Headlines

Golem tales always follow the same template: A Jew builds a monster of clay to destroy his enemies, but in the end the golem turns on its creator … George Soros is a golem creator extraordinaire. An atheist Jew who fancies neither Israel nor communism, Soros defies the easy anti-Jewish conspiracy theory stereotypes. But in fact Soros is not difficult to understand. He’s defined by his youth in WWII Hungary … What we have with Aptheker and Soros is “the same but different.” Two atheist Jews, hostile to faith and unmoved by Zionism, seeking vengeance for the Holocaust, using blacks as proxy soldiers. But whereas Soros’ Holocaust origin story is one of pride (pride in his father’s accomplishments, and a desire to carry on his family’s noble Nazi-fighting heritage), Aptheker’s is one of shame …

… A recently published survey from financial services company Fidelity, which polled 2,622 adults in mid-February on their retirement planning habits. The survey found that 55 percent of 18- to 35-year-olds have halted their retirement planning since Covid hit, and 45% of that age group “don’t see a point in saving until things return to normal.” … The trend is partially due to a high cost of living for young people in America right now: student debt, rising housing demand and 8.6% inflation weigh on people’s minds and wallets … A Bankrate survey observed that 54% of younger millennials and 46% of Gen Z respondents said their emergency savings had declined since 2020. The survey also revealed that millennials were more likely than other generations to have higher credit card debts than savings balances.

The Charlottesville, Virginia, home of the Founding Father and America’s third president is one of our best-known national monuments, familiar from its appearance on the nickel since 1938. But the hilltop mansion designed by Jefferson himself, once preserved as a tribute to the author of the Declaration of Independence, now offers visitors a harangue on the horrors of slavery … The new emphasis is the culmination of a ten-year effort to balance the historical record, officials of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, the nonprofit that owns the estate, have said. But visitors complain that employees go out of their way to belittle Jefferson and his life.

The globalist billionaire who funded the woke transformation of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello paid for a similar overhaul of James Madison’s house — where the author of the US Constitution has been shoved into a supporting role, while slavery and racism take center stage. No American flags fly at Montpelier, Madison’s plantation home in rural Virginia, and not a single display focuses on the life and accomplishments of America’s foremost political philosopher, who created our three-branch federal system of government, wrote the Bill of Rights and the Federalist Papers, and served two terms as president. Instead, blindsided tourists are hammered by high-tech exhibits about Madison’s slaves and current racial conflicts, thanks to a $10 million grant from left-leaning philanthropist David M. Rubenstein.

Hungary’s conservative leader Viktor Orban denounced the “mixing” of races in a controversial speech on Saturday that has generated backlash. Speaking in Romania, the Hungarian prime minister defended his vision of an “unmixed Hungarian race” as he criticized “mixing” with non-Europeans, The Guardian reported. “We [Hungarians] are not a mixed race, and we do not want to become a mixed race either,” Orban said. Orban claimed that European countries that have a high level of interracial mixing are “no longer nations.” The comments are consistent with Orban’s long-standing far-right position on immigration into Hungary. He has regularly campaigned on the promise of building an “illiberal” Hungary based on the “defense of a Christian Europe.”

A member of Viktor Orban’s inner circle has resigned after the Hungarian prime minister spoke out against becoming “peoples of mixed race”. Zsuzsa Hegedus, who has known the nationalist Mr Orban for 20 years, described the speech as a “pure Nazi text”, according to Hungarian media … Mr Orban’s spokesman said the media had misrepresented the comments … In the government flagship daily, Magyar Nemzet, an article praised Mr Orban for defending the idea of nationhood against a drive to mix all nations “into a grey, indistinguishable mass”. At best, Mr Orban appears confused, sometimes speaking of the Hungarians as “the most mixed society”, at other times, appearing to suggest he believes in ethnic purity.

Russian authorities officially called Thursday for the “dissolution” of the Jewish Agency’s offices in the country, filing an appeal to that effect with the district court in Moscow, according to a court spokesperson quoted by Russian media outlets. This represents a significant step forward in Russia’s campaign against the Israeli quasi-governmental organization, which facilitates and encourages Jewish immigration to Israel, or aliyah. “The court received a lawsuit filed by the main department of the Ministry of Justice in Moscow requesting the dissolution of the … Jewish Agency,” the court said … Ekaterina Buravtsova, a spokeswoman for the Basmany court in Moscow, was quoted by Russian agencies saying the request was made after legal violations, without providing further details, according to the Interfax news agency.

