Der Stürmer Published Cartoons That Mocked Religion Too

The western outpouring of support for anti-Muslim bigotry in the aftermath of last week’s outrageous attack on French ‘satirical’ newspaper Charlie Hebdo is rife with the choking hypocrisy that has become commonplace in the post 9/11 world. The attack on the paper’s Paris office and the murders of ten staff members as well as two police officers was a despicable act of violence but it was not an attack on free speech no matter how hard that the media sells the narrative. If officials are to be believed - lying is always the first if not only resort - then the attack was the work of radical Islamist extremists waging jihad against the west. Considering that Charlie Hebdo was a forum for so many vile and repulsive cartoons mocking the prophet Mohammed as well as portraying Muslims in the most insulting, stereotypical ways possible that wouldn't be a reach. It would hardly be surprising that the paper would be targeted by such types because quite frankly, when you make a living out of baiting religious fanatics don’t be surprised if one day they turn up on your doorstep.

While it is true that Charlie Hebdo also published repugnant imagery of other religions – including Jesus Christ engaging in anal sex – they were a minority among those ridiculing Muslims. The one inescapable fact is that Charlie Hebdo was a hate rag and a hypocritical one at that. A former writer was sent packing for "inciting racial hatred" after writing a column alleged to be critical of Jews. He was subsequently put on trial by that bastion of freedom that is France. So much for the all-inclusive mockery that the corrupt media has invoked as a smokescreen for the paper's blatant anti-Muslim agenda.

Julius Streicher, who was hanged with other Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg ran a fine little paper back in the day that was famous for publishing cartoons and editorials that mocked and denigrated a particular religion. Der Stürmer was instrumental in fomenting the climate of hatred that would lead to the state sponsored extermination of over 6 million Jews. Like Charlie Hebdo, Der Stürmer also mixed in cartoons that smeared Catholics and others to provide some 'balance' but the primary purpose was to dehumanize Jews, just as Charlie Hebdo does with Muslims. The French paper was just another propaganda arm of the powerful anti-Muslim hate network, a foreign counterpart to domestic American chop shops the likes of Robert Spencer's Jihad Watch, Pamela Geller’s American Freedom Defense Initiative, Brigitte Gabriel’s ACT! For America and David Horowitz’s Front Page Magazine being but a few of the more widely known hate factories of which there are legion.

The massive rally in Paris on Sunday - hijacked by murderous scum the likes of Israel's megalomaniac leader Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu who stands to benefit the most from the calls for blood vengeance against Muslims - is a grim harbinger for the wave of hate and repression that is about to be unleashed.  Netanyahu drew some criticism for his comments that the September 11, 2001 "terrorist" attacks were "good for Israel" and is already eagerly exploiting the Charlie Hebdo murders. The acceptance of the Palestinians by the International Criminal Court (ICC) didn't get much media play, being immediately swallowed by the Paris murders but Bibi and his stooges in the U.S. Congress will exact their pound of flesh soon enough. Avenging ten dead anti-Muslim propagandists and two cops will serve as their rallying cry.

Media Deliberately Suppresses Charlie Hebdo anti-Christian Cartoons from U.S. Muslim haters 

The most troubling aspect of the Charlie Hebdo killings is the response, particularly in the American Homeland. The hysterical state-corporate media has been pushing all of the right buttons, especially at CNN which has turned itself into a propaganda arm of the Deep State elements that are itching for a global war on Muslims to compensate for flagging ratings. CNN has brought in the retired ultra-fascist Mike Rogers who used his position as boss of the House Intelligence Committee to defend the NSA and surveillance state and regularly took to the Sunday morning airwaves to peddle lies. Rogers churned out more whoppers than Burger King when the media still saw fit to report on the actions of heroic former government contractor turned NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. He regularly accused Snowden of being a Russian agent but never bothered to offer any proof. He will be a natural fit at CNN now that he has a regular nationally televised pulpit to his lies preach from.

The fear is being ratcheted up over Charlie Hebdo and the neocons who effectively run U.S. foreign and domestic policy are using the Rahm Emanuel maxim of “never let a serious crisis go to waste” by using the incident to push for Draconian enhancements to the already choking national security state. It has come to this in America, the murder of a dozen people in a fucking foreign country can be used as a mobilizing force to push the Clash of Civilizations. The star spangled sheep have been so conditioned now that it doesn’t even take the destruction of skyscrapers to whip them up into an orgiastic blood frenzy.

The murders also nicely coincide with the beginning of the next iteration of the permanent political campaign that will culminate in the coronation of Barack Obama's successor in 2016. The Republicans assuredly will sink to new lows in fear-mongering and demagoguery over the Muslim phantom menace as they troll for the rubes. The Hillary Clinton led Democrats will match the rhetoric of their more overtly fascist counterparts blow for blow. That liberals are so eagerly signing up in the western war on Muslims with their "I am Charlie" proclamations and articles supporting "freedom" of the press shows that they are as easily duped as low-information conservatives. One of the most cherished "liberal" voices is that of HBO's virulently bigoted Bill Maher whose professed atheism is a cloak for his foaming at the mouth hatred of Muslims. Whether he is really an atheist or just plays one on television is a matter of speculation. So incessant has the brainwashing been thanks to over a decade of post September 11, 2001 agitprop that it is clear just how quickly that Muslims will be targeted if there happens to be some sort of "terrorist" attack that takes place on domestic soil.

The Charlie Hebdo attack is a tragedy on multiple fronts and there are many who will suffer as a result. The first tragedy is of course that of the actual victims whose lives were so brutally ended on that day and whatever they may have been guilty as far as agitation and promulgating hate they did not deserve that. The people of France are also victims and once their fear and outpouring of emotion over the murders dissipates they will soon see that it has provided renewed justification for a crackdown by authorities. French military troops are already being put on the streets - unsubstantiated reports of sleeper cell activation was reported - while the governments of Europe and the U.S. ponder additional enhancements to the imperial security state. Americans will also continue to lose as the Constitution will become even more detached from the government, money that could be better used domestically will be spent on more foreign interventions, domestic spying and a burgeoning security state beast that can never eat enough.

