Iraqi Dinar Brief – September 23, 2026: Washington Puts a Price on Dollar Access
The US Treasury does not need an army to close a country’s airspace. It needs a sentence, and Scott Bessent said it: fuel an Iranian jet, land it, or sell it a ticket, and you are knocked out of the dollar system. At midnight on September 23 that sentence became the rule, and in the 72 hours before it fired every government in the region showed you what access to the dollar is worth to them. Iran’s own aviation authority cancelled its Baghdad and Muscat flights before a single aircraft was turned away. Turkey and Georgia grounded the routes. Bessent named three foreign banks cut off for handling Iranian business.
Riyadh paid three times in one weekend. Saudi Arabia quit mBridge, the China-built settlement network designed to move oil money without the dollar in the middle. It restarted the East-West pipeline to Yanbu, putting 4 million barrels a day back on a route that never touches Hormuz. And it is being asked to co-fund a $10 billion rebuild fund with the US Treasury as senior partner. The last time Riyadh made a dollar decision this large, in July 1974, Treasury Secretary William Simon closed it in Jeddah and the paperwork stayed secret for 4 decades. Tehran, by contrast, walked into the UN and handed Washington three conditions that all asked for money: lift the blockade, unfreeze the assets, stop the fire. Trump’s answer from the podium was deal or annihilation, with the deal coming right after the November election.
Baghdad answered in its own way. The Central Bank of Iraq cut official-rate dollar access for travelers from once a month to twice a year and capped the cash at $2,000, keeping its reserves for trade and for defending the posted rate. Seven Iraqi banks cleared the first phase of reconnection in currencies other than the dollar, with dollar business to follow after the harder compliance tests. Prime Minister al-Zaidi met ExxonMobil’s chief executive after midnight in New York, and carries a request to Trump for more time on militia disarmament, a June 2027 completion date agreed with the Coordination Framework before he flew. The 2027 budget, with its exchange-rate assumption line, reaches parliament October 15. Iraq is the one country that has been sitting Washington’s dollar-access test in public for 2 years, and this week the price of that test was published for everyone else.
"All Iranian airlines will be “SHUT DOWN” worldwide on September 23"
"Any airport or company providing Iranian airlines with fuel, landing services, ticket sales or other support will be cut off from the US 🇺🇸dollar 💵 system"pic.twitter.com/tGJxLfI2Uc
The Prime Minister, Mr. Ali Faleh Al-Zaidi, met with the President of the United States, Mr. Donald Trump, in New York.
During the meeting, the two sides discussed bilateral relations and ways to enhance cooperation and partnership between the two countries in the political, economic, and investment fields. They also reviewed the latest developments in the region and the joint efforts being made by Iraq and the United States to promote regional and international security and stability.
The Plan was embedded within the Q drops, starting in October 2017, for those who stopped and considered there was a different way forward than what the legacy media and corrupt government leaders were telling us.
Massive changes x timelines shifts are unfolding right now — all while most of the general population is being distracted. Ongoing military sting ops. White Hats comms are being dropped all over in plain sight. It’s Armageddon in the old matrix. The old world is dying and it’s a glorious thing to witness! 🙏💜🔥
@drue86
President Xi of China visits POTUS
Notes to Readers:
This is a monumental event, the Trump administration hosting President Xi in Washington, more evidence of the existence of an Earth Alliance, even if the legacy media chooses to ignore it and whine about the loss of their press passes to the White House.
This is real. This is happening. The Plan is proceeding step by step, leading us into a new world, one never imagined by those who attempted to avert our inevitable awakening to our power and potential. The new Earth humanity is emerging from the cocoon of ignorance and fear, drying our wings and readying to take off… to the stars.
In summer 2018, a classified U.S. Air Force survey from Thule Air Base detected a massive artificial structure three kilometers under Greenland’s eastern ice sheet: 420 meters long, perfectly symmetrical, with a faint energy signature. Drilling confirmed an alien craft—intact, ancient, its hull of unknown self-repairing alloy.
The discovery went straight to President Trump on August 12, 2018. After a terse briefing, he issued clear orders: “Secure it completely. No leaks, no sharing. Get Greenland if needed.” Trump grasped the stakes instantly. The melting ice would expose the site within decades. The technology—unlimited energy, gravitational propulsion, revolutionary materials—would decide global primacy. China and Russia were already maneuvering in the Arctic. Only exclusive U.S. control was acceptable.
