Media Wakes Up To Russia's "Fake News" Only After It Is Applied Against Hillary

Vladimir Putin bases his regime on “fake news” narratives of world affairs, which an astonished Angela Merkel characterized as “living in another world.” Putin’s very claim to power rests on “fake news” aimed at the Russian people and at “useful fools” in the West. Putin cannot abandon his “fake news” narratives. Russia, under Putin, has suffered isolation, economic stagnation, poverty, and falling living standards, all in the name of restoring Russian greatness and protecting Mother Russia and “near abroad” Russians. Putin could not survive if his “fake news” is exposed, especially to the Russian people.


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Where Was The Media When The Clinton Email Scandal Broke Three Years Ago?

As a contributor to the breaking of the Clinton email scandal story in March of 2013, I contend that these three-year-old facts should have raised serious questions about Hillary Clinton’s judgment and her credentials to serve as commander in chief. These questions were ignored by the mainstream media. If the media had done its job then, Hillary Clinton may not have become the Democratic Party’s nominee, or, if she had, the scandal would indeed have been “old business, nothing to see here.”


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DNC Data Dump Gives Putin A 'Two-For-One' Win

Hillary’s campaign has made a point that Putin wants her opponent elected. Putin knows what he would have with a weakened and tainted Clinton. He does not have the same knowledge of Trump. He may see something of himself in Trump as someone who does not shirk from a fight and hates to lose. Could Putin be thinking of changing horses?

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The Benghazi Commercial That Can Cost Hillary the Presidency

Surely the Trump campaign or the RNC is teeing up the video contrasting the tearful testimony of the families of the fallen heroes with Hillary’s parsed denials. There is little doubt which side viewers will believe. Such a spot will eclipse the John Kerry swift boat campaign with its emotional impact. The American public will believe the fathers and mothers not, to use Donald Trumps’ words “Crooked Hillary.”

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What If Vladimir Putin Has Hillary Clinton's Emails?

Those who follow Kremlin propaganda understand that it is not necessary for Putin to have Clinton’s e-mails to cause serious damage to a Clinton presidency. All he needs is that many believe he has Hillary’s e-mails.


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The Letter That Obama Should Write To Putin On Ukraine--But Won't

President Obama’s failed reset and his weak response to Putin’s War Against Ukraine stuck him with a reputation of indecisiveness and naïveté, reinforced by cumulating foreign policy failures. Obama, unlike Angela Merkel, members of Congress of both parties, and, lately, Hillary Clinton, still appears to be late to understand Putin’s global threat and his goal to destroy NATO. With one intense bill-of-particulars against Putin, Obama coukd outline his plan to stop Putin’s expansionism before it is too late. Such a move could save the last two years of Obama’s presidency. Here is what Obama should say.

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Putin’s Reaction To Sanctions Is Destroying The Economy And China Won’t Help

Things are not going well for Vladimir Putin. The price of oil and the ruble continue to fall. Top Russian officials admit that the economy is in big trouble, despite Putin’s denials. Likely presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, has declared that Putin must be contained. Putin’s counter sanctions are making things worse. The most ominous sign, however, is that Putin is weakening the foundations on which his power is based. He is cutting off foreign investment by bailing out his friends, and he is breaking the social compact on which his KGB-Mafia state is founded.

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Russian Television (RT): Partial Release of Hacked Hillary Clinton Emails

Confidential emails purportedly from former political advisor Sydney Blumenthal to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have been hacked and widely distributed to politicians and news sources. Included in the hacker “Gucifer’s” distribution list are Russian news services such as Pravda, Moscow Times, and RT.
We have no information about the authenticity of the hacked e mails. They will be tested over the next few hours or days.

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Wow! The New York Times Tells the Truth on the Benghazi Blunder (PS Obama Is Losing)

Op-ed writer Ross Douthat is a rare truth teller among the New York Times’s writers’ stable. Columnist Paul Krugman spouts daily left-wing fact-uninformed economics. Token conservative, David Brooks, pens trivia about the latest book he read. Maureen Dowd jokes about women’s issues. Only Douthat  questions the Times’ ueber-liberal party line and tells the truth.

In his Sunday October 14 Mystery of Benghazi, Douthat dissects why “White House officials continued to stress the importance of the ‘hateful’ and ‘disgusting’ video, and its supposed role as a catalyst for what Susan Rice, the ambassador to the United Nations, insisted was a spontaneous attack” even as “it became clearer that the Benghazi violence was an al Qaeda operation” --- a narrative “pushed on Sunday morning programs, on late-night talk shows and at news conferences, by everyone from Rice to Hillary Clinton to the president himself.”  Per Douthat: “When Obama spoke at the United Nations shortly after the attacks, the video was referenced six times in the text; Al Qaeda was referenced only once.”

Douthat, for the first time on the pages of the venerable Times, clearly lays out the time line of what he terms the administration’s “strange denial” that the Benghazi consulate attack was a planned terrorist action.

Douthat rejects two common explanations for Obama’s “self defeating strategy,” before coming up with his own. 

