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Why Is the Foreign Policy Establishment Spoiling for More War? Look at Their Donors
Dennis J. Kucinich
… In the past 15 years this city’s so called bipartisan foreign policy elite has promoted wars in Iraq and Libya, and interventions in Syria and Yemen, which have opened Pandora’s Box to a trusting world, to the tune of trillions of dollars, a windfall for military contractors … The American people are fed up with war, but a concerted effort is being made through fearmongering, propaganda, and lies to prepare our country for a dangerous confrontation with Russia in Syria. The demonization of Russia is a calculated plan to resurrect a raison d’être for stone-cold warriors trying to escape from the dustbin of history by evoking the specter of Russian world domination.
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Five Washington Post Writers Liken Trump to Hitler
David Kupelian - WND
… On July 25, the [Washington] Post published a piece by Peter Ross Range, a longtime mainstream newsmagazine writer, titled “The theory of political leadership that Donald Trump shares with Adolf Hitler.” “Hitler,” wrote Range, who authored the book “1924: The Year That Made Hitler,” “saw himself as singularly endowed to avert Armageddon and reach national greatness.” … Then there was author and essayist Shalom Auslander, whose Sept. 13 Washington Post column was headlined: “Don’t compare Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler. It belittles Hitler.” … So, what does this say about the Washington Post – and others in the “mainstream media” who consider themselves America’s arbiters of truth – continually comparing Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump with Hitler?
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This New York Times 'Hitler' Book Review Sure Reads Like a Thinly Veiled Trump Comparison
The Washington Post
In the New York Times, Michiko Kakutani reviewed a new book about Adolf Hitler, titled “Hitler: Ascent 1889-1939.” To many observers, though, it read like a bit more than a book review. It read like a comparison between Hitler and Donald Trump. It’s true that the review didn’t name Trump — or even allude to the 2016 U.S. presidential race. But it came across to more than a few readers as an intentional, point-by-point comparison of Hitler’s rise and Trump’s. And it’s not hard to see why. From the headline — “In ‘Hitler,’ an Ascent From ‘Dunderhead’ to Demagogue” — to the conclusion 1,300 words later, nearly everything Kakutani says about Volker Ullrich’s book reflects long-standing warnings by some about how Trump shouldn’t be dismissed as some sideshow and that history shows where this can lead.
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Hitler’s 1932 Election Campaign 'Stump Speech'
Institute for Historical Review
This recorded address by Adolf Hitler was distributed on 50,000 phonograph discs during Germany’s fiercely contested national parliament election campaign of July 1932, in which his National Socialist movement emerged as the country’s largest party. This “Appeal to the Nation” is similar in content and tone to many other speeches he gave in 1932, which for Germans was a year of mass unemployment, economic paralysis, and a broken, unresponsive political system. Translation of the complete text, with a foreword by Mark Weber. This historic address is particularly interesting during this 2016 US presidential election campaign, with media commentators claiming that Donald Trump’s appeal and campaign style is similar to that of the German leader.
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Photos Document Hitler’s Rise to Power
Time/ Life.com
A collection of 36 striking photographs from a “photo album” picture book Deutschland Erwacht / Germany Awakened, published in 1933, shortly after Hitler and his National Socialist Party took power. These photos, most of which were made by Heinrich Hoffmann, Hitler’s own photographer, trace the early years of the German leader and his movement. These photos portray Hitler as an imposing, resolute leader, a “man of the people,” and a friend of children and animals. His followers are shown as idealistic, self-sacrificing, and determined to work and fight for a better future for their people. Following Germany’s defeat in 1945, Allied occupation authorities banned this book, and countless others.
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H.L. Mencken Would Skewer Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump
Marion Rodgers - The Washington Times
Oh, how H.L. Mencken would have loved this. The renowned Baltimore journalist who said that national political conventions and politicians were for “connoisseurs of the obscene” would have never guessed how obscene it could be … In a country that has grown discouraged by the current endurance match, and ever more polarized and shrill, I join the choir in wishing Mencken were here with us now. Anything but a moralist, Mencken, like Mark Twain, recognized that sound information and lively wit are the best way to defeat hypocrisy and fraud.
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Several leaders around the world have taken the liberty to pass judgement about the presidential election in the United States. Iran’s president is the latest. Speaking Sunday in a televised speech in the city of Ark, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said he had no preference in the U.S. election and the choice offered to American citizens was between “bad and worse” referring to presidential race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. “Did you see the debate and the way of their speaking, accusing and mocking each other? Do we want such a democracy in our country? Do we want such elections in our country?” Rouhani asked. He went on to comment the United States “claims it has had democracy for more than 200 years,” but the present situation indicates that “the morality has no place” there.
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Our Hardliners Are Still Helping Iran's Hardliners
Paul R. Pillar - The National Interest
The unrelenting urge among American politicians to keep punishing Iran — or more precisely, to be seen supporting steps with that objective — continues to work against sensible statecraft and U.S. interests in multiple respects … Despite the record of Iranian compliance, the months since conclusion of the JCPOA have seen a stream of anti-Iran bills introduced in Congress. Examination of most of these bills yields little idea of how if they were to come into effect they would advance any U.S. interests pertinent to Iran, and little evidence of any thought that in this respect went into the writing of the bills. The bills instead seem to be vehicles for members to demonstrate, through their sponsorship or support of such legislation, their anti-Iran credentials.
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Atlantic's New Editor Was IDF Prison Guard, Beat Palestinians
TeleSur (Venezuela)
The new editor of one of the most storied magazines in the US is so far on the fringe that even other staunch Zionists criticize his overzealousness. “In five years, however, I believe that the coming invasion of Iraq will be remembered as an act of profound morality.” These are the not-so-prescient words of Jeffrey Goldberg, named this week the new chief editor of the 159-year-old Atlantic Magazine, one of the most famous journalistic institutions in U.S. history … Additionally, his credibility as a journalist is most unsavory. At the New Yorker magazine, Goldberg authored dozens of articles that were later discovered to be false but provided the United States with a pretense for invading Iraq.
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Jewish Donors Fill Candidates’ War Chests, Especially Clinton’s
E. Cortellessa - The Times of Israel
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton may be further apart than any two presidential candidates in recent memory, but they share at least one thing in common: Jewish donors make up the top tier of those opening their checkbooks for the campaigns. According to the latest Federal Election Commission disclosure, American Jewish donors funneled more than $90 million to the presidential campaigns of Democratic nominee Clinton and her Republican opponent Trump … Making their contributions through campaign committees, joint fundraising entities and allied super-PACs, Clinton’s five biggest financial backers are Jewish, and so are Trump’s top two.
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Clinton Campaign Tally Shows Five Top Donors are Jewish
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
A tally of the fundraising for the campaign to elect Hillary Clinton president shows that the top five donors are Jewish. The Washington Post analysis, posted Oct. 24, named the top donors, who are contributing $1 of every $17 of the over $1 billion amassed for the Democratic nominee’s presidential run. They are Donald Sussman, a hedge fund manager; J.B. Pritzker, a venture capitalist, and his wife, M.K.; Haim Saban, the Israeli-American entertainment mogul, and his wife, Cheryl; George Soros, another hedge funder and a major backer of liberal causes, and Daniel Abraham, a backer of liberal pro-Israel causes and the founder of SlimFast.
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Goldman Sachs CEO Blankfein Affirms Support for Hillary Clinton
Bloomberg News (New York)
Lloyd Blankfein, chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., has shied away from publicly backing a presidential candidate this year, saying his support could harm that person’s chances. Yet in an interview that will air Sunday on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS,” Blankfein, asked if he personally supports and admires Democrat Hillary Clinton, said that he did … Clinton, 68, has been criticized, both in the primary fight against Senator Bernie Sanders and in the general election campaign against Republican Donald Trump, for her ties to Goldman Sachs. She was paid some $675,000 for three speeches to the New York-based bank in 2013, months after she had stepped down as secretary of state.
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Clinton Campaign Manager: Avoid Talk About Israel, to Keep Democrats Happy
R. Wootlift - The Times of Israel
In mid-2015, as preparations got underway for the US presidential election, Hillary Clinton’s campaign team worried that mentioning Israel during election speeches could put off Democratic voters, according to a leaked email released by WikiLeaks this week. In correspondence dated May 2005 discussing the Democratic candidate’s stump speech, Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook said he thinks she “shouldn’t have Israel at public events,” for fear of pushing off party activists. It was instead agreed that overt support for Israel would be better received with fundraisers and should be avoided in speeches directed at the Democratic base.
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Euro 'House of Cards' to Collapse, Warns ECB Prophet
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - The Telegraph (Britain)
The European Central Bank is becoming dangerously over-extended and the whole euro project is unworkable in its current form, the founding architect of the monetary union has warned. “One day, the house of cards will collapse,” said Professor Otmar Issing, the ECB’s first chief economist and a towering figure in the construction of the single currency. Prof Issing said the euro has been betrayed by politics, lamenting that the experiment went wrong from the beginning and has since degenerated into a fiscal free-for-all that once again masks the festering pathologies … The ECB has “crossed the Rubicon” and is now in an untenable position, trying to reconcile conflicting roles as banking regulator, Troika enforcer in rescue missions and agent of monetary policy. Its own financial integrity is increasingly in jeopardy.
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Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte has said he wants US troops to leave the country, possibly within two years. Speaking while on a state visit to Japan, he also called for an “independent foreign policy”. Under a current defence pact, the US maintains troops at five military bases in the Philippines. Since taking office Mr Duterte has strongly emphasised a pivot away from the US, a long-time ally and former colonial ruler, towards China … Duterte has in the past complained that the US has exploited the Philippines and interfered with its foreign policy. The Philippines is seen as a linchpin of the US strategy in South East Asia, particularly in counterbalancing China’s maritime ambitions.
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… A dramatic development in China last week brought President Obama’s “pivot to Asia” to a sudden halt. Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte, while in Beijing, announced his country’s “separation” from the United States … President Obama’s “pivot to Asia” has turned out not to mean improved trade and diplomatic ties with the region, but an aggressive stance toward China over, among other issues, the South China Sea. The US has concluded military agreements with Vietnam and the Philippines, and maintains strong military ties with Japan and South Korea. The Philippines has been used as a US cat’s paw in South China Sea dispute and Duterte’s surprise statement signaled that he felt the relationship was too one-sided.
