British Prime Minister David Cameron is pressing for military strikes against Islamic State in Syria within a month, according to senior sources. The leader is also reportedly prepared to accept 15,000 refugees from the war-torn nation.

Senior officials told the Sunday Times that Cameron has ordered aides to devise a plan to tackle the migrant crisis.

That plan includes persuading Labour MPs to support airstrikes in Syria in a House of Commons vote in October.

Chancellor George Osborne seemed to indicate the government is indeed planning military action in Syria.

"We've got to defeat these criminal gangs who trade in human misery and risk people's lives and kill people," he said. "You've got to deal with the problem at source, which is this evil Assad regime and the [ISIS] terrorists."

Cameron came under pressure to order airstrikes on Saturday night, with former Defence Secretary Liam Fox saying: "Our response is inadequate. The policy of attacking ISIS in Iraq but not in Syria is patently absurd."

British "political hypocrisy" and the country's interference in Syria's affairs was condemned by Syria's foreign ministry, Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported on Sunday. Damascus has sent two letters to the UN, accusing the British government of "colonialist experience" and supporting terrorist organizations in Syria.

Tory whips have reportedly told Cameron that enough Labour MPs may now be prepared to vote for military action, offsetting the 30 Conservative members who oppose it.

They believe that if Jeremy Corbyn, who is opposed to military action, wins the Labour leadership next weekend, the party's moderate may be prepared to go against their leader to make a point. Labour voted against airstrikes in Syria two years ago.

A GOP law on judicial appointments has been thrown out, and now it's the judiciary itself that hangs in the balance

What began as merely a fiscal mess in Kansas has become a full-blown judicial crisis.

On Wednesday, a district court ruled against the state, and threw out a 2014 law passed by Republicans that took the power of appointing chief judges away from the Kansas Supreme Court and handed it to local judges. But that rather simple question of judicial administration could have further-reaching consequences, thanks to a provision in a second law passed by the legislature earlier this spring that would cut off funding for the state's entire court system, if the 2014 law was struck down.

Kansas officials were so worried about the consequences of the court's decision that the state's attorney general, Derek Schmidt, successfully filed to have the ruling stayed until the courts rule on an appeal and the validity of the 2015 law.

My immediate concern ... is that the court does not appear to have decided the validity of a 'nonseverability' clause contained in a later statute, which means today's decision could effectively and immediately shut off all funding for the judicial branch of state government.

It is critical to keep the state judiciary operating.

We've previously covered Kansas's financial struggles, as a Republican experiment in conservative economic policy failed spectacularly, leaving the state deeply in the red. The fiscal crisis divided and, for a time, paralyzed the GOP-controlled legislature before lawmakers reluctantly agreed to nearly $400 million in sales taxes earlier this year.

The current dispute flows from the budget battle: Ever since the state Supreme Court in 2014 ordered the legislature to increase funding for education, Governor Sam Brownback and his allies in Topeka have sought to wrest power over appointments from the Supreme Court and make it easier to replace judges. (A majority of the justices on the high court were appointed by Brownback's Democratic predecessor, Kathleen Sebelius.)

In a recent article for independent Czech online news and opinion journal Svobodne Noviny, columnist Jaromir Petrik explained why he is fed up with the media's presentation of Russia as the world's greatest threat to peace, while the US, which has launched a series of aggressive wars across the globe over the last decade, seems to get a pass.

Petrik began his piece by recalling that "this year, in his State of the Union address, President Obama named only one country as America's enemy - Russia, mentioning ISIL as another enemy. In an earlier speech, Obama equated Russia to the Ebola virus. Why is this so? Is Russia really the aggressor, responsible for destroying the Arab world through its support for the regime of Syrian President Assad? Did Russia really attack Ukraine, as we are constantly told by media resources such as Reuters, CNN, BBC and by our own Czech Television?"

"The art of propaganda," the columnist continued, "lies in the skillful propagation of half-truths, but how could Putin have unleashed the war in Ukraine? Was it Putin who overthrew the democratically elected government of President Yanukovych, planting in its place a putschist government headed by Turchynov and Yatsenyuk? Was it Putin who ordered them to start their so-called 'anti-terrorist operation' to exterminate the populations of Donetsk and Lugansk, regions which had refused to recognize the coup, and their new rulers?"

The reality, Petrik argued, was quite the opposite, with "American 'diplomats' concentrated in Kiev threatening Yanukovych against using violence against the demonstrators," while "these same 'demonstrators'" would go on to "approve a war against the population of eastern Ukraine." All the while, "those same American 'diplomats' would accuse Russia of unleashing this war."

Emphasizing that Ukraine is part of a wider, global problem, Petrik noted that "more than enough has already been said and written about Iraq and Libya: These countries were attacked by NATO, led by the United States. Moreover, the 'democrats' led by the US ended up killing the presidents of both these countries, along with many members of their governments," which ultimately "plunged the conquered nations into chaos."

In the journalist's view, the crux of the issue is that "the US cannot accept the blame" for its global misadventures, "and therefore points the finger at Russia and Putin as the main culprit for global aggression. Washington has forced Europe to introduce senseless economic sanctions which, aside from Russia, have weakened Europe, but not so much the US itself."

