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Will the Real John Brennan Please Stand Up?
When will he answer for his war crimes?
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  1. Taras77 says:

    The question seems stark to me as to how in the hell did brennan ever get accepted by the cia in the first place.

    Was he vetted all? With his psychological makeup, his past political affiliations (or inclinations), he seems from the outside as a candidate mostly likely to be rejected out of hand beyond the first step.

    And then we have his rise through the ranks to Director-one could ask WTF? Who were his handlers?

  2. Anonymous[851] • Disclaimer says:

    As bad of a spook as McStain was a pilot.

    • Agree: Z-man, Herald, Bubba
  3. abbybwood says:

    Perhaps Mr. Brennan is guilty of using the psychological tactic of “projection” against President Trump?

    All the things he accuses President Trump of (“treason” perhaps), he is actually guilty of himself.

    • Replies: @Respect
  4. How an admitted supporter of CPUSA and Gus Hall voter even got past the SBI investigation is enough to mystify one. He must have had strong supporters and the top of the house in his young days.

    • Replies: @Anonymous
  5. Snarky says:

    “He was deputy executive director on 9/11 and was complicit in that intelligence failure.”

    Shame on you Philip. Years of research has convinced me that it was not a failure at all but rather one of their greatest hits. I usually like your commentary but salting your rhetoric with lies to promote the false CIA narrative is not acceptable.

    • Replies: @anonymous
    , @Anonymous
  6. Mikhail says: • Website

    JB comes across as a liar, with a bigoted and flawed moral superiority complex, when it comes to Russia. Related is this piece from not too long ago:

    Excerpt –

    The PBS NewsHour segment with CIA Director John Brennan, included this quote from him:

    We see what he has done in places like Crimea and Ukraine and in Syria. he tends to flex muscles, not just on himself, but also in terms of Russia’s military capabilities. He plays by his own rules in terms of what it is that he does in some of these theaters of conflict.

    So I don’t think we underestimated him. He has sought to advance Russia’s interests in areas where there have been political vacuums and conflicts. But he doesn’t ascribe to the same types of rules that we do, for example, in law of armed conflict. What the Russians have done in Syria in terms of some of the scorched-earth policy that they have pursued that have led to devastation and thousands upon thousands of innocent deaths, that’s not something that the United States would ever do in any of these military conflicts.”

    Own rules as in what Turkey has done in northern Cyprus and the Clinton led NATO in Kosovo? It was a shameful example of journalism on the part of PBS to let Brennan’s comments go unchallenged. PBS had earlier run a pro-CrowdStrike feature. It’s not as if there aren’t any expert cyber security/ intelligence sources offering a different perspective.

    As for the devastation of thousands of civilians during war (raised by Brennan), consider some past US actions like what happened in Japan during WW II, the Cold War activity in Southeast Asia, as well as post-Cold War actions in Afghanistan and Iraq. The collateral damage emphasis has been hypocritically applied. Along with the subjectively dubious comments of Hayden and Nance, the above excerpted comments from Brennan are indicative of a (past and present) politicized element within US Intel.

  7. Not very outstanding personality, He had his moment on the sun when Libyan and Syrian war crimes by Hillary and Obama were prepared. He is now in the shade and his brain is feed for mold and mildew.

  8. Forgot who said ‘according to Neurenberg standards any USA president could have been hanged’.

  9. Brennan should be in prison for the lies and accusations he has made. He is as corrupt as they come. Brennan is at the center of an Obama/Clinton directed scam to discredit Trump. Trump, love him or hate him, was elected by the American people. Brennan and his ilk may not like it but that does not mean they have the right to bend the country to their collective wills. Time to throw the book at these malcontents.

    • Replies: @Bilding
  10. Greg Bacon says: • Website


    Methinks Brennan was looking in the mirror when he first mouthed that truth, which is actually about the former CIA Director.

    Why these intelligence people maintain that Top Secret(TS) clearance after they retire, resign or get tossed during a change in the WH is beyond me. It’s great for them, as they can burnish that TS as credentials when getting hired by CNN or FOX to blather on about something, usually enhancing some lie or propaganda those pseudo-news outlets are promoting.

    But the bigger problem is that some or maybe many are Israel-Firsters, who have loyalty to that Apartheid nightmare and most likely pass on info to their Israeli buddies that they should not have gotten.
    That is called treason and is one more reason why their TS clearance should be revoked when they leave government work.

    • Agree: anarchyst, Druid
    • Replies: @anonymous
    , @Dave
  11. anonymous[340] • Disclaimer says:

    A powerful, pointed essay to be shared widely. That Mr. Brennan’s shameful acts listed here go back to the last Bush presidency can also help to enlighten those still gulled by the Red/Blue puppet show.

    The notion that anyone high up in the CIA might ever be convicted of war crimes under the rule of Imperial Washington, though, is sadly laughable. Notice that Senator Burr still refers to Mr. Brennan as “Director Brennan.” The way these people think of themselves is not only annoying, but maintains a system in which they’re above the law.

    One suggested edit: “… Japanese and German officers were [hanged] for such behavior.”

    Thank you, Mr. Giraldi and Mr. Unz.

    • Replies: @Jack Rauber
  12. Picture Caption: “You’re damn right He gave me horns — er, about so-big”

  13. Z-man says:

    I’m waiting for Clapper and the rest to be so excised. But Clapper has now pushed back at Brennan so Trump might give him a pass. (Grin)

  14. Antiwar7 says:

    What does it say about Obama that he favored a character like Brennan?

    • Replies: @Respect
  15. Respect says:

    Paranoids project a lot and accuse others of everything dark they ( paranoids ) have inside , blaming others for their own`s paranoid violent drives .

    Once I read that Brennan converted to islam , when he was serving in Saudia , is true ??
    habibi Brennan ? anyway he looks like a camel driver .

  16. fnn says:

    Why does the CIA hire unhinged people like Brennan and Philip Mudd?

  17. @fnn

    Dunno but it also hires good people like Bob Baer, Ray McGovern and John Kiriakou!

    • Replies: @Fran Macadam
    , @Jon Baptist
  18. Respect says:

    Obama favored the Muslim Brotherhood

    The Nobel Prize of ” peace ” bombed a few arab countries from Libia to Afganistan , and organized ” color revolutions ” ( coups d` Etat ) in many other arab and non arab countries . Obama provoked millions of arabs refugees escaping from wars and invading Europe .

    Obama provoked the coup d`Etat and war in Ukraina


  19. Frankie P says:
    @jilles dykstra

    That was Noam Chomsky, I believe.

  20. EagleEyeX says:

    Great article Philip, as usual. I am your biggest fan…..roasting here in the south of Turkey watching the unfolding debacle on par with the suns relentlessness.

  21. ” He was deputy executive director on 9/11 and was complicit in that intelligence failure. ”
    Is meant here that for some reason that I still do not understand the plotters failed to make use of the hijacked planes to fly into the towers, the Pentagon and into Camp David ?
    In my usual immodest opinion Sept 11 was blundering along, so that two other planes than the ‘hijacked’ ones flew into the towers, the first had some bulge under the plane, the second had no windows, what flew into the Pentagon was something small, and the Pennsylvania plane ‘atomised’ in mid air, according to the coroner.
    But, with a complete failure, I must admit that the improvisation was not bad, and had success, with help of the USA’s media.
    BTW, on a German site is explained what profit the jewish owners of the Towers made, $ five billion, seen in Germany by the insurer, Allianz, as insurance fraud.
    In order to be able to pay Allianz fired 3000 employees.
    Alas, the article has disappeared, too shocking, maybe.

    • Replies: @SunBakedSuburb
  22. Virgile says:

    Brennan is part of Obama’s swamp that he promised to drain. I hope other like Susan Rice and Clapper will follow.

  23. Anonymous [AKA "Dolton Boy"] says:

    You are assuming a level of competence on the CIA. No one there predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union, they said Iraq had WMDs, and now made up this nonsense about Trump. They are the same folks who brought us the Bay of Pigs more than half a century ago. Too bad Kennedy didn’t get to break them up into a million pieces and scatter them in the wind like he wanted to do.

    • Replies: @Simply Simon
  24. Anonymous[266] • Disclaimer says:


    Unhinged and dumb. IMHO, they’re easier to manipulate by the Puppet Masters. You can’t have Groton & Yale-educated types like in Allen Dulles’ day because they might go off the Puppet Master playbook and start calling audibles out in the field.

  25. Saying as Giraldi did that 911 was a failure of intelligence is a coverup for the fact that Israel and the Zionist controlled deep state did 911 and Giraldi and every thinking America knows that Israel and the deep state did it and got away with it.

    Brennan and the majority of the deep state are under Zionist control and the fact that they let Israel and the Zionists get away with 911 means that Brennan and every one of the 17 intel agencies that had knowledge of 911 is a traitor to America and the fact that Israel got away with killing 3000 Americans proves that Zionists and Israel have total control of every facet of the U.S. government.

    May God help America as we are a captive nation of zionists.

    • Replies: @Herald
  26. MLK says:

    You’re quite right McGovern and Kiriakou. You couldn’t be more wrong on Baer — he belongs to Hillary:

    • Replies: @Mikhail
  27. I don’t think this has anything to do with free speech. Trump is panicking and lashing out wildly in all directions.

