American Banana Republic Elections: From Bushwhacked in 2000 to Cruz Control 2016

The Des Moines Register is claiming the Democratic Caucus held in Iowa stinks, but it appears the editorial staff must have worn nose plugs for Republican caucus.  What stinks to high hell is the Iowa Caucus itself.  From Bushwhacked in 2000 to Cruz Control in 2016 the Iowa Caucus is a phony baloney election that any banana republic would be embarrassed about.  According to the Des Moines Register:

Excerpt:

Once again the world is laughing at Iowa. Late-night comedians and social media mavens are having a field day with jokes about missing caucus goers and coin flips.

That’s fine. We can take ribbing over our quirky process. But what we can’t stomach is even the whiff of impropriety or error.

What happened Monday night at the Democratic caucuses was a debacle, period. Democracy, particularly at the local party level, can be slow, messy and obscure. But the refusal to undergo scrutiny or allow for an appeal reeks of autocracy.

The Iowa Democratic Party must act quickly to assure the accuracy of the caucus results, beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Oh the horrors, head for the fainting couch.  The Des Moines Register is outraged I tell you.  Funny though the Register has lost their sense of smell when it comes to the Republican Caucus and Ted Cruz Campaign informing Ben Carson supporters prior to the vote that Carson had dropped out.  From The Conservative Treehouse:

Excerpt:

Explosive Audio Surfaces – Cruz Campaign Telling Iowa Precinct Captains Carson Had Dropped Out of Race…

Breitbart.com is reporting on audio they have obtained which shows Ted Cruz Headquarters telling Iowa precinct captains that Ben Carson had dropped out of the race. The messages were sent at 7:07pm (CST), and 7:29 (CST) before the votes were cast.

This factual evidence refutes the claims made by Ted Cruz and his campaign team:

Transcript [inaudible]…from the Ted Cruz campaign, calling to get to a precinct captain, and it has just been announced that Ben Carson is taking a leave of absence from the campaign trail, so it is very important that you tell any Ben Carson voters that for tonight, uh, that they not waste a vote on Ben Carson, and vote for Ted Cruz. He is taking a leave of absence from his campaign. All right? Thank you. Bye.

[Transcript] Hello, this is the Cruz campaign with breaking news: Dr. Ben Carson will be [garbled] suspending campaigning following tonight’s caucuses. Please inform any Carson caucus goers of this news and urge them to caucus for Ted instead. Thank you. Good night. (link)

Well, this essentially proves Ted Cruz and Rick Tyler were lying for the past 48 hours.

I guess that information escaped the editorial board at the Des Moines Register.  And I guess they weren’t reporting in 2012 when they announced Mitt Romney the winner only to have to retract and announce that in fact, Rick Santorum had won. 

The Iowa caucus is a great big two-party sham designed to maintain the status quo.  I’m not the only one to question the Iowa Caucus scam, the late Christopher Hitchens had this to say in 2008:

 Excerpt:

The Iowa Scam

The undemocratic caucuses are a terrible way to choose a presidential candidate.

By Christopher Hitchens

It is quite astonishing to see with what deadpan and neutral a tone our press and television report the open corruption—and the flagrantly anti-democratic character—of the Iowa caucuses….

It's also that campaign aides are showing up at Iowan homes "with DVD's that [explain] how the caucuses work…" Nobody needs a DVD to understand one-person-one-vote, a level playing field, and a secret ballot. The DVD and the other gifts and goodies (Sen. Barack Obama is promising free baby-sitting on Thursday) are required precisely because none of those conditions applies in Iowa.

In a genuine democratic process, these Tammany tactics would long ago have been declared illegal. But this is not a democratic process…

[T]he Hawkeye Poll of the University of Iowa was published. Huckabee had 13 percent, in a virtual tie with Rudy Giuliani for second place, behind Mitt Romney with 36….

About 45 percent of 85,000 or so Republican caucus voters are evangelical Christians. Roughly half of them automatically vote for the most socially conservative candidate in the race, and it looks like they have decided that's Huckabee….

