Photo Source POMED | CC BY 2.0

I knew just what Jamal Khashoggi’s murder really meant in the context of the Middle East last week when I realised just who I’d have to call to explain it to me. Whom would I telephone to learn what was going on? Why, of course, I’d call Jamal Khashoggi. And that’s why his murder is so important. Because he was, as he knew, a lone and important Arab journalist who did not listen – not any more — to His Master’s Voice. And that, of course, was his problem.

This disgusting, dangerous, frightening, dirty murder – and don’t tell me a man of 60 who dies in a “fistfight” with 15 men isn’t murder – shows not just the Saudi government up for what it is, but it shows us up for what we are, too. How come we keep falling in love with Arab states – Israel does this, too – and then cry out with shock when they turn out to be extremely unpleasant and very violent?

To answer this question, there are already several clues. Trump’s initial reaction that the Saudi story was “credible” – when it clearly was not – was a start. Then the murder became “the worst cover-up in history”. It was the quality of the murder that was troubling him, you see. These chaps didn’t know how to cover their tracks. He had already blurted out that he didn’t want to give up US arms sales to Saudi Arabia. We had our own beloved prime minister referring to Jamal’s gruesome murder as a “killing”, rather than a murder. Then –…

It is one of those complex stories that are so difficult to tell, and yet they should, they have to be shared.

Imagine the splendid Mekong River, as it flows not far from an ancient capital of Laos, Luang Prabang. The river is powerful, with muddy banks, surrounded by lush mountains. Imagine poor villages and old ferry crossings, as well as broken plastic sandals on the feet of local people.

Then suddenly, near the village of Phonesai, you can spot several tremendous concrete pillars. They are growing out from the water, and from both river banks, literally connecting two mountains.

Soon it will be a bridge for high-speed trains. It is being built by China, a nation with the most advanced high-speed rail technology on earth. And a bit below, there will be another bridge, for cars and pedestrians.

Both mountains are being drilled, carefully and sparingly. This is where two tunnels will be passing through.

It is, of course, much cheaper to blow the mountains down with explosives. But earlier this year, China engraved the “Ecological Civilization” into its Constitution, and what it preaches at home, it also implements abroad.

This is the biggest project in the history of Laos, and it is often described as a mammoth engineering task: with 154 bridges and 76 tunnels, as well as 31 train stations. The Laotian terrain is very complex, its nature still pristine at large, and it is supposed to remain as such. The railroad will be 414 kilometers long, connecting Boten…

President Donald Trump has blamed unfair media coverage for causing “great anger” in the United States in the wake of a deadly shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, that killed 11 people on Saturday.

In a pair of tweets on Monday morning, Trump said the “Fake News Media” is “the true Enemy of the People.”

“There is great anger in our Country caused in part by inaccurate, and even fraudulent, reporting of the news. The Fake News Media, the true Enemy of the People, must stop the open & obvious hostility & report the news accurately & fairly,” Trump wrote on Twitter.

“That will do much to put out the flame of Anger and Outrage and we will then be able to bring all sides together in Peace and Harmony,” he added.

Reports in the British media show that local authorities in London are moving homeless people out of the city on an unprecedented scale.

The Guardian newspaper said in a report on Monday that the number of homeless and rough sleepers moved out of London in the first half of this year had increased by almost 50 percent.

The report said more than 1,200 households had been forced out of the capital by local councils, an increase of 46 percent compared to the same period in 2017. It said 688 households had been sent out of London only between April and June alone, the highest number recorded over the past six years.

The homeless are sent to places far from London, including to Glasgow in Scotland and Cardiff in Wales, said the report, adding that the practice had turned the lives of many families upside down.

Councils have blamed the increase in the number of evictions to rising homelessness, tightening public finances and a lack of new cheap…

By that logic, the mail bomber was also “vandalism”

Paul Joseph Watson
PrisonPlanet.com
October 29, 2018

After a Republican Party headquarters in Volusia County, Florida was shot up, the media reported the incident as an act of “vandalism”.

The windows of the HQ were shot out Monday morning and four bullet holes were found inside the office. The attack was almost certainly politically motivated because no other business on the strip was targeted.

“At this point we can confirm that at least four rounds were fired into the building,” said South Daytona police Capt. Mark Cheatham. “We are working to see if we can get video from nearby businesses but so far we have no witnesses.”

#SouthDaytona Republican Headquarter shot up overnight. Volunteers arrived Monday to find windows shot out and bullet holes inside office. pic.twitter.com/XjcgrwcWuf

— Patricio G. Balona (@PBalonaNJ) October 29, 2018

The incident occurred hot on the heels of a South Florida man being arrested for sending dud pipe bombs in the mail to top Democrats, but what little media attention it has received downplayed the shooting as an act of vandalism.

The Daytona Beach News-Journal reported the shocking incident as a mere act of “vandalism,” equating it with graffiti.

“Vandalized”. They literally shot bullets into a Republican party office and the media equates it to graffiti. But there’s no bias, honest! pic.twitter.com/o0ubg5mrok

— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) October 29, 2018

The Florida Times-Union also reported that the office had been “vandalized by gunfire”.

“Vandalized by gunfire”.

This is how the media is reporting an attempted terror attack on a Republican Party HQ in Florida.

By this logic, the mail bombs were just “vandalism”.

No, that was terrorism and so is this. pic.twitter.com/w0R0DYgumk

— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) October 29, 2018

Numerous other outlets…

The total number of US troops being deployed to the border with Mexico to help stop a caravan of migrants could be in the thousands, according to a US official, a much higher estimate than the 800 to 1,000 initially forecast.

The US official told Reuters on Monday that thousands of American troops could be sent to the southern border but there is no firm figure yet.

Last week, US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis authorized the use of troops and other military resources for stopping the migrant caravan from Central America.

Officials at the time said Mattis’ authorization did not include a specific number of troops, something that would be determined at a later point.

