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Paul Craig Roberts takes the gloves off. 

One I missed from late October.

Not to mentiont that Russia has deployed its S-400 surface to air defense system to Syria, which is 2 generations later than the currently deployed U.S. Patriot systems. The S-400 can knock down aircraft or missiles flying up to 90,000 feet and travels at over 17,000 mph, very near Earth escape velocity. It has a lateral range of nearly 300 miles.

BRICS on the march.

The Saudi govenment has been making lots of threat about increasing aid and weapons for Sunni fighters in Syria to fight Russia. I wonder which side of that issue the CIA is on? (Note that U.S. DoD  Secretary Ash Carter has been publicly warning Russia that its intervention in Syria will povoke Islamic militants across the region and into Russia itself.) The Saudis have also been threatening to arm jihadis in Syria MANPAD should-fired anti-aircraft missiles that are capable of taking down Russian and Syrian fighters that would have to be provided by U.S. manufacturers. I don't know whether the Saudis already have more than enough for the nation's military defense forces. 

The scary part is not that Chris Christie is making such hare-brained statements. The scary part is that this is what the pollsters are telling him to say in order to retain a shot at the Republican nomination.  The neocon push for a no-fly zone and "safe zones" in Syria is a push for a game of chicken with nuclear-armed Russia. But it's checkers players against chess masters. And with NATO encircling Russia and pushing jihadis north into the Caucusus Mountains, this is an existential threat situation for Mr. Putin. 

Ron Paul racks up another near win, as conservative writer Alan Caruba smells the coffee and starts paying attention to the criminal enterprise known as the Federal Reserve Bankster Cartel.  It's about time.  But sadly there are too few conservatives paying attention to the money.  Sadly, conservatives choose to wallow in 1980 political issues where conservative social values and national security - military buildup were the concerns of the day. The truth is that it's always the money.  Follow the money!!  And all things will become clear.  Including how to get America back on track. excerpt: Anyone taking notice of Obama's latest budget has to conclude that his mission is to crash the nation's economy and turn America into a Socialist worker's paradise. The only problem is that Socialism has been a dismal failure everywhere it has been tried. One only has to look at the collapse of the Soviet Union for confirmation of that, the Chinese abandonment of Communist economic theory, and Obama's odd notion that a nation can spend itself out of ever-increasing debt. I am not a fan of Paul's isolationism, but he is absolutely right about getting rid of the Federal Reserve. Established in 1913, the same year income taxes were instituted, the Reserve is not part of the federal government. It is, in fact, privately owned by a consortium of banks and that might include foreign banks as well. In a remarkable essay, "10 Things That Every American Should Know About The Federal Reserve" by Michael T. Snyder, it is clear that the Constitution intended to have the U.S. Treasury to be soley responsible to "coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures." Synder points out that the Federal Reserve System (the Fed) is a privately owned banking cartel and one granted the right to create money out of thin air. It is, says Synder "a perpetual debt machine because "whenever more money is created, more debt is creat

The Williams article does no more than to sing to the choir and certainly is no scholarly work. First he stuffs the Nazis into his own "socialist" bag, ignoring the fact that the "socialist" label in the party name was only window dressing for what was in reality a mix of fascism and capitalism, not socialism. Then he declares that "communists" in the Soviet Union were responsible for mass murders, blinking past the fact that the Soviet Union was communist in name only. It was a fascist state during the entire period when the mass murders there took place and wound up an oligarchy before it died. "Communist China" likewise was never a communist state. It began as a socialist state ruled by an oligarchy, became near-fascist under Chairman Mao, and returned to being an oligarchy after his death, but this time sprouting capitalist wings. (Nixon removing the U.S. trade barriers with China had a lot to do with this.) Having stuffed everything in sight into his "socialist" bag, deserving or not, and labeling *all* socialists as government mass murders, Williams takes the insurmountable mental leap to paint groups like the "NAACP, the National Council of La Raza, Green for All, the Sierra Club and the Children's Defense Fund" as mass murderers, apparently should their views ever become dominant in the U.S. (Williams provides no connective tissue for his illogic there.) Then to top it all off, the web site's editor slaps a title on the essay lumping liberals and progressives in with the socialists, so apparently liberals and progressives are potential mass murderers too, which is unmistakably his innuendo. Williams seems to have a problem with organizations working *through our legal system* to expand civil liberties and to raise ethnic minorities out of poverty. Love 'em or hate 'em, those are not groups of mass murderers. Williams has the right to dislike those organizations. He also has the right to make absurd arguments, which he has fully exercised. But he wa

Fascinating in-depth article on the history of British spy agencies' incompetence. From the great MI5 media hoax during World War I that the agency's reputation was built upon through the failures to foresee the collapse of the Soviet Union and the false report of WMDs in Iraq, the author builds a compelling case that the excessive secrecy and incompetence of the British Security Service staff has resulted in a marvelous collection of wackos mired in fantasies of conspiracies within conspiracies who feed gullible journalists lie after lie. Very well-written, Interspersed with spot-on historical videos. Well worth the read and watch. I've highlighted only small tidbits to avoid playing the part of a spoiler.      

