love edo-era honor culture, but not the shogun's ruthless corporate policy oversight...,

japantimes |  The populist political tendencies among major powers is impeding the appropriate control of market activities, resulting in the creation of excess liquidity. That is making the world economy more speculative and uncertain, while turning the economic policies of the major powers more inward-looking.

Under these circumstances, globalism stands at a crossroads. Globalism is an international regime that was attained with the fall of the Berlin Wall as a turning point, beyond the waves of nationalism that dominated the world from the 19th to the 20th century and the East-West ideological divide in the second half of the last century.

It was widely hoped that the world would maintain peace through cooperation among the major powers while respecting democracy, the rule of law and human rights, promoting economic growth through market mechanism, free trade and liberalized corporate activities, and enhancing human welfare through protection of the environment, improvement in living conditions, propagation of medical care, elimination of poverty and spread of education. Globalism is the ideal of the world.

The survival of Japan, which relies on other countries for resources, food and markets, and depends on collective security for its defense, cannot be ensured without globalism. It’s now time for Japan to make efforts to fortify the foundation of globalism by explaining to the world its significance and presenting a concrete vision.

oops!!! used gold star condom drying up on the hot asphalt has a HUGE hole in it....,

breitbart |  Khizr Khan, the Muslim Gold Star father that Democrats and their allies media wide have been using to hammer GOP presidential nominee Donald J. Trump, has deleted his law firm’s website from the Internet.

This development is significant, as his website proved—as Breitbart News and others have reported—that he financially benefits from unfettered pay-to-play Muslim migration into America.

A snapshot of his now deleted website, as captured by the Wayback Machine which takes snapshots archiving various websites on the Internet, shows that as a lawyer he engages in procurement of EB5 immigration visas and other “Related Immigration Services.”

The website is completely removed from the Internet, and instead directs visitors to the URL at which it once was to a page parking the URL run by GoDaddy.

The EB5 program, which helps wealthy foreigners usually from the Middle East essentially buy their way into America, is fraught with corruption. U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) has detailed such corruption over the past several months, and in February issued a blistering statement about it.

“Maybe it is only here on Capitol Hill—on this island surrounded by reality—that we can choose to plug our ears and refuse to listen to commonly accepted facts,” Grassley said in a statement earlier this year. “The Government Accountability Office, the media, industry experts, members of congress, and federal agency officials, have concurred that the program is a serious problem with serious vulnerabilities. Allow me to mention a few of the flaws.”

Grassley’s statement even noted that the program Khan celebrated on his website has posed national security risks.

Khan even brought out a pocket Constitution, claiming inaccurately that Trump’s plans were unconstitutional. That’s not true, as Congress has already granted such power to the president under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952—allowing the president to bar migration of any alien or class of aliens the president sees as a threat to the United States for any reason at any time. Such a class of aliens could be Muslims, or it could be people from a specific region of the world, or any other class—such as someone’s race, weight, height, age, national origin, religion, or anything else.

of course the hon.bro.preznit big-upped 2party1ideology team mate sen. john mccain...,

theamericanconservative |  None of this compelling evidence in the committee’s full report dislodged McCain from his contention that the whole POW issue was a concoction by deluded purveyors of a “conspiracy theory.” But an honest review of the full report, combined with the other documentary evidence, tells the story of a frustrated and angry president, and his national security adviser, furious at being thwarted at the peace table by a small, much less powerful country that refused to bow to Washington’s terms. That president seems to have swallowed hard and accepted a treaty that left probably hundreds of American prisoners in Hanoi’s hands, to be used as bargaining chips for reparations.

Maybe Nixon and Kissinger told themselves that they could get the prisoners home after some time had passed. But perhaps it proved too hard to undo a lie as big as this one. Washington said no prisoners were left behind, and Hanoi swore it had returned all of them. How could either side later admit it had lied? Time went by and as neither side budged, telling the truth became even more difficult and remote. The public would realize that Washington knew of the abandoned men all along. The truth, after men had been languishing in foul prison cells, could get people impeached or thrown in jail.

Which brings us to today, when the Republican candidate for president is the contemporary politician most responsible for keeping the truth about this matter hidden. Yet he says he’s the right man to be the commander in chief, and his credibility in making this claim is largely based on his image as a POW hero.

On page 468 of the 1,221-page report, McCain parsed his POW position oddly, “We found no compelling evidence to prove that Americans are alive in captivity today. There is some evidence—though no proof—to suggest only the possibility that a few Americans may have been kept behind after the end of America’s military involvement in Vietnam.”

“Evidence though no proof.” Clearly, no one could meet McCain’s standard of proof as long as he is leading a government crusade to keep the truth buried.

To this reporter, this sounds like a significant story and a long overdue opportunity for the press to finally dig into the archives to set the historical record straight—and even pose some direct questions to the candidate.

democraticunderground |  McCain screams "POW" as his major qualification for office and his mantra for silencing every embarrasing policy question. If the FACTS are different from what McCain says every day, why should he get a "free ride" from all Obama supporters as well as from the media?

See also http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph... .

gold star political condoms drying up on the asphalt in the midday sun...,

slate |  Sheehan sees the Khans’ story through the prism of her own sour experience in the public square. The villains aren’t all on one side of the aisle. “I think the Khans’ grief is being used by a party that is treacherous,” she said. “I have all the sympathy in the world for them. Not only sympathy, but empathy.”

