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US Had "Secret" Discussions With Assad "Regime", Tried To Start Military Coup
Earlier this week, we recounted Seymour Hersh’s latest investigative report in which we learn that apparently, the Joint Chiefs of Staff worked to undermine the efforts of the White House and the CIA in Syria.
According to Hersh, the Joint Chiefs passed intelligence to Bashar al-Assad through a network of intermediaries starting in 2013 in an effort to assist the Syrian leader in the fight against extremists backed by Washington’s regional allies in Riyadh, Ankara, and Doha. Hersh even goes so far as to contend that the CIA was tricked into providing inferior weapons to jihadists after the Joints Chiefs suggested that shipping arms from Turkey would be cheaper than going through Libya.
If Hersh’s story is even partially accurate, it suggests that not everyone in Washington was (or is) on board with a “strategy” that involves isolating the Assad regime and implicitly (or, in a worst case scenario, “explicitly”) supporting terrorists.
Hersh’s report came on the heels of a story from Bild which claims that German intelligence has begun networking with Assad in an effort to open lines of communication ahead of the deployment of Tornado surveillance aircraft.
Taken together, all of this means the simple narrative which suggests the West is staunchly opposed to working with the Assad government in any capacity is patently false. In fact, what Hersh’s story suggests is that there are many officials in the US who think the idea of arming terrorists in an effort to bring about regime change in the Mid-East is ludicrous. They’re apparently so convinced of this that they’re willing to resort to outright treason to subvert what they view as a dangerous policy of fomenting discord by aiding and abetting Sunni extremists.
Well, just as the White House was forced to respond to Hersh’s last exposé in which the official, Zero Dark Thirty narrative of the bin Laden assassination was exposed as a lie, it now appears Washington is looking to tell its side of the story with regard to covert communication with the Assad government. As WSJ reports, more than two dozen “US and Arab officials” now say Washington communicated with Assad “for years” and also sought to orchestrate a military coup in Syria.

“The Obama administration pursued secret communications with elements of Syria’s regime over several years in a failed attempt to limit violence and get President Bashar al-Assad to relinquish power, according to U.S. and Arab officials,” The Journal begins, adding that “early on, the U.S. looked for cracks in the regime it could exploit to encourage a military coup, but found few.”
As in Hersh’s account, The Journal says messages were relayed through intermediaries such as Russia and Iran:
U.S. officials said communications with the regime came in fits and starts and were focused on specific issues. At times, senior officials spoke directly to each other and at others, they sent messages through intermediaries such as Mr. Assad’s main allies Russia and Iran.
Initially, the idea was to look for traitors within the government:
U.S. intelligence officials identified officers from Mr. Assad’s minority Alawite sect who potentially could lead a regime change, according to former U.S. officials and current European officials.
“The White House’s policy in 2011 was to get to the point of a transition in Syria by finding cracks in the regime and offering incentives for people to abandon Assad,” a former senior administration official said.
When that didn’t work, the US resorted to arming militants or “rebels” as the Western media calls them:
By the summer of 2012, the White House strategy of orchestrating regime change had failed. The U.S. moved to support the rebels, but the effort ramped up too slowly.
Then we get the sarin story again (remember, opposition lawmakers in Turkey have suggested that it was in fact terrorists who used sarin gas in Syria):
In the summer of 2012, the administration sent warnings, through Russian and Iranian officials, to Mr. Assad not to use chemical weapons on a large scale, U.S. officials have said.
U.S. officials also talked to Syrian counterparts directly. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, who retired last year, made two phone calls to Syrian foreign minister Walid al-Moallem to relay the warnings, U.S. officials said.
Fearing Mr. Assad would still escalate, Mr. Obama drew a public red line on chemical weapons in August 2012. Despite the warnings, sarin attacks in August 2013 killed an estimated 1,400 people.
Next, we’re told that one “Khaled Ahmad” served as a go-between with the Obama administration reaching out to Assad in an effort to convince him to step down. Assad countered by suggesting that Washington focus on the terrorists the West and its regional allies had armed:
The Obama administration later shifted gears back to diplomacy to get the Syrian government to the negotiating table.
