by Stephen Lendman

Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is no Western favorite. Her forthright outspokenness is irresponsibly criticized.

Last October, her Security Council remarks denounced US-led Western foreign policies, questioning illegitimate reasons for waging war.

"Where do ISIS and Al Qaeda (get) their guns from," she asked? "Yesterday's freedom fighters are today's terrorists."

They're US allies - trained to fight America's enemies. Kirchner called financial predators "economic terroris(ts)." She urged multi-lateral cooperation to regulate sovereign debt.

"The vulture funds threaten and attack with actions against our country's economy, causing rumors, mistruths and outright lies," she said.

"It is almost a type of economic and financial terrorism. We have also claimed the need to reform the UN security organisms and the International Monetary Fund based on what has happened in Argentina."

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by Stephen Lendman

Protracted real-life Greek tragedy appears likely to worsen, not improve. Its economy is in shambles, teetering on bankruptcy under a crushing debt burden impossible to repay and entrapment under predatory Eurozone rules denying fundamental sovereign rights.

Its people suffer hugely from force-fed austerity - more coming instead of no further amounts as Prime Minister Tsipras pledged. He's like all the rest - promising one thing, delivering another.

Greece is a money-controlled European colony - with no sovereign rights under Troika-imposed deepening Great Depression conditions.

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SARTRE

"Sometimes by losing a battle you find a new way to win the war." - Donald Trump

The hideous disgust, that so many American have for politics, has raised its wretched head once again. The culprits are familiar. The tactics are well established. And the source of the slime comes out of a pathetic nihilism that is known as “Political Correctness”. The cultural assault that has turned political dialogue into an authoritarian inquisition lies at the foundation of much of what is wrong with public life. Free Speech does not exist for those, who presume to challenge the sacred tenants of totalitarian assimilation. Any society that punishes someone who opposes the mythical postulates that racism, equal rights and a collectivist world view is dangerous. When the only allowable viewpoint is dictated by Marxist comrades, coexistence is not possible.

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by Stephen Lendman

All police states operate the same way. America is no different - nor Israel.

Civil law applies for Israeli Jews - not Palestinians. They're subject to military kangaroo court justice. Rubber-stamp convictions follow. Fundamental international rule of law principles don't apply.

A new B'Tselem report explains how Israel's system works for Palestinians - titled "Presumed Guilty: Remand in Custody by Military Courts in the West Bank." They're one of the main ways Israel enforces occupation harshness.

Since 1967, over 800,000 Palestinians were victimized by tribunal injustice. "Detention is injurious by definition," B'Tselem explained.

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by Stephen Lendman

Washington's geopolitical strategy when bullying fails is either assassinating independent leaders, color revolutions, military coups or naked aggression.

If Moscow-based independent investigative journalist John Helmer is right, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is a marked man and SYRIZA governance on thin ice showing cracks.

He said "(a) putsch in Athens to save allied Greece from enemy Russia is in preparation by the US and Germany, with backing from the non-taxpayers of Greece - the Greek oligarchs, Anglo-Greek shipowners, and the Greek Church."

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Eric Zuesse

CURRENT REALITIES:

Wealthiest Tenth (10%) of Americans Own 75% of America; They Draw 40% of All U.S. Income.

Wealthiest Hundredth (1%) of Americans Own 43% of America; They Draw 20% of All U.S. Income.

Wealthiest Thousandth (0.1%) of Americans Own 22% of America; They Draw 8% of All U.S. Income.

Wealthiest Ten-Thousandth (0.01%) Own 11.2% of America; They Draw 5% of All U.S. Income.

Wealthiest 0.0025% (Forbes 400) Own 2.75% (of all trackable privately-held wealth, not including ‘non-profits’ that are controlled by them).

That last (2.75%) is this $2.29 trillion divided by this $83,296 billion (representing all of the privately owned wealth in the U.S.), in the final quarter of 2014.

Incidentally, the wealthiest tenth are worth over $1 million and draw incomes above $200,000; so: they’re all “millionaires” in common parlance; all of the “top 10%” are.

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by Stephen Lendman

A previous article discussed a trade agreement most people never heard of - involving 51 countries and over two-thirds of world trade in services.

In 2014, WikiLeaks released a secret TISA Financial Services Annex. A leaked February 2015 TISA text revealed updated provisions worse than last year's draft.

On July 2, WikiLeaks released a new draft text. Public Citizen President Robert Weissman commented saying:

"Our analysis of a leaked version of the draft agreement, along with a draft annex on financial services, identifies threats to rules and policies ranging from limits on overall bank size to consumer protections, from prophylactic protections against new speculative financial instruments to limits on transfers of personal financial data."

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by Stephen Lendman

Washington obstructionism leaves Iran nuclear talks deadlocked as another deadline approaches for resolving remaining issues. Years of standoff persist.

Obama wants a one-way deal on his terms - demanding unreasonable Iranian concessions, raising the bar continually for more, wanting Iran subjugated and isolated as part of a longterm plan to replace its government with a US-controlled puppet regime letting Big Oil plunder its hydrocarbon resources.

Fars News cited an informed source close to negotiations saying "serious" issues remain unresolved.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said "(n)othing is definite yet. Some differences are still there, but we are trying."

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Eric Zuesse

So that U.S. President Barack Obama can end a roadblock and win the agreement of other nations for his proposed Trans Pacific Partnership, he has decided to remove one of the nations, Malaysia, from the U.S. State Department’s official list of countries that allow slavery. Malaysia, which recently found over a hundred graves of discarded slaves, has been on the U.S. State Department’s “Tier 3” list of slave nations, along with North Korea, Zimbabwe, Syria, and Iran, but, unlike those other countries, Obama wants Malaysia to be included in his Trans Pacific Partnership; so, he has decided to remove Malaysia from that official list.

This was first reported by Reuters on July 8th, under the headline “Exclusive: U.S. Upgrades Malaysia in Annual Human Trafficking Report.” Reuters announced: "The United States is upgrading Malaysia from the lowest tier on its list of worst human trafficking centers, U.S. sources said on Wednesday, a move that could smooth the way for an ambitious U.S.-led free-trade deal with the Southeast Asian nation and 11 other countries."

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by Stephen Lendman

Greece is Exhibit A for predatory capitalism's rapaciousness - profiting at the expense of human misery along with looting weak nations of their wealth, assets and enterprises.

Theft on the grandest scale reflects a world gone mad so super-rich bandits can accumulate endless more amounts of enormous wealth no matter the cost in human suffering.

Their world is unfit to live in for most people everywhere - systemic injustice on the grandest of grand scales, including mocking popular sentiment. European Council president Jean-Claude Junker called last Sunday's referendum a "circus" - overwhelming opposition to more austerity "irrelevant."

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