TEENAGER SENT to PRISON for 13 YEARS FOR DEFENDING HIS HOME - WHY NO KNOCK WARRANTS ARE A SERIOUS PROBLEM

The concept of the "no knock" warrant was once upon a time, only to be used against the most serious and violent offenders. It has now been normalized to the point that it makes the lawful defense of one's home nearly impossible. Rather than not using this tactic, or perhaps using the good old fashioned surveillance method, and taking individuals into custody when they can see and know that the one's showing up are police, this method has become far too used and far too acceptable. This is what happens when the state, having the full ability and funding to do things differently becomes militarized. This is not the method of "peace officers", but of occupying soldiers. Remember Waco's Branch Davidians? David Koresh jogged into town every day. Rather than taking him into custody he was shot while coming to his front door during the raid that lead to men women and children killed. Is this the Republic we were raised to support? Or has it become vastly something else? We report, you decide.

Tom Lacovara-Stewart - RTR Truth Media



By Rachel Blevins

Austin, TX – When a SWAT team initiated a no-knock raid in search of cannabis, they were met with gunfire, and while the resident surrendered as soon as he realized his home was being raided by police, the fact that he opened fire on the intruders and shot one of them in the leg has resulted in a 13-year prison sentence.

When a SWAT team broke down the door and charged into the Harrell family’s house in the early morning hours of April 14, 2016, they claimed that the intrusive operation was justified, because they believed 18-year-old Tyler Harrell was running a drug ring out of his parents’ home.

When Tyler Harrell was woken up by what he believed were burglars breaking into his home, he did what many gun owners would do, and he grabbed his firearm and confronted the intruders. He used his legally-owned AK-47, and while he did not kill any of the officers, he did wound one officer by shooting him in the knee.

Lisa Harrell told KVUE News that she believes her son only opened fire because he thought his family was being robbed. “[Tyler] came running out with his gun, thinking someone was intruding in our house, and he started shooting down the stairs,” she said. “I know my son thought there was an intruder in the house.”

Hours after the shooting, police confirmed that “another SWAT team member returned fire, but did not hit Harrell, who surrendered to police within minutes,” indicating that as soon as Harrell realized he was firing at police officers, he stopped and let them arrest him without a fight.

When officers searched the home, they found one ounce of cannabis, which would justify a misdemeanor charge against Harrell. However, because the officers initiated a no-knock raid before dawn, and Harrell attempted to protect his family from the intruders, he was charged with attempted capital murder.

During the trial, Harrell’s psychiatrist testified that at the time of the shooting, he was “suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after an incident four months earlier in which he and his friends were robbed by a masked gunman,” and the gunman shot Harrell, before Harrell “wrested the gun away from the man and chased him out the door of his friend’s apartment,” according to a report from the Austin Statesman.

However, it was the testimony from Officer James Pittman that apparently pulled at the heartstrings of jury members. He was the only person injured by Harrell’s gunfire, and he said the bullet wound in his leg kept him from playing with his kids now and would force him to get knee replacement surgery one day.

Pittman also criticized the “Not Guilty” verdict from another Texas case in which a homeowner shot and wounded three police officers when they initiated a no-knock raid on his house. Ray Rosas spent nearly two years in jail awaiting his trial, and his actions were ruled justified based on the fact that he was acting in self-defense and did not know the intruders he was shooting were police officers.

Rosas was acquitted, despite the fact that 11 police officers testified against him. However, in the case of Tyler Harrell, his lawyer argued that the 18 SWAT team members who attended court in tactical gear to show their support for Officer Pittman, further demonized Harrell in the eyes of the jury.

“Look at this gallery. You don’t think this is a lot of political pressure for these people?” Lawyer Michael Chandler told the jury.

The pressure worked, and while the jury determined that Tyler Harrell was not guilty of attempted capital murder or aggravated assault on a public servant, he was found guilty of aggravated assault and sentenced to 13 years and six months in prison, and a fine of $7,000.

When the trial shifted to a debate over whether Harrell acted in self-defense, it served as a distraction from the fact that the drug raid on his home was an absolute failure, and officers were never able to prove that Harrell was a “large drug dealer” of marijuana and cocaine, which was the claim they used to justify obtaining a search warrant for the raid in the first place.

Rachel Blevins is an independent journalist from Texas, who aspires to break the false left/right paradigm in media and politics by pursuing truth and questioning existing narratives. Follow Rachel on Facebook,Twitter, YouTube, Steemit and Patreon. This article first appeared at The Free Thought Project.

