North Korean Regime Murders Tourist For Swiping Propaganda Poster

Last year the totalitarian cult regime of North Korea once again showed its extreme hostility to people foolish enough to visit the demented nation. American tourist Otto Warmbier was arrested for trying to take a propaganda poster as a souvenir. Convicted of "subversion," he received a sentence of 15 years of hard labor. (U.S. court typically mete out much longer sentences for "seditious conspiracy.")

But Otto didn't have to serve his sentence. A few weeks ago the North Koreans dumped him off on the U.S. in a coma, which they absurdly claimed was caused by botulism and a medication. (American doctors found no evidence of botulism.) Otto's brain was missing large amounts of tissue in all areas.

Otto just died. He was 22.

I don't understand why people keep going to North Korea. This is a pattern of theirs, seizing foreigners and using them as bargaining chips, or just taking out their political psychosis on them. In addition to frequent arrests, there was the murder of a South Korean woman tourist by a North Korean border guard a few years ago.

Actually the North Koreans aren't way off base to assume that American visitors are spies. Why else would anyone in their right mind want to go there? Other than that freak Dennis Rodman, Americans have not been welcome there. (If the CIA or other U.S. "intelligence agencies" sent spies, they'd probably not send their own personnel. Too risky. They'd get some journalist or whoever to report back to them. But no spy would be able to access much in the way of secrets there.)

I suspect the North Koreans savagely beat Otto, then waited for the external wounds to heal before shipping his comatose body back to his family. Nice. Or maybe a bad reaction to an experimental brainwashing drug? Whatever, true to form, the North Koreans refuse to explain but do their usual thing of shoving preposterous lies in the world's face that insult our intelligence. This soon after the cult dictator Kim Jong-un ordered the murder of his half brother in a Malaysian airport, which they followed up with more absurd lies and bellicose demands aimed at Malaysia for daring to do a proper investigation and arresting the perpetrators.

Someday, someone's gonna have to take care of these bastards.

Otto Warmbier in the grip of North Korean goons.

 Otto had good reason for feeling bad. But it would turn out much worse for him than he knew...

 So long, Otto.

U.S. Sailors May Have Had to Sacrifice Shipmates to Prevent Sinking

The U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald collided with a Filipine cargo ship off the coast of Japan.. Seven sailors were killed. Their bodies were found inside the ship.

It was reported that the ship could have sank. The crew prevented it. One thing they must have done was seal off the compartments open to the sea by locking the watertight doors.

The sailors killed were in their bunks- which would have been on a lower level in the ship.

Which makes me wonder if they weren't drowned when the compartment doors were sealed.

By the way, that ship, a mere destroyer, cost a pretty penny. $1.5 billion, or 1,500 millions of dollars. The ship has very advanced navigation and warning equipment, so it's a mystery so far as to how the accident could have happened.

Guided Missile Destroyer USS Fitzgerald. Sail on, O Mighty Navy!

Islamofascist Terrorists Murder 31 People In Mogadishu, Somalia Restaurant

Al-Shabab bragged they did it. They set off a car bomb, then 5 terrorists methodically went through the restaurant, murdering people.

It has been common for the Somali Islamofascist group al-Shabab to target restaurants, hotels, and other such "soft targets."

Al-Shabab has also launched terrorist attacks into neighboring Kenya, in a bid to force Kenya to withdraw its troops from Somalia, where they help prop up the government against al-Shabab. These terror raids included one on a major shopping, mall, an on a university, during which many students were murdered. The consequences have included Kenyan government pressure on Somalis living in Kenya, who are now all considered suspect.

For some odd reason, people like Jeremy Scahill think everything would have been fine if the U.S. had allowed the Islamofascists to take over Somalia in the first place. Very strange.

Someday, leftists like George Galloway and various "peace activists" are going to have to face the reality of Islamofascist terrorism, and come up with serious proposals for dealing with it. Until then, other than appealing to war weariness, they have no ideological or political leverage to convince the public there is an alternative policy. There is an obvious political and moral gap in their worldview about this that needs to be filled.

Slow-Motion Coup Against Trump Takes The Obvious Next Step

Well, who couldn't have seen this one coming?

