Category Archives: General Interest

November 13, 2017 · 1:28 pm

A nation torn apart

Over the weekend, Andrew McCarthy wrote a compelling piece highlighting the differences between the Trump Russian collusion investigation and Hillary’s email server investigation. It’s worth reading: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/453659/mueller-paul-manafort-investigation-hardball-tactics

President Trump went off on his favorite tangent, lambasting political hacks in our intelligence community, over the weekend.  Of course, the mainstream media rushed to condemn his comments and predictably, former top intelligence officials, James Clapper and John Brennan, took to the Sunday shows to berate him and blabber on about how Trump can easily be played by the Russians.

I’ve debated how to explain the problems I see with both sides in this flame-throwing.  First, off Clapper, Brennan and Comey are all tied up in the infamous Trump dossier business, which is tied up with GPS Fusion, which was hired and paid by Clinton and the DNC to destroy Trump.  Those three briefed Trump, before his inauguration, on the dossier and they rolled out a report on Russian interference in the election at the same time.  That report was just recycled information from previous reports, yet those three top intelligence officials spun that in the media as if it was new information, bolstering the Clinton camp’s “Russian collusion” hysteria.   Clapper, Brennan and Comey played a key role in working to delegitimize Trump.  That’s the truth.

When Comey was fired he leaked his FBI notes to the media, through a friend, and later reports indicate those notes did contain classified material, yet the media glossed over that and ran full throttle on the Russian collusion storyline.  It’s easy to understand why Trump doesn’t trust anything Comey, Brennan, or Clapper say.  During the Obama years, a lot of intelligence was mishandled. Hillary’s private email server became the public target of Republicans, but the Obama administration, starting with President Obama, who used a private gmail account to communicate sensitive information with staffers, mishandled sensitive information – he emailed Hillary using that gmail account at her private server email address.

There are many “experts” who rush to say, the president can handle sensitive information however he wants and it’s “legal”, but that misses the entire point about sensitive information.  “Legal” doesn’t really matter if the actions compromise sensitive information, because what matters is that everyone entrusted with handling sensitive information do his/her best to insure that information is handled with due diligence.  Protecting the information is what matters; not parsing over legal technicalities.

Hillary’s server jeopardized highly sensitive information in many, many ways.  Top Obama officials, including President Obama, were involved in the email chains, containing classified information.  Every insecure email account, not just Hillary’s homebrew server, put that information at risk.  The most amazing aspect of Comey’s bizarre statements on Hillary’s server, was how he underplayed the possibility that the classified information was accessed by hostile intelligence.  The moment sensitive information is mishandled, like being stored on an insecure homebrew server, with people managing the email system, who do not possess security clearances, that information was definitely considered compromised.  Hillary used primarily her blackberry to send and read emails.  She had 13 blackberries that she “misplaced” or couldn’t locate and NONE of them were turned over to the FBI.

The entire media/Clinton/DNC #Resist effort has been a year-long sorest loser temper tantrum to take down Trump.  That is the truth. The other truth is Trump has placed fighting the #Resist effort above his duties as President. America is suffering from this ongoing 2016 election debacle.  It is also true that Trump is unfit to be president and he does not care to learn about policy or pay attention to details.  It is also true that Hillary, with her callous and deliberate abuse of her position and grossly negligent handling of highly sensitive information is unfit to be president too and she should not have a security clearance ever.  However, I think she still has her security clearance, despite the piles of classified information she mishandled, the files under subpoena her lawyers destroyed, and despite not turning over any of her 13 blackberries and some of her laptops to the FBI.  The media glossed over Hillary’s email scandal and Comey did too, because to prosecute Hillary would have taken down the Obama administration.  So, instead, Obama caved to the Clinton pressure and the Obama Justice Department gave cover to Hillary Clinton.

The mainstream media can collude to just not cover certain stories or to give a quick report, then bury the story. When Clinton flacks say, “it’s time to move on”, the mainstream media takes that marching order and does damage control for the Clintons.

Into this mix, it’s increasingly obvious the Trump campaign was extremely corrupt too and considering Trump prided himself on being a great crony capitalist, this should not surprise anyone.  Once Donald Trump, Jr. admitted he went into that meeting with the Russian lawyer, expecting to get Russian government dirt on Hillary, President Trump’s denials of “Russian collusion” fell apart.

America had two totally corrupt candidates, who are determined to fight to the bitter end to destroy each other.  America is caught in the media crossfire of this brutal information war of attrition. There won’t really be any winners at the end of this, just a nation torn apart by relentless partisan fighting.

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Filed under Corrupt Media Collusion, General Interest, Information War, Politics, Public Corruption

November 8, 2017 · 12:23 pm

Seeing Russia through your “Windows”

In our hyper-partisan political environment in America, do our intelligence agencies fathom the full scope of the Russians’ information war?

Politicians on the left want to focus solely on Russian interference in the 2016 election that promoted Trump and disparaged Hillary, but the Russian activities are much broader, also targeting fringe political extremists, various demographics, and the political left.  It has also been reported that they even identify soldiers, veterans and their families with messaging meant to undermine morale and confidence in the U.S. government and the military.

The Daily Beast, a leftist site, has a report today: Exclusive: Russia Activated Twitter Sleeper Cells for Election Day Blitz.  Their investigation examined election day tweets from Russian trolls in St. Petersburg, all geared toward promoting Trump and spewing doubt about the election process.  The most interesting thing they reported is that many of these Twitter accounts go as far back as 2009, which should raise alarm bells among our intelligence agents analyzing the Russian messaging operations.

