kunstler speaks clearly here about the swamp, some of its obvious nature, and where its gonna take us, with evidence presented by biden on his own;

The swamp abides. The latest news media dumpster fire over President Trump’s phone conversation with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is a three-way ruse. Ruse 1: deflect attention from the main issue, which is Joe Biden’s trolling for payoffs on his missions to foreign lands as vice-president, first Ukraine, where son Hunter was gifted a board of director’s chair and $50K-a-month salary with Ukrainian gas company Burisma, and then a $1.5 billion “private equity investment” to Hunter Biden’s wealth management fund from the state-owned Bank of China. Ruse 2: to deflect attention from the damage soon to be inflicted on the Deep State by the forthcoming DOJ Inspector General’s report on FISA court abuses. Ruse 3. To set in motion yet another obstruction of justice trap for Mr. Trump on the basis of false charges.

This comes at the instigation of Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson, who was formerly senior legal counsel to John Carlin head of the National Security Division of the Department of Justice, deeply implicated in the FISA court matters of 2016 under investigation by federal prosecutor John Durham.  Mr. Atkinson cited a complaint by an unnamed whistleblower who claims to have heard from a source that the President offered a quid pro quo to Ukrainian President Zelensky for reopening the Burisma case. The “whistleblower” may be Mr. Atkinson himself.

Of course, gaffe-prone Joe Biden spilled the beans on video earlier this year, when he bragged about shaking down Ukraine’s then-president Petro Poroshenko over a billion-dollar loan guarantee unless he fired the prosecutor investigating Burisma, which he did. Is there any ambiguity here?.........https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/the-odor-of-desperation-2/

bonner is a financial writer, primarily, who also speaks about the issues surrounding those 'dollars' and here is a good one i believe;


Democracy is a scam. The plain people vote. But insiders – the elite, the cronies, the Deep State – make the important decisions. And these few can increase their own wealth and power only by taking it from the many they are meant to serve – the public.........https://bonnerandpartners.com/democracy-is-a-scam/

this writer shows what the attack on the saudi oil facility really means for the future of the empire's military abilities, and all of you true believers won't like the conclusions;

The devastating attack on Saudi oil facilities by drones and missiles not only transforms the balance of military power in the Middle East, but marks a change in the nature of warfare globally.

On the morning of 14 September, 18 drones and seven cruise missiles – all cheap and unsophisticated compared to modern military aircraft – disabled half of Saudi Arabia’s crude oil production and raised the world price of oil by 20 per cent.

This happened despite the Saudis spending $67.6bn (£54bn) on their defence budget last year, much of it on vastly expensive aircraft and air defence systems, which notably failed to stop the attack. The US defence budget stands at $750bn (£600.2bn), and its intelligence budget at $85bn (£68bn), but the US forces in the Gulf did not know what was happening until it was all over.

Excuses advanced for this failure include the drones flying too low to be detected and unfairly coming from a direction different from the one that might have been expected. Such explanations sound pathetic when set against the proud boasts of the arms manufacturers and military commanders about the effectiveness of their weapons systems.

Debate is ongoing about whether it was the Iranians or the Houthis who carried out the attack, the likely answer being a combination of the two, but perhaps with Iranorchestrating the operation and supplying the equipment. But over-focus on responsibility diverts attention from a much more important development: a middle ranking power like Iran, under sanctions and with limited resources and expertise, acting alone or through allies, has inflicted crippling damage on theoretically much better-armed Saudi Arabia which is supposedly defended by the US, the world’s greatest military super-power.........http://www.unz.com/pcockburn/the-saudi-arabia-drone-attacks-have-changed-global-warfare/

the thin blue line gets thinner and more corrupt every day;

Spradlin’s wife uploaded the video to YouTube this week with the following statement:

If this video does not sicken you, nothing will. The United States Constitution and our Rights as enumerated therein, are under tremendous attack. The younger generations of Law Enforcement today have not been taught the history of our country, they do not understand basic human Rights. The context of the U.S. Revolution and the war against tyranny is something of which they do not comprehend. They should still not get a pass when they violate their oath to defend and protect the Constitution..........https://thefreethoughtproject.com/police-video-false-charges/

think of this as the companion piece to the previous post in which you'll discover the lengths to which 'our' government goes to make sure you toe the line of 'official' thinking, so its 1984 and you've not noticed it yet;

Sunday marked a deadline for the University of North Carolina and Duke University to submit information to the Trump administration about the two schools' Consortium for Middle East Studies, after the Department of Education accused the joint program of biases against Christianity and Judaism.

The DOE called on the schools to provide a list of events it is supporting during the school year and a full list of courses it's offering, claiming in a letter sent late last month that in the program, "there is a considerable emphasis placed on the understanding the positive aspects of Islam, while there is an absolute absence of any similar focus on the positive aspects of Christianity, Judaism, or any other religion or belief system in the Middle East."

The program should emphasize "foreign language instruction and area studies advancing the security and economic stability of the United States," wrote the department.

Critics denounced the demand by education secretary Betsy DeVos as part of President Donald Trump's Islamophobic agenda..........https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/09/22/devos-threatens-cut-funding-middle-eastern-studies-programs-portraying-islam-too

if you be one of those rubes who believes all of the crap you're sold by the empire, like academic freedom, you will learn it ain't so in the following exposure of rising jewish influence in which there are some things you can't teach;

It didn’t  take long for the American Administration to crudely interfere with an open society’s most sacred ethos, that of academic freedom.  We learned this weekend that the US Department of Education has ordered Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to remake their joint Middle East studies program after concluding that they were offering students “a biased curriculum that, among other complaints, did not present enough “positive” imagery of Judaism and Christianity in the region.”

Academic freedom is a relatively simple principle. It refers to the ”liberty to teach, pursue, and discuss knowledge without restriction or interference, as by school or public officials.”

This principle seems to be under attack in America.  The American administration has openly interfered with the liberty to freely teach, pursue and discuss knowledge.

The New York Times writes:  “in a rare instance of federal intervention in college course content, the department asserted that the universities’ Middle East program violated the standards of a federal program that awards funding to international studies and foreign language programs.”

According to the NYT the focus on ‘anti Israeli bias’ “appears to reflect the views of an agency leadership that includes a civil rights chief, Kenneth L. Marcus, who has made a career of pro-Israel advocacy and has waged a years long campaign to delegitimize and defund Middle East studies programs that he has criticized as rife with anti-Israel bias.”........http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/?p=195214

pcr nails the 'thank you for your service' mantra in a few words;

U.S. drone strike kills 30 pine nut farm workers in Afghanistan

Paul Craig Roberts

The warriors who conducted this drone strike from a safe distance in the U.S. without any danger to themselves other than their moral conscience if they have one are henceforth “heroes.”  “Thank you for your service.”

The majority of the people killed by the US military in Washington’s 21st century wars for Israel and the military/security complex’s profits have been women, children, village elders, weddings, funerals, children’s soccer games, and farm workers.   But this is merely the collateral damage of bringing democracy and the American way to the oppressed.

Everytime I go through the Atlanta airport I am subjected to endless recordings thanking our service persons for their service, and informing the rest of us that enlisted military persons will be first to board.  Service to who? How is someone serving the profits of the military/security complex and the state of Israel a hero?  Our “heros” are lowly paid mercenaries serving evil. Thanking them for their service is like thanking Satan for his evil........https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2019/09/22/u-s-drone-strike-kills-30-pine-nut-farm-workers-in-afghanistan/