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MSM brands the Internet "Fake News," from Peter Myers

U.S. Senate passes the "Anti-Semitism Awareness Act". MSM brands the Internet "Fake News"(1) U.S. Senate passes the "Anti-Semitism Awareness Act"(2) Fake News crusade to discredit Trump: MSM versus the Internet(3) Manufacturing Normality: MSM brands the Internet "Fake News"(4) Liberalism a dying faith - Pat Buchanan(5) Paul Craig Roberts on Trump's appointees: allow time, don't jump to conclusions(1) U.S. Senate passes the "Anti-Semitism Awareness Act"Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2016 17:12:33 +0000 (UTC) From: Archer Frey <archerc@sbcglobal.net> Subject: Fw: "Anti-Semitism Awareness Act" passes the Senate From: Michael Hoffman <hoffman@revisionisthistory.org>December 7, 2016http://revisionistreview.blogspot.com/2016/12/anti-semitism-awareness-act-passes-in.htmlThe gradual erosion of the First Amendment: The U.S. Senate has passed the Orwellian "Anti-Semitism Awareness Act"By Michael HoffmanNo, this is not a joke, or a newly discovered appendix to a dystopian George Orwell novel.  The United States Senate on December 1 did indeed pass the "Anti-Semitism Awareness Act." A companion bill has been sent to the House Committee on the Judiciary.We are unfortunately all too familiar with this type of abridgment of freedom of speech and press. In Canada, Australia, Britain, France, Germany, Austria, and everywhere that the "error has no rights" standard of the Inquisition has been revived, dissident writers and activists have been fined or imprisoned. <http://revisionistreview.blogspot.com/2016/12/tis-season-to-remember.html>Ten years ago yesterday historian David Irving was released from an Austrian prison after serving more than a year for his alleged "anti-Semitic" speech and writing.The American media are mostly not interested. In their view this is the right kind of repression.The official explanation for the thought police enabler in the Senate is that the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act "seeks to adopt the U.S. State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism so that the Education Department may consider it in investigating reports of religiously motivated campus crimes." Note that word: "crimes." We will return to it in a moment.The bill was proposed by Senators Bob Casey, a "family values" Pennsylvania Democrat, and Tim Scott, a South Carolina Republican. It was co-sponsored by "Conservative" Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, also of South Carolina, to "ensure the Education Department has the necessary statutory tools at their disposal to investigate anti-Jewish incidents," according to a news release.The misnamed bill (it’s not about merely raising "awareness"), gives the federal government the authority to investigate ideas, thoughts, and political positions as violations of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It's supported by the Israeli lobby in the U.S. and appears to be the work of the Israeli government. Supporters include the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Federations of North America, and the Simon Wiesenthal Center.Mainstream media such as the New York Times, which are obsessed with detecting supposed ominous Russian "meddling" in American politics, have reported barely a word about this legislation, which has the fingerprints of a foreign power all over it.Senator Casey listed the following examples of anti-Semitic crimes covered by the bill:oAccusing Israel as a state of inventing or exaggerating the HolocaustoJudging Israel by a double standard that one would not apply to any other democratic nationoDemonizing Israel by blaming it for inter-religious or political tensionsAre political thoughts and words a hate crime which should be investigated by colleges and universities, or the Department of Education? That’s what this Act will require if it passes in the House of Representatives. Should criticizing the government of China be treated as a hate crime against Asian students?Passage of the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act will have a chilling effect on freedom of speech at America’s institutes of higher learning, and this is its intent. The Act is an extension of growing Israeli supremacy over our Republic through the implementation of laws consonant with Talmudic halacha, which consists of one law for the lower-souled goyim, and another for the higher-souled Judaics (cf. BT Sanhedrin 57a; Kiddushin 66c; Erubin 21b; Bava Metzia 114b; Kerithoth 6b and 58a;  and the Chofetz Chaim’s Mishneh Berurah: O.H. 330, among many other authoritative halachot).Zionist students on American campuses are free to denigrate, insult and mock every nationality, government and religion on earth. On the glass toilet known as television, Zionist Larry David urinated on a