2 breaking headlines: an open thread…while we wait

‘Trump: Get ready Russia, missiles will be coming at Syria, nice and new and ‘smart’!’  via RT, 11 Apr, 2018 11:06

‘Moscow to Trump: Are ‘smart’ missiles an attempt to destroy alleged chem attack evidence in Syria?’, also via RT, 11 Apr, 2018

(cross-posted from Café Babylon)

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wendy davis's picture

Come Out For #SpringAgainstWar, April 14-15, Everywhere’, worldbeyondwar.org

also: ‘Two weeks since WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange silenced by Ecuador, Niles Niemuth’, wsws.org, 11 April 2018

“In days leading up to his silencing, Assange released statements questioning the official narrative spun by the UK government around the alleged poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal by Russia. He had also tweeted links to the WSWS series exposing the unprecedented number of former CIA agents running as Democrats in the US midterm elections.

It is no coincidence that Assange has been shut off from any form of communication with the outside world as the US and its allies prepare for an escalation of the war in Syria and for direct confrontations with nuclear-armed Russia. The censorship of oppositional voices that are critical of the official narrative is seen as necessary to selling new wars to the public.”

#HandsOffSyria

#NoWarOnRussia

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@wendy davis

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O.k. When is the next meeting for the revolution?
-FuturePassed on Sunday, November 25, 2018 10:22 p.m.

wendy davis's picture

@WIProgressive

western hegemonic insanity. cain't have no multi-polar world, now can we?

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PAUL RYAN WILL NOT SEEK RE-ELECTION.

https://www.bloomberg.com/

I'm going to get drunk now!

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O.k. When is the next meeting for the revolution?
-FuturePassed on Sunday, November 25, 2018 10:22 p.m.

@WIProgressive
Cheers

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Beware the bullshit factories.

@WIProgressive

with Hillary in the next selection?

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

@Ellen North Second, I am not sure what his reasons really were but I think indications in this state are that people are really pissed off by the Corporate tax giveaway and specifically in this state the FoxxCON tax giveaway. I read somewhere (no source today folks I sickened myself) that @ironstache has raised 4.5 million for the race (although he declines to debate the real progressive Cathy Myers), so the belief there is momentum for that "bluewave" (gak) in WI. Also, why be a politician when you can earn big $$$$$ as a lobbyist. Don't have to put up with any of that constituent crap. He's taking the easy way out to easy street.

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O.k. When is the next meeting for the revolution?
-FuturePassed on Sunday, November 25, 2018 10:22 p.m.

Amanda Matthews's picture

@WIProgressive

and lobbying income.

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

ggersh's picture

First

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump

Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria. Get ready Russia, because they will be coming, nice and new and “smart!” You shouldn’t be partners with a Gas Killing Animal who kills his people and enjoys it!

6:57 AM – Apr 11, 2018

Then this

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump

Our relationship with Russia is worse now than it has ever been, and that includes the Cold War. There is no reason for this. Russia needs us to help with their economy, something that would be very easy to do, and we need all nations to work together. Stop the arms race?

maybe we should all just go to disneyland

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

wendy davis's picture

@ggersh

he really is a total nutbar as well as a sociopath, and w/ a new hairdo, to boot. (in the first RT link)

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ggersh's picture

@wendy davis A group of lawmakers will introduce legislation to protect the office of the special counsel in the event that Trump attempts to fire Robert Mueller. Four bipartisan senators plan to merge two proposals that would protect the special counsel and only allow him to be fired "for good cause" by a senior official in the Justice Department. (Reuters)

https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/

but I always have in the back of my mind how bipartisanship is
a big FU to the people and next in line is Pence, oy vey.

iow's we're fucked

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

@ggersh

In his preparation for the second coming.

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Beware the bullshit factories.

Alligator Ed's picture

@wendy davis Drumpf often says contradictory messages even one following immediately upon another. It is difficult to know, or actually like Schrödinger's cat, impossible to know WTF he thinks. If he turns the fleet around, we have escaped certain doom. Russia has better anti-missile missiles than we do with S400 and newer versions. I am fairly confident that Russian subs are in the Mediterranean also. Aircraft carriers are mighty fine targets for Rooskie hypersonic torpedoes.

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wendy davis's picture

@Alligator Ed

someone should take the twit's tweeter away from him. 'i love 2 B erratic: it's MAGA!

as far as miz niki whose tweets are mainly selfies, j in oly said over yonder: 'every time she opens her mouth it's a war crime'.

well shiver me timbers: there's fooking kenneth ross at the top: "World Health Organization estimates 500 Syrians were affected by the chemical weapon attack in Douma. http://bit.ly/2EE7ktk"

but down thread, oy, is she one proudly shallow imbecile. "my new gurlfriends on the committee!" (giggle, giggle) but then susan rice wasn't all that smart, was she?

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@wendy davis
in this tweet he’s finally seeing and admitting to it for what it truly is.
He’s been played to get into war by the levelers of power.

Probably after all the ranting and threatening, it’s the most honest tweet he’d made of all.

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@ggersh

or he's showing both his 'public' and 'private' faces in succession in the hope that they'll only be viewed by the appropriate target audiences?

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

The Aspie Corner's picture

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

Alligator Ed's picture

@The Aspie Corner if there are human beings left next week to take note of this. U.S. votes in Security Council not to allow chemical weapon inspectors to go to Syria. Don't bother me with the facts, I have my own opinion.

