"Remember, remember, the 5th of November,

Gunpowder, treason and plot.

I see no reason why the gunpowder treason

Should ever be forgot."

- Old English folk rhyme (anonymous)

Today, November 5th, is Guy Fawkes Day, also known as Gunpowder Day. In 2012 it's the 407th anniversary of The Gunpowder Plot or Gunpowder Treason, as it was first called.

It also happens to be my 78th birthday. So I've been more aware of Guy Fawkes Day than most. I'm especially happy about how ubiquitous the Guy Fawkes mask has become.

The mask was hugely popularized in the movie V for Vendetta. As stalwart 9/11Truther Kevin Barrett wrote, a year ago, in a piece entitled "Unmasking Media Lies: Why BBC's V-for-Vendetta Mask Piece is Fawked Up":

"V for Vendetta may be the most revolutionary film ever made. Its obvious message is: Let's get out there and visit some rough justice on the treasonous bastards who created the 9/11 and 7/7 media spectaculars, and destroyed the freedoms for which we've been fighting for centuries.

Watch (on YouTube) 'V for 9/11 Vendetta: Past, Present and Future'.

It is also possible to read the film from an interior, psychological perspective: Rather than just a call to action, it's about the psychological process of coming to terms with the 9/11 and 7/7 inside jobs, by allowing oneself to feel the overwhelming anger that is the natural response. Once one has faced the facts, overcome fear, and come to terms with one's own righteous anger, THEN it's time for revolution.

The real message of the V mask is simple: We know you bastards blew up the Trade Center. We know you're blowing up the economy. We know you're lying to us 24/7/365. We know you're trying to keep us poor and weak and fearful and impotent. Well, guess what? We're not afraid of you. We're not afraid to die. And we're coming to get you.

No wonder the BBC is afraid to admit what the V mask really means."

There are several unanswered questions about the terror attack in Manhattan on October 31, allegedly by Sayfullo Saipov, a Uzbek immigrant. Most prominent is a report by a neighbor in Patterson, New Jersey, who said he saw Saipov in the company of two identified men.

"They didn't look like construction workers. They weren't dressed like they were going to work," Carlos Batista told Fox News. "I would see him with them more than his own kids."

Like the mysterious woman reportedly seen with accused Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock, the two individuals spotted with Saipov will never be identified and the corporate media will dismiss Batista's story as irrelevant, if they acknowledge it at all. The lone wolf inspired and radicalized by Islamic State videos is now the official narrative.

"In many ways, this now a classic case of a radicalization of a domestic jihadist who associated with ISIS, and this is their new playbook," New York governor Andrew Cuomo told CBS News. "Very simple. Use a vehicle to cause harm. It's New York. It's London. It's Germany. It's France. It's Ohio. So, this is more of what we've seen."

A newly-released national survey commissioned by the libertarian-leaning CATO Institute is brimming with fascinating, heartening, and occasionally dispiriting data on how Americans view the First Amendment and free speech issues in general.

Overall, the data confirms that liberals are significantly more hostile to the open exchange of ideas than other groups; self-identified liberals tilt heavily toward banning or punishing speech they find to be offensive or "hateful," although conservatives have some pro-authoritarian blind spots, too.

The numbers reveal that in many cases, large majorities agree with critiques of political correctness often advanced by conservatives.

The US' obsession with "proving" alleged "Russian meddling" in the 2016 election and America's subsequent institutional destruction as a result will go down in history as representing the suicide of this former superpower's soft power.

The US spent decades building up its soft power reputation as "the land of the free" and portraying itself as the most "democratic" society in the world, only to have generations' worth of soft power investments dramatically done away with over the past twelve months as the media-manufactured "RussiaGate" scandal transforms into an institutional inquisition. It's presumed that the reader is already generally aware of what's going on and why, namely that hostile elements of the US' permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (the "deep state"), in full collusion with academia, the Mainstream Media, and Hollywood, are vehemently working to subvert Trump's surprise election victory by alleging that he only won because of secretive Kremlin support.

This is a completely false narrative that's regularly debunked every time a newly invented accusation arises, but instead of crafting a different political approach to complicate Trump's Presidency, the Democrats and their "deep state" accomplices have continued to advance this made-up storyline, and in the process they've inflicted irreparable soft power damage to the US' international prestige. The country that was once the unquestioned superpower of the world has all but committed soft power suicide in the course of only a single year by confirming the same "conspiracy theories" that it's worked so hard to belittle in the past, thereby exposing many of its international information campaigns as lies and ultimately contradicting the very essence of "American Exceptionalism".

The 'War on Terror' has cost US taxpayers at least $1.46 trillion since September 11, 2001, the Department of Defense's cost of war report has revealed.

The 74-page DoD dossier was obtained by the Federation of American Scientists' Secrecy News. It breaks down the cost of the US's various conflicts and reveals the ongoing war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq account for the greatest chunk of change.

