Purveyors of “Fake News” about to be Confounded by Their Own New Laws
LAST WEEK FOUR OF THE NATION’S LEADING INTELLIGENCE chiefs (James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence; John Brennan, CIA Director; James Comey, FBI Director and Admiral Mike Rogers, NSA Director) presented classified documents to President Obama and President-elect Trump. The documents contain a two page synopsis of specific allegations appended to a 35 page report alleging Russian interference in the presidential election. The FBI is still investigating the authenticity of the information, much of which remains unconfirmed.
Trump has continually denied the allegations referring to them as “fake news” and a “total political witchhunt.” It was CNN that first published the news, but it did not include the specific allegations since they could not be verified for accuracy. BuzzFeed, whom Trump referred to as a “failing pile of garbage”, however, had no problem published the specious allegations, with the caveat that they were not yet substantiated.”
While this might seem to be a major story, a story that many are getting confused trying to unravel, a closely related story, a story having to do with empowering the United Sates government to handle fake news allegedly originating from new social media outlets, a story with far greater ramifications, slipped by virtually unnoticed over the Christmas Holiday when people had their minds set on the holiday season.
Interestingly, Senator John McCain (who admits to having been the person behind real fake news, fake news about Trump and Russia, which he passed to the FBI) recently sponsored a bill entitled the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) designed to protect the main-stream media by outlawing so-called fake news presumed to be coming from “alternative social media”. McCain admitted passing documents to James Comey (FBI Director), documents that allegedly show that Russian intelligence agents possess compromising data about the President-elect.
The fact that Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, denied that Russia has collected any compromising intel on Mr. Trump and referred to the allegation as a “complete fabrication and utter nonsense”, did not stop John McCain from escalating the matter in an attempt to ruin fellow Republican presidential candidate Trump. In McCain’s own words:
“Late last year, I received sensitive information that has since been made public. Upon examination of the contents, and unable to make a judgement about their accuracy, I delivered the information to the Director of the FBI.”
“McCain was reluctant to get involved, according to a colleague, for fear the issue would be dismissed as a personal grudge against Trump. He pushed instead for the creation of a special Senate committee to look into connections between campaign staff and Moscow, but the proposal was blocked by the Republican leadership.”
“McCain told the NBC programme Meet the Press on Sunday: “I would like to see a select committee. Apparently that is not in agreement by our leadership. So we will move forward with the armed services committee and I’m sure foreign relations and intelligence committee will as well.”
So Senator John McCain passes fake news on a candidate running for President of the United States and then turns around and sponsors a bill intended to stop the spread of fake news of which he himself is a purveyor. In a show of non-partisanship, President Obama signed the bill into law on Friday December 23 during the rush of the holiday season, the day before Christmas Eve
Today, I have signed into law S. 2943, the “National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017.” This Act authorizes fiscal year 2017 appropriations principally for the Department of Defense and for Department of Energy national security programs, provides vital benefits for military personnel and their families, and includes authorities to facilitate ongoing operations around the globe. It continues many critical authorizations necessary to ensure that we are able to sustain our momentum in countering the threat posed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and to reassure our European allies, as well as many new authorizations that, among other things, provide the Departments of Defense and Energy more flexibility in countering cyber-attacks and our adversaries’ use of unmanned aerial vehicles.”
By far, the most significant news has to do with alarming provisions buried deeply within the NDAA. Buried deeply inside the new bill are provisions from the “Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act” of 2016 (CDPA), which provides remedies for the government to censor the press in the name of veracity vis a vis fake news. The 2016 CDPA was introduced by Congressmen Ted Lieu and Adam Kinzinger as House Bill H.R. 5181, which is intended to limit “foreign disinformation and manipulation” and
“To collect and store examples in print, online, and social media, disinformation, misinformation, and propaganda directed at the United States and its allies and partners.
From the House the bill passed to the Senate where it was supported by Senators Robert Portman (Rep – OH) and Chris Murphy (Dem – CT) who argued that Washington vis a vis the Kremlin spends a relatively small amount on its foreign news agency, the Voice of America while the Kremlin provides prodigious funding for its news agency, Russia Today (RT). Portmain advocates a single government agency to integrate and synchronize “whole strategies to counter foreign propaganda and disinformation.”
Thus, prior to the passage of the NDAA in December of 2017, before the discrediting of CNN by Trump mentioned above, the Secretary of State was being asked by to coordinate national efforts to “establish a Center for Information Analysis and Response” and to “develop” and “disseminate” “fact-based narratives” to counter propaganda otherwise now known as “fake news.”