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Washington’s 'Pivot to Asia': A Debacle Unfolding
James Petras
In 2012 President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Ashton Carter launched a new chapter in their quest for global dominance: a realignment of policies designed to shift priorities from the Middle East to Asia. Dubbed the ‘Pivot to Asia’, it suggested that the US would concentrate its economic, military and diplomatic resources toward strengthening its dominant position and undercutting China’s rising influence in the region … The Pentagon’s military base strategy stuck in a 1980’s time-warped vision of Southeast Asia is on the verge of imploding. The Philippines, its former colony and vassal state, is finally turning away from its total subservience to US military dictates and toward greater independence and stronger regional ties to China and the rest of Asia.
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'America Has Lost' in the Philippines
Pepe Escobar
… Thus Philippines President Rodrigo “The Punisher” Duterte unleashed a geopolitical earthquake encompassing Eurasia and reverberating all across the Pacific Ocean. And talk about choosing his venue with aplomb; right in the heart of the Rising Dragon, no less. Capping his state visit to Beijing, Duterte then coined the mantra – pregnant with overtones – that will keep ringing all across the global South: “America has lost” … China is already the Philippines’ second-largest trade partner … The US was the colonial power in the Philippines from 1899 to 1942. Hollywood permeates the collective unconscious. English is the lingua franca – side by side with Tagalog … Two of the largest components of the US Empire of Bases were located for decades in the Philippines: Clark Air Force Base and Subic Bay Naval Base.
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Real Politics Is Not a Game: The Stubborn Reality of Jewish-Zionist Power
Mark Weber (October 2016)
… What’s crucial in determining the really important policies and long-term trends of a nation are rarely individual politicians, whatever they may promise, or whatever their fans may hope or believe — but rather the goals and agenda of those who hold real power. Serious politics is about power … During this year’s election campaign, the two major presidential candidates, along with all other prominent U.S. politicians, have made very clear, time and again, their loyalty and devotion to Jewish-Zionist power. And that means that, no matter who wins on election day, there will not be — and there cannot be — any substantive shift in this country’s power alignment, and therefore no real change in basic direction or policy.
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Coming to Terms With Iraq
Jacob G. Hornberger - FFF
It seems that Iraq will continue to haunt the American people for the indefinite future. And it should. Including the Persian Gulf intervention, the eleven years of sanctions, the no-fly zones, the post-9/11 invasion and occupation, and the post-occupation bombing, the U.S. government has killed, injured, and maimed several hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens. There is also the massive destruction of homes, businesses, automobiles, infrastructure, and other property in Iraq … The irony in all this is that it was Iraq that was always the defending nation and it was always the U.S. government that was the aggressing nation. It was the U.S. government that was the war criminal the entire time.
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The Past Comes Back to Haunt Us — Or Should
Rachelle Marshall - Foreign Policy In Focus
… There would be no ISIS today if George W. Bush had not taken the U.S. into war in two Muslim countries, Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003. Neither country posed a threat to the U.S. But under the guidance of his vice-president, Dick Cheney, Bush brought with him to Washington a group of foreign policy advisers who were determined to change the face of the Middle East, and if necessary to do it by force. The incoming advisers had already described their goals in a 1996 paper entitled “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm,” which was originally intended for Israel’s newly elected prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu … The U.S. and its allies would first oust president Saddam Hussein, a move that Israel’s Likud party leaders had been urging.
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Hillary Regnant: Perpetual War Party Prepares to Coronate Its First Queen
Andrew Levine - CounterPunch
The Obamas are going all out for Hillary. Of course, they are; when she is in charge, Barack will look good in comparison. Even his Nobel Prize won’t seem quite so ludicrous. Running against Donald Trump, Hillary will win – or rather Trump will lose — by a landslide. She will become Queen of the Perpetual War Party. Her victory — or rather Trump’s defeat — will please the liberal imperialists she and Obama empowered. Neoconservatives, in and out of the Obama administration, will be delighted as well … It will be a lot harder, after November 8, to strike a blow for democracy — by damaging, and perhaps mortally wounding, the Republican and Democratic Parties, and the duopoly party system they enforce. Trump has already done his part. To his everlasting credit, he has driven a stake through the heart of the GOP.
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UN Fears Third Leg of the Global Financial Crisis – With Prospect of Epic Debt Defaults
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - The Telegraph (Britain)
The third leg of the world’s intractable depression is yet to come. If trade economists at the United Nations are right, the next traumatic episode may entail the greatest debt jubilee in history. It may also prove to be the definitive crisis of globalized capitalism, the demise of the liberal free-market orthodoxies promoted for almost forty years by the Bretton Woods institutions, the OECD, and the Davos fraternity. “Alarm bells have been ringing over the explosion of corporate debt levels in emerging economies, which now exceed $25 trillion. Damaging deflationary spirals cannot be ruled out,” said the annual report of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
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In Britain, Baroness Tonge Shares Article About ‘Jewish Power’
Jewish News (Britain)
Pressure was mounting on the Liberal Democrats to finally kick Baroness Tonge out of the party this [July] week, after she claimed Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians was a “major cause” of jihadism and Islamic State. It also emerged that the anti-Israel peer had earlier shared an article about “Jewish power” being behind Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s current woes. In a House of Lords statement on Palestinian children on Thursday, Tonge said: “The treatment of the Palestinians by Israel is a major cause of the rise of extreme Islamism and Daesh [Islamic State].” … This week it emerged that Tonge shared an article by anti-Israel author Gilad Atzmon, in which he said: “British Labour is the current target of an intensive exercise in Jewish power. The Jewish Lobby and media are openly silencing criticism of Israel and Jewish power.”
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Yes, There is a Jewish Lobby
Shai Franklin – Jewish Journal (Los Angeles)
Sorry to burst everyone’s branding bubble, but there is a “Jewish lobby.” It happens to be pro-Israel because it’s Jewish — not the other way around. Jews don’t like hearing non-Jews use the term in public, and perhaps they shouldn’t. But as an interest group, Jews as such are ably represented (most of the time) by a close-knit network of advocacy organizations. Most of these are purely or predominantly Jewish, judging by their branding, supporters and staff.
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Austria Court Finds Police Officer Guilty of Saying 'Heil Hitler'
Associated Press
An Austrian court has found a police officer guilty of contravening anti-Nazi laws by saying “Heil Hitler” while on duty at the border with Hungary and sentenced him to a suspended nine-month prison term. The 29-year-old was found guilty Thursday on the basis of testimony from fellow officers. One said he heard him speak the words, while the other testified that he was present when he later apologized for saying them. Prosecutor Christian Peto told the court in the eastern city of Eisenstadt that after stopping a car on the border with Hungarian license plates earlier this year “the accused began official duties with the words ‘Heil Hitler’.”
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Long-banished German words and phrases linked to the country’s Nazi past have been revived by far-right politicians railing against the migrant influx, sparking comparisons to the 1930s. The re-emergence of formerly taboo words has prompted some historians to draw parallels with the rhetoric used in the final, turbulent years of the Weimar Republic, the fledgling democracy that gave way to Adolf Hitler’s dictatorship. For more than a year, the Islamophobic Pegida street movement has routinely insulted the media as “Lügenpresse” (lying press), a word used by Hitler in the 1920s to discredit the mainstream press … Some politicians too have been using racially charged words such as “völkisch” …
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US Plunges Into War With Yemen
Stephen Kinzer - Boston Globe
… Twice in recent days, cruise missiles fired from an American destroyer have rained down on Yemen … American forces were already involved in Yemen’s civil war … American forces are already fighting, carrying out drone attacks, and “advising” ground troops in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Mali, and Somalia. No vital American interest is at stake in any of those conflicts. Nor will our security be affected by the outcome of Yemen’s civil war. The impulse to fight there — and to control the Persian Gulf — is simply the latest result of our long campaign to shape the fate of foreign nations … Yemenis are unlikely to forget that we joined Saudi Arabia in bombing their country. The only important beneficiaries of our escalation are the Saudis and the US arms industry.
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Afghanistan: Fool’s War
Eric Margolis
Fifteen years ago this week, the US launched the longest war in its history: the invasion and occupation of remote Afghanistan … A report by Global Research has estimated the 15-year Afghan War and the Iraq War had cost the US $6 trillion … Some estimates put the war cost at $33,000 per citizen. But Americans do not pay this cost through a special war tax, as it should be. Bush ordered the total costs of the Iraq and Afghan wars be concealed in the national debt. Officially, 2,216 American soldiers have died in Afghanistan and 20,049 were seriously wounded … Instead, more US troops are on the way to protect the Kabul puppet regime from its own people.
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Kerry’s Anger as Assad Poised to Win; the U.S. Still Serves Israel and Saudi Arabia
Michael S. Rozeff
… U.S. support of Israel and Saudi Arabia has never had a reasonable basis in terms of American interests. Such support has brought us nothing but grief, death and trouble, including 9/11, the U.S.S. Cole, war dead, war disabled, veteran suicides, enormous debts, wasted taxes, a loss of freedoms at home, loss of privacy, homegrown terrorism, increased fear, increased inconveniences, the growth of jihadist radicalism, perpetual war and serious inroads of an American police state. Now this same support of Israel and Saudi Arabia has brought us into a confrontation with Russia in a country (Syria) where we have no interests.
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The War Against the Assad Regime Is Not a 'Pipeline War'
Gareth Porter
… As has been the case with all the other wars the US has fought over the decades, opponents of the US war state have had to come up with their own explanations for the sponsorship of a sectarian bloodbath in Syria. The explanation that is rapidly gaining popularity is that the war in Syria is a “pipeline war” … It’s easy to understand why that explanation would be accepted by many antiwar activists: it is in line with the widely accepted theory that all the US wars in the Middle East have been “oil wars” – about getting control of the petroleum resources of the region and denying them to America’s enemies. But the “pipeline war” theory is based on false history and it represents a distraction from the real problem of US policy in the Middle East – the US war state’s determination to hold onto its military posture in the region.
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The Democrats’ Joe McCarthy Moment
Robert Parry – Consortium News
… We are seeing something similar with the Democrats as they lead the charge into a dangerous New Cold War with Russia. The Democrats, who bore the brunt of the Red-baiting during the earlier Cold War, are now playing the roles of Senators Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon in smearing anyone who won’t join in the Russia-bashing as “stooges,” “traitors” and “useful idiots.” When Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has one of his few lucid moments and suggests that the U.S. should cooperate with Russia rather than provoke more confrontations, he is denounced from many political quarters. But these attacks against Trump are most feverish from Democrats looking to give Hillary Clinton a boost politically and a diversionary excuse for her Wall Street speeches that she tried so hard to keep hidden …
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Five Myths About Russia
Masha Gessen - The Washington Post
… There’s still widespread misunderstanding of what Russia is about. Myth No. 1: Russia is trying to throw the U.S. election to Donald Trump … The fact is this: Putin would rather see anyone but Hillary Clinton become president … Myth No. 2: Putin has made Russia great again … The average Russian is much better off today than 20 years ago, but worse off than five or even two years ago, when oil prices — which neither rise nor fall because of Putin — were at their peak … Myth No. 4: Russian society is relatively conservative in its values … Russia has become a beacon for frustrated far-right extremists around the world, who gravitate to its perceived traditionalism. Those extremists might be disappointed. Russians are fairly liberal on a number of social issues.
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David Irving Talks on Irish Radio About the Lipstadt Trial
Newstalk (Ireland)
British historian David Irving talks with Seán Moncrieff, host of the “Newstalk” radio show, about his lawsuit in 2000 against Jewish-American academic Deborah Lipstadt. That much-publicized legal clash, which was a severe setback for Irving, is the focus of a new motion picture, “Denial.”
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Historian Irving’s Opening Statement in Much-Publicized Libel Trial
David Irving (2000)
May it please your Lordship, this is my Opening Statement in the matter of David Irving vs. Penguin Books and Deborah Lipstadt … This is an action in libel arising from the publication by the First Defendant of a book, entitled Denying the Holocaust, written by the Second Defendant, Professor Lipstadt … It was not just one single action that has destroyed my career but a cumulative, self-perpetuating, rolling onslaught, from every side — engineered by the same people who have propagated the book which is the subject of this action.
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An American Professor’s Testimony in the Irving-Lipstadt Trial
Kevin MacDonald (2000)
… The main point of my testimony is that the attacks made on David Irving by Deborah Lipstadt and Jewish organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) should be viewed in the long-term context of Jewish-gentile interactions … Jewish organizations have used their power to make the discussion of Jewish interests off limits … The intense pressure brought to bear by certain Jewish groups against him goes far beyond preventing publishers from issuing his work. Mr. Irving has been prevented from traveling to certain countries, his speaking engagements have been disrupted and canceled, his contracts with other publishers have been voided, and he has been subjected to physical intimidation.
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Many Young Americans Think George W. Bush Killed More People Than Stalin, New Survey Finds
Daily Signal (Washington, DC)
The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation released its first “Annual Report on U.S. Attitudes Towards Socialism” Monday. The survey showed a distinct generation gap regarding beliefs about socialism and communism between older and younger Americans … The survey also revealed a general lack of historical knowledge, especially among young adults. According to the report, one-third (32 percent) of millennials believed that more people were killed under George W. Bush than under Joseph Stalin. When millennial respondents were asked about their familiarity with various historical communist figures, 42 percent were unfamiliar with Mao Zedong, 40 percent with Che Guevara, and 33 percent with Vladimir Lenin — three notorious figures in communist regimes.
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Hillary Clinton told Goldman Sachs executives that Americans who want to limit immigration are “fundamentally un-American,” according to the leaked transcript of her private October 2013 speech made public by WikiLeaks. … During her Goldman Sachs speech, Clinton went on to argue that being “American” is not a national identity, but rather is “an intellectual invention.” … Clinton’s declaration seems to echo a sentiment that has been expressed by mass migration enthusiast Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan. Paul Ryan, like Clinton, has previously suggested that America is not a country or a national identity, but is rather an intellectual idea.
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Trashing the White Trash: Hillary and the New Bigotry
Sean Collins - Spiked (Britain)
After assuming Hillary Clinton would coast to victory, Democrats are shocked to find that she is in a virtual tie with Donald Trump in the polls … Most Democrats aren’t that self-critical. In particular they won’t admit their candidate for president is an elitist with a low opinion of millions of Americans, and that her dismissiveness of working-class people is driving lots of them into the arms of Trump … Clinton and company believe that, as long as it is in the name of fighting racism, sexism, etc., then it is okay to denigrate huge swathes of people. Trashing the white trash is today’s socially acceptable form of elitist bigotry.
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When Nationalism Strikes Back
Michael Lind – The National Interest
… For all its vitality, the renewed centrality of nationalism in world politics has taken much of the Western foreign-policy elite by surprise. What the elite thought was the central question in world politics — how to govern — turns out to be a secondary question, which can be answered only after two preliminary questions have been settled. Who are we? And what should be the borders of our territory? … Far from being an outmoded relic of the past, nationalism is flourishing … Americans have particular difficulty understanding the kind of ethnic nationalism that drives struggles for self-determination around the world … Many Americans believe that their country is a “civic nation,” a purely political entity with no cultural contact, made up of citizens who share nothing other than reverence for the liberal and democratic ideals …
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Clinton Vows to Push for 'No-Fly Zone' in Syria
Sputnik (Russia)
Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton said during the third presidential debate with Republican rival Donald Trump on Wednesday night that she will keep on insisting on establishing a no-fly zone in Syria to gain leverage on Damascus and Moscow. “I am going to continue to push for a no-fly zone and safe heaves within Syria not only to help protect the Syrians and prevent the constant outflow of refugees, but to frankly gain some leverage on both the Syrian government and the Russians that perhaps we can have the kind of the serious negotiations necessary to bring the conflict to an end and go forward on political track,” Clinton stated. Clinton claimed that a no-fly zone could hasten the end of conflict in Syria …
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Urgently Necessary Briefing on Syria
Urgently Necessary Briefing on Syria Gary Leupp - CounterPunch
… The U.S. has a long history of pressing for “regime change” in Syria. After Syria became independent, the U.S. routinely intervened in the country in pursuing its Cold War political agendas … To suggest that Assad is responsible for the presence of ISIL in his country (due to his refusal to heed the U.S. diktat, and step down paving the way for the U.S.’s alternative) is just stupid. That it should be so widely repeated by pundits in the mainstream press should be the cause for mass alarm if not despair. Such State Department talking points are the drumbeats of war … Meanwhile Hillary Clinton as recently as Oct. 9 reiterated in the “debate” with Trump that she (still) supports a no-fly zone … Public opinion is being prepared for another regime-change war.
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The Third Presidential Debate’s Neglect of Foreign Policy
Daniel Larison - The American Conservative
… Perhaps more than in any election cycle since 2000, foreign policy has received remarkably little attention in the general election (and it didn’t receive much more during the primaries), and many pressing issues have been ignored entirely throughout the campaign. The war in Afghanistan and the war on Yemen are among the most obvious and damning omissions in my view, but one could find quite a few other important things that the candidates have never been asked about … The U.S. is perpetually at war, and some of those wars aren’t even up for debate during the process of choosing the next president.
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Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte announced his “separation” from the United States on Thursday, declaring he had realigned with China as the two agreed to resolve their South China Sea dispute through talks. Duterte made his comments in Beijing, where he is visiting with at least 200 business people to pave the way for what he calls a new commercial alliance as relations with longtime ally Washington deteriorate. “In this venue, your honors, in this venue, I announce my separation from the United States,” Duterte told Chinese and Philippine business people, to applause, at a forum in the Great Hall of the People … “Both in military, not maybe social, but economics also. America has lost.”
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In what could be a serious setback for Washington and its pivot to Asia, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has announced his country’s “separation” from the United States, following high-level talks with Chinese leaders in Beijing. “In this venue, your honors, I announce my separation from the United States, both in military, not maybe social, but economics also,” he said, speaking at a business forum late Thursday. His remarks to the crowd of business people and officials triggered a roaring round of applause … In his speech, Duterte also called Americans “discourteous people” who are too loud for Asian sensibilities. He said he likes China because it does not go around insulting people.
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Americans Overwhelmingly Say Nation is Headed in Wrong Direction
RT News (Russia)
A large majority of Americans believe the United States is not on the correct track, a new poll says, while a dismal number of supporters of both presidential nominees, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, are proud of their preferred candidate. Nearly 80 percent of Americans say they are not hopeful about the current state and direction of the United States, according to a new [July 2016] Associated Press-GfK poll. That is up 15 points from when the same poll measured Americans’ feeling about US affairs last year … A high number of respondents — 23 percent — said they would “feel afraid” if either Trump or Clinton was elected, while 33 percent and 25 percent, respectively, said they would fear a Trump or Clinton presidency.
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Is the System Rigged?
Patrick J. Buchanan
… Big Media is the power that sustains the forces of globalism against those of Americanism. Is the system rigged? Ask yourself … When did the country vote to convert the America we grew up in into the Third World country our descendants will inherit in 2042? … Big money and the media power of the establishment elites and the transnationals may well prevail. And if they do, Middle America — those who cling to their bibles, bigotries and guns in Barack Obama’s depiction, those “deplorables” who are “racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic,” who are “not America” and are “irredeemable” in Hillary Clinton’s depiction — will have to accept the new regime. But that does not mean they must love it, like it or respect it. Because, in the last analysis, yes, Virginia, the system is rigged.
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Trump, Anti-Globalism and the Anti-Semitism Slur
Jonathan Taylor - CounterPunch
… Trump’s attacks on global elites are increasingly being characterized as anti-Semitism … If “globalists” are conflated with Jews by Jews, then doesn’t that means that globalists ARE Jews? If “international bankers” is a cover for anti-Semitism, than by simple deduction most international bankers must be Jewish! … The worlds of finance, media, journalism and law are home to extremely disproportionately high numbers of Jews … Half of the US’s billionaires are Jewish. Jewish donors play an enormous role in funding Hillary Clinton’s campaign … Claims that Jews are using their disproportionate wealth and influence to support Hillary Clinton are, in fact, true. Bringing up anti-Semitism then just reminds people of how much influence and power Jews have.
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The Top Donors Backing Hillary Clinton's Super PAC
I. Jacob - Forbes
… The most recent two-year summary from the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) reports that Clinton’s super PAC, Priorities USA Action, has raised $75.9 million in this election cycle … Of that total, nearly 80 percent came from 20 donors. Haim and Cheryl Saban, who top our list with $10 million in contributions, are longtime supporters of the former Secretary of State … Forbes calculates Haim Saban’s net worth at $3.6 billion, amassed from his TV network and investments. What Saban, born to a Jewish family in Egypt, and Clinton have in common is their pro-Israel stance … Number two on the list is billionaire hedge fund manager George Soros … Other donors include several media and entertainment moguls like Dreamworks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg ($1 million), Oscar-winning director Steven Spielberg ($1 million) …
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A Glimpse into Jewish Guilt and Aggression
Gilad Atzmon
Some Jews were not delighted by Donald Trump’s recent reference to “International Bankers”. Trump declared this week that his rival Hillary Clinton is somehow “an instrument of a vast conspiracy involving scads of money and international banks.” You may note that Trump didn’t refer to Jews nor did he point out any ethnicity or religious group … I guess the good news is the sudden appearance of Jewish guilt. Greenblatt and the JTA act out of guilt. They do know that international banking is a Jewish territory and that makes them feel uncomfortable … For Greenblatt and others within his tribal milieu, Jewish power is the power to silence the very discussion of Jewish power! In practice, Greenblatt, an American Jewish leader, is telling the Republican presidential candidate which topics to avoid.
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Jews and Wall Street
Mark Weber – Podcast
Alleged anti-Jewish sentiment in the “Occupy Wall Street” movement has raised the issue of the Jewish role in finance and business life. In fact, Jews wield vastly disproportionate power and influence in American business and finance, far more than any other single ethnic-religious group. It’s no exaggeration to say that Jews “control” Wall Street. A recent “debate” by leading Republican presidential candidates underscores the lack of principle and seriousness in the US political process, and an entrenched childishness in American society. The policies of Ronald Reagan, like those of Barack Obama, do not match the leaders’ eloquent rhetoric.
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More Allies, More War?
Eric Margolis - The American Conservative
… Washington also has some allies who are as much a danger as a boon, and who could even drag the U.S. into a war it does not seek … Washington has promised for decades to defend Israel against attacks by its Arab neighbors and Iran. But what about Israeli attacks? Israel’s former defense minister Ehud Barak has revealed that the cabinet blocked plans by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to attack Iran in 2010 and 2011. War between Israel and Iran would quickly have pulled in the U.S., though there was little desire in the Pentagon for another major Mideast conflict. America’s generals and strategists were deeply concerned that Israel could force the U.S. into war against Iran against its will.
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Everything About Bob Dylan is Fake, Says Joni Mitchell
The Telegraph (Britain)
Joni Mitchell, the Canadian singer-songwriter, has lambasted Bob Dylan as a “plagiarist” and a “fake” in a rare interview. Mitchell attacked her fellow folk musician after an interviewer for the Los Angeles Times [April 2010] casually noted that both had changed their names, in Dylan’s case from Bobby Zimmerman. “Bob is not authentic at all. He’s a plagiarist, and his name and voice are fake,” she said, not appreciating the comparison. “Everything about Bob is a deception. We are like night and day, he and I.” Her plagiarism accusation may be linked to a controversy in 2006 over Dylan’s album Modern Times … She criticised Madonna’s cultural influence, saying: “Americans have decided to be stupid and shallow since 1980. Madonna is like Nero; she marks the turning point.”
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Prepare Yourself for Blowback from Yemen
Jacob G. Hornberger
… The Pentagon is not a victim and it didn’t fire those missiles and kill those Yemeni radar operators in self-defense. Instead, like its other interventions in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and elsewhere in the Middle East, it is an illegal participant in the ongoing conflict in Yemen. First, let’s point out the obvious: No one in Yemen has ever attacked the continental United States nor does anyone in Yemen have any interest in doing so. The conflict in that country is a civil war, one that isn’t any business of the United States but which the U.S. national-security establishment has made its business, just like it did more than 50 years ago in Korea and Vietnam … By providing armaments to Saudi Arabia, it has knowingly embroiled the United States in the conflict and is now playing the innocent.
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Elitist Bigots
Patrick J. Buchanan
… Our elites, who are forever charging others with “racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia,” are steeped in their own bigotries — toward Southerners, conservatives, Middle Americans, Evangelical Christians, and traditionalist Catholics — the “irredeemables.” Though the election is still a month off, the campaign of 2016 has already done irreparable damage to the American establishment. Its roots in the nation it purports to lead have been attenuated if not severed … What institution in America today, besides the military, enjoys national respect? And if people do not respect the regime, if they believe it acts in its own cold interest rather than the nation’s, why should they respect or follow its leadership? We have entered uncharted waters.
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After years of bitter legal wrangling, the Austrian government announced plans Monday to demolish the house where Adolf Hitler was born and replace it with a new building in efforts to erase any link to the Nazi dictator’s birthplace. Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka said in an exclusive interview with Austrian newspaper Die Presse the Hitler house in the western town of Braunau will be torn down. He said the new structure “will be used thereafter by either a charity or the local authorities.” Sobotka said he wants to ensure any association with Hitler be eliminated and to prevent Hitler’s birthplace from becoming a kind of “pilgrimage [site] and memorial” for neo-Nazis. The owner had repeatedly refused to sell the building. It is unclear whether she changed her mind or if the government dispossessed her.
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Historic Sites Associated With Hitler
The Telegraph (Britain)
Hitler had connections with many places within and beyond the German-speaking world, from Munich to Paris / As a reconstruction of Hitler’s Berlin bunker is planned for the Ruhr Valley, we list other sites associated with the dictator …
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Third Reich Historical Sites, Then and Now
Third Reich in Ruins
Photos of dozens of historical sites in Germany associated with the Third Reich era (1933-1945), both as they appeared while in use, and as the remains appear today. These photos give a “then and now” perspective, in many cases, a virtual tour of the sites.
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Hatred of Jews at 'Highest Level of Our Lifetimes,' Israel Diplomat Says
The Algemeiner (Brooklyn, NY)
Hatred of Jews and demonization of Israel are at “the highest level of our lifetimes,” Israel’s UN envoy warned on Monday during a high-level forum on antisemitism held by the world body at its headquarters in New York. “Over one-third of European Jews are afraid to wear a yarmulke or Star of David in public,” Danny Danon said in an address to the forum. “More than half of French Jews have considered emigrating because they don’t feel safe living as Jews in France. Today we hear things about Jews and the Jewish people that we thought belonged to the pages of history…Antisemitism is returning to everyday life without shame.” There has been a noted rise in antisemitism in Europe in recent years.
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Brexit Could Unleash Anti-Semitic Forces Throughout Europe That Would Drive All Jews From Continent, Top Rabbi Warns
The Independent (Britain)
Britain’s decision to leave the EU could result in a continent so destabilised by the threats of Islamism and the radical right that the very survival of Jewish communities is thrown into doubt, one of Europe’s most senior rabbis has warned. Pinchas Goldschmidt, the president of the Conference of European Rabbis, has told MEPs that Europe is in danger of breaking up and unless leaders begin to co-operate “far more” over the dangers, the consequences within 30 years will be catastrophic … He added: “Both threats are existential threats for European Jews – and both trains have to be halted before it’s too late.”
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Can Jews Ever Leave Their Cult?
Gilad Atzmon
Baruch Spinoza left the Jews. Heinrich Heine became a Christian. A few others, such as Israel Shamir and myself, a decade ago, simply drifted away. Recently, Israeli historian Shlomo Sand announced that he too was no longer a Jew … Abarbanel is obsessed with the holocaust and this is hardly surprising. The Holocaust is currently the most popular Jewish religion … Actually, one would expect a psychotherapist to advise the Jews to look in the mirror and actually identify what is it about them that invokes so much animosity in so many different times and in so many different places. This is something Bernard Lazare, an early Zionist did just over a century ago when he identified what it was in the Jews that has made Jewish history into such a disastrous continuum.
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What Causes Anti-Semitism?: An Important Look at the Persistent 'Jewish Question'
P. Harrison - Institute for Historical Review
… Kevin MacDonald, a professor of psychology at California State University at Long Beach, has published a remarkable volume [Separation and its Discontents] that tackles head-on what may be the most diligently suppressed question of our time: Why do people hate Jews? In contrast to the generally available treatments of this issue, MacDonald has produced a study of rare, even shocking forthrightness and scope … MacDonald’s brilliant, well-referenced study, with its bounty of eye-opening facts and insights, is the most important work on the perpetually troubling “Jewish question” to appear in many years … Without an understanding of the real Jewish role in history, we remain dangerously ignorant of how the world actually works.
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How Far Are We From War With Russia Over Syria?
Eric Margolis
OK you Russians! No more gentle American diplomacy! No more Mr. Nice Guy! So thundered US Secretary of State John Kerry last week … Nobel Peace Prize winner, Barack Obama, ducked and left Washington’s growing anti-Russian jihad to his aides while he flew off to Israel for the state funeral of the Shimon Peres, by now sainted by media as Israel’s ‘man of peace.’ In fact, Peres was the father of Israel’s nuclear weapons programs. Under Peres’ auspices, Israel secretly offered nuclear warheads and then Jericho missiles to the embattled South African apartheid government. This was ironic because Israel has been insisting that Iran – which does not have nuclear weapons – will proliferate them around the globe.
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Kerry Sought Missile Strikes to Force Syria's Assad to Step Down
Gareth Porter - Middle East Eye
Jeffrey Goldberg’s newly published book-length article on Barack Obama and the Middle East includes a major revelation that brings US Secretary of State John Kerry’s Syrian diplomacy into sharper focus: it reports that Kerry has sought on several occasions without success over the past several months to get Obama’s approval for cruise missile strikes against the Syrian government. That revelation shows that Kerry’s strategy in promoting the Syrian peace negotiations in recent months was based on much heavier pressure on the Assad regime to agree that President Bashar al-Assad must step down than was apparent. It also completes a larger story of Kerry as the primary advocate in the administration of war in Syria ever since he became Secretary of State in early 2013.
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Bush or Kerry: Any Real Difference in Foreign Policy?
M. Weber (2004)
… But is John Kerry really an alternative? Although he is more polished and articulate than Bush, Kerry’s record of emphatic commitment to Jewish and Zionist interests offers little reason to believe that, as president, he would chart a fundamentally different policy in the strife-torn Middle East. In an advertisement issued by their campaign and published in the Jewish community weekly Forward (Sept. 17, 2004), Kerry and his vice-presidential running mate, John Edwards, proclaim that “Israel’s cause must be America’s cause.” … In another ad by their campaign (Forward, Sept. 24), Kerry and Edwards proclaim that they “have always stood firmly with Israel,” and that “they stand with American Jews on every issue.”
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U.S. Military Operations Are Biggest Motivation for Homegrown Terrorists, FBI Study Finds
M. Hussain, C. Currier – The Intercept
A secret FBI study found that anger over U.S. military operations abroad was the most commonly cited motivation for individuals involved in cases of “homegrown” terrorism. The report also identified no coherent pattern to “radicalization,” concluding that it remained near impossible to predict future violent acts. The study, reviewed by The Intercept, was conducted in 2012 by a unit in the FBI’s counterterrorism division and surveyed intelligence analysts and FBI special agents across the United States who were responsible for nearly 200 cases, both open and closed, involving “homegrown violent extremists.” The survey responses reinforced the FBI’s conclusion that such individuals “frequently believe the U.S. military is committing atrocities in Muslim countries, thereby justifying their violent aspirations.”
