For decades, the American people have been repeatedly told by their government and corporate-run media that acts of war ordered by their president have been largely motivated by the need to counter acts of aggression or oppression by "evil dictators." We were told we had to invade Iraq because Saddam Hussein was an evil dictator. We had to bomb Libya because Muammar Gaddafi was an evil dictator, bent on unleashing a "bloodbath" on his own people. Today, of course, we are told that we should support insurgents in Syria because Bashar al-Assad is an evil dictator, and we must repeatedly rattle our sabers at North Korea's Kim Jong-un and Russia's Vladimir Putin because they, too, are evil dictators.

This is part of the larger, usually unquestioned mainstream corporate media narrative that the US leads the "Western democracies" in a global struggle to combat terrorism and totalitarianism and promote democracy.

I set out to answer a simple question: Is it true? Does the US government actually oppose dictatorships and champion democracy around the world, as we are repeatedly told?

In an interview with broadcaster ORF 2, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz says that migrants should be helped locally and that every country has the right to refuse migrants.

"In my opinion every country should have the possibility to decide for themselves how many and what kind of people they want to accept," Kurz says.

Yesterday, Kurz announced that Austria wants to form an "axis of the willing" with Germany and Italy, to combat illegal migration.

And they won't be solved by whining about criticism.

What do you do with an FBI agent, sworn to uphold the law, who flagrantly violates the law in a rogue investigation aimed at making a name for himself by bringing down some high-profile targets?

Why . . . you promote him, of course.

At least that is the way the Justice Department answered that question in the case of David Chaves, an FBI agent who serially and lawlessly leaked grand-jury information, wiretap evidence, and other sensitive investigative intelligence to the media in his quest to make an insider-trading case against some celebrities. And when finally called on it, the Justice Department circled the wagons: proceeding with its tainted prosecution, referring the now-retired Chaves for an internal investigation that has gone exactly nowhere after nearly two years, and using legal maneuvers to block the courts and the public from scrutinizing the scope of the misconduct.

The ousted head of Germany's refugee agency was central to an unfolding asylum application fraud scandal, but firing her won't fix core "structural problems" in the country's migration system, a geopolitical analyst has told RT.

After serving just 18 months as head of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), Jutta Cordt was fired this week by Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, after an internal review discovered that the agency's branch in the city of Bremen had violated legal and internal regulations for the approval of asylum applications. The decision was quietly announced on Friday, and Rainer Rothfuss, a geopolitical analyst and professor at Tübingen University's Institute of Geography in Baden-Württemberg, feels the sacking was long overdue.

"It is quite late now that Horst Seehofer tries to find the responsible or the culpable person at the top of the BAMF organization," Rothfuss said. "He should have broken up the coalition already in 2015 to protest against Angela Merkel for breaking the German laws and letting migrants flow into our country."

In April, it was revealed that a former BAMF official at the Bremen office was under investigation on suspicion of taking bribes from at least 1,200 asylum seekers, starting in 2013. Other officials at the agency were also probed for possibly having taken part in the scheme. They include an interpreter and three lawyers. After reviewing some 1,371 asylum cases from 2013 to 2017, an internal audit allegedly found the Bremen branch responsible for violating the law in 142 instances, Der Spiegel reported. In 54 percent of the Bremen decisions there had been no admissible request. In about 40 percent of cases, the identity of the asylum seekers was not clarified, the report said.

But HIS emails!

There's a section of the Department of Justice Inspector General report which says that several FBI officials, including James Comey, used a personal email accounts to do government business.


The Washington Post reports that Michael Horowitz found five instances where Comey used a personal account to draft or forward emails on official matters. This development comes amid other portions of the report which state that even though he wasn't affected by "political bias," he broke with standard protocol when he oversaw the Hillary Clinton email investigation.

Someone might have some 'splaining to do.

There are mounting signals that Donald Trump's much-delayed Middle East peace plan - billed as the "deal of the century" - is about to be unveiled.

Even though Trump's officials have given away nothing publicly, the plan's contours are already evident, according to analysts.

