Muhammad Khodhr, Lebanese Al-Mayadeen News Channel reporter in Syria wrote to almayadeen.net commenting on the pressing issue of the shortages in Syria. Mr. Khdhr’s article is in Arabic and we tried to translate it to our best to English.

The current crisis started on Saturday, April 6th, which the government attributes to the impact of US sanctions on the Syrian economy. Oil Minister Ali Ghanem said during a tour of the gas stations that the material was available at stations in an effort to reassure consumers who have just got out of a severe shortage in gas which stretched throughout the winter months and effectively ended with the start of the spring.

raq's electricity minister said on Monday that the country will be "deprived of power" if the US decides to end its sanction waivers that has allowed Baghdad to purchase Iranian energy such as gas and electricity.

The US has granted eight countries a six-month exemption allowing them buy Iranian hydrocarbon products despite Washington's embargo, which took effect in November, but Washington announced the end of the waiver on Monday.

Iraq has received separate extensions to continue importing Iranian gas since the imposition of the economic embargo.

Baghdad was granted an extra 90-day waiver in March and it remains unclear whether it will be extended once again.

“If this stops then we will be deprived of 4,000 megawatts of electricity,” Musab Al Mudaris, spokesman for the Iraqi ministry of electricity, said on Monday.

The waiver stipulates that the countries must take steps to reduce Iranian purchases and move towards ending imports.

The mainstream media never ceases to remind us that Russia is an adversary of the United States … or an opponent … an enemy … a rival … an adversary … or, my favorite, a “regional hegemon.”

Imagine: Russia trying to establish business relations with the United States. Even worse, coming up with a plan of “reconciliation” between the two countries?

Well, certainly one thing could be worse, from the standpoint of the media and the U.S. national-security establishment. That would be Russians who were trying to help Donald Trump defeat Hillary Clinton. After all, on the campaign trail Trump was also saying that he intended to establish a friendly and harmonious relation with Russia while Clinton was embracing the opposite position. In the eyes of the mainstream press and the Washington, D.C., establishment, the fact that Russia preferred the presidential candidate who favored normalizing relations shows why Russia poses such a grave threat to “national security.”

The US is threatening to veto a United Nations resolution on combating the use of rape as a weapon of war because of its language on reproductive and sexual health, according to a senior UN official and European diplomats.

The German mission hopes the resolution will be adopted at a special UN security council session on Tuesday on sexual violence in conflict.

But the draft resolution has already been stripped of one of its most important elements, the establishment of a formal mechanism to monitor and report atrocities, because of opposition from the US, Russia and China, which opposed creating a new monitoring body.

In a move that is likely to rile up NATO member Turkey, the US has made a huge delivery of equipment to the Syrian Kurdish YPG, a group Turkey considers terrorists, and have long threatened to invade.

200 trucks crossed into Syria’s Deir Ezzor from neighboring Iraq. This is not a military shipment. Rather, it is building material and construction equipment intended to allow for reconstruction after the defeat of ISIS.

That’s the US version at least, but the inclusion of substantial excavation equipment is fueling concern, particularly in Turkey, that this is going to be used for mass tunnel digging across Syria, in anticipation of the Turkish invasion.

It amounts to a matter of taste; how you prefer the emperor to behave. Such is political life in the late-stage American Empire. Both major parties offer nothing but the same – hyper-military interventionism and the quest for global hegemony – in the charade of choice each election cycle. The question, as 2020 approaches, is whether we can expect more of the same from the Democratic and Republican candidates for president. Of course, the use of this label, emperor, will undoubtedly make many a reader squirm and/or dismiss this piece.

US President Donald Trump’s “deal of the century,” aimed at resolving the decades-long conflict between Israel and Palestine, looks dead in the water, as speculation continues that the plan will be far more favorable to Israel.
Gérard Araud, France’s outgoing envoy to the US, dubbed Israel an “apartheid state” in a farewell interview with the Atlantic magazine on Friday and suggested that the secret plan is “very close to what the Israelis want” and 99 percent “doomed to fail.”

Still, Arab nations, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, are exerting “immense pressure” on the Palestinians to accept Trump’s deal, a senior Fatah official told Iran’s Press TV on Monday. Those countries are “using all means, including political and financial blackmail” to force Palestinians into agreeing with the deal “despite all the dangers it poses to the Palestinian cause.”

Volodymyr Zelensky’s victory in Sunday’s Ukrainian Presidential election marks the moment when the Western populist wave comes to the post-Soviet space.
It also serves as a complete rejection of the divisive, ethno-nationalist policies pursued by his opponent, Petro Poroshenko, over the past five years.

Like US President Donald Trump and Italy’s Beppe Grillo, Zelensky has leveraged a major television profile for political gain, but he’s pulled it off on an inclusive platform in his campaigning, contrasting with the discordant rhetoric of his opponent.

Now, Ukraine faces an unusual situation. It has replaced an ideologically fanatical President with a complete unknown quantity. One who lacks any parliamentary power-base and must wait six months for elections to the legislature, the Rada.

In tightening sanctions on Iran, the Trump administration moved on Monday to isolate Tehran economically and undercut its power across the Middle East. But the clampdown has complicated relations with China at a particularly sensitive moment.

The decision to stop five of Iran’s biggest customers from buying its oil was an audacious strike at Tehran’s lifeline — one million barrels of oil exports daily, fully half of which go to China. The order was also aimed at India, Japan, South Korea and Turkey, all countries that trade robustly with the United States.

All are also partners with the United States on major security and diplomatic issues that do not involve Iran.

Local, state, and federal law enforcement are refusing to comply with Facebook’s policy against law enforcement creating fake social media accounts.

A new report by The Guardian details how U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has violated Facebook policy by creating fake social media accounts connected to a fake university created to identify illegal immigrants. ICE agents created profiles of individuals alleged to have attended the fictional University of Farmington as part of their attempt to ensnare students in an immigration scam. More than 600 students, most of whom were Indian citizens, were indicted in the federal government’s operation.

The Guardian reports:

SOURCE: BOING BOING
Summit Learning is a nonprofit, high-tech "customized learning" group funded by Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan's family charity; under the program, students are equipped with high-surveillance Chromebooks and work on their own "at their own pace" and call on teachers to act as "mentors" when they get stuck.

It's a high-tech version of student-led education, where a high teacher-to-pupil ratio allows students to pursue self-directed education based on their own proclivities and interests, and mentor one another. But in the Zuck version, students work alone in front of screens, in social isolation, taking automated quizzes to assess their progress.

Many students and parents find this incredibly invasive and frustrating. Students with special needs -- exactly the group that you'd expect to benefit most from "customized learning" -- find the systems especially troublesome, and for students with screen-triggered epilepsy, the systems are pure torture.

Reverse warrants are the new regular warrants. Ever since law enforcement discovered most Americans carry tracking devices with them 24/7, they've been approaching cellphone providers with warrants targeting geographic areas rather than people.
When a crime has been committed but cops don't have any suspects, they ask Google and others to canvass the area for them. Officers hand providers a geofence and ask for everyone who wandered into the selected area during a certain timeframe. Once cops have everyone, they start looking for someone.

SOURCE: THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE

The price of gasoline is rapidly rising, economic activity is slowing down, the Middle East appears to be on the brink of war, and Democrats are trying to find a way to remove a Republican president from office. In many ways, 2019 is starting to look a lot like 1973. For many Americans, the 1970s represent a rather depressing chapter in U.S. history that they would just like to forget, but the truth is that if we do not learn from history it is much more likely that we will repeat our mistakes. And without a doubt, right now a lot of things are starting to move in a very ominous direction.

“Stagflation” was a term that was made popular in the 1970s, and it occurs when there is a high rate of inflation but economic growth is declining or stagnant.

The U.S. hasn’t had a serious bout with stagflation in quite a while, but it appears that we may be moving in that direction.

Published: April 23, 2019
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SOURCE: THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE

The U.S. Census Bureau has just released their annual report on how the U.S. population is shifting, and there are some very clear patterns in the data. If you look at this Census Bureau map, you will see lots of purple (areas where the population is growing) in the west and the south, and you will see lots of orange (areas where the population is declining) in the north and the east. Of course this is a continuation of a pattern that we have been seeing for decades. Given the ability to choose, many Americans would rather live in areas of the country that are warm and sunny, and that makes a lot of sense. But that is not the only pattern that we see in the data.

From July 1, 2017 to July 1, 2018 seven of the ten counties that had the largest percentage increase in population were either in Texas or Florida…

McKenzie County, ND: 7.1 percent
Williams County, ND: 5.9 percent

Ripon, CA — As 5G technology begins to roll out across the country, it is being met by a massive wave of resistance over concerns that it can cause health problems. While 5G is still relatively new, concerns over 4G and older technology still persist as well. A school in California has taken things to the next level and removed a cell tower from their campus after several students and teachers were diagnosed with cancer.

Since 2016, four students and three teachers have been diagnosed with different forms of cancer at Ripon Elementary. Also, two smaller children — too young to attend school — who live near the school tower, have been treated for a malignant tumor and leukemia, and a 22-year-old former student has recently undergone surgery for a brain tumor.

My guess is that even I would be shocked if we knew the extent of America’s ongoing PSYOP with regard to media.

Via: Independent:

A former contractor for a UK-based public relations firm says that the Pentagon paid more than half a billion dollars for the production and dissemination of fake Al-Qaeda videos that portrayed the insurgent group in a negative light.

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism reported that the PR firm, Bell Pottinger, worked alongside top US military officials at Camp Victory in Baghdad at the height of the Iraq War. The agency was tasked with crafting TV segments in the style of unbiased Arabic news reports, videos of Al-Qaeda bombings that appeared to be filmed by insurgents, and anti-insurgent commercials – and those who watched the videos could be tracked by US forces.

SOURCE: ELIAS MARAT @ THEMINDUNLEASHED.COM
In the biggest crackdown of its kind in the nation’s history, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has charged 60 doctors, nurses, and pharmacists with having illegally handed out millions of prescriptions for opioids in a pattern of malpractice that fed the flames of the ongoing opioid addiction crisis.

Medical professionals throughout the industry including general practitioners, dentists, nurse practitioners, podiatrists, and orthopedic specialists have been accused of trading drugs for sex, writing prescriptions to Facebook friends in the absence of a medical exam, and even pulling teeth without a legitimate basis beyond acquiring prescriptions for pain pills.

While the methods in each case varied, prosecutors remain adamant that those who were already suffering an addiction to the opioids were given prescriptions to feed their often-deadly dependence on such drugs as oxycodone, methadone, and morphine.

Steven Sahiounie, author and political commentator, says Google’s refusal to explain why it shuts Press TV’s account proves the move was not based on legal basis, indicating a censorship policy pursued by the American tech giant.
In an exclusive interview with FNA, Sahiounie outlined the Goolge’s motive, saying “The Google ban seems to be in line with the US government’s stepped-up pressure on Iran and an all-out propaganda campaign against the country, which includes targeting Iranian media.”

Steven Sahiounie is an independent Syrian American political analyst and writer based in Lebanon. He has been covering the Middle East cruises since 2011 and has published several articles in numerous media outlets.

Below is the full text of the interview:

Hemerd King hasn’t seen his five children for two years. The New York City government broke up his family due to a string of allegations that, upon basic scrutiny, appear unsubstantiated.

The Epoch Times previously explored the twisted incentives in the system that keeps more than 400,000 children in foster homes and shelters, and de facto encourages social workers and administrators to keep families apart.

Homeschooling families like the Kings are especially at risk. The nonprofit Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) has defended thousands of such families that have faced investigations by Child Protective Services (CPS).

According to exit polls, millions of voters - weary of war and economic hardship - have thoroughly rebuked the incumbent elites, overwhelmingly voting for 41-year-old TV comedian Volodymyr Zelenskii in Ukraine's presidential election today.

"I voted for Zelenskii because everything he said is true," said Viktoriia Bengalska, a 45-year-old secretary in Kiev.

"It's impossible to survive on this salary, prices have increased like crazy, and we were promised something totally different."

SOURCE: WASHINGTONSBLOG.COM
By David Swanson and Pat Elder

According to statements in February by the Secretary of the Army, various U.S. high schools are barring military recruiters from access to students. The Secretary of the Navy this past December said that public school boards are keeping military recruiters out of 1,100 high schools.

The two of us are offering a $1,000 prize (details below) to any public U.S. high school that can identify itself as fitting this description.

Peace activists who struggle to gain admittance to high schools to present the case against military enlistment have not in recent years encountered a school that barred admittance to the military. The military has not publicly named a single example from its claimed list of 1,100 public high schools.

In fact, federal law requires schools that receive federal funding under the Every Student Succeeds Act to allow in military recruiters if they allow in college or job recruiters.

SOURCE: TRUEPUBLICA.ORG.UK
Reprieve is a legal charity which seeks to uphold the rule of law and the rights of individuals around the world—with a specific focus on death penalty cases and abuses committed under the umbrella of the “War on Terror”. It has submitted written evidence to Parliament’s Defence Committee in this regard. It makes strong reference to Britain carrying out covert air strikes outside of declared war zones—primarily, in Pakistan, Somalia and the like. Reprieve’s investigations have included the role played by the UK in facilitating the covert strikes carried out by US bodies including the CIA and JSOC (Joint Special Operations Command). As part of its work, Reprieve also represents a number of relatives of civilians killed—in Reprieve’s view, illegally—in such covert strikes. You can read the submissions HERE.

Contained in the steady drip of documents handed over to the Center was something the NYPD Wasn't supposed to release in unredacted form. It took almost a month for the department to realize it had screwed up. Rather than let uncensored bygones be bygones, the NYPD took it up with the judge presiding over the case. The NYPD's legal rep wasn't too thrilled with the department's inadvertent transparency.

City attorney Jeffrey Dantowitz conceded that the disclosure was a fiasco.

“That a few documents were inadvertently produced without the intended redactions, while careless, was neither an intelligent nor voluntary disclosure," he wrote in court papers.

A generation ago, the national debt stood at just a smidgen over USD $4 trillion and a young presidential candidate named Bill Clinton was discussing a great plan he had to have it entirely paid off by now. Oops. The national debt is now 5.5 times bigger.

More than anything, this astoundingly bad public policy is the fault of Barack Obama, undoubtedly the most irresponsible president in our history…who added on more to the national debt than all other presidents combined in an orgy of Washington, DC, debauchery that saw the size of the federal government mushroom while hundreds of thousands of new bureaucrats were added to federal payrolls, and Washington, DC, housing prices skyrocketed as federal government employees and private industry sub-contractors paid for by the government reveled in their six-figure paychecks and outrageously lavish healthcare and pension plans… all paid for by us, the taxpayers.

Via AlMasdarNews.com

The President of Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, vowed to help the Syrian Arab Republic amid their ongoing fuel crisis that is a result of the sanctions imposed on the country by western nations.

Aksyonov told Russia’s Sputnik News that there are plans to export wheat, petroleum derivatives and power tools to Syria as well as rebuilding railways there.

He pointed out that whether it is Crimea or Russia, they are willing to export products to Syria in order to help the war-torn nation.

