Socialism

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War Propaganda: “Fake News” and the Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Influence (OSI) | Collective Evolution & Global Research

Editor’s Note: Much of this article is excerpted from the original by Michel Chossudovsky of Global Research. Excellent background to the intelligence operation behind the impeachment effort.

By Arjun Walla

  • The Facts:The influence of intelligence and government agencies when it comes to mainstream media is quite large. This article provides numerous examples from documents to whistleblowers that clearly prove this point.
  • Reflect On:Our world has become quite Orwellian with regards to free and open information. There now seems to be a ‘Ministry of Truth’ that is hiding information from people, and telling them what to believe and how to think. Censorship is rampant.

A declassified document from the CIA archives in the form of a letter from a CIA task force addressed to the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency details the close relationship that exists between the CIA and mainstream media and academia.

The document states that the CIA task force “now has relationships with reporters from every major wire service, newspaper, news weekly, and television network in the nation,” and that “this has helped us turn some ‘intelligence failure’ stories into ‘intelligence success” stories,’ and has contributed to the accuracy of countless others.” Furthermore, it explains how the agency has “persuaded reporters to postpone, change, hold, or even scrap stories that could have adversely affected national security interests or jeopardized sources and methods.”

Although it is a document outlining their desire to become more open and transparent, the deception outlined by various whistleblowers (example) requires us to read between the lines and recognize that the relationships shared between intelligence agencies and our sources of information are not always warranted and pose inherent conflicts of interest.

Herein lies the problem: What is “national security,” and who determines that definition? JFK bravely told the world that the “dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweigh[] the dangers which are cited to justify it.” He also said that “there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment.” 

“National security” is now an umbrella term used to justify concealing information, but who makes these decisions?

The real reason why people like Julian Assange are treated the way they are treated is because they threaten immoral corporate and elitist actions/interests of various governments and institutions, and because they simply share truth and information.

This is why we are also seeing the mass censorship of alternative media outlets, like Collective Evolution.

Not long ago, William Arkin, a longtime well known military and war reporter who is best known for his groundbreaking, three-part Washington Post series in 2010, went public outing NBC/MSNBC as completely fake government run agencies.

He blasted NBC News along with MSNBC news in an email for “becoming captive and subservient to the national security state, reflexively pro-war in the name of stopping President Donald Trump, and now the prime propaganda instrument of the War Machine’s promotion of militarism and imperialism.” This is something, based on my research, mainstream media has always been. It’s why they were created in the first place.

Arkin stated that, as a result of this, “the national security establishment not only hasn’t issued a beat but indeed has gained dangerous strength, and “is ever more autonomous and practically impervious to criticism.”

Another great quote comes to mind here,

“The real menace of our Republic is the invisible government, which like a giant octopus sprawls its slimy legs over our cities, states and nation . . .  The little coterie of powerful international bankers virtually run the United States government for their own selfish purposes. They practically control both parties . . .  [and] control the majority of the newspapers and magazines in this country. They use the columns of these papers to club into submission or drive out of office public officials who refuse to do the bidding of the powerful corrupt cliques which compose the invisible government. It operates under cover of a self-created screen [and] seizes our executive officers, legislative bodies, schools, courts, newspapers and every agency created for the public protection.”  (source)(source) – Mayor of New York City from 1918-1925

MSNBC’s star national security reporter Ken Dilanian was widely mocked by media outlets for years for being an uncritical CIA stenographer before he became a beloved NBC/MSNBC reporter, and let’s not forget CNN’s Anderson Cooper’s connections to the CIA.

Operation Mockingbird, a CIA program to infiltrate mainstream media and use it to influence the minds of the masses decades ago, seems to be in full effect today, at a larger scale than anyone can possibly imagine.

In early 2018, NBC hired former CIA chief John Brennan to serve as a “senior national security and intelligence analyst.”

Dr. Udo Ulfkotte was a top German journalist and editor and has been for more than two decades. He went on the record stating that he was forced to publish the works of intelligence agents under his own name, also mentioning that noncompliance would result in him losing his job. Not long ago, he made an appearance on RT news Stating that:

“I’ve been a journalist for about 25 years, and I was educated to lie, to betray, and not to tell the truth to the public. But seeing right now within the last months how the German and American media tries to bring war to the people in Europe, to bring war to Russia — this is a point of no return and I’m going to stand up and say it is not right what I have done in the past, to manipulate people, to make propaganda against Russia, and it is not right what my colleagues do and have done in the past because they are bribed to betray the people, not only in Germany, all over Europe.” (source)

There are many examples, the information above is simply small fraction of information regarding a big problem.

This is why I thought it was important to share a piece written by by Dr.Michel Chossudovsky, titled “War Propaganda: “Fake News” and the Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Influence (OSI). Chossudovsky is an award-winning author, Professor of Economics (emeritus) at the University of Ottawa, Founder and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal.  It was originally posted on hist website, GlobalResearch.ca.

War Propaganda: “Fake News” and the Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Influence (OSI)

The following text on Rumsfeld’s “Office of Strategic Influence” (OSI) was first published by Global Research in January 2003 two months before the onslaught of the war on Iraq. The analysis largely pertained to the role of the Pentagon in planting fake stories in the news chain with a view to providing a “human face” to US-led military interventions.

Already in 2002, the “Militarization of the Media” was on the drawing board of the Pentagon. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld created the OSI with a view to influencing public opinion in the months leading up to the war on Iraq in March 2003. “The purpose [of the OSI] was to deliberately lie to advance American interests,” (quoted in Air Force Magazine, January 2003). It consisted in feeding disinformation into the news chain as well as seeking the support of the corporate media. Acknowledged by the New York Times:

“The Defense Department is considering issuing a secret directive to the American military to conduct covert operations aimed at influencing public opinion and policy makers in friendly and neutral countries [Germany, France, etc], senior Pentagon and administration officials say.

The fight, one Pentagon official said, is over ”the strategic communications for our nation, the message we want to send for long-term influence, and how we do it.”

As a military officer put it: ”We have the assets and the capabilities and the training to go into friendly and neutral nations to influence public opinion. We could do it and get away with it. That doesn’t mean we should.”…

In February [2002], Mr. Rumsfeld had to disband the Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Influence, ending a short-lived plan to provide news items, and possibly false ones, to foreign journalists to influence public sentiment abroad. Senior Pentagon officials say Mr. Rumsfeld is deeply frustrated that the United States government has no coherent plan for molding public opinion worldwide in favor of America in its global campaign against terrorism and militancy.(NYT, December 10, 2002)

Many administration officials agree that there is a role for the military in carrying out what it calls information operations against adversaries, especially before and during war, as well as routine public relations work in friendly nations like Colombia, the Philippines or Bosnia, whose governments have welcomed American troops.

… But the idea of ordering the military to take psychological aim at allies has divided the Pentagon — with civilians and uniformed officers on both sides of the debate.

Some are troubled by suggestions that the military might pay journalists to write stories favorable to American policies or hire outside contractors without obvious ties to the Pentagon to organize rallies in support of American policies. (NYT, December 16, 2002)

The Ongoing “Militarization of the Media”

Most people do not even know that an Office of Strategic Influence (tantamount to a “Ministry of Truth”)  existed within the confines of the Pentagon. Why? Rumsfeld decided to abolish the OSI. In reality, it was never abolished. They just changed the name to something else (as confirmed by Rumsfeld in a November 2002 Press Conference):

Rumsfeld: And then there was the office of strategic influence….  I went down that next day and said fine, if you want to savage this thing fine I’ll give you the corpse. There’s the name. You can have the name, but I’m gonna keep doing every single thing that needs to be done and I have.

That was intended to be done by that office is being done by that office, NOT by that office in other ways.

DARPA Press Conference (Dept of Defense, November 18, 2002 emphasis added)

Flash Forward: 2002- 2017

While the OSI process launched by the Pentagon in 2002 is still functional as intimated by Rumsfeld, it has become increasingly sophisticated. Moreover, the media environment has changed dramatically since 2002 with the rapid development of social media.

Today, the Militarization of the Media is accepted. It is part of a “New Normal”.  The actions of both by the Pentagon and NATO are now largely directed against the Blogosphere integrated by social media and independent online news and analysis.

“Strategic Influence” seeks to undermine critique or opinion by the alternative online media directed against (illegal) acts of war. Since 2001, a firm relationship has developed between the mainstream media and the Military establishment. War crimes are tacitly ignored. US-NATO “acts of war” are routinely upheld by the corporate media as humanitarian endeavors, i.e. a so-called  “Responsibility to Protect”(R2P).

 “America is Under Attack”  

On September 11, 2001,  Afghanistan had allegedly attacked America, according to NATO’s North Atlantic Council. The legal argument was that the September 11 attacks constituted an undeclared “armed attack” “from abroad” by an unnamed foreign power.

In the months leading up to the announced 2003 invasion of Iraq, the propaganda campaign consisted in sustaining the illusion that “America was under attack”.

A similar logic prevails today: America’s is allegedly being threatened by “rogue states”: Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.

“Information Operations” are now envisaged by the Pentagon against alternative media which refuse to acknowledge that “America is under attack”.  The online independent media are tagged as “adversaries”. Countering (critical) social media is part of a US-NATO’s agenda. NATO points to the “weaponization of disinformation”, suggesting that online media directed against US-NATO constitutes a “weapon”.

Both the US DoD and NATO consider that online “false information” (published by independent and alternative media) has “security implications”. The objective is ultimately to dismantle all civil society media and movements which are opposed to America’s global war agenda.

The Takeaway

The censorship of independent media is quite large. Here at Collective Evolution, we are in threat of shutting down due to the fact that we have been censored, as well as demonetized from platforms like YouTube. This is why we created CETV, it’s how people can support us and it allows us to continue what we are doing, by being funded by YOU.

At the end of the day, the censorship efforts are coinciding with multiple mass campaigns to influence the minds of the masses via mainstream media. Mainstream media is a huge tool for the global elite to push various agenda’s, our compliance and their justification for various geopolitical actions are justified through the manipulation of our consciousness, and there is no doubt that independent media has made that much harder for them.

Source: Collective Evolution & Global Research

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Four lessons from the biggest riots in decades | Sovereign Man

Editor’s Note: When stupid people take to the streets and cause reckless destruction everybody pays the price. Don’t let these radical fools destroy well-being for the rest of us because they’re angry, because they don’t like something, because they are do-nothing complainers. It’s everybody’s responsibility to cool down the flames of discontent and find meaningful ways to solve social, economic and political problems without resorting to violence. Martin Luther King would be ashamed of such violence!

If you’re been following the news, you might have seen reports about civil unrest in Chile– the worst in decades.

I lived in Chile for more than seven years before moving to Puerto Rico; I still have business interests there, along with hundreds of employees (both foreign and local), many of whom I’ve been speaking to over the last few days.

First things first, Chile is ordinarily a quiet, stable, peaceful country.

The last time Chile went to war was 140 years ago back in 1879. They even skipped both world wars.

And while there are occasional protests, Chile is quite tame by Latin American standards.

It’s also the most modern and advanced nation in the region– this is not a destitute, impoverished country.

Chile has thriving industries and a large middle class that’s in better shape than just about anywhere else in the region.

But just like every other country in the world, there are countless imperfections.

Inflation has eaten away at the purchasing power of workers’ incomes, and a lot of people are struggling to make ends meet.

The proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back was a 3% increase in metro fares.

It’s nothing. But it was enough to make thousands of people become completely unglued, resulting in riots, looting, arson, and all-out mayhem.

Let’s talk about some of the key lessons from this:

1) It can happen anywhere.

It’s not just Chile. Looking around the world right now we can see major demonstrations and even violence in places like Hong Kong, Spain, Haiti, Lebanon, etc.

The ‘yellow vest’ movement in France in late 2018/early 2019 brought hundreds of thousands of people out into the streets to torch cars and destroy property, all apparently in protest of rising fuel prices.

Political tensions, social tensions, economic tensions… they exist everywhere, in rich countries and poor countries alike.

People everywhere are tightly wound, and it doesn’t take much for them to become unhinged. If you think this can’t happen where you live, think again.

2) It can happen faster than anyone realizes.

The weather in central Chile is one of the great benefits of living there; it’s warm, sunny, and dry… southern California climate.

And this past Friday was a particularly beautiful day. By lunchtime, people were out in the parks enjoying the weather. It was calm, peaceful, and joyful.

Within a matter of hours the city had turned into a war zone. Hours.

One of my team members told me on the phone yesterday, “If you had said on Friday afternoon that Santiago would be in chaos by nightfall, I would have laughed… And then it happened.”

3) It only takes a few idiots.

There are roughly 18 million people living in Chile. And there may even be a few million people nationwide who are deeply frustrated about the rising cost of living.

But only a few thousand have been stupid enough to cause such chaos and devastation; they’ve destroyed dozens of metro stations, buses, and even lit office buildings and grocery stores on fire.

Innocent people have died. And almost everyone else has had their lives heavily disrupted.

They can’t get to work. Schools are closed. Grocery store lines are crazy. There’s a curfew. Tanks are in the streets.

Most people are rational and peaceful. They might be angry about certain issues, but they know that torching property and killing innocents won’t solve anything.
Only a trivial fraction of a percent of the population are acting like cowards– the ones who steal a bunch of flat-screen televisions from the neighborhood electronics store before setting it on fire.

And they’re selfish and delusional enough to believe in their own righteousness– that their actions are justified as payback because of some economic injustice.

Yeah. Because nothing proves your moral superiority more than looting flat-screen TVs.

4) They often think Socialism is the answer.

Human beings seem hardwired to think that they can solve any economic injustice with Socialism.

More often than not, people don’t even think through the issues. They feel symptoms– difficulty making ends meet, difficulty getting ahead in life, etc. and they get angry.

And that’s where the analysis stops. There is no analysis actually. It’s just anger.

A rational person thinks things through– why is my cost of living increasing? Why aren’t I getting ahead? What’s the root cause of these problems? How can I fix it?

Again, Chile isn’t perfect. Not by a long shot.

But think about the 18-year old kid taking selfie videos while lighting a grocery store on fire because he’s angry… angry that his education was sub-par, angry that he can’t find a good paying job.

And he’s partially right. Public education in Chile is pretty bad, and he doesn’t have the skills for a high-paying career.

But I wonder how many books he’s read this year? How many free online courses has he taken? What has he done to solve his own problem?

Instead of torching buildings, he could have been at home watching countless videos on YouTube learning how to code in Python. For free.

And in developing real, marketable skills, he would become much more valuable and able to command a substantial wage and work remotely for prospective clients and employers worldwide.

But the Socialist mentality is not about solving your own problems.

