Moon of Alabama — White House Says It Will Fake "Chemical Weapon Attack" In Syria — and more

Laying out coalition strategy to escalate in Syria in response to the recent success of the Syrian military supported by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah. Look for a false flag to justify it and a lot of reporting of fake news in the Western media.

Incidentally, Seymour Hersh's latest, published in Die Welt, hasn't been published in any US or UK mainstream media. It contradicts the false flag-fake news narrative and cites evidence.

Moon of Alabama
White House Says It Will Fake "Chemical Weapon Attack" In Syria

b

See also

Publius Tacitus deconstructs the fake news at the source of media propaganda on Syria.

Sic Semper Tyrannis
Bellingcat Buffoonery on Khan Sheikyoun

Publius Tacitus

A few hours after the publication by Welt of Hersh’s story White House spokesman Sean Spicer rushed out a warning that the US has detected Syrian preparations for a further chemical attack like the one which supposedly happened in April in Khan Sheikhoun. The warning threatens President Assad and the Syrian government that they will “pay a heavy price” if such an attack takes place.

The State Department knows nothing of this supposed intelligence. Nor do the US military. The warning is said to have come from the White House straight out of the blue with no attempt made to coordinate it across the US government. Note that there have been no supporting comments for the White House’s warning from any senior US officials apart from the US’s ghastly UN ambassador Nikki Haley. General Mattis, Secretary of State Tillerson, CIA Director Mike Pompeo, and National Security Adviser General H.R. McMaster have said nothing in public about it.

Meanwhile there has been no official word in response to Seymour Hersh’s Welt story from the US government, and the story is being ignored by the media in the US and Britain.
Does anyone see a connection?

The Duran
White House ‘warning’ of ‘imminent threat of chemical attack in Syria’ is phoney. Here’s why

Alexander Mercouris

Basically censorship.

Counterpunch
Hersh’s New Syria Revelations Buried From View
Jonathan Cook

Julian Assange Explains Why The Democrats Are Doomed

I was surprised to learn that Russia has a lower GDP than South Korea. This Jimmy Dore show goes a lot into the 'Russian hacking' fiasco.

Macron Is Doing Merkel’s Dirty Work With Russia Over Syria

Europe is rethinking its role in Syria, and Macron is able to say things that Merkel can’t directly without causing more tensions within NATO

French President Emmanuel Macron’s statement yesterday changes the game in Syria.
Until yesterday France had been the most vocal supporter of U.S. regime change policy in Syria. Now it is its most pragmatic critic.

This signifies a multitude of changes geopolitically.

First, it dovetails with German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s statement that the EU should no longer consider the U.S. a reliable partner in foreign affairs. The EU will, indeed, pursue a more independent foreign policy.

But, more importantly, it opens the door wide for a growing rapprochement with Russia that began with Merkel right after her meeting with Donald Trump back in March. We’re seeing the dam break now in Europe to defy U.S. policy in the Middle East and with Russia.


As the narratives erected by the U.S. oligarchy crumble, EU leadership sees the opportunity to jump ship and save their reputation while leaving the U.S. holding the bag.

If reports are true that Iran is ready to provide damning proof that the U.S. is backing ISIS in Syria (which is all but confirmed anyway) then backing away from regime change there is simply good politics.

Russia Insider: macron-doing-merkels-dirty-work-russia-over-syria

Ellen Brown: Sovereign Debt Jubilee, Japanese-Style

Japan has found a way to write off nearly half its national debt without creating inflation. We could do that too.

Let’s face it. There is no way the US government is ever going to pay back a $20 trillion federal debt. The taxpayers will just continue to pay interest on it, year after year.
A lot of interest.

If the Federal Reserve raises the fed funds rate to 3.5% and sells its federal securities into the market, as it is proposing to do, by 2026 the projected tab will be $830 billion annually. That’s nearly $1 trillion owed by the taxpayers every year, just for interest.

Personal income taxes are at record highs, ringing in at $550 billion in the first four months of fiscal year 2017, or $1.6 trillion annually. But even at those high levels, handing over $830 billion to bondholders will wipe out over half the annual personal income tax take. Yet what is the alternative?
Japan seems to have found one. While the US government is busy driving up its “sovereign” debt and the interest owed on it, Japan has been canceling its debt at the rate of $720 billion (¥80tn) per year.

