Senator Elizabeth Warren, without a shred of evidence, just said Tulsi Gabbard is in "Putin's pocket."
This was my letter to Warren is response to her McCarthyite smear:
Dear Senator Warren: Shame on you for smearing Tulsi Gabbard as being in "Putin's pocket." Where is your evidence?
Like me, Tulsi Gabbard has served 20+ years in the U.S. military, reaching the rank of LTC. She's been deployed to Iraq in a war zone. And you dare accuse her of disloyalty, without evidence?
It sounds like you're in Hillary Clinton's pocket.
For shame, Senator Warren. Have you no sense of decency? Joseph McCarthy would have been proud of you and your smear.
I'm so disappointed in you. You should apologize to former Congresswoman Gabbard who, as you know, was a loyal member of the Democratic Party until the party conspired against Bernie Sanders in 2016.
I was heartened to read this assessment of gutsy Tulsi. Ray McGovern has a sobering view of how difficult her job will be, should she be approved by the Senate.
RFK Jr. (on the Tucker Carlson show) said that Trump was told by the then CIA director that releasing the files on the JFK assassination would cause great harm to the CIA. Hey, but don't believe any of those nasty "conspiracy theories". They're, of course, all false. (sarc)
The total media and political class freakouts over Gabbard, Kennedy and Gaetz gives me more hope than I've had for Washington for decades. Senate resistance will be powerful against all three while the non-diplomat, Little Marco, will sail right through.
Maybe, just maybe, we'll be able to focus on defending our national security and not just defending our national interests (which only benefit the corporations).
Given the natural barriers against foreign aggression, defending our national security is quite simple and not very expensive. On the other hand, our national (corporate) interests are global requiring that we rule the world. As history shows, we haven't been very successful at that and our feeble attempts have cost us dearly.
Good luck to her, but I will be surprised if she is able to finish out more than one year in that position. Less if it looks like she is having any success changing the agency. I expect resistance from two directions: significant undermining on the part of the career bureaucrats who are imperial true believers--of which there are many at all levels of the organization--and resistance from the other DJT appointees who are mostly flamboyant war-mongering dingbats (as opposed to the boring war-mongering nitwits they are replacing). On the other hand, she seems intelligent, so she must know what she's up against.
My impression of DJT himself is that he makes these contradictory hires so that he has a range of options covered and can pivot at will--dumping whichever one seems not to be giving a good return--like some sort of investment diversification scheme.
Ultimately when you think about it tho. its really a shame that a small Cabal of old ultra -rich little bastards basically holds the fate of this whole planet in their enfeebled, treacherous, little twisted hands, and all they worry about is their money...!
This is just a reminder for those who haven seen it.I'm glad I copied and saved it because it's no longer in The Washington Post to be found. If anyone here can find the link to the original, please post it.
Harry Truman who created the CIA, wanted it hauled in for it's excesses.
The Washington Post December 22, 1963 – page A11
Harry Truman Writes: Limit CIA Role To Intelligence
INDEPENDENCE, MO., Dec. 21 — I think it has become necessary to take another look at the purpose and operations of our Central Intelligence Agency—CIA. At least, I would like to submit here the original reason why I thought it necessary to organize this Agency during my Administration, what I expected it to do and how it was to operate as an arm of the President.
I think it is fairly obvious that by and large a President's performance in office is as effective as the information he has and the information he gets. That is to say, that assuming the President himself possesses a knowledge of our history, a sensitive understanding of our institutions, and an insight into the needs and aspirations of the people, he needs to have available to him the most accurate and up-to-the-minute information on what is going on everywhere in the world, and particularly of the trends and developments in all the danger spots in the contest between East and West. This is an immense task and requires a special kind of an intelligence facility.
Of course, every President has available to him all the information gathered by the many intelligence agencies already in existence. The Departments of State, Defense, Commerce, Interior and others are constantly engaged in extensive information gathering and have done excellent work.
But their collective information reached the President all too frequently in conflicting conclusions. At times, the intelligence reports tended to be slanted to conform to established positions of a given department. This becomes confusing and what's worse, such intelligence is of little use to a President in reaching the right decisions.
Therefore, I decided to set up a special organization charged with the collection of all intelligence reports from every available source, and to have those reports reach me as President without department “treatment” or interpretations.
I wanted and needed the information in its “natural raw” state and in as comprehensive a volume as it was practical for me to make full use of it. But the most important thing about this move was to guard against the chance of intelligence being used to influence or to lead the President into unwise decisions—and I thought it was necessary that the President do his own thinking and evaluating.
