Zero Hedge — Russia Releases Photos Showing US Special Ops At ISIS Positions In Syria

I guess Zero Hedge is another of those Russkie sites like Drudge.

Zero Hedge

Russia Releases Photos Showing US Special Ops At ISIS Positions In Syria
Tyler Durden

TheRealNews: Neocons and Hollywood Liberals Go to 'War' on Russia

The promotional video of the Committee to Investigate Russia features actor Morgan Freeman in what is 'probably his worst role since Driving Miss Daisy,' says AlterNet's Max Blumenthal

This is chilling, the producer Robe Reiner has made this short film about the 'Russian Hack' and it's a complete load of rubbish from start to finish, just total propaganda with no facts.

David Graeber — Accounting error spells chaos for global economy

The title may be alarmist but the post is worth reading. David Graeber points out that the sectoral balances don't actually balance and asks why, since it is an accounting identity.

When I first saw this diagram I was startled and confused. Was I missing something? Was there something about the math I didn’t understand? I passed the image on to two different economists and asked just that: isn’t there something wrong with the numbers here?

You’ll notice that towards the end of the graph, after 2014, the figures above and below the line are no longer equal. It’s easy to miss, but this glaring error has significant consequences for the global economy.

Both instantly got back to me, rather surprised they had not noticed it themselves, and confirmed that yes, indeed, there was something very funny going on here. One even wrote to the OBR himself, asking why the two sides didn’t match up, only to be informed it was a standard “residual error” that always occurs at first but is duly patched up later. (This clearly isn’t true: no previous OBR report contains such an imbalance; when this was pointed out to them they simply dodged the question). Here’s the link to the latest report.

This is what led to my piece in the New Statesman, calling for a public inquiry. I also asked my friend who made up the original diagram to adjust it to what it might look like corrected. This has to involve a certain amount of guess-work as we don’t actually know which part of the numbers are inaccurate. He provided me two possibilities; both extremely sobering.…

RenegadeInc
Accounting error spells chaos for global economy
David Graeber

Robert Locke — Economics as science in the world of great power politics (1800-present)

The major trends in the development of economics summarized. How the profession lost the plot and also its way.

Real-World Economics Review Blog
Economics as science in the world of great power politics (1800-present)

Robert Locke

Zero Hedge — Obamacare Repeal Officially Dead After Cruz Says No

In a sudden change of heart that kills senate Republicans’ effort to pass a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare before a rule allowing Republicans to circumvent a Democratic filibuster expires at the end of the month, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is now saying he won’t support the Graham-Cassidy Obamacare repeal bill.

Cruz, who revealed his position during a panel discussion at a Texas Tribune conference in Austin, suggested that the proposal also lacks the vote of Sen. Mike Lee, according to Politico. The Texas Republican said he and Lee offered amendments to the Graham-Cassidy proposal last week that would go further in bringing down Obamacare premiums but that the changes weren’t included in the latest draft of the bill.

Governing is harder than opposing.

Zero Hedge
Obamacare Repeal Officially Dead After Cruz Says No
Tyler Durden

Also

Time
President Trump Says He Expected a Health Care Bill on His Desk As Soon as He Got Into Office
Aric Jenkins

Patrick Fleming — Clinton Attack Group: 2nd Largest US News Site (Drudge) is Kremlin Stooge

Hey, if "POTUS is a Kremlin stooge" is working for you, why not claim everyone that disagrees with you is, too?

Russia Insider
Clinton Attack Group: 2nd Largest US News Site (Drudge) is Kremlin Stooge
Patrick Fleming

Oh, wait. Just when you thought it couldn't get any more bizarre.

Zero Hedge
Former Congressman [Tancredo] Warns That Foreign Countries Could Bribe The Feds To "Regulate Drudge"
Tyler Durden

Mohamed A. El-Erian — Risks of a new economic non-order as nations turn inward

Western leaders have still not gotten the message that the post-WWII unipolar order dominated by the West is now winding down and is coming to an end, possibly an ignominious one resulting in war.

The resulting interim order not necessarily a "non-order," but rather a rising multi-polar one. 

Western elite thinking broadcast by propaganda is that someone must be dominant; if it is not the West under the leadership of the US it will be some other country, meaning China.

