How Ukrainian Intelligence Helped John Brennan Create 'RussiaGate'

Russell Brand, the Jon Stewart of Indie Media. Snark v. Boojum

Why Today's College Degrees (and the Scientific Peer Review Process) Have Become Worthless...

Ross Pomeroy, "X Users Didn't Like a Paper's Tone and Findings, So They Got It Rejected"

At Frontiers in Psychology, it seems that users on X are now part of the peer review process.

On January 4th, the paper "Meta-analysis: On average, undergraduate students’ intelligence is merely average," was accepted to the journal. That same day, the abstract was published with the notice that the "final, formatted version of the article will be published soon."

Soon thereafter, the paper went viral, quickly accruing over 54,000 views, wide discussion on X and Reddit, and coverage in popular media (including RCS). It garnered this attention for its intriguing yet simultaneously obvious finding: over the past 80 years, as a far greater proportion of North Americans attended college, the average IQ of college undergraduates dropped from around 120 to 102, just slightly above the average of 100.

As the authors, Bob Uttl, a psychologist and faculty member at Mount Royal University, and his students Victoria Violo and Lacey Gibson, noted, "The decline in students’ IQ is a necessary consequence of increasing educational attainment over the last 80 years. Today, graduating from university is more common than completing high school in the 1940s." College students no longer come solely from the ranks of the highly intelligent and privileged, they come from all corners of society. Uttl and his colleagues noted that this has implications. For example, academic standards and curricula might have to be adjusted. Moreover, employers can't assume that applicants with university degrees are more capable or smarter than those without degrees.

A little over a month after Uttl, Violo, and Gibson's paper was accepted and the abstract published, they were abruptly notified by email that it was rejected. They were apprised that Specialty Chief Editor Eddy Davelaar, a Professor of Psychology and Applied Neuroscience at Birkbeck, University of London, overrode the three peer reviewers who approved the paper and even his own handling editor. His reasons were subsequently forwarded to Uttl and his colleagues.

While Davelaar raised a couple of issues with the paper's methods, the vast majority of his focus was on its tone. He wrote that the use of the word "merely" in reference to college students' just-above-average IQ was "demeaning." He also noted that the authors' critiques of other scientists' works "could have been packaged more sensitively." He also called unfounded the authors' opinion that the widening participation policies of universities were the cause of undergraduates' falling IQs.

In emails viewed by RealClearScience, Uttl extensively refuted Davelaar's issues the same day the paper was rejected (Feb. 6), to which he received no reply from Davelaar or Frontiers for six days. On February 12, Frontiers replied saying that Davelaar's concerns remained. If they were addressed, "the manuscript could be reconsidered for publication."

Uttl subsequently published his refutations of Davelaar's methodological criticisms online. Lending strength to his arguments is that fact that three peer reviewers and even Davelaar's own handling editor did not find fault with Uttl's paper.

Davelaar's problems with the paper's tone and conclusions were harder to address, because they were his opinions. It seemed strange that an editor's opinions should supplant those of the paper's authors. It's not his paper, after all.

In response to a request for comment, Frontiers stated that an article can be rejected at any stage before official publication. A public relations manager then quoted their editorial process, “...if a manuscript does not meet our editorial criteria and standards for publication, or if peer-review or research integrity concerns are raised by any review participant or reader (abstracts are published online ahead of official publication), the journal's chief editors and Frontiers' Chief Executive Editor will investigate these concerns, regardless of peer review or acceptance stage.”

Frontiers added:

The Speciality Chief Editor (SCE) reviewed the paper in line with our clearly stated editorial process when concerns were raised about the abstract, particularly about underlying bias. The SCE assessment concurred with some reviewers’ judgements, identifying substantive flaws in the meta-analysis and bias in the tone of the paper. The authors were given further opportunities to revise the paper in line with reviewer and SCE comments. These requested revisions were not made but once again disputed. 

RealClearScience reached out directly to Davelaar for comment, but he has not replied 

Uttl was curious what brought on the sudden rejection of his already accepted paper, so he asked representatives at Frontiers. He was told that “several posts” on X triggered Dr. Davelaar’s review. As readers were only able to view the abstract, and thus weren't able to assess the authors' methodology, it seems clear that they complained purely about the authors' tone and provocative conclusions. Davelaar only found 'problems' with Uttl, Violo, and Gibson's methods afterwards.

Uttl and his co-authors were not apprised of the content of the X posts.

"I think an editor or whoever owes it to us to tell us what the issues are, allows us to respond, before rejection," he told RCS in an email.

Uttl, Violo, and Gibson have since had their publication fees refunded and have submitted the paper for publication at another journal.

...I don't like your tone, Mister! 

USIC & Media Partners Ramping Up the BS Pretexts for "Officially" Starting WWIII and ensuring Biden is PotUS for it.

A senseless local proxy war started by the USIC years ago in Ukraine once again serves as pretext to begin to politically re-elect a favoured mentally absent and therefore easily manipulable NATO war 'leader', preserve a geriatric Alzheimer's ridden non-interfering Congress, and retroactively formulate a Casus Belli for involving NATO more directly through an active exercise in parallel construction.  As George Soros famously stated in his "Alchemy of Finance",  "Alchemy is not interested in truth like the scientific method, it's interested in operational success."  Since 1945, the USIC has become the World's leading alchemists.

The resulting Mass Psychosis induced into NATO partners from USIC Propaganda.  It's like some artificially manufactured and induced psychopathy from of a JG Ballard Sci-Fi novel like Super-Cannes or High-Rise.

“The advanced societies of the future will not be governed by reason. They will be driven by irrationality, by competing systems of psychopathology.

― J.G. Ballard, J.G. Ballard: Quotes: Does the Future Have a Future?

Jodi Dean, "Zizek on Law"

What really binds a community, what really tells people that they are members of the same group is not their knowing what laws to follow, but their knowing what laws to break. Attachment to community comes about through identification with the suspension or transgression of the law.44  Zizek’s examples include the ‘nightly’ law of the Ku Klux Klan in the American south, the military’s sadistic hazing rituals, and the excess of violence that underlay the precise rules setting out the procedures of the Nazi extermination camps. His emphasis on ‘nightly’, then, highlights the way that certain practices may be common, well-known, indeed, seen as necessary for the continuation of the community, even as they are not to be exposed to the light of day, even as they are formally disavowed. 

