Donald Trump and His ‘Magic Mirror’

Exclusive: President Trump’s vain tirades about crowd size and voter fraud make him look like Snow White’s evil queen gazing into her mirror, but he could turn that around by telling some important truths, says Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

By insisting that he is the legitimate winner of the U.S. popular vote and the man who drew the largest inaugural crowd ever, President Trump is behaving like the evil queen in “Snow White” gazing into a “magic mirror” and refusing to accept that he isn’t the “fairest of them all.”

The “magic mirror” in the children’s story, “Snow White.”

To protect his giant but fragile ego, Trump concocts fantasies about three million to five million illegal votes – enough to cover his actual deficit of 2.8 million – and he disputes the obvious fact that his inaugural turnout was far less than Barack Obama’s.

Having attended both Obama’s inaugural in 2009 and Trump’s in 2017, I can assure you that Obama’s crowd was much bigger. While my son Jeff and I had to squeeze into and out of packed Metro stations on Jan. 20, 2009, we had no trouble getting on a train on Jan. 20, 2017.

Even at the outskirts of Trump’s inauguration, protesters far outnumbered celebrants. One vendor selling Trump-inaugural tee shirts remarked that he had been sitting there for four hours and had only sold five shirts.

Of course, none of that is too surprising since Obama was the first African-American president and Washington D.C. and its surrounding suburbs have large black populations as well as being heavily Democratic districts. In other words, it was easier for many Obama supporters to get to his inaugural than it was for Trump’s backers to travel longer distances to get to his.

As for the crowds on the Mall, Trump’s turnout was further depressed by the fact that large numbers of protesters, especially north of the inaugural parade route, clogged the security checkpoints. Some protesters even locked arms to slow the entry process.

So there were logical reasons – not reflective of Trump’s overall popularity – explaining why his numbers were a lot lower than Obama’s. But rather than accept this minor slight – as well as the fact that he lost the national popular vote by a significant margin – Trump has behaved like Snow White’s vain queen who can’t accept the inevitability of her fading beauty and the unwelcome news that someone younger has supplanted her as “the fairest” in the land.

Trump could have scored valuable political points by demonstrating some uncharacteristic grace, acknowledging that as the popular vote loser whose crowds fell short of Obama’s record turnout, he recognizes his responsibility to be the president of all the people and to respect dissenting opinions.

Instead, he marred his first week in the White House by pushing easily debunked claims that he was the victim of conspiracies to disparage his inaugural turnout and deny him a popular-vote victory.

More Dangerous Lies

While Trump’s refusal to accept unpleasant realities raises fresh concerns about his fitness for office – since his presidency will surely face some painful reversals and rejecting reality is a dangerous way to respond – he is certainly not the first president to lie to the American people.

Donald Trump speaking with supporters at a campaign rally at the Prescott Valley Event Center in Prescott Valley, Arizona. October 4, 2016. (Flickr Gage Skidmore)

One difference between Trump’s lies and many other lies, however, is that Trump’s are both more personal and more obvious. Only his most benighted followers will continue to contest his popular vote loss and the comparatively small size of his inaugural crowds. Most government lies are both harder to detect and more sinister in their consequences.

Think, for example, of President George W. Bush’s falsehoods about Iraq’s WMDs and Saddam Hussein’s alleged collaboration with Al Qaeda. That deceptive propaganda led to the deaths of more than 4,500 U.S. soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, not to mention a price tag of more than $1 trillion and the spreading of chaos across the Middle East and into Europe.

President Obama also found deception a useful tool for herding the American people behind his administration’s foreign interventions. For instance, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other senior officials lied about Muammar Gaddafi engaging in “genocide” against the people of eastern Libya when that was clearly not true. But they wanted to justify another “regime change” project, so the truth was readily sacrificed in the name of the “Clinton Doctrine” and her idea of “smart power.”

Similarly, in trying to justify direct U.S. military intervention in Syria, Secretary of State John Kerry repeatedly claimed “we know” that Bashar al-Assad’s military was responsible for a sarin gas attack outside Damascus on Aug. 21, 2013. Kerry made the false claim of certainty to justify a “retaliatory” assault.

Although Obama ultimately decided not to bomb Syria’s army, he also asserted no doubt about Assad’s guilt. Obama declared in a formal address to the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 24, 2013, that “It’s an insult to human reason and to the legitimacy of this institution to suggest that anyone other than the regime carried out this attack.”

Yet, we now know that Obama’s own intelligence analysts were among those who questioned whether Assad’s military was responsible. I was hearing in real time from intelligence sources that a number of U.S. analysts believed that the attack might well have been a provocation by Syrian rebels to draw the U.S. military into the conflict on their side, a suspicion later confirmed by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh.

No Slam Dunk

And, we learned last year from The Atlantic’s long interview with Obama about his foreign policies that he was told by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper that there was no “slam dunk” evidence implicating the Syrian government in the sarin attack.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry delivers remarks on Syria at the Department of State in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 30, 2013. [State Department photo]

However, instead of informing the American people about these doubts, Secretary Kerry and President Obama insisted that there were no doubts. In other words, they lied – and those lies helped justify continued U.S. arms shipments to “moderate” rebels, who were largely under the command of Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate which ultimately got possession of many of those sophisticated weapons.

To this day, the false sarin certainty remains part of Official Washington’s conventional wisdom with CNN’s Jake Tapper citing the “Assad gassed his own people” claim on Wednesday in challenging Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, about her decision to meet with the Syrian president during a recent fact-finding trip to the war-ravaged country.

Similarly, the Obama administration pushed propaganda themes to justify another “regime change” project in Ukraine, on Russia’s border. Obama’s State Department fed dubious and false claims to credulous mainstream reporters, including accusations that elected President Viktor Yanukovych was responsible for the bloodshed that preceded the putsch that ousted him on Feb. 22, 2014.

Obama and his team also concealed evidence about who was behind the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014. Though I was told that some U.S. intelligence analysts had determined that a rogue element of the Ukrainian military had fired the fateful missile, Obama withheld the intelligence community’s findings while the guilt was pinned on Russia.

Early last year when the father of the one U.S. citizen killed among the 298 dead on the flight was begging the U.S. government to open its files, a well-placed intelligence source told me that the request was given serious consideration but was rejected because the truth would “destroy the narrative,” which had made Russian President Vladimir Putin the villain and thus was a key factor in justifying the New Cold War.

By withholding the U.S. intelligence evidence, Obama gave the MH-17 murderers more than two years to get away and cover their tracks – and allowed the disreputable Ukrainian intelligence service, the SBU, to take control of the supposedly “Dutch-led” investigation and thus steer the conclusions in support of the anti-Russian propaganda narrative. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Troubling Gaps in the New MH-17 Report” and “The Official and Implausible MH-17 Scenario.”]

Double Standards

Obama’s secretive approach toward those pivotal events was in marked contrast to his eagerness to have his intelligence agencies brief reporters on allegations that Putin had helped Trump’s campaign and had blackmailed him over evidence of supposedly salacious behavior with Moscow prostitutes.

President Barack Obama speaking to the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 24, 2013. (UN photo)

Even though Obama’s intelligence officials presented no evidence to support those accusations, the charges undermined Trump’s legitimacy as many Democrats echoed Hillary Clinton in calling Trump Putin’s “puppet.”