    • Replies: @RobinG
    , @Wally
    , @anon
  28. anonymous[157] • Disclaimer says:

    Who’s to say that 2 loads of jet fuel can’t soften steel in 3 buildings? 🙂

    • Replies: @ploni almoni
    , @Greg Bacon
  29. anonymous[340] • Disclaimer says:
    @Greg Bacon

    Already posted under the current Buchanan column, but more likely to learn something here:

    OK, I admit that I haven’t researched it myself. But shouldn’t a column on this topic state briefly what a “security clearance” is and explain what is had enabled Mr. Brennan, once he left government employ, to access? Is it like a password or something? What is the practical effect of its revocation?

    “With 4 million Americans holding top-secret clearances [Buchanan],” this sounds like the Battle of Molehill Mountain.

    Thanks to anyone who helps to provide some context.

  30. anon[317] • Disclaimer says:

    Brennan is such a small part of a massively corrupt behind the schene picture. There are probably 2000 or 3000 more who need the same treatment immediately.

    Trumping security clearance at termination from any job that requires them; in government, military or in the private sector, should be automatic, without exception. Trump all non active or non essential clearances would reduce the power of and the number of corporate lobbyist, private mercenaries, global gun slingers and creators of the privately owned 24/7 promoted, highly spied on fake news stories and many corrupt crossboard activities..

    I hope the issue of whether or not the POTUS has the authority to Trump all security clearance goes to court, because if its outcome is positive for Trump, maybe Trump will Trump Bush’s and Clinton clearances. That would make the job of the AG quite a bit easier.

    This idea of trumping security clearances has some real promise as a way to restore some modicum of democracy in the USA. But Trumping Security Clearance should be rule based. Trump needs to issue a presidential order.. worded something like this. All security clearances in the USA are issued on a as needed basis, and shall terminate as soon as the need is resolved, or the person holding the clearance is terminated from the job for which the clearance was issued.

  31. Brennan is an idiot. Just listen to him and watch him. And having missed the fall of the USSR, 9/11 and Iraqi WMD, why does the press suddenly hold the intelligence community in such high regard? The truth is the MSM will do anything to nail Trump…not that I particularly like him…although compared to HC….

  32. Moi says:

    On the contrary, Brennan is just the kind of person who rises up the ranks in government. And look at Gina, his successor, should she even be where she is…

    • Agree: jacques sheete
  33. Moi says:

    Read “Catch=22.” It’s the reason why Yossarian can’t leave the military. 🙂

  34. Oh sure, we can pick on Brennan, he’s a funny-looking asskisser, thick as mince, but making it all his fault obscures the blindingly obvious fact that Hillary was the institutional choice of CIA. The other CIA talking heads are distancing themselves from Brenna simply because he bends over backwards to please his Project Mockingbird producers. He’s hamming it up and embarrassing them, that’s all.

    You don’t get near the White House without doing lots of favors for CIA. Trump laundered money for the CIA agents who looted Russia. Hillary was of course senior Nomenklatura and next in line. Cord Meyer recruited her husband at Oxford, and she helped frame Nixon with CIA’s Watergate burlesque (read Russ Baker.) She’s the Queen of Mena.

    CIA installed four presidents: Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, Obama. Hillary was supposed to be next but she couldn’t even beat her handpicked loser asshole in a rigged election. So CIA is going berserk. Trump’s war is with CIA, not Brennan.

    • Agree: Mike P
    • Replies: @Johnny Smoggins
  35. RobinG says:
    @Michael Kenny

    So, Michael Kenny is a TDS infected Trump-basher, as well as an Israel-uber-alles hasbaRAT.

  36. I am not denying Brennan’s guilt. But why single out Brennan? DC is teeming with war criminals, most of which deserve the noose, rather than life in prison at our expense.

    • Replies: @Mikhail
  37. @Philip Giraldi

    Right! More of them, much less of the likes of Mr. Brennan.

  38. @anonymous

    Two loads of jet fuel can’t soften a kerosene heater.

    • Replies: @Anon
  39. Greg Bacon says: • Website

    Maybe we should start constructing skyscrapers out of the bodies of birds, like the ones that crashed this Swedish jet?

    ‘Russia hacked the birds’: Social media mocks Swedish paranoia after birds take down fighter jet

    On the brighter side, in Dante’s Inferno, the hottest circle of Hell is reserved for traitors. Hope Mr. Brennan likes warm weather.

    • Replies: @AnonFromTN
    , @Antiwar7
  40. @Greg Bacon

    He’d have a lot of company there: pretty much every American federal official in the last few decades, as well as most Russian officials who were in power from ~1989 to ~2000. That circle must be really crowded, like Washington, DC.

    • Replies: @Anon
  41. DaveE says:

    In a contemporary newspaper account of the creation of the OSS (forerunner of CIA) the OSS was described as “five Jews working in a converted vault in Washington DC”.

    Described in James Bamford’s “Body of Secrets”.

    The CIA has always been Israel’s club. Even before it was called CIA.

    • Replies: @nsa
    , @Skeptikal
  42. anonymous[341] • Disclaimer says:

    Brennan voted for the communist party as a youth. Perhaps youthful flightiness could be taken in stride but a tendency to flip-flop from one form of utopianism to another is often a lifetime trait of unstable people, much like some switch religions constantly. Why promote someone like this to such a high position? This Russian Manchurian Candidate business is bizarre and casts doubt about his mental health. In addition there were rumors about him having converted to Islam while posted in Saudi Arabia. Just some of the usual rumor-mongering that goes on, I thought. Then I looked at him in testimony on YouTube. I was struck by his weirdly rhapsodic way of describing Islam that seemed to go beyond merely playing up to them. In addition he calls Jerusalem by the Arabic name of Al-Quds, something no one here does and seems strange for a CIA head to do that. People like this are the cream of the crop, guardians of our security and well-being?

    • Agree: Andrei Martyanov
    • Replies: @Andrei Martyanov
  43. bjondo says:

    I don’t trust Robert Baer.

    Read one of his books, title forgotten. His take on Iran seemed to come straight from Israel. And he is on tv a lot or was (I havent watched in years) and a movie was made about him. Very curious. Only the acceptable merit such.

    Also, Baer needs to explain:

    JEREMY ROTHE-KUSHEL: …the last thing I want to leave you with is the National Reconnaissance Office was running a drill of a plane crashing into their building and you know they’re staffed by DoD and CIA…



    ROBERT BAER: Yeah.

    STEWART HOWE: That tells us something.

    ROBERT BAER: What?

    STEWART HOWE: That tells us something.

    ROBERT BAER: Well his brother worked at the White House.

    • Replies: @Mikhail
  44. Brennen is one of the Most untrustworth political gangsters among the totally corrupted Amerian political class. That the fawning Media does Not dismiss this crook as an so-called expert speaks for itself. President Trump should revoke all Security clearances from the Obama crooks.

  45. Anonymous [AKA "Mark Zuckerberg might be a robot"] says:

    John Brennan is a traitor to America. At this point, this is basically undeniable to any rational observer who has assessed the verifiable details of his career. It is mind-boggling that he was ever accepted to any position within our government and the CIA. The level of incompetence within the US government and intelligence agencies is terrifying. The only good thing about this idiot’s irrational blabbering in the media is that it has the potential to cause even many liberals to finally grasp how stupid, petty, and dangerous the actions of the socialist-leaning left in our government, intelligence agencies, and media are. There really is a swamp to drain. There really is a lot of fake news. There really are people within our government, intelligence agencies, and media who, whether through malicious intent or just stupidity, are “enemies of the people.”

    In a more just world, John Brennan would be hanged and all of America would cheer.

  46. slapstick says:

    @ jilles dykstra


    There were no ‘hijacked planes’. The hijack ruse was a sleight of hand distraction. It’s like the old movie plane crash trick: Set up your camera to frame a hill in extreme long shot. A plane dives into the frame from the right and disappears behind the hill. The moment it goes behind the hill, special effects set off a large pyro charge and there’s a huge fireball. Oh no, the plane crashed behind the hill!

    Scheduled flights must have taken off with the requisite squawk codes, but where they went & who was on them if any, is anyone’s guess. What’s clear (in the same way it’s clear Oswald wasn’t sniping on Nov 22 ’63) is the scheduled jets didn’t fly into towers/buildings. UAV aircraft did.

    After a major air disaster with large loss of life, the standard TV reporting template is to send a news crew to the arrival airport to get coverage of the distraught relatives. On 9/11 there were 4 simultaneous air disasters with approx 500 dead.

    How many extended TV reports at the 4 arrival airports, with hundreds of ‘grieving relatives/friends’ did you see? I saw zero.

    • Troll: Wizard of Oz
  47. Sparkon says:

    A security clearance is granted on a strict need-to-know basis. I fail to see how these former ranking intelligence officials like John Brennan maintain the need-to-know after they have left public service.

    When the Central Intelligence Agency was established by President Truman on September 18, 1947, one justification was that the United States had been caught off-guard by the surprise Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, and therefore it was necessary to coordinate all intelligence activities under a single head, or director, who would have direct access to the president, and there would be no more such surprises.