Super Cannes, a recent novel by J.G. Ballard, provides a particularly vivid account of the role of nightly law in the securing of community.45 Ballard describes a perfect executives’ paradise where every need is met so that high-powered scientists and financiers can devote themselves to their work with no distractions. The problem is that the executives start becoming ill, listless, depressed, and distracted. Profits and stock values decline. The solution, introduced by the centre’s psychiatrist, is crime, violence, and cruelty. Prescribing psychopathology, he organizes the executives into ‘therapy groups’ that go out on weekend rampages in which they brutalize immigrants, prostitutes, and local Arabs. Trying to convince the narrator, Paul, that “a controlled psychopathy is a way of resocializing people and tribalizing them into mutually supportive groups”, the psychiatrist, Wilder Penrose, enjoins him to remember childhood.46 ...like all of us you stole from the local supermarket. It was deeply exciting, and enlarged your moral sense of yourself. But you were sensible, and kept it down to one or two afternoons a week. 

The same rules apply to society at large .... A voluntary and sensible psychopathy is the only way we can impose a shared moral order.47 The psychiatrist installs in the community its missing superego injunction to enjoy. He commands – in the contemporary, medical, sense of prescribing – the executives to commit the acts inspiring their most violent and sexual fantasies. This enjoinment to cruelty redoubles that excess of jouissance that attaches the executives to their community. They get to be cruel and violent because they are instructed to – ‘just following orders’...

USIC Turns Up the Ukrainian Gaslight

Save the C.I.A.  Fund Ukraine!  ???

h/t - Woodsterman

First they Came for the Journalists....

...but I wasn't a Journalist, so I did nothing.

On The Alchemy of Mutual Knowledge

"Alchemy is not interested in truth like the scientific method, it's interested in operational success."

-George Soros, "The Alchemy of Finance" 

Artificial Intelligence - "On Altering the Alchemy of Mutual Knowledge"

Ai says, "Paedophilia is GREAT!"  Will everyone now believe the Alchemists of Mutual Knowledge?

Sore Loser Democrats Know Biden Can't Win, So They Begin their 2024 Coup d'Etat Planning Early...

Amanda Prestigiacomo, "Democrats Signal They Might Not Certify A Trump Win In 2024"

Numerous House Democrats have signaled that they would not certify a 2024 presidential election win from Donald Trump, relying on the 14th Amendment to claim Trump is an insurrectionist and thus ineligible from holding office.

Democrats including Reps. James Clyburn (SC), Jamie Raskin (MD), Adam Schiff (CA), Eric Swalwell (CA), and even House Minority Leader Hakeem Jefferies refused to say that they would confirm Trump to office if he won the 2024 election.

As Dan McLaughlin explained at National Review, Democrats could have the votes to sustain an objection to a Trump win if they take control of the House. “Only a simple majority is required, and unlike when the House chooses a president under the Twelfth Amendment, they don’t vote by states,” he wrote. “Unlike in 2016 or 2004, when they were in the minority, House Democrats could be playing with live ammunition.”

Still, a majority of senators would have to object to a Trump win, too. This would likely take 51 senators, and as McLaughlin pointed out, this would be a tough task for Democrats: They “either have to hold every seat they currently occupy (good luck in West Virginia), or take a Republican-held seat (the bluest of which is either Ted Cruz’s in Texas or Rick Scott’s in Florida),” he said.

A potential way around some of this chaos rests at the Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments earlier this month in Trump v. Anderson, a case about whether or not a state, in this case Colorado, can keep Trump off the ballot based on the 14th Amendment. If the high court gives clarity on the issue of Trump eligibility, specifically that he is eligible, then Democrats would not have room to object on this basis.

The arguments, so far, have bode well for Trump. Nearly every single justice, including the liberal ones, seemed exceedingly uncomfortable with siding with Colorado based on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. Notably, that provision was enacted immediately following the Civil War in an effort to keep anyone who engaged in an “insurrection” from holding office.

Attorney Jonathan Mitchell, who argued on behalf of Trump, argued that Section 3 doesn’t mention “president,” but an “officer of the United States,” which he says includes appointed officials, not elected officials. Another argument centered around Colorado adding a qualification to Trump by deeming him an insurrectionist and then disqualifying him before the election.

Some of the strongest pushback to Colorado’s claims came from Justice Elena Kagan. “Why should a single state have the ability to make this determination not only for their own citizens but also for the nation?” she pressed the Colorado legal team. “It sounds awfully national to me … if you weren’t from Colorado, and you were from Wisconsin, or you were from Michigan, and what the Michigan secretary of state did is going to make the difference between whether candidate A is elected over Candidate B is elected? I mean that seems quite extraordinary.”

BREAKING: Best Supreme Court Quote Just Now By Justice Kagan: "The question that you have to confront is why a single state should decide who gets to be President of the United States." pic.twitter.com/ftN4tNV7sG

— Simon Ateba (@simonateba) February 8, 2024

Kim Klacik Has Announced for MD-2!

John Lee, "Republican Kim Klacik Thursday announced her second run for Congress."

Klacik, a conservative radio talk show host and an outspoken supporter of former-President Donald Trump, ran unsuccessfully for the 7th Congressional District in 2020.

This time she has set her sights on the 2nd Congressional District seat being given up by Democratic Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger.

“I’m ready to go and I’m geared up to do it,” Klacik said.

The political makeup of Maryland’s 2nd Congressional District, which includes much of Baltimore and Carroll Counties and a portion of Baltimore City favors a Democratic candidate.

“I’m no stranger to a challenge,” Klacik said. “I do believe that we can win this.”

Klacik, who lives in Middle River, will compete against at least two other Republicans in the May primary. The deadline to file as a candidate in the primary is Friday.

On the Democratic side, Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski is running for the congressional seat. Olszewski enters the race with $400,000 on hand and strong name recognition. He is running against several candidates in the Democratic primary, including Del. Harry Bhandari.

If the November general election ends up being a Klacik-Olszewski matchup, the Republican believes she can win it.

“When it comes to the schools, when it comes to crime and violence, things have gotten worse on his watch,” Klacik said.

According to her campaign finance report filed with the Federal Elections Commission, Klacik raised more than $8 million in her unsuccessful race for Congress in 2020.

Excited to announce I have filed to run in Maryland’s 2nd Congressional District. It’s currently an open seat & redistricted, making it competitive for a republican to flip.

Thank you, Delegate Chisholm, Chairwoman Kit Hart, Delegate Szeliga, Delegate Nawrocki & Delegate Morgan… pic.twitter.com/IH2xoZNtVp

— Kimberly Klacik (@kimKBaltimore) February 8, 2024

Popular Never-Trumper Republican Enters Maryland Senate Race

Democrats are running scared because popular former Maryland Republican Governor Larry Hogan has decided to run for the Senate in Maryland.  This billionaire Democrat David Trone has also been flooding the airwaves for MONTHS trying to establish the name recognition needed to win the seat.  His commercials are annoying as hell.  This should be an interesting race, because many Democrats might support Hogan.  What won't be reported is how many Trump Republicans will be voting for Trone.  If I were Trone, THIS is the angle I would exploit to defeat Hogan.  Painting him as a "MAGA Monster" would be the height of political stupidity, unless running against Trump is the real strategy.  Besides, except for the 2nd Congressional District, Black voters in Maryland will probably be sitting this race out.  Kweisi, where are you?