Since the responsibility for decision making was his—then he had to be sure that no information is kept from him for whatever reason at the discretion of any one department or agency, or that unpleasant facts be kept from him. There are always those who would want to shield a President from bad news or misjudgments to spare him from being "upset."
For some time I have been disturbed by the way CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of the Government. This has led to trouble and may have compounded our difficulties in several explosive areas.
I never had any thought that when I set up the CIA that it would be injected into peacetime cloak and dagger operations. Some of the complications and embarrassment I think we have experienced are in part attributable to the fact that this quiet intelligence arm of the President has been so removed from its intended role that it is being interpreted as a symbol of sinister and mysterious foreign intrigue—and a subject for cold war enemy propaganda.
With all the nonsense put out by Communist propaganda about "Yankee imperialism,“ ”exploitive capitalism,“ ”war-mongering,“ ”monopolists," in their name-calling assault on the West, the last thing we needed was for the CIA to be seized upon as something akin to a subverting influence in the affairs of other people.
I well knew the first temporary director of the CIA, Adm. Souers, and the later permanent directors of the CIA, Gen. Hoyt Vandenberg and Allen Dulles. These were men of the highest character, patriotism and integrity—and I assume this is true of all those who continue in charge.
But there are now some searching questions that need to be answered. I, therefore, would like to see the CIA be restored to its original assignment as the intelligence arm of the President, and that whatever else it can properly perform in that special field—and that its operational duties be terminated or properly used elsewhere.
We have grown up as a nation, respected for our free institutions and for our ability to maintain a free and open society. There is something about the way the CIA has been functioning that is casting a shadow over our historic position and I feel that we need to correct it.
At first I thought this was high sarcasm. Now I see you were completely serious. Well, I still think everything's going to go sideways and he's only picking people that are loyal to him. That's his main draw. I guess time will tell, but if you turn out to be assimilated, count on me to be as truthful as your Tulsi. xo
Don't believe the BS about Tulsi. After Tulsi blew the whistle on the DNC and Clinton in 2016 and supported Bernie Sanders, Hillary and the corporate-owned media (except for FOX) have had it in for her.
Tulsi is no more of a Russian asset than I am or you are.
On being "assimilated" at least The Borg "resistance is Futile. You will be assimilated!"
Never mind Tulsi. With Trump's pick of US Ambassador to the UN and Mike Huckabee as his Ambassador to Israel, there will be no change in the US attitude toward Israel.
In Israel the Official Line to the Palestinians is "resistance is Futile and you will not be assimilated! Trump's pro-Israelis to top positions will hasten the Day!
"Among the risks, say current and former intelligence officials and independent experts, are that top advisers could feed the incoming Republican president a distorted view of global threats...." - Reuters
Tell me when our presidents weren't fed distorted views of global threats. According to our "intelligence" community (oxymoron), Vietnam was a threat. Chile was a threat. Cuba was (and still is) a threat. Granada was a threat. Iraq. Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, China, Iran, Russia, Yemen, - any country in the world that didn't bow down and kiss our ass has been a threat.
Intelligence is what is lacking most in our "intelligence" community.
You need to remember, wr, that one of the primary functions of America's "Intelligence Community" ~ just like its Diplomatic Corps ~ is to make sure that the American Military has some kind of War to prepare for and fight in someplace, and while losing that War, to prepare for the next War someplace else to fight in, lose, and prepare for the next War, etc... .
While I often bash the "intelligence" community, it is important to remember that there are three distinct levels of administration in each department in the federal government. The lowest level (GS 1-15 civil service) are the worker bees, usually career people, that do the real work. In the "intelligence" community, they collect the data, analyze it and write up the initial reports. The next level, (SES levels I - IV) is quasi-political (sometimes career people and sometimes appointees). They don't do any real work. They pass on guidance to the worker bees and review documents and forward them to the next level. The top level executives (ES I - V) are political appointees. They make policy, advise the president and promulgate the approved policies to the SES level. Any report that goes to the president then has to go through all of these levels before reaching the top.
In the "intelligence" community, one of the more important documents is the NIE (National Intelligence Estimate) that is drafted by the civil servants and passed up for review to the SES level, then to the ES level and finally to the president. Before reaching the president, that document is reviewed (and edited) by a cast of thousands at the SES and then the ES levels.
