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Thursday, August 31, 2017

Tracking Turkey for the month of August ...


and waiting for the day Erdogan get his comeuppance for what's he done to Syria.
 
Almost 500 appear in court in Turkey's biggest coup trial yet
People at the court outside Ankara chanted 'We want the death penalty!' and some threw nooses towards the suspects
Nearly 500 people appeared in court on Tuesday in the biggest trial yet of suspects from Turkey's failed coup, facing charges of conspiring to oust the government from an airbase seen as the plotters' hub.

Forty-one of those held were marched into the court outside Ankara one-by-one in a long line in front of television cameras and the public, with each suspect held by two members of the Turkish gendarmerie and flanked by an armed soldier.

People chanted "We want the death penalty!" and some threw nooses towards the suspects. The death penalty has been abolished in Turkey since 2004.

There were also chants of "Martyrs don't die, the nation won't be divided". Some people threw water bottles.........

Publisher mounts legal challenge to Turkey's detention of journalist Deniz Yucel

A German publishing group lodged a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights over Turkey's detention of reporter Deniz Yucel. He was detained in February and stands accused of spreading "terrorist propaganda."
The German publisher WeltN24 has accused Turkey of violating German-Turkish journalist Deniz Yucel's right to freedom of expression and lodged a complaint before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg on Friday.

Yucel's reported on Turkey for one of WeltN24's flagship dailies, "Die Welt," before being arrested by Turkish authorities in February for allegedly spreading terror propaganda.........

FETÖ terrorists to wear standard issue uniforms
The uniform for the FETÖ terrorist organization defendants will be almond-colored, and consists of a shirt and trousers
After one of the defendants appeared at the Fetullah Terror Organization (FETÖ) trial wearing a T-shirt reading “Hero”, sparking public outrage, a “uniform” for the suspects has been considered and decided on by Turkish authorities. The Ministry of Justice discussed the options regarding the prison uniform in detail with textile experts, after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recalled the Guantanamo prisoners’ “uniform” on the first anniversary of the July 15 coup attempt and said that it could be similarly administered for FETÖ terrorists.....

Turkey & Qatar stage military drills amid Gulf diplomatic crisis

 Turkey and Qatar have staged joint military drills showcasing their strategic alliance, according to Qatari media. It comes after Turkish troops moved into Qatar following a diplomatic and transport blockade imposed against Doha by several Arab countries.

The drills were aimed at preparing Qatar's military to defend "vital economic, strategic and infrastructure facilities," Al-Sharq newspaper reported, as quoted by Reuters......

Turkey Detains 42 Suspected Militants in Raids

Turkish police on Friday detained 42 people over suspected militant links in operations across two separate provinces, security sources said and media reported.
 Police detained 22 suspected Wahhabi Daesh [Arabic acronym for "ISIS" / "ISIL"] militants in operations across the eastern province of Elazig, security sources said.

Separately, police detained another 20 people in the southern province of Adana over alleged links to the Kurdistan Workers Party [PKK], the state-run Anadolu news agency said. It said authorities were still seeking 10 suspects.

Ankara had detained more than 5,000 Daesh suspects and deported some 3,290 foreign militants from 95 different countries in recent years, according to Turkish officials. It has also refused entry to at least 38,269 individuals. ....


Police detain 22 Daesh suspects in Turkey's eastern Elazig province

Turkish police detained 22 Daesh suspects in eastern Elazig province, reports said Friday.

Elazig police carried out counter-terrorism operations targeting the terrorist group in the city, governor's office said.

"22 suspects have been detained in simultaneous operations carried out on Aug. 11 as part of the investigation against Daesh terrorist organization" a statement by the office said.

The suspects were brought to the hospital for routine health check-ups and were then transferred to the police headquarters for inquiry.

Major Geopolitical Shift: Turkey Ends Its Support of Syria Opposition Rebels
 as ‘Goodwill Towards Damascus’
This is a potentially incredible breakthrough in the painful 7 year-long Syrian conflict.

As 21WIRE has pointed out previous, aside from Turkey’s key part in facilitating the creation and supply of anti-Syrian terrorist enclaves over the last 7 years, it has also played the central role in the dismantling of Syria’s manufacturing sector centered around the now devastated industrial hub of Aleppo.

That’s what makes this latest news almost unbelievable.

Since 2011, the leadership in Ankara has committed much of its southern territory, a good portion of financial and military resources, as well as nearly all of its diplomatic credibility… for one goal: to destabilize its neighbor and achieve regime change in Damascus.

Perhaps its renewed dialogue and a lucrative Southstream energy partnership with Russia, along with the relative success so far in the Astana Peace Process – and Washington’s disruptive military and financial backing of a prime Turkish arch-enemy, the Kurdish militia in northern Syria, has made Turkish President Erdogan and his inner circle realize that it’s time to reverse course on a 7 year failure, and immeasurable social, civil and economic destruction of their southern neighbor.....


'Enemies of Turkey': Erdogan tells 'countrymen' in Germany not to vote for Merkel's party 

 Turkey's president Recep Erdogan has once again lashed out against Germany, this time branding three of its political parties "enemies of Turkey" and urging his "countrymen" not to vote for them. German Chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU party was included on the list.

"I am calling on all my countrymen in Germany... the Christian Democrats (CDU), SDP, the Green Party are all enemies of Turkey. Support those political parties who are not enemies of Turkey," Erdogan said following Friday prayers in Istanbul, as quoted by Reuters.

"I call on them not to vote for those parties who have been engaged in such aggressive, disrespectful attitudes against Turkey, and I invite them to teach a lesson to those political parties at the ballot box," he said.......


‘Turkish President Erdogan has given up on the European Union’

 The relationship between Turkey and the EU are further deteriorating, Dr. Rainer Rothfuss, geopolitical analyst and consultant, told RT. Rainer Rupp, publicist and former German intelligence officer, also joins the conversation. 

Turkish President Recep Erdogan urged nearly 3 million German Turks not to cast their vote for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats, Martin Schulz’s Social Democrat Party (SDP) or the Green Party in the upcoming German federal election because of the alleged anti-Turkish stance of the parties.