They note that Israel has already started implementing the deal - entrenching "apartheid" rule over Palestinians - while Washington has spent the past six months dragging its heels on publishing the document.

"Netanyahu has simply got on with deepening his hold on the West Bank and East Jerusalem - and he knows the Americans aren't going to stand in his way," said Michel Warschawski, an Israeli analyst and head of the Alternative Information Centre in Jerusalem.

"He will be given free rein to do what he likes, whether they publish the plan or, in the end, it never sees the light of day," he told Middle East Eye.

Eran Etzion, a former Israeli foreign ministry official, agreed: "Israel has a much freer hand than it did in the past. It feels confident enough to continue its existing policies, knowing Trump won't stand in the way."

House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy told Fox News Sunday that House Speaker Paul Ryan led a meeting Friday night with senior members of the DOJ and FBI, and made it clear that "there's going to be action on the floor of the House this week if FBI and DOJ do not comply with our subpoena request."

The House Judiciary Committee has requested more than a million documents from the FBI and DOJ relating to the Hillary Clinton email probe, the firing of former top FBI official Andrew McCabe, and reported surveillance of a Trump aide during the 2016 presidential election.

But Republicans have accused the DOJ and FBI of stonewalling and intentionally impeding their investigation, despite the agencies' claims that fulfilling the request requires a careful review of the sensitive documents.

Thursday's report on the Hillary Clinton email investigation by Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz was, as Canadian pop-punk degenerates Sum 41 might have put it, "All killer, no filler." There were so many jaw-dropping moments of, "No, wait - FBI employees can't do that, can they?" that it transformed an actual government report into a veritable page-turner.

Within all of that, some small moments of irony and significance were bound to get lost in the shuffle. It's perfectly easy to overlook minor gems in the report when you've got a new text message from Peter Strzok promising to "stop" Donald Trump and another FBI agent passing on information to Clinton campaign head John Podesta at the same time he was trying to get his son a job with the Clinton campaign.

One of those minor gems, however, comes when you find out why the FBI didn't investigate the Blackberries and other email devices of Hillary Clinton's inner circle.

I know what you're thinking. First, yes, apparently they still used Blackberries. I know they're secure and the government was among the last users of the superannuated mobile platform, but given Clinton's tendency toward antiquated technology, I'm halfway surprised her office computer wasn't a Commodore Amiga. ("Huma! Can you help me for a sec? My 2400 baud modem isn't connecting to State Department system.")

Second, wait, the FBI didn't check the email devices of Clinton's inner circle? Why on earth wouldn't you do that, especially since they likely interacted with Hillary's server with great frequency - if, in fact, their email accounts weren't on it in the first place.

The battle between Theresa May's government, Brexit supporters, and EU loyalists in the House of Commons has reignited, with the Prime Minister walking back on an agreement to appease Remainer rebels on the EU Withdrawal Bill.

Mrs May was previously reported to have made a series of concessions to Tory rebels loyal to the European Union, agreeing to allow the Remainer-dominated Parliament to have a so-called 'meaningful vote' on the terms of Britain's exit from the EU - which Leave supporters decried as an effective veto on Brexit.

Brexit supporters on the 1922 Committee - made up of Tory MPs who do not hold Government positions - were swift to react once the implications of these concessions became clear, with one senior Leaver remarking: "If Theresa and [Chief Whip Julian Smith] have sold us out here they are in real trouble. She reassured us all at the 1922. There is no way she can recover if she has now f*cked us over."

A heated debate on British television raised questions over the EU's aggressive negotiating tactics and unwillingness to listen.

Ex-Cabinet Minister and MP Michael Portillo criticized the European Union's (EU) "bullying culture" during a debate on the BBC's This Week show, in which he locked horns with British Philosopher AC Grayling

"I was in this studio before the referendum, and I kept saying 'you see if the referendum goes the way the establishment doesn't want it they will soon be back saying there ought to be another referendum, which they have done to every other European country'. It's part of the bullying culture of the European Union," he said as quoted by The Express.

"If people defy what the establishment wants to do, they have to be bullied, they have to be punished, they have to be threatened."