My very strong suspicion (based on experience) is that the original draft NIE presents a fairly realistic picture of the various "threats" and their capabilities; but by the time it has been reviewed and edited by that cast of thousands, it looks exactly like what the Secretaries, Under Secretaries for Policy and their ilk wanted.
My experience with people in the Civil Service ranks is that they are mostly honest, hard working, reasonably intelligent and objective. (Not everybody, of course, but defiitely the lion's share of them.) So I want to make sure that when I bash the "intelligence" community, I don't mean everyone in it and I definitely don't want to disparage the worker bees.
Ha ha! Trump "may be" choosing Cabinet based on personal loyalty to him?? A stunning notion, Reuters! Not a single nominee thus far is qualified to do anything but continue to kiss the Big Man's very ample behind! I find it very droll that some "leftists" used to be in love with Tulsi, and now she's part of Team Fascism. Way to go, kid!
Sorry, jg for duplicating your post about Scott Ritter and Bill being in snyc. I saw an edit function on another page but not on this page or I would delete my comment.
Senator Elizabeth Warren, without a shred of evidence, just said Tulsi Gabbard is in "Putin's pocket."
This was my letter to Warren is response to her McCarthyite smear:
Dear Senator Warren: Shame on you for smearing Tulsi Gabbard as being in "Putin's pocket." Where is your evidence?
Like me, Tulsi Gabbard has served 20+ years in the U.S. military, reaching the rank of LTC. She's been deployed to Iraq in a war zone. And you dare accuse her of disloyalty, without evidence?
It sounds like you're in Hillary Clinton's pocket.
For shame, Senator Warren. Have you no sense of decency? Joseph McCarthy would have been proud of you and your smear.
I'm so disappointed in you. You should apologize to former Congresswoman Gabbard who, as you know, was a loyal member of the Democratic Party until the party conspired against Bernie Sanders in 2016.
Be strong and apologize.
Sincerely,
William J. Astore, Lt Col, USAF (Ret.)
I love this reply! Right on, Lt Col Astore!
I was heartened to read this assessment of gutsy Tulsi. Ray McGovern has a sobering view of how difficult her job will be, should she be approved by the Senate.
https://consortiumnews.com/2024/11/14/ray-mcgovern-will-gabbard-be-able-to-direct-the-intelligence-community/
Thanks for the link.
RFK Jr. (on the Tucker Carlson show) said that Trump was told by the then CIA director that releasing the files on the JFK assassination would cause great harm to the CIA. Hey, but don't believe any of those nasty "conspiracy theories". They're, of course, all false. (sarc)
Like McGovern said: It will take a "miracle" for Gabbard to do anything that the Intelligence Community does not want done.
The total media and political class freakouts over Gabbard, Kennedy and Gaetz gives me more hope than I've had for Washington for decades. Senate resistance will be powerful against all three while the non-diplomat, Little Marco, will sail right through.
YES.
Maybe, just maybe, we'll be able to focus on defending our national security and not just defending our national interests (which only benefit the corporations).
Given the natural barriers against foreign aggression, defending our national security is quite simple and not very expensive. On the other hand, our national (corporate) interests are global requiring that we rule the world. As history shows, we haven't been very successful at that and our feeble attempts have cost us dearly.
Let us hope.
Don't volunteer to hold Your breath waiting for a shift of this Government's focus from national interests to national security, wr.
As long as there is an MICIMATT and the rest of The Deep State, that is not going to happen.
That's true. The Deep State is a self-appointed government unto itself. Which of course is the problem.
Good luck to her, but I will be surprised if she is able to finish out more than one year in that position. Less if it looks like she is having any success changing the agency. I expect resistance from two directions: significant undermining on the part of the career bureaucrats who are imperial true believers--of which there are many at all levels of the organization--and resistance from the other DJT appointees who are mostly flamboyant war-mongering dingbats (as opposed to the boring war-mongering nitwits they are replacing). On the other hand, she seems intelligent, so she must know what she's up against.
My impression of DJT himself is that he makes these contradictory hires so that he has a range of options covered and can pivot at will--dumping whichever one seems not to be giving a good return--like some sort of investment diversification scheme.
Well put. Tulsi seems to have fortitude. I hope she lasts longer than a year.
Ultimately when you think about it tho. its really a shame that a small Cabal of old ultra -rich little bastards basically holds the fate of this whole planet in their enfeebled, treacherous, little twisted hands, and all they worry about is their money...!
This is just a reminder for those who haven seen it.I'm glad I copied and saved it because it's no longer in The Washington Post to be found. If anyone here can find the link to the original, please post it.