He personally directed Project POLAR VAULT, a black program reporting to the White House. Excavation began in 2019: a hidden subsurface complex built into the ice. Top scientists worked in isolation.
Publicly, Trump opened talks with Denmark in early 2019, then in August publicly floated buying Greenland. The world laughed, calling it eccentric real-estate thinking. In reality, it normalized U.S. strategic focus on the island and bought time.
Reverse-engineering delivered results fast. 2020: inertial damping field tested successfully. 2022: reactionless gravitational propulsion demonstrated. 2023: vacuum-energy reactors producing megawatts. 2024: alien computing substrates broke every foreign cipher. Protection was relentless. Russian and Chinese probing was detected and blocked without escalation. In 2025, the Greenland Strategic Autonomy Accord was signed: permanent U.S. security jurisdiction over key zones, exclusive research rights, full defense responsibility—in exchange for massive economic investment and retained local self-governance. Nuuk approved overwhelmingly; Copenhagen accepted the inevitable.
By 2026, the craft remained in place, still yielding secrets. American power had quietly transformed: absolute energy independence, unmatched strategic deterrence, restored technological dominance for generations.
History would argue over Trump’s methods and rhetoric. But on Greenland and the buried alien vessel, his vision proved correct: some discoveries are too critical to share, some responsibilities too great for any nation but America to carry.
The ice continued to melt. The secret stayed secure. The future belonged to the United States.
[A story]
The Keystone Beneath the Ice In summer 2018, a classified U.S. Air Force survey from Thule Air Base detected a massive artificial structure three kilometers under Greenland’s eastern ice sheet: 420 meters long, perfectly symmetrical, with a faint energy signature. Drilling… pic.twitter.com/k8HPTjoSrD
Sounds like the U.S. military discovered one of the ancient arks (space craft) placed here by an alien civilization a very long time ago. Without further information, it’s hard to tell what extraterrestrial group that might be as many have visited our world and left these arks to be found when our technological knowledge was more mature.
Imagine the global financial system is a building. It was built after World War II. For eighty years, money moved through this building between countries, between banks, between people. Some of that money was clean. A lot of it wasn’t. And the building was designed in a way that made it very hard to tell the difference.
That building is being demolished and rebuilt. Right now. By multiple countries at the same time.
That’s the whole thing. Everything else is details.
The Old Building
The old system ran on opacity. Money could move across borders through shell companies nobody owned, banks that didn’t ask questions, and countries that looked the other way. If you were a drug cartel, a corrupt official, a sanctions evader, or a money launderer, the old system worked great for you. You could hide behind layers of corporations, move money through compliant banks, and nobody could trace it back to you.
The people who benefited from this system weren’t just criminals. They were embedded inside governments, banks, and institutions. They weren’t outside the system breaking in they were inside the system using it. A bank executive turning off compliance controls. A government official moving his family’s money offshore. A regulator looking the other way for the right price.
Think of it like a franchise. McDonald’s doesn’t have one owner it has thousands of operators who all use the same system. The illicit network works the same way. It’s not one organization. It’s a class of people in every country who all exploit the same opacity. They’re loyal to the system, not to any flag.
The Demolition
Multiple countries are now tearing that system apart. Not together in some secret room separately, using their own laws, for their own reasons, but hitting the same targets at the same time.
The United States is rewriting who gets to operate in the financial system. Treasury not the Federal Reserve is now running the show. Treasury is licensing stablecoin banks. Treasury is writing the compliance rules. Treasury is managing the bond market. Treasury is issuing record penalties. The Fed used to be the most powerful financial institution in the world. Now the Fed sets the overnight interest rate, and Treasury does everything else. The new Fed Chair actually volunteered to hand authority back to Treasury before he was even confirmed.
China is purging its own institutions from the inside. Over 100 senior military officers removed. Securities regulators prosecuted. Politburo members expelled. The largest real estate fraud in history life sentence, $2.4 billion in fines. They’re specifically targeting officials who moved their families and money to America. Sixty percent of the military’s anti-corruption watchdogs didn’t show up to the last meeting. The purge is so deep it’s consuming the people who were running the purge.
