Chris Menahan
Information Liberation
January 18, 2019

Late night comedian Stephen Colbert said Wednesday that he was “sincerely moved” by Gillette’s widely-panned ad on “toxic masculinity.”

After making a corny joke about how their ad was “cutting edge,” Colbert took a serious tone.

“I was sincerely moved by this ad,” Colbert said. “Especially the kids at the end.”

Though Colbert had nothing negative to say about the ad itself, he did criticize our “public institutions” for failing to teach us “moral lessons” like those in the Gillette ad.

“Are our public institutions so weak that we need to be taught moral lessons by razor companies?” Colbert asked.

Colbert dodged most of the controversy and instead attacked Fox News host Brian Kilmeade for getting “worked up” about mere “ads.”

The only funny thing was watching him debase himself on behalf of his corporate masters.

This article was posted: Friday, January 18, 2019 at 6:57 am

With each day that passes the conflict and animosity between the conservative reactionary forces and the global movement for progressive change becomes more acute, uglier and increasingly dangerous; wherever one looks in the world the battleground between groups on either side of the divide rages. In essence, it is a battle of values and ideas, of what kind of society we want to live in, but as the extremes, particularly those on what is commonly called the ‘right’, assert themselves, the space for rational, open debate is being crushed and a febrile intolerant atmosphere fueled.

Decades of systemic failure, environmental vandalism and social injustice have caused widespread discontent and anger among people in many countries, injustice made more severe by policies of crippling austerity following the 2008 banking crash. Among the 38 members of the wealthy OECD nations it is said that 50% of the population feel disenchanted with the political-economic system.

Consistent with the times we are living in – times in which the forces of the past are receding and the energies of the new are increasing in potency, the reaction to such discontent has been polarized. While large numbers of people recognize systemic change is needed and are calling for greater levels of cooperation between people and nations, others, in many cases equally great in numbers, blame external forces and immigration, and retreat into a narrow form of nationalism, seeking…

US President Donald Trump insists he will not allow “amnesty” for the young undocumented immigrants, who were brought to the country as children amid an ongoing government shutdown.

“No, Amnesty is not a part of my offer,” Trump tweeted on Sunday, referring to a set of proposals he had made in a White House address a day earlier to end the roughly-one-month-long shutdown.

The deal included giving about one million immigrants a three-year protection from deportation in exchange for $5.7 billion in funding for a wall along the US southern border.

The one million comprises 700,000 of the young immigrants, known as Dreamers, who remain protected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, and 300,000, who fled their countries and are facing the expiration of their “temporary protected status.”

“It is a three year extension of DACA. Amnesty will be used only on a much bigger deal, whether on immigration or something…

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says his country is prepared to take over security in Syria’s northern town of Manbij where a deadly bomb attack killed several American soldiers last Wednesday.

Erdogan made the remarks in a phone conversation with US President Donald Trump on Sunday, according to a statement by the Turkish presidency.

Erdogan told Trump that the attack was a “provocation” aimed at affecting his last month’s decision to pull US troops out of Syria, the statement said.

Since the withdrawal announcement, Manbij has been a major bone of contention between Ankara and Washington over the fate of US-backed YPG fighters in the war-torn country.

Last month, the Syrian army entered the city, marking the return of territories held by YPG militants to the government بor the first time in years.  

The city had been held by YPG militia, which Turkey regards شس an offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party…

Chris Menahan
Information Liberation
January 18, 2019

How do you do, fellow kids?

This is an actual thread tweeted out by Democratic Senators Chuck Schumer, Brian Schatz and Chris Murphy on Wednesday:

“They” were “debating” whether to tweet out this video from rapper Cardi B talking about the shutdown [NSFW]:

pic.twitter.com/NbjTtwOGFR

— iamcardib (@iamcardib) January 17, 2019

Shortly after that cringe thread was posted, it came out that “Sandy” was coaching Democrats on how to use Twitter:

Class was in session this morning! I was thrilled to offer some insights on Twitter and social media to my. colleagues this morning.

