There is a coup underway in Venezuela. The pieces are all falling into place like a bad CIA movie. At every turn a new traitor is revealed, a betrayal is born, full of promises to reveal the smoking gun that will justify the unjustifiable. Infiltrations are rampant, rumors spread like wildfire, and the panic mentality threatens to overcome logic. Headlines scream danger, crisis and imminent demise, while the usual suspects declare covert war on a people whose only crime is being gatekeeper to the largest pot of black gold in the world.

This week, as the New York Times showcased an editorial degrading and ridiculing Venezuelan President Maduro, labeling him "erratic and despotic" ("Mr. Maduro in his Labyrinth", NYT January 26, 2015), another newspaper across the Atlantic headlined a hack piece accusing the President of Venezuela's National Assembly, Diosdado Cabello, and the most powerful political figure in the country after Maduro, of being a narcotics kingpin ("The head of security of the number two Chavista defects to the U.S. and accuses him of drug trafficking", ABC, January 27, 2015). The accusations stem from a former Venezuelan presidential guard officer, Leasmy Salazar, who served under President Chavez and was recruited by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), now becoming the new "golden child" in Washington's war on Venezuela.

Wherever atrocities happen it is a crime. Wherever atrocities happen AND the media remains silent it is not only a crime, but also a dark spot on the conscience of humanity. As Hitchcock showed in the documentary of the Holocaust and the Nazi concentration camps, the people living near these camps claimed to be unaware of the atrocities being committed in their midst. Information was available, but as Harrison Koehli wrote in his article, a number of social conformity biases take effect. This causes unpleasant events to be explained away and compartmentalized in a dark corner of the brain. It is one of the characteristics of authoritarian followers, as Bob Altemeyer has shown in his studies. Today, even more so than in the 1930's, the information is only a Google search away. Yet, in all fairness, the signal to noise ratio is probably the same as in the '30s, especially given that the vast majority of the media is owned by just six corporations who do not appear to have the interests of humanity at heart.

One example is Ukraine. The tragedy in Ukraine has now been ongoing for more than a year. The Western media has, throughout the entire sequence of events, been accusing Russia of starting the conflict by invading Ukraine. Sanctions upon sanctions have been heaped on Russia based on those accusations, which in both the Russian and alternative media have been exposed as falsehoods. Yet everything that contradicts the official Western line has been labelled Russian propaganda and the statements coming from the Western installed puppets in Kiev taken as unquestionable facts.

But the truth is slowly emerging, even from statements made by Western and Ukrainian leaders. Below is a list of statements made in recent days which contradict the official Western government and media narrative for the last year and highlight the truth of most of the claims made by Russian and alternative media over the same time period.

Comments made in wake of US-backed proxy regime's fall in Thailand further alienate the waning superpower.

First in Hong Kong, now in Thailand, ongoing US plans to install proxy regimes to extend hegemony across Asia-Pacific have fallen into disarray.

The latest row comes after US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Russel made comments condemning the recent coup that first deposed, then saw the impeachment of ex-Thai prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra over a vast array of corruption and abuse of power charges.

Russel was quoted by an official US State Department transcript of a speech he gave in Thailand as saying:

...a narrow, restricted process -- carries the risk of leaving many Thai citizens feeling that they've been excluded from the political process.

That's the reason why we continue to advocate for a broader and more inclusive political process that allows all sectors of society to feel represented, to feel that their voices are being heard. I'd add that the perception of fairness is also extremely important and although this is being pretty blunt, when an elected leader is removed from office, is deposed, then impeached by the authorities -- the same authorities that conducted the coup -- and then when a political leader is targeted with criminal charges at a time when the basic democratic processes and institutions in the country are interrupted, the international community is going to be left with the impression that these steps could in fact be politically driven.

Russel's comments about "Thai citizens feeling that they've been excluded" is the preamble Shinawatra's own political front often uses to justify acts of terrorism and armed insurrection that have left hundreds of people dead. It is also a familiar line used to justify engineered US-backed violence in other nations aimed at regime change.