An excerpt from the New York Times
By Clyde HabermanSept. 7, 2014

Posse comitatus is not a phrase that trips lightly off every tongue. It is typically translated from Latin as “force of the county.” Anyone who has ever watched an old Western movie will instantly recognize the first word as referring to men deputized by the sheriff to chase down some varmints who went thataway. (Rappers and their tag-alongs later gave “posse” a different context.) The full phrase is more obscure, but the concept that it embraces is enshrined in American law. The Posse Comitatus Act, passed in 1878 at the end of Reconstruction and amended but slightly over the decades, prohibits the nation’s armed forces from being used as a police force within the United States. Soldiers, the reasoning goes, exist to fight wars. Chasing local wrongdoers is a job for cops.

But many police departments today are so heavily armed with Pentagon-supplied hand-me-downs — tools of war like M-16 rifles, armored trucks, grenade launchers and more — that the principle underlying the Posse Comitatus Act can seem as if it, too, has gone thataway. Questions about whether police forces are overly militarized have been around for years. They are now being asked with new urgency because of the recent turmoil in Ferguson, Mo., where unarmed demonstrators protesting the fatal police shooting of a teenager faced off for a while against mightily armed officers in battle dress and gas masks. What the world saw were lawmen looking more like combat troops in the Mideast than peacekeepers in the Midwest.

The militarized nature of modern American policing infuses this first installment of Retro Report, a weekly video documentary series that examines major news stories from the past and explores what has happened since. The focus this week is on SWAT teams, whose numbers have soared across the country, in rugged cities and in sleepy towns. They are the principal beneficiaries of the heavy-duty military equipment that the federal government has supplied since the early 1990s, in a transfer program that has gained steam in recent years with the withdrawal of American ground forces, first from Iraq and soon from Afghanistan.

The video above traces the rise of SWAT units from their earliest days in 1960s Los Angeles. There, Daryl F. Gates, who would later become chief of that city’s police force, championed a sturdily armed squad of trained officers as an essential tool of law enforcement after the deadly Watts riots of 1965. Mr. Gates fancied the name Special Weapons Attack Team. “Attack” made some elected officials wince, though. What emerged instead was Special Weapons and Tactics — same acronym but sounding somewhat less aggressive. To read more of this article click here - NY TIMES

Other source articles :  

https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/tyler-harrell-trial-raises-questions-about-apds-no-knock-tactic/269-540338072

http://www.fox7austin.com/news/local-news/trial-begins-for-man-who-shot-at-apd-swat-during-narcotics-warrant

https://www.mystatesman.com/news/over-austin-swat-officers-show-for-last-day-harrell-trial/EdMyFZXbDhuhemFLLumpKP/

https://www.statesman.com/news/crime--law/jury-deadlocked-trial-austin-man-who-shot-swat-team-member/ly9oDrL7HxWb9ZwSrOkm9H/

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2014/03/22/armed-and-dangerous

http://www.freedomworks.org/content/no-knock-raids-create-dangers-families-and-law-enforcement

http://www.policemag.com/blog/swat/story/2011/03/no-knock-searches-reasonable-or-deadly.aspx

More information on the problem of NO KNOCK raids :

HOW the WHITE HOUSE HIJACKED the ABILITY to DECLARE WAR a LONG TIME AGO

How the White House Hijacked the Ability to Declare War

• 

TAGS U.S. History War and Foreign Policy

Thomas E. Woods, Jr.

We are long past the point at which constitutional arguments have much hope of restraining the American political class, either at home or abroad. They are still worth making, though, since they serve to show the two major parties’ contempt for American law and tradition.

Ever since the Korean War, Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution — which refers to the president as the "Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States" — has been interpreted to mean that the president may act with an essentially free hand in foreign affairs, or at the very least that he may send men into battle without consulting Congress. But what the framers meant by that clause was that once war has been declared, it was the President’s responsibility as commander-in-chief to direct the war. Alexander Hamilton spoke in such terms when he said that the president, although lacking the power to declare war, would have "the direction of war when authorized or begun." The president acting alone was authorized only to repel sudden attacks (hence the decision to withhold from him only the power to "declare" war, not to "make" war, which was thought to be a necessary emergency power in case of foreign attack).

