Tapio Campaign Staffer Shad Olson criticizing Trump, calling gas attack attributed to Syria as “false flag” event

You’d think that the person staffing the Congressional campaign for Trump’s South Dakota Director might not be so quick to go after President Trump for drawing a line in the sand against Syria for the use of chemical weapons. And claiming that the attacks have been done under a “false flag”:


Of course that led others to chime in, such as Sam Kephart, who ran in the Primary for US Senate in 2008, who wanted to note that this is all planned.:

37 thoughts on “Tapio Campaign Staffer Shad Olson criticizing Trump, calling gas attack attributed to Syria as “false flag” event”

  1. I think the false flag is Shad. It seems like he is trying to undermine Tapio at every turn.

  2. Sam Kephart besides cleaning up the profanity will you and Shad be selling Tapio for House tin foil hats to help fund raise and wear at events? Will your tin foil hat signal reception be negatively affected by a Tapio for House logo on it or is it better to leave it bare?

  3. In some worlds it makes perfect sense that a guy in SD with no intelligence resources would know more than President Trump.

    I’m just glad I don’t live in those worlds.

    1. Isn’t that kind of the point of populism? Everything would be SO MUCH BETTER if people listened to Joe Blow’s gut instincts that likens his checking account to sovereign debt? We all played a part in encouraging this nonsense by destroying nuance in the name of headlines.

    2. Most everybody knows more than President Trump. He is a “f****g moron” according to a very successful businessman who actually met him.

  4. Yes that’s about right. A couple tin-foil hat guys sitting in their houses reading websites KNOW they are right and have much more intelligence than anyone else. It’s a global cabal don’t you know — it has to be frustrating that the rest of just don’t get it.

  5. Tapio needs to part ways with Shad. Neal was the Trump Campaign Chairman and is the real conservative in this race. Shad represents Tapio and is hurting his campaign with these rants.

    1. What does it say about the candidate that continues to surround themselves/hire people who continue to hurt their standing as a legitimate candidate. At some point you have to consider if the candidate agrees.

  6. Ugh, Shad Olson works for Tapio? To think he almost had my vote. Shad is good at 3 things: Being wrong, pretending to be smarter than everyone else, and having a stupid first name. Poor Neal, the guy would do great but he lacks the resources and contacts that Dusty and Shantel have enumerated over the years. Tapio himself, disregard everything everyone near him says or what people may say about him, he’s the most likable candidate for Congress right now.

  7. Anonymous 1:03,

    I get your point. Just because some guy can compile a hundred crimes committed by Muslims, there are actually people in this country who think every Muslim must be a terrorist if they are living by the Koran* despite the reality we live next door Muslims no more terrorists than the white guy on the other side of our house.

    *which is really funny when a Christian interprets the Koran “authoritatively” when we can’t even get our own Bible right (there are 30,000 different Christian denominations in this nation alone). Its even more funny when we have Muslim nations praising us for our attacks on Assad and letting us have bases there from which we flew out of to attack Assad.

    We are responsible because we don’t say to people on our side who are using stupid arguments- “Stop being an idiot.”

    1. P.S. I’m alot more afraid of some of the posters on “Atheist” Brain-free Press than I am the average SD Muslim. They same some pretty hateful things and seem a sliver away from shooting people up like that guy who did Scalise.

      1. The Colorado guy with a bow tie that was so tight it cut off circulation to his brain must of come back to help CAH win a Senate seat with his slamming of Catholics and Germans. He made a number of physical threats there on the Brain Free Press.

    2. 1:03 here. I am not sure if it is as simple as telling people to stop being idiots anymore because the tribalism has become so pronounced that there is no longer room for reasonable minds to disagree and voicing disagreement is tantamount to a vicious personal attack. I get how we ended up here. Debating disagreements in a logical way can be difficult and making people afraid of those who think differently galvanizes people in a way that few things can. At some point, we have to stop being afraid of introspection.