The Crimean President noted that a shipment of wheat and other industrial products is being prepared and will be heading to Syria soon.

He also pointed out that a joint shipment company is being founded, adding that Syria will export citrus fruits, olive and olive oil to Russia.

The fuel crisis in Syria has forced the Syrian government to issue rations on gas in order to deal with the ongoing sanctions that are greatly effecting the country.

A former US Marine was arrested in connection with an "especially violent" raid on the North Korean embassy in Madrid, Spain.

Christopher Ahn - a member of a group which seeks the overthrow of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, was expected to be arraigned on Friday in a Los Angeles federal court, according to Reuters, citing a law enforcement official and a source close to the group.

According to El Pais and El Confidencial, the group is tied to the CIA - however there has been no corroboration of this outside of their reporting. The CIA has denied any involvement, however Spanish government sources say their response was "unconvincing."

El Pais called the attack "especially violent."

As Washington’s grip on global affairs continues to loosen and more countries reject the western development model, the current order will progressively weaken clearing the way for a multipolar world badly in need of a new security architecture. Western elites, who are unable to accept this new dynamic, continue to issue frenzied statements expressing their fear of a future in which the United States no longer dictates global policy.
At the 2019 Munich Security Conference, Chairman Wolfgang Ischinger, underscored many of these same themes. Here’s an excerpt from his presentation:

“The whole liberal world order appears to be falling apart – nothing is as it once was… Not only do war and violence play a more prominent role again: a new great power confrontation looms at the horizon. In contrast to the early 1990s, liberal democracy and the principle of open markets are no longer uncontested….

SOURCE: INFORMATIONLIBERATION.COM

The United Constitutional Patriots, who made headlines on Thursday for helping catch hundreds of illegal aliens invading America through our southern border, announced Friday on Facebook they were banned by PayPal and all their funds have been frozen for 180 days.

The United Constitutional Patriots said they wanted to thank everyone who donated to their "Border Ops mission" but they "can no longer accept payments" through PayPal as "they have permanently suspended our account."

They said PayPal is holding $1,300 in donations "for 180 days."

Google has blocked Press TV and Hispan TV's access to their official accounts on the technology company's platforms, including YouTube and Gmail, without prior notice, citing “violation of policies”.

“Your Google Account was disabled and can’t be restored because it was used in a way that violates Google’s policies,” Google said in a message that appears after Press TV tries to log into its account.

The former foreign minister of Ecuador will be placed on Interpol’s Red Notice list, after fleeing the country for fear of prosecution, as the government of Lenin Moreno continues to crack down on Julian Assange’s supporters.
“The attorney general’s office began a criminal process against Ricardo Patino for the alleged crime of instigation,” the office said in a statement on Thursday. “[Patino] had given a speech in which he instigated people to take over public institutions and close roads.”

Besides his alleged anti-government activities, Patino is also being sought for his supposed links to Swedish software developer Ola Bini, who was arrested last week on suspicions of ‘hacking’ for WikiLeaks.

Authored by Philip Giraldi via The Strategic Culture Foundation

But even given all of the horrific decisions being made in the White House, there is one organization that is far crazier and possibly even more dangerous. That is the United States Congress, which is, not surprisingly, a legislative body that is viewed positively by only 18 per cent of the American people.

A current bill originally entitled the “Defending American Security from Kremlin Aggression Act (DASKA) of 2019,” is numbered S-1189.

It has been introduced in the Senate which will “…require the Secretary of State to determine whether the Russian Federation should be designated as a state sponsor of terrorism and whether Russian-sponsored armed entities in Ukraine should be designated as foreign terrorist organizations.” The bill is sponsored by Republican Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado and is co-sponsored by Democrat Robert Menendez of New Jersey.

Attorney General William Barr held a press conference this morning to address the contents of the Mueller report, just as he promised to do. Not long after, Barr delivered the full Mueller report to the public with necessary redactions, also as promised. And yet the mainstream media, which demanded all of these things and has now received them, still isn’t happy.

In fact, most fake news media pundits are now foaming at the mouth, questioning Barr’s loyalties and accusing him of colluding with President Donald Trump to convey the "spun" message that he’s innocent – which it would seem as though no amount of evidence will ever convince those with Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) is actually true.

Soon, this blog will be illegal.

No, I’m not selling drugs or peddling child pornography. I write about America’s wars and the primary objective of those illegal and immoral wars—to make Israel the hegemon of the Middle East along with Saudi Arabia. All US foreign policy in that region centers on those two nations.

The following may soon be classified as hate speech and antisemitism (as increasingly criticism of the Jewish state and its Zionist political ideology are considered crimes).

Trump took the baton from Obama after he told us he wasn’t into “nation-building” and was a populist “America First” noninterventionist. The American people were lied to again, but then this is now normal behavior.

Such criticism of Israel will soon be illegal. Democrats and Republicans are working together to make criticism of Israel a criminal offense. .

SOURCE: BUSINESSINSIDER.COM
Facebook harvested the email contacts of 1.5 million users without their knowledge or consent when they opened their accounts.

