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How Saudi Arabia and Israel Undermine the War on Terror – LobeLog

Posted by M. C. on August 28, 2019

Israel supported the anti-Assad forces in Syria, and Israeli officials let it be known that they would prefer a Wahhabi takeover of that country as opposed to president Assad remaining in power

https://lobelog.com/how-saudi-arabia-and-israel-undermine-the-war-on-terror/

by Ali Rizk

A recent report from the Pentagon inspector general, warning of the “resurgence” of the Islamic State (IS or ISIS), highlights a fact that has become abundantly clear: Washington’s “war on terror” is a failure.

Despite the formation of a “Global Coalition” to fight ISIS back in September 2014, the Pentagon report estimates that there are still between 14,000 and 18,000 ISIS combatants in Iraq and Syria. The report also argues that the terrorist group has enhanced its insurgent capabilities. These estimates and assessments are the latest piece of evidence showing that the U.S. has adopted the wrong approach to counterterrorism…

Saudi Arabia and Israel: Obstacles in the “War on Terror”

Washington’s failure in the “war on terror” has a lot to do with the fact that two of its closest allies are Saudi Arabia and Israel.

Al-Qaeda and ISIS are terrorist movements that adhere to the Saudi sponsored Wahhabi doctrine—a narrow minded extremist ideology that Saudi Arabia has spread throughout the world.

The Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka that killed over 250 people put the spotlight once again on Wahhabism and Saudi Arabia’s role in spreading it. Five Sri Lankans believed to be linked to the bombings were deported from Saudi Arabia to Sri Lanka where they were taken into police custody. Sri Lankan authorities also arrested a Wahhabi scholar in the aftermath of the bombings.

Despite the ideological lifeline Saudi Arabia provides to these terrorist groups, it has never been the focus of Washington’s “war on terror”. U.S. administrations have focused on military means that include killing senior terrorist leaders, without addressing the critical ideological factor. Washington has therefore failed in “destroying the idea” and terrorist movements are quickly able to replenish their ranks with new terrorists replacing those that are killed.

Under the leadership of crown prince Mohammad bin Salman, Saudi Arabia has become an even bigger enabler of al-Qaeda. Due to the reckless Saudi war in Yemen, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (often described as the most dangerous Al-Qaeda affiliate) has greatly expanded its presence in that country. Saudi Arabia has also joined forces with al-Qaeda in Yemen against the Houthi movement. Nevertheless, Washington has supported the Saudi war in Yemen from the beginning, and the Trump administration has doubled down on this support.

Israeli enmity with Iran and Hezbollah is a major reason why the U.S. labels these actors as terrorists when in fact they have actually fought against terrorists in places like Syria and Iraq. Israel supported the anti-Assad forces in Syria, and Israeli officials let it be known that they would prefer a Wahhabi takeover of that country as opposed to president Assad remaining in power. The reason? Assad’s alliance with Iran. In an interview with the Jerusalem Post back in September 2013, the Israeli ambassador to Washington at the time, Michael Oren, remarked, “We always wanted Bashar Assad to go, we always preferred the bad guys who weren’t backed by Iran to the bad guys who were backed by Iran”. Israel even went as far as to provide assistance to al-Qaeda elements fighting the Syrian state. A report by the Wall Street Journal in March 2015 revealed that Israel had provided medical treatment to al-Qaeda terrorists who had been wounded in the fighting.

Owing largely to Washington’s traditional “Israel first policy” in the region, it too chose to take sides with the anti-Assad forces, despite the fact that a large segment of them were Wahhabi extremists from groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS…

The Trump administration’s designation of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization was a dream come true for Saudi Arabia and Israel and at the same time a step that runs contrary to any logical approach in the fight against terror. Iran and allies like Hezbollah have proven very capable in fighting Wahhabi terrorists. Because of the special hatred these terrorist have for Shiites, Iranian and Hezbollah fighters enjoy an advantage of doctrine and are highly motivated in waging this battle. A logical approach would therefore be for Washington to team up with Iran and its allies in the fight against terror.

Sadly, however, the Trump administration has diminished any chances of this becoming a reality.

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My Corner by Boyd Cathey BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP and the Future of America

Posted by M. C. on August 28, 2019

http://boydcatheyreviewofbooks.blogspot.com/

Friends,

Kamala Harris is very angry with Donald Trump.

With her usual condescension and scorn, she tweeted out on Thursday, August 22, that Donald Trump should go read the 14th Amendment—the implication being that when the president brought up, once again, the possibility that he might issue an Executive Order regulating birthright citizenship, he was woefully misreading the application of that Reconstruction amendment.

Of course, for a supercilious Leftist elitist like Harris, Trump will forever be that ignorant, brash, illiterate, racist New Yorker who is just way out of his league. It doesn’t really make any difference that he graduated with a B.S. in Economics from the prestigious Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. You see, he doesn’t have all the fineries and veneer of the self-proclaimed East Coast-West Coast Brahmin Elites who have controlled this country, its economy, its foreign policy, and its government for more than a century. Despite the fact that he has—in my view—given in far too often to those same Elites, nevertheless, they will only accept 100% obedience and compliance. Upsetting the apple cart, thwarting the advance of globalism in the slightest will get you—the Russia Hoax, the White Nationalist/Racist Hoax, the Gun Control Hoax, endless investigations and multiple mini-impeachment efforts, plus the extreme and active (even violent) hostility of almost all the media, academia, Hollywood, and the political class.

