Archive for December, 2018

TBR News December 11, 2018

Dec 11 2018 Published by under Uncategorized

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Isaiah 40:3-8 

Washington, D.C. December 11, 2018: “’They watch us; we watch them’ is the motto of several very private computer code writers and other aficionados and they do exactly that.

There are no computer systems of the governmental watchdogs that cannot be penetrated, contrary to the beliefs of the users.

The CIA, the FBI, the DHS, the NSA and other attached entities think they convey messages in secrecy but in fact, their messages are being read as soon as they are sent. The Russians are known to be doing the same thing and God knows who else watches the watchbirds.

Via the so-called ‘Dark Internet’ much of the non-secrets gleaned by the snoopers become public property and are sent around to interested parties.

Some of Donald Trump’s messages, the non-Twitter ones- are hysterically funny and if he knew they were compromised, he might sanction Malta in his fury.

On the one hand, the US has a leader who is one step, or crawl, from the back wards and on the other, government spies who like to know what your nine year old daughter is reading at the local library.

In the fact of growing anger in France by the bulk of the population, manifested in the recent riots, French President Macron has started to back down. This is an error of judgement because the instant he is seen as compromising, the greater will be the demands on him.

If this scenario were to take place in the United States, the business community would demand the President call out troops and shoot down anyone who even looked like they were of the colored persuasion.

That would lead to sectional eruptions and more repressive violence. In the end, the trees of America would bear strange fruit indeed and the oligarchs and their governmental supporters that did not dangle would flee to Canada. ”

 

 

The Table of Contents 

  • Courts likely to strike down Republican lame-duck power grabs, experts say
  • Brexit chaos and confusion leaves business leaders across Europe dismayed
  • The Arctic is in even worse shape than you realize
  • Scientists identify vast underground ecosystem containing billions of micro-organisms
  • Is sea level rising?
  • The CIA Confessions: The Crowley Conversations
  • The American Gestapo

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TBR News December 10, 2018

Dec 10 2018 Published by under Uncategorized

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Isaiah 40:3-8 

Washington, D.C. December 10, 2018:” Prior to the event of printed, and later television, media, it was not difficult for the world’s power elites and the governments they controlled, to see that unwelcome and potentially dangerous information never reached the masses of people under their control. Most of the general public in more distant times were completely illiterate and received their news from their local priest or from occasional gossip from travellers. The admixture of kings, princes and clergy had an iron control over what their subject could, or could not hear. During the Middle Ages and even into the more liberal Renaissance, universities were viewed with suspicion and those who taught, or otherwise expressed, concepts that were anathama to the concept of feudalism were either killed outright in public or permanently banished. Too-liberal priests were silenced by similar methods. If Papal orders for silence were not followed, priests could, and were, put to the torch as an example for others to note.

However, with the advent of the printing press and a growing literacy in the piopulation, the question of informational control was less certain and with the growing movements in Europe and the American colonies for less restriction and more public expression, the power elites found it necessary to find the means to prevent unpleasant information from being proclaimed throughout their lands and unto all the inhabitants thereof.

The power elites realized that if they could not entirely prevent inconvenient and often dangerous facts to emerge and threaten their authority, their best course was not censorship but to find and develop the means to control the presentation and publication of that they wished to keep entirely secret.

The first method was to block or prevent the release of dangerous material by claiming that such material was a matter of important state security and as such, strictly controlled. This, they said, was not only for their own protection but also the somewhat vague but frightening concept of the security of their people.

The second method was, and has been, to put forth disinformation that so distorts and confuses actual facts as to befuddle a public they see as easily controlled, naïve and gullible.

The mainstream American media which theoretically was a balance against governmental corruption and abuses of power, quickly became little more than a mouthpiece for the same government they were supposed to report on. In the latter part of the nineteenth century, most American newspapers were little better than Rupert Mudoch’s modern tabloids, full of sound and fury, and signifying nothing but during the First World War, President Wilson used the American entry into the First World War as an excuse for setting up controls over the American public. Aside from setting up government control over food distribution, the railroads, much industry involved in war production, he also established a powerful propganda machine coupled with a national informant system that guaranteed his personal control. In 1918, citing national security, Wilson arrested and imprisoned critical news reporters and threatened to shut down their papers.

Wilson was a wartime president and set clear precidents that resonated very loudely with those who read history and understood its realities.

During the Second World War, Franklin Roosevelt, another wartime leader, was not as arrogant or highhanded as Wilson (whose empire fell apart after the end of the war that supported it) but he set up informational controls that exist to the present time. And after Roosevelt, and the war, passed into history, the government in the United States created a so-called cold war with Soviet Russia, instead of Hitler’s Germany, as the chief enemy. Control of the American media then fell into the hands of the newly-formed Central Intelligence Agency who eventually possessed an enormous, all-encompassing machine that clamped down firmly on the national print, and later television media, with an iron hand in a velvet glove. Media outlets that proved to be cooperative with CIA propaganda officials were rewarded for their loyalty and cooperation with valuable, and safe, news and the implication was that enemies of the state would either be subject to scorn and derision and that supporters of the state and its policies would receive praise and adulation.”

 

 

The Table of Contents 

  • Meet the Bottomless Pinocchio, a new rating for a false claim repeated over and over again
  • Top Democrats say Trump may face impeachment, jail over hush money
  • The Guardian view on Donald Trump: the net closes
  • John Kelly is just the latest victim of Trump’s dumpster fire of calamities
  • ‘Yellow vest’ protests slow French economy, piling pressure on Macron
  • Are You Ready To Fight a War Over Ukraine?
  • Is Israel Turning a Blind Eye as Israeli Scammers Swindle Victims in France, US, Elsewhere?
  • The CIA Confessions: The Crowley Conversations

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TBR News December 9, 2018

Dec 09 2018 Published by under Uncategorized

Washington, D.C. December 9, 2018: “As the Anaconda tightens its grip on Trump, he becomes more and more manic to the point where even the backwoodsmen and their families who support him will begin to slowly scratch their heads in bewilderment, Now Trump has been telling the world, the huge dissident crowds in Paris have been chanting his name in reverence. That this did not happen does not disturb our President because he lives in a world no one else can see. White House Secret Service personnel, well-acquainted with the habits of the President, have howlingly funny stories to tell about his behavior. The betting inside the Beltway is not if Trump will not finish his term but when he will depart. Bets are being made and bottles of vintage champagne are being put away to celebrate Departure Day.. One will hear the cheering as far away as Baltimore.”

The Table of Contents 

  • Falling for “Les Fake News,” Trump Spreads Lie French Protesters Chant His Name
  • France: More than 1,200 in custody after ‘yellow vest’ riots
  • Some of the Crazy Things That Trump Believes
  • Trump’s Aides Tried to Conceal His Crazy, Racist Beliefs From the Country
  • 19 outlandish conspiracy theories Donald Trump has floated on the campaign trail and in the White House
  • Is There Anything Trump, Cohen, and Manafort Didn’t Lie About?
  • Trump ‘at center of massive fraud against Americans’, top Democrat says
  • Renters forever? 89% of US millennials want to own a home but student debt is stopping them – survey
  • Top 10 US cities where residents struggle the most to pay rent
  • Ron Hubbard as war hero
  • The CIA Confessions: The Crowley Conversations

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TBR News December 8, 2018

Dec 08 2018 Published by under Uncategorized

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Isaiah 40:3-8 

Washington, D.C. December 8, 2018 :”As the legal anaconda, personified by Mr. Mueller, tightens its stranglehold on the President, the latter is screaming with rage and fear, sending out reams of semi-literate Twitter messages to his loyal supporters on farms all across the nation. Trump will never go quietly into that good night so one can clearly envision our leader being dragged out the back door of the White House draped in a strait jacket and stuffed into a waiting ambulance. Nixon, at least, had the sense to quit before they nailed him but Donald will crawl under the Oval Office desk and scream his defiance at the men in the white suits. And the roadways around the White House will be clogged with White House staffers, running in all directions and clutching small plants, pictures of their mother and other treasures rescued from their former desk tops. Though is it doubtful he is looking at it, Mr. Mueller would be a far better occupant of the abandoned Presidential office than the present incumbent.”

The Table of Contents 

  • Paris ‘yellow vest’ protests
  • French police clash with ‘yellow vest’ protesters in Paris
  • Color of outrage: Yellow Vests rallies sweep across France and abroad
  • S. prosecutors name Trump in hush payments, detail Russian contacts
  • Mob mentality: how Mueller is working to turn Trump’s troops
  • Special counsel Robert Mueller files new details on Trump aides
  • White House chief of staff Kelly expected to leave imminently
  • The Donald Undone: Tilting at the Swamp, Succumbing to the Empire
  • Colonel James Atwood in the shadows
  • The CIA Confessions: The Crowley Conversations

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TBR News December 7, 2018

Dec 07 2018 Published by under Uncategorized

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Isaiah 40:3-8 

Washington, D.C. December 7, 2018 :”In remembrance of things past, today is the anniversary of Pearl Harbor and the rumblings of popular revolt in France. Roosevelt tricked the Japanese into attacking the United States so he could get into a war with Hitler and in France, a government which supports their rich friends is teetering on the edge of the quarry. All it would take to cause open revolt would be for the police in France to shoot a number of students dead in front of TV cameras and given the mind-set of many police in the world today, this is not an impossibility. A frightened French government will either capitulate or attack; they have no other choice. It will be interesting to see what path they take though in the past most governments kill in defense of their privileges.”

The Table of Contents 

  • French government offers sweeteners to head off fresh ‘yellow vest’ unrest
  • France boosts security amid fear of new ‘yellow vest’ protest riots
  • French government defends heavy-handed police tactics against students
  • Yellow vests: France protests ‘created a monster’, says minister
  • FDR’s Pearl Harbor Fabrication: A Rebuttal
  • The Roosevelt-Churchill Conversations
  • The CIA Confessions: The Crowley Conversations

French government offers sweeteners to head off fresh ‘yellow vest’ unrest

December 6, 2018

by Richard Lough, Marine Pennetier

Reuters

PARIS (Reuters) – The French government hinted at more concessions to ‘yellow vest’ protesters on Thursday in a bid to head off another wave of violence in the capital over living costs and regain the initiative after weeks of civil unrest.

With protesters calling on social media for “Act IV” – a fourth weekend of protest – Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said 65,000 police would be drafted in to stop a repeat of last Saturday’s mayhem in Paris when rioters torched cars and looted shops off the famed Champs Elysees boulevard.

Philippe told the Senate he was open to new measures to help the lowest-paid workers. Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said he was prepared to accelerate tax cuts for households and that he wanted workers’ bonuses to be tax-free.

“I am ready to look at all measures that will help raise the pay of those on the minimum wage without doing excessive damage to our competitiveness and businesses,” Philippe told the parliament’s upper house.

The rush of sweeteners to soothe public anger began with Philippe’s climb-down on fuel tax hikes, the first major U-turn of Emmanuel Macron’s presidency.

Yet, five days after the worst rioting central Paris has seen since 1968, all signs are that the government has failed to quell the revolt.

A repeat of last Saturday’s violence in Paris’s city center — which saw rioters deface the Arc de Triomphe with anti-Macron graffiti — would deal a blow to the economy and raise doubts over the government’s survival.

Philippe said the state would do all it could to maintain order. At least four first division football matches have been canceled and several museums including Paris’ Grand Palais said they would close.

ACT IV

An official in Macron’s office said intelligence suggested some protesters would come to the capital with the aim to “vandalize and kill”. There is concern about far-right, anarchist and anti-capitalist groups like the Black Bloc, which have piggybacked off the ‘yellow vest’ movement.

The Paris prefecture on Thursday told restaurants and luxury boutiques along the Champs Elysees boulevard to close on Saturday and asked local Paris authorities to prepare their districts for violence.

On Facebook and across social media, protesters are calling for “Act IV”.

“France is fed up!! We will be there in bigger numbers, stronger, standing up for French people. Meet in Paris on Dec. 8,” read one group’s banner.

Security sources said the government was considering using troops currently deployed on anti-terrorism patrols to protect public buildings.

The protests, named after the fluorescent safety jackets French motorists have to keep in their cars, erupted in November over the squeeze on household budgets caused by fuel taxes. Demonstrations swiftly grew into a broad, sometimes-violent rebellion against Macron, with no formal leader.

Their demands are diverse and include lower taxes, higher salaries, cheaper energy costs, better retirement provisions and even Macron’s resignation

STREET POLITICS

Reversing course on next year’s fuel-tax hikes have left a gaping 4 billion euro hole in the government’s 2019 budget which it is now searching for ways to plug.

Citing unnamed sources, Les Echos business daily said the government as considering delaying corporate tax easing planned next year or putting off an increase in the minimum wage.

The unrest has exposed the deep-seated resentment among non-city dwellers that Macron is out-of-touch with the hard-pressed middle class and blue-collar workers. They see the 40-year-old former investment banker as closer to big business.

An Elabe poll on Thursday showed that only 23 percent of people trusted Macron, now lower than his predecessor Francois Hollande at the same period in his presidency.

Trouble is also brewing elsewhere for Macron. Teenage students on Thursday blocked access to more than 200 high schools across the country, burnt garbage bins and setting alight a car in the western city of Nantes. Hundreds of students were arrested after clashes with riot police.

Meanwhile, farmers who have long complained that retailers are squeezing their margins and are furious over a delay to the planned rise in minimum food prices, and truckers are threatening to strike from Sunday.

Le Maire said France was no longer spared from the wave of populism that has swept across Europe.

“It’s only that in France, it’s not manifesting itself at the ballot box, but in the streets.”

Reporting by Richard Lough and Marine Pennetier; additional reporting by Leigh Thomas, Michel Rose, Emmanuel Jarry, John Irish and Myriam Rivet; Editing by Richard Balmforth

 

France boosts security amid fear of new ‘yellow vest’ protest riots

Officials warned that “major violence” could hit Paris as “yellow vest” protesters plan to gather again this weekend. Teens have also blocked hundreds of schools, while several unions called for solidarity strikes.

December 6, 2018

DW

The political crisis engulfing French President Emmanuel Macron’s government showed no signs of abating on Thursday, as public anger continues to grow despite the scrapping of a controversial fuel tax hike.

Authorities across France are bracing for another weekend of “yellow vest” protests. The movement’s members are known for wearing yellow safety vests carried by French motorists.

The protests began as demonstrations against the fuel tax, which started in November but turned violent in Paris last Saturday, with some of the worst rioting in France in decades. Three weeks of protests have led to four deaths and left hundreds injured.

Some 89,000 security personnel will be deployed across the country on Saturday ahead of the fourth weekend of planned rallies, French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said on Thursday. About 8,000 officers will be in Paris where armored vehicles will be on the streets for the first time since 2005 when riots broke out in the capital’s suburbs.

“We are facing people who are not here to protest, but to smash and we want to have the means to not give them a free rein,” Philippe said during an interview on TF1 national evening news.

Authorities are concerned that far-right and far-left agitators are hijacking the protests to incite further violence. One French presidential source told news agency AFP that they fear “major violence” could hit the capital this weekend.

Shops and restaurants on the Champs-Elysees were urged to close this weekend over concerns of renewed rioting, according to notices seen by the AFP. The Eiffel Tower will also be closed on Saturday.

Half of this weekend’s scheduled French league football matches have been canceled due to security concerns.

Teens protest education reforms

On Thursday, students blocked some 200 French high schools to protest education reforms. They demanded an end to testing overhauls and a controversial new online platform for allocating university placements, local media reported.

Some of the protests grew violent, with masked demonstrators throwing Molotov cocktails and setting fire to trash cans. A car was also set on fire in the western city of Nantes.

Growing calls for strikes

Although the “yellow vests” do not have formal leaders and are not affiliated with any labor union or political party, several French unions have called for strikes to coincide with the demonstrations.

The CGT trade union called on its energy workers to stage a 48-hour walkout on December 13, adding that they wanted to join the “yellow vests.”

France’s main farmers’ union said on Wednesday that its members would stage demonstrations every day next week. Two truck driver unions also called for an indefinite sympathy strike starting from Sunday night.

Who are the ‘yellow vests’?

The movement developed out of a petition against fuel taxes which then spread via Facebook’s new algorithm for disseminating local news, and a variety of social media groups. On November 17 yellow vest-wearing protesters blocked roads across the country and hampered access to factories and some fuel depots.

Further rallies spread quickly, spanning France’s rural and urban areas. What initially started as a campaign against Macron’s tax hike grew into a broader opposition movement to his government, which was elected in May 2017.

Protesters have voiced concern over the high cost of living and urged for higher salaries and lower taxes as well as Macron’s resignation.

 

French government defends heavy-handed police tactics against students

December 7, 2018

Reuters

PARIS (Reuters) – France’s government on Friday defended the tactics of riot police who forced several dozen detained high-school students to kneel in rows with their hands held behind their heads or in handcuffs after violent protests west of Paris.

Students this week have been blocking access to scores of high schools across France in protest at President Emmanuel Macron’s education reforms, just as the 40-year-old leader grapples with sometimes-violent demonstrations over living costs.

Videos and photos of the students from two high schools in Val Fourre, a deprived neighborhood outside Mantes-La-Jolie, 60 kilometers west of Paris, went viral on social media late on Thursday, prompting public outrage.

“Over the past few days, the students have been joined by about 100 hooded youths armed with clubs and incendiary devices and determined to pick a fight with police,” Interior Minister Christophe Castaner told a news conference.

Castaner said roadblocks had been set alight, projectiles hurled at motorists and houses robbed in the area around the two schools.

“It is in this context that the security forces stepped in,” the minister added.

No students were injured while detained in the Val Fourre incident, French media reported.

But some social media users said the scene, with some of the teenagers lined up facing a wall, resembled a mock mass-execution.

“Can anyone tell me if they’ve witnessed such a thing in the last 50 years,” one Twitter user said.

Another tweet read: “These images of teenagers on their knees at the feet of CRS (riot police) are unworthy of a democracy. The government needs to take charge and re-establish chains of command.”

Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer described the images as “shocking” but said the violence convulsing France in recent weeks justified the heavy-handed policing.

France is hunkering down for another wave of potentially violent protests on Saturday as Macron struggles to quell public anger at the cost of living. Senior allies said he would address the nation early next week.

Reporting by Inti Landauro and Emmanuel Jarry; Writing by Richard Lough; Editing by Hugh Lawson

 

Yellow vests: France protests ‘created a monster’, says minister

December 7, 2018

BBC News

Anti-government protests in France have “created a monster”, France’s Interior Minister Christophe Castaner has said.

And he is warning that “radical elements” could infiltrate planned “yellow vest” protests at the weekend.

Tourist sites in Paris are to close on Saturday amid fears of further street violence.

The protests began three weeks ago, initially against a rise in fuel taxes but have spread to take in other issues, including education reforms.

Mr Castaner said “large-scale security measures” would be put in place this weekend.

Across France, 89,000 police officers will be on duty and armoured vehicles will be deployed in the capital, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe announced.

Paris police have urged shops and restaurants on the Champs-Elysees to shut and some museums will also be closed.

The government has said it is scrapping the unpopular fuel tax increases in its budget – but discontent with the government has spread and protests have erupted over other issues.

Further protests have been reported in the east of country.

One student has been injured following a demonstration in the town of Montbéliard, about 13km from the border with Switzerland, local media report. A police officer was seriously injured at a student protest in Mulhouse, according to French broadcaster BFMTV.

The AFP news agency reports that authorities seized 28 Molotov cocktails and 3 homemade bombs from “yellow vest” protesters in the south of the country.

There has also been widespread anger at images showing how police made high school students kneel and put their hands behind their heads following clashes on Thursday in Mantes-la-Jolie, to the west of Paris.

What has the government said?

Mr Castaner told reporters that the past three weeks of demonstrations had “created a monster that escaped from its creators.”

He said authorities would respond with “firmness”.

He went on: “I will have no tolerance of those who capitalise on the distress of our citizens.”

An official with the interior ministry told AFP news agency authorities were braced for “significant violence” on Saturday, with activists from both the far right and far left planning to converge on the capital.

In an interview with TV channel TF1, Mr Philippe said 8,000 police would be deployed in Paris as well as a dozen armoured vehicles.

He repeated an appeal for calm but added: “We are facing people who are not here to protest, but to smash and we want to have the means not to give them a free rein.”

Earlier, Mr Philippe suggested there might be further concessions to protesters, telling the Senate that the government was open to new measures to help the lowest-paid workers.

How will Paris be affected?

The operator of the Eiffel Tower said the threat of violent protests on Saturday made it impossible to ensure “adequate security conditions”

City authorities say they are stepping up protection for famous landmarks after the Arc de Triomphe was damaged last week.

Museums, including the Louvre and Orsay, opera houses and the Grand Palais complex will close on Saturday.

Police have asked businesses along the Champs-Elysees and other major shopping streets to stay closed and to remove any outdoor items such as tables and chairs.

Several football matches have also been postponed, including those between Paris and Montpellier, and Saint-Etienne and Marseille.

What other protests have there been?

On Thursday young people took to the streets, protesting over education reforms.

More than 140 people were arrested when a protest outside a school in Mantes-la-Jolie, to the west of Paris, ended in clashes with police. Two cars were set on fire.

Pictures of the arrests, in which the students were made to kneel and put their hands behind their heads, sparked outrage on social media. French broadcaster BFMTV said the incident lasted “several hours.”

“Now there’s a well-behaved class,” a police office was heard saying on video.

The town’s police chief told Le Monde newspaper that those arrested were suspected of taking part in an “armed gathering”, adding that officers had wanted to break up a situation that was getting “out of control.”

Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer said he was “clearly shocked”, by the events but added that they must be put in “context”. Mr Castaner described the images as “tough” to watch but added that the students had been joined by armed protesters.

Dozens of schools were blockaded in cities including Marseille, Nantes and Paris. Students have been angered by President Emmanuel Macron’s plans to change the end-of-school exam, known as the baccalaureate, which is required for entrance to university.

Critics fear the reforms will limit opportunity and breed inequality.

Who are the protesters?

The “gilets jaunes” protesters, so-called because they have taken to the streets wearing the high-visibility yellow clothing that is required to be carried in every vehicle by French law, initially complained at a sharp increase in diesel taxes.

Mr Macron said his motivation for the increase was environmental, but protesters accused him of being out of touch.

The government later scrapped the plan but the yellow vest protesters were not placated. Last week, the movement – despite a lack of central leadership – issued more than 40 demands to government.

Among them were a minimum pension, widespread changes to the tax system, and a reduction in the retirement age.

The protest movement has gained momentum via social media, encompassing a whole range of participants from the anarchist far left to the nationalist far right, and moderates in between.

FDR’s Pearl Harbor Fabrication: A Rebuttal

December 6, 2018

by Adam Graham

“Yesterday, December 7, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by the naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. The United States was at peace with that nation and … looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific.… Japan has … undertaken a surprise offensive extending across the Pacific area.… I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7th, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.”

Such were the words of US president Franklin Delano Roosevelt on December 8, 1941, the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. As dates go in US history, December 7 certainly ranks among the most broadly remembered; a most infamous day, indeed, of a much more infamous war. And perhaps no more definitive event is offered when considering the history of American involvement in any war in the 20th century, considered to be one of the most clear cut examples of unprovoked aggression and resulting defensive actions. Indeed, even the America First Committee, the longstanding bastion of non-interventionism in America, just four days afterward on December 11, voted to disband their organization once war, in their mind, had entered the realm of necessity.

But in the spirit of testing and questioning all things, we should consider the accuracy of FDR’s words. Is it true that there existed a peaceful relationship between the United States and Japan? That they sought peace in the Pacific? That the attack on the Hawaiian islands was truly unprovoked? And that it was one of a surprise nature with no warning or build up? Was Congress and the American people told the truth about Pearl Harbor? Or is there more to the story than meets the eye?

It Was Most Certainly NOT Unprovoked

One of the aspects of the Pearl Harbor attack that is most powerful in the minds of the American citizen is that of its allegedly unprovoked nature. The impression held by most is one akin to someone simply walking up to a friend and punching them in the nose with no warning. However, if you were to see such a thing in the real world the most reasonable assumption would naturally be that there must be some justification, in the eyes of the assaulter at the very least. So to the principled American mind, the question ought to be posed: was there actually some provocation in this case, some reasoning for Japanese aggression?

As it turns out, there is. Germany and Japan had been allied as part of the Tripartite Pact more than a year earlier, in September of 1940. For the sake of argument, if we extend our record of American relations with Japan to the overarching German-Japanese alliance, we will already find much evidence pointing to anything but a lack of provocation. Beginning from 1941 onward, the US participated in the Lend-Lease program, a policy of providing war materiel, free of charge to Britain in exchange for land leases, and eventually the Soviet Union, China, and others. Not only was the budget for the program hidden and obscured within the overall military budget during the war but it placed American ships and personnel at risk. Most of all, this action alone represented a break from any pretense of non-intervention in World War II proper.

But Lend-Lease was just the beginning. Roosevelt went on to make it explicitly clear that American ships and military convoys were supplying the British and even went so far as to instruct American ships to report German submarine positions to the British. Even after the famous destruction of the USS Greer while performing said assistance, Congress still did not declare war on Germany or, by extension, Japan, nor did Germany do likewise. It would be reasonable to see these actions as provocative not only to Germany but to its allies but it could be argued that these activities did not occur with or directly involve the Japanese directly and may not constitute as powerful a case.

We also history of US intervention and provocation of a more direct nature with Japan herself. Beginning in the early ’30s, the Japanese had been busy waging a series of invasions and ongoing conflict on the eastern Asian mainland, beginning in Manchuria and eventually extending into China proper. The second Sino-Japanese war is noted for its brutality and length but for much of that time the US did not intervene. But beginning in 1940, the US posture changed, with Roosevelt approving funding of Chinese war materiel and the application of sanctions and other restrictions against Japan on trade like iron and scrap steel. The following summer of 1941 oil shipments were restricted and soon after Japanese assets were frozen. These actions were accompanied by an increase in Chinese military assistance. For the libertarian, not only were each of these actions tantamount to threats of aggression, with Japan being rather natural resource poor and requiring heavy imports, but they also restricted the rights of free trade of US citizens and directly betrayed the non-belligerence that the vast majority of American citizens supported.

These myriad actions certainly show that there was no obvious policy of peace pursued in the Pacific. For those citizens not aware of the tension that existed between the two states, Pearl Harbor probably did seem like wanton aggression out of the blue. But, as is so often the case, one person’s surprise is, to the informed, a logical conclusion.

It Was Welcomed by FDR (And Churchill)

This gradual and blatant ramp-up of tensions with Japan should seem a bit strange within the context the period at large. Throughout the ’30s, while Japan conducted its expansionist actions throughout eastern Asia, Americans remained staunchly non-interventionist and Roosevelt continuously campaigned under the premise that, “your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.” And yet, curiously, no sanctions or aggressive actions were taken against Japan until much later, around the turn of the decade, and only after repeated provocations were ignored by Hitler in the Atlantic. Could it be that Japan offered Roosevelt a back door to war?

As Sheldon Richman tells us, “As early as 1938, Roosevelt quietly explored with the British the possibility of war with Japan.” In 1940, with the approval and cooperation of Roosevelt and federal agencies, the British agent William Stephenson, aka “Intrepid”, was allowed to set up shop in New York City to actively intercept public messages and orchestrate smear campaigns against isolationist figures in the US. Churchill also, after hearing that the British ambassador to Japan Robert Craigie was attempting to maintain a peaceful relationship with Japan, ensured that, “[Craigie] should surely be told forthwith that the entry of the United States into war either with Germany and Italy or with Japan, is fully conformable with British interests. Nothing in the munitions sphere can compare with the importance of the British Empire and the United States being co-belligerent.”

But, though Churchill was certainly intent on using any means possible to encourage Roosevelt to aid him in Europe, he had no shortage of homegrown help. In October of 1940, Lieutenant Commander Arthur McCollum issued a memorandum, forwarded to two of FDR’s closest military advisors, which contained eight steps specifically intended, as Secretary of War Henry Stimson would later phrase it, “to maneuver them [Japan] into the position of firing the first shot.” Those steps were as follows:

1.Make an arrangement with Britain for the use of British bases in the Pacific, particularly Singapore.

2.Make an arrangement with Holland for the use of base facilities and acquisition of supplies in the Dutch East Indies [now Indonesia].

3.Give all possible aid to the Chinese government of Chiang Kai-shek.

4.Send a division of long-range heavy cruisers to the Orient, Philippines, or Singapore.

5.Send two divisions of submarines to the Orient.

6.Keep the main strength of the US Fleet, now in the Pacific, in the vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands.

7.Insist that the Dutch refuse to grant Japanese demands for undue economic concessions, particularly oil.

8.Completely embargo all trade with Japan, in collaboration with a similar embargo imposed by the British Empire.

It is unclear from the first-hand evidence of the paper trail of the original memo whether FDR himself saw the memo with his own eyes but the circumstantial case seems clear especially since, as Robert Stinnett states, “beginning the very next day, with FDR’s involvement, McCollum’s proposals were systematically put into effect.”

Take, just for instance, Action D. Regarding the presence of US cruisers and naval power in the Orient, Roosevelt himself, in words that should chill any trusting American’s bones, commanded that “I just want them to keep popping up here and there and keep the Japs guessing. I don’t mind losing one or two cruisers, but do not take a chance on losing five or six.” The Navy Pacific fleet commander, Admiral Husband Kimmel, objected, making it blatantly clear that, “It is ill-advised and will result in war if we make this move.” And this is just one of the proposed 8 actions. Despite Kimmel’s objections and against international law, naval “pop-up cruises” were indeed launched in March through July of 1941.

On October 8, 1940, one day after the memo was issued, the US State Department dispatched instructions for Americans to evacuate the Far East as soon as possible. As well, the very same day, Roosevelt began the execution of plans to move and keep the Pacific fleet stationed in Hawaii during a presidential luncheon. Admiral James Richardson, present at the luncheon, quoted the president as saying “Sooner or later the Japanese would commit an overt act against the United States and the nation would be willing to enter the war.” Admirably, Richardson opposed Roosevelt’s actions and intentions but, unsurprisingly, he was also relieved of his command on February 1, 1941. It seems that FDR’s experience stacking judicial and executive branch positions with “yes men” during the New Deal era would continue to be of use.

Despite the long list of provocative actions, there were still many opportunities to reduce this tension. The US and the Japanese came to a number of possible settlements during the years leading up to 1941 that could have offered a deescalation from their trajectory of war. The Japanese made an offer in 1940 that included their leaving China and the Tripartite pact but that offer was not taken. Even as late as November 20, 1941, Japan offered to withdraw troops from Indochina and restore peace with China in exchange for the lifting of trade restrictions against them but then Secretary of State Cordell Hull considered the deal unacceptable. He instead issued an ultimatum on November 26 requiring complete withdrawal from China and Indochina which he could be confident would be rejected. And Japan did, indeed, reject the ultimatum, at 1:00 pm, Eastern Standard Time, on December 7, 1941.

There Was Plenty of Warning

At this point, it may be difficult, in light of the evidence above, to believe that the eventual Japanese attack of Pearl Harbor could have possibly been a surprise to almost anyone close to Roosevelt or his military officials. While it is certainly possible that the complex plans and secretive actions and motives of Washington could have been kept hidden from the average American, it seems highly unlikely that those in the thick of the daily diplomatic and military proceedings with Japan could have been caught unaware. But, for the sake of being thorough, we may nevertheless ask ourselves, “did Roosevelt, or anyone else for that matter, know that Japan planned an overt attack on Pearl Harbor?”

The first obvious note is that so many of the Roosevelt administration’s actions leading up to late 1941 were engineered with the primary purpose of provoking an attack by Japan. Take, for instance, action F from McCollum’s 8 point plan which desired to keep the bulk of the Pacific fleet in the area of the Hawaiian islands. It could possibly be argued that Pearl Harbor could be rightfully considered a “surprise attack” of sorts in the sense that it was not known with accuracy beforehand exactly when or where the attack could occur. But it certainly would not be reasonable to consider it very surprising that such an attack would take place within the vicinity of the Pacific as a whole and, since the fleet was effectively used as bait, that it would occur against this obvious military target.

In the months and years after the attack, various investigations and reports were conducted to review the facts and attempt to understand where blame might be warranted. Details in those reports shed much useful light on just how much was known ahead of time. For instance, Captain Laurence Safford, who was in charge of much of the deciphering of Japanese messages during the early ’40s, testified that it was clear as early as May 1941 that the Japanese were preparing for some sort of military action in the Pacific. As well, between December 1 and 4, it was known that Japan intended to attack the US and Britain and on December 6 and 7 that Japan would formally declare war on the US. Yet this information was not forwarded to those on the ground in Hawaii or those responsible for its readiness.

A slew of others involved in cryptoanalytic and diplomatic activities at the time were also incredulous as to how the forces at Pearl Harbor could be caught so unawares. William Friedman, army cryptanalyst who assisted in breaking the Japanese “purple” diplomatic code was dumbfounded, having reportedly exclaimed to his wife, “But they knew, they knew, they knew.” Dusko Popov, a famed British double agent had disclosed the plans for the attack to the FBI in August and stated, prior to hearing the actual results of December 7, that “I was sure the American fleet had scored a great victory over the Japanese. I was very, very proud that I had been able to give the warning to the Americans four months in advance. What a reception the Japanese must have had!” And Tommy Wisden, a British Royal Navy codebreaker wondered, “With all the information we gave them. How could the Americans have been caught unprepared?”

A number of Japanese messages had been intercepted and decoded that pointed very obviously toward Pearl Harbor as the location, among them the “bomb plot” message of October 4, describing the plotting of Pearl Harbor into a supposed bombing grid, the “winds execute” message of December 4 which denoted an imminent Japanese attack, a December 6 message describing methods of signaling movements and positions of ships within the harbor, and the aforementioned message containing the precise timing of the Japanese rejection of the November 1941 ultimatum.

Ultimately, despite disagreements regarding exactly how much was known by whom and when, Sheldon Richman distills the points that are much more agreed upon: “(1) Franklin Roosevelt and his closest aides had seen Japanese messages that should have indicated to them (if they did not indeed do so) that Pearl Harbor would be attacked at dawn on December 7. (2) The commanders at Pearl Harbor, who were later made scapegoats, were inexcusably denied critical intelligence that would have likely caused them to take precautions that would have spoiled the Japanese surprise and probably prevented the attack.” These points alone should provide enough reason to doubt the incredulousness of Roosevelt and his leadership.

The Bottom Line

In America’s history, Pearl Harbor was not the first useful excuse for a politician’s entry into war and it was definitely not the last. It is my hope that, with this information in hand, the next similar situation that is destined to occur will be met with a healthy skepticism, one that it will most likely deserve and one that was unfortunately lacking in 1941. With any luck, when the time comes, that skepticism may save countless lives and further encroachments on American liberty.

 

The Roosevelt-Churchill Conversations

On March 6, 1942, German Minister of Post, Dr. Wilhelm Ohnesorge, sent the following letter to Adolf Hitler. To it was attached a sample manuscript of an intercepted conversation.

——————————–

The Reichspost Minister                 Berlin W 66                                  6 March 1942

Leipziger Str. 15

Geheime Reichssache!

(Secret State Matter)

U5342-11Bfb Nr. 23 gRs

Decoding of the American-England telephone system

Mein Führer!

The Research Section (Forschungsanstalt) of the German Reichspost has, as the latest of its efforts, completed a unit designed to intercept the telephone message traffic between the United States and England which had been rendered unintelligible by their use of current communications technology. Because of the significant work of its technicians, the Reichspost is the sole agency in Germany that is now able to make immediate interception and decoding of these hitherto unintelligible conversations.

I will present these results to the Reichsführer-SS, Pg Himmler who will forward them on the 22nd of March.

It is my intention, pending your approval, to strictly limit the circulation of these communications in order that no news of our success reaches the English. This might seriously jeopardize future interceptions.

Heil mein Führer!

Ohnsorge

In 1937, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company put into use a telephone scrambling device called the A-3. This device, which permitted telephone conversations to be scrambled at one and descrambled at the other, effectively prevented interception of the conversations en route.

The German Reichspost (state postal system responsible for the telephone and telegraph systems in Germany) had purchased the A-3 system from AT&T before the war for use on lines in service between Germany and the United States. However, each set of scrambling devices was different and in practice, the possessors of one set could not intercept the transmissions of another.

The A-3 system in use between Roosevelt and Churchill was housed, in America, in a secure area of the AT&T offices at 47 Walker Street in New York City and the British A-3 counterpart was located at Whitehall in London. Roosevelt’s calls to Churchill were routed through the New York office where technicians constantly supervised the conversations to be certain that the transmitted speech was unintelligible after passing through the scrambling devices.

In September of 1939, the A-3 system was in use by the White House and on the first day of that month, Roosevelt heard from his personal friend and Ambassador to France, William Bullitt, that the Germans had invaded Poland.

The Germans were well aware that Roosevelt used this device through an indiscreet article in the New York Times of October 8, 1939 entitled “Roosevelt Protected in Talks to Envoys by Radio Scrambling to Foil Spies Abroad.”

The spies abroad found this indiscretion stimulating and Dr. Ohnesorge determined to find a way to unscramble the President’s messages. He assigned a specialist in the field, Kurt Vetterlein, to work on the project using the A-3 equipment then in the hands of the Reichspost as a basis. By late 1940, Vetterlein and his team of specialists had effectively broken Roosevelt’s secure system.

Vetterlein then built a device that was able to descramble each conversation as it progressed without the loss of a single word and Ohnesorge ordered an intercept station to be established in the occupied Dutch coastal town of Noorwikj aan Zee, just north of den Haag. Here, in a former youth hostel, Vetterlein set up the equipment he needed to begin a full-scale 24-hour program of interception and transcription of the trans-Atlantic radio telephone traffic.

The first intercept was made at 7:45 PM on September 7, 1941. The daily number of intercepted calls, on a 24 hour basis, ranged from a high of sixty to a low of thirty and were screened by experts for their intelligence value. Important material was transcribed in the original English and send by courier either to Hitler’s military headquarters in East Prussia or to Heinrich Himmler at the RSHA in Berlin.

Himmler, in turn, had the original English texts translated into German and distributed within his organization. SS General Gottlob Berger, head of Himmler’s Main Office, was one of the recipients and the head of Overseas Intelligence of the Sicherheitsdienst or SD received others.

These intercepts, coupled with confidential coded reports by Bruggmann, Swiss Minister to the United States, proved to be of incredible value to German intelligence organs and gave the Germans the closest look at the inner workings of the top leadership of the United States. Bruggmann was the brother-in-law of Vice President Henry Wallace who was absolutely indiscreet about top level police decisions. The Swiss Minister had no idea that the Germans were reading all of his secret dispatches to the Swiss Foreign Office in Bern just as the American President and the British Prime Minister had no idea their often sophomoric and pompous chatterings were ending up on the desk of Adolf Hitler within hours after they hung up.

Ever since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 and the subsequent entry of the United States into what then became World War II, there has been a heated and protracted debate about the historical role played by Roosevelt in this episode. His detractors have claimed that the President was fully aware of the impending Japanese attack and allowed it to proceed because it supplied him a casus belli that would permit him to actively engage his real enemy, Hitler. Much is made of the interception and decoding of Japanese official military and governmental messages, which in hindsight would appear to point clearly to a Japanese attack.

Certainly, the decoding of Japanese Foreign Office diplomatic traffic would indicate the strong probability of a military attack on the United States by the Japanese if their respective governments were unable to resolve their problems in the Pacific.

None of the diplomatic messages, however, were specific about such an attack and all that can be gained from reading them is the clear knowledge that the Japanese did not want war with the United States and, like Saddam Hussein of Iraq, were desperately seeking some kind of a peaceful solution.

Given that Roosevelt was aware of this attitude, which he clearly was, there has been no proof that the President was aware of a specific attack on the United States.

On November 26, 1941, the German intercept station in Holland recorded the following conversation between Roosevelt and Churchill concerning the situation in the Pacific. It is of such historical importance that it is reproduced in full and copies of the original German documents are attached. These transcripts of the Roosevelt/Churchill conversations were always initially in English and were then later translated into German.

Roosevelt-Churchill Conversation of November 26, 1941

This conversation is taken directly from a German transcript of a trans-Atlantic scrambled telephone conversation initiated by British Prime Minister Winston Spencer-Churchill and American President Franklin Roosevelt. The original was taken down in English and a German translation is in the German State Archives.

The original carbon copy of this, and other historically important German intercepts, came from the private files of Robert T. Crowley, formerly Deputy Director of Clandestine Operations of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Conversation Participants

A=Franklin Roosevelt, Washington

B= Winston Churchill, London

B: I am frightfully sorry to disturb you at this hour, Franklin, but matters of a most vital import have transpired and I felt that I must convey them to you immediately.

A: That’s perfectly all right, Winston. I’m sure you wouldn’t trouble me at this hour for trivial concerns.

B: Let me preface my information with an explanation addressing the reason I have not alluded to these facts earlier. In the first place, until today, the information was not firm. On matters of such gravity, I do not like to indulge in idle chatter. Now, I have in my hands, reports from our agents in Japan as well as the most specific intelligence in the form of the highest level Japanese naval coded messages (conversation broken) for some time now.

A: I felt this is what you were about. How serious is it?

B: It could not be worse, A powerful Japanese task force comprising (composed of) six of their carriers, two battleships and a number of other units to include (including) tankers and cruisers, has sailed yesterday from a secret base in the northern Japanese islands.

A: We both knew this was coming. There are also reports in my hands about a force of some size making up in China and obviously intended to go (move) South.

B: Yes, we have all of that. (Interruption) ..are far more advanced than you in our reading of the Jap naval operations codes. But even without that, their moves are evident. And they will indeed move South but the force I spoke of is not headed South, Franklin, it is headed East..

A: Surely you must be…will you repeat that please?

B: I said to the East. This force is sailing to the East…towards you.

A: Perhaps they set an easterly course to fool any observers and then plan to swing South to support the landings in the southern areas. I have…

B: No, at this moment, their forces are moving across the northern Pacific and I can assure you that their goal is the (conversation broken) fleet in Hawaii. At Pearl Harbor.

A: This is monstrous. Can you tell me…indicate…the nature of your intelligence? (conversation broken) reliable? Without compromising your sources…

B: Yes, I will have to be careful. Our agents in Japan have been reporting on the gradual (conversation broken) units. And these have disappeared from Japanese home waters. We also have highly reliable sources in the Japanese Foreign Service and even the military…

A: How reliable?

B: One of the sources is the individual who supplied us the material on the diplomatic codes that (conversation broken) and a Naval officer whom our service has compromised. You must trust me, Franklin and I cannot be more specific.

A: I accept this.

B: We cannot compromise our code breaking. You understand this. Only myself and a few (conversation broken) not even Hopkins. It will go straight to Moscow and I am not sure we want that.

A: I am still attempting to…the obvious implication is that the Japs are going to do a Port Arthur on us at Pearl Harbor. Do you concur?

B: I do indeed. Unless they add an attack on the Panama Canal to this vile business. I can hardly envision the canal as a primary goal, especially with your fleet lying athwart their lines of communications with Japan. No, if they do strike the canal, they will have to first neutralize (destroy) your fleet (conversation broken).

A: The worse form of treachery. We can prepare our defenses on the islands and give them a warm welcome when they come. It would certainly put some iron up Congress’ ass (asshole).

B: On the other hand, if they did launch a bombing raid, given that the aircraft would only be of the carrier-borne types, how much actual damage could they inflict? And on what target?

A: I think torpedoes would be ruled out at the outset. Pearl is far too shallow to permit a successful torpedo attack. Probably they would drop medium bombs on the ships and then shoot (conversation broken) damage a number of ships and no doubt the Japs would attack our airfields. I could see some damage there but I don’t think either an airfield or a battleship could sink very far. What do your people give you as the actual date of the attack?

B: The actual date given is the eighth of December. That’s a Monday.

A: The fleet is in harbor over the weekend. They often sortie during the week…

B: The Japs are asking (conversation broken) exact dispositions of your ships on a regular basis.

A: But Monday seems odd. Are you certain?

B: It is in the calendar. Monday is the eighth. (conversation broken).

A:…then I will have to reconsider the entire problem. A Japanese attack on us, which would result in war between us…and certainly you as well…would certainly fulfill two of the most important requirements of our policy. Harry has told me repeatedly…and I have more faith in him than I do in the Soviet ambassador…that Stalin is desperate at this point. The Nazis are at the gates of Moscow, his armies are melting away…the government has evacuated and although Harry and Marshall feel that Stalin can hang on and eventually defeat Hitler, their is no saying what could transpire (happen) if the Japs suddenly fell on Stalin’s rear. In spite of all the agreements between them and the Japs dropping Matsuoka, there is still strong anti-Russian sentiment in high Japanese military circles. I think that we have to decide what is more important…keeping Russia in the war to bleed the Nazis dry to their own eventual destruction (conversation broken) supply Stalin with weapons but do not forget, in fact he is your ally, not mine. There are strong isolationist feelings here and there are quite a number of anti-Communists…

B: Fascists…

A: Certainly, but they would do all they could to block any attempt on my part to do more than give some monetary assistance to Stalin.

B: But we too have our major desperations, Franklin. Our shipping upon which our nation depends, is being sunk by the huns faster than we could ever replace (conversation broken) the Japs attack both of us in the Pacific? We could lose Malaya which is our primary source of rubber and tin. And if the Japs get Java and the oil, they could press South to Australia and I have told you repeatedly, we cannot hold (conversation broken) them much but in truth I cannot deliver. We need every man and every ship to fight Hitler in Europe…India too. If the Japs get into Malaya, they can press on virtually unopposed into Burma and then India. Need I tell you of the resultant destruction of our Empire? We cannot survive on this small island, Franklin, (conversation broken) allow the nips (knips?) to attack, you can get your war declaration through your Congress after all. (conversation broken)

A: Not as capable as you are at translating there messages and the army and navy are very jealous of each other. There is so much coming in that everyone is confused. We have no agents in place in Japan and every day dozens of messages are (conversation broken) that contradict each other or are not well translated. I have seen three translations of the same message with three entirely different meanings (conversation broken) address your concern about British holdings in the Pacific…if the Japanese do attack both of us, eventually we will be able to crush them and regain all of the lost territories. As for myself, I will be damned glad to be rid of the Phillipines.(sic)

B: I see this as a gamble (conversation broken) what would your decision be? We cannot procrastinate over this for too long. Eleven or twelve days are all we have. Can we not agree in principle now? I should mention that several advisors have counseled (advised) against informing you of this and allowing it to happen. You see by notifying you where my loyalty lies. Certainly to one who is heart and soul with us against Hitler.

A: I do appreciate your loyalty, Winston. What on the other hand, will happen here if one of our intelligence people is able to intercept, decipher and deliver to me the same information you just gave me? I cannot just ignore it…all of my intelligence people will know about it then. I could not ignore this.

B: But if it were just a vague message then?

A: No, a specific message. I could not just sweep it under the rug like that (conversation broken).

B: Of course not. I think we should matters develop as they will.

A: I think that perhaps I can find a reason to absent (leave) myself from Washington while this crisis develops. What I don’t know can’t hurt me and I too can misunderstand messages, especially at a distance (conversation broken)

B: Completely. My best to you all there.

A: Thank you for your call.

 

In dealing with documents of a controversial nature, there are a number of factors to be considered. The first point to consider is the authenticity of the document in question.

Authenticity can be determined by several means. There is the provenience of the piece; where it came from and a catalog of the owners showing unbroken custody. Then there is the forensic study of the document. Is the paper correct to the period when the document was purported to have been written. Is the typewriter or the handwriting correct? If ink is used, can it be tested as to age?

These are the forensic issues and the next issue is one of plausibility. Does the document accurately reflect knowledge and opinion when it was alleged to have been written? The sure sign of a faked or altered piece is if it reflects information known only after the fact and not before.

As a case in point, American newspapers contemporary with the sinking of the RMS Titanic in April of 1912, reported on what was then believed to be fact. These perceived facts later turned out to be in error. A document that accurately depicts the opinions, and errors, current with its alleged origin is far more believable than one that reflects information that was developed at a later date, information that could not be known to a period writer.

In the case of the copies of the German intercepts, these principles have been carefully adhered to. Because of the importance of some of these captured papers, it is vital to at least ascertain their authenticity based on the forensic criteria.

These documents, fortunately, exist in their original form.

The Roosevelt/Churchill conversation of November 26, 1941, was typed on a German Olympia typewriter, manufactured in 1938. The typeface does not indicate excessive wear such as one would find in an old, second-hand machine.

The paper on which the document was originally typed is common pulp paper, very quick to age. This paper proved to be unremarkable pulp that could have come from any period. There were no chemical additives, as are found in post 1948 paper, and no wood pulp additives that would preclude period German manufacture.

The next step in authentication would be to study the text to see if the speech was consistent with the speakers, their education and background.

In studying this aspect of the conversations, it must be remembered that these intercepts were taken down directly from the intercepted messages, as they were in progress. The technicians were persons in German employ who were conversant with idiomatic English. They were not necessarily of German birth or upbringing and attempting to write down intercepts in a foreign language could easily lead to minor grammatical or textual errors.

It is also necessary to consider the personal attitudes of persons who wish not to believe the authenticity of very controversial documents.

As a case in point, using this November 26, 1941, intercept as an example, several scholars have decided that the text is authentic. One recent reviewer, historian John Lukacs, has decided that it is not.

Dr. Lukacs has written at some length about this intercept in the American Heritage magazine of November/December 2002.

A very polished writer, Dr. Lukacs has stated that he simply cannot, and will not, accept this conversation as authentic. He stated in his article that he once spoke with an unnamed elderly British translator who stated she could not accept some of the comments made in the text.

There is the argument that Churchill would never have called Roosevelt by his first name. Since Roosevelt had known Churchill and his family for some time before the date of the conversation, there is no logical reason why he would not have used the President’s first name. Roosevelt’s mother was a friend of the Churchill family and had been visiting with them in England in 1915. This is an obscure fact, admittedly, but one that is not so concealed that it could never be discovered by a competent researcher.

There is also the question of Churchill’s use of ‘fascist’ in the conversation when Lukacs feels that ‘Nazi’ would be more accurate. A number of Churchill’s published speeches contain references to both definitions. Lukacs refers to the use of this word as ‘nonsensical’ when in fact published material shows that Churchill very clearly had used it a number of times in his writings and speeches.

What all of this proves is nothing more than the fact that Dr. Lukacs is not happy with the implication that Churchill, about whom he has written glowingly and at great length and whom he holds in the highest esteem, had prior knowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack and was engaged in plotting with his American opposite number to let it go forward. By both Roosevelt and Churchills’ doing so, it is obvious many lives were lost and the war burst forth on a global dimension.

Dr. Peter Hoffman from Canada and Dr. Lukacs have both written in glowing phrases about their particular historical idols. Hoffman produced a highly laudatory work on Claus von Stauffenberg, as worshipful as the Lukacs’ Churchill works, and any writer who dares to denigrate their heroes immediately draws the academic ire of their biographers.

These academic gentlemen have staked out their turf, as it were, and like many other academics, will fight to the death to defend their own territory. It is never an edifying sight to witness distinguished academics engaged in behavior redolent of  elderly whores engaging in a hair-pulling and purse-swinging battle in a dark alley over possession of a drunken client but this sort of activity seems to be more the norm than the exception

The ferocity of these encounters is always in direct proportion to the unimportance of the subject.

In essence, Dr. Lukacs simply cannot, and will not, accept anything that brings the character, or lack of it, of his primary hero into question.

Many do indeed revere both Roosevelt and Churchill. Still others revere Hitler and Stalin and are just as fierce in the defense of their respective heroes.

The personality of Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill could very well be a subject of interest to an alienist who, by definition, is a physician who treats mental disorders. There is a saying that the world is governed with very little sense and there are times when one could add to this statement that it often has been governed by lunatics.

(For an illuminating discussion of the personality and activities of Churchill, see a report by eminent American historian Harry Elmer Barnes in the Appendix)

Churchill was born in 1874 and died in 1965. His father was Randolph Spencer-Churchill, a son of the Duke of Marlborough. The first Duke was John Churchill, one of England’s most capable military commanders, who died without male issue in 1722 and the title was given to one of his nephews, a Spencer. As a courtesy, the Spencer family was allowed to add Churchill to its name, separated by a hyphen. Winston always wanted to believe that he was a gifted military leader in the mold of the first Duke but his efforts at generalship were always unqualified disasters that he generally blamed on other people. This chronic refusal to accept responsibility for his own incompetent actions is one of Churchill’s less endearing qualities.

Randolph Churchill died early as the result of rampant syphilis that turned him from an interesting minor politician to a pathetic madman who had to be kept away from the public, in the final years of his life. His mother was the former Jennie Jerome, an American. The Jerome family had seen better days when Jennie met Randolph. Her father, Leonard, was a stock-market manipulator who had lost his money and the marriage was more one of convenience than of affection.

The Jeromes were by background very typically American. On her father’s side, Jennie was mostly Irish and on her mother’s American Indian and Jewish. The union produced two children, Winston and Jack. The parents lived separate lives, both seeking the company of other men. Winston’s psyche suffered accordingly and throughout his life, his frantic desire for attention obviously had its roots in his abandonment as a child.

As a member of the 4th (Queen’s Own) Hussars, in 1896 Churchill became embroiled in a lawsuit wherein he was publicly accused of having engaged in the commission of “acts of gross immorality of the Oscar Wilde type.” This case was duly settled out of court for a payment of money and the charges were withdrawn. Also a determinant factor was the interference by the Prince of Wales with whom his mother was having an affair.

In 1905, Churchill hired a young man, Edward Marsh (later Sir Edward) as his private secretary. His mother, always concerned about her son’s political career, was concerned because Marsh was a very well known homosexual who later became one of Winston’s most intimate lifelong friends. Personal correspondence of March, now in private hands, attests to the nature and duration of their friendship.

Churchill, as Asquith once said, was consumed with vanity and his belief that he was a brilliant military leader led him from the terrible disaster of Gallipoli through the campaigns of the Second World War. He meddled constantly in military matters to the despair and eventual fury of his professional military advisors but his political excursions were even more disastrous. Churchill was a man who was incapable of love but could certainly hate. He was viciously vindictive towards anyone who thwarted him and a number of these perceived enemies died sudden deaths during the war when such activities were much easier to order and conceal.

One of Churchill’s less attractive personality traits, aside from his refusal to accept the responsibility for the failure of his actions, was his ability to change his opinions at a moment’s notice.

Once anti-American, he did a complete about-face when confronted with a war he escalated and could not fight, and from a supporter of Hitler’s rebuilding of Germany, he turned into a bitter enemy after a Jewish political action association composed of wealthy businessmen hired him to be their spokesman.

Churchill lavishly praised Roosevelt to his face and defamed him with the ugliest of accusations behind his back. The American President was a far more astute politician than Churchill and certainly far saner.

In order to support his war of vengeance, Churchill had to buy weapons from the United States and Roosevelt stripped England of all of her assets to pay for these. Only when England was bankrupt did Roosevelt consent to the Lend-Lease project, and in a moment of malicious humor, titled the bill “1776” when it was sent to Congress.

Hitler’s bombing of England was not a prelude to invasion, but a retaliation for Churchill’s instigation of the bombing of German cities and Churchill used the threat of a German invasion to whip up pro-British feelings in the United States. Threats of invasion by the Germans, in this case of the United States, have been cited by such writers as Weinberg as the reason why Roosevelt had to get into the war. Neither the Germans nor the Japanese had even the slightest intention to invade the continental United States and exhaustive research in the military and political archives of both countries has been unable to locate a shred of evidence to support these theories.

A dedicated academic supporter of Winston Spencer-Churchill or Franklin Delano Roosevelt would undoubtedly find any evidence of bad character on the part of their beloved subjects, total anathema but this attitude in and of itself has no actual bearing on the originality of documentation that might augment or expose lack of character or morality.

Roosevelt’s role in the Pearl Harbor attack has been the subject of speculation even from the first. His opponents claimed that he deliberately pushed the Japanese into war to permit him to fight his archenemy, Adolf Hitler. His supporters have firmly denied this thesis and the multiplication of books, scholarly articles and media dramas seems to have no end.

Several valid points have been brought by Roosevelt partisans that deserve to be carefully considered. The first is concerned with American military intelligence work and deals, in the main, with the interceptions of Japanese coded messages. It has been fully acknowledged that the Japanese diplomatic code, called “Purple,” was broken by the Americans and consequently, all high-level diplomatic messages between Tokyo and Japanese diplomats throughout the world were being read almost as soon as they were sent. (The average translation took two days.)

The question of the Japanese Army and Navy operational codes was another matter. The American government has firmly denied for decades that such codes had even been broken or, if that had, were not translated until 1945! While nearly all of the “Purple” intercepts have been made public, only a very few of the coded Japanese Naval messages have appeared in print and then only concerning matters of no special significance.

The Japanese Pearl Harbor task force did not broadcast any messages during their passage to the Hawaiian Islands but Japanese Naval headquarters did send messages to the task force. What they may have consisted of are not known at present and perhaps will never be known, although the National Security Agency, holder of these documents, has stated that it will release the Naval intercepts (known as JN-25) at an unspecified future date.

The argument has been well made, specifically by Roberts Wohlstetter, that so much material was intercepted during the period just prior to the Japanese attack, that it was extremely difficult for American intelligence agencies to winnow out the wheat from the chaff. In retrospect, it is glaringly obvious that some kind of a Japanese attack was planned and in train, but the direction of this attack was lost in the muddle of complex and difficult-to-translate messages.

A further point well made is, had American military intelligence learned of a definite attack on Pearl Harbor, it would have been impossible to keep this a secret, given the number of translators and other military personnel who handled such intercepted messages. The army and navy of that period were small in size and most senior officers in both services knew each other well, having served together for many years. In the absence of any concrete evidence to support the receipt of Japanese military messages dealing with an attack on any specific American installation, it is not within the realm of belief that these senior officers would passively allow American military units to be attacked.

In response to this entirely valid postulation, it should be noted that the specific warning did not come to Roosevelt from below but on a parallel level and from a foreign intelligence source which was far better equipped to decode and translate the Japanese transmissions.

A second area of interest has been the possible motivation for Roosevelt’s increasing pressure on the Japanese, pressure which culminated in a stringent oil embargo that forced Japan into war. Diverse reasons are given for this, including a personal prejudice in favor of China stemming from his maternal grandfather’s highly lucrative opium and immigrant-smuggling operations to an intense hatred of Hitler in specific and Germans in general.

Both of these reasons for Roosevelt’s attitude are historically valid but in and of themselves do not explain the dangerous brinkmanship practiced by Roosevelt in his dealings with Japan. It is clearly evident from reading the intercepts of the Japanese diplomatic coded messages that Tokyo was not only not interested in pursuing war against the United States but was seriously engaged in attempting to defuse and dangerous situation whose accelerating progress caused them great alarm. Roosevelt and his advisers were fully aware of the ease with which they could achieve effective dialog with the Japanese government. All diplomatic approaches by Japan were rebuffed by Washington and as the diplomatic crisis deepened, the possibility of military action by Japan against the United States was very clearly evident in Washington.

The actual motivation behind the turning of the screw against Japan and the refusal on the part of Roosevelt to negotiate has been explored extensively in print but one of the most valid answers seems to lie clearly in the section of the intercepted communication dealing with the Soviet Union.

As much as Roosevelt wished to enter a war against Germany, he was constrained by Congress from conducting a personal war. A de facto war against Germany was in progress in the Atlantic where US naval units were engaged in open warfare with German U boats but Hitler would not rise to the bait and issue a unilateral declaration of war against the United States. For a time, Roosevelt was check in his ambitions.

 

The CIA Confessions: The Crowley Conversations

December 6, 2018

by Dr. Peter Janney

 

On October 8th, 2000, Robert Trumbull Crowley, once a leader of the CIA’s Clandestine Operations Division, died in a Washington hospital of heart failure and the end effects of Alzheimer’s Disease. Before the late Assistant Director Crowley was cold, Joseph Trento, a writer of light-weight books on the CIA, descended on Crowley’s widow at her town house on Cathedral Hill Drive in Washington and hauled away over fifty boxes of Crowley’s CIA files.

Once Trento had his new find secure in his house in Front Royal, Virginia, he called a well-known Washington fix lawyer with the news of his success in securing what the CIA had always considered to be a potential major embarrassment.

Three months before, on July 20th of that year, retired Marine Corps colonel William R. Corson, and an associate of Crowley, died of emphysema and lung cancer at a hospital in Bethesda, Md.

After Corson’s death, Trento and the well-known Washington fix-lawyer went to Corson’s bank, got into his safe deposit box and removed a manuscript entitled ‘Zipper.’ This manuscript, which dealt with Crowley’s involvement in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, vanished into a CIA burn-bag and the matter was considered to be closed forever.

The small group of CIA officials gathered at Trento’s house to search through the Crowley papers, looking for documents that must not become public. A few were found but, to their consternation, a significant number of files Crowley was known to have had in his possession had simply vanished.

When published material concerning the CIA’s actions against Kennedy became public in 2002, it was discovered to the CIA’s horror, that the missing documents had been sent by an increasingly erratic Crowley to another person and these missing papers included devastating material on the CIA’s activities in South East Asia to include drug running, money laundering and the maintenance of the notorious ‘Regional Interrogation Centers’ in Viet Nam and, worse still, the Zipper files proving the CIA’s active organization of the assassination of President John Kennedy..

A massive, preemptive disinformation campaign was readied, using government-friendly bloggers, CIA-paid “historians” and others, in the event that anything from this file ever surfaced. The best-laid plans often go astray and in this case, one of the compliant historians, a former government librarian who fancied himself a serious writer, began to tell his friends about the CIA plan to kill Kennedy and eventually, word of this began to leak out into the outside world.

The originals had vanished and an extensive search was conducted by the FBI and CIA operatives but without success. Crowley’s survivors, his aged wife and son, were interviewed extensively by the FBI and instructed to minimize any discussion of highly damaging CIA files that Crowley had, illegally, removed from Langley when he retired. Crowley had been a close friend of James Jesus Angleton, the CIA’s notorious head of Counterintelligence. When Angleton was sacked by DCI William Colby in December of 1974, Crowley and Angleton conspired to secretly remove Angleton’s most sensitive secret files out of the agency. Crowley did the same thing right before his own retirement, secretly removing thousands of pages of classified information that covered his entire agency career.

Known as “The Crow” within the agency, Robert T. Crowley joined the CIA at its inception and spent his entire career in the Directorate of Plans, also know as the “Department of Dirty Tricks,”: Crowley was one of the tallest man ever to work at the CIA. Born in 1924 and raised in Chicago, Crowley grew to six and a half feet when he entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in N.Y. as a cadet in 1943 in the class of 1946. He never graduated, having enlisted in the Army, serving in the Pacific during World War II. He retired from the Army Reserve in 1986 as a lieutenant colonel. According to a book he authored with his friend and colleague, William Corson, Crowley’s career included service in Military Intelligence and Naval Intelligence, before joining the CIA at its inception in 1947. His entire career at the agency was spent within the Directorate of Plans in covert operations. Before his retirement, Bob Crowley became assistant deputy director for operations, the second-in-command in the Clandestine Directorate of Operations.

Bob Crowley first contacted Gregory Douglas  in 1993  when he found out from John Costello that Douglas was about to publish his first book on Heinrich Mueller, the former head of the Gestapo who had become a secret, long-time asset to the CIA. Crowley contacted Douglas and they began a series of long and often very informative telephone conversations that lasted for four years. In 1996, Crowley told Douglas that he believed him to be the person that should ultimately tell Crowley’s story but only after Crowley’s death. Douglas, for his part, became so entranced with some of the material that Crowley began to share with him that he secretly began to record their conversations, later transcribing them word for word, planning to incorporate some, or all, of the material in later publications.

 

Conversation No. 97

Date: Monday, August 4 1997

Commenced: 8:45 AM CST

Concluded: 9:02 AM CST

GD: Ah, good morning, Robert.

RTC: You said something on the answering machine about the Swiss?

GD: Yes, I was talking with their press secretary several days ago and learned that they had been working on their transmitter because they have been having on-going problems with it. Seems that a number of employees have been complaining of headaches and the suffering of a general malaise. Given what was said to me, it could only be your oscillator. I guess you keep it on.

RTC: Oh I do indeed. In fact, I left it on once for a whole week. Actually, I forgot about it. It does work, then?

GD: I have used this many times and, yes, it does work. A friend of mine and I wanted to buy a house for investment so we put an oscillator in a van and parked it across the street. First, the dog went mad and ran off and soon the cat vanished. One of the kids kept crapping on the floor and everyone inside felt terrible. We just showed up at their door and said my aunt had lived there years before and one thing and another. We made an offer and the wife screamed ‘take it! take it!’ to her husband and so we got the place cheap. A little paint, some landscaping and we turned around and sold it two months later and made a huge profit. Of course you can’t do the same thing with the Swiss.

RTC: We should do it to the Russians.

GD: Why not leave the poor Russians alone? My God, you people down there have done terrible things to them and to their economy.

RTC: Well, the idea is to smash them so badly they can never be a rival again.

GD: I don’t mean to be critical, Robert, but your people never think down the road. Nature abhors a vacuum so why not get together with the Russians? Well, you got the Poles to revolt and break away but what can we do with them? Nothing. Germany and Russian ought to get together, buy off the Polish government and then Germany takes their side and the Russians take theirs.

RTC: What about the Poles?

GD: Perhaps we can ship them all to Chicago. Then the Poles can have Chicago and the Jews can have Miami and the rest of us can get on about out business. No, actually, I am serious about Russia. I know you set up Yeltsin and I know your people have been looting the country and systematically destroying her industry but it can’t last. A new administration and a new change of policy and then a rebuilding Russia could be an enemy again. After all, we turned her into a bogey man in the ‘40’s and just look how much money your friends made with the Cold War. Don’t forget, I knew Gehlen and he told me, and showed me the papers, that our Army, for whom he then worked, wanted him to draw up a report showing Russia was going to attack Europe. Yes, and say hello to the Easter Bunny. Stalin would never have launched a military attack against anyone but sea turtles in 1948. The war virtually destroyed the Russian infrastructure and a huge military attack would have been impossible for anyone. Well, it paid off so now that Communism is gone and Russia is starting to act normal again, why not support her? Who needs enemies?

RTC: Gregory, I’m sorry to say you simply do not realize that Communism is not dead and we want it stop it from ever coming back.

GD: Well, Nazism is dead in Germany and the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere is dead in Japan so why not bury the Cold War, start trading with Cuba and get on with our business? I guess everyone is stuck in the past.

RTC: And where do you see yourself in this?

GD: Being positive, Robert. Russia is a huge potential market and Russia has a great collection of natural resources.  Instead of getting tin horn rip off artists to screw them, why not help them develop? A stable and advancing country is not about to engage in a struggle for world domination. We did that and believe me, it will take all we have just to keep the status quo. We can only expand so far and using Russia as an excuse for grabbing control over every puissant country in Africa can only go so far.

RTC” Gregory, Gregory, I am concerned for your soul. Who ever put this bee into your bonnet?

GD: Tom Kimmel.

RTC: Oh, bullshit. Tom has a little book of rules and he wouldn’t do anything not in the book and what you have been talking about is not in his book.

GD: Well, so much for the little books. That sounds like Mary Baker Eddy. By the way, did you know she was buried with a hooked –up telephone in her casket? I’d like to get the number and see how she’s doing down there but I’ll bet she forgot the pay the bills for the last fifty years and they disconnected it. Jesus, suppose she answered? There goes yesterday’s dinner.

RTC: Gregory, so soon after breakfast

 

(Concluded 9:02 AM CST)

 

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field keywords=Conversations+with+the+Crow+by+Gregory+Douglas

 

 

 

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TBR News December 6, 2018

Dec 06 2018 Published by under Uncategorized

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Isaiah 40:3-8 

Washington, D.C. December 6, 2018:” First a point and then a counterpoint.

There are dozens of American governmental agencies who spend most of their time spying on the great bulk of the population. Such issues as telephone calls, any kind of mail, computer messaging, photographs taken in public places, and even lavatories, GPS  tracking of private cars, checked out library books, children’s school records, medical reports in hospital files, and on and on without an end.

The public is aware of this and a least some of them are retaliating.

One of the most entertaining counterings is a story about the alleged secret files contained on discs.

It seems that a very deadly virus is put on a computer disc.

This is then labelled ‘secret FBI (or CIA or NSA or DHS) files.

This booby trap is then put into a private bank safe deposit box and a series of emails to others informs that this person has a deposit box full of government secrets.

Without a doubt, soon enough agents arrive at the bank after hours and a willing bank official allows them access to the target box. With ill-concealed glee the boobus americanus triumphantly take the disc, rush back to their office and stick it into an office computer.

Unfortunately, the virus on the disc at once obliterates the computer’s hard drive and, pleasant to contemplate, attacks any other computer system that might be interfacing with the computer blessed with the booby trap.

Rage and consternation cries can be heard for blocks with the windows closed.

This is only one of a number of entertaining solutions to universal spying now in effect.”

 

 

The Table of Contents 

  • Donald Trump has said 2291 false things as U.S. president: No. 99
  • No leader, lots of anger: can France’s ‘yellow vests’ become a political force?
  • Elysee fears ‘putschists’, coup attempt during Yellow Vests protests this weekend – media
  • Backlash as federal workers warned not to discuss Trump impeachment
  • Trump’s European diplomats tied in knots over rise of populism
  • Facebook Emails Show Its Real Mission: Making Money and Crushing Competition
  • The U.S. Government Tracks All The Snail Mail You Send Too
  • The CIA Confessions: The Crowley Conversations

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TBR News December 5, 2018

Dec 05 2018 Published by under Uncategorized

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Isaiah 40:3-8 

Washington, D.C. December 5, 2018:”One of the more entertaining bits of text one finds very often on the internet is: ‘ scientists have said…’ followed by some nonsense such as ‘the sea levels are all dropping’ or ‘the planet has flipped upside down six times this week’ or ‘Chinese coal dust is all over the Arctic ice caps and making them melt.’

And who are these scientists? Names are never given but such organizations as ‘Russian Science Association’ or ‘University Climate Research’ or ‘Yesterday’s Science Next Week,’ bespangle the web like dead mice hung on a shedding Christmas tree.

Are these the brilliant scientists who have discovered that enormous city under the ice in Anarctia or the three-fingered, long headed mummies discovered in a secret Incan cave?  Or the ones that proclaim that the dread proxicopoline is found in ice cream and causes cactus to sprout on the eater’s back?

And from other financial experts, we learn that BitCoin will top 20,000 or that ratdroppings.com is going to go through the roof. (Of the dog house) And buy now (address below)

But all of this means nothing when one learns that Planet X is bearing down on Cleveland at the rate of two feet an hour and will soon blot out all civilization, proving once and for all that the Mayan calendar was right!”