"Special Counsel" Robert Mueller, who was head of the dreaded secret police agency, the FBI, for 12 years, has expanded his criminal investigation to include obstruction of justice charges against the president of the U.S., Donald Trump. Ostensibly he was appointed to "investigate" possible collusion between Russian "meddling in Our Election" and the Trump campaign. In short order, the "investigation" has been "expanded" and the true target has been made manifest.  [1]

We learned this not through any official announcement, but by the usual method, the surreptitious planting of "news" in complicit media organs.

This latest step in the campaign to neutralize/remove Trump follows the pattern of so many of the previous steps. Elements of the Deep State illicitly "leak" (plant) a story with cooperative media of choice, this time the Washington Post, the hometown newspaper of the power elite of the capital city of the U.S. empire,  with damaging information aimed at Trump. (The other favorite receptacle of the secret police for their excretions is the New York Times. The media pack of running dogs then take the stories from those papers and run with them.)  Next, the Trump camp, often Trump himself, futilely issues an ineffectual verbal counterattack, which is always brushed off by the media.  In this case, Trump's lawyer shrieked his outrage about the leak. (Many of the leaks have been criminal acts under U.S. law, namely the providing of classified information to people not authorized to receive it- namely "journalists. The criminals are either secret policemen of the FBI, CIA, or NSA, or polticians with security clearances.)

So now, for the first time, Trump is a target of a criminal probe. This shortly after Trump finally got public acknowledgement that he hadn't been under investigation all along, before now. (He could never get the FBI boss he recently fired, James Comey, to public state that Trump wasn't under investigation, even though he wasn't. Comey speciously justified keeping a black cloud like this over the head of the president of the U.S., in his recent orchestrated testimony before the Senate "Intelligence" Committee.)

While Mueller, the designated hatchetman du jour, violates ethical an legal standards by sneakily planting a story in the complicit press, we are simultaneously subjected to a propaganda campaign extolling the same Mueller as a paragon of virtue and uprightness, a man of sterling integrity. J. Edgar Hoover himself didn't have a more fawning press.

The upshot of the campaign to get rid of Trump is that the secret police are made ever more supreme in the hierarchy of U.S. power. This is latest contribution of the Democratic Party to constructing the U.S. police state. Starting with Woodrow Wilson, the man who initiated the modern U.S. police state, imprisoned anyone who dared voice oppostion to World War I or the draft and gave us the hated Espionage Act, through FDR, then Truman, who created the CIA and NSA, then LBJ, who unleashed every element of the secret police state on the anti-war and black power movements, to Obama, who perfected NSA total domestic electronic surveillance and used the Espionage Act bequeathed to him by Wilson to terrorize and persecute whistleblowers, the Democratic Party, far from being "liberal," has proven itself a politically repressive menace.

But it must be noted in passing that Donald Trump is one of the most monumental assholes that has ever existed.

1]  The list of crimes against human rights committed by Mueller when he was boss of the FBI is way too extensive and detailed to adequately summarize here. There was a systematic campaign of entrapment operations to create fake "terror plots" which the FBI then "smashed." Books and articles have been written exposing this fraudulent political theater. And the FBI of course continued  the practices it has throughout its existence, of warrantless burglaries, planting of spy devices, harassment, sabotage, theft, and overall persecution of all manner of political dissidents of a progressive persuasion and people the FBI just doesn't like. The use of illegal NSA intercepts to bring criminal cases became institutionalized under Mueller. See "Robert Mueller Arrogated To Himself Sweeping Power To Ignore U.S. Constitution."

Anti-Muslim Bigot & Demagogue U.S. President Trump Slimes London Mayor After Terrorist Attack

The city of London just experienced a rampage by three Islamofascists who murderously drove a van into people, then attacked bar-goers just enjoying life, with long knives, killing seven people and wounding 48, 18 grievously enough to be listed in critical condition.

The Mayor of London, Sadiq  Khan, a Muslim, naturally spoke to reassure the citizenry and to vow that terrorism wouldn't intimidate the people of London. One thing he said was this:

“You will see an increased police presence today, including armed officers and uniformed officers,” Khan said on Sunday, June 4th. “There is no reason to be alarmed by this.”

The U.S. president, rather than showing solidarity and support, instead attacked Khan in a thoroughly dishonest fashion.

Trump deliberately distorted what Mayor Khan said by pretending he was telling people not to be alarmed by terror attacks (which actually would have been fine if he had said that):

“At least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terror attack and Mayor of London says there is ‘no reason to be alarmed!’” Trump verbally ejaculated.