I believe the Russians were actively cultivating online messaging opportunities since the late 90s.  The very same gang-up tactics and the swarming with their messaging, to dominate and crush opposing opinions in online forums, was present on the Excite message boards during the Clinton impeachment.  In 2015, I experienced that same tactic when posting comments on some conservative news sites, which used Disqus for their comment sections.  Just like the all-American sounding names used by Russian Twitter trolls, reported in this Daily Beast article, the gang-up hit squads on Disqus, used similar names.  I am sure the Russians have online troll armies working the left-leaning sites and various sites geared toward minorities too.  Cultivating fear and discontent in American black communities has been a Kremlin focus since 1919.  In the 70s, the Saudis reportedly began pouring money into black colleges and black communities, to promote Wahhabism.  The Chinese fixated on buying American real estate and American companies, to try to “own” us.

With the complete cluelessness expressed by so many of our government leaders about the Russians’ information war against America and the West, you’d think most of these people slept through the Cold War.  Time to wake up and realize you just might be seeing Russia through your “Windows”…

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Filed under General Interest, Information War, Politics

November 7, 2017 · 6:00 pm

Always above the law

The New Yorker ran a very in-depth piece of investigative journalism, Harvey Weinstein’s Army of Spies,  by Ronan Farrow.  The story details how Harvey Weinstein and his lawyers silenced women and reporters from speaking out about Weinstein’s attacks on women.  The article is long, but it’s a fascinating read and so eerily familiar:

“According to dozens of pages of documents, and seven people directly involved in the effort, the firms that Weinstein hired included Kroll, which is one of the world’s largest corporate-intelligence companies, and Black Cube, an enterprise run largely by former officers of Mossad and other Israeli intelligence agencies. Black Cube, which has branches in Tel Aviv, London, and Paris, offers its clients the skills of operatives “highly experienced and trained in Israel’s elite military and governmental intelligence units,” according to its literature.”

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/harvey-weinsteins-army-of-spies

Some of Weinstein’s private investigators were hired and managed through Weinstein’s lawyers, with David Boies, directly involved in the hiring and managing Weinstein’s private investigators.  This all sounded so familiar, because this is exactly how the Clintons silenced women during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.  The Clintons used Sid Blumenthal to pull strings and kill stories.   Women claimed to have been threatened when they talked to Starr’s investigators.  And all the while Clinton mouthpieces and Hillary railed about the “vast, right-wing conspiracy” out to destroy them and how the investigation was just a “witch hunt”.

Weinstein looks like his empire is crumbling, but the Clintons are always above the law.

Along with this Farrow piece, another interesting bit of news generating waves is Donna Brazile’s new book, Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House.

Brazile claimed the DNC was owned by the Clintons during the Dem. primary, with the Clintons pouring money into the DNC, which was completely broke.  Along with the Clinton cash, the Clinton campaign demanded complete control of the DNC hiring and messaging, which assured Bernie Sanders would be sidelined.  Brazile excoriated Debbie Wasserman Schultz’ management of the DNC, which left the DNC  in such dire financial straits.

Clinton mouthpieces jumped into action countering Brazile’s claims, insisting everything was legal.  Clinton loyalists in the mainstream media jumped into action attacking Brazile too.  Many Democrats urged Democrats to unite and stay focused on #Resist.  And Donald Trump, his info warriors and FOX News pounced on the Brazile revelations as evidence that “Crooked Hillary”  rigged the primary against Bernie Sanders.

The mainstream media is already working to bury this story, gleefully getting inflamed about such weighty matters as Trump feeding the koi in Japan…  Brazile is quickly backtracking, now insisting the Dem. primary wasn’t rigged.

It looks like once again the Clinton machine has silenced another woman, who dared to challenge Hillary.

The right-wing media and Russian fronts, like Zero Hedge, highlighted Donna Brazile’s odd dedication in her book.  She dedicates her book to several family members, her friend and mentor, David Kaufmann,  her dog, and “my DNC colleague and patriot, Seth Rich”.   The Seth Rich dedication is odd.  I haven’t read the book yet, but the rolling out of her book, her feisty defiance over the weekend and now her seeming acquiescence to the Clinton talking points, seems like Brazile has opted to surrender to the Clinton machine.

It’s not surprising.

No one really ever wins against the Clinton machine.  Trump won the presidency, but Hillary and her vast network of operatives, many of them in the mainstream media, will tirelessly work until he is taken down.  That Trump is as corrupt as the Clintons assures this scorched earth info war will blow hot as long as Trump is president.  Trump played dirty, where even his son admits meeting with Russians hoping to collude with them and get dirt on Hillary.  The investigations will continue, the corrupt Trump operatives will be exposed, but all the while the Clinton corruption will roll on – always above the law.

Of course, Saint Comey, is ready to launch his new book too… “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership”… One can only wait with bated breath for Comey to explain his “better angels”…

Somehow, I feel sure he will get me nowhere closer to understanding how “extremely careless” differs from “grossly negligent” or how people in positions of high-trust and responsibility should be treated like “celebrities” and their “rights” must be given due deference and more protection than our nation’s most sensitive information.   The “higher loyalty” should be to the oath sworn – SUPPORT AND DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION.

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Filed under General Interest, Politics, ThatWitch2016

November 6, 2017 · 11:54 am

Feeding the koi

The media ran a video yesterday of President Trump with Japan’s prime minister, Abe, engaged in a Japanese ritual of feeding koi with spoonfuls of food.  CNN ran an edited version of the event, making it look like Trump disrespected the ritual and just dumped the box of fish food in the pond:

“(CNN)President Donald Trump took a moment out of his whirlwind Japanese trip to connect with nature and feed some fish, but after a few delicate scoops, he resorted to a grand gesture met with some laughter.”