 

The Table of Contents 

  • Donald Trump has said 2291 false things as U.S. president: No. 98
  • The CIA Confessions: The Crowley Conversations
  • The Defense Intelligence Agency Report of April 20, 1978

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TBR News December 4, 2018

Dec 04 2018 Published by under Uncategorized

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Isaiah 40:3-8 

Washington, D.C. December 4, 2018: “”The Internet has an enormous storehouse of information and nearly any desired material can be located and downloaded. That is the positive aspect of the Internet. The negative side is that the Internet supplies an enormous flood of false, misleading and useless information, almost all of invented out of whole cloth by the same types that also have rushed to join, and use, what is known as the Social Network.

The Social Networks are a handy means for persons to express their personal views on almost any subject and to communicate with others of a like mind. The problem that one notes from reading their postings is the same one observes in reading the comments appended to serious articles on major newspapers. In reading both of these areas, one is at once struck by the utter stupidity of the writers, their total lack of understanding the English lauguage, their constant bad grammar and terrible spelling and, most important, their desire not to express a thoughtful view but to parade their insignificance and ignorance to a wide audience.

Another negative aspect of the Social Network is that, at least in the United States, all of the networks of any size are working closely with such official governmental agencies as the DHS and the FBI, to spy on their members at no cost or effort to themselves. In these cases, the mindless babblings and boastings of the dim of wit load federal surveillance files with moronic chatters from which the authorities can easily build a criminal case.”

 

The Table of Contents

 

  • France revolts against Emmanuel Macron and the elite
  • Students blockade schools as French protests spread
  • France suspends fuel tax rise after wave of violent protests
  • Donald Trump has said 2291 false things as U.S. president: No. 97
  • The Mueller investigation is closing in on Trump
  • Trump’s countless scams are finally catching up to him
  • The CIA Confessions: The Crowley Conversations

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TBR News December 3, 2018

Dec 03 2018 Published by under Uncategorized

 

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Isaiah 40:3-8 

Washington, D.C. December 3, 2018: “For some time, B.A.E. Systems has been running a series of classified, intelligence system for various American agencies, such as the CIA. BAE is a British company based at Farnborough, UK, which has extensive worldwide interests, particularly in North America through its subsidiary BAE Systems Inc. BAE was formed on 30th November 1999 with the merger of British Aerospace (BAe) and Marconi Electronic Systems (MES), the defence arm of The General Electric Company (GEC). The run a so-called “Covert Communications” network that is a highly classified blog that acts as a forum for agencies and individual employees to communicate and share information. Since 2005, over a thousand of such blogs have been instituted.

B.A.E. Systems, which runs the CIA’s blog that is hosted on IntelLINK. This has an information technology contract with the C.I.A. The IntelLINK intelligence network links information in the various classified databases of the US intelligence agencies (e.g. FBI, CIA, DEA, NSA, USSS, NRO) to facilitate communication and the sharing of documents and other resources.

There is also the ncr.disa.mil system.  The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) was established in Washington, D.C., as the Defense Communications Agency (DCA) with 450 employees on May 12, 1960, by Secretary of Defense Thomas B. Gates. Its mission was to manage the Defense Communications System (DCS), a consolidation of the independent long-haul communications functions of the Army, Navy, and Air Force.

Unfortunately for the security of this massive intrusion program, the United States has made the colossal error of informing their opposite intelligence numbers in Israel with the result that while we were sharing requested information with Israeli Intelligence, they, in turn were initiating their very own program directed against the United States. The following American financial institutions have been the subject of on-going Israeli surveillance:

  • CHIPS: Clearing House Interbank Payments System

100 Broad Street, New York, NY 10004 (212) 613-0188

http://www.chips.org/home.php

CHIPS: Clearing House Interbank Payments System. An interbank payment system related to international trade, CHIPS is used for the transfer of international trade dollars. CHIPS is used by both Fedwire and S.W.I.F.T.

FEDWIRE: Operated by the Federal Reserve Board of the USA

http://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/fedwire/

ACH: Automated Clearing House of the Federal Reserve Bank of NY

http://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/fedpoint/fed31.html

 

 

The Table of Contents 

  • Donald Trump has said 2291 false things as U.S. president: No. 96
  • Trump’s Enemies review: president’s pitbulls come out brawling and bawling
  • Trump’s Trade Czar, The Latest Architect of Imperial Disaster
  • The CIA Confessions: The Crowley Conversations

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TBR News December 2, 2018

Dec 02 2018 Published by under Uncategorized

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Isaiah 40:3-8 

Washington, D.C. December 2, 2018: 10 May 1924          “Attorney General Harlan Fiske Stone appoints J. Edgar Hoover Acting Director of the Bureau of Identification. Calvin Coolidge is President.

22 Oct 1934   Notorious bank robber Pretty Boy Floyd dies of multiple gunshot wounds in the back, after a shootout with the FBI at the Conkle Farm in East Liverpool, Ohio.

2 May 1972   J. Edgar Hoover dies in his sleep.

19 Oct 1982   Maverick carmaker John DeLorean is arrested in Los Angeles with $24M worth of cocaine in his suitcase. The case is later thrown out of court when a judge rules that the FBI sting operation constituted entrapment. DeLorean dealers nationwide discontinue “snow tires” as an option.

14 Jul 1986    Former FBI counterintelligence agent Richard W. Miller is convicted of espionage. He receives 20 years for passing state secrets to the Soviet Union.

23 Jun 1996  Former FBI agent Eugene Bennett, armed and wearing a ski mask, enters the Prince of Peace Church in Manassas, Virginia. Then he handcuffs Reverend A. J. Edwin Clever to a chair and holds the priest hostage until Bennett’s wife (another former FBI agent) arrives and scares away her spouse by shooting at him.

18 Dec 1996  FBI agent Earl Edwin Pitts is arrested at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia for conspiracy to commit espionage, attempted espionage, communication of classified information, and conveyance without authority of government property.

22 Dec 1999  Former FBI agent John Connolly is arrested in his Lynnfield, Massachusetts home for conspiring with Mobsters.

9 Oct 2000     Former FBI agent John Connolly is charged with fingering Mob informants who were helping authorities investigate a 1981 mob hit against business executive Roger Wheeler.

18 Feb 2001  FBI agent Robert P. Hanssen is arrested for espionage.

25 Jun 2001  Former FBI agent Michael Levin pleads guilty to stealing and selling Bureau files.

16 Jul 2001    FBI agents arrest Russian software programmer Dmitry Skylarov in Las Vegas for violating the DMCA.

4 Sep 2001    Former FBI security analyst James Hill pleads guilty to conspiracy to sell Bureau files.

11 Sep 2001  Former FBI counterterrorism expert John P. O’Neill is killed in the World Trade Center attacks. During his final years at the Bureau, O’Neill was preoccupied with capturing Osama bin Laden.

1 Mar 2002    In a case of mistaken identity, FBI agent Christopher Braga shoots unarmed 20-year-old Eagle Scout Joseph Charles Schultz in the face during a traffic stop in Pasadena, Maryland.

May 2002      The Professional Association of Diving Instructors voluntarily furnishes the FBI with a list of the roughly 2 million Americans who learned how to scuba dive over the preceding 3 years.

21 May 2002  FBI agent Colleen Rowley sends a 13-page memo to Director Robert Mueller criticizing the Bureau’s response to terrorism.

28 May 2002  A jury finds former FBI agent John Connolly guilty of racketeering and obstruction of justice.

16 Sep 2002  Former FBI agent John Harrison shoots himself and two coworkers in his office at the Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield insurance building in New York.

9 Apr 2003    Former FBI agent James J. Smith is arrested for careless handling of government secrets around the Chinese double agent he was fucking.

15 May 2003  At the Barbary Coast casino in Las Vegas, FBI agent John T. Hanson III walks into the kitchen and fires two rounds into the walk-in freezer. Hanson later pays $12,517 in restitution to the casino and a $105 fine for discharging a weapon in public.

17 Jun 2003  Former FBI metallurgist Kathleen Lundy pleads guilty to falsifying evidence for a Kentucky murder trial.

17 Jul 2003    FBI translator Mario Castillo is arrested for making false statements, illegally accessing Bureau computer files, and personally profiting from the contents.

19 Sep 2003  Former FBI translator Mario Castillo pleads guilty to illegally accessing Bureau computer files and personally profiting from the contents.

9 Oct 2003    Former FBI agent H. Paul Rico is arrested at his Florida home for arranging a 1981 mob hit against business executive Roger Wheeler.

16 Oct 2003   FBI Director Robert Mueller publicly acknowledges that the identity of several of the 9-11 hijackers is in doubt.

13 Nov 2003  Justice Department inspector general Glenn Fine releases a report outlining instances of FBI managers perpetrating inappropriate sexual behavior and questionable racial and sexual comments, who generally received light reprimands.

12 Feb 2004  In a Ft. Worth, Texas courtroom, retired FBI agent John H. Conditt, Jr. receives 12 years for molesting a 6-year-old girl at least 10 times in 2002.

18 Feb 2004  Senator Charles Grassley releases a four-year-old report revealing that one in 1,000 FBI agents between 1986 and 1999 were fired for misconduct.

18 May 2004  In Washington, DC, former FBI crime lab scientist Jacqueline A. Blake pleads guilty to making false statements. In doing so, Blake admits having falsified more than a hundred reports regarding her DNA tests over a three-year period.

24 May 2004  Portland, Washington SAIC Robert Jordan apologizes for having detained Muslim attorney Brandon Mayfield for two weeks under the 1984 Material Witness Act, based on a fingerprint mismatch. “The FBI regrets the hardships that this has placed on Mr. Mayfield and his family.”

2 Jul 2004     Former FBI agent Eugene Harding pleads guilty to receiving stolen personal data from Social Security and IRS computer databases. Harding had been employed as a security consultant to some Las Vegas hotel resorts at the time.

11 Aug 2004  Former FBI employee Rosana Frederick is arrested in Brooklyn for allegedly scamming 11 immigrants out of $43,500. Frederick stands accused of offering to obtain green cards and U.S. citizenship for the alleged victims. Previously, Frederick had been convicted of extorting money from immigrants in December 1992, for which she received 18 months in prison.

 

The Table of Contents 

  • Donald Trump has said 2291 false things as U.S. president: No. 95
  • As the Mueller Probe Heats Up, Donald Trump’s Lies Are Giving Way to the Truth
  • ‘Mueller knows a lot’: Manafort and Cohen moves put Trump in line of fire
  • A foreign intelligence evaluation of Donald Trump’s work with Moscow
  • “State of insurrection” as fuel tax riots engulf central Paris
  • The CIA Confessions: The Crowley Conversations

 

 

Donald Trump has said 2291 false things as U.S. president: No. 95

August 8, 2018

by Daniel Dale, Washington Bureau Chief

The Toronto Star, Canada

The Star is keeping track of every false claim U.S. President Donald Trump has made since his inauguration on Jan. 20, 2017. Why? Historians say there has never been such a constant liar in the Oval Office. We think dishonesty should be challenged. We think inaccurate information should be corrected

If Trump is a serial liar, why call this a list of “false claims,” not lies? You can read our detailed explanation here. The short answer is that we can’t be sure that each and every one was intentional. In some cases, he may have been confused or ignorant. What we know, objectively, is that he was not teling the truth.

Last updated: Aug 8, 2018

  • Jul 30, 2018

“Earlier this year, with Robert’s help, we passed Veterans Choice. That was the one I wanted so badly, that we all wanted so badly. This eluded us for 40 years? 50 years? I mean, it’s eluded us forever. Forever. If the veterans can’t get care, and the kind of care that they need at a VA facility, they have the right to go immediately and see a private doctor and we pay for it.”

Source: Speech at swearing-in of Robert Wilkie as Secretary of Veterans Affairs

in fact: The Choice program was originally passed and implemented under Obama. Trump’s new version has not yet come into force, and even when it does, veterans are unlikely to be allowed to see a private doctor “immediately.” At the Associated Press explained: “Under the newly expanded Choice program that will take at least a year to implement, veterans will still have to meet certain criteria before they can see a private physician. Those criteria will be set in part by proposed federal regulations that will be subject to public review. Currently, only veterans who endure waits of at least 30 days for an appointment at a VA facility are eligible to receive care from private doctors at government expense. A recent Government Accountability Report found that despite the Choice program’s guarantee of providing an appointment within 30 days, veterans waited an average of 51 days to 64 days.”

Trump has repeated this claim 8 times

“There’s nothing wrong with meeting. We met, as you know, with Chairman Kim. And it — you haven’t had a missile fired off in nine months.”

Source: Joint press conference with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte

in fact: “Nine months” is an exaggeration. North Korea’s last known missile test prior to this comment was on November 28, 2017, when it launched an intercontinental ballistic missile that landed in the Sea of Japan. That is just over eight months.

Trump has repeated this claim 5 times

“But you had 10 regulations for every point, in some cases. It was ridiculous. It would take many years to get a highway or a road approved. We have that way down. We have it down to two years, and it will hopefully be down to one.”

Source: Joint press conference with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte

in fact: There is no current evidence that Trump has already succeeded in reducing the standard approval time frame for a highway or road to two years, although he says this is his intention. His Department of Transportation reported a median approval time of 3 years, 10 months in 2017.

Trump has repeated this claim 5 times

“We’ve had record — we’ve had numbers that nobody believed possible, especially if you look at one particular fact that was not reported very much. Trade deficit — $52 billion reduction in the trade deficit for the quarter…I think nobody would have thought that would be possible so quickly: $52 billion reduction in the trade deficit for the quarter.”

Source: Joint press conference with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte

in fact: The U.S. trade deficit is actually higher so far in 2018 than it was at this point in 2017. (Earlier in July, for example, Trump’s Bureau of Economic Analysis issued a report, for May, that said: “Year-to-date, the goods and services deficit increased $17.9 billion, or 7.9 per cent, from the same period in 2017. Exports increased $84.5 billion or 8.8 per cent. Imports increased $102.4 billion or 8.6 per cent.”) Trump was making a more unusual kind of comparison: he was pointing to a decline from the trade deficit in the first quarter of 2018 to the trade deficit in the second quarter of 2018. However, as FactCheck.org, the Washington Post and others have explained, he was doing even this inaccurately. The president was simply taking the raw numbers in the report — $902.4 billion for the first quarter, $849.9 billion for the second quarter — and subtracting the second-quarter number from the first, which gave a result of $52 billion. There are two problems here: these are not actually quarterly numbers; they are expressed on an annual basis. And they are not in today’s dollars; they are expressed in inflation-adjusted terms. To do an accurate version of Trump’s quarter-by-quarter comparison, experts told both outlets, you have to make sure you’re using the current-day version of the figures; divide them by four, for the four quarters; and then, only then, do the subtraction Trump did right away. When you do that, you get a $21.7 billion decline, not a $52 billion decline.

Trump has repeated this claim 5 times

“The United States was treated very, very unfairly. Because we’re shouldering anywhere from 70 to 90 per cent of the cost of NATO. That’s not fair.”

Source: Joint press conference with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte

in fact: The U.S. is not paying anywhere near 90 per cent of the “cost of NATO,” and there is no valid way to measure NATO spending that results in such a finding. According to NATO’s 2018 annual report, U.S. defence spending represented 72 per cent of alliance members’ total defence spending in 2017. Of NATO’s own organizational budget, the U.S. contributes a much smaller agreed-upon percentage: 22 per cent.

Trump has repeated this claim 14 times

“And if you speak to Secretary General Stoltenberg, I think he’s the biggest fan of Trump, because he said, ‘We couldn’t collect money until President Trump came along.’ And he said, ‘Last year, we collected $44 billion, and this year the money is pouring in.'”

Source: Joint press conference with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte

in fact: NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg actually said the increase was $41 billion, not $44 billion, since Trump took office: “In fact, since President Trump took office, European allies and Canada have added an additional $41 billion to their defence spending.” Stoltenberg also did not say that the alliance “didn’t collect money until President Trump came along.” He said: “There is a new sense of urgency due to President Trump’s strong leadership on defence spending.”

“And NATO in particular — I went to NATO, and NATO was essentially going out of business, because people weren’t paying and it was going down, down, down. You just have to look at the line. I came along last year, and in a fairly nice tone, I said, you got to pay. And they paid $44 billion more. And this year, I said it in a little bit stronger tone, and they’re paying hundreds of billions of dollars more over the years.” And: “Great meeting with NATO. I just explained NATO. I just explained NATO. Hundreds of billions of dollars more money will be paid into NATO, the coffers of NATO.”

Source: Joint press conference with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte

in fact: There is no evidence that NATO countries agreed at this meeting to spend hundreds of billions more on their militaries. The countries merely agreed to a declaration in which they reiterated their 2014 commitment to spend 2 per cent of gross domestic product on defence by 2024: “We reaffirm our unwavering commitment to all aspects of the Defence Investment Pledge agreed at the 2014 Wales Summit, and to submit credible national plans on its implementation, including the spending guidelines for 2024.” French President Emmanuel Macron explicitly rejected Trump’s claim about significant additional commitments: “The communique is clear. It reaffirms a commitment to 2 per cent in 2024. That is all,” he said.

Trump has repeated this claim 6 times

“And NATO in particular — I went to NATO, and NATO was essentially going out of business, because people weren’t paying and it was going down, down, down. You just have to look at the line. I came along last year, and in a fairly nice tone, I said, you got to pay. And they paid $44 billion more.”

Source: Joint press conference with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte

in fact: NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said the increase was actually $41 billion, not $44 billion: “In fact, since President Trump took office, European allies and Canada have added an additional $41 billion to their defence spending.”

Trump has repeated this claim 6 times

“And NATO in particular — I went to NATO, and NATO was essentially going out of business, because people weren’t paying and it was going down, down, down. You just have to look at the line.”

Source: Joint press conference with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte

in fact: NATO spending was increasing, not decreasing, before Trump took office. Spending by non-U.S. members rose by 1.84 per cent in 2015 and 3.08 per cent in 2016, official NATO figures show. Clearly, the alliance was not “essentially going out of business.”

