W. Niederhut

Rupert Murdoch has always been an essential part of the "Neocon cabal." IMO, the Neocon media mogul, Rupert Murdoch, is simply paying Tulsi Gabbard now to undermine opposition to Donald Trump, the man who was bribed by Sheldon Adelson, et.al., to become a Neocon mule.

Jim, Wouldn't you agree that Rupert Murdoch's U.S. media empire (Fox News, WSJ, NY Post, Washington Times, et.al.) has always been a major propaganda mouthpiece for the Neocon/Wolfowitz agenda-- since 9/11? I'll never forget watching Bill O'Reilly ridicule Gary Hart on Fox News during Operation Shock & Awe in March of 2003. The jingoistic Bush-Cheney war drums were beating loudly that night, and Gary Hart was being ridiculed by O'Reilly for arguing that our invasion of Iraq could destabilize the Persian Gulf and lead to a costly, protracted U.S. occupation of Iraq. Meanwhile, Rumsfeld and his chief deputy Paul Wolfowitz were insisting that we could overthrow Saddam Hussein and liberate Iraq quickly and cheaply. But something very odd is happening right before our eyes this week-- a remarkable sleight of hand by Trump's Minister of Propaganda. The wily old Neocon war monger, Sir Rupert Murdoch, is suddenly promoting Tulsi Gabbard to re-label the Wolfowitz/Bush Doctrine the "Clinton Doctrine," and to blame the Democrats for Bush & Cheney's disastrous Neocon wars in the Middle East! How did Murdoch suddenly become such a champion of ending our Neocon wars-- including Operation Timber Sycamore? And how has Murdoch succeeded in using Tulsi Gabbard to undermine opposition to Donald Trump, Sheldon Adelson's "Neocon mule?" Let's not forget that Donald Trump withdrew from the Iranian nuclear disarmament deal and also bombed Syrian government positions TWICE in response to false flag chemical attacks that were blamed on the Assad regime.

Turns out Hillary Clinton said Republicans — not Russians — were grooming Tulsi Gabbard https://www.marketwatch.com/story/turns-out-hillary-clinton-said-republicans-not-russians-were-grooming-tulsi-gabbard-2019-10-24 Published: Oct 24, 2019 By MikeMurphy Editor In a curious turn of events, a number of major news organizations ran corrections Wednesday night over week-old reports that sparked a testy war of words between Hillary Clinton and Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard. Last week, a number of media organizations, including the New York Times, CNN and Politico, ran reports saying Clinton told the podcast “Campaign HQ with David Plouffe” that Russians were “grooming” a female Democratic candidate — widely assumed to be Gabbard — for a third-party run to play a potential spoiler in the 2020 election. But apparently Clinton meant Republicans — not Russians — were doing the grooming. The New York Times ran this correction Wednesday night: “An earlier version of this article described incorrectly an element of Hillary Clinton’s recent comments about Representative Tulsi Gabbard. While Mrs. Clinton said that a Democratic presidential candidate was ‘the favorite of the Russians,’ and an aide later confirmed the reference was to Ms. Gabbard, Mrs. Clinton’s remark about the ‘grooming’ of a third-party candidate in the 2020 race was in response to a question about the Republicans’ strategy, not about Russian intervention.” The Associated Press said: “In a story Oct. 18 about Tulsi Gabbard and Hillary Clinton, The Associated Press reported erroneously that Hillary Clinton said she believes the Russians have ‘got their eye on somebody who’s currently in the Democratic primary and grooming her to be the third-party candidate.’ She was referring to Republicans, not Russians, according to an aide.” It was unclear Wednesday night how so many news reports misunderstood Clinton’s quote, or why it took so long to clarify the remarks.

Dennis, Just to clarify, Hillary never said that Russia was grooming Tulsi Gabbard as a third party candidate. She speculated that Republicans might be grooming Gabbard as a third party candidate in 2020, and that Russian xxxxx factories would probably support that effort to sabotage Democrats running against Putin's orange puppet, just as they promoted Jill Stein in 2016 to sabotage Hillary. Hillary's comments about Gabbard in that podcast have been widely misquoted in the corporate MSM. Meanwhile voila! Trump's Minister of Trumpaganda, Sir Rupert Murdoch, is now actively promoting Tulsi Gabbard's 2020 candidacy!! In the past 24 hours, Sir Rupert-the-Trumpagandist has featured glowing Tulsi Gabbard interviews on Fox News (with Tucker Carlson) and an op-ed in his Wall Street Journal. But let's not kid ourselves. Sir Rupert Murdoch has played a HUGE role in promoting our post-9/11 Neocon wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria -- the Wolfowitz Doctrine-- and covering up PNAC's role in 9/11. If Rupert Murdoch is a champion of ending our Forever Wars in the Middle East, I'm a monkey's uncle, (an allegation which my nephews would resent.) Not surprisingly, the new Tulsi Gabbard op-ed in the Rupert Murdoch's WSJ focuses on Rupert Murdoch's new Trumpaganda moniker for his favorite, old Wolfowitz/Bush Doctrine-- "the Clinton Doctrine." Yeah, right... There it is. Tulsi Gabbard is starting to distinctly resemble yet another well paid Rupert Murdoch Trumpagandist. As for Donald the Neocon Mule, he always follows the money in the same way that an ass follows a carrot and flees the stick. Trump's actions in Syria, IMO, are not about thwarting the Neocon/Wolfowitz Doctrine per se. They are a response to Putin's stick.

