Learning to Love the Deep State
Trump was the first Republican candidate by design to campaign against the federal bureaucracy as some sort of tumor that grew and devoured the flesh of the country.
In the 1970s, the military officer corps and the top ranks of the CIA, DOJ, and FBI were, in the eyes of the Left, synonymous with Seven Days in May— and Manchurian Candidate–like conspiracies. Yet in 2016, these same institutions had been recalibrated by progressives as protectors of social justice against interlopers and bomb throwers like Donald Trump. Whether it was scary or needed to have a secretive, unelected cabal inside the White House subverting presidential agendas depended on who was president.
During the Robert Mueller investigations, progressives usually defended the FISA-court-ordered intercepts of private citizens’ communications, despite the machinations taken to deceive FISA-court justices. Indeed, liberal critics suggested that to question how the multitude of conflicts of interest at the Obama DOJ and FBI had warped their presentations of the Steele dossier to the courts was in itself an obstruction of justice or downright unpatriotic.
News of FBI informants planted into the 2016 Trump campaign raised no eyebrows. Nor did the unmasking and leaking of the names of U.S. citizens by members of the Obama National Security Council. Former CIA director John Brennan and ex-director of National Intelligence James Clapper soon become progressive pundits on cable news. While retaining their security clearances, they blasted Trump variously as a Russian mole, a foreign asset, treasonous, and a veritable traitor.
Both became liberal icons, despite their lucrative merry-go-rounds between Washington businesses and government service, and they sometimes lied under oath to Congress about all that and more.
While the deep state was far too vast to be stereotypically monolithic in the Obama and Trump years, it was a general rule that it had admired Obama, who grew it, and now loathed Trump, who promised to shrink it. Moreover, Trump did not, as most incoming and outgoing politicians do, praise in Pavlovian fashion the institutions of Washington. As we have seen, nothing to Trump was sacred. During and after the campaign, he blasted the CIA, the FBI, the IRS, and the Department of Justice as either incompetent or prejudicial.
When Trump cited the Veterans Administration, it was to side with its victims, not its administrators or venerable history. In Trump’s mind, the problem with federal agencies was not just that they overreached and were weaponized but that their folds of bureaucracy led to incompetency. Take almost any recent terrorist incidents — the Fort Hood shootings, the Boston Marathon bombing, the San Bernardino attacks, or the Orlando nightclub killings — and the perpetrators were in some fashion already known to either the FBI or local law enforcement or both, who nonetheless did not take preemptive action.
Trump was the first Republican candidate by design to campaign against the deep state as some sort of tumor that grew and devoured the flesh of the country. At campaign rallies, he deliberately bellowed out “radical Islamic terrorism!” to mock the bureaucracy’s use of euphemisms, and promised to bring back the free usage of the word “Christmas” as a Christian holiday, rather than a secular seasonal celebration during the end-of-the-year holidays.
On March 17, John Brennan, in objection to the firing of deputy director of the FBI Andrew McCabe (who shortly would be found by the nonpartisan inspector general to have lied on four occasions to federal investigators, and was soon reportedly in legal jeopardy from a grand-jury investigation), tweeted about the current president of the United States: “When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history. . . . America will triumph over you.”
In mid April, Brennan followed up with another attack on Trump: “Your kakistocracy [rule of the “worst people”] is collapsing after its lamentable journey. As the greatest Nation history has known, we have the opportunity to emerge from this nightmare stronger & more committed to ensuring a better life for all Americans, including those you have so tragically deceived.”
If such hysterics from the former head of the world’s premier spy agency and current MSNBC/NBC pundit seemed a near threat to a sitting president, then Samantha Power, former U.N. ambassador and a past ethics professor on the Harvard faculty, sort of confirmed that it really was: “Not a good idea to piss off John Brennan.”
Power herself was found to have requested transcripts of FISA-court-ordered surveillance of Trump associates in the 2016 campaign.
