Exclusive: Amid the frenzy over the Trump team’s talks with Russians, are we missing a darker story, how the Deep State’s surveillance powers control the nation’s leaders, ask U.S. intelligence veterans Ray McGovern and Bill Binney.
By Ray McGovern and Bill Binney
Although many details are still hazy because of secrecy – and further befogged by politics – it appears House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes was informed last week about invasive electronic surveillance of senior U.S. government officials and, in turn, passed that information onto President Trump.
The White House in Washington, D.C. (Flickr Gage Skidmore)
This news presents Trump with an unwelcome but unavoidable choice: confront those who have kept him in the dark about such rogue activities or live fearfully in their shadow. (The latter was the path chosen by President Obama. Will Trump choose the road less traveled?)
What President Trump decides will largely determine the freedom of action he enjoys as president on many key security and other issues. But even more so, his choice may decide whether there is a future for this constitutional republic. Either he can acquiesce to or fight against a Deep State of intelligence officials who have a myriad of ways to spy on politicians (and other citizens) and thus amass derogatory material that can be easily transformed into blackmail.
This crisis (yes, “crisis” is an overused word, but in this highly unusual set of circumstances we believe it is appropriate) came to light mostly by accident after President Trump tweeted on March 4 that his team in New York City’s Trump Towers had been “wiretapped” by President Obama.
Trump reportedly was relying on media reports regarding how conversations of aides, including his ill-starred National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, had been intercepted. Trump’s tweet led to a fresh offensive by Democrats and the mainstream press to disparage Trump’s “ridiculous” claims.
However, this concern about the dragnets that U.S. intelligence (or its foreign partners) can deploy to pick up communications by Trump’s advisers and then “unmask” the names before leaking them to the news media was also highlighted at the Nunes-led House Intelligence Committee hearing on March 20, where Nunes appealed for anyone who had related knowledge to come forward with it.
That apparently happened on the evening of March 21 when Nunes received a call while riding with a staffer. After the call, Nunes switched to another car and went to a secure room at the Old Executive Office Building, next to the White House, where he was shown highly classified information apparently about how the intelligence community picked up communications by Trump’s aides.
The next day, Nunes went to the White House to brief President Trump, who later said he felt “somewhat vindicated” by what Nunes had told him.
The ‘Wiretap’ Red Herring
But the corporate U.S. news media continued to heckle Trump over his use of the word “wiretap” and cite the insistence of FBI Director James Comey and other intelligence officials that President Obama had not issued a wiretap order aimed at Trump.
President Donald Trump being sworn in on Jan. 20, 2017. (Screen shot from Whitehouse.gov)
As those paying rudimentary attention to modern methods of surveillance know, “wiretapping” is passé. But Trump’s use of the word allowed FBI and Department of Justice officials and their counterparts at the National Security Agency to swear on a stack of bibles that the FBI, DOJ, and NSA have been unable to uncover any evidence within their particular institutions of such “wiretapping.”
At the House Intelligence Committee hearing on March 20, FBI Director Comey and NSA Director Michael Rogers firmly denied that their agencies had wiretapped Trump Towers on the orders of President Obama.
So, were Trump and his associates “wiretapped?” Of course not. Wiretapping went out of vogue decades ago, having been rendered obsolete by leaps in surveillance technology.
The real question is: Were Trump and his associates surveilled? Wake up, America. Was no one paying attention to the disclosures from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013 when he exposed Director of National Intelligence James Clapper as a liar for denying that the NSA engaged in bulk collection of communications inside the United States.
The reality is that EVERYONE, including the President, is surveilled. The technology enabling bulk collection would have made the late demented FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover’s mouth water.
Allegations about the intelligence community’s abuse of its powers also did not begin with Snowden. For instance, several years earlier, former NSA worker and whistleblower Russell Tice warned about these “special access programs,” citing first-hand knowledge, but his claims were brushed aside as coming from a disgruntled employee with psychological problems. His disclosures were soon forgotten.
Intelligence Community’s Payback
However, earlier this year, there was a stark reminder of how much fear these surveillance capacities have struck in the hearts of senior U.S. government officials. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow that President Trump was “being really dumb” to take on the intelligence community, since “They have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.”
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York.
Maddow shied away from asking the logical follow-up: “Senator Schumer, are you actually saying that Trump should be afraid of the CIA?” Perhaps she didn’t want to venture down a path that would raise more troubling questions about the surveillance of the Trump team than on their alleged contacts with the Russians.
Similarly, the U.S. corporate media is now focused on Nunes’s alleged failure to follow protocol by not sharing his information first with Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. Democrats promptly demanded that Nunes recuse himself from the Russia investigation.
On Tuesday morning, reporters for CNN and other news outlets peppered Nunes with similar demands as he walked down a corridor on Capitol Hill, prompting him to suggest that they should be more concerned about what he had learned than the procedures followed.
That’s probably true because to quote Jack Nicholson’s character in “A Few Good Men” in a slightly different context, the mainstream media “cannot handle the truth” – even if it’s a no-brainer.
At his evening meeting on March 21 at the Old Executive Office Building, Nunes was likely informed that all telephones, emails, etc. – including his own and Trump’s – are being monitored by what the Soviets used to call “the organs of state security.”
By sharing that information with Trump the next day – rather than consulting with Schiff – Nunes may have sought to avoid the risk that Schiff or someone else would come up with a bureaucratic reason to keep the President in the dark.
A savvy politician, Nunes knew there would be high political cost in doing what he did. Inevitably, he would be called partisan; there would be more appeals to remove him from chairing the committee; and the character assassination of him already well under way – in The Washington Post, for example – might move him to the top of the unpopularity chart, displacing even bête noire Russian President Vladimir Putin.
But this episode was not the first time Nunes has shown some spine in the face of what the Establishment wants ignored. In a move setting this congressman apart from all his colleagues, Nunes had the courage to host an award ceremony for one of his constituents, retired sailor and member of the USS Liberty crew, Terry Halbardier.
Rep. Devin Nunes, R-California.
On June 8, 1967, by repairing an antennae and thus enabling the USS Liberty to issue an SOS, Halbardier prevented Israeli aircraft and torpedo boats from sinking that Navy intelligence ship and ensuring that there would be no survivors to describe how the Israeli “allies” had strafed and bombed the ship. Still, 34 American seamen died and 171 were wounded.
At the time of the award ceremony in 2009, Nunes said, “The government has kept this quiet I think for too long, and I felt as my constituent, he [Halbardier] needed to get recognized for the services he made to his country.” (Ray McGovern took part in the ceremony in Nunes’s Visalia, California office.)
Now, we suspect that much more may be learned about the special compartmented surveillance program targeted against top U.S. national leaders if Rep. Nunes doesn’t back down and if Trump doesn’t choose the road most traveled – acquiescence to America’s Deep State actors.
Ray McGovern served as a CIA analyst for 27 years and conducted one-on-one briefings of the President’s Daily Brief under Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1985.
Bill Binney was former Technical Director, World Geopolitical & Military Analysis, NSA and co-founder of NSA’s SIGINT Automation Research Center before he retired after 9/11.
Thank you, gentlemen, for your article. It looks like Rep Nunes is a square shooter. I wish him well.
A movement/curriculum for ethical solidarity and leadership?
