Watching NBC’s TODAY program on Tuesday, January 23, 2019, there was anchor Savannah Guthrie demanding to know if Covington, Kentucky, Catholic High School student, Nick Sandman, wished to “apologize” for his “actions” in front of the Lincoln Memorial when confronted by Indian activist, Nathan Phillips, on January 19. The scarcely-concealed bias that characterized Guthrie’s question and the continuing media narrative—proven to be built on a lie but still perpetrated by the Progressivist Left, was compounded by her next question: was Sandman’s now famous smile in reality a disrespectful “smirk,” a kind of “racist dog-whistle,” a symbol of “white privilege”?

Something had snapped: this small, what probably should have been insignificant event, brought everything, all that is occurring in our sick society, into stark perspective as little else had.

Is America finished? Is the fragile “experiment in republicanism” begun in Philadelphia in 1787 finally over, or at the very least experiencing its noisy death throes?

Certainly, since the defeat of the American constitutional system in 1865 there has been a pernicious and seriously destructive trajectory in our history which, now reaching unimagined and unparalleled frenzy, seems to indicate so.

The South Was Right!
James Ronald Kennedy, …
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Are we not living in a geographical entity officially called the United States of America where verifiably there are TWO Americas, TWO conceptions of what is real and what is not real, TWO ideas of what is moral and what is not, TWO views about Truth and Error, TWO visions about using whatever means is available to reach a desired and posited end (which…

Remember the 2015 Animas River spill? And all the Cold War nuclear testing?

Prison Planet.com
Feb. 7, 2019

Proponents of a “Green New Deal” that advocates “massive government intervention” to stop “man-made climate change” are ignoring one significant fact: the government is by far the largest polluter in the world.

Which makes sense because who’s holding the government accountable? Does the government fear government fines for violations? In reality, the government typically avoids paying out pollution claims by claiming “sovereign immunity.”

Yet the proposed “Green New Deal” relies on “government intervention” to work. According to Grabien:

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said she has no qualms about acknowledging a so-called “Green New Deal” will mean unprecedented governmental intrusion into the private sector. Appearing on NPR, she was asked if she’s prepared to tell Americans outright that her plans involve “massive government intervention.”

“As you know, congresswoman, one reason that people are politically conservative are skeptical of efforts to combat climate change is that it sounds to them like it requires massive government intervention, which they just don’t like,” Steve Inskeep asked. “Are you prepared to put on that table that, ‘Yes actually they’re right, what this requires is massive government intervention’?”

“It does, it does, yeah, I have no problem saying that,” Ocasio-Cortez quickly replied. “Why? Because we have tried their approach for 40 years. For 40 years we have tried to let the private sector take care of this. They said, ‘We got this, we can do this, the forces of the market are going to force us to innovate.’”

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

But remember the 2015 Animas River spill, in which an EPA-led contractor spilled three million gallons of toxic waste into a Colorado river from a gold mine that…

On January 28, home invaders murdered 58-year-old Rhogena Nicholas and 59-year-old Dennis Tuttle of Houston, Texas. Nicholas and Tuttle wounded five of the (numerous) armed burglars before being slain.

That’s not how the news accounts put it, of course.  Typical headline (from the Houston Chronicle): “4 HPD officers shot in southeast Houston narcotics operation, a fifth injured.”

A number of claims relating to the fateful “no-knock raid” remain in dispute, not least whether or not Nicholas and Tuttle were, as the search warrant leading to the raid alleged, selling heroin from their home (their neighbors characterized them as quiet people who didn’t have lots of company, and scoffed at the notion that they might be drug dealers).

Setting aside those disputes, let’s give the benefit of doubt to Houston police chief Art Acevedo on two things.

Acevedo says that his officers “announced themselves as Houston police officers while simultaneously breaching the front door.”

And Acevedo admits that immediately upon breaching the front door, one of the officers shot and killed the residents’ dog.

Ask yourself this: If armed men break down your front door and shoot your dog, are you going to notice (if you can even hear) the invaders saying “police, police?” Are you going to just automatically believe the claim even if you do hear and notice it? Or are you going to act to defend yourself?

It was only after the officers’ violent entry and after one officer…

Leftist utopia turning sour

Paul Joseph Watson
PrisonPlanet.com
February 7, 2019

San Francisco’s drug addicts now outnumber high school students as it was revealed that the city handed out a record 5.8 million free syringes last year – about 500,000 more than in 2017.

Despite spending an extra $1.8 million dollars last year in an effort to retrieve used needles, the government handed out about 2 million more syringes than it got back.

San Francisco’s junkie population – many of whom live on the streets and use sidewalks as outdoor toilets – now stands at 24,500, an increase of 2,000 drug users since 2012 and 8,500 more people than the city’s 16,000 high school students.

Despite new Mayor London Breed’s promise to clean up the city, 9,659 calls complaining about needles littering the streets were received in 2018, an increase of a third on 2017.

The number of complaints about feces on the streets has also tripled since 2011.

The disconnect between San Francisco’s tech elite and the homeless junkies who camp on its streets was emphasized in a tweet by Erik Finn showing starving, jobless homeless people huddled outside a “robotic coffeebar”.

San Francisco in one photo.

Fully Robotic Coffeeshop next to the Starving Jobless Homeless pic.twitter.com/uwK936Twb5

— ERIK FIN (@erikfinman) January 14, 2019

Investor Bill Blain also expressed horror at what he witnessed during a recent trip to San Francisco, writing, “The squalor we saw in The City was frightful.”

“San Francisco has always been one of my favourite US cities, but the degree of homelessness, mental illness and drug abuse we saw on this trip was truly shocking,” writes Blaine, adding that his liberal friends shrugged it off as always having been that way, ignorant of the fact that it is clearly getting worse.

“I found it quite shocking the number of folk sleeping rough on the sidewalks, the smell of…

It had the semblance of a play lacking key actors.  They were deemed the difficult ones, and a decision was made to go through with the performance.  The Taliban were willing to talk with their adversaries, but they were keen on doing so with opposition politicians rather than the stick-in-the-mud types in government led by the current President Ashraf Ghani.  The assessment from The New York Times over the whole affair held at the President Hotel in Moscow was that the meeting could only be, at best, “a brainstorming session”.

The Taliban officials going to Moscow were a different crew, at least in terms of perceptions.  These were not the intemperate salad day youths of 1996, yanking cassettes from car stereos in Kandahar and ranting against all matters musical and female.  These were men of diplomacy, their guns holstered.  Gone were visions of seizing the whole of Afghanistan and establishing a broader theocratic state.  Doing so, by their admission, would not bring the state to peaceful order.   Nor, and here there will be questions, did they seem unwilling to reconsider their position on broader notion of human rights.

The claims from the Taliban demonstrate their continued boldness and durability.  Enemies have come and gone, and they remain steadfast in imposing order.  Their brutality remains common and assertive, but they have become wiser, more discerning in their heavy-handedness. “Peace is more difficult than war,” suggested Sher…

NHS 10-year plan: Recipe for further attacks on services and privatisation in UK

By
Ajanta Silva

7 February 2019

Theresa May’s Conservative government recently set out a 10-year plan for the National Health Service (NHS).

As if everyone was oblivious to the last nine years of austerity, including huge cuts to the NHS budget and privatization of health services, May claimed the Tories would be the saviours of the NHS over the next decade with the launch of the Long Term Plan (LTP).

The 10-year Plan promises to save “almost half a million more lives with practical action on major killer conditions”; “investment in world class, cutting edge treatments including genomic tests for every child with cancer”; “early detection and a renewed focus on prevention in stopping an estimated 85,000 premature deaths each year”; “help prevent 150,000 heart attacks, strokes and dementia cases”; “investment in primary, community and mental health care”; to “provide digital GP consultations for all those who want them” over the next decade.

May wrote in the Mail on Sunday: “The launch of the NHS Long Term Plan marks an historic step to secure its future and offers a vision for the service for the next ten years, with a focus on ensuring that every pound is spent in a way that will most benefit patients. This will help relieve pressure on the NHS while providing the basis to transform care with world-class treatments.”

These warm words cannot conceal the fact that the LTP is nothing but a preface to the further erosion of health services and lays the ground work for wholesale privatization.

Since 2010, the NHS has suffered the lowest ever funding increase in its entire history, propelling NHS trusts into dealing with huge deficits. Half of NHS trusts ended last…

“They would even manage to divide hell”

Steve Watson
Prison Planet.com
February 7, 2019

The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator has found himself in hot water after suggesting that The Devil himself wouldn’t allow supporters of the UK’s departure from the EU to reside in Hell.

EU parliamentarian Guy Verhofstadt, who is a key figure in negotiating the Brexit deal with Prime Minister Theresa May’s government claimed that Brexiteers would “even manage to divide hell.”

Well, I doubt Lucifer would welcome them, as after what they did to Britain, they would even manage to divide hell 🙂 https://t.co/AS367egjZP

— Guy Verhofstadt (@guyverhofstadt) February 6, 2019

Verhofstadt was responding to a tweet by Donald Tusk, president of the EU Council, who pondered on what “that special place in hell looks like” for pro-Brexit voters.

DID YOU SEE THAT? | @eucopresident practically condemns 52% of the UK electorate to Hell. 🔥

Very mature. 💁‍♀️

To be honest, we’d happily go, but even in Hell, we suspect that we would be strangled with bureaucratic EU temperature regulations.🤦🏻‍♂️🔥 pic.twitter.com/bqJ3nIvWHu

— Students For Brexit (@Brexit4Students) February 6, 2019

Yes, these are the people representing the EU, saying that those who disagree with them are not even good enough for hell.

European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker, who has previously slammed Brexit, also said yesterday that his job is now “hell” because of the UK vote to leave.

“I’m less Catholic than my good friend Donald. He strongly believes in heaven and by opposite in hell. I believe in heaven and I have never seen hell, apart [from] during the time I was doing my job here. It’s a hell.” Juncker said, responding to Tusk’s comments.

The response was swift and brutal.

The utter stupidity and viciousness of these idiotic remarks is a timely reminder of why people voted…

I’m going to put you at the “steering wheel” of the U.S economy.  You will have opportunity to fix the financial mess the U.S. economy is in.

Imagine for a moment you are the US Secretary of the Treasury or some all- powerful overseer of US federal government taxation and spending.

Which problem should you fix first: (a) national debt; (b) unemployment; (c) taxation; (d) expansion of government benefits to equalize income; (e) provide equal access to medical care for everybody?

For reference, you have ~$3.2 trillion in collected taxes to play with and you must make a $523 billion interest payment on ~$16 trillion in loans the U.S. has made (the national debt) and also by law cut $1 trillion of checks for Social Security and another ~$1 trillion for Medicare/Medicaid and then come up with $673 billion for the military, leaving you just ~$4 billion to fund all the other branches of government plus provide food stamps for 37 million people. 

The Ethics of Money Pr…
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The U.S. budget is $4.193 trillion and the federal government says it borrows $864 billion to come up with the difference between what it collects in taxes ($3.2 trillion) and its budgetary spending list ($4.193 trillion) – but the U.S. actually spends $6.048 trillion annually (see bottom left corner of the U.S. Debt Clock presented below) and actually just “prints” another ~$2 trillion of electronic money into existence to make up the difference and support the lifestyle Americans have grown accustomed to.

Today the public hears various calls for “Medicare for all,” or “guaranteed income” or “tax the rich.” Can a modern society just create endless money into…

If you can’t meme, just get them censored

Paul Joseph Watson
PrisonPlanet.com
February 7, 2019

BuzzFeed is now lobbying Twitter to censor memes that satirize the Democratic Party.

