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Assad’s Response to Demands He Must Go
Stephen Lendman
In June 2014, he was overwhelmingly reelected Syria’s president - through a democratic process international observers called open, free and fair.
Syrians want no one else leading them. They alone have the right to decide, not foreign powers. He’s their legitimate president.
Given his popularity, he could serve as long as he wishes. On numerous occasions, he said he’ll step aside if Syrians want another leader.
Following the April 4 Kahn Sheikhoun CW attack, falsely blamed on Syria’s military, Secretary of State Tillerson said there’s “no role for (Assad) to govern the Syrian people.”
What a State-Owned Bank Can Do for New Jersey
Ellen Brown
Phil Murphy, the leading Democratic candidate for governor of New Jersey, has made a state-owned bank a centerpiece of his campaign. He says the New Jersey bank would “take money out of Wall Street and put it to work for New Jersey – creating jobs and growing the economy [by] using state deposits to finance local investments … and … support billions of dollars of critical investments in infrastructure, small businesses, and student loans – saving our residents money and returning all profits to the taxpayers.”
A former Wall Street banker himself, Murphy knows how banking works. But in an April 7 op-ed in The New Jersey Spotlight, former New Jersey state treasurer Andrew Sidamon-Eristoff questioned the need for a state-owned bank and raised the issue of risk. This post is in response to those arguments, including a short refresher on the stellar model of the Bank of North Dakota (BND), currently the nation’s only state-owned depository bank.
All the President’s Liars
Stephen Lendman
Lies, deceptions, distortions and misinformation provide bedrock justification for all wars - naked aggression when preemptively waged against countries threatening no one.
Syria was invaded and attacked. Its war isn’t civil. Its military is combating US-supported terrorists. Its survival as a nation depends on defeating them.
No evidence suggests Syria carried out CW attacks on civilians or militants any time throughout over six years of war - including on April 4 in Khan Sheikhoun, a likely CIA-orchestrated incident, using terrorists to do its dirty work. The attack came from the ground, not the air - likely from rockets filled with toxins.
Assad was falsely blamed for crimes committed by US-supported terrorists. It’s one of the oldest dirty tricks in the book - a US specialty, blaming victims for its high crimes, along with inventing phony pretexts for wars.
Keystone XL and America’s Psychopathic Government
Eric Zuesse
Keystone XL Pipeline is a long-controversial proposed Canadian pipeline project through the U.S. north to south, from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, to trans-ship the world’s most global-warming filthiest oil, from Canada’s tar-sands, to be burnt and used in Europe.
On March 24th, U.S. President Trump informed the to-be-owner of the Keystone XL Pipeline project, that he gives them the go-ahead to build it, after U.S. President Barack Obama had, near the end of his Presidency, prohibited it. Obama had wanted it built (and had pressured the EU to accept the oil that would be shipped to them from the proposed Pipeline’s southern terminus in Galveston, to sell this Canadian oil in Europe), but the EU said no; they wouldn’t relax their anti-global-warming standards to accept the world’s dirtiest oil, and this refusal by them eased Obama’s decision to give Ms. Clinton’s campaign the boost it needed by his simply nixing the project altogether. He nixed it in order to show Democratic voters that the Democratic Party cares about the environment, so as not to depress the electoral turnout for Hillary Clinton (who was actually a big supporter of fossil-fuels) on Election Day November 8th. But not only did the EU say no; the voters said no, to Clinton, too. So, this was a double disappointment to Obama; he had turned the Pipeline down for nothing — nothing that he had wanted, anyway, because global warming never seriously mattered to him (and therefore what he was doing about it in secret was supportive of the gas-and-oil industries).
Irreconcilable East/West Differences
Stephen Lendman
Russia and America are geopolitical opposites. Irreconcilable differences separate them.
Russia supports diplomatic conflict resolution, stability, security and multi-world polarity. America wages endless wars, seeking dominion over planet earth, its resources and populations.
Good faith isn’t a US tradition. Whether Republicans or Democrats are in charge, negotiating with America diplomatically achieves nothing.
Agreements reached are consistently breached. Washington seeks dominance, not cooperative relations. Ahead of his arrival in Moscow, Secretary of State Tillerson said Assad’s tenure as Syria’s leader is “coming to an end…(S)teps are underway” to remove him, without further elaboration.
