Best of the Web:


Attention

Best of the Web: Sochi Gold Stands: IOC knew Russian athletes were clean, but concealed evidence of their innocence


RT
Sun, 20 Jan 2019 22:30 UTC
Olympic emblem
© Reuters/Denis BaibouseStaff of the IOC dismantle backdrop to news conference after the Olympic Summit on doping in Lausanne, Switzerland, June 21, 2016.
Russian athletes, falsely accused of a doping scheme at Sochi 2014, could've avoided career-ruining bans if the International Olympic Committee (IOC) didn't conceal facts of their innocence, an athlete's lawyer told RT.

Russian sport has won a crucial legal battle on Saturday. Swiss Supreme Court has turned down the IOC's appeal against the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ruling from February 1, 2017 to acquit 28 Team Russia members of doping use accusations during the 2014 Winter Games in Russia. The Olympic officials accepted the decision with "disappointment," but announced that they'll stop further persecution of the athletes.

The athletes' good names might be restored now, but they had all been handed lengthy disqualifications and missed out on the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang last year.

The harsh measures were introduced after an Olympic disciplinary panel accused the Russians of being part of a state-run doping program, based on claims by former Moscow anti-doping laboratory director Grigory Rodchenkov, who fled to the US in 2015 and is wanted at home on several charges.

German legal firm Wieschemann Lawyers said in a statement on Saturday that "there is no factual evidence for the allegations made by Dr. Rodchenkov regarding the events in Sochi." It also insisted that the International Olympic committee "seriously violated the procedural rights of the athletes and even withheld exculpatory evidence from the defense and the court."


Comment: Justice done? Admitting the wrong doesn't begin to make up for destroying athlete reputations, tarnishing their sports programs, maligning the country they represent or eroding trust for international sports. Dr. Rodchenkov, WADA and the IOC were all party to this despicable episode in the history of the Olympics - an arrow to the heart of sportsmanship and athletic honor.
See also:

Read More...
Eye 1

Best of the Web: The convenient timing of US troops killed in Syria

Finian Cunningham
Strategic Culture Foundation
Fri, 18 Jan 2019 14:15 UTC
us troops syria
With unseemly haste, US news media leapt on the killing of four American military personnel in Syria as a way to undermine President Donald Trump's plan to withdraw troops from that country.

The deadly attack in the northern city of Manbij, on the west bank of the Euphrates River, was reported to have been carried out by a suicide bomber. The Islamic State (ISIS) terror group reportedly claimed responsibility, but the group routinely makes such claims which often turn out to be false.

The American military personnel were said to be on a routine patrol of Manbij where US forces have been backing Kurdish militants in a purported campaign against ISIS and other terror groups.

An explosion at a restaurant resulted in two US troops and two Pentagon civilian officials being killed, along with more than a dozen other victims. Three other US military persons were among those injured.

US media highlighted the bombing as the biggest single death toll of American forces in Syria since they began operations in the country nearly four years ago.

Comment: See also:

Read More...
Beer

Best of the Web: Gillette: Shaviours of the world feminist revolution?

Rob Slane
The Blogmire
Sat, 19 Jan 2019 20:06 UTC
gillette ad toxic masculinity
© Procter & Gamble Co.Gillette’s ill-judged ‘toxic masculinity’ ad.
I'm always greatly amused when I hear people saying things like, "I can't stand being preached at". What amuses me is that the same people who say this with a straight face tend to be completely oblivious to the fact that they are being preached at day in day out. If they are aware of it, somehow it never seems to bother them.

As a culture we are being preached to constantly. No, I don't mean that we sit in a room whilst someone delivers a three-point sermon at the front. I'm talking about the fact that the vast majority of us sit for hours on end in front of a little box, and we let people whose ideas and beliefs would be strange to us if we weren't in the habit of cultivating this practice on a regular basis, preach at us, teach us, and shape our thinking beyond all recognition. It is not a question of whether we'll be preached to; it's simply a question of which preaching we sit under.

This is usually done in very subtle ways. An ideology is presented to us, but it is not done so in the "in-your-face" kind of way that a three-point sermon might be done. No, it is cloaked in the garb of emotive and powerful language and buzz-phrases, deliberately designed not to make us think, but rather to make us "non-think". The aim is to have us look at one side of a particular social issue - transgenderism being the latest fad - to empathise and sympathise with that side, so that in the end we come to look at the issue not from the perspective of an overarching objective reality - XX = XX and XY = XY and never the twain shall meet -, but rather from the subjective viewpoint of the person or people being shown to us and their feelings.