Lastly, the millions of Muslims who practice their religion and abhor violence will increasingly be targeted by restrictions on their freedom, invasion of their privacy and of course violence against themselves and their places of worship. When you have a powerful, connected, global media mogul like Rupert Murdoch whose immediate reaction to the Charlie Hebdo attacks was to launch a Tweet that called for holding all Muslims "responsible" for the actions of extremists it carries clout. Particularly to that particular American based demographic who rely solely on Fox News for their information and are already itching to lock and load over the percolating domestic problems of race in the aftermath of Ferguson and New York City. It is inevitable that official state crackdowns will be accompanied by pogroms given the level of poison that has been dumped into the mass media over the years.

While history always repeats - although never exactly - it is apparent that Muslims are well on the way to becoming the new Juden thanks to those who benefit by exploiting tragedy to serve their own ends.

Report: Obama's NSA Stasi Destroying Free Press in USA

President Barack Obama's Nixonian war on journalism received an ironic seal of approval today in a joint report issued by watchdog groups Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union that points out the obvious in that the very basis of the First Amendment, a free press is well on the way to extinction in The Homeland. The Founding Fathers understood that it was imperative to establish that most important check on the government to restrain the corruption of entrenched power and the ability of journalists to be able to inform the populace of what elected officials were up to at any given time is the cornerstone upon which a free society and a healthy democracy rests. Obama and the rest of the greatest enemies that the American people have faced in US history - a venal and thoroughly rancid gaggle of  crooks, liars, perverts, gangsters and prostitutes in the US Congress along with a judicial system that has been sold to the highest bidder -  loathe the very concept of a free and unfettered press and have arrayed in 2014 to snuff it out lest it ever challenge their mounting crimes against the republic.

The HRW-ACLU report is entitled "With Liberty to Monitor All" (subtitled How Large-Scale US Surveillance is Harming Journalism, Law, and American Democracy) is just the latest example of how decades of political corruption, legal chicanery and an indolent, slothful and willfully ignorant populace have allowed this once great country to be stealthily destroyed from within, the very pillars of the foundation of a once free society eaten away as if by a ravenous army of Formosan termites. The report comes on top of over a year of leaks of documents on the programs and procedures of the unaccountable (and completely enabled by Congress) NSA that were procured by former government contractor turned whistleblower Edward Snowden. The always fraudulent war on terror has from day one been a war on the American people and there are many within the Washington establishment who want to see him murdered or even worse - Obama probably has a hard on for the day that the targeting coordinates of the man will be delivered to him along with his orange juice and the morning kill list.

From an article on the report written by former Washington Post columnist Dan Froomkin (he was rudely run out of town in 2009 when his "White House Watch" column no longer was exposing the lies of the Bush regime) over at the new online magazine The Intercept (you know that it won't be altered unlike stories at NBC) on the report I excerpt the following:

Even before the Snowden revelations, reporters trying to cover important defense, intelligence and counter-terrorism issues were reeling from the effects of unprecedented secrecy and attacks on whistleblowers.

 But newfound awareness of the numerous ways the government can follow electronic trails –  previously considered the stuff of paranoid fantasy — has led sources to grow considerably more fearful.

 “It used to be that leak investigations didn’t get far because it was too hard to uncover the source, but with digital tools it’s just much easier, and sources know that,” said Washington Post contributor Barton Gellman, one of the 46 journalists interviewed for the survey.

Sources are “afraid of the entire weight of the federal government coming down on them,” New Yorker staff writer Jane Mayer is quoted as saying. “The added layer of fear makes it so much harder. I can’t count the number of people afraid of the legal implications [of speaking to me].”

Jonathan Landay, a McClatchy Newspapers reporter covering national security and intelligence, told Human Rights Watch that some sources have grown reluctant to talk to him about anything, “even something like, ‘Please explain the rationale for this foreign policy.’ That’s not even dealing with classified material; that’s just educating readers.”

Methods reporters use to avoid surveillance are time-consuming, difficult, off-putting  to sources — and ultimately futile, the surveyed journalists reported. “If the government wants to get you, they will,” Washington Post reporter Adam Goldman said.

But when journalists can’t do their jobs, the effect is felt well beyond the profession alone. Insufficiently informed journalism can “undermine effective democratic participation and governance,” the report states.

It is actually one hell of a lot easier to dispense with freedom of the press these days even without the heavy hand of the government applying the garrote and giving it a hard good twist. The top "reporters" and "news" people in America -thanks largely to the massive media consolidation spree that then President Bill Clinton set into motion with the odious Telecommunications Act of 1996 - are largely comprised of a pack of power-suckling careerists, rank sycophants, sleazy on the payroll government shills, self-obsessed celebrity pundits and ghoulish electronic ambulance chasers like the pride of CNN, Nancy Grace.  

It is very simple to manufacture consent in America and Nazi propaganda czar Paul Joseph Goebbels would be proud of the 'most trusted talking heads in US media' these days. Take  for example the all-star lineup of the Sunday morning masters of electronic fellatio including the ever scummy David Gregory of NBC's Meet the Press, longtime political insider Bob Schieffer of CBS's Face the Nation, the dynamic duo at CNN being former AIPAC lobbyist Wolf Blitzer and that insipid blathering sow Candy Crowley, former Clinton flack George Stephanopoulos over at ABC's this week with neocon liar and PNAC founder William Kristol now riding shotgun and of course FOX's Chris Wallace. When the carcass of this rapidly collapsing empire is one day hauled upon the autopsy table by future historians to determine where it all went wrong a generous smattering of video from the ongoing beltway circle jerk on the Sabbath will likely be a key part of the study. As for the rest of the liars, snakes and bunco artists in the corrupt state-corporate media there are more to name than there is the time and space. Suffice it to say that in America, nothing sells quite as cheaply as integrity - just tune into MSNBC some night around the time that Rachel Maddow comes on to whore herself out to provide cover for the high crimes and misdemeanors of the Obama administration.

