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tagsecretsanta · 4 years ago

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From @Fallenfurther

to @vegetacide

Secret Santa does not own this work, full credit to the author above!

A night to remember

The crackle of snapping wood filled the air as John threw yet another chunk of driftwood onto the fire. Embers flew up towards the darkening sky, swirling on the gentle sea breeze. The smell of the sea competed with the smoke when Alan inhaled, but that was okay with him. His eyes were on his fingers as he scrapped the toasted marshmallow on his prong onto a graham cracker. A smile crossed his lips as he turned it upside down and onto the chocolate that he’d placed on top a second cracker. Squashing the sandwich between the fingers he took a bite. The sweet crunchy treat hit the spot and he devoured it hungrily, sucking off the bits of marshmallow that had stuck to his fingers, before reaching out for more supplies.

“I’d be careful getting that close to Gordon, Penelope. You might find you’ll never get a s’more!” Virgil joked, as he toasted two marshmallows at once.

Laughter rippled around the circle, as Lady Penelope settled down in the sand beside Gordon and allowed him to drape the offered blanket over her shoulder. She pulled it in closer, as Gordon wrapped the other half around himself. The two lovebirds, as Grandma called them, smiled contently at each other as Penelope rested her head on Gordon’s shoulder. Winters on Tracy Island were rarely cold, but they often involved late nights around a campfire when there was enforced downtime. It was a family affair, everyone coming down to the beach, to spend the evening in each other’s company. Alan had memories of it happening before Dad disappeared, though he’d only been present for some of them. They had stopped for over a year after Dad had disappeared, but as they grieved and learnt to continue without him, they started to occur again. It had been a way of bonding, remembering, and forgetting the troubles of the world. This was the first enforced downtime since Dad’s rescue that they were able do one, and his brothers were eager to take Dad down to the beach. So here they were, nine years since the last one, all older, wise and yet they were still the same family. Even though it still felt weird to Alan, having Dad around, it was okay. Everyone he cared for, except Brains who rarely joined them on the beach, was here.

“Or he’ll let one rip like he did to me last time!” Scott chuckled before raising his beer to his lips.

“Hey! That was so not last time, it was at least a year before that, and you’d just stolen the last marshmallow.”

Alan giggled at the memory. Scott had indeed taken the last marshmallow, and Gordon had sidled over and given Scott a side hug, in an attempt to relieve their brother of his freshly made s’more. Instead, Scott had pulled Gordon into a big tight hug and eaten the treat over Gordon’s shoulder, getting crumbs down the Squid’s shirt. Gordon had wriggled intensely, trying to free himself from their brother, which only prompted Scott to hold on longer, even after the s’more had been devoured. An angry and frustrated Squid had subsequently let off the loudest fart, not only prompting Scott to release him but also for evacuation of the log Scott, Kayo and John had all been perched on. Alan had cried laughing, and Kayo had stared daggers after Gordon’s retreating, chuckling figure.

“Don’t remind me of the obnoxious smell. To this day, you still haven’t told me what you’d eaten that day.” John stated, in the way only he could, while entirely fixated on the careful construction of his own sweet treat.

“My bet is still on a rotten celery crunch bar.” Virgil piped in, having just passed one of his two s’mores to Grandma as he grabbed a beer from the cooler behind her.

“Remind me never to go in Thunderbird Four with you again. The filth alone makes the craft smell without you adding to it.”

Kayo chipped in; her tone entirely serious as a small shiver rocked her body. She hadn’t been there for that campfire as she had been off the island trying to track down her Uncle. There had been so many small leads that led to dead ends, but they had all needed investigating, just in case. Alan glanced in her direction where she was sitting cross-legged to the right of Virgil, her beer half-buried but upright in the sand. Scott and Virgil were leaning against a small bench they had carried down and turned on its side. They both appeared relaxed, leaning back with a beer in one hand and marshmallow topped prong in the other.

“I should hope Gordon knows how to treat his machine with respect by now. It is a rescue vehicle and should be in pristine condition, ready for a callout. Although, I could ask Brains to add extra air filters to the inventory if such foul smells are a common thing.”

The deep voice of his father still surprised Alan and always seemed to demand the attention of the room. It was something Alan was still getting used to hearing. This would be their first Christmas together as a complete family. His brothers would always say Mum was missing, and they were right, but Alan didn’t remember a Christmas with her. It had always been the seven of them for him; Grandma, Dad, his brothers, and him. His Dad was currently sitting on a blanket next to Grandma, who had one hand on his arm, almost as a way of keeping him there, and her s’more in the other. She had changed, in a good way, since Dad had come home. She pestered them less and chased after his father more. Dad always got first pick of her cooking creations, her excuse being he needed to make up for lost time, and Alan was not going to complain about it. The fewer of Grandma’s cookies placed under his nose the better.

“There is no smell in Thunderbird Four and she is perfectly clean and ready for duty.” Gordon proclaimed.

“So, you wouldn’t mind if I do a quick inspection first thing in the morning?” Dad countered.

The sheepish look that crossed Gordon’s face briefly told the real story, though it was Penelope that tried to save his brother from the mess he’d gotten himself in.

“That will not be necessary, Jeff. I was in Thunderbird Four earlier and gave it the once over. I can confirm that it meets all the required standards and is ready for immediate deployment.”

“Sure you did.” Scott grinned, wiggling his eyebrows.

Heat rose in Alan’s cheeks as Penelope shot Scott a glance that radiated pure distaste for his vulgar mind. She managed to glare in the most ladylike way, but Scott just laughed. Alan just tried to get the thought out his mind. He did not want to know what his brother and Penelope did in their spare time; he was simply happy that they were happy.

“I do remember you getting yourself into awkward situations as a teenager.”

The sly grin on the space monitor’s face had Scott glaring a challenge at him. Scott had never been that open about his teenage years to Alan, though he had heard a few stories that had been told around the campfire. He’d also heard a few second hand from Gordon who remembered that time better or had eavesdropped on their older brothers’ conversations.

“Don’t even go there.”

“I was only thinking of the time you got stuck in that tree trying to retrieve the model plane Alan had crashed into it. That woman really didn’t appreciate you hanging from the branches.”

John’s voice was dripping innocence as he lent back on his elbow. Scott shook his head.

“I was worried when she called her husband, and so glad that he saw the funny side.”

“I remember that. The poor woman was distraught, despite her husband’s reassurances. She wanted to get the police involved. Thankfully he said was a waste of time because you were still technically a minor, it really was just a misunderstanding, and you were only in the tree for the plane. I had you apologise at the time as well as write an apology letter that went with the hamper I sent over.”

Scott groaned as Dad relayed the facts, his head falling into his hand.

“How could I be so stupid?”

Scott had indeed gone up the tree to fetch the remote-control plane, which Alan had accidently got stuck in its branches. Alan had told Scott the wind had taken it, but he’d actually been trying to show off to Gordon by doing some tricks. Only he messed them up and sent the plane crashing into the top of a tree. He’d tried to climb the tree himself to get it down, but it was impossible as Gordon refused to help him. In fact, Gordon had laughed and chuckled the entire time, especially when Alan had to go up to Scott and his girlfriend and disturb their make-out session. Scott hadn’t been happy but had reluctantly gone up the tree to retrieve the plane. Unfortunately, a branch had snapped while Scott was up there, and he’d lost his footing. He’d ending up hanging upside right in the line of sight of the woman’s bedroom window. Scott’s relationship hadn’t lasted long after that either. His girlfriend had posted a running commentary of Scott’s ‘heroics’ on social media, including photos of the husband rescuing him, and she refused to take them down until a week later when Dad got involved. Scott had been upset by the incident and apparently some of his friends hadn’t been kind to him about it either. Alan had felt terribly guilty, knowing it was all his fault, but when he admitted it to Scott he was rewarded with a hug. Scott told him not to worry and was glad that he was no longer with such a horrible girl. They had spent the rest of that evening playing videogames together, his big brother trying to show of his skills and failing spectacularly.

“At least she got to eat her hamper. I remember quite distinctly receiving a lovely chocolate hamper that I never got to enjoy.”

Grandma’s voice was full of jest as everyone turned towards Gordon, who just shrugged awkwardly beneath the blanket.

“I was young, hungry and it was chocolate. What was I meant to do?”

“Gordon Tracy! How could you be so mean to your Grandmother? I hope you replaced it.”

