Mike Scruggs
In November 1939, the Soviet Army shelled a small Russian village near the Finnish border. Soviet leaders blamed the attack on Finland and used it as a pretext to to invade Finland four days later.
“False Flag” (originally Naval terminology) actions are particularly common in covert operations to disguise the identity of the aggressor.
In the four Republican primaries held on Tuesday, March 8, Marco Rubio won only one delegate out of 150. In the Michigan Primary, he had come in fourth, while Cruz and Kasich were essentially tied at second/third place, each gaining 17 delegates. Rubio got zero delegates. It was then that the Republican establishment began to realize Marco Rubio was probably not going to work out as their ordained candidate to defeat widespread conservative resistance and to maintain establishment dominance over the Republican Party. Furthermore, he was running far behind Trump and even Cruz in polls anticipating the March 15 Florida Primary, his own home state. In the last few weeks, Rubio brought in GOP consultant and influential RNC member, Henry Barbour, nephew of former Mississippi Governor and former RNC Chairman, Haley Barbour, to work the sort of magic “campaign tactics” that saved Senator Thad Cochran from a Tea Party challenger in the Mississippi U.S. Senate Primary in 2014. Barbour’s tactics had a measurable effect, but they could not make up for the resentment Florida voters harbored against Rubio for his betrayal of them on amnesty and other immigration issues. Seeing Rubio’s inevitable defeat in Florida, influential establishment Republicans had already begun to look to John Kasich to carry the GOP establishment baton to victory.
The Republican establishment can mostly be defined by immigration issues. The big donors who support establishment Republican politicians want cheap labor, and they are willing to give amnesties and import millions of permanent legal “green-card” and guest-workers to displace more expensive American workers. There is close to half a trillion dollars of annual profit in hiring cheap foreign workers, legal or illegal, to replace American workers. The Democrats favor this situation, because it gains them millions of new low-information voters, without which they would perish as a party. The Republican establishment favors cheap labor because of the enormous political donations it brings from corporations and industry groups lobbying for ever cheaper foreign labor. Cheap foreign labor also costs federal, state, and local governments more than a hundred billion dollars per year for welfare, healthcare, food stamps, education, and community services.
Most taxpayers do not realize they are essentially subsidizing employers who hire illegal immigrants and cheap legal foreign labor. Lobbyists spend hundreds of millions of dollars per year to bribe Congress into supporting high levels of legal and illegal immigration that harm American workers and taxpayers and is tremendously unpopular with the great majority of Republican voters. Hence the Republican establishment, which includes House Speaker, Paul Ryan, Senate leader Mitch McConnell, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, and large numbers of U.S. House, U.S. Senate, and state legislators is facing unprecedented levels of revolt by the conservative backbone of the Republican Party.
Ohio Governor John Kasich was already strongly pro-amnesty and given a D grade by NumbersUSA on immigration issues. He probably had a great advantage in that comparatively few voters realized his very liberal immigration positions, whereas Rubio’s had been thoroughly documented by the 2013 Gang-of-Eight amnesty and legal immigration surge bill. However, on March 13, speaking to a Hispanic group, Kasich declared that full amnesty would be passed within 100 days of his inauguration as President He then began to make numerous exaggerated statements praising illegal immigrants and declaring a national need to keep illegal immigrant workers here now and greatly expand legal immigration. His demands closely resembled Marco Rubio’s Gang-of-Eight bill. It was obvious that he wanted to replace Rubio as the establishment’s ordained candidate in the primaries. It was a big help that he won his own State of Ohio’s primary with a winner-take-all total of 66 delegates. Anti-American billionaire George Soros and his closest associates have thus far given Kasich’s campaign and a pro-Kasich Super-Pac over $700,000. Hence Kasich is staying in the race in hopes of being the victor in a convention battle. Soros has given Hillary Clinton and pro-Clinton Super-Pacs $8.0 million in campaign funds. In a recent article in the British newspaper, the Telegraph, Soros named both Trump and Cruz as two of the most dangerous opponents of an open society. While some of the “Stop Trump” GOP faction are willing to go with Cruz to prevent total establishment destruction, it is obvious that Soros is determined that neither shall be President. He is apparently hedging his bet by backing both Kasich and Clinton.
Ted Cruz knew that taking all 40 delegates in the Utah Caucus was essential to blocking Trump’s momentum toward a first ballot GOP Convention victory. Cruz’s campaign manager has also admitted that their campaign fund balance had dropped to only $8.0 million, not much to compete with the near limitless resources of Donald Trump, although Trump has been extremely sparing in campaign expenditures, depending instead upon his astonishing ability to get enormous amounts of free media exposure. All stops were pulled to achieve at least the 50 percent requirement to get all 40 delegates. He was polling 52 percent a week ahead of the caucus but actually won a whopping 69 percent. Some Utah delegates have complained of unprecedented laxness in ballot procedures and security, but the fairness of the caucus procedure has paled before more powerful factors that are now getting 20 times the publicity of the entire Utah Caucus.
Utah’s predominant religious denomination is the Latter Day Saints (LDS), commonly called Mormons, famously conservative on many social issues. LDS heavy-weights Mitt Romney and Glenn Beck were there during the primary denouncing Trump, with Beck even claiming that no Christian could vote for Trump. More importantly, an anti-Trump Super-Pac, “Make America Awesome,” managed by former Carly Fiorina staffer, Liz Mair, ran advertisements featuring a photo taken in 2000 of Donald Trump’s wife, before she married Trump. Melania, a former model born in Slovenia, was in a state of partially exposed nudity. The caption on the ad read: “Meet Melania Trump, your next first lady, or, you could support Ted Cruz on Tuesday.”
In a curious transaction last July, $500,000 was transferred from Ted Cruz’s Super-Pac to Carly Fiorina’s Super-Pac. Her former Deputy Campaign Manager, Sarah Isgur Flores, has been identified as one of the five women in the Enquirer story.
Trump was outraged by the attack on his wife and warned by Twitter that he would retaliate if Cruz persisted. A few days later, Trump posted a photo of the two wives, with an unfavorable expression on Heidi Cruz’s face.
On March 23, the National Enquirer published a story that Ted Cruz had sexual affairs with five women. The story had been shopped around for several weeks. Breitbart News reviewed it and rejected it as having insufficient support. Breitbart did not reveal who approached them with the story. It is a common journalistic practice not to reveal the names of such sources. However, they did say the source was an ally of the Marco Rubio campaign, but not actually a member of the campaign staff.
Cruz immediately accused Donald Trump of instigating a false story. The National Enquirer has been favorable to Trump’s presidential campaign, and Trump is a personal friend of David Pecker, CEO of AMI (American Media Inc.) that owns the Enquirer. Trump continues to deny any connection to the story. The National Enquirer has a reputation for publishing scurrilous information on celebrities, but they have proved to be right on John Edwards, Tiger Woods, Jesse Jackson, and many others.
Nevertheless, I do not believe that the evidence released so far will sustain any significant charges against Cruz. Nor do I believe that Trump instigated the Enquirer’s story. Yet it could do great harm to both candidates and possibly result in a third person more acceptable to the GOP establishment receiving the GOP nomination for President. Although Cruz is the “accused” and may suffer the loss of badly needed campaign donations, it will probably hurt Trump more in the polls. This is because the main stream media is already bashing Trump 24-7 at every opportunity or excuse day after day. But he has overcome many difficulties and much opposition. It is probable that Kasich will benefit from the troubles of both Cruz and Trump, but I do not believe he is personally involved with the Enquirer story.
I believe we are witnessing a clever political version of a covert false flag, diverting the attention of voters from serious national and international issues and badly damaging the two leading non-establishment GOP primary candidates so that either a GOP establishment candidate wins the party nomination and/or the Democrat candidate, most likely Hillary Clinton, wins in November.
--Mike Scruggs
