Global
A new film narrated by Roger Waters, The Occupation of the American Mind , traces the rise of Israeli war propaganda in the United States. This propaganda, which has skillfully swayed U.S. public opinion in support of Israeli wars and occupations, has in fact been not so much a matter of skill as a matter of control.
You shouldn’t play with guns, unless you do it the way “Jim” apparently did.
His gun play — a (seemingly) satirical petition at change.org — has enveloped the looming Republican National Convention in Cleveland this summer in awkward surrealism and forced the three Republican presidential candidates to duck for cover from their own words.
The petition, posted by Hyperationalist, who later identified himself to certain curious reporters as a proponent of gun sanity named Jim, demanded that the Quicken Loans Arena, where the convention will be held, lift its ban on guns in the building and that the Republican National Committee explain “how a venue so unfriendly to Second Amendment rights” was chosen for the convention.
The U.S. State Department does not want the government of Syria to defeat or weaken ISIS, at least not if doing so means any sort of gain for the Syrian government. Watching a recent video of a State Department spokesperson speaking on that subject might confuse some U.S. war supporters. I doubt many residents of Palmyra, Virginia, or Palmyra, Pennsylvania, or Palmyra, New York could give a coherent account of the U.S. government's position on which enemy should control the ancient Palmyra in Syria.
One of the current top-selling games on Steam, the PC gaming equivalent of iTunes or Google Play, is a surprising little indie charmer. Right up there alongside super-realistic military and police state propaganda gunfests like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Tom Clancy’s The Division is a pixel-art game called Stardew Valley that lets you spend your days building a farm, raising crops and petting cows.
It’s a game of the sort that’s been familiar to console gamers – especially fans of Nintendo’s handhelds – for years, but which has never before caught on with the PC crowd. It bears more than a passing resemblance to the Japanese role-playing series released in America until recently as Harvest Moon (now Story of Seasons) which dates all the way back to the Super Nintendo.
After losing to the Portland Timbers 2-1 in the MLS Cup last December, the Columbus Crew SC came into the season with lofty goals and high expectations for its offense. Crew SC, which tied Toronto FC for the second-best attacking record in the MLS last year with 1.71 goals per game (58 goals in 34 regular season matches) in the regular season, returns its scoring threats in forward Kei Kamara and midfielder Ethan Finlay.
Kamara, the team’s MVP last year, scored 22 goals and had eight assists. Finlay became the second player in Crew SC history to reach double figures in goals (12 goals) and assists (13) in a single campaign.
However, it was a brutal March for the Black and Goal as Crew SC stumbled out of the gates with a 0-2-1 record. Offensively Columbus has had its lowest output since 2011, scoring just two goals in its first three games.
After the team’s 2-1 loss to the Philadelphia Union on March 12, Sporting director and head coach Gregg Berhalter said the team knows what it is supposed to do but has yet to bring it to the field.
This year’s presidential primaries have highlighted the importance of people of color to the Democratic Party coalition. Hillary Clinton’s lead in the party’s nomination race comes almost entirely from her strength among African-Americans and Latino voters. When people of color favor one candidate by large margins, they make the difference.
That will be true in the general election as well. Democratic nominees win if people of color vote in large numbers. If turnout is down or the vote is split, Democrats — who regularly lose the majority of white voters — will lose.
This reality means that African Americans, Latinos and Asian Americans can make political demands. Politicians must compete to win our votes. The power of this can be seen with the Dreamers and the Democrats’ embrace of comprehensive immigration reform, with Black Lives Matter and Democratic candidates putting criminal justice reform at the top of their agendas. Voting rights and equal rights under the law also gain traction.
BANGKOK, Thailand -- Thailand's coup-installed military regime
announced a new constitution Tuesday allowing for an appointed Senate
including six seats for the security forces, plus a possible unelected
prime minister and other blocks against popular politicians forming a
government based on majority rule.
The junta said it will permit about 50 million eligible voters to
decide for or against its constitution in a referendum on August 7,
but anyone who criticizes the charter too strongly could be jailed for
10 years.
If the constitution is approved, nationwide parliamentary elections
could be held in 2017.
"The important thing about this constitution -- although there is
no statement that people have the power -- everybody has rights,
everybody is equal, everybody is provided with protection," said
Meechai Ruchupan, chairman of the junta's appointed Constitution
Drafting Committee (CDC), displaying to reporters the 105-page,
279-article constitution.
The junta, which seized power in a May 2014 coup, calls itself a
According to news reports, there are areas of Syria where people are literally starving to death, and where the United Nations is attempting to drop food from the air but missing its target so wildly that the food is damaged or simply cannot be found.
“Saudi Arabia has been militarily involved and trying to manipulate political outcomes in Yemen for decades. The last time they did this in 2009, they lost militarily to the Houthis.”
– foreign policy scholar Hillary Mann Leverett on CNN, early 2015
hy are two of the richest countries in the World, the United States and Saudi Arabia, engaged in unrelenting, aggressive war against one of the poorest countries in the world, Yemen?
Hillary Clinton’s credentials at being a neoconservative warmonger are equal to the Republican neocons. This is something she brags about in her book and by her public support of Henry Kissinger. This then makes her a great Democratic candidate for the Ruling Class. But who knew that Hillary has learned the fine art of election theft from Karl Rove and company? Peace activists are well aware that the machinery used to control election outcomes always favor the war party, but until now those methods are rarely used in primary elections.
Writing for Russia Insider, author Rudy Panko, described the election fraud in Arizona as a “masterpiece”.
After stealing Iowa, Nevada and Massachusetts the Clinton machine is unable to turn the tide against Bernie Sanders. Bernie is filling arenas from coast to coast. People wait hours in line to see him talk about rigged economies and climate change. Sanders is winning the millennial generation by huge margins, and has enthusiastic supporters crushing her on social media and on the ground. Hillary events are at small venues, with crowd size exaggerated.