“You should give them the most beautiful lesson by providing your democratic right… You should vote for those who are not hostile to Turkey,” Erdogan said Saturday, the Hurriyet daily news reported.

Erdogan’s comments triggered a strong reaction from Sigmar Gabriel, the German Foreign Minister, who accused Erdogan of interference in the electoral process........


Turkish PM says further U.S. support to Kurdish YPG will cause problems: NTV

Any additional support given by the United States to Syrian Kurdish YPG fighters will cause problems for Turkey, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim was quoted as saying on Friday.

Speaking to reporters on his return flight from Vietnam, Yildirim also said Turkey was working in cooperation with Russia and Iran in Syria, and there should be no reason for the United States and Turkey to be on opposite sides.

“We are talking about two NATO nations, there should be no reason for there to be (problems). Of course, if they show a stance other than what they have told us on the YPG issue, it would be a problem,” Yildirim was quoted as saying by broadcaster NTV....

Second indictment for Erdogan guards over DC beatdown in May

Turkey’s fraught relations with the United States are heading for further turbulence after a grand jury in Washington indicted 15 Turkish security officials accused of attacking pro-Kurdish protesters in the US capital on May 16 during a visit by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. They include Muhsin Kose, the head of Erdogan’s security detail. In all, 19 people who engaged in acts of violence against the demonstrators outside the Turkish ambassador’s residence on Sheridan Circle were indicted.

Several wounded after blast hits bus in Turkey's Izmir

Seven people were wounded when an explosion hit a shuttle bus carrying prison guards in the Turkish coastal province of Izmir on Thursday, and authorities were investigating a possible terrorist attack, the local mayor said.

The bus was hit as it passed a garbage container at around 7:40 a.m. (0440 GMT), Levent Piristina, the mayor of Izmir’s Buca district, said on Twitter. ....

Some tweets and retweets of mine the past few days









































How the US Deep State hypnotized the world with the 9/11 movie


Very interesting read.

Graeme MacQueen  at GlobalResearch
9/11: The Pentagon’s B-Movie

The events that took place in the United States on September 11, 2001 were real and they were extremely violent. As David Griffin has recently shown in detail, they also had catastrophic real-life consequences for both the United States and the world. [1]

But these events were also deeply filmic (like a film) and they were presented to us through a narrative we now know to be fictional. This “9/11 movie” reveals itself to careful investigators as scripted, directed and produced by the U.S. national security state. The movie does not represent the real world. It violates the rules operative in the real world, including the laws of physics. Audiences will remain in thrall to the spectacle and violence of the War on Terror only as long as they remain mesmerized by the B-movie of 9/11.

The Filmic Nature of the September 11 Events

Many people caught a whiff of Hollywood on September 11, 2001. According to Lawrence Wright (screenwriter of The Siege),

    “It was about an hour after the first trade centre came down that I began to make the connection with the movie, this haunting feeling at the beginning this looks like a movie, and then I thought it looks like my movie.”[2]

Steve De Souza (screenwriter, Die Hard I and II) has said:

    “Well it did look like a movie. It looked like a movie poster. It looked like one of my movie posters.”[3]

The 9/11 attacks were filmic in at least the following ways:

    Given the complex and coordinated nature of these attacks, they had been scripted and given a timeline in advance;
    given the need to make decisions as the attacks progressed (for example, when an aircraft went off course or was delayed), it is clear that there was a director;
    given the overall vision, the need for funds, resources and international coordination over a period of years, it is obvious that there had been a producer;
    given the numerous roles played in this event (for example, by the “hijackers”), there were undoubtedly actors............

Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Berkeley, California is a hot bed of the coming Civil War USA 2017


This vid is from 4 months ago and shows Berkeley's pro-Trump and anti-Trump Americans coming to blows.  There are ongoing protests on almost a weekly basis in that part of California.  Think back to protests and marches like happened in Ukraine and Syria and you don't have to be a genius or a Nostradamus to predict what is bound to happen in the USA, very, very soon.


The vid below is from a few days ago.  I don't know about you, but to my eyes, the so called Antifa or anti-fascists come across just like the Ukrainian Nazis did during that uprising. So, who are the Nazis now??

..........

USA and its partner-in-crime, the SDF, commit war crimes aplenty in Syria ....


but as the USA is the self-proclaimed dictator of our entire world, can any one nation go against its rule?
 
Murtaza Hussain and Rajaai Bourhan at TheIntercept
Entire Families Are Being Killed by U.S. Airstrikes in Raqqa, Syria

..............One of the survivors of that attack, named in the report as “Marwan,” said that his family had been killed while trying to hide in safety outside the city.

    My sisters, my mother, my nephews, and nieces were bombed to shreds for no reason at all. Four strikes were launched against a house full of women and children, why? Only one of my brothers was with them. My sister’s husband had stayed in Raqqa to try to protect their homes. They knew that if they left their homes empty, Daesh would occupy them. The battle for Raqqa had not yet started but they got the women and children out for fear that the city would be besieged and they would get stuck there. That is why they were staying at the farm, to be safe, but death came to them in the more horrible way. Don’t they keep watch over their targets before they bomb? If they had they would have known that there were only women and children there.

Another member of the family, who saw the attack hit the farmhouse from a distance, described being unable to help his family as they came under assault. “The planes were circling all night, and we could not even approach the house to get the two injured children out from under the rubble until the following day,” he said. “The bodies were in shreds. We recovered body parts hundreds of meters away.”........

Scenes from Hurricane Harvey's fury over Houston and surrounding areas


Humans, Horses, Dogs and others being saved by humans. Posted to YouTube Aug 29


Drone footage posted to YouTube on Aug 27


Drone footage posted to YouTube on Aug 28


Wanna know how North Korea got to be what it is now?


Worth a read.
 

William R Polk at ConsortiumNews
How History Explains the Korean Crisis
The U.S. and North Korea are on the brink of hostilities that if begun would almost certainly lead to a nuclear exchange. This is the expressed judgment of most competent observers. They differ over the causes of this confrontation and over the size, range and impact of the weapons that would be fired, but no one can doubt that even a “limited” nuclear exchange would have horrifying effects throughout much of the world including North America.

So how did we get to this point, what are we now doing and what could be done to avoid what would almost certainly be the disastrous consequences of even a “limited” nuclear war?

The media is replete with accounts of the latest pronouncements and events, but both in my personal experience in the closest we ever came to a nuclear disaster, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and from studying many other “flash points,” I have learned that failure to appreciate the background and sequence of events makes one incapable of understanding the present and so is apt to lead to self-defeating actions. With this warning in mind, I will recount in Part 1 how we and the Koreans got to where we are. Then in Part 2, I will address how we might go to war, what that would mean and what we can do to stay alive.

Throughout most of its history, Korea regarded China as its teacher. It borrowed from China Confucianism, its concepts of law, its canons of art and its method of writing. For these, it usually paid tribute to the Chinese emperor.

With Japan, relations were different. Armed with the then weapon of mass destruction, the musket, Japan invaded Korea in 1592 and occupied it with more than a quarter of a million soldiers. The Koreans, armed only with bows and arrows, were beaten into submission. But, because of events in Japan, and particularly the decision to give up the gun, the Japanese withdrew in less than a decade and left Korea on its own..........

Sunday, August 20, 2017

The Second American Civil War .... brewing, brewing...


Some videos from the recent protest marches/rallies/what have you.











Check out the first video within this link and  listen to the hate at about the 6min mark. The most hateful vitroil is coming from the Left, especially from the Black American Left.


The Second American Civil War is at hand .... glory be !!


I bet your guts are telling you that the stage has been set for a civil war in the USA but you dare not even whisper it or wish for it, eh?! I have no such qualms. I know the purge has to happen so our Earth can breathe again, and for our planet to heal, the mighty Empire HAS TO FALL. The Empire is crumbling under the weight of  hatred emitting from its own citizens, the kind of hatred we have seen from the wahhabis (headchoppers) towards the Shiites, Christians and Alawis. Here, I am  recalling the unbridled hatred seen in recent videos, hatred coming from the Antifa whose attendees hide their faces behind black scarves and of course the BLM whose sponsors have really deep, deep pockets. Hard to believe the BLM organization has grown so huge and so fast and even spread its wings to Canada and the UK.

I listened to some of the speeches from the KKK and the hard right folks. Of course, their viewpoints are vomit-inducing, but that does not mean their voices have to be drowned out.  Wouldn't it be more beneficial to all if they were debated on their concepts and perceptions?  Are there no competent debaters on the Left? No debaters in Antifa, none in BLM? 

You have to be totally deaf, dumb and blind if you think this deep division in American society is going to heal without a civil war.  Or, perhaps a  breakup of the USA can be negotiated with or without  bloodshed.  How would that happen?  Well...the USA has had plenty of  experience in that quarter, having broken up many, many, many, many nations in every nook and corner of our Earth.  Right now the USA is in the process of breaking up a chunk of Syria and handing it over to the Kurds after having failed to break up Syria in half a dozen chunks as was the original plan, now  abandoned,  thanks to Russia coming to Syria's aid.

It will be fun to watch which areas or maybe even entire States, seek secession from the part of the USA that has become a warmongering blood-thirsty beast.


Below, just a few of the many, many opinions.


From TheBurningPlatform
FUNCTIONAL ILLITERATES TRYING TO ERASE HISTORY
“True patriotism sometimes requires of men to act exactly contrary, at one period, to that which it does at another, and the motive which impels them the desire to do right is precisely the same.” ? Robert E. Lee
I consider myself a student of history. I’ve always been fascinated by the personalities who drove events throughout history. I probably would have been a history major in college if I didn’t feel the need to make enough money to support myself and my family. I chose a business major and decided studying history would be my hobby. Over the years I’ve taken a particular interest in the Civil War. You could even call me a Civil War buff.

I’ve probably read 60 books on the Civil War, from Bruce Catton, Shelby Foote and numerous other historians. I’ve visited the Gettysburg battlefield a half dozen times, as it is only 150 miles from my home. My basement office is decorated with six prints depicting various scenes from the Civil War. One depicts Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson at Fredericksburg, another depicts Jackson leading his troops through Richmond, another depicts Grant taking command of Union forces, another shows Chamberlain leading the charge down Little Round Top, another portrays Lee and Longstreet making the fateful decision to send Pickett’s men on their futile charge into history, and the last showing the slaughter during Pickett’s charge.......


Paul Craig Roberts
A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand

The liberal/progressive/left are enjoying their drunkfest of denunciation. I can’t say I have ever witnessed anything like it. These are the people who sat on their hands for 16 years while Washington destroyed in whole or part seven countries. Not being satisfied with this level of warmongering and crimes against humanity, Washington orchestrated a conflict situation with Russia. Americans elected a president who said he would defuse this dangerous conflict, and the liberal/progressive/left turned on him. In contrast, one person is killed after the hated Charlottesville protest event was over, and there is endless absurd outrage against the president of the US.

Three New York Times presstitutes yesterday blamed the crisis on Trump, declaring him “increasingly isolated in a racial crisis of his own making.” Apparently, Trump is responsible for the crisis because he blamed both protest groups for the violence.

But isn’t that what happened? Wasn’t there violence on both sides? That was the impression I got from the news reporting. I’m not surprised that Trump got the same impression. Indeed, many readers have sent emails that they received the same impression of mutual violence.

So Trump is being damned for stating the truth......

Pat Buchanan at ZeroHedge
Pat Buchanan Asks "In This Second American Civil War - Whose Side Are You On?"

    "They had found a leader, Robert E. Lee -- and what a leader! ... No military leader since Napoleon has aroused such enthusiastic devotion among troops as did Lee when he reviewed them on his horse Traveller."

So wrote Samuel Eliot Morison in his magisterial "The Oxford History of the American People" in 1965.

First in his class at West Point, hero of the Mexican War, Lee was the man to whom President Lincoln turned to lead his army. But when Virginia seceded, Lee would not lift up his sword against his own people, and chose to defend his home state rather than wage war upon her.

This veneration of Lee, wrote Richard Weaver, "appears in the saying attributed to a Confederate soldier, 'The rest of us may have ... descended from monkeys, but it took a God to make Marse Robert.'"

Growing up after World War II, this was accepted history......

From TheAmericanConservative
In an effort to show that Donald Trump was wrong to denounce
violent antifa left-wingers in Charlottesville, Slate‘s Dahlia Lithwick asks left-wingers in Charlottesville if the antifa were violent. Surprise! The verdict is: no way!

Take a look at the response of the Rev. Seth Wispelwey of a United Church of Christ congregation in C’ville. Before you read, understand that he was with a group of people trying to block the right-wing extremists from gaining access to the park, where they had a legal permit to gather:

    I am a pastor in Charlottesville, and antifa saved my life twice on Saturday. Indeed, they saved many lives from psychological and physical violence—I believe the body count could have been much worse, as hard as that is to believe. Thankfully, we had robust community defense standing up to white supremacist violence this past weekend.....

From LibertyBlitzkrieg
Americans are Rapidly Descending Into Madness
I don’t live in an echo chamber, partly because there aren’t enough people out there who think like me, but also because I constantly and intentionally attempt to challenge my worldview by reading stuff from all over the political map. I ingest as much as I can from a wide variety of intelligent sources, picking and choosing what makes sense to me, and then synthesizing it the best I can.

Though I’m certainly grounded in certain key principles, my perspective on specific issues remains malleable as I take in additional information and perspectives. I try to accept and acknowledge my own ignorance and view life as a journey of constant mental, emotionally and spiritual growth. If I’m not growing my capacity in all of those realms until the day I die, I’m doing it wrong. Life should be seen as a battle against one’s own ignorance, as opposed to an obsession with the ignorance of others. You can’t legislate morality, nor can you legislate wisdom. The only way the world will improve on a long-term sustainable basis is if more of us get wise. That’s a personal journey and it’s our individual duty to accept it.....

Friday, August 11, 2017

A few tweets of mine the last few days







































Trump's dancing partners go on a rampage in ....


the town of Awamiyah and all because the town is home to a large Shiite community.
Nice, eh?!



How the North Korean war if started, could lead to disastrous consequences...


Let's hope neither side will take it upon themselves to prove to the world who's the "bigger and better" bully.

Jason Ditz at AntiWar
A New Korean War Would Quickly Escalate
US Attack Would Likely Start With B-1B Bombers
Analysts and defense officials past and present are warning that a potential military exchange with North Korea is unlikely to be a brief, token show of force or a simple trade of fire, and rather would almost certainly quickly escalate into a full-scale war, including potential use of nuclear weapons

For decades, North Korea’s massive conventional arsenal of artillery and rockets have led to estimates that over a million people could be killed in a new Korean War, and that much of the South Korean capital of Seoul would be leveled in the attacks.

New estimates that North Korea likely has a deliverable nuclear warhead threatens to raise the war to even more catastrophic proportions, as well the US brags of having a superior arsenal, even a small nuclear exchange would have disastrous consequences.

As we look at the possible consequences, former senior military officials talked openly of how the war would likely begin: with a preemptive US strike involving B-1B heavy bombers attacking North Korea from an Air Force base in Guam......

Add Yemen's woes and the death of thousands of Yemenis to the....



never-ending sins of the USA.



Paul Street at InformationClearingHouse
The United States and the Crucifixion of Yemen 
 The United States has killed, maimed, displaced and otherwise harmed an astonishing number of people in its 241-year record of murder and mayhem—including more than 20 million killed in 37 nations since 1945.
 Murder, Direct and Proxy

Direct

A grisly distinction exists between those Uncle Sam has directly assaulted and those he has more indirectly attacked. Here are just a few examples from the long record of direct U.S.-military mass murder since 1945:

Hiroshima (146,000 killed with a single bomb—what President Harry Truman called “the greatest thing in history”) and Nagasaki (80,000): The arch-criminal atom bombings were unnecessary and savagely carried out even though the U.S. high command knew Japan was defeated and ready to accept U.S. surrender terms.

Iran Air Flight 655: On July 3, 1988, the USS Vincennes crossed into Iranian waters and shot down an Iranian civilian plane, blowing 290 people out of the sky. The Vincennes’ commander was granted an award for “exceptionally meritorious conduct.”

The “Highway of Death”: U.S. fighter jets engaged in a frenzied slaughter of tens of thousands of surrendered Iraqi troops in 1991. Lebanese-American journalist Joyce Chediac testified that “U.S. forces continued to drop bombs on the convoys until all humans were killed. So many jets swarmed over the inland road that it created an aerial traffic jam, and combat air controllers feared midair collisions.”

Fallujah: The U.S. Marines waged chemical warfare and used radioactive ordnance in the process of leveling a great Iraqi city in April and November of 2004.

The U.S. drone war program (2001 to present), aptly described by Noam Chomsky as “the most extreme terrorist campaign of modern times”: The Bureau of Investigative Journalism reports a minimum number of 3,734 U.S. drone strikes with nearly 10,000 killed, including 1,427 civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, “since the Bureau began collecting data.”

Indirect

Dreadful as such incidents of direct imperial butchery are, the United States may well have killed, maimed and displaced more people indirectly, through proxies and clients.

In 1954, a CIA-orchestrated coup removed the democratically elected and leftist Guatemalan government of Jacobo Árbenz. Over the next four decades, U.S,-backed right-wing Guatemalan regimes killed tens of thousands of peasants, workers, students and activists.

In 1960, the CIA killed Congo’s first independent head of state, the leftist anti-colonialist leader Patrice Lumumba. The United States subsequently backed the brutal Congolese dictator Joseph Mobuto, who killed hundreds of thousands of people. The U.S. has been significantly responsible for as many as 3 million deaths in that resource-rich country ever since. It sponsors and protects the Rwandan dictator Paul Kagame, whose body count in his own country and Congo runs into the tens of thousands.

In 1965 and 1966, the United States worked with Britain and Australia to help orchestrate the overthrow of the democratically elected leftist government of Indonesia and the subsequent massacre of somewhere between 500,000 and 1 million Indonesian peasants, workers, intellectuals and activists. Coup General Suharto received military and economic assistance from the U.S. over three decades of subsequent authoritarian rule.