Operation Enduring Freedom (the name given to the 'War on Terror' between 2001 and 2014), Operation Iraqi Freedom (Iraq War) and Operation New Dawn (past operations in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2010 and 2011) made up the biggest expense. They cost a combined $1.315 trillion.

Leaked documents listing hundreds of EU parliament members that the George Soros network considers "reliable allies" should raise alarm bells across Europe, says Hungary.

The list, which includes 226 MEPs including former President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz, seven vice-presidents, and a number of committee heads, coordinators, and quaestors, was circulated within the billionaire open borders campaigner's Open Society Foundations group, and revealed by DCLeaks.

"If this report threatened only Hungary, it wouldn't be a problem. The Hungarian government has grown accustomed to countering the groundless accusations and false information used by the proponents of this radical open society agenda. But this time it's not just Hungary. It endangers the future of Europe as a whole," warned Dr. Zoltán Kovács, Hungary's secretary of state for Public Diplomacy.

The government spokesman questioned how Soros was able to meet with President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker with "no transparent agenda for their closed-door meeting", and pointed out how EU proposals to redistribute quotas of migrants across the EU are eerily familiar to Soros's own self-published plan for dealing with the crisis.

Last week there was a significant development in the international response to the Israeli occupation when the UN rapporteur for human rights in the occupied territories came out with a harsh report saying the world was too passive about the occupation.

The "duration of this occupation is without precedent or parallel in today's world," the report said. Israel has "driven Gaza back to the dark ages" due to denial of water and electricity and freedom of movement. There is a "darkening stain" on the world's legal framework because other countries have treated the occupation as normal, and done nothing to resist Israel's "colonial ambition par excellence," which includes two sets of laws for Israelis and Palestinians.

At a press conference about his report, S. Michael Lynk, a Canadian professor of law and human rights expert, said it is time the international community reach into its "toolbox" of enforcement mechanisms, so as to "raise the stakes" against the occupation and change international "opinion" of Israel. The country had been worried by the Goldstone Report in 2009 and is today worried by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS), Lynk said; so if the international community took "unified actions on an escalating basis" to declare the occupation illegal and demand Israel's withdrawal, Israel would respond.

That means sanctions.

Fox News' Tucker Carlson said he has a source who told him that the Podesta brothers and Paul Manafort are the "central figures" Robert Mueller's investigation, not President Trump. The source, Carlson said, told him about events that implicate Manafort, the Podesta brothers, Hillary Clinton and her State Department, and Russian oligarchs. The source has been interviewed by Mueller's independent investigators.

"If true," Carlson said, the story weaved by the source shows the media is focusing on the wrong Russia story.

The source tells Tucker Carlson that Paul Manafort worked extensively with the Podesta Group as far back as 2011 on behalf of Russia. Manafort's Russian associates wanted to influence Washington and sought the Podesta brothers because of their ties to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Based on this morning's news of indictments and guilty pleas, did Robert Mueller's special counsel probe into Russia's 2016 election interference just accelerate or decelerate? Actors on both sides of the partisan divide are already offering diametrically opposed answers to that question, but the truth is that only Mueller and his team have any real insight into how the bigger picture is shaping up -- if there is a bigger picture at all. Some initial thoughts, as we attempt to reset our understanding of this story, using new information:

(1) On its face, the federal charges against former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and his associate once again reflect quite poorly on Team Trump's competence and judgment; Manafort was tainted from the get-go yet was brought aboard to chair the campaign, later getting forced out amid controversy. Malpractice. As far as the new indictments go, however, the alleged criminality revealed today was not related to the campaign. The government's allegations against Manafort and Rick Gates pertain to money laundering, violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), and misleading investigators. The underlying crimes appear to have taken place between 2006 and 2014, long before Donald Trump was even a candidate for office. On CBSN this morning, journalist Ryan Grim made the point that the White House may see today's developments as something of a victory, noting that the contents of these indictments are "not even close" to proving collusion between the Russian government and the Trump campaign:

A television interview of a top Qatari official confessing the truth behind the origins of the war in Syria is going viral across Arabic social media during the same week a leaked top secret NSA document was published which confirms that the armed opposition in Syria was under the direct command of foreign governments from the early years of the conflict.

And according to a well-known Syria analyst and economic adviser with close contacts in the Syrian government, the explosive interview constitutes a high level "public admission to collusion and coordination between four countries to destabilize an independent state, [including] possible support for Nusra/al-Qaeda."Importantly, "this admission will help build case for what Damascus sees as an attack on its security & sovereignty. It will form basis for compensation claims."

As the war in Syria continues slowly winding down, it seems new source material comes out on an almost a weekly basis in the form of testimonials of top officials involved in destabilizing Syria, and even occasional leaked emails and documents which further detail covert regime change operations against the Assad government. Though much of this content serves to confirm what has already long been known by those who have never accepted the simplistic propaganda which has dominated mainstream media, details continue to fall in place, providing future historians with a clearer picture of the true nature of the war.