Asia Times
Risks of a new economic non-order as nations turn inward

Mohamed A. El-Erian

Mike Whitney: Uncle Sam vs. Russia in Eastern Syria: The Nightmare Scenario

The impending collapse of ISIS has touched off a race for territory in the oil-rich eastern part of Syria pitting US-backed forces against the Russian-led coalition of Syria, Iran and Hezbollah. This is the nightmare scenario that everyone wanted to avoid. Washington and Moscow’s armies are now converging on the same area at the same time greatly increasing the probability of a conflagration between the two nuclear-armed superpowers. The only way a clash can be avoided is if one party backs down, which seems increasingly unlikely.

The situation can be easily explained. The vast swath of territory captured by ISIS is steadily shrinking due to the dogged perseverance of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) which has liberated most of the countryside west of the Euphrates River including the former ISIS stronghold at Deir Ezzor, a critical garrison at the center of the fighting. ISIS is also getting pressure from the north where the US-backed SDF is pounding their capital at Raqqa while deploying troops and tanks southward to the oil fields in Deir Ezzor province.

Washington has made it clear that it wants its proxy-army to control the area east of the Euphrates establishing a soft partition between east and west. The US also wants to control Deir Ezzor’s vast oil resources in order to provide a reliable revenue stream for the emergent Kurdish statelet.

Syrian President Bashar al Assad has said many times that he will never agree to the partitioning of the country. But the decision will not be made by Assad alone. His coalition partners in Moscow, Beirut and Tehran will also help shape the final settlement. As far as Putin is concerned, it seems extremely unlikely that he’d risk a protracted and bloody war with the United States simply to recapture every square inch of Syrian territory. The Russian president will probably allow the US to keep its bases in the northeast provided that critical areas are conceded to the regime. But where will the line be drawn, that’s the question?

Mike Whitney: Uncle Sam vs. Russia in Eastern Syria: The Nightmare Scenario

Bill Mitchell — When intra-governmental relations became absurd – the US-Fed Accord – Part 3

I am writing this while waiting for a train at Victoria Station (London), which will take me to Brighton for tomorrow’s presentation at the British Labour Party Conference. 

The last several days I was in Kansas City for the inaugural International Modern Monetary Theory Conference, which attracted more than 200 participants and was going well when I left it on Saturday. A great step forward. I believe there will be video for all sessions available soon just in case you were unable to watch the live stream.
Today’s blog completes my little history of the US Treasury Federal Reserve Accord, which really marked a turning point (for the worse) in the way macroeconomic policy was conducted in the US.

In Part 1, I explained how from the inception (1913), the newly created Federal Reserve Bank, America’s central bank, was required by the US Treasury Department to purchase Treasury bonds in such volumes that would ensure the yields on long-term bonds were stable and low. There was growing unease with this arrangement among the conservative central bankers and, in 1935, the arrangement was altered somewhat to require the bank to only purchase debt in the secondary markets. But the change had little effective impact. The yields stayed low as was the intent. Further, all the prognistications that the conservatives raised about inflation and other maladies also did not emerge (which anyone who knew anything would have expected anyway).
In Part 2, I traced the increased tensions between the central bank FOMC and the Treasury, which in part was exacerbated by the slight spike in inflation that accompanied the spending associated with the prosecution of the Korean War in the early 1950s. The tension manifested into open disagreement about the FOMC’s desire to raise interest rates and end the pegged yield arrangement with the Treasury. In
Part 3, we discuss the culmination of that tension and disagreement and examine some of the less known and underlying forces that were fermenting the central bank desire for rebellion.…

Paragraphing added.

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
When intra-governmental relations became absurd – the US-Fed Accord – Part 3
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Philip Giraldi: Neocons Are Driving America's Wars

Philip Giraldi is an ex CIA agent, Conservative, reads Antiwar.com every day, and has a good article about how torture does not work I might put out. He seems quite a reasonable guy.


I spoke recently at a conference on America’s war party where afterwards an elderly gentleman came up to me and asked, “Why doesn’t anyone ever speak honestly about the six-hundred-pound gorilla in the room? Nobody has mentioned Israel in this conference and we all know it’s American Jews with all their money and power who are supporting every war in the Middle East for Netanyahu? Shouldn’t we start calling them out and not letting them get away with it?”

It was a question combined with a comment that I have heard many times before and my answer is always the same: any organization that aspires to be heard on foreign policy knows that to touch the live wire of Israel and American Jews guarantees a quick trip to obscurity. Jewish groups and deep pocket individual donors not only control the politicians, they own and run the media and entertainment industries, meaning that no one will hear about or from the offending party ever again. They are particularly sensitive on the issue of so-called “dual loyalty,” particularly as the expression itself is a bit of a sham since it is pretty clear that some of them only have real loyalty to Israel.