Trump has repeated this claim 6 times

“We have to end these horrible catch-and-release principles, where you catch somebody, you take their name, and you release them. You don’t even know who they are. And then they’re supposed to come back to a court case, where they want us to hire thousands of judges.”

Source: Joint press conference with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte

in fact: At the time Trump spoke, there was no mainstream proposal to hire thousands more immigration judges. Congress had allocated money for 484 immigration judges; fewer than 400 were actually in place. Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz had recently proposed to hire 375 more, while other Republican senators were proposing to hire 225 more.

Trump has repeated this claim 12 times

“A highly respected Federal judge today stated that the ‘Trump Administration gets great credit’ for reuniting illegal families.”

Source: Twitter

in fact: Trump slightly altered this quote to put his own name in it. Judge Dana Sabraw actually said, “the government deserves great credit” for reuniting separated children and parents, without saying the words “Trump administration.” (Sabraw also criticized the government. The second part of the quote, according to U.S. news outlets: “The government is at fault for losing several hundred parents in the process, and that’s where we have to go next – identifying and finding those parents who have been removed without children or who are in the interior and not presently located so that they can be reunified.”)

“We must have Border Security, get rid of Chain, Lottery, Catch & Release Sanctuary Cities – go to Merit based Immigration. Protect ICE and Law Enforcement and, of course, keep building, but much faster, THE WALL!”

Source: Twitter

in fact: Contrary to the clear suggestion in Trump’s phrase “keep building” here, construction on his border wall has not started. When he has made this claim in the past, Trump has appeared to be referring to a project in which a 2.25-mile stretch of existing wall in California is being replaced by a taller wall. That project was proposed in 2009, and the Los Angeles Times reported that Border Patrol spokesperson Jonathan Pacheco told reporters in March: “First and foremost, this isn’t Trump’s wall. This isn’t the infrastructure that Trump is trying to bring in. … This new wall replacement has absolutely nothing to do with the prototypes that were shown over in the San Diego area.” The $1.6 billion Congress allocated to border projects in 2018 is not for the type of giant concrete wall Trump has proposed: spending on that kind of wall is expressly prohibited in the legislation, and much of the congressional allocation is for replacement and reinforcement projects rather than new construction.

Trump has repeated this claim 20 times

  • Jul 31, 2018

“Collusion is not a crime, but that doesn’t matter because there was No Collusion (except by Crooked Hillary and the Democrats)!”

Source: Twitter

in fact: Trump is right that there is no crime specifically called “collusion,” but legal experts have noted that the act of colluding with Russian interference in the election could be considered several kinds of crimes. Regardless, the claim that Clinton or Democrats more broadly colluded with Russia is simple nonsense: the word “collusion” — in common language, a “secret agreement or co-operation especially for an illegal or deceitful purpose” — just does not apply to Democrats’ Russia-related activities. The accusation is based on the fact that the British ex-spy who produced a research dossier on the Trump campaign’s alleged links to Russia, which was funded in part by Clinton’s campaign, used Russian sources in compiling his information. That does not come close to meeting the definition of “collusion.”

Trump has repeated this claim 22 times

“In December, I recognized Israel’s true capital, Jerusalem. And in about five months we opened already the American embassy in Jerusalem. And people had that scheduled for anywhere from five to ten years and you all know the story. We took an existing building. We played around with it. We renovated it. We fixed it up. We use Jerusalem stone, one of the finest stones actually in the world, Jerusalem stone. So, instead of spending $1 billion and the papers were right in front of me — ‘Sir, would you please approve this?’ ‘What is it?’ ‘This is for the embassy in Israel, American, sir.’ I said, ‘How much?’ ‘$1 billion, sir.’ ‘$1 billion!’ I immediately called our great ambassador to Israel, David Friedman — very successful man, great lawyer, one of the most successful lawyers in the country before he decided to do what he’s doing. I said, ‘David, they want us to pay a billion dollars for the embassy. I don’t want to pay a billion dollars.’ I said, ‘Study it — do you have any buildings that we own?’ We own so much we don’t even know what the hell we own. ‘Find some building in a great location. Call me back.’ Called me back two days later. He said, ‘Mr. President, sir, we own the best site in Jerusalem. It’s big. It’s beautiful and it’s got a building on it. I can take that building and renovate it. I can do it for $140,000.’ I said, ‘David, how good is the site?’ ‘We could never buy a better site.’ They were willing to spend tens of millions for a site. They wanted to buy a site which was so bad. It was totally inferior to what we already had. Don’t forget, we get there first, right? You know, we have good sites. And I said, ‘David, do me a favor, don’t make it $140,000. Sounds too cheap. Make it like $400,000. That’s okay too, David.’ So we saved almost a billion dollars. I could tell you these stories all day long, airplane purchases. I could tell you all day long. And we started working — and for $400,000, we actually have a very beautiful American Embassy in Jerusalem — really beautiful. Now, that’s one I guarantee no other president is doing.”

Source: Campaign rally in Tampa, Florida

in fact: Trump has told various versions of this story; in some versions, he has signed his first name, Donald, on the embassy documents, only to have an epiphany about the supposed $1 billion cost before deciding to sign the Trump. Whether or not any version is even remotely true, the renovations required by the move of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem will cost far more than either $140,000 or $400,000. ABC News reported in July: “Documents filed with the official database of federal spending show that the State Department awarded the Maryland-based company Desbuild Limak D&K a contract for $21.2 million to design and build an ‘addition and compound security upgrades’ at the embassy. These updates will be made to the former consular building in Jerusalem — the embassy’s temporary location.” The ABC article continued: “A State Department official told ABC News today that President Trump’s estimates only factored in that first phase of modifications to the former consular building, not this second round of renovation.”

Trump has repeated this claim 2 times

“I also withdrew the United States from the horrible, one-sided, $150 billion was paid — $1.8 billion in cash — the Iran nuclear deal, it’s a horror show.”

Source: Campaign rally in Tampa, Florida

in fact: The “$150 billion” figure has no basis. Experts said Iran had about $100 billion in worldwide assets at the time; after the nuclear deal unfroze Iranian assets, Iran was able to access a percentage of that $100 billion, but not all of it. PolitiFact reported: “The actual amount available to Iran is about $60 billion, estimates Garbis Iradian, chief economist at the Institute of International Finance. U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew pinned it at $56 billion, while Iranian officials say $35 billion, according to Richard Nephew, an expert on economic sanctions at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy.”

Trump has repeated this claim 19 times

“Really important for those who love our military, we have secured a record $700 billion for our military with another $716 billion next year all approved.”

Source: Campaign rally in Tampa, Florida

in fact: Neither of these military spending bills is a record, even if you ignore inflation. As the New York Times noted, Obama signed a $725 billion version of the same bill in 2011.

Trump has repeated this claim 11 times

“Over $300 billion poured back into the United States in the first quarter, and we expect to be taking back because of our new tax cut and reform plan that passed bigger than anything ever in our country. We expect to be taking back from overseas over $4 trillion. That’s a lot of money — could never have come back before.”

Source: Campaign rally in Tampa, Florida

in fact: The first figure is correct: according to the U.S. government, corporations repatriated more than $300 billion in profits in the first quarter of 2018. The second figure, however, is incorrect. Four experts contacted by the Star said they were not aware of any estimate as high as $4 trillion for the amount of corporate profits not repatriated from overseas. The U.S. Joint Committee on Taxation released an estimate of $2.6 trillion overseas in August 2016, and experts said they were not aware of a massive jump in the following two years. (An October 2017 report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) pegged the number at $2.6 trillion, while Goldman Sachs pegged it at $3.1 trillion the same month.) “Until there is some legitimate report showing otherwise, my guess continues to be that President Trump is arbitrarily inflating” the accurate number, ITEP senior policy analyst Richard Phillips said in July 2018. “I haven’t seen any reliable estimate that the number is that high,” said Edward Kleinbard, former chief of staff for the U.S. Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation and now a chair at the University of Southern California’s law school.

Trump has repeated this claim 32 times

“And by the way, the evangelicals and Paula White, Pastor Paula White, the evangelicals have been so amazing to us. They came out and they voted 84 per cent and doubled and tripled the numbers that ever voted in an election before.”

Source: Campaign rally in Tampa, Florida

in fact: Though we do not know exactly how many evangelical Christians turned out in the 2016 election, there is no basis for the claim that they “doubled and tripled the numbers that ever voted in an election before.” Sean Trende, senior elections analyst for RealClearPolitics, said in an email: “It was certainly a record, at least in recent elections, and turnout was higher than usual. But the double or triple is almost certainly incorrect.” (Trump is also wrong if he was suggesting he received double and triple the white evangelical support of previous Republican candidates. Trende noted: “In 2012, Romney received 78% among white evangelicals, McCain received 74%, and George W. Bush in 2004 received 78%. So, no, not double or triple previous record.”)

“And by the way, the evangelicals and Paula White, Pastor Paula White, the evangelicals have been so amazing to us. They came out and they voted 84 per cent…”

Source: Campaign rally in Tampa, Florida

in fact: Trump received 81 per cent of the white evangelical Christian vote, according to 2016 exit polls — not 84 per cent, and not 80-plus per cent of the entire evangelical vote. As Sean Trende, senior elections analyst for RealClearPolitics, noted in an email: “We should be careful to note the exit numbers are actually among *white* evangelicals. There are plenty of nonwhite evangelicals, and the numbers are probably different there.”

“Remember I said it’s awfully early to be thinking this, but I always think it, remember the attack on Merry Christmas, they’re not attacking it anymore. Everyone is happy to say Merry Christmas, right? Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas. That was under siege. You have these big department stores they say, ‘Happy Holidays.’ I say, ‘Where is the Merry Christmas?’ Now they’re all putting up Merry Christmas again and that’s because — only because of our campaign.”

Source: Campaign rally in Tampa, Florida

in fact: There is no evidence that big department stores and other businesses that said Happy Holidays before Trump’s presidency are now saying Merry Christmas. Even Trump’s own family members continue to say “Happy Holidays”: daughter and aide Ivanka Trump and son Eric Trump both used that phrase instead of “Merry Christmas” on Twitter in December 2017.

Trump has repeated this claim 3 times

“You know, if you go out and you want to buy groceries, you need a picture on a card, you need ID. You go out and you want to buy anything, you need ID and you need your picture. In this country, the only time you don’t need it in many cases is when you want to vote for a president, when you want to vote for a senator, when you want to vote for a governor or a congressman, it’s crazy, it’s crazy.”

Source: Campaign rally in Tampa, Florida

in fact: Americans do not need photo identification to buy groceries or to buy most other products.

“Now a lot of people don’t know it but we’ve already started the wall. We got $1.6 billion and we’ve started large portions of the wall…”

Source: Campaign rally in Tampa, Florida

in fact: Construction on Trump’s border wall has not started. When he has made this claim in the past, Trump has appeared to be referring to a project in which a 2.25-mile stretch of existing wall in California is being replaced by a taller wall. That project was proposed in 2009, and the Los Angeles Times reported that Border Patrol spokesperson Jonathan Pacheco told reporters in March: “First and foremost, this isn’t Trump’s wall. This isn’t the infrastructure that Trump is trying to bring in. … This new wall replacement has absolutely nothing to do with the prototypes that were shown over in the San Diego area.” The $1.6 billion Congress allocated to border projects in 2018 is not for the type of giant concrete wall Trump has proposed: spending on that kind of wall is expressly prohibited in the legislation, and much of the congressional allocation is for replacement and reinforcement projects rather than new construction.

Trump has repeated this claim 20 times

“Their new platform, what they want to do — the Democrat Party, they want to abolish ICE. So in other words, they want to let MS-13 rule our country.”

Source: Campaign rally in Tampa, Florida

in fact: This is an exaggeration. There is new Democratic momentum behind the movement to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but that is not the position of “the Democrat Party” as a whole. While a smattering of Democratic House members and two prominent senators, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and Elizabeth Warren, have joined the call for abolition at the time Trump spoke, the party’s leadership remains opposed to the proposal. Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters: “Look, ICE does some functions that are very much needed. “Reform ICE? Yes. That’s what I think we should do. It needs reform.” Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi, through a spokesperson, has called for a “drastic overhaul of its immigration functions,” but has not endorsed abolition.

Trump has repeated this claim 5 times

“They just came out with a poll — did you hear? The most popular person in the history of the Republican Party is Trump. Can you believe this? So I said, ‘Does that include Honest Abe Lincoln?’ You know, he was pretty good, right?…One of these guys, when that poll came out — most popular — and it was in the 90s.”

Source: Campaign rally in Tampa, Florida

in fact: This ranking does not include Abraham Lincoln; there was no scientific opinion polling when Lincoln was in office in the 1860s. Polls show that Trump is more popular with Republican voters at this point in his presidency than almost all previous Republican presidents who served in the era of polling, but not all of them: Trump’s 90 per cent approval among Republicans in Gallup polling in June is behind George W. Bush’s 95 per cent approval among Republicans at that point in Bush’s first term.

Trump has repeated this claim 5 times

“Of course, if the fake news did a poll, they’re called suppression polls. You know, polls are fake, just like everything else. If the fake news did a poll, it would show that I’m only getting 25 per cent with the 401K people, even though they’re up 44 per cent.”

Source: Campaign rally in Tampa, Florida

in fact: There is no evidence that any pollster has manipulated their numbers to suppress Trump’s vote.

Trump has repeated this claim 4 times

“U.S. Steel just announced that they’re building six new steel mills. And that number’s soon going to be lifted, but I’m not allowed to say that, so I won’t.”

Source: Campaign rally in Tampa, Florida

in fact: U.S. Steel has not announced that it is building six new mills, though Trump has made this false claim for a month and a half. At the time Trump spoke, U.S. Steel had only announced a major development at one facility since he introduced his steel tariffs: it said it was restarting two shuttered blast furnaces at its plant in Granite City, Illinois. Chuck Bradford, an industry analyst who follows U.S. Steel, said he was “not aware” of the company opening any other facilities. U.S. Steel told the Washington Post: “To answer your question, we post all of our major operational announcements to our website and report them on earnings calls. Our most recent one pertained to our Granite City ‘A’ blast furnace restart.”

Trump has repeated this claim 13 times

“American steel mills are back open for business, we are starting to set new records and nobody believed it could happen this quickly.”

Source: Campaign rally in Tampa, Florida

in fact: Trump was vague, but steel production and steel employment are not setting any new records industry experts are aware of. Though some mills have reopened in the Trump era and though some companies have announced new mills, U.S. production remains well below the levels of the 1970s and early 1980s. ‘”To call it record numbers…I’m not so sure that’ a valid statement to make, really,” said Chris Plummer, managing director of industry consulting and research firm Metal Strategies.

“And I have tremendous respect for President Xi of China. But this has been too many years of abuse, $500 billion a year — $500 billion.”

Source: Campaign rally in Tampa, Florida

in fact: The U.S. has never once had a $500 billion trade deficit with China, according to U.S. government data. The deficit was $337 billion in 2017, $375 billion if you only count trade in goods.

Trump has repeated this claim 51 times

“If you go back to Election Day and then move back five years, so five years before Election Day, soybeans dropped 50 per cent in price.”

Source: Campaign rally in Tampa, Florida

in fact: We’ve let some of Trump’s previous claims about an Obama-era drop in soybean prices slide, but in this case he is inaccurately describing what happened between two specific dates. Between Nov. 8, 2011, five years before election day, and Nov. 8, 2016, soybean prices dropped 16 per cent, from about $12 per bushel to about $10 per bushel, according to historical data from Markets Insider and from Macrotrends.

Trump has repeated this claim 2 times

“Just last week, it was announced that the U.S. economy grew at 4.1 percent last quarter. It was a number that everybody said was not reachable. And I would never want to say it during the campaign, even though I believed it. I believed it, because they would not have given us the break. Fake news, fake news.”

Source: Campaign rally in Tampa, Florida

in fact: Trump repeatedly promised growth of 4 per cent and higher during his campaign. His campaign’s “Contract with the American Voter” said he had “an economic plan designed to grow the economy 4% per year.” In 2015, the year he launched his campaign, he said, “”We’re looking at a 3 per cent, but we think it could be 5, it could even be 6. We’re going to have growth that will be tremendous.”

“We won every farm state, you’re going to see that middle of that map — wasn’t even the middle, it was about everything but a little corners of each side. But you have to see, that is all red, Republican red, beautiful, Republican red.”

Source: Campaign rally in Tampa, Florida

in fact: The definition of “farm state” is subjective, but Trump did not win all of the top 10 states for agricultural revenue, nor all of the top 10 states for number of farms. Three of the states on both lists — California (the state that generates the most agricultural revenue), Illinois and Minnesota — went for Clinton.

Trump has repeated this claim 3 times

“Sorry about this, women, but the employment rate has reached the lowest level in only 65 years. It’ll be history soon. It’ll be. It’ll be history soon. Give us about two more weeks.”

Source: Campaign rally in Tampa, Florida

in fact: This was no longer true at the time Trump spoke. It was true as of the previous month: the women’s unemployment rate for May, reported in June, was 3.6 per cent, the same as in 1953, 65 years prior. But it rose to 4 per cent in June, which was merely the lowest since 2017 — or, if you’re only counting pre-Trump years, the lowest since 2000, 18 years ago.

Trump has repeated this claim 14 times

“The Asian unemployment rate has reached the lowest level in history.”

Source: Campaign rally in Tampa, Florida

in fact: The most recent Asian-American unemployment rate at the time Trump spoke, for June, was 3.2 per cent. This was higher than the rate in Obama’s last two full months in office: 3 per cent in November 2016 and 2.8 per cent in December 2016. The Asian-American unemployment rate was also lower than 3.2 per cent in multiple months of George W. Bush’s second term.

Trump has repeated this claim 9 times

 

“And by the way, outside, if you want to go, we set up, for the first time, a tremendous movie screen, because we have thousands and thousands of people outside that couldn’t get in. So we have a big screen and big loudspeakers, and I hope you’re all happy out there.”

Source: Campaign rally in Tampa, Florida

in fact: There was no screen at all set up outside this Trump rally in Tampa, the Tampa Bay Times reported. Various news reports put the number of people who stood outside during the rally as “hundreds,” though it is possible that several thousand were initially turned away at the door.

“Just last week, it was announced that the U.S. economy grew at 4.1 per cent last quarter. It was a number that everybody said was not reachable.”

Source: Campaign rally in Tampa, Florida

in fact: While there was widespread skepticism that Trump could achieve the 4 per cent annual growth he promised, it is false that everybody said 4 per cent (or 4.1 per cent) growth in a single quarter was “not reachable.” As CNBC’s John Harwood noted, there were four quarters of stronger growth in the Obama era: 5.1 per cent in the second quarter of 2014, 4.9 per cent in the third quarter of 2014, 4.7 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2011, 4.5 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Trump has repeated this claim 2 times

“That’s like, with the vets — we signed Choice, and we did something that nobody thought. That’s when you stand in line for weeks and weeks and weeks trying to see a doctor, and you can’t; they’re just not there. And you’re able to go outside — immediately go outside — to a private doctor. And you get it done, and we pay for the vets’ bill.”

Source: Remarks on workforce development in Tampa, Florida

in fact: The Choice program was originally passed and implemented under Obama. Trump’s new version has not yet come into force, and even when it does, veterans are unlikely to be allowed to see a private doctor “immediately.” At the Associated Press explained: “Under the newly expanded Choice program that will take at least a year to implement, veterans will still have to meet certain criteria before they can see a private physician. Those criteria will be set in part by proposed federal regulations that will be subject to public review. Currently, only veterans who endure waits of at least 30 days for an appointment at a VA facility are eligible to receive care from private doctors at government expense. A recent Government Accountability Report found that despite the Choice program’s guarantee of providing an appointment within 30 days, veterans waited an average of 51 days to 64 days.”

Trump has repeated this claim 8 times

“Unemployment recently fell to the lowest level in a half a century.”

Source: Remarks on workforce development in Tampa, Florida

in fact: This claim was more accurate a month prior: the 3.8 per cent unemployment rate for May, announced in June, had not been beaten since 1969, nearly 50 years prior. (It had been matched in 2000, 18 years prior.) But the rate at the time Trump spoke, the June rate announced in July, was 4.0 per cent, was beaten multiple months in 2000.

“And very importantly, a number that people aren’t talking about, because most people don’t quite get it, but we had a $52 billion trade deficit reduction — which, people, is — you know, I will tell you, that’s a lot. That’s for the quarter.”

Source: Remarks on workforce development in Tampa, Florida

in fact: The U.S. trade deficit is actually higher so far in 2018 than it was at this point in 2017. (Earlier in July, for example, Trump’s Bureau of Economic Analysis issued a report, for May, that said: “Year-to-date, the goods and services deficit increased $17.9 billion, or 7.9 per cent, from the same period in 2017. Exports increased $84.5 billion or 8.8 per cent. Imports increased $102.4 billion or 8.6 per cent.”) Trump was making a more unusual kind of comparison: he was pointing to a decline from the trade deficit in the first quarter of 2018 to the trade deficit in the second quarter of 2018. However, as FactCheck.org, the Washington Post and others have explained, he was doing even this inaccurately. The president was simply taking the raw numbers in the report — $902.4 billion for the first quarter, $849.9 billion for the second quarter — and subtracting the second-quarter number from the first, which gave a result of $52 billion. There are two problems here: these are not actually quarterly numbers; they are expressed on an annual basis. And they are not in today’s dollars; they are expressed in inflation-adjusted terms. To do an accurate version of Trump’s quarter-by-quarter comparison, experts told both outlets, you have to make sure you’re using the current-day version of the figures; divide them by four, for the four quarters; and then, only then, do the subtraction Trump did right away. When you do that, you get a $21.7 billion decline, not a $52 billion decline.

Trump has repeated this claim 5 times

 

As the Mueller Probe Heats Up, Donald Trump’s Lies Are Giving Way to the Truth

November 30, 2018

by James Risen

The Intercept

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is closing in on Donald Trump, and as one shoe after another drops in the Trump-Russia investigation, the pressure sometimes prompts the president to inadvertently blurt out the truth. Or at least as close to the truth as a serial liar like Trump can get.

On Thursday, Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer, pleaded guilty in federal court to lying to Congress about a deal to build a Trump-branded skyscraper in Moscow. Most notably, he admitted that he had misled lawmakers when he told them that discussions about the project had ended by January 2016 when, in fact, the project was still under active consideration by Trump and his business organization just as the Republican Party was about to nominate Trump as its presidential candidate in the summer of 2016.

Cohen said that he lied in order to help Trump avoid the likely political fallout from the disclosure that the candidate was still trying to cut a business deal with people close to Russian President Vladimir Putin just as he clinched the Republican nomination.

Cohen’s latest admissions, including that he talked to Trump about the proposed deal more frequently than he had previously acknowledged and discussed it with others in Trump’s family, are very significant because they shed new light on the relationship between Trump and Russia during the height of the presidential campaign.

Cohen now admits that Trump Moscow was still being considered as late as June 2016, the same month that the infamous Trump Tower meeting occurred in New York. During that meeting, Trump’s oldest son Donald Trump Jr., his son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort, then his campaign chair, met with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya and others, including Rob Goldstone, a publicist for Emin Agalarov, a Russian singer and son of Aras Agalarov, a Russian billionaire with close ties to Putin. Aras Agalarov had hosted Trump’s 2013 Miss Universe contest in Moscow at a concert hall he owned; he had also been involved in discussions with Trump about building the skyscraper in Moscow. During the Trump Tower meeting, Veselnitskaya claimed to have derogatory material about Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Faced with Cohen’s admissions in court on Thursday, Trump at first tried to bully his way out of the corner by saying that Cohen was a “weak person and not a very smart person.” But he quickly switched gears and effectively confirmed what Cohen had said. “There was a good chance that I wouldn’t have won, in which case I would have gotten back into the business, and why should I lose lots of opportunities?”

Trump’s comments show the coarse, cynical approach he takes toward public service. But more ominously for him, they also reveal that he had much deeper connections to Russia in the midst of the campaign than he has ever previously acknowledged. It suggests that Trump will lie about his Russian connections until he realizes he can no longer get away with it, and then will quite casually admit that he has been lying all along.

Cohen isn’t Trump’s only problem. In fact, in the weeks since the midterm elections, a series of new disclosures has suggested that the Trump-Russia investigation is intensifying. And one sure sign that the president is worried about Mueller’s probe is the increased frequency with which Trump is now publicly attacking Mueller.

Until Thursday, in fact, it seemed that Trump’s biggest post-election nightmare was Paul Manafort.

On Monday, Mueller’s team said that Manafort has been lying to them in violation of a plea agreement he had reached with the prosecutors. Mueller’s team now wants a federal judge overseeing the case to set a sentencing date for Manafort, at which prosecutors say they will detail “the nature of the defendant’s crimes and lies.” (Manafort has already been convicted of eight counts of bank and tax fraud, so presumably the “crimes and lies” to which Mueller’s team is referring are in addition to those we already know about.)

Mueller’s get-tough approach suggests that he thinks Manafort is still withholding critical information on the relationship between the Trump campaign and Russia. Meanwhile, Manafort’s previous life as a longtime consultant to the pro-Russian leader of the Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, and his financial ties to a Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, have raised questions about whether he acted as an intermediary between Moscow and the Trump campaign.

In addition to Cohen and Manafort, the role of the incendiary Roger Stone has come under further scrutiny. There is new evidence, including in a draft court document, that Mueller is continuing to probe whether Stone served as an intermediary in 2016 between WikiLeaks and the Trump campaign. Russian intelligence operatives hacked into the servers of the Democratic National Committee and stole emails that were later released by WikiLeaks and proved highly damaging to Clinton. The Mueller investigation has also raised questions about whether conservative author Jerome Corsi had warned Stone ahead of time that WikiLeaks planned to release materials that would hurt Clinton’s campaign. Corsi said on Monday that he has rejected a plea agreement with Mueller.

To top it off, George Papadopoulos, the onetime Trump campaign foreign policy aide, finally reported to prison this week. He had pleaded guilty last year to lying to the FBI and agreed to cooperate with Mueller in exchange for a very light sentence of just two weeks in prison. He had lied to investigators about his contacts with Joseph Mifsud, a mysterious professor who had told Papadopoulos that the Russians had thousands of emails with derogatory information about Clinton well before their existence was publicly known.

Given all this, it’s fair to say that the thrashing the Republicans took in the midterm elections wasn’t the worst thing that has happened to Donald Trump this month.

 

‘Mueller knows a lot’: Manafort and Cohen moves put Trump in line of fire

The striking subtext of the ‘bombshell’ week was the realization of just how much evidence the special counsel has collected

December 1, 2018

by Tom McCarthy

The Guardian

Special counsel Robert Mueller marked a return to an “active” public phase in the Russia investigation this week, with a rapid-fire series of court filings and document releases that followed a quiet period around the midterm elections and the Thanksgiving holiday

But the striking subtext of the week’s headline developments – which included the disintegration of a plea deal with former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort and the unveiling of a new deal with former top aide Michael Cohen – was the realization of just how much evidence Mueller has collected about activity inside the Trump Organization and presidential campaign.

“A lot of people are trying to give false information to the American public and to the investigation, and the Mueller team is not being derailed,” said Alex Whiting, a Harvard law professor and former prosecutor on the international criminal court. “They are uncovering false statement after false statement, because they are able to prove what actually happened.

“That strikes me as the unifying theme, that the Mueller team knows a lot.”

Andy Wright, a law professor and founding editor of the Just Security blog, called it a “bombshell” week.

“In an investigation full of blockbuster surprises, this week the tempo and the gravity of what’s been happening outstrips anything we’ve seen so far,” he said. “At least rivals it, when we’re talking about the week that Manafort got indicted.

“Presumably there are going to be some more indictments in short order.”

Trump appeared to be feeling the heat. As he left Washington on Thursday for the G20 summit in Argentina, the president yelled denials over the roar of helicopter rotors. He then abruptly canceled meetings with Russian president Vladimir Putin and other world leaders. Before dawn on Friday, Trump tweeted that he had “lightly looked at doing a building somewhere in Russia” during the campaign but it was all “very legal & very cool”.

Congress may yet have the opportunity to judge whether Trump’s Russia ties were wholly legal. In a couple of years, voters might have the opportunity to register a verdict on whether they were cool.

Mueller, meanwhile, has advanced towards filling in the blanks in the story of Trump campaign contacts with Russian operatives and the significance of those contacts.

One major document to emerge was a draft statement of offense against conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi, whom Mueller accused of having acted as a link between Trump adviser Roger Stone and WikiLeaks, which published emails stolen by Russia in a way seemingly timed to sway the election.

Corsi has denied contacting WikiLeaks on behalf of Stone, but Mueller’s apparent readiness to charge the case indicated that the special counsel had gained a good window on the flow of information between Trump associates and entities tied to election tampering, analysts said.

“I think it remains to be seen what the truth is regarding co-ordination with WikiLeaks,” said Barb McQuade, a University of Michigan law professor and former US attorney. “But if the truth could be found, I think Robert Mueller will find it, and President Trump could find himself in trouble either related to the alleged collusion or obstruction to impede the investigation.”

In retracting Manafort’s plea deal, Mueller signaled an equally robust knowledge of the former campaign chairman’s ties in the former Soviet bloc, accusing Manafort of lying to investigators when he was supposed to be co-operating. Mueller’s team said a “detailed” submission “that sets forth the nature of the defendant’s crimes and lies” would be filed next Friday.

“There’s just a lot of other information that’s going to come tumbling out here that we know of, over the next weeks and months,” said Wright.

‘It does feel like we are moving to the end’Trump and his allies have tried to downplay the false statements charges, saying there was no underlying crime. Republican senator Lindsey Graham called the new guilty plea by Cohen “a process crime”.

“That really misses the point,” said Whiting, “because first of all, we’re not talking about ordinary day-to-day citizens who are caught up in making false statements: we’re talking about public officials who are making false statements to other branches of the government and to the American public, so in themselves these are pretty serious charges.

Mueller also signaled that he has evidence of communications between the Trump Organization and campaign and the Kremlin, by persuading Cohen to admit on Thursday to lying to Congress about plans for a tower in Moscow. That evidence could be bad for Trump, many analysts pointed out, if the president’s written statements on the subject, submitted to Mueller earlier in November, were less than truthful.

“Second, it’s a common tactic in an investigation [to prosecute false statements]. Third, it underscores how much the Mueller team knows and how inept the lies are – how ineffective the lies are.”

That sense might be sinking in for Donald Trump Jr, who last year made several statements to a Senate committee that have been flagged as possible lies, including denying awareness that Cohen contacted the Kremlin to negotiate the Moscow deal. It was revealed on Thursday that Cohen had “briefed family members of [Trump] within the company about the [Moscow] project”.

“If you’re somebody close to Trump and you’ve made statements to the Congress or you’ve made statements to the investigation and you see the Cohen information and you realize how much Mueller knows, that’s going to make you think twice,” Whiting said. “Should I start co-operating with the investigation?”

Last month, citing an unnamed friend, Politico reported that Trump Jr believes he could be indicted.

“It does feel like we are moving to the end of the investigation, because we are now getting to the heart of the matter,” said McQuade.

“There aren’t that many people higher in the organization left to be charged. And so that means they must be focusing on people like Roger Stone, maybe Trump Jr, maybe Trump himself.”

 

A foreign intelligence evaluation of Donald Trump’s work with Moscow

December 2, 2018

by Christian Jürs

Any competent trial lawyer will explain that there are two types of evidence: direct and circumstantial. And he will also explain that of the two, circumstantial is by far the strongest and most convincing.

There is a growing and very strong belief, not only in official Washington’s investigative agencies and in foreign capitals as well that American President Donald Trump is a bought and paid for asset of Vladimir Putin and the Russian SVR.

That Trump has been transparently corrupt for many years is not a state secret and would hardly be a revelation to Russia.

Their intelligence system is probably the world’s most efficient and the Russians are well-known to exploit character weaknesses in potential targets.

Herewith is an overview of Donald Trump and his background taken and translated from a German intelligence report. This came, with copies of official stamps and all, from a very reliable German newspaper official.