The mayor’s office responded to Trump's gratuitous attack that  Khan “has more important things to do than respond to Donald Trump's ill-informed tweet that deliberately takes out of context his remarks urging Londoners not to be alarmed when they saw more police — including armed officers — on the streets.”

Thus the mayor took the high road, saying he had more pressing matters to attend to than to respond to Trump's slur. He's right- getting into a pissing match with a dishonest skunk like Trump is a bad idea. (Witness the fate of the other Republicans who ran for president against Trump. Trump's entire strategy was to personally insult them in juvenile terms. And it worked. Then he did it to Clinton, who won, but lost, because under the rules of the World's Greatest Democracy, sometimes the person with fewer votes wins.)

But Trump wasn't through. He launched another attack on Khan in reaction to the statement from the Mayor's office that responded to Trump's initial assault:

“Pathetic excuse by London Mayor Sadiq Khan who had to think fast on his ‘no reason to be alarmed’ statement. MSM is working hard to sell it!” Trump tweeted in his usual dignified fashion, perhaps sitting on the toilet at the time.

Trump has been holding a grudge against Khan since 2016, when Khan declared Trump "ignorant" about Islam (a factually true statement) and was quoted in  Time magazine saying, “I’m confident that Donald Trump’s approach to politics won’t win in America.”

So Trump went on British television to issue an ominous threat:  "I think they're very rude statements and frankly, tell him, I will remember those statements,” Trump growled.  “They're very nasty statements.”

I'll tell you who makes nasty statements... well I don't have to, do I?

FUCK Common Decency!

 London Mayor Sadiq Khan: Looks like a tempting target for Bullyboy Trump.

Remembering Manuel Noriega (And Forgetting the 4,000 Panamanians Murdered by the U.S. Military Invasion)

Manuel Noriega dies, U.S. media lies. (BBC and others too.)

Sickening "coverage" by U.S. and other media on the death of former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega. The U.S. invaded Panama on the orders of then-president George H.W. Bush (Bush the Elder) on the pretext of executing an arrest warrant for a head of state, Noriega. 26,000 U.S. troops were used for this purpose. The U.S. devastated poor neighborhoods in Panama, and an estimated 4,000 Panamanians were murdered by the U.S. and their bodies dumped into mass graves. This crime has been totally effaced from history.

The British propaganda network the BBC did the same thing, lavishing much time on Noriega and his fate, with not a single word on the number of Panamanians who paid with their lives for this act of wanton U.S. aggression. Ditto in the U.S. broadcast media.
Pretty despicable when you think about it.

The reason the U.S. overthrew Noriega, and this too was totally ignored and indeed lied about, was that he had refused an order from Admiral John Poindexter to step up Panama's cooperation with the U.S. terrorist aggression against Nicaragua. He was duly threatened with consequences for his defiance, which then followed.

Also covered up was the assassination of Noriega's predecessor, Omar Torrijos, who had the interests of the Panamanian people at heart. The closest anyone came to even mentioning this was Christopher Dickey, a career journalist, who on BBC called Torrijos plane crash "slightly suspicious." No, it was a definite hit. This is confirmed by former NSA operative John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, who explained that those who refused to sell out to U.S. "interests," like Torrijos did, are inevitably removed from power, violently if necessary, and that that is what happened to Torrijos.

Once again Western media exposes itself as nothing but a system of mendacious propaganda. It is NOT legitimate journalism.

U.S. Secret Police Deep State Tightens Noose Around Their Nominal Boss, President Trump

Another day, another arrow aimed directly at Trump. Today it's the news that the FBI is targeting his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Kushner is a key Trump confidant to whom Trump has assigned a number of responsibilities. The FBI is targeting Trump's trusted inner circle.

As usual, the FBI unethically and against official policy provided the information "anonymously" to their media accomplices. They have been using the two newspaper that sit atop the power and prestige pyramid, the New York Times and the Washington Post to mount these attacks.

As Democratic Senator Charles Schumer, the leader of the Senate Democrats, said to Rachel Maddow back in January, messing with the "intelligence community" is a bad idea because "they have six ways from Sunday" to retaliate, and they are "angry" at Trump, Schumer told Maddow.

Oh, but there's no Deep State. Why, a guy from the New York Times was on the radio in New York City just yesterday denying that there is any such thing!