If Tulsi wants the American people to know the truth about PNAC, 9/11, and the Wolfowitz/Bush Doctrine, why isn't she calling for Donald Trump to tell Americans "who really destroyed the World Trade Center on 9/11," as Trump said he would do during the GOP primary debates? Explain. Why is she focusing her vitriol on Hillary Clinton -- even re-naming the Wolfowitz Doctrine the "Bush-Clinton Doctrine" this week? It's true that the Obama administration perpetuated the PNAC/Wolfowitz plan in Syria and elsewhere, (Libya, Egypt, Yemen, etc.) but you Trumpsters don't seem to realize that Trump has been a veritable Neocon mule since 2016-- withdrawing from the Iranian nuclear disarmament treaty, moving our embassy to Jerusalem, bombing Syria, (twice) signing off on the annexation of the Golan Heights, and abandoning our commitment to a Two State solution to the Israeli Palestinian crisis. Michael Wolff has documented how Sheldon Adelson, Paul Singer, and other Bibi backers bribed Trump to become a Neocon mule. Where's Tulsi's criticism of Donald the Neocon Mule?

It's obviously a Deep State conspiracy to make it look like Trump and his lawyers were trying to conceal evidence of an alleged presidential crime that never happened. (Check with Sean Hannity, Cesar Sayoc, Berube, and Wheeler for the details.)

How many times do people have to observe Trump's pattern -- obstruction of justice, altering, selectively leaking, and withholding evidence, attacking the messenger(s), broadcasting false counter narratives, and creating distractions, etc. -- before they admit that he's a "racist, a con man, and a cheat?" Wheeler is a smart guy, but he's wasting his intellectual gifts trying to defend a self-serving con man and his crooked colleagues, most of whom are paid foreign agents like Trump, himself-- Kushner, Giuliani, Manafort, Flynn, McConnell, Graham, et. al.

How did this thread about Mark Zaid, NSC whistle blowers, and Trump's 2019 Ukraine-gate extortion scam turn into a series of deflective diatribes about the fact that the paid foreign agent/entrepreneur Michael Flynn lied about his December 2016 contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak?

Bernie is the only prominent American politician since Jimmy Carter who has had the cajones to publicly criticize Israel's Likud Party hardliners. Obama (and Hillary) both acquiesced in the CIA/NATO/Neocon wars-- the one major policy area where I strongly disagreed with them. (Leon Panetta allegedly told Obama early on his presidency, "Look, you can't just say, 'no' to these (MIC) guys.") But, at least a Hillary presidency wouldn't have paralleled the basic plot line of Breaking Bad, like the current Trump/Fox Gaslight Theater series. Trump keeps lurching from one crime, cover up, and policy fiasco to another. We could call Sunday's episode, "Throw Baghdadi From a Plane."

Geez...when is this nauseating Trump/Fox Gaslight Theater series, now in its Third Season, finally going to end? Today's T/F Gaslight Theater episode featured a decorated Iraq War veteran being smeared by the Trump/Fox Goon Squad for testifying that Trump did, in fact, attempt to extort political favors from Ukrainian President Zelensky, in exchange for designated military aid. Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman also testified that Tricky Trump and his cabal of tricky attorneys edited the July 25th transcript to cover up references to Joe Biden and Burisma.

IMO, McFarland's "sarcasm" defense never passed the sniff test in the case of that cached December 2016 transition team Email. It's simply not plausible in the context of what she wrote. As for Mueller's investigation, Trump stonewalled it from day one, after failing to obstruct it entirely. Recall that Trump talked to both Dan Coates and James Comey about halting the Flynn investigation, prior to firing Comey-- the man who put him in the White House with his "October Surprise." And when Trump was told that Rosenstein had appointed a Special "Russiagate" Prosecutor, he exclaimed, "I'm F*CKED!!" Manafort lied about his "collusion" with Konstantin Kilimnik even AFTER his plea bargain agreement to cooperate with Mueller. And Trump (and Don, Jr.) adamantly refused to talk to Mueller. Under the circumstances, Mueller's investigation, though highly productive, was still unfinished when Barr shut it down (and issued a bogus "summary" of the findings.) Furthermore, Mueller made it clear that he was not permitted by DOJ guidelines to indict a sitting POTUS-- even on the ten counts of obstruction of justice-- but went out of his way to say that his investigation DID NOT EXONERATE Trump.

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.