I was asked by Paul Solman, the PBS National Economics Correspondent, to write down in non-technical terms the basic argument for the labor theory of property, i.e., the ordinary juridical responsibility principle applied to property rights and liabilities. This is the “justice in production” argument in a nutshell. You can go directly to the PBS Making Sen$e site, or
Click here to download a PDF of the blog entry.Quite interesting that Paul Solman would make this request of David Ellerman, especially when PBS is going over the cliff in other respects.
ISIS militants were trained by US, Israeli and now it emerges, by Turkish special forces at secret bases in Konya Province inside the Turkish border to Syria, over the past three years. Erdoğan’s involvement in ISIS goes much deeper. At a time when Washington, Saudi Arabia and even Qatar appear to have cut off their support for ISIS, they remaining amazingly durable. The reason appears to be the scale of the backing from Erdoğan and his fellow neo-Ottoman Sunni Islam Prime Minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu.…
The prime source of money feeding ISIS these days is sale of Iraqi oil from the Mosul region oilfields where they maintain a stronghold. The son of Erdoğan [Bilal] it seems is the man who makes the export sales of ISIS-controlled oil possible.…
In addition to son Bilal’s illegal and lucrative oil trading for ISIS, Sümeyye Erdoğan, the daughter of the Turkish President apparently runs a secret hospital camp inside Turkey just over the Syrian border where Turkish army trucks daily being in scores of wounded ISIS Jihadists to be patched up and sent back to wage the bloody Jihad in Syria, according to the testimony of a nurse who was recruited to work there until it was discovered she was a member of the Alawite branch of Islam, the same as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad who Erdoğan seems hell-bent on toppling.…
According to French geopolitical analyst, Thierry Meyssan, Recep Erdoğan “organised the pillage of Syria, dismantled all the factories in Aleppo, the economic capital, and stole the machine-tools. Similarly, he organised the theft of archeological treasures and set up an international market in Antioch…with the help of General Benoît Puga, Chief of Staff for the Elysée [Syria is a former colony of France], he organised a false-flag operation intended to provoke the launching of a war by the Atlantic Alliance – the chemical bombing of la Ghoutta in Damascus, in August 2013. “….
Meyssan claims that the Syria strategy of Erdoğan was initially secretly developed in coordination with former French Foreign Minister Alain Juppé and Erdoğan’s then Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, in 2011, after Juppe won a hesitant Erdoğan to the idea of supporting the attack on traditional Turkish ally Syria in return for a promise of French support for Turkish membership in the EU.…
Gen. John R. Allen, an opponent of Obama’s Iran peace strategy, now US diplomatic envoy coordinating the coalition against the Islamic State, exceeded his authorized role after meeting with Erdoğan and “promised to create a « no-fly zone » ninety miles wide, over Syrian territory, along the whole border with Turkey, supposedly intended to help Syrian refugees fleeing from their government, but in reality to apply the « Juppé-Wright plan ». The Turkish Prime Minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, revealed US support for the project on the TV channel A Haber by launching a bombing raid against the PKK.” Meyssan adds.…NEO
It seems that an Israeli military man with the rank of colonel was “caught with IS pants down.” By that I mean he was captured amid a gaggle of so-called IS–or Islamic State or ISIS or DAESH depending on your preference–terrorists, by soldiers of the Iraqi army. Under interrogation by the Iraqi intelligence he apparently said a lot regarding the role of Netanyahu’s IDF in supporting IS.
In late October an Iranian news agency, quoting a senior Iraqi intelligence officer, reported the capture of an Israeli army colonel, named Yusi Oulen Shahak, reportedly related to the ISIS Golani Battalion operating in Iraq in the Salahuddin front. In a statement to Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency a Commander of the Iraqi Army stated, “The security and popular forces have held captive an Israeli colonel.” He added that the IDF colonel “had participated in the Takfiri ISIL group’s terrorist operations.” He said the colonel was arrested together with a number of ISIL or IS terrorists, giving the details: “The Israeli colonel’s name is Yusi Oulen Shahak and is ranked colonel in Golani Brigade… with the security and military code of Re34356578765az231434.”Israeli Colonel Caught with IS Pants Down
Matt Drudge’s first tweet in months came with a cryptic message: “A shocking truth is unfolding: America has been arming ISIS.”