Socialism means that you don’t have to lift a finger (except to light a match).

You just have to throw a temper tantrum until someone else solves your problems… even if you can’t even define your problem or present a reasonable solution.

I don’t want to make light of the issues; there are several problems that protesters have bought up which I agree with. But neither Socialism nor burning buildings ever solved any problems.

It may take time, but Chile is undoubtedly going to recover from this nightmare and move on. The ‘sane’ population (i.e. the vast majority) is already fighting back and defending their neighborhoods.

Source: Sovereign Man

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GOP Leader McCarthy Makes Huge Move Against Pelosi Impeachment Push | Trending Politics

Editor’s Note: The rush to impeachment without Congressional rules conducted fairly, objectively with non-partisan impartiality is a violation of due process and should be addressed consistent with the U.S. Constitution and prior impeachment proceedings.

On Thursday, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy wrote a letter to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, calling on her to suspend the impeachment inquiry into President Trump because of its lack of transparency.

“I am writing to request you suspend all efforts surrounding your ‘impeachment inquiry’ until transparent and equitable rules and procedures are established to govern the inquiry, as is customary,” McCarthy said. “As you know, there have only been three prior instances in our nation’s history when the full House has moved to formally investigate whether sufficient grounds exist for the impeachment of a sitting president.”

“I should hope that if such an extraordinary step were to be contemplated a fourth time, it would be conducted with an eye towards fairness, objectivity, and impartiality,” he continued. “Unfortunately, you have given no clear indication as to how your impeachment inquiry will proceed — including whether key historical precedents or basic standards of due process will be observed.”

Pelosi’s move towards impeachment is an obvious political hit job. Last Tuesday, Pelosi announced an official impeachment inquiry against President Trump based off of a second-hand politically biased whistleblower’s claim that President Trump bribed Ukraine’s President with military funds to start an investigation into Joe Biden for getting a Ukrainian prosecutor fired who was investigating his son.

This move by the Speaker is an obvious political hit job with the sole intention of removing our duly elected president from office.

***Get Your Free USA 45 Hat While Supplies Last***

The whistleblower claimed that President Trump set up a quid pro quo agreement regarding military aid with Ukraine and in return, Ukraine would investigate Joe Biden. Pelosi used the whistleblower’s claim to begin an impeachment inquiry, however the transcript of the call which was released the next day, revealed that President Trump did not leverage military aid in any way. The Democrats started an impeachment inquiry based on lies.

“The actions of the Trump presidency revealed dishonorable facts of the president’s betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of his national security and betrayal of the integrity of our elections,” Pelosi said on Tuesday before the actual transcript of the call was even released.

The Democrats saw this opportunity as their chance to ruin President Trump however it seems that they are shooting themselves in the foot considering the whole whistleblower situation seems to be an Adam Schiff set up.

On Wednesday, the New York Times dropped a bombshell report which revealed that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff knew about the CIA ‘whistleblower’s’ allegation against President Trump well before the complaint was even made.

“The early account by the future whistle-blower … explains how Mr. Schiff knew to press for the complaint when the Trump administration initially blocked lawmakers from seeing it,” The New York Times reported. “Before going to Congress, the C.I.A. officer had a colleague convey his accusations to the agency’s top lawyer. Concerned about how that avenue for airing his allegations was unfolding, the officer then approached a House Intelligence Committee aide, alerting him to the accusation against Mr. Trump.”

Source: Trending Politics

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Trump impeachment effort: The Swamp strikes (again) to deflect attention | RT.com

Editor’s Note: Excellent analysis of the misguided, self-sabotaging behavior of the Democrats to destroy the President regardless of the consequences to their own political futures and the integrity of the USA.
Robert Bridge is an American writer and journalist. Former Editor-in-Chief of The Moscow News, he is author of the book, ‘Midnight in the American Empire,’ released in 2013.
Washington’s political football has taken another bounce, skipping from Russia to Ukraine in just days. Democrats made the move to impeach Trump, but why only now?

Like some rogue cyborg responding to a programmed ‘terminate’ command, the Democratic Party has shown a relentless, laser-guided determination to destroy Donald Trump regardless of the consequences not only to their own political fortunes, but to the very integrity and viability of the nation.

Indeed, rather than humbly accept defeat following the Russiagate debacle, which held the Republic in a suspended state of mind-numbing animation for three tortuous years, the malevolent machine was merely rebooted. Today, the Democrats and their liberal gimp media are no longer obsessed by the Kremlin, Wikileaks, and a pee-stained hotel bed somewhere in central Moscow, but rather a phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Hello Russiagate 2.0

For those who have lost the plot for this latest DC thriller, here is the abridged version.

During a July 25 telephone conversation, the full transcript of which is accessible here, Trump asked Zelensky to “do us a favor,” which involved digging up dirt on Joe Biden, a leading Democratic contender in the 2020 presidential race. The task wouldn’t require a very large shovel, of course, since Biden had already implicated himself when he publicly bragged about forcing Ukraine to terminate its chief prosecutor Viktor Shokin, or risk losing a cool billion dollars in US financial aid. Who is Viktor Shokin? None other than the guy leading an investigation of Biden’s son, Hunter, who received millions of dollars for the pleasure of squatting on the board of a Ukrainian gas company.

In other words, Biden offered Ukraine a bald-faced quid pro quo, exactly what the Democrats are accusing Trump of doing. There’s just one glaring problem, however, with the Democratic charges: nowhere in the transcript of the call does Trump ever suggest he will compensate Kiev for carrying out his requests.

That nagging detail, however, did not stop the Democratic crazy train, with 300 million jaded American passengers on board, from departing the station for a non-stop ride to impeachment proceedings.

This latest rush by the Democrats to bring down Trump seems less of an effort based on sound political strategy than one that is driven by raw desperation. How else to explain the decision by the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to announce an impeachment inquiry against the president when she hadn’t even read the transcript? That is an incredible admission, especially considering what the country has already been through for the past three years. Moreover, impeaching a sitting president is a radical, almost unheard of step that has only occurred twice in the nation’s history, against Andrew Jackson and Bill Clinton. Neither effort resulted in those leaders being forced from office. So, why on earth risk it?

There are other telltale signs that the Democrats, with no small help from the fawning media, are spinning yet another tale of intrigue every bit as Clancy-esque as Russiagate. Not unlike Pelosi, the White House whistle-blower – alleged to have been a CIA ‘conscientious objector,’ quite possibly a historic first in the dark underworld of espionage – issued a complaint based on second-hand sources. And the plot keeps thickening.

Until just days before the transcript was made public, such ‘evidence’ would have been considered inadmissible since only firsthand knowledge was deemed worthy of consideration. Some bureaucrat, however, showed amazing acuity in altering those conditions just before the Democrats would lower the hammer. Now, just in time for the impeachment show trial, the intelligent community’s new and improved complaint form, as reported by the Federalist, “no longer requires potential whistleblowers… to have direct, first-hand knowledge of the alleged wrongdoing that they are reporting.”

In other words, it looks like the Democrats are up to their usual dirty tricks. At this point it must be asked, what is the driving force behind their obsessive hatred of Trump, which has provoked a dire situation in the country that conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh has dubbed a “cold civil war” between the two parties?

Is Democratic desperation a sign of guilt?

Without bothering to educate herself first on the Trump-Zelensky conversation, Pelosi has disgraced her office, while, at the same time, opening up the Democrats to the possibility of massive setbacks, possibly even self-destruction, on the political front.

