The recent presidential contest made clear that the mainstream media is biased, but the bigger story is the extent to which the intelligence community took a role in the campaigning.
Deep State. Fake News. The 2016 presidential election cycle brought these terms into the general vernacular and launched a debate that is challenging the way Americans view the news and the reality it purports to convey. We are seeing a widespread awakening to the awful reality that the American government has been hijacked, that powerful forces — a “state within the state,” the Deep State — are at work to deceive us. The egregiously anti-Trump/pro-Clinton media bias during the election campaign, and the continuation of the malicious media attacks after the inauguration — to the point of even justifying and sympathizing with the violent anti-Trump rioters — caused President Trump’s “Fake News” accusation to resonate widely. The American public has long been aware that something is terribly wrong with the major corporate news organizations — the so-called “mainstream media” (MSM) — but the 2016 elections proved to millions the truth of Trump’s Tweet that “The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) … is the enemy of the American People!”
Americans who identify as political conservatives, or as Christians, as pro-life, pro-gun rights, pro-traditional marriage, pro-military, pro-free enterprise — in general, pro-liberty — have realized for decades that the MSM claim to “objective reporting” is laughable. Long before Hillary Clinton labeled Trump voters an irredeemable “basket of deplorables … racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic,” conservatives had become inured to being similarly smeared by the media elites. Conservatives — who comprise the majority of America voters — know from bitter experience that the “tolerance” demanded of us by the liberal elites does not extend to those who oppose, or even disagree with, the “progressive” agenda.
In addition to a number of surveys over the years in which media reporters, editors, and commentators have self-identified overwhelmingly as “liberals” on many issues (as well as identifying as registered Democrats), the evidence of blatant bias is in their product. They have been clobbering us day after day, year after year with a nonstop onslaught of “progressive” propaganda aimed at profoundly transforming American society and American culture: LBGTQ rights, open borders, gun control, racial agitation, more government programs, more government spending, more government regulation, more government surveillance, and more taxes. In short, the liberal, progressive agenda — championed and promoted by the MSM — has been driving us, on a seemingly inexorable path, toward the Total State, where the individual citizen has no protection against omnipotent government.
The 2016 election crystallized the divide between the “deep state” governing elites (including the MSM) and the American people more than at any time since the Johnson-Goldwater contest in 1964. (This writer observed that quadrennial event as a very politically engaged junior high-school student.) Republican Senator Barry Goldwater lost that matchup with incumbent President Lyndon Johnson in a lopsided defeat of historic proportions. Johnson’s landslide victory can be attributed to two things: the sympathy vote for recently assassinated President John F. Kennedy, for whom Johnson was vice president; and the relentless media demonization of Goldwater as a racist and a dangerous extremist who would, if elected president, end the world in nuclear annihilation.
Hillary Clinton’s campaign decided early on to repeat the same vilification operation that had succeeded so magnificently against Goldwater 52 years earlier. In addition to mimicking the Ku Klux Klan-racist smear and the nuclear war hysteria of the anti-Goldwater campaign, Team Hillary even brought 80-year-old actor William Bogert back from oblivion to reprise his disingenuous, anti-Goldwater “Confessions of a Republican” commercial in which he posed as a conservative blasting Goldwater as racist, extremist, and unreasonable. This time around he did the same against Trump.
However, there were at least three major factors at work that defeated Clinton’s surefire/slam-dunk repetition of the anti-Goldwater strategy:
• The liberal elites no longer had a lock-hold on the media. Gone are the days of media dominance by three major TV networks and a handful of newspapers and magazines;
• As a result of WikiLeaks and other whistleblower and hacktivist efforts, public awareness of the dangerous reality of a “deep state” cabal involving intelligence agencies, politicians, bureaucrats, and corporate cronies had reached a critical mass across the political spectrum and across party lines; and
• Donald Trump is not only media savvy and technology savvy, but he responds to the smears and attacks in unconventional ways that have proven effective.
“Deep State” Intrigues
In the fall of 2016, accusations of Russian interference in the U.S. presidential campaign intensified as the Clinton-Trump race headed toward election day. Hillary Clinton, President Obama, the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, and their brethren in the corporate MSM choir hammered on this theme without let-up. According to Secretary Clinton and her allies, Vladimir Putin was pulling out all stops in a desperate attempt to block her road to the White House, while assisting Trump. Clinton insisted that Putin was doing this because he feared her steely resolve, while favoring Trump’s alleged friendly overtures.
