The Prosecution Of Julian Assange Is Infinitely Bigger Than Assange

Caitlin Johnstone
Medium.com

Julian Assange’s mother reported yesterday that the WikiLeaks founder has not been permitted any visitors during his detention in Belmarsh Prison, including from doctors and his lawyers. Doctors who visited Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy have attested that he urgently needs medical care. Belmarsh is a maximum security prison sometimes referred to as “the UK’s Guantanamo Bay”.

And yet we’re asked to believe that this has something to do with an alleged bail violation and a US extradition request for alleged computer crimes carrying a maximum sentence of five years. If you zoom out and listen to the less-informed chatter of the overt propagandists and the brainwashed rank-and-file western mass media consumers, you will also see that people believe this has something to do with Russia and rape allegations as well. 

Actually, none of these things are true.

Assange is being imprisoned under draconian conditions for journalism, and for journalism only. The Obama administration declined to prosecute him after WikiLeaks’ publication of the Manning leaks out of concern that doing so would endanger press freedoms, and the Obama administration didn’t have any more evidence at its disposal than the Trump administration has now. The “crime” Assange is accused of consists of nothing other than standard journalistic practices that investigative journalists engage in all the time, including source protection and encouraging the source to obtain more material. The only thing that has changed is an increased willingness in the White House to prosecute journalists for practicing journalism, and there are an abundance of reasonsto believe that he will be hit with far more serious charges once extradited to US soil. They’re not going to all this trouble for a bail violation and a five-year maximum sentence.

But if you zoom out even further, in the grand scheme of things this barely even has anything to do with Assange. Sure, he has of course been a thorn in the side of those who operate the transnational western power alliance, and given the choice they would of course prefer him to be locked up or dead than free and alive. But that’s not what the corrupt influencers who are strangling our world are shooting for here. They are making a grab for something much, much bigger. Assange just happens to be a stepping stone along the way. 

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Crisis at US National Archives: A lot of key records are missing

Thomas Lipscomb
Real Clear Politics

In the middle of directing the difficult task of transferring the historically important records of the Obama administration into the National Archives, the archivist in charge, David Ferriero, ran into a serious problem: A lot of key records are missing.

A first-rate librarian, Ferriero has been driving a much-needed digital overhaul and expansion of the National Archives over the nine years of his appointment. This will greatly improve the ability of digital search locally and remotely, as well as accessing the files themselves.

To support this effort, in 2014 President Obama signed the Presidential and Federal Records Act Amendments. For the first time electronic government records were placed under the 1950 Federal Records Act. The new law also included updates clarifying "the responsibilities of federal government officials when using non-government email systems" and empowering "the National Archives to safeguard original and classified records from unauthorized removal." Additionally, it gives the Archivist of the United States the final authority in determining just what is a government record.

And yet the accumulation of recent congressional testimony has made it clear that the Obama administration itself engaged in the wholesale destruction and "loss" of tens of thousands of government records covered under the act as well as the intentional evasion of the government records recording system by engaging in private email exchanges. So far, former President Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Attorney General Lynch and several EPA officials have been named as offenders. The IRS suffered record "losses" as well. Former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy called it "an unauthorized private communications system for official business for the patent purpose of defeating federal record-keeping and disclosure laws."  

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Obama Administration facilitated Child Sex Traffickers, Senate Report Says

NWO Report

The Obama administration quietly handed thousands of Central American children to child sex traffickers, according to a bombshell Senate investigation. 

The Office of Refugee Resettlement, an agency of the Department of Health and Human Services, refused to do background checks of adults who took the children, and allowed criminals and pedophiles to take custody of vulnerable minors, according to a 56-page investigative report released in 2016.

Washingtonpost.com reports: And once the children left federally funded shelters, the report said, the agency permitted their adult sponsors to prevent caseworkers from providing them post-release services.

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) initiated the six-month investigation after several Guatemalan teens were found in a dilapidated trailer park near Marion, Ohio, where they were being held captive by traffickers and forced to work at a local egg farm. The boys were among more than 125,000 unaccompanied minors who have surged into the United States since 2011, fleeing violence and unrest in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

“It is intolerable that human trafficking — modern-day slavery — could occur in our own backyard,” Portman said in a written statement. “What makes the Marion cases even more alarming is that a U.S. government agency was responsible for delivering some of the victims into the hands of their abusers.”

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Are the U.S. and Kiev Junta Planning a “False Flag” Chemical Attack in East Ukraine? To Place the Blame on Russia?

Millennium Report

We bring to the consideration of GR readers an important video interview.

Unnamed sources in the Kiev government have leaked the Junta’s intent to use chemical weapons against the people of Donbass.

The last time “Strelkov” warned about a similar occurrence, a few days later Kiev forces attacked a chemical plant.

Fortunately, the missiles and rockets which were fired by Kiev forces missed their target.

Had they succeeded, this would have resulted in countless deaths.

Interview with Alexander Ivanovich Zhilin, journalist and military expert on Abkhazian Network News Agency (ANNA News)’s program called “Actually”. The subtitles are in German.An English transcript is available below.

“If we do everything we can now to make this information widely known, then we will pull the rug from under the Kiev Junta”

Below is a translation (English) of this important ANNA News interview.

ANNA News host: Alexander Ivanovich, you have something to say to the people, we are giving you this opportunity.

Alexander Ivanovich: Thank you very much. I would like to ask journalists, politicians and the people a favor. Please defend Ukraine. I’m asking you to defend it like a territory in which it is still possible to live. Yesterday around 3 am Moscow time, we received confirmation from Kiev that a sinister provocation was in preparation. The United States of America are trying to use chemical weapons in Donbass with the help of fascists [Kiev forces]. They will try to use these weapons in the following manner ….

SCROLL DOWN FOR COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT (English)

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James Risen Calls Obama ‘Greatest Enemy of Press Freedom in a Generation’

The Guardian
 
The New York Times reporter James Risen, who faces jail over his refusal to reveal a source and testify against a former CIA agent accused of leaking secrets, has called President Barack Obama “the greatest enemy of press freedom in a generation”.

Speaking to his colleague Maureen Dowd, Risen accused the president of aggressively pursuing journalists, including himself, who report sensitive stories that reflect poorly on the US government.

Risen faces jail over his reporting of a botched intelligence operation that ended up spilling nuclear secrets to Iran. The Justice Department has long been seeking to force him to testify and name the confidential source of the account, which is contained in his 2006 book State of War.

Risen recently failed in an attempt to have the supreme court review an order for him to testify, and acknowledges that he has exhausted all his legal options against the Justice Department’s pursuit of him under the controversial Espionage Act. In the face of incarceration that could come as early as this autumn, he is resorting instead to journalistic defiance.

Risen would be the first journalist to go to prison for failing to divulge sources since 2005, when the former New York Times reporter Judith Miller was jailed for contempt of court, after refusing to testify about a source before a federal grand jury.

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ISIS in Iraq stinks of CIA/NATO ‘dirty war’ op

Millennium Report

Iraqi Kurdish forces take position near Taza Khormato as they fight jihadist militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) positioned five kilometers away in Bashir, 20 kms south of Kirkuk (AFP Photo / Karim Sahib)

For days now, since their dramatic June 10 taking of Mosul, Western mainstream media have been filled with horror stories of the military conquests in Iraq of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, with the curious acronym ISIS.  

ISIS, as in the ancient Egyptian cult of the goddess of fertility and magic. The media picture being presented adds up less and less.

Details leaking out suggest that ISIS and the major military ‘surge’ in Iraq – and less so in neighboring Syria – is being shaped and controlled out of Langley, Virginia, and other CIA and Pentagon outposts as the next stage in spreading chaos in the world’s second-largest oil state, Iraq, as well as weakening the recent Syrian stabilization efforts.

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'Help Israel avoid war crimes charges,' Netanyahu urges US lawmakers

Comment: This guy is unbelievable.

------------------------------------

Jerusalem Post

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu appealed to American legislators to help Israel stave off what is likely to be a concerted global push to haul the country’s military and political leaders to international courts for alleged war crimes committed in Gaza, The New York Post reported on Thursday.