Yes, really.

Democrats are currently embroiled in a blackface scandal after both Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam and Attorney General Mark Herring admitted to wearing make-up to make them look African-American.

One creative conservative chose to make fun out of this by posting a meme during Trump’s State of the Union speech which depicted white-wearing Dem Congresswomen in distinctive KKK hoods.

After the meme went viral, BuzzFeed fired off an article and a tweet which asserted, “Twitter is allowing this altered photo comparing women members of Congress who wore white to the State of the Union to the KKK to circulate on its platform despite its own policy that doesn’t allow “symbols historically associated with hate groups.”

Twitter is allowing this altered photo comparing women members of Congress who wore white to the State of the Union to the KKK to circulate on its platform despite its own policy that doesn’t allow “symbols historically associated with hate groups.”https://t.co/60aFpx4OJl pic.twitter.com/Z4RVBsFyKa

— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) February 6, 2019

Other Twitter users quickly corrected BuzzFeed, pointing out that such images are only banned if they are used to glorify racism.

“Wrong. The code of conduct only disallows these images if they are meant to promote racial bigotry, which in this case they are not,” commented @neotaster. “That is, you aren’t allowed to glorify the KKK, but using KKK imagery in certain contexts is allowed. Otherwise you couldn’t tweet pics of Hitler.”

Wrong. The code of conduct only disallows these images if they are meant to promote racial bigotry, which in this case they are not. That is, you aren’t allowed to glorify the KKK, but…

Tongue Point, Astoria, Oregon. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair

We, in the United States,are accustomed to discriminatory segregation, accustomed to those excluded, and to those left behind. Brian Stevenson notes, in a New York Times interview, 01.20.19, “Slavery didn’t end in 1865; it just evolved.” It evolved through the sabotaging of Reconstruction, through lynching, through institutionalized segregation, and through mass incarceration (as is made explicit in the Equal Justice Initiative’s permanent museum exhibit, ‘From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration’in Montgomery, Alabama). It has also evolved through a deliberate program of mass immiseration conducted by the government’s withholding of adequate education, social services and living-wage work – with the notable exception of impressment into military service on behalf of the nation’s imperial juggernaut. And it has evolved, in this broadened notion of slavery, which might reasonably include all servitude to the economic benefit of rich and powerful, mostly white-male elites, to encompass peoples of color and the white underclass, the white working class and the white middle class. A similar process of division, of segregation, between the exploiters and the exploited, has, since the advent of colonization, separated the Global North from the Global South.

In Down to Earth: Politics in the New Climatic Regime, 2018, Bruno Latour, the French philosopher and sociologist, writes, “To the migrants from…

The statement above is of course totally accurate for a country running budget and trade deficits for over half a century with a total debt, including unfunded liabilities, in the hundreds of trillions of dollars.

It could have been said today, but it actually dates back to August 1971 when the People’s Daily in China declared the beginning of the end for the monetary system of the capitalist world.

This prescient statement certainly has Cassandra characteristics. Cassandra was the princess of Troy who was given the gift to make prophecies that were true but no one believed. The Chinese government saw already 48 years ago that Nixon’s decision to end the gold backing of the dollar would be the end of the dollar and the Western monetary system. No one believed their prophecy at the time. But they are being proven right.

THE CHINESE PREDICTED THE DOLLAR FALL

Starting my working life in a Swiss Bank in Geneva two years before Nixon’s fatal decision, I have experience of that fall of the dollar that the Chinese predicted. In 1970, there were 4.30 Swiss francs to the dollar. Today you get just under one Franc for one US$. That is a catastrophic collapse of 77% of the world’s reserve currency in almost 50 years. If we look at the graph of the dollar against the Swiss franc below, we can see that this currency pair has been in a long consolidation at the bottom since 1987.

The next leg down in the dollar is not far away and the target over the next few years could be anywhere between 0.40 and 0.00 Swiss francs. This means a further fall of 60% to 100% could take place, making the dollar worthless. This confirms Voltaire’s statement that “all currencies eventually reach their intrinsic value of ZERO”. We know that this move…

NY Post
February 7, 2019

Virginia’s leadership crisis took an absurd turn Wednesday when the man who is second in line to become governor admitted he has worn blackface — even as Gov. Ralph Northam’s job is already on the line for the same thing and the man who is first in line to replace him is embroiled in a sex scandal.

The disastrous domino effect has now thrust the Republican state House speaker into the spotlight as the third in line for the top job — a man who only scored his post in a coin-toss election.

Democratic Attorney General Mark Herring on Wednesday issued a stunning statement admitting he wore brown makeup and a wig in 1980 to dress up as a black rapper when he was a University of Virginia student.

“In 1980, when I was a 19-year-old undergraduate in college, some friends suggested we attend a party dressed like rappers we listened to at the time, like Kurtis Blow, and perform a song. It sounds ridiculous even now writing it,” Herring said.

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This article was posted: Thursday, February 7, 2019 at 6:55 am

Donald Trump imagines Juan Guaidó is the rightful president of Venezuela. Mr. Guaidó, a man of impeccable illegitimacy, was exposed by Cohen and Blumenthal as “a product of a decade-long project overseen by Washington’s elite regime change trainers.” Argentinian sociologist Marco Teruggi described Guaidó in the same article as “a character that has been created for this circumstance” of regime change. Here, his constitutional credentials to be interim president of Venezuela are deconstructed.

Educated at George Washington University in DC, Guaidó was virtually unknown in his native Venezuela before being thrust on to the world stage in a rapidly unfolding series of events. In a poll conducted a little more than a week before Guaidó appointed himself president of the country, 81% of Venezuelans had never even heard of the 35-year-old.

To make a short story shorter, US Vice President Pence phoned Guaidó on the evening of January 22nd and presumably asked him how’d he like to be made president of Venezuela. The next day, Guaidó announced that he considered himself president of Venezuela, followed within minutes by US President Trump confirming the self-appointment.

A few weeks before on January 5, Guaidó had been installed as president of Venezuela’s National Assembly, their unicameral legislature. He had been elected to the assembly from a coastal district with 26% of the vote. It was his party’s turn…

The Jewish community has a special responsibility to fight Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian lands, says Marjorie Cohn.

By Marjorie Cohn
Truthout

As a progressive Jew, I find that many of my family members and friends are still what we call “PEP,” progressive except Palestine. Amid ever-worsening injustices created by the Israeli system of apartheid and Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian lands, it is past time for this to change.

I am hopeful that the firestorm sparked by Michelle Alexander’s recent New York Times column, “Time to Break the Silence on Palestine,” will finally generate the heat necessary to force more people and groups on the left to overcome the fundamental hypocrisy of the “progressive except Palestine” approach.

I was deeply inspired by Alexander’s column and her decision to speak so honestly about the difficulty of overcoming the fear of backlash over taking a public stand against the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

Michelle Alexander: Confronting the fear of backlash.  (Wikimedia)

Striking a comparison between the risk taken by prominent critics of Israel and the risk Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. took by publicly criticizing the Vietnam War, Alexander observes, “Those who speak publicly in support of the liberation of the Palestinian people still risk condemnation and backlash.”

Invoking Dr. King’s exhortation that “a time comes when silence is betrayal,” Alexander reflects on “the excuses and rationalizations that have kept me largely silent on one of the great moral challenges of our time: the crisis in Israel-Palestine.”

Alexander’s words resonated with me, a Jew who uncritically supported Israel for many years until I saw the parallels between U.S. policy in Vietnam and Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories. My activism and critical writings have followed a trajectory from Vietnam to South Africa to Israel to Iraq to Afghanistan and other countries where the United States continues its imperial military actions.

Although many of my articles are controversial as they criticize the actions of the U.S. government — under both Democratic and Republican…

In his State of the Union address on Tuesday night, President Trump called for bipartisan unity while he attacked Democrats and the Robert Mueller investigation, denounced efforts to expand abortion rights in Virginia and New York, attacked immigrants and reiterated his demand for a border wall — with no mention of the longest government shutdown in US history, which delayed his address by a week. Women in Congress wore all white to the speech in a nod to the movement for women’s suffrage. We’re joined by Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, the first Somali American elected to the House of Representatives and one of the first Muslim women in Congress. Her guest at last night’s presidential address was a Liberian woman who fled to Minnesota in 2000 due to civil war and is now facing the threat of deportation from the United States.

Transcript

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: In his State of the Union address on Tuesday night, President Trump called for bipartisan unity while he attacked Democrats and the Robert Mueller investigation.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: An economic miracle is taking place in the United States, and the only thing that can stop it are foolish wars, politics or ridiculous partisan investigations. If there is going to be peace and legislation, there cannot be war and investigation. It just doesn’t work that way.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: The president spent much of his speech focused on the southern border. He repeated his vow to build a border wall.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: As we speak, large organized caravans are on the march to the United States. We have just heard that Mexican cities, in order to remove the illegal immigrants from their communities, are getting trucks and buses to bring them up to our country in areas where there is little border protection. I have ordered another 3,750 troops to our southern border to prepare for this tremendous onslaught. This is a moral issue. The lawless state of our southern border is a threat to the safety, security and financial…

Free Beacon
February 6, 2019

The American birth rate tied its historical low in the first nine months of 2018, new data from the Centers for Disease Control shows, and demographers say it will likely go lower.

The United States has been in the midst of a baby bust for decades. The total fertility rate—a demographic measure which estimates how many children a woman can expect to have in her lifetime—has consistently been below the requisite 2.1 children per woman required to sustain the population at current levels. Americans are having fewer kids, and the number they are having is steadily declining.

Specifically, the latest CDC data indicate that as of September of 2018, an average American woman can expect to have about 1.73 children in her lifetime. That rate is effectively tied with the rate 42 years ago, the lowest on record.

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This article was posted: Wednesday, February 6, 2019 at 7:14 am

The reality of capitalism: GM makes $11.8 billion in profits while closing plants, eliminating 14,000 jobs

7 February 2019

General Motors made $11.8 billion in profits in 2018, according to a company statement released yesterday. This included $10.8 billion in North American earnings last year and a 9.5 percent profit margin in the final quarter. These giant profits were announced as GM accelerates it plans to shut five factories in the US and Canada and destroy more than 14,000 jobs.

GM’s corporate board initiated the jobs massacre two days before the release of the profit report, which showed an eight percent decline over last year’s profits. The aim is to reassure Wall Street that GM will not bow to popular outrage over the plant closings and mass layoffs.

On Monday, the first of 4,000 engineers, technicians, managers and other white-collar workers, including 1,300 workers at the GM Tech Center in the Detroit suburb of Warren, were laid off and escorted out of their work locations. The half-century old Lordstown, Ohio assembly plant is scheduled to be closed next month. The Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Plant is to be closed on June 1, and the Oshawa, Ontario plant shut down by the fourth quarter of 2019. The company also plans to close transmission plants in Baltimore and Warren by April 1 and August 1, respectively.

In 1979, during the first Chrysler bankruptcy, the corporations and the United Auto Workers (UAW) claimed that huge wage and benefit concessions were needed to “save” the auto industry. After three decades of endless givebacks, the UAW made the same claims as it collaborated with the Obama administration to slash wages during the 2009 restructuring of GM and Chrysler.

Now, even as the auto companies are flush with cash, the corporations are demanding even…

Free Beacon
February 6, 2019

Rep. Katie Hill (D., Calif.) on Tuesday said she would support physical barriers on the U.S.–Mexico border based on the recommendation of border security experts.

