W. Niederhut

Oh, come on now, J.C. Give the pretzel logic a break. First you denied the detailed evidence about Russian hacking of our 2016 election for Trump, (including the cache of 35,000 Facebook ads I referenced) and now this! But Flynn's own transition team colleague (McFarland) said in a December 2016 Email that the team needed to reassure the Kremlin about Obama's 12/16 sanctions! Why else would Flynn have lied to the FBI about his concurrent phone calls with Kislyak? And why was Trump so hell-bent on shutting down the FBI's nascent investigation of Flynn's Russian contacts?

Jim, I agree with your take on the two apparent false flag chemical attacks in Syria that were blamed on the Syrian Army, and used by Trump (and NATO) as a pretext to bomb Syrian government positions. The detailed analyses of these two false flag attacks by MIT Emeritus Professor Theodore Postol were, unfortunately, blacklisted by the U.S. mainstream media. Two related questions for you and the forum. 1) Do you believe that ISIS, itself, is a Sunni proxy militia funded and supported by the CIA/NATO/Saudi/Mossad coalition in Anbar Province and Syria? 2) What accurate, reliable sources of information do we have about CIA ops in Syria during the past decade? There is so much disinformazia out there that it's difficult to parse reality from the ubiquitous propaganda.

Jeff, Flynn lied about his December 2016 phone calls with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak-- following the imposition of Obama's sanctions against Russia in response to the 2016 Russian election hacking. How is that not related to Trump's extensive 2016 campaign collusion with Russia? Flynn's own Trump transition team colleague, McFarland, even wrote an Email in December of 2016 asserting that the Trump transition team needed to reassure the Kremlin about Obama's punitive sanctions, since "Russia has just thrown the election to Trump." Explain your "logic."

I wonder what Tulsi Gabbard will have to say about Trump announcing the second (or is it the third?) death of the mysterious Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in the Turkish-controlled Idlib region of northeastern Syria yesterday. We all know by now that the CIA/NATO/Saudi/Israeli coalition has trained, armed, and funded the Sunni proxy militias -- Al Qaeda, Al Nusra, Daesh, ISIS, et.al.-- who have been trying to overthrow the Syrian (Assad) government in recent years. Who was al-Baghdadi fighting for and against? Gabbard has been one of the few politicians to challenge that false Deep State narrative about our Syrian proxy war. This apparent Trump PR stunt-- announcing the death of al-Baghdadi-- is an opportunity for Gabbard to question the false Deep State narrative about Operation Timber Sycamore and "ISIS." Will Gabbard question the Trump/al-Baghdadi farce, and prove that she is not just angling for a job at Fox News, or planning to undermine the Democratic nominee as a third party candidate in 2020? Or will she say nothing, and remove all doubts about Clinton's recent allegations about her 2020 third party candidacy?

The theory that the "Deep State" conspired to "entrap" and sabotage Donald Trump's crooked 2016 campaign associates continues to make no sense, despite the machinations of Rupert Murdoch Trumpaganda rags like the WSJ. It's like a systematized paranoid delusion from a Thomas Pynchon novel, seeking putative sinister connections where none exist. For one thing, if the Deep State wanted to sabotage Trump, why did the FBI and the mainstream U.S. media (including the NYT) collude in sabotaging Hillary Clinton's 2016 candidacy, while suppressing Steele's Dossier-- even after Steele shared his findings with John McCain? And, if Trump is at odds with the Deep State, why didn't he release the JFKA records and tell the American people "who really destroyed the World Trade Center on 9/11," as he promised? On the contrary, one of Trump's closest associates, Rudy Giuliani, was intimately involved in the Bush-Cheney/PNAC 9/11 op.