Trump Administration Preparing Options to Confront North Korea
Stephen Lendman
Instead of engaging North Korea responsibly, ending decades of hostility, Trump intends confrontation - how yet to unfold.
The USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier strike group was ordered to position itself off North Korea’s coast, a show of force, a hostile act.
A spokesman for Pyongyang’s Foreign Ministry said America’s action “goes to prove (its) reckless moves for invading the DPRK have reached a serious phase.”
Its military “is ready to react to any mode of war desired by the US. We will take the toughest counteraction against the provocateurs in order to defend ourselves by powerful force of arms.”
Selling Escalated War on Syria
Stephen Lendman
Selling war requires inventing enemies, fear-mongering, substituting fake news for truth-telling, manipulating public opinion, and manufacturing consent.
Media scoundrels play along, feeding the public a steady diet of managed news misinformation, suppressing full and accurate reporting - featuring state-sponsored press agent journalism instead of the real thing, most people none the wiser.
Since GHW Bush’s 1991 Gulf War, America raped and destroyed Iraq, Somalia, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and Yemen.
It colluded with Kiev’s war on Donbass, partnered in three Israeli wars on Gaza, and toppled governments in Haiti, Honduras, Paraguay, Ukraine, Egypt and Brazil, along with other coup attempts.
Advertisers Want Media that Trump Watches & Reads
Eric Zuesse
On April 5th, Laura Nichols at Morning Consult bannered “Advertisers, Consumers Take Notice of Trump’s Unusual Media Diet”, and reported that:
Advertisers are scrambling to adjust how they reach the White House, … faced with a president who prefers Twitter and Fox News to a more wide-ranging media diet. Bill Pierce, an executive at public relations firm APCO Worldwide, explained that in the past, figuring out how to target the president would be underway before a new administration took office. This time around, some marketers are still looking for answers because they were anticipating a Hillary Clinton win. “[The outcome of the election] was a surprise to a lot of people. Everybody kind of made their plans based on a Clinton presidency, and this has meant a lot of questions, a lot of curiosity about how to talk to him, who to talk to, and what’s important,” Pierce said.
Advertisers aren’t only aiming to attract the attention of the American public to their brands; nowadays they also are aiming to attract the attention of the American President. Selling to a consumer will mean only the profits on the sales to that particular individual, but selling to the nation’s leader could mean far more than just that: perhaps federal contracts, or, ultimately, even special consideration in the event that a regulatory agency of the federal government might be considering whether or not to bring an enforcement action — and there are also many other ways in which a corporation’s drawing favorable attention to itself could possibly more than justify the choice of an advertising medium that reaches the U.S. President, instead of one that doesn’t.
Syria Again Falsely Accused of Chemical Weapons Use
Stephen Lendman
Throughout over six years of conflict, Syria was accused of using chemical weapons (CWs) numerous times - no evidence presented proving it. None exists.
US-supported terrorists conducted numerous CW attacks. These elements, Washington or its coalition partners were likely responsible for Tuesday’s Khan Sheikhoun incident - killing scores, injuring many more, large-scale enough to generate anti-Assad furor.
As expected, Western media, in unison, on cue, automatically blamed him for what happened - what’s most important never asked after these type incidents.
Cui bono? What strategic benefit could Assad achieve by killing his own people - with chemical or other weapons? None, of course.
Washington, its rogue allies and terrorist foot soldiers have plenty to gain by staging these incidents, blaming Assad with plenty of scoundrel media help.
Is North Korea Trump’s Next Target?
Stephen Lendman
Since US war on North Korea ended with an uneasy 1953 armistice, Washington used the country for fear-mongering, rather than launching more aggression to topple its government.
Does Trump intend changing longstanding policy - falsely calling Pyongyang a threat to US national security?
It’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs are for defense, not offense, justifiably fearing US war, hoping its powerful weapons will deter it.
Truman’s aggression turned much of the country to rubble, killing millions, mostly civilians. Pyongyang and Beijing want no repeat. Their leaders and top officials are pragmatic, not reckless belligerents.
Post-WW II, neither country attacked another - unlike America, waging endless wars of choice, aggressive ones. It’s just a matter of time before a US administration uses nuclear weapons - perhaps against Russia, China, North Korea or all three nations.
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