"A society that produces images instead of actual things..."

Here are a few stories which illustrate the surreal state of our current world.

Hillary's Trump card? Donald Trump's opponents on the right -- a large and powerful group that includes the folks at Fox News -- have fallen in love with the theory that Trump is secretly working for the Clintons. Brent Budowski has had some fun with this notion in The Hill.

What could Trump do in the campaign that would help the Clintons the most? First, he would personally attack leading GOP candidates in 2016, using derisive language that would almost surely find its way into Hillary Clinton campaign ads if she were to become the Democratic nominee. Check that box, right? Next, Trump could deeply offend Hispanic voters who widely respect Hillary Clinton already. Check that box, too!

Similarly, if Trump tied the GOP in knots by prolonging the Republican nominating process, and prolonged the process of Republicans attacking Republicans, that would be a huge benefit for Hillary Clinton. Check that box. And to the degree that newer faces in the Republican Party who could become the strongest challengers to the Democratic nominee in November, such as Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R), found their message drowned out by Trump, the big winner would be Hillary Clinton! Check that box, too.

Of course the grand slam for Hillary Clinton would be if Donald Trump were to run as a third-party candidate in 2016...

I strongly doubt that Trump is a false flag candidate, for the simple reason that no-one could have foreseen his absurd surge in popularity.

Is Trump a fake? For a number of years, many have wondered whether Trump is truly as wealthy as he says. Why would a billionaire become a reality TV star? What other billionaire has established himself as a brand name? (You don't see Bill Gates' signature on a line of neckties sold at J.C. Penney.) Haven't Trump's businesses displayed a disturbing tendency to enter bankruptcy? Why does this guy get so pluperfectly pissed off whenever anyone questions his Really Rich Guy status? (A real Really Rich Guy doesn't give a damn about what people think.)

Trump's recent financial disclosure statement was supposed to put the matter to rest. Few read the actual statement, but we all read the headlines informing us that Trump is worth $10 billion.

Writer Doug Litowitz has read the statement, and he reports that all may not be as it seems.

I’ve just slogged through all ninety-two pages of Donald Trump’s financial disclosure submission to the Federal Election Commission, and I can’t make heads or tails of it.

I cannot tell how much Trump is worth, if anything. His empire, if he has one, is as mysterious as his haircut, and as impervious as his skyscraper in Chicago - a gigantic phallic mirror named after himself.

In terms of real, lasting assets - is Donald Trump worth roughly $10 billion?

The mainstream press erred horrendously by taking seriously Trump’s disclosure to the FEC, by asking reporters to sit down with the document and try to understand it on its own terms, so to speak. This approach yielded nothing but exhaustion and bewilderment. No one dared speculate that Trump’s purpose in disclosing so much was to disclose so little. It was a 52-Card Pickup, a maze of trees without a forest.

Trump’s illiquid assets and unknown liabilities may or may not offset each other – and he isn’t telling.

What does that leave?

Not much. A relatively small amount of money in a couple of hedge funds, and brokerage portfolios of garden-variety stocks, a couple hundred thousand in gold, and other ho-hum assets consisting almost entirely of his ‘marks.’ He could be worth hundreds of millions, theoretically, but if leveraged, his worth could be negative. Who knows?

I've always felt that Donald Trump does not act like a genuine Really Rich Guy. He acts the way a working class schnook thinks he would act if he suddenly became a Really Rich Guy.

Trump’s FEC document impresses me as the statement of a person who does not have much of anything other than himself – he is his own product. He is the professional wrestler of the financial world – a person who is famous for being famous, the tragic product of a society that produces images instead of actual things.

(Emphasis added.) Call him a false flag billionaire.

A black false flag. The U.K.'s Express has published a bizarre piece which I hope is not true, although I suspect that it is.

BRITISH Special Forces are mounting hit and run raids against Islamic State deep inside eastern Syria dressed as insurgent fighters, the Sunday Express can reveal.

The unorthodox tactic, which is seeing SAS units dressed in black and flying ISIS flags, has been likened to the methods used by the Long Range Desert Group against Rommel's forces during the Second World War.

More than 120 members belonging to the elite regiment are currently in the war-torn country on operation Shader, tasked with destroying IS equipment and munitions which insurgents constantly move to avoid Coalition air strikes.

In other words, they are dressing as ISIS to attack ISIS. Global Research says that the real targets of the SAS in Syria are Assad's forces. I see no evidence to back the notion.

(The reference to the Long Range Desert Group is rather bewildering. They would sometimes disguise themselves as Arabs -- but I don't know about any incident in which they dressed as Nazis in order to attack the Nazis.)

The Global Research allegation, though unsubstantiated, does have an interesting precedent. To wit...

Everything old is new again. Speaking of false flags, and speaking of Syria, I invite you to run your eyes over this Guardian story from 2003, which reveals a fascinating scheme from 1957...

Nearly 50 years before the war in Iraq, Britain and America sought a secretive "regime change" in another Arab country they accused of spreading terror and threatening the west's oil supplies, by planning the invasion of Syria and the assassination of leading figures.

Newly discovered documents show how in 1957 Harold Macmillan and President Dwight Eisenhower approved a CIA-MI6 plan to stage fake border incidents as an excuse for an invasion by Syria's pro-western neighbours, and then to "eliminate" the most influential triumvirate in Damascus.

The leading force behind this scheme was Kermit Roosevelt, grandson of TR.

Syria had to be "made to appear as the sponsor of plots, sabotage and violence directed against neighbouring governments," the report says. "CIA and SIS should use their capabilities in both the psychological and action fields to augment tension." That meant operations in Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon, taking the form of "sabotage, national conspiracies and various strong-arm activities" to be blamed on Damascus.

The plan called for funding of a "Free Syria Committee", and the arming of "political factions with paramilitary or other actionist capabilities" within Syria. The CIA and MI6 would instigate internal uprisings, for instance by the Druze in the south, help to free political prisoners held in the Mezze prison, and stir up the Muslim Brotherhood in Damascus.

Looks like someone dusted off the old plans. If we must relive 1957, wouldn't it make more sense for us to sit back and watch The Tall T?