The First Firestorm

That hysterical reaction to the travel ban announced Friday is a portent of what is to come if President Donald Trump carries out the mandate given to him by those who elected him.

The travel ban bars refugees for 120 days. From Syria, refugees are banned indefinitely. And a 90-day ban has been imposed on travel here from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Sudan, Somalia and Yemen.

Was that weekend-long primal scream really justified?

As of Monday, no one was being detained at a U.S. airport.

Yet the shrieking had not stopped. All five stories on page one of Monday"s Washington Post were about the abomination. The New York Times" editorial, "Trashing American Ideals and Security," called it bigoted, cowardly, xenophobic, Islamophobic, un-American, unrighteous.

This ban, went the weekend wail, is the "Muslim ban" of the Trump campaign. But how so, when not one of the six largest Muslim countries — Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Turkey — was on the list? Missing also were three-dozen other Muslim countries.

Of the seven countries facing a 90-day ban, three are U.S.-designated state sponsors of terror, and the other four are war zones. Clearly, this is about homeland security, not religious discrimination.

The criterion for being included in the travel ban appears to be that these places are the more likely breeding grounds for terrorists.

Yet there are lessons for the Trump White House in the media-stoked panic and outrage at the end of his first week in office.

First, Steve Bannon"s observation that the media are "the opposition party," is obviously on target. While Sen. Chuck Schumer was crying on camera that the ban was "un-American," the media were into the more serious business of stampeding and driving the protesters.

A second lesson is one every White House learns. Before a major decision is announced, if possible, get everyone"s input and everyone on board to provide what Pat Moynihan called the "second and third echelons of advocacy." Those left out tend to leak.

A third lesson Trump should learn is that the establishment he routed and the city he humiliated are out to break him as they broke LBJ on Vietnam, Nixon on Watergate, and almost broke Reagan on the Iran-Contra affair.

While the establishment may no longer be capable of inspiring and leading the nation, so detested is it, it has not lost its appetite or its ability to break and bring down presidents.

And Trump is vulnerable, not only because he is an envied outsider who seized the highest prize politics has on offer, but because his agenda would cancel out that of the elites.

They believe in open borders, free trade, globalization. Trump believes in securing the Southern border, bringing U.S. industry home, economic nationalism, "America First."

They want endless immigration from the Third World to remake America into the polyglot "universal nation" of Ben Wattenberg"s utopian vision. Trump"s followers want back the America they knew.

Our foreign policy elites see democratization as a vocation and an autocratic Russia as an implacable enemy. Trump instead sees Moscow as a potential ally against real enemies like al-Qaida and ISIS.

There is another reason for the reflexive howl at Trump"s travel ban. The establishment views it, probably correctly, as the first move toward a new immigration policy, built on pre-1965 foundations, and rooted in a preference for Western-Christian immigrants first.

When the Times rages that "American ideals" or "traditional American values" are under attack by Trump, what they really mean is that their ideology and agenda are threatened by Trump.

We are headed for a series of collisions and crises, and what has happened in Europe will likely happen here. As the Third World invasion and growing Islamization of the Old Continent — which the EU has proven unable to stop — has discredited centrist parties and continuously fed a populist-nationalist uprising there, so may it here also.

And Trump not only appears to have no desire to yield to his enemies in politics and the media, he has no choice, as he is now the personification of a surging Middle American counterrevolution.

Undeniably, there are great numbers of Americans who agree with the libels the Times showered on Trump and, by extension, his backers whom Hillary Clinton designated "the racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic ... deplorables."

But by whatever slurs they are called, Middle Americans seem prepared to fight. And history shows that such people do not calmly accept the loss of what is most precious to them — the country they grew up in, the country they love.

They have turned to Trump to lead them. Why should he not, having been raised up by them, and knowing in his own heart what the establishment and the media think of him and would do to him?

Ten days in, and already it is "Game On!"

Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of the new book The Greatest Comeback: How Richard Nixon Rose From Defeat to Create the New Majority. To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2017 CREATORS.COM

Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and What You’re Not Being Told About Trump’s Travel Ban

January 31, 2017   |   Alice Salles

(ANTIMEDIA) President Donald Trump’s decision to bar nationals from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States for 90 days prompted one of the largest protests America has seen since anti-Iraq war sentiment compelled thousands to hit U.S. streets in 2003.

Moved by the ban’s inclusion of green card holders who were suddenly left stranded at U.S. airports, protesters flooded airports nationwide, demanding U.S. officials let foreigners who were lawful residents in. On Sunday evening, Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly declared “the entry of lawful permanent residents to be in the national interest,” making the “lawful permanent residence status” of foreign nationals “a dispositive factor in our case-by-case determinations.”

While many have pointed out that the precedent that allowed Trump to impose the 90-day ban came from a bill signed into law by President Barack Obama, known as the Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act, others pointed out the list’s omission of countries such as Saudi Arabia, “home of 15 of the 19 terrorists involved in the 9/11 attacks.” But while these same publications claim these countries were spared because of Trump’s business ties, countries listed in the current ban mirror the list of countries present in the bill signed into law by Obama. So why did both Obama and Trump choose to spare travelers from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and United Arab Emirates from extra scrutiny?

The answer may lie somewhere in the past, long before both Obama and Trump were considering running for president.

U.S. presidents are often judged by how the economy fares during their terms, leading many to take credit for sudden upticks while others blame everybody else for downfalls.

In a carefully written piece from 2014, founder, president, and Executive Director of the Carl Menger Center Paul-Martin Foss explains that in 1971, when President Richard Nixon “[closed] the gold window,” unilaterally canceling the convertibility of the U.S. dollar to gold, Saudi Arabia entered the picture.

Striking a deal with the Saudi Kingdom, Nixon established the oil-rich nation as its partner. From then on, Saudi Arabia became the “anchor of the petrodollar system,” making the kingdom’s demise unthinkable if the dollar were to remain a reserve currency.

Fearing the dollar would lose its value due to his economic policies regarding gold reserves, Nixon made the Saudis promise to “denominate oil sales in dollars” in exchange for America’s endless military protection. Being one of the world’s top oil producers and exporters, Saudi Arabia’s promise meant that foreign nations “seeking to purchase oil on international markets needed to purchase dollars and maintain dollar reserves.” By establishing a demand for the dollar “as an international reserve currency that counteracted the desire of countries to move away from the dollar due to the [U.S.] government’s inflationary policies of the 1960s and 1970s,” Nixon was able to protect the value of the U.S. dollar despite the obliteration of the only system that had kept the currency strong all through the years: the gold standard.

Since then, this relationship has kept the U.S. dollar relatively strong despite the U.S. Federal Reserve’s follies, which have accelerated inflation. This adds an extra burden on the poor, who have continued to see the purchasing power of their cash decline over the decades. But who cares about the poor when the U.S. government can keep printing more money without worrying about having the currency lose its power?

Over the years, other oil-rich nations joined the pact, with Gulf Arab countries like the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait maintaining large dollar reserves.

According to a 2016 Bloomberg article, Saudi Arabia still holds $289 billion of U.S. Treasury debt. But aside from that, Foss continues in his piece, “the estimated sizes of the Arab countries’ sovereign wealth funds” totals almost $2.5 trillion. These wealth funds invest their oil revenues across the globe, holding America in a special place in their hearts.

As America’s top U.S. military hardware purchaser, Saudi Arabia also helps keep the U.S. dollar strong through a vibrant war market while benefitting from the 1971 deal with President Nixon.

As a new president takes office, we can only guess what the learning process might look like. We’re not sure who approached Obama to let him know of the U.S. special relationship with the Saudi royals. We’re also not sure how this happened under Trump. All we know is that under Obama’s watch, the Saudis purchased $115 billion worth of weapons from America, totaling “more than any previous administration and were intended to replenish arsenal after war in Yemen.”

In the Yemen files, the database “of more than 500 documents from the United States embassy in Sana’a, Yemen” released by WikiLeaks, the staff at the whistleblower hub writes that “Yemen is of significant strategic interest as [the country] controls a narrow choke-point to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal through which 11% of the world’s petroleum passes each day.” With Saudi Arabia seeking to “control a port in Yemen to avoid the potential constriction of its oil shipments by by Iran along the Strait of Hormuz or by countries, which can control its other oil shipment path along the Red Sea,” it’s suddenly clear why America has been so invested in the Yemen war. The U.S. government must keep the promise made by President Nixon if it wants to keep the dollar strong without reforming or putting an end to the Federal Reserve’s grip on the U.S. dollar.

President Trump has only been in office for a little over a week, and he’s already following the lead of his predecessors.

Understanding the background of the special relationship between America and Saudi Arabia gives us an idea of why economic policies of the past are so entwined with wars being waged today — and why Saudi Arabia and others were left out of the list of countries under the watch of the U.S. government under Obama and Trump.

As over seven million people starve to death in Yemen while America presses on, aiding its number one partner in the region. But this is not because they care about the war itself, but because American presidents care about the strength of the dollar — at least, that’s what it looks like once you analyze the background of this special relationship.

Without oil-rich nations using the U.S. dollar to trade their product — and without the gold standard — there’s nothing keeping the dollar’s worth from crashing. And if that occurs, world markets would feel the boom with only America truly hurting since its currency would lose its worth, boosting other world powers.

Will there ever be a president who will challenge that? If so, reform should start first by ending the Federal Reserve.

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This article (Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and What You’re Not Being Told About Trump’s Travel Ban) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Alice Salles and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11 pm Eastern/8 pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, please email the error and name of the article to edits@theantimedia.org.

Hollywood Attacks Trump Over Refugee "Ban"

It is no revelation that Hollywood leans Left, but this year’s Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards took that lean to the breaking point. The program, aired Sunday night, could have carried the subtitle, “Trump is bad (even though Obama did the same thing)."

Ashton Kutcher set the stage for the night’s remarks by other actors and actresses by opening the show with, “Good evening fellow SAG-AFTRA members and everyone at home, and everyone in airports that belong in my America.” It was a clear reference to Trump’s executive order to suspend the refugee progam, leaving many who had traveled to the United States from recently banned countries and were sitting in airports.

Of course, the America that Kutcher sees as his America does not likely include the people in “flyover country” that made him both rich and famous by watching his movies and television shows. Those states are populated by the people who would most likely be affected by terrorists coming into this country under an “open door” refugee policy. They are also the states that voted overwhelmingly for President Trump.

Kutcher went on to say, “You are a part of the fabric of who we are, and we love you, and we welcome you.” He was far from alone in his sentiment, or in his expression of that sentiment. Julia Louis-Dreyfus — most famous for playing Elaine on the long-running and iconic Seinfeld — used her moment on the stage after being announced Best Female Actor in a Comedy Series for her role on HBO’s comedy series Veep to say, “I am an American patriot. And I love this country. And because I love this country, I am horrified by its blemishes,” adding, “And this immigrant ban is a blemish, and it is un-American."

While accepting an award on behalf of the cast of the Netflix original Orange is the New Black, Taylor Schilling followed the evening’s format by stating, “We stand up here representing a diverse group of people — representing generations of families who have sought a better life here from places like Nigeria, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Ireland — and we know that it’s going to be up to us and all of you to keep telling stories that show what unites us is stronger than the forces that seek to divide us.”

Of course, the “diversity” that Schilling describes has no place for any dissenting opinion against the dogma of the Left.

Mahershala Ali spoke to the issue while accepting Best Supporting Actor for his role in Moonlight. Demonstrating the inability to separate scripted roles from reality so common in the Hollywood elite, Ali said, “What I’ve learned from working on Moonlight is you see what happens when you persecute people: they fold into themselves,” adding, “What I was so grateful about in having the opportunity to play Juan was playing a gentleman who saw a young man folding into himself as a result of the persecution of his community and taking that opportunity to uplift him and tell him that he mattered and tell him that it was OK and accept him, and I hope that we do a better job of that.”

Of course, what really stands out — though the liberal mainstream media (who jumped at the chance to report on the words of the Hollywood crowd as if they were something akin to received wisdom) failed to report it — is that the SAG Awards after President Obama signed into law the bill on which Trump’s suspension order rests was devoid of any critical remarks whatsoever.

As we reported Sunday:

Far from a “Muslim ban,” the order simply seeks a vetting process that would weed out those with “ties to terrorism.” And while the liberal establishment in both politics and media would spin it to say otherwise, there was little to no such reaction when their beloved President Obama did almost exactly the same thing.

In 2015, Obama signed H.R. 158, the Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015. That bill clarified “the grounds for ineligibility for travel to the United States regarding terrorism risk, to expand the criteria by which a country may be removed from the Visa Waiver Program, to require the Secretary of Homeland Security to submit a report on strengthening the Electronic System for Travel Authorization to better secure the international borders of the United States and prevent terrorists and instruments of terrorism from entering the United States, and for other purposes.”

Chuck Schumer didn’t see the Statue of Liberty crying when Obama signed H.R. 158 into law. And the Huffington Post — which used “Holocaust Remembrance Day” to bolster its accusation that Trump’s new executive order “targets” both “Muslims” and “Refugees” — wrote at the time:

In what could be a sign the administration is moving away from a policy seen as discriminatory, the Obama administration announced Thursday that it is restricting visa-free travel to the U.S. for recent visitors to three additional countries — but not for dual nationals with those passports.

Under the new restrictions, citizens of the 38 countries that are part of the reciprocal visa-waiver program will lose their visa-free travel status if they have traveled to Libya, Somalia or Yemen within the past five years. Thursday’s announcement is an expansion of a law passed late last year, which revoked the visa-waiver status of people who had recently traveled to Iraq, Syria, Iran or Sudan, and who hold dual citizenship with any of those four countries.

So, when President Obama signed a bill to restrict travel to the United States by anyone from 38 countries (many of them Muslim-majority) if those persons had “traveled to Libya, Somalia or Yemen within the past five years,” he was “moving away from a policy seen as discriminatory.” Yet when President Trump suspends travel to the United States from seven countries, he is deemed guilty of discrimination. Only leftist doublethink allows for the acceptance of both these contrary conclusions. This is especially the case considering that the legal framework on which Trump’s executive order rests is the law signed by Obama and celebrated by the same people who now condemn its implementation.

