Tag: Leftist MSM

Intro by John R. Houk

© June 30, 2018

I received an email from Judicial Watch wanting to take a look at their 3-minute video on the Deep State. The email says the video is four minutes long but really the actual time is 3:02. The email is dated 6/28/18. The most interesting part for me was the link attached to phrase, “Read more about the Deep State”. That link goes to a 64-page PDF called a JW special report entitled, “Exposing the Deep State”.

 

I encourage to read the Deep State report that includes an appendix of documents won by JW use of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Naturally, in the name of National Security many of those documents are redacted.

 

To inspire you to read the whole report I am cross posting the Executive Summary and Introduction. I am also including the Conclusion section. Here is the Table of Contents so that know which sections are missing in my cross post:

 

Table of Contents

 

Executive Summary-3

 

I. Introduction and Background-5

 

Four Case Studies-8

 

Case Study # 1: The Environmental Protection Agency-8

Case Study # 2: The Internal Revenue Service-13

Case Study # 3: Outside Organizations, Inside Operations-16

Case Study # 4: The Intelligence/Law-Enforcement Community-19

 

III. Conclusion-37

 

IV. Appendix-41

 

And here is the text of the email:

 

Announcing a compelling new short-form video:
On Issue – “Inside the Deep State!

 

Dear Editor/Broadcaster,

I am pleased to announce that Judicial Watch is now launching an exciting new educational, cutting edge video series I believe many in your audience will find captivating and informative…

And, the first, 4 minute edition is now available HERE!

It’s called On Issue  – “Inside the Deep State”…

And it provides vital insights into a topic that grows increasingly salient with every passing day.

Fast-paced and fact-filled “Inside the Deep State,” features JW’s highly respected Director of Investigations, Chris Farrell, laying it all out – in his own captivating and highly informative style.

And he does it all in just under four minutes!

Click here now to watch Inside the Deep State…

And then please feel free to use it however you wish to keep your audience On Issue!

Sincerely,

Carter Clews

 

VIDEO: JW On Issue: Exposing the Deep State

 

Posted by Judicial Watch

Published on Jun 25, 2018

 

The Deep State is comprised of legions of political appointees, career civil servants and powerful private contractors who run the government–no matter who sits in the Oval Office–no matter which political party controls Congress–and no matter what is the will of the American people.

 

No matter who’s in power, they exert control.

 

Read more about the Deep State here: http://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/JW-Special-Report-Deep-State-2017.pdf

 

And now – the Deep State analysis.

 

JRH 6/30/18

Please Support NCCR

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Exposing the Deep State

 

A Judicial Watch Special Report

September 2017

 

Judicial Watch Logo

 

Executive Summary

 

“They pride themselves on operating below the radar – and above the law”

 

We face a crisis of the Deep State – “Alt-government,” I sometimes call it. The actions of the Deep State constitute a direct challenge to our republican form of government. Working primarily through the intelligence and law-enforcement agencies, the Deep State is actively engaged in subversive measures designed to delegitimize Donald Trump, cause the American people to lose faith in their president, destroy the Trump presidency and eventually impeach him or put him in jail. — Judicial Watch President, Tom Fitton

 

This Judicial Watch Special Report analyzes the Deep State, which comprises legions of political appointees, career civil servants and powerful private contractors who run the government no matter who sits in the Oval Office. No matter which political party controls Congress. And, no matter what is the will of the American people. No matter who’s in power, they exert control. Oftentimes, the liberal media effectively operates as the propaganda arm of the Deep State.

 

The shadowy world in which Deep State actors maneuver is characterized by three disturbing proclivities: Secrecy, surveillance and subterfuge.

 

The operatives manning and manipulating the Deep State demand an activist, interventionist government, both domestically and internationally. Importantly, their worldview often rejects the beliefs and values of a majority of patriotic Americans.

 

As time goes on, the disparity between the values and beliefs of the people and those of the Deep State becomes cumulative, and no matter whom the people elect to public office, the Deep State takes the nation in a direction that increasingly diverges from where the people desire to go.

