TBR News October 8, 2019

The Voice of the White House Washington, D.C. October 8, 2019:

“Working in the White House as a junior staffer is an interesting experience.

When I was younger, I worked as a summer-time job in a clinic for people who had moderate to severe mental problems and the current work closely, at times, echos the earlier one.

I am not an intimate of the President but I have encountered him from time to time and I daily see manifestations of his growing psychological problems.

He insults people, uses foul language, is frantic to see his name mentioned on main-line television and pays absolutely no attention to any advice from his staff that runs counter to his strange ideas.

He lies like a rug to everyone, eats like a hog, makes lewd remarks to female staffers and flies into rages if anyone dares to contradict him.

It is becoming more and more evident to even the least intelligent American voter that Trump is vicious, corrupt and amoral. He has stated often that even if he loses the election in 2020, he will not leave the White House. I have news for Donald but this is not the place to discuss it.

Commentary for October 8: “At least ten staff members here in the White House, none of them important in the eyes of the media, have quit this week. Their general objections are that Trump is not sane, is probably a closet Nazi and that they want no part of his growing problems. I wonder how much the Turks paid him to betray their Kurdish enemies? It is pretty obvious that Trump is crooked to the core and bribery is not alien to his nature.”

 

 

 

• Leading Civil Rights Lawyer Shows 20 Ways Trump Is Copying Hitler’s Early Rhetoric and Policies
• Trump’s SS connection
• Trump firm ‘refusing to pay’ legal bill for windfarm case
• The U.S. Is Now Betraying the Kurds for the Eighth Time
• U.S. Republicans join Democrats to blast Trump’s Syria withdrawal
• White House blocks ambassador’s impeachment testimony; lawmakers vow subpoena
• Clear majority of Americans support Trump impeachment inquiry, poll finds
• Trump left isolated as Republican allies revolt over US withdrawal from Syria
• Facebook the focus of U.S. Justice Department and state AGs meeting
• The Avalanche
• DoTox G.m.b.H.
• The CIA Confessions: The Crowley Conversations
• Encyclopedia of American Loons

 Leading Civil Rights Lawyer Shows 20 Ways Trump Is Copying Hitler’s Early Rhetoric and Policies

The author, Burt Neuborne, is one of America’s top civil liberties lawyers, and questions whether federal government can contain Trump and GOP power grabs.

August 9, 2019

by Steven Rosenfeld

Common Dreams

A new book by one of the nation’s foremost civil liberties lawyers powerfully describes how America’s constitutional checks and balances are being pushed to the brink by a president who is consciously following Adolf Hitler’s extremist propaganda and policy template from the early 1930s—when the Nazis took power in Germany.

In When at Times the Mob Is Swayed: A Citizen’s Guide to Defending Our Republic, Burt Neuborne mostly focuses on how America’s constitutional foundation in 2019—an unrepresentative Congress, the Electoral College and a right-wing Supreme Court majority—is not positioned to withstand Trump’s extreme polarization and GOP power grabs. However, its second chapter, “Why the Sudden Concern About Fixing the Brakes?,” extensively details Trump’s mimicry of Hitler’s pre-war rhetoric and strategies.

Neuborne doesn’t make this comparison lightly. His 55-year career began by challenging the constitutionality of the Vietnam War in the 1960s. He became the ACLU’s national legal director in the 1980s under Ronald Reagan. He was founding legal director of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School in the 1990s. He has been part of more than 200 Supreme Court cases and Holocaust reparation litigation.

“Why does an ignorant, narcissistic buffoon like Trump trigger such anxiety? Why do so many Americans feel it existentially (not just politically) important to resist our forty-fifth president?” he writes. “Partly it’s just aesthetics. Trump is such a coarse and appalling man that it’s hard to stomach his presence in Abraham Lincoln’s house. But that’s not enough to explain the intensity of my dread. LBJ was coarse. Gerald Ford and George W. Bush were dumb as rocks. Richard Nixon was an anti-Semite. Bill Clinton’s mistreatment of women dishonored his office. Ronald Reagan was a dangerous ideologue. I opposed each of them when they appeared to exceed their constitutional powers. But I never felt a sense of existential dread. I never sensed that the very existence of a tolerant democracy was in play.”

A younger Trump, according to his first wife’s divorce filings, kept and studied a book translating and annotating Adolf Hitler’s pre-World War II speeches in a locked bedside cabinet, Neuborne noted. The English edition of My New Order, published in 1941, also had analyses of the speeches’ impact on his era’s press and politics. “Ugly and appalling as they are, those speeches are masterpieces of demagogic manipulation,” Neuborne says.

“Watching Trump work his crowds, though, I see a dangerously manipulative narcissist unleashing the demagogic spells that he learned from studying Hitler’s speeches—spells that he cannot control and that are capable of eroding the fabric of American democracy,” Neuborne says. “You see, we’ve seen what these rhetorical techniques can do. Much of Trump’s rhetoric—as a candidate and in office—mirrors the strategies, even the language, used by Adolf Hitler in the early 1930s to erode German democracy.”

Many Americans may seize or condemn Neuborne’s analysis, which has more than 20 major points of comparison. The author repeatedly says his goal is not “equating” the men—as “it trivializes Hitler’s obscene crimes to compare them to Trump’s often pathetic foibles.”

Indeed, the book has a larger frame: whether federal checks and balances—Congress, the Supreme Court, the Electoral College—can contain the havoc that Trump thrives on and the Republican Party at large has embraced. But the Trump-Hitler compilation is a stunning warning, because, as many Holocaust survivors have said, few Germans or Europeans expected what unfolded in the years after Hitler amassed power.

Here’s how Neuborne introduces this section. Many recent presidents have been awful, “But then there was Donald Trump, the only president in recent American history to openly despise the twin ideals—individual dignity and fundamental equality—upon which the contemporary United States is built. When you confront the reality of a president like Trump, the state of both sets of brakes—internal [constitutional] and external [public resistance]—become hugely important because Donald Trump’s political train runs on the most potent and dangerous fuel of all: a steady diet of fear, greed, loathing, lies, and envy. It’s a toxic mixture that has destroyed democracies before, and can do so again.

“Give Trump credit,” he continues. “He did his homework well and became the twenty-first-century master of divisive rhetoric. We’re used to thinking of Hitler’s Third Reich as the incomparably evil tyranny that it undoubtedly was. But Hitler didn’t take power by force. He used a set of rhetorical tropes codified in Trump’s bedside reading that persuaded enough Germans to welcome Hitler as a populist leader. The Nazis did not overthrow the Weimar Republic. It fell into their hands as the fruit of Hitler’s satanic ability to mesmerize enough Germans to trade their birthright for a pottage of scapegoating, short-term economic gain, xenophobia, and racism. It could happen here.”

20 Common Themes, Rhetorical Tactics and Dangerous Policies

Here are 20 serious points of comparison between the early Hitler and Trump.

1. Neither was elected by a majority. Trump lost the popular vote by 2.9 million votes, receiving votes by 25.3 percent of all eligible American voters. “That’s just a little less than the percentage of the German electorate that turned to the Nazi Party in 1932–33,” Neuborne writes. “Unlike the low turnouts in the United States, turnout in Weimar Germany averaged just over 80 percent of eligible voters.” He continues, “Once installed as a minority chancellor in January 1933, Hitler set about demonizing his political opponents, and no one—not the vaunted, intellectually brilliant German judiciary; not the respected, well-trained German police; not the revered, aristocratic German military; not the widely admired, efficient German government bureaucracy; not the wealthy, immensely powerful leaders of German industry; and not the powerful center-right political leaders of the Reichstag—mounted a serious effort to stop him.”
2. Both found direct communication channels to their base. By 1936’s Olympics, Nazi narratives dominated German cultural and political life. “How on earth did Hitler pull it off? What satanic magic did Trump find in Hitler’s speeches?” Neuborne asks. He addresses Hitler’s extreme rhetoric soon enough, but notes that Hitler found a direct communication pathway—the Nazi Party gave out radios with only one channel, tuned to Hitler’s voice, bypassing Germany’s news media. Trump has an online equivalent.

“Donald Trump’s tweets, often delivered between midnight and dawn, are the twenty-first century’s technological embodiment of Hitler’s free plastic radios,” Neuborne says. “Trump’s Twitter account, like Hitler’s radios, enables a charismatic leader to establish and maintain a personal, unfiltered line of communication with an adoring political base of about 30–40 percent of the population, many (but not all) of whom are only too willing, even anxious, to swallow Trump’s witches’ brew of falsehoods, half-truths, personal invective, threats, xenophobia, national security scares, religious bigotry, white racism, exploitation of economic insecurity, and a never ending-search for scapegoats.”