Russia is seizing assets and financially erasing anyone who left the country and criticized the government. Two new laws one freezes your property the moment you’re charged, no trial needed. The other cuts you off from banking, property, passports, and every government service. They call it “civic death.” Several hundred thousand people who fled after the Ukraine invasion are the targets. Takes effect September 1.
Saudi Arabia is arresting officials by the hundreds. India is freezing political party accounts and tracing money through Dubai. The EU is banning crypto platforms and sanctioning Russian shipping networks. Australia is shutting down crypto ATMs. The UK is seizing tankers.
Nobody coordinated this. The interests aligned.
The New Building
The United States is building the replacement system. Here’s how it works.
Treasury published rules that say: if you want to issue a stablecoin a digital dollar you need a license. To get that license, you follow Treasury’s rules, you submit to sanctions screening, you let OFAC monitor your transactions, and you back every coin with U.S. Treasury bonds.
Now here’s the key part. If you’re a foreign company that wants to offer stablecoins to American consumers, your country needs to have a deal with the United States. A reciprocal arrangement. No deal, no access to 330 million American consumers.
The United States is simultaneously negotiating trade deals with about 60 countries. Those trade deals aren’t just about tariffs. They’re also about financial access. Sign the trade deal, and your country’s stablecoin issuers can reach American markets. Don’t sign, and they can’t.
One signature. Three gates. Trade deal. Financial deal. Digital currency deal. All the same piece of paper.
Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve is banned by law from issuing a digital dollar. Banned. By a vote of 89 to 10 in the Senate. That’s not an accident. If the Fed issued a digital dollar, it would be free and risk-free, and nobody would use the private stablecoins that Treasury is licensing. The ban protects the architecture.
Every stablecoin issuer has to buy Treasury bonds as reserves. That means every stablecoin in circulation creates automatic demand for U.S. government debt. Treasury is simultaneously managing the bond market through buybacks. So Treasury controls the supply of bonds, the demand for bonds (through stablecoin rules), and the licensing of every institution that touches them.
The Fed isn’t being attacked. It’s being made irrelevant. Built around. Nobody gave a speech about ending the Fed. They just built a new system that doesn’t need it.
The Sorting
Everything runs through a sorting mechanism. You’re either inside or outside.
Countries that sign trade deals with the U.S. are inside. Their stablecoin issuers get access. Their banks get chartered. Their enforcement cooperates with American enforcement.
Countries that don’t sign are outside. Their financial institutions can’t reach American consumers. Their transactions get flagged. Their citizens get designated.
This isn’t theoretical. It happened in real time last week. On August 24, the United States removed Syria from the terrorism list after 47 years and invited investment. The same day, the United States launched the largest sanctions package in history against Iran. Syria moved inside. Iran got pushed further outside. Same day. Same Treasury Secretary announcing both.
The Mexican drug cartel CJNG has been hit with fifteen enforcement actions across five countries in eighteen months. The Chinese government is prosecuting officials whose money is in America. Taiwan is indicting people for smuggling AI chips to China — even though Taiwan doesn’t have a law against it. They used document forgery charges because they didn’t have the right statute. They prosecuted anyway because the interests aligned.
The Tension
Here’s what makes this complicated. The same government that’s building all of this is also dismantling some of the tools that make it work.
The Corporate Transparency Act required shell companies to tell the government who actually owns them. That was the tool that would have mapped who owns the mysterious properties, the anonymous LLCs, the hidden bank accounts. It was permanently eliminated on August 11. The data was ordered destroyed.
Eight days later, a Chinese national was sentenced for laundering $92 million through shell companies for the cartels. The exact type of entity the transparency law was designed to expose.
The same Treasury, the same week, issued a record $125 million bank penalty AND killed the shell company transparency requirement. Tightened enforcement on big players, loosened transparency on small ones.
Both things are true at the same time. The system is getting tighter for the big fish and looser for the small ones. Whether that’s by design or by contradiction is the question the framework hasn’t resolved.
What Nobody’s Talking About
Three major powers are all targeting people who live between systems. China targets officials with American exposure.
~ The Debriefing
🤔Timelines, Patterns & What's Actually Happening
Imagine the global financial system is a building. It was built after World War II. For eighty years, money moved through this building between countries, between banks, between people. Some of that money was clean. A lot of it… https://t.co/GW41aSAIuhpic.twitter.com/Oc2rIzetZU
Here are ten grotesque hoaxes that permanently broke corporate journalism and exposed their cartel forever.