How? By selling the debt to its own central bank, which returns the interest to the government. While most central banks have ended their quantitative easing programs and are planning to sell their federal securities, the Bank of Japan continues to aggressively buy its government’s debt. An interest-free debt owed to oneself that is rolled over from year to year is effectively void – a debt “jubilee.” As noted by fund manager Eric Lonergan in a February 2017 article:

https://ellenbrown.com/2017/06/27/sovereign-debt-jubilee-japanese-style/

Bill Mitchell — France has received its orders from the masters

Angela Merkel and Bundesbank's Jens Weidmann rain on Charles DeGaulle wannabe Emmanuel Macron's parade. There will be no fiscal union with the North picking up the tab for the South.

This is a long post setting forth the issues standing in the way and why they are unlikely to be overcome. The chief obstacles are cultural and political rather than economic. A federation among sovereign nation states is not possible without restrictive concessions that the German elite reject.

Conclusion

The point is clear.

Macron can say what he likes. But unless he can get it past the masters (Germany) anything he says will be hot air.

And it is clear from history that Germany will never tolerate the creation of a true federal fiscal capacity.

Which tells me the Eurozone is never going to work in the way the leaders claimed it would at the outset – it will always be prone to stagnation and crisis.

Macron destined to be another Hollande? Bill thinks so.

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
France has received its orders from the masters
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Republicans Still Pushing False Flags In Syria And Cold War With Russia

Sixty two percent of the US electorate believe that there is no hard evidence that the Russians hacked the election. The majority of Americans think this Russiagate nonsense is taking too much time of congress.

A new Seymour Hersh article is out showing that the US knew there was no Assad chemical attack in April, but President Trump decided to bomb anyway. Republicans cannot let go of "regime change" for Syria and new Cold War with Russia -- even as the Democrats are starting to back away. Will the mainstream media stick with the narrative as well? Or is it all about to come crashing down?

Brad DeLong — David Brooks: The G.O.P. Rejects Conservatism

David Brooks is wrong, I think, in his claim that the current crop of Republican politicians have no vision of American society. I think they do have a vision....

WCEG
David Brooks: The G.O.P. Rejects Conservatism
Brad DeLong | Professor of Economics, UCAL Berkeley

Lars P. Syll — Marketization undermining the welfare system

1. Privatization is supposed to reduce cost by increasing efficiency. However, "efficiency" can be increased by trading off effectiveness and reducing quality.

2. The argument about privatization and deregulation generally assumes that there is no distinction between public and private goods, and it often also ignores externalities.

Lars P. Syll’s Blog
Marketization undermining the welfare system
Lars P. Syll | Professor, Malmo University

Economic Growth And Private Sector Debt Levels: Lessons (Not Yet?) Learned — Investment Cycle Engine, Inc

Summary

• High private sector debt/GDP ratios will continue to hamper US economic growth.
• Mainstream macroeconomic models by design ignore the financial cycle and do not provide any insights about the financial cycle.
• Macroeconomic models should have macroeconomic foundations and incorporate financial stability considerations.

Good post based on a Post Keynesian analysis. But doesn't mention either Hyman Minsky, whose financial instability hypothesis explains the financial cycle, or MMT, which would bolster his argument. However, I understand the scope of posts at blogs is limited, so he had to make choices, and overall the post is well done the way he sets it up.

Seeking Alpha
Economic Growth And Private Sector Debt Levels: Lessons (Not Yet?) Learned
Investment Cycle Engine, Inc

Russia Insider — BREAKING: White House Threatens to Murder More Syrians Over Imaginary 'Chemical Weapons Attacks'

Is this Trump's insane way of reacting to Seymour Hersh's story?

Russia Insider
BREAKING: White House Threatens to Murder More Syrians Over Imaginary 'Chemical Weapons Attacks' 

RI staff

Also

Raw Story
Defense officials ‘caught off guard’ by White House statement on Syria chemical weapons prep: report
Elizabeth Preza

Crooks and Liars
Sean Spicer Issues Statement On Syria No One Should Believe
Karoli Kuns

David Fields — Capitalism is national & transnational, but what about the money?

Marxians picking up on MMT.

Radical Political Economy
Capitalism is national & transnational, but what about the money?
David Fields

Cyra Master — White House warns of Syrian preparation for chemical attack

Setting up a false flag after US cut off in race for Syria-Iraq border to justify further incursion? Hey, you didn't expect the US to give up and throw in the towel, did you?