Now Majority @WhipClyburn is teaching me what all the bells mean in the Capitol 😂 https://t.co/pEGVZqqn2g

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 17, 2019

If you still have any question as to whether IQs are plummeting in America, check out the first two minutes or so of this new “City Girls” video with Cardi B called “Twerk” released on Wednesday [Extremely NSFW]:

Is this the best women can be?

The video is an interesting contrast with this performance of Franz Liszt’s “Liebestraum” by Chinese pianist Lang Lang at Carnegie Hall in 2003:

Incidentally, China banned hip-hop from television last year saying they refuse to provide a platform for “low-taste content.”

Here in America, our Big Tech overlords work tirelessly to purge all high(er)-taste content and aim to only provide a platform for low-taste garbage.

This article was posted: Friday, January 18, 2019 at 6:59 am

Chris Menahan
Information Liberation
January 18, 2019

This is what Hollywood pervs are injecting into the minds of young girls across America.

YouTuber Rubycalaber made a series of compilation videos titled “Supergirl Superfeminist Supercut” a little while ago highlighting the show’s insane propaganda, the latest of which, “Return Of The Gun Control,” appears to have just recently went viral.

The producer of the show, Andrew Kreisenberg, got #MeTooed in late 2017 after 19 women accused him of sexual harassment. The other producers are both homosexual activists.

It’s easy for us news junkies to think MSNBC or the big three’s nightly news broadcasts are as bad as it gets but the truth is most TV shows are around a thousand times worse because they know viewers do not watch them with a skeptical eye (and they target children and child-like adults).

This article was posted: Friday, January 18, 2019 at 7:03 am

School: BBC documentary reveals impact of education cuts

By
Tom Pearce and Paul Mitchell

21 January 2019

Throughout School we hear the refrain “We have to make our school financially viable.” CEO Will Roberts reveals that CSET has already suffered £1 [US$1.3] million in budget cuts, leaving government funding insufficient to maintain current services. He declares, “We are at the absolute limit of what we can do with the finance available to us.”

CEO Will Roberts and his three head teachers

Angie Browne, interim head teacher at Castle school, arrives at a MAT board meeting to be told another £296,000 of “budget savings” must be made before the end of the academic year. Redundancies are discussed. You can tell Browne is torn between supporting her staff and having to implement the MAT’s demands. Ultimately it is decided to cut the Teaching and Learning Responsibility payments (TLRs) teachers receive for “significant” extra work such as behavioural support. Around 40 teachers will suffer a £6,000 pay cut and children will be denied the help they need.

Browne tells her staff about the proposals. There is shock on their faces. A “consultation period” is proposed—a whitewash, since the decision has already been taken. One teacher says, “Teachers have always worked [above and beyond] without being paid, but there is no motivation now to do it.”

There is clearly a lack of staff. Seventeen teachers having left the school in 2017 heaps pressure on those who remain and results in poor behaviour of pupils. One science teacher says, “Schools are under increasing pressure to turn out the numbers [results] and teachers are putting stress on the pupils.”

With only six staff in the pastoral support team after staff and hours were halved last year,…

Nancy Pelosi (D – Boomers) has a problem. Scratch that, she has a number of problems, non counting her own ethical and moral shortcomings.

Pelosi is the Queen of Projection. She projects an air of invincibility while also projecting her weaknesses onto her political opponents. So, even though Nasty Nancy just got back her Speaker’s gavel, she does so at the weakest moment in the Democratic party’s history since World War II.

Democrats Are Close to Terminal Decline

The traditional three-headed coalition of the Democrats has been shattered. The middle class Union guys are gone. By the time Trump is done with her over border security Pelosi’ll lose a bigger swath of the Hispanic vote than she already has.

All that will be left is her warmongering, globalist, shills for the MIC and the Deep State. Bicoastal Smug Liberals.

Internal Revolt

Against the State: An …
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But, the hollowing out of the middle class is Pelosi’s biggest problem. Betraying the former Bernie Bros was the beginning. The Democrats under her leadership give lip service to bank reform which, in turn, has the hard-core Socialist left fired up.

