The Director of National Intelligence says Washington is still unsure of who might be behind the latest WikiLeaks release of hacked Democratic National Committee emails, while urging that an end be put to the "reactionary mode" blaming it all on Russia.

"We don't know enough to ascribe motivation regardless of who it might have been," Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said speaking at Aspen's Security Forum in Colorado, when asked if the media was getting ahead of themselves in fingering the perpetrator of the hack.

Some 30,000 Democratic National Committee emails were released by WikiLeaks last Friday, exposing the Democratic National Committee's bias in favor of Hillary Clinton.

Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said on Thursday he has received exclusive information regarding the departure of Fetullah Gulen from his residency in the United States.

According to the some sources the Turkish opposition leader is believed to have fled to a third country and among his possible destinations are Australia, Mexico, Canada, South Africa or Egypt, Al Masdar reported.

Gulen has been accused by the Turkish regime of orchestrating the July 15th military coup to overthrow the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Prior to the July 15th coup, the Gulen Movement was labeled a terrorist organization by the Turkish government, resulting in its ban all around the country.

Citizens of Okinawa in Japan could be having their wishes fulfilled - at least 17 percent fulfilled, as that is the amount of land the United States military plans to transfer back to the island from its control, amid growing problems with its public image.

Several murders and a drunken joyride that made headlines have only added to the growing feeling of discontent amongst the locals about the US' regional presence. The military bases have long been blamed for noise and air pollution, and many locals also see them as an uneasy legacy of post-WWII American occupation.

The handover is the biggest such move since 1972, when the formal occupation by US forces ended. It comes amid a rise in anti-American sentiment following a series of cases involving the US military, particularly the murder of a young Japanese woman by a civilian contractor.

China and Russia will hold naval drills in the South China Sea in September, the Chinese Defense Ministry told during a news conference on July 28.

"This is a routine exercise between the two armed forces, aimed at strengthening the developing China-Russia strategic cooperative partnership," Reuters quoted the words of China's Defense Ministry spokesman Yang Yujun, who also added that the exercise is "not directed against third parties."

"These drills are not targeted against any specific country. The main thing is to develop a common military response with our close neighbor against any threat," Russian Deputy Commander Sergey Vertepa said, speaking of the exercises in August, 2015.

For 17 months, since the Minsk Agreements were signed in February 2015 to try to bring peace to the eastern Ukraine the Kiev regime, and its neo-Nazi and NATO allies, have been preparing for a new offensive against the east Ukraine republics. On July 22nd the Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin stated in a letter to the UN Security Council that "a relapse of large-scale military operations in eastern Ukraine may bury the process of peace settlement there." He then called on Kiev's allies to pressure Kiev to back off its war preparations which include the continuous shelling of civilian areas by Ukraine heavy and medium artillery and constant probing attacks by Ukraine and foreign units over the past spring and summer months.

The commander of the Donetsk Republic forces stated in a communiqué on July 22 that the region along the contact line between the two sides was shelled 3,566 times in one week alone ending on the date of the communiqué and confirmed the information set out in Churkin's letter and reports of the Organisation For Security Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) that the Kiev regime had transferred more heavy artillery, mortars, tanks, multiple rocket launchers to the front.

The shelling has destroyed civilian housing, a water treatment plant and other infrastructure with the clear objective of forcing out the residents and to prepare the ground for a large scale offensive. Ambassador Churkin added that not only were regular Kiev forces massing in the east but they had also deployed the new-Nazi Azov and Donbas "volunteer" battalions, and that Kiev has begun a wide ranging seizure of land in the neutral zone and the towns located there.

• Since my co-editor Joshua Frank prefers to go surfing rather than do his reportorial duty and watch the DNC Convention from gavel-to-gavel, he's telling me that I have to write another account of tonight's proceedings. I'm not sure I'm up to it 'frankly.' What would Hunter Thompson do? Oh, yes, he would get his body and mind in fighting form by having breakfast. I guess I'll follow the good Doctor's example: "Four Bloody Marys, two grapefruits, a pot of coffee, Rangoon crêpes, a half-pound of either sausage, bacon, or corned-beef hash with diced chilies, a Spanish omelette or eggs Benedict, a quart of milk, a chopped lemon for random seasoning, and something like a slice of key lime pie, two margaritas and six lines of the best cocaine for dessert." All to be consumed while naked. Snarf! Sniff! Belch! ALRIGHT! I'm primed. Bring on Biden!

• Margie Kidder was one of Hunter Thompson's best friends. I asked her if this menu remotely resembled his real appetites. Margie told me that she and Hunter were together during the 1984 Democratic Convention in San Francisco, where his main obsession was in scoring some cocaine to get him juiced for covering the tedium of the convention.

"Here's what Hunter would do," Margie told me. "He believed firmly in getting your cocaine first, which at that convention involved spending a lot of time with a gay friend of mine he referred to in his writing as "the bowl of fruit". Then you got your drinks lined up and we would sit and watch the TV in the press room. I kept insisting in going out onto the floor to interview what often turned out to be ex-lovers of mine, who I couldn't really quote for obvious reasons. He was disgusted with me. At one point, back at the St Francis hotel, Hunter screamed down the hall at me "You are a political neophyte! You are a dangerous woman!" Then he went off to a party at Ann Getty's house or apartment and called her a fascist dyke and punched a hole in her living room wall and Pat Caddell (the Democratiic pollster) and I had to race over with my trans driver Greta and our 1960s Cadillac convertible loaned to me by the gay community and rescue Hunter from the well-dressed and horrified Democrats. Sen Patrick Leahy thought he was funny. Few other Democrats did. But then Leahy often rode around with us in that Cadillac.

• Terry McAuliffe, the Clinton's former BFF (second now to Elizabeth Warren), mentor to Tim Kaine in the art of political grifting and current governor of Virginia, has an ego the size of Trump Tower. McAuliffe knows all of the Clintons secrets. He knows what they think and how they deal. McAuliffe gave an early morning interview to Politico, where he confided to the reporter that Hillary was only pretending to oppose the TPP to neuter one of Bernie Sanders's main campaign themes. The governor assured the reporter that after the election Hillary would once again support the job-killing trade pact with a few cosmetic adjustments. The McAuliffe Leak exposed the worst kept secret in Washington. Bill O'Reilly did his best last night to calm a perplexed nation, still reeling from Michelle Obama's allegation, which had not been vetted by the Texas School Book Commission, that slaves had built the White House. Yes, it's true, O'Reilly told his anxious viewers, but relax the slave construction workers were, in fact, "well-fed and had decent lodgings provided by the government." With these ameliorating words from a professional historian, Fox Nation slept soundly.

The Clinton campaign and some pseudo experts assert that Russia is somehow guilty of hacking the Democratic National Committee and of revealing DNC emails via Wikileaks. There is zero hard evidence for that. The Clinton campaign also claims that Trump asked Russia to hack Clinton's emails. That is also not the case.

But two "liberal" computer experts, who are taken serious in the security scene, now build on those false assertions to say that Russia might manipulate voting machines in the November 9 elections. It would do so, presumably, to change the vote count in favor of Trump.

A Bruce Schneier op ed in today's Washington Post is headlined: By November, Russian hackers could target voting machines.

That headline alone is already dumb. ANY hacker could target and manipulate the easy to deceive voting machines - should those be connected to the Internet. Local administrators of such machines can manipulate them any time.

Wikileaks' Friday leak of nearly 20,000 Democratic National Committee (DNC) emails reveals many nefarious activities. In light of new evidence the DNC intentionally sabotaged Bernie Sanders while DNC staffers mocked him, Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party continue to be hit with embarrassing revelations.

One of the most damning findings of the leak is the fact Clinton and the DNC have worked closely with, manipulated, and bullied media outlets.

One email revealed Politico reporter Ken Vogel sent an article discussing the DNC to the DNC before he sent it to his editors. Vogel attached his story in an email titled, "per agreement... any thoughts appreciated," sent April 30, 2016, to Mark Paustenbach, Deputy Communications Director for the Democratic National Committee.

The U.S. State Department has expressed concerns about what Russia is calling a "large-scale humanitarian operation" in Syria, saying Moscow's announcement appears to be a demand for the surrender of militant groups and the forced evacuation of civilians from the besieged city of Aleppo.


At the United Nations, U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power said in a tweet that she was given a copy of a "chilling letter" that was being distributed to civilians who are trapped in opposition-held parts of eastern Aleppo.


Power said the letter "warns Syrians to leave eastern Aleppo and entrust their lives to a government that has bombed and starved them."


Meanwhile, the United Nation's humanitarian-aid chief, Stephen O'Brien, warned on July 28 that the so-called "humanitarian corridors" proposed by Russia to help Syrians leave Aleppo must be used voluntarily and that their protection must be guaranteed.

Russia is actually becoming a more democratic society than is true of many states in the West.

Democracy is to a politically curious man or woman what sex is to a young adolescent. They have all heard the word, they are intrigued by the concept, but only have a cursory idea of what it actually is. The latter is generally resolved through a natural process of biological and psycho-sexual maturity.

The former is only solved through education, no matter how old the particular student is. I'd like to explore some of the many manifestations of democracy throughout the world, paying close attention to the modern democratic process in the Russian Federation, a country which is vastly more democratic than many have been led to believe it is.

What is Democracy?

The English word democracy is derived from the ancient Greek word demokratia, itself a word which combined demos (the populace/people) with kratos (rule/strength). At the time this term came about there was no unified Hellenic state but rather multiple city states amongst the Hellenic peoples. Some, though not all were considered democracies, Athens being the most powerful and hence the best remembered.