How Has ATLAH Managed To Survive All These Years?

wnyc  |  The Atlah World Missionary Church in Harlem, and its pastor, James Manning, have been the subject of long-standing criticism due to a history of homophobic and incendiary statements. 

In a HuffPost investigation published last spring, former students at the church's private school in Harlem also described suffering psychological abuse and estrangement from their families under Manning's leadership. 

Now, three more former students have come forward to corroborate the original investigation by HuffPost reporter Rebecca Klein, and share allegations of their own. One of them, David, told Klein he was kicked out of the school and the church for wearing sneakers. Then his mother, an Atlah Church member, kicked him out of their home. They no longer have a relationship. 

The city's Department of Education says it has opened a probe into Atlah High School, seven months after Klein's initial reporting. She says the agency is responsible for ensuring private schools provide instruction that is "substantially equivalent" to that of public schools -- but it's still unclear who is responsible for investigating how the school and Manning are treating students. 

"I spent a long time trying to figure out who specifically was responsible for this school and this type of school and I was ping-ponged all around," Klein said.

The State Of The Union

 

Oligarchs Unaccustomed To Online Rough And Tumble Despise Free Speech

endoftheamericandream  |  The freedom to say whatever we want is one of the most fundamental rights in a free society.  If we are not free to speak up, it is is just a matter of time before all of our other rights are taken away as well.  So it should deeply alarm all of us that free speech is under attack like never before.  Much of the population has become convinced that “hate speech” is a special class of speech that does not deserve protection.  Of course in practice “hate speech” ends up being whatever forms of expression that the leftist elite hate.  That is why “hate speech” laws are always written so vaguely.  That way they can be used to go after whoever the leftist elite feel like going after at the time. 

It is not always easy to have a society where people are allowed to say whatever they want.  People say things all the time that deeply, deeply offend me.  And there are some that have said things about me that are tremendously hateful and untrue.

But if we are going to have a free society, people have got to be free to say whatever they want.  So we should never support freedom of speech being taken away from anyone, because once we start going down that slippery slope it is just a matter of time before they come after our freedom to say what we want.

That is why what is happening in the state of Washington is so alarming.  A new law would allow private individuals to collect up to $2,000 every time they report someone to the new “hate crimes and bias incidents hotline”…

Senate Bill 5427, after it is signed into law, would allow private individuals (note: this is not limited to American citizens) to report “bias incidents*” (see definition below) to the State Attorney General’s Office, with the possibility of receiving up to $2,000 of taxpayers money for this noncriminal incident. The bill was very clear: this is a non-crime which they will then forward to local law enforcement to investigate. What’s to investigate? No crime, no investigation.

The Progressives & Marxists who sponsored this bill say it is intended to help “victims of hate crimes” before a crime even happens. Say what? In reality, SB 5427 would create a “tattletale hotline,” undermine legitimate criminal investigations, and freeze, not just chill, speech & the press in Washington State. People will stop talking to others and writing to others except very close friends & relatives, for fear a greedy “Karen” will report them to Washington’s version of the Gestapo.

This is crazy.

Do we live in East Germany now?

It has been pointed out that those that use social media could make a fortune reporting their fellow citizens to the new “tattletale hotline”…

“Spend five minutes on Twitter on any given day and I assure someone would say something offensive under this law that we could call a ‘hate crime’ and collect $2,000 from the attorney general,” Conservative Ladies of Washington Founder and President Julie Barrett told the Senate Ways and Means Committee at a Feb. 20 public hearing. “It potentially target[s] people for actions they don’t like, but are not actually hate crimes. In collaboration with bills like HB 1333, this would create sort of a ‘tattletale hotline’ to report people one doesn’t agree with or doesn’t like.”

Of course we have seen similar efforts in other states.

In New York, Governor Kathy Hochul intends to massively expand the hate crime laws in her state…

Governor Kathy Hochul today highlighted her groundbreaking State of the State proposal to expand the list of charges eligible to be prosecuted as hate crimes and announced grant funding to strengthen safety and security measures at nonprofit, community-based organizations at risk of hate crimes or attacks because of their ideology, beliefs, or mission.

“The rising tide of hate is abhorrent and unacceptable – and I’m committed to doing everything in my power to keep New Yorkers safe,” Governor Hochul said. “Since the despicable Hamas attacks of October 7, there has been a disturbing rise in hate crimes against Jewish and Muslim New Yorkers. In recent years we’ve seen hate-fueled violence targeting Black residents of Buffalo and disturbing harassment of AAPI and LGBTQ+ individuals on the streets of New York City. We will never rest until all New Yorkers feel safe, regardless of who they are, who they love, or how they worship.”

And in Michigan, last year a bill was introduced that would have made it a felony if someone felt “terrorized, frightened, or threatened” by your words…

America's Elite Disconnect

darkfutura  |  The one seeming contradiction is that these elites predominantly “live in zipcodes exceeding a population density of 10,000 people per square mile.” This misleading implies they live in large cities like New York, where they would in fact be forced to endure daily commingling with the peasantry. In reality, we know they sit entrenched in highly sequestered aristocrats’ quarters within these cities—like the Upper East Side in Manhattan, or Kalorama in D.C. Being shuttled in swank car service to and fro, they rarely deign to cross paths with the commoners for whom they have nothing but contempt, apart from some token quick-grab at the corner coffee-and-bun kiosk to reassure themselves that they’re ‘in touch’ with the slipstream of society. 

In many respects, this is an age-old problem: elites have always existed in parallel societies. However, the advent of digital and social media technologies have allowed them to encase themselves in an ever-impermeable confirmation bias bubble like never before. Listen to interviews with top Washington policymakers, corporate bigwigs, etc., and note how they exclusively mainline the most mainstream corporate publications like WaPo, NYTimes, etc. It becomes its own hermetic self-referencing feedback loop increasingly shut-off from the real outside world of human experience.

As the earlier NYPost article described:

If America is to avoid a tailspin into this toxic feedback loop, its elites will need to step outside their bubble, stop conforming in an effort to blend in with their myopic peers and start addressing the legitimate grievances of their fellow Americans.

This explains such things as the elites’ obsession with climate change, as that is one issue that exists solely ‘on paper’—as an abstraction—and is not realistically felt in the common quarters. The aristos who repeatedly reflect their own shrill echochamber alarmism on this issue get increasingly radicalized, particularly given that—as reported earlier—they put far more store in institutions of authority than the average prole. This results in the calcification of their blind belief in specters like climate change, despite their paying only lip service to it, and not acting accordingly in light of such an existential ‘threat’.

The problem is exacerbated by social ills which create divisions along gender lines, disproportionately giving weight to female-centric concerns, as per the Longhouse theory:

The Longhouse refers to the remarkable overcorrection of the last two generations toward social norms centering feminine needs and feminine methods for controlling, directing, and modeling behavior.

Women are naturally wired to be more sympathetic—and thus suggestible—to the social engineering imperatives co-opting the current narrative. Men are being increasingly pushed out from higher education, which means that even among the elites funnelled upward, the stances skew increasingly to the ‘Longhouse’:

This feminization of the managerial class can be seen from a variety of vantage points:

As everyone is now aware, unmarried women by far make the most disproportionate jump into Democrat Land, as well as increasingly radicalized hyperliberal policies—which reflects in other interesting ways:

As an aside, one X user had a topically cogent comment about the screenshot below:

Most of the bluecheck unpacking of the collapsing male college enrollment story focuses on how worrisome it is that these men won't espouse elite political opinions

But one of the most revealing disparities in the Rasmussen survey showed just how out of touch the elites are specifically to economic issues which affect the plebs most—as opposed to the airy abstractions of fringe intellectual culture war issues:

 

Who Finally Grew A Pair And Fired This Evil Fat Failtard?!?!

MoA  |  A big fat rat is leaving the ship.

One might interpret this as the State Department's admittance of defeat in the U.S. war against Russia in Ukraine:

On the Retirement of Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland - Anthony Blinken / State Department, Mar 5 2024

Victoria Nuland has let me know that she intends to step down in the coming weeks as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs – a role in which she has personified President Biden’s commitment to put diplomacy back at the center of our foreign policy and revitalize America’s global leadership at a crucial time for our nation and the world.
...
[I]t’s Toria’s leadership on Ukraine that diplomats and students of foreign policy will study for years to come. Her efforts have been indispensable to confronting Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, marshaling a global coalition to ensure his strategic failure, and helping Ukraine work toward the day when it will be able to stand strongly on its own feet – democratically, economically, and militarily.
...
President Biden and I have asked our Under Secretary for Management John Bass to serve as Acting Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs until Toria’s replacement is confirmed.

Victoria Nuland, a member of the neo-conservative Kagan clan, is only 62 years old - too young to retire regularly.

She will be remembered for handing out cookies to anti-government demonstrators in Ukraine and for installing the 2014 coup regime.