That’s what rock-star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez represents. She is the face of what’s left of Occupy Wall St. And she has a strong, knee-jerk, anti-incumbent, anti-establishment momentum behind her.

It doesn’t matter that she’s 28 years old, has little to no life experience or a firm grasp on reality. This is politics and these are chaotic times. She already has an acronym (AOC) and a nickname. She’s important.

Warhorses like Pelosi don’t know how to change their ways this late in their game. They think they can buy off…

To mark Martin Luther King Jr. Day a group of academics, journalists, lawyers, Hollywood artists, activists, researchers and intellectuals, including two of Robert F. Kennedy’s children, are calling for new investigations into four assassinations of the 1960s.

On the occasion of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a group of over 60 prominent American citizens is calling upon Congress to reopen the investigations into the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and Senator Robert F. Kennedy. Signers of the joint statement include Isaac Newton Farris Jr., nephew of Reverend King and past president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; Reverend James M. Lawson Jr., a close collaborator of Reverend King; and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, children of the late senator. The declaration is also signed by numerous historians, journalists, lawyers and other experts on the four major assassinations. 

Other signatories include G. Robert Blakey, the chief counsel of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, which determined in 1979 that President Kennedy was the victim of a probable conspiracy; Dr. Robert McClelland, one of the surgeons at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas who tried to save President Kennedy’s life and saw clear evidence he had been struck by bullets from the front and the rear; Daniel Ellsberg, the Pentagon Papers whistleblower who served as a national security advisor to the Kennedy White House; Richard Falk, professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University and a leading global authority on human rights; Hollywood artists Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen, Rob Reiner and Oliver Stone; political satirist Mort Sahl; and musician David Crosby.

JFK: November 22, 1963.

The joint statement calls for Congress to establish firm oversight on the release of all government documents related to the Kennedy presidency and assassination, as mandated by the JFK Records Collection Act of 1992. This public transparency law has been routinely defied by the CIA and other federal agencies. The Trump White House has allowed the CIA to continue its defiance of…

Chris Menahan
Information Liberation
January 18, 2019

Just business as usual for our moral betters!

From the JTA:

In 2010, Sen. Joe Lieberman fretted that the Chinese telecommunications giant ZTE might be spying on Americans.

Nearly a decade later, Lieberman registered as a lobbyist for ZTE, with a spokesperson for the former senator saying he is now working for the company to see how they can alleviate the kind of concerns he previously raised.

The Daily Beast reported Tuesday that Lieberman, then a Connecticut Independent, joined three Republican lawmakers in 2010 who asked the Obama administration to provide information on whether Americans were susceptible to espionage given aggressive attempts by ZTE and Huawei, another Chinese company, to enter the telecommunications market.

As JTA notes, the 2010 letter he signed on to said: “We are very concerned that these companies are being financed by the Chinese government and are potentially subject to significant influence by the Chinese military which may create an opportunity for manipulation of switches, routers, or software embedded in American telecommunications network so that communications can be disrupted, intercepted, tampered with, or purposely misrouted.”

More from OpenSecrets:

Clarine Nardi Riddle, chair of the firm’s Government Affairs and Strategic Counsel Practice Group and Lieberman’s former chief of staff in the Senate who also registered as a lobbyist for ZTE, said Lieberman is not actually “lobbying” for ZTE but rather is gathering concerns about the company from lawmakers and officials.

“Senator Lieberman is conducting a national security assessment investigation, where he will listen to congressional, executive branch, and customer national security concerns, but will not be attempting to influence them nor advocate on ZTE’s behalf,” Nardi Riddle told the Center for Responsive Politics in an…

Introduction

In April 2014 I was part of an international delegation which visited Syria for five days. The delegates came from many different countries. Among the notables were the Irish Nobel Laureate Mairead Maguire, a Syrian-British heart surgeon and Julian Assange’s father. We spent time in Damascus, then traveled by bus to Latakia and then Homs. In each city we had meetings with political, religious and social leaders but also had time to wander about and talk with people on the streets.

