theeconomiccollapseblog | In order for a civilized society to function, most people have to
willingly follow the rules of that society. If that happens, law
enforcement authorities can deal with the few that choose to be
lawless. For generations, that is how things worked in America. There
was a high standard of morality among the general population, and so the
police were able to successfully handle the few bad apples that
insisted on breaking the law. But now everything has changed. As a
result of decades of extreme moral decay, lawlessness is rampant and
there are vast multitudes of young people that openly flaunt the rules
of our society. In fact, there are already some areas of the country
that are literally on the verge of being ungovernable.
A perfect example of what I am talking about happened in southern California on Saturday.
Shoppers at the Westfield Topanga mall in Canoga Park
were in for quite a shock when dozens of thieves ransacked the Nordstrom
inside the mall on Saturday, Aug. 12, smashing displays and stealing an
estimated $60,000- $100,000 worth of merchandise, authorities said.
The Los Angeles Police Department responded to the mall at around 4
p.m. after hearing reports that between 20 and 50 people ran through the
Nordstrom grabbing merchandise, leaving some on the ground and taking
armfuls with them.
When I was growing up, this sort of thing simply did not happen.
But now we are seeing mobs of looters go haywire all over the nation on a regular basis.
Apparently these young people are not exactly languishing in poverty, because a BMW and a Lexus were among the getaway vehicles that they used…
After grabbing between $60,000 and $100,000 worth of
goods, the crew fled in several cars including a BMW and a Lexus, cops
said.
At least one guard was doused with bear spray — which causes violent
eye and respiratory irritation in humans. The guard was treated by
paramedics.
How are we supposed to respond to this?
As I stated earlier, we are seeing robberies of this nature so often now.
Several days earlier, dozens of young people looted the Yves Saint Laurent store in Glendale…
Earlier this week a high-end designer store in Glendale,
California was looted by dozens of people in another flash mob burglary
on Tuesday.
At least 30 suspects “flooded” the Yves Saint Laurent store in The
Americana at Brand Tuesday afternoon and stole clothing and other
merchandise before fleeing on foot and leaving the location in numerous
vehicles, said police in a statement.
The total loss is estimated to be approximately $300,000.
Some people attempt to downplay the severity of these crimes by
saying that these big corporate retailers can afford the losses they are
experiencing.
No, they can’t.
Overall, U.S. retailers will lose more than 100 billion dollars due to theft this year alone.
This has become a major national crisis, and as J. Lee Grady has aptly pointed out, we truly have become “the land of the free-for-all”…
The Marion County Record's co-owner and publisher, Eric Meyer, believes Friday's raid was prompted by a story published Wednesday
about a local business owner. Authorities countered they are
investigating what they called "identity theft" and "unlawful acts
concerning computers," according to a search warrant.
"Based on public reporting, the search warrant that has been
published online, and your public statements to the press, there appears
to be no justification for the breadth and intrusiveness of the search
—particularly when other investigative steps may have been available —
and we are concerned that it may have violated federal law strictly
limiting federal, state, and local law enforcement's ability to conduct
newsroom searches," the letter said.
Meyer said that, before the raid, his newspaper had investigated
Cody's background and his time at the Kansas City Police Department
before he came to Marion. He declined to provide details of the
newspaper's investigation of Cody. "I really don't think it would be
advisable for me to say what it was we were investigating, other than to
characterize the charges as serious….," Meyer said. He told The Star
the newspaper didn't publish a story about the allegations. "We didn't
publish it because we couldn't nail it down to the point that we thought
it was ready for publication," he said. "He (Cody) didn't know who our
sources were. He does now." Meyer said the newspaper told city leaders
they had received information about Cody but could not confirm it.
Another factor in the raid appears to be the anger of a local politically-involved restauranteur:
He and his reporter Phyllis Zorn were kicked out of an August 2nd
meeting at a local establishment with US Congressman Jake LaTurner
(R-KS) by the City of Marion Police Chief after restaurant owner Kari
Newell demanded they leave. Meyer and Zorn published a subsequent story
about the hostile encounter, which infuriated Newell and prompted angry
Facebook posts.
The paper then received a tip about Newell having her license suspended
in 2008 after a DUI, checked it out, decided not to publish it, and
ultimately shared it with the local police because they believed it
might've been shared with them as part of Newell's ongoing divorce
battle. The police then told Newell what the newspaper shared, and she
attended Monday's City Council meeting to make outrageous claims about
the newspaper and one of the council members (who had also obtained the
letter) violating her rights. She also called Meyer later that evening
and erroneously accused him of identity theft. Not even four days later,
police arrived at the newspaper office, Meyer's home and the council
member's home with search warrants signed by a judge
Lots of things about to be tried in this small town.
theatlantic |A modern vision of how to build character.
The old-fashioned models of character-building were hopelessly
gendered. Men were supposed to display iron willpower that would help
them achieve self-mastery over their unruly passions. Women were to
sequester themselves in a world of ladylike gentility in order to not be
corrupted by bad influences and base desires. Those formulas are
obsolete today.
The best modern approach to building character is described in Iris Murdoch’s book The Sovereignty of Good.
Murdoch writes that “nothing in life is of any value except the attempt
to be virtuous.” For her, moral life is not defined merely by great
deeds of courage or sacrifice in epic moments. Instead, moral life is
something that goes on continually—treating people considerately in the
complex situations of daily existence. For her, the essential moral act
is casting a “just and loving” attention on other people.
Normally,
she argues, we go about our days with self-centered, self-serving eyes.
We see and judge people in ways that satisfy our own ego. We diminish
and stereotype and ignore, reducing other people to bit players in our
own all-consuming personal drama. But we become morally better, she
continues, as we learn to see others deeply, as we learn to envelop
others in the kind of patient, caring regard that makes them feel seen,
heard, and understood. This is the kind of attention that implicitly
asks, “What are you going through?” and cares about the answer.