This week on 'Behind the Headlines', your hosts are joined by Harrison Koehli, Sott.net editor and co-host of 'The Truth Perspective' radio show on SOTT Radio Network. We'll be discussing Europe's 'migrant' problem, the public outpouring of support, and what the Powers That Be will do about it.

Tune in for all that and more this Sunday 6th September, 2015, from 2-4pm EST / 7-9pm GMT / 8-10pm CET

Running Time: 02:15:00

Download: MP3

As refugees are stranded at train stations, attacked by riot police, and killed during the perilous journey across the Mediterranean, Europe's failure to address the rising humanitarian crisis is being met with global outrage and sorrow.

Now, many are also looking across the Atlantic to the United States, where observers say key responsibility for the crisis lies—not only because the country is lagging in its humanitarian response, but also because its war policies lie at the root of the ongoing displacement.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest said at a press briefing on Thursday that the United States sees no "impending policy changes" in light of the worsening crisis. He indicated the U.S. plan will remain focused on lending assistance from afar while letting EU nations take the lead on confronting the crisis. "There is certainly capacity in Europe to deal with this problem," Earnst said, "and the United States certainly stands with our European partners."

Western media organizations have recently been making strong claims about Russia's alleged military involvement in Syria, to the point that US Secretary of State John Kerry started calling Russian FM Sergey Lavrov, sharing his concerns and adding more fuel to speculations.

The media frenzy around the suspected Russian military involvement in Syria reignited after President Putin's answer was taken out of context when he was asked to clarify whether Russia is ready to take part in military operations against the Islamic State militants in Syria.

"You know, this is a separate issue and we see what is going on right now. Say, the American aviation is making certain strikes. So far, their efficiency has not been very high, but it is too early to say that we are ready to do it," Putin said.

"However, we are providing Syria with significant support anyway, both in equipment and personnel training, and armaments. We signed major contracts with Syria some five to seven years ago, and we are complying with them in full," President Putin explained, reminding his audience, that on many occasions before, Russia has honored all contracts signed with the Syrian government.

Jade Helm's tagline is "mastering the human domain".

We have been told that, in part, this has to do with special operations outfits from the Navy, Army, Air Force and Marines using covert warfare techniques to infiltrate average American neighborhoods (as mock "hostile environments") and walk "undetected amongst civilian populations" without being noticed by the rest of us. Oh, and it's for "refining the skills needed against an ever changing foreign threat" (emphasis added on the word 'foreign') according to Army Special Operation Command spokesman Mark Lastoria.

Well, here's one way they reportedly have done that.

Mike Lamb, a staff writer for Barstow, California's Desert Dispatch was invited to a small press meeting prior to a joint forcible entry operation training exercise at Fort Irwin National Training Center called Operation Dragon Spear last month. Military vehicles and gear were put on display and the reporters were allowed to take pictures and ask questions.

"What I'm about to share with you is not top secret. But there were U.S. Army special operations soldiers lurking around Barstow, driving down our streets and we didn't even know it," he wrote.

Viktor Muzhenko, head of the Ukrainian General Staff, has assessed the clearance rate of military and intelligence in the "anti-terrorist operation" in the Donbass. According to his remarks, 90 percent of the information collected on the situation in eastern Ukraine would have to be counted as false.

This perhaps explains assertions of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko about the all edged "200,000 Russian soldiers" in the Donbass.

One might think that Viktor Muzhenko's declaration resembled a late admission. It took more than a year took for the head of the General Staff to designate Kiev's accusations against Russia as wrong. "There are intelligence reports and briefings data. Intelligence reports are what we get, and the data are, what the reports confirm" explained Muzhenko, in the best soldierly bureaucratic form, in an interview with the Ukrainian newspaper ZN.UA, and went on:

"Last summer 90 percent of the information through official briefings re the Anti-Terrorist Operation -- was wrong." The head of the General Staff said only five to ten percent of the information received was credible. At the same time Muzhenko accused the self-defense militias in Donbass of "active disinformation tactics."

Russian President Vladimir Putin may be nearing his 63rd birthday, but he can still beat a team of kids in hockey. With the help of some of Russia's most formidable hockey veterans, that is.

The British parliament will consider a petition on its website seeking the arrest of Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu for "war crimes" after it reached its target of 100,000 signatures.

"Benjamin Netanyahu is to hold talks in London this September. Under international law he should be arrested for war crimes upon arrival in the UK for the massacre of over 2000 civilians in 2014," says the petition published by Damian Moran, an anti-Israel activist, on August 7.

Parliament considers all petitions that receive more than 100,000 signatures for a debate.

However the British government had already dismissed the petition to arrest the Israeli PM. "Under UK and international law, visiting heads of foreign governments, such as Prime Minister Netanyahu, have immunity from legal process, and cannot be arrested or detained," it said in a statement.

The government also said that during Operation Protective Edge in 2014 Israel had a right to defend itself by taking proportionate action within the boundaries of the humanitarian law. It also condemned "the terrorist tactics of Hamas who fired rockets on Israel, built extensive tunnels to kidnap and murder, and repeatedly refused to accept ceasefires".