The Framers of the Constitution were abundantly clear in assigning to Congress what David Gray Adler has called "senior status in a partnership with the president for the purpose of conducting foreign policy." Consider what the Constitution has to say about foreign affairs. Congress possesses the power "to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations," "to raise and support Armies," to "grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal," to "provide for the common Defense," and even "to declare War." Congress shares with the president the power to make treaties and to appoint ambassadors. As for the president himself, he is assigned only two powers relating to foreign affairs: he is commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and he has the power to receive ambassadors.

At the Constitutional Convention, the delegates expressly disclaimed any intention to model the American executive exactly after the British monarchy. James Wilson, for example, remarked that the powers of the British king did not constitute "a proper guide in defining the executive powers. Some of these prerogatives were of a Legislative nature. Among others that of war & peace." Edmund Randolph likewise contended that the delegates had "no motive to be governed by the British Government as our prototype."

To repose such foreign-policy authority in the legislative rather than the executive branch of government was a deliberate and dramatic break with the British model of government with which they were most familiar, as well as with that of other nations, where the executive branch (in effect, the monarch) possessed all such rights, including the exclusive right to declare war. The Framers of the Constitution believed that history amply testified to the executive’s penchant for war. As James Madison wrote to Thomas Jefferson, "The constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care vested the question of war in the Legislature."

At the Constitutional Convention, Pierce Butler "was for vesting the power in the President, who will have all the requisite qualities, and will not make war but when the nation will support it." Butler’s motion did not receive so much as a second.

James Wilson assured the Pennsylvania Ratifying Convention, "This system will not hurry us into war; it is calculated to guard against it. It will not be in the power of a single man, or a single body of men, to involve us in such distress; for the important power of declaring war is vested in the legislature at large: this declaration must be made with the concurrence of the House of Representatives: from this circumstance we may draw a certain conclusion that nothing but our interest can draw us into war."

In Federalist #69, Alexander Hamilton explained that the president’s authority "would be nominally the same with that of the King of Great Britain, but in substance much inferior to it. It would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the military and naval forces, as first general and admiral of the confederacy; while that of the British king extends to the declaring of war, and to the raising and regulating of fleets and armies; all which by the constitution under consideration would appertain to the Legislature."

Abraham Lincoln famously explained the principle this way:

Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so, whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose — and you allow him to make war at pleasure…. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after you have given him so much as you propose. If, to-day, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada, to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, "I see no probability of the British invading us" but he will say to you "be silent; I see it, if you don’t."

The provision of the Constitution giving the war-making power to Congress, was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons. Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. But your view destroys the whole matter, and places our President where kings have always stood.

According to John Bassett Moore, the great authority on international law who (among other credentials) occupied the first professorship of international law at Columbia University, "There can hardly be room for doubt that the framers of the constitution, when they vested in Congress the power to declare war, never imagined that they were leaving it to the executive to use the military and naval forces of the United States all over the world for the purpose of actually coercing other nations, occupying their territory, and killing their soldiers and citizens, all according to his own notions of the fitness of things, as long as he refrained from calling his action war or persisted in calling it peace."

In conformity with this understanding, George Washington’s operations on his own authority against the Indians were confined to defensive measures, conscious as he was that the approval of Congress would be necessary for anything further. "The Constitution vests the power of declaring war with Congress," he said, "therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they have deliberated upon the subject, and authorized such a measure."

The typical neoconservative response to this argument is to claim that the president has sent troops into battle hundreds of times without congressional authorization. A well-known neoconservative whose name I shall mercifully keep to myself made just this argument in his review of my Politically Incorrect Guide to American History.

Let’s see how well the claim stands up.

Supporters of a broad executive war power have sometimes appealed to the Quasi War with France, in the closing years of the eighteenth century, as an example of unilateral warmaking on the part of the president. Francis Wormuth, an authority on war powers and the Constitution, describes that contention as "altogether false." John Adams "took absolutely no independent action. Congress passed a series of acts that amounted, so the Supreme Court said, to a declaration of imperfect war; and Adams complied with these statutes." (Wormuth’s reference to the Supreme Court recalls a decision rendered in the wake of the Quasi War, in which the Court ruled that Congress could either declare war or approve hostilities by means of statutes that authorized an undeclared war. The Quasi War was an example of the latter case.)

Consider an interesting and revealing incident that occurred during the Quasi War. Congress authorized the president to seize vessels sailing to French ports. But President Adams, acting on his own authority and without the sanction of Congress, instructed American ships to capture vessels sailing either to or from French ports. Captain George Little, acting under the authority of Adams’ order, seized a Danish ship sailing from a French port. When Little was sued for damages, the case made its way to the Supreme Court. Chief Justice John Marshall ruled that Captain Little could indeed be sued for damages in the case. "In short," writes Louis Fisher in summary, "congressional policy announced in a statute necessarily prevails over inconsistent presidential orders and military actions. Presidential orders, even those issued as Commander in Chief, are subject to restrictions imposed by Congress."

