A statistically significant poll of the American adult Internet population reveals that 52.4% believe the US government would mislead them "about a foreign government’s use of chemical weapons in order to justify US military action." 45.7% responded that they did not believe the US government would mislead them, while the remainder (1.9%) provided other responses.

KIM Jong-un is preparing to launch a second intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test, a US defence official has said. Here is the latest news and live updates.

North Korea is preparing to launch an ICBM within the next few days, a US defence official has said.

China has deployed troops to patrol its border with North Korea amid concerns about an influx of refugees.

US military officials have warned that war remains a possibility.
6.20 pm: North Korea warns Donald Trump of 'powerful nuclear hammer'

Pyongyang is ram pig up its threats in a bid to dissuade the US from attempting to remove Kim Jong-un from power.

A foreign ministry spokesman, quoted in the state-controlled Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), said: “Should the US dare to show even the slightest sign of attempt to remove our supreme leadership, we will strike a merciless blow at the heart of the US with our powerful nuclear hammer, honed and hardened over time.”

Drug war bloodshed in Mexico has spiked to record levels, with more homicides recorded in June than in any month in at least two decades.

Prosecutors opened 2,234 homicide investigations last month, according to government statistics released Friday. That’s an increase of 40% over June of last year and 80% over June of 2015.

Rising demand for heroin in the United States and a bloody power struggle inside one of Mexico’s most powerful drug cartels have put the country on track to record more killings in 2017 than in any year since the government began releasing crime data in 1997.

The 12,155 homicide cases opened from January to June make 2017 the deadliest first half of a year.

Though violence used to be concentrated in a handful of states, it is now rising nationwide, with 27 of Mexico’s 32 states recording an uptick in homicides compared with last year.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has made it clear: Nothing short of the invasion threatened by President Donald Trump will stop him from holding a vote on a new constituent assembly that will officially replace the country’s legislature and likely allow the embattled president to rewrite the country’s Constitution, cementing his grip on power.

According to Bloomberg, Maduro has said the vote will be held next week in defiance of threats of US sanctions, and calls by his opponents for a two-day general strike. If approved, the new assembly will replace the country’s previous opposition-controlled assembly, which was annulled by the Maduro-controlled Supreme Court in March.

Once approved, it’s widely believed that Maduro will stock the assembly with political allies who will enable the re-drafting of the country’s constitution, allowing Maduro to consolidate power and officially marginalize anyone who opposes his regime.

Israel’s security cabinet has decided to remove metal detectors from the entrance to a holy site in Jerusalem following days of violent clashes.

They are to be replaced by “smart cameras” to monitor worshipers at the al-Aqsa Mosque, which sits on the site known as Temple Mount by Jews and the Haram al-Sharif by Muslims.

The decision was announced at the end of a meeting of Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet lasting several hours, following a previous round of discussions on Sunday.

A spokesperson said “sophisticated technology” will be used instead of the metal detectors, following local reports that high resolution cameras capable of detecting hidden objects would be the alternative.

The forecast for Yemen’s cholera epidemic looks grim, as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warns that by the end of 2017 the number of cholera cases will double, reaching 600,000.

President of ICRC Peter Maurer called the massive outbreak "alarming and growing" on Sunday while on a five-day visit to the country. Zee News quoted him saying, "The great tragedy is that this cholera outbreak is a preventable man-made humanitarian catastrophe."

He explained that devastation of Yemen’s health system and infrastructure by the ongoing civil war is directly responsible for the health crisis. Maurer said, "I find this needless suffering absolutely infuriating. The world is sleep-walking into yet more tragedy."

Rep. Gutierrez: When Democrats Take Majority We're Going To "Eliminate" Trump

Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) ripped President Trump for his immigration policy in a sermon at Chicago's Lincoln United Methodist Church on Saturday. The Democratic Congressman said Trump is the "major criminal" and he will "eliminate" him as president when the Democrats win a majority in the House.

The Lincoln United Methodist Church is a sanctuary church and according to Gutierrez's website, he "spoke to a packed house about the need to defend DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) and other forms of legal immigration status that are under attack from Republicans and Donald Trump."

Gutierrez said that while Trump is attempting to criminalize immigrants, the president is the "real criminal." The Congressman said illegal immigrants are not criminals and that history will determine who the true criminals are.

The Canadian Supreme Court today ruled the country has the authority to demand Google censor and remove links to certain web pages or online content.

The idea that governments can force Google to deindex links to pages is unfortunately not new (see the European Union's "right to be forgotten"). What matters internationally in this case is the government is forcing Google to remove links from searches regardless of where the Internet user is. That is to say: Canada is demanding the authority to censor the internet outside of its physical borders and control what people who are not Canadian citizens can find online.

Preface by Washington's Blog: We asked top NSA whistleblower Bill Binney what he thought about a report claiming that the DNC emails were transferred too quickly to have been accessed by a hacker, and could only have been copied by a DNC leaker. This article is his response. Background here and here.

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

SUBJECT: Was the “Russian Hack” an Inside Job?

Executive Summary

Forensic studies of “Russian hacking” into Democratic National Committee computers last year reveal that on July 5, 2016, data was leaked (not hacked) by a person with physical access to DNC computers, and then doctored to incriminate Russia.

After examining metadata from the “Guccifer 2.0” July 5, 2016 intrusion into the DNC server, independent cyber investigators have concluded that an insider copied DNC data onto an external storage device, and that “telltale signs” implicating Russia were then inserted.

Chinese authorities in the province of Xinjiang are forcing locals of the Uyghur Muslim minority to install an app on their phones that will allow the government to scan their device for "terrorist propaganda," local media reports.

In reality, the app creates MD5 hashes for the user's files and matches them against a database of known terrorist content.

The app also makes copies of the user's Weibo and WeChat databases and uploads it to a government server, along with the user's IMEI, IMSI, and WiFi login information.

Spyware app developed by local police

The app is called Jingwang (Citizen Safety) and was developed by police forces from Ürümqi, Xinjiang's capital. Authorities launched the app in April, and also included the ability to report suspicious activity to the police.

At the start of July, Xinjiang officials started sending WeChat messages in Uyghur and Chinese to locals, asking them to install the app or face detainment of up to 10 days.

The Roomba is generally regarded as a cute little robot friend that no one but dogs would consider to be a potential menace. But for the last couple of years, the robovacs have been quietly mapping homes to maximize efficiency. Now, the device’s makers plan to sell that data to smart home device manufacturers, turning the friendly robot into a creeping, creepy little spy.

While it may seem like the information that a Roomba could gather is minimal, there’s a lot to be gleaned from the maps it’s constantly updating. It knows the floor plan of your home, the basic shape of everything on your floor, what areas require the most maintenance, and how often you require cleaning cycles, along with many other data points. And, according to Reuters, that data is the future of its business strategy:

“There’s an entire ecosystem of things and services that the smart home can deliver once you have a rich map of the home that the user has allowed to be shared,” said [iRobot CEO Colin] Angle.

Visa recently announced its new Cashless Challenge program, which offers $10,000 to restaurants willing to transition into accepting only digital payments. As the largest credit card processor in the U.S., it’s no surprise Visa is spearheading this campaign.

Under the guise of increasing transparency and efficiency, they’ve partnered with governments around the world to help convert financial systems into cashless models, but their real incentive is the billions of dollars in extra transaction fees it would generate.

“We are declaring war on cash,” Visa spokesman Andy Gerlt proudly proclaimed after the program was announced.

And the greatest danger of all is over the horizon. Once the government discovers a new technology to intrude on the lives of ordinary citizens, a pretext will no doubt be developed after the next terrorist incident or insider attack to use it in ever widening circles as new threats are allegedly discovered. When that happens, we can confidently expect Patriot Act III, with a provision allowing continuous surveillance of any and all possible suspects. And there is actually a precedent. Back in 2003, the Pentagon under George W. Bush was already tinkering with what if referred to as Total Information Awareness to examine predictive behavior, described at the time as the “biggest surveillance program in the history of the United States.”

According to the Independent, government sources say a British team is set to travel to Israel in the near future to learn Israeli counterterrorism enforcement strategies. The proposed move comes amid a spate of terrorist activity in the United Kingdom, as well as concerns about the British authorities’ response time and ability to counter terrorist attacks.

However, as the Independent notes:

“There are, of course, significant differences between political violence in the UK and Israel. The murders and maiming in the streets of Britain are in pursuit of a murderous Islamist jihad with a variety of justifications offered including retaliation for the war against Isis in Iraq and Syria. In Israel and the occupied territories it is justified as part of the struggle for Palestinian nationhood against Israel.”

You know all those health industry lobbyists who say that the American healthcare industry will go broke if it has to take care of the health of Americans?