The Clinton-friendly media were only too happy and willing to promote this Putin-Trump love affair narrative, and have continued belaboring it, even though no evidence has been produced to show that Trump has, or had, any business connection or other ties to Russia. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, has had multi-million-dollar business dealings with Russia that any reasonable person would find troubling. One of the most notable problematic deals, which should have been (and should still be) the focus of media attention, is her role in the sale of the Uranium One mine in Wyoming, which delivered one-fifth of our uranium reserves to Russia. That transaction netted her, husband Bill Clinton, the Clinton Foundation, and Clinton donor Frank Giustra millions of dollars. Then there is Hillary’s key role in helping Putin build Skolkovo, Russia’s version of Silicon Valley, a huge national security issue that the pro-Clinton/pro-Obama MSM echo chamber could never seem to summon even a mildly curious concern over. And there are the handsome profits for John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager (and George Soros minion), in the Joule Unlimited energy deal with Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, a billionaire crony in Putin’s inner circle. Again, another glaring lack of concern over verifiable, alarming Kremlin-Clinton ties by the same media mavens who are all frightfully adither over the alleged (but so far unsubstantiated) “Russian connections” of Team Trump.
Whatever traction Hillary Clinton and the anti-Trump accusers in Congress and the media have had on this issue has been provided by the appearance of support for the charges from America’s spymasters. The unprecedented public involvement of the leaders of the intelligence agencies in the political process over the past several months is cause for very grave concern. In fact, the degree to which the “intelligence community” has taken sides in a very partisan manner gave serious grounds for fears that a political coup against President-elect Trump might be in the offing before he could be officially inaugurated as President Trump. And the continued leaks and skullduggery since the Obama-to-Trump transition indicate that that is still a possibility. As we point out in our article “CIA’s Mockingbirds and ‘Ruling Class Journalists,’” the intelligence agencies, most especially the CIA, have been involved in extralegal political machinations, propaganda, and psychological manipulation for decades, but they have not previously engaged so openly and audaciously in politics. The fact that they are so brazenly — and illegally — interfering in the political milieu today is a signal that the masters they serve are either very confident that they won’t get caught, or are very desperate to preserve the illicit powers and controls they have amassed.
The public sparring between the “intelligence community” and Donald Trump — first as presidential candidate, then as president-elect, and then as president — has exposed the dangerous consequences of congressional dereliction in allowing the intelligence agencies to run for decades without accountability. Equally important, it has exposed the degree to which the MSM (CNN, the New York Times, NBC, ABC, CBS, etc.) have become mere adjuncts of the CIA, NSA, DNI, FBI, etc. However, there is another three-letter acronym that gets short shrift, but is of paramount importance, in all the heated discussion over the currently unfolding Deep State machinations: CFR, for Council on Foreign Relations, the globalist Brain Trust for Deep State operations. While critics on the Right and the Left denounce the surveillance abuses, invasions of privacy, political interference (at home and abroad), secret wars, assassination, and other immoral and illegal “intelligence community” practices, they evince a curious and stubborn reluctance to mention the CFR, the 500-lb gorilla in the room.
Case in point (one of many recent examples that could be cited): the firing of General Michael Flynn as President Trump’s national security advisor. The report that General Flynn lied about a meeting he had with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak was first revealed by Washington Post columnist and associate editor David Ignatius in his column for January 12. Left-wing journalist and Deep State critic Glenn Greenwald perceptively Tweeted: “Very significant it’s David Ignatius who broke story of Flynn talking to Russians since he’s long been [an] all-but-official CIA media spokesman.” Greenwald is no fan of Trump, in fact he seems to detest him; but he detests even more the shadowy powers whom Ignatius serves. The same can be said for CIA veteran Melvin A. Goodman, who has called Ignatius “the CIA’s apologist-in-chief.” Then there’s former CIA Director George Tenet, who offered fulsome praise for Ignatius and his spy novel Body of Lies in a promotional blurb for the book: “Body of Lies is fiction but reads like fact. CIA officers admire Ignatius because more than any other writer he understands the nuances of their trade. Fascinating.”
David Ignatius is indeed a longtime media conduit for CIA misdirection, misinformation, and disinformation (as is his employer, the Washington Post). And his unnamed source for the Flynn story, “a senior U.S. government official,” broke the law and committed a serious felony in releasing Flynn’s name. So did Ignatius, himself, in publishing it. So far as we know, from publicly available information, General Flynn did not break the law, although I would argue that, contrary to Flynn’s defenders, his meeting with Ambassador Kislyak and his financial dealings with the Turkish regime of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan are cause for concern, and possibly may have been serious enough to end up disqualifying him from the sensitive role of national security advisor. But the hypothetical Flynn may-have-beens that continue to occupy the hyperventilating MSM commentators are one thing; the actual Ignatius-intel leak is another. And it should be obvious that the real story here that is being ignored in the MSM is the illegal Ignatius-intel leak, especially since, taken in the context of the many other actions occurring at the time (as well as before and since), the Flynn case is a prime example of Deep State operations violating the Constitution and subverting the rule of law. It is also important for illustrating the crucial role of controlled “journalists” in the coordinated MSM/intel community effort to torpedo and bring down the Trump administration. In this respect, it is especially noteworthy for showing the indispensable hand of the CFR in managing this coordination.