Another incident frequently cited on behalf of a general presidential power to deploy American forces and commence hostilities involves Jefferson’s policy toward the Barbary states, which demanded protection money from governments whose ships sailed the Mediterranean. Immediately prior to Jefferson’s inauguration in 1801, Congress passed naval legislation that, among other things, provided for six frigates that "shall be officered and manned as the President of the United States may direct." It was to this instruction and authority that Jefferson appealed when he ordered American ships to the Mediterranean. In the event of a declaration of war on the United States by the Barbary powers, these ships were to "protect our commerce & chastise their insolence — by sinking, burning or destroying their ships & Vessels wherever you shall find them."

In late 1801, the pasha of Tripoli did declare war on the U.S. Jefferson sent a small force to the area to protect American ships and citizens against potential aggression, but insisted that he was "unauthorized by the Constitution, without the sanction of Congress, to go beyond the line of defense"; Congress alone could authorize "measures of offense also." Thus Jefferson told Congress: "I communicate [to you] all material information on this subject, that in the exercise of this important function confided by the Constitution to the Legislature exclusively their judgment may form itself on a knowledge and consideration of every circumstance of weight."

Jefferson consistently deferred to Congress in his dealings with the Barbary pirates. "Recent studies by the Justice Department and statements made during congressional debate," Fisher writes, "imply that Jefferson took military measures against the Barbary powers without seeking the approval or authority of Congress. In fact, in at least ten statutes, Congress explicitly authorized military action by Presidents Jefferson and Madison. Congress passed legislation in 1802 to authorize the President to equip armed vessels to protect commerce and seamen in the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and adjoining seas. The statute authorized American ships to seize vessels belonging to the Bey of Tripoli, with the captured property distributed to those who brought the vessels into port. Additional legislation in 1804 gave explicit support for u2018warlike operations against the regency of Tripoli, or any other of the Barbary powers.’"

Consider also Jefferson’s statement to Congress in late 1805 regarding a boundary dispute with Spain over Louisiana and Florida. According to Jefferson, Spain appeared to have an "intention to advance on our possessions until they shall be repressed by an opposing force. Considering that Congress alone is constitutionally invested with the power of changing our condition from peace to war, I have thought it my duty to await their authority for using force…. But the course to be pursued will require the command of means which it belongs to Congress exclusively to yield or to deny. To them I communicate every fact material for their information and the documents necessary to enable them to judge for themselves. To their wisdom, then, I look for the course I am to pursue, and will pursue with sincere zeal that which they shall approve."

The nineteenth century, on closer inspection, turns out not to provide the precedents for presidential warmaking that its proponents would prefer to see. We don’t see anything approaching the open-ended and truly staggering authority that neoconservatives would grant the president until the closing years of that century, and even then only in miniature.

Cornell University’s Walter LaFeber pinpoints the origins of modern presidential war powers in an obscure incident from 1900. In 1898 a group of anti-foreign Chinese fighters known to the West as the Boxers rose up in protest against foreign exploitation and extraterritorial privileges in their country. They targeted Christian missionaries and Chinese converts, as well as French and Belgian engineers. After the German minister was killed in 1900, several nations sent troops to restore order amid the growing terror. McKinley contributed 5,000 American troops. This apparently minor action, however, was pregnant with consequences, as LaFeber observes:

McKinley took a historic step in creating a new, twentieth-century presidential power. He dispatched the five thousand troops without consulting Congress, let alone obtaining a declaration of war, to fight the Boxers who were supported by the Chinese government…. Presidents had previously used such force against non-governmental groups that threatened U.S. interests and citizens. It was now used, however, against recognized governments, and without obeying the Constitution’s provisions about who was to declare war.

Now what of those "hundreds" of cases of presidential warmaking? This argument — surprise — originated with the U.S. government itself. At the time of the Korean War, a number of congressmen contended that "history will show that on more than 100 occasions in the life of this Republic the President as Commander in Chief has ordered the fleet or the troops to do certain things which involved the risk of war" without the consent of Congress. In 1966, in defense of the Vietnam War, the State Department adopted a similar line: "Since the Constitution was adopted there have been at least 125 instances in which the President has ordered the armed forces to take action or maintain positions abroad without obtaining prior congressional authorization, starting with the undeclared war’ with France (1798—1800)."

