Day Two of the Impeachment Public Hearings

Dear Chairman Schiff,


           Another day of the impeachment public hearings where the former Ambassador to Ukraine testified before the Intelligence Committee . . . 


           Democrats asked the Ambassador how it made her feel to be the victim of a smear campaign.  She reasonably responded that she did not appreciate having her reputation impugned or maligned.  To be frank, this is a relatively trivial scene compared with the broader smear campaign that has been continuous for over three years to remove a duly elected President of the United States.


           Even Russia continues to be smeared when the Ambassador, at the prodding by Democrats, repeats the meme that Russia hacked into the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) server.  She even emphasized that it was a consensus by the intelligence community that Russia hacked into the DNC server.  As of this writing, no one has asked the Ambassador how the intelligence community arrived at that conclusion.  The obvious answer would be, Crowdstrike.  Who is Crowdstrike?  Crowdstrike is a private sector firm hired by the DNC to examine the server (this publicity certainly made company founders billionaires when the company went public).  The federal government was not permitted by the DNC to do the examination.  Thus, the “intelligence community” (including Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper and Director of the CIA John Brennan) took Crowdstrike’s word for it.


           What else do we know about Crowdstrike?  Former National Security Agency (NSA) technical experts refute the claims about what Crowdstrike found.  Others also investigated controversial connections between the Obama Administration, the Atlantic Council, George Soros, and Google.  Yet, Democrats and their smear campaign cohort would lead us to believe this is a crazy conspiracy theory advanced by an individual who has been relentlessly smeared.


           Goodness . . . now Democrats are getting emotional and saying with red faces, “I am ANGRY!!!”  Words matter!!!!!!!  Pay attention to these words.  Pay attention to the words we are saying to smear President Trump.  Let us be clear:  evidence has little to do with our smear campaign against a man we never, ever, from day one liked or accepted as a duly elected President.


           I’m surprised that no one asked the Ambassador to what extent she moved the needle on Ukrainian corruption during her tenure.  While some efforts were mentioned, there seemed to be no reportable outcomes.

           I'm also surprised that no one asked the Ambassador if she felt like she was in good company with General MacArthur who was fired (and not moved into a prestigious fellowship) by President Truman.


           Mr. Chairman:  If the President of the United States, under his authority in Article II of the Constitution, wants to achieve results in a country considered one of the most corrupt of those important to America’s national interests, why would he not want to put in key positions those he chooses?


Respectfully,

Gadfly

A Deep and Dark Rabbit Hole

by

Gadfly

On more than one occasion during a conversation, the other party attempted to detour my line of reasoning by saying, “I’m not going down that rabbit hole!”  In some cases, I would admit that the thrust was tangential to the central theme or argument and backed off.  In others, I realized that I was actually trying to find an exit from the rabbit hole from which we were already starting.  This is America’s current dilemma:  we are in a deep and dark rabbit hole.  Most do not like it, yet also do not really know its nature and why we are in it.

In a sentence, how can we describe the rabbit hole?  We have a President that the left has never accepted and has never ceased to find a way to remove him.

The leftist cabal wants to forget the political and illegal maneuvers (protecting their favored candidate from criminal prosecution while illegally spying on their political opponent) that preceded the 2016 election.  The Mueller investigation failed despite the corrupt maneuvering to even get to the appointment of a special prosecutor (more still continues to surface, such as Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein’s seditious actions, yet the mainstream media is not interested).

Even Republicans or alleged Trump apologists argue that the name Biden should never have been mentioned in the July 25 telephone call between President Trump and the newly-elected Ukrainian President.  The rationale is that it implicated a motivation for dirt on a political rival.  Thus, by inference, this logic suggests a quid pro quo.

            Hardly anyone wants to advance an argument that Trump believes in the rule of law and as America’s chief law enforcer he has a moral and legal obligation to exercise his authority when he has probable cause of a crime.  In this case, the possible crime is bribery by the second most powerful man in the world.  Yet, like the recent whistle-blower, the leftist cabal cloaks him in a defensive shield because he is an opposing candidate in the 2020 presidential election.  To advance the notion that Trump’s motivation was to seek dirt (as Schiff blatantly claims in his fabricated script during a recent House Intelligence hearing) on a political opponent completely negates, through political fiat, the President’s Constitutional authority and obligations.