Alan sniggered along with his brothers as Penelope berated Gordon for his actions. There was a grin on Parker’s face, who was observing the couple intently over the rim of his beer. As her ever faithful companion, he always had Lady Penelope’s back. A little bark came from Sherbet, who had woken up from the nap he’d been having on Parker’s discarded jumper. There had been a grumble from the man about the fact that he’d only put it down for a second before the dog had claimed it. Alan hadn’t quite caught all the words, but it had sounded along the lines of ‘mangy mutt’. Penelope opened the blanket to the pug and allowed him to wriggle in and curl up on Gordon’s lap. Gordon gave Sherbet a scratch behind the ears as the dog settled down with a yawn.

“Was that not the Christmas that Virgil got stranded at his friend’s ranch by the massive snowstorm?”

John shifted as he spoke, leaning back to snatch a chocolate bar and beer from the open cool box. The beer he passed to the man in question, who accepted it grateful. It was his father that answered John.

“I believe it was. Mum and I went out on the tractor, as we had an old snowplough attachment, to some poor folk who’d gotten caught just a few farms over, so we ended up heading over and picking Virgil up too. It did mean we were out longer than expected.”

“Giving Gordon time to eat all the chocolate while under my watch! I caught him trying to make the hot chocolate, but I didn’t realise it was Grandma’s when I took over to stop him making any more mess on the hob. I got grounded because of him.”

Scott recounted with a sign. There was a clatter of glass as Scott dumped his and Virgil’s empties in the allocated recycling bag, before continuing.

“Thankfully, that little hill was technically on our property, so I could still go sledging with everyone the next day. I remember the snow being so deep we had to carry Alan and we made a family of snowmen near the house.”

“I remember that,” Virgil interjected, “You and I raced the sledges while John judged who won. I had Gordon with me, and you shared yours with Alan.”

“And they both fought us for control. How many times did we almost hit each other?”

“Too many. I had to roll us off more than once, especially when Gordon had us going straight towards that big tree. Though I think Alan took it a step further when he tried to take you both off by steering you into the fence.”

His eldest two brothers were chuckling at the shared memory. Alan had a few memories of snowy winters in Kansas but had no idea if he remembered that one. It sounded familiar, but he couldn’t tell if it was that day or another similar sledging day. They all seemed to merge into one in his head. He could only separate a few out as specific years thanks so unique events. Like Gordon’s bright yellow and orange wool hat that he got for Christmas only to lose it two months later, and the last winter before moving to the island as half the house was packed away and they had all enjoyed the snow for the last time together. There had been one Thanksgiving and Christmas on the island with Dad before the accident, so this would be the second. It felt weird to Alan. In a way, moving to the island was the start of his life without Dad. He had been at boarding school for most of the time and was only home-schooled after they had lost Dad.

“Don’t forget the time Gordon aimed for me.”

There was a smile on John’s face and a glint in his eye that let Alan know there were no hard feelings, and no one had been hurt.

“Though I think my favourite was when Alan dragged Dad onto the sledge and demanded he be taken to space.”

Alan’s ears pricked up at his name as a deep chuckle rumbled from his father.

“There was barely enough room for Alan once I’d gotten on that sledge, but we made it work. You managed to slip between my knees and yelled ‘To the moon!’ as we were pushed off. You were so disappointed when the ‘rocket sled’ got to the bottom and hadn’t launched into space.”

There were smiles on everyone’s faces while Alan’s cheeks reddened. His Dad’s blue eyes were on him, and Alan swore there were tears in them. He didn’t remember that day, but he did remember looking up to his astronaut father. Alan had loved the time Dad had made for him, when they would sit together, and Dad would recount his stories of space. He also remembered his Dad getting busier, and that time becoming less, as Dad started to set up International Rescue. John had filled in, telling Alan of the stars, while Scott, when on leave from the Air Force, told him of the thrill of flying in planes and going superfast. However, for Alan, there was nothing faster or cooler than a rocket.

“Remember Alan’s first Christmas when we were decorating the tree with Mum?”

Scott asked the group, though his eyes were on Virgil, obviously expecting him to have the clearest memory.

“Yeah. Mum was trying to keep Gordon from running around and breaking everything while we were emptying the boxes of decorations. She’d left Alan on the mat with some toys thinking he’d be happy and safe there.”

“He’d been oddly quiet at the time when you think back.” Scott slipped in, “We wanted to get the lights on the tree, only to find Alan had managed to roll over to them and was lying on his belly happily chewing on them.”

“Mum had rushed over, and Alan had screamed his lungs out when she’d managed to pry the light from his mouth.”

“He had refused to let go of them as well, to the point that we almost didn’t have lights on the Christmas tree. Mum managed to coax the wire through his little fingers, though we all spent the next five minutes trying to find a suitable substitute to stop Alan from crying. John then had to check over the lights, but Alan was too young to do any real damage, but Gordon managed to scatter baubles everywhere in the meantime.”

Alan watched his brothers gleefully relay the story between them. There was a hollow feeling in his chest at the mention of Mum and him. He’d been told how much she’d loved and adored him, but this was the first time this story had ever been told. Not that there were many to tell. His brothers had been young so didn’t always remember things and Dad; well, he’d always struggled to tell stories about Mum. It’d gotten better recently, but there still weren’t many of him and her. A hand fell on Alan’s shoulder and he turned, half expecting Scott to be there. He had to blink when it was his father, who lowered himself onto the sand beside him. The similarities between Scott and Dad were striking and Alan felt guilty for not thinking of his father first. It was no longer Scott’s responsibility to worry after him now. The hand slid along his back and pulled him into a side hug.

“You okay, son?” His father whispered into his ear.

Alan nodded, his head brushing against this father’s shoulder. There was no way Alan could express how he felt, especially not here and now, but the warmth that was seeping through from his father helped. It was new and it was different, but he had his Dad again. A Dad who was trying hard to fit back in and get to know his sons again. His father was being careful about not getting in the way or treading on their toes. Maybe Dad felt the same concerns that he did. Maybe next time they gamed together Alan would bring it up. He wondered if any of his brothers had asked how Dad was coping. He bet Grandma had and was paying close attention to their interactions. His father’s hand rubbed the top of Alan’s arm, bringing him from his thoughts and Alan shifted closer to the astronaut.

“Talking about Christmas lights, I remember a December morning when a certain someone woke up strapped to the bed by a large tangle of lights. Fancy reminding me of how that came about Alan?”

There was a sparkle of mischief in his father’s blue eyes as he peered down at Alan, who gave the man a big grin back in return. Alan remembered that morning well, especially how hard it was to not giggle as he carefully wrapped those lights around his brother’s bed.

“You mean the December Scott was been a really moody teenager and didn’t want to spend the day decorating the house with his family? Apparently, his girlfriend was more fun and a lot less annoying than us, and that he’d rather spend the day with her.”

Alan enjoyed taking the lead on the storytelling, especially when he got a satisfying groan from Scott, who appeared to have forgotten the events of that day until now. Alan’s body rocked as his father chuckled.

“Gordon and I only wanted to help cheer you up and fill you with the same festive cheer we had. The night before, we collected up every string of lights we could find and hid them in my room, before setting our alarm clocks for seven am. We snuck into your room, quietly unravelled the lights, then we each started wrapping them around you and the bed. We wrapped them tight enough to stop you from getting out. Our PJs were covered in dust from wriggling under your bed, but we managed, and we even found an extension cord and plugged some of them in. Your room lit up with some many colours and cheerful flashing lights, it was the most festive thing we’d seen that year. You almost woke up too, trying to turn over. We snapped a few pictures, turned off the lights and your alarm before we snuck back out to my room where we fell on the bed laughing. Your angry cry of “GORDON!!” had been the loudest in a long while, though you weren’t happy when it took so long to free you. You ended up missing the time with your girlfriend. Dad told us not to cut the lights unless we were prepared to buy new ones, which we weren’t, and you couldn’t afford new lights as well as a present for you girlfriend. We did get to spend the day decorating the house together, so the prank worked!”

“Leanne refused to wait for me saying if I really cared about her, I would be on time. She dumped me four days later for a guy two years older. At least I hadn’t brought the present yet, so I didn’t waste my money.”

There was a little bitterness in Scott’s voice when he mentioned her moving on so fast. If Alan remembered rightly, they had been dating for almost a year until that point, though it must not have been going as well as Scott thought considering how quickly she replaced him. Bet she wished she’d made it work now he was the commander of International Rescue, though for all he knew she could still be bragging about it. Gordon had insinuated on many occasions to Alan that not all the business trips their brother took were all strictly business, though the fact that Scott often returned stressed and with more ‘urgent’ paperwork made Alan doubt Gordon’s claims.

