Americans for Intelligence Reform welcomes and encourages your comments and we read them all. Keep them coming. Brad Johnson answers a recent question about Limbaugh and his relationships with RINOS. Pitfalls of accepting donations and advertisements discussed.
Brad Johnson retired as a Senior Operations Officer and Chief of Station with the Central Intelligence Agency’s Directorate of Operations. Having served domestically and abroad, many assignments included areas of armed conflict. He served overseas in direct support of the War Against Terrorism and he took multiple assignments overseas as Chief of Station.
A certified senior expert in counterintelligence, surveillance and surveillance detection, his proven expertise in dangerous operational environments included the highest level of training available in the USG and globally. His tradecraft expertise was put to test in dangerous, difficult, and restrictive operational environments.
Brad is an enrolled member of The Cherokee Nation, a Federally Recognized Tribe.
In the summer of 2017, he founded the non-profit organization Americans for Intelligence Reform to create awareness of political corruption and the resulting diminished capabilities within the intelligence community. Serving as President, he brings you his unique perspective from deep, international experience and conservative, Christian values.
I appreciate the financial considerations of pundits like Mr. Limbaugh that may hinder their ability to speak freely about certain subjects. Yet, I do not think that financial matters are the paramount or sole encumbrance to truth-telling. Those who care about the truth and have attained a certain level of influence, through government service, punditry, media notoriety, etc., become more interested in maintaining an audience, avoiding bad press, and generally not pushing too hard on certain subjects, a comfortable complacency that insures their long-term survival in the industry. Surely, fear of litigation, whether frivolous or justified, also impedes many well-known conservative figures from delving into certain subjects or even asking rational questions. While I understand and appreciate these concerns, we are at a point where we do not have the luxury of bending to self-censorship whatever its motivation. If we allow a hit piece by the “journalists” at Politico to stifle our ability to ask rational questions based on evidence, what value does the truth even have? Unspoken truths reform nothing, correct no injustice, or change anything for the better. Self-censorship also destroys the trust between otherwise like-minded political allies. It’s a cancer that pervades much of the conservative media whose audience is already thoroughly marginalized and censored. When injustice after injustice is stacked like cordwood, unresolved, unexplored, and most often unspoken, even engaged decent people will conclude the effort to be futile. It breeds apathy. So, though the heavens may fall, truth above all else.
I’m thankful that you aren’t tied to your advertisers /donors. What possible solution is there to change the control that the donor has in the media and government?