The mission aims to bolster President Donald Trump’s efforts to stop Central American migrants trekking toward the United States.

Trump, who campaigned against illegal immigration to win the 2016 US presidential vote, has seized on this caravan in the run-up to the November 6…

I admit: I’m a permabear.

This is no surprise to those who know and have followed me over the years. But I’m publicly proclaiming my ‘bearishness’ because doing so might open up a needed and long overdue dialog.

Here’s my fundamental position:  Infinite growth on a finite planet is impossible. 

Cutting to the chase, this is why I predict a major crash/collapse across stocks, bonds and real estate is on the way.

The recent market weakness seen over the past two weeks is nothing compared to what’s in store.  As we’ve been carefully chronicling, bubbles burst from ‘the outside in’, starting at the weaker places at the periphery before progressing to the center.

Emerging market equities are now down -26% from their January highs and -18% year-to-date.  China’s stock market is down -32%, even with substantial intervention by the government to prop things up.

The periphery has been weakening all year, and the contagion has now spead worldwide.

Taken as a whole, global equities have shed some $13 trillion of market capitalization for a -15% decline:

The rot has spread to the core with surprising speed. Now even the formerly bullet-proof US equity markets are stumbling.

The S&P 500 is now negative on the year:

It’s been obvious for a long time to those who have watched The Crash Course that endless growth is simply not possible. Not for a bacteria colony in a petrie dish, not for an economy, not for any species on the planet. Eventually, when finite resources are involved, limits matter.

But the vast majority of society pretends as if this isn’t true.

The US government is (and has been for decades) adding to its massive pile of debt at a rate far faster than it’s income (GDP) is growing. Pension managers…

Sputnik
October 29, 2018

The United Kingdom was aware of Riyadh’s plans to capture Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and requested Saudi Arabia to cancel the mission, but the warning was ignored, the Daily Express newspaper reported, citing a UK intelligence source.

“On October 1, we became aware of the movement of a group, which included members of [Saudi General Intelligence Directorate] to Istanbul, and it was pretty clear what their aim was. Through channels we warned that this was not a good idea. Subsequent events show that our warning was ignored,” the source said, as quoted by the newspaper on Sunday.

“These details included primary orders to capture Mr Khashoggi and bring him back to Saudi Arabia for questioning. However, the door seemed to be left open for alternative remedies to what was seen as a big problem. We know the orders came from a member of the royal circle but have no direct information to link them to Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. Whether this meant he was not the original issuer we cannot say,” the source noted.

In turn, a friend of Mr Khashoggi told the Daily Express that the Saudi journalist was close to get “documentary evidence” proving that Riyadh used chemical weapons in Yemen.

Khashoggi, known for his criticism of Saudi policies, had been working as a columnist for The Washington Post. The journalist was last seen entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2. After more that two weeks of denials, the Saudi authorities confirmed on October 19 the journalist had been killed in a fight inside the consulate building.

Riyadh said it had arrested 18 people over their involvement in the incident, while at least five Saudi officials have been dismissed amid the growing controversy.

This article was posted: Monday, October 29, 2018 at 7:48 am

UAW building luxury “cottage” for ex-president Dennis Williams

By
Shannon Jones

29 October 2018

Reports that the United Auto Workers (UAW) is building an expensive, luxury retreat for former union president Dennis Williams are compounding already boiling worker anger over exposures of rampant corruption in the UAW leadership.

Several top UAW officials have already been convicted in the scandal involving the siphoning off of millions of dollars from union-management joint training funds into the pockets of union officials.

According to the Detroit News, the UAW is building a 1,885-square-foot three-and-one-half bath lakefront “cottage” at the union’s Black Lake Conference Center in northern Michigan. The residence designated for the use of Williams will feature granite countertops, a wood-burning fireplace, stainless steel appliances, a wine cooler and a patio overlooking Black Lake.

Blueprints filed with Cheboygan County in 2017 indicate that the “cottage” will also feature a stone veneer and an aged metal roof. The kitchen will feature cherry cabinets with a “chocolate glaze finish” and walls covered with “white cedar shiplap.” There will also be a hidden storage closet in the master bedroom, a feature sure to raise eyebrows given the large amounts of misappropriated funds pocketed by UAW officials.

The initial cost of the project was pegged at $285,000, a likely gross underestimate given the expensive finishing. A building contractor contacted by the World Socialist Web Site Autoworker Newsletter said, “I read the Detroit News report on Williams’ lake house. $285,000 for an 1,885 square foot house might be appropriate for a worker’s cottage that was finished with asphalt shingles, vinyl siding, modest windows, and laminate countertops. But…

Call Salvini ‘racist’ for making the issue about mass immigration

Paul Joseph Watson
PrisonPlanet.com
October 29, 2018

Feminists responded to the sickening gang rape and murder of a 16-year-old Italian girl by three illegal African migrants by protesting against all men.

Earlier this month, the body of Desirée Mariottini was found in a derelict building in Rome notorious for drug trafficking. The girl was fed a cocktail of drugs and sexually abused before she died. Three migrants from Senegal and Nigeria were subsequently arrested by police.

Similar to how feminists reacted after the mass sexual assault of women by Muslim migrants on New Year’s Eve 2015 in Cologne, Germany, feminists responded to the murder by demonstrating against “the patriarchy,” while saying nothing about the threat to women’s safety posed by mass immigration.

Feminist group NonUnaDiMeno (Not One Less) claimed that the murder highlighted the problem of “patriarchal violence” while blasting Interior Minister Matteo Salvini as ‘racist’ for making the issue about immigration.

“ENOUGH of erasing for propaganda purposes the lives of women killed by patriarchal violence,” tweeted the group.

Another Facebook post made clear that violence against women “has no borders,” a clear attempt to absolve migrants of blame, despite the fact that they are routinely overrepresented in crime stats relating to the sexual abuse of women.