Let's cut to the chase. The notion that Turkey's downing of a Russian Su-24 by a made in USA F-16 was carried out without either a green light or at least pre-arranged "support" from Washington invites suspension of disbelief.
Turkey is a mere vassal state, the eastern arm of NATO, which is the European arm of the Pentagon. The Pentagon already issued a denial — which, considering their spectacular record of strategic failures cannot be taken at face value. Plausibly, this might have been a power play by the neocon generals who run the Pentagon, allied with the neocon-infested Obama administration.
The privileged scenario though is of a vassal Turkey led by Sultan Erdogan risking a suicide mission out of its own, current, desperation.…
Get ready, because 2016 promises an even bigger bang.Sputnik
This is laughable in light of evidence that Turkey has been buying ISIS oil and keeping a porous border for supplies and personnel. In fact, the Erdogan clan owns oil company.
Russia's deputy foreign minister on Wednesday said Moscow did not understand new US sanctions against Russia over Syria and Washington should stop playing "geopolitical games."
"It is clear that this is a new, complicated moment in relations," Sergei Ryabkov said.
The United States sanctioned 10 targets it has accused of supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, including those who allegedly helped the Syrian government buy oil from Islamic State militants, Reuters reported.….
"The United States will continue targeting the finances of all those enabling Assad to continue inflicting violence on the Syrian people," Adam Szubin, acting Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, said in the statement.Said as the US supplies arms to terrorists through its Sunni vassals. Oh, and did I forget to mention the weapons that the US drops directly to ISIS "by mistake."
As details continue to emerge about the downing of a Russian bomber along the Turkey-Syria border on Tuesday, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has admitted to personally giving the order to fire on the aircraft, Canadian news outlet ThinkPol reported.…
"Despite all the warnings, we had to destroy the aircraft," he said during a meeting with his party, according to Canadian news site ThinkPol. "The Turkish Armed Forces carried out orders given by me personally.
Given the speed with which the incident occurred, it’s hard to know what to make of Davutoglu’s claim. According to the Turkish government’s own letter of explanation written to the United Nations Security Council, the military gave the Russian jet a series of warnings during a five-minute stretch, warning the pilots to move away from the border.
While the Russian Ministry of Defense has provided video evidence proving that the bomber never entered Turkish airspace, Ankara’s claim alleges that the incursion occurred for only 17 seconds.
It’s hard to imagine military personnel getting through to such a high-ranking government official, explaining the situation, and still having time to fire in a 17-second time frame.Sputnik
Davutoglu’s statements seem to back up comments made by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov earlier on Wednesday, suggesting that the incident had been premeditated.
An event of cosmic proportions occurred on November 18 when the US congress passed the Space Act of 2015 into law. The legislation will give US space firms the rights to own and sell natural resources they mine from bodies in space, including asteroids.
Although the act, passed with bipartisan support, still requires President Obama’s signature, it is already the most significant salvo that has been fired in the ideological battle over ownership of the cosmos. It goes against a number of treaties and international customary law which already apply to the entire universe.
The new law is nothing but a classic rendition of the “he who dares wins” philosophy of the Wild West. The act will also allow the private sector to make space innovations without regulatory oversight during an eight-year period and protect spaceflight participants from financial ruin. Surely, this will see private firms begin to incorporate the mining of asteroids into their investment plans.
Supporters argue that the US Space Act is a bold statement that finally sets private spaceflight free from the heavy regulation of the US government. The misdiagnosis begins here. Space exploration is a universal activity and therefore requires international regulation.