I
become a better person as I become more curious about those around me,
as I become more skilled in seeing from their point of view. As I learn
to perceive you with a patient and loving regard, I will tend to treat
you well. We can, Murdoch concluded, “grow by looking.”
Mandatory social-skills courses. Murdoch’s character-building formula roots us in the simple act of paying attention: Do I attend to you well?
It also emphasizes that character is formed and displayed as we treat
others considerately. This requires not just a good heart, but good
social skills: how to listen well. How to disagree with respect. How to
ask for and offer forgiveness. How to patiently cultivate a friendship.
How to sit with someone who is grieving or depressed. How to be a good
conversationalist.
These are
some of the most important skills a person can have. And yet somehow, we
don’t teach them. Our schools spend years prepping students with
professional skills—but offer little guidance on how to be an upstanding
person in everyday life. If we’re going to build a decent society,
elementary schools and high schools should require students to take
courses that teach these specific social skills, and thus prepare them
for life with one another. We could have courses in how to be a good
listener or how to build a friendship. The late feminist philosopher Nel
Noddings developed a whole pedagogy around how to effectively care for others.
A new core curriculum. More
and more colleges and universities are offering courses in what you
might call “How to Live.” Yale has one called “Life Worth Living.” Notre
Dame has one called “God and the Good Life.” A first-year honors
program in this vein at Valparaiso University, in Indiana, involves not
just conducting formal debates on ideas gleaned from the Great Books,
but putting on a musical production based on their themes. Many of these
courses don’t give students a ready-made formula, but they introduce
students to some of the venerated moral traditions—Buddhism,
Judeo-Christianity, and Enlightenment rationalism, among others. They
introduce students to those thinkers who have thought hard on moral
problems, from Aristotle to Desmond Tutu to Martha Nussbaum. They hold
up diverse exemplars to serve as models of how to live well. They put
the big questions of life firmly on the table: What is the ruling
passion of your soul? Whom are you responsible to? What are my moral
obligations? What will it take for my life to be meaningful? What does
it mean to be a good human in today’s world? What are the central issues
we need to engage with concerning new technology and human life?
These
questions clash with the ethos of the modern university, which is built
around specialization and passing on professional or technical
knowledge. But they are the most important courses a college can offer.
They shouldn’t be on the margins of academic life. They should be part
of the required core curriculum.
Intergenerational service. We
spend most of our lives living by the logic of the meritocracy: Life is
an individual climb upward toward success. It’s about pursuing
self-interest.
There should
be at least two periods of life when people have a chance to take a
sabbatical from the meritocracy and live by an alternative logic—the
logic of service: You have to give to receive. You have to lose yourself
in a common cause to find yourself. The deepest human relationships are
gift relationships, based on mutual care. (An obvious model for at
least some aspects of this is the culture of the U.S. military, which
similarly emphasizes honor, service, selflessness, and character in
support of a purpose greater than oneself, throwing together Americans
of different ages and backgrounds who forge strong social bonds.)
Those
sabbaticals could happen at the end of the school years and at the end
of the working years. National service programs could bring younger and
older people together to work to address community needs.
These
programs would allow people to experience other-centered ways of being
and develop practical moral habits: how to cooperate with people unlike
you. How to show up day after day when progress is slow. How to do work
that is generous and hard.
Moral organizations.
Most organizations serve two sets of goals—moral goals and instrumental
goals. Hospitals heal the sick and also seek to make money. Newspapers
and magazines inform the public and also try to generate clicks. Law
firms defend clients and also try to maximize billable hours. Nonprofits
aim to serve the public good and also raise money.
In
our society, the commercial or utilitarian goals tend to eclipse the
moral goals. Doctors are pressured by hospital administrators to rush
through patients so they can charge more fees. Journalists are
incentivized to write stories that confirm reader prejudices in order to
climb the most-read lists. Whole companies slip into an optimization
mindset, in which everything is done to increase output and efficiency.
Moral renewal won’t come until we have leaders who are explicit, loud, and credible about both sets of goals. Here’s how we’re growing financially, but also
Here’s how we’re learning to treat one another with consideration and
respect; here’s how we’re going to forgo some financial returns in order
to better serve our higher mission.
Early in my career, as a TV pundit at PBS NewsHour,
I worked with its host, Jim Lehrer. Every day, with a series of small
gestures, he signaled what kind of behavior was valued there and what
kind of behavior was unacceptable. In this subtle way, he established a
set of norms and practices that still lives on. He and others built a
thick and coherent moral ecology, and its way of being was internalized
by most of the people who have worked there.
merylnass | Here is another wonderfully researched and written look into the long
morbid history of how the powerful repeatedly sterilize the powerless.
Hard to believe, but California was still sterilizing women in prisons
until about 20 years ago, that we know of. The Midwestern Doctor has
produced another tour de force.
“Billionaires Try to Shrink World’s Population”: Secret Gathering Sponsored by Bill Gates, 2009 Meeting of “The Good Club”
Is Worldwide Depopulation Part of the Billionaire's "Great Reset"
For more than ten years, meetings have been held by billionaires described as philanthropists to Reduce the Size of the World’s Population culminating with the 2020-2022 Covid crisis.
Recent
developments suggest that “Depopulation” is an integral part of the
so-called Covid mandates including the lockdown policies and the mRNA
“vaccine”.
Flash back to 2009. According to the Wall Street Journal: “Billionaires Try to Shrink World’s Population”.
In
May 2009, the Billionaire philanthropists met behind closed doors at
the home of the president of The Rockefeller University in Manhattan.