    3. Troy – And what do those 30,000 denominations use as their base? The Bible, Jesus, God, the 10 Commandments? What does Islam use as it’s base? A man who married a 6yo and then sexually assaulted her at 9? Kill the non-believers, do you know how many Muhammad ordered to be killed? Did Jesus tell his disciples to kill anyone who doesn’t believe? So many terrorists have shouted “Jesus is Greatest” or “Praise Jesus” before blowing themselves and innocent people to pieces, right?

      Read chapter 4 of the Koran and you may gain some perspective about how women are to be treated. You’ll have to buy your own though, b/c if your next-door-Muslim follows Islamic teachings they can’t let you touch the Koran (unless you are wearing gloves), you being an infidel and all. Freedom of Religion, yep that’s Islam. Tell us Troy, since you speak truths, why don’t Muslim nations take refugees? Don’t you think they would assimilate easier in their homelands? Why are the majority of European “migrants” men, they should stay and fight for their country. American men fight for their country, many voluntarily.

      I think I’ll stick with the 30,000 denominations and atheists, they at least agree to do unto others…

  8. Anonymous 1:30 & 2:10:

    I ran into a liberal who thought it hilarious Cohen’s work for Hannity was outed. I said, “So you think it would be funny if the government outed a reporters source in a similar way?” The guy said of course not. My comment back “so it is only funny (and legal) to breach the Constitutional rights of conservatives?”

    I agree it is not so simple to say “Stop being an idiot” but it does mean we have to call out people being an idiot whether we agree with them or not. When we are silent, we are just feeding the stupidity.

    1. I’ve done some basic, basic research on this and I thought the privilege usually didn’t protect the identity of the client whereas the reporter’s privilege protected the identity of the source. Whether or not it should be that way is a fair question, but I thought the law was relatively settled with some exceptions for protecting the client’s identity, i.e. when disclosing the identity would subject the client to some sort of liability. Was there some exception argued here?

  9. 3:41, let me lay out a scenario.

    Let’s imaging a husband and a wife are having difficulty but trying to work it out. In the midst of their problems, the wife goes to a divorce lawyer to get some basic advice but never tells her husband. They work things out. All is good.

    Later, this divorce lawyer and a client are being investigated for something. The office is raided. Does the wife have any protection that her visit is protected? Or, to heck with the principle of confidence and privacy? Now the husband wonders if the wife was truthful and their problems start up again.

    Privacy, privilege etc depends on it being sancrosanct and absolute with the narrowest of exceptions. Unless Hannity is part of the same investigation, it is incumbent his identity be protected. Otherwise, nobody has any promise of confidentiality, privacy and privilege when “the people” want to know something.

    1. That doesnt really answer the question. You are arguing what the law should be, not what it is. The communications are protected, but the identity is not barring specified exceptions. Are there any here? Id like there to be, because I dont think Hannity is relevant to whether or not Cohen used campain funds to pay off Trumps alleged mistresses.

  10. If this is the law, there is no real privacy if the only thing protecting is my lawyer, my doctor and my counselor aren’t raided.

    It isn’t plausible to say one didn’t explore divorce with a divorce attorney, have cancer with a oncologist, or have suicide desires with a suicide counselor.

    There was a Day liberals stood for civil rights, civil liberty, and personal privacy. The silence is deafening.

  11. Interesting story and perspective from the office of footprints and autographs. A few weeks ago, I was chuckling not unpleasantly to someone about how GOP blogger Pat Powers really had an atrocious case of butthurt and was using his blog and the context of Neal’s Congressional run as clearly personal and pitiful catharsis. Their response?

    Pat who?

    Aaah. The refreshment of perspective.

    There are no surprises that a blog birthed, dedicated, funded and populated with mainstream neoconservative dawdlers would be four square in favor of Trump genuflecting fully in the direction of the John McCain-Hillary Clinton PNAC doctrine foreign policy in the Middle East. The timing of this latest nerve gas attack, and the origins of two previous incidents give plausible likelihood that this is yet another episodic manipulation for geopolitical effect.

    Deductive logic to Assad’s cui bono gives plenty of corroborating circumstance. A Pulitzer prize winning New York Times reporter (Seymour Hersh) proved as much about the 2013 Sarin attack in Ghouta and about the 2017 attack in Khan Sheikhoun.

    Then as now, chickenhawks in both establishment teepees were clamoring equally for Obama to jump into the fray, regardless of mutual defense agreements and the possibility of a widening conflict with Russia. He complied, obviously. After all, retaliation against Assad was the prime origin for the provocation.

    Sorry it’s complicated.

    The domestic strategic reality is that Trump’s razor thin margin of electability contained a not insignificant number of Rand Paul, Ron Paul and Gary Johnson voters who took a chance, believing in Trump’s promise of an end to the idiocy of ‘nationbuilding’ and Middle East meddling for only detrimental return on investment.

    But I’m sure that having a long memory and an incurable propensity for deductive-inductive calculus makes someone an oddity in the age of smartphone coma and room temperature intellect. It’s an unpopular thing to reject the popular narrative, no matter how idiotically framed and obviously contrived it might be.

    If only all of us had the moribund luxury of hanging out in a world where Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz were smart predictions for the 2016 GOP nomination and anyone who called Trump as the dominant figure of the election and the only Republican capable of defeating Hillary Clinton in 2011 and again in 2014 are seen as conspiracy theorists.

    Since Pat is spending so much free time hanging out on my facebook these days, I’m shocked not to have received a come hither selfie or a ‘Whassup?’ in my inbox. It is quizzical that he’d latch onto a predictive about the 2020 Presidential tilt and completely ignore the fact that my short story collection was picked up last week and ordered for retail inventory by Barnes and Noble.

    Maybe he’s shy.

    Or biased.

    Or butthurt.

    Pat who?

    1. Would someone get a mop and clean up all the verbal diarrhea? I’ve never seen a communications person who communicates so poorly.

      1. 5:13 – Difficult for you to understand big, scary words? Or, maybe you have trouble asking questions? Here’s some examples: Why did the chemical attacks take place after POTUS said we would pull out of Syria? What are the benefits for Saudi Arabia by keeping U.S. troops in Syria? Why is Russia blocking an independent investigation? Who funds the White Helmets group?

        Here’s a really tough one, so take some time…

        Why, in February, did SOD Mattis make a statement about the 2017chemical attacks; the U.S has “no evidence” that the Syrian govt used the banned nerve agent, Siran, against its own people. Now, back to CNN for you, I know Stormy Daniels keeps you busy.

    2. What on earth would I be “butthurt” about? Not to mention that it’s just a little creepy to have you mentioning anything about my butt.

      The point was that once again, you’re out there drawing negative attention to yourself and damaging the candidate you’re paid to work for.

    3. Neal Tapio, Do yourself a favor and fire this manchild. He is killing whatever chances you had.

  12. I agree with Shad on the possibility of these being red flags. There is no certainly of a gas attack and if there was, why not let the rest of the world figure it out, maybe the UN can actually do their job? America can provide relief and sit this foolishness out. Amazing to see conservatives not care about bypassing congress. Rand Paul is the best thing we got up there right now.

    One of the main reasons I voted for Trump was because he made campaign promises to not go the way of war any longer, to end our eight wars and bring troops home. Hillary was more war and more Wall Street. I hoped Trump would be different. To me he caved in weakness and this does not show me his strength and resolve. War is easy, it is what comes natural to man – retaliation. It is the easy option for those who have no political imagination. If war is a temptation, and it is, then we need leaders who seek a way out from under the temptation. Instead, Trump took the bait – and Hillary is happy, and McCain and the rest.

    And I do weary though of fiscal conservatives that are anything but fiscally conservative when it comes to spending money meddling with other countries, or “defence” spending. The Trump spending bill should have been an easy NO for everyone here. But we idolise our military – the “best” of us as Pence said a couple days ago – and we justify sending sons and daughters out to die – telling them it’s about “freedom” – when it has nothing to do with freedom, or America. People trained to kill are not our best. People coerced into murdering people who have done us no harm are not our best. They are pawns of our worst. America needs new heroes.

    Churchill is a big idol here in the UK. I used to love him. Then I read Churchill’s Secret War and realised that this fat ass cigar smoker starved and killed 3 million Indians. Imagine being fat, as I am these days, and having the power to feed people in famine, but refusing to help because you want to use their suffering woman and children and to use death to break their will politically. Gandhi’s non-violence won the day. Churchill lost and regretted India at the end of his life. Why don’t we teach real history to our sons and daughters? One killed 6 million, and the other 3 million. The world had 2 holocausts in the 1940s. I’m sick of the little people dying because fat cats, corporations and countries are playing multi-national monopoly and geo-political chess. That is what is going on in Syria. Wake up.

    Instead of a military parade this summer, I might don sackcloth and ashes and march in shame and repentance down the middle of the street for America’s participation in eight wars that have no purpose and have only, in the bulk of my adult lifetime, resulted in creating more people who hate us and the world being less safe. These wars are a waste. They are a waste of money. They are a waste of human life.

    I heard the parents of one of the soldiers involved with the Pat Tillman friendly fire death say he used to be proud of his son in the military. But now he realised the government his son was willing to serve covers stuff up, fights for the wrong team, plays dirty and has no real commitment to military families. He said he would not let his son join if he had to do it all over again. Maybe if we get past this feel-good-hype of military patriotism, a generation of our sons and daughters could rise up and say – “no more banker wars…they can send their own sons and daughters in to do their dirty work.”

    When I was a kid I used to marvel at the KGB subverting law, eliminating people, and infiltrating and taking down enemies. Now I realise the CIA and FBI and the USA have long been doing all that and more, in America and around the world. Shameful. The rank and file agent aside, I’m talking about the dark deeds of the heads of American intelligence agencies. This Syria situation has various moving parts including an oil pipeline, a long sought after regime change, Syria not bending her knee to central banking, and preventing a land bridge of Iran to Israel. It’s like we are stupid. One of these agencies sets up a provocation and we see a couple staged pictures and we take the bait. As a dog returns to her vomit so a fool repeated her folly.

  13. Steve,

    In most of your post, you seem to be conflating taking action that requires ground support and sustained involvement vs. a surgical attack to destroy the capacity of this thug to gas his people.

    With regard to being skeptical of the perpetrator of the attack, I accept Occams Razor as most likely.

  14. Shad Olson telling us that the attack was a false flag attack staged for the military industrial complex, and Steve Hickey attacking soldiers & saying “People trained to kill are not our best. They are pawns of our worst.”

    Is there a full moon out?

  15. Yes Troy I am conflating the two because they are the same. Bombs are bombs and there is no such thing as a smart one. Of course, I’m speaking of the bigger picture. We bomb them. Russian or whomever bombs us. It’s not heroic to send our kids in there even though military parades are orchestrated to lead us to believe it is patriotic. I believe in America First and Making America Great Again. Our greatness is not in our military might, but in our generosity and goodwill. Quit calling yourself a conservative if you favour all this war spending.

    And you can spin my words to say I’m “attacking our soldiers” but you remain blind to the bigger picture I’m calling out. And it’s out of deep concern for ‘soldiers as pawns of our worst’ that I challenge the war powers. I maintain I care about far more about soldiers more than they do. [[For what it’s worth, my military family paid dearly for one of America’s most insane wars.]] So, spare me the Hickey hates soldiers stuff. Is it really patriotic now to cheer on our soldiers going into an impossible mess?

    1. Trump supports the massively bloated defense spending. You voted for him. What are YOU making America besides broke? And are you seriously going to claim you thought it reasonable to trust that man?

  16. Shad’s thesaurus working overtime. It doesnt make you smart, bud, just incredibly verbose and self-congratulatory.

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