Indeed, she had gone further and made over 260 requests to have the redacted names of American citizens in these files “unmasked,” many of which were mysteriously leaked to the press. Aside from the enigma of why a U.N. ambassador needed to know the whereabouts and the names of Republican officials in the midst of a campaign — and after the election — Power simply denied under oath to a House Intelligence Committee, without explanation, that the requests made under her name were really made by Samantha Power herself! Who had made them, or why, or if she had allowed others to make them, was never disclosed.
Brennan had been initially appointed as President Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, and then had taken over the CIA — during the abrupt and mysterious post–2012 election resignation of General David Petraeus. Over the next eight years of the Obama administration, Brennan was caught in a remarkable series of lies and perjuries, all without much lasting consequence. In 2009, Brennan falsely claimed that intelligence agencies had not missed clear indications that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the so-called underwear bomber, would try to take down a U.S. airliner. Just days later, when his denials were ridiculed, Brennan flipped and blasted intelligence agencies for their laxity. In 2011, Brennan falsely alleged under oath to Congress that Obama’s drone program in the last year had not caused a single civilian death in Pakistan. In truth, scores had been killed. The same year, Brennan offered various versions of the American killing of Osama bin Laden. His misleading narratives required constant revisions.
In March 2014, Brennan denied accusations that he had illegally ordered CIA analysts to access the computers of U.S. Senate staffers to find out what exactly they knew about possible CIA roles in enhanced interrogations. When he was once again caught outright lying by a CIA inspector general, Brennan was forced to apologize to the members of the Senate Intelligence Committee. In May 2017, Brennan testified under oath to Congress that he had no knowledge during the 2016 campaign of the origins, nature, and paymasters of the Fusion GPS Christopher Steele dossier. Nor, Brennan claimed, was he aware that both the FBI and the Department of Justice had used the infamous file to obtain FISA-court-ordered surveillance before and after the election. All those statements were questionable assertions. Several sources had reported that Brennan was not only aware of the Steele document but had wanted the FBI to use the Steele document to pursue rumors about Trump. He reportedly briefed Senator Harry Reid (D., Nev.) on the dossier. Armed with those rumors, Reid then became insistent that they be leaked before the 2016 election.
Remember that, by long-standing laws and presidential directives, Brennan was prohibited from using the CIA to monitor the activities of U.S. citizens.
I emphasize Brennan only because he was iconic of the deep-state careerists who had mobilized against Trump, especially in their expectation that he would never face charges such as lying to Congress or its investigators. Former national-security adviser Susan Rice, a fierce Trump critic, likely lied about the Benghazi tragedy, the Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl desertion in Afghanistan, and hostage swaps that followed the so-called Iran deal, the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Syria, and her role in the unmasking of names of surveilled Americans. She too never suffered career damage from her serial prevarication. Fired and would-be martyred FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe openly admitted to misstatements (“I was confused and distracted”). He had falsely assured investigators (“Some of my answers were not fully accurate”) that he had not been a source for background leaks about purported Trump–Russian collusion, all of them negative to Trump. The inspector general released a report condemning McCabe for his serial false statements. McCabe was leaking FBI business to deflect from charges that he had ignored conflict-of-interest charges arising from his own investigation of Hillary Clinton — after his wife, a candidate for the Virginia legislature, had been a recipient of hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign donations from Clinton-affiliated political action committees.
Former director of National Intelligence James Clapper lied under oath to the Senate Intelligence Committee when on March 12, 2013, he assured its members that the National Security Agency did not collect data on American citizens. Months later, Clapper claimed that he gave “the least untruthful” answer.
By late 2017 Clapper too was blasting Trump, claiming that the president of the United States was a veritable traitor and a Russian stooge without offering any proof: “I think this past weekend is illustrative of what a great case officer Vladimir Putin is. He knows how to handle an asset, and that’s what he’s doing with the president.”
Later, Clapper likely lied again when he testified under oath to the House Intelligence Committee, claiming that he had not leaked the contents of the Steele dossier to the media, although later he confessed that he had done just that to CNN’s Jake Tapper. Clapper later became a CNN analyst, criticizing those who had alleged that he had been serially untruthful.
