Former First Lady Hillary Clinton weighed into the controversy over Judge Brett Kavanaugh and the woman who's accusing him of sexual assault 35 years ago, Christine Ford.

Kavanaugh's accuser, Clinton said, deserves "the benefit of the doubt.

When the Yom Kippur War broke out 45 years ago I was ten years old. I recall a lot of fear all around me. Israel was my home and it was about to be wiped out. This is what I believed at the time, and this is what everyone around me repeated. We were all certainly caught unprepared.

My father was called up by the Air Force in the early hours of Yom Kippur (October 6th 1973). We didn’t hear from him for a few weeks. We didn’t know whether he was alive. In fact, we had good reason to believe he wasn’t. We were very worried. For the adults around me, the first days of the war were a reminder of the Shoah. Israeli leaders, Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan as well as the top Israeli military command appeared perplexed and hesitant on TV. Their message was: ‘the future isn’t clear, we may even witness the destruction of the 3rd temple.’

President Trump has ordered that numerous documents involving the Russia investigation be declassified. The records have long been sought by Congress under lawful subpoenas. Yet, the FBI and Department of Justice have consistently obstructed the release of these materials under the guise of “classified” secrets. This is a convenient alibi all too frequently employed to cover-up wrongdoing and abuse of authority by those we entrust to uphold the law.

These days, overzealous government officials automatically designate nearly all matters as national security risks, regardless of whether they truly are.

Whenever the FBI orders Chinese take-out, it is labeled “top secret” because… you know… it involves the Chinese. False classification has reached absurd proportions.

How do we know? Every time information is declassified we learn that the material should never have been classified to begin with. It was nothing more than a subterfuge.

The Dutch government, soon to be given charge of the investigation, ruled out any dealings with the insurgency. After foreign secretary Timmermans at the UN called local volunteers ‘thugs’ on 21 July, falsely accused them of robbing the victims’ corpses, the option of negotiating with the insurgents was effectively closed. Although the Dutch government later apologised, contact was now only possible via the OSCE. A Dutch public prosecution team did fly to Ukraine, but it remained in Kiev to discuss matters with the coup government. Australian experts on the other hand arrived at the scene of the disaster without delay, as did a Malaysian team led by prime minister Najib Razak. As noted, it received the Boeing’s black boxes from the insurgents without any fuss and passed them on to the Netherlands on the 22nd of July.

Trump ordered the DOJ to release the text messages of former FBI Director James Comey, his deputy Andrew McCabe, now-fired special agent Peter Strzok, former FBI attorney Lisa Page and twice-demoted DOJ official Bruce Ohr.

Also ordered released are specific pages from the FBI's FISA surveillance warrant application on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page, as well as interviews with Ohr.

The DOJ and the FBI are expected to submit proposed redactions to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence - which will prepare a package for Trump to sign off on.

Schools in the US state of Texas will be required to teach students that “Arab rejection of the State of Israel has led to ongoing conflict” in the Middle East.

The Texas Board of Education voted during a curriculum review last week to keep the controversial sentence in high school textbooks, which will be used by some 5.4 million public school children. The board is comprised of five Democrat members and ten Republican members, meaning the move is likely to be seen as part of a shift towards a more Republican educational agenda.

In addition, the board voted to remove references to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton being the first woman to run for Presidential office. While teaching students about Clinton will not be banned, the board claims the move is part of an effort to “streamline” lessons and save teachers approximately 30 minutes of time.

In a shocking letter intended to undermine the President, and his authority over the Executive Branch, multiple high ranking Democrats sent a letter ordering intelligence agencies to ignore Trump’s order to declassify numerous documents involving the Russia investigation until consulting with Congress.

After the Syrians accidentally targeted a Russian surveillance aircraft over the Mediterranean and the Russians pinned the blame on Israel, the corporate propaganda media scrambled to spin the story.

The Pentagon and State Department directed media insinuate the tragedy was the fault of the Russians, who got in the way of yet another—there are hundreds—illegal Israeli attack on Syria. The illegality of these persistent attacks on Syrian sovereignty is rarely if ever pointed out by the national security state’s scribes and teleprompter readers.

Here is what these lackluster careerists in service to the state ignore: the Israelis used the Russian aircraft as cover.

“The Israeli pilots used the Russian plane as cover and set it up to be targeted by the Syrian air defense forces. As a consequence, the Il-20, which has radar cross-section much larger than the F-16, was shot down by an S-200 system missile,” a spokesman for the Russian Ministry of Defense said in a statement.

Weiss identifies Klarman as “hawkish, socially liberal, fiscally conservative.” His and his wife’s family foundation focuses on “pro-democracy initiatives, including supporting organizations that protect journalists, combat bigotry and defend L.G.B.T. rights.”

That’s not the whole story. Israel is never mentioned in the article, but Israel is clearly at the heart of Klarman’s giving. Klarman started a newspaper in Israel, the Times of Israel, and has given to a host of neoconservative Israel lobby organizations, including Trump’s favorite thinktank, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, the Israel Project, Middle East Forum, WINEP and the David Project, which tried to block construction of mosques in Klarman’s city, Boston.

Klarman is plainly ideological. He also funds CAMERA, a rightwing media outfit that puts out regular critiques of the New York Times. Klarman gave more than $1.5 million to CAMERA through that foundation that works to “protect journalists.”

“An investigation into the alleged incident revealed Lewis had fabricated the story and no such altercation took place,” according to the report. “Police said Lewis later admitted she wrote the note and placed it on her car.”

Fake hate crimes are on the rise in America during a time when the political climate is already highly polarized. At least 10 such crimes were debunked on college campuses alone in 2017.

A student at the University of Michigan was fined $660 and is on a suspended 93-day jail sentence, pending probation adherence, for falsely reporting a hate crime last year. She told police that she was targeted for wearing a “solidarity pin” – the safety pin worn by leftists after Trump’s election – when in reality she scratched herself with the pin after becoming upset during a women’s literature class.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is the world's wealthiest man. He was also - until very recently - widely considered the least generous billionaire. To wit, the Bezos Family Fund - the only major philanthropic endeavor bearing his name - was established with money earned by his parents, who were early private investors in Amazon.

But for whatever reason (maybe it was the intensifying political pressure from Bernie Sanders' "Stop BEZOS" act, or positive PR ahead of Amazon's much-hyped HQ2 announcement, or even the fact that Amazon Web Services is jockying for an immensely valuable DoD contract), Bezos decided that he wanted to improve his public image.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says Twitter has blocked the accounts of "real Iranians" but overlooks the "regime change" propaganda spewing out of Washington.

Zarif made the remarks in a post on his official Twitter page on Sunday addressing Jack Patrick Dorsey, the co-founder and CEO of Twitter.

He said the accounts of real Iranians, including TV presenters and students, have been shuttered for allegedly being part of an "influence operation."

On 3 March 2018 a former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found slumped on a park bench in Salisbury England, obviously suffering from the ill effects of an undetermined substance. They were transported to hospital and placed in intensive care. The initial hospital reports made no mention of their being the victims of any nerve agent attack. It seems that they were initially thought by the medical staff to be suffering from the effects of Fentanyl, an illegal but widely used drug in England. This diagnosis was based upon the symptoms exhibited by Sergei and Yulia.

The propaganda mills of the British and American governments – spokespersons, media, think tanks – are working overtime churning out ‘talking points’ to justify the upcoming large scale bombing of Syria on the pretext of use of prohibited weapons.

Here is a guide from a former insider to the top dozen of these lies.

The "dream" of socialism has once again collided with the realities of economics, after nearly 40% of stores in Venezuela have been forced to close following a mandated 3,000% increase in minimum wages by the Maduro government, according to the Miami Herald, citing the National Council of Commerce and Services of Venezuela.

Further complicating the situation are price caps on goods sold in stores - which are now selling below cost, and cannot raise prices to cover the mandatory increases in salaries.

If store owners are caught raising prices, they face fines and prison.

"We have inspections, and they force us to sell at last month’s prices," said Uzcátegui. "That takes money away from the business because of the hyperinflation, when you can’t even sell at yesterday’s prices because you lose money."

Since the end of World War Two the Central Intelligence Agency has been a major force in US and foreign news media, exerting considerable influence over what the public sees, hears and reads on a regular basis. CIA publicists and journalists alike will assert they have few, if any, relationships, yet the seldom acknowledged history of their intimate collaboration indicates a far different story–indeed, one that media historians are reluctant to examine.

When seriously practiced, the journalistic profession involves gathering information concerning individuals, locales, events, and issues. In theory such information informs people about their world, thereby strengthening “democracy.” This is exactly the reason why news organizations and individual journalists are tapped as assets by intelligence agencies and, as the experiences of German journalist Udo Ulfkotte (entry 47 below) suggest, this practice is at least as widespread today as it was at the height of the Cold War.

Many Republicans immediately pushed back Sunday, saying it was "disturbing" that the decades-old allegations surfaced just days before the Judiciary Committee is set to vote on whether to advance Kavanaugh's confirmation to the Senate floor. Republicans have given no indication that they intend to delay Thursday's key vote, as a series of Democratic senators demanded throughout the day; however, Senate Judiciary Committee spokesman Taylor Foy said Chairman Chuck Grassley was working to set up follow-up calls with Kavanaugh and Ford in light of the Post report.

"It’s disturbing that these uncorroborated allegations from more than 35 years ago, during high school, would surface on the eve of a committee vote after Democrats sat on them since July," Grassley, R-Iowa, said in a statement.

Within hours of Superstorm Sandy slamming the East Coast two years ago, Americans opened their wallets to help — donating millions to the first charity that came to mind: the American Red Cross.

The truth, however, is different.

The venerable charity's track record in dealing with the megastorm is now being challenged by an unusual cadre of critics — its own employees and records.

Multiple internal documents obtained by NPR and ProPublica along with interviews with top Red Cross officials reveal an organization that struggled to meet the basic needs of victims in the first weeks after the storm. The documents and interviews also depict an organization so consumed with public relations that it hindered the charity's ability to provide disaster services.

As of five years ago half of the wealth in the world belonged to the top 1%. Furthermore, the top 10% hold 85% of the total world wealth. But these figures do not tell the whole story. A Credit Suisse Report, “Wealth Distribution & Gini (2013)” tells us the damnable reality of disproportionate value our world is faltering under. While some would argue that the United States of America’s citizens being thirty times wealthier on average than Russian citizens is some kind of golden badge of excellence, others would argue about who is benefiting from whom. Countries like Denmark, with virtually no natural resources, have a citizenry 25 times richer than Russians, 12 times richer than South Africans, 35 times wealthier than Venezuelans, and nearly twice as prosperous as people from oil-rich Qatar. Don’t take my word, parous the unbelievable statistics yourself.

Nobody has heard from cybersecurity expert and occasional Wikileaks collaborator Arjen Kamphuis since he checked out of his hotel in Bodo, Norway one month ago.

In the intervening weeks, items purportedly belonging to Kamphuis, including his ID and a recently purchased kayak, were discovered by a local fisherman 50 kilometers from his hotel. While this would at first seem to suggest some type of fatal accident, in a strange twist, authorities say that both Kamphuis' work and mobile phones were briefly switched on more than 1,700 km from Bodo 10 days after Kamphuis - who is Dutch and was purportedly traveling back to Amsterdam when he disappeared - was seen leaving his hotel.

In the months leading up to the 25th anniversary of the Oslo Accords, the U.S. has colluded with Israel in a string of policies and decisions that completely undermine the legitimacy of the agreement, not to mention Palestinian claims to justice, freedom and ultimately peace. As these policies unfold, one cannot help recalling the words of the great Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani, who said that talking with the Israelis is “a conversation between the sword and the neck.”

The United States revoked visas for the family of the Palestine Liberation Organization ambassador, the envoy said on Sunday, the latest development in the worsening relations between the Trump administration and Palestinian leadership, Reuters reports.

Ambassador Husam Zomlot, head of the PLO General Delegation to the United States, said his family, including his two young children, left the United States after being informed their visas would now expire when the diplomatic office is closed next month. The visas were originally set to expire in 2020.

Switzerland’s financial supervisor FINMA says one of the country’s largest banks, Credit Suisse, failed to properly oversee its anti-money laundering procedures for FIFA, as well as Brazil’s and Venezuela’s state oil companies.
According to the regulator, the banking multinational showed serious “deficiencies” in its attempts to counter illegal financial activities when dealing with soccer’s ruling body FIFA, Brazilian oil corporation Petrobras, and Venezuela's state energy company PDVSA.

“To combat money laundering effectively, every relevant department within the bank must be able to see all the client's relationships with the bank instantly and automatically,” FINMA said, adding that some progress had been made so far.

Sunspot National Solar Observatory resumed normal operations Monday after an FBI quarantine and investigation of the site, a nearby post office, and several area residences came to an end.

Little to no details are known about the ‘security threat’ which prompted the deployment of military Black Hawk helicopters and numerous local, state, and federal law enforcement officials on Sept 6 to seize the site and surrounding area making it off limits.

According to reports, the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy and the National Science Foundation reportedly made the call to shut the facility down on the Sept 6 but that does not explain the presence of military helicopters and so many federal authorities.

AURA released the following statement on Sunday:

Sunspot Solar Observatory is transitioning back to regular operations as of September 17th

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is being tight-lipped about an “unusual event” which occurred at the Brunswick Nuclear Plant last Saturday which forced a “hot shutdown” of both the plant’s Generation IV-type reactors 1 and 2.
The NRC classified the emergency as an “unusual event” but provided little to no details on the situation.

Additionally, the NRC reports that weather conditions from Tropical Storm Florence are currently preventing workers from accessing the plant.

In a remote pocket of northern Yemen, many families with starving children have nothing to eat but the leaves of a local vine, boiled into a sour, acidic green paste. International aid agencies have been caught off guard by the extent of the suffering there as parents and children waste away.

The main health center in Aslam district was flooded with dozens of emaciated children during a recent visit by the Associated Press.

Excruciatingly thin toddlers, eyes bulging, sat in a plastic washtub used in a make-shift scale as nurses weighed them one by one. Their papery skin was stretched tight over pencil-like limbs and knobby knees. Nurses measured their forearms, just a few centimeters in diameter, marking the worst stages of malnutrition.

At least 20 children are known to have died of starvation already this year, more than three years into the country’s ruinous civil war, in the province that includes the district.

The new article published in the Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger with allegations against Russian diplomats again lacks facts, just as it was with its previous two publications about Russians, the Russian Embassy in Switzerland said Sunday.

"We regret to note that groundless and unsubstantiated attacks against Russia continue to emerge from the tireless Swiss journalists from Tages Anzeiger. As with the two previous publications by the authors, the Sunday article on Russian diplomats in Switzerland is characterized by the absence of any facts, as well references to secret documents that no one saw and probably no one wrote," the Russian diplomatic mission in Bern said in a statement on Facebook.

Such publications undermine Russian-Swiss relations, the embassy noted.

Israeli soldiers killed three Palestinians, one of them an 11-year-old boy, and wounded at least 248 others taking part on Friday in weekly protests at the fortified Gaza Strip border, Palestinian medical officials said.

The Israeli military said it used force necessary to repel 13,000 Palestinians who massed at several points at the fence.

Some hurled rocks, fire-bombs and grenades at troops under cover of smoke from burning tyres, injuring a soldier, and nine Palestinians briefly crossed into Israel, the military said.

Israeli soldiers killed three Palestinians, one of them an 11-year-old boy, and wounded at least 248 others taking part on Friday in weekly protests at the fortified Gaza Strip border, Palestinian medical officials said.

The Israeli military said it used force necessary to repel 13,000 Palestinians who massed at several points at the fence.

Some hurled rocks, fire-bombs and grenades at troops under cover of smoke from burning tyres, injuring a soldier, and nine Palestinians briefly crossed into Israel, the military said.

The big stumbling block with EU companies continuing to trade with Iran is financing. US threats to punish companies involved in such trade have scared away a lot of banks, despite EU assurances that they will protect companies.

This clearing house would aim to avoid banks, and money changing hands across borders, entirely. One European company could pay the clearing house for imported Iranian oil, and the clearing house would give that money to another EU company providing goods or services to Iran.

While the US theoretically wants to sanction all trade with Iran, particularly oil imports, they have limited options to punish a European company whose business is to buy Iranian oil, or European industrial firms with projects inside Iran.

In a major move to improve communications along the demilitarized zone, North and South Korea have opened the joint liaison office in Kaesong on Friday. This move comes just days before the third Kim-Moon summit between the nations’ respective leaders.

The liaison office was said to be facing a possible delay in the fact of US opposition, with the State Department saying that providing electricity and functioning heat to such an office might amount to a violation of US energy sanctions.

The office was originally imagined as primarily facilitating South Korean corporations’ operations at Kaesong Industrial Park. Now though, it will also serve as a de facto joint embassy for both nations, allowing for a direct permanent diplomatic link.

Considering that Congresswoman Gabbard herself is an Iraq war veteran and current Army reserve officer who served in the aftermath of 9/11, it's all the more power and rare that a sitting Congress member would make such forceful comments exposing the hypocrisy and contradictions of US policy.

She called out President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence by name on the House floor in her speech:

“Two days ago, President Trump and Vice President Pence delivered solemn speeches about the attacks on 9/11, talking about how much they care about the victims of al-Qaeda’s attack on our country. But, they are now standing up to protect the 20,000 to 40,000 al-Qaeda and other jihadist forces in Syria, and threatening Russia, Syria, and Iran, with military force if they dare attack these terrorists."

Lucy Yang caught severely over-exaggerating extent of flooding in New Jersey.

A massive spending bill, which would deliver $3.3 billion dollars in military aid to Israel over the next year, passed the House on Wednesday under cover of a media blackout. The U.S. Senate had passed a different version of the same bill in early August, a vote that also went largely unreported.

Now, after the House’s passage of a slightly altered version of the Senate’s spending bill, officially titled the “Ileana Ros-Lehtinen United States-Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act of 2018,” all that remains is for the two chambers of Congress to reconcile their versions before the product is sent to President Trump’s desk to be signed into law. According to Skopos Labs, the bill now has a 90 percent chance of being enacted. If enacted, the bill will be the largest aid package in American history.

The head of the Organization of American States (OAS), accused by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro of being a “CIA agent,” says military intervention against Caracas should not be ruled out as a response to the ongoing crisis.
OAS Secretary-General Luis Almagro has hinted that the bloc may consider taking military action in Venezuela if it runs out of diplomatic options in its bid to alleviate the plight of people in the crisis-stricken country.

“With regards to a military intervention aimed at overthrowing the regime of Nicolas Maduro, I think we should not exclude any option,” Almagro said on Friday.

Venezuelans have been fleeing to neighboring countries in droves due to shortages of food and water, as well as soaring inflation and unemployment at home.

Countries with nothing to fear do not fear the ICC.

Countries with nothing to fear do not fear the ICC. The United States and Israel are very afraid of the ICC. The murder of unarmed civilians is a war crime. So is torture. Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of densely-populated civilian areas, its half-century occupation of Palestinian territory and its construction and expansion of Jews-only settler colonies on Palestinian land are all also illegal under international law. Neither Israel nor the United States has joined the ICC. Other leading human rights violators, including North Korea, China, Saudi Arabia, Myanmar and Ethiopia, have either never joined or have withdrawn from the court.

President Donald Trump may soon be communicating with you directly on your phone — even if you don't follow him on Twitter.

Next Thursday, the Federal Emergency Management Agency will do its first test of a system that allows the president to send a message to most U.S. cellphones.

More than 100 mobile carriers, including all the major wireless firms, are participating in the roll out, FEMA stated in a message on its website posted Thursday.

"The EAS [Emergency Alert System] is a national public warning system that provides the President with the communications capability to address the nation during a national emergency," FEMA said.

The test message will have a header that reads "Presidential Alert," according to the agency.

Users whose phones are on will twice hear a tone and vibration and then see an English-only (for now) message: "THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System. No action is needed.”

In June, the taxpayers of Burlington, Iowa were told that they will be hit with a $2 million bill to pay for a police officer who shot and killed an innocent mother. The tragic scenario was captured on video and the fact that most of that video remained a secret was part of the reason the family received the settlement in the wrongful death suit. However, all that has now changed and the video was released this week.

In May, during a federal court hearing in Davenport, Iowa, officials revealed that the confidential police video—a key piece of evidence in exonerating a cop who killed the innocent mom—did not corroborate the cop’s claims he made before firing the fatal shots that accidentally killed the mother of two.

Now, we have the evidence showing this was true.

Belgium’s General Intelligence and Security Service has set up an office to monitor Russian and Chinese cyber threats, the country’s parliamentary defense commission said in a report.

The Defense Committee session was held in June, but the report on the outcome of the session was released on Friday.

“As for the Russian cyber-threat, the Ministry of Defense General Information and Security Service hired an official in charge of a non-permanent working group … China’s activities are also being monitored,” said the committee’s service representative, the report.

On Thursday an anti-Assad group in Syria's south confirmed to Reuters via its 'rebel' commander that it is conducting rare military exercises with American forces in order to "send a strong message to Russia and Iran that the Americans and the rebels intend to stay and confront any threats to their presence," according to a new Reuters report.

The anti-Assad commander, Colonel Muhanad al Talaa, is part of the Pentagon-backed Maghawir al Thawra group now conducting eight days of "live-fire and ground assault" drills that involve "hundreds" of U.S. troops and allied Syrian insurgents cooperating together.

Five years ago, Biscayne Park Police Chief Raimundo Atesiano bragged to the town’s leaders about his department’s exceptional 100 percent clearance rate on burglaries in the tree-lined suburb north of Miami.

On Friday, however, Atesiano admitted his own criminal behavior was behind the boast to the village commission: He acknowledged at his plea hearing in Miami federal court that he directed three of his police officers to pin a series of unsolved home and vehicle break-ins on three innocent men to perfect the force’s property crimes record.

Atesiano, 52, pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge of depriving the three suspects of their civil rights because he and the officers framed them. Although race was not a factor in the federal case against the former police chief, the three wrongly arrested men are black.

The Syrian government will face ‘consequences’ if they launch a chemical weapons attack on Idlib, warned French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian at joint press conference with his Chinese counterpart Wang Li in Beijing on Tursday.

The warning comes after Syrian regime forces amassed around Idlib in the past few weeks as they seek to oust rebels from their final stronghold.

A chemical weapons expert who appears on the Russia Today TV news channel has been arrested after officers discovered potentially hazardous materials at his home in Devon.

Former research scientist Dr Chris Busby - an outspoken critic of the British Government's handlings of the Salisbury poisoning - was held after officers reported feeling unwell during a raid on his property yesterday morning.

Police had initially targeted the address in the sleepy seaside town of Bideford over concerns for a woman's welfare.

However officers complained of feeling unwell and were immediately checked over by an ambulance Hazardous Area Response Team and fire crews.

A search of the property found items required analysis from specialist officers and a bomb disposal team.

Antifa groups are using Twitter and Facebook to advocate for the assassination of President Trump

While social media companies collude to silence right-of-center influencers, violent far-left extremist groups appear to be given a pass. This NYC based antifa group has been using their “leftist privilege” to freely violate Twitter and Facebook Terms of Service. In another glaring example of “non existent social media bias”, this extremist group is apparently allowed to use their social media account to advocate for murder.

The Base is a NYC based “anarchist center” that is run by the Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement, a violent extremist group that we have covered extensively. The extremist group is currently offering downloadable poster and stickers that include images of guns and other calls to violence but the most concerning was an image that depicted the murder of President Donald Trump.

Following Breitbart’s bombshell release of a once-secret video that captured Google executives panicking after the Trump election victory, it’s now clear that Google is a dangerous left-wing techno-cult that is deliberately manipulating U.S. elections through fraudulent, illegal means.

It’s time to arrest and prosecute Google executives for racketeering and fraud.