    Of course, all that about Pearl Harbor is a cock ‘n’ bull story from top to bottom, just like 9/11 is. FDR knew exactly what was going on. In fact, no one had worked harder to bring it about than the President himself. Just as Stalin had been successful in tricking Hitler into attacking the Soviet Union, so too was Roosevelt successful in goading the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor. It was the plan all along: Let the enemy strike the first blow, then seize the moral high ground, from which lofty summit the enemy can be vilified and demonized with propaganda including the most astonishingly poisonous accusations, like an industrialized program in Nazi Germany to exterminate the Jews.

    But Truman wasn’t done yet. In 1952, he established the National Security Agency, ostensibly because the CIA was doing a poor job with communications intelligence.

    Now, in the wake of 9/11–where the initial story was that we were “blindsided”– we’ve got 17 different intelligence agencies, with a new position created to coordinate them all. Whatever it is all these guys are doing, about the only thing we can be sure of is that they will have few problems getting the budget to do it, and instead of intelligence, we get propaganda and chaos.

  48. Brennan sounds like a hog that doesn’t wash itself of his own sins while he is carrying out his paymasters’ wish. He thinks that he is indispensable to the powers that be… he may want to remember the late Alphonse D’Amato of New York, who was chucked aside once he had used up his senatorial cudgel to extract gelt out of the Swiss banks. Trump isn’t going to be either impeached or gotten rid off, simply because he works for the same crowd and the only difference between him and lowly spook is that the former is part of the ruling class, while the latter is just a peon used to distract the dumbed down public!

  49. @anonymous

    It is absolutely terrifying to recognize that very many in those “elites” never became real adults in their lives and psychologically (mentally?) are still at the high school maturity level. All political tops are messy, soaked in palace intrigues and clash of egos larger than cathedrals, but this particular case is something else entirely and it has a lot to do with overall precipitous decline, both intellectual and moral, of American party and government so called “elites”.

    • Replies: @Erebus
    , @jacques sheete
  50. Herald says:

    Your questions have been answered by others. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that such naive questions were in fact rhetorical.

    • Replies: @Taras77
  51. Mikhail says: • Website

    I didn’t quite get that about Baer as well. The only basis perhaps is that Baer might be less of a propagandist when compared to Mudd and Brennan.

    The talking head types typically heard in US mass media are overly suspect and coddled. From the FBI, there’s Frank Figluizzi and Josh Campbell. A rare exception to that spin is Tucker Carlson hosting former NSA official William Binney.

    • Replies: @MLK
  52. Mikhail says: • Website


    I don’t believe he’s being singled out. Much attention is focused on him, on account of the absurd things he spews in high profile settings. He deserves to get severely rebuked, long with a good number in mass media and body politic who handle him with kid gloves.

  53. John Brennan is a Leprechaun political hack from New York City. John Brennan doesn’t have the brains nor the integrity to be a security guard at Fordham University.

    John Brennan’s ancestral roots in the United States are as shallow as his integrity level is low. Brennan has very little connection to the historic American nation. Brennan’s father was born in Ireland and his mother was first generation Irish.

    John Brennan was initially attractive to the CIA because the money-grubbing treasonites who infest the CIA knew that he would sell out the United States at every turn. The CIA government worker rats who brought Brennan on board the bloated CIA knew that Brennan would be eager to do everything in his power to harm the United States.

    John Brennan is a treasonous Leprechaun CIA government worker slob who finds it easy to conjure up the blarney and nonsense talk. Thankfully, through Brennan’s Twitter outbursts and his blarney boy appearances on corporate propaganda outlets, the public in the United States is getting a good look at the evil scum who infest the Central Intelligence Agency.

    The CIA Must Be Abolished Immediately.

    The NSA, military intelligence outfits and other groups can provide information gathering services to the United States government and the President of the United States.

    John Brennan is an unassimilated baby boomer Leprechaun CIA government worker rodent who is completely and totally representative of the kind of CIA government worker human filth that steals money from the US government while damaging the best interests of the United States.

    If General George Washington and General Andrew Jackson were alive, John Brennan would be forcefully exiled from the United States for his actions against the United States of America.

  54. Mikhail says: • Website

    Among its security experts, CNN has Juliette Kayyem, who is quite partisan as well.

  55. @Center for Study of the Obvious

    So if Trump is a CIA asset, why are they doing everything in their power to get rid of him, short of killing him (so far..)?

    The fact of the matter is that both Hillary and Jeb Bush were the Deep State candidates, either was supposed to win, didn’t matter which as both would be puppets anyway.

    Neither Bernie Sanders nor Trump were supposed to win, the Democrats did their part in getting rid of Sanders, the Republicans tried, and failed, to get rid of Trump (again, so far..)

    Trump is imperfect but he must be doing something right because the entire establishment is out to get him. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.

  56. Former CIA Head Boob John “Leprechaun Baby Boomer” Brennan went to Fordham, supported the Communist Party in the presidential election of 1976, supports open borders mass immigration, wants to flood the United States with Muslims and most likely hates people who have English ancestry.

    Trump made immigration the defining issue in the GOP presidential primaries and in the general election against Hillary Clinton. That is why the treasonous rats in the Deep State are out to destroy Trump.

    Deep State Leprechaun John Brennan pushes open borders mass immigration. John Brennan and the CIA globalizer treasonites are using mass immigration as a demographic weapon to attack the European Christian ancestral core of the United States.

    The CIA should be immediately eliminated by Trump. The NSA and the military intelligence outfits can provide all the intelligence agency tasks currently done by the treasonous rats at the CIA.

    The guys with the brains are in signals intelligence. ELECTRONICS. The CIA arseholes are the ones causing problems which to them are opportunities for overseas profit.

    The Leprechaun boob Brennan and the egghead McMullin are all you need to know about the moron twats who infest the CIA. Eliminate the CIA immediately. The NSA and the military intelligence gentlemen will provide all the overseas intelligence we need without causing trouble just for the sake of causing trouble.

    The CIA twats are also the scum pushing open borders mass immigration and amnesty for illegal alien invaders.

  57. nsa says:

    ….dedicated to the proposition that…….government of the jooies, by the jooies, for the jooies shall not perish from the earth.

  58. CIA Democrat Party Hack John Brennan says:

    “Sometimes my IRISH comes out…in my Tweets.”

    Baby Boomer Leprechaun John Brennan Is A Treasonous Rat

  59. @Anonymous

    Hardly anything memorable has been written about the botched CIA operation in Laos during the Vietnam War. Under the guise Air America , the CIA spent millions if not billions of dollars in a futile attempt to stop the Pathet Lao. Lots of innocent lives lost but no one held accountable at the highest levels of our government. But then again that seems to be the same story involving inept leadership and corruption in all the conflicts the US has been engaged in since WWII.

  60. Anonymous [AKA "Rever"] says:

    Phil only goes part of the way. 9/11 was their greatest hit. Phil knows

    • Replies: @Vic
  61. Herald says:
    @Desert Fox

    What Giraldi calls a “failure of intelligence” is probably about as far as most ex-CIA officer would go on 9/11, at least in public. Whether or not some part the intelligence community was actually complicit in the execution of 9/11 is another matter, though discussing it here only distracts from the main thrust of the article.

    • Replies: @ChuckOrloski
  62. chris says:

    Very good question, Teras!

    I think we used to all think that the spooks were at least guided by some moral principles, in their goals, if not in their operations, but bozos like Brennan, Morell, Tenet, Heyden, etc, clearly show that this is not the case.

    Obviously, it’s only about power and being in the game; whichever way the wind blows they have to be in on it in order to apply pressure on whoever turns up on top. At no level do they even care whether the general direction is moral or criminal. They simply play all sides of the table for best agency, deep state, or personal interest – no other consideration comes even in play. The image they portray on television is as realistic as the depiction of Ozzie and Harriet was to a real marriage.

  63. @slapstick

    According to a Guardian (US) and AP news account dated August 7, 2017, 1,641 bone fragments in the Twin Towers debris were identified by DNA. Believe it or not, I don’t care.

    • Replies: @NoseytheDuke
  64. MLK says:

    Who knows? Giraldi probably included him because he’s an old friend he shoots pool with. Or something.

    This wasn’t just Baer shooting his mouth off. He was pushing for an election do-over while Brennan and Clapper — as a more practical solution — were trying to get their filthy paws on Electoral College electors to tell their fairy story about President-Elect Trump.

    In 2016, these characters, Baer included, revealed that they had waved goodbye to our Constitution. They’re Fantasy Stalinists — ‘Fantasy’ because the end result will be their own discrediting and destruction, not of POTUS Trump and our Constitutional Republic.

  65. Ann Coulter’s father was an FBI agent in New York City. He was German and Irish.

    Agent Coulter was involved in investigating Communists and Bolsheviks and other Globalizer scum in the United States.

    New York City Jews who have ancestral connections to Communism and Bolshevism and Globalization might not like Ann Coulter for that.

  66. Antiwar7 says:
    @Greg Bacon

    A traitor to what? Do you think he’s on your side? Some cabal(s) must find him useful.

  67. PintOrTwo says:

    Trump revoking Brennan’s security clearance doesn’t move me. His freedom of speech is not stifled; it gives him a larger platform.

    Brennan is not the first to use hyperbole to monetize a scandal. Not the first to take advantage of his proximity to the President. And I agree with Sen Burr’s statement. But that’s not the point. I’m concerned by what he did as CIA director as the Trump/Russia relationship developed.