Jazz Shaw, "Maryland Dems Will Try to Use Abortion to Thwart Larry Hogan"

Earlier this month, I wrote about the strange and unhelpful timing (at least for the GOP) of former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan's decision to mount a Senate bid. The announcement caused a bit of a panic among Democrats who are desperately scrambling to try to maintain their razor-thin majority in the upper chamber. After all, despite being a Republican, Hogan had turned out to be one of the most popular governors in the blue state of Maryland in modern history. Would they be able to stop him this time? Well, as I previously pointed out, there is a significant difference between a gubernatorial campaign and a Senate campaign in American politics today. And the Maryland Democrats think they've hit upon the poison pill that will halt Hogan in his tracks. They'll go after him on the issue of abortion, just as they are attempting to do all across the country. (Baltimore Sun)

The television ad displayed a photo of an unsmiling Larry Hogan alongside oversized words that the Republican “opposes a woman’s right to choose.”

The 30-second, Democratic-produced commercial aimed to remind voters of anti-abortion statements made by Hogan, 67, more than 30 years earlier. It’s the sort of attack ad that could appear this year as Maryland Democrats seek to derail Hogan’s U.S. Senate candidacy.

Except that the ad is from the 2014 gubernatorial campaign. Hogan, who said the “disgraceful” spot misrepresented his position, went on to defeat Democrat Anthony Brown, now Maryland’s attorney general, and serve the first of his two four-year terms in Annapolis.

If this countercampaign against Hogan were based on historical facts and accuracy, it likely wouldn't even get off the ground. Attacking Hogan for his historical position on abortion is a daunting task because he really doesn't have much of a record in that regard. He never moved to crack down on abortion in Maryland during his eight years as governor. It's true that in 1981 (!), during Hogan's first unsuccessful run for Congress, he expressed "support" for a constitutional amendment that would have granted civil rights to the unborn from the moment of fertilization. But he lost his primary election and never had the chance to vote on the amendment which didn't pass anyway. Beyond that, all he's really said is that he personally opposes abortion, but he wouldn't use the power of the government to impose his will on women in that fashion. The same would likely hold true in the Senate.

But we all know that political campaigns these days are rarely if ever based on accuracy or historical facts in evidence. All that matters is the optics involved and the political opportunity to "seize the moment." The Democrats are running on abortion because in 2024 they have nothing else to run on. But it's proven to be a political winner for them before. They will paint Larry Hogan as a MAGA monster waiting in the wings for an opportunity to lock up pregnant women and abortion doctors, despite that being a wholly inaccurate depiction of his record.

At the same time, their fears may not be entirely unfounded. As Governor, Hogan didn't have the ability to introduce or force through anti-abortion legislation in Maryland and the strong Democratic majority in the legislature would never have gone along with it if he tried. (He never tried.) But if he were to take the 50th or 51st Senate seat for the Republicans, he would be placed in a prime position to cast the deciding vote in some form of federal legislation imposing new restrictions on the procedure at the national level. We can ignore for now the fact that no such legislation is currently being seriously considered in Washington. That's irrelevant to this discussion. Again, for Maryland's Democrats, this is all about fearmongering, not reality.

But the very threat of even that hypothetical possibility might be enough to do the trick for Maryland's Democrats. Hogan poses no threat to the status quo as either the Governor or a retired politician. But as a Senator, the possibility rears its head. And that's the poison pill that they will feed to the voters from now until the election in November. It may well turn out to be a far closer election than either of Hogan's gubernatorial runs and at least in my view, victory is far from assured for him.

When the Government No Longer Represents the People

Climate Change Rewards Alarmists

Scientist @curryja published research that fueled climate change alarmism.

“I was...treated like a rock star."

Then she realized some of her research was wrong.

When she admitted it, the corrupt climate change industry attacked her.

Here she exposes how alarmism is REWARDED: pic.twitter.com/YoBBdflPPz

— John Stossel (@JohnStossel) February 22, 2024

Crunch Time for Gyges (USIC)

 Luke Goldstein, "Crunch Time for Government Spying"

Congress has a few weeks left until a key spying provision sunsets. Both reformers and intelligence hawks are plotting their strategies.

Time is running out for a bipartisan legislative push to curtail warrantless surveillance of American citizens through Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

After a vote was tabled last week following a theatrical warning by House Intelligence Committee chair Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) about a national-security threat from Russia, reformers are pressuring House leadership to hold another vote on a compromise bill, plus amendments. The chances of that are growing more grim by the day.

Once Congress returns to session next week, it will be pushing up against a government funding deadline that appears increasingly likely to turn into a full government shutdown. That will likely eclipse any momentum behind a compromise reform of Section 702, and could lead to a situation where a clean reauthorization gets tucked into future must-pass legislation, a common tactic employed by national-security hawks.

There’s another scenario where Congress fails to reauthorize Section 702 by the April deadline and allows it to sunset, which could invert the political dynamic and increase pressure to agree to a floor vote.

The intelligence community’s voice is always loudest on these matters, and fearmongering often works. Nobody in Congress wants to be blamed for endangering the country, whether or not the charge is true. However, some insiders on Capitol Hill believe that the widespread backlash to Turner’s stunt last week may actually have bolstered the chances for a vote on reform amendments. It discredited the Intelligence Committee, while angering leadership and the White House in the process.

“This is the closest we’ve ever been to closing the backdoor search loophole and the data broker loophole,” said Sean Vitka, policy director for Demand Progress, who’s been working on this issue for a decade. “Even though both have passed the House before, they’ve never been included as a condition of Section 702’s continuation. That’s why we’re all fighting so hard for this moment.”

LAST THURSDAY, THERE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A FLOOR VOTE on legislation to amend FISA, an ongoing fight that over the years has been routinely stymied by national-security hawks.

FISA Section 702 allows intelligence agencies, mainly the NSA and FBI, to surveil foreigners without a warrant. This extrajudicial power inevitably sweeps in vast troves of information on American citizens in the dragnet that can then be tapped by federal authorities, despite a warrant never being served. The FBI alone engaged in over 200,000 of these “backdoor searches” in 2022, including on political activists. Additionally, government authorities also obtain information on citizens through data brokers, because of a legal loophole in how the Fourth Amendment is implemented.

In December, a temporary extension of Section 702 was inserted into the National Defense Authorization Act, but it is set to expire in April. Despite the fact that the Judiciary Committee passed its reforms overwhelmingly, House leadership at the start of this year agreed to a compromise bill on 702 slightly favoring Intelligence but allowing for floor votes for both sides’ amendments, which Judiciary accepted. Reform advocates were confident they could prevail with their amendments to end backdoor searches on citizens and close the data broker loophole.

