Joe Biden Fears for the Democratic World Order!
By Phil Butler – New Eastern Outlook – 04.03.2017
“The progressive democratic world order is at risk of collapse”, former Vice President Joe Biden spoke these words in his last speech to a waiting public. This is the same man whose son took up an executive role in Ukraine before the embers of revolution had stopped smoldering. In this same speech Biden also named Russia as the prime antagonist of this new global order. Here’s a look at one of the world’s top public enemies.
Joe Biden loves Bill and Hillary Clinton, he loves them so much he wants to be just like them. Why he’s already started his own money machine, The Biden Foundation, which looks like the spitting image of the Clinton Foundation. Like the Clinton Foundation, Biden’s new NGO is into all those things that people are most concerned about. It’s also into all those things people donate money for, like lobbying. The sparkling new Biden endeavor professes care for women’s issues, health, protecting little kids and equality too, just like Bill’s and Hillary’s altruism. The ex-Vice President’s new site drips with lovingkindness. It’s amazing, hopeful, and chock full of smiling faces to take your heart, breath, and money away. It’s even got “Pillars” like one of those ancient Greek temples of wisdom! And knowing what Joe Biden is really about, it makes my stomach churn.
Domestic Hypocrisy
The first thing Joe and Dr. Jill Biden did on launching their new foundation was to make a statement. It went something like this, with Joe quoting his father:
“My dad used to have an expression: “It’s a lucky person who gets up in the morning, puts both feet on the floor, knows what they’re about to do and thinks it still matters.” Jill and I have been very lucky these past decades.”
Indeed. But for the lowest income people in America the Obama-Biden White House brought nothing but more misery. Despite the juggled numbers this Administration and the “new order” cooked up, poverty in America is far worse. In the richest country on Earth there are 36% more people on food stamps than when these “saviors” took office. The Federal debt in America has more than doubled too, as pork barrel and military spending that helped only the banks prevailed. Corporate profits under Obama and Biden rose to 144% over previous wins, while home ownership and other key metrics for most Americans fell dramatically. The America Donald Trump inherited is a socio-economic piñata with deadly candies tucked away inside now, and he has said as much.
A look at the division in attitudes shows one divide, but the deeper scars of this nation may soon be weighed in catastrophe. Biden, the poster boy of hypocrites in the swamp of Washington, represents a more clear and present danger to Americans now, than he did as VP. Biden and his wife are lucky, when many Americans feel blessed to have a bed to get up out of, or even a roof over their heads. As is the case with any set of statistics, how one slices the numbers determines the reality. For Biden and the elites, this new Democratic order has been a boom. But for those who are not elites, the distribution of wealth shows a different truth. Put in a nutshell, Biden and his ilk feathered the beds of the upper-middle class and the ultimate elites, with the proceeds of a lower class fleeced once again. Don’t take my word, do you own research starting here. The “have nots” paid for Joe and Jill’s beautiful American Dream, and for Joe’s Dad’s deep, deep vision too. And as to copy-cat NGOs, Biden Foundation is already on the pharma scene for an upcoming medical conference. I am reminded of Bill and Hillary and how they started the speaking bonanza we heard so much about. This from MedCity:
“Now that Biden has decided to set up shop — at least part-time — at the University of Pennsylvania as head of the new Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, the Philadelphia health tech community sees him as a unique asset. Several health IT and digital health interests in Southeast Pennsylvania are trying to get the former VP down to HIMSS17 in Orlando, Florida.”
Foreign Policy Fun
It is interesting for me that the first category listed on the Biden Foundation website under “Our Pillars” is Foreign Policy. Cancer nor kids are not first in these people’s minds, the Freudian slip has hit them between their beady little eyes too. The ideas and endeavors of the Bidens is not thought out alphabetically even. If this were the case, then “Community Colleges and Military Families” would be first, even though I cannot figure out why those two are lumped together. So, it is foreign policy issues this spanking new NGO intends to address first! The dogma for Biden Foundation foreign policy is tough talking too! It goes something like this:
“The Biden Foundation will find new ways to build upon Joe Biden’s longstanding commitment to preserve the liberal international order.”
How does Joe Biden intend to accomplish his stated mission? One way will be through the longstanding strategy of integrating a man and a mission inside institutions worldwide. The first such institution the prestigious University of Pennsylvania, where Biden will lead the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. This new center in Washington D.C. will focus on “diplomacy, foreign policy, and national security.” Like the malignancy that former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski has been, Biden follows the entrenchment path to foreign policy fame. Unfortunately for Biden, he has nowhere near the evil genius of Carter’s policy adviser.