“That was the year you all ganged up on your father in that snowball fight, practically making him a snowman! You all came back inside red in the face, damp, and shivering. I had to get out so many extra blankets and make so much hot chocolate to get you warm again.”

“But you do make the best hot chocolate, Mum.”

“Seconded!” Scott cheered, raising his bottle to the sky.

The stories and drinks continued to be passed around the fire, which John packed high with the last of the dry driftwood. The stories were now from more recent times, tales from the past eight years without Dad. The gentle rocking from his Dad’s chuckles reassured Alan, who offered his own versions into the mix. When goosepimples covered his arms and legs, Grandma wrapped a blanket around him and Dad. Even on a tropical island the evenings were cool, especially when you are still in shorts and a t-shirt. Alan’s head was comfortable against his father and he started to fight his eyelids that kept trying to close. It was a battle he lost.

******

When his eyes flickered open again, the fire was dying. Alan was still beneath the blanket with his father’s arm firmly around him. He yawned as he rolled his stiff shoulders. Blinking, he took in his family who still circled the fire. John and Grandma were cuddled up in a thick patchwork blanket, while the legs of Scott, Virgil and Kayo were cover by a striped one, as they all lent against the bench. Lady Penelope had fallen asleep in Gordon’s arms, though they had acquired a second blanket from somewhere. Parker was still standing in the background, his reclaimed jumper now on, and there was a bucket of water in his hands.

“Shall I h’extinguish the flames now, Mr Tracy?”

“Please do, Parker.”

The fire hissed out, sending steam into the night sky. Stars were scattered above them, and Alan’s eyes were drawn to the familiar constellations. With the fire out the cold started to creep in, and his family started to move, yawn, and stretch. With practiced movements, everyone started to collect their belongings and rubbish, shaking sand off everything and heading towards the path. John and Grandma held coolers, Virgil and Scott took each side of their bench, and Alan grabbed the rubbish bag as Kayo grabbed the recycling. Gordon coaxed Sherbet off his lap before sweeping Penelope into his arms and carrying her away. Sherbet and Parker, bucket still in hand, followed close behind them. As Alan started up the cliff path his Dad’s arm returned to his shoulder. He was staring up at the stars though Alan couldn’t place which constellation he was gazing at.

“It’s good to see these stars again. Did I ever tell you about all the nights Lee and I would stargaze on Alfie? There was the observation deck with this massive glass window in the ceiling, and we’d lie beneath it….”

Alan smiled, remembering the story well, but wanting to hear it again. There was something special about the way his Dad told it.

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds 2015 #tag team secret santa #secret santa 2020 #alan tracy #Gordon Tracy #Lady Penelope #Scott Tracy #John Tracy #Virgil Tracy #jeff tracy #grandma tracy #kayo kyrano #parker

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thisdaynews · 5 years ago

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How Reagan’s Childhood Home Gave Up on Reaganism

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/how-reagans-childhood-home-gave-up-on-reaganism-14/

How Reagan’s Childhood Home Gave Up on Reaganism

Photograph by M. Scott Mahaskey

DIXON, Illinois—In the gift shop of the Ronald Reagan Boyhood Home is a T-shirt bearing one of the 40th president’s best-known sayings: “Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.” Since opening to the public in 1984, the home, run by a nonprofit foundation, has lived by that principle, rejecting public money and staying proudly independent. Its website declares, “The Ronald Reagan Boyhood Home does not receive State or Federal Funding.”

Nearly 130 years old, the three-bedroom, one-bathroom white house onSouth Hennepin Avenue in Dixon is a testament to Reagan’s modest, all-American childhood.Many of its counterparts around the country, includingBill Clinton’s boyhood home in Hope, Arkansas; John F. Kennedy’s birthplace in Brookline, Massachusetts; andthe estate in New York where Franklin D. Roosevelt was born, are run by the National Park Service.

Not Reagan’s house.In 2002, Dixon’s congressman, Dennis Hastert, then the Republican speaker of the House, passed a bill authorizing the National Park Service to buy the property and manage the house, as it does so many other presidential properties. The members of the Reagan home’s board of directors were aging and approached Hastert because they thought the Park Service might be a good candidate to carry on their work. They changed their minds, however, and spurned the help,in part because Congress wouldn’t match the millions of dollars private donors had invested in the property, and in part because that’s not how Reagan would have wanted it.

“He didn’t think government needed to be involved in our daily lives,” Connie Lange, the executive director at the time, said of the 40th president. “And people really took that to heart here.”

The Reagan boyhood home’s independence made it a rallying point for conservatives. Grover Norquist, founder of Americans for Tax Reform and the Reagan Legacy Project, told theWashington Times, “I’m not in favor of the government owning property, never mind Reagan’s house.” In a 2013 report about the “congressional shortsightedness and bureaucratic mismanagement” around U.S. national parks, Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma used the Reagan house as evidence that historic sites could be just fine in private hands, writing that the home had recently reported an annual net income of $172,000 and “can manage its affairs just as well as many of the nonprofits administering the nation’s celebrated presidential sites.”

Now, though, it turns out the mantle of Reaganism might be too much for Reagan’s boyhood home and his small hometown to carry.The Ronald Reagan Boyhood Home Foundation, beset by shrinking attendance, a shortage of volunteer docents, an aging house and—crucially—the death of its most generous benefactor,is finally asking the government for a bailout. And this time, it’s basically inviting Congress to name its price.

A year ago, Patrick Gorman, who became the foundation’s executive director in 2016, wrote a letter to the National Park Service, offering, at long last, to sell the home to the federal government. He understood, and sympathized with, the former president’s philosophy. But it had reached the point that clinging to Reagan’s anti-government principles might mean the demise of the most important tourist attraction in Dixon. He and the foundation were not willing to leave the home to the whims of the free market.

“It’s not gonna close, if I have to stay here and run it myself,” says Gorman, who grew up nearby in another home the Reagan family inhabited. “It would be a loss to this community, the status, the tourism. Those 5,000 people that come to see us [every year], they eat in restaurants, spend money here.”

The boyhood home would not be the first presidential property to pass from a private foundation to the Park Service. James Garfield’s Lawnfield in Mentor, Ohio; William Taft’s house in Cincinnati; Herbert Hoover’s home in West Branch, Iowa; and Clinton’s home in Hope, have all gone through the process. But none did so after such a concerted resistance, in the name of a president’s legacy. Now, a monument to private-sector gumption is becoming, instead, a testament to its limits.

***

Ronald Reagan moved intothe house at 816 South Hennepin Avenue in December 1920, when his father, an itinerant shoe salesman, finally settled down as co-owner of a store called the Fashion Boot Shop. The Reagans—including Ronald’s mother and older brother—occupied the house until 1924, first paying $12 per month in rent, then $15. Reagan would spend the remainder of his youth in Dixon, leaving at 18 to attend Eureka College downstate.

In his autobiography,An American Life, Reagan wrote that life in Dixon “was as sweet and idyllic as it could be, as close as I could imagine for a young boy to the world created by Mark Twain inThe Adventures of Tom Sawyer.” “Dutch” Reagan, as he was known in his hometown, skated on the frozen Rock River (“the Hudson of the West”), played right guard on the Dixon High School football team and launched his acting career in student theatricals. During the summers, he worked as a lifeguard at Lowell Park, where he claimed to have saved 77 swimmers, though locals will tell you a lot of those would-be drowning victims were girls who wanted to be saved by the handsome young man in the tank suit.

As even Reagan admitted, though, life in Dixon was not always sweet. Reagan’s father was an alcoholic, and the house on South Hennepin Avenue was the scene of Reagan’s darkest childhood memory. One night, when he was 11 years old, Dutch came home from the YMCA to find Jack Reagan sprawled out on the snowy lawn, dead drunk after a binge at a speakeasy. Reagan dragged him inside by the overcoat, “then put him to bed and never mentioned the incident to my mother,” he wrote in the autobiography.

The house was later chopped up into two apartments, and it stood vacant by the time Reagan ran for president in 1980. Thatyear,a mailman alerted local business leaders to its history. They pooled their money to buy the house, starting the Ronald Reagan Boyhood Home Foundation.