For the rest there is the NSA - the ultimate trump card of the fascist state and the perfect apparatus to suppress and target honest journalists trying to make a living and whistleblowers who attempt to get the truth out about the massive and metastasizing cancer within the government and every other prominent industry in America these days. They are the ultimate enemies of the state, at least the gangster state as it exists today - forget about al Qaeda, ISIS or even the current Emanuel Goldstein/New Hitler that is Russian President Vladimir Putin, the target of the new "two minutes hate" beamed into the living rooms of television addicted Americans 24/7. If we lived in a decent society with a functional poltical system - WE DON'T - The HRW-ACLU report would provide a serious warning to Americans that it is all slipping away and unless they wake up soon they will be as startled as the sheep when they round that final corner in the gleaming maze of steel chutes to confront the captive bolt pistol and their destiny.

But there is always another season of Dancing With the Stars upcoming and the NFL's preseason slate kicks off next week. Bread and circuses baby!

Goebbels shrugged.

LINKS to the report:

Human Rights Watch 

ACLU

Blame Obama for the Shooting Down of MH17

As one of the heroes of the neocons, President Harry Truman famously put it: "the buck stops here" and in the frenzy to blame the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 over a freaking war zone on Thursday (what the hell was it doing there?) on the reviled and demonized Vladimir Putin our pathetic excuse for a media is blaming the wrong president. The responsibility for the loss of the lives of the passengers of that ill-fated jetliner can be parked directly at the foot of US President Barack H. Obama for it was he who signed off on the series of events that culminated in the disaster in the first place. Were the prince of petulance not so intent at avenging his wounded pride over Russia's saving Edward Snowden from being waterboarded more times than Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Putin's pissing on the parade of bombing Damascus last September there would be no civil war in Ukraine in the first place.

Libertarian icon Ron Paul sums it up very nicely in his piece "What the Media Won’t Report About Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17" that is available at Antiwar.com and I excerpt from the good doctor:

While western media outlets rush to repeat government propaganda on the event, there are a few things they will not report.

They will not report that the crisis in Ukraine started late last year, when EU and US-supported protesters plotted the overthrow of the elected Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych. Without US-sponsored “regime change,” it is unlikely that hundreds would have been killed in the unrest that followed. Nor would the Malaysian Airlines crash have happened.

The media has reported that the plane must have been shot down by Russian forces or Russian-backed separatists, because the missile that reportedly brought down the plane was Russian made. But they will not report that the Ukrainian government also uses the exact same Russian-made weapons.

They will not report that the post-coup government in Kiev has, according to OSCE monitors, killed 250 people in the breakaway Lugansk region since June, including 20 killed as government forces bombed the city center the day after the plane crash! Most of these are civilians and together they roughly equal the number killed in the plane crash. By contrast, Russia has killed no one in Ukraine, and the separatists have struck largely military, not civilian, targets.

They will not report that the US has strongly backed the Ukrainian government in these attacks on civilians, which a State Department spokeswoman called “measured and moderate.”

They will not report that neither Russia nor the separatists in eastern Ukraine have anything to gain but everything to lose by shooting down a passenger liner full of civilians.

They will not report that the Ukrainian government has much to gain by pinning the attack on Russia, and that the Ukrainian prime minister has already expressed his pleasure that Russia is being blamed for the attack.

I have admired the former Congressman for his principled stance against the evils of the warfare state and his set of stones for daring to speak out against Bush and Cheney's wars of aggression back when critics were branded as "traitors", "terrorist sympathizers" and worse and would face the equivalent of being "necklaced" for daring to stand up and be counted when it mattered the most. I will never forget Ron Paul's brutal smackdown of Mr. 9/11 himself, Rudy Giuliani in that Republican debate and then assigning the fascist former Big Apple mayor, a neocon favorite a reading list. Congressman Paul was vilified by the same scum-infested, corrupt, warmongering media types that are busily selling the latest load of Obama's horse manure about Ukraine - all the while covering up the war crimes of the US backed Israeli despot Bibi Netanyahu and his wanton slaughter of civilians in Gaza.

The propaganda is shameless, from the loud-mouthed lout of a Vice President Joe Biden - a fucking embarrassment to decent Americans - and his juvenile attacks on Putin as "not having a soul" to the endless proclamations of the pope of hope and change and his evidence-deficient charges that Russia's president was personally responsible for the attack despite the unspeakable fact that Obama is the one backing ruthless neo-Nazi death squad filth engaged in ethnic cleansing while the Kiev junta uses the military against civilians. 

This is what it is to be an American during a time of rampant corruption, imperial hubris, national blindness (as well as stupidity) and an addiction to the drug of American exceptionalism that is as potent as black tar heroin. It is sick and shameful to watch these scumbags in the Obama regime and the neocon rats nest at Foggy Bottom continue to lie with zero regard to the long-term consequences even if those consequences end up leading willfully ignorant and brainwashed Americans into the flaming abyss of World War III and imminent nuclear catastrophe.

Obama is a punk but the office of the presidency seems to attract that type like flies to a pile of rotting corpses these days and unlike when Harry Truman took responsibility the serpentine, conniving, Teflon coated bullshit salesman Obama does anything but adhere to the "buck stops here" principle.

Two and a half years left until we can be rid of this most loathsome of leaders, that is if he doesn't succeed in getting us all incinerated in a nuclear apocalypse first.

Ministry of Propaganda Spins Shootdown of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17

“It’s an insult to human reason and to the legitimacy of this institution to suggest that anyone other than the regime carried out this attack.”

-President Barack Obama – Speech to United Nations on Syria gas attack

“I will be voting to give the president of the United States the authority to use force – if necessary – to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security.”

- Senator John Kerry

The notorious and legendary Nazi propagandist Paul Joseph Goebbels would be in sheer awe of the crackerjack information warfare capabilities of the US state-corporate media seventy years after he committed suicide in the bowels of  Der Fuhrer’s bunker as the allies roared into Berlin. Goebbels, like all of the historic greats at a particular profession often build their life’s work upon others who inspired them, in his case it was the famous American father of the public relations industry Edward Bernays and as the fine art of manufacturing consent was honed and meshed with technology it is apparent that Goebbels is the inspiration and model for the modern US media.