Now, the spokespersons for the Left in Hollywood are doing exactly what their counterparts in both politics and the media are doing: condemning Trump for the very thing for which they praised Obama.

The lesson: Hollywood is not protesting the executive order; it is protesting Trump for the sake of protesting Trump. The people who have made their fortunes and gained their fame by the patronage of the inhabitants of “flyover country” are — once again — showing that they are completely disconnected from reality and devoid of principle.

NRA Moving from Defense to Offense

For eight long years the National Rifle Association (NRA) has, along with similar groups such as the Gun Owners of America (GOA), the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), and the National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR), largely been playing defense. The anti-gun executive orders spewing from the pen of former President Barack Obama, the anti-gun media seizing upon opportunities to promote its agenda thanks to crazed killers committing atrocities, the push to ratify the UN small arms treaty, and more have kept pro-Second Amendment groups such as these back on their heels.

No longer. Jennifer Baker, the NRA’s national spokeswoman, told The Hill on Monday: “For the first time in almost a decade, the NRA is shifting from a defensive stance to a pro-active stance. Now, we have a pro-Second Amendment Congress and a pro-Second Amendment president who will sign pro-Second Amendment legislation. That’s a huge shift.”

Even former Arizona Democrat Representative Gabrielle "Gabby" Giffords, head of the anti-Second Amendment group Americans for Responsible Solutions, sees what’s coming. In speaking to her supporters on Monday, Giffords said, "The gun lobby was one of the first to support Donald Trump, and now that he won and their friends control Congress, they are going to expect a return on that investment."

The NRA’s investment was $30 million in the last election, and their expectations are substantial. Near the top of the list is the repeal of the Gun-Free Zones Act of 1996, which prohibits possession of firearms within 1,000 feet of schools.

They seek passage of the Veterans 2nd Amendment Protection Act, which would protect veterans from having their Second Amendment-protected rights removed by the VA arbitrarily deeming them “mentally defective” without a court hearing and putting their names into the NICS (National Instant Criminal Background Check System). The NRA will work to repeal similar administrative law changes that the Social Security Administration just finalized in December.

It will work for passage of the Hearing Protection Act to allow hunters to use silencers. That act was proposed by Representative Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.), who explained, “The hunter needs to be able to hear a deer walking in the woods, or a turkey gobbling. You can’t always wear headphones or earplugs when you’re hunting.”

The NRA and other pro-Second Amendment groups are already anticipating Trump’s nomination of a justice to the Supreme Court to replace Antonin Scalia who will be equally supportive and friendly to gun rights. The NRA and its supporters will assist senators in understanding their position during confirmation hearings.

Perhaps the biggest push will be for national reciprocity — a federal law that would require every state to recognize every other state’s concealed weapons licenses, much like automobile driver"s licenses. Such a law would allow those carrying concealed to do so in every state without worrying about violating local laws.

It should be noted that a national reciprocity law raises significant constitutional concerns, and is opposed by scholars such as Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California Irvine’s School of Law, and UCLA professor Eugene Volokh. Both men contend that Congress doesn’t have the constitutional authority to force states to recognize concealed-carry permits issued by other states.

Such concerns, however, are balanced by conclusions reached by Adjunct History Professor Clayton Cramer of the College of Western Idaho. In his paper “Congressional Authority to Pass Concealed Carry Reciprocity Legislation” he reviews not only constitutional limits on federal power but also how often those limits have been breached. He notes that “since McDonald v. Chicago, the Supreme Court has recognized that the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process clause extends the Second Amendment to the states.” He notes further that “laws prohibiting concealed carrying of firearms certainly violate the Second Amendment … [and] are certainly prohibited State laws and State acts.”

He adds that “the [Supreme] Court has repeatedly recognized a right to travel [and] to enjoy the benefits of living in the state of one’s choosing.” There’s interstate commerce, too, says Cramer: “The [Supreme] Court has long recognized that interstate commerce is within the regulatory authority of Congress, including pre-emption of state laws.”

And, finally, notes Clayton, "States’ rights objections to requiring recognition might have been persuasive in 1950, but a lot of sludge has flowed under that bridge in the meantime: Racial segregation laws; miscegenation bans; contraceptive bans; abortion bans; sodomy bans; same-sex marriage bans; and doubtless hundreds of others that do not immediately come to mind that all involve pre-emption of state and local laws. Opponents of national concealed carry reciprocity will either have to repudiate that substantial list of abrogation of states’ rights, or come up with some very clever way to distinguish them from pre-emption of state laws concerning concealed carry."

This “to-do” list of the NRA and other gun-rights groups is far from exhaustive. But it’s part of the return on their $30-million-plus investment that they are expecting to see. 

An Ivy League graduate and former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American magazine and blogs frequently at LightFromTheRight.com, primarily on economics and politics. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Rasmussen Poll Shows Majority Support Trump’s Travel Ban

Amid the widespread protests and controversy in the wake of President Trump’s January 27 executive order that imposed a 90-day ban on entry into the United States from the same seven countries (Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Yemen, and Iran) named in the Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015 signed by former President Obama, a new Rasmussen Reports survey finds that 56 percent of likely U.S. voters favor the temporary ban. 

The Rasmussen survey was taken from January 25-26, just one to two days before Trump’s order was announced.

When asked, “Do you favor or oppose a temporary ban on refugees from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen until the federal government improves its ability to screen out potential terrorists from coming here?” 56 percent said they favored such a ban, while 32 percent were opposed, and 11 percent were undecided.

In response to a second question, “Do you favor or oppose a temporary block on visas prohibiting residents of Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen from entering the United States until the federal government improves its ability to screen out potential terrorists from coming here?” 56 percent favored such a block, 32 percent opposed the block, and 10 percent were undecided.

When asked to identify themselves by party affiliation, 82 percent of those who named themselves as Republicans and 59 percent of those not affiliated with either major party support the ban. Those who identified themselves as Democrats opposed the travel ban by a 53-percent to 34-percent margin.

The executive order instituting the ban on travelers from the seven Middle Eastern and Northeast African nations is also supported by those on the front lines responsible for enforcing our nation’s immigration laws. The National Border Patrol Council and Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council posted a joint press release on the Border Patrol website on January 30 that stated, in part,

As representatives of the nation’s Frontline immigration officers and agents responsible for enforcing our laws and protecting our borders, we fully support and appreciate President Trump’s swift and decisive action to keep the American people safe and allow law enforcement to do its job. We applaud the three executive orders he has issued to date, and are confident they will make America safer and more prosperous.

Chris Cabrera, vice president of the National Border Patrol Council, also praised Trump for moving so swiftly. “Government is only as slow as we let it [be],” said Cabrera. “[The president is] from a business background, which is different from a government background.”

