Iraqis have rallied in Baghdad in massive numbers to call for an end to US military presence in the country following high-profile assassinations and airstrikes targeting anti-terror forces.

Sayed Sadiq al-Hashemi, the director of the Iraqi Center for Studies, said more than 2.5 million took part in the demonstrations on Friday.

Since the early hours on Friday, huge crowds of men, women and children of all ages converged on the Jadriyah neighborhood near Baghdad University.

The protesters were seen carrying banners and chanting slogans calling for the expulsion of US forces.

"Get out, get out, occupier!" some shouted, while others chanted, "Yes to sovereignty!"

Iranian Fars news agency wrote on its Telegram channel on Friday that its website was blocked after the US Treasury Department introduced sanctions against the country.

According to Fars, an international provider sent it an email saying that the reason for blocking the website was the order by the OFAC and the agency's inclusion into its Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list.

At the same time, the agency reported that its website with .com domain was blocked.

Tulsi Gabbard has decided to sue corrupt Hillary Clinton. Gabbard describes the defamation suit over Clinton’s “Russian asset” smear as election meddling.

According to RT, Clinton “lied about her perceived rival Tulsi Gabbard… publicly, unambiguously, and with obvious malicious intent” when she claimed Gabbard was “the favorite of the Russians,” the campaign alleges in the lawsuit, filed on Wednesday in the federal Southern District of New York. While Clinton isn’t technically running against Gabbard in the 2020 contest, the filing drily notes that the role of president is “a position Clinton has long coveted but has not been able to attain.”

People seem shocked that Hillary Clinton has stooped to lying, but she’s a politician. Lying is what they all do. None of them are good people; if they were, they wouldn’t seek power over others.

Authored by Caitlin Johnstone,

WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson gave a brief statement to the press after the latest court hearing for Julian Assange’s extradition case in London today, saying the Trump administration is arguing that the First Amendment of the US Constitution doesn’t provide press freedom protection to foreign nationals like Assange.

“We have now learned from submissions and affidavits presented by the United States to this court that they do not consider foreign nationals to have a First Amendment protection,” Hrafnsson said.“Now let that sink in for a second,” Hrafnsson continued.

n the latest major revelation contradicting the White House and Pentagon significantly downplayed casualty count regarding the Jan.8 Iranian ballistic missile attack on Ayn al-Asad airbase in Iraq, The New York Times is reporting that a total of 34 American soldiers have been diagnosed with serious head injuries ranging from concussion to traumatic brain injury.

Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman confirmed the much higher number Friday, after only a day ago the official toll stood at eleven after an initial Jan.17 statement, with at least eight of those which were considered serious enough to transport to a hospital in Germany. Hoffman said up to half of the 34 have already returned to their military duties, however, and 17 are still under medical observation.

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday reiterated his offer to “help” on the Kashmir issue, as he met Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan in Davos, Switzerland on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum.

Interestingly, Trump volunteered the US’s “help” even before Khan spoke — without any prompting or provocation.

Addressing the media with Khan at his side, Trump said, “We are talking about Kashmir and in relation to what is going on with Pakistan and India and if we can help — we certainly will be helping. We’ve been following that and watching it very very closely.”

Khan said it was the US which will be able to help resolve the issue, and said that he had pinned his hopes on the US President.

This is the fourth time that Trump has made such an offer - each time, India has rejected his proposal.

Posturing for the next round of elections, Israel’s two major candidates, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Blue and White leader Benny Gantz are both talking up plans to annex pieces of the occupied West Bank if elected. It seems no matter who wins the vote, some annexations will happen.

Gantz is pushing the idea of annexing the Jordan Valley, the southern part of the West Bank. He says it is the eastern defensive barrier in any future conflict. The Jordan Valley borders Jordan, a nation nominally on good terms with Israel.

Netanyahu also wants to annex Jordan Valley, and much more. He says if he is elected, he will annex all settlements in the West Bank “without exception.” This would be a large portion of the occupied West Bank.

Netanyahu is also trying to portray Gantz as a “left-wing” leader for not wanting to annex more. He accused Arab MPs of having stopped Gantz from supporting an immediate annexation of the Jordan Valley.

It is a dangerous practice: Government, corporations, universities, news outlets and “experts” curating our information so that we cannot access, see or believe that which they determine we should not access, see or believe.

If anyone had suggested to Orwell, or the American founders, that we would invite this sort of manipulation and control of our information, they wouldn’t have believed it.

The idea was first introduced on the national stage by President Obama in October of 2016 right before the presidential election. He insisted that somebody needed to step in and “curate” our information in the “Wild, Wild West” internet environment.

Nobody had been clamoring for any such thing.

So the challenge for those who came up with this bright idea– in my opinion in an effort to control news and information– was to convince the public to accept something very un-American: their information being shaped and censored by others.

A Swedish politician says that the government has 'lost control' after new figures reveal a 60% rise in bombings in 2019 over the previous year, amid what Reuters reports as "a surge in drug-linked gang-violence."

"Unfortunately, this government has lost control of what is happening in Sweden. Now in the morning, we woke up again to news of bombs and explosions, this time in Stockholm’s inner city and in central Uppsala," wrote Moderate Party leader Ulf Kristersson in a recent Op-Ed for Aftonbladet.

Approximately 257 bomb attacks were reported to police last year, up from 162 in 2018, according to the country's National Council for Crime Prevention. No details were given as to the most frequent type of explosive, however Swedish media has reported the heavy use of bombs crafted from vacuum flasks packed with explosive material, according to Reuters.

The Trump administration quietly announced new crushing sanctions on Thursday against entities that have been providing concealed support to Iran, the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said, “Iran’s petrochemical and petroleum sectors are primary sources of funding for the Iranian regime’s global terrorist activities and enable its persistent use of violence against its own people.”

One of the entities sanctioned by the Trump administration was Triliance Petrochemical Co. Ltd., a Hong-Kong based broker with branches in Iran, United Arab Emirates, China, and Germany:

The other companies that were sanctioned were “Hong Kong-based Sage Energy HK Ltd.; Shanghai-based Peakview Industry Co.; and Dubai-based Beneathco DMCC,” according to The Wall Street Journal.

US President Donald Trump will finally unveil his ‘great’ plan for peace in the Middle East before Israeli leaders visit Washington next week. While the Palestinians may not like it, it will be good for them, Trump said.
Trump has long teased the existence of a plan that would resolve the long-running dispute between Israel and the Palestinians, reportedly developed by his son-in-law Jared Kushner. Its release, however, has been repeatedly delayed.

On the way to an event in Florida on Thursday, Trump told reporters on board Air Force One that he intends to make the plan public ahead of next week’s visit to Washington by Israel’s caretaker prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his chief rival Benny Gantz.

"It's a great plan," said Trump, "It's a plan that really would work."

Former United States Hose of Representatives member and presidential candidate Ron Paul is not too impressed with the ongoing impeachment trial of President Donald Trump in the US Senate. The impeachment trial is “pure politicking,“ declares Paul in a new interview at TRT World focused in the impeachment trial.

Paul further comments in the interview:

It’s always been said that impeachment is a political process. Well that’s an understatement when you look at what’s going on now.

With wrongdoing being pursued by politicians both Republican and Democrat in DC, Paul assesses in the interview that the real battle taking place is over “who’s going be the boss of this” and “who’s going to control the largess.”

The U.S. Air Force (USAF) conducted its second Elephant Walk within weeks, this time with ten Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II fighters at Selfridge Air National Guard Base, located in Harrison Township, Michigan, said Defense Blog.

Elephant walks are generally conducted right before a minimum interval takeoff (MITO), a technique used by USAF to scramble all jets to take off at twelve- and fifteen-second intervals.