“Through the streets of San Lorenzo to shout once again together that masculine violence against woman has no borders, has no passport. Violence against women is done by men. Today we are here, we are many, we are all Desirée,” the group posted.

The entire farce again serves as a reminder that third wave feminism has nothing to do with protecting women and everything to do with pushing left-wing narratives about mass immigration that are actually harmful to…

The government is violating a federal judge’s order to stop medicating immigrant children held at a troubled Texas shelter without proper consent and to move the children to other housing, attorneys for the children allege in new court filings.

US District Judge Dolly Gee ordered July 30 that immigrant children held at Shiloh Treatment Center could no longer be medicated with psychiatric drugs without the consent of a parent or court authorization and that any children not deemed a danger to themselves or others be moved to less restrictive housing. Gee also found the children should be allowed access to private phone calls.

After a court filing in a separate case noted that the children still had not been evaluated to determine whether they should be moved, Gee appointed a private attorney to oversee the government’s compliance with the order. Government lawyers recently filed a motion requesting that the judge reconsider her decision because the Office of Refugee Resettlement “has been provided no opportunity to develop evidence,” records state.

But lawyers representing the children held at Shiloh allege in the new court filings that the government is failing to comply with the order. As recently as this week, attorneys interviewed some of the immigrant children at Shiloh. The facility, about 20 miles south of Houston, has been under investigation in the past following the deaths of several teenagers in its care.

Photo Source Agência Brasil Fotografias | CC BY 2.0

With Jair Bolsonaro’s electoral victory in Sunday’s runoff election for president of Brazil, a global resurgence of the radical right is indisputable. Mr. Bolsonaro is a particularly ugly representative of this movement, both politically repressive and culturally intolerant. The question being asked in the bourgeois press is: what psychological malady is taking hold that could persuade voters to elect such a person?

The framing poses the resurgence as inexplicable, as the result of the fundamental flaw of democracy: the voters. A litany of failures is redistributed downward. Because Mr. Bolsonaro is politically repressive and culturally intolerant, the electorate must want political repression and cultural intolerance. Because Mr. Bolsonaro is a gender bully and homophobic, voters must be gender bullies and homophobic.

Missing from explanations of the rise of Mr. Bolsonaro is that for the last decade Brazil has experienced the worst economic recession in the country’s history (graph below). Fourteen million formerly employed, working age Brazilians are now unemployed. As was true in the U.S. and peripheral Europe from 2008 forward, the liberal response has been austerity as the Brazilian ruling class was made richer and more politically powerful.

Graph: Brazil entered recession in 2008 along with much of the rest of the world in the global financial crisis. It re-entered recession in 2012 in what turned into the…

The October 2018 AP-NORC Poll national survey with 1,152 adults found 8 in 10 Americans believe the country is divided regarding essential values, and some expect the division to deepen into 2020.

Only 20% of Americans said they think the country will become less divided over the next several years, and 39% believe conditions will continue to deteriorate. A substantial majority of Americans, 77%, said they are dissatisfied with the state of politics in the country, said AP-NORC.

The nationwide survey was conducted on October 11-14, using the AmeriSpeak Panel, the probability-based panel of NORC at the University of Chicago. Overall, 59% of Americans disapprove of how Trump is handling his job as president, while 40% of Americans approve.

More specifically, the poll said 83% of Republicans approve of how Trump is handling the job, while 92% of Democrats and 61% of Independents strongly disagree. 

More than half of Americans said they are not hearing nor seeing topics from midterm campaigns that are important to them. About 54% of Democrats and 44% of Republicans said vital issues, such as health care, education, and economic activity, Social Security and crime, were topics they wanted to hear more. 

The Fourth Turning: An…
William Strauss, Neil …
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Looking at their communities, most American (Republicans and Democrats) are satisfied with their state or local community. However, on a national level, 58% of Americans are dissatisfied with the direction of the country, compared to 25%, a small majority who are satisfied.

Most Americans are dissatisfied with the massive gap between rich and poor, race relations and environmental conditions. The poll…

This is the next stage of the Julian Assange chronicles: from the summit of information disclosures and meddlesome revelations on classified state matters, the Australian rabblerouser now finds himself the subject of a new round of jokes and ribbing.  WikiLeaks, in short, must be wary of the dangers posed by a new campaign of farce.

Satire, humour and ad hominem attacks can have the effect of wounding and deflating.  When directed against dissidents from the vantage point of tradition, the effect can be calculating and delegitimising.  For Chelsea Manning, a querulous attitude to the US military, a confused matter of gender and lingering resentment were furnished as weapons against her role as a genuine whistleblower.  Whistleblowers, or so goes this line of reasoning, cannot suffer “delusions of grandeur”.  They must be calm, focused, and scrupulously clean.

Assange, as with others associated with the vocation of exposing the asymmetrical nature of power and its impacts, has found himself repeatedly depicted in fashions that supposedly undermine the rationale for transparency politics.   He is an enemy of conventional forms of stratified power, and must duly account for dirtying that sty in advancing an approach that insists upon transnational networks “which function,” writes Raffi Khatchadourian, “outside norms of state sovereignty that have held for centuries.”

Joan Smith, chair of the Mayor of London’s Violence Against Women and Girls…

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has been charging a record number of people for committing voter fraud violations, prompting critics to accuse the Republican official of using scare tactics to sideline pro-Democratic minorities.

As a decisive midterm congressional election approaches, media reported on Sunday that Paxton has been charging a record number of people over voting violations.

In a dozen-year span from 2005 to 2017, there were 97 cases of election fraud prosecutions in Texas, while in 2018, alone, Paxton’s office prosecuted 33 defendants for a total of 97 election fraud violations.

Critics say Paxton, who himself is in several cases accused of corruption and bribery charges, wants to intimidate minority voters, who generally favor Democrats, from casting ballots in upcoming elections scheduled for November 6.