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@The Aspie Corner

NOT DOING WHAT THEY WERE TOLD!!!

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

The Aspie Corner's picture

Kamala Harris refuses to stop taking corporate money.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YI1Hw6LbWI]

Yet another Democrat doing typical 3rd Way pig work.

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

Roy Blakeley's picture

When Tucker Carlson is one of few that presents a sensible, level-headed view of a critically important topic, the world has been turned upside down and inside out.

[video:https://youtu.be/y5bv7vEmK6E]

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wendy davis's picture

@Roy Blakeley

'fight them here, don't fight them there' is turning this old saw on its head, eh? "fight them over there...so we won't have to fight them here".

and it's like seeing the freight train coming...and we're powerless to stop it. i'm not even sure that any bombing will be only in syria, there are so many 'russian' proxy wars available, say...in crimea? if israel 'secretly' strikes again, why not iran? howard dean, the peace candidate. former D canddate gen. wesley clark said the same shit, different day on CNN.

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Big Al's picture

@Roy Blakeley maybe but his insistence that this a civil war is a false narrative, his assertion that Assad "is fully capable of gassing innocent children" is also a false narrative and "Both sides in the Syrian civil war have chemical weapons", actually isn't true because Syria got rid of there's under U.N. supervision, and there are not TWO sides (i.e., "both"). I'm not sure sprinkling some truth in with the lies and false narratives is all that helpful.

"The Saudi's are causing the genocide in Yemen."

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wendy davis's picture

@Big Al

when i'd reposted it from wikileaks i'd mentioned that the chemical weapons had been hauled off earlier. but i hadn't even noted 'civil war', like ken burns' Viet Nam'. pfffft.

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Big Al's picture

@wendy davis the Arab Spring when the U.S. and friends started this war on Syria. It was repeated day after day, in article after article, show after show for years and still is. I know it's been used here regularly by some writers. It's been a pet peeve of mine but like with the SOHR, still being used, it has amazing resiliency. It obviously give the uninformed a warped perspective on what kind of war it is.

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wendy davis's picture

@Big Al

soros-otpor color revolutions spring to mind... but at least carlson got a lot of it right, so...there's that. kinda like dylan ratigan's anti-wall street rant long ago, but iirc, he got fired. i do wonder if there'd been some sort of comments forum in which folks might have corrected some of carlson's mis-apprehensions.

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@Big Al
so often the case, you are righter than right.

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Roy Blakeley's picture

@Big Al is that the latest gassing is supposed to be with chlorine, which is easy to make and could easily have been manufactured after the previous removal of chemical weapons. On the other hand, it could also have been made by the rebels AND I haven't seen any strong evidence that a gassing actually occurred. Various rebel groups have certainly faked lots of stuff before. They are acutely aware of the power of viral videos. Beyond all my long-windedness, I take your point that there is no real evidence that Assad would use poison gas. I am sure Carlson thought he had to say something negative about Assad as a counterpoint to the relative sanity of his commentary.

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OzoneTom's picture

@Roy Blakeley
President Trump: ...out of Syria ("Like, really soon")
President Assad: "No! Please stay and bomb us!"

Perhaps Netanyahu reminded the American President that he "has pictures" in that phone call after Trump started "coloring outside the lines" on Syria:
Netanyahu/Trump -- tense call
Wink

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wendy davis's picture

@OzoneTom

but syria THE proxy war on the western Imperium's list (well, not North korea, but the biggies to israel as well): my stars.

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Alligator Ed's picture

@OzoneTom

In his haste to withdraw from Syria, Trump stands alone. The Pentagon, the State Department and CIA are all deeply concerned about the potential ramifications if the US leaves behind a power vacuum in Syria, as are Israel, Arab leaders and other nations in the US-led coalition that has fought IS in Iraq and Syria since 2014.

Power vacuum--bullshit. Syria, if left along (with Russia's help of course) will readily refill the so-called Power Vacuum.

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@Alligator Ed and There's the rub, ain't it? Can't have Syria fill a power vacuum in SYRIA, now can we?
Fuckwads, Dickheads, and BrainDeads(sorry Thanat). Hope we're still chatting next week!

Stop These Fucking Wars

peace(for real)

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Ya got to be a Spirit, cain't be no Ghost. . .

Explain Bldg #7. . . still waiting. . .

If you’ve ever wondered whether you would have complied in 1930’s Germany,
Now you know. . .
sign at protest march

@OzoneTom @OzoneTom

only the assumptions that TPTB own everything everywhere are so utterly bizarre...

...In his haste to withdraw from Syria, Trump stands alone. The Pentagon, the State Department and CIA are all deeply concerned about the potential ramifications if the US leaves behind a power vacuum in Syria, as are Israel, Arab leaders and other nations in the US-led coalition that has fought IS in Iraq and Syria since 2014. ...

The Pentagon, the State Department and CIA have no jurisdiction in other people's countries, particularly when they have not been invited in and are trying to take over the place.

Gee, Russia and Syria can probably handle the terrorist situation just fine, if the US and others would only stop funding/arming/training terrorists and getting them to attack civilians, while the terrorist-rescuing White Helmets promote propaganda that Assad did whatever the terrorists they work with did, so that the US can fire off missiles at the Syrians who have enough US-supported terrorists to deal with without US terrorists organizing their own further attacks on them.

