Exclusive: There is a “tinfoil-hat” quality to The New York Times’ pushing its “Donald Trump Is Russia’s Manchurian Candidate” conspiracy theory as the newspaper sinks deeper into a New McCarthyism, reports Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
There are real reasons to worry about President Donald Trump’s foreign policy, including his casual belligerence toward Iran and North Korea and his failure to rethink U.S. alliances with Saudi Arabia and Israel, but The New York Times obsesses on Trump’s willingness to work with Russia.
The New York Times’ connect-the-dots graphic showing the Kremlin sitting atop the White House.
On Saturday, the Times devoted most of its op-ed page to the Times’ favorite conspiracy theory, that Trump is Vladimir Putin’s “Manchurian candidate” though evidence continues to be lacking.
The op-ed package combined a “What to Ask About Russian Hacking” article by Louise Mensch, a former Conservative member of the British Parliament who now works for Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, and a connect-the-dots graphic that when filled out shows the Kremlin sitting atop the White House. But the featured article actually revealed how flimsy and wacky the Times’ conspiracy theory is.
Usually, an investigation doesn’t begin until there is specific evidence of a crime. For instance, the investigative articles that I have written over the years have always had information from insiders about how the misconduct had occurred before a single word was published.
In the early 1990s, for the investigation that I conducted for PBS “Frontline” into the so-called “October Surprise” case – whether Ronald Reagan’s campaign colluded with Iranians and others to sabotage President Jimmy Carter’s negotiations to free 52 American hostages in 1980 – we had some two dozen people providing information about those contacts from multiple perspectives – including from the U.S., Iran, Israel and Europe – before we aired the allegations.
We didn’t base our documentary on the suspicious circumstance that the Iranians held back the hostages until after Ronald Reagan was inaugurated President on Jan. 20, 1981, or on the point that Iran and the Republicans had motives to sandbag Carter. We didn’t casually throw out the names of a bunch of people who might have committed treason.
When we broadcast the documentary in April 1991, there was a strong evidentiary case of the Reagan’s campaign guilt – and even then we were highly circumspect in how we presented the story.
Ultimately, the 1980 “October Surprise” case came down to whether you believed the Republican denials or the two dozen or so witnesses who described how this operation was carried out with the help of the Israeli government, French intelligence, and former and current CIA officers – along with former CIA Director George H.W. Bush and future CIA Director William Casey.
In the end, Official Washington was never willing to accept that the beloved Ronald Reagan could have done something as dastardly as conspire with Iranians to delay the release of 52 American hostages. It didn’t matter what the evidence was or that Reagan quickly approved arms shipments to Iran via Israel in 1981, a prequel to the later Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal of 1985-86.
No Direct Evidence
By contrast, what the current “Russia Owns Trump” allegations are completely lacking is an insider who describes any nefarious collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia to arrange the Kremlin’s help in defeating Hillary Clinton and electing Donald Trump.
Then-Vice President George H.W. Bush with CIA Director William Casey at the White House on Feb. 11, 1981. (Photo credit: Reagan Library)
What we do have is President Barack Obama’s outgoing intelligence chiefs putting out evidence-free “assessments” that Russia was responsible for the “hacking” and the publicizing of two batches of Democratic emails, one from the Democratic National Committee and one from Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta.
The DNC emails revealed that top Democratic Party officials had violated their duty to remain neutral during the primaries and instead tilted the playing field in favor of Hillary Clinton and against Sen. Bernie Sanders. The Podesta emails exposed the contents of Clinton’s paid speeches to Wall Street, which she was trying to hide from voters, as well as some pay-to-play features of the Clinton Foundation.
When published by WikiLeaks last year, the emails embarrassed the Clinton campaign but were not regarded as a major factor in her defeat, which she blamed primarily on FBI Director James Comey’s decision to briefly reopen the investigation into whether she endangered national security by using a private email server while Secretary of State.
However, after the shock of Donald Trump’s election, Clinton supporters looked for reasons to block Trump’s inauguration or to set the stage for his impeachment. That was when Obama’s intelligence chiefs began circulating claims that Russia was behind the leaking of the Democratic emails as part of a scheme to put their favored candidate, Trump, in the White House.
The New York Times and other mainstream news outlets, which were strongly hostile to Trump, seized on the allegations, making them front-page news for the past several months despite the paucity of actual evidence that any collusion occurred or that the Russians were even the ones who obtained and distributed the emails.
WikiLeaks denied getting the material from the Russians, suggesting instead that two different American insiders were the sources.
A Witch Hunt?
How thin the Russia-Trump case is becomes evident in reading the Times’ op-ed by Louise Mensch. After introducing herself as someone who has “followed the Russian hacking story closely,” she lists 25 people by name, including various Trump advisers as well as Internet moguls Mark Zuckerberg and Peter Thiel, who should be hauled before the House Intelligence Committee for interrogation along with unnamed executives of several corporations and banks.
Lawyer Roy Cohn (right) with Sen. Joseph McCarthy.
“There are many more who need to be called but these would be a first step,” Mensch wrote. In reviewing Mensch’s long article, it’s unclear if she’s proposing only a “fishing expedition” or would prefer a full-fledged “witch hunt.”
At one point earlier in this process, I wrote an article warning that the “investigation” could become something of a “did-you-talk-to-a-Russian” inquisition. Some readers probably felt I was going too far, but that now appears to be exactly what is happening.
Many of Mensch’s suggestions pertain to people associated with the Trump campaign who gave speeches in Moscow or otherwise communicated with Russians. It appears any contact with a Russian, any discussion of disagreements between the U.S. and Russia, or any political comment that in any way echoes what some Russian may have said becomes “evidence” of collusion and treason.
The extremism of Mensch’s tendentious article is further illustrated by her suggestion that Trump should be impeached if there is any truth to his widely discredited tweet that Obama had ordered wiretaps on Trump Tower. She wrote:
“If … the president tweeted real news, he revealed the existence of intercepts that cover members of his team in a continuing investigation. That would be obstruction of justice, potentially an impeachable offense.”
Most of us who have reported on Trump’s bizarre “tapp” tweet have criticized him for making a serious charge without evidence (as well as his poor spelling), but Mensch seems to believe that the more serious offense would be if Trump somehow were telling the truth. She wants any truth-telling on this issue to be grounds for Trump’s impeachment, even though he may have been referring, in part, to her November article reporting on the FISA warrant that supposedly granted permission for members of Trump’s team to be put under electronic surveillance.
A Tinfoil Hat
To dramatize her arguments further, Mensch then demonstrates a thorough lack of knowledge about recent American history. She claims, “Never in American history has a president been suspected of collaborating with a hostile foreign power to win an election.”
President Barack Obama meets with President-elect Donald Trump in the Oval Office, Nov. 10, 2016. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
Whatever you want to think about the 1980 October Surprise case – and there is substantial evidence that it was real – it definitely constituted an example in American history when a president was “suspected of collaborating with a hostile foreign power to win an election.”
Another case in 1968, which now even The New York Times grudgingly accepts, involved Richard Nixon colluding with the South Vietnamese government to torpedo President Lyndon Johnson’s Paris peace talks to assure Nixon’s election. Although South Vietnam was then an ally, the allegations about Nixon also included outreach to North Vietnam, although Hanoi ended up sending a delegation to Paris while Saigon did not.
Yet, what is perhaps most shocking about Mensch’s op-ed and its prominent placement by the Times is that the story has all the elements of a “tinfoil-hat” conspiracy. It’s the sort of wild-eyed smearing of American citizens that the Times would normally deride as an offensive fantasy that would be mentioned only to mock the conspiracists.
But the Times is now so deep into its campaign to demonize Russia and to destroy Trump that all normal journalistic standards have long ago been tossed out the window.
While there are many valid reasons to protest Trump and his policies, this descent into a New McCarthyism is both grotesque (because it impugns the patriotism of Americans without evidence, only breathless questions) and dangerous (because it escalates the New Cold War with Russia, a confrontation that could stumble into a nuclear holocaust).
At such moments, supposedly serious newspapers like The New York Times should show extraordinary caution and care, not a reckless disregard for truth and fairness. But no one in Official Washington seems willing to play the role of attorney Joseph Welch when he finally stood up to Sen. Joe McCarthy with the famous question, “At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”
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).
good search
Another recent tin-foil-hat theory held that the wave of bomb threats against Jewish institutions in the US was a “false-flag” operation by Jews themselves.
Of course, we’ve since learned the truth in that case.