Russel's claims that Shinawatra's criminal charges were "politically driven" beg belief. For the US to defend a prime minister openly serving as a proxy for a convicted criminal hiding abroad, and who presided over a regime that recklessly destroyed the economy while literally murdering its political opponents in the streets, is a clear breach of diplomatic protocol and unbecoming of the alleged purpose of the US State Department itself.

Indeed, the US State Department exists to represent the will of the American people abroad, not to impose it upon others.

The Thai government quickly condemned the comments, and a large public backlash followed, aimed at what is now increasingly seen as direct US meddling in Thailand's internal affairs.

Dear Senator McCain,

What would you call a war veteran who answers a veteran's question about providing more jobs to veterans by saying it's his "highest priority," only to vote against more jobs for veterans when he's back in Washington? What would you call a veteran who was tortured, survived miraculously, got elected to the U.S. Senate, sent more young men to die in a foreign war, voted to deny them jobs and benefits, and yet demands the arrest and full prosecution of those who exercise the constitutional rights he supposedly fought for? To borrow phrasing from you, Senator, I would call you low-life scum.

The Code PINK protesters you called "low-life scum" during a Senate hearing this week are Americans exercising their constitutional rights to freedom of speech, which you swore an oath to defend both as a naval officer and as a member of Congress. These protesters were also within their right to make a citizens' arrest against someone who has committed a felony - in this case, war crimes. It's critical for you to understand why these protesters are patriotic Americans and not "low-life scum," as you called them.

When Henry Kissinger, whom you just vociferously defended from the dais, authorized the secret bombing of Laos and Cambodia in 1969 and 1970, his actions killed over 40,000 people, including civilians who had nothing to do with the Vietnam War. Kissinger has said he did so to stop North Vietnamese troops from using Cambodia as a staging ground. However, research has shown that all Kissinger's bombing campaign did was pave the way for the brutal Khmer Rouge to take over Cambodia, then use the B-52 bombings as propaganda to justify their cause, leading to more death and destruction. Kissinger illegally bombed a sovereign nation that we never officially declared war on, destabilized its government, and allowed a violent, autocratic regime to seize power. If that isn't a felony, I don't know what is.

One of the first casualties of the economic war against Russia is reportedly "Putin's propaganda industry." After RT's editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan told Vedomosti newspaper that RT will have to slash spending and likely give up on expansion plans due to the devaluation of the ruble, Western media breathed a sigh of relief and began to celebrate.

Especially German media has been awash with articles celebrating the news.

Staunch pro-American newspaper Die Zeit and the German edition of The Huffington Post lost no time in explaining to German readers why "Putin's propaganda industry" has taken a hit and Der Tagesspiegel wondered if this signifies the end of RT's German-language offering RT Deutsch.

A former Al-Qaeda member has revealed a strong connection between the terrorist group and the Saudi Royal family in the 1990s. More notably, he alleges that Saudi princes and terrorists discussed a plan to shoot Air Force One out of the sky.

The revelations came in the form of a testimony, delivered from a maximum-security prison, where Zacarias Moussaoui is incarcerated.

According to the New York Times, Moussaoui submitted the claim on his own initiative. He sent a letter to the judge presiding over the lawsuit filed by family members of 9/11 victims against the government of Saudi Arabia.

And so, for two days last October, lawyers were permitted for the first time to interview the terrorist at the federal prison - the most secure facility in the federal system, in Florence, Colorado. He gave a damning report that included very prominent members within the royal family, including three princes he says were all Al-Qaeda donors.

The testimony was finalized on Monday.

"If you wanna square up to me bro, then bring it and I will f*cking fight you," he allegedly said as well as, "I am going to f*cking kill you. I will f*cking rip through you," and "I will f*cking own anyone on this flight; they are f*cking peasants."

"I could get you all fired in 5 minutes," he reportedly said while grabbing a flight attendant's shirt at one point during the incident. "I know your boss! My father will pay this out. He has done it before. Dad paid $300k last time."

- Conrad Hilton on an international flight

The reason I often use the terms "serfs" and "plebs" when referring to the American masses is not to insult the less fortunate; rather, it is to hammer in the fact that the oligarchs running American society see the unwashed masses as useless peasants.

According to the Missoula Police Department, peace and love are extremist views, and promoting these ideas could be a possible sign of terrorist activity.