At the end of the article:
“Now, we suspect that much more may be learned about the special compartmented surveillance program targeted against top U.S. national leaders if Rep. Nunes doesn’t back down and if Trump doesn’t choose the road most traveled – acquiescence to America’s Deep State actors.”
Watching our President backtrack or cave, as with Flynn, there is no reason to be optimistic. Still, he has a golden opportunity to do what no President has been wont to do, clean up the “intelligence” mess. That goes from the over classifying of information which enables information to be with held from the people, to allowing their activities to go beyond intelligence gathering, and the obvious redundancy predicated on the idea that more intelligence sources will somehow improve our capacity.
Excellent article and very true. Thank you for publishing this!
It looks like legalized crime expected to win…but instead, lost to organized crime…lost the election, anyway, thanks to possibly the computer genius and billionaire Robert Mercer. Somehow, we as citizens have to find a way to take them both down.
My name is Tarref Simon, a formerly employed boiler technician with the Veterans’ Administration from 7-16-12 to 12-31-13 at the Michael E. DeBakey Hospital Center. The hospital where I worked used industrial boilers to make steam for hospital operations—including cleaning water and sterilizing bedding and miscellaneous items. Frequently, the plumbing that was necessary to operate the boilers lacked the necessary water pressure to function properly, and malfunctions occurred the nurse stations would make repair/maintenance work orders–because they had no water to care for patients or for medical staff to conduct their work. When the plumbing malfunctioned it compromised the safety, sanitation, and operation of the Hospital, because it prevented the bathrooms, fountains, utility sinks, washing machines, ice machines, etc. from working properly, hygienically, and so forth. Our water pressure problems resulted from the chronic problem of undertreated or untreated water of Houston’s Drinking Water Operation authority was full of mud that clogged valves that separated the Veterans’ Administration water line from the city’s water line. Many hospital toilets required repeated unstopping due to mud and debris traveled through the pipes that obstructed water flow in the plumbing. I tried to find the origin of the problem, and asked power control technicians about mechanical bay 8 in the hospital where power, water and steam intersect. I also inquired whether bay 8 had a main filter, and I was informed that there was no filtration system for the bay in question. Ironically, I knew that there was none, but I wanted someone with expertise to confirm what I knew already. Dentistry had one filter and some ice machines. The Michael E. DeBakey Hospital Center operating rooms on the 5th floor had their own ice machines. The ice machines for the operating rooms had no filters. Medical staff used this ice made from unfiltered water to pack human organs—means the ice was made from dirty water. Imagine how many people have been possibly harmed by being exposed to unclean water, and I know that ice machines that had filters required changing because they filled up with dirt and sediment rapidly. Veterans and the public should know this because people could become ill or die. Please look into this matter and help the patients. Twitter Refee00; FB TarrefSimon
“Relegated to a sound proof free speech zone.” I love it! That’s exactly what it feels like when you try to check out what’s coming from the MSM without retching.
Thank you, Ray McGovern and Bill Binney for this essay! You write “Wake up, America. Was no one paying attention to the disclosures from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013?” Well, I know that many of us do pay attention, but the talking heads in the MSM ignore us like the plague! I hadn’t realized that The Donald used the archaic term “wire tapping,” as I try to avoid the propaganda promoters. However, as soon as I heard the story, I said, “oh come on now! we know from Snowden that the deep state network spies on all. Obama may or may not have known the specifics, but anything which happens during any president’s administration that President gets the credit or blame.” No?
You mentioned that Obama seemed to buckle under and not challenge those who use threats or political blackmail to assure the cooperation of the elected ones. My first clue was right after the military coup to remove Zalaya from Honduras. Within hours President Obama went from, “We cannot allow this coup in our own American neighborhood” to calling the illegal ousting a “crisis” not a military coup. Remember Hugo Chavez asked at that time, “Obama, is someone holding a gun to your head?” That could be, I thought, or perhaps the secret service hired to protect the first family, himself, his wife, or his daughters, might also ensure that the Prez plays along? Anyway gentlemen, rest assured that lots of us are paying attention. We’ve been relegated to a soundproof “free speech zone and so appreciate your efforts to speak our concerns! THANKS!
typo?: “under Ronald Reagan from 1081 to 1985”
(I was a bit too young to vote for POTUS Reagan, but apparently he was president a lot longer than I thought, according to you. ;) )
I guess I must have missed the Halbardier award. Now I see why the Demneolibs and the Media whores have gone after Nunes with such bitter vengeance.
I must have missed the award ceremony for Halbardier. Now I see why the DemNeolibs and the Media whores have gone after Nunes with such bitter vengeance.
Yep, Joe, it’s one party, the War Party. I suspect Trump threw out the Obama wiretapping thing to change the subject short term since “The Committee” harped on Russia, Russia, Russia with no hard evidence. Adam Schiff had control of MSM, and we do know about his campaign connections to the Ukrainian arms dealer, Igor Pasternak, but that’s not on the anti-Russia agenda to expose. I am glad Nunes did what he did, the entire “investigation” is a farce. Likewise, the Benghazi investigation by the Republicans was a farce; they should have gone after the whole sordid story of Libya and how the West wanted to destroy Qaddafi’s plans for greater African economic independence and that was unacceptable to Sarkozy and Clinton. Most of these investigations are a farce. The Russians could conduct their own investigations to show US meddling in countless instances.
Admiral: Mr. President, the USS Liberty is under attack. We’ve received a distress call from RM1
Halbardier. We’ve ordered a squadron of fighters to assist. They’re a hundred miles out. Do
the orders still stand?
LBJ: The orders still stand.
Admiral: Mr. President, the USS Liberty is taking hostile fire from unmarked aircraft. They have
multiple casualties. Our fighters are seventy five miles out. They can intercede. Do the
orders still stand?
LBJ: The orders still stand.
Admiral: Mr. President, the USS Liberty has been struck amidships by a torpedo and is in danger of
sinking. They have deployed lifeboats. Our fighters are fifty miles out. Do the orders
still stand?
LBJ: The orders still stand.
Admiral: Mr. President, the hostile aircraft are strafing the lifeboats and the USS Liberty is afire. Our
fighters are twenty five miles out. Do the orders still stand?
LBJ: (whipping his neck around and responding tersely) Yes, the orders still stand. Have you
heard anything different?
Hey, I told y’all last week, “Diamond” and “Silk” laid out the whole story in clear, concise easy to understand plain American English, right there on YouTube. It’s probably about time the American public started doing a little “parallel construction” of their own. These scenarios all contain repetitive elements which expose the truth. But you gotta be willing to look. “Lack of imagination” is at the heart of our intelligence failures, according to the authors of that commission report. Gee whiz. Go to YouTube and type this in:
OBAMAGATE PART 2: Diamond and Silk Investigate All The Snakes In Obamagate.
Yes, Condi and Bush both said “who could have imagined?” when they knew darn well the scenarios that occurred on 9/11 had in part been war-gamed on that very day. Imagine that. Intelligence failure, my arse.
Too bad Cheney didn’t whiplash himself.
Had LBJ had the guts to order those planes to protect the Liberty and destroy the attackers – even following them to their home base – the middle east would look significantly different today. He was the president. He was swore to protect all Americans. That included our servicemen – no matter where they were. Especially when they were in International waters.