 

Sometimes, as it has with the Trump presidency, the Deep State rises to the surface in rebellion, taking aggressive, seditious measures against a president whose election it opposed and who it perceives to be a threat to its own agenda and, perhaps, its very survival. As already is clear with the Trump presidency, the Deep State can turn on any president that threatens its interests and survival. And left unchecked, it may illegally destroy him.

 

This Special Report explores the workings of the Deep State through four case studies, in each of which Judicial Watch is involved in investigative action and litigation:

 

• The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), involving three JW Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits. One lawsuit focuses on the efforts by agency political officials and civil servants to hide their communications and circum-vent the Federal Records and Freedom of Information Acts. The second law-suit demands to see documents surrounding the EPA’s cost-benefit analysis of the Clean Power Plan, which Judicial Watch suspects to be “fake science” used to justify the Obama EPA’s health claims in the Clean Power Plan, a scheme to end coal energy under the guise of combatting alleged global warming. The third lawsuit is aimed at EPA’s efforts to propagandize the American People illegally to promote its power grab over a clean water rule it was attempting to promulgate at the time.

 

• The Internal Revenue Service (IRS), involving four JW FOIA lawsuits focusing on the political targeting of President Barack Obama’s political enemies, including conservative non-profit organizations and individuals, and the unlawful collusion among the IRS and other agencies of government, such as the Justice Department, the FBI, the Department of Health and Human Services, to spy on innocent American citizens, propagandize them and bring criminal charges against political enemies of the Obama administration and/or the Deep State.

 

• United States Agency for International Development (USAID)/Soros Open Society Foundations, involving two JW FOIA lawsuits focusing on the Soros Open Society Foundations’ use of U.S. taxpayer money channeled through USAID to destabilize and overthrow the democratically elected governments of Macedonia and Albania.

 

• The Intelligence/Law-Enforcement Community, involving six JW FOIA law-suits, an additional FOIA request and an advisory/demand letter, all focused on the surveillance, unmasking and illegal targeting of President Trump and his associates during the government’s investigation of purported Russian involvement in the 2016 presidential election and alleged collusion with the Russians by Trump and his team. The Special Report examines the flood of leaks and innuendos coming out of the government surrounding Trump and his associates, including the Gen. Michael Flynn episode; the Obama administration’s misuse of the NSA database of surveillance intercepts to target and unmask the identities of Americans; the Trump Dossier and the FBI’s involvement in it; along with James Comey’s purloined memoranda and the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Trump and his associates, including unsubstantiated accusations of obstruction of justice by the president when he allegedly ask Comey to shut down the Flynn investigation. The Report assembles the evidence at hand and finds it supports the conclusion that the Deep State, working primarily through the intelligence and law-enforcement agencies, is actively engaged in subversive measures (a “soft coup”) designed to delegitimize Donald Trump, cause the American people to lose faith in their president, destroy the Trump presidency and eventually impeach him or put him in jail.

 

At the beginning of this Special Report, it is observed that the Deep State is not monolithic but it shares a common mindset and worldview, and it is characterized by three disturbing proclivities: Secrecy, surveillance and subterfuge. Secrecy catalyzes and enables surveillance and subterfuge. The only way to observe and evaluate the workings of the Deep State is to penetrate the veil of Deep State secrecy that shields the actions of political appointees, career civil servants, private contractors and their relationship with the media and outside agents of influence that comprise the Deep State.

 

This Special Report concludes that it is time to tear down the wall of secrecy surrounding the Deep State. President Trump should order federal agencies to stop the stalling and start obeying the nation’s open-records laws. Until they do, the dangerously malignant Deep State will continue to grow and undermine American democracy.

 

Exposing the Deep State

 

“They pride themselves on operating below the radar – and above the law”

 

We face a crisis of the Deep State – “Alt-government,” I sometimes call it. The actions of the Deep State constitute a direct challenge to our republican form of government. Working primarily through the intelligence and law-enforcement agencies, the Deep State is actively engaged in subversive measures designed to delegitimize Donald Trump, cause the American people to lose faith in their president, destroy the Trump presidency and eventually impeach him or put him in jail. – Judicial Watch President, Tom Fitton

 

I. Introduction and Background

 

There is a deeply embedded shadow government in the United States running the affairs of state – The Deep State or Alt Government, as Judicial Watch President, Tom Fitton describes it. This shadow government is not monolithic. But, it does not have to be. Its operatives share a common mindset and worldview. They travel in the same social circles. And, they walk the same corridors of power.