The objective of the exercise is to get all fighters and bombers in the air within fifteen minutes of an alert of an incoming missile attack.

Defense Blog noted that an Elephant Walk "is a fundamental training element when preparing for global strike missions."

The 127th Wing's motto is "We Stand Ready," as the latest training exercise suggests the A-10s could be preparing for combat in the Middle East.

President Trump was dismissive of widespread reports of eleven US soldiers sustaining head injuries as a result of the Jan.8 Iranian ballistic missile attack on Ayn al-Asad airbase in Iraq. At least eight had been airlifted to a medical facility in Germany for possible "traumatic brain injuries", which the Pentagon and administration kept mum about in the days following.

While fielding questions at Davos on Wednesday, Trump downplayed what he likened as mere “headaches” when pressed about the issue and the administration's evolving narrative, which initially emphasized "no US casualties" as a result of the Iranian attack.

Trump explained at the news conference his view that the injuries were “not very serious,” and added that “I heard they had headaches.” This prompted some veterans groups to reportedly say Trump is “somewhat out of touch” with the seriousness of it.

Stephan Halper, the longtime CIA and FBI operative who conducted espionage on the 2016 Trump campaign, was feeding information to Washington Post reporter David Ignatius through his handler, according to The Federalist, which describes his actions as "more evidence that the intelligence community has co-opted the press to push anti-Trump conspiracy theories."

According to a court filing by Michael Flynn's defense team, Halper's 'handler' in the Office of Net Assessment (ONA), Col. James Baker, "regularly lunched with the Washington Post reporter."

(Also leaking to Ignatius was Christopher Steele)

As we noted in May of 2018, Halper was paid over $1 million by the Obama administration through the Office of Net Assessment - nearly half of which came during 'Russiagate' - in which he not only surveilled multiple Trump campaign aides, he was involved in an effort to tie General Flynn to a Russian academic, Svetlana Lokhova, as part of a smear campaign.

With the world's attention focused on the Coronavirus outbreak and to a lesser extent on Trump's impeachment trial, the war in Libya just got a lot more scary in terms of the potential for mass civilian death.

Incredibly, Gen. Khalifa Haftar's Libyan National Army (LNA) just threatened to shoot down civilian planes after days ago declaring a 'no fly zone' over Tripoli following increased Turkish intervention. The BBC reports the unambiguous and shocking declaration as follows:

Gen Haftar's spokesman, Ahmad al-Mesmari, said in a statement on Wednesday that "any military or civilian aircraft, regardless of its affiliation, flying over the capital will be destroyed".

Millions of Americans who lived through the financial crisis probably recall that not a single executive of a major investment bank was jailed in the aftermath, despite running organizations seemingly dedicated to perpetuating a criminal fraud on nearly every counterparty and client.

But when Americans look back at the opioid crisis, they'll remember that at least one executive of a major opioid manufacturer and distributor was sentenced to a fairly weighty sentence - five-and-a-half years (66 months) in federal prison - for an illegal kickback scheme that effectively involved bribing doctors to prescribe potentially lethal doses of fentanyl. That's right: Packaged under the name brand Subsys, Insys sold a painkiller made from the same ultra-powerful synthetic opioid responsible for tens of thousands of deaths across America.

Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

Journalist Glenn Greenwald has been charged by the Bolsonaro government in Brazil with the same prosecutorial angle used by the US to target WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Citing intercepted messages between Mr. Greenwald and the hackers, prosecutors say the journalist played a “clear role in facilitating the commission of a crime.”

For instance, prosecutors contend that Mr. Greenwald encouraged the hackers to delete archives that had already been shared with The Intercept Brasil, in order to cover their tracks.

Prosecutors also say that Mr. Greenwald was communicating with the hackers while they were actively monitoring private chats on Telegram, a messaging app. The complaint charged six other individuals, including four who were detained last year in connection with the cellphone hacking.

Millions of Americans who lived through the financial crisis probably recall that not a single executive of a major investment bank was jailed in the aftermath, despite running organizations seemingly dedicated to perpetuating a criminal fraud on nearly every counterparty and client.

But when Americans look back at the opioid crisis, they'll remember that at least one executive of a major opioid manufacturer and distributor was sentenced to a fairly weighty sentence - five-and-a-half years (66 months) in federal prison - for an illegal kickback scheme that effectively involved bribing doctors to prescribe potentially lethal doses of fentanyl. That's right: Packaged under the name brand Subsys, Insys sold a painkiller made from the same ultra-powerful synthetic opioid responsible for tens of thousands of deaths across America.

Authored by Jacob Hornberger via The Future of Freedom Foundation,

Amidst all the anti-Russia brouhaha that has enveloped our nation, we shouldn’t forget that the U.S. national-security establishment — specifically the Pentagon, CIA, and FBI — was convinced that Martin Luther King Jr. was a communist agent who was spearheading a communist takeover of the United States.

The loss of both Kennedy and King constituted conclusive confirmation that the worst mistake in U.S. history was to abandon a limited-government republic type of governmental system in favor of a totalitarian governmental structure known as a national-security state. A free nation does not fight communism with communist tactics and an omnipotent government. A free nation fights communism with freedom and limited government.

At a moment tensions are soaring over Turkey's expansive East Mediterranean claims, and after starting early last summer it began sending oil and gas exploration and drilling ships off Cyprus' coast, Ankara is demanding that Greece “demilitarize” its islands in the Aegean Sea, reports Bloomberg.

The demand from Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar, who formally requested Greece move to withdraw armed forces and weaponry from 16 Aegean islands near Turkey on Wednesday, is rich given it's Turkey that's been provocatively sending warships and military jets to accompany illegal gas drilling in the area, something lately condemned by the EU.

At a moment tensions are soaring over Turkey's expansive East Mediterranean claims, and after starting early last summer it began sending oil and gas exploration and drilling ships off Cyprus' coast, Ankara is demanding that Greece “demilitarize” its islands in the Aegean Sea, reports Bloomberg.

The demand from Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar, who formally requested Greece move to withdraw armed forces and weaponry from 16 Aegean islands near Turkey on Wednesday, is rich given it's Turkey that's been provocatively sending warships and military jets to accompany illegal gas drilling in the area, something lately condemned by the EU.

Authored by Matthew Ehret via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

Anyone looking with sober eyes upon today’s world and the feeble economic and geopolitical underpinnings holding the system together must accept the fact that a new system WILL be created.

This is not an opinion, but a fact. We are moving towards eight billion lives on this globe and the means of productive powers to sustain that growing population (at least in the west) has been permitted to decay terribly over the recent half century while monetary values have grown like a hyperinflationary cancer to unimaginable proportions. Derivatives speculation alone under the deregulated “too big to fail” banking system has resulted in over $1.5 quadrillion in nominal values which have ZERO connection to the real world (GDP globally barely accounts for $80 trillion). Over the past 5 months $415 billion of QE bailouts have been released into the bankrupt banks to prevent a collapse. So, economically it’s foundation of sand.

First of all, just let it sink in that there is an organization comprised of linguists which exists solely to ‘ban’ words and terms that they don’t like. Their action is known as ‘Un-word of the year’.

They’re literally attempting to re-create 1984’s Newspeak dictionary, which shrank in size year after year in order to eliminate language and limit free thought and free speech, making it harder for the plebs to vocalize their opposition to The Party.

As you may have suspected, every word or term already ‘banned’ by the group in recent years are ones used by conservatives to challenge leftist political tropes. Imagine my shock.

Terms ‘un-worded’ in recent years include “alternative facts,” “do-gooder,” “Lügenpresse” (liar press) and “welfare tourism” (referring to “foreigners in Germany allegedly leeching on the welfare system.”)