Comment: See also:

Read More...
Question

Best of the Web: What is Liminality? Understanding social hysteria in the West

Jasun Horsley
kunstler.com
Fri, 18 Jan 2019 21:20 UTC
liminality
Radical changes of identity, happening suddenly and in very brief intervals of time, have proved more deadly and destructive of human values than wars fought with hardware weapons.
-Marshall McLuhan, Laws of Media: The New Science
Probably most people reading this-especially if they spend a lot of time on the Internet-are aware of the growing phenomenon of "social justice warriors" with hair-trigger mouths and clicking mice, fiercely practicing intolerance in the name of tolerance.

Earlier this year, in the small (pop: 6000) Canadian town where I live, a group called Culture Guard were scheduled to speak at the local Royal Canadian Legion. The subject was a nationwide, multi-leveled educational program called SOGI (Sexual Orientation Gender Identification), ostensibly directed towards encouraging "tolerance." Culture Guard is a conservative organization whose mission is to uphold citizen-driven democracy and community values and expose what they call the "tyranny of politically correct idiotology."

The event was cancelled after the Legion received 900+ email complaints, including threats. Much to my surprise, the reaction on Facebook to this was mostly gushing gratitude that this diabolical hate group had been righteously silenced. Two fairly typical comments: "Hope we've run these poisonous haters out of town" and "No bible thumping flatlander would dare show their face because hate has a weak foundation."

Apparently, nothing is more immoral to the new moralists than old-style moralism, and if you aren't in a state of fear or loathing these days-possibly both-you probably aren't participating in "the debate." We have entered a liminal zone in which up can become down, right turn left, and virtue trades places with vice in the time it takes to say "What's your pronoun?"
Read More...
Gold Bar

Best of the Web: Pure GOLD: Trump cancels Pelosi's use of US Air Force military plane for world trip... as she prepares to board!


RT
Thu, 17 Jan 2019 22:32 UTC
pelosi air force plane
President Trump on Thursday abruptly denied military aircraft to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for a foreign trip just minutes before the congressional delegation was set to depart, in a stunning decision that followed her call to delay the State of the Union address amid the government shutdown.

In a curt letter, Trump said her trip has been "postponed."

"Due to the Shutdown, I am sorry to inform you that your trip to Brussels, Egypt, and Afghanistan has been postponed. We will reschedule this seven-day excursion when the Shutdown is over. In light of the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay, I am sure you would agree that postponing this public relations event is totally appropriate," Trump wrote.


Comment: This alone is reason enough to re-elect The Donald in 2020.

Read More...
Camcorder

Best of the Web: Jim and Joanne Moriarty begin release of exclusive footage of NATO's war on Libya

Joanne Moriarty
Libyan War The Truth
Wed, 16 Jan 2019 19:09 UTC
jim joanne moriarty
We have started to release the unseen videos we took on the ground in Libya during the 2011 NATO destruction of Libya. These are raw videos, taken by us with a small Sony Camera. They are not edited, these are the real Libyan people sharing their sorrow, their thoughts and their desires for their future. They speak in Libyan Arabic but we are there with a translator. Our series will be every Monday night at 6pm central, you find the links below.

Jason Goodman is the one we have ever entrusted these videos with and he is doing a great job. He is clear and honest and works to share the importance of the information.

These are the videos that the CIA, DIA and FBI were after when they came into our home.

These videos will prove the false flag, the war crimes, the lies and the atrocities committed by the UN/US/NATO/France/UK and the criminal lying media.

Please watch the introduction to this series free on YouTube:


Comment: See also:

Read More...
Quenelle

Best of the Web: How Trump bucked Israeli pressure to keep US in Syria

Gareth Porter
The American Conservative
Mon, 14 Jan 2019 16:10 UTC
Benjamin Netanyahu
© EPA-EFE/RONEN ZVULUN / POOLIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
The Pentagon was not the only party pressing Donald Trump to keep troops in Syria last year. It turns out the Israeli government and its supporters in Washington were working very hard to get the Trump administration to use America's military presence there to support an Israeli campaign of airstrikes aimed at threatening war with Iran.