3. Both blame others and divide on racial lines. As Neuborne notes, “Hitler used his single-frequency radios to wax hysterical to his adoring base about his pathological racial and religious fantasies glorifying Aryans and demonizing Jews, blaming Jews (among other racial and religious scapegoats) for German society’s ills.” That is comparable to “Trump’s tweets and public statements, whether dealing with black-led demonstrations against police violence, white-led racist mob violence, threats posed by undocumented aliens, immigration policy generally, protests by black and white professional athletes, college admission policies, hate speech, even response to hurricane damage in Puerto Rico,” he says. Again and again, Trump uses “racially tinged messages calculated to divide whites from people of color.”
4. Both relentlessly demonize opponents. “Hitler’s radio harangues demonized his domestic political opponents, calling them parasites, criminals, cockroaches, and various categories of leftist scum,” Neuborne notes. “Trump’s tweets and speeches similarly demonize his political opponents. Trump talks about the country being ‘infested’ with dangerous aliens of color. He fantasizes about jailing Hillary Clinton, calls Mexicans rapists, refers to ‘shithole countries,’ degrades anyone who disagrees with him, and dreams of uprooting thousands of allegedly disloyal bureaucrats in the State Department, the Environmental Protection Agency, the FBI, and the CIA, who he calls ‘the deep state’ and who, he claims, are sabotaging American greatness.”
5. They unceasingly attack objective truth. “Both Trump and Hitler maintained a relentless assault on the very idea of objective truth,” he continues. “Each began the assault by seeking to delegitimize the mainstream press. Hitler quickly coined the epithet Lügenpresse (literally ‘lying press’) to denigrate the mainstream press. Trump uses a paraphrase of Hitler’s lying press epithet—‘fake news’—cribbed, no doubt, from one of Hitler’s speeches. For Trump, the mainstream press is a ‘lying press’ that publishes ‘fake news.’” Hitler attacked his opponents as spreading false information to undermine his positions, Neuborne says, just as Trump has attacked “elites” for disseminating false news, “especially his possible links to the Kremlin.”
6. They relentlessly attack mainstream media. Trump’s assaults on the media echo Hitler’s, Neuborne says, noting that he “repeatedly attacks the ‘failing New York Times,’ leads crowds in chanting ‘CNN sucks,’ [and] is personally hostile to most reporters.” He cites the White House’s refusal to fly the flag at half-mast after the murder of five journalists in Annapolis in June 2018, Trump’s efforts to punish CNN by blocking a merger of its corporate parent, and trying to revoke federal Postal Service contracts held by Amazon, which was founded by Jeff Bezos, who also owns the Washington Post.
7. Their attacks on truth include science. Neuborne notes, “Both Trump and Hitler intensified their assault on objective truth by deriding scientific experts, especially academics who question Hitler’s views on race or Trump’s views on climate change, immigration, or economics. For both Trump and Hitler, the goal is (and was) to eviscerate the very idea of objective truth, turning everything into grist for a populist jury subject to manipulation by a master puppeteer. In both Trump’s and Hitler’s worlds, public opinion ultimately defines what is true and what is false.”
8. Their lies blur reality—and supporters spread them. “Trump’s pathological penchant for repeatedly lying about his behavior can only succeed in a world where his supporters feel free to embrace Trump’s ‘alternative facts’ and treat his hyperbolic exaggerations as the gospel truth,” Neuborne says. “Once Hitler had delegitimized the mainstream media by a series of systematic attacks on its integrity, he constructed a fawning alternative mass media designed to reinforce his direct radio messages and enhance his personal power. Trump is following the same path, simultaneously launching bitter attacks on the mainstream press while embracing the so-called alt-right media, co-opting both Sinclair Broadcasting and the Rupert Murdoch–owned Fox Broadcasting Company as, essentially, a Trump Broadcasting Network.”
9. Both orchestrated mass rallies to show status. “Once Hitler had cemented his personal communications link with his base via free radios and a fawning media and had badly eroded the idea of objective truth, he reinforced his emotional bond with his base by holding a series of carefully orchestrated mass meetings dedicated to cementing his status as a charismatic leader, or Führer,” Neuborne writes. “The powerful personal bonds nurtured by Trump’s tweets and Fox’s fawning are also systematically reinforced by periodic, carefully orchestrated mass rallies (even going so far as to co-opt a Boy Scout Jamboree in 2017), reinforcing Trump’s insatiable narcissism and his status as a charismatic leader.”
10. They embrace extreme nationalism. “Hitler’s strident appeals to the base invoked an extreme version of German nationalism, extolling a brilliant German past and promising to restore Germany to its rightful place as a preeminent nation,” Neuborne says. “Trump echoes Hitler’s jingoistic appeal to ultranationalist fervor, extolling American exceptionalism right down to the slogan ‘Make America Great Again,’ a paraphrase of Hitler’s promise to restore German greatness.”
11. Both made closing borders a centerpiece. “Hitler all but closed Germany’s borders, freezing non-Aryan migration into the country and rendering it impossible for Germans to escape without official permission. Like Hitler, Trump has also made closed borders a centerpiece of his administration,” Neuborne continues. “Hitler barred Jews. Trump bars Muslims and seekers of sanctuary from Central America. When the lower courts blocked Trump’s Muslim travel ban, he unilaterally issued executive orders replacing it with a thinly disguised substitute that ultimately narrowly won Supreme Court approval under a theory of extreme deference to the president.”
12. They embraced mass detention and deportations. “Hitler promised to make Germany free from Jews and Slavs. Trump promises to slow, stop, and even reverse the flow of non-white immigrants, substituting Muslims, Africans, Mexicans, and Central Americans of color for Jews and Slavs as scapegoats for the nation’s ills. Trump’s efforts to cast dragnets to arrest undocumented aliens where they work, live, and worship, followed by mass deportation… echo Hitler’s promise to defend Germany’s racial identity,” he writes, also noting that Trump has “stooped to tearing children from their parents [as Nazis in World War II would do] to punish desperate efforts by migrants to find a better life.”
13. Both used borders to protect selected industries. “Like Hitler, Trump seeks to use national borders to protect his favored national interests, threatening to ignite protectionist trade wars with Europe, China, and Japan similar to the trade wars that, in earlier incarnations, helped to ignite World War I and World War II,” Neuborne writes. “Like Hitler, Trump aggressively uses our nation’s political and economic power to favor selected American corporate interests at the expense of foreign competitors and the environment, even at the price of international conflict, massive inefficiency, and irreversible pollution [climate change].”
14. They cemented their rule by enriching elites. “Hitler’s version of fascism shifted immense power—both political and financial—to the leaders of German industry. In fact, Hitler governed Germany largely through corporate executives,” he continues. “Trump has also presided over a massive empowerment—and enrichment—of corporate America. Under Trump, large corporations exercise immense political power while receiving huge economic windfalls and freedom from regulations designed to protect consumers and the labor force.

“Hitler despised the German labor movement, eventually destroying it and imprisoning its leaders. Trump also detests strong unions, seeking to undermine any effort to interfere with the prerogatives of management.”

15. Both rejected international norms. “Hitler’s foreign policy rejected international cooperation in favor of military and economic coercion, culminating in the annexation of the Sudetenland, the phony Hitler-Stalin nonaggression pact, the invasion of Czechoslovakia, and the horrors of global war,” Neuborne notes. “Like Hitler, Trump is deeply hostile to multinational cooperation, withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Paris Agreement on climate change, and the nuclear agreement with Iran, threatening to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement, abandoning our Kurdish allies in Syria, and even going so far as to question the value of NATO, our post-World War II military alliance with European democracies against Soviet expansionism.”
16. They attack domestic democratic processes. “Hitler attacked the legitimacy of democracy itself, purging the voting rolls, challenging the integrity of the electoral process, and questioning the ability of democratic government to solve Germany’s problems,” Neuborne notes. “Trump has also attacked the democratic process, declining to agree to be bound by the outcome of the 2016 elections when he thought he might lose, supporting the massive purge of the voting rolls allegedly designed to avoid (nonexistent) fraud, championing measures that make it harder to vote, tolerating—if not fomenting—massive Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, encouraging mob violence at rallies, darkly hinting at violence if Democrats hold power, and constantly casting doubt on the legitimacy of elections unless he wins.”
17. Both attack the judiciary and rule of law. “Hitler politicized and eventually destroyed the vaunted German justice system. Trump also seeks to turn the American justice system into his personal playground,” Neuborne writes. “Like Hitler, Trump threatens the judicially enforced rule of law, bitterly attacking American judges who rule against him, slyly praising Andrew Jackson for defying the Supreme Court, and abusing the pardon power by pardoning an Arizona sheriff found guilty of criminal contempt of court for disobeying federal court orders to cease violating the Constitution.”
18. Both glorify the military and demand loyalty oaths. “Like Hitler, Trump glorifies the military, staffing his administration with layers of retired generals (who eventually were fired or resigned), relaxing control over the use of lethal force by the military and the police, and demanding a massive increase in military spending,” Neuborne writes. Just as Hitler “imposed an oath of personal loyalty on all German judges” and demanded courts defer to him, “Trump’s already gotten enough deference from five Republican [Supreme Court] justices to uphold a largely Muslim travel ban that is the epitome of racial and religious bigotry.”

Trump has also demanded loyalty oaths. “He fired James Comey, a Republican appointed in 2013 as FBI director by President Obama, for refusing to swear an oath of personal loyalty to the president; excoriated and then sacked Jeff Sessions, his handpicked attorney general, for failing to suppress the criminal investigation into… Trump’s possible collusion with Russia in influencing the 2016 elections; repeatedly threatened to dismiss Robert Mueller, the special counsel carrying out the investigation; and called again and again for the jailing of Hillary Clinton, his 2016 opponent, leading crowds in chants of ‘lock her up.’” A new chant, “send her back,” has since emerged at Trump rallies directed at non-white Democratic congresswomen.

19. They proclaim unchecked power. “Like Hitler, Trump has intensified a disturbing trend that predated his administration of governing unilaterally, largely through executive orders or proclamations,” Neuborne says, citing the Muslim travel ban, trade tariffs, unraveling of health and environmental safety nets, ban on transgender military service, and efforts to end President Obama’s protection for Dreamers. “Like Hitler, Trump claims the power to overrule Congress and govern all by himself. In 1933, Hitler used the pretext of the Reichstag fire to declare a national emergency and seize the power to govern unilaterally. The German judiciary did nothing to stop him. German democracy never recovered.”

“When Congress refused to give Trump funds for his border wall even after he threw a tantrum and shut down the government, Trump, like Hitler, declared a phony national emergency and claimed the power to ignore Congress,” Neuborne continues. “Don’t count on the Supreme Court to stop him. Five justices gave the game away on the President’s unilateral travel ban. They just might do the same thing on the border wall.” It did in late July, ruling that Trump could divert congressionally appropriated funds from the Pentagon budget—undermining constitutional separation of powers.

20. Both relegate women to subordinate roles. “Finally,” writes Neuborne, “Hitler propounded a misogynistic, stereotypical view of women, valuing them exclusively as wives and mothers while excluding them from full participation in German political and economic life. Trump may be the most openly misogynist figure ever to hold high public office in the United States, crassly treating women as sexual objects, using nondisclosure agreements and violating campaign finance laws to shield his sexual misbehavior from public knowledge, attacking women who come forward to accuse men of abusive behavior, undermining reproductive freedom, and opposing efforts by women to achieve economic equality.”

Whither Constitutional Checks and Balances?

Most of Neuborne’s book is not centered on Trump’s fealty to Hitler’s methods and early policies. He notes, as many commentators have, that Trump is following the well-known contours of authoritarian populists and dictators: “there’s always a charismatic leader, a disaffected mass, an adroit use of communications media, economic insecurity, racial or religious fault lines, xenophobia, a turn to violence, and a search for scapegoats.”