"It stinks," says veteran political reporter Jack Germond….  Between the coverage and the hyper-compressed campaign calendar, he says, "the whole system this year is absolutely a disgrace…"

It's only when you read an honest reporter like Dan Balz that you appreciate the depth and extent of the fraud that is being practiced on us all. "In a primary," as he put it, "voters quietly fill out their ballots and leave. In the caucuses, they are required to come and stay for several hours, and there are no secret ballots.

 [F]or Democrats, it is not a one-person, one-vote system. … Inducements are allowed; bribes are not." One has to love that last sentence.

What it does is give the whip hand to the moneyed political professionals, to the full-time party hacks and manipulators, to the shady pollsters and the cynical media boosters, and to the supporters of fringe and crackpot candidates.

It is impossible that the Republican Party could be saddled with a clown like Huckabee if there were a serious primary in Iowa, let alone if the process were kicked off in Chicago or Los Angeles or Atlanta.

It is an absolutely terrible way in which to select candidates for the presidency, and it makes the United States look and feel like a banana republic both at home and overseas.

Ah yes indeed.  The United States primary process makes our country look like a banana republic globally.  And it’s not just the Iowa Caucus scam it’s a process rife with corruption and dirty money from dark and dirty players.  And while the 2016 primary is not an exception, it certainly is exceptional in the level of corruption. 

Case in point Ted Cruz is clearly not eligible to be President of the United States since he is not a natural born citizen.  So why is he even on the ballot?  Well let’s take a look at who Ted Cruz is and who is backing him financially.  From Alternet:

Excerpt:

How Ted Cruz Helped The Rehnquist Supreme Court Tear Down Church-State Separation

In 1999, Bush for President campaign aide Ted Cruz helped lock down the Christian conservative vote for Bush, by arranging a meeting between his friend Paul Weyrich, a key architect of the religious right and new right -- who co-founded the Moral Majority, the Heritage Foundation, and ALEC -- and Bush campaign member Timothy Goeglein, who went on to serve in the presidential administration of George W. Bush.

Soon after, Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist presided over the wildly controversial Bush v. Gore Supreme Court decision, which effectively shut down the 2000 election vote recount in Florida, thus handing the presidency to Bush.

Serving on the elite Republican legal team during the legal battles leading up to the Rehnquist Court decision was Ted Cruz, a former legal aide to Justice Rehnquist, who moved on to become Texas Solicitor General.

My, my, my.  Sounds like a quid pro quo to me.  So how did the crooked Cruz get from Texas Solicitor General to a United States Senator from Texas?  Where did the money come from to fund Cruz’ senatorial campaign?  From U.S. News:

Excerpt:

Cruz Financed 2012 Campaign With Loans from Goldman Sachs, Citibank

The previously undisclosed $1 million in loans undercut Cruz's anti-establishment image.

Ted Cruz's defiant self-description as a populist willing to put his personal financial security on the line to win elected office is under fire amid disclosures that the Texas Republican senator financed his anti-establishment 2012 Senate campaign in the most establishment of ways: by getting a big loan from Goldman Sachs.

Cruz's Federal Election Commission filings show that he and his wife, Heidi, dumped a total of $1.2 million of their own money into his upstart, ultimately successful, bid for the Senate, which has provided the tea party darling a platform for his current presidential campaign.

But personal financial disclosures show that the Cruzes took out loans from both Goldman Sachs, where Mrs. Cruz is managing director, and Citibank, the New York Times reported…

Candidates are required to report to the FEC any loans taken out to finance their federal campaigns, and must continue to report outstanding debt even after the initial disclosure of the loan. Cruz did not do so, but called the discrepancy "inadvertent…"

But Larry Noble, general counsel at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, said the failure to report the loans is illegal, and not subject to interpretation…

Gee, one would think that a former Texas Solicitor General and clerk for the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court would know the law, especially if the “loan was illegal and not subject to interpretation.”

"It's a failure to report. It's not a question of semantics. It's a question of law," Noble says. "You have to report all loans, that includes a loan the candidate takes out ... for his committee."