According to the Post, during a meeting on Wednesday with members of Congress who are visiting Israel as guests of AIPAC, Netanyahu urged the American representatives to summon their powers in assisting Israeli officials who wish to avoid trial by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

The congressional delegation includes Rep. Steve Israel (D – NY), who heard the latest from the Israeli premier regarding the tenuous Gaza cease-fire as well as Jerusalem’s strained relations with the Obama administration.

“The prime minister asked us to work together to ensure that this strategy of going to the ICC does not succeed,” Israel toldThe New York Post.

Netanyahu “wants the US to use all the tools that we have at our disposal to, number one, make sure the world knows that war crimes were not committed by Israel, they were committed by Hamas. And that Israel should not be held to a double standard,” the congressman said. 

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The West's Reckless Rush Towards War With Russia

Chris Martenson
Peak Prosperity

For reasons that have no rational explanations at this time, the US and Europe have embarked on a concerted program to demonize Putin, ostracize Russia, and bring the world as close to a major conflict as it's been since the Cold War, a time hardly memorable to many in the current crop of our elected officials.

Within hours of the MH-17 plane crash, the United States pinned the blame on Russia generally, and Putin particularly. The anti-Putin propaganda (and if there were a stronger term I'd use it) has been relentless and almost comically over-the-top (see image above, and those below).

The US and the UK in particular, are leading the charge. Indeed, the UK's Daily Mail managed to crank out an article on the MH-17 affair within just a few hours on the very same day it occurred with this headline:

The blood on Putin's hands...
Jul 17, 2014
The world may have averted its gaze towards Israel and Gaza, but this week the rumbling warfare in eastern Ukraine has been erupting into something growing daily more dangerous.
Meanwhile the Russian bear, still pretending to be an innocent party despite blood dripping from its paws, has begun stealthily rebuilding its forces on the border.
Now we may well have witnessed the kind of shocking event that happens when heavy armaments are placed in the hands of untrained and desperate militias.

That's really an amazing piece of journalism to have managed to have figured out the who, the what and the why of a major catastrophe without the benefit of any evidence or investigation.  One wonders who the author's source was for obtaining what have become very crisp talking points that both the US and Europe are echoing as they exert increasing pressure on Russia?

Nearly two weeks later, neither the US nor Europe has provided substantial evidence of any sort to support their assertions that Ukrainian separatists and/or Russia are to blame for the MH-17 catastrophe. There's literally been nothing. 

In the meantime, very important questions surrounding the shoot-down have gone entirely unaddressed by US officials and the western media. Why? Perhaps because they raise the possibility that there could be an alternative explanation:

• What about the Russian satellite photos showing Kiev controlled BUK-1 missile batteries in the area on July 17th?
• What about Russia's evidence that the radar of these units were active on July 15th, 16th and 17th?
• What were on the air traffic control recordings that were immediately seized by Ukrainian authorities, and why have they not been released?
• Why was a Ukrainian SU-25 flying within a few kilometers of MH-17 at the moment of the shoot-down and what did that pilot see?
• Why has the US not responded to nor released the satellite images and data from its spy satellite that Russia claims was in the right position to capture the precise moment of the MH-17 shoot-down?

So far, the entire case made by the US State Department and Obama administration boils down to a few highly-questionable social media clips gathered right after the incident, plus several out-of-date low-resolution satellite photos taken from a private company (DigitalGlobe) along with a bevy of 'trust us' statements.

Nonetheless, despite the lack of solid, verified and credible evidence, the current narrative has now been embedded firmly in the media cycle and nearly everyone on the streets of the US, UK and most European nations will tell you that Putin and/or Russia was responsible.