The bigger problem, and the subject of most of the book, is that the federal architecture intended to be a check and balance against tyrants, is not poised to act. Congressional representation is fundamentally anti-democratic. In the Senate, politicians representing 18 percent of the national population—epicenters of Trump’s base—can cast 51 percent of the chamber’s votes. A Republican majority from rural states, representing barely 40 percent of the population, controls the chamber. It repeatedly thwarts legislation reflecting multicultural America’s values—and creates a brick wall for impeachment.

The House of Representatives is not much better. Until 2018, this decade’s GOP-majority House, a product of 2011’s extreme Republican gerrymanders, was also unrepresentative of the nation’s demographics. That bias still exists in the Electoral College, as the size of a state’s congressional delegation equals its allocation of votes. That formula is fair as far as House members go, but allocating votes based on two senators per state hurts urban America. Consider that California’s population is 65 times larger than Wyoming’s.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court’s majority remains in the hands of justices appointed by Republican presidents—and favors that party’s agenda. Most Americans are unaware that the court’s partisan majority has only changed twice since the Civil War—in 1937, when a Democratic-appointed majority took over, and in 1972, when a Republican-appointed majority took over. Senate Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s blocking of President Obama’s final nominee thwarted a twice-a-century change. Today’s hijacked Supreme Court majority has only just begun deferring to Trump’s agenda.

Neuborne wants to be optimistic that a wave of state-based resistance, call it progressive federalism, could blunt Trump’s power grabs and help the country return to a system embracing, rather than demonizing, individual dignity and fundamental equality. But he predicts that many Americans who supported Trump in 2016 (largely, he suggests, because their plights have been overlooked for many years by federal power centers and by America’s capitalist hubs) won’t desert Trump—not while he’s in power.

“When tyrants like Hitler are ultimately overthrown, their mass support vanishes retroactively—everyone turns out to have been in the resistance—but the mass support was undeniably there,” he writes. “There will, of course, be American quislings who will enthusiastically support an American tyrant. There always are—everywhere.”

Ultimately, Neuborne doesn’t expect there will be a “constitutional mechanic in the sky ready to swoop down and save American democracy from Donald Trump at the head of a populist mob.” Whatever Trump thinks he is or isn’t doing, his rhetorical and strategic role model—the early Hitler—is what makes Trump and today’s GOP so dangerous.

“Even if all that Trump is doing is marching to that populist drum, he is unleashing forces that imperil the fragile fabric of a multicultural democracy,” Neuborne writes. “But I think there’s more. The parallels—especially the links between Lügenpresse and ‘fake news,’ and promises to restore German greatness and ‘Make America Great Again’—are just too close to be coincidental. I’m pretty sure that Trump’s bedside study of Hitler’s speeches—especially the use of personal invective, white racism, and xenophobia—has shaped the way Trump seeks to gain political power in our time. I don’t for a moment believe that Trump admires what Hitler eventually did with his power [genocide], but he damn well admires—and is successfully copying—the way that Hitler got it.”

This article was produced by Voting Booth, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

 

Trump’s SS connection

The current American President is directly descended from the German Trumpf family. His ancestor in the direct line, was Johannes Trump(f), a native of the village of Kallstadt.

The same Trumpf family also produced one Arnold Wilhelm August Trumpf.

Arnold Trumpf was Vorstand Reichsverband Deutscher Landwirtschaftlicher Genossenschaften-Raiffensene.V and Hauptabteilungsleiter III of the Reichsnahrstand, Allegemeine SS since 1934.

This Trumpf was also a director of the Reichsbank.

SS background of Arnold Trumpf:

SS-Oberführer / Leutnant d.R. a.D.

Born: 27. Oct. 1892 in Gifhorn

Died: 7. January 1985 in Garmish-Partenkirchen

NSDAP-Nr.: 389 920 from 1, December 1930

SS-Nr.: 187 119

Promotions:

SS-Oberfuhrer: 30. Jan. 1939

Career:

Bei dem RuS-Hauptamt: (9. Nov. 1944)

Decorations & Awards:

1914 Eisernes Kreuz II. Klasse

 Kriegsverdienstkreuz II. Klasse ohne Schwerter

 Verwundetenabzeichen, 1918 in Schwarz

 Ehrenkreuz fur Frontkampfer

 Ehrendegen des RF SS

 Totenkopfring der SS

The RuSHA was founded in 1931 by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler

Among their duties were:

• Kidnapping of children suitable for Germanization
• Population transfers
• The persecution and liquidation of Jews

 

The RuSHA also employed Josef Mengele from November 1940 to early 1941, in Department II of its Family Office, where he was responsible for “care of genetic health” and “genetic health tests”

References

• http://de.metapedia.org/wiki/Trumpf,_Arnold
• Das Deutsche Führerlexikon, Otto Stollberg G.m.b.H., Berlin 1934
• Dienstaltersliste der Schutzstaffel der NSDAP 9, November 1944

 

 

Trump firm ‘refusing to pay’ legal bill for windfarm case

Scottish government says US president’s company has not accepted bill of tens of thousands of pounds

October 8, 2019

by Severin Carrell Scotland editor

The Guardian

Donald Trump’s family firm is refusing to accept a legal bill worth tens of thousands of pounds after he lost a lengthy court battle against a windfarm near his Aberdeenshire golf course, according to the Scottish government.

A Scottish court ruled in February this year the Trump Organization had to pay the Scottish government’s legal costs after his attempt to block an 11-turbine windfarm in Aberdeen Bay ended with defeat in the UK Supreme Court in 2015.

The Scottish government has said Trump’s firm has refused to accept the sum it had put forward or reach an agreement on costs, so the case is now in the hands of a court-appointed adjudicator.

“As the amount of expenses has not been agreed, we are awaiting a date for the auditor of the court of session to determine the account. We expect payment when this has been completed,” a government spokeswoman said.

The case is expected to be heard quickly. Sarah Malone, executive vice-president of the Trump golf resort, said claims the firm had refused to pay the sum sought by the government are incorrect. “This is not in our control,” she said. “The matter is in the hands of the auditors of the court of session and the Scottish ministers.”

Trump launched his campaign against the Aberdeen Bay windfarm in 2012 after claiming the “monstrous” project, a scheme to test wind turbine technologies, would ruin the view from his golf resort at Menie, north of Aberdeen, and dissuade guests from playing there.

He took his battle to the Scottish parliament, claiming the country’s heavy investment in onshore windfarms would ruin its tourism industry. In one famous exchange with MSPs, Trump insisted the committee did not need to call any witnesses to verify his claims.

“I am the evidence,” he said. “I’m an expert in tourism. I have won many, many awards … if you dot your landscape with these horrible, horrible structures, you will do tremendous damage.”

Trump fell out with Alex Salmond, the then first minister, who had championed Trump’s claims the economic benefits of his Aberdeenshire resort justified bulldozing a very rare dune habitat he was building it on, as well as overriding local planning rules.

After Trump lost the Supreme Court case in 2015, Salmond branded him a “loser” and Trump retaliated by describing the then former first minister as a “has-been”.

Trump alleged Salmond promised him the windfarm would never be built when the pair met for dinner in New York in 2007, before Trump won planning permission for the resort. Salmond denied doing so.

Trump made good his promise to fight the windfarm, which was backed by the Scottish government, the European Union and prominent major business leaders in Aberdeen who had previously championed his golf resort application, by launching a court challenge against it in 2013.

Trump’s lawyers alleged in court in 2014 that Salmond had illegally interfered with the windfarm project to ensure it was approved. Those claims were rejected by Scottish civil court judge Lord Doherty. Trump had also tried but failed to become a party in a separate legal battle to stop the Viking wind project, involving 107 turbines, being built on Shetland.

Trump’s critics claimed the property mogul was complaining about the windfarm to deflect attention from his financial problems in Aberdeenshire, and the dire impact of the 2008 global recession on its prospects.

Last month the company admitted the 2008 recession and the collapse in oil prices in 2014 had been the reason the resort was never developed in line with Trump’s original plans. The Trump International Golf Club posted a £1m annual loss for 2018 last week, the seventh loss in a row. Trump and his family firm have now loaned the business £43m and it has yet to turn a profit.

 

The U.S. Is Now Betraying the Kurds for the Eighth Time

October 7, 2019

by Jon Schwarz

The Intercept

The White House announced Sunday night that the United States is giving Turkey a green light to invade northern Syria, with the U.S. troops there now apparently pulling back to another area of the country. This is the scenario that Syrian Kurds have long feared. It will almost inevitably lead to a Turkish attack on Kurdish militias in Syria — fighters who loyally helped the U.S. destroy the Islamic State, but whom Turkey bogusly claims to be terrorists.

On Monday morning, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman asked why Donald Trump made this decision:

 

Paul Krugman

✔  @paulkrugman

 

So did Trump just betray the Kurds because

(a) He has business interests in Turkey

(b) Erdogan, being a brutal autocrat, is his kind of guy

(c) His boss Vladimir Putin told him to

Remarkable that all three stories are perfectly plausible.

 

60.7K

9:53 AM – Oct 7, 2019

What Krugman left out, however, is the most likely explanation: (d) Trump is president of the United States. Nothing in this world is certain except death, taxes, and America betraying the Kurds.

 

The U.S. has now betrayed the Kurds a minimum of eight times over the past 100 years. The reasons for this are straightforward.

The Kurds are an ethnic group of about 40 million people centered at the intersection of Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Iraq. Many naturally want their own state. The four countries in which they live naturally do not want that to happen.

On the one hand, the Kurds are a perfect tool for U.S. foreign policy. We can arm the Kurds in whichever of these countries is currently our enemy, whether to make trouble for that country’s government or to accomplish various other objectives. On the other hand, we don’t want the Kurds we’re utilizing to ever get too powerful. If that happened, the other Kurds — i.e., the ones living just across the border in whichever of these countries are currently our allies — might get ideas about freedom and independence.

Here’s how that dynamic has played out, over and over and over again since World War I.