Most recently, some pundits, including myself, have been warning of an impending war with Iran. To be sure, the urging to strike Iran comes from many quarters, to include generals in the Administration who always think first in terms of settling problems through force, from a Saudi government obsessed with fear over Iranian hegemony, and, of course, from Israel itself. But what makes the war engine run is provided by American Jews who have taken upon themselves the onerous task of starting a war with a country that does not conceivably threaten the United States. They have been very successful at faking the Iranian threat, so much so that nearly all Republican and most Democratic congressmen as well as much of the media seem to be convinced that Iran needs to be dealt with firmly, most definitely by using the U.S. military, and the sooner the better.

And while they are doing it, the issue that nearly all the Iran haters are Jewish has somehow fallen out of sight, as if it does not matter. But it should matter. A recent article in the New Yorker on stopping the impending war with Iran strangely suggests that the current generation “Iran hawks” might be a force of moderation regarding policy options given the lessons learned from Iraq. The article cites as hardliners on Iran David Frum, Max Boot, Bill Kristol and Bret Stephens.

Daniel Larison over at The American Conservative has a good review of the New Yorker piece entitled “Yes, Iran Hawks Want Conflict with Iran,” which identifies the four above cited hawks by name before describing them as “…a Who’s Who of consistently lousy foreign policy thinking. If they have been right about any major foreign policy issue in the last twenty years, it would be news to the entire world. Every single one of them hates the nuclear deal with Iran with a passion, and they have argued in favor of military action against Iran at one point or another. There is zero evidence that any of them would oppose attacking Iran.”

And I would add a few more names, Mark Dubowitz, Michael Ledeen and Reuel Marc Gerecht of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies; Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum; John Podhoretz of Commentary magazine; Elliot Abrams of the Council on Foreign Relations; Meyrav Wurmser of the Middle East Media Research Institute; Kimberly Kagan of the Institute for the Study of War; and Frederick Kagan, Danielle Pletka and David Wurmser of the American Enterprise Institute. And you can also throw into the hopper entire organizations like The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) and the Hudson Institute. And yep, they’re all Jewish, plus most of them would self-describe as neo-conservatives. And I might add that only one of the named individuals has ever served in any branch of the American military – David Wurmser was once in the Navy reserve. These individuals largely constitute a cabal of sanctimonious chairborne warriors who prefer to do the heavy thinking while they let others do the fighting and dying.

Neocons are Driving American Wars: Philip Giraldi

China comes to aid of Cuba

New kid on the block.

China.org.cn
Chinese aircraft delivers humanitarian aid in Cuba after Hurricane Irma

Xinhua

Latin America is an important region with a concentration of developing countries, said Wang. The development and revitalization of the region is an important part of the endeavors to revitalize the emerging markets and developing countries as a whole.
China-Latin America comprehensive cooperation is facing new opportunities, he noted.

Ecns.cn

China, Cuba vow to enhance cooperation

Xinhua

Bryan Logan — JAMES CLAPPER: US intelligence assessment of Russia's election interference 'cast doubt on the legitimacy' of Trump's victory

• The former director of national intelligence, James Clapper, said an assessment by the US intelligence community on Russia's US election interference "cast doubt" on President Donald Trump's legitimacy.
• Clapper's comments follow an avalanche of recent news about Russia's efforts to sway American voters in 2016.
• The Russia investigation has gained significant momentum in recent weeks, with several current and former Trump insiders under scrutiny for their ties to, and contacts with Russian operatives.

Whoa! US Civil War 2.0?

Looks like the deep state is digging in for a fight to the finish.

HRC piles on.

Business Insider
JAMES CLAPPER: US intelligence assessment of Russia's election interference 'cast doubt on the legitimacy' of Trump's victory

Bryan Logan

Also

Crooks and Liars
Clinton: Americans Should Be 'Terrified' Over Russian Interference
Susie Madrak

Michael Roberts — Capital.150 part two: the economic reason for madness

Critique of David Harvey's reading of Das Kapital.

Michael Roberts Blog
Capital.150 part two: the economic reason for madness
Michael Roberts

Lars P. Syll — Seven sins of economics

Pramit Bhattacharya quote. 

Double significant since it is a signal of rising criticism of the profession coming from outside the Anglo-American world that is presently dominant. Hopefully, this is a sign that this domination of ideas and methods will not spread and will be balanced soon.