Lots more info on Mensch here:
“What Constitutes Reasonable Mainstream Opinion
Louise Mensch is delusional, which is why she gets to write for the New York Times…”
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/03/what-constitutes-reasonable-mainstream-opinion
QUESTION FOR CONSORTIUM NEWS DETECTIVES:
If we dismiss the notion that Russia was behind the DNC hack and the leak of the Podesta emails to Wikileaks, what other nation state might be? The Wikileaks hack (and handover) occurred before Trump secured the Republican nomination, so we can assume that the leak was not designed to promote Trump but ANY OTHER REPUBLICAN candidate.
Given this, we can ask eight circumstantial questions:
1] What nation would benefit from a / any Republican in the Oval Office?
2] Had Clinton won, what nation would have benefited from a greatly weakened Clinton administration after the Wikileaks revelations? (notice how there is no downside to the leaks if either of these two objectives are the aims).
3] What nation has had a notoriously bad relationship with the Obama administration and his first Secretary of State? (So bad that its Prime Minister openly supported Romney in 2012.)
4] What nation is facing a perilous existential nuclear crisis that would drive it to try and influence an American election?
5] What nation has an intelligence service capable of hacking the DNC / Podesta and having it mis-attributed to Russia without being detected?
6] What nation would benefit from the United States having a bad relationship with Russia, as Russia is supporting its main adversary?
7] What nation did the Obama administration recently and bizarrely/ inexplicably fail to support in the UN Security council? (Probably because someone has already figured this out.)
8] What nation is currently experiencing the best relationship with the United States that it has had in decades?
And the nation state is? _______________________ .
Hello.
Elbonia, Lower Slobovia, or Freedonia. Netanyahoo told me.
Louise Mensch is at it again, this time about the Westminster terrorist attack. She believes that Russia was involved in that, just as it was in “paying Swedes to riot. Russia killing their Ambassador in Turkey”.
https://twitter.com/LouiseMensch/status/844909398526955520
A day late and a dollar short I say. Since March 19 when this article published, we have discovered hard evidence that not only was Trump’s campaign wiretapped, but that he, his family, his homes, his offices and his businesses have been under NSA surveillance since 2004. We also learned that Louise Mensch is a loon the type of which would make the inmates in an insane asylum blush. She now claims that she has a superpower that allows her to report as real any evidence that she imagines. And that truth and religious belief are interchangeable to her. If you have not yet seen her most recent interview on UK TV, you can’t miss it. It’s a perfect personification of what this whole episode has become. Loony from start to finish. I have to imagine that Robert now wishes he had waited one more day to publish this article, but I hope he learns from it. The big lesson being that when the President comments on goings on in the intelligence community, and the MSM rebuts his claims, TRUST THE PRESIDENT. Or risk being tomorrow’s Louise Mensch. To read this article today, knowing what we know today, criticizing Trump’s tweet sure sounds amateurish if nothing else. And quite inexcusable for someone so well versed in the behind the scenes maneuvering that goes on in DC. Something he found himself at the center of nearly 40 years ago. Isn’t the whole point of the article about not believing baseless accusations? The accusation the Trump was a Russian agent is obvious bunk but Parry at least gives it fair treatment. Meanwhile, already KNOWING that Obamas NSA and CIA were spying on millions of people here and abroad, he treats the claim that Trump might have been one of them as specious. As if the PRESIDENT might not have a little more info than we do.
Anyway it’s a good lesson in humility for everyone. Democrats, ‘journalists’, and Parry himself. All of DC runs on spying and blackmail. ALL of it, ALL the time. If anyone in DC tells you they’ve been spied on believe it. If anyone in the news media tells you otherwise you can be sure that they are not only lying, but have a stake in whatever is really going on. 40 years of this NEVER NOT BEING TRUE should have been enough for Parry to know better than to cast aspersions on Trump while wasting time diligently trying to vet the obviously preposterous claims that the MSM has been making on an hourly basis since November. Is this news? Maybe. Is it journalism? Not even kinda.
FYI the entirety of the whole Russia digression is a distraction and stall tactic. AG Sessions has a hit list of many of DCs big names that will be subpoenaed on regards to their involvement in paedophilia and human trafficking. This has been confirmed by multiple NAMED FBI sources. I’m no journalist at all but it’s painfully obvious to me that this is the real story, it’s all the same story and it’s the only story. This s why so many in both parties are firing all their guns at once in order to destroy Trump before the SHTF for them. I’ll leave it to the rest of you to follow the MSMs bouncing balls until this reality becomes unavoidable. But that’s where we’re headed. And you’re going to feel like an idiot for having wasted one second of thought on this Russia nonsense when we get there.
Senator Margaret Chase Smith in her Declaration of Conscience in June 1950 was one of the first to show leadership and courage against Senator McCarthy. Her Declaration could have been written in 2017. Interesting to read; go to http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6459 (“National Suicide”: Margaret Chase Smith and Six Republican Senators Speak Out Against Joseph McCarthy’s Attack on “Individual Freedom”). Is there a “Senator Smith” who will stand up today?
PLEASE .STOP WITH THE FOREIGN POWERS INTERFERING IN U.S. ELECTIONS .IT HAS BEEN A STAPLE OF THIS CABAL SINCE AT LEAST FDR WHEN THE BRITS INTERVENED. AS FOR REAGAN NO CONTEST HE WAS A LIAR AND CRIMINAL AND BETTER YET GOT AWAY WITH IT WITH A HUGE LOVING PUBLIC REPUTATION. THIS IS NOT NEW FOR A DEMOCRATIC SYSTEM ROTTEN TO THE CORE FROM ITS INCEPTION.THE FOUNDERS WERE THE ORIGINAL CRIMINALS FIGHTING EACH OTHER OVER THE NEW FOUND CARCASS.FRANCE AND ENGLAND BOTH INTERFERED!! WE HAVE BETTER THINGS TO DO THAN PLAY THE MSM GAME. TRUMP IS ABOUT TO GET US INTO ANOTHER WAR IN SYRIA AND HAS ALREADY DONE SO IN IRAQ 5,000 MURDERERS IN IRAQ ALREADY AND SYRIA IS BUILDING AS I WRITE THIS WITH IRAN WAITING STAGE LEFT FOR IT S ENTRY TO CENTER STAGE. AND THE KOREAN PENINSULA IS A POWDER KEG READY TO EXPLODE AT ANY TIME . RUSSIA AND PUTIN ARE BEING DEMONIZED LEFT AND RIGHT AND BY THE MSM S. ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN WITH THESE AMERICAN NEO CON COMMANDERS HAVING THEIR FINGER ON NUCLEAR MISSILES .ADM HANEY IS A PURE ZIONIST NUT JOB!!!
Excellent piece. Thank you, Mr. Parry.
So much wrongness.
Political parties don’t incorporate foreign bodies into their vertically integrated politics enterprises. They may get a temporary infection that is expelled (Sanders) or an overwhelming infection (Tea Party Trump). Their normal product is predictability and feigned conflict for public consumption while they work to control the levers of politics for which elections are usually and ideally momentary distractions from the management of the empire.
Secondly the McCarthy comparison is inapt if not comical. Much more accurate in my opinion is J. Edgar Hoover declaring that organized crime had been beaten while the Mob ran rampant. Trump is connected to the Russian (post-Soviet) mob as much as Putin is associated with that Mob and with the oligarchs he uses to run the formerly state owned enterprises privatised under Yeltsin and Gorbachev.
The same thread of money laundering runs through Adelson for China. How do you launder all that money? Real estate speculation and casino gambling.
20.03.2017 Americans Support Increasing Budget of Most Wasteful Federal Department
There is only one Cabinet-level federal Department that is so wasteful — so corrupt (&/or incompetent) — that its financial records can’t even be audited, meaning that no auditors can be found who will certify its books: the Defense Department, otherwise called «the Pentagon»
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/03/20/americans-support-increasing-budget-most-wasteful-federal-department.html
The kind of propaganda frenzy against Russia by the neoCon-Liberals is the kind of psychological conditioning nations do when they’re preparing to start a war.
Trump himself created this toxic environment resulting in the justified suspicions regarding his myriad, mostly indirect, but completely unexplained russian encounters. Add to this his petuliant, cavalier attitude and re-negging on his promise to release his tax filings and Voila, he is stoking the flames of his own conspiracy theory.
The public needs full transparency and honesty before this person can even attempt to earn the public’s trust, let alone respect.
That being said Mr. Parry, what was your stated public position regarding tin foil hats on Trumps 10 year crusade to nowhere on President Obama’s birthplace?
Until we get the bottom of trump’s Russian dalliance, I wear my tin hat proudly thank you.