Understood. But I agree with Paul Brancato's point about the current dubious theories blaming the "Deep State" for Donald Trump's Ukrainian extortion scam. For one thing, we have the July 25th Trump-Zelensky phone call transcript. Two relevant, interesting MSM articles this morning... 1) A history professor from UW published an NYT piece about the origins of the career Civil Service cadre/Deep State in the Progressive Era. (Although, she doesn't delve into the post-WWII corruption of the U.S. government by Dulles' "Secret Team.") 2) WaPo has an interesting article about the latest PRRI survey showing that the delusional 26 percent of Americans who get their "news" from Fox will stand by Trump regardless of the evidence.

Good grief... Tipper Gore's cousin? Talk about your inconvenient truths... 😠 Let us know when you and your fellow right wing conspiracy theorists find any inaccuracies in Taylor's Congressional testimony about Trump's Ukrainian extortion scam. If Trump has nothing to hide, why has he worked so tirelessly during the past two years to prevent Congress and the public from learning anything about his campaign contacts with Russia, and, recently, his extortion scheme involving Zelensky? Why did Trump adamantly refuse to talk to Robert Mueller? As for Uranium One, surely, everyone knows by now that that was another fake, GOP-fabricated, pre-election "scandal" to smear Hillary Clinton-- the most "investigated" politician in American history. Michael Flynn was working as an unregistered paid foreign agent in 2016-- while serving as Trump's chief national security advisor. Flynn plead guilty to lying to the FBI about his undisclosed 2016 contacts with Russian government officials.

Yes, it's truly bizarre that so many Republican Congressmen, media moguls, and citizens called for Bill Clinton to be impeached for dissembling about a private, consensual sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky, only to express outrage about Trump facing an impeachment inquiry for dissembling about his private intercourse with Vladimir Putin. And Ray Mitcham's observations about the parallels between Trumpism/Trumpaganda and European fascism in the 1930s are very much on target. Professor Thomas Childers at the University of Pennsylvania has an interesting Great Courses lecture series on "Hitler's Empire" that focuses on the question, "Could It Happen Here?" (i.e., in the U.S.) The parallels between Trumpism and the subversion of the Weimar Republic by the Nazi Party in 1932 and 1933 are frightening. We now have Trumpist goon squads obstructing Congressional hearings and threatening to shoot citizens who dare to question the criminal misconduct of their orange Fuhrer.

Well said, Paul. Sociopaths, like Trump and Putin, are adept at acquiring and wielding power on behalf of their oligarchs-- usually at the expense of the public good. It's the diametric opposite of utilitarianism, as defined by John Stuart Mill in the nineteenth century, which seeks to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number. The greatest achievements of liberal democracy in American history-- FDR's New Deal, and the JFK-initiated legislation of the LBJ years after 11/22/63, including Medicare and the Civil Rights Act-- were cut from the cloth of utilitarianism. Trump-ism, (Reagan-ism, Bush-ism, etc.) in contrast, seeks to achieve the greatest good for the fewest people. But Trump, like Reagan and the Bush clan, can only acquire power in democratic societies by tricking the masses into believing that they represent their interests-- through appeals to fear, xenophobia, race, (e.g., Atwater's Willie Horton ads) ethnicity, religion, or misguided notions of "patriotism." In the past century, the ability of sociopaths like Trump and the Bush family to acquire and wield power on behalf of oligarchs has been greatly enhanced by techniques of modern mass media propaganda. In Trump's case, his entire propaganda strategy for acquiring and maintaining power since 2015 has dove-tailed precisely with Putin's Gerasimov Doctrine techniques for engendering division and weakness in U.S. society.

At this point, General Abdi's back is up against the wall. Erdogan is demanding Abdi's extradition to Turkey, as a Kurdish "terrorist." Little wonder that the General is suddenly "thanking" the Stable Genius in the White House. But here's what Abdi had to say about Trump earlier this week... SDF Chief: 'Our Trust in the United States is at Its Lowest' https://www.voanews.com/extremism-watch/sdf-chief-our-trust-united-states-its-lowest October 21, 2019

It's truly Orwellian. If Trump told his cult members here in the U.S. that little green men from Mars had invaded Louisiana, they'd all hunker down in their bunkers.

