Comment: With almost no exceptions, Wilkerson, a former political and military insider, takes a clear, objective, sane, moral and conscientious stance on every topic covered in this 24 minute interview. Is it that individuals of such character are so abysmally rare in the culture of establishment institutions and the halls of power? Or, is it merely the nature of such institutions and the people employed by them that they are so corrupted, so mired in greed, and so hungry for the trappings of power that taking such a view as Wilkerson's must be considered an anomaly? Perhaps both. But whatever the case is, mark Wilkerson's final words closely - as they are most probably a taste of things to come in the US.

Comment: Here's the official retraction from the The New York Times:

Correction: June 29, 2017

A White House Memo article on Monday about President Trump's deflections and denials about Russia referred incorrectly to the source of an intelligence assessment that said Russia orchestrated hacking attacks during last year's presidential election. The assessment was made by four intelligence agencies — the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency. The assessment was not approved by all 17 organizations in the American intelligence community.

Comment: Where is the humanity? This is the kind of mentality we are dealing with here:

• Grenfell is political: It exposes an inhuman way of thinking

Comment: What interesting timing, coming as it does just after Sy Hersh's expose of the Khan Sheikhoun attack that was falsely used as a justification for the Tomahawk attack on the Syrian air base. The Duran's Alexander Mercouris is probably right: this is "a panicked reaction to Seymour Hersh's exposure of the truth behind the alleged chemical attack in Khan Sheikhoun which appeared a few hours earlier in Welt."

In typical fashion Donald Trump is responding to a story which casts his actions following the Khan Sheikhoun attack in a bad light by doubling down and making wild threats that he is about to do the same thing all over again.

Meanwhile the Russians are furious, President Assad is visiting Russia's Khmeimim air base in a public Russian show of support for him, and the rest of the US government - apart from Nikki Haley, who longs for more pictures of her "standing up to the Russians" - are baffled.

What all this means is that almost certainly no US attack on Syrian forces is being planned. The media is mistaking a blundering attempt at news management for a real threat.

Unfortunately that does not mean that a US attack on Syria will not take place. The risk with making wild threats of the kind the White House has just made is that there are any number of dangerous people in Syria who will seize on them and try to make them a reality. The risk of another staged 'chemical attack' intended to put pressure Trump to act on his 'warning' is now very real.

It is to be hoped that cooler heads within the US government - Mattis, Tillerson and McMaster first and foremost - will be warning the President of this, and telling him to cool down.

Comment: While the information presented by Hersh is interesting in that it confirms our take on the alleged 'chemical weapon' attack at the time - that it was a lie - we are under no illusions that this is the full story.

As noted by Hersh in his article, one week before the bombing, Nikki Haley and Rex Tillerson stated publicly that the Trump administration was no longer seeking the removal of Assad. What are the odds that within one week of that statement, the tired old 'chemical weapon' allegation would be pulled out to demonize Assad (and Russia) and, in theory, put his removal 'back on the table'?

The odds are therefore, in favor of the agents of Western powers, most notably the CIA, having placed chlorine and other compounds in the building that was to be bombed. After all, the Russians have given 48 hours advance warning and the location of the target building.

From this perspective, Trump's response makes more sense. His hand was, to some extent, forced by these 'deep state' actors in that he was required to accept the mainstream media/intel agency narrative that "Assad had gassed his own people", make a strong statement and take action.

Yet, assuming Trump knew the nature of this set up, it seems that he refused to swallow the bait entirely, and instead opted to make an apparent show of force that had some mainstream media pundits metaphorically wetting their pants, while inflicting no damage on the Syria military or Assad's position as president.

Comment: "...we have gone there to conquer, not to redeem."

Comment: Very refreshing to hear some truth from the US but will this be enough to change Washington's foreign policy?

Comment: The demise of Western Civilization: "Gender fluidity" as a harbinger for Postmodernist Hell

Oh, Canada... Read it and weep: excerpts from the Ontario Human Rights Commission recommendations on identifying discrimination, upon which Canada's new C-16 law is leveraged:

Discrimination is not always direct and is often hard to detect. The claimant must show on a "balance of probabilities" (more likely than not) that adverse or negative treatment happened. The analysis should be flexible and look at all relevant factors in the situation including circumstantial evidence as well as the full impact on the affected person or group. While there may be evidence of "intent," this is not needed to prove discrimination. Gender identity, gender expression or other protected characteristics need only be one of the factors in the negative treatment for discrimination to exist.

Once prima facie discrimination is established, the burden then shifts to the organization or person responsible to either provide a credible non-discriminatory explanation, or justify the conduct or practice using one of the defences available under the Code.

Many trans people are vulnerable to harassment because of their gender identity and gender expression. Trans people also experience harassment that is sexual in nature (sexual harassment) that may be because of their gender identity, gender expression and/or sex.

Gender-based harassment can involve:

• Derogatory language toward trans people or trans communities
• Insults, comments that ridicule, humiliate or demean people because of their gender identity or expression
• Behaviour that "polices and or reinforces traditional heterosexual gender norms"
• Refusing to refer to a person by their self-identified name and proper personal pronoun
• Comments or conduct relating to a perception that a person is not conforming with gender-role stereotypes
• Jokes related to a person's gender identity or expression including those circulated in writing or by email or social media
• Spreading rumours about a person's gender identity or expression including through the Internet
• "Outing" or threatening to "out" someone as trans
• Intrusive comments, questions or insults about a person's body, physical characteristics, gender-related medical procedures, clothing, mannerisms, or other forms of gender expression
• Other threats, unwelcome touching, violence and physical assault.