And now, while the slavering, dishonored were-dogs of gang war-crimes are attacking Syria, the CIA are probably sneaking more terrorists into the country from the rear...

Edit: lol, ninja'd again! Should have known that my favorite 'Gater had already got his teeth into that, and spat out the perfect response to cover it!

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

@Roy Blakeley

the Syrians found the terrorist's chemical workshop while taking back from them, and going though, a portion of Eastern Ghouta, spoiling the planned chemical provocation of which Intelligence had warned.

The White Helmet rescuers of terrorists and producers of top-quality terrorist propaganda claimed that it had happened anyway, blaming Assad.

Meanwhile, doctors in the area have seen no signs or victims of any gas attacks; the army had seen so signs of one having happened there - they having forestalled it in time by capturing the area.

The US PTB know damn well that they arranged a False Flag as an excuse to attack - and even if it has been discovered and prevented, they figure they're damn well going to hit Syria, Iran, and Russia all at once, so that they can start on China, and from there, finish taking over the world.

https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201803121062431574-syrian-army-chemic...

Syrian Army Finds Chemical Weapons' Workshop in Eastern Ghouta
© REUTERS/ STRINGER
Middle East
11:48 12.03.2018(updated 12:38 12.03.2018

According to Syrian Army reports, militants in Eastern Ghouta planned a chemical attack provocation to put blame on Damascus.

Syrian government forces found a clandestine workshop for the manufacture of chemical munitions while sweeping through the village of Aftris in Eastern Ghouta after militants withdrew from the community, Syrian Arab Army Colonel Feruz Ibrahim told reporters on Monday.

"Presumably, the equipment of these munitions could be produced as part of a false flag accusation that government troops used chemical weapons," he said.

Recently, the Syrian Foreign Ministry said that militants in Eastern Ghouta may stage a chemical attack in order to blame the Syrian government for it. Syrian Deputy-Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad stressed that Damascus was ready to assist any investigation of chemical attacks in Syria but the international organizations declined to cooperate with the Syrian government.

Last week, the Russian Center for Syrian Reconciliation informed that terrorists were planning provocations involving chemical weapons in Eastern Ghouta.

READ MORE: Russian MoD: E Ghouta Militants Struggle After Call for Separation From al-Nusra

In its turn, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) confirmed that Syria's efforts to destroy its chemical weapons stockpile had been completed. ...

I do not see the US being upset over this - because their pet terrorists did it:

https://www.fort-russ.com/2018/04/video-syrians-chant-curse-ghouta-after...

VIDEO: Syrians chant “curse Ghouta” after potential murder of thousands of people
By Paul Antonopoulos On Apr 10, 2018

EAST GHOUTA, Syria – Syrians were so enraged after the discovery that the US-supported Jaish al-Islam could have killed up to 3800 civilians in the East Ghouta town of Duma to the east of Damascus city center.

The civilians were captured on video chanting “curse your soul Ghouta” yesterday.

4000 Syrians were kidnapped in 2013 by Jaish Al Islam in the towns of Adra and Taken and were taken to Duma, however, many civilians were devastated to find that less than 200 prisoners were released, which was supposedly all civilians the terror group held before they were transported to northern Syria.

To make matters worse, the US has since threatened to attack Syria for the alleged chemical weapon attack on Duma, despite no evidence that an attack had occurred being produced.

It is for this reason that civilians cursed Ghouta as it has been a key site to the suffering of many Syrians, whether it be the reason for a US attack on Syria, civilians being kidnapped and executed, or the daily rocket attacks the terrorists conducted on Damascus.

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/44045-pentagon-plans-for-three-front-...

Pentagon Plans for Three-Front "Long War" Against China and Russia
Tuesday, April 03, 2018 By Michael T. Klare, TomDispatch | News Analysis

Busy choking on outrage and grief, so I won't comment further on this.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

@Big Al

Assad was a London Ophthalmologist when he was suddenly obliged to fill his deceased brother's position as head of Syria.

Seems kinda silly of TPTB to try to present him as some grunting savage with no regard for human life and a penchant for gassing children... and I'll bet he can see far more clearly than they.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Big Al's picture

@Ellen North Donald Trump, George Bush, etc., are fully capable of pulling false flag attacks that kill thousands of innocent people, start illegal wars that kill millions, and Amerika is a land of bloodthirsty, greedy bastards who will kill any in their way.

I watched Carlson for a couple years in the early part of the century but stopped as with all corporate media about ten years ago. Those thinking all that about what he said need to examine it more closely imo. It might sound good on the surface, but beneath it the continuation of the false narratives does more harm than good.

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@Big Al

it's the psychopaths who were allowed to gain great wealth and power by sheer ruthlessness in order to run the place. Get the psychos out of positions where they can harm others, and the imposed societal pathology can be cleaned out by the vast number of Americans who were not, despite all propaganda efforts, pathologized and are capable of thinking for themselves and like civilized human being.

Lol, if the people here on this site were running government, there'd be immediate improvements - and while you guys might be cream of the cream, there are more out there.

Edit: got side-tracked and hadn't specifically added that I agree completely. And you nailed it precisely about having to remember to point to the wrong/disinformation mixed with fact so that it doesn't get incorporated and repeated in our thinking and commentary. There's such a lot of that about! (Speaking as one who has a bad memory, of course, lol.)