We have already seen that the war with France in no way lends support to those who favor broad presidential war powers. As for the rest, the great presidential scholar Edward S. Corwin pointed out that this lengthy list of alleged precedents consisted mainly of "fights with pirates, landings of small naval contingents on barbarous or semi-barbarous coasts, the dispatch of small bodies of troops to chase bandits or cattle rustlers across the Mexican border, and the like."

The neoconservative argument, therefore, is based on ignorance or dishonesty. There is no third possibility. To support their position — although for obvious reasons they don’t put it quite this way — they are counting chases of cattle rustlers as examples of presidential warmaking, and as precedents for sending millions of Americans into war with foreign governments on the other side of the globe. No comment really seems necessary.

Consider, on the other hand, the words of Senator Robert A. Taft in 1951: "My conclusion, therefore, is that in the case of Korea, where a war was already under way, we had no right to send troops to a nation, with whom we had no treaty, to defend it against attack by another nation, no matter how unprincipled that aggression might be, unless the whole matter was submitted to Congress and a declaration of war or some other direct authority obtained."

Taft, some readers will recall, was known in his day as "Mr. Republican." There’s yet another way in which the world has been turned upside down.

Originally published July 7, 2005 on ​LewRockwell.com

Tom Woods, a senior fellow of the Mises Institute, is the author of a dozen books, most recently Real Dissent: A Libertarian Sets Fire to the Index Card of Allowable Opinion. Tom's articles have appeared in dozens of popular and scholarly periodicals, and his books have been translated into a dozen languages. Tom hosts the Tom Woods Show, a libertarian podcast that releases a new episode every weekday. With Bob Murphy, he co-hosts Contra Krugman, a weekly podcast that refutes Paul Krugman's New York Times column.Contact Thomas E. Woods, Jr.TwitterF

SHERIFF DENIES VEGAS SHOOTING SURVIVORS CCW PERMITS AFTER TAKING THEIR MONEY

In a shocking revelation we discover that Sheriff Joe Lombardo has denied Las Vegas Shooting survivors the right to keep and bear arms based on false pretenses and after taking money from them knowing he was going to deny them en masse. This man must be ousted once and for all. 

We took the time to interview Gordon Martines who is running for Clark County Nevada Sheriff who has already had an assasination attempt made upon him once for his run before. He is an honest man who does not believe the government has the authority to infringe upon the natural God given rights of the people to keep and bear arms. This is what lead to us making this video on top of the report. We speak for ourselves and not for the participants in the making of this report but do urge them to listen to the interview we did with Detective Martines and judge for themselves who they wish to take a stand for them.

Gordon martines for Clark County Sheriff - https://clarkcountysheriff2018.com/
Full Interview with Detective Martines on Resurrect the Republic Radio with Tom Lacovara-Stewart and Lorri Anderson
https://www.facebook.com/RTRTruthMedia1776/videos/vb.1442023897/10216352520352582/

CFR STRANGLEHOLD OVER THE MEDIA PROMOTING ENDLESS WAR

by Matt AgoristJanuary 29, 2018

from TheFreeThoughtProject Website
 

A single organization

controls almost everything you

see, hear, and read in the media

and they've been handpicking

your leaders for decades.

It is no secret that over the last 4 decades, mainstream media has been consolidated from dozens of competing companies to only six.

Hundreds of channels, websites, news outlets, newspapers, and magazines, making up ninety percent of all media is controlled by very few people, giving Americans the illusion of choice.
 

While six companies controlling most everything the Western world consumes in regard to media may sound like a sinister arrangement, the Swiss Propaganda Research center (SPR) has just released information that is even worse.

The research group was able to tie all these media companies to a single organization:

the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

View image on Twitter Julian Assange @JulianAssange Council on Foreign Relations links to major media holdings Full graphic here: https://swprs.files.wordpress.com/2017/08/cfr-media-network-hdv-spr.png … 8:07 AM - Jan 28, 2018 12.3K 11.3K people are talking about this Twitter Ads info and privacy

For those who may be unaware, the CFR is a primary member of the circle of Washington think-tanks promoting endless war.

As former Army Major Todd Pierce describes, this group acts as "primary provocateurs" using,

"'psychological suggestiveness' to create a false narrative of danger from some foreign entity with the objective being to create paranoia within the U.S. population that it is under imminent threat of attack or takeover."

A senior member of the CFR and outspoken neocon warmonger, Robert Kagan has even publicly proclaimed that the U.S. should create an empire.

The narrative created by CFR and its cohorts is picked up by their secondary communicators, also known the mainstream media, who push it on the populace with no analysis or questioning.

When looking at the chart from SPR, the reach by this single organization is so vast that it is no mystery as to how these elite psychopaths guide Americans into accepting endless war at the expense of their mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters.

Top journalists and executives from all major media companies are integrated into the CFR.

As the chart below illustrates, the CFR has even more control in the mainstream media than even the nefarious Bilderberg Group and the Trilateral Commission.

Journalists and media executives extracted from above image: New York Daily News and U.S. News & World Report 1: Mortimer B. Zuckerman, publisher Slate 2: Jacob Weisberg, group editor The Nation 3: Katrina Vanden Heuvel, publisher Foreign Affairs 4: James F. Hoge, former editor 5: Gideon Rose, editor Foreign Policy 6: Moises Nairn, editor The National Interest 7: Jacob Heilbrunn, editor The American Interest 8: Francis Fukuyama, executive chairman Financial Times 9: Martin Wolf, associate editor & chief economics commentator 10: Gideon Rachman, chief foreign affairs commentator Reuters 11: Stephen J. Adler, presidents EIC 12: Tom Glocer, former CEO 13: Harold M. Evans, editor-at-Iarge 14: David Schlesinger, former EIC Politico 15: Robert Allbritton, publisher 16: Garrett Graff, former editor Bloomberg 17: Michael Bloomberg, owners CEO 18: John Michklethwait, EIC of Bloomberg News, former EIC of The Economist 19: Matthew Winkler, former EIC of Bloomberg News 20: Daniel Doctoroff, former CEO Forbes 21: Randall Lane, editor Los Angeles Times 22: Doyle McManus, Washington bureau chief 23: Shelby Coffey, former editor and EVP News Corp 24: Rupert Murdoch, executive chairman Fox News 25: Maria Bartiromo, news anchor 26: Heather Nauert, former news host 27: Dan Senor, commentator 28: Trish Regan, television host 29: Linda Vester, former news host Wall Street Journal (News Corp) 30: Peter Kann, former publisher 31: Karen Elliott House, former managing editor 32: L. Gordon Crovitz, former publisher 33: Robert Bartley, former editor 34: Paul A. Gigot, editorial page editor 35: Alan Murray, deputy managing editor 36: Daniel Henninger, deputy editorial page director 37: Gerald Seib, Washington bureau chief 38: Peggy Noonan, columnist 39: Paul Steiger, former managing editor (1991-2007) NBC 40: Pamela Thomas Graham, former CEO of CNBC 41: Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric (former owner of NBCUniversal) 42: Cesar Conde, chairman of NBC Universal International Group 43: Steve Capus, former president of NBC News 44: Tom Brokaw, news anchor 45: Mika Brzezinski, MSNBC news host 46: Andrea Mitchell, chief foreign affairs correspondent 47: Richard Engel, chief foreign corr. 48: Brian Williams, NBC chief anchor 49: Joe Scarborough, news host 50: Bianna Golodryga, news anchor 51: Ayman Mohyeldin, reporter The Economist 52: Lynn Forester de Rothschild, co-owner and board member 53: John Elkann (Agnelli family), co-owner and board member 54: Zanny Minton Beddoes, EIC 55: Rupert Pennant-Rea, chairman of the Economist Group 56: Vendeline von Bredow, business correspondent 57: Adrian Wooldridge, foreign correspondent 58: Bill Emmott, former EIC 59: Megan McArdle, journalist | The New Republic 60: Walter Lippmann, co-founder 61: Chris Hughes, former publisher 62: Peter Beinart, former editor 63: Morton Kondracke, former executive editor 64: J. Peter Scoblic, former executive editor 65: Ronald Steel, journalist & professor Time 66: Norman Pearlstine, chief content officer of Time Inc. 67: Michael Duffy, deputy managing editor 68: Nancy Gibbs, managing editor 69: Henry Luce, founding publisher 70: John Huey, former EIC 71: Richard Stengel, former managing editor 72: Joe Klein, columnist 73: Ian Bremmer, foreign affairs columnist & editor-at-Iarge 74: James Gaines, managing editor (1993-95) 75: Jason McManus, managing editor (1985-87) 76: Henry Grunwald, managing editor (1968-77) The New York Times 77: Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, former publisher (1963-92) 78: Arthur Hays Sulzberger, former publisher (1935-61) 79: Joseph Kahn, managing editor 80: Andrew Rosenthal, former editorial page editor 81: Serge Schmemann, international affairs editor 82: Susan Chira, former deputy executive editor 83: David C. Unger, former foreign affairs editor 84: David Sanger, Washington correspondent 85: Thomas Shanker, assistant Washington editor and former Pentagon correspondent 86: Thomas Friedman, foreign affairs columnist 87: Ethan Bronner, former deputy foreign editor 88: Andrew Ross Sorkin, financial columnist 89: Carol Giacomo, foreign affairs editor 90: Michael Gordon, chief military correspondent 91: Robert B. Semple, associate editorial page editor 92: Judith Miller, Washington bureau reporter 93: David Brooks, op-ed columnist 94: Nicholas Kristof, op-ed columnist and former associate managing editor

