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Was CIA Director Brennan’s 1976 Vote for a Communist Just a Youthful Indiscretion?
The New American ^ | 26 September 2016 | Bob Adelmann

Posted on 09/26/2016 10:08:01 AM PDT by VitacoreVision

During a panel discussion Thursday at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s annual conference, CIA Director John Brennan (shown) was trying to make the point that just because an individual has an “activist” background, that wouldn’t, or shouldn’t, keep him from working for the federal government in sensitive positions. After all, he said, the CIA hired him even after he admitted voting for a communist in the 1976 presidential elections.

In 1980, Brennan was trying to obtain a top security clearance for the Central Intelligence Agency, and part of the process involved taking a lie detector test. He was asked: “Have you ever worked with or for a group that was dedicated to overthrowing the US?” Brennan explained to the panel what happened next:

I froze. This was back in 1980, and I thought back to a previous election [1976] where I voted, and I voted for the Communist Party Candidate [Gus Hall]….
I said I was neither Democratic or Republican, but it was my way, as I was going to college, of signaling my unhappiness with the “system," and the need for “change.”
I said I’m not a member of the Communist Party, so the polygrapher looked at me and said, “OK,” and when I was finished with the polygraph, I left and said [to myself], “Well, I’m s-----d.”

Brennan wasn’t “s-----d” after all. He was admitted to the CIA, which proved his point as he told the Black Caucus:

So if, back in 1980, John Brennan was allowed to say, “I voted for the Communist Party with Gus Hall — and still go through, rest assured that your rights and expressions and your freedom of speech as Americans is something that’s not going to be disqualifying of you as you pursue a career in government.

Was this, as Brennan claimed, just a youthful indiscretion? Or have his actions during his 25 years with the CIA, and now, since March of 2013, as its director, shown a deeper, more disturbing side to his politics?

As historian Ron Radosh points out, “The CPUSA at that time was dedicated to gaining support for Soviet foreign policy, with the intent of defeating the United States in the Cold War.… Moscow regularly gave Hall thousands of dollars to enable the Communists in America to carry on their work.”

In his graduate thesis which earned him an M.A. in government from the University of Texas in Austin, Brennan denied the existence of “absolute human rights” and argued that a government — this time the Egyptian government — could censor certain inflammatory speech:

Since the press can play such an influential role in determining the perceptions of the masses, I am in favor of some degree of government censorship. Inflammatory articles can provoke mass opposition and possible violence, especially in developing political systems.

In other words, the guarantees in the Bill of Rights, specifically those related to the First Amendment, aren’t absolute, according to Brennan, and may be, in certain circumstances, abrogated or even ignored altogether.

Let’s overlook Brennan’s role in creating false talking points for U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice (who claimed that the Benghazi attack, thanks to input from Brennan, was based on “the best information at present”) was not premeditated, but instead was a “spontaneous reaction” to “a hateful and offensive video that was widely disseminated through the Arab and Muslim world.”

Let’s ignore Brennan’s assurance that charges brought by California Senator Dianne Feinstein in March 2014 that the CIA had hacked into computers belonging to some of her staffers were false, even though they were later proven to be true.

Let’s look instead, albeit briefly, into Brennan’s “disposition matrix,” which he personally designed to allow the president of the United States to kill Americans by overriding and ignoring constitutional guarantees provided in that Bill of Rights that he so easily dismissed early on. It was Brennan who not only codified the procedure by which “targeted” killings of Americans could take place, but did so in a way that made it a permanent part of American “foreign policy” for future administrations. The “streamlined” system that now exists requires input from several different federal agencies, providing information on suspects that allows those involved to cull, sift, sort, and winnow out those who don’t meet the shifting standards of potential danger, and then submit the final list to the president for his approval.

Brennan revealed his mindset in August 2012 when describing the system: “I tend to do what I think is right. But I find much more comfort, I guess, in the views and values of the president.”

In February 2013, NBC received a white paper from the Justice Department describing just how those decisions are made in order to justify them, dressed up with just enough legal jargon to sound reasonable. For instance, that white paper says that the president can kill an American citizen if “an informed, high-level official” of the federal government — presumably John Brennan — has unilaterally decided that the target poses “an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States” and if his capture is not otherwise feasible. The definition of “imminent” is flexible enough, holding that it is not necessary for a specific attack to actually be in process but only when the suspect/target is found to be “generally engaged” in terrorist activities aimed at the United States. It also asserts that courts should not be involved as it would only slow things down: “Judicial enforcement of such orders would require the court to supervise inherently predictive judgments by the president and his national security advisors as to when and how to use force against a member of an enemy force against which Congress has authorized the use of force.”

When that white paper was released back in 2013, Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project, was appalled, stating:

[The paper is] a profoundly disturbing document.… It’s hard to believe that it was produced in a democracy [sic] built on a system of checks and balances. It summarizes in cold [quasi-] legal terms a stunning overreach of executive authority: the claimed power to declare Americans a threat and [to] kill them far from a recognized battlefield and without any judicial involvement.

The paper delayed only briefly Brennan’s appointment as head of the CIA. In January 2013, after reviewing the document, the ACLU called for the Senate to delay its deliberation of the appointment, which it did, for two months. On March 5 the Senate Intelligence Committee approved Brennan’s nomination by a vote of 12 to 3, which provoked a strong reaction, and a memorable filibuster, by Senator Rand Paul, who stated:

No one politician should be allowed to judge the guilt, to charge an individual, to judge the guilt of an individual and to execute an individual.
It goes against everything we fundamentally believe in our country.