Ironically, the public becomes duped again by the current leftist cabal political smear, which advances the narrative from a “whistle-blower” perspective as opposed to “a leaker” perspective as highlighted in a recent New Yorker column.  The article is biased and employs cherry-picking tactics, but it provides a lens for peering into the leftist paradigm.  In the same issue of The New Yorker, there is a blatant hit piece (“The Invention of the Conspiracy Theory on Biden and Ukraine”) to debunk or censor views and evidence from other sources, such as Fox News and The Hill’s John Solomon.

To add to the confusion, on today’s Meet the Press, during a contentious interview with Senator Ron Johnson (this should happen more frequently by our elected officials—corruption can only be defeated by virtue, especially courage), Chuck Todd pressed him into answering the question, “Do you believe Russia interfered with our election?”  To which he answered, “Yes.”  This is how insidious propaganda can be.

 

The implication of Todd’s question is that Russia hacked into the Democratic National Committee (DNC) server.  This meme followed a DNC email dump announcement in advance by Wikileaks.  Democrats had to deflect the focus from the actual contents of the emails, which were damning.  Instead, they shaped the narrative by suggesting Russia, in collusion with the Trump campaign, did the hacking and then shared the contents with Wikileaks.  The DNC refused to let the FBI examine the server for evidence.  Instead, they hired Crowdstrike to complete the examination.  Taking their word for it, Director of National Intelligence Clapper and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency announced that there was a consensus among the intelligence community that Russia hacked into the DNC server (for a far more compelling analysis of this scenario, which debunks these claims, see “A New Report Raises Big Questions About Last Year’s DNC Hack,” The Nation, August 9, 2017).

 

A more precise answer to Todd’s question should have been, “According to Crowdstrike, a private firm hired by the DNC, Russia hacked into the server.  There was no corroborating investigation by government agencies.”  By denying government participation and hiring a private firm, the DNC avoided the risk of the discovery of criminal activity.  Imagine someone bringing a criminal allegation against another party where the district attorney’s office is expected to prosecute the case but only with “evidence” purchased by the accuser’s own sources. This is what happened in the Russia interference meme.

 

This meme almost happened in the McMartin trial mentioned in my last article.  When the defense lawyer actually examined video tapes of a therapist planting stories in the minds of children, he realized the therapist manufactured evidence that was then amplified by the media (in particular with a reporter that scooped all the exclusive interviews while he was sexually involved with the therapist—true story).  But it took seven years for the gears of the justice system to discover the truth and deliver justice for the defendants (even though they became financially bankrupt and their reputations were destroyed).  There was no justice for the perpetrators of the child molestation scandal.  They continued on with their lives and professions without any accountability.  Hopefully, this lack of accountability does not become the postscript for the current perpetrated scandals.  This is why Attorney General Barr and U.S. Attorney Durham’s efforts are so critical.

Missing from this “Russian hacking” picture is why Seth Rich, a DNC staffer, was executed about a month after Wikileaks announced it would publish the emails.  Dead men tell no lies, nor truths for that matter.  The left has gotten away, so far, with destroying evidence (IRS, 30,000 subpoenaed emails, etc.).

For more confusion, even the right-of-center The Washington Examiner published an opinion piece, “Trump Misfires:  Senate Democrats’ Letter to Ukraine Was Fine,” that claimed there was nothing wrong when three Democrat Senators pressured (see the letter here) the government to cooperate in the Mueller investigation, specifically singling out Paul Manafort.  The article’s author claims the Senators had the right to do this based on a Mutual Legal Aid Treaty.  Yet, the author seems to deny the President of the United States, America’s chief law enforcer under Article II of the Constitution, the same right.  Ukraine has been seriously implicated in the Russian dossier that served as the predicate for spying on Trump’s campaign.  Why should the President be politically handcuffed in seeking justice?

According to The Hill’s John Solomon, a leading investigative journalist reporting on emerging details of the deep and dark rabbit hole: “Politics. Pressure. Opposition research. All were part of the Democrats’ playbook on Ukraine long before Trump ever called Zelensky this summer. And as Sen. Murphy’s [a Democrat Senators threat to Ukraine to back off of investigations if it wants to get American aid] foray earlier this month shows, it hasn’t stopped.”  For additional evidence to support this assertion see, “Let’s Get Real:  Democrats Were First to Enlist Ukraine in U.S. Elections.”

