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How Obama's 'Reset Man', Michael McFaul, torpedoed US-Russia relations

Scott Ritter
The American Conservative
Tue, 28 May 2019 00:00 UTC
Obama and McFaul
© Official White House Photo/Pete Souza
President Obama is briefed by U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul during a flight to Moscow, Russia, July 5, 2009.
To get a sense of why Putin meddled in our elections one need go no further than the Obama administration's hijinks. Post-Mueller report insanity has gripped the nation. In between Presidential proclamations that the report provides proof of his exoneration, and Democratic declarations that the report contains evidence of crimes deserving of impeachment, lies the reality of U.S.-Russian relations, and the fact that these two nations live in a world where their combined nuclear arsenals can eliminate humanity as we know it.

While President Trump struggles to gain traction for his campaign promise to better relations, his political opponents are stuck in a time warp that has them reliving the 2016 Presidential election and its allegations of Russian interference.

Americans have every right to be concerned about the prospects of Russian interference in elections which serve as the foundation of American democracy. However, in seeking to find a solution to the problems that plague the relationship, it is imperative that the American people understand how we got to where we are today. You can't solve a problem without first accurately defining the problem, and as such any examination of the Genesis of the he-said/she-said aspects of alleged Russian interference in 2016 must take into account the fact that, if anything, the Russians were reacting to a lengthy history of U.S. interference in their internal affairs since the end of the Soviet Union in 1991.

One of the key players in this interference was Michael McFaul, a Stanford professor who, while serving as the U.S. Ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014, oversaw a policy of engagement with Moscow on behalf of the Obama administration and, when that policy failed, facilitated U.S. interference in the 2012 Russian Presidential election in an effort to keep Vladimir Putin out of office.
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Heart - Black

Before Epstein: Zwi Migdal was a Jewish organized-crime syndicate trafficking women and children for sex slavery

Gilad Atzmon
gilad.online
Thu, 29 Aug 2019 00:00 UTC
Jeffrey Epstein, Zwi Migdal
The story of Jeffrey Epstein has lost its mystery as more and more commentators allow themselves to express the thought that it is a strong possibility that Epstein was connected to a crime syndicate affiliated with a Zionist political organisation or Israel and/or at least a few compromised intelligence agencies. Whitney Web and others have produced superb studies of possible scenarios, I would instead like to attack the topic from a cultural perspective. Epstein wasn't the first Jewish sex trafficker. This seems like a good time to look back at Zwi Migdal, a Jewish global crime syndicate that operated a century ago and trafficked tens of thousands of Jewish women and under age girls as sex slaves. According to contemporary Jewish writer Giulia Morpurgo the Zwi Migdal had turned Argentina, "into a nightmare of prostitution and exploitation."

During the first three decades of the 20th century Argentina was a rich country. It outgrew Canada and Australia in population, total income, and per capita income. Just before the first world war Argentina was the world's 10th wealthiest state per capita. When Argentina was a rich country, large parts of its economy, culture and politics were controlled by crime syndicates and particularly a Jewish organised crime apparatus named 'Zwi Migdal.'

Comment: Time after time, we have seen how government officials collude with criminals to protect human trafficking networks - they operate with impunity all over the world:

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Document

Living for the Angels: New RT documentary recalls the Beslan seige

Igor Ogorodnev
RT
Sun, 01 Sep 2019 16:38 UTC
terrorist truck
© RT / Screenshot from 'City of Angels' documentary
The truck used by the terrorists.
Fifteen years on, the terrorist attack that killed 334 victims -mostly children- still defines those who got out alive. In a new RT documentary, they return to the school gym where hostages were held, to face their own nightmares.

"This is bone cement. Here's a shunt. This is plastic. Titanium, titanium, titanium. Bone cement. Bone... Shunt, shunt. And another shunt. And more bone cement. Cement," Fatima Dzgoeva says, as she points to dents and bumps on her skull.

"I've had five surgeries on my scalp," she says, almost with pride, though her tone is hard to pinpoint, as Fatima's voice is slurred and missing consonants, a legacy of the brain damage she sustained when one of the terrorists' explosives detonated. She was just ten. After the siege, her head was covered in so many bandages her aunt Lana identified her only by a mole on her body.

Medics wouldn't let Lana identify Fatima's eight-year-old sister because her body was "too charred."

Fatima shows the film crew her rehab exercises - she boasts being almost able to touch her nose with her index finger. Lana then puts on an old video, in which an eerily carefree girl prances around on the first day of school.