Well we’ve since seen Trump’s tax filing. Rachel Maddow did her best to tank her credibility in bringing it to us. Turns out he paid more than all of the Democrats in congress combined. And Obama’s own brother has called for a DNA test claiming that Barack is no kin to him whatsoever. So Trump’s curiosity was baseless propaganda? Really? When it was fueled by Obama’s own closest relatives? Priceless. Pray tell, what is the evidence that Obama IS who he says he is? A Birth Cert printed in a form dated “2005 Rev”? A book full of verifiable lies? Sealed transcripts? Two children that there is no proof that Michelle was ever pregnant with (sorry guy in Michele’s fake prom photo you’re not the dad either)? Please enlighten us all by sharing what is your standard of truth. That stands to be quite entertaining.
I’d suggest you stick to occupations and hobbies that don’t require critical thinking. And take off that idiotic hat.
This is a continuation of the campaign. Democrats insisted it was not about the truth of what was revealed about Hillary, just about who revealed it. They are still saying that. Now they allege that Russia said it, and Trump was complicit, so the truth revealed about Hillary is a foreign plot, and only the plot is important.
It is excuses for Hillary. It was before, and they have just gone on into conspiracy theory.
The Democrats don’t want to face the reality of their own betrayal of voters, and the rejection by the voters that earned.
The Hillary Democrats want to keep control of the party, and do it again, holding off the Bernie/Warren faction from power.
This is just the campaign going on and on.
And yes, they hate Trump, but for things they’ve always said about him. That failed to convince voters, who wanted a positive message. Therefore, it will inevitably fail the same way again.
No question the mob is out to get Trump, but good. And Trump stupidly provides them with much of their ammunition, but they are out to get him and it is a well organized effort. I was saddened to realize most of our Congress doesn’t care about the truth, only about stomping someone who they feel is stomp-able. There is blood in the water and it is great sport to take a bite. Trump is a flawed individual, but accusing him of colluding with the Russians without having proof is not right.
Finally Robert Parry is a journalist who has principles and a desire to address issues fairly and also intelligently.. At last we hear from an honest man who cares about the truth.
Now after 9/11 a very strong case could be made concerning Bush’s at the very least negligence and the government’s curious lack of suspicion prior to the attack, and the fact that even before 9/11 Bush’s advisors were laying plans to invade Iraq, and then did invade Iraq based on intelligence “fixed” to justify our war of aggression. But nobody, none of our stalwart legislators or “truth seeking” main stream journalists ever raised a question. It is sickening, and then to hear how these legislators and main stream journalists now cloak their inciting of a lynch mob as a defense of American and American democratic “traditions.”
America needs more thinking like this.
The REAL problem in America to-day isn’t news, false news or lack of news, it’s the American propensity to beat the living shit out of anything that crosses the news desk. It’s not the news itself but the ‘interpretation’ of it – the ‘nuance’, or ‘spin’, put on it in any and every venue – from the Whitehouse press room to WKRP in Cincinnati.
“What do it all signify, Boss?’ Is readily answered by those who would have been Bible-thiumpers in less civilized times. Sadly, the auydience is just as dumb – or worse.
I like the way Parry analyses motives and potential outcomes. This is probably why he is still a peerless investigative reporter. This sort of critical questioning of establishment statements and actions seems to be missing in Mainstream Media today. Please keep it up.
Trump Ties to Russia? How About U.S. Ties to Israel?
We need an investigation of the entire American government for its ties to a foreign nation, Israel, which have cost the middle east and Islamic world, beginning with Palestine, hundreds of thousands of lives and the U.S. hundreds of billions of dollars. And they have brought bloody war home via terrorist attacks which would never have happened if the government hadn’t done the bidding of the Israeli Lobby and its supporters in politics and media. These employees of the lobby put the interest of a foreign power ahead of those of the American people. Are they, and their supporters, traitors?
Are you?
Have you knowledge of the game, Texas Hold ’em?
The screeching snowflake leftists, including the NY times, have gone “All In” with the Russian hacking nonsense. Every penny of credibility has been put into the pot, and it can’t be pulled back.
So they have to do everything imaginable to try to bluff this hand out, while holding a pair of deuces. They will stop at nothing, because if they can’t somehow pull this off, their already paper-thin credibility will slide into the shredder, never to be recovered.
All this “Russian hacking” seems to obscure WHAT was in the emails from DNC and Hillary. Also seems a great distraction from WHAT the Republicans are doing with rolling back regulations on Wall Street and the gun industry. WAKE UP AMERICA. The 1% are getting every wet dream satisfied. Unfortunately the Democrats are not fairing much better. Lots of “smoke and mirrors”. Too bad Hillary took down some great Democrats with her (Teachout, Grayson, Feingold, etc.). Hillary can only blame herself when the whole world is screaming for change and she campaigns on “stick with the program” and Trump says,”You got screwed and I’m going to fix it”. Hillary is a (2-time) loser. Don’t blame the Russians.
Pablo my feelings exactly. In my comment above that was the point I was trying to make. All this news coverage of Trump, and America is not the better for it. Domestically our society is taking a big hit over funding an already overfunded war machine. Internationally who knows what deals our government is making with the devil, and all for the sake of world hegemony….which doesn’t bring any jobs back to the Rust Belt States in the least bit. Good comment Pablo….Joe
OK, Louise Mensch is hardly the worst or only silly/stupid/dangerous op/ed the NYT has published lately. But, IT’S A OP/ED! It’s not fact and people shouldn’t read it that way unless there are facts included in the piece.
I wouldn’t be heaping abuse on the MSM though. Sure…there are reasons to be concerned about some of the coverage/reportage but these organizations are the best we have for putting politicans feet to the fire. It certainly won’t be Parry or some other online “Opinion” rag..because they simply do not have the resources.
And, god bless Parry for his work, but what exactly did the 1980 October Surprise “investigation” in 1990 bring us? Absolutely nothing. You know why? Because it was water under the bridge…..only so much paper at that point…and seen as no longer relevant.
There is plenty of circumstantial evidence of shenanigans by the GOP/Trump that wayyyy outdo the Bengazi “hearings”. It’s not even close, don’t people agree on that? When there’s smoke it’s time to investigate for fire. …you don’t want to wait until the building has burnt down before you start investigating..what good does that do?
Demonizing Russia shouldn’t be the focus even if they should be called on their shit, if found. The focus should be on those with ties to Russia furthering their agenda through those contacts. I say push on, past the naysayers who probably don’t want truth..or only want the truth to align with their beliefs. That will require suffering some fools but it’s worth it.
Robert Parry – great article! Thank you.
The following author (Dr. Graeme MacQueen is the former Director of the Centre for Peace Studies at McMaster University in Canada) says that in order to change your mind about something or to even consider that something else might be true, you must first be able to use your imagination. He says that when something happens to you personally, once YOU feel some injustice (such as Consortiumnews being placed on a “fake news” list), you are then better able to suspend your habitual thinking and embrace the possibility that something else might be going on. It’s a very good article.
“What we imagine to be true in the present will surely be influenced by what we have intimately experienced in the past. […] The point is that only when our imagination embraces a hypothesis as possible will we seriously study that hypothesis and put it to the test.
Once the imagination stops filtering out a hypothesis and allows it into the realm of the possible, it can be put to the test. Evidence and reason must now do the job. Imagination cannot settle the question of truth or falsity any more than ideology, morality, or “common sense.”
The silencing of dissenters.
https://truthandshadows.wordpress.com/2017/03/14/911-and-american-left/#more-4073
Not that Wikipedia is the best source, but Louis Mensche looks a bit of an unstable. self-medicating character that tends to indulge in fantasy, literally, she writes chick lit books. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Mensch
Thanks for another parody news site, the F’ing (they spell it out) News along with Tomato-Bubble, which is good for some laughs, too, they say they’ll digest New York Times so you don’t have to be bothered.
I was just about to swear off writing comments, until I saw this…thought Robert Parry might find it interesting. Go to youtube and type in:
Putin threatens Israel And Saudi Arabia With Use Of Tactical Nukes
The video is listed under “The Fing News” and the story is attributed to “journalist Robert Parry” in multiple references. I’m not the most scrupulous Consortium News reader, but I can’t recall Robert Parry ever making such a statement. Though, I must admit, if I were in Putin’s shoes, the thought would have crossed my mind. The MSM interviewed a smug Arab commentator the other day…I think it was conducted by Brett Baer…he said that Saudi Arabia was looking forward to partnering with the United States to create safe zones in Syria where, “The Syrian people could be safe from the terrorists and the brutal Assad regime.” I guess the kinder, gentler Wahhabi head choppers of Saudi Arabia are believed to be an improvement over the Saudi funded foreign Wahhabi head choppers currently at work. Seems like some of my comments just disappear into the ether. Hope this one gets through the gauntlet. I’d be curious to know what Mr. Parry thinks of the “tactical nuke” attribution.