At the center of that effort was a businessman and confidante of Mr. Assad, Khaled Ahmad, who has served as the Syrian leader’s main interlocutor in recent years with Western officials, including U.S. diplomats. Mr. Ahmad didn’t respond to questions sent by The Wall Street Journal.
“Assad was looking for ways to talk to the White House,” said Joshua Landis, a Syria expert and professor at the University of Oklahoma. Mr. Ahmad, a businessman from Homs province, was his point man.
In late 2013, the former ambassador to Damascus Mr. Ford—then a special administration envoy on Syria—met Mr.
Ahmad in Geneva ahead of planned peace talks there. Mr. Ford told Mr. Ahmad the U.S. was still seeking a political transition away from Mr. Assad’s rule.
Mr. Ahmad countered that the U.S. and the West should help the Syrian government fight terrorism.
When the US opted for direct intervention via airstrikes and the placement of SpecOps, Washington established a communications channel that inadvertently legitimized the government in Damascus:
By 2014, when the U.S. expanded airstrikes against the militants from Iraq to Syria, State Department officials were making phone calls to their counterparts at the Syrian foreign ministry to make sure Damascus steered clear of U.S. jets in Syrian skies, U.S. officials and others familiar the communications said.
Today, when Washington wants to notify Damascus where it is deploying U.S.-trained Syrian fighters to battle Islamic State so the fighters aren’t mistaken for rebels, Samantha Power, the U.S. envoy to the U.N., dispatches a deputy to talk to the Syrian envoy, Bashar Jaafari, these people said.
The White House says the notifications are not collaboration with the regime. But Mr. Assad has used them to his advantage.
“The regime was re-legitimized,” said Ibrahim Hamidi, a Syrian journalist who until 2013 ran the Damascus bureau for Al Hayat, a major pan-Arab newspaper. “Any communication with the U.S.—even the perception of it—gives them the upper hand.”
Finally, The Journal says Ahmad set up a meeting between Assad and a former senior White House official named Steve Simon:
Mr. Simon, who left the White House in 2014, had met Mr. Ahmad at least twice before the Damascus trip, which he portrayed to former colleagues and others as an individual initiative, not made on behalf of the government, according to several people familiar with the meetings.
He notified former colleagues at the White House and State Department officials of his plans to meet the Syrian leader, these people said.
Mr. Simon outlined steps the regime could immediately take to generate goodwill with the international community: stop dropping barrel bombs; do more to fight Islamic State rather than antigovernment rebels; and cooperate with a United Nations-led effort for local cease-fires.
Mr. Assad responded with familiar talking points, focusing on his fight against terrorism.
So that, apparently, is the story the White House is going with. There are a couple of things to note here.
First, it's amusing how The Journal says Assad "responded with familiar talking points focusing on his fight against terrorism." That comes across as a bit derisive, as though there's something different about "his" fight against terrorism and Washignton's fight against terrorism. Basically what the Journal says is that Simon asked Assad to step up the fight against ISIS and Assad responded by asking the US to do the exact same thing. Yet somehow, Assad's fight against terror isn't legitimate while Washington's is. Of course in reality, it's the other way around: Assad has every incentive to eradicate terrorism in Syria. If he doesn't, he'll end up exiled or drug out of a drain pipe and executed like Gaddafi. The US on the other hand, has every reason not to fight terror in Syria until Assad is gone. If Assad falls to terrorists, Washington and its allies can then swoop in and "liberate" the country on the way to installing a puppet government.
Next, note that the US initially tried to orchestrate a military coup in Syria. That's just further evidence of the lengths Washington is willing to go to in order to achieve America's geopolitical goals. Encouraging the military to overthrow a government doesn't exactly count as "support for a democratic transition."
In any event, we'll leave it to readers to parse The Journal's piece, compare and contrast it with what Hersh wrote and everything we know about the conflict on the way to deciding which account sounds more plausible.

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Names change but the story remains the same. How many times has the US tried this? How many times has it started totalitarian regimes? How many times has it ended well?
Those crazy freakin guys.
When they weren't looking.....we decided to crater the price of oil.
Yeah.....we're probably gonna catch hell for that.
I've developed a theory wherein Hitlary (and Oblamo) targeted nations for reigem change IF they did not contributed $$ to Clinton Foundation.
Just saying - look at the nations that were toppled and are now in turmoil - WTF ?