According to the bill’s sponsor in the Senate, Chris Murphy, the:
“Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act – legislation designed to help American allies counter foreign government propaganda… has been signed into law as part of the FY 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).”
The CDPA was inserted inside the December 2017 NDAA and has become law, a law that erodes freedom of the press in America presaging what Trump refers to as “witch hunts” followed by censorship, fines and possibly imprisonment for writing news stories that do not correspond with the liberal script. The NDAA provides funds for a grant program for think tanks, NGOs and other personnel engaged in counter-propaganda operations. While supporters of the bill consider it an outrage that Russia would dare publish its version of world news, they see no problem with their doing the same. Not to be out done by RT, the bill provides for a more robust foreign propaganda machine enhanced by on-going assistance to foreign allies to help them defend themselves against harmful false news coming out of places like Poland, Hungary, Russia and Slovakia et al.
Strangely, the NDAA is a law intended to help counter false news while its sponsor John McCain is a purveyor of false news. Apparently news is true if it supports the liberal economic, military or moral agenda and false if opposed. False news such as the type sponsored by Senator McCain supports the agenda. News containing false allegations about “golden showers” and Russian war-mongering is considered worthy of belief, when in fact it is McCain who is acting like a war monger beating the NATO and US war drums to mount a crusade against Russia.
While berating Russia as a military behemoth waiting to strangle the world, the fact is that US military spending is higher than that of all the countries of the world combined – including Russia. NATO alone spends ten times more on military than the entire Russian Federation – so who is the war-monger?
Putin recently challenged the West to publish a map of all of its bases around the world and compare them to Russian bases – such a map would more clearly show who the war-monger really is:
Putin continued:
“American submarines are on permanent alert off the Norwegian coast; they are equipped with missiles that can reach Moscow in 17 minutes. But we dismantled all of our bases in Cuba a long time ago, even the non-strategic ones. And you would call us aggressive?”
“You yourself have mentioned NATO’s expansion to the east. As for us, we are not expanding anywhere; it is NATO infrastructure, including military infrastructure, that is moving towards our borders. Is this a manifestation of our aggression?”
“Everything we do is just a response to the threats emerging against us. Besides, what we do is limited in scope and scale, which are, however, sufficient to ensure Russia’s security. Or did someone expect Russia to disarm unilaterally?”
MAPS OF US BASES AROUND THE WORLD
Looking at the maps below, it seems that Mr. Putin has a valid point, a point that neo-liberal and neo-con war mongers want to ignore:
Graphic by 5W Infographics
Please excuse the following jocularity (sarcasm), but this is how ridiculous it has become: If we need further proof of Russia’s aggression we need only consider how bold the Russians are: How dare they move their country so close to our military bases. It is not the Russians who are demonizing the West, we do a good job of that all by ourselves; it is the West that is demonizing Russia. It seems that Russia and the West have switched roles. Hopefully, under President Elect Trump, the United States and Russia will be reconciled and cooperate to bring an end to terrorism and advance world peace.
Anyone with eyes can see who is threatening whom. Russia is virtually surrounded except for the frigid North Pole and even there the US has nuclear submarines than can target and hit Moscow in 17 minutes.
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WHY THE HATRED OF RUSSIA
Why the hatred of Russia? In the 20th century it was because of the American opposition to Communism. Today it is the opposition of Russian Christianity to Western Liberalism. In the mind of a liberal idedologue, Russia is engaged in such terrible things as adopting legislation to outlaw abortion, spending money to support the spread of Christian political parties throughout Europe, introducing Christianity into it public schools, using state money to build thousands of church throughout the country, promoting the spread of traditional family values, and God forbid, working to unite Europe around a Christian moral agenda rather than the liberal agenda that has been regent for more than a century. The liberal press in America, a press that is promoting abortion, materialism, hedonism, homosexuality and other anti-Christian and anti-family values will have none of this. To assure its place of leadership as cunning promoter of liberal cultural values, it is looking to the government for protection of its freedom and privileges, freedom it intends for itself but not for the rising alternative media that has had enough of its twisted agenda and therefore must be silenced. Apparently freedom is not meant for reporters who question the enlightened game plan supported by the Clintons, Obamas and other globalists. Thus, when the state sponsors of December’s NDAA bill say such things as
“But today, the United States has taken a critical step towards confronting the extensive, and destabilizing, foreign propaganda and disinformation operations being waged against us by our enemies overseas. With this bill now law, we are finally signaling that enough is enough; the United States will no longer sit on the sidelines. We are going to confront this threat head-on. I am confident that, with the help of this bipartisan bill, the disinformation and propaganda used against us, our allies, and our interests will fail.”