You can’t get off the Deep State reservation, even a hare, and expect any mercy.

So, when once again the president declared that his administration was looking into ending “birthright citizenship” through a presidential Executive Order—something he had suggested back in October of 2018—all hell broke loose, and the officious and ideologically crazed Harris jumped like a famished black snake on a defenseless toad. Once again it was the Trump template of “full blown racism,” “appeals to white supremacy,” “undermining and attacking our democracy,” and, of course, since Trump is an illegitimate president, an interloper—then almost any type of resistance is permissible.

What such an Executive Order would do is clarify the application of the 14th Amendment and, essentially, end birthright citizenship for children of illegal aliens who come across the US border and then produce offspring who, then, as if by magic become American citizens.

Recall that the amendment was enacted after the War Between the States to guarantee the rights of citizenship to manumitted slaves and their offspring. And, indeed, there is a serious legal question about whether the amendment itself was ever legally and legitimately ratified. But be that as it may, it has applied ever since 1868.

Here is how Section 1 of the 14th Amendment reads:

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Harris and other open border zealots always quote the first section: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States…are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” But the leave out, either by mistake or by direction: “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”

It’s a key phrase, critical to understanding what the authors of the amendment intended and what for nearly 100 years was settled law up until the 1960s when leftist lawmakers got into the act simply by de facto practical applications. In other words, between the very clear and forthright intention of its authors that the 14th Amendment only applied to slaves and their offspring born in the United States who are necessarily “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” and the imposed practice we now have which enables a foreign woman to illegally slip across the Rio Grande and have a child who then, by that simple act, becomes a citizen and an “anchor baby,” permitting its illegal relations to all come across—between these two interpretations and applications there is an absolute irreconcilable difference.

The key figures in drafting the amendment at the time were clear: Senator Lyman Trumbull, pivotal in the drafting the 14th Amendment, declared “subject to the jurisdiction” meant subject to “complete” jurisdiction of the United States, and “[n]ot owing allegiance to anybody else.” Senator Jacob Howard of Michigan, responsible for the critical language of the jurisdiction clause, stated that it meant “a full and complete jurisdiction,” that is, “the same jurisdiction in extent and quality as applies to every citizen of the United States now.” In other words, a non-citizen simply by giving birth on this side geographically of the Rio Grande does not produce a new citizen of the United States.

Presented with this history, those defending the current practice, including Judge Andrew Napolitano on Fox, appeal, like Harris, to constitutional practice and to the courts.

But, actually, the Supreme Court has spoken on this question, at least indirectly.

In 1884, sixteen years after the 14th Amendment was ratified, John Elk, an American Indian, went to court to argue that he was an American citizen due to his birth in the United States. In Elk v. Wilkins, 112 U.S. 94, the Supreme Court ruled that the 14th Amendment did not grant Indians citizenship. As Ann Coulter cites that decision:

[The] “main object of the opening sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment was to settle the question, upon which there had been a difference of opinion throughout the country and in this court, as to the citizenship of free negroes and to put it beyond doubt that all persons, white or black … should be citizens of the United States and of the state in which they reside.”

And she adds: “American Indians were not made citizens until 1924. Lo those 56 years after the ratification of the 14th Amendment, Indians were not American citizens, despite the considered opinion of Judge Napolitano.”

Ending birthright citizenship, based on a false and specious reading of the 14th Amendment, is an idea whose time has come, in fact, is far overdue. At the very least, an Executive Order would force the courts, including the Supreme Court, to take a serious look at the historic abuse of our immigration system and the definition of American citizenship.

Let us hope that this time—nearly a year since he raised it—President Trump will follow through on his consideration: birthright citizenship has been and is an Achilles’ Heel in American immigration policy. Ending it would be a major step in securing our border and preserving the integrity of our culture.

**************

I believe I passed on to you last year the following legal essay by Professor of Law, John Eastman. It is a succinct but thorough restatement of the points made in my commentary:…

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Beginning of US Slavery – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on August 28, 2019

There are several challenges one can make about Hannah-Jones’ article, but I’m going to focus on the article’s most serious error, namely that the nation’s founders intended for us to be a democracy. That error is shared by too many Americans.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/08/walter-e-williams/beginning-of-us-slavery/

By

The New York Times has begun a major initiative, the “1619 Project,” to observe the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe American history so that slavery and the contributions of black Americans explain who we are as a nation. Nikole Hannah-Jones, staff writer for The New York Times Magazine wrote the lead article, “America Wasn’t a Democracy, Until Black Americans Made It One.” She writes, “Without the idealistic, strenuous and patriotic efforts of black Americans, our democracy today would most likely look very different — it might not be a democracy at all.”