Pelosi admitted nearly as much when she said “it doesn’t matter” when asked by a reporter if the Democrats’ push for impeachment may damage their chances of holding onto the House down the road. “Our first responsibility is to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States,” she affirmed. Is anybody buying that explanation?

As much as we would all like to believe that modern US politicians are intrinsically guided by some patriotic and lyrical ‘love of country’ and ‘duty to the constitution,’ the evidence points to far less altruistic motives. Considering the collective wealth of congressional members alone suggests that the overwhelming majority of US politicians are in the political swamp known as Washington DC merely to enrich themselves.

Others may argue that the Democrats have essentially launched a preemptive strike against the 2020 presidential election, which they have a very narrow chance of winning given their lackluster field of contenders. Considering the high risks of pressing forward with impeachment, however, which the Democrats have admitted could even cost them the House, that suggestion also sounds implausible.

So, what is it? Why so much non-stop fear and loathing from the Democratic camp ever since Trump took over the White House in 2016?

Much of the Democratic angst goes back to the 2016 campaign trail when Trump boldly proclaimed that he would ‘drain the swamp.’ I don’t think he was just speaking rhetorically. Many Americans are unaware of it, simply because the mainstream media has concealed the news, but the Democrats are under investigation by the White House.

Back in May, Trump awarded sweeping powers to his Attorney General Bill Barr to investigate claims that the Democrats were “spying” on his campaign, a very serious charge that would make Watergate resemble a picnic by comparison. Meanwhile, in the same week that the Democrats were recklessly pushing forward with their impeachment inquiry, the New York Times reported that the US State Department had reopened its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s abuse of her email service, which compromised an untold number of classified government documents.

“As many as 130 officials have been contacted in recent weeks by State Department investigators — a list that includes senior officials who reported directly to Clinton…” The Washington Post reported.

In other words, the gloves have come off in the US capital. If you doubt that, consider this: if some Washington whistleblower, or “spy” as Trump has called the individual, was able to receive second-hand information about a classified phone call between Trump and a foreign leader, then it stands to reason that these same people knew for a long time that the Barr investigation had begun to focus on Clinton’s insecure email box. Thus, the Democrats could very well be engaged in ‘obstruction of justice’ while portraying Trump as the villain. Now, should the US president attempt to proceed with criminal charges against his opponents, the Democrats will scream in one media-backed voice that Trump is the one attempting to avoid persecution.

The Democrats, displaying incredible recklessness and impulsiveness in their latest effort to take down the House of Trump, may be less interested in winning back the White House in 2020 and far more interested in avoiding jail time. Nothing else adequately explains their crazed level of vindictiveness.

Source: RT.com

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State Dept. ramps up probe into Clinton email server: report | The Hill

Editor’s Note: Getting to the source of the Democrats relentless hatred of President Trump begins with Hillary Clinton’s “reckless” use of a private server during her term as Secretary of State. What did she needed to hide and protect during the Obama Administration? When she lost the 2016 election fair and square with half the nation voting for Trump and the Electoral College casting its ballots as required by the U.S. Constitution, the Democrats began their relentless assault upon a duly elected President. 

The State Department reportedly intensified a probe into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private email server, contacting dozens of former aides involved in email exchanges that passed through her server.

The Washington Post reported Saturday that as many as 130 former Clinton aides have been contacted by State Department investigators in recent weeks, with many being informed that they have been found “culpable” for transmitting information that should have been classified at a higher level than it was originally sent.

Former Obama administration officials described the probe to the Post as an extraordinary investigation fueled by political animosity.

But current officials speaking on the condition of anonymity told the newspaper that the probe was structured to avoid the appearance of political bias.

The probe, which reportedly reached the stage where former officials began being contacted shortly after Trump’s inauguration, was described by one senior agency official to the Post as having nothing to do with President Trump’s vows to investigate Clinton if elected during the 2016 election.

“This has nothing to do with who is in the White House,” the official said. “This is about the time it took to go through millions of emails, which is about 3½ years.”

“The process is set up in a manner to completely avoid any appearance of political bias,” another official told the Post.

Former officials involved in the probe described it as a political vendetta, with one telling the Post it was an “abuse of power” by the Trump administration.

“It is such an obscene abuse of power and time involving so many people for so many years,” they said. “This has just sucked up people’s lives for years and years.”

The State Department did not immediately return a request for comment from The Hill on the investigation. Trump frequently attacked Clinton during the 2016 campaign for her use of a private email server while at the State Department, with his fans frequently chanting, “Lock her up!” at rallies over her perceived criminal wrongdoing.

A review of Clinton’s email server conducted by the FBI in 2016 found that Clinton had not committed any crimes with her operation of a private server but described her email practices as “reckless.”

Source: The Hill

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How Anti-Vaccine Sentiment Took Hold in the United States | The New York Times

Editor’s Note: The New York Times (and likely their biggest Big Pharma advertisers) are heralding a strongly-held opinion that choice regarding vaccines should not be an option for parents who may have good reason to believe their children are at risk. The almost completely unregulated vaccine industry is in denial regarding the potentially dangerous side effects, chronic illnesses that can result and in too many cases they’d rather not count – death. Not once in this well-written, one-sided article did the views, opinions or reasoning of the anti-vaccine crowd get acknowledged. This is but one of numerous op-ed articles the New York Times has recently published. 

As families face back-to-school medical requirements this month, the country feels the impact of a vaccine resistance movement decades in the making. The question is often whispered, the questioners sheepish. But increasingly, parents at the Central Park playground where Dr. Elizabeth A. Comen takes her young children have been asking her: “Do you vaccinate your kids?”

Dr. Comen, an oncologist who has treated patients for cancers related to the human papillomavirus that a vaccine can now prevent, replies emphatically: Absolutely.

She never imagined she would be getting such queries. Yet these playground exchanges are reflective of the national conversation at the end of the second decade of the 21st century — a time of stunning scientific and medical advances but also a time when the United States may, next month, lose its World Health Organization designation as a country that has eliminated measles, because of outbreaks this year. The W.H.O. has listed vaccine hesitancy as one of the top threats to global health.

As millions of families face back-to-school medical requirements and forms this month, the contentiousness surrounding vaccines is heating up again, with possibly even more fervor.

Though the situation may seem improbable to some, anti-vaccine sentiment has been building for decades, a byproduct of an internet humming with rumor and misinformation; the backlash against Big Pharma; an infatuation with celebrities that gives special credence to the anti-immunization statements from actors like Jenny McCarthy, Jim Carrey and Alicia Silverstone, the rapper Kevin Gates and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And now, the Trump administration’s anti-science rhetoric.

“Science has become just another voice in the room,” said Dr. Paul A. Offit, an infectious disease expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “It has lost its platform. Now, you simply declare your own truth.”

The constituents who make up the so-called vaccine resistant come from disparate groups, and include anti-government libertarians, apostles of the all-natural and parents who believe that doctors should not dictate medical decisions about children. Labeling resisters with one dismissive stereotype would be wrongheaded.

“To just say that these parents are ignorant or selfish is an easy trope,” said Jennifer Reich, a sociologist at the University of Colorado Denver, who studies vaccine-resistant families.

[Why did we start listening to celebrities about vaccines? Read more.]

It remains true that the overwhelming majority of American parents have their children vaccinated. Parent-driven groups like Voices for Vaccines, formed to counter anti-vaccination sentiment, have proliferated. Five states have eliminated exemptions for religious and philosophical reasons, permitting only medical opt-outs.