The contrast between Obama’s eagerness to release secret allegations to disparage Trump and Obama’s refusal to give the public substantive information for judging issues of war or peace reflects the elitism that came to infect Obama’s administration.

Information – or disinformation – was valued for guiding the American people in desired directions. Facts didn’t have an intrinsic value as a way to empower the public to understand the world and to make informed judgments. Instead, “information war” was viewed as a means to weaken and defeat “enemies,” part of “smart power.”

To cite another children’s fable, Obama’s administration went down the rabbit hole in its foreign policy where reality and logic no longer prevailed. But pretty much the entire Washington establishment was there, too, Republicans, Democrats and the mainstream media, so there was a self-reinforcing quality to the madness.

President Trump clearly doesn’t have the mainstream media on his side nor much of the establishment, so he cannot expect the kind of nodding acquiescence that greeted false claims by George W. Bush and Barack Obama – or, for that matter, presidents dating back generations.

But Trump does not help himself by destroying his own credibility by making easily debunked claims about crowd sizes and voter fraud, what one of his aides called “alternative facts.”

Still, Trump could reverse his image as a self-absorbed con man by standing up for real government transparency and showing genuine trust in the American people. He could start by declassifying evidence on the Syrian sarin case, the Ukrainian coup, the MH-17 shoot-down and other turning-point moments in recent history. He could show bipartisanship, too, by revealing some historic secrets about Republican administrations as they also sought to manipulate the American people.

Trump could arm Americans with real facts and show genuine respect to the citizens as the nation’s true sovereigns, the “We the People” of the U.S. Constitution’s opening words, not lambs for herding to the next war-of-choice slaughterhouse.

If he could stop gazing into that mirror, Trump could transform himself from being just one more villain feeding fantasies to the American people into a real-world hero by telling important truths. But he has gotten off to a very rocky start by telling some very petty lies.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).

77 comments for “Donald Trump and His ‘Magic Mirror’

  1. junius
    January 30, 2017 at 09:40

    So the problem is not so much that Trump lies, but that he’s not as good at it as Obama and Bush and Clinton, et al ad nauseam. OK…

    Gee I dunno, so far Mister T’s “very petty lies” haven’t actually murdered people minding their own business in their own countries. And a President paying anything but lip service to “the citizens as the nation’s true sovereigns” would not only be welcome but would be quite unprecedented. Picture the haughty aristocrats Washington or Jefferson or Adams thinking government policy needed to be shaped by the opinions of blacksmiths or cobblers – it staggers the imagination. Or Lincoln being candid about freeing the slaves against everyone’s wishes, or FDR acknowledging he conspired to provoke Japan and Germany to war.

    Blind ignorance of our history is essential to thinking of Trump as an aberration rather than the latest, admittedly surrealistic mutation of a very old tradition.

  2. January 29, 2017 at 10:02

    As we all know or at least us old folk. During the Second World War we opened intermin camps were we interned Japanese who may or may not sympathized with there country. I think it may not be a bad idea to think about reopening camps to send people who are afflicted with the new disease that is affecting many Americans called Regime Change. First group to send the Kagans And. Yes Victoria to. Just maybe his would send a message to the group that Abe alluded to in his post. Go get them Donald. HAve a nice and peaceful day.

    • Bob Van Noy
      January 29, 2017 at 14:34

      Bruce Walker it looks like the Neocons have taken flight to Canada (See link below) if that is the case it will be interesting to follow their thinking. Poor Canada is all that I can say.

      http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/01/24/globalists-neocons-prepare-battle-russia-and-united-states.html

      • January 29, 2017 at 15:03

        Thanks for link to this site,looks like I’ve got some work to do trying to get rid of this lady. You can be sure I will be contacting everyone I know in Ottawa. Thanks for the info and have a nice peaceful day.

        • Bob Van Noy
          January 29, 2017 at 15:22

          Oh Bruce, Didn’t realize you were Canadian! Glad I responded…

        • backwardsevolution
          January 29, 2017 at 19:38

          Bob Van Noy – thanks for the link. Good read.

          Bruce Walker – I noticed in Canada that Harper appeared to be pandering to Ukraine, telling Putin to “get out of Ukraine”. I highly doubt that it was to garner Ukrainian votes. Now here is Justin Trudeau following along Harper’s line. I say something else is afoot here. Follow the money on this one, Bruce Walker. I’ll bet you that if you follow the money, you will find the reason.

          Quite a departure from Justin’s father. Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s Wiki site says:

          “During the 1950s he was blacklisted by the United States and prevented from entering that country because of a visit to a conference in Moscow, and because he subscribed to a number of left-wing publications. Trudeau later appealed the ban and it was rescinded. […] In foreign affairs, Trudeau kept Canada firmly in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), but often pursued an independent path in international relations. He established Canadian diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China, before the United States did, and went on an official visit to Beijing. He was known as a friend of Fidel Castro, the leader of Cuba.”

          Trudeau Sr. was well read. I highly doubt his son is. Follow the money trail on this one.

          • Bob Van Noy
            January 29, 2017 at 22:11

            A British link to the “Deep State”???

  3. John P
    January 28, 2017 at 20:40

    A friend told me this 50 odd years ago, about something now lost in fog of age, but it could pertain to Trump after todays obscene declarations, “If he had one more neuron he could make a synapse.”
    I’m surprised that this site never seemed to recognise this extreme danger in a populist. What a shame after all their good reporting on Palestine and dirty politics.
    To maintain a democracy, people must get on the streets to preserve it. There should have been crowds out there years ago to trash the PAC system and other schemes parties use to get money from elites and corporations. Then we might get better constructive foreign policy.
    And now the idiot has increased the tensions between the US and Muslims by selective leniency on Christians on the now closed borders.
    So much for humanitarian sensitivities. I’m glad to see the protests by the genuine humanitarians over this racism, sexism and divisiveness. May your struggles prove productive..

  4. Sara
    January 28, 2017 at 18:08

    New Evidence Links Voting Machines And Clinton Foundation Tyler Durden Oct 27, 2016
    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-27/new-evidence-links-voting-machines-and-clinton-foundation

    Greg Phillips of VoteFraud.org, : Over three million votes were cast by illegal aliens during last year’s Presidential election.

    A further 2 million dead people were found to be registered and “eligible” to vote according to a report by Pew Charitable Trusts.

    Mediaite.com reports:

    3 million Illegal aliens for Trump?

    Based on the extent of fraud in the democratic primary, Election Justice USA recommended that the democratic primary results be decertified;. Did the DNC discontinue its fraudulent practices after Sanders’ nomination was stolen, or were they continued to defeat Trump? What was the goal of democrats participating in voter fraud and election fraud? Was ihe goal putting Clinton in the WH?
    http://www.election-justice-usa.org/Democracy_Lost_Update1_EJUSA.pdf

  5. Abe
    January 28, 2017 at 13:29

    “On January 17, in another attempt to harass Russia and add to the anti-Russian propaganda generated by the NATO powers, the Kiev regime in de facto charge of western Ukraine has filed a complaint against Russia in the International Court of Justice in The Hague. The complaint, which reads as a propaganda tract instead of a legal document, and is no doubt crafted for propaganda purposes rather than juridical ones, is a litany of lies and concoctions that, when examined, are a projection onto Russia of the very crimes that the Kiev regime is guilty of. We can have no doubt that when Mr. Poroshenko was presented with the document and the allegations contained in it he must have felt that he was looking into a mirror.

    “For this is what the American, excuse me, Ukrainian lawyers on the Kiev government staff have produced, a document that describes all the crimes of the Kiev regime committed against the Ukrainian people. The criminal claims to be the victim, a tactic typical of the Americans and their allies […]

    “We can expect Russia to file a counter-claim and we can also expect the Donbass Republics to ask for intervener status, as they are allowed to do, in order to present the real facts to the court and to the world. It is unfortunate that a Ukrainian government in exile has not yet been set up, though there has been talk of doing so since it could also ask for intervener status before the court and could object to the filing of the claim in the first place since the Kiev regime is not a legitimate one. It was established through a coup against the legitimate government and has not permitted free and fair elections since that time, has been at war with its eastern regions since the coup and does not control all of its territory. The fact that Russia has recognised the Kiev regime as a regime it has to deal with de facto does not give the regime legitimacy de jure.

    “President Trump has said nothing to indicate that his policy towards Russia vis a vis Ukraine will be different from that of the Obama regime, so we can expect this type of harassment to continue. The complaint to the ICJ will probably be used to back calls for more ‘sanctions’ against Russia and we can expect this to be accompanied by new complaints before the International Criminal Court and further military pressure against Russia from the Baltic to the Balkans and the Black Sea. Ukraine has already filed claims against Russia in the European Court of Human Rights as part of its harassment and […] the Kiev regime is also contemplating whether to file an official complaint, presumably with the ICC, against President Putin ‘as a war criminal.’

    “There has been little mention of this complaint made in the Russian press and little said in response by the Russian government but we can be sure that they are prepared to deal with this nonsense in the intelligent and effective manner they have used to deal with all these issues so far. But this action does not promise anything resembling peace in Ukraine or an easing of the pressure on Russia by the NATO war alliance. It is a signal that the ground is being prepared for further action against Russia, and with the threat from President Trump to employ the aggressive ‘peace through strength’ doctrine of Ronald Reagan, there seem to be no grounds for hoping that we will see peace in our time.”

    Kiev’s Russian Complaint to the ICJ: Looking Into A Mirror
    By Christopher Black
    http://journal-neo.org/2017/01/28/kiev-s-russian-complaint-to-the-icj-looking-into-a-mirror/

    • Sara
      January 28, 2017 at 18:20

      It’s wonderful to read articles by brave ethical journalists defending the intentions of citizens rather than the goals of war-mongering globalist neocons.
      .

    • backwardsevolution
      January 29, 2017 at 04:18

      Abe – that was a really good article. “The criminal claims to be the victim…” That often happens, doesn’t it? Just coincidental that Joe Biden arrived on the same day (January 17, 2017) that the documents were submitted to the International Criminal Court, two days before he left office. I hope the court will accept submissions by the Donbass Republics. Like the article said, the Kiev government isn’t even a legitimate government. If the Donbass isn’t recognized by the court, then surely Kiev shouldn’t be either. Hopefully Putin can discuss what’s happening in Ukraine with Trump, bargain back and forth, and come to some sort of a meeting of the minds.

  6. Herman
    January 28, 2017 at 12:47

    There have been several instances where my comments did not appear. This after the prompt saying they would be posted. It is probably presumptuous to suggest I have been singled out for some transgression, and my memory is not always the best, so I will pay attention in the future to be sure that I have followed the proper procedures in making my posts. I am probably over reacting, at least I hope so.

    • Joe J Tedesky
      January 28, 2017 at 13:28

      Herman it’s not just you.

      What I have been doing is writing out my comment then copying it before hitting the post comment button…when it disappears I hit the reload button and try again…also I type in my name and sometimes by email address to refresh those slots ….I guess, but I paste my comment once again until this site accepts my comment.

  7. Robert Bell
    January 28, 2017 at 12:08

    Thank you for publishing information that allows the public to understand the truth about what is really going on in the world. Most of the people I know still firmly believe that Assad’s army used poison gas against their own people, stories about Gaddafi’s genocide, and Putin’s hand in bringing down MH-17.
    Add to the list may other lies including lies from the directors of the government departments that spy on citizens of their own country and we are proceeding rapidly into an Orwellian state.
    When will we get to the final chapter when the government restrict internet sites that oppose their views?
    As Orwell wrote “during times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act”.
    For all of us looking for a breath of fresh air I appears that our leaders will filter out the clean particles and continue to deliver the contaminates.

  8. Michael Morrissey
    January 28, 2017 at 11:47

    What a pleasure it is to read another balanced, well-researched and solidly documented article by Robert Parry.

    I hope that Trump and/or his people are reading Parry, and that they take his advice.

    It is also a pleasure to read the comments here, which contrast markedly from the level of commentary on certain other “PropOrNot” sites (meant as a compliment!), which are so full of Trump-bashing, both in the articles and in the commentary, that they are hardly distinguishable from the NYT or WaPo.

  9. Lou Mains
    January 28, 2017 at 11:18

    Why think Dump will change? He’s 70!

    These emotional deficits have been with him for 70 years and have hardened over time. The narcissistic personality disorder and likely socio/psychopathic personality disorders are how he has “coped” throughout his life.

    We will need to continue to strongly oppose him and his actions. He is very unlikely to change.

  10. Terry Washington
    January 28, 2017 at 07:21

    Mirror, mirror on the wall- who’s the fairest of them all? Definitely NOT The Donald- I am an artist and am considering painting a portrait of Melania and Barron Trump together!

    • J'hon Doe II
      January 28, 2017 at 13:51

      Mr Trump is the dystopian mirror image of this guy- Andrew Johnson.
      ::
      35a. Presidential Reconstruction

      Andrew Johnson, the 17th President of the United States, was pro-slavery throughout his career in the Senate and as the Military Governor of Tennessee.

      In 1864, Republican Abraham Lincoln chose Andrew Johnson, a Democratic senator from Tennessee, as his Vice Presidential candidate. Lincoln was looking for Southern support. He hoped that by selecting Johnson he would appeal to Southerners who never wanted to leave the Union.

      Johnson, like Lincoln, had grown up in poverty. He did not learn to write until he was 20 years old. He came to political power as a backer of the small farmer. In speeches, he railed against “SLAVEOCRACY” and a bloated “Southern aristocracy” that had little use for the white working man.

      The views of the Vice President rarely matter too much, unless something happens to the President. Following Lincoln’s assassination, Johnson’s views now mattered a great deal. Would he follow Lincoln’s moderate approach to reconciliation? Would he support limited black suffrage as Lincoln did? Would he follow the Radical Republicans and be harsh and punitive toward the South?

      Riot of 1866
      Riots rocked New Orleans on July 30, 1866, when a convention met to stop Louisiana’s Black Codes from taking effect. Official reports listed 37 dead and 146 wounded, but witnesses claimed that the tolls were much higher.
      Johnson believed the Southern states should decide the course that was best for them. He also felt that African-Americans were unable to manage their own lives. He certainly did not think that African-Americans deserved to vote. At one point in 1866 he told a group of blacks visiting the White House that they should emigrate to another country.

