Global

One of the claims made about alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election was that Kremlin-controlled entities were using fake identities to create dissension and confusion on social network sites. This should surprise no one, if it is true, as intelligence operatives have been using false names since Sumerian times.

The concern over fake identities no doubt comes from the deception involved, meaning that if you are dealing with a real person you at least have some handle on making as assessment of what something means and what is likely to occur. A false persona, however, can pretend to be anything and can advocate or do something without any yardstick to measure what is actually taking place. In other words, if Mike Pompeo says something you know that he is a liar and can judge his words accordingly but if it is someone otherwise unknown named Qwert Uiop you have to wonder if he or she just might be telling the truth. You might even give them the benefit of the doubt.

Originally taking place in the sensuous demi-monde of 1840s Paris, in LA Opera’s current iteration director/production designer Marta Domingo has reset Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata during the Roaring Twenties. This revival of Domingo’s Art Deco vision of Verdi’s vintage version injects new visual flare into the opera that was first performed in Venice in 1853. Although the original’s “demi-mondaine” dames (who, in today’s parlance, might be called “high class hookers”) have been replaced by flappers in Domingo’s rendition, the plot of Verdi’s opera (Francesco Maria Piave’s libretto adapted Alexandre Dumas fils’ 1848 novel La Dame aux Camélias) is essentially the same.

The constitutional ban on receiving gifts or benefits while in office from the U.S. government or state governments (domestic “emoluments” – Article II, Section 1) is absolute, not waivable by Congress, and not subject to proving any particular corrupting influence.

President Trump’s lease of the Old Post Office Building in Washington D.C. for his Trump International Hotel violates the General Services Administration lease contract which states: “No … elected official of the Government of the United States … shall be admitted to any share or part of this Lease, or to any benefit that may arise therefrom.” The GSA’s failure to enforce that contract constitutes an emolument. A January 16, 2019, report by the GSA Inspector General confirmed this.

Police accidently release a report linking
Leslie Wexner and the Mob
by Bob Fitrakis
 

The ghost of Arthur Shapiro—a prominent local attorney who was slain in a 1985 “mob-style murder”—continues to haunt the City of Columbus. Shapiro’s doomed soul was resurrected recently when the Columbus Division of Police released the controversial—and once believed destroyed—document investigating his death.

Columbus Alive obtained a copy of the “Shapiro Homicide Investigation: Analysis and Hypothesis” report through a public records request on Friday. As previously reported in Alive, the report confirms that the name of central Ohio billionaire Leslie Wexner was linked “with associates reputed to be organized crime figures.” The names of businessman Jack Kessler, former Columbus City Council President and current Wexner associate Jerry Hammond and current City Council member Les Wright also appear in the report.

“The long dormant seeds of ‘bottom-up’ culture, evolutionally baked deeply into our DNA and our neurophysiological systems, are vibrantly reawakening.”

“When I asked Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, ‘What’s the next big thing on the web?’ He

replied that it was trust.”

“This tsunami of bottom-up thinking and behavior is causing a bigger paradigm shift than the inventions of writing or Gutenberg’s printing press because we’re already genetically primed for this by our millions of years of human evolution.”

So many trends today look toward the end of life as we know it—climate change, the huge gluttony of the super-rich who work together to transcend national boundaries in their pursuit of more money, more power, ultimately a global feudal system.

By David Swanson, Executive Director of World BEYOND War, June 11, 2019

According to exit polls from late May, an impressive 82% of Irish voters say Ireland should remain a neutral country in all aspects. But Ireland is not remaining a neutral country in all aspects, and there’s no indication of whether Irish voters know that, or specifically what they think of the fact that the United States military, year after year, ships large numbers of troops and weapons (and occasionally presidents) through Shannon Airport on their way to endless disastrous wars.

“Sooner or later they end up in a cage, where (they) belong.”

This is hardly a surprise: A recent study by the Missouri attorney general’s office shows that black drivers are at least twice as likely — in some towns, much more than that — to be stopped by police as white drivers.

Paul Craig Roberts is a highly respected economist who is now retired from teaching at universities and working in government economics-advisory positions (that he held under a variety of prominent Republican Party politicians - including Jack Kemp, Orrin Hatch, Ronald Reagan and others). Roberts was known as “the economic conscience of Ronald Reagan”.

Roberts, just like a lot of retired folks that we might know, has been involved in an exciting new phase of his career. He is still highly respected, but his respect comes now from a new group of followers. His old followers call him a conspiracy theorist!

Roberts is now less politically connected, probably because he has now found the time (or the inclination) to become a more truly investigative journalist whose writings are not censored or banned or re-written by any editor, any publisher, any corporate advertiser or any corporate-infiltrated board of directors that might want to have input into his articles.

Thom Hartmann has long written and spoken on the topic of guns in the United States, along with many other topics. Of those topics he’s dealt with that I know anything about, I have not always agreed with him on every detail, but on most I’ve found him highly informative and persuasive. His new book, The Hidden History of Guns and the Second Amendment, is possibly the best book I’ve ever seen on its topic, both to read, and to pass along to anyone in the United States, whatever their current opinion on guns and gun laws may be, as well as to share with anyone else on earth who may be trying to understand why the United States seems to be allowing its own ongoing slaughter, with guns the second-leading cause of death among children in the United States.

With the likes of John Bolton and Elliot Abrams directing US foreign policy, the US government has abandoned all pretense of “plausible denial” for its illegal regime-change initiatives. The “humanitarian” bombs may not be falling but, make no mistake, the US is waging a full-bore war against the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela.

Back in 1998, Venezuela had had nearly a half a century of two-party rule. A duopoly, not unlike the Republican and Democratic parties in the US, alternated in power imposing a neoliberal order. Poor and working people experienced deteriorating conditions of austerity regardless of which party was in power.

Then third-party candidate Hugo Chávez was elected president. HeH He initiated what has become known as the Bolivarian Revolution, which has inspired the peoples of the world while engendering the enmity of both the US imperialists and the Venezuelan elites.

This article explores the contributions, shortcomings, and lessons of the Bolivarian Revolution’s two decades, in the context of the US regime-change efforts from its inception to current attempts by the US to install the unelected Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s president.