A sensible take on the wiretapping of Trump is here:
http://journal-neo.org/2017/03/20/the-danger-of-underestimating-the-cia-s-web-of-control/
_ “the CIA has the right and it is their job to maintain surveillance on all New York City locations used for espionage and terrorism. Moreover, the CIA is authorized by congress to perform domestic surveillance within 30 miles of New York City. The FBI maintains the same capability in Washington DC, fully warrantless based on the presence of many foreign intelligence operatives at embassies. . .
In New York, Trump Tower is fully under surveillance along with the major hotels like the old standard The Pierre, where deals were cut over lunch that would make your head spin. Now there are 30 or so top hotels, all are under surveillance, all have CIA embedded staff and everyone is watched.
Years ago, during the Cold War, half the CIA would be brought into New York for UN General Assembly meetings. . .” _
All interested & concerned readers oughta be advised — and urged — to go check out Ray McGovern’s elaboration of what he and Wm. Binney have here had to say on today’s (03/29/17) episode of Peter Lavelle’s superb 3 x weekly show, “Cross Talk” — go to rt.com’s website; there click on Shows; then click on “Cross Talk” — where they will encounter McGovern, Rob Taub, and H. A. Goodman in live discussion and debate with Lavelle on the topic, “Russia & Leaks”. Well worth such a follow-up, by the way, is Goodman’s priceless 2 x less-than-one-minute synopses of exactly what’s bin going down with the wretched DNC since public exposure in 2016 of its insidious sabotage of Bernie Sanders’ campaign.
In the unlikely event that one Adam Schiff of California is reading all these comments,
I’d like simply to enquire of him:-
Have you no sense of decency, Sir?
I agree with Paul Craig Roberts who labels Schiff a traitor to humanity for his pro-war stance regarding this whole ginned up Russia conspiracy theory despite the obvious threat of nuclear war implied by it.
Amen..
“As President Putin himself has stated, “no one listens to us when we point out the impending danger.”
As environmentally damaging as a pipeline can be, it is nothing compared to nuclear war. In the opposition to Trump, emotion has prevailed over reason and hate has prevailed over judgment. The consequences for life on earth will be dire. ”
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/03/24/day-earth-murdered/
Ray McGovern and Bill Binney – great article! Thank you. Tucker Carlson had Trey Gowdy (House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence member) on tonight, and he asked him about the NSA at 12:25 minutes:
“Carlson: Now, we interviewed someone on this show last week who spent 30 years at NSA, Mr. Binney, who said that there is no question that the NSA has personal communications from then-candidate Trump and those around him on its servers. Do you think that that’s true?
Gowdy: It depends. It depends on who they’re talking to. If you are talking to someone for whom the intelligence agencies are authorized to collect, then, yes, you may be captured on it. If there is a reason to collect on a non-U.S. citizen and you happen to call that person, then you would be collected as a U.S. citizen. That’s where the masking and treating it confidentially comes into effect.
Carlson: But he was saying – and again he worked there for all those years – that NSA collects basically all data coming in and out of the United States because they’ve tapped into the main data trunk. The question is what do they do with it, but they have it. Is that your understanding? Is that true?
Gowdy: I think that’s a little broader than what my understanding is. You would have to get a warrant – if you’re talking about a U.S. citizen, you would have to get a warrant application, FISA Court. If you are talking foreign to foreign, it’s a separate analysis. If you’re talking U.S. to foreign, it’s still a separate analysis and one that would require going to the FISA Court.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRmMAYvrLX0
Does Trey Gowdy not realize that all information is collected by the NSA? It sounds as if he is unaware of this fact. If true, then perhaps he should be enlightened.
One has to ask the question, 34 American seamen died and 171 were wounded who took an oath to defend their country. It appears that the country need not take or keep an oath to defend them and our nation? Where is justice? Where is our retribution for an attack against Americans? We continue to fund and equip our enemy as our men and women die and lose their Treasure, Commons and Inalienable Rights? Tyranny,treason, and traitors from within our gates continue to this day?
“Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of a day. But a series of oppression, begun at a distinguished period, and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers (administrations), too plainly proves a deliberate systematic plan of reducing us to slavery. Thomas Jefferson
You want to talk about 9/11? Do you not take up the mantel for those who swore to defend you? Do good men now not take up their cause?
If this and all the acts before and after to defend an enemy to our nation and fight their wars as the tail wags the dog. Do our men and women fight the good fight for our enemy?
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.” –Marcus Tullius Cicero 42B.C.
So now it’s absolutely clear where Homeland gets its story ideas: from reality.
Hogwash! Snowden revealed the extent of surveillance in US, not Trump or Nunes or McGovern or Binney.
These guys are beltway bandits who were happy to work for the intelligence community.
I applaud Nunes’ honoring the Liberty veteran, but that has nothing to do with brown nosing Trump.
Nunes’ job is not to defend the president, but to work on behalf of the people of his district.
If Trump can’t take the heat then he should get out of the kitchen!
Trump should be held accountable for his actions like all other presidents before him.
Now if he would only release his tax returns like all the presidents before him….
” Hogwash! Snowden revealed the extent of surveillance in US, not Trump or Nunes or McGovern or Binney.”
Indeed. It’s unbelievable that McGovern and Binney would fail to note Snowden’s role.
Oh oh. Wait a sec ….
“….Were Trump and his associates surveilled? Wake up, America. Was no one paying attention to the disclosures from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013 when he exposed Director of National Intelligence James Clapper as a liar for denying that the NSA engaged in bulk collection of communications inside the United States. ”
Try again , Berkeley Boy.
Binny, McGovern, Snowden, Drake, Manning, Assange, etal… these are America’s heroes. Only the truth will set us free and allow us to reclaim our country. They chose to protect and defend the constitution against all enemies foreign and DOMESTIC. Check out my folk hero Greg Brown
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yu5bdbmjJws
Skip
Like Nixon was held accountable for the Pentagon Papers or the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution even though both were Johnson’s doing?
But wait,, it is the Russians who have the sole capability to wiretap Trump’s land line. Only the Russians have the television repairman suits to ostensibly arrive to clean the color television tuner and replace the vacuum tubes and realign the electron beams for the best color display on the cathode ray tube display which will fool top White House officials into allowing the Russian “TV Repairmen” to sneak into the basement and couple wires to the telephone lines so they can listen in on top secret phone calls using a remote handset coupled to a reel to reel magnetic tape recorder.
Everyone else has access to intercepting emails and downloading the entire contents of computer hard disks but by identifying wiretapping as the real source of who spied on Trump, he has accidentally revealed the real source of the wire tappers. It’s the Russians!
They have the handsets hidden in the hollowed out heels of their shoes which can be removed to reveal hidden listening devices called “speakers”
That is the real reason you have to take off your shows at the airport. The X-Ray machine will reveal the “speakers” inside the shoes because contain radio opaque metal housings and ferromagnetic acoustical drivers as well as “QC Passed” adhesive labels which form a distinct image on the X-Ray images at the check in gate security, This is how we know that Russian Wiretappers infiltrated our country to throw the election for Trump. We found the speakers in their shoes! Thank you FAA and DHS gurus.
Maxwell Smart in the 1960s TV show “Get Smart” revealed this insidious method of wiretapping decades ago.
Trump is a fool for allowing the Russian “TV Repairmen” into the White House.It is obvious he knows nothing about modern wiretapping technology.