There are several challenges one can make about Hannah-Jones’ article, but I’m going to focus on the article’s most serious error, namely that the nation’s founders intended for us to be a democracy. That error is shared by too many Americans. The word democracy appears nowhere in the two most fundamental founding documents of our nation — the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. Instead of a democracy, the Constitution’s Article IV, Section 4, declares, “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government.” Think about it and ask yourself whether our Pledge of Allegiance says to “the democracy for which it stands” or to “the republic for which it stands.” Is Julia Ward Howe’s popular Civil War song titled “The Battle Hymn of the Democracy” or “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”?

The founders had utter contempt for democracy. James Madison, the acknowledged father of the Constitution, wrote in Federalist Paper No. 10, that in a pure democracy “there is nothing to check the inducement to sacrifice the weaker party or the obnoxious individual.” At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, delegate Edmund Randolph said, “that in tracing these evils to their origin every man had found it in the turbulence and follies of democracy.” John Adams said: “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There was never a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall observed, “Between a balanced republic and a democracy, the difference is like that between order and chaos.”

The U.S. Constitution is replete with anti-majority rule, undemocratic provisions. One provision, heavily criticized, is the Electoral College. In their wisdom, the framers gave us the Electoral College so that in presidential elections, heavily populated states could not run roughshod over sparsely populated states. In order to amend the Constitution, it requires a two-thirds vote of both Houses, or two-thirds of state legislatures, to propose an amendment, and requires three-fourths of state legislatures for ratification. Part of the reason for having a bicameral Congress is that it places another obstacle to majority rule. Fifty-one senators can block the wishes of 435 representatives and 49 senators. The president, with a veto, can thwart the will of all 535 members of Congress. It takes a two-thirds vote, not just a majority, of both houses of Congress to override a presidential veto.

In addition to not understanding our Constitution, Hannah-Jones’ article, like in most discussions of black history, fails to acknowledge that black Americans have made the greatest gains, over some of the highest hurdles in the shortest span of time than any other racial group in mankind’s history. The evidence: If black Americans were thought of as a nation with our own gross domestic product, we’d rank among the 20 wealthiest nations. It was a black American, Gen. Colin Powell, who headed the world’s mightiest military. A few black Americans are among the world’s wealthiest. Black Americans are among the world’s most famous personalities.

The significance of this is that in 1865, neither a slave nor a slave owner would have believed that such progress would be possible in less than a century and a half, if ever. As such, it speaks to the intestinal fortitude of a people. Just as importantly, it speaks to the greatness of a nation within which such progress was possible, progress that would have been impossible anywhere else. The challenge before us is how those gains can be extended to a large percentage of black people for whom they appear elusive.

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Does Israel Interfere in American Elections?, by Philip Giraldi – The Unz Review

Posted by M. C. on August 28, 2019

http://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/does-israel-interfere-in-american-elections/

Ask Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib

Does anyone remember what the Mueller investigation was all about? It was to determine whether the team surrounding candidate and then president-elect Donald Trump had colluded with a foreign power, presumed to be Russia. It did not discover any such collaboration to get Trump elected president, but it did discover a foreign nation that had directly intervened with key players surrounding president-elect Trump to get them to do it a favor. That country was Israel, but somehow the media never quite managed to pull it all together even if leading public intellectual Noam Chomsky was able to, saying “…if you’re interested in foreign interference in our elections, whatever the Russians may have done barely counts or weighs in the balance as compared with what another state does, openly, brazenly and with enormous support. Israeli intervention in US elections vastly overwhelms anything the Russians may have done, I mean, even to the point where the prime minister of Israel, Netanyahu, goes directly to Congress, without even informing the president, and speaks to Congress, with overwhelming applause, to try to undermine the president’s policies…”

This is how Jewish power works on behalf of the Jewish state. It is done right out in the open, at least if one knows where to look, and it operates by what the intelligence community would refer to as misdirection. That means that you never talk about Israel itself, except in a positive, laudatory fashion, you never mention Jewish power in America, and, finally, you have in reserve some fabricated threats that can be surfaced to dominate discussion and render Israel’s malign activity invisible.

Currently, the Russian threat is the enemy du jour. Even though we now know that “Russiagate” never existed in any serious form, it continues to be hyped by both the Democratic Party and by the accommodating media as the over-the-horizon threat to American democracy. It is now being claimed, minus any real evidence, that the Kremlin has a plan to ruin the upcoming 2020 election by way of nationwide tampering with the voting machines and the electronic tallying procedures. Oddly enough, the states, where the voting actually takes place, have not noticed any attempted Russian interference. As the story goes, if the Russians are successful, no one will have any confidence in the results and the American republican experiment will collapse in ruins.

No one is, of course, asking why Moscow would want to change a United States that, for all its power, is so politically inept and corrupt from top to bottom that it found itself unable to stage a coup in Venezuela. If the U.S. government collapses, it might well be replaced by something more authoritarian and, dare I say, more efficient, that would certainly pose a greater threat to Russia, so why would Putin want that?

Nevertheless, many people who should know better are hyping the threat. I sometimes peruse the Defense One website, a warmhearted place funded by defense contractors where all those people who want to blow up the world can share bon mots and grin about all the money they are making.

