Trump approval reaches new high of 50% among registered voters nationwide-Morning Consult Politico Poll, 2/24-2/26/17

.
Poll dates: Feb. 24-26, 2017, 2000 registered voters, online poll

2/28/17, "Ahead of Joint Address, Most Voters Think Trump Is Delivering on Promises," Morning Consult, Eli Yokley

"As President Donald Trump prepares to deliver his speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, most voters say he has kept his promises to the American people during his first month in office."...

 

Among Trump voters: 88% say he's keeping his promises so far. 

Among all voters: 56% say he's keeping his promises so far.

"On the campaign trail, Trump promised a lot. He pitched voters on a broad “America first” pledge — reinforced during his inaugural address — aimed at strengthening the country’s manufacturing sector and improving the job market, as well as “draining the swamp” of influence in Washington. He also vowed to cut regulations, ramp up deportations of undocumented immigrants [illegal aliens], build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, slow the flow of refugees and immigrants into the U.S., repeal...[ObamaCare], and “drain the swamp” of political corruption.

And while Trump has taken steps to accomplish some of these goals — mostly via executive action — it’s too early to determine how successful he will be in pushing his agenda through. But, most voters say he’s delivering so far....

A third of voters (33 percent) said Trump has accomplished more than they expected since he took office in January, while 36 percent said he has accomplished about as much as they expected him to. More than half of Trump’s supporters (56 percent) said Trump has accomplished more than they expected, while about 4 in 10 (39 percent) of Clinton’s voters said he’d accomplished about as much as they expected.... 

Trump’s approval numbers among registered voters also hit a new high over the weekend, with 50 percent approving of his performance, [page 1] compared with 45 percent who do not....

The national, online survey polled 2,000 registered voters on Feb. 24-26. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. See more here."

.................... 

p. 4. Should transgendered persons use rest rooms according to the gender they identify with or the gender they were born with?

Identify as: 38%

Born with: 46%

Don't know: 16%

-------------

Demographics, page 12

...................

Male 47, female 53

..............

Dem. 35, Ind. 31, R. 34

----------------

Liberal 31, Moderate 23, Conservative 37

-------------

Education: Less than college 66; Bachelors degree 22, Post grad. 12

.....................

Income: Under $50,000 53, $50-100,000 33, $100,000+ 14

....................... 

Demographics, page 13

.................

Race: White 81, Hispanic 9, Black 13, Other 6
.....................

Top Issue, page 14
.....................

Economy 30%
Security 21%
Health care 16%
Medicare/Soc. Security 15%

.................

WSJ NBC News Poll: 86% agree with Trump that a few in Washington have 'reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost.' For first time since 2002, Republican optimism soars. Americans overall "view Trump more positively than negatively on being effective, bringing change to D.C., being firm and decisive, direct and straightforward-and perhaps most importantly, dealing with the economy”-Wall St. Journal, 2/26/17. Poll dates, 2/18-2/22/17

.

"Asked about the course of the country, 40% said the nation is headed in the right direction. That is up from 33% in December and 18% in July."
 
Poll dates: Feb. 18-22, 2017, telephone interviews with 1000 adults nationwide. (No further description, such as if respondents voted, political affiliation, male vs female) 3.1 error margin on total. No link to poll. Article is WSJ subscription.

2/26/17, "Many Americans Disapprove of Trump but Are Open to His Agenda, Poll Finds," Wall St. Journal, Michael C. Bender

(Scroll to paragraph 17): "47% said they approve of most of his policies. That is a higher rate than Ronald Reagan recorded in January 1987, or George W. Bush in March 2006. Among three previous Republican presidents, only George H.W. Bush had a higher rating, in October 1991, with 50% approving. 

When pollsters tested one of the lines from Mr. Trump’s inaugural speech—asking whether a small group in Washington had “reaped the rewards of government, while the people have borne the cost”—an overwhelming majority of 86% said they agreed.

“I thought this would test well, but never thought it would reach 86%,” Mr. McInturff said. 

He added that while Mr. Trump’s speeches are often described as dark and apocalyptic, many individual lines resonate powerfully with many Americans. That may continue with Mr. Trump’s address to Congress on Tuesday. 

The poll suggested that the public may be sympathetic to some of Mr. Trump’s recent attacks on the media. A majority of adults, 51%, said the media has been too critical of the president, while 41% said the press has been fair and objective.