    As Giraldi notes, Brennan and the CIA received information from “foreign intelligence services, including the British, Dutch and Estonians”. The Guardian reported that Germany, Poland and Australia passed on intel as well, and that, based on surveillance in 2015, British intelligence requested and received a “director level” meeting in June 2016 to share with the CIA suspicions communications between Trump advisors and Russians connected to the Kremlin. Brennan was that director. We also know that NSA Rice unmasked 18 conversations between suspected Russian assets and individuals close to Trump during the primarily and his candidacy for President.

    What was CIA Director Brennan supposed to do?

    I expect he would “(use) that information to request an FBI investigation into a possible Russian operation directed against potential key advisers (to) Trump”. To do otherwise would be egregious.

    It’s abundantly clear to me that Director Brennan acted appropriately and the Mueller investigation is legitimate and necessary.

    • Replies: @AnonFromTN
    , @NoseytheDuke
  68. Cohen did put Trump in a little bit of trouble, but I think that Trump will get out from it also.

  69. @PintOrTwo

    Is that you, Hillary? Still hurting because you spent twice as much as Trump and lost? My condolences. If Hell exists, I hope your place there is secure.

    • LOL: chris
  70. “Will real Brennan stand up?” I’d settle for him shutting up.

  71. @Philip Giraldi

    Baer is not “good people.” Changes his tune daily. Disinfo agent?

    • Replies: @Anonymous
  72. geokat62 says:


    Abundantly clear, eh, PintOrTwo?

    Perhaps it was so clear to you after having a pint or two?


    I totally agree with you about Brennan requesting an FBI investigation. But rather than looking into non-existent Russian operations, if he were truly doing his job he should be calling for an investigation into Zion-gate – i.e., the massive interference into US politics wielded by the Zionists through their network of organizations, aka The Lobby. Why concentrate on the ant when the elephant is standing right in front of you? You wouldn’t be engaging in deflection, would you, PintOrTwoOrThree?

  73. @Herald

    Plausibly, Herald harked: “What Giraldi calls a “failure of intelligence” is probably about as far as most CIA officers would go on 9/11, at least in public.”
    … Yes, agreed, Herald.
    … Despite documentable linkage & coordination with Mossad operations (in Israel’s interest), the CIA has sacred “plausible deniability.”
    … Yes…, the thrust of P.G.’s question, “when will he (Brennan) answer for his war crimes?” is daring, requires evaluation, and a judgement.
    … Prior to the (above) hearing happening, & just a thought, Herald, I hearken to a possibility that Brennan would be “gone,” like for example, when President Reagan’s William Casey was diagnosed with brain cancer & could not testify before Congress.
    Thank you!

  74. anon[317] • Disclaimer says:
    @Michael Kenny

    @ Michael Keeny

    Abuse of state secrecy has everything to do with free speech and democracy, not only that the subject matter protected by secrecy must reach a very high standard of need, and the trustee (the state) must exercise extreme diligence to perform its duties as trustee.

    The right to know is a human right, the duty to disclose to those governed, is a state duty. When ever humanity entrusts to the state a secret, humanity does so with the understanding that “the human right to know” has been put on hold, because the state claims the value to preserving to humanity. democracy and freedom, far outweighs allowing humanity to debate with such knowledge. In short, knowledge is placed in trust, the state is the trustee and the ultimate beneficiary is humanity. Because humanity is both the grantee and the beneficiary to a knowledge trust the state must guard and perform in accord to the purpose and requirements of the trust.
    (In a democracy the public has a duty to learn and a right to know and speak out, but it cannot perform its duty nor exercise its rights, when the state fails its duty of Trustee).

    When the state keeps a secret it subordinates the human right to know. There are very few things that reach that standard. When the state enables an abuse of a secret, it endangers everyone’s freedoms and liberties.

    There can be no greater abuse of free speech than state secrets, and therefore no greater duty of the state to both prove the need to keep the knowledge secret and to prevent anyone from wrongfully using or abusing the knowledge kept secret.

    When someone on the inside, committed to preserving the secret in trust realizes that the trust has been abused and that the trust is regularly abused, and decides as a matter of conscious to endure the consequences, by stepping forward to disclose failures of the state with regard to the knowledge kept secret, that brave person becomes known as a whistle blower. In effect that whistle blower is speaking for all of us, he or she becomes the protector of human rights because only he or she knows, outside of the state, that the state is infringing a human right.

    Human rights always trump state rights. Unless the whistle blower exposed the wrong doings or abuse, the state is left to continue its wrongdoing. Exposed, the state must explain its behavior, suffer the consequences, and protect the whistle blowers. Its unfortunate that the whistle blower is treated much like the woman abused, in court, the victim is made to look to be the criminal.

    • Replies: @Wizard of Oz
  75. PintOrTwo says:

    If Brennan was “working quite hard to help Hillary Clinton” win – with assistance from FBI director Comey – why were the CIA/FBI investigations revealed after the election?

    And, as the FBI had the Steele dossier in October, why did it “(surface) in January just before the inauguration” instead of before the vote? Like when the FBI broke protocol announcing the “re-opening” of the Clinton investigation – due to the hardly notable development that they received a server belonging to a a Clinton confidant in an unrelated investigation – just before Americans went to the polls in November?

  76. Brennan is a parasite and a shitbag. The fact that someone of this ‘calibre’ even made topdog at CIA indicates how truly corrupt D.C. is. Pathetic.

  77. Erebus says:
    @Andrei Martyanov

    … overall precipitous decline, both intellectual and moral, of American… “elites”.

    I’m not sure whether, on balance, that bodes well or ill. For Americans, probably ill, but from the RoW’s perspective it may simply mean that the Empire dies that much more quickly.

    Barring somebody doing something really stupid. EG: “Assessing” in their ignorance that they can win a nuclear exchange when they inevitably find themselves at their wit’s end, of course.

    • Replies: @Andrei Martyanov
  78. @Simply Simon

    That you don’t care is evidenced by your trust in The Guardian and AP as reliable sources for news and information, I mean, fool me once and all that… but dozens of times should be more than enough for anyone who does care.

    • Replies: @Anon
  79. @PintOrTwo

    TooManyPints apparently, way too many!

    • Replies: @Anon
  80. @Erebus

    For Americans, probably ill

    In the long run it may even be a bitter but life-saving medicine. BTW, OT–can you, please, get me to your excellent economic post about GDP “growing” while in reality shrinking. I hope you recall which one, I lost the link to it, sadly.

    • Replies: @Erebus
    , @Anonymous
  81. Anonymous [AKA "Squirty"] says:

    Anon (76) below is the interpretive guidance for US human rights law relating to the right to seek and obtain information – Article 18 – supreme law of the land.

  82. Squirty spouted: “US human rights law relating to the right to seek and obtain information – Article 18 – supreme law of the land.”
    … Surely, Americans have the “right to seek and obtain information.” (zzZigh)
    … Caveat is how impossible it is to get particular information from those robbers (in White Hats/Helmets) and who are the non-statuatory Supreme Law of the Land, & aspire to keep dumb-goyim guessing and controllably “free.”

  83. Erebus says:
    @Andrei Martyanov


    Agreed, but only for (some of) the people. I can’t see how the current Nation/State would survive.

    OT: Are you referring to this exchange with AstuteObserverII on the collapse of manufacturing (not “GDP”)? It starts at but I think it was #319 that you noted previously.

    • Replies: @Andrei Martyanov
  84. Anon[436] • Disclaimer says:

    And not before 1989?

    • Replies: @AnonFromTN
  85. Anon[436] • Disclaimer says:
    @ploni almoni

    Who suggests that the igniting of the jet fuel did more than start the fires?

  86. Anon[251] • Disclaimer says:

    He didn’t say he trusted them. More evidence perhaps that your substance abuse means your emissions come from no reliable sources at all. (Would you care to nominate sources to trust?).

    • Replies: @NoseytheDuke
  87. Anon[251] • Disclaimer says:

    On that your expertise is acknowledged.

  88. Anonymous[436] • Disclaimer says:
    @Jon Baptist

    My only potential enthusiasm for Baer came from watching his series on Oswald and his Cuban connections which seemed honest and competent – though I quickly gave up on some nonsense about Hitler. My assessment of those videos is that he was pulling the interviewer’s leg. Of course the FBI would have noticed it. I can almost hear the “Yeah, yeah, that’s just Bob Baer enjoying his usual leg pull with a wet-behind-the-ears interviewer”. I think we may have some of his humiliated interviewers turning up here on UR to show how sophisticated they really are as conspiracy theorists.

    • Replies: @Jon Baptist
  89. @anon

    In your statement of principals where do you stand on issues that relate to the fact that only a tiny minority will take the time to master what is released? I refer for example to the releasing of material when it is thought to be materially incomplete, needing interpretation (sometimes in the most literal sense), or likely to be taken up immediately only by those who want to use it to harm the state or government?

  90. Taras77 says:

    Yes, rhetorical.

    I think the answers are obvious.

  91. @slapstick

    The question remains ‘where are the four planes, and how and why did they disappear’.
    Assuming that there were four suicidal pilots at the same time seems a bridge too far.
    And, at the time, cockpit doors could easily be opened with just a screw driver

  92. Bahmi says:

    Brennan fails, miserably, by omitting the fact Israel runs our foreign policy show, not Vlad. Brennan is desperate now, he’s no longer in the bully pulpit. String him up!