The Queen Anne-style home, built in 1891, would probably have been demolished long ago if Reagan hadn’t lived there. It is furnished with period beds, old-fashioned china, a Detroit Jewel stove and an icebox. The furniture, which was purchased at second-hand shops around Illinois, didn’t belong to the Reagans—though there is a chair Dutch sat in when he visited a neighbor to listen to the radio. The only feature connecting the house to its long-ago occupants is a loose tile in front of the fireplace, under which Reagan and his brother hid pennies. (A photo in the upstairs hallway shows Reagan and his brother during a 1984 visit, sitting on a replica of the bed they shared.)

Even so, in the 1990s, the home was drawing 20,000 visitors a year—only a 10th the number of visitors Lincoln’s home in Springfield draws, but enough to make it a viable tourist attraction in Dixon, a town of 16,000 people a two-hour drive from Chicago.

Author Bob Spitz says the home also was a valuable research tool, giving him a sense of Reagan’s humble background that informed Spitz’s biography,Reagan: An American Journey. “His bedroom was no bigger than a closet; it is where he often shared a single bed with his brother,” Spitz says. “The tiny porch is where he occasionally found his father passed out from a binge and had to drag him not only inside, but up a steep flight of stairs. The ‘garden’ where his mother raised vegetables so the family could eat when meat was unaffordable was no more than a patch out the back door, by the garage shed.”

The National Park Service manages 16 presidential homes, including Abraham Lincoln’s house in Springfield, Illinois, and FDR’s in Hyde Park, New York—each of which has six-figure annual attendance and could probably get by without government help. (Reagan’s Rancho del Cielo in California is owned by the Young America’s Foundation, which uses it as a center to promote conservative ideals. The Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California, which receives 400,000 visitors a year, is jointly run by the National Archives and the Reagan Foundation.) There are at least 20other presidential homes besides Reagan’s that are run by private foundations, including George Washington’s Mount Vernon, James Buchanan’s Wheatland and Andrew Jackson’s The Hermitage. Most survive on a mixture of tourist dollars and local investment.

But among presidential attractions, childhood homes like Reagan’s are not in the same league as Mount Vernon or Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. The best known—JFK’s birthplace in Brookline, Massachusetts—is a Park Service property that receives about 25,000 visitors a year, less than a 10th of the traffic at Kennedy’s presidential library in Boston.

It doesn’t help the Reagan home that Illinois is not the state most Americans associate with the 40th president, and Dixon is not a major population center. The town also doesn’t have much to offer visitors other than Reagan. (It does have a lot of Reagan, though: a History and Learning Center; Reagan statues; a Reagan museum; his original lifeguard chair. There’s also a Ronald Reagan Middle School.)

“It has less to do with presidencies and more to do with the tourist business,” says Hugh Howard, author ofHomes of the Presidents. “If you go to Charlottesville, which is a fun place, you can’t not go to Monticello.”

***

One of the main reasons the boyhood homefoundation could maintain the Reaganite principle of independence from government for so longwas Norm Wymbs, a Florida grocery store magnate who knew Reagan personally and was the home’s biggest benefactor—a “sugar daddy,” in the words of staffers and board members. Wymbs idolized Reagan—he even wrote a book about the president’s years in Dixon—and spent $5 million to restore the house to its 1920s look and build a visitor center. Shortly before his death, he deeded a home he owned in Dixon to the foundation, which sold it in 2013 to a private buyer for $270,000 (the source of the $172,000 profit cited in Coburn’s 2013 report, according to a foundation board member).

That money was used to purchase four small houses near the boyhood home as part of a since-abandoned expansion plan. Wymbs—who called Hastert’s 2002 allocation of $420,000 to buy the home “insulting,” because it didn’t approach his investment over the years—died in 2016, leaving the Reagan home to support itself.

As Reagan has receded into history, attendance has fallen to 5,000 visitors per year. In 2016, finding the home in a state of decrepitude, Gorman took out a $100,000 line of credit. A retired nuclear power plant mechanic, Gorman went a year without taking a salary, but the home was still losing $20,000 to $25,000 annually. Although a pair of $25,000 donations from a local charity will help pay off the line of credit, no one has stepped forward to replace the home’s sugar daddy. Last year, Reagan’s post-presidential secretary, Peggy Grande, came to Dixon for a fundraiser; it netted only $7,500.

When Gorman told the board of directors that he was seeking a Park Service takeover, this time, there was no pushback. Everyone realized the home could no longer raise enough money to remain open.

“It’s the only move,” says Joe Rudolphi, the board’s treasurer. “I don’t think we have much choice, unless we can find someone in Chicago to support us. We need to put a new roof on the house. That’s going to cost thirty, thirty-five thousand dollars. You look at an old house, an old property—it’s a money pit.”

Hastert’s act of Congress establishing a Ronald Reagan Boyhood Home National Historic Site is still in effect, but the appropriation to buy the house has expired. The Park Service is aware of the foundation’s desire to sell, and is working to arrange for an appraisal, says Brent Everitt, a spokesperson for the National Park Service: “Once the due diligence process is completed, the NPS would likely begin the process of developing a land acquisition budget request through Congress.”

Dixon’s current congressman, Adam Kinzinger, a Republican, “supports the National Park Service purchasing the site,” he said through a spokesperson. This time, the money to honor Reagan will have to come from a Democratic Congress. One factor in the home’s favor, however: The Park Service can name its own price.

“Whatever we can get, I would recommend that we take,” Rudolphi says. “If we can get out of there, just get. We can use the money to help kids through college, give them a Reagan scholarship, help the people in the community.”

In the meantime, the Reagan boyhood home soldiers on, with dwindling resources and visitors. Gorman says he has “mixed emotions” about selling the anti-big government president’s house to the government. (Although maybe he shouldn’t: Despite Reagan’s rhetoric, the Park Service acquired plenty of land when he was president, including an $8 million purchase in the Santa Monica Mountains.) But Gorman believes it’s the best way to honor Reagan. As it stands, Gorman is the home’s only full-time employee. He has trouble attracting volunteer docents. He doesn’t have time to raise funds or promote the home on social media.

“I think even Ronald Reagan would admit that times have changed,” Gorman says. “I have the utmost respect for Ronald Reagan the man, the president. I don’t want to say we’re doing him a disservice here, but we could be doing a lot better.”

Howard, theHouses of the Presidentsauthor, says he hopes the Park Service takes over the house but adds, “My suspicion is … they will stabilize it and put it on their website, but their visitation is not going to quadruple.”

A lot of Dixonites have mixed feelings about the potential sale, too. “I don’t have a problem with it, because it’s struggling, and the Park Service can help,” says Marlin Misner, a former foundation board member who wrote a history of the boyhood home. “Whether they will or not, we’ll see. If you want to ruin a project, get the federal government involved.”

Reagan couldn’t have put it better himself.

#Childhood #Foreign #Politics #Reaganism

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computacionalblog · 6 years ago

Text

Business Trump’s summer from hell

Business Trump’s summer from hell Business Trump’s summer from hell http://www.nature-business.com/business-trumps-summer-from-hell/

Business

(CNN)Summer break? Ha.

Imagine how it felt for the Trump administration.

Last month,

we documented how the White House and President Donald Trump’s Cabinet

have been working hard to reshape the federal government while everyone else has been focused on the interwoven staffing dramas, personal betrayals, diplomatic foibles, guilty pleas and guilty verdicts that have hurtled around Trump’s nucleus. Not to mention the forced separation of families at the border, a crisis that remains unresolved despite months of court orders.

It’s hard to look away from a train wreck. It’s impossible to look away from successive wrecks.

That’s what this summer, from Memorial Day until almost Labor Day, has felt like after the high note of a successful North Korea summit through a disastrous meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin to Trump’s betrayal by former aides and the dramas du jour in between. It’s enough to make you forget, for a moment, that the President is on the cusp of getting a second justice on the Supreme Court.

Here are some of the key moments from a summer that included no break:

North Korea talks stall after summit

The summer actually started off pretty well for Trump when he upended decades of foreign policy and met June 12 with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. It was controversial, sure — everything he does is controversial — but it showed a Trump in control, shaking things up like he promised, and moving, he said, away from a nuclear North Korea. Trump’s declarations that North Korea was no longer a nuclear threat, issued immediately on Twitter upon his return to the US, have proved premature, however, as talks led by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to agree with North Koreans on details of an agreement have stalled. Trump canceled a planned Pompeo trip to North Korea on Aug. 24.