You're close, just add 'the handlers of' in front of 'Hitlary (and Oblamo)' and replace '$$ to Clinton Foundation' with 'their souls to the AngloZionist-envisioned world order'...
"As WSJ reports, more than two dozen “US and Arab officials” now say Washington communicated with Assad “for years” and also sought to orchestrate a military coup in Syria. "
I was chatting with one of my home boy buddies here in Central America. I asked him how he felt about the USSA trying to overthrow governments in the Middle East, given the past successful coups launched against his national government by the CIA
His comment was that Latins are happy that the USSA is spending its efforts in the ME since it means that the fucking gringos are leaving us alone, for now.
The US Military Industrial Complex is the biggest sponsor of terror. Don't be fooled when Blowback happens. You're attacked because corporations fuck around with other people's countries and those people want retribution. Also because the USA MIC lets the responses happen just to blame someone and accelerate their agenda.
Bring down this USA Military Industrial Complex when the next event happens. It's their fault.
Have you read "Brothers: the hidden history of Kennedy years" ? This book is not written by some semi- lunatic, but is a well researched book. There is some much going on, of which we know nothing. It is scary.
Makedonia, Ukraine, Afganistan, Irak, ukraine again, Syria...it all seems to be part of the same underground war of changing regimes instead of concuering the land.
Where is this leading? Scary, absolutely.
It is Christmas, I might go to church to pray for a safe life for my children.
It would seem that this Administration has finally understood that "Brute force" doesn't always work and adopted a more nuanced approach. But, either way, the goal of removing Assad (A democratically-elected leader who has done nothing wrong other than stand in the way of The Wolfowitz Doctrine) remains in place. The US will now, largely for PR reasons (Other countries and the internet do have media which actually expresses opinions other than those of the US Estaablishment), allow Russia to prevail against ISIL, THEN find different ways of ousting Assad using different "Opposition in Syria", just like in Ukraine. Syria MUST be brought in line so that the Qatari gas can get through to Europe and continue to pressure Russiaan exports, especially now those exports will be priced in Rubles not Petrodollars? A game that Putin will win.
"Life" goes on. Wouldn't it be lovely at this time of year if mankind, especially a certain 4% of mankind and its MIC, would be able to live more harmoniously with its neighbours?
Merry Christmas all at ZH (Already about that time here in Indonesia with Mulled wine in both hands, just to keep away those tropical chills...).....
David Talbot, the author of "Brothers: ...", recently published a 600 page book titled "The Devil's Chessboard" which is essentially a biography of Allen Dulles and the history of the CIA from WW II until the 70's. It's an even more devastating exposition of the CIA's history of evil doing than is "Brothers: ..." It's a wonder that they never caused a nuclear conflagration given their penchant for creating more strife, not less, throughout their entire sordid existence.
_The Devil's Chessboard_ is one of the most disturbing books I have ever read. I found Talbot's theme about the Dulles syndicate exploiting Eisenhower's fears of incurring further U.S. military casualties by pushing him into approving CIA dirty ops where the innocent population of the nation targeted for imperial integration bears the brunt of the pain and death, to be especially nauseating. It is no fun having a hero destroyed, but my respect for Ike was at best naive. This book will convince "watchers of the game" that no level of cynicism regarding official Potomac narratives is adequate.
Got around to watching the TeleSUR "The Empire Files" piece by Abby Martin on the School of the Americas in Ft. Benning...that's some fucked up shit, and completely altered my understanding of what the USA did in Central America...its about time our gringo government leave them alone...illegal immigration is the epitome of chickens coming home to roost...the USA fucks with their government, it fails, and up they come...
Many of the coups are over control of the Drug Trade. Whenever a CIA stooge like Noriega, for example, starts getting a bit uppity, the USSA takes him out and replaces him with a more pliable stooge. The Coke must flow.
Many of the coups are over control of the Drug Trade.
The 800 pound gorilla in the room...
Vietnam aka IndoChina was about the drug trade. The See Eye Aye started the Viet Ming who became the Viet Cong. The Viet Mihn beat the French. The whole Dien Bien Phu debacle with the French was the tribesmen in the area were unhappy with price that French wanted to pay for opium.
The French lost which opened the door for LBJ/MIC to ramp it up. JFK was an obstacle.