This Secret Gathering was sponsored by Bill Gates. They called themselves “The Good Club”.
Among the participants were the late David Rockefeller, Warren Buffett, George Soros, Michael Bloomberg Ted Turner, Oprah Winfrey and many more.
In May 2009, the WSJ as well as the Sunday Times reported: (John Harlow, Los Angeles) that
“Some
of America’s leading billionaires have met secretly to consider how
their wealth could be used to slow the growth of the world’s population
and speed up improvements in health and education.”
The emphasis was not on population growth (i.e Planned Parenthood) but on “Depopulation”, i.e,. the reduction in the absolute size of the World’s population.
alt-market | When I think back to the first days of the covid pandemic lockdowns, I
suspect the majority of people, even many conservatives and liberty
movement types, had a healthy concern about the effects of the virus and
the potential for structural upheaval if it turned out to be as deadly
as the World Health Organization initially claimed. If covid had an
Infection Fatality Rate of 3% or more as global health officials warned,
then the damage would be substantial enough to change our world for
many years to come.
Anyone who was not at least partially
concerned about a biological disaster (or biological warfare) was
probably an idiot. Anyone who was smart was prepared. However, after a
few months of the spread of the virus and after the first flurry of
scientific data, several facts became evident:
2) The masks were useless and did nothing to prevent transmission of the virus.
3) The IFR of covid was a tiny 0.23%, and that’s not accounting for all the co-morbidity deaths that were falsely labeled as covid deaths.
4) The vaccines did not prevent transmission for millions of people. They did not prevent infection in many cases and numerous vaccinated people have died from the virus. Not only that, but unvaccinated people with natural immunity were better protected than those that took the vaccine and boosters.
5) Studies show that the vaccines cause dangerous side effects at a much greater rate than the CDC admitted.
Everything
government officials told us during the pandemic was a lie. It was not a
mistake, it was not bureaucratic confusion, it was a lie. Even after
this information became available, they KEPT GOING – They kept people
locked down, kept them masked and they even tried to force-vaccinate the
population. There were some Republican politicians that also went along
with the panic, many of them Neocons (fake conservatives). However,
the majority of red states quickly ended the restrictions once the
contradictory data was made public. In the meantime, the blue states
looked ridiculous and paranoid as they desperately clung to the
mandates.
I believe the only reason Biden, the Democrats and
globalist institutions eventually stopped was not because they realized
their science was incorrect; it was because they realized millions of
conservatives and independents were ready start a shooting war over the
mandates and they knew they would lose.
Even today, months after
Biden was forced to finally end the national emergency status on covid,
there are still a lot of people out there running around with masks,
still isolating in their homes and still complaining all over social
media that the public has moved on from the pandemic hysteria. Where
does this behavior originate? And why did so many Americans (mainly
leftists) jump on the authoritarian bandwagon when it comes to lockdowns
and forced vaccination?
I want to explore the psychology of such
people here, because I think it’s the natural inclination of the public
today to move on quickly from the discomfort of terrible events and
ignore the deeper implications. We cannot move on from this, because the
ultimate problem was never solved. These same leftists and globalists
were never admonished for their behavior, they never had to admit they
were wrong and they WILL attempt the same draconian measures again in
the future if left unchecked.
Here is what I think happened during the covid cult frenzy…
A Useful Weapon Against The Constitution
Leftists
are quick these days to change the subject or outright deny their
authoritarian activities during covid. It makes sense, they view the
next election as a defining election and they want people to forget that
we almost lost what remains of our constitutional rights because of
their policies. But again, we can’t allow these things to fade into the
ether. Here’s a list of the worst trespasses on the part of leftists and
globalists during the pandemic:
They lied about the effectiveness of the lockdowns.
They lied about the effectiveness of the masks.
They lied about the effectiveness of the vaccines.
They lied about how extensive the testing was for the covid vaccines.
They lied about the “pandemic of the unvaccinated.”
They enforced lockdowns OUTSIDE where it is nearly impossible to contract a virus.
They tried to put the population under house arrest.
They put legislation in motion in some states to build “covid camps” in the US.
In some countries, they did build covid camps, not just for travelers, but for everyone.
They conspired to suppress ample evidence linking the Wuhan Lab in China with the outbreak.
They (Government and Big Tech) conspired to use social media as a tool for mass censorship of conflicting data.
They exploited algorithms through search engines to bury any and all contrary information.
As
many leftists openly admitted, the goal was to make life so difficult
for the unvaccinated that they would eventually comply in order to
survive. In this way, establishment elites and leftists could claim that
people “volunteered” for the vaccines and no one was forced. What they
really meant was, no one was forced at gunpoint, but we all knew that
threat was coming next. In fact, polling showed that a large percentage of Democrats were willing to scrap the Bill of Rights altogether and declare war on the unvaccinated…
espionagehistoryarchive | A notable example of the breakaway civilization in film is the 1979 film adaptation of Ian Fleming’s Moonraker. Moonraker
the film differs significantly from the Fleming’s novel, but the
differences and parallels are important to highlight: the novel focuses
on a kind of Operation Paperclip scenario, wherein
Sir Hugo Drax is secretly building a V-2 rocket in tandem with the
Nazis to destroy England and rebuild the Reich. For many, the film
adaptation a few decades later represented an exceedingly outlandish
interpolation on a pulp spy novel that failed to achieve much more than
mimicking the box office success of science-fiction blockbusters it
attempted to copy, cinematic innovations like 2001 and Star Wars.
On the contrary, more is at work here than just inserting 007 into a
Star Wars laser-battle setting. The most obvious factor to recall is
that 1979 is roughly the birth of the Strategic Defense Initiative (born
at Bohemian Grove), where plans would be posited for a DARPA-style space-based weapons system in the vein of Skynet. Thus, concurrent with this deep- state project initiated under the auspices of the Cold War showdown with the Soviets, Tesla-esque satellite decapitation and directed-energy weapon scenarios would become the Skynet/Smartgrid Internet of Things as we see it today.