The act represents a full-frontal attack on settled principles of space law which are based on two basic principles: the right of states to scientific exploration of outer space and its celestial bodies and the prevention of unilateral and unbriddled commercial exploitation of outer-space resources. These principles are found in agreements including the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 and the Moon Agreement of 1979.…
Turkey appears to have deliberately shot down a Russian warplane as a provocation designed to escalate tensions between NATO and Russia, a ploy that seems to have sucked in President Obama as he tries to look tough against Russia to appease his neocon critics, writes Robert Parry.Parry thinks that Obama is getting rolled because he is "weak." I think it is still an open question as to whether the president at least signed off on the strike, if he didn't order it. There is definitely motive here for the US to act through a proxy that gets to benefit, too.
Syrian rebels, including jihadists fighting with Ahrar al-Sham, have received hundreds of U.S. TOW anti-tank missiles, apparently through Sunni regional powers with what I’ve been told was Obama’s direct approval. The jihadists have celebrated their use of TOWs to kill tank crews of the Syrian army. Yet Obama talks about every country’s right to defend its territory.
Obama and the U.S. mainstream media also have pretended that the only terrorists that need to be fought in Syria are those belonging to the Islamic State (also known as ISIS, ISIL or Daesh), but Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front and its ally, Ahrar al-Sham, which was founded in part by Al Qaeda veterans, make up the bulk of the Turkish-and-Saudi-backed Army of Conquest which was gaining ground – with the help of those American TOW missiles – until Russia intervened with air power at the request of Syrian President Assad in late September.You read that right. The US is a state sponsor terrorism, along with KSA, Qatar and other Islamic states, apparently with the knowledge and approval of POTUS.
For many in the West, the idea that a church would take an overtly hawkish stance in the conflict in Syria is an utterly foreign concept.
But then, the Russian Orthodox Church is not of the West, says Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, the church's most recognizable spokesperson, in his spartan downtown Moscow office.
"The idea that church and state should be alienated from each other is not a characteristic of Orthodox civilization," insists the wispy-bearded senior cleric, whose eyes almost seem to burn. "It's a characteristic of the West."…
The Orthodox Church, which has deep historical connections with the dwindling Christian communities of the Middle East, was deeply alarmed by mass flight of Iraq's Christians following the US invasion of that country. When the conflict in Syria began almost five years ago, the church began lobbying the Kremlin to take a strong stand in defense of Syrian Christians, who are about 10 percent of the population. Experts say the church's insistence certainly played a role in President Vladimir Putin's decision to intervene directly in the conflict...Christian Science Monitor
Remember these words. Remember forever. And I will never forget it. I promise.
Media: "The U.S. State Department does not exclude that the shooting of catapulted pilots of the Russian Su-24 by Syrian Turkmens was self-defense, said the official representative of the agency, Mark Toner, during a briefing.
"If the Turkmen forces were attacked by Russian air strikes, they could defend themselves," - said Toner to the question of assessing the actions of the Syrian Turkmens, who shot the catapulted pilots of the Russian Su-24.
To a follow-up question of a journalist whether to consider self-defense the shooting the unarmed pilots, who ejected with a parachute, he replied that 'there is no clear understanding of what actually happened.'"
Former Vice Chief of Staff of the US Air Force, Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney, told Fox News: "This airplane was not making any maneuvers to attack the territory...it was probably pressing the limits, that's fair. But you don't shoot 'em down just because of that."
“I don’t really trust President Erdogan in what he is doing,” he added. “I think it was an overly aggressive maneuver and at NORAD [North American Aerospace Defense] command region we would not use this kind of rules of engagement. That had to be preplanned.”Is the US distancing itself from perception that it was in on the pre-planning?
Some Turkish officials have ‘direct financial interest’ in the oil trade with the terrorist group Islamic State, Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev said as he detailed possible Russian retaliation to Turkey’s downing of a Russian warplane in Syria on Tuesday.
