Well, not really first. They had already come for Chelsea Manning; for Julian Assange; for John Kiriakou; for Jeffrey Sterling – the list is longer still. Last Friday they came SWAT-Like for the founder and editor of thegrayzone.com, journalist Max Blumenthal, whom they arrested, cuffed, jailed, and shackled, and prevented immediate access to a lawyer. Corporate media played Tar Baby – “didn’t say nothin” about Max.

Meanwhile, former CIA Acting Director John McLaughlin – WMD slam-dunker extraordinaire and devoted fan of Iraqi bio-weapons fabricator “Curveball,” – told a captive audience, “Thank God for the Deep State.”

On RT’s CrossTalk Ray joined Garland Nixon and Dan Kovalik for a no-holds-barred discussion of what happened to Max and why. Nov. 1, 2019; 37 minutes (including a commercial break from 12:15 to 14:45.) Also on Podcast.

Obama shied away from holding McLaughlin and his boss George Tenet accountable for fraudulent intelligence before Iraq, while Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence Carl Ford said the two of them “should be shot.”

As for the former partners-in-crime and direct descendants of Tenet/McLaughlin – Brennan et al. – Obama chickened out there too. He could not even find the courage to rein them in from illegal activities to help Hillary, which are about to be revealed, in all their squalor, by Justice Department investigations – unless Trump, too, chickens out.

Ray’s unkempt beard is meant as a sign of solidarity with good and admired friend, Julian.

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. His 27-year career as a CIA analyst includes serving as Chief of the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch and preparer/briefer of the President’s Daily Brief. He is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). This originally appeared at RayMcGovern.com.