Brennan, Clapper, Comey, McCabe, and Rice were never held to account for their distortions. The first three, long after being fired or retired, had still held security clearances. In television appearances, they often leveraged their knowledge of inside information to substantiate the validity of their attacks on Trump. Apparently, it was understood that once a professional bureaucrat or revolving-door appointee reached a senior level in the government, he was immune from the sort of perjury charges or ostracism that most all Americans would face.
2a)The Continued Resilience of Quiet America
By Victor Davis Hanson
Fifty years ago, the United States was facing crises and unrest on multiple fronts. Some predicted that internal chaos and revolution would unravel the nation.
The 1969 Vietnam War protests on the UC Berkeley campus turned so violent that National Guard helicopters indiscriminately sprayed tear gas on student demonstrators. Later that year, hundreds of thousands of people filled the streets of major cities as part of the "Moratorium to the End the War in Vietnam." In Washington, D.C., about a half-million protesters marched to the White House.
Native American demonstrators took over the former federal prison on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay and stayed there for 19 months, declaring it their own sovereign space.
In November 1969, the American public was exposed to grotesque photos of the My Lai Massacre, which had occurred the year before. The nation was stunned that American troops in Vietnam had shot innocent women and children. My Lai heated up the already hot national debate over whether the Vietnam War was either moral or winnable.
Meanwhile, the trial of the so-called Chicago Seven, involving the supposed organizers of the riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, roiled the nation. The courtroom drama involving radical defendants such as Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin descended into a national circus, as the battle between leftists and the establishment went from the streets to the courtroom.
It was also the year of the Woodstock music festival. More than 400,000 thrill-seekers showed up on a small farm in the Catskill Mountains in August 1969 to celebrate three days of "peace and music." Footage of free love and free drugs at Woodstock shocked half the country but resonated with the other half, which viewed the festival as much-needed liberation for an uptight nation.
Newly inaugurated President Richard Nixon characterized the national divide as the "silent majority" of traditional Americans fighting back against radical changes in culture and politics.
Under the strain of constant protests, the cultural and moral fabric of the country seemed to be tearing apart. Alternative lifestyle choices sometimes led to violence or death.
When a West Coast version of Woodstock was tried a few months later in Altamont, Calif., the concert ended up an orgy of murder, drug overdoses, random violence and destruction of property.
In July of 1969, liberal icon Teddy Kennedy ran his car off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, Mass., and his young passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, was left to drown. Sen. Kennedy did not report the accident to authorities until 10 hours later.
The next month, members of hippie psychopath Charles Manson's "family" butchered seven innocents in Los Angeles, among them actress Sharon Tate. The Manson family apparently had hoped that the sensationalized murders would ignite some sort of racial civil war, thereby unraveling the United States.
Yet a wounded United States did not just survive 1969, but reached new heights of scientific, technological and cultural achievement.
For the first time in history, a national economy produced more than $1 trillion worth of goods and services in a single year, as American nominal GDP for 1969 exceeded that level.
America also put the first humans on the moon in 1969 -- and did it twice the same year, with the Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 lunar missions.
Boeing's 747 jumbo jet made its first successful test flight in 1969. The 400-passenger airliner was so well designed and ahead of its time that it continues in service today, a half-century after its rollout. It took some 35 years for a European company to introduce a competitor to the 747, the Airbus A380. Yet the latter jet has been something of a white elephant. Many airlines have stopped using the A380, and Airbus has announced that it will stop producing the jets in 2021.
American computer scientists first used a precursor to the internet in 1969, when computers at UCLA and Stanford managed to share an electronic network, known as ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network).
Fifty years later, what are the lessons of the chaotic year 1969 for our similarly schizophrenic age of polarization, civil disunity, and unprecedented wealth and scientific advancement?
America is such a huge and diverse country, and so abundantly endowed with natural and human resources, that it is capable of achieving unprecedented scientific, economic and technological breakthroughs even as its social fabric is tearing apart.
Or, put another way, while the media highlights crime, protests, grievances and civil disorder, a majority of Americans still go to work unbothered each day.
And in a rare society with a free market, constitutional government and individual freedom, people continue to do amazing things even amid the utter chaos around them.
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The New Yorker has a big exposé about Fox News that has generated a lot of buzz. It also generated an opinion piece at CNN about how unique the relationship between Fox News and President Trump is. There has been much handwringing in the non-Fox News press about Fox. I worked there for five years. While I do not know that it is true, a lawyer at Fox told me a few years ago that I was one of the highest paid contributors because they had to offer me something that CNN would not match due to the terms of my then CNN contract.
So let me fill you in on a few things about Fox News.
Yes, it is true, that once Bill Shine had to call me on behalf of Roger Ailes and tell me if I kept supporting Matt Bevin against Mitch McConnell that I would see my air...
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4)Joe Lieberman: Ilhan Omar's Comments About Israel A "Moral Test" For Democratic Party
Former Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Lieberman joins FNC's Charles Payne to denounce Rep. Ilhan Omar's anti-Israel comments.
JOE LIEBERMAN: The first thing is that words matter and when people say words that are bias, bigoted and hurtful to another group of people, another group of Americans, they have to be condemned quickly or else it takes hold. I am not only thinking about anti-Semitism I’m thinking about racism, I’m thinking about any kind of bigotry toward any religious group or any other group. I think this is a time of testing for the House of Representatives. And if I may, it’s really a moral test about how clearly they will speak out, in this case against what Congresswoman Omar said, which was clearly anti-Semitic...
I think it is very important for the House to act and act directly. It sounds like the resolution that they are drafting now which was originally against anti-Semitism all though clearly it was engendered by what Congressman Omar had said is being broadened to be a statement against anti-Muslim bias. Of course, we should make that statement but I think the House could do better. If it was up to me I would say put out a foundational resolution condemning all bigotry and particularly saying if members of the House of Representatives, elected members of Congress get involved in that kind of bigotry they will be specifically condemned by their colleagues who won’t tolerate it. And then pass along another resolution if they want specifically condemning and criticizing Congresswoman Omar for her anti-Semitic comments. That`s the best way to deter the next member of Congress of either party that says something that`s racist or homophobic or anti any religious group...
Incidentally, Congresswoman Omar`s statements clearly do not represent the thinking of most anybody else in office in the Democratic Party. But if they start to mumble in response to her specific and clear anti-Semitic statement, then the party itself is going to be held more broadly accountable for having similar feelings, which I know they don't. So, again, I say this is a moment of testing, moral testing. Speak clearly about it. Make clear to the congresswoman that she went over the line, it`s unacceptable. And you make clear to the next person who is thinking about expressing some other kind of bigotry that it`s not going to be tolerated.
4a)
US urges German banks to cut off BDS accounts
For the first time, a U.S. official has called on German banks to close the accounts of organizations that promote anti-Israel boycotts.
By World Israel News Staff
United States Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell issued a call this week to German banks to stop providing services to organizations that support the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to delegitimize the State of Israel.
According to Grenell, German banks should “cut ties with all organizations linked to the BDS movement” based on a parliamentary resolution condemning the movement and calling on Germany’s federal government to stand against it, the Jerusalem Post reported.
“Organizations and people that undermine Israel’s security should be condemned,” Grenell told the Post.
Grenell spoke to the Israeli outlet after it reported on an account in the German Bank for Social Economy (Bank für Sozialwirtschaft) registered to a BDS group called “Jewish Voice for a Fair Peace in the Middle East,” which was identified as anti-Semitic by the Central Council of Jews in Germany.
While a number of German banks have already shuttered BDS organizations’ accounts, the Bank of Social Economy has resisted pleas by the Israeli government, German-based organizations and American Jewish groups to do so.