A German man has been sentenced to seven months in prison for leaving a hateful comment on a Facebook post about the case of Gil Ofarim, a German-Israeli singer who was charged with lying about an anti-semitism incident in a hotel last year. “In Buchenwald he would have liked to be seen with his Star of David,” the 38-year-old man from the German city of Niesky wrote on the account of TAG24, a German news website, according to a report by Radio Lausitz, a German news channel. Buchenwald is the site of the largest Nazi concentration camp within Germany’s borders. The comment ran afoul of Germany strict laws prohibiting antisemitic speech …

The California State University Board of Trustees voted Wednesday to remove the name of an unrepentant antisemite and Nazi sympathizer from the main library on its Fresno campus, putting an end to the legacy of longtime former librarian Henry Miller Madden at Fresno State after an internal investigation. The building will be referred to as the Fresno State Library until a replacement name is chosen. In a press release sent to the campus community, Fresno State University President Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval said he was thankful that the 25-member board voted the way it did, calling Madden’s writings “deeply hurtful and disturbing.” … In other writings, Madden fantasized about driving Jews “barefoot to some remote spot in Texas” — to camps “closed in by electrically charged barbed wire.”

Half of Americans expect to see a second U.S. civil war within years, and nearly a fifth say they could one day be toting guns at a political face-off themselves, according to an alarming new study about the nation’s deepening divisions. Researchers at University of California, Davis uncovered worrying levels of ‘alienation’, ‘mistrust’ and a growing tendency to turn to violence in their recently-conducted survey of 8,620 adults across the country. More than two-thirds of respondents said they saw a ‘serious threat to our democracy,’ and 50.1 percent agreed with the statement that ‘in the next few years, there will be civil war in the U.S.’ More than 40 percent said having a ‘strong leader’ was more important than democracy, and that ‘native-born white people are being replaced by immigrants’ — a racist belief known as the ‘great replacement theory’.

It is undoubtedly the largest case of Israeli spying in the United States – that has been made public – since 1986. In June 2001, an investigative report detailed the activities of more than one-hundred Israeli agents, some presenting themselves as fine arts students, others tied to Israeli high-tech companies. All were challenged by the authorities, were questioned, and a dozen of them are still imprisoned. One of their tasks was to track the Al-Qaida terrorists on American territory – without informing the federal authorities. Elements of this investigation, taken up by American television Fox News, reinforce this thesis: that Israel did not transmit to the United States all the evidence in its possession on the preparation of the September 11 attacks.

On the afternoon of Sept. 11, 2001, an FBI bulletin … was issued with regard to three suspicious men who that morning were seen leaving the New Jersey waterfront minutes after the first plane hit World Trade Center 1 … “Three individuals with van were seen celebrating after initial impact and subsequent explosion” … It was New York’s venerable Jewish weekly The Forward that broke this story in the spring of 2002, after months of footwork. The Forward reported that the FBI had finally concluded that at least two of the men were agents working for the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, and that Urban Moving Systems, the ostensible employer of the five Israelis, was a front operation.

The admission of former White House adviser John Bolton about plotting coups abroad serves as another testament to how Washington meddles in other countries’ affairs around the globe, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has said. Spokesman Wang Wenbin said on Monday that “overthrowing foreign governments is deep in the bones of how the US conducts its foreign policy.” … “Leading US politicians trumpet the so-called ‘rules-based international order’ for one purpose: to ensure that the US can easily interfere in other countries’ affairs and overthrow their governments at its own will.” … Bolton, a veteran White House official who served as national security adviser in 2018 and 2019, unexpectedly admitted to having “helped plan coups d’etat” abroad during an interview on CNN last week.

Diplomats from Iran, China, and Russia have reacted to former US national security adviser John Bolton’s confession that he had a role in planning a number of coups outside the States. The trio said such confessions are not surprising as interference in the internal affairs of other countries is characteristic of the United States. Bolton admitted in an interview with CNN on July 12 that he had “helped plan coups d’etat – not here, but, you know, other places.” The remarks came while the program was discussing the topic of the day’s congressional hearing on the January 2021 Capitol riot and a potential coup attempt by ex-President Donald Trump. “As somebody who has helped plan coup d’états, not here, but, you know, other places, it takes a lot of work,” Bolton said.