Memo To Trump Impeachment Pushers: Be Careful What You Wish For

Who do you imagine will succeed "The Donald" if you succeed?

Mike Pence, the religious fanatic and extreme reactionary, becomes president.

Pence's domestic policies will be every bit as bad, and probably worse in some areas (such as the war against abortion rights) than Trump's.

On foreign policy, at least Trump is internally divided. He has "isolationist" (noninterventionist) impulses, so part of the time you get that, while at other times you get a violent lashing out, as the attack on the Assad regime airfield in Syria after the sarin attack by that regime- my only complaint about that Trump attack is that it was ineffectual. Plus, Trump isn't particularly interested in foreign policy. Therefore U.S. imperialism under Trump would probably be less focuses, less intense, and less assiduously imposed everywhere possible at all times than is the norm. Which is a MAJOR REASON the power establishment (political, media, and Deep State, which includes the military and secret police organizations) is so intent on hamstringing or, if possible, ousting Trump.

Pence can be expected to be much like Reagan and the Bushes on foreign policy; aggressively violent, employing the military and CIA very extensively.

Even worse, is that Pence projects a low-key, non-threatening, friendly and placid demeanor. In a word, he comes across as amiable. Thus he will be the more effective evil. Just as Obama was the more effective evil than Bush II, or than McCain or Romney would have been. Simply put, the "nice guy" personas of state criminals like Obama and Pence simply don't arouse the public opposition that Republicans generally and especially politicians who come across as intense do.

So Trump is a horror, but Pence would be worse.

By the way, Obama was a horror, Bush the Younger was a horror, Clinton was a horror, Bush the Elder was a horror, Reagan the fascist was a horror, Ford helped Indonesia invade East Timor and exterminate a third of the population (with Kissinger at his side, a policy continued by Clinton), Nixon (enough said), Johnson sent a 550,000 invasion force into Vietnam, and invaded the Dominican Republic to reverse an election he didn't like, and arranged for military dictatorship in Brazil, a U.S. plot begun by Kennedy, who created a U.S. torturer-training program in Latin America under the rubric of the "Alliance for Progress," and Eisenhower was responsible for the CIA coups in Iran (1953) and Guatemala (1954) which ushered in two of the world's most murderous dictatorship, a quarter million people murdered in each case, and the consequences still being suffered by the peoples of those countries to this day. Truman, the man who atomic-bombed two cities, enough said- and I could go back and back, indeed all the way to Washington, but there are too many, and the crimes are literally in the tens of thousands. because imperialism is a criminal enterprise, and  the U.S. was imperialist from the beginning, when white colonizers "discovered" the Western Hemisphere, and  eliminated in North American over 90% of the people whose ancestors predated the Europeans' arrival by 15,000 years, in order to seize the land and resources.

The point is, Trump is not uniquely bad. That's the establishment line, because he's unpredictable and not anchored to their ideology. That means there are possibilities for cracks in the system to open. That is one reason people instinctively voted for him- on the hope he would "shake things up." Of course he won't deliver on his promises, but he IS a destabilizing presence in the White House. If nothing else, the attention of the criminal rulers is somewhat diverted by their obsession with demonizing, "investigating," undermining, neutralizing, and ultimately ousting him. That gives the world's population a bit of breathing space, or a lessening in the intensity of U.S. attacks (including perhaps domestic dissidents, with the FBI and CIA and NSA prioritizing their conspiracies against Trump).

The U.S. is a nation founded on the twin pillars of genocide and slavery, which has, with the immense power it has amassed, a world-historic opportunity to change the nature of civilization, but instead is simply repeating the same millenia-old game of domination, exploitation, and oppression. (By the way, committing genocide has been a very good way to get to the White House. For example, Andrew Jackson, exterminator of the Creek Indians, got to be President, as did William Henry Harrison, who destroyed the Confederacy of Northwest Tribes and oversaw the elimination of the charismatic native leader Tecumseh.)