Such an attack “would likely result in the mass murder of civilians, including innocent children,” Spicer added, noting the activity is “similar to preparations the regime made before its April 4, 2017 chemical weapons attack.”

The April 4th "attack" was debunked by Seymour Hersh in Die Welt. Hersh previously debunked the previous "sarin attack" in 2013 in his London Review of Books article, "Whose sarin?"

The Hill
White House warns of Syrian preparation for chemical attack

Cyra Master

See also

For more details.

Zero Hedge
Seymour Hersh: US Lied About Syrian Chemical Attack Then Bombed Them Anyway

Tyler Durden

Notice that no of this is published or even mentioned in the "lamestream media" (Sarah Palin did come up with a few good ones.).

The US media propaganda drive continues in high gear.

beowulf — June 14, 1946 or how to pay for universal healthcare

As I’ve mentioned before, the guy who had universal healthcare figured out was the gruff former Congressman Pete Stark. His Americare bill from 2009 should be updated and made the Democratic alternative to the Senate bill….

Monetary Realism
June 14, 1946 or how to pay for universal healthcare

beowulf

Ramanan — The Los Angeles Review Of Books On Liberalism

Rensin says:

The most significant development in the past 30 years of liberal self-conception was the replacement of politics understood as an ideological conflict with politics understood as a struggle against idiots unwilling to recognize liberalism’s monopoly on empirical reason. The trouble with liberalism’s enemies was no longer that they were evil, although they might be that too. The problem, reinforced by Daily Kos essays in your Facebook feed and retweeted Daily Show clips, was that liberalism’s enemies were factually wrong about the world.…

Comeuppance.

The Case for Concerted Action
The Los Angeles Review Of Books On Liberalism
V. Ramanan

Pepe Escobar — House of Saudi Cards: The Inside Story

Backgrounder.

Sputnik International
House of Saudi Cards: The Inside Story

Pepe Escobar

David F. Ruccio — This is the end—or is it?

Where I think Mishra goes wrong is in arguing that “A new economic consensus is quickly replacing the neoliberal one to which Blair and Clinton, as well as Thatcher and Reagan, subscribed.” Yes, in both the United Kingdom and the United States—in the campaign rhetoric of Theresa May and Trump, and in the actual policy proposals of Corbyn and Sanders—neoliberalism has been challenged. But precisely because the existing framing of the questions has not changed, a new economic consensus—an alternative common sense—cannot be born.

To put it differently, the neoliberal frame has been discarded but the ongoing debate remains framed by the terms that gave rise to neoliberalism in the first place. What I mean by that is, while recent criticisms of neoliberalism have emphasized the myriad problems created by individualism and free markets, the current discussion forgets about or overlooks the even-deeper problems based on and associated with capitalism itself. So, once again, we’re caught in the pendulum swing between a more private, market-oriented form of capitalism and a more public, government-regulated form of capitalism. The former has failed—that era does seem to be crumbling—and so now we begin to turn (as we did during the last system-wide economic crisis) to the latter.**

However, the issue that keeps getting swept under the political rug is, how do we deal with the surplus? If the surplus is left largely in private hands, and the vast majority who produce it have no say in how it’s appropriated and distributed, it should come as no surprise that we continue to see a whole host of “morbid phenomena”—from toxic urban water and a burning tower block to a new wave of corporate concentration and still-escalating inequality.

As long as it is assumed that capital (ownership of means of production) must be favored over labor (people) and land (environment) because capital formation in the sine qua non of growth, then the frame remains it place.

A frame that integrates people, environment and productive capacity needs to be developed to replace the flawed frame, which can never work satisfactorily for all the factors. hence, will always lead to social and environmental problems if balance is not restored.

Questioning some dimensions of neoliberalism does not, in and of itself, constitute a new economic consensus. I’m willing to admit it is a start. But, as long as remain within the present framing of the issues, as long as we cannot show how unreasonable the existing reason is, we cannot say the existing era has actually come to an end and a new era is upon us.

For that we need a new common sense, one that identifies capitalism itself as the problem and imagines and enacts a different relationship to the surplus.

For this it is necessary to acknowledge that the problem is based on the expropriation of workers and the environment, which is not sustainable in the long run and leads to periodic breakdowns. Short term fixes just put off dealing with the causes.