Russian officials are openly mocking America’s embrace of transgenderism – taunting America to ‘keep going’. The ridicule came after a photo of transgender Assistant Health Secretary Rachel Levine and non-binary Deputy Assistant Nuclear Energy Secretary Sam Brinton went viral last week. The queer duo were pictured visiting the French ambassador’s home to celebrate Bastille Day … Russia’s United Nations diplomat Dmitry Polyanskiy reposted the photo with the caption: ‘Keep going that way, our dear American ex-partners! I don’t think we even need any long-term strategies to counter your malicious role in the world – you are doing the right thing yourselves! And let the whole world see WhoYouAre!’ Russian Foreign Affairs communications official Maria Zakharova also reposted the photo …

Widely publicized photos, including film footage, that supposedly show liberated prisoners at Auschwitz when Soviet forces took the German wartime camp in January 1945 are fraudulent, says a stepsister of Anne Frank. Russian embassy officials acknowledged that the photos were actually taken later at some other place, says Eva Schloss — a stepdaughter of Otto Frank, the father of Anne Frank. Schloss, who was herself a prisoner at Auschwitz during World War II, speaks in a “Good Morning Britain” broadcast, Jan. 27, 2020, on British ITV television. Runtime: 55 secs. Anne Frank and her sister, Margot survived internment at Auschwitz. Anne was evacuated from Auschwitz and transferred to the Bergen-Belsen camp, where she died of typhus in February or March 1945.

It started with an extraordinary tale of wartime bravery and led to the publication of a bestselling account, The Man Who Broke Into Auschwitz, and to a BBC documentary. Then the difficult questions began. Were the heroic exploits of Denis Avey really all they seemed? Was his dramatic claim he had swapped places with a man inside a concentration camp possibly a fake? … The story laid out by Avey is full of holes, according to the British-Israeli researcher Alon Shapira, and therefore damaging to the integrity of Holocaust history. This weekend the Observer has learned that Hodder & Stoughton, publisher of The Man Who Broke Into Auschwitz, plans to include qualifying notes in any future edition of the influential book, which remains in print.

Since the end of World War II, authoritative claims about the character and scope of killings at the Auschwitz concentration camp have changed drastically. One particularly striking change concerns the various “official” estimates of the number of victims — a number that since 1945 has been steadily declining … Compared to the recently “authoritative” figure of approximately one million Auschwitz deaths, Meyer has reduced the number of Jewish victims there by at least 450,000.

Exposing historical and media fraud sometimes takes years or even decades. In the case of a recent heavily promoted and widely praised multi-media project – designed to promote the Holocaust story, condemn official racism against blacks in America during the Second World War, and encourage racial tolerance – debunking has come much more quickly. Liberators: Fighting on Two Fronts in World War II – a lavishly financed project that claims to tell the story of how black troops liberated Buchenwald and Dachau – was exposed as an error-packed fraud within weeks of its debut. Producers Nina Rosenblum and William Miles collaborated with author Lou Potter, on the slickly promoted project that includes a much-touted “documentary” film, a book, a high school workbook, a screenplay and a theatrical version.

Americans’ confidence in two facets of the news media — newspapers and television news — has fallen to all-time lows, according to a new Gallup poll. The poll found that just 16 percent of respondents had a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in newspapers, the first time on record that the measure has fallen below 20 percent, compared to 11 percent who had the same degree of confidence in television news. Both figures are down 5 percentage points since last year. Gallup began tracking Americans’ confidence in newspapers in 1973 … and began tracking confidence in television news in 1993. A majority has never had confidence in television news since the first poll. Confidence levels are also split along partisan lines, with confidence among Democrats low but still higher than among Republicans and independents.

… The Reuters Institute revealed last month that 42% of Americans actively avoid the news at least some of the time because it grinds them down or they just don’t believe it. Fifteen percent said they disconnected from news coverage altogether. In other countries, such as the UK and Brazil, the numbers selectively avoiding it were even higher. “In the United States, those who self-identify on the right are far more likely to avoid news because they think it is untrustworthy or biased, but those on the left are more likely to feel overwhelmed, carry feelings of powerlessness, or worry that the news might create arguments,” the institute said. The Reuters Institute said that alongside the rising number of people avoiding news is a drop in trust in reporting in the US to the lowest point yet recorded at just 26% of the population.

U.S. President Joe Biden said in an interview aired Wednesday that he would be willing to go to war with Iran to prevent the country from obtaining a nuclear weapon, a position that drew condemnation from advocacy groups and foreign policy analysts who questioned the moral, strategic, and legal bases for such a stance. Biden also reiterated in the sit-down interview with Israeli broadcaster N12 that he is committed to keeping the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on the U.S. State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organizations list, even if it means sinking the prospects of a deal to revive the nuclear accord that former President Donald Trump violated in 2018.