And then this:

“As an aide clapped loudly, Abe and Trump tossed spoonfuls of fish food into the pond. Then, with a look of enjoyment, Trump quickly poured his entire box of food into the pond.”

http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/06/politics/donald-trump-koi-pond-japan/index.html

A Twitter media “feeding frenzy” then occurred with the media trashing Trump for disrespecting a Japanese culture and hyping Trump’s impatience.  I expect CNN to pull that story, because it’s a deliberate distortion on what happened, meant to disparage Trump.

This morning, several news outlets have run the complete video, which clearly shows prime minister, Abe, dumping his box of fish food in the pond, after the photo-op spoonful ritual, and Trump then dumping his box of fish food into the koi pond.  Trump was following the lead of his host, which is what most people do when in a foreign country, faced with an unfamiliar custom.

When the mainstream media rails about Trump’s “fake news” charge, this deliberate distortion of the facts bolsters Trump’s charge.  In this corrupt media environment, it’s very difficult to discern facts from “fake news”.  Many mainstream journalists live on Twitter, just like Trump.  Twitter is where you can watch the media in action generating spin cycles” and that is why Trump relies on his Twitter account to engage them – it’s their battlefield.

If this deliberately distorted accounting of a news event was a  one-off mistake, Trump’s charge of  “fake news” wouldn’t have gained traction.  The truth is a large portion of the mainstream media is still running the Clinton scorched earth, looking for negative stories on Trump to hype and spin relentlessly – all to trash Trump (#Resist).  During the 2016 campaign there were many of these planned media hits against Trump, from CNN altering a Trump tweet, removing the word “Crooked” from “Crooked Hillary”, to the Alicia Machado,  Clinton orchestrated media attack on Trump.  Machado was the former beauty queen, who was groomed by Clinton operatives in the media, with hit pieces already written, before Hillary launched her debate salvo at Trump about “fat-shaming”.  The Clintons, colluding with the mainstream media, orchestrated the entire Machado scorched earth attack.

Since Trump’s surprise win last November, the Clinton scorched earth machine, which includes many in the mainstream media,  moved  to the #Resist attacks, which are  really just relentless scorched earth attacks to delegitimize Trump’s presidency and to sell the American people on impeaching him.    Too many in the media were, and still are willing accomplices, running, first the GOP Insurgency, to “burn the GOP to the ground promoting Trump, then switching to the general election Clinton strategy, “Trump the fascist” attacks to cast Trump as worse than Hitler.

FOX News has moved into scorched earth mode propping up Trump and working tirelessly to trash the mainstream (liberal) media.  The truth is most of the mainstream media are liberals and readily spread Clinton talking points and specious reporting, especially on Twitter.  Twitter is a proverbial watching sausages being made experience, where all the news scraps and mystery meat wild claims get ground up and squeezed out packaged as “news”.  Trump’s “fake news” charge resonates with millions of Americans, because so many of the mainstream media’s attack stories about Trump fall apart as false or wildly distorted, as in this deceptively edited Trump dumping the box of fish food into the koi pond story.  That editing and storyline was made to make Trump look disrespectful of a foreign culture (vulgar).

The reverse side of this information war, is Trump and his info warriors have decided to fight the same kind of information war as the Clintons/Left wage, which is an all-out scorched earth, no rules apply info war.  Trump and his info warriors, are now operating like the Clintons – “by any means necessary”.

As this information war intensifies, it will become much harder for anyone to discern the truth or facts, which will lead to more chaos and overreactions in America.  Like I’ve been saying, repeatedly, in this endless scorched earth information war raging in America – the only winner is Putin.

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Filed under Corrupt Media Collusion, General Interest, Information War, Politics

November 5, 2017 · 1:34 pm

The real winner in 2016 was Putin

Donna Brazile, the long-time Clinton crony, who unscrupulously passed CNN debate questions to Hillary during the 2016 campaign, came out with revelations that have Democrats, political pundits and Trump ranting about how the Clinton campaign controlled the DNC and rigged the Dem. primary against Bernie Sanders.  Brazile claims that the Clinton campaign poured money into the dead broke DNC and she also claims the Clinton campaign controlled the DNC hirings and messaging completely.

None of this is surprising really.  The Clintons tried to “rig” the GOP primary too, but Trump and his followers won’t ever admit that.  A large segment of the mainstream media operated like a PR branch of the Clinton campaign too.  Those Wikileaks leaked emails showed obvious cases of media collusion with the DNC to spread Clinton campaign talking points messaging.

The Clintons were running Bill Clinton’s triangulation strategy, trying to paint Bernie as a far-left kook, Trump as a far-right kook, which was supposed to clear the middle for Hillary to prance back into the White House.

The interesting detail, still unknown, is how much the Trump campaign knew about the Clinton campaign’s “pied piper” strategy.  Who taught Trump how to spin, with the relentless repetition of his mindless slogans.  Who masterminded the big Potemkin rallies, to give the visual of massive support?  Did Trump have any communications with his old golfing buddy, Bill Clinton, during his GOP insurgency, beyond the one reported phone call before Trump entered the race?  Were any of Trump’s inner-circle of advisers in contact with the Clinton campaign during Trump’s GOP insurgency?

Once again, Trump received BILLIONS of dollars in free media, much of it from liberal media, not just FOX News, during his GOP insurgency.  That constant drumbeat of messaging selling Trump, like, “he’s winning in all the polls”, “don’t you need to support the winner?”, “Trump’s a great businessman”, “Trump doesn’t play by the rules – he’s great”, sold Trump and it marginalized every other GOP candidate.  The liberal media gave Trump the spotlight, 24/7, during the GOP primary, because they wanted the GOP insurgency to succeed and Hillary to win.  That’s the truth.

Trump was a media manufactured fraud perpetrated on the Republican Party and the America people.

