Hey Bill, just like Operation Mockingbird back in the day, current US "newsrooms" are really just State Dept./CIA spokespersons. It has nothing to do with informing the public. It hasn't for a long, long time. Some people would say that it is really just the same as William Randolph Hearst's newspapers over a century ago, where war propaganda graced every headline. The core issue is that rich people have very different priorities than the general public, and they also happen to own the news outlets. They team up with the deep state to cheerlead every military action, every sanction, every regime change operation that comes along. Unfortunately, people still go to the Corporate-Owned-News for their mis-information, and here we are.
Perhaps the old Army refrain cited by MacArthur should be amended, "old soldiers never die, they just fade away - except for generals, who go on to careers as expert commentators".
Too bad chyrons are never displayed on screen when these so-called "experts" are speaking that acts as 'community notes". For example, for Petraeus it might say - "resigned in disgrace after he released classified information" or "success of Iraqi 'surge' came by buying off tribal leaders'.
Maybe a new statute is needed for flag officers - prohibition from any role as news commentator, board member, or other compensated position (except maybe in education) for ten years. They could spend their time visiting VA hospitals and military cemeteries to encounter all those who suffered under them through their brilliant careers.
I was wondering if anyone would suggest something like "disgraced General Daniel Petraeus." But my memory isn't what it once was and I might have had him confused with some other guy. But apparently not, thank you TomR.
This article is wonderful, Bill, and disturbing in its simple factual validity. There MUST be some historians or others with a bit of military service or experience or education who can develop into bona fide commentators. So, news can talk to retired generals to get a take on the rationale behind military actions, but to get context, perspective, alternate views, analysis, and perhaps criticism … yeah, man, we need a better way than the generals. We deserve better.
Those other voices are out there now - on various social media platforms. But they will not get onto the MSM platforms as they can't be guaranteed to support the approved narrative.
That was Bill’s point, I think, and mine, Tom. I now they will not get on the MSM platforms TODAY. I believe we have had a smattering of voices in years past … I’m dismayed at where the communications monopolies are going now … actually, monopolies of all kinds are proliferating under a regime that thinks The Gilded Age was an excellent time in U.S. history … It’s not going to be by fiat, I know, but I do hope we can begin to take back the reins of power in the U. S. of A. {We need a functional strategy to do that, and leaders who know how to speak to the electorate with logic and effectiveness, understanding the system we have and how to turn it, if we can}. This fascist autocracy is chilling.
Henry Kissinger’s ambivalence about the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s was captured in this famous quote: “It’s a pity both sides can’t lose.” At first glance, the current Iran war might seem to be another case where choosing a favorite is challenging. After all:
1) On one side you have Bibi Netanyahu and Donald Trump. I recently referred to them on Twitter as “psychopathic monsters,” and the only thing that gave me second thoughts about that tweet was my wife’s contention that, strictly speaking, Trump is a sociopath, not a psychopath. And, my clinical evaluation aside, these two men launched an unprovoked and massively destructive war on Iran that clearly violated the UN Charter (which, by the way, is an actual treaty, a kind of multilateral non-aggression pact, that was ratified by the US Senate—and the US constitution says ratified treaties are the “law of the land.”)
2) On the other side you have an authoritarian regime that recently killed thousands of protesters and is said by prominent experts to be the “leading state sponsor of terrorism” and “the most destabilizing force in the Middle East.”
But, actually, it should be easy for Americans who care about America’s interests to pick sides in this war, especially if they also care about the future of the Middle East and of the whole world. They should want Iran to win—though maybe I should put “win” in quotes since, as I’ll explain, the kind of “victory” I’m talking about doesn’t entail military conquest or a lot of further killing and in fact involves a lot fewer future deaths than American and Israeli “victory” would entail.
Very informative. Very informative and some interesting takes. As part of my Wild.Concepts theory, I released a piece speculating David Patraeus taking over from Hegseth. Would be interested in your thoughts.
Ive just subscribed but ask you (and others who come across this comment) restack and reciprocate in kind. I write about technology, politics and philosophy and have just launched a subscription only set of articles “Apertura” for boards members and non executive directors.