The war in Ukraine is the culmination of a 30-year project of the American neoconservative movement. The Biden Administration is packed with the same neocons who championed the US wars of choice in Serbia (1999), Afghanistan (2001), Iraq (2003), Syria (2011), Libya (2011), and who did so much to provoke Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The neocon track record is one of unmitigated disaster, yet Biden has staffed his team with neocons. As a result, Biden is steering Ukraine, the US, and the European Union towards yet another geopolitical debacle. If Europe has any insight, it will separate itself from these US foreign policy debacles … The main message of the neocons is that the US must predominate in military power in every region of the world …

In a move some Jewish organizations are condemning as antisemitic, the Presbyterian Church (USA) voted to declare that the Israeli government’s actions against Palestinians meet the legal definition of apartheid. Commissioners of 225th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) voted 266 to 116 in their annual meeting to make public the church’s stance that both affirms the right of Israel to provide security to its borders and criticizes human-rights offenses perpetrated against Palestinians … The Presbyterian Church (USA), which is the largest US Presbyterian denomination, with nearly 1.2 million members, recognized the legitimacy of the Israeli state but opposed continuing occupation of Palestinian territory, which it declared to be “illegitimate, illegal under international law, and an enduring threat to peace in the region.”

Meeting US President Joe Biden at the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem on Friday, a top Jerusalem Christian leader spoke out against what he called “unprecedented attacks by Israeli radical groups” meant to repel Christians from the holy city. In a statement, Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem Patriarch Theophilos III said he told the US leader that such radicals act “without accountability” and that their actions include attacks on churches and efforts to seize properties. He stressed “the challenges facing Christians and the extent to which things have reached,” including attacks on churches, insults against clergy, attempts to block the faithful from places of worship and attempts to seize Christian real estate.

Israel advocates have combined to oppose a distinguished nominee from becoming Ambassador to Brazil because of comments she had made over two decades ago about the lobby for Israel … The full Senate could theoretically still confirm Bagley to the important post, but either way, the message has been delivered: Don’t mention facts about the Israel lobby that its members dislike, or they’ll mobilize their ‘nonexistent’ power against you / … Democratic Senator Ben Cardin (MD) said he was concerned by some comments the potential Ambassador to Brazil, Elizabeth Frawley Bagley, had made about Israel during an oral history interview 24 years before. Cardin is a fervent Israel advocate … Cardin tells Bagley he is concerned about the language she used “in regards to the Jewish community, Israel’s influence in our election, and Jewish money.”

A factual, reasoned 16-minute talk on the immense power and influence of the “Jewish lobby” in the US, and its harmful role, especially in directing US Middle East policy. As long as this power remains entrenched, says Weber, there will be no end to the Jewish-Zionist domination of American political life and the mass media, Zionist oppression of Palestinians, the Israeli threat to peace, and the bloody conflict between Jews and non-Jews in the Middle East.

Keen observers have long noted that the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is essentially a xenophobic Israel-advocacy organization masquerading as a Jewish civil rights organization. If there was ever any doubt, this became abundantly clear at the ADL’s National Leadership Summit on May 1, when CEO Jonathan Greenblatt delivered a prerecorded speech … Greenblatt’s doubling down was particularly notable because his message represented a change from the ADL’s official statement that “anti-Zionism isn’t always antisemitic.” … “To those who still cling to the idea that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism — let me clarify this for you as clearly as I can — anti-Zionism is antisemitism.”

… The stakes are high for the ADL, because its moral authority is a moneymaker. … Perhaps more importantly, it is a source of cashless access in politics: the ADL’s role as advisor to elected officials on matters of civil rights, not limited to anti-Semitism, is both completely informal and pro forma in political offices. The ADL’s persistent power in U.S. politics has been strangely unaffected by its history, probably because that history is so little known … The ADL is now a vetter of content for YouTube, where videos relating to the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement have been censored as hate speech. It has also reportedly joined forces with Facebook, Twitter, and Microsoft as well to “engineer solutions” to cyberhate, and is building a Silicon Valley “command center” to house these operations.

Joe Biden kicked off his 10th trip to Israel — and first as U.S. president — on Wednesday by declaring that the relationship between the two countries is “bone-deep.” Biden told Israeli President Isaac Herzog “I am home,” according to Herzog’s office, and he attempted to prove it right away … “Now as president, I’m proud to say that our relationship with the state of Israel is deeper and stronger in my view than it’s ever been,” Biden said. “And with this visit, we’re strengthening our connection even further.” Prime Minister Yair Lapid and Alternate Prime Minister Naftali Bennett gave Biden a warm welcome … “Welcome, our brother Joseph,” Israeli president Isaac Herzog said, alluding to the fact that Biden shares a name with a Jewish patriarch. “You have been a true friend and a staunch supporter of Israel and the Jewish people.”

