One of the weirdest things about the post-Iraq invasion world is how the mass media has actually gotten less accountable instead of more accountable for its reporting since that time.

Right now in the UK there's an amazingly viral smear campaign against Jeremy Corbyn running across all mainstream outlets, which, from what I can tell, consists entirely of narrative spin and no actual evidence. The powerful elites who control British mass media have an obvious vested interest in keeping the UK government from moving to the left, so they advance the absolutely insane narrative that Corbyn is a secret Nazi. They just keep saying it and saying it like it's true until people start believing it without feeling any pressure at all to substantiate their narrative with facts. It's been jaw-dropping to watch.


More and more we are seeing narratives about cyber-threats being used to advance reports of "attacks" and "acts of war" being perpetrated which, as far as the public is concerned, consist of nothing other than the authoritative assertions of confident-sounding media pundits. There was a recent NBC exclusive which was co-authored by Ken Dilanian, who is an actual, literal CIA asset, about the threat of hackers working for the Iranian government. The alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US elections is now routinely compared to Pearl Harbor and 9/11, despite no hard, verifiable evidence that that interference even took place ever being presented to the public.

As atrocities and scandal begin to mount regarding the US-backed Saudi-led war on the impoverished nation of Yemen, the involvement and hypocrisy of the United States and other Western backers is coming to full light.

Global condemnation of Saudi airstrikes on civilian targets has brought public attention to Washington's role in the conflict - a role the Western media has attempted to downplay for years. It is ironic, or perhaps telling, that alternative media outlets targeted as "Russian influence" are leading coverage of Yemen's growing humanitarian catastrophe.

US Denies Role in Proxy War That Couldn't be Fought Without It

In a recent press conference, US Secretary of Defense James Mattis - when asked about the US role in the Yemeni conflict in regards to Saudi atrocities - would claim:

We are not engaged in the civil war. We will help to prevent, you know, the killing of innocent people.

Yet nothing could be further from the truth.

Mattis himself would lobby US Congress earlier this year to continue US support for Saudi-led operations in Yemen.

In the aftermath of Boris Johnson's "letterboxes and criminals" characterization of Muslim women who wear the burqa, and the calls for censorship of hate speech that resulted, supposedly level-headed social philosopher types have again made the point that censorship of such 'hate speech' will just push those opinions underground and embolden those that hold them. The correct response, indeed the solution to the problem (we're told) is not less speech but more speech; all opinions should be allowed so we can 'get them out there' and debate them and come to a sensible consensus.

This line of argumentation assumes that if racists, and in particular Islamophobes, are allowed to have their say, not only will their arguments be easily exposed for the ignorant diatribes they are, but that it will quickly become clear to all that such people are in the extreme minority in the civilized West. In that way, the theory goes, these people will be effectively silenced without resorting to restricting free speech. But there's a problem.

The problem is that it's not reasonable to suggest that the majority of 'Islamophobes' in Europe today are knuckle-dragging throwbacks to the pre-Enlightenment era who are instinctively suspicious of anything with which they are unfamiliar, hence their Islamophobia. The average Islamophobe in Europe today is, rather, a person who has been paying very close attention to the words and deeds of Western politicians and media pundits over the past 17 years. And what he/she has been hearing from those authoritative sources is that Muslims are terrorists with a rather strong aversion to Western people and their 'way of life'.

Since taking office a year and a half ago, the allegations of 'collusion' between U.S. President Donald Trump's election campaign and the Russian government have buried nearly all other substantive issues in regards to his administration. This hasn't been limited to marginalizing reportage of destructive domestic legislation or the escalation of endless war abroad. It has successfully diverted attention away from other foreign governments shaping U.S. policy and elections. The media has even downplayed Trump's sycophantic behavior towards other heads of state in favor of their pathological obsession with his perceived obsequiousness toward Russian President Vladimir Putin. This is largely because "Russiagate" is not based on facts or evidence, but a psychological operation conducted by the intelligence community through mass media disseminating suggestive and pre-selected disinformation about Trump and Russia. Not only has it enabled the national security state and political establishment to neutralize the anti-Trump "resistance", it has become a smokescreen for the 'collusion' between Trump and the state of Israel, which continues to guide his decision-making.

One month after his shocking victory and before his inauguration, one of the top members of Trump's transition team, National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, directly contacted members of the UN Security Council and urged them to block a draft resolution that condemned illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory. General Flynn corresponded with diplomats from several foreign governments (including Russia) to learn their stance on the resolution and tried to persuade them to vote against it. Flynn would later plead guilty to making false statements to the FBI about his discussions with the Russian Ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak. The Israeli government candidly admitted to seeking help from Trump's transition team and it was his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who put Flynn up to the task. However, it is not unusual for foreign officials to communicate with an incoming administration and Flynn lobbied envoys from other nations in addition to Russia.

Are you 'woke'? Besides it being grammatically-incorrect, what does this term mean to you? We have to ask because in these times of raging polemic about social justice, identity politics, and cultural values, it's become apparent that what it is to be 'woke' means different things to different people...

This week on NewsReal, Joe & Niall discuss being 'awake and aware' in a world riven by ardent commitment to ideology, and consider where it'll likely all lead to.