The Washington Post 95: Eugene Meyer, former publisher (1933-46) 96: Jeff Bezos, owner (since 2013) 97: Katharine Graham, former publisher (1969-79) 98: Donald E. Graham, former publisher S chairman (1979-2013) 99: Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor 100: Glenn Kessler, diplomatic correspondent and fact checker 101: Anne Applebaum, former editorial board member 102: Walter Pincus, national security journalist 103: Jackson Diehl, deputy editorial page editor 104: Charles Krauthammer, columnist 105: Robert Kaiser, former managing editor and senior correspondent 106: David Ignatius, associate editor 107: Eugene Robinson, columnist and chair of Pulitzer Prize Board 108: Karen DeYoung, associate editor 109: Marc Thiessen, columnist 110: Richard M. Cohen, columnist 111: Jim Hoagiand, associate editor and columnist 112: George F. Will, columnist CNN (Time Warner) 113: W. Thomas Johnson, former president 114: Walter Isaacson, former CEO 115: Ellana Lee, SVP of CNN International and managing editor Asia-Pacific 116: Mark Whitaker, former EVP and managing editor of CNN Worldwide 117: Fareed Zakaria, foreign affairs show host 118: Erin Burnett, news anchor 119: Sanjay Gupta, chief medical correspondent 120: David Gergen, senior political analyst 121: Christiane Amanpour, chief international correspondent 122: Judy Woodruff, news anchor 123: Peter Bergen, national security analyst 124: Kitty Pilgrim, former news anchor and correspondent 125: Paula Zahn, former news anchor 126: Elise Labott, global affairs correspondent 127: Ali Velshi, former chief business correspondent 128: Jake Tapper, chief Washington corr. 129: Sam Feist, SVP and Washington bureau chief 130: Jeffrey Toobin, legal analyst CBS News 131: Laurence A. Tisch, former CEO of CBS 132: William Paley, founder of CBS 133: Joseph Califano jr., CBS director 134: William Cohen, CBS director and former Secretary of Defense 135: Dan Rather, former news anchor 136: Bob Schieffer, news anchor and chief Washington com 137: Charlie Rose, talk show host 138: Lesley Stahl, news reporter 139: Margaret Brennan, White Houses senior foreign affairs corr. 140: Reena Ninan, news anchor 141: Edward R. Murrow, former broadcast journalist Time Warner 142: Jeffrey Bewkes, chairman & CEO 143: Gary Ginsberg, communications chief 144: Richard Parsons, former chairman S CEO 145: Gerald Levin, former chairman & CEO ABC News (Disney) 146: Ben Sherwood, president 147: David Westin, former president 148: George Stephanopoulos, chief anchor S chief political corr. 149: Juju Chang, news anchor 150: Barbara Walters, news anchor and show host 151: Peter Jennings, news anchor 152: Katie Couric, news anchor 153: Diane Sawyer, news anchor 154: Jonathan Karl, chief White House corr. Disney 155: Michael Eisner, former chairman S CEO 156: Monica Lozano, director The New Yorker 157: David Remnick, EIC 158: Amy Davidson, senior editor international affairs 159: Hendrik Hertzberg, principal political commentator 160: Lawrence Wright, staff writer 161: Evan Osnos, foreign affairs writer 162: Jane Kramer, European correspondent 163: Mark Danner, foreign affairs corr. 164: Nick Paumgarten, staff writer 165: Mattathias Schwartz, staff writer 166: Robin Wright, contributor The New York Review of Books 167: Robert Silvers, founding editor 168: Barbara Epstein, founding editor Newsweek 169: Richard M. Smith, former CEO &, EIC 170: Jon Meacham, former EIC 171: Janine di Giovanni, Middle East editor 172: Evan Thomas, former Washington bureau chief The Daily Beast 173: Tina Brown, founding editor 174: Barry Diller, chairman of IAC (owner of Daily Beast) USA Today 175: Joanne Lipman, EIC & chief content officer 176: David Andelman, international affairs columnist PBS 177: Donald A. Baer, chairman 178: Hartford N Gunn, founder 179: Jim Lehrer, former news anchor 180: Margaret Warner, senior correspondent 181: Bill Moyers, former news anchor 182: Jonathan Barzilay, COO NPR 183: Vivian Schiller, former CEO 184: Gary Knell, former president 185: Tom Gjelten, correspondent 186: DinaTemple-Raston, national security corr. Alphabet/Google 187: Eric Schmidt, executive chairman Facebook 188: Sheryl Sandberg, COO and director 189: Marne Levine, VP of global public policy The Atlantic 190: David G. Bradley, chairman of Atlantic Media. Based on official participant lists and membership rosters; non-exhaustive; no liability assumed.