In December 1975, Suharto got a green light from his sponsors.........

The propaganda from MSM on the situation in Venezuela ......

 is far too unrealistic as these TU members found out for themselves.

From Telsur
US Trade Unionist Unmask Mass Media Lies on Venezuela Assembly
“We visited several polling places and that was when we were just so moved by what was going on,” said the president of the New York State Nurses Association.

Three representatives from trade unions in New York were among the many international observers to attend the Venezuelan National Constituent Assembly vote July 30 to monitor the election proceedings.
Estela Vazquez the executive vice president of the 1199 SEIU Health Care Workers Union East, the country's largest health care union; John Patafio the vice president of the Transport Workers Union, and Judy Gonzalez a registered nurse and president of the New York State Nurses Association were interviewed by Rosana Silva on their experiences before and after their visit to Venezuela and their thoughts on the ANC.

The three had been invited by the Venezuelan Transport Workers Union to witness the voting process and most importantly to talk to Venezuelans and just "see what's going on."

Prior to arriving in the Bolivarian state, the three were warned by American Airline’s crew members of the “dangerous” situation they were walking in to.

“We had a sort of a culture shock on the airplane,” explained Gonzales who heads the NY union that includes 40,000 members across the state. “The staff on the airplane was basically hysterical. They told us that we absolutely shouldn’t go. We should get back on the plane; don’t get off the plane. That if we stepped off the plane we’d be robbed, we’d be kidnapped, we’d be raped, they’d steal our kidneys ... we were absolutely putting ourselves in danger ... they really did scare us.”

Vazquez, “But our experience has been different since we arrived Saturday, despite the propaganda of blood running in the streets, and fires and shootings all over the city of Caracas, that was not the case.”

“I’ve been here three days and I have to say, it’s propaganda. There’s a lot of propaganda and they’re taking some instances and they’re creating a very powerful message and it's being repeated in very powerful media stations and good people are believing it,” agreed Patafio.

The union leaders traveled throughout Caracas unimpeded, visiting polling stations, hospitals, as well as working class sectors.

“I would say that (people) need to come and see for yourselves what is happening in Venezuela. You can not rely on CNN or any other international communication or papers like the New York Times or the Washington Post, because they are only reflecting the story of the ruling classes, the oligarchy of this country, that want to preserve their .....

Bob Dylan's "With God On Our Side"




Nice Rant on the Empire's misdeeds


Agreed with most of the rant.... hehehe

John Rohn Hall at DissidentVoice
Empire’s Day of Reckoning

Dawn. Another day amidst the crumbling walls of Empire. Mired in the middle of its Misinformation Machine. Sharing fouled air with mindless, misguided, huddled masses. Electronically hypnotized zombies, grossly overfed on dead flesh and chemicals, arteries clogged, welcome mats for every known disease. Bodies pierced in each available spot, covered head to toe with inky, ill-conceived epidermal etchings, bizarre, flowing rainbow locks, fluorescent-painted lips and nails, sewn-on eyebrows, glazed, hopeless, expressionless, but highly decorated young faces, facing meaningless futures.

Pawn shops, porn shops, gun shops. Temporary solace from creeping moral and financial decay. Big box stores and shopping malls, once prosperous, now homes for roaches, rats, pigeons, and echoes. Empty of merchandise, void of jobs. Bridges crumbling, highways potholed and cracked. Once-buzzing factories filled with cobwebs and despair. Desperados, stealing what they can, selling drugs to equally unfortunate contemporaries, trying only to survive, meeting with increasing violence from burgeoning armies of law enforcement. Flimsy, tin homes on wheels or crowded tenement apartments for the fortunate. Shelter under bridges, in arroyos, in parks for the less. And still the flags fly. And still allegiance is pledged.

Sleepwalking through The American Dream, still believing the lies, counting on the lies, clinging to the lies like their lives depend upon it. Empire’s Misinformation Machine knows the drill. Well learned from blood brother Adolph: “If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.” Ultimate perfection of Fake News. Still believing ’twas The U.S.A. saved the world from the tyranny of fascism in W.W.II. Knowing nothing of the biochemical slaughter which decimated Korea, and carried on into Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. Of course, the Moon Landings were real!…saw it on CBS. There was no conspiracy behind the assassinations of 3 Kennedys, King, X, Evers, Wellstone, Lennon, and oh-so many others…solitary deranged assassins or freak accidents all.

A list of wars longer than a Summer day in Nome, Alaska. All fought for purely humanitarian reasons. Purely. Or perhaps pure crude. Terrorism has long stalked the exceptional people and their exceptional country. Let’s not go back too far, nor belabor the subject. Damn that Tim McVeigh and his fertilizer bomb in Oklahoma City! Ha! A bomb that blew in only one direction. Brilliant! Two attacks on The World Trade Center. Second time a charm. No chance of malfeasance or misinformation there. Too perfect. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, two of earth’s most majestic structures, crashing at the speed of Newton’s apple. A 757 hits The Pentagon and leaves a hole barely big enough to fly a Cessna 172 through. Pure magic, but so believable. Brian Williams told me so, and it was widely verified on ALL the major networks. Boston Marathon Mega-Whopper. Zika! Zika! Zika! Make sure you worry your little head about it.

Noonday sun illuminates a worldwide occupation. A thousand military bases across the globe. Stealth presence in every country situated upon coveted resources. High level bribery, blackmail, assassination, coup d’etat, color revolution, regime change, economic warfare, bombs, bullets, missiles, whatever it takes to take and maintain control. Worldwide domination at all cost, and life is cheap at best. Poor lives nothing but liabilities. Kill ’em all and let some imaginary god sort ’em out. A million here, a million there. Contrived and controlled mayhem in the streets of Venezuela. Did Maduro flunk History 101? Does he believe that the world’s biggest oil reserves will be allowed to benefit poor people? The Opium Wars worked so well in China, the CIA took over the show, and is now the man to see for a good cheap high…anywhere on earth. Chemical Warfare on home turf, with a third of Empire’s subjects living in opioid la-la-land…drugged sheeple are easily herded...........

