LEBANON TODAY .....

At times we may be accused of promoting and believing in conspiracy theory, but the reality on the ground reinforces our position and our vision of political philosophy and public policy planning for countries. From the start, what was required was the complete destruction of Lebanon on the economic, cultural, political and societal levels. This project comes after the complete destruction of Syria. The goals are now known to everyone. The goal is to get rid of the confrontation states through internal destruction, after Israel's wars failed to achieve this goal.

350,000 depositors whose money was confiscated in Lebanon's public and private banks, those within the general framework cannot access their accounts and can only benefit from it a little as these banks allow. On the other hand, the country lacks the most basic necessities of life such as electricity, gas, medicine and water, in the most complex crisis that Lebanon has experienced since the civil war.

The exchange rate of the dollar in the Lebanese market also rose to record levels, reaching 39,000 Lebanese pounds per dollar. On the political level, the government formation is stuck and there are no prospects for a breakthrough soon. All of what has been mentioned may suggest that the country is slipping into more chaos and turmoil and a fire is burning under the ashes in preparation for a new round of chaos and the collapse of institutions and entering into a new cycle of violence and instability.

Few days ago, a Lebanese girl attacked a Lebanese bank with a weapon (it was later said that it was just a toy) and demanded to release her frozen balance in the bank. The story in its first lines comes in a natural context. The girl is considered compelled to do such work, especially since it is said that she has a sister who has cancer and is waiting for treatment on the hospital bed. However, if we go a little further in analyzing and linking the events to each other, it will become clear to us that there is preparation for a new round of violence and chaos in which regional and international players are interfering.

While President Michel Aoun is speaking positively about the border demarcation talks with Israel and how the new proposals and joint talks have secured great demands on the Lebanese side, today a fierce campaign is underway in Israeli circles to torpedo the agreement from its foundation. Of course, reliance in this file is on spreading chaos in Lebanon, starting by exploiting the needs of depositors and ending with the file of the Lebanese presidency.

Officials in Lebanon should not be overwhelmed with optimism in the demarcation file, as the battle is long and delicate, and they must understand the conspiracies being hatched against them and be civilized for all of them. The resistance has created a pivotal equation in the border demarcation process that everyone should benefit from, which is the equation of “oil and gas wealth or war.” Every Lebanese official should benefit from this equation to the maximum.

Lebanon, which is going through a systematic process of starvation against its people from regional and international players on one side, and Israel on the other, must know that the solution lies in the first place in the acquisition of oil and gas fields. These wealth will provide the country with enormous job opportunities, in addition to being a prelude to establishing a solid infrastructure that will provide Lebanon with gas and electricity. And then we will talk about exports and their positive impact on the citizen's livelihood.

In conclusion, do not go unnoticed by the new Israeli statements based on Israel's readiness to secure 10 percent of European gas this winter. Therefore, you, the Lebanese government and people, must be patient and maintain the new equation to benefit from Lebanon's wealth. "Our fortunes or war".

This analysis was written originally for Arab readers by Dr. H. Abul EZ, the translation and moderate adjustments to suit the blog by me. Thanking all my good readers for following up. 

WHILE WE PRESENT OUR RESPECTS TO THE VICTIMS, WE STOPED ASKING WHO AND WHY ....

 

The Triumph of the Official Narrative: How the TV Networks Hid the Twin Towers’ Explosive Demolition on 9/11 By Prof. Graeme MacQueen and Ted Walter Global Research, September 09, 2022 AE911Truth 8 September 2022

