Unnerved over the idea of a Trump presidency, wealthy members of the GOP inner circle are desperately looking for a new candidate for the job, and one name has come up again and again - retired United States Marine Corps General James Mattis. Mattis, Neocon pundits openly write, may be the ideal "dark horse candidate" to save their new world order.

Over the last few months, James Mattis, a distinguished retired marine commander who last served as the head of US Central Command, has been repeatedly mentioned by neoconservative strategists and pundits as a possible antidote to Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and even Hillary Clinton.

Known as 'the Warrior Monk' for his devotion to the military, the 65-year-old officer holds tremendous respect among the military, and has been called 'the most revered Marine general' in a generation by the Military Times.

The latest marvels of Russian armored engineering have been deployed by Russian special forces during an anti-terrorist operation in Dagestan. The "Falkatus" and "Tiger" assault vehicles, which were top secret until only recently, were finally caught in action, much to everyone's amazement.

The special operation conducted on the outskirts of Makhachkala earlier this week resulted in the neutralization of three members of a terrorist cell. But besides this feat, the world received its first glimpse of two state-of-the-art armored multipurpose SUVs that military enthusiasts and bloggers have been speculating about for years.

In what appears to be a Doha party-pooping statement, Saudi deputy crown prince Mohammed bin Salman stated unequivocally that The Kingdom won't restrain its oil production unless other producers, including Iran, agree to freeze output at a meeting this weekend in Doha. This a major problem because - if you remember - this week's melt-up in oil (and thus stocks) was predicated on an anonymous diplomat cited by Interfax saying a deal will get done without Iran (which the Russians refused to confirm). All that hope crushed by a reality that has been painfully obvious that no side will be given in the Iran-Saudi tete-a-tete... and now, as Citi warned "expect a sharp sell-off."

Islamic State and other terrorist groups do not represent an existential threat to Europe, unlike Moscow and perceived aggression on its part, claimed foreign minister Witold Waszczykowski in the latest round of anti-Russian "nonsense" coming from Polish politicians.

"By all evidence, Russia's activity is a sort of existential threat because this activity can destroy countries," said Witold Waszczykowski, while visiting annual Globsec security forum in Bratislava.

When asked specifically about the threat of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), when compared to Russia, the minister said that while being a very serious one, "this is not an existential threat for Europe."

"We also have non-existential threats like terrorism, like the great waves of migrants," he added.

Federica Mogherini declared: "There will be no return to business as usual until Russia again respects its iternational [sic] commitments and international law".

1. International commitments: What are the "international commitments" that Russia does not respect? Do they mention the Minsk Protocol? Drafted by the 'Normandy Four', it calls on both sides to carry out the agreed commitments on a daily basis, so, Ms Mogherini, why not call out the Kiev signatories and their sponsors, including those from the EU?

Was it not the Budapest Memorandum that guaranteed the respect of the sovereignty of Ukraine? And was it not violated by the EU countries long before the Crimea referendum, by twice supporting the anti-constitutional actions on the Maidan, undermining the country's fragile social and political balance?

Compelling evidence is mounting daily of egregious war crimes committed by Azerbaijan's military in the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh (NK). Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev launched an unprovoked large scale military offensive during the early morning hours of April 2nd attempting to break through the Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army's contact line in attacks coming from three separate directions using mortars, rocket launchers, tanks, armored personnel carriers, surveillance and kamikaze drones and helicopters. Heavy Azeri shelling of Armenian residential areas destroyed civilian homes in several villages in both the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh as well as the Republic of Armenia. In NK's Martuni region a 12-year old boy was killed attending school and two other children were seriously injured. Soon after the volleys of mortar fire, the Azerbaijani military overran Armenian villages in the Martakert area and broke into homes in the village of Talish where many homes were damaged or destroyed. Azeri soldiers murdered at point blank gunshot range an elderly husband and wife including their 92-year old family relative, ultimately cutting the married couple's ears off that strongly suggest the presence of Islamic State terrorists. 3000 known Azeris joined ISIS and a number of them are believed to have rushed from the Syrian battlefields returning home to fight on the fresh Nagorno-Karabakh warfront.

An Armenian Yezidi soldier was also beheaded, the all too familiar brutality that's become an Islamic State trademark in its ethnic cleansing of thousands of Yezidi Christians in Iraq. The Yezidi soldier's parents said that when their son's body was returned, they buried him not knowing he had been beheaded. They only learned of his cruel fate after the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) arranged a plan for each side to exchange corpses of dead soldiers that returned their son's severed head. The coffin had to be dug up to bury their son's head with his body on April 9.

Moreover, the retrieved corpses of 18 Armenian soldiers showed signs that they had been mutilated and tortured. After the major fighting broke out from April 2-7, the ICRC acted as mediator for deceased soldiers to be recovered. Officials from the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic's State Commission on Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing Persons observed that all 18 bodies of the Armenian soldiers had been badly mutilated and tortured and issued the following statement:

Those acts, being a flagrant manifestation of inhumanity, run counter to the laws and customs of war and are in grave violation of the international humanitarian law, in particular, the Convention (I) for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field (1949), Geneva Convention (III) relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War (1949) and the Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I).

It's finally happened: the issue of Palestinian human rights came up in the Democratic debate tonight on national television, and Bernie Sanders repeatedly criticized Hillary Clinton — for siding with Israel singlehandedly, for her support of Benjamin Netanyahu and her indifference to the plight of Palestinians.