      He also gave amnesty and pardon. He returned all property, except, of course, their slaves, to former Confederates who pledged loyalty to the Union and agreed to support the 13th Amendment. Confederate officials and owners of large taxable estates were required to apply individually for a Presidential pardon. Many former Confederate leaders were soon returned to power. And some even sought to regain their Congressional seniority.

      Johnson’s vision of Reconstruction had proved remarkably lenient. Very few Confederate leaders were persecuted. By 1866, 7,000 Presidential pardons had been granted. Brutal beatings of African-Americans were frequent. Still-powerful whites sought to subjugate freed slaves via harsh laws that came to be known as the BLACK CODES. Some states required written evidence of employment for the coming year or else the freed slaves would be required to work on plantations.

      Pardon
      These cartoons by Thomas Nast show Colombia granting pardons to high-ranking Confederate leaders (which allowed them the full privileges of citizenship), but denying the vote to an crippled African American Civil War veteran.
      In South Carolina, African-Americans had to pay a special tax if they were not farmers or servants. They were not even allowed to hunt or fish in some areas. Blacks were unable to own guns — and even had their dogs taxed. African-Americans were barred from orphanages, parks, schools and other public facilities. The FREEDMAN’S BUREAU, a federal agency created to help the transition from slavery to emancipation, was thwarted in its attempts to provide for the welfare of the newly emancipated. All of these rules resulted in the majority of freed slaves remaining dependent on the plantation for work.

      Andrew Johnson’s policies were initially supported by most Northerners, even Republicans. But, there was no consensus as to what rights African-Americans received along with Emancipation. Yet a group of Radical Republicans wanted the rights promised in the Declaration of Independence extended to include all free men, including those who were formerly slaves. A political power struggle was in the offing.

  11. Abe
    January 28, 2017 at 03:56

    Politicians CAN say what they’re actually thinking…
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gneBUA39mnI

  12. Wm. Boyce
    January 28, 2017 at 01:12

    As usual, a good article and recounting of facts. But, the current president is an unstable sociopath, thereby throwing everything into the weeds. Anything can happen, and probably will. Trump voters have no idea who they really voted for.

  13. John P
    January 28, 2017 at 01:12

    I forgot to mention Trump’s war on the Environmental Protection Agency. They can’t release documents until they have been cleared by his team. There is talk of a drastic cut in staff, that Trump is going to open the coal mines (Britain closed theirs amid great turmoil long ago) so I guess the coal fired power stations will once again be polluting much of the air in the east. I hope the miners have adequate healthcare coverage as well as the people who have to breathe the toxic air.
    Trump wants to kick science into the waste bin. Meanwhile the last three years have been the hottest on record and CO2 is nearing the danger point. And he’ll probably slam the door on those trying to escape the upheavals from climate change, already causing great strife in some parts of the world.

  14. John P
    January 28, 2017 at 00:47

    Robert, Could the silence be that the CIA want to keep secret information channels open and not endanger agents or sources? I really think you should see the CBC The Fifth Estate program “The Conspiracy Files: Putin, the FBI and Donald Trump”

    http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/episodes/2014-2015/the-conspiracy-files-putin-the-fbi-and-donald-trump

    Briefly, there is a Russian mobster, Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov who the program claims is the 3rd most wanted man. He was involved in the following::

    – Late 90’s he was tied in with mob problems involving Russian NHLers.

    – 2002 Winter Olympics in Moscow, a bribed judge gave the gold to a Russian skating pair when it should have gone to a Canadian pair. In time that wrong was rectified.

    – April 2013 in New York: the biggest sports bookmaking operation in the world was busted in a privately owned quarter in Trump Tower. ($100m business)
    – Nov 2013 at the Moscow, Miss World contest. Over $6m was paid to have it there and its results were fixed. This is 7 months after the big bust at Trump Tower , and Alimzhan was there walking on Trump’s red carpet with the stars on stage.
    Trump meanwhile publicly states soon after that he ‘talked directly and indirectly with Putin.’

    That contradicts what he said during the election where he told us he never met the man, doesn’t know him. What brought that reaction on, alarm?

    Then they talk about the New York Field Office of the CIA, and James Kallstrom voices his dislike of Bill Clinton. I won’t go into the details, you can see them. Their staff lawyer was Rudy Giuliani. This clan then begins looking for anything to nail Hillary Clinton.

    James Kallstrom falsely brought up how corrupt the Clinton Foundation was, saying only 6% of the funds were used for social programs when in fact the humanitarian agencies state how good and efficient it was.

    Christopher Steel’s British intelligence report states that over the past 5 years or so the Russians have been trying to coopt or cultivate Trump. He’s in hiding as will be his contacts from press and Russian polonium.

    Steve Banon and his Breithbart business ran Trumps campaign. Wow. He told them to get the negative stories into the main stream media, not the other forms of communication we have today.

    I could go on, but you see the program and make your own decision.
    America is split. I didn’t like Hillary or Trump. I think the behaviour of both the Democrats and Republicans is abominable. I also think that the coincidental proximity between the mafia and Trump, even though they don’t prove anything, are worrying particularly with his personality.
    I just heard there’s been another change in his mind on NATO. Really!

    • Joe J Tedesky
      January 28, 2017 at 13:22

      John P has your research come upon a guy by the name of Adam Khan, who writes on Twitter? If so, who is and where does Adam Khan come from?

      • John P
        January 28, 2017 at 14:38

        Judging by the timeline Joe, I don’t think you reviewed the 50 + minute CBC Investigative program. Much of the research is documented on film, and by investigative reporters at the CBC and by David Corn and other reporters. I saw no credits to any Adam Khan. I suggest you have a look and then make a decision.

        • Joe J Tedesky
          January 28, 2017 at 14:51

          I promise I will see the link you provided, but I’m trying to find out who Adan Khan is….sorry I thought you might know.

  15. CitizenOne
    January 27, 2017 at 21:43

    I agree that Trump is lost in vanity and could easily succumb to the bait being laid out as a trap. The media will try to exploit his penchant for attacking petty claims their own with pettiness. His response to the provocations from the provocateurs in the media was predicted and he has taken the bait. My advise to Trump would be to be “presidential” and ignore the BS flying out of the media which is seeking to lure Trump into a trap which they have custom designed to appeal to his weakness in the hopes he takes the bait. So far he has taken the bait and now they have him on the hook and they will try to reel him in with their “news” controversy he had a smaller turnout on the National Mall etc.

    Such mindless and meaningless debates have become a hallmark of the media while they have ignored the larger and more meaningful debates surrounding recent foreign policy which have been responsible for aiding and abetting regime changes and have hidden the fake news that they have supported in order to justify those attempts at regime change in Syria and Ukraine.

    Trump and Bannon are correct for calling out the media as “The Opposition Party” but they need to focus on the larger reasons for their claims. They should focus on all of the lies of former administrations and the fact that the media supported those lies instead of becoming victims of the Evil Queen’s mirror on the wall which is currently trying to trap the Trump administration into a mirror gazing expose which they can use to portray Trump as the Evil Queen.

    It is time for Trump and his advisors to blast the media for all the deeper lies they have told to “We The People” such as the deliberate blocking of the report of the 9/11 Commission’s report on Saudi Arabia’s involvement in the 9/11 attacks and how former administrations lied about Saddam’s involvement to justify a war of choice based on deep lies told by the government to convince us that we were justified to launch a war which has resulted in the creation of ISIS and a general movement in middle eastern countries to cause their citizens to flee from violence and the military destruction of their countries.

    It is time to reveal the strategy to purchase oil from Russia as a means to block further attempts by Saudi Arabia to export global terrorism. It is time to reveal a plan to form an alliance with a western nation which was a former ally in WWII to fight and combat a global threat of terrorism by nations in the middle east which is our real foe.

    We will have to wait and see if this strategy which goes against many monied interests can be launched or whether Trump will become mired in the quicksand of his own vanity over trivial disputes over his election results. If I were him, I would ignore all the bait being laid out in front of him and rest assured he is the president and go on about the business of creating a lever to turn the Saudi terror threat into a matter of complying with western interests or face the real prospect that Russia is quite capable and willing to supply oil to their economic advantage as an alternative source of energy to traditional sources in the middle east.

    The infrastructure is already there. Russia has been building massive pipelines to supply the World with oil. If we want to have a credible threat to the Saudis we need to support Rex Tillerson and Donald Trump to do it. But it is time for them to come out of the closet and announce their intentions. It is not the time to get mired in vanity over trivial claims.

    • Joe B
      January 28, 2017 at 10:56

      Interesting notion of a “strategy to purchase oil from Russia… to block … Saudi Arabia… export global terrorism.” I am surprised that we haven’t heard that one yet. Is there enough oil at a similar price? Tanker facilities where they would be needed? Would Russia leave OPEC? Is there evidence of such a strategy?

      • Joe B
        January 28, 2017 at 11:04

        And would the US be in competition with China for that oil?

  16. John
    January 27, 2017 at 20:59

    Everything on this planet is about profit and market share….deep state included…except that some of the deep state movers are bible idiots……Trump is a business man first and foremost…….The deep state bible thumps will allow Trump to flourish as long as Israel is the main topic of continuing it’s reclamation of you know what…….The pressure will mount and Trump will give the Hebrews up….Sounds like a B movie to me….The rest of the topic is window dressing……He said….She said…..They said…..

  17. Abe
    January 27, 2017 at 19:06

    “How the US Presidency Really Works

    “Imagine the United States is a corporation. It thus has a board of directors (Wall Street). It has a CEO (the US President). The candidates for CEO and the CEO are all chosen by the board of directors merely under the guise of ‘democratic elections.’ The CEO then implements the desires of the unelected board of directors, serving also as a spokesperson for the board and a representative of the board’s overarching agenda.

    “This explains how, over the past 16 years from US President George Bush Jr. to now President-elect Donald Trump, singular agendas, including unending war in Iraq and Afghanistan, still rage and expanding confrontations with Russia, China, and Iran continue unabated regardless of who is president, and regardless of the alleged principles, political ideals, and campaign promises they respectively represented.

    “Rhetorically and ideologically, Presidents Bush Jr. and Obama could not have been any more diametrically opposed, yet the continuity of agenda from one 8-year administration to the other was almost seamless. Upon closer examination of the actual corporate-financier interests underpinning both presidencies’ policies, we find the same profiteering special interests and their agendas at play; from big-defense and big-auto to big-oil and mega-finance. From big-pharma to big-ag, and all of these industries sponsoring the same circle of ‘policy experts’ within the halls of corporate-financier funded ‘think tanks.’

    “The presidency of Donald Trump will be no different. There is nothing about either Trump or those he has surrounded himself with that makes him any more ‘independent’ from the defacto ‘board of directors’ that runs corporate America than the administrations of Bush or Obama.

    “To distract the American public from this fact, and to lump at least some of the public behind President-elect Trump, they have orchestrated a media campaign so crass and despicable, few can resist (even just on principle alone) from responding to and thus becoming consumed and distracted by this expanding media circus.

    “On the other side of this circus, however, is an America even more deeply and dangerously involved in provoking global conflict and the instability and human tragedy that will predictably unfold in its wake.”

    The Trump-Media Circus and Continuity of Agenda
    By Ulson Gunnar
    http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-trump-media-circus-and-continuity.html

    • D5-5
      January 27, 2017 at 19:58

      The “defacto board of directors”/deep state into which Trump inevitably will be folded in, and sooner rather than later, as was Obama immediately . . . yes, this is the question isn’t it. Another swiveler here in Trump assumed with these glimmers of change, real change, as simply more illusions. This may well be. His first week is a rack of plus and minus and more of the same Trump petty vainglory, and we’re all weary and cynical especially following the past 16 years and the example set by Obama. I can hope, I will hope, there is something to Trump beyond this, a force somehow to work contrary to this system . . .

  18. Em
    January 27, 2017 at 17:56

    Be careful what you wish for Mr. Parry. It would be a disaster for those of us who have followed current events for decades if Trump were to release the files. Yes, we may all nod knowingly that all has been confirmed, but it would be a field day for the old guard. Everything would be rebranded as crazy counterfeit documentation from the Barnum in Chief. They could also accuse him of jeopardizing national security and discrediting his country. Either way, or both ways, the mass of people who have only just woken up and found a good bandwagon to jump on, will continue to enjoy the fake news meme on their FB feed.

    There’s only one strategy Trump could use effectively, and it’s what his people have been doing for the last year. They knew that there was only one way they could possibly change the narrative effectively; leak, leak and leak some more.

    However the last couple of weeks have seen a major game change. Obama gave Clapper et al a massive farewell gift, opening up the NSA and providing him with an unparalleled intelligence dump. Now we are going to have a leak war with no prisoners. God only knows what we are going to see coming in the next few months, but at the end of the day everyone’s head will be spinning and that will ultimately be more helpful for Clapper than Rogers, because Clapper knows how to utilize the chaos theory of geopolitics; he’s been doing it a long time and they have the “Non-Profits” (ha ha) to organize the protests, the outsourced “Security” agencies to muddy the intel, and the largest of the social media platforms to manipulate the “news.” It’s a beautiful evil Triad they’ve established in the last decade. And Comey will go whatever way the wind blows as usual.

    • Joe B
      January 27, 2017 at 18:21

      How did Obama do this “opening up the NSA and providing him with an unparalleled intelligence dump”? Do you have a source on that?

    • backwardsevolution
      January 27, 2017 at 18:23

      Em – at least Clapper’s last day was January 20, 2017.

  19. Abe
    January 27, 2017 at 17:55

    Fairy tales typically feature a nasty woman glaring back in the magic mirror.

    The US presidential election truly was a battle of Evil Queens.

    After sniffing around the private sector, Trump solicited yet another Evil Queen to serve as cyber security advisor
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBKu9OJ8Ltk

  20. backwardsevolution
    January 27, 2017 at 17:00

    Trump could do well not to get into petty arguments. When asked about the crowd size at his inauguration, he should have just said, “I don’t know how many people attended, but it was a pretty large crowd.” Of course, you’re going to get reporters who goad you on: “Mr. President, your crowd size was not as big as President Obama’s,” to which Trump should have just said, “It is what it is.” Intelligent reporters could have subsequently pointed out that Washington is a liberal town, and that might have something to do with the turnout, or point out the fact, as Robert Parry did, that Trump’s supporters don’t live in the Washington, D.C. area.