In America now, we see a colossal waste of power and the squandering of a world-historic opportunity to change the world for the better.  And what a lack of ambition this bespeaks. The ambition to do something truly great and world-changing. With its unparalleled power, the U.S. could put humanity on a truly civilized path. Instead Americans prefer to delude themselves that their nation-state (and by extension, themselves) are "great" simply because they are powerful. But since the power is largely (not entirely) used for evil, their "greatness" is of a piece with the "greatness" of the Soviet Union and the Third Reich. It may be awesome, but it is not admirable. It is anti-human, as we see even today, yet again, with President Trump and his Secretary of State, Rex "Gusher" Tillerson, praising the Saudi oppressors, among the very worst in the world, while simultaneously, with the maximal hypocrisy typical of the U.S. government, slamming Iran for its repression and "terrorism." (Trump and his gang talk as if IRAN is behind ISIS and Al-Qaeda, not Saudi Arabia!)

The blather and bullshit sure gets repetitive after awhile.

Too bad so many of the fellow travelers of the Democratic Party, who should know better, are mindlessly parroting the propaganda lines of that Party and its secret police temporary allies-of-convenience. (Rather stunning to hear Democracy Now boss Amy Goodman repeatedly saying the phrase "Russian meddling" in the U.S. election!)

Maybe putting things in historical and political perspective would help them think more clearly. No need to take sides in a battle between Godzilla and Mothra.  (Trump and his establishment enemies.) The proper response is to illuminate what is happening, including the real causes of the conflict, to report objectively and demystify the show that is being presented in the Bourgeois Media Theater.

Typical victims of U.S. "Defense of Freedom"

American Heroes with captive Woman

 

Medical Oddity Roger Ailes Finally Dies at Age 77

In a case of an unexplained medical miracle, Roger Ailes lived to age 77 without a human heart. Scientists have long been at a loss to explain this phenomenon. One theory holds that since Ailes had ice water in his veins and not blood, no heart was necessary to sustain life.

Ailes, better known as a lifelong rightwing political operative and propaganda master, made his first major contribution to making life on earth worse for the human race by helping get Richard Nixon into the White House through his work as a media svengali for Nixon during the 1968 presidential campaign. Later he became a key henchman to evil reactionary global agit-propaganda czar Rupert Murdoch, a verminous lifeform that arose in Australia. Ailes is credited as the mastermind of Murdoch's Fox "News" channel, a platform for ranting reactionary disinformation and agit-propaganda.

Ailes, a known serial sex offender, is being given a totally misleading and undeservedly respectful sendoff by the U.S. corporate media, which refuses to report the facts of his life's work promoting anti-human policies and power. That media of course is rightwing, a fact it obfuscates by pretending its propaganda is "objective news."

Last July, after a sex scandal finally blew up publicly, Murdoch was finally forced to ditch Ailes, paying him $40 million just to go away.

Unfortunately Rupert Murdoch, a reptilian lifeform, apparently is going to live to be over 100, just like the mother who spawned him.

I'll put you on TV if you give me a kiss, Baby!

HE may be dead, but I'm NOT, Mate!

Turkey Kills More Kurds With U.S. Weaponry

Turkish autocrat Recep Tayyip Erdoğan ordered his warplanes to bomb Kurdish "terrorists" in Iraq and Syria, including a communications center of the Kurdish PKK, a "terrorist" group whose leader is imprisoned by Turkey and with whom Erdoğan ended a truce agreement in order to wipe them out. As part of that process, he has unleashed brutal repression and devastating destruction on Kurdish villages in Turkey, just as Turkey has done in the past to its Kurdish minority (who were long forbidden to even use the Kurdish language).

In the process of using its U.S.-built and supplied warplanes to drop U.S.-supplied munitions on the PKK site, "good" Kurdish fighters the U.S. backs were killed.

It'll be interesting to see what the Trump regime does if and when Turkish pilots, flying their U.S.-supplied warplanes, drop some U.S.-supplied bombs that accidentally (or "accidentally") kill some U.S. Special Forces operating with the Kurds. Trump has business interests in Turkey, and has lavishly praised Turkish autocrat Erdogan. Trump congratulated the would-be dictator of Turkey on "winning" the referendum that gives Erdoğan essentially dictatorial powers. (he already has such powers de facto. He has fired about 120,000 from their jobs, using a failed military coup as an excuse, and imprisoned thousands, including about 150 journalists.

The referendum supposedly passed by 51%, but that included a million and a half invalid ballots that lacked an official stamp on their envelopes as required by Turkish law. Observers raised doubts about the outcome. Turks who have criticized the referendum are being denounced by Erdoğan as "traitors."

That makes sense. Disloyalty to dictators is treason, because the dictator is equated with the state.

I am the State is the invariable principle of tyrants.