Puppet Masters
Some 30 civilians, mostly women and children, were killed and 150 were injured as a result of bombings of Aleppo's dormitories, the Russian Defense Ministry reported Saturday. The attacks were carried out by US-backed "moderates," joined by al-Nusra Front, in the midst of 72-hour ceasefire. At the same time, the population of Aleppo, the country's largest city, remains besieged with not enough food and fuel.
"Over the past few days, there has been no ceasefire on the ground," Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr said. "On the ground, there is no truce and the violence continues."
Lockheed Martin renewed threats to engage in economic reprisals against Canada if the country refuses to purchase the much maligned F-35 Lightning at a time when the country seems to be leaning towards Boeing's Super Hornet on grounds of both capabilities and costs.
The F-35 has become a headache for Western leaders in recent months facing a new round of delays after failing to meet a critical testing deadline due to a software glitch that causes the plane to sporadically shutdown midflight and recent revelations that the plane's Martin Baker ejection seat will immediately snap the neck of and potentially decapitate all pilots under 135 pounds with a heightened risk to pilots between 135 and 160 pounds.
If killer ejection seats and the inability to stay in the sky wasn't cause enough for concern, recent test trials show that the next-generation fighter jet would be smoked in a dogfight against the several decades old F-16 fighter jet leading to questions about whether the fighter jet really possesses the capabilities that Western militaries are looking for.
Comment: Such is the power of the military-industrial complex.
Back in May a full three weeks prior to the start of Ramadan month, ISIS spokesman Abu Mohamed al-Adnani pronounced the rally cry to warn the world:
Ramadan, the month of conquest and jihad. Get prepared, be ready to make it a month of calamity everywhere for the non-believers, especially for the fighters and supporters of the caliphate in Europe and America.In the twisted Islamic State terrorist version of Ramadan, Allah favors martyrdom sacrifice during the holy month and opens the gates of heaven to those who die for their Muslim cause. On the 27th day of Ramadan, celebrated as the Day of for Mohammed's first writing of the Koran the worst attacks occurred
Comment: The author is absolutely correct for putting these terror events in a 'cosmic context'. See:
Sott Exclusive: Nemesis, not 'Nibiru' - Clarifying mainstream reports about 'a large ninth planet' that periodically sends comets our way
On July 8, Russian military instructor pilots conducted a test flight of a Syrian Mi-25 helicopter (export version of the Mi-24 helicopter), when it received a request from the Syrian authorities to carry out airstrikes against a large group of Daesh terrorists advancing to the east of Palmyra, the ministry said.
The Russian crew of the helicopter repelled the attack of a large Daesh group of fighters on the Syrian government forces.
"The crew received a request from the Syrian unit's command to strike the advancing fighters. The captain, Ryafagat Khabibulin, made a decision to attack the terrorists. The skillful actions of the Russian crew thwarted the terrorists' advance. When the helicopter's ammunition was spent and it changed its course to the opposite direction, it was shot down by terrorists from the ground and crashed in an area controlled by the Syrian government army. The helicopter's crew was killed."
The killed Russian pilots, Ryafagat Khabibulin and Yevgeny Dolgin, will be posthumously awarded, the ministry said.
The four battalions NATO is deploying cannot threaten Russia. There's been some wild talk of how German tanks have for the first time since the end of the Second World War moved closer to St. Petersburg. I recently visited St. Petersburg. Any idea that NATO could capture or even seriously threaten St. Petersburg with just four battalions - around 3,000 men - when Hitler's Army Group North with 23 divisions backed by a Finnish army consisting of a further 7 divisions couldn't capture it, is simply silly.
Not only is the force NATO is deploying to Poland and the Baltic States incapable of seriously threatening Russia but in the event of a Russian attack it wouldn't even be able to defend itself. Media commentary in the West admits as much. It says the NATO troops are simply intended to be a "trip-wire" to deter a Russian attack on Poland and the Baltic States.
No Russian attack is planned or threatened against either Poland or the Baltic States. No one is seriously claiming there is the slightest possibility of such an attack. If NATO leaders genuinely feared such an attack they would not deploy troops to the Baltic States on what would in effect be a suicide mission, where they would be immediately overrun by the overwhelmingly stronger armies the Russians could immediately deploy to the area. Even NATO generals are not that stupid.
Comment: If this is the case, it is an outrageous bluff at outrageous expense to just change people's perception of Russia to one of "the enemy." OK, then what? It is equally likely that the deployments are mission creep for a unipolar takeover, a resource grab, the downsizing of world population and a distraction to a looming, last-leg, global economic disaster. Who benefits? The usual suspects...