Since May 2016, the social-networking company has collected the contact lists of 1.5 million users new to the social network, Business Insider can reveal. The Silicon Valley company said the contact data was "unintentionally uploaded to Facebook," and it is now deleting them.

The revelation comes after pseudononymous security researcher e-sushi noticed that Facebook was asking some users to enter their email passwords when they signed up for new accounts to verify their identities, a move widely condemned by security experts. Business Insider then discovered that if you entered your email password, a message popped up saying it was "importing" your contacts without asking for permission first.

Hours after the ejection of Julian Assange from the London Ecuadorean embassy last week, police officers in Ecuador detained the Swedish citizen and open source developer Ola Bini. They seized him as he prepared to travel from his home in Quito to Japan, claiming that he was attempting to flee the country in the wake of Assange’s arrest. Bini had, in fact, booked the vacation long ago, and had publicly mentioned it on his Twitter account before Assange was arrested.

Ola’s detention was full of irregularities, as documented by his lawyers. His warrant was for a “Russian hacker” (Bini is neither); he was not read his rights, allowed to contact his lawyer nor offered a translator.

North Korea is flexing its muscles. On Thursday, the nation announced that it had test-launched a new “tactical guided weapon” — but kept the details vague.

The weapon is unlikely to be a long-range ballistic missile that could jeopardize peace talks, according to the Associated Press. Rather, given the fact that the announcement came with new demands for ongoing negotiations with the U.S., the tests were likely intended as a display of military strength.

Guessing Game
South Korean experts suspect that the new weapon was some sort of cruise missile, per the AP‘s attempt to learn more. Had the weapon been a longer-range missile that could pose a threat to the U.S. or other nations, then North Korea may have put at risk its ongoing effort to lift sanctions that other countries have imposed on it.

The NXIVM sex cult is facing allegations that it illegally bundled campaign donations to gain political favor with an unnamed US presidential election candidate and reports suggest that the politician is Hillary Clinton.
United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Richard Donoghue asked a federal judge to introduce evidence showing that the defendants in the sex cult case had an “illegal scheme to exceed contribution limits to a presidential primary campaign.”

The court documents claim that witness testimony and documentary evidence will show that at least 14 NXIVM members, including five defendants, made the maximum campaign donation to a candidate, with the “understanding that they would be reimbursed by [Claire] Bronfman or Nancy Salzman,” who were involved in the cult. Salzman is the co-founder along with Keith Raniere.

Sears Holdings Corp sued longtime Chairman Eddie Lampert, his hedge fund ESL Investments, and former directors including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, accusing them of allowing the retailer to be looted of billions of dollars before its October 2018 bankruptcy.

The lawsuit, made public on Thursday, was filed by the restructuring team winding down what remains of the pre-bankruptcy Sears following Lampert’s $5.2 billion purchase in February of most of its assets.

Sears accused Lampert of ordering the creation of bogus financial plans showing the retailer would turn itself around even as it racked up huge losses, enabling the transfer of five major assets including Land’s End and Sears Hometown Outlet for his benefit.

Americans are increasingly living in fear of the opposing political party. While the elites laugh and continue to enslave the populace even further because of this fear, Americans increasingly embrace their chains while asking them to be shortened, and all while dehumanizing those on a different plantation.

The fact is, none of us are free. We are all slaves to the same master – the political elites. The only way to be free is to accept it and attempt to free others in the process. So far, the government has not had to put literal chains on anyone because most Americans are mental slaves. If you own the mind, you won’t need to enslave the body. This is causing problems in problems in our society, however, as many fear those who think differently than they do while giving a pass to the ones actually at fault for their dissatisfaction.

THE US MILITARY AND CIA LAUNDER COUP PROPAGANDA THROUGH POPULAR FIRST-PERSON SHOOTER VIDEO GAMES LIKE CALL OF DUTY, SIMULATING ASSASSINATIONS OF VENEZUELA’S SOCIALIST LEADER AND SABOTAGE OF ITS ELECTRICAL INFRASTRUCTURE.
BY MAX BLUMENTHAL AND BEN NORTON

We often think of video games as fiction, but the US government has weaponized them to advance its agenda around the globe.

SIMULATING VENEZUELA INVASION IN “CALL OF DUTY”
Venezuelan citizen journalists Orlenys Ortiz and Sancocho Power have drawn attention to the similarity between the plot of a 2013 first person shooter game, Call of Duty: Ghosts, and alleged acts of US sabotage against the country this March.

Call of Duty: Ghosts is set in a dystopian future after the Middle East is nuked. A Venezuelan general comes into power, establishing a socialist style federation that spreads across Latin America like a disease, uniting all oil producing nations and expelling US citizens.

It’s no secret that health experts and nutritionists have been wary of high fructose corn syrup for years. But now they have one more reason to advocate against it: a new study published in the journal Science says that the sugary substance boosts the growth of cancerous tumors in mice.

The study, conducted by researchers at Cornell University and Baylor University, found that consuming a modest amount of high-fructose corn syrup every day—about the equivalent of drinking one can of soda—can accelerate the growth of cancerous tumors in mice’s intestines.

it’s clear that the US desires to dismantle Iran and Venezuela’s supposedly interconnected influence networks in Latin America as the next step in fortifying “Fortress America“, and while “deep state” wars such as this one have been going on for decades, it’s hitherto unprecedented for any country to make such a crusade public since the end of the Old Cold War when the US used to make similar claims about the USSR and its communist proxies.