Last week I noted a particularly loathesome article on the site “Here’s what foreign interference will look like in 2020,” written by one Uri Friedman, who I presume to be – inevitably – an Israeli. Uri is very upset about all those evil countries that will be/might be interfering in the election, to include Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela, Syria, North Korea and the United Arab Emirates – though he does exclude the one country that is most likely to interfere, which is, of course, Israel…

In other words, Friedman actually concedes that Russia didn’t do anything and the evidence that it is planning an attack for 2020 is thin to non-existent. But here in the United States, other foreign agents are hard at work to remove the two Muslim women elected to the House of Representatives in 2018 “for Jewish reasons.”

Philip Weiss of Mondoweiss reports how the tale of powerful Detroit region-based Jews raising money and pulling in political markers to try to defeat Rep. Rashida Tlaib has been circulating on the web. Per Weiss, Ron Kampeas of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported on a gathering of Jewish power brokers in Detroit three weeks ago, arranged by a leading Jewish organization, at which they vowed to raise money to get rid of Tlaib because she supports a boycott of Israel. Tlaib is a Muslim woman and is a U.S. born and raised Palestinian-American.

Tlaib responded to the story on twitter: “This type of hate never succeeds when the truth is on our side. Palestinians *are* dehumanized. Those who want to suppress the truth by trying to discredit me can #bringit. My sidy [grandmother in Palestine] taught me of the days where everyone lived side by side in peace & that is what I will fight for.”

The meeting was held at Bloomfield Hills Michigan branch office of the Jewish Federation, the largest Jewish group in the United States. It included many local Jewish leaders and potential political donors who are clearly not bothered by dual loyalty, but it did not appear to include anyone who actually lives in Tlaib’s district. Nevertheless, consensus was quickly established that “the Palestinian-American freshman in the 13th District [Tlaib] has got to go.”

One participant declared “We in this community will go against Rashida Tlaib” while another described how there had already been an approach to Brenda Jones, the Detroit City Council president, who had been defeated in 2018 by Tlaib. Money was being raised for her campaign, according to another participant.

The thinking in the room was that the African-American community in the 13th Congressional District would support a single black candidate — likely Jones — and that candidate would also be able to draw on considerable pro-Israel support for funding and favorable media coverage.

There was some pushback, with a rabbi telling Kampeas that a Jewish organized effort to remove Tlaib would be “catastrophic.” He observed that it would be such an open and blatant demonstration of Jewish power that it would be a major setback to the effort to keep younger, more liberal Jews, who are suspicious of power politics, engaged.

The rabbi was being naïve. Removing politicians who are not fully on board with the Israel agenda is normal practice and has been for many years. Just ask Senators William Fulbright and Chuck Percy or Congressmen Paul Findley, Pete McCloskey, and Cynthia McKinney. Criticizing Israel means not being reelected to Congress next time around, and it is not because Israel is greatly loved by voters...

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The Fascist History of Antifa – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on August 28, 2019

As can be plainly seen, Antifa is not anti-fascist; they are the true successors of fascism, considering their propensity for mob violence and the “fanatical socialism” that Hitler proclaimed in 1941

It was H.L. Menken who predicted in 1938 that “Fascism… is very apt to come in under the name of anti-Fascism.”

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/08/lk-samuels/the-fascist-history-of-antifa/

By

Recently in Portland, Oregon, Antifa again went on the warpath against common civility. In a string of violent political attacks, these extremists have become the flashpoint in an effort to divide the nation. Worse, supporters of Antifa continue to play the anti-fascist card, painting opponents as fascists and racists. Such deceptive language simply hides the true history of Antifa and the role it played in World War II Italy.

The various Italian so-called anti-fascist groups that organized to fight Mussolini from 1943 to 1945 found themselves joining forces with many of Mussolini’s Blackshirt units. Historian Charles F. Delzell, one of the leading experts on modern Italian political history, explained this historical fact in his books.  He wrote that since “a good many Fascists (beginning with Mussolini himself) came from the ranks of left-wing Marxism and syndicalism,”… it was easy for a “certain number of ex-Blackshirts to swing to left-wing political extremism.” Delzell and other historians clearly make the case that Mussolini’s Blackshirts and Antifa factions in Italy forged an alliance because their ideologies were so similar. After all, Mussolini had been diehard Marxist for decades, even when he was the avowed leader of the Fascist Revolutionary Party.

In discussing why militant socialists would flock together, Delzell offered this explanation: “Fascists and Communists often found themselves appealing to the same kinds of alienated people.” Other historians, like Zeev Sternhell, agreed: explaining that fascism was a “direct result of very specific revision of Marxism.” UC Berkeley political scientist A. James Gregor regards “Fascism as a variant of Marxism.”

As can be plainly seen, Antifa is not anti-fascist; they are the true successors of fascism, considering their propensity for mob violence and the “fanatical socialism” that Hitler proclaimed in 1941. Moreover, the comrades of Antifa could be described “anarcho-statist militants,” who bully, terrorize, and attack anyone who will not join their crusade. That is because Mussolini was not only an “authoritarian communist’ who believed in a big state, but advocated street violence as an “anarcho-syndicalist.” Modern-day Antifa echo similar demagogic and contrived sentiments. They repeatedly engage in the sort of militarized street theatrics that were fashionable among Fascist and Communist mobs prior to World War II. In fact, Hitler’s Brownshirts emulated the Italian Blackshirts, attacking and violently disrupting other political groups, such as conservative German National People’s Party (DNVP) in the early 1930s, knocking down, kicking down and throwing “stink bombs and tear gas” during violent scuffles. Astonishingly, theAntifa shock-troop rioters continue to behave like Fascists in order to oppose fascism, which illustrates their complete ignorance of Italian Fascism and German National Socialism.

Moreover, these modern-day Antifa stormtroopers have even abused minorities to obtain power and control. In June of this year, a mostly white army of so-called “anti-racist” Antifa militants attacked Andy Ngo, a gay Asian-American journalist from Portland, sending him to the hospital for cuts and possible brain damage. Amazingly, the mainstream media took little notice of this attack on the free press and on a gay man, who was completely marginalized by people who dismiss civil society and individual rights.

In another alarming case, at U.C. Berkley in 2017, jackbooted black-clad Antifa goons beat up and kicked peaceful protesters, wielding clubs and pepper spray as they carried homemade shields that read “No Hate.” Incredibly, these neo-Fascists are unaware of the irony of their message and of who they are actually imitating. They are also oblivious to the fact that the original fascists had blind faith in a totalitarian worldview that sanctifies physical violence as ethically justifiable.

It was H.L. Menken who predicted in 1938 that “Fascism… is very apt to come in under the name of anti-Fascism.” Antifa needs to be identified as what it really represents: a movement that America fought and defeated in World War II, but which seems to be gaining ground again.

Much of the material is excerpted from L.K. Samuels’ new book, Killing History: The False Left-Right Political Spectrum.

 

 

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Brazil’s Insane War Against Trees – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on August 28, 2019

Recycling all wood is the first step. Banning open-air camp fires is another sensible step. Those who make a living by killing trees and animals must be advised to find other work at a time when labor is short.

Aside of Eric that is new to me.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/08/eric-margolis/brazils-insane-war-against-trees/

By

Cut down the trees. Kill the wild animals. Burn the bush. Pollute the rivers. Pave over the grass. Raise more beef, pigs and poultry in cages.

That’s the credo of the new right. Hatred of Nature is an integral part of its politics. President Donald Trump is the high priest of such environmental vandalism. In his narrow land-developer mind, Nature is a left-wing liberal conspiracy.

Trump’s Brazilian wannabe, President Jair Bolsonaro, is now doing his mentor one better: he encouraged Brazilian farmers, loggers and miners, all key Bolsonaro constituencies, to accelerate their destruction of the Amazon rain forest, which provides 20% of the Earth’s oxygen.

The farmers, miners and loggers responded to his call by burning the irreplaceable forest, the world’s largest, at a rate over 80% higher than last year. Rarely has the world seen a more horrifying example of humans destroying the small planet on which they live.

Bolsonaro and his fellow Brazilian vandals say they lack the means to stop this incendiary epidemic. Nonsense. The Brazilian president is a former army officer. He must deploy the entire Brazilian Army to protect his nation’s most important resource, the Amazon. Neighboring Bolivia, Columbia and Paraguay should join in. Here is a perfect example for the UN Security Council to take action by declaring the 75,000 man-made fires a threat to all humanity and threaten to sanction Brazil’s exports if its does not take decisive action.

France’s president, Emmanuel Macron put it right at the current G7 meeting at Biarritz, ‘our house is on fire.’ France, Spain and Portugal all have their very serious dry season fires, but they send small armies to combat them. Climate change is playing a major role in sparking the raging fires. Unlike Bolsonaro, the European nations don’t absurdly claim the fires were begun by NGO’s (non-governmental environmental organizations).

Brazil’s army numbers 222,700 men, backed by reserves of 1,980,000. Mobilize them. Bolsonaro has been eager to send special paramilitary militia groups into slums in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. Send them to the Amazon, which has three million species of plants and animals, and one million indigenous people….

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Marijuana Reprobate – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on August 28, 2019

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/08/david-gornoski/marijuana-reprobate/

By

The following is an article by Craig Cesal, federal prisoner sentenced to life without the possibility of parole as a first-time offender convicted of conspiring to distribute marijuana:

“I sentence you to a term of natural life imprisonment, without the possibility of parole.” These were the words I heard in the months after the events of September 11, 2001. You see, at that time, the news was abuzz with theories that drug dealers finance terrorists, and I had just been convicted of my first felony: Conspiring to Distribute Marijuana. This was the newest foray into the War on Drugs.

I was never alleged to have bought, sold, or even used marijuana, but rather my business repaired semi-trucks for a company that trafficked marijuana. I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong, as I didn’t do anything with marijuana. I was wrong, according to the Federal Court in Gainesville, Georgia. My business, nestled near Chicago, was auctioned by lawyers in Georgia to pay for their services to secure the life sentence, after my home and savings were spent. Two months ago, recreational marijuana was approved for sale by the Illinois legislature. Some of my business equipment is likely again being used to repair trucks which have hauled marijuana.

For over seventeen years, I have watched robbers, rapists, and even murderers come and go at the prison. Last year, a guy in my cellblock who killed two Federal Marshalls was paroled after serving thirty years. I’ve been watching the news, and I’m waiting to see if we prisoners can get the right to vote.

Here at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, the cornerstone, which denotes A.D. 1937, reminds me the prison was opened the year marijuana was made illegal by the federal government. The construction workers likely used pot when they built the prison. Looking out from my job at the prison factory, where we make blankets for the military, I can see the Death House—where Timothy McVeigh and others died. He spent less time in federal prison than me, although his current housing is likely worse.

From Cellblock D, a couple of weeks ago, John Walker Lindh, the so-called “White Taliban” who shot CIA agents in Afghanistan, well, he went home having exhausted his twenty year sentence. He came in after me,  and with good time credits, he only served seventeen years. I’ve also served more time in prison than the terrorist. But, to my knowledge, he never aided others who schlepped marijuana. Whew, a good thing, or he’d still be here in prison with me. He is convicted of providing aid to terrorists, albeit not with marijuana.

Prison is intended to teach offenders not to violate the law again, or simply, for those, like me, the judge deemed irredeemable, to teach the public, who may be thinking of something related to marijuana. At times, I scratch my head trying to fathom who is learning what following the imposition of my sentence. Bradley Manning made Wikileaks a household word, and Obama sent him home because he wore a dress. Klinger, of M*A*S*H. fame, had no such luck. Obama also turned down my clemency request. Just what am I, or anyone else, supposed to learn from my life-for-pot sentence?

The Terre Haute prison abuts the Wabash River, which separates Indiana from Illinois. From the right places, I can see Illinois across the river, where I lived, and where marijuana distribution, and thereby marijuana conspiracy, is encouraged by State tax collectors. Did I merely have bad timing in selling services to marijuana traffickers from my perch in Illinois? Nope, federal DEA agents are still nabbing distributors in Illinois, well, because they still can. Oh, and the money from the marijuana dispensaries likely pay their salaries. Hopefully, I’ll learn my lesson in prison.

I imagine I can learn from the Federal Bureau of Prison’s paycheck collectors charged with caging me. The prison buildings are surrounded by tall fences, razor wire, and cameras. No one from the media, from a family, or from an auditor can get in to see what staffers actually do inside the fence. Guards often go days without so much as seeing an inmate, if they even show up for work. Most will spend more years on retirement pay benefits, than the years they ostensibly worked.

A sentence of life is actually a sentence of up until death. Staff are flummoxed trying to discern what to put in the FBOP form for my release date. Death won’t work, it must be a number. The last time I checked, it was sometime in 2028. Remember, nobody is coming over the fence and razor wire to check on them. But no release is imminent.

The Sentencing Judge determined I am a marijuana reprobate. I am thus irredeemable, and unworthy of anything other than final damnation in prison. Murderers are released after 13.4 years on average, according to the Department of Justice, and a terrorist can go home after seventeen years. But I am a prisoner of the War on Drugs. There’s no hope for me under existing federal law.

I’ve learned my lesson, and lawmakers should be pushed to learn a lesson. Federal drug laws, especially marijuana laws, are long overdue for reform. The “fix” must also include sensible relief for prisoners of the failed War on Drugs.

Craig Cesal

Reg. #52948-019
FCI Terre Haute
P.O. Box 33
Terre Haute, IN 47808

To learn more about Craig Cesal and his experiences, visit his Facebook page here. Join over 300,000 fellow citizens in helping Craig’s mission to give away his daughter in marriage by signing his petition for clemency here.

 

 

 

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Fast Company: Silicon Valley Is Building a Communist-style ‘Social Credit’ System

Posted by M. C. on August 27, 2019

…if you engage in behavior that the regime doesn’t like, they’ll assign you a score, and when it drops below a certain point, they’ll exclude you from certain basic services…

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2019/08/26/fast-company-silicon-valley-is-building-a-communist-style-social-credit-system/#

by Allum Bokhari

Fast Company has caught on to what Breitbart News has been highlighting for some time: that the Big Tech Masters of the Universe are developing systems to monitor and regulate personal behavior that closely resemble China’s totalitarian “social credit” system.

The “social credit” system assigns all Chinese citizens a “social credit score.” A citizen’s score drops if he engages in a range of disfavored activities, ranging from littering to supporting political dissidents.

Citizens whose score drops low enough can find themselves subject to strict punishment, including bans from the use of public transport, exclusion from top jobs, and prohibitions on their children attending top-rated schools.

This may sound alien and Orwellian, but as Fast Company notes, Silicon Valley is bringing a version of this grim reality to America.

Via Fast Company:

Many Westerners are disturbed by what they read about China’s social credit system. But such systems, it turns out, are not unique to China. A parallel system is developing in the United States, in part as the result of Silicon Valley and technology-industry user policies, and in part by surveillance of social media activity by private companies.

The articles goes on to note a range of ways in which western citizens are being systematically rated, and in some cases excluded, by corporate America. These include insurance companies scanning the social media feeds of applicants, an app called “PatronScan,” that logs the face and name of troublesome bar and restaurant clientele, and the growing tendency of services like Airbnb, Uber, and WhatsApp to ban users for arbitrary reasons.

The comparison to China’s social credit system is similar to the one this reporter made on Breitbart News Daily in June:

In China, they have what’s called a “social credit system” — in which, if you engage in behavior that the regime doesn’t like, they’ll assign you a score, and when it drops below a certain point, they’ll exclude you from certain basic services, like transportation, they might not let your kids go to good schools — all sorts of basic services, they’ll cut you off from.

We have a corporate version of this already evolving. So if you don’t do the things that Facebook approves of, they’re going to cut you off from their platform, which is now essential for maintaining a social network, building a business, running for office. We rely on Facebook and other social media platforms for so many things. Uber and Lyft will also ban you now — they’ve started to ban people for political viewpoints, so you think China is the only one that’s going to cut you off from transportation for having the wrong opinions — well, Western corporations are now doing that, too. Airbnb, Amazon, they’re all doing it.

One other comparison from the Fast Company article deserves note — the Chinese communist government’s partnership with tech platforms like Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter. Far from aiding dissidents, Chinese social media companies like Weibo and WeChat aid and abet the government in the persecution of its citizens.

That too, has eerie parallels with the West, where social media platforms have become a means of extra-judicial censorship for politicians. Because America has the First Amendment, politicians can’t pass laws suppressing speech or punishing dissidents against the established order — but they can, and frequently do, bully tech companies into doing their dirty work for them.

Be seeing you

 

 

 

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‘Protests turn violent’ with ‘gunfire’ — PBS lies about its own report on Israeli attacks in Gaza

Posted by M. C. on August 27, 2019

It shows that the truth is simply too negative to Israel to be handed over to an American audience unspun. And yes I am completely cynical about PBS’s motivation. It is afraid of the Israel lobby, it is afraid of donor mutiny. So it lies about its own reporter’s story.

“To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticise”

https://mondoweiss.net/2019/08/protests-violent-gunfire/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=protests-violent-gunfire

Last week PBS ran a brilliant piece from Gaza by Jane Ferguson that highlighted Israel’s maiming of hundreds or thousands of young protesters with leg-shattering rifle-shots.

The focus of the piece was Dr. Adnan al Borsh, a surgeon, who described in precise English the explosive nature of the wounds and his efforts to save young Palestinians, captured by a photograph of him falling asleep in an operating room chair at 1 a.m. on May 14, 2018, the day that Israel killed over 60 protesters.

The sympathy of the piece was entirely with young men who had once loved to play soccer in their open-air prison. Ferguson:

Most of these kids have never seen the outside world, trapped in a tiny strip of land under blockade by the Israeli government and ruled over by the militant group Hamas.

I watched this report last week as a rapt amateur, with my heart in my throat. Another excerpt:

Ferguson: Waleed and his friends say they were unarmed, protesting near the border fence, when he was shot by a sniper.

Waleed Al Ramlawi (through translator): The Israelis were dealing with us as though we were an army. They were not dealing with us as peaceful protesters. We had no weapons, just our bodies.

I was planning to celebrate the PBS New Hour, then I saw the packaging of the report. The title on the PBS site is: “Gazans suffer life-shattering injuries when border protests turn violent.” And host John Yang — I missed this when I was sitting at dinner — put the blame on the Palestinians in his intro:

For many months now, Palestinians in Gaza have regularly protested their conditions along the border fence with Israel. Those protests have often turned violent, resulting in deaths and permanent injuries.

Militant Palestinians have lobbed rockets and gunfire at Israel, especially targeting the soldiers at the border. But some international observers say the response of late has taken a disturbing turn.

These are… lies. There was nothing in the report to justify such a misrepresentation. Ferguson never mentioned gunfire. She did say that Palestinians sometimes send flaming kites over the border that can burn farmland, and that “the most cynical here encourage the smallest to approach the fence, goading Israeli guards.” There has been no “disturbing turn” lately.

Ferguson never mentioned rockets, never mentioned gunfire– except from Israel.

The repeated judgment in the piece was: Israel shooting these protesters is a war crime.

Ferguson: Human rights groups say this is a war crime…

Saleh Hijazi [of Amnesty International]: The willful cause of injury and the willful cause of death is a war crime…

Ferguson: in a damning report released in March, the United Nations’ independent commission of inquiry disputed [the Israeli justification], saying the Israeli military sniping at protesters was unlawful and unjustified, and should be referred to the International Criminal Court at The Hague.

The U.N. noted that some protesters threw stones and lit kites on fire to send across the fence, but the majority were peaceful civilians. Israeli soldiers, the commission said, shot and killed children, paramedics, journalists and the disabled, fully aware of who they were.