But there are ominous trends. For highly contagious diseases like measles, the vaccine rate to achieve herd immunity — the term that describes the optimum rate for protecting an entire population — is typically thought to be 95 percent. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the vaccination rate for the measles, mumps and rubella (M.M.R.) injection in kindergartners in the 2017-2018 school year had slipped nationally to 94.3 percent, the third year in a row it dropped.

Seven states reported rates for the M.M.R. vaccine that were far lower for kindergartners, including Kansas at 89.1 percent; New Hampshire, 92.4 percent; the District of Columbia, 81.3 percent. (The highest is West Virginia at 98.4 percent.)

Almost all states have at least one anti-vaccine group. At least four have registered political action committees, supporting candidates who favor less restrictive vaccine exemption policies.

Public health experts say that patients and many doctors may not appreciate the severity of diseases that immunizations have thwarted, like polio, which can affect the spinal cord and brain — because they probably have not seen cases.

“Vaccines are a victim of their own success,” said Dr. Offit, a co-inventor of a vaccine for rotavirus, which can cause severe diarrhea in young children. “We have largely eliminated the memory of many diseases.”

The growth of vaccine doubt in America coincides with several competing forces and attitudes.

Since the early 2000s, as the number of required childhood vaccines was increasing, a generation of parents was becoming hypervigilant about their children and, through social media, patting each other on the backs for doing so. In their view, parents who permitted vaccination were gullible toadies of status quo medicine.

In 2011, Dana Fuqua, of Aurora, Colo., pregnant with her first child, felt that irresistible pull of groupthink parenting.

She had just moved to the area, so she reached out to mothers’ groups on Facebook. Colorado, with a kindergarten vaccination compliance rate of 88.7 percent, has a rambunctious vaccine-resistant movement. Ms. Fuqua’s new friends urged her to have a drug-free birth, use cloth diapers and never to let a drop of formula pass her baby’s lips. Vaccines, it followed, were anathema.

The women intimidated her. They had advanced degrees; she had only a bachelor of science and a nursing background.

“I didn’t argue with them,” Ms. Fuqua said. “I was so desperate for their support that I compromised by delaying the vaccine schedule, so I wouldn’t get kicked out of the group.”

But when her second child was born prematurely, susceptible to illness, the group’s approval was not as important as her baby’s safety. Her position, she said, shifted from, “‘I can’t hang out with you if you had a vaccine because you could be shedding a virus’” — a common, false belief among the vaccine resistant — to, “ ‘If you haven’t had a vaccine, I will not associate with you.’”

She had both children fully vaccinated.

There have been anti-vaccination movements at least since 1796, when Edward Jenner invented the smallpox vaccine. But many experts say that the current one can be traced to 1982, when NBC aired a documentary, “DPT: Vaccine Roulette,” that took up a controversy percolating in England: a purported tie between the vaccine for pertussis — a potentially fatal disease that can cause lung problems — and seizures in young children.

Doctors sharply criticized the show as dangerously inaccurate. But fear spread. Anti-vaccination groups formed. Many companies stopped making vaccines, which were considered loss-leaders and not worth the corporate headache.

Then, in 1998, Andrew Wakefield, a British gastroenterologist, published a Lancet study (since discredited and withdrawn), associating the M.M.R. vaccine with autism.

Faced with risking autism or measles, some parents thought the answer was obvious. Most had never seen measles, mumps or rubella because vaccines had nearly eliminated them. But they believed they knew autism.

And most people are notoriously poor at assessing risk, say experts in medical decision-making.

Many stumble on omission bias: “We would rather not do something and have something bad happen, than do something and have something bad happen,” explained Alison M. Buttenheim, an associate professor of nursing and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing.

People are flummoxed by numerical risk. “We pay more attention to numerators, such as ‘16 adverse events,’ than we do to denominators, such as ‘per million vaccine doses,’ ” Dr. Buttenheim said.

A concept called “ambiguity aversion” is also involved, she added. “Parents would like to be told that vaccines are 100 percent safe,” she said. “But that’s not a standard we hold any medical treatment to.”

Relatively few people are absolutists about refusing all vaccines. “But if you’re uncertain about a decision, you’ll find those who confirm your bias and cement what you think,” said Rupali J. Limaye, a social scientist who studies vaccine behaviors at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Nowhere is that reinforcement more clamorous than on social media, Dr. Limaye added. “You may only see your pediatrician a few times a year but you can spend all day on the internet,” she said.

People tend to believe an individual’s anecdotal narrative over abstract numbers. By 2007, when Ms. McCarthy, the actress, insisted that vaccines caused her son’s autism, thousands found her to be more persuasive than data showing otherwise. A nascent movement took hold.

At the same time that these powerful attacks on vaccine confidence were underway, a constellation of trends was emerging.

The definition of a good parent was becoming fraught with the responsibility for overseeing every aspect of a child’s life.

“As we adopted a culture of individualistic parenting, public health became a hard sell,” Dr. Reich said.

The primary reason for healthy people to get the flu shot is to protect those with compromised immune systems, like infants and older adults, from getting sick. But altruism isn’t a great motivator for parents, Dr. Buttenheim said. “They are much more concerned about protecting their own child at all costs,” she said.

Contrast that attitude with the collective good will of the 1950s, say medical sociologists, when American parents who had seen President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s wheelchair as a debilitating symbol of polio patriotically sought to vaccinate their children to help eradicate the disease worldwide.

By 2014, studies showed that parental confidence in authorities like the C.D.C. and in pediatricians was dropping, especially around vaccines. Mistrust of Big Pharma was even more pronounced.

By then, Donald Trump was offering support on Twitter for the discredited link between autism and vaccination. As president-elect, he met with leaders of the anti-vaccination movement, although as measles cases surged, he endorsed vaccination.

As parenting became rife with orthodoxy, the Marcus Welby model of the paternalistic doctor retreated. Patients asserted autonomy, brandishing internet printouts at doctors. Shared decision-making became the model of doctor-patient engagement.

Pediatricians offered to stagger vaccine schedules. Some were even flexible about vaccinations altogether.

In 2011, shortly after Emma Wagner had given birth in Savannah, Ga., a pediatrician on the ward examined the baby. “He asked me if I was interested in the hepatitis B vaccine,” she said of an inoculation typically done at birth.

She was apprehensive.

He replied, “‘That’s fine, because your 2-day-old daughter isn’t a prostitute and isn’t using I.V. drugs, so hep B isn’t at the top of my worries.’”

Ms. Wagner said she “swallowed the anti-vax Kool-Aid. I was motivated by fear. I thought, ‘Until I know for certain that these are safe, I won’t do it.’ The pediatrician said, ‘I will support your decision and in a few years we’ll talk about exemptions for school.’”

She has since become a staunch supporter of immunization.

Libertarianism also courses through vaccine hesitation, with parents who assert that government should not be able to tell them what to put in their bodies — a position often marketed as “the right to choose.”

“Having the government order them to do something reinforces conspiracy theories,” said Daniel Salmon, director of the Institute for Vaccine Safety at Johns Hopkins. “And people perceive their risk to be higher when it’s not voluntary.”

In reality, he said, one’s risk of harm is greater while driving to an airport than it is being on the airplane itself. But driving is voluntary and gives the illusion of control. People fear flying because they cannot control the plane. By extension, many childhood vaccines are not voluntary, which rattles those who prefer to believe they can control their health.