The violation is not necessarily a one-time thing, either, Noble says, since the loans needed to be continuously reported. "As long as it's outstanding, it has to be reported as debt," Noble says…

Tsk, tsk makes that Iowa win look a little smelly, that along with telling Iowa caucus goers that candidate Ben Carson dropped out of the race prior to the “votes” being taken.  But I guess the editorial board of the Des Moines Register had their nose plugs on. 

And who else benefitted from the false report that Ben Carson had dropped out of the race at the Iowa Caucus?  Why none other than that other political outsider and stalwart of Republican Christianity and honesty, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida.  From Gregory Palast:

Rubio's Billionaire Vulture

Paul Singer, the GOP's Baddie Sugar Daddie

It's out of the closet –– or, more accurately, out of the coven.  The list of the billionaires who have given at least $2.5 million to Conservative Solutions, the pro-Rubio Super PAC, is headed by Paul Singer….

And this is the key fact you need to know about the man whose cash would pick our President:  Paul Singer likes to breakfast on decayed carcasses….

Singer made his first billion, his first killing (and I don't mean that metaphorically): via an attack on victims of asbestos poisoning.

Background: The executives of a few asbestos companies, WR Grace, USG and Owens-Corning, knew that their asbestos factories were killing their workers. When caught and sued, the companies filed for bankruptcy, agreeing to pay almost all their earnings to those dying and injured by their asbestos.

But Singer had a better idea. These companies, as you can imagine, were worth next to nothing; and Singer bought Owens-Corning for a song.

If he could cut the amount paid to the victims, Singer could boost Corning's value big time. So, a PR campaign was begun attacking the dying workers, saying they were all faking it.

One attacker was a guy named George W. Bush.

In January 2005, President Dubya held a televised meeting to promote an "expert" who pronounced that over half a million workers suing Singer's industry were liars. If workers couldn't breathe, he said to the grinning President, it wasn't the fault of asbestos.

The "expert" was not a doctor, but notably, his "research" was partly funded by ...Paul Singer.  And so was Bush…

The legal, political and PR attacks on the dying workers chiseled away the compensation expected to be paid by the asbestos companies, boosting their net worth. Singer then flipped Corning, selling it for a neat billion-dollar profit….

Paul Singer had placed a big bet on the asbestos industry; then, set out to fix the casino, helping install Bush in the White House. That is, he had a President willing to beat up on asbestos workers and push for so-called "tort reform" that undermined these victims' claims. What the victims lost, Singer gained.

But there's trouble on the horizon for Singer. In 2007, Britain outlawed Singer and all other Vulture speculators in Third World debt from collecting their pound of flesh in the United Kingdom. Other European nations are following suit.

Several US Congressmen are pushing a UK-style prohibition on Singer's activities. (Even Chevron Corporation is complaining about the Vulture attacks. When Chevron calls bankers unscrupulous, they've got to be really unscrupulous.) Without a veto pen over Congress, Singer stands to lose hundreds of millions of dollars.

Singer plays defense, but is best at offense: To collect on some of his claims against Argentina, his lobbyists have pushed a bill in Congress to put an economic choke-hold on trade with the South American nation. Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton blocked this crazy attack on our ally. As a result, Singer is not a happy gaucho. There will be blood. Obama will have to pay….

There's one thing that every billionaire wants: another billion. And that's threatened by Obama's plan to tax the "carried interest" tax deferment.

Guys like Singer don't pay taxes like you and I do. While we pay taxes on income, the profits from vulture speculation and arbitrage are often recorded as "carried interest," effectively not taxed for years, then when collected, only at a low rate. It's a billion-dollar benefit for the billionaires, and every Republican candidate has sworn to keep this loophole open and make sure you and I pay Singers' taxes for him.

Well I guess Marco Rubio is the billionaire’s ace in the hole in case Cruz is found to be ineligible due to being born in Canada to a Cuban father and an American mother, where until recently he was a Canadian citizen.  But a lot of moneyed interests are looking to have that Constitutional requirement overturned for good.  From Washington Times:

Excerpt:

Arnold Schwarzenegger lobbies for law change to seek presidency

Hollywood action star and former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has been quietly lobbying key politicos for a legal loophole or a constitutional change that would clear the path for him to run for president in 2016.

