The government in Damascus and the Syrian Arab Army have begun restoring order across the country after over 3 years of devastating fighting. The so-called "capital of the revolution," the city of Homs, has been reclaimed by government forces and people have begun returning home. A recent election carried out across Syria and throughout expatriated Syrian communities around the world portrayed widespread support for the government in Damascus and more over, the idea of Syria as a nation itself.

It is becoming increasingly difficult for the West to prolong recognizing the obvious, that the Syrian government has prevailed. In a recent TIME Magazine article titled, "In Syria, Victory is Written in Ruin," it admits:

Defying expectations that he would be the next domino to fall in the Arab Spring's chute of regional dictators, Assad stands stronger than ever. His military, augmented by fighters from the Lebanon-based Shi'ite militia Hizballah, funded in part by Iran and armed with Russian weapons and ammunition, has consolidated control over a strategic corridor connecting the capital, Damascus, to the coast.

TIME then attempts to make excuses as to why Syrians support the government. The article claims:

...the war's toll has more and more Syrians turning, reluctantly, toward the regime. Not because they support Assad but because they are desperate to return to some semblance of normal life.

But perhaps the most deliberate distortion TIME makes is its revision of how the war unfolded in the first place. It claims:

For the rebel brigades and exiled opposition leaders, the involvement of extremist groups was an unfortunate stain on an otherwise pure uprising against tyranny. To the regime, it was proof of a foreign-funded scheme to destabilize Syria.

During a recent interview with Diane Sawyer, Hillary Clinton claimed that Bill and her were "dead broke" when they left the White House. And then on Sunday, Hillary told the Guardian that they are not "truly well off" despite having earned about a hundred million dollars since leaving the White House and owning a couple of luxury homes. This is yet another shocking example of how disconnected our political elite have become to the rest of the American people. Perhaps Hillary Clinton is not "truly well off" when compared to some of the ultra-wealthy individuals that she rubs shoulders with at Democratic fundraisers, but according to numbers provided by the Social Security Administration, the Clintons would easily be in the top 0.01% of all income earners in America since leaving the White House. So was Hillary Clinton joking, or is she really this out of touch with ordinary Americans?

Russia believes that the UN Security Council should examine the problem of illegal exports of crude oil from Iraq and Syria, the revenues from which replenish the financial resources of terrorist organizations, including the fast-growing Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), Russian Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin said Monday upon the results of a meeting devoted to the situation in the Middle East.

He said the Russian delegation indicated during the conference, which had been partly held behind closed doors, that the terrorists' activity was not confined to a single country.

"We also called the Security Council's attention to the problem of financing terrorism," Churkin said. "In the case of ISIS, the militants' ability to export oil especially rings an alarm because it enables them to engage in terrorism."

While the Western media portray the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant as a group of jihadists reciting the Qur'an, the ISIL has started the oil war in Iraq. With the help of Israel, it has cut off Syria's supply and guaranteed the theft of oil from Kirkuk by the local government of Kurdistan. The sale will be assured by Aramco who will camouflage this diversion as increased "Saudi" production.

For the Atlanticist press, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). which has just invaded the north and west of Iraq. is a group of jihadists led by their faith, the Koran in one hand and a Kalashnikov in the other. For those who have suffered their abuses, including in Syria, it is a private army of mercenaries, composed from the four corners of the Earth and managed by American, French and Saudi officers - dividing the region to allow easier control by the colonial powers.

Germany has decided its gold is safe in American hands.

Surging mistrust of the euro during Europe's debt crisis fed a campaign to bring Germany's entire $141 billion gold reserve home from New York and London. Now, after politics shifted in Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition, the government has concluded that stashing half its bullion abroad is prudent after all.

"The Americans are taking good care of our gold," Norbert Barthle, the budget spokesman for Merkel's Christian Democratic bloc in parliament, said in an interview. "Objectively, there's absolutely no reason for mistrust."

Ending talk of repatriating the world's second-biggest gold reserves removes a potential irritant in U.S.-German relations. It's also a rebuff to critics including the anti-euro Alternative for Germany party, which says all the gold should return to Frankfurt so it can't be impounded to blackmail Germany into keeping the currency union together.

At some point in time, the DHS and members of its Joint Terrorism Task Force must have viewed Joe Dante's John Carpenter's cult classic They Live and saw in it a blueprint for future actions. If you're not familiar with the premise, an average guy construction worker is given a pair of sunglasses that reveal the world for what it actually is -- controlled by aliens who pacify the populace by subliminally pushing them to obey, conform and consume.
Remember a few weeks back when we discussed the DHS Fusion Centers' use of powerful investigative tools like Twitter searches and The Google to investigate such harmful Occupy Wall Street-related activities like not participating in Black Friday sales or cutting up people's credit cards (at their request). Anti-consumerist is anti-government, apparently. It makes for a great conspiracy theory -- one that implies the government is actually run by corporations.