In tandem with the decades early planning, predictive programming in
Hollywood blockbusters would prepare generations for the implementation
of that grid – such as ARPANET (the Internet) – in the near future.
Thus, Moonraker the film represents the second phase of the
Operation Paperclip/NASA program that birthed the rocket and “UFO/foo
fighter” aerospace technology. Taking a step back, the 1954 Fleming
book Moonraker was the first stage of the same “space program” that Moonraker the film symbolically updated, and that
is the deeper reason for the science-fiction trajectory of the
narrative. Recall as well that by the late 1970’s, 007 was already
history’s largest film franchise, so we can expect it to have been
crucial in preparatory induction for the planned technocratic age.
And so with Moonraker, the most ridiculous and silly of
007 films, all the obligatory puns and innuendos so characteristic of
the Roger Moore era serve to mask a rather profound secret of the
overall deep-state agenda. In the plot we discover that Hugo Drax has
stolen a space shuttle through his German underlings to reverse-engineer
the technology for nefarious machinations. Meanwhile, 007 is on his
trail battling the laughable Jaws (Richard Kiel) in mid-air as Jaws
loses his parachute, plummeting into no less than a circus tent. At
first, one can brush this off as pure absurdity common to the Moore era,
but comparisons to Diamonds Are Forever began to emerge, as
the circus theme of Las Vegas functioned prominently there, as well.
Both films run roughly parallel, describing the same themes and events –
a private space program that operates under various fronts and shells, intent on cornering the market under a shadow-government technocracy (SPECTRE) intent on mass depopulation and the creation of a “new world” modelled after Noah’s Ark.
In both films our respective villains also work together with the
mafia and criminal underground to achieve their designs, with the
various crime groups subservient to the overriding, internationalist SPECTRE.
Even though Drax is not a member of SPECTRE like Blofeld, the
principles he enacts are all the same. Blofeld’s jewel heist and his
casino/aerospace takeover operation perfectly mirror Drax’s
technological theft and private aerospace company, with various shells
and fronts funding the true programs of both “fictional” oligarchs. In
fact, the Moonraker facility Drax runs resembles NASA and other deep state-facilities, yet it is not the real Drax aerospace facility.
espionagehistoryarchive | We’ve analyzed 007 in the past, as well as Howard Hughes in light of Scorcese’s The Aviator,
but could there be a connection between the two? What if Ian Fleming
was encoding an explosive, real-world conspiracy involving Howard
Hughes, JFK, Aristotle Onassis and a legendary kidnapping? Not only is
there evidence to suggest this, but the film version of his 1954 novel Diamonds Are Forever
subtly suggests much more. We know Fleming was a high-level Royal Navy
psychological warfare specialist and involved in numerous covert
operations, and as I’ve argued many times, Fleming’s novels and the film
versions, in their own respective ways, elucidate these clandestine
activities, touching on everything from black-market smuggling networks
to actual espionage and assassinations.
Fleming’s inspiration for the novel stemmed from meetings and
discussions with former MI5 chief Sir Percy Stillitoe, then working for
the DeBeers diamond empire. Combined with these tips, as well
as information he received from wealthy socialite William Woodward
and Los Angeles police intelligence on organized crime and smuggling
operations, Fleming composed the fourth Bond novel in 1954 as a literary
means of detailing the dark world of precious gem and jewel markets. To
add intrigue to this already intriguing tale, Fleming was also
approached by Aristotle Onassis for a film version of either Casino Royale or Dr. No, with Onassis desiring to be a part of the funding (Ian Fleming
by Andrew Lycett, pgs. 336-7). No stranger to Hollywood, Onassis was
also a friend of numerous tinsel-town heavyweights, including the Greek
film executive Spyros Skouras.
With these connections, my thesis here, in concert with the fascinating insight of Basil Valentine, is that Diamonds Are Forever the film provides a crucial insight into the coded reference of Willard Whyte as a stand in for Howard Hughes. As I argued in my Scorcese analysis, Hughes was intimately tied to the CIA through Robert Maheu,
an intelligence-establishment figure who emerged from the CIA-dominated
advertising world. It is possible Maheu was involved in the reported
kidnapping escapade of Hughes, which TheGemstone Files allege was orchestrated by Onassis, leading to Hughes being spirited away to the magnate’s lavish island, Skorpios.
In regard to Diamonds Are Forever the 1971 film, it is a
curious note that Whyte, the Hughes stand-in, is said to have been
kidnapped and/or never emerging from his penthouse for years. As it
turns out, it is the inimical Bond villain Blofeld, and particularly
Ernst Stavro Blofeld, that is behind the
diamond smuggling plot as a means of moving in on Whyte’s aerospace
operations. If Basil’s thesis is correct, then Stavro could be a
composite of Onassis and Niarchos, the brother-in-law of Onassis and a
rival shipping magnate. Stavros Niarchos is reported to have been
counted as a Bilderberg member, as well as being a close associate of the Rockefeller Foundation for certain. These considerations are admittedly speculative.
When we consider Hughes’ close connection to the CIA through operations like Project AZORIAN,
which sounds just like a SPECTRE-style operation from a 007 film, we
can certainly presume much more was being conveyed here. Even questions
relating to the moon mission arise, given the seemingly out-of-place
shot of Bond stumbling across a sound stage in Hughes’ facility, where
actors in astronaut suits are staging a phony lunar landing. Is Fleming
implying that the moon mission itself was a psychological operation?