portrait of Jesus Christ in October of 2009, on the HBO TV show, "Curb Your Enthusiasm." There’s no "Anti-Christian Awareness Act" on the legislative agenda of our cowardly Congress.Thus far the Los Angeles Times has been one of the few newspapers willing to broach this topic. In a Times’ guest editorial Liz Jackson writes: "This fall, Berkeley suspended an academic course called 'Palestine: a Settler Colonial Inquiry' after complaints from the same Israeli advocacy organizations who had previously tried to get the Education Department to stifle campus debate. This is how the chilling effect plays out. Campus administrators understand the specter of federal investigations —not just the threat of losing funding, but the fallout from bad headlines — and they suppress legitimate speech to avoid problems."To add insult to injury, the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act contains the following coda: "Nothing in this Act, or an amendment made by this Act, shall be construed to diminish or infringe upon any right protected under the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States."Sure. And some are more equal than others.(2) Fake News crusade to discredit Trump: MSM versus the Internethttp://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/fake-news-versus-no-news/Fake News Versus No News How Russia is pilloried while real news about Israel goes unreportedBy Philip GiraldiFriday, December 9, 2016, 13:28 BeijingThe drama surrounding allegations that the internet is awash with "fake news" is being promoted by the so-called mainstream media which certainly has a lot to answer for when it comes to producing material that does not pass the smell test. Does the name Judith Miller ring any bells?The fake news saga is intended to discredit Donald Trump, whom the media hates mostly because they failed to understand either him or the Americans who voted for him in the recent election. You have to blame somebody when you are wrong so you invent "fake news" as the game changer that explains your failure to comprehend simple truths.To accomplish that, the clearly observable evidence that the media was piling on Donald Trump at every opportunity has somehow been deliberately morphed into a narrative that it is Trump who was attacking the media, suggesting that it was all self-defense on the part of the Rachel Maddows of this world, but anyone who viewed even a small portion of the farrago surely will have noted that it was the Republican candidate who was continuously coming under attack from both the right and left of the political-media spectrum.At the present moment, it is practically obligatory to slam Russia and Putin at every opportunity even though Moscow is too militarily weak and poor to fancy itself a global adversary of the U.S. Instead of seeking a new Cold War, Washington should instead focus on working with Russia to make sure that disagreements over policies in relatively unimportant parts of the world do not escalate into nuclear exchanges.Russian actions on its own doorstep in Eastern Europe do not in fact threaten the United States or any actual vital interest. Nor does Moscow threaten the U.S. through its intervention on behalf of the Syrian government in the Middle East. That Russia is described incessantly as a threat in those areas is largely a contrivance arranged by the media, the Democratic and Republican National Committees and by the White House.Blaming Russia, which has good reasons to be suspicious of Washington’s intentions, is particularly convenient for those many diverse inside the Beltway interests that require a significant enemy to keep the cash flowing out of the pockets of taxpayers and into the bank accounts of the useless grifters who inhabit K-Street and Capitol Hill.There is, however, another country that has interfered in U.S. elections, has endangered Americans living or working overseas and has corrupted America’s legislative and executive branches. It has exploited that corruption to initiate legislation favorable to itself, has promoted unnecessary and unwinnable wars and has stolen American technology and military secrets. Its ready access to the mainstream media to spread its own propaganda provides it with cover for its actions and it accomplishes all that and more through the agency of a powerful and well-funded domestic lobby that oddly is not subject to the accountability afforded by the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) of 1938 even though it manifestly works on behalf of a foreign government. That country is, of course, Israel.On December 1 the Senate unanimously passed an Anti-Semitism Awarness bill. The Anti-Semitism Awareness Act is intended to give the Department of Education investigatory authority over "anti-Jewish incidents" on America’s college campuses. Such "incidents" are not limited to religious bigotry, with the