On the same night that he caved in to rightwing fools and suspended his Jewish outreach director over her criticisms of Benjamin Netanyahu, Senator Sanders stood up for Palestinians and against Netanyahu to cheers from the Brooklyn crowd.

Toward the end of a bruising debate, the two Democratic candidates tangled over Israel and Palestine for more than six minutes, beginning when Wolf Blitzer asked Sanders if he stood by his criticism of Israel for "disproportionate" attacks on Gaza.

Sanders said he had spent many months in Israel as a kid and has family in Israel, and the country has a right to live in peace and security.

Even for the post of U.S. President, the preferences of the American people have only a marginal, if any, impact upon the selection of the person to occupy that post.

In Colorado's Republican race to win delegates to the Republican National Convention for selecting the Republican Presidential nominee, there was no primary, and there was no caucus. As the Republican magazine National Review headlined on April 11th, attempting to justify what a Republican wag had just headlined as "Cruz Celebrates Voterless Win": "Donald Trump Laid a Colorado Goose Egg because He Was Disorganized and Amateurish." Their argument (since they campaign for any Republican but Trump) was: he lost "because he was disorganized and amateurish" — not because he had been cheated by the Party-hierarchy.

National Review explained that, in the process which had been set up by the Colorado Republican Party (it's set up by each individual state's Republican Party, not by the National Republican Party), "delegates to the national convention would be selected at congressional-district conventions and the Republican's state convention" [NR's illiterate writer there meant "the Republicans' state convention" and couldn't distinguish between "Republican's" and "Republicans'," so used the wrong one], and this was done in order to "give Colorado's delegates more flexibility," not done in order to require delegates to reflect the Republican (or any other) electorate in Colorado (since NR doesn't like even its own Party's electorate).

This was the explanation that was provided by that magazine, which backs Cruz, and which has been campaigning ferociously against Trump. Their article was built upon, and extensively quoted, the justifications put forth by one particular Cruz delegate, who said, "The grassroots made the decision that Ted Cruz was the best candidate for us, and the grassroots made the decision to come out for Cruz and absolutely swept the table." He called it "our caucus system." Whatever it was, it shut out all rank-and-file Republican voters, and left everything to people like himself, who could afford to do this: "You have to put in the work, you have to put in the effort, and you have to do it months ahead of time." In other words: only Republican Party activists in Colorado could participate in selecting the delegates who would participate in selecting the Republican nominee. No one else was allowed to. Their conception of the Colorado Republican Party is that it's only the Party's activists; and, if you're not a Republican activist, you have no say. It's as if to say: Only people who work in the government can have a say in how the government is to be run. It's for insiders only — and, of course, indirectly it's for whomever pays those insiders and so enables them to "put in the work" to participate.

Turkish politicians, academics and journalists speak to Sputnik about the implications of the news agency's work being blocked in their country.

On Friday, Turkish authorities confirmed that they had made a conscious decision to block Sputnik news agency's website from operating in the country, citing "administrative measures." The decision led to a rash of criticism internationally, and inside Turkey as well. Sputnik Turkey, which continues to operate via social media, has been speaking to respected public figures on the implications of the crackdown on media freedom in their country.

Huseyin Aygun, a lawyer and former MP from the opposition Republican People's Party, said that in his opinion, the decision to close off access to the site was in no way no accident. "There is no way that the decision to close off access to an informational resource which openly speaks the truth about the policy of the Justice and Development (AKP) government, which has linked itself to the West and NATO and seeks to involve them in new wars and provocations in the region, can be called an accident."

In fact, Aygun suggested, "the decision to block the site is a step which fits perfectly into the overall strategy of the AKP. The authorities decided that they want to silence the voice of objective media; however, they will not be able to do so...Other points of view exist in the world. Sputnik will overcome this obstacle and continue its work."

The FBI head agent in charge of the anthrax investigation - Richard Lambert - has just filed a federal whistleblower lawsuit calling the entire FBI investigation bullsh!t:

In the fall of 2001, following the 9/11 attacks, a series of anthrax mailings occurred which killed five Americans and sickened 17 others. Four anthrax-laden envelopes were recovered which were addressed to two news media outlets in New York City (the New York Post and Tom Brokaw at NBC) and two senators in Washington D.C. (Patrick Leahy and Tom Daschle). The anthrax letters addressed to New York were mailed on September 18, 2001, just seven days after the 9/11 attacks. The letters addressed to the senators were mailed 21 days later on October 9, 2001. A fifth mailing of anthrax is believed to have been directed to American Media, Inc. (AMI) in Boca Raton, Florida based upon the death of one AMI employee from anthrax poisoning and heavy spore contamination in the building.

Executive management at FBI Headquarters assigned responsibility for the anthrax investigation (code named "AMERITHRAX") to the Washington Field Office (WFO), dubbing it the single most important case in the FBI at that time. In October 2002, in the wake of surging media criticism, White House impatience with a seeming lack of investigative progress by WFO, and a concerned Congress that was considering revoking the FBI's charter to investigate terrorism cases, Defendant FBI Director Mueller reassigned Plaintiff from the FBI's San Diego Field Office to the Inspection Division at FBI Headquarters and placed Plaintiff in charge of the AMERITHRAX case as an "Inspector. "While leading the investigation for the next four years, Plaintiff's efforts to advance the case met with intransigence from WFO's executive management, apathy and error from the FBI Laboratory, politically motivated communication embargos from FBI Headquarters, and yet another preceding and equally erroneous legal opinion from Defendant Kelley - all of which greatly obstructed and impeded the investigation.