1 — Like many other nationalisms, Kurdish nationalism blossomed during the late 1800s. At this point, all of the Kurdish homeland was ruled by the sprawling Ottoman Empire, centered in present day-Turkey. But the Ottoman Empire collapsed after fighting on the losing side of World War I. This, the Kurds understandably believed, was their moment.

The 1920 Treaty of Sèvres completely dismembered the Ottoman Empire, including most of what’s now Turkey, and allocated a section for a possible Kurdistan. But the Turks fought back, making enough trouble that the U.S. supported a new treaty in 1923, the Treaty of Lausanne. The Treaty of Lausanne allowed the British and French to carve off present-day Iraq and Syria, respectively, for themselves. But it made no provision for the Kurds.

This was America’s first, and smallest, betrayal of the Kurds. At this point, the main Kurdish betrayals were handled by the British, who crushed the short-lived Kingdom of Kurdistan in Iraq during the early 1920s. A few years later, the British were happy to see the establishment of a Kurdish “Republic of Ararat,” because it was on Turkish territory. But it turned out that the Turks were more important to the British than the Kurds, so the United Kingdom eventually let Turkey go ahead and extinguish the new country.

This was the kind of thing that gave the British Empire the nickname “perfidious Albion.” Now America has taken up the perfidious mantle.

2 — After World War II, the U.S. gradually assumed the British role as main colonial power in the Mideast. We armed Iraqi Kurds during the rule of Abdel Karim Kassem, who governed Iraq from 1958 to 1963, because Kassem was failing to follow orders.

We then supported a 1963 military coup — which included a small supporting role by a young Saddam Hussein — that removed Kassem from power. We immediately cut off our aid to the Kurds and, in fact, provided the new Iraqi government with napalm to use against them.

3 — By the 1970s, the Iraqi government had drifted into the orbit of the Soviet Union. The Nixon administration, led by Henry Kissinger, hatched a plan with Iran (then our ally, ruled by the Shah) to arm Iraqi Kurds.

The plan wasn’t for the Kurds in Iraq to win, since that might encourage the Kurds in Iran to rise up themselves. It was just to bleed the Iraqi government. But as a congressional report later put it, “This policy was not imparted to our clients, who were encouraged to continue fighting. Even in the context of covert action ours was a cynical enterprise.”

Then the U.S. signed off on agreements between the Shah and Saddam that included severing aid to the Kurds. The Iraqi military moved north and slaughtered thousands, as the U.S. ignored heart-rending pleas from our erstwhile Kurdish allies. When questioned, a blasé Kissinger explained that “covert action should not be confused with missionary work.”

4 — During the 1980s, the Iraqi government moved onto actual genocide against the Kurds, including the use of chemical weapons. The Reagan administration was well aware of Saddam’s use of nerve gas, but because they liked the damage Saddam was doing to Iran, it opposed congressional efforts to impose sanctions on Iraq. The U.S. media also faithfully played its role. When a Washington Post reporter tried to get the paper to publish a photographed of a Kurd killed by chemical weapons, his editor responded, “Who will care?”

5 — As the U.S. bombed Iraq during the Gulf War in 1991, George H.W. Bush famously called on “the Iraqi military and Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands, to force Saddam Hussein, the dictator, to step aside.” Both Iraqi Shias in southern Iraq and Iraqi Kurds in northern Iraq heard this and tried to do exactly that.

It turned out that Bush wasn’t being 100 percent honest about his feelings on this subject. The U.S. military stood down as Iraq massacred the rebels across the country.

Why? New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman soon explained that “Mr. Bush never supported the Kurdish and Shiite rebellions against Mr. Hussein, or for that matter any democracy movement in Iraq” because Saddam’s “iron fist simultaneously held Iraq together, much to the satisfaction of the American allies Turkey and Saudi Arabia.” What the U.S. wanted was for the Iraqi military, not regular people, to take charge. “Then,” Friedman wrote, “Washington would have the best of all worlds: an iron-fisted Iraqi junta without Saddam Hussein.”

6 — Nevertheless, the dying Iraqi Kurds looked so bad on international television that the Bush administration was forced to do something. The U.S. eventually supported what was started as a British effort to protect Kurds in northern Iraq.

During the Clinton administration in the 1990s, these Kurds, the Iraqi Kurds, were the good Kurds. Because they were persecuted by Iraq, our enemy, they were worthy of U.S. sympathy. But the Kurds a few miles north in Turkey started getting uppity too, and since they were annoying our ally, they were the bad Kurds. The U.S. sent Turkey huge amounts of weaponry, which it used — with U.S. knowledge — to murder tens of thousands of Kurds and destroy thousands of villages.

7 — Before the Iraq War in 2003, pundits such as Christopher Hitchens said we had to do it to help the Kurds. By contrast, Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg had this dour exchange with neoconservative William Kristol on C-SPAN just as the war started:

Ellsberg: The Kurds have every reason to believe they will be betrayed again by the United States, as so often in the past. The spectacle of our inviting Turks into this war … could not have been reassuring to the Kurds …

Kristol: I’m against betraying the Kurds. Surely your point isn’t that because we betrayed them in the past, we should betray them this time?

Ellsberg: Not that we should, just that we will.

Kristol: We will not. We will not.

Ellberg, of course, was correct. The post-war independence of Iraqi Kurds made Turkey extremely nervous. In 2007, the U.S. allowed Turkey to carry out a heavy bombing campaign against Iraqi Kurds inside Iraq. By this point, Kristol’s magazine the Weekly Standard was declaring that this betrayal was exactly what America should be doing.

With Trump’s thumbs-up for another slaughter of the Kurds, America is now on betrayal No. 8. Whatever you want to say about U.S. actions, no one can deny that we’re consistent.

The Kurds have an old, famous adage that they “have no friends but the mountains.” Now more than ever, it’s hard to argue that that’s wrong.

U.S. Republicans join Democrats to blast Trump’s Syria withdrawal

 

October 7, 2019

Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In a rare show of bipartisanship, the top lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate on Monday condemned President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from northeastern Syria, which could open the way for a Turkish strike on Kurdish-led fighters in the area.

Some threatened to introduce a resolution calling for Trump to reverse the move or legislation imposing sanctions on Turkey if it attacked Kurdish forces. Kurdish soldiers have helped the United States fight the Islamic State militant group, but the Turkish military has branded them terrorists.

“This decision poses a dire threat to regional security and stability, and sends a dangerous message to Iran and Russia, as well as our allies, that the United States is no longer a trusted partner,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, said in a statement calling on Trump to “reverse this dangerous decision.”

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement: “A precipitous withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria would only benefit Russia, Iran, and the Assad regime. And it would increase the risk that ISIS and other terrorist groups regroup.” McConnell was referring to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

McConnell also noted in his statement that most of the Senate voted in January for an amendment expressing bipartisan concern about the continuing threat posed by Islamic militant groups in Syria and support for a continued military presence.

“The conditions that produced that bipartisan vote still exist today,” he said.

The United States on Monday began pulling troops back from northeastern Syria’s border, effectively giving Turkey a green light to move into the area, after Trump’s surprise announcement on Sunday that he was withdrawing U.S. forces.

Many Congress members from both parties quickly condemned the move, a departure from the deep partisan divide that has opened at the U.S. Capitol, worsened by House Democrats’ decision to open an impeachment investigation of the Republican president.

On Monday, several Republicans better known for their strong backing of Trump also expressed outrage over the decision. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham called the situation “a disaster in the making” that showed the United States is an unreliable ally.

Graham said he would introduce a Senate resolution opposing the plan and asking for a reversal. He also said he and Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen planned to introduce bipartisan sanctions against Turkey if it invades Syria and will call for their suspension from NATO if they attack Kurdish forces.

Later on Monday, however, Trump threatened to destroy Turkey’s economy if it took its planned military strike too far.

Reporting by Makini Brice, Susan Heavey and Doina Chiacu, additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Lisa Lambert and Jonathan Oatis

 

White House blocks ambassador’s impeachment testimony; lawmakers vow subpoena

October 8, 2019

by Richard Cowan and David Morgan

Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Trump administration on Tuesday blocked an ambassador from testifying to the U.S. House of Representatives’ impeachment investigation of President Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine, a move top House Democrats vowed to counter with a subpoena.

The chairmen of three House committees leading the impeachment investigation said they would compel testimony from U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, a Trump donor who started his diplomatic job in July. The investigators are interested in what the ambassador knew and what his role was in Trump’s efforts to get Ukraine to probe former Vice President Joe Biden, who leads the field of potential challengers to the Republican president.

Through his lawyer on Tuesday, Sondland said he hoped “the issues raised by the State Department that preclude his testimony will be resolved promptly.”

“He stands ready to testify on short notice, whenever he is permitted to appear,” Sondland’s lawyer, Robert Luskin, said in a statement.

State Department officials could not be immediately reached to comment on what issues had blocked his testimony.

The impeachment probe is focusing on a whistleblower’s allegations that Trump used nearly $400 million in U.S. military aid to secure a promise from Ukraine’s president to investigate Biden, a leading candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. The whistleblower’s legal team was in the final stages of talks for the intelligence officer to speak to both Democratic and Republican-led congressional intelligence committees as early as this week, congressional officials said.

Representative Adam Schiff, the Democratic chairman of the House intelligence committee spearheading the impeachment probe, told reporters the move to block Sondland from testifying or turning over his text messages or emails was obstruction.

“We will consider this act today … to be further acts of obstruction of a coequal branch of government,” Schiff told reporters.

Sondland was a key witness for the House Foreign Affairs, Intelligence and Oversight Committees, whose staff had been expected to ask him why he became involved in dealings with Ukraine, which is not a member of the EU.

Trump has derided the impeachment inquiry and has denied he did anything wrong in a July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in which Trump pushed for an investigation of Biden and his son.

“I would love to send Ambassador Sondland, a really good man and great American, to testify, but unfortunately he would be testifying before a totally compromised kangaroo court, where Republicans’ rights have been taken away, and true facts are not allowed out for the public….to see,” Trump wrote on Twitter.

According to text messages released by House committee leaders last week, Sondland was heavily involved in contacts with Zelenskiy as he sought a meeting with Trump, and Ukrainian officials expressed concern at the administration’s decision to block U.S. military assistance for Kiev.

In one of the texts, for example, Sondland emphasized that Trump “really wants the deliverable.”