So Ferguson all but dismissed Israeli denials of the charge, and her piece took the p-o-v of a protester, Amin Asleep:

“I come every Friday, and I would come every day if the protest was every day. We in Gaza have nothing to do, no work. All of these people around don’t have a single shekel, because we are living under the siege. And the siege is constant.”

It’s hard to convey how disgraceful John Yang’s setup was and the New Hour’s packaging.

It shows that the truth is simply too negative to Israel to be handed over to an American audience unspun. And yes I am completely cynical about PBS’s motivation. It is afraid of the Israel lobby, it is afraid of donor mutiny. So it lies about its own reporter’s story.

And here’s the proof, an Israel lobby group attacked the report last week for “humanizing” Palestinians, and said PBS “cripples the truth.” PBS anticipates that sort of attack. It is accountable to racists.

Thanks to James North. 

Be seeing you

aipac

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Why No Congressional Investigation into Epstein’s Intelligence Connections? – The Future of Freedom Foundation

Posted by M. C. on August 27, 2019

If Epstein did have a relationship with the CIA or other intelligence agency, then, unfortunately, there are only two chances that Congress would initiate an investigation into the matter: slim and none. That’s because an intelligence agency that is powerful enough to corrupt the judicial branch of the federal government is sufficiently powerful to do the same to the legislative branch.

https://www.fff.org/2019/08/21/why-no-congressional-investigation-into-epsteins-intelligence-connections/

by

With convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein now dead, the Justice Department has launched an investigation into prison procedures that allowed him to commit suicide. Meanwhile, women who were sexually abused or raped by Epstein when they were minors are continuing civil actions against Epstein’s estate.

But why no congressional investigation into Epstein’s relationship, if any, to intelligence agencies, including the CIA, the Mossad, or any others? Have we gotten to the point where everyone is so scared to be labeled a “conspiracy theorist” that Congress is precluded from conducting a legitimate investigation into the CIA or other intelligence agencies?

Such an investigation would not come out of the blue. It would revolve around the undeniably sweetheart deal that the U.S. Attorney in Florida, Alexander Acosta, gave to Epstein and the reasons that he gave that sweetheart deal to him.

The plea deal enabled Epstein to escape federal charges for sex trafficking and allowed him to plead guilty at the state level to the much lesser crime of soliciting prostitution, which enabled him to serve one year in a local jail, sort of. During that year, officials permitted him to leave the jailhouse on a daily basis to attend to business matters, after which he would return to spend the night in jail.

It would be extremely difficult to find a more sweetheart deal than that. But the question is, Why?…

An article that appeared in the August 19, 2019, issue of the Daily Beast by an investigative reporter named Vicky Ward points out the reason why such a congressional investigation would be warranted:

Epstein’s name, I was told, had been raised by the Trump transition team when Alexander Acosta, the former U.S. attorney in Miami who’d infamously cut Epstein a non-prosecution plea deal back in 2007, was being interviewed for the job of labor secretary. The plea deal put a hard stop to a separate federal investigation of alleged sex crimes with minors and trafficking.

Is the Epstein case going to cause a problem [for confirmation hearings]?” Acosta had been asked. Acosta had explained, breezily, apparently, that back in the day he’d had just one meeting on the Epstein case. He’d cut the non-prosecution deal with one of Epstein’s attorneys because he had “been told” to back off, that Epstein was above his pay grade. “I was told Epstein ‘belonged to intelligence’ and to leave it alone,” he told his interviewers in the Trump transition, who evidently thought that was a sufficient answer and went ahead and hired Acosta. (The Labor Department had no comment when asked about this.)

Okay, all that is hearsay. Nonetheless, it clearly provides the basis for a congressional investigation...

Moreover, the director of the CIA could be summoned to testify as to whether Epstein was a CIA asset, operative, or agent. If Epstein did fall into one of those categories, it is certainly possible that the CIA director would lie about it, just as CIA Director Richard Helms lied to Congress back in the 1970s when he was asked about CIA involvement in Chilean regime-change operations. Nonetheless, he would at least know that he would be subject to a perjury indictment if it were later discovered that he had lied about Epstein’s involvement in the CIA.

Moreover, the CIA could be subpoenaed to produce all of its files and records relating to Epstein, which might indicate Epstein’s possible involvement with foreign intelligence agencies, such as the Mossad.

Why would the CIA, Mossad, or other intelligence agency have been involved with Epstein and why would an intelligence agency have gone to bat for him in a federal criminal prosecution for sex trafficking? That’s something an investigation would be intended to answer.

Of course, the press could continue investigating whether Acosta actually did make that statement and, if so, whether it was true. But the ability of the press to get to the truth is limited given its inability to force people to testify under oath and then have them prosecuted for perjury if they lie. A congressional committee could both subpoena people to testify under oath and have them indicted for perjury if they lie.

Given the possibility of corruption in the federal judiciary at the hands of the CIA or other intelligence agency, the American people are entitled to such an investigation. If sex offenders are being accorded favorable treatment in the federal criminal justice system simply because they happen to work for the CIA or some other intelligence agency, then what does that say for the entire federal criminal justice system?…

Be seeing you

I

 

 

 

 

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