  93. What world do you live in Giraldi? Your piece is full of fastidious hand wringing about the dirty business of intelligence, spooks. It is clearly designed to excuse Trump’s campaign from potential proof of collusion with Russia- by smearing Brennan for a series of sins common to almost all presiddnts and CIA chiefs.

    Enough with the faux-morality lessons?. Find another axe to grind.

    • Replies: @Jack Rauber
    , @anonymous
  94. @anonymous

    Since the agree button was grayed out I will reply “I agree wholeheartedly.”

    • Replies: @BobinBahia
  95. @BobinBahia

    How do people get so misguided. Without personally attacking the writer tell us how he is wrong and how there is any proof Trump in any way colluded with the Russians. Pure fabrication.

  96. Ike says:

    Brendan was in Ukraine at the time of the downing of MH17. Obama,Cameron and Abbot all announced the Russians were responsible almost before it hit the ground.
    To me it seems obvious who was really responsible but as per policy is able to claim plausible deniability.

    • Replies: @AnonFromTN
  97. Anonymous [AKA "empirebuster"] says:
    @The Alarmist

    We have to remember that half of the CPUSA membership were US undercover agents.

    • Replies: @The Alarmist
  98. @Erebus

    Yes, exactly. Thank you very much. You are right, it was about manufacturing.

  99. @Andrei Martyanov


    For me, it’s not so terrifying as disgusting, but I’m happy there’s at least one other person in the world who understands that some pretty foul and crackpot scum floats at the top.

    Thank you.

  100. @Jack Rauber

    We do understand “potential”? Please read more closely>>>

    “…to excuse Trump’s campaign from POTENTIAL proof of collusion…”

    Leave it to Mueller and the Special Counsel’s legal team to prove, or not prove?

    Or do you wish to exonerate the Campaign of collusion before charges are even laid?

    Guess you prefer that Trump fire Mueller and “make it all go away”, if the frivolousness of Giraldi’s piece cannot be ‘proven’ by…me?

    Get real. Read the signs. Critique between the lines.

    • Replies: @Jack Rauber
  101. anonymous[340] • Disclaimer says:

    over target? > flak!

  102. @Anon

    If we look farther back, it gets complicated. I’d say Nicolas II was just a weakling, but effectively he was a traitor of Russian interests.
    Lenin likely was a weasel, a slick operator willing to do anything, including taking German money and help, to get to power. However, after the collapse of Germany his Bolsheviks started working on the restoration of Russian influence.
    I hate to admit (as I don’t like him at all), but Stalin (1922-1953) did a lot to make the Russian Empire (USSR) great.
    Khruschev (1953-1964) was genuinely dumb, but not a traitor: he promoted USSR in many areas, to the best of his ability (which was very limited).
    Brezhnev (1964-1982) also tried to make the USSR as great as possible, but his ability was also limited, especially in later years of his reign.
    Andropov and Chernenko were on the throne too little to do much, but it does not look like either was a traitor.
    Gorbachev (1985-1991), on the other hand, was either a complete idiot, or a traitor, or both. Several figures at the helm in his time were simply traitors (e.g., Yakovlev).
    Yeltsin was also an idiot, or a traitor, or both, and a drunkard in addition to that.
    So, maybe 1985-2000 would be a more appropriate period to name.

    • Replies: @Andrei Martyanov
  103. Gs says:

    Good point.
    The same can be said about Petraeus and many generals . Promoted by cosying with politicians. It is quite apparent if you analyze the ineptitude of US military commanders in Iraq or Afghanistan.

  104. @Ike

    It is likely that CIA hatched the plot that included the downing of MH17, simply because the trash the US brought to power in Ukraine in 2014 was incapable of thinking of a plot of any complexity. However, the job was given to the Ukrainian army, which executed it in its characteristic incompetent and ham-handed way. Because of that botched hatchet job the “investigation” of the crash takes forever and looks so pathetically incompetent.

    • Replies: @Anon
  105. @jacques sheete

    The US is not unique in that. Say, in the USSR leaders of any competence got to the top before the Bolsheviks seized power. Everyone who rose up through the rank of the Communist party later was pathetically incompetent or worse.

    • Replies: @jacques sheete
    , @Anon
  106. @Anon

    It’s clear from your comment that context is way beyond you but the statement implied that those media outlets were credible.

  107. @jacques sheete

    For me, it’s not so terrifying as disgusting

    Disgusting too, but should the modern United States have not been a nuclear superpower drunk on own Kool Aid of “military exclusivity”–I wouldn’t have worried much. But when you have “elites” such as the US has now, you have to feel terrified because it is a defining characteristic of US political class to be almost entirely ignorant on issues of real war and, as I say non stop, know nothing on the nature of military power and its application. It is expected from people who are overwhelmingly “educated” in the so called political faux-science, journalism, PR, law and other fields producing zero real competences on the issues of foreign relations (geopolitics, the way it exists today in 21st century) and warfare. In other words–we have people who do not know what they are dealing with both internally and externally.

    • Agree: jacques sheete
  108. Erebus says:
    @jacques sheete

    I definitely see that it must disgust right thinking Americans, but the vast majority of Americans I meet out in the wide world are far more disgusted by Trump than by his adversaries. Some, moreover are quite vocal about it – to the point I’m usually so astonished at what I’m hearing that I simply disengage and move on.

    As some clever fellow noted, “Power most attracts precisely the type that shouldn’t be allowed near it.” Or something like that. In the late stages of Empire, that’s typically all there is to choose from. America’s actually unusually fortunate to have found a Trump at this late hour. Erratically, inelegantly, with sturm und drang in embarrassing surplus, he’s putting the genie back in the bottle. There’s no omelette yet, but all the eggs are broken. (I love mixing metaphors).

  109. Anon[436] • Disclaimer says:

    There were two quite distinct investigations. Which are you referring to as taking a long time and being incompetent? And why do you say incompetent? BTW have you gone and viewed the (obviously partly) reconstructed cabin and fuselage? Puts to rest a lot of the Russian trolling…

    • Replies: @AnonFromTN
  110. @Anon

    Both “investigations” take much longer than any investigation of any air disaster where the wreckage was found in recorded history.

    Yes, I have seen the reconstruction. Frankly, I fail to see how it can be construed to exonerate Ukraine. It has Buks (from Soviet times, like everything else of value they still have and that their oligarchs hadn’t sold to someone and stolen the money). Ukraine denied that, but then used Buks in military parade in Kiev (so, they lied, but what else is new: pretty much everything Ukrainian “authorities” say in the last few years is a lie). They had Buks in the area at the time of crash (in fact, several). MH17 flied on the day of downing ~200 kilometers to the North of its usual route. What’s more, Ukrainian air traffic controllers told the crew to reduce altitude on that day. So, even if MH17 was downed by a Buk (which is still an “if”), Ukrainian army remains the prime suspect. Not to mention the best clue since the Roman times: cui bono.

    Besides, Ukraine has history of hitting civilian aircraft: they downed Siberia airlines Flight 1812 that was flying from Ben Gurion airport in Israel on October 4, 2001. As the joke has it, Ukraine is the only country in the world that downed two civilian aircraft and not a single military one.

    • Replies: @RobinG
  111. Anonymous [AKA "SparkyMcBiff"] says:

    Except that 9/11 wasn’t an “intelligence failure”.
    It was a massive intelligence success since the alphabet agencies (and Mossad) was involved.

  112. @Anonymous

    “Gaslighting” comes to mind when I hear somebody apply the label, “conspiracy theorist.” The fact that Baer was caught contradicting himself from previous statements on Network TV gives the presented interview great value. It shows the character of Baer. Phil Giraldi shared a panel with Jeremy Rothe-Kushel, the “wet-behind-the-ears interviewer,” at the ‘Deep Truth Deep State Conference.’ Rothe-Kushel is one of the presenters on a podcast called ‘The Antedote’ at The analysis is very comprehensive. Bonnie Faulkner of ‘Guns and Butter’ probably lost her slot on Pacifica Radio, because she rebroadcast parts of this specific panel.

    • Replies: @Anonymous
  113. sundog says:

    Brennan should be in prison for his role and covering for 911….Giiuliani should be in Prison for his role and coverup of 911 yet he represents Trump….’You cannot make this up’…criminals of the highest order on both sides of the political spectrum..the system most probably will need to collapse and We will need to elect people of integrity, not controlled by the secret agencies or foreign powers that control our media, the most horrific being Israel and Saudi Arabia…that can murder innocent people in broad daylight and no resistance given by our government and continuing to send billions to these terrorist enterprises. The most dangerous terrorists are running our country and the secret agencies now playing both sides of the Trump/CIA/FBI/Democrat/ conflict. Insanity reigns here!

  114. Here’s something nice I said about certain elements within the CIA.

    Tweet from 2014:

    • Replies: @AnonFromTN
  115. @BobinBahia

    You’re a clueless partisan. There was and still is zero evidence. Totally contrived to keep Trump off balance and ineffective. Like Stalin used to say, “show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.”