This article is the second installment of a two-part research project we began in July 2020 with the article “How 36 Reporters Brought Us the Twin Towers’ Explosive Demolition on 9/11.” In that article, our goal was to determine the prevalence, among television reporters on 9/11, of the hypothesis that explosions had brought down the Twin Towers. Through careful review of approximately 70 hours of news coverage on 11 different channels, we found that the explosion hypothesis was not only common among reporters but was, in fact, the dominant hypothesis. Our second question, which we set aside for the present article, was to determine how, despite its prevalence, the explosion hypothesis was supplanted by the hypothesis of fire-induced collapse. In this article, we shall concentrate not on reporters in the field, as in Part 1, but on the news anchors and their guests who were tasked with discovering and making sense of what was happening. As we trace the supplanting of the explosion hypothesis with the fire-induced collapse hypothesis, we witness the great shift toward what quickly became the Official Narrative. We do not see our task as trying to discover whether the Official Narrative of 9/11 is true or false. In the 21 years since the attacks took place, it has been proven beyond all reasonable doubt, we believe, that the Official Narrative is false. While we support and participate in the further accumulation of evidence for this position, as well as the presentation of this evidence to the public, we believe it is also important to look into how the triumph of the Official Narrative was accomplished. If we are able to discover this, we will greatly advance our understanding of the psychological operation conducted on September 11, 2001 — and, thus, our understanding of how other psychological operations are perpetrated on the public. Our Argument Our argument is that two strategies were employed to accomplish the triumph of the Official Narrative: (a) Where news anchors were sincerely dedicated to discovering the facts of the situation, Strategy One was employed. This strategy involved directly confronting the news anchor of the relevant network with an “expert” who would explain that the destruction of the Twin Towers was caused by structural failure induced by the airplane impact and the ensuing fires. This would allay concerns about reports of explosions in the towers and would domesticate the news anchor so that he or she would stop raising problematic questions. Of course, as we can see clearly today, these experts could not possibly have known what they so confidently proclaimed. In fact, we can now see that their explanations were simply wrong. But their interviews seem to have accomplished their goals on 9/11. To illustrate this strategy, we shall choose as our chief examples CNBC and CNN, whose anchors showed the most interest in the explosion hypothesis, and we will also look at CBS and NBC. (b) Strategy Two was used on all networks, regardless of the stance of the news anchors. This strategy involved developing two related narratives — two engaging, emotionally charged stories — that appeared to explain the day’s horrors and offered viewers a set of active responses. They were not scientific hypotheses and were not directly related to the destruction of the Twin Towers, but indirectly they appeared to favor the fire-induced collapse hypothesis more than the explosion hypothesis. By the end of the day, they had silenced the explosion hypothesis. The first of these two stories is what we shall call the War on Terror narrative. This grand narrative, resonant with older storied events, explained how the righteous, the civilized, the United States had been subjected to an act of war from the evil, the uncivilized, the terrorists supported by nations in the Middle East and Central Asia; and how American leaders must respond to this aggression with an initiative that was warlike on many levels. This narrative was articulated early (before noon on 9/11) and was repeated throughout the day. It established the foundations of the Global War on Terror. The second story is the Bin Laden narrative, which nested within the wider War on Terror narrative and was used to transform myth into plausible history. According to this narrative, an evil Saudi national based in Afghanistan had masterminded the attacks. It is extremely important to grasp the relationship between these two narratives and what may seem as detailed — even esoteric — facts about the destruction of the Twin Towers. If the buildings were destroyed by pre-planted explosives — as we believe has been demonstrated through years of research — the two narratives, however rational and moral they appeared to be to many television viewers, are profoundly misleading in their political analysis and profoundly immoral in their prescriptions. A very good assessment through a different angle, but factual and sober by two academic and research specialists.  As always my many thanks to all, stay safe and well.

THE MEDIA YAWNS AT THE ISRAELI ARMY'S DEATH SQUADS

 By Gideon Levy

August 02, 2021"Information Clearing House" - "Haaretz" Israeli terror is at it again. The Israel Defense Forces’ death squads chalked up another successful week: four bodies of innocent Palestinians piled up between the two Fridays. There doesn’t seem to be a connection between the four incidents in which four sons were killed, but the link cannot be broken. And the killing goes on , 8 now in less than a month.

In all these cases, soldiers chose shooting to kill as the preferred option. In all four cases another way could have been chosen: Arrest them, aim for the legs, don’t do anything or simply don’t be there at all. But the soldiers chose to kill. It’s probably easier for them that way.

They come from different branches of the army with different backgrounds, but they share the incredible ease with which they kill, whether they have to or not.

They kill because they can. They kill because they’re convinced that this is how they’re expected to act. They kill because they know that nothing is cheaper than the life of a Palestinian. They kill because they know that the Israeli media will yawn and not report a thing. They kill because they know that no harm will come to them, so why not? Why not kill a Palestinian when possible?

They killed a 12-years old boy and a 41 year-old plumber. They killed a 17 years old youth and a 20 years old young man attending a funeral, all in one week. An Israeli slogan during the 1948 war went "To arms, every good man," Leading later to the concept of the IDF's "Purity of arms." four in one week, for no reason, with no terrorist facing them. Four executions of young men with dreams, families, plans and loves. 

None of the four endangered the soldiers, certainly not in a way that justified lethal fire. Thirteen bullets at a car driving by innocently, carrying a father and his three small children. Shooting a plumber holding a wrench and claiming that he was “moving rapidly toward the soldiers.” Three bullets at the stomach of a 17-year-old who was on his way to take his brother home.

All this can be called terror; there is no other definition. All this can be called the actions of death squads; there is no other description. It sounds horrible, but it really is horrific.

It could be less horrific if the Israeli media bothered to report on it, possibly shocking Israelis. It could be much less horrific if IDF commanders took the necessary steps given their army’s murderous recklessness. But most of the media believed that the killing of a child interests no one or is unimportant, or both, so this shocking incident wasn’t reported on.

If the soldiers had shot a dog – also a shocking act, of course – it would have attracted more attention. But a dead Palestinian child? What happened? Why should it interest anyone, why is it important?

 “Are you working for the Arabs?” journalist Yinon Magal maliciously tweeted, addressing Haaretz’s Hagar Shezaf, virtually the only journalist who covered the boy’s funeral. This is the new journalistic ethos: Reporting the truth is tantamount to working for the Arabs.

Gideon Levy is an Israeli journalist and author. Mr. Levy writes opinion pieces and a weekly column for the newspaper Haaretz that often focus on the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. Levy has won prizes for his articles on human rights in the Israeli-occupied territories.

Unfortunately these same acts, are still in force on almost daily basis, with no impunity or review by the authorities or the judicial system, of course not the media, whether local or international, this is simply a way of life for both the Palestinians and the Israelis in their own homeland.....  In Lebanon crimes are on the rise because people are hungry and many don't have enough to feed their children, in Palestine the killing is mostly ideological and part of the army's training, becoming a real part of daily life for all, in the U.S. killing people is in good part because owning machine guns and heavy armament is a fun hobby that many cherish and adore, exercising the killing is a different story..... 

This article was published and  copied from world News Daily, Information Clearing House. With all due respect.        Thanking all my good readers.

A MESSAGE FROM GAZA.......

 

“Can we testify to repeated crimes? »

Can we describe a crime in the ruins? Or rather, can we survive under such a deluge of fire in Gaza? As a Palestinian citizen of Gaza, I am accustomed to witnessing the atrocities of the occupation. However, a week after the ceasefire, it is a difficult task to describe the darkness of these three dark days and the degree of devastation that befell civilians during this umpteenth Israeli military aggression in early August 2022.

A large-scale military assault from August 5-7, 2022, with airstrikes and artillery fire against residential homes, farmland and civilian infrastructure. As a result, 49 Palestinians, including 17 children and 4 women were murdered, and 360 others were injured.

Our calamity has known causes, but the international community lets it grow and drink the blood of women and children plunged into darkness for three days. Let everyone know that our resistance for our survival and our desire to take back the reins of our freedom confirm our devotion to this magical and beautiful land, which the lies of Israel and certain foreign media complicit in crimes cannot shake.

Distressing, terrifying these three days of deluge of fire on women and children  ! Their blood would not be enough to write the slow agony of a civilian population in its survival. Despite the ceasefire, this population remains traumatized, the psychological shock of the deafening noise of the bombardments is etched in our memories, how is this possible?  ? It was a real carnage, no one was safe, everyone was waiting under this deluge of Israeli fire for death to come and snatch them.