THE OBAMA WATCH Newt Gingrich begins his new book, To Save America: To Save America: Stopping Obama's Secular-Socialist Machine, rightly describing the grave, mortal threat America faces today due to the left-wing extremism of the Democrats and the vast failures of the Republicans. He writes: This is a book I never expected to write. After the victory of freedom over Communist tyranny, of religious liberty over secular police states, and of American pride over the malaise and cynicism of the 1970s, I fully expected America to follow an upward curve of consistent improvement. I did not expect the Left to ignore the lessons of history and move further into ideological extremism. I did not expect them to react to their meager popular support by seeking to impose a corrupt, Chicago-style political machine on the entire country. After leaving Congress in 1999, I certainly did not foresee Republican failure so vast that it allowed left-wing radicals to take over the House, Senate and Presidency. America as we know it is now facing a mortal threat. This danger to America is greater than anything I dreamed possible after we won the Cold War and the Soviet Union disappeared in December 1991. We stand at a crossroads: either we will save our country or we will lose it.

Nice summary with a chilling conclusion. I can't believe i've been so wrong about the financial collapse and the End of the American Dream. In 2008 i set out to discover why the September financial collapse occurred. This was the beginning of my Diigo "Socialism and the End of the American Dream" list. Since then however, i've come to see that it isn't ideology that's behind the financial collapse and the assault on the American Constitution, Rule of Law, and the principles of individual liberty and freedom described in our Declaration of Independence. No, IT'S ALL ABOUT THE MONEY! Mark Levin argues eloquently and with great passion and insight that "Statism" is the problem. He argues that socialism, progressivism, communism and fascism are just forms of centralized government, authority, and control. For Mark, it's all about power. And that's Tyranny of the highest order. Today though, i see things differently. It's all about the money. And with that money comes the power to dictate, control and seize property at will. The Banksters are behind it all, and debt is their doomsday nuclear weapon of choice. Baron Von Rothschild once famously said that WAR is the most expensive endeavor governments can engage in. War means borrowing from banksters. It means debt. The problem for the Banksters has long been the lesson of Charlemagne and Napoleon: There is no way for the Banksters to collect their debt (and interest) from the victor. The only way to force Napoleon to pay was to create an opposing army (thanks to the ruling elites of England and the Duke of Wellington - who were not threatened by Napoleon. And since then, the Bansters have been beholden to the Brittish ruling elites). Balance of Power and the magic of Francois Metternich's Treaty of Vienna worked for almost 100 years after the defeat of Napoleon. The ruling nobility of Europe came apart with WWI, but the Banksters played both ends against the middle, and came out on top.

i hate it when Diigo clips my comments!#!$$ . No warning. The above was clipped short so here's the bottom line: It's not the ideology. It's the money and the power.

"Enter Benghazi. This is an electoral year. Obama is absolutely terrified of another Benghazi - which Republicans have been trying non-stop to blame on his administration's incompetence. The last thing Obama needs is the Caliph's goons killing 'diplomats' in Erbil. "That would certainly raise a tsunami of questions all over again about the shady CIA weapon-smuggling racket - as in arming Syrian 'rebels' with weapons from Libya - at the time Benghazi took place. As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, of course, also knew about it all. But then, and especially now, no one should know that the CIA was weaponizing the bulk of the future Caliph's forces." Yup. It's the same reason that the House investigation of the Benghazi incident will never punch through to the truth. The War Party doesn't want its Benghazi CIA ratline for Libyan weapons to Turkey being exposed because that leads directly to the fact that ISIS is a U.S.-Saudi creation. Remember Wayne Madsen's article on why Obama backed down from his planned missile and bombing attack on Syria after the Ghouta false flag Sarin attack in August 2013: ""Some within the Pentagon ranks are so displeased with Obama's policies on Syria, they have let certain members of Congress of both parties know that «smoking gun» proof exists that Obama and CIA director John O. Brennan personally authorized the transfer of arms and personnel from Al-Qaeda-linked Ansar al Sharia Islamist rebels in Libya to Syria's Jabhat al Nusra rebels, who are also linked to Al Qaeda, in what amounts to an illegal «Iran-contra»-like scandal." http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2013/09/04/american-generals-stand-between-war-and-peace.html And the detailed confirmation that events had actually transpired in accordance with that plan by Yossef Bodansky - Director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare of the US House of Representatives from 1988 to 2004 and the center of an enormous global

My advice to Obama: tell John Kerry  to change Netanyahu's visa to impose travel restrictions, allowing him to travel only  to New York City  (where the U.N. is located). within the U.S. The U.S. did that routinely with Soviet Union officials during the Cold War days. That will teach Netanyahu a lesson he will remember, that  in the U.S. the Executive Branch has control of diplomatic relations. Netanyahu has already faced heavy criticism in Israel for straining relations with Obama. He's currently facing heavy criticism for forcing his way  into the Charlie Hebdo march in Paris after President Hollande had specifically requested that he not take part and for having the idocy to tell French Jews that they could never have a home if they did not emigrate to Israel. If  the Obama Administration makes a public issue out of Netanyahu's latest affront, it might well cost Netanyahu re-eloection as Prime Minister next month. That decision lies in the hands of a single Israeli official who will choose which party is to try to form a new ruling coalition of parties. Mr. Netanyahu's Likud Party has no guarantee of getting that nod.  

The indefatigable and perceptive Tom Englehardt finds formally secret features of the Dark State revealed in the ongoing political jockeying involving the CIA's torture, black prisons, and extarordinary rendition program. 

Russia and its neighbors who don't have NATO membership aspirations enter into a collective defense agreement, coordinated by the Russian military. 

Glenn Greenwald tags Hillary pandering to the Chicken Hawk Party