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Going All In With Netanyahu
Paul R. Pillar - The National Interest
The Republican Party and Republican candidates have been moving over the past few years ever more fully into the embrace of Israel’s right-wing government, even more than American politicians in general do … For this year’s campaign, the Republican Party platform surrenders all traces of independent thought on issues involving Israel and defers completely to the preferences and themes of Netanyahu’s government. The platform makes no mention whatever of Palestinians, of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or of a two-state solution or any other resolution of that conflict. It explicitly denies that there is any such thing as an Israeli occupation. It calls for outlawing any boycotts or other peaceful measures directed against Israeli policies in Israeli-controlled territories. It speaks of “no daylight between America and Israel”.
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In the US, Money Talks When It Comes to Israel
Jonathan Cook
The grubby underside of US electoral politics is on show once again as the Democratic and Republican candidates prepare to fight it out for the presidency. And it doesn’t get seamier than the battle to prove how loyal each candidate is to Israel … Candidates for high office in the US need money – lots of it. Until now Mr Trump has been chiefly relying on his own wealth. He has raised less than $70 million, a fifth of Mrs Clinton’s war-chest. The Republican party’s most significant donor is Sheldon Adelson, a casino magnate and close friend of Mr Netanyahu. He has hinted that he will contribute more than $100 million to the Trump campaign if he likes what he sees … The two candidates’ fierce commitment to Israel appears to fly in the face of wider public sentiment, especially among Democrats.
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Long Island Nazis: A Local Synthesis of Transnational Politics
Ryan Schaffer - Long Island History Journal
This article offers an overview of the German-American Bund, and explores the national and local dimension of fascism in a democratic society. It focuses on the Bund’s local programs on Long Island and the ideology of the group, arguing that the group is not only pro-Nazi, but also “pro-American.” By demonstrating the ideology is not constrained by borders, the Bund reconciled fascist and democratic principles. The organization claimed that fascism was a form of democracy, and that the two systems of government needed the other to exist. To further these aims, the Bund sought supporters in local settings and maintained a following until the outbreak of the Second World War.
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A Former Nazi Neighborhood on Long Island Still Exists
Untapped Cities (New York)
The United States of the 1930s, as World War II loomed ahead, was a prolific era for radical movements. The third Madison Square Garden was packed to the gills for an anti-Nazi rally in 1937 and a pro-Nazi rally in 1939. But the latter was really the pinnacle of a more entrenched pro-Hitler community in the United States. One planned community in Yaphank, Long Island, replete with an indoctrination camp amidst streets named after Hitler, Goering, and Goebbels, serves as a prime example of how the German-American Bund and German Settlement League managed to put forth a message in which American democracy and fascism could co-exist …
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ISIS, Not Russia, Is the Enemy in Syria
Patrick J. Buchanan
… Last week, too, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, warned that creating a “no-fly zone” in Syria could mean war — with Russia … The time has come to recognize and accept reality. While the U.S. and its Turkish, Kurdish and Sunni allies, working with the Assad coalition of Russia, Hezbollah and the Iranians, can crush ISIS and al-Qaida in Syria, we cannot defeat the Assad coalition — not without risking a world war. And Congress would never authorize such a war, nor would the American people sustain it … Time to stop the killing, stop the carnage, stop the war and get the best terms for peace we can get. For continuing this war, when the prospects of victory are nil, raises its own question of morality.
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The American people need to understand what’s going on in Syria. Unfortunately, the major media only publish Washington-friendly propaganda which makes it difficult to separate fact from fiction … Hillary Clinton is a charter member of the regime change oligarchy. She is an avid Koolaid drinker and an devoted believer in American “exceptionalism”, which is the belief that ‘If the United States does something, it must be good.’ … This is the Hillary Doctrine in a nutshell: Confront the Russians in Syria and start WW3.
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Key Neocon Calls on US to Oust Putin
Robert Parry - Consortium News
The neoconservative president of the U.S.-taxpayer-funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED) has called for the U.S. government to “summon the will” to engineer the overthrow of Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying that the ten-year-old murder case of a Russian journalist should be the inspiration. Carl Gershman, who has headed NED since its founding in 1983, doesn’t cite any evidence that Putin was responsible for the death of Anna Politkovskaya but uses a full column in The Washington Post on Friday to create that impression, calling her death “a window to Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin autocrat whom Americans are looking at for the first time.”
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Czech President Raps 'Illegitimate' US Involvement in Syria
Sputnik (Russia)
If the US policy in Syria ends in a fiasco, it would be solely Washington’s fault, Czech President Milos Zeman said Friday. “Nobody officially invited the United States to Syria. And if their mission fails, that will be their own fault,” Zeman said in an interview … He also stressed that the Russian anti-terror campaign in Syria was legitimate, as it was the Syrian government who asked Moscow for assistance. Syria has been mired in civil war since 2011, with opposition factions and Islamist terrorist groups such as Islamic State and the Nusra Front, now known as Jabhat Fateh al Sham, both outlawed in Russia, fighting the Syrian Army. A US-led international coalition has been conducting airstrikes against IS in Iraq and Syria since 2014, without seeking approval from the UN Security Council or the Syrian government.
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Obama’s Syria Policy and the Illusion of US Power in the Middle East
Gareth Porter - MEE
… The administration’s inability to do anything about Russian military escalation in Aleppo is the logical result of the role the Obama administration has been playing in Syria over the past five years. The problem is that the administration has pursued policy objectives that it lacked the means to achieve … There were those, led by Clinton herself, who wanted to go further and create a “no-fly zone” where the insurgents could be trained and operate freely. But Obama, supported by the US military leadership, would not support that invitation to war. The US was going to play the great power role in Syria without getting its hands dirty with the arming of an opposition force.
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Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Sunday he had detected increasing U.S. hostility towards Moscow and complained about what he said was a series of aggressive U.S. steps that threatened Russia’s national security. In an interview with Russian state TV likely to worsen already poor relations with Washington, Lavrov made it clear he blamed the Obama administration for what he described as a sharp deterioration in U.S.-Russia ties. “We have witnessed a fundamental change of circumstances when it comes to the aggressive Russophobia that now lies at the heart of U.S. policy towards Russia,” Lavrov told Russian state TV’s First Channel.
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A new film showing Red Army soldiers outnumbered by invading Germans but battling on heroically has become part of the Kremlin’s campaign to restore Russian pride. State television showed Russian President Vladimir Putin watching the film last week, alongside Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev … But the film itself – Panfilov’s 28 Men – is based on a communist myth. The film depicts an heroic act of self-sacrifice outside Moscow in November 1941 … An official Soviet investigation into the event, compiled in 1948, concluded that the story was the “invention” of a journalist from the Red Army’s newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda. The reporter’s account was at best exaggerated, and several of the men survived. The results of the probe were kept secret.
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Hillary Clinton: Candidate of War
Daniel Lazare – Consortium News
In case there was still any uncertainty, Hillary Clinton banished all doubt in her second debate with Donald Trump … It was an astonishing performance, even for a presidential debate. Rarely have more lies and misstatements been crammed into a single two-minute statement … A “no-fly-zone” also would be an act of war in which the U.S. would not only have to fire on Syrian forces, but on Russian and Iranian forces, too. Instead of peace, the result would be a vast escalation. Finally, Clinton’s reflexive Russia-bashing showed just how bellicose her worldview has become … In any event, Hillary Clinton has made it crystal clear. Anyone who votes for her is voting for greatly expanded warfare in the Middle East and probably military confrontation with Russia elsewhere as well.
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Hillary Clinton Proposed Drone Strike on Julian Assange
Toronto Sun (Canada)
A new report reveals that an angry and frustrated Hillary Clinton once pondered obliterating Wikileaks’ Julian Assange with a drone strike. The shocking revelation comes as the Democratic presidential nominee and the party’s brain trust brace themselves for an “October Surprise” from Assange. Wikileaks has vowed to unleash a torrent of emails expected to be highly damaging to the former secretary of state — and her bid for the White House. The True Pundit says the U.S. government was tasked with neutralizing Assange. And Clinton was the point person. “Can’t we just drone this guy?” she pondered during one high-charged meeting, State Department sources reportedly told True Pundit. According to the website, others in the room laughed. But not Clinton, who called the Assange a “soft target.”
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Debate Moderator Distorted Syrian Reality
Robert Parry – Consortium News
How ABC News’ Martha Raddatz framed her question about Syria in the second presidential debate shows why the mainstream U.S. news media, with its deep-seated biases and inability to deal with complexity, has become such a driving force for wider wars and even a threat to the future of the planet. Raddatz, the network’s chief global affairs correspondent, presented the Syrian conflict as simply a case of barbaric aggression by the Syrian government and its Russian allies against the Syrian people, especially the innocents living in Aleppo … Raddatz’s loaded question was also a way of influencing – or misleading – U.S. public opinion.
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Take Down 'Racist' Theodore Roosevelt Statue, Activists Tell New York Museum
The Guardian (Britain)
Hundreds of activists gathered at the American Museum of Natural History on Monday to take down the “racist” statue of Theodore Roosevelt and an urgent call to rename Columbus Day. More than 200 people cheered outside the museum as activists covered the statue of Roosevelt on horseback flanked by an African American and Native American on either side and demanded it be ultimately removed. “A stark embodiment of the white supremacy that Roosevelt himself espoused and promoted,” the group explained in a statement. “The statue is seen as an affront to all who pass it on entering the museum, but especially to African and Native Americans.”
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The War Against Columbus Day
The Washington Post
A growing number of communities are now ditching the traditional Columbus Day holiday in favor of Indigenous People’s Day, which, supporters say, is meant to promote an accurate telling of the United States’ history and commemorate the resilience of its original inhabitants against European settlers … Phoenix and Denver join at least 26 other cities across the country that will celebrate Native Americans on Monday, while federal and state governments observe Columbus Day … The first Columbus Day celebration recorded in the United States happened in New York in 1792 to honor Italian American heritage. In 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed Columbus Day a federal holiday after intense lobbying by a Catholic service organization consisting largely of Italian Americans …
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A US Official Struggles to Justify Double Standard for Saudi Bombings
N. Prupis – Common Dreams
A State Department official on Tuesday struggled to answer why the U.S. has condemned Russian bombings in Syria for causing civilian deaths while simultaneously aiding the Saudi Arabia-led campaign in Yemen, which has done the same. State Department spokesperson John Kirby faltered during a press conference … “Well,” Kirby responded before taking a long pause. Then he continued, “Yeah. I think there are. Look, what … there’s a couple things, Matt, um … the …” He then paused again, seemingly unable to answer the question … The exchange comes just a day after a Reuters investigation revealed that the Obama administration approved a $1.3 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia last year despite discussions among government lawyers whether doing so could implicate the U.S. in war crimes.