The secret service is also guilty for not having a program to test the electrical impedance of the telephone lines in the White House to observe changes in the wiring which would indicate that the telephone wires were tapped,
Ma Bell developed this technology back when phones were the property of the telephone company and the addition of an additional phone could be detected through remote testing of the copper telephone wires.
What will Trump fall for next? Who knows.
All this could be easily avoided by adopting the Japanese custom of removing ones shoes before entering the White House.
Hoe easily our western custom of walking in the house with muddy boots could lead to a massive wiretapping scandal is beyond ridiculous.
but they only find uniforms with Cryllic script
Nunes needs to resign from the committee. He has shown that he cannot be non-partisan in this important investigation.
Julianna- What a deep thinker you are! Another MSM Kool-Aid drinker.
You’re too kind. She sounds like a Pussycrat troll. Hillary’s war hawks are resisting the possibility of peace.
Nunes violated no law or ethics. Who is nonpartisan in this NeoMcCarthism dog and pony show?
Dick Cheney appeared suddenly to add dark emphasis to the ongoing play! He’s now with the Democrats. Maybe he sees money for Halliburton stock through another war. Or maybe he was just feeling a need for attention.
Cheney is now with the Dems? And they’re ok with that? This says it all re the bankruptcy of the Dem Party and how far off course this country is. He should be in prison.
The crumbling empire descends into farce. But it’s not funny at all.
Jessica, Cheney’s siding with these anti-Russian Democrate’s is more prove of how there is only One Party. Better said Party affiliation is basically a platform for the politician to gain entrance into an office. Once in office the Special Influence Machine kicks in, and the Elected Official becomes a spokesperson for the appropriate Donor. What’s happening, as the wealth flows upward the Donor Class becomes smaller, and more powerfully elite. We last to get the message citizenry have little left to fight back with, when the so small few hold all the media, government, and military at their beckon call. I’m optimistic that this won’t always be, but getting through it is the task….isn’t it?
Maybe next week our politicos will be quoting Hitler, because Adolf hated Russians too, didn’t he?
Have you heard? Springsteen is putting out a new record.
“Record?” LOL
A russian surveillance ship appeared and the murderous zionists withdrew
It is good to hear about “spine” showing from elected officials while the MSM vultures gabble on “procedures” and whatever ad hominem they can drag up. Appears the US has now switched places with The Soviet Union with “the organs of state security” tuned to Official Pablum and Denial/Lies. Possibly, tho, this is why Trump looks so sick lately. He must be tremendously encumbered with blackmail potential. So far, as with the previous resident in The White House, we’re seeing him slowly swivel away his former campaign BS and slide under the rock of conformity.
Yes D5-5. He has little choice. But unlike Obama or Clinton he’s not going to be happy about it and satisfied being drunk on his own ego as the “Most Powerful Man in the World”. He doesn’t want to score more chicks than JFK at this point or advance the Black Race or other oppressed minorities. . He was already drunk on his own ego and he already thinks he’s God’s gift. He isn’t a forgive and forget Christian and he’s not there for the money. This isn’t turning out like his personal narrative at all and he will “get even” on his own time. He might not get anything done . He might not evne get even get a large infrastructure package (Can you say Obama?) but he will find out who his hidden enemies are, the ones who ruined his Dream when it was on the verge of realization and he will take it out on them and why shouldn’t he?
Bottom line…you can’t sell products to people who don’t have money to buy…..Vast gap between the 99 & 1….so the socialist /capitalist solution……is a new socialism…..The capitalist get paid through the socialist tax system on the masses. This is what must come. The USA is 20 trillion and adding daily to that total in debt. Do you think the banks will just forgive that debt…
Just do what FDR did, declare bankruptcy reorganization and examine their books…most of their assets will be seen to be fraudulent, and the debt will be dismissed, and bankers will take the “Bernie Maddoff” walk to jail. Banks aren’t Sovereign Nations, and they should be quite rudely reminded of that fact…their ponzi game has just about reached another endpoint, like 2008, only much bigger, and they’re desperately afraid that Congress is going to reinstate Glass-Steagall, which is the death sentence for these Wall Street Racketeers, and their Empire too.
The Intelligence scum are trying to pull a power play. It’s not working but with the committed help of Corporate Media they still have hopes of a Hail Mary Pass in the closing minutes.While there are conspiracy theories that can trace a disappearance of NAZI Capital into a a self funding CIA bank based on gold and commodities, the facts is that these 19 Intelligence Agencies that our government has created are beggars>> hands in the pockets beggars. . They need this anti-Russia narrative to go along their closed door, classified begging for even more spying on everything and everybody. Financing from us, WE THE PEOPLE, the spied upon. . . Intelligence always hopes to leverage Congressmen and Women and corral a couple Senators with agendas (like Feinstein as a prime example) but to co-opt a President who does want to be co-opted that is tough since he hires and fires and appoints to top level positions. . That is why this new McCarthyism in my opinion. They need money and they are all growing concerns. Like Johnny Rocko in the film Key Largo, They want MORE. They say they need it to keep going, to keep growing their product. Since we in the USA don’t have real enemies, at least not formidable ones , we need a Russian Boogeyman and a sinister Oriental henchman too. It is quite primitive. No subtleties in this story line. No story board . But plenty of willing minions in Congress and plenty of climbers in the various agencies. Good thing there is no smoking gun. If they knew Trump was going to win an Oswald of some kind may have appeared by now. Why Trump would acquiesce when they already made Flynn quit and forced out mana fort a long time ago and clearly would force him out if they could is the question. Classic Overreach and I would assume since it is a stupid ploy that it comes for Obama appointments and Democratic allies at the NY Times and elsewhere. Trump isn’t going to accomplish anything really but was this good for our country? That is the question. Answer NO . Who was it good for? Democratic obstructionists and Corporate media in the short run anyway. We will see how long this plays.
“Since we in the US don’t have real enemies, at least not formidable ones…”
Bingo! Nailed it. Yet we have the hugest military and military spending of any country on the planet. Why?
To serve the war contractors, multinationals, Wall Street interests in enforcing global US economic dominance, backed by our fiat currency, is the best I can come up with.
Certainly not in the interests of the American people as our country crumbles from within.
Why did Hillary, Obama and Co. go after Khaddafi? Because he was going to start selling Libyan oil in a non-US currency. And Syria? Because Assad cut a deal for an oil pipeline the US didn’t like.
And, disgustingly, the US Powers That Be–Obama administration and complicit corporate media in these cases–dressed up these attacks on other countries as “humanitarian intervention.” Liars.
Oh, and wars against terrorists–even tho we created terrorists in Libya, then armed and funded terrorists in Syria. This is a crumbling empire.
Syrian oil pipeline is an excuse. (Sorry, RFK, Jr.)
U.S. want to break up Syria to please Israel. See Oded Yinon plan, PNAC, etc.
Typingperson and LJ reading what you two wrote I had to add that the MIC wants to go big on nuclear spending. I can just hear the Think Tank crowd inventing the new boogeymen and villains out of Russia and China just because we need them to serve their time in the barrel so as nuclear defense budgets will increase accordingly. A geo-world Realist would look upon the rapidly coming years ahead of us on this planet, as a time of reckoning. A time when proxies will be to many conflicts to matter, or a time for a final showdown just because that’s all that’s left to fight over…can this happened? I would only hope the pendulum of sanity would swing back towards the Better Angels of our souls, but who knows? That’s what makes it history.