A moment of weakness makes Putin look strong in Helsinki

When Trump stood next to Putin on July 16, he could have stood up for US intelligence officials, who have long unanimously said Russia actively interfered in the 2016 US election. But Trump won that election, so he’s been loath to accept anything that questions it. Particularly when there’s an ongoing investigation (he calls it a witch hunt) into whether his campaign colluded with Russians. So Trump seemed to side with Putin while he was standing next to the Russian leader, instead of his own government. It was a moment that gobsmacked the international community.

While Trump was busy trying to clean up in the days that followed, Putin’s Kremlin started referring to military agreements he’d made during their private conversation. The Pentagon was caught unaware. You might ask yourself why in the midst of the Russia investigation Trump was meeting with the Russian leader. That’s a valid question, particularly since Trump invited the meeting. It’s hard to find anyone who says

Putin didn’t emerge with the upper hand

A self-inflicted immigration crisis that took children from their parents

The dramas of the Trump administration commanded headlines, but at points they gave way to the real policy problem that resulted in the US government taking undocumented immigrant children from their parents at the border. The “zero tolerance” policy was announced by the administration earlier in the year as a further deterrent to illegal immigration. Its scope led to a genuine and bipartisan public outcry over the summer, however, as it became clear that young children were being taken from their parents for what US law considers a misdemeanor crime. A series of legal cases ensued.

The administration has yet to return all of the separated children to their parents

Michael Cohen pleads guilty, implicates Trump

Once Trump’s confidant, lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen is now

more likely to be called “RAT”

by his former boss, who prizes loyalty above all else. Cohen said last week in court that Trump had directed him to engineer payments to hush up a former Playboy model and former porn star just before the election. Both alleged they had affairs with the now-President years earlier. He denies those allegations, but there’s tape of him talking about at least one of the payoffs with Cohen.

That Trump’s good friend

David Pecker, CEO of the company that owns the National Enquirer

, which sat on the story about Playboy model Karen McDougal’s alleged affair, and the

CFO of the Trump organization

were given immunity for the Cohen investigation makes the possibility of further legal action all the more frightening for the President. It was after the Cohen allegations that Trump took part in a federal crime that people again started talking about the possibility of impeachment. That kind of action still seems unlikely, to say the least. But being implicated as an unindicted co-conspirator in a federal crime is never a good thing for a President.

Paul Manafort found guilty, won’t flip

The Russia investigation continues, but special counsel Robert Mueller got his first conviction when Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chief, was convicted last week in a Virginia federal court on eight of 18 counts of tax and bank fraud. There’s another Manafort trial coming in DC in September. The Virginia court, remember, is the one Manafort’s attorneys were hoping would be friendlier. Trump’s lawyers have repeatedly demanded that Mueller wrap up his investigation before the November election. But Mueller recently asked a federal judge for more time to work with the cooperating Michael Flynn. And Manafort’s second trial has yet to start. Which makes it seem like Mueller will not be rushed, much to Trump’s frustration at what he continues to attack as a “witch hunt.” It’s a witch hunt with a growing number of guilty pleas and now guilty verdicts.

Pardons and commutations

Another drama involving another Kim.

Kardashian

. She was lobbying Trump to commute the sentence of a nonviolent drug offender named Alice Marie Johnson. Trump ultimately did so in June, and he also pardoned Dinesh D’Souza. His enjoyment of pardoning is clear and it’s led to

a lot of supposition he could pardon people targeted by the Mueller probe

who he thinks stay loyal. See above: Manafort, Paul, who has since been convicted of eight counts of tax and bank fraud, crimes unrelated to Trump. But Manafort has yet to cooperate with Mueller.

Scott Pruitt stayed in office much longer than he should have

Now-former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Pruitt resigned in July, but the pressure had been building on Trump to sack him for months. Throughout the spring, there was

an almost unbelievable string of ethical questions

about the strident and unapologetic EPA chief, who saw his role as Trump’s unwinder of Obama-era environmental policy as a steppingstone to greater things in Washington with some personal perks along the way. That he survived most of the year is a testament to the impression he was effective at rolling back Obama-era policy, although his replacement has shown himself equal to the task of carrying on; the administration unveiled new coal-friendly policies in August.

Tariffs and trade wars

Unlike these other items, Trump has

invited fights with other countries

on trade and extols his policy of tariffs as he withdraws the US from multilateral trade agreements and seeks out unilateral ones. Those talks, for the most part, have not yet borne a signature deal, but the tariffs he hopes will jolt other countries to the negotiating table have certainly woken everyone up.

The highest stakes trade standoff is likely with China

Trump’s tariffs have not led to marked spikes in US costs, but the government has had to step in to help certain farmers hurt by retaliations. And there are reports of administration officials, particularly from South Carolina, seeking special exemptions for home state businesses. This is a long game, but the anger of US allies in Europe, Mexico and Canada was pronounced this summer. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau got into a notable spat with Trump about whether Canada is a security risk. This kind of tension with Canada hasn’t been seen in generations. Consequences of the brewing trade war with China will become clearer with time.

McCain’s farewell

Trump has built his political career on being a Washington outsider, but the aftermath of Sen. John McCain’s death a week ago has shown just how isolated the President can get from the old mainstream of US politics. He was ostracized from McCain’s memorial in favor of former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, both of whom Trump has tried to oppose. The outpouring of respect for McCain, who stood up to Trump on health care and foreign policy, is a testament to the fact that while the President controls the current-day GOP, it is a situational and probably temporary control born of the force of his power with his united political base and not the love and respect of other GOP leaders.

Now on to the fall and the midterms

There’s plenty more where this came from. The evolution of Omarosa Manigault Newman from fired White House staffer to vocal member of the resistance with an ax to grind and books to sell. The emergence of Rudy Giuliani as Trump’s top legal spokesman and his often head-scratching talk show strategy. There are also high points. The US economy continues to roar.

Brett Kavanaugh

will be a more controversial nominee than Neil Gorsuch, but he seems likely to be confirmed to the Supreme Court.

But the hard headlines of the summer will lead into the midterm elections this fall and Trump, who has promised an all-out blitz of campaign events, will have to do everything in his power to get out Republican voters. As difficult as this summer has been for him, it could have been much worse if he were looking at Democrats in control of the House or the Senate.

Read More | Analysis by Z. Byron Wolf, CNN,

Business Trump’s summer from hell, in 2018-09-01 08:50:27

#Nature of Business in the Current Market

0 notes

captainblogger100posts · 6 years ago

Text

Business Trump’s summer from hell

Business Trump’s summer from hell Business Trump’s summer from hell http://www.nature-business.com/business-trumps-summer-from-hell/

Business

(CNN)Summer break? Ha.

Imagine how it felt for the Trump administration.

Last month,

we documented how the White House and President Donald Trump’s Cabinet

It’s hard to look away from a train wreck. It’s impossible to look away from successive wrecks.

Here are some of the key moments from a summer that included no break:

North Korea talks stall after summit

A moment of weakness makes Putin look strong in Helsinki

Putin didn’t emerge with the upper hand

A self-inflicted immigration crisis that took children from their parents

The administration has yet to return all of the separated children to their parents

Michael Cohen pleads guilty, implicates Trump

Once Trump’s confidant, lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen is now

more likely to be called “RAT”

That Trump’s good friend

David Pecker, CEO of the company that owns the National Enquirer

, which sat on the story about Playboy model Karen McDougal’s alleged affair, and the

CFO of the Trump organization

Paul Manafort found guilty, won’t flip

Pardons and commutations

Another drama involving another Kim.

Kardashian

a lot of supposition he could pardon people targeted by the Mueller probe

who he thinks stay loyal. See above: Manafort, Paul, who has since been convicted of eight counts of tax and bank fraud, crimes unrelated to Trump. But Manafort has yet to cooperate with Mueller.

Scott Pruitt stayed in office much longer than he should have

Now-former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Pruitt resigned in July, but the pressure had been building on Trump to sack him for months. Throughout the spring, there was

an almost unbelievable string of ethical questions

Tariffs and trade wars

Unlike these other items, Trump has

invited fights with other countries

The highest stakes trade standoff is likely with China

McCain’s farewell

Now on to the fall and the midterms

Brett Kavanaugh

will be a more controversial nominee than Neil Gorsuch, but he seems likely to be confirmed to the Supreme Court.

Read More | Analysis by Z. Byron Wolf, CNN,

Business Trump’s summer from hell, in 2018-09-01 08:50:27

#Nature of Business in the Current Market

0 notes

blogcompetnetall · 6 years ago

Text

Business Trump’s summer from hell

Business Trump’s summer from hell Business Trump’s summer from hell http://www.nature-business.com/business-trumps-summer-from-hell/

Business

(CNN)Summer break? Ha.