However feeble his strategic mind might be, Biden has tentacles in other academic halls like the University of Delaware, and connections with a vast network of hyper-liberals from California to Florida. The Bidens have even secured a famous talent agency to get their show on the road. The scary thing about Biden and his feet in foreign policy is the fact he handled the Ukraine portfolio for the same White House that made a war zone where none existed. Who can forget when Biden’s son joined the biggest natural gas company in Ukraine only weeks after the Euromaidan set the country alight? The fact Ukraine’s ruler/oligarch Petro Poroshenko and Joe Biden are personal friends only adds further dismay alongside any idea the Biden Foundation will do more than make matters worse. Only if the price (or donation) were right, could any kind of sane détente come from such an NGO.
No Shame In the NWO
Finally, news Joe and Jill Biden have officially given their blessing to a controversial relationship (affair) between the widow of their deceased son Beau, and their son Hunter, it punctuates the hypocrisy and circus lunacy of the Biden circle. Even the announcement of this “blessing” oozes Biden drama, as it frames Joe Biden as the “president who never was”, owing continually to his love and devotion to family. Watching these people and Washington the last 8 years has been a continual soap opera. Joe Biden appears to those with open eyes, as the laughing hyena among jackals with no shame. This is Trump’s “Washington Swamp” at the utter bottom.
An article entitled, “Behind the Putin Fantasies” makes the rest of my argument for keeping away from anything Joe Biden is involved in. As we know, several Trump campaign advisers had business ties to Russia, and there’s been no end to the upheaval over this in Washington. However, the visits of Joe Biden and his boss Barack Obama to Russia have gotten zero press these last few weeks. But Biden continuing to side with Poroshenko and Kiev muddles the mind. “The Donald Trump administration should be a strong supporter and partner of Ukraine”, Biden told Trump last month after a visit to see his pal Poroshenko. Strangely, the New York Times and CNN failed to accuse the former administration of regime change and under the table business deals on the suggested innuendo? This is the fantasy land that the Obama administration created! Or was it created by Bill and Hillary Clinton? I cannot say truthfully, for this New Democratic Order is an enigmatic and powerful beast – one we should all hope is in dire danger of collapsing!
Phil Butler, is a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe.
Progressive and Neoliberal Evasions in the Era of Trump: What the Inequality Data Show
By David Green | CounterPunch | March 3, 2017
One does not have to plow through Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2013) in order to grasp the radical changes in income and wealth inequality over the past four decades which fundamentally determined Donald Trump’s victory last November. Instead, one can examine a few of the charts at the end of two more recent reports by Piketty and his Berkeley colleagues Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman: “Wealth Inequality in the United States Since 1913: Evidence from the Capitalized Income Tax Data” (2014); and “Distributional National Accounts: Methods and Estimates for the United States” (2016).
The latter report focuses on radical changes in income inequality between two post-World War II periods: 1946-1980 and 1980-2014. The authors’ goal is to capture 100% of national income; that is, the income of every individual adult over age 18 from any source—wages, capital (investment income), benefits, and government transfers—which collectively is roughly equal to the yearly Gross Domestic Product. This identity is true for both pre-tax and post-tax-and-government-spending income data; but it is the latter data that make the most honest case for a radical increase in economic inequality since 1980. Increased income inequality pertaining to both labor and capital income in turn explains much of the parallel increase in household wealth inequality, which is often popularly emphasized because the accumulated wealth figures are so much more starkly unequal.
Unlike these economists, I have a polemical purpose as well. It is to counter assertions by many of those who identify as liberals and/or progressives that Donald Trump’s victory primarily signifies a racist/misogynist and white identity-driven agenda rather than a justified reaction to the increased hardships and decreased opportunities visited by neoliberalism on the white working class.
Eight years of neoliberalism with a Democratic Party face—not a black or female face—resulted in white voters with some college or less increasing their Republican margin from 20% (2008) to 40% (2016). Hillary Clinton, with her roots in both neoliberal (more inequality) and neoconservative (more war) policies, had nothing to offer these voters except vicarious identification with her glass ceiling, and she offered that nothing in a condescending manner. Nor had Obama anything economically meaningful to offer, as it turned out, in spite of the relative faith shown in him by white working class voters. Meanwhile, Trump campaigned on a rejection of both of these establishment doctrines.