Harry Truman who created the CIA, wanted it hauled in for it's excesses.
The Washington Post December 22, 1963 – page A11
Harry Truman Writes: Limit CIA Role To Intelligence
INDEPENDENCE, MO., Dec. 21 — I think it has become necessary to take another look at the purpose and operations of our Central Intelligence Agency—CIA. At least, I would like to submit here the original reason why I thought it necessary to organize this Agency during my Administration, what I expected it to do and how it was to operate as an arm of the President.
I think it is fairly obvious that by and large a President's performance in office is as effective as the information he has and the information he gets. That is to say, that assuming the President himself possesses a knowledge of our history, a sensitive understanding of our institutions, and an insight into the needs and aspirations of the people, he needs to have available to him the most accurate and up-to-the-minute information on what is going on everywhere in the world, and particularly of the trends and developments in all the danger spots in the contest between East and West. This is an immense task and requires a special kind of an intelligence facility.
Of course, every President has available to him all the information gathered by the many intelligence agencies already in existence. The Departments of State, Defense, Commerce, Interior and others are constantly engaged in extensive information gathering and have done excellent work.
But their collective information reached the President all too frequently in conflicting conclusions. At times, the intelligence reports tended to be slanted to conform to established positions of a given department. This becomes confusing and what's worse, such intelligence is of little use to a President in reaching the right decisions.
Therefore, I decided to set up a special organization charged with the collection of all intelligence reports from every available source, and to have those reports reach me as President without department “treatment” or interpretations.
I wanted and needed the information in its “natural raw” state and in as comprehensive a volume as it was practical for me to make full use of it. But the most important thing about this move was to guard against the chance of intelligence being used to influence or to lead the President into unwise decisions—and I thought it was necessary that the President do his own thinking and evaluating.
Since the responsibility for decision making was his—then he had to be sure that no information is kept from him for whatever reason at the discretion of any one department or agency, or that unpleasant facts be kept from him. There are always those who would want to shield a President from bad news or misjudgments to spare him from being "upset."
For some time I have been disturbed by the way CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of the Government. This has led to trouble and may have compounded our difficulties in several explosive areas.
I never had any thought that when I set up the CIA that it would be injected into peacetime cloak and dagger operations. Some of the complications and embarrassment I think we have experienced are in part attributable to the fact that this quiet intelligence arm of the President has been so removed from its intended role that it is being interpreted as a symbol of sinister and mysterious foreign intrigue—and a subject for cold war enemy propaganda.
With all the nonsense put out by Communist propaganda about "Yankee imperialism,“ ”exploitive capitalism,“ ”war-mongering,“ ”monopolists," in their name-calling assault on the West, the last thing we needed was for the CIA to be seized upon as something akin to a subverting influence in the affairs of other people.
I well knew the first temporary director of the CIA, Adm. Souers, and the later permanent directors of the CIA, Gen. Hoyt Vandenberg and Allen Dulles. These were men of the highest character, patriotism and integrity—and I assume this is true of all those who continue in charge.
But there are now some searching questions that need to be answered. I, therefore, would like to see the CIA be restored to its original assignment as the intelligence arm of the President, and that whatever else it can properly perform in that special field—and that its operational duties be terminated or properly used elsewhere.
We have grown up as a nation, respected for our free institutions and for our ability to maintain a free and open society. There is something about the way the CIA has been functioning that is casting a shadow over our historic position and I feel that we need to correct it.
At first I thought this was high sarcasm. Now I see you were completely serious. Well, I still think everything's going to go sideways and he's only picking people that are loyal to him. That's his main draw. I guess time will tell, but if you turn out to be assimilated, count on me to be as truthful as your Tulsi. xo
Don't believe the BS about Tulsi. After Tulsi blew the whistle on the DNC and Clinton in 2016 and supported Bernie Sanders, Hillary and the corporate-owned media (except for FOX) have had it in for her.
Tulsi is no more of a Russian asset than I am or you are.
Oh. Ok. So she's not in bed with Putin. I'm afraid I'm going to have to hold you to that. xo
Are you in bed with Putin? :-)
Just because I know three phrases in Russian? 🤔😅
You can say a lot with three phrases, a smile, and a bottle of vodka.
On being "assimilated" at least The Borg "resistance is Futile. You will be assimilated!"
Never mind Tulsi. With Trump's pick of US Ambassador to the UN and Mike Huckabee as his Ambassador to Israel, there will be no change in the US attitude toward Israel.