The panel says it exists to discourage the use of words that “discriminate against societal groups or may be euphemistic, disguising or misleading.”

Authored by David Hutt via AsiaTimes.com,

When Britain leaves the European Union (EU) later this month, it will be free to chart its own independent course in foreign affairs and fulfill years of promises to build a truly “global Britain.”

That will likely entail a historic realignment of its foreign policy interests from the Middle East and Africa to the “Indo-Pacific,” one of the three “primary centers of the global economy and political influence”, after North America and Europe, according to the United Kingdom’s last National Security Capability Review published in March 2018.

The Indo-Pacific is currently home to most of the world’s largest and fastest growing economies, as well as the center of US-China geopolitical competition, which isn’t likely to dampen down anytime soon.

Summary: Here's a glimpse of new virus-related developments that occurred overnight.

Total number of confirmed cases now 900+, 26 dead.
China restricts travel for 40+ million people as the death toll surges.
Two deaths have been reported outside Wuhan.
Some residents displaying symptoms are being turned away from hospitals.
Hospitals in Wuhan make urgent pleas for help and supplies.
UK and US governments tell citizens to avoid outbreak zones.
* * *
Asian markets closed on Friday for the Lunar New Year holiday, which officially begins on Saturday. But in China, the Communist Party leadership are scrambling to contain the virus as 13 cities in Hubei Province are now under quarantine, meaning more than 40 million Chinese will be forced to spend the holiday week at home, the South China Morning Post reports.

After the editor of Christianity Today infuriated the president and stunned the American evangelical community by declaring that President Trump should be booted from office, the president has apparently found a way to show this critical constituency of his base that he truly is fighting for them.

According to the Washington Post, in an unprecedented move, Trump is slated to become the first sitting American president to speak at the 'March for Life' - an annual rally in Washington that draws hundreds of thousands of anti-abortion activists. This despite the frequent criticism leveled at the president complaining that he doesn't respect religion, despite having appointed two conservative justices to SCOTUS and hundreds more to the federal bench.

Peter Andrews is an Irish science journalist and writer, based in London. He has a background in the life sciences, and graduated from the University of Glasgow with a degree in Genetics

Xenobots — tiny, biological robots swarms designed by a computer — are upon us. What does the birth of these strange not-quite-alive creatures mean for robotics — and for us?

Real robots are not two-legged steel boxes with a metallic voice
Mankind has been imagining advanced robot technology for a long time — pop culture is full of Terminators, Cylons, and Droids. But in fact, these humanoid designs show a distinct lack of imagination. Why have we always assumed that robots would be designed to have the same basic form as us: slightly ungainly primates trotting about on two feet, perhaps even toting a gun? The latest models make that particular notion look a bit 1950s

Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

In August of 1945, the United States became the only country to drop nuclear bombs on an enemy.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were largely destroyed in the blink of an eye. And the Japanese had no choice but to surrender to the Allies, finally ending World War II.

Ever since, world superpowers have been rapidly advancing weapons technology, constantly raising the bar for destructive power.

It won’t surprise you to find out that the most powerful and destructive weapon in the world, though, by far, is claimed by the United States.

The US is still the world’s dominant superpower, still the largest economy in the world. And the US dollar is still the world’s dominant reserve currency.

This means that the VAST MAJORITY of international trade and cross-border financial transactions take place in US dollars.

While there have been more than 60 confirmed cases of a new mystery virus emerging from Wuhan, China, UK experts estimate that closer to 1,700 have been sickened with the SARS-like pneumonia, according to the BBC. Meanwhile, SCMP reports three suspected cases in Shenzhen, Shanghai.

"I am substantially more concerned than I was a week ago," disease specialist Prof Neil Ferguson told the outlet.

The work was conducted by the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial College London, which advises bodies including the UK government and the World Health Organization (WHO). -BBC

The estimate was calculated by the Imperial College of London based on the following assumptions:

Wuhan International Airport has a catchment population of 19 million individuals [1].

Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

At Counterpunch, Michael Hudson has penned an important article that outlines the important connections between US foreign policy, oil, and the US dollar.

In short, US foreign policy is geared very much toward controlling oil resources as part of a larger strategy to prop up the US dollar. Hudson writes:

The assassination was intended to escalate America’s presence in Iraq to keep control of the region’s oil reserves, and to back Saudi Arabia’s Wahabi troops (Isis, Al Quaeda in Iraq, Al Nusra and other divisions of what are actually America’s foreign legion) to support U.S. control of Near Eastern oil as a buttress of the U.S. dollar. That remains the key to understanding this policy, and why it is in the process of escalating, not dying down.

The actual context for the neocon’s action was the balance of payments, and the role of oil and energy as a long-term lever of American diplomacy.

Internal emails from Boeing staff members working on the 737 MAX were made public earlier this month have revealed new safety problems for the company's flagship 777X, a long-range, wide-body, twin-engine passenger jet, currently in development that is expected to replace the aging 777-200LR and 777-300ER fleets, reported The Telegraph.

Already, damning emails released via a U.S. Senate probe describes problems during the MAX development and qualification process. The emails also highlight how Boeing employees were troubled by the 777X – could be vulnerable to technical issues.

As various pro-gun rights groups prepare to gather at Virginia's state capitol in Richmond on Monday in what's expected to be one of the largest pro-gun rallies in recent memory, Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam has declared a state of emergency, police are busy setting up barricades and temporary holding pens - and one lawmaker has even arranged to spend most of the day in a safe house, according to the Washington Examiner.

The rally is expected to draw tens of thousands, and fears about Charlottesville-style violence are prompting police to scour the web for any signs of a violent plot.

On Friday, Minneapolis Fed president Neel Kashkari, who just two months earlier made a stunning proposal when he said that it was time for the Fed to pick up where the USSR left off and start redistributing wealth (at least Kashkari chose the proper entity: since the Fed has launched central planning across US capital markets, it would also be proper in the banana republic that the US has become, that the same Fed also decides who gets how much and the entire democracy/free enterprise/free market farce be skipped altogether) issued a challenge to "QE conspiracists" which apparently now also includes his FOMC colleague (and former Goldman Sachs co-worker), Robert Kaplan, in which he said "QE conspiracists can say this is all about balance sheet growth. Someone explain how swapping one short term risk free instrument (reserves) for another short term risk free instrument (t-bills) leads to equity repricing. I don’t see it."

Until recently, Hoan Ton-That’s greatest hits included an obscure iPhone game and an app that let people put Donald Trump’s distinctive yellow hair on their own photos.

Then Mr. Ton-That — an Australian techie and onetime model — did something momentous: He invented a tool that could end your ability to walk down the street anonymously, and provided it to hundreds of law enforcement agencies, ranging from local cops in Florida to the F.B.I. and the Department of Homeland Security.

His tiny company, Clearview AI, devised a groundbreaking facial recognition app. You take a picture of a person, upload it and get to see public photos of that person, along with links to where those photos appeared. The system — whose backbone is a database of more than three billion images that Clearview claims to have scraped from Facebook, YouTube, Venmo and millions of other websites — goes far beyond anything ever constructed by the United States government or Silicon Valley giants.

Jan. 17 (UPI) -- A military training exercise scheduled for this weekend could jam GPS signals in the Southeast and Caribbean, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

An FAA advisory warns pilots could experience "unreliable or unavailable GPS signal" during a training exercise scheduled for Jan. 16 through Jan. 24.

The U.S. Navy's Carrier Strike Group Four will be conducting GPS testing exercises off the coast of Georgia, causing likely disruptions as low as 50 feet above ground level within 207 miles of the test location -- and as high as 40,000 feet within 460 miles.