The Bush klans love for S America was the Rockefellers need some stooges to run the drug trade for them. The See Eye Aye was most likely really started by the Rockefellers because David Rockfeller was an OSS officer in WW2.
Nazism is really mega corporatism by the elites. The SS was a much rougher version of the See eye Aye and Ef Bee Eye, Rockefeller, IBM, Henry Ford, many others and all the banksters did loads fo business with the nazis. Rockfeller aka Std Oil was still providing ethyl to the Luftwaffe and oil to Germany until the end of the war. Through S America and Switzerland.
Correct as documented by former DEA agent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Levine_%28DEA%29
and peter dale scott.
I have noticed from reading Mexican newspapers that the Russian air strikes in Syria are getting much attention.
Very true. People in Latin America are playing closer attention than might be expected, given they have very few direct connections with the Middle East.
Obama Administration (?) read Hillary Clinton
Hillary was Sec of State from Jan 2009-Feb 2013.
Plug that into the dates above, doing what Kerry is doing now, foreign policy.
This is/was her mess, our current problem. She avoids all responsibility.
+100 BINGO
Trump is holding his mouth quiet on this topic until he has direct debate with her. Then he will unleash
Yes and no. This crap has been going on for a long time. Bushes, Clintons and Obola were/are ex-See Eye Aye. Even that dumb ass Jeb is/was.
The Obola State Dept has Cheney Neo-Zio-Cons in Nudelman and Kagan. Reagan was a little better but this shit has been going on since the War of 1812. Andrew Jackson, one of the best Presidents, smashed the central bank. They tried to kill him at least twice. He was a tough old bird and a patriot. He was the 7th President - this is how far this goes back.
Abe Lincoln's genocidal bankster war for european zio banksters to steal the south's resources never should have happened. Abe recognized he had been played, a little late but he was a dumb patsy. He thought he had some power and wanted to rein in central bankers and they took care of him.
Hillary is a ***king joke and should be in jail or hanging from a rope for treason with the rest of these people.
What if "ending up well" isn't the ultimate point, but destruction of fucntioning Nation States...whereby Israel is the last functioning state standing. Then it's not regime change, it's country destruction.
Country destruction is the result of grandeur policy. People like Hillary will have godly ideas (none her own as she needs a cover), kill a lot of people, destroy lifestyles, disrupt governments, go to a dinner party and mingle with the same for comfort, assurance and protection. They see us as the parasite depending upon their strength, their minds to support us. And if they can help the deserving prosper from it, so much the better, it comforts the conscience to have more on board supporting their ideas.
More lies from the treasonous Obama administration as it notifies its Suicide Squad that there are a couple of generals who need to be offed. There is nothing Rupert Murdoch won't if there is a government payoff to be made for fabricated news stories. They don't call Murdoch and his ilk press whores for nothing. You notice, none of the major American newspapers or TV networks are giving much coverage to the incredible weaponry the Russians are employeing in Syria. The S-400 missile defense system is 20 years ahead of anything the U.S. has and can be operated by four soldiers. The U.S. TOW missile, which is modified Vietnam era technology, is the type of weapon defense contractors turn out. The only areas the U.S.A. leads the world is in eavedropping and untraceable poisons that the federal death squads use to bump off people like Michael Hastings and Andrew Breitbart.
The filth that is Geopolitics, straight from the sewer that runs through Washington!
The agenda is clear......
http://beforeitsnews.com/conspiracy-theories/2015/12/as-events-spiral-ou...
The Nobel Prize Winner has never met a war he did not like. More than 300,000 Syrians dead and more than 1,000,000 maimed and injured as the Nobel Prize Winner creates another failed state.
It is well established that America and its allies founded and funded ISIS and still fund it today:
ISIS: The jihadist movement stamped “Made in America”
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/07/30/isis-j30.html
USA, Turkey and Israel Act As Air Force for ISIS
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/08/usa-turkey-and-israel-act-as-air-...
The US arming of ISIS
While claiming to be committed to a war against ISIS, Washington and its regional allies have time and again proven themselves to be its principal sources of strength.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/06/03/pers-j03.html
Poll shows 81 percent of Syrians believe US created ISIS
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-09-19/81-syrians-believe-us-blame-isi...