Legacy media executives feign bewilderment over their cratering credibility, yet the historical record tells an undeniable story. The collapse of public trust was earned through calculated psychological operations, doctored footage, and deliberate institutional fraud. They demanded you ignore your own eyes, surrender basic common sense, and treat blatant partisan propaganda as sacred scripture.
1. The “Fiery But Mostly Peaceful” Spectacle (CNN, 2020)
Ali Velshi stood in front of towering infernos consuming Kenosha storefronts while the lower-third graphic insisted the scene was “mostly peaceful.” The broadcast demanded viewers distrust their own eyes to protect the regime’s preferred civil unrest.
2. The Covington Catholic Character Assassination (2019)
Legacy networks selectively sliced footage of teenager Nick Sandmann standing motionless while an activist banged a drum inches from his face. The media branded a quiet high schooler as the face of white supremacy, triggering multi-million dollar defamation settlements once uncut footage destroyed the script.
3. The Jussie Smollett Hate Crime Fable (2019)
Anchors uncritically broadcast an absurd fairy tale featuring sub-zero Chicago temperatures, roving assailants carrying bleach, and an intact noose. Newsrooms substituted basic police reporting with cheap racial melodrama, crowning a mediocre actor a martyr before Chicago police dismantled the fraud.
4. The Hunter Biden Laptop Suppression (2020)
Fifty-one retired intelligence operatives signed a letter laundering genuine domestic corruption as foreign influence. Corporate networks obediently censored the report right before a presidential election, only verifying the laptop years later when political consequences had expired. 5. The Charlottesville “Very Fine People” Deception (2017)
Cable news ran a heavily edited nine-second soundbite to convince the public that a sitting president endorsed white supremacists. They buried the explicit sentence spoken moments later condemning neo-Nazis entirely. Networks weaponized this lie for seven consecutive years. 6. The Border Patrol “Whips” Fabrication (2021)
Anchors and politicians accused mounted border agents of using whips against Haitian migrants along the Rio Grande. Even after the civilian photographer publicly testified that agents used split reins to control horses, the media kept the smear alive to paralyze sovereign enforcement.
7. The Automotive “Bloodbath” Panic (2024)
Commentators clipped a speech analyzing Chinese auto tariffs and manufactured a panic about nationwide political slaughter. Outlets coordinated identical headlines across digital platforms, deliberately deceiving voters to produce cheap campaign fear. Clip Search: Trump bloodbath auto industry speech full context
8. The Steele Dossier Collusion Hoax (2016 to 2019)
Cable hosts spent years reading unverified opposition research funded by political opponents as sacred scripture. Pundits guaranteed imminent treason indictments on prime-time television, harvesting viewer paranoia to fuel a multi-million-dollar ratings racket built on zero evidence. 9. The “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” Myth (2014)
Pundits raised their hands on air to validate an execution narrative that never happened in Ferguson. The federal Justice Department ultimately demolished the story using forensic ballistics, yet networks permanently embedded the fabrication into modern cultural folklore.
10. The Wuhan Lab Leak “Racist Conspiracy” Blackout (2020)
Legacy reporters branded the virology laboratory hypothesis a xenophobic delusion to protect international bureaucracies and federal research grants. Once evidence made the scenario undeniable, the press pivoted without acknowledging their coordinated suppression of scientific inquiry.
CONTINUED 👇👇👇
These ten hoaxes barely scratch the surface of a decades-long catalog of engineered deception. X has character limits, and modAern server infrastructure has physical constraints. Documenting every single fabrication produced by the left-wing press would literally require paving the entire surface of the moon with data centers. The legacy cartel traded its credibility for partisan propaganda, and the American public permanently revoked its trust. The monopoly is broken, the curtain is down, and their authority will never return.
The DOJ has criminally charged 324 defendants, including 96 doctors, nurse practitioners, pharmacists, and other licensed medical professionals, in 50 federal districts and 12 State Attorneys General's Offices across… pic.twitter.com/ghhYZHwA4R
Stephen Miller on what happens if the Save America Act fails to pass— will there be Mass Arrests?