“Turkey’s actions are de facto protection of Islamic State,” Medvedev said, calling the group formerly known as ISIS by its new name. “This is no surprise, considering the information we have about direct financial interest of some Turkish officials relating to the supply of oil products refined by plants controlled by ISIS.”State sponsored terrorism is a serious charge. Go directly to the Hague material.
Russia sent an advanced missile system to Syria on Wednesday to protect its jets operating there and pledged its air force would keep flying missions near Turkish air space, sounding a defiant note after Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet.
Underscoring the message, Russian forces launched a heavy bombardment against insurgent-held areas in Latakia on Wednesday, near where the jet was downed, rebels and a monitoring group said.…
President Tayyip Erdogan made no apology, saying his nation had simply been defending its own security and the "rights of our brothers in Syria". He made clear Turkish policy would not change.
The navigator of the Russian Su-24 shot down by a Turkish fighter jet on Tuesday insists that his plane did not cross into Turkey’s airspace, and says he was given no visual or radio warning before being fired at.Ambushed?
As well as denying Ankara’s assertions that the plane was in Turkey’s airspace, Murakhtin, who says he knows the mission area "like the back of my hand," also refuted Turkish officials’ claims that the pilots were warned repeatedly.
“In actual fact, there were no warnings at all. Neither through the radio, nor visually, so we did not at any point adjust our course. You need to understand the difference in speed between a tactical bomber like a Su-24, and that of the F16. If they wanted to warn us, they could have sat on our wing,” said Murakhtin, who is currently recuperating at Russia’s airbase in Latakia, northern Syria.
“As it was, the missile hit the back of our plane out of nowhere. We didn’t even have time to make an evasive maneuver.”
As the plane was hit and went down in Syria, the two pilots ejected. Captain Sergey Rumyantsev was killed, with a rebel Turkmen brigade claiming they shot him to death while he was still parachuting.
Murakhtin was extracted in a 12-hour joint operation by Russian and Syrian special forces, in which a Russian marine died.RT
The downing of the Russian warplane, which aggressively violated Syria’s sovereignty, is proof to the world of Turkish support for terrorism. This has been going on for years, the Syrian foreign minister said.RT
Russia is not considering stopping airstrikes on terrorist targets close to the Turkish border after the downing of its plane by Turkish fighter jets, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
“There is no such legal term ‘further from the Turkish border’. There is the term ‘Syrian airspace’. We would be happy if terrorists kept further from the Turkish border, but unfortunately they tend to stick just next to it,” he said.RT
Russia has deployed a missile cruiser near Latakia and is ready to take down any aerial targets threatening its airbase near the Syrian city, with long-range surface-to-air missiles.
The move was announced on Tuesday after Turkey shot down a Russian Su-24 bomber conducting an anti-terrorist mission in Syria. Ankara claims it engaged the warplane over a violation of Turkey’s airspace, but Moscow denies any violation and accused Turkey of aiding terrorists in Syria.RT
The Moskva cruiser, stationed in Latakia as part of the military buildup, is a 11,500-ton, 186-meter warship serving as part of the Russian Black Sea fleet. In addition to anti-ship missiles, anti-submarine mortars and torpedoes, it has 64 Fort missiles, the naval version of the S-300 long-range air defense system. The missiles can engage targets at a range of up to 150km, which is enough to cover all of southern Turkey from Latakia.