Fatima Dzgoeva
© RT / Screenshot from 'City of Angels' documentary
Fatima Dzgoeva
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Info

Stone tools from Ice Age site, suggest the first Americans came from Japan

Kiona N. Smith
Ars Technica
Thu, 29 Aug 2019 18:37 UTC
Laser Sighting
© Loren Davis
Lasers help record the precise position of each artifact on the site.
Evidence from the Cooper's Ferry archaeological site in Western Idaho shows that people lived in the Columbia River Basin around 16,000 years ago. That's well before a corridor between ice sheets opened up, clearing an inland route south from the Bering land bridge. That suggests that people migrated south along the Pacific coast. Stone tools from the site suggest a possible connection between these first Americans and Northeast Asian hunter-gatherers from the same period.

Route closed due to ice

A piece of charcoal unearthed in the lowest layer of sediment that contains artifacts is between 15,945 and 15,335 years old, according to radiocarbon dating. More charcoal, from the remains of an ancient hearth pit, dated to between 14,075 and 15,195 years old. A few other pieces of bone and charcoal returned radiocarbon dates in the 14,000- to 15,500-year-old range. In higher, more recent layers, archaeologists found bone and charcoal as recent as 8,000 years old, with a range of dates in between.

This makes clear that people had been using the Cooper's Ferry site for a very long time, but it's hard to say whether they stuck around or just kept coming back. "Because we did not excavate the entire site, it is difficult to know if people occupied the site continuously starting at 16,000 years ago," Oregon State University archaeologist Loren Davis told Ars. "I expect that this site was used on a seasonal basis, perhaps as a base camp for hunting, gathering, and fishing activities."

Either way, the local Nimiipuu (Nez Perce) people know the site as the location of an ancient village called Nipéhe. "We worked with archaeologists and student interns from the Nez Perce Tribe who visited to get tours of the excavation and to participate in excavations at the site," said Davis.

Davis and his colleagues used a statistical model to calculate how old the very oldest layers of artifacts at the site should be. "The Bayesian model makes predictions about the age of the lower portion of [the excavated layers] based on the chronological trend of known radiocarbon ages in the upper and middle third," Davis explained. According to the model, the very oldest artifacts at Nipéhe are probably between 16,560 and 15,280 years old.

That's about 2,000 to 1,500 years before the great continent-spanning ice sheets of the Pleistocene began to break up. That break-up opened an ice-free corridor southward from the Bering land bridge between the towering sides of the Cordilleran and Laurentian ice sheets. According to computer simulations, that corridor was closed and buried under several kilometers of ice until at least 14,800 years ago, and possibly even later. And that has some important implications for when, and how, people first set foot in the Americas.
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Info

Ancient human ancestors breastfed for longer than contemporary relatives


University of Bristol
Thu, 29 Aug 2019 22:06 UTC
Fossilised Teeth
© Vincent Balter
The differences in dental morphology are obvious between Australopithecus africanus (TM1518 to the left) and early Homo (SK27 to the right), but these teeth are also different in their calcium stable isotopes compositions, unveiling group specific nursing behaviours.
By analysing the fossilised teeth of some of our most ancient ancestors, a team of scientists led by the universities of Bristol (UK) and Lyon (France) have discovered that the first humans significantly breastfed their infants for longer periods than their contemporary relatives.

The results, published in the journal Science Advances, provide a first insight into the practice of weaning that remain otherwise unseen in the fossil record.

The team sampled minute amounts from nearly 40 fossilised teeth of our South African fossil relatives, early Homo, Paranthropus robustus and Australopithecus africanus.

They measured the proportions of their stable calcium isotopes in the tooth enamel, which are a function of the mother milk intake by infants.

By reconstructing the age at tooth enamel development, they show that early Homo offspring was breastfed in significant proportions until the age of around three to four years, which likely played a role in the apparition of traits that are specific to human lineage, such as the brain development.

In contrast, infants of Paranthropus robustus, that became extinct around one million years ago and were a more robust species in terms of dental anatomy, as well as infants of Australopithecus africanus, stopped drinking sizeable proportions of mother milk in the course of the first months of life.
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Eiffel Tower

The Jacobin Terror 1789-1794: Just Another Color Revolution?

Matthew Ehret
Strategic Culture Foundation
Wed, 28 Aug 2019 17:51 UTC
french revolution guillotine
Long before the term "color revolution" ever existed as part of our geopolitical lexicon, the technique of directing violence-prone mobs towards the overthrow of their governments had been honed over centuries. Enflaming the rage of a mob and directing that rage towards the overthrow of established political structures only required money, propaganda and a few quality morality-free rhetoricians.

I was shocked to discover, upon reading the 2001-2002 studies published by historian Pierre Beaudry (Why France Did Not Have a French Revolution and Jean-Sylvain Bailly: The French Revolution's Benjamin Franklin1), that the common narrative of the French Revolution is little more than British myth making that bears little to no resemblance to reality as it happened.