Artificial Intelligence and the coming unknown dangers from robots






US illegally extending its presence in Syria


How can the people of Earth tolerate this bully nation intruding and forcing its unwanted self on sovereign lands all over the planet?
If we are against bullies in the school playgrounds, why are we not totally and completely against a bully in the various lands of planet Earth?  Are we all afraid of the bully's brute strength? Have we no courage to speak of whatsoever? Do we need divine intervention to take care of the bully while we sit on our behinds and remain dumb, deaf and mum?


Sharmine Narwani at TheAmericanConservative
Is the Expanding U.S. Military Presence in Syria Legal?
Washington has gone rogue.
In July, the White House and Pentagon requested authority from Congress to build further “temporary intermediate staging facilities” inside Syria in order to combat ISIS more effectively. This request, it must be noted, comes in the wake of devastating ISIS defeats in Syria, mostly by the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allied forces.

Shortly afterward, the Turkish state-owned Anadolu news agency revealed previously unknown details and locations of ten U.S. bases and outposts in northern Syria, several of them with airfields. These are in addition to at least two further U.S. outposts already identified in southern Syria, on the Iraqi border.

When asked about these military bases, a CENTCOM (U.S. Central Command) spokesman told me: “We don’t have bases in Syria. We have soldiers throughout Syria providing training and assist to the SDF (the mainly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces in the north of the country).” How many soldiers? “Roughly 1,200 troops,” says CENTCOM.

Yet when questioned about the international law grounds for this U.S. military presence inside Syria, CENTCOM didn’t have a response on hand. They referred me to the Office of the Secretary of Defense whose spokesman obstinately cited U.S. domestic law—an issue quite irrelevant to Syrians. He, in turn, referred me to the White House and State Department on the international-law angle. The State Department sent me back to the Department of Defense, the White House pointed me in the direction of the National Security Council (NSC), and the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel blankly ignored my repeated requests.

It isn’t hard to conclude that official Washington simply doesn’t want to answer the “international law” question on Syria. To be fair, in December 2016, the Obama administration offered up an assessment on the legalities of the use of force in Syria, but perhaps subsequent ground developments—the SAA and its allies defeating ISIS and Al Qaeda left, right, and center—have tightened some lips in the nation’s capital.....

Friday, August 4, 2017

Some of my tweets the last few days




























There's only one political party in the USA ....


you are led to believe there's a Democratic party and a Republican party... but that's not true. Both parties have more in common with each other and hardly anything that's at odds with the opposition. Bottom line: There's only one ruling party in the USA and it's totally EVIL.

James George Jatras at StrategicCultureOrg
Bipartisanship! The Evil Party and Stupid Party Team Up to Cripple Trump,
 Subvert the Rule of Law, and Put the US on a Road to War
 The overwhelming approval by both chambers of the US Congress of a bill imposing new, permanent sanctions on Russia, Iran, and North Korea puts President Donald Trump in an impossible position. He can either sign the bill or allow it to become law without his signature, in which case he has acquiesced in the Legislative Branch’s usurpation of what is supposed to be among the Executive’s primary constitutional responsibilities, the conduct of relations with foreign states.

Or he can veto it, but with a total of only five votes against it in both the Senate and the House together, an override is almost certain. Trump would still find his authority curtailed, on top of crippling his clout during the infancy of his term.

Keep in mind that this is being inflicted on Trump mainly by members of his own party. The Republican Congressional leadership can’t manage to repeal Obamacare, reform taxes, stop voter fraud, keep dangerous people out of our country, build the Mexican Wall, or renew our national infrastructure. But they find plenty of time to hold hands with the Democrats, who are trying to unseat the constitutionally elected president in a «soft coup» over phony «Russiagate», to enact a misguided piece of legislation that is expressly intended to guarantee that Trump can’t, under any foreseeable circumstances, improve ties with the one country in the world with which we absolutely must get along, at least on some minimal level: «It’s the Russia, Stupid!»

This is bipartisanship at its worst. In case we need to be reminded, America does not have a multiplicity of parties like most other countries. Instead, we have just two: an «Evil Party» and a «Stupid Party» – and when something is really evil and stupid, we call that «bipartisan».

To appreciate how corrosive of the rule of law this bill is, consider the status of an authority the Constitution does put firmly into the hands of Congress: the power to make war. Congress has uttered hardly a peep of protest over the decades as their most solemn trust has effectively become a dead letter. Successive presidents have conducted operations in or against dozens of countries without authorization from Congress in clear violation of international law. (In fact, during President Bill Clinton’s aggression against Serbia in 1999, Congress affirmatively voted down his request for war authority. He and lapdog NATO proceeded anyway.)

Recently the Pentagon was enraged at Turkey’s revealing the existence of at least 10 secret American bases in northern Syria. The anger was over the exposure of the bases’ existence, not the fact that they had no legal justification to be there at all, under either US domestic law or binding international law. With respect to both the military presence in Syria is lacking, but no one in Congress cares. They’re too busy clipping Trump’s wings.........

Trump, completely misinformed and heavily under Netanyahu's influence ...


Blasts Hezbollah as it Ousts al-Qaeda


No Foreign Bases


Countless Americans are coming awake to the glaring reality that the Empire has become a bully of the worst kind possible.

Coalition Against U.S. Foreign Military Bases

Unity Statement
We, the undersigned peace, justice and environmental organizations, and individuals, endorse the following Points of Unity and commit ourselves to working together by forming a Coalition Against U.S. Foreign Military Bases, with the goal of raising public awareness and organizing non-violent mass resistance against U.S. foreign military bases.

While we may have our differences on other issues, we all agree that U.S. foreign military bases are the principal instruments of imperial global domination and environmental damage through wars of aggression and occupation, and that the closure of U.S. foreign military bases is one of the first necessary steps toward a just, peaceful and sustainable world. Our belief in the urgency of this necessary step is based on the following facts:

    While we are opposed to all foreign military bases, we do recognize that the United States maintains the highest number of military bases outside its territory, estimated at almost 1000 (95% of all foreign military bases in the world). Presently, there are U.S. military bases in every Persian Gulf country except Iran.
    In addition, the United States has 19 Naval air carriers (and 15 more planned), each as part of a Carrier Strike Group, composed of roughly 7,500 personnel, and a carrier air wing of 65 to 70 aircraft — each of which can be considered a floating military base.
    These bases are centers of aggressive military actions, threats of political and economic expansion, sabotage and espionage, and crimes against local populations. In addition, these military bases are the largest users of fossil fuel in the world, heavily contributing to environmental degradation.
    The annual cost of these bases to the American taxpayers is approximately $156 billion. The support of U.S. foreign military bases drains funds that can be used to fund human needs and enable our cities and States to provide necessary services for the people.
    This has made the U.S. a more militarized society and has led to increased tensions between the U.S. and the rest of the world. Stationed throughout the world, almost 1000 in number, U.S. foreign military bases are symbols of the ability of the United States to intrude in the lives of sovereign nations and peoples.
    Many individual national coalitions — for example, Okinawa, Italy, Jeju Island Korea, Diego Garcia, Cyprus, Greece, and Germany — are demanding closure of bases on their territory. The base that the U.S. has illegally occupied the longest, for over a century, is Guantánamo Bay, whose existence constitutes an imposition of the empire and a violation of International Law. Since 1959 the government and people of Cuba have demanded that the government of the U.S. return the Guantánamo territory to Cuba.


U.S. foreign military bases are NOT in defense of U.S. national, or global security. They are the military expression of U.S. intrusion in the lives of sovereign countries on behalf of the dominant financial, political, and military interests of the ruling elite...........

Cartoon ... worrying about losing job to a non-English speaking immigrant




Dr Ron Paul wonders which nation Trump will attack first ... North Korea or Iran


That would be after his attack with tomahawks on Syria and the "mother of all bombs" on Afghanistan, of course.

Dr Ron Paul at RonPaulInstitute
North Korea or Iran…Where Will President Trump Attack First?
President Trump seems to be impatiently racing toward at least one disastrous war. Maybe two. The big question is who will be first? North Korea or Iran?

Over the past several days President Trump has sent two nuclear-capable B-1 bombers over the Korean peninsula to send a clear message that he is ready to attack North Korea. On Saturday he blamed China for North Korea’s refusal to cease its missile tests. He Tweeted: “I am very disappointed in China… they do nothing for us with North Korea, just talk. We will no longer allow this to continue.”

One press report from an unnamed Pentagon source claimed that President Trump “is to order a military strike against North Korea within a year,” after this weekend’s North Korean test of a longer-range missile.

Iran, which along with North Korea and Russia will face new sanctions imposed by Congress and expected to be signed into law by Trump, is also in President Trump’s crosshairs. He was reportedly furious over his Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s certifying that Iran was in compliance with the nuclear deal – even though Iran was in compliance – and he seems determined to push a confrontation.

Twice in the past week the US military has fired at Iranian ships in the Persian Gulf. On Tuesday an Iranian military ship in the Persian Gulf was warned off by machine gun blasts from a US Naval vessel. Then on Friday the US Navy fired warning flares toward another Iranian ship operating in the Persian Gulf........

Abby Martin from Telsur listens to both sides in Venezuela ...


to give us a more comprehensive picture of what's going on in Venezuela.
IMO, the usual suspect, is taking on more than it can chew. Nothing new with that.  Let me make an easy prediction here. Just like what happened in Syria, this is likely going to blow up in the Empire's face and millions of Venezuelans along with other South Americans are going to make their way, somehow or the other, to  the USA.  No wall will keep out people running away from wars and there is a large enough opposition in the USA to welcome the refugees.   Wait and see. 




A couple of items on the ongoing saga between Qatar and other wahhabi nations


It doesn't take long to shift sides in times of war.  Anything can happen at any time. Today's allies can become tomorrow's deadly enemies.  One has to only look back at WWII or even further to see how mercurial most alliances between countries can become at a moment's notice.


From DailyStar
Qatar launches wide-ranging WTO complaint against trade boycott
Qatar filed a wide-ranging legal complaint at the World Trade Organization on Monday to challenge a trade boycott by Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and United Arab Emirates, Qatar's WTO representative Ali Alwaleed al-Thani told Reuters.

By formally "requesting consultations" with the three countries, the first step in a trade dispute, Qatar triggered a 60 day deadline for them to settle the complaint or face litigation at the WTO and potential retaliatory trade sanctions....

From DailyStar
Deep pockets and a five-year lead time are keeping Qatar’s dream
 of hosting football’s 2022 World Cup from turning into a boycott-battered nightmare.

A four-nation embargo led by Saudi Arabia has cut off Qatar construction materials it was counting on to build at least eight stadiums, lay dozens of miles of rail work and erect a brand new city before the world’s most-watched sporting event. But as the diplomatic and commercial boycott approaches its third month, the gas-rich nation says it is casting further abroad and laying out more cash than planned to replace suppliers that live next door.

Malaysian steel is replacing Saudi. Oman will provide materials originally ordered from the UAE, they say. China is stepping into the breach with dozens of products, and even Qatar is suddenly erecting facilities to build bleachers. Some suppliers from boycotting nations are rerouting shipments through Omani ports.

“For every challenge that we face, there are solutions that keep popping up,” Hassan al-Thawadi, secretary-general of the Qatar World Cup Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy, said in an interview in Doha. “We are working with our contractors to make sure we actually deliver long-term supply chain solutions and alternatives.” Neither he nor analysts ventured estimates for the cost overruns........

South Koreans don't want the USA and its WMDs on their soil ....


but unfortunately, their bribed and corrupt elite in the government are life-long slaves of the American empire and carry out their orders like good little puppets that they are.

Julian Cho and Hyun Lee at Space4Peace
THAAD Will Not Protect South Korea
 



Soseong-ri, their small village in South Korea, has become the center of a fight that could lay the groundwork for future U.S.-Korean relations under Seoul’s new government.  Last  March  5,000  people  from  across  South  Korea  gathered  in  the  village  to  protest  the  controversial  deployment of the U.S.’s Terminal High Altitude  Area  Defense  (THAAD)  anti-missile system. In  July  2016,  the  U.S.  and  South  Ko-
rean  governments  announced  plans  to  deploy  the  THAAD  system  in  Seongju  County,  North  Gyeongsang  Province.  But due to staunch opposition from local  residents,  the  location  was  revised  to  a  nearby  golf  course  owned  by  the  South Korean corporation Lotte, nestled between Soseong-ri in Seongju County and the city of Gimcheon.