That has been her main project in the State Department. But the 2014 Maidan putsch that turn the Ukraine into a battering ram against Russia, has ended in a complete failure.

bigger

Neither was Russia 'weakened' by the war nor has Ukraine any perspective to survive but as some Russian controlled land-locked backwater country in Europe's east.

Given that billions were spent on Ukraine with little controls and nothing to show for Nuland, and her family, have certainly made a bit on the side. One wonders if any of the ongoing and coming investigations into the black hole Ukraine will leave them unscarred.

As even Guardian commentators are now waking up to the mess they helped create it is high time for European politicians to also finally accept this reality:

Western Europe has no conceivable interest in escalating the Ukraine war through a long-range missile exchange. While it should sustain its logistical support for Ukrainian forces, it has no strategic interest in Kyiv’s desire to drive Russia out of the majority Russian-speaking areas of Crimea or Donbas. It has every interest in assiduously seeking an early settlement and starting the rebuilding of Ukraine.

As for the west’s “soft power” sanctions on Russia, they have failed miserably, disrupting the global trading economy in the process. Sanctions may be beloved of western diplomats and thinktanks. They may even hurt someone – not least Britain’s energy users – but they have not devastated the Russian economy or changed Putin’s mind. This year Russia’s growth rate is expected to exceed Britain’s.

The crass ineptitude of a quarter of a century of western military interventions should have taught us some lessons. Apparently not.

FUH WRONG WITH YOU! DORITOS?!?!?!

dailymail  | Doritos is being slammed as the new Bud Light after hiring a trans influencer as a 'brand ambassador' despite the activist appearing to promote child sexual abuse in the past.

Spanish native Samantha Hudson - whose real name is Iván González Ranedo - is a singer and activist with over 30,000 subscribers to her YouTube channel. Her partnership with Doritos Spain, run by PepsiCo Spain, was recently announced. 

Hudson, 24, has identified herself as 'anti-capitalist' and 'Marxist' in interviews, released a song critical of the Catholic Church and even said in one video that she is for 'the abolition of [and to] destroy and annihilate the traditional monogamous nuclear family.' 

As a teen, she has also tweeted about wanting to do 'thuggish things' to a minor. 

The partnership between Hudson and Doritos was quickly blasted online and many made reference to Bud Light's disastrous partnership with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney - which saw Budweiser lose $1.4 billion in sales as a result. 

The Daily Caller posted a screenshot of a tweet she allegedly made in 2015, when Hudson was 15, writing in Spanish about the seeming assault of a minor. 

Another alleged post translates to: 'In the middle of the street in Mallorca in panties and screaming that I’m a nymphomaniac in front of a super beautiful 8-year-old girl.'

According to Newsweek, she has also been accused of mocking sexual assault victims, though Hudson herself has claimed she was sexually abused as a teenager in a 2023 interview. 

Hudson's new partnership with Doritos was announced through a 50-second video called 'Crunch Talks.' 

Social media users were quick to point out similarities to the Bud Light campaign and its impact.  

'Doritos is about to get the Bud Light treatment,' wrote one user on X, formerly Twitter. 

Another wrote: 'Just make flavored tortilla chips. You don't need to have a stance on anything other than that. It's not tricky.' 

'Why are brands like Doritos being so self-destructive? Have they learned nothing from the Budweiser snafu? Let me guess, their advertising division is headed by a DEI hire?' 

DailyMail.com has reached out to PepsiCo and Frito Lay for comment.

Deathstar Ukraine The Largest Operation In CIA History

humanevents  |   Jack Posobiec hosted guest Mike Benz on Human Events Daily Thursday to hear his take on the New York Times article that detailed the CIA's involvement in Ukraine prior to the Russia invasion, which Benz said will reveal itself to be "the largest operation in CIA history."

The pair unpacked the reasoning behind the New York Times releasing their story which essentially agreed with what conservative commentators such as Posobiec have been saying since the war began.

"This is actually such a shocking moment in American journalist history," Benz stated. "These are highly highly, highly classified operations."

He said that "It's my contention that when the dust settles on this, the Ukraine skirmish in the aftermath of the 2014 Maidan coup is going to ultimately be the largest operation in CIA history."

Compared to the CIA's Syrian operation under Barack Obama, which was revealed to be the most expensive operation up to this point, Ukraine will blow it out of the water once all said and done, Benz said.

Posobiec clarified that Benz was implying the NYT article was a "limited hangout" when "an operation becomes so compromised, or public knowledge or public interest becomes so obvious around something," that the CIA begins to unveil pieces of the big picture, like an "onion."

When the US involved itself in Ukraine in the Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Brennan era, "We were riding high and riding dirty. And that's what this was, we thought we were unstoppable and we could just coup anyone we wanted, there'd never be any repercussions, and no one would ever stand up for themselves, and Russia would never actually backstop it," Benz said.

This, however, was a "serious miscalculation."

"And when it turned out that their own population didn't support these dirty tricks, either in the form of the rise of a populace presidential candidate like Donald Trump who was running on putting America first in domestic priorities over foreign policy," he explained, "then all hell broke loose."

What Will It Take To Get MAGA To Open Fire?

I have a weird feeling about Mitch McConnell stepping down today pic.twitter.com/GSYhH6G2ll

— Mike Benz (@MikeBenzCyber) February 29, 2024

This Is Why MTG Needs To Slap The Taste Out Of Chuck Schumer's Mouth

 

I hope everyone appreciates what this means. The CIA disclosed highly classified intelligence to hand-picked journos in order to fight a PR war against Republicans in Congress who want to scale back Ukraine war funding.

The CIA is literally unleashed on Republicans in Congress. https://t.co/bt9DzmajQA

— Mike Benz (@MikeBenzCyber) February 28, 2024

Lil' Buckwheat's Capacity To Lie On The Fly No Longer Up To Cornpop Standards....,

dailycaller  |  Karine Jean-Pierre has turned over her spotlight to Admiral John Kirby in an “unprecedented” way as the White House barrels toward a pivotal election season, a Daily Caller review of briefing data reveals.

Since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, Kirby has been a mainstay at briefings alongside Jean-Pierre to answer reporters’ questions about the foreign conflict. Though Americans have indicated the war is not their top concern, Kirby has remained at the briefings — only missing three since the start of the year through Oct. 7. Of the briefings he has attended in 2024, 19 out of the 22 total held, Kirby has fielded questions for almost the exact same amount of time as Jean-Pierre.

As of Feb. 27, Jean-Pierre has spent about 11 hours and 31 minutes at the White House press briefing podium this year across 22 briefings. Kirby has answered questions for just under nine hours and two minutes in 19 briefings. In those 19 briefings when Kirby and Jean-Pierre were together, the press secretary spoke for just shy of nine hours and 11 minutes — almost a perfect fifty-fifty split with her counterpart.

“There is no precedent for this. Press secretaries always bring guests, right. It’s like, ‘Hey, we’re gonna have the OMB [the Office of Management and Budget] guys brief you on the budget and talk to you about that.’ That’s normal,” Sean Spicer, one-time press secretary for former President Donald Trump, told the Daily Caller. “That’s as old as the job. But this idea that you have a co-press secretary is unprecedented.”

Some other names have made appearances at briefings and gaggles, either alongside Jean-Pierre or Kirby: deputy press secretary Olivia Dalton, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, White House spokesman for oversight and investigations Ian Sams and a few other policy-specific officials from the administration.

But none have appeared nearly as often as Kirby, who Jean-Pierre was reportedly concerned might usurp her as press secretary when she first got the job. Biden “awkwardly” added that Kirby would be joining Jean-Pierre’s team when the president gave her the press secretary position in 2022, leaving her “upset and confused,” according to Axios.

Jean-Pierre’s appointment was lauded as historic and powerful when she got the job — she’s the first black press secretary, and is also a lesbian woman of immigrant parents. From the beginning, things have reportedly been rocky, though — Biden also allegedly said that Jean-Pierre didn’t need to worry because she’d “have an admiral looking over your shoulder,” a comment that was not received well by the new press secretary.

Amid the tension between Kirby and Jean-Pierre, the latter’s top deputy, Dalton, is reportedly ditching the White House for a gig at Apple.

That leaves a clear path to the top job for Kirby. He has told some around the White House he’s interested in the position, according to Axios, but other White House officials denied those accounts.

When it comes to gaggles, Kirby has appeared at more as of late, speaking at seven of them between the start of the year and Feb. 16 for a total of more than an hour and seven minutes. The pair has attended four gaggles together, with Jean-Pierre answering questions for more than 41 minutes.

“I don’t think the dynamic is awkward to begin with. I think they did it under the presence, under the guise of national security and foreign affairs. But the reality is, Kirby has really taken over a lot more, for obvious reasons,” Spicer said. “The press secretary should be able to handle all of the issues and it’s pretty obvious that there’s a level of competence that just doesn’t exist.”