Following the allegations that Trump pressured Zelenskiy to investigate Biden while withholding the military aid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a formal impeachment investigation last month.

Concerns about the July 25 call, and possible Trump threats to Ukraine, came to the attention of Congress in a report by a whistleblower. On Sunday, lawyers said a second whistleblower had come forward to substantiate that complaint.

NEGOTIATIONS ON WHISTLEBLOWER TESTIMONY

Sondland’s appearance would have followed officials, including the former U.S. special envoy for Ukraine, Kurt Volker, and Michael Atkinson, the inspector general of the U.S. intelligence community.

Another career diplomat, Marie Yovanovitch, is scheduled to meet with the committees behind closed doors on Friday. Yovanovitch was the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine until Trump recalled her in May before her term was up, after the president’s supporters questioned her loyalty.

Congressional staff and lawyers for the first whistleblower, a U.S. intelligence officer, are close to making final arrangements for the witness to speak to Congressional investigators away from Capitol Hill as early as this week, a source close to the parties said on Tuesday.

The first whistleblower’s lawyers are in discussions with the Democratic-led House and Republican-led Senate intelligence committees, a Congressional official said. All the talks include efforts to keep the whistleblower’s identity concealed from committee members and the public.

Trump has called for the whistleblower to be publicly identified.

Asked whether House Republicans could take legal action to unmask the whistleblower’s identity, Republican Representative Jim Jordan said: “I think the American people have the right to know who the whistleblower is. But we’re not going to do that.”

The impeachment inquiry has heightened bitter partisan divisions in Congress. Trump’s fellow Republicans control the Senate where a trial on whether to oust the president would be held if the House ultimately votes to impeach him.

The White House was expected to tell Pelosi this week that it would ignore lawmakers’ demands for documents until the House holds a vote to approve the impeachment inquiry.

Pelosi says a vote is not needed, although Democrats say the House would back the inquiry if there were a vote.

Reporting by Richard Coawn and David Morgan, additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle, Mark Hosenball, Makini Brice, and Susan Heavey; Writing by Patricia Zengerle and Paul Simao; Editing by Scott Malone,

 

Clear majority of Americans support Trump impeachment inquiry, poll finds

• Support for inquiry among Republicans has jumped since July
• Schiff cites ‘strong evidence of obstruction’ –

October 8, 2019

by Martin Pengelly

The Guardian

A clear majority of Americans now support the impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump, according to a new poll. Even among Republicans, support for the inquiry has jumped 21 points since July.

The Washington Post-Schar School poll released on Tuesday shows 58% support for the impeachment inquiry being conducted by Democrats in the House of Representatives, with 38% against.

Almost half of those polled, 49%, said the House should impeach Trump and recommend that he be removed from office.

According to the newspaper, “previous Post-Schar School or Post-ABC News polls taken … this year found majorities of Americans opposing the start of an impeachment proceeding, with 37% to 41% saying they favoured such a step.

“The recent revelations appear to have prompted many Americans to rethink their position.”

An average of impeachment polls conducted by the website fivethirtyeight.com puts national support for impeachment at a little over 48% and opposition close to 44%.

The “recent revelations” driving public opinion are centered around Trump’s conduct towards the leader of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelinskiy, particularly a 25 July phone call in which the US president sought to have his opposite number investigate Joe Biden, a likely rival for the White House, over unsubstantiated allegations of corruption.

The motivation for a temporary freezing of military aid to Ukraine, mandated by Trump, is also in question. In the Post-Schar School poll, 58% of respondents said the freezing of aid mattered when judging Trump’s conduct.

The furious partisan fight over impeachment intensified on Tuesday when the Trump administration blocked the US ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland from testifying to House Democrats in private.

WhatsApp messages released to Congress show Sondland and Ukraine special envoy Kurt Volker, who recently resigned that post, were involved in attempts to manage Trump’s pressure on Zelinskiy.

Trump said on Twitter Sondland had been prevented from appearing before a “a totally compromised kangaroo court where Republican’s rights have been taken away, and true facts are not allowed out for the public”.

But the Post also pointed out indications that partisan attitudes to impeachment are shifting.

Nearly 80% of Democratic respondents now want Trump removed from office. Nearly 30% of Republicans support the impeachment inquiry, with nearly 20% favouring formal impeachment.

Independent support for the impeachment inquiry, a key factor, is at 57%, with 49% saying the House should vote to remove Trump from office.

Some Senate Republicans have criticised Trump’s behaviour over Ukraine but the upper chamber remains highly unlikely to convict the president should it be asked to do so.

Offering its “five takes from early polls on impeachment”, the Brookings Institution thinktank wrote: “Although the past two weeks have shifted the political terrain … the Democrats continue to face high odds against succeeding, and there is no guarantee that a failed effort to remove the president from office will serve their electoral interests.”

 

Trump left isolated as Republican allies revolt over US withdrawal from Syria

Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham lead condemnation of foreign policy move that could prove ‘disaster in the making’

October 7, 2019

by David Smith in Washington

The Guardian

Donald Trump was dangerously isolated on Monday as, in a rare rebuke, some of his most loyal allies revolted against his decision to withdraw US troops from north-eastern Syria.Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell led a chorus of Republicans who, having defended the president on almost every other issue – including over impeachment – decided to draw a line in the sand.

“A precipitous withdrawal of US forces from Syria would only benefit Russia, Iran, and the Assad regime,” McConnell said. “And it would increase the risk that Isis and other terrorist groups regroup.”

He added: “As we learned the hard way during the Obama administration, American interests are best served by American leadership, not by retreat or withdrawal.”

The criticism was significant because McConnell is usually at pains not to cross Trump even at his most capricious. Last week the Kentucky senator released a Facebook video promising to stop Democratic-led impeachment in its tracks.

The unusual fracture emerged on Sunday night when, shortly after a phone conversation between Trump and Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the White House announced removal of US troops from the Syria-Turkey border area. “Turkey will soon be moving forward with its long-planned operation into Northern Syria,” it added.

Critics of all political stripes have long feared that the move could open the way for a Turkish strike on Kurdish-led fighters in the area. Kurdish groups have fought alongside a small US presence in Syria to drive Islamic State militants from the region.

The Republican backlash was rapid and potentially unnerving for a president whose fate is tethered to the party and the assumption that it will acquit him in the Senate if, as widely expected, the Democratic-led House of Representatives votes for impeachment.

Lindsey Graham, chairman of the Senate judiciary committee, who has become an outspoken defender (and frequent golf partner) of Trump, did not acquiesce this time. Abandonment of the Kurds would be “a disaster in the making”, he said, and “a stain on America’s honour”.

Graham told Fox News: “I hope I’m making myself clear how short-sighted and irresponsible this decision is. I like President Trump. I’ve tried to help him. This, to me, is just unnerving to its core.”

Graham wrote on Twitter that if the plan goes ahead, he will introduce a Senate resolution opposing it and seeking reversal of the decision. He added: “We will introduce bipartisan sanctions against Turkey if they invade Syria and will call for their suspension from NATO if they attack Kurdish forces who assisted the US in the destruction of the ISIS Caliphate.”

Kevin McCarthy, the top Republican in the House, whose attempts to defend Trump’s phone call with Ukraine’s president have provoked mockery, said: “If you make a commitment and somebody is fighting with you, America should keep their word.”

Michael McCaul of Texas, the lead Republican on the House foreign affairs committee, also urged the president to reconsider. “The United States should not step aside and allow a Turkish military operation in north-east Syria,” he said. “This move will undermine our ongoing campaign to prevent an Isis resurgence and will ultimately threaten our homeland.

“Additionally, the United States needs to stay engaged to prevent further destructive involvement in the region from our adversaries like the Assad regime, Putin and Iran.”

Notably, senator Marco Rubio of Florida, reluctant to criticise Trump even when the president suggested that China investigate former vice president and 2020 election rival Joe Biden, was clear , describing the retreat as “a grave mistake that will have implications far beyond Syria”

And Nikki Haley, Trump’s former UN ambassador, admonished Trump without mentioning his name. “We must always have the backs of our allies, if we expect them to have our back,” she tweeted. “The Kurds were instrumental in our successful fight against ISIS in Syria. Leaving them to die is a big mistake. #TurkeyIsNotOurFriend”

Ominously for Trump, even conservative Fox News aired dissent. Host Brian Kilmeade described the pullout as “a disaster”, telling viewers of Fox & Friends: “Abandon our allies? That’s a campaign promise? Abandon the people that got the caliphate destroyed?”

Republicans who have contradicted Trump before did so forcefully again. Utah senator Mitt Romney described Trump’s announcement as “a betrayal”, adding: “It says that America is an unreliable ally; it facilitates ISIS resurgence; and it presages another humanitarian disaster.”

Romney and Democratic senator Chris Murphy issued a joint statement insisting Trump’s administration “explain to the American people how betraying an ally and ceding influence to terrorists and adversaries is not disastrous for our national security interests”.

Democrats also piled in but there was a lone voice of support for the president on Capitol Hill. Republican senator Rand Paul, long a critic of foreign intervention, said: “So many neocons want us to stay in wars all over the Middle East forever. [Trump] is absolutely right to end those wars and bring the troops home.”

Trump himself was undeterred by the blowback. Speaking at the White House on Monday, he said he has “great respect” for the prominent Republican critics.

And added: “People are extremely thrilled because they say it’s time to bring our people back home. We’re not a police force. They’re policing the area. We’re not a police force. The UK was very thrilled at this decision … many people agree with it very strongly.”

 

Facebook the focus of U.S. Justice Department and state AGs meeting

October 7, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. state attorneys general investigating Facebook Inc for alleged anti-competitive practices met on Monday with officials of the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission, New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement.

The group met with U.S. Attorney General William Barr to discuss the Facebook probe, as well as with Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and Makan Delrahim, who heads the department’s Antitrust Division, two sources said.

“Today, we held bipartisan conversations with attorneys general from around the country and key officials at both the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission about our investigation into Facebook,” James said.

Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson was also present and issued a similar statement.

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, whose state is one of the lead states on the probe, North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller also attended the meetings, their offices said.

James and Peterson reiterated concerns that Facebook and other big tech companies engage in anti-competitive practices, expose consumer data to potential data breaches and push up advertising prices.