She’s not just talking about the loss of her son but also her onetime alliance with the Democratic Party. After “Camp Casey,” Sheehan was a key figure in the Democrats’ efforts to reclaim power in Congress, which were predicated on riding, if not co-opting altogether, the moral energy of the anti-war movement. The strategy by the 2006 midterms was to rail against the now-unpopular war and regain a majority in the House. Sheehan met with members of Congress. She campaigned relentlessly. “Every Democrat I met with in 2005 said, ‘If you help us win the House, we’ll help you end the war,’ ” she recalled. Only one of those two things came true.

“Back when I was working with them after my son was killed, I was still a Democrat,” Sheehan said. “I still had some kind of illusion that they really cared about these issues the same way I did, but they really only cared about power.”

The party did reclaim Congress, though, and before long Nancy Pelosi presided over a new bill that continued to fund the war to the tune of $95 billion.

“I felt really betrayed,” Sheehan said. “But since then I’ve realized they didn’t betray me. It was my fault for thinking they would do anything else. If you pick up a rattlesnake, don’t be surprised if it bites you.”

“What Trump says is rhetorically belligerent,” she said. “But what Clinton and the Democrats actually did, it killed people. Why was the Khans’ son in Iraq? Why was my son in Iraq?” (Khizr Khan has made the same point, albeit a little more gently: “As a Muslim American I feel that these policies are not in the interest of the United States of America. ... We have created a chaos.”)

“That’s where the debate should be,” Sheehan went on. “If you support Hillary, I don’t really care, but you need to know what you’re supporting.”

Hon.Bro.Preznit need to worry more about Malia on the pole than Trump in the oval office....,

BostonGlobe |  President Barack Obama is challenging leading Republicans to repudiate Donald Trump.

Obama says Trump’s criticism of a fallen Muslim-American soldier’s family is the latest evidence that the GOP presidential nominee isn’t ready to lead the country.

The president said Trump is unfit to be president and “he keeps on proving it.”

“There has to come a point at which you say ‘enough,’” Obama said.

Obama also cited Trump’s misstatements on global crises.

LewRockwell | The U.S. and Russia are engaged in a ‘new Cold War’ and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, in conjunction with much of the U.S. media, are actively misinterpreting Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s view on the escalating situation, according to one of America’s top experts on Russia.

“That reckless branding of Trump as a Russian agent, most of it is coming from the Clinton campaign,” said Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies at NYU and Princeton, on CNN’s Smerconish Saturday.

Cohen alleged that the Clinton campaign is intentionally misinterpreting Trump’s views on U.S. policy towards Russia in an attempt to brand him as a Russian “Manchurian Candidate.” Trump has argued that as president he would seek an easing of hostilities with Russia, as opposed to Clinton who would escalate tensions with an already aggressive Russian President Vladimir Putin. He has even gone as far as to suggest that he would consider allowing Crimea, which was forcibly and illegally seized by Russia in 2014, to remain under Putin’s control.

“I’m going to take a look at it,” Trump told CNN’s George Stephanopoulos during aninterview Sunday. “But you know, the people of Crimea, from what I’ve heard, would rather be with Russia than where they were. And you have to look at that, also … just so you understand, that was done under Obama’s administration.”

the 2party1ideology system WILL NOT reform anything...,

tanosborn |  America continues living the long perpetuated hoax that our citizenry has a government of the people, by the people, and for the people… and so, come November 8, at the 58^th quadrennial election, we’ll all be taking the ultimate Lesser-Evil or Repugnance Test as we are asked to make a choice between two throne seekers who are long, very long, on selfishness and false pride; and short, very short, on truth and judiciousness.  This 2016 edition, just formalized, brings us the extremely discomforting duo of an insanely lying braggadocio, Donald Trump, and a first-class deceitful elitist, Hillary Clinton. 

Unfortunately for 80+ percent of Americans, no matter how they vote, no matter who turns out to be the victor, their shrinking social (dignity) and economic lots have already been cast, predetermined, before going to the polls.  This Repugnance Test in November will solely determine how the economic spoils are to be distributed between the ruling 1 percent Knights – the millionaires and billionaires who draw Bernie’s ire; and the 19- percent Squires – crumb-gatherers who enforce the edicts of the Knights… in our Haves and Have-nots society.  To see it any other way, again, as Joe Biden would say, is just a bunch of self-deceiving malarkey.

The two ruling political parties that alternate governing America have not addressed the problems that beset the country, not with inspirational authenticity and most definitely not with any required judiciousness.  Problems arising from bigotry and an existing clear racial divide are disturbingly swept under the rug or, even worse, promised to be solved with the law and order magic wand.  Problems of safety and tranquility that have roots overseas, the Daesh boogeyman (Isis to most Americans), are treated as inimical to our democratically pure way of life, instead of the monster we have created and nurtured in our quest for economic, military and political world dominance.  Problems of an abusive economic disparity in our society, created by predatory capitalism deceivingly disguised as free enterprise, are hypocritically acknowledged but insultingly set aside, in-your-face disregarded… the power-elite in both ruling parties well aware that the 80 percent have-nots have no more power than that vassals had during feudal times.

if poor white America is unnecessariat, what in the world becomes of you?!?!?!?!

nypost |  There are decaying post-industrial Middletowns all over the map. In 1970, Vance notes, 25 percent of white children lived in neighborhoods with poverty rates above 10 percent. By 2000 the figure had risen to 40 percent, and Vance believes it is higher today. The life expectancy for Vance’s people is declining.

