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‘The Best Interests of the People’: Ex-US Top Spy Clapper Justifies Election Interference

Sunday June 3, 2018

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Fret not, people of the over 80 countries where the US has interfered in elections – it was done in your “best interests,” according to former head of US Intelligence James Clapper.

Clapper, who famously lied about the NSA mass surveillance program before it was revealed by Edward Snowden, is back in the media spotlight, promoting his new book ‘Facts and Fears.’

The tome promises readers ‘Hard truths from a life in intelligence.’ However, perhaps the more interesting insights are on Clapper’s reflections on the so-called Russiagate scandal and investigations into the alleged hacking of the US presidential election. 

In an interview with Bloomberg’s Tobin Harshaw, Clapper is asked about the US’ own history of election interference...
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Bill Browder Escapes Again

Saturday June 2, 2018

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There was some good and bad news last week. The good news was that William Browder, a London-based investor and dedicated foe of Russian President Vladimir V. Putin was arrested by the Spanish police on Wednesday. The bad news is that even though Russia has on six occasions requested Browder’s arrest through Interpol for tax fraud, the Spanish national police determined that Browder had been detained in error because the international warrant was no longer valid and released him.

Interpol, an organization of 190 countries cannot legally enforce any action of a “political character.” This can make it difficult to obtain red notices such as those being sought by Russia on Browder, which are the equivalent of international arrest warrants.

One might reasonably ask why there is a crisis in US-Russia relations at all since Washington and Moscow have much more in common than not, to include confronting international terrorism, stabilizing Syria and other parts of the world that are in turmoil, and preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons. In spite of all that, the U.S. and Russia are currently locked in a tit-for-tat unfriendly relationship somewhat reminiscent of the Cold War and it is only getting worse as self-appointed “experts” including Browder continue to prowl the fringes of policy making. Browder was in Spain to testify in a case against several Russian companies.
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Justice Dept Told Trump Syria Attacks Were ‘Legal’

Saturday June 2, 2018

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In April, the US fired a large number of missiles at multiple sites across Syria, supposedly in response to an alleged chemical weapons attack. The Justice Department told president Trump before the attacks that this would be perfectly legal.

New documents released on the matter told Trump that he didn’t need Congressional authorizationto attack Syria in April because attacking them was “in the national interest,” and Syria was so unlikely to retaliate that it wasn’t technically a war.

A lot of this argument centers on an interpretation of what war “in a constitutional sense” actually means. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) said the legal argument was largely nonsense, and had tried to “redefine war to exclude missile attacks” to further usurp Congressional authority.

Several recent administrations have argued that presidents can carry out unilateral military attacks without Congressional authorization, and this is just the continuation of the Justice Department signing off on this as legal.
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A Nation That Doesn’t Know War: America Celebrates Memorial Day

Friday June 1, 2018

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Wednesday, May 30th, was Memorial Day in the United States. The commemoration began in 1868 shortly after the American Civil War, when townsmen in several communities came together to decorate the graves of the fallen on the last Monday in May. The practice began in the northern states but soon spread to the south and the annual remembrance ceremony soon took on the name Decoration Day. As wars proliferated in the twentieth century the commemoration eventually lost its association with the Civil War and was increasingly referred to nationally as Memorial Day, eventually becoming a federal holiday.

The American Civil war killed 655,000 soldiers, more than all other US wars before or since combined. It was the first modern war in that it relied on railroads and steamships. The North also destroyed the livelihoods of and deliberately starved civilian populations to reduce the South’s will to resist. It was a war fought on US soil and experienced first hand by the American people.

Today Memorial Day has largely lost its connection with dead soldiers and is instead best noted for being regarded as the first day of summer for recreational purposes. Beaches open up, the lifeguards come out and the smell of barbecued meat fills the air. The declining number of veterans of World War 2, Korea and Vietnam work hard to remember the dead but there is little interest from a public that has become increasingly detached from its non-conscripted professional army.
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Propaganda Killing Kills Propaganda - First The Skripals, Now Arkady Babchenko Come Back From The Dead

Wednesday May 30, 2018

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An "enemy of Putin" is attacked. Authorities immediately raise accusations against Russia and the Kremlin. Public condemnation follows. There are calls to sanction Russia.

But the information is murky. The details don't make sense. Critical questions follow. After the while the "dead" come back from death.

The above was the script followed in the Skripal affair. The "deadly nerve agent - of a kind developed by Russia-" did not kill at all. Now a similar case happened.
Arkady Babchenko: Ukraine blames Russia for journalist murder - BBC: Ukraine's Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman has accused Russia of being behind the killing in Kiev of the Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko. 