Speculation is welcomed here, but the real message of Diamonds centers around exotic weaponry along directed energy lines. The same theme re-emerges in the 1974 film adaptation of Fleming’s The Man with the Golden Gun, where alchemy and techne
combine to reveal the Pentagon’s darkest future tech. Given that Jackie
married Aristotle Onassis just five years after JFK was gone, could
this signify a mafia-mandated marriage tradition? Perhaps Fleming knew the answer about this and the real SPECTRE.
theintercept | On Tuesday evening, Ross Coulthart, an Australian independent journalist who covers UFOs and has interviewed Grusch, posted a statement attributed to Grusch on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
“It has come to my attention that The Intercept intends to
publish an article about two incidents in 2014 and 2018 that highlights
previous personal struggles I had with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
(PTSD), Grief and Depression,” the statement reads. “As I stated under
oath in my congressional testimony, over 40 credentialed intelligence
and military personnel provided myself and my colleagues the information
I transmitted to the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG)
and I took the leadership role to represent the concerns of these
distinguished and patriotic individuals.”
Grusch’s wife, Jessica Grusch, did not respond to several requests for comment.
A former colleague of Grusch’s expressed shock that he retained his
clearance after the 2014 incident, which was also documented in public
records obtained by The Intercept.
“I think it’s like any insular group: Once you’re in, they generally
protect their own,” said the former colleague, who asked not to be named
because they feared professional reprisals.
The former colleague said that the 2014 incident was known to
Grusch’s superiors, a claim that Coulthart appeared to confirm in an
interview on NewsNation, a subscription television network owned by
Nexstar Media.
“The intelligence community and the Defense Department clearly
accepted there was no issue because he was allowed to keep his security
clearance,” Coulthart told Chris Cuomo Tuesday night.
Two Republican members of the House Oversight Committee, Reps. Anna
Paulina Luna and Tim Burchett, were tasked with organizing the July 26
hearing after Grusch’s whistleblower claims became public. Not all House
Republicans are supportive of the effort. Rep. Mike Turner, chair of
the House Intelligence Committee, has taken a dim view of Grusch’s
claims.
“Every decade there’s been individuals who’ve said the United States
has such pieces of unidentified flying objects that are from outer
space,” Turner said.
“There’s no evidence of this and certainly it would be quite a
conspiracy for this to be maintained, especially at this level.”
Grusch emerged as the hearing’s star witness, but his evidence was largely secondhand: When asked, Grusch said
he hasn’t seen any of the recovered alien vehicles or bodies himself.
While two former Navy fighter pilots alleged unidentified aerial
phenomena, neither said anything about their provenance. Grusch was alone among the witnesses in attributing them to extraterrestrials.
“My testimony is based on information I have been given by
individuals with a longstanding track record of legitimacy,” Grusch said
in his opening statement.
Shortly after The Intercept reached out to Grusch for comment for
this story, Coulthart went on Cuomo’s show and said that The Intercept
was planning to publish “confidential medical records” about Grusch that
had been leaked by the intelligence community. Coulthart, an ardent
defender of Grusch, told NewsNation that “Grusch believes the government
may now be behind an effort to release his medical records in an effort
to smear his credibility.”
“This is a document that would be, if the media had done the right
thing, it would be in his police department file, in the file in the
county sheriff’s office,” Coulthart said in his interview with Cuomo.
“But Dave has checked today, because he assumed that the journalist had
done his homework and just asked the local sheriff for the files. The
sheriff has confirmed it did not come from him. The only other place
that had this information is the intelligence community, Dave’s personal
files inside the intelligence community, where quite properly, when
anybody is security assist, things like this have to be looked at, and
somebody inside the intelligence community leaked it.”
Coulthart went on to compare the purported leak to Richard Nixon’s
attempts to discredit Daniel Ellsberg, who shared the Pentagon Papers
with the New York Times.
“I think there should be an inquiry into the circumstances of how
sensitive records pertaining to a decorated combat veteran’s file found
their way to a journalist not through the proper channels,” Coulthart
said. “This could’ve been requested under FOI, as is normal, but the
county sheriff has confirmed that did not happen.”
theintercept |While perception management
involves denying, or blocking, propaganda, it can also entail advancing
the U.S.’s own narrative. The Defense Department defines perception
management in its official dictionary
as “[a]ctions to convey and/or deny selected information and indicators
to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, and
objective reasoning.” This is the part that has, historically, tended to
raise the public’s skepticism of the Pentagon’s work.
The term “perception management” hearkens back to
the Reagan administration’s attempts to shape the narrative around the
Contras in Nicaragua. The Reagan administration sought to kick what his
Vice President George H.W. Bush would later call the “Vietnam syndrome,”
which it believed was driving American public opposition to support for
the Contras. Ronald Reagan’s CIA director, William Casey, directed
the agency’s leading propaganda specialist to oversee an interagency
effort to portray the Contras — who had been implicated in grisly
atrocities — as noble freedom fighters.
“An elaborate system of inter-agency committees was eventually formed
and charged with the task of working closely with private groups and
individuals involved in fundraising, lobbying campaigns and
propagandistic activities aimed at influencing public opinion and
governmental action,” an unpublished draft chapter of Congress’s
investigation into Iran-Contra states. (Democrats dropped the chapter in
order to get several Republicans to sign the report.)
The Smith-Mundt Act, passed in 1948 in the wake of the Second World
War, prohibits the the State Department from disseminating “public
diplomacy” — i.e., propaganda — domestically, instead requiring that
those materials be targeted at foreign audiences. The Defense Department
considered itself bound by this requirement as well.
After the invasion of Iraq, the Pentagon triggered backlash after
U.S. propaganda was disseminated in the U.S. In 2004, the military signaled that it had begun its siege on Fallujah. Just hours later, CNN discovered that this was not true.