Trump’s promises to stand up to the Chinese are resonating, as is his message that “the system is rigged” against a proud group of Americans, Americans who built the postwar glory but now feel they’re being ignored or outright mocked. White trash is the one ethnic group it is still OK to make fun of.

“Humans appear to have some need to look down on someone; there’s just a basic tribalistic impulse in all of us,” Vance recently told The American Conservative. “And if you’re an elite white professional, working-class whites are an easy target: You don’t have to feel guilty for being a racist or a xenophobe. By looking down on the hillbilly, you can get that high of self-righteousness and superiority without violating any of the moral norms of your own tribe.”

Mapping the politics of Vance’s clannish, resentful neighbors is challenging, even exasperating. Hillbillies pride themselves on distinguishing the deserving poor from the lazy moochers, but Vance points out that it’s a fuzzy line. His grandmother would lash out at the government for doing too much, then for doing too little. She’d ask why society could afford aircraft carriers but not enough drug-rehab centers. She’d complain that the rich weren’t paying their fair share. But she and J.D. would be just as angry at people who paid for T-bone steaks with food stamps and hated the idea of the government using Section 8 housing vouchers so that poor people could move in next door — poor people “like us,” Vance says. She’d say people wouldn’t have so many problems if they were forced to work for their benefit checks.

the West's offensive against Russia is on multiple fronts and is very dangerous

unz |  But the most important reason for this nonsensical propaganda is that by constantly pretending to discuss a military issue the AngloZionist propagandist are thereby hiding the real nature of the very real conflict between Russia and the USA over Europe: a political struggle for the future of Europe: if Russia has no intention of invading anybody, she sure does have huge interest in trying to de-couple Europe from its current status of US colony/protectorate. The Russians fully realize that while the current European elites are maniacally russophobic, most Europeans (with the possible exception of the Baltic States and Poland) are not. In that sense the recent Eurovision vote where the popular vote was overturned by so-called “experts” is very symbolic.

The first Secretary General of NATO did very openly spell out its real purpose“to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.” The Russians want it exactly the other way around: the Russians in (economically, not militarily, of course), the Americans out and the Germans up (again, economically). That is the real reason behind all the tensions in Europe: the USA desperately wants a Cold War v.2 while Russia is trying has hard as she to prevent this.

So, what would a war between Russia and the USA look like? To be honest, I don’t know. It all depends on so many different factors that it is pretty much impossible to predict. That does not mean that it cannot, or will not, happen. There are numerous very bad signs that the Empire is acting in an irresponsible way. One of the worst ones is that the NATO-Russia Council (NRC) has almost completely ceased to function.

The main reason for the creation of the NRC was to make sure that secure lines of communications were open, especially in a crisis or tension situation. Alas, as a way to signal their displeasure with Russia over the Ukraine, NATO has now almost completely closed down the NRC even though the NRC was precisely created for that purpose.

Furthermore, forward deploying, besides often being militarily useless, is also potentially dangerous as a local incident between the two sides can rapidly escalate into something very serious. Especially when important lines of communications have been done away with. The good news, relatively speaking, is that the US and Russia still have emergency communications between the Kremlin and the White House and that the Russian and US armed forces also have direct emergency communication capabilities. But at the end of the day, the problem is not a technological one, but a psychological one: the Americans are apparently simply unable or unwilling to negotiate about anything at all. Somehow, the Neocons have imposed their worldview on the US deep state, and that worldview is that any dynamic between Russia and the USA is a zero sum one, that there is nothing to negotiate and that forcing Russia to comply and submit to the Empire by means of isolation and containment is the only thinkable approach. This will, of course, not work. The question is whether the Neocons have the intellectual capability to understand that or, alternatively, whether the old Anglo US patriots can finally kick the “crazies in the basement” (as Bush senior used to refer to the Neocons) out of the White House.

But if Hillary makes it into the White House in November, then things will become really scary. Remember how I said that no US President would ever sacrifice a US city in defense of a European one? Well, that assumes a patriotic President, one who loves his country. I don’t believe that the Neocons give a damn about America or the American people, and these crazies might well think that sacrificing one (or many) US cities is well worth the price if that allows them to nuke Moscow.

Any theory of deterrences assumes a “rational actor”, not a psychopathic and hate-filled cabal of “crazies in a basement”.

During the last years of the Cold War I was much more afraid of the gerontocrats in the Kremlin than of the Anglo officers and officials in the White House or the Pentagon. Now I fear the (relatively) new generation of “ass-kissing little chickenshit” officers à la Petraeus, or maniacs like General Breedlove, which have replaced the “old style” Cold Warriors (like Admirals Elmo Zumwalt, William Crowe or Mike Mullen) who at least knew that a war with Russia must be avoided at all cost. It is outright frightening for me to realize that the Empire is now run by unprofessional, incompetent, unpatriotic and dishonorable men who are either driven by hateful ideologies or whose sole aim in life is to please their political bosses.