The post September 11, 2001 era of The Homeland has brought many things to America including the unchaining of the government from the US Constitution under the pretenses of safety, the forced imposition upon the citizenry of a massive surveillance apparatus, the militarization of law enforcement personnel and the very real possibility that children born since that day will never know a life without perpetual war. None of it would have been possible were the domestic media not fully complicit with their cheerleading for attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan and later Iran, Syria, Ukraine and now in what could end up being a mass national suicide - a war with nuclear power Russia.

With the state-corporate propaganda machine fully mobilized for a week of withering, anti-Russian demagoguery from the political class - Orwell's "Two Minutes Hate" broadcast 24/7 by a legion of corrupt operatives Secretary of State John Kerry embarked upon a saturation bombing campaign, hitting all five major Sunday morning "news" shows to spew the lies of the warfare state. The last time that the Skull and Bones alumni who holds the position of Obama's top diplomat hit for the Sunday morning cycle was during a similar dishonest expulsion of fibs after that mysterious sarin gas attack on civilians in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta. The attack that both Kerry and Obama definitively claimed to have proof of but as chronicled by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh - in his two pieces that are censored in the obscenity that is The Homeland,  "Whose Sarin?" and the "The Red Line and the Rat Line" - was total bullshit.

In feeding the lie machine, Goebbels’ ideological descendants in Kiev continue to generate the lurid tales that are then fed into the US ministry of propaganda that is the state-corporate media, popping up in brand name outlets like the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Washington Post and then cemented into the narrative on Sunday morning television which then disseminates them to low-information types and brainwashed sheep here on the great star-spangled lemming farm.  To anyone who has been paying attention to the US backed coup d'etat, subsequent campaign of ethnic cleansing, the bogus election of Petro "Porky" Poroschenko aka "the chocolate king" and the pulverizing of civilian areas by the US backed Ukranian military everything and I mean everything that comes out of the junta in Kiev is horseshit and the immediate rush to pin the downing of MH17 on Putin was so transparently choreographed that it reeks of a false flag operation.

While Kerry was selling his tale of Russian responsibility for the downed jetliner (what the fuck was it doing flying over a war zone in the first place is the question that I can't stop asking myself but the media never bothers asking it) there was much support from the most consistently dishonest, bloodthirsty, shrill, venal and contemptible gaggle of traitors in the US Congress in providing support for his allegations minus any real evidence. Today's circuit featured a who's who of American political scum and vermin such as Senators Robert Menendez, Ted Cruz, Dianne Feinstein, Lindsey Graham, Bob Corker and extremist House committee bosses Mike Rogers, Micheal McCaul and Peter King all of whom like Obama and Kerry belong in the dock at The Hague.

One of the most prolific critics of the radical transformation of the United States of America into the decidedly un-American "Homeland" post 9/11 is former Reagan administration Assistant Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, Wall Street Journal editor and economist Dr .Paul Craig Roberts. Roberts' most recent column on the truth in regards to MH 17 is entitled " What Happened to the Malaysian Airliner?" and I excerpt the following from his piece:

Washington’s propaganda machine is in such high gear that we are in danger of losing

the facts that we do have.

One fact is that the separatists do not have the expensive Buk anti-aircraft missile system or the trained personnel to operate it.

Another fact is that the separatists have no incentive to shoot down an airliner and neither does Russia. Anyone can tell the difference between low-flying attack aircraft and an airliner at 33,000 feet.

The Ukrainians do have Buk anti-aircraft missile systems, and a Buk battery was operational in the region and deployed at a site from which it could have fired a missile at the airliner.

Just as the separatists and the Russian government have no incentive to shoot down an airliner, neither does the Ukrainian government nor, one would think, even the crazed extreme Ukrainian nationalists who have formed militias to take the fight against the separatists that the Ukrainian army is not keen to undertake–unless there was a plan to frame Russia.

One Russian general familiar with the weapon system offered his opinion that it was a mistake made by the Ukrainian military untrained in the weapon’s use. The general said that although Ukraine has a few of the weapons, Ukrainians have had no training in their use in the 23 years since Ukraine separated from Russia. The general thinks it was an accident due to incompetence.

This explanation makes a certain amount of sense and far more sense than Washington’s propaganda. The problem with the general’s explanation is that it does not explain why the Buk anti-aircraft missile system was deployed near or in a separatist territory. The separatists have no aircraft. It seems odd for Ukraine to have an expensive missile system in an area in which it is of no military use and where the position could be overrun and captured by separatists.

As Washington, Kiev, and the presstitute media are committed to the propaganda that Putin did it, we are not going to get any reliable information from the US media. We will have to figure it out for ourselves.

Just as the man says - there will be no "reliable information from the US media", there never is anymore as the state has been weaponized against the people who theoretically - at least according to that now obsolete concept of "democracy" are able to exercise self-determination in choosing their leaders and by extension the course of their nation. Only the schmucks actually buy into that anymore and it is far easier to live in a sense of blissful ignorance and denial than to look at the horror of what the fully run amok US government has now become in the waning days of semi-normalcy before the shit completely hits the fan.

American Warlord: Obama's Empire of Blood

He got a sweet gift of gab, he got a harmonious tongue...He knows every song of love that ever has been sung..Good intentions can be evil..Both hands can be full of grease...You know that sometimes Satan comes as a man of peace

Bob Dylan – Man of Peace

Barack H. Obama was sworn as the forty-fourth president of the United States on a bite ass cold day in Washington in January of 2009 riding high upon a wave of hope and change. The nation had become war-weary after the eight year gauntlet of brutality and horrors that was the Bush-Cheney regime and their neocon foreign policy and Obama was to wash away the sins, end the wars and restore the rule of law. Instead Mr. Obama not only did not hold his war criminal predecessor and his minions accountable but refined their programs including the launching of a robotic fleet of airborne murder machines that are the squadrons of civilian killing drones. He somewhat drew down the US occupation in Iraq although the country has become a roiling cauldron of violence now thanks to the destabilization from the invasion and is engaged in the smoke and mirrors that will end the US presence in Afghanistan but the man has now tasted blood and seems to like it.