But in 2012, the law was amended to allow propaganda to be circulated
domestically, under the bipartisan Smith-Mundt Modernization Act,
introduced by Reps. Adam Smith, D-Wash., and Mac Thornberry, R-Texas,
which was later rolled into the National Defense Authorization Act.
“Proponents of amending these two sections argue that the ban on
domestic dissemination of public diplomacy information is impractical
given the global reach of modern communications, especially the
Internet, and that it unnecessarily prevents valid U.S. government
communications with foreign publics due to U.S. officials’ fear of
violating the ban,” a congressional research service report said
at the time of the proposed amendments. “Critics of lifting the ban
state that it may open the door to more aggressive U.S. government
activities to persuade U.S. citizens to support government policies, and
might also divert the focus of State Department and the BBG
[Broadcasting Board of Governors] communications from foreign publics,
reducing their effectiveness.”
The Obama administration subsequently approved a highly classified
covert action finding designed to counter foreign malign influence
activities, a finding renewed and updated by the Biden administration,
as The Intercept has reported.
The IPMO memo produced for the academic institution hints at its role
in such propagandistic efforts now. “Among other things, the IPMO is
tasked with the development of broad thematic messaging guidance and
specific strategies for the execution of DoD activities designed to
influence foreign defense-related decision-makers to behave in a manner
beneficial to U.S. interests,” the memo states.
As the global war on terror
draws to a close, the Pentagon has turned its attention to so-called
great power adversaries like Russia and China. Following Russia’s
meddling in the 2016 election, which in part involved state-backed
efforts to disseminate falsehoods on social media, offices tasked with
combating disinformation started springing up all over the U.S.
government, as The Intercept has reported.
The director of national intelligence last year established a new
center to oversee all the various efforts, including the Department of
Homeland Security’s Countering Foreign Influence Task Force and the
FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force.
The Pentagon’s IPMO differs from the others in one key respect:
secrecy. Whereas most of the Department of Homeland Security’s
counter-disinformation efforts are unclassified in nature — as one
former DHS contractor not authorized to speak publicly explained to The
Intercept — the IPMO involves a great deal of highly classified work.
That the office’s work goes beyond simple messaging into the rarefied
world of intelligence is clear from its location within the Pentagon
hierarchy. “The Influence and Perception Management Office will serve as
the senior advisor to the USD(I&S) [Undersecretary of Defense for
Intelligence and Security] for strategic operational influence and
perception management (reveal and conceal) matters,” the budget notes.
When asked about the intelligence community’s counter-disinformation
efforts, Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier, director of the Defense Intelligence
Agency, told Congress this month, “I think DIA’s perspective on this,
senator, is really speed: We want to be able to detect that and it’s
really with our open-source collection capability working with our
combatant command partners where this is happening all over the world —
and then the ability to turn something quickly with them, under the
right authorities, to counter that disinformation, misinformation.”
defensescoop | AARO Director Sean Kirkpatrick issued a fiery statement spotlighting
“his own personal observations and opinions” — but “not necessarily
official DOD and IG positions” — on social media Thursday. The Pentagon
authenticated his post Friday.
In it, Kirkpatrick wrote
that he “cannot let yesterday’s hearing pass without sharing how
insulting it was to the officers of” the Defense Department and the
intelligence community who have been “working diligently, tirelessly,
and often in the face of harassment and animosity, to fulfill their
Congressionally-mandated mission.”
Allegations of “retaliation, to include physical assault and hints of
murder, are extraordinarily serious, which is why law enforcement is a
critical member of the AARO team, specifically to address and take swift
action should anyone come forward with such claims. Yet, contrary to
assertions made in the hearing, the central source of those allegations
has refused to speak with AARO,” Kirkpatrick wrote — pointing at Grusch
without directly stating his name.
He also said AARO has yet to see credible proof regarding allegations
of any reverse-engineering programs for non-human technology, and that
some information reportedly obtained by Congress has not been shared
with his office.
Pentagon spokesperson Sue Gough declined to weigh in on Kirkpatrick’s
statement in an email to DefenseScoop late Friday evening.
“The department is aware of Dr. Kirkpatrick’s post, which are his
personal opinions expressed in his capacity as a private citizen and we
won’t comment directly on the contents of the post. We do want to
reinforce the department’s unwavering commitment to openness and
accountability to the American people and Congress,” she wrote.
Still, Gough’s official Pentagon responses also echoed some of the notions articulated by the AARO director.
“The department has no information that any individual has been
harmed or killed as a result of providing information to AARO. Any
unsubstantiated claims that individuals have been harmed or killed in
the process of providing information to AARO will serve to discourage
individuals with relevant information from coming forward to aid in
AARO’s efforts,” she wrote.
“To date, AARO has not discovered any verifiable information to
substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or
reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial materials have existed in the
past or exist currently,” she reiterated.
Gough did not respond to follow-up questions from DefenseScoop Monday
regarding new or existing channels for service members to flag UAP
incidents, and whether or not there’s been an uptick in new reports to
AARO — or intensified harassment — since the hearing.
According to Graves, the former F-18 pilot who testified last week,
DOD’s responses reflect “a perfect example of why witnesses are
reluctant to come forward.”
“The Pentagon Press Office statement following the hearing was
misleading. The disconnect between pilot witness testimony under oath at
the Congressional hearing and the Pentagon Press Office’s dismissal is a
perfect example of why witnesses are reluctant to come forward. It
makes zero sense that our military would undermine its own servicemen
and women when they are reporting serious flight risks,” he told
DefenseScoop on Monday.
Based on his own experiences with military-connected UAP, Graves
formed and now runs the witness program Americans for Safe Aerospace to
provide an entity for the public to safely and securely report
observations or encounters. He testified at the hearing that his team
estimates roughly only 5% of UAP sightings are currently reported to
AARO.