In Latakia, I met Lilly Martin, an American woman who married a Syrian and has lived there, raising a family for the past twenty-five years. She told me how wrong the western media coverage was. Contrary to media claims, she said protests in Latakia were violent from the start. After the first outbreak of violence, Syrian police and military were ordered to not carry weapons. Protesters continued to burn and destroy government offices with incidents of knifing and shooting unarmed police.

Peaceful Homs Street (Photo:  Rick Sterling)

When we visited Homs I was struck by how normal it looked. The streets were full of people and the city looked fine. It was dramatically different than the images portrayed in western media. It was only when we were driving out of Homs that we passed an area where there was widespread destruction and battle damage. There was a sharp contrast between most of the city and the few neighborhoods where battle had raged.

Homs (Photo: Rick…

Depending on one’s capacity for optimism, 2018 either foretold the rebirth of labor militancy in the United States or, conversely, suggested the last gasp of a movement that has been in near-terminal decline since the 1970s. Two key events took place last year, which, per one’s analysis, have led to opposing predictions for workers in the US.

First, in February 2018, after years of austerity under Republican control, West Virginia teachers and school personnel decided to go on strike. But this was no conventional work stoppage. In West Virginia, teachers are considered providers of “essential services”, making any strike action illegal. Of course, this is part of the reason why neoliberal politicians have been able to walk all over the backs of West Virginia teachers for decades, making them third-last in the nation in terms of pay.

However, it also did not help that their unions — the American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association and the West Virginia School Service Personnel — were all dead set against any risk-taking, never mind an illegal disruption of work.

But against all expectations, West Virginia teachers captivated the nation when they decided to go on strike nonetheless, drawing inspiration from a long history of radical strikes in the state’s dying coal-mines. Their wildcat action brought out over 20,000 teachers shutting down schools in all 55 West Virginia counties.

This turned public opinion against the government — instead of no pay increase at all, they ultimately won their “impossible” demand for a 5 percent pay raise. Immediately, an organizing wave erupted throughout the nation, including follow-up actions by teachers in Arizona, Oklahoma, Colorado and North Carolina.

Then, a second key event took place: In June 2018, the US Supreme Court ruled against workers in the landmark case Janus v. AFSCME. The ruling, which had been pushed by conservative advocacy groups, including those affiliated with the billionaire…

Russia has warned the American destroyer USS Donald Cook deployed in the Black Sea against approaching Russian coasts, stressing that Moscow is closely watching and monitoring the warship’s actions.

Visits to the Black Sea by US warships have nothing to do with US security and are motivated by domestic politics, said Russian senator Alexei Pushkov on Sunday.

“US warships are becoming frequent visitors to the Black Sea. These visits have nothing to do with US security,” Pushkov, a member of Russia’s Upper House Commission on Information Policy, wrote on his Twitter page.

“They flaunt their flag, send us a signal, and appease their own senators, who are demanding they send a whole military fleet to the Black Sea. They should keep away from our coastline,” he warned.

The US guided-missile destroyer Donald Cook began moving towards the Black Sea on Saturday, less than two weeks after another US Navy vessel was deployed…

American Mirror
January 18, 2019

In another example of YouTube protecting California Congresswoman Maxine Waters, the video platform has notified The American Mirror that it has “restricted” a montage video exposing her long-time alliance with the anti-Semitic Louis Farrakhan.

Because YouTube has disabled the Embed feature, you will have to WATCH IT HERE.

YouTube has hidden the video behind a large warning sign:

“The following content has been identified by the YouTube community as inappropriate or offensive to some audiences,” the warning reads, not indicating whether Farrakhan’s anti-Semitic statements, his hugs with Maxine Waters, or the inconvenience of it all was deemed “offensive.”

YouTube requires viewers to click a button reading “I understand and wish to proceed” in order to see the expose.

The video, which is intended to bring attention to the Democrat leader and his vile views, shows Waters and Farrakhan embracing, including an instance where she repeatedly pats him on the back.