Hey Joe, Obama allocated a Trillion bucks to upgrade the Nuclear arsenal while blaming Putin for stalling a Nuclear Accord. This just happened in his last term although if you read the Corporate Press, NY Times and Washington Post etc., it’s unlikely you would have noticed. As for the End Times, I’m not ascared of Armageddon or the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse. It reminds me of the old joke, Who’s afraid of hard work,? I can lay down and go to sleep right next to it. When I was 6 years old in Parochial school the nice nuns taught me how to “Duck and Cover” and it’s been no worries ever since.
I had the same nuns, boy those were the days…the Russians are coming!
I knew about Obama and the trillion dollar nuke upgrade. I just thought how your comment triggered something in my head about going after Russia. Even if there were another plan to take Russia there would still need to be an excuse for building a bigger better nuclear weapons program. The drones are in, and now is the time to spend money on big expensive sophisticated weapons systems, but first you need to have a congress desperate enough to buy that kind of stuff….go to the media, and get the citizenry scared.
There are a lot of budgets that need cut, but first lock the doors and bar the hatches, to prevent false flags. Although where there is the will there will be the way, with a change in priority and a commitment to do the right thing, I would be willing to say we could fight against that rogue element as well….but first we need to become honest, and committed to the basic needs of the commons.
If we are living in the end times, well I better get going now, and plant some trees.
The Commons is an idea, like the Magna Carta or for that matter the Bill of Rights that has become expendable in Western Civilization (That means the USA) . It’s the numbers..There is no Plan B and the excrement that we call Congress will rubber stamp anything related to the Military or Intelligence just like they would rubber stamp a war with Iran however unfeasible. . Budget cuts are a myth, a talking point for Reagan Republicans who blithely ignore deficit spending while the Defense budget increases > It’s up to the States to balance budgets by increasing hidden costs to the working class. I admire your humanism but denial and corruption are the foundation of our Democracy now. It’s always good to plant trees but ideas are wasted on the youth of today who grew up watching Sesame Street and a fat , gay , purple, PC Barney. Small wonder they lined up to pose in support on Barney Sanders and them Hilliary-ized themselves because Trump is so yucky. Brainwashing works! .The Path to Hell is paved with Good Intentions and I’m half way there myself.but I can’t help but recall the Bacchanalian poet Jim Morrison’s line—When all else fails we will whip the horses eyes and make him sleep and cry/ Bad day. Peace.
Is Trump so naive that he didn’t have a clue that probably all communications are being surveiled? It took Nunes to tell him?
Short answer: Yes.
That’s the way I’d bet.
No, Trump has been insisting that his campaign was wiretapped (or electronically surveilled) on orders from Obama specifically.
The Nunes’ disclosers about electronic surveillance of people who happened to speak to Trump, or close Trump associates, during the transition, that’s after the election, are an entirely different matter. And Nunes has never been able to point to the Obama order that Trump insisted occurred.
I’m surprised that McGovern and Binney fell for this red herring.
Is the over use of electronic surveillance a problem? Yes. Should Trump do something about it? Yes, if he cares, he doesn’t really.
But it is a different issue. And he is likely to go along with the NSA, etc.
I’m surprised Consortium News published this.
Mr. Trump is a total ignoramus regarding the technical terms. All Obama had to do was a wink and a nod to get the transcripts of all the already-recorded materials. I’d give long odds he handed out the slightly sanitized information to everybody who asked for it, and a few who didn’t.
Comey testified thatO did not order an illegal wiretap, legal not revealed. Nunes information was of possible felonies in that incidental recordings of T transition team were widely disseminated without cause and speackers were usa citizens were “Unmasked”, possibly feloniously.
Yes, the (I think illegal) dissemination is what should be raising eyebrows. We know everything is scooped up and accessible to targeting. Obama’s eleventh hour decision to allow wider dissemination of NSA’s raw data serves a wider purpose, but is also concerning because it has the effect of making it easier to obscure the source of leaks. As to Obama’s knowledge or involvement in political spying…plausible deniability in these games is likely one of the first orders of business. I think the following post is worth look:
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/03/16/andrew-napolitano-did-obama-spy-on-trump.html
“The question of whether former President Barack Obama actually spied on President Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign and transition has been tantalizing Washington since President Trump first made the allegation nearly two weeks ago. Since then, three investigations have been launched — one by the FBI, one by the House of Representatives and one by the Senate. Are the investigators chasing a phantom, or did this actually happen?
Here is the back story.
Obama would not have needed a warrant to authorize surveillance on Trump. Obama was the president and as such enjoyed authority under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to order surveillance on any person in America, without suspicion, probable cause or a warrant.
FISA contemplates that the surveillance it authorizes will be for national security purposes, but this is an amorphous phrase and an ambiguous standard that has been the favorite excuse of most modern presidents for extraconstitutional behavior.
In the early 1970s, President Richard Nixon used national security as a pretext to deploying the FBI and CIA to spy on students and even to break in to the office of the psychiatrist of Daniel Ellsberg, one of his tormentors.
FISA was enacted in the late 1970s to force the federal government to focus its surveillance activities — its domestic national security-based spying — on only those people who were more likely than not agents of a foreign government. Because FISA authorizes judges on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to make rules and establish procedures for surveillance — essentially lawmaking — in secret, the public and the media have been largely kept in the dark about the nature and extent of the statute and the legal and moral rationale for the federal government’s spying on everyone in the U.S.
The mass spying that these judges have ruled FISA authorizes is directly counter to the wording, meaning and purpose of FISA itself, which was enacted to prevent just what it has in fact now unleashed.
We now know indisputably that this secret FISA court — whose judges cannot keep records of their own work and have their pockets and briefcases checked by guards as they enter and leave the courthouse — has permitted all spying on everyone all the time.
The FISA court only hears lawyers for the government, and they have convinced it that it is more efficient to capture the digital versions of everyone’s phone calls, texts, emails and other digital traffic than it is to force the government — as the Constitution requires — to focus on only those who there is reason to believe are more likely than not engaging in unlawful acts.
When FISA was written, telephone surveillance was a matter of wiretapping — installing a wire onto the target’s telephone line, either inside or outside the home or business, and listening to or recording in real time the conversations that were audible on the tapped line.
Today the National Security Agency has 24/7 access to the mainframe computers of all telecom providers and all computer service providers and to all digital traffic carried by fiber optics in the U.S. The NSA has had this access pursuant to FISA court orders issued in 2005 and renewed every 90 days. The FISA court has based its rulings on its own essentially secret convoluted logic, never subjected to public scrutiny. That has resulted in the universal surveillance state in which we in America now live. The NSA has never denied this.
Thus, in 2016, when Trump says the surveillance of him took place, Obama needed only to ask the NSA for a transcript of Trump’s telephone conversations to be prepared from the digital versions that the NSA already possessed. Because the NSA has the digital version of every telephone call made to, from and within the U.S. since 2005, if President Obama last year wanted transcripts of Trump’s calls made at any time, the NSA would have been duty-bound to provide them, just as it would be required to provide transcripts of Obama’s calls today if President Trump wanted them.