The example of Ehud Olmert, Amir Peretz and Dan Halutz going to war against Hezbollah in 2006 or Saakashvili’s attempt at ethnically cleansing South Ossetia in 2008 have shown the world that ideology-driven leaders can start absolutely unwinnable wars, especially if they believe in their own propaganda about their invincibility. Let’s is hope and pray that this kind of insanity does not take over the current US leaders. The best thing that could happen for the future of mankind would be if real patriots would come back to power in the United States. Then mankind could finally breathe a big sigh of relief.

behold the pale horse...,

lewrockwell |  The concept of the Deep State originated in Turkey, which is appropriate since it’s the heir to the totally corrupt Byzantine and Ottoman empires. And in the best Byzantine manner, the Deep State has insinuated itself throughout the fabric of what once was America. Its tendrils reach from Washington down to every part of civil society. Like a metastasized cancer, it can no longer be easily eradicated.

I used to joke that there was nothing wrong with Washington that 10 megatons on the capital couldn’t cure. But I don’t say that anymore. Partially because it’s too dangerous, but mainly because it’s now untrue. What’s now needed is 10 megatons on the capital and four more bursts in a quadrant 10 miles out.

In many ways, Washington models itself after another city with a Deep State, ancient Rome. Here’s how a Victorian freethinker, Winwood Reade, accurately described it:

Rome lived upon its principal till ruin stared it in the face. Industry is the only true source of wealth, and there was no industry in Rome. By day the Ostia road was crowded with carts and muleteers, carrying to the great city the silks and spices of the East, the marble of Asia Minor, the timber of the Atlas, the grain of Africa and Egypt; and the carts brought out nothing but loads of dung. That was their return cargo.

The Deep State controls the political and economic essence of the U.S. This is much more than observing that there’s no real difference between the left and right wings of the Demopublican Party. It’s well known by anyone with any sense (that is, by everybody except the average voter) that although the Republicans say they believe in economic freedom (but don’t), they definitely don’t believe in social freedom. And the Democrats say they believe in social freedom (but don’t), but they definitely don’t believe in economic freedom.

Who Is Part of the Deep State?

The American Deep State is a real, but informal, structure that has arisen to not just profit from, but control, the State.

The Deep State has a life of its own, like the government itself. It’s composed of top-echelon employees of a dozen Praetorian agencies, like the FBI, CIA, and NSA…top generals, admirals, and other military operatives…long-term congressmen and senators…and directors of important regulatory agencies.

But Deep State is much broader than just the government. It includes the heads of major corporations, all of whom are heavily involved in selling to the State and enabling it. That absolutely includes Silicon Valley, although those guys at least have a sense of humor, evidenced by their “Don’t Be Evil” motto. It also includes all the top people in the Fed, and the heads of all the major banks, brokers, and insurers. Add the presidents and many professors at top universities, which act as Deep State recruiting centers…all the top media figures, of course…and many regulars at things like Bohemian Grove and the Council on Foreign Relations. They epitomize the status quo, held together by power, money, and propaganda.

Altogether, I’ll guess these people number a thousand or so. You might analogize the structure of the Deep State with a huge pack of dogs. The people I’ve just described are the top dogs.

forced farm labor to distract from forced food hunger in venezuela

CNN |  A new decree by Venezuela's government could make its citizens work on farms to tackle the country's severe food shortages.

That "effectively amounts to forced labor," according to Amnesty International, which derided the decree as "unlawful."

In a vaguely-worded decree, Venezuelan officials indicated that public and private sector employees could be forced to work in the country's fields for at least 60-day periods, which may be extended "if circumstances merit."

"Trying to tackle Venezuela's severe food shortages by forcing people to work the fields is like trying to fix a broken leg with a band aid," Erika Guevara Rosas, Americas' Director at Amnesty International, said in a statement.

President Nicolas Maduro is using his executive powers to declare a state of economic emergency. By using a decree, he can legally circumvent Venezuela's opposition-led National Assembly -- the Congress -- which is staunchly against all of Maduro's actions.

According to the decree from July 22, workers would still be paid their normal salary by the government and they can't be fired from their actual job.

turkish prosecutor claims CIA, FBI trained coup plotters

RT |  A Turkish prosecutor has claimed that the CIA and FBI provided training for the followers of powerful US-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara blames for the coup attempt earlier this month. 

The indictment, prepared by the Edirne Public Prosecutor’s office and accepted by the local Second Heavy Penal Court, seeks the harshest possible punishment for 43 suspects that have allegedly been linked to the failed coup attempt on July 15, including the coup’s supposed mastermind, Fethullah Gulen, the arch-nemesis of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The prosecutor said on Thursday that members of what it describes as “the Fethullah Terrorist Organization” were trained by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

“The CIA and FBI provided training in several subjects to the cadre raised in the culture centers belonging to the Gulen movement. The operations carried out by prosecutors and security officials during the Dec. 17 process can be taken as a good example of this,” the document says, referring to a high profile corruption probe that targeted senior government officials between December 17 and December 25 of 2013, as reported by the Turkish Hurriyet daily.

The investigation affected many officials linked to the Turkish Cabinet, which was headed by Recep Tayyip Erdogan at that time. Erdogan, who is now Turkey’s president, called it “a judicial coup” attempt, while accusing Gulen and his movement of orchestrating it with the help of some “foreign forces.”

The indictment states that Gulen loyalists received US training and infiltrated judicial and security institutions.