No weapons from the CIA to their beloved headchoppers?


Tuesday, August 1, 2017

Tracking Turkey for the month of July ...


and waiting for the day Karma slaps Erdogan for what he has done to his neighbour Syria.

Erdogan slams CHP as opposition march nears Istanbul
CHP leader is marching to Istanbul where party member is jailed for leaking information on Syria arms transports.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticised Turkey's main opposition party over its protest march launched after a party deputy got 25 years in prison for espionage.
Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu began the march after the jailing of CHP lawmaker Enis Berberoglu, who was jailed for leaking information on the transportation of arms to Syria.....

Erdogan says Turkey to build aircraft carriers
Turkish President Erdogan talked on Monday about the future of Turkish defence industry and the aim to make the country self-sufficient in 2023.
Turkey's President Recep Tayipp Erdogan said the country was aiming to become militarily self-sufficient and said it would not be long before the country built its own aircraft carrier.
Erdogan made the comments during a speech at a naval ceremony to launch the locally manufactured Kinaliada Corvette in Tuzla near Istanbul.
The corvette was locally manufactured under Turkey's MILGEM project. MILGEM is an abbreaviation in Turkish for "national ship."
“We will build our own aircraft carriers,” he said....

Turkish forces kill 270 PKK terrorists in June
23 soldiers martyred and 48 injured in counter-terrorism operations last month
Turkish security forces killed 270 PKK terrorists in nationwide counter-terrorism operations in June, according to official data compiled by Anadolu Agency.
During air and ground operations, 23 security personnel were martyred and 48 are currently seeking treatment for injuries they received while on duty.
Security forces arrested 111 terror suspects during the operations. Meanwhile, 118 PKK shelters were destroyed in the southeastern Hakkari, Sirnak, Mardin, Diyarbakir and Siirt provinces......

Turkey's pro-Kurd party chief refuses to attend court in handcuffs
Selahattin Demirtas, co-chairman of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party, said proposal to handcuff him was "illegal and immoral".
ANKARA - The jailed co-leader of Turkey's third largest political party refused to attend court on Friday because officers wanted to handcuff him on the way to the hearing....

Dutch govt opposes Turkish deputy PM visit
Government says plans by Turkes or any member of Turkish government to visit Netherlands 'undesirable'.
The Dutch government on Friday expressed opposition to plans by Turkey's deputy Prime Minister Tugrul Turkes to visit The Netherlands to address a gathering marking last year's failed military coup....

Huge protest against Erdogan


Turkey protest: Istanbul rally concludes anti-Erdogan march
Tens of thousands of people have gathered in Istanbul at the end of a 450km (280-mile) protest march against the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
More and more people have joined the "justice" march since it began in the capital Ankara on 15 June.
They are demonstrating against the mass dismissals and imprisonments that followed last year's failed coup.
President Erdogan has accused the marchers of supporting terrorism.
He said the Republican People's Party (CHP) - which has organised the march - had gone beyond political opposition and was "acting with terrorist organisations and the forces inciting them against our country". ...

Germany starts pulling out troops from Turkish base
German defense authorities have finally ordered the start of withdrawal of troops from a base in southern Turkey after the two countries failed to settle disputes on how Berlin could access the base.
A German defense ministry spokesman said Sunday that the pull-out had begun earlier in the day, adding that a German air tanker refueller left Incirlik for a new air base in Jordan.
The official said that German tornado jets were scheduled to be deployed in the Jordanian base by October. He said the jets were due to keep operating out of Incirlik at least until the end of July as Germany continues to contribute to an alleged military fight against Daesh in Iraq and Syria, an operation which is led by the United States. German authorities would move the necessary material to Jordan in the meantime, the official added....




Germany Warns Its Citizens: They Risk Arrest If Traveling To Turkey
Escalation of the diplomatic row between Berlin and Ankara ended in a clear message. Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel warned German citizens that they risk arrest if they travel to Turkey.
Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said Germany had revised its travel advice in the wake of the recent arrests of several human rights activists, including German national Peter Steudtner.

Turkey formally arrests producer of Erdogan film 
A Turkish court ordered the formal arrest of a film producer after he made a controversial movie showing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan held at gunpoint in a bloody coup d'etat, reports said Wednesday.
Ali Avci was detained by police last week on suspicion of links to the group blamed by Ankara for the -- real life -- failed coup in July 2016 that tried to overthrow Erdogan.....

Turkey's Erdogan tells Germany to "pull itself together"
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Friday condemned comments by Germany's economy minister warning companies off investing in Turkey and said the country should "pull itself together" as a dispute between the NATO allies escalates.
In a speech in Istanbul, Erdogan also said that a German foreign ministry travel warning against Turkey was baseless and malicious and that the German government should give account for terrorists which he said the country was harbouring...

Turkish President Erdogan calls on all Muslims 
to 'protect' Jerusalem holy site known as Temple Mount and Noble Sanctuary
Several Israelis and Palestinians have been killed in violence sparked by Israeli decision to implement new security measures limiting Muslim access to sacred compound
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has urged Muslims across the world to “visit” and “protect” Jerusalem, slamming what he said was an “unacceptable” infringement on Palestinians’ rights to a holy site.
The leader’s comments on Tuesday came after days of violence sparked over access to the al-Aqsa mosque in the city’s Noble Sanctuary, known as the Temple Mount in Judaism....

Turkish MP says 'no use in teaching maths to a child who doesn't know jihad'
'Jihad comes before prayer'
A member of the Turkish parliament's national education commission has said there is no use teaching maths to students who don't know jihad.
Ahmet Hamdi Camli, a member of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), praised the education ministry for including teaching the concept of jihad in the school curriculum.
Mr Camli said "jihad is Islam's most prior element," Turkish daily newspaper Haberturk reported.....