.. During the 2020 presidential election, pro-Israel Political Action Committees (PACs) provided Biden with $3,830,209, compared to $955,174 for Donald Trump — indicating that Biden’s vote on the Arab-Israeli conflict has indeed been bought — as it has been for many years. The Jewish Democratic Council of America (JDCA), a Jewish lobby group that promotes Democratic Party candidates, proclaimed that “no candidate for president in either party has ever run with as long and as strong of a pro-Israel record as Joe Biden.” … Biden was considered “the best friend of Israel in the [Obama] administration,” according to Chuck Schumer (D-NY), helping to secure what Netanyahu termed “unprecedented security assistance.”

A Pew Research Center poll conducted in March indicates that Americans have rather evenly divided views in regard to the government of Israel. While 48 percent of polled Americans stated they have a favorable view of the Israeli government, nearly as many — 44 percent — said they have a negative view. In contrast, among United States Congress top leadership members — both Republican and Democratic, the support for the government of Israel appears unanimous and over the top. “The United States takes great pride in our ironclad bond with Israel,” proclaimed US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) in a May 4 press release concerning the anniversary of the Israel’s Independence Day.

One of America’s most influential political figures recently expressed allegiance to Israel in language that’s extravagant even by the hyped standards that often prevail today. At an important Zionist conference, Nancy Pelosi pledged: “I have said to people when they ask me if this Capitol crumbled to the ground, the one thing that would remain is our commitment to our aid … and I don’t even call it aid … our cooperation with Israel. That’s fundamental to who we are.” Pelosi, who is speaker of the US House of Representatives, was addressing the annual conference of the Israeli-American Council, Dec. 2, 2018. Together with her were two powerful Jewish-Zionist figures: US Senate Democratic Party leader Chuck Schumer, and Haim Saban, a billionaire Israeli-American businessman and leading financial backer of Democratic Party candidates.

Americans’ confidence in major institutions like Congress, the criminal justice system, and the media has eroded in the past year, according to an annual Gallup poll. Of the 16 institutions included in the survey, Gallup reports that not a single one saw an increase in the number of respondents who say they “trust” that institution. Some of the declines, meanwhile, are quite striking. Just 23 percent of Americans say they trust the presidency, down 15 points from last year’s poll … Congress somehow managed to decline a bit further, falling from 12 percent to just 7 percent. Even institutions that most Americans continue to trust, like small businesses (68 percent) and the military (64 percent), saw slight declines in this year’s poll … It’s the continuation of a long-running trend, though one that seems to have accelerated in the past two years …

Last week the U.S. and Europe loudly proclaimed their everlasting support for Ukraine at both the G7 meeting and NATO summit. So far money and arms continue to flow to Kiev. However, just as Ukraine’s backers were pleasantly surprised at that nation’s stout defense against Russian aggression, they are increasingly discomfited by the failure of sanctions to wreck Moscow’s economy. The push to end Russian energy exports has proved especially counterproductive, slowing European economies while raising both global energy prices and Moscow’s export earnings … No government is yet ready to break ranks publicly, but proposals for another round of sanctions appear dead. Rising resistance reflects the continent’s economic travails … European disunity is likely to grow if Ukraine emphasizes victory over Russia.

American media dedicated at least some coverage to Ukraine’s recent ban on the pro-Russian “Opposition Platform—For Life Party,” which effectively eliminated electoral competition in the country. But Ukraine’s sedition law of March 9 this year is less known. The Rada Bill 7116 … stipulated punishment for collaboration and sedition under martial law … More controversially, it has prescribed penalties to Ukrainians who speak favorably of Russia …The key question about Ukraine is whether it can ever exist as a Western democracy. The country is contiguous to Russia, about one third of Ukrainians have relatives in the Russian Federation, and a large section of the population prefers the Russian language.

Mark Weber joins host Tim Kelly to talk about harmful but widely accepted myths about World War II. (Runtime: one hour, 13 minutes.) Weber talks about the self-righteous and calamitous policies of US President Woodrow Wilson in the First World War. Weber also reviews the even more delusional and catastrophic policies of President Franklin Roosevelt. His illegal and highly deceitful efforts to foment war in Europe, and then pull the US into the conflict continue to have harmful consequences for America and the world today.

… Today is the anniversary of the beginning of the Battle of the Somme. 106 years ago, the British Army suffered 57,470 casualties in one day, including 19,240 killed. The battle continued for three and a half months. It would ultimately cost 1,123,907 casualties, including 318,700 killed … That’s 2,260 killed every day for 141 days — in one of the war’s several simultaneous battles … Today’s world leaders are ignoring the mistakes made in the lead-up to the First World War. Instead, they are focusing on the mythos that their fathers told them about the Second World War … The Pentagon assesses that less than a quarter of young Americans meet the Pentagon’s standards for recruits … NBC noted that “more young men and women than ever [are] disqualified for obesity, drug use or criminal records.”