Lest we forget, at the manipulative urging by British spy Christopher Steele and GPS Fusion Glenn Simpson, the late Senator John McCain was used as an instrument to dispatch his aid David Kramer (employed by the McCain Institute) to get a copy of the dossier for presentation to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and to leak it to the press.  If one has read the Mueller report, there are numerous footnotes to news reports, as if the news reports were actual evidence.    Fifteen news sources claim collusion; therefore, it must be true.  This is the way propaganda works.

As readers of these Gadfly Corner articles are aware, I have referenced material from former members of the Communist Party who have memorialized their experiences as Communists.  Douglas Hyde was an editor for The Daily Worker in London.  In his book, I Believed:  The Autobiography of a Former British Communist, Hyde documents how stories were told to advance the Party line and to discredit those who opposed the Communist doctrine.  The tactics are consistent with those at play today.  The attempt to discredit alternative news sources such as Fox News and John Solomon, in particular, seek to advance the Party line.

Closer to home, American Louis Francis Budenz memorialized his experiences as well, in particular, in his books This Is My Story and The Techniques of Communism.  In the latter book, Budenz devotes a chapter with the title, “Affecting Public Opinion.”  He talks about “psychological warfare” and asserts “the Communists were aware of the power of this weapon as an outstanding means to advance the ‘class war.’”  He goes on to say: “To the followers of Lenin and Stalin, . . . [t]heir great asset was infiltration of the institutions and organizations of the country they plan to undermine, following Lenin’s instructions to employ perjury and deceit and Stalin’s directive to make transmission belts of those organizations for the Communist line” (p. 153).  Communism is socialism.

My friends, the deep and dark rabbit hole is the socialist infiltration of America’s institutions:  the government, the media, Hollywood, academia, teachers’ unions, think tanks such as the Center for American Progress, religious institutions, and so forth.

 

As much as President Trump argues that America will never be a socialist nation, he is championing an effort to counter the fact that major institutions have already been afflicted.  Former Secretary of the Treasury William Simon warned us about the infiltration in his 1978 book, A Time for Truth.  Malachi Martin warned us about Soviet Communist infiltration of the Roman Catholic Church in his 1978 book, The Final Conclave.  Bella Dodd, in her memoir, The School of Darkness, confessed to the infiltration of labor unions (especially teachers) and the Catholic Church (she had direct knowledge, saying “in the 1930s we put eleven hundred men into the priesthood in order to destroy the church from within”).

In any socialist system, there is only one commandment (as Orwell tells it in his novel, Animal Farm):  All animals are equal; some are more equal than others.  Those in power are the ruling class in a totalitarian state.  They enjoy luxury and power while the rest of society are equally miserable.  The miserable in Venezuela who trusted in promised “hope and change” now suffer from the deep and dark rabbit hole its ruling class took them.

Despite the leftist cabal’s deliberate and concerted caricaturing (consistent with “Lenin’s instructions to employ perjury and deceit and Stalin’s directive to make transmission belts of those organizations for the Communist line”) of President Trump, my hope and confidence is in him as the means for escaping the deep and dark rabbit hole the left has taken us.    

The Mueller Report: June 15, 2018

            IM:  Gentlemen, I had an interesting dream last night.  It involved a report by newly appointed special counsel Robert Mueller to the Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein.  It summarized findings stemming from his investigation.  With Rosenstein’s permission the report was allowed to be made public at a national press conference on Friday, June 15, 2018 at 2:00 PM Eastern Standard Time.

            AM:  I suspect, as Democrats have been pining for, Mueller's report sought prosecution of President Trump and some of his lieutenants.  After all, when Mueller was the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), he actually reported to Comey when Comey was the Deputy Attorney General.  News reports indicate they had a cozy relationship. In the left’s opinion, prosecution would be suitable retribution for colluding with the Russians to steal the election.

            

          Old Gadfly:  IM, before we hear about your dream, let me remind you that there is a reason we have heard members of the left refer to the current developments as “Nixonian” or “shades of Watergate.”  There have been deliberate actions by Democrats that parallel efforts to take down Nixon.  The media amplified the effect then as now. On the 10^th of May, this was a New York Times headline:  “In Trump Firing of James Comey, Echoes of Watergate.”  Today’s Democrats essentially held Rod Rosenstein hostage to the idea of a special counsel in order to secure confirmation.  Similar actions took place when Democrats held hostage Elliott Richardson and William Ruckelshaus for attorney general and deputy attorney general, respectively.  This took place during Senate confirmation hearings as Watergate was unfolding.  Although this may sound like a strange connection, Richardson’s so called “independent prosecutor,” Archibald Cox, was cozy with Democrats, actually inviting Senators Ted Kennedy and the widow of Robert Kennedy to his swearing in ceremony.[1]  One would think that Cox would take the necessary precautions to avoid appearing partisan. 

As I explained in a previous discussion, in the 1950s U.S. Congressman Richard Nixon was the lead investigator that led to the conviction of Alger Hiss, a Communist agent for the Soviet GRU but a close friend of highly placed Democrats.  According to Philip Elman, in 1943, he, Alger Hiss, and Archibald Cox worked together under Dean Acheson at the State Department.[2]  Do you get the drift? 

Unfortunately, a lot of what we know about Watergate is folklore.  More recent historians secured access to recently released original documents that indicate Nixon was innocent of any crimes yet unjustly convicted based on fabrications and manipulation of the public narrative.  In other words, Nixon was tried and convicted in the public court, orchestrated by power centers on the left:  Democrats (elected and in judicial roles) and the media.  In the process, laws were broken in terms of conspiracy and collusion by prosecutors and judges.[3]  And the media loves leaks now as they did then.  Tell me again.  How are The New York Times and The Washington Post different from Wikileaks?

            

           AM:  They are worse—they betray the essence of freedom of the press in America.  However, there is some irony and an abundance of truth in Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s observation that American newspapers are like the Communist newspapers of the former Soviet Union.  So Trump is screwed!!  Déjà vu all over again!!  

           

           IM:  Take a breath guys.  Let me tell you my dream.  You are going to find this hard to believe.  Here goes . . .

Going into the summer of 2018, Democrats were projected to rout Republicans in the mid-term elections—nationally and at the state level.  The media was already spiking the football as public figures from the left talked about the final phase of a transformed America.  Finally, one political party was on the verge of completely dominating political values for America.  America was about to become Soviet America, adopting the Communist Party USA’s slogan:  people and planet before profit.

Democrats kept investigations going in the House and Senate, periodically giving press reports that they were close to completing them, that they were convinced of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians.  Every week there was some bombshell report in The New York Times or Washington Post based on leaks from anonymous sources within the government.  Hillary Clinton began building a campaign staff for the 2020 elections.  Surprisingly, throughout this time, Mueller provided absolutely no reports on the investigation.  Miraculously, there were no leaks from his staff.

Then, on Thursday, June 14, 2018, Mueller announced that he would publicly present the results of the investigation the next day at 2:00 PM Eastern Standard Time.  Not known for drama, Mueller requested a coliseum and maximum coverage on all the networks.  Republicans and Trump supporters were already preparing for the bad news.  Democrats and the media were already talking about lengthy prison terms and celebrating final retribution for stealing the election.

The appointed time arrived.  Mueller took the stage and announced two major findings.  First, there was no evidence of collusion with Russia.  Second, the investigation into any evidence of obstruction of justice revealed serious violations of the law.  Commentators on MSNBC and CNN wanted to be the first to start listing names of those they believed were involved:  President Trump when he suggested that “I hope you can let it go,” Lt General Flynn, Jared Kushner, Steve Bannon, and so forth. 

Then, Mueller looked into the camera and declared the investigation revealed a network of conspirators with an overwhelming rabbit trail of incriminating evidence.  Secret grand juries had already been held, gag orders were issued to all parties involved. 

The thread for this aspect of the investigation began with Comey.  Mueller wanted to know if the Wikileaks material had any other source other than Russia.  He discovered that the Washington DC police had been investigating the death of Seth Rich, an idealistic 27-year old staff member of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) but had been pressured by Comey to back off since the FBI was already investigating this issue in light of the broader Russian collusion investigation.  Mueller discovered that while Russia had in fact hacked into the DNC email system, the actual material from Wikileaks actually came from Seth Rich.  Rich was found with two bullets to the back.  His wallet was intact with cash and credit cards—clearly the appearance of an assassination.  Authentic emails from Podesta previously expressed the intent to make an example of a leaker, “whether or not we have any real basis for it.”  This communication was more than circumstantial and far more egregious than President Trump’s “I hope you can let it go” request of Comey.  The Clinton campaign insisted upon not working with the press, unless they could directly control the narrative.  Yet, when it came to their attempt to spin the news with the trumped up Russian dossier on candidate Trump, I became very concerned that the FBI actually contributed to the narrative by leaking it to the press.

Obviously, we opened the aperture and justified reopening the Clinton email case.  We reversed immunity granted to various members associated with this case.  Despite an aggressive attempt to destroy evidence—an act that is obstruction of justice—we gathered sufficient evidence to seek indictments from a grand jury.  Besides Hillary, husband William, John Podesta, Sidney Blumenthal, and a host of other associates, we will be pursuing prosecutions and maximum sentences.  Commentators on MSNBC and CNN were visibly shocked.  Some began to cry uncontrollably.

Mueller continued.  The thread of our investigation led to other criminal activity within the Justice Department, the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the National Security Council (NSC), the National Security Agency (NSA), and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).  Although Lois Lerner deserved prosecution for her role in censoring voices on the right, we granted immunity to get evidence that took us not only to the political officer appointed to the IRS, but to members of the White House staff.  Valerie Jarrett immediately sought immunity to provide evidence that proved Barack Obama was involved in covering up illegal activity in Fast and Furious, the Benghazi attack, prisoner exchanges with Afghanistan and Iran, and other less known activities.  Attorneys General Holder and Lynch also conspired to support political actions contrary to public law.  These were the big fish in the conspiracy.  Since the evidence is irrefutable, we are pressing forward with these prosecutions as we also continue to follow the thread throughout the conspiracy, to include leakers within the NSC, the FBI, the NSA, and the CIA.  We are also considering seditious behavior considerations for journalists who collaborated in these activities knowing the motive or intent of the leakers was to subvert the legitimacy of a constitutionally elected President.

Although I did not vote for President Trump, nor do I even appreciate his agenda or style, as a man of the law, I had no other moral obligation but to enforce actions in his attempt to drain the swamp.  That completes my presentation; I will be taking no questions.

AM:  Wow.  Your dream is wishful thinking.

Old Gadfly:  Cicero observed similar dangers in his own day.  We would be wise to recognize the similarities captured in Cicero's statement:

A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.

Let us hope that Mueller understands this caution and helps our nation save its soul.   

---

[1] For a well-documented history on Archibald Cox and his Watergate connection, see Archibald Cox. (2017, May 18). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 22:50, May 18, 2017, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Archibald_Cox&oldid=780960548

[2] Norman I. Silber, With All Deliberate Speed:  The Life of Philip Elman:  An Oral History Memoir in Mr. Elman’s Words, (Ann Arbor, MI:  The University of Michigan Press, 2004), p. 140.

[3] For instance, see Geoff Shepard, The Real Watergate Scandal:  Collusion, Conspiracy, and the Plot that Brought Nixon Down, (Washington, DC:  Regnery History, 2015).

Masters of Deceit

            IM:  Gentlemen, I am reading J. Edgar Hoover’s 1958 book, Masters of Deceit.

Old Gadfly:  I have read it.  What impresses you about it?

   

IM:  It was published nearly 60 years ago by a man who ran the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for 48 years.  Despite attempts to discredit him, he had the most access to criminal and subversive activities going on in America than any other American.  And, while he had tremendous “dirt” on many Americans, sometimes used for political reasons, the book he wrote was not an attempt to assassinate political opponents.  The book presented a case to expose the comprehensive and insidious threat of socialism (and the Communist Party) in America.

 

AM:  During our time of service in the military, Gadfly and I were mostly focused on the external Communist Party threat, mostly from the Soviet Union and China.

Old Gadfly:  I think I know where you are taking us.

IM:  We are witnessing the masters of deceit in full bloom.