It really didn't take long for the latest war criminal to occupy the imperial throne at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to pick up the baton of his predecessors. After Obama 'won' his exalted Nobel Peace Prize for essentially NOT being George W. Bush and coming off of a drubbing inflicted by race-baiting Republicans in the 2010 mid-terms that cost Dear Leader's feckless Democratic party the House in that famous "shellacking" he decided to take the advice of arch neocon Michael Ledeen:

"Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business"

That crappy little country was Libya.

The moment the first explosions rocked Libya I knew that Barack Obama had just locked down another four years in the White House. This was his initiation, his right of passage, just like laying in a mock coffin and sucking off upperclassmen in the Skull and Bones tomb (Secretary of State John Kerry is an alumni) he joined the big club. By the very definition of the term, every US President is a war criminal and our very own proud owner of the Nobel Peace Prize staked his claim, pissed his name into the snow and has been inclined to pursue the wars of the American Empire with vigor ever since. This is a guy who has a fucking kill list delivered to him with breakfast every day and seems to relish it.

Prior to hitting Libya and ultimately inciting local thugs to viciously and cruelly murder former US friendly despot Muammar Gaddafi there was the killing of Osama bin Laden that elicited grotesque displays of flag-waving triumphalism in America. Obama was the man because  it took the most powerful military machine in the history of the galaxy over ten years to find the alleged mastermind behind the September 11, 2001 attacks who was more than once reported to be cave-hopping with a dialysis machine but Obama to much celebration ordered the hit team to storm that safe house in Pakistan. The jubilation at the alleged kill far outweighed the perception from many that taking out Osama was more like a mafia hit, he was after all a servant of the Empire in the proxy war against the hated Russians in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Incidentally and take this for what it's worth because I offer up no suggestions, allegations or theories but the body was never seen outside of a small circle and the photos of the killing of the bad ass bogeyman are a bigger state secret than who killed John F. Kennedy.

But I digress...

Obama having been reelected rather easily (who wouldn't be if they faced the thoroughly inept Mitt Romney) has in his second term become hellbent at proving that he is the baddest fucking gangster on Earth and this is apparent in the shameful, US sponsored bloodletting in Ukraine.  The events leading up to the coup in Kiev that toppled the then democratically elected leader Viktor Yanukovych - a corrupt bastard although he has nothing on western leaders when it comes to that - and installed a ready to go puppet leader in waiting in Arseniy "Yats" Yatsenyuk which were backed by notorious thugs from Ukranian fascists Svoboda and Right Sektor were steeped in Obama's need to win a dick measuring contest with the Russian leader Vladimir Putin. There was first the stinging indignity of Russia's granting of asylum to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden - it's one thing for Republicans to tell Obama to eat shit and quite another for a goddamned Rooskie to to likewise and particularly if the refugee protected has the goods on Obama's Stasi. Then came Putin's saving Obama from himself over going to war with Syria on trumped up evidence over a to this day mysterious Sarin gas attack in the Damascus suburbs, this inflamed the neocons embedded within the administration as well as Kerry and they have been likely pushing all of Obama's buttons since.

The grand disaster of all is what continues to unfold in Ukraine and more so that what appear to be paramilitary death squads and packs of fascist and neo-Nazi thugs along with the coup government's military rolling into the east for a reign of terror of which the BEST result would be a bloody civil war. The violence has continued to escalate too since that Odessa trade union hall was set ablaze by US sanctioned goons and yet the US state-corporate media still refuses to acknowledge the composition of the forces deployed by the puppet regime in Kiev - had such a thing been done then the Obama administration may have barred the offending organization and individuals from that garish festival of pigs that was the White House Correspondent's Association Dinner over the weekend. While the majority of Americans continue to be lied to on a daily basis by the establishment media the bulk of honest reportage is either provided by the alternative or foreign media. Consortium News and Robert Parry have been of particular help with the ongoing coverage of the deteriorating situation. I excerpt from the latest "Ukraine's 'Dr. Strangelove' Reality":

As much as the coup regime in Ukraine and its supporters want to project an image of Western moderation, there is a “Dr. Strangelove” element that can’t stop the Nazism from popping up from time to time, like when the Peter Sellers character in the classic movie can’t keep his right arm from making a “Heil Hitler” salute.

This brutal Nazism surfaced again on Friday when right-wing toughs in Odessa attacked an encampment of ethnic Russian protesters driving them into a trade union building which was then set on fire with Molotov cocktails. As the building was engulfed in flames, some people who tried to flee were chased and beaten, while those trapped inside heard the Ukrainian nationalists liken them to black-and-red-striped potato beetles called Colorados, because those colors are used in pro-Russian ribbons.

“Burn, Colorado, burn” went the chant.

As the fire worsened, those dying inside were serenaded with the taunting singing of the Ukrainian national anthem. The building also was spray-painted with Swastika-like symbols and graffiti reading “Galician SS,” a reference to the Ukrainian nationalist army that fought alongside the German Nazi SS in World War II, killing Russians on the eastern front.

The death by fire of dozens of people in Odessa recalled a World War II incident in 1944 when elements of a Galician SS police regiment took part in the massacre of the Polish village of Huta Pieniacka, which had been a refuge for Jews and was protected by Russian and Polish partisans. Attacked by a mixed force of Ukrainian police and German soldiers on Feb. 28, hundreds of townspeople were massacred, including many locked in barns that were set ablaze.

The legacy of World War II – especially the bitter fight between Ukrainian nationalists from the west and ethnic Russians from the east seven decades ago – is never far from the surface in Ukrainian politics. One of the heroes celebrated during the Maidan protests in Kiev was Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera, whose name was honored in many banners including one on a podium where Sen. John McCain voiced support for the uprising to oust elected President Viktor Yanukovych, whose political base was in eastern Ukraine.

During World War II, Bandera headed the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists-B, a radical paramilitary movement that sought to transform Ukraine into a racially pure state. OUN-B took part in the expulsion and extermination of thousands of Jews and Poles.