A report from the Western Journalism Center quoted a statement approving the president’s action from Representative Chris Collins (R-N.Y.), who noted that the temporary immigration ban was simply the fulfillment of Trump’s campaign promise. “President Trump promised to make America safe again and his executive order aims to ensure we know who is entering our country,” Collins said in a statement. “A 90-day pause as we get our Department of Homeland Security back up and running, I don’t see that America would consider that a negative in any way. In fact, it’s a promise to keep America safe,” he added.

A January 31 report from Fox5 News in Atlanta noted that several travelers interviewed while passing through Hartsfield Jackson International Airport said they fully support the president’s mission to keep the country safe. “It’s not a ban on immigrants, it"s just vetting. We welcome immigrants; we just want to be safe,” traveler Kathy Theriault told Fox. The report said that Theriault and her husband realized that the order could impact families, college students, and employees, but they said protecting the country against terrorists is a top priority. “I know it’s hard on a lot of people, but it"s our country. Safety first,” stated Leonard Theriault.  

Fox5 News also quoted Brad Carver, the 11th circuit chairman of the Georgia Republican Party, who said he was surprised by the number of protests across the country since, in his view,  President Trump is simply doing exactly what he said he"d do if elected. “I see these protesters and I think they misunderstand what President Trump is trying to do and that"s to secure our homeland and protect the American people of all races, religions and genders,” said Carver.

Related articles:

Judge Grants Stay to Bar Trump DHS From Deporting Aliens From Seven Nations of Concern

Trump"s Order Suspending Refugee Program: Racism or Balanced National Security?

Trump Executive Order to Ban Nationals of “Countries of Particular Concern”

Regarding Fake Passports for Syrians

Obama Scrapping Registration of Aliens From Mostly Muslim Nations

Sons of Middle Eastern Immigrants Recruited by Terrorist Groups

Border Patrol: Arrests of Pakistanis, Afghans Up This Year

Military Concerned About Large Numbers of Individuals From Terrorist Regions Crossing Border

Smuggling Network Brings Aliens With Terrorist Ties Across U.S. Border

Mexican Cartels Moving Terrorists Across Southern U.S. Border

Terrorist Smuggling Into U.S. a Real Concern

Pakistanis With Terrorism Ties Caught After Crossing U.S.-Mexican Border

Boy Scouts’ Moral Collapse: Will Allow “Trans” Girls in Ranks

It’s the Boy Scouts — or something like that, anyway.

There was a time when the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) spent money fighting a lawsuit brought by a girl who wanted to be a “boy” scout. The organization won that battle. Now it has lost its mind, deciding to let a girl join its ranks simply because she claims to be a boy.

The BSA will now judge applicants based on their “gender identity” and not, as had been the policy, based on the sex indicated on their birth certificate. Because birth certificates are, as Barack Obama proved, so yesterday.

As CNN reported, the birth-certificate “‘approach is no longer sufficient as communities and state laws are interpreting gender identity differently, and these laws vary widely from state to state,’ BSA spokeswoman Effie Delimarkos said in a statement Monday.”

The Girl Scouts had already capitulated some years ago, allowing a boy masquerading as a girl to join their organization.

CNN further explains that the BSA’s collapse “comes a few months after an 8-year-old Cub Scout in New Jersey accused the organization of expelling him for being transgender. The Boy Scouts did not specifically cite the New Jersey case in its statement. But Chief Scout Executive Michael Surbaugh acknowledged the group recently had been ‘challenged by a very complex topic ... the issue of gender identity.’"

This brings to mind the apocryphal saying, “Moral issues are always terribly complex for someone without principles.” Of course, the psychology causing an individual to believe he’s a member of the opposite sex, a different species (“species dysphoria”), or Napoleon may be complex. The psychology causing CNN to, as is de rigueur among mainstream media now, refer to children such as the expelled N.J. Cub Scout as “him” may also be complex. But the simple fact of the matter is that the child is a girl. There’s nothing complex about that.

Meanwhile, girls who actually claim they’re girls again want to be Boy Scouts. One of them, 15-year-old Sydney Ireland, posted a petition at Change.org stating, in part, “I cannot change my gender to fit the Boy Scouts’ standards.” No? I guess poor Sydney didn’t get the memo.

I don’t know if such rejection of the Made-up Sexual Status (MUSS — “transgender”) agenda qualifies Ireland as a hater; she’s right in a way, however, since by “gender” she means “sex.” As former “transsexual” Alan Finch said in 2004, “You fundamentally can"t change sex.... Transsexualism was invented by psychiatrists.”

Note that while most people identify the word “gender” with “sex,” psychologists define it as a person’s “perception” of what he is and say that this can be different from his “sex,” which is a biological classification.

And what do people perceive? The list of “genders” grows like the national debt, with the literally scores of them including designations such as Agender, Bigender, Cis, Gender Fluid, Genderqueer, Pangender, and Neutrois.

Maybe this is why it sounds so “complex” to Chief Scout Executive Michael Surbaugh, but let’s cut through the noise. The thesis behind the MUSS (“transgender”) agenda states that, put simply, a person could be a woman trapped in a man’s body, or vice versa.

The idea is that at issue is not a psychological problem, but a biological one. But is there any proof of this? As I wrote last year:

What physiological markers will the physician look for to verify that I truly am, legitimately, “transgender,” suffering with a supposed brain/body incongruence? Don’t feel bad not knowing.

There isn’t a so-called expert alive who could answer the question.

There is no brain scan for gender dysphoria. There is no genetic test. There is no hormonal test. There are no physiological markers of any kind. Yet on the basis of “strong and persistent feelings of cross-gender identification” — and on that basis alone — psychiatrists can and do refer patients for the mutilation known as “gender-reassignment surgery” (GRS). And on that basis alone, doctors may recommend that a young child be allowed to live as a member of the opposite sex. It’s no different from telling a cardiologist you feel certain you have heart disease and, without performing tests to confirm the diagnosis, his saying, “Oh, have the feelings been strong, persistent and extant for longer than six months? Okay, well, then I’ll cut open your chest and do a bypass.”

But it’s a brave new world, where identity is reality. Thus, why draw lines based on biology at all? Why can’t a man such as 54-year-old “Stefonknee” Wolscht, who claims to be a six-year-old girl (video below), join the Girl Scouts? Inclusiveness, right?

Really, the BSA should just get ahead of the curve and rename itself the Gender Fluid Scouts. After all, the notion of a “boy” is so passé. Why bother following the spirit of the age when you can lead it? Aren’t the scouts about leadership?

The BSA development is instructive. First, it illustrates how political revolutions (which Donald Trump may be ushering in) can do little to restore the culture, whose moral decay continues apace.

Second, a beneficiary of the BSA’s collapse may be Trail Life USA, an alternative, Christian scouting group launched three years ago after the BSA decided to admit openly homosexual boys. This is, of course, the market at work, but it also underlines how fractured our civilization has become.

There was no need for such alternatives many decades ago because, by and large, people’s sense of virtue was explicitly the same. Today, however, with our emotion-guided decision-making causing millions of people to march to the beat of a million different drummers, there’s less and less we can unite around.

As for the BSA, along with its name, maybe its oath needs some tweaking as well. Scouts could be told that you should keep yourself “physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight — or whatever works for you.”