“This [failed coup] attempt aimed to weaken the state with all its institutions by getting rid of the government completely. Those in the Gulen movement who work in the judicial and security institutions and who received the aforementioned training, took on this task and moved into action,” the document says, as quoted by the Anadolu news agency.

It adds that some other foreign secret services were also involved in training the coup plotters, according to the Turkish Yeni Safak newspaper.

Relations between Washington and Ankara soured following the foiled coup attempt on July 15. Some Turkish media and even government officials, including the labor minister, have claimed that the US was somehow involved, despite an outright denial from the US.

Immediately after the failed coup attempt, the Turkish government criticized the US for providing safe haven for Gulen, saying that a country that harbors “the coup planner” is “no friend” to Turkey. Ankara has also repeatedly demanded that the US extradite Gulen to Turkey, while Washington has maintained that Turkey must first file a formal extradition request and provide solid proof of his involvement in the coup.

thawing siberian reindeer precipitates anthrax outbreak...,

WaPo |  First a heatwave hit Siberia. Then came the anthrax.

Temperatures have soared in western Russia’s Yamal tundra this summer. Across Siberia, some provinces warmed an additional 10 degrees Fahrenheit beyond normal. In the fields, large bubbles of vegetation appeared above the melting permafrost — strange pockets of methane or, more likely, water. Record fires blazed through dry Russian grassland.

In one of the more unusual symptoms of unseasonable warmth, long-dormant bacteria appear to be active. For the first time since 1941, anthrax struck western Siberia. Thirteen Yamal nomads were hospitalized, including four children, the Siberian Times reported. The bacteria took an even worse toll on wildlife, claiming some 1,500 reindeer since Sunday.

According to NBC News, the outbreak is thought to stem from a reindeer carcass that died in the plague 75 years ago. As the old flesh thawed, the bacteria once again became active. The disease tore through the reindeer herds, prompting the relocation of dozens of the indigenous Nenet community. Herders face a quarantine that may last until September.

The governor, Dmitry Kobylkin, declared a state of emergency. On Tuesday, Kobylkin said “all measures” had been taken to isolate the area, according to AP. “Now the most important thing is the safety and health of our fellow countrymen — the reindeer herders and specialists involved in the quarantine.”

Anthrax has broken out in Russia several times, including one outbreak stemming from a 1979 accident at a military facility. To the south of Yamal, anthrax may rarely appear when infection spreads from cattle; a man died from such exposure in 2012, the Siberian Times reported.

michael hudson talks about granny outflanking republicans on the right

nakedcapitalism |  Leading up to Monday’s Democratic Party convention, Hillary chose Blue Dog Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia as her VP. This was followed by the Wikileaks release of Democratic National Committee (DNC) e-mail files showing it acting as the Clinton Campaign Committee even to the point of using the same lawyers as her own campaign to oppose Bernie Sanders.

The response across the Democratic neocon spectrum, from Anne Applebaum at the Washington Post to red-baiting Paul Krugman and the Sunday talk shows it was suggested that behind the Wikileaks to release DNC e-mails was a Russian plot to help elect Trump as their agent. Former US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul lent his tattered reputation to claim that Putin must have sponsored the hackers who exposed the DNC dirty tricks against Bernie.

The attack on Trump was of course aimed at Sanders. At first it didn’t take off. Enough delegates threatened to boo DNC head (and payday-loan lobbyist) Debbie Wasserman Schultz off stage if she showed her face at the podium to gavel the convention to order. The down-note would have threatened the “United Together” theme, so she was forced to resign. But Hillary rewarded her loyalty by naming her honorary chairman of her own presidential campaign! If you’re loyal, you get a pay-off. The DNC was doing what it was supposed to do. No reform seems likely.

The Democratic machine orchestrated a media campaign to distract attention by attributing the leaks were to a Russian plot to undermine American democracy (as if the e-mails did not show how undemocratic the DNC had operated in stacking the primaries). A vote against Hillary would be a vote for Trump – and a vote for Trump would really be for Putin. And as Hillary had explained earlier, Putin = Hitler. The media let it be known that attacking Wasserman Schultz – and by extension, Hillary’s neocon policies – makes one a Russian dupe. This theme colored the entire convention week.

Endorsing Hillary’s presidential bid on Monday evening, Sanders joined in the chorus that this November will pit Good against Evil – or as Ray McGovern put it on RT’s Cross Talk, at least proxies for Netanyahu vs. Putin. Wall Street Senator Chuck Schumer went on TV to heave a sigh of relief that the party was indeed united together.

Many Sanders’ supporters felt no obligation to follow his obeisance. Many walked out after he closed Tuesday’s state-by-state roll call by throwing his support behind Clinton. Others chanted “Lock Her Up”.

VP Kaine as Hillary’s Stand-in if She’s Indicted or Seems Unelectable

what's wrong with kansas guy talks about granny being outflanked on the left

Guardian |  The Republican party wants my liberal vote. This was the most shocking wave to wash over my brain last week as I sat in the convention center in Cleveland. It was more startling in its way than the storm of hate that I saw descend on former GOP hero Ted Cruz, stranger than the absence of almost all the party’s recent standard-bearers, weirder than the police-state atmosphere that hovered over the streets of the city.

The Republicans were trying to win the support of people like me! Not tactfully or convincingly or successfully, of course: they don’t know the language of liberalism and wouldn’t speak it if they did; and most of the liberals I know will never be swayed anyway. But they were trying nevertheless.