The World in 1789

The period was a ripe one in human affairs. The American Revolution's success finalized at the 1783 Treaty of Paris had sent shockwaves of hope throughout the world. The idea that the long night of empire that had bled the Old World for eons could possibly end was electrifying. It was generally understood by all that for the annihilation of the hereditary order to occur beyond the 13 colonies, it would have to enter Europe through France. Although patriots from many nations across Europe assisted the Americans (including Russians, Germans, Polish and Irish) France had after all been the most supportive to the American Revolution's struggle with thousands of French soldiers joining the fight under the Marquis Lafayette and vital financial, political and military aid provided throughout.
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Broom

Aquelarre: Catalonia celebrates its 42nd 'witches sabbath' festival

Oliver Little
Catalan News
Fri, 30 Aug 2019 10:39 UTC
Aquelarre festival

Aquelarre festival in Cervera
For the 42nd year, Catalonia's 2019 Culture Capital, Cervera, will host its iconic Aquelarre festival, otherwise known as "witches' Sabbath", and yes, it's exactly as it sounds.

The small town's population is expected to more than triple this weekend, and visitors will spend over a million euros to enjoy what the town has to offer.

Here's a bitesized all-you-need-to-know ahead of the most unholy weekend in Catalonia.

Aquelarre?

Comment: Catalan Today provides a bit more information on this curious festival:
One of the main centerpieces of the fireworks show is the Diables (devils). They are people disguised as devils dancing around with sticks in their hands lit up with huge noisy sparklers. People on the street run under the sparks to dance and jump along with them. The Ball de Diables (devils dance) is a traditional dance originating in Catalonia, although it is also observed in the Valencian Community and the Balearic Islands. It is not certain where this tradition comes from, but it is believed to originate from medieval street theater.

Theatrical performance

Theatrical performance was precisely one of the key elements during this weekend's celebration in Cervera. This year, the staged "witches' Sabbath" was dedicated to death and soul purging and exploring the duality between good and evil, between earthly paradise and the underworld. Around 50 actors and actresses, percussionists and members of different entities participated in the show directed by Albert Parra from the local theatre company Alea Teatre. The show was designed to be enjoyed from a 360-degree angle with moving elements creating a dialogue between the performance and the audience.
And from Wiki:
Nevertheless, the black he-Goat or Akerbeltz is known in Basque mythology to be an attribute of goddess Mari and is found in a Roman age slab as a votive dedication: Aherbelts Deo ("to the god Aherbelts") (see: Aquitanian language)..

From the point of view of anthropology, akelarres would be the remains of pagan rites that were celebrated in clandestinity due to its banning by religious authorities at that time.

Similar celebrations

Similar celebrations spread over the Pyrenees mountains in the Basque Country, Aragon, Catalonia and Occitania. Shepherds brought these beliefs on the way of their annual migration of sheep (transhumance) from mountains to the flatlands.
So the real origins and meaning behind Aquelarre/Akelarre remain pretty obscure, but it does seem to retain some similarities with other celebrations around the world:

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Star of David

'But Sir, It's an American Ship.' 'Never Mind, Hit Her!' When Israel Knowingly Attacked USS Liberty

Ofer Aderet
Haaretz
Thu, 29 Aug 2019 16:44 UTC
USS Liberty
© Unknown
USS Liberty after the attack
Amid the jubilee celebrations for the Six-Day War, the tragic story of the American spy ship USS Liberty - which was bombed by an Israeli fighter jet and torpedo boats on June 8, 1967 in the eastern Mediterranean - was somewhat overlooked. Thirty-four American sailors were killed in the Israeli attack and many others were wounded.

Israel apologized and paid compensation to the victims' families. Israeli and American commissions of inquiry found that the attack was a mistake. But naturally, as often happens in such events, to this day there are some who believe Israel attacked the ship with malicious intent.

A conspiracy? Healthy suspicion? Call it what you will. A new book published in May in the United States (its authors include several survivors of the attack) promises that "the truth is being told as never before and the real story revealed." The 302 pages of "Remember the Liberty!: Almost Sunk by Treason on the High Seas" include quite a number of documents, testimonies, arguments and information that were gathered in the subsequent 50 years.

The authors' bottom line is that then-U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson was behind the attack, in an attempt to blame then-Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser - an excuse that would then enable the United States to join the Six-Day War.