    • Replies: @BobinBahia
    , @The Alarmist
  116. @Charles Pewitt

    All decent people left CIA and other “intelligence” agencies after they were requested to lie about Iraq WMDs. Worthless shit remained. That’s why Russian operation in Crimea in 2014, as well as Russian move into Syria in 2015 were big surprises to them. If you want your “intelligence” agencies to confirm whatever you want, you have to get rid of all decent and intelligent people first. The establishment did just that.

    • Agree: Andrei Martyanov
  117. @AnonFromTN


    It is not a novel idea–at some point Vadim Kozhinov, before he became Solzhenitsyn’s sycophant–was writing about how actual business of governing changed Bolsheviks. I have to go here with Elena Prudnikova who brilliantly noted that most Bolsheviks were genius adventurists who didn’t expect to hold on to power for too long until they were brutally faced with the realities of demoralized and imploding nation after February 1917 coup and engaged into the day-to-day military and economic activity to address a monumental volume of problems, this alleged 1913 “paradise”, faced. Lenin, after all, was never consistent even on the economic policy–everything was first.


    Very true–a monumental moron plus hands soaked in blood in Ukraine. Staling famous resolution on Khrush’s “report” of purged: “Stop yourself, you fool”. (Uimis’, Durak).

    Gorbachev and Yeltsin, and their cabal of “liberals””creative” intelligentsia-criminal crowd are both cases in point and warnings that never again should Russia has as her leader anyone without serious military-intelligence background and by that I also mean also serious military-academic background. At least now most of the elite is required to take serious course in the Military Academy of the General Staff.

    • Replies: @AnonFromTN
  118. @jilles dykstra

    ” … what flew into the Pentagon was something small … ”

    What flew into the Pentagon on 9/11 was either a cruise missile or a drone. Video footage of it is easily obtained online.

    • Replies: @Anon
  119. @Jack Rauber

    You STILL don’t know….

    What POTENTIAL means? As in Trump et al are innocent, e.g. POTENTIALLY guilty until judged.

    Are you one of the Alt Right clucks who think the Constitution is for Conservatives and Liberals and you’re above the law? That Trump is and never will be judged guilty because you have a crystal ball?

    As Voltaire said, “Doubt is an uncomfortable state.
    But certainty is ABSURD.”

    You, Sir, clearly are ABSURD. Run it past you again, see if you GET it this time?

    Under our legal system, Trump is innocent until PROVEN guilty. Except for certain deplorables, irredeemables among which I reckon are YOU.

    Get a life? One that does not depend on living off the pumped up bragadoccio of a hero by virtue of which we know he hides underneath the squeamishness of an abject coward.

    Do you REALLY want to be like your Master? REALLY? You’re off to a good start!

  120. Michael Cohen outside a New York courthouse on August 21, 2018.Swamp Chronicles
    The President Has Been Implicated in a Criminal Conspiracy
    The question can no longer be whether the President and those closest to him broke the law; the question now becomes far narrower and, for Trump, more troubling.
    By Adam Davidson

    Michael Cohen walks as onlookers take photos with their phones.The Current
    Michael Cohen Says That Donald Trump Directed His Crimes
    The words “coördination with” and “at the direction of” will haunt the Trump Presidency.
    By Eric Lach

    Read it and…. start looking for another “law-abiding, Constitution reverent, patriotic American Hero”. You’ve lost one, but the looks of it.

  121. RobinG says:

    The Ukrainians are also guilty of interference in the 2016 election – – the attempted derailment of Trump — for the benefit of DNC. And they’ve admitted it.
    “Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire”

    Too bad this doesn’t fit the anti-Putin narrative, so this story was ignored. Except by Lee Stranahan, who today aired his interview of a Ukrainian Embassy whistleblower.
    EXCLUSIVE: New Material on THE REAL 2016 Election Interference

    • Replies: @AnonFromTN
  122. @AnonFromTN

    The US is not unique in that.

    True, but most ‘Merkins seem to think they are the exception to that.

  123. @Anonymous

    Yes, it was a massive success as you say.

  124. Why does anyone who is not in government service have a security clearance?
    The moment this Brennan character ceased to be an employee of the United States, his security clearance should have been revoked.
    I’m dead serious. What am I missing?
    Why should any of these people still have security clearances?
    How can this even be an issue?

  125. @Andrei Martyanov

    I hope Russian people will never again tolerate “leaders” like Gorbachev and Yeltsin. Russians learned their lesson in the 1990s well enough not to get into the “liberal” trap twice. In fact, as early as 1993 Russians revolted against “liberal” thieves, although that revolt was drowned in blood by the Yeltsin regime (with full approval of self-appointed “democratic” countries). Now most Russians laugh at those who did not learn the lesson of 1990s, like Ukrainians. Doing the same thing and expecting a different result is believed to be a sure sign of schizophrenia.

    Russia has an amazing ability to rise up from the ashes. The country did just that after the catastrophic crash of the Empire at the beginning and equally catastrophic crash of the USSR in the end of the 20th century. Every time it shakes off parasites and becomes stronger. The parasites that became “independent” after the breakup of the USSR are still gnashing their teeth in impotent rage. Today resurgent Russia sent the “exceptional” and “indispensable” Empire into hysterics. I like the way Russians express it: “if the US praises us, we should stop and think what are we doing wrong”.

    • Agree: Andrei Martyanov
    • Replies: @Wizard of Oz
  126. @RobinG

    The funniest thing is that Manafort and Co are homegrown crooks, as American as an apple pie. But Russiagate enthusiasts would never acknowledge that two times two equals four: the truth hurts.

  127. @Macumazahn

    Hey, what you say is common sense. It is totally inadmissible in politics.

  128. @Macumazahn

    How can this even be an issue?

    Here is how it is an issue. BTW, this black dude is a class act, absolute top class act.

    • Replies: @Macumazahn
  129. geokat62 says:

    Breaking news:

    Internet Buzzing After Julian Assange’s Mother Implicates Seth Rich In DNC Leak

    • Replies: @SolontoCroesus
  130. @Andrei Martyanov

    Here is how it is an issue.

    I’m not sure I understand. The man (whose name is Mudd) and his CNN mouthpiece do a lot of babbling, but somewhere in there they seem to be trying to claim that these ex-officials ought to retain their security clearances because that makes them a more effective and valuable resource when they’re brought in for (unpaid) consultations with actual officials. That’s a different discussion, as Mr Dennard ultimately makes clear – so clear, in fact, that even the CNN hand-puppet is unable to maintain his facade of misunderstanding.
    The point here is one that the swamp creature and its handler struggle to sidestep, obfuscate and evade – these former officials know very well (as do we all) that their security clearances have monetary value in the private sector. Their howls of protest, thundering that they’re concerned only with National Security, ring hollow.
    As for any possible issue with these apparently-irreplaceable people being hindered (you know, in their crucial but unpaid consultations with current government officials) by no longer having security clearances, that’s easily solved. Simply put (or keep) them on the US payroll for a token sum, and – in order to continue to enjoy security clearances – they must also continue to abide by all the rules and regulations that apply to actual government officials. No more working both sides of the street.

    • Replies: @Andrei Martyanov
  131. @geokat62

    Good find, geokat62.

    In other news, Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s Pakistani computer dude and his fugitive wife were judged pure as the driven slush:

    Former Wasserman Schultz aide Imran Awan reaches plea deal that debunks conspiracy theories

    “The Government has uncovered no evidence that your client violated federal law with respect to the House computer systems,” including stealing equipment or illegally accessing or transferring information, prosecutors wrote in the plea agreement dated and signed Tuesday.

    Federal prosecutors described in the agreement a “thorough investigation” that included forensic analysis of computer equipment and other devices, log-on and usage data and interviews with about 40 witnesses.

  132. Anon[436] • Disclaimer says:

    People who get on in any organisation have normally got some above average ability. I know I’ve looked at quite a lot of elected politicians and had to remind myself that, apart from some flukily elected where no one else was willing to try, they all had proved some sort of nous or cunning at least to get and usually keep their party’s endorsement. So… what are/were the institutiional factors which cause incompetence or worse? In the USSR for most of its 70 years relative poverty could have supported petty bribery which was very rare in northern Europe and perhaps rare in the US. OK, that’s just an a priori speculative start. I am very critical of themalign distortiond caused in America by competitive elections of prosecutors and judges but that is presumably different to the distortions in the Soviet system and not particularly connected to incompetence. So…. your analysis, if you will?

    • Replies: @AnonFromTN
  133. @AnonFromTN

    I think I detect a possible fallacy in your old fashioned Great Russian Chauvinist stance. You don’t seem to acknowledge that you are – amazingly to most people in the West – and India, post WW2 Japan, Chinese diaspora etc – rating Russia’s great power status above the standard of living and common liberties of its people. Do you regard the brilliant Alexander Herzen as a traitor or fool? Why shouldn’t Gorbachev be regarded as a highly intelligent man who acknowledged “even as a great military power we are going backwards [You haven’t mentioned what he would have seen in post-Mao China, not that Mao’s China with its burgeoning population wasn’t militarily formidable when right next door] and now we look absurd when we try to tell our people that they are living as well under Communism as people in the West”. If you had been his assistant in 1985 what would you have suggested after he had pointed out that some controversial changes just can’t be implemented slowly and gradually after much debate when the reactionaries and vested interests are only plotting to bring you down and preserve the status quo?