If allowed, Mr. Schwarzenegger would face off against Hillary Rodham Clinton, The New York Post reported.

“Schwarzenegger has been talking openly about working on getting the constitutional rules changed so he can run for president in 2016,” a source said, The Post reported. “He is ready to file legal paperwork to challenge the rules.”

The actor was born in Austria, making him ineligible to seek the high office. The Constitution states plainly that one of the requirements for a U.S. president is to be a natural born citizen. Section One Article Two states: “No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of president.”

I wonder for what reason is the GOP so anxious to change the constitution so Arnold can run for President of the United States?  Bingo, I think I found it in this 2003 Greg Palast article in Alternet:

Excerpt:

Arnold's Enron Secret

If Arnold wins, it's hasta la vista baby, to the $9 billion owed to the state of California by Enron and the other electricity barons.

By Greg Palast / AlterNet October 4, 2003

It's not what Arnold Schwarzenegger did to the girls a decade back that should raise an eyebrow. According to a series of memoranda our office obtained today, it's his dalliance with the boys in a hotel room just two years ago that's the real scandal.

The wannabe governor has yet to deny that on May 17, 2001, at the Peninsula Hotel in Los Angeles, he had consensual political intercourse with Enron chieftain Kenneth Lay. Also frolicking with Arnold and Ken was convicted stock swindler Mike Milken.

Now, 34 pages of internal Enron memoranda have just come through this reporter's fax machine that tell all about the tryst between Maria's husband and the corporate con men.

It turns out that Schwarzenegger knowingly joined the hush-hush encounter as part of a campaign to sabotage a Davis-Bustamante plan to make Enron and other power pirates then ravaging California pay back the $9 billion in illicit profits they carried off.

Here's the story Arnold doesn't want you to hear. The biggest single threat to Ken Lay and the electricity lords is a private lawsuit filed last year under California's unique Civil Code provision 17200, the "Unfair Business Practices Act." This litigation, heading to trial now in Los Angeles, would make the power companies return the $9 billion they filched from California electricity and gas customers…

Who's the plaintiff taking on the bad guys? Cruz Bustamante, Lieutenant Governor and reluctant leading candidate against Schwarzenegger…

One month after Cruz brings suit, Enron's Lay calls an emergency secret meeting in L.A. of his political buck-buddies, including Arnold. Their plan, to undercut Davis (according to Enron memos) and "solve" the energy crisis -- that is, make the Bustamante legal threat go away…

While Bustamante's kicking Enron butt in court, the Davis Administration is simultaneously demanding that George Bush's energy regulators order the $9 billion refund. Don't hold your breath: Bush's Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is headed by a guy proposed by ... Ken Lay.

But Bush's boys on the commission have a problem. The evidence against the electricity barons is rock solid: fraudulent reporting of sales transactions, megawatt "laundering," fake power delivery scheduling and straight out conspiracy (including meetings in hotel rooms). So the Bush commissioners cook up a terrific scheme: charge the companies with conspiracy but offer them, behind closed doors, deals in which they have to pay only 2 cents on each dollar they filched.

Problem: the slap-on-the-wrist refunds won't sail if the governor of California won't play along. Solution: Recall the Governor…

So think about this. The state of California is in the hole by $8 billion for the coming year. That's chump change next to the $8 trillion in deficits and surplus losses planned and incurred by George Bush. Nevertheless, the $8 billion deficit is the hanging rope California's rightwing is using to lynch Governor Davis…

And the only thing keeping America from a President Muscle Head is the Constitution, and boy Republicans hate that pesky Constitution.  So if they can get a legal challenge to what constitutes a “natural born citizen” before the Roberts Supreme Court what do you think the chance is that the Supreme Court would rule in Ted Cruz favor?  From the Texas Tribune:

Excerpt:

Cruz, Justice Roberts Have History

Within two hours of the U.S. Supreme Court releasing its opinion on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act last month, former Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz spoke out about the decision.

Cruz, a Republican competing against Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst in a July 31 primary runoff for an open U.S. Senate seat, called the decision “shameful” and described it as a “sad day for the court.” He accused the court’s justices of being motivated by politics rather than upholding the U.S. Constitution.