The Clintons not only rigged the DNC against Bernie, they had their friends in the liberal media rigging the GOP primary for Trump too.

However, once Trump had learned how to use spin, especially the scorched earth information warfare, that the Clintons introduced in the 90s, with their “war room”, their pivot, in early 2016, to “Trump the fascist” messaging backfired.  Trump learned to just plow through their messaging and relentlessly counterattack, by taking their messaging attacks and throwing them back at the Dems and the liberal media running the Clinton’s scorched earth, Dump on Trump attacks.  Whenever the media floats a new talking point, Trump neutralizes them by using their messaging as weapons against them.   Trump uses the “fake news” charge constantly and it’s one of his favorite attack lines, but “fake news” was a messaging attack started by the Clintons and liberal media in December 2016, as they were trying to delegitimize Trump’s winning the election.

The liberal media played an instrumental role in the corruption in 2016, so their donning the role of truth-tellers and guardians of reporting facts to keep the public informed comes across as mostly phony.  It’s hard to take someone like Chuck Todd seriously as an objective analyst, when his media collusion with Debbie Wasserman Schultz  was exposed in a Wikileaks leaked stolen email.  He also was a big player in painting Trump as a fascist messaging, which was orchestrated by team Clinton.   A Washington Post reporter has researched every bit of Trump Foundation corruption, in painstaking detail, but he completely ignores Clinton Foundation corruption.  Most of the liberal media glossed over the Clinton email scandal, selling the Clinton talking points to exonerate Hillary at every juncture.   The liberal mainstream media happily sold the Clinton talking point “time to move on”, with little question,  when James Comey presented his bizarre fact-finding presser on Hillary’s email server.  They also glossed over Loretta Lynch’s infamous tarmac meeting with Bill Clinton the week before Comey’s caving.

For a retrospective on Hillary’s dishonesty, it’s helpful to look back at her first statements about her private email server, where almost every “fact” she provided was a lie.  Here’s the link to her first press conference explaining her home-brewed private email server:

In this corrupt media environment, the Russians are having a field day leaking stolen emails, to fuel partisan divides, spreading wild conspiracy theories and spin to fuel more divides in America.  Widespread public corruption provides the Russians a target rich environment to run their destabilization operations.  Here is a link to a study, The Kremlin Playbook, which details how the Russians operated their destabilization efforts in Eastern and Central Europe.  They have been using the same playbook in Western Europe and America too.

A large portion of the mainstream (liberal) media is as corrupt and engaged in spreading shameless agitation propaganda and distorted partisan “news”, attacking Trump and towing the Democrats spin, as Fox News is at spreading Trump spin.

In this morally bankrupt vacuum, where the truth and factual reporting take a backseat to advancing partisan agendas, Americans are manipulated and brainwashed constantly.  America’s enemies don’t have to work hard to foment chaos constantly.  It’s exhausting trying to get to ground truth when the spin by American partisans and our enemies’ disinformation create so much confusion and chaos, that on any given day you can watch CNN, MSNBC and FOX News and come away thinking they are reporting on different planets.  You can read Huffington Post headlines and Breitbart headlines to get a taste of the extreme partisanship, but I wonder about how their “reporting” impacts the viewpoints of their readers, who trust their reporting is factual.

The Democrats are in disarray.  The Republicans are in disarray too.

This morning I read a depressing article, A year after Trump’s election, York, Pa., is forever changed, written by Matt Viser,from The Boston Globe,  The story is about how high school students have become extremely politically and racially polarized, behaving like enemy camps in the York County School of Technology, a vocational high school in York, Pa.:

“It’s the kind of place where a simple Trump sign or cardboard cutout is seen by some as a show of pride in working-class values, but by others as a racist affront. Since Trump’s election, York residents have been un-friending one another on Facebook, avoiding one another at grocery store checkout lines, and leaving churches whose pews now feel uncomfortable.

Over the course of dozens of interviews here in recent weeks, it was not uncommon for lifelong residents to tear up when speaking about their community and the once-close ties that are now growing frayed.

The experience at York Tech since Trump’s election — as parents, elected leaders, and school administrators grappled with the fallout from racial outbursts at the school — reflects the uneasiness with which these forces continue to percolate, often just below the surface.

Outwardly, life in York County and its vocational school seems to have returned to something like normal as students settle into a new school year and Trump’s first year winds down. But the class resentments, racism, and xenophobia that became flashpoints during the election have hardened, not healed.”

https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2017/11/04/the-fabric-community-frays-under-trump/YETy78ylmu2kWDGc2jsXHO/amp.html

While Hillary Clinton continues her sorest loser ever campaign and Trump tweets on, the American people get battered 24/7 with endless scorched earth information barrages.

The real winner in 2016 was Putin  The Russians don’t have to work hard to divide and conquer us with the Clintons, Trump and the media in America working tirelessly to that end.

So much “winning”…

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Filed under Corrupt Media Collusion, General Interest, Information War, Politics

November 2, 2017 · 2:06 pm

Tall order there

Until this 2016 Russian collusion hysteria, I believe our government was not as attuned to the Russian information warfare tactics, as they should have been.    Over the past couple decades, I believe the Russians have been actively involved in regaining their active measures level as before the collapse of the Soviet Union.  The West has now taken notice of the Russian information warfare threat, but in typical American partisan fashion, the mainstream media and Left only want to hype the activities, by framing in terms of “Russian collusion stole the election from Hillary”.  Trump and FOX are attempting to discount almost all of the information about the Russian active measures, except to try to cast it as Hillary was colluding with the Russians with the Trump dossier.

Both sides are missing the point.  The Russians have been actively fomenting partisan rancor, fueling fears and conspiracy theories within many American political groups and especially trying to incite extreme fringe political factions for many years – not just during the 2016 presidential election.