Though the White House admitted that it had no such authority, Brennan was confirmed by the Senate by a vote of 63 to 34.

Based on the evidence, it’s clear that Brennan’s contempt for rights guaranteed under the Constitution remains in place 40 years later.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: brennan; brennancommunist; ciadirector; communist
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CIA Director Brennan voted for communist Gus Hall 1976; though probably not a communist, he believes that the Constitution is irrelevant to the advancement of the state.
1 posted on 09/26/2016 10:08:02 AM PDT by VitacoreVision
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To: VitacoreVision

“Indiscretion” is smoking pot and listening to Pink Floyd.

Voting for a Communist is treason


2 posted on 09/26/2016 10:09:09 AM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.)
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To: BenLurkin

Lord, we got some real “winners’ in government, don’t we???


3 posted on 09/26/2016 10:10:33 AM PDT by JBW1949 (I'm really PC....PATRIOTICALLY CORRECT!!!!)
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To: VitacoreVision

In the old days it would have made him ineligible to be CIA Director, but then again so would being a muslim.

Before Usurpation Day, Kenyanesians and Cubanadians were ineligible to be President, too.


4 posted on 09/26/2016 10:11:13 AM PDT by Lurkinanloomin (Know Islam, No Peace - No Islam , Know Peace)
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To: VitacoreVision

Was his conversion to Islam a middle aged indiscretion, perhaps?


5 posted on 09/26/2016 10:12:24 AM PDT by Mr. Mojo ("To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society." - Teddy Roosevelt)
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To: VitacoreVision

No Noway. He’s a Commie.


6 posted on 09/26/2016 10:14:12 AM PDT by Red Steel
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To: VitacoreVision

“...just because an individual has an “activist” background...”

Seems to be the requirement for the Left!


7 posted on 09/26/2016 10:14:34 AM PDT by kimtom (USA ; Freedom is not Free)
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To: Mr. Mojo

Did I miss something? How is John Brennan a Muslim?


8 posted on 09/26/2016 10:14:50 AM PDT by VitacoreVision
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To: VitacoreVision

He is purported to have become a moozlum when in the middle east on assignment.


9 posted on 09/26/2016 10:16:02 AM PDT by hal ogen (First Amendment or Reeducation Camp?.)
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To: BenLurkin
“Indiscretion” is smoking pot and listening to Pink Floyd.

Voting for a Communist is treason

Especially during the bicentennial year! These days the top two contenders on the Democrat side were a communist and a grifter who made a quarter of a billion dollars selling access to the highest levels of our government to foreign entities.

10 posted on 09/26/2016 10:16:05 AM PDT by fireman15 (The USA will be toast if the Democrats are able to take the Presidency in 2016)
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To: VitacoreVision

What was his conversion to the religion of pieces?


11 posted on 09/26/2016 10:16:06 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism.)
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To: VitacoreVision

Nope. It means he hates America, just like his boss. Fits right in.


12 posted on 09/26/2016 10:16:48 AM PDT by samtheman (Vote Trump)
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To: VitacoreVision

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2987194/posts


13 posted on 09/26/2016 10:17:00 AM PDT by Mr. Mojo ("To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society." - Teddy Roosevelt)
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To: BenLurkin

Agreed.

Further:

What this highlights is the flood of Clintonistas into the various intel, federal level policing and military services once the Left declared ownership of it all with Clinton’s first election.

The power structures and guardians of our nation have been infested with traitors ever since.


14 posted on 09/26/2016 10:17:41 AM PDT by Grimmy (equivocation is but the first step along the road to capitulation)
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To: VitacoreVision

Heck he’s a communist plant...a sleeper agent. Who ever voted for a communist and then just 4 years later wants to join the CIA?


15 posted on 09/26/2016 10:17:51 AM PDT by DouglasKC
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To: VitacoreVision

Either drool stupid ignorance of not knowing what Communism is or Communist? You make the call!


16 posted on 09/26/2016 10:20:28 AM PDT by \/\/ayne (I regret that I have but one subscription cancellation notice to give to my local newspaper.)
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To: VitacoreVision

Something must be about to break . . . maybe the wikileaks stuff, and they are getting in front of the story for damage control.


17 posted on 09/26/2016 10:21:47 AM PDT by Pilgrim's Progress (http://www.baptistbiblebelievers.com/BYTOPICS/tabid/335/Default.aspx D)
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To: VitacoreVision

I would not recommend anyone who’s voted for commies to be in our government
especially in a sensitive defense/intelligence-related position like CIADirector

but maybe if he only voted for Gus Hall as a kid and he’s gotten over it, maybe

but there have been repeated reports he’s a Moslem!!!!!!!!!
THIS RIGHT NOW would be far MORE WORRISOME and dangerous than who he voted for 40 years ago, imho

this would be VERY VERY dangerous and worrisome


18 posted on 09/26/2016 10:23:42 AM PDT by faithhopecharity ("Politicians are not born. They're excreted." Marcus Tullius Cicero.)
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To: VitacoreVision

Actions HAVE consequences.


19 posted on 09/26/2016 10:24:30 AM PDT by Don Corleone (Oil the gun, eat the cannolis, take it to the mattress.)
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To: VitacoreVision

I voted for John Anderson (American Independent Party) - another youthful indiscretion....


20 posted on 09/26/2016 10:28:55 AM PDT by Psalm 73 ("Gentlemen, you can't fight in here - this is the War Room".)
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