When a similar question was asked in the third year of Mr. Clinton’s first term, 45% said news coverage of the president was fairly well balanced, while about one-third said it was biased against Mr. Clinton and 16% said it was biased in his favor.

Aiding Mr. Trump’s approval rating was the fact that Americans are slowly becoming more optimistic about the country and the economy. Asked about the course of the country, 40% said the nation is headed in the right direction. That is up from 33% in December, and 18% in July.

A plurality of Americans, 41%, continue to believe that the U.S. economy will improve, a postelection shift that followed three years in which most Americans expected economic prospects to remain stagnant. Among those who are anticipating improvement, 73% credit the expected gains mostly to Mr. Trump’s policies, while 20% say it would result from the normal ebb and flow of the business cycle. 

Some 60% of Americans now say they’re hopeful and optimistic about the future of the country, up 4 percentage points from December. Just 40% are worried and pessimistic, slightly lower than in other recent Journal/NBC News polls.

That optimism is reflected in a sharp change in how Americans view major institutions in the country. For the first time since 2002, a majority of adults, or 52%, say they don’t believe the nation’s economic and political systems are stacked against them. An improved outlook among Republicans is largely responsible for the change....

“His voters wanted change,” Mr. McInturff said. “He’s not another president; he’s their president. And Americans overall do view him more positively than negatively on being effective, bringing change to D.C., being firm and decisive, direct and straightforward—and perhaps most importantly, dealing with the economy.” 

The Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll was based on nationwide telephone interviews of 1,000 adults conducted from Feb. 18-22. Overall, the data’s margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. The margin of error for subgroups is larger."

"Write to Michael C. Bender at Mike.Bender@wsj.com"

..............................

Comment: George W. Bush scorned Republican voters and ensured that the Republican Party, if it existed at all, didn't reflect views of its voters. He left the country with only one functioning political party, no checks and balances, effectively a dictatorship. Trump offered to represent us and didn't scorn us:

2/26/2017: "For the first time since 2002, a majority of adults, or 52%, say they don’t believe the nation’s economic and political systems are stacked against them. An improved outlook among Republicans is largely responsible for the change."... 

....................

Added: Written 10 years ago, 6/2/2007: George W. Bush  cavalierly destroyed the Republican Party: George W. Bush "sundered the party that rallied to him, and broke his colition to pieces...This is sad, and it holds implications not only for one political party but for the American future....Now conservatives and Republicans are going to have to win back their party. They are going to have to break from those who have already broken from them."...6/2/2007, Peggy Noonan, WSJ 

6/2/2007, "Too bad," Wall St. Journal, by Peggy Noonan 

"What political conservatives and on-the-ground Republicans must understand at this point is that they are not breaking with the White House on immigration. They are not resisting, fighting and thereby setting down a historical marker -- "At this point the break became final." That's not what's happening. What conservatives and Republicans must recognize is that the White House has broken with them. What President Bush is doing, and has been doing for some time, is sundering a great political coalition. This is sad, and it holds implications not only for one political party but for the American future.

The White House doesn't need its traditional supporters anymore, because its problems are way beyond being solved by the base. And the people in the administration don't even much like the base. Desperate straits have left them liberated, and they are acting out their disdain. Leading Democrats often think their base is slightly mad but at least their heart is in the right place. This White House thinks its base is stupid and that its heart is in the wrong place.

For almost three years, arguably longer, conservative Bush supporters have felt like sufferers of battered wife syndrome. You don't like endless gushing spending, the kind that assumes a high and unstoppable affluence will always exist, and the tax receipts will always flow in? Too bad! You don't like expanding governmental authority and power? Too bad. You think the war was wrong or is wrong? Too bad.

But on immigration it has changed from "Too bad" to "You're bad."

The president has taken to suggesting that opponents of his immigration bill are are unpatriotic -- they "don't want to do what's right for America." His ally Sen. Lindsey Graham has said, "We're gonna tell the bigots to shut up." On Fox last weekend he vowed to "push back."

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff suggested opponents would prefer illegal immigrants be killed; Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said those who oppose the bill want "mass deportation." Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson said those who oppose the bill are "anti-immigrant" and suggested they suffer from "rage" and "national chauvinism."

Why would they speak so insultingly, with such hostility, of opponents who are concerned citizens? And often, though not exclusively, concerned conservatives? It is odd, but it is of a piece with, or a variation on, the "Too bad" governing style. And it is one that has, day by day for at least the past three years, been tearing apart the conservative movement....

