War with Iran remains a deeply unpopular prospect among the American people, but a new opinion poll conducted by Reuters and polling organization Ipsos found there's not much optimism concerning the likelihood of getting entangled in a future conflict. The poll released Tuesday found that half of all Americans see the US and Iran being at war "within the next few years".

As of early this week it appeared the White House as well as Pentagon were firmly signaling the US has climbed down the escalation ladder, with statements claiming the US military build-up near the Persian Gulf of the past two weeks had forced Iran to put its planned actions against US troops "on hold" in order to "recalculate".

In terms of market action, trade fears really seem to have settled in as the dominant theme on markets. But if markets are simply wondering when there will be a solution, then they may be waiting for the wrong thing. While the mood remains negative as the market waits for a US/China agreement/resolution, maybe the new long-term reality is an increasingly and deliberately bifurcated global economy? The US and its allies vs China. If it sounds familiar – it should in terms of 1945-89. The West won the last Cold War on the same basis – and the economic benefits accrued to the free capitalist states, a theme the Neo-coms are increasingly banding around. You just imagine the scene in the war room: “This is time Mr President..”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told her Democratic colleagues that President Trump "wants to be impeached" in order to be vindicated by the Senate, according to ABC News.

Pelosi made the suggestion during a Thursday morning meeting according to two Democratic aides, who said that Pelosi also called Trump's actions "villainous."

The aide said that Pelosi was implying that she will stick to her current plan to keep investigating the president and his administration without jumping to impeachment, but Pelosi didn’t explicitly say that in her remarks. -ABC News

Pelosi's comments come one day after she and President Trump traded barbs after a contentious White House meeting in which Trump effectively said that Democrats' efforts to continue investigating him were getting in the way of bipartisan negotiations over infrastructure spending.

According to LifeSiteNews, a Catholic publication, the Kenya Catholic Doctors Association is charging UNICEF and WHO with sterilizing millions of girls and women under cover of an anti-tetanus vaccination program sponsored by the Kenyan government.

The Kenyan government denies there is anything wrong with the vaccine, and says it is perfectly safe.
UNICEF: A History of Taking Advantage of Disasters to Mass Vaccinate

It should be noted that UNICEF and WHO distribute these vaccines for free, and that there are financial incentives for the Kenyan government to participate in these programs. When funds from the UN are not enough to purchase yearly allotments of vaccines, an organization started and funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, GAVI, provides extra funding for many of these vaccination programs in poor countries. (See: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Vaccine Empire on Trial in India.)

The House Transportation Subcommittee on Aviation held an oversight hearing last week on the two recent Boeing 7373 MAX airplane crashes.

Testifying were the heads of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

Asking questions and making statements were 39 members of the House – 22 Democrats and 17 Republicans – who during the 2018 election cycle took in a total of $134,749 – or an average of $3,455 each from Boeing in campaign contributions.

Inoculating their interests from responsibility, blame, shame and liability were the Boeing lobbyists and lawyers swarming the Capitol.

The chair of the subcommittee, Rick Larsen (D-Washington) ($7,048 from Boeing in 2018, $101,134 over his career), artfully steered the hearing away from Boeing’s corporate responsibility for the deaths of the passengers on the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines planes that crashed within five months killing all 346 passengers on board.

The House Transportation Subcommittee on Aviation held an oversight hearing last week on the two recent Boeing 7373 MAX airplane crashes.

Testifying were the heads of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

Asking questions and making statements were 39 members of the House – 22 Democrats and 17 Republicans – who during the 2018 election cycle took in a total of $134,749 – or an average of $3,455 each from Boeing in campaign contributions.

Inoculating their interests from responsibility, blame, shame and liability were the Boeing lobbyists and lawyers swarming the Capitol.

The chair of the subcommittee, Rick Larsen (D-Washington) ($7,048 from Boeing in 2018, $101,134 over his career), artfully steered the hearing away from Boeing’s corporate responsibility for the deaths of the passengers on the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines planes that crashed within five months killing all 346 passengers on board.

The CAATSA (Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act) sanctions concept of economically punishing countries that continue to purchase Russian and Chinese arms is about to become much more effective after the forthcoming global application of the “European Recapitalisation Incentive Programme”, which will see the US sanctioning states that don’t progressively transition away from their current multipolar suppliers to American ones instead.

Adding a carrot of sorts to the traditional sanctions stick, the US will help countries fund their new American purchases, which will supposedly incentivize them into complying with Washington’s demands. This new policy represents a much more muscular approach to “military diplomacy” than before and shows that the US properly understands the challenge that Russia and China’s own application of the same poses to its global interests.

Israeli permit system prevents some parents from accompanying their sick children to hospitals outside of Gaza Strip.

Gaza City - Last month, five-year-old Aisha came home from nursery vomiting and saying she had a headache.

Her condition deteriorated, so her family took her to hospital, where, after undergoing medical checks, they had every parent's worst fear confirmed.

Aisha was diagnosed with brain cancer.

"The news hit me like a thunderbolt," Mona Lulu, Aisha's mother, told Al Jazeera from her home in the al-Bureij refugee camp.

Aisha underwent urgent surgery in al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City but she needed a medical transfer to go to the Augusta Victoria Hospital in occupied East Jerusalem for further treatment.

But when it came time to decide which of her parents would go with her, the family found the decision was out of their hands.

"Her mother and I applied and we both were rejected," Aisha's father Wesam said.

Recent efforts to sandbag Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard are crude repeats of behaviors that helped elect Trump in 2016.

Last week, the Daily Beast ran this headline: “Tulsi Gabbard’s Campaign Is Being Boosted by Putin Apologists”

That was followed by the sub headline: “The Hawaii congresswoman is quickly becoming the top candidate for Democrats who think the Russian leader is misunderstood.”

The Gabbard campaign has received 75,000 individual donations. This crazy Beast article is based on (maybe) three of them.

The three names are professor Stephen Cohen, activist Sharon Tennison and someone using the name “Goofy Grapes,” who may or may not have once worked for comedian Lee Camp, currently employed by Russia Today.

Last week, the Daily Beast ran this headline: “Tulsi Gabbard’s Campaign Is Being Boosted by Putin Apologists”

Iran's president has told a group of clerics that he is seeking expanded, wartime executive powers to better deal with an "economic war" triggered by the Trump administration's pullout from the nuclear deal and escalating US sanctions.

The state IRNA news agency reported late Monday that President Hassan Rouhani cited the 1980s war with Iraq, when a wartime supreme council was able to bypass other branches to make decisions regarding the economy and the war.

The report didn't say what the new powers would entail but quoted Rouhani as saying that "today, we need such powers".

China told the world’s main disarmament forum on Wednesday that U.S. foreign policy was destabilising, baffling and redolent of Don Quixote, the Spanish fictional hero whose misplaced determination leads him on a series of doomed endeavours.

“The Cold War mentality has come back to drive the security strategy and policy of a major power,” China’s disarmament ambassador Li Song told the Conference on Disarmament, a long-stalemated arena for arms talks at the United Nations in Geneva.

“In particular the U.S. keeps saying other countries make it feel unsafe – this is truly baffling,” he said.

A gentle breeze blew through the Congressional Cemetery in Southeast Washington, a more than two-century-old site whose weathered headstones stand in tribute to some of the District’s most notable residents, from John Philip Sousa to Marion Barry. It was a balmy Saturday morning and the atmosphere was solemn — except for the bleating of no fewer than 15 baby goats.

They were there, of course, for yoga.

It was Washington’s first foray into goat yoga, an activity that pairs meditative poses with what amounts to an all-ages petting zoo. The concept originated in 2016 in Oregon, at a birthday party. It was never meant to be a thing. But now it’s a thing.

Journalists David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt, who exposed suspect dealings at taxpayer-funded abortion mill Planned Parenthood via undercover videos, were denied a request to halt criminal prosecution, a press release from The Thomas More Society said on Friday.

Pentagon says new limits actually "increase transparency".

Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan has issued a new memo imposing major new restrictions on the methods through which the Pentagon and defense officials are allowed to share information with Congressional offices or committees.

The policy imposes serious limits, telling officials to only give Congress official summaries instead of actual plans, and sets officials within the Pentagon who decide whether a Congressional request can be proven to be legitimate.

This is clearly intended to further limit information sharing at a time when many in Congress are complaining they’re already not being kept sufficiently informed. Reps. Adam Smith (D-WA) and Mac Thornberry (R-TX) warned that the new policy is overstepping the Pentagon’s authority, by “presuming to determine what warrants legislative oversight.”

Congress never authorized a US war in Iran. Under the US Constitution, Congress has sole authority to do that, so that’s seemingly an important deal. With the US engaged in other unauthorized wars, however, it has been little more than a side note, and the Trump Administration has considered Congressional involvement in the process to be optional, at best.

Sens. Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Tom Udall (D-NM) led an effort on Wednesday to try to reassert Congressional authority, by trying to preemptively de-fund any US war against Iran unless Congress authorized it ahead of time.

This proposal was brought forward at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and immediately failed, 13-9. Murphy said this vote would remind the administration that they don’t have authorization for the war.

Citing ongoing US-Iran tensions and the secret intelligence on Iranian “threats” officials keep mentioning, CENTCOM is requesting that the Pentagon approve substantial numbers of additional US ground troops to be deployed somewhere in the Middle East.

Though initial reports claimed that CENTCOM was only requesting “about 5,000” ground troops, subsequent reports said that the Pentagon are preparing a plan to present to President Trump seeking 10,000 troops.

It’s not clear where these troops could be stationed, though officials emphasized they would be purely defensive. It is unlikely Iraq would welcome a large influx of US troops, however, especially when it is presented as being directed against neighboring Iran.

You’ve read enough news stories, seen enough headlines, and lived in the American police state long enough to be anxious about any encounter with a cop that takes place on the side of the road.

For better or worse, from the moment you’re pulled over, you’re at the mercy of law enforcement officers who have almost absolute discretion to decide who is a threat, what constitutes resistance, and how harshly they can deal with the citizens they were appointed to “serve and protect.”

This is what I call “blank check policing,” in which the police get to call all of the shots.

So if you’re nervous about traffic stops, you have every reason to be.

Trying to predict the outcome of any encounter with the police is a bit like playing Russian roulette: most of the time you will emerge relatively unscathed, although decidedly poorer and less secure about your rights, but there’s always the chance that an encounter will turn deadly.

SOURCE: DEEP STATE BLOG

The growth of intelligence agencies in the 21st century has been powered by the development of new technologies, created by start-ups, which are powered by intelligence agencies. This unvirtuous circle of money and espionage is a new and daunting challenge for civil liberties and human rights groups.

The U.S intelligence community has a venture capital organization, Inqtel, founded by the CIA in 1999. Israel’s Mossad has Libertad Ventures, founded in June 2017.

As The Times of Israel reports:

SOURCE: DEEPSTATEBLOG.ORG

The United States is seeking to shut down Venezuela’s emergency food aid program, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The stated goal of U.S. policy is combating the corruption of the Venezuelan government. The unstated reality is that the Trump administration is doing exactly what it accuses the Maduro government of doing: weaponizing access to food.

The emergency food program—known by its Spanish initials, CLAP—is the main food source for an estimated 15% of Venezuelans and a critical supplement for a far larger percentage of the population. Officials in the Maduro government, including top military brass, “are using the CLAP program to steal from it, launder money, and for political control,” the senior Treasury official said. “Corrupt Maduro continue to seek illicit revenue streams, even as the Venezuelan people and economy sink deeper into despair,” said another senior Treasury official, Sigal Mandelker, the undersecretary for sanctions.

SOURCE: THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE

The more steps that we take toward a war with Iran, the more likely it becomes that somebody will do something really stupid that will actually trigger one. By cutting off Iran’s oil exports, we are threatening to completely wreck their economy, and at this point they feel backed into a corner. And the Iranians have already watched the U.S. invade two countries that they share a border with (Afghanistan and Iraq), and so it is understandable that they are a bit paranoid that it could happen to them too. President Trump keeps saying that he doesn’t want a war with Iran, but the Iranians do not believe a single word any U.S. politician says. Instead, they watch what we actually do very, very closely, and the fact that the Pentagon wants to deploy thousands of new troops to the Middle East is definitely going to freak them out. The following comes from Fox News…

At what point does government overstep its bounds and begin meddling too closely in the freedom of the American people?

That question has been at the heart of the left-right divide since the founding of our nation. And while that debate won’t be settled anytime soon, it’s safe to say that the line might be crossed when flying a large American flag is prohibited.

In Statesville, North Carolina, that’s exactly what the local government is trying to do. The city has filed a lawsuit intent on taking down a large U.S. flag from high atop a private business … and they’re demanding over $10,000 in fines at the same time.

The Teter v. Project Veritas Action lawsuit was thrown out in court! In fact, the claims from the plaintiffs were so thin that the judge wouldn’t even send it to the jury.

This is great news! So impressive that it was even featured in The New York Times. Victory is sweet.

Thank you to everyone who has supported Veritas over the past few days. Federal court is a grueling experience that I wish on no one. Your support and well-wishes have inspired my team to continue to fight for the rights that you and I hold so dear.

Friend, I wish you could have been there to witness this very important moment in the history of journalism. It was simply incredible.

When the judge explained his decision, he spoke eloquently, and he vindicated our methods and our existence.

Can we have a quick reality check and acknowledge that what is happening to America is a million times worse than what’s happening in Europe and is of much greater consequence?

SOURCE: TECH DIRT
When the San Francisco Police Department decided to externalize its internal investigation of a leaked document, things got unlawful and unconstitutional in a hurry. Deciding the best way to sniff out the leaker of a police report detailing the death of prominent public defender Jeff Adachi was through the front door of a local journalist, the SFPD now has a lot of explaining to do.
The SFPD raided journalist Bryan Carmody's home supposedly to find information that would lead them to one of its own officers. Carmody is a stringer and had shopped around a copy of the police report someone inside the SFPD leaked to him. None of this is criminal. Nothing about Carmody's information-gathering fell outside of the law. If anyone broke the law, it was the officer or PD employee who gave him the report.

When Goldman Sachs was negotiating its deal with New York City in 2005 to build its new headquarters building at 200 West Street, one of its requirements was that it have a seat along with the New York City Police Department in a taxpayer-funded spy center to keep the Main Street riffraff under surveillance. Goldman wanted the new surveillance center to be in place no later than December 31, 2009. Curious, isn’t it, that Goldman was prescient enough to think that the pitchforks might be coming out after an epic crash on Wall Street. The spy center was, indeed, built and both Goldman and JPMorgan Chase were given seats, along with the New York Fed, Citigroup and others. (See Wall Street Firms Spy On Protesters in Tax-Funded Center and 60 Minutes Takes a Pass on Wall Street’s Secret Spy Center.)

Every single day, most Americans eagerly gobble down foods that contain ingredients that have been genetically-modified without ever considering the consequences. Most of us simply assume that the federal government would never allow us to eat GMOs if they were not safe. Unfortunately, it appears that the federal government has completely failed us. The material that I am about to share with you is deeply disturbing, and after reading this article there is a very good chance that you will never want to eat genetically-modified food ever again. But at this point it is almost impossible to completely avoid GMOs, because they are in almost everything. Unless they are specifically designated “organic”, most corn, soy, canola and sugar beets grown in America today have been genetically modified, and almost all packaged foods contain ingredients derived from at least one of those sources.

SOURCE: ZERO HEDGE

As Congressional Democrats insist on conducting post-Mueller probes into President Trump and those around him, much of the recent infighting and backpedaling we’ve seen from former Obama intel chiefs is starting to make sense.

Appearing with Fox News‘s Sean Hannity Tuesday night, The Hill‘s John Solomon revealed that according to his sources (and Hannity’s as well), President Trump will begin declassifying ‘Russiagate’ documents in the next 6-7 days.

Among those will be the so-called “Bucket Five” – documents which were originally presented to the Gang of Eight in 2016, which included everything the FBI and DOJ used against Trump campaign aide Carter Page – including the FISA surveillance application and its underlying exculpatory intelligence documents which the FISA court may have never seen.

According to John Solomon, #declas is coming in 7-8 days; looks likely after POTUS Japan visit and just before a visit to UK, or between 5/29 and 6/2.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement is looking for a cloud-based subscription service that can pinpoint the exact locations of cellphones, laptops and other connected devices—even going back in time.

ICE is searching for geolocation services technology that can give an accurate location—either pinpoint or a designated polygonal area—for connected devices within a specific time window. The service should be able to identify locations going back at least two years or more.

According to a request for information posted Monday to FedBizOpps, ICE agents may use the service to locate electronic devices from geolocation data obtained through providers and applications, though it is unclear if the service could be used to pull geolocation data from confiscated devices. The service should be to pull data from numerous sources, including “Wi-Fi, Apps, Software Development Kit (SDK), Bidstream, Beacons, etc.,” and then reduce that information to a single data point.