"S-400 will be deployed on Khmeimim airbase in Syria," [Russian Defense Minister] Shoigu said at a Defense Ministry meeting.…
The S-400 is Russia's most advanced anti-aircraft defense system. It is as an upgrade of the S-300 Growler family, designed and developed by Almaz Antei. The S-400 is employed to ensure air defense using long- and medium-range missiles that can hit aerial targets at ranges up to 400 kilometers. The S-400 is capable of hitting tactical and strategic aircraft as well as ballistic and cruise missiles. The system includes a set of radars, missile launchers and command posts, and is operated solely by the Russian military.RT
The GFC clearly, in my view, demonstrated that the political positions held by both the left- and right-wing governments in the West with respect to economic policy were untenable. Both sides of politics in each major and country adopted versions of market liberalism where the overlap was more dominant than the differences. While the left maintained some emphasis on social policy and the right maintained an emphasis on individual freedom (which was more about corporate freedom than anything), the fact remains that these differences were blurred by the dominance of the free market approach in each of their platforms. It is ironic, that as a consequence of the GFC, the bureaucratic state is more dominant now than it was, especially in the European Union where the political and technical elite interacts with the so-called market to create what has been called the democratic deficit. We now have technocrats in the European bureaucracy, in the IMF, in the World Bank and other multilateral organisations who contrive to implement policies which have allowed the benefits of economic activity to be increasingly diverted to beneficiaries who are at the top end of the income and wealth distribution. Today’s blog continues reporting some of the research I’ve been doing for my next book on the demise of the Left and the subjugation of public purpose in the name of austerity. It seems that we have concentrated on fiscal austerity but the general notion of austerity, which is now the centrepiece of political positions in most advanced countries, goes well beyond just fiscal policy. The response to the recent events in Paris demonstrate how far the state is willing to centralise authoritative controls on the rights of their citizens.…Connecting the dots between economics and politics in Europe.
DTN Ukraine: RFE/RL: Poroshenko gives high state award to Soros: Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has awar... https://t.co/LkCkjCJ7zk
— DTN Ukraine (@DTNUkraine) November 13, 2015
Conspicuously missing from President Hollande’s decisive declaration of war, however, was any mention of the biggest elephant in the room: state-sponsorship.…
A senior Western official familiar with a large cache of intelligence obtained this summer from a major raid on an ISIS safehouse told the Guardian that “direct dealings between Turkish officials and ranking ISIS members was now ‘undeniable.’”
The same official confirmed that Turkey, a longstanding member of NATO, is not just supporting ISIS, but also other jihadist groups, including Ahrar al-Sham and Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria. “The distinctions they draw [with other opposition groups] are thin indeed,” said the official. “There is no doubt at all that they militarily cooperate with both.”….The West knows that Turkey, KSA, Qatar, and other Sunni states have been supporting ISIS, Al Qaeda, and other terrorist affiliates in order to attack Shi'ite Syria and by proxy also Iran. This fits into the pan of the Atlanticists, who are fully aware of it. They are not only aware of it, but have been supplying arms that they know will go to terrorists.
WHY RUSSIA WON'T RETALIATE
As succinctly as possible:
The Sultan Erdogan racket would NEVER have dared to commit an ACT OF WAR against Russia if they did not have full support from His Masters' Voice. That includes a NATO pledge of military support should Moscow retaliate.
This is a trap. Russian intel eats these things for breakfast.
Moscow WILL retaliate. But it will be further on down the road; carefully calculated, unexpected and swift.
The Erdogan racket won't know what hit them.Vladimir Putin was a KGB officer, after all. Erdogan needs to be watching his back personally.
The U.S. government is working hard to ensure quicker processing of U.S. foreign arms sales, which surged 36 percent to $46.6 billion in fiscal 2015 and look set to remain strong in coming years, a top Pentagon official said.
“Projections are still strong,” Vice Admiral Joe Rixey, who heads the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), told Reuters in an interview late on Monday.
He said the agency was trying to sort out the impact of a much stronger-than-expected fourth quarter as it finalized its forecast for arms sales in fiscal 2016, which began Oct. 1.
The fight against Islamic State militants and other armed conflicts around the globe were fueling demand for U.S. missile defense equipment, helicopters and munitions, Rixey said, a shift from 10 years ago when the focus was on fighter jets.