True. The Kurds have long been persecuted minorities in both (northern) Syria and Turkey. Now they are at the mercy of both national governments-- unless Putin can prevail upon Assad and Erdogan to protect them from genocidal military ops. If Putin's grand game is to ally the Kurds (especially in Iraq's Kurdistan) with the Russian-Iranian-Syrian Axis, perhaps he will try to protect them from Assad's regime. Meanwhile, in his inimitably idiotic style, Donald Trump has just claimed credit for Putin's resolution of the border dispute between Erdogan and Assad. If the Nationals manage to win the World Series Trump will, doubtless, take credit for that as well.

Robert, I know more about how Putin and the FSB operate than you imagine. I've had some direct experience with them during the past 20 years. In fact I'm a Russophile,(though not a Soviet-o-phile) a member of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROCOR) for the past quarter century. Surely, you jest in referring to Trump "punching Putin in the face" (metaphorically or otherwise.) Putin owns Trump, and the world knows it (other than the delusional 30 percent-- Fox News-watching crowd -- in the U.S.) Trump made an international laughing stock of himself in Helsinki by denying that Putin meddled in our U.S. elections. He's, obviously, terrified of Putin-- one of the few politicians in the world (besides Kim Jung Un) he hasn't dared disparage. Policy-wise, Trump has functioned as Putin's king pawn on the world stage since 2015-- fracturing and weakening U.S. society and our alliances with Western Europe, and ending our Timber Sycamore proxy war in Syria (probably a good thing there, considering the damage we have done in Syria.) Trump has also repeatedly undermined the Ukraine in their struggle to prevent occupation and annexation by the Kremlin. Putin has used Trump brilliantly to help implement Alexander Dugin's 1997 geopolitical strategy for advancing Russian Federation hegemony in Eurasia.

Dennis, Is this supposed to constitute a rebuttal of the many facts about Trump, Russia, Alexander Dugin, and the Gerasimov Doctrine that I posted above? How utterly ridiculous. To whom are you appealing with this kind of glib rhetorical nonsense? It's the kind of intellectual dishonesty that serves no useful purpose in a serious discussion of history and politics.

Jeff, I get the impression from this thread that many people here have been so focused on researching and accurately identifying the black ops and mainstream media disinformation of the post-WWII U.S. Deep State that they have lost sight of the fact that the modern Russian Federation is also capable of black ops and the propagation of disinformazia. No doubt, our own U.S. military-industrial complex has engaged in black ops and the propagation of Cold War propaganda for decades after WWII, but, surely, you don't imagine that Putin's Russian Federation hasn't also engaged in active measures, including black ops, to achieve a weakening and destabilization of the U.S. and their Western European adversaries in NATO-- especially in response to NATO aggression against Russia in the aftermath of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Gary Kasparov hit the nail on the head a year or two ago when he said that Trump has been completely over-matched in Putin's chess game against the U.S./ Israel/Saudi Arabia/NATO coalition since 2015. And Trump was an easy mark for Putin and his FSB associates-- a greedy, vainglorious libertine who was ensnared by a combination of old-fashioned KGB sexual kompromat and money (including major Russian money laundering through the purchase of Trump's properties in the U.S., and the Trump Moscow Tower deal, which was being secretly negotiated throughout 2016, contrary to Trump's public denials.) People need to look at the forest when it comes to the Trump administration and Putin's Russian Federation. The forest is Putin's 1997 geopolitical playbook-- Alexander Dugin's The Foundations of Politics-- Russia's Geopolitical Future, and its close relationship to the Russian Gerasimov Doctrine of asymmetrical cyber warfare.