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Wiping Out the Christians of Syria and Iraq to Remap the Mid-East: Prerequisite to a Clash of Civilizations? (I)

Mahdi Darius NAZEMROAYA

Strategic Culture

Historically, the Levant is the birthplace of Christianity and the oldest Christian communities have lived in it and the entire Fertile Crescent since the start of Christian history. Early Christian called themselves followers or people of «the Way» before they adopted the term Christian; in Arabic their antiquated name would be «Ahl Al-Deen». [1] Traces of this original name are also available in the New Testament of the Bible and can be read in John 14:5-7, Acts 9:1-2, Acts 24:4 and 14. From the Fertile Crescent these Christian communities spread across Africa, Asia, and Europe. Since that time the ancient communities of Christians, many of which still use the Syriac dialects of Aramaic in their churches, have been an integral and important part of the social fabrics of the pluralistic societies of Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Turkey, and Iran. Nevertheless, the Christians of the Levant and Iraq are now in the cross-hairs.

Deceit and mischief has been at play. It is no coincidence that Egyptian Christians were attacked at the same time as the South Sudan Referendum, which was supposed to signal a split between the Muslims in Khartoum and the Christians and animists in Juba. Nor is it an accident that Iraq’s Christian, one of the oldest Christian communities in the world, began to face a modern exodus, leaving their homes and ancestral homeland in Iraq in 2003. Mysterious groups targeted both them and Palestinian refugees… Coinciding with the exodus of Iraqi Christians, which occurred under the watchful eyes of US and British military forces, the neighborhoods in Baghdad became sectarian as Shiite Muslims and Sunni Muslims were forced by violence and death squads to form sectarian enclaves. This is all tied to US and Israeli project of redrawing the map.

The Christian communities of the Levant and Iraq have long distrusted the US government for its support of Israel, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and fanatical militants with anti-Christian leanings. Lebanon’s Christians have also been weary of US support for Israeli expansion and ideas about resettling Palestinians into Lebanon. There is also a widely held belief that the US and Israel have been involved in a policy to remove or «purge» the Christians from Iraq and the Levant in some type of Zionist-linked resettlement plan. Since the US-supported anti-government fighters started targeting Christian Syrians, there has been renewed talk about a Christian exodus in the Middle East centering on Washington’s war on Syria.

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US Intelligence on Malaysian Flight MH17: Russia Didn’t Do It. “US Satellite Photos do not Support Obama’s Lies”

Paul Craig Roberts
paulcraigroberts.org

After days of placing hostile blame for the downing of the Malaysian airliner on Russia, the White House permitted US intelligence officials to tell reporters that there is no evidence of the Russian government’s involvement. Obviously, the US satellite photos do not support the Obama regime’s lies. If the White House had any evidence of Russian complicity, it would have released it to great fanfare days ago. 

We are fortunate that the analytical side of the CIA, in contrast with the black ops side, retains analysts with integrity even after the purge of the agency ordered by Dick Cheney. Incensed that the CIA did not immediately fall in line with all of the Bush regime’s war lies, Cheney had the agency purged.  The black ops side of the agency is a different story.  Many believe that it should be defunded and abolished as this part of the CIA operates in violation of statutory US law.

Don’t hold your breath until Washington abolishes black-ops operations or the Obama regime apologizes to the Russian government for the unfounded accusations and insinuations leveled by the White House at Russia.

Despite this admission by US intelligence officials, the propaganda ministry is already at work to undermine the admission.  The intelligence officials themselves claim that Russia is, perhaps, indirectly responsible, because Russia “created the conditions” that caused Kiev to attack the separatists.

 

In other words, Washington’s coup overseen by US State Department official Victoria Nuland, which overthrew an elected democratic Ukrainian government and brought extreme Russophobes into power in Kiev who attacked dissenting former Russian territories that were attached to Ukraine by Soviet communist party leaders when Russia and Ukraine were part of the same country, has no responsibility for the result.

Washington is innocent.  Russia is guilty.  End of story.

The day previously, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf, one of the Obama regime’s brainless warmonger women, angrily turned on reporters who asked about the Russian government’s official denial of responsibility. Don’t you understand, she demanded, that what the US government says is credible and what the Russian government says is not credible!

Rest assured that the owners of the media and the editors of the reporters received calls and threats. I wouldn’t be surprised if the reporters have lost their jobs for doing their jobs.

There you have it. America’s free press. The American press is free to lie for the government, but mustn’t dare exercise any other freedom.