The meeting came after Reuters and other outlets reported on Sept. 25 that the Justice Department would open an antitrust investigation of Facebook, which also faces probes by the Federal Trade Commission and the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee.

The state attorneys general probe of Facebook, announced in September, is being led by New York and includes Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee and the District of Columbia.

Following the meetings with top Justice Department officials, the state attorneys general met with department staffers, one source said.

Axios reported the plans for the meeting earlier.

Facebook, which owns one-time rivals Instagram and WhatsApp and has 2.4 billion monthly users, agreed in July to pay a $5 billion FTC settlement for various privacy violations.

Reuters and others reported in June that the Justice Department and FTC had divided responsibility for the companies being investigated, with the Justice Department taking Alphabet Inc’s Google and Apple Inc while the FTC looked at Facebook and Amazon.com Inc. The Justice Department later said it was opening a probe of online platforms, which would include Facebook.

Reporting by David Shepardson and Diane Bartz; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Dan Grebler

 

The Avalanche

Al-Qaida: The CIA’s Frankenstein Monster: Islamic Terrorism and the United States

“There will be no peace in the Mideast as long as the US supports Israel.”

Colonel James Critchfield, Senior CIA Arab specialist, January 11, 2000

In April, 1978, a Communist coup took place in Afghanistan:  Marxist members of the army deposed Sardar Mohammed Daud who had ruled since 1973.  But, the Marxists were split into two rival factions: Khalq (“the masses”) and Parcham (“the flag”).  The Soviets intervened, invading Afghanistan in December, 1979, and installed Parcham leader Babrak Karmal as President.  Afghan mullahs and warlords immediately declared jihad against the Communist “infidels.” This led to a war by Islamist jihad fighters, raised by the CCIA with the active financial support of the Royal Saudi government to field an army of Muslim guerrillas (many of them Arab mercenaries) that resulted in the eventual complete withdrawal of the Soviets in 1989. By 1982, the jihad to oust the Soviets from Afghanistan was fully underway with the mujahideen (“jihad fighters”) receiving $600 million per year from the CIA and the same, matching, amount from the Gulf states.  Between 1979 and 1988 the Central Intelligence Agency armed of thousands of Afghan moujahedeen (“freedom fighters”). The agency flooded Afghanistan with an astonishing array of extremely dangerous weapons obtained for them by the CIA through various arms dealer in the United States, and “unapologetically mov[ed] to equip and train cadres of high tech holy warriors in the art of waging a war of urban terror against a modern superpower,” in this case, the USSR. The number of Soviet soldiers killed (about 15,000), which undermined Soviet morale and contributed to the disintegration of the Soviet Union in the period from 1989 to 1990, was a measure of the CIA’s success

It should be noted that the tens of thousands of fanatical Muslim fundamentalists the CIA armed to harass and embarrass the Soviet Union are the same people who in 1996 killed 19 American airmen at Dhahran, Saudi Arabia; bombed U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998; blew a hole in the side of the U.S. destroyer Cole in Aden harbor in 2000; and on Sept. 11, 2001, flew hijacked airliners into New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon with an aborted strike at the White House. In July 1977, the head of Pakistan’s army, Mohammed Zia-ul-Haq, seized power and declared martial law, and in 1979, he hanged Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the president who had promoted him. In retaliation, Carter cut off U.S. aid to Pakistan. Pakistan provided, and sub-rosa is providing, the fighters with sanctuary, training and arms and even sent its own officers into Afghanistan as advisors on military operations. Saudi Arabia served as the fighters’ banker, providing hundred of millions with no strings attached. Several governments, including those of Egypt, China and Israel, secretly supplied arms. And the insurgency enjoyed the backing of the United States through the CIA.

The CIA’s greatest preoccupation was supplying the Afghans with something effective against the Soviets’ most feared weapon, the Mi-24 Hind helicopter gunship. The Red Army used it to slaughter innumerable moujahedeen as well as to shoot up Afghan villages.. After months of controversy, the Joint Chiefs of Staff finally dropped their objections to supplying the American Stinger, President Reagan signed off on it, and the “silver bullet” was on its way. The Stinger had never before been used in combat. It proved to be murderous against the Hinds, and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev decided to cut his losses and get out altogether.

As a result of their creation, funding and supply of the Islamic rebels, it is anticipated in the Department of Homeland Security that a Muslim will fire a U.S. Stinger low-level surface-to-air missile (manufactured at one time by General Dynamics in Rancho Cucamonga) from an area on the flight path at a major American airport into a jumbo jet. The CIA is known to have supplied thousands of them to the moujahedeen and trained them to be experts in their use.

Western analysts at the time also believed that the Soviet Union’s presence in Afghanistan was motivated by a desire to bring its forces closer to a strategic choke-point: the mouth of the Persian gulf, the conduit for most of the world’s oil supertankers. Afghanistan is separated from the Arabian Sea by the sparsely populated Pakistani province of Baluchistan. Had there been a breakup of Pakistan or a favorable regime change, Soviet forces would have access to Baluchi or Pakistani ports. This is consistent with accounts from the Mitrokhin archive, according to which the KGB had supported seccessionist/nationalist groups in Pakistan, and intensified its support after the invasion. The U.S. CIA, on the other hand, has an ongoiong program of destabilizing certain Middle East and southern Russian areas that they and their strong supporters in the American and British oil industry view as vital in the escalating struggle to control the rapidly diminishing world supply of oil. Some of the CIA plans have been successful, as in Georgia and the Ukraine but others have failed, such as Venezuela and the Chechny area. Afghanistanian involvement was, however, a great success, in the short run. The Russians were heavily involved in their own Vietnam at considerable cost to them while the CIA’s men won victory after victory, eventually compelling the complete and humiliating Soviet withdrawal. Shortsighted as usual, the CIA did not seem to realize, or care, that a strong American presence in the volitile area was important for the future and their callous and abrupt abandoment of their mercenary troops left a very bitter taste in the mouths of the men who later went on to form the Taliban and the dreaded al-Quaeda.

In the following compendium of studies of the growing problem of highly militant Muslim fundamentalists, we will consider the situation that developed in Afghanistan, the part played by both the CIA and the Saudi government in the founding, arming and funding of this highy militant,embryonic but well-armed religious movement, the current operational programs of Al-Quaeda and finally, a study of a parallel group with nearly identical motives and operational patterns as the current militants.

Though some may argue that what is past is of no interest, in fact, what is past is but prologue.

In early January of 1993, Islamic leaders in Iran, Algeria, Egypt, Afghanistan and the Sudan proclaimed a holy war against selected Christian nations. Primary amongst their enemies was the United States, mainly because of its unquestioning support for the state of Israel. Targets of opportunity were to be American financial interests throughout the world, American political and military personalities, (both inside and outside of the United States), prominent objects such as the World Trade buildings in New York, the Pentagon, the White House and the capital buildings in Washington and the following projected areas of strategic, political and sociological significance in both the United States and her m ain ally, Great Britain.. From papers siezed in Germany by anti-terrorist police units in June of 2004, the following potential American targets were listed:

• 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne)
• 2nd Vice Presidential DC Area Bunker
• 63 US-based Nuclear Power Plants
• AF New Boston Sat Tracking Station
• Air Force Satellite Control Network
• American Type Culture Collection
• American controlled oil pipelines in:
• Alaska, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Iraq
• American oil platforms in the Caribbean
• Anniston Chemical Depot
• Argonne National Laboratory
• Argonne National Laboratory-West
• AU Defence Signals Directorate
• Barksdale Air Force Base WSA
• Beale Air Force Base
• Big Hole Communications Bunker
• Bremerton Submarine facilities
• Brookhaven National Laboratory
• Bunker on White Rock Road
• Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant
• Camp David Presidential Retreat
• Capenhurst Phone-Tap Tower
• Central Intelligence Agency Headquarters at Langley, VA
• Charleston Naval Weapons Station
• Chesepeake Car Tunnel, Norfolk, VA
• Chevron Refinery, Pascagoula, MS
• Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center
• CIA Office of Special Technology
• CIA Special Training Center
• CIA/NSA Special Collection Service
• Cudjoe Key Air Force Station
• Defense Nuclear Weapons School
• Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant
• DIRNSA Residence
• Dixon/Stockton Naval Radio Facilities
• DoD WMD Contractors
• Downtown Manhattan Telephone Hubs
• Drug Enforcement Administration
• Edwards AFB/NASA Dryden Flight Center
• Fairchild Air Force Base WSA
• FBI Academy
• FBI CALEA Wiretap Homes
• Former NSA Rosman Station
• Meade SIGINT Operations Center
• Grand Coolie Dam system
• Grand Forks Air Force Base
• Hanford Nuclear Reservation
• Hoover Dam and associated power grid
• Horizon-Backscatter Radar
• HQ of the Homeland Security Dept.
• Indian Point Nuclear Generating Sta.
• Janet Airlines Terminal
• Jim Creek Naval Radio Station
• Kennedy Space Center
• Kennedy Space Center
• Kirtland Nuclear Storage Complex
• Lake Kickapoo Space Surveillance Station.
• Lawrence Livermore National Lab
• Letterkenny Army Depot
• MacDill AFB and Central Command
• Marshall Space Flight Center
• McGregor Naval Weapons Industrial. Reserve
• Medina Regional SIGINT Center
• Millstone Nuclear Power Plant
• Minot Air Force Base
• Mississippi River Bridges
• Moyock Naval SIGINT Station
• National Air Intelligence Center
• National Football League Stadiums
• National Reconnaissance Office
• National Reconnaissance Office HQ
• National Security Agency
• Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek
• Naval Maritime Intelligence Center
• Naval Missile Range Facility
• Naval Radio Station Driver
• Naval Security Group at Winter Harbor
• Naval Security Group San Diego
• Naval Security Group Skaggs Island
• Naval Station Guantanamo Bay
• Naval Station Norfolk
• Naval Submarine Base Bangor
• Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay
• Naval Submarine Base New London/NSGA Groton
• Naval Surface Warfare Center
• Naval War College
• Naval Weapons Station Earle
• Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach
• Naval/Marine Intel Training Center
• Nellis Nuclear Weapons Storage Area
• Nevada Nuclear Test Site
• New York City Water Reservoirs
• Newport Chemical Depot
• North Island Naval Air Station WSA
• NRO at Moffett Field
• NSA Bad Aibling DE Echelon Station
• NSA Friendship Annex
• NSA Geraldton AU Echelon Station
• NSA Kent Island Research Facility
• NSA Leitrim CA Echelon Station
• NSA Menwith Hill UK Echelon Station
• NSA Misawa JP Echelon Station
• NSA Neighborhood
• NSA Pine Gap AU Echelon Station
• NSA Sugar Grove US Echelon Station
• NSA Waihopai NZ Echelon Station
• NSA Yakima US Echelon Station
• NSGA at North Island NAS, San Diego
• Nuclear Device Assembly Facilities
• NYPD Ammunition Depot
• Oak Ridge National Laboratory
• Panama Canal locks
• Pantex Nuclear Warhead Plant
• Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant
• Presidential Homes in Texas and Maine
• Pueblo Chemical Weapons Depot
• Puget Sound Naval Shipyard
• Radio Station Cutler
• Ready Reserve Force
• San Nicolas Isle Missile Test Center
• Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant
• Site R – Raven Rock Governmental Bunker
• Statue of Liberty
• Strategic Petroleum Reserve
• Sugar Grove Echelon Station
• Tooele and Deseret Chemical Depots
• Twenty-eight US Airports
• Two Rock Ranch Communications Station.
• Army Intelligence Center
• US Army Chemical Center
• US Bullion Depositories
• US Nuclear Weapons Storage Areas
• US Secret Service Training Facility
• US Transatlantic Cable Landings
• US Transpacific Cable Landings
• US Vice Presidential Official Residence
• Warren Air Force Base
• Warrenton Training Center Site D
• White House
• Whiteman Air Force Base WSA
• Wilson Blvd Tech Centers, Arlington
• WIPP Nuclear Waste Target
• Yakima Echelon Station
• Yorktown Naval Weapons Station
• Yucca Mountain Project