“I hope Congress will hold DOD accountable and push for more support
for witnesses and whistleblowers. For example, the [Pentagon] Press
Office says AARO welcomes witness accounts — but AARO has not even
implemented a public reporting mechanism as required by last year’s
[National Defense Authorization Act]. How are witnesses even supposed to
get in contact?” Graves told DefenseScoop.
washingtontimes |EXIT INTERVIEW: Army Gen. Mark A. Milley
has had a momentous — and at times polarizing — four-year run as
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Presidents Trump and Biden.
In the first of a series of articles ahead of the scheduled end of his
tenure in October, Gen. Milley
sat down with senior Washington Times military correspondent Ben
Wolfgang to discuss some of the achievements and controversies of his
time as the Pentagon’s highest-ranking military officer.
Some UFO sightings by military personnel are “difficult to explain,” said Gen. Mark A. Milley,
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but the nation’s top general
insists he has seen no evidence to back up public allegations that the Pentagon has recovered extraterrestrial beings or has engaged in decades of cover-ups to hide the truth from the American public.
In an exclusive interview with The Washington Times, Gen. Milley
acknowledged that some reports of what the government now calls
unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAP, lack easy explanations despite
serious, ongoing research inside the Pentagon
and a growing belief that at least some of the craft could pose
national security threats. He made the comments less than two weeks
after former U.S. intelligence officer David Grusch told Congress under oath that he is aware of “a multidecade UAP crash retrieval and reverse-engineering program” and even suggested that the Pentagon has been secretly keeping extraterrestrial bodies in storage.
Gen. Milley
didn’t address the credibility of Mr. Grusch’s testimony but made clear
he has seen no evidence backing up the extraordinary claims.
“The guy was under oath. I’m sure that he was
trying to say whatever he thought was true. … I’m not going to doubt his
testimony or anything like that,” Gen. Milley told The Times during a wide-ranging interview in his Pentagon office on Friday. “I can tell you, though, that as the chairman, I have been briefed on several different occasions by the [Pentagon’s]
UAP office. And I have not seen anything that indicates to me about
quote-unquote ‘aliens’ or that there’s some sort of cover-up program. I
just haven’t seen it.”
sputnik | Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov earlier said that Kiev’s counteroffensive, which was launched on June 4, has been unsuccessful on all fronts as Russia continues its special military operation in Ukraine.
The next few weeks will see the Ukrainian counteroffensive “run its course”, former International Monetary Fund (IMF) economist and Bank of America strategist David Woo has told Russian media.
Woo said that he was “really impressed” with the fact that "Russian military technology has literally been going through a revolution every three months" and "the Russians are constantly learning from their mistakes."
“The Russians are now fighting with weapons they didn’t have 18 months ago because they didn’t exist 18 months ago. And that to me is the most impressive thing, […] whereas the West is still walking around in the same circle, Russia’s getting better and better, and this war is gonna [sic] be won by technology in the end,” the former IMF economist argued.
Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov earlier said that Kiev’s counteroffensive, which was launched on June 4, has been unsuccessful on all fronts as Russia continues its special military operation in Ukraine. The next few weeks will see the Ukrainian counteroffensive “run its course”, former International Monetary Fund (IMF) economist and Bank of America strategist David Woo has told Russian media.
Woo said that he was “really impressed” with the fact that "Russian military technology has literally been going through a revolution every three months" and "the Russians are constantly learning from their mistakes." “The Russians are now fighting with weapons they didn’t have 18 months ago because they didn’t exist 18 months ago. And that to me is the most impressive thing, […] whereas the West is still walking around in the same circle, Russia’s getting better and better, and this war is gonna [sic] be won by technology in the end,” the former IMF economist argued.
He was echoed by the Russian Defense Ministry, which, in turn, said that Ukrainian troops kept trying, but were failing to advance as they continue to suffer heavy losses in men and materiel. A number of Western media outlets also pointed to the unimpressive results of Kiev's counteroffensive, admitting that its progress was "slower than desired." Fist tap Dale
tomdispatch | In his message to the troops prior to the July 4th weekend, Secretary
of Defense Lloyd Austin offered high praise indeed. “We have the
greatest fighting force in human history,” he tweeted, connecting that
claim to the U.S. having patriots of all colors, creeds, and backgrounds
“who bravely volunteer to defend our country and our values.”
As a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel from a working-class
background who volunteered to serve more than four decades ago, who am I
to argue with Austin? Shouldn’t I just bask in the glow of his praise
for today’s troops, reflecting on my own honorable service near the end
of what now must be thought of as the First Cold War?
Yet I confess to having doubts. I’ve heard it all before.
The hype. The hyperbole. I still remember how, soon after the 9/11
attacks, President George W. Bush boasted that this country had “the greatest force
for human liberation the world has ever known.” I also remember how, in
a pep talk given to U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2010, President
Barack Obama declared them “the finest fighting force that the world has ever known.” And yet, 15 years ago at TomDispatch, I was already wondering
when Americans had first become so proud of, and insistent upon,
declaring our military the world’s absolute best, a force beyond
compare, and what that meant for a republic that once had viewed large
standing armies and constant warfare as anathemas to freedom.
In retrospect, the answer is all too straightforward: we need something to boast about, don’t we? In the once-upon-a-time “exceptional nation,” what else is there to praise to the skies or consider our pride and joy these days except our heroes?
After all, this country can no longer boast of having anything like the
world’s best educational outcomes, or healthcare system, or the most
advanced and safest infrastructure, or the best democratic politics, so
we better damn well be able to boast about having “the greatest fighting
force” ever.