A series of extracts will give the record of one of the most revolting lies invented during the First World War, the dissemination of which throughout not only Britain but the world was encouraged and connived at by both the [British] government and the press. It started in 1917, and was not finally disposed of till 1925 … The story had a world-wide circulation and had considerable propaganda value in the East. Not till 1925 did the truth emerge.

This is a tale of intrigue, state secrets, undercover operations and betrayal – in other words, a classic spy story. The story of Mordecai Vanunu, the insider who had the guts to reveal the truth that Israel was producing nuclear weapons. It begins in 1986 and spans the globe. Then there’s Israel’s revenge: The alluring female spy, the honey trap, the kidnapping and the trial that sees Vanunu jailed as a traitor. Now, he’s technically a free man, but Mordechai Vanunu is still very much a prisoner of the state. Runtime: 12 mins.

… Contrary to claims by Western media, the Russian military is still trying to minimize civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure, likely because it views Eastern Ukraine as Russian territory anyway … The Russian military delivered fewer airstrikes and fewer missiles during the entire first month than the United States did during the Iraq war in just one day … From a Western perspective, the Russian operation is clearly illegal, not unlike previous US invasions (e.g. of Grenada, Panama and Iraq) and most US/NATO wars (e.g. against Serbia, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria). From a Russian perspective, the military operation is a legitimate intervention into an ongoing, illegal eight-year war against the Donbas republics.

There can now be little doubt — if there ever was any — that Washington’s intransigence is preventing the Iran nuclear deal’s restoration. Even in the face of an unending series of new U.S. sanctions, Israeli bombings in Syria, as well as Tel Aviv’s repeated covert operations, cyberattacks, drone strikes, and murders inside Iran itself, Tehran has remained steadfastly committed to diplomacy … After Doha, it looks as though Biden’s team will only continue to prove they were lying all along about rejoining the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). This permanently aggressive policy will surely kill the deal, increase regional tensions, stoke war, and once again soil America’s reputation for future diplomatic endeavors.

Keen observers have long noted that the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is essentially a xenophobic Israel-advocacy organization masquerading as a Jewish civil rights organization … This became abundantly clear at the ADL’s National Leadership Summit on May 1, when CEO Jonathan Greenblatt delivered a prerecorded speech … Greenblatt spent the majority of his time denouncing anti-Zionism (i.e., legitimate opposition to an ideology that promotes an exclusively Jewish state in historic Palestine) as antisemitism … Zionism, the movement to establish a sovereign Jewish nation state in historic Palestine, is dependent upon the maintenance of a demographic Jewish majority in the land. Since its establishment, Israel has sought to maintain this majority by systematically dispossessing Palestinians from their homes …

… Greenblatt’s announcement marks much less a break with the ADL’s modus operandi than an open admission of what its leaders used to deny. For the ADL, as its critics have long insisted, is first and foremost an Israel-advocacy organization. Its priority is to defend Israel — which maintains indefinite military rule over millions in the West Bank and a siege on Gaza — from any consequences for its actions …. In the late ’90s, the ADL settled a lawsuit after US anti-apartheid activists accused the organization of hiring former intelligence agents to spy on them … The ADL and the larger Israel-advocacy apparatus may score temporary victories in this fight. But in the long run, they will not win … The ADL lacks the credibility to lead on issues of equality, discrimination, and civil rights.

The British government ran a secret “black propaganda” campaign for decades, targeting Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia with leaflets and reports from fake sources aimed at destabilising cold war enemies by encouraging racial tensions, sowing chaos, inciting violence and reinforcing anti-communist ideas, newly declassified documents have revealed. The effort, run from the mid-1950s through to the late 70s by a unit in London that was part of the Foreign Office, was focused on cold war enemies such as the Soviet Union and China, leftwing liberation groups and leaders that the UK saw as threats to its interests. The campaign also sought to mobilise Muslims against Moscow, promoting greater religious conservatism and radical ideas. To appear authentic, documents encouraged hatred of Israel.

The German government is hoping to give over 130,000 migrants trapped in legal limbo the chance to stay permanently, as part of an overhaul of Germany’s immigration system. Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government on Wednesday agreed on a package of reforms that will open the prospect of residency rights to people who have lived in Germany for more than five years with a so-called Duldung, or tolerance status. “We are a diverse immigration country. Now we want to become a better integration country,” Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, of Scholz’s center-left Social Democrat SPD, wrote on Twitter. “I want to actively shape migration and integration instead of reluctantly administering them as I have done for the past 16 years,” she continued in reference to the previous conservative government’s policies.

