All posts filed under: United States

Mueller-Dämmerung

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CJ Hopkins If Nietzsche was right, and what doesn’t kill us only makes us stronger, we can thank the global capitalist ruling classes, the Democratic Party, and the corporate media for four more years of Donald Trump. The long-awaited Mueller report is due any day now, or so they keep telling us. Once it is delivered, and does not prove that Trump is a Russian intelligence asset, or that he personally conspired with Vladimir Putin to steal the presidency from Hillary Clinton, well, things are liable to get a bit awkward. Given the amount of goalpost-moving and focus-shifting that has been going on, clearly, this is what everyone’s expecting. Honestly, I’m a bit surprised. I was sure they were going to go ahead and fabricate some kind of “smoking gun” evidence (like the pee-stained sheets from that Moscow hotel), or coerce one of his sleazy minions into testifying that he personally saw Trump down on his knees “colluding” Putin in the back room of a Russian sauna. After all, if you’re going to accuse a …

Gimme Some Truth

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Philip Farruggio I’m sick and tired of hearing things from Uptight short sided narrow minded hypocritics All I want is the truth, just give me some truth I’ve had enough of reading things By neurotic psychotic pigheaded politicians All I want is the truth, just give me some truth No short-haired, yellow-bellied Son of tricky dicky’s Gonna mother hubbard soft soap me With just a pocket full of hopes Money for dope, money for rope John Lennon John Lennon wrote that song in 1971, and its value as message resonates even better today. His lyrics refer to some as ‘uptight, short sided (he meant “‘sighted”?) narrow minded hypo critics (he may have even meant those in the media who ‘critique’ the news)’. How sad that almost 50 years have passed and our A) Mainstream Media B) Politicians and C) The Corporate Consumer machine are still at it. They are equal opportunity bullshit artists, undertaking the task of distorting the truth about what is affecting our society. Of course, behind the OZ curtain stand the wizards …

Guardian getting behind Beto O’Rourke?

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Headlines are important, sometimes they’re the only part of any story people will read. They scan over the words, assume they got the gist of the article, and move on. It’s why they’re almost always the most dishonest part of any story in the mainstream news. Case in point: Beto O’Rourke, one of a crowded field of democratic hopefuls for the 2020 Presidential bid, raised 6.1 million dollars for his campaign, in 24 hours. This “stunning sum” apparently “smashes” Bernie Sanders’ record. If you read the article you’ll find, near the bottom, that Bernie raised 5.9 million in 24 hours. How 6.1 million “smashes” this record I’m not sure. I don’t have the dictionary definition of “smashed” memorized, but I’m fairly positive it isn’t “increase by slightly over three percent”. This sort of language is an indicator that O’Rourke is going to be the Guardianista pick. Well meaning liberals will rejoice in his ability to sound good whilst saying absolutely nothing of any value. His nice smile, his youth, and the fact he is as …

Why Calling the US a ‘Democracy’ Is Both False & Dangerous

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It’s false because it is definitely untrue, and that’s not merely because America has a higher percentage of its residents in prison than does any other nation on this planet, but also because the only scientific studies that have been done of the matter show — they prove scientifically — that the US is a dictatorship by its very wealthiest residents, against all the rest of the population.

Is AIPAC in Violation of Federal Election Law?

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Renee Parsons What newcomer to the US House of Representatives, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Mn) may not have fully realized is that her critique of Israel influence on American politics would open a door that has previously been hermetically sealed as the third rail of American politics. With its influence carefully concealed behind decades of deceptions, lies and ruthless intimidation and representing a mere 2.1% of the population spread across nine states, AIPAC and its supporters are like any school yard bully when confronted with a higher ethical authority. They throw down the race card, an archaic accusation of anti-semitism intended to play on a misguided empathy that is no longer effective when confronted with words that speak truth to power. Rep. Omar first came to our attention during a House Foreign Affairs Committee meeting with an elegant takedown of convicted felon and neo-con purveyor of brutal atrocities Elliot Abrams who sorely deserved to be humiliated. Abrams is currently President Trump’s point man on plotting future military action in Venezuela. From there, the controversies around Rep. …

Syria Accuses US of Stealing 40+ Tons of Gold

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Eric Zuesse The Syrian National News Agency headlined on February 26th, “Gold deal between United States and Daesh [ISIS]” and reported that: Information from local sources said that US army helicopters have already transported the gold bullions under cover of darkness on Sunday [February 24th], before transporting them to the United States. The sources said that tens of tons that Daesh had been keeping in their last hotbed in al-Baghouz area in Deir Ezzor countryside have been handed to the Americans, adding up to other tons of gold that Americans have found in other hideouts for Daesh, making the total amount of gold taken by the Americans to the US around 50 tons, leaving only scraps for the SDF [Kurdish] militias that serve them [the US operation]. Recently, sources said that the area where Daesh leaders and members have barricaded themselves in, contains around 40 tons of gold and tens of millions of dollars. Allegedly, “US occupation forces in the Syrian al-Jazeera area made a deal with Daesh terrorists, by which Washington gets tens of …

RussiaGate as Organised Distraction

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Prof. Oliver Boyd-Barrett, via Organisation for Propaganda Studies For over two years RussiaGate has accounted for a substantial proportion of all mainstream US media political journalism and, because US media have significant agenda-setting propulsion, of global media coverage as well. The timing has been catastrophic. The Trump Administration has shredded environmental protections, jettisoned nuclear agreements, exacerbated tensions with US rivals, and pandered to the rich. In place of sustained media attention to the end of the human species from global warming, its even more imminent demise in nuclear warfare, or the further evisceration of democratic discourse in a society riven by historically unprecedented wealth inequalities and unbridled capitalistic greed, corporate media suffocate their publics with a puerile narrative of alleged collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia. The RussiaGate discourse is profoundly mendacious and hypocritical. It presumes that the US is a State whose electoral system enjoys a high degree of public trust and security. Nothing could be further from the truth. The US democratic system is deeply entrenched in a dystopian two-party system …

Putin Now Thinks Western Elites Are ‘Swine’

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Dmitry Orlov via Russia Insider An article I published close to five years ago, “Putin to Western elites: Play-time is over”, turned out to be the most popular thing I’ve written so far, having garnered over 200,000 reads over the intervening years. In it I wrote about Putin’s speech at the 2014 Valdai Club conference. In that speech he defined the new rules by which Russia conducts its foreign policy: out in the open, in full public view, as a sovereign nation among other sovereign nations, asserting its national interests and demanding to be treated as an equal. Yet again, Western elites failed to listen to him. Instead of mutually beneficial cooperation they continued to speak the language of empty accusations and counterproductive yet toothless sanctions. And so, in yesterday’s address to Russia’s National Assembly Putin sounded note of complete and utter disdain and contempt for his “Western partners,” as he has usually called them. This time he called them “swine.” The president’s annual address to the National Assembly is a rather big deal. Russia’s …

The Orientalism of Western Russophobia

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Last year marked the 40th anniversary of the publication of Edward W. Said’s pioneering book, Orientalism, as well as fifteen years since the Palestinian-American intellectual’s passing. To bid farewell to such an important scholar shortly after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, which Said fiercely criticized until his dying breath before succumbing to leukemia, made an already tremendous loss that much more impactful.

Michael Cohen’s Disproven Testimony

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Eric Zuesse Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen gave false testimony to Congress on Wednesday, February 27th, when he said that Trump had been phoned by Roger Stone in advance of the Wikileaks dump of Hillary Clinton’s emails and that Stone at that time told Trump that Stone had just gotten off the phone with Julian Assange who had just told Stone that there would soon be a big dump by Wikileaks of damaging files from Clinton. On February 27th, Cohen told Congress: Mr. Trump knew from Roger Stone in advance about the WikiLeaks drop of emails. In July 2016, days before the Democratic convention, I was in Mr. Trump’s office when his secretary announced that Roger Stone was on the phone. Mr. Trump put Mr. Stone on the speakerphone. Mr. Stone told Mr. Trump that he had just gotten off the phone with Julian Assange and that Mr. Assange told Mr. Stone that, within a couple of days, there would be a massive dump of emails that would damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Mr. Trump responded …