Every year since 2011 -- when ACA became law -- the CEOs of US health companies have averaged an 11% raise. Remember, that's 11 percent, every year.

Topping the list is John Martin who helmed Gilead Sciences to the tune of $863M since Obamacare's passage.

American health care is indeed dangerous and unstably expensive, and to fix that, America's health CEOs should be focusing on lower prices, eliminating unnecessary expenses, and coordinating care. Instead, America's health care industry is booming at the expense of American health, thanks to a focus on selling more drugs, performing more procedures and tests, raising prices and engaging in gimmicky stock-inflating tactics.

* Pharmaceutical and drug-related company CEOs made up 11 of the top 20 highest earners.

Now there are a few private companies, think of Blackwater” on a cyber-level, which are also master’s of intrusion, hacking, identity theft, spoofing and 24/7 harassment of anyone who has been illegally and unconstitutionally watch-listed as a domestic threat. However NSA still has the budget, the tech-toys, the software and extra-judicial tactics which trump any of the subsequently mentioned private groups.

One of the companies which acts as a hired gun for the federal government (and thus has the luxury of operating without any oversight, is James Bimen and Associates, based in Fairfax, Virginia. This corporation is right down the street from several acronym agencies, has developed special tools for the FBI and is tasked to hack into computers and phones of watch-listed individuals (WLIs) and Targeted Individuals (TIs).

As threatened during comments to an association of district attorneys, Attorney General Jeff Sessions is bringing back asset forfeiture. Specifically, Sessions is loosening the restrictions placed on federal adoption of local seizures by Eric Holder during the last years of the Obama presidency. Holder's directive prevented local agencies from routing cash or vehicle seizures through the feds to dodge local rules. That's all over now. An order [PDF] and directive [PDF] issued by the DOJ are welcoming local law enforcement agencies to once again skirt restrictive state forfeiture laws by asking the DOJ to "adopt" their seizures.

"The criminalisation of political speech and activism against Israel has become one of the gravest threats to free speech in the west.” Glenn Greenwald 19.7.2017

Together with veteran Pink Floyd star Roger Waters and many other artists and thinkers worldwide, I am being subjected to an international smear campaign, orchestrated and promoted by various Zionist institutions that attempt to silence every form of legitimate dissent of Zionism and Israeli politics.

The former head of the Democratic Party who lost her post in the fallout from a massive email breach is expected to start cooperating with federal investigators in a separate cybersecurity case, after months of apparent stonewalling.

Fox News has learned that Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz plans to allow federal investigators to scan a laptop belonging to her as part of a complex probe into allegations of computer theft, over-billing and possible email hacking.

U.S. Capitol Police have had the laptop for months and until now had been unable to get access. It's unclear why the Florida lawmaker and ousted Democratic National Committee chairwoman had been battling law enforcement over the computer; however, her counsel began negotiating this week with Capitol Police in connection with the probe.

Hundreds of Palestinians were wounded in confrontations with Israeli forces many by rubber-coated bullets since violence erupted over al-Aqsa restrictions on July 14.
Palestinian hospitals are facing a large influx of patients as clashes sparked by new security measures at the highly sensitive al-Aqsa mosque compound continue, New Arab reported.

More than two dozen Palestinians were wounded in fresh clashes on Sunday night, 21 people were injured at Bab Al-Asbat (Lion's Gate), outside al-Aqsa, 15 of them shot with rubber-coated bullets, reported the Palestinian Red Crescent.

There were also clashes at the Qalandiya checkpoint, located between Jerusalem and Ramallah, where ten people were injured.

Three people were shot by rubber bullets, six suffered from tear gas inhalation, and one person from a fall, the Red Crescent said.

International human rights groups have long condemned Israel's use of such bullets.

A British missile destroyer and a Turkish frigate have docked at the port of Odessa in Ukraine for a joint NATO maritime exercise, which comes just a week after the bloc’s massive Sea Breeze war games took place off the same shore.
The Royal Navy’s ‘HMS Duncan’ and the Turkish Navy frigate ‘Yildirim’ moored in the Black Sea port of Odessa on Monday, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry wrote on its website. Both ships, which belong to NATO Standing Maritime Group 2 (NSMG2) covering the Mediterranean, are expected to remain in Ukrainian waters until July 27.

“The program of the ships’ visit includes a joint exercise with the Ukrainian Navy to train mid-sea survival skills as well as surveillance operations,” the press release said.

The recent agreement signed by Iraq and Iran on military cooperation should serve as a lesson to the US that regime change doesn't pay, Dr. Foad Izadi, Assistant Professor with the Faculty of World Studies at the University of Tehran, told Radio Sputnik.

Iraq and Iran have agreed to boost bilateral military cooperation in several areas, including anti-terrorism and the fight against extremism. Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan and his Iraqi counterpart Erfan al-Hiyali signed the memorandum of understanding on defense in Tehran on Sunday, Iranian news agency IRNA reported.

"Extending cooperation and exchanging experiences in fighting terrorism and extremism, border security, and educational, logistical, technical and military support are among the provisions of this memorandum," IRNA reported.

The agreement is bad news for the US, which is opposed to Iranian influence in Iraq and had been planning on expanding its own military facilities in Iraq and Syria.

Hundreds of desperate patients, some in their 90s, traveled miles to be seen to by doctors offering free care.

Medical staff used animal stalls, articulated lorries and barns to carry out health examinations and treatment.

Pictures show rows of people lying in beds being treated by doctors walking on dirty tarmac in Wise, Virginia.

Charity workers said the scenes were like something they would expect to see in South Sudan or Haiti.

President Trump has been urged to visit a country fairground in Virginia which has become a makeshift hospital to deal with the US health care crisis.
As Republican officials continue to grumble over Obamacare, the reality on the ground is stark - people camping overnight to be first in line for free treatment at a pop-up outdoor medical center.

Hundreds of desperate patients, some in their 90s, traveled miles to be seen to by doctors who used animal stalls, articulated lorries and barns to carry out examinations and treatment.

Venezuela’s socialist government opposition called for a two-day national strike against President Nicolas Maduro after another day of violent clashes on Saturday where the injured included a violinist famous for his musical protests.

Wuilly Arteaga, the 23-year-old has become famous for playing the national anthem on his violin in front of security lines as battles rage around him, has been injured in the fight for freedom against Venezuela’s socialist regime. Paramedics attended Arteaga in the street as blood poured down his face. He later tweeted a video from the hospital with a bandaged face and clutching his violin. “Neither rubber bullets nor pellets will stop our fight,” said Arteaga. “Tomorrow I will be back in the streets.”

ith the world seemingly in economic and geo-political shambles, those concerned with the real possibility of collapse continue to position themselves in precious metals. As highlighted by SGT Report in the five-minute metals update below, physical acquisition of gold and silver continues unabated, with Silver Eagles once again hitting month-over-month sales records in July. Moreover, the supply of gold appears to be dwindling. Coupled with heavy investment demand, this suggests that prices may soon jump to the upside as investors continue to shift into the asset class of last resort and larger gold and silver mining companies move to lock in physical assets through junior mining acquisitions.

In a project dubbed 'Bowline', Bloomberg reports that Deutsche Bank may shift about 300 billion euros ($350 billion) from the balance sheet of its U.K. entity to Frankfurt as client trading and assets migrate to the continent following Britain’s decision to leave the European Union. While not the first bank to threaten to move post-Brexit, the scale of asset movement is the largest yet.

Deutsche Bank’s balance sheet listed 1.59 trillion euros in total assets at the end of last yea and much of its trading in Europe is traditionally booked in London. But, as Bloomberg reports, the Brexit-contingency project calls for Frankfurt trading to go live in September 2018 and for the balance sheet migration to be completed by March 2019, said the person, who asked for anonymity in discussing internal matters.

Iraq, fresh from liberating Mosul in its most serious blow to Takfiri terrorists, is reaching out to Iran which, according to most senior Iraqi officials, prevented Baghdad from falling to Daesh.

Iraqi Defense Minister Erfan al-Hiyali was in Tehran on Sunday, signing an agreement to step up military cooperation and the fight against "terrorism and extremism".

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Jaberi Ansari was in Baghdad where Iraqi Parliament Speaker Salim al-Jabouri, a Sunni Muslim, stressed the need for the two neighbors to continue their cooperation in fighting terrorism.

Bolivia's President Evo Morales has been highlighting his government's independence from international money lending organizations and their detrimental impact the nation.

Israeli settlers have stormed the al-Aqsa Mosque compound under the heavy escort of security forces at a time of boiling tensions over Tel Aviv's siege of Islam's third holiest site.

Footage circulated across social media on Monday showed the Israelis ambling around comfortably at the sensitive place as Palestinian worshipers squatted outside the compound.

Israeli forces also dispersed protesters staging a sit-in protest in front of the metal detectors the regime has set up at the entrance to restrict Palestinian access.

Those participating in the sit-in include staffers of the al-Quds Islamic Waqf (Endowment) organization, which is trusted with controlling and managing the Islamic edifices on and around the compound. Israel evicted the staffers as part of its crackdown, and now the body says it has been fully incapacitated in exercising its duties.

Israel is set to remove the metal detector gates it deployed at the entrances to the Temple Mount compound in Jerusalem’s Old City, and instead will on Sunday introduce different security measures, involving access for Muslim worshipers via narrow, fenced-off routes, an Israeli TV report said Saturday night.

The metal detector gates, installed after three Arab Israelis shot dead two Israeli police officers outside the compound on July 14 using guns they had smuggled into the holy site, have prompted escalating Muslim protests. Worshipers have refused to go through them, and clashes with police in and around Jerusalem have been escalating daily, with three Palestinians killed on Friday. Later Friday, a Palestinian terrorist stabbed to death three Israelis at their Shabbat dinner table in the West Bank settlement of Halamish.

Gen. Joe Dunford, the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, complained over the weekend that a lot of people are rejecting the idea of the US attacking North Korea, saying the possibility shouldn’t be taken off the table, and that attacking them is “not unimaginable.”

While Dunford conceded that a US attack on North Korea would lead to a “horrific” war, with a death toll unlike anything seen since World War 2, he insisted that the US had to develop a “military option” for the war because otherwise North Korea might nuke Denver, Colorado.

The choice of Denver, Colorado in the comments is a strange one, but likely reflects Dunford’s comments being made in Aspen, Colorado. At the same time, virtually everyone agrees North Korea lacks the capability to hit the US mainland, let alone do so with a nuclear weapon.

The weekend once again saw the Taliban racking up territorial gains within Afghanistan, seizing the Taywara District in the Ghor Province, and also taking control of the Kohistan District in the far northern Faryab Province, forcing security forces in both districts to retreat and wait for reinforcements.

Taywara is the bigger fight, according to reports, with around 70 Afghan soldiers killed and 30 others wounded in the fighting. In Faryab, the attack was more of a surprise, with Taliban arriving under the cover of night and burning the police headquarters and other office buildings.

This is likely to be a recurring problem for the Afghan military, as the force is nowhere near as large as it is on paper. Many of the Afghan soldiers officials on the payroll are actually “ghost soldiers,” just names that are on the books so some higher ranking official can pocket their salary without any real soldier to complain that he didn’t get paid.

The US-led coalition in Syria believes they have a “lot more” to do in their war against ISIS in the country, even if they manage to expel ISIS from their capital city of Raqqa, with the deputy commander saying they’ll go after the rest of ISIS territory, backing the Kurds.

ISIS still holds a substantial amount of territory outside of Raqqa, including the majority of the Deir Ezzor Province. US officials have previously even singled out Mayadin as the “next capital” for ISIS, which they’ll invade next.

In Iraq, the US has styled their military presence as basically a permanent reality now, irrespective of ISIS’ status, but in Syria, where the US-led coalition isn’t authorized to be in the first place, justifying their long-term presence is going to be trickier.

Underscoring that Friday’s ceasefire was a de facto military victory for them, al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front now totally controls the Idlib Province’s capital city of Idlib, following the other ceasefire party, Ahrar al-Sham withdrawing over the weekend.

The two sides had spent over a week fighting around the province, ending with Nusra having a large contingent of Ahrar al-Sham surrounded at the border crossing into Turkey. This was followed by a ceasefire that aimed to remove all combatants from the crossing itself.

Still, it was no real secret that the deal came simply to prevent a bloodbath, and Ahrar al-Sham fairly quickly had packed everyone up on their vehicles and headed further south, into territory in Idlib Province that they still control.

The Saudi-led coalition tend to order anywhere from 20 to 70 airstrikes against various Yemeni provinces on any given day. Any province under control of Yemen’s Popular Forces is fair game. Hot spots currently include Taiz, Marib, the vital Hodeidah port town, and the densely populated capital city of Sana’a. So in retaliation, Yemeni forces have struck a Saudi oil refinery.

Just yesterday, Saudi airstrikes attacked a fishing boat killing 8 workers on board and wounding at least one more. Other targets frequently include civilian homes, crowded markets, funerals, schools, and all other civilian infrastructure. Despite this terrorism, arms from the west– especially the United States and United Kingdom– continue flowing.

Venezuela’s anti-government protests are growing increasingly violent, with the death toll from clashes between protesters and government forces that began in May topping 100. Despite the country’s increasing political instability, and US President Donald Trump’s half-serious threats of an invasion, President Nicolas Maduro has decided to press ahead with his vote to create a rubber stamp constituent assembly that will allow him to amend the country’s constitution.

With the country’s finances looking ever more precarious, Bloomberg warns that that this decision could bring about the first collapse of a sovereign oil producer. Venezuela has the largest natural oil reserves of any country on Earth, yet the decline in oil prices that began in 2014, coupled with years of economic mismanagement, have been enough to bring the country’s economy to its knees.

The White House indicated Sunday President Donald Trump would sign a sweeping Russia sanctions measure, which the House could take up this week, that requires him to get Congress’ permission before lifting or easing the economic penalties against Moscow, reports The Washington Post.

Lawmakers are scheduled to consider the sanctions package as early as Tuesday, and the bill could be sent to Trump before Congress breaks for the August recess. The bill also calls for sanctions against Iran and North Korea. "The administration is supportive of being tough on Russia, particularly in putting these sanctions in place,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told ABC News. “The original piece of legislation was poorly written but we were able to work with the House and Senate. And the administration is happy with the ability to do that and make those changes that were necessary. And we support where the legislation is now." Notes The New York Times:

Madrid’s standoff with Spain’s north eastern province of Catalonia, which plans to hold a forbidden referendum on national independence on October 1, grows more and more complex by the day. Just in the last week alone the following developments have taken place:

Spain’s Civil Guard has raided Catalonia’s parliament and government HQ as part of its investigation into political corruption in the region. As new research has shown, this investigation forms part of a broader police operation that has served as a means for Spain’s governing People’s Party to spy on political rivals.

Catalonia’s government has replaced the region’s chief of police with a die-hard separatist. It has also purged the cabinet of any members perceived as not fully committed to the separatist cause.

Deloitte published its annual barometer of Spanish businesses according to which 74% of business leaders believe that the independence of Catalonia would do serious harm to Spain’s economy.

Pakistani foreign national Imran Awan, who was hired by Debbie Wasserman Schultz and other Democrats to be their IT guy, is currently under criminal investigation and reportedly is suspected of blackmailing many of them, among a host of other crimes.

The Daily Caller reported Sunday night that the FBI recovered a host of smashed hard drives and other computer equipment from his home.

From The Daily Caller:

FBI agents seized smashed computer hard drives from the home of Florida Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s information technology (IT) administrator, according to an individual who was interviewed by Bureau investigators in the case and a high level congressional source.

Pakistani-born Imran Awan, long-time right-hand IT aide to the former Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairwoman, has since desperately tried to get the hard drives back, the individual told The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group.

Much of the American public no longer cares about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia. They also don’t care about the Senate investigation, or the House investigation.

So it’s unsurprising that CNN, in a seemingly blatant example of suburban scaremongering, will attempt to revive the anti-Russia hysteria that permeated the political climate just a few months ago, by preparing to debut “The Spies Next Door: Operation Ghost Stories." The documentary focuses on the story of undercover Russian sleeper living in the US. The show details “one of the largest counterintelligence investigations in the history of the FBI," reads a release from the network via the Hill.

Former print magazine and current online publication Newsweek took down a pair of falsified articles by infamous writer Kurt Eichenwald following a legal settlement reached with a former Sputnik journalist Eichenwald smeared.
Newsweek deleted the stories smearing William Moran and claiming that Sputnik News colluded with the Trump campaign.

Eichenwald, a senior writer for Newsweek, has been repeatedly caught lying, falsifying sources and making up stories, but because he remained dedicated to the mainstream media narrative, his transgressions never hurt his career, but rather have propelled it. During the 2016 presidential campaign, Eichenwald found a new bandwagon and decided to become the smearer-in-chief of then-candidate Donald Trump.

The Trump administration is readying for a crackdown on marijuana users under Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

President Trump’s Task Force on Crime Reduction and Public Safety, led by Sessions, is expected to release a report next week that criminal justice reform advocates fear will link marijuana to violent crime and recommend tougher sentences for those caught growing, selling and smoking the plant.

Sessions sent a memo in April updating the U.S. Attorney’s Offices and Department of Justice Department (DOJ) component heads on the work of the task force, which he said would be accomplished through various subcommittees. In the memo, Sessions said he has asked for initial recommendations no later than July 27.