Manning, as you might recall, is the Benedict Arnold turncoat who exposed U.S. war crimes and is now serving 35 solitary years in a military prison in Kansas. This venomous traitor should not be confused with Mrs. Clinton, who created a private e-mail server to avoid FOIA requests, shared classified material with her posse of yesmen, sold her influence in the State Department to the highest bidders, attempted to destroy evidence of criminal wrongdoing, and will almost certainly be our next president.
The media has focused primarily on how Clinton mishandled sensitive or classified material, but the worst of her crimes have remained hidden from the public.
As Politico points out, there's a very good reason why Hillary deleted thousands of "private" emails:
The Clinton Foundation is a massive money-laundering scheme. Money goes in, State Department weapons deals come out.[T]here's an email silence in June 2010, when Hillary Clinton was in South America for a series of high-level meetings. According to her memoir, "by coincidence" Bill was in Bogota, Colombia, apparently for Clinton Foundation work, at the same time she was in the country. Also there with Bill was Frank Giustra, one of the Clinton Foundation's largest contributors. Bill, Hillary and Giustra reportedly had dinner together, and the next morning, Bill met with Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe, followed immediately by Hillary's meeting with Uribe. In the weeks that follow, Giustra's companies scored concessions from the Colombian government on matters ranging from oil to timber.
Sorry, but it's not a vast right-wing conspiracy: The Clintons have been up to their eyeballs in shady deals and corruption scandals since their humble country bumpkin beginnings in Arkansas, which strangely enough was the staging ground for a massive CIA cocaine drug smuggling operation while Bill was governor. Coincidence or fate?
Enough already. When you're taking millions of dollars from the Saudis, and private rides on the "Lolita Express", you have no business being anywhere near the White House.
Just imagine the nightmare before us: Four years of Hillary Clinton lecturing the rest of the world about human rights and the rule of law; four years of Libya-style "humanitarian interventions"; four years of Boss Tweed in a pantsuit.
Crime doesn't pay? Tell that to the Clintons. Lie, cheat and steal and maybe one day you can be president, too.
By the end of 2016, the JIDO with a budget to deal with new IED threats that emerged during the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, will become a permanent establishment under the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. The new agency is set to deal with the full range of improvised threats emerging around the world, yet its priority is to engage IED and drone threats posed by Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) and those that emerge in the course of operation Resolute Support, the US assist and advise mission to Afghanistan's security forces.
"This effort will fill critical capability gaps defined in the Counter-Unmanned Aerial Systems Joint Urgent Operational Needs Statement (JUONS) to support counter-improvised explosive devices (C-IEDs) and improvised threat capability requirements in support of Counter-Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and Resolute Support (C-ISIL/RS) missions," Defense News quotes the reprogramming document.
The program will focus on creating a means to detect and defeat small and tactical unmanned aerial systems posing a "direct threat to US and coalition forces," the document says.
Comment: There is always the slim possibility that the $20M will actually be used as promised. If so, there is always the slim possibility that the drone technology will remain a Pentagon secret. If so, there is always the slim possibility that this program will actually have any effect on deterring IS, be it an honest try. There is a higher possibility that it will become a covert assist.
This is a statement of fact. But NATO does not dwell on facts; only myths. One of the Beltway's ironclad myths is that NATO periodically drags the US back into its "traditional role" of guaranteeing the security of Europe. It's actually the other way around; Washington periodically needs to re-imprint on European vassals the absolute need for more NATO.
For too long NATO had been focusing on "out of area" operations; since at least 1993, when the concept first sprang up.

Activists display a sign in the March Against Monsanto that took place on May 25, 2013 in San Francisco, California.
The bill, which would create a nationwide system for identifying some GM foods, cleared a motion to end debate on Wednesday, by a 65-32 vote.
A simple majority is now needed for the legislation to pass a full Senate vote, which is expected before the week is over.
As detailed in Part I of this article, the health benefits of cannabis are now well established. It is a cheap, natural alternative effective for a broad range of conditions, and the non-psychoactive form known as hemp has thousands of industrial uses. At one time, cannabis was one of the world's most important crops. There have been no recorded deaths from cannabis overdose in the US, compared to about 30,000 deaths annually from alcohol abuse (not counting auto accidents), and 100,000 deaths annually from prescription drugs taken as directed. Yet cannabis remains a Schedule I controlled substance ("a deadly dangerous drug with no medical use and high potential for abuse"), illegal to be sold or grown in the US.














Comment: Further reading: