them. But it was not the Monroe Doctrine that kept all Europe away from this hemisphere--it was the strength of the British fleet and the width of the Atlantic Ocean. It was not General Marshall's speech at Harvard which kept communism out of Western Europe--it was the strength and stability made possible by our military and economic assistance.
In this administration also it has been necessary at times to issue specific warnings--warnings that we could not stand by and watch the Communists conquer Laos by force, or intervene in the Congo, or swallow West Berlin, or maintain offensive missiles on Cuba. But while our goals were at least temporarily obtained in these and other instances, our successful defense of freedom was due not to the words we used, but to the strength we stood ready to use on behalf of the principles we stand ready to defend.
This strength is composed of many different elements, ranging from the most massive deterrents to the most subtle influences. And all types of strength are needed--no one kind could do the job alone. Let us take a moment, therefore, to review this Nation's progress in each major area of strength.
I.
First, as Secretary McNamara made clear in his address last Monday, the strategic nuclear power of the United States has been so greatly modernized and expanded in the last 1,000 days, by the rapid production and deployment of the most modern missile systems, that any and all potential aggressors are clearly confronted now with the impossibility of strategic victory--and the certainty of total destruction--if by reckless attack they should ever force upon us the necessity of a strategic reply.
In less than 3 years, we have increased by 50 percent the number of Polaris submarines scheduled to be in force by the next fiscal year, increased by more than 70 percent our total Polaris purchase program, increased by more than 75 percent our Minuteman purchase program, increased by 50 percent the portion of our strategic bombers on 15-minute alert, and increased by too percent the total number of nuclear weapons available in our strategic alert forces. Our security is further enhanced by the steps we have taken regarding these weapons to improve the speed and certainty of their response, their readiness at all times to respond, their ability to survive an attack, and their ability to be carefully controlled and directed through secure command operations.
II.
But the lessons of the last decade have taught us that freedom cannot be defended by strategic nuclear power alone. We have, therefore, in the last 3 years accelerated the development and deployment of tactical nuclear weapons, and increased by 60 percent the tactical nuclear forces deployed in Western Europe.
Nor can Europe or any other continent rely on nuclear forces alone, whether they are strategic or tactical. We have radically improved the readiness of our conventional forces--increased by 45 percent the number of combat ready Army divisions, increased by 100 percent the procurement of modern Army weapons and equipment, increased by 100 percent our ship construction, conversion, and modernization program, increased by too percent our procurement of tactical aircraft, increased by 30 percent the number of tactical air squadrons, and increased the strength of the Marines. As last month's "Operation Big Lift"--which originated here in Texas--showed so clearly, this Nation is prepared as never before to move substantial numbers of men in surprisingly little time to advanced positions anywhere in the world. We have increased by 175 percent the procurement of airlift aircraft, and we have already achieved a 75 percent increase in our existing strategic airlift capability. Finally, moving beyond the traditional roles of our military forces, we have achieved an increase of nearly 600 percent in our special forces--those forces that are prepared to work with our allies and friends against the guerrillas, saboteurs, insurgents and assassins who threaten freedom in a less direct but equally dangerous manner.
III.
But American military might should not and need not stand alone against the ambitions of international communism. Our security and strength, in the last analysis, directly depend on the security and strength of others, and that is why our military and economic assistance plays such a key role in enabling those who live on the periphery of the Communist world to maintain their independence of choice. Our assistance to these nations can be painful, risky and costly, as is true in Southeast Asia today. But we dare not weary of the task. For our assistance makes possible the stationing of 3-5 million allied troops along the Communist frontier at one-tenth the cost of maintaining a comparable number of American soldiers. A successful Communist breakthrough in these areas, necessitating direct United States intervention, would cost us several times as much as our entire foreign aid program, and might cost us heavily in American lives as well.
About 70 percent of our military assistance goes to nine key countries located on or near the borders of the Communist bloc--nine countries confronted directly or indirectly with the threat of Communist aggression - VietNam, Free China, Korea, India, Pakistan, Thailand, Greece, Turkey, and Iran. No one of these countries possesses on its own the resources to maintain the forces which our own Chiefs of Staff think needed in the common interest. Reducing our efforts to train, equip, and assist their armies can only encourage Communist penetration and require in time the increased overseas deployment of American combat forces. And reducing the economic help needed to bolster these nations that undertake to help defend freedom can have the same disastrous result. In short, the $50 billion we spend each year on our own defense could well be ineffective without the $4 billion required for military and economic assistance.
Our foreign aid program is not growing in size, it is, on the contrary, smaller now than in previous years. It has had its weaknesses, but we have undertaken to correct them. And the proper way of treating weaknesses is to replace them with strength, not to increase those weaknesses by emasculating essential programs. Dollar for dollar, in or out of government, there is no better form of investment in our national security than our much-abused foreign aid program. We cannot afford to lose it. We can afford to maintain it. We can surely afford, for example, to do as much for our 19 needy neighbors of Latin America as the Communist bloc is sending to the island of Cuba alone.
IV.
I have spoken of strength largely in terms of the deterrence and resistance of aggression and attack. But, in today's world, freedom can be lost without a shot being fired, by ballots as well as bullets. The success of our leadership is dependent upon respect for our mission in the world as well as our missiles--on a clearer recognition of the virtues of freedom as well as the evils of tyranny.
That is why our Information Agency has doubled the shortwave broadcasting power of the Voice of America and increased the number of broadcasting hours by 30 percent, increased Spanish language broadcasting to Cuba and Latin America from I to 9 hours a day, increased seven-fold to more than 3-5 million copies the number of American books being translated and published for Latin American readers, and taken a host of other steps to carry our message of truth and freedom to all the far corners of the earth.
And that is also why we have regained the initiative in the exploration of outer space, making an annual effort greater than the combined total of all space activities undertaken during the fifties, launching more than 130 vehicles into earth orbit, putting into actual operation valuable weather and communications satellites, and making it clear to all that the United States of America has no intention of finishing second in space.
This effort is expensive--but it pays its own way, for freedom and for America. For there is no longer any fear in the free world that a Communist lead in space will become a permanent assertion of supremacy and the basis of military superiority. There is no longer any doubt about the strength and skill of American science, American industry, American education, and the American free enterprise system. In short, our national space effort represents a great gain in, and a great resource of, our national strength--and both Texas and Texans are contributing greatly to this strength.
Finally, it should be clear by now that a nation can be no stronger abroad than she is at home. Only an America which practices what it preaches about equal rights and social justice will be respected by those whose choice affects our future. Only an America which has fully educated its citizens is fully capable of tackling the complex problems and perceiving the hidden dangers of the world in which we live. And only an America which is growing and prospering economically can sustain the worldwide defenses of freedom, while demonstrating to all concerned the opportunities of our system and society.
It is clear, therefore, that we are strengthening our security as well as our economy by our recent record increases in national income and output--by surging ahead of most of Western Europe in the rate of business expansion and the margin of corporate profits, by maintaining a more stable level of prices than almost any of our overseas competitors, and by cutting personal and corporate income taxes by some $ I I billion, as I have proposed, to assure this Nation of the longest and strongest expansion in our peacetime economic history.
This Nation's total output--which 3 years ago was at the $500 billion mark--will soon pass $600 billion, for a record rise of over $too billion in 3 years. For the first time in history we have 70 million men and women at work. For the first time in history average factory earnings have exceeded $100 a week. For the first time in history corporation profits after taxes--which have risen 43 percent in less than 3 years--have an annual level of $27.4 billion.
My friends and fellow citizens: I cite these facts and figures to make it clear that America today is stronger than ever before. Our adversaries have not abandoned their ambitions, our dangers have not diminished, our vigilance cannot be relaxed. But now we have the military, the scientific, and the economic strength to do whatever must be done for the preservation and promotion of freedom.
That strength will never be used in pursuit of aggressive ambitions--it will always be used in pursuit of peace. It will never be used to promote provocations--it will always be used to promote the peaceful settlement of disputes.
We in this country, in this generation, are--by destiny rather than choice--the watchmen on the walls of world freedom. We ask, therefore, that we may be worthy of our power and responsibility, that we may exercise our strength with wisdom and restraint, and that we may achieve in our time and for all time the ancient vision of "peace on earth, good will toward men." That must always be our goal, and the righteousness of our cause must always underlie our strength. For as was written long ago: "except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain."
Source: Remarks Prepared for Delivery at the Trade Mart in Dallas , November 22, 1963
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Nov 22, 2006 | www.sott.net
Comment: This is the concluding article in a series of 12 articles written in 2006 commemorating (at the time) the 43rd anniversary of the assassination of JFK. This day, November 22nd, 2018, is the 55th anniversary of what can, in hindsight and in Truth, be called the Day America Died .
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The fact is, the assassination of John F. Kennedy was a form of control of the government of the United States. It is the ultimate form of control of the election process. Understanding this can lead us to understand what has happened to our country since that terrible day in November, 43 years ago. Studied carefully, the assassination of John F. Kennedy can reveal who really controls the United States and its polices, particularly foreign policy. As John Kennedy himself said:
"For we are opposed, around the world, by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence; in infiltration instead of invasion; on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice; on guerillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific, and political operations. Its preparations are concealed not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined, its dissenters are silenced, not praised; no expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed. It conducts the cold war, in short, with a wartime discipline no democracy would ever hope to wish to match. ..."He was right; but I think he didn't realize how far they were willing - and able - to go.Nowadays, we know how far they are able and willing to go: just look at the events of September 11, 2001, which bear the same unmistakable stamp of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. In fact, as I have mentioned before, the same gang is involved.
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Laura Knight-Jadczyk is a seventh generation Floridian, a historian/mystic and author of 14 books and many articles published in print and on the internet. She is the founder of SOTT.net and the inspiration behind the Cassiopaean Experiment. She lives in France with her husband, Polish mathematical physicist, Arkadiusz Jadczyk, four of her five children, extended family, eight dogs, five birds and a cat.
Ned Ludd · 3 days ago
The dumb thing is the Kennedys were up to their ass in deep state dirty dealing and well understood how things were done. So, it does them no credit to have failed to strike first against their enemies, to have used the full power of the presidency to crush their opponents pre-emptively. Instead, they sucked out, rolled over and fed the machine Bobby.lsjarvi · a day agoNed Ludd They went into it with their eyes open, but could do nothing to prevent it except to wimp out. And they refused to wimp out. Sometimes your fate, if you choose to meet it, is to be martyred.
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Nov 24, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org
British Government Runs Secret Anti-Russian Smear Campaigns Steveg , Nov 24, 2018 11:43:44 AM | link
In 2015 the government of Britain launched a secret operation to insert anti-Russia propaganda into the western media stream.
We have already seen many consequences of this and similar programs which are designed to smear anyone who does not follow the anti-Russian government lines. The 'Russian collusion' smear campaign against Donald Trump based on the Steele dossier was also a largely British operation but seems to be part of a different project.
The ' Integrity Initiative ' builds 'cluster' or contact groups of trusted journalists, military personal, academics and lobbyists within foreign countries. These people get alerts via social media to take action when the British center perceives a need.
On June 7 it took the the Spanish cluster only a few hours to derail the appointment of Perto Banos as the Director of the National Security Department in Spain. The cluster determined that he had a too positive view of Russia and launched a coordinated social media smear campaign (pdf) against him.
biggerThe Initiative and its operations were unveiled when someone liberated some of its documents, including its budget applications to the British Foreign Office, and posted them under the 'Anonymous' label at cyberguerrilla.org .
The Initiative is nominally run under the (government financed) non-government-organisation The Institute For Statecraft . Its internal handbook (pdf) describes its purpose:
The Integrity Initiative was set up in autumn 2015 by The Institute for Statecraft in cooperation with the Free University of Brussels (VUB) to bring to the attention of politicians, policy-makers, opinion leaders and other interested parties the threat posed by Russia to democratic institutions in the United Kingdom, across Europe and North America.It lists Bellingcat and the Atlantic Council as "partner organisations" and promises that:
Cluster members will be sent to educational sessions abroad to improve the technical competence of the cluster to deal with disinformation and strengthen bonds in the cluster community. [...] (Events with DFR Digital Sherlocks, Bellingcat, EuVsDisinfo, Buzzfeed, Irex, Detector Media, Stopfake, LT MOD Stratcom – add more names and propose cluster participants as you desire).The Initiatives Orwellian slogan is 'Defending Democracy Against Disinformation'. It covers European countries, the UK, the U.S. and Canada and seems to want to expand to the Middle East.
On its About page it claims: "We are not a government body but we do work with government departments and agencies who share our aims." The now published budget plans show that more than 95% of the Initiative's funding is coming directly from the British government, NATO and the U.S. State Department. All the 'contact persons' for creating 'clusters' in foreign countries are British embassy officers. It amounts to a foreign influence campaign by the British government that hides behind a 'civil society' NGO.
The organisation is led by one Chris N. Donnelly who receives (pdf) £8,100 per month for creating the smear campaign network.
Chris Donnelly - Pic via EuromaidanpressFrom its 2017/18 budget application (pdf) we learn how the Initiative works:
To counter Russian disinformation and malign influence in Europe by: expanding the knowledge base; harnessing existing expertise, and; establishing a network of networks of experts, opinion formers and policy makers, to educate national audiences in the threat and to help build national capacities to counter it .The Initiative has a black and white view that is based on a "we are the good ones" illusion. When "we" 'educate the public' it is legitimate work. When others do similar, it its disinformation. That is of course not the reality. The Initiative's existence itself, created to secretly manipulate the public, is proof that such a view is wrong.
If its work were as legit as it wants to be seen, why would the Foreign Office run it from behind the curtain as an NGO? The Initiative is not the only such operation. It's applications seek funding from a larger "Russian Language Strategic Communication Programme" run by the Foreign Office.
The 2017/18 budget application sought FCO funding of £480,635. It received £102,000 in co-funding from NATO and the Lithuanian Ministry of Defense. The 2018/19 budget application shows a planned spending (pdf) of £1,961,000.00. The co-sponsors this year are again NATO and the Lithuanian MoD, but also include (pdf) the U.S. State Department with £250,000 and Facebook with £100,000. The budget lays out a strong cooperation with the local military of each country. It notes that NATO is also generous in financing the local clusters.
One of the liberated papers of the Initiative is a talking points memo labeled Top 3 Deliverable for FCO (pdf):
- Developing and proving the cluster concept and methodology, setting up clusters in a range of countries with different circumstances
- Making people (in Government, think tanks, military, journalists) see the big picture, making people acknowledge that we are under concerted, deliberate hybrid attack by Russia
- Increasing the speed of response, mobilising the network to activism in pursuit of the "golden minute"
Under top 1, setting up clusters, a subitem reads:
- Connects media with academia with policy makers with practitioners in a country to impact on policy and society: ( Jelena Milic silencing pro-kremlin voices on Serbian TV )Defending Democracy by silencing certain voices on public TV seems to be a self-contradicting concept.
Another subitem notes how the Initiative secretly influences foreign governments:
We engage only very discreetly with governments, based entirely on trusted personal contacts, specifically to ensure that they do not come to see our work as a problem, and to try to influence them gently, as befits an independent NGO operation like ours, viz;
- Germany, via the Zentrum Liberale Moderne to the Chancellor's Office and MOD
- Netherlands, via the HCSS to the MOD
- Poland and Romania, at desk level into their MFAs via their NATO Reps
- Spain, via special advisers, into the MOD and PM's office (NB this may change very soon with the new Government)
- Norway, via personal contacts into the MOD
- HQ NATO, via the Policy Planning Unit into the Sec Gen's office.
We have latent contacts into other governments which we will activate as needs be as the clusters develop.A look at the 'clusters' set up in U.S. and UK shows some prominent names.
biggerMembers of the Atlantic Council, which has a contract to censor Facebook posts , appear on several cluster lists. The UK core cluster also includes some prominent names like tax fraudster William Browder , the daft Atlantic Council shill Ben Nimmo and the neo-conservative Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum. One person of interest is Andrew Wood who handed the Steele 'dirty dossier' to Senator John McCain to smear Donald Trump over alleged relations with Russia. A separate subcluster of so-called journalists names Deborah Haynes, David Aaronovitch of the London Times, Neil Buckley from the FT and Jonathan Marcus of the BBC.
bigger - biggerA ' Cluster Roundup ' (pdf) from July 2018 details its activities in at least 35 countries. Another file reveals (pdf) the local partnering institutions and individuals involved in the programs.
The Initiatives Guide to Countering Russian Information (pdf) is a rather funny read. It lists the downing of flight MH 17 by a Ukranian BUK missile, the fake chemical incident in Khan Sheikhoun and the Skripal Affair as examples for "Russian disinformation". But at least two of these events, Khan Sheikun via the UK run White Helmets and the Skripal affair, are evidently products of British intelligence disinformation operations.
The probably most interesting papers of the whole stash is the 'Project Plan' laid out at pages 7-40 of the 2018 budget application v2 (pdf). Under 'Sustainability' it notes:
The programme is proposed to run until at least March 2019, to ensure that the clusters established in each country have sufficient time to take root, find funding, and demonstrate their effectiveness. FCO funding for Phase 2 will enable the activities to be expanded in scale, reach and scope. As clusters have established themselves, they have begun to access local sources of funding. But this is a slow process and harder in some countries than others. HQ NATO PDD [Public Diplomacy Division] has proved a reliable source of funding for national clusters. The ATA [Atlantic Treaty Association] promises to be the same, giving access to other pots of money within NATO and member nations. Funding from institutional and national governmental sources in the US has been delayed by internal disputes within the US government, but w.e.f. March 2018 that deadlock seems to have been resolved and funding should now flow.The programme has begun to create a critical mass of individuals from a cross society (think tanks, academia, politics, the media, government and the military) whose work is proving to be mutually reinforcing . Creating the network of networks has given each national group local coherence, credibility and reach, as well as good international access. Together, these conditions, plus the growing awareness within governments of the need for this work, should guarantee the continuity of the work under various auspices and in various forms.
The third part of the budget application (pdf) list the various activities, their output and outcome. The budget plan includes a section that describes 'Risks' to the initiative. These include hacking of the Initiatives IT as well as:
Adverse publicity generated by Russia or by supporters of Russia in target countries, or by political and interest groups affected by the work of the programme, aimed at discrediting the programme or its participants, or to create political embarrassment.We hope that this piece contributes to such embarrassment.
Posted by b on November 24, 2018 at 11:24 AM | Permalink
Comments Perfidious ALbion!
When will we learn?
pretzelattack , Nov 24, 2018 11:44:00 AM | link
Coincidentally, or not, i just saw this article at the guardian; https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/23/robert-mueller-profile-donald-trump-russia-investigation.Anya , Nov 24, 2018 11:57:00 AM | linkThe British government has been running a serious meddling into the US affairs:james , Nov 24, 2018 11:58:02 AM | link
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-11-23/mi6-scrambling-stop-trump-releasing-classified-docs-russia-probe"The UK's Secret Intelligence Service, otherwise known as MI6, has been scrambling to prevent President Trump from publishing classified materials linked to the Russian election meddling investigation. ... much of the espionage performed on the Trump campaign was conducted on UK soil throughout 2016."
A Steele & Skrupal's anti-Russian / anti-Trump saga: https://spectator.org/big-dots-do-they-connect/
"Gregory R. Copley, editor and publisher of Defense & Foreign Affairs, posited that Sergei Skripal is the unnamed Russian intelligence source in the Steele dossier. ... In Skripal's pseudo-country-gentleman retirement, the ex-GRU-MI6 double agent was selling custom-made "Russian intelligence"; he had fabricated "material" that went into the Steele dossier..."
For M16 to expose this level of stupidity is stunning.
thanks b....Ingrian , Nov 24, 2018 12:03:55 PM | linkthis movement in the west by gov'ts to pay for generating lies, hate and propaganda towards russia is really sick... it is perfect for the military industrial complex corporations though and they seem to be calling the shots in the west, much more so then the voice of the ordinary person who is not interested in war.. i guess the idea is to get the ordinary people to think in terms of hating another country based on lies and that this would be a good thing... it is very sad what uk / usa leadership in the past century has come down to here.... i can only hope that info releases like this will hasten it's demise...
Seems to me that this shows the primacy of the City of London, with its offshore network of illicit capital accumulation, within Britain. It is a state within a state or even a financial empire within a state, which, for deep historical reasons isn't subject to the same laws as the rest of the UK.james , Nov 24, 2018 12:15:31 PM | linkThe UK's pathological obsession with Russia only makes sense to me as the city's insistence on continued 90s style appropriation of Russia's wealth
@6 ingrian... things didn't go as planned for the expropriation of Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union.. it seems the west is still hurting from not being able to exploit Russia fully, as they'd intended...et Al , Nov 24, 2018 12:20:09 PM | linkForthestate , Nov 24, 2018 12:26:09 PM | linkLet the Doxx wars begin! Sure, Anonymous is not Russian but it will surely now be targeted and smeared as such which would show that it has hit a nerve. British hypocrisy publicly called out. How this all unravels is one to watch. Extra large popcorn and soda for me.
I think we've all noticed the euro-asslantic press (and friends) on behalf of, willingly and in cooperation with the British intelligence et al 'calling out' numerous Russians as G(R)U/spies/whatever for a while now yet providing less than a shred of credible evidence.
It seems to me that the UK has far more to lose from doxxing than Russia does. The interference in sovereign allied states to 'manage' who the UK thinks they should appoint does not bode well for such relations.
Meanwhile in Brussels they are having their cake and eating it, i.e. bemoaning Europe's 'weak response' to Russian propaganda:
BTW, did anyone read Wired UK's current advertorial (nov 14) by Carl Miller for Brigade 77?
"A separate subcluster of so-called journalists names Deborah Haynes, David Aaronovitch of the London Times and Neil Buckley from the FT." Subcluster. Love it. Just how crap do you have to be to fail to make it to membership of a full cluster of smear merchants?worldblee , Nov 24, 2018 12:33:05 PM | linkYet another example of the pot calling the kettle black when in fact the kettle may not be black at all; it's just the pot making up things. "These Russian criminals are using propaganda to show (truths) like the fact the DNC and Clinton campaigns colluded to prevent Sanders from being nominated, so we need to establish a clandestine propaganda network to establish that the Russians are running propaganda!"psychohistorian , Nov 24, 2018 12:34:32 PM | linkplantman , Nov 24, 2018 12:36:48 PM | link....full cluster of smear merchants". May all the clusters of smear merchants be exposed to the public as the acolytes of evil they are.
m , Nov 24, 2018 12:40:07 PM | link"In 2015 the government of Britain launched a secret operation to insert anti-Russia propaganda into the western media stream."I doubt very seriously that the British launched this operation without the CIA's implicit and explicit support. This has all the markings of a John Brennan operation that has been launched stealthily to prevent anyone from knowing its real origins.
The Brits don't act alone, and a project of this magnitude did not begin without Langley's explicit approval.
Now check out the wording in the above document: "Funding from institutional and national governmental sources in the US has been delayed by internal disputes within the US government, but w.e.f. March 2018 that deadlock seems to have been resolved and funding should now flow." Think about that. What would have blocked the flow of USG support for this project?? Why, the allegations of collusion against Trump, of course. Naturally, the Republicans are not going to provide money to an operation that threatens to destroy the head of their own party. So, there has been no bipartisan agreement on funding for anti-Russia propaganda
BUT...the author assures us that the "deadlock seems to have been resolved and funding should now flow" Huh?? In other words, the fix is in. Mueller will pardon Trump on collusion charges but the propaganda campaign against Russia will continue...with the full support of both parties. I could be wrong, but that's how I see it...
This mob was created in the autumn of 2015, according to their site. That would have been about the time -- probably just after -- the Russians intervened in Syria. The Brits had plans for an invasion of Syria in 2009, according to their fave Guardian fish wrap.Jackrabbit , Nov 24, 2018 12:40:58 PM | linkA lot of sour grapes with this so-called 'integrity initiative', IMO. BP was behind a lot of this, I would also think. When Assad pulled the plug on the pipeline through the Levant in 2009, the Brits hacked up a fur ball. It's gone downhill for them ever since. Couldn't happen to a nicer lot. If you can't invade or beat them with proxies, you can at least call them names.
AnyaCyril , Nov 24, 2018 1:10:13 PM | linkPat Lang posted a report that strongly implies that charges of Russian influence on Trump are a deliberate falsification: THE CHIMERA OF DONALD TRUMP, RUSSIAN MONEY LAUNDERER :
If Trump was taking dirty money or engaged in criminal activity with Russians then he was doing it with Felix Sater, who was under the control of the FBI... And who was in charge of the FBI during all of the time that Sater was a signed up FBI snitch? You got it -- Robert Mueller (2001 thru 2013) ...It seems quite possible that what is alleged as "Russian meddling" is actually CIA-MI6 meddling, including:
Steele dossier: To create suspicion in government, media, and later the publicAs I have said before, MAGA is a POLICY RESPONSE to the challenge from Russia and China. The election of a Republican faux populist was necessary and Trump, despite his many flaws, was the best candidate for the job.Leaking of DNC emails to Wikileaks (but calling it a "hack"): To help with election of Trump and link Wikileaks (as agent) to Russian election meddling
Cambridge Analytica: To provide necessary reasoning for Trump's (certain) win of the electoral college.
Note: We later found that dozens of firms had undue access to Facebook data. Why did the campaign turn to a British firm instead of an American firm? Well, it had to be a British firm if MI6 was running the (supposed) Facebook targeting for CIA.
The Integrity Initiative's goal is to defend democracy against the truth about Russia. All this is so Orwellian. When will we get the Ministry of Love?Russ , Nov 24, 2018 1:16:21 PM | linkPosted by: james | Nov 24, 2018 12:15:31 PM | 7GeorgeV , Nov 24, 2018 1:34:08 PM | link"things didn't go as planned for the expropriation of russia after the fall of the soviet union.. it seems the west is still hurting from not being able to exploit russia fully, as they'd intended..."
They shot at an elephant and failed to kill it. So yes, out of the combo of frustration, resentment, and fear they hate the resurgent Russia and prefer Cold War II, and if necessary WWIII, to peaceful co-existence. Of course the usual corporate imperative (in this case weapons profiteering) reinforces the mass psychological pathology among the elites.
The ironic thing is that Putin doesn't prefer to challenge the neoliberal globalist "order" at all, but would happily see Russia take a prominent place within it. It's the US and its UK poodle who are insisting on confrontation.
Great article! It reminded me of what I read in George Orwell's novella "1984." He summed it all up brilliantly in nine words: "War is Peace"; "Freedom is Slavery"; "Ignorance is Strength." The three pillars of political power.Sasha , Nov 24, 2018 1:38:39 PM | linkSince UK has always blocked the "European Intelligence" initiative, on the basis of his pertenence to the "Five Eyes", and as UK is leaving the European Union, where it has always been the Troyan Horse of the US, one would think that all these people belonging to the so called "clusters" should register themselves as "foreign agents" working for UK government...and in this context, new empowerished sovereign governemts into the EU should consider the possibility expelling these traitors as spies of the UK....Zanon , Nov 24, 2018 2:12:45 PM | linkhttp://www.voltairenet.org/article204051.html
Some of the "clusters" unmasked here....some, like Ignacio Torreblanca in Spain, are related to the CFR....
https://www.rt.com/news/444737-uk-funded-campaign-russia-leaks/
Country list of agents of influence according to the leak:Zanon , Nov 24, 2018 2:13:28 PM | link
- Germany: Harold Elletson ,Klaus NaumannWolf-Ruediger Bengs, Ex Amb Killian, Gebhardt v Moltke, Roland Freudenstein, Hubertus Hoffmann, Bertil Wenger, Beate Wedekind, Klaus Wittmann, Florian Schmidt, Norris v Schirach
- Sweden, Norway, Finland: Martin Kragh , Jardar Ostbo, Chris Prebensen, Kate Hansen Bundt, Tor Bukkvoll, Henning-Andre Sogaard, Kristen Ven Bruusgard, Henrik O Breitenbauch, Niels Poulsen, Jeppe Plenge, Claus Mathiesen, Katri Pynnoniemi, Ian Robertson, Pauli Jarvenpaa, Andras Racz
- Netherlands: Dr Sijbren de Jong, Ida Eklund-Lindwall, Yevhen Fedchenko, Rianne Siebenga, Jerry Sullivan, Hunter B Treseder, Chris Quick
cresty , Nov 24, 2018 2:18:30 PM | link
- Spain: Nico de Pedro, Ricardo Blanco Tarno, Eduardo Serra Rexach, Dionisio Urteaga Todo, Dimitri Barua, Fernando Valenzuela Marzo, Marta Garcia, Abraham Sanz, Fernando Maura, Jose Ignacio Sanchez Amor, Jesus Ramon-Laca Clausen, Frances Ghiles, Carmen Claudin, Nika Prislan, Luis Simon, Charles Powell, Mira Milosevich, Daniel Iriarte, Anna Bosch, Mira Milosevich-Juaristi, Tito, Frances Ghiles, Borja Lasheras, Jordi Bacaria, Alvaro Imbernon-Sainz, Nacho Samor
- US, Canada: Mary Ellen Connell, Anders Aslund, Elizabeth Braw, Paul Goble, David Ziegler Evelyn Farkas, Glen Howard, Stephen Blank, Ian Brzezinski, Thomas Mahnken, John Nevado, Robert Nurick, Jeff McCausland Todd Leventhal
- UK: Chris Donnelly Amalyah Hart William Browder John Ardis Roderick Collins, Patrick Mileham Deborah Haynes Dan Lafayeedney Chris Hernon Mungo Melvin Rob Dover Julian Moore Agnes Josa David Aaronovitch Stephen Dalziel Raheem Shapi Ben Nimmo Robert Hall Alexander Hoare Steve Jermy Dominic Kennedy Victor Madeira Ed Lucas Dr David Ryall Graham Geale Steve Tatham Natalie Nougayrede
Alan Riley prof.alan.riley@btinternet.com Anne Applebaum Neil Logan Brown James Wilson Primavera Quantrill Bruce Jones David Clark Charles Dick Ahmed Dassu Sir Adam Thompson Lorna Fitzsimons Neil Buckley Richard Titley Euan Grant Alastair Aitken Yusuf Desai Bobo Lo Duncan Allen Chris Bell Peter Mason John Lough Catherine Crozier Robin Ashcroft Johanna Moehring Vadim Kleiner David Fields Alistair Wood Ben Robinson Drew Foxall Alex Finnen Orsyia Lutsevych Charlie Hatton Vladimir Ashurkov Giles Harris Ben Bradshaw Chris Scheurweghs James Nixey Charlie Hornick Baiba Braze J Lindley-French Craig Oliphant Paul Kitching Nick Childs Celia Szusterman James Sherr Alan Parfitt Alzbeta Chmelarova Keir Giles Andy Pryce Zach Harkenrider Kadri Liik Arron Rahaman David Nicholas Igor Sutyagin Rob Sandford Maya Parmar Andrew Wood Richard Slack Ellie Scarnell Nick Smith Asta Skaigiryte Ian Bond Joanna Szostek Gintaras Stonys Nina Jancowicz Nick Washer Ian Williams Joe Green Carl Miller Adrian Bradshaw Clement Daudy Jeremy Blackham Gabriel Daudy Andrew Lucy Stafford Diane Allen Alexandros Papaioannou Paddy NicollThank you very much for going through all the files, b. Will share far and wide
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Nov 24, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org
In 2015 the government of Britain launched a secret operation to insert anti-Russia propaganda into the western media stream.
We have already seen many consequences of this and similar programs which are designed to smear anyone who does not follow the anti-Russian government lines. The 'Russian collusion' smear campaign against Donald Trump based on the Steele dossier was also a largely British operation but seems to be part of a different project.
The ' Integrity Initiative ' builds 'cluster' or contact groups of trusted journalists, military personal, academics and lobbyists within foreign countries. These people get alerts via social media to take action when the British center perceives a need.
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Nov 24, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org
Now we know who financial Steele dossier and created Skripal affair ;-) Perfidious Albion: or yet another example of the pot calling the kettle black when in fact the kettle may not be black at all; it's just the pot making up things
In 2015 the government of Britain launched a secret operation to insert anti-Russia propaganda into the western media stream.
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Nov 23, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org
JCS , Nov 22, 2018 7:39:50 PM | link
After Tulsi Gabbards tweet yesterday there has been a ton of old anti-Tulsi propaganda that was originally created to discredit her support of Bernie being promoted all over the place. Those lies are being aggressively promoted by neocons in both parties and helped along by supposed progressives and patriots who either ignorantly or maliciously spread the same lies and sophistry. Can you help fight against that? Here is what she is up against, these two articles detail all the lies (compared to the facts) that the neocons and the dumb progressives who don't bother to check facts are spreading around -- it would be great if you can help get the word out about this organized slander campaign due to fear of Tulsi gaining higher office and ending wars:
https://medium.com/@na_rup/exposing-lies-in-zaid-jilanis-article-on-tulsi-gabbard-cdb0e1589e6c
https://medium.com/@na_rup/tulsi-gabbard-is-our-friend-2c46617c6ba3
mauisurfer , Nov 22, 2018 11:03:20 PM | link
DebsiRuss , Nov 23, 2018 3:04:41 AM | link
You don't know anything about Tulsi Gabbard.
She has been the most active anti war member of congress.
She even visited Syria and talked with Assad.
She has been tutored by Kucinich, and Kucinich's adviser on foreign affairs has been William R Polk.
I suggest you do some homework, read some selections on Polk's home page, also review Kucinich's long term positions on war and peace.
Re GabbardCirce , Nov 23, 2018 9:51:57 AM | linkIt's clear that we'll never be free of Dembot relapsing. That's how terminal addicts are. At any given time the great majority of the fake "radicals" who go around claiming to despise the Democrat Party are really just secretly yearning for the next fraudulent "progressive" Democrat hero to come along and sweep them off their feet and back into the Dembot fold.
Kucinich, Obama, Warren, Hillary sheepdog extraordinaire Sanders, "AOC" (who just got done telling the Dembot version of climate activists, "Let's get behind Pelosi!"), Gabbard, many more whose names I've forgotten.
I've never understood the unbreakable infatuation with the Democrats, other than the clear fact that support for them isn't political at all, but a type of celebrity fandom.
Any actual sentient political person knows that the historical record of the Democrats is one long unbroken scam, that the "celebrity progressive hero" meme is invariably a fraud, and that this will never change for as long as the Democrat Party and its partisans exist.
Of course we already see Dembots everywhere crowing that the House majority is going to do "real things", and without missing a beat their showcase promise is: "We're going to make Trump release his tax forms!" I.e. the exact kind of worthless theater which does nothing to help anyone real, the exact kind of misdirection scam in which the Democrats specialize.
The same goes for worthless tweets. BTW did Gabbard also give tweets condemning the Zionist state? I'm betting no. Just like "AOC" backpedalled as fast as she could from her pro-Palestinian comments. She even told an interviewer "I really don't know what I'm talking about there." (Not an exact quote, but the gist.)
@58donkeytale , Nov 23, 2018 10:00:04 AM | linkThere is no peace with Israel! The fallacy of that statement on Israel dismantles your argument. Just state that there is self-interest or self-preservation involved if Putin sells out Iran to that stinking shithole Zionist entity. Iran fought side by side with Russia and is an invited presence in Syria and a counter-weight to Zionist U.S. presence in Syria and surrounding Zionist U.S. bases.
With all the Zionist Russian oligarchs breathing down Putin's neck in Russia, and the demented Zionist state having a large percentage of Russian immigrants, Putin kowtows to Zionism like everyone else. Yes, Putin is using Syria to get leverage over the U.S./Nato axis, but Israel is tied to his self-preservation, so he'll drop Iran in a minute for that reason, but don't say it's for the sake of peace when Israel has its sights on Iran as the next target of the Empire. It's totally disingenuous to use peace and Israel in the same sentence.
Next, @57 regarding the Gabbard tussle debs and others are having here: it's all moot since she offended compassionate Democrat sensibilities by meeting with Assad. Don't mention her name on Democratic sites; they can't stand her and you'll be excoriated for bringing her up. So she'll never be the nominee anyway. Now, I don't think either that it's necessary to even bring up the indigenous in Hawaii considering what was also done to native Americans on the mainland.
There's something else that disqualifies her. I used to trust and be gung-ho on Tulsi because of her association with Kucinich, but she lost my respect entirely after she started rubbing shoulders with this Zionist slime:
I couldn't be bothered getting the picture on it's own so don't blame me for the comments that surround it. Regardless, I no longer trust Gabbard because of her toxic Zionist associates.
Sadly (or laughably, if you are in a jolly mood), Russ and Debisdead, and their handful of likeminded others who daily gather about the ultraleft internet world (such as it is) will never change their tune in the face of all evidence pointing to their invective (they term this "critical education") adding up to nothing except furtherance of rightwing oppression currently sweeping the world.Grieved , Nov 23, 2018 10:25:55 AM | linkThey offer nothing to motivate people other than the rejection of mainstream political movements of the center-left which are already organised, in reactionary political parties to be sure, into the tens of millions in the US.
Large numbers will be required if Russ, debs and their relatively few peers ever in fact wake up from their blogging stupors (extremely doubtful, imho, based on evidence of the prior 10-15 years) and become a vanguard of the movement to topple and replace the liberal democratic system with a fair system for all the people.
Lenin already nailed Russ, debs (and their few peers) to the wall way back in 1920:
Is parliamentarianism "politically obsolete"? That is quite a different matter. If that were true, the position of the "Lefts" would be a strong one. But it has to be proved by a most searching analysis, and the "Lefts" do not even know how to approach the matter.Regarding Tulsi Gabbard.Russ , Nov 23, 2018 10:31:18 AM | linkIn the last open thread I advanced the notion that humans are much more changeable than we tend to assume, or that our institutions plan on. I could back this claim with substantial collateral but I'll skip that here.
In my view, when we group Gabbard in with corrupt politicians, we do the greatest disservice to our own understanding of how corruption works. We also give in and surrender to evil, sooner than we should. So we should beware of this kind of thinking, both from an honorable place of not maligning a person who may not yet have earned it, and also from a strategic view of not giving into defeatism.
What really matters about the Gabbard situation is the history of other people and institutions that once were on our side and stood as our heroes, and who now seem compromised, corrupted, silenced or destroyed. There are powerful forces at play that can turn the good to the bad. These are the forces that we should be intent on identifying, in my opinion.
An overarching cynicism will only weary us, and the struggle is still alive. Cynicism is the cousin of defeatism and premature surrender. It's a position encouraged by the enemy, because it appears strong while it is actually weak. It's one of the tools that tame - the greatest of course being the one that divides us against each other, while the enemy rules.
What will be useful to watch with Gabbard will be what forces come to work on her, and how long she can remain true to her indigenous spiritual strength, if indeed she has not already caved in (I haven't studied the situation).
Sooner or later someone or some ones must appear who can remain true to the welfare of the people, and survive all the forces that work to subvert that. Our sitting around hoping for real change, however, is not going to get it done. Nor is falsely identifying as true those who are already corrupted, or conversely, labeling as lost those who might still have some truth in them. Understanding in precise detail and calling out and shedding light on these forces of subversion, might just help, however.
Grieved 71,Grieved , Nov 23, 2018 10:40:11 AM | linkFact is, if we took your comment and replaced "Gabbard" with "Obama", we could pretty much transpose it verbatim to 2008-09 and it would fit right in with what the Obamabots were saying.
I agree, cynicism is pernicious, and I can't imagine anything more cynical than continued special pleading on behalf of the Democrats, after all they've proven throughout their perfidious history.
@72 RussCirce , Nov 23, 2018 11:09:16 AM | linkMaybe. But I think for Obama this would fall under "falsely identifying as true someone who was already corrupted". What I get from people who have studied Gabbard is that she hasn't yet fallen, and - conceivably - may not fall.
If Tulsi Gabbard weren't corrupted, she would stay away from the Adelsons no matter what cause they're peddling that she might share. The Adelsons are kryptonite for trust! She should know that! She should know better! Find some other financier for your cause, lady!Now, to russ's point. Yes, it's good to get people to focus on another option besides the Dems (hopefully you don't mean the Republicans who are part of the same duopoly syndicate). However, the problem is that in a non-democracy with two Zionist-owned parties monopolizing the mass demographic, just how do you intend that third option to win?
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Nov 23, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
Kunstler Exposes "The Core Truth" Of The 2016 Russia Collusion Story
by Tyler Durden Fri, 11/23/2018 - 15:25 23 SHARES Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com, Holiday Doings And Undoings
Somehow I doubt that this Christmas will win the Bing Crosby star of approval. Rather, we see the financial markets breaking under the strain of sustained institutionalized fraud, and the social fabric tearing from persistent systemic political dishonesty. It adds up to a nation that can't navigate through reality, a nation too dependent on sure things, safe spaces, and happy outcomes. Every few decades a message comes from the Universe that faking it is not good enough.
The main message from the financials is that the global debt barge has run aground, and with it, the global economy. That mighty engine has been chugging along on promises-to-pay and now the faith that sustained those promises is dissolving. China, Euroland, and the USA can't possibly meet their tangled obligations, and are running out of tricks for rigging, gaming, and jacking the bond markets, where all those promises are vested. It boils down to a whole lot of people not getting paid, one way or the other -- and it's really bad for business.
Our President has taken full credit for the bubblicious markets, of course, and will be Hooverized as they gurgle around the drain. Given his chimerical personality, he may try to put on an FDR mask -- perhaps even sit in a wheelchair -- and try a few grand-scale policy tricks to escape the vortex. But the net effect will surely be to make matters worse -- for instance, if he can hector the Federal Reserve to buy every bond that isn't nailed to some deadly derivative booby-trap. But then he'll only succeed in crashing the dollar. Remember, there are two main ways you can go broke: You can run out of money; or you can have plenty of worthless money.
On the social and political scene, I sense that some things have run their course. Is a critical mass of supposedly educated people not fatigued and nauseated by the regime of "social justice" good-think, and the massive mendacity it stands for , starting with the idea that "diversity and inclusion" require the shut-down of free speech. The obvious hypocrisies and violations of reason emanating from the campuses -- a lot, but not all of it, in response to the Golden Golem of Greatness -- have made enough smart people stupid to endanger the country's political future. A lot of these formerly-non-stupid people work in the news media. It's not too late for some institutions like The New York Times and CNN to change out their editors and producers, and go back to reporting the reality-du-jour instead of functioning as agit-prop mills for every unsound idea ginned through the Yale humanities departments.
Shoehorned into the festivity of the season is the lame-duck session in congress, and one of the main events it portends is the end of Robert Mueller's Russia investigation. The Sphinx-like Mueller has maintained supernatural silence about his tendings and intentions. But if he'd uncovered anything substantial in the way of "collusion" between Mr. Trump and Russia, the public would know by now, since it would represent a signal threat to national security. So it's hard not to conclude that he has nothing except a few Mickey Mouse "process" convictions for lying to the FBI. On the other hand, it's quite impossible to imagine him ignoring the well-documented evidence trail of Hillary Clinton colluding with Russians to influence the 2016 contest against Mr. Trump -- and to defame him after he won. There's also the Hieronymus Bosch panorama of criminal mischief around the racketeering scheme known as the Clinton Foundation to consider. Do these venal characters get a pass on all that?
Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) has announced plans to call Federal Attorney John Huber (Utah District) to testify about his assignment to look into these Clinton matters. It's a little hard to see how that might produce any enlightenment, since prosecutors are bound by law to not blab about currently open cases. The committee has also subpoenaed former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, former FBI Director James Comey, and others who have some serious 'splainin' to do. But if both Huber and Mueller come up empty-handed on the Clintons it will be one of the epic marvels of official bad faith in US history.
There is a core truth to the 2016 Russia collusion story, and the Clintons are at the heart of it. Failure to even look will have very dark consequences for the public interest.
XWeatherman , 40 seconds ago link
Hapa , 5 minutes ago linkIt ought to be obvious to just about everyone who is paying attention and not a Corporate-Whore Democrat that the "The Russians Did It" delusion and the accompanying Mueller "investigation" is only a distraction to draw attention away from the obvious and numerous crimeS of H. Clinton, including running an electronic drop-box for U.S. state secrets using a server in her basement, charity fraud, pay-to-play bribe-taking, the uranium to Russia case, etc. And, that's not counting the inexcusable Unprovoked War of Aggression WAR CRIME against Libya. (Of course, she had an excuse: "Destroy a country in order to save a few "protesters".
Mueller is the Deep State (Corporations [especially Military Industrial Complex Death-Merchants, who direct the politicians and foreign policy actions (continual War-For-Humongous-Profits that has taken and takes multiple trillions of dollars away from potential domestic programs & Wall Street bankster-fraudsters who bankrupted the country with the lead-up to and aftermath of the 2008-2009 financial fiasco and who sent U.S. industrial production jobs to other countries] and Oligarchs who reap the profits of such crimes and their results) operative who apparently was brought in the head the FBI to fail to prevent and to coverup the real actors and actions that occurred in association with the downing of buildings at the New York City World Trade center on 9/11.
SantaClaws , 6 minutes ago linkSorry, nobodies going to jail and all will be swept under the rug. We will have war to cover their tracks along with all the other frauds. The political buddy buddy system at the upper levels is set up to protect the guilty, and nobody has to pay the price lest the whole thing crumble. It's built that way.
Our only way out is a crash and a reset, with no guarantee what happens on the other side.
I used to be optimistic, but the level of lies, double speak and university factories pumping out marxist leftists portends a bleak future. How anyone thinks we can reason our way out of this situation is fooling themselves about human nature.
VWAndy , 7 minutes ago linkNice to see Kunstler focusing on some serious issues like the Uranium One scandal for a change. He seems to be on the concluding end of a cold-turkey or other rehab from some long-term unholy influence. As a result, he has been producing increasingly readable articles for the past several months. Congratulations are due him but with the warning that recovery is always one day at a time.
He–Mene Mox Mox , 14 minutes ago linkDid the Clintons go on a world tour like some kinda rockstars selling us all out?
An nobody said ****!
MarsInScorpio , 1 minute ago link" Remember, there are two main ways you can go broke: You can run out of money; or you can have plenty of worthless money". Both pretty much sums up America's predicament. Americans are deep in debt, and their money is worthless.
navy62802 , 34 minutes ago linkOK.let's try this for speculative prediction:
Mueller isn't going to touch the Clintons - they have way too much criminal dirt on him. And Huber is an unknown lightweight with no Malicious Seditious Media support.
Sooooo . . . there is only one thing to do once the new Congress takes its oath: Trump gets DOJ Acting AG to appoint the long-awaited Special Prosecutor.
There are more than enough recognized felonies to go after - unlike the Mueller fishing expedition. That will put the Democrat investigation on ice - mainly because lots of Demo chairs and members will be part of the investigation.
"Yes Virginia, Hillary is going to prison . . .:"
The Merovingian , 34 minutes ago linkAny serious investigation of the Clinton Foundation would reveal that "Russian Collusion" has everything to do with distraction from the crimes of the Clinton family. The fact that Bill and Hillary have escaped accountability for their heinous crimes is one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in US history. It is truly quite frightening.
There is a reason why the DOJ, Congress (both parties), MSM, the MIC, the Deep State don't want ANYONE to look into corruption ... because they are ALL ******* guilty as sin and buried neck deep in ****. Its long past time for the whole ******* thing to come down. We're all fucked.
Jim in MN , 13 minutes ago link
Weiner laptop For The Win. Give us that hard drive, Mr. President! We'll have it all analyzed in one weekend.
Meanwhile, Seth Rich awaits Mueller's OH SO DILIGENT investigation.
Can you believe that the 'core' of Mueller's 'case' ends up being about WIKILEAKS?
What the serious ****.
If he's done zero serious looks at Seth Rich all Mueller's work will just be thrown out of court anyway.
Ham sandwich my fat turkey-enriched ***.
For decades, it has been rumored that the Clintons have FBI files on most members of Congress and use these files for blackmail purposes. Given the events of the past few years, I actually believe this rumor to be grounded in truth.
chippers , 40 minutes ago linkchunga , 12 minutes ago linkThis guy is dreaming if he thinks anything is going to happen to the clintons, the MSM/DOJ is protected those 2 scumbags with the line that if they are investigated trump is going after his political opponents, just like a banana republic. But truthfully nothing reaks more of banana repubicism more then letting the high and mighty of on crimes.
Bricker , 41 minutes ago linkI'd like to give a shout out to the "opposition" red team that has sat by and done nothing for more than 30 years.
And for you dopes in Rio Linda, that doesn't mean I'd rather have Honest Hill'rey, for crying out loud.
pissonmefico , 19 minutes ago linkTheres only one truth...Hillary and Co (CIA) colluded to bring down Trump and Trump kicked the **** out of her.
If we had a true republic, Hillary, Holder, Lynch, Obama, Clapper, Brennan, Lerner would all be under indictment. I mean the ******* list is long
navy62802 , 28 minutes ago linkIf they weren't all on the same side, that of the international bankster cabal, Trump would order his justice department to prosecute those people you mentioned.
The purpose of the Russia investigation is to fool you into thinking there are two sides, and to demonized Russia to create public opinion in favor of attacking Russia because it is not on board with the jwo totalitarian world government. WTFU.
Teamtc321 , 24 minutes ago linkFor decades, it has been rumored that the Clintons have FBI files on most members of Congress and use these files for blackmail purposes. Given the events of the past few years, I actually believe this rumor to be grounded in truth.
Mueller long ago gave up the fruitless hunt for Russian collusion involving President Trump and is now desperately seeking overdue library books or unpaid parking tickets on anyone remotely connected to President Trump to justify his mooching taxpayer dollars.
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Nov 22, 2018 | www.unz.com
We are now at year 55 since the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963. This defining event of the Baby Boomer generation still looms large over the American nation, ever finding new ways to stay relevant to contemporary events.
There have been two significant developments during the Trump presidency. First was Trump's tweet in October 2017 saying that he would declassify all the remaining JFK files that the government is still withholding. I and many others who are interested in the JFK investigation were hopeful that this would happen, as I wrote in March of that year. While Trump's supporters cheered and took it as further confirmation of Trump's anti-establishment bona fides, the claim unfortunately turned out to be false. More than 15,000 records remain withheld, including some of the most important records that researchers have been waiting for, such as those on CIA man George Joannides.
Joannides, a mysterious figure whose identity was only discovered in the late 1990s, oversaw the agency's relationship with a Cuban exile group that Lee Harvey Oswald was in contact with, and was then brought out of retirement in the 1970s in order to oversee the CIA's relationship with the Congressional committee that had re-opened the JFK investigation. The Congressional investigators were led to believe that Joannides was just a regular CIA employee with no relation to the events in question. When House Select Committee on Assassinations chairman Robert Blakey finally found out, decades later, who Joannides really was, he admitted (to his credit) that he was wrong to think that the CIA had cooperated with his investigation, and that he should have believed his investigators like Gaeton Fonzi and Edward Lopez, who knew that the Agency was deceiving them, and tried to say so.
So we're still waiting for all the JFK files, and President Trump has not pushed the CIA to disclose them. But with a tweet and a subsequent release of some previously classified material, most people have been convinced otherwise. Ask the average Trump supporter whether or not Trump released all the JFK files and they will likely say that he has. This is because most of Trump's supporters, even otherwise intelligent and skeptical people, are strongly inclined to believe most everything that he says, (must be that master level persuasion) the same way that his detractors foolishly believe every negative story that the fake news media reports about him, including the conspiracy theory that Russia "hacked" the 2016 election.
(One important finding – to my knowledge totally unreported in any mainstream source – is that the stolen DNC emails were transferred at a speed far too fast to have been done by outside hacking , whether by Russians across the sea or teenagers down the block. Instead they must have been transferred onto a USB, by someone inside the DNC. Gee, I wonder who that could have been.)
But the biggest new story in the long tale of the JFK assassination and its cover-up is the emergence of Q.
With an ongoing series of posts on anonymous message boards known for being pro-Trump stomping grounds, Q – whoever he is or they are – has created a grand conspiracy theory on par with that of Milton William Cooper's Behold a Pale Horse , or Chris Carter's X-Files narrative (which I've always thought used material from Cooper).
The Q story holds that since President Kennedy's assassination, if not before, the United States has been under the control of a shadowy entity which Q followers call "Cabal." Within Cabal are all the bad guys of all the great conspiracy theories of the past hundred years, and more – the CIA, the Masons, the mafia, the black nobility, the Vatican, and even aliens. And they not only engineer almost every significant event that happens in the political and social landscape, from elections to blockbuster movies to false flag shootings, but they also commit the most heinous and unspeakable crimes, for the strangest of ritual and metaphysical reasons, that you can imagine.
Q says that Donald Trump was asked to run for the Presidency by a team of military generals and other assorted true patriots who have slowly and patiently coalesced behind the scenes, waiting for the right time to strike back against Cabal. Q says that President Trump and the Q team say a prayer to the departed spirit of JFK each and every day in the White House, to steel them for the battle against Cabal. Q says that John F. Kennedy Jr. was a close friend of Donald Trump, and either was killed by the Clintons to ensure Hillary's Senate seat, or faked his own death and is still alive, helping Trump and Team Q fight Cabal behind the scenes. Some believe he might even be Q himself.
What a great story! Where is Chris Carter to turn this into a tv show? (Arkhaven Comics is already turning it into a comic book .) But then, times have changed, and one could argue that there is no need to turn it into a show, because it is already a show that we are watching in real time and following on social media. This would make Jean Baudrillard's head explode, if he were still alive.
One of the remarkable things about the Q phenomenon is how it has reversed some of the beliefs and values that have long been held by conspiracy theorists. For example, ever since investigators during the Iran-Contra scandal found out about the REX-84 plan to suspend the Constitution and declare martial law in the event of a national emergency, people have worried that someday the government is going to round up all the patriots and stick them in a FEMA camp somewhere. (See the aforementioned William Cooper book for a typical presentation of this.) But now, with Q talking about military tribunals for the members of Cabal, many of the same people are applauding the idea of doing away with due process and Constitutional rights for those accused of a crime.
Q supporters often point to the bizarre exchange between Lindsey Graham and Brett Kavanaugh during the latter's confirmation hearings. Graham made a point of establishing the legitimacy of such tribunals during times of war, noting that the United States has technically been at war since 9-11. This is seen as further evidence that Graham and Kavanaugh are both on Team Q and gearing up for "The Storm." Apparently Graham's years of shilling for the neocons' war agenda are just water under the bridge now.
Kavanaugh likewise has been hailed by Trump and Q supporters as another fighter in the battle against Cabal. I'm inclined to believe that the sexual assault charges against Kavanaugh were false, especially because Blasey Ford's testimony was so obviously constructed for maximum emotional effect and minimal legal accountability for perjury. (I'm also inclined to believe that Kavanaugh's innocuous explanations of the various terms in his yearbook were bullshit. The only thing teenage boys like more than beer is sex.) But much more important than any of that is the fact that Kavanaugh is alleged to have helped cover up the likely murder of Vince Foster when he worked for Ken Starr's investigation of Bill Clinton in the 1990s. A witness in the Foster case, Patrick Knowlton, recently recounted his experience with Kavanaugh during that investigation on Ed Opperman's podcast . So how does Kavanaugh go from covering for the Clintons to being on team Lock-Her-Up?
Then there is the last case that Kavanaugh presided over before his appointment to the Supreme Court by President Trump. That was the case of Morley vs. CIA , which was brought about by journalist Jefferson Morley, who discovered the identity of the aforementioned George Joannides back in the 1990s. Ever since that time, he has been fighting the CIA in court to try to get the records on Joannides, so that historians and researchers can try to piece together his role in the events surrounding Lee Harvey Oswald and the JFK assassination. In a 2-1 decision, Kavanaugh sided with the CIA against Morley in deciding that, when a litigant successfully sues the government for records through the Freedom of Information Act, the government is not liable to pay their legal costs. This "incentivizes the CIA and other agencies to abuse FOIA and discourages investigative reporting," because whereas the government has virtually unlimited resources to fight, stall, and stonewall in court, the average citizen journalist or investigator does not.
I can't take a position on whether or not Q is "real," i.e. someone actually connected to the President, simply because I have no way of knowing. The "Q proofs" that supporters offer up are not proofs at all, but some of them do indeed seem to defy explanation. But what is more significant is that President Trump is clearly in on the game. And what is even more significant is that the mainstream media, while publishing article after article about how stupid the Q theory is and how dangerous the Q followers are, never acknowledge Trump's obvious acceptance of it, nor ask him to do anything about it.
The Q phenomenon could be killed in an instant, in a very simple way. All President Trump has to do is tweet: "Q is not real. It's not anyone connected to me." Boom. Done. But he hasn't done that, or anything like it, such as having a friendly journalist pitch the question to him. For whatever reason, he wants Q to continue. Why? And why is the media scared to ask him about it, especially if they're so sure that it's just a larp, but nonetheless oh so very dangerous?
At least some of the benefit for Trump is obvious. The Q narrative paints him as perhaps the greatest President in American history, selflessly devoted to battling evil in the name of truth, justice, and the American way. Just like how many people think of JFK. Except that, whereas JFK is supposed to have been killed by the military-industrial complex, we're now supposed to be rooting for the military-industrial complex as the good guys, fighting against the shadowy and nefarious Cabal. The plot has shifted from Seven Days in May to G.I. Joe vs. Cobra . Trump, JFK, and the Deep State: Part Q, by Jack Ravenwood - The Unz Review
I don't think that President Trump would continue to subtly encourage the Q phenomenon just for the ego boost, or for the few thousand extra votes it gets him. But I could be wrong – stranger things have happened in American politics.
We may yet learn the truth about who or what is behind Q. For those of us who believe that the prince of this world is the father of lies, it's not impossible to believe that there are rich and powerful people who are as evil as Q says they are. And it's difficult not to hope, in some part of your mind, that Trump really is what Q supporters believe him to be, and that The Storm really is going to round up all those "bad, bad people" that Trump called out during his campaign. But I'm not holding my breath, just like I'm not holding it waiting for the rest of those files.
I suspect, rather, that Q will disappear when the people behind him deem the time to be right, and no explanations will be forthcoming. Competing theories will emerge – it was a psyop, it was just an elaborate hoax, it was Trump himself, it really was JFK Jr.! – and researchers and historians will debate the minutiae, talking about how these pieces of evidence point to this conclusion, but these other pieces of evidence point to that conclusion. And the question of Who Was Q? will take its place alongside that other historical mystery that I'm sure I and others will still be writing and wondering about five, ten, twenty years from now, and beyond: Who Killed JFK?
JLK , says: November 21, 2018 at 7:19 pm GMT
Trump is probably no more motivated to expose deep state treasons from the past than Obama was to actually improve the lot of black people in America. They're both the political equivalent of pressure relief valves.Haxo Angmark , says: Website November 22, 2018 at 12:34 am GMTOf course, I hope I'm wrong.
Trump, JFK, and the Deep State: Part Q, by Jack Ravenwood - The Unz ReviewTrump is a complete fraud, and Q's purpose is to keep the idiots who voted for Trump thinking "any day now, any day any day now "
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Nov 21, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org
Russ , Nov 21, 2018 1:02:55 PM | link
Against the advise from his intelligence services U.S. President Trump decided to leave the effective Saudi ruler, clown prince Mohammad bin Salman, in place. That move is unlikely to help with his larger policy plans.Bruce Riedel, a (former) high level CIA analyst, long warned of betting on Mohammad bin Salman. Even before the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, Riedel wrote that Saudi Arabia is at its least stable in 50 years (also here ):
The stability of Saudi Arabia is becoming more fragile as the young crown prince's judgment and competence are increasingly in doubt. Mohammed bin Salman has a track record of impulsive and reckless decisions at home and abroad that calls into question the kingdom's future.Riedel warned that the Trump administration, by betting on Mohammad bin Salman, put everything on one dubious card. MbS is unstable and made himself many internal enemies. If King Salman suddenly dies there will probably be a leadership crisis . Saudi Arabia could end up in chaos. U.S. Middle East policy, largely build around MbS, would then fall apart.
The CIA disliked MbS since he replaced Mohammed bin Nayef as crown prince. MbN is a longtime U.S. asset with a proven record of cooperation. MbS came from nowhere and the CIA has no control over him. That he is indeed impulsive and reckless only adds to that. That the CIA feared that MbS meant trouble even before the Khashoggi disaster, explains why it sabotaged Trump's attempts to exculpate MbS over the murder of Khashoggi.
While Riedel was writing about the Saudi danger, Jamal Khashoggi, a longtime Saudi intelligence agent who had aligned himself with the wrong prince, went to Istanbul to build the public relation infrastructure for regime change in Saudi Arabia:
Jamal Khashoggi, a prolific writer and commentator, was working quietly with intellectuals, reformists and Islamists to launch a group called Democracy for the Arab World Now. He wanted to set up a media watch organization to keep track of press freedom.He also planned to launch an economic-focused website to translate international reports into Arabic to bring sobering realities to a population often hungry for real news, not propaganda.
Part of Khashoggi's approach was to include political Islamists in what he saw as democracy building.
...
Khashoggi had incorporated his democracy advocacy group, DAWN, in January in Delaware, said Khaled Saffuri, another friend. .. The project was expected to reach out to journalists and lobby for change, representing both Islamists and liberals, ...Khashoggi's projects were allegedly financed by Qatar but probably also had CIA support. MbS got wind thereof. He told his private office chief Bader Al Asaker to send his bodyguards to kill Khashoggi. They did so on October 2 in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. But it was a much too large and too complicate mission. They Saudi agents made too many mistakes. They also underestimated the Turkish intelligence service.
The Turks had bugged the Saudi consulate and have records of all phone calls. When they learned from Khashoggi's fiancee, a well connected daughter of a co-founder of Erdogan's AK Party, that Khashoggi was missing, they wound back the tapes and unraveled the story. The killers had made four phone calls to Al Asaker to report back. In one of the calls the mission leader told him : "Tell your boss" that "the deed was done." The Turkish president Erdogan was delighted to receive such a gift. It allowed him to cut his strategic competitor down to size.
The Saudis were too slow to recognize the danger. They came up with all sorts of unbelievable claims over what happened in their consulate. Trump sent Secretary of State Pompeo who told them to find a sufficiently high ranking scapegoat ...
XXX
Interesting times. Sounds like, for all of MbS's recklessness and all the regime's existential dependency on the US military, the Saudis aren't willing to place all their bets on one US pony but, like most of the rest of the world, are trying to diversify if not detach from the tottering US empire.
But I suspect the Saudi regime is too far committed on its prior US-dependent path to survive in any other way. They're going down too.
Never Mind the Bollocks , Nov 21, 2018 1:06:21 PM | link
Mystery solved: here's why the Western mainstream media suddenly 'discovered' the war in Yementhinkingmind111 , Nov 21, 2018 1:10:58 PM | linkTrump is openly and proudly accepting blood for money, so what? It's just business as usual for the US whom are running all and any of their global businesses and operations on that premise since decades. But Karma is a bitch and will haunt back, and we're getting closer to the day of reckoning while already witnessing the loss of power and influence of the US and their allied western powers and vassals.james , Nov 21, 2018 1:29:14 PM | linkThe close future will see China, Russia, India, Asia and Eurasia ruling the global affairs, and soon it's check mate concerning the new great chess game, e.g. game over for the US. The only remaining question: do we get there with or without an all-out nuclear war, because the US won't accept their loss of power? Time will tell ...
thanks b... good overview.... as we noted - the kashoggi murder is the gift that keeps on giving to erdogan and the cia...james , Nov 21, 2018 1:34:36 PM | linkfunny thing.. why is it that those who call for free and open elections in the middle east countries where the us/uk/west military industrial complex have murdered countless innocent people in iraq, libya, syria and now yemen - never complain about the absence of free and open elections in saudi arabia??? i know these same people are hypocritical liars.. what their real interests are is money off military sales and nothing more..
well, this is what the usa-uk and poodles have come down to... military arms sales... and they now have competition with russia who appears to make better weapons..
mbs is not going to last... he might hang in for another year, but i doubt much longer, if that.. meanwhile, trump is standing naked for all to see what his priorities are... make america great again, lol... yeah, right.. making the usa look like shit again is more like it..
here is a link to caitlin johnstone's comments on trumps response to the kashoggi murder...CasualObserver , Nov 21, 2018 1:53:54 PM | link Peter AU 1 , Nov 21, 2018 1:54:14 PM | linkTrump is essentially doing all of Israel's talking points... iran this and that, hezbollah, or hamas this and that.. . why can't the usa gets it's head out of israels ass?? they sure aren't busy getting their head out of the military industrial complex's ass either...
james , Nov 21, 2018 1:59:18 PM | link"The Turks had bugged the Saudi consulate and have records of all phone calls. When they learned from Khashoggi's fiancee, a well connected daughter of a co-founder of Erdogan's AK Party, that Khashoggi was missing, they wound back the tapes and unraveled the story."Turks bugged the embassy but only listen to the tapes after something happens .. unlikely.
With the animosity or competition between KSA and Turkey prior to the killing, it is more likely that KSA embassy calls were monitored in real time.
@6 ort.. here is the direct link!S , Nov 21, 2018 2:19:40 PM | link
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2018/11/21/nothing-in-any-conspiracy-theory-is-as-bad-as-whats-being-done-out-in-the-open/Risk-taker king + S-400/Bastion/GLONASS = switch from 100% dollar oil sales to something like 40% yuan, 30% euro, 30% dollar. Others follow suit, American manipulation of world economy lessens. I'll take it.steven t johnson , Nov 21, 2018 2:30:47 PM | linkthe pair , Nov 21, 2018 2:36:13 PM | link"When [the Turks] learned from Khashoggi's fiancee, a well connected daughter of a co-founder of Erdogan's AK Party, that Khashoggi was missing, they wound back the tapes and unraveled the story."This is ficion, as there is every likelihood the Turks knew perfectly well ahead of time that Kashoggi was walking into trouble. And it is very likely they had an agent on scene, part of the crime. As for the tapes, it is still unknown whether the real leverage in the tapes is what Kashoggi said.
The notion the CIA has sabotaged Trump with its assessment is wrong. If the CIA had given the tapes to Erdogan or is funding plots within KSA against MbS, that's sabotaging Trump's support. Nobody believed Trump before the assessment, and nobody believed Trump would change his mind for any reason whatsoever. The assessment just lets the CIA pretend to be competent and objective, rather than producing cooked intelligence in service of predetermined policy goals. The actual covert operations are under presidential control, and only presidential control. No deep state, much less Congress, has any say on those. That's why presidents like the CIA so much.
"Trump's priorities in the Middle East are: the 'deal of the century' for Israel, the forging of a united Arab front against Iran, weapon sales, cheap oil and minor issue like financing the U.S. occupation of Syria and ending the unsavory war on Yemen. Delivering on the deal of a century is not the priority, the promise is. United Arab front is not a priority because it's not needed. Most of all, stopping the war in Yemen is not.
always odd when the (relatively) "good guys" in a story are the CIA and their bloggers at the WaPo. but then they object to MbS for the same reason they are mortified by trump: his style and not his substance.Bart Hansen , Nov 21, 2018 3:24:26 PM | linkas for trump, he's always been a spoiled and petulant rich kid and that type only change course when it's "their idea".
on oil: it's been a pain in the ass for Iran and Russia to some degree but also here in Canada's Texas aka the oil sands. the usual ayn rand-reading "get rid a' the gubmint" rednecks are panicked and suddenly want said government to force production cuts in the sector. when it comes to iran, china and others have made it clear that they care as much about sanctions as the US does about climate and nuclear treaties. not hard to guess what russia and venezuela would like the saudis to do since they've both been suffering (probably intentional) pain from the petrol glut. russia has weathered it incredibly well but the timing for maduro and the chavism experiment couldn't be better with the usual pack of US-aligned wolves fomenting trouble in the continent.
nice thorough article as usual.
I see that the Magnitsky Act had been slapped on some KSA usual suspects several days ago. Has anyone asked Ben Cardin, godfather of the act, why MbS has escaped the same fate?peter , Nov 21, 2018 3:24:52 PM | link@12Clueless Joe , Nov 21, 2018 4:15:04 PM | linkOf course the CIA isn't trying to sabotage Trump. They just came to the same painfully obvious solution any other intelligence operation worth its salt arrived at.
Erdogan required no help from them. His people just connected the dots like everyone else. The CIA does not have to try and "appear" competent. Like 'em or hate 'em, they're as competent as hell.
Trump has chosen to wobble om MsM's culpability so he can pursue his tortured agenda throwing numbers about with abandon on the reams of cash that the Saudis will come supposedly up with whether it's imaginary arms deals or production numbers that will keep the price of oil low.
Nobody believes Trump. Nobody except his hardcore base and they will never change. If their faith remains solid after two years of total skullduggery, lies and ill-considered deals with batshit-crazy dictators then what could he possibly do or say that would change things now? They're like those lunatic Baptists that play with rattlesnakes during their services.
The US needs the KSA for a number of reasons and Trump has decided to forfeit any moral high ground or any appearance of sanity or reason to achieve his aims.
Well, MBS staying in charge for a bit longer is good news for many. Were he to be replaced, someone half-competent might take his place. With him at the helm, we're sure he's going to bumble and make a mess of his next endeavours, weakening the Saudis and being all around counter-productive to Saudi Arabia's long-term interests. Of course, his days are numbered, yet he can still do a lot of damage to the kingdom.karlof1 , Nov 21, 2018 4:37:40 PM | link
Is it too late for MbS to finally spit out the truth? "Khasshoggi was an Enemy of the Kingdom fomenting the mechanism for a coup, and I ordered him liquidated." IMO, that's less awkward than continuing the other charades, shuts-up Erdogan and wrong-foots his detractors. Now, I don't particularly care for MbS, but IMO he's no worse than Erdogan, Sisi, Trump, or May, all of whom are Capital Criminals. And I'd prefer to see someone independent of the CIA in charge of Saudi, although that's probably his only redeeming asset.dh-mtl , Nov 21, 2018 5:46:43 PM | linkPerhaps, MbS will send a body-double to G-20, and the CIA will crash his plane only to see MbS alive and well, taunting Haspel and Trump as he personally beheads arrested CIA assets.
'Keeping Bin Salman In Place Will Hurt Trump's Middle East Policies', but removing him will hurt Trump's mid-east policies even more.karlof1 , Nov 21, 2018 6:03:28 PM | linkIf he is removed, he will be replaced by a 'Globalist' puppet. The 'Globalists' will then use Saudi as an additional lever to try to drag Trump into a war with Russia, which so far Trump has desperately tried to avoid. I also don't think that MBS will go easily. The same fate as Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein is what awaits him. However, I think Trump is too weak to save MBS. Look for MBS to turn Saudi towards Russia to look for salvation.
Pepe Escobar reminds us of another issue at stake: Leadership of the Umma, which was Ottoman for centuries prior to the artificial elevation of Saudi by Ottoman's European rivals. Pepe smartly invokes Alastair Crooke's take that if Saudi was to lose that distinction, it "would strip the Gulf of much of its significance and value to Washington." Pepe:"The Erdogan machine has sensed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to simultaneously bury the House of Saud's shaky Islamic credibility while solidifying Turkish neo-Ottomanism, but with an Ikhwan framework."
Iran, Syria, Iraq, Qatar, Russia, and China all seem to be okay with that. IMO, most here will agree with Pepe's conclusion: "Expect major fireworks ahead."
VietnamVet , Nov 21, 2018 6:09:03 PM | link
Thanks. This clarifies the contradictions. The USA has only one Middle East ally left; Israel, which also influences American politics. With the main goal in life to make more money. Morality and decency have disappeared in the West. All that is left is a mercenary force illegally occupying Eastern Syria for a paltry 100 million dollars surrounded by professed enemies. Basically, MbS isn't delivering the cash the oligarchs want. He must go. This is highly unstable. Ignoring reality is a sure-fire way to ignite the prophesied Abrahamic Apocalypse.vk , Nov 21, 2018 6:15:53 PM | linkTrump is doing nothing out of the ordinary by a POTUS. If it was a Democrat POTUS in the same situation, it would also ultimately support Saudi Arabia (the NYT and WaPo would, obviously, be silent, but Fox News would propagate the scandal).Baron , Nov 21, 2018 6:24:03 PM | linkI stick to my hypothesis: Trump's only sin to the liberal eyes is that he erodes America's soft power among its First World allies. If you take out his image, he's a normal POTUS doing normal POTUS things.
(1) Nobody has yet figured that the Turks must have listened to what was going on in the Consulate if not before K's first visit then at least from the time K first stepped into the building, the Turks knew what was coming, could have waned K, but didn't. Does it not make them complicit in the murder?Pft , Nov 21, 2018 6:38:26 PM | link(2) MbS cannot be kicked out, the decision to promote him was made by the King for a reason, the old man thinks ahead, he sees the Republic losing its grip on things worldwide, he wants to make a move towards the coming powers of the East, Russia and China, hence the King's visit to Moscow last December. What did the King and Putin talk about?
(3) Bibi backs the King, the Israeli lobby in Washington will buy anyone opposing MbS, the atrocity will be swept under the carpet, the Donald will be OK the American unwashed don't give AF about the Saudis, most of them probably don't know where the country is.
Since when has US and Israel goals has been about stability in the region. Chaos makes waves and rock the boat to the delight of the baby in the cradle. Wheeee.Krollchem , Nov 21, 2018 6:47:31 PM | linkBesides, MBS may have went a bit rogue but the Khashoggi event, set up or what not, was meant to reign him in and show him who is boss. We have seen oil prices plummet since the Khashoggi event although that may be due to insider trading of those knowing Trump was backing off on Iran oil sanctions which accelerated after being announced in November
MBS is anti Iran and pro Israel. Trump is in Bibis pocket. More important MBS is a counter to Turkey and the Muslim Brotherhood. More conflicts in the region are desirable . He is also willing to bomb US civilian targets in Yemen so they can pretend to have no involvement, and as such will buy more weapons
The Event was probably also meant to get him to back off his investment efforts that would compete with US efforts to do the same, and to back off Russian and China military/economic cooperation.
If MBS gets the message and follows orders, he stays. If he doesn't and makes Lockheed Martin disappointed, he goes. Also that Saudi Aramco IPO has to happen before 2020. The list is long.
According to this report by Eric Zuesse the leader of the UAE had a part in cleaning up the consulate in Turkey:john mason , Nov 21, 2018 7:11:26 PM | link
http://theduran.com/turkish-newspaper-implicates-uaes-crown-prince-in-covering-up-murder-of-khashoggi/There is another angle to the Khashoggi killing and that is that the US or UK organized the killing to embarrass Trump and remove MBS.SteveK9 , Nov 21, 2018 7:25:54 PM | linkCan't see that the Saudis are that naive to believe that their Embassy wouldn't be under surveillance and the mention of "tell your boss...." is too convenient. One assumes that the boss is MBS but it could be anyone else also.
The problem with Trump's plan ... is Trump's plan. It makes no sense for the United States as a nation to destroy Iran. That is only for Israel-firsters. Perhaps their power is just too great for Trump to resist, but what would have worked well would have been rapprochement with Iran.karlof1 , Nov 21, 2018 7:53:45 PM | linkVery sagacious observation :Jen , Nov 21, 2018 7:56:13 PM | link"With regard to #SaudiArabia, as with #Israel, #US foreign policy is entrenched, it cannot change, nor adapt. It rather tries to change the politics in the region according to its rigid framework. There must be a breaking point to this approach and it might come under #Trump."
Trump's also about to forfeit what remaining influence he has with Lebanon as Magnier posits .
At least we won't need to wait long to see what happens next as the G-20 begins November 30--Will MbS undergo an assassination attempt before, during, after, or constantly if he does attempt to attend.
John Mason @ 28: Another possible angle is that while Jamal Khashoggi's killing is real enough, the narrative that the Turks are feeding out is being fabricated continuously, and in response to whatever the Saudis are doing to deny or excuse any possibility that the Crown Prince ordered it. The recordings being parceled out could be complete fakes or the original recording may have had other, fabricated recordings added to it.Ghost Ship , Nov 21, 2018 8:03:25 PM | linkI'm with Clueless Joe @ 16 and Karlof1 @ 17 in keeping MbS as Crown Prince: he is no more if no less sociopathic and vicious than the current crop of Western political leaders. If Gavin Williamson and his guru / mentor (in the form of his pet tarantula) were to replace Theresa May as British Prime Minister, then British-Saudi leadership relations need a voice of relative sanity and MbS would be that voice.
Meanwhile Tulsi Gabbard tweeted "Hey @realdonaldtrump: being Saudi Arabia's bitch is not "America First.""frances , Nov 21, 2018 8:07:23 PM | linkAnd various Republican morons popped out of the woodwork rehashing that crap that Assad had murdered 500,000 Syrians while fine upstanding Americans like Jimmy Dore and Stephen Linzer are backing her.
BTW, I'm surprised the trash with learning disabilities at the Washington Post haven't accused her of being ISIS (see second picture in article credited to the Washington Post)
b- you pointed out that: "..the CIA feared that MbS meant trouble even before the Khashoggi disaster, explains why it sabotaged Trump's attempts to exculpate MbS over the murder of Khashoggi."The CIA also fear Trump; and they have shown that they are not and never will be a friend to him. So I am inclined to agree with john mason 28 when he suspects the US or UK organized the killing to embarrass Trump and remove MBS.
I am further inclined to take this reasoning a bit further and suggest that the CIA facilitated this murder; probably by telling their reporter asset he could safely go to Turkey and by telling SA when he would arrive. For how else could anyone purportedly as clever as this fellow think they would be safe on SA defacto soil?
The CIA want their own guy in SA and they want Trump on his knees, so far they don't have what they want. Which leads me to also wonder if the CIA is possibly responsible for the misadventures Bibi is having. If the CIA and its masters can dethrone Bibi and the Prince, Trump's ME strategy would be toast, significantly diminishing or even wiping out his US/Israeli support and possibly destroy his shot at a second term. For all his flaws he did and has overturned a lot of apple carts; the Deep State wants their damn carts back.
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www.defenddemocracy.press
Turkey: Milking the Khashoggi MurderBy Marios Evriviades
AthensCan a man gasping for breath as he is forcibly suffocated with a plastic bag over his head, articulate his survival problem multisyllabically with a medicalized request to which he invited his killers to consent? "I'm suffocating Take this bag off my head, I'm claustrophobic".
These are the alleged last words of Saudi politician and journalist Jamal Khashoggi, according to the latest leak from the Turkish intelligence agencies. If you are keeping count, this may be the 22nd in the series since Khashoggi's disappearance in Istanbul on October 2. The last words come from the audio tape of a recording system installed, unsuspected and undetected in the Saudi consulate, by some of the finest electronic equipment the Turkish services have received from their western allies.
Before the new last words leaked into the press, there was no plastic bag. The previous Turkish version was that Khashoggi was attacked within minutes of entering the Saudi
consulate at 13:14 on the fateful day; strangled by the bare hands of at least one, possibly two attackers, as he fought and screamed for his life. Those screams, according to an even earlier Turkish leak, were recorded on a device Khashoggi was wearing undetected on his wrist, primed to transmit to his Turkish fiancée standing outside the building.
Then there is the crucial matter of the corpus delicti. For without that, in a police or coroner's court in a country other than Turkey, there is only the case of a missing person. That person's body is missing, the world was originally told, because it had been cut into pieces with a bone-saw.
In disclosures to the press which have followed, the body pieces were taken in packages by car to the nearby house of the Saudi Consul-General. There they were either buried in the backyard, or thrown in a garden well, or carried off in another vehicle by a local Turkish subcontractor and disposed of in a nearby forest. Because Turkish investigators have found no trace of any of these things, we are now told that none of them happened. In addition, no explanation has been given by the Turkish services, which had earlier provided photographs of body parts, including a scalped head, allegedly Khashoggi's, which have been circulating in Turkey and other countries.
The version which has followed in the more squeamish western press is that the body parts of Khashoggi were dissolved in acid at the home of the consul, and that is the reason we are now told the body could not be found. Strangely, no traces of acid were reported to have been found in the house or its well or waste system, after the Turks entered and searched it thoroughly days before the story of the acid appeared. The acid traces were reported to have been found in the house of the consul days later, once the earlier versions of Khashoggi's "disappearance" had ceased to be plausible or possible.
Read also: The Empire Strikes Back: Hillary Clinton and the military-industrial complexThe world has been asked by the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to believe all of this in sequence, and forget each story as the Turks released new ones. Also, the world was requested to share in the Turks' moral outrage at the dastardly act. Turkish morality is the reason Erdogan's subordinates threw a temper tantrum when the French Foreign Minister,
Jean-Yves Le Drian, accused Erdogan of "playing a political game" https://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFKCN1NH0O5 with the Khashoggi murder. The evidence Erdogan has been releasing makes this plain to everyone.
But not to the righteous Turks. Did not their president say to an international audience on October 23, and in an editorial he arranged with the Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/gdpr-consent/?destination=%2fnews%2fglobal-opinions%2fwp%2f2018%2f11%2f02%2frecep-tayyip-erdogan-saudi-arabia-still-has-many-questions-to-answer-about-jamal-khashoggis-killing%2f%3f on November 2, that he will move "earth and heaven" to get to the bottom of the Khashoggi case; have the Saudi perpetrators punished no matter how high-ranking they are -- Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's photograph is placed in illustration of Erdogan's words, but he himself doesn't dare name him. Erdogan has also promised to serve justice; give Khashoggi a muslim funeral; and ensure that nothing of this kind will ever again occur in a NATO member state. (These are not assurances Erdogan has offered the families of the fourteen Turkish journalists also still missing in Erdogan's jurisdiction; seven of them confirmed dead, including the famous Hrant Dink. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hrant_Dink )
How dare anyone question Erdogan's integrity? is the unanimous cry out of Turkey.
Let me tell you why. The Turks do not have to move "earth and heaven" now to get to the bottom of the Khashoggi murder. They could have done that within hours – repeat hours -- of the reported disappearance of Khashoggi, by arresting the eighteen alleged Saudi murderers; by searching the premises of the Istanbul consulate and the residence of the Saudi consul; and by arresting him as a co-conspirator in the homicide. Within hours, the Turkish authorities reporting to Erdogan had all the prima fac ie evidence they needed to establish that a crime had been committed. But act they did not. Instead, they – that means Erdogan -- allowed the alleged murderers to leave Istanbul on the evening after the crime was committed. They allowed the Saudi Consul, Mohammed al-Otaibi, to take his time – two weeks -- before he departed on October 16.
Read also: Saudi Arabia has to be stopped and this time it may get stoppedOn what the Turks did or did not do in their prosecution of the Khashoggi case, let
Yasar Yakis tell us. Yakis is a retired career diplomat, a former Turkish Foreign Minister and member of Erdogan's Islamist party. In a subtle article, "What Turkey did and didn't do about the Khashoggi murder", published on October 24 in the English-language
Turkish website Ahval, https://ahvalnews.com/jamal-khashoggi/what-turkey-did-and-didnt-do-about-khashoggi-murder based in Washington, Yakis endorsed Turkey for what it "did". He also went on to report what it "didn't do", and why. Yakis is quite revealing.
By citing the official time frame of Khashoggi's disappearance, Yakis shows that the authorities had ample time to decide they were holding enough evidence that a serious crime had been committed on the premises of the Saudi Consulate and at the home of the Saudi consul in Istanbul; by a group of Saudi nationals carrying diplomatic passports who had flown into the country in two private jets and a commercial airline early on October 2. Since Turkish laws had been violated, the authorities knew they had the legal right, in line with the 1963 Geneva Convention on Consular Relations, to search the Saudi diplomatic premises, and arrest the suspects, including the Consul-General. Their diplomatic status, the Turkish authorities knew at the time and Yakis has repeated, guaranteed immunity from search and arrest only in the Saudi performance of diplomatic duties. Committing murder, as the evidence immediately suggested, was not one of them.
Yakis does argue that the relevant articles of the Geneva Convention limited the right of Turkish entry and search at the consulate and the consul's home, putting off-limits the Saudi
office archives and documents related to the diplomatic activities routinely carried out at the mission.
Additionally in his Ahval article Yakis discloses a crucial detail. Whether Yakis intended it or not, he reveals the deliberate and manipulative behaviour of the Turkish authorities. Fifteen of the alleged culprits departed in two private planes at 18.20 and 22.50 hours respectively, after going through regular customs clearance. Even if as Erdogan revealed in his October 23 statement the Turkish authorities did not learn the fate of Khashoggi until 17:50 on October 2 -- a time that is patently false if the timeline leaked by Turkish intelligence is accepted as the truth – there was still plenty of time for the Turks to arrest the fifteen, plus another three of the conspirators who left on a commercial flight.
What is reported by Yakis is that "the plane carrying part of the Saudi team was stopped in the skies above Nallihan (a rural district in the Ankara Province) and ordered into a holding pattern, before being allowed on its way. If the plane had been forced to land, and itspassengers put under questioning, a great deal of now unknown information would have been obtained".
Read also: Corbyn Fires Back at Netanyahu's Criticism, Slams Israeli Nation State LawYakis reveals that it wasn't necessary for the Turks to move "earth and heaven" – all they had to do on the evening of October 2 was to prevent the alleged culprits from fleeing the scene of the crime, or stopping them at the airport, or in their airplanes before they left Turkish airspace. At that time, even if the Consul had been left untouched, the case would have been wrapped up in no time.
But Erdogan and his associates had other, more ambitious plans. It is those plans unfolding which have dictated each new leak. Had Erdogan decided to hold the eighteen fleeing Saudis, that would have meant rupturing relations with the Saudi kingdom, but this is something Erdogan and his officials repeat they do not want to do. However, such behaviour is exactly what the French foreign minister meant when he accused Erdogan, directly and personally, "that he has a political game to play in these circumstances."
And what is this game? Foremost, the Turks are attempting to concoct an image of themselves and of their Great (Buyuk) Leader as defenders of justice and of international law and order, while extracting rewards for this pretence from all those, primarily the West
and Israel, who have a stake in the stability of the present Saudi regime. If Khashoggi's death was Saudi state murder, Erdogan's game is Turkish state extortion. That makes two crimes.
This Saudi regime does not deserve sympathy. It must be held accountable, not only for the fate of Khashoggi, but for much more which the regime is responsible for in promoting war, terrorist violence and sectarian extremism from Syria to Yemen and further afield. Holding the Saudis accountable for Khashoggi's murder is one thing. It's not the only thing. Allowing Erdogan's Turkey to prevail as source and judge of the truth of this case serves faking and falsehood, not justice. End+
[*] Marios Evriviades is a former Cyprus diplomat and presidential advisor. He is a professor of international relations at universities in Greece and Cyprus.
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Nov 01, 2018 | consortiumnews.com
Special to Consortium News
Former DNI James Clapper had his own words read back to him by Ray McGovern, exposing his role in justifying the Iraq invasion based on fraudulent intelligence. Clapper Admits Gross Intelligence Failure on Iraq WMDs But Still Escapes Justice
Former National Intelligence Director James Clapper's key role in helping the Cheney/Bush administration "justify" war on Iraq with fraudulent intelligence was exposed on Tuesday at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington. His own words were quoted back to him from his memoir "Facts and Fears: Hard Truths From a Life in Intelligence." Hard truths, indeed.
Clapper was appointed Director of National Intelligence by President Barack Obama in June 2010, almost certainly at the prompting of Obama's intelligence confidant and Clapper friend John Brennan, later director of the CIA. Despite Clapper's performance on Iraq, he was confirmed unanimously by the Senate. Obama even allowed Clapper to keep his job for three and a half more years after he admitted that he had lied under oath to that same Senate about the extent of eavesdropping on Americans by the National Security Agency (NSA). He is now a security analyst for CNN.
In his book, Clapper finally places the blame for the consequential fraud (he calls it "the failure") to find the (non-existent) WMD "where it belongs -- squarely on the shoulders of the administration members who were pushing a narrative of a rogue WMD program in Iraq and on the intelligence officers, including me, who were so eager to help that we found what wasn't really there." ( emphasis added ) .
So at the event on Tuesday I stood up and asked him about that. It was easy, given the background Clapper himself provides in his book, such as:
"The White House aimed to justify why an invasion of and regime change in Iraq were necessary, with a public narrative that condemned its continued development of weapons of mass destruction [and] its support to al-Qaida (for which the Intelligence Community had no evidence)."
What Clapper chokes on -- and avoids saying -- is that U.S. intelligence had no evidence of WMD either. Indeed, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had put him in charge of the agency responsible for analyzing imagery of all kinds -- photographic, radar, infrared, and multispectral -- precisely so that the absence of evidence from our multi-billion-dollar intelligence collection satellites could be hidden, in order not to impede the planned attack on Iraq. That's why, as Clapper now admits, he had to find "what wasn't really there."
Members of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) who have employed Clapper under contract, or otherwise known his work, caution that he is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. So, to be fair, there is an outside chance that Rumsfeld persuaded him to be guided by the (in)famous Rumsfeld dictum: "The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."
But the consequences are the same: a war of aggression with millions dead and wounded; continuing bedlam in the area; and no one -- high or low -- held accountable. Hold your breath and add Joe Biden awarding the "Liberty Medal" to George W. Bush on Veteran's Day.
' Shocked'
Clapper writes:
" we heard that Vice President Cheney was pushing the Pentagon for intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, and then the order came down to NIMA [the National Imagery and Mapping Agency] to find (emphasis in original) the WMD sites. We set to work, analyzing imagery to eventually identify, with varying degrees of confidence, more than 950 sites where we assessed there might be WMDs or a WMD connection. We drew on all of NIMA's skill sets and it was all wrong."
"To support his [Secretary of State Colin Powell's February 5, 2003] speech, NIMA (which Clapper headed) had gone through the difficult process of declassifying satellite images of trucks arriving at WMD sites just ahead of the weapons inspectors to move materials before they could be found, and my team also produced computer-generated images of trucks fitted out as 'mobile production facilities used to make biological agents.' Those images, possibly more than any other substantiation he presented, carried the day with the international community and Americans alike."
"[For] the invasion of Iraq on March 20, six weeks after Powell's speech, NIMA prepared a prioritized list of our suspect [WMD] sites with specific locations. Using this information, they [the fourteen-hundred-member international Iraq Survey Group] went from site to site but found almost nothing. We were shocked. The trucks we had identified as "mobile production facilities for biological agents" were in fact used to pasteurize and transport milk."
McGovern questions Clapper at Carnegie Endowment in Washington on Tuesday. (Alli McCracken)
As for those mischievous trucks allegedly used "to move materials before they could be found," as Scott Ritter, former chief UN weapons inspector for Iraq, has pointed out, they were clearly decontamination vehicles. UN inspectors had visited the site in question. It was an ammunition bunker, and the decontamination vehicle was a water truck used to keep the dust levels down because of the sensitive fuses located in the bunker. These were known facts but Clapper chose to ignore them.
Nor did he give up easily, before he could resist no longer and admit, as he writes, that "it was all wrong." In late October 2003, Clapper briefed Washington media on his latest guesses as to what really happened to the (notional) WMD. The Washington Times 's Bill Getz wrote a long article replete with detailed quotes from Clapper, starting with: "Iraqi military officers destroyed or hid chemical, biological and nuclear weapons goods in the weeks before the war, the nation's top satellite spy director said yesterday. Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. James Clapper, head of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, said vehicle traffic photographed by U.S. spy satellites indicated that material and documents related to the arms programs were shipped to Syria."
In his book, Clapper refers to that briefing and says he conceded "we'd made some assumptions we shouldn't have " and admitted that "I was still baffled that no WMD sites had been discovered. I mentioned that in the days before the invasion started, we saw a lot of cars and trucks fleeing the country into Syria. I probably should have clarified what a stretch it would be" to suggest the WMD had been transported to Syria." Well, yes, that would have prevented further embarrassment.
During the Q and A I was sorely tempted to quote Hans Blix, the then head of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, who on June 23, 2003 quipped to the Council on Foreign Relations, "It's sort of puzzling that you can have 100 percent confidence about WMD existence, but zero certainty about where they are." But that would have brought loud boos from the docile audience at Carnegie, and gotten me off on the wrong foot.
Instead, I cited to Clapper his most grievous offense against the profession of intelligence analysis -- his inordinate eagerness to please whatever superiors he was working for at the time, and give them the information they lusted after to "justify" things like war.
I observed that exactly two years ago, the Obamas and Clintons were desperate to blame Trump's victory on Russian interference. And so, I asked, was this a repeat performance? Had Clapper snapped to and again "found what really wasn't there?" This, I emphasized, was the conclusion of VIPS, including two former Technical Directors at NSA.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/iqXhH8zzZOE?feature=oembed
From 'WMD" to 'Russian Hacking'
I noted that after Clapper had briefed President Obama on January 5, 2017 on the evidence-impoverished "Intelligence Community Assessment" alleging that Russian President Putin had personally ordered the "Russian hacking," Obama seems not to have been persuaded. I asked Clapper why the President told a press conference on January 18, 2017 that the conclusions of the intelligence community regarding how "Russian hacking" of Democratic National Committee emails had gotten to WikiLeaks were "inconclusive." Clapper said he could not explain why the President said that.
Travel tip for Clapper: do not travel abroad to any country bold enough to invoke the principle of universal jurisdiction which includes the duty to arrest those suspected of war crimes when their home country fails to do so. Your mentor Donald Rumsfeld had a close brush with this international form of Lady Justice in October 2007, when he abruptly fled Paris upon learning that the Paris Prosecutor had been served a formal complaint against him for authorizing torture. The complaint noted that authorities in the U.S. and Iraq had failed to launch any independent investigation into Rumsfeld's responsibility, and also noted that the U.S. had refused to join the International Criminal Court, which might have had more routine jurisdiction.
Former President George W. Bush, too, had a close call in February 2011. When Bush heard that criminal complaints had been lodged against him in Switzerland, he decided not to take any chances and abruptly nixed longstanding plans to address a Jewish charity dinner in Geneva. Thus, both Rumsfeld and Bush were spared the humiliation that befell Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who had been head of Chile's military dictatorship from 1973 to 1990. While on a trip to the United Kingdom in 1998, Pinochet was arrested on a Spanish judicial warrant and was held under house arrest until 2000.
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. Among his duties as a CIA analyst was chairing National Intelligence Estimates and preparing/briefing the President's Daily Brief. He is a member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
Protection Racquet , November 17, 2018 at 2:46 am
When did this perjurer before Congress have any credibility? The guys a professional liar.
Mild -ly Facetious , November 18, 2018 at 5:27 pm
The guy is a professional liar, anda member of The Establishment "The Anglo-American Establishment" Copyright 1981/ Books in Focus, Inc,
Anonymot , November 16, 2018 at 8:56 pm
Clapper and Brennan were simply neo-fascist stand-ins for Cheney and Rumsfeld. They were the voice of the Deep State Mindset and turned those ideas into action. As standard issue, high level bureaucrats they became more than just counsel to the decision makers, they made the decisions. Those decisions were so inept and corrupt that now they would like to recast their images – and follow the Clinton/Obama footsteps to fortunes via books, speeches, Board members and consultants.
They and the many of their ilk in DC should join the others qualified for orange striped suits, but there's no one left with the clout and integrity to lock them up.
Mild -ly - Facetious , November 18, 2018 at 7:33 pm
Anonymot , Yes! Here Is A Sequence of books for those who reside in chosen darkness:
- "The Lessons of History" by Will & Edith Durant – c. 1968
- "The Anglo-American Establishment" by Carroll Quigley – c. 1981
- "Understanding Special Operations" by David T. Ratcliffe – c. 1989 / 99
- " The Secret War Against The Jews" by John Loftus and Mark Aarons c. 1994
JRGJRG , November 16, 2018 at 7:29 pm
All this is fine, except it dares not touch the still taboo subject among these "professionals" of how all of this started getting justified in the first place when America attacked itself on September 11, 2001 in New York City and Washington in the most sophisticated and flawed false flag attack in history, murdering thousands of its own citizens Operation Northwoods style, blaming it on 19 Saudi hijackers with box cutters, the most grandiose of all conspiracy theory, the official 911 story.
The incriminating evidence of what happened that day in 2001 is now absolutely overwhelming, but still too incredible and controversial for even these esteemed folks to come to grips with. If we're going to take a shower and clean all this excrement off ourselves, let's do it thoroughly.
JRGJRG , November 16, 2018 at 7:46 pm
In fact, wait! Let's ask the really important question of Clapper. What was he doing and where was he on 9/11, the "New Pearl Harbor," and what was his role in the coverup and transformation of the CIA in the ensuing years? Why doesn't Ray ask him about that?
GKJames , November 16, 2018 at 6:46 am
(1) One needn't be a Clapper fan to say that he was merely a cog in a body politic that (a) lives and breathes using military force to "solve" geopolitical problems; and (b) has always been driven by the national myth of American exceptionalism and the American love of war. The only issue ever is the story Americans tell themselves as to why a particular assault on some benighted country that can't meaningfully shoot back is justified. But for that, there are countless clever people in the corridors of power and the Infotainment Complex always eager to spread mendacity for fun and profit. Sure, hang Clapper, but if justice is what you're after, you'd quickly run out of rope and wood.
(2) What doesn't compute: Clapper is quoted as saying that he and cohort "were so eager to help that [they] found what wasn't really there". That's followed by: "Rumsfeld put him in charge so that the absence of evidence could be hidden . Clapper now admits [that] he had to find 'what wasn't really there'". While Rumsfeld's intent was exactly that, i.e., to prevent a narrative that he and Cheney had contrived, that's not the same as Rumsfeld's explicitly instructing Clapper et al to do that. Further, it mischaracterizes Clapper's admission. He doesn't admit that "he had to find" what wasn't there (which would suggest prior intent). What he does admit is that the eagerness to please the chain of command resulted in "finding" what didn't exist. One is fraud, the other group-think; two very different propositions. The latter, of course, has been the hallmark of US foreign policy for decades, though the polite (but accurate) word for it is "consensus". Everybody's in on it: the public, Congress, the press, and even the judiciary. By and large, it's who Americans are.
(3) Does this really equate the WMD fiasco with the alleged "desperate [attempt] to blame Trump's victory on Russian interference"? Yes, Clapper was present in 2003 and 2016. But that's a thin reed. First, no reasonable person says that Russian interference was the only reason that Clinton lost. Second, to focus on what was said in January 2017 ignores the US government's notifying various state officials DURING THE CAMPAIGN in 2016, of Russian hacking attempts. If, as is commonly said, the Administration was convinced that Clinton would win, how could hacking alerts to the states have been part of an effort to explain away an election defeat that hadn't happened yet, and which wasn't ever expected to happen? And, third, as with WMDs, Clapper wasn't out there on his own. While there were, unsurprisingly, different views among intelligence officials as to the extent of the Russian role, there was broad agreement that there had been one. Once again, fraud vs. group-think.
Skip Scott , November 16, 2018 at 1:46 pm
I think there is a big difference between "group think" and inventing and cherry picking intelligence to fit policy objectives. I believe there is ample evidence of fraud. The "dodgy dossier" and the yellow cake uranium that led to Plame being exposed as a CIA operative are two examples that come immediately to mind. "Sexed up" intelligence is beyond groupthink. It is the promoting of lies and the deliberate elimination of any counter narrative in order to justify an unjust war.
The same could be said of the "all 17 intelligence agencies" statement about RussiaGate that was completely debunked but remained the propaganda line. It was way more than "groupthink". It was a lie. It is part of "full spectrum dominance".
I do agree that "Clapper wasn't out there on his own". He is part of a team with an agenda, and in a just world they'd all be in prison.
It wasn't "mistaken" intelligence, or "groupthink". You are trying to put lipstick on a pig.GKJames , November 17, 2018 at 7:21 am
Fraud is easy to allege, hard to prove. In the case of Iraq, it's important to accept that virtually everyone -- the Administration, the press, the public, security agencies in multiple countries, and even UN inspectors (before the inspections, obviously) -- ASSUMED that Saddam had WMDs. That assumption wasn't irrational; it was based on Saddam's prior behavior. No question, the Administration wanted to invade Iraq and the presumed-to-exist WMDs were the rationale. It was only when evidence appeared that the case for it wasn't rock-solid that Cheney et al went to work. (The open question is whether they began to have their own doubts or whether it never occurred to them, given their obsession.) But there is zero evidence that anyone was asked to conclude that Saddam had WMDs even though the Americans KNEW that there weren't any. That's where the group-think and weak-kneed obeisance to political brawlers like Cheney come in. All he had to do was bark, and everyone fell in line, not because they knew there were no WMDs, but because they weren't sure but the boss certainly was.
In that environment, what we saw from Clapper and his analysts wasn't fraud but weakness of character, not to mention poor-quality analysis. And maybe that gets to the bigger question to which there appears to be an allergy: Shouting Fraud! effectively shuts down the conversation. After all, once you've done that, there's not much else to say; these guys all lied and death and destruction followed. But what if the answer is just as likely that the national security state created by Truman has grown into something uncontrollable, beyond legitimate oversight by the people it's supposed to serve? What if the people in that business aren't all that clever, let alone principled? After all, the CIA is headed by a torture aficionada and we haven't heard peep from the employee base, let alone the Congress that confirmed her. That entire ecosystem has been permitted to flourish without adult supervision for decades. Whenever someone asks, "that's classified". What do you do when Americans as a whole are perfectly fine with that?
Sam F , November 18, 2018 at 8:17 am
But fraud from the top was shown very well by Bamford in his book Pretext For War. Where discredited evidence was retained by intel agencies, as in the Iraq War II case, traitors like the zionist Wolfowitz simply installed known zionist warmongers Perl, Feith, and Wurmser into "stovepipe" offices at CIA, DIA, NSA to send the known-bad "evidence" to Rumsfeld & Cheney.
Skip Scott , November 18, 2018 at 9:27 am
They seem to conveniently classify anything that could prove illegality such as fraud, or in the case of the JFK assassination, something much worse. They use tools such as redaction and classification not only to protect "national security", but to cover up their crimes.
"But what if the answer is just as likely that the national security state created by Truman has grown into something uncontrollable, beyond legitimate oversight by the people it's supposed to serve?"
I believe this is very much the case, but that doesn't preclude fraud as part of their toolkit. The people at the top of the illegalities are clever enough to use those less sharp (like Clapper) for their evil purposes, and if necessary, to play the fall guy. And although the Intelligence Agencies are supposed to serve "We the People", they are actually serving unfettered Global Capitalism and the .1% that are trying to rule the world. This has been the case from its onset.
Furthermore, I am an American, and I am definitely NOT FINE with the misuse of classification and redaction to cover up crimes. The way to fix the "entire ecosystem" is to start to demand it by prosecuting known liars like James Clapper, and to break up the MSM monopoly so people get REAL news again, and wake people up until they refuse to support the two party system.
Sam F , November 16, 2018 at 9:01 pm
I will second Skip on that. The groupthink of careerists is not "who Americans are." "Broad agreement" on an obvious fraud is a group lie.
Tom Hall , November 17, 2018 at 10:49 am
What Clapper did was fraud. What went on in his head was group-think. The two are by no means incompatible. The man admits to outright fabrication- "my team also produced computer-generated images of trucks fitted out as 'mobile production facilities used to make biological agents.' Those images, possibly more than any other substantiation he presented, carried the day with the international community and Americans alike." He knew exactly what he was doing.
K , November 15, 2018 at 11:07 pm
Well done Ray, challenging those responsible for international war crimes is a necessity if the world is to be fundamentally changed for the better. Illegal wars & the catastrophic consequences for nation states & their citizens has to be answerable in a war crimes tribunal. This should include both governments & corporate entities that elicit profits from doing so.
wootendw , November 15, 2018 at 10:41 pm
"Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. James Clapper, head of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, said vehicle traffic photographed by U.S. spy satellites indicated that material and documents related to the arms programs were shipped to Syria "
Syria and Iraq became bitter enemies in 1982 when Syria backed Iran during the Iran-Iraq War. Syria even sent troops to fight AGAINST Saddam during the first Iraq War. Syria and Iraq did not restore diplomatic relations until after Saddam was captured. The idea that Saddam would send WMDs (if he had them) to Syria is ludicrous.
Helen Marshall , November 15, 2018 at 5:41 pm
While serving in an embassy in 2003, the junior officer in my office was chatting with the long-time local employee, after viewing the Powell Shuck and Jive. One said to the other, "the US calls North Korea part of the 'Axis of Evil' but doesn't attack it because there is clear evidence that it has WMD including nukes." And the other said "yes, and that's why the US is going to invade Iraq because we know they don't." QED
Taras 77 , November 15, 2018 at 4:36 pm
Thanks, Ray, for an excellent article! You are one of few who are calling out these treasonous bastards. I am still .waiting for at least some of them to do the perp walk, maybe in the presence of war widows, their children, and maimed war veterans.
Chris Fogarty , November 15, 2018 at 12:27 pm
Clapper played the central role in deceiving America into abandoning the republic and becoming the genocidal empire now terrorizing Planet Earth. If it is too late; if the criminals have permanent control of our government, there won't be a cleansing Nuremberg Tribunal, and our once-great USA will continue along its course of death and destruction until it destroys itself.
Where are our patriots? If any exist, now is the time for a new Nuremberg.
Zhu , November 15, 2018 at 8:56 pm
The genocidal empire goes back to 1950 the Korean War.
bostonblackie , November 16, 2018 at 1:58 pm
How about 1945 and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
JRGJRG , November 16, 2018 at 7:08 pm
Keep going. Further back than that.
How about the Spanish American War, justified by the false flag blowing up of the Maine in Havana Harbor, which led to the four-year genocidal war against Filipino rebels and the war against the Cubans?
How about the 19th Century genocide of Native Americans? What was that justified by, except for lust for conquest of territory and racism?
How about America's role with other western colonial powers in the 1900 Boxer Rebellion in China.
The list of American violations of international law is too long to restate here, in the hundreds.
The only way out of this moral dilemma is to turn a new page in history in a new administration, hold our war criminals in the dock, and make amends under international law, and keep them, somehow without sacrificing national jurisdiction or security. America has to be reformed as an honest broker of peace instead of the world's leading pariah terrorist state.bostonblackie , November 17, 2018 at 4:29 pm
How about slavery? America was founded on genocide and slavery!
Skip Scott , November 15, 2018 at 9:44 am
I think Ray is being a little overly optimistic about Clapper being travel restricted. Universal Jurisdiction is for the small fry. Even with Bush and Rumsfeld, their changing travel plans was probably more about possible "bad press" than actual prosecution. Maybe down the road, when the USA collapse is more obvious to our "vassals" and they start to go their own way, such a thing could happen. Even then, we've got tons of armaments, and a notoriously itchy trigger finger.
My hope is that the two party system collapses and a Green Party candidate gets elected president. He or she could then sign us on to the ICC, and let the prosecutions begin. I know it's delusional, but a guy's gotta dream.
Robert Emmett , November 15, 2018 at 8:52 am
It occurs to me that even given Cheney's infamous 1% doctrine, these no-goodniks couldn't even scratch together enough of a true story to pass that low bar. So they invented, to put it mildly, plausible scenarios, cranked-up the catapults of propaganda and flung them in our faces via the self-absorbed, self-induced, money grubbing fake patriots of mass media.
But, geez, Ray, it's not as if we didn't already know about fixing facts around the policy, resignations of career operatives because of politicizing intelligence, reports of Scott Ritter, plus the smarmy lying faces & voices of all the main actors in the Cheney-Rumsfeld generated mass hysteria. I doubt these types of reveals, though appreciatively confirming what we already know, will change very many minds now. After all, the most effective war this cabal has managed to wage has been against their own people.
Perhaps when these highfalutin traitors, treasonous to their oaths to protect the founding principles they swore to preserve, at last shuffle off their mortal coils, future generations will gain the necessary perspective to dismiss these infamous liars with the contempt they deserve. But that's just wishful thinking because by then the incidents that cranked-up this never-ending war likely will be the least of their worries.
In the meantime, the fact that this boiled egghead continues to spew his Claptrap on a major media channel tells you all you need to know about how deeply the poison of the Bush-Cheney era has seeped into the body politic and continues to eat away at what remains of the foundations while the military-media-government-corporate complex metastasizes.
Sam F , November 15, 2018 at 9:03 pm
Ray knows that the well-informed know much of the story, and likely writes to bring us the Clapper memoir confession and summarize for the less informed.
JOHN CHUCKMAN , November 15, 2018 at 7:11 am
I am always glad to see confirmation in such matters, however, for people who work to inform themselves and think critically, there are no real surprises to be discovered about the invasion of Iraq.
It could be clearly seen as a fraud at the time because there were a number of experts, experts not working for the American government, who in effect told us then that it was a fraud.
What the whole experience with Iraq reveals is a couple of profound truths about imperial America, truths that are quite unpleasant and yet seem to remain lost to the general public.
One, lying and manipulation are virtually work-a-day activities in Washington. They go on at all levels of the government, from the President through all of the various experts and agency heads who in theory hold their jobs to inform the President and others of the truth in making decisions.
Indeed, these experts and agency heads actually work more like party members from George Orwell's Oceania in 1984, party members whose job it is to constantly rewrite history, making adjustments in the words and pictures of old periodicals and books to conform with the Big Brother's latest pronouncements and turns in policy.
America has an entire industry devoted to manufacturing truth, something the rather feeble term "fake news" weakly tries to capture.
The public's reaction to officials and agencies in Washington ought to be quite different than it generally is. It should be a presumption that they are not telling the truth, that they are tailoring a story to fit a policy. It sounds extreme to say so, but it truly is not in view of recent history.
We are all watching actors in a costly play used to support already-determined destructive policies.
Two, the press lies, and it lies almost constantly in support of government's decided policies. You simply cannot trust the American press on such matters, and the biggest names in the press – the New York Times or Washington Post or CBS or NBC – are the biggest liars because they put the weight of their general prestige into the balance to tip it.
Their fortunes and interests are too closely bound to government to be in the least trusted for objective journalism. Journalism just does not exist in America on the big stuff.
This support is not just done on special occasions like the run-up to the illegal invasion of Iraq but consistently in the affairs of state. We see it today in everything from "Russia-gate" to the Western-induced horrors of Syria. Russia-gate is almost laughable, although few Americans laugh, but a matter like Syria, with more than half a million dead and terrible privations, isn't laughable, yet no effort is made to explain the truth and bring this monstrous project – the work equally of Republicans and Democrats – to an end.
Three, while virtually all informed people know that Israel's influence in Washington is inordinate and inappropriate, many still do not realize that the entire horror of Iraq, just like the horror today of Syria, reflects the interests and demands of Israel.
George Bush made a rarely-noticed, when Ariel Sharon was lobbying him to attack other Middle Eastern countries following the Iraq invasion, along the lines of, "Geez, what does the guy want? I invaded Iraq for him, didn't I?"
Well, today, pretty much all of the countries that Sharon thought should be attacked have indeed been attacked by the United States and its associates in one fashion or another – covertly, as in Syria, or overtly, as in Libya. And we are all witnessing the ground being prepared for Iran.
It has been a genuinely terrifying period, the last decade and a half or so. War after war with huge numbers of innocents killed, vast damages inflicted, and armies of unfortunate refugees created. All of it completely unnecessary. All of it devoid of ethics or principles beyond the principle of "might makes right."
It simply cannot be distinguished, except by order of magnitude, from the grisly work of Europe's fascist governments of the 1930s and '40s.
All the discussions we read or see from America about truth in journalism, about truth in government, and about founding principles are pretty much distraction and noise, meaningless noise. The realities of what America is doing in the world make it so.
john Wilson , November 15, 2018 at 4:47 am
It seems to me that showing up the blatant lies of the Iraq affair, while laudable, doesn't really get us anywhere. The guilty are never and will never be brought to account for their heinous crimes and some of the past villains are still lying, scheming, and brining about war, terror and horror today.
If the white helmets in Syria, the lies about Libya, the West engineered coupé in The Ukraine, Yemen, etc, aren't all tactics from the same play book used by the criminal cabals of the Iraq time, then we are blind. These days, the liars in the deep state, an expression which encapsulates everything from Intel to think tanks, don't even try to tell plausible lies, they just say anything and MSM cheers them on. Anyone challenging the MSM/government/deep state etc are just ridiculed and called conspiracy theorists, no matter how obvious and ludicrous the lies are.
Sam F , November 15, 2018 at 6:26 am
In fact "showing up the blatant lies of the Iraq affair" informs others, to whom the MSM can no longer cheer on liars, nor ridicule truth. Truth telling, like contemplation, is essential before the point of action.
F. G. Sanford , November 15, 2018 at 1:33 am
"We drew on all of NIMA's skill sets and it was all wrong."
Every time I hear the term, "skill sets", I recall a military colleague who observed, "We say skill sets so we don't have to say morons." They used to say, "The military doesn't pay you to think." Now they say, "We have skill sets." It's a euphemism for robotized automatons who perform specific standardized tasks based on idealized training requirements which evolve from whatever the latest abstract military doctrine happens to be. And, they come up with new ones all the time.
"The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." This is a phrase Rumsfeld borrowed directly – and I'm not making this up – from the UFO community. It was apparently first uttered by Carl Sagan, and then co-opted by people like Stanton Friedman. He's the guy who claims we recovered alien bodies from flying saucers at Roswell, New Mexico. The scientific antidote to the "absence of evidence" argument is, of course, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof." Simply put, absence of evidence really just means "no evidence". A hypothesis based on "no evidence" constitutes magical thinking.
It's probably worth going to Youtube and looking up a clip called "Stephen Gets a Straight Answer Out of Donald Rumsfeld". He admits to Colbert that, "If it was true, we wouldn't call it intelligence." Frankly, Clapper's gravest sin is heading up a science-based agency like NIMA, but failing to come to the same conclusion as General Albert Stubblebine. People who analyze reconnaissance imagery are supposed to be able to distinguish explosive ordnance damage from other factors. But, I guess Newtonian Physics is "old school" to this new generation of magical thinkers and avant-garde intelligence analysts.
Sam F , November 16, 2018 at 10:44 am
Part of the problem of "intelligence" is its reliance upon images that show a lot of detail but without any definite meaning, and upon guesses to keep managers and politicians happy. So "expert assessments" that milk trucks in aerial photos might be WMD labs became agency "confidence" and then politician certainties, never verified.
When suspect evidence was retained by intel agencies, as in the Iraq War II case, traitors like the zionist Wolfowitz simply installed known zionist warmongers Perl, Feith, and Wurmser into "stovepipe" offices at CIA, DIA, NSA to send the non-evidence to Rumsfeld. See Bamford's Pretext For War.
Gen Dau , November 14, 2018 at 10:20 pm
Thank you, Ray, for a very good article that treats Clapper objectively and not as a demi-god, as most of the MSM and the Democratic establishment does. It is totally unacceptable for a government official, current or former, to answer "I don't know." That is the hideout of irresponsible scoundrels. Questioners should be allowed to ask follow-up questions such as, "If you didn't know, did you try to think about why the President's opinion on this very important question was different from yours? Is simply not knowing acceptable for an intel officer, especially one in a leadership position?" I look forward to your further reports and analyses.
Thanks also to the editors for returning at least the main text to a readable font. But why not go whole hog and make reading everything a pleasure again? Putting the headlines in a hard-to-read and distracting font is especially unfortunate, since some casual visitors to Consortium News may be turned off by the headlines and skip reading the very important articles attached to the headlines.
Daniel , November 15, 2018 at 3:13 am
You are right, my friend.
Skip Edwards , November 14, 2018 at 10:10 pm
Thanks, as always, go out to Ray for his continued bravery in speaking truth to power. I remember years ago when David McMichaels, Ex-CIA, gave a talk at Ft Lewis College in Durango, CO, about Ronnie Reagan's corruption in what the US was doing to the elected government in Nicaragua. Thanks to both of these men for trying to inform us all about the corruption so rampant in our government. This is further proof that Trump is only a small pimple on top of the infectous boil that is our government.
Sam F , November 14, 2018 at 9:52 pm
Hurray for Ray McGovern! A beautiful and superbly-planned confrontation. We are lucky that Clapper admitted these things in his memoir, but we needed you to bring that out in public with full and well-selected information. You are truly a gem, whom I hope someday to meet.
Sam F , November 14, 2018 at 10:19 pm
An astounding revelation of systematic delusion in secret agencies.
But until now my best source on the Iraq fake WMD has been Bamford's Pretext For War, in which he establishes that zionist DefSec Wolfowitz appointed three known zionist operatives Perl, Wurmser, and Feith to "stovepipe" known-bad info to Rumsfeld et al. Does the memoir shed any light there, and does your information agree?
mike k , November 14, 2018 at 7:58 pm
Spies lie constantly, they have no respect for the truth. To trust a spy is a sign of dangerous gullibility. Spies are simply criminals for hire.
dfnslblty , November 15, 2018 at 9:59 am
I would offer that spies do not lie ~ they gather information. Spy masters do lie ~ they prevaricate to fit the needs of their masters.
Mild-ly - Facetious , November 18, 2018 at 4:44 pm
"Clapper's Credibility Collapses" as does Colin Powell's U.N.BULL Spit Yellow Cake propaganda/all that's required is a Sales Pitch to everyday striving citizens into how a brutal strain of aristocrat have come to rule america and how you must delve into the Back-Stories of, for example, GHW Bush CIA connection and his presents in Dallas, 1963 credibility collapses abound under weight of 'what really happened' after Cheney convened summit of oil executives just PRIOR to 9/11?
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Nov 15, 2018 | www.wsj.com
Over the past year, U.S. prosecutors have discussed several types of charges they could potentially bring against the WikiLeaks founder
The Justice Department is preparing to prosecute WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and is increasingly optimistic it will be able to get him into a U.S. courtroom, according to people in Washington familiar with the matter. Over the past year, U.S. prosecutors have discussed several types of charges they could potentially bring against Mr. Assange, the people said. Mr. Assange has lived in the Ecuadorean embassy in London since receiving political asylum from the South American country in 2012...
The exact charges Justice Department might pursue remain unclear, but they may involve the Espionage Act, which criminalizes the disclosure of national defense-related information.
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