Wikileaks’ Julian Assange is continuing his attempt to “take down America any way he can” by accurately reporting the truth.

Saturday on Twitter, Assange highlighted an article from Thursday where the Financial Times noted how many Syrian rebels are getting salaries from the CIA.

Assange said they “buried the lede”

Wikileaks’ Julian Assange is continuing his attempt to “take down America any way he can” by accurately reporting the truth.

Saturday on Twitter, Assange highlighted an article from Thursday where the Financial Times noted how many Syrian rebels are getting salaries from the CIA.

Assange said they “buried the lead”

US forces have a less credible military foothold in Syria than the Russians do, and could be expelled from the country after the defeat of ISIS, a top US general has said.

Russia, unlike the US, operates in Syria at the invitation of the Syrian government, said General Raymond 'Tony' Thomas, the head of the Special Operations Command, at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado on Friday.
'Here's the conundrum: We are operating in the sovereign country of Syria. The Russians, their stalwarts, their backstoppers have already uninvited the Turks from Syria. We're a bad day away from the Russians saying, "Why are you still in Syria, US?" Thomas said, according to Newsweek.

'If the Russians play that card, we could want to stay and have no ability to do it,' Thomas continued.

On Friday, the Palestinian people marked “Day of Rage” to protest Tel Aviv’s restrictions on entry into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound, which was met with a heavy-handed Israeli crackdown. At least four people lost their lives during the clashes with Tel Aviv’s forces in the occupied territories. Press TV has conducted an interview with Salma Karmi-Ayyoub, a Palestinian human rights lawyer from London, and Michael Lane, president of the American Institute for Foreign Policy from Washington, to ask for their thoughts on the heightened tensions between Israelis and Palestinians.

Karmi-Ayyoub said that the imposition of restrictive measures on the Palestinian access to the al-Aqsa Mosque is in line with the Tel Aviv regime’s broader agenda of occupying the whole Palestinian territories and expelling the Arabs from their homeland.

It’s been a bad week for the Saudi rulers in the US media. A slew of embarrassing stories got wide coverage, with the seeming intention of undermining Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies. Not coincidentally, the Saudi-led bloc then capitulated in its standoff with Qatar.

The row between Qatar and the other Gulf states of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain has been the worst flare up in relations among the US-backed oil and gas monarchies going back many years.

All of the energy-rich sheikhdoms are American allies, or more accurately, American intelligence came out to effectively back Qatar’s side in the row with the other Gulf states. The US assessed that the official Qatar News Agency website was hacked by “the government of United Arab Emirates” on May 24, which sparked the whole stand-off in the first place.

The British press has been rather over-excited about the Tory government’s plans to fund a new fleet of destroyers.

So over-excited that pundits have overlooked the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Philip Jones’, extraordinary assertion that Britain’s plan to expand its Navy is:

“… in order to support the UK’s growing global economic ambitions.”
Oh, and he also mentioned that under the same plan, the Navy would be deploying an advanced laser weapon, along with autonomous, artificially intelligent weapons systems.

To his credit, Admiral Sir Jones does mention the obligatory objective of ‘world peace’ and such like, but he is also quite candid about the pre-eminence of Britain’s economic interests.

Here are the relevant passages of his message in bold:

“Meanwhile in the Gulf [we] are working to protect international shipping in a region which is essential to the UK’s economic security…

After spending a truly obscene amount of money on the Georgia special election last month, money that was proven to be completely wasted after Jon Ossoff was destroyed by Karen Handel, the DNC's balance sheet is looking a little deflated. Of course, spending $22 million dollars for a seat where candidates usually spend about $1 million each tends to take a toll on your political war chest.

And while we're sure that the new DNC Chair would love to forget all about that Georgia race, as the Federal Election Commission's June financial reports reveal, his deflated balance sheet, which included only $7.5 mm of cash and $3.3mm of debt, serves as a constant reminder of the wasted money that he'd undoubtedly love to get back.

Three Palestinians were shot dead and four others wounded as thousands of Palestinian worshippers clashed with security forces on a “day of rage” over Israeli control of Islam’s third-holiest site. Israel’s army said a family of three Israeli settlers were stabbed to death and a fourth was wounded in the Israeli West Bank settlement of Neve Tsuf on Friday.

Mohammad Sharaf, 17, was reportedly shot by an Israeli settler in the Ras Alamood area in East Jerusalem. Mohammed Hassan Abu Ghannam, 19, died of wounds in al-Makassed hospital after he was shot by an Israeli settler in East Jerusalem. Footage on social media shows Ghannam’s body being carried over the hospital gate by Palestinian paramedics and protesters.

A third Palestinian was killed in Abu Dis, AFP reported, quoting Palestinian health officials saying: “A Palestinian was killed after he was shot in the heart by live bullets.”

Three Palestinians were shot dead and four others wounded as thousands of Palestinian worshipers clashed with security forces on a “day of rage” over Israeli control of Islam’s third-holiest site. Israel’s army said a family of three Israeli settlers were stabbed to death and a fourth was wounded in the Israeli West Bank settlement of Neve Tsuf on Friday.

The army said in a statement that the four victims were Israeli civilians and that the assailant was also shot. It was not known whether he was alive.

The deaths came as thousands of Palestinians clashed with police after peaceful prayers around the Old City. Many had refused to enter the Noble Sanctuary and the al-Aqsa mosque in protest of new Israeli security checkpoints at two key entrances.

The sanctuary has for a week been subjected to increased security measures, including metal detectors, that many in Palestine see as an attempt to gain control of the site.

For all the talk of obstruction and interference by the Trump camp, it's neither Donald Trump Jr. nor Paul Manafort who are challenging their scheduled testimony in the Senate next Wednesday, but rather the man who according to many started the whole "Trump Russia collusion" narrative, who is doing everything in his power to avoid testifying next week.

FUSION GPS head Glenn Simpson won't testify before Senate Judiciary next week, his rep attacks "partisan" hearing and vows to plead Fifth.

S. 720 is a bill which is getting increasing bipartisan support in the US Senate. Also known as the “Israel Anti-Boycott Act,” the bill now has the support of 45 Senators, a number which is continuing to grow despite its overt hostility to freedom of speech.

The bill starts as a condemnation of the United Nations for criticisms of Israeli policy, but quickly veers into matters of domestic US policy, criminalizing any US citizen “engaged in interstate or foreign commerce” holding any beliefs in support of a boycott of Israel.

A former pastor who handed out jury nullification pamphlets in front of a Big Rapids courthouse has been convicted of a misdemeanor jury tampering charge.

A jury deliberated 45 minutes before finding Keith Wood guilty of the charge.

His trial began Wednesday and finished Thursday, June 1 with the verdict.

Wood was arrested in November 2015 for standing on the sidewalk outside of the 77th District Court in Big Rapids and handing out pamphlets titled "What rights do you have as a juror that the judge won't tell you about?"

He was there the same day as a jury was being picked for a land use case against an Amish man and prosecutors say he was aware of the court case. The Amish man had a dispute with the state over wetlands.

A Bahraini human rights group says detainees being held at a detention center in the tiny Persian Gulf kingdom will be punished by solitary confinement and torture in case they seek medical attention from prison authorities.

Duraz Youth Movement announced on Friday that inmates at Dry Dock Detention Center will be locked up in solitary cells and subjected to torture should they demand treatment, Arabic-language Lualua television network reported.

The movement noted that the practice has been drawn up by one of the prison’s senior figures identified as Ahmad al-Amadi.

It also expressed deep concerns over the deteriorating health conditions of Ali Majed Rabea and Hussein Mahdi Qassem, stressing that the pair faces serious health risks after continuously being denied proper medical care.

At least four people have reportedly lost their lives during clashes in the occupied Palestinian lands as tensions (#SaveAlAqsa) remain high there in the wake of the Tel Aviv regime’s crackdown on Palestinian worshipers wishing to pray at the al-Aqsa Mosque compound.

Palestinian medical sources and witnesses, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a Palestinian teenager, identified as 17-year-old Muhammad Mahmoud Sharaf from the predominantly Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan on the outskirts of the Old City of Jerusalem al-Quds, was fatally shot in Ras al-Amud neighborhood of East Jerusalem al-Quds on Friday afternoon, Arabic-language Ma’an news agency reported.

Witnesses said Sharaf was shot in the neck by an Israeli settler, and later succumbed to his wounds.

People protest in Wroclaw, Poland, against new legislation which allows lawmakers to appoint Supreme Court judges.

Indian security forces will soon use capsicum gel-based tear gas shells instead of PAVA (Pelargonic Acid Vanillylamide) shells to disperse mobs in the state of Jammu and Kashmir.