America Created Al-Qaeda and the ISIS Terror Group
http://www.globalresearch.ca/america-created-al-qaeda-and-the-isis-terro...
White House, Media Silent One Year After Murder of US Reporter Who Exposed Western Links to ISIS October 20, 2015
Serena Shim proved all of it on video and they killed her for it. Share.
Please don't tell Joe Scarborough.
You can't tell Joe anything. He'll just scream and shout over you.
Does anybody here know the real story that inspired Clancys hunt for red October?
Well worth the time...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh0N3iG-7Uc
Do you know the only country in the world that shouldn't fear a coup? USA. Why? Because it doesn't have a US Embassy.
Teddy and Woodrow accomplished that over a century ago.
"attempt to limit violence"
What a laugh. Ther's no profit for the MIC in following that policy.
Funny that it took Langley so long to come up with a "plausible deniability" story and hand it out to their lamestream presstitute goalkeepers for publishing.
Bashar al-Assad is the best president Syria could wish for, and the Syrians know it. They love him. Hence the CIA cannot find anybody but a few lunatics who would want to overthrow him.
"anybody but a few bankers who would want to overthrow him"
Libya did not have a Cartel owned central bank. They do now
Iraq did not have a Cartel owned central bank. They do now
Afganastan did not have a Cartel owned central bank. They do now
Syria does not have a Cartel owned central bank.
Money makes the world go round.
Why an't we mind our own buisness? Who the hell are we to throw elected officials out of power ?
This is ALL about ISRAEL running nat gas stolen from the Palestinians thru Syria & Turkey to Europe.
merry xmas
obuma's mid east policy fucked up by the cunt hillary - wait for the whitehouse to go after her..she's the real terrorist she is in for a world of shit..guns from libya to syria what could go wrong?? schloongged again LOL
Kerry "scampering" for ceasefire in Syria now that the US backed militants are losing.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/12/23/putins-progress-in-syria-sends-ke...
Why isn't the entire world media now jumping full steam into the horror of the sarin gas attacks? Besides the destruction of Nations and their populations this is the great (and potentially profitable) tear-jerker story of all. Hundreds of dead children on video and the ones who gave the order all but certain. Why aren't the "perpetraitors" of this mass murder being dutifully dug out of hiding by entire Nations of presstitutes? We know the answer, fear and money. Karma quickens for the blood perverts.
After more than 270,000 dead in that small Country and counting..
After more than 6 million refugees has scattered to all 4 corners of the Middle East and Western Europe seeking refuge in a sea of hate by those that made there situation possible...
After ABC News George Stephanopolous reported this 2 years ago and all of the other assorted collection of incriminating videos of John McCain and Paul Vallely openly committing blatant acts treason o nthere own government by subverting a sovereign Nation...
Now the MSM provides a kernel of truth!...
The big picture: Here in the Amerika, we have Vetran's Administration hospital directors spiffing their annual bonus by rigging the numbers on the number of veterans waiting in line, killing some veterans in the process. They still have not been held accountable as accessories to murder.
Meanwhile, the dark state is halfway across the world trying to whack a duly-elected regime because Assad is not a sufficiently compliant puppet. Much of Syria had now been destroyed as a result, as seen in recent videos.
I don't think Trump would put up with this fascist bullshit for two seconds.
The VA budget has grown exponentially over the past decade. From about $10 billion to $100 + billion.
BREAKING NEWS: Hundreds of ISIS families and injured to leave South Damascus areas under U.N. deal: Reuters.
http://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Families-of-ISIS-fighters-to-leave-so...
FUCK THE UN! Kill these bastards and their families.
The Regime they couldn't Flip. Warms the cockles of my ballsacks.
Would be much easier to flip a US Congressman. $2k is often enough, ask Goldman.
This is my shocked face at lerning our government tried to start a military coup!
My best to Assad's loyal government officials for presenting a stark contrast to the easily corrupted and easily bribed Ukraine officials who sell out anyone and everyone for a dime.
"[...] two dozen “US and Arab officials” now say Washington communicated with Assad “for years” and also sought to orchestrate a military coup in Syria."
What really needs exposing is the motive(s) behind Washington's and Langley's attempts to carry out regime change in Syria.