‘Adversarial Journalist’ Fails to ‘Intercept’ Truth about Oath Keepers

What does any of this have to do with Oath Keepers? If you listen to SPLC, DT Analytics, Democrat DHS apparatchiks and The Intercept, they’re practically inseparable. If you actually cherish the truth, not a thing, and membership there would disqualify from membership here. [Library of Congress Public Domain/CC-0]

“The FBI has quietly investigated white supremacist infiltration of law enforcement,” VICE News, Al Jazeera America, and New York Times contributor and all-around social justice warrior Alice Speri “reports” in The Intercept.

Self-described as “dedicated to producing fearless, adversarial journalism,” The Intercept gives Speri a platform to demonstrate exactly how provincial and insulated from her “flyover country” subject matter an Italian-born Bronx resident can be. Still, that’s no excuse for sloppy, one-sided agitprop masked as “real reporting,” although why she should be any different from her peers in the “mainstream” is a fair question to ask.

Eager to advance a meme developed and honed in the Obama administration, that the greatest threat to U.S. domestic tranquility originates from evil “conservatives,” Speri continues the successful practice of conflating Constitutionalists with “white supremacists” and haters, and nowhere is that more demonstrably disprovable than in her all-too-familiar smear job on Oath Keepers.

A primary source for raising the “extremism” flag? A 2009 report from Janet Napolitano’s Department of Homeland Security, specifically identifying those opposed to illegal immigration and “disgruntled military veterans” as groups meriting special scrutiny over domestic terror concerns. That would be the same DHS that relied on the Southern Poverty Law Center in a subsequent “intelligence assessment” exercise in politically-inspired conflation.

“Mark Potok’s armed DHS sock puppet parrots SPLC lines — again,” friend and colleague, the late Mike Vanderboegh observed at the time, dismissing the report with the jaded candor of someone who has seen the con before. “It looks to me like all these high-paid tax feeders did was regurgitate Potok’s latest lies…”

While admitting that Napolitano subsequently backed off the 2009 report due to flak, that tradition appears to be continuing unabated at The Intercept. Not only did Speri rely on SPLC as a primary go-to source, but also parroted without challenge the report’s lead researcher, Daryl Johnson (now head of DT Analytics, a consulting firm pinning its fortunes on continued demand for the SPLC narrative:

Johnson singled out the Oath Keepers and the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association for their anti-government attitudes and efforts to recruit active as well as retired law enforcement officers. “That’s the biggest issue and it’s greater now than it’s ever been, in my opinion.”

Oh, really?

“Anti-government”? This is a group that at its core exists to encourage current and retired military, police and first responders to keep their oath to “support and defend the Constitution [and] bear true faith and allegiance to the same,” and that restricts membership in its Bylaws with this requirement:

No person who advocates, or has been or is a member, or associated with, any organization, formal or informal, that advocates the overthrow of the government of the United States or the violation of the Constitution thereof, shall be entitled to be a member or associate member.

And as for being in any way affiliated with “white supremacists,” again, one need only check the Bylaws:

No person who advocates, or has been or is a member, or associated with, any organization, formal or informal, that advocates discrimination, violence, or hatred toward any person based upon their race, nationality, creed, or color, shall be entitled to be a member or associate member.

Go ahead, search inside. Some might classify this fixation on demonizing those who honor their oath to the Constitution as an obsession, and wonder why.

Perhaps with Hillary Clinton’s loss in November, DT Analytics is in desperate search of a public/private partnership from which to feed (especially if Johnson’s YouTube viewership is any indication of interest). Presumably, sales aren’t exactly brisk for his “Right-Wing Resurgence: How a Domestic Terrorist Threat is Being Ignored” (with a Foreword, unsurprisingly, by SPLC’s Mark Potok!), but at least Amazon’s “Look inside” function gives us a chance to see just how badly they want to include Oath Keepers in that threat, and how accurate what he’s saying about them is.

For instance, right there in Chapter One, page 4, we’re told:

“On April 11, 2009, the day on which the DHS assessment was leaked, the Oath Keepers had not yet announced their existence publicly.”

What is this? And this? And…

Back in March, 2009, I’d blogged that Oath Keepers was featured on the G.Gordon Liddy Show (and on an Arkansas radio program). And they’d posted a video announcing themselves on YouTube. I actually first blogged on Oath Keepers here.

If the head of DT Analytics totally blows the basics like this, what else can’t we trust, and what should that say to anyone thinking about retaining his consultancy “services”? And if Oath Keepers actually were a threat, what does it say about so many of us knowing about them while our “Homeland Security professionals” remained blisssfuly oblivious, awaiting SPLC agenda instructions?

And what does it say of the journalistic standards of The Intercept, parroting that agenda while the truth about Oath Keepers lay a couple minutes of internet checking and a bias and presumption-free introductory phone call away? Assuming truth was ever the objective…?

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WWII Survivor Tells Her Story, Warns Trump Emulates Hitler Perfectly

That Donald Trump managed to win the election has incensed some, delighted others, and has spawned comparisons to Adolf Hitler.

And while the latter suggestion previously drew scorn and caused eyes to roll — as if Godwin’s law that arguments online inevitably devolve into someone accusing someone else of being a Nazi — a World War II survivor has come forward with a warning the similarities shouldn’t be blithely dismissed.

It is also important to note that this path to despotism was paved by the likes of George Bush and Barack Obama. Between the two of them and their attacks on the constitution, they left a virtual dictatorship up for grabs that would have been assumed and abused by Hilary Clinton or Donald Trump.

NV, an 88-year-old woman who experienced the horrors of Nazi rule, believes Trump summons the specter of the fascist dictator far too clearly for the resemblance to be ignored as hyperbole.

One day in 1940, NV’s life in Antwerp, Belgium, changed forever:

“In early 1940 my mother, grandmother and I lived across the street from an army barracks. In the early morning of May the 10th, we were woken up by the sounds of sirens, heavy artillery, and explosions. We quickly went to the cellar to hide and waited until the bombing had subsided. When we left the house, an unexploded bomb was laying below our living room window.

“When we rounded the corner the most horrible scene presented itself: Almost four complete city blocks had been destroyed, body parts were scattered all over. One scene I will never forget is when I managed to get to where my favorite candy store used to be, there was a severed leg stuck against a remaining wall.”

Often, the passage of time, like water, smooths collective memory to the point atrocities become less tangible — or appear so egregious, we foolishly surmise ‘that could never happen again.’

But history proves otherwise, and that ‘it’ — fascism spawned from failed attempts at loosely democratic systems — can, indeed, happen again is precisely why NV chose to bring her experience to light.

While Trump isn’t literally Hitler, as some people oddly insist, the president keeps company with rumored white nationalists, imposed a suffocating ban on refugees and restrictions on travel, and rearranged his National Security Council in an astonishing manner — downgrading the status of the Director of National Intelligence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — reminiscent of a fascistic power play.

Considering the United States has yet to experience severely concentrated power of the Hitler or Mussolini variety, drastic changes in policy and procedure are viewed by many without the lens of future abuse — but that could be a critical error.