For years, law enforcement has been claiming that drones will only be used for natural disasters, crime scene investigations, car accidents and rescue operations.

That is the bill of goods, being sold to the public but it is all a lie.

A perfect example of how law enforcement promises the public one thing and after time passes, uses it for something else is taking place in Texas at the Memorial Villages Police Department (MVPD).

Two years ago, Click2Houston reported how the MVPD claimed that they would only use drones for "better emergency response during disasters." They also used police officer and UAV pilot, Larry Boggus to solidify their claim that drones would only be used for natural disasters saying, "drones are a huge asset for us because very quickly we were able to see the amount of houses that were damaged" during a 2018 storm.

I love it when police department's provide comic relief to prove my point.

On Monday a federal judge in Virginia unsealed the original 2017 affidavit and criminal complaint on which Assange's extradition request to the US is based, offering new details including chat logs between Assange and former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea (then Bradley) Manning, which attempt to support a single count of “conspiracy to commit computer intrusion” which may or may not have succeeded.

The US alleges Assange actively sought for and encouraged Manning to crack a password to access classified information on a Defense Department network; the affidavit claims details related to this charge, for instance chat log discussions between the pair over how to crack a password, though the affidavit notes that "it remains unknown whether Manning and Assange were successful in cracking the password," related to the conspiracy charge.

The glimpse of Julian Assange being dragged from the Ecuadorean embassy in London is an emblem of the times. Might against right. Muscle against the law. Indecency against courage. Six policemen manhandled a sick journalist, his eyes wincing against his first natural light in almost seven years.

That this outrage happened in the heart of London, in the land of Magna Carta, ought to shame and anger all who fear for “democratic” societies. Assange is a political refugee protected by international law, the recipient of asylum under a strict covenant to which Britain is a signatory. The United Nations made this clear in the legal ruling of its Working Party on Arbitrary Detention.

But to hell with that. Let the thugs go in. Directed by the quasi fascists in Trump’s Washington, in league with Ecuador’s Lenin Moreno, a Latin American Judas and liar seeking to disguise his rancid regime, the British elite abandoned its last imperial myth: that of fairness and justice.

For the last 25 years, the only reliable source of news has been the Internet.

Without it, we wouldn’t know even 1% of what we know.

We’ve seen all kinds of attacks on content on social medias platforms like Facebook and YouTube.

Now they’re coming after people who run their own INDEPENDENT web servers

“They’re making it up the rules as they go along”

White House staff has stonewalled for more than a week a group of lawmakers asking for a meeting with President Trump in a bid to convince him to sign legislation ending the U.S. role in Yemen's civil war.

Despite an official veto recommendation from White House staff, Trump has continued to appear open-minded, saying Wednesday that the matter was "very serious" and that he would have more to say later.

Sponsors of the legislation believe Trump is willing to sign the bill, but is being told by his staff, led by national security adviser John Bolton, that he should not.

"I feel from some of his statements that he's genuinely conflicted," said Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., who signed a bipartisan letter seeking a meeting. "I think his advisers are at odds with where he is ... advisers in the administration have their own interests and may not be giving him the full picture."

WASHINGTON – It has the makings of a new Cold War, or worse.

The deep chill in U.S.-Russian relations is stirring concern in some quarters that Washington and Moscow are in danger of stumbling into an armed confrontation that, by mistake or miscalculation, could lead to nuclear war.

American and European analysts and current and former U.S. military officers say the nuclear superpowers need to talk more. A foundational arms control agreement is being abandoned and the last major limitation on strategic nuclear weapons could go away in less than two years. Unlike during the Cold War, when generations lived under threat of a nuclear Armageddon, the two militaries are barely on speaking terms.

"During the Cold War, we understood each other's signals. We talked," says the top NATO commander in Europe, U.S. Army Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, who is about to retire. "I'm concerned that we don't know them as well today."

A new batch of displaced Syrians on Saturday left al-Rukban Camp in al-Tanf area near the Syrian-Jordanian borders and arrived in Jleigem corridor so as to be transferred to makeshift centers in Homs.

The process comes within the framework of the Syrian State's efforts to end the tragedy of tens of thousands of displaced citizens who have been trapped for years in the Rukban camp by US occupation forces and their affiliated terrorists positioned in al-Tanf.

SANA reporter said that tens of displaced families, most of them children, women and elderly, arrived Saturday noon at Jleigem corridor on board of trucks and tractors.

So in the past few days, editorials like this one from free press avatar Peter Greste have popped up all over the place with their own definitions of what journalism is in order to argue why that label can’t possibly apply to Assange. All of these definitions ultimately boil down to the argument that because Assange doesn’t publish leaks in a way that they feel journalism ought to be practiced, it isn’t journalism and therefore sets no legal precedent for journalists around the world. As though the US government is going to be consulting their feelings about what specifically constitutes journalism the next time they decide to imprison a journalist for doing what Assange did.