Though most of the Maidan protesters in 2013-14 appeared motivated by anger over political corruption and by a desire to join the European Union, neo-Nazis made up a significant number. These storm troopers from the Right Sektor and Svoboda party decked out some of the occupied government buildings with Nazi insignias and even a Confederate battle flag, the universal symbol of white supremacy.

Then, as the protests turned violent from Feb. 20-22, the neo-Nazis surged to the forefront. Their well-trained militias, organized in 100-man brigades called “the hundreds,” led the final assaults against police and forced Yanukovych and many of his officials to flee for their lives.

In the days after the coup, as the neo-Nazi militias effectively controlled the government, European and U.S. diplomats scrambled to help the shaken parliament put together the semblance of a respectable regime, although four ministries, including national security, were awarded to the right-wing extremists in recognition of their crucial role in ousting Yanukovych.

Seeing No Nazis

Since February, virtually the entire U.S. news media has cooperated in the effort to play down the neo-Nazi role, dismissing any mention of this inconvenient truth as “Russian propaganda.” Stories in the U.S. media delicately step around the neo-Nazi reality by keeping out relevant context, such as the background of national security chief Andriy Parubiy, who founded the Social-National Party of Ukraine in 1991, blending radical Ukrainian nationalism with neo-Nazi symbols. Parubiy was commandant of the Maidan’s “self-defense forces.”

When the neo-Nazi factor is mentioned in the mainstream U.S. press, it is usually to dismiss it as nonsense, such as an April 20 column by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof who visited his ancestral home, the western Ukrainian town of Karapchiv, and portrayed its residents as the true voice of the Ukrainian people.

“To understand why Ukrainians are risking war with Russia to try to pluck themselves from Moscow’s grip, I came to this village where my father grew up,” he wrote. “Even here in the village, Ukrainians watch Russian television and loathe the propaganda portraying them as neo-Nazi thugs rampaging against Russian speakers.

“‘If you listen to them, we all carry assault rifles; we’re all beating people,’ Ilya Moskal, a history teacher, said contemptuously.”

In an April 17 column from Kiev, Kristof wrote that what the Ukrainians want is weapons from the West so they can to go “bear-hunting,” i.e. killing Russians. “People seem to feel a bit disappointed that the United States and Europe haven’t been more supportive, and they are humiliated that their own acting government hasn’t done more to confront Russian-backed militants. So, especially after a few drinks, people are ready to take down the Russian Army themselves.”

The rest of the Parry piece is here and his site Consortium News not only continually produces great stories but there is also a huge archive, please visit and support his work because it is of great value in this rapidly closing society. You can bet that Parry will never be invited to the White House Press Correspondent's Association Dinner.

The Obama administration is wallowing in lies up to their asses over what is going on in Ukraine, constantly issuing threats against Putin, leveling economic sanctions, bullying the EU satellites into economic reprisals that in the long run will damage their own people more than Russia. Then despite the constant accusations of Putin's meddling it is now out that there are CIA and FBI agents assisting with the counterinsurgency campaign to protect the unelected puppet government. As of this morning the situation on the ground becomes more violent and now even the German foreign minister is warning of war. Having failed to bait Putin into sending Russian forces into Ukraine - and it is suspiciously looking like that may have been the intent - the neocons, having failed in the original putsch to take the Russian naval base at Sevastopol in Crimea may just be content to destabilize Ukraine entirely. It is all just a sick fucking game to these people who should have been discredited long ago instead of attaching themselves to their latest host in the White House.

Not surprisingly, as of this morning Obama has yet to denounce the thugs that burned down that building in Odessa, don't hold your breath waiting for it either.

Foreign War Agitators: A Very Bad Deal for Americans

Once again the state-corporate Sunday morning propaganda shows featured more war-mongering as the joint efforts to undermine talks to roll back economic sanctions on Iran in order to induce nuclear compliance pick up steam. It does the United States no good to exist in a state of perpetual war, mired in a Middle East quagmire where ancient hatreds still burn with incandescence, there are far too many problems at home and the nation has now been at war in the region for over twelve years. To remain in a state of perpetual war only ensures that more money is squandered abroad when there are serious problems that need to be addressed here such a a crumbling and obsolete infrastructure. With the massive failures in leadership, the systemic government corruption and the sheer incompetence of the Obama administration coming generations face a very bleak future indeed and while ending the state of war will not resolve all problems it could mitigate the suffering. The problem is that a craven, bought and paid for and otherwise lunatic fringe in Congress are chafing at the bit to escalate tensions with Iran and a vile disinformation machine that is the state-corporate media is providing cover for foreign powers that are fiercely pushing this country into yet another war for their own interests.

The foreign "allies" who are leading the relentless charge are of course Saudia Arabia and the right-wing Israeli regime of Benjamin Netanyahu. Both are furious that the bombs did not fall on Syria a couple of months ago and have taken their anger and influence to another level to thwart any normalizing of relations with Iran since the departure of the fanatical anti-Semitic leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Netanyahu in particular has been pushing for a U.S. attack on Iran for well over a decade now, he practically danced a jig in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks which he proclaimed were good for Israel. Now after a regime change in Tehran and more moderate leadership there is a willingness to engage in GASP diplomacy to ratchet down tensions but Bibi and Bandar can't have that, it threatens the regional supremacy of both and for some reason it is incumbent on this country to fight the wars that they do not have the stones to enter into on their own. God forbid that the U.S. mends fences with Iran who in the new globalized world could be a trading partner especially with their abundance of oil, this alone is what steams Prince Bandar and the reprobate Saudi regime. There is never any context provided on why there have been hostilities with Iran either, never does the crooked American media reference the 1953 CIA backed overthrow of elected leader Mohammad Mossadegh leading to the installation of the puppet Shah's torture state. This in turn lead to the storming of the U.S. embassy and the Ayatollah Khomeini led Islamic revolution. Perhaps given the dimness of the average American news consumer it would be useless to reference history, pearls cast before swine but considering that the media has been completely contaminated it pays to engage in the omission of crucial facts.