S T R E N G   G E H E I M

Hintergrundbericht über den amerikanischen Präsidenten Donald T R U M P

– NICHT STEMPELN –

– NICHT UNTERZEICHNEN –

– NICHT BESCHRIFTEN –

– NICHT MARKIEREN –

Translation from the German

  • Trump is not an honest man by any stretch of imagination. He has a long record of bankruptcies, business failures, very dubious business practices and extraordinarily negative behavior to staff and other employees. To catalogue the full sweep of a flood of patently dishonest business allegations against Donald Trump would require thousands of words and lump together the trivial, the blatently criminal with the truly scandalous.
  • Certainly, the psychological personal profile of Donald Trump could hardly be better tailored to being easily turned by a hostile intelligence agency.
  • The concept of Trump taking bribes from the Russians (or the PRC) is completely understandable if one applies the concept of Occam’s Razor to the tumult and disruption he is deliberately causing both domestically and in foreign areas.
  • Russian intelligence agencies are known to have highly compromising and often bizarre sexual material on him going back more than 30 years and they have used Trump and his elaborate network of business entites as a funnel for laundering dirty money from the Russian mafia and from post-Soviet oligarchs. The Russians are well-known tohave more than enough compromising material on Trump to bend him to their will.
  • Trump has constantly been engaged in bribings and manipulations and does this through second parties such as Cohen his former lawyer or Manafort, his recently convicted campaign manager during the election.
  • Following Mr.Trump’s bankruptcies in the 1990s he borrowed very large sums of operating capital from Russian sources. He also obtained large loans from the Deutsche Bank (over 640 million dollars)
  • Other big banks, domestic and foreign, have long refused to lend to him, coining the term “the Donald risk” to refer to his repeated bankruptcies and failures to repay loans. However, Deutsche Bank, whose real-estate division continued to lend him hundreds of millions of dollars to finance his projects, seemed to have a greater risk appetite. There is a solid connection and on-going business between this bank and two Russian-based banks.
  • 1,300 Trump condominiums have been sold to Russian-connected buyers. Even a cheap Trump condo costs over a million dollars, so there over 1,300 condos that meet all the criteria for what is normally called money laundering. Russian intelligence is using Trump real estate to launder money
  • In 2008 his son, Donald Trump Jr., said that Russia was an important source of money for the Trump businesses.
  • Trump and his entourage have made a significant number of trips to Russia in the past (a list of these along with Russian personages he was in contact with can easily be found on Google), seeking financing and permission to build luxury hotels in that country
  • Russian intelligence owns Wikileaks entirely and released the damning, and authentic, ‘Podesta papers’ concurrent with Hillary Clinton’s campaign in coordinated agreement with the Trump people. This did serious damage to her campaign and was a major contributory factor to her narrow defeat and Trump’s election to the presidency.
  • Trump’s actions, as President, are deliberate efforts to alienate both the putative allies of the US such as Germany, France, and Canada and, to a lesser degree, Mexico. Also, the tariffs suggested by Trump against China would result in retaliation by that country and many retail outlets in the United States would be forced to close because they would be unable to purchase Chinese-made goods, the bulk of their stock.
  • Trump has deliberately launched pointless, and destructive, attacks against Mexican and Muslim immigrants, as well as Canadian, Chinese and German imports. All this has done is to create a highly negative image of his persona primarily and secondarily, the global image of the United States. This is only to the benefit of Putin’s Russia, not the United States.
  • Trump’s tariffs, and threats of tariffs, have engendered counter-tariffs that will, when implemented, create serious economic problems for American businessmen and, eventually, the American public.
  • Trump’s politically foolish but calculated support of the Israeli far right has done, and is doing, serious damage to the US image in the Middle East. It should be noted that Russian influence in the Shiite areas of the Middle East, is growing. Also note that Iran, and parts of Iraq, both Shiite, have extensive oil reserves and that Saudi Arabia, a Sunni state, once America’s primary source of badly-need oil, is running dry. Further, his aggressive support of Israel is resulting in increasing antisemitism in the United States.
  • The Middle East areas where Russia now has growing influence, have oil and if Russia sets itself up as major oil merchandising source, this will give them tremendous economic leverage vis a vis the United States which is the world’s largest consumer of oil and its by-products.
  • By alienating America’s allies and disrupting that country’s social structure, Trump benefits only Russia and its interests.
  • When he is caught at this, and it is common knowledge that the FBI was deeply interested in his Russian connections long before he ran for President, either the American public will have to deal with another Dallas or Trump will suffer a fatal heart attack. Vice-President Pence, a Christian fanatic, would then have to be told to mind his manners or suffer similar terminal problems.
  • Trump is very well aware of the ongoing and growing official investigation into his denied but completely genuine Russian connections and is certainly also well aware of what they can find, and probably have already uncovered, so he initially fired the head of the FBI and even now, according to a very reliable source, is determined to replace the FBI with the cooperative CIA (their former head, Pompeo, is now Secretary of State) as the sole foreign and domestic intelligence agency. He, and his Russian intelligence handlers, want to nip any FBI revelations in the bud so that Trump can continue on his course of castrating the United States as a global power to the benefit of Putin’s Russia.
  • There was a full page ad that he took out in the New York Times, the Boston Globe and the Washington Post in 1988, putting forth foreign policy points that could have been dictated by Vladimir Putin. It was an assault against NATO, and the European Union, both anathema to Russia
  • In 2015, Western European intelligence agencies in France and Germany began picking up solid evidence of communications between the Russian government and people in Donald Trump’s orbit. In April 2016, one of the Baltic States shared with then–CIA director John Brennan an audio recording of Russians discussing funneling money to the Trump campaign. In the summer of 2016, Robert Hannigan, head of the U.K. intelligence agency GCHQ, flew to Washington to brief Brennan on intercepted communications between the Trump campaign and Russia.
  • During the Soviet era, Russian intelligence cast a wide net to gain leverage over influential figures abroad. (The practice continues to this day.) The Russians would lure or entrap not only prominent politicians and cultural leaders, but also people whom they saw as having the potential for gaining prominence in the future. In 1986, Soviet ambassador Yuri Dubinin met Trump in New York, flattered him with praise for his building exploits, and invited him to discuss a building in Moscow. Trump visited Moscow in July 1987. He stayed at the National Hotel, in the Lenin Suite, which certainly was known to be bugged
  • Throughout his career, Trump has always felt comfortable operating at or beyond the ethical boundaries that constrain typical businesses. In the 1980s, he worked with La Cosa Nostra, which controlled the New York cement trade, and later employed Michael Cohen and Felix Sater, both of whom have links to the Russian Mafia. Trump habitually refused to pay his counter parties, and if the people he burned (or any journalists) got in his way, he bullied them with threats. He also used LLCs which he created for the purpose of swindling firm who, for example, laid new carpet in one of his hotels. The vendor billed the LLC which promptly went bankrupt. This has been a favorite gambit of Trump.
  • Trump continually acts like a man with a great deal to hide: declining to testify to anything under oath, dangling Presidential pardons to keep potential witnesses and former employees from incriminating him, publicly chastising his attorney general for not quashing the whole Russian investigation, and endorsing Russia’s claims that it had nothing to do with the election. (“Russia continues to say they had nothing to do with Meddling in our Election!” he tweeted last month, contradicting the conclusion of every U.S. intelligence and counter-intelligence agency.) Trump’s behavior toward Russia looks exactly like that of an accessory after the fact.
  • When, and not if, it becomes public knowledge that the President of the US is an agent of a foreign power, it would be the worst scandal in American history, far surpassing Tea Pot Dome or Watergate.
  • In conclusion, it is clearly obvious that President Trump was jobbed into his office with the full cooperation of Russian intelligence and that he is currently engaged in efforts to carry out their political global programs which, if allowed to continue, will wreak economic and political havoc on the American government, business community and public.
  • And consider that the United States has been harassing Vladimir Putin’s Russia economically and causing considerable problems for that country. Mr. Putin’s reactive countermeasures aganst the United States are certainly in response to these actions and in the long view, far more effective than sanctions and hysterical threats.

 

S T R E N G   G E H E I M

 

“State of insurrection” as fuel tax riots engulf central Paris

November 30, 2018

by Leigh Thomas and Emmanuel Jarry

Reuters

PARIS (Reuters) – Rioters ran amok across central Paris on Saturday, torching cars and buildings, looting shops, smashing windows and clashing with police in the worst unrest in more than a decade, posing a dire challenge to Emmanuel Macron’s presidency.

The authorities were caught off guard by the escalation in violence after two weeks of nationwide protests against fuel taxes and living costs, known as the “yellow vest” movement after fluorescent jackets kept in all vehicles in France.

In Paris, police said they had arrested almost 300 people while 110 were injured, including 20 members of the security forces. Police fired stun grenades, tear gas and water cannon at protesters at the top of the Champs-Elysees boulevard, at the Tuilleries Garden near the Louvre museum and other sites.

In some areas there was virtually no police presence at all, as groups of masked men roamed in the shadows of the capital’s fabled landmarks and through its fanciest shopping districts, smashing the windows of designer boutiques.

Macron, in Argentina for a G20 summit, said he would convene ministers to discuss the crisis upon his return on Sunday. Prime Minister Edouard Philippe canceled a trip to Poland.

“We are in a state of insurrection, I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Jeanne d’Hauteserre, the mayor of Paris’ 8th district, near the Arc de Triomphe.

The popular rebellion erupted out of nowhere on Nov. 17 and has spread quickly via social media, with protesters blocking roads across France and impeding access to shopping malls, factories and some fuel depots.

On Saturday, some targeted the Arc de Triomphe, chanting “Macron Resign” and scrawling on the facade of the towering 19th-century arch: “The yellow vests will triumph.”

Addressing a news conference in Buenos Aires, Macron said no cause justified the looting of stores, attacks on the security forces or torching of property. The violence, he said, had nothing to do with the peaceful expression of legitimate grievances.

“I will always respect differences. I will always listen to opposition, but I will never accept violence,” Macron said.

Protesters smashed the windows of a newly opened flagship Apple Store (AAPL.O) and luxury boutiques of Chanel and Dior, where they daubed the slogan “Merry Mayhem” on a wooden board.

Close to the Place Vendome, Christmas trees decorating the streets were upended, piled in the middle of an avenue and set ablaze, prompting chanting from scores of protesters.

Order appeared to have been restored late in the evening, although small groups were still at odds with police near the Champs Elysees.

Authorities said violent far-right and far-left groups had infiltrated the yellow vests movement. Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said most of those arrested were regular protesters who had been egged on by the fringe groups.

The protests began as a backlash against Macron’s fuel tax hikes, but have tapped into a vein of deep dissatisfaction felt towards the 40-year-old’s economic reforms, which many voters feel favor the wealthy and big business.

Unrest erupted in several towns and cities across France, from Charleville Mezieres in the northeast to Marseille in the south. In the Riviera city of Nice trucks blocked access to the airport, and in the central town of Puy-en-Velay the police headquarters was set on fire.

The protests are taking a toll on the economy. Parts of central Paris that should have been packed with tourists and Christmas shoppers resembled battle zones, as smoke and tear gas hung in the air and debris littered the ground. Hotels and department stores in the capital stand to lose millions, and shelves have run empty in some supermarkets.

MACRON STANDS FIRM

The protests have caught Macron off-guard just as he was trying to counter a fall in his popularity rating to 20 percent. His unyielding response has exposed him to charges of being out of touch with ordinary people, particularly in rural villages and the provincial hinterlands.

Some peaceful protesters held up a slogan reading, “Macron, stop treating us like idiots!”

Macron on Tuesday said he understood the anger of voters outside France’s big cities over the squeeze fuel prices have put on households. But he insisted he would not be bounced into changing policy by “thugs”.

Despite the unrest that has accompanied the protests, the “yellow vests” have widespread public support, even in cities.

“I am totally behind the ‘Gilets Jaunes’,” said George DuPont, a resident in Paris’ upscale 16th arrondissement. “The state has stolen money from the French people. It’s time to give it back.”

Assistant teacher Sandrine Lemoussu, 45, who travelled from Burgundy to protest peacefully, said people were fed up with Macron.

“The people are in revolt,” she said. “The anger is rising more and more, and the president despises the French. We aren’t here to smash things, but the people have had enough.”

Many on the outskirts of smaller provincial towns and villages have expressed anger, underlining the gap between metropolitan elites and working class voters that has boosted anti-establishment politics across the Western world.

“Mr Macron wrote a book called Revolution. He was prophetic because it is what he has managed to launch, but not the revolution he sought,” Far-left La France Insoumise leader Jean-Luc Melenchon told reporters ahead of a protest in Marseille.

Reporting by Thierry Chiarello, Antony Paone, Sudip Kar-Gupta, Bate Felix, Luke Baker, Sybille de la Hamaide, John Irish, Celia Mebroukine, Antoine Boddaert, Lucien Libert, Stephane Mahe, Caroline Paillez in Paris, Jean-Francois Rosnoblet in Marseille and Johanna Decorse in Toulouse; Writing by John Irish and Richard Lough; Editing by Mark Heinrich, Hugh Lawson and Peter Graff

 

 

The CIA Confessions: The Crowley Conversations

December 2, 2018

by Dr. Peter Janney

 

On October 8th, 2000, Robert Trumbull Crowley, once a leader of the CIA’s Clandestine Operations Division, died in a Washington hospital of heart failure and the end effects of Alzheimer’s Disease. Before the late Assistant Director Crowley was cold, Joseph Trento, a writer of light-weight books on the CIA, descended on Crowley’s widow at her town house on Cathedral Hill Drive in Washington and hauled away over fifty boxes of Crowley’s CIA files.

Once Trento had his new find secure in his house in Front Royal, Virginia, he called a well-known Washington fix lawyer with the news of his success in securing what the CIA had always considered to be a potential major embarrassment.

Three months before, on July 20th of that year, retired Marine Corps colonel William R. Corson, and an associate of Crowley, died of emphysema and lung cancer at a hospital in Bethesda, Md.

After Corson’s death, Trento and the well-known Washington fix-lawyer went to Corson’s bank, got into his safe deposit box and removed a manuscript entitled ‘Zipper.’ This manuscript, which dealt with Crowley’s involvement in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, vanished into a CIA burn-bag and the matter was considered to be closed forever.

The small group of CIA officials gathered at Trento’s house to search through the Crowley papers, looking for documents that must not become public. A few were found but, to their consternation, a significant number of files Crowley was known to have had in his possession had simply vanished.

When published material concerning the CIA’s actions against Kennedy became public in 2002, it was discovered to the CIA’s horror, that the missing documents had been sent by an increasingly erratic Crowley to another person and these missing papers included devastating material on the CIA’s activities in South East Asia to include drug running, money laundering and the maintenance of the notorious ‘Regional Interrogation Centers’ in Viet Nam and, worse still, the Zipper files proving the CIA’s active organization of the assassination of President John Kennedy..

A massive, preemptive disinformation campaign was readied, using government-friendly bloggers, CIA-paid “historians” and others, in the event that anything from this file ever surfaced. The best-laid plans often go astray and in this case, one of the compliant historians, a former government librarian who fancied himself a serious writer, began to tell his friends about the CIA plan to kill Kennedy and eventually, word of this began to leak out into the outside world.

The originals had vanished and an extensive search was conducted by the FBI and CIA operatives but without success. Crowley’s survivors, his aged wife and son, were interviewed extensively by the FBI and instructed to minimize any discussion of highly damaging CIA files that Crowley had, illegally, removed from Langley when he retired. Crowley had been a close friend of James Jesus Angleton, the CIA’s notorious head of Counterintelligence. When Angleton was sacked by DCI William Colby in December of 1974, Crowley and Angleton conspired to secretly remove Angleton’s most sensitive secret files out of the agency. Crowley did the same thing right before his own retirement, secretly removing thousands of pages of classified information that covered his entire agency career.

Known as “The Crow” within the agency, Robert T. Crowley joined the CIA at its inception and spent his entire career in the Directorate of Plans, also know as the “Department of Dirty Tricks,”: Crowley was one of the tallest man ever to work at the CIA. Born in 1924 and raised in Chicago, Crowley grew to six and a half feet when he entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in N.Y. as a cadet in 1943 in the class of 1946. He never graduated, having enlisted in the Army, serving in the Pacific during World War II. He retired from the Army Reserve in 1986 as a lieutenant colonel. According to a book he authored with his friend and colleague, William Corson, Crowley’s career included service in Military Intelligence and Naval Intelligence, before joining the CIA at its inception in 1947. His entire career at the agency was spent within the Directorate of Plans in covert operations. Before his retirement, Bob Crowley became assistant deputy director for operations, the second-in-command in the Clandestine Directorate of Operations.

Bob Crowley first contacted Gregory Douglas  in 1993  when he found out from John Costello that Douglas was about to publish his first book on Heinrich Mueller, the former head of the Gestapo who had become a secret, long-time asset to the CIA. Crowley contacted Douglas and they began a series of long and often very informative telephone conversations that lasted for four years. In 1996, Crowley told Douglas that he believed him to be the person that should ultimately tell Crowley’s story but only after Crowley’s death. Douglas, for his part, became so entranced with some of the material that Crowley began to share with him that he secretly began to record their conversations, later transcribing them word for word, planning to incorporate some, or all, of the material in later publications.

 

Conversation No. 95

Date: Wednesday, July 30, 1997
Commenced: 11:05 AM CST

Concluded: 11:15 AM CST

 

GD: Good morning, Robert. Anything new to report?

RTC: Quiet here. Pleasant to have quiet after the constant uproar at the office but there are times when I really miss it.

GD: Noise and uproar never bothered me at all. Bad food does, however, I had a chicken paprikash last night and it did not sit well.

RTC: Paprikash?
GD: Hungarian  chicken with paprika. Cook it in a pan with butter, onions and paprika. I developed a liking for it when I was living in Munich but this one was not good. Stringy chicken. Could have been cat but I won’t eat there again.

RTC: That’s right. You lived in Munich, didn’t you?
GD: Yes, for a long time, there or nearby.

RTC: We had a large base there. Dealt with the Czechs.

GD: I know about your operations there. Christ, you people were about as subtle as a fart in a space suit. You had Radio Free Liberty or whatever out at Holzkirchen and by the English Garden. And at Stachus….sorry, Karlsplatz, you had a export office that everyone from the whores to the cab drivers knew was the CIA office. Once paid a wino to crap on their doorstep. Oh, and the Hungarian fellow. I should tell you about that one. I knew this very nice, very old- family lady. I mean a real lady, old family. Anyway, she met this Hungarian who was selling gold coins and whatnot and the long and the short of it was the asshole stiffed her for a lot of money for fake gold coins and jewelry. She went to the police but they did nothing. I knew one or two very senior police people so I spoke very seriously with one of them. Told me they knew all about the swine but couldn’t touch him because he was a top CIA person. Maybe they couldn’t touch him but I certainly could. Critchlow…I think it was that one…anyway, I set out to get back the money. I met this slimy crud in a coin shop, not by accident, and struck up a nice conversation with him. I should tell you that I know more about gold than he ever could but I let him think I was a dumb, rich American. He was incorrect on two of the three impressions. Oh my, he did get interested in me. I also went to his apartment to deal with him and then, armed with my information, I went to see some Turkish friends. Turks, Robert, can be very mean and my friends were no exception. Details are not necessary here but I told the Turks this jerk was on to their smuggling operations and was going to have them arrested so they went after him. As I recall, though I was having dinner with my police official at the time, he was walking across the bridge down by the German Museum when some bad person came up behind him, cut his throat and chunked him over the parapet and down into the Isar. I should have added that it was winter and the river was frozen on the surface but the Budapest Kid went right through the ice. They found him in the spring, down by the dam. I must confess that after dining with the police gentleman, I spoke briefly with one of my really keen Turkish friends and we broke into the Hunky’s pad and stripped it. I got a lot of gold, some folders with interesting papers, a small radio, two silenced pistols and other things we really don ‘t need to discuss. The Turk got quite a bit of gold and some awful Japanese pornography. I don’t think ten year old Asian girls being banged by well-hung Negros is really nice but the others thought so and who can dispute tastes after all? He and his cousin came back later with a truck and took all the furniture and even the toilet and a washbasin. I know about this because later, my police friend asked me about the terrible vanishing of the CIA man and the rape of his apartment. Of course I knew nothing but I did give the lady all of her money back with a warning to her son, who was in their foreign office, to keep a good watch on his mother in future. I told him what happened and he and I had a good laugh  I knew him for years and we used to go shooting together and I had no problem telling him about it. Such a fuss from your people. They thought the Russians had kidnapped him. But in the spring, they found him stuck in the dam grill, all mixed up with a few equally rotting dead pets and an aborted fetus or two. Closed coffin and a nice ceremony.

RTC: You mentioned finding some papers. I don’t care about the silenced pistols but the fate of the papers interests me. From a purely abstract but professional point of view, you understand.

GD: Oh, I understand your abstract interest. As an abstract answer, I sold them to interested parties. Kept me in rent and food money for a number of months, I must say. My lady friend was happy and so were my pleasant Turkish friends. The Hungarian was not happy but the Hungarian was a lying, thieving sack of shit and much better off dead and bobbing around deep in the cold river. The Turks found his bed very comfortable but I never inquired about the fate of the toilet. There are some things best left strictly alone. And so much for my Hungarian adventures.

(Concluded at 11;15 AM CST

 

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