It was a harsh assessment considering that Chief Justice John Roberts, a man whom Cruz has described as a mentor and friend, played a pivotal role in the law being upheld…

Both Cruz and Roberts clerked for Chief Justice William Rehnquist early in their careers, Roberts from 1980 to 1981, Cruz in the mid-1990s.

After Election Day in 2000, Cruz was a lawyer working on the legal battle over the Florida recount for the Bush/Cheney presidential campaign. Cruz told the Miami Herald that Roberts' name was the first that came to mind when he was asked to help find lawyers to work on the litigation. Roberts reportedly helped with legal briefs and participated in a mock hearing to prepare Bush’s legal team.

“We needed the very best lawyers in the country, and I called John and asked him to help,” Cruz later wrote in the National Review. “Within hours, he was on a plane to Florida.”

When President George W. Bush nominated Roberts to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2005, Cruz was an outspoken advocate for his confirmation, calling him “brilliant” and a “lawyer’s lawyer."

Man, this gets uglier and scarier by the minute.   So, after this Iowa Caucus sham election when are we going to quit this banana republic style process controlled by the elites of the two parties? 

What’s really outrageous about the current system is that the selection process goes on for almost two years and the two parties consider the votes cast by voters to be suggestions that they, the superdelegates, can override.  From Bloomberg:

Excerpt:

For starters, superdelegates are formally unpledged delegates to the Democratic National Convention who are chosen by position, not through votes in primaries and caucuses. The two big groups are elected officials (members of Congress, governors) and party officials.

Superdelegates were added in the 1980s for two reasons. One was practical: It was the only way to ensure that those party leaders could get to the convention, at least as delegates. 

The other was political: Democrats were concerned that their new system didn’t place enough weight on electability, and believed a larger voice for politicians and formal party leaders would tilt the nomination in that direction…

Yes, indeed the superdelegates are the elite members of congress and governors who do not reflect the will of the voters and can overrule the will of the voters like they did in 2008.

Let’s have a national primary in June where everyone goes to the polls on the same day.  Let the people choose the candidates for the nation’s highest office of any party they wish.  Those chosen by the voters, regardless of party affiliation advance to the general election.  Otherwise American will continue to be a Bushwhacked banana republic run by billionaire backed crooks.

By Patricia Baeten

Putin, Pope Francis and Trump the Modern Day Saint George the Dragon Slayers

Democracy and Christianity died in America December 12, 2000 when elected government was overthrown and replaced with a think tank creation of American imperialism.  That feat could not have been accomplished without the consent of the two parties in American politics.

The New World Order that was birthed in the George W. Bush Administration and escalated under the Barack Obama Administration appeared unstoppable.  But then out of the ashes rose the unlikely trio of modern day Saint George the Dragon Slayers.  That trio is Pope Francis, Russian President Vladimir Putin and American Presidential candidate Donald J. Trump.

Who was Saint George the Dragon Slayer?  According to St. George’s Anglican Church:

Excerpt:

Saint George is the patron saint of Aragon, Catalonia, England, Ethiopia, Georgia, Greece, Lithuania, Palestine, Portugal, and Russia, as well as the cities of Amersfoort, Beirut, Fakiha, Bteghrine, Cáceres (Spain), Ferrara, Freiburg, Genoa, Ljubljana, Gozo, Milan, Pomorie, Preston, Qormi, Lod, Barcelona and Moscow, as well as a wide range of professions, organizations, and disease sufferers….

Isn’t it interesting that the countries that have adopted Saint George the Dragon Slayer as their patron saint, are the countries that have been in the crosshairs of the bloodied scope on the rifle of the Washington D.C. military industrial complex. 

The traditional legends have offered a historicised narration of George’s encounter with a dragon…  The modern legend… omitting the more fantastical episodes, to narrate a purely human military career in closer harmony with modern expectations of reality….