He says the problem with everything is the SCALE of the fraud; it’s everywhere. The Federal government just doesn’t have enough resources and manpower to interrupt every single… https://t.co/KJHvhICWY3pic.twitter.com/UxEEKBmzIc
I'm going to make this as clear cut as I can so no one can twist my words.
The Illuminati, Cabal, Elite, Globalists & Deep State are the same thing. [They] control governments & manipulate every aspect of life to implement their plan for a one world government & one world… pic.twitter.com/9aS31tohUf
If you have carefully read the above attached articles, you begin to arrive at the conclusion that there are still a lot of individuals who will be required to face judgment. However, until the current judicial system can be fully cleansed of activist judges and compromised jury pools, this is not possible.
It has been suggested that there are 700,000 sealed indictments being kept by the military. You must know that these indictments were created by secret Grand Juries and that one indictment can contain more than one name. Those who will be arrested and prosecuted range across the whole spectrum of culture and nationality.
I feel that after the Flip and government shutdown there will be more control over setting up these military-like trial settings. The military is going to be in charge, even if some of the courts are going to be held in civilian settings given the sheer volume of cases that require processing.
The Justice portion of this global military operation is going to take place in 2027 and going into 2028. Most of the trials will aired. Can you see now why new television news coverage outside the legacy system is now required. The news must be unbiased, non-political, and based on fact, not a sick ideology of any kind.
Look at the world Taylor Sheridan has built across Yellowstone, 1883, 1923, Tulsa King, Landman, Mayor of Kingstown, Lioness, Bass Reeves and everything now growing around it…
Once you zoom out the pattern becomes hard to miss… government, intelligence, prisons, organized crime, energy, land, the border, money, war, family, loyalty, corruption and consequence are no longer sitting in the background… the actual systems underneath society are becoming the story…
That is why I keep looking at what is happening around Paramount as something much bigger than another media shift…
In my opinion, we are watching the early shape of Sovereign Television, a move away from media that narrows the mind and toward storytelling that opens it back up, makes people curious again, hungry for knowledge, willing to question, willing to create and willing to think for themselves…
Think about the feeling of walking out of Top Gun, Maverick. You felt courage, excellence, loyalty, sacrifice, integrity and national pride… most importantly, it was without anybody having to lecture you about any of it…
Culture changes when the stories change, and when strength is tied back to integrity, family means something again, duty means something again and compassion becomes so normal that cruelty starts to look completely out of place…
Where the screen stops numbing the human spirit and starts waking it back up…
I don’t think I’m dreaming here… I feel it…
This is where the next piece gets even bigger, because I’ve been writing that Trump is building a new Hollywood around the rotting shell of the old one…
Changing the stories is only half of it… the other half is building the money structure underneath them… the studios, labor, incentives, distribution, talent and the gradual loss of control by the old gatekeepers…
That structure is starting to come into view… read post below…
Building a New Hollywood | Observing Consciousness
I’ve been writing for some time that Trump is building a new Hollywood around the rotting shell of the old one… this bill puts the money structure underneath it…
Jon Voight, Mel Gibson and Sylvester Stallone were placed inside as Trump’s eyes and ears… then Voight went to work on the structure…
Federal credits tied to American labor, tariff pressure against productions running overseas, added incentives for independent films and forgotten communities, an American cultural test and the return of Fin-Syn (Financial Interest and Syndication Rules) so the streamers can no longer own the road, the gate, and everything moving through it…
Now Trump has studios, unions, and blue state Democrats moving toward the same table… because their people need the jobs the old system bled into Canada and overseas…
Taylor Sheridan is already the living proof… he walked away from Los Angeles, built Bosque Ranch and SGS Studios in Texas, then created one of the largest storytelling machines in America around land, oil, the border, family, duty and consequence…
Stallone connects Trump’s Hollywood ambassadors directly into Sheridan’s world through Tulsa King… the bridge is already there…