When the bill’s proponents say such things, they are either blinded by ideology and thus ignorant to what is really happening around the globe (and in America itself), or they are fully aware of it all and opposed to the rise of traditional moral values at home, in Europe, Africa and elsewhere.
Given the fact that nations such as Poland are struggling to throw of Western control of media in their own back yards and to exercise dominion over their own news agencies, it sounds strange to hear Senator Murphy say such things as:
“The use of propaganda to undermine democracy has hit a new low. But now we are finally in a position to confront this threat head on and get out the truth. By building up independent, objective journalism in places like eastern Europe, we can start to fight back by exposing these fake narratives and empowering local communities to protect themselves.”
Murphy seems ignorant of the fact that Poland just elected a new president and government from the Law and Justice Party (PiS), a Party committed to Poland’s Christian patrimony. Among other things, the new government almost immediately moved to gain control over the nation’s media, which was being funded and overtly influenced and controlled by foreign sources from Germany, UK, and the USA.
Because it was clear that Polish culture had been systematically invaded by Western media outlets, by libertarian think tanks, and by foreign agents of the EU and US influencing the development of “liberal democracy” and “liberty” including the structuring of Poland’s new government and court system (they could not be trusted to do it themselves), PiS simply decided the time had come to do something about reasserting Poland’s national sovereignty and the promotion of its own indigenous cultural values – something anathema to liberal ideologues operating in Warsaw and throughout Poland and around the globe.
Consequently, PiS began the process of minimizing outside meddling in their political and domestic affairs by adopting a new law designed to remove foreign influences from their media and reassert Polish control of its own cultural affairs The new law permits the government to terminate employment of media executives (placed by previous politicians or executives under the influence of and beholden to exogenous foreign forces) and to appoint new heads, men and women devoted to Polish values. Of course, this is something that did not sit well with those accustomed to controlling foreign governments, thus it did not go by without significant opposition.
Immediately the new government was hit with accusations of tyranny and autocracy simply because they wanted the Polish media to be run by Poles and to reflect indigenous Polish values rather than liberal Western ones. Various EU leaders including Volker Kauder of the ruling German CDU party called for retaliation and began demanding that EU nations impose sanctions on Poland for the violation of “European values.”
Speaking to Der Spiegel, Kauder emphasized that Poland should swallow Western liberal values or be forced to pay a price for failing to do so. Brussels, he said, must:
“…find the courage to apply sanctions” against a disobedient Poland if “European values are violated.”
It is information like this, that causes New Era to question the competency and/or veracity of Senators like John McCain and Chris Murphy.
Strong as the liberal forces arrayed against traditional Christian values in Poland might be, they did not expect anything like this in 2015:
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Nor did they ever see anything like this in 2016
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Because of events like these occurring in Poland, New Era believes that many intelligence analysts who are interpreting the events discussed in this article as indicators of an onward continuation of liberal public indoctrination buoyed by the use of oppressive laws and political force to curtail the growing influence of alt-news sources proliferating around the globe, are misguided in their projections. These agencies are forecasting a government crack down on the alternative media:
“While the US media has indoctrinated the public to assume that any information which is not in compliance with the official government narrative, or dares to criticize the establishment, is also “fake news” and thus falls under the “Russian propaganda” umbrella, the scene is now set for the US government to legally crack down on every media outlet that the government deems to be “foreign propaganda.”
To many it looks like an inevitable government backed secret-society plot to obliterate any opposition to the spread of liberalism leading them to conclude:
“Just like that, the US Ministry of Truth is officially born.’
It might look as if there is a nefarious attempt to stifle the truth. Although this might appear to be the intent of the NDAA and related legislation, from New Era’s perspective, these type of projections are faulty. If it is the intent of the legislation to curtail social media, the NDAA will fail. It will fail as miserably as the EU is failing and as the liberal forces in America continue to erode.
The world is on the verge of an Era of Peace promised by the Mother of God at Fatima; there is no way that all the powers of the nether world can stop the ordaining will of the Holy Trinity. New Era forecasts that the NDAA will confound its drafters; it will come back to bite the hand that crafted it. In other words, there will be a crack down on fake news, but much to the chagrin of the bills supporters the crack down will come on the hands of those whom they support in the liberal media – they will fall by their own sword.