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The Saudi Regime in Trouble
Press TV (Iran) - Video
Saudi Arabia’s growing problems, especially with its long-standing alliance with the United States, is examined in this “On the Newsline” background and analysis broadcast. Includes portions of an interview with Mark Weber, historian and IHR director. The Saudi bombing campaign in neighboring Yemen, which has resulted in shocking civilian deaths and has generated worldwide condemnation, is becoming ever more embarrassing to the US, which for years has been the Kingdom’s crucially important military supplier. Runtime: 14:08 mins.
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Trump’s 'International Bankers' Speech Leaves Some Uneasy
R. Kampeas – Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)
Trump delivered a speech Thursday in West Palm Beach, Florida, that sounded some familiar themes – familiar to his campaign, but also to folks versed in anti-Semitism and in classic conspiracy theories of global control that is its lifeblood. The Republican presidential candidate never mentioned Jews in his prepared text … But in declaring that his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, is somehow an instrument of a vast conspiracy involving scads of money and “international banks,” he entered what many saw as a territory, real and ideological, where hostility to Jews perpetuates and thrives even in their absence … Others heard echoes between Trump’s rhetoric and classic anti-Semitic tropes.
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Jewish Groups 'Outraged' By UNESCO Vote on Jerusalem
European Jewish Press (EJP)
Major Jewish groups expressed outrage after Unesco, the United Nations cultural body, approved a resolution that ignores the Jewish people’s ties with Jerusalem holy sites, the Temple Mount and the Western Wall. 24 countries voted in favor of the UNESCO Executive Board resolution – initiated by the Palestinians- and six — the US, United Kingdom Germany, Holland, Lithuania and Estonia — voted against. 26 countries abstained, including France, Italy, Slovenia, Spain, Argentina and India, and two countries were missing from the vote … “What happened today in Paris is anti-Semitism on steroids,” said World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder who called the passage of the resolution “shameful.”
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… A vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote for more meddling, intervention, and war, with more dead Americans and wasted dollars, and ultimately even more meddling, intervention, and war. She cloaks her constant push for war with praise of “American exceptionalism” and America’s role as “the indispensable nation.” … In short, what makes Clinton dangerous is not the sort of incoherence reflected in Donald Trump’s foreign policy approach but a coherent yet far more dangerous advocacy of military dominance around the globe … The two major parties have done their best to nominate the worst candidates possible. On foreign policy the Democratic Party won this dubious contest. If you want more conflict and war, the obvious choice is Hillary Clinton.
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Leaked Emails Show Clinton Professing Different Messages to Wall Street and the Public on Trade
P. Engel - Business Insider
In private speeches she gave to banks, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton seems to have expressed a stance on ‘trade’ that differs from what she’s said publicly during the campaign cycle. Emails posted by WikiLeaks on Friday include partial transcripts from speeches that the Clinton campaign has previously refused to release. In one speech she gave to a Brazilian bank in 2013, she advocated for “open trade and open borders.” … In another private speech mentioned in the [Tony] Carrk [research director of the Clinton campaign] email, Clinton said it’s important to have both a “public” and “private” position on certain issues. “If everybody’s watching, you know, all of the back room discussions and the deals, you know, then people get a little nervous, to say the least,” she said. “So, you need both a public and a private position.”
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'The Birth of a Nation' Is An Epic Fail
Leslie M. Alexander - The Nation
… The Birth of a Nation claims to tell the true story of Nat Turner, leader of the bloodiest slave rebellion in United States history. A film on Turner is long overdue, and as a professional historian of the black experience in the nineteenth century, I have anxiously awaited one … After attending an advance screening of the film, however, I now know that Parker failed miserably in his mission. Contrary to his promises of “historical fidelity,” Parker created a deeply flawed, historically inaccurate movie that exploits and distorts Nat Turner’s story and the history of slavery in America. Nearly everything in the movie – ranging from Turner’s relationship with his family, to his life as a slave, and even the rebellion itself – is a complete fabrication.
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How Unity Mitford Met Hitler 140 Times in Build Up to the War
Daily Mail (Britain)
The first German book about British aristocrat and Hitler groupie Unity Mitford reveals that the Führer was so obsessed with her that he met her 140 times while in the middle of preparing for World War Two. Hitler was as spellbound by Unity – one of the famous ‘It’ girls of the 1930s – as she was by him. The first German biography to deal with this mutual attraction is published this week entitled: ‘I was leafing through Vogue when the Führer spoke to me.’ Bestselling political science author Michaela Karl tells how the bond was forged at Hitler’s favourite Munich restaurant, the Osteria Bavaria, on February 9, 1935.
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Joan of Arc's Shaky Pedestal: France Battles Over Its Identity at School
The New York Times
… With the new school year, France’s battle over national identity has erupted on a new front: its history curriculum. School curriculums have long been a part of culture wars, including in the United States, where there have been tussles over slavery and evolution. But in France, where the state sets school programs nationwide, the country’s understanding of its past — and how it uses education to shape young citizens — has become a hot-button issue in a fraught election season. Changes to how Joan of Arc and other touchstone historical figures are taught in elementary school, as well as changes to how French, Latin and Greek are introduced, have sparked fierce arguments …
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US and UK Continue to Actively Participate in Saudi War Crimes
Glenn Greenwald – The Intercept
From the start of the hideous Saudi bombing campaign against Yemen 18 months ago, two countries have played active, vital roles in enabling the carnage: the U.S. and U.K. The atrocities committed by the Saudis would have been impossible without their steadfast, aggressive support. The Obama administration “has offered to sell $115 billion worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia over its eight years in office, more than any previous U.S. administration,” as The Guardian reported this week, and also provides extensive surveillance technology. As The Intercept documented in April, “In his first five years as president, Obama sold $30 billion more in weapons than President Bush did during his entire eight years as commander in chief.”
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The Obama administration went ahead with a $1.3 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia last year despite warnings from some officials that the United States could be implicated in war crimes for supporting a Saudi-led air campaign in Yemen that has killed thousands of civilians, according to government documents and the accounts of current and former officials. State Department officials also were privately skeptical of the Saudi military’s ability to target Houthi militants without killing civilians and destroying “critical infrastructure” needed for Yemen to recover, according to the emails and other records obtained by Reuters and interviews with nearly a dozen officials with knowledge of those discussions.
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A Swedish watchdog on anti-Semitism accused a far-right lawmaker of spreading racist stereotypes of Jews in speaking against “control of media by any family or ethnic group.” Anna Hagwall, a lawmaker for the Sweden Democrats party in the Riksdag, Sweden’s national legislative body, submitted a motion on Sept. 30 that proposes to condition state subsidies of media in Sweden on the plurality of entities that own the publications. In a statement to the Aftonbladet daily, she named specifically the Bonnier Group — a privately held Swedish media group of dozens companies operating in 15 countries that was started and is still controlled by the Bonnier family, which has Jewish roots.
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Germany to Pay Convicted Gays 30 Million Euros
Deutsche Welle (Germany)
Germany is to compensate more than 50,000 men who were jailed for their sexual orientation under an old law. Paragraph 175 continued to be applied until the late 1960s. The plans, which will see 30 million euros ($33.6 million) set aside to compensate homosexuals convicted under an old law for their sexual preferences, were revealed by the German daily “Süddeutsche Zeitung” (SZ) on Saturday … The infamous Paragraph 175, which was part of Germany’s criminal code from 1871 to 1994, made homosexual acts between men a crime. Over 140,000 men were convicted in total, with around 50,000 of them having been prosecuted since the end of World War II.
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Is Columbus Day Going Extinct?
L. Crocker – Daily Beast
On the second Monday of October, many businesses in the United States will be closed for a federal holiday officially known as Columbus Day. Businesses in the entire state of Alaska, however, will be closed for Indigenous Peoples Day, after Gov. Bill Walker renamed the holiday last year. The city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, will also celebrate its first Indigenous Peoples’ Day, after the City Council voted unanimously in June to change the name of a holiday whose namesake, they decided, was not worthy of celebrating … Many cities have cast off the traditional holiday named for Columbus, the Italian explorer whose accidental arrival on American shores in 1492 led to the extermination of native populations.
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In Spain, A Campaign To Tear Down Statue of Christopher Columbus
New Historian (Britain)
For more than century a bronze statue of Christopher Columbus has adorned the Barcelona skyline, but now a group of anti-capitalist councilors are working to get the memorial torn down. Constructed in 1888, the 197 foot (60 metre) memorial stands at the foot La Rambia. At its base are homages to Columbus’ colleagues, and his patrons: King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain. On Friday, councilors from CUP Capgirem will submit a proposal to Barcelona City Council calling for the statue to be removed, along with the base of the column. They argue that a more appropriate feature on the city’s skyline would be a memorial to “American resistance to imperialism, oppression and indigenous and African-American segregation.” The proposal is just the latest development in a long running debate over how Columbus is remembered …
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Last Chance for the 'Deplorables'
Patrick J. Buchanan
Speaking to 1,000 of the overprivileged at an LGBT fundraiser, where the chairs ponied up $250,000 each and Barbra Streisand sang, Hillary Clinton gave New York’s social liberals what they came to hear … In short [according to Clinton], Trump’s support consists of one-half xenophobes, bigots and racists, and one-half losers we should pity … The folks Obama and Clinton detest, disparage, and pity are the white working- and middle-class folks Richard Nixon celebrated as Middle Americans and the Silent Majority … What has happened to America is astonishing.
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Bahraini Writer: I Was Shocked To Discover How Many Young Arabs Idolize Adolf Hitler
Middle East Media Research Institute (Washington, DC)
… A columnist for the Bahraini daily Al-Watan, wrote that she had discovered, much to her surprise, that many young Arabs idolize Adolf Hitler, mainly for his strength and steadfastness in fighting the entire world … The following are excerpts from her column: “In a course for teenage girls, where I was present, the instructor asked the girls an ordinary question: ‘Who is your favorite figure?’ Most of the answers were interesting, and included new media figures with whom I am not familiar, especially from Snapchat. But the shocking answer given by several of the girls – which compelled me to argue with them – was that they were fans of Hitler!”
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Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Tuesday proposed changing the constitution to ban the large-scale resettlement of migrants, after voters overwhelmingly backed his rejection of an EU refugee quota plan in a referendum. Orban said the text of the amendment will state that “group resettlement is forbidden”. “As 98 percent voted ‘No’ to the mandatory resettlement of migrants, the referendum result must be enforced in law,” he told journalists in Budapest. Orban’s ruling Fidesz party will submit the proposal to parliament by October 10, followed by a vote on November 8. The amendment should pass with the required two-thirds majority as it has the support of the radical right Jobbik party.
