Following a dramatic close call between US and Chinese destroyers in the South China Sea, the US Navy’s Pacific Fleet wants to put on a major show of force in the body of water before the end of the year.

Military officials told CNN Wednesday that the Navy wanted to send warships and aircraft through the South China Sea — and close to Chinese-claimed islands — in November to send a message to Beijing.

Sanctions against Russia and the information war carried out by the West are not helping to resolve the crisis in eastern Ukraine, the Russian Foreign

Attorneys representing Democrat Hillary Clinton’s campaign and a senior FBI official met during the 2016 campaign season to discuss the Russiagate conspiracy, the latest evidence to that the criminal investigation later launched into Donald Trump's campaign was primarily politically motivated.

Former FBI General Counsel James Baker met with House investigators on Wednesday, and he shared that he had met during the campaign season with an attorney from Perkins Coie, which was on Clinton's payroll in 2016, John Solomon, former editor-in-chief of the Washington Times, writes in The Hill.

US, UK and Dutch authorities levied heavy accusations against Russian intelligence officials Thursday, alleging that seven Russians had hacked various agencies, organizations and institutions. The accusations come just one day after the US announced it would share offensive cyberwar technology with NATO allies “if asked.”

"We announce an indictment charging seven Russian military officers with violation of several US criminal laws for malicious cyber activities against the United States and its allies," US Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers told reporters Thursday. Four of the accused are allegedly GRU agents, Russian military intelligence, who were previously expelled from the Netherlands, the Los Angeles Times reported.

US Defense Secretary James Mattis, at a meeting with NATO allies in Brussels, said Russia would "have to be held to account."

Timing of UK, Dutch Accusations Against Russia Point to 'Closely Coordinated Action' – Scholar

US, UK and Dutch authorities levied heavy accusations against Russian intelligence officials Thursday, alleging that seven Russians had hacked various agencies, organizations and institutions. The accusations come just one day after the US announced it would share offensive cyberwar technology with NATO allies “if asked.”

"We announce an indictment charging seven Russian military officers with violation of several US criminal laws for malicious cyber activities against the United States and its allies," US Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers told reporters Thursday. Four of the accused are allegedly GRU agents, Russian military intelligence, who were previously expelled from the Netherlands, the Los Angeles Times reported.

US Defense Secretary James Mattis, at a meeting with NATO allies in Brussels, said Russia would "have to be held to account."

Timing of UK, Dutch Accusations Against Russia Point to 'Closely Coordinated Action' – Scholar

Earlier in the day, the Netherlands stated that the United States was going to announce charges against some "Russian intelligence agents." Moscow has yet to comment on the US charges.

The US Justice Department has announced charges against seven alleged Russian military intelligence officials it accuses of hacking doping agencies and other international organizations.

"We announce an indictment charging seven Russian military officers with violation of several US criminal laws for malicious cyber activites against the United States and its allies," Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers told reporters.

According to the DOJ, WADA, the OPCW, USADA, Westinghouse nuclear power company, which provides power to Ukraine, at least 250 athletes and sports figures from different countries were allegedly targeted by Russian intelligence officers; they also ostensibly targeted a Canadian anti-doping agency.

Israeli stealth fighters will be able to avoid being hit by the S-300 missile systems that have just been supplied to Syria by Russia and can possibly destroy them right on the ground, an Israeli official said.

“You know that we have stealth fighters, the best planes in the world. These batteries are not even able to detect them," Tzachi Hanegbi, the country's regional cooperation minister and a non-voting member of its security cabinet, said on Wednesday, referring to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighters that Israel has been getting from the US.

"The operational abilities of the air force are such that those (S-300) batteries really do not constrain the air force's abilities to act," Hanegbi told Israel's Army Radio.

On Tuesday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that Moscow had delivered S-300 missile systems to Syria in order to increase the security of Russian military personnel in the country.

One of the most significant themes heading into 2019, is the new US-China Cold War. Recent tit-for-tat exchanges on economic, political and strategic fronts threaten to escalate into a full-blown conflict between both superpowers.

As Washington squeezes Beijing economically through an escalating trade war, it simultaneously uses Freedom of navigation (FON) to sail its warships and or fly its nuclear-capable Boeing B-52 bombers dangerously close to Beijing's militarized islands in the heavily disputed South China Sea. This high-stakes game of chicken is now spiraling out of control and could lead to a possible military conflict.

Last month, President Trump slapped Beijing with new tariffs on an additional $200 billion worth of Chinese products, adding to the $50 billion applied on Chinese imports earlier this year, said Asia Time.

Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday plans to accuse China of trying to undermine President Donald Trump as the administration deploys tough new rhetoric over Chinese trade, economic, and foreign policies.

In a speech to the Hudson Institute, Pence will say China is using its power in “more proactive and coercive ways to interfere in the domestic policies and politics of the United States.”

“China wants a different American president,” Pence will say, according to excerpts of prepared remarks from his office.

Pence’s speech comes a week after the Republican president accused China during a meeting of the U.N. Security Council of interfering in American elections to help his Democratic rivals.

by Justin Raimondo Posted on October 04, 2018
How crazy-stupid do you have to be to get up there on the podium and openly threaten Russia with a “preemptive” first strike? You don’t have to be Kay Bailey Hutchison, but it helps.

Our “Ambassador” to NATO – as if NATO is an actual country rather than a supra-national parasite – claims that Moscow is in violation of the INF treaty, and that, while she’s willing to give diplomacy a try, she is “prepared to consider a military strike if development of the medium-range system continued.”

So now the “Ambassador” to NATO is empowered to start World War III. Next we’ll have the Postmaster General ordering an invasion of Iran. The Ambassadress has exceeded her authority and caused an international incident that may come to haunt us: certainly she has endangered us all. In a civilized country like Japan, she would literally fall on her sword, but I’ll settle for her resignation.

The vast regime of torture created by the Bush administration after the 9/11 attacks continues to haunt America. The political class and most of the media have never dealt honestly with the profound constitutional corruption that such practices inflicted. Instead, torture enablers are permitted to pirouette as heroic figures on the flimsiest evidence.

Comey continues to use memos from his earlier government gigs to whitewash all of the abuses he sanctified. “Here I stand; I can do no other,” Comey told George W. Bush in 2004 when Bush pressured Comey, who was then Deputy Attorney General, to approve an unlawful anti-terrorist policy. Comey was quoting a line supposedly uttered by Martin Luther in 1521, when he told Emperor Charles V and an assembly of Church officials that he would not recant his sweeping criticisms of the Catholic Church.

One of the largest Jewish charities in the U.S. has been secretly funding a shadowy online blacklist targeting college students who criticize Israel.

For three years, a website called Canary Mission has spread fear among undergraduate activists, posting more than a thousand political dossiers on student supporters of Palestinian rights. The dossiers are meant to harm students’ job prospects, and have been used in interrogations by Israeli security officials.

At the same time, the website has gone to great lengths to hide the digital and financial trail connecting it to its donors and staff. Registered through a secrecy service, the site is untraceable.

Now, for the first time, the Forward has definitively identified a major donor to Canary Mission. It is a foundation controlled by the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, a major Jewish charity with an annual budget of over $100 million.

Long-standing separatist ambitions in South Yemen could be coming to a head soon, with troops loyal to the Saudi-backed government massing in the city of Aden. They are preparing to resist calls by separatists to launch a full-scale uprising.

The Southern Transitional Council (STC), which envisions itself becoming an interim government after this uprising, is said also to be mobilizing, with its own forces preparing to seize government buildings across the south.

The STC is blaming Saudi Arabia for mounting corruption across the south, and has long envisioned ending the Saudi invasion by just splitting the country along the pre-unification borders. Pro-Saudi officials say that the STC must abandon all plans, saying they would benefit Iran.

Yemen was unified militarily in 1990, when North Yemen’s former President Ali Abdullah Saleh conquered the South. Since then, separatists have remained an active movement in the south, envisioning reclaiming the lost country.

Ongoing protests in Basra have forced the closure of the US consulate in the Iraqi port city, and the Pentagon is preparing to evacuate personnel from the site. While the protests have been raging for quite some time, US officials insist they’re entirely Iran’s fault.

“We can see the hand of the ayatollah and his henchmen supporting these attacks on the United States,” insisted Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, despite the protests in Basra being largely related to Iraqi government corruption, and hurting the status of outgoing premier Hayder Abadi, an ally of both the US and Iran.

US officials say the closure of the consulate is because of “specific threats” form the Iranian government and militias. In practice this means militia leaders criticizing the US, and Iraqi ones at that. Shi’ite militias are often blamed on Iran.

Senators, notably Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), are pushing for clarification from the Pentagon about their interpretation of the concept of “collective self-defense,” under which the US military claims near-limitless power to conduct unilateral strikes on enemies not authorized by Congress.

The expansion of the notion that military forces have a right to self-defense if they are attacked was expanded to a collective right, which allows the US to intervene when anyone the Pentagon identifies as a “partner” is either under attack or faces a conceivable threat from someone else.

The Pentagon has affirmed in recent correspondence with Sen. Kaine that this is how they view things, and that moreover it is “not typically limited to particular groups or individuals committing the hostile act or demonstrating the hostile intent.” This means, in effect, they can attack targets Congress never authorized them to target so long as they select some “partner” that could benefit from the attack.

A shadowy website called Canary Mission targets student supporters of Palestinian rights, posting more than 1,000 dossiers meant to harm students’ job prospects, and used in interrogations by Israeli officials. The Forward reports that a secret supporter is the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, which has assets of over $800 million and is one of the most powerful Jewish federations in the U.S.

This is how they roll in the Saudi Kingdom.

Saudi Arabia’s public prosecutor has charged Essam al-Zamil, identified by activists as a prominent economist who once criticized plans to float shares of Saudi Aramco, with joining a terrorist organization and meeting with foreign diplomats, reports Reuters.

Local media, including Arabic-language newspaper Okaz, reported on Monday that the accusations include membership in the banned Muslim Brotherhood as well as communicating with neighboring Qatar and inciting protests inside Saudi Arabia.

Zamil has been detained since Sept. 2017 along with dozens of intellectuals and clerics in a crackdown on potential opponents of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whose ambitious economic reform program centered on selling up to five percent of the state-owned Aramco oil company, notes Reuters.

For three years, a website called Canary Mission has spread fear among undergraduate activists, posting more than a thousand political dossiers on student supporters of Palestinian rights. The dossiers are meant to harm students’ job prospects, and have been used in interrogations by Israeli security officials.

At the same time, the website has gone to great lengths to hide the digital and financial trail connecting it to its donors and staff. Registered through a secrecy service, the site is untraceable.

Now, for the first time, the Forward has definitively identified a major donor to Canary Mission. It is a foundation controlled by the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, a major Jewish charity with an annual budget of over $100 million.

An overwhelming majority of Americans have no clue about their history or civic culture, with only 36 percent of natives able to pass the US Citizenship Civics Test taken by foreigners, a new study has shown.
Surprisingly enough, those born with the inherent right to be called Americans failed to answer even the basic questions about their history and culture, a national survey released by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation revealed.

There are 100 civics questions on the naturalization test, which immigrants must answer to gain US citizenship. Candidates are asked 10 questions from the entire list, and are required to answer six of them correctly in order to become eligible for a US passport.

On Monday October 1st, Sacramento, Houston, Indianapolis and Los Angeles became the first cities to gain access to Verizon’s 5G Wireless service.

The rollout of 5G is expected to herald the beginning of Smart Cities, where driverless cars, pollution sensors, cell phones, traffic lights, and thousands of other devices interact in what is known as “The Internet of Things”. The move towards the smart grid was hastened last week when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved a rule that will limit the role of local authorities regarding the build of 5G networks, specifically the amount city officials can charge telecommunication companies (“Big Tech”).

Dobrich sounds like a real piece of work:

From AP:

Dobrich’s tenure as the top executive in Colombia began in 2015, when he was brought in to restore order after a blistering Inspector General’s report found several DEA agents had participated in “sex parties” with prostitutes hired by Colombian cartels. That scandal prompted the suspension of several agents and the retirement of Michele Leonhart, the DEA’s administrator at the time.

Prior to Bogota, Dobrich oversaw the DEA’s military-style FAST teams that battled drug traffickers in Afghanistan and Latin America, and were criticized for a series of fatal shootings in Honduras in 2012, including one in the town of Ahuas that left four civilians dead.

The DEA disbanded the Foreign-Deployed Advisory and Support Team last year following a joint State and Justice Department inspectors general probe that found the DEA — and Dobrich — misrepresented significant aspects of the shooting to Congress and government investigators.

The “28 pages” from a 2002 Congressional Joint Inquiry report on the attacks was declassified on July 15, 2016, but large portions of the release remained redacted. This move pushes to finally remove the redactions on these and other documents related to 9/11.

The documents seem to point the finger at the highest level of the government of Saudi Arabia as being responsible for the financial backing for the attackers on 9/11.

S.Res. 610 Resolution Reads as follows:

Urging the release of information regarding the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks upon the United States.

Whereas tens of thousands of pages of documents relating to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks upon the United States remain classified by the Federal Government;

Whereas the Federal Government may properly classify and control access to information in order to protect sources and methods of collecting critical information in defense of the country and the people of the United States;

It’s a given that Big Brother is always watching us.

Unfortunately, thanks to the government’s ongoing efforts to build massive databases using emerging surveillance, DNA and biometrics technologies, Big Brother (and his corporate partners in crime) is getting even creepier and more invasive, intrusive and stalker-like.

Indeed, every dystopian sci-fi film (and horror film, for that matter) we’ve ever seen is suddenly converging into this present moment in a dangerous trifecta between science and technology, Big Business, and a government that wants to be all-seeing, all-knowing and all-powerful—but not without help from the citizenry.

On a daily basis, Americans are relinquishing (in many cases, voluntarily) the most intimate details of who we are—our biological makeup, our genetic blueprints, and our biometrics (facial characteristics and structure, fingerprints, iris scans, etc.)—in order to navigate an increasingly technologically-enabled world.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has declined to "take at face value" a recent Israel's claim that Iran has a secret atomic warehouse.

"The Agency uses all safeguards relevant information available to it but it does not take any information at face value," IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano said in a statement released on Tuesday.

Although Amano did not make an explicit reference to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's claim against Iran but it is his first public pronouncement since the premier's speech.

"It should be noted that under the existing verification framework, the Agency sends inspectors to sites and locations only when needed," he added

A Saudi woman recently lost a legal battle to marry the man of her choice because he is “religiously incompatible” with her, as he plays a musical instrument, a Saudi newspaper reported Tuesday.

According to the Okaz newspaper, the suitor asked for the unidentified woman's hand in marriage two years ago. The woman is a 38-year-old bank manager from the region of Qassim, which is north of the kingdom's capital of Riyadh. However, the woman's family objected to the suitor, who is a teacher, claiming that the man was not religiously compatible with them because he played the "oud," a type of lute

The US State Department said that if Russia sent its S-300 air defence systems to Syria, it would lead to a "serious escalation."

The United States hopes Russia did not deploy S-300 air defense systems in Syria because that would lead to a serious escalation of the situation, US Department of State spokesperson Heather Nauert said during a press briefing on Tuesday.

"I cannot confirm that that is accurate. I hope that they did not, that would be a serious escalation and concern," Nauert said when asked about the administration's reaction to reports Russia sent S-300 systems to Syria.

Outgoing Arizona Senator Jeff Flake has insisted that his last-minute decision to demand that the FBI reopen its background check investigation into Trump SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavanaugh wasn't inspired by a pair of young women who accosted him in the halls of the US Capitol and loudly berated him with tear-jerking stories of sexual abuse.

But the timing of Flake's change of heart is certainly curious, and the liberal press has widely heralded the two young women has "heroes" for helping to force a delay of Kavanaugh's confirmation by at least another week.

But one thing the progressive press hasn't reported is that the two young women weren't merely concerned citizens speaking truth to power. The reality is that Ana Maria Archila and Maria Gallagher are both professional political activists employed by the Center for Popular Democracy.

And guess who finances the CPD?

That's right...

U.S. Ambassador to NATO Kay Bailey Hutchison on Tuesday warned that the U.S. could be forced to "take out" missiles Russia is developing that violate a Cold War-era treaty. If completed, the 9M729 Russian missile system could give it the capability to launch a missile strike on Europe with little or no notice, the Associated Press reported.

"It is time now for Russia to come to the table and stop the violations," Hutchison told reporters in Brussels, where US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis would later meet his NATO counterparts. She added that if the system became operational, the U.S. "would then be looking at the capability to take out a missile that could hit any of our countries in Europe and hit America."

On September 27, during a speech to the UN General Assembly, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that Iran has a secret “atomic warehouse” near Tehran, which has contained as much as whopping 300 tons of “nuclear-related material.”

Netanyahu also stated that Hezbollah has established three precision missile sites near the Beirut airport.

“In Lebanon, Iran is directing Hezbollah to build secret sites to convert inaccurate projectiles into precision-guided missiles, missiles that can target deep inside Israel within an accuracy of 10 meters,” he stated.

Following the statement, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) released photos showing alleged Hezbollah sites in Beirut that the IDF said are being used to hide underground precision missile production facilities. The IDF claimed that these sites are currently being constructed with Iranian assistance.

According to the Israeli version, Hezbollah began working on these surface-to-surface missile facilities last year.

At the same time that a new Iraqi government is forming, a government that is increasing Iranian influence within Iraq, another election is threatening the country’s stability.

On Sunday, Kurdistan is voting for a new KRG parliament, a vote that may result in new power brokers in Erbil. The Kurdish elections are hugely significant for the region, as they not only decide who is going to be put forward as the potential president of Iraq, but also reshape the KRG as an entity and its relations not only with Baghdad, but also with Iran and Turkey. A further destabilization of Iraq would be an outcome that most regional players aim to avoid, with the war in Syria and the imminent Iranian sanctions already causing uncertainty.

There are a number of things exaggerated or incorrect in Trump’s description of Iran as well as in the conclusions he draws. The Middle East and other adjacent Muslim countries are in chaos because the United States has destabilized the region starting with the empowering of the Islamist Mujaheddin in the war against Soviet Afghanistan in the 1980s. It then invaded Afghanistan in 2001 followed by Iraq in 2003, enabling the rise of ISIS and giving local al-Qaeda affiliates a new lease on life, before turning on Damascus with the Syria Accountability Act later in the same year and then destroying the Libyan government under Barack Obama. These were, not coincidentally, policies promoted by Israel that received, as a result, bipartisan support in Congress.

Friday marked one of the deadliest days at the fence that divides the Gaza Strip from Israel since protests began in Gaza last March, as Israeli forced killed seven including two children.

Four of the seven were shot dead east of Gaza City in circumstances where it appears the demonstrators posed no threat to Israeli soldiers. “Amateur videos showed them kneeling down and kissing the ground on the Israeli side as gunfire could be heard,” the AP reported.

The youngest casualties on Friday were Mohammed al-Houm, 14, and Nasser Mosabeh, 12.

The Israeli military estimated around 20,000 Palestinians protested on Friday at multiple sites along the fence. At least 509 were injured, three in serious condition, according to Gaza’s ministry of health. Additionally four paramedics, four journalists and 90 children were shot with live ammunition.

Saudi-backed forces are reporting heavy fighting in and around the vital aid port of Hodeidah, in northwestern Yemen. Reports suggest that over 60 were killed in the course of the day’s clashes, with 54 of them Shi’ite Houthis.

Fighting initially focused on some of the rare farms around the province, and some military positions leading into the port city itself. The port is the source of food aid for about 70% of Yemen, and the lone port under the control of the Houthi movement.

Yemen imports the vast, vast majority of its food, so a protracted battle for the last Houthi port could cut off millions in Houthi territory from any food aid at all, leading to mass starvation. The Saudi-backed forces have promised to eventually open “humanitarian routes” out of the city.

Addressing the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child on Monday with respect to the massive civilian death toll in the Saudi invasion of Yemen, Saudi officials made rare admissions of fault, saying that they had made “mistakes” in targeting and were working hard to rectify the problem.

Saudi officials were clearly trying to use this to get a pass on the ten thousand-plus killed civilians, insisting that the internal investigations note the “mistakes,” and that perpetrators will be “held to account,” despite little evidence that this ever happened.

The UN committee didn’t appear to be sold on this idea either, with members noting the war has been going on since 2015 with no sign of prosecutions for civilian deaths. Panel chairwoman Renate Winter noted that an awfully large number of these “mistakes” had hit the same civilian targets, with several schools and hospitals hit myriad times. She asked how many times the Saudis could possibly keep making that same mistake.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Lebanese terror group Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy, of “brazenly lying” to the international community over the secret weapons facilities in and around Beirut, which the Israeli premier disclosed on the world stage at the United Nations General Assembly last week.

Netanyahu said in a statement Monday that Lebanese Foreign Minister Gibran Bassil took 73 foreign envoys on a “fraudulent propaganda tour” of the alleged missile sites, where he failed to show them the underground facilities where Hezbollah is reportedly storing precision-guided missiles.

In all of our years reporting on police conduct and activity at the Free Thought Project, we have never seen anything like we are reporting today. Several utterly insane videos show police officers from Penn State University using their helicopter to rain down hell from above on hundreds of students and parents alike who were tailgaiting for the game.

According to police, a group of college students involved with a fraternity were told to move from one area and relocate to another. However, according to police, this did not happen, so they escalated their tactics.

As StateCollege.com reports:

Penn State parent and tailgater Scott Olson said that early Saturday morning, a police officer asked the fraternity tailgating next to his group to move one space over. After the fraternity’s members refused to move, the officer told Olson and his group that the fraternity would be on watch for the day.

Those rare moments that WikiLeaks gets invoked at the United Nations are always fun, especially when part of a tense feud between Middle East rivals and involving Hillary Clinton.

Iranian Ambassador to the UN Gholamali Khoshroo gave a fiery speech during the final days of the UN General Assembly meeting in New York wherein he responded to specific charges of Saudi Arabia that Iran sponsors terrorism and is waging proxy wars on Riyadh throughout the Middle East, saying that global terrorism actually originates with the Saudis.

The Iranian ambassador supported his case by appealing to a specific WikiLeaks email: “Everybody knows that Saudi Arabia supports terrorism in a very blatant and widespread manner,” he said. In a shock statement before his UN audience, he added, “in the framework of WikiLeaks in 2009, Hillary Clinton is said to have stated that Saudi Arabia is the greatest donor to terrorist groups around the world.”

According to an article in the National Post the Five Eyes intelligence network is demanding tech companies provide a backdoor into all their electronic devices.

"Canada joined its intelligence allies recently in demanding that technology companies co-operate with law enforcement agencies in allowing access to encrypted communications."

Although similar requests for co-operation have been made in the past, that “is the most aggressive call we’ve seen,” said Tamir Israel, a lawyer at the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic.

The big change, according to Israel, is that governments are now saying “fix it for us or we will fix it for you.” That’s led to concerns among privacy experts that the government will try to legislate a requirement for tech companies to build backdoors for law enforcement.

The US military is reportedly building a new base in Iraq’s western province of Anbar as part of attempts to perpetuate its occupation of the conflict-ridden Arab country indefinitely, regardless of all opposition from religious figures and people from all walks of life.

Khalil Serfan, an official from the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces, told the Arabic service of Russia’s Sputnik news agency that the base is being constructed in the vicinity of al-Qa'im town, located nearly 400 kilometers northwest of the capital Baghdad.

Serfan noted that the construction of such a military site in such a strategically important region is in line with US bids to assert its military presence there.

The European Union seems fixated, at least for the internet, on killing free speech. And social media giants -- Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Microsoft, Google+ and Instagram -- act as voluntary censors on behalf of the EU.

This week we witnessed the horrible spectacle of Nikki Haley, President Trump’s Ambassador to the United Nations, joining a protest outside the UN building and calling for the people of Venezuela to overthrow their government.

“We are going to fight for Venezuela,” she shouted through a megaphone, “we are going to continue doing it until Maduro is gone.”

This is the neocon mindset: that somehow the US has the authority to tell the rest of the world how to live and who may hold political power regardless of elections.

After more than a year of Washington being crippled by evidence-free claims that the Russians have influenced our elections, we have a senior US Administration official openly calling for the overturning of elections overseas.

Imagine if President Putin’s national security advisor had grabbed a megaphone in New York and called for the people of the United States to overthrow their government by force!

MEDDLING IN FOREIGN elections is bad. I think we can all agree on that.

And almost everyone — bar Donald Trump — seems to believe that the Russian government meddled in the 2016 election. So that should be condemned.

Here’s the problem, though: U.S. politicians and pundits cannot credibly object to Russian interference in U.S. elections without also acknowledging that the United States doesn’t exactly have clean hands. Or are we expected to believe that Russian hackers were the first people in human history to try and undermine a foreign democracy?

In this video, I examine the ways in which the United States has, in fact, spent the past 70-odd years meddling in elections across the world.

New Zealand's Customs and Excise Act 2018 went into effect today. That means travelers who refuse to give their phone or laptop password to customs officials will be fined NZ$5000. In addition, their devices will be confiscated and forensically searched.

Customs Minister Kris Faafoi said these digital strip searches are necessary because "A lot of the organised crime groups are becoming a lot more sophisticated in the ways they're trying to get things across the border. And if we do think they're up to that kind of business, then getting intelligence from smartphones and computers can be useful for a prosecution."

But Thomas Beagle of Council for Civil Liberties pointed out that organized criminals are smart enough not to keep incriminating files on their devices.

From Radio NZ:

[Customs spokesperson Terry Brown] said the law struck the "delicate balance" between a person's right to privacy and Customs' law enforcement responsibilities.

A highly popular subreddit devoted to posting information which proposed information outside the official narrative to 9/11 has been “Quarantined” by the Reddit Administrators. The community has effectively been cut off from the rest of the platform and anyone who wishes to view its contents are forced to go through a checkpoint while being redirected to a government website.

On Thursday, the subreddit r/911truth was placed under a Reddit Quarantine. The Reddit Administrators claimed that the subreddit posts misinformation and then directed people seeking information on 9/11 to the official government website.

If you are reading this, that means that articles that speak against the activities of the Anti-Defamation League are not being automatically scrubbed from the internet.

Yet.

In a foreboding sign that the free expression of opinion on the internet is too much of a threat to the powerful elite of our society, the Anti-Defamation League is leading the charge in turning their own subjective opinions on ‘hate speech’ into the absolute rule of Internet law. As this Cnet article reports,

During the past several years, there has been increased pressure coming from some in the federal government aided and abetted powerful advocacy groups in the private sector to police social and alternative media. It is a multi-pronged attack on the First Amendment which has already limited the types of information that Americans have access to, thereby narrowing policy options to suit those in power

The process has been ostensibly driven by concerns over alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election, but it is really about who controls and limits the public’s right to know what is going on out of sight in Washington and New York City, where politics and money come together. If one is interested in the free flow of information and viewpoints that comes with the alternative media, it certainly does not look that way. Robert Parry described it as a deliberate process of “demonizing and silencing dissent that questions mainstream narratives.”

Washington’s latest foray into the world of sanctions, directed against China, is astonishing even when considering the low bar that has been set by previous presidents going back to Bill Clinton. Beijing has already been pushing back over US sanctions imposed last week on its government-run Equipment Development Department of the Chinese Central Military Commission and its director Li Shangfu for “engaging in significant transactions” with a Russian weapons manufacturer that is on a list of US sanctioned companies. The transactions included purchases of Russian Su-35 combat aircraft as well as equipment related to the advanced S-400 surface-to-air missile system. The sanctions include a ban on the director entering the United States and blocks all of his property or bank accounts within the US as well as freezing all local assets of the Equipment Development Department.

At Nasr Hospital's emergency room in the Yemeni city of Daleh, a little boy struggles to breathe. He is too tired, or too hungry, to cry.

Born with a degenerative neurological disease, his muscles have atrophied to nothing, his tiny joints visible through his pale skin, his stomach distended.

The child's body cannot retain even water, so nurses have resorted to putting him in diapers.

And doctors say there is nothing they can do.

The boy is one of an estimated five million Yemeni children who may not see their next birthday in a war the UN children's fund has described as a "living hell" for minors.

The UN has warned that international aid agencies are losing the fight against famine in Yemen, where 3.5 million people may soon be added to the eight million Yemenis already facing starvation -- more than half of them children.

In a 21-8 vote, the UN Human Rights Council has agreed to extend the inquiry into human rights violations committed during the Saudi-led war in Yemen. Saudi Arabia and its allies in the United Arab Emirates both condemned the news.

Such votes happen every year around the UN General Assembly meeting, with the Saudis trying to limit such votes and insisting that any investigations are only going to “deepen divisions” in Yemen.

The council spent several days debating the matter, with those in favor of more investigations, led by the Netherlands and Canada, winning out handily, while many other nations chose to abstain.

To prevent cops from uploading such videos on social media, as had been directed by the Hizbul in its threat video, the government has blocked internet services in south Kashmir.

Days after the centre rejected resignation videos of Special Police Officers (SPO) as "false propaganda" by terrorists, the Jammu and Kashmir government today admitted the quitting spree in south Kashmir, but played it down by saying that the number is negligible.
"The state has over 30,000 SPOs. If you compare the number of people who have resigned, it's negligible," said BVR Subramanium, Chief Secretary of Jammu and Kashmir.

The resignation videos of policemen surfaced following the kidnapping and killing of three cops in Jammu and Kashmir, just days after Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists had put out a "resign or die" threat. Sources say more than 40 SPOs and policemen have resigned since Friday.

The Palestinian authority has asked the International Court of Justice to compel the US to shut down its embassy in Jerusalem, because it violates the Vienna convention, which says an embassy must be located in a host country.
The Palestinian government submitted its application to launch proceedings against the US on Friday. The 14-page complaint, released by the UN's principal judicial body, alleges that the US, as a party of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, has flouted its obligation by setting up an embassy outside the territory of the host state, Israel.

WikiLeaks has publicised the Interamerican Court of Human Rights decision as a major win for Mr. Assange. How does this win get implemented in the UK if it is a regional American Court?

When did Assange enter the embassy, and why is he there?

Why is Assange not allowed to receive visitors, access the Internet or receive or make any phone calls?

Why does the US government want to prosecute Assange?

What’s so unusual about the United Kingdom’s actions against Mr. Assange?

How is Mr. Assange’s health considering he’s been arbitrarily detained without access to sunlight or fresh air since 19 June 2012?

Republican Senators Lee, Graham and Hatch were doxxed on Wikipedia on Thursday.

Many Republicans on the Senate Judiciary had their home addresses and phone numbers published on their Wikipedia pages Thursday.

Shortly after Lindsey Graham went off on Senate Democrats for destroying Kavanaugh’s life in order to derail his confirmation, Republicans were doxxed.

The victims included Republican Senators Mike Lee, Orrin Hatch of Utah and Lindsey Graham, reported the Washington Times.

According to Caleb Hull, editor of the Independent Journal Review, the wife of Mr. Hatch “has been receiving calls nonstop ON HER BIRTHDAY and their home address was made public.”

CongressEdits, a bot account that for four years automatically retweets edits to Wikipedia made anonymously from IP addresses associated with the U.S. Congress, said the information was also posted on Mr. Lee and Mr. Graham “from US House of Representatives.”

According to publicly available campaign finance data, Sheldon Adelson – the conservative, Zionist, casino billionaire –is now the biggest spender on federal elections in all of American politics. Adelson, who was the top donor to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and the Republican Party in 2016, has cemented his role as the top political donor in the country after giving $55 million in recent months to Republicans in an effort to help the party keep its majority in both houses of Congress.

Adelson’s willingness to help the GOP stay in power is likely born out of his desire to protect the massive investment he placed in the party last election cycle. In 2016, the Republican mega-donor gave heavily to the Trump campaign and Republicans, donating $35 million to the former and $55 million to the top two Republican Super PACs — the Congressional Leadership Fund and the Senate Leadership Fund — during that election cycle.

Iran has issued a number of threats on Friday following official charges made by leaders in Tehran that Saudi Arabia and the UAE funded a terrorist attack on a military parade in a southwest district last Saturday which killed 25 people, including members of the elite Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC).

Iranian military officials declared "red lines" against the two Gulf countries, threatening war, while in a separate statement a senior cleric said US regional bases will not be safe if "America does anything wrong".

"If America does anything wrong, their bases around Iran would not remain secure,"Ayatollah Mohammadali Movahedi Kermani was quoted as saying by Mizan news agency while leading Friday prayers in Tehran.

And simultaneously the Fars news agency quoted Brigadier General Hossein Salami, deputy head of the IRGC, as saying in reference to the Saudis and Emirates: “If you cross our red lines, we will surely cross yours. You know the storm the Iranian nation can create.”

Add “a phone number I never gave Facebook for targeted advertising” to the list of deceptive and invasive ways Facebook makes money off your personal information. Contrary to user expectations and Facebook representatives’ own previous statements, the company has been using contact information that users explicitly provided for security purposes—or that users never provided at all—for targeted advertising.

A group of academic researchers from Northeastern University and Princeton University, along with Gizmodo reporters, have used real-world tests to demonstrate how Facebook’s latest deceptive practice works. They found that Facebook harvests user phone numbers for targeted advertising in two disturbing ways: two-factor authentication (2FA) phone numbers, and “shadow” contact information.

Two-Factor Authentication Is Not The Problem

Goldsboro, NC – Water sampling of the Neuse River conducted on behalf of the Upper Neuse Riverkeeper and Waterkeeper Alliance following the coal ash spill at Duke Energy’s retired H.F. Lee Plant found levels of arsenic nearly 18 times higher than the North Carolina standard for drinking water supply and fish consumption.

The standard for drinking water supply and fish consumption is 10 micrograms per liter; testing from water sampled from the Neuse near the coal ash spills following Hurricane Florence was 186 micrograms per liter. The city of Goldsboro has a municipal water intake less than ten miles downstream from the plant.

The analysis, conducted by Pace Analytical, also found elevated levels of lead and other heavy metals in the water. That analysis can be found here.

The sample with the highest arsenic level came from a grey plume of ash in the river, which had poured over an actively eroding dam made of coal ash.

Last year, Desiree Collins, a 52-year-old St. Paul resident, learned the hard way what can happen when a K9 officer loses control of his dog. St. Paul police officer Thaddeus P. Schmidt claims he lost control of his K-9, Gabe, when it attacked Collins, ripping her arm into shreds. The entire incident was caught on the body cameras of the officers involved and now, the taxpayers of St. Paul are shelling out over a half million to pay for the officer’s negligence.

The City Council and Collins’ attorney, Andy Noel met behind closed doors this week to discuss and reach the settlement, according to the Star Tribune.

“She’s pleased and she’s glad that she can put this lawsuit behind her and move on with life,” Noel said.

On Friday the State Department announced it is evacuating all non-essential personnel from the US consulate in Basra, Iraq.

The drastic move comes after a month of heavy anti-Iran and anti-Iraqi government protests that have gripped the southern city, which has led to sectarian rioting and the burning of Shia militia buildings, as well as the torching of the Iranian consulate early this month. During the first week of September the US embassy in Baghdad's green zone also came under attack by mortar fire, which US officials and military analysts blamed on Iran-backed militias.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cited threats from Iran as the reason for ordering the Basra consulate evacuation, and in a separate statement a senior US official confirmed to CNN that the "ordered departure" was due to "security threats from Iran."

The volcano didn’t start slowing down its eruptions until August. P?hoa in the Puna District was especially affected, leaving residents in a constant state of uncertainty.

And of course, the government failed to provide sufficient relief.

It’s no secret that the government – more specifically – FEMA, often fails to act adequately or quickly enough when disaster strikes. FEMA has been cited in on-the-ground reports to turn community help away when people bring food, citing ridiculous regulations. Yet some of the food they provided after Hurricane Matthew was allegedly mal-nourishing and didn’t meet basic calorie requirements. To make matters worse, a year after the hurricane, the crumbling infrastructure still needed repair and families still needed help – yet FEMA froze the Matthew fund, to send those monies to other, more pressing hurricane relief efforts.

Netanyahu's Thursday UN General Assembly speech predictably included the familiar props and visuals condemning Iran over what the Israeli prime minister says is a continuing nuclear program it is hiding from the world's view.

Like pretty much all prior Netanyahu speeches focusing on Iran, he held up a physical "evidence" to illustrate his points as he spoke — this time it was a "proof" that Iran has yet another secret warehouse holding nuclear-related material in the form of an aerial photograph of the Iranian capital marked with a red arrow pointing to a large building.

Though this was perhaps a step up from the cartoon bomb performance at the UNGA in 2012, the act is now a fixture and entirely predictable after many others spanning years, barely eliciting much media excitement compared to six years ago.

But unlike the last number of similar speeches, US intelligence officials have told Reuters that the claims are not true.

The Trump administration and some others in the U.S. government have sent some not-so-subtle hints lately that they are open to a military invasion of Venezuela to oust President Nicolas Maduro.

“It’s a regime that frankly could be toppled very quickly by the military, if the military decides to do that,” President Trump told reporters on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly on Tuesday.

The words seem to offer some encouragement for a coup, which may not come as a surprise because the New York Times published an investigation in early September that found that the Trump administration met secretly with Venezuelan military officers over the last year to discuss an overthrow of Maduro.

The Trump administration pressed ahead Friday with plans to create an “Arab NATO” that would unite U.S. partners in the Middle East in an anti-Iran alliance.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met in New York with foreign ministers from Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to advance the project. The State Department said Pompeo had stressed the need to defeat the Islamic State group and other terrorist organizations as well ending the conflicts in Syria and Yemen, securing Iraq and “stopping Iran’s malign activity in the region.”

“All participants agreed on the need to confront threats from Iran directed at the region and the United States,” the department said in a statement. It added that the ministers had “productive discussions” on setting up what is to be known as the “Middle East Strategic Alliance” to promote security and stability in the region.

Saudi Arabia's foreign minister asked Canada to apologise for demanding the release of Saudi women's rights activists and stop treating the kingdom as "a banana republic" if it wanted to resolve a diplomatic dispute between the two countries.

In August, Saudi Arabia froze new trade with Canada, blocked grain imports, expelled Canada's ambassador and ordered all Saudi students home after Ottawa called for the release of activists detained for urging more rights for women.

Moscow is outraged at NATO’s "errant" attacks in Afghanistan, which have become almost a daily reality, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

"We are outraged at the fact that NATO’s ‘errant’ attacks in the country have become almost a daily reality, while no one has been held responsible," the statement reads.

"We believe that the current situation is a result of gross miscalculations the US made in Afghanistan and the White House’s reliance on the use of military force to resolve the situation in the country. We call on Washington to reconsider its short-sighted policy and opt for diplomatic measures aimed at launching an inter-Afghan dialogue," the Russian Foreign Ministry said, adding that Moscow called "for bringing those responsible for crimes against civilians to justice."

On 22 September, an attack during a military parade killed 24 people and wounded 60 others, in Ahvaz (Iran).

Ahvaz is the capital of the Iranian Arab region of Khuzestan. On 22 September 1980, the Iraqi President Saddam Hussein tried to annex this population to Iraq. This unleashed a war between Iran and Iraq. At the time, the overwhelming majority of Iranian Arabs opposed the foreign Iraqi invasion. The military procession on September 22 2018 marked the anniversary of this terrible war, funded by the West against the Khomeini Revolution.

Professor Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, one of the advisers to the Crown Prince of the United Arab Emirates, declared that his country has succeeded in bringing war to the territory of Iran, claiming, thus, publicly a role in the attack. This type of declaration is not very surprising in the Middle East. In 2015, the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdo?an, had publicly congratulated the attacks that had been sponsored in Europe.

Asheville, NC – Crossing the street in a manner deemed “illegal” by the state can and will get you beaten, shot, kidnapped, caged, and even killed. Body Camera footage was released earlier illustrating this dangerous reality. The video shows one police officer restraining a man down while another officer repeatedly punches him in the head after they confronted him for the “crime” of jaywalking. Last month,the citizens of Asheville shelled out $650,000 because of the actions of these officers and now, police are being trained to prevent similar scenarios from playing out in the future.

According to the settlement and release agreement, Asheville will pay a total of $650,000 to Rush and his attorneys. The victim, Johnnie Rush will receive $342,500, which will be paid out in periodic payments. Ferguson Chambers & Sumter, P.A. is set to receive $307,500, according to WLOS.

s Amazon works to combat its public image as a starvation-wage employer by doling out mere pennies in pay hikes and deploying an army of workers to sing the company's praises on Twitter, a video leaked on Wednesday revealed that the trillion-dollar company is continuing to work feverishly behind the scenes to crush any attempts by workers to unionize and bargain collectively for better wages and working conditions.

"We like those 'union words' which gave us a middle class. Shame on ?Amazon?."
—AFL-CIO

The 45-minute training video—which, according to Gizmodo, was sent to managers of the Amazon-owned Whole Foods last week—instructs company leaders on how to detect "early warning signs of potential organizing," which include workers "suddenly hanging out together" and using "union words" like "living wage."

Wanna take a peek at jets stationed at Belgian airbases and learn how many US nukes are stored there? Just google it! It’s all there on the maps. But Brussels now plans to sue Google for not blurring its military sites.
The Belgian Defense Ministry had already asked the tech giant to blur the sensitive data from Google Maps, but the American company apparently ignored the demand. Now the military has decided to take action.

“The Defense [Ministry] had made a request to Google to blur [Belgian military] sites. After it found out that this [request] wasn’t satisfied, it [the ministry] will sue Google,” an official from the defense ministry’s press service told Sudinfo newspaper.

The US-led coalition fighting against Isis in Syria and Iraq admitted to killing at least 1,114 civilians in air and artillery strikes in the four-year span of the war.

Inherent Resolve, the codename for the US-dominated coalition combating the jihadi group, said it had launched a total of 30,008 strikes on suspected Isis targets between August 2014 and August 2018, and that each allegation of civilian casualties has been investigated.

It is a significant number but far less than the more than 6,000 people assessed to have been killed by independent monitors.

“We continue to employ thorough and deliberate targeting and strike processes to minimise the impact of our operations on civilian populations and infrastructure,” said a press release issued by the Pentagon. “This process includes thorough review and vetting of each target package prior to a strike, and another review after that strike.”

Confusion swirls over Isis's role in Iran terror attack

A highly popular subreddit devoted to posting information which proposed information outside the official narrative to 9/11 has been “Quarantined” by the Reddit Administrators. The community has effectively been cut off from the rest of the platform and anyone who wishes to view its contents are forced to go through a checkpoint while being redirected to a government website.

On Thursday, the subreddit r/911truth was placed under a Reddit Quarantine. The Reddit Administrators claimed that the subreddit posts misinformation and then directed people seeking information on 9/11 to the official government website.

Suicides by young veterans, aged 18 to 34, dramatically increased from 2015 to 2016, new data released by the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) shows.

The VA's National Suicide Data Report shows that of every 100,000 veterans in that age group, 45 committed suicide in 2016, which is an increase from 40.4 of 100,000 in 2015.

In 2016, that means roughly 0.045 percent of troops in that age group took their own lives.

Juanita Broaddrick, a woman who accused former US President Bill Clinton of raping her, attacked Congressional Democrats Thursday for their treatment of sexual misconduct allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, calling it “the biggest double standard I’ve ever seen.”

As Kavanaugh testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday, Broaddrick spoke to the media outside the building. The conservative judge faces multiple allegations of sexual assault and other sexual misconduct, including one by Christine Blasey Ford, who alleges that Kavanaugh tried to rape her at a high school party in 1982.

The trade war is ratcheting up military tensions between the United States and China. So far, this war is being paid for by the American consumer in the form of higher costs and lost jobs, but it could eventually lead to a military conflict.

Military tensions have risen in the beginning stages of the trade war when on Tuesday, China refused to allow U.S. warship entry to Hong Kong next month. The Trump administration levied unprecedented penalties last week on a Chinese military procurement agency and its director for allegedly purchasing Russian combat aircraft, claiming a violation of U.S. sanctions. Not to mention the tensions already heightened thanks to the tariffs and ongoing trade war threatening to break the wallets of American citizens.

Trump deviated from the script during his UN address.

He declared the solution to the “Israeli Palestinian conflict” is the establishment of two separate states, something the Likudniks not only in Israel but the United States certainly will not consider, let alone tolerate. It is plainly and painfully obvious what the Likudniks want—the expulsion of every last Palestinian, a process that should be called ethnic cleansing but never is by the corporate media.

There isn’t an “Israeli Palestinian conflict” that requires a peace deal brokered by Jared Kushner, a personal friend of Bibi Netanyahu. The conflict was long ago manufactured by the Israelis for the explicit purpose of either forcing Palestinians to emigrate or stay behind and risk snipers murdering their children.

The effort to establish a purely racist and religious state—where only Jews are allowed to live as citizens—was nudged along by Israel’s “National Home” law passed in the Knesset in July.