Then zoom out and look at everyone moving around Trump… Dennis Quaid, Zachary Levi, James Woods, Roseanne Barr, Kid Rock, Jason Aldean, Carrie Underwood, Nicki Minaj, Lil Wayne, Kodak Black, Snoop Dogg, Nelly, 50 Cent, Busta Rhymes, Ja Rule, Akon and Flo Rida. Some stand with him openly while others perform, show up or simply cross the line Hollywood spent years enforcing through humiliation, blacklisting and fear… every person who crosses makes it easier for the next…
That fear barrier is collapsing… so the talent stops asking permission… the workers follow the jobs… production spreads across America… and the old gatekeepers slowly lose control of the stories we see…
Control of the screen was always control of attention… Trump is going directly after the factory…
I’ve been writing for some time that Trump is building a new Hollywood around the rotting shell of the old one… this bill puts the money structure underneath it…
IRAN & IRAQ CURRENCY UPDATE — Are Major Changes Coming? | September 2026
Iraq is adapting cross-border automated bridge
Sept. 30th – Iraq Sovereignty Day, final deadline of U.S. International forces to withdraw
Possible revaluation of Iraq Dinar
Iran – delivered latest terms
Venezuela is in the midst of major political & financial transitions – U.S. controls one fifth of Venezuela’s oil, 63% of exports
Trump Dividend $5,000 per American; tariff money, DOGE money…
Active geopolitical conflicts: Levant – Israel, Ukrainian – Russian, Iran / US
NESARA & GESARA – there is no way there is going to be “complete peace” on the planet
RV can happen any time
RV, where are we? Tier 1 – government, partially funded; Tier 2 – may begin this week; Tier 3… We still need a public announcement of the new American Note & Iraq needs to announce their new rate
Iraq is going to be a very wealthy country. There is gold everywhere in Iraq
Tier 1 and 2 have been funded but NOT liquid yet.
Holly doesn’t expect the Iraq revaluation until October or later. They are prepping to go on the Stock Market, Forex, they will be a leader in the financial world, not there yet…
Internet is still censoring the Truth
You do not know the actual rate until your Appointment
A lot of “Events” are going to happen this Autumn: EBS/EAS, Scare Event, need to calm the masses down; there will be a BIG built-up of events. Military needs a trigger to start the new financial system…
Trump’s job is to be the Great Disruptor in the world. He kicked out the MSM legacy news.
🤔TIMELINES PATTERNS THE GLOBAL PURGE / CRIMSON TIDE & NCSWIC…
The operation has been running globally for years. While most people were distracted, it was happening. Every quarter. Every continent. Every corridor.
Russia convicted 60,000 officials and seized $9.5 billion. China purged a quarter of its governing body. Saudi Arabia processed 59,000 people in a single week. India doubled its enforcement raids. The United States tripled its counterintelligence arrests and hit Iran eight times in 25 days.
Britain. Ireland. Canada. Australia. Spain. Norway. The UAE. Ecuador. Madagascar. Every node. Every direction. All at the same time.
Banks sorted. Airlines grounded. Crypto platforms designated. Oil corridors severed. Gold smuggling networks mapped. Telegram marketplaces seized. Three generations of a dynasty sanctioned on a single page. A 23-year-old botnet killed live on stage. $5 billion frozen by a single private company. 836 entries in one workbook, every one of them sourced from the public record.
None of it was secret. All of it was published in the Federal Register, in Treasury press releases, in court filings, in foreign government announcements. The information has been free the entire time.
So why didn’t people see it?
Two years ago I told people: imagine you walk into a movie theater. Two screens. On the right is the thriller the politics, the personalities, the outrage cycle, the daily drama that keeps you glued to your seat. On the left is the documentary the enforcement actions, the Federal Register entries, the sanctions designations, the international coordination that nobody covers because it doesn’t get clicks.
Most people chose the thriller.
I chose the documentary.
The thriller is loud. It’s emotional. It changes every day. It’s designed to keep you watching. And while you’re watching it, the documentary keeps playing on the other screen. Quietly. Methodically. Entry by entry. Corridor by corridor. Country by country.
The operation didn’t wait for anyone to notice. It didn’t need an audience. It ran whether you were watching or not.
It’s still running.
The only difference now is that the credits on the thriller are getting closer, and people are starting to look at the other screen.
You’re welcome to come watch. The documentary has been playing the whole time.
I am the guy on the couch, and you have been debriefed. @Homeranger17 @CouchGuy17 @PZaith @drawandstrike @ScottZPatriot @WillReagan11 @BeerCan45 @RadicalForLiber @THEDuaneCates @Thucydides17A @AFANGChief @Spaceshot76 @MRSRedVoteR @AstuteActual @Conspiracy1717 @jwcollins1955 @JeskoRiot @Ray4_Freedom
Did the US Congress pass a law allowing the Mass Media to dish out Propaganda instead of Respected Journalism?
ANSWER:
No, the US Congress did not pass a law allowing mainstream mass media to broadcast propaganda instead of news.
This common misconception stems from a misunderstanding of a real law passed in 2013 called the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act, which was included in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2013.
The Law in Context:
The original Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 was created during the Cold War to govern U.S. public diplomacy. It authorized government-funded agencies—like the Voice of America (VOA)—to broadcast news and information to foreign audiences to counter Soviet influence. Crucially, the 1948 law banned these government agencies from distributing their content domestically out of fear that the federal government might try to propagandize American citizens.
What Changed in 2013?
The 2013 Modernization Act did not give private corporations permission to lie or create propaganda. Instead, it lifted the strict domestic ban on U.S. government-run broadcasting agencies (such as VOA).
The Reason:
With the rise of the internet, the domestic ban had become completely obsolete. A person living in New York could easily look up a VOA article or broadcast online, technically making the digital availability of that content illegal under old law.
The New Rule:
The modernized law allows these state-funded networks to make their material available to American media outlets or academic institutions upon request.
The Propaganda Ban Remains:
The law still explicitly states that funds appropriated for the State Department or the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) cannot be used to influence domestic public opinion or actively market/target materials to American audiences.
Summary:
The law applies strictly to government-funded media intended for international audiences, not the domestic private media (like CNN, Fox News, or MSNBC). Private news entities are protected under the First Amendment’s freedom of the press. Congress has no legal mechanism to control their standards or “allow” them to publish propaganda, as the government is constitutionally barred from censoring or dictating the editorial content of independent private news organizations.
THE CIA’s INVOLVMENT:
Question:
Did the CIA put embeds into mass media outlets to direct the propaganda use?
Answer:
Yes, historically, the CIA did exactly that.
During the height of the Cold War, the CIA ran a covert operation to recruit journalists, plant stories, and influence major news organizations to direct anti-communist propaganda.
Operation Mockingbird and the Cold War:
Beginning in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the CIA established a highly secretive program that journalists and researchers later termed Operation Mockingbird. The agency’s first director of covert operations, Frank Wisner, famously referred to this network of media influence as his “Mighty Wurlitzer,” an organ he could play to blast any propaganda tune he wanted across the globe.
The Scope:
The CIA recruited leading American journalists, columnists, and editors, sometimes with the explicit consent of corporate media executives and sometimes covertly.
The Outlets:
Declassified documents and investigative reports eventually linked the program to major networks and publications, including The New York Times, Time Magazine, CBS News, and The Washington Post.
The Method:
The CIA didn’t necessarily physically force its way into newsrooms; instead, it built an interlocking web of relationships. It provided funding, gave reporters exclusive “scoops” (which were sometimes fabricated or heavily distorted to fit U.S. geopolitical goals), and placed agency assets inside wire services to make sure specific narratives were amplified worldwide.
How Was It Exposed?
In 1975, following the Watergate scandal and a series of explosive investigative reports by journalist Seymour Hersh, the U.S. Senate formed the Church Committee to investigate illegal domestic activities by intelligence agencies.
The Church Committee’s 1976 report confirmed that the CIA maintained a network of several hundred foreign and domestic individuals who provided intelligence and attempted to influence public opinion through covert propaganda. Shortly after, legendary Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein published a massive exposé in Rolling Stone revealing that more than 400 American press members had secretly carried out assignments or maintained active relationships with the CIA over the preceding decades.
What Happened Next?
In response to the massive public backlash from the Church Committee hearings, then-CIA Director (and future president) George H.W. Bush implemented a new policy in 1976: The CIA would no longer pay or recruit accredited U.S. journalists for covert operations.
While the direct “vouchering” of mainstream American reporters was officially banned, the relationship between intelligence agencies and the media evolved:
Foreign Outlets:
The CIA continued to manipulate and fund foreign media operations outside the U.S. to influence overseas elections and geopolitical events.
The “Consultant” Era:
Today, rather than using hidden “embeds,” the relationship is entirely out in the open. It is incredibly common for major cable news networks (like CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News) to hire former high-ranking intelligence officials—such as former CIA Directors or National Security Analysts—as on-air commentators and paid consultants to shape public analysis on national security issues.