Here's a comforting update from the NYT (updated 3-15-2026), "F.C.C. Chair Threatens to Revoke Broadcasters’ Licenses Over War Coverage."
"Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, threatened on Saturday to revoke broadcasters’ licenses over their coverage of the war with Iran, his latest move in a campaign to stomp out what he sees as liberal bias in broadcasts."
I posted an X I sent to US Senators yesterday in yesterday's article on trusting the US. That was the 2nd X sent them. This X was sent Today.
@smerconish
This X was sent Yesterday to these people. TRUTH is still the 1st casualty of WAR as the Generals, the MSM and even you act like the 5th horseman of the Apocalypse, justifying the big US/Israeli Bullies with their delusions of Supremacy, attacking a Nation the US waged Economic WAR on for years, to destroy the Country before the Military hostilities started.
A lesson in cause and effect, for those who believe they are above the law: When a nation’s power operates as piracy with a flag—seizing tankers in international waters, enforcing its unilateral will as global law—it does not merely break treaties.
It breaks the civic covenant at home. It teaches its own people, in a language clearer than any sermon, that law is not principle, but the will of the strongest. That rules are for the weak. That sovereignty is a fiction to be ignored when inconvenient.
Now add the accelerant of a contracting economy: stagnant wages, impossible debt, a generation with no stake in the future.
The lesson learned abroad becomes the survival logic at home.
The result is the volatile cocktail of our generation: the vigilante, the politician defying courts, the citizen who no longer believes the system is legitimate—only that it is rigged.
You cannot break international law abroad and expect domestic law to be revered at home.
The seed of lawlessness, sown by imperial edict, is now sprouting in your own streets. This is not a political forecast. It is a spiritual law, as old as the prophets: “They sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.” (Hosea 8:7).
The aircraft carrier that seized the tanker is the same power that arms the siege of Gaza.
The domestic unravelling is the inevitable reflux of that exported violence.
You are building a world on the principle that might makes right.
Your own people are now learning the lesson.
What will you build when they have learned it completely?
The lawlessness I warned of in December is now taking hold of this world, reflected in the illegal WAR the US/Israeli started in violation of the very same International Law the US and the West DEMONIZES Russia for for violating.
Such double minded hypocrisy does not guarantee a better Future for this material World but ensures more chaos under heaven.
"There are 30 months before the fate of the world will be sealed with EITHER Destruction OR the Universal Brotherhood of Man,¨ he said. The he is me.
The Kansas City Times, September 13, 1976
The 30 month figure concerned a Treaty between Israel and Egypt, The Camp David Accord signed exactly 30 months after .
President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu have opted for the Destruction in the September 13 Prophetic choice published 50 years ago in this WAR of choice leading to Armageddon, aka the great Day of the Battle of Almighty God between Theocratic Israel vs Theocratic Iran with a lot of US Christian Nationalism mixed in.
The picture below was published by The Ottawa Citizen October 17, 1977 re the 1st Day of TV in the Canadian House of Commons.
Thanks be to God, I'm still alive in my 82nd year continuing the Prophetic mandate to the generation that will have to deal with the consequences that are bound to get worse without REPENTANCE.
First, pardon the length. I too subscribe to Ken Klippenstein, he does a top notch job, I saw the headline to that piece you refer to and meant to get to it, but I sometimes get overloaded with my news feeds. With the one line from him on Patraeus maybe all I need do now is to give it a quick read.
Eighteen(!) years ago you wrote this. Wish I had been more attuned to things back then, although was well on the way given the stench of Dumbya still in the air. More to the present, specifically since Oct. 7th, I have become increasingly, imperatively more skeptical and distrustful of America mainstream journalism regardless of its medium, instead finding perceptive news, analysis, and commentary from sources such as this, Drop Site News, Breaking the Grip of Zionism, Electronic Intifada… (you can see how I get overloaded). It all comes under the overarching issue of a democracy, in order to function, requires an informed citizenry served not only by a free, but I would add an enterprising press (journalism) whose first obligation is “to seek the truth, and report it” as the first tenet of the Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists calls for, which then leads to “holding the powerful accountable.”