On February 18, 2016, in “Risking Nuclear War for Al Qaeda?” on Consortium News, Robert Parry wrote:
“A source close to Russian President Vladimir Putin told me that the Russians have warned Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that Moscow is prepared to use tactical nuclear weapons if necessary to save their troops in the face of a Turkish-Saudi onslaught. Since Turkey is a member of NATO, any such conflict could quickly escalate into a full-scale nuclear confrontation.”
However, starting in January 2017, a fake news report on the internet referred to an alleged “report, written by Parry, for Consortium News” http://www.awdnews.com/political/putin-threatens-israel-saudi-arabia-with-tactical-nuclear-response-to-syrian-ground-invasion
The fake news report included the following remark:
“If Israel (with hundreds of thousands of troops massed near the Syrian border) and Saudi Arabia (with its sophisticated air force) follow through on threats and intervene militarily to save their rebel clients, who include Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front, from a powerful Russian-backed Syrian government offensive, then Russia will have to decide what to do to protect its 20,000 or so military personnel inside Syria.”
The Fing News is a fake news YouTube channel set up to undermine real reporting about events in Syria and elsewhere.
Russian news outlets have reported that Russia’s Foreign Ministry summoned Israeli Ambassador Gary Koren to Moscow to discuss a mission by Israeli warplanes in Syrian airspace.
Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said the country “expressed concern” over an incident on March 17 during which the Israeli military bombed targets inside Syria. Syrian state forces used anti-aircraft weapons in retaliation.
At the time, the Syrian army said it had shot down an Israeli warplane, hit another and forced the rest to flee, but Israel’s military denied that account. Israel said one Syrian missile was intercepted by its Arrow air defense system.
In comments carried by state news agency RIA Novosti on Monday, Bogdanov said Russia demanded that Israel more closely communicate its military plans in the region to avoid such incidents.
Russian troops were reportedly in the targeted region near the famed city of Palmyra, which had once again been captured by Syrian troops from “Islamic State” forces earlier in March.
On 31 January 2017, the “Putin threatens Israel” fake news report appeared on a fake news site, apparently aimed at ethnic Russian Jews in Israel, the US and abroad:
http://realnienovosti.com/v-mire/1485830428.html
Tinfoil kippah:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk4AS1auJIk&t=1s
“Russia Warns Israel They will Use Tactical Nukes” (YouTube link above)
video minutes 7:55-8:35
“Well, when you start throwing around, uh, this is on ‘Novosti’ [sic].
“‘Novosti,” a very well respected Russian news source here.
“When you start getting threats like that against Israel, and President Trump willing to stand for Israel, you can count on one thing: Trump is not just gonna sit back by idly [sic].
“According to the information of portal ‘Real News’, a source close to the President Vladimir Putin informed a famous journalist, Robert Parry, that Putin had warned Israel that, that any attempt to invade Syria would be met with the use of tactical nuclear weapons in the battle.
“You remember, right here on Israeli News Live, and people thought I was just a, a nut case for bringing even this out…”
The nut case’s Facebook page says: “Israeli News Live is an independent news source covering topics that surround and or effect Israel, and her citizens. Our news is objective.”
The nut case’s website says: “Israeli News Live is an independent news source, examining world events from a prophetic out look. Not every broadcast is examined in this light but the topics that clearly are fulfilling Biblical prophecy is what we watch for keeping people in the know as Israel awaits her coming Messiah.” https://israelinewslive.org/our-channel/
F.G. I personally want to encourage you to continuing with your comments. When I first came to this sites comment board you were very helpful to me with your comments and how you described things such as what the word ‘matrix’ meant. So although I know writing here is an addiction I do think in someway it helps for people to hear us unknown voices…you never know who you may have impressed. Joe
In “Many of Mensch’s suggestions pertain to people associated with the Trump campaign who game speeches in Moscow or otherwise communicated with Russians.” the word “game” should probably read “gave”.
Gary, could not be said better!
Excellent post. Much of what passes for “reality” in the U.S. is literally “fake news about fake news about fake news.” In other words it is a sort of post-modern witch hunt in which one CIA instigated lie is published by the NYT or W.Post, and is then picked up and discussed by yet other media outlets, which are then cited by yet other media, all of which are simply reporting variations on the initial “lie,” as if it were now the “truth.” No need for any “gulag” in the U.S. Here the gulag exists right between most people’s ears courtesy of MSM, and a cooperative population that can’t be bothered to read, research and think for ourselves.
Reading an article in the online English version of the Asahi Shimbun titled: “UPDATE: Japan and Russia hold talks on security, territorial dispute THE ASSOCIATED PRESS.” At first I thought, good, at least Japan is holding talks with Russia but then I hit this fake news line: The talks are the first “two-plus-two” meeting since Russia’s annexation of Ukraine..
http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201703200008.html
I STILL think it is good that Russia and & Japan are holding these talks, despite editorializing by AP/Asahi reporter for a Japanese-oriented publication. After all, Japan govt itself buys into “annexation” meme.
2 thumbs up
In Doug Wead’s new book, “Game of Thorns,” there is a whole chapter, “The Fu Lin Chinese Restaurant,” detailing Chinese interference in Bill Clinton’s re-election campaign. It is too complicated to review here at length, but two principals involved were Ng Lap Seng and Charlie Trie. I would assume they can be googled if one is interested in the particulars. Suffice it to say that there was plenty of proof of that sordid mess, while there is none (so far) of Russian meddling in the 2016 debacle on Trump’s behalf.
Patricia – yup. Robert Parry has pointed out previously that Hillary was expected to win the election. As such, Putin would not have taken the chance of meddling in the election out of fear of her retaliating against him after the election.
I don’t usually link to the Guardian but this story says all anyone needs to know about Louise Mensch and how seriously she should be taken as a journalist.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/22/louise-menschs-bid-to-smear-jeremy-corbyn-backfires
Thank you, J’Hon Doe II, for that Guardian link on Adam Curtis’ film “HyperNormalisation”. He’s got it, “reality” is a collage! It is a question of how many people fall for the propaganda, because we don’t get accurate assessment of that since it comes from the same source as the disinformation. Human beings too often let their emotions overwhelm their reason and thereby remain children in adult bodies!
“Mensch” means “a person of integrity and honor” in German, but in today’s pop culture of media whoring doesn’t mean much. Trump had a large part to play in this show, as did Clinton with her demagoguery calling Putin “Hitler”. Obama also played a large role. Like a schoolyard of kids who follow each other and start smears and slander in their excitement!
I think it is not “lack of knowledge” it is a deliberate set of lies. Check back 80 years to the lies about “uncle Joe”; they knew 80 years back they were anti American lies. Nothing has changed.
Joe Tedesky,
As my comment just above suggests, savor the good and be ready to bash the bad. It will come, though I hope not. Parry is a careful writer and I do agree with your comment.
Cheers,
Bart
I’ll try to follow your well intended advice, but I got bloody knuckles from my bashing the bad, and I’m losing faith in whatever good I’m suppose to savor. Patience is a virtue, and the demons are eating away at it, if you know what I mean. Thank God for playful puppy’s and giggling little kids, because looking at them in all their innocence makes me smile, but then later on their behalf I pray for a better world.
Always a pleasure Bart take care Joe
Robert Parry starts out with….
“There are real reasons to worry about President Donald Trump’s foreign policy, including his casual belligerence toward Iran and North Korea and his failure to rethink U.S. alliances with Saudi Arabia and Israel, but The New York Times obsesses on Trump’s willingness to work with Russia.”
I would like for all of us to reread it, and listen very carefully to what Parry starts off with; “There are real reasons to worry about Donald Trump’s foreign policy,” now does that sound like a pro-Trump endorsement…I don’t think so. Call me crazy but Robert Parry’s narrative is written towards what an investigative reporter’s standard of procedure should be to deliver a accurate reporting. Accusations just doesn’t cut it. Facts leading up to events do, and King makers along with their knaves who surround them make up stuff for a reason.
Somehow our national narravative has gone to the dogs of division and to a fake alternative news, and all of us, on the right and left have fallen victim to it. Just look how the MSM has gone to a 24/7 Blitzkrieg that went into effect even before the election results were in…these cable news network knuckleheads gave Trump 4.96 billion dollars worth of free coverage, and people are blaming Russia? I mean what in the hell is wrong with you to convict any Russians (oh BTW I just saw a headline that another Russian official was found dead)…over the media giving him free coverage. Oh this free coverage also made Hillary double up paying for commercial time to counteract Trump’s free coverage…this ridiculously boardroom manufactured scheme of happenings and events is so obviously short term and narrow sighted that I’ll quit with my rant.