 

No matter who’s in power, they’re in control.

 

They pride themselves on operating below the radar – and above the law. And, the shadowy world in which they maneuver is characterized by three disturbing proclivities: Secrecy, surveillance and subterfuge.

 

In the words of Judicial Watch Director of Investigations Chris Farrell, the decidedly left-leaning Deep State is “quite comfortable exercising all of the levers of the organs of the state.” Farrell explains:

 

They come from a Franco-Germanic political philosophy that, historically, has always placed the state over the citizenry. They derive their power and exercise it vigorously through the state.

 

As time goes on, this disparity between the values and beliefs of the people and those of the Deep State becomes cumulative, and no matter whom the people elect to public office, the Deep State takes the nation in a direction that increasingly diverges from where the people desire to go.

 

Deep State operatives are ensconced in every agency of the government; they have their own agendas; and many of them think they don’t have to answer to an elected president, the rule of law or the American people. They also are enmeshed in and interface with outside networks of organizations, media companies, universities, think tanks and corporations that share their views, help shape their views and exert enormous influence on policy and its day-to-day implementation. The “military-industrial complex” President Dwight Eisenhower warned about is a reality but it is not the only complex providing the architecture of the Deep State; there are several of them: the intelligence/security-industrial complex, the environmental/academic-industrial complex, to name but two.

 

The American media complex effectively operates as the propaganda arm and transmission belt of the Deep State. In a 2013 article (updated in 2016), former State Department foreign service officer and congressional policy adviser and analyst, James George Jatras, explains:

 

American media increasingly have operated uncritically in conjunction with the bipartisan Washington political establishment…Among the key features of such cooperation…are:

 

• Deficiency of geographic and historical knowledge as the American norm (the less people know the more likely they are to believe what they are told, with the least informed most persuaded of the need to “do something”);

 

• Reliance on government sources, “ventriloquism,” and “information incest” (unknown to the public, much media “information” comes from government sources);

 

• Centralized corporate ownership (official policy imperatives interface with ratings dollars for six giant corporate conglomerates);

 

• “Para-journalism,” “infotainment,” and “atrocity porn” as a war trigger (atrocities appear seemingly on cue and then receive saturation coverage);

 

• Demonization “Hitler” memes and “weaponization” of media (compromise and negotiation have no role in confronting absolute evil – war is the default option);

 

• America and the “international community,” the “Free World,” and American “exceptionalism” and “leadership;” disregarding “alternative” media, Ameri-can samizdat (accurate information is available in “alternative” media, but the major[s] still decide if it exists or not);

 

• “We never make mistakes,” “stay the course,” and “MoveOnism” (U.S. policy has no rearview mirror);

 

• Authors of past blunders are not discredited, while those who said “tolya so” are ignored).

 

• In turn, media themselves are an integral part of a multifaceted, hybrid public-private entity with broad range and depth. Variously known as the Establishment, the Oligarchy, or the Deep State, this entity includes elements within all three branches of the U.S. government (especially in the military, intelligence, and financial sectors), private business (the financial industry, government contractors, information technology), think tanks, NGOs, the “Dem intern,” both political parties and campaign operatives, and an army of lobbyists and PR professionals.

 

• Looking into the future in light of 2016 anti-Establishment challenges from Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, the shortcomings of Barack Obama’s policies in Libya, Syria, and Ukraine on top of those of George W. Bush in Iraq and Afghanistan, shrinkage of the American Middle Class, and increasing public skepticism of the “MSM” in favor of digital “alternative media,” both the Washington-based oligarchy and its media component show signs of losing their grip.