This brings me to the question of why is it that American media programs, in this case CNN's State of the Union are always willing to provide a forum for dishonest foreigners seeking to manipulate American opinion into backing their wars.  Netanyahu was trotted out yesterday morning to spew his lies, pander to the poor dupes whose worldview is shaped by end times eschatology as promulgated by pulp pimps the likes of Timothy LaHaye and his multi-million dollar Left Behind industry and agitate for war on Iran. The rapture ready zealots are overly represented in congress and the cunning Bibi is calling for their activism in not only sinking the negotiations with Iran but in applying more crushing economic sanctions. On CNN the Israeli hardliner delivered the dog whistle line that "We've been around for about 4,000 years, the Jewish people, and we are not about to let ayatollahs armed with nuclear weapons threaten that" it is arguable that he actually believes this rather than just uses it to further a geopolitical agenda, perhaps a combination. But this is a big problem in that once again we find ourselves being held hostage in the Middle East due to a primitive religious squabble. As long as religion is involved there will never be an opportunity for reasonable solutions. Whether it be Netanyahu’s invocations of the destiny of the Jewish people or of militant Islam it is all based on the superstitions and the generationally passed down stories of primitive societies before the age of science and enlightenment.

The world is rapidly changing for better and for worse with the advent of the technological age and religion is both a millstone that impedes progress as well as a serious existential threat to human life on earth. In the days of which Netanyahu frames his relentless push to destroy Iran the primary forms of weaponry were sticks, rocks and slings, arrows, spears and swords. In the Twenty First century there are thermonuclear weapons and while this may play well with a certain Armageddonist mentality that is entrenched here in America and exploited by the Israeli far-right there will be no return of Christ come the nuclear cataclysm. In short the skies will not be filled with the chosen flying dirty nasty naked to sit at the foot of God’s throne while the rest of us are left suffer miserably for their entertainment. One thing that Bibi never mentions to the American Jews to whom he seeks to influence is that the Christian Zionist shocktroops believe that come that day of judgment that all Jews will be forced to convert to Christianity or be killed. You won’t hear any of that in AIPAC planning committees although the Anti Defamation League’s Abe Foxman came out and criticized former president George W. Bush for appearing at a rally promoting the conversion of Jews to Christians just last week.

Note that Netanyahu always chooses to invoke a biblical perspective when talking about Iran, this is largely directed towards the American Religious Right where much of the Israeli strongman’s domestic support is concentrated. Much like the PNAC Neocons with their Leo Strauss inspired philosophy of using religion to manipulate the masses casting the narrative into the great, centuries old ongoing war of civilizations it is always necessary to demonize the Muslims to mobilize support for military action. It works very well for them and it also works well for the House of Saud whose funding of militant Islamist groups hostile to Israel and America keep them away from the real Great Satan of the ruling monarchy. In order to drag America into eternal hostility in that particular region it is imperative that something larger than the national interest be at stake, and that would be God or at least God as defined by the charlatans, false prophets, the kings, priests and world leaders who have always benefited from wrapping their wars, murder and exploitation in proclamations of a divine mandate.

While I am a libertarian I generally shun Ayn Rand and the holy gospel of Atlas Shrugged that has become so influential to so many. In my opinion it is a particularly cruel belief system that has as its basis amorality and a callously cruel vision of the poor. While not to belabor my comments on Ms. Rand I do have to say that her most redeeming quality is that she was an unapologetic atheist. While this does not mesh with the true compassion of Christ for the poor and downtrodden neither toes the Armageddonist bastardization of Christianity to advocate war and intolerance and were Rand’s atheism embraced it would eliminate one of the particularly nasty rationales for war, the other being of course the profits of the military industrial complex. In a true libertarian sense one can never be “free” when reason is easily surrendered to an ancient belief system that can never be proven and that has for centuries suited the needs of power very, very nicely. In addition to the invocation of religion Bibi very slyly works to include all of the world’s Jews in his pronouncements while nothing could be a bigger fib, there is much opposition to the blowhard in Israel but given the always one-sided coverage afforded to what is a complex geopolitical issue it doesn’t get reported in The Homeland. I would recommend that any who may find this statement astounding subscribe to the mailing list for Haaretz.

I really don’t see why these shows are given a free pass when they provide a national forum to a foreign leader to push for Americans to sacrifice blood and treasure for no good reason. It only serves to further reinforce their irrelevance when it comes to anything other than hustling the political agendas of dueling establishment factions. In the aftermath of the 60 Minutes Benghazi hoax being blown up any sort of reasonable expectation that the state-corporate media would be a bit more judicious in pushing their war propaganda goes right out the window when Netanyahu is allowed to agitate for a war that will only benefit his country and selective regional allies like the insipidly debauched House of Saud.

As the pride of the Palmetto State Senator Lindsey Graham promulgated the Iran sanctions push last Sunday morning by squealing “thank God for France” on the same program, CNN’s State of the Union with the bovine Candy Crowley. It is notable that after sinking the P5+1 talks thanks to being bribed by a Saudi weapons deal that the former “cheese eating surrender monkeys” are taking full advantage of the Saudi-Bibi war with Obama. The socialist French leader Francois Hollande made a pilgrimage to Tel Aviv this week, one wonders what sort of goodies were offered to induce support for escalating hostilities with Iran. The Neocons, warmonger Republicans and Bibi Netanyahu all revel in conjuring up the mythology of WW II aka “the good war” in justifying the push for what could escalate into World War III. I just find it a bit difficult to reconcile the reverence and worship for Sir Winston Churchill with the Vichy French, politics indeed make for strange bedfellows.

The day when the state-corporate media must be held accountable for their actions in shilling for war needs to come and preferably before they succeed in instigating one that may rapidly escalate out of control. China is a key trading partner of the Iranians and unlikely to stand by while yet another ill-conceived and likely catastrophic war is unleashed.  Perhaps when media shills for aggression are called out as the traitors that they are rather than serving as mouthpieces to demonize and threaten truth tellers it could start a trend. They should be held as guilty as the leaders for the death and destruction, the suffering and the loathing that they have been so very helpful in promoting. It is notable that Julius Streicher was convicted of crimes against humanity Nuremberg back when there was adherence to international law and while he did not personally murder anyone his propaganda was instrumental in producing the climate that tolerated if not encouraged the slaughter of millions including six million Jews. When will Americans finally get it that the real enemies lie within rather than outside of our borders, a suckup careerist fifth column of disinformation artists with no loyalty to the country.