It doesn't seem to be much of a "theory," though. Given the number of active revolving doors that accomodate lobbyists, representatives and board members every time someone shouts "Change places!" there's little evidence out there to dispel this perception. The business of government is apparently business. The FBI worked with banks and Wall Street itself to ferret out certain Occupy protesters, going so far as to keep an assassination plot against Occupy leaders under wraps.

The Fusion Centers' ability to treat nearly every submission with complete credulity has only added to the mismanaged mess, which resulted in the agency's underlings breathlessly exchanging Facebook links to planned disruptions like protests of irresponsible lending processes and the singing of Christmas carols at a "high-profile, undisclosed location."

United States President Barack Obama has landed himself a last-place spot according to a new poll that measured the favorable ratings of the five living former and current American commanders-in-chief.

Results from a Gallup poll released over the weekend suggest that Bill Clinton is the living US president viewed in the most positive light, earning himself a favorable rating of 64 percent.

According to the poll, 63 percent of Americans think favorably of former president George H.W. Bush, who beat out his son George W. Bush by 10 whole percentage points. Among the living former US presidents, Jimmy Carter came in last place with a 52 percent favorable rating over 32 percent unfavorable and 16 percent with no opinion.

The current commander-in-chief, Barack Obama, was considered favorable by only 47 percent of the Americans polled by Gallup. Obama is also the only president who's unfavorable rating - 52 percent - surpassed the proportion of those who think positively of him, earning himself a net-negative reading.

On the Gallup website, however, writers there say the implications of the latest survey aren't anything to be taken too seriously.

"Americans are largely forgiving of former presidents, as each of the four living ex-presidents had times in office when they had job approval ratings below 40 percent, if not 30 percent," pollsters write on the Gallup site.

"Obama's current favorable ratings are the worst of his presidency, and they are worse than former presidents' ratings. No matter how popular or unpopular he is when he leaves office in a little more than two years, Americans' views of Obama personally should improve once he becomes a former president."

The results also clash to a degree with a separate survey taken last November by Gallup in which pollsters asked for Americans to describe the last 11 presidents as leading administrations that were outstanding, average or poor. According to the results of that poll, 28 percent of Americans said Pres. Obama will go down in history as being an "outstanding/above average" president, coming in fifth place behind Presidents Kennedy, Reagan, Clinton and Eisenhower. According to that survey, Americans believed they would go on to remember the Obama administration as being more successful than that of Carter and both Bush presidents.

The company behind the backscatter imaging technology rampant in American airports is back with a new invention: a handheld X-ray "gun" capable of seeing through various types of material.

According to national security website Defense One, the device has been dubbed the "Mini Z" portable scanner and it's capable of capturing transparent images and sending them to other devices, such as laptops or tablets. The scanner's manufacturer, American Science and Engineering (AS&E), is currently offering the device to the US military, law enforcement agencies and border patrol officials.

A staggering crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border has left federal officials scrambling to provide basic human necessities to thousands of undocumented immigrants - most of them unaccompanied children - who have flowed over the divide.

The office of U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), who represents the district including the southern border town of Laredo, provided Business Insider with photos showing just how bad the conditions are at one federal facility where some of these immigrants are being held.

Cuellar's office said the photos were taken recently in a Customs and Border Protection facility in south Texas. The congressman's office declined to identify the exact source or location of the photos to protect the source's identity.

Overall, the pictures show some of the stark challenges facing immigrants as well as federal officials attempting to address the flood of people streaming over the border. In many cases, the undocumented immigrants are crammed into rooms with nowhere to sleep or even sit. And in at least one case (the first photo below), one of the immigrants has rashes that Cuellar's office said were reported to be either scabies or chickenpox.

Although the U.S. State Department recently singled out Russia by name to criticize its law prohibiting homosexual propaganda aimed at youth, the same State Department refused to comment on Saudi Arabia where homosexual conduct is punishable by death.

On Oct. 24, Uzra Zeya, the acting assistant secretary of the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, spoke at the ILGA-Europe annual conference in Zagrab, Croatia. ILGA is the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association. In her remarks, Secretary Zeya said that promotion of human rights, including those for LGBT people, is a "foreign policy priority" of the United States.

Zeya praised new hate crimes legislation in Europe and then said, "But the United States remains extremely concerned about negative trends in a number of countries. The anti-gay propaganda law in Russia and the proposed law to strip gay parents of their parental rights are alarming."

"Laws, even when it is unclear how they will be enforced, are incredibly important," she said. "They are a statement of a country's values and they have a teaching effect. Laws that validate discrimination, as we have seen in Russia, can lead to an increase in violence and harassment. This is particularly true when authorities don't act to protect all of their citizens and when they fail to investigate and prosecute crimes committed by or against particular groups."