SOURCE: THE INTERCEPT
SINCE THE BRUTAL murder of Saudi dissident and Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi last October, Congress has increasingly pressured the Trump administration to stop backing the Saudi Arabia-led coalition fighting in Yemen and halt U.S. arms sales to Riyadh. In response, President Donald Trump has repeatedly said that if the U.S. does not sell weapons to the Saudis, they will turn to U.S. adversaries to supply their arsenals.

“I don’t like the concept of stopping an investment of $110 billion into the United States,” Trump told reporters in October, referring to a collection of intent letters signed with the Saudis in the early months of his presidency. “You know what they are going to do? They’re going to take that money and spend it in Russia or China or someplace else.”

The Ecuadoran president has defended his decision to withdraw Julian Assange's asylum status, saying that the WikiLeaks founder had tried to set up a "spying centre" from the diplomatic mission in London.

"It is unfortunate that, from our territory and with the permission of authorities of the previous government, facilities have been provided within the Ecuadorian embassy in London to interfere in processes of other states," Lenin Moreno told The Guardian newspaper on Sunday.

"We cannot allow our house, the house that opened its door to become a centre for spying. Our decision is not arbitrary but is based on international law."

On Thursday, UK police announced the arrest of Assange following the Ecuadoran government's "withdrawal of asylum".

The operator of Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant has begun removing nuclear fuel from a building housing one of the reactors that melted down after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

Remotely controlled equipment is lifting fuel rods from a storage pool near reactor number three.

The delicate work at the contaminated site is expected to take two years.

The next phase of the huge clean-up at reactor three will be to remove molten nuclear fuel that remains deep inside.

A spokeswoman for the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) said the operation to remove the fuel had been delayed by earthquake debris inside the building as well as other technical issues.

Reactor buildings at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant were damaged by hydrogen explosions caused by the earthquake and tsunami. Three reactors melted down.

EXCLUSIVE: AWAY FROM THE PUBLIC EYE, THE CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES (CSIS) THINK TANK HOSTED A TOP-LEVEL, OFF-THE-RECORD MEETING TO EXPLORE US MILITARY OPTIONS AGAINST VENEZUELA.
BY MAX BLUMENTHAL

The Washington, DC-based think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) hosted a private roundtable on April 10 called “Assessing the Use of Military Force in Venezuela.” A list of attendees was provided to The Grayzone and two participants confirmed the meeting took place. They refused to offer any further detail, however.

A WHO’S WHO OF TRUMP ADMINISTRATION COUP ADVISERS

The CSIS check-in list not only confirms that the Trump administration and its outside advisors are mulling options for a military assault on Venezuela; it also outlines the cast of characters involved in crafting the regime change operation against the country.

The indictment, and some of the commentary it engendered, also makes much of the fact that Assange offered to try to crack a computer password for Manning. The Department of Justice claims that this action amounted to Assange engaging in a “hacking” conspiracy. Even some independent commentators have suggested that it went beyond the bounds of legitimate journalism—and the protections of the First Amendment.

But did it? On Thursday, my colleague Raffi Khachaturian, who has written extensively about Assange, pointed out that, as of now, it looks like Assange didn’t do much, if anything, to crack the password once Manning sent the encrypted version. Khachaturian also pointed out that federal prosecutors have known about this text exchange for many years, and yet the Obama Administration didn’t bring any charges. “As evidence of a conspiracy,” Khachaturian writes, “the exchange is thin gruel.”

Workers preparing to cleanup a fuel storage site near the infamous Dozier reform school—Florida’s first juvenile justice institution—discovered something far worse then pollution. Evidence of more than two dozen “clandestine” child graves was discovered as workers tested the ground.

Shockingly enough, this is the second time secret graves for tortured and raped children have been found nearby the school.

A report out of the Miami Herald detailed the horrific discovery this week:

A company hired to evaluate underground storage tanks adjacent to the Dozier School for Boys in Marianna performed a series of ground-penetrating radar tests on a parcel a little less than 500 feet from what is called the Boot Hill Cemetery at Dozier, an infamous youth prison linked to more than a century of chilling abuse.

echnology companies have for years responded to court orders for specific users’ information. The new warrants go further, suggesting possible suspects and witnesses in the absence of other clues. Often, Google employees said, the company responds to a single warrant with location information on dozens or hundreds of devices.

Law enforcement officials described the method as exciting, but cautioned that it was just one tool.

“It doesn’t pop out the answer like a ticker tape, saying this guy’s guilty,” said Gary Ernsdorff, a senior prosecutor in Washington State who has worked on several cases involving these warrants. Potential suspects must still be fully investigated, he added. “We’re not going to charge anybody just because Google said they were there.”

The ICC judge claimed a lack of evidence and a poor outlook for state cooperation — the latter reason essentially meaning the US and UK have already condemned the prospect of opening such an investigation.

The ICC had previously vowed to continue to operate "undeterred" by any US threat of punitive action against the ICC when it first considered examining allegations that US personnel committed war crimes, including instances of unlawful detention and torture of Afghans, as well as killing of civilians. The window of time ICC prosecutors considered for their investigation ran from May 2003, within the opening years of the US occupation, to 2017.