The beginning of my own sense of separation from the Bush administration came in January 2005, when the president declared that it is now the policy of the United States to eradicate tyranny in the world, and that the survival of American liberty is dependent on the liberty of every other nation. This was at once so utopian and so aggressive that it shocked me. For others the beginning of distance might have been Katrina and the incompetence it revealed, or the depth of the mishandling and misjudgments of Iraq....

One of the things I have come to think the past few years is that the Bushes, father and son, though different in many ways, are great wasters of political inheritance. 

They throw it away as if they'd earned it and could do with it what they liked. Bush senior inherited a vibrant country and a party at peace with itself. He won the leadership of a party that had finally, at great cost, by 1980, fought itself through to unity and come together on shared principles. Mr. Bush won in 1988 by saying he would govern as Reagan had. Yet he did not understand he'd been elected to Reagan's third term. He thought he'd been elected because they liked him. And so he raised taxes, sundered a hard-won coalition, and found himself shocked to lose the presidency, and for eight long and consequential years. He had many virtues, but he wasted his inheritance.

Bush the younger came forward, presented himself as a conservative, garnered all the frustrated hopes of his party, turned them into victory, and not nine months later was handed a historical trauma that left his country rallied around him, lifting him, and his party bonded to him. He was disciplined and often daring, but in time he sundered the party that rallied to him, and broke his coalition into pieces. He threw away his inheritance. I do not understand such squandering.

Now conservatives and Republicans are going to have to win back their party. They are going to have to break from those who have already broken from them. This will require courage, serious thinking and an ability to do what psychologists used to call letting go. This will be painful, but it's time. It's more than time."




 

.....................

NYC Mayor De Blasio's quest for national respect hit another roadblock Saturday after defeat of his candidate Ellison for DNC chair-NY Post Editorial Board

. 
2/24/17, DeBlasio exits NYC building after 5 hours of questioning by feds: 















................

2/26/17, "De Blasio’s quest for national respect hits another roadblock," NY Post Editorial Board 

"Mayor de Blasio’s endless drive to win respect as a national progressive leader hit another banana peel Saturday with the defeat of his candidate to chair the Democratic National Committee. 

The mayor had dramatically flown to Atlanta on Friday afternoon, after his 4½-hour grilling by federal prosecutors probing the possible sale of City Hall favors, to rally support for Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison.

The change-the-subject stunt annoyed some in the Ellison camp. As Mary Kay Linge and Aaron Short reported in Sunday’s Post, one Democratic source said Ellison allies had asked de Blasio not to come: “The buzz is, what the f–k was he doing here?”

After all, the mayor has built a rep not so much as a progressive leader but as a progressive opportunist. During the long Bernie Sanders-Hillary Clinton contest for the 2016 presidential nomination, he first tried (and failed) to play power broker, as with his unsuccessful efforts to make both candidates attend his own issues forum.

Behind the scenes, he was trying to get the Clinton camp to make him its point man with progressives as a condition of his support. In the end, he got nothing for holding out months after virtually every other New York elected Democrat had endorsed Clinton.

Perhaps de Blasio was looking to reconnect with the Bernie bros by going all-in for Ellison: Sanders and American Federation of Teachers chief Randi Weingarten were the two main speakers when Ellison announced for the job.

In the end, though, former Labor Secretary Tom Perez — the preferred candidate of former President Barack Obama — won. 

Meanwhile, de Blasio burned bridges with other local Democrats by failing to support the DNC vice-chair bids of Bronx Assemblyman Michael Blake and Queens Rep. Grace Meng. (Instead, he backed a California labor activist.)

In a speech Friday night at a private party (he didn’t get a slot at the actual meeting), the mayor complained that people had come to see Democrats as “a party of lobbyists and consultants.” Funny: The mayor himself not only faces multiple probes into his relationship with lobbyists, he’s also in court fighting to keep the public from seeing his communications with lobbyist-consultants he declared to be secret “agents of the city.”

Perhaps the rest of the progressive movement has good reason for not wanting de Blasio as its leader."




...............

Rapper MC Rove performs at 2007 Radio and Television Correspondents' Dinner-Time.com

.

Karl Rove, 2007 Beltway media dinner

"The Radio-Television Correspondents Association is the major organization of broadcast journalists who report on the U.S. Congress in Washington, D.C. comprised of radio and television broadcasters from every part of the world."