Personally, I did not expect this surge of bombs. But, for the Israeli apartheid regime, nothing is sacred. These criminals stalk the Gaza Strip with force and violence at all times.

During this aggression, the Israeli occupation army has sown chaos, terror and horror in a region which has already suffered an inhuman and illegal blockade for more than fifteen years, and which is surviving in an unprecedented economic crisis. The real Israeli objective was to break the remarkable will of this civilian population which, despite the blockade, four previous offensives and the humanitarian crisis, continues to resist and to exist.

Like all the population, I lived in anguish under the fire of bombardments every three to four minutes, deprived of electricity 20 hours a day, with a minimum of water to survive, few medicines and food products. Despite the lack of means, overwhelmed and under pressure, I gave priority to my duty to write a daily report of the assessment of the aggression, which I sent every day, via the Internet and social networks, to all the solidarity in the world and to associations supporting Palestine.  

A very difficult task in these times of blitzkrieg , due to the permanent power cuts. I testified every day, even every hour, thanks to a generator that provides some electricity. I intervened on several radio and television channels, in newspapers and on various French-speaking sites which solicited me unceasingly, without counting the daily telephone calls coming from French-speaking countries.

I can say that, during this aggression, I was filled with joy at each return of the electric current, if only for two hours a day, to send the balance sheets and to charge the batteries which gave me two or three hours of current in more.

The transmission abroad of the daily assessment of the Israeli aggression was for me essential, because I am very keen on popular solidarity towards our cause, in particular to reveal the extreme brutality of the Israeli bombardments and the silences of the complicit countries.

As soon as the power returned to my house, at any time of the day or night, it was the commotion at home. I decreed a “ state of emergency ”, with a formal ban on speaking to me or asking me anything .

I am convinced of the importance of this international solidarity. I wanted to inform of the sacrifice of all my obligations as father and husband, I had to inform the foreign media of the daily toll of the killing of women and children with total impunity by the Israeli army. By taking maximum advantage of the electric current, I gathered information from several local sites, photos and medical sources, to transmit them abroad.

During the three days of Israeli bombardment, I managed to send my daily report to thousands of people. And even though I didn't have time to read and respond to all the messages they sent to me, oh how!, I was comforted by all the support of the peace and justice activists who spoke tirelessly for the Palestinian cause all over the world.

My daily life during this attack was very trying. Just shopping at the market every day to feed my family, or visiting neighbors to check on them, carried major risks of dying. No matter where you were in the Gaza Strip, death hung in the sky. The rest of the time, I remained locked up at home to follow the information of the foreign media, which discovered that the Palestinian people were martyred, whereas this has been going on for 73 year !

As soon as the electric current came back, I applied myself to doing my duty as a Palestinian citizen in front of my computer by my reports, to counteract the disinformation of certain French-speaking media with great listening. I did my duty to inform, so that the sacrifice of our martyrs, men, women and children, would not be stifled by the media echo chambers in the pay of the occupation. I was doing my duty to inform for Palestine martyred by an army of criminals, which has defiled our land to its roots. I was doing my duty to inform, because information is part of the Palestinian struggle and resistance.

However, like my people during this attack, I was overwhelmed by several feelings: pride, confidence, strength, courage, fear, anger, indignation, concern and relief. Despite the blood, the tears and the pain, I gained a great number of new friends, I discovered extraordinary people from several countries with whom I keep in touch, united people who want to support Gaza and Palestine.

Defenders of the Palestinian cause who have been deeply concerned about the evil fate that this occupation and its complicit allies have been inflicting on Palestine, and Gaza in particular, for several decades. I had the chance to speak live at several demonstrations in French-speaking countries during and after the Israeli aggression. Their slogans (“Palestine will live, Palestine will conquer”) overwhelm us with courage and resistance, because we know that behind us there are millions of people in the world who express their anger against the despicable crimes committed by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip.