NV, who is Jewish, recalled struggling simply to live under the punishing thumb of Nazi rule:

“We sometimes stood in lines all night just to get a loaf of bread that was made with something other than flour. It was black, looked like uncooked dough, smelled bad, and grew mold within a few hours. We didn’t get sugar, we got saccharine to sweeten; there was no coffee, instead we got some kind of roasted grain the Germans called Kneipp; we didn’t get milk or butter, we got some type of margarine that came with a coloring capsule that had to be kneaded into the margarine to give it color. I went hungry, I was always starving. Once in a while we would get some figs at school or bananas which I would save and take home to share with my mother and grandmother, sometimes I was too hungry and ate them on the way home from school.”

As the Nazi leader rose to power with all the ‘charm’ of a megalomaniac, NV recalled, “we heard Hitler speak on the radio, we also saw him in newsreels before the movies.  I can remember seeing him rant and rave, his face becoming contorted with rage.”

READ MORE:  Corporate Media is Lying to You -- Syrian Army Freed Aleppo, There is No Genocide

NV, who literally endured life under Hitler, asserted,

“Donald Trump emulates Hitler to a T.  His actions, speeches and ranting remind me exactly of Hitler. I am afraid that if he is not stopped, he will lead this country into another world war.”

Indeed, Trump’s bluster and belligerence in addressing China led Beijing to prepare for military action under threat of a possible trade war with the U.S. Even more telling, U.S. officials will assess the ‘survivability’ of the governments of China and Russia in the event of a nuclear war — starkly suggestive the potential for world war to turn catastrophic isn’t an outside possibility.

“Unfortunately,” NV continued, “this war will not be waged with conventional weapons, and very few people will survive. And if they do, there will be nothing left to be worth living for!!”

Warnings of the similarities between Trump and Hitler could be facilely rejected when coming from the mouths of millennials — but for a survivor of World War II to sound this alarm holds infinite weight.

It might behoove Americans to consider the admonition and not be led like mice by a seemingly charismatic pied piper straight into nuclear war.

Analysts: Trump’s Provocative Style More Likely to Cause War with China

January 31, 2017   |   James Holbrooks

(ANTIMEDIA) President Trump is continuing to press his “America First” ideology in the face of a China that refuses to back away from its “One China” policy. As a result, some analysts are saying war between the United States and the Asian superpower — while not inevitable, as certain individuals have suggested — is far more likely under the “provocative and chaotic approach” to leadership that has characterized the presidency of Donald Trump thus far.

“It is significantly more probable that there would be a misunderstanding than it has been for many, many years,” Kerry Brown, a China researcher at London’s Royal Institute of International Affairs, told The Independent. “It is still improbable but significantly more likely.”

Noting that Donald Trump’s “provocative and chaotic approach” has been increasing tensions with China, Brown also pointed out that a military conflict between the two nations would spell bad news for both sides. “It’s a no-win situation,” he said. “Only through the act of the most amazing stupidity and provocation would something happen.”

However improbable such “stupidity” may be, the analyst was also sure to note the possibility remains, as “Mr. Trump and his team have shown they are willing to do very high-risk things.”

Another China analyst, Veerle Nouwens of the Royal United Services Institute, told The Independent that a military clash between China and the U.S. in the waters of the Pacific Rim would be “disastrous” for the region.

She also, however, appears to agree with Brown in that such a clash is, at this stage, still unlikely:

“There is a heightened risk of miscalculation but I do not think that anybody is out to have a clear military conflict.”

On Friday, China revealed through its government website it is stepping up its preparedness for a possible military conflict with the United States. Saying Donald Trump has stressed Sino-U.S. relations since entering the White House, the People’s Liberation Army wrote in a commentary that a confrontation between the two nations is “becoming a practical reality.”

Much of the contention is rooted in issues of sovereignty. China, for instance, claims nearly all-encompassing rights to the waters of the South China Sea. Trump and his administration, however, have made it abundantly clear they have no intention of respecting the “One China” policy nations must diplomatically adhere to before dealing with the Asian superpower.

Trump’s pick for secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, even suggested at his Senate confirmation hearing in early January that the U.S. should block China from accessing the artificial islands it created in the South China Sea. Such talk, as Anti-Media has recently noted, has many speculating about a coming trade — if not outright cold — war with China in the near future.

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This article (Analysts: Trump’s Provocative Style More Likely to Cause War with China) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to James Holbrooks and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11 pm Eastern/8 pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, please email the error and name of the article to edits@theantimedia.org.

Obama is back, and this is what will happen

Obama is back, and this is what will happen

by Jon Rappoport

January 31, 2017

Through his mouthpiece, Kevin Lewis, Obama is back. The great Uniter, Mr. Hope and Change, the messiah of “we’re all in this together,” the father of Obamacare, the prophet of post-racial America, the former First Community Organizer, the free cell phone provider is on the stump again.

Politico: “Kevin Lewis, spokesman for Obama in his post-presidency, said that Obama — who has been threading the balance between the tradition of presidents deferring to their successors and coming out against President Donald Trump on specific issues he considered core values — ‘is heartened by the level of engagement taking place in communities around the country’.”

“It is Obama’s first statement since leaving the White House.”

“’Citizens exercising their Constitutional right to assemble, organize and have their voices heard by their elected officials is exactly what we expect to see when American values are at stake’, Lewis said.”

“’With regard to comparisons to President Obama’s foreign policy decisions, as we’ve heard before, the president fundamentally disagrees with the notion of discriminating against individuals because of their faith or religion’, Lewis said.”

Understand the trends and fashions—as reported by major media. There was: fake news stole the election; fake news sites were pawns moved on the board by Putin; Putin stole the election; Putin stole it for Trump; Trump is a Russian agent.

The latest: Obama is here again.

This allows the Democrats and the Left and Soros-funded troops to say Trump is not the real president. He’s a fake president. If anyone is the real president, it’s still Obama, and they will listen to him and follow him.

This idea will bloom.

Somebody—perhaps the Left’s dough-boy, Michael Moore—will say, “We do have a president and he is Barack Obama. I don’t care whether he’s living in the White House. Wherever he is, whatever he does, we’ll go with him, so we can save the country from this cheap imitation.” He’ll grin, blow his nose, snarfle, and giggle.

But behind these shenanigans, there is a serious point. The whole thrust of ops after Election Night was designed to allow media to wriggle off the hook for predicting Hillary would win and for overtly supporting her.

The storyline? Trump isn’t actually the president. He didn’t win. He cheated. Therefore, we the media were correct. Hillary did win. Our polls were accurate. Our forecast was accurate.

This is now bolstered by the return of Obama. The great one sojourned in the desert and came back to give us more truth. O hail. All praise.

“Okay, Trump IS the president, but not really. Obama is.”

This is what you get in certain countries where the president is running the day-to-day show, and then suddenly, from behind the curtain, steps the great religious figure wearing his cloak and his hat. He speaks a few words of wisdom (and warning, because he is the spiritual leader of millions of people), shakes his bejeweled finger, and disappears.

We can expect this action from Obama now and again as time passes.