We don’t have that, at least not to the extent necessary, in this society, Herman & Chomsky’s “Manufacturing Consent” one, if not “the” reason why. And with the decimation of local news reporting; the example of moguls like Bezos and the Washington Post; the infiltration if not outright takeover of national newspaper and broadcast news sources by Zionist interests such as the Ellisons; and other forces blending – or subverting – news to entertainment, democracy stands to fail.
I have had, or have tried to have, contact with I think to be a decent reporter at the Boston Globe, as well as with a media watchdog and professor of journalism at Northeasthern University. In general I have found the questions and issues I have raised, I think direct and reasonable, have gone either ignored, or met with a “yes, but that’s a familiar criticism, don’t care to spend any more time on it” response. Really? If it’s familiar, and yet repeats, doesn’t that mean it should be called out, so that maybe it doesn’t repeat?
Taking this a bit further… Continuing education (CE) is familiar in many professions, in some such as medicines a requirement for continued license to practice. I don’t know, and highly doubt, whether such exists in journalism. Yet it should. I first noticed the Globe reporter for a decent, and rather revelatory, article he did relating to antisemitism. In subsequent e-mail exchanges with him I asked if was familiar with the “hasbara” strategy. Replied that he wasn’t. Which left me gobsmacked. How could journalists not be aware of one of the major forces shaping the way news is portrayed and then disseminated throughout society? It’s somewhat akin to not having advisories from the CDC on salmonella outbreaks or what the flu season will be like (okay, the besieged, dismantled CDC may not be such a great example, but you get the gist).
And as to the professor of journalism, he’s a regular on “Beat the Press,” once a staple on a Boston PBS station, then axed and moved online. I follow it fairly regularly, but I have yet to detect any discussion of the media and retired military brass. Does that mean that Eisenhower’s warning is only regarded as a historical footnote from 1961, to say nothing of presenting to the public that what Eisenhower was describing back then has morphed into the more pervasive, insidious MICIMATT-SH? A simple online search, not even bothering with AI, promptly led to this from https://thefreethoughtproject.com/the-state/pr-budget-penagon-war-propaganda:
• “60% of the US Govt's Billion Dollar PR Budget Goes to the Pentagon to Sell You War -- And It's Working”
• In the latest report on Public Relations Spending from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the United States’ government PR apparatus has been revealed to spend over $1 billion annually — $626 million of which the Department of Defense allots to employ a massive propaganda army constituting roughly 40 percent of the more than 5,000-strong federal public relations workforce.
While some noteworthy analytical and investigative work is being done by mainstream journalism, overall I find that sphere of the profession to be too stuck on itself to deliver what the public is owed. That obligation has been ceded to sites such as this, and its retired military founder.
Israel already has plans for terrorist attacks in America that will be pinned on Iranians-if the support for the America's terrorist attack on Iran gets too low-if Trump tries to back off.
American support for the war has actually gone up recently. Israel also has the leverage of the Epstein files over Trump. I won't cry over more terrorist attacks in America. I will be thinking of the 150 schoolgirls America burned to smithereens. Time to stop making this war a video game for Americans and bring it home to America's backyard. YES, IN YOUR BACKYARDS YES IN YOUR FRONT YARDS. I have always been against nimbyism.
Hey Bill, just like Operation Mockingbird back in the day, current US "newsrooms" are really just State Dept./CIA spokespersons. It has nothing to do with informing the public. It hasn't for a long, long time. Some people would say that it is really just the same as William Randolph Hearst's newspapers over a century ago, where war propaganda graced every headline. The core issue is that rich people have very different priorities than the general public, and they also happen to own the news outlets. They team up with the deep state to cheerlead every military action, every sanction, every regime change operation that comes along. Unfortunately, people still go to the Corporate-Owned-News for their mis-information, and here we are.
Well, that is not actually accurate about how the news is treating Trump and his war, but it does happen occasionally on some news fronts.
Perhaps the old Army refrain cited by MacArthur should be amended, "old soldiers never die, they just fade away - except for generals, who go on to careers as expert commentators".
Too bad chyrons are never displayed on screen when these so-called "experts" are speaking that acts as 'community notes". For example, for Petraeus it might say - "resigned in disgrace after he released classified information" or "success of Iraqi 'surge' came by buying off tribal leaders'.
