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Twitter was too busy banning ‘Russians’ to notice #MAGAbomber's threats

Saturday October 27, 2018

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The history of criminal behavior and online threats by Cesar Sayoc, the Florida man charged with sending suspicious packages to prominent Democrats, somehow went ignored by both government and social media police.

Sayoc, 56, was arrested on Friday, and stands accused of sending pipe bombs - 14, as of the last count - to former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, actor Robert De Niro, billionaire Democrat donors George Soros and Tom Steyer, and several Democrat lawmakers.

Federal authorities have refused to speculate on the suspect’s motives, but news outlets quickly pored over Sayoc’s social media feeds, finding photos and videos of pro-Trump memes, Trump rallies, and abusive language towards Democrats. A van in which he reportedly lived, after losing his home to foreclosure, was covered in pro-Trump decals. Twitter #Resistance activists, who had already coined the term “MAGAbomber” to describe the suspect, rejoiced.

It was Sayoc’s prior run-ins with the law that allowed the FBI to find him, matching a fingerprint and DNA from some of the packages to samples they had on file. His criminal record shows charges of grand theft, misdemeanor theft, battery, felony steroid possession, and even threatening a bomb attack in 2002 - leaving an open question of how he kept getting away with it all, over and over again.
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Western Media Launch Attack on Critics of Controversial White Helmets Group

Friday October 26, 2018

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The October 16 issue of NY Review of Books has an article by Janine di Giovani titled “Why Assad and Russia Target the White Helmets”. The article exemplifies how western media promotes the White Helmets uncritically and attacks those who challenge the myth. 

A Crude & Disingenuous Attack

Giovani’s article attacks several journalists by name. She singles out Vanessa Beeley and echoes the Guardian’s characterization of Beeley as the “high priestess of Syria propaganda”. She does this without challenging a single article or claim by the journalist. She might have acknowledged that Vanessa Beeley has some familiarity with the Middle East; she is the daughter of one of the foremost British Arabists and diplomats including British Ambassador to Egypt. Giovanni might have explored Beeley’s research in Syria that revealed the White Helmets founder (British military contractor James LeMesurier) assigned the name Syria Civil Defence despite the fact there is a real Syrian organization by that name that has existed since the 1950’s. For the past several years, Beeley has done many on-the-ground reports and investigations in Syria. None of these are challenged by Giovanni. Just days ago Beeley published a report on her visit to the White Helmets headquarters in Deraa. 

Giovanni similarly dismisses another alternative journalist, Eva Bartlett. Again, Giovanni ignores the fact that Bartlett has substantial Middle East experience including having lived in Gaza for years. Instead of objectively evaluating the journalistic work of these independent journalists, Giovanni smears their work as “disinformation”. Presumably, that is because their work is published at alternative sites such as 21st Century Wire and Russian media such as RT and Sputnik. Beeley and Bartlett surely would have been happy to have their reports published at the New York Review of Books, Newsweek or other mainstream outlets. But it’s evident that such reporting is not welcome there. Even Seymour Hersh had to go abroad to have his investigations on Syria published.
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Evaluating US Foreign Policy in Critical Times - RPI's Daniel McAdams on Israeli News Live

Friday October 26, 2018

What's the real story of the US in the Middle East? Is the current US/Israel relationship healthy for both parties? Are the "White Helmets" the selfless heroes they are made out to be in the Western media..or are they just an arm of al-Qaeda? Can President Trump find a way to jettison his neocons and forge a foreign policy more like he promised as a candidate? Ron Paul Institute executive director Daniel McAdams joins Steven and Jana Ben-Nun of Israeli News Live for a detailed look at the current state of US foreign policy. Don't miss the shock opening question!
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Two Stories from the Propaganda War

Friday October 26, 2018

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Two recent stories about Russians have demonstrated how the news is selected and manipulated in the United States. The first is about Maria Butina, who apparently sought to overthrow American democracy, such as it is, by obtaining a life membership in the National Rifle Association. Maria, a graduate student at American University, is now in detention in a federal prison, having been charged with collusion and failure to register as an agent of the Russian Federation. She has been in prison since July, for most of the time in solitary confinement, and has not been granted bail because, as a Russian citizen, she is considered to be a “flight risk.”
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Rep. John Duncan on Becoming an Antiwar Republican

Thursday October 25, 2018

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Rep. John J. Duncan, Jr. (R-TN), who will retire in January after 30 years in the United States House of Representatives, is the subject of a new biographical feature article at the Knoxville News Sentinel. Included with the article is video of an interview with Duncan in which he describes how he developed “into sort of an antiwar Republican” in the process of examining US military actions in Iraq and experiencing pressure from successive presidential administrations to support that intervention and its escalation.