    If Trump is concerned about voter fraud, he should have just said, “We are going to look into the voting process,” and left it at that. If pressed, Trump could just say, “There are concerns and questions from both sides about the voting process, and we really need to look into this to get a clearer picture.”

    I like the idea of opening up the files on the Syrian sarin gas attack, the Ukranian coup, MH-17, the funding/arming/training of ISIS, firm evidence on whether Russia had involvement in hacking, and the like. The information gleaned would go a long way to healing the country.

    Trump needs to be less cocky, less sure of himself, but as Scott Adams of Dilbert fame points out in his article entitled “Outrage Dilution”:

    “I’m having a fun time watching President Trump flood the news cycle with so many stories and outrages that no one can keep up. Here’s how the math of persuasion works in this situation:

    1 outrage out of 3 headlines in a week: Bad Persuasion

    25 outrages out of 25 headlines in a week: Excellent Persuasion

    At the moment there are so many outrages, executive orders, protests, and controversies that none of them can get enough oxygen in our brains. I can’t obsess about problem X because the rest of the alphabet is coming at me at the same time.

    When you encounter a situation that is working great except for one identifiable problem, you can focus on the problem and try to fix it. But if you have a dozen complaints at the same time, none of them looks special. The whole situation just looks confusing, and you don’t know where to start. So you wait and see what happens. Humans need contrast in order to make solid decisions that turn into action. Trump removed all of your contrast by providing multiple outrages of similar energy.”

    There may be method to his madness. Scott Adams concludes with:

    “And when Trump has created a hundred reasons to complain, do you know what impression will be left with the public?

    He sure got a lot done.

    Even if you don’t like it.”

    • Joe J Tedesky
      January 28, 2017 at 11:31

      I think Sean Spicer could have told the truth, and that truth was, was that there was a jam up in the Capital parking lot due to Trump deporting all of the car parking valets back to Mexico. Actually I never thought that there would have been that many billionaires who would show up at Trump’s Inauguration. I think it safe to say, that we will be seeing more of these kind of controversies between now and into the near future….don’t you? The one thing you will need to admit, is that a Trump Presidency is so far proving to be throughly entertaining…now let’s hope it doesn’t get to deadly before the inner mission.

      Sorry, but I need to find some humor in all of this, or I will be soon playing back up behind Madonna…what are the changes to Like a Virgin, and does she still do that song in her act? Instead I’m going to just go buy a Magic Bus, and go crash somewhere in the Rockies.

      • backwardsevolution
        January 28, 2017 at 19:24

        Joe – you’re right, you’ve got to maintain your sense of humor or else you’ll go crazy. Laughter is so good for you; I do it lots. And, yes, this is as entertaining as you can get. If we are left with some peace in the world and the so-called “free” trade treaties abolished, I’ll be happy. Too many people getting hurt.

        Imagine if there had been no wars in Iraq and Syria. Those people would still be living their lives, happy. And the Mexicans, I can’t imagine that the “free” trade treaty has been too good for the average guy, just the wealthy Mexicans and the U.S. multinationals. Sometimes what appears to be bad turns out to be a blessing. Mexico could really get their country back from these multinationals companies who have taken over their land, and they could be productive, selling their produce back to us. They shouldn’t have to travel to the U.S. for jobs when their jobs have been stolen from them.

        I have hope, Joe. It gets me through my life. Take care.

  21. art
    January 27, 2017 at 16:54

    zero called Gaddafi evil and look how that turned out. waronlibya.com

  22. Realist
    January 27, 2017 at 16:21

    Even though Trump’s outlandish claims about illegal voters and crowd size at the inauguration are no more fallacious than “Russia stole the election from Hillary,” he would be well advised to suppress his personal indignation because i) it makes his seem petty, and ii) the media are just spoiling for a fight with him about anything. Though the media could report these twitters and tweets by Trump with a wink and a nod, they much prefer to make a federal case of it, and they love the vicious cycle that it escalates into because that makes him seem more juvenile and less presidential. As they say in the internet culture: don’t feed the trolls, Donald.

  23. Josh Stern
    January 27, 2017 at 16:03

    This editorial is very well crafted. The issue of so much pointless, expensive, revolting, ongoing bloodshed around the World and especially in the Middle East is obviously a lot bigger than attendance at the inauguration ceremony. One wonders if Obama has plans to ever say anything honest and constructive about his role in making those horrors worse than before. Obama did “improve” there on the horrendous standard of GW Bush in terms of lowering the rate of U.S. casualties and U.S. uniforms in pointless operations – but he increased the level of U.S. spending, arms sales, special ops forces, rogue terrorist groups, the number of foreign nations and peoples involved in these destructive activities, and the amount of U.S. govt. lying to the public about all of that. I’m not waiting with bated breath, but, here in 2017, we are still waiting for Obama’s version of the traditional “(honest) mistakes were made”. If the Obama-as-CIA-asset read is correct, then U.S. public isn’t even going to get that much out of Mr. Obama.

  24. Tom Coombs
    January 27, 2017 at 15:45

    All Trump’s tweets and e-mails should be reported as “allegedly” coming from Donald Trump. The press should then ask for an interview to prove that it was him. Tell him that you would hate to reprt “fake” news without a confirmation from him. Don’t publish the tweets until they are confirmed.

  25. rosemerry
    January 27, 2017 at 15:44

    Thank you Robert for a fair and clear analysis (as usual) including reasons for Trump’s smaller inauguration crowd that I, certainly, as a foreigner, would not have known. What I find distressing is his petty concentration on personal issues like this, or Meryl Streep, or SNL, or watching “TV News” instead of realizing that he is responsible for lives all over the USA and the globe, and using some “intelligence” (both information and brainpower) to try to solve the complex problems already facing him.

  26. January 27, 2017 at 15:05

    strongly agree with the content, tone , opinion and information presented here, except for the unfortunate references like ” an intelligence source told me” which sound like trump or any other expert (?) relying on personal stuff that could amount to gossip if truly investigated…very good points are made about trump’s petty egoism beyond the trashy filth indulged in by media pimps whom he rightly labels as political opposition and that sort of thing could only add to his view of media and ours as well…this is hardly the case as parry is performing vital public service..thank you, but please address inside sources in a way that doesn’t sound like personal gossip.

    • John
      January 27, 2017 at 19:04

      Look into Mr. Parry’s history, and his record makes it very clear that such a statement from him carries far more weight mere “personal gossip”.

  27. Erik G
    January 27, 2017 at 14:24

    Excellent suggest that Trump start by “declassifying evidence on the Syrian sarin case, the Ukrainian coup, the MH-17 shoot-down and other turning-point moments in recent history” and other shenanigans of the DemRep warmongers.

    • Bill Bodden
      January 27, 2017 at 16:03

      The Deep State apparatchicks probably won’t go along with that proposal.

    • Realist
      January 27, 2017 at 16:56

      How would “outsiders” (like the president) even know where to find that stuff if the Deep State doesn’t want it known? I fear that much of the CIA is beyond the control of our elected government. I think they start and prosecute secret wars with no input from government, and they manipulate the congress and president at their pleasure, even “removing” them when it suits them. Maybe they “convinced” Obama long ago to give up his original stated agenda for theirs, and now they’re gonna work on getting Trump’s mind right.