Other German banks that have heeded the call to sever ties with BDS groups include Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank, Postbank, German PayPal and DAB Bank.
To ramp up pressure on the German Bank for Social Economy, one of the bank’s shareholders, an organization called the Central Welfare Board of Jews in Germany (ZWST), has been requested to divest from the bank.
Among the organizations that called on the bank to stop working with BDS groups are the German-Israel Friendship Society and the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
4b) 
Future conflicts will bring ‘widespread missile fire on Israel,’ cautions former IAF chief
Iran has hundreds of ballistic missiles in its arsenal, while its proxy, Hezbollah, has an estimated 130,000 projectiles.
(March 6, 2019 / JNS) All of Israel’s future conflicts will see major enemy fire on the civilian home front, meaning that air defense is more crucial than ever, a former Israel Air Force chief has told JNS following the start of an Israeli-American joint exercise.
In recent days, the Israel Defense Forces and the U.S. military’s European Command (EUCOM) announced that for the first time, the United States has brought over its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system to Israel.
The unprecedented move is part of a drill testing the ability of American forces to quickly arrive in Israel and help the IDF protect the country from incoming ballistic-missile attacks. The exercise could be seen as a signal to Iran and its proxies of Washington’s commitment to help Israel defend its air space in the event of a future war.
Iran has hundreds of ballistic missiles in its arsenal, while its proxy, Hezbollah, has an estimated 130,000 projectiles, including long-range rockets and missiles that can strike any point in Israel.
Maj. Gen. (ret.) Eitan Ben-Eliyahu, who commanded the IAF from 1996 to 2000, told JNS that “from here on out, in any combat scenario, whether it is local or regional, there will be widespread use of rockets and missiles [by the enemy]. Even if the IDF conducts a highly successful offensive strategy, this will not be sufficient to suitably protect the fighting forces, and it especially will not suitably protect the home front. Hence, there is no choice but to combine between offense and active defense at the same time.”
Ben-Eliyahu assessed that future significant wars would involve “the formation of coalitions between countries,” and that this required their militaries to practice working together on air defenses.
Mounting a joint defense requires close coordination and an ability to integrate several defensive systems, he explained.
“Therefore, it is not enough to hold joint drills as we have seen in the past, in which the coordination is limited to cooperation between planes in the air,” said Ben-Eliyahu.
One of the key goals of the exercise is to integrate THAAD with Israel’s own air-defense systems, including the Arrow 3 system that intercepts ballistic missiles in space, the Arrow 2 system for upper atmosphere interceptions, David’s Sling for a range of intermediate-range threats and the Iron Dome short to medium-range air-defense system.
This integration of systems should become a full combat doctrine, Ben-Eliyahu argued, allowing American air-defense units and Israel’s Air Defense Array to work together at all levels.
Ben-Eliyahu said that in light of the Trump administration’s recent policy of withdrawing armed forces from the Middle East, “it is comfortable for it to fill the vacuum by exhibiting a defensive, rather than offensive presence.”
Like Israel’s Arrow 3, The THAAD system can send its interceptors into space to collide with and destroy ballistic missiles. It can also hit them inside the atmosphere.
A rapid U.S. deployment
IDF Spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus told reporters this week that the purpose of the exercise is to drill the America’s “rapid deployment across the globe and to enhance cooperation between the IAF and U.S. air-defense systems.”
He added that the “deployment emphasizes the U.S.’s commitment to the defense of Israel.”
Last month, the IDF and U.S. military’s EUCOM held the joint Juniper Falcon exercise, testing their ability to work together.
“We are working in cooperation with our U.S. counterparts to strengthen our ability to defend Israeli air space,” confirmed Conricus.
The latest drill is “an opportunity to practice the integration of advanced American air-defense systems into the IAF Air Defense Array. Needless to say, we are grateful for this exercise. The IDF stands ready to protect the air space against threats near and far,” he stated.