David Ignatius is not only a longtime member of the CFR, he is one of the most trusted operatives of this private club of globalists that has become our de facto government, with its members holding key positions and wielding incredible influence in the legislative, judicial, and executive branches, including the military and intelligence agencies — for at least the past three generations. The aforementioned CIA Director George Tenet, the ardent Ignatius admirer, is also a CFR member, as have been 13 of his predecessors in that post, going all the way back to the agency’s first civilian director (and longest serving chief), the “legendary” Allen Dulles, who was a founding member of the CFR and a genuine globalist insider. Likewise, the CFR virtually has owned the top rungs of power in the federal government going back many decades: 24 secretaries of state, 20 national security advisors, 20 secretaries of defense, 22 secretaries of the treasury — and thousands of additional Cabinet secretaries, under-secretaries, deputy secretaries, assistant secretaries, etc.
But back to Ignatius, whose columns are regularly featured as “Must Read” pieces on the CFR’s website. He has served alongside top-tier CFR members such as Madeleine Albright, Stephen Hadley, and Robert Blackwill as a host and moderator for the council’s panel discussions and CFR-sponsored Independent Task Force reports. Ignatius also co-hosts PostGlobal, an online discussion of international issues, with Fareed Zakaria (CFR), and is a regularly featured “expert” on television programs such as MSNBC’s Morning Joe with hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski (a CFR member and daughter of Zbigniew Brzezinski, CFR), which competes with CNN’s programming lineup for the most hysterical anti-Trump commentary and vitriolic insults. Apropos of a discussion of Deep State intrigues in the Flynn firing, it is worthy of note that Ignatius is a key voice among those apparently doing the CIA/CFR’s bidding in the Flynn follow-up, the encore attacks aimed at destroying Representative Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Scarborough and Brzezinski led off their Morning Joe show on March 28 echoing the demands of House Democrats, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, that Chairman Nunes must immediately recuse himself from the Russia-Trump investigation because of his “discredited behavior” in going to the White House for an intel briefing. “He has completely undermined himself,” Brzezinski insisted. “It is now proven ten times over…. This is just reality,” she claimed before bringing on David Ignatius, who opined that the House investigation is “almost shattered now after what Nunes has done. It’s going to be hard for Republicans on the committee, even if they want to do the right thing to operate in a bipartisan way so long as Nunes is there really in effect leading the President’s defense.” After which Brzezinski responded, “So this is the question everyone is asking: Should Congressman Devin Nunes recuse himself?” To which Scarborough delivered an emphatic “Yes.” Nunes, ultimately, succumbed to the concerted campaign and stepped down.
Why the concerted, vicious attacks on Representative Nunes by CNN, the Times, the Post, et al.? Could it be they are attempting to shield the CIA/CFR Deep State operatives in the Obama administration who have been fingered in the illegal “unmasking” and releasing of the names of Flynn and others in the classified NSA intercepts? Say, for instance, Obama’s National Security Advisor Susan Rice (CFR) and his Deputy Secretary of Defense Evelyn Farkas (CFR)? That would be a safe surmise, since they have both been credibly exposed as top suspects in the unmasking.
Let’s look at another example: Max Boot, the famous “Senior Fellow” at the CFR who is also a regular contributor at the Weekly Standard, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Foreign Policy, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Commentary, etc. In an April 3, 2017 article for Foreign Policy on what Boot calls “Kremlin-gate,” the CFR mouthpiece declared, “The only thing we know for certain is that no credible answers will come from the House Intelligence Committee. Nunes has destroyed its integrity.”
An earlier Boot article in Foreign Policy on January 5 was entitled “America’s Spies Need to Watch Their Backs,” with an accusing subtitle that could have been written at CIA HQ in Langley declaring, “Donald Trump’s disparagement of the CIA and apparent plans to shake up the intelligence community are a serious threat to American security.” That has been an ongoing theme for months among the Deep State’s chattering class, that any criticism of the actions of the highly politicized leaders of the intelligence agencies (who are, after all, political appointees of the president) is tantamount to condemnation of all the rank-and-file agents of the “intelligence community.”