Leaving that boast aside, Americans could certainly brag about one thing this country has beyond compare: the most expensive
military around and possibly ever. No country even comes close to our
commitment of funds to wars, weapons (including nuclear ones at the
Department of Energy), and global dominance. Indeed, the Pentagon’s
budget for “defense” in 2023 exceeds that of the next 10 countries (mostly allies!) combined.
And from all of this, it seems to me, two questions arise: Are we
truly getting what we pay so dearly for — the bestest, finest, most
exceptional military ever? And even if we are, should a self-proclaimed
democracy really want such a thing?
The answer to both those questions is, of course, no. After all,
America hasn’t won a war in a convincing fashion since 1945. If this
country keeps losing wars routinely and often enough catastrophically,
as it has in places like Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, how can we
honestly say that we possess the world’s greatest fighting force? And if
we nevertheless persist in such a boast, doesn’t that echo the rhetoric
of militaristic empires of the past? (Remember when we used to think
that only unhinged dictators like Adolf Hitler boasted of having
peerless warriors in a megalomaniacal pursuit of global domination?)
Actually, I do believe the United States has the most exceptional
military, just not in the way its boosters and cheerleaders like Austin,
Bush, and Obama claimed. How is the U.S. military truly “exceptional”?
Let me count the ways.
The Pentagon as a Budgetary Black Hole
In so many ways, the U.S. military is indeed exceptional. Let’s begin
with its budget. At this very moment, Congress is debating a colossal
“defense” budget of $886 billion for FY2024 (and all the debate is about issues
that have little to do with the military). That defense spending bill,
you may recall, was “only” $740 billion when President Joe Biden took
office three years ago. In 2021, Biden withdrew U.S. forces from the
disastrous war in Afghanistan, theoretically saving the taxpayer nearly
$50 billion a year. Yet, in place of any sort of peace dividend,
American taxpayers simply got an even higher bill as the Pentagon budget
continued to soar.
Recall that, in his four years in office, Donald Trump increased
military spending by 20%. Biden is now poised to achieve a similar 20%
increase in just three years
in office. And that increase largely doesn’t even include the cost of
supporting Ukraine in its war with Russia — so far, somewhere between $120 billion and $200 billion and still rising.
Forbes | In two prior columns, which can be accessed here and here,
Mark Skidmore and I wrote about $21 trillion in federal government
transactions in the Departments of Defense (DOD) and Housing and Urban
Development (HUD) that our government indicated were undocumented and
unexplained. As the concerns and questions we raised gained traction,
investigative reporter Dave Lindorff dug into the issue, recently
publishing the article “Exclusive: The Pentagon’s Massive Accounting Fraud Exposed”
in The Nation. Based on a series of interviews with current and former
government officials, Lindorff concluded that Pentagon accounting is
“phony”, composed of made up numbers designed to obfuscate and thus
propelling “US military spending higher year after year”.
The issue received additional attention in the media when incoming
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez referred to the $21 trillion in a
Tweet:
$21 TRILLION of Pentagon financial transactions “could not be
traced, documented, or explained.” $21T in Pentagon accounting errors.
Medicare for All costs ~$32T. That means %66% of Medicare for All could
have been funded already by the Pentagon. And that’s before premiums.
This comment captured the attention of numerous media outlets
including the New York Times and the Washington Post where the focus was
on fact checking (see here and here,
for example). The near universal assessment was that the comment by
Ocasio-Cortez was misleading—the $21 trillion in undocumentable
transactions do not reflect actual unauthorized spending. However, there
is a very important point that is missed by nearly everyone.
Despite our efforts as well as those of Dave Lindorff, our government
has not shared any underlying data or information regarding the nature
of the undocumentable transactions. For example, both Mark Skidmore and
Dave Lindorff have repeatedly asked the Office of the Inspector General
(OIG) to provide an addendum to a report
published by the OIG in 2016, which indicated that the Army had $6.5
trillion in undocumentable transactions. Typically, undocumentable
transactions are a just small fraction of authorized spending. How could
a $122 billion Army financial statement generate undocumentable
adjustments that were 54 times authorized spending?
More specifically, both Skidmore and Lindorff requested that the OIG
provide more detailed information about the nature of 170 transactions
that generated $2.1 trillion in undocumentable transactions (see page 6
of the OIG report).
Why would the Army make up such huge phony numbers, as Lindorff and his
sources assert? And yet is difficult to imagine that such huge sums
could flow in and/or out of the Army financial statement in a way that
was unauthorized. It is impossible to verify without greater
transparency.
We have consistently argued that in order to determine what these
transactions were presumably for, one would need access to the
underlying data. And yet the OIG has refused to provide any additional
information, even with a FOIA request. Without any supporting
documentation, we are all left with having to decide whether or not we
“trust” that government authorities are sharing accurate information. At
some level, we all must operate with some degree of underlying faith,
but in this context there is reason to doubt. As we demonstrated in our
last article,
Comptroller of the DOD, David Norquist, clearly withheld critical
information from Congressman Walter Jones, thus making his testimony
deceptive. Greater transparency is needed to re-establish public trust.
Instead, we are blocked from accessing any further information. Indeed,
the most recent OIG report was fully redacted!
Last year the Pentagon conducted its first ever independent audit,
which it failed. During the audit process Pentagon officials became
concerned that the audit would reveal potentially sensitive information.
Several months after beginning the audit, the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB) posted a new document,
which recommended that the government be allowed to misstate and move
funds in order to hide expenditures if it is deemed necessary for
national security purposes.
See page 3 of the document for a summary:
This Statement permits modifications that do not affect net results
of operations or net position. In addition, this Statement allows a
component reporting entity to be excluded from one reporting entity and
consolidated into another reporting entity, and the effect of the
modification may change the net results of operations and/or net
position.
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