Re -edit: wish we could see what we were replying to more easily; by the time I get back from being hauled off by the dog, run to the bathroom and make a cup of tea, I seem to wind up not remembering/not answering quite what I actually was replaying to when I got nose-poked. That bad memory thing, lol. But, yeah, I do agree with what you actually said.

I really should be in bed with a book, not trying to comment and not listening for any large explosions, lol... at least not tonight. And hopefully we won't lose internet or have any WW3 breaking out - ever.

*hugs*

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Big Al's picture

@Ellen North Ya, actually the amazing thing is Americans are people from all over the world. We're just like humans throughout history, same stuff happens over and over. Of course now, it's amazing with the population, technology, everything seems ready to burst.
I just started watching a movie, Snowpiercer (multi-tasking) about a revolution on a train after a climate change post apocalypse, and he says, paraphrased, "the mistake we made in the last revolutions was we didn't take out the engine. This time we take out the engine".
That's what I'm talking about right there, we need to take out the engine.
That's the discussion everyone who is at all interested in justice, equality, and peace should be having now.

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@Big Al @Big Al

Metaphorical or mechanical engine?

Too tired to see straight, and had probably better not assume anything, lol. Probably had better crawl into bed while I can make it that far, lol.

Edit for letter-typo, crawling off, yawning.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

earthling1's picture

@Roy Blakeley
Good cop/ bad cop
Then flip
Bad cop/ good cop
Rinse- repeat
There, that should keep the plebes confused.

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

Amanda Matthews's picture

@Roy Blakeley @Roy Blakeley

column here lately because HE’S been on the side of sanity in regard to the bellicose bullshit from our hickey-on-a-hemorrhoid prez’ and his threats to attack Syria.

It’s pretty disturbing and disorienting that some of the conservative jerks that I spent most of my life hating are the only ‘smart’ guys in the room right now.

EDIT: fixed one typo and some bad grammar

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

Pluto's Republic's picture

@Amanda Matthews

It’s pretty disturbing and disorienting that some of the conservative jerks that I spent most of my life hating are the only ‘smart’ guys in the room right now.

I caught Mark Steyn on the radio the other day and he sounded like a normal person. It was very disorienting. But the next day, he was an asshat again. So, I assume this is a temporary effect, perhaps caused by quantum hypocrisy.

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IMAGINE if you woke up the day after a US Presidential Election and headlines around the the world blared, "The Majority of Americans Refused to Vote in US Presidential Election! What Does this Mean?"
Roy Blakeley's picture

A complete abandonment of any requirement for evidence, NPR and corporate media all on board, Democrats and Republicans almost all on board, consequences be damned, so few asking the obvious questions and the sanctimony, always the sanctimony. I feel as though I am drowning in a sea of ignorant self-righteousness.

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CB's picture

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wendy davis's picture

@CB

thank you, CB.

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wendy davis's picture

@CB

i was pinging this when i'd grabbed the following tweet, so i went and etched it: tom hall at wsws.org had penned: 'The pseudo-left’s silent complicity in the drive to war against Syria and Russia

“Four of the most prominent pseudo-left websites—Jacobin magazine, which is closely connected to the Democratic Socialists of America; Socialist Worker, the online newspaper of the International Socialist Organization; the website of Socialist Alternative; and International Viewpoint, the magazine of the Pabloite, ex-Trotskyist United Secretariat, have written next to nothing about the growing danger of a major world war. What little they have written only underscores their support for American and world imperialism.
Jacobin has written nothing on the Skripal affair—that is, the effort of the UK and US to use unsubstantiated charges that Russia was behind the alleged poisoning of the double agent Sergei Skripal, which has been used to justify war provocations against Russia. As the official narrative of the Skripal poisoning has broken down, the media and imperialist governments have shifted to the CIA-organized provocation over Syria’s alleged use of chemical weapons to demand war.

As of April 9, the words “Skripal,” “Russia,” and “Syria” do not appear on the front page of Jacobin's website. Moreover, a search of Jacobinmag.com for “skripal” returns zero results. That is, for the last month, during which the media in the US and UK engaged in an unrelenting propaganda offensive, Jacobin wrote nothing.”

wait until he gets a load of this ‘un my favorite tankie just retweeted.

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@wendy davis

the most important revelations in David Talbot's book on Allen Dulles, The Devil's Chessboard, is that Dulles ran leftist organizations in the United States, sometimes in order to destroy them and sometimes in order to control them.

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wendy davis's picture

@Linda Wood

and i'd add as well that foundations like the rockefellers, ford, soros, gates, etc., fund alleged 'dissidents' to control them and corral them, although i'm more familiar with the gatekeepers for the D team. wrong kind of green does some great exposés on compromised NGOs.

i'd cross-posted a two part thingie on their work. one biggie is avaaz, which organization is heavily invested in this 3-bagger 'war'. sarah sanders was supposed to be doing a presser on what T and his generals decided, but it's not up on c-span yet, nor at the WH briefing room. but why would he/they signal anything in advance?

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He gets to play war again.

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Beware the bullshit factories.

wendy davis's picture

@Timmethy2.0

eh? here's Sir Brookings Institution on twitter writing for that Very Fine Rag, the daily beast:

are they in place yet?

there really needs to be a new word coined for how Epically Insane this is, especially the second time around. will fareed z. say: "Our President is even more of a President today"?

