56 Comments

Good article Mark. This is very insightful. Thank you.

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Thanks. I like to be useful.

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Agree something changed for Johnson and Trump, the question is what. The Israeli support makes more sense than the blackmail hypothesis. Or perhaps it is just the usual uniparty corruption and the pressure and donations reached high enough for Trump and Johnson to change positions.

The Iranian missile attack timing fits. An Intel briefing may have frightened Johnson and Israeli supporters, since they know the reality Iran used only a small fraction of its strength and Israel and friends barely intercepted most the attacking drones and cruise missiles, with the ballistic missiles mostly getting through, and some even evading.

For Trump perhaps he made a deal, Lyndsey Graham would shut up on abortion, and Trump would get more Billionaire Jewish donations, in exchange for Trump to give his tepid support for the deal that benefits Israel.

The Democrats went along since they wanted Project Ukraine to get past the November election, and including Ukraine funding hides the politically poison for Democrats vote for Israeli Aid. And it politically damaged Johnson, showing him wishy washie.

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I'm pretty sure Lyndsey's position on abortion is, Whatever it takes to defeat or coopt America First.

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The modern war paradigm has shown the necessity of mass boots on the ground.

I wonder if the censorship program is a precursor to conscription, a bit like banning the Russian language in Ukraine after 2014.

It’s interesting that the US is beginning to look like the Ukraine, where the alternative media has become the Russians and need to be purged.

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TheZman had an intriguing column today where he questioned the legitimacy of Michael Tracey. His basic theme was that back in the good old days our intelligence agencies manipulated domestic politics by suborning media and universities.

He then goes on to argue that today it’s even easier to manipulate politics through social media. You don’t even have to pay the popular influencers directly. You can manipulate their income through their donation options. In fact, you don’t even have to pay them. You can use intelligence bots to boost the opinions you want to spread. As TheZman says, the internet is a wilderness of mirrors. You don’t know who to trust. Even the influencer can be compromised without knowing it.

Is Tracey legit? TheZman thinks he probably is, but there is no way to know. All of this serves to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

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A standard misinformation tactic is to deliberately inject a falsehood, into otherwise correct information. Or claim the source is tainted. Or label it as misinformation or disinformation.m

It’s all part of 5th generation warfare.

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Is the Zman legit?

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Probably as much as Michael Tracey or any of his pals in the Young Turks who employ him.

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Who knows? He writes some excellent stuff about the insanity around us. I take him as I find him.

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That's typically my approach. I gave up looking at Tracey for months because he was way off base IMO re what's going on in Gaza. As I pointed out, he's keen on criticizing Trump, but not terribly enlightening on what influences Trump is responding/reacting to. OTOH, he is providing a partial perspective that not may others are providing. I cite progs that I totally disagree with on virtually everything, if they have something useful to say that I'm not finding on the "right". The fact is the GOPe has embraced war for the past several decades, even as much of their base has come to recognize that the Neocons are playing us for their own purposes. Many "conservative" sites owe their existence to Neocons, so we cast our nets wider for info and interpretation, critically. Why do I seem to be the only one so far pointing out Gaetz's bigger ambitions, that may be influencing his positions know that he's no longer going to be representing the families of service members in Pensacola who don't want more wars? Instead we have people hinting without evidence at Massie being compromised. Tracey at least sees something out of the ordinary going on with Gaetz, who tries to pretend that he's immune to the influences of political ambition.

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Exactly! Who do you trust? In defense of TheZman though, given his body of daily blog posts and Gab sniping for the last several years, I hardly think he's being boosted or controlled by the intelligence agencies. If anything, I'd rather suspect that he'd be a prime target for cancellation. But I guess you never know. Maybe they allow someone like him to suck up the time of dissident minded people because they've gamed the situation and think there is some advantage to people following him.

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Last several years? Tracey has been doing independent journalism for 15 years--he has a track record. Sometimes I agree with him, sometimes I disagree, but he's genuine. But length of time hardly seems a solid criterion.

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First, I'm not arguing that Tracey is legitimate or not legitimate, and neither is TheZman. The point that TheZman is making is how would we know? Tracey has 250K followers on Twitter. Less than 1% of American users have more than 3K. How do you get 250K followers? As you say, he's an independent journalist. As TheZman sees it, he has no visible means of support, yet he lives in NYC and travels the world. How does that work?

Second, I didn't refer to TheZman's several years of blogging as if the number of years online is the major qualifier of whether or not someone is legitimate. (Actually his archive goes back to 2013.) My point was that he too has a track record, and that it's unmistakably dissident. To ask whether he is legitimate or not is to ask how someone can write dissident blog posts 5 days a week for years on end, produce a weekly 1 hour podcast, and somehow not be a legitimate dissident thinker.

Third, as to his legitimacy, he been interviewed by various other podcasters. His name is Christopher Zeeman. He's also been an invited speaker at an one of the American Renaissance conferences. There is no doubt that he is real person who holds views that most people find controversial.