Although U.S. Counterintelligence has proven to be less than competent in evaluating the organization, strengths and motivations of foreign terrorist groups, it appears reasonably evident that the groups who have prepared these target lists can be conveniently lumped under the name of Al-Qaida. What does the word “Al-Qaeda” mean? In Arabic, “Al-Qaeda” has a different meanings, among them “Base”, “Ground”, “Norm”, “Rule”, “Fundament”, “Grammar”. The exact meaning is dependent on the context in which it is used. It depends on the word which follows “Al-Qaeda” in the sentence. “Qawa’ad Askaria” is an Army Base. ”

In this context, the name Al-Qaeda is a blanket name for loosely knit groups of Islamic fundamentalists whose aim is to attack foreigners whom they view as hostile to and aggressive towards Islam. This loosely knit group of Musim jihadists are known by a number of names; al Qaeda, Al-Qaida,” the Base,” the Islamic Army, the World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders, the Islamic Army for the Liberation of the Holy Places, the Usama Bin Laden Network, the Usama Bin Laden Organization, Islamic Salvation Foundation, the Group for the Preservation of the Holy Sites

They have been accused of the following plots and actions:

• Plotted to carry out terrorist operations against US and Israeli tourists visiting Jordan for millennial celebrations. (Jordanian authorities thwarted the planned attacks and put 28 suspects on trial.)
• Conducted the bombings in August 1998 of the US Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, that killed at least 301 persons and injured more than 5,000 others.
• Claims to have shot down US helicopters and killed US servicemen in Somalia in 1993 conducted
• Three bombings that targeted US troops in Aden, Yemen, in December 1992.
• Attacks on commercial centers in New York City, the Pentagon in Washington and
• An abortive attack on the White House, also in Washington in 2001, attacks on trains in Madrid, Spain, attacks on London subway targets.
• Linked to the following plans that were not carried out:
• to assassinate Pope John Paul II during his visit to Manila in late 1994,
• simultaneous bombings of the US and Israeli Embassies in Manila and other Asian capitals in late 1994,
• the midair bombing of a dozen US trans-Pacific flights in 1995,
• an attempt to assassinate President Clinton during a visit to the Philippines in early 1995.
• Continues to train, finance, and provide logistic support to terrorist groups in support of these goals.

 

DoTox G.m.b.H.

 

A small sampling of our many books and devices designed for the individual who wants privacy

REV 071   GPS Surveillance? How to detect it and how to beat it                               $9.95

HIW 329   How to find if your TV is being bugged and how to stop it                        $9.95

HIW 302   Trapdoors in your computer? How to detect and block                          $9.95

OER 815   Universal bug detector: Shows all of the bands, not just a few                   $525.00

REV 037   New computer firewall will destroy any system seeking entrance

$125.00

OER 835   Phone book of all current surveillance frequencies monthly updates

$60.00

OER 801   Fax surveillance detector and universal blocker                                            $75.00

HIW 319   Catalog of telephone, fax and computer scramblers. Unbreakable               $9.95

HIW 347   How to detect if your mail is being scanned or opened                        $9.95

HIW 322   Which servers allow open surveillance of your computer. A full list

$9.95

OER 890   R-75 Audio-Oscillator.Upgraded and double the strength of the OER 350

$250.00

HIW 33    The Official Federal Watch List.                                                                  $9.95

HIW 001   A complete listing of safe offshore banks and savings companies

$24.00

HIW 308   Counter-surveillance, wiretap detection and countermeasures.               $15.00

HIW 327   Detection of night vision, infrared scopes and cameras.                               $9.95

HIW 358   Night vision, electro-optic devices and infrared scopes and cameras.        $9.95

HIW 339   Communication jamming systems.                                                                      $9.95

HIW 398   The USIA Directory. Your business advisors in foreign countries                $65.00

HIW 356   The Harvest System                                                                                           $20.00

HIW 307   Internet II: An FBI  History                                                                               $9.95

 

 

The CIA Confessions: The Crowley Conversations

October 8, 2019

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 publication.

Conversation No. 63

Date: Friday, February 7, 1997

Commenced:  11:55 AM CST

Concluded:  12:35 PM CST

RTC: Hello there, Gregory. I hope you’re feeling better than I am.

GD: You have a cold?

RTC: No, getting old. Some advice, Gregory. Don’t get old. The worst part isn’t forgetting things, it’s remembering. And knowing you are helpless to correct the present. But there still is correcting the past.

GD: Historians do that all the time. Hitler lost so Hitler was always wrong. Roosevelt won so Roosevelt was always right. Saints and sinners. It depends entirely on who wins.

RTC: True. I told you I once met Roosevelt, didn’t I? My father got me in to see him. Old and shaky, but still clever. Phony old bastard, one thing to the face and another to the back, but very shrewd in political circles. He set up a powerful movement, but as soon as he hit the floor, they started to dismantle it.

GD: Müller was filling me in on the anti-Communist activities he was involved in. McCarthy and all of that.

RTC: Well, Franklin put them all in, and Truman threw them all out. Most of them were Jewish so we were all accused of anti-Semitism, but we held all the cards then and they knew it, so criticism was muted. It wouldn’t be that way now, but times change.

GD: They always do and a smart man changes with them.

RTC: Some times the older forms are better.

GD: Yes, but people grow tired of old forms and want new ones. A revolution might mean more money and power for some and death or disgrace for others. The wheel does turn.

RTC: So it does. I wanted to give you a little background here, Gregory, about you. You see, at one time, these others wanted to set up a sort of private think tank. They wanted to call it after the oracle of Delphi. Tom Kimmel, Bill Corson, the Trento ménage, Critchfield and others. But they wanted me to be the honcho.

GD: And why you?

RTC: I have the connections with the business community. I could get big money people behind the idea. It was a sort of miniature Company if you will. Money and power. We always called it the Company because it was a huge business conglomerate. But anyway, this think tank would bring all of us lots of money. Unfortunately, I didn’t feel too happy with the make up of it. Kimmel is pompous and entirely too much obsessed with his late Grandfather; the Trentos are very lightweight, but aren’t really aware of it; and poor Bill is a perpetual wannabe, running around trying to sound like a great keeper of various unknown secrets. We tried Costello. Tom liked him because of his Pearl Harbor writings, but I never liked him. There was a screw loose in his brain somewhere. And of course being a fairy didn’t improve his objectivity. I gave up on John after his trip to Reno. He hated you, you know.

GD: My heart is breaking. I should have given him some of my old shorts to chew on.

RTC: Now do let’s be serious, Gregory. John was a spiteful person but I got the impression he thought you were much worse than he was and since he was hiding his perversions, he probably thought you could see through him. I think people get that impression: That you watch and see too much. Of course, it doesn’t help that you run your mouth and say terrible things about self-made saints. Anyway, I didn’t want John involved and then I began to have some interest in you. Of course, I couldn’t put you forward for the group because Kimmel detested you and Bill didn’t know where to turn. He liked you but always listened to others in making up his mind. When I ditched Costello and Bill knew you and I were talking, Kimmel went through the roof. He didn’t like me talking to you and spent much time getting his oafs at Justice to ring me up and tell me how terrible you were. Tom likes to get others to do his dirty work, I noticed long ago. The Trento family didn’t know you and Bill is actually afraid of you. So the private study group for profit more or less died a natural death. I wanted to include you but they did not so there it ended.

GD: I would have had no problem working with you but not with the others. Bill is a lightweight, Kimmel a gasbag and the one Trento book I tried to read was hopeless.

RTC: Yes.

GD: ‘And slime had they for mortar.’—Genesis 11:3.

RTC: Citing Scripture, Gregory? I thought the Devil did that.

GD: He does. Daily. Now we call him Pat Robertson.

RTC: Where’s your Christian charity?

GD: I sold it to buy a gun.

RTC: Yes. Well, to get back to the subject here, which is the fact that these gentlemen do not like you, but I do. They have stopped yapping about you because I told them to shut up, but no doubt they still run around behind my back and try to stab you in the back. Never to the face, but in the back.

GD: Not to change the subject, Robert, but why do you really call it the Company?

RTC: Because it’s a huge business. We are one of the most powerful businesses on the planet, Gregory. We make enormous sums of money, have established a tight and very complete control over the media, have the White House doing as we tell them to, overturn foreign governments if they dare to thwart our business ventures, and so on.