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Appease, Surrender, Abandon, and Get Nothing: Obama's NaivePolitik

Obama’s superior foreign-policy acumen has been part and parcel of the Beltway narrative. “I killed Osama and I Got Us Out of Iraq” were supposed to offset the awful economy. Pundits were sure that youth-lived-in-Indonesia and college-traveler-to-Pakistan Obama could easily dispatch provincial “businessman” Romney in the  final debate – a fitting climax to the President’s inevitable reelection. As Obama whispered to Putin’s envoy: “Tell Vladimir to wait until the election. Then I will be flexible,” he could not even imagine a loss to such a weak opponent.

The Benghazi tragedy of 9/11 shook the foundations of this narrative. For weeks, the administration kept changing its story, as if in a panic. On the eve of the final debate, foreign policy has moved to the front burner to decide an election that was supposed to be about the economy. The rough-and-tumble of the last debate will swell an audience waiting for blood.

Obama entered the first two debates with weak cards, but he was supposed to contest the final debate from a position of strength. All that has changed. Romney can produce a devastating laundry list of Obama’s foreign policy defeats to an audience that is actually listening. And Obama will not have Candy Crowley, unless Bob Shieffer wants to join her in the tank.


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Obama on Benghazi: Believe Me or Your Lying Eyes (Or At Least Wait Until After the Election)

In Duck Soup, Groucho Marx pleads his innocence to his wealthy matronly fiancé, who catches him smooching with a show girl: “Who are you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?”

Since September 12, the Obama administration has been asking us to believe him, his press secretary, and his proxies that our Libyan ambassador and three other consulate officials were killed by a spontaneous mob driven into frenzy by an anti-Muslim film produced by an unknown Christian film maker.  He asks that we not believe his state department or top intelligence officials who testify that this narrative is false. Nor should we notice the coincidence of the attack taking place on 9/11 or that this was revenge for the fifteen top al Qaeda leaders killed by drones under Obama. Of course, Obama spiking the “I-killed-Osama” football at the Democrat convention had nothing to do with this either. Nor did the Libyan President warn of impending violence three days earlier.

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Syria, China, Russia, Reset, Magnitsky

Sunday, July 22:
The forces of Syrian dictator Basher Assad shell rebel-occupied neighborhoods of Damascus. Four young female members of a punk rock band begin their fifth month in a Moscow jail. Somewhere in China a local party boss meets with disaffected factory workers. In Washington,  the full house prepares to vote on visa restriction for Russian officials for human rights abuses. These disparate events are part of a larger mosaic, which begins in Syria.

Basher Assad, like his father before him, symbolizes unconstrained dictators prepared to do anything, no matter how odious, to stay in power. Unconstrained dictators use their secret police, militias, and armies to arrest, torture, and kill opponents. They raze whole towns. They kill innocent women and children to send a message. They are indifferent to world outrage. If Assad falls, it will not be for lack of brutality and atrocity. He may resort to chemical weapons as a last resort.

Constrained dictators, such as Mubarak, Pinochet, and the Shah, face limits imposed by moral qualms or the international community. Small protests swell, and momentum for regime change builds. Failure to use overwhelming force and efforts to compromise only embolden protesters, and eventually the constrained dictator resigns either to flee the country or to face local justice.

Two other constrained dictatorships, Russia and China, want to keep Assad in power. Both shudder at a fellow totalitarian regime falling to a disorganized opposition. They will abandon him (with great fanfare) only when it is clear that he has lost. China and Russia have their own disaffected minorities, disgruntled workers, and ideological opponents. Their one-party states lack legitimacy, and they know it. They consider themselves under constant threat, fearing the single spark that brings millions to the streets. They must snuff out any spark  — a lone barefoot lawyer or an 18 year old girl throwing a rock at security forces  –  that could conceivably ignite a Tahrir Square.

Russia and China’s one-party dictatorships face different threats. China’s Communist Party (CPC) must firefight grievance demonstrations. Putin, on the other hand, must confront direct challenges to his legitimacy.


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The Handling of Chen Is a Shame. Romney is Correct

The Sunday talk shows and the New York Times are attacking Romney for calling the handling of the Chen case a "shame for America." Romney, they say, spoke too soon. Hillary has worked out a good deal that will bring Chen and his family to the U.S. to "study."

Romney should hold his ground. The Chen case was badly fumbled and must be called a cave in to the Chinese.

When Chen left the U.S. Embassy, we lost all leverage. His family would have been as safe as possible with him in the embassy. We could have begun negotiations without undue haste to arrange a reasonable solution for Chen, his family, and for those who helped him. Once we delivered Chen to the Chinese authorities, we lost all leverage.

Hillary, who claims that negotiations are proceeding well with respect to visas for Chen and his family, is totally at the mercy of her Chinese interlocutors. She holds no cards. Chen's colleagues, who aided his escape, are left out in the cold.

Romney is right. We shamefully caved in to the Chinese either through ineptitude or self interest.

Dr. Gregory's latest book can be purchased at Amazon.com.

Chen Guangcheng: A Day of Shame for the U.S.

We only know that blind dissident Chen Guangcheng is in a Chinese hospital out of the range of American protection. According to preliminary reports, Chen was pressured by U.S. officials to leave the embassy. Chen, knowing the consequences, would have left American protection only to save his family. During his house arrest, Chen’s wife had been severely beaten. Unconfirmed but believable reports suggest Chinese authorities threatened to beat her to death. His escape and appearance at the U.S. embassy so outraged and unnerved Chinese officials that Chen knew that they would not hesitate to carry out their threat.
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Dr. Gregory's latest book can be found at Amazon.com.