Occasional Links & Commentary
This is the end—or is it?
David F. Ruccio | Professor of Economics, University of Notre Dame

Bill Mitchell — When Austrians ate dogs

Bill covers a lot of ground on work in progress and future publications. Important in keeping current on MMT work in progress.

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
When Austrians ate dogs
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

CrowdStrike’s Out on Russian Hacking

RT’s Alexey Yaroshevsky RT’s Alexey Yaroshevsky breaks down just how the DNC’s favorite Cyber Security Firm just struck out on Russian Hacking and how will that effect the rising McCarthyism on Capitol Hill.

Yes, you have read all about it here, but this is the video version which has some interesting facts in.

Paul Robinson — Not so intelligent

Anonymous sources. Real, or …...

The distinct lack of concern about the disclosure of a source allegedly so stunningly valuable that their information is restricted to just four people, is extraordinary. There can be only two explanations:

• People in Washington don’t give a damn about protecting the CIA’s sources, no matter how valuable they are, and are quite happy to throw them under the bus if it gives them some political advantage. That includes both the people who leak such stories to the press, the press itself, and also the wider political establishment, which doesn’t seem to be too upset by such stuff. That in turn would suggest that these people are utterly untrustworthy, so we should take what they say with the largest pinch of salt; or
• People aren’t concerned by the ‘leak’ for the simple reason that the source ‘deep in the Russian government’ doesn’t actually exist. The story is straightforward BS, pure and simple.

Personally, I tend toward option b.

Count me in.

Irrussianality
Not so intelligent
Paul Robinson | Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa

A Baseless Justification for War in Syria — Dennis J. Bernstein interviews Francis Boyle

U.S. government officials, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., claim the current U.S. authority to mount military operations in Iraq and Syria is legally based on the Authorization for the Use of Military Force [AUMF] declaration to go after Al Qaeda and related terror groups after the 9/11 attacks in 2001. But how does that cover the recent U.S. attacks on Syrian government forces that have been battling both Al Qaeda and its spinoff, Islamic State?

Francis Boyle, professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law, asserts that the recent U.S. shoot-down of a Syrian government jet inside Syria on June 18 was not only illegal under international law but amounts to an impeachable act by President Trump.

In an interview with Flashpoints’ Dennis J. Bernstein, Professor Boyle said, “What the U.S. government is getting away with here is incredible.” Boyle also talked to Bernstein about the questionable Russia-gate investigation and the darker history behind Special Prosecutor Robert Swan Mueller III, the former Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Dennis Bernstein: Will Syria’s hot war and the recent U.S. bombings there lead us into a hot war with Russia? Well, the generals are saying this shoot-down in Syria is legal. You want to jump into this?

Francis Boyle: You know Dunford doesn’t have a law degree that I’m aware of. But, of course, still the Pentagon is going to try to justify whatever war crimes it can. They always do.

Clearly the U.S. invasion, which we have done, and now repeated military attacks against Syria constitutes a Nuremberg crime against peace, and in violation of the Nuremberg charter, judgment and principles, and, of course, a violation of the United Nations’ charter. [It is] an act of aggression as defined by, oh even the new element of the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court that is not yet in force. But it has a definition based upon the 1974 definition of aggression which the World Court found to be customary international law in the very famous Nicaraguan case when it applied it against Nicaragua....

Quite an interview. Professor Boyle unloads.

Consortium News
A Baseless Justification for War in Syria

Dennis J. Bernstein interviews Francis Boyle, professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law

Ray McGovern — Intel Behind Trump’s Syria Attack Questioned

Legendary investigative reporter Seymour Hersh is challenging the Trump administration’s version of events surrounding the April 4 “chemical weapons attack” on the northern Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun – though Hersh had to find a publisher in Germany to get his information out.

In the Sunday edition of Die Welt, Hersh reports that his national security sources offered a distinctly different account, revealing President Trump rashly deciding to launch 59 Tomahawk missiles against a Syrian airbase on April 6 despite the absence of intelligence supporting his conclusion that the Syrian military was guilty.

Hersh draws on the kind of inside sources from whom he has earned longstanding trust to dispute that there ever was a “chemical weapons attack” and to assert that Trump was told that no evidence existed against the Syrian government but ordered “his generals” to “retaliate” anyway.

Marine General Joseph Dunford, Chairman of the, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and former Marine General, now Defense Secretary James “Mad-Dog” Mattis ordered the attacks apparently knowing that the reason given was what one of Hersh’s sources called a “fairy tale.”