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Ethnic Diversity's 'Inconvenient Truths'
Douglas Todd - Vancouver Sun (Canada)
… Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam has completed an important study of more than 30,000 North Americans and concluded that – especially if you live in ethnically diverse cities such as Toronto, Vancouver or Los Angeles – it’s likely you are “hunkering down.” That’s the colloquial phrase that Putnam, who has been an adviser to everyone from Bill Clinton and Tony Blair to the U.S. State Department and the World Bank, uses to describe the lack of trust he discovered among most North Americans in diverse urban settings … People also become more distrustful even of members of their own ethnic group.
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Jews Play Leading Role in Promoting 'Multiculturalism'
Israel Broadcasting Authority (Israel)
Europeans must “learn to be multicultural,” says Jewish activist Barbara Lerner Spectre. During an interview in Sweden with Israeli media, this US-born woman adds that “Jews will be resented because of our leading role” in bringing about this “huge transformation” of Europe. Runtime: 1:17 mins.
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A longtime university professor whose online comments about the Holocaust and Israel have angered Jewish groups says his suspension undermines academic freedom and is unfair to students who signed up for his courses. “I’ve been ripped out of my classroom,” Anthony Hall from the University of Lethbridge said in an interview Thursday. “I feel great responsibility for these students who are being deprived of the right to finish their course and get their grade and move on.” The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs and B’nai Brith Canada had called for Hall to be fired and are applauding the university’s move. Hall said the suspension is the result of a powerful lobby putting pressure on the university’s administration.
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Poland Wrestles With Its Past — And Present
Toronto Star (Canada)
The role of Poles in the Holocaust remains an exposed nerve in this country. In August, the Polish cabinet approved a new law punishing anyone convicted of using the term “Polish death camps” with three years in jail. “Our responsibility is to defend the truth and dignity of the Polish state and the Polish nation, as well as our fathers, our mothers and our grandparents,” Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro said. For Ziobro and the other members of his right-wing, nationalist government, the history of the Second World War is black and white — the Poles were victims and heroic resisters of their Nazi occupiers, full stop. But historians like Princeton University Prof. Jan T. Gross have revealed a picture with more streaks of grey, in which Poles — in some terrible cases at least — were complicit in the Holocaust.
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Jewish leaders have reacted angrily after Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte compared his anti-drug campaign to the Holocaust. The comment – wrongly citing numbers killed by the Nazis – was inhumane and deeply offensive, they said. Mr Duterte said he would kill as many addicts as Hitler did Jews in his crackdown on users and dealers. “Hitler massacred three million Jews… there’s three million drug addicts. I’d be happy to slaughter them,” he said. “What President Duterte said is not only profoundly inhumane, but it demonstrates an appalling disrespect for human life that is truly heart-breaking for the democratically elected leader of a great country,” said World Jewish Congress president Ronald S. Lauder as he demanded an apology.
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Donald Trump’s Foreign Policy Is Confused and Unpredictable, But Hillary Clinton Backs Endless War
Doug Bandow
November 8 features an awful choice. Neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump should be America’s next military commander-in-chief. Clinton is the Neoconservatives’ best Democratic friend, in favor of every one of Washington’s wars, no matter how foolish, over the last two decades. Trump is, well, the Donald, which means no one really knows what he believes and would do. However, embarrassing unpredictability would be better than predictable imbecility … On foreign policy, at least, Clinton guarantees more of the same: war-making, nation-building, and social-engineering overseas … 2016 truly is the year of lesser evils.
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Hillary’s Immoral, Illegal, Stupid Enthusiasm for Wars to Effectuate Regime Change
Bruce Fein – The Washington Times
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton champions wars to effectuate regime change. Their immorality, illegality and stupidity do not diminish Mrs. Clinton’s enthusiasm for treating independent nations as serfs of the United States … Wars for regime change are immoral. We have not been tasked by a Supreme Being to appraise foreign nations like a schoolmarm and to invade those to whom we have superciliously assigned a failing grade … We lack the wisdom necessary to insure that successor regimes will strengthen rather than weaken our national security taking into account, among other things, the staggering military and financial costs of propping up corrupt, incompetent, and unpopular governments.
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Beware the Kashmir Volcano
Eric Margolis
The divided south Asian mountain state of Kashmir is like a volcano: forgotten when quiescent, but terrifying when it comes alive. After the first India-Pakistan War in 1947, in which the British Indian Raj was divided into Hindu and Muslim-dominated states, India ended up with two-thirds of the formerly independent mountain state of Kashmir, and the new state of Pakistan with a scrubby, poor third … This dispute was not of international consequence until India, then Pakistan, developed nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them by missiles and aircraft. Both states are estimated to have around 100 nuclear devices deployed … Nuclear war is more likely to start between India and Pakistan than anywhere else. Preventing one should be a primary diplomatic goal for the world’s powers.
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Swedish MP Accused of 'Anti-Semitic' Attack on Media
The Local (Sweden)
A member of the Sweden Democrats is being accused of anti-Semitism after she called for a ban on ‘ethnic groups’ owning more than five percent of media, singling out the Bonnier family. Anna Hagwall, a member of parliament for the anti-immigration Sweden Democrat party, was widely criticized on Thursday, including by her own party, after she put forward a motion to scrap press support, state subsidies available for newspapers in Sweden, to stop the Bonnier Group’s “control” of media … “No family, ethnic group or company should be allowed to directly/indirectly control more than five percent of the media,” she adds. The reference to an “ethnic group” was widely slammed in Sweden as anti-Semitic on Thursday, interpreted as a slur on the Bonnier Family, whose ancestor Gerhard Bonnier was Jewish.
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A British Labour Party activist who once accused Jews of financing slavery was suspended from her party for bemoaning Jews’ centrality at Holocaust commemorations. The Oct. 1 suspension of Jackie Walker over comments about the Holocaust follows the publication last month of a video showing her speaking about the issue at a public meeting about anti-Semitism, where she also said she knows of no workable definition of the phenomena … The Board of Deputies of British Jews accused Labour of whitewashing rather than confronting its anti-Semitism problem and said Jews cannot currently trust Labour.
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Jewish Leaders in Britain Urge Labour Party to Expel Jackie Walker for Holocaust Comments
Jewish News (Britain)
Jewish leaders have urged that a key ally of Jeremy Corbyn be expelled from Labour, after she was filmed making unguarded comments about Holocaust commemoration and anti-Semitism. Jackie Walker, who is Jewish, was removed as vice-chair of influential left-wing group Momentum after she was recorded in conversation with Jewish groups backstage at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool. She has been suspended from Labour and may still face disciplinary sanction from the party. This is the second such incident in a year for Walker, who was suspended by Labour earlier this year for suggesting Jews financed the slave trade, only to be readmitted at a hearing.
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Youth Hostelling with Adolf Hitler: A British Girl’s Visit to Nazi Germany
Daily Mail (Britain)
An incredible diary reveals a Girl Guide’s meeting with Adolf Hitler during a trip to Germany in 1936. The typed 100-page journal documents her visit with friends before the start of the Second World War, where she describes the Nazi leader as a ‘little chap – rather like Charlie Chaplin.’ She also noted that he was ‘wonderful’ with children and had a ‘fascinating smile’ … ‘At breakfast we were invited by the Hitler boys and girls to accompany them to see Hitler … ‘With children he is wonderful. He talks to them, accepts their posies and lets them stand by him while the people pass by saluting. He only had four Storm Troopers guarding him and it all seemed very informal. When we passed he smiled sweetly and saluted several times.’
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Denial Is Dead
David Cole - Taki’s magazine
Holocaust denial is dead … It’s a scarecrow that Jew-haters erect to frighten Jews and that Jews maintain to frighten themselves … David Irving is no longer a denier, if he ever was one. He accepts the fact that Jews were slaughtered en masse by mobile Einsatzgruppen units in the months following the invasion of Russia, he accepts the liquidation of the Jews in the Ostland (Eastern territory) ghettos, and he accepts that the “Reinhard” camps (Treblinka, Belzec, and Sobibor) were extermination centers.
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Hungarian Jews have hit out at the government over a divisive campaign on refugees, comparing its communications to Nazi propaganda. Sunday saw citizens vote on a proposed EU quota system that would see Hungary and other member states take more refugees to relieve the burden on Italy and Greece. Those who voted were overwhelmingly against, but the turnout, at 43 percent, was too low for the vote to be valid … “The public discourse on the migrant issue has crossed the line into hate speech,” said Andras Heisler, the president of the Federation of Hungarian Jewish Communities, The Times of Israel reported. “Hatred acts like a virus, and can slowly but surely infect all of society,” Heisler added. Diana Gru, a director of historical documentaries, said the government campaign is “reminiscent of Nazi propaganda.”
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In Canada, University Professor Suspended After Complaints by Jewish Groups
Canadian Jewish News
The University of Lethbridge confirmed Oct. 5 that it has suspended without pay the professor accused by Jewish groups of disseminating Zionist conspiracy theories and encouraging speculation about the Holocaust. In a statement, university spokesperson Trevor Kenney confirmed that Prof. Anthony Hall was suspended … The tenured professor of liberal education and globalization studies swiftly responded with a video posted to YouTube. In it, Hall speaks of his 26 years of contributions to the university and expresses sympathy for university president Mike Mahon, who he says was subjected to great pressure by B’nai Brith Canada, the Jewish advocacy organization that he claims “has essentially taken control of my university’s administration.”
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Tony Hall explains that his abrupt suspension as a professor with the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada, is due to “great pressure” from B’nai Brith Canada, an influential Jewish-Zionist group. In this video talk, made just after learning of his suspension, Hall explains that he has been suspended without pay, and with no hearing and “no due process whatsoever,” even though he has been a full, tenured professor. Hall has been teaching at the University for 26 years. He expresses sympathy for the University president who, he says, has come under “great pressure by the powerful lobby.” This lobby’s “gross assault on academic freedom,” Hall warns, is directed particularly against “critics of Israel.”
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How Far Are We From War With Russia Over Syria?
Eric Margolis
… More Russian warplanes are on the way to Syria. Ominously, Moscow just warned the US not to attack Russian military forces. Hillary Clinton’s supporters keep urging a so-called US-imposed ‘no fly zone’ in Syria, which is code for the US Air Force blowing Syria’s and Russia’s warplanes out of the skies and going after command control of Syria’s anti-aircraft systems. Which could be code for World War III … The bright idea to overthrow Syria’s recognized government goes back to that Father of Disasters, George W. Bush. He planned to attack Syria with Israel. Bush was restrained when no suitable Syrian opposition group could be found to install in power. The Sunni opposition was mainly Muslim Brotherhood, a name that spooked Washington. So Washington waited until 2011 to ‘regime change’ disobedient Syria.
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Russia warned the United States Saturday against carrying out any attacks on Syrian government forces, saying it would have repercussions across the Middle East as government forces captured a hill on the edge of the northern city of Aleppo under the cover of airstrikes. Russian news agencies quoted Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as saying that a U.S. intervention against the Syrian army “will lead to terrible, tectonic consequences not only on the territory of this country but also in the region on the whole.” She said regime change in Syria would create a vacuum that would be “quickly filled” by “terrorists of all stripes.” U.S.-Russian tensions over Syria have escalated since the breakdown of a cease-fire last month, with each side blaming the other for its failure.
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Shimon Peres and the Palestinians
Yousef Munayyer - The Nation
… With the passing of former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, a similar dynamic is at play. The remembrances focus on the Peres of the Oslo Accords, the Nobel Laureate who battled for an agreement despite the political costs in Israel … During the war in 1948, even at a young age, he played an important role in procuring the arms Israel would use in the process of depopulating much of the native population of Palestine … Peres was able to gain French support for the development of Israel’s nuclear-weapons program. That alone is likely the most significant achievement on his résumé. But since it was done behind Washington’s back, it hasn’t figured prominently in American remembrances … The historical reality is that the bulk of Peres’s career contributed to undermining the peace that he claimed to be seeking.
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Shimon Peres Claimed in 2014 That He Stopped Israel’s Netanyahu From Attacking Iran
The Telegraph (Britain)
Shimon Peres claimed in a secret interview two years before his death that he intervened to stop Benjamin Netanyahu from launching airstrikes against Iran which could have triggered a wider Middle East war. Mr Peres, who died this week and was buried Friday at a funeral attended by dozens of world leaders, told the Jerusalem Post shortly after leaving the presidency in 2014 that he had worked to thwart Mr Netanyahu’s plans to target Iranian nuclear facilities. “I stopped Netanyahu from attacking Iran,” he said, when asked what he considered his greatest achievement as president. “I don’t want to go into details, but I can tell you that he was ready to launch an attack and I stopped him. I told him the consequences would be catastrophic.”
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First They Came for the Holocaust Deniers, and I Did Not Speak Out: Europe’s Well-Intentioned But Problematic 'Denial' Laws
J. Mchangama - Foreign Policy
… It is, of course, the Holocaust that has been the driver of European memory laws … This is where the story becomes complicated. Despite pressure from former communist states, the EU has rejected including the denial of communism’s crimes in its 2008 framework decision … European memory laws have spread and metamorphosed to the extent that they now serve as the model for criminalizing accurate but nationally inconvenient historical accounts, as well as entrenching deeply flawed histories used as foundations for specific national ideologies and repressive political agendas … Given the role that memory laws have come to play in undermining both academic freedom and political speech, the EU should urgently reconsider its approach.
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On 27 September 2016, Robert Faurisson, emeritus professor of literature at the University of Lyon, was prosecuted before the XVIIth correctional chamber of the High Court of Paris for three alleged crimes: two counts of “disputing crimes against humanity” and one count of “racial defamation” (diffamation raciale). The two charges of disputing crimes against humanity were dismissed. Faurisson was convicted, however, of racial defamation … The statement for which Professor Faurisson is supposed to pay 9,000 euros is from his speech “The Victories of Revisionism,” which he delivered on 11 December 2006 during an international Revisionist conference in Tehran …
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French Courts Punish Holocaust Apostasy: Le Pen, Faurisson, Garaudy Fined for 'Holocaust Denial'
The Journal of Historical Review (1998)
… Those who challenge the Western world’s most important social-political taboo — on the Second World War treatment of the Jews — are routinely punished for their apostasy. France’s Fabius-Gayssot law of July 13, 1990, makes it a crime to “contest” the “crimes against humanity” as defined by the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal of 1945-46 … Faurisson and Le Pen are hardly the only ones whom Jewish groups and French officials have targeted for expressing skepticism of the officially sanctioned version of 20th century history. Other victims include Philippe Costa, Alain Guionnet and Fabrice Robert. Between July 1990 and January 1993 alone, the Fabius-Gayssot law had already been applied 27 times.
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Joseph Harmatz, Jewish 'Avenger' - Obituary
The Telegraph (Britain)
Joseph Harmatz, who has died aged 91, was one of the few surviving “Avengers”, a death squad formed after the Second World War by Jewish partisans to take revenge on their Nazi persecutors … Led by Abba Kovner, who would later become Israel’s leading poet, and who appointed Harmatz his head of “special operations”, in the immediate postwar years the group, known as Nakam (Hebrew for avengers), hatched a series of audacious plots … He drew no distinction between Germans and Nazis: … “I was very happy to hear about Dresden itself. That was vengeance.” Members of the group set about implementing “death sentences” on former high-level Nazis. Some were found dead in roadside ditches, apparently cut down by hit-and-run drivers. Others met their end in car accidents caused by mysterious mechanical failures.
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Israel's $38 Billion Scam
Philip Giraldi
… The reality is that U.S. military assistance to Israel is actually all about the effectiveness of an extremely powerful domestic lobby … American politicians who call Israel the U.S.’s greatest friend and ally know they are lying, as Israel is neither. Instead, Israel and its own parochial interests have been key elements in involving Washington in the spiral of violence that has gripped the Middle East since 2001, including the ill-fated invasion of Iraq … Groveling to Israel is in the American political DNA. Even progressive groups that claim to be supportive of Palestinian rights and opposed to growing fascism in Israel exhibit the usual ambivalence when it comes to issues that might actually have an impact.
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Sheldon Adelson to Give $25 Million Boost to Trump Super Pac
The Guardian (Britain)
Billionaire casino owner Sheldon Adelson plans to donate as much as $25 million to a Super Pac supporting Donald Trump – five times what he had been expected to contribute. Adelson will give the money to Future45 for ads attacking Hillary Clinton and backing Donald Trump, the Guardian has learned. The commitment by the Las Vegas mogul will bring the total raised by Future45 to $30 million, according to a donor briefed on the Pac’s fundraising … Adelson’s $25 million to Future45 comes on top of two other eight figure Super Pac donations the 83-year-old mogul is making to help keep Congress in GOP hands: he has donated $20m to the Senate Leadership Fund, a Super Pac with close ties to majority leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
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Trump Courts Adelson, Flip-Flops on Israel-Palestine
Eli Clifton – LobeLog
… On a key issue, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Trump has made a 180-degree shift in his position. And, for a candidate who proudly boasts about self-funding and not being in the pocket of billionaires and special interests, his shift has coincided with a $25 million infusion of Super PAC funds from casino billionaire, and pro-Israel mega donor, Sheldon Adelson … Trump’s promise of striking an even-handed approach in the Middle East evaporated, alongside his animosity for Adelson’s brand of big money politics. .. On Friday, Adelson announced he would contribute as much as $25 million to a Super PAC supporting Trump, making the Las Vegas billionaire Trump’s biggest funder.
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Pride and Affirmative Prejudice: Donald Trump and the Jews
M. Wilner - The Jerusalem Post (Israel)
… Throughout much of his adult life and childhood, at seemingly every significant juncture in his business career, Donald J. Trump has surrounded himself with members of a single minority group. His relationship with the Jewish community offers exceptional insight into the tolerance of a man whose unpredictable presidential campaign has been defined, by many, as one of the most culturally and racially divisive in modern American political history … Trump seems to have something of an affirmative prejudice toward Jews … Trump has also given generously to Jewish philanthropic organizations, including the Jewish National Fund and United Jewish Appeal, dating back to his very early career.
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Haim Saban: The Jerusalem Post’s Number One Most Influential Jew
Y. Katz - The Jerusalem Post (Israel)
He is the “kingmaker.” In a presidential election year like this one, Haim Saban is The Jerusalem Post’s choice to top its list of 50 most influential Jews. An Israeli-American media titan and billionaire businessman, Saban is one of the closest people to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. She is a regular attendee each winter of the Saban Forum in Washington DC, and he has reportedly contributed more than $10 million to the Clinton campaign this year alone … Clinton, he says in an exclusive interview with The Jerusalem Post, will keep Israel safe. Trump, he warns, will not … “Emotionally [I’m] extremely tied to Israel … My kids and my wife are all as committed as I am to the State of Israel and the well-being of the Jewish people … About Hillary, I can tell you my impression over the years is that she loves Israel.”
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U.S. Owes Black People Reparations for a History of 'Racial Terrorism,' Says U.N. Panel
The Washington Post
The history of slavery in the United States justifies reparations for African Americans, argues a recent report by a U.N.-affiliated group based in Geneva. This conclusion was part of a study by the United Nations’ Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, a body that reports to the international organization’s High Commissioner on Human Rights. The group of experts, which includes leading human rights lawyers from around the world, presented its findings to the United Nations Human Rights Council on Monday, pointing to the continuing link between present injustices and the dark chapters of American history.
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Say No to NATO’s Expansion Parade
Doug Bandow
… The transatlantic alliance was created in 1949 to protect war-ravaged Western Europe from the Soviet Union, an opportunistic predator after its victory over Nazi Germany. The threat to America reflected both Moscow’s control over Eastern and Central Europe and the U.S.S.R.’s role as an ideologically hostile peer competitor. The end of the Cold War changed everything … NATO lost its essential purpose, since the U.S. no longer needed to shield Western Europe from Moscow. Yet the alliance proved to be as resilient as other government bureaucracies. NATO officials desperately sought new reasons to exist … At the very least the U.S. should halt NATO expansion. If the European members of the alliance want to defend weak, distant states, that should be their decision and responsibility.
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Philippines President Compares Himself To Hitler in Anti-Crime Rant
Forward (New York)
Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte likened himself to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler on Friday and said he would “be happy” to exterminate three million drug users and peddlers in the country. His comments triggered shock and anger among Jewish groups in the United States … In a rambling speech on his arrival in Davao City after a visit to Vietnam, Duterte told reporters that he had been “portrayed to be a cousin of Hitler” by critics. Noting that Hitler had murdered millions of Jews, Duterte said: “There are three million drug addicts (in the Philippines). I’d be happy to slaughter them. “If Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have…,” he said, pausing and pointing to himself. “You know my victims. I would like (them) to be all criminals to finish the problem of my country and save the next generation from perdition.”