Fourth, he's political commentator, not a journalist. His legitimacy doesn't lie in whether or not he reports accurate facts. When you asked "Is the Zman legit?" I assumed that you were asking if he is controlled or not, and that you were implying that he might not be legitimate because he's funded by a source that's using him for their own purposes, whatever they might be. I suppose that's possible, but it's hard to image, given nature of what he continually writes about.

Lastly, I just want to get back to this question of who can we trust. Pepe Escobar says that the Israelis tried to detonate an EMP weapon over Iran and that the Russians shot down the F35 carrying the weapon. Scott Ritter says that's impossible. Escobar says he has reconfirmed the claim with multiple sources. Larry Johnson says Escobar is an honest journalist and that he's just reporting what his sources say. Escobar and Johnson both say that maybe intelligence agencies are running a psyop on us. What's going here?

As you have noted, Conservative Treehouse says MTG and Massie have been compromised by the deep state, and that their call to vacate Johnson is a plot to turn the House over to the dems. It's plainly obvious that Johnson has betrayed his own party. It shouldn't be a surprise if MTG and others move to vacate Johnson. But now who do we believe? Are they honest? Or are they now working for the dems?

I could go on and on and on about the lies we are fed on a daily basis. Thus, when I saw TheZman's comments on Tracey, I thought, OK, what's going on here. Is Trump really working for the war party, or am I being played by an influencer who is trying to discredit Trump.

At this point I'm just numb to it all, but to end on a positive note, I read your work everyday because I find a lot of genuine insight here. I also appreciate the chance to throw in an errant comment now and then!

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Interesting series of comments, JRob.

I now question nearly everything, too. Kinda drives my wife and some friends crazy.

Sometimes I even wonder where an anti-Deep State retired career FBI guy is coming from... :-)

There's no question, however, that the Government (and its messengers) have lied to the People repeatedly, and are still lying. I take the commentary and conclusions of analysts across the spectrum (including those who post here) and use that old, time-honored trick of cross-examination to attempt to assess credibility and ferret out the truth. Given the powerful forces in play, and human nature, there really is no other way.

That's why the Government (and allied) efforts to suppress speech and cancel speakers is so dangerous. It could very well destroy all that is good that we have built up over centuries. "No joke!", as the Idiot-in-Chief likes to say.

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If you read my published translations and years of previous commentary at MIH you should have a pretty good idea. My undergraduate degree was in philosophy--Thomist--before I went to law school. Those translations were done while I was still in law school or working for the FBI, and I was also reading political philosophy--including the likes of Voegelin, Loewith, Huntington and much more--long before I retired (2006), which led to my skepticism about Neoconism. Also for the record, I made myself persona non grata long ago at "conservative" sites. For example. In 2008 I defended Putin's preemptive invasion of Georgia, attacked NATO meddling in the Black Sea, pointed out the historical reality of the Nakba. None of this is new for me. It's just that I did that in comments at other sites and kept MIH separate. The Russia Hoax is what changed that.

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A reread of The Project For A New American Century would be timely. Speaker Mike Johnson even resurrected the hoary term “Axis Of Evil” to describe our updated arch enemies. Are we being pitted against the Muslim and Communist worlds in order to attain mutually assured destruction? And a revived “Greater Israel” to serve as the Globalist haven worshipping technology- our silicon calf?

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Getting to “who rules America,” what “they” want, and the war they want, you may find this short Karp interview worthwhile (and this is what David Goldman, who worked for LaRouche, is really about, now posing as a “conservative”):

https://youtu.be/XoOr3Th9238?si=y1isuHkqNP3NbVpw

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I took your recommendation and listed to this video. While he sounds measured, informed, and centrist, he revealed himself as a progressive and when he asserted extremist of left and right he only focused on the right. Big tell that he doesn't really believe in his own B.S. His Israel/antisemitism commentary is, to be blunt, typical Zionist bull shite. I've found Goldman to be a poser and just a mirror image of Karp.

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The important aspect is not really left or right, or even some of his views. He represents the DIGITAL elite/sphere: replace the humans. As important they want to up the ante on warfare against the rest of the world - think of DIGITAL as a parasite at the trough: complete surveillance and use of tech to kill humans.

These people are being listened to in DC: Palantir contracts with defense and intelligence agencies.

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Thanks for you reply. I work in the tech industry and I get much of the Digital stuff everything in the world I work in is AI/ML, Iot, etc. I found Karp less smarmy than Hirari, but underneath that air of supremacy and measured tone is the same psychopatholgy that seems to thrive in these Zionists. Yes, they want to kill, not all us, they need some human slaves to maintain their transhumans and pick the fruits and vegetables in Gates' gardens.. I read an interesting book about 20 years ago by Charles Van Doran, "The History of Knowledge" and in the last chapter at the end he predicted the next great human rights battle would human rights for robots. Hmmmmm

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The next Culture War is: what about the humans (souls) in a robot (artificial souls) world. Humans are not systems. We have souls. Radically different. What AI is doing is forcing us to figure humans out: something we have not done in Modernity. The tech needs the humans, more than we need the tech…Karp and the others want to eliminate/kill. Will we tolerate this attitude once we all become more aware of it?