What the national income data show
Piketty’s et al.’s national income data set compares two periods of economic growth among the full population, the bottom 50%, the middle 40%, the top 10%, and four additional categories within the top 10%. From 1946-1980, overall real per capita (age 18 and over) growth was 95%. Both the bottom 50% and the middle 40% had (post-tax) growth rates higher than this: 102% and 105%, respectively. Therefore, these groups gained a larger share of the overall economic pie during this period. Meanwhile, top 10% income grew at a rate of 79%, signifying a decreasing share of total income. Moreover, all four groups with the top 10%—1%, .1%, .01%, and .001%—also found themselves during this 35-year period with decreased shares of post-tax income, with the real per capita growth rate of the top 1% at only 47%.
The post-tax income data from 1980-2014 show that this trend was radically reversed during the neoliberal era. While overall growth was lower at 61%, growth for the bottom 50% and middle 40% was 21% and 49% respectively. Meanwhile, the exorbitant growth rates for the top 10%, 1%, .1%, .01% and .001% were (respectively): 113%, 194%, 299%, 424%, and 617%.
The concrete results of this shift can be extrapolated from the data as follows, by calculating an alternative scenario in which the income of all groups grew at the overall rate (61%), and comparing that to their actual growth. From these figures, we can derive the amount of income effectively transferred in 2014 from the bottom 90% to the top 10% due to decreased/increased income shares:
+ If the income of the bottom 50% had grown at the overall rate, the average income of this group (117,200,000 adults) would have been $33,250. Instead, it was $25,000, or $8,250 less.
+ If the income of the middle 40% had grown at the overall rate, the average income of this group (93,760,000 adults) would have been $72,600. Instead, it was $67,200, or $5,400 less.
+ If the income of the top 10% had grown at the overall rate, the average income of this group (23,440,000 adults) would have been $190,500. Instead, it was $252,000, or $61,500 more.
+ If the income of the top 1% had grown at the overall rate, the average income of this group (2,344,000 adults) would have been $616,100. Instead, it was $1,010,000, or $393,900 more.
The bottom 50% lost 25% of what would have been its yearly income, given a constant share of overall income, through neoliberal income re-distribution policies, 1980-2014. The average transfer of income away from each of the bottom 90% in 2014 was $6,800. Put differently, every nine adults in the bottom 90% contributed a total of $61,200 to one individual in the top 10%. By 2014, the top 10% received a total of an additional $1.43 trillion dollars, nearly 10% of overall income (or GDP), that had in 1980 accrued to the bottom 90%. This is also reflected in Piketty et al.’s finding that the top 10% share of income increased from 30% to 40% during this period.
At least three additional findings from the income data are relevant in this context:
First, income is highly concentrated among the top tenth of each income bracket. Whether one compares 100% and 10%, 10% and 1%, 1% and .1%, .1% and .01%, or .01% and .001%, the top one-tenth portion receives over 40% of the overall income of the larger group.
Second, while capital (investment) income has overall remained at 30% over an entire century, for the top 10% the capital share has remained above 40%; for the top 1%, 60%, and for the top .1%, nearly 70%. While these figures have not changed dramatically over a long period, it’s worth noting the increasing dominance of capital over labor income as one moves up the total income ladder.
Third, the overall tax rate (federal, state, local) for the bottom 50% has increased since 1960 from 15% to 25%; for the top 1%, the overall tax rate has decreased during this period from 45% to 35% (up from 30% during the early Reagan era).
Summary
The concurrent historical increase of wealth inequality, a consequence of neoliberal policies related to labor, taxation, and finance, is amply demonstrated in the 2014 report referred to above. From 1980-2012, the share of the top 10% of households increased from 65% to 75%, while (obviously) the share of the bottom 90% decreased from 35% to 25%. Analogous to income concentration, wealth is concentrated in the top one-tenth of each increasingly wealthy group. Thus, the top 1% now owns over 40% of household wealth (up from 25% in 1980), the top .1% owns over 20% (up from 10% in 1980), and the top .01% (16,000 households) owns over 10% (up from 3% in 1980).
Increasing disparities in individual income of course ensure increasing disparities in household wealth, to the point where these disparities are simply inconceivable except in terms of the contrast between materially-based human suffering and superfluous abundance. This suffering, experienced and witnessed well beyond those technically defined as impoverished, cannot be wished away by identity politics, in the name of progressivism, anti-fascism, or anything else.
David Green lives in Champaign, IL and can be reached at davidgreen50@gmail.com.