I am proud of the volunteer team of the French-speaking channel "Gaza La Vie", and the site "Gaza en français", these motivated young people who, at the risk of their lives, informed the French-speaking world to denounce the horrors of Israeli aggression, by posting videos and photos on their social networks.

Two days after the ceasefire, I accompanied these young people to organize animation and psychological support activities to reassure deeply traumatized children. It is imperative, during these dark hours, to bring love and humanity to these little angels, who were already deprived of everything before this new carnage.

Despite these three days of terror during which Gaza endured the unbearable, the two elements that reassure me are, on the one hand, the prodigious will and the exemplary patience of our civilian population despite the scale of the genocide, and, on the other hand, international mobilization and popular support all over the world. Our population appreciated this solidarity which helped to put pressure on the governments.

To bend civil society in Gaza, the Israeli apartheid regime relied on three objectives :

– military objective by bombardments without distinction of targets ;

– psychological objective by sowing terror ;

– economic objective with the reinforcement of the closure of the sea, land and air crossings of Gaza, which has been under blockade for more than fifteen years, in order to deprive civilians of food and medicine ;

But the Gaza Strip has never yielded and it will not yield if the Israeli army attacks it again, because this army of criminals has never respected the human rights of the Palestinians. Especially since ten days after the interruption of this new aggression, nothing has changed in Gaza, which is still suffering from the inhuman blockade imposed by this apartheid regime.

Fundamental questions remain : occupation, colonization, blockade, and apartheid. So that as long as the Israeli crimes are not judged and as long as the impunity of this colonial regime lasts, a new genocide is preparing.

The strong mobilization for Gaza all over the world, during and after the recent Israeli aggression, is highly appreciated by our people. It must be continued because, before and after this attack, the situation is still marked by the absence of prospects.

Despite the appalling human losses and massive destruction, despite these three days of terror, I am more than ever determined to continue the resistance through writing, information, education and work with young people for an opening on the world, with the unwavering support of sympathizers abroad who campaign tirelessly for a Palestine of freedom and lasting peace, a peace that will come first and foremost through justice.

I'm sorry as I couldn't find the author's name or proper address, but I'm sure it's authentic,  as always my profound thanks to all my good readers, stay safe and well. 

UNITING PROPAGANDA MACHINES .........

  

Putin’s Propaganda Machine Is What America’s Right Wants

“National security leaders“ must fight it at home

Kevin Baron

March 11, 2022

Take a good look at the propaganda machine. The total control of information and messages from the airwaves to the internet, the fawning over the infallible leader—it’s all quite impressive.I’m not talking about Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin. I’m talking about America’s right-wing media, on display at two conferences in Orlando last week, and every night on cable TV. 

It’s hard to watch Russia's version of journalism and not think of the American right-wing version of it. Indeed, the connections are both direct and philosophical—and of import to national security leaders. But there’s a deeper connection as well. America’s right-wing partisans wish they had what Putin has: control of the information and messages that flow to the body politic. That’s not an accusation; it is their goal. 

In the past few months, we’ve seen just how closely related the two are, Putin’s propaganda and our own. Before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, America’s right-wing denied the looming threat as a wag-the-dog conspiracy concocted by deep-state Democrats and centrist Republicans, or tried to blame Joe Biden. Russian propaganda outlets gleefully put those clips into heavy rotation. 

Two weeks into the invasion, far-right leaders continue to sow doubt on war reporting, claiming or implying there is an elite conspiracy to keep Americans uninformed, and often parroting Russian propagandists’ distortions and lies. “We have to question everything we’re told,” said a recent chryon on Tucker Carlson’s Fox show. Steve Bannon, who ran Donald Trump’s first presidential campaign, declared on his own show that Americans should not support U.S. aid for Ukraine “until we get a full briefing of what is going on, with facts.”

So, while commentators and security legends by now have called the Ukraine war a wake-up call to Americans for many reasons, allow me to add one more: If you look upon Russia’s loyalist media with horror, then it’s time to wake up with equal concern toward America’s own rising partisan propaganda machines. There have already been calls for security professionals to add America’s right-wing extremism to their portfolios. It’s time to do the same for domestic right propaganda. 