After having voted in the House to authorize the Gulf War in 1991, Duncan explains that watching the ensuing US invasion of Iraq led him to realize that the war had been promoted based on false information. In particular, Duncan mentions being told before the vote about “all these elite troops” in Iraq under the control of Iraq President Saddam Hussein, who was made to “sound like another Hitler.” “And then,” says Duncan, “I saw those same ‘elite troops’ surrendering to CNN camera crews and empty tanks, and I decided then that the threat had been greatly exaggerated.”

Moving forward five or six years, Duncan relates that his questioning of the propriety of US military action in Iraq increased during the years of US bombing that took place between the Gulf War and later Iraq War due to reading reports, including one detailing that “one of our bombs had gone astray and killed I think it was seven little boys who were playing soccer in a field in Iraq, and it described this horrible anguish of this father whose little boy had had his head blown off.”
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How Anarchy Can Work - With Guest Luke Rudkowski

Thursday October 25, 2018

What happened when one Mexican town chock-full of drug gangs and corrupt politicians finally had enough? They banded together to kick them both out. It's not a Hollywood western, it was real life back in Cheran, Mexico in 2011. Independent investigative reporter Luke Rudowski traveled down to see how they were able to ban gangs and politicians and vastly improve the quality of life in this Mexican city of 30,000. He even made a film  about it. Luke joins us to talk about this, the bizarre "bomb scare" sweeping the country, and about the struggles of the independent media in today's Liberty Report...
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DOJ Fails to Pursue Allegations of Saudi Lobbying Misconduct

Thursday October 25, 2018

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In March 2017, a group of 9/11 families presented the Department of Justice with 17 pages of detailed allegations that Qorvis Communications had, on behalf of Saudi Arabia, conducted a lobbying campaign against the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) characterized by extensive violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).
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'Business As Usual' - US Desperate To Cover-Up Khoshoggi Murder

Wednesday October 24, 2018


Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman is key to the Middle East strategy of both the US and Israel. Keeping focus on regime change for Iran is the main goal of all three countries. That is why we are seeing a push to cover-up the likely complicity of MbS in the crime and instead blame 18 of his closest aides for a "rogue operation." Will they get away with it? It's looking likely. Should they? Tune in to today's Liberty Report...
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'Foreign Invasion' - Will US Military Confront Migrants At Border?

Tuesday October 23, 2018

The media reports that some 14,000 people are marching from Honduras through Guatemala through Mexico to the US. They are supposed to arrive just in time for the US election in early November. Is this a political stunt? A genuine mass migration? What are the factors that may have led to such an event and what should we do about it? Troops on the border? Tune in to today's Liberty Report...
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The White Helmets Ride Again

Tuesday October 23, 2018

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I am often asked to explain why countries like Iran appear to be so aggressive, involving themselves in foreign wars and seeking to create alliances that they know will provoke the worst and most paranoid responses from some of their neighbors. My response is invariably that perceptions of threat depend very much on which side of the fence you are standing on. Saudi Arabia and Israel might well perceive Iranian actions as aggressive given the fact that all three countries are competing for dominance in the same region, but Iran, which is surrounded by powerful enemies, could equally explain its activity as defensive, seeking to create a belt of allies that can be called upon if needed if a real shooting war breaks out.

The United States and Israel are, of course, masters at seeing everything as a threat, justifying doing whatever is deemed necessary to defend against what are perceived to be enemies. They even exercise extraterritoriality, with Washington claiming a right to go after certain categories of “terrorists” in countries with which it is not at war, most particularly Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia. Israel does likewise in its attacks on Lebanon and Syria. Both Tel Aviv and Washington have regularly crossed the line drawn by international legal authorities in terms of what constitutes initiating a “just” or “legal” war, i.e. an imminent threat to use force by a hostile power. Neither Israel nor the United States has really been threatened by an enemy or enemies in the past seventy years, so the definition of threat has been expanded to include after-the-fact as with 9/11 and potential as in the case of Israel and Iran.

The “which side of the fence” formulation has also had some interesting spin-offs in terms of how so-called non-state players that use violence are perceived and portrayed. Nearly all widely accepted definitions of terrorism include language that condemns the “use of politically motivated violence against non-combatants to provoke a state of terror.”
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