The new tear gas can be used either as a spray or as a shell against stone-pelters. Jammu and Kashmir has recently seen a large number of public protests and stone pelting incidents.

The new tear gas shells will be made at the Tear Smoke Unit of the Border Security Force at the Tekanpur, in the state of Madhya Pradesh, in collaboration with India’s premier defense research organisation, Defense Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).

According to the DRDO, the tear gas will be made in two forms, shell form and spray can. The chilli ingredient for these new teargas will come from north-eastern states and Andhra Pradesh.

North Korea’s economy grew at its fastest pace in 17 years in 2016, South Korea’s central bank said on Friday, despite the isolated country facing international sanctions aimed at curbing its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Gross domestic product (GDP) in North Korea last year rose 3.9% from the previous year when the economy contracted due to a drought and low commodity prices, the Bank of Korea said.

The average person doesn’t realize how close the American empire is to collapsing under its own weight. Hell, the average person’s mind is thoroughly riddled with propaganda and entertainment, that they don’t even realize that their country is an empire. They think it’s normal to live under an all powerful government that has hundreds of military bases all over the world, and is constantly at war.

But there’s no doubt that this state of affairs cannot continue. In fact, even the high ranking officials in our government know that their empire is on the ropes, and challenged on all fronts by nations that are no longer willing to bow down to Washington.

The vast majority of these European courts -- whether the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) or the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) -- in their attempt to be moral and just, have dismissed the sovereign laws of Italy as irrelevant, and trampled the rights of the Italian state and ordinary Italians to approve who enters their country.
In Europe, Amnesty International and the like are, it seems, a new source of law.
Those who gave the Statue of Liberty to America in 1886 "to commemorate the perseverance of freedom and democracy in the United States" are willingly trampling their own people's liberties today through courts of appointed, unelected, unaccountable ideologues. The danger is that, with the help of many doubtless well-intentioned, international NGOs, the EU will not stop at its shores.

Two Salafi-jihadi factions in Syria's Idlib province have been engaged in a brutal inter-"rebel" (or rather inter-jihadist) war this week, prompting Turkey to prepare a potential invasion to protect its favored factions on the ground. On Thursday, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS/Al-Qaeda) continued to capture towns in Idlib's countryside from rival Ahrar al-Sham and Turkish backed FSA groups after an uneasy truce between the rebel factions quickly collapsed days prior, causing the weaker Ahrar al-Sham to call in Turkish support.

Hundreds of thousands of migrants who’ve appealed decisions by Germany’s immigration courts have brought the country’s legal system to the brink of collapse, a German judge warned on Friday.

More than 1.3 million migrants have arrived in Germany since the beginning of 2015. Since then, the sheer number of cases filed has overwhelmed the civil courts of the country, said Robert Seegmuller, chairman of the Association of German Administrative Law Judges, speaking to the publishing house Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland.

“The situation is dramatic for administrative courts,” Seegmuller told RND. “We are now completely stretched to our limits.”

Dennis Rodman will be disappointed to learn that the US is set to ban all citizens from traveling to North Korea, according to two agencies that operate tours there. Koryo Tours and Young Pioneer Tours said the ban would be announced on 27 July to come into effect 30 days later, the BBC reported. "After the 30-day grace period any US national that travels to North Korea will have their passport invalidated by their government." The ban comes one month after US student Otto Warmbier died following his imprisonment by the Kim regime.

The Hawaii Emergency Management Agency is kicking off an educational campaign aimed at helping residents and visitors figure out what to do if the state is the target of a nuclear missile attack from North Korea.

The agency said the threat to the islands from the rogue nation is "currently assessed to be low."

But officials added ongoing North Korean missile tests —and growing public concern — have prompted officials to work on preparedness and disaster management plans.

Vern Miyagi, administrator of the emergency management agency, stressed that the public shouldn't be alarmed by the planning.

Rather, he said, the public should see the preparation and education much like the work being done to prepare the public for hurricane and tsunami, which pose a greater risk to the state.

"We need to tell the public what the state is doing," Miyagi said. “We do not want to cause any undue stress for the public; however, we have a responsibility to plan for all hazards."

Sean Hannity is getting attacked from all sides.

Rumors continue to swirl that Hannity’s days at Fox News are numbered. His coverage of the Seth Rich murder is turning off advertisers.

Now, Hannity is being deprived of a prestigious award for his news commentary.

The Fox News host was set to receive the William F. Buckley Award for Media Excellence, but the award has been rescinded.

Some 331 Palestinian minors were arrested by Israel between January and May this year, a 62 per cent increase on figures from 2012 to 2015, NGO Defence for Children International – Palestine (DCIP) revealed yesterday.

According to a report released by the human rights group, Israeli forces regularly abuse Palestinian children, depriving them of food, subjecting them to beatings and preventing them from accessing legal counsel.

Accountability Programme Director at DCIP, Ayed Abu Eqtaish, stated:

“For over a decade, ill-treatment of Palestinian children in the Israeli military detention system has been widespread and systematic.”

From the persistent and institutionalised ill-treatment and torture of Palestinian children, to the systematic denial of their due process rights, emerges a system of control far removed from justice.

To put it very simply, after Syria the Caucasus – barely 800 miles to the northeast – is literally Russia’s second line of defense, its “soft underbelly,” to use a worn but apposite phrase. Quite understandably, Russia is in Syria, among other reasons, precisely to make sure that it would not have to fall back to the aforementioned defense line. Its geopolitical opponents, however, are doing their utmost to see to it that it does. Hence the intense turbulence and maneuvering between Baku and Tbilisi, and beyond.

The consequence to such an environment of suspicion is that people’s concerns over globalisation, the pace of innovation, employment prospects, immigration and eroding social values are turned into fear. And fear-factor politics has become endemic. The consequence is evidenced in the rise of political figures such as Donald Trump, the rise of extreme political parties across Europe, the collapse of establishment politics in France, the failure of the Italian referendum, Britain’s unexpected EU referendum result and then the Theresa May election debacle. All these events are inextricably linked because they were all decisions that were fundamentally driven by a lack of trust.

Ray will be in Court Wednesday and Thursday in Syracuse to face the music. He and his Catholic Worker, Jewish mother, and other friends twice blocked the main entrance and exit to Hancock drone base to call attention to the push-of-the-computer-button cowardly killings done in our name. Those of you who, like our Quaker friends, are in the practice of holding Justice people in the Light, please do.

Here is a link to a piece Ray wrote a few years ago on the moral imperative of activism; even more necessary now.

Pasted in below are a couple of links. Ray is grateful to have fallen in with the very best people to be in trouble with, witnessing at Hancock Drone Base, Syracuse, New York

When he was 17, five years ago, Mujtaba al-Sweikat committed the “crime” of participating in a pro-democracy rally in Saudi Arabia.

Instead of attending Western Michigan University, as he had planned to do that fall, he was put in prison. Reports are now leaking out of Saudi Arabia that al-Sweikat will soon be beheaded for his transgression.

It’s just the latest reminder that Saudi Arabia is America’s worst best friend. The U.S. does get something out of its relationship with Saudi Arabia; there is real intelligence sharing, and the Kingdom has used its power over OPEC to drive oil prices down when we want to humiliate Russia or accomplish some other goal. That’s not nothing.

The Octopus of Global Control is a controversial, nonfiction book detailing how those in positions of power are able to manipulate society for their benefit, why they believe that they are entitled to impose their warped world view of reality on mankind, and how we can break free from their grip.

The eight tentacles of control that are wrapped around humanity are the Military, Governmental, Covert, Physical, Financial, Media, Spiritual, and Scientific. The book tackles topics such as uncovering the Deep State, false flag terror events, the media’s role in manufacturing wars, the 9/11 deception, the fraud of central banking, our broken education system, the use of religion to shape society, and the corrupted medical industry.

In 2007, all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies declared with high confidence Iran had no nuclear weapons program. They stated this again in 2011. Under the nuclear deal, Iran exported almost all of its uranium, stopped enriching to 20 percent, shut down thousands of centrifuges, poured concrete into the core of its heavy water reactor, and allows U.N. inspectors to crawl all over every facility.

Is Iran, despite all this, operating a secret nuclear weapons program? Or is this War Party propaganda meant to drag us into another Mideast war?

To ascertain the truth, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee should call the heads of the CIA and DIA, and the Director of National Intelligence, to testify in open session.

We are told we are menaced also by a Shiite Crescent rising and stretching from Beirut to Damascus, Baghdad and Tehran.

And who created this Shiite Crescent?

The Arkansas Department of Health is warning would-be applicants for medical marijuana cards that they can have the card or the ability to buy a gun, but not both.

Israel has made no secret of not liking the southern Syria ceasefire, negotiated between the US and Russia, complaining in particular that it doesn’t keep the Syrian government, and its Iranian allies, totally barred from that part of the country, which they see as tantamount to letting Iran be too close to the Israeli border.