Lars P. Syll’s Blog
Seven sins of economics
Lars P. Syll | Professor, Malmo University

Douglas Valentine – Lars Schall: The CIA: 70 Years of Organized Crime

The quite a lot of different related topics covered in this article about the CIA drug running operations which they used to gain control of corrupt politicians and their countries. The CIA has its tentacles throughout the world working through the drugs trade and organised crime to build the American empire. The CIA agents get paid extremely well and live in luxury flying in private jets and staying in the best hotels. They advise the military, governments, and the generals. They don't see themselves as criminals, though, despite their criminal activity, they see themselves as patriarchs making America great, but for who?

It is also described here how the CIA helped to pump drugs into black communities to keep black youth from working hard and becoming middleclass and to keep them in and out of prison, in other words, we can blame the CIA for rap and hip hop gun culture.

Here's a few extracts from the article:


LS: Can you tell us please what’s behind a term you like to use, the “Universal Brotherhood of Officers”?

DV: The ruling class in any state views the people it rules as lesser beings to be manipulated, coerced, and exploited. The rulers institute all manner of systems – which function as protection rackets – to assure their class prerogatives. The military is the real power in any state, and the military in every state has a chain of command in which blind obedience to superiors is sacred and inviolable. Officers don’t fraternize with enlisted men because they will at some point send them to their deaths. There is an officer corps in every military, as well as in every bureaucracy and every ruling class in every state, which has more in common with military officers, top bureaucrats, and rulers in other states, than it does with the expendable, exploitable riff raff in its own state.
LS: How important is mainstream media for the public perception of the CIA?

DV: There are two facets to the CIA’s management and control of international drug trafficking, on behalf of the corporate interests that rule America. It’s important to note that the US government’s involvement in drug trafficking began before the CIA existed, as a means of controlling states, as well as the political and social movements within them, including America. Direct involvement started in the 1920s when the US helped Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist regime in China support itself through the narcotics trade.

During World War II, the CIA’ predecessor, the OSS, provided opium to Kachin guerrillas fighting the Japanese. The OSS and the US military also forged ties with the American criminal underworld during the Second World War, and would thereafter secretly provide protection to American drug traffickers whom it hired to do its dirty work at home and abroad.

DV: It’s the most critical feature. Guy Debord said that secrecy dominates the world, foremost as secret of domination. The media prevents you from knowing how you’re being dominated, by keeping the CIA’s secrets. The media and the CIA are same thing.

What FOX and MSNBC have in common is that, in a free-wheeling capitalist society, news is a commodity. News outlets target demographic audience to sell a product. It’s all fake news, in so far as each media outlet skews its presentation of the news to satisfy its customers. But when it comes to the CIA, it’s not just fake, it’s poison. It subverts democratic institutions.

Any domestic Phoenix-style organization or operation depends on double-speak and deniability, as well as official secrecy and media self-censorship. The CIA’s overarching need for total control of information requires media complicity. This was one of the great lesson defeat in Vietnam taught our leaders. The highly indoctrinated and well rewarded managers who run the government and media will never again allow the public to see the carnage they inflict upon foreign civilians. Americans never will see the mutilated Iraqi, Afghani, Libyan, and Syrian children killed by marauding US mercenary forces and cluster bombs.

On the other hand, falsified portrayals of CIA kidnappings, torture, and assassinations are glorified on TV and in movies. Telling the proper story is the key. Thanks to media complicity, Phoenix has already become the template for providing internal political security for America’s leaders.

LS: Is the CIA an enemy of the American people?

DV: Yes. It’s an instrument of the rich political elite, it does their dirty business.
Cops are members of the Universal Brotherhood of Officers. They exist above the law. CIA officers exist near the pinnacle of the Brotherhood. Blessed with fake identities and bodyguards, they fly around in private planes, live in villas, and kill with state-of-the-art technology. They tell army generals what to do. They direct Congressional committees. They assassinate heads of state and murder innocent children with impunity and with indifference. Everyone to them, but their bosses, is expendable.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/09/22/the-cia-70-years-of-organized-crime/

UMKC MMT Conference

UMKC MMT conference going on now.


Program Schedule

Livestream links

Video uploads coming. TBA later.

Pepe Escobar — Brute isolation: Trump and the art of unraveling the Iran deal

What has happened is that the Trump administration has changed the narrative from being about a technical, nuclear-centered agreement, to one that encompasses Iran’s geopolitical reach in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, as well as its missile program and cyber operations – all non-nuclear issues that Mogherini herself stressed were “outside the scope” of the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action)....