Jill Stein was photographed sitting at a banquet table with Putin and Michael Flynn in 2015. It was a Russia Today gala of some sort. Did Putin fund Jill Stein's third party candidacy in 2016-- which siphoned a critical one percent of the swing state votes from Clinton in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin? Putin, certainly funded Trump's candidacy in 2016 ($30 million through the NRA alone.) To be honest, it seems like the Trump/GOP "Deep State" conspiracy theories about Trump's Russiagate scandal are ignoring the forest for the trees-- the obvious evidence that Trump is a compromised Russian asset. Trump and his 2016 campaign cronies have repeatedly lied about their numerous 2016 contacts with Kremlin liaisons, and they have also aggressively obstructed and covered up damning details in the Mueller Report. Why has Trump denied that Russia is hacking our elections? It's absurd. As for Manafort, he has done dirty work for the Kremlin in the Ukraine for years, and was paid handsomely for his chicanery. I would be shocked to learn that Manafort WAS NOT working for Putin in the summer of 2016. (And, BTW, Trump's attorneys DID float a pardon offer for Paul during his stonewalling of Mueller's investigation.) To paraphrase Churchill, Manafort is a $3 dollar bill, wrapped in a greasy 10,000 ruble note, baked in a rotten pirogue.

Jim, From what I have read, George Papadopoulos was a minor player in the 2016 Trump campaign's contacts with Kremlin officials and cut outs-- although Papadopoulos, like Flynn, did, in fact, plead guilty to lying about his undisclosed contacts with Mifsud-- consciousness of guilt. Paul Manafort's 2016 (and prior) work with the Kremlin is of far greater import in Trump's Russiagate scandal. He lied about his 2016 contacts with Kilimnik, and was involved in negotiating the quid pro quo alterations in the 2016 RNC platform regarding support for Ukraine. My questions for those who still believe that the Trump Russiagate scandal was a U.S. "Deep State" conspiracy to sabotage Trump... 1) Why did so many Trump campaign associates LIE about their 2016 contacts with Kremlin officials? Explain. 2) Why was information about the Trump campaign's numerous 2016 contacts with Kremlin assets (and the Steele Dossier) completely blacked out of the mainstream U.S. media before the election? 3) Why has Trump repeatedly denied that Russia hacked (and is still hacking) our elections? 4) Why did Mitch McConnell adamantly refuse to cooperate with a bipartisan announcement to the public about Russian interference in our 2016 elections? 5) Why did Trump engage in at least ten counts of obstruction of justice (per the Mueller Report) in the Russiagate investigations-- beginning with the firing of James Comey? 6) Why did Trump say, "I'm f-cked!" when he first heard that Rod Rosenstein had appointed a Special Prosecutor to investigate Russiagate? 7) Why did Bill Barr deliberately misrepresent the findings of the Mueller Report, while refusing to release Mueller's own redacted summary of the Report?

Jeff, What did Glenn Kessler conclude about that claim by Joshua Levy in his fact-checking article? I agree with your general skepticism about "the mainstream media" in matters related to the Deep State, but Kessler's fact-checking is usually well documented, as in this comparison of the claims in the Steele Dossier and the redacted Mueller Report. Meanwhile, you still haven't posted any credible references to support your "Deep State" conspiracy theory about the Trump campaign's numerous contacts with Kremlin officials in 2016. As for Paul Manafort, it is a matter of public record that he lied about his 2016 contacts with Konstantin Kilimnik, even after he agreed to cooperate with the Mueller investigation!