But if Obama did order the NSA to prepare transcripts of Trump’s conversations last fall under the pretext of national security — to find out whether Trump was communicating with the Russians would have been a good excuse — there would exist somewhere a record of such an order. For that reason, if Obama did this, he no doubt used a source on which he’d leave no fingerprints.
Enter James Bond.
Sources have told me that the British foreign surveillance service, the Government Communications Headquarters, known as GCHQ, most likely provided Obama with transcripts of Trump’s calls. The NSA has given GCHQ full 24/7 access to its computers, so GCHQ — a foreign intelligence agency that, like the NSA, operates outside our constitutional norms — has the digital versions of all electronic communications made in America in 2016, including Trump’s. So by bypassing all American intelligence services, Obama would have had access to what he wanted with no Obama administration fingerprints.
Thus, when senior American intelligence officials denied that their agencies knew about this, they were probably being truthful. Adding to this ominous scenario is the fact that three days after Trump’s inauguration, the head of GCHQ, Robert Hannigan, abruptly resigned, stating that he wished to spend more time with his family.
I hope the investigations of Trump’s allegation discover and reveal the truth — whatever it is. But the lesson here is terribly serious.
We face the gravest threat to personal liberty since the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 proscribed criticism of the government.
We have an unelected, unnamed, unaccountable elite group in the intelligence community manipulating the president at will and possessing intimate, detailed knowledge about all of us that it can reveal.
We have statutes that have given the president unconstitutional powers that have apparently been used. And we have judges on secret courts facilitating all this as if the Constitution didn’t exist.
For how much longer will we have freedom?”
The FBI launched their investigation into Trump campaign shenanigans in July 2016. You apparently failed to recognize the date when Director Comey mentioned such. Anyone who believes for a moment that Trump, one of the worst people on the entire planet, has the best interests of the American Republic at heart and only entered the Presidential contest to try to make a difference and save the United States from ‘the deep state’…
Laughable. Look at his appointments, look at his advisors, look at his comportment and overall demeanor. He’d have been unfit to lead any of his companies had he not been the owner of them. The guy would never have risen above customer service assistant swing manager, and he would have gotten fired from that job after having missed work so many days a month, being the philandering playboy he’s always wanted to be.
Richard Dolan, you left a lot of meat on the table, slathered in gravy. You get no dessert yet.
I don’t understand your objection to McGovern and Binney’s story since it follows your argument–namely that US spy agencies took it upon themselves to spy on Trump and his associates.
The authors make the case for this broader perspective, characterizing Obama as a mere pawn in the machinations of the Deep State, ie the intel agencies and the powers they truly serve–war contractors, multinationals, Wall Street and similar rich powerful US entities invested in US global empire.
Not the American people!
I too believe there is a higher power over our politicians. I also believe that man’s long history proves me right, that these behind the door creatures have always been there. What’s for us to figure out, or rather analyze and judge is to what degree of these charlatans are we the citizenry dealing with?
Sometimes when I scramble my brain trying to comprehend just what in the hell is going on in this world I swear we should pass another stupid law and label our news with….Warning: this news may make you think it’s the End of the World. Now that might satisfy a religious fundamentalist, but our national dialogue is now so aimlessly divided and quite honestly mean spirited to such a point as I don’t know what or how we will pull it all back together as a nation and accomplished setting our sails rightly.
In my view it is very clear that there is someone or someone’s behind the screen. Obama accepted the role of the Tool, my guess is Trump will never admit to doing that, but he will instruct his minions to follow the path of whatever Think Tank nonsense there is to follow. In the end we are what Ebenezer said we were, Surplus Population.
Cheer up, there’s a lot of us!
Typingperson,
Do you see the difference between “transition” and “during the campaign”?
And do you see the difference between “Obama ordered” and “NSA pick up during regular surveillance”?
It’s not that hard to follow, I’m surprised McGovern, whom I respect, made this mistake.
It is either funny or disgusting, or both, how apologists quickly cry prove it for one side while daily making accusations without such proof regarding the other. No, Nunes has not been able to prove Obama gave the order but we can say he either did know it was being done, or was ignorant of the fact that it was being done. As to the latter case, no one is that stupid. Nor do I suspect are the apologists.
@Herman:
Nunes also seems deeply confused by the term “during the campaign”.
Kinda difficult to defend Nunes’s actions in this case. If he wants/thinks he needs to go rouge, maybe he should think about what that means. He looked like a Trump stooge (my words before pelosi) beforehand. Now, he REALLY looks like one. And he’s pushed the whole thing to the next level. So, thanks for that, Devin.
Anyone who didn’t know that EVERYone is under the survelance state hasn’t been paying attention. News out here in Frisco had a NSA closet at a ATT facility..outed by a tech there in 2003? So the fascist state thought they’d be immune?
Nunes’s pony show for an admittedly heroic act is nice, but how many times has he been complicit?
This is what I call going rouge:
http://tinyurl.com/l4rozhx
How do you figure Nunes going rogue because he talks to POTUS before Adam Schiff? POTUS is cleared to hear classified info, and Nunes felt, with good reason, that it was in the public interest for him to hear some. Trump is not the target of a criminal investigation. Whether or not Flynn was a target, the reporters who got the leaks about his conversations were not cleared for the info. The FBI declined to investigate that. The nice story about that would be that the FBI, for once, took the side of public interest. The more likely and obvious story is that the FBI is a core part of the Deep State, currently side against the off message Trump, who doesn’t always play by their rules. Now they put Nunes in their cross hairs for also going against their false, scripted message. For that action, Nunes deserves public support.
This whole deal of Nunes not informing Congressman [ Shill ] Shifft is bullshit and diversion. Shill / Shifft got the same letter sent by Larry Klayman as did all members of the committee outlining what ex CIA / NSA whistle-blower Montgomery ( 600 million documents ) had removed from files of the spooks. This is all to protect obama and his spying of Trump, James Rosen, Merkel , the AP, and a host other people.
I don’t think Obama was spying on all those people. However, the Deep State was spying on them, and he knew about it. The CIA has specialized in these practices since the Viet Nam War – Google, Phoenix operation. They’ve been using it in other countries and the United States.
The problem with Trump is his self-inflicted problems are clouding the good he is trying to accomplish.
I agree. Obama knew it was going on and, knowing where his bread was buttered, chose to be a “team player,” and keep quiet.
Yes you are no doubt correct, but the question should be, who is spying on Obama?
I honestly believe the bigger they are the more they will be preyed upon. These big players are most vulnerable to being caught by their own mistakes, or easily seduced by their love of money, or maybe even a little bit of both of those deficits are what sells their souls to the Devils of the Deep State.
The part we citizens play, is where we stay divided against each other, so as nothing of any great importance will get done. Our master script writers have everyone where they want us. It could be possible that Trump has thrown a monkey wrench in to their plans…but there again ask yourself has he?
Remember we are the nation that bought all of the official narratives about all of the assassinations of the sixties, and we outdid ourselves when we accepted the 911 Commissioners Report. I’m at that point where I don’t believe nothing is real.
Key part of this essay:
Yes, EVERYBODY. Except in special cases the collected information probably isn’t examined in real time, but every ordinary long-distance communication is collected for future retrieval. And for people of interest to the Surveillance State, every normal short-distance communication too. Especially if the conversation is held within range of anybody’s smart phone.