 

 

The Times Article Was Authorized By The CIA

scheerpost  |  The New York Times on February 25 published an explosive story of what purports to be the history of the CIA in Ukraine from the Maidan coup of 2014 to the present.  The story, “The Spy War: How the CIA Secretly Helps Ukraine Fight Putin,” is one of initial bilateral distrust, but a mutual fear and hatred of Russia, that progresses to a relationship so intimate that Ukraine is now one of the CIA’s closest intelligence partners in the world.  

At the same time, the Times’ publication of the piece, which reporters claimed relied on more than 200 interviews in Ukraine, the US, and “several European countries,” raises multiple questions:  Why did the CIA not object to the article’s publication, especially with it being in one of the Agency’s preferred outlets?  When the CIA approaches a newspaper to complain about the classified information it contains, the piece is almost always killed or severely edited.  Newspaper publishers are patriots, after all.  Right?  

Was the article published because the CIA wanted the news out there?  Perhaps more important was the point of the article to influence the Congressional budget deliberations on aid to Ukraine?  After all, was the article really just meant to brag about how great the CIA is?  Or was it to warn Congressional appropriators, “Look how much we’ve accomplished to confront the Russian bear.  You wouldn’t really let it all go to waste, would you?”

The Times’ article has all the hallmarks of a deep, inside look at a sensitive—possibly classified—subject.  It goes into depth on one of the intelligence community’s Holy of Holies, an intelligence liaison relationship, something that no intelligence officer is ever supposed to discuss.  But in the end, it really isn’t so sensitive.  It doesn’t tell us anything that every American hasn’t already assumed.  Maybe we hadn’t had it spelled out in print before, but we all believed that the CIA was helping Ukraine fight the Russians.  We had already seen reporting that the CIA had “boots on the ground” in Ukraine and that the U.S. government was training Ukrainian special forces and Ukrainian pilots, so there’s nothing new there.  

The article goes a little further in detail, although, again, without providing anything that might endanger sources and methods.  For example, it tells us that:

• There is a CIA listening post in the forest along the Russian border, one of 12 “secret” bases the US maintains there.  One or more of these posts helped to prove Russia’s involvement in the 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17.  That’s great.  But the revelation exposes no secrets and tells us nothing new.
• Ukrainian intelligence officials helped the Americans “go after” the Russian operatives “who meddled in the 2016 US presidential election.”  I have a news flash for the New York Times: The Mueller report found that there was no meaningful Russian meddling in the 2016 election.  And what does “go after” mean?
• Beginning in 2016, the CIA trained an “elite Ukrainian commando force known as Unit 2245, which captured Russian drones and communications gear so that CIA technicians could reverse-engineer them and crack Moscow’s encryption systems.”  This is exactly what the CIA is supposed to do.  Honestly, if the CIA hadn’t been doing this, I would have suggested a class action lawsuit for the American people to get their tax money back.  Besides, the CIA has been doing things like this for decades.  The CIA was able to obtain important components of Soviet tactical weapons from ostensibly pro-Soviet Romania in the 1970s.
• Ukraine has turned into an intelligence-gathering hub that has intercepted more Russian communications than the CIA station in Kiev could initially handle.  Again, I would expect nothing less.  After all, that’s where the war is.  So of course, communications will be intercepted there.  As to the CIA station being overwhelmed, the Times never tells us if that is because the station was a one-man operation at the time or whether it had thousands of employees and was still overwhelmed.  It’s all about scale.
• And lest you think that the CIA and the U.S. government were on the offensive in Ukraine, the article makes clear that, “Mr. Putin and his advisers misread a critical dynamic.  The CIA didn’t push its way into Ukraine.  U.S. officials were often reluctant to fully engage, fearing that Ukrainian officials could not be trusted, and worrying about provoking the Kremlin.”

It’s at this point in the article that the Times reveals what I believe to be the buried lead: “Now these intelligence networks are more important than ever, as Russia is on the offensive and Ukraine is more dependent on sabotage and long-range missile strikes that require spies far behind enemy lines.  And they are increasingly at risk: “If Republicans in Congress end military funding to Kiev, the CIA may have to scale back.”  (Emphasis mine.)

Why Did The NYTimes Report On CIA Operations In Ukraine?

scheerpost  |  We can start, logically enough, with that desperation evident among those dedicated to prolonging the war. The outcome of the war, in my read and in the view of various military analysts, does not depend on the $61 billion in aid that now hangs in the balance. But the Biden regime seems to think it does, or pretends to think it does. The Times’s most immediate intent, so far as one can make out from the piece, is to add what degree of urgency it can to this question.

Entous and Schwirtz report that the people running Ukrainian intelligence are nervous that without a House vote releasing new funds “the CIA will abandon them.” Good enough that it boosts the case to cite nervous Ukrainians, but we should recognize that this is a misapprehension. The CIA has a very large budget entirely independent of what Congress votes one way or another. William Burns, the CIA director, traveled to Kyiv two weeks ago to reassure his counterparts that “the U.S. commitment will continue,” as Entous and Schwirtz quote him saying. This is perfectly true, assuming Burns referred to the agency’s commitment.

More broadly, The Times piece appears amid flagging enthusiasm for the Ukraine project. And it is in this circumstance that Entous and Schwirtz went long on the benefits accruing to the CIA in consequence of its presence on the ground in Ukraine. But read these two reporters carefully: They, or whoever put their piece in its final shape, make it clear that the agency’s operations on Ukrainian soil count first and most as a contribution to Washington’s long campaign to undermine the Russian Federation. This is not about Ukrainian democracy, that figment of neoliberal propagandists. It is about Cold War II, plain and simple. It is time to reinvigorate the old Russophobia, thus—and hence all the baloney about Russians corrupting elections and so on. It is all there for a reason.  

To gather these thoughts and summarize, This piece is not journalism and should not be read as such. Neither do Entous and Schwirtz serve as journalists. They are clerks of the governing class pretending to be journalists while they post notices on a bulletin board that pretends to be a newspaper.

■

Let’s dolly out to put this piece in its historical context and consider the implications of its appearance in the once-but-fallen newspaper of record. Let’s think about the early 1970s, when it first began to emerge that the CIA had compromised the American media  and broadcasters.

Jack Anderson, the admirably iconoclastic columnist, lifted the lid on the agency’s infiltration of the media by way of a passing mention of a corrupted correspondent in 1973. A year later a former Los Angeles Times correspondent named Stuart Loory published the first extensive exploration of relations between the CIA and the media in the Columbia Journalism Review. Then, in 1976, the Church Committee opened its famous hearings in the Senate. It took up all sorts of agency malfeasance—assassinations, coups, illegal covert ops. Its intent was also to disrupt the agency’s misuse of American media and restore the latter to their independence and integrity.

The Church Committee is still widely remembered for getting its job done. But it never did. A year after Church produced its six-volume report, Rolling Stone published “The CIA and the Media,” Carl Bernstein’s well-known piece. Bernstein went considerably beyond the Church Committee, demonstrating that it pulled its punches rather than pull the plug on the CIA’s intrusions in the media. Faced with the prospect of forcing the CIA to sever all covert ties with the media, a senator Bernstein did not name remarked, “We just weren’t ready to take that step.”

We should read The Times’s piece on the righteousness of the CIA’s activities in Ukraine—bearing in mind the self-evident cooperation between the agency and the newspaper—with this history in mind.

America was just emerging from the disgraces of the McCarthyist period when Stuart Loory opened the door on this question, the Church Committee convened, and Carl Bernstein filled in the blanks. In and out of the profession there was disgust at the covert relationship between media and the spooks. Now look. What was then viewed as top-to-bottom objectionable is now routinized. It is “as usual.” In my read this is one consequence among many of the Russiagate years: They again plunged Americans and their mainstream media into the same paranoia that produced the corruptions of the 1950s and 1960s.

Alas, the scars of the swoon we call Russiagate are many and run deep

Schumer Making Threats Again "Fund Ukraine Or You'll Be Sorry!"

WSJ  |  Democratic and Republican congressional leaders struck an optimistic tone that they would avert a government shutdown this weekend after a White House meeting in which lawmakers also stepped up pressure on House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) to allow a long-stalled vote on Ukraine aid to go forward. 

Johnson is expected to put forward legislation in coming days that would keep the government fully open, but the details remained uncertain. The Congress has until Saturday at 12:01 a.m. to fund the departments of Veterans Affairs, Transportation, Agriculture, Energy and several other agencies that have been operating on temporary extensions since Sept. 30. The funding for the rest of the federal government expires after March 8.

The main holdup has been in the Republican-led House, where Johnson is managing a rowdy GOP conference that has taken a hard line on spending and is increasingly skeptical of foreign aid, even as the Democratic-controlled Senate has been ready for months to move forward.

Emerging from the meeting, Johnson said he was “very optimistic” about government- funding talks. Leaders think “we can get to agreement on these issues and prevent a government shutdown,” he said. He didn’t take questions. 