CNN host Brooke Baldwin noted that Hill has previously said that she would vote for legislation that includes funding for border barriers. Hill said Democrats are working to prevent a shutdown when Baldwin asked her if she had “implored” Democratic leadership to cut a deal with President Donald Trump and Republicans.

“Well, I don’t even think I have to implore them, honestly. There’s a great deal of desire to come to some kind of agreement. We don’t want to have another shutdown,” Hill said

Baldwin then pressed Hill, saying she doesn’t think Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) has supported barriers, prompting Hill to say, “I think that so much of this is around semantics, which is really frustrating.”

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This article was posted: Wednesday, February 6, 2019 at 7:15 am

RT
February 6, 2019

Moscow will quit the INF Treaty in six months in a mirror response to US withdrawal from the nuclear pact, Russian FM Sergey Lavrov said as Donald Trump revealed that Washington is considering negotiating a new agreement.

“Russia has said everything [it is going to say] concerning the INF issue, responding to US’ unfounded allegations,” Lavrov said on Wednesday. Moscow’s top diplomat also stated that Russia is delivering a mirror response and will quit the treaty in six months.

He was commenting on US President Trump’s statement that Washington might be interested in negotiating another agreement that would include China and other countries.

Last week, President Vladimir Putin said Moscow is suspending its participation in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty after the US announced its withdrawal from the agreement. Both Moscow and Washington have accused each other of violating the terms of the nuclear pact.

The treaty was signed by the US and USSR in 1987, and had remained a key pillar of European security.

This article was posted: Wednesday, February 6, 2019 at 7:17 am

Five years after spearheading what is inaptly referred to as a ‘government of national reconciliation’, Palestinian Prime Minister, Rami Hamdallah, has finally resigned.

“We put our government at the disposal of President Mahmoud Abbas and we welcome the recommendations of the Fatah Central Committee to form a new government,” Hamdallah tweeted, shortly after Abbas had ordered him to dismantle the government.

Since the Palestinian Authority was founded in 1994, 17 governments have been formed, and every single one of them was dominated by the Fatah party, the largest faction within the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

Fatah’s monopoly over Palestinian politics has wrought disasters. Neither did the PA deliver the coveted Palestinian state, nor did Fatah use its influence to bring Palestinian factions together. In fact, the opposite is true.

Most of these 17 governments were short-lived, except that of Hamdallah, which has governed for five years, despite the fact that it failed in its primary mission: healing the terrible rift between Fatah in the Israeli Occupied West Bank, and Hamas in Israel-besieged Gaza.

Moreover, it also fell short of bringing PLO factions closer together. Thus far, the second largest PLO faction, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) refuses to participate in a future government that will also be dominated by Fatah.

Palestinian divisions have never been as pronounced as they are today. While all…

As we continue to discuss President Trump’s State of the Union, we are joined by Ana María Archila, co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy. She attended the address as a guest of New York Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. In September, Archila made headlines when she, along with another woman, Maria Gallagher, confronted Republican Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona in an elevator after he announced his support for Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court. Shortly after the confrontation, Senator Flake called for a delay of the Senate vote pending a limited FBI investigation.

Transcript

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: As we continue to discuss President Trump’s State of the Union, we’re joined by Ana María Archila, co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy. She attended the address as a guest of New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

AMY GOODMAN: In September, Ana María Archila made headlines when she, along with another woman, Maria Gallagher, confronted Republican Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona in an elevator after he announced his support of Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination confirmation to the Supreme Court. Shortly after the confrontation, Senator Flake called for a delay of the Senate vote pending a limited FBIinvestigation.

Ana María Archila, how did it feel to be in the chamber in the House of Representatives, what many were calling Pelosi’s House, to hear President Trump? And there, of course, were the Supreme Court justices — not all of them. Justice Alito wasn’t there. Justice Thomas wasn’t there. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wasn’t there. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wasn’t there. But the man you were protesting, Justice Kavanaugh, was, along with Chief Justice Roberts and Gorsuch and Elena Kagan.

Hard as it is to believe, airline travel recently became even more unpleasant. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees being required to work without pay for the duration of the government shutdown resulted in many TSA workers calling in sick. The outbreak of “shutdown flu” among TSA employees forced some large airports to restrict the number of places mandatory TSA screenings were performed, making going through screening even more time-consuming and providing one more reason to shut down the TSA.

Airline security should be provided by airlines and airports. Private businesses, such as airlines, have an incentive to ensure their customers’ safety without treating them like criminal suspects or worse. Security personnel hired by, and accountable to, airlines would not force a nursing mother to drink her own breast milk or steal a stuffed lamb from a wheelchair-using three-year-old and subject the child to such an intensive screening that she cries “I don’t want to go to Disneyworld.” Those who claim that the TSA is necessary to keep us safe should consider that the Department of Homeland Security’s own studies show that TSA’s screenings and even the intrusive pat-downs are ineffective at discovering hidden guns, explosives, and other weapons.

The Revolution: A Mani…
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TSA employees have no incentives to please, or even care about the well-being of, airline passengers. Instead, their jobs depend on pleasing politicians and bureaucrats. If we have learned anything since 9/11, it is that most politicians are more concerned with appearing to be “doing something” about security than actually reducing the risk of terrorist attacks….

Daily Mail
February 6, 2019

Senator Chuck Grassley said Tuesday that he believes Special Counsel Robert Mueller is just weeks away from finishing the report he was hired to produce, 21 months after his Russia probe began.

Radio host Hugh Hewitt asked the Iowa Republican when he expected to see the report.

‘Within a month, if we see it,’ Grassley responded.

Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker said eight days ago that the Mueller probe was in its final stages.

‘Right now the investigation is, I think, close to being completed,’ Whitaker told reporters his first public remarks about it since President Donald Trump appointed him to his post.

‘I hope we can get the report from Director Mueller as soon as possible,’ he added.

A spokesman for the Office of Special Counsel declined to comment on Tuesday. Mueller’s office is famously tight-lipped about its operations and timetables.

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

Grassley said he supports efforts in Congress that would force the Justice Department to release Mueller’s findings about alleged links between Russian agents and theTrump’s 2016 campaign.

Whitaker and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen submitted a classified report to Trump on Monday concluding that foreign powers had no ‘material impact on the integrity or security of election infrastructure or political/campaign infrastructure’ in the 2018 midterm elections.

Read more

This article was posted: Wednesday, February 6, 2019 at 7:22 am

Paris steps up calls for coup in Venezuela

By
Alex Lantier

6 February 2019

After the major European powers recognized far-right politician Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s “interim president,” Paris is stepping up threats and calls for regime change in Caracas. Reprising the methods of the Trump administration, which recognized Guaidó as president via Twitter, Paris and the other European powers are resorting to utter lawlessness, trampling Venezuelan sovereignty underfoot in a bid to plunder the strategic and oil-rich country.

French diplomats speaking off the record are feeding a stream of threats to the media, making clear that Paris will support a bloody intervention to topple President Nicolas Maduro. “Indifference would be even worse than intervention,” one diplomat said. Another told Le Monde the European powers had given Maduro an eight-day ultimatum to step down “to give Nicolas Maduro a little time to decide whether he wants to be Gorbachev or Bashar al-Assad.”

As the Trump administration threatens to blockade Venezuela and even invade the country, a threat echoed by Brazil’s far-right government, the implications of this threat are unmistakable. Either Maduro hands over Venezuela to the imperialist powers, or they may target it for a proxy war as in Syria, where hundreds of thousands died.

As they face growing repression of “yellow vest” protests, it is critical for workers in France and across Europe to oppose the imperialist threats against Venezuela.

As it faces threats of blockade, a disintegration of its currency as inflation surges, and a collapse of broad sections of the working population into poverty, Venezuela is being targeted by a relentless campaign of provocations in the European media.

Speaking to France Inter, Foreign Minister…

Free Beacon
February 6, 2019

President Donald Trump knocked Democrats who have called to “abolish ICE” during his State of the Union address Tuesday.

Trump took time to remember the lives of those killed by illegal immigrants in his speech and took a shot at Democrats, such as New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who have campaigned on abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

For Gillibrand, it was one of the promises she’s made to court the left in her 2020 presidential bid, while Ocasio-Cortez ran on a far-left platform as a democratic socialist.

Trump stated support for ICE is a matter of backing law enforcement.

“We will always support the brave men and women of law enforcement, and I pledge to you tonight that I will never abolish our heroes from ICE. Thank you,” he said, gesturing toward ICE special agent Elvin Hernandez.

Read more

This article was posted: Wednesday, February 6, 2019 at 7:25 am

You are now in the midst of applying for admission to university. Here is a letter from an unhappy college student which may be of relevance for the choices you are now making:

My name is XYZ. In my current university, numerous professors label me as a cultist and an ideologue, as I am a student of the Austrian school; put simply, I am also an anarchist. My question is, why do mainstream economic/political science professors label students of the Austrian school as cultists? Is it because we neglect positivism as we study economics through the lens of praxeology? Moreover, I can understand how one would think Randians are cultists, but us Austrians never verbally shout “no you’re wrong, get out of here!” — as Rand would do.

Thanks for your time. Cordially, ZYZ

Here is my response to XYZ:

What school do you now attend? Is there any chance of you transferring to Loyola? See below.

Defending the Undefend…
Walter Block
Check Amazon for Pricing.

Now to answer your question. Why do they that act that way? I think your assessment is accurate. Your plight may also be due to the fact that we Austrians eschew mathematics as a theoretical tool, and view econometrics/statistics not as means to test theories, but merely to illustrate them; as attempts to determine historical facts. Your professors also dismiss libertarianism since the views of most of them list sharply to the left on college campuses

I receive numerous letters of this sort. It occurs to me that it is a lot easier to choose a good university in the first place, rather than get settled in one, become unhappy with your choice, such as is the case with XYZ, and then transfer elsewhere.

So, which universities should you attend if you like Austrian economics, the…

We actually do not have all the time in the world, so I am going to be bold.  What you do after you finish reading this is your business and ultimately, that is exactly as it should be. We may all be facets of a larger Oneness, tiny sparks of the Divine dwelling in human form, but for the moment—allowing the potential truth of a larger connection–we are very clearly individuals, each with our own experience and outlook. We have our own ways of coping and to some extent, each of us charts a unique course through this life. We are often granted some choice about how we live and how we die, though most of us vastly prefer to focus on the former.

Even there, we tend to let life happen, getting pulled from one urgency to another amusement without full consciousness of how we spend the time. “Where did the time go?” is a plaintive query, often-expressed. “Time flies!” When you are having fun, when you are busy, when you aren’t fully present.  Life happens to us more often than most of us would like to admit.  But still, we can always meet it–our life—where we find it today and choose differently how we experience the flow of time, how we interact with the circumstances we have been given and crafted for ourselves.  Such is the beauty of being alive.

As for dying—it is arguably the biggest taboo in first world cultures.  Whereas nearly every shamanic tradition teaches students the imperative of carrying death close by at all times, we’re not…

We actually do not have all the time in the world, so I am going to be bold.  What you do after you finish reading this is your business and ultimately, that is exactly as it should be. We may all be facets of a larger Oneness, tiny sparks of the Divine dwelling in human form, but for the moment—allowing the potential truth of a larger connection–we are very clearly individuals, each with our own experience and outlook. We have our own ways of coping and to some extent, each of us charts a unique course through this life. We are often granted some choice about how we live and how we die, though most of us vastly prefer to focus on the former.