Donald Trump’s many overtures to supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders were just the beginning. He also deliberately echoed the language of Franklin Roosevelt, he denounced “big business” (not once but several times), and certain of his less bloodthirsty foreign policy proposals almost remind one of George McGovern’s campaign theme: “Come home, America.”

Ivanka Trump promised something that sounded like universal day care. Peter Thiel denounced the culture wars as a fraud and a distraction. The Republican platform was altered to include a plank calling for the breakup of big banks via the reinstatement of Glass-Steagall. I didn’t hear anyone talk about the need to bring “entitlements” under control. And most crucially, the party’s maximum leader has adopted the left critique of “free trade” almost in its entirety, a critique that I have spent much of my adult life making.

It boggles my simple liberal mind. The party of free trade and free markets now says it wants to break up Wall Street banks and toss Nafta to the winds. The party of family values has nominated a thrice-married vulgarian who doesn’t seem threatened by gay people or concerned about the war over bathrooms. The party of empire wants to withdraw from foreign entanglements.

elite media shuns and disdains the poor, white, and pissed...,

slate |  How do you think about Trump vs. Clinton, given your strong anti-establishment feelings?

Just take a step back for a second. One of the things that is bothering me and bothered me about the Brexit debate, and is bothering me a huge amount about the Trump debate, is that there is zero elite reckoning with their own responsibility in creating the situation that led to both Brexit and Trump and then the broader collapse of elite authority. The reason why Brexit resonated and Trump resonated isn’t that people are too stupid to understand the arguments. The reason they resonated is that people have been so fucked by the prevailing order in such deep and fundamental and enduring ways that they can’t imagine that anything is worse than preservation of the status quo. You have this huge portion of the populace in both the U.K. and the US that is so angry and so helpless that they view exploding things without any idea of what the resulting debris is going to be to be preferable to having things continue, and the people they view as having done this to them to continue in power. That is a really serious and dangerous and not completely invalid perception that a lot of people who spend their days scorning Trump and his supporters or Brexit played a great deal in creating.

So rather than just side with one side or the other and say I am against Brexit or against Trump, I mean, who the fuck needs me to say that? Do you think anyone is going to be influenced by my endorsement? I am not so self-important that I think it matters for me to come out and endorse a candidate.

I’m not—

I know you’re not. I am asked that a lot, or asked why I won’t say that I endorse Hillary or whatever. I see my role as being a corrective to whatever consensus emerges that I don’t think is being subjected to enough critical scrutiny. Just pushing back against that is the most you can hope to do as a journalist, against unquestioned assumptions embedded within the conventional wisdom. I am not a political prognosticator, but I always thought and still think that the chances are overwhelmingly high that Hillary is going to be the next president. I always thought that and still think that. So when I think about the outcome, and what the ultimate result is going to be, I generally look past that, and think about things that can be accomplished before that, or things that can be accomplished once that happens.

I guess the counter is that the people who have been fucked over in our society, and they aren’t just Trump voters, who are almost all white, a Trump presidency for them would mean something much worse. John Lanchester has an essay in the London Review of Books where he says that Brexit probably won’t end up happening, which will screw over the wishes of the white working class who voted for it. Well, if the elites allow it to happen, the white working classes will suffer more and everyone will blame the elites.

Yes, exactly, I agree with that. But this gets back to the point I was trying to make earlier, which is, if you are someone who wants to stop Trump or Brexit, your goal should be to communicate effectively with the people who believe it is in their interest to support Trump or Brexit. I think in general there is no effort on the part of media elites to communicate with those people and do anything other than tell them that they are primitive, racist, and stupid. And if the message being sent is that you are primitive, racist, and stupid, and not that you have been fucked over in ways that are really bad and need to be rectified, of course those people are not going to be receptive to the message coming from the people who view them with contempt and scorn. I think that is why Brexit won, and I think that is the real danger of Trump winning.

Valodya and The Great Game

FP |  Russia’s push into Georgia in 2008, into Ukraine in 2014, and its recent campaign in Syria, as well as its efforts to consolidate a sphere of influence in the inner Eurasian heartland of the former USSR called the Eurasian Union, all are eerily foretold in geopolitical theory. Mackinder held that geography, not economics, is the fundamental determinant of world power and Russia, simply by virtue of its physical location, inherits a primary global role. Under President Vladimir Putin, the slightly kooky tenets of Mackinder’s theory have made inroads into the establishment, mostly because of one man, Alexander Dugin, a right wing intellectual and bohemian who emerged from the Perestroika era in the the 1980s as one of Russia’s chief nationalists.

 Largely thanks to Dugin’s murky connections within the elite, Geopolitics today is mainstream. Mackinder’s arguments were useful to Dugin and other hardliners who contended that conflict with the West was a permanent condition for Russia, though they had trouble explaining why. The reasons for the Cold War had seemingly evaporated with the end of ideological confrontation, in a new era of universal tolerance, democracy, and the “end of history.”