In the year AD 302, Diocletian (influenced by Galerius) issued an edict that every Christian soldier in the army should be arrested and every other soldier should offer a sacrifice to the Pagan gods. But George objected and with the courage of his faith approached the Emperor and ruler…  

George loudly renounced the Emperor’s edict, and in front of his fellow soldiers and Tribunes he claimed himself to be a Christian and declared his worship of Jesus Christ. Diocletian attempted to convert George, even offering gifts of land, money and slaves if he made a sacrifice to the Pagan gods. The Emperor made many offers, but George never accepted.

Recognizing the futility of his efforts, Diocletian was left with no choice but to have him executed for his refusal. Before the execution George gave his wealth to the poor and prepared himself.

After various torture sessions, including laceration on a wheel of swords in which he was resuscitated three times, George was executed by decapitation before Nicomedia’s city wall, on April 23, 303.

It would be comical if it weren't so tragic that the so called Christian Nations today are run by Diocletian values.  They sacrifice not only their soldiers, but soldiers recruited from nations they have destroyed to the pagan gods of the war industry.  These so called Christian Nations, especially America and Britain have denounced Pope Francis, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump repeatedly.

For instance, Pope Francis became Pope in the year 2013 and burst onto the world stage.  The Argentinian was the first Jesuit to become pope selecting the name Francis in honor of Saint Francis of Assisi.  Right from the start Pope Francis enraged Washington and London politicians with his so called “leftist” agenda.

The Pope’s first meeting with Putin took place in November 2013 to discuss the plight of Christians in the Middle East and the Syria.  It seems the foreign and domestic policies of Born Again Christian George W. Bush and Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama have been devastating for Christians. From Russia Times:

Excerpt:

Putin and Pope Francis’s first meeting focuses on Christians’ plight in Mideast

Hopes were high for warmer relations between the Russian Orthodox and Catholic churches as President Vladimir Putin flew Monday to Rome for his first audience with Pope Francis. Topping the agenda is likely help for Christians in the Middle East.

Putin, an Orthodox Christian, has repeatedly said that he is a man of faith and his administration has consistently sought closer ties with the Russian Orthodox Church…

It’s not the first time Pope Francis has addressed topical political issues: before the Group of 20 Summit in early September, the pontiff implored Putin to seek a peaceful resolution to the Syrian crisis, along with other world leaders…

In recent months, violent attacks on Christians in Syria, Libya and other hotspots in the Middle East have featured increasingly in media reports.

Christians, who comprise about 10 per cent of Syria's population, are viewed as supporters of President Bashar Assad, fearing the Islamist ideology of some rebels…

“I believe it is all systematic and planned,” Sami Housni, a Christian priest in Damascus, told RT. “Forcing Christians to leave… In Iraq, for instance, less than 200,000 Christians remain.

We do have concerns, and we do hope to stay in our land, Syria, which is the cradle of Christianity. We also hope that the Pope and the heads of Christian denominations will call for the renunciation of violence and the adoption of dialogue.”

That was in 2013 and where are we today?  Three years after Pope Francis reached out to Vladimir Putin to help find a peace agreement in Syria, the cradle of Christianity has been practically obliterated by American made bombs.  America has been sold to the highest bidder, that bidder being Saudi Arabia.   According to John Myers writing at Personal Liberty:

Excerpt:

Bush and Obama sold America out to Saudi Arabia

The United States invaded the wrong country when it attacked Iraq. Saudi Arabia, not former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, financed the terrorists and aided and abetted the slaughter of thousands of innocent Americans on 9/11.

We have always known that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis. That was just a coincidence, proclaimed Washington. But the evidence old and new is stacking up that Saudi Arabia, at the top levels of government, provided aid for that assault…

It all seems too incredible to be true. It would mean our government has been lying to the American people for well over a decade…

According to Global Research in September 2013, the United States will have spent between $4 and $6 trillion fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan…  the families of the 9/11 victims in a lawsuit against Saudi Arabia announced they have new evidence that agents of that government “directly and knowingly” aided the hijackers. It includes sworn testimony from the 20th hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui.

Why in the world would two presidents cover up the most horrific attack on American civilians? I can give you two reasons: oil and money….