The vote was supposed to take place last Thursday. On Tuesday night, the Intelligence Committee voted to make an “intelligence product” available to all members the next day of grave national-security importance—a clear scare tactic to influence the Thursday vote.

But the following day, Turner pushed the gambit too far, issuing a cryptic statement about an imminent unnamed threat that set off a media firestorm. This led to the release of the intelligence regarding Russia’s potential anti-satellite capabilities, which have not yet been deployed. Turner was resoundingly decried, even by his fellow Intelligence Committee members, for exposing intelligence-gathering on a matter not deemed to be a current danger. Amid the panic, Turner was successful in getting leadership to cancel the Thursday vote.

The intelligence community’s voice is always loudest on these matters, and fearmongering often works.

All evidence suggests that was exactly Turner’s plan, even though his ranking member Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) called this interpretation of events a “conspiracy theory.” Despite this assertion, Rep. Himes would not comment to the Prospect on whether he’d call for another vote on the compromise bill, as agreed to.

Since last week’s scuttled vote, representatives have come forward saying that Turner likely already knew about this supposedly immediate threat as far back as two years ago, and didn’t sound the alarm then.

During a CNN interview last week. Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) expressed his dismay at Turner’s stunt, given that the two of them had been briefed on this very intelligence in 2022 while they served as members of the House Armed Services Committee. Moulton’s remarks add further evidence that Turner pulled a stunt last week in order to stop the Thursday vote.

Even though the White House joined the chorus criticizing Turner, intelligence officials confirmed to news outlets that the Russian space nuke reconnaissance was obtained through Section 702 powers, the purported impetus for calling to cleanly extend the program. What was omitted from those reports is that the reform amendments wouldn’t curtail that specific use of 702 on foreigners, only on American citizens.

GOING INTO THIS WEEK, SEVERAL REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVES of the Freedom Caucus were calling for Turner to be stripped of his chairmanship, but those calls have for the most part quieted down.

Behind the scenes, Republican leadership is discussing whether to reschedule another vote on the compromise bill. That would be the optimal scenario that reformers are pushing for, to fulfill the agreement made between the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees. Many believe that Turner has undercut his own influence in these decisions moving forward, which could give the Judiciary more sway.

In particular, Turner has likely hurt the Intelligence Committee’s standing with one of the key stakeholders critical to the future of FISA reforms: the Rules Committee. Several members on Rules support ending warrantless surveillance, and according to Hill sources they were irked by a separate Intelligence Committee stunt last week.

Amid the Russian space nuke mayhem, Intelligence members failed to show up to the Rules Committee hearing, where they were supposed to submit their amendments ahead of Thursday's vote. Their absence was seen as a snub and duplicitous, according to staffers on the Hill.

The Rules Committee’s role in the 702 floor vote is crucial, and could also come into play if leadership tries to insert a full 702 reauthorization into must-pass legislation. If Rules held up 702’s inclusion in that funding bill, then the package could only reach the floor under a procedural move known as suspension. Under suspension, however, the bill would need a two-thirds majority, which would be far more difficult to pull off given the bipartisan support for ending warrantless surveillance. In that scenario, the Freedom Caucus and the House Progressive Caucus, both of which support 702 reforms, could hold up the bill’s passage.

In addition, a government shutdown may be inevitable, based on recent leaks from inside the office of Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA). A stopgap spending bill before an initial March 1 deadline is the best, and maybe the only, must-pass vehicle available into which the FISA 702 extension could be inserted. Without it, the program would be set to expire in April.

SO FAR, THE DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP HAS BEEN MOSTLY QUIET about the future of FISA reforms. Leadership offices wouldn’t comment on whether they’d push for a vote on the compromise bill, plus amendments.

This is despite the fact that Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-MA) have in the past voted in favor of amendments to close the backdoor search loopholes for Section 702 on three separate occasions, from 2014 through 2016.

There is equally some support for reform among individual members of Democratic leadership in the Senate, should the compromise bill and reforms get passed through the House. But the House is where the action is right now.

The support for 702 reform by both Democratic and Republican leadership in the past puts into focus the extent to which intelligence authorities and the White House are the ones pulling the strings to continue Section 702 unchanged at all costs.

One potential juggernaut in the FISA 702 fight over the next several weeks could be civil society groups core to the Democratic coalition, notably abortion groups.

Earlier this month, Sen. Ron Wyden sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission, revealing that a data broker sold individual data to anti-abortion groups on patient visits to health clinics, which were used for targeted ads. This set off fears about the many ways that data could fall into the wrong hands, potentially even to state governments, through third-party brokers.

One reproductive rights group, the National Partnership for Women & Families, has explicitly endorsed legislation that would close the data broker loophole, one of the amendments that would be voted on in the 702 compromise bill. While other abortion rights groups have been quiet about the fight, they could put the White House in an awkward position over its stance on the data broker loophole.

Sunsetting 702 would halt backdoor searches of American citizens by way of stripping the government’s authority to submit new certifications to the Foreign Intelligence Service Court for surveillance on foreigners. However, the government would still hold onto citizens’ existing data in its possession, and even without 702 it would still be able to obtain data through the data broker loophole.

Should 702 expire—a once-unthinkable scenario—it would upend the political dynamic in Congress. It would potentially give reformers leverage, if they held out to force a floor vote on the compromise bill. However, it could also backfire. Intelligence authorities would dial up the threat of the country being vulnerable to terrorist attacks, which would put immense pressure on members of Congress to cave.

Gyges (USIC) Re-Spreads His Cloak in DC

Former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov, left, walks out of his lawyer’s office in downtown Las Vegas after being released from federal custody Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2024. Prosecutors say that Smirnov, who is charged with making up a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving President Joe Biden, his son Hunter and a Ukrainian energy company, had contacts with Russian intelligence-affiliated officials. (K.M. Cannon/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP)

WT Editorial Board, "DOJ indicts FBI informant to protect Biden"

Lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation is a crime — but only if the fib interferes with the Democratic Party’s agenda. Consider the case of Alexander Smirnov, a paid FBI informant who was indicted last week.

Federal prosecutors say Mr. Smirnov was “actively peddling new lies that could impact U.S. elections” and promoting “a new false narrative” about President Biden and his son Hunter. If that’s a crime, why was Christopher Steele not arrested for peddling a dossier filled with nothing but fabrications — paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign — with the intention of hobbling then-candidate Donald Trump in 2016?

Mr. Steele peddled his bundle of deceit to every government official and reporter willing to take his call, doing incalculable damage. Mr. Smirnov, by contrast, spoke only to his FBI handler, which had no impact because the feds have never done anything about Biden family corruption.