We the people are being divided really well. All the while another stupid Wall St Pharmaceutical plan will replace the one we already have…dollars over good health, what a bunch. Our Foreign Policy is either a big bluff, or we have totally gone off our American rockers…seriously my saying Iran and N Korea are the next Hiroshima and Negasaki isn’t that far out of the reality of that happening, by the way it sounds.
Somehow we all got to get beyond this silly Russian hacking, if you believe the Russians hacked then your a Hillary person, if you deny the Kremlin interference your a Trump supporter….it’s all garbage. Same thing with this wire tapping story (BTW there’s 2 pp’s). Script writer’s must be making the big bucks here…no doubt about it our Establishment is having fun with us peons. That’s okay ‘They’ think we are all monkeys and trailer trash so let’s really show and for one whole day not buy anything…I mean shutting down the grid, and staying off the roads, and sleeping on the beach.
I’ll be like our president; I heard there’s a Demo congressman predicting we will no doubt go nuclear on Russia’s butt eventually…yeah let’s talk out of our your you know what, what a scmuck. Then the under-reporting of Somalia and Yemen, is just a flat out journalistic crime. Some while applauding it the news gave way to little notice that the Trump Adminstration is undoing the refinancing of student debt. loans. It’s not so much about the loan story or any story for that matter, it’s about us citizens getting a diverse and proper knowledge of world events. Okay I liked social studies back in high school, but hey it’s the world you live in, and eventually it effects you.
Okay Parry’s not a Trump supporter, and we need to take note of the fact that we are all being played.
I hope Oliver Stone makes a documentary of these days and times, because if he doesn’t he’s missing the finale of the biggest story so far in this new century, ‘the empirical rein, and the over hubristic fall of an empire’.
Now is not the time to go looking for heros, but now is the time to stay as well informed as you feel you can be, and to say out loud, Now Stop It! Use the current Presidents words, but say it to all of them in the DC Beltway.
“….Same thing with this wire tapping story (BTW there’s 2 pp’s). ”
Not the way Trump used it. There’s no such thing as a wire “tapp” :
http://i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/170304081112-trump-accuses-obama-wiretapping-nobles-newday-00000000-large-169.jpg
Thanks Mark I know that, but I guessed my humor didn’t sell too well, because I wanted you to see where and when it gets used….but I’m overrated, too sad. This is the way we should spell this bugging claim story; The Wire Tapp Story’. When we refer to it from now on this would be a logo kind of symbol to Trump’s twittering that Obama did a wire tapp on him….oh Hell whatever.
Ah , OK , sorry about that. The humor escaped me – not surprising , given how slow I’ve been today.
Oh well , tomorrow’s a new day of the Trump Tapp Dance , maybe I’ll be a bit quicker on the uptake next time.
That’s okay Marko you were looking out for my betterment, and I need all the help I can get…plus I’m one of those 285 million comedians out of work anyway..Joe
Hi Joe,
I ‘am not sure if you have ever read George Washington’s Farewell Address, but I think you will find that your intuition’s are directly inline with GW’s regarding the prejudice, hate and “theater” that the 2 major parties, so commonly employ. .. Thereby bamboozling people for years from the real conversations. (.. ex: employer based healthcare vs. single payer) … Also, I think you might enjoy his observations on developing permanent relations with Foreign Nations. (.. think, Bretton Woods, NATO, etc.) http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp
Concerning the Owner Media, and, the people’s airwaves; as well:
How many times do we hear from “our” airwaves and the Owner Media that by Russian Law, 50% of all profits from their Central Bank, which is the majority stake holder in their most popular banks, must go to the people of Russia?
…
It’s awful of funny too, how we never hear about the IMF, and how (..we..) are funding the Civil War in the Ukraine. As I understand it, this was always illegal for the IMF to fund a Country at war. ..((.. and, a Civil War at that?)) As of this week, this debt will be over 8 billion dollars and counting. (.. that’s a lot of public property (.. sovereignty..) that will be going on the auction block at will likely be, fire sale prices..)
…
And finally, it’s also pretty funny, how the “Owner Establishment” never talks about the Skifska gas field off of the coast of Crimea. I would think that this project was to be the security blanket for all of the IMF ruled Baltic States, and their new found Private Equity foreign investors..
Here is just some of the money manipulations this past cycle from the Republicans:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/27/the-reclusive-hedge-fund-tycoon-behind-the-trump-presidency
And, here is some of money manipulations from the Democrats that we are currently being bombarded by:
http://www.voltairenet.org/article195455.html
.. Plus, the ground game is being generated by a massively funded SuperPac’s that is called, Priorities USA, partnered with a Pac called Indivisible.
Thanks everyone for all of your great inputs!
I always learn something new from you folks. (..smile..!)
… correction:
“… security blanket for all of the IMF ruled Balkan States..”
I always take an interest in what Thierry Meyssan has to say, and you are right in pointing out the scheming crime of rape that the uber wealthy like to pull off on nations who pop up at their IMF tellers window. While the IMF puts an unrealistic strain on the populace that very nation who’s now on the hook loses it natural and public utility resources to their new robber barons the IMF. Just look at Greece. Good you brought this up CMP…thanks Joe
“I would think that this project was to be the security blanket for all of the IMF ruled {Balkan} States, and their new found Private Equity foreign investors..”
Yes, no security blanket for the people of (IMF’s punching-bag) Greece.
You are, of course, right about Parry’s approach to Trump, which matches that of a great many liberals and those from the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. He’s not FOR Trump, he’s against dishonesty, chaos, lawlessness and potential mob rule, or potential fascist rule. I call it the Susan Sarandon Solution. Susan was not going to have Hillary forced down her throat. She said she’d rather shake the system up and see Trump elected if it came to that. Then later we could rebuild amidst the ruins, as she didn’t see a golden age emerging under any Republican, though she denied wanting the constitution violated or overthrown. She basically wanted us to learn a lesson, as liberals and Democrats and as Americans in general.
Since the DLC and the DNC were not going to allow Bernie Sanders to be the nominee come hell or high water, and because Hillary was so unacceptable to so many liberals and Democrats, I figure that the insiders in the party preferred to lose if they couldn’t have their way. They deserved to lose. The outcome was entirely their fault in oh so many ways. If they had allowed a level playing field, Bernie would have won both the nomination and the general election.
The insiders should blame themselves for their predicament, but they are so hubristic, Russia is so convenient and the typical pea-brained American seems to buy the story so they are going with it to the bitter end. I never believed the kid who told the teacher the dog ate his homework (not an apocryphal story: it happened in my 3rd grade class!), but that’s essentially the kind of cock and bull story the Democrats and their media tools would have the American people believe (and are apparently succeeding in selling). Apparently the double-digit IQ crowd (half the population) will believe anything presented to them by the media. Truth be told, their familiarity with Trump from the boob tube gave him a leg up in the campaign, that and all the free exposure the media gave him, full well expecting to tear him down later after first building him up in a totally transparent act of mass manipulation.
The same jackasses on MSNBC who rip Trump a new one every day after 7:00 PM were the ones who pre-empted the “real news” throughout the campaign to bring us live Trump rallies, Trump speeches and Trump primary and caucus victory after victory. No one else, not even Saint Hillary got such coverage from the liberal media, and certainly not Senator Sanders. Who knew it was all a Russian plot? It took Hillary herself to open our eyes during the convention, though most still thought it was just a typical campaign zinger, not her next great political movement.
Wait. If I’m going to connect ALL the dots, doesn’t that make MSNBC and Rachel Maddow complicit in Russia’s theft of Hillary’s presidency? I think we should all demand to see Maddow’s complete dossier compiled by the CIA, there are sure to be links to Putin there. No one is clean. Purge them all! (Oh, dear, now I’m starting to sound like Michael Moore, Bill Maher or Al Franken. Better chill.)
I could not have said it better Realist, as usual your scientific experienced mind allowed you to follow the process so well that you did connect the dots. A lot of what is going on could be figured out if more people were to think like you, but the media plays on a public mindset where people are partially only paying attention. Why with raising children, or concentrating on work and family, and with maybe a little R&R to find escape, and then there you have it the public are unsuspecting birds of prey sitting on the wire waiting for their slaughter by the aviculture owned mockingbird MSM. Good comment as usual Realist….Joe
Wikileaks showed that the elevation of Trump by DNC shills in the media was part of the Clinton campaign “Pied Piper” strategy to elevate Trump. (Also other candidates also deemed easier to defeat). They feared certain other candidates (Rand Paul in particular) could possibly beat Clinton and these were purposely ignored (as was Bernie Sanders during the primaries).
Please watch
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2017/03/watch-louise-menschs-disastrous-sunday-politics-interview/
funny!
That was funny. Louise “Stench” would be more appropriate.