Regime Change is Urgently Needed…in Washington

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Andre Vltchek I am surprised that no one else is saying it, writing it, shouting it at each and every corner: It is not Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Iran that are in dire and crucial need of ‘regime change’. It is the United States of America, it is the entire European Union; in fact, the entire West. And the situation is urgent. The West has gone mad; it has gone so to speak, bananas; mental. And people there are too scared to even say it, to write about it. One country after another is falling, being destroyed, antagonized, humiliated, impoverished. Entire continents are treated as if they were inhabited by irresponsible toddlers, who are being chased and disciplined by sadistic adults, with rulers and belts in their hands yelling with maniacal expressions on their faces: “Behave, do as we say, or else!” It all would be truly comical, if it weren’t so depressing. But… nobody is laughing. People are shaking, sweating, crying, begging, puking, but they are not chuckling. I see it everywhere where I …

Goebbels is alive and well…in Amerika

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Philip A. Farruggio Peter Longerich’s 2015 biography Goebbels instructs well how history can and does repeat itself. Like many of the NeoCon ex “Lefties” who loaded up the Bush Sr. and Jr. administrations, Goebbels was at first a true socialist, perhaps even a Marxist sympathizer. [He had also seriously considered the Catholic priesthood.] As a young novelist and later journalist, he had a real dislike for the Fat Cat capitalists who he and others from both the political left and right blamed for Germany’s fall from grace. When he “found” Adolf Hitler, despite his many disappointments about Hitler from his diary entries ( including the fact that he fervently believed that Hitler was in love with Goebbels’ fiancé Magda … and perhaps vice versa), Goebbels joined the new Fuehrer Cult. As with many others in economically and culturally depressed Germany, Goebbels was enamored with the man he referred to as ‘The boss’. The need for a messianic leader, actually a dictator, was very prevalent among many in the NASDAP (Nazi party). So much so that …

The US Must Be Stopped in Venezuela

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Andre Vltchek Enough is enough! There have been plenty of empty talk and peace conferences, more than enough of begging: “Please, West, stop murdering people, stop your genocides, stop robbing all continents of their resources, stop enslaving billions!” Look where it has ended up! Nowhere. Absolutely nowhere. The more people begged, the more they protested, the harder the West hit. Rulers in Washington, London and Paris have no mercy. They have no sense of justice. They only know greed and power. On February 13, 2019, RT reported [emphasis added]: The US staked a claim on half the world, as Senate Armed Services Committee chair Jim Inhofe said Washington might have to intervene in Venezuela if Russia dares set up a military base not just there, but “in our hemisphere.”” “Our hemisphere” Finally, it is all out in the open. The good old ‘Monroe Doctrine’. In the Western Hemisphere (which is obviously owned by the US), there is not one single ‘Latin’ country where the West has not overthrown the government, where it has not raped …

Hands Off Venezuela, Canada and US Go Home!

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What is happening to Venezuela is a coup d’état and it has nothing to do with democracy, human rights, free and fair elections or international law. The US and Canada represent the antithesis of those values; defying the United Nations Charter and international law by interfering in the internal affairs of Venezuela. Their hands are not clean, and their motives are not pure, because their foreign policy objectives everywhere are to promote the interests of their domestic corporations, oligarchs and war profiteers.

More than Cognitive Dissonance

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James O’Neill The dilemmas in Canberra go beyond the respective roles of the American alliance and the China trade. They point to a failure to grasp historical reality and an equal failure to perceive the future. In a recent article in the influential Australian website Pearls and the Irritations (www.johnmenadue.com 8 January 2019) Richard Broinowski set out several reasons why the Canberra establishment (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Ministry of Defence and Prime Minister and Cabinet) in what he described as cognitive dissonance, have adhered to a pro-American set of foreign policies. This has been the case ever since then Prime Minister John Curtin’s announcement in 1941 that Australia was essentially switching its reliance on the United Kingdom to an equally dependent relationship with the United States. Mr Broinowski then set out a series of factors why this has been the case at least up until the 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper, although he now detects some faint glimmerings of a possible policy shift. Such optimism in my view lacks a solid evidential foundation. …