Washington will never permit official clarification of MH-17.  Today (July 23) the BBC (the British Brainwashing Corporation) declared: “Whitehall sources say information has emerged that MH17 crash evidence was deliberated tampered with, as the plane’s black boxes arrive in the UK.”

After making this claim of tampered with black boxes, the BBC contradicted itself:

“The Dutch Safety Board, which is leading the investigation, said ‘valid data’ had been downloaded from MH17’s cockpit voice recorder (CVR) which will be ‘further analyzed’. The board said: ‘The CVR was damaged but the memory module was intact. Furthermore no evidence or indications of manipulation of the CVR was found.’”

The BBC does not tell us how the black boxes are simultaneously in British and Dutch hands, or how they got into British and Dutch hands when the separatists gave the black boxes to the Malaysians with the guarantee that the black boxes would be turned over to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) for expert and non-politicized examination.

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MH17 Verdict: Real Evidence Points to US-Kiev Cover-up of Failed False Flag

21st Century Wire

Until this past Monday, the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 on July 17th, 2014, was a potential game changer for global geopolitics and the New Cold War. However, a funny thing happened on the way to the Kremlin…

In this report, we will lay out the facts based on a wide breadth of available information and data surrounding MH17. We will also present and give critique to Washington and Kiev’s “mountain of evidence” that has saturated US and European-based media coverage since the incident took place. 21WIRE has compiled this report with the help of many contributors and references from English-speaking media, as well as material translated from Russian and Ukrainian media sources, along with other historical references to provide context. Our objective is to get as close to the truth as possible. Although many revelations will appear to be self-evident, we still encourage the public to draw their own conclusions regarding this pivotal event.

There are other well-known anomalies surrounding this event which have been covered at 21WIRE, as well as connections to MH370, but for the purposes of this investigation we will focus on both factual and speculative evidence brought forth by the US, Ukraine and Russia. 

As we will clearly demonstrate, the only wild conspiracy theories being pushed right now, are those coming out of the US State Department, and the government in Kiev, Ukraine, which are being repeated by CNN, BBC, FOX-NewsCorp, ABC, CBS and NBC…

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Michelle Obama teaming up with Monsanto to promote children’s food

Daily Leak

The popular agriculture company Monsanto is partnering with First Lady Michelle Obama to promote nutritional foods for kids. According to reports from the Associated Press, Monsanto will spend $50 million over five years on a campaign to market ‘healthy’ genetically modified food to children. The agrochemical company will also bring its food offerings for kids in line with the new federal standards for labeling and nutrition.

Obama announced her intentions in front of crates of fresh produce on Thursday. “When I see a company like Monsanto launch an initiative like this, I feel more hopeful than ever before,” said the First Lady. “We can improve how we make and sell food in this country.”

“It’s a natural extension of what we do,” Monsanto vice president, Michael Stern, told the AP in reference to the new partnership with the first lady.

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FLIGHT MH17 – Kiev Flash Mob’s Final False Flag?

Andrew McKillop
21st Century Wire


The downing of Flight MH17 means that Washington’s gang are on the war path again. Barack Obama, Joe Biden, John McCain and even Hillary Clinton – are all insisting that the west has to ‘get tougher’ with Russia. Was this the plan all along?

With little or no evidence to back their claims (déjà vu Syria), the usual suspects and their media moguls are pointing the finger at Russia again. With so much going on in the US and to its special friends in other parts of the world, this crisis event could not have come at a better time. Is this the Kiev Flash Mob’s final card from its dealer at Pennsylvania Ave?

Escalating To War

As any keen observer of the event will tell you, nothing about Washington’s version of events adds up.

Reactions were predictable. Financial markets reacted with a predictable knee-jerk massive gold­ and­ oil price spike, to news of the mid-­air destruction by missile or (theoretically­ only) by an on-board bomb explosion, of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 near Donetsk in Ukraine.

The recent ­model Boeing 777 is said to have had 298 persons on board, all of whom died. Known data on the flight, until it suddenly went off-­air, is that the flight was progressing normally at the plane’s design cruise speed (about 0.84 Mach or 1000 kilometres/hour), and its normal cruise altitude of 10,000 metres or 33,000 feet.