MA Thanks for this link. It just confirmed what I thought about her. Young, stupid, full of herself and certainly well funded: being paid from us- the US tax payers to the tune of …is it already 5 billions this year to israel? Someone like her writing for any news outlet? look how low our MSM had sunk!
A good summation of what is going on, “newswise.”
————————————————————————————————
…
The TV “news” parrots propaganda daily and the “newspapers” do likewise….
Unfortunately the corporate ‘news sources’ today are in the hands of those that support the war criminals. Truth has been killed in the western world. Instead we have war criminals past and present that were and are in positions of power….
[much more info at link below]
http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2016/12/the-propaganda-peddlers-war-criminals.html
Your use of the word “parrot*” just underscored for me the ubiquity with which one sees the same obvious lies repeated verbatim throughout the news media, filtering down from the New York Times and Washington Post to the television networks, including even the local channels–I think even the weatherman and sport’s reporter are expected to display an anti-Russian bias with a few well-placed wisecracks. Rachel Maddow must be in charge of disseminating the official establishment talking points. Not only that, but every politician from “illustrious” senators, to congressmen, down to the two-bit locals are doing the same in lock-step like an army of automatons. Suddenly, formerly articulate intelligent liberals like Al Franken lose all sense of reason and repeat talking points they could never accept if they chose to analyse them on facts and logic. Of course, it doesn’t stop there, as the TV and Hollywood celebrities like Bill Maher, Michael Moore and Meryl Streep have to chime in jabbering the same clap-trap in the identical chosen words. Finally, the rank and file disillusioned Democrats are caught repeatedly regurgitating shop worn propaganda and contrived fake news stories they were dispensed as received wisdom just the same as the zombified tea baggers they had themselves condemned just a few short years before. One can easily trace the source of much of this bullshit directly to its source, the mother lode being “Trump is Putin’s puppet” which was first mouthed by Killery herself as a campaign ploy back during the summer of 2016. As a zinger it went over big at the convention. As the basis for national policy it will be the end of our constitutional republic.
It would be interesting for some graduate student who uses informatics as a basic tool to formally trace the origin and spread of this specific meme and a multitude of other equally dishonest and poisonous ones as a dissertation project. I’m surprised that Nate Silver hasn’t commissioned such a study just for the record, it would make a Pulitzer Prize winning column for his 538 blog, unless even he doesn’t want certain truths revealed because of the repercussions they may have. Google probably already has the study complete and knows to a fare thee well exactly where the bullshit was originated, who first uttered it publicly and how it was intricately propagated across the entire informational matrix, but wouldn’t dare release it because we know were they stand on what is truth and what is “fake news.” To them, truth is what their fellow political partisans proclaim (if not believe) and “fake news” is what their adversaries find either i) closer to reality or ii) more convenient to their narrative. Instead they offer tools to eradicate from the formal record in their search engine those bits of reality with which they disagree or find too inconvenient to let stand on the record.
It is uncanny how closely modern Western society has come to mirror that represented in Orwell’s “1984,” from the use of language, to the manipulation of “news” and “fact” to the prosecution of never-ending wars against existential “enemies” half way round the world who could never get within a thousand miles of any US border, let alone invade or damage us in any way. And, so our president himself is portrayed as counterpart to the arch-villain traitor Emmanuel Goldstein by the Deep State which feels threatened at the slightest trace of “outside” influence and fully mobilizes the “inner party” to cut him to ribbons on the most bombastic to the most petty of pretenses.
*I own a couple of actual parrots, and I believe even these birds think a bit longer before speaking than most of the jabbering humans mentioned in my complaint.
In Florida I once heard a bird repeatedly saying “parakeet” very matter-of-factly. I had not heard that the bird was named after its call, and find that they usually say “eeeh-eeeh.” After a while it began saying “I’m a parakeet” just as matter-of-factly. After a few minutes (I was doing other things) it dawned on me that this was not an ordinary bird call. Perhaps it was a parrot. It had a detectable Boston accent, but did not recommend any political interpretations while I was listening.
Thank you! Still chuckling.
But actually long ago in Boston, I met a big parrot named Winston who was said to have audited some feminist discussions in the 1970s, which proceeded for hours and apparently reached some discouraging conclusions from several angles. When quiet had at last descended upon the participants, Winston said what he had learned, that “It’s all messed up.” But when I was present, he merely strode over from the hearth, and walked back and forth along the sofa arm beside me, staring intently at me as I spoke, often turning his head horizontal to see whether I made more sense that way. At last he left in disgust that I did not repeat myself in any characteristic way.
I commend Mr. Parry and the other journalists who have relentlessly called out our government’s and media’s absurd accusation on the Russian hacking scandal. We are lucky to have somwhere to go for reporting with any integrity. ‘News’ has now become more and more like reality television. ‘Reporting’ has been replaced with scripts that are written to fit a narrative that will be played out for maximum drama and filmed and sold to the public as real life, a true story.
I never thought this day would come when a cheap and petty TV genre could spill into our media and reek havoc in mainstream journalism. Sadly, this type of public attack by goverment officials, the media and private individuals will become the norm from here on out. Once everyone knows how to confuse and control the message to the public we are forever doomed to more of this manipulation. Trump has made it look easy. He is a realty tv star and producer and has know one else to blame but himself for the Russian hacking scandal and witchhunt. He’s created a TMZ ‘reality’ for himself with bombastic tweats, consistent lying and distortion of facts all through his campaign, the election and into his presidency. Welcome to Trump Knows Best, a reality show with both friendly and unfriendly story producers who are competing to win the final narrative. None of them are true of course, but we are always suckers for a good tale.
“Many of Mensch’s suggestions pertain to people associated with the Trump campaign who //game// speeches in Moscow or..”
I believe there is a typo and it should be //gave// instead of //game//.
I stumbled for about 5 minutes over the word “game”, but couldn’t come up with anything that made sense. I think you have indeed found a typo here. “Gave” makes perfect sense.
The NYT only exist as a distraction…..hello : ) ….keep digging…..Go team USA !!!!
Love me some Parry. I’m appalled at how may of my well informed friends and neighbors can’t LIVE without the NYT telling them what to think. Even after the war drumming they did to start the Irag invasion and the horror that turned out to be, they still think smart people read the Times and that smart people write for the Times. Judith Miller who? Huh? Whaa? Scary. Thank god for Consortium News.
And sadly, the first dozen or two comments on the Mensch article can only be described as ‘fawning’.
Bart: To your point, I might mention that I posted a sarcastic comment @ NYT as, at that moment, the 4th person to do so (i.e., just 3 comments had appeared). But in doing so I warned my wife that, despite any number of comments that I have posted and that have appeared over the years, some of which have even received the NYT’s golden star endorsement, the newspaper would certainly not publish this one, as it ridiculed the very credibility of its Op-Ed contributor. As it turns out, I was quite right. This morning, on noticing that Mensch’s column was still heralded on the NYT website’s front page some 36 hours, at least, since its publication, I checked out the comments and discovered they amounted to the same number (some 330) as yesterday — this because the NYT had closed that Comments section. Thereupon I allowed myself to confidently conclude — for this was not the first time I have witnessed such a phenomenon — that, facing a tsunami of ridicule like my own, the NYT had rejected all such derision and finally called it a day by prematurely closing down the Comments option.
Excellent editorial. Commenting on tangential issues that merit further analysis: a) recent US govt. attacks on whistleblowers and leakers, coupled with the massive surveillance of everyone, makes it much harder to put together articles with many inside sources to US government wrongdoing; when whistleblowers/leakers like Binney, Tice, Kiriakou, Radack, Snowden, Manning, Sibel Edmonds, etc. do emerge, the modern MSM is reluctant to give them a microphone or support . In fact, the opposite occurs: the MSM and to demonize the whistleblowers and label the sites that do give them a mic, like Wikileaks, RT.com, CorbettReport.com, etc. as either traitors, foreign propaganda, or, now “fake news” (to be censored by Google page rankings, Facebook, browser plugins, and the Harvard Library. The current drive to sponsor this censorship may well be a US govt/NATO psyop rather than an organic response to any news or public development. Obama authorized huge spending for “cyber security” and countering “propaganda” on his way out the door. The signs I have seen suggest that “fake news” will come to include all small independent outlets that publish any harsh criticism of the official US govt. narratives – for example, any publication that was harshly critical of the Vietnam War during the 1960s would be included in many of the current definitions of “fake news”.
b) Vox put together a really well-done video on why Trump’s tweets against the F-35 were such an outrage to the Military-Industrial-Political-Complex and what that complex looks like (in public) today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ba63OVl1MHw&feature=youtu.be I felt that the real “Russians hacked the election” nonsense started right after those tweets, and let up some after Trump announced a big military budget increase.
c) More info about nefarious IT doings at the DNC, having nothing to do with Russia or Trump, continues to emerge. Consider the list of articles linked here: http://yournewswire.com/wasserman-schultz-terrorist/ including the video interview: http://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/03/14/explosive-details-emerge-about-investigation-into-democrat-it-staffer-with-terrorist-ties/ I tend to believe Craig Murray and Wikileaks that their info came from a leak and some anonymous “Guccifer”. But on the general topic of DNC IT, we first heard that they ignored FBI advice and didn’t want the FBI to investigate and now we have this story that DWS was knowingly hiring a blackmail target with Hezbollah links, and going against police advice to keep him on the payroll. Putting all of those things together makes it hard to take their accusations as being sincere, let alone correct. I feel that true Democratic partisans would be better served for the future by taking care of their own management issues, including the ones revealed by Wikileaks.