The Englishman’s elevation to the status of grand mufti of Atlantic power was assisted by Dugin, who in 1997 published The Foundations of Geopolitics, one of the most curious, impressive, and terrifying books to come out of Russia during the entire post-Soviet era, and one that became a pole star for a broad section of Russian hardliners. The book grew out of Dugin’s hobnobbing with New Right thinkers and his fortnightly lectures at the General Staff Academy under the auspices of General Igor Rodionov, the hardliner’s hardliner who would serve as defense minister from 1996 to 1997. By 1993, according to Dugin, the notes from his lectures had been compiled as a set of materials, which all entrants to the Academy were supposed to use, and which were frequently amended and annotated by new insights from the generals, or following the odd lecture by a right-wing ideologue flown in from Paris or Milan.

Dugin thus set out self-consciously to write a how-to manual for conquest and political rule in the manner of Niccolò Machiavelli. Like The Prince (which was essentially a fawning job application written to Florentine ruler Lorenzo de’ Medici after Machiavelli had been out of power and exiled for ten years), Dugin wrote his book as an ode to Russia’s national security nomenklatura from the depths of his post-1993 wilderness. Until 1991 he had been one of the hardliners’ chief propagandists, writing a combination of conspiracy theories and nationalist demagoguery for The Day, a newspaper funded by the defense ministry. But following the failed coup by the KGB and the Red Army in August of that year, Dugin had been in internal exile with little way to support himself.

Together with fellow nationalist intellectual Eduard Limonov he had founded a cantankerous political movement called the National Bolshevik Party (NBP), which he called a “political art project” and in addition he rather improbably landed a visiting lectureship at the Academy of the General Staff as a result of connections to the hardliners and to Rodionov. Drawing on his connections with military academics and sitting in the dirty basement of the NBP’s Frunzenskaya Street headquarters, Dugin wrote a book that would become a major influence on Russia’s hardliners.

In Dugin’s capable hands, Mackinder was transformed from an obscure Edwardian curiosity who never got tenure at Oxford, into a sort of Cardinal Richelieu of Whitehall, whose whispered counsels to the great men of state provided a sure hand on the tiller of British strategic thinking for half a century, and whose ideas continue to be the strategic imperatives for a new generation of secret mandarins.

is russia weaponizing drugs and drug prohibition?

WaPo |  Russia believes that its heroin problem was caused, even perhaps intentionally, by the United States with the destabilization of Afghanistan. But Russia can also surely see that the war on drugs is weakening the United States. Every year Americans of all races collectively spend $100 billion to buy illegal drugs. As a country, we then bear costs of roughly $100 billion a year from fighting the crime related to illegal drugs and from the loss to productivity caused by incarceration. Our national defense budget, by way of contrast, is $600 billion a year. If you want a competitor to be thrown off focus by a distraction, a project that drains its resources at this scale annually would seem welcome.

Then there is the social division spawned by the war on drugs. The burdens of mass incarceration and the increased capacity of the police for violence have fallen most heavily on African Americans and Latinos, despite the equal-opportunity use of drugs by whites, blacks and Latinos. The combined impact of racial disparities in mass incarceration and in the application of police force has now, in 2016, brought about the most severe racial split that our country has seen in a long time. 

This racial division isn’t merely depressing and dispiriting. It isn’t merely material for politicians from either party to exploit. It also weakens us as a country. Any country where citizens are engaged in intense conflict and controversy among themselves has a reduced capacity to play an impactful role in the world. What the war on drugs has done to us is good news for Russia. 

And here it is worth remembering that “law-and-order” Donald Trump would double down. When Trump invokes his mighty wall on the Mexican border, he often extols as a virtue that it will keep the drugs out. Every time I hear crowds chant, “Build the wall,” I can’t help but think about the all the tunnels that international drug traffickers have already constructed underneath our border. A Trump wall would go up; the web of drug tunnels would go under. 

At this point, our situation is already crystal clear. The drug war is not solving the problems of either addiction or crime. It is, however, tearing our social fabric, and that weakens us as a country, including within the geopolitical order. Trump and Putin are on the same page here. With regard to the war on drugs, they are aligned in pursuing a policy that makes America weaker.

why america is in the catbird's seat and will play its hand through to the end...,

guardian |  Last week it was announced that June was the warmest June on record – making it the 14th consecutive month of a record being set. It comes at a time our government and many in the media remain wilfully resistant to efforts to combat climate change, and at a time when the data should worry everyone.

One of the best things about the election result has been the cabinet reshuffle, which has seen Greg Hunt no longer the minister for the environment.

I once called him the emptiest suit in the history of Australian politics, and maybe that was wrong because given how he exited the role, perhaps a better descriptor is the biggest troll in Australian politics. 

On leaving the job Hunt, told reporters that “I feel as if my work is done.”

No minister for the environment could look at the data of global temperatures and think their work is done – especially if the majority of their work involved pushing the con of Direct Action onto the public. 

The temperature data is now at such a point that it requires absurd levels of conspiracy theory to suggest climate change is not occurring. 

Last week the US agencies, Nasa and Noaa announced the June figures. We shouldn’t be too shocked about them – according to Noaa it was the 14th consecutive month in which a new record had been set. The news from Nasa is not as horrible – June was just the ninth consecutive record-setting month.

