On this Memorial Day holiday, as we honor those who gave \u201ctheir last full measure of devotion\u201d in the defense of our great nation, it is only fitting that we distinguish between those who are sincere in their patriotism and those who only give lip service for self-serving political purposes.<\/p>\n
In the February 14, 2017 edition of the New York Times<\/em>, columnist Tom Friedman provided all the proof we need of the mainstream media\u2019s political bias.\u00a0 He said, \u201cLadies and gentlemen, we were attacked on Dec. 7, 1941, we were attacked on Sept. 11, 2001, and we were attacked on Nov. 8, 2016.\u00a0 That most recent attack didn’t involve a horrible loss of lives, but it was devastating in its own way.\u00a0 Our entire intelligence community concluded that Russia hacked our election by deliberately breaking into Democratic National Committee computers and then, drip-by-drip, funneling embarrassing emails through WikiLeaks to undermine Clinton\u2019s campaign\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Since the closing days of the 2016 campaign, liberals, Democrats, and their enablers in the mainstream media have made it clear, implicitly and explicitly, that they believe the hacking was done at the request of Donald Trump and\/or his advisors.\u00a0 Having failed Logics courses in college, they still have not concluded that, while the Kremlin may have shuddered at the thought of a Clinton presidency, it did not necessarily follow that they longed for a Trump presidency.<\/p>\n However, the American people must be made aware that Russian attempts at influencing the outcome of U.S. elections are nothing new, although the substance of back door diplomacy by Democrats and Republicans with Russians has been vastly different.\u00a0 During the Cold War era \u00a0\u00a0the Soviet Union carried on an intensive program to influence American public opinion; hence, the outcome of elections.\u00a0 Their methodology is fully exposed by Robert Moss, former editor of Foreign Report<\/em>, and Arnaud de Borchgrave, former chief foreign correspondent for Newsweek<\/em> magazine, in their fact-based novel, The Spike <\/em>(New York: Crown Publishers, 1980).<\/p>\n However, it was not until the declassification of Soviet-era KGB archives during the early-mid \u201890s that the full extent of Democratic treachery was finally made known.\u00a0 For example, now-declassified KGB documents tell us that, in 1976, Senator Ted Kennedy offered to publicly condemn Jimmy Carter\u2019s policy toward the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in exchange for KGB help in his campaign to defeat Carter in the Democratic presidential primary.<\/p>\n Even more surprising, Carter himself was willing to jump into bed with the Soviets.\u00a0 KGB files show that, in the closing days of the 1980 General Election, while Carter trailed Reagan in the national polls, Carter sent a political ally, industrialist Armand Hammer, to a secret meeting with Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin at the Soviet embassy in Washington.\u00a0 Hammer asked the Soviets to help Carter win votes in key states by allowing Jewish \u201crefuseniks\u201d in the Soviet Union to emigrate to Israel.\u00a0 The Soviets refused to go along with the scheme.\u00a0\u00a0 KGB files show that, in January 1984, Carter approached Dobrynin in person.\u00a0 In an effort to<\/p>\n derail Reagan\u2019s defense buildup, Carter asked for Soviet help in defeating Reagan in his bid for reelection.\u00a0 However, in that election, Reagan carried 49 of the 50 states, defeating Democrat Walter Mondale by a vote of 525 to 13 in the Electoral College, the second largest electoral landslide in U.S. history.\u00a0 It is unlikely the Soviets gave Carter the help he requested.<\/p>\n But Carter, Kennedy, and Hammer weren\u2019t the only Democrats who sought Soviet political help in U.S. elections.\u00a0 Declassified KGB documents show that, in 1984, House Speaker Thomas P. \u201cTip\u201d O\u2019Neill (D-MA) told Ambassador Dobrynin that it was in \u201ceveryone\u2019s best interests\u201d if the Soviets would help Democrats keep \u201cthat demagogue Reagan\u201d from being re-elected.\u00a0 O\u2019Neill warned Dobrynin that the \u201cprimitive instincts\u201d of this \u201cdangerous man\u201d would plunge the world into war. So much for the storied \u201cd\u00e9tente\u201d<\/em> between Reagan and O\u2019Neill.<\/p>\n It must have amazed Andropov and Dobrynin that those prominent Democrats all viewed Reagan as more dangerous than any Communist dictator, just as Vladimir Putin must now be amazed that Obama, Clinton, Schumer, and Pelosi see Donald Trump as more dangerous than either ISIS or al Qaeda.<\/p>\n Historian Paul Kengor has observed that the Soviet archives show \u201cthe lengths to which some on the political left\u2026 were willing to go to stop Ronald Reagan.\u201d\u00a0 In his book, The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism<\/em>, Professor Kengor quotes the text of a May 14, 1983 memorandum uncovered in the declassified KGB archives by Herbert Romerstein, a well-known authority on the Venona Papers<\/em> and the Soviet archives.<\/p>\n According to the memorandum, written by Viktor Chebrikov, Chairman of the Committee on State Security of the USSR (KGB), to Yuri Andropov, General Secretary of the Communist Party Central Committee, he (Chebrikov) was visited by former U.S. Senator John Tunney (D-CA) on May 9-10, 1983.