They then left it to Trump’s national security adviser Army General H. R. McMaster to further the deceit with the help of a compliant mainstream media, which broke from its current tradition of distrusting whatever Trump says in favor of its older tradition of favoring “regime change” in Syria and trusting pretty much whatever the “rebels” claim.

Another tale of perfidy.

As of this writing, there is no sign in “mainstream media” of any reporting on Hersh’s groundbreaking piece. It is a commentary on the conformist nature of today’s Western media that an alternative analysis challenging the conventional wisdom – even when produced by a prominent journalist like Sy Hersh – faces such trouble finding a place to publish.

The mainstream hatred of Assad and Putin has reached such extraordinary levels that pretty much anything can be said or written about them with few if any politicians or journalists daring to express doubts regardless of how shaky the evidence is.
Even the London Review of Books, which published Hersh’s earlier debunking of the Aug. 21, 2013 sarin-gas incident, wouldn’t go off onto the limb this time despite having paid for his investigation....

Consortium News
Intel Behind Trump’s Syria Attack Questioned

Ray McGovern | veteran CIA analyst, Chief of the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch; prepared the President’s Daily Brief, and conducted the early morning briefings of President Reagan’s top national security advisers

Sandwichman — Marshall's Magic Confidence-Wand

Alfred Marshall quote.

EconoSpeak
Marshall's Magic Confidence-Wand
Sandwichman

Warren Mosler — Credit Check

US domestic private credit continues to be weak.

The Center of the Universe
Credit Check
Warren Mosler

Lars Syll — Keynes & MMT

Keynes quote.

Lars P. Syll’s Blog
Keynes & MMT

Lars P. Syll | Professor, Malmo University

See also

Mainstream monetary theory — neat, plausible, and utterly wrong

Bill McBride — Goldman on the Next Recession

CR note: Some day there will be another recession, but I don't see signs of a recession in the next year or more.

Calculated Risk
Goldman on the Next Recession
Bill McBride

Seymour Hersh — Trump‘s Red Line

How Trump overreacted at the time of the putative (faked) sarin attack in Syria.

President Donald Trump ignored important intelligence reports when he decided to attack Syria after he saw pictures of dying children. Seymour M. Hersh investigated the case of the alleged Sarin gas attack.

Trump is a loose cannon on deck in a storm. Scary when the captain is the loose cannon.

Welt

Trump‘s Red Line
Seymour M. Hersh

ht Jesse at Jesse's Café Américan

Moon of Alabama — Locked Into Al-Tanf U.S. Military Concedes It Lost The Race To Occupy South-East Syria

NEWSFLASH: The Pentagon and, even more important, the U.S. commanders in the Middle East, have finally recognized the basic facts of life.

There is no way the Syrian government and its allies will let the U.S. have south-east Syria or let it occupy the country including the Syrian army garrison in Deir Ezzor which is currently surrounded by Islamic State forces. The Syrian army and its allies will liberate Deir Ezzor and the whole Euphrates valley. The U.S. military has now conceded that.

There will be some huffing and puffing from the neoconservative corners but I doubt very much that this that this decision will be overturned or that this is a ruse. There is simply no strategic value for the U.S. in occupying south-east Syria and no will to defend it against determined resistance of capable opposing forces.

My congratulations to Syria and its allies. This battle is, for now, won.

Game (almost) over. But no doubt John McCain and various neocons won't be taking Sunday off after this news abut their plans being foiled.

Lesson: You can't bluff an invasion when Russia is in the game. 

But apparently it's all the military had in its toolbox, since for more direct action that might have led to direct conflict with Russia, the generals would have had to get permission from the politicians and president, and that would either have been a dead-end or else taken so much time as to scuttle the operation.

Moon of Alabama
Locked Into Al-Tanf U.S. Military Concedes It Lost The Race To Occupy South-East Syria
b

The CIA, Khomeini, & Secrets of the Islamic Revolution Exposed with Margot White

I thought it was a conspiracy theory that the CIA put Ayatollah Khomeini in charge but I did a search and came across this 2015 video about a book written by Margot White called Waking Up in Tehran. I also came across that in 2016 the CIA has released documents about how they put Khomeini in power.