    Yeltsin doesn’t appear to have had much more going for him than a few liberal instincts and insights into the hopelessness of the Soviet ancient régime, I acknowledge.

    • Replies: @AnonFromTN
  134. Anon[436] • Disclaimer says:

    And what happened to the missing airliner and its passengers and crew?

  135. Dave says:
    @Greg Bacon

    Why don’t you like God’s chosen people?

  136. @Anon

    That was not bribery: party officials were certainly not poor, they had enough perks to be susceptible only to very large bribes (like most police officers in the US). Otherwise the benefits did not justify risks.

    I believe the problem was the same as with the promotions to the rank of general in the US Army: you must have glowing reviews by all of your superiors to have a chance. Naturally, only a total nonentity without scruples prepared to kiss every ass offered can possibly get that. Worthy competent people inevitably step on someone’s toes, and therefore are not promoted. So, there was negative selection, like there is among higher-ranking officers in the US Army. Before Bolsheviks came to power, person’s abilities and performance trumped the displeasure of some superiors. Also, I think in a system like that there is a positive feedback: the more shit there is among higher-ups, the more likely that only shit gets promoted.

    I would not vouch for this, though, that’s my personal theory. I was never a member of the party in the USSR and I am proud of it.

  137. Anonymous[436] • Disclaimer says:
    @Jon Baptist

    There are certainly free speech issues to worry any loyal American and you draw attention to some which I suggest should and probably do worry decent Jews of mature years and life experience who care for the long run existence and wellbeing of Israel as well as the civility of life in America. However you do not persuade me that I should conclude that Bob Baer was telling a literal or even a slightly varied equivalent to the literal truth when he said, with a smile on his face that he knew about the inside trader from a White House source (or whatever it was he said precisely). Not only do the FBI obviously discount it but you are the first commenter on the internet I have known to bring it up. Where is the drumbeat of insistence from 9/11 truthers? No, the most you have proved is that he is not necessarily to be believed in everything he says in a broadcast. That he is obviously making a lot of money cashing in on his CIA past is sufficient reason not to be naive about his output, but let’s not overstate it.

  138. @Wizard of Oz

    Although you are on my ignore list as a proven State Department troll, I will answer, not for your benefit, but for the benefit of honest readers.

    The real standard of living in the USSR was a lot higher than many people in the West believed. It did not manifest itself in possessions, but more in what people got. They had free healthcare, whereas in the US a serious health problem can bankrupt even a solid middle class family. They had free education at all levels. I got free education at Moscow State University, which, as I know now, was at least as good as Harvard, Yale, or Caltech. Moreover, I had a stipend throughout college that was sufficient for food, and I had a dorm bed with biweekly change of linen for the token price of 2 rubles per month (1/20th of my stipend). In the US my daughter’s education cost me ~$140,000, now it costs more than $200,000. People got free apartments (they usually had to wait for a few years for that). What’s more, the rents were incredibly low: I paid for my one-bedroom apartment less then 9 rubles per month, which was less than 6% of my salary. Utilities were also quite cheap.

    As for liberties, late Soviet Union that I know compared very favorably with today’s US: the level of uniformity of the narrative in the American MSM was achieved only under Stalin in the USSR and under Hitler in Germany. Soviet authorities were a lot more responsive to people’s complaints. Officials were afraid to make people really unhappy, as the chance of losing their position and perks was very real. In contrast, in the US nobody in power gives a hoot about the people and their concerns. The “free” elections are a ruse for the dim-witted: real choosing is done in rigged primaries, so when it comes to general elections, we have a choice between shit and even bigger shit. We are totally free to choose which shit is bigger: Deep State rules either way.

    Even now in Russia, where oligarchs steal about as much as in the US, living standards are higher than in many European countries. The difference with the US is no more than ~2-fold. There still is some free basic healthcare for all and free college education for higher performers.

    The only big difference was PR: Soviet authorities were remarkably inept in that. As people say now in Russia about Soviet propaganda, “what they told us about socialism was mostly lies, but what they told us about capitalism turned out to be perfectly true”. Today’s Russian powers learned their lesson: they are quite good at PR, at least when they can afford to tell the truth, whereas Western MSM are lying through their teeth, which became the usual situation in the last couple of decades.

    • Replies: @Anon
    , @RobinG
  139. @Anonymous

    Kind of like 90% of KKK members being undercover FBI informants.

  140. @Jack Rauber

    Wasn’t that Beria’s line?

    • Replies: @Jack Rauber
  141. slapstick says:

    @ jilles dykstra

    The question remains ‘where are the four planes, and how and why did they disappear’. Assuming that there were four suicidal pilots at the same time seems a bridge too far. And, at the time, cockpit doors could easily be opened with just a screw driver

    Your questions are muddled. What ‘four planes’ are you refering to? The ones that took off on schedule, or the ones in the Hollywood spectacle, the whole world witnessed? As to suicidal pilots, it was mentioned previously, the jets flying into the towers were certainly UAV’s being flown from a simulator on the ground.

    Or are you being deliberately obtuse to muddy the waters?

  142. Vic says:

    Don’t we already know what happened on 9/11 from “The 9/11 Commission Report”, ISBN 0-393-32671-31? P. 278: “Both towers had 110 stories, were about 1,350 feet high, and were square.” P. 305: “At 9:58:59 the South tower collapsed in ten seconds…”. P. 552, Footnote 187 passes the buck on the North tower disappearing at 10:28:25 to an NIST report, without any mention the time (also caught precisely on dozens of video cameras) or of WTC 7 . But we know that South tower’s gravitational “fall” near the Earth’s surfare without air resistance would be 32 feet per second/per second. Hence, Distance (1,350) equals Rate (32′ per second squared) times Time (10 seconds). Solve the textbook gravity equasion for Velocity. It becomes clear that the building vanished at a rate consistent with pure gravity — only possible if the momentum was unimpeded by any structural resistance. Unless Isaac Newton was wrong, that’s only possible with what civil engineers call a controlled demolition, i.e. inside job. Forget airplanes, Arabs and pancake analogy. Whodonnit?

  143. Anon[324] • Disclaimer says:

    What a volume of frenetic stuff you have been shovelling out. Has your American employer sacked you? I’m glad your daughter’s education is now apparently paid for as I can’t beieve doing PR for Putin pays much.

    And what a dope you are. “A … State Deparment troll” [and yes “proven”no less]. Can’t you handle a search which would show what wild fantasies you are entertaining? Wally or Art would probably yell you “hasbara” but some sensible souls might wonder at the State Department employing someone in Australia to bother about the prickly nationalist outpourings from your inferiority complex.

    • Replies: @AnonFromTN
    , @RobinG
  144. @Macumazahn


    The point is that this “man” Mudd, who passes for a former “top intelligence” something behaves himself as a hysterical teenager girl (I omit here an utter BS he speaks)–he is an example of current US “elites”, in fact he is typical. How do you think, say professional (I mean real professionals) people in Russia have to view all this high school drama from many people who are, indeed, on or close to the political top? BTW, the amount of pathos in this clown is off the scale. A first indicator of a grossly inferior man both as human and as professional. The point of the CNN “discussion” is irrelevant to a pathetic exhibit of human and professional inadequacy–and that is what matters here, not security clearance per se.

    • Replies: @Macumazahn
  145. Anonymous [AKA "Shillsapoppin"] says:

    Anonymous 142, thanks for summarizing the government propaganda line in a handy debunkable form! Complete with the CIA epithet ‘truthers!’ Because FBI ignores insider trading, that means there’s nothing there? Ignoring CIA crimes is FBI’s **job**. The peer-reviewed open source facts are below. Funny you haven’t seen them. Feel free to rebut the Swiss, Canadian, and US econometric studies of the evidence. Show your work.

    CIA did 911, you know it.

  146. Anonymous [AKA "FormerMarine"] says:

    Putting aside the psychological makeup mention, as that is a different issue, are you saying someone should be accepted, or not be accepted, into the CIA based on his or her “political affiliations (or inclinations)”?

    …and how would that decision be made, and who would make it?

    …and what exactly do you know about his “psychological makeup” anyway?

  147. @Anon

    Wow, I am proud to have hurt your ilk so much. Not a bad result of spending no more than an hour per day on this site.

    Don’t you worry, my American employer won’t fire me, as I bring it more money and glory than you had in your entire life.

    Keep working, guys. The pay might be poor, but you can console yourself that you are fighting infowars for the Empire (crumbling, going the way of formerly Great formerly Britain, but still). Say hello to your supervisor for me. Do you and Wizard have the same one, or are you in different outfits? In the latter case say hello to both supervisors.

    BTW, your kind seems to mention Putin a lot more often than he deserves, like Western MSM. Tell you a secret: that’s a strategic mistake, free PR from the enemy.

    • Replies: @Johnny Rico
  148. Agent76 says:

    Feb 7, 2013 Who is CIA director nominee John Brennan?

    John Brennan has a long and, at times, controversial history with the intelligence community that spans across multiple White House administrations. We take a look at how he got to this latest career milestone.

  149. RobinG says:

    And you know the Olde Wizzer is a portly pensioner in a beach cabana in Australia because…. he has told you so, on the internet. Brilliant!

    • Replies: @Anon
  150. @AnonFromTN


    What is this crap?