examples cited in the bill’s text including criticism of Israel and claiming that the holocaust was "exaggerated." The Anti-Semitism bill makes Jews and Jewish interests a legally protected class, immune from any criticism."Free speech" means in practice that you can burn an American flag, sell pornography, attack Christianity in the vilest terms, but criticizing Israel (on college campuses) is off limits if you want to avoid falling into the clutches of the legal system. The Act is a major step forward in effectively making any expressed opposition to Israeli actions a hate crime and is similar to punitive legislation that has been enacted in twenty-two states as well as in Canada. It is strongly supported by the Israeli Lobby, which quite likely drafted it, and is seeking to use legal challenges to delegitimize and eliminate any opposition to the policies of the state of Israel. That the legislation is not being condemned or even discussed in the generally liberal media tells you everything you need to know about the amazing power of one particular unelected and unaccountable lobby in the U.S.(3) Manufacturing Normality: MSM brands the Internet "Fake News"http://www.unz.com/article/manufacturing-normality/Manufacturing NormalityC.J. HopkinsDecember 6, 2016Sometime circa mid-November, in the wake of Hillary Clinton’s defeat (i.e., the beginning of the end of democracy), the self-appointed Guardians of Reality, better known as the corporate media, launched a worldwide marketing campaign against the evil and perfidious scourge of "fake news." This campaign is now at a fever pitch. Media outlets throughout the empire are pumping out daily dire warnings of the imminent, existential threat to our freedom posed by the "fake news" menace. This isn’t the just the dissemination of disinformation, propaganda, and so on, that’s been going on for thousands of years … Truth itself is under attack. The very foundations of Reality are shaking.Who’s behind this "fake news" menace? Well, Putin, naturally, but not just Putin. It appears to be the work of a vast conspiracy of virulent anti-establishment types, ultra-alt-rightists, ultra-leftists, libertarian retirees, armchair socialists, Sandernistas, Corbynistas, ontological terrorists, fascism normalizers, poorly educated anti-Globalism freaks, and just garden variety Clinton-haters.Fortunately, for us, the corporate media is hot on the trail of this motley of scoundrels. As you’re probably aware, The Washington Postrecently published a breathtaking piece of Pulitzer-quality investigative journalism shamelessly smearing hundreds of alternative publications (like the one you’re reading) as "peddlers of Russian propaganda." The piece, a classic McCarthyite smear job perpetrated by the Post‘s Craig Timberg, was based on the groundless, paranoid claims of what Timberg unironically describes as "two teams of independent researchers," The Foreign Policy Research Institute, a third-rate, former anti-Communist think tank, and an anonymous website, propornot.com, that no one had ever heard of prior to its sudden appearance on the Internet last August, and which, based on the tenor of its tweets and emails, appears to be run by Beavis and Butthead.The Washington Post has been catching some flak for taking this courageous "pro-Truth" stand against the forces of Putinist falsehood and fakery. A host of dangerously extremist publications, like CounterPunch, The Intercept, Rolling Stone, The Nation, The New Yorker, Fortune Magazine, Bloomberg, and US News & World Report, have lambasted The Post for its "shoddy," "lazy," or otherwise sub-par journalism practices. The Post, of course, is "backing its boy," and refusing to apologize for defending democracy, as it has throughout its storied history, like when it smeared Gary Webb as retribution for reporting the CIA-Contra connection, more or less destroying his career as a journalist, or when it blatantly shilled for Hillary Clinton throughout her ugly, fear-mongering campaign, notably publishing sixteen negative pieces on Sanders in sixteen hours, or when it ran this piece on how Clinton might have been poisoned by secret Putinist agents … and these are just a few of the highlights.But I don’t want to single out The Washington Post, or its Executive Editor, Marty Baron, who is clearly a paragon of journalistic ethics. The rest of the corporate media have also been mercilessly flogging the "fake news" hysteria, and the "Putinist propaganda" hysteria, and the "normalizing of fascism" hysteria, and beating the "post-Truth" drum to death. The Guardian, The New York Times, et al., NPR, the TV news networks, the entire mainstream media chorus is barking out the message in perfect synch. So what is really going on here?As I suggested in these pages previously, what we are experiencing is the pathologization (or the "abnormalization") of political