AM:  The left is seething at the realization that the working class voted for a capitalist.

IM:  Yes, the left had two candidates, both socialist in their orientation.  Bernie represented the more benevolent Trotskyite version.  Many of Bernie’s followers voted for Trump because he was a non-establishment choice (similar to the anti-czar sentiment of the Bolsheviks).

AM:  It would be difficult to associate Hillary with Stalin.

Old Gadfly:  Think again.  The once upon a time credible bellwether news source, the New York Times, is behaving like Pravda, the Communist Party newspaper.  According to Hoover, “Pravda, the Party newspaper urged drastic measures” (p. 30).  Look at how the New York Times is leading the charge to challenge the Trump election.  Despite the actual damaging content of Wikileaks, allegations are being made that Russia tampered with the elections.  The New York Times leads this charge with the other mainstream media networks following suit.  There is no interest in the veracity and significant implications of the Wikileaks content.  Thus, the “masters of deception” are shifting the focus to “fake news.”

IM:  To demonstrate the brutality of these masters of deception, a close friend of mine did a little research.  Here is what he found.  On July 11, 2016, Seth Conrad Rich, a young Democratic National Committee (DNC) staffer, who worked as a voter expansion data director, was found dead with two bullets to the back of the head.  A report of this event was made by a local news network, but was suppressed by other news networks.  The first release from WikiLeaks was July 26, 2016.  At the time WikiLeaks’ owner, Julian Assange, “told NBC News on Monday that ‘there is no proof whatsoever’ that his organization got almost 20,000 hacked Democratic National Committee emails from Russian intelligence —adding it's what's in the emails that's important, not who hacked them.”  But, we are being deluged by the mainstream media that Russia tampered with the election.  If the Director of National Intelligence Clapper supports this narrative without conclusive evidence, then he is demonstrating how easy it is to politicize intelligence.  It is quite disturbing to learn:  “Devin Nunes on Wednesday blasted as ‘unacceptable’ the refusal of the FBI, CIA and National Intelligence directors to brief his panel on the Russian cyber attacks that occurred during the presidential campaign.”  If there is evidence (as opposed to mere allegations) of a Russian attack, then share it with the Congressional oversight committee.  But then again, that might prematurely halt the frenzied news cycle.  It needs to stay at the forefront of narratives until December 18, when Electoral College delegates officially cast their votes.

AM:  Incidentally, recall that at a Congressional hearing, Director Clapper was asked, “Does the National Security Agency spy on Americans?”  He responded, “Not wittingly.”  More important, here is an exclusive report, published yesterday on December 14, 2016, of an individual directly involved with the handoff of DNC emails for Wikileaks publication.  What is not included in the report is the identification of the DNC whistleblower involved—was it Seth Conrad Rich?  This report was from a British publication.  Where is the American interest?

IM:   Let’s summarize.  We have actual evidence of Democrat wrong doing (deception, collusion, and so forth) via Wikileaks.  Assange claims the data came from sources other than Russia.  Then, we have the left, with its minions of politicians, Hollywood dupes, and media mimickers alleging Russia tampered with an election that turned out differently from what they wanted engaged in wolf pack behavior to undermine the Trump election.  Isn’t it a pathetic act of desperation to assault our Electoral College delegates with pleas not to vote for Trump?

Old Gadfly:  Your observations make sense.  But, the even more sinister dynamic is that the left is demonstrating how prescient (and we discussed this in our Why the Protests discussion) Khrushchev was when he prophesied in 1957 (the year before Hoover published Masters of Deceit):

“. . . I can prophesy that your grandchildren in America will live under socialism.  And please do not be afraid of that.  Your grandchildren will not understand how their grandparents did not understand the progressive nature of a socialist society.”

The socialistic left, disguised in progressive clothing, is far from moderating its ideology following this election.  How dare the working class vote for a capitalist—didn’t they get the memo—workers unite?  So, the tactics will continue, and the fight for the American idea (life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness) must continue as well.

Beyond Engineering Sentiment

Old Gadfly:  IM (an American citizen with an inquiring mind), I received your email.  What do you mean by the public narrative appears to be beyond engineering sentiment?

IM:  With Putin’s offer to control Syria’s chemical weapons, I did a little digging and found some interesting, yet frightening material.