With so many different but deeply held convictions, public health experts struggle to design vaccine-positive campaigns.

In 2017, researchers applied the six values of “the moral foundations theory” to vaccine attitudes, surveying 1,007 American parents.

The results were intriguing. Those most resistant to vaccines scored highest in two values: purity (“my body is a temple”) and liberty (“I want to make my child’s health care decisions”).

A third, said Saad B. Omer, director of Yale’s Global Health Institute and an author of the study, was also telling: deference to authority — a score indicating whether one was likely to adhere to the advice of experts like a pediatrician or the C.D.C.

Dr. Salmon’s team at Johns Hopkins is working on an app to capture parents’ vaccine attitudes and to tailor information to persuade them to vaccinate their children.

Pediatricians are front-line persuaders, he said, and they should be compensated for the time it takes to educate parents.

Most experts note that physicians themselves, never mind parents, have no idea about the federal vaccine monitoring systems, which have been in place for more than 20 years.

“We ask parents in the first two years of their child’s life to protect them against 14 diseases, that most people don’t see, using fluids they don’t understand,” Dr. Offit said. “It’s time for us to stand back and explain ourselves better.”

Source: The New York Times

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Mark Steyn reacts to chaos (and political correctness) at Democratic Socialists of America convention | Fox News

Editor’s Note: I found this video to be not only informative as to what’s behind the scenes of Democratic Socialists, but some strange, dark comedy regarding the social behaviors of this particular subculture which has greatly influenced many of the Democratic candidates in the 2020 Presidential election.

Source: Fox News/YouTube

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Venezuela’s collapse worst outside of war in decades: Economists say | Business Standard & The New York Times

Editor’s Note: The radical leftists, socialists, communists, Marxists and Democrats wish to take America down this road. Remember the former Soviet Union under Lenin and Stalin. Remember Communist China under Mao. Remember Venezuela and other socialist failures before you vote for this.

Venezuelas fall due to poor governance, corruption and the misguided policies of President Nicolas Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chavez is the single largest economic collapse outside of war in 45 years, outpacing Zimbabwes crumbling under Robert Mugabe, Cubas disastrous unravelling in the 1990s and the fall of the Soviet Union, economists say.

“It’s really hard to think of a human tragedy of this scale outside civil war,” said Kenneth Rogoff, an economics professor at Harvard University and former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

“This will be a touchstone of disastrous policies for decades to come.”

To find similar levels of economic devastation, economists at the IMF pointed to nations that were ripped apart by war, like Libya earlier this decade or Lebanon in the 1970s, the New York Times reported on Friday.

But Venezuela, at one point Latin America’s wealthiest country, has not been shattered by armed conflict. Instead, economists say, the poor governance, corruption and misguided policies of Maduro and Chavez have increased inflation, shuttered businesses and brought the country to its knees.

And in recent months, the Donald Trump administration has tried to cripple it further by imposing stiff sanctions.

As Venezuela’s economy plummeted, armed gangs took control of entire towns, public services collapsed and the purchasing power of most Venezuelans has been reduced to a couple of kg of flour a month.

In markets, butchers hit by regular blackouts struggle to sell decomposing stock by sunset. Former labourers scavenge through garbage dumps for leftovers and recyclable plastic.

Dejected retailers make dozens of trips to the bank in hopes of depositing several pounds’ worth of bills made worthless by hyperinflation, the report said.

The crisis has escalated due to American sanctions intended to force Maduro to cede power to the nation’s opposition leader, Juan Guaido. The US sanctions on Venezuela’s state oil company have made it difficult for the government to sell its main commodity, oil.

Together with the American ban on trading Venezuelan bonds, the Trump administration has made it harder for Venezuela to import any goods, including food and medication.

Maduro blames the widespread hunger and lack of medical supplies on the US and its opposition allies – but most independent economists say the recession began years before the sanctions, which at most accelerated the collapse.

Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves. But its oil output, once Latin America’s largest, has fallen faster in the past year than Iraq’s after the American invasion in 2003, according to data from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

It has lost a tenth of its population in the past two years as people fled, setting off Latin America’s biggest ever refugee crisis.

The country’s hyperinflation — expected to reach 10 million per cent this year according to the IMF — is on track to become the longest period of runaway price rises.

“This is essentially a total collapse in consumption,” said Sergi Lanau, Deputy Chief Economist at the Institute of International Finance, a financial trade association.

The institute estimates that the drop in Venezuela’s economic output under Maduro has undergone “the steepest decline by any country not at war since at least 1975”.

By year’s end, Venezuela’s gross domestic product will shrink by 62 per cent since the beginning of the recession in 2013, which coincided with Maduro coming to power, according to the institute’s estimates.

Source: Business Standard & The New York Times

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Jerrold Nadler: another socialist in Congress | Metro Voice

Editor’s Note: What is particularly disturbing is that the Judiciary Committee chairman was associated with the Socialist Party long before he was a U.S. Congressman. Afterwards, he led the Congressional Progressive Caucus which from a policy standpoint is synonymous with the Socialist Party. 

Jerrold Nadler, the socialist we will be exposing may surprise many people that really do not know who they elected. Let us hope that becomes true so we can get rid of these socialists within our Congress and Senate and replace them with people who will follow the Constitution rather than the ideology of the socialists they work for.

It was way back in the 1940s when the Socialist Party realized that the Democratic Party had begun to follow the same ideology as the Socialist Party. Just how can we make such a strong statement about the Democratic Party? It is simple.  It started with the man who tossed his Socialist Party into the Democratic Party after making the following statement.

“Norman Thomas, the six-time Socialist Party candidate for U.S. President, said the following in a 1944 speech:

“The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of ‘liberalism,’ they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened…. I no longer need to run as a Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democratic Party has adopted our platform.”

You must be wondering what this has to do with what is going on today.

We will now expose the man named Jerrold Nadler, the man who is working on impeaching or setting up impeachment ideas against President Donald Trump. We decided to look at Nadler because what he was stating sounded an awful lot like what prior socialists such as Elijah Cummings, among others, were saying. After a quick look into Mr. Nadler’s background, we found a very deep association and links to the Socialist Party and links to the Communist Party. Many will say, “So what?” but go back and read just what the Socialist and Communist Parties represent and you will quickly find that they both hate the United States Constitution and they both hate freedom. Both of those very far left parties work toward destroying our nation from within by placing their puppets, like Nadler and others, in office to slowly work their ideology into the American dream.

Here’s the truth about Jerrold Nadler, what he is and why he should never be in the position he is in now or ever.

Nadler got his start in 1992 as shown below.

“In 1992, longtime Democratic U.S. Congressman Ted Weiss died one day before his party’s primary election for New York City’s newly redrawn Eighth District. Using a weighted voting system, a convention of nearly 1,000 Democratic county committee members selected Nadler to replace Weiss on the November ballot. Nadler won easily and has had no serious challenge in any of his congressional re-election bids since then.” 

Here we see he won an election from a man that died in office. While there is not much in that, it does go downhill and deep into the socialistic ideology from there.

“Upon his election to the House of Representatives, Nadler promptly joined the Congressional Progressive Caucus and became a leader of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus. For an overview of his voting record on a number of key issues during the course of his legislative career, click here.”

So, just after his election, he joins the “Congressional Progressive Caucus.” This is not a good group to be in, but he was very quick to join showing his socialistic ideology was set before his election. Now, just what is the Congressional Progressive Party? Basically speaking, it is just a cover name for the Socialist Party.

