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Jimmy Carter Is Correct that the U.S. Is No Longer a Democracy
Eric Zuesse
On July 28th, Thom Hartmann interviewed former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, and, at the very end of his show (as if this massive question were merely an aftethought), asked him his opinion of the 2010 Citizens United decision and the 2014 McCutcheon decision, both decisions by the five Republican judges on the U.S. Supreme Court. These two historic decisions enable unlimited secret money (including foreign money) now to pour into U.S. political and judicial campaigns. Carter answered:
“It violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system. Now it’s just an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for President or being elected President. And the same thing applies to governors, and U.S. Senators and congress members. So, now we’ve just seen a subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect, and sometimes get, favors for themselves after the election is over. … At the present time the incumbents, Democrats and Republicans, look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to themselves. Somebody that is already in Congress has a great deal more to sell.”
Joe Biden to Challenge Hillary?
by Stephen Lendman
The New York Times reports Biden is “actively explor(ing) a possible presidential campaign” - according to sources close to the vice president or his advisors.
They’ve “grown concerned about (Hillary’s) increasingly visible vulnerabilities as a candidate.” Times columnist Maureen Dowd said Biden is holding meetings at home, “talking to friends, family and donors about jumping in” to challenge her in Iowa and New Hampshire - the first two primary states. She has lots of troubling baggage. A July 30 Quinnipiac poll showed 57% of voters don’t trust her for good reason. Over half said she doesn’t care about their interests.
UK Special Forces Fighting Assad in Syria
by Stephen Lendman
On August 2, Britain’s Sunday Express newspaper headlined “SAS dress as ISIS fighters in undercover war on jihadis,” saying:
“More than 120 members belonging to the elite regiment are currently in the war-torn country” covertly “dressed in black and flying ISIS flags,” engaged in what’s called Operation Shader - attacking Syrian targets on the pretext of combatting ISIS.
Maybe covert US special forces and CIA elements are involved the same way. During Obama’s war on Libya, Britain deployed hundreds of Special Forces Support Group (SFSG) paratroopers - drawn from SAS (Special Air Service) and SBS (Special Boat Service) personnel.
Obama Orders Airstrikes to Defend ISIS in Syria
by Stephen Lendman
Previous articles explained what Western officials and media scoundrels suppress. ISIS or ISIL or IS are US recruited, trained, armed, funded and directed Pentagon proxy foot soldiers doing Obama’s dirty work - to destabilize and/or topple governments where they’re deployed.
Using them is part of Washington’s imperial strategy for unchallenged global dominance. They’re likely to show up almost anywhere. Mass slaughter, destruction, brutal atrocities and human misery follow - notably in Syria and Iraq.
On August 2, the Wall Street Journal headlined “US to Defend New Syria Force From Assad Regime.” The so-called “new” force is the old one. They’re not Syrian rebels or others supporting the rights of its people.
US Airstrikes Kill Hundreds of Civilians in Syria and Iraq
by Stephen Lendman
US warplanes began bombing Iraqi targets in June 2014. Last September, US Syrian airstrikes followed. Washington falsely claims it’s waging war on the Islamic State (IS) - with pinpoint accuracy against positions and fighters targeted. Just the opposite.
Bombing aims to destabilize Iraq and Syria more than already. Infrastructure sites are struck - not IS fighters as claimed. America is its de facto air force.
US Central Command (CENTCOM) in charge of the air campaign falsely claims few civilian deaths at most - saying pinpoint targeting avoids them, one of the many Big Lies proliferated in all US wars.
Civilians are considered legitimate US targets. Hundreds of thousands were willfully slaughtered since Operation Desert Storm aggression against Saddam Hussein in January 1991 alone.
Deepening Greek Depression
by Stephen Lendman
Greece is Exhibit A on how financial predators wreck economies for profit. Force-fed austerity is toxic, polar opposite what’s needed.
Weak economies need stimulus to stabilize, recover and grow - expansive monetary and fiscal policy. Euro straightjacket rules prevent member countries from controlling their own financial policies. It’s like having weapons with no ammunition when trouble strikes.
Greece’s manufacturing index is a testimony to wrongheaded euro policies. It July, it sank at a record pace - from a negative 46.9 in June to a dismal 30.2 in July.
Readings below 50 signify contraction. Greece’s new orders gauge showed no relief in sight - plunging from 43.2 in June to a record 17.9 in July.
Syria’s Refugee Crisis Just Got Worse
by Stephen Lendman
US wars on humanity caused the gravest refugee crisis since WW II - millions displaced, mostly victims of imperial conflicts and chaos, suffering hugely, many perishing from deprivation, an appalling high crime too horrific to ignore.
How do displaced people cope with limited access to nutritious food, at times any, inadequate or no medical care, lack of education for children and other essentials?
How do they survive? How can anyone not experiencing their suffering imagine life in hellhole refugee camps or displacement on their own without minimal lifelines?
Nearly half of Syria’s 23 million people are imperial war victims - displaced by violence (internally or abroad), fleeing for their lives to unknown destinies. Many perhaps running out of time, minimal resources, energy and will to go on.
America’s Sham Democracy
by Stephen Lendman
America’s political season never ends - a monied interest-driven perpetual electoral cycle too corrupted to fix. Voters are deluded to think they matter. They have no say whatever.
Duopoly power rules. Powerful interests decide everything. Democrats and Republicans are virtual clones of each other, differences between them too minor to matter on issues mattering most.
Co-founder of the Industrial Workers of America (the Wobblies) and five-time presidential candidate (first as a Democrat, later the nation’s most prominent Socialist) Eugene Debs (1855 - 1926) once said:
“The differences between the Republican and Democratic parties involve no issue, no principle in which the working class has any interest.”
Russia to Veto UN Resolution for US-Controlled MH17 Tribunal
by Stephen Lendman
A veto may have been cast when this article is read. Moscow opposes a US proposed rigged process - suppressing evidence of its culpability and Kiev’s in downing MH17, pointing fingers the wrong way, a longstanding imperial practice.
The whole world SHOULD know neither Russia or Donbass freedom fighters downed MH17, killing all passengers and crew members aboard during flight over Southeastern Ukraine’s war zone. Accusations otherwise are tiresome Big Lies. They wore thin long ago. Kiev and Washington bear full responsibility for what happened - a thinly veiled scheme to wrongfully blame Russia and Donbass for their criminality.
Return to Ma’loula
Franklin Lamb
Ma’loula, Syria
As of today, approximately 900 Christians and 50 Muslims from the pre-2011 population of 5000, of whom 80% were Christian and 20% Muslim, have returned to Ma’loula, their 90 AD ancient village that many consider the second most historic Christian village, after Jerusalem.
Over the past five weeks, this observer has been surveying and updating data as part of an archeological research project, on a modest selected number of the 152 archeological sites here in Syria that have been severely damaged over the past four years. Ma’loula, is among the nearly 7000 historic places in Syria that have been looted, burned, or bulldozed or subjected to mindless jihadist iconoclasm as being ‘un-Islamic,” or which have sustained war damage from more than one source.
In some ways it has been a daunting task to visit some sites, given the security situation and need for securing various required permissions-which takes time, given currently conditions in Syria. Plus issues such as intense heat, finding a driver willing to make the trip for a reasonable fee, lining up crucial local experts at the site so one gets solid information and related matters. On 7/27/2015, this observer and his friends and guides/historians from Ma’loula, Jesus and Moses (Issa and Musa) were delayed for two hours as we sat at the Ministry of Information waiting a green light from the Syria army that the road was now safe, following a night (7/26/2015) of heavy jihadist shelling from the East Gouta\Jobar suburb of Damascus with some mortars hitting near our planned M-5 route north.
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