The Shah was deeply unpopular and people wanted a change and were demonstrating in the streets so the CIA brought in the right wing, anti communist, anti socialist, Khomeini to take control. Khomeini wasn't very well known in Iran at the time as he hadn't lived in the country for 16 years because the Shah had banished him. The media gave him loads of coverage which only pop stars like the Beatles would normally get and he promised them democracy and equal rights for women. After the Shah left Iran Khomeini then became leader taking control but things did not turn out as the Iranians expected. When Khomeini took power he brought in a brutal, fascist, theocratic regime which turned on the people. Khomeini and his mullahs receives hundreds of millions from the CIA. The ultra right wing Khomeini wanted Reagan to win because Carter had cut off the millions that the US had been paying him

Soon after Khomeini took power and before he turned on the people Iranian students seized the American Embassy because they believed that they would find loads of documents there about how the CIA had organised the 1953 coup and what the CIA were up to now which they hoped this would help Khomeini, but the students hadn't realised that Khomeini was also a CIA asset who had promised to keep the oil flowing cheaply to the US. They only intended to stay there a for a few days but Khomeini saw how popular they were and so he encouraged then to stay longer boosting his own popularity. Morgan-Chase hoped the students would stay there a month because the Shah had put his billions into their bank accounts and under American law they were allowed to allowed to seize the money because if an American asset has been taken. Iran never got the money back.

One of the deals the Shah made with the US was that he would buy their weapons if they helped him stay in power, but this led up to massive build up of arms. Khomeini found a use for these weapons in the Iran-Iraq war which helped to keep demand for them as they were losing value.

This is another story of G.O.D, as Margot White says, guns, oil, and drugs. Margot White says there is nothing in this story about the morality that the West proclaims, it just about the money that wars, guns, and control of the oil can bring in just as it is in the ME today. The right wing Islamic mullahs have no problem with capitalism and imperialism as they hated the communists, but loved corruption and money. The British had used the Muslim Brotherhood for the same reason.

So we can see how the ME has been torn up to seize the oil, start wars to sell lots of weapons, and gain control the opium poppy fields which has made western bankers trillions. This is the morality of the West, and Putin is said to be the 'bad guy' because he is stopping them, but he is dealing with Satan.

As we have learnt here recently, the war with Russia is not intended to become hot, it is intended to be a tepid mini war moving beyond the cold war to strengthen NATO and to frighten Europe to buy €billions of new weapons. And the US has started a bogus cold war with China to get American taxpayers to pay for $billions of new weapons. Will it ever stop?

Zero Hedge — CIA Director Mike Pompeo: Trump's "An Avid Consumer" Of Intel, Will "Punish Leakers"

Apparently President Trump is learning the ropes. Which doesn't bode well for peace. America First is likely to remain a campaign promise that DJT will report that he "doing great" on, as in war to end wars.

Much more in the post than the title implies. Of course, Israel is not mentioned but Iran happens to the the arch-enemy of both Israel and Saudi Arabia, which is mentioned. Syria is to be portioned or turned into a Sunni puppet state of Saudi Arabia, and Hezbollah is the only Arab organization to have beaten Israel (in 2006). Go figure.

 They really have it for Iran, and Wikileaks too. Israel and Saudi Arabia! Israel and Saudi Arabia! Israel and Saudi Arabia! USA! USA! USA!

The problem is that Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and leakers such as Wikileaks are not threatening US national security in any substantial way. Their sin is getting in the way of the US elite. 

Why is that a problem. Because then TPTB react in a way that is not completely rational and that means losing touch with reality. When one losses touch, with reality it seldom ends well. And the real problem is that this will affect all living American and Americans for generations to come.

Zero Hedge
CIA Director Mike Pompeo: Trump's "An Avid Consumer" Of Intel, Will "Punish Leakers"

Tyler Durden

Taylor Link — Jill Stein denies being a puppet of Russia, blames Democrats for scapegoating election loss

WTF?  How long will take for the Democratic Party to erase the blot of McCarthyism in smearing Donald Trump and Jill Stein, and conspiring to deny Bernie Sanders a fair shot at the nomination?

Unless candidates for office in upcoming elections denounce it. And start critiquing themselves in earnest for their mistakes rather than trying to foist the blame on others by smearing them.

Democratic losses in special elections recently are sending a signal that is apparently not be received, or being interpreted badly.

And it is not only the Democratic Establishment that is caught up in this folly. A lot of so-called Progressive Democrats aka Bernie Democrats are too.

Losers.

Salon
Jill Stein denies being a puppet of Russia, blames Democrats for scapegoating election loss

Taylor Link