New Cold War tensions are easing
By M K Bhadrakumar | Indian Punchline | March 3, 2017
After a 3-year interlude, NATO and Russia resumed contact at the military level today. Back in April 2014, in the immediate aftermath of the ‘regime change’ in Ukraine, the NATO Council had made a decision to freeze relations with Russia. The Russian Defence Ministry announced today that Chief of Russia’s General Staff General Valery Gerasimov had a phone conversation with the Chairman of the NATO Military Committee General Petr Pavel. The announcement in Moscow said, inter alia,
- The Chief of Russia’s General Staff drew his interlocutor’s attention to the existing concerns related to the considerable build-up of the North Atlantic alliance’s military activity near Russian borders and the deployment of the system of the NATO united forces’ forward stationing… The sides confirmed the need of mutual steps aimed at reducing tension and stabilizing the situation in Europe. Army General Gerasimov and General Pavel agreed on continuing such contacts.
Such a major NATO decision – resumption of ties with the Russian military top brass – could only have been possible with a green light or prior clearance from Washington. Simply put, the Donald Trump administration is chipping away at the Barack Obama administration’s policy to “isolate” Russia. Trump’s speech at the US Congress on Tuesday eschewed any reference to Russia. This was also a break from Obama’s diatribes against Russia in his final address to the Congress last year. (See my piece Trump Can Be Good for World Peace — If Only He’s His Way.)
Interestingly, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced on Thursday that German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel will visit Moscow on March 9 and that the agenda will have “a focus on multilateral efforts to resolve the Ukraine and Syria crises and normalise the situation in Libya.”
Three days back, on February 28, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov hinted at a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and President Trump. In Ryabkov’s words,
- There is no understanding yet on the date and the place of holding such a meeting but practical preparations for it have been launched and there is mutual understanding with the U.S. side on this score. Naturally, at this initial stage of a dialog with the new administration, it is difficult to make a conclusion about how work will proceed further on specific issues. The forecasts for a perspective will become possible when we see Washington’s practical actions.
Meanwhile, in an unbelievable twist of fate, Russia and the US find themselves on the same side in northern Syria in an effort to restrain Turkey from precipitating a “war within the war” in Syria. (See my blog Turkish army to march deeper into Syria – alone and defiant.) The Syrian Kurdish militia (which is the US’ ally in northern Syria) has struck a deal with the Syrian government forces to block the Turkish troops from advancing toward Manjib. (To jog memory, Manjib was captured from the ISIS in a joint operation between the US Special Forces and the Kurdish militia last August.) And, curiously, Russia mediated the deal today between the Kurdish militia and the Syrian army. (TASS ) .
So, what do we have here? Turkey is planning to go for the jugular veins of the Kurdish militia who are in control of Manjib, knowing full well that the latter is backed to the hilt by the US Central Command and that US forces are on the ground with the militia. As a Reuters analysis put it, Turkey and the US are apparently on a “collision course”. And at this point, Russia steps in and gets the Syrian government to take charge from the Kurdish militia over the western approaches to Manjib to block the advancing Turkish forces.
Suffice it to say, it is difficult to believe that there have been no contacts between the US and Russian militaries at the operational level as regards the dangerous situation developing around Manjib. When the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was asked earlier today about contacts between Russia and US on the Syrian crisis, he said, “There have been no substantial contacts.”
On February 28, Pentagon submitted to the White House its report on the strategy to fight the ISIS. A Moscow analyst on security issues Andrei Akulov has given a positive evaluation, visualizing the possibility of Russian-American cooperation and coordination in the fight against terrorism. The picture that emerges from a briefing given by the top US commander in Iraq Lt. General Stephen Townsend on Wednesday via a teleconference from Baghdad is also that
- US is unlikely to deploy a large number of troops in Syria;
- US will continue to regard the Kurdish militia as an indispensable ally in Syria;
- US military will not recommend any fundamental shift in strategy in Syria – namely, fighting “by, with and through our (US’) local partners”;
- Kurdish militia will have a significant role in the forthcoming operation to liberate Raqqa, ISIS’ de-facto capital in eastern Syria; and,
- US does not agree with Turkey’s perception that the Syrian Kurds pose a threat to its national security.
The transcript of Lt. Gen. Townsend’s teleconference is here. The big question is whether there could be prospects of US-Russia military cooperation in Syria. In a remark in mid-February, Defence Secretary James Mattis had ruled out such a possibility. But things can change. The resumption of high-level military contact today between the NATO and Russia signals that an overall easing of tensions in the West’s ties with Russia can be expected. Today’s phone call could be the harbinger of changes in the air. Let us call it the “Trump effect”.