Imagine how it felt for the Trump administration.

Last month,

we documented how the White House and President Donald Trump’s Cabinet

It’s hard to look away from a train wreck. It’s impossible to look away from successive wrecks.

Here are some of the key moments from a summer that included no break:

North Korea talks stall after summit

A moment of weakness makes Putin look strong in Helsinki

Putin didn’t emerge with the upper hand

A self-inflicted immigration crisis that took children from their parents

The administration has yet to return all of the separated children to their parents

Michael Cohen pleads guilty, implicates Trump

Once Trump’s confidant, lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen is now

more likely to be called “RAT”

That Trump’s good friend

David Pecker, CEO of the company that owns the National Enquirer

, which sat on the story about Playboy model Karen McDougal’s alleged affair, and the

CFO of the Trump organization

Paul Manafort found guilty, won’t flip

Pardons and commutations

Another drama involving another Kim.

Kardashian

a lot of supposition he could pardon people targeted by the Mueller probe

who he thinks stay loyal. See above: Manafort, Paul, who has since been convicted of eight counts of tax and bank fraud, crimes unrelated to Trump. But Manafort has yet to cooperate with Mueller.

Scott Pruitt stayed in office much longer than he should have

Now-former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Pruitt resigned in July, but the pressure had been building on Trump to sack him for months. Throughout the spring, there was

an almost unbelievable string of ethical questions

Tariffs and trade wars

Unlike these other items, Trump has

invited fights with other countries

The highest stakes trade standoff is likely with China

McCain’s farewell

Now on to the fall and the midterms

Brett Kavanaugh

will be a more controversial nominee than Neil Gorsuch, but he seems likely to be confirmed to the Supreme Court.

Read More | Analysis by Z. Byron Wolf, CNN,

Business Trump’s summer from hell, in 2018-09-01 08:50:27

#Nature of Business in the Current Market

0 notes

internetbasic9 · 6 years ago

Text

Business Trump’s summer from hell

Business Trump’s summer from hell Business Trump’s summer from hell https://ift.tt/2Pthtz9

Business

(CNN)Summer break? Ha.

Imagine how it felt for the Trump administration.

Last month,

we documented how the White House and President Donald Trump’s Cabinet

It’s hard to look away from a train wreck. It’s impossible to look away from successive wrecks.

Here are some of the key moments from a summer that included no break:

North Korea talks stall after summit

A moment of weakness makes Putin look strong in Helsinki

Putin didn’t emerge with the upper hand

A self-inflicted immigration crisis that took children from their parents

The administration has yet to return all of the separated children to their parents

Michael Cohen pleads guilty, implicates Trump

Once Trump’s confidant, lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen is now

more likely to be called “RAT”

That Trump’s good friend

David Pecker, CEO of the company that owns the National Enquirer

, which sat on the story about Playboy model Karen McDougal’s alleged affair, and the

CFO of the Trump organization

Paul Manafort found guilty, won’t flip

Pardons and commutations

Another drama involving another Kim.

Kardashian

a lot of supposition he could pardon people targeted by the Mueller probe

who he thinks stay loyal. See above: Manafort, Paul, who has since been convicted of eight counts of tax and bank fraud, crimes unrelated to Trump. But Manafort has yet to cooperate with Mueller.

Scott Pruitt stayed in office much longer than he should have

Now-former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Pruitt resigned in July, but the pressure had been building on Trump to sack him for months. Throughout the spring, there was

an almost unbelievable string of ethical questions

Tariffs and trade wars

Unlike these other items, Trump has

invited fights with other countries

The highest stakes trade standoff is likely with China

McCain’s farewell

Now on to the fall and the midterms

Brett Kavanaugh

will be a more controversial nominee than Neil Gorsuch, but he seems likely to be confirmed to the Supreme Court.

Read More | Analysis by Z. Byron Wolf, CNN,

Business Trump’s summer from hell, in 2018-09-01 08:50:27

#Nature of Business in the Current Market

0 notes

blogparadiseisland · 6 years ago

Text

Business Trump’s summer from hell

Business Trump’s summer from hell Business Trump’s summer from hell http://www.nature-business.com/business-trumps-summer-from-hell/

Business

(CNN)Summer break? Ha.

Imagine how it felt for the Trump administration.

Last month,

we documented how the White House and President Donald Trump’s Cabinet

It’s hard to look away from a train wreck. It’s impossible to look away from successive wrecks.

Here are some of the key moments from a summer that included no break:

North Korea talks stall after summit

A moment of weakness makes Putin look strong in Helsinki

Putin didn’t emerge with the upper hand

A self-inflicted immigration crisis that took children from their parents

The administration has yet to return all of the separated children to their parents

Michael Cohen pleads guilty, implicates Trump

Once Trump’s confidant, lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen is now

more likely to be called “RAT”

That Trump’s good friend

David Pecker, CEO of the company that owns the National Enquirer

, which sat on the story about Playboy model Karen McDougal’s alleged affair, and the

CFO of the Trump organization

Paul Manafort found guilty, won’t flip

Pardons and commutations

Another drama involving another Kim.

Kardashian

a lot of supposition he could pardon people targeted by the Mueller probe

who he thinks stay loyal. See above: Manafort, Paul, who has since been convicted of eight counts of tax and bank fraud, crimes unrelated to Trump. But Manafort has yet to cooperate with Mueller.

Scott Pruitt stayed in office much longer than he should have

Now-former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Pruitt resigned in July, but the pressure had been building on Trump to sack him for months. Throughout the spring, there was

an almost unbelievable string of ethical questions

Tariffs and trade wars

Unlike these other items, Trump has

invited fights with other countries

The highest stakes trade standoff is likely with China

McCain’s farewell

Now on to the fall and the midterms

Brett Kavanaugh

will be a more controversial nominee than Neil Gorsuch, but he seems likely to be confirmed to the Supreme Court.

Read More | Analysis by Z. Byron Wolf, CNN,

Business Trump’s summer from hell, in 2018-09-01 08:50:27

#Nature of Business in the Current Market

0 notes

thisdaynews · 5 years ago

Text

How Reagan’s Childhood Home Gave Up on Reaganism

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/how-reagans-childhood-home-gave-up-on-reaganism-13/

How Reagan’s Childhood Home Gave Up on Reaganism

Photograph by M. Scott Mahaskey

***

When Gorman told the board of directors that he was seeking a Park Service takeover, this time, there was no pushback. Everyone realized the home could no longer raise enough money to remain open.

Reagan couldn’t have put it better himself.

#Childhood #Foreign #Politics #Reaganism

0 notes

politicalfilth-blog · 8 years ago

Text

Declassified Documents Prove CIA Worked Closely With Many Of The Largest Media Outlets

We Are Change

Article via Zero Hedge

Newly-declassified documents show that a senior CIA agent and Deputy Director of the Directorate of Intelligence worked closely with the owners and journalists of many of the largest media outlets.

The United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities found in 1975 that the CIA submitted stories to the American press:

youtube

Wikipedia adds details:

After 1953, the network was overseen by Allen W. Dulles, director of the CIA. By this time, Operation Mockingbird had a major influence over 25 newspapers and wire agencies. The usual methodology was placing reports developed from intelligence provided by the CIA to witting or unwitting reporters. Those reports would then be repeated or cited by the preceding reporters which in turn would then be cited throughout the media wire services.

The Office of Policy Coordination (OPC) was funded by siphoning off funds intended for the Marshall Plan [i.e. the rebuilding of Europe by the U.S. after WWII]. Some of this money was used to bribe journalists and publishers.

In 2008, the New York Times wrote:

During the early years of the cold war, [prominent writers and artists, from Arthur Schlesinger Jr. to Jackson Pollock] were supported, sometimes lavishly, always secretly, by the C.I.A. as part of its propaganda war against the Soviet Union. It was perhaps the most successful use of “soft power” in American history.

A CIA operative told Washington Post owner Philip Graham … in a conversation about the willingness of journalists to peddle CIA propaganda and cover stories:

You could get a journalist cheaper than a good call girl, for a couple hundred dollars a month.

Famed Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein wrote in 1977:

More than 400 American journalists … in the past twenty-five years have secretly carried out assignments for the Central Intelligence Agency, according to documents on file at CIA headquarters.

***

In many instances, CIA documents show, journalists were engaged to perform tasks for the CIA with the consent of the managements of America’s leading news organizations.

***

Among the executives who lent their cooperation to the Agency were [the heads of CBS, Time, the New York Times, the Louisville Courier?Journal, and Copley News Service. Other organizations which cooperated with the CIA include [ABC, NBC, AP, UPI, Reuters], Hearst Newspapers, Scripps?Howard, Newsweek magazine, the Mutual Broadcasting System, the Miami Herald and the old Saturday Evening Post and New York Herald.

***

There is ample evidence that America’s leading publishers and news executives allowed themselves and their organizations to become handmaidens to the intelligence services. “Let’s not pick on some poor reporters, for God’s sake,” William Colby exclaimed at one point to the Church committee’s investigators. “Let’s go to the managements.

***

The CIA even ran a formal training program in the 1950s to teach its agents to be journalists. Intelligence officers were “taught to make noises like reporters,” explained a high CIA official, and were then placed in major news organizations with help from management.

***

Once a year during the 1950s and early 1960s, CBS correspondents joined the CIA hierarchy for private dinners and briefings.

***

Allen Dulles often interceded with his good friend, the late Henry Luce, founder of Time and Life magazines, who readily allowed certain members of his staff to work for the Agency and agreed to provide jobs and credentials for other CIA operatives who lacked journalistic experience.

***

In the 1950s and early 1960s, Time magazine’s foreign correspondents attended CIA “briefing” dinners similar to those the CIA held for CBS.

***

When Newsweek was purchased by the Washington Post Company, publisher Philip L. Graham was informed by Agency officials that the CIA occasionally used the magazine for cover purposes, according to CIA sources. “It was widely known that Phil Graham was somebody you could get help from,” said a former deputy director of the Agency. “Frank Wisner dealt with him.” Wisner, deputy director of the CIA from 1950 until shortly before his suicide in 1965, was the Agency’s premier orchestrator of “black” operations, including many in which journalists were involved. Wisner liked to boast of his “mighty Wurlitzer,” a wondrous propaganda instrument he built, and played, with help from the press.)

***

In November 1973, after [the CIA claimed to have ended the program], Colby told reporters and editors from the New York Times and the Washington Star that the Agency had “some three dozen” American newsmen “on the CIA payroll,” including five who worked for “general?circulation news organizations.” Yet even while the Senate Intelligence Committee was holding its hearings in 1976, according to high?level CIA sources, the CIA continued to maintain ties with seventy?five to ninety journalists of every description—executives, reporters, stringers, photographers, columnists, bureau clerks and members of broadcast technical crews. More than half of these had been moved off CIA contracts and payrolls but they were still bound by other secret agreements with the Agency. According to an unpublished report by the House Select Committee on Intelligence, chaired by Representative Otis Pike, at least fifteen news organizations were still providing cover for CIA operatives as of 1976.

***

Those officials most knowledgeable about the subject say that a figure of 400 American journalists is on the low side ….

“There were a lot of representations that if this stuff got out some of the biggest names in journalism would get smeared” ….

An expert on propaganda testified under oath during trial that the CIA now employs THOUSANDS of reporters and OWNS its own media organizations. Whether or not his estimate is accurate, it is clear that many prominent reporters still report to the CIA.

A 4-part BBC documentary called the “Century of the Self” shows that an American – Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernays – created the modern field of manipulation of public perceptions, and the U.S. government has extensively used his techniques.

John Pilger is a highly-regarded journalist (the BBC’s world affairs editor John Simpson remarked, “A country that does not have a John Pilger in its journalism is a very feeble place indeed”). Pilger said in 2007:

We now know that the BBC and other British media were used by the British secret intelligence service MI-6. In what they called Operation Mass Appeal, MI-6 agents planted stories about Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, such as weapons hidden in his palaces and in secret underground bunkers. All of these stories were fake.

***

One of my favorite stories about the Cold War concerns a group of Russian journalists who were touring the United States. On the final day of their visit, they were asked by the host for their impressions. “I have to tell you,” said the spokesman, “that we were astonished to find after reading all the newspapers and watching TV day after day that all the opinions on all the vital issues are the same. To get that result in our country we send journalists to the gulag. We even tear out their fingernails. Here you don’t have to do any of that. What is the secret?”

Nick Davies wrote in the Independent in 2008:

For the first time in human history, there is a concerted strategy to manipulate global perception. And the mass media are operating as its compliant assistants, failing both to resist it and to expose it.

The sheer ease with which this machinery has been able to do its work reflects a creeping structural weakness which now afflicts the production of our news. I’ve spent the last two years researching a book about falsehood, distortion and propaganda in the global media.

The “Zarqawi letter” which made it on to the front page of The New York Times in February 2004 was one of a sequence of highly suspect documents which were said to have been written either by or to Zarqawi and which were fed into news media.

This material is being generated, in part, by intelligence agencies who continue to work without effective oversight; and also by a new and essentially benign structure of “strategic communications” which was originally designed by doves in the Pentagon and Nato who wanted to use subtle and non-violent tactics to deal with Islamist terrorism but whose efforts are poorly regulated and badly supervised with the result that some of its practitioners are breaking loose and engaging in the black arts of propaganda.

***

The Pentagon has now designated “information operations” as its fifth “core competency” alongside land, sea, air and special forces. Since October 2006, every brigade, division and corps in the US military has had its own “psyop” element producing output for local media. This military activity is linked to the State Department’s campaign of “public diplomacy” which includes funding radio stations and news websites. In Britain, the Directorate of Targeting and Information Operations in the Ministry of Defence works with specialists from 15 UK psyops, based at the Defence Intelligence and Security School at Chicksands in Bedfordshire.

In the case of British intelligence, you can see this combination of reckless propaganda and failure of oversight at work in the case of Operation Mass Appeal. This was exposed by the former UN arms inspector Scott Ritter, who describes in his book, Iraq Confidential, how, in London in June 1998, he was introduced to two “black propaganda specialists” from MI6 who wanted him to give them material which they could spread through “editors and writers who work with us from time to time.”

The government is still paying off reporters to spread disinformation. And the corporate media are acting like virtual “escort services” for the moneyed elites, selling access – for a price – to powerful government officials, instead of actually investigating and reporting on what those officials are doing.

One of the ways that the U.S. government spreads propaganda is by making sure that it gets its version out first. For example, the head of the U.S. Information Agency’s television and film division – Alvin A. Snyder – wrote in his book Warriors of Disinformation: How Lies, Videotape, and the USIA Won the Cold War:

All governments, including our own, lie when it suits their purposes. The key is to lie first.

***

Another casualty, always war’s first, was the truth. The story of [the accidental Russian shoot-down of a Korean airliner] will be remembered pretty much the way we told it in 1983, not the way it really happened.

In 2013, the American Congress repealed the formal ban against the deployment of propaganda against U.S. citizens living on American soil. So there’s even less to constrain propaganda than before.

One of the most common uses of propaganda is to sell unnecessary and counter-productive wars. Given that the American media is always pro-war, mainstream publishers, producers, editors, and reporters are willing participants.

It’s not just lying about Saddam’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction … the corporate media is still selling lies to promote war.

Former Newsweek and Associated Press reporter Robert Parry notes that Ronald Reagan and the CIA unleashed a propaganda campaign in the 1980’s to sell the American public on supporting the Contra rebels, utilizing private players such as Rupert Murdoch to spread disinformation. Parry notes that many of the same people that led Reagan’s domestic propaganda effort in the 1980’s are in power today:

While the older generation that pioneered these domestic propaganda techniques has passed from the scene, many of their protégés are still around along with some of the same organizations. The National Endowment for Democracy, which was formed in 1983 at the urging of CIA Director Casey and under the supervision of Walter Raymond’s NSC operation, is still run by the same neocon, Carl Gershman, and has an even bigger budget, now exceeding $100 million a year.

Gershman and his NED played important behind-the-scenes roles in instigating the Ukraine crisis by financing activists, journalists and other operatives who supported the coup against elected President Yanukovych. The NED-backed Freedom House also beat the propaganda drums. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “A Shadow Foreign Policy.”]

Two other Reagan-era veterans, Elliott Abrams and Robert Kagan, have both provided important intellectual support for continuing U.S. interventionism around the world. Earlier this year, Kagan’s article for The New Republic, entitled “Superpowers Don’t Get to Retire,” touched such a raw nerve with President Obama that he hosted Kagan at a White House lunch and crafted the presidential commencement speech at West Point to deflect some of Kagan’s criticism of Obama’s hesitancy to use military force.