Even there, we tend to let life happen, getting pulled from one urgency to another amusement without full consciousness of how we spend the time. “Where did the time go?” is a plaintive query, often-expressed. “Time flies!” When you are having fun, when you are busy, when you aren’t fully present.  Life happens to us more often than most of us would like to admit.  But still, we can always meet it–our life—where we find it today and choose differently how we experience the flow of time, how we interact with the circumstances we have been given and crafted for ourselves.  Such is the beauty of being alive.

As for dying—it is arguably the biggest taboo in first world cultures.  Whereas nearly every shamanic tradition teaches students the imperative of carrying death close by at all times, we’re not…

Thot patrol

Paul Joseph Watson
PrisonPlanet.com
February 6, 2019

Every day we stray further from God’s light.

Please share this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kowyan8l3iU

SUBSCRIBE on YouTube:

Follow on Twitter: Follow @PrisonPlanet

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*********************

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor at large of Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com.

This article was posted: Wednesday, February 6, 2019 at 5:30 pm

RT
February 6, 2019

The State of the Union address was supposed to showcase Donald Trump’s statesmanship but, according to social media, the real star of the show was Nancy Pelosi, whose sarcastic antics made her the night’s MVP #resistor.

During his 80-minute speech, Trump appealed to Americans of all ideological stripes to find common ground and embrace compromise – a message that arguably clashes with the president’s habit of roasting his political opponents on Twitter.

After Trump called on the country to “embrace the boundless potential of cooperation, compromise and the common good,” Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, sitting behind the president, fired off a few sarcasm-dipped golf claps. The acerbic salute caused a sensation on social media, with photos of Trump and Pelosi locking eyes as she offers her feigned applause being hailed as epoch-defining treasures.

Congrats to @SpeakerPelosi for inventing the “fuck you” clap. #sotu pic.twitter.com/eueoUf9IBT

— Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) February 6, 2019

Comedian Patton Oswalt dubbed the gesture the “f**k you” clap, while others praised the House leader as a model #resistor.

Through a single clap, Speaker Pelosi tells Trump she’s going to dog walk him. Iconic picture for the ages. pic.twitter.com/ooP8DYGU2m

— Eugene Gu, MD (@eugenegu) February 6, 2019

Is this what the kids mean when they keep talking about a clap back? 👏 👏 👏 #SOTU19 #sotu pic.twitter.com/ILutom5pFT

— Mike Friis (@Friisicle) February 6, 2019

Most critically, the photo’s meme potential was not overlooked.

idk feel like I can do better pic.twitter.com/1pAzxctdjE

— ta🌮co (@recursivetaco) February 6, 2019

However, Pelosi had more Twitter-shattering tricks up her sleeve. After Trump began boasting about Washington’s draconian sanctions against Iran, Pelosi was spotted flipping through what many believe was…

The World Health Organization (WHO) issued a report on January 16, 2019 ranking “vaccine hesitancy” as one of the top “10 Threats to Global Health in 2019,” alongside air pollution and climate change, noncommunicable diseases, global influenza pandemic, antimicrobial resistance and infectious diseases such as ebola, dengue fever and HIV.¹

Throughout history, the greatest contributors to disease and early death in human populations have been poverty, poor sanitation and poor nutrition,^2,3,4 but infectious diseases with pharmaceutical solutions dominated this list.

And, there was no mention of the major opioid addiction crisis crippling and killing tens of thousands of people in the U.S. and Europe,^5,6 or the iatrogenic medical error epidemic that every year claims more than 750,000 lives in Europe⁷ and 250,000 lives in the U.S., where it is the third leading cause of death.⁸

The immediate mainstream media response to the WHO’s announcement was to focus on “vaccine hesitancy,” with The Editorial Board of The New York Times declaring January 19 that “anti-vaxxers” are “the enemy” and calling on the U.S. government to “get tough” by waging a “bold and aggressive” pro-vaccine campaign that includes “tightening restrictions around how much leeway states can grant families that want to skip essential vaccines.”⁹

By January 23, The Hill announced Washington state had declared a state of emergency because of 23 cases of measles reported in an “anti-vaccination community” near Portland, Oregon,¹⁰ and there was a public call in the U.K. for social media platforms to “clamp down on fake news” and censor “misleading information and negative messaging around vaccination.”^11,12

The New York…

American Mirror
February 6, 2019

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has no interest in working with President Trump, or applauding his call for “cooperation, compromise, and the common good.”

“But we must reject the politics of revenge, resistance and retribution, and embrace the boundless potential of cooperation, compromise, and the common good,” Trump said during his State of the Union address.

As most in the House chamber applauded, Ocasio-Cortez remained seated with a sour look on her face.

Watch:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi even applauded. West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin partially obscured Ocasio-Cortez as he stood, too.

But the Bronx socialist couldn’t bring herself to side with unity.

This article was posted: Wednesday, February 6, 2019 at 7:31 am

New Zealand health unions suppress struggles against Labour government

By
John Braddock

6 February 2019

Around 3,300 junior doctors from New Zealand’s public hospitals struck for a second time on January 29, after negotiations with the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) for a new collective contract broke down. Members of the Resident Doctors’ Association (RDA) are preparing to strike again on February 12–13 to oppose attacks on their working conditions.

The DHBs want to extend the number of consecutive days that doctors can be rostered on from 10 to 12. They also want to force doctors to work shifts longer than 16 hours and to relocate them anywhere in the country. Doctors already work under notoriously trying conditions. Long hours leave them exhausted, putting patients’ and their own safety at risk.

About 1,000 hospital midwives have separately voted for four 12-hour strikes beginning on February 11. Following a series of rolling stoppages in November, the Midwifery Employee Representation and Advisory Service (MERAS) sought facilitated talks, but there has been no resolution with the DHBs. Midwives are seeking a better offer than that imposed last year in a sellout agreement by the NZ Nurses Organisation (NZNO), which gave 30,000 nurses a rise of 3 percent per annum over three years, essentially a freeze in real wages.

Anaesthetic technicians and ambulance paramedics have also taken limited industrial action in recent months. The Public Service Association (PSA) is to hold nationwide stopwork meetings next week for 5,500 hospital administration staff. According to the union, industrial action will be “one of the options” considered following delays in reaching a new collective employment agreement. The low-paid workers want a wage increase and an end to…

London — A bleak London assailed by daily news about Brexit negotiation, prospects of food shortages and higher prices in the event of a no-deal with the European Union, provides the perfect apocalyptic backdrop for headlines. The city is ailing; the residents are panicked; and the authorities are gloomy.

Such environments are ideal for talk about emergencies.  One doing much filling on London airtime is that of knife crime.  Not that knife crime, in and of, itself is unusual: for years, stabbing implements have made their way into broader law and order issues in the city’s policing scene, a good number featuring errant youth.  These have encouraged a wide array of myths masquerading as solid fact: London, the city of the “no-go” area; Londonistan, city of perpetual, spiralling crime.

In 2008, Britain’s public institutions – political and public – became darkly enraptured with knife crime afflicting inner city areas, with a heavy focus on London.  Stabbings were reported in lurid fashion; threats to urban safety were emphasised.  As Peter Squires noted in a fairly withering examination of the phenomenon in British Politics, “The knife crime ‘epidemic’, as it came to be called, coincided with a series of youth justice policy measures being rolled out by the government, and significantly influenced them.”

Kevin Marsh of the BBC, writing at the same time, wondered how best a news organisation might report such crime figures. “How much does…

76 percent of viewers said they approved of Trump speech so CNN said the poll was fake news

Steve Watson
Prison Planet.com
February 6, 2019

An overwhelming majority of CNN viewers (of all people) registered positive reactions to President Trump’s State of The Union speech Tuesday night, prompting the network’s political director David Chalian to dismiss the poll numbers as “skewed” for the second year running.

“A very positive reaction from those who watched the speech tonight. 59 percent very positive. 17 percent somewhat positive. 23 percent negative.” Chalian noted when breaking down the numbers.

That equates to a grand total of 76 percent of viewers positively approving of the speech.

Mmmmmm, too much Trump positivity for CNN, so Chalian decided to immediately shit on the numbers.

“So I just want to stress here, for a State of the Union address, the President’s partisans, his supporters tend to turn out to watch the speech.” Chalian claimed.

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

“This is true of a president of either party,” he noted, adding that the poll was only conducted among people who watched the State of The Union address.

“So tonight, we saw a heavily Republican skewed audience turn out to watch the President’s speech.” Chalian concluded.

It’s the exact same scenario as last year, when Chalian sacked off CNN’s own poll when it found that viewers approved of Trump’s speech.

Here is video from last year, 2018:

Strange though that the 76% positive finding by CNN, which it claimed is a ‘skewed’ figure, is the exact same number as CBS News’s poll. I guess their poll is also fake news and was skewed by Trump supporters.

This article was posted: Wednesday, February 6, 2019 at 7:49 am

…

Shop all books by Tom Woods

Evidently there’s a place in Winnipeg that allows you to hold axe-throwing parties. It’s called Bad Axe Throwing.

I’m not kidding.

People throw axes at a target, competitively.

My first thought: I want to do this.

My second thought: you and I have lived our entire lives as one big axe-throwing party.

The Politically Incorr…
Thomas E. Woods Jr.
Best Price: $1.49
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I’ve spent my professional life taking aim at the Establishment version of U.S. history: pro-government, pro-centralization, pro-war, pro-Fed, pro-“great presidents,” the whole kit and caboodle. I’ve put these icons and idols up on the wall and tossed axe after axe, with a gleeful grin.

I was attacked in a signed editorial in the New York Times after my Politically Incorrect Guide to American History came out (fifteen years ago this year). The Times didn’t bother pointing out where I was wrong. They just couldn’t believe I had the nerve to say such things.

Naturally, that backfired: by the next week my book had hit the top 10 on the paper’s own bestseller list. People had to find out what the Times found so terrifying.

Now the owner of Bad Axe Throwing says, “If you pay attention to what you’re doing, even if you’ve never held an axe before in your life, within five throws it’s very possible for most people to hit a bullseye.”

That is precisely why I created Liberty Classroom. Why should I throw axes alone? I want to train people to throw axes alongside me.

And even if you’re a beginner, spending some time with Liberty Classroom will make you a top-notch axe-thrower. (Plus, we have coupons!)

Establishment history and economics must be hacked to bits. Pick up…

Google caught manipulating its algorithm again

Paul Joseph Watson
PrisonPlanet.com
February 6, 2019

Following President Trump’s State of the Union address, the top search result on YouTube was a CNN ‘fact check’ that had no views, proving once again how Google is manipulating its algorithm for partisan ends.

The top result when a user searched for “state of the union 2019” shortly after the speech ended was a CNN “reality check” that was listed as having “no views”.

As Chris Menahan documents, other results are also completely bias against Trump, despite garnering few views;

The “info box” at the very top features an off-site link to CBS News.

The second result, over Trump’s speech, is Stacey Abrams’ response from CNN’s channel.

The third response is Trump’s speech from — who else — CNN!

You have to scroll down to slot 13 and 14 to get the most popular streams from ABC News (505k views) and Fox News (292k views).

According to an official statement, “Google has never manipulated or modified the search results or content in any of its products to promote a particular political ideology.”

However, as we documented last week, YouTube broke its own search engine to ensure that corporate media videos rank higher than those made by independent creators, even when exact search terms are used and the independent videos have millions more views.

The Silicon Valley giant also deliberately changed rankings of search results relating to abortion after a Slate writer complained. Within hours, the results were changed to reflect a dominant pro-abortion position.

YouTube also vowed last week to bury “conspiracy” and “misleading” content following a BuzzFeed article which conflated conspiracy theory videos with those featuring Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro, Dinesh D’Souza and PragerU.

Not content with silencing independent voices by burying videos in…

Shocking reactions caught on camera at State of the Union

Paul Joseph Watson
PrisonPlanet.com
February 6, 2019

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez failed to applaud President Trump’s vow to stop the sex trafficking of children during last night’s State of the Union speech, while presidential candidate Kamala Harris was caught on camera shaking her head.

While wearing white to promote women’s rights, AOC looked sullen when Trump announced, “More than 1,500 sadistic traffickers have been put behind bars.”

Despite virtually all of her colleagues applauding, Ocasio-Cortez chose not to, and only stood after a significant delay, looking bemused.

President Trump highlights the important work that ICE does, including rescuing women and little girls from sex trafficking

Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez begrudgingly stands up after several moments and refuses to clap…while she is wearing white to promote women’s rights pic.twitter.com/R3mTfsNEzL

— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) February 6, 2019

However, Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris had an even more absurd reaction after Trump called on Republicans and Democrats to join forces to put “the ruthless coyotes, cartels, drug dealers, and human traffickers out of business”.

The California Senator shook her head disapprovingly.

President Donald Trump calls on Congress to put “the ruthless coyotes, cartels, drug dealers, and human traffickers out of business”

Democrats refuse to stand or clap

2020 presidential candidate Kamala Harris shakes her head in disagreement pic.twitter.com/6q2F9p2kdv

— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) February 6, 2019

The New York Congresswoman also refused to applaud First Lady Melania Trump (despite virtually everyone else in the room doing so), along with record low African-American & hispanic unemployment, the “common good,” an ICE agent who saved 300 girls and women from people smugglers,…

Another flammable cladding fire in Australia highlights government failure

By
Paul Bartizan

6 February 2019

The complete failure of all levels of government in Australia to fix the problem of flammable cladding was on display early on Monday morning when yet another high-rise building erupted in flames.

The fire, which is believed to have been ignited by a cigarette, began on a balcony on the twenty-second floor of the NEO200 apartment block in central Melbourne, and spread rapidly up five levels of the building’s 41 storeys. Eighty firefighters were able to quickly douse the pre-dawn blaze, and fortunately only one resident suffered smoke inhalation.

NEO200 apartment block in central Melbourne

Over 370 apartments have been evacuated, and residents remain locked out of the building located on the corner of Spencer and Little Bourke Streets, pending rectification of fire safety systems. The operation of automatic fire sprinklers within the apartments in the affected levels prevented the fire spreading internally but caused significant water damage.

The apartment block was designed by Hayball Architects, and construction was completed in 2007 by LU Simon. The building was awarded the 2008 Master Builder Association’s Excellence in Construction Award. The neo200.com website claims that the apartment block is “maintained to a high standard by a range of professional staff with oversight of the executive committee of owners.” A real estate website offers a penthouse in the building for $1.3 million and a two-bedroom apartment for $629,000.

Just 750 metres around the corner from NEO200 is the 21-storey Lacrosse apartment block which caught fire in November 2014. At Lacrosse, a balcony fire similarly caused by a smouldering cigarette spread up 13 floors on the outside…

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

—Auguries of Innocence, by William Blake

There is an American Native game, counting coup, which is both rarefied and possibly the answer to the male testosterone/female co-opting of testosterone that has given rise to Civilizational humanity since the so-called fertile crescent gestated the evil arts of subjugating man, woman, child and ecosystems to a small cabal of landowners (sic) who got humanity to work for food.

I always go to Daniel Quinn and other neotribalists to look at the long-range, way back, to give some justification to a tribal and hunter-gatherer past that for many of us is locked in our genes, accessible to fewer and fewer people daily as the world becomes a landmine of DNA-warping, cell-depleting, culture-sapping madness orchestrated by white men (mostly).

In our cultural mythology we see ourselves as having left tribalism behind the way modern medicine left the leech and the bleeding bowl behind, and we did so decisively and irrevocably. This is why it’s so difficult for us to acknowledge that tribalism is not only the preeminently human social organization, it’s also the only unequivocally successful social organization in human history. Thus, when even so wise and thoughtful a statesman as Mikhail Gorbachev calls for “a new…

RT
February 6, 2019

Fearing potential terrorist attacks, the south-eastern city of Grenoble will temporarily close a mosque in which imams were allegedly calling for “armed jihad.” Over 400 worshippers attended the mosque each day.

The Al-Kawthar mosque, located in a populous Rue des Trembles district of Grenoble, has become fertile soil for disseminating “ideas and theories that provoke violence, hatred and discrimination,” the local prefecture said. It claimed the imam legitimized “armed jihad… Sharia and discrimination against women.”

The imam’s sermons allegedly stirred up hatred towards those practicing other religions. It is thought that over 400 Muslims attended the Al-Kawthar each day, according to French media.

#Grenoble : #fermeture de la #mosquée #Al-Kawthar dont «l’imam légitime le #djihad armé» (MàJ : elle est partenaire du CCIF et flirte avec la mairie EELV) https://t.co/C61mjLyzYB pic.twitter.com/0g2886uBxc

— Fdesouche (@F_Desouche) February 5, 2019

The mosque will now be shut for six weeks and its assets will be frozen. To do so, Grenoble authorities invoked a specific French law which deals with prevention of terrorist attacks and threats to national security.

The city, which is home to over 162,000 residents, accommodates 20 mosques, including the Al-Kawthar, according to a local Muslim-oriented website.

Last year, it emerged that mosques in Aix-en-Provence, Sartrouville and Marseille were also closed for preaching radical Islamism. The move came after a string of terrorist attacks sent shockwaves across France, leaving multiple people killed and injured.

Grenoble itself witnessed a terrorist attack in 2015, when a man was found beheaded at a local factory and an Islamist flag was seen flying over the facility. A 35-year-old man, Yassin Salhi, was arrested in the manhunt that followed. It later transpired that the victim of the attack was…

Dan Ellsberg has given us a book that shows the urgency of re-engaging on nuclear disarmament, writes John V. Walsh.

With Two Minutes to Midnight, Time Is Running Out

By John V. Walsh
Antiwar.com 

“From a technical point of view, he [director Stanley Kubrick] anticipated many things. … Since that time, little has changed, honestly. The only difference is that modern weapons systems have become more sophisticated, more complex.  But this idea of a retaliatory strike and the inability to manage these systems, yes, all of these things are relevant today. It [controlling the weapons] will become even more difficult and more dangerous.”  — Russian President Vladimir Putin commenting on the film, “Dr. Strangelove: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb,” in an interview with Oliver Stone, May 11, 2016. Putin had not seen the movie and did not know of it before Stone showed it to him.

The “Doomsday Machine,” the title of Daniel Ellsberg’s superb book, is not an imaginary contraption from a movie masterpiece.  A Doomsday Machine uncannily like the one described in “Dr. Strangelove” exists right now.  In fact, there are two such machines, one in U.S. hands and one in Russia’s.  The U.S. seeks to hide its version, but Ellsberg has revealed that it has existed since the 1950s.  Russia has quietly admitted that it has one, named it formally, “Perimetr,” and also tagged it with a frighteningly apt nickname “Dead Hand.” Because the U.S. and Russia are the only nations with Doomsday Machines to date we shall restrict this discussion to them.

Daniel Ellsberg in 2010.  (JD Lasika via Flickr)

Ellsberg’s terrifying message in the book has failed to provoke action in the year since its publication. Instead, on Jan. 24 the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists kept its Doomsday Clock at two minutes to midnight, poised perilously close to Armageddon for a second year, marking a “new abnormal.” 

The first component of a Doomsday Machine is a mechanism of launching nuclear weapons with a command structure not always in the hands of a president in either country, something carefully hidden from the U.S. public. 

The…

American Mirror
February 5, 2019

Democrats new strategy to own the conservatives is to throw trash at a woman and watch her clean it up.

Jennifer Rubell’s art piece “Ivanka Vacuuming” is on display in Washington, D.C., and gives liberals the opportunity to degrade a woman.

Members of the public are encouraged to throw crumbs at an Ivanka Trump lookalike for her to vacuum up.

But wait, there’s more!

Rubell is also going to livestream the event so that other like minded liberals can enjoy seeing the first daughter of the United States degraded.

The Ivanka lookalike is wearing a pink dress, high heels, and vacuums crumbs off a plush, pink carpet.

Jennifer Rubell’s performance-art piece ‘Ivanka Vacuuming’ opens at Flashpoint Gallery tonight. Members of the public are invited to throw crumbs for “Ivanka” to vacuum up. There is a livestream. https://t.co/XGvv8ay1kR pic.twitter.com/urd3MWvIqN

— Amanda Kolson Hurley (@amandakhurley) February 1, 2019

“Inspired by a figure whose public persona incorporates an almost comically wide range of feminine identities – daughter, wife, mother, sister, model, working woman, blonde – Ivanka Vacuuming is simultaneously a visual celebration of a contemporary feminine icon; a portrait of our own relationship to that figure; and a questioning of our complicity in her role-playing,” a press release on the project reads.

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

“The public is invited to throw crumbs onto the carpet, watching as Ivanka elegantly vacuums up the mess, her smile never wavering. This process repeats itself for the entire duration of the performance,” the release added.

It’s also a complete joke to Rubell, which she made very clear in her statement.

“Here is what’s complicated: we enjoy throwing the crumbs for Ivanka to vacuum. That is the icky truth at the center of the work. It’s funny, it’s pleasurable, it makes us feel powerful,…

I was starting to feel sorry for the 800,000 federal employees who hadn’t received paychecks for more than a month. Then Donald Trump caved to the Democrats and ended the government shutdown last week.

There’s now a bipartisan effort in Congress to enact a law that would make government shutdowns less likely. But I have a much better and more permanent solution: privatize most of the functions that Uncle Sam’s intrepid bureaucrats perform.

Take the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), for instance. A big reason Trump ended the shutdown was that so many TSA employees had called in sick that flight delays were becoming intolerable. That wouldn’t have happened if the government hadn’t been in the airline security business.

Not that it’s doing an especially good job. In 2015, the TSA sent undercover agents to dozens of America’s largest airports to test security protocols. Shockingly, the agents were able to smuggle fake explosives or weapons through security checkpoints 95% of the time. The TSA failed in 67 out of 70 tests.

The Lifeboat Strategy
Mark Nestmann
Best Price: $75.99
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Two years later, the TSA tried again. The good news is that the failure rate fell from 95% to 70%. The bad news is … well, a 70% failure rate is nothing to celebrate.

One reason is the TSA performs so poorly is that the politicians in charge of our national security believe catering to lobbyists is more important than security.

Consider the saga of the Rapiscan scanner. It began after an inept terrorist with a bomb hidden in his underwear tried to blow up an airplane in 2009. The bomb failed to explode, but America’s national security bureaucracy went into high gear after the “Underwear…

Newsbusters
February 5, 2019

As part of First Lady Melania Trump’s Be Best anti-bullying campaign, she invited Wilmington, Delaware 6^th grader Joshua Trump to be one of the guests at Tuesday’s State of the Union. By now you probably figured out that while he shared no relation with the President, Joshua was bullied because they share the same last name. But that gesture rubbed CNN hosts Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon the wrong way during Monday’s Prime Time.

“I hate bullies, you hate bullies. You got to feel for this kid. My concern, though, about tomorrow night is that he’s going to be used as a political pawn,” Cuomo speculated. “That of all the different kinds of bullying that goes on, they’re highlighting somebody giving Trump a hard time.”

Despite claiming he thought it was a “good thing that she invited him”, Lemon also suggested Joshua was going to be used as a “political pawn”. “…You know, I don’t know. I hope that they’re not using it for political expediency,” he sighed.

Cuomo then seemed to take a shot at Joshua’s parents for allowing him to be a guest of the White House:

No, I’m just worried the – I’m worried about the kid because he’s got enough trouble, you know? His family is letting him go out there, hopefully, to empower him, give him some confidence in himself. And now if he becomes representative of the President you don’t want to put that on somebody, let alone this kid.

“That’s where I was going,” Lemon agreed. “If they really don’t want to draw attention to his last name and keep him from being bullied, maybe it’s not the best thing for him to go to the State of the Union and get all of this press.”

Read more

This article was posted: Tuesday, February 5, 2019 at 7:34 am

…

Originally appeared on The American Conservative.

A new survey finds broad public support for staying in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty that Trump is killing:

Two-thirds of survey respondents oppose abandoning the treaty, and instead favor pursuing diplomacy to resolve the dispute over compliance by the Russians, according to the survey, conducted by the Program for Public Consultation at the University of Maryland in conjunction with the University’s Center for International and Security Studies. The Center for Public Integrity provided consulting for the survey.

Even the majority of Trump’s fellow Republicans who were surveyed – 55 percent – said they oppose withdrawal from INF, including more than half (51 percent) of self-described Trump voters polled. Among Democrats, 77 percent of respondents said they favor sticking with the treaty.

The survey’s findings make clear that Trump’s decision to exit the treaty doesn’t have popular support, and it shows once again that there is broad public support for arms control agreements. Even among Republicans and Trump voters, more respondents favored sticking with the treaty despite Russian violations. This is one area where there is overall agreement between the public and most foreign policy professionals. The vast majority of arms control experts don’t support withdrawing from the treaty and argue there is nothing to be gained by doing so.

The INF Treaty is one of the most successful arms control treaties ever negotiated, and scrapping it does nothing to make the U.S. and our allies more secure. Giving up on the treaty is a dangerous and destabilizing move that undermines the foundation of all U.S.-Russian arms control, and it paves the way for allowing New START to expire without any attempt to keep it alive.

Abandoning the INF Treaty has been a long-held ambition of Republican hard-liners that have never seen an arms control agreement they didn’t want to oppose or destroy. National Security Advisor John Bolton is the worst of them. Dan Spinelli notes this in his recent article on the treaty:

It’s Bolton who many observers single out as the brains behind this move, given his historic opposition to arms control treaties of any kind. “John Bolton is a serial arms-control treaty killer,” Joe Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, a foundation that advocates against nuclear proliferation, told Mother Jones. “He believes in the brute-force approach to strategic relations.”

Once the INF Treaty is gone, Bolton will have played a significant role in destroying or undermining four important arms control and nonproliferation agreements over the last twenty years, and killing off New START will make five. Each time that Bolton’s hard-line views have prevailed, US and allied interests have suffered and the world has become more dangerous and unstable than it was before.

Daniel Larison is a senior editor at The American Conservative, where he…

UK’s largest supermarket Tesco to shed 9,000 jobs

By
Margot Miller

5 February 2019

Amid speculation about 15,000 possible job losses, UK supermarket giant Tesco has confirmed that it will shed 9,000 jobs.

Tesco announced its intention to close 90 fresh-food counters and delicatessens as part of a three-year restructuring plan initiated in 2016 in a bid to save £1.5 billion. Hundreds more jobs will disappear as 200 staff canteens are shut—a service provided by outsourcing companies since 2017. The numbers of head-office employees will also be trimmed.

It expects to save between £150 million to £170 million a year with the latest job losses and achieve an operating margin of 3.5 percent to 4.0 percent by 2019-2020—up from 2.9 percent in 2017-2018.

As the biggest supermarket chain in the UK, Tesco captures a quarter of the market in groceries. It is the largest private employer in the UK, with 324,000 workers employed at more than 3,400 stores in the UK and Ireland.

Competition in the retail industry, which is the biggest employer in the private sector, is fierce and growing. In 2017, around 9.5 percent of the workforce or 2.8 million workers were employed in retail. Retailers predict that a third of these jobs will be lost by 2025.

German-based budget retailers Aldi and Lidl are steadily eroding the market share of the older established chains like Tesco, by undercutting their prices. In the run-up to Christmas, Aldi’s sales increased by 10 percent. If Tesco rival Sainsbury’s manages a takeover of Asda, its very size will increase its bargaining power with suppliers and pose a challenge to Tesco.

Continued austerity and low wages, still below their pre-2008 levels, have reduced the disposable income of consumers. Two thirds of those in work in the UK are classed…

A protest outside the United States Consulate in Sydney on January 23 2019 to demand no US intervention in Venezuela.(Photo: Peter Boyle)

The United States has been working with oligarchs in Venezuela to remove President Maduro since he came to office in 2013 after the death of Hugo Chavez and was re-elected that year. After he won re-election to another six-year term in 2018, the regime change planners sought new strategies to remove Maduro, including an assassination attempt last August. The coup campaign escalated recently with the self-appointment of president Juan Guaido, who President Trump and US allies have recognized. Now, the ongoing coup attempt is escalating through a strategy of humanitarian intervention.

Trump has been talking openly about war to take control of Venezuela’s vast oil reserves since mid-2017. Pentagon and former administration officials, who have since been removed from office, opposed the action. Now, Trump is surrounded by neocons who share his goal of removing Maduro and taking control of the country’s natural resources. War is an option being openly considered.

The US has no excuse to legally attack Venezuela. As Defense One reports, “International law forbids ‘the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.’” There are two exceptions mentioned in the UN Charter: self-defense and authorization by the U.N. Security Council, neither of which have been met in…

Zero Hedge
February 5, 2019

On Monday evening, the embattled regime of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro suffered its latest blow when 11 of the 14 members of the “Lima Group” – an organization created with the singular aim to bring about a “peaceful end” to the crisis in Latin America’s socialist paradise – backed opposition leader Juan Guaido as the legitimate ruler of Venezuela.

In a declaration issued by the group, the governments of Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay and Peru “reiterate their recognition and support for Juan Guaidó” and called on the international community “to take measures to prevent the Maduro regime from conducting financial and trade transactions abroad, from having access to Venezuela’s international assets and from doing business in oil, gold and other assets,” according to the BBC.

And in the latest sign that military conflict remains a possibility (after all, both President Trump and National Security Advisor John Bolton have insisted that the door to a military intervention is still open), when asked about whether a civil war is inevitable, Maduro replied that “no one could answer that question with certainty.” While Guaido, who is struggling to convince the Venezuelan military to abandon Maduro and back his upstart parallel government, definitively ruled out a war as an option.

Meanwhile, RIA reported Tuesday morning that Maduro is hoping to arrest the slide in Venezuelan oil production by boosting output to 2.5 million barrels per day (from less than 1 million b/d currently).

But much to the chagrin of Russian state-controlled oil giant Rosneft, US sanctions against Venezuelan oil firm PDVSA have left a flotilla of ships carrying some 7 million barrels of Venezuelan crude stranded in the Gulf of Mexico. Some of the oil was ordered before the US sanctions came…

Although the word slavery does not appear in the body of the Constitution, the “peculiar institution” is alluded to in Article I, sections 2 and 9, and Article 4, section 2. This changed with the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution:

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

The Thirteenth Amendment was passed by the Senate in April of 1864 and by the House in January of 1865. It was ratified by the necessary number of states in December of 1865.

Although the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, it does not apply to the U.S. government.

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The United States declared war on Germany in April of 1917 and declared war on Austria-Hungary in December of 1917. The Selective Service Act of 1917 (enacted in May of 1917) required all males aged 21 to 30 to register with the government in case they were “needed” for military service. The age range was expanded in 1918 to all men aged 18 to 45. Almost three million American men were conscripted into the military by the U.S. government during World War I; that is, they were forced to destroy, maim, and kill for the U.S. government in an unjust foreign war that the United States had no business getting involved in.

In the Selective Draft Law Cases (1918), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that military conscription did not amount to involuntary servitude. Said the Court’s unanimous decision:

Compelled military…

Free Beacon
February 5, 2019

Democratic Rep. Xochitl Torres Small, a freshman from New Mexico, said on Saturday that she had seen parts of the border between the United States and Mexico where “the wall works.”

Torres Small was interviewed by a local New Mexico television station about her recent appointment to chair the House Homeland Security Committee’s subcommittee on Oversight, Management, and Accountability. During the interview, Torres Small expressed that Congress had to take a comprehensive approach to border security that considered needs on the ground.

“The last time physical barriers were funded by Congress it was based on a mile-by-mile assessment of what was needed on the terrain,” the congresswoman told KOB, an NBC-affiliated station. “That’s a real plan. That’s real border security. Not just a bunch of money that you want for a barrier.”

Torres Small, whose congressional district contains New Mexico’s entire border with Mexico, admitted that there were areas where more border patrol was required and even areas where “the wall works.”

Read more

This article was posted: Tuesday, February 5, 2019 at 7:37 am

Degrading a woman to own the conservatives….or something

Paul Joseph Watson
PrisonPlanet.com
February 5, 2019

A new modern performance art exhibit in Washington DC invites visitors to throw dirt at an Ivanka Trump lookalike and watch her clean it up.

The “art” piece is called “Ivanka Vacuuming” and will give leftists afflicted with Trump Derangement Syndrome an opportunity to degrade a woman to own the conservatives….or something.

Creator Jennifer Rubell has provided visitors with a huge pile of crumbs which they can fling in the Ivanka lookalike’s direction and watch her vacuum up.

“Inspired by a figure whose public persona incorporates an almost comically wide range of feminine identities – daughter, wife, mother, sister, model, working woman, blonde – Ivanka Vacuuming is simultaneously a visual celebration of a contemporary feminine icon; a portrait of our own relationship to that figure; and a questioning of our complicity in her role-playing,” states a press release about the project.

The event is also being livestreamed on the Internet from 6-8pm and will run until February 17 at the Flashpoint Gallery (entrance is free).

Jennifer Rubell’s performance-art piece ‘Ivanka Vacuuming’ opens at Flashpoint Gallery tonight. Members of the public are invited to throw crumbs for “Ivanka” to vacuum up. There is a livestream. https://t.co/XGvv8ay1kR pic.twitter.com/urd3MWvIqN

— Amanda Kolson Hurley (@amandakhurley) February 1, 2019

“The irony, of course, is that the exhibit exposes every stereotype that feminists claim to stand against,” comments Martin Walsh.

One wonders what the reaction from feminists would have been if conservatives had set up an art exhibit where visitors threw trash at a Michelle Obama lookalike.

But Ivanka’s last name is Trump, so in a similar vein to Samantha Bee, who once described the president’s daughter as a “feckless c*nt,”…

A politician can run a flawless campaign, say all the right things from a place of authenticity, hold wildly popular positions and an impeccable public record, but if they say things which upset the powerful, the narrative can be reshaped to paint them as crazy, incompetent, unelectable, treasonous, or all of the above, keeping them out of office forever.

An investigative journalist can spend months breaking a story that severely incriminates extremely powerful people. They can get all the facts right, source everything perfectly, report clearly and concisely, and get full exposure in a mainstream news outlet. But extremely powerful people can use their influence over the political/media class to quickly shift the narrative in the wake of that breaking news story to almost completely nullify its impact by making it seem insignificant.

A leak outlet can create a new and innovative drop box to protect the anonymity of leakers, opening up the possibility of bringing transparency and accountability to power. It can take the utmost care and implement the most exacting standards in confirming the authenticity of documents and protecting the identities of their sources, and it can get true bombshell documents that expose appalling amounts of corruption and malfeasance. But extremely powerful people can shift the narrative around that outlet, and soon millions of people will believe it’s a Kremlin operation and its founder is a smelly Nazi rapist who abuses his cat.

Woke: A Field Guide Fo…
Caitlin Johnstone
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We’ve seen all these things happen. We live in a world in which you can tell the truth at all times, make no mistakes, get very lucky, and be fully supported, but if…

In our new book, we describe a ‘Propaganda Blitz’ as a fast-moving campaign to persuade the public of the need for ‘action’ or ‘intervention’ furthering elite interests. Affecting great moral outrage, corporate media line up to insist that a watershed moment has arrived – something must be done!

A classic propaganda blitz was triggered on January 23, when Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó declared himself ‘interim President’. This was presented as dramatic new evidence that the people of Venezuela had finally had enough of Nicolas Maduro’s ‘regime’.

In reporting this news the following day, the BBC website featured a disturbing graphic of a captive with arms tied behind his back being tortured. The caption read:

Inside Venezuela’s secret torture centre

The image linked to a complex interactive piece that allowed readers to explore the torture centre. There was also a long report on the same centre. The interactive report included this statement by a former prisoner, Rosmit Mantilla:

In a country like Venezuela there’s no difference between being in or out of prison. You are equally persecuted and mistreated, and you can die either way.

Venezuela, then, is a giant gulag. The interactive piece had clearly taken a good deal of time and effort to produce – odd that it should appear on the same day that news of Guaidó’s coup attempt was reported. The BBC followed this up with a piece on January 25 openly promoting ‘regime’…

“The more money communists make the more they preach morality to others”

Paul Joseph Watson
PrisonPlanet.com
February 5, 2019

Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini told an open borders leftist that the government would send him 10 to 20 migrants to personally take care of before commenting, “the more money communists make the more they preach morality to others.”

The exchange happened during Salvini’s appearance in the Adriatic resort town of Giulianova this past weekend.

After the leftist called Salvini a “shitty murderer,” the Italian populist responded, “A round of applause for the gentleman who has won ten immigrants for his home. Give your first name, family name, fiscal code, we will send you 20, and you take care of them. Lunch, supper, dinner, my friend.”

Salvini then pointed out the hypocrisy of middle class leftists who welcome mass immigration while largely avoiding its consequences, which instead burden the poor.

“The more money communists make, the more they preach morality to others,” he remarked.

“The murderers are those who have been the accomplices of the smugglers who have transformed the Mediterranean Sea into an open air cemetery,” Salvini asserted.

He also pointed out that criminal people smugglers buy arms and drugs which are then sold in Italy.

“I will never in my life be an accomplice to drug dealers in Giulianova, and I will send those people back home, from the first to the last, from the first to the last,” said Salvini.

Salvini’s comments serve as a reminder that studies show leftists, despite all their virtue signalling, are more miserly when it comes to donating to charity, with poorer conservatives being more generous.

Over the last few years, numerous social experiments, such as the one below, have proven that leftists are enthusiastic about mass immigration but suddenly go shy when asked to personally house migrants…

Destabilizing other nations in gross violation of international law will no longer go unopposed, writes Patrick Lawrence.

By Patrick Lawrence
Special to Consortium News

The Venezuela crisis worsens by the day. Early last week the U.S. sanctioned PdVSA, the state-owned oil company, by sequestering income from U.S. sales in a blocked bank account. On Sunday President Donald Trump confirmed in a television interview that deploying American troops is “an option.”

Little of what Washington has done in the weeks since it recognized an opposition legislator, Juan Guaidó, as Venezuela’s “interim president” has any basis in international law. But there is much worse to come and much more at risk if the U.S. follows through with its recently disclosed plans to reshape Latin American politics to its neoliberal liking.

Administration officials now advertise the effort to depose the government of Nicolás Maduro as merely the first step in a plan to reassert American influence among our southerly neighbors. The next two targets, Cuba and Nicaragua, are what John Bolton, Trump’s national security adviser, calls the continent’s “troika of tyranny.”

“The United States looks forward to watching each corner of the triangle fall—in Havana, in Caracas, in Managua,” Bolton said in a not-much-noted speech in Miami late last year. “The troika will crumble.” There is cold comfort to derive from knowing this forecast reflects the single most deranged worldview of anyone now active in the Trump White House. 

“The Birth of the Monroe Doctrine” by Clyde O. DeLand: U.S. President James Monroe presides over a cabinet meeting in 1823, discussing the Monroe Doctrine. (Wikimedia)

But therein lie considerable dangers. In effect, Trump and his policy minders intend to revive the Monroe Doctrine, in which the fifth U.S. president effectively declared the Western Hemisphere America’s to manage however it wished. But it is 2019, not 1823, when James Monroe made his case in a State of the Union speech to Congress. It is frequently remarkable how blind Washington is to the limits the 21^stcentury imposes on its power, and we are about to watch it crash into…

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has reached out to Pope Francis, asking for his help to bring about a peaceful solution to the crisis in Venezuela. Maduro is facing increasing international pressure to resign from office two weeks after opposition leader Juan Guaidó declared himself to be Venezuela’s interim president. Guaidó made the announcement on January 23 after speaking to US Vice President Mike Pence, who offered support from the Trump administration. Since then, a growing number of countries have openly recognized Guaidó’s claim to the presidency, including Austria, Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Spain and Sweden. Italy has blocked a European Union statement recognizing Guaidó, and Ireland and Greece have called for new elections but have not recognized Guaidó’s claim to the presidency. Meanwhile, the Venezuelan opposition and the United States have rejected an offer by Mexico and Uruguay to host talks between the two sides. We speak to David Smilde, senior fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America and professor of sociology at Tulane University. And in California, we speak to Miguel Tinker Salas, professor at Pomona College and author of The Enduring Legacy: Oil, Culture, and Society in Venezuela and Venezuela: What Everyone Needs to Know.

TRANSCRIPT

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has reached out to Pope Francis, asking for his help to bring about a peaceful solution to the crisis in Venezuela. Maduro is facing increasing international pressure to resign from office, two weeks after opposition leader Juan Guaidó declared himself to be Venezuela’s interim president. Guaidó made the announcement on January 23rd after speaking to US Vice President Mike Pence, who offered support from the Trump administration. Since then, a growing number of countries have openly recognized Guaidó’s claim to the presidency. On Monday, Austria, Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Spain and Sweden all voiced support for Guaidó, after…

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has reached out to Pope Francis, asking for his help to bring about a peaceful solution to the crisis in Venezuela. Maduro is facing increasing international pressure to resign from office two weeks after opposition leader Juan Guaidó declared himself to be Venezuela’s interim president. Guaidó made the announcement on January 23 after speaking to US Vice President Mike Pence, who offered support from the Trump administration. Since then, a growing number of countries have openly recognized Guaidó’s claim to the presidency, including Austria, Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Spain and Sweden. Italy has blocked a European Union statement recognizing Guaidó, and Ireland and Greece have called for new elections but have not recognized Guaidó’s claim to the presidency. Meanwhile, the Venezuelan opposition and the United States have rejected an offer by Mexico and Uruguay to host talks between the two sides. We speak to David Smilde, senior fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America and professor of sociology at Tulane University. And in California, we speak to Miguel Tinker Salas, professor at Pomona College and author of The Enduring Legacy: Oil, Culture, and Society in Venezuela and Venezuela: What Everyone Needs to Know.

TRANSCRIPT

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has reached out to Pope Francis, asking for his help to bring about a peaceful solution to the crisis in Venezuela. Maduro is facing increasing international pressure to resign from office, two weeks after opposition leader Juan Guaidó declared himself to be Venezuela’s interim president. Guaidó made the announcement on January 23rd after speaking to US Vice President Mike Pence, who offered support from the Trump administration. Since then, a growing number of countries have openly recognized Guaidó’s claim to the presidency. On Monday, Austria, Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Spain and Sweden all voiced support for Guaidó, after…

Jobs bloodbath at Ford and GM

Ford announces 1,000 job cuts as GM begins mass layoffs

By
our reporters

5 February 2019

US automakers began their jobs bloodbath on Monday as General Motors started dismissing 4,250 engineers, technicians, managers and other white-collar workers and the news emerged that Ford will eliminate the second shift at its Flat Rock, Michigan assembly plant by April 1, wiping out more than 1,000 hourly jobs.

GM plans to close five factories in the US and Canada, including major assembly plants in Detroit, Lordstown, Ohio and Oshawa, Ontario, and destroy more than 14,000 production and salaried workers’ jobs.

Ford workers leave after a shift change in Chicago

In response, autoworkers and their supporters are preparing a demonstration this Saturday in front of the GM headquarters in downtown Detroit. “We are determined that workers are not going to be the forgotten men and women,” said Jerry White, the editor of the WSWS Autoworker Newsletter, in response to the layoff announcement.

“No matter whether white collar or blue collar, all workers are part of the 90 percent of society that are the victims of corporate capitalism gone rampant,” he added.

Workers left the GM Tech Center in Warren, Michigan carrying their belongings. The worker carrying the houseplant said she had been laid off Monday.

“The latest round of mass layoffs is another testament to the betrayal at the hands of the corporate stooges who run the United Auto Workers.” White said. “The 40 years since the first concessions contract at Chrysler have made clear that their actions are not an accumulation of mistakes, but a deliberate policy of imposing the dictates of management on the workers.

“We are calling this demonstration as the first step in the mobilization…

New York Times publishes glowing article about group

Paul Joseph Watson
PrisonPlanet.com
February 5, 2019

Muslims in NYC are carrying out “community patrols” in Brooklyn while driving cars that look almost identical to NYPD vehicles, leading some to describe the situation as “Sharia Police”.

The New York Times wrote a lengthy, glowing piece about the patrols, with one hijab-wearing Muslim woman commenting that they made her feel safe from harassment.

“With everything going on, you sort of feel like the whole world is against Muslims,” she said. “So it feels good to know that there is someone there, watching out.”

According to CAIR, the group is the first of its kind in the entire country, and a justifiable response to the “14 bias-crime incidents recorded against Muslims” last year (in a city of 8.6 million people).

The group’s vice president Noor Rabah said the patrols were “like a neighborhood watch but on steroids”. Currently boasting 30 members, the group plans to grow “its fleet of two cars to five by the end of the month and eventually expanding citywide.”

“Not at all comfortable with this. ‘Muslim Community Patrol’ in NYC, driving cars that look identical to NYPD RMPs,” commented John Cardillo, adding, “This looks a lot like Sharia Police. In Brooklyn.”

Not at all comfortable with this. ‘Muslim Community Patrol’ in NYC, driving cars that look identical to NYPD RMPs.

This looks a lot like Sharia Police. In Brooklyn. pic.twitter.com/U5RNy5clc8

— John Cardillo (@johncardillo) 4 February 2019

Similar “patrols” in East London didn’t turn out to be so community-friendly, with hardline Islamists attempting to “impose Sharia law on unsuspecting members of the public.”

A CNN report shows Muslim men harassing alcohol drinkers, gay men and women wearing skirts above their knees.

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It’s funny – or sad, depending on your point of view.

America car companies are downsizing and U-hauling operations to China as fast as they can . . . at the same time that Chinese car companies are preparing to launch a kind of vehicular Operation Overload directed at the mainland United States.

Two Chinese car companies – Zotye and GAC, which sells cars under the Trumpchi label (no reference to the Orange Man, it translates as “passing into happiness”) have announced they will begin selling cars here just a few months from now.

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There will be “landings” in a dozen states, including Virginia, Florida, California, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Kansas, Oklahoma and Maryland.

GAC has met with 80 potential distributors, according to the trade publication, Automotive News. Zotye has reportedly signed non-disclosure agreements with at least 120 prospective U.S. dealers.

And that’s probably just for openers.

The Chinese car industry is a state-sponsored industrial juggernaut that already outproduces the American car industry in terms of total volume – in excess of 23 million vehicles manufactured annually vs. about 17.2 million in the U.S.

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This is analogous to what happened in the United States around 100 years ago, when Henry Ford began cranking out the Model T in numbers.

Just smaller numbers, over a much longer period of time . . .  vs. the Chinese.

From 1909 to 1927 – a production run of almost 20 years – Ford built just under 15 million cars.

The Chinese built almost twice as many cars  . . . last year.

That stat is giving nightmares, surely, to every round-eyed…

Trump generally polling on par or better than Obama, despite constant attacks by MSM

Prison Planet.com
Feb. 5, 2019

President Trump actually has a higher approval rating in an establishment poll than his predecessor, Barack Obama, did at the same point of his presidency.

According to Rasmussen:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows that 48% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Trump’s job performance. Fifty-one percent (51%) disapprove.

In comparison, President Obama had a 46% approval rating on Feb. 5, 2011, with 53% disapproving:

Additionally, a Gallup poll taken from January 31-February 6, 2011 reveals Obama had a a 47% approval rating. Forty-five percent of Americans disapproved, while 8% offered no opinion.

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

A presidential approval index taken on Feb. 4, 2011, reveals that Obama had a -16 spread, with 24% strongly approving of his performance at the time and 40% strongly disapproving:

On Feb. 5, 2011, the former president’s spread decreased to -17, with 23% strongly approving and 40% strongly disproving.

Again, in comparison, President Trump had a -10 spread on Feb. 4, 2019, which improved to -6 on Tuesday, with 36% strongly approving and 42% strongly disapproving.

America now faces an epic information war being fought with propaganda. Dr. Nick Begich reveals solutions for battling Big Tech and the elite who are weaponizing our own data against us.

This article was posted: Tuesday, February 5, 2019 at 1:53 pm

WASHINGTON – Last night, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed against Dr. Steven Salaita over the American Studies Association’s (ASA) resolution to endorse the call to boycott Israeli academic institutions as part of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. The entire lawsuit against the ASA and other individuals was dismissed as well. Dr. Salaita, who is represented by the Center for Constitutional Rights, joined the board of the ASA after the boycott decision was made, but was nonetheless added as a defendant to a lawsuit filed by four ASA members. He is an outspoken advocate of Palestinian rights who was unlawfully fired from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for tweets criticizing Israel’s 2014 assault on Gaza.

“I’m thrilled that this baseless case has been dismissed. It served no purpose other than persecuting those who dare to criticize Israeli policy and seek to end the occupation through peaceful means,” said Dr. Salaita. “Our victory further illustrates that it’s important to stand firm against attempts to silence those devoted to the cause of justice.”

The case was filed in April 2016, claiming that the resolution to endorse the boycott of Israeli academic institutions violated the ASA’s by-laws and the ASA officers breached their fiduciary duties. In March 2018, plaintiffs amended their complaint to add several new defendants, including Dr. Steven Salaita, who did not join the ASA board until two years after the vote. The Center for Constitutional Rights moved to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that the plaintiffs had failed to establish jurisdiction over Dr. Salaita and failed to state any claims against him. Dr. Salaita was clearly sued for his advocacy around boycotting Israel, which is protected by the First Amendment. Last night, the judge found the plaintiffs had failed to show they suffered injury sufficient to be in federal court, and that they lacked standing to sue on behalf of the ASA.

“These desperate lawsuits brought to silence advocates of Palestinian rights are not only losers—they’re helping to grow the movement by making even clearer who’s on the wrong side of history, who is the aggressor, who is unreasonable, and who wants to silence debate,” said Center for Constitutional Rights Deputy Legal Director Maria LaHood.  “Freedom, justice and equality have always been on the right side of history.”

This lawsuit is part of a broader nationwide phenomenon suppressing speech critical of the state of Israel and in support of Palestinian rights. Advocates have documented censorship efforts on college campuses, against public libraries, and at other institutions, targeting the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, which seeks to withdraw economic and social support for human rights violations by the state of Israel. Advocates for Palestinian human rights have lost jobs and incomes, been punished, and faced harassment for their advocacy.

For more information, visit the Center for Constitutional Rights’ case page.

The Center for Constitutional Rights also represents former board members of the Olympia Food Co-op who were sued over the co-op’s boycott of Israeli goods. That case was dismissed last year because plaintiffs failed to show that the co-op suffered any injury. See Davis v. Cox. 

###

The British political establishment is experiencing an unprecedented crisis over the issue of exiting the European Union. The Conservative government staggers from crisis to crisis over its Brexit deal while politicians of all colours bicker and argue as the UK lurches towards a potentially devastating No Deal scenario. This had lead to a huge distrust in the political class amongst the long suffering public.

As the clock ticks down towards the 29 March exit date it is worth while recalling how this crisis came about in the first place. Regardless of which Brexit option the UK takes over the next period it will not detract from the fact that there is a huge chasm between large sections of a bitterly discontented population and the political establishment that does not bode well for the future stability of a key American ally.

A recent poll of 33,000 people revealed that an overwhelming majority felt that whatever Brexit option is adopted it will not address the rampant inequalities, political alienation and disenchantment that lay behind the vote to leave the EU in 2016.

In June 2016 the UK vote to exit the EU shocked the financial and political elites and led to turmoil on global stock markets. The corporate media was full of shocked pundits lamenting the democratic decision of British people for Brexit. Brexit voters were being blamed for everything from the rise in racism against immigrant families to the increased dangers of terrorist attacks.

The corporate…

Tune in starting at 6pm Central and share this link: Infowars.com/Show

Infowars.com
February 5, 2019

Tune into Infowars.com/Show starting at 6pm Central as we provide live coverage of President Trump’s State of the Union address, including our in-depth analysis.

The president will make his case for unity during the special joint session of Congress, just 10 days before the Feb. 15 deadline for lawmakers to make a deal with Trump on border security to avoid another government shutdown.

Other topics the president is expected to address include jobs and the economy, the ‘infanticide’ controversy in Virginia, the potential return of prosperity to Venezuela and the out-of-control censorship spearheaded by Silicon Valley.

Again, tune in starting at 6pm Central! Share this link: Infowars.com/Show

For now, please share our live show feed and our articles to help the battle for free speech and to fight back against Big Tech censorship.

And tune into the Tuesday edition of the Alex Jones Show for more key intel on the State of the Union:

This article was posted: Tuesday, February 5, 2019 at 12:13 pm

Tags: SOTU, Trump

Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the notorious Mexican drug kingpin, has been on trial in New York City for 11 weeks. A federal jury headed into deliberations yesterday after more than 200 hours of testimony at the Federal District Court in Brooklyn revealing the inner workings of the Sinaloa Cartel, the major drug trafficking organization run by El Chapo. Fifty-six witnesses took to the stand with stories of murder, violence, spying, widespread corruption and even one tale of the drug lord escaping arrest in 2014 by climbing naked through a sewer alongside a former lover. El Chapo faces 10 charges, including leading a criminal enterprise, and could receive life in prison in the US if convicted. The trial concludes as Donald Trump continues to call for a wall on the US-Mexico border, which he claims will help combat drug trafficking. However, government data shows most of the hard narcotics seized by Customs and Border Protection come at legal ports of entry, not from people trying to secretly cross the southern border. We speak with Christy Thornton, an assistant professor of sociology and Latin American studies at Johns Hopkins University, who says El Chapo’s sensational trial is obscuring the truth about the so-called war on drugs.

Please check back later for full transcript.

As the government seeks to regulate guns further and make it increasingly more expensive and cumbersome to legally own a gun, armed citizens spent the first month of 2019 proving weapons of any kind are basic human rights. Any regulation of a citizen’s defense weapon should be seen as a human rights violation: and their rights are being destroyed by their own government.

But many enjoy taking basic human rights away from others and won’t stop until we are all wholly enslaved to the political elites. Whether these people are useful idiots or misguided illogical immoral fools is really the only debate left. According to The Daily Signal, gun ownership surveys routinely find that about 1 in 3 American adults personally own firearms, meaning that tens of millions of law-abiding citizens regularly choose to exercise their Second Amendment rights. Recent surveys also indicate that 60 percent of these gun owners possess firearms primarily to protect themselves and others from crime.

How to Own a Gun & Sta…
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A 2013 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention authorized by the Obama administration, in what proved to be a complete backfire for the anti-gun president, examined comprehensive studies of defensive gun use. It concluded that Americans use their firearms in defense of themselves or others between 500,000 and 3 million times every year. The report also noted that studies “have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies.”

But the whole reason the founding fathers wrote the second amendment down was to prevent any government from…

US “border security”: Troops, torture, barbaric prisons

By
Patrick Martin

5 February 2019

The Pentagon has confirmed that it is deploying an additional 3,750 troops to the US-Mexico border, continuing the build-up of repressive forces directed against defenseless immigrants and refugees seeking asylum in the United States.

Some of the 3,750 soldiers will replace those being rotated out of the border area, but there will be a sizeable net increase of at least 2,000. The total number of troops, regular and National Guard, will be more than 6,000, the largest force deployed to the southern border since 1917, when General John J. Pershing led a punitive expedition against Pancho Villa during the Mexican Revolution.

The confirmation of the troop deployment Sunday came only two days before President Trump is to give the State of the Union speech at the US Capitol building, in which a major focus is expected to be border security. Trump forced a partial shutdown of the US government for 35 days in an effort to force Congress to approve $5.7 billion in funding for a border wall.

The White House had to back down January 26, agreeing to a three-week reopening of the government while House and Senate negotiators discussed the budget for the Department of Homeland Security, which includes both Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The House-Senate conference must reach agreement by February 8 to give time for congressional approval of a bipartisan deal by February 15. Otherwise there will be another shutdown, or Trump has threatened to declare a national emergency and use funds appropriated for some other purpose, such as military construction, to build the wall.

In discussions with reporters last week, Trump hinted that he might declare the…

“It didn’t used to be immoral”

Steve Watson
Prison Planet.com
February 5, 2019

Senator Rand Paul has called for Democrats to compromise on funding for border security, noting that most of them have previously supported the idea of a barrier to help ‘controlled access’ to the country.

During an interview Sunday night with WBKO, Paul warned that if Democrats do not try to reach an agreement, it will lead to another shutdown, but also “a national emergency” and “other things.”

Sen. Paul spoke on the widely discussed border wall today ahead of tomorrow’s State of the Union. https://t.co/DukLCoGgKR

— Kelly Dean (@kellydeannews) February 5, 2019