A story in the Texas Tribune yesterday reported:

“Last year, two Russian Facebook pages organized dueling rallies in front of the Islamic Da’wah Center of Houston, according to information released by U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican.”

https://www.texastribune.org/2017/11/01/russian-facebook-page-organized-protest-texas-different-russian-page-l/?utm_campaign=trib-social&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_content=9091521508

The Russians, using facebook pages, incited two opposing groups of partisans to protest in front of a mosque in Texas.  Since the American government is just now realizing the scope of the Russians online information warfare activities, it will be interesting to see how large the Russians operations are and how long they have been running some of these operations.

Here’s a 65 page preliminary list the House intel released on Russian bot handles on Twitter: https://democrats-intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/exhibit_b.pdf

The Democrats are gleefully talking about the Russian- funded facebook ads meant to disparage Hillary, as ammunition against Trump, but I suspect the Congressional investigations into the Russians info war against America are just scratching the surface.  I suspect the Russians ran active measures to agitate BLM, the Tea Party activism, the Jade Helm hysteria, the Sandy Hook conspiracies, the President Obama birther crap and many more.   Much of the messaging is recycled.  I remember in the past year seeing a map meant to incite a different conspiracy theory being retweeted and it was the same Jade Helm map that had circulated during the Jade Helm hysteria in 2015.

The Chicago Tribune reports:

“The ads released Wednesday cover only a small part of how the Russians targeted Americans on Facebook and other American-owned social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and Pinterest during the 2016 presidential campaign.

The biggest impact, several independent researchers have said, was through ordinary free posts by Russian-backed Facebook groups. Those posts reached up to 126 million Americans, Facebook said, far more than the 11.4 million who saw the ads.

These Facebook ads, like several others that had emerged in news reports over the past several weeks, had the apparent goal of needling Americans’ cultural sore spots.

“The strategy is to take a crack in our society and turn it into a chasm,” Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said during the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing.”

http://www.chicagotribune.com/bluesky/technology/ct-russian-facebook-ads-20171102-story.html

The mainstream media is hyping the Russians social media footprint and alluding to the FOX News bizarre Trumpathon propaganda being connected to the Russians, but they are blind to the fact that the Russians infiltrated the American “mainstream” media, Hollywood and American academia over the past 100 years.  They don’t have to work hard to spread their messaging in the mainstream media, with so many dupes and fellow travelers at the ready.

The American government is just now getting “woke” to the scope of the Russian information war being clandestinely waged against all of America’s valued institutions and the American people. Even the US military and veterans are being targeted by the Russians using social media:

“Russian trolls and others aligned with the Kremlin are injecting disinformation into streams of online content flowing to American military personnel and veterans on Twitter and Facebook, according to an Oxford University study released Monday.

The researchers found fake or slanted news from Russian-controlled accounts are mixing with a wide range of legitimate content consumed by veterans and active-duty personnel in their Facebook and Twitter news feeds. These groups were found to be reading and sharing articles on conservative political thought, articles on right-wing politics in Europe and writing touting various conspiracy theories.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/10/09/russian-operatives-used-twitter-and-facebook-to-target-veterans-and-military-personnel-study-says/?utm_term=.07785202b04chttps://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/10/09/russian-operatives-used-twitter-and-facebook-to-target-veterans-and-military-personnel-study-says/?utm_term=.07785202b04c

Kind of hard to play offense in an information war, when you are years behind in even realizing you’ve been under attack and the enemy has successfully set-up shop spreading disinformation using media front operations that millions of Americans trust.

The grease that keeps the Russian active measures churning is corruption.  They feed and exploit the corruption in the countries they target.  The Clinton and Trump wholesale public corruption enabled the Russians  to exploit our political system.   It’s a sure bet the Russians have enough dirt on the Clintons and Trump to play both of them or strategically leak to keep the partisan rancor in America churning.  Dealing with the widespread corruption in both political parties is a national security imperative.

Trying to shut down Russian messaging is like trying to patch a dam that has already collapsed.  Educating Americans about the Russian disinformation will serve better than hysterically trying to stop all their disinformation.  Sure, it’s important to identify the Russian bots and troll farms and shut them down, but “influence operations” work because they are finding messages that Americans are buying into.

Winning the hearts and minds of as many Americans as possible, to becoming good citizens committed to protecting and defending The Constitution, is the offensive strategy we need to defeat the Russian information war.  The only way for America to win is to find a way to unite more Americans around American values, American institutions and most of all around The Constitution.  Tall order there.

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Filed under American Character, Corrupt Media Collusion, General Interest, Information War, Military, Politics

October 28, 2017 · 10:00 am

Katie was right

A friend of my youngest daughter since her teens, Sarah, is a military spouse.  She is pregnant with her fourth child and they are stationed in Germany.  Her 25 year-old brother died in a tragic car accident, October 19, 2017, here in GA.  Sarah comes from a large family.  Her mother, a deeply religious lady, penned a message for family and friends who are angry or sad about her son’s death.  She reminded people that her son has just gone on ahead and she expressed gratitude that she had 25 years of joy having her son with her.  She lives her life with devotion to God and her family and gratitude for all of the many blessings in her life.  She also lives her life committed to forgiveness.

This morning I read a sad story, written by Jason F. Wright, about a mother who died in a tragic car accident, with a drunk driver.  This mother in California died on the drive home from visiting her premature twin daughters at the hospital.  She left behind her husband, four young sons and two premature infant daughters.  The story is an interview with the grieving husband.  The husband also penned a letter when he heard co-workers were expressing anger about his wife’s death:

“Obviously this is a difficult time for me and my family. It has been more difficult as I have heard that some are angry with the driver who killed my wife. Katie would not have wanted that. She was the embodiment of compassion. The hateful activities reported in the news recently troubled her greatly. She felt there was already too much anger in the world. I want you to know that I forgive the driver of that accident. Of course I am sorry that it happened. Of course I wish I could go back in time and change it, but we are all best served by moving forward with today’s reality and the best way to move forward is to honor Katie’s memory and focus on how to take care of her six children. Trials and tribulation are mandatory. Misery is optional. Happiness is a choice, sometimes a difficult choice. I confess I feel little in the way of happiness at the moment, but I am determined to be as happy as I can be and for now that is found in my profound gratitude to a generous and supportive community for the love they have wrapped around me and my family during this challenging time.”

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/10/28/katie-evans-loving-mom-killed-in-car-crash-following-visit-premature-twins-leaves-behind-beautiful-legacy.html 

All around us, we have leaders and media bombarding us with messages geared to fuel animosity and rage.  Sarah’s mother and Katie’s husband sparkle like small glimmers of hope in an America, where too many people live consumed by anger and hate.  Their message will likely resonate only within their small circle of friends and family, but it’s a message worth passing on to as many people as you can.

Katie was right.  There already is too much anger in the world.  We should all dedicate ourselves to showing more compassion for other people, looking for the good in others and trying to make the world a better place.

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Filed under Food for Thought, General Interest, Inspirations, Things That Matter

October 27, 2017 · 11:03 pm

Trump’s setting the stage for firing Mueller

There’s more chaos  ready to explode in the endless scorched earth info war.   Trump, his media shock troops and FOX News have spent this past week going full hysteria mode about the Russian dossier being a Clinton dirty trick and the Uranium One deal, under the Obama administration.  They are setting the stage for Trump to fire Robert Mueller.  The goal was to galvanize both the Republicans in Congress and Trump followers  to unite behind Trump.

Tonight CNN reported:

“Washington (CNN)A federal grand jury in Washington, DC, on Friday approved the first charges in the investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller, according to sources briefed on the matter.

The charges are still sealed under orders from a federal judge. Plans were prepared Friday for anyone charged to be taken into custody as soon as Monday, the sources said. It is unclear what the charges are.”

Trump is using the Clinton’s Starr character assassination strategy.  Justice and the rule of law will take another hit, but Trump, colluding with FOX News, to run this smear campaign 24/7, against Robert Mueller and throw out endless red herrings about “BUT Hillary”, has ginned up plenty of Republicans to back him.  This is the same strategy the Clintons have used for decades.  The Republican Party has sunk to being just as corrupt as the Clinton machine.
 
The level of partisan anger assures more chaos for America, with no end in sight for the scorched earth information war tearing America apart.

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Filed under Corrupt Media Collusion, General Interest, Information War, Politics, Public Corruption

October 26, 2017 · 6:07 am

Laws are for little people

Every time I try to move away from the 2016 scorched earth information war, more news breaks taking us back to 2016.  So, I’m going to rehash some of the 2016 campaign messaging battle.

The Clintons ran Bill Clinton’s triangulation strategy.  At times during the GOP primary and 2016 campaign, I suspected that Trump might even be a Clinton dupe to throw the GOP into disarray and assure a Hillary win, beginning as far back as October 2015.   By the end of 2015, I was sure the Clintons were running Bill Clinton’s triangulation strategy- painting Trump as a fascist (the far-right kook) and Bernie as the far-left kook, clearing the path for the Queen to prance back into the White House.  Who really was behind “Trump’s GOP Insurgency”, I still do not know.  The Bill Clinton triangulation strategy  failed, despite the mainstream media blatantly colluding with the Clinton campaign to run non-stop “Dump on Trump” stories.  Back in January 2017, I wrote:

“Trump mastered the Clinton scorched earth,  Sure, he benefited from the Wikileaks leaks and the FBI criminal investigation being reopened, but he also benefited from Hillary’s terrible missteps like calling Trump’s supporters a “basket of deplorables” and sanctimonious speeches, poor campaign planning on which states to visit and a lack of a campaign message.  She campaigned on “Trump is Deplorable” and it backfired.

Trump’s talking points – the “Make America Great Again” slogan, the focus on jobs, securing the border, and rebuilding the military resonated with many Americans as meat and potatoes issues.

If anything provided Trump the boost to winning this election, I would argue it’s the very corrupt billions of dollars of free media he was given by the media in the primary to wage his GOP Insurgency on the cheap. Who the media colluded with for the Trump primary spin messaging has not been reported.  Who fed Trump those primary campaign talking points and who advised him to spin the “winning in all the polls” and other memes, has not been revealed yet either.

Wikileaks exposed the Clinton campaign’s corrupt media collusion, but make no mistake of it Trump’s GOP Insurgency was a product of corrupt media collusion too.  Who taught Trump how to spin?  Who was behind the “GOP insurgency” primary messaging?  Who managed Trump’s primary campaign messaging collusion with the media, spreading those “winning” messages?   Why did the mainstream media give Trump billions in free media for his “GOP insurgency”?

That’s why I was #NeverTump&NeverHillary all along.  Trump won the corrupt scorched earth battle, but the long war of protecting and defending The Constitution is the one every American should be fighting.  Both political parties in American are now completely controlled by very corrupt leadership.”