The US Police state has been constructed in such a way that the agencies involved no longer have any need whatever to go to a court. They may do so for specialized lawyer reasons, but they’re going to gather the information anyway.
Recently I learned that the US mails aren’t secure either.
The revelations by Edward Snowden, and the 2013 acknowledgement that the U.S. Postal Service photographs the front and back of all mail sent through the U.S., ostensibly for sorting purposes, has brought new scrutiny to the mail cover program.
Techniques to open and reseal letters have been around for ages, but I doubt if that’s necessary anymore. Given the advances in modern technology, I suspect special cameras can read and record the text within an unopened letter.
Trump was “surveilled” simply because he lives in the US of A. I’d not bet a dime of my money that the White House isn’t bugged to the rafters. Obama & Company had months to do that if they so desired. But who could possibly be trusted to de-bug the place? Nobody I know of!
For really Important discussions Trump probably ought to build a roomy little hut somewhere on the back lawn out of materials purchased by trusted people. Similarly trusted workers would nail it together,and it would have nice porta-potty facilities, bottled water, and gas-mantle lighting. Shielding in the floor, walls, and roof would cut off all cell phone reception – which along with most computers wouldn’t be permitted inside in any case. Tiny recorders carried inside by sell-out traitors would be a problem they’d have to solve on their own.
Did you know that the Russians bugged the American Embassy in Moscow many, many years ago by recording the vibrations from its windows caused by any sound inside? Google it if you’re interested.
I knew that laser light pointed at a distant window would be modulated by the vibrations and the reflections could be used to recreate voices spoken inside. I’ve also read that Russian embassies have specially made windows which defeat this technique. Presumably ours do as well. Vibrating walls would do the same thing, so my hypothetical shack would need lead lining to dampen their vibration. Microwaves would have to be kept out too – remember the Great Seal bug in the US Moscow embassy? It had a resonate cavity behaving much like the lasers and windows and spied on the deepest US secrets for many years.
As early as the ’70’s all transoceanic calls exiting usa were monitored ,only necessitated one eavesdropping facility on each coast. Not often enough mentioned are the 52 fusion centers, combined state and corporate secutity forces, at least one in every state, monitor all communications, 2 being over 1 million square feet in size.
Haha! Maybe Trump should consider setting up an email server back in his pad at Trump Tower for his govt communications, the way Hillary did.
Hillary used a private server during her term as SoS to avoid FOIA requests into her activities, including pay for play deals b.t. foreign govts and the Clinton Foundation–aka monitoring after the fact by the American people, including reporters.
For Trump, it would be to avoid being monitored in real time by the US spy agencies.
On the USPS photographing mail: We live about 2 hours west of Richmond but when we mail a letter to an address as close as 3 miles away it has to go first through Richmond to be sorted. Maybe that’s why.
Thank you Ray and Bill,
For shedding light into dark places. It strikes me the real investigation should not be how Russia “hacked our election” in 2016 – we “hacked” the Yeltsin election of 1996, just maybe the Russians learned something about “election hacking” from us?
Why don’t we investigate how the surveillance by US Intelligence Agencies of corporately bankrolled politicians (to see if they’re playing by the Intelligence Agency playbook (closely related to the “defense industry budget”)) is in turn related to actually controlling the congressional votes that the “foreign policy establishment” deems good for the country? No wonder we’ll always be at war, if we keep pumping up these straw enemies (yes – some are real) that enable us to dictate to the world what is good for it. This is the height and instability of hegemony, and it’s likely leading us into those dark places where your light is shining. Keep it up guys, please, a nation is at stake.
What would be a good action plan to resist the “Deep State”? I know, being informed and aware is an obvious step but what comes after that?! Kennedy was killed by the Deep State and so was his brother, Robert……That means that the Deep State is willing to even kill a president of the country if he stood in the way!! The same “Deep State” engineered 9/11 and several other false flag operations and got away with them all……..my question is a very valid one “How to resist the “Deep State”?!
Educate, live the change you want to see, pray, support powers oppossing the DS, be positive, follow your conscience, accept samsara
well said.
the only thing you can control is self, and that isn’t as easy as is generally supposed.
We are at war with an economic aristocracy, not merely asking to be elected.
Anyone seeking the Presidency should expect many internal assassination attempts, and must immediately dismantle the power centers and imprison likely saboteurs and counterrevolutionaries. He should have an equally able VP and aides to proceed effectively after assassinations. The progressive party must have a shadow government with much redundant control and its own internal security agency, able to seize power effectively and hold on to it.
This would not be necessary, but that economic power and its oligarchy have seized all institutions of our former democracy and must be expunged. The Constitution must be amended to restrict funding of mass media and elections to limited donations, to make checks and balances work within each branch, and to severely restrict and check all military and intel agencies.
I’d say you called a good play “in the huddle”.
Interesting link Stephen. People tend to avoid the word evil, and more importantly that which it points to. When I was a lad back in the thirties, the comic books made it clear who the evil one’s seeking to dominate and enslave the world were. We could use some of that literature now, maybe it would help wake people up to who their real enemies are.
Hi mike k, I believe,Evil is here and dominating us all. Your comment about evil is right on the mark.
cheers Stephen
This is the real story! What a great article!
And we wonder why our policies are illogical and bat shit crazy?
Washington DC is an insane asylum.
Good question.
The US seems to have this inclination to go crazy and do stupid things every few years.
And most of the time the public and media go along with it.
I believe “Something Very Evil is Loose” and is in control.
http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2016/11/something-is-very-evil.html
These government cockroaches stay busy spying on each other, and hatching schemes to blackmail those a notch higher in the power hierarchy. Great recipe for insanity!
The spooky bastards are destroying any chance for democratic government. These creeps are as close as it gets to evil incarnate.
It’s really astonishing when you think about: even though Trump has increased the already insane military budget by at least 10% it’s still not enough for certain militarist-intell warmongers. They bet on Killary and we’re devastated when she lost. They fully knew she’d kowtow to everything they desired, after all, she was a militarist Zionist herself, even advocating for a suicidal ‘no-fly’ zone in Syria.
A certain element of the intell-militarist-media establishment is still intent on vilifying Trump (undoubtedly, some of the contumely well deserved) and won’t stop until they have Trump waging an all out air and ground war on Tehran, Damascus and Crimea. Tillerson makes the militarists uneasy b/c Tillerson’s a market-driven empire builder. He’d rather cut oil deals with Iran, Libya and Syria instead of obliterating them and turning them into failed states which is what the military driven empire builders are all about.
The last few months clearly demonstrate what we’re up against. Washington-Zio militarists (and their media lackeys) will stop at absolutely nothing until they can fully trust that the Executive branch will genuflect to each and every one of their dictates.
The silver lining of Trump as prez, such as it is, is that this unmasks the rotteness of American empire–and the interests behind it: war contractors, Wall Street, US-based multinationals–and the Democratic Party. Plus the Repubs, of course.
Hillary would have been more slick and stayed on script–paying lip service to identity politics and social issues to keep the Dem base of well-educated, financially comfortable, urban professionals placated, while ramping up the wars and further abetting the interests of Wall Street and multinationals.
Trump’s bull in china shop-ness rips the mask off.