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k9disc's picture

The Neocons are in bed with the Democrats. And the Democrats are in bed with anyone who can whack Donald Drumpf.

Bolton is going to have the full throttle, open bore, bipartisan support of the American Public.

A bit scary if you ask me.

@wendy davis

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“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu

wendy davis's picture

@k9disc

but yes, this is a complete duopoly project, and not only all MSM (save maybe tucker carlon, with caveats, but the 'fake left' as seen downthread.

i swear though, this time it's flipping my zoris off so much i'm more zzzleepless than ever, and i should stop letting it harsh my mellow to that extent. it's been written: this is what dying empires do.

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dervish's picture

@k9disc but only the insiders of both parties. The outsiders of both parties oppose this war.

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

CB's picture

@Timmethy2.0
the Trumpeter tweets like a 12 year old child psychopath planning to kill the neighbor's cat.

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Anja Geitz's picture

@CB

That the nature of psychopathic behavior is exclusively portrayed on television and in movies as someone who was abused as a child, lived in foster care, or institutionalized early in life, who then became a sick and twisted serial killer?

Notably missing from those "pulled from the headlines" narrative arcs is the budding psychopath who is portrayed as an upper class entitled monster decapitating the neighborhood cats whose "youthful transgressions" is protected by their families wealth, who grows up in Ivy League Schools, enters the elite echelons of power, and then revels in their ability to commit sick and twisted acts sanctioned by the benefit of sitting in the most powerful seats of government surrounded by a cabal of other sick and twisted psychopaths also sitting in powerful seats of government.

Better that Hollywood keeps fictionalizing the marginalized version of psychopathic behavior, eh? It'd be too much of a bummer when our fictionalized hero detective wouldn't be able to do jack shit about what actually happens.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

CB's picture

@Anja Geitz

and is set in place by age six. People afflicted with this disorder simply do not experience empathy or guilt (to greater and lessor degrees).


A Psychopath’s Brain Is Different

Researchers have learned that a psychopaths brain structure is significantly different from others. University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers discovered the variance studying images of prisoners’ brains.

The results could help explain the callous and impulsive anti-social behavior exhibited by some psychopaths.

The study showed that psychopaths have reduced connections between the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), the part of the brain responsible for sentiments such as empathy and guilt, and the amygdala, which reconciles fear and anxiety.

Psychopaths gravitate to positions of power and control. On the surface they can be charming and witty. Just don't cross them or you will feel their wrath.

The Professions With The Most And Fewest Psychopaths

Psychopathy is a personality disorder that has been variously described as characterized by shallow emotions (in particular reduced fear), stress tolerance, lacking empathy, coldheartedness, lacking guilt, egocentricity, superficial charm, manipulativeness, irresponsibility, impulsivity and antisocial behaviors such as parasitic lifestyle and criminality.

  1. CEO
  2. Lawyer
  3. Media (TV/Radio)
  4. Salesperson
  5. Surgeon
  6. Journalist
  7. Police Officer
  8. Clergyperson
  9. Chef
  10. Civil Servant
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Anja Geitz's picture

@CB

I come from a family of Chefs, and while they were all perfectionists in and out of the kitchen, I was fortunate none of them ever fell into the anti-social category Anthony Bourdain famously wrote about.

I did inherit a great set of knives from them Smile

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

CB's picture

@Anja Geitz

to prepare their meals with fresh-killed meat or maybe they just love cutting things? Scratch one-s head

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Anja Geitz's picture

@CB

Michael Ruhlman's "Soul of a Chef" to prove your point. In the very perverse opening chapter of his book, he describes a young chef who buys a dead pig in Chinatown, wraps it up in plastic, throws it on his motorcycle, and drives it through Manhattan leaving a trail of blood behind him so he can carry it up to his aptly named apartment in Hells Kitchen to carve it up on his kitchen table.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

Alligator Ed's picture

@Anja Geitz CannibalClub.com

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Anja Geitz's picture

@Alligator Ed

I could stand it. But appreciate the link anyway.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

@CB

and have the whole place run as they please. It's a lower-level control situation where, when they abuse underlings, it's 'merely the artistic temperament', so they can 'pass' there, and micro-management, even when abusive, can be described as 'perfectionism' and 'just look at the wonderful result making it all worthwhile even if it makes the kitchen staff stressed and miserable to the point of affecting their physical health', since they're only cogs in the system.

And while this obviously does not apply to most or all chefs, they can view it as working with food, not people, with the spectacular results entirely due to their genius rather than the human machines they direct, without it appearing odd, even if this still pisses off their hard-working staff, lol.

Psychopaths are not necessarily violent; they just lack the capacity for human feelings, which is part of a package upon which other essential abilities rest.

The born psychopath suffers from a brain malformation inherently producing a mental and perceptual disability; the difference between this and others is that the victims of this condition, (which is not a 'fault' issue, but a particularly unfortunate and potentially widely-destructive mental disability) who may seem perfectly normal and even charming, bright and highly efficient, are only capable of understanding their own self-interest and by their regrettably-damaged nature regard other life as machines which may be useful to them or not, viewing them only in relation to this: it doesn't bother the psychopath when something bad occurs to another life-form unless this interferes with their goals, in which case, the victims are often despised and blamed for their own misfortune.

To the psychopath, the vulnerable is either easy prey or waste by the road-side; they have no sympathy to engage, just self-interest, to which everything else is an adjunct having no inherent worth if it's seemingly worthless to them at the moment.