But let’s take a brief look at this group that is ever expanding in the Democratic Party.

“The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) was founded in 1991 by Bernie Sanders, a self-identified socialist who had recently been elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Sanders’ CPC co-founders included House members Ron Dellums, Lane Evans, Thomas Andrews, Peter DeFazio, and Maxine Waters. The Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) was also involved in CPC’s founding and in Caucus activities thereafter; IPS continues to advise CPC on various matters to this day.

Another key player in establishing CPC was the Democratic Socialists of America(DSA), which has maintained a close alliance with the Caucus ever since. In 1997, DSA’s political director, Chris Riddiough, organized a meeting with CPC leaders to discuss how the two groups might be able to “unite our forces on a common agenda.” Among those who participated in the meeting were Bernie Sanders, labor leader Richard Trumka, professor Noam Chomsky, feminist Patricia Ireland, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Senator Paul Wellstone, journalist William Greider, and the socialist author Barbara Ehrenreich.

Beginning in 1997, CPC worked closely with the newly launched “Progressive Challenge, a coalition of more than 100 leftist organizations that sought to unite their activities and objectives under a “multi-issue progressive agenda.” To view a list of many of the major groups that co-sponsored the Progressive Challenge, click here.”

The first thing that should jump out from the page is that this group was started by none other than Bernie Sanders, a very strong socialist. Also, take notice that Maxine Waters is also involved with this, and there will be more on her in a future article. Getting back to Nadler’s association with this group, we also see that it is closely associated with the Democratic Socialists of America, just another Socialist branch of the now-defunct Democratic Party.

Let’s take a look at what Jerrold Nadler has aligned himself with.

“Throughout his years in politics, Nadler has maintained close ties to socialist organizations. In 1977, for instance, he was a member of the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC), and by 1983 he had joined the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), which grew out of DSOC. On May 1, 1989, Nadler served on the sponsoring committee for a New York DSA screening of the pro-union film Matewan. That same year, he personally asked New York’s DSA to endorse his candidacy for NYC Comptroller. In 1990, Nadler endorsed the New York mayoral campaign of DSA member David Dinkins. In July 1996, DSA’s Political Action Committee endorsed Nadler for Congress. Each year from 1995-97, Nadler spoke at the DSA’s annual Socialist Scholars Conferences, where he participated in panel discussions with such notables as Stanley Aronowitz, William Kornblum, and Frances Fox Piven. According to DSA’s rival Social Democrats USA, Nadler remains a DSA member to this day.”

Here, we see that Jerrold Nadler has maintained very close ties to the Socialist Party and organizations. Do the people in New York know this? Do the People of New York understand what this means? We would have to guess that if they do, they do not understand what the socialist ideology is trying to do to our nation.

Jerrold Nadler was on a panel with known anti-United States individual, Frances Fox Piven, that is a lady who worked hard to destroy the United States and the idea of freedom.  Look it up and see her background.  Just what we have shown here should be enough for a normal group of people to have an idea that Nadler is not good for their freedom.  After all, socialism does not promote freedom.  Just look at Venezuela, Cuba, and so many other socialist states.

“In 2003 Nadler, urged on by the ACLU and People For the American Way, introduced legislation aimed at defeating the Bush administration’s Terrorism Information Awareness (TIA) program, which sought to help the government root out terrorists by analyzing and cross-referencing various databases for evidence of suspicious patterns of Internet activity, travel, credit-card purchases, and donations to charities and political causes. By Nadler’s reckoning, the TIA initiative constituted a massive “assault on our rights” and represented “perhaps the closest realization of an Orwellian ‘Big Brother’ government to date.”

Nadler fought to stop a program that would root out terrorists. That does not sound like someone that is out to protect the people who voted for him. However, Nadler doesn’t care because he believes he can never be defeated.  Yet, maybe it is just that the people who vote for him have not been told he is a flaming socialist.  Nadler is even making a statement that terrorists should not be drawn out if they have in mind to harm this nation. Just look at his words and try to understand how could this man have the people in his district in mind when he stated that. Let us take a look at something that he says below and see how close it resembles what he is now trying to do with President Trump.

“In a similar spirit, Nadler characterized the PATRIOT Act as an example of unnecessary “governmental intrusion” into the lives of Americans. Especially outrageous to Nadler was a PATRIOT Act clause enabling FBI investigators to access library records in the course of a terrorism investigation. “If [Attorney General] John Ashcroft has his way, bookstore customers could be investigated for something as arbitrary as buying Hillary Clinton’s new book,” warned Nadler. “People are outraged,” he added, “by the loss of civil liberties…. The government … should not be in the thought-police business.” Further, Nadler denounced the PATRIOT Act as “little more than the institution of a police state.”

Today, Nadler is making the very statement he hates in the paragraph above.

“People are outraged,” he added, “by the loss of civil liberties…. The government … should not be in the thought-police business.” Further, Nadler denounced the PATRIOT Act as “little more than the institution of a police state.”

Notice the phrase, “The government should not be in the thought police business.” But today he is using that very idea to go after President Trump even after President Trump has been cleared of all charges, or in Nadler’s case, all thoughts. Let us show just what Nadler thinks about our Constitution.

“In January 2011, when the new Speaker of the House, Republican John Boehner, announced his intention to open the year’s first session of Congress with a reading of the U.S. Constitution, Nadler complained that Republicans “are reading it [the Constitution] like a sacred text.” Boehner’s “ritualistic reading” was “total nonsense” and “propaganda,” said Nadler, adding that the document’s need for amendments to abolish slavery and other injustices showed that it was, from its inception, “highly imperfect.”

Here we see that Nadler complained about the reading of our Constitution, calling Boehner’s reading, “Total Nonsense and propaganda.” This is what seems to show his total dislike for the Constitution.

Now, let us show his connections to the Communist Party.

“* In 1997 Nadler was one of 33 original co-sponsors of the Job Creation and Infrastructure Restoration Act which was introduced into Congress by California Rep. Matthew Martinez. This emergency federal jobs legislation, supported by the New York State Communist Party, was designed to create jobs at union wages in financially foundering cities by putting the unemployed to work on infrastructure projects such as rebuilding schools, housing, hospitals, libraries, public transportation, highways, and parks. Rep. Martinez had already introduced an earlier version of this bill in the previous Congress at the request of the Los Angeles Labor Coalition for Public Works Jobs, whose leaders were known supporters or members of the Communist Party USA. To view a list of all the co-sponsors, click here.”

This shows that Jerrold Nadler supported a bill pushed forward by a group associated with the Communist Party.  Notice here how the Communist Party works:  placing people into jobs for which that may or may not be paid. This is how the Communist Party works:  it makes people think it is great because it creates certain jobs and after they get you into their group, then they use you to do their evil bidding. Of course, we all know that Communism has failed everywhere it has grown because it cannot sustain what it lays claim to be.

Let us close with a final show of what Nadler will do to keep his office.

“* During a June 2014 House briefing with Obama administration officials on the recent trade of five high-ranking Taliban commanders in exchange for American Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, Nadler suggested that the Taliban, as non-state actors, had a status comparable to that of American soldiers who had fought the British during the Revolutionary War. When reports of Nadler’s statement sparked some public controversy, the congressman clarified: “I was told they [the Taliban] were unprivileged combatants, not prisoners of war, and I was trying to figure out the extent of that legal distinction. I was told they wore no uniform so I was curious if that gave them the legal status of militias in the American Revolution — who also did not wear uniforms…. In no way was I comparing their values, their efforts, and their cause to that of our founding fathers, and to suggest otherwise is absurd.”