 

• The possibility exists for a peaceful evolution to a less warlike posture (impacting media as well) that would refocus on America’s domestic needs. Alter-natively, the existing order could risk a major war in a desperate bid to save its wealth, power, and privileges – with unforeseeable consequences for America and the world.

 

The operation of the Deep State is not a meticulously organized conspiracy, mastermind-ed and controlled by any central authority operating out of a fortified bunker. Nor does it need to be. The agendas of the politicians, bureaucrats and contractors that populate the Deep State are frequently the same, or complementary, and the huge sums of taxpayer money involved tie them together inextricably. And, they ineluctably travel in the same, invariably elitist circles. Rather, the Deep State is like a systemic disease of run-away cells, replicating and metastasizing to serve their own interests and survival. In short, a cancer.

 

The Deep State has a life of its own, independent of whoever is president or whichever political party controls the Congress. Though it prefers to operate through sleight of hand, with smoke and mirrors, at times it may rise to the surface and become the handmaiden of overzealous and overreaching presidents who serve its interests – as it did when Barack Obama weaponized the permanent bureaucracy inside the IRS, the FBI and other intelligence and regulatory agencies against the American people and his (and the Deep State’s) political opponents.

 

Most frequently, the Deep State recedes back into the shadows where its agents quietly advance their own agenda and obstruct troublesome elected officials (and the public that supports them) in a million different ways, large and small, deliberate and devious. Sometimes, of course, it rises to the surface in rebellion – as it has with President Donald Trump, taking aggressive, seditious measures against a president whose election it opposed and who it perceives to be a threat to its own agenda and, perhaps, its very survival.

 

The Deep State is more insidious than mere partisanship, and it is more dangerous because it is permanent. While presidents and Members of Congress come and go, the Deep State remains permanently, growing ever more powerful – and predatory. As already is clear with the Trump presidency, the Deep State can turn on any president that threatens its interests and survival. And left unchecked, it may destroy him.

 

III. Conclusion

 

Professor Patrick H. O’Neil of the University of Puget Sound, in a January 2015 article, “The Deep State: An Emerging Concept in Comparative Politics,” concisely elucidates the underlying foundation of the Deep State (p.4):

 

… as a foundational logic, the deep state justifies its existence through the necessity of tutelage over both state and society. The deep state views itself guardian of national values against internal and external foes. In short, the deep state does not necessarily trust the government, state (perhaps even military) or society to pre-serve the nation. Accordingly, actors within the deep state can justify an array of actions against the government, society, and state as necessary to defend against “traitors” to the nation and national ideology. The amorphousness of the deep state is accompanied by the belief that its members are the symbolic core of the nation. (Emphasis added.)

 

At the beginning of this Special Report, it was observed that the Deep State is not monolithic but it shares a common worldview and is characterized by three disturbing proclivities: Secrecy, surveillance and subterfuge. Secrecy catalyzes and enables surveillance and subterfuge. The only way to observe and evaluate the workings of the Deep State is to penetrate the veil of Deep State secrecy that shields the actions of political appointees, career civil servants, private contractors and their relationship with the media and outside agents of influence that comprise the Deep State.

 

That’s why Judicial Watch is in court day after day shining the light on the activities of the Deep State. It is time to put an end to the obsessive, oppressive and destructive secrecy in government. If the rule of law is to survive, if America’s constitutional protections are to endure, it is essential to roll back the sinister secrecy that allows, indeed encourages those operating in the Deep State to hold themselves above the law and beyond the Constitution.

 

There is a way to rein in the Deep State but it requires a commitment to extreme transparency by elected officials. It requires determined leadership from the White House and serious bi-partisan action on the part of a committed Congress to expose the goings on inside the permanent D.C. bureaucracy and the connections between the Deep Staters, the media and the outside agents of influence.

 

 

There is plenty of blame to go around for the transparency failures that foster the Deep State, most recently the Obama administration’s executive over reach and the veil of secrecy President Obama pulled over his administration to hide it. And now, unbelievably, those same secrecy policies seem to be on auto-pilot in the Trump administration. Thank-fully, though, when it comes to sunshine actions, the Trump White House has a solution at hand – if only it would use it – that is both elegantly simple and breathtakingly radical. The Freedom of Information Act allows for the executive branch to make “discretionary disclosures.”