Unfortunately, if not carefully raised and handled, (they respond only to appeals to self-interest, which often includes a desire to have people admire them, and this can act to limit destructive and hurtful behaviours) they may not only come to regard the humanity of others as weaknesses to be manipulated and exploited but enjoy the power of harming others and are most commonly noted as lacking the human combination of empathy and ethics which form what we term conscience, having no natural 'brakes' within themselves to prevent abuses which, when unimpeded, may increase their excesses in an unlimited fashion, in certain cases, as we see now, with the capacity for ignoring an unregarded reality to destroy life on the planet, believing that their exceptional selves will somehow come out alright, since they're so much more clever and better than everyone else.

They are stuck with a giant blind spot affecting their perceptions; as one example, having no capacity for emotional context for words themselves, they often fail to understand meanings and simply use terms of which they really only understand the effect they've noticed these seem to produce in human normals, mimicking the potentially-misunderstood results of this analysis with varying degrees of success, (this being especially obvious in some intended insults, with them also often misinterpreting the reactions of their intended victims) and, as we see in media-promoted propaganda over the years, badly warping the language (often incidentally, as terms such as 'reforms' are used to imply improvement of policy, when enacting the opposite, so are often really just propaganda lies wrapped in confusion tactics) to transfer conflicting meanings to words and phrases in order to confuse the public viewed as their prey.

If language is mutilated so that common and essential terms bear perhaps drastically different meanings to different groups, there can, by definition, be no meaningful communication, and a population that cannot effectively communicate clear meanings with once-accustomed terms is silenced and divided to that extent, as with the created 'right-wing' and 'left-wing' division once so effective against the American people, experiencing different corporate media propaganda on each 'side'. And the most horrendous bills can be passed without outcry, if much of the public fails to realize what disaster for them these policy changes actually entail.

The inherent limitations of psychopaths also render them incapable of complex or even apparently simplistic planning in areas that affect humans or the world of life at large because they are incapable of seeing or understanding essentials in such areas.

As we see, psychopathy involves both a wide-ranging limitation and an inherent hazard which can easily result in natural callousness permitting the psychopath to come to enjoy the feeling of power in creating suffering and destruction for 'lesser beings' viewed as 'disposable' because not obviously immediately useful for them, something which is also applied to such as basic infrastructure maintenance, societies, a healthy economy and, universally fatally, the ecology.

They cannot view the world or life within it the way we do, and the condition automatically renders them unfit for any position in the public service or for any position permitting them to exert power over others because, by nature, they will abuse it and others around them without in the least regarding this as a problem, having no understanding in such areas at all.

Got up still feeling exhausted and gawd-awful and am hoping that this makes sense, but do want to make the essential point that the root of the problems we face lies with the deficiency-induced ruthlessness of psychopathy having allowed various psychopaths and groups they've formed to gain wealth and power at the expense of others (in which I include animal abuses and the ecosystem) to be used for an endless personal never-enough 'more', gaining political power and pathologizing sizable portions of populations via propaganda to accept the soulless and inhumane concepts of psychopaths as a legitimate political position, which it is not.

It's a mental deficiency destructive to affected individuals, society, life itself, when allowed influence and free reign, whether within powerful individuals or what's termed a 'political system', and for which the labels of any political system or party can be warped to use as a vehicle.

We humans need to take back our politics, policy, countries, world and rights.

Humanity has more than one definition, and we must be guided in all things by both.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

@CB
occupation for which we might be grateful to have a psychopath is a surgeon.

Just don't let the surgeon be the deciding whether to operate -- because the psychopath will always want to operate, since there's no real downside from the psychopath's perspective.

I wonder if plastic surgeons have the highest concentration of psychopaths?

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

Anja Geitz's picture

@UntimelyRippd

I wonder if plastic surgeons have the highest concentration of psychopaths?

I would've thought thoracic surgery. It seems like it would feed their insatiable God Like complex better.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

earthling1's picture

@Anja Geitz
Instead of searching the homeless camps and under bridges for sick, twisted individuals we should just go to Harvard and Yale, where they are all nicely grouped together.

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

Anja Geitz's picture

@earthling1

Would certainly be a ripe target for a "cleansing" if the psychopaths living under bridges took it in their mind to scrub out the ivory towers where the elite psychopaths incubate. But that'd be too weird a class warfare to actually contemplate.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

earthling1's picture

@Anja Geitz
on the Scull and Crossbones club for extra points.

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

TheOtherMaven's picture

@Anja Geitz

A now-forgotten flick called 13 West Street. Gang of wealthy spoiled brats rough up and almost kill an older man (he happens to be a rocket scientist, but that's not relevant to the plot), he tracks the leader down and goes for revenge, stopping only when he realizes he's becoming as bad as they are.

It's not a very good movie - poorly written, choppily directed, and as for the acting, never mind. Derived from a novel called The Tiger Among Us, by Leigh Brackett, which I hope was better and filled in some of the (huge) blank spaces.

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

Roy Blakeley's picture

@Timmethy2.0 Let him crawl through the rubble in his Brooks Brothers suit with artillery shells hitting around him.

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gotta bomb syria quick

The international chemical weapons watchdog said Tuesday it will send a fact-finding mission to the Syrian town of Douma where a suspected gas attack took place over the weekend, after receiving a request from the Syrian government and its Russian backers to investigate the allegations. In a statement, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said a fact-finding team is "preparing to deploy to Syria shortly."