BTW, the vast majority of my FB friends are concerned liberal, self-righteous, loyal Dems who could give two shits about US illegal wars or the millions of people we have murdered and made into refugees from destroying their countries. All they care about is getting rid of Trump.
One note here; “concerned liberal, self-righteous, loyal Dems who could give two shits about US illegal wars”, you are speaking about neo-liberals not progressive Americans trying to form a more perfect union, whether they know it or not.
I totally agree. Trump’s election has merely ripped the veil off and exposed the ugly face of our Empire, but most Dems (like most of my FB friends) cannot see that the dirty deeds continue regardless of which party is in power.
Wasteful spending when you consider there is at 6 trillion missing with the gov. reports.
As I watch a coup being televised into our home, I now find I have an appreciation for Rep. Devin Nunes, and that is his support of the USS Liberty and honoring Terry Halbardier. I was a Radioman in the Navy and never heard a word during my training, which took place some 18 months after the USS Liberty attack, and now find it disgusting that we were never told about what Halbardier did to save his ship and surviving crew members…talk about hushed up. So good on Rep. Devin Nunes for that at least. When it comes to the MSM vs Trump saga, I’ll just wait until after the next commercial to see how things are progressing.
PS I wonder how AIPAC feels about Nunes honoring the USS Liberty?
A politician honoring a crew member of the USS Liberty – now that is a breath of fresh air in the national cesspool.
I constantly run into people who have never heard about the USS Liberty Attack. I guess for that reason alone when people such as Nunes decides to pay crew members of the Liberty such as Harbardier a little gratitude and respect I hope more citizens will learn about this Israeli betrayal. I wouldn’t be much surprised if AIPAC were rooting against Rep Nunes…how about you?
I’m having a hard time keeping up with all of the MSM coverage of Trump. It’s like every half hour on CNN and MSNBC there is another Trump story trying to over power the Trump story before it. While we are being distracted about Putin puppets, Nikki Haley is getting standing ovations at the AIPAC conference for her strong support of all things Israeli at the UN. Then we have troop build ups in Syria and Iraq. This all happening while military exercises go into hyperdrive in Asia.
I also brought up Nunes honoring Harbardier because I’m limited to what other to say about this Russian hacking story. One thing is for certain, Putin or no Putin, isn’t it amazing how nothing of what was in Hillary’s and Podesta’s emails ever gets discussed….hmmm is it working? I don’t know, but I do know that America has now officially become one big ass reality show.
Joe & Bill- I have a new found hero in Harbardier. I went to sea for over 27 years as a Radio operator/Electronic tech in the merchant marines. At the time of the USS Liberty, believe it or not, morse code was still our primary form of communication. I spent eight hours a day listening on 500khz for an SOS for years. Then the technology changed very rapidly, and I spent my last tour pulling cable to install a local area network with 8 workstations all connected via satellite to the internet. Today there are very few RO/ET’s aboard commercial ships, most of us had to go over to Military Sealift Command contracted ships to finish out our career. Under US flag, I doubt there are more than a dozen or so of us left.
Thanks for the update Skip. My first two years was as a CYN Communication Yeoman, which was Radiomen without Morse Code. My last two years they did away with CYN and made us all RM. I was on three decommissioning crews. The Navy was going through some big changes, and my Rate was only one small part of it. When we got bored we had a RM who would play with the crystal set, and he would send Cabs off in all sorts of directions.
I, too, am uncertain what to make of the Russian hacking story. Any hackers worth his/her salt will cover their tracks. Unlike tangible, physical life the evidence remaining after the fact may amount to little more than log files (which can be falsified through redirect efforts that pass through multiple international servers/IPs). In the digital world, nothing is cut-and-dry the way we would expect from a conventional crime investigation where “hard evidence” may be uncovered. People who know what they are doing don’t get caught. For all we know it *was* the Russians. For all we know, it was our own intelligence community trying to pitch a scenario in which we whip up so much public outrage over some line that Russia has crossed that there exists a renewed will for a Cold War if not ultimately expanding the war in Syria. (War makes defense contractors money and it makes heroes of politicians who have nothing else in the way of a “national vision” otherwise.)
The balance of this situation is nothing if not ironic. During the presidential debates the question arose if Trump would prosecute Hillary if elected. Hillary had a ready-made response — charging Trump with “talking down democracy” and for rejecting the hallowed American tradition of a “peaceful transference of power”. Never mind that the entire exchange rested upon an entirely hypothetical question — and an unprecedented question for a presidential debate at that! Afterward, the media ran wild with the narrative that Trump, if elected, was going to spend his time pursuing and prosecuting his political enemies (the Clinton campaign and/or Foundation). It later came to light that Hillary had been fed those debate questions in advance so that she could come out swinging (giving her the edge in winning the debates). How fast we forget: Media were also found to be running their stories by Clinton campaign staffers for approval before publication to ensure that they had Clinton’s approval (this sort of collusion is verboten in the media world as it implies the sources and the reporters who cover them are in cahoots). Now add into the fact that during the Anthony Weiner revelations members of Clinton’s inner circle were granted immunity deals straightway. Now fast forward to the current investigation and at this stage it’s looking as if denying immunity is the name of the game when it comes to Trump and his former advisor Michael Flynn.
The lead into the 2016 election was structured around hysteria — fear of how far off the rails Donald Trump would be, fear of whether he was “temperamentally fit” to have his finger on the nuclear button, etc. It began too feel overwrought. For all of Donald Trump’s faults — and they are numerous — the media and the Clinton campaign overplayed the Boogeyman Card to the point where it paradoxically may have cost Clinton the election (there is such a thing as “trying too hard”). And yet for all the mania that ensued over the possibility that the president elect may prosecute Hillary Clinton, President Trump has not done *anything* to hurt her. The same cannot be said, on the other hand, about high-level embittered Hillary Clinton supporters in media, the intelligence community and elsewhere. The persecution of Presidential Donald Trump reads like payback for a loss that wasn’t supposed to be possible (Trump the outsider vs. Clinton the ultimate insider).
We have been told by pundits, media and politicians alike that Trump the candidate and Trump the president is a racist, misogynist, sexist, bigoted, authoritarian, Nazi. (And that’s just a shortlist of character assassination charges!) All the while, every single drama-filled news day since Trump took office has been filled with innuendo, fear-mongering and outright efforts to scandalize Trump and his associates.
At the end of the day, it isn’t clear what role the Russians played in “hijacking the election”. What IS becoming clear, however, is that the true democracy-disrespecting tyrants aren’t those with foot-in-mouth disorder (like Trump on Twitter) but those who zip their lips and carry the big sticks (and a vendetta) within the intelligence community and Washington at large. Russian involvement or no Russian involvement, the object of this daily drama is to find an issue that resonates and “sticks” with the American people and our elected representatives in such a way that we unite behind a call for the President’s impeachment and/or the imprisonment of members of his cabinet. With each passing day it becomes clear that Trump cannot possibly be any more unhinged or “evil” than the Washington elite who oppose his presidency. Washington establishment need to walk the walk of a peaceful transference of power — the very same that Hillary Clinton extolled. What we’re seeing right now at the hands of those who want to take the Trump administration down — Surveillance State McCarthyism — is anything but peaceable.
It is a breath of fresh air with Rep. Nunes evening mentioning much doing something about it to expose it further. Makes him a target of the enemies of US .