Nadler quickly changed his tone when people questioned his words.

Maybe today “WE THE PEOPLE” should once again drag him across the rug to explain why he is thinking of placing impeachment charges on President Trump when he has been cleared of everything, not to mention the entire mess began with a very false report about collusion with Russia. By the way, does Nadler even know that once it comes up that the entire Russia idea was false it could overturn everything?  No doubt, he would once again be giving a very different explanation to the people.

With all this, we have to wonder if maybe the voters in New York were blindfolded when they voted for him, but he did not have anyone run against him. That is another way the socialists keep winning.  They set up districts where no one wants to challenge them.

Jerrold Nadler is a Socialist in Democrat clothing and has ties to the Communist Party too. Why in the world would people vote for an individual who has ties to groups that do not honor or like the Constitution?  Don’t you think it is time to get rid of this socialist and replace him with a person who honors the Constitution and freedom?

Source: Metro Voice

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is already pulling back the curtain on the inner workings of Congress | CNBC

By Carmen Chapell

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is already pulling back the curtain on the inner workings of the Capitol.

The New York Democrat, along with other incoming freshman lawmakers, is trying to usher in a culture of openness that is enabled by a vast social media following. With nearly 3 million followers combined on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, Ocasio-Cortez has used the platforms to involve her supporters during the transition period before she takes office.

Her enthusiastic and often pugnacious transparency campaign has earned her praise from inside and outside the Beltway. Yet it has also drawn criticism from several corners, including from President Donald Trump’s eldest son. Ocasio-Cortez hasn’t given any indication that she will let up, however.

In a series of pictures and videos on Instagram dubbed “Congress Camp,” she gave an inside look into new-member orientation, from choosing an office to voting for House leadership, while also showcasing the unique quirks of life on Capitol Hill.

“Guys, there are secret underground tunnels between all of these government buildings!” she whispers in one video. In another post, she polls her followers on whether she should choose an office with more space or one “close to our friends.”

But Ocasio-Cortez isn’t just focusing on the novelty of her experience. Last week, she tweeted sharp criticism of an orientation for new members of Congress hosted by Harvard. The event featured corporate CEOs but no labor representatives.

“Our ‘bipartisan’ Congressional orientation is cohosted by a corporate lobbyist group. Other members have quietly expressed to me their concern that this wasn’t told to us in advance,” she tweeted. “Lobbyists are here. Goldman Sachs is here. Where’s labor? Activists? Frontline community leaders?”

Fellow freshman member Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., echoed her criticisms. Tlaib said that Gary Cohn, former chief economic advisor to President Donald Trump and former Goldman Sachs executive, told the new members at orientation that they don’t “know how the game is played.”

“No Gary, YOU don’t know what’s coming – a revolutionary Congress that puts people over profits,” Tlaib tweeted.

‘Those little things are very real’

Ocasio-Cortez rose to the spotlight after defeating longtime incumbent Joseph Crowley in the Democratic primary for New York’s 14th Congressional District, which encompasses parts of Queens and the Bronx. A self-identified Democratic socialist, she ran on a liberal platform and chose to emphasize her identity as a young woman of color. The 29-year-old’s victory in the general election anointed her as the youngest woman ever elected to Congress.

Ocasio-Cortez’s comments about her new role have also renewed longstanding debates on the financial challenges facing members of Congress and their staff. She has made it personal by revealing her own insecurities about her finances during the transition period.

“I have three months without a salary before I’m a member of Congress. So, how do I get an apartment? Those little things are very real,” she told The New York Times in an interview.

Many lawmakers struggle with the cost of living in Washington, D.C., even on the $174,000 congressional salary, going so far as to sleep in their offices to save on rent costs.

Ocasio-Cortez has also made it a point to talk about the economic conditions of congressional staff. Last week, she tweeted: “It is unjust for Congress to budget a living wage for ourselves, yet rely on unpaid interns & underpaid overworked staff just bc Republicans want to make a statement about ‘fiscal responsibility.'”

Low salaries as well as the prevalence of unpaid internships, which are often the first step to a full-time role, are seen as barriers to a more diverse congressional staff. Ocasio-Cortez pledged to pay her office’s interns $15 an hour, inspiring other lawmakers to make the same commitment.

She has also shared experiences that reveal the growing pains of an increasingly diverse Congress. “People keep giving me directions to the spouse and intern events instead of the ones for members of Congress,” she tweeted during orientation.

The changing face of Congress

Ocasio-Cortez is just one of the 42 women, 38 of them Democrats, part of Congress’ freshman class. They are being heralded as the faces of a new “Year of the Woman.” Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and Michigan’s Tlaib are the first Muslim women elected to Congress, while Ayanna Pressley, a Democrat, is the first black woman elected to represent Massachusetts. Ocasio-Cortez posted a picture of the four women together on Instagram last month, captioning it “Squad.”

As a result of her high profile, Ocasio-Cortez’s unabashed takes on congressional life have frequently come under fire.

Eddie Scarry, a writer for the Washington Examiner, disputed Ocasio-Cortez’s account of her financial hardships based on her clothing choices.

“Hill staffer sent me this pic of Ocasio-Cortez they took just now,” Scarry tweeted. “I’ll tell you something: that jacket and coat don’t look like a girl who struggles.” The tweet has since been deleted after widespread backlash.

Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis., condemned the media for what he viewed as preferential treatment in coverage of Ocasio-Cortez. As a freshman congressman in 2011, Duffy received negative reactions after telling a constituent that he struggles to pay his bills.

“Hmm which headlines and article does media give to GOP and which to a Dem?” Duffy tweeted alongside screenshots of articles referencing himself and Ocasio-Cortez.

Last week, Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, shared a doctored image on Instagram in which Ocasio-Cortez asks, “Why are you so afraid of a socialist economy?” In the post, President Trump responds, “Because Americans want to walk their dogs, not eat them.” Trump Jr. captioned the meme “It’s funny cuz it’s true!!!”

Ocasio-Cortez fired back, tweeting: “Please, keep it coming Jr – it’s definitely a ‘very, very large brain’ idea to troll a member of a body that will have subpoena power in a month.” Democrats have made clear that they plan to use their new subpoena power in the House to further investigate potential Russian interference in the 2016 elections.

The representative-elect has also received praise for revealing parts of the political system that are typically left in the shadows.

Actress Kerry Washington, who stars in the political drama “Scandal,” commended Ocasio-Cortez’s behind-the-scenes revelations, tweeting, “@Ocasio2018 speaking truth to power. Sharing the NEEDED #BTS of our democracy at work. So grateful.”

“I’m learning more details about how the House actually works over the past two weeks than I ever did in the past 20 years,” one follower tweeted in reply to Ocasio-Cortez.

“Thank you so much for giving us the window into the inside baseball of Congress,” another follower said.

Paul Musgrave, assistant professor of political science at University of Massachusetts Amherst, praised Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter for “treating voters as neither super-sophisticated DC insiders, nor as people who can’t be trusted to make up their own minds, but rather as people who are curious and intelligent but who aren’t experts in DC process.”

“Sometimes,” he added, “you don’t need a new theory of politics to make change, just a willingness to state the obvious.”

Source: CNBC