    • Replies: @AnonFromTN
    , @Anon
  151. What we are witnessing is a battle between the deep state (the deep state controlled main stream media and press), and the elected officials of the USA. The battle is for control of the country. Are the elected officials going to control the country or is the deep state going to control the country?? The battle is to determine if this will be a government of the people, by the people and for the people who elect their leaders, or will the corporations run by the deep state control the country? Right now, the deep state is running the country and trying to run trump out of office. Corporation only seek profit. That is their goal. The people be damned. If corporations are in control, every person will be mass vaccinated then get sicker and sicker to buy drugs from corporations to make them well. It’s insane.

  152. @Johnny Rico

    Yea, science is very different from many occupations. My employer is a University. They expect the faculty to get extramural funding for their research, on which the University receives “indirect costs” from funding agencies, usually to the tune of 50 cents or more per research dollar (that’s money). They also expect faculty to publish good papers that will be widely read and cited (that’s glory).
    Very few employers managed to have an arrangement as sweet as that. It’s like if you worked at McDonalds and your employer expected you to find a source for paying your own salary, plus salaries of a few other employees, and also advertise them by your own efforts.

  153. @Taras77

    It’s obvious, innit. With Brennan a spy, communist, neo-Marxist, his handler must have been…..Putin!

  154. @Andrei Martyanov

    Thanks, I think I see your point now. The real problem here isn’t the ridiculous argument over security clearances. No, the real problem is that the so-called serious intelligence professionals on the American side have been revealed to be pathetic blustering fools. Why should our rivals take us seriously?

    • Agree: Andrei Martyanov
  155. Anon[302] • Disclaimer says:
    @Johnny Rico

    Crap. That’s it. C’est tout. (As he is a Russian boaster type I can make a pretty good guess that his income in any 12 month period has never exceeded $500,000. Actually his bleating about the cost of educating just one child suggests that’s a considerable overestimate).

    • Replies: @Andrei Martyanov
  156. Anon[302] • Disclaimer says:

    Well even if it is a fit lean sardonic retired judge or academic you wouldn’t buy our Russian boaster’s nonsense about “State Department” would you, any more than his income?

  157. Anonymous [AKA "Commie Commie Commie Chameleon"] says:

    Wow, Brennan the Commie Traitor disappeared from the news as suddenly as he appeared. Did the Democrats realize that Brennan’s socialist leanings (and incompetence and Islamophilia and corruption and the potential for his various flaws to illuminate trails that lead to illegal actions on the part of powerful Democrats such as Obama and Clinton) would do more to harm the Democrats than Trump and, thus, instruct the media to disregard his pompous ramblings? Or am I just reading too much into things?

  158. RobinG says:

    you are on my ignore list as a proven State Department troll

    Gosh, I ignore Olde Wizz on the ‘waste of time’ basis, but that DoS troll persona is a shoe (or glove) that really fits! Thanks.

  159. geokat62 says:

    Apologies for having to repost this comment. It was previously posted under another of Phil’s articles, but I inadvertently mangled some of the formatting.


    Highly recommend this Russia-Insider article, Humanity Has Had Its Fill of George Soros

    Here is the most pertinent excerpt:

    The worst-kept secret in political circles beyond Hillary’s emails is the infamous 49-page memo distributed by Soros and Media Matters’ David Brock to a group of insiders laying out their strategy to destroy Donald Trump with the help of social media giants like Facebook is rearing its head again.

    As is my wont, I did a quick DuckDuckGo search and came across this article:

    Read the Confidential David Brock Memo Outlining Plans to Attack Trump

    BY: Joe Schoffstall
    January 26, 2017 1:31 pm





    I’ve just downloaded the 49 page confidential memo. Although I intend to review the entire document, I just wanted to share the first page with my fellow Unzers:


    The progressive infrastructure groups we’ve built together were started long before Hillary Clinton ran for president. They were always intended to be the first line of defense— and offense—when we are under siege.

    If we keep fighting, our groups will last, we will continue to build for the future—and we will win again.

    We have the mandate.

    Together, we won the popular vote and Democrats picked up seats in the Senate and the House.

    Trump is the least popular incoming president in modern history and the outgoing president and popular vote winner are again the most admired man and woman in the nation.

    The country did not vote for Trump-style change.

    Trump has the legal authority, but we have the moral authority—and the moral responsibility— to oppose him.

    We will fight, every day.

    We are going to fight for the things in which we believe, and we are going to fight against any attempt to erode the cornerstone work and values of the progressive movement and this pluralistic nation.

    We are going to resist the normalization of Donald Trump. His every conflict of interest, his every bit of cronyism, his every move toward authoritarianism, his every subversion of our democratic systems and principles, his every radical departure from foreign and domestic policy norms.

    We are going to contest every effort, at every level of government, to limit rights, rescind protections, entrench inequality, redistribute wealth upwards, or in any other way fundamentally undermine the tenets of egalitarianism that must serve as the bedrock of our democracy.

    • Replies: @RobinG
  160. @Anon


    But I am sure that on your considerable earnings measuring in millions and millions of dollars you transformed your mom’s basement into a very cozy playroom;)

  161. When looking at the current US top administration, you ask yourself where is Stalin, now when you need him?
    Shoot them all, the whole corrupt bunch.

  162. RobinG says:

    The collusion and conspiracy to destroy Trump [and Putin] was already operational in March of 2016. The Ukrainian Embassy official cited in this article (Andrei) has now gone on record to confirm DNC soliciting Ukraine to find dirt on DJT. That’s March, 2016. Before DNC hack. Before Gucifer. Before Trump Tower. The WITCH HUNT is a DNC plot.

    Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire

    • Replies: @geokat62
  163. geokat62 says:


    Given the odds of Trump winning the election, that was, no doubt, a more limited operation. Once in office, however, they brought the big guns out to deal with the leader of The Deplorables.

    • Replies: @RobinG
  164. RobinG says:

    There’s nothing bigger than Trump/Russia.

  165. geokat62 says:

    There’s nothing bigger than Trump/Russia.

    Never suggested that Trump/Russia isn’t big. My only point is the scale of the resistance got amplified after Nov 8.

  166. Skeptikal says:

    I always thought the OSS was kind of an old boys club with a lot of Yanks and Yalies and such, like George Bush, Edward Lansdale, and that type.

  167. Anonymous [AKA "Lynn_M"] says:
    @Andrei Martyanov

    Last paragraph from

    “Update: Herman Daly notes that last year the British medical journal, Lancet, estimated the annual cost of pollution was about 6 % of the global economy whereas the annual global economic growth rate was about 2 percent, with the difference being about a 4% annual decline in wellbeing, not a 2 percent rise. In other words, we could already be in the situation where economic growth is uneconomical.”

  168. geokat62 says:

    With a tweet like this one, you get the sense AOC is slowly but surely acclimatizing herself to the swamp:

    • Replies: @Skeptikal
  169. Thank you for sharing your personal anecdote, Pauline Kael.
    It’s completely useless, but thanks for sharing it.
    Perhaps visit other areas of the country than the one you are encapsulated within. You’d find a wildly different experience from wherever you currently reside.

  170. anonymous[213] • Disclaimer says:

    John Brennan was Obama’s CIA director for most of Obama’s presidency. Brennan was chief architect of the Obama CIA’s Operation Timber Sycamore, which secretly funneled over five billion dollars to “rebels” in Syria (which everyone realizes are effectively Queda and Nusra Front jihadis). Zero Congressional discussion or approval, all done on the sly, with no input from voters.

    Brennan desperately wanted Clinton to win, because she, too, worked to implement the CIA’s attempted Syria regime change. Trump had campaigned on ending US regime change interventionist wars. For this reason, Brennan, Clinton and the rest of the key agents of the US permanent war state absolutely detested Trump and tried to block his election chances.

    Trump recently de-funded Brennan’s CIA Operation Timber Sycamore, and this enraged Brennan, Clinton, McCain and the other NeoCons.

    Brennan arguably started Russia-gate, because Russia ruined his attempted Syria regime change.

    Brennan and the other NeoCons cannot ever reveal their true reasons for hating Trump: namely that Trump has impeded their biggest project: Syria regime change, so that Syria can be subdivided, appropriated, colonized, by Israel, the Saudis, and US banking and oil interests.

    • Replies: @AnonFromTN
  171. @anonymous

    That’s a good summary. Key point is, if we are to go after the criminals in the US power structure, Brennan should not be the only, or even the first, target.

    • Replies: @Skeptikal
  172. Skeptikal says:

    Agree. She could have left it at condolences to the family, and she had learned a lot from McCain. that would leave open, what she had learned. . . .

  173. Skeptikal says:

    Agree. Good summary.
    If they do succeed in eliminating Trump, it will be verrrrry interesting to see the fastest policy changes. Looks like Syria is back in the sights with new troop creation in readiness for “punishment” after false flag chemical attack (yawn—time to switch to another playbook??). If they can keep up the military pressure on Assad and Trump is going along with it, they might not have to eliminate Trump after all.

    • Replies: @AnonFromTN
  174. @Skeptikal

    Looks like the provocations and false flags won’t stop until someone actually sinks one the NATO ships, preferably American. I only pity the sailors: they would suffer for no fault of their own. By rights, neocons should be hanged, and sailors spared. Life is not fair, though.

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