By now, the Department of Justice’s game has become familiar. This new indictment was dropped with the intention of generating headlines like NBC’s “Former FBI informant received false information about Bidens from Russian intel officials.” Because so many voters on the left don’t read past the headlines, this tidies up Mr. Biden’s reputation as November approaches.

The same trick was used in the last election campaign, when 50 former intelligence officials — including five CIA directors — asserted that Hunter Biden’s laptop had “all the classic earmarks of Russian disinformation.” This was a lie.

That lie was also designed to safeguard Mr. Biden’s electoral prospects. Those paying attention can draw a valuable lesson from incidents such as these. When intelligence community officials cry “Russia,” there’s a fair chance it’s politically motivated deception.

In his indictment, special counsel David Weiss says Mr. Smirnov’s May 19, 2020, text messages are evidence of the informant’s bias. “It’s all over the news in Russia and Ukraine as well as live calls between [Mr. Biden] and [Ukrainian then-President Petro Poroshenko],” Mr. Smirnov texted. “Smells bad for [Mr. Biden].” Another text said, “Dems tried to impeach [Trump] for same. Even less.”

These messages were referring to the press conference in which Andrii Derkach, then a member of Ukraine’s Parliament, released a recording of the phone call in which Mr. Poroshenko told then-Vice President Joe Biden that he agreed to fire the prosecutor who was investigating the energy company Burisma “despite of the fact that we didn’t have any corruption charges” against him.

Mr. Derkach provided the Big Guy’s motive in forcing Mr. Poroshenko’s hand in the form of documents showing Burisma was paying Mr. Biden’s ne’er-do-well son $1 million a year. A few months later, the Treasury Department sanctioned Mr. Derkach for “cultivating false and unsubstantiated narratives” — even though his material was genuine.

This pattern of silencing whistleblowers is plain to see. Mr. Smirnov, an Israeli and U.S. citizen who lives in Los Angeles, could very well be a knave. Most paid FBI snitches are unsavory characters. Absent evidence to the contrary, however, it appears equally likely that DOJ is amplifying minor misrecollections to burn a source the FBI itself cultivated and compensated.

It’s a bit too convenient that the government’s supposedly impartial lawmen are willing to enforce the law only against Mr. Biden’s opponents. Voters interested in restoring balance to the scales of justice have a chance to do so in November.

And the Biden Crime Family cover-ups continue... will they ever get to the bottom of it?  Are they really even trying, or is it simply another "show for the public" like the John Durham "investigation" was?

Pass the Ukraine Aid Bill!

 h/t - Woodsterman

New Covid Related Propaganda from the Government Fudge Factories...

On "Adjusting" the numbers to get "politically" acceptable results

No need to "pencil whip" US Excess Deaths numbers at CDC.  They simply stopped reporting them.

More Climate Propaganda from the Government Fudge Factories....

Towards a New American Foreign Policy (of "The Federalist Papers" kind)

 

Jack F. Matlock, Jr. is a career diplomat who served as US ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987-1991. Prior to that he was senior director for European and Soviet Affairs on President Reagan’s National Security Council staff and was US ambassador to Czechoslovakia from 1981-1983. Following his retirement from the Foreign Service, he was Kennan Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study. He has written numerous articles and three books about the negotiations that ended the Cold War, the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and U.S. foreign policy following the end of the Cold War. 

Jack F. Matlock, Jr., "The Christmas Gift that Keeps Giving" (February 2024)

On December 24, 1989, Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Ivan Aboimov informed me on behalf of the Soviet government, ‘We have given the Brezhnev Doctrine to you with our compliments. Consider it a Christmas gift.”

Now, some thirty-four years later, I should explain what the Brezhnev Doctrine was, the circumstances under which the gift was conveyed, and why I believe that it was a gift that has infused US foreign policy to this very day.

The Brezhnev Doctrine

The Brezhnev Doctrine alleged that “socialist” (communist-dominated) countries had the right and duty to intervene in any country where a “socialist” government had been threatened. The term developed after the Soviet Union invaded Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. The underlying rationale was that “socialism” was an inevitable stage in human development and that, if it was threatened in a given country, it was the duty of other “socialist” states to intervene to preserve it. Karl Marx had predicted that the “proletariat” would rebel against the ruling “bourgeoisie” and by dictatorship would produce a socialist society that would evolve from socialism (to each according to his contribution) to communism (to each according to his need). Although the “socialist” states had not reached the goal of communism, they were led by the Soviet Union ruled by a party whose name evoked the ultimate goal: the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

The Circumstances

In world politics, December 1989 began with the first summit meeting of George H. W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev, which took place on a Soviet passenger ship in the Malta harbor. (Stormy seas prevented planned meetings on an American destroyer anchored nearby.) The two knew each other since they had met several times when Bush was vice president, but this was their first meeting since Bush had taken office as president. For both, it meant the end of the Cold War. Their joint announcement stated that the Cold War was over, that the USSR would not intervene in Eastern Europe to prevent political change, and that the United States would not “take advantage” of Soviet restraint. President Bush reaffirmed these commitments in a letter to Gorbachev which I was instructed to deliver when I returned to Moscow from Malta.

On December 16, violence against the Ceausescu regime erupted in Romania. Up until then, the fall of Soviet-dominated governments in Eastern Europe had been remarkably peaceful. Gorbachev was true to his word that the Soviet Union would not intervene. In fact, his policies favored the transition of power since he insisted that the communist governments in Eastern Europe needed to reform and refused any help to keep them in power. He welcomed the ambassadors the new democratic governments sent to Moscow as they replaced the ones representing the communist-dominated satellites. By late December, Romania was in the throes of a bloody revolution.

Then, on December 20, the United States invaded Panama to remove its drug-dealing dictator Manuel Noriega, an invasion that lasted through the following January. According to Wikipedia, it caused 516 Panamanian casualties (314 military and 202 civilian) and 26 American (23 military and 3 civilian). A pretty steep price to arrest a drug lord who once worked for the CIA.

On December 23, I received a telegram from the State Department instructing me to seek an appointment with Deputy Minister Aboimov, who had responsibility for Eastern Europe, to get the Soviet assessment of the situation in Romania. The appointment was scheduled for 12:30 the following day. Meanwhile, I received on our recently installed secure telephone a call from the Deputy Secretary for Political Affairs instructing me to make clear to Aboimov that if the Soviet government found it necessary to use military force in Romania—for instance to extract its citizens—President Bush would not consider this a violation of their agreement during the Malta meeting. He added that I should be careful not to imply that we were encouraging intervention. I commented to him that I didn’t see how I could convey that message without it seeming that we were encouraging intervention, but of course I would follow instructions.