dissent, i.e., the systematic stigmatization of any and all forms of non-compliance with neoliberal consensus reality. Political distinctions like "left" and "right" are disappearing, and are being replaced by imponderable distinctions like "normal" and "abnormal," "true" and "false," and "real" and "fake." Such distinctions do not lend themselves to argument. They are proffered to us as axiomatic truths, empirical facts which no normal person would ever dream of contradicting.In place of competing political philosophies, the neoliberal intelligentsia is substituting a simpler choice, "normality" or "abnormality." The nature of the "abnormality" varies according to what is being stigmatized. Today it’s "Corbyn the anti-Semite," tomorrow it’s "Sanders the racist crackpot," or "Trump the Manchurian candidate," or whatever. That the smears themselves are indiscriminate (and, in many instances, totally ridiculous) belies the effectiveness of the broader strategy, which is simply to abnormalize the target and whatever he or she represents. It makes no difference whether one is smeared as a racist, as Sanders was during the primaries, or as an anti-Semite, as Corbyn has been, or a fascist, as Trump has relentlessly been, or peddlers of Russian propaganda, as Truthout, CounterPunch, Naked Capitalism, and a number of other publications have been … the message is, they are somehow "not normal."Why is this any different from the shameless smear jobs the press has been doing on people since the invention of the press and shameless smear jobs? Well, hold on, because I’m about to tell you. Mostly it has to do with words, especially binary oppositions like "real" and "fake," and "normal" and "abnormal," which are, of course, essentially meaningless … their value being purely tactical. Which is to say they denote nothing. They are weapons deployed by a dominant group to enforce conformity to its consensus reality. This is how they’re being used at the moment.The meaningless binary oppositions that the neoliberal intelligentsia and the corporate media are supplanting traditional opposing political philosophies with (i.e., normal/abnormal, real/fake), in addition to stigmatizing a diversity of sources of non-conforming information and ideas, are also restructuring our consensus reality as a conceptual territory in which anyone thinking, writing, or speaking outside the mainstream is deemed some kind of "deviant," or "extremist," or some other form of social pariah. Again, it doesn’t matter what kind, as "deviance" in itself is the point.Actually, the opposite of deviance is the point. Because this is how "normality" is manufactured. And how consensus reality as a whole is manufactured … and how the manufacturing process is concealed. Apologies for getting all Baudrillardian, but this is actually how this stuff works.The media’s current obsession with "fake news" conceals the fact that there is no "real news," and simultaneously produces "real news," or, rather, the simulation thereof. It does so by means of the binary opposition (i.e., if such a thing as "fake news" exists … then, ipso facto, "real news" exists). Likewise, the focus on "not normalizing Trump" conceals the fact that there is no "normality," and simultaneously manufactures "normality" … which is always only a simulation.Similarly, the stigmatization of Trump as a modern-day Hitler, or Mussolini, or some other type of fascist dictator, conceals the fact that the United States is already virtually a one-party system, with concentrated ownership and control of the media, an omnipresent militarized police force, arbitrary enforcement of the rule of law, the maintenance of a more or less permanent state of war, and many other standard features of authoritarian systems of government. At the same time, this projection of "fascism" conjures, or manufactures, its opposite, "democracy" … or the simulation of democracy.This neoliberal simulation of democracy, and normality, and reality, is what the corporate media, and the entire neoliberal intelligentsia, is desperately working to shore up at the moment, as they took quite a hit with this election mess. Trump was not supposed to win. He was supposed to be another Hitlerian bogeyman that the neoliberals could save us all from, but then, well, look what happened. The problem for the neoliberal ruling classes, and the mainstream media, and liberals generally, having gone balls out on the Hitler schtick, is that they pretty much have to keep it up now, which is going to get increasingly weird as Trump turns out to not be Hitler, but, rather, just another Republican plutocrat, albeit one with zero government experience and some certified bull goose loonies on his staff. I’m sure Trump will want to help them out, though (i.e., his neoliberal "enemies"), with the occasional racist or misogynist tweet, as he will need to maintain