Old Gadfly:  I’m listening.

IM:  First, two days ago, watching Secretary Kerry testify before the House Armed Services Committee was like déjà vu.  On April 22, 1971, I vividly recall a long-haired reserve lieutenant in the US Navy Reserve, dressed in fatigues, testifying before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. 

 

Kerry gave an emotional plea regarding American atrocities in Vietnam.  Here is one of the more moving segments of his speech:

I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.

It is impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit, the emotions in the room, the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam, but they did. They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.

They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, tape wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the country side of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.

Kerry referred to a Detroit investigation, called it the “Winter Soldier Investigation,” a poetic reference to Thomas Paine’s summer soldier metaphor.  Jane Fonda (pictured below with the North Vietnamese Army next to an anti-aircraft gun in 1972) played a role in funding and supporting the effort.  To this very day, the veracity of the “Winter Soldier Investigation” and its grave allegations remain controversial.

AM (an American combat aviator with an inquiring mind):  While Lieutenant Kerry seemed eager to invoke the moral high ground in his idealist and quixotic testimony in 1971, according to CBS Reporter, Sharyl Attkisson, today’s Secretary Kerry will not let Benghazi survivors testify before Congress.

Old Gadfly:  An excellent observation, AM.  Does it represent hypocrisy or intellectual maturity?   I suspect the former.  At any rate, I’d like to get back to IM’s assertion that the public narrative is beyond engineering sentiment.

IM:  Bluntly, I’m talking about disinformation.  Disinformation is false information intended to deceive or mislead according to Dictionary.com.

Old Gadfly:  Isn’t disinformation what Democrats accused George W. Bush of conducting?

IM:  Absolutely.  Democrat accusations are part of the actual disinformation campaign being conducted.

Old Gadfly:  How do you justify your judgment?

IM:  People like Senator Durbin like to frame the Syrian situation with Bush’s Iraq:  with Syria involving actual weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and Iraq involving Bush-manufactured claims of WMD.  Durbin is two-faced about WMD in Iraq and has done a good job of covering his tail.  But, one of the true benefits of the Internet is that it contains A LOT of information.  In building support for an attack of Iraq in 1998, Senator Durbin issued a press release justifying the attack because of WMD.  His staff has since purged this evidence from his Senatorial website.  Amazingly, Snopes.com, the organization that debunks myths and “urban legends,” verified that Democrats vigorously claimed Saddam Hussein pursued and maintained WMD.  Some of those who hypocritically demonize Bush in this narrative are Bill and Hillary Clinton, Madeline Albright, Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, Bob Graham, Al Gore, Ted Kennedy, Robert Byrd, Jay Rockefeller, and Henry Waxman.

AM:  IM, this is all interesting, but I suspect that what you found to be frightening has yet to be introduced into the discussion.

IM:  You are right, AM.  What I found to be frightening was an article, entitled, “Ex-Spy Fingers Russians on WMD.”

Old Gadfly:  Was this a recent article, stemming from the Syria issue?

IM:  No.  It was published on April 4, 2005, to explain why Russia was tampering with the American intervention in Iraq.

AM:  Who wrote it?

IM:  Romanian Lieutenant General Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest ranking intelligence officer to defect from the former Soviet bloc.

Old Gadfly:  What did General Pacepa say in the article?

IM:  There were several key points.  The first is that Pacepa unequivocally asserted Russia assisted Saddam Hussein eliminate his stockpile of WMD prior to the US attack in 2003.  There is a New York Times article based on other key Iraqi officials that also indirectly supports this claim.  The second point is that Pacepa claimed such elimination of WMD was part of Russia’s “Sarindar” plan.  Pacepa further claimed that he personally implemented this plan in Libya. 

AM:  Related to Pacepa’s article, is a book by Pacepa and coauthor, Professor Ronald Rychlak, entitled, Disinformation.  Politico.com provided a synopsis of the book and its implications: 

By its very nature, a disinformation campaign can work only if the seemingly independent Western press accepts intentionally fabricated lies and presents them to the public as truth. Thus, Pacepa and Rychlak also document how the U.S. "mainstream media's" enduring sympathy for all things liberal-left has made it vulnerable to--indeed, the prime carrier of--civilization-transforming campaigns of lying, defamation and historical revisionism that turn reality on its head.