“It’s worldwide. The demand signal is coming in Europe, in the Pacific and in Centcom,” he said, referring to the U.S. Central Command region, which includes the Middle East and Afghanistan.
U.S. companies and some foreign countries have expressed growing frustration in recent months about delays in arms sales approvals. They argue that the U.S. government has not expanded its capacity to process arms deals despite a big spike in such transaction…Russian and Chinese weapons sales soaring, too.
A U.S. official told Reuters that the Russian jet was inside of Syria when it was shot down:
The United States believes that the Russian jet shot down by Turkey on Tuesday was hit inside Syrian airspace after a brief incursion into Turkish airspace, a U.S. official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Russia denies that the Russian fighter jet – which was bombing ISIS – ever entered Turkish air space, and has put out its own map purporting to prove that claim.
The Russian jet pilots who parachutted free of their burning plane were then purportedly killed by Turkish rebels inside Syria. If true, this is a war crime.The rebels claim that the pilot were shot while parachuting down, which is a war crime, wherever.
Then – when a Russian helicopter tried to save the pilots – it was shot down by American-backed Syrian rebels – using weapons provided to them by the United States – and a Russian marine was killed.This happened in Syria by "moderates" back by the US and supplied with US weapons.
Indeed, NATO-member Turkey is MASSIVELY supporting ISIS, provided chemical weapons used in the jihadi’s massacre of civilians, and has been bombing ISIS’ main on-the-ground enemy – Kurdish soldiers – using its air force. And some of the Turkish people are also unsympathetic to the victims of ISIS terrorism.Turkey was also instrumental in the creation of ISIS. An internal Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) document produced recently shows, the U.S. knew that the actions of “the West, Gulf countries and Turkey” in Syria might create a terrorist group like ISIS and an Islamic CALIPHATE.…Washington's Blog
This is the official Turkish radar track of the Russian aircraft they shot down, in red. It briefly transited a tiny neck of Turkish land – less than two miles across where the Russian jet passed – twice:
Turkey’s attack on a Russian warplane in Syria is an obvious provocation seeking to set the international anti-Islamic State coalition at odds, Jean-Luc Melenchon, a French politician and member of the European Parliament, said on Tuesday.
"The Turkish government is playing really foul games," he wrote in his account in the web. "What was the Russian plane doing? It was delivering air strikes against the Islamic State. Did it pose any threat to Turkey? No. It means that it was another Turkey’s provocation seeking to set the international coalition which is currently being formed at odds. It is a well-staged shot in the back."…TASS
But what we see now is a new escalation; Turkey right now attacked a world power. This changes the game or this might change the game into a horrible situation for the future.
We should not forget that Turkey is one of the most important and, at the same time, the most appreciated NATO member. NATO accepts everything Turkey is doing, especially [everything] Erdogan is doing. Erdogan established an almost totalitarian state under his party leadership. NATO is never doing something against this.
So we can see this attack against the Russian air craft, also not just a Turkish attack, but also it is a NATO attack. So this puts the conflict from the regional level to the world level and that makes the whole incident quite risky.…
This history shows us that Turkey desperately tries to make this conflict wider to involve other powers. This is what they are doing nonstop and all the news coming from Turkey, especially from the Turkish military, are deeply-biased and propaganda news to justify this politics.…
…if Turkey says the air jets were violating Turkish airspace, this might also have to do with the interpretation from Ankara on what belongs to Turkey and what not. Because we see that Turkey is very openly securing or invading an area in northern Turkey. We can the terrorist gangs in northern Syria. I think, without any problem, they are just Turkish proxies; they get their money from Turkey, they get their arms from Turkey, the Islamic State [Daesh Takfiri terrorists] is openly supported by Turkey. So these are all Turkish proxies which are right now occupying northern Syrian territory. So this might be one of the reasons that Ankara might see that is a violation of Turkish airspace because what the Russians are doing right now is directly attacking and weakening Turkish proxies on Syrian ground.…"Our guy" Erdogan.