Sure, we all think we know it's about the Qatari gas pipeline and it may be. But there are probably other sinister reasons. These need exposing because they will trash what little credibility is left of Obola and the CIA.
The policy of “Just Us”: Be a good puppet or else.
The Obummer regime may be a stellar example of how to be a good puppet.
Perhaps only Hitlery could be a better puppet than the Obummer.
The US smashes govt it can't penetrate to make ones that they can control. That this confused clusterfuck of a leadership uses the buzzword 'democracy' as a sign of its benevolent intentions and that NPR rubes on the homefront still buy it is laughable.
Obama's Hebrew-based foreign policy is as bad as his predecessor. I'm glad the military undermined the CIA, those assholes are out of control.
The USSA is in shambles. What if this “The White House’s policy in 2011 was to get to the point of a transition in Syria by finding cracks in the regime and offering incentives for people to abandon Assad,” read like this...
“The Kremlin’s policy in 2011 was to get to the point of a transition in America by finding cracks in the regime and offering incentives for people to abandon Obama,”. Now, how would the American public feel about that?
Obama, please do humanity a favour and get off your high-minded self-important pedestal. The world sees through your ways and means.
When you wrote: "Obama, please do humanity a favour [...]" I thought for one happy moment you were about to ask him to go out and buy a nail gun ;-)
Was with my cousin yesterday and went to visit his half brother who was in town for the holidays. Kid is about 27 and working as an architect in the UK. Naturally the convo turns to geopolitics etc... he has some fugly views on things, i ask him his opinion on 911, he says he just doesnt think about it bc the alternative is to be a raging conspiracy theorist bc the govs explanation was total bullshit but they "must have a good reason for lying"... kid also believes that syrian war is all about ethnic cleansing between sunnis and shias and that ISIS isn't really an organization but a "way of thinking" to radicalize global disaffected youth. He thinks Assad is the one arming the rebels and the news is covering up for ethnic cleansing on the ground in Syria... i shit you not. And these are the SMART ones in their generation eh?
I'd be very suspicious of this "leak" to Hersch. The US, involved in ISIS from the start and its covert activities recently exposed for all to see, is now propping up Turkey and its leader Erdogan as the patsies. Turkey doesn't take a piss without getting permission from the US. Erdogan should be careful. Even though he was just doing what he was told, he is in a precarious position now.
Peak corruption?
Regardless of whether this is true or not, it is obvious that Syria is "the little country that could"
The majority of defected generals and regular soldiers are now dead, and the surviving groups are small in number or absorbed into America's new proxy army - ISIS. Slowly but surely Assad is regaining control of the country, thanks to the help of Russia.
It is unfortunate the Syrians had their home destroyed all for the gains of a few (bankers)
From Seymour "Mr Memory Hole" Hersh
So now there can be absolutely no doubt in anyone's mind that Obama's CIA had provocateurs at the first student protests in Syria, which led to the police reaction which began the rebellion.
When that didn’t work, the US resorted to arming militants or “rebels” as the Western media calls them:
A slip of Seymour's Tongue:
Seymour meant "ahead of the deployment of S-400"
In the 50's in Americas the worst thing anybody could do was "advocate the violent overthrow of the American Government."
Today, America has a special Department, headed by a cabinet level official, and all they do 24/7 is plot and plan the violent overthrow of other nation's governments. From Iraq to Syria to Venezuela to Ukraine, all we want to do is get rid of governments whose officials we can not bribe, who do not buy our weapons and do not support our sanctions when we proclaim them.
Sure it's a double standard. What are you going to do about it?
And as for the populations who elected these 'must-go' government, 'shlong' em. But don't tell em we said so.
"""Earlier this week, we recounted Seymour Hersh’s latest investigative report"""
Well...
One should consider stopping after reading this opening sentence above in this ZH article... Because if you read enough of Sy Hersh you will see the constant dis-information about the 'White Hats' of Israel twisted in with a lot of other definitely evil but true facts about all the other players in the world events... One should take what Sy Hersh writes with a Salt Lake City Grain of Salt or two.
All in All... The disinformation today is simply mind boggling... The good side of tech today is that we can get Alt-News... The bad side of that is dis-info journalists can saturate the same outlets with their biased twist of the truth.