Even Bad Propaganda Can Work

These Russian media messages are resonating with the American right-wing, whose media personalities are happily carrying Moscow’s water. On Wednesday, for example, former Trump campaign spokeswoman A.J. Delgado, said the news that Russian bombs have targeted civilians was “probably bullshit.”The American right, is trying to undermine public trust in institutions and sources that challenge their power, so it has turned its sights on the world’s journalists.The American right-wing also has tried to put a leash on social media platforms.

A disheartening number of Russians are cheering on Putin’s war. The painted letter “Z” symbol on Russia’s military hardware in Ukraine has fast become a nationalist virtue signal. Others compare the “Z” to the Nazi swastika, but to us it has echoes of the “Punisher” logo that has become a totem of right-wing militia who thought they’d overthrow the U.S. government with the Jan. 6 insurrection. 

To be sure, plenty of Americans are confused already. On Monday, Tucker Carlson used a clip of a mixed-martial-arts fighter to deliver a dose of his contention that Republicans who support Biden’s decision to help Ukraine fight off Putin’s invasion are guilty of “lunacy.”

“You know, here’s my first thought: I’m not going nowhere to fight none of these wars for these politicians,” Bryce Mitchell says in the clip. “I’m staying at home and when the war comes to Arkansas, I will dig my boots into the ground and I will die for everything I love and I will not retreat.” He added, “I don’t know what’s going on, to be honest, brother. I really don’t. There’s been so much stuff, and I don’t think anyone knows…” before drifting off into a tirade about Hunter Biden, tax dollars to “bribe” Ukraine, and homeless veterans.

The Fox host put words into the fighter’s mouth to say that Mitchell’s folksy opposition to Biden’s intervention in Ukraine is correct because the U.S. military is supposed to “defend” only America. “That’s why we call it the Defense Department. It is not called the Department of Nation-Building or the Bureau of Trans-Evangelism,” Carlson said, throwing in another far-right culture war non sequitur.

Carlson is the right’s most popular messenger, watched by an average of 15 million American each night, which is sometimes twenty times as many as, say CNN’s Anderson Cooper. “Tucker Carlson is the only person on TV talking any sense about Russia / Ukraine. Our leaders ignore him at their (and our) peril,” tweeted one rightist pundit who used to work for Carlson’s Daily Caller.

Yet national security elites seem determined to do so. Search some of the top U.S. think tanks websites: Carlson is mentioned just seven times by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, nowhere by the Center for a New American Security, but 85 times by the conservative American Enterprise Institute. At the Council on Foreign Relations’s website, he is mentioned 42 times—but only eight since 2020. It’s almost as if some never learned their lesson from 2015, when the "national security establishment" hoped they could make Trump go away by ignoring him.

Or when everyone ignored the right’s openly-stated plans for the Jan. 6 insurrection, perhaps the most troubling national security incident on American soil since the 9/11 attacks. That day was made possible by 40 years’ worth of right-wing, anti-government propaganda.

State media watch

How can Putin think he can get away with blatant propaganda, in today’s world? It wasn’t long ago that Trump thought he could. By installing loyalists to run Voice of America and its sister overseas news services, Trump briefly turned the United States’ information organizations into his own personal PR shop. One Trump-era broadcast into Cuba called George Soros “a nonbelieving Jew of flexible morals.” 

Fearing that Trump would order these organizations to target Americans with propaganda, security experts at NYU’s Brennan Center for Justice urged lawmakers to act. Congress failed to do so. The only thing that stopped Trump was losing re-election. If he hadn’t, would VOA and Radio Free Europe now be partnered up with Putin’s TASS? 

The First Amendment limits what the U.S. government can do to the free press. U.S. troops are not going to invade 30 Rockefeller Center and take over NBC News. But they don’t have to as long as the rightist propaganda machine is able to chip away at trust in American journalism—and as long as Americans fall for it, and elect politicians who love to do it.