Jeff, Did you bother to read your own WaPo reference article here by Glenn Kessler? It was based on the heavily redacted version of the Mueller Report Bill Barr reluctantly gave to Congress, but still concluded that Mueller's investigation corroborated the Steele Dossier, without disproving anything in it. Here's a direct quote from the Kessler analysis. “The Mueller Report substantiates the core reporting and many of the specifics in Christopher Steele’s 2016 memoranda, including that Trump campaign figures were secretly meeting Kremlin figures, that Russia was conducting a covert operation to elect Donald Trump, and that the aim of the Russian operation was to sow discord and disunity in the U.S. and within the Transatlantic Alliance,” Joshua A. Levy, counsel for Fusion GPS, told The Fact Checker. “To our knowledge, nothing in the Steele memoranda has been disproven.” Two other comments. 1) We still need valid reference links to corroborate your unsubstantiated claims about "FBI, CIA, and MI6 assets initiating" the many 2016 contacts between Kremlin officials and the Trump campaign. Who arranged for Veselnitskaya to meet with Don, Jr. and Trump campaign insiders in June of 2016? Who initiated Paul Manafort's and Michael Flynn's undisclosed 2016 contacts with Kremlin officials? 2) Why do you fail to mention the case of Trump's convicted 2016 Campaign Manager Paul Manafort? We know that Manafort had worked for the Kremlin for years to promote the corrupt Yanukovych regime in the Ukraine, and we also know that Manafort lied about his 2016 contacts with Konstantin Kilimnik, even after he agreed in a plea bargain to cooperate with Mueller's investigation.

Jeff, I posted links to the extensive database of Russian Facebook ads from 2016, as you requested. Have you reviewed any of them? They're like case studies in a Gerasimov Doctrine propaganda textbook for fomenting conflict and division in U.S. society along racial, ethnic, and religious lines-- in close parallel to the 2016 Trump/Manafort campaign. As for the verification of the Steele Dossier, here's a high quality link to a Lawfare review article on the subject. (In my experience, Lawfare publishes good material.) The Steele Dossier: A Retrospective https://www.lawfareblog.com/steele-dossier-retrospective Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for you and Robert to post a credible reference link to support the Trump/GOP talking point about the Steele Dossier being fake-- and to give us your take on the death of Oleg Erovinkin.

Robert, Where are you getting your concept that the Steele Dossier is fake? Please post a credible source to back up that Trump/GOP talking point. There was quite a bizarre outcry in our mainstream U.S. media when Buzz Feed first published the Steele Dossier in January of 2017, on the grounds that it was "unverified," (presumably unlike all of those unverified anonymous FBI "leaks" about Hillary's Emails in the headlines throughout 2016, eh?) Yet, since January 2017, many of the Dossier's details have, in fact, been verified. (We're still waiting on others-- including Trump's "pee pee" tape. But who on earth would be surprised to learn that an old KGB kompromat pro like Putin had filmed a guy like Donald Trump cavorting with prostitutes?) Also, what are we to make of Oleg Erovinkin's death right after Putin learned about Steele's Dossier?

As a guy who believed for most of the past 56 years that Lee Harvey Oswald had murdered JFK, I need to be humble about any disagreements with JFK historians like James DiEugenio, et.al., but the evidence that Russia hacked our 2016 U.S. elections to undermine the U.S. and NATO seems overwhelming to me.* And, incidentally, I have been highly skeptical about U.S. Cold War propaganda and the U.S. military-industrial complex since the late 60s. In recent years, I have also been increasingly skeptical about U.S. and NATO black ops, and the PNAC/Neocon wars in the Middle East. I don't view the conflicts between the U.S. (and NATO) and the former Soviet empire as "Good vs. Evil," but rather as "Evil I vs. Evil II." As John LeCarre wrote in The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, "The Berlin Wall is not a wall. It's a seam." Nevertheless, the alleged 2016 Russian hacking of U.S.elections also seems consistent with the strategic framework of the Russian military's Gerasimov Doctrine-- waging asymmetrical cyber warfare to foment social divisions and destabilize "enemy" nations. * The most important document you may ever read Senate Intelligence report on Russian interference should chill Americans who value our democracy https://www.rollcall.com/news/opinion/the-most-important-document-you-may-ever-read