his "white working class" creds, at least until the "War on Islam" gets going.In any event, we can all look forward to some serious pathologization of dissent throughout the coming four (and perhaps eight) years. And I’m not referring to Trump and his boys, though I’m certain they’ll be in there slinging it too. I’m referring to our friends in the corporate media, like Marty Baron and his smear machine, and the Guardians of Reality at The New York Times, The Guardian, and other "papers of record." WNYC is already airing a daily "descent into fascism" segment. And of course the neoliberal left, Mother Jones, The Nation, et al., and The New York Review of Books, apparently (they just can’t get enough of this Hitler stuff), will be monitoring liberals’ every thought to ensure that fascism does not get normalized … which God have mercy should that ever happen. Who knows how America might end up? Torturing people? Attacking other countries that pose no threat to it whatsoever? Indefinitely imprisoning people in camps? Assassinating anyone the president deems a "terrorist" or an "enemy combatant" with the tacit approval of the majority of Americans? Surveilling everyone’s phone calls, emails, tweets, and reading and web-browsing habits?Imagine the dystopia we would all be living in … if things like that were considered "normal."C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright and satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play Publishing (US). He can reached at his website, cjhopkins.com, or at consentfactory.org.(4) Liberalism a dying faith - Pat Buchananhttp://www.unz.com/pbuchanan/has-the-trumpian-revolution-begun/Has the Trumpian Revolution Begun?Pat BuchananDecember 9, 2016The wailing and keening over the choice of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to head the EPA appears to be a lead indicator of a coming revolution far beyond Reagan’s."Trump Taps Climate Skeptic For Top Environmental Post," said The Wall Street Journal. "Climate Change Denial," bawled a disbelieving New York Times, which urged the Senate to put Pruitt in a "dust bin."Clearly, though his victory was narrow, Donald Trump remains contemptuous of political correctness and defiant of liberal ideology.For environmentalism, as conservative scholar Robert Nisbet wrote in 1982, is more than the "most important social movement" of the 20th century. It is a militant and dogmatic faith that burns heretics."Environmentalism is well on its way to becoming the third great wave of redemptive struggle in Western history," wrote Nisbet, "the first being Christianity, the second modern socialism." In picking a "climate denier" to head EPA, Trump is rejecting revealed truth.Yet, as with his choices of Steve Bannon as White House strategist and Sen. Jeff Sessions as attorney general, he has shown himself to be an unapologetic apostate to liberal orthodoxy.Indeed, with his presidency, we may be entering a post-liberal era.In 1950, literary critic Lionel Trilling wrote, "In the United States at this time liberalism is not only the dominant but even the sole intellectual tradition. For it is the plain fact that nowadays there are no conservative or reactionary ideas in general circulation."The rise of the conservative movement of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan revealed liberalism’s hour to be but a passing moment. Yet, today, something far beyond conservatism seems to be afoot.As Hegel taught, in the dialectic of history the thesis calls into existence the antithesis. What we seem to be seeing is a rejection, and a counterreformation against the views and values that came out of the social and political revolutions of the 1960s.Consider the settled doctrine Trump disrespected with Pruitt.We have long been instructed that climate change is real, that its cause is man-made, that it imperils the planet with rising seas, hurricanes and storms, that all nations have a duty to curb the release of carbon dioxide to save the world for future generations.This is said to be "scientific truth," and "climate deniers" are like people who believe the earth is flat and the sun revolves around it. Some hold the matter to be so grave that climate deniers should be censored for promoting socially destructive falsehoods.Yet, the people remain skeptical.Their worry is not that the rising waters of the Med will swamp the Riviera, but that tens of millions of Arabs, Muslims and Africans may be coming across to swamp Europe, and that millions of Mexicans may cross the Rio Grande to swamp the USA.Call them climate deniers or climate skeptics, but they see the establishment as running the Big Con to effect a transfer of wealth and power away from the people — and to themselves.Across the West, establishments have lost credibility.The proliferation of minority parties, tearing off pieces of the traditional ruling parties, points