"Top Ten Performing Politicians," time.com

6 of 10, "Karl Rove": The main attraction of course is DJ Jazzy Rover here. At the 2007 Radio and Television Correspondents' Dinner, the Architect himself revealed his most frightening persona — MC Rove. Which is really the laziest hip-hop name he could have come up with. Ol' Dirty Rove? Rove Dogg? Ice-K? We're not even trying here. Also, he apparently believes that rapping can only occur with a deep, faux-gravelly voice. Shockingly embarrassing, no matter your politics."...






...........

Warren Buffett says weather events haven't changed in a way that would cause his insurance businesses to write policies differently-CNBC, 2/27/17

.
2/27/17, "Warren Buffett says global warming is not impacting the way Berkshire writes insurance," CNBC, Tom DiChristopher

"Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett on Monday said he has not yet seen sufficient evidence that climate change is affecting weather events to a degree that would make him change the way his conglomerate's insurance businesses write policies.

Events such as Hurricane Sandy have raised concerns that global warming is increasing the intensity and frequency of so-called superstorms.

"I have not seen anything yet that would cause me to change the way we look at evaluating quakes, tornadoes, hurricanes by atmosphere. Now, that may happen some day," he told CNBC's "Squawk Box." 

He added that the frequency of Florida hurricanes has been "quite low" for roughly the last decade compared to historical trends, and storms in the Sunshine State, Texas and the U.S. Southeast have been "remarkably benign."

Buffett delivered a similar assessment in last year's annual letter to shareholders. In that letter, he said climate change had not up until then "produced more frequent nor more costly hurricanes nor other weather-related events covered by insurance."

That caused rates for super-catastrophe insurance to fall, leading Berkshire to back away from the products, according to Buffett. Costlier and more frequent "super-cats" would actually likely benefit Berkshire's insurance business, he wrote.

At the time the letter was released, Buffett was facing a proposal from a shareholder that asked Berkshire to report on the dangers climate change poses to the company's insurance operations.

Research shows it is premature to conclude greenhouse gas emissions from human activities "have already had a detectable impact on Atlantic hurricane or global tropical cyclone activity," according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration."...



..............

With Hollywood and Oscars on board, We are all Neocons now: False Syrian war coverage by US media and Hollywood cause more suffering and death. Misinformed Americans are most dangerous because with their support US neocons can righteously decree death of nations or 'regime change' as they did in Libya-Boston Globe, 2/28/2016, Stephen Kinzer. Hollywood and Oscars warmongers pretending to be humanitarians profits bloody Beltway Endless War Party-Rick Sterling, Consortium News. 2/2/4/17

.
At a 2016 debate in Milwaukee, "Hillary Clinton claimed that United Nations peace efforts in Syria were based on "an agreement I negotiated in June of 2012 in Geneva." The precise opposite is true....No one on the Milwaukee stage knew enough to challenge her."  

Feb. 18, 2016, "The media are misleading the public on Syria," Boston Globe, Stephen Kinzer, opinion

"Coverage of the Syrian war will be remembered as one of the most shameful episodes in the history of the American press. Reporting about carnage in the ancient city of Aleppo is the latest reason why. 

For three years, violent militants have run Aleppo. Their rule began with a wave of repression. They posted notices warning residents:

“Don’t send your children to school. If you do, we will get the backpack and you will get the coffin.” Then they destroyed factories, hoping that unemployed workers would have no recourse other than to become fighters. They trucked looted machinery to Turkey and sold it. 

This month, people in Aleppo have finally seen glimmers of hope. The Syrian army and its allies have been pushing militants out of the city. Last week they reclaimed the main power plant. Regular electricity may soon be restored. The militants’ hold on the city could be ending. 

Militants, true to form, are wreaking havoc as they are pushed out of the city by Russian and Syrian Army forces. “Turkish-Saudi backed ‘moderate rebels’ showered the residential neighborhoods of Aleppo with unguided rockets and gas jars,” one Aleppo resident wrote on social media. The Beirut-based analyst Marwa Osma asked, “The Syrian Arab Army, which is led by President Bashar Assad, is the only force on the ground, along with their allies, who are fighting ISIS— so you want to weaken the only system that is fighting ISIS?”

 This does not fit with Washington’s narrative. As a result, much of the American press is reporting the opposite of what is actually happening. Many news reports suggest that Aleppo has been a “liberated zone” for three years but is now being pulled back into misery. 

Americans are being told that the virtuous course in Syria is to fight the Assad regime and its Russian and Iranian partners. We are supposed to hope that a righteous coalition of Americans, Turks, Saudis, Kurds, and the “moderate opposition” will win. 

This is convoluted nonsense, but Americans cannot be blamed for believing it. We have almost no real information about the combatants, their goals, or their tactics. Much blame for this lies with our media. 

Under intense financial pressure, most American newspapers, magazines, and broadcast networks have drastically reduced their corps of foreign correspondents. 

Much important news about the world now comes from reporters based in Washington. In that environment, access and credibility depend on acceptance of official paradigms. Reporters who cover Syria check with the Pentagon, the State Department, the White House, and think tank “experts.” After a spin on that soiled carousel, they feel they have covered all sides of the story. This form of stenography produces the pabulum that passes for news about Syria. 

Inevitably, this kind of disinformation has bled into the American presidential campaign. At the recent debate in Milwaukee, Hillary Clinton claimed that United Nations peace efforts in Syria were based on “an agreement I negotiated in June of 2012 in Geneva.”

The precise opposite is true. In 2012 Secretary of State Clinton joined Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Israel in a successful effort to kill Kofi Annan’s UN peace plan because it would have accommodated Iran and kept Assad in power, at least temporarily. No one on the Milwaukee stage knew enough to challenge her. 

Politicians may be forgiven for distorting their past actions. Governments may also be excused for promoting whatever narrative they believe best suits them. Journalism, however, is supposed to remain apart from the power elite and its inbred mendacity. In this crisis it has failed miserably. 

Americans are said to be ignorant of the world. We are, but so are people in other countries. If people in Bhutan or Bolivia misunderstand Syria, however, that has no real effect. Our ignorance is more dangerous, because we act on it. The United States has the power to decree the death of nations."...

[For example in Libya:
  

Hillary: "We came, we saw; he died" 10/20/2011

"We came, we saw; he died," Hillary Clinton quipped on Oct. 20, 2011, on hearing of death by sodomy of Libya's Qaddafi which left Libya lawless and overrun with Islamic militias.]
















[Ed. note: Many Americans--and many journalists--are content with the official story.]

(continuing): "In Syria, it is:

“Fight Assad, Russia, and Iran! Join with our Turkish, Saudi, and Kurdish friends to support peace!” This is appallingly distant from reality. It is also likely to prolong the war and condemn more Syrians to suffering and death." 

"Stephen Kinzer is a senior fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University. Follow him on Twitter @stephenkinzer."

...........................

Added:

Oscar-nominated "short documentary" Netflix movie "The White Helmets"..."is a contrived infomercial." 

2/24/2017, "Syrian War Propaganda at the Oscars," Consortium News, Rick Sterling

"The Western-backed war in Syria, like the invasion of Iraq, was so smothered by propaganda that truth was not only the first casualty but has been steadily suffocated for five years, now reaching the Oscars, says Rick Sterling.

"The Netflix movie "The White Helmets" may win an Oscar in the “short documentary” category at the Academy Awards on Sunday. It would not be a surprise despite the fact that the group is a fraud and the movie is a contrived infomercial.

Awarding “The White Helmets” an Oscar would fit with the desire of Hollywood to appear supportive of “human rights,” even if that means supporting a propaganda operation to justify another bloody “regime change” war in the Middle East.

Much of what people think they know about the White Helmets is untrue. The group is not primarily Syrian; it was initiated by British military contractor James LeMesurier and has been heavily funded (about $100 million) by the U.S., U.K. and other governments. The White Helmets are not volunteers; they are paid, which is confirmed in a Al Jazeera video that shows some White Helmet “volunteers” talking about going on strike if they don’t get paid soon.

Still, most of the group’s heavy funding goes to marketing, which is run by “The Syria Campaign” based in New York. The manager is an Irish-American, Anna Nolan, who has never been to Syria. As an example of its deception, “The Syria Campaign” website features video showing children dancing and playing soccer implying they are part of the opposition demand for a “free and peaceful” Syria. 

But the video images are taken from a 2010 BBC documentary about education in Syria under the Baath government.

There is also something almost dated about the Academy selecting this infomercial as an Oscar finalist, let alone the possibility of giving it the award. It’s as if the Syrian propaganda narrative of “good” rebels vs. “bad” government was still viable. In the case of the White Helmets, they were literally made into “white hats” bravely resisting the government’s “black hats.”

Yet, we now know that the propaganda around the “noble” rebels holding out in east Aleppo – with the help of the White Helmets – was largely a lie. The rebels mostly fought under the command structure of Al Qaeda’s Nusra affiliate and its fellow jihadists in Ahrar al-Sham. A video shows White Helmet workers picking up the corpse of a civilian after execution by Nusra/Al Qaeda and celebrating the extremists’ battle wins.

Western “human rights” groups touted not only the White Helmets but the “moderate rebels” who we now know were largely a P.R. cover for the terrorists and jihadists, as well as an excuse for the U.S. and its allies to funnel in weapons that were then turned over to the extremists
.
When eastern Aleppo was finally freed from the armed militants, it was discovered that the White Helmets headquarters were alongside the headquarters of Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate. Civilians from east Aleppo reported that the White Helmets primarily rallied their “humanitarian” operations when the militants were attacked.

Soon after departing Aleppo in government-supplied buses, the White Helmets showed up in the mountains above Damascus where they allied with terrorist groups responsible for poisoning and then shutting off the water source for five million people in Damascus.

Neither Neutral Nor Independent

The White Helmets’s claim to be neutral and independent is another lie. They only work in areas controlled by the rebel groups, primarily Al Qaeda’s Nusra, and their leaders seek to bring in direct U.S. and NATO military intervention to assure a “regime change” in Syria although it likely would create a vacuum that the extremists would exploit to the further suffering of the Syrian people.

The film is as fraudulent as the group it tries to turn into heroes. The filmmakers never set foot in Syria. Their video footage takes place in southern Turkey where they show White Helmet trainees in a hotel and talking on cell phones. The footage from inside Syria is not from independent journalists but from the White Helmets themselves – and much of it looks contrived.

Khaled Khatib, the White Helmets’s photographer who says he filmed the footage inside Syria, reportedly received a U.S. visa and will attend the Oscars. Khatib tweeted the first video he took showing the White Helmets, with a girl who was totally buried being removed without injuries or wounds or even much dirt.

The original video has the logo of Aleppo Media Center (AMC), which was created by the Syrian Expatriates Organization. Their address on K Street in Washington DC suggests this is yet another Western-funded operation similar to the Iraqi National Congress that lobbied and lied on behalf of the 2003 invasion of Iraq
.
In the past few days, with perfect timing for the upcoming Oscars, there was yet another “miracle” rescue, another girl buried but then removed and whisked away in record-breaking time – perfect for social media.

The momentum in support of the White Helmets infomercial raises a question about how this Oscar is awarded. Is it for journalistic authenticity or is it to conform with the political passions of the moment, which themselves are partly contrived by a well-funded propaganda campaign mounted by Western/Israeli/Gulf governments.

Investigative Reports

The true source and real purpose of the White Helmets were exposed almost two years ago by investigative journalists. Max Blumenthal has written a two-part detailed examination of the “shadowy PR firm” behind the White Helmets. And Jan Oberg has written an overview survey of the “pro” and “con” examinations in his work “Just How Gray are the White Helmets”.

Map of Syria

More recently, Vanessa Beeley has documented the fact that the White Helmets pretends to be the Syrian Civil Defense when there is a real Syrian Civil Defense, which was begun in the 1950s and is a member of the International Civil Defense Organizations. The White Helmets group was launched as “Syria Civil Defense” in Turkey in 2013 before being re-branded as the “White Helmets” in 2014. 

According to on-the-ground interviews in Aleppo, militants began supplying this operation by killing real Syrian rescue workers and stealing their equipment. Since then the White Helmets have been supplied by the West through Turkey with brand new ambulances and related rescue equipment. 

Despite exposés about the group, the West’s mainstream media and some “alternative” outlets continue to uncritically promote the White Helmets myth and rely on the group as a source of news about Syria. In 2014-2015, the White Helmets became a rallying point for columnist Nicholas Kristof, the activist group Avaaz and others to campaign for all-out Western assault on the Syrian government and its military.

Perhaps ironically – given the Israeli government’s desire for a “regime change” in Syria – the Israeli mainstream TV program I24 presented both sides of the issue and titled the segment “White Helmets: Heroes or Hoax?” By contrast, the progressive program “DemocracyNow” in the United States has only broadcast a puff piece promoting the “White Helmet” disinformation.

Whether or not the White Helmets snag the Academy Award, they surely deserve recognition for their skillful marketing and advertising. In 2016, the group received the Rights Livelihood Award and was seriously considered for a Nobel Peace Prize. The Oscar nomination for “The White Helmets” movie is just the latest success in the ongoing campaign of distortion and deception around Syria."

"Rick Sterling is an investigative journalist who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. He can be reached at rsterling1@gmail.com"




..............