On Friday, Mar 16, Glenn Greenwald at The Intercept offered a new take on the hysteria with an analysis titled “Key Democratic Officials Now Warning Base Not to Expect Evidence of Trump/Russia Collusion.”
He indicates what he calls “key” DEM forces, such as CIA Chief Michael Morell and James Clapper offering warnings, as with Morell’s “there is smoke, but there is no fire there at all.” Some media figures too, Greenwald says, are getting worried.
Additionally, unnamed members of the Senate Intelligence Committee are “petrified . . . of what the Democratic base will do if they do not find evidence of collusion, as they now suspect will likely be the case.”
This “petrified” suggests all the smoke-blowing = the DEMS’ desperate effort to evade and distract from their failures, emphasized by the thrashing around of McCain and Maddow. The paranoia is doomed to fail, probably sooner rather than later, with the DEM base more cynical and fed up than ever. Maybe Hillary better wait a while to “emerge from the woods.”
Heh – it’s reminiscent of the infamous WMD’s in Iraq, though obviously nowhere near as tragic in it’s direct consequences.
Meant to say former CIA Director Morell. (And Clapper is gone.)
Yeah it is reminiscent of it, I feel the same way as I did back then. It just rolled on and on, the bullshit I mean. Maybe they’re petrified because of the danger of more leaking. Maybe they have a sense of this, something is coming . . . a Snowden-like tear the top off the thing, plus from just looking in each other’s eyeballs . . . something is coming to alter it (smiling)
I was wondering if this full court press by the NYT was in response to the Greenwald article. As we have seen so many times recently, the NYT has no need for evidence. They just keep repeating the same preposterous claims until they are accepted by the sheeple as fact. The NYT and the rest of the howling MSM propagandists have lost all credibility for anyone with half a brain.
If Trump is really collaborating with Russia, it’s hard to explain why he appointed someone as anti-Russian as Nikki Haley to be ambassador to the United Nations.
Haley supports the continuation of sanctions against Russia because of the conflict in Ukraine. She also said that Russia committed war crimes in Syria. Last week she said “We cannot trust Russia. We should never trust Russia”.
The extremism of Mensch’s tendentious article is …
in the tradition of the NYT’s editors and their fiction scriveners such as those responsible for promoting the Iraq war and other crimes past and recent.
Louise Mensch’s anti-Russian paranoia is particularly severe, even for a NYT writer. She recently tweeted that she had signed off her account with the Signal messaging app because Russia had hacked it. Her cell phone was apparently also affected.
https://twitter.com/LouiseMensch/status/838105633673072640
It is wonderful to see Mr. Parry so nicely exonerated after all by the descent of US mass media into substandard reporting.
Now I propose modestly that we petition the NYT to hire Robert Parry as their senior editor to re-establish creditable reporting standards. In return he promises only to criticize NYT reporters and not the NYT itself, so long as they do not censor his stories. This would be their lowest cost route to credibility, and their only way to stop the flood of criticism, at least from Mr. Parry.
The downside is that we would lose the humor of seeing the mad theories and diagrams in the NYT.
Do it do it do it!
I would do that but do not know the link or setup for online petition websites. Perhaps someone here will offer to set that up.
OK, I have set up the petition “Bring a New Editor to the New York Times” on Change dot org. The link is not yet available, so try a search for “Robert Parry” there later today or tomorrow when it has been accepted by moderators.
But the change dot org website is fighting with me, and another petition site keeps blanking the form. Someone familiar with a petition site should set this up.
Here is the petition link:
https://www.change.org/p/new-york-times-bring-a-new-editor-to-the-new-york-times?recruiter=72650402&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink
Has the NYT released the news from Mr Nunes that NO evidence has been found for any collusion of Trump’s people with Russia? I suppose evidence means nothing anyway.
I’ve had another thought about this use of Fruit Loop Columnists by the neocon NYT. All of this pressure is designed to weaken Trump, bring him to heel, or both. Israel has a much more pressing problem than Iran at the moment, and that issue is directly north in Syria.
“Netanyahu does not seem to fear Russia”
turcopolier.typepad*com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/03/httpssouthfrontorgisraeli-prime-minister-promises-continue-hitting-hezbollah-in-syria.html
As the blogger says, Israel is extremely unhappy its pet Head Choppers and Burning-Alive guys in Syria are getting whipped by the Russian-Syrian-Iranian troops. That it has resorted to acting as the ISIS Air Force in a distant part of Syria shows they want this turned around. The demonizing of Trump will continue, I think. If for no other reason, they want to keep the pressure on. But something else could be in the works.
If head dingleberry Netanyahu really does want to have a confrontation with Russia which will force Trump into fighting yet another War For Israel, he’s going to need a modern “Uriah”. If there is anything at all to this Tin-Foil-Hat notion, I wouldn’t want to be the least-liked Israeli pilot, for somebody has to be the sacrificial goat to get the ball rolling, and he’d be the logical choice.
Gee, Zachary, that sounds like a really great opportunity to put Israel where it belongs without hope of reprisal. Russia can simply move “advisors” wherever Israel wants to strike, plus vastly superior SAMs and fighters and theatre nuclear forces on high alert. Let Israel hit some Russia forces, say by air, and then take out every plane and the airbase they came from. Let Israel respond, and take out some critical Israeli nuclear bases with theatre nukes. All in an hour, with a “Please call later” message on the DC-Moscow hotline.
Then let Trump posture with defensive bristling, let Putin modestly note that Washington would do the same thing if attacked by Cuba, and see who really wants a US-Russia war.
Israel probably would not launch an escalating nuclear attack on some Russian facilities, but if so, what better opportunity to obliterate all of Israel’s military capabilities and occupy Palestine? This would solve so many problems. Putin would be very popular in the US as well as the Arab world.
I would like to point out that the New York Times is not alone in this “conspiracy”. According to Judge Napolitano he says his claims made on Fox News about Obama “wiretapping” of Trump came from Larry C. Johnson author of at least one other “fake news” story.
Larry C. Johnson is a member of VIPS. I hope VIPS condemns him for his latest story. Maybe the intelligence agency is onto the various members who among them who are leaking what they have or don’t have about the whole leaking evidence.
While I agree with you regarding the need for evidence, I suspect that the latest wikileaks dump provides at least a basis for the accusation that Trump’s campaign was being investigated. I don’t think Obama necessarily had anything to do with it. The CIA has a history of running amok, and doing whatever it pleases. While I think that Johnson should be careful with his accusations, and that VIPS should protect it’s reputation, I am hopeful that in time we may get some real evidence. We need some more brave whistleblowers to come out of the rank and file of the CIA.
It doesn’t require Vault 7 to understand the plausibility (but I agree no hard evidence) of Napolitano’s suggestion. Let’s all keep in mind the original Snowden revelation that NSA databases have EVERYTHING recorded. They have a record of all electronic communications that originate or pass through the US. The only thing in question is whether or not anyone has retrieved that information from NSA databases, listened to it, made transcripts etc. Accessing that information is supposed to require a FISA warrant, but not the original collection (in the plain meaning of the word “collection” as per Ed Snowden when interviewed by Jeremy Scahill on 3/15/2017): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4KKfr0OTvs
What’s news to me is that the NSA databases are accessible to all intelligence agencies of the “Five Eyes,” which includes GCHQ. So GCHQ has the capability to do exactly what Napolitano suggested (provide all this information to anyone who asks for it) as long as it doesn’t violate BRITISH law. Specifically, no FISA warrant would be required. Now, I don’t know whether “Five Eyes” have the alleged access to NSA databases, and as far as I know neither Napolitano nor Johnson have provided evidence of that.