Old Gadfly:  Did not Obama claim he would transform America?

IM:  Yes.  There are numerous video clips that recorded this intention.

Old Gadfly:  In his Tuesday evening speech, Obama referred to America as a “constitutional democracy” instead of a “constitutional republic.”  This subtle, yet profound distinction is consistent with Woodrow Wilson’s idea of transforming America into a statist administration, run by political elite.  Obama also talked about a war-weary nation and that he spent the past four and a half years to end two wars, implying Bush got us into a quagmire in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Yet, as we discussed in our last conversation, Bush inherited bipartisan political momentum to complete regime change in Iraq.  Bush's involvement in Afghanistan was focused on Osama bin Laden.  Did Obama not declare that while Iraq was a war of choice by Bush, Obama's war in Afghanistan was a necessity?

AM:  Absolutely.  One of the venues for declaring this superior judgment was during presidential campaign debates with John McCain.  And the results of his superior judgment are that 73% of the American casualties in Afghanistan have occurred under his command.  And besides the battlefield execution of bin Laden that took place in Pakistan (without their knowledge or approval), I am not aware of any tactical or strategic successes in Afghanistan.

IM:  And bin Laden’s demise has not deterred the ideology that attracts other jihadists, as we witnessed in Benghazi and are barely acknowledging in Syria and Egypt, and North Africa, and many other places as well.

AM:  And, if we further examine Obama’s vision to fundamentally transform America, let’s document what he has achieved so far:

·         Our national debt is now $16.9 trillion, an increase of over $7.3 trillion dollars since the Bush era.

·         Gas prices have been significantly higher since Bush handed the reins over to Obama.  When Bush left office, the price was $1.74.  The prices steadily climbed to sustained prices well over $3.50 per gallon directly related to Obama policies .

·         There have been numerous green energy bankruptcies following billions of federal subsidies, while coal and oil production is curtailed.

·         The percent of our working population actually employed is at 63.2% (as of August 2013 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics), the lowest in over 30 years.  And many who are “employed” are in less than 40-hour a week jobs.

·         There are now 8,786,049 Americans on disability.  That number relative to the number of Americans who actually work is four times greater than 45 years ago.

·         As of December 2012, 47,791,996 people in America are on food stamps.  This is what Senator Sessions had to say about the situation:

Despite this fountain of federal funds [about a trillion annually], 1 in 3 children still live in poverty in our nation’s capital. Two in three children live in single parent homes. In nearby Baltimore--another city governed by liberal policies for decades--1 in 3 residents are on food stamps and 1 in 3 youth live in poverty. Americans are committed to helping our sisters and brothers who are struggling, but we are seeing the damaging human consequences of our broken welfare state.

We spend a trillion dollars each year on federal poverty programs. That’s more than the budget for Social Security or Defense. But poverty seems only to increase. Something is wrong. Compassion demands that we change.

·         Then of course, we have Frankenstein’s monster, that is, Obamacare, ready to take residence and to wreak havoc in our communities.  Even though many joked about it, Pelosi’s prophesy is coming true:  we had to pass it before we could know what was in it.  And, the closer we get to fully understanding what is in it, our economy further contracts because the costs far exceed any marginal benefits.

Old Gadfly:   This is all pretty gloomy.  And, despite Pacepa and Rychlak’s warning about “transforming campaigns of lying, defamation and historical revisionism,” is there not one good thing that has resulted from Obama’s vision to fundamentally transform America?

IM:  Well, the “hope” part so far has fallen short for the 8 million or so who have dropped out of the work force and for the many more millions that depend upon the government for food, housing, and healthcare, with no hope of getting beyond these circumstances.

AM:  Yes, but Obama has kept his word about change.  He just never explained in detail what this change entailed.  Unfortunately, as more Americans begin to realize what they unleashed with their vote, they may regret also knowing it is difficult, if not impossible, to put the genie back in the bottle.

Old Gadfly:  Excellent analysis, AM and IM.  IM’s opening observation is supported by very strong evidence.  What we see happening is well beyond engineering sentiment—it is disinformation in full display for those among us who are not Copernican drones.