Maybe a new statute is needed for flag officers - prohibition from any role as news commentator, board member, or other compensated position (except maybe in education) for ten years. They could spend their time visiting VA hospitals and military cemeteries to encounter all those who suffered under them through their brilliant careers.
I was wondering if anyone would suggest something like "disgraced General Daniel Petraeus." But my memory isn't what it once was and I might have had him confused with some other guy. But apparently not, thank you TomR.
This article is wonderful, Bill, and disturbing in its simple factual validity. There MUST be some historians or others with a bit of military service or experience or education who can develop into bona fide commentators. So, news can talk to retired generals to get a take on the rationale behind military actions, but to get context, perspective, alternate views, analysis, and perhaps criticism … yeah, man, we need a better way than the generals. We deserve better.
Those other voices are out there now - on various social media platforms. But they will not get onto the MSM platforms as they can't be guaranteed to support the approved narrative.
That was Bill’s point, I think, and mine, Tom. I now they will not get on the MSM platforms TODAY. I believe we have had a smattering of voices in years past … I’m dismayed at where the communications monopolies are going now … actually, monopolies of all kinds are proliferating under a regime that thinks The Gilded Age was an excellent time in U.S. history … It’s not going to be by fiat, I know, but I do hope we can begin to take back the reins of power in the U. S. of A. {We need a functional strategy to do that, and leaders who know how to speak to the electorate with logic and effectiveness, understanding the system we have and how to turn it, if we can}. This fascist autocracy is chilling.
Relying on networks for news is emptyheaded.
News is too important to be left to networks.
Let's deal with the realities of this WAR.
Those who have stocks & interests in the US Military-Industrial complex are making a killing off the War.
It's the struggling workers living from pay to pay who are suffering along with the Iranian and Lebanese people paying the price.
An excellent read on the WAR
Henry Kissinger’s ambivalence about the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s was captured in this famous quote: “It’s a pity both sides can’t lose.” At first glance, the current Iran war might seem to be another case where choosing a favorite is challenging. After all:
1) On one side you have Bibi Netanyahu and Donald Trump. I recently referred to them on Twitter as “psychopathic monsters,” and the only thing that gave me second thoughts about that tweet was my wife’s contention that, strictly speaking, Trump is a sociopath, not a psychopath. And, my clinical evaluation aside, these two men launched an unprovoked and massively destructive war on Iran that clearly violated the UN Charter (which, by the way, is an actual treaty, a kind of multilateral non-aggression pact, that was ratified by the US Senate—and the US constitution says ratified treaties are the “law of the land.”)
2) On the other side you have an authoritarian regime that recently killed thousands of protesters and is said by prominent experts to be the “leading state sponsor of terrorism” and “the most destabilizing force in the Middle East.”
But, actually, it should be easy for Americans who care about America’s interests to pick sides in this war, especially if they also care about the future of the Middle East and of the whole world. They should want Iran to win—though maybe I should put “win” in quotes since, as I’ll explain, the kind of “victory” I’m talking about doesn’t entail military conquest or a lot of further killing and in fact involves a lot fewer future deaths than American and Israeli “victory” would entail.
https://www.nonzero.org/p/why-americans-should-root-for-iran
Very informative. Very informative and some interesting takes. As part of my Wild.Concepts theory, I released a piece speculating David Patraeus taking over from Hegseth. Would be interested in your thoughts.
https://preceperi.substack.com/p/the-petraeusian-guard
Ive just subscribed but ask you (and others who come across this comment) restack and reciprocate in kind. I write about technology, politics and philosophy and have just launched a subscription only set of articles “Apertura” for boards members and non executive directors.
Here's a comforting update from the NYT (updated 3-15-2026), "F.C.C. Chair Threatens to Revoke Broadcasters’ Licenses Over War Coverage."
"Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, threatened on Saturday to revoke broadcasters’ licenses over their coverage of the war with Iran, his latest move in a campaign to stomp out what he sees as liberal bias in broadcasts."
"Liberal bias" means a smidgen of truth.
Related: "Reality has a well-known liberal bias." - Stephen Colbert
A 3:22 minute video on Trump's ego-centred self love megalomania
https://zeteo.com/p/donald-trump-pyongyang
Hello Bill Astore... Another Bracing. Thoughtful Posting.... Pay Attention to Stanley McCrystal's 'Jolene' Comment...