On the other hand, GCHQ’s denial of Napolitano’s allegation is revealing. Aside from a healthy skepticism of any intelligence agency’s denials, note that GCHQ only denied that it “wire tapped” Trump or its campaign. But I believe Napolitano did not allege that GCHQ actually “wiretapped,” rather that they provided access to information that had already been collected. Nor did GCHQ deny the underlying allegation, far more shocking to me than the allegation that Obama or anyone in his administration asked for this information, that all “Five Eyes” agencies have access to that NSA database.
Our Constitution requires the NSA database be destroyed and never be reconstructed. The possible surveillance and leak of information about an incoming administration by the former administration is only the latest revelation of our total loss of privacy. In the remainder of the above link, Snowden expounds on the additional violations revealed by Vault 7 and other 21st Century violations of the Constitution.
Thanks for the link Bill, it was very enlightening. I suspect that elements of the deep state have gone into the database to try and get some dirt on Trump. I am no fan of Trump, but I am a fan of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the rule of law. When these deep state actors have that kind of power they basically run the world. They are so scared of detente with Russia that they will stop at nothing. Again, although there is no hard evidence presented thus far, I find it hard to believe that they wouldn’t do it.
Why did Fox News fire Napolitano? For supplying false stories? Is Larry Johnson supplying him with classified information? Where are the Johnson supporters? Has Rudy Guiliani been leaking again? There seems to be a lot going on that is very questionable!
This.
Which just goes to show how far our education system has failed in that nobody reads EA Poe’s Purloined Letter anymore.
Hey Ollie, how do we know Trump was wiretapped?
Because the NSA wiretaps everybody, Stan. Now shut up and let me finish reading the Natl. Enquirer about how Hillary was making 6 figures working at home on her computer.
And then, depending on who you know or who you are, the faceless and unconstitutional bureaucracy of the NSA allows you access to the results.
As long as the puppets don’t stop fronting for the man and play their part, everything is cool.
Those who demur, object or question this state of affairs are savaged for stepping out of patriotic line up by the fakestream moron media and Dim Repug sock muppets for the More Big Govt. Party.
“The Russians did it. “.
Such is the hysterical state of the regime we live in.
cheers
Obama would have had no problem at all with a surveillance order on Trump. Two FISA court warrant requests, he had to be watching that. He would have “signed off” on it, as long as he had plausible deniability,.
This Mensch woman has a wiki.
According to the same wiki, Mensch was (*AHEM*) an English Major at the university, and knowing this might explain an exchange she had with somebody on Twitter.
Going to clean out my feed for racists. Anybody using the term “Zionist” to me is automatically muted for antisemitism.
— Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) August 17, 2014
@LouiseMensch So you’d mute Theodore Herzl? Er, OK.
sean thomas knox? @thomasknox
@thomasknox who? If he uses Zionist then yes. Cheap code word for Jew. Antisemitism. Not having it
— Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) August 17, 2014
The Neocon Rag NYT is surely scraping the bottom of the barrel, but so long as there are enough people as ignorant as Louise Mensch to give them money for their trash, why not?
www*huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/08/18/louise-mensch-theodor-herzl-zionist-twitter_n_5688177.html
Zachary Smith,
Why not? I know we are on the same side, but here’s why not (again, parroting Parry):
“”Usually, an investigation doesn’t begin until there is specific evidence of a crime. For instance, the investigative articles that I have written over the years have always had information from insiders about how the misconduct had occurred before a single word was published…. [no evidence then the surprising:] Most of us who have reported on Trump’s bizarre “tapp” tweet have criticized him for making a serious charge without evidence (as well as his poor spelling), but Mensch seems to believe that the more serious offense would be if Trump somehow were telling the truth. She wants any truth-telling on this issue to be grounds for Trump’s impeachment, even though he may have been referring, in part, to her November article reporting on the FISA warrant that supposedly granted permission for members of Trump’s team to be put under electronic surveillance.””” Now that is VERY VERY weird and ironic.
Of course, the NYT is neck deep in all this bullpoop. As Parry concludes:
“”But the Times is now so deep into its campaign to demonize Russia and to destroy Trump that all normal journalistic standards have long ago been tossed out the window.
“”While there are many valid reasons to protest Trump and his policies, this descent into a New McCarthyism is both grotesque (because it impugns the patriotism of Americans without evidence, only breathless questions) and dangerous (because it escalates the New Cold War with Russia, a confrontation that could stumble into a nuclear holocaust).
“”At such moments, supposedly serious newspapers like The New York Times should show extraordinary caution and care, not a reckless disregard for truth and fairness. But no one in Official Washington seems willing to play the role of attorney Joseph Welch when he finally stood up to Sen. Joe McCarthy with the famous question, “At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”””
For more on this, look at the recent posts on my FACEBOOK page and read, read the introduction to my first Trump book, the entire second Trump book (on Trump’s commitment to peace and prosperity), and the third Trump book (on what motivates these presstitutes and the NYT: the Deep State which wants POTUS Trump assassinated or impeached).
Dr. Bart Gruzalski, Professor Emeritus, Philosophy (ethics and public policy) and Religion (books: “On the Buddha”: “On Gandhi”; and “Why Christians and World-Peace Advocates Voted for President Donald Trump”), Northeastern University, Boston, MA—and of course I’m posting this great article on FACEBOOK as you all should!
Bart, I appreciate the offer, but the only times I “do” Facebook is when a family member drags me to their computer or device to make me look at a cute photograph or video of a kid or pet. I’ve never had a Facebook account and hopefully never will.
Just now I googled my antique cell phone – it was introduced around 2007 and doesn’t even have a camera. So I’m quite the Luddite regarding social media.
But I do enjoy reading your posts here.
Louise Mensch has a long history of wackiness.
She was a Conservative MP from 2010 to 2012 when she resigned after admitting on the BBC show “Question Time” that she had taken Class A drugs and “messed up my mind.”
https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2013-11/enhanced/webdr06/7/18/enhanced-buzz-19359-1383867751-0.jpg
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/louise-mensch-my-mind-is-messed-up-after-taking-hard-drugs-7920094.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/07/05/louise-mensch-i-did-class-a-drugs-and-they-messed-with-my-brain_n_1652693.html
The average Briton regarded her resignation from Parliament as “Good Bye and Good Riddance.”
http://www.alexanderboot.com/good-bye-and-good-riddance-to-louise-mensch/
Now Ms. Mensch lives in New York spends 18 hours per day on Twitter spinning stories about Donald Trump as a Russian agent.
Her Tweets are an interesting case study in madness.
Ms. Mensch is the Captain Queeg of Twitter.
https://twitter.com/LouiseMensch?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
Ms. Mensch stated her belief on Twitter that Vladimir Putin had Andrew Breitbart murdered.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C7LPFTuU0AAPK28.jpg
Ms. Mensch’s closet is filled with tin foil hats.
completely true – it was TOTAL good riddance from the UK and no serious Brit takes any notice whatsoever- its a complete switch-off
The NYT long ago lost the last shred of it’s credibility. All the mainstream media are simply propaganda organs for their elite owners. Objective journalism gets by on shoestring budgets and much smaller readership.
excerpt
The goal of this manipulation, [Adam] Curtis suggests, is to spread a state of bewilderment and powerlessness across the globe. A sense that nothing quite makes sense. Technology, in particular social media, becomes the ally of those forces. The global technology companies not only feed a mirror of our obsessions back to us, but increasingly try to normalise our behaviour – collecting data about our health and our habits and selling us a fixed idea of who we should be and what we should like (“if you liked that, you will like this”). The irony of this feedback is that it is fuels prejudice and is fuelled by anger. The more angry users are, the more extreme their emotional states, the more they click, and the more money rolls into Twitter and Facebook and the rest.
Trump is presented in the film as emblematic of this culture, certainly, but how exactly?
“My take on Trump is that he is an inevitable creation of this unreal normal world,” Curtis says. “Politics has become a pantomime or vaudeville in that it creates waves of anger rather than argument. Maybe people like Trump are successful simply because they fuel that anger, in the echo chambers of the internet.”
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/oct/09/adam-curtis-donald-trump-documentary-hypernormalisation
Thanks for another good link (this Guardian article) on this interesting film “hypernormalization” including reference to John DosPassos.
It’s free at you tube here–
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fny99f8amM
Seems to me if COMPETING hypernormalizations are part of the mix, as with spin from the DEMS vs spin from Trump, as now, then the major problem (and failure of it) could be due to confusion and loss of focus and loss of power.
Possibly this relates to my quote from Greenwald below–the DEMS being “petrified” their story will collapse, or is about to collapse.
Losing hold of the faux narrative could be what’s worrying, with its credibility requirement. In the classic “hypernormalization” scenarios, as with 1984, there is only full force central totalitarian control. We’re not there yet apparently.