In Israel the Official Line to the Palestinians is "resistance is Futile and you will not be assimilated! Trump's pro-Israelis to top positions will hasten the Day!
Yes. From what I gather, Huckabee is so biblical he's probably ready to wipe Palestine off the map. So tragic.
"Among the risks, say current and former intelligence officials and independent experts, are that top advisers could feed the incoming Republican president a distorted view of global threats...." - Reuters
Tell me when our presidents weren't fed distorted views of global threats. According to our "intelligence" community (oxymoron), Vietnam was a threat. Chile was a threat. Cuba was (and still is) a threat. Granada was a threat. Iraq. Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, China, Iran, Russia, Yemen, - any country in the world that didn't bow down and kiss our ass has been a threat.
Intelligence is what is lacking most in our "intelligence" community.
You need to remember, wr, that one of the primary functions of America's "Intelligence Community" ~ just like its Diplomatic Corps ~ is to make sure that the American Military has some kind of War to prepare for and fight in someplace, and while losing that War, to prepare for the next War someplace else to fight in, lose, and prepare for the next War, etc... .
I’ll keep reading to see what the thoughts are here, but I won’t be commenting any more.
Experts’ assessment suggest Gabbard may turn over rocks hiding misleading intel and skewed assessment.
The “pros” protest too much.
To me create fear is a high indorsement for Gabbard.
Thanks Bill
Injoyed today's blog. And agree. Tulsi could be a good choice. 'We'll see my pretty'
While I often bash the "intelligence" community, it is important to remember that there are three distinct levels of administration in each department in the federal government. The lowest level (GS 1-15 civil service) are the worker bees, usually career people, that do the real work. In the "intelligence" community, they collect the data, analyze it and write up the initial reports. The next level, (SES levels I - IV) is quasi-political (sometimes career people and sometimes appointees). They don't do any real work. They pass on guidance to the worker bees and review documents and forward them to the next level. The top level executives (ES I - V) are political appointees. They make policy, advise the president and promulgate the approved policies to the SES level. Any report that goes to the president then has to go through all of these levels before reaching the top.
In the "intelligence" community, one of the more important documents is the NIE (National Intelligence Estimate) that is drafted by the civil servants and passed up for review to the SES level, then to the ES level and finally to the president. Before reaching the president, that document is reviewed (and edited) by a cast of thousands at the SES and then the ES levels.
My very strong suspicion (based on experience) is that the original draft NIE presents a fairly realistic picture of the various "threats" and their capabilities; but by the time it has been reviewed and edited by that cast of thousands, it looks exactly like what the Secretaries, Under Secretaries for Policy and their ilk wanted.
My experience with people in the Civil Service ranks is that they are mostly honest, hard working, reasonably intelligent and objective. (Not everybody, of course, but defiitely the lion's share of them.) So I want to make sure that when I bash the "intelligence" community, I don't mean everyone in it and I definitely don't want to disparage the worker bees.
Ha ha! Trump "may be" choosing Cabinet based on personal loyalty to him?? A stunning notion, Reuters! Not a single nominee thus far is qualified to do anything but continue to kiss the Big Man's very ample behind! I find it very droll that some "leftists" used to be in love with Tulsi, and now she's part of Team Fascism. Way to go, kid!
Scott Ritter offers his take on the Gabbard nomination to be DNI at https://scheerpost.com/2024/11/15/scott-ritter-tulsi-gabbard-the-trump-revolution/ .
In many ways, he presents the same arguments in her favor that You do, Bill.
He must be a genius to agree with me. :-)
Obviously.
Sorry, jg for duplicating your post about Scott Ritter and Bill being in snyc. I saw an edit function on another page but not on this page or I would delete my comment.
Not a prob, Ray. And to delete a comment, click on the ... on the right side of Your comment, and You will see a "Delete" option.
There is no delete or any edit function on the right of my comment. No matter how I move the cursor there are no vertical... either.
Ray, click on the three dots to the right of your comment. That'll open options to edit or delete your comment.
Useful! Thank you! The 3 horiz. dots are visible on my monitor and they are not dirt on the screen.
All I see is Like Reply & Share. There are no 3 dots vertical or horizontal anywhere to the right of my comment I can see.
I was on a page of this article earlier Today with this new format where I could see the functions to the right, but not on this page???
They're not vertical ... ; they're horizontal.
I have always liked her and contributed to her when she ran for president
Gabbard has bravery and truth written all over her.