Against this backdrop. German FM Gabriel’s talks in Moscow coming on Thursday assume importance. For the benefit of the uninitiated, Gabriel was a protégé of late Egon Bahr, the famous German SPD politician who is regarded as the creator of the so-called Ostpolitik – the foreign policy of détente with the former USSR and other Warsaw Pact member countries in general, beginning in 1969, which was promoted by the then Chancellor Willy Brandt.
The NYT War on Truth
By Stephen Lendman | March 4, 2017
On issues mattering most, The Times features fake news, not the real thing.
On March 1, its editors lied headlining “Russia Sides With Chemical Weapons,” saying:
“Russia proved again on Tuesday that there is no crime heinous enough to make it turn against Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad. It vetoed a resolution before the United Nations Security Council that would have punished Syria for using chemical weapons.”
Fact: Throughout six years of Obama’s war, now Trump’s, using terrorists as imperial foot soldiers against a sovereign independent state threatening no one, claims about Assad using chemical weapons were fabricated – bogus accusations without evidence.
Fact: Plenty of clear evidence proves ISIS, al-Nusra and other US-supported terrorists used CWs numerous times – their elements trained in their use by Pentagon contractors in Turkey and Jordan, Saudi Arabia at times supplying toxins.
Times editors: “The Kremlin’s decision was in keeping with President Vladimir Putin’s vigorous support of the Syrian military in a six-year-long war that has killed half a million people.”
Fact: No mention by Times editors about Washington’s full responsibility for mass slaughter and destruction – NATO, Israel, and other rogue allies sharing blame.
Fact: Syria was invaded by US-supported terrorists, recruited from scores of countries, trained in Turkey, Jordan and elsewhere, responsible for horrific atrocities, mostly against defenseless civilians.
Times editors: “Although Moscow had made clear in advance that it would veto the resolution, (Washington), Britain and France were right to insist on a vote and to expose Russia’s moral bankruptcy.”
Fact: As usual, Times editors turned truth on its head, ignoring US-orchestrated aggression, vilifying Russia’s righteous mission.
Times editors: Mr. Putin’s argument that the resolution interfered with cease-fire negotiations between the Syrian government and the rebels was… not credible.”
Fact: The resolution was introduced to undermine peace talks, apparently wanting endless war continued.
Separately, Times editors claimed White House signals give “autocrats… a green light” to do what they please. What rubbish!
Most of America’s allies are rogue states, alliances formed long before Trump’s ascension to power – notably key NATO ones, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and other Gulf states, partners in US high crimes.
Maybe Times editors forgot.
Stephen Lendman can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book is titled Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.
New hotel in Bethlehem by British artist Banksy offers ‘worst view in the world’ overlooking Israeli Wall
IMEMC News – March 4, 2017
The British artist Banksy, who has painted a number of famous murals on the Israeli Annexation Wall in Bethlehem, has taken his art activism to a new level by opening a boutique hotel just next to the Wall in Bethlehem.
The building used for the “Walled Off” Hotel sits just across the street from the Israeli Annexation Wall in an area known to Palestinians and Israelis alike as ‘Rachel’s Tomb’, in the northern part of the city of Bethlehem.
Bethlehem is known to Christians worldwide as the birthplace of Jesus, but the city has suffered tremendously over the past fifteen years as the Israeli occupation authorities have imposed a stranglehold on their local economy.
Through the construction of the Annexation Wall, which began in 2003, the economy of Bethlehem, largely dependent on tourists and religious pilgrims, has plummeted.
Banksy’s new hotel is an attempt, according to the artist and hotel staff, to both support the local economy of Bethlehem while bringing international attention to the plight of the Palestinians in the city, who live walled off from the world in what they have termed a ‘ghetto’ due to the Israeli Annexation Wall.
The hotel features art that symbolizes the Israeli Occupation of Palestine, including paintings that are imprisoned behind steel bars, a portrait of Jesus with drones overhead and a laser sight on his forehead, and a display of surveillance cameras overlooking patrons to the hotel bar.
In an interview with hotel manager Wisam Salsaa, a reporter from the British Channel 4 News asked Salsaa how Banksy managed to secretly put together such a large undertaking. Salsaa replied simply, “Well, he’s Banksy!”
FBI Rigged Investigation of Black Panthers, Newly Released Docs Reveal
Sputnik – 03.03.2017
Newly-released FBI files reveal that authorities tampered with an investigation into a police officer’s death in the 1970s, resulting in a Black Panther leader dying in prison for a crime he did not commit.
In 1970, Mondo Even we Langa (formerly David Rice) was one of 17 people arrested in connection with a bombing that killed Omaha police officer Larry Minard, eventually serving a life sentence for the murder.
At the time, Mondo was deputy of information for Omaha’s National Committee to Combat Fascism, an affiliate group of the Black Panther Party, and unbeknownst to him, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had placed him on a secret detention list and ordered agents to neutralize him.
Nearly 50 years after his conviction, heavily-redacted documents show that the agency called off a search for Minard’s killer just days before his funeral, and canceled the testing of the call that lured the officer to his death, which indicated 15-year-old Duane Peak as a lead suspect.
The San Francisco Bayview quotes one of the documents saying, “Special Agents of the FBI in conjunction with members of the Omaha Police Department arrested [Duane Peak].” and “Captain [Hartford] advised that the Police Department was in the process of obtaining a search warrant … and that he would advise the FBI as to the results.” Another section read,”Captain [Hartford] requested our assistance in interviewing [REDACTED] for any information he may have regarding the bomb slaying.”
Although the documents indicate deep cooperation between the FBI and Omaha police, officials testified that the agency had no involvement in the investigation.
In 1982, New Jersey Congressman Richard Roe requested an FBI report on the investigation. Two weeks later Roger Young, assistant director in charge at the Office of Congressional and Public Affairs, replied to Roe claiming, “The investigation of these two individuals was conducted by the Omaha Police Department and the trial was held in state District Court, not in a federal court. … I am, therefore, not in a position to furnish you a report.”
Some documents are missing from the files, and Mondo’s co-defendant and former NCCF chair, Edward Poindexter, remains imprisoned in a maximum-security facility.
The “Omaha Two,” as Poindexter and Mondo have been referred to, appear to be the targets of Hoover’s Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO), a wide-ranging effort to infiltrate, disrupt, and neutralize many activist groups of the period. Many Black Panthers and other radical activists were monitored, set up for crimes they did not commit, railroaded into prison and assassinated, as a result of the program.
In 1969, the ‘Panther 21’ were indicted on conspiracy charges in New York for allegedly plotting to bomb police stations and assassinate police officers. The hotly-contested eight-month trial resulted in all 21 Panthers being acquitted, thanks, in no small part, to the work of one the defendants, Afeni Shakur, mother of late rapper Tupac Shakur.
That same year, informant William O’Neal provided Chicago police with the floor plan to Chicago Panther leader Fred Hampton’s house. Police raided Hampton’s house in the wee hours of the early morning, killing him in his sleep. They later claimed that Panthers opened fire on them.
Mondo died in prison in March 2016.
A Confession on Meeting a Russian
By David Swanson | Consortium News | March 3, 2017
It was August 2014. Our secret and nefarious meeting had to be disguised as a public event. So, the Russian Ambassador to the United States, Sergey Ivanovich Kislyak, spoke at the University of Virginia, in an event organized by the Center for Politics, which no doubt has video of the proceedings and was of course in on the conspiracy.
Russia’s Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak
Kislyak was once ambassador to Belgium and to NATO. He served an eight-course Russian dinner for select guests prior to the public forum in an underground lair deep inside Observatory Hill.
Kislyak spoke to a packed auditorium at UVA and took, I think, well over an hour of questions. He spoke frankly, and the questions he was asked by students, professors, and other participants were polite and for the most part far more intelligent than he would have been asked on, for example, Meet the Press.
He told the audience that Russia had known there were no WMDs in Iraq, and had known that attacking Iraq would bring “great difficulties” to that country. “And look what is happening today,” he said. He made the same comment about Libya. He spoke of the U.S. and Russia working together to successfully remove chemical weapons from the Syrian government. But he warned against attacking Syria now.
There will be no new Cold War, Kislyak said, but there is now a greater divide in some ways than during the Cold War. Back then, he said, the U.S. Congress sent delegations over to meet with legislators, and the Supreme Court likewise. Now there is no contact. It’s easy in the U.S. to be anti-Russian, he said, and hard to defend Russia. He complained about U.S. economic sanctions against Russia intended to “suffocate” Russian agriculture.
Asked about “annexing” Crimea, Kislyak rejected that characterization, pointed to the armed overthrow of the Ukrainian government and insisted that Kiev must stop bombing its own people and instead talk about federalism within Ukraine.