His followers are so deep in trance that, if Obama dropped his pearls in Arabic, with a dutiful translator standing by, they would rejoice to an even greater degree.

“I am the ghost and conscience of the people, and here is my message today, as I stand in the clouds above the White House…”

Perhaps you recall that, during the 2008 Primary race, there were several large Obama events where the audience was slowly chanting “O-bam-AH, O-bam-AH,” right out of an old Star Trek episode in which Kirk and his crew were dealing with a society under the hypnotic control of a high priest who turned out to be a computer. I watched one of these Obama campaign rituals on television—and suddenly the chanting stopped on a dime. I assumed Democratic operatives in the hall shut it down. They didn’t want the viewing audience at home to think O’s candidacy was a ceremonial invocation or an MKULTRA sub-project.

Cheap cheesy archetype-caricatures are in play. Disney should pick up the option. Obama. The Great Father. Angel of Peace. Elder of the Tribe. The Prophet. The Redeemer. The Wise One.

Which Hollywood studio is going to hire which screenwriter and which beloved director to do the biopic of all biopics? O-bam-AH, in theaters and IMAX. Special effects by DARPA. After three hours in the dark, millions of people will stagger into the streets weeping.

“I felt like my whole life changed. He is the president.”

“He gave the Gettysburg Address and ended slavery.”

“Chicago Police report that 13 people died in a celebration outside a theater premiering the film, O-bam-AH, last night. There are unconfirmed rumors of shots being fired. One witness stated that a man from the well-known Southern Illinois group, White Trump Racists for the Reinstitution of Mass Slavery, was handing out copies of what he claimed were counterfeit birth certificates of the former president…”

The op continues.

“I’ll take O-bam-AH the Rainbow Warrior and Provider of Free Everything for All, for four hundred, Alex.”

Jon Rappoport

The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29^th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.

“Assad Stroke After Assassination Attempt”? CIA Plants Fake News About Near Death to Torment Syrian Leader

Image via Rakar, wikipedia.en

This article was written and originally published at The Daily Sheeple.

With President Trump comes a new front in the War on Terror.  Will there be a wider war in the middle east region under his presidency?

Editor’s Comment: Covert black ops are still in full force, regardless of the changing of the guard in the Oval Office. While only time will tell how President Trump will handle foreign entanglement in the Middle East, though his tweets condemning Sen. John McCain, Sen. Lindsay Graham and others for their warmongering are perhaps a hopeful sign.

The joint statement of former presidential candidates John McCain & Lindsey Graham is wrong – they are sadly weak on immigration. The two…

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 29, 2017

…Senators should focus their energies on ISIS, illegal immigration and border security instead of always looking to start World War III.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 29, 2017

On the other hand, Trump has already authorized deadly and controversial attacks on terrorist homes in Yemen, including one on the family of Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born terrorist that Obama took out with a drone, as well as his 16-year-old son. The most recent strike has now taken out Awlaki’s 8-year old daughter and other relatives allegedly affiliated with terrorism. As a candidate, Trump vowed to go after the families of terrorists, a campaign promises that sparked a great deal of controversy.

Meanwhile, President Assad survived the long seize attempt to oust him from office via moderate rebel/terrorist mercenary groups sponsored by a host of Western and NATO allies. However, that protracted front of the war ended decisively when Russian military force drove out these forces from Aleppo altogether, changing the face of the Syrian war. Now, the CIA is using psychological techniques to torment Assad and stir up a frenzy that could surround an attempt to remove him in the near future.

It remains to be seen how President Trump as a Commander-in-Chief will address the multi-faceted conflict in Syria, and the contentious U.S. role vis-a-vis Russia, whom Trump has pledged to play friendly with. The immigration ban from seven Muslim-dominated countries could stir the pot for a larger world conflict and a new front in a revived (and revamped) War on Terror.

These will be interesting times, but the CIA and shadow government are not going to quickly give up its objectives in the Middle East.

Related: Update: “Putin’s Favorite Chauffer” Killed In Accident… Exactly As Former CIA Director Described On TV

Black Propaganda Psyop: So Which Intelligence Agency Spread Fake News About an Assassination Attempt Against Assad?

by The Daily Sheeple

“The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” ~ Author Mark Twain

How is this for an eerie psychological mind game?

Breitbart is reporting that a flurry of regional news stories out of Syria are claiming that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was in serious condition after either suffering a stroke or an assassination attempt.

The office of the presidency has officially responded that all such claims are false and Assad is “carrying on his duties quite normally”.

“The presidency denies all these reports. President Assad is in excellent health,” the statement read, according to Reuters, suggesting that “changing circumstances in the field and politically” were behind the claims that Assad was ill.

“The Syrian people had become immune to such lies,” the statement concluded.

Really? Immune? Fake news must be happening all the time over there at this point as the obvious regime change operation is probably considered behind schedule.

Also considering that we know the fake news agenda is really just black propaganda being wielded in a thinly veiled psychological operation (psyop) against people all over the globe, these rumors are being spread for a pretty obvious reason.

It sounds like a mafioso-esque threat on Assad’s life… and it sounds like something straight out of the CIA textbook.

This particular fake report calls to mind the shocking comments that former CIA Deputy Director Mike Morell made in an August 8, 2016 interview on The Charlie Rose Show.

Amid discussing how Morell wanted to make the Russians and Iranians “pay a price” in Syria, which Rose clarifies by asking, “We make them pay the price by killing Russians? And killing Iranians?” to which Morell responds, “Yes, covertly” — Morell goes on to say:

You don’t tell the world about it, right. You don’t stand up at the Pentagon and say we did this. Here’s the other thing I want to do, I want to go after — I want to go after those things that Assad sees as his personal power base, right. I want to scare Assad. So, I want to — I want to go after his presidential guard. I want to bomb his offices in the middle of the night. (Source)

With threats of harassment like that, sprinkling a little premature obituary fake news campaign on top for good measure is nothing.

This article was written and originally published at The Daily Sheeple.

Reports: Russian cyber spy treason cases linked to CIA

Russian cybersecurity intelligence officers reportedly detained on treason charges are being accused of passing secrets to the CIA.

Sergei Mikhailov and Dmitry Dokuchaev, who worked for the cyber wing of Russia"s FSB domestic intelligence service until their arrests in December, are accused of cooperating with the CIA, according to unnamed sources cited Tuesday by Interfax news agency.

No officials have publicly commented, but Russian media outlets with links to the security services have reported in detail on the case. An executive from cyber-security firm Kaspersky Lab has also reportedly been arrested on linked treason charges.

U.S. intelligence agencies have alleged that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a campaign to influence the U.S. presidential election in favor of Donald Trump and that Russian spies hacked into the Democratic National Committee.

Like Saudi Arabia, Israel Has a Soft Spot for Sunni Extremism

By Brian P. McGlinchey

Thanks to last summer’s release of 28 pages detailing a variety of links between 9/11 hijackers and Saudi government officials—and the October leak of a 2014 email from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declaring the Saudi government was directly supporting ISIS—it’s increasingly clear that the U.S. government’s depiction of Saudi Arabia as a vital ally in the “war on terror” is dishonest.