Abbreviations: B: Bilderberg meeting participant Br: Bilderberg meeting rapporteur C: CFR member (incl. term members and former members) D: CFR director EIC: editor-in-chief F: CFR fellow M: married to CFR member S: son of CFR member T: Trilateral Commission member (incl. former members).

As SPR points out, Richard Harwood, former managing editor and ombudsman of the Washington Post, wrote about the Council on Foreign Relations Recognizing that its members most likely correspond to what one might call the "ruling establishment of the United States."

Harwood continued,

"The membership of these journalists in the council, however they may think of themselves, is an acknowledgment of their active and important role in public affairs and of their ascension into the American ruling class.

They do not merely analyze and interpret foreign policy for the United States; they help make it."

Let that sink in...

This group of unaccountable, unelected, professional propagandists in America doesn't simply analyze U.S. government policy - they make it.

While only five percent of the members of CFR work within the media, as SPR points out that is all they need to implement the will of its other members that includes:

• several U.S. presidents and vice presidents of both parties
  
  
• almost all foreign, defense and finance ministers
  
  
• most chiefs of staff and commanders of the U.S. military and NATO
  
  
• nearly all National Security Advisers, CIA Directors, UN Ambassadors, Fed Chairmen, World Bank Presidents, and Directors of the National Economic Council
  
  
• some of the most influential members of Congress (especially foreign and security politicians)
  
  
• numerous media managers and top journalists, as well as some of the most famous actors
  
  
• numerous prominent academics, especially in the key areas of economics, international relations, political and historical sciences, and journalism
  
  
• numerous executives from think tanks, universities, NGOs, and Wall Street
  
  
• key members of the 9/11 Commission and the Warren Commission (JFK)

To highlight just how much control over the media the CFR wields we need only look at the fact that they operate - in the open - and receive nearly no media coverage.

The former chairman of the CFR, High Commissioner for Germany, co-founder of the Atlantic Bridge, World Bank president, and an adviser to a total of nine U.S. presidents, John J. McCloy actually bragged publicly about the CFR hand picking U.S. politicians.

"Whenever we needed a man [in Washington], we just thumbed through the roll of Council members and put through a call to New York [to the CFR's headquarters office]," said McCloy.

Until the election of Trump the past four presidents have been the director of the CFR, George HW Bush, who was replaced by a member of the CFR, Bill Clinton, who was replaced by a family member of the CFR, George W Bush, who was then replaced by CFR aspirant candidate Barack Obama - who filled his cabinet with members of the elite group.

Although Donald Trump was never a public member of the CFR, that did not stop him from filling the White House with dozens of CFR members.

Here are just a few of the CFR members appointed by Trump:

• Elaine Chao, United States Secretary of Transportation (CFR individual member)
• Jamie Dimon, Member of Strategic and Policy Forum (CFR corporate member)
• Jim Donovan, Deputy Treasury Secretary (CFR corporate member)
• Larry Fink, Member of Strategic and Policy Forum (CFR corporate member)
• Neil M. Gorsuch, Supreme Court Justice (individual CFR member)
• Vice Admiral Robert S. Harward, National Security Advisor (declined appointment) (CFR corporate member)

Even though Trump wasn't a CFR member outright, his cabinet is made up almost entirely of its members. 

As this information illustrates - democracy is an illusion.