Hey it pays better than flipping burgers.
Bill, here's another article in the same vein - The TV Generals Have Something to Sell You About Iran by Ken Klippenstein ( https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/on-iran-the-tv-generals-have-something )
Linking both his and yours' today @https://nothingnewunderthesun2016.com/
I posted an X I sent to US Senators yesterday in yesterday's article on trusting the US. That was the 2nd X sent them. This X was sent Today.
@smerconish
This X was sent Yesterday to these people. TRUTH is still the 1st casualty of WAR as the Generals, the MSM and even you act like the 5th horseman of the Apocalypse, justifying the big US/Israeli Bullies with their delusions of Supremacy, attacking a Nation the US waged Economic WAR on for years, to destroy the Country before the Military hostilities started.
@SenKennedy @SenJeffMerkley @SenWarren @SenatorCotton @SenatorDurbin @SenSanders
@HawleyMO @SenAmyKlobuchar @SenGillibrand @LeaderJohnThune @SenTedCruz @SenMcConnell @JohnCornyn @ChrisVanHollen @SenAdamSchif @LindseyGrahamSC
@RonPaul @SenTuberville @SenChrisDodd @SenSchumer @SenChrisLarson @SenBlumenthal
@SenatorTimKaine @SenBooker @SenatorShaheen @SenDuckworth @ChrisMurphyCT
@SenMarkKelly
@MarkJCarney @CanadianPM
THE 13TH DAY: THE PROPHETIC CHOICE OF 1976 ARRIVED IN 2026 (highlight & right click for Google to see the article)
This X was sent to these people December 10, 2025
@Pontifex @realDonaldTrump @netanyahu @_FriedrichMerz @MarkJCarney
A lesson in cause and effect, for those who believe they are above the law: When a nation’s power operates as piracy with a flag—seizing tankers in international waters, enforcing its unilateral will as global law—it does not merely break treaties.
It breaks the civic covenant at home. It teaches its own people, in a language clearer than any sermon, that law is not principle, but the will of the strongest. That rules are for the weak. That sovereignty is a fiction to be ignored when inconvenient.
Now add the accelerant of a contracting economy: stagnant wages, impossible debt, a generation with no stake in the future.
The lesson learned abroad becomes the survival logic at home.
The result is the volatile cocktail of our generation: the vigilante, the politician defying courts, the citizen who no longer believes the system is legitimate—only that it is rigged.
You cannot break international law abroad and expect domestic law to be revered at home.
The seed of lawlessness, sown by imperial edict, is now sprouting in your own streets. This is not a political forecast. It is a spiritual law, as old as the prophets: “They sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.” (Hosea 8:7).
The aircraft carrier that seized the tanker is the same power that arms the siege of Gaza.
The domestic unravelling is the inevitable reflux of that exported violence.
You are building a world on the principle that might makes right.
Your own people are now learning the lesson.
What will you build when they have learned it completely?
The lawlessness I warned of in December is now taking hold of this world, reflected in the illegal WAR the US/Israeli started in violation of the very same International Law the US and the West DEMONIZES Russia for for violating.
Such double minded hypocrisy does not guarantee a better Future for this material World but ensures more chaos under heaven.
"There are 30 months before the fate of the world will be sealed with EITHER Destruction OR the Universal Brotherhood of Man,¨ he said. The he is me.
The Kansas City Times, September 13, 1976
The 30 month figure concerned a Treaty between Israel and Egypt, The Camp David Accord signed exactly 30 months after .
President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu have opted for the Destruction in the September 13 Prophetic choice published 50 years ago in this WAR of choice leading to Armageddon, aka the great Day of the Battle of Almighty God between Theocratic Israel vs Theocratic Iran with a lot of US Christian Nationalism mixed in.
The picture below was published by The Ottawa Citizen October 17, 1977 re the 1st Day of TV in the Canadian House of Commons.