      • Erik G
        January 27, 2017 at 18:28

        Yes, secret agencies need an effective monitoring agency, secret from them, and perhaps operated by Congress rather than the executive. Without that, the Pres would have to form such an agency and have his DNI implement it by order at descending levels, until all rogues and their assets and operations are well known and disabled. Perhaps Congress should mandate this and operate it directly.

        The rationale for a commander-in-chief does not extend to agencies that need not operate with great speed, and the need for checks and balances is especially compelling with secret executive agencies.

        • D5-5
          January 27, 2017 at 19:38

          Surely tho Robert’s tongue was in cheek following his analysis that Obama’s government (and not the first at it) followed lies as necessary to “the official narrative” because surely we people are too ignorant for “smart” policy. Imagine the howls and execration if Trump were to say let’s finally get the truth out on M17, the Victoria Nuland role in Ukraine, manipulation of “the moderates” in Syria, etc., and let’s throw in 9/11 while we’re at it. Trump himself is blind on Manning as “traitor” so all this is really too absurd to expect unless stated with an ironic glint in the eye. By the way, Phillip Giraldi has an interesting piece on what he sees as the essential character of the CIA here, in terms of what he calls the disinterested “nihilist” intelligence agent:

          http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-nihilist-intelligence-officer/

      • Joe J Tedesky
        January 28, 2017 at 03:11

        It’s easy, while Trump’s Cabinet and Chief of Staff wait for the word to come down from the Board Room, the Donald will reveal all false flags, and deep dark secrets, and quote the National Inquirer when draining out the creatures of this DC swamp Establishment. Then Breaking News, CNN just got a twit from a White House Intern alerting us that they just found the Prez slumped over from an apparent suicide….and then we get a glimpse of this Intern as he or she shuts the open door just as the media cameras enter the Oval Office. We go to extreme coverage w/o commercials for twelve hours, and then we sell car insurance, anf fit bits.

        I’m joking, but in many ways our news is beginning to sound like the theater of the absurd. What we really need is more Magic Chef commercials, and less time given to these crazy politicians of ours….that will show them, now turn off the cameras.

        • Joe J Tedesky
          January 28, 2017 at 03:21

          Oh I forgot …..

          Day 2 of the presidential suicide coverage President Trump is alive and well and speaking from the Rose Garden about sending in troops to take back Mexico (InfoWars convinced him Mexico was once ours) & there was no suicide.

          Alternative Facts People!

  28. W. R. Knight
    January 27, 2017 at 14:07

    Indeed there is much that Trump could do to establish some level of credibility and respect, but I for one will not hold my breath. As someone said, there is no magic in the office of the president that transforms a fool into a wise man.

  29. jakester48
    January 27, 2017 at 13:38

    What do you mean by authentic? Racist, sexist, dishonest, manipulative?

    • Litchfield
      January 27, 2017 at 14:14

      Many of our presidents have had negative personality traits.
      Most of them had a huge ego and drive for power, and that drive tends to bring a lot of baggage with it.
      There are few Lincolns in our past. Actually, only one.
      As we look in the rearview mirror we see their faults and their actual accomplishments differently.
      Take, for example, Lyndon B. Johnson.
      Talk about egomaniac. Everyone in the family had to have the same initials as him!
      Pinched every bottom in sight. Was verbally abusive to Lady Bird.
      A first-class bastard, by all accounts.
      Lied the country into Vietnam. Paved the way for Nixon (also a secretive jerk — whom the EPA was created).
      But as a bastard Johnson had what it took to get the Civil Rights Act passed.
      Americans tend to be too personal in their responses to their chief executives.
      You don’t have to marry Trump. He is not your mother or your father.
      He hasn’t pinched your bottom. His hairdo is irrelevant (Hello . . .!)
      What matters is how he gets the job done.

  30. Stiv
    January 27, 2017 at 13:18

    Looking for something more important than this. How about looking into the business ties and how that will affect his foreign and domestic policies?

    • jakester48
      January 27, 2017 at 13:36

      For example, the Kushner ties to housebuilding on land appropriated from Palestinians in Israel.

  31. Bill Bodden
    January 27, 2017 at 13:13

    Trump could do some good things contrary to what his character and recent actions suggest. Mussolini got the trains running on time and his buddy to the north built the autobahn that Eisenhower copied to give us the Interstate highway system. There is a saying about people given high office often rising to the imputed dignity of that office and its responsibilities. Who knows? That idea may apply to Trump some day. But caution suggests to not forget Lord Acton’s more famous dictum about power.

  32. D5-5
    January 27, 2017 at 13:03

    “Facts didn’t have an intrinsic value as a way to empower the public to understand the world and to make informed judgments. Instead ‘information war’ was viewed as a way to weaken and defeat ‘enemies,’ part of ‘smart power’.”

    Excellent comment. This cynical justification of the lies puts us squarely into 1984. Trump’s egotism seems likely to run a similar course, or even worse, if he relishes being the number one man in world politics.

  33. Paul G.
    January 27, 2017 at 12:43

    The Donald is now talking about creating “safe zones” in Syria for civilians without bothering to consult the Russians or the government. Moscow has modestly reminded him to be careful of consequences; unfortunately Trump’s entire business career and personal relationships have demonstrated a spectacular inability to account for consequences of his actions. Mr Murphy (as in Murphy’s law) lies in wait.

    • January 27, 2017 at 13:34

      In The Donald’s case the Peter Principle is the more appropriate and was formulated by Laurence J. Peter when he took control of Avis Car Rental and published in 1969. It states that the selection of a candidate for a position is based on the candidate’s performance in their current role, rather than on abilities relevant to the intended role. Thus, employees only stop being promoted once they can no longer perform effectively, and “managers rise to the level of their incompetence.”
      Peter suggests that “In time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties” and that “work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence.” He coined the term hierarch ology as the social science concerned with the basic principles of hierarchically organized systems in the human society.
      He noted that their incompetence may be because the required skills are different, but not more difficult. For example, an excellent engineer may be a poor manager because they might not have the interpersonal skills necessary to lead a team.
      The Donald has never led a team. All the initial work getting off the ground was done by Ivana who was his wife, the girl that learned the hard knocks of life by her father putting her to work in the Bata shoe factory building shoes because Ivana thought that all there was to life was being a world-class top skier. Her father was the engineer at Bata Shoe Company. The rest is history.

      • Brad Owen
        January 27, 2017 at 14:50

        My dad had that Peter Principle book. I thought it was a hilarious read. An alternative way I sometimes describe the current era (from Thatcher/Reagan to May/Trump) we’re in, is “The Rise of the Managerial Elite” (at everybody else’s expense). Now I can say “The Rise of the Managerial Elite to their highest level of incompetence”.

        • Joe Tedesky
          January 27, 2017 at 17:52

          Do you remember the funny commercial where the boss talks like an under paid employee, and his employee says, ‘but sir you are the boss’. Well since my son in law took over running our day to day operation that’s our little joke now, plus I’ve almost put the employees first before paying myself at bonus time…and I hate to get thanked for a bonus or a raise, and tell our people how ‘they were the ones who earned it, I just acknowledge their hard work with a bonus or raise’. Now, if I only could remember how to do what we do, but hey they tell me I’m now the Chairman of the Board…and I quietly wonder, what in the hell am I suppose to do now? Now go away, and shut the door behind you, it’s my nap time.