GD: Business ventures?

RTC: A generalized case in point. A left-wing nigger gets into power in the Congo. The Congo has huge uranium deposits. Will Moscow get the uranium? The Belgian businessmen come to us for help. We agree to help them and we get into a civil war and murder Lumumba. One of our men drove around with his rotting corpse in his trunk. The head of the UN starts to interfere in matters, so we have an aircraft accident that kills him very dead and stops the interference. We tell the President about the uppity nigger but not about poor dead Dag. We tell them what we want them to hear and nothing more.

GD: And the business aspect?

RTC: The drugs, of course, bring in astronomical amounts of loose money. And if some rival group cuts into the business, we get them removed. Ever read about huge heroin busts somewhere? Our rivals going down for the third time. All of this is part and parcel of the Plan.

GD: Sounds like the Templar’s Plan.

RTC: Ah, you know about this, do you? Which one of the seven dwarves enlightened you? Not Kimmel, but probably Bill.

GD: Actually no. I was speaking of the Plan of the Templars…

RTC: Ah, you see, you do know that. You knew Allen was an initiate, didn’t you?

GD: Well, not in so many words. Didn’t the Templars get disbanded for having too much money? I think they killed DeMolay…

RTC: Now don’t change the subject here. They were never really disbanded, but they went underground. Do you know how much money they had? The French only got a little bit of it. Now let me know, who told you?

GD: You did, actually. Just now. I was thinking of Umberto Eco’s excellent Foucault’s Pendulum and his discussion of the survival of the Templars.

RTC: I missed that one. Is that an old book?

GD: No. Late ‘80s, if I remember. Brilliant historical pastiche. Eco’s an Italian scholar and the book is wonderful, although I doubt very few people in America would understand a word of it. They don’t teach history in our public schools, only political correctness. You can no longer look for the chink in someone’s armor anymore because Asians are terribly offended and you dare not call a spade a spade.

RTC: Yes, yes, I know all that. Stunts the mind.

GD: It’s my impression, based on my visits to your town, that they don’t have any minds to stunt.

RTC: Don’t forget, Gregory, that I was in government service as well.

GD: There are always exceptions, Robert.

RTC: Many thanks for your kindness, Gregory. The Templars have always had money but they have been an underground power for so long, they are set in their ways. We are public and they are not, so there is a sort of joint partnership here. As I said, Dulles was taken in when he was in Switzerland. One of the Jung people, as I remember. They can open doors, Gregory, don’t ever think they can’t, but they are always out of the sunlight.

GD: Like the mythic vampires.

RTC: Custom and usage, as they say. We have common interests, believe me.

GD: Catholic group?

RTC: Not anymore.

GD: Well, I had an ancestor in the Teutonic Knights, and they really never went away. And the Knights of Malta still have some influence in Papal matters. Interesting about the Templars, though. I thought Eco was just a good story teller. Could be. Secret societies have always intrigued parts of the public. The dread Masons, for example. Of course, before the French Revolution, they had a great deal of clandestine power in France, but now I think they’re just a high class fraternal organization. Müller told me that the Nazis were obsessed with the Masons, but when the Gestapo got around to really investigating them, they found nothing sinister at all. Just a social organization and nothing more.

RTC: You know quite a bit about so many interesting things. I can see why you got on with the kraut and why the rat pack here hates you. I must ask you please not to discuss this business with anyone. I would also ask you not to put it into anything you write concerning me. The Kennedy business is bad enough, but no one would believe a word of the other business.

GD: I agree, Robert. But if I have to give up a really interesting story, can I get more information on Kennedy?

RTC: Yes, I can send you more. I did give Bill a copy of the Russian report, but nothing more. He started bragging about this, so I basically shut him down. Of course, it doesn’t really say anything, but once is enough when someone starts to leak out material they have sworn to keep silent about.

GD: And have you tested me?

RTC: I don’t need to. You aren’t trying to make points with the bosses like they are. I hate to say it because I am friendly with all of them, but they are just a bunch of useless ass kissers. You certainly are not.

GD: No, I am not. I don’t trust anyone in the establishment. My God, you ought to listen to what the Landreth people were telling me, [I want to wet myself,] that they can put me on the cover of Time magazine. Of course I really believe them and I would like nothing better than to have my picture on the cover of Time magazine. It used to be a good news magazine but now it’s worse than People Magazine which sells very well in the supermarket checkout lines. And right next to the National Enquirer which is probably written by the same people.

RTC: I think the day of the printed paper or magazine is dying. We still have our hand in on that game. We moved to television, but that is also losing out, so we are moving into the Internet. But don’t ask me about that, because I know nothing about it. We view the Internet as very dangerous because we can’t begin to control it. Set up a few people with money and push them. Hope for the best, you know. but doubtful.

GD: The Templars story is interesting, mainly because I read Eco and know something about their early days.

RTC: When the conspiracy idiots babble on about secret societies, they don’t have any idea what they’re talking about. They go on about the CFR and the Masons but they don’t know the half of it.

GD: Did you ever read Mills’ The Power Elite? Came out in ’54 and is a little out of date but very good.

RTC: Can’t say as I have. Didn’t you mention this once? No matter. I might have but years ago. Speculative?

GD: Concrete, realistic and so on. The reason why the American public is so wrapped up in conspiracy theories is because they have lost all faith in their government and most of our major institutions such as banks, the press, mainline religion and so on. I remember the so-called OPEC panic when the price of gas at the pump went up every ten minutes. There was no OPEC crisis, but just the oil companies creating a panic so they could make huge profits. Ever notice, Robert, how the price of gas at the pump soars just at the beginning of summer when everyone drives on trips and then comes down in winter when no one drives? And how the price of fuel oil drops off in summer when no one needs it but then shoots up every winter when everyone does? Tell me, are these accidents?

RTC: Of course not, Gregory, of course not.

GD: I’m surprised that people don’t pick up on this.

RTC: They won’t pick up on anything at all and what if they did? A little talk here and there and they pay the bills.

GD: And the sheep get shorn again.

RTC: Yes, if you want to put it that way. That’s why they’re there, isn’t it?

(Conclusion at 12:35 PM CST)

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

 

Encyclopedia of American Loons

Jeanna Reed

 

Hardly a mover or shaker in the antivaccine autism quackery movement, Jeanna Reed primarily came to our attention through her role in the tragic tale (murder) of Alex Spourdalakis. Reed is affiliated with – or runs, we are not sure – Autism is Medical, an autism biomed quackery group with a website full of familiar antivaccine and autism biomed nonsense, include sections on mitochondrial disorders and banners asking if autism is vaccine injury. It demonstrably is not.

And the Spourdalakis connection? It is admittedly not entirely clear, but it seems very likely that Alex Spourdalakis’s mother was subjecting him to autism biomed quackery on the advice of Reed, causing horrible suffering. Reed is apparently convinced that autism is caused by underlying physical conditions (bowel disease, mitochondrial dysfunction and/or “autistic enterocolitis”, a non-existent condition introduced by Andrew Wakefield and Arthur Krigsman), which is false, and it seems like she may have fooled Alex’s mother into thinking that following various quack treatments would remedy her son’s condition. Of course they wouldn’t. Reed is, in that case, to a large extent, to blame for the subsequent murder of Alex Spourdalakis. The antivaccine movement admittedly spun the story somewhat differently.

Diagnosis: A ghastly excuse for a human being. Oh, we are convinced that she thinks she is helping, but she isn’t, and has long since crossed the line where stupidity becomes indistinguishable from malice.

 

John Rabe

 

John Rabe is a fundamentalist maniac and conspiracy theorist affiliated with Truth in Action Ministries (TiAM), and yes, we could really end this entry right there. Rabe is also a regular cohost, with Carmen Pate, of TiAM’s radio program Truth that Transforms, which is an instance of (the generalized version of) Badger’s Law (https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Badger%27s_Law).

In 2012 Rabe said that idolatry and the worship of government is to blame for the protests and recall movement in Wisconsin over Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s push to eliminate the collective bargaining rights of public workers, calling it a “theological issue” (apparently climate science is idolatry, too, according to TiAM – policies targeting climate change could, according to Rabe, lead to the return of communist dictatorships that left “over 100 million people killed”). According to Rabe Wisconsinites who have rallied against Walker’s move are people who have made government “a replacement for God” and moreover that government employees shouldn’t look to government to provide for them. Yeah, it’s not exactly unexpected given the source, but it is worth taking a moment to think about how delusionally insane it is.

Then, of course, there is the anti-gay tirades, including complaints about “activists” with a “harmful agenda” that attack “two thousand years of traditional marriage” by striking down homosexual marriage bans like Proposition 8, as detailed in Rabe’s and Jerry Newcombe’s “documentary” “We the People: Under Attack”. The courts’ discovery of “so-called ‘right to sodomy’ [not so-called by the courts, obviously] in the Constitution” comes of course on top of all their other sins, such as having “silenced voluntary prayer in schools,” which is emphatically not illegal anywhere in the US. Honesty has never been a central virtue for people like John Rabe. As for homosexuality, Rabe has likened it to “bondage” and even “slavery” because it is a communist, liberal un-Godly ploy. Indeed, Marxism and sex seem to be deeply intertwined in the twisted mind of John Rabe, which is why he thinks sex education, for instance, “isn’t just basic biological information; this is really ideological indoctrination form a very liberal standpoint.” He has also claimed that supporters of marriage equality are “unscientific” when it comes to family stability and have “completely ignored” evidence showing that same-sex parenting harms children. Then he lamented the irony that bigots like him often get labeled “unscientific” for their nonsense. The irony is, indeed, fascinatingly many-layered here.

Rabe, who regularly toys with dominionism, is also a fan of the myth of the US as a Christian nation, claiming that “[i]t’s the Christian foundation of our foundation that brought us freedom.” This is, of course, false, but Rabe and TiAM are unsurprisingly not above using fake Founding Father quotes to suggest otherwise.

The decidedly silly commenter chiming in here may or may not be the same John Rabe.

Diagnosis: Yes: bigoted fundie conspiracy theorist. We seem to be repeating ourselves here, but then there is little new or surprising in Rabe’s moronic rants.