I wondered at the time why this request had not been in my written instructions, but assumed that was an afterthought by Secretary James Baker’s staff (or perhaps Baker himself) when they saw the cable to me, presumably drafted and cleared by EUR (the Bureau of European Affairs). It did not occur to me then—though it should have—that senior officials in the Bush administration actually hoped that there would be some Soviet intervention in Romania in order to “balance” perceptions about appropriate behavior in respective spheres of influence.

It was no surprise to me when Aboimov assured me that the Soviet Union would not intervene in Romania. It did surprise me that he would use the term “Brezhnev Doctrine” to refer to earlier Soviet practice since, though it was in common usage in the West, it was not normally used by Soviet officials to describe their policy toward Eastern Europe. Therefore, I accepted his statement as a clever quip and reported it as such to the State Department. The rebellion in Romania ended the day following our meeting with the capture and execution of the Ceausescus.

At the time I had no idea the invasion of Panama would last another month or take anything like the number of lives it did. I believed that the invasion of Panama was a one-off action, taken because so long as Noriega was in control of Panama it was unlikely that the US Senate would ratify the Panama Canal Treaty. Vote on ratification was imminent and ratification was considered of vital importance for our future relations with our neighbors in Latin America.

It did not occur to me then that military intervention would be adopted by the American government as a favored instrument to promote “democracy” in other countries. After all, if democracy is, as Lincoln stated, government of, by, and for the people, how can an outsider create it? Overt intervention in another country’s politics is likely to boomerang, strengthening the autocratic forces who can claim that the democratic forces are agents of a foreign adversary—or worse—an enemy.

From the Brezhnev Doctrine to the “Liberal World Order”

Marx had predicted that communism was the inevitable future of mankind, therefore attempts to assist it were simply acting in accord with the flow of history. In the mid 1980s, Soviet leaders still held to that belief. When President Ronald Reagan, during their first meeting, asked Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko if he believed in a world-wide communist state, Gromyko replied that he did, but it was like his belief that tomorrow the sun would rise in the east. It did not require Soviet help. (He didn’t add, “But there is nothing wrong with helping,” which he probably thought.)

Later, when Reagan first met Gorbachev, he complained about Soviet support for revolutionary movements in Africa and Latin America. Gorbachev explained that the Soviet Union was acting in harmony with the inevitable decolonization of these areas and the United States should understand that this was the future. In effect, he advised Reagan to get used to it; it’s going to happen so stop complaining.

By the end of 1988, Gorbachev had changed his mind on that question. In a speech to the United Nations General Assembly in December, he declared that Soviet policy would be based on the “common interests of mankind.” This was an implicit but clear rejection of the Marxist “class struggle” which had earlier been the foundation of Soviet foreign policy, including the Brezhnev Doctrine. Gorbachev then showed that the change of ideology was genuine by not attempting in 1989 to thwart the democratic revolutions in Eastern Europe. Therefore, the Brezhnev doctrine was available for transfer when Aboimov conveyed the gift.

The Soviet Union passed into history on December 25, 1991, when Gorbachev announced, “I am ceasing my activity in the post of president of the USSR,” the Soviet red flag was lowered from the Kremlin flagpole, and the Russian tricolor raised. This event engendered widespread belief in three questionable assumptions: (1) that the United States, or the West “won” the Cold War; (2) that Western pressure caused the break-up of the Soviet Union; (3) that Russia was a defeated party.

Close attention to all the facts would have suggested: (1) that the Cold War ended by negotiation when the Soviet leader abandoned the policies that caused it in the first place and was as much in the interest of the USSR as it was in the interest of the United States and NATO; (2) the Soviet Union broke up because of internal pressures, not external ones from the United States and NATO, and (3) Boris Yeltsin, the elected president of the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic, declared Russia’s independence and engineered the break-up of the USSR.

This happened over the period of a few months in 1991. During that time, the Bush administration hoped Gorbachev could preserve a voluntary union minus the three Baltic countries. In a speech delivered to the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada on August 1, 1991, Bush advised the Ukrainians (and implicitly the other non-Baltic Soviet republics) to join a voluntary union as Gorbachev proposed and to avoid “suicidal nationalism.”

Therefore, the total break-up of the USSR in December 1991 was a defeat for American policy at the time, not a victory as would subsequently be claimed and believed by most people, in both the United States and Europe.

* * *

After the Soviet collapse, America’s Neocons—who had argued that negotiation with the USSR would be fruitless—suddenly proclaimed that the United States was the sole surviving “superpower,” which meant that while world politics had been “bipolar,” controlled by the US and the USSR, it was now “unipolar,” controlled by the US alone. The only debate in those circles was whether “unipolarity” would be a permanent condition or only temporary, a “unipolar moment” as some dubbed it.

The problem with this interpretation was at least twofold: military power could destroy but was hardly useful in building something new, and military threats to another country were much more likely to encourage authoritarianism than democracy.

In 1993, Francis Fukuyama, a political scientist who worked for a time on the State Department’s Policy Planning staff, provided another foundation element for what came to be called the “Liberal World Order” in a widely cited book entitled The End of History and the Last Man, published in 1993.

What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.

The prediction that any present system could be “the final form of human government” was a breathtaking allegation totally void of any supporting historical fact. It was just as fanciful as Karl Marx’s prediction that a proletarian revolution would result in a world free of competing classes, government compulsion and strife. Yet it led to a presumption that the United States could use its military and economic power to transform other societies into democracies with capitalist economies that would live in peace with one another.

The goal came to be called the Liberal World Order. Note the following correspondences:

BREZHNEV DOCTRINE

Ability and duty of USSR and its allies to spread and defend “socialism” from internal or external threats.

LIBERAL WORLD ORDER

Ability and duty of US and its allies to spread and defend “democracy” from internal or external threats.

Note also that in neither case did the sponsors of the Brezhnev Doctrine and the Liberal 
World Order define precisely what they meant by socialism or democracy. In practice, only nation-states they dominated were considered to meet the necessary criteria.

End of Cold War to Hot War?

In the early 1990s, it appeared that the world was headed for a period—maybe even a future– of peace between and among the larger nations. There were conflicts here and there, some involving serious atrocities, but they were local and, it would seem, possible to mitigate or even resolve without the direct participation of the United States on one side or the other. The United States, itself virtually invulnerable to attack by other countries, had an opportunity to develop a security system based on cooperation among the larger countries. Instead, the US too often chose hegemony over cooperation, just as the Soviet Union had done in its heyday in Eastern Europe.

Let me suggest just a few examples which illustrate why Aboimov’s gift has kept giving. They are extracted from highly complex situations which require much more detailed examination and discussion to understand in full. But, in all, there is a constant thread of American attempts to use military force or economic power to favor one side or the other in disputes that can only be solved by diplomacy and compromise.