It was not immediately clear whether the announcement would avert U.S. military action against Syria. President Trump has vowed to respond "forcefully" to Saturday's attack on civilians in Douma, in the eastern Ghouta suburbs, and warned that Russia -- or any other nation found to share responsibility -- will "pay a price."

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Roy Blakeley's picture

@gjohnsit He will be damned sure to keep the OPCW team out of Douma or render their visit meaningless [i.e. after the US attack(s)]

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@Roy Blakeley
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TndoUBoT2O0]

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Beware the bullshit factories.

@Timmethy2.0

God almighty. Can you attach this clip to the brain receptor of every broadcaster and member of what we call congress?

I don't have enough expletives to express my anger.

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wendy davis's picture

@Timmethy2.0

valerie plame: wooot! thanks for the reminder gads i'd even forgotten henry waxman.

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@wendy davis @wendy davis

in the coming weeks. That's why, I think, it was actually kind of stupid of Trump to appoint Bolton. There's a book by the linguist, George Lakoff, who has a good explanation for the propaganda of Republicans and Democrats (of Dubya's time). The name of the book is "Don't Think Of An Elephant". Kind of like Bolton saying don't think of the Iraq War lies.

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Beware the bullshit factories.

@Timmethy2.0 @Timmethy2.0

where Hillary Clinton found the precedent of claiming incompetence, appalling ignorance and a disastrous failure to understand the basic job requirements, protocol and responsibilities of a major position within government and evident freaking insanity to escape criminal charges for clearly and obviously creating a potential for disaster from which she greatly profited!

'Bolton' is such an ironic name for a psychopath with so many screws loose...

Edit: and is the effort to look like Captain Kangaroo part of the psychopathic camouflage? Because I think the Captain should have sued over that, for visual associative libel in a psychopath fit to rightly scare vulnerable infants.

Re-edited:

just say a Sane Progressive video alert go to dead when I looked at it, putting this down as I begin to listen to it, in case it goes, too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvXeYtvEZd0

Leaked Audio Turkish Officials Discussing A False Flag In Syria; Exposed Erdogan Shuts Down Youtube
Jamarl Thomas

Streamed live 3 hours ago

Leaked Audio Turkish Officials Discussing A False Flag In Syria; Erdogan Flips & Shuts Down Youtube

(Emphasis mine.)
https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Operation_Gladio

... The Scandal Spreads

Fortuitously for the powers-that-be Andreotti’s revelations coincided with Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait and as a result did not garner the publicity they almost certainly otherwise would have. Even so, the scandal began to spread. In October Greek Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou confirmed there had been a Gladio network in Greece. In Germany a TV programme shocked the nation by revealing how former members of Hitler’s Special Forces SS had been part of a German stay-behind network. The Belgian Parliament appointed a special committee to investigate the existence – confirmed by the defence minister – of a Belgian Gladio network.

Most sensitively the Belgian parliamentarians discovered that the secret NATO army was still active. They found that a secret meeting of Generals directing the secret stay-behind armies in the numerous countries in Western Europe had been held in the secret NATO-linked Gladio headquarters ACC as recently as October 23 and 24, 1990. The meeting of the ACC had taken place in Brussels under the chairmanship of General Raymond Van Calster, chief of the Belgian military secret service SGR (Service General de Renseignement).[5]

In France President Mitterand claimed that the French Gladio network had been dissolved long ago but to his enormous embarrassment Andreotti then claimed the French had taken part in the recent meeting in Brussels. And so it went on. British defence officials refused to comment. In Portugal, contrary to official denials, a retired general confirmed there had been such a network in Portugal, while in Spain former defence minister Alberto Oliart claimed it was childish to "ask whether also under dictator Franco a secret right-wing army had existed in the country because 'here Gladio was the government'."[6]

In Turkey former prime minister Bulent Ecevit went even further and admitted that a secret army had been involved in torture, massacres, assassinations and coups d'etat, prompting the serving defence minister Giray to retort "Ecevit had better keep his fucking mouth shut!"[7] ...

And another re-edit to add:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RQEduvUPgk

Sy Hersh On Democracy Now: U.S. Intelligence KNEW "Rebels" Had Access To Sarin In Syria
Jamarl Thomas

Streamed live 9 hours ago

Sy Hersh On Democracy Now: U.S. Intelligence KNEW "Rebels" Had Access To Sarin In Syria

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

@Ellen North

and is the effort to look like Captain Kangaroo part of the psychopathic camouflage

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Beware the bullshit factories.

@Timmethy2.0

The government is full of 'clowns', too...

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

wendy davis's picture

@gjohnsit

but the OPCW can identify the type of any remaining chemical weapons, but it's beyond their purview to say who may have used them. again, iirc, the Russians had initially objected to an 'independent investigation' to assign blame on the ground that neither russians nor syrians would be privvy to the analysis (although that may have been from the similar doo-rah in 2017). the same brookings Lister Tweeter above noted that the russians and syrians combing the site would already have destroyed any evidence, as i'd predicted on my last thread.

thus making the second headline far more important and may i say....likely?

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@wendy davis

the russians and syrians combing the site would already have destroyed any evidence

because there's a real chance the attack never happened.