Unfortunately, Saudi Arabia isn’t the only supposed “ally” whose official depiction as a steadfast foe of terrorism is out of sync with reality: The branding of Israel is also deeply misleading.

Israeli Aid to Al Qaeda in Syria

Al Nusra Members Prepare a Mass Execution in Syria

Thought it received very little coverage in U.S. media, last year it was revealed that the Israeli government was providing medical support to the al Nusra Front, a Syrian arm of al Qaeda.

That would seem inconsistent with routine declarations from U.S. politicians that there should be “no daylight” between the United States and Israel, language that suggests two peoples whose interests are in perfect alignment.

Where Israel’s support of an al Qaeda affiliate is concerned, however, a former chief of the Mossad—Israel’s national intelligence agency—pulls no punches in differentiating between U.S. and Israeli interests.

Al Jazeera’s Mehdi Hasan asked Efraim Halevy why Israel would give medical aid to wounded members of al Qaeda—and return them to jihad in Syria—but not to the wounded of Hezbollah, the Iran-allied Shi’a militant group in Lebanon that has often clashed with Israel and has been linked, sometimes dubiously, to terror attacks.

Efraim Halevy

“We have a different account with Hezbollah. A totally different account. Al Qaeda, to the best of my recollection, has not attacked Israel,” he said.

Incredulous, Hasan replied, “It has attacked your number one ally and protector and sponsor, the United States of America!”

“Israel was not specifically targeted by al Qaeda, and therefore it’s a different kind of account than we have with Hezbollah,” replied Halevy.

So much for “no daylight.”

Former Israeli Diplomat: “Let the Sunni Evil Prevail”

It wasn’t the first time a former Israeli official voiced a preference for Sunni extremism, even though Sunni terror has proven—before, during and after 9/11—a far greater menace to American and Western lives than Shi’a extremism.

Speaking at the Aspen Institute in June 2014, former Israeli ambassador to the United States Michael Oren said Israel should hope Sunni extremists prevail in Iraq.

Former Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren

“If we have to choose the lesser of evils, it’s the Sunnis over the Shi’a,” said Oren. “From Israel’s perspective, if there’s gotta be an evil that’s gonna prevail, let the Sunni evil prevail.”

(The large majority of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims are Sunnis, and the actions of a small minority of extremists shouldn’t be attributed to the vast, peaceful majority. Indeed, that peaceful majority is often victimized by the extreme minority.)

Israeli Think Tank: ISIS a “Useful Tool” for Undermining Iran

In another example of Israeli establishment sympathy for Sunni terrorism, an Israeli think tank, the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies (known as BESA), contended in a paper published in August that the United States should stop short of fully eradicating ISIS.

Why? In addition to claiming that doing so would create a diaspora of fleeing terrorists who would bring fresh havoc around the world, BESA emphasized the fact that Iran-allied Hezbollah “is being seriously taxed by the fight against (ISIS), a state of affairs that suits Western interests.”

American Journalist James Foley Moments Before His Execution by ISIS

“The Western distaste for (ISIS) brutality and immorality should not obfuscate strategic clarity,” argued BESA’s Efraim Inbar. “Unfortunately, the Obama administration fails to see that its main enemy is Iran.”

Talk about obfuscation: Iran may be the chief regional rival of Israel, but it certainly isn’t the main enemy of the United States—and probably shouldn’t be considered an “enemy” at all (which is certainly not to suggest that the Iranian government is virtuous).

In seeking to counter Iran and its Hezbollah allies, however, the Israeli government is incentivized to lead U.S. policymakers and citizens to regard Iran as a great menace to America and to cultivate false allegations about Iran’s nuclear program—supported by counterfeit intelligence that has plausibly been attributed to Israel.

It’s a repeat of the pattern observed in 2002, when Benjamin Netanyahu (at that time, both a former and future prime minister) and the Israeli government urged the United States to launch its disastrous regime change invasion of Iraq to eliminate a non-existent nuclear weapons program.

Americans Have a Different Kind of Account With Iran

Governments ultimately make policy based on a determination of their own governmental interests (which may differ from the actual interests of the people they govern). Those policies are often ruthless.

Given that, perhaps it shouldn’t be shocking that Israel would provide direct assistance to an affiliate of the organization that unleashed the devastating 9/11 attacks on its greatest benefactor—no more than it was shocking to discover the many links between U.S. “ally” Saudi Arabia and the 9/11 hijackers.

Benjamin Netanyahu

Israel’s conduct should, however, provide a much-needed wake-up call for the many Americans who continue to place the Israeli government and its current prime minister on an undeserved pedestal.

And for all Americans, the revelation of Israel’s aid to al Nusra—like the revelation of Saudi links to the 9/11 hijackers—should prompt a reexamination of government-fostered assumptions about which forces in the world are truly allies and enemies of the American people, keeping in mind that some deserve neither label.

In other words, to borrow Mossad veteran Halevy’s rhetoric, the American people should recognize that they have “a different kind of account” with Iran and Hezbollah than the Israeli government does, which means—unlike Netanyahu and his government—we shouldn’t want al Qaeda, al Nusra and other Sunni extremists to flourish just because they are enemies of Iran and Hezbollah.

The Most Overrated Government in the War on Terror: Our Own

While revelations of Saudi and Israeli support for Sunni extremism may be disheartening, Americans should reserve their greatest condemnation for their own government.

After all, it was the United States government that, in 1979, began collaborating with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to foster extremism in Afghanistan to thwart the Soviet Union, a decision that elevated Osama bin Laden to legendary status among the mujahideen and their wealthy backers in Saudi Arabia, established a network of terrorism stretching from North Africa to the Philippines, gave rise to al Qaeda and eventually set the stage for the 9/11 attacks.

It began with President Jimmy Carter, but every president since has had a hand in fomenting Sunni extremism, right up through the administration of Barack Obama, which may or may not have not directly aided al Qaeda and ISIS in Syria, but certainly backed so-called “moderate rebels” who are directly collaborating with them.

In 2012, the Defense Intelligence Agency warned that regime change efforts in Syria could prompt the rise of an ISIS-like entity. However, the Obama administration plunged ahead in what former DIA Director Michael Flynn and current National Security Advisor called a “willful decision” to support an insurgency that included Salafists and al Qaeda.

Promoting Chaos…to What End?

Like the Netanyahu-encouraged invasion of Iraq, the willful decision to fertilize extremism in Syria may have been rooted in a perception that a shattered Syria would be good for Israel, even if the resulting power vacuum were filled by the likes of ISIS and al Qaeda.

Retired Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, told 28Pages.org last year that, for some, continued Middle East turmoil is an intended outcome of U.S. policy: “There are people in this country who believe the chaos in the Middle East, to include the brutal civil war in Syria, is conducive to Israel’s security.”

That chaos, fostered by the United States government in concert with Israel and Saudi Arabia, has taken a terrible human toll while strengthening the forces of terror. Particularly for a government that exists to serve the interests of American citizens, no real or perceived benefit to Israel or the Saudi monarchy can possibly justify it.