Making Globalism Great Again

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CJ Hopkins Maybe Donald Trump isn’t as stupid as I thought. I’d hate to have to admit that publicly, but it does kind of seem like he has put one over on the liberal corporate media this time. Scanning the recent Trump-related news, I couldn’t help but notice a significant decline in the number of references to Weimar, Germany, Adolf Hitler, and “the brink of fascism” that America has supposedly been teetering on since Hillary Clinton lost the election. I googled around pretty well, I think, but I couldn’t find a single editorial warning that Trump is about to summarily cancel the US Constitution, dissolve Congress, and proclaim himself Führer. Nor did I see any mention of Auschwitz, or any other Nazi stuff … which is weird, considering that the Hitler hysteria has been a standard feature of the official narrative we’ve been subjected to for the last two years. So how did Trump finally get the liberal corporate media to stop calling him a fascist? He did that by acting like a fascist (i.e., …

Trump buys Lithuania, EU cannot stop it

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Adomas Abromaitis The US President Donald Trump is no doubt a successful businessman who rules his country as if it is a huge enterprise. And this kind of management, to his mind, should lead to success. And very often it really works. As a wise leader he uses different tools to reach his goals. Thus, the most cunning one, which the US exploits in Europe – is indirect influence on the EU countries to gain the desired aim. The EU just becomes a tool in “capable hands” of the US. Let us give the simple example. Last week the Ministry of National Defence of Lithuania announced that the Lithuanian Air Force Base in Šiauliai would get de-icing equipment for the aircraft. It would be acquired according to an agreement signed by the Ministry of National Defence and the AF Security Assistance and Cooperation Directorate (AFSACD) on behalf of the Government of the United States of America. It is known that the new equipment is capable of removing ice from aircraft at the necessary height which …

How Chrystia Freeland Organized Donald Trump’s Coup in Venezuela

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Eric Zuesse On Monday, February 5th, Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland announced that the 14 countries of the Lima Group have now been joined (though she didn’t say to what extent) by the EU, and by 8 other individual countries. The Lima Group had actually formed themselves under her direction into this new group on 8 August 2017 in order to overthrow and replace Venezuela’s current President Nicolás Maduro. She stated in her February 5th announcement: Today, we have been joined by our Lima Group partners, from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Saint Lucia. We have also been joined in our conversations with our partners from other countries, for this Lima Group ministerial meeting. These include Ecuador, the European Union, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States.” She, along with U.S. President Donald Trump, had, all along, been the actual leaders of this international diplomatic effort, to violate the Venezuelan Constitution blatantly, so as to perpetrate the coup in Venezuela. Her …

“New Knowledge” and the same old same old

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Most of us in the UK-based alternate media are familiar with the Integrity Initiative by now. A disinformation campaign funded by the foreign office through the (very dodgy sounding) Institute for Statecraft. Their job was to smear people opposing Theresa May’s government – be they foreign or domestic. Less well-known in this country is New Knowledge, a direct US-based parallel of the Integrity Initiative. They’ve been conducting “counter propaganda” and “social media experiments” in the US since 2015, but only just hit the headlines.

Conflict is Inevitable

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Eddison Flame If you’re anything like me, you’ve been absolutely apoplectic this past week watching the United States orchestrate a coup in Venezuela. It has been truly horrifying to watch these things play out in real time. How bold and brazen these thugs have become! They are doing this right out in the open, they hardly even try to hide it. Sure, they try to whitewash it with their typical propaganda. They obfuscate key facts. They paint Maduro as a criminal. They pass around cheap slogans. Where once we heard, “You’re either with us, or you’re with the terrorists”, now it’s, “either you stand with the forces of freedom, or you’re in league with Maduro and his mayhem”. It’s disgusting. It’s disgusting and horrifying and saddening, but if there is one thing we gain by watching this tragedy unfold, it is a certain clarity about the state of affairs in the world. It makes it clear that conflict is inevitable. I’m not talking about conflict in Venezuela, although conflict is likely to unfold there too, …