“The chamber hereby decides that an investigation into the situation in Afghanistan at this stage would not serve the interests of justice and accordingly rejects the request,” the judges said in their decision, as cited by Reuters. But the obvious first question is: whose interests are being served here?

Both Google and Mozilla have banned Gab’s Dissenter.com extension from their browsers’ extension stores. Dissenter’s mission is to bring a free speech comment system to every site on the Internet.

The developers at Gab recently launched a new platform called Dissenter, which acts as a comment system for every website on the internet. Dissenter has a web interface, but also created an extension for popular web browsers such as Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome. Now both companies, which together hold a large majority of the PC browser market, have blacklisted the Dissenter extension from their browser extension galleries.

This charge is premised on a fraudulent and manipulative distortion of reality, and you may be one hundred percent certain of it. Let me explain.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel – who, for all intents and purposes, looks suspiciously like a transgender – has decided to launch a full-scale crusade against the First Amendment.

According to reports, Nessel is planning to create a “hate crime unit” as part of Michigan’s government, the purpose of which won’t necessarily be to prosecute “hate crimes” – which aren’t a real thing anyway, by the way – but to actually police the speech and thoughts of Michigan residents to make sure they align with official government ideology.

By creating a database of people who think for themselves, Nessel is on record as stating that she plans to keep an all-seeing-eye on people who commit “thought violations” – which aren’t real crimes, according to the United States Constitution.

Once upon a time, U.S. politicians used to brag about how America was the only place in the world that permitted genuine freedom of speech.

Of course, like everything else they say, that turned out to be a lie. Perhaps it is the greatest lie we have ever heard in our lifetimes.

In fact, America has traded its Constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech for laws protecting the very people aiming to destroy our country.

SOURCE: JOHN WHITEHEAD VIA THE RUTHERFORD INSTITUTE
If you drive a car, I’ll tax the street,
If you try to sit, I’ll tax your seat.
If you get too cold I’ll tax the heat,
If you take a walk, I’ll tax your feet.

Don’t ask me what I want it for
If you don’t want to pay some more
‘Cause I’m the taxman, yeah, I’m the taxman…
And you’re working for no one but me.
— George Harrison, “Taxman

“We the people” have become the new, permanent underclass in America.

We get taxed on how much we earn, taxed on what we eat, taxed on what we buy, taxed on where we go, taxed on what we drive, and taxed on how much is left of our assets when we die, and yet we have no real say in how the government runs, or how our taxpayer funds are used.

Case in point: Lawmakers across the country have been acting as fronts for corporations, sponsoring more than 10,000 model laws written by corporations, industry groups and think tanks such as the American Legislative Exchange Council.

It is generally believed that America is more polarized than ever. After all, one need only look at the fallout from the last election to test this theory: both liberals and conservatives are convinced that their ideas and principles are the best and should be followed.

But a recent survey by Reuters casts a bit of doubt on how well people really know their own minds and understand the political principles they say they adhere to. It appears that many Americans base their views on whether a particular authority figure holds them.

Dissenter, the extension which allows users to create a comments section for any page on the internet, has been banned from the Firefox extensions gallery for supposedly violating Mozilla’s Acceptable Use Policy.

Mozilla is the company behind the Firefox browser and sent an email to Dissenter informing them that the extension had been disabled and will no longer appear in the Firefox extensions gallery.

Facebook said Wednesday it is rolling out a wide range of updates aimed at combatting the spread of false and harmful information on the social media site — stepping up the company’s fight against misinformation and hate speech as it faces growing outside pressure.

"The most hated sort [of moneymaking], and with the greatest reason, is usury, which makes a gain out of money itself, and not from the natural use of it. For money was intended to be used in exchange, but not to increase at interest. And this term usury which means the birth of money from money, is applied to the breeding of money, because the offspring resembles the parent. Wherefore of all modes of making money this is the most unnatural." -- Aristotle (384-322 BCE)

Leaked internal documents reveal that Google maintains a blacklist preventing certain news outlets from appearing in search results for news or other specific sections, according to the Daily Caller's J. Arthur Bloom.

What this means is that while search results from blacklisted outlets will still appear in the generic "ten blue links" portion of search results - targeted sites will not be allowed in sections such as "top news" or "videos," according to the report.

"The purpose of the blacklist will be to bar the sites from surfacing in any Search feature or news product. It will not cause a demotion in the organic search results or de-index them altogether," reads the policy document.

Of note, Zero Hedge was removed from Google's News category after the 2016 US election.

WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Kristinn Hrafnsson has alleged that an extensive spying operation was conducted against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange during his time in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

During an explosive press conference, which is still underway, Hrafnsson alleges that the operation was designed to get Assange extradited. WikiLeaks claims that it was told that Assange’s extradition was imminent.

“We know that there was a request to hand over visitor's logs from the embassy and video recordings from within the security cameras in the embassy,” Hrafnsson said, adding that he believes the information had been handed over to the administration of US President Donald Trump.

Cameras used within the embassy in the last year have the capacity to record audio meaning that every single meeting held by Julian Assange with his doctors and lawyers have been recorded, according to former Consul of Ecuador to London, Fidel Narvaez.