“I think it’s all politically motivated,” said Greg Westfall, a Texas lawyer currently representing a Hispanic woman who…

As a Saudi citizen exiled in Washington, D.C., since 2000, Ali al Ahmed has experienced first-hand what the Saudi government is willing to do to silence its critics inside and outside the country.

By Ali al Ahmed

The murder of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul after visiting the Saudi consulate there on Oct. 2 is disturbing but not surprising to me and other dissident writers and activists who provide a critical view of the kingdom and have paid for it, usually with exile or prosecution of our family members.

As a Saudi citizen exiled in Washington, D.C., since 2000, I have seen and experienced first-hand what the government is willing to do to silence its critics inside and outside the country. These actions date back to as early as 1979, when dissident activist and author Naser Al Saeed was abducted from Beirut, Lebanon, in December of that year.

His fate remains unknown, but it is widely believed that the Saudi intelligence service paid PLO gunmen to kidnap and fly him back to Riyadh, where he was secretly killed. (Ironically, Khashoggi worked for many years with Turki Al Faisal, the man who ran Saudi intelligence at the time and is suspected of carrying out that operation.)

Opposing the Saudi royal family — especially if you advocate a progressive alternative to the current regime — is a dangerous undertaking, a fact that has never been far from my mind since moving to Washington in 2000 after my graduate studies in Minneapolis.

Once I became a recognized voice for reform and democracy, the Saudi government used carrots and sticks to silence me. In March 2004, the Saudi Embassy seized my passport when I attempted to renew it and offered me a one-way ticket home. The government has since quietly made me a stateless person by rescinding my nationality, which I discovered only when my family tried to process a legal document back home.

The monarchy has also been trying to convince me to return home since 2002. In 2007, a senior Saudi intelligence officer traveled to Washington to arrange a meeting between former Saudi crown and then head of Saudi intelligence (and brother of the present King), Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz, and myself at the…

Some have however speculated that the caravan is being financed by Democrat operatives linked to left-wing billionaire George Soros. But this speculation isn’t rooted in antisemitism — it’s rooted in Soros’ track record of funding left-wing…

Chris Menahan
Information Liberation
October 26, 2018

Well, well, well — what do we have here?

From NBC New York, “Some Suspected Mail Bombs Were Not Capable of Exploding, Others Yet to Be Analyzed, Officials Say”:

Some of the 10 suspected mail bombs addressed to high-profile Democrats and others over the last few days were flawed and not capable of exploding, while others have yet to be fully analyzed, several investigators said Thursday.

In some cases, the flaws were substantial. In others, more subtle, they said.

NBC News: Law enforcement sources say that at this point in the review of the bombs it is clear that some were incapable of exploding. Whether that was a design flaw or intentional is not yet known. Analysis is ongoing

They say to treat any suspicious package as if it were real.

— Tom Winter (@Tom_Winter) October 25, 2018

The news, expected to be detailed at a joint NYPD/FBI briefing in New York shortly, comes after investigators said the devices appeared poorly made and that it was unclear if they were hoaxes or simply cases of bad construction. Earlier in the investigation, officials in multiple states had described the items as live explosives and a number of senior bomb techs briefed on the probe said they had all the components necessary for successful explosions.

Investigators cautioned that the analysis is far from complete, and they say anyone who encounters one of the parcels should treat it as dangerous.

None of the 10 seized devices detonated, and no one has been hurt.

Breitbart reported later on Thursday: “During a press briefing Thursday, New York officials were tight-lipped about whether the devices were functional but did confirm reports that the powder substance accompanying some of the devices did not pose a biological threat. Asked if the bombs posed any threat, NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill said, ‘We’re taking this seriously. We are…

Former US Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton is leaving the door open on 2020, saying that even though she doesn’t want to run again for the White House, “I’d like to be president.”

Clinton made the remarks in a recent interview amid increasing speculation that the former secretary of state might launch another bid for the US presidency after the midterm elections.

“Do you want to run again?” host Kara Swisher asked Clinton, who turned 71 on October 26. 

“No,” she replied quickly, but then added, “I’d like to be president.”

She went on to say that “there’s going to be so much work to be done” after a Democrat “hopefully” wins the next presidential election.

“The work would be work that I feel very well prepared for having been in the Senate for eight years, having been a diplomat in the State Department,” she said, listing off the qualifications that she often touted during the 2016 bid which she lost to her Republican…

A new group of migrants have left El Salvador to join other United States-bound caravans of Central Americans mostly fleeing poverty and violence in their home countries.

The caravan of more than 300 Salvadoran asylum seekers departed from the capital, San Salvador, on foot, in pickups or on buses on Sunday, weeks after a larger caravan of at least 3,500 Hondurans began a similar journey to the US.

Dozens of the Salvadorans had arrived at the Guatemalan border by Sunday afternoon and were having their documents checked.

The Hondurans, which had left their country in mid-October, are now in southern Mexico, which is hosting some 7,000 US-bound Central American migrants, mostly Hondurans, according to UN figures.

A third caravan of Central American migrants has also been moving through Guatemala.

Also on Sunday, hundreds of migrants in that group — which originally numbered over 1,000 before splitting — broke through a gate at the…

American Mirror
October 26, 2018

That sneaky Hillary Clinton tried to hide more coughing today be pretending to scratch her nose.

Appearing for congressional candidate Donna Shalala in Miami, Florida, Clinton spoke for about 18 minutes.

“So 13 days, let’s make Donna Shalala goes to Congress,” Hillary concluded, coughing, but trying to swallow it.

As the candidate joined her on stage, an alarmed look grew on Clinton’s face.

She coughed into her hand.

Moments later, as she first pushed the microphone down, and after it was ultimately removed from the stage, several other candidates joined them for a photo.

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

As Hillary was about to leave the stage, she attempted to cover another cough by scratching her nose.