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The U.S. Elite Run a Ukrainian Genocide While American Public Are Ignorant of It

Washington Blog

On Wednesday, July 2nd, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko resumed unlimited war against the residents of southeastern Ukraine, whom he calls “terrorists” for their wanting not to be killed by his troops. European leaders (especially Merkel of Germany, Hollande of France, and Putin of Russia) urged him not to resume his bombing campaign against the southeast, but the U.S. (specifically President Obama) supports the bombings, and that’s enough for Poroshenko; so, he did it. As the U.S. State Department said, “he has a right to defend his country.” Reuters reports that Poroshenko gave as his reason for the resumption, “to rid Ukraine of ‘parasites’.”  Adolf Hitler had given the same reason for ethnically cleansing his country.

Here are videos and photos of the Obama Administration’s sponsored ethnic cleansing to reduce the population in the areas of Ukraine that had voted overwhelmingly “the wrong way” in Ukraine’s final nationwide election, in 2010:  the areas of Ukraine that overwhelmingly chose as Ukraine’s President the man whom Obama’s coup overthrew in February 2014. After this ethnic cleansing, maybe Ukraine can have another nationwide election, which will produce the type of outcome that the U.S. 

Government likes. But on 25 May 2014, we held in Ukraine an election where people voted only in the pro-American portion of Ukraine, and only leaders who were acceptable to the U.S. White House were allowed onto the ballot.

America’s “news” media are not reporting on America’s ethnic-cleansing program in Ukraine. It’s happening in the dark, as far as the American public are concerned: they don’t know about it. But, here it is: this, is what they are hiding from you.

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Court releases memo justifying drone killings of Americans

The US on Monday released the secretive memo outlining the Obama administration's legal justifications for targeted-killings of American citizens by drone strike. Used to justify the killing of American born Anwar al-Awlaki in 2011, a federal judge ordered the declassification of the memo after the American Civil Liberties Union and The New York Times brought a lawsuit against the government. RT's Manila Chan has more on the long-sought release of the document. 

Syria crisis: Obama asks Congress for $500m for rebels

Comment: Could it get any more surreal?? This administration is the most lurid caricature of democracy I have ever seen. On the one hand they float this idea that there are "good terrorists" and "bad terrorists" and that somehow funding the good terrorists with half a million dollars is also beneficial for everyone. The war hawks desperately want to topple Assad because he's standing in the way of large scale resources and Israel's plan aka: The Yinon Papers. This is an old game indeed. Nothing spontaneous in this propaganda at all. 

Aside from the superficial narrative of "blowback", what this tells us - which should be obvious to any tenth grader who's been paying attention - is that it is part of a long term strategy to balkanize the Middle East by arming and encouraging extremist terror groups so that the Zio-Conservatives can make good on its plan of a Greater Israel. Once these countries are racked with civil war it makes it far easier for Israel with its military might to walk in and take what it wants along with US-NATO interests. Iraq in macrocosm. 

And this pathetic idea that somehow these anti-Assad rebels are "Moderate." Suuuuuure. Have a look at the video below.

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BBC News

President Barack Obama has asked the US Congress to approve $500m (£294m) to train and equip what he described as "moderate" Syrian opposition forces.

The funds would help Syrians defend against forces aligned with President Bashar al-Assad, the White House said.

The aid would also counter Islamist militants such as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis), it added. 

Isis's advance in neighbouring Iraq has led some in Congress to press Mr Obama to take action.
Tens of thousands of people have died and millions more have been displaced in three years of civil war in Syria, as rebels fight troops loyal to Mr Assad.

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And now the reality:

Saker scorecard for the US "lukewarm war" on Russia - strategic and tactical levels

Comment: Brilliant analysis by the Saker. Well worth the read.