On April 4, Boot appeared as a guest on Fox TV’s Tucker Carlson Tonight to cross swords (sort of) with the eponymous host of the show to misdirect attention away from Obama/Susan Rice/Deep State issues and refocus all attention on the Trump/Flynn/Nunes/Kremlingate narrative. Sadly, while Tucker Carlson ably punched holes in Boot’s arguments, he failed to even hint at Boot’s Deep State role. Carlson introduced Boot merely as “a foreign policy analyst and military historian,” and allowed Boot to cloak himself with an aura of faux conservatism with repeated (and unchallenged) claims that he is “a lifelong Republican.” Yes, a “Rockefeller Republican” internationalist, the type beloved of the CFR/CIA elites, which is why Boot has served as an advisor to GOP globalists such as Senator John McCain and Mitt Romney — and endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016.
The David Ignatius and Max Boot examples cited above are but two of literally thousands of examples of the Deep State “Fake News,” which comes in a variety of species of slanted, censored, tilted, and biased, all the way to totally fabricated. The globalist fake-news echo chamber includes hundreds of corporate media executives and “journalists” who are CFR members, including Peter Bergen (CNN), Erin Burnett (CNN), Tom Brokaw (NBC), Ethan Bronner (New York Times) Juju Chang (ABC), Katie Couric (CBS, NBC), Thomas Friedman (New York Times), Charles Krauthammer (Washington Post, Fox), Paul Krugman (New York Times), Jim Lehrer (PBS), Bill Moyers (PBS, CBS), Heather Nauert (Fox), Kitty Pilgrim (CNN), Dan Rather (CBS), Charlie Rose (PBS, CBS), Diane Sawyer (ABC), Andrew Ross Sorkin (New York Times), Lesley Stahl (CBS), Barbara Walters (ABC), and Paula Zahn (Fox, CNN).
How many of the above-named newshounds and their hundreds of CFR brethren are actually paid operatives of the intelligence agencies? That is a very important question, since recent history shows that a great many influential media folk have been in bed with the “intelligence community.” Although the existence of the CIA’s Project Mockingbird was known for decades, it was not officially confirmed until 2007. In the past few years and months, several million more documents have been released by the CIA, thanks to leaks and FOIA lawsuits, revealing the alarming degree to which the CFR-run intelligence community is politicized and how, in turn, the CFR-CIA Deep State operatives weaponized the American media into a fearsome propaganda network. The list of those who were key participants in that network reads like a Who’s Who of America’s “prestige press” during the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s: the owners, publishers, and editors of the Washington Post and New York Times; magazine and television network executives and reporters; nationally syndicated columnists; and news wire services.
Unfortunately, we do not have the luxury of waiting another few decades to learn the details about the journalists and media organizations who are today joined at the hip to the Deep State subversion apparatus. Freedom will not survive that long in the truth vacuum and the wilderness of mirrors engineered by an Orwellian Ministry of Truth. Yet, that is the dystopian future that President Obama and the Deep State globalists have prepared for us. This is not mere polemic on our part, as anyone familiar with The New American’s reports over the past several years on the Obama administration’s “Behavioral Insights Teams” (also known as “Nudge Squads”) will recognize. Overseen by two of Obama’s most notoriously totalitarian-minded officials — “Regulatory Czar” Cass Sunstein and “Science Czar” John Holdren — the social-engineering scheme is patterned on a secret British program run by the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), Britain’s intelligence organization responsible for Signals Intelligence (SIGINT). That program has been exposed since 2013, with the leak of a GCHQ handbook instructing the spy agency’s agents on methods to “destroy, deny, degrade [and] disrupt” those individuals designated as enemies, by, among other things, “discrediting” them, planting misinformation, shutting down their communications, and destroying their reputations. (See our article “Obama’s Big Brother ‘Nudge Squads.’”)
In a very revealing (and disturbing) comment on national television, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) underscored the alarming degree to which Congress has already exchanged subservience for its constitutional obligation of oversight. In an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on January 3, Schumer claimed Trump was “really dumb” for his decision to “take on” the intelligence community. “Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday to get back at you,” Schumer said, adding, “So, even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he is being really dumb to do this.”
Was Senator Schumer, who is one of the most “progressive” members of Congress, serving as a Deep State emissary? Was he delivering a message to Trump (or, more likely, to any Trump allies who might consider supporting his “really dumb” challenge to the intelligence community’s political leadership)? That would be a reasonable take-away from his remarks, considering his political history and the fact that he made them on MSNBC, one of the loudest megaphones for the radical statist agenda. An alternative interpretation of his comment is that he is a complete coward who recognizes that the intelligence agencies that are supposed to be our servants have become our masters — and he is not willing to “take on” this imminent threat to our liberty. The real question is, are we ready and willing to “take on” the Deep State to preserve freedom, the rule of law, and constitutionally limited government?
Photo: Newscom
Versions of this article and the related stories below appear in the May 8, 2017 print edition of The New American. Published twice each month, the print edition provides exclusive in-depth analysis covering the political gamut: education, candidate profiles, immigration, healthcare, foreign policy, guns, etc. Digital as well as print subscription options are available!
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