About the best you can say about June is that at least it wasn’t as big a record as the previous months have been this year:

turkey has truly and profoundly changed up the game...,

unz |  In any event, Putin and Erdogan have settled their differences and scheduled a meeting for the beginning of August. In other words, the first world leader Erdogan plans to meet after the coup, is his new friend, Vladimir Putin. Is Erdogan trying to make a statement? It certainly looks like it. Here’s the story from the Turkish Daily Hurriyet:

“Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Russian President Vladimir Putin may meet in a face-to-face meeting in August as part of mutual efforts to normalize bilateral ties following months of tension due to the downing of a Russian warplane by the Turkish Air Forces in November…

With the normalization of ties, Russia removed some sanctions on trade and restrictions on Russian tourists, though it will continue to impose visa regime to Turkish nationals. A deeper conversation between the two countries over a number of international issues like Syria and Crimea will follow soon between the two foreign ministers before the Putin-Erdoğan meeting.” (Putin, Erdoğan to meet soon in bid to start new era in Turkey-Russia ties, Hurriyet)

Is it starting to sound like Turkey may have slipped out of Washington’s orbit and moved on to more reliable friends that will respect their interests?

Indeed. And this sudden rapprochement could have catastrophic implications for US Middle East policy. Consider, for example, that the US not only depends on Turkey’s Incirlik Airbase to conduct its air campaign in Syria, but also, that that same facility houses “roughly 90 US tactical nuclear weapons.” What if Erdogan suddenly decides that it’s no longer in Turkey’s interest to provide the US with access to the base or that he would rather allow Russian bombers and fighters to use the base? (According to some reports, this is already in the works.) More importantly, what happens to US plans to pivot to Asia if the crucial landbridge (Turkey) that connects Europe and Asia breaks with Washington and joins the coalition of Central Asian states that are building a new free trade zone beyond Uncle Sam’s suffocating grip?

One last thing: There was an important one-paragraph article in Moscow Reuters on Monday that didn’t appear in the western press so we’ll reprint it here:

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s joint projects with Turkey, including the TurkStream undersea natural gas pipeline from Russia to Turkey, are still on the agenda and have a future, RIA news agency quoted Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich as saying on Monday.” (Russian Dep PM says joint projects with Turkey still on agenda, Reuters)

This is big. Erdogan is now reopening the door the Obama team tried so hard to shut. This is a major blow to Washington’s plan to control the vital resources flowing into Europe from Asia and to make sure they remain denominated in US dollars. If the agreement pans out, Putin will have access to the thriving EU market through the southern corridor which will strengthen ties between the two continents, expand the use of the ruble and euro for energy transactions, and create a free trade zone from Lisbon to Vladivostok. And Uncle Sam will be watching from the sidelines.

All of a sudden, Washington’s “pivot” plan looks to be in serious trouble.

Trump and the End of NATO

strategic-culture |  NATO and the US’s other military umbrellas in Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, are not motivated primarily about maintaining security and peace. These military pacts are all about providing the US with a political, legal and moral rationale for intervening its forces in key geopolitical regions. The massive expenditure by the US on military alliances is really all about maintaining Washington’s hegemony over allies and perceived enemies alike. The reality is that America’s «defense» pacts are more a source of relentless tensions and conflicts. Europe and the South China Sea are testimony to that if we disabuse the notional pretensions otherwise.

In all the heated reaction to Trump’s latest comments on NATO the over-riding assumption is that the United States is a force for good, law and order and peace.

Under the headline «Trump NATO plan would be sharp break with decades-long US policy», this Reuters reportage belies the false indoctrination of what US and NATO’s purpose is actually about. It reports:  «Republican foreign policy veterans and outside experts warned that the suggestion by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump that he might abandon NATO’s pledge to automatically defend all alliance members could destroy an organization that has helped keep the peace for 66 years and could invite Russian aggression».

Really? Maintaining peace for 66 years? Not if you live in former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, or Ukraine and Syria where NATO powers have been covertly orchestrating and sponsoring conflicts.

Also note the unquestioned insinuation by Reuters that without NATO that would «invite Russian aggression».

If we return to the original question posed by the New York Times, which sparked the flurry of pro-NATO reaction, the newspaper put it to Trump like this:

«Asked about Russia’s threatening activities, which have unnerved the small Baltic States that are among the more recent entrants into NATO, Mr Trump said that if Russia attacked them, he would decide whether to come to their aid only after reviewing if those nations have fulfilled their obligations to us».

The NY Times, like so many NATO advocates who went apoplectic over Trump, is constructing its argument on an entirely false and illusory premise of  «Russia’s threatening activities».

Unfortunately, it seems, Trump bought into this false premise by answering the question, even though his conditional answer has set off a firestorm among NATO and Western foreign policy establishments. Can you imagine the reaction if he had, instead, rebutted the false assertion about there even being Russian aggression?

But this fabrication of «Russian threat» is an essential part of the wider fabrication about what the US-led NATO alliance is really functioning for. It is not about defending «the free world» from Russian or Soviet «aggression», or, for that matter, from Iranian, Chinese, North Korean, or Islamic terrorist threats. In short, NATO and US military «protection» has got nothing to do with defense and peace. It is about protecting American corporate profits and hegemony.

Ever since its inception in 1949 by the US under President Truman, NATO is a construct that serves to project American presence and power around the world, as well as propping up its taxpayer-subsidized military-industrial complex. The most geopolitically vital theatre is Europe, where the European nations must be kept divided from any form of normal political and economic relations with Russia. If that were to happen, American hegemonic power, as we know it, is over. That’s what the alarmism among the NATO advocates over Trump is really about.