Welcome to Obamaland, the mysterious, schizophrenic world where the truth is inverted. Washington is rapidly losing the microscopic amount of respect it had around the world, as US propaganda is becoming more childish by the week. Any rational person who is even remotely informed just sits back in amazement at the volume of deceptive, deceitful, and outright ludicrous statements constantly spewing from the mouths of top US officials. One of the latest comical episodes was when the US President, Barack Obama, actually tried to argue that Russian airstrikes against the so-called Islamic State (ISIS/IS/ISIL) are "only strengthening ISIL":

"The moderate opposition in Syria is one that, if we're ever going to have a political transition, we need. And the Russian policy is driving those folks underground or creating a situation in which they are [debilitated], and it's only strengthening ISIL."

So in Obama's mind, Russia pounding key ISIS positions and other affiliated terrorist groups isn't halting the groups rise, but "strengthening" it. In the real world however, Russia has been severely weakening ISIS and fellow extremist forces in Syria through bombing terrorist command centers, weapons warehouses, training camps and other enemy positions. Russian airstrikes have illuminated the complete sham of the US-led coalition against ISIS, as Russian airstrikes have been far more effective already, comparative to America's campaign.

A meeting between Russia's Vladimir Putin and Saudi Arabia's Defence Minister Prince Mohammed bin Salman (son of King Salman) ended on early Monday, October 12th. Agence France-Presse headlined "Vladimir Putin Meets Saudi Prince on 'Political Solution' in Syria," and reported that, whereas the son of the Sunni fundamentalist Saudi King says that his father still insists on removing the Shiite secularist leader Bashar al-Assad from power in Syria and on ending Syria's alliance with Shiite Iran, Prince Salman said that the Saudi King is "in favour of a political solution in Syria." Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was more forward in his statement about the meeting. He said: "The two parties confirmed that Saudi Arabia and Russia have similar objectives when it comes to Syria. Above all, it is to not let a terrorist caliphate take over the country." Nothing was quoted from the Saudi side about any such opposition to 'a terrorist caliphate,' however; the Sauds have been the chief financial backers of Islamic jihad. (And here is what their followers in Syria are actually like.) However, the fact that the Saudi King sent his son to Russia to negotiate with Putin about Syria is yet another indication that the key player in settling the Syrian civil war is now Putin, not at all U.S. President Barack Obama.

The Russian Air Force has carried out 55 sorties in the last 24 hours, hitting 53 Islamic State targets in four Syrian provinces and destroying command posts, terrorist training camps and a transfer point, among others.

Sukhoi Su-24M and Su-34 bombers, together with Su-25SM ground support aircraft, bombed ISIS positions in the provinces of Idlib, Latakia, Homs and Hama, the Russian Defense Ministry's spokesman, Igor Konashenkov, told journalists.

The airstrikes destroyed seven command points, six training camps, six arms depots and a stronghold near the village of Salma in Latakia province.

While at Duke, Robert M. Califf received millions in funding and salary support from Eli Lilly, Merck, Novartis, and other drug companies.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Friday said he would vote against President Barack Obama's nomination to head up the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), citing Dr. Robert M. Califf's ties to the pharmaceutical industry.

Califf, a cardiologist and Duke University researcher, became FDA deputy commissioner earlier this year, and Obama announced plans to nominate him as the agency's chief last month. But in light of several recent industry scandals that brought national attention to price gouging of life-saving medications, Sanders—who is running for president as a Democrat—on Friday said he would not support the status quo when the vote comes before the U.S. Senate health committee.

Russia's anti-terrorist campaign in Syria is nipping American grand strategy right in the bud.

From the 1980s onwards, Polish-American geostrategist and former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski's ideas were at the forefront of the US' foreign policy application all across the world. Be it through the admitted creation and arming of the Mujahedeen (which later grew into Al Qaeda and the Taliban) or the obsession to divide Ukraine from Russia (later culminating in EuroMaidan), Brzezinski's ideas have become a destabilizing reality that have stretched across continents and decades.

The most enduring legacy that he ever created, however, is the destructive theory of the "Eurasian Balkans" that he devised in his 1997 book, "The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives". He postulated that it's the broad arc of land from North Africa to Central Asia whose ripeness for divisive ethnic and sectarian strife is exactly what the US needs to exploit in order to indefinitely maintain its unipolar grip on global power.

A group of US cargo aircraft airdropped overnight some 50 tons of small fire ammunition and explosives to terrorists rebels in northern Syria's Hasakah province, CNN reported Monday citing a US official speaking on condition of anonymity.

The broadcaster claimed that this was a first step in a US effort to boost support to what the White House refers to as moderate opposition forces fighting regular Syrian troops loyal to President Bashar Assad.

C-17 cargo planes dropped ammunition on 112 pallets to be retrieved by opposition fighters on the ground from a US-vetted group called by Washington the Syrian Arab Coalition.

According to the CNN, the newly-named Syrian anti-government force was first mentioned by Christine Wormuth, policy undersecretary at the US Defense Department, during Congressional testimony in September.

She said the group was being trained as part of a train-and-equip mission for anti-Assad opposition factions in Syria.

Sadly, it appears that Americans have even been stripped of the freedom to coordinate genuine grassroots movements, as they are now routinely infiltrated by the enemy who operates above the law and free from accountability.

Distrust for an oversized government has now leached over into distrust for corporate America, which one can argue are one in the same.

It's no longer a secret that corrupt corporations are not only running America but controlling many parts of the world, as they have funded politicians to write laws favorable to their business models, allowing them to operate freely at the expense of human life and the once-resourceful environment that we all desperately rely on for our existence.

Several people were detained in a Moscow apartment on suspicion of planning a terror attack in Moscow, Russian news agencies reported, citing the FSB press service. Two of the detained confessed the attack was to be on public transport, the FSB said.

"It was determined that at a certain address in Moscow six to 11 people have occasionally been, some of them had undergone military training in camps of Islamic State terrorists on Syrian territory and arrived in Russia long before the start of Russian military operation in that country," the press office of Russia's Federal Security Service told Russian news agencies.

A self-made bomb with a capacity of 5 kilograms of TNT, an electric detonator, scales to weigh the bomb components, instruments and manuals on making explosives were found in a flat in an ordinary apartment building in western Moscow.

During the questioning, two suspects told security officers that they planned an attack on Moscow public transport, and had received financial resources and elements of an improvised explosive device from their superiors in the militant group, the FSB press service said.

"An evacuation of the building's residents was carried out, its gas supply system was switched off and the FSB's gas-engineering lab arrived at the scene," the Federal Security Service said. "The reconnaissance revealed [5 kilos] of explosives, produced [from] ammonium nitrate."

In 2004, while President George W. Bush was running for re-election, he developed a sinister reputation for aggressively banishing political dissent from his events. Bush "rewrote the playbook for organizing campaign rallies," USA Today declared, ejecting from them people who scrawled anti-war messages on signs and shirts. The ACLU sued and successfully settled with the federal government over one couple's thwarted attempts to wear anti-Bush t-shirts to a 2004 rally. One political science professor even compared Bush to Richard Nixon over the suppressive behavior at these events.

Fast forward to 2015, this past Saturday, when Bernie Sanders, an increasingly viable contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, held one of his biggest campaign rallies to date, drawing more than 20,000 people to an event at the Boston convention center. Among those visitors were a number of young activists from Boston Students for Justice in Palestine, who were curious about Sanders' position on the occupied territories. They had a sign with them; in a playful nod to one of Sanders' campaign slogans, it simply asked, "Will Ya Feel The Bern For Palestine?" The activists say they were well-received by other Sanders supporters in the crowd.

But staffers working for a candidate widely viewed as one of the most progressive members of the Senate were apparently not happy. Security was made aware of a threat: Some students who support Sanders were holding a sign with a question on it. A tactic right out of the Bush campaign "playbook" went into action.

"They told us to either put the sign away or leave," said Sana Hashmani, one of the student activists. "We asked why, and they said that Bernie's campaign staff had said the sign had to go."

There had been no signs of trouble previously. The pro-Palestine group was doing nothing unusual — except, perhaps, for daring to question Sanders about territories occupied by Israel, of which Sanders has been a not-entirely-progressive supporter. "When we got there and entered the overflow space with our sign, people were supporting us and taking pictures, and other people had signs talking about various social issues as well," Hashmani said.

Belarus's longtime leader, Aleksandr Lukashenko, won a landslide victory in Sunday's presidential elections, taking over 80 percent of the vote, the Central Election Commission said.

The incumbent president received 83.49 percent of the vote with an election turnout of 87.2 percent. The highest turnout rate of 91 percent was registered in Vitsebsk region, located just north of Minsk, the Belarusian capital. The lowest turnout, on the other hand, was posted in Minsk.

These numbers do not include the votes of citizens who voted from abroad. The official final figures will be available on Friday, October 16.

Lukashenko visited one of the polling stations with his son and cast his ballot in a box.

"You know very well my position and I am not going to deviate from my main principle, and it's not just mine. Many have such a main principle for governing - everything should be quiet and without revolutions," he said.

He also said that he is ready to improve relations with the West, but only if the West wishes for this too.

"I don't think our elections, and not only the elections, can bring an improvement in our relations with the West. They will happen only when the West wants this itself," the president said.

He also said that Russia will remain Belarus' main partner. "Russia has always been with us economically and politically, they are not just our friend but our brothers, whether anyone likes it or not."