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wendy davis's picture

@gjohnsit

but won't that be the accepted 'fact' if i) the site is bombed before the OCPW investigators arrive ('shorty' is not a time or date), or ii) they find no evidence at all? 'they erased the evidence before hand!, them fookin' commies!'

that's all i'm saying.

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@gjohnsit

Britain, Israel, the Saudi government, and France may plan to destroy is the chemical weapons cache and factory discovered by the Syrians recently in the rebel-held area. It contains chemical weapons labeled as made in Germany and Britain. This is a huge incrimination of the rebels and their suppliers.

https://www.veteranstoday.com/2018/04/08/proof-intel-drop-trump-bolton-b...

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mimi's picture

@Linda Wood

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wendy davis's picture

The US Has Lost Global Power, and Is Now Just Faking It’; "If the US manages to convince enough people, at home and around the world, that it is still dangerous, then it will be able to hide its increasing enfeeblement for a while longer."
22 hours ago, russia-insider.com (w/ awesome graphics)

“It’s a hard job being a global hegemon and the world’s sole superpower.
You have to keep the entire planet in line. Every country needs to be taught its place, and kept there, by force if need be. Now and again a country or two has to be conquered or destroyed, just to teach others a lesson. Plus you have to relentlessly meddle in other countries’ politics, rigging elections so that only US-friendly candidates can win, run regime change operations and organize colored revolutions. Stop doing this, and some countries will start ignoring you. And then the rest will quickly realize that you are losing control and go their separate ways while ignoring you.

Is the United States still the world’s greatest power, in control of the entire planet, or has that moment in history already come and gone? We are constantly hearing how the situation is becoming dire: relations between the US and NATO countries and Russia are going from bad to worse; there is a trade war going on with China; North Korea remains an intractable problem and an embarrassment.

Many people maintain that we are very close to a world war. But does “very close” actually mean anything? It is quite possible to stand for hours with your toes hanging over the edge of a cliff and never jump. Suicide is a big decision: big even for a person, much bigger for a large country.”

On March 1, 2018 president Putin unveiled Russia’s new weapons systems against which the United States is defenseless and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Previously, the plan was to surround Russia with military bases and missile batteries, then launch a preemptive first strike, destroying its ability to retaliate and forcing it to capitulate.”

he goes on to describe three potential evolving scenarios, one in which he contends that the US and Nato will not strike, knowing how suicidal it would be. i'm not sure he's anywhere near correct about that.

but holy crow, i just tried to open his column, and it goes to 'gateway not found', as does his name as an author there. hope it's only temporary, as the rest of the site's still there.

contra orlov is anatoly karlin’s ‘Western Civilization to Self-Destruct?’; "It is now clear that there will almost certainly be strikes by the US against Syrian targets in coordination with France, Britain, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, and that the scope of this attack will be much greater than last year.", 1 hour ago

“I don’t think I have a reputation for panicking. But I do think that we are now at probably the most dangerous point in world affairs since Russian and NATO troops faced off at Pristina Airport in 1999, if not since the Cold War.”

also they've featured the tucker carlson video.

and lol X 10, a new one w/ greenwald joining him. well, whaddya know?

on edit: and this is live again on the right sidebar, as well: ‘Glenn Greenwald: Evidence That Assad Used Gas 'Overwhelming' - Amy Goodman Agrees!’, Greenwald just said something completely crazy; Charles Bausman, april 9

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Big Al's picture

@wendy davis and they really won't do it, to think of two people, John Bolton and Nikki Haley. Not that I don't agree with him.
But, like I said yesterday, it doesn't really matter to me, they're still insane, the rich still rule, our political system is kaput, and we have a maniac as president.
We still need to stop the bastards. We're all just sitting here wondering what they will do next.

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wendy davis's picture

@Big Al

scenarios against one another, brought some historical analysis on former empires to bear, and came up with what he kinda predicts. but it's back up now, so you might want to read it yourself, see what you see. you can be sure he knows who all the players are, though.

bolton, trump, and his FM and military crew are all sociopathic loose cannons, and i s'pose we can say more overtly so than O's, Dubya's, Clinton's, but they just smiled as they nuked nation's whales and got away w/ it. stop them? i only put the peace marches in as a FWIW; i don't think any of them give a fig what regular citizens want. do you? an they pick tax days to do it? wtf?

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Big Al's picture

@wendy davis I too don't think too much will happen, I don't believe we're in for a nuke war. I think there's too many rich fucking people on the planet now in all countries and they won't let things get too out of hand.
But then again, John Bolton and Nikki Haley and the list goes on and on.
There are a lot of crazy fuckers in power.

No, the protests won't do any good. It will take much more than that but very few want to talk about what we really should do.

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Alligator Ed's picture

@Big Al

I don't believe we're in for a nuke war. I think there's too many rich fucking people on the planet now in all countries and they won't let things get too out of hand.

The ultra rich people do not care about any but themselves. They would think no more about incinerating the world than swatting a fly, if they were assured that their bunkers were sufficient.

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Big Al's picture

@Alligator Ed They've done it many times before. And as I've been saying, we certainly can't count on them doing the right thing.

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Big Al's picture

Seems like they've painted themselves in a corner as much as Trump with all the talk about their vaunted new weapons and threats to retaliate if attacked. Danger Will Robinson. This weekend will be major protest weekend against this war and it needs to continue. The end is near. (someone said that once or twice before).

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