So for all practical purposes, the Trump administration wants a completely different deal, or it will unilaterally pull out. Technically, that means going against a UNSC resolution supported by international law.

More importantly, if the US withdraws from the agreement, it sends a strong signal to the international community that US agreements are worthless and US diplomacy is meaningless.

Asia Times

Brute isolation: Trump and the art of unraveling the Iran deal

Pepe Escobar

Pepe Escobar recommends

International corporate media and governments hostile to Venezuela take up the “humanitarian crisis” fable to consolidate the portrayal of military intervention as an exercise in humanitarian relief rather than as military aggression. But very clearly, every “humanitarian intervention” by Western powers involves territorial occupation and reorganization to serve their geopolitical interests, similar to what happened in Haiti after the January 2010 earthquake.

telesur
More Bases, Military Exercises: The (Para)Military Option Against Venezuela in Action

Doug Tsruruoka — ‘N. Korean missiles can reach Chicago, would not be stopped’

US arms control expert: Hwasong-14 could even reach East Coast, but US anti-missile defenses probably couldn't shoot it down. Pyongyang likely has warhead that fits, he adds.

Does NK have a nuclear deterrent?

Asia Times
‘N. Korean missiles can reach Chicago, would not be stopped’
Doug Tsruruoka

Ian Welsh' — Review of “Descartes' Error” by Antonio Damasio

Short summary of the main thrust of cognitive scientist Antonio Damasio's work about the interplay of reason and feeling.

Ian Welsh's blog

Review of “Descartes' Error” by Antonio Damasio
Ian Welsh

See also

YouTube

Antonio Damasio: INET Keynote Address entitled Human Decisions

Jeremiah Jones — ‘Whites Only’ Stickers Falsely Attributed To #BLM Appear At St. Louis Restaurants

Don't believe everything you see.

St. Louis restaurant owners were upset when “Whites Only” stickers with the hashtag #BLM began appearing at their businesses. It turns out that BLM had nothing to do with it. A group of young white males was caught on security cameras doing the deed to try to cause problems for BLM.

BLM is apparently Black Lives Matter, not Bureau of Land Management, although that is a right bogeyman, too.

Counter Current News
‘Whites Only’ Stickers Falsely Attributed To #BLM Appear At St. Louis Restaurants
Jeremiah Jones

Charles Austin — Want Proof that Corporate Money Influences Politicians? This New Study Has It.

The authors of a recent Roosevelt Institute paper identified a series of high-profile cases in which political contributions influenced members of Congress on key floor votes involving financial reform. 

To examine the influence of big money, the authors of the study focused on five votes in the U.S. House of Representatives relating to the Dodd-Frank financial-reform bill. They isolated specific representatives who initially voted in favor of the bill and subsequently voted to dismantle some of its key provisions. What they found was a direct link between voting behavior and campaign contributions from the financial sector. 

According to the paper, “for every $100,000 that Democratic representatives received from finance, the odds they would break with their party’s majority support for the Dodd-Frank legislation increased by 13.9 percent. Democratic representatives who voted in favor of finance often received $200,000–$300,000 from that sector, which raised the odds of switching by 25–40 percent. 

The authors found similar results with telecommunications legislation. In a 2006 vote on network neutrality, every $1,000 in contributions from an anti-net-neutrality firm equated to a 2.6 percent greater chance of voting in those interests’ favor.

Thomas Ferguson, Professor Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Boston, a Roosevelt Institute Senior Fellow and a co-author of the paper, says clearly money doesn’t just influence politics—it drives it....

Calling it what it is — corruption.

Their “spectrum of political money” highlights eight ways outside cash shapes political decision-making. These include payments to lawyers, political figures and foundations; money spent on lobbying and think tanks; formal campaign spending, the value of stock tips to political figures and public relations spending. Money flowing through these avenues is perfectly legal but often difficult to trace, creating countless opportunities for corruption....

Corruption has been institutionalized. This is the most difficult type of corruption to detect, since it is legalized and incorporate into the culture.

In These Times
Want Proof that Corporate Money Influences Politicians? This New Study Has It.
Charles Austin

BBC News — UK's credit rating downgraded by Moody's

Moody's, one of the major ratings agencies, downgraded the UK to an Aa2 rating from Aa1.

It said leaving the European Union was creating economic uncertainty at a time when the UK's debt reduction plans were already off course.

Downing Street said the firm's Brexit assessments were "outdated".

The other major agencies, Fitch and S&P, changed their ratings in 2016, with S&P cutting it two notches from AAA to AA, and Fitch lowering it from AA+ to AA.

Moody's said the government had "yielded to pressure and raised spending in several areas" including health and social care.

It says revenues were unlikely to compensate for the higher spending....

If anyone is outdated it is the credit rating agencies. The US has been a currency sovereign since the demise of the gold standard and floating rates.

Morons. Can't tell the difference between a sovereign currency issuer and currency users.

Credit rating agencies, in essence, rate a country on the strength of its economy - scoring governments or large companies on how likely they are to pay back their debt.

A currency sovereign can always meet its obligations in the currency it issue fully and on time. Default or delay is a voluntary decision taken politically rather than the result of financial constraint.

What is wrong with these people?

BBC News
UK's credit rating downgraded by Moody's

Paul Robinson — Cunning troll

Funny.

Irrussianality
Cunning troll
Paul Robinson | Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa

See also

Fort Russ
West has spent $80 million to influence Russia's 2018 elections

Vesti - translated by Inessa Sinchougova

also

For some unknown reasons these FB ads aren't made public so that people can come to their own conclusions about them.

Fort Russ

US President calls Russia's Facebook ad rumours "new mystification"Vesti - translated by Inessa Sinchougova

Vesti is owned by All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is a United States government-funded broadcasting organization that spreads news, information, and analysis to countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East, where it claims "the free flow of information is either banned by government authorities or not fully developed".[3] RFE/RL is a 501(c)(3) corporation that receives U.S. government funding and is supervised by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, an agency overseeing all U.S. federal government international broadcastingservices.[4]  — Wikipedia

Zero Hedge "This Is Embarrassing": 2 People Show Up For iPhone 8 Launch in Hangzhou, China

Confirming reports that reception for Apple's newly launched iPhone 8 may be "underwhelming" to put it lightly, as the phone provides little if any material improvement over its lower-priced predecessor even as sales for hardcore fans will be cannibalized by the iPhone X, is the following report from Hangzhou, China which shows that all of 2 people were waiting in line for the latest gizmo from Tim Cook....

With the iPhone 8 a dud, at least in China, AAPL longs are hoping that the reception for the iPhone X in a few weeks will be notably more enthusiastic, or else Apple may have a major problem on its hands.

Zero Hedge

"This Is Embarrassing": 2 People Show Up For iPhone 8 Launch in China

Tyler Durden

See also

More depth.

Sputnik International
X Factor: iPhone 8 Greeted With Little Enthusiasm

Robert Parry — The Crazy Imbalance of Russia-gate

If the U.S. government and mainstream media are really concerned about foreign influence in American politics, they might look at Israel and other nations with much more clout than Russia, notes Robert Parry.

Ya think?

Consortium News
The Crazy Imbalance of Russia-gate

Robert Parry

Tim Wallace — Inflation is getting harder to understand, central banker warns

No, inflation is not getting harder to "understand." Central banks are just using models that don't fit the case, for example, confusing special case model with general models, or using models that are mis-specified. 

The message is to review the assumptions, including methodological ones, and revise them as appropriate. Then compare the model with the real world.

What's so difficult to understand about that? This is what scientists do.

Difficult, you say? That's what you are getting paid for. If you don't have the chops, then resign and do something you can handle. 

Maybe others have a better handle on it. Give them a shot.

The Telegraph
Inflation is getting harder to understand, central banker warns

Tim Wallace

Global Times Editorial — Trump’s UN address reduces hope of peace on Korean Peninsula

The Chinese view.

Global Times | Editorial
Trump’s UN address reduces hope of peace on Korean Peninsula

Brad Blankenship — How private corporations will benefit from Kurdish independence

You probably want to take the time to read this.

Rex Tillerson and Exxon up to the neck in it.

Al-Masdar News
How private corporations will benefit from Kurdish independence
Brad Blankenship

Alex Ward — Read: Bernie Sanders's big foreign policy speech

Full transcript.

Preparatory to Bernie running again?

Vox
Read: Bernie Sanders's big foreign policy speech

Alex Ward

Graham E. Fuller — The Future of the Kurds

Backgrounder.

Graham E. Fuller
The Future of the Kurds
Graham E. Fuller | adjunct professor of history at Simon Fraser University, formerly vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council at the CIA, and a former senior political scientist at RAND