*highlights just added

https://libertybellediaries.com/2017/01/06/defendtheconstitutionalways/

The mainstream media continued to run many stories to trash Trump after he was elected.  The #Resist movement started, which was really just a lawless mob effort, conflating angry mobs (crowd size) of marching women, as some sort of justification to overturn a legal election.  Dems floated ditching the electoral college to stop the electoral college vote, and they tried to prevent Trump from being inaugurated, by boycotting his inauguration.  Intelligence officials, like James Clapper and John Brennan, and  FBI director, James Comey played a role in trashing Trump too and plenty of former Obama officials broke the law leaking classified information to the media to destroy Trump.  Rosie O’Donnell and other angry lefties even tweeted we become a tinpot military dictatorship, by ditching the 2016 election and installing one of the generals as president.  There was also the salacious Trump dossier leaked by Buzz Feed.  Then the Russian collusion narrative started.

Trump decided to continue fighting the information war as his #1 focus.  The Clintons are still orchestrating their Dump On Trump efforts, as are many in the mainstream media and the Democratic Party.  Many in the mainstream media attack Trump after each messaging win by recycling through old Trump spin attacks, like his tax returns or even days on end of retweeting a story about Trump having a fake Renoir painting in his home that he tells people is real.  The Hill is an avid repetitive anti-Trump spinner.

The Russians don’t have to work hard to create chaos in America, because our political class and media, engaged in endless, scorched earth information war, work tirelessly, 24/7 trying to “win” the 24/7 news spin cycle in America.  The Russians can just add fuel to this flaming American hot war of words, to agitate, inflame partisan animosity,  and spread wild conspiracy theories.

Trump makes it easy for his enemies to attack him on many fronts, because his antics are a national disgrace.  With that said, the truth is Trump has now sunk to attacking a grieving Gold Star widow, but the truth also is it does look like an extreme partisan Congresswoman, determined to impeach Trump, wants to turn this into an “impeachable offense” and that sure seems like a likely motive for her going public with the story in the first place.

MSNBC has been running a full-court press to turn these fallen soldiers in Niger into “Trump’s Benghazi”, to take down Trump.

The Trump mouthpieces have been shifting the story to the Clinton Uranium One deal.  Then there’s the added breaking news that a lawyer working for the Clintons and DNC paid Fusion GPS to put together the Trump dossier, which makes the dossier look like another Clinton dirty trick.

FOX News is in full spin mode hyping the Uranium One deal and Trump dossier story, while many in the mainstream media are trying to downplay it.

If the FBI investigations or Mueller’s investigation begin to look like they might seriously damage the Clintons, I expect the Clintons to align with Trump, crazy as that sounds.  I would not be surprised to see Trump and the Clintons aligning to try to shut down the investigations under the guise of spinning it like it’s time for all the rancor to end and for the country to work to unite.  They will try to thwart the FBI and Mueller’s investigation.

There is no way the Clintons, one of the most corrupt political machines in American history, will allow themselves to be exposed or charged with any crimes ever.  They are above the law.  Donald J. Trump, likewise will thwart any law that gets in his way.

Congress assuredly will never be a check on the abuse of power of either the Clintons or Trump.  Congress can’t find the intestinal fortitude to unite on anything.

Trump really could walk down 5th Avenue and shoot someone and get away with it.

What’s really under attack is The Constitution and rule of law in America.

James Comey caved on the Clinton email investigation and with his handling of the Abedin/Weiner laptop and the Trump dossier.   Senator John McCain gave the FBI the Trump dossier and today there’s a report that McCain wouldn’t answer the question if he knew the Trump dossier came from the Clinton campaign.  Comey’s investigative decisions and leaking his “personal notes” of his meetings with Trump, have put the FBI’s reputation in jeopardy.  On July 10, 2016, I wrote a blog post, The Comey “tell”:

“Last Thursday, July 7, 2016, Comey testified before Congress and without rehashing the legalities, it’s the one incongruent comment he made that struck me, as if he was unintentionally telling us something.  He seemed pained and almost embarrassed by some of his tortured explanations to explain how “extremely careless” differs from “grossly negligent”.  He went to great lengths about how Hillary’s celebrity requires that she be treated “fairly”.  She was NOT a celebrity, she was one of our nation’s highest-level government officials and she grossly violated that trust.  Government officials,  in whom great trust is placed, should be held to the highest standards – not treated like a “celebrity”.  All the Democrats shameless pandering to him and lauding his integrity seemed to make him uncomfortable.

The tell was when Comey testified that he cares most about his family and his reputation. When he said that, I thought it odd, when what he should be most concerned about is protecting and defending The Constitution. His testimony seemed to me  a desperate self-preservation effort to salvage his reputation (and protect his family), which he completely compromised with falling in line with the Clinton “talking points”.  When you submit to the Clinton intimidation, they own you.  With all the Bill Clinton strong-arm tactics employed to clear the path to the White House for Hillary, everyone whom Bill Clinton has pressured, from Obama through Loretta Lynch, Comey was hailed as the exemplar of integrity.  I believe Bill Clinton’s enforcers let Comey know they have some very personal dirt on him that would hurt his family and his reputation.  The Clinton sewer rats, as I’ve said many times, operate like the old KGB.  If there’s any dirt, they will find it.  There is no sewer too vile for them to scurry through.  The Clintons are not only above the law, but a law unto themselves.

Friday, July, 6 2016, Loretta Lynch came out and followed the talking points to the letter – she announced that she accepted the FBI recommendation.

Time to move on…”

https://libertybellediaries.com/2016/07/10/the-comey-tell/

I wrote several blog posts about questions I have about Hillary’s email scandal and the FBI investigation into it:

Bill Clinton’s Email Scandal – September 2, 2016

The Servers – September 3, 2016

Keyword Searches – September 4, 2016

Cheryl Mills is NOT the mastermind of the cover-up – September 4, 2016

The Bill Clinton server becomes the Hillary server – September 5, 2016

Let me count the ways…. – September 5, 2016

Who was there??? – September 6, 2016

Did I miss the thumb-drives in the FBI report? – September 9, 2016

The worst case scenario for America and The Constitution would be the Clintons and Trump uniting to crush the Congressional Russian investigation, the FBI investigation and Mueller’s investigation.  Both the Clintons and Trump have a strong motive to scapegoat James Comey and the FBI.  Crazy as Trump and the Clintons joining forces sounds, that is my best hunch of what might happen if the investigative pressure escalates.