***

Rupert Murdoch’s media empire is bigger than ever …

Another key to American propaganda is the constant repetition of propaganda. As Business Insider reported in 2013:

Lt. Col. Daniel Davis, a highly-respected officer who released a critical report regarding the distortion of truth by senior military officials in Iraq and Afghanistan ….

From Lt. Col. Davis:

In context, Colonel Leap is implying we ought to change the law to enable Public Affairs officers to influence American public opinion when they deem it necessary to “protect a key friendly center of gravity, to wit US national will.”

The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 appears to serve this purpose by allowing for the American public to be a target audience of U.S. government-funded information campaigns.

Davis also quotes Brigadier General Ralph O. Baker — the Pentagon officer responsible for the Department of Defense’s Joint Force Development — who defines Information Operations (IO) as activities undertaken to “shape the essential narrative of a conflict or situation and thus affect the attitudes and behaviors of the targeted audience.”

Brig. Gen. Baker goes on to equate descriptions of combat operations with the standard marketing strategy of repeating something until it is accepted:

For years, commercial advertisers have based their advertisement strategies on the premise that there is a positive correlation between the number of times a consumer is exposed to product advertisement and that consumer’s inclination to sample the new product. The very same principle applies to how we influence our target audiences when we conduct COIN.

And those “thousands of hours per week of government-funded radio and TV programs” appear to serve Baker’s strategy, which states: “Repetition is a key tenet of IO execution, and the failure to constantly drive home a consistent message dilutes the impact on the target audiences.”

Government Massively Manipulates the Web, Social Media and Other Forms of Communication

Of course, the Web and social media have become a huge media platform, and the Pentagon and other government agencies are massively manipulating both.

Documents released by Snowden show that spies manipulate polls, website popularity and pageview counts, censor videos they don’t like and amplify messages they do.

The CIA and other government agencies also put enormous energy into pushing propaganda through movies, television and video games.

Cross-Border Propaganda

Propaganda isn’t limited to our own borders …

Sometimes, the government plants disinformation in American media in order to mislead foreigners. For example, an official government summary of America’s overthrow of the democratically-elected president of Iran in the 1950?s states, “In cooperation with the Department of State, CIA had several articles planted in major American newspapers and magazines which, when reproduced in Iran, had the desired psychological effect in Iran and contributed to the war of nerves against Mossadeq” (page x).

The CIA has also bribed leading foreign journalists.

And CNN accepted money from the brutal Bahrani dictatorship to run pro-monarchy propaganda.

Everyone Who Challenges the Status Quo Is Labeled As a Purveyor of “Fake News” … Or Worse

The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects the freedom of the press from censorship by government.

Indeed, the entire reason that it’s unlawful for the government to stop stories from being printed is because that would punish those who criticize those in power.

Why? Because the Founding Father knew that governments (like the British monarchy) will always crack down on those who point out that the emperor has no clothes.

But the freedom of the press is under massive attack in America today …

For example, the powers-that-be argue that only highly-paid corporate media shills who will act as stenographers for the fatcats should have the constitutional protections guaranteeing freedom of the press.

A Harvard law school professor argues that the First Amendment is outdated and should be abandoned.

When financially-savvy bloggers challenged the Federal Reserve’s policy, a Fed official called all bloggers stupid and unqualified to comment.

And the government is treating the real investigative reporters like criminals … or even terrorists:

Obama has gone after top reporters. His Department of Justice labeled chief Fox News Washington correspondent James Rosen a “criminal co-conspirator” in a leak case, and for many years threatened to prosecute Pulitzer-prize winning New York Times journalist James Risen

The Obama administration also spied on Risen, Rosen, the Associated Press, CBS reporter Cheryl Atkinson and other media

In fact, top NSA whistleblowers tell Washington’s Blog that the NSA has spied on reporters for well over a decade … to make sure they don’t reveal illegal government programs

The Pentagon smeared USA Today reporters because they investigated illegal Pentagon propaganda

Reporters covering the Occupy protests were targeted for arrest

The government admits that journalists could be targeted with counter-terrorism laws (and here). For example, after Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Chris Hedges, journalist Naomi Wolf, Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and others sued the government to enjoin the NDAA’s allowance of the indefinite detention of Americans – the judge asked the government attorneys 5 times whether journalists like Hedges could be indefinitely detained simply for interviewing and then writing about bad guys. The government refused to promise that journalists like Hedges won’t be thrown in a dungeon for the rest of their lives without any right to talk to a judge

In an effort to protect Bank of America from the threatened Wikileaks expose of the bank’s wrongdoing, the Department of Justice told Bank of America to a hire a specific hardball-playing law firm to assemble a team to take down WikiLeaks (and see this)

The NSA and its British counterpart treated Wikileaks like a terrorist organization, going so far as to target its employees politically, and to spy on visitors to its website

Postscript: See this and this.

This article first appeared on ZeroHedge.com and was authored by George Washington.

The post Declassified Documents Prove CIA Worked Closely With Many Of The Largest Media Outlets appeared first on We Are Change.

from We Are Change https://wearechange.org/declassified-documents-prove-cia-worked-closely-many-largest-media-outlets/

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thisdaynews · 5 years ago

Text

How Reagan’s Childhood Home Gave Up on Reaganism

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/how-reagans-childhood-home-gave-up-on-reaganism-12/

How Reagan’s Childhood Home Gave Up on Reaganism

Photograph by M. Scott Mahaskey

***

When Gorman told the board of directors that he was seeking a Park Service takeover, this time, there was no pushback. Everyone realized the home could no longer raise enough money to remain open.

Reagan couldn’t have put it better himself.

#Childhood #Foreign #Politics #Reaganism

0 notes

thisdaynews · 5 years ago

Text

How Reagan’s Childhood Home Gave Up on Reaganism

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/how-reagans-childhood-home-gave-up-on-reaganism-11/

How Reagan’s Childhood Home Gave Up on Reaganism

Photograph by M. Scott Mahaskey

***

When Gorman told the board of directors that he was seeking a Park Service takeover, this time, there was no pushback. Everyone realized the home could no longer raise enough money to remain open.

Reagan couldn’t have put it better himself.

#Childhood #Foreign #Politics #Reaganism

0 notes

thisdaynews · 5 years ago

Text

How Reagan’s Childhood Home Gave Up on Reaganism

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/how-reagans-childhood-home-gave-up-on-reaganism-10/

How Reagan’s Childhood Home Gave Up on Reaganism

Photograph by M. Scott Mahaskey

***

When Gorman told the board of directors that he was seeking a Park Service takeover, this time, there was no pushback. Everyone realized the home could no longer raise enough money to remain open.

Reagan couldn’t have put it better himself.

#Childhood #Foreign #Politics #Reaganism

0 notes

thisdaynews · 5 years ago

Text

How Reagan’s Childhood Home Gave Up on Reaganism

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/how-reagans-childhood-home-gave-up-on-reaganism-9/

How Reagan’s Childhood Home Gave Up on Reaganism

Photograph by M. Scott Mahaskey

***

When Gorman told the board of directors that he was seeking a Park Service takeover, this time, there was no pushback. Everyone realized the home could no longer raise enough money to remain open.

Reagan couldn’t have put it better himself.

#Childhood #Foreign #Politics #Reaganism

0 notes

thisdaynews · 5 years ago

Text

How Reagan’s Childhood Home Gave Up on Reaganism

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/how-reagans-childhood-home-gave-up-on-reaganism-8/

How Reagan’s Childhood Home Gave Up on Reaganism

Photograph by M. Scott Mahaskey

***

When Gorman told the board of directors that he was seeking a Park Service takeover, this time, there was no pushback. Everyone realized the home could no longer raise enough money to remain open.

Reagan couldn’t have put it better himself.

#Childhood #Foreign #Politics #Reaganism

0 notes

thisdaynews · 5 years ago

Text

How Reagan’s Childhood Home Gave Up on Reaganism

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/how-reagans-childhood-home-gave-up-on-reaganism-7/

How Reagan’s Childhood Home Gave Up on Reaganism

Photograph by M. Scott Mahaskey

***

When Gorman told the board of directors that he was seeking a Park Service takeover, this time, there was no pushback. Everyone realized the home could no longer raise enough money to remain open.

Reagan couldn’t have put it better himself.

#Childhood #Foreign #Politics #Reaganism

0 notes