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

During a Nation of Islam convention in Los Angeles, Farrakhan calls her “our great congresswoman from this area.”

YouTube sent us an email with its ruling.

“Your video Maxine’s ties to an anti semitic was flagged to us by the YouTube community. Upon review, we have placed restrictions on how the video will be shown,” the email reads.

“We believe in the principles of free speech, even when that speech is unpopular or potentially offensive to some viewers. However, YouTube doesn’t allow hate speech or content that promotes or incites violence. In some cases, flagged videos that do not clearly breach the Community Guidelines but whose content is potentially controversial or offensive may remain up, but with some features disabled,” YouTube says.

The Maxine Waters/Louis Farrakhan educational video apparently falls into that category.

Earlier…

Do we want to live in an America where credit card companies watch our buying habits and then block purchases for ideological reasons?

Not long ago, the left side of the American electorate would have shouted “hell no” the loudest.

Not anymore.

Today, many on the left are cheering on, even pushing censorship in social media and more, as long as the suppression of ideas protects their political goals.  They even want big business to restrict gun sales, as they don’t see firearms as tools of freedom.

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Just before Christmas, The New York Times ran an article titled “How Credit Cards Are Used to Finance Mass Shootings.”  This followed an op-ed the NYT ran last spring calling for credit card companies to track and block some gun sales, such as stopping someone from buying a certain number of guns or from purchasing politically incorrect types of firearms.

About a month after the NYT op-ed, The Wall Street Journal reported that banks and credit card companies had begun “discussing” how they could pull off this idea from the left.

To block certain gun sales, banks and credit card companies determined they’d need to require retailers to give even more information so they could see the difference between, say, someone buying a semiautomatic rifle and someone purchasing a vacuum cleaner.  Getting into the censorship business, as it turns out, takes a lot of Big Brother data.

“There are federal laws limiting the government’s use of electronic databases of gun sales,” says Larry Keane, senior vice president and general counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), the trade…

American Mirror
January 18, 2019

Nancy Pelosi suffered another flare up of bizarre behavior today as she denounced President Trump and demanded the government be reopened without funding for a border wall.

The House Speaker spoke to reporters today, and she marred words, frequently repeated herself and suffered brain freezes.

Early in her remarks, Pelosi sighed heavily, seemingly out of breath.

“Next week, as you are aware, we…” she stopped, breathing in, “have canceled our district work period next week,” she continued, repeating herself.

The House Speaker suffered a mouth problem was trying to say “increase,” then was hit with a brain freeze when she discussed dignity.

Reiterating what she had already said, Pelosi said, “Once again, we call upon the President to open up, uh, government, uh, to reopen government, uh, as I said, we canceled our district work period. This is directly related to our security,” she said, suffering another speech problem.

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

After calling it the Trump “shuntdown,” she had trouble saying “immigration.”

Pelosi really had trouble saying “mine.”

She said she was “particularly concerned about the United Ine, Arn, United Mine Workers of America,” she said, pronouncing the words very deliberately.

After having trouble saying “United Mine Workers” again, she stumbled through saying “denied.”

Attempting to offer some heart-wrenching testimonials from government employees being deprived of a paycheck, Pelosi botched the employees name — but only after calling one an “employer.”

While trying to explain why she wants to postpone the President’s annual State of the Union address, the House Speaker stumbled, “And that’s why I said to the President, let’s uh, let’s— if, if you don’t open up government, uh, if that doesn’t happen, let’s discuss a mutually agreeable date. Septemb— uh,…

A British mother has been deliberately committing crimes throughout the past years to be able to go to prison and escape homelessness.

The Metro newspaper said in a report on Sunday that Kerry Marnell, 35, would deliberately get herself arrested over the past several years so she could return to prison where she had spent years behind bars for drug-related convictions.

The homeless mother-of-one said life on the streets of Britain was becoming increasingly hard especially at a time when freezing temperatures were a real risk to the life of many rough-sleepers.

“Life was incredibly tough when I was living on the streets. I found prison easy in comparison,” said Marnell, adding, “Until you have lived on the streets you have never felt real cold, you fear you may never wake up.”

The shocking news come as thousands are reportedly forced to sleep rough this winter across Britain with government and local councils effectively unable to…

Factional warfare hots up after collapse of May’s European Union Brexit deal

By
Robert Stevens

19 January 2019

The pro-Remain wing of Britain’s ruling elite were convinced that their moment of triumph had come with the rejection Tuesday of Prime Minister Theresa May’s deal for leaving the European Union (EU) and the failure Wednesday of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s vote of no confidence on the Conservative government.

Led by the Blairite wing of the Labour Party, they calculated that the decks would now be cleared for them to campaign for a second “People’s Vote” to overturn the 2016 referendum result in favour of leaving the EU.

But no such clear-cut scenario for exiting the Brexit crisis exists. Instead the factional warfare that May sought to manage in her own party in the hope of securing at least a “soft Brexit”—maintaining tariff-free access to Europe’s markets—has erupted with renewed force. In addition, divisions within the Labour Party over Brexit itself and the advisability of unequivocally backing a second referendum, which Corbyn also tried to manage with his policy of studied ambiguity, have also been brought to centre stage.

The campaign for a “People’s Vote” stepped up a gear, with Tony Blair himself demanding that Corbyn enter crisis talks with May and abandon his pre-condition of her ruling out a “no-deal” Brexit—something she is unable to do without completely alienating her “Brexiteer” wing and Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, which she relies on the support of its 10 MPs for a majority in Parliament. Corbyn’s positioning Labour for a possible fresh vote of no-confidence—after May’s “Plan B” deal is presented to Parliament Monday—and his proposal to then seek a vote on his own Brexit…

Zero Hedge
January 20, 2019

After what many are describing as Trump’s attempted channeling of Reagan’s ‘Star Wars’ program with Thursday’s unveiling of a missile defense strategy heavily focused on space as “the next war-fighting domain”, Moscow has issued a predictably harsh rebuke, calling the newly published US Missile Defense Review (MDR) “openly confrontational” and a danger to global stability and peace. 

Warning that Washington’s missile defense strategy could restart the Cold War-era arms race, the Russian Foreign Ministry on Friday accused the White House of seeking to weaponize space while removing any limitations to development. Indeed President Trump did appear to reaffirm his controversial decision to pull out of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia during his remarks at the Pentagon Thursday affirming, “We are committed to establishing a missile defense program that can shield every city in the United States and we will never negotiate away our right to do this.”

In response, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced, “We would like to note that the very same logic served as the foundation of the widespread nuclear missile race that brought the world to the brink of disaster multiple times.” The statement added that US defense planners “apparently decided to step on the same rake, with predictable consequences,” in reference to 20th century nuclear brinkmanship.

Trump and the MDR itself called for investment into “new technologies” focused on space such as space-based launch detection sensors that would coordinate anti-air missiles on the ground in places like Alaska, in order to “shield every American city”. The president said the US must “recognize that space is a new warfighting domain, with the Space Force leading the way.” He further promised it will be a “very, very big…

The overzealous politically correct-speech crowd has triggered a backlash. One person who took exception is Jordan Peterson, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto who rocketed into the spotlight for his courageous dissent against compelled speech. I support that stance taken by Peterson. Peterson also has a youtube presence, and this year his book 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote for Crisis (Penguin Random House UK) was published.

Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life contains plenty of wisdom, but also plenty of bias, often ill-supported by facts or reason. Yet an anarchist physics professor finds, “Peterson is having an impact because his important words are true and because oppressive false words have gone too far.” Peterson, says the anarchist, is “fighting for reason and objectivity and against ideological madness.”

Indeed, rational people will agree that discovering what best captures or approximates truth is important, as is exposing false narratives. Who cannot help but support “fighting for reason and objectivity and against ideological madness.” Yet Peterson can also be accused of ideological bias. Since 12 Rules for Life is a best seller and since Peterson’s views are garnering widespread attention, Peterson’s viewpoints on truth, falsity, anti-communism, ideology, and so on, as expressed in his book, call for a critical analysis.

The Need for Rules

Peterson claims that “without rules we quickly become slaves to our…

UK police have arrested two people as part of an investigation into a car bombing in the British-run province of Northern Ireland, as authorities suspect a major separatist group carried out the attack.

Officers said on Sunday that the arrests were made in relation to Saturday’s car bomb in Londonderry, in Northern Ireland, adding that their main line of inquiry was that the New IRA militant group was responsible for the attack which had no casualties.

Assistant Chief Constable Mark Hamilton sought to downgrade the significance of the attack, saying the public should be sure that the Irish nationalist group was not planning to escalate its attacks in the region.

The New IRA, or The Real Irish Republican Army, is one of the main groups opposed to Britain’s 1998 peace treaty in Ireland which came after three decades of bloody battles on the streets of the region. The group has carried out sporadic attacks in recent years as it seeks to…

The effrontery of Ms. Pelosi, Speaker of the House, in cancelling Mr. Trump’s State of the Union address in the chamber she controls is perhaps the worst insult to institutional protocol since the spring day in 1856 when Congressman Preston Brooks (D-SC) skulked into the senate chamber and smashed Senator Charles Sumner (R-Mass) about the head within an inch of his life with a gold-headed walking stick. Brooks’s attack was launched after Sen. Sumner gave his “Bleeding Kansas” speech, arguing that the territory be let into the union as a “free” state, and denouncing “the harlot slavery,” whom he imputed was Rep. Brooks’s dearest consort.

Many of us — except perhaps students immersed in intersectional gender studies — know how that worked out: a little dust-up in the meadows and cornfields known as the Civil War. We’re about at that level of animosity today in the two federal houses of legislature, though it is very hard to imagine how Civil War Two might play out on the ground. Perhaps opposing mobs (not even armies) meet in the Walmart parking lots of Pennsylvania and go at it demolition derby style, with monster trucks bashing their enemies’ Teslas and Beemers. Throw in clown suits instead of blue and gray uniforms and we’ll really capture the spirit of the age.

The Fall of the Ancien…
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Not to be outdone, days after the SOTU cancellation, the Golden Golem of Greatness cancelled a Democratic Party grandstanding junket to the Middle East, led by Ms. Pelosi. A US Air Force bus has just departed for Andrews Air Force Base, where an Air Force jet waited for the junketeers. But then, with impeccable timing, Mr. Trump cancelled the junket —…

A national general strike is the fastest way to end the ongoing government shutdown in the United States, an American political analyst says, as an impasse between Democrats and President Donald Trump over his border wall is about to enter the fifth week.

“The highest priority at the moment is opening the government but how to get it done is loaded with very unrealistic solutions,” Myles Hoenig, a former Green Party candidate told Press TV Sunday.

“Probably the fastest way to resolve the shutdown is for there to be a general strike in the US. Not just the government employees and their state government allies but a real national general strike, something this country is not used to,” he added.

Earlier in the day, Republican Representative Lee Zeldin suggested that Trump and all members of Congress should be locked in a room and left unpaid until they reach a deal to end the longest ever US government shutdown.

The bizarre statement…

The US military has been caught using Russian-styled air defense systems during major military exercises in the southern state of Mississippi, as the Pentagon shifts focus from operations in the Middle East to confronting Russia and China in the Pacific.

The US National Guard’s 172^nd Airlift Wing released a video on Saturday that showed its pilots performing air assault training with personnel from the 148th Air Force Special Operations Command (ASOS) during Southern Strike 19 war games at Camp Shelby, Mississippi.

During the simulated attacks, AH-64 Apache helicopters fired on targets that resembled Russian air defense systems such as Osa and Tor short-range surface-to-air missile systems, the Defence Blog website reported Sunday.

The military drills also involved armored personnel carriers similar in style to Russia’s well-known BTR-80 wheeled amphibious vehicles.