\u00a0 Tunney, a private citizen, was on a highly sensitive mission for a close friend and former senate colleague, Sen. Ted Kennedy.\u00a0 The purpose of his mission was to enlist the Kremlin in a grand scheme to defeat Ronald Reagan and other Republicans in the 1984 U.S. elections.<\/p>\n In his memorandum, Chebrikov quoted Tunney as saying that Kennedy was convinced that the chilly relations between the U.S. and the Soviet Union were due to Reagan\u2019s unwillingness to modify his strategic plan to win a final Cold War victory over the Soviet Union.\u00a0 As Tunney described Kennedy\u2019s view to Chebrikov, Reagan\u2019s only weakness was rooted in issues related to war and peace and Soviet-American relations.\u00a0 Can anyone spell T-R-E-A-S-O-N?<\/p>\n Kennedy asked Andropov to consider inviting him (Kennedy) to Moscow for a personal visit in July 1983.\u00a0 The primary purpose being to provide the Soviets with \u201ctalking points\u201d related to the issue of nuclear disarmament, so that they\u2019d be \u201cbetter prepared and more convincing during appearances in the U.S.\u201d\u00a0 Kennedy felt that, in order to influence the American people, it would be helpful to have Andropov submit to a series of television interviews with American networks.<\/p>\n Tunney assured Chebrikov that, \u201cif the proposal is recognized as worthy,\u201d Kennedy and his political allies would take the necessary steps to have representatives of the major U.S. networks contact Andropov to schedule interviews.\u00a0 Specifically, he suggested that the head of ABC, Elton Raul, and \u201ctelevision columnists Walter Cronkite or Barbara Walters could visit Moscow.\u201d<\/p>\n Kennedy also suggested a series of televised interviews, in the U.S., in which members of the Soviet military could convince the American people of the \u201cpeaceful intentions of the USSR.\u201d<\/p>\n But the Soviets weren\u2019t the only targets of Democratic treachery.\u00a0 In an effort to reverse the spread of communism in Central America and the Caribbean, the Reagan administration proposed a $14 million humanitarian aid package for the anti-Communist Contra guerillas in Nicaragua.\u00a0 But then, just days before the Senate was to vote on the aid package, and just five months after they were first elected to the U.S. Senate, Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Tom Harkin (D-IA) flew to Managua for an impromptu meeting with Nicaragua\u2019s Communist dictator, Daniel Ortega.\u00a0 The purpose of the meeting was to find a political rationale for voting against the Reagan aid package, and to find positive things to say about the communist regime.<\/p>\n Before returning to Washington, the amateur diplomats had extracted a \u201cpromise\u201d from Ortega that he would \u201cmoderate his policies.\u201d\u00a0 Kerry boasted, \u201cWe believe this is a wonderful opening for a peaceful settlement without having to militarize the region.\u201d<\/p>\n Unfortunately for Kerry, as he was basking in the afterglow of his freelance diplomatic mission Ortega was on his way to Moscow to arrange a $200 million loan from the Soviets.\u00a0 While Kerry worked in Washington to deny<\/u> aid to freedom-loving Nicaraguans, Kerry\u2019s new friend, Daniel Ortega, was in Moscow raising money with which to oppress<\/u> freedom-loving Nicaraguans.\u00a0 When the Reagan aid proposal was voted on it was defeated on a straight party line vote.\u00a0 Democrats were solidly opposed to humanitarian aid for the anti-communist Contras.<\/p>\n One would think that Trump defenders and congressional Republicans would be using the Democrats\u2019 sordid history with the Russians to defend against the unrelenting attacks on Trump, but they don\u2019t.\u00a0 They remain inexplicably silent.\u00a0 So, as Donald Trump begins his second hundred days in the White House, he is beset by media reports of covert communications with the Putin regime in Moscow.\u00a0 And without a shred of evidence of actual wrongdoing, the mainstream media report every instance of Democratic calls for his impeachment.<\/p>\n As Thomas Jefferson wrote to newspaper editor John Norvell on June 11, 1807, \u201cNothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper\u2026 I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers, live & die in the belief, that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time\u2026 I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors.\u201d<\/p>\n Did the Russians hope to derail Hillary Clinton\u2019s \u201ccoronation\u201d as President of the United States? Yes!\u00a0 But it does not necessarily follow that they looked forward to a Trump presidency.\u00a0 So, who hugs the Russian bear?\u00a0 We\u2019ll never know by consulting the mainstream media.\u00a0 The only way we can know is by consulting the KGB archives.<\/p>\n Paul R. Hollrah is a retired government relations executive and a two-time member of the U.S. Electoral College.\u00a0 He currently lives and writes among the hills and lakes of northeast Oklahoma\u2019s Green Country.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On this Memorial Day holiday, as we honor those who gave \u201ctheir last full measure of devotion\u201d in the defense of our great nation, it is only fitting that we distinguish between those who are sincere in their patriotism and … Continue reading