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This month was marked by incredible amounts of water falling in a very short period of time all over the world; killing thousands, displacing millions... and damaging more crops.

China, South Korea, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, South Africa, Nepal, Pakistan, India, Sweden, Russia, Italy and the US, were the most affected by the sheets of rain and the resulting flash floods during July. Japan also experienced an historic flood that caused widespread damage, 200 deaths and thousands displaced.

Italy, Brazil and South Africa all had their share of unseasonable or 'rare' snow this month, leaving the local population rather surprised.

As the 'heavens opened' in many places, high temperatures, droughts and wildfires hit California, Sweden, Norway, and Greece; the latter being the worst affected with 94 deaths, hundreds of displaced, 2,500 square kilometers ravaged with hundreds of people forced to flee to the beaches.

There were significant fires in California, but no record was broken, until now, the fire of 1937 maintains the record with almost 90,000 square kilometers burned. Even combining all of the hectares burned by fire in California in the last five years aren't enough to beat that 1937 record. In addition, since the 1930s there has been a net decrease in the incidence of fires in the state.

The same applies to the fires that developed in Europe, no records were beaten and there has been a significant drop in the incidence of fires since the 1980s, as Adapt 2030 has stated. The high temperatures recorded in July in Europe do not compare to those of the 1930s, not to mention the extreme heat experienced in Europe and much of the US over several years in the late 19th century.

Again, we see the mass media focusing and magnifying the localized incidences of high temperatures and wildfires; one headline even stated that the world hasn't experienced such high temperatures since the emergence of our civilization (10,000 years ago), a statement that is just plain wrong.

The Earth's surface temperatures are indeed rising due to geologic and volcanic activity, and the more direct incidence of solar rays due to the weakening of the magnetosphere. But forgotten amid the hype is that temperatures in higher layers of the atmosphere have been plummeting. Proof of this is seen in the increasing incidence of solar and lunar halos, noctilucent clouds, multicolored steles, ever-growing hailstorms and of course, unseasonable snowfalls. And let's not forget that we had rare snow events in the northern and southern hemispheres in both June and July this year.

So don't be fooled, many of the earth changes we are now seeing are due to the low solar activity, the weakening of the magnetosphere, as well as the cosmic rays maximum. And all these changes are not specific to our Earth, we are finding parallels in other planets of our solar system. As someone said, "not by fire, but by ice..."

Traditionally a male institution, the last decades have seen the rise of policies that push for equal inclusion of women in all areas of military service. But they're not working, for some strange reason. Men still dominate militaries all over the world, including in western democracies. This has led to charges of systemic discrimination, misogyny and toxic masculinity. But no worry, the gender activists have the solution: affirmative action, including special woman-only incentives to attract them into the military.

But will these additional policies work? Or will they only result in a more 'toxic' military atmosphere? Are the ideals of 'diversity, inclusivity, and equity' compatible with the purpose of a military as an effective fighting force, or are they mutually exclusive? Today on the Truth Perspective we look at recent developments of gender politics in the military, with Australia as a case study and ask the question: are such policies making the military a better institution, or just making it weak?

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While writing my book on the Syrian war, I came across several disturbing videos. In one, Syrian rebels destroyed a church and riddled the Cross with bullets; in another terrifying video, an armed Syrian rebel asks someone if he was a Sunni or an Alawite (Shiite Muslim). When the victim says, "Alawite," the rebel fires multiple rounds and kills the victim. Such psychopaths have three qualities: (1) Fanatic belief in their ideology (2) Inability to sympathize with other people's point of view, and (3) Refusal to coexist with others who are different.

If half of what I have come to understand about the Curious Case of Bill Browder is true, then the "Magnitsky Trio" of Senators John McCain, Lindsay Graham and Ben Cardin are guilty of espionage, at a minimum.

Why? Because they know that Browder's story about Sergei Magnitsky is a lie. And that means that when you tie in the Trump Dossier, Christopher Steele, Fusion GPS, the Skripal poisoning and the rest of this mess, these men are consorting with foreign governments and agencies against the sitting President.

As Lee Stranahan pointed out recently on Fault Lines, Cardin invited Browder to testify to Congress in 2017 to push through last year's sanctions bill, a more stringent version of the expiring Magnitsky Act of 2011, which has since been used to ratchet up pressure on Russia.

RT's special reports about the humanitarian crisis in the Iraqi city of Mosul has netted the network its sixth International Emmy Awards nomination, earning recognition for a story that went largely ignored in western media.

The finalists for the Emmy in the News category, announced on Monday, included RT's #MosulSOS, a series of reports and a social media campaign aimed at highlighting the plight of civilians fleeing the Iraqi city as US-backed forces laid siege to the former Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIL/ISIS) stronghold. In order to raise awareness about the humanitarian disaster occurring, RT launched the campaign #MosulSOS on social media in March 2017.

RT's Murad Gazdiev reported on the ground from Mosul, where he spoke with locals whose tragic stories about the destruction of their city never seemed to make western headlines. Those who managed to flee the carnage provided Murad with stories that often contradicted the US-led coalition's narrative of a precise, targeted bombing campaign.