Southern Strike, a large scale military exercise hosted by the…

Philip Giraldi
OffGuardian.com
January 20, 2019

The Roman poet Ovid’s masterful epic The Metamorphoses includes the memorable opening line regarding the poem’s central theme of transformation. He wrote In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas corpora, which has been translated as “Of shapes transformed to bodies strange, I purpose to entreat…”

Ovid framed his narrative around gods, heroes and quasi-historical events but if he were around today, he would no doubt be fascinated by the many transformations of the group that has defined itself as neoconservative. The movement began in a cafeteria in City College of New York in the 1930s, where a group of radical Jewish students would meet to discuss politics and developments in Europe. Many of the founders were from the far left, communists of the Trotskyite persuasion, which meant that they believed in permanent global revolution led by a vanguard party. The transformation into conservatives of a neo-persuasion took place when they were reportedly “mugged by reality” into accepting that the standard leftist formulae were not working to transform the world rapidly enough. As liberal hawks, they then hitched their wagon to the power of the United States to bring about transformation by force if necessary and began to infiltrate institutions like the Pentagon to give themselves the tools to achieve their objectives, which included promotion of regime change wars, full spectrum global dominance and unconditional support for Israel.

The neocons initially found a home with Democratic Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson, but they moved on in the 1970s and 1980s to prosper under Ronald Reagan as well as under Democrat Bill Clinton. Their ability to shape policy peaked under George W. Bush, when they virtually ran the Pentagon and were heavily represented in both the national security apparatus and in the White House. They became…

Saudi Arabia would finally face a revolt from the inside as people’s voices for democracy and freedom start to rattle the shaky and unstable regime that “corrupt royals” have built on oil wealth, a political analyst from London says.

“The future of Saudi Arabia looks bleak because it is a complete autocracy ruled by a corrupt royal family which uses the whip and electricity and the sword to suppress all opposition,” said Rodney Shakespeare in an interview with Press TV on Sunday.

The analyst said the Saudi Arabian government had managed to remain in power through its huge oil income and its economic strength which it uses to satisfy a “sufficient proportion of the population” which thinks its interests lie with supporting the corrupt and intolerant government.

Shakespeare said, however, that at some stage in future, Saudi Arabia is likely to come under high pressure as the modern communication technologies have enabled people to…

American Mirror
January 20, 2019

Is President Trump’s determined stance on illegal immigration helping him with Latino voters?

A new poll shows the President has a 51 percent approval among that voter group, according to numbers released this week.

The PBS-NPR-Marist survey, taken from January 10th through 13th, finds 29 percent of Latinos “strongly approve” of Trump’s performance, while 22 percent “approve.”

🚨🚨🚨

PBS-NPR-Marist poll:

51% of Latino adults “strongly approve” or “approve” of the job @realDonaldTrump is doing.

Trump was only at 31% percent in December.

His disapprove is down from 64 to 46%.

Seems like Latinos like the Wall!

Why won’t media report? 🤔#MAGA 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/j6egxnnC2b

— Harlan Z. Hill (@Harlan) January 19, 2019

Just 4 percent disapprove, while 41 percent “strongly disapprove,” according to the numbers posted by Harlan Hill.

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

The poll finds Trump’s approval among Latinos is one point higher than it is with Whites. Trump’s approval stands at 39 percent among registered voters, according to the survey.

The numbers find a dramatic rise among Latinos, and may be related to his strong stance against illegal immigration, and coincides with his demand for border wall funding as a condition to end the partial government shutdown.

In December, the same firm found just a 31 percent approval among Latinos — 12 percent “strongly” approving, while 19 percent just giving approval.

That’s a 20-point jump since December!

The survey also found 22 percent disapproved of his performance, while 41 percent “strongly” disapproved.

The poll also finds Trump enjoys the largest job approval among Generation X voters, who are currently 38-53 years old.

Forty-four percent of Gen X voters approve of Trump’s job.

Others:

• Gen Z/Millennials: 37 percent approval
• Baby Boomers: 39 percent…