The Israeli strategy was aimed at dividing Russia from Iran and thus putting pressure on Tehran to withdraw its military personnel from Syria. A campaign by a pro-Israel think tank actually succeeded in getting such a policy ready for Trump's approval last fall - although it was not supported by some Pentagon officials.

The story of the Israel lobby's latest attempt to capture American policy, recounted here for the first time, reveals just how far Israel was able to reach into the Trump administration before the president personally intervened.

Israel's Strategy of Provocation in Syria

In early 2018, Israel had stepped up the pace of its airstrikes against Iran-related targets in Syria. The original rationale for the strikes had been to prevent Iran from transporting advanced, highly accurate missiles through Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon (although Israeli military intelligence had admitted nearly a decade ago that Hezbollah had already received hundreds of such weapons). But by 2018, the IDF had added another reason for the attacks: to force Iran to give up its military presence in Syria altogether. This despite the fact that Israel had failed to cite any evidence of any permanent Iranian bases there.
Read More...
Snowflake

Best of the Web: ENORMOUS 'spinning ice disk' appears on river in Maine - Largest one yet?


wwlp.com
Wed, 16 Jan 2019 11:45 UTC
maine ice disk
A very unusual and impressive sight took shape in Maine this week, a nearly perfect disc of ice -- forming in the Presumpscot River.

The massive ice disc drew curious onlookers to the banks of the river. It's not clear how or exactly when it formed.

According to an official with the city of Westbrook, the disc is roughly 100 yards across and is spinning in a counter clockwise direction.

That same official captured this breathtaking drone footage of the amazing sight.


Comment: That thing's almost 100m across!!!

It is an unusual sight, and so why are these ice disks, and a number of other out of the ordinary but related phenomena, suddenly occurring all over the globe?

Read More...
Light Saber

Best of the Web: Five Reasons Tulsi Gabbard's Candidacy is Something to be Excited About

Caitlin Johnstone
caitlinjohnstone.com
Wed, 16 Jan 2019 08:42 UTC
tulsi gabbard
© CNN
Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard has announced her intent to campaign for President of the United States, and the entire political spectrum is shitting bricks about it. Mainstream liberals and neocons are calling her a Putin puppet and Assad's BFF, leftists and progressives are criticizing her associations with right-wing factions in India and anti-LGBT comments she made in the early 2000s, conspiracy analysts are criticizing her Council on Foreign Relations membership, and the Zionist elements of Trump's base are openly promising to destroy her candidacy. A lot of others, myself included, got a lot more interested in the 2020 elections when she threw her hat in.

I'm not interested in defending Gabbard from the criticisms that have been leveled at her at this time; many articles have been written toward that end already, and if she's going to run for the most powerful elected office on the planet it's fair to scrutinize and question what kind of person she is. I'm also not interested in endorsing anyone for the presidency. What I am interested in is the way Gabbard's presence in the Democratic presidential primary race is already in January 2019 upsetting the standard establishment script and forcing foreign policy debates that need to happen.

Comment: Tulsi has shown a refreshing consistency in her policy stances. The MSM smear machine will be going into high gear if her candidacy shows real promise.

Read More...
NPC

Best of the Web: Bill Maher gets NPC'd as billboard targeted by conservative street artists

Paul Bond
The Hollywood Reporter
Sun, 13 Jan 2019 12:39 UTC
bill maher billboard truthified
© The Faction
The artwork is courtesy of The Faction, conservatives who previously peppered the Hollywood Walk of Fame with dozens of Donald Trump stars.

Bill Maher on Sunday was attacked on a giant billboard that accuses him of not being "real" or "politically incorrect," but a liberal apparatchik of prevailing wisdom ahead of the return of his HBO show, Real Time, on Friday.

The billboard, at the corner of La Cienega Boulevard and Holloway Drive in West Hollywood, is the work of a group of conservative street artists known as The Faction, who previously peppered the Hollywood Walk of Fame with dozens of faux Donald Trump stars to make up for the real one that the president's detractors have destroyed on multiple occasions.

Comment: Comparing Bill Maher to an NPC seems pretty accurate from these seats! He may deviate on a few issues, but overall he's little more than a liberal mouthpiece with an attitude, just another late night talk show host clone. Same opinions. Same 'edgy' content. Same script.

See also:

Read More...