The Clintons have been above the law for decades.  Trump is a law unto himself too (“Trump doesn’t play by the rules”, remember that selling point Trump followers?).

Laws are for little people in America – that’s the truth.

I will always plant my feet behind #DefendTheConstitutionAlways and I hope America unites behind this solemn commitment too.

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Filed under Corrupt Media Collusion, General Interest, Politics, Public Corruption, The Constitution

October 21, 2017 · 4:41 pm

Enough is enough

My husband served in the U.S. Army, always an infantryman, from 1975 to 1999.  He is a Grenada and Desert Storm veteran.  When he decided to retire in 1999, his decision surprised me, because I believed he would serve 30 years, which was the limit for his rank.

When he talked to me about his decision to retire, his reasons were a combination of two factors.  The first factor was some of our kids were in high school and didn’t want to move again.  However, the larger factor was my husband had become very disillusioned with how political the Army had become among Army leadership.  A frequent complaint he voiced was that too many officers are politicians more than soldiers these days.

That was 1999.  Last summer, as America’s political parties were holding their presidential conventions,  the politicization of America’s generals moved on-stage at both the Republican and Democrat conventions, with generals literally on-stage spouting partisan rhetoric.

It alarmed me.

Everything in America now can become a political football, a cause for protest, a “national conversation”.

Words mean things.

Definition of conversation

1obsolete :conduct, behavior

2a (1) :oral exchange of sentiments, observations, opinions, or ideas

  • … we had talk enough but no conversation; there was nothing discussed.
  •  —Samuel Johnson

(2) :an instance of such exchange :talk 

  • a quiet conversation

b :an informal discussion of an issue by representatives of governments, institutions, or groups 

  • conversations among the senators

c :an exchange similar to conversation 

  • We had a conversation by e-mail.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conversation

A conversation requires, not only talking, it requires listening, a willingness to open our hearts and minds to other people’s ideas, viewpoints, experiences and feelings.   It requires a degree of mutual respect between people.

In America, where scorched earth information warfare rages, like I wrote in my last blog post, even the most trivial issue can become a national political battle.  There are only skirmishes, thrusts and hit and run attacks, where each side attacks, tries to draw as much blood as possible, then retreats to reload for the next ambush.

There assuredly are few real “national conversations” about anything.

I’ve been guilty of putting on partisan blinders too, but I am working to remove them and refocus on looking at people as individuals, rather than pigeonhole them into an us or them tribe.   President George W. Bush gave a very powerful speech on that topic this past week:

“We have seen our discourse degraded by casual cruelty. At times, it can seem like the forces pulling us apart are stronger than the forces binding us together. Argument turns too easily into animosity. Disagreement escalates into dehumanization. Too often, we judge other groups by their worst examples while judging ourselves by our best intentions – forgetting the image of God we should see in each other.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/19/full-text-george-w-bush-speech-trump-243947

General John Kelly gave a powerful speech too and one comment struck me:

“It stuns me that a member of Congress would have listened in on that conversation. Absolutely stuns me. And I thought at least that was sacred. You know, when I was a kid growing up, a lot of things were sacred in our country. Women were sacred, looked upon with great honor. That’s obviously not the case anymore as we see from recent cases. Life — the dignity of life — is sacred. That’s gone. Religion, that seems to be gone as well.

Gold Star families, I think that left in the convention over the summer. But I just thought — the selfless devotion that brings a man or woman to die on the battlefield, I just thought that that might be sacred.”

A few things need to be clarified about this past week’s scorched earth information skirmish.  Some on the Left are using SGT La David Johnson’s death to create a narrative for “Trump’s Benghazi” and to attack General Kelly.  On the right, vile Trump mouthpieces, like Sheriff David Clarke, have used this skirmish to sink to the level of attacking  Congresswoman Frederica Wilson’s looks:

More

. calling Frederica Wilson “whacky” is putting it mildly. The woman is a buffoon. Look at her.

The Trump spin masters are trying to divert attention away from the Gold Star family controversy and onto a Clinton/Uranium One storyline.

This morning Kurt Schlichter, one of the most dedicated Trump Twitter troopers, tweeted:

More

Put aside all the gold star stuff and George Bush’s catiness and understand that the Hillary uranium story is the only story.

Schlichter is a retired Army officer.  SGT La David Johnson hadn’t even been buried yet.  His funeral was this afternoon.

So many, on both sides of this scorched earth information war, are so entrenched at scoring cheap political points and “winning”, that all sense of decency has been lost.

Frederica Wilson might be a rabid partisan hack or she might be a friend of SGT Johnson’s family or she could be both, but her comments don’t have grave national consequences.

President Trump is the Commander-In-Chief.  He has a sacred DUTY to all serving in the United States Armed Forces.

How he handles this situation can have lasting impact on the morale and welfare of all of America’s brave men and women serving in uniform.

Trump mouthpieces and friendly pundits are working to do damage control, writing stories about how much President Trump cares about the military and penning pieces quoting other Gold Star families who received calls from President Trump and feel his words were comforting.  All that misses the point.

Military families need to have trust in our military chain of command and that starts with the President setting the right example.

President Trump has a duty to reassure the family of SGT La David Johnson that he did not mean to disrespect them and that he honors SGT Johnson’s sacrifice.

That is the right thing to do.

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Filed under American Character, General Interest, Military, Politics, Things That Matter