Conricus stressed that the exercise is defensive and was planned ahead of time. The United States flew in personnel and equipment from Texas and Italy to Israel, including more than 200 soldiers and officers. The full THAAD system, including its radar and launchers, arrived at an Israeli airbase in southern Israel before being transported on the ground for deployment to an undisclosed location in the south of the country.
Last year, the IDF and U.S. held the biannual Juniper Cobra ballistic-missile defense exercise, which simulated threats, but did not see the arrival of THAAD.
Conricus said past exercises did not include the kind of actual tactical cooperation between soldiers, airmen and marines that is currently taking place, affirming that “we are going to … ensure our readiness for the future.”
4c)
In a video released yesterday by the Russian propaganda news channel RT, Russian special forces were shown training members of Liwa al Quds, a pro-regime Palestinian militia group in Syria.
The video’s description said that the militants are being taught “storming fortified positions.”
On Liwa al Quds’ Facebook page, the group said these are graduates of a Russian-ran “high threat area” training course. The video published on its Facebook page offers a different angle of the RT video, in which Syrian and Russian military officers can be seen overlooking the training.
For its part, Liwa al Quds proudly displays its ties to Russia on its Facebook page by often sharing photos of Russian troops among its soldiers. It also routinely shares news regarding to Vladimir Putin or Russia’s international activities, especially in Syria.
Liwa al Quds, which also refers to itself as the Syrian Arab Army Fedayeen, is a largely Sunni Palestinian militant group that has openly operated as an auxiliary to pro-regime forces in Syria since 2013. It has taken part in regime offensives such as in Aleppo, Deir al Zour, and in the Homs desert, where it has also fought alongside several Iranian-controlled groups.
4d 
AL-AQSA TV: DEATH TO ISRAEL, TURN THEM INTO BODY PARTS, ROAST THEM
"Al-Asqa TV promotes all the components of Palestinian terror, including murder of Jews, suicide bombings,
kidnapping of soldiers, bombing our cites and destruction of Israel."
Al-Aqsa Mosque preacher- Jews will worship the Devil and then be exterminated by Muslims. (photo credit: screenshot)
"Declaring Al-Asqa TV a terror organization is a precise labeling," said Itamar Marcus, director of Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), a media watchdog group, commenting on Netanyahu's decision to declare the Hamas-affliated Al-Aqsa TV channel a terrorist organization on Wednesday.
"Al-Asqa TV promotes all the components of Palestinian terror, including murder of Jews, suicide bombings, kidnapping of soldiers, bombing our cites and destruction of Israel," Marcus continued.
"It uses all the means available on TV to make its messages compelling to the Palestinian population, including religious sermons, children's programs and even music videos celebrating murder."
PMW recorded the words of a Hamas music video aired on the channel: "Strap on an explosive belt... O Martyrdom seeker, respond to Al-Aqsa's call... send them to Hell... Let fire burn them, turn them into body parts, roast them."
The Al-Asqa TV station was attacked by IDF forces in an airstrike in November 2018 and its studios were destroyed. The airstrike took place during a flare-up of violence in which Hamas fired hundreds of rockets at Israel.
A half hour before the TV station was bombed by IDF forces, the channel broadcast a music video declaring "Death to Israel," while scenes from terror attacks and funerals of Israeli terror victims played on the screen, as reported by PMW.
"DEATH TO ISRAEL" flashed across the screen in Hebrew as an Arabic song blared from the speakers, "Expel the thieving occupier from the enraged land of Jerusalem. Rid your house of that one, that Zionist in his humiliation. Write 'death, death, death to Israel' with flowing blood. And with the bleeding body cause death, death, death to Israel."
When the funeral of the Israeli terror victims appeared on the screen, another song blared with the words, "Be red death. Have no mercy on the army of aggression that wears the clothes of the soldier and the settler."
Following the IDF airstrike, the channel was forced to go off the air but this proved short-lived and they quickly began broadcasting from a new location, leading to Netanyahu's decision on Wednesday to declare it as a terrorist organization.
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