The police department received a Department of Homeland Security grant of $254,930 last week, to assist them in fighting the terrorist threat. That threat was apparently posed by "the Rainbow Family," a large hippy gathering that promotes peace and love.

In the application documents where the agency requested the grant, the Rainbow Family was listed as an "extremist organization" that requires constant surveillance.

Police Chief Scott Hoffman said that the department needed a "mobile command unit" to deal with the Rainbow Family threat.

"It's a mobile command unit. It's just like a motor home with communications and computers and radios and things like that. I don't know what the hazards of the Rainbow people are," Hoffman said.

After the story went public, representatives from the police department have played damage control with the media, claiming that the operation is only to help with cleaning up and keeping the area safe.

When reporters with the Missoulian called the police department for a comment, they were told by Missoula Police Lt. Scott Brodie that the mobile command unit would be primarily for the clean up effort.

Introduction

Brookings Institution has now issued a call for us to finance more firebombings, clusterbombings, and other support to the ethnic cleansing, which has been going on since Ukraine's coup - the ethnic cleansing that's occurring in the region of Ukraine's southeast that's called "Donbass" (which is the Ukrainian area shown in dark purple on this map, the map of the election results in Ukraine's last nationwide Presidential election before the coup; and that's the same region which rejects the U.S.-imposed coup-Government; the people there had voted 90% for the man whom the U.S. coup overthrew, which is the reason the U.S. Government wants them eliminated, so that Ukraine can keep the land - and its resources - but now cleansed of its residents, so that the U.S. can place missiles there aimed at Russia, which is America's current strategic objective: to control Russia).

On Monday, February 2nd, Brookings (whose Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack had been among the leaders of the invade-Iraq movement before the 2003 U.S. invasion there on false pretenses) issued a report, "Preserving Ukraine's Independence, Resisting Russian Aggression: What the United States and NATO Must Do," and Brookings urged "providing direct military assistance - in far larger amounts than provided to date and including lethal defensive arms - so that Ukraine is better able to defend itself. The U.S. government should provide Ukraine $1 billion in military assistance as soon as possible in 2015, followed by additional tranches of $1 billion in FY 2016 and FY 2017." That euphemism "defensive arms" is for gullible individuals only: guns and tanks obviously fire in both directions, and so do anti-tank weapons etc. - and there was no "Russian Aggression" in Ukraine until the Obama Administration violently overthrew the existing Government there in February of last year. Adolf Hitler claimed to be "defending" Germany when he invaded and took over Poland in 1939, following a "false flag" incident in Poland that could have been a model for Obama's in Ukraine last year, and the United States is copying not only his PR tactics about it, but the continuing violence afterwards, differing mainly in his using surrogates to do the job, instead of (as Hitler did) claiming the consequences as being his own. (Hitler was able to tell Germans that Poland was threatening Germany, but Obama can't likewise persuasively say to Americans that Ukraine constitutes a threat to America: Americans aren't that gullible, and he knows this.) As the following videos of the U.S.-sponsored firebombings - and of regular bombings - of cities and villages in Donbass will make clear, these consequences also compete rather well with Hitler's in their sheer violence.

Unofficially, the Ukrainian Government acknowledges that its war against its Donbass region is an ethnic-cleansing operation.

The pro-regime Ukrainian TV station Hromandske TV - which is funded by the U.S. Government, the Dutch Government, and George Soros (via his International Renaissance Foundation or 'Fund') - has reported that the Ukrainian Government is specifically targeting civilians to die in the Donbass region in the former Ukraine's southeast. It's being done in order "to clean the cities."

This is open acknowledgement that the operation, which the U.S. is financing (and Ukraine is bankrupt so it can never reimburse its donors), is actually an ethnic-cleansing campaign.

Previously, on Hromadske TV, a proponent of doing just that (ethnic cleansing) was interviewed. He said: "If we take, for example, just the Donetsk oblast, there are approximately 4 million inhabitants, at least 1.5 million of which are superfluous. ... Donbass must be exploited as a resource, which it is. ... The most important thing that must be done - no matter how cruel it may sound - is that there is a certain category of people that must be exterminated."

Here is how it's done: