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Bernieism Pure Fantasy All Along
Stephen Lendman
Anyone examining his deplorable 30-year public service record knew there was no there there, same old, same old, masquerading as revolutionary populism, a thinly veiled facade concealing support for dirty business as usual.
It shouldn’t need explaining, yet too few people understand. America is more autocracy than democracy, more fascist than fair, more police state than populist, more ruthless over a longer duration than any regime in history - run exclusively of, by and for its privileged class. Its political process is too debauched to fix. Tinkering around the edges won’t change things. Conditions worsen each electoral cycle instead of improving - each new administration and Congress more sinister than earlier ones.
No one becomes duopoly power presidential material without being bought over too many times to count. Genuine populists have no chance whatever.
Another Cold-Blooded Israeli Murder with Impunity
Stephen Lendman
Racist US and Israeli policies bear striking similarities. Cops in America turned Black and Latino communities into battlegrounds, virtual war theaters, killing with impunity - rarely ever held accountable for cold-blooded murder and other forms of brutality.
Israel operates the same way, soldiers, police and other security forces authorized to kill or brutalize Palestinians for any reason or none at all. Investigations when conducted are farcical, whitewashed, justice systematically denied.
Mahmoud Badran, aged 15, is Israel’s latest victim, murdered by Israeli soldiers, the unprovoked attack wounding four of his cousins. Three others with them were unharmed. Initially an IDF spokesperson lied, saying live fire was used against “terrorists” throwing stones. Badran and his cousins were driving home from late night swimming, threatening no one.
A revised IDF statement said they were “mistakenly” fired on, an investigation into the incident underway, whitewash certain, accountability a nonstarter.
Michele Flournoy: A Clinton Administration’s Likely Secretary of War
Stephen Lendman
America’s Defense Department is misnamed. Its designation sanitizes its warmaking mission - endless aggression against nonbelligerent states.
The endgame is clear - unchallenged US global dominance, planet earth colonized, its resources looted, billions consigned to neoserfdom.
Flournoy is scary, cut out of the same ruthlessly dangerous cloth as Clinton, reportedly her choice to head her administration’s killing machine if elected president in November. She’s a former third-ranking Department of War official, its highest-ranking woman, co-founder of the neocon Center for a New American Security (CNAS) - promoting phony war on terror, endless wars on the pretext of protecting US interests and values.
Earlier she served in the Bill Clinton administration’s War Department, focusing on strategy, requirements, plans and counterproliferation, as well as Russia, Ukraine and Eurasian affairs.
Erdogan’s Reign of Terror Intensifies
Stephen Lendman
Purging suspected regime opposition elements rages into its sixth day, all sectors of Turkish society affected. Anyone suspected of disloyalty is vulnerable.
Mass arrests and detentions targeted thousands of military, judiciary, police, civil servants and other civilian personnel.
According to Bloomberg LP, 60,000 academics were suspended, fired or stripped of professional accreditation.
Turkey’s High Education Board (HEB) reported “licenses of 21,000 teachers working in privately-run institutions…cancelled” - claiming “(t)ip-offs” about their alleged link to “terrorist activities,” no further elaboration given.
9/11: Bush’s Guilt, And the ‘28 Pages’
Eric Zuesse
On Friday July15th, as the national newsmedia were either on vacation or preparing for the opening of the Trump National Convention on Monday the 18th, the long-awaited release of the ‘missing 28 pages’ from the U.S. Senate’s 9/11 report (“DECEMBER 2002: JOINT INQUIRY INTO INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES BEFORE AND AFTER THE TERRORIST ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001”) occurred. The official title of this document is “PART FOUR — FINDING, DISCUSSION AND NARRATIVE REGARDING CERTAIN SENSITIVE NATIONAL SECURITY MATTERS”, and it constitutes pages 6-34 of a pdf. (Some writers mistakenly call it “29 pages.” [I correct that statement; Robert Parry just now pointed out to me, it really is 29 pages: all of the previous references to it as “the missing 28 pages” had gotten the count wrong. Thanks, Robert!])
Reign of Terror Accelerates in Turkey
Stephen Lendman
Crises create opportunities for leaders to more easily do what otherwise would be harder, not feasible or practicable.
Turkey’s Erdogan is taking full advantage - mass arresting regime critics in the wake of last Friday’s real or state-sponsored rebellion - practically stillborn when launched. Perhaps it was planned this way.
He and prime minister Binali Yildirim vowed retaliation against US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen and his “movement,” accusing him of orchestrating Friday events - despite no corroborating evidence.
Calling his supporters a “parallel terrorist organization,” he vowed to “dig them up by their roots so that no clandestine terrorist organization will have the nerve to betray our blessed people again.”
Lockdown in Cleveland: Party Unity v. Anti-Trumpism
Stephen Lendman
Cleveland is occupied GOP territory, the area around the Quicken Loans Arena convention site taken over from city residents.
Thousands of heavily armed state and local police, DHS and federal secret service agents, along with National Guard and federal troops available if needed to control things. Police states operate this way.
What’s orchestrated resembles a militarized event as much as a party unifying one to choose its standard bearer. Monday’s theme was making America safe again.
US and French Warplanes Massacre Civilians in Syria on Phony Pretext of Combating ISIS
Stephen Lendman
Rogue states like France, other NATO nations, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and regional ones allied with America’s imperial project represent the greatest threat to world peace - committing genocidal high crimes in waging war on humanity.
Syria’s Foreign Ministry repeatedly appeals in vain to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and rotating Security Council presidents.
On July 19, it sent them identical letters, saying “French unjust aggression claimed the lives of more than 120 civilians, most of them are children, women and elderly, in addition to tens of wounded citizens, the majority of them are also children and women as reports say that the fate of scores of other civilians who still under debris are unknown too.”
Four in Five Americans Say Nation Heading in Wrong Direction
Stephen Lendman
Eight years ago, Obama promised hope and change. Betrayal and dirtier business than under George Bush followed.
All politicians lie. Judge them solely by their actions. They serve wealth, power and privilege exclusively. Popular needs increasingly go begging.
Each wing of America’s duopoly party mimics the other - in lockstep on issues mattering most. No wonder most Americans distrust politicians. What’s to like - Bernie Sanders’ sellout to war criminal/racketeer Hillary Clinton the latest outrage. The guy millions trusted is as dirty and rotten a scoundrel as all the rest. His lofty rhetoric turned out to be Big Lies substituting for honor and principle.
According to an AP/GfK poll, “(a) stunning 79% of (respondents surveyed) now believe the country is heading in the wrong direction…voters…strikingly unhappy with” both major party candidates.
Wall Street Angry that Trump Says Restore Glass-Steagall
Eric Zuesse
On July 18th, Rob Nichols, the President of the American Bankers’ Association, which is controlled by the mega-banks, struck back against Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump. Nichols criticized Trump’s insistence to restore the Democratic U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s top reform of the U.S. economy, the Glass-Steagall Act, which prevented another taxpayer bailout of Wall Street firms for their gambling losses — it was the law President Bill Clinton with overwhelming Republican support in 1999 repealed. Trump is committing himself against that Clinton-Republican repeal of FDR’s law. Trump insists it be restored so that there won’t be a repeat of the Bush-Obama Wall Street bailout.
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