Comment: See also:

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Sun

'Spanish Stonehenge' resurfaces following drought in Extremadura

Fiona Govan
TheLocal.es
Thu, 22 Aug 2019 13:10 UTC
Spain stonehenge
© Photos by Rubén Ortega Martín / Raíces de Peralêda
This year's drought may be a nightmare for farmers, but for archaeology buffs it has an unexpected silver lining.

As waters in a reservoir outside Peraleda de la Mata in Cáceres receded, a circle of megalithic standing stones emerged from the deep.

The stones, that date from the second and third millennium BC, form the site of a sun temple on the banks of the River Tagus and were last seen by locals six decades ago before the area was flooded during the Franco-era to create a reservoir.


Comment: England's Stonehenge was situated near the River Avon.


Excited locals have been making trips out to view the stones that had formed a part of local legend.

"We grew up hearing about the legend of the treasure hidden beneath the lake and now we finally get to view them," Angel Castaño told the Local.

Comment: A great many sights, some never seen before, have been revealed from the unusual droughts across the planet in recent years: See also:

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Gold Coins

1,000 year old coin hoard is UK's most valuable collection ever discovered - UPDATE: Medieval tax scam?

James Gant
Daily Mail
Tue, 27 Aug 2019 19:24 UTC
Anglo-Saxon

The 2,571 silver coins are made up of King Harold II (pictured) pennies from the end of Anglo-Saxon England and William the Conqueror coins, after the 1066 Norman conquest
A metal-detecting couple have found one of the biggest treasure hoards in British history which is believed to be worth around £5million.

Adam Staples and partner Lisa Grace unearthed the 'once in a lifetime' find of almost 2,600 ancient coins that date back 1,000 years.

Although the find is smaller than the famous Staffordshire Hoard - the biggest collection of buried coins and artefacts discovered in Britain - it is thought to be at least £1million more valuable.

The 2,571 silver coins are made up of King Harold II pennies from the end of Anglo-Saxon England and William the Conqueror coins, after the 1066 Norman conquest.

Comment: Insights derived from ancient coinage can be invaluable; date stamps, heraldry, purity, and so on, can often provide a much more impartial view of history; and sometimes in stark contrast to the official narrative: UPDATE 29th August 2019:

The Guardian reports on the speculation surrounding the recent find:
The British Museum announced the discovery of the coins from a pivotal moment in English history on Wednesday. Some depict Harold II, the last crowned Anglo-Saxon king of England, and an almost equal amount show the man who replaced him after the Battle of Hastings in 1066, William the Conqueror, the first Norman king of England.

Gareth Williams, the museum's curator of early medieval coinage, said the hoard of 2,528 coins was unusually large and "massively important" in shining light on the history of the period.

"One of the big debates amongst historians is the extent to which there was continuity or change, both in the years immediately after the conquest and across a longer period," he said. "The coins help us understand how changes under Norman rule impacted on society as a whole."

Three of the coins have been identified as "mules", a combination of two types of coin - essentially an early form of tax-dodging by the moneyer, the person who made them.

coin hoard
© Aaron Chown/PA
Ian Richardson, treasure registrar at the British Museum, holding a rare example of a mule coin.
These coins have designs and language that relate to both Harold and William, and would have been easy to pass off as legal tender as the average Anglo-Saxon was illiterate and the stylised images of the kings looked similar.


They may have been illiterate but could they not differentiate between faces and symbols? Also, is it normal for two kings to have such similar coins? Does this assumption really explain what's going on?


The find was made in January in a farmer's field near the Chew Valley in Somerset by Lisa Grace and Adam Staples, a couple from Derbyshire who were teaching friends how to use their new metal detectors.

One of the friends came across a single William the Conqueror silver coin, "an amazing find in its own right", said Staples, something a detectorist might only find once in 30 years. "Two steps later, there was another signal and it was another coin. Then there were beeps everywhere, it took four or five hours to dig them all up."

They soon had a bucket containing a staggering number of coins, probably worth millions of pounds. The total hoard value would have been enough to buy a flock of 500 sheep in 1067-68, but its precise value today has yet to be revealed.

The legal process will involve a coroner's examination to confirm whether it is treasure. If it is, it will then be valued by an independent treasure valuation committee and museums will have to raise money to acquire the hoard. Interest has already been expressed by the Roman Baths and Pump Room in Bath.

The reward would then be shared between the land owner and the metal detectorists who made the discovery.

One of the most tantalising questions is why someone would bury so much money. Williams said the south-west of England was a violent place in the aftermath of 1066, with raids by the Welsh and the return of Harold's sons from Ireland.

"Imagine a period of instability with someone in charge of the country that not everybody actively supports and uncertainty in terms of the relationship with the continent," he said.

"It is the sort of circumstances in which anyone might choose to bury their money."


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