Europe

Following the Cold War and the Soviet collapse, Europe needed a security system that bridged the earlier East-West division and guaranteed the security of all. Following World War II, the United States had wisely insisted that France and Germany bury the hatchet and start uniting rather than dividing Western Europe. This was an implicit but real condition for the economic aid the Marshall Plan provided.

In the 1990s, the task in Europe was to bring Russia and the successor states of the Soviet Union into a system of mutual security so that they could undertake the difficult task of converting their state-controlled command economies into market economies. As they did so, they could negotiate economic relations with the European Union as a group, planning the gradual development of a common market. Instead of supporting this process, the US tried to split the former Soviet republics from Russian influence.

In the security sphere, from the late 1990s each succeeding American administration added new members to NATO and then began to station military bases on the territory of the new members. The Clinton administration and its successor failed to continue efforts to reduce nuclear weapons and by the second Bush administration the US started withdrawing from the arms control agreements that had halted the nuclear arms race and permitted an end to the Cold War. This process continued until the one remaining nuclear arms control agreement (New Start) was suspended by Russia after its invasion of Ukraine.

In Europe, we are approaching the third year of war in Ukraine, a war that could have been prevented if the US had been willing to guarantee that Ukraine would not be granted NATO membership. Instead, the US and its NATO allies are trying to strangle Russia economically with sanctions of a severity that normally would be permissible only during a formal declaration of war. In the process, Ukraine’s very existence as an independent, sovereign nation is under threat and there are few impediments to the use of nuclear weapons if this war continues.

Middle East

War is also underway in what we traditionally have called the Middle East: Israel continues to attack Gaza, where for decades it has kept Palestinians, many of them refugees from Israel proper, in an open-air prison. A war of this intensity bears the earmarks of genocide since the avowed Israeli purpose is to eliminate or expel Palestinians from their traditional home. It is not a war initiated by the United States, but it is one that might well have been prevented by a different diplomacy. In the 1990s, quiet diplomacy by Norway brought the Israeli government and leading Palestinians to the brink of a settlement that would have provided two states in the Palestinian area, one Jewish and one Palestinian. Ultimately this failed and, despite US opposition and warnings, Israel continued to increase the Jewish presence in the occupied “West Bank,” to maintain a blockade of the two million plus Palestinians in the tiny Gaza strip, and when it perceived threats (often inaccurately) to attack its neighbors in violation of international law.

Elsewhere in the Middle East and contiguous areas, the US has initiated or participated in at least three full-scale wars and numerous other military interventions. Since 2000, the US has invaded and occupied Afghanistan (for a time), Iraq (where we destroyed an entire government and gave impetus to the terrorist forces we were ostensibly fighting), and Syria, where we intervened without the request of the government we recognized and, in part, in an effort to remove it. For decades we have maintained extensive economic sanctions against Iran. After the Obama administration participated in a multilateral agreement to prevent Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons, President Trump withdrew. As a candidate for the presidency, Joseph Biden promised to re-enter the agreement but failed to do so after he took office.

Now, in mid-January 2024, the entire Middle East and adjacent areas (note the recent military exchanges between Iran and nuclear-armed Pakistan) seem to comprise a giant powder keg on the brink of explosion. Attacks from Aden threaten shipping in the Red Sea. Most Arab and many non-Arab Muslim countries are seething over what they consider ongoing genocide in Gaza and violent ethnic cleansing in the Palestinian West Bank. Missile exchanges continue between Lebanon and Syria on the one hand and Israel on the other.

The point is not that the US created all this violence. In some cases (the invasion of Iraq) it did, but in others it was not the main offender. Nevertheless, Israel could not continue pounding the entrapped population of Gaza to extinction if the US refused to supply the ordnance. As for the other conflicts, they may well have been contained or avoided if the US, rather than jumping in with military force, had used its influence to calm or keep local the area’s many territorial and doctrinal disputes.

East Asia

Since the end of the Cold War, China has made unprecedented progress in meeting the human needs of its population. Despite its apparent rejection of “democracy” when it quelled the uprising in Tienanmen Square in 1989, the Chinese Communist Party started promoting capitalist development in a big way. It did so without losing its ultimate grip on power, in contrast to the experience of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union when its leader, attempting to democratize, lost control. The result was spectacular: from the early 1990s to 2020 (the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic), China probably set a world record for achieving the greatest improvement in the lives of the most people in the shortest time. This happened without free, competitive elections or any pretense at “Western style” democracy.

Now, in the grip of Chinese leader Xi Jinping, some political dissidents have been arrested, some of the high-flying capitalists have been brought to heel, the electoral freedom of Hong Kong has been restricted, and members of the Uighur minority in Xinjiang have been herded into “re-education” camps. All of these are regrettable developments which will affect the quality of life for many Chinese, but they are developments that only the Chinese can reverse or modify. They are not going to be ameliorated by reprovals from the US government, particularly when accompanied by policies designed to “contain China” or hobble its economic development.

Nevertheless, US economic policy in itself is not likely to produce armed conflict with China. The danger comes from US policies and actions that the Chinese government perceives threaten China’s security, national dignity, or deserved status in the region. The US practice of patrolling the coast of China by air and sea and controlling adjacent waterways is seen as provocative. American support for Taiwanese independence is seen as an impermissible interference in a Chinese domestic struggle.

Senior American politicians and military commanders are urging preparations for a war with China if necessary to defend Taiwan. As much as one may admire the economic progress the people of Taiwan have made and sympathize with their desire not to be controlled by an autocratic government in Beijing, it would be reckless to the point of insanity for the United States to risk war with China in defense of Taiwan.

While overall the United States has a much stronger military establishment than China, China has developed a modern army, air force, and navy with a growing number of nuclear weapons. China is not able to compete with the United States as a global hegemon as some seem to fear. But China is acutely sensitive to foreign attempts to limit its sovereignty, having been carved up by Western imperialists in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, then invaded by Japan in the twentieth. China can almost certainly prevail locally in a conflict near its border. If it chose to use nuclear weapons against the US fleet in the Taiwan Strait, how could the US retaliate without endangering its own homeland?

The Common Thread

I have cited just a few examples of American military intervention in faraway conflicts that did not threaten the American people’s security or well-being. Just as the USSR supported revolutions to create “socialism” and military intervention in other countries to preserve it (the Brezhnev Doctrine), so has the United States justified its military activity abroad as necessary to create, support, and defend what it calls “democracy.”