Jeff, Here are some references on the subject of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections. Meanwhile, can you post some references to support Trump's claim that Russian hacking of our 2016 election is "fake news?" House Democrats release more than 3,500 Russian Facebook ads https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/10/house-democrats-facebook-russia/ https://intelligence.house.gov/social-media-content/social-media-advertisements.htm Russia Targeted Election Systems in All 50 States, Report Finds https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/25/us/politics/russian-hacking-elections.html?auth=login-email&login=email Russian Hackers Were ‘In a Position’ to Alter Florida Voter Rolls, Rubio Confirms https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/26/us/florida-russia-hacking-election.html Top-Secret NSA Report Details Russian Hacking Effort Days Before 2016 Election https://theintercept.com/2017/06/05/top-secret-nsa-report-details-russian-hacking-effort-days-before-2016-election/

Paul, I was referring to the vast database of 2016 Facebook ads promoted by Russian xxxxx factories, most of which closely mirrored Trump campaign talking points about Muslims, Black Lives Matter, and hordes of rapacious Mexican invaders, etc. They were posted by Russian trolls using fake American identities like, "Heart of Texas." We also know that Russian military intel hacked state voter databases throughout the U.S., and had the capability to alter voter registrations and vote tallies-- contrary to Trump's claim that, "no votes were altered," and that he (Trump) "believed Putin's claim that Russia did not interfere in our elections."

FATAL FLAWS IN THE DEEP STATE-IS-OUT-TO-GET-TRUMP THEORY 1) The FBI played a crucial role in defeating Hillary Clinton in 2016 Remember all of those weekly front page stories in the mainstream U.S. media (including the NYT) in 2016 about the Hillary Email-gate nothing burger? Most of these weekly headlines were based on leaks by anonymous FBI "sources"-- culminating in James Comey's "October Surprise" letter shortly before the election about re-opening the "investigation" of Hillary's Emails. Recall also that Rudy Giuliani (PNAC's 9/11 man in NYC) had announced the Comey/FBI "October Surprise" in advance. Meanwhile, Dean Baquet and the NYT had put the kibosh on any 2016 stories about the Trump campaign's collusion with the Kremlin. 2) Russia definitely hacked the 2016 U.S. elections to put Trump and Congressional Republicans in office The evidence that Russia hacked our 2016 elections to put Trump and Congressional Republicans in office is overwhelming. It was a multi-faceted Kremlin op based on Gerasimov Doctrine strategies of creating social divisions in the U.S. (ethnic, religious, cultural) in close parallel with the campaign strategies that helped Trump win the GOP nomination and Electoral College -- e.g., fear-mongering about Mexican immigrants, Muslims, blacks, etc. 3) Trump and Congressional Republicans have repeatedly obstructed investigations of their close ties to the Kremlin, and have also blocked efforts to prevent ongoing Russian interference in our U.S. elections 4) Trump has betrayed the research communities investigating Deep State crimes-- both the JFK assassination and 9/11 After vowing to release the classified JFKA records in October of 2017--- as required by a unanimous act of Congress-- Trump abruptly declined to release the JFK records. After saying during his Republican primary debates that, "When (he is) President, Americans will find out who really destroyed the World Trade Center on 9/11," Trump never said a word about what really happened on 9/11 subsequently. In fact, his first trips abroad after his Inauguration were visits to PNAC's 9/11 co-conspirators in Saudi Arabia and Israel. 5) Trump's main accomplices in obstructing investigations and suppressing the evidence of Republican collusion with the Kremlin have been Deep State insiders-- especially William Barr, the former CIA lawyer who was recruited to the DOJ from the Company by GHWB to manage the Iran-Contra pardons. Another Deep State insider working for Trump has been Rudy Giuliani-- Dick Cheney and PNAC's crucial resource in NYC during the 9/11 op. (Giuliani managed the sequestration and destruction of the WTC forensic evidence after 9/11, while telling everyone that Ground Zero was non-toxic. He also told Peter Jennings on 9/11 that he had been forewarned by the OEM about the impending collapse of the WTC Twin Towers-- a claim which he later denied to Phillip Zelikow's 9/11 Commission.)