"The Global Positioning System (GPS) constellation is provided by the Department of Defense (DoD). Routine testing is conducted on the GPS," an FAA representative told Military Times. "The FAA issues advisories to inform operators that they may experience interference with or disruption of their GPS navigation systems in the vicinity of the testing."

Technology developed in the context of the occupation is used by Israel’s seemingly benign precision agriculture industry. This civilian application allows Israeli military companies to promote “a sanitized version of their repressive technologies” as tools to combat climate change and world hunger.

Israeli agritech companies “develop and market smart irrigation systems, crop protection solutions and specialty fertilizers to farmers across the world, raking in billions of dollars in annual sales, while enjoying a positive ‘green’ image,” Who Profits states.

This industry contributes to agriculture in West Bank and Golan settlements, as well as the de-development of the Palestinian economy.

The Jordan Valley, the main agricultural region in the West Bank, is under full Israeli military control.

Typical of take-no-prisoners warmongers, Cotton savages critics of the pro-war policy that has characterized US foreign policy in the 21st century. No baseless charge is beneath him. He recently attacked the Quincy Institute in the course of remarks about anti-Semitism. (You can see what’s coming.) According to Jewish Insider, Cotton said that anti-Semitism “festers in Washington think tanks like the Quincy Institute, an isolationist blame America first money pit for so-called ‘scholars’ who’ve written that American foreign policy could be fixed if only it were rid of the malign influence of Jewish money.”

This is worse than a series of malicious lies – every word is false. In fact, it’s an attempt to incite hostility toward and even disruption of one of the bright spots on the mostly desolate foreign-policy-analysis landscape.

Soleimani, largely considered to have been the second-most powerful man in Iran behind Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, oversaw Tehran’s international proxy network of armed forces and is believed to be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of U.S. troops in Iraq at the hands of Iran-backed groups.

The Trump administration defended the strike earlier this month, saying the general was in the process of planning an “imminent attack” on U.S. interests.

Trump did not describe such a threat in his remarks to donors, saying only that Soleimani was a "noted terrorist" who "was down on our list" and "was supposed to be in his country" before traveling to Iraq.

Since the strike, the administration has toggled between saying Soleimani posed an imminent threat and pointing to his past malign activities in the Middle East.

In late November, a judge for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California directed the Federal Bureau of Investigation to expunge certain records relating to Eric Garris, an editor of the website Antiwar.com, which describes itself as promoting “non-interventionism” and posts related news and opinions.

The move comes after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held in September that federal law prohibits law enforcement agencies from maintaining records describing First Amendment activity, unless the record “is pertinent to and within the scope of an ongoing law enforcement activity.” The case marked the first time the Ninth Circuit has considered that question.

Lebanon’s capital Beirut has been plunged into chaos amid massive protests. Police struggled to contain the angry crowds with tear gas and water cannon, prompting President Michel Aoun to ask the military to intervene.
Aoun has asked the national army to restore peace and order on the streets of Beirut, as the city saw fierce clashes between protesters and security forces. Aoun called on the military to “protect the safety of peaceful protesters and of public and private property.”

Army storming the crowd with their reinforcements. Just more scare tactics. #Beirutpic.twitter.com/6u29chqyWs

— Samah Hadid ???? (@samahhadid) January 18, 2020
Crowds have taken to the streets of Beirut in a massive protest against Lebanon’s soaring debt, which stands at about $87 billion, equal to more than 150 percent of GDP. The public unrest is also fueled by an almost three-months-long power vacuum and by a crippling economic crisis.

Libya’s national oil company has declared a “state of emergency” after exports of its oil from the ports in the eastern part of the country were blocked by forces loyal to the Libyan National Army's General Khalifa Haftar.
The Petroleum Facilities Guard – a militia that controls major export terminals in eastern Libya – has ordered local subsidiaries of the National Oil Corporation (NOC), who run them, to cease all operations, the firm said in a statement.

The move makes any export of oil from Libya impossible, the company then warned, adding that it would lead to losses in crude oil production amounting to 800,000 barrels per day, as well as daily financial losses estimated at about $55 million.

In Donetsk region, the SMM recorded about 260 explosions, reads the OSCE SMM daily report.

“The majority of ceasefire violations, including the majority of explosions, were recorded in areas north and north-west of Debaltseve (non-government-controlled, 58km north-east of Donetsk) and near the disengagement area close to Petrivske (non-government-controlled, 41km south of Donetsk),” reads the report.

In Luhansk region, the SMM recorded about 430 explosions.

Republican Virginia State Senator Amanda Chase issued a warning on Friday to the thousands of Second Amendment advocates who are planning to attend an upcoming massive pro-gun rally in Richmond, saying that they are “being set up.”

The Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL) organized the event, which is being held on Monday, and “is traditionally known as ‘Lobby Day’ in Virginia’s capital,” WTOP reported. “Tens of thousands are expected to show up for the event Monday in Richmond. Given the contentious nature of the issue, the prospect of such a large event has raised tensions. Earlier, [Virginia Democrat Governor Ralph] Northam declared a state of emergency. And recent arrests have further raised those tensions.”

Former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein authorized the release to the media of text messages between 'FBI lovebirds' Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, many of which revealed deep animus towards then-candidate Donald Trump while they were investigating him during the 2016 presidential campaign, according to Politico.

In a Friday night court filing submitted shortly before midnight, Rosenstein says he made the decision to protect Strzok and Page from the damaging effects of lawmakers and others releasing the texts for use as political ammunition.

In the messages, Strzok and Page regularly disparaged Trump and appeared to seek to reassure each other he could not be elected. Both called Trump an “idiot” and said Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton deserved to win.

Influential Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in a meeting with leaders of the country's popular forces conferred on ways to end the US occupation of the country.

The Arabic-language al-Mayadeen news website reported on Monday that the meeting was hosted by Secretary General of al-Nujaba Movement Sheikh Akram al-Kaabi and attended by Head of the Kata'ib Sayyid al-Shuhada (KSS) Abu Alaa al-Wala'i and a representative of Asa'eb al-Haq resistance group.

The information center of al-Nujaba Movement released images of the meeting which was aimed at coordination to expel the American forces from Iraq.

The statement comes as President Donald Trump has repeatedly demanded that the US’ NATO allies do more in terms of their involvement into Middle Eastern affairs. NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg agreed with Trump's view after tensions between the US and Iran put the region on the verge of war in January 2020.

French President Emmanuel Macron has announced that the country's Charles De Gaulle aircraft carrier strike group will be deployed to the Levant between January and April 2020 in order to aid French military Operation Chammal in the Middle East. The operation was originally launched in 2014 to halt the expansion of Daesh* and to support the Iraqi military in its fight against the group.

Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, and Greece will also participate in the deployment, escorting the aircraft carrier to its destination.

Just days after Turkey vowed “to teach a lesson” to Libya’s strongman General Haftar, Greece – still at odds with Ankara – told him that it could send in some “forces,” tasked with observing a truce and “removal of mercenaries.”
Nikos Dendias, Greece’s Foreign Minister, had “a long conversation” with General Khalifa Haftar, who paid a low-key visit to Athens ahead of a Libya peace conference in Berlin. “We want a ceasefire, the removal of mercenaries and the cancellation of illegal agreements,” Dendias said without elaborating.

The chief diplomat told Haftar, who leads the Libyan National Army (LNA), that Greece was ready to help “with [deploying] forces” that would monitor the ceasefire with the rival Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA).

“All of this is a contribution to the future of the Libyan people. We want it to be a modern democratic country,” Dendias proclaimed.

Authored by James Goodale, op-ed via TheHill.com

A few days before Christmas, Julian Assange testified to a Spanish court that a Spanish security company, UC Global S.L., acting in coordination with the CIA, illegally recorded all his actions and conversations, including with his lawyers, and streamed them back in real time to the CIA.

He will, at the end of February, make a similar complaint to a British extradition court about the CIA’s alleged misbehavior.

Will such misbehavior, if proven, set Assange free?

The Daniel Ellsberg case may be instructive. You may recall that after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the “Pentagon Papers” case, Ellsberg was indicted under the Espionage Act for leaking Pentagon documents to The New York Times and The Washington Post.

CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr reports that Saudi Arabia has paid the United States an estimated $500 million to assist the cost of US troop deployments in the kingdom, according to one unnamed US defense official:

The payment was made in December last year. President Donald Trump asserted last week in an interview with Fox News that Saudi Arabia had "already deposited $1 billion in the bank."

As the 2020 race heats up, the Supreme Court agreed on Friday to hear a dispute involving the complex United States presidential election system focusing on whether Electoral College electors are free to break their pledges to back the candidate who wins their state's popular vote, an act that could upend an election.

The Supreme Court will take up appeals in two cases - from Washington state and Colorado - involving electors who decided to vote in the Electoral College process for someone other than Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 even though she won the popular vote in their states.

President Donald Trump’s legal team on impeachment will feature several new, high-profile legal minds as the White House prepares for a trial in the Senate next week.

Trump’s team will add Ken Starr, Robert Ray, Alan Dershowitz, to litigate the case with Pat Cipollone, Jay Sekulow, Jane Raskin and former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, according to sources who spoke with Axios.

Dershowitz, a constitutional scholar, now an emeritus at Harvard Law School, has become a star figure on primetime television, while Starr is best known for his pivotal role investigating former President Bill Clinton in the 1990s. Ray was Starr’s successor at the Office of Independence Counsel under president Clinton.

SOURCE: MATT AGORIST
(Support Free Thought) -

A bill in New Jersey that would’ve stripped parents and children of their right to informed consent by allowing them to object to mandatory vaccinations failed on Monday. Much to the chagrin of the tyrants who claim ownership over the bodies of others, the bill that would have eliminated religious exemptions to mandatory vaccinations failed to pass the New Jersey state legislature.

According to reports, the bill was canceled in the Senate before the vote because lawmakers knew they lacked the passing votes. The proponents of the bill vowed to reintroduce it on Tuesday but this gives opponents a new time frame on the public hearing and voting process.

SOURCE: KURT NIMMO

Trump’s brain is not his own.

It’s antisemitism time. If you criticize Israel and the cadre of chickenhawk neocons steering Donald Trump’s foreign policy, you will be pilloried and exiled to the political wilderness, forever condemned as a white supremacist.

Scratch a little bit beneath the surface and you will discover at the core of this anti-free speech campaign a rabid Zionist, the same Zionist agitators responsible for advocating and organizing the murder of over a million Iraqis.

It’s no longer permissible to criticize Jewish neocons. The very word “neocon” is considered an antisemitic slur because most of these chickenhawk war criminals are Jewish. It is never mentioned in the NYT or WaPo that the second Iraq mass murder campaign was strictly a Zionist (another word that will get you labeled an anti semite) affair designed to benefit Israel at the expense of the United States.

SOURCE: TECH DIRT

The databases are so ridiculously inclusive cops have found themselves listed as gang members. One cop became a "gang member" simply because his family car was spotted on the same street as two motorcyclists wearing supposed gang t-shirts.

Given this history of lousy gang databases run by people who display an almost-sociopathic desire to punish innocent people, it comes as no surprise the database the LAPD uses sucks just as hard.

More than a dozen Los Angeles police officers with the elite Metro Division are being investigated on suspicion of falsifying information they gathered during stops and wrongly portraying people as gang members or associates, according to multiple sources.

The officers, assigned to special patrols in South Los Angeles, are suspected of falsifying field interview cards during stops and inputting incorrect information about those questioned in an effort to boost stop statistics.

In early 2017, just as Trump was inaugurated, we wrote how of an old power center theory that seemed to explain how Trump won the elections:

Seen from the perspective of power centers Clinton once had all the support she needed. But she then lost a decisive group due to her uncompromising neo-conned foreign policy. Here is an interesting take based on a theory from the 1950s:

[T]he power elite can be best described as a “triangle of power,” linking the corporate, executive government, and military factions: “There is a political economy numerously linked with military order and decision. This triangle of power is now a structural fact, and it is the key to any understanding of the higher circles in America today.”

SOURCE: WHITNEY WEBB VIA MINT PRESS NEWS
If the networks of the U.S. military, the U.S. intelligence community and a slew of other U.S. federal agencies were running the software of a company with deep ties, not only to foreign companies with a history of espionage against the U.S. but also foreign military intelligence, it would — at the very least — garner substantial media attention. Yet, no media reports to date have noted that such a scenario exists on a massive scale and that the company making such software recently simulated the cancellation of the 2020 election and the declaration of martial law in the United States.

Mikhail Mishustin has been ratified as next Prime Minister of Russia by MPs, after the cabinet resigned on Wednesday. Vladimir Putin had earlier proposed Mishustin, formerly head of the Federal Tax Service, as a candidate.

Mishustin has already promised a major cabinet reshuffle, meaning that some fresh faces could emerge as new ministers. The incoming government must hold personal responsibility for the decisions they take to help economy grow, Mishustin told MPs ahead of the confirmation vote.

The first thing to do is to seriously engage in institutional and management reform, and, of course, bring in the most advanced information technologies.

To Mishustin, there are enough resources out there to achieve goals set by the President: "We have a fairly stable [economic] situation ... we do have inflation but I think it will not exceed 4 percent, this is obvious."

Updated 4:25 p.m.

The FBI believes the Saudi Arabian government “almost certainly” helps its citizens flee the country after they are accused of serious crimes, “undermining the US judicial process,” according to a newly declassified document obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive.

The surreptitious action is done, in part, to spare the wealthy Persian Gulf kingdom embarrassment, the FBI said. Intelligence officials believe the flights from justice will continue without intervention by the American authorities.

SOURCE: CBC.CA
Maxwell Johnson thought his appointment at the Bank of Montreal would be routine.

He's been a customer since 2014 and wanted to open an account for his 12-year-old granddaughter so he could transfer funds to her electronically when she was on the road for basketball games.

But at the Dec. 20 meeting at BMO's Burrard Street location in downtown Vancouver, an employee questioned the identification he and his granddaughter presented.

"She said the numbers didn't match up what she had on her computer," Johnson said from his home in Bella Bella, a Heiltsuk community located on B.C's Central Coast.

Johnson, 56, and his granddaughter were using government-issued Indian Status cards, his birth certificate and her medical card. He said the employee became suspicious and went upstairs with their cards.

SOURCE: PRIVACY SOS
Yesterday the First Circuit became the first federal court of appeals to hear oral argument on the constitutionality of the warrantless placement of a secret video camera on top of a utility pole after the ACLU’s 2018 victory in the Supreme Court case Carpenter v. United States. Carpenter represents a growing recognition that we have a right to be free from long-term surveillance that catalogs the whole of our physical movements, even in a public place. Yesterday’s oral argument in United States v. Moore-Bush focused on Carpenter’s impact on a person’s expectation of privacy against the placement of a video camera directed at a home for eight months without any judicial oversight.

The shoot-down of a Ukrainian airliner is the latest propaganda ploy by the state to further demonize Iran and prepare for war. Unfortunately, there are a lot of folks who experience amnesia during such events.

@iheartmindy

"In case you missed it, Iran did shoot down that civilian passenger plane killing all 176 people on board because their backwards country is too GD incompetent to wait for an airspace to be clear of civilian aircraft before launching a missile attack."

I suppose she deserves a pass, being young and more than likely “educated” in a public school and like far too many Americans believes whatever the USG tells her.

Obviously, she is unaware of this, rarely talked about in the exceptional nation:

SOURCE: ZERO HEDGE
After rejecting Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi's request to begin talks on the withdrawal of American troops, there are now more signs of the eroding ties between the two countries.

The Wall Street Journal reports that according to Iraqi officials (yes, Iraq has anonymous sources too), the Trump administration warned Iraq this week that it risks losing access to a critical government bank account if Baghdad kicks out American forces.

We are sure, to Schiff et al., that sounds a lot like 'quid pro quo', but how will they balance the need to hammer the president with their neocon/establishment desire to keep boots on the ground, whatever it takes?

The warning regarding the Iraqi central bank account was conveyed to Iraq’s prime minister in a call on Wednesday, according to an official in his office, that also touched on the overall military, political and financial partnership between the two countries.

SOURCE: MATT AGORIST
(Support Free Thought) -

Phoenix, AZ — Police in Arizona have just released the full dramatic body camera footage from when an officer shot and killed a 14-year-old boy who had attempted to escape on foot while holding a toy gun with a visibly orange tip. For the first time, we are now seeing the full situation of what happened when Officer Joseph Jaen opened fire on Antonio Arce, killing him.

This week, the Tempe Police Department released the video among a slew of other documents, 911 calls and personnel files on officer Jaen. The files and the video were released only after the family and the media made numerous requests. Still, the department waited almost a full year after Arce’s death to release it.

The files reveal a history of excessive force dating back to 2013. In total, this officer, who shot and killed a child holding a toy gun with an orange tip, had 19 separate incidents — not including the investigation for killing Arce — in his record.

A group of Iranian protesters demanded Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei step down on Saturday after Tehran said that its military had mistakenly shot down a Ukrainian plane, killing all 176 people on board.

"Commander-in-chief [Khamenei] resign, resign," videos posted on Twitter showed hundreds of people chanting in front of Tehran's Amir Kabir university.

The White House is considering dramatically expanding its much-litigated travel ban to additional countries amid a renewed election-year focus on immigration by President Donald Trump, according to six people familiar with the deliberations.

’s unclear exactly how many countries would be included in the expansion if it proceeds, but two of the people said that seven countries — a majority of them Muslim — would be added to the list. The most recent iteration of the ban includes restrictions on five majority-Muslim nations: Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen, as well as Venezuela and North Korea.

Venezuela's opposition leader Juan Guaido was sworn in for another term as speaker of parliament on Tuesday after a tense stand-off with the armed forces who initially prevented him from entering Congress.

By Robert Inlakesh

The United States may have planned the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani as a way of attempting to both keep US President Donald Trump in power by making him appear strong and also driving a wedge between the regional resistance axis, led by Iran.

If the US continually claims that none of its soldiers have been killed or injured and continues to downplay the Iranian response. If Trump then decides not to escalate and also pulls his troops out of Iraq, we will know that this was perhaps their strategy from the beginning. Trump would then appear - due to US media manipulation - as a strong president, to his own people, also being a president who has followed up on his promise to get out of Iraq.

This may be a strategy that is employed, but perhaps this strategy will backfire very badly if they miscalculate in any areas. If the US acts aggressively, it could start a Middle East wide war.

Following successful tests, the US Army has decided to use the Israeli Spike missile on its attack helicopters until a domestic replacement can be produced.

The Spike Non-Line-of-Sight (NLOS) missile, made by Israel-based Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, will be temporarily appearing in US rotary wing arsenals, following a recent decision by an Army Requirements Oversight Council.

Brig. Gen. Wally Rugen, who heads the Army’s Vertical Lift Modernization team, made the announcement on Wednesday, Defense News reported. Rugen did not say how many Spike NLOS missiles would be procured.

The Army tested the Spike several times last year at its Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona as well as in Israel, Sputnik reported, settling on the weapon due to its range and maneuvering capabilities.

Iran launched a missile strike on US positions in Iraq in retaliation for the assassination of its IRGC General Qasem Soleimani. According to US statements, this attack didn't result in any casualties and only caused minor damage to American bases.

Head of the Revolutionary Guards Aerospace Force Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh has stated that the 8 January missile attack on American bases in neighbouring Iraq was only the start of a series of attacks that will take place across the entire region, Tasnim News Agency reported. The general further shared that the country had hundreds of missiles ready for launch, when it carried out strikes and added that Tehran conducted cyberattacks on the same day against American plane and drone navigation systems.

Mike Adams
January 8th, 2020
Natural News

Soleimani may be dead, but censorship is alive and well in America, and no one in any position of power is fighting against it.

The Pentagon said Soleimani had to be taken out because he was planning “imminent” combat operations against United States persons. Yet Big Tech has already completed its online combat operations against tens of millions of Americans, having successfully banned, demonetized, smeared, slandered and de-platformed nearly every voice that supports the very freedoms America is supposedly fighting for in the Middle East. This abundantly demonstrates the absurdity of any claim that blowing up people in Iraq or Iran somehow makes us “more free” in America. The claim that the Pentagon is “fighting for freedom” is total propaganda.

Summary:

3 Katyusha rockets land in Baghdad's Green Zone which houses government buildings, foreign missions and the US embassy.
The target was US embassy
Sirens go off at embassy
One rocket fell between embassy and a Govt building (Mayadeen)
It was supposed to be a day of de-escalation, so when Reuters, Sky News Arabia, Fox News and other sources reported that "several" Katuysha rockets were fired by the IRGC-backed Kataib Hezbollah and hit the Green Zone in Baghdad and explosions have been heard...

With Iraq's airspace being frequently violated by American and even Israeli bombing raids against the country's paramilitary units backed by Iran of late, Iraq has for the last several months considered purchasing Russian air defense and missile systems, including both the S-300 and more advanced S-400, however, it has been met with fierce pressure from the US.

And now Russian media is reporting authorities in Baghdad have formally resumed talks to possibly acquire the S-300 systems. Head of the Iraqi Parliament’s Security and Defense Committee, Mohammad Reza, has indicated negotiations were renewed following the latest attacks initiated nearly two weeks ago on Shiite Popular Mobilization Forces.

"The issue was supposed to be solved several months ago after attacks on Shiite militia al-?ashd ash-Sha'bi [Popular Mobilization Forces, PMF] bases in Baghdad and other provinces created the need for such air defenses", the lawmaker was quoted in Russia's Sputnik as saying.

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

Montana’s Glacier National Park is being forced to remove all signs that read “glaciers will all be gone by 2020,” after the doomsday scenario didn’t happen.

“Patient Five” was in his late 50s when a trip to the doctors changed his life.

He had diabetes, and he had signed up for a study to see if taking a “statin” – a kind of cholesterol-lowering drug – might help. So far, so normal.

But soon after he began the treatment, his wife began to notice a sinister transformation. A previously reasonable man, he became explosively angry and – out of nowhere – developed a tendency for road rage. During one memorable episode, he warned his family to keep away, lest he put them in hospital.

Out of fear of what might happen, Patient Five stopped driving. Even as a passenger, his outbursts often forced his wife to abandon their journeys and turn back. Afterwards, she’d leave him alone to watch TV and calm down. She became increasingly fearful for her own safety.

I took a look at how the CEOs at the top five Pentagon contractors were affected by this surge, using the most recent SEC information on their stock holdings.

Northrop Grumman executives saw the biggest increase in the value of their stocks after the U.S. airstrike that killed Qasem Suleimani on January 2. Shares in the B-2 bomber maker rose 5.43 percent by the end of trading the following day.

Wesley Bush, who turned Northrop Grumman’s reins over to Kathy Warden last year, held 251,947 shares of company stock in various trusts as of his final SEC Form 4 filing in May 2019. (Companies must submit these reports when top executives and directors buy and sell company stock.) Assuming Bush is still sitting on that stockpile, he saw the value grow by $4.9 million to a total of $94.5 million last Friday.

New Northrop Grumman CEO Warden saw the 92,894 shares she’d accumulated as the firm’s COO expand in value by more than $2.7 million in just one day of post-assassination trading.

The rationale for Soleimani’s death is based on accusations as the world’s number one terrorist and being responsible for hundreds of American deaths in pursuit of Iranian aggression. Any claim of aggression by middle eastern countries glosses over the fact that they are defending their homelands in opposition to US military invasions. It is the US who are the aggressors by invading a country 6,000 miles away to steal their natural resources and to fight on behalf of creating Israeli hegemony throughout the Middle East.

Does any Middle East country have the right of self defense when a foreign army invades their sovereign soil and what does it say when the world’s leading purveyors of war, death and destruction point the finger to those fighting to defend their homeland? The truth is that every country where the US has initiated conflict is no military threat to the US – until they are invaded as they respond to protect their home turf.

Here is the reconstruction of the story:

[Speaker of the Council of Representatives of Iraq] Halbousi attended the parliamentary session while almost none of the Sunni members did. This was because the Americans had learned that Abdul-Mehdi was planning to reveal sensitive secrets in the session and sent Halbousi to prevent this. Halbousi cut Abdul-Mehdi off at the commencement of his speech and then asked for the live airing of the session to be stopped. After this, Halbousi together with other members, sat next to Abdul-Mehdi, speaking openly with him but without it being recorded. This is what was discussed in that session that was not broadcast:

Abdul-Mehdi spoke angrily about how the Americans had ruined the country and now refused to complete infrastructure and electricity grid projects unless they were promised 50% of oil revenues, which Abdul-Mehdi refused.

The complete (translated) words of Abdul-Mahdi’s speech to parliament:

Seymour Melman explained that “every major aspect of American life is…shaped by our Permanent War Economy” — peace and stability anathema notions to bipartisan US policymakers.

Militarism, endless wars of aggression, and corporate handouts come at the expense of unmet human needs.

Anti-nuclear activist/physician Helen Caldicott stressed that the US “addiction (to wars) in (the) nuclear age, (could) destroy all life on earth, creating the final epidemic of the human race.”

Trump is captive to dark forces controlling him, a geopolitical know-nothing businessman/TV personality transformed into a warrior president, escalating inherited wars, risking new ones.

Endless wars serve US imperial aims. World peace and stability defeat them — what was likely explained to Trump straightaway after taking office.

Possibly Trump will apply “crippling sanctions” as a cover for withdrawal from most of the Middle East. Iran wants the US out, and Trump’s original intention was to withdraw before Russiagate forced him to stay. Thus, both Trump and Iran have a common interest in US withdrawal. Although the Iranian missiles killed no one, they did demonstrate to Israel that the Iranian missiles have pin point accuracy. As Israel is a small land area, the accuracy of Iranian missiles possibly has changed Israel’s mind about provoking a war. If Israel also stands down, perhaps the crisis is over.

US Regional Presence Makes Middle East Peace and Stability Unattainable
On the other hand, the neoconservatives will be unhappy. They see chaos in Iran as a way of spreading instability into the Russian Federation. The military/security complex will be unhappy as US withdrawal would downsize their profits. US oil interests will be unhappy to lose the Iraqi oil.

Yemen's Houthi group did not launch an attack on Saudi Arabia's oil facilities in September, according to a confidential report by U.N. sanctions monitors seen by Reuters on Wednesday, bolstering a U.S. accusation that Iran was responsible.

The United States, European powers and Saudi Arabia blamed Iran for the Sept. 14 attack on the Saudi Aramco <2222.SE> oil plants in Abqaiq and Khurais, dismissing a quick claim of responsibility by the Iran-allied Houthis. Tehran denied any involvement.

The report by the independent U.N. experts to the Security Council Yemen sanctions committee said, "That despite their claims to the contrary, the Houthi forces did not launch the attacks on Abqaiq and Khurais on 14 September 2019."

The findings of the U.N. report come amid escalating tensions in the region after the United States killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad and Tehran retaliated by firing missiles at military facilities housing U.S. troops in Iraq.

What was unremarkable – and unfortunate – in the speech was the obvious assumption underlying it: That the United States enjoys, and SHOULD enjoy, absolute power in international relations.

Trump is hardly unique in publicly stating, or in operating on, that assumption. The claim of such absolute power has been the tacit US doctrine of foreign relations since at least as far back as the end of World War Two.

America emerged from that war as the world’s sole nuclear power and, unlike other combatant countries, with its wealth virtually unscathed and its industrial capacity increased rather than demolished. Its rulers saw themselves as able, and entitled, to dictate terms to almost everyone, on almost everything.

“Power tends to corrupt,” wrote Lord Acton, “and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

During more than a half-century of Washington watching we have seen stupidity rise from one height to yet another. But nothing – just plain nothing – compares to the the blithering stupidity of the Donald’s Iran “policy”, culminating in the mindless assassination of its top military leader and hero of the so-called Islamic Revolution, Major General Qassem Soleimani.

To be sure, we don’t give a flying f*ck about the dead man himself. Like most generals of whatever army (including the US army), he was a cold-blooded, professional killer.

And in this day and age of urban and irregular warfare and drone-based annihilation delivered by remote joystick, generals tend to kill more civilians than combatants. The dead civilian victims in their millions of U.S. generals reaching back to the 1960s surely attest to that.

After the Trump Administration’s 75-minute briefing to the US Senate on the assassination of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) was deeply critical, calling it the worst briefing he’d gotten in his nine years in the Senate.

Saying the administration’s briefers offered little on the legal or practical justification for the attack, Sen. Lee particularly took umbrage at them warning the Senators that they must not debate the War Powers authorization for a war with Iran.

Those giving the briefing objected to the very idea of the Senate discussing the matter publicly, saying it would “embolden Iran.” Sen. Lee noted that this is a power Constitutionally reserved explicitly for the legislature.

I’ve recently come to think that Starlink’s core functionality is closely tied to U.S. intelligence and war fighting capabilities.

In case there was any doubt about this…

With regard to tonight’s successful Starlink launch, SpaceX not only became the world’s largest satellite operator, but the launch was the first to happen under the auspices of the U.S. Space Force:

The launch is the first sponsored under the new U.S. Space Force, which was signed into existence on Dec. 20 by President Donald Trump as the sixth branch of the armed forces.

ANOTHER STUPID WAR
All I wanted to do this week was work on part 2 of my localism series, but circumstances quickly got the best of me. The assassination of Iran’s top general Qassem Soleimani was an event of such historical significance, I feel obligated to detail my thoughts on what it means and how things unfold from here, especially given how much of a role geopolitics and questions of empire have played in my writings.

First off, we need to understand the U.S. is now at war with Iran. It’s an undeclared, insane and unconstitutional war, but it is war nonetheless. There is no world in which one government intentionally assassinates the top general of another government and that not be warfare. You can argue the U.S. and Iran were already engaged in low-level proxy wars, and that’s a fair assessment, but you can’t say we aren’t currently in far more serious a state of war. We are.

SOURCE: MASS PRIVATE I

credit: Comparitech

Does anyone really believe America is still the land of the free?

Since 9/11, DHS, the FBI, the CIA, and countless other alphabet soup agencies have turned the United States into a public surveillance monstrosity.

In 19 years, one terrorist attack has done what no one else could have dreamed of: turn America’s freedoms into a distant memory.

Abusing citizen’s rights and privacy used to be the hallmark of dictatorships and police states like the CCCP or North Korea.

A recent study conducted by Comparitech, rated 50 countries from best to worst at protecting citizen’s biometric data.

The study found that America is one of the world’s worst abusers of citizen’s biometric privacy.

Former Vice President Joe Biden delivered a foreign policy speech from New York on Tuesday where he laid out why it was impossible to believe the Trump administration's claims that Qassem Soleimani was an imminent threat.

'This is a president with a history of lying about virtually everything,' Biden said, adding that Americans are owed a better explanation to why Trump decided to take out Iran's No. 2 official. 'And facts to back it up.'

Biden also made a mistake during the nearly 20-minute long speech, briefly confusing Iraq and Iran.

U.S. officials are braced for Iran to respond to the killing of its most powerful general, and are preparing for a possible 'tit-for-tat' attempt on the life of an American military commander.

President Donald Trump ordered the Jan. 2 strike against Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran's elite Quds Force, after the death of an American contractor in Iraq.

Now, as the massive demonstrations of Iran's public mourning period for Soleimani come to a close, officials believe the next steps by America' longtime foe will determine the ultimate course of the latest crisis.

While officials say American intelligence isn't clear on whether Iran's latest military moves are designed to bolster Tehran´s defenses or prepare for an offensive strike, the U.S. is continuing to reinforce its own positions in the region, including repositioning some forces.

One official said the U.S. anticipated a 'major' attack of some type within the next day or two.

President Trump hosted Saudi Arabia's Vice Minister of Defense Prince Khalid bin Salman in the Oval Office Monday - and didn't tell the press about it.

A photograph tweeted out by the prince - who is the brother of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman - shows him sitting alongside Jared Kushner, Robert O'Brien, Trump's national security adviser, and Victoria Coates, O'Brien's deputy.

Trump is seated at the Resolute Desk.

The meeting was not on the president's schedule, nor was the press pool informed that Prince Khalid was at the White House.

The White House Correspondents' Association slammed the White House for keeping it off-the-books.

'It is disturbing to see the government of Saudi Arabia have more transparency than the White House about a meeting with the president in the Oval Office,' said WHCA President Jonathan Karl in a statement.

Iraq's Caretaker Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi has said that Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani was set to deliver Tehran's reply to an earlier Saudi message regarding de-escalation talks mediated by Baghdad when he was assassinated.

Abdul-Mahdi made the remarks during an extraordinary parliamentary session in the capital which led to the adoption of a law demanding the withdrawal of US forces from the country on Sunday, the National Iraqi News Agency reported.

The premier said that he was due to meet Soleimani at 8:30 am local time on Friday before the US assassinated the general a few hours earlier.

The revelations come as Baghdad has been mediating talks between Tehran and Riyadh following a recent uptick of tensions the region.

By Ron Paul

US President Donald Trump and his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told us the US had to assassinate Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani last week because he was planning “imminent attacks” on US citizens. I don’t believe them.

Why not? Because Trump and the neocons – like Pompeo – have been lying about Iran for the past three years in an effort to whip up enough support for a US attack. From the phony justification to get out of the Iran nuclear deal, to blaming Yemen on Iran, to blaming Iran for an attack on Saudi oil facilities, the US Administration has fed us a steady stream of lies for three years because they are obsessed with Iran.

And before Trump’s obsession with attacking Iran, the past four US Administrations lied ceaselessly to bring about wars on Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Serbia, Somalia, and the list goes on.

The US says that Iranian General Qassem Soleimani was plotting “imminent and sinister” attacks against its diplomats and military personnel. But when Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was pressed for evidence of this, he gave none.
Soleimani, commander of the Iranian military’s Quds Force, was assassinated in a drone strike in Baghdad, Iraq, on Friday. Before the strike, President Donald Trump implicated Iran in a fatal rocket attack on an American base in Iraq in December, and in the storming of the American embassy in Baghdad by protesters last week. Afterwards, he said that Soleimani was killed to prevent “imminent and sinister” attacks against American officials and troops in the Middle East.

With Washington and Tehran throwing escalatory threats at each other following the strike, Pompeo spoke to reporters on Tuesday. Asked for evidence of the threat posed by Soleimani, the US secretary of state provided little in the way of information

Hong Kong medical experts believe that the viral pneumonia outbreak in the central Chinese city of Wuhan may be a result of a new kind of coronavirus, similar to that which causes severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), a viral respiratory illness that killed hundreds in 2003.

Wuhan’s health commission has confirmed that seven of the 59 patients are very ill, but none of them have died. All 59 patients have been quarantined. The commission has also said that it has traced around 163 people who had close contact with the patients and will continue tracing other contacts.

"We are not looking to start a war with Iran but we are prepared to finish one,” US Defense Secretary Mark Esper tells @camanpour. “...What we would like to see is the situation de-escalated and for Tehran to sit down with us and begin a discussion about a better way ahead.”

On Monday, Utah’s Hill Air Force Base put on a powerful show of force, practicing a maneuver known as an “elephant walk,” in which they launched more than 50 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters in just minutes. However, the US Air Force swears it has nothing to do with simmering tensions with Iran.

Two fighter wings at Hill Air Force Base practiced a rapid deployment method called an “elephant walk,” quickly launching 52 F-35 Lightning II stealth aircraft with just seconds between each takeoff.

UNITED NATIONS (Sputnik) - The United Nations informed Iran that the United States will not grant a visa to Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to participate in the UN Security Council meeting later this week, Alireza Miryousefi of the Iranian mission to the United Nations said on Tuesday.

"Last night, we were informed by the United Nations that based on the information it received from the United States, Foreign Minister Zarif’s visa to address the Security Council will not be issued, but we have not received any communication about it from the US mission," Miryousefi said.

Iran submitted an application for a US visa on December 10, a day after Zarif received an invitation to attend the UN Security Council meeting on Thursday, Miryousefi noted.

Earlier on Tuesday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the United States would comply with the UN-US host country agreement in Zarif’s case.

Global Times English edition reportedly quotes China shouldn't be in a hurry to sign the Phase One Agreement.

A Chinese delegation will likely travel to Washington next week to sign the agreement, experts said. However, specific dates for the delegation's departure and the signing ceremony are unclear.

As of press time, Chinese officials have not publicly announced details regarding the trip and the signature of the phase one agreement. US officials have been releasing differing information concerning the deal.

US President Donald Trump said in a tweet on December 31 that he will sign the phase one deal at the White House on January 15, and that high-level representatives from China will be present. Chinese officials have not publicly confirmed the US president's announcement.

Authored by Lorraine Silvetz via LibertyNation.com,

The inspector general’s findings seem to confirm what many have suspected all along: The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) request made during the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation doesn’t pass the sniff test.

In total, there were 17 errors submitted four times. The level of incompetence required to make these errors in four separate court submissions is nigh inconceivable, leaving two questions that must be answered: Was this flub – or felony? And if the latter, how far does the corruption extend?

Frank Watt, a 1983 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and a 22-year veteran of the FBI, believes that these errors would have been career-ending felonies in any other situation. He explained in an article for American Thinker:

Puerto Rico just can't catch a break.

After a series of earthquakes have rattled the island over the past two weeks, a series of even more powerful quakes and aftershocks have followed on Tuesday. The spate of quakes included a magnitude 6.4 quake which occurred at 8:24 UTC (4:24 am local time), according to the US Geological Survey. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center measured the earthquake at magnitude 6.6.

The damage from that quake, the largest in a string of earthquakes that have hit the US territory since late last year, has left one dead, eight wounded and prompted power plants in the US commonwealth to be taken offline.

For some, the destruction probably dredged up memories of Hurricane Maria, which left the island in shambles in 2017, and caused hundreds of deaths.