The failed Democrat presidential candidate was strolling on the campus of Mansfield College in England earlier this month.

Clinton was walking with a group of women when she coughed uncontrollably.

“Can I get some water?” she asked an aide as she walked by the camera.

She repeatedly coughed into the paw she uses to shake hands with fans.

This article was posted: Friday, October 26, 2018 at 5:25 am

A funding campaign launched by two Muslim groups has raised more than $110,000 for the victims of the weekend shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

On Saturday morning, a 46-year-old Pennsylvania man armed with an AR-15-style assault rifle and at least three handguns stormed the Tree of Life synagogue and opened fire. Robert Bowers, the suspect, reportedly shouted “all Jews must die” as he entered the synagogue.

The 20-minute rampage described as among the deadliest against the Jewish community in the US left eleven people dead and six others wounded, including four police officers who dashed to the scene. The suspected gunman has been charged on 29 federal counts.

The funding campaign was launched on LaunchGood, a Muslim-focused crowdfunding site, on Saturday. It reached $25,000 goal in less than six hours, and then surpassed its revised $50,000 goal in less than 24 hours.

As of Monday morning, the campaign had raised…

How little do elected officials care about climate change? Look no further than a recent US Senate hearing about the biggest threats facing the country, where lawmakers asked a single question about global warming during the entire three-hour event.

Sadly, this hearing occurred just days after the world’s leading scientific body on climate change warned that the world has a mere dozen years to avoid catastrophic impacts.

Despite the urgency of the climate crisis, getting elected officials in the United States to commit to genuine solutions has been slow going, to say the least.

Nathaniel Stinnett has some idea of why and what to do about it.

Stinnett worked for years as a consultant and advisor on political campaigns and for advocacy nonprofits. A few years ago he noticed that polls showed that climate change and environmental issues were usually last among priorities for likely voters.

But that’s not because Americans don’t care about those issues, he says. Polls of American adults show that tens of millions do care deeply about those issues. They’re just not good voters compared to people who vote on issues like immigration, which is the top priority among voters in this year’s midterm election.

So in 2015 Stinnett launched the Environmental Voter Project with the goals of identifying environmental advocates who don’t vote and then turning them out for any and all elections.

Patriarchy is male supremacy over women. The Me Too movement fighting sexual assault and harassment is a modern battle against this centuries-long phenomenon. In Witches, Witch-Hunting, and Women (PM Press 2018), Silvia Federici connects patriarchy to the rise of a cash society, or capitalism, in western Europe between the 15th and 18^th century, a process proceeding in the so-called developing world of the Global South now.”

Why speak of witch-hunts in 2018? Federici’s themes are straightforward in her two-part book of essays. One theme is the process of peasant removal, or enclosing of the common lands in Europe, that disrupts the social status of men and women. What Europeans did to Africans and indigenous Americans in the so-called “new world” undergirded that old country pattern of conquest and theft that created poverty, immiserating women. Then the patriarchal state criminalized them. It was and is a one-two punch. Federici continues. In Africa and India now, for instance, such land dispossession is underway to benefit transnational corporations.

Communal property relations end violently. With-hunts and homicides are symptoms of this dislocation. Whether it is by the bullet or fire, dehumanizing women as witches is a violent process. Federici shows how the language, replete with the patriarchal-structures of male-centered religious demonology, facilitates the maiming and murdering of independent females.

Federici unpacks male demonizing of women as…

Tens of thousands of teachers demonstrate in Glasgow for better pay

By
Robert Stevens

29 October 2018

Tens of thousands of teachers marched in Glasgow, Scotland, on Saturday to demand higher pay and reject a derisory “final” pay offer of 3 percent from employers for the year 2018-2019.

Members of the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) are demanding a pay rise of at least 10 percent in response to their remuneration falling by nearly a quarter over the past decade of austerity measures imposed by the Scottish National Party (SNP) administration in Scotland. For the past seven years, teachers in the United Kingdom have been subjected to a 1 percent maximum pay rise cap fixed by the government—with the cap only being scrapped this year in Scotland.

The demonstration was far larger than the EIS anticipated, showing the desire of teachers internationally to fight back against decades of pay cuts. The march won the support of not only teachers but also that of parents and their families. Protesters marched from the city’s Kelvingrove Park to George Square. So large was the march that as the first marchers arrived in George Square, others were still waiting to set off from Kelvingrove, over two miles away.

The march took place despite the systematic suppression of the teachers’ fight by the unions.

In March, EIS members voted to throw out the 3 percent pay offer and gave the union leaders a mandate to call industrial action. This took place as thousands of teachers in unions across the UK and internationally simultaneously voted to strike over pay and pensions. In the UK, teachers at conferences of the National Education Union (NEU) and the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) voted during this time to walk out. In the seven months…

Daily Mail
October 26, 2018

Facebook ads were a major reason why some voters showed up at the polls in the 2016 presidential election.

That’s according to a new study, which found that ‘micro-targeted advertisements’ resulted in a 10 percent increase in turnout among Republican voters.

This phenomenon occurred not only for those who already identified as Republicans, but also undecided voters.

Researchers didn’t observe the same relationship in voters registered as Democrats or Independents, however.

The study, titled ‘Politics in the Facebook Era: Evidence from the 2016 US Presidential Elections’ was conducted by researchers from the University of Warwick in England, the University Carlos III in Spain and ETH Zurich in Switzerland.

Micro-targeted ads increased the probability that a previously undecided voter would vote for President Donald Trump by at least five percentage points, they noted.

Read more

This article was posted: Friday, October 26, 2018 at 5:29 am

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tells CBS News that the United States’ choices are to blame for the Middle East’s disasters.

“The United States’ choices in the Middle East are wrong, and these wrong choices lead to the disaster in our region,” Zarif told the American network on Sunday.