There were remarkably few questions put to the ambassador that seemed informed by U.S. television “news.” One was from a politics professor who insisted that Kislyak assign blame to Russia over Ukraine. Kislyak didn’t.
Swanson’s ‘Contact’
I always sit in the back, thinking I might leave, but Kislyak was only taking questions from the front. So I moved up and was finally called on for the last question of the evening. For an hour and a half, Kislyak had addressed war and peace and Russian-U.S. relations, but he’d never blamed the U.S. for anything in Ukraine any more than Russia. No one had uttered the word “NATO.”
So I pointed out the then upcoming NATO protests. I recalled the history of Russia being told that NATO would not expand eastward. I asked Kislyak whether NATO ought to be disbanded.
The ambassador said that he had been the first Russian to “present his credentials” to NATO, and that he had “overestimated” NATO’s ability to work with Russia. He’d been disappointed by NATO actions in Serbia, he said, and Libya, by the expansion eastward, by NATO pressure on Ukraine and Poland, and by the pretense that Russia might be about to attack Poland.
“We were promised,” Kislyak said, that NATO would not expand eastward at all upon the reunification of Germany. “And now look.” NATO has declared that Ukraine and Georgia will join NATO, Kislyak pointed out, and NATO says this even while a majority of the people in Ukraine say they’re opposed.
The ambassador used the word “disappointed” a few times.
“We’ll have to take measures to assure our defense,” he said, “but we would have preferred to build on a situation with decreased presence and decreased readiness.”
Wouldn’t we all. I mean, all of us who aren’t interested in risking World War III as long as it can gin up a pretense that Hillary Clinton lost because of Russian evil.
Russia, NATO military chiefs in first high-level contact since 2014
File photo shows Chief of Russia’s General Staff Valery Gerasimov (R) and Chairman of the NATO Military Committee General Petr Pavel
Press TV – March 3, 2017
In the first high-level contact after NATO unilaterally froze ties with Moscow over the crisis in Ukraine, military chiefs from Russia and the Western alliance have held a phone conversation.
“This is the first high-level military contact after the NATO Council made a decision on the freeze of relations with Russia,” Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Friday.
It also said the chief of Russia’s General Staff, First Deputy Defense Minister Army General Valery Gerasimov, had held the telephone talk with NATO’s chairman of military committee, General Petr Pavel.
The two sides, the Russian Defense Ministry said, exchanged opinions about current security issues.
The Russian side also relayed Moscow’s security concerns regarding NATO’s “considerable” buildup of military activity near Russian borders.
NATO’s headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, confirmed the phone conversation. It said “active military to military lines of communications are in the mutual interest of NATO and Russia.”
The NATO headquarters added that the frozen communication lines would “remain open,” without giving any details about what was discussed during the latest talks.
NATO severed ties with Moscow in 2014, after Crimea in eastern Ukraine rejoined the Russian Federation following a historic referendum. Since then, NATO has been deploying weapons and equipment close to Russia’s borders.
In early January, the US military began the deployment of hundreds of combat vehicles such as tanks and artillery guns along with 3,500 troops to Germany.
In mid-February, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin accused NATO of trying to embroil Moscow in confrontation by constant provocative actions.
NATO “has been expanding as it did before but now they seem to have found new serious reason to justify the bloc’s expansion and have sped up the process of deploying conventional and strategic weapons beyond the member states’ borders,” the Russian president said at a board meeting of the Federal Security Service (FSB).
Russia’s Defense Ministry said that during the phone conversation both military leaders agreed to make efforts to reduce tensions. “The sides confirmed the need of mutual steps aimed at reducing tension and stabilizing the situation in Europe.”
“The two generals agreed that they would remain in contact,” the ministry added.
Mass rally held in Sana’a against Saudi onslaught on Yemen
People take part in a demonstration in the Yemeni capital city of Sana’a on March 3, 2017 to denounce the Saudi military campaign against their country
Press TV – March 3, 2017
Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets in the Yemeni capital city of Sana’a to express outrage over Saudi Arabia’s deadly military campaign against the impoverished Arab country.
The protesters converged in the Old City of Sana’a following Friday prayers, carrying Yemeni flags and banners in condemnation of the Saudi aggression.
Participants in the demonstration, under the motto “Tough against Disbelievers”, also held up pictures of civilians injured in the deadly Saudi airstrikes, calling on the United Nations to fulfill its responsibilities and stop the Riyadh regime’s atrocious military offensive.
They also warned the Saudi leadership that the continued attacks on the people in Yemen will only strengthen the steadfastness of the nation.
Protesters also accused the United States of being complicit in the Saudi crimes against the Yemeni nation by providing the Al Saud regime with various munitions.
Saudi Arabia has been engaged in a deadly campaign against Yemen since March 2015 in an attempt to reinstall the former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, who is a close Riyadh ally.
The airstrikes have taken a heavy toll on the impoverished country’s facilities and infrastructure, destroying many hospitals, schools, and factories.
The United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, Jamie McGoldrick, says the Saudi campaign has claimed the lives of 10,000 Yemenis and left 40,000 others wounded.
McGoldrick told reporters in Sana’a earlier this year that the figure was based on casualty counts given by health facilities and that the actual number might be higher.
On February 23, Yemen’s Legal Center for Rights and Development, an independent monitoring group, put the civilian death toll in the war-torn Arab country at 12,041.
The fatalities, it said, comprise 2,568 children and 1,870 women.
‘Killing and maiming children’: Watchlist calls UN to blacklist IDF
RT | March 3, 2017
The global network of humanitarian organisations that defends children’s rights across the world has called on the UN to blacklist the Israeli Defence Forces, for multiple violations of children rights. Various human rights organisations have noted a number of incidents in the recent past where Israeli forces have applied psychological pressure on children.
Sweden reintroduces military conscription, citing alleged Russian threat
Press TV – March 3, 2017
Sweden has decided to reintroduce mandatory military service for both men and women next year, citing what it says is a military threat from Russia.
The Swedish Defense Ministry said on Thursday that thousands of male and female youths will be conscripted and selected for military training in a program starting in 2018. The decision has also been backed by the parliament.
Sweden, a member state of the European Union (EU), had ended compulsory military service in 2010.
Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist cited alleged Russian military buildup near the Baltic region and Moscow’s alleged involvement in the Ukrainian conflict as reasons for the decision. “We have more exercise activities in our neighborhood. So we have decided to build a stronger national defense,” he said.
The government will call up 4,000 men and women for military training per year in 2018 and 2019.
Back in December last year, Sweden’s Civil Contingency Agency asked local authorities across the country to improve security measures to face a possible military attack. The measures included maintaining and upgrading underground bunkers as emergency bases of operation.
According to a letter from the Agency, municipalities around the country were called to “increase their ability to resist an armed attack against Sweden from a qualified opponent.”
Sweden is not a member of NATO but cooperates closely with it.
NATO, which has suspended all ties with Russia since April 2014, has deployed thousands of its troops as well as military hardware near Russian borders. Russia has previously warned that it would take measures to respond to the increased activities near its borders.
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The Fiction of the Jewish History in Palestine
By Hasan Afif El-Hasan | The Palestine Chronicle | April 8, 2011
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told NNC Pierce Morgan on March 18, 2011 that he might agree to a Palestinian state through negotiations. And he added, “We will make territorial concessions although it is very painful to do that in our ancestral land.” Netanyahu was not talking about Poland where his ancestors lived. He was talking about Palestine where generations of its indigenous population ancestors lived, cultivated the land and are buried.
By the end of the nineteenth century, Zionism created a new Jewish identity of blood and soil. To mobilize their followers and supporters and appeal to their emotions, the Zionists created myths. Zionism started as a tribal religion without god, but in order to fulfill its function as a unifying force, Zionism required external religious and race symbols, not inner content. Its leaders regarded metaphysical religious belief and purity of race as having value in itself. They created a divine paradisiacal state of merger with the gods. Despite his non-religious ideology, Herzl’s writings were replete with religious references. The Jews should settle in Palestine because, in his words, “the Temple will be visible from long distance, for it is only our ancient faith that has kept us together”.
The Zionists and their supporters have invested tremendous financial and scholarly resources to work within the Hebrew Bible historical narratives to affirm the links between the intrusive Zionist population and the ancient Israelite past, and by doing so assert the right of that population to the land. The political end-game shaped the investigation and the outcome. Tracing the roots of Israel’s ethnic state in biblical antiquity is effectively to silence the indigenous Palestinian claim to the past and therefore to the land. The Biblical scholarship employs a bewildering array of terms for the region: “the Holy Land”, “the Land of the Bible”, “Eretz Israel”, “the Land of Israel”, or “Judah and Samaria.” To the casual reader these names appear interchangeable, but they all imply connection to ancient Israel.
Biblical narratives or poems that cannot be supported by archeology and common sense are treated by the Zionists and their supporters as historical language. … continue
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