Americans are less confident in major U.S. institutions than they were a year ago, with significant declines for 11 of the 16 institutions tested and no improvements for any … Confidence currently ranges from a high of 68% for small business to a low of 7% for Congress. The military is the only institution besides small business for which a majority of Americans express confidence (64%) … This year’s poll marks new lows in confidence for all three branches of the federal government — the Supreme Court (25%), the presidency (23%) and Congress. Five other institutions are at their lowest points in at least three decades of measurement, including the church or organized religion (31%), newspapers (16%), the criminal justice system (14%), big business (14%) and the police.

Much of what American soldiers fought for in World War II has “gone down the drain,” according to U.S. Marine Carl Spurlin Dekel, who celebrated his 100th birthday last week. Dekel says serving his country in WWII was the most important thing he ever did, according to Fox 13. The veteran and Silver Star holder says he wouldn’t hesitate to put his life on the line again, but regrets that the U.S. has slipped away from what he remembers. “People don’t realize what they have,” Dekel told the outlet. “The things we did and the things we fought for and the boys that died for it, it’s all gone down the drain.” “We haven’t got the country we had when I was raised, not at all,” he says.

Small teams of U.S. Special Operations forces are involved in a low-profile proxy war program on a far greater scale than previously known, according to exclusive documents and interviews with more than a dozen current and former government officials. While The Intercept and other outlets have previously reported on the Pentagon’s use of the secretive 127e authority in multiple African countries, a new document obtained through the Freedom of Information Act offers the first official confirmation that at least 14 127e programs were also active in the greater Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region as recently as 2020. In total, between 2017 and 2020, U.S. commandos conducted at least 23 separate 127e programs across the world.

… Since the judicial system in Israel also systematically absolves those who carry out such crimes, a situation is created whereby Israel, its government, its military and other organisations operate with an impunity that is automatic, blind, continuous and almost total. Soldiers serving in the occupied territories know very well that nearly anything they do is treated as permissible: shooting, killing, abusing, humiliating. They will never be punished, not by Israel nor by anyone else. Every day there are more killings, politically motivated arrests without trial, collective punishment, home demolitions, land confiscation, torture and humiliation, settlement expansion, and exploitation of natural resources. There has been no accountability whatsoever for the long list of crimes committed in the territories under Israel’s occupation.

The US has had an illegal military presence in Syria for at least the last seven years, and U.S. forces continue to operate in and above Syria without legal authorization. There is no discernible US security interest in keeping troops at the Tanf base in southeastern Syria, but the Biden administration has not removed them from the country, and shows no sign of doing so. US troops have repeatedly come under attack in Syria, and there is always the possibility of clashes with Russian, Iranian, or pro-government Syrian forces for as long as they stay … Congress never voted to authorize the deployment of troops into Syria. Like some of our other illegal wars, this one was started by an arbitrary decision by Obama, and his successors have continued it.

… The US and EU should support objectives that are sensible and advance the interests of the American and European peoples, not those held by Zelensky … The US, EU, and European governments should respect the Zelensky government’s policy preferences. Kyiv is an independent state, free to make its own decisions. However, it is not entitled to dictate allied policy, which appears to be the case today … Thus, the West’s first objective should be to stay out of the conflict. The second should be to end the war swiftly: the conflagration is causing enormous hardship to Ukraine, threatening to escalate and spread, acting as a wrecking ball to the international economy, driving Moscow more deeply into Beijing’s embrace, and making Europe even more dependent on America for its security.

Sanctions usually fail to achieve any stated policy goals, and they frequently backfire and encourage more of the behavior that they are meant to stop. The maximalist sanctions on Russia imposed in response to Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine are proving to be no different … One reason for this declining efficacy is the relative decline of U.S. and allied economic clout and the rise of other states, which creates more opportunities for other countries to act as sanctions busters. Another is that the United States tends to use its most powerful sanctions in pursuit of far-fetched and sometimes impossible goals … U.S. policymakers consistently overrate the power of sanctions and underestimate the targeted state’s willingness to endure economic pain for the sake of some other goal.

An overwhelming and growing majority of Americans say the U.S. is heading in the wrong direction, including nearly 8 in 10 Democrats, according to a new poll that finds deep pessimism about the economy plaguing President Joe Biden. Eighty-five percent of U.S. adults say the country is on the wrong track, and 79% describe the economy as poor, according to a new survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research … The poll shows only 39% of Americans approve of Biden’s leadership overall, while 60% disapprove … Just 14% say things are going in the right direction … Through the first half of 2021, about half of Americans said the country was headed in the right direction, a number that has steadily eroded in the past year. … The national dissatisfaction is bipartisan, the poll shows.

… Massive fiscal deficits year-after-year have become a way of life in the Imperial City, but even the CBO’s latest 10-year forecast is a shocker … The [federal budget] deficit will exceed $3 trillion per year by the end of the decade … Such horrendous projections do not phase these clowns one single bit – as was underscored in spades by Congress’ shameful boondoggling on the Ukraine aid bill … Washington has empowered a madman, who is so smitten by his own strutting on the world stage that rationality itself has become the victim … Historians will someday wonder how today’s insanities actually came to pass, but there is actually no mystery. Washington has become the world’s capital of perpetual war because it was able – for a time – to perpetually issue debt and then monetize it at the central bank.

.. The harsh realities emerging on the bloody battlefields of eastern Ukraine make it increasingly likely that the longer Kyiv seeks to achieve military victory, the more likely it is ultimately to be defeated. U.S. policy, guided by U.S. interests, should change to reflect this reality … Since Russia changed tack and prioritized firepower over maneuver in the Donbas fight, its forces have been pummeling Ukrainian troops with upwards of a staggering 70,000 shells per day and a significant number of heavy rockets. Additionally, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces are conducting as many as 300 air sorties over Ukraine per day. Ukraine, in contrast, is firing an estimated one-tenth as many shells — and sometimes flies only three to five air sorties per day.

… After its reformation in 1925, the NSDAP [National Socialist Party] only accepted new memberships from the general public for about a combined twelve of the following twenty years. Time and again, membership recruitments were suspended … But, in spite of the regular recruitment stops, the party’s membership continued to grow strongly … Where the NSDAP did differ from other parties, however, was in the youthfulness of its supporters … In response, after the second suspension of new memberships in 1942, only graduates of the Hitler Youth and the BDM were accepted, along with war survivors and those who had left the Wehrmacht. The party was to remain young. There existed no single, all-encompassing motive to become a National Socialist.

There are countless theories as to why so many Germans joined Hitler’s party, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP), but it is a subject that has seen relatively little empirical research … What attracted many people was the idea of the Volksgemeinschaft (“national community”), a concept that was often combined with anti-capitalism. Incidentally, this is particularly true of the anti-Semites among the NSDAP’s members, who often shared socialist ideas as well. … Quite a few party members came from “Social Democratic or Marxist-oriented families” … The experience of World War I also shaped many National Socialists. …Above all, however, Falter shows that there was never a single, overriding motive that explains why people joined the NSDAP. There were a multitude of very different motives and paths to the NSDAP.

“We have the power. Now our gigantic work begins.” Those were Hitler’s words on the night of January 30, 1933, as cheering crowds surged past him, for five long hours, beneath the windows of the Chancellery in Berlin. His political struggle had lasted 14 years. He himself was 43 … Half a century later, few people understand the crisis Germany faced at that time … During the preceding years, a score of “democratic” governments had come and gone, often in utter confusion. Instead of alleviating the people’s misery, they had increased it, due to their own instability …

According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, Israel has been secretly coordinating with the US on many of its airstrikes in Syria, and senior officials at US Central Command have reviewed and approved many plans in recent years. Israel frequently bombs Syria and frames the operations as strikes against Iran or Hezbollah, although the air raids often kill Syrian government troops and members of Iraq’s Shia militias. The latest Israeli airstrikes on Syria disabled the Damascus International Airport, marking a significant escalation in the air campaign. Current and former officials told the Journal that the main focus of the coordination is on airstrikes that pass near al-Tanf garrison, a US military base in southern Syria near the border with Jordan.

The Eighth Administrative Court of Appeals in Lyiv, Ukraine, ruled in favor of Ukraine’s Ministry of Justice on June 21 and banned the Opposition Platform For Life, the main opposition political party. All funds and property of the party were ordered to be turned over to the government, which is headed by President Volodymyr Zelensky. Back in March, the Opposition Platform for Life held 44 seats in the Ukrainian Parliament … The Opposition Party for Life is a pro-Russian political party and has earned strong support largely in Eastern Ukraine … In May, President Zelensky signed into law a measure that bans pro-Russian political parties. In addition to the Opposition Party for Life, Zelensky banned 10 other political parties, including the Justice and Development Party, the Union of Left Forces, and the Party of Shariy.

The New York Times is the latest US news agency to conclude that Palestinian journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, was most likely killed by an Israeli soldier. A month-long investigation by The Times found that the bullet that killed Abu Akleh was fired from the approximate location of the Israeli military convoy, most likely by a soldier from an elite unit. Evidence reviewed by The Times debunked Israeli claims, and showed that there were no armed Palestinians near Abu Akleh when she was shot … In a rare admission of Israel’s impunity, The Times conceded that Palestinian deaths rarely attract international scrutiny, and soldiers accused of crimes against Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank are rarely convicted.