Israeli Maj. Gen. Yaakov Amidror is the latest to step up the ever-growing series of threats against Iran over the matter, attending a briefing with foreign correspondents today and warning that if the US and Russia don’t resolve Israel’s complaints, the Israeli military will “intervene and destroy every attempt to build infrastructure in Syria.”

Just three days after South Korea proposed holding inter-Korean military talks with its northern neighbor, Pyongyang’s most notable publication slammed the efforts as "nonsense."

According to the Rodong Sinmun, if Seoul wants to have any chance at keeping the peace, it needs to fully abandon its confrontational policies and say goodbye to its decades-long dependence on the United States.
"Ditching confrontation and hostility is a precondition for opening the door for the two Koreas’ reconciliation and unity," stated the Hermit Kingdom’s top newspaper.

Talks were proposed after recently elected South Korean President Moon Jae-in announced in Berlin that he wanted to hit the reset button and bring about a calmer relationship between the divided Koreas.

"We do not wish for the collapse of North Korea," Moon told reporters at the G20 Summit. "We will not pursue any form of unification by absorbing the other. We will not pursue a unification by force."

The quest for global domination in the world’s oceans, as well as the global strike concept of the US and its allies, puts international stability at risk and poses a direct military threat to Russia, the country’s new naval doctrine states.
Moscow’s demonstration that it is prepared to use force, including non-strategic nuclear weaponry, is an efficient way to deter this threat, the document says.

One of the main challenges faced by Russia is the “strive of a number of states, mainly the US and its allies, for domination in the World Ocean, including the Arctic region, as well as for establishing overwhelming superiority of their naval forces,” according to “the state policy of the Russian Federation in the field of naval activities for the period up to 2030,” as ratified by a Decree of the President of Russia on Thursday.

Read more
© StringerRussia’s new maritime doctrine ‘to counter NATO’s expansion’, focuses on Crimea & Arctic

A growing number of Republicans and Democrats in Congress are backing a bill that would criminalize support for the international boycott against Israel, also known as the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.

Named the Israel Anti-Boycott Act, the bill so far has garnered support from 29 Republicans and 14 Democrats in the Senate. A similar piece of legislation introduced in the House of Representatives has 237 co-sponsors—63 Democrats and 174 Republicans. With the intent to suppress the BDS movement and others allied with the boycott against Israel, the Israel Anti-Boycott Act imposes harsh punishments: any person guilty of violating the law faces a “minimum civil penalty of $250,000 and a maximum criminal penalty of $1 million and 20 years in prison."

Many of you may not be familiar with what I’m talking about, so I’ll start with some excerpts from a very good New York Times article on the subject, and then get into some detailed commentary at the end.

Here’s a brief overview of the situation from the piece, Noncompete Pacts, Under Siege, Find Haven in Idaho:

BOISE, Idaho — Idaho achieved a notable distinction last year: It became one of the hardest places in America for someone to quit a job for a better one.

The state did this by making it easier for companies to enforce noncompete agreements, which prevent employees from leaving their company for a competitor.

“We’re trying to build the tech ecosystem in Boise,” said George Mulhern, chief executive of Cradlepoint, a company here that makes routers and other networking equipment. “And anything that would make somebody not want to move here or start a company here is going to slow down our progress.”

Last month we wrote about the tragic and hugely problematic ruling in Canada that said a Canadian court could order global censorship of content it deems to be illegal. As lots of people pointed out, that is going to have dangerous consequences for speech around the world. If you accept that Canada can censor the global internet, what's to stop China, Iran or Russia from claiming the same rights?

Washington's new Driving Under the Influence of Electronics law makes it illegal to text, eat, smoke, read or groom while driving.

The charge of “driving under the influence” used to only apply to drivers who were under the influence of drugs or alcohol—but it will now apply to drivers who text, eat, smoke, read or groom while driving in the state of Washington.

The Israel Anti-Boycott Act would make it a felony for Americans to support the boycott of Israel. According to the ACLU, violators would be subject to massive fines and imprisonment of up to 20 years. The bill was introduced into the Senate back in March by Sen. Ben Cardin, a Maryland Democrat. Since then, it has picked up a whopping 45 co-sponsors, including seven just in the past week, suggesting it has a strong chance of passing the Senate.

Co-sponsors of S.720 (you can find the full text of the bill here ) include both senators from New York, Charles Schumer and Kristen Gillibrand, as well as Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Robert Menendez, and Lindsay Graham.

Catherine Austin Fitts just published documentation of Department of Defense (DOD) official audit reports from 1998 that acknowledge “losing track” of $6.5 trillion, along with Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) admission of “losing” over $100 billion. This is euphemistically termed “unaccounted,” and literally means that DOD agrees they received these funds, agrees the funds are gone, and then claims to not have records of where the money went.

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) mobilized thousands of ground vehicles and other military equipment as the standoff between Chinese and Indian troops near the disputed area of Sikkim continues, according to a report from the PLA Daily.
PLA Daily is widely considered the main outlet the Chinese army uses for external communications, LiveMint notes.

The report did not specify the exact date the military assets were relocated to Tibet but said it occurred at the end of June. The unspecified military "hardware" was transported via rail and conventional roads.

It’s not entirely clear where in Tibet the chess pieces have been placed. The report also failed to indicate whether the military equipment would be used in tandem with a Chinese battalion that recently completed drills in Tibet, China’s second-largest province.

According to Hoshyar Zebari, who until recently was a senior minister in Baghdad, many bodies “are still buried under the rubble.”

“Kurdish intelligence believes that over 40,000 civilians have been killed as a result of massive firepower used against them, especially by the federal police, air strikes and Isis itself,” Mr. Zebari added.

The monitoring group Airwars recently estimated that at least 4,000 civilians were still buried under the rubble in Mosul, but we will likely never know the exact number. Up until a month ago, the U.S. only had two personnel investigating casualties in Iraq and Syria full time.

Zebari also emphasized that the “unrelenting artillery bombardment by units of the Iraqi federal police, in practice a heavily armed military unit, had caused immense destruction and loss of life in west Mosul,” according to the Independent.

The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) on Wednesday reported that an airstrike carried out by the U.S.-backed Saudi-led coalition in Yemen killed 20 civilians—including women and children—who were fleeing violence in their home province.

"The people of Yemen are being subjected to deprivation, disease, and death as the world watches."
—Stephen O'Brien, United Nations

"The incident was reported on Tuesday afternoon and the number of civilian casualties are still being verified with initial reports pointing to at least 20 deaths," the agency said in statement. "Most of those killed are believed to be from the same family. Injuries have also been reported with a number also taken to nearby hospitals for treatment."

THE CRIMINALIZATION OF political speech and activism against Israel has become one of the gravest threats to free speech in the west. In France, activists have been arrested and prosecuted for wearing t-shirts advocating a boycott of Israel. The U.K. has enacted a series of measures designed to outlaw such activism. In the U.S., governors compete with one another over who can implement the most extreme regulations to bar businesses from participating in any boycotts aimed even at Israeli settlements, which the world regards as illegal. On U.S. campuses, punishment of pro-Palestinian students for expressing criticisms of Israel is so commonplace that the Center for Constitutional Rights refers to it as “the Palestine Exception” to free speech.

A Swedish council has admitted that local libraries have been throwing out copies of a popular children’s book because it contains racist expressions, with one local journalist even claiming the books are being burnt.

"Constructive fraud: A contract or act, which, not originating in evil design and contrivance to perpetuate a positive fraud or injury upon other persons, yet, by its necessary tendency to deceive or mislead them, or to violate a public or private confidence, or to impair or injure public interest, is deemed equally reprehensible with positive fraud, and therefore is prohibited by law, ... " Bovier's Law Dictionary - 1856 Edition

"Fraud vitiates the most solemn contracts, documents, and even judgments." i.e. Documents, Constitutions, Court Decisions….. U.S. vs. Throckmorton, 98 U.S. 61

Here's an interesting factoid about contemporary policing: In 2014, for the first time ever, law enforcement officers took more property from American citizens than burglars did. Martin Armstrong pointed this out at his blog, Armstrong Economics, last week.

Officers can take cash and property from people without convicting or even charging them with a crime — yes, really! — through the highly controversial practice known as civil asset forfeiture. Last year, according to the Institute for Justice, the Treasury and Justice departments deposited more than $5 billion into their respective asset forfeiture funds. That same year, the FBI reports that burglary losses topped out at $3.5 billion.

Cyber troops are government, military or political party teams committed to manipulating public opinion over social media. In this working paper, we report on specific organizations created, often with public money, to help define and manage what is in the best interest of the public. We compare such organizations across 28 countries, and inventory them according to
the kinds of messages, valences and communication strategies used. We catalogue their organizational forms and evaluate their capacities in terms of budgets and staffing. This working paper summarizes the findings of the first comprehensive inventory of the major organizations behind social media manipulation.

We find that cyber troops are a pervasive and global phenomenon. Many different countries employ significant numbers of people and resources to manage and manipulate public opinion online, sometimes targeting domestic audiences and sometimes targeting foreign publics.

NATO forces are able to deter Russia and they already do so by holding exercises in eastern Europe, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis said as he visited the site of drills staged by NATO and several partner countries in Romania.

U.S. President Donald Trump threatened on Monday to take "strong and swift economic actions" if Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro goes ahead with plans to create a super-legislature known as a Constituent Assembly in a July 30 vote.

"Yesterday, the Venezuelan people again made clear that they stand for democracy, freedom and rule of law. Yet their strong and courageous actions continue to be ignored by a bad leader who dreams of becoming a dictator," Trump said in a statement issued by the White House.

"The United States will not stand by as Venezuela crumbles. If the Maduro regime imposes its Constituent Assembly on July 30, the United States will take strong and swift economic actions," Trump said.

Maduro's foes are demanding a presidential election and want to stop the leftist leader's plan to create the Constituent Assembly, which would have the power to rewrite the constitution and annul the opposition-led legislature.

The U.S. supports the right-wing opposition in Venezuela against the socialist government of President Maduro.

Since April the opposition tries to dislodge the government by instigating a regime change by force. Its protests and street fights with the police are led by violent, militarized gangs:

Venezuela’s ongoing street protests are increasingly looking like outright warfare. As security forces shoot rubber bullets, tear-gas canisters and sometimes live rounds at the churning crowds, increasingly restive mobs are responding with lethal slingshots, homemade mortars and Molotov cocktails.
This week, seven National Guard members were injured in Caracas when a roadside bomb exploded as they drove by on motorcycles.

Leading the opposition shock-troops are loose-knit groups of young men and women that have names like The Templars, The Warriors and The Arcadias. Collectively, they’re known as the Chamos de la Resistencia or, roughly, the Youth Resistance.

After nearly a year of unsubstantiated claims that Russia hacked the U.S. election, the U.S. government is now poised to create an independent Military Cyber Command eventually splintered off from the NSA, Reuters reported.

The agency was created in 2009 under then President Barack Obama, but it seeks to stem out and become separate from the NSA while still keeping some employees of the spying agency.

This comes after President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to create a joint cyber security force, a move that many Democrats are adamant about blocking.

The goal of separating the Military Cyber Command from the rest of the intelligence community?

To wage cyber war against the Islamic State and other individuals and groups deemed to be “enemies of the state,” according to anonymous U.S. officials not authorized to speak on the matter; further noting that the plans aren’t finalized and are subject to change.

Here it is, in black and white, the beginning of the whole web of treachery, deceit and Breach of Trust that has caused two World Wars, multiple international bankruptcies, and the current plot to overthrow private property and self-government worldwide:

Nurses are taking a stand against mandatory vaccinations, at the risk of losing their jobs.

On July 14, 2017, the case proceedings of Polish political prisoner Mateusz Piskorski took a new turn when Piskorski was slapped with new allegations of “espionage on behalf of China” by the prosecutor’s office.

Piskorski has been “temporarily imprisoned” on no formal charges for 425 days now, the legal pretext for such being ongoing investigations into the allegations presented by Poland’s Internal Security Service (ABW) that Piskorski has committed espionage on behalf of Russia. More than a year later, however, Piskorski’s proceedings are still kept secret from the public and no evidence or formal charges have been presented by Polish authorities.

Yes, the narrative of the “new normal” has been around for so long now that many people have simply grown used to it. The assumption is that the fiscal “new normal” has become the fiscal “normal,” and though the fundamentals continue to strain under the weight of poor global demand and historic debt levitated by extraneous fiat stimulus, the masses feel far less fear than is warranted. Hey, why should they? We’ve managed around eight years skating on thin ice, why shouldn’t we expect eight more years of the same?

The banking elites have done the job they set out to do, which was to drive the economy to the very edge of the financial cliff, and then keep it suspended there until the general public became comfortable living next door to the abyss.

The Defense Ministry in Seoul proposed to talk at the border village of Panmunjom, while the Red Cross proposed separate talks to discuss family reunions.

South Korea Proposes Military Talks with North Korea For Later This Month
So South Korean President Moon Jae-in has made up his mind — after his inauguration on May 10 and Pyongyang's ICBM test on July 3.

All this is happening just as what Seoul really wants is to do business — in a Korean variant of the China-driven New Silk Roads, renamed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Seoul wants to build a Trans-Korean Railway, and go even beyond, connecting it with the Trans-Siberian and, what else, the Chinese-built Eurasian land bridge. That happens to be the so-called Iron Silk Road concept, which South Korea has been dreaming about since an Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) summit in 2004.

According to an insider account, the Clinton team, put together the Russia Gate narrative within 24 hours of her defeat. The Clinton account explained that Russian hacking and election meddling caused her unexpected loss. Her opponent, Donald Trump, was a puppet of Putin. Trump, they said, “encourages espionage against our people.” The scurrilous Trump dossier, prepared by a London opposition research firm, Orbis, and paid for by unidentified Democrat donors, formed a key part of the Clinton narrative: Trump’s sexual and business escapades in Russia had made him a hostage of the Kremlin, ready to do its bidding. That was Hillary's way to say that Trump is really not President of the United States—a siren call adopted by the Democratic party and media.

Hillary and the Orbis Dossier

n the years after its 2009 bankruptcy, Chrysler looked for a dedicated lender to help customers "finance their cars quickly"...which was code for a lender who could help the struggling OEM expand their market share by making extremely risky loans to subprime borrowers all while laying off the credit risk to unsuspecting pension funds. As such, Chrysler ultimately picked Santander due to its expertise in “automated decisioning”...which was code for the ability to advance credit without actually performing income verification tests on borrowers.

For a time, Chrysler and Santander enjoyed a perfect symbiotic relationship as it offered Santander an opportunity to aggressively expand in the U.S. subprime loan market, and Chrysler, the perennial third wheel among the “Big Three,” was able to target customers that were previously deemed untouchable by lenders. Of course, as Bloomberg points out today, the problems surfaced almost from the start.

Pyongyang has stepped up its manufacture of nuclear weapons fuel, according to a US group’s interpretation of recent satellite surveillance data.

According to satellite imagery recorded between September 2106 and June 2017, North Korea has stepped up its production of weapons-grade plutonium at a faster rate than previously asserted by military experts.

Recorded over an eight-month period, the new surveillance data reveals increased thermal activity around the primary nuclear plant of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), the radiochemical laboratory at the Yongbyon nuclear facility — an indicator, according to an American university center's project exclusively concerned with Pyongyang, of increased nuclear weapon production.

At least five civilians including children lost their lives when the Turkish army on Wednesday bombed the outskirts of Syria’s northwest Kurdish district of Afrin.

Omar, a 12-year-old Syrian boy whose leg was amputated as a result of the bombing, told Kurdistan24 a rocket hit nearby when he and his family were harvesting their farm in the countryside of the country’s northwest district of Shahba.

“We were all injured,” said Omar.

In the bombardment, Omar and his family were wounded and his father lost his life.

“Two rockets hit near us,” Omar continued. “The first one was a little bit further away, but the second rocket killed two.”

“Someone's leg was cut off and another one's arm was amputated too,” he further said.

CONGRESS IS ON THE BRINK of a major giveaway to defense contractors, tucking language into a must-pass piece of legislation that would broadly expand their ability to gouge the federal government on sole-source contracts.

The National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, is practically the only bill Congress passes on time every year. The last 50 NDAA’s, which authorize funds and set policy for the Department of Defense, have reached the president’s desk without a holdup. Education, healthcare, and jobs can wait, but supporting the troops — actually, supporting the defense contractors who make the weapons — must never face a delay. The bill even goes through a regular process, with dozens of amendments and bipartisan votes. It’s like nothing else in Washington.

The House version of the nearly $700 billion 2018 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) includes multiple amendments aimed at limiting US involvement in the Saudi War in Yemen, explicitly forbidding the deployment of ground troops there, or spending any money on military operations outside the scope of the 2001 AUMF.

The Nolan Amendment prohibits the deployment of troops to participate in any way in the war, which is seen not only as restricting ground troops being sent to Yemen to fight on the side of the Saudis, but also appears aimed at limiting mid-air refueling operations for Saudi warplanes.

The Lieu Amendment requires a report from the State Department and the Pentagon on whether or not the Saudis are complying with the US-provided “No Strike List” for Yemen, as well as their improvement of targeting capabilities to avoid hitting civilians.

Amid growing focus on the US quietly establishing military bases across the Middle East and Northern Africa, reports out of the autonomous Syrian Kurdistan region of Rojava say that US workers have begun construction on a new military airbase in Tel Baidar, 40 km west of Hasakeh.

Though the US doesn’t publicly affirm these bases exist, this would be the third fully-working military airbase in Rojava,as the US had previously built bases in Kobane and Rumailan. The bases are largely being used to fly gear to the Kurdish forces, but also could support some smaller military planes.

Legally speaking, that might be an issue, as the White House has been openly trying to get Congress to grant President Trump unilateral authority to establish bases in both Iraq and Syria, but all signs point to them having already been establishing such bases since the last few months of Obama’s term.

The U.S. Treasury Department is quickly approaching the debt ceiling and lawmakers will have to move fast to raise it before it's too late.

Republicans in both the House and the Senate have repeatedly listed raised the debt ceiling as one of their many reasons for opting to work through their August recess and members of the Trump administration have urged Congress to do so before the summer break.

Currently, the U.S. debt is over $19 trillion. So what happens if we go over the debt ceiling? It would put the U.S. Treasury Department in a very sticky situation.

The U.S. Treasury still has to pay the bills, whether we hit the debt ceiling or not, but the problem if we do reach the debt limit is that now the Treasurer will have to essentially write checks illegally, taking on new debt in order to pay for things like pensions for retired federal employees against the rules set by Congress.

As chaos reigns in Libya, with competing authorities continuing to vie for power, the battle for Tripoli appears to have begun anew.

Clashes broke out earlier this week, in the east of the capital city, between forces loyal to the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) and those loyal to the National Guard of the Salvation Government (SG).

The capital is an important target for warring sides in the region, offering control over strategic assets such as the Libyan Central Bank, the air and sea ports in the city, as well as all other institutions.

The Garabulli region, where the clashes took place, is considered a strategic gateway into the city, and fighting there may have been intended to be the start of a wider battle.

The meeting between Trump and Putin at the G20 in Hamburg injects new hope into the complicated relationship between the United States and Russia. Only time can confirm whether there is any basis for this hope.

In their first meeting, within less than two hours, Putin and Trump came to an agreement on potentially the most volatile situation in the region, saving hundreds of civilian lives in the process. The agreement on Syria now has to run the gauntlet of the deep state and all the other interests arrayed against Trump. Just four days following a similar agreement reached in 2016 between Obama and Putin, everything was upended by the US Air Force bombing and killing nearly a hundred soldiers of the Syrian Arab Army in Deir ez-Zor, shredding the ceasefire agreement that had just been reached.

Sometimes you have to think that scientists don’t ever read science fiction, and thus have not even contemplated all the things that could go wrong when they do something like creating 20 million mosquitos in a laboratory, infecting them with a bacteria, and then releasing those mosquitos in Fresno, California.

First of all, did you even know that Google had a bio-lab? They do and it’s called Verily. Which, I dunno, sounds rather biblical. “Verily, I say unto you…we are the purveyors of all that is The Truth.”

But I digress.

Verily plans to create 20 million mosquitoes and infect them with a bacteria in their laboratories. Then, the mosquitos will be released on the unsuspecting populace of Fresno, California, a city with over half a million people.

Why? Because, Zika.

After a two-year battle to keep migrants out of the country, Hungary has directed its full attention toward one of its own: billionaire investor George Soros.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban wrapped up a six-week anti-Soros campaign Saturday. The streets of Budapest have been filled with posters and billboards of the Hungarian-born billionaire with the caption “Don’t let Soros get the last laugh!”

The campaign follows a series of moves to halt Soros’ operations in the country. The government argues that Soros is pushing for a one million migrant influx to Europe per year. It is now trying to impose legislation that would force NGOs in the country to reveal where their funding originates and the purpose for which the money was received.

Ball State University sits in Muncie, Indiana, at the heart the "Rust Belt," so educators there have the right to be pessimistic about the drift of the U.S. economy. But a report by the school's Center for Business and Economic Research goes even further.

"We found a toxic brew," said CBER Director Michael Hicks. "Automation is likely to replace half of all low-skilled jobs, and roughly one in four of all American jobs are at risk from foreign competition in coming years."

This is happening right on Hicks's doorstep. While the nation's most vulnerable area is the Aleutian Islands, some of the hardest hit places are likely to be Midwestern counties only 15 minutes from his office.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made clear today that he and his government opposes the ongoing ceasefire in Southern Syria, a deal negotiated between the United States and Russia, and which has continued to hold throughout the past week.

Netanyahu made the comments during a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, declaring himself totally opposed to the ceasefire. Israeli officials revealed that the objections are primarily related to Iran still having forces inside Syria supporting the Assad government.

Israeli officials revealed that the objections are primarily related to Iran still having forces inside Syria supporting the Assad government.

Officials also say that during the US-Russia negotiations which led to the deal, Netanyahu presented the two sides with a “list of demands,” mostly insisting that Shi’ite forces couldn’t be allowed in southern Syria at all and that Iran could not be allowed to “consolidate” its position in Syria.

The Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) has called for compulsory ‘gender diversity’ training for sixth form college and further education (FE) teachers, warning staff who refer to ‘non-binary’ persons using ‘incorrect’ pronouns could face legal action.

A U.S. peace delegation will travel to South Korea from July 23 to 28 to stand with the South Korean people fighting against the U.S. THAAD deployment and build solidarity with the peace movement there. The peace delegation will include Jill Stein of the Green Party (2016 U.S. presidential candidate), Reece Chenault of U.S. Labor Against War, Medea Benjamin of CODEPINK, Juyeon Rhee of the Task Force to Stop THAAD in Korea and Militarism in Asia and the Pacific (STIK) and Will Griffin of Veterans For Peace.

The solidarity delegation is sponsored by STIK and the Channing and Popai Liem Education Foundation (CPLEF) and follows a national speaking tour sponsored by the two organizations in April when Won Buddhist Reverend Sounghey Kim toured the U.S. to speak about the anti-THAAD fight in South Korea.

The delegation aims to bring attention to U.S. militarism in the Asia Pacific region, according to Griffin:

Consider the Grenfell Tower inferno as an expression of a new kind of class war, but not a class war as we have known it–between organised workers, political parties and capital–but between ordinary citizens and the local fiefdoms of the capitalist state as increasingly, big business has taken over the running of what’s left of our public and collective life, through ‘outsourcing’, public-private-partnerships and what have you, where making a profit is the bottom line, not serving the public.[1]

Worse still, in order to justify this thievery on a national/international scale that runs to trillions, the state and its partner the corporate/state media, has had to resort to the ‘trusted’ Victorian method of blaming the victim for their own poverty, their own shortcomings, their own misery. Ergo, Grenfell.

The House on Friday overwhelmingly passed a wide-ranging, $696.5 billion defense policy bill that goes far above President Trump’s budget request.

Lawmakers voted 344-81 on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which broadly lays out policy and spending rules for the Pentagon and the military branches.

The bill would authorize $621.5 billion for the Pentagon's base budget and Energy Department nuclear programs and $75 billion for war funding, known as the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) account. In addition, the bill takes $10 billion in OCO dollars to pay for base budget needs.

Only eight Republicans voted against the legislation, which passes Trump’s defense request of $603 billion. Reps. Justin Amash (Mich.), John Duncan (Tenn.), Tom Garret (Ga.), Louie Gohmert (Texas), Morgan Griffith (Va.), Andy Harris (Md.), Thomas Massie (Ky.) and Tom McClintock (Calif.) were the Republicans voting no.

The global dollar-based monetary system is in serious jeopardy, according to former Texas Congressman Ron Paul. And contrary to Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen’s assurances that there won’t be another major crisis in our lifetime, the next economy-cratering fiat-currency crash could happen as soon as next month, Paul said during an interview with Josh Sigurdson of World Alternative media. Paul and Sigurdson also discussed false flag attacks, the dawn of a cashless society and the dangers of monetizing national debt.

Paul started by saying Yellen's attitude scares him because "central bankers are always wrong - especially before a bust."

A U.S. soldier accused of wanting to commit a mass shooting after pledging loyalty to the Islamic State group believed the moon landing was faked, questioned the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and thought the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks were an inside job coordinated by the U.S. government, according to a former Army bunkmate.

Army Sgt. 1st Class Ikaika Kang was ordered held without bail in federal court in Honolulu Thursday after a brief detention hearing. Kang's court-appointed attorney Birney Bervar did not contest his client's detention but said after the hearing that he will ask for a mental health evaluation.

A "turning point" for Kang's mental state seems to be a 2011 deployment, Bervar said: "He's a decorated American soldier for 10 years, goes to Afghanistan and comes back and things start going off the rails."