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The Vineyard of the Saker

First, I have to explain the title: "A scorecard for US war on Russia": what we are witnessing today is beyond any doubt a US war on Russia, except that it that is is neither quite "cold" nor "hot": it's tepid, lukewarm. Not for the people dying of course, but by it's choice of methods. It is not a Cold War because people are dying, because tanks, artillery and airpower is being used on a daily basis now, but it is not a Hot War either, because while people in the Ukraine are being killed, the real target of this war is, of course, Russia. In other words, this is not a Russian-Ukrainian war, nor is it a US-Ukrainian war, it is a US-Russian war, fought in the Ukraine with "Hot War" methods, but whose real target are not the murdered people in the Ukraine but Russia as a country and a civilizational project. I think that it is crucial to state that to make a correct analysis of what is going on.

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The Most Destructive Presidencies in U.S. History: George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama

Charles Hugh-Smith 
Of Two Minds
June 16, 2014 


Powers once granted are almost impossible to take back.

After 13.5 years, there is more than enough evidence for reasonable people to conclude that the presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama are easily the most destructive in U.S. history.

When historians speak of failed presidencies or weak presidencies, they are typically referring to presidencies characterized by uneven leadership, petty corruption by self-serving cronies or in extreme cases such as the Nixon presidency, abuses of executive power.

But weak or failed presidencies are not destructive to the rule of law and the foundations of the nation. The failed president leaves office and the basic structure of the nation continues: the rule of law, the balance of powers and a free-market economy.

A destructive president weakens or corrupts these core structures in favor of executive-branch powers, and passes these unconstitutional powers to the next executive for further expansion.

The Bush and Obama presidencies have effectively dismantled the rule of law and the Constitution by invoking essentially unlimited executive powers in the name of "national security:" we the citizens of the U.S. can now be accused of violating secret laws, be indicted in secret, tried in secret and sentenced to life in prison based on evidence fabricated in secret, i.e. declaring unclassified documents classified after the fact to incriminate and imprison whistleblowers.

How is this any different from totalitarian fascist regimes?

This is absolutely contrary to basic civil liberties defined by the Constitution. Who benefits from this destruction of fundamental civil liberties? (Always start by asking cui bono--to whose benefit?)

The Big Lie is that this destruction of the foundations of the rule of law and civil liberties is for our own good: if the President and the National Security State don't grab all these powers and deprive you of your constitutional rights, bad guys will destroy the nation.

This is of course the same old tired justification used by dictators and despots everywhere, and it is always a lie. The truth that must be hidden is that this wholesale expansion of executive powers at the expense of civil liberties, democracy, the rule of law and the balance of powers benefits the executive branch.

Every abuse of the law is now declared legal by executive order. Anyone questioning the legality of extra-legal abuses of power is told "this is legal because it was authorized by the President." In other words, executive power is now unquestioned and cannot be challenged.

For a variety of unsavory reasons, the Supreme Court has enabled this expansion of essentially unlimited executive power. Congress has also rubber-stamped it as part of The Global War on Terror (GWOT), the unlimited war that justifies unlimited executive powers, unlimited secrecy and unlimited expansion of the National Security State, the Deep State that is impervious to changes in electoral government.

Presidents Bush and Obama have directed this expansion of the National Security State because it greatly enhances the power of the Presidency. This is how we get a president who is delighted to discover that he's good at killing people remotely with drone strikes.

The expansion of secret programs and secret wars has engorged the Pentagon, the C.I.A. and the N.S.A., not just with funding but more importantly, with new powers granted by the executive branch and rubber-stamped by an impotent Congress and supine Supreme Court.

The president's power is greatly enhanced by this expansion of the National Security State, and the self-serving "patriots" empowered by the essentially unlimited secrecy are free to do whatever they please under the umbrella of executive privilege.

True patriots attempting to defend basic constitutional rights are labeled terrorists by the phony patriots busy destroying the foundations of the nation. The Orwellian doublespeak is as unlimited as executive power: a citizen who releases unclassified material about the secret abuse of power can be accused of treason on the Kafkaesque basis that unclassified material can be considered classified if it exposes the abuse of executive power.

All of this is well-documented and has been in the public realm for years. There is nothing mysterious about the destruction of basic rights or the abrogation of the balance or power or the rule of law. It's visible and painfully obvious to anyone who cares to read or watch a few interviews of whistleblowers who have been hounded and harassed by the Obama Administration.