“We knew that the invasion of Iraq was the wrong choice, although Saddam Hussein was our enemy. We knew that the attack against Afghanistan was the wrong choice although Taliban were our enemy,” he added.

“We know that the invasion and attack, bombardment of Yemen are wrong choices,” Zarif noted, referring to Washington’s support for the 2015-present Saudi Arabia-led war on the Arab world’s poorest nation.

“But the United States is continuously and persistently on the wrong side,” the Iranian top diplomat asserted.

Zarif said US had emboldened Saudi Arabia and Israel to stage their atrocities by providing the regimes with “blanket…

Weasel Zippers
October 26, 2018

Civility.

This is what a desperate @Menendezfornj campaign does before a debate pic.twitter.com/fBUKm1gD69

— New Jersey GOP (@NJGOP) October 24, 2018

This article was posted: Friday, October 26, 2018 at 5:32 am

Weasel Zippers
October 26, 2018

They all had return address labels “Debbie Wasserman Shultz” with her name spelt wrong and Florida spelt wrong as ‘Florids.’

#BREAKING FBI confirms “some of the packages came from Florida.” Investigators move focus to “region of interest.” #MailBombsCampaign #bombthreat @FoxNews @TheFive pic.twitter.com/TesEoe0ZfB

— Steve Surfaro (@stevesurf) October 25, 2018

This article was posted: Friday, October 26, 2018 at 5:33 am

Al Arabiya
October 26, 2018

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled on Thursday that insulting Islam’s Prophet Mohammed is not covered by freedom of expression.

Defaming the Prophet “goes beyond the permissible limits of an objective debate” and “could stir up prejudice and put at risk religious peace,” the ruling stated.

The decision by a seven-judge panel came after an Austrian national identified as Mrs. S. held two seminars in 2009 in which she insulted the prophet.

The court said that the woman’s comments could not be covered by the freedom of expression, stating that it had found that “the applicant’s statements had been likely to arouse justified indignation in Muslims” and “amounted to a generalization without factual basis.”

An Austrian court convicted her of disparaging religious doctrines in 2011 and fined her 480 euros (548 dollars), a judgment that was upheld on two appeals.

“Mrs. S. appealed but the Vienna Court of Appeal upheld the decision in December 2011, confirming, in essence, the lower court’s findings. A request for the renewal of the proceedings was dismissed by the Supreme Court on 11 December 2013,” it said.

“Relying on Article 10 (freedom of expression), Mrs. S. complained that the domestic courts failed to address the substance of the impugned statements in the light of her right to freedom of expression.”

On today’s ruling, the ECHR said it “found in particular that the domestic courts comprehensively assessed the wider context of the applicant’s statements and carefully balanced her right to freedom of expression with the right of others to have their religious feelings protected, and served the legitimate aim of preserving religious peace in Austria.”

This article was posted: Friday, October 26, 2018 at 5:34 am

The US Department of Homeland Security vows to protect the American citizens’ votes in part by setting up a “virtual situation room” for the November 6 midterm elections.

“We will be setting up a virtual situation rom on Election Day so we can very quickly support any incident response that’s needed and so we can share any information,” DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told Fox News on Sunday.

She made the comments after a week marking political violence and terrorism in the country.

Nielsen added that the department is “more prepared than we’ve ever been.”

“The goal here … is absolutely to assure Americans that their votes will count and their votes will be counted correctly,” she said. “We are constantly monitoring, constantly working with them, sharing information… we will continue to prepare, not just for this election, but for every election to come in the future.”

All 435 seats in the United States House…

UK government welfare reforms are fueling a rise in homelessness in towns and cities across Britain, according to a new report.

Results of an investigation published in the Observer newspaper on Sunday said that more and more people had become unable to afford homes as a result of government cuts to social housing benefits and a shift to lump sum payments in the universal credit system.  

The Observer said it had interviewed homelessness charities across England where they said universal credit was a major factor in fueling destitution and rough sleeping in their burrows and districts.

One charity even said that universal credit, which came into force since 2013 and was meant to replace a six-tier benefit system, was the main reason for a third of its clients losing their homes and apply for social housing.

Bill Tidnam, chief executive of Thames Reach, which runs homeless hostels across London, said universal credit had made it difficult…

Free Beacon
October 26, 2018

MSNBC and CNN reporters are quick to gush over each other on air, a Washington Free Beaconanalysis finds.

This article was posted: Friday, October 26, 2018 at 5:39 am

People are often surprised when I tell them I believe in open borders … in theory, that is.  That’s right, the libertarian side of me believes that a person has a natural right to live wherever he pleases.

Stop and think about that for a moment.  Why should a bunch of corrupt politicians and bureaucrats be able to keep you from living in the country of your choosing?  Or make you jump through hoops for the honor of legally settling there?

All good theoretical stuff, but, unfortunately, reality has a way of overwhelming theory, and the dominant reality of our age is that a significant number of the earth’s inhabitants believe they have a right to violate your freedom.  I’m not just talking about political thugs and bureaucrats, but their envy-crazed followers as well.  Thus, the reality of illegal immigration is that it has the potential to destroy a civilized country.

That said, if the United States were to declare undocumented residents ineligible for any form of government assistance, that would be a reality that would change everything.  I’m talking about food stamps, unemployment benefits, and healthcare (yes, including emergency room services) — literally, all forms of public assistance — not to mention free education and myriad other government programs.

Action!: Nothing Happe…
Robert Ringer
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Some other actions that would change the reality of the illegal-immigrant landscape include:

• Immediately terminating the United States’ absurd anchor-baby policy and have it adjudicated by the Supreme Court once and for all. Babies of non-citizens born in the United States are in no way, shape, or form covered by the 14^th Amendment, which was adopted in 1868 specifically to protect…

CNBC
October 26, 2018

Google CEO Sundar Pichai sent an email to all Google employees Thursday saying the company has fired 48 people over the last two years for sexual harassment. Of those 48 people, 13 were “senior managers and above” and none of them got an exit package when they were let go.