 

As Judicial Watch Director of Investigations, Chris Farrell has noted:

 

“In plain English, that means President Trump and his cabinet secretaries can release whatever they want—whenever they wish to do so. They can exercise their discretion to release records that are of broad general and news media interest concerning important policy issues and/or the operation of the federal government. These discretionary disclosures take nothing more than the stroke of a pen.”

 

Beyond the “discretionary disclosures” provision of the Freedom of Information Act, Executive Order 13526, signed by President Obama in 2009, and the Supreme Court ruling in Department of the Navy v. Egan (484 U.S. 518 (1988)) confirm that under the Constitution, as chief executive, the president has the legal power to declassify information immediately, on his say so alone. As the Court stated in Egan:

 

The President, after all, is the “Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.” U.S. Const., Art. II, 2. His authority to classify and control access to information bearing on national security…flows primarily from this constitutional investment of power in the President and exists quite apart from any explicit congressional grant.

 

During the presidential campaign, Candidate Trump pledged to drain the swamp. There is no better way to drain the swamp than to impose extreme transparency on the Deep State where the swamp festers and putrefies. Regrettably, however, instead of applying the transparency remedy, as JW’s Chris Farrell reports, “The Department of Justice under Attorney General Sessions is currently making the exact same legal arguments as the Obama administration—and using all the double-talk and excuses from the Obama era, too.”

 

Freedom of Information Act officers in the executive branch are over-worked and under-appreciated, a situation that has severely restricted the effectiveness of the law. But it doesn’t take congressional action or a spending increase to change that. President Trump could trigger a FOIA revolution simply by ordering a new era of extreme transparency and discretionary disclosure.

 

Micha Morrison said it perfectly in Judicial Watch’s Investigative Bulletin:

 

“Extreme transparency could bring huge benefits. Swamp draining would get super-charged boosters. The president could seize the moral high ground in the Russia-connection case with the re-lease of his tax returns and all relevant White House documents. On the Judicial Watch docket, among the records that could be quickly produced are: the Comey memo; records related to former National Security Adviser Susan Rice and the “unmasking” controversy; re-cords related to the so-called “Russian dossier;” records relating to the controversial “tarmac meeting” in Arizona between former President Bill Clinton and then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch; FBI and intelligence community files on the Hillary Clinton email investigation; never-revealed draft indictments of Mrs. Clinton in the Whitewater investigation; and notes and reports to then-Secretary of State Clinton in the Benghazi affair.”

 

Beyond the president’s imposing extreme transparency through discretionary disclosures, immediate action also is needed to pave the way for activist citizens and outside watchdogs, such as Judicial Watch, to investigate and expose corruption and malfeasance within the government.

 

• President Trump not only should use the power of discretionary disclosures, he also should commit to a revolution of “extreme transparency” and set it in motion by issuing an executive order to break the logjam of FOIA requests he inherited from President Obama and which are now piling up under his own administration.

 

• Congress should join the revolution by reforming the Freedom of Information Act and giving private citizens, the press and watchdog groups stronger and better tools to hold the government to account.

 

• Congress and the president together should seize the opportunity when the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act comes up for reauthorization later this year and:

 

1. Provide for greater public access to government records inside the intelligence and law-enforcement agencies, and especially the proceedings in and opinions of the FISA Court; and

 

2. Place new limits on the NSAs authority to conduct warrantless searches and restrict other agencies’ authority to use NSA intercepts to conduct domestic surveillance on Americans.

 

It’s time to tear down the wall of secrecy surrounding the Deep State. President Trump should order federal agencies to stop the stalling and start obeying the nation’s open-records laws. Until they do, the dangerously malignant Deep State will continue to grow and undermine American democracy.

______________________

Intro to JW’s ‘Exposing the Deep State’

Intro by John R. Houk

© June 30, 2018

_______________________

Exposing the Deep State

 

If you would like additional copies of the report please contact:

 

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