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And at the WEF--Yuval Hariri and such.

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Mark, the WEF is a goat rodeo, so I have been told by several that go and won’t go anymore. Sex, drugs, collecting $ and having zero clue about what is actually happening. It’s become a television show: entertainment with white papers on how to preserve the past. It’s obsolete. Hariri is all about how to live out our fantasy lives, as he is living out his. He gets interviewed by others that have zero clue and need content but no one serious takes him seriously. Virtually zero impact.

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Have been watching the past few evenings a highly-intriguing German drama series ("Preis der Freiheit" (2019), streaming (somehow) in Anglophone markets as "Berlin Wall") that depicts the crescendo of corruption during the three-year run-up to the collapse of East Germany. Plotline is, basically, government elites, knowing that the train-wreck was inevitable, engaging in all sorts of extralegal transactions (selling individuals' freedom to wealthy relatives in the West, allowing clandestine hazmat disposals, indiscriminate arms dealing, etc.) in order to amass a gold-backed "rainy day fund" for when it all hit the fan.

I remember thinking, while still in college when this was all going down, about how almost-comically-corrupt those Soviet Bloc countries were. Not laughing so much anymore...at least, the Ossis had a place to land, as crappy as it initially was.

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Thanks. That pretty much confirms what I thought I knew.

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BTW, regarding Matt Gaetz, my assumption is that his volte face has to do with his plans to become a Senator--requiring, duh, an appeal to the entire state of FL. Currently he only has to be concerned with voters from a vastly different demographic area:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida%27s_1st_congressional_district

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Somehow "shut up about genocide or we'll beat the sh*t out of you" seems like a losing tactic in the long run. I'm looking forward to the Dem convention in CG, but frankly I hope the same happens to the GOP.

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I can't wait till they have to experience the roadwork construction on the in-bound Kennedy.

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They seem to have their act together already re shutting down O'Hare. I was caught in one of their practice shutdowns last week.

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BREAKING: Police are now beating students at the University of Southern California.

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Karen Bass... how dare she.

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Megatron @Megatron_ron

BREAKING: Governor Abbot has sent in State Troopers to the University of Texas

The students chant “You don’t scare us” and “Get off our campus”.

Politicians in the USA who are completely bribed and controlled by Israel are trying to crush the protests against the Biden government, which supports the genocide of Israel.

Phil Giraldi : Israel Has Biden Trapped

https://youtu.be/q1a6F6cCcOo

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Good time for Trump to be tied up in court for awhile.

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Apr 24
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Antifa sitting this one out?

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The fact that they're suppressing it is your tell that they've gone off script.

Where are the brick deliveries?

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Perfect. The idea that this is BLM all over again doesn't hold water.

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That would be the Luongo take. But then there's this guy, too:

https://youtu.be/cSJkW_yam8I?t=317

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An America First Party unconnected to Trump has actually existed in recent years. On 4/16/2018, it lamented Trump bombing Syria in April 2018 saying doing so was opposite of "America First" foreign policy: 4/16/2018, “Syria Attack at Odds with an America First Foreign Policy:"... "It is with sadness that we witnessed President Trump’s effective repudiation of the principles of an America First foreign policy last week, with his attack on a nation which is not threatening the security interests of the United States, and which is a natural ally with us in opposing Al-Qaeda.“…In 2002 The America First Party invited Ohio Rep. Jim Traficant to speak at its convention. Traficant was born in and is beloved in his home town of Youngstown, Ohio, at one time was Sheriff of Mahoning County. Sadly, he died in an accident in 2014. After his release from 7 years in prison, Traficant spoke at a 2009 Tea Party rally in Ohio where he was greeted with cheers of “Traficant for President,” and “We’re with you Jim.” In 1995 then-Democrat Traficant proposed a bill in the House to relocate 10,000 US troops from Europe to the US southern border: "May 1996, “America First,“ James Traficant, Chronicles Magazine (subscription) “Protecting Our Borders,"..."Last year [1995] I introduced legislation that would authorize the Pentagon to redeploy American troops stationed in Europe to assist federal law enforcement officials patrolling America’s Southern border. Every day dangerous criminals pour into our country through our border with Mexico--unchallenged."...Traficant had been in prison for 7 years for financial crimes, was released on 9/2/2009....https://americafirstparty.org/news/2018/PressRel2018_04_16.shtml

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The Reclaim the Net newsletter is normally great for that kind of thing but they haven’t done such an analysis yet. https://reclaimthenet.org/category/free-speech

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