The email, which was obtained by CNBC, was in response to a bombshell New York Times story that said Google had shielded a handful of company executives, including Android creator Andy Rubin, from sexual misconduct allegations and offered massive payouts to leave.

Pichai also said there were newer tools at Google that employees can use to report sexual harassment or misconduct. Google employees can also report sexual misconduct anonymously, the email said

The email is also signed by Eileen Naughton, Google’s vice president of people operations.

Read more

This article was posted: Friday, October 26, 2018 at 5:42 am

CNBC
October 26, 2018

Google CEO Sundar Pichai sent an email to all Google employees Thursday saying the company has fired 48 people over the last two years for sexual harassment. Of those 48 people, 13 were “senior managers and above” and none of them got an exit package when they were let go.

The email, which was obtained by CNBC, was in response to a bombshell New York Times story that said Google had shielded a handful of company executives, including Android creator Andy Rubin, from sexual misconduct allegations and offered massive payouts to leave.

Pichai also said there were newer tools at Google that employees can use to report sexual harassment or misconduct. Google employees can also report sexual misconduct anonymously, the email said

The email is also signed by Eileen Naughton, Google’s vice president of people operations.

Read more

This article was posted: Friday, October 26, 2018 at 5:42 am

CNBC
October 26, 2018

Google CEO Sundar Pichai sent an email to all Google employees Thursday saying the company has fired 48 people over the last two years for sexual harassment. Of those 48 people, 13 were “senior managers and above” and none of them got an exit package when they were let go.

The email, which was obtained by CNBC, was in response to a bombshell New York Times story that said Google had shielded a handful of company executives, including Android creator Andy Rubin, from sexual misconduct allegations and offered massive payouts to leave.

Pichai also said there were newer tools at Google that employees can use to report sexual harassment or misconduct. Google employees can also report sexual misconduct anonymously, the email said

The email is also signed by Eileen Naughton, Google’s vice president of people operations.

Read more

This article was posted: Friday, October 26, 2018 at 5:42 am

At least five civilians have lost their lives when the US-led coalition purportedly fighting the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group carried out an airstrike against Syria’s eastern province of Dayr al-Zawr.

Local sources, requesting anonymity, told Syria’s official news agency SANA that the airborne assault targeted the village of al-Sousa. There were two children among the fallen victims.

Speaking at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) meeting in New York City on Friday, Syrian Ambassador to the United Nations Bashar al-Ja’afari said the US-led coalition “is targeting anything in Syria but not terror groups.”

“We are surprised that the UN Special Envoy to Syria (Staffan de Mistura) has ignored the crimes of this coalition against Syrian people. The illegal US-led international coalition continues to perpetrate crimes in Syria, the last of which was in the villages of al-Sousa and al-Bubadran, where 62 civilians lost their…

Photo Source Ed Uthman | CC BY 2.0

The Reagan Administration’s 1980s crazy talk of “winning” nuclear war with “only” 20 million US dead produced a lot of anti-nuclear activism — all over the world. In Europe, hundreds of thousands marched against the placement of US Cruise and Pershing II missiles in NATO countries.

Fear of nuclear war and anger over presidential ignorance of it also produced the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, or INF. The treaty banned nuclear-armed missiles in Europe with a range of 270-to-2970 miles. About 2,700 missiles were destroyed by 1991, a deal that weapons salesmen like President !#&$! don’t like.

What the British, German, Dutch and Belgian marching masses were so alarmed about was NATO’s plan to destroy Europe in order to save it. Former West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt explained it this way: “So-called ‘flexible response’ …. means that the West … says to the Soviet Union: ‘We threaten you with a military defense strategy which foresees the early use of so-called tactical nuclear weapons.’ That means for the Germans that the West in its self-defense would destroy Germany.”

Schmidt’s description was no exaggeration. In an October 5, 2018 report by the Congressional Research Service, “flexible response” was explained similarly. “NATO’s strategy of ‘flexible response’… is designed,” the C.R.S. wrote, “to allow NATO to … be the first to use nuclear weapons in a conflict,…

The origins of the Invictus Games (“For our Wounded Warriors,” goes the slogan) lies in war.  Wars that crippled and caused depression and despair. The games became a project of grand distraction and worth, a form of emotional bread for servicemen and women.  Do not let wounds, mental or physical, deter you.  Move to the spirit of William Ernest Henley, an amputee who, during convalescence, penned those lines which speak to a Victorian stubbornness before adversity: “I am the master of my fate;/I am the captain of my soul.”

Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, was supposedly inspired by a trip to the United States in 2013 by how, as the Invictus Games Foundation explains, “sport can help physically, psychologically and socially those suffering from injuries and illness.”  The games came into being the next year, embodying “the fighting spirit of wounded, injured and sick Service personnel and personifies what these tenacious men and women and achieve post injury.”

As they opened in Sydney, something rather troubling lurked in the undergrowth of those keen to promote the games.  This was an occasion for the sponsors to hop on in numbers, to insist on that piffle called values.  “We are excited,” goes the organisers’ statement, “to be on the journey to our Games with the fantastic support of our family of Invictus Games partners.  Their support not only helps us deliver a great Games, but also builds initiatives that inspire connected,…

US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has called for a transparent investigation into the killing of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, following a meeting with Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir.

The murder of Khashoggi, who escaped to the US last year and worked as a Washington Post columnist, has escalated into a crisis for the world’s top oil exporter as Saudi Arabia’s allies have reacted with outrage.

Mattis said Sunday that he met Jubeir during a conference in Bahrain on Saturday and discussed Khashoggi’s killing, which occurred at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey on October 2.

“We discussed it. You know the same thing we talked about, the need for transparency, full and complete investigation,” Mattis told a small group of reporters traveling to Prague with him.

“(There was) full agreement from foreign minister Jubeir, no reservations at all, he said we need to know what happened and it was very…

Britain’s Chancellor of Exchequer, the top finance and economy official in the country, says an end to years of austerity will depend on whether the UK will be able to secure a deal on its withdrawal from the European Union.

Philip Hammond warned Sunday that if Britain fails to reach a deal on Brexit, the country must reverse plans to ease nearly a decade of austerity.

“We would need to look at a different strategy and frankly we’d need to have a new budget that set out a different strategy for the future,” Hammond told Sky News in an interview broadcast on Sunday.

Hammond is due to announce his annual budget on Monday.

He is under pressure to end a series of spending cuts that have been put in place since 2010 when the then Conservative-led government introduced them to shrink the budget deficit.

UK Prime  Minister Theresa May told the British parliament last week that years of hard work by Britons had paid off and they could…

Max Blumenthal and Jeb Sprague
GrayZoneProject.com
October 28, 2018

At a Berlin security conference, hardline neocon Jamie Fly appeared to claim some credit for the recent coordinated purge of alternative media…

This October, Facebook and Twitter deleted the accounts of hundreds of users, including many alternative media outlets maintained by American users. Among those wiped out in the coordinated purge were popular sites that scrutinized police brutality and U.S. interventionism, like The Free Thought Project, Anti-Media, and Cop Block, along with the pages of journalists like Rachel Blevins.

Facebook claimed that these pages had “broken our rules against spam and coordinated inauthentic behavior.” However, sites like The Free Thought Project were verified by Facebook and widely recognized as legitimate sources of news and opinion. John Vibes, an independent reporter who contributed to Free Thought, accused Facebook of “favoring mainstream sources and silencing alternative voices.”

In comments published here for the first time, a neoconservative Washington insider has apparently claimed a degree of credit for the recent purge — and promised more takedowns in the near future.

“Russia, China, and other foreign states take advantage of our open political system,” remarked Jamie Fly, a senior fellow and director of the Asia program at the influential think tank the German Marshall Fund, which is funded by the U.S. government and NATO.

“They can invent stories that get repeated and spread through different sites. So we are just starting to push back. Just this last week Facebook began starting to take down sites. So this is just the beginning.”

Fly went on to complain that “all you need is an email” to set up a Facebook or Twitter account, lamenting the sites’ accessibility to members of the general public. He predicted a long struggle on a global scale to…

I have some unpopular opinions about the migrant caravan.

I’m probably going to offend both “sides” of this discussion simultaneously. Anyone who has followed my website for a while knows that I question everything and I recommend that others do the same. But questioning everything also means questioning the things that support your opinions on a topic, and I’m not seeing much of that with regard to this whole migrant caravan circus.

The group I have on Facebook is usually really peaceful and pleasant. We manage to stay away from politics and focus on preparedness. But with the migrant caravan, all bets are off. Tensions are incredibly high.

And this doesn’t serve anyone – at least not anyone whose goal is to be prepared.

Should you be aware this is happening and get prepared if you live near the border? Absolutely. That is common sense. It’s what preppers do.

Should you work yourself into a frenzy reading meme after meme? Um, NO. That doesn’t serve you or anybody else. It just scares you and half that stuff probably isn’t even true.

I know that telling people who are worked up to calm down is generally counterproductive. But for the love of Pete. We need to think this through rationally and not just react with evergrowing panic.

Here are some of the things I’ve been thinking.

Are we making a mountain out of a molehill regarding the migrant caravan?

I love a good conspiracy theory and I’m always ready to question the timing and presentation of events that get folks worked up. Often, it seems like the things people are focusing all their energy and outrage on are a distraction from what we should really be watching.

The Prepperu2019s Blue…
Tess Pennington
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Sri Lankan President Sirisena sacks prime minister

By
K. Ratnayake

28 October 2018

In what amounts to a political coup, Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena sacked Ranil Wickremesinghe as prime minister on Friday evening and appointed former president Mahinda Rajapakse to replace him.

In doing so, Sirisena ended the “unity government” between his faction of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and Wickremesinghe’s United National Party (UNP), which has ruled the country since 2015.

The 19th Amendment to the Sri Lankan constitution, enacted in April 2015, prunes back the considerable powers of the executive president, including his right to unilaterally decide to remove a prime minister. 

Sirisena and Rajapakse kept their unconstitutional move strictly secret from all but their closest associates right up until the last minute. The coup is an expression of the huge political crisis confronting the Sri Lankan ruling class amid a profound economic crisis, rising geo-political tensions and a resurgence of class struggle by workers and the poor.

The new regime is tightening its grip on power. Pro-Rajapakse thugs drove out staff believed to be sympathetic to Wickremesinghe from state-owned television. Sirisena immediately took control of these TV channels and the state-owned newspaper house, Lake House. He also took over the law and order ministry, which controls the police.

Wickremesinghe branded Sirisena’s move as “unconstitutional,” declared that he was still prime minister and called for the convening of parliament to “prove his majority.”

Sirisena responded by issuing two gazettes, firstly to validate his decision to remove Wickremesinghe, and secondly, to prorogue or suspend parliament for three weeks until November 16. He plans to swear in…

Far-right and neo-Nazi group in the United States have increased an intimidating wave of anti-Semitic harassment against Jewish journalists, political candidates and others ahead of next month’s US midterm congressional elections, according to a new report.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a Jewish organization based in New York City, said in a report released Friday that its researchers analyzed over 7.5 million Twitter messages from August 31 to September 17.

The study found that nearly 30 percent of the Twitter accounts that repeatedly posted derogatory terms about Jews appeared to be automated “bots.”

But accounts controlled by real-life humans often mount the most “worrisome and harmful” anti-Semitic attacks, sometimes organized by leaders of extremist or white nationalist groups, ADL researchers said.

“Both anonymity and automation have been used in online propaganda offensives against the Jewish community during the 2018 midterms,”…