The other congressional leaders at the sit-down—Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, (D., N.Y.), Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.)—also sounded upbeat about avoiding a shutdown. 

“We are making good progress,” said Schumer, adding there was some “back and forth on some issues that different people want.” But he said, “I don’t think those are insurmountable.” He indicated that the most likely path was a short-term spending patch to give negotiators more time to complete the full fiscal-year bills. 

McConnell said everyone was on the same page regarding the need to keep the government funded. “I think we can stop that drama right now before it emerges,” he said.

The leaders sat down in the Oval Office, with Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris positioned in armchairs near a crackling fire. Congressional leaders sat on sofas arranged around a coffee table.

Those gathered for the meeting, including McConnell, pressed Johnson to allow a House vote on a Ukraine aid package. Central Intelligence Agency Director William J. Burns gave a presentation laying out the difficult conditions for Ukrainian soldiers on the battlefield, with troops running out of munitions. 

The Senate passed a $95.3 billion package this month that contained a fresh round of aid for Ukraine and funds for Israel and Taiwan. Johnson has declined to put it on the House floor. House Republicans are divided on Ukraine aid, with a little more than half on the record opposing it in the past, including Johnson before he became speaker. The Senate bill would need significant Democratic support to pass.

Schumer said the discussion on Ukraine was “the most intense I have ever encountered in my many meetings in the Oval Office.” He said he told Johnson he would “regret it for the rest of his life” if he blocked assistance for Kyiv.  

Johnson “said he wanted to get Ukraine done, and he had to figure out the best way to do it,” Schumer recalled.

In the meeting, McConnell, a strong advocate for Kyiv, told Johnson the House’s best path forward on Ukraine is to pass the Senate bill, because making any changes would further delay the aid. “We have a time problem here,” he told reporters. 

Johnson said he continued to insist on steps to secure the southern U.S. border before passing any foreign-aid package. The House “is actively pursuing and investigating all the various options” on the Ukraine package, he said, but “the first priority of the country is our border.” Earlier this year, Republicans blocked a bipartisan Senate deal linking aid to Ukraine with changes at the border, saying it wasn’t tough enough.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.), speaking with reporters after meeting with President Biden and other congressional leaders, said he thought a government shutdown could be averted. Photo: Evan Vucci/Associated Press

The White House meeting started shortly before noon and lasted about an hour. Johnson briefly spoke one-on-one with the president after the meeting ended. White House officials declined to say what the two men discussed, other than explaining that the conversation wasn’t scheduled in advance. 

Afterward, Biden told reporters a “bipartisan solution” was needed to fund the government. Regarding Ukraine, he said “the need is urgent” for additional funds. “I think the consequences of inaction in Ukraine are dire,” Biden said.

Such White House summits are high-profile opportunities for both sides to show they are fighting for their parties’ priorities, rather than nitty-gritty policy negotiations. But the moment was particularly challenging for Johnson, a formerly little-known conservative who leapfrogged from the lower ranks of House Republican leadership to assume the speakership in October, after a group of GOP dissidents ousted his predecessor, former Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.).

Unlike other senior leaders on Capitol Hill, Johnson has almost no pre-existing relationship with Biden.

For months, the Republican House and Democratic Senate have deferred on Congress’s responsibility to set new spending levels and priorities for the federal government for fiscal year 2024, instead passing a series of stopgap measures by repeatedly extending spending levels set back in December 2022.

Johnson has a number of options. none of which will satisfy all House Republicans. He could seal a deal with congressional Democrats and try to pass fresh full-year spending legislation at a two-thirds threshold, bypassing Republican holdouts. Johnson could put it off a few days or weeks with a short-term patch—again with Democrats’ help. Or he could try to rely on his narrow Republican majority to pass another stopgap bill through September, triggering automatic across-the-board spending cuts; such a move would be almost certain to lead to a shutdown because any such measure would be dead on arrival in the Senate.

Beneath the surface of the spending fight, a tug of war is playing out inside the House Republican conference between military hawks and conservatives opposed to further spending, with Johnson caught in the middle. The military hawks want to avoid the defense cuts that would be triggered if Congress fails to enact new full-year spending measures by April 30. The critics of more spending benefit from congressional inaction, because it brings them closer to the date when across-the-board cuts would be activated under a provision in last year’s Fiscal Responsibility Act.

Some GOP lawmakers have said in recent days they wouldn’t mind a shutdown, while other figures including McConnell have warned that shutdowns are bad policy—and bad politics.