  34. Gregory Kruse
    January 27, 2017 at 11:34

    He could do that, and it should be said that he could do that. To think that he might do that is like thinking that the evil queen will suddenly soften and adopt Snow White as her own beloved daughter. Trump has practiced his ways for a long time, and his ways work for him. I think the purpose of the gratuitous lies is to get everyone used to the idea that he always lies, and then when they are told the awful truth, it will have much greater impact. “You poor and working class people are losers.” “If the rest of you don’t get with the program, you can join the losers.” This is the kind of truth he tells, and he’s proud of it. We still have little knowledge of his agenda, and he might do some things I would approve of, but I don’t expect to see a conversion or even a diversion from what he has been up until now.

  35. Joe J Tedesky
    January 27, 2017 at 11:28

    That’s right Robert Parry, let’s drill down on how all of the Beltway crowd lies. Lying is the American way, and our politicians roll out every one of their war ad campaigns based on a lie. Why, because it works in the short term, and by the time a good reporter gets around to exposing the lie, the story is forgotten, and that good reporter is selling their message to a tinfoiled hat conspiracy asylum or and in most cases that reporter will be excused of reporting fake news.

    Trump will keep us all busy talking about trivial things until the cows come home, so it would be good to look around his looming tall figure, and see to what else is going on that isn’t so out front in the news.

    • Lois Gagnon
      January 27, 2017 at 11:42

      Agreed. That will be be a difficult task though as the Democratic Party delusionals have fallen back in love with the Washington Establishment and its propaganda press machine. Herding sheep is a pathetically easy task. Those of us who follow independent reporting are a distinct minority.

      • Joe Tedesky
        January 27, 2017 at 13:01
        • rosemerry
          January 27, 2017 at 15:57

          Thanks for the great link!!

          • Joe Tedesky
            January 28, 2017 at 00:55

            Read the link article by Ulson Gunnar. Here is a slice of it….

            “How the US Presidency Really Works

            Imagine the United States is a corporation. It thus has a board of directors (Wall Street). It has a CEO (the US President). The candidates for CEO and the CEO are all chosen by the board of directors merely under the guise of “democratic elections.” The CEO then implements the desires of the unelected board of directors, serving also as a spokesperson for the board and a representative of the board’s overarching agenda.”

            http://journal-neo.org/2017/01/27/the-trump-media-circus-and-continuity-of-agenda/

            ………………………………………………………………………………..

            Grannar has an all encompassing perspective worth considering, while contemplating all the other opinions that are being thrown around about Trump these days. I’m not advocating not to critize Trump, but what I do advocate is that we spread the truth net out wide in an all inclusive fashion, as not to allow previous or current politicians off the hook by our focusing so narrowly on Trump that we forget to try and pull back the curtain.

            Read Gunner’s critique of Rex Tillerson and Tillerson’s remarks made over China, and how Tillerson feels about China’s claim over islands off the coast of their land mass, and how determined the U.S. is to maintain access to these very islands. In other words, Tillerson is continuing Hillary’s ‘Pivot to Asia’ policy. Is this what Trump’s Adminstration is continuing, or is Gunnar reporting ‘Alternative Facts’? You tell me.

            I’m still researching and hearing what everyone who should know is saying, and I haven’t come to a conclusion yet. I’m living on ‘benefit of the doubt’ ….you see I at least start out with every new president giving them a grace period, until I can’t, but something tells me that I may what to recheck my hat size before to long. How do you say in Americano “cappello figa”?

            Ps now might be a good time to re-study Eisenhowers ‘bluff strategy’ over the Formosa Straits crisis of 1954-56, and to see if this strategy is now being brought back to use against China…and will this pre Cubean Missile crisis crisis be a soon new rerun? Myth has it Ike once said regarding those tiny little islands off the coast of China he quipped, ‘and how does this effect Kansas?’
            Or something like that…. I’m sure one of you know how it went.

        • Larry Motuz
          January 28, 2017 at 00:52

          Very good reference. May I suggest Bill Black: Not 4 Sale – Why the Corrupt, Worker-Hating New Democrats Must Be Purged at http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/01/bill-black-not-4-sale-corrupt-worker-hating-new-democrats-must-purged.html as a companion piece?

          • Joe J Tedesky
            January 28, 2017 at 02:19

            Bill Black certainly doesn’t pull his punches. He is right when referencing Frank’s ‘what’s wrong with Kansas’ syndrome, and how it has settled in to our American politics. I gave up in 72 when McGovern loss. I felt at that time a massive sea shift going on inside the Demcratic Party, and I quit voting giving up on the system. I never quit loving America, because of the people in it. At that time, and having grown up with all of the assassinations, and Vietnam, I could see how we the people didn’t stand a chance. There I go….but we all have our story, don’t we? Bill Black will be someone for me to continue with.

        • Joe J Tedesky
          January 28, 2017 at 02:45

          If interested in Ike’s Formosa Strait problem solving, read this….

          https://history.state.gov/milestones/1953-1960/taiwan-strait-crises

          If having read the link, ask yourself if it isn’t the same plan being retrofitted into today’s U.S. China policy?

    • fudmier
      January 28, 2017 at 08:58

      lying is not the American way it is not part of the American culture nor are government regulations( zoning to tooth brush making ) both have been brought to America by the gurus that have made so many puppet liars figures elected to high paying positions.
      Lying is the mainstay of the USA and the media it commands, but those persons are not, representative of mainstay America..
      The bifucated party system is controlled by the same gurus who control most of the other governments of the
      NATO world (and these NATO governments are interlaced, glued and bound by the intelligence agencies, in those agencies and their think tanks will be found the guru drivers, but where are the gurus? To be a NATO member means to be guru controlled nation.. What is left is not to focus on the puppets of the Gurus, nor the Guru drivers in the intelligence agencies and think tanks, but instead to find and focus directly on the gurus.
      For far too many years, those seeking to understand, have misdirected their focus to the elected and appointed leaders. its time to look for and find the directors of the war time movies themselves.

      Elections in America are rigged in all sorts of ways.. precincts, voting registration, access to information, money, access to media, and on and on, In the end, the only choice ever allowed has been and still is between 1 of 2 for each of the 527 paid salaried, elected positions.

      • Joe J Tedesky
        January 28, 2017 at 11:10

        https://criminalbankingmonopoly.wordpress.com

        Are these gurus you speak of at it’s inner core mostly Caucasian, possibly but of three nationalities mostly European, and eerily religious but not? Would these gurus have been a collection of Holy Roman Empire monarchs, British West Indies Dukes, wanders from Babylon, and their offspring slump it in the Hamptons for the month of June to catch up with their less fortunate friends?

        Outside of Rob Kardashian who pray tell would the leader of these gurus be, or is this a secret? Carroll Quigley probably hinted at who they were, but who has time to read a 1300 page book that’s possibly been edited to leaving out all the good parts? I discounted suspension of Moe, Larry, and Curly, never considering Shemp for even one moment, but that last guy Joe had something up his sleeve, and I played all my Beatle records backwards (that took sometime)….so I give up, who are these gurus?

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