For two examples of hundreds of articles and interviews, please read:

Senior NSA Executive: NSA Started Spying On Journalists in 2002... In Order to Make Sure They Didn’t Report On Mass Surveillance (washingtonsblog.com; I recommend the entire series of interviews) "To me, there’s a psychology that’s not often written about: What happens when you have this much reach and power, and constraints of law and even policy simply fade into the woodwork."

PBS Frontline Interview - Thomas Drake.

This destruction of the fundamental building blocks of the nation has been rubber-stamped by gutless Republicans and Democrats alike. Cowed by the threat of appearing "soft on terrorism," left and right alike have scrambled to appear "tough on terrorism" by approving the wholesale transfer of power to the National Security State and the executive branch.

Of the dozens of books published on the abuses of executive power and the uncontrolled expansion of the National Security State, here are two worthy starting points:

The Family Jewels: The CIA, Secrecy, and Presidential Power
The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth

This destruction of the fundamental building blocks of the nation has been rubber-stamped by gutless Republicans and Democrats alike. Cowed by the threat of appearing "soft on terrorism," left and right alike have scrambled to appear "tough on terrorism" by approving the wholesale transfer of power to the National Security State and the executive branch.

It is laughable to see so-called liberals and conservatives alike in Congress kow-tow to the National Security State while claiming they have effective oversight, even as the revelations of whistleblowers reveals them as clueless toadies with no real grasp of what is being done in the name of the American people they claim to represent.

Those abusing executive power in the Nixon administration knew they were breaking the law. Those abusing power in the Bush and Obama administrations simply declare their actions legal. In effect, any action taken by the president or the National Security State is legal in name if not in principle.

Powers once granted are almost impossible to take back. What president will give away essentially unlimited executive powers established as "law" by previous presidents? We don't elect saints as presidents, we elect infinitely ambitious people desiring power. We should not be surprised that such people not only consolidate the power they inherit but actively seek more.

We should also not be surprised that all these power grabs by the executive branch and the National Security State are cloaked in secrecy, and that anyone who dares to reveal the power grabs and abuses of power to the public is declared a traitor and crucified.

A traitor to what? It's a question every citizen should ask and answer for themselves.

Obama's Balloon: Federal Student Loan Debt Up 517% in 5 Years

CNS News

Since President Barack Obama took office in January 2009, the cumulative outstanding balance on federal direct student loans has jumped 517.4 percent. 

The balance owed as of the end of May was $739,641,000,000.00. That is an increase of $619,838,000,000.00 from the balance that was owed as of the end of January 2009, when it was $119,803,000,000.00, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement.

Earlier this month, Obama announced new executive actions to allow five million student-loan borrowers to cap their monthly payments at 10% of their income, according to the White House.

“Now, I’ve made it clear that I want to work with Congress on this issue. Unfortunately, a generation of young people can’t afford to wait for Congress to get going,” Obama said. “In this year of action, wherever I’ve seen ways I can act on my own to expand opportunity to more Americans, I have. And today, I’m going to take three actions to help more young people pay off their student loan debt.”

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How The US Is Arming Both Sides Of The Iraqi Conflict

Zero Hedge

Recall a week ago we wrote "US Begins Delivering F-16s To Iraq This Week, A Decade After It Wiped Out Iraq's Air Force" in which we said:

... the US will deliver the first of 36 F-16 fighter jets to Iraq in what Baghdad's envoy to the United States called a "new chapter" in his country's ability to defend its vast borders with Iran and other neighbors.

....the US earlier in March provided Iraq with some 100 Hellfire missiles as well as assault rifles and other ammunition. Then in April the US sent more arms, providing Iraq with 11 million rounds of ammunition and other supplies.

It is unknown how many of these have fallen into Al Qaeda/ISIS hands (we do know that at least one Iraqi Black Hawk chopper was captured during the rush for Mosul). What is known is that as PBS Frontline reported two weeks ago, while the administration has denied arming Syrian "rebels", i.e. the same ISIS militants that have crossed the border and are now fighting in Iraq... 

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