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People familiar with the negotiations between Johnson and Democrats said that a key sticking point is how much money to appropriate for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children. Democrats are asking for $7.03 billion, more than the $6.3 billion previously sought by the Senate and requested in Biden’s budget. But the GOP-led House passed a measure including $6 billion for the program, which provides food and health assistance.

Another obstacle, these people said, is a provision to block the VA from reporting the names of veterans who need help managing their benefits to a national background-check system used to screen gun purchases. Democrats want the language to be stripped out.

Even if those issues get resolved, Johnson must sell the deal to his factious conference after House lawmakers return Wednesday to Washington. A House Republican meeting is scheduled for Thursday.

A Friday conference call for GOP lawmakers did little to assuage raw feelings as Johnson sought for an hour to manage the expectations of his conference, fielding more than a dozen questions. The speaker told lawmakers not to expect a home run or grand slams in the spending bills, but instead singles or doubles, according to people on the call. Johnson said such expectations reflected the reality of divided government, and that some Republicans’ willingness to block routine procedural votes—essentially paralyzing the floor—had hurt Republicans’ leverage in talks with Democrats.

Some Republicans complained that he had offered little information about the substance of any of the spending bills, raising fears that Johnson was setting the stage for another episode in which he would rely on Democratic votes to clear must-pass legislation through the House.

So far, Johnson has passed five major bills at a two-thirds threshold with the help of Democrats: two previous stopgap spending bills; the annual defense-policy bill; a temporary reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration; and a bipartisan tax bill.

McCarthy’s willingness to pass a stopgap bill with Democratic votes in September triggered the rebellion that led to his removal. The same fate could await Johnson if at least three House Republicans were willing to vote with all Democrats to fire him from the speakership, given the narrow majority in the House.

In What Alternate Reality Does Disclosure Of CIA Bases In Ukraine Garner More Support?

CTH  |   I find it very interesting this report surfaces in the New York Times and not The Washington Post first.  This material distinction showcases the motive for the outline is heavily domestic in nature; meaning, the core of domestic USA politics (specifically the White House) needs to admit that Ukraine is a proxy province in order to retrigger support for policy.

[Inside Baseball] – Watch the responses to this report from CNN (State Dept) carefully and watch the responses from WaPo (CIA/Intel). The more subtle and/or quiet the response(s), the more certain these influence institutions were collaborating on the material report to the New York Times.

The White House is admitting the CIA and larger IC apparatus, which includes the State Dept., has been heavily controlling all activity in Ukraine for the past decade.  The only reason to admit this now very publicly is because they are losing voter support.  THIS EXPLAINS WHY BIDEN IS CALLING FOR A WHITE HOUSE MEETING!! 

The US’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) maintains 12 secret bases in Ukraine along the border with Russia, and last Thursday CIA chief William Burns made his 10th secret visit to Ukraine since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

The Times is now reporting the USA (State Dept.) was responsible for the coup in Ukraine (color revolution) and took control over political operations in 2014.   We have long suspected this; many have reported exactly this reality; however, this is the first time it has all been admitted.

(NYT) – The C.I.A.’s partnership in Ukraine can be traced back to two phone calls on the night of Feb. 24, 2014, eight years to the day before Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Millions of Ukrainians had just overrun the country’s pro-Kremlin government and the president, Viktor Yanukovych, and his spy chiefs had fled to Russia. In the tumult, a fragile pro-Western government quickly took power.

The government’s new spy chief, Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, arrived at the headquarters of the domestic intelligence agency and found a pile of smoldering documents in the courtyard. Inside, many of the computers had been wiped or were infected with Russian malware.

“It was empty. No lights. No leadership. Nobody was there,” Mr. Nalyvaichenko said in an interview.

He went to an office and called the C.I.A. station chief and the local head of MI6. It was near midnight but he summoned them to the building, asked for help in rebuilding the agency from the ground up, and proposed a three-way partnership. “That’s how it all started,” Mr. Nalyvaichenko said. (read more)

Source: The New York Times, based on more than 200 interviews with current and former officials in Ukraine, the United States and Europe.

The report tries to paint various Ukraine officials as the originators of the operation to use Ukraine as the tip of the spear against the Russia construct; however, it doesn’t take a deep weeds walker to realize that part of the narrative is needed to protect the U.S. foreign influence policy from public ridicule.

The White House needs support for their Ukraine proxy.  The public opposition to that continued policy agenda is a problem.  The politicians are caving to pressure from the people.  The IC needs to change the narrative urgently; thus the admission takes place.