When rightist freshman congressman and media darling Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina won his seat in November, he boasted that he was focused on rhetorical bomb-throwing, not governing: “I have built my staff around comms rather than legislation.” Cawthorn was elected while trumpeting false claims about election fraud, predicting “bloodshed”  and envisioning “having to pick up arms against a fellow American.” Last weekend, he was caught on tape calling Volodymyr Zelenskyy a “thug” whose government “has been pushing woke ideologies.” 

Real fake news

While politicians come and go, the lasting damage is in the lingering popularity of Soviet-style agitprop propaganda from loyalist right-wing media operations. These outlets are de facto paid actors, directors, and scriptwriters of a carefully crafted fiction that would make the Kremlin proud. They are reporters that operate in pretend newsrooms like Steve Bannon’s Breitbart, Carlson’s Daily Caller, Heritage Foundation’s Daily Signal, and upstarts like One America News Network and Newsmax. They are different from older conservative magazines like the National Review and Weekly Standard, whose writers did not try to impersonate straight newsrooms. 

The new wave of rightist newsrooms is so blatantly troubling that some have questioned whether it crosses legal boundaries for broadcast news. In December, however, Gigi Sohn, Biden’s controversial nominee to head the FCC, promised Congress she would not heed liberal calls to revoke the broadcast licenses of conservative outlets, even though she advocated considering it as a private citizen and has called Fox “state-sponsored propaganda.” FCC rules say it is “illegal for broadcasters to intentionally distort the news.” Newsmax and OANN backed Sohn, who awaits confirmation. (It’s not a new idea. In 2017, Trump suggested  the FCC revoke the broadcast license of NBC News over a news segment he disliked. The FCC commissioner at the time said he did not have that authority.) 

Fox, the cable TV network may have smelled an opportunity to throw caution to the wind. The nation’s most popular network fell off with Trump loyalists but has won many back by shifting even further to the right. Out went several of Fox’s true journalists, notably Chris Wallace, who had seen enough. In came more firebrands and personality hosts, like Jesse Watters. This is how extreme Fox’s rightward shift is. 

Right-wing media is clear about where it’s heading. Two weeks ago, Fox and several of its competitors set up shop on the Orlando expo floor of CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference. Why should national security leaders care? Because they influence Americans. As CPAC leader Matt Schlapp said, “There is no other conference like this in the world. We’re the largest annual conservative conference in the world on politics, and now we do two in this country, and we’re doing them overseas.” 

It was the weekend before Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. At CPAC, where Trump once hugged the American flag—keynote speakers hammered Biden’s foreign policy as “weak,” many declining to criticize Russia or Putin. Across town, at the even-farther-right’s America First conference, they chanted, “Putin! Putin!” A subsequent poll found Trump voters had a better opinion of Putin than Biden.

What is to be doneThe tricky question is, in a society built on free speech, what can be done?

The 1948 Smith-Mundt Act forbids the U.S. government to use propaganda on Americans at home. But it shouldn’t have to. The answer to bad speech is, as ever, more speech—but focused speech. Defense and national security leaders can use time-tested methods to marginalize extremist messaging. Five years ago, two legal scholars drew upon Cold War lessons to lay out three steps for fighting Russian disinformation: First, the national security community must respond to partisan propaganda with a collective, and preferably nonpartisan voice. Second, it must organize its leading voices to flood the zone with messages that marginalize disinformation. Finally, credible leaders must actively respond to propaganda, countering the lies and calling out those who spew them. These sure sound like they could help at home.

The good news is, this thinking already exists in the U.S. government. The recommendations paraphrased above were written by co-authors Ashley Deeks, a University of Virginia law professor now serving as a White House associate counsel and deputy legal counsel on Biden’s National Security Council, and Sabrina McCubbin, a UVA student who is now a lawyer at the Pentagon. And that’s just one idea. 

 A longer than usual article, depicting a very true and factual situation here in America and the world, intensifying and making full use of the propaganda machines through fake news and very biased systematic brain washing of millions upon millions who show some willingness to listen and be convinced. My many thanks for following .