Numerous questions arise. Here are a few, chosen almost at random from some that are basic and at least one trivial:

If, in a Liberal World Order (sometimes called the “rules-based order”), one country does not invade or make war against another unless attacked or authorized by the United Nations Security Council, how is it that the US and its NATO allies unleashed an undeclared war by bombing Serbia in 1999? A more egregious offense occurred subsequently when the United States, along with Great Britain and a few others, invaded, occupied, and destroyed the entire government of Iraq, justifying the action by the false assertion that Iraq had illegally retained weapons of mass destruction.

How is it that the United States and NATO are conducting an all-but-declared war against Russia because of its invasion of Ukraine, but are providing the weapons and political cover to Israel to conduct a genocidal campaign against the people living in Gaza?

Does a “rules-based order” allow a country to invade another and attempt to remove its leader? (Note Syria.)

Is it proper for a powerful country that has more than once violated the rules of the Liberal World Order to assume the role of enforcer of rules it has violated, even to the point of conducting economic warfare against an alleged offender?

If the US goal is to create and defend democracies, how is it that it arms one of the world’s last remaining absolute monarchies, Saudi Arabia?

If NATO is an alliance of democracies, how is it that Montenegro, an autocracy and one of the world’s most corrupt countries, qualified for membership?

The list could be extended much longer, but the overall conclusion must be that with all the complexity and uncertainty that marks today’s conflicts, there is one common thread: military intervention by the US to resolve conflicts between and within other countries. Just as Brezhnev invaded “socialist” countries to preserve socialism, our American government is attempting to use its military and economic power to impose its political system on the world. It is not working any better than it did for Brezhnev. It is time the United States discarded the poisoned chalice Deputy Minister Aboimov handed me that Christmas Eve of 1989. 

The Birth of a New Scientific Dark Age

A German Assessment of Geopolitics and the Ukraine War

FREE Julian Assange!!!!!

When George Soros famously shorted the the pound sterling in like ’92 or whatever, which led to him writing “The Alchemy of Finance” where he said that “Alchemy is not interested in truth like the scientific method, it’s interested in operational success.” The method he said that they used to do the Alchemy of Finance was reflexivity.

The Deep State (USIC) fears the Truth.  And they want to extradite Assange to the US so that they can be CERTAIN that the Truth NEVER comes out.  Assange threatens all future Alchemy payments to the US Intelligence Community (USIC) for operational successes that require the obfuscation of Truth.

Why Democrat's "Standards" are always Double Standards....

“Everybody has asked the question. . ."What shall we do with the Negro?" I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are wormeaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall! I am not for tying or fastening them on the tree in any way, except by nature's plan, and if they will not stay there, let them fall. And if the Negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone!”

― Fredrick Douglass

ANTIFA.  Proud Members of the DNC's Rainbow Guard!

Why Do Democrats HATE Putin so Much?

Jealousy?   Or...

Can you say Gonzalo Lira?  Julian Assange?  J6 Political Prisoner?  Multiple Civil and Criminal Charges Against Political Opponents?  FISA Abuses?  Spying on US Citizens?  Censoring US Citizens?

... pure...

How Can ANTIFA be caught Parroting Putin Anti-Fascist Propaganda, TODAY?  It's Unseamly. Putin to ANTIFA...

The Censorious State of US Healthcare Information...

What could possibly explain this grotesque lack of accurate medical information???

Pediatrician Rachel Levine, the assistant secretary of health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, became the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps' first ever-female four-star officer upon being sworn in Oct 19. The 6,000-person U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps is one of the nation's eight uniformed services and works to advance public health issues and provide health-related disaster relief.

Democrats Aren't Racist... Really! They're just "Uncomfortable".

On Making White Democrats Feel Comfortable

Coming Soon: Joe Biden's Black Knight Riding to the Rescue... cuz:

It's time for White Democrats to Start Feeling Comfortable Again!

What DOESN'T Gyges Want You to See or Know Here?

The Censor's Cloak of Gyges Always Covers ALL Bureaucratic Sins and Supports All PC Narratives Gee, Maybe if we knew the actual uncensored problem, we could start thinking about how to develop real Democratic (not unconstitutional) solutions for addressing the so-called "gun problem"? After all, it may not even turn out be what the PC Narrative censors are calling it, "a gun problem". Maybe it's a "drug problem" or an "education problem" or a "family structure" problem". But no, the censors want to limit any "solution" to unconstitutional "gun restrictions". It makes you more dependent upon their "benevolent protection" that way. And you can always ask your sharp, intensly probing and detail oriented godfather for a favour on the day of his daughters wedding.... so long as you kiss his ring beforehand.

Gaza? The Solution is Simple.

...FREE the hostages.  THEN we'll talk ceasefires.

A Futurist's Political Forecast

Propaganda @ America's Newspaper of Record

Were Journalistic Standards Always this Poor?

Putin's REAL Puppet Finally Revealed

Matt Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger, and Alex Gutentag, "CIA 'Cooked The Intelligence' To Hide That Russia Favored Clinton, Not Trump, In 2016, Sources Say"

The Russians didn't fear a Hillary Clinton presidency. “It was a relationship they were comfortable with,” CIA analysts believed

The Trump-Russia scandal made its formal launch on January 6th, 2017, when the office of the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper published what’s called an “Intelligence Community Assessment,” or “ICA,” as it’s universally known in Washington.

Release of the ICA dominated headlines, fixed Donald Trump in the minds of millions of Americans as a Manchurian candidate controlled by Vladamir Putin, and upended his in-coming administration.

The report declared that Russia and Putin interfered in the 2016 presidential election to “denigrate” Hillary Clinton and “harm her electability,” thanks to their “clear preference for President-elect [Donald] Trump.”

It was powerful stuff. And it was dead wrong.

The documents make it quite clear that the evidence showed that the Kremlin wanted Hillary Clinton to win, but partisans in the intelligence community wanted to get Trump. So Brennan, an Obama partisan, handpicked his intelligence analysts, who would then cherrypick intelligence to reach the conclusion that Brennan wanted. 

How they accomplished this was incredibly disturbing:

Former CIA Director John Brennan and the ICA authors “embellished” their conclusion by upgrading unreliable sources to reliable, the source said. “They upgraded in the writing of their report to let those sources have more credibility and a higher rating. We caught them on 3-4 items where those people didn’t have a credible historic reporting line and changed the source rating for that Brennan report.”

Dissent, even within Brennan’s group of 24 “hand-picked” analysts — not from 17 agencies but just four, and really just three, when one considers the ODNI is just a coordinating agency — was overruled. 

None of this information that Public and Racket shared was publicly available until now. And the story continues down a very disturbing path. According to Public, "Multiple sources said Brennan’s exclusion of the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence Research (INR) were and are red flags pointing to a manipulated conclusion."

Former CIA official Ray McGovern said, “The real story is that Brennan and [former Director of National Intelligence James] Clapper succeeded in marginalizing both the State Department and the DIA, which has primary responsibility for the GRU.”