Thanks be to God, I'm still alive in my 82nd year continuing the Prophetic mandate to the generation that will have to deal with the consequences that are bound to get worse without REPENTANCE.
https://rayjc.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/ejected-from-the-house-of-commons.jpg
First, pardon the length. I too subscribe to Ken Klippenstein, he does a top notch job, I saw the headline to that piece you refer to and meant to get to it, but I sometimes get overloaded with my news feeds. With the one line from him on Patraeus maybe all I need do now is to give it a quick read.
Eighteen(!) years ago you wrote this. Wish I had been more attuned to things back then, although was well on the way given the stench of Dumbya still in the air. More to the present, specifically since Oct. 7th, I have become increasingly, imperatively more skeptical and distrustful of America mainstream journalism regardless of its medium, instead finding perceptive news, analysis, and commentary from sources such as this, Drop Site News, Breaking the Grip of Zionism, Electronic Intifada… (you can see how I get overloaded). It all comes under the overarching issue of a democracy, in order to function, requires an informed citizenry served not only by a free, but I would add an enterprising press (journalism) whose first obligation is “to seek the truth, and report it” as the first tenet of the Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists calls for, which then leads to “holding the powerful accountable.”
We don’t have that, at least not to the extent necessary, in this society, Herman & Chomsky’s “Manufacturing Consent” one, if not “the” reason why. And with the decimation of local news reporting; the example of moguls like Bezos and the Washington Post; the infiltration if not outright takeover of national newspaper and broadcast news sources by Zionist interests such as the Ellisons; and other forces blending – or subverting – news to entertainment, democracy stands to fail.
I have had, or have tried to have, contact with I think to be a decent reporter at the Boston Globe, as well as with a media watchdog and professor of journalism at Northeasthern University. In general I have found the questions and issues I have raised, I think direct and reasonable, have gone either ignored, or met with a “yes, but that’s a familiar criticism, don’t care to spend any more time on it” response. Really? If it’s familiar, and yet repeats, doesn’t that mean it should be called out, so that maybe it doesn’t repeat?
Taking this a bit further… Continuing education (CE) is familiar in many professions, in some such as medicines a requirement for continued license to practice. I don’t know, and highly doubt, whether such exists in journalism. Yet it should. I first noticed the Globe reporter for a decent, and rather revelatory, article he did relating to antisemitism. In subsequent e-mail exchanges with him I asked if was familiar with the “hasbara” strategy. Replied that he wasn’t. Which left me gobsmacked. How could journalists not be aware of one of the major forces shaping the way news is portrayed and then disseminated throughout society? It’s somewhat akin to not having advisories from the CDC on salmonella outbreaks or what the flu season will be like (okay, the besieged, dismantled CDC may not be such a great example, but you get the gist).
And as to the professor of journalism, he’s a regular on “Beat the Press,” once a staple on a Boston PBS station, then axed and moved online. I follow it fairly regularly, but I have yet to detect any discussion of the media and retired military brass. Does that mean that Eisenhower’s warning is only regarded as a historical footnote from 1961, to say nothing of presenting to the public that what Eisenhower was describing back then has morphed into the more pervasive, insidious MICIMATT-SH? A simple online search, not even bothering with AI, promptly led to this from https://thefreethoughtproject.com/the-state/pr-budget-penagon-war-propaganda:
• “60% of the US Govt's Billion Dollar PR Budget Goes to the Pentagon to Sell You War -- And It's Working”
• In the latest report on Public Relations Spending from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the United States’ government PR apparatus has been revealed to spend over $1 billion annually — $626 million of which the Department of Defense allots to employ a massive propaganda army constituting roughly 40 percent of the more than 5,000-strong federal public relations workforce.
While some noteworthy analytical and investigative work is being done by mainstream journalism, overall I find that sphere of the profession to be too stuck on itself to deliver what the public is owed. That obligation has been ceded to sites such as this, and its retired military founder.
Israel already has plans for terrorist attacks in America that will be pinned on Iranians-if the support for the America's terrorist attack on Iran gets too low-if Trump tries to back off.
American support for the war has actually gone up recently. Israel also has the leverage of the Epstein files over Trump. I won't cry over more terrorist attacks in America. I will be thinking of the 150 schoolgirls America burned to smithereens. Time to stop making this war a video game for Americans and bring it home to America's backyard. YES, IN YOUR BACKYARDS YES IN YOUR FRONT YARDS. I have always been against nimbyism.