to a growing distrust in ruling regimes and a return to identifying with the nation and tribe whence one came.A concomitant of this is a growing disbelief in egalitarianism and in the equality of all races, creeds, nations, cultures and peoples.The Supreme Court may say all religions are equal and all must be treated equally. But do Americans believe Christianity and Islam are equal? How could they, when Christians claim their faith has as its founder the Son of God and God himself?After calling for a ban on Muslim immigration, Trump was elected president. After inviting a million refugees from Syria’s civil war into Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel admits having made a mistake and is now in favor of letting German cities and towns decide if women should be allowed to wear burqas.A sea change in thought is taking place in the West.Liberalism appears to be a dying faith. America’s elites may still preach their trinity of values: diversity, democracy, equality. But the majorities in America and Europe are demanding that the borders be secured and Third World immigrants kept out.The next president disbelieves in free trade. He wants a border wall. He questions the wisdom of our Mideast wars and the need for NATO. He is contemptuous of democratist dogma that how other nations rule themselves is our business. He rejects transnationalism and globalism."There is no global anthem, no global currency, no certificate of global citizenship," said Trump in Cincinnati, "We pledge allegiance to one flag, and that flag is the American flag. From now on, it’s going to be America first. … We’re going to put ourselves first."That’s not Adlai Stevenson or Jimmy Carter or Barack Obama.Nothing seems settled or certain. All is in flux. But change is coming. "Things are in the saddle, and ride mankind."Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of the new book "The Greatest Comeback: How Richard Nixon Rose From Defeat to Create the New Majority."(5) Paul Craig Roberts on Trump's appointees: allow time, don't jump to conclusionshttp://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article45962.htmTrump’s AppointmentsBy Paul Craig RobertsDecember 03, 2016 "Information Clearing House" - What do they mean?Before I give an explanation, let’s be sure we all know what an explanation is. An explanation is not a justification. The collapse of education in the US is so severe that many Americans, especially younger ones, cannot tell the difference between an explanation and a defense, justification, or apology for what they regard as a guilty person or party. If an explanation is not damning or sufficiently damning of what they want damned, the explanation is interpreted as an excuse for the object of their scorn. In America, reason and objective analysis have taken a backseat to emotion.We do not know what the appointments mean except, as Trump discovered once he confronted the task of forming a government, that there is no one but insiders to appoint. For the most part that is correct. Outsiders are a poor match for insiders who tend to eat them alive. Ronald Reagan’s California crew were a poor match for George H.W. Bush’s insiders. The Reagan part of the government had a hell of a time delivering results that Reagan wanted.Another limit on a president’s ability to form a government is Senate confirmation of presidential appointees. Whereas Congress is in Republican hands, Congress remains in the hands of special interests who will protect their agendas from hostile potential appointees. Therefore, although Trump does not face partisan opposition from Congress, he faces the power of special interests that fund congressional political campaigns.When the White House announced my appointment as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, Republican Senator Bob Dole put a hold on my appointment. Why? Dole had presidential ambitions, and he saw the rising star of Republican Representative Jack Kemp as a potential obstacle. As I had written the Kemp-Roth bill that had become Reagan’s economic policy, Dole regarded me in the Treasury as a one-up for Kemp. So, you see, all sorts of motives can plague a president’s ability to form a government.With Trump under heavy attack prior to his inauguration, he cannot afford drawn out confirmation fights and defeats.Does Trump’s choice of Steve Mnuchin as Treasury Secretary mean that Goldman Sachs will again be in charge of US economic policy? Possibly, but we do not know. We will have to wait and see. Mnuchin left Goldman Sachs 14 years ago. He has been making movies in Hollywood and started his own investment firm. Many people have worked for Goldman Sachs and the New York Banks who have become devastating critics of the banks. Read Nomi Prins’ books and visit Pam Martens website, Wall Street on Parade ( http://wallstreetonparade.com ). My sometimes coauthor Dave Kranzler is a former Wall Streeter.Commentators are jumping to conclusions based on appointees past associations. Mnuchin was an early Trump supporter and chairman of Trump’s finance campaign. He has Wall Street and investment experience. He should be an easy confirmation. For a president-elect under attack this is important.Will Mnuchin suppport Trump’s goal of bringing middle class jobs back to America? Is Trump himself sincere? We do not know.What we do know is that Trump attacked the fake "free trade" agreements that have stripped America of middle class jobs just as did Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot. We know that the Clintons made their fortune as agents of the One Percent, the only ones who have profited from the offshoring of American jobs. Trump’s fortune is not based on jobs offshoring.Not every billionaire is an oligarch. Trump’s relation to the financial sector is one as a debtor. No doubt Trump and the banks have had unsatisfactory relationships. And Trump says he is a person who enjoys revenge.What about the hot-headed generals announced as National Security Advisor and Secretary of Defense? Both seem to be death on Iran, which is stupid and unfortunate. However, keep in mind that Gen. Flynn is the one who blew the whistle on the Obama regime for rejecting the advice of the DIA and sending ISIS to overthrow Assad. Flynn said that ISIS was a "willful decision" of the Obama administration, not some unexpected event.And keep in mind that Gen. Mattis is the one who told Trump that torture does not work, which caused Trump to back off his endorsement of torture.So both of these generals, as bad as they may be, are an improvement on what came before. Both have shown independence from the neoconservative line that supports ISIS and torture.Keep in mind also that there are two kinds of insiders. Some represent the agendas of special interests; others go with the flow because they enjoy participating in the affairs of the nation. Those who don’t go with the flow are eliminated from participating.Goldman Sachs is a good place to get rich. That Mnuchin left 14 years ago could mean that he was not a good match for Goldman Sachs, that they did not like him or he did not like them. That Flynn and Mattis have taken independent positions on ISIS and torture suggests that they are mavericks. All three of these appointees seem to be strong and confident individuals who know the terrain, which is the kind of people a president needs if he is to accomplish anything.The problem with beating up on an administration before it exists and has a record is that the result can be that the administration becomes deaf to all criticism. It is much better to give the new president a chance and to hold his feet to the fire on the main issues.Trump alone among all the presidential candidates said that he saw no point in fomenting conflict with Russia. Trump alone questioned NATO’s continued existence 25 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union.Trump alone said that he would work to bring middle class jobs back to America.And Trump said that he would enforce immigration laws. Is this racism or is this a defense of citizenship? How is the US a country if there is no difference between illegal aliens and citizens?Commentators of all stripes are making a mistake to damn in advance the only government that campaigned on peace with Russia, restoring middle class jobs, and respect for the country’s borders. We should seize on these promises and hold the Trump administration to them. We should also work to make Trump aware of the serious adverse consequences of environmental degradation.Who is blowing these opportunities? Trump? Mnuchin? Flynn? Mattis?Or us?The more Trump is criticized, the easier it is for the neoconservatives to offer their support and enter the administration. To date he has not appointed one, but you can bet your life that Israel is lobbying hard for the neocons. The neocons still reign in the media, the think tanks, university departments of foreign affairs, and the foreign policy community. They are an ever present danger.Trump’s personality means that he is likely to see more reward in being the president who reverses American decline than in using the presidency to augment his personal fortune. Therefore, there is some hope for change occuring from the top rather than originating in the streets of bloody revolution. By the time Americans reach the revolutionary stage of awareness the police state is likely to be too strong for them.So let’s give the Trump administration a chance. We can turn on him after he sells us out.Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts' latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West, How America Was Lost, and The Neoconservative Threat to World Order.-- Peter MyersAustraliawebsite: http://mailstar.net/index.html