'I am confident that the Russian totalitarian machine did not forgive him his honesty and principled stance,' the prime minister posted on Facebook.

A Kremlin critic, Babchenko was gunned down outside his apartment on Tuesday.

Anti-Putin Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko shot dead in Ukraine capital - Telegraph

Russia denies involvement in murder of journalist and Kremlin critic Arkady Babchenko- Telegraph 

Prominent Russian journalist who criticized Kremlin shot dead in Kiev - CNBC
There were hundreds such headlines since yesterday, all directly or indirectly accusing Russia, the Kremlin or Putin.
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Ron Paul: On War, Gold, and My Years in Congress

Wednesday May 30, 2018

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Photo: Gage Skidmore

JEFF DEIST: What makes you optimistic, what makes you pessimistic about what you see in the US?

RON PAUL: Well, if I look at the big picture including a long span of time, I would say conditions aren’t that bad, even though I often talk about all the bad things I anticipate and how it could get worse in terms of the economy and foreign policy.
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US Commander in Europe: We Need More Troops to Fight The Russians

Wednesday May 30, 2018

US Commander of the Europe Command, Gen. Curtis M. Scaparrotti, has called for thousands more US troops to "deter Russian aggression" in Europe. He has even suggested that the US troops should be pulled off of counter-terrorism duty and sent to Europe. Meanwhile, the Pentagon announced a massive shipment of military equipment to Europe, including tanks and other tracked vehicles. Do US military officials really believe that Russia is about to invade western Europe? Are we back in the 1940s? Or is Washington's military-industrial complex looking for new ways to justify an ever-expanding military budget? Tune in to today's Liberty Report...
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In Korea, Kim And Moon Embrace - No Need For Outsiders?

Tuesday May 29, 2018

It looks like the neocons may not succeed with their plot to blow up the Trump/Kim meeting next month. With Trump canceling the meeting at the end of last week, the North and South Korean leaders held an impromptu meeting on the border to look for a path ahead toward peace. President Trump has taken notice and plans are again underway for the historic meeting. Are neocons sidelined for now? Tune in to today's Liberty Report...
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After pointlessly groping countless Americans, the TSA is keeping a secret watchlist of those who fight back

Tuesday May 29, 2018

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"I need a witness!" exclaimed the security screener at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Because I had forgotten to remove my belt before going through a scanner, he explained, I must undergo an "enhanced patdown." I told him that if he jammed his hand into my groin, I'd file a formal complaint. So he summoned his supervisor to keep an eye on the proceedings.

I thought of this exchange last week when the New York Times revealed that the Transportation Security Administration has created a secret watchlist for troublesome passengers. The TSA justified the list by saying that its screeners were assaulted 34 times last year, but did not release any details about the alleged assaults.

Naturally, the TSA's official definition of troublemaking goes well beyond punching its officers. According to a confidential memo, any behavior that is "offensive and without legal justification" can land a traveler on the list, as can any "challenges to the safe and effective completion of screening." Anyone who has ever "loitered" near a checkpoint could also make the list. So could any woman who pushes a screener's hands away from her breasts.
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MEK’s Money Sure Can’t Buy Love (But it can buy a lot of politicians)

Tuesday May 29, 2018

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Iran’s radical Marxist cult Mohajedeen e Khalq, better known by its acronym MEK, is somewhat reminiscent of the Israel Lobby’s American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in that it operates somewhat in the shadows and is nevertheless able to punch well beyond its weight by manipulating politicians and understanding how American government functions on its dark side. MEK promotes itself by openly supporting a very popular hardline policy of “democratic opposition” advocating “regime change” for Iran while also successfully selling its reform credentials, i.e. that it is no longer a terrorist group. This latter effort apparently convinced then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on 2013 as she and President Barack responded to the group’s affability campaign by delisting MEK from the government list of terrorist organizations.

This shift in attitude towards MEK was a result of several factors. First, everyone in Washington and the Establishment hates Iran. And second, the Executive Order 13224, which designates Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization, ipso facto defines any group fighting against it as one of the good guys, justifying the change

MEK is best described as a cult rather than as a political movement because of its internal discipline. Its members are, according to the testimony of those who have somehow escaped, subjected to considerable indoctrination best described as brainwashing. Though not exactly imprisoned, adherents are kept isolated and separated insofar as possible and cannot contact their families. Their possessions are collectivized so they have no money or other resources. If they are in contravention of the numerous rules that guide the organization they are punished, including physically, and there are reports of members being executed for trying to escape.
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