Finally Netanyahu is a  huge bully as well. Considering  the amount of state-corporate media attention bestowed upon the evils of “bullying” in reference to a couple of overpaid, immature asshole jocks on the Miami Dolphins NFL football team it is an illustration of the level of corruption and hypocrisy that is endemic that a global bully isn’t called out as such.  Just another contradiction in a land that has been overrun by such things.

"Thank God For France": Iran Talks Torpedoed

There will be no Neocon mockery of the French as “cheese eating surrender monkeys” nor will the House cafeteria rename their greasy fried spuds as “freedom fries” this time. With a stick save on behalf of  the western war machine the French delegation harpooned this weekend’s Iran talks. Despite years of being the butt of jokes this endeared them to the blood thirsty American hawks, the right-wing Netanyahu regime in Israel and a certain fork-tongued serpent that goes by the name of Prince Bandar. The warmongers even got the predictable endorsement by the Palmetto State princess Lindsey Graham from his normal Sunday morning perch on one of the loathsome Sabbath talk shows form which the coming week’s establishment talking points are launched.

Not to be bothered with doing anything but doubling down on his ridiculous press conference that came on the heels of the now discredited 60 Minutes Benghazi scoop, Graham lisped in his finest Gomer Pyle singsong that his tantrum would continue over Barry’s nominees. Not that I expected much from the inhabitants of the Fox-mosphere but when do any of these vitriolic assholes ever get called on any of this, especially when pushing one of their trademark silly snits behind a propaganda vehicle that has been exposed as a total crock of shit? On CNN's State of the Union Graham continued to stand upon the wall of his Benghazi house of cards as if he were defending the Alamo all while the bloated sow of a hostess Candy Crowley refused to put him on the spot. Graham then rapidly segued from the absurd into the standard talking points by shifting the topic to Iran again, leading the Israeli-Saudi domestic advocacy for Middle East Armageddon by announcing that more sanctions were coming, squawking "you can't trust the Iranians" repeatedly as though he were some gaily festooned parrot propped upon Captain Ahab Netanyahu’s beefy shoulder.

Despite efforts to defuse the Iranian nuclear situation (which is bogus) and move on towards better international relations with an energy rich nation that could once and for all allow us to slice off the festering sore on our national ass that is the House of Saud the agitators continue to sell WW III. Don’t expect to see any of the pathetic corporate-state media in this country to offer up anything but the same stale talking points, note that last week the shameless Richard Engle was still bemoaning the foiling of the attack on Syria, this is rich from an NBC dispatch with no disclaimer that Engle’s employer also happens to be owned by an enormous defense contractor which would profit extravagantly from more war:

CAIRO -- Bashar Assad got away with it.

Only a few months ago, Syria's president was a widely-condemned rogue leader whose police state had just launched poison gas on commuter villages outside Damascus. Fourteen-hundred people, including hundreds of children, were choked to death, their nervous systems shut down by the gas that seeped into their homes. And the world watched it happen in unprecedented detail. Images of the attack seeped into even far corners of the Internet.

It took more than a year to determine the extent of the vicious shelling in the Syrian city of Hama in 1982 by Assad’s father. The death toll from that massacre remains disputed, but estimates from news agencies and non-governmental organizations put the total at around 20,000. This time, however, cellphones, tablets and social media exposed the horrors of what happened outside Damascus, almost in real time. Syrian activists posted live updates as bodies were buried in rows in mass graves. The hours of graphic videos of dead babies on hospital floors are accessible for free to anyone with an Internet connection.

Yet, somehow, Assad not only got away with the gas attack, but appears to have also emerged stronger after it. How is that possible?

Russian President Vladimir Putin had a lot to do with it. By stepping into the standoff between Syria and the U.S., he tossed Assad a lifeline that also allowed President Barack Obama to forgo intervening in a conflict most Americans wanted no part in after a decade of costly wars in distant Muslim lands.

Assad’s price for the monstrous attack, his punishment, was to give up his chemical weapons in an internationally-supervised process. Destroying the weapons is a net positive for the world -- fewer deadly tools in the hands of a dangerous regime -- but it’s not much of a price for Syria to pay. It’s like getting away with mass murder with only a fine.

In exchange for destroying the poison gas and the factories that make it -- a process that’s almost impossible to verify -- there would be no U.S. military strike. Assad would get to stay in power and continue his war with "conventional weapons," including artillery and Scud missile attacks on civilian areas, napalm dropped on schools, and starving the opposition into submission. Even more shocking is that Assad has weathered the crisis appearing to the world as reasonable, rational and ready to compromise.

While Putin threw Assad -- and Obama -- a lifeline, it was the rebels themselves who helped the Syrian president rehabilitate his image. The rebels are increasingly associated with al Qaeda fanatics who have hijacked their revolution. The al Qaeda rebels kidnap journalists who want to tell their story, and aid workers who try to bring food and medicine.

Assad’s government says it will take part in peace talks. The rebels refuse.

Assad says he’s fighting terrorists. Some of the rebels make him look like he has a point. This Ramadan, Assad should send Putin and al Qaeda fruit baskets.

Now there is some serious manure slinging. You just have to love the talking point about “fruit baskets” for the hated Putin and al Qaeda. Engle would never bother to admit that the U.S. is indirectly funding the organization through support for the fanatical rebels who are ransacking churches and openly boast of barbaric actions including cannibalism. Hell, why bother with something as small as a fruit basket when you can send the terrorists the biggest motherfucking fruit basket ever in the form of weapons deals to induce the sabotage of the Iranian negotiations. That is reportedly what Bandar Bush offered to the “cheese eating surrender monkeys” in order to bribe French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius to sink the talks and save the day for Graham and the rest of the blood barters.

"Thank God for France", chirped Lindsey as Candy gazed like a cow at a passing train.