Those reasons might explain Bush’s cover-up. Obama may have more personal ones for protecting the country that holds two of Islam’s most holy sites, The Sacred Mosque in Mecca and the Mosque of the Prophet in Medina.

This may sound outlandish, but so are some of the things Obama has said regarding Islam, including his speech last week at the National Prayer Breakfast:

And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.

In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ. Michelle and I returned from India — an incredible, beautiful country, full of magnificent diversity — but a place where, in past years, religious faiths of all types have, on occasion, been targeted by other peoples of faith, simply due to their heritage and their beliefs — acts of intolerance that would have shocked Gandhiji, the person who helped to liberate that nation.

Yes, Mr. President, and let’s not forget about the evil inside Ancient Rome.

Washington’s imperial plans have had a major stumbling block keeping them from achieving world domination.  That stumbling block has been Russian President Vladimir Putin the Dragon slayer.  No lie, no accusation, no unsubstantiated claim about Putin has been too scurrilous or too outlandish for the press to breathlessly report as fact.  For instance, the charge de jour is “Putin is Corrupt.”  From Russian Insider:  

Excerpt:

'Putin is Corrupt' - Proclaims Most Corrupt Govt on Earth

Startling new evidence gathered by the US government shows the extent of Vladimir Putin's wealth and corruption…

The Moscow Times reported that Acting Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence at the U.S. Treasury, Adam Szubin, accused President Vladimir Putin of corruption in an interview with the BBC's program "Panorama" on Monday:

Putin is corrupt and the U.S. government has known this for many, many years…

We've seen [Putin] enriching his friends, his close allies, and marginalizing those using state assets that he doesn't view as friends. Whether that's Russia's energy wealth or other state contracts, he directs them to people he believes will serve him and excludes those who don't. To me, that is a picture of corruption

As usual, Szubin offered no evidence whatever to prove his allegations -- not even low resolution black & white satellite photos of two black dots purported to be Putin passing illicit cash to one of his "cronies…" 

Hey Under Secretary Szubin, I have a real case of corruption and cronyism for the U.S. Treasury Department to investigate.  How about this one from the Intercept:

Excerpt:

How the Iraq War Financed a Beltway Real Estate Boom

Back in the DC real estate doldrums of the mid-1990s, before he helped pave the way for war in Iraq, Stephen Rademaker owned a modest condo in Arlington, Va.

Then, a few years later, as a House staffer on the International Relations Committee, Rademaker wrote the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, which called for regime change, a phrase that altered the course of history…

Things soon took a turn for the better, at least for Rademaker; he left government and went to work as a lobbyist, eventually joining countless numbers of retired government officials who cleaned up, directly or indirectly, by leading the country into war…

Rademaker, who was a strong backer of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and has generally never met a war he didn’t want, from Syria to Libya…

Also worth mentioning is that Rademaker is married to neocon Danielle Pletka, another former Hill staffer who is now senior vice president at the American Enterprise Institute, and who clings by her nails to the cliff’s edge of sanity.

She and her think tank were major proponents of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and last August, Pletka co-authored a Wall Street Journal op-ed that called President Obama’s response to ISIS “inadequate.” She demanded that Obama arm the Syrian opposition, send military advisers and trainers to Iraq “by the thousands, not hundreds,” and stop “blocking the delivery of much-needed weapons” to Iraq….

Resuming those shipments—which had been delayed by annoying human rights concerns, like widespread “politically motivated sectarian and ethnic killings” in the words of a U.S. government report—is one of the things that Pletka’s husband gets paid to lobby for, my source said, so it’s nice she can use the Journal’s op-ed pages to help him out.

In the meantime, Rademaker has taken a nice step up from the Arlington, Virginia condo that he sold in 1995 for $148,000. Now he and Pletka live in a 6,138-square-foot 6-bedroom home in McLean, Va.—big enough to fit a few of the over one million Iraqis who have been displaced or fled their country since the 2003 invasion. Rademaker and Pletka bought the house, currently assessed at $1.8 million, a year after the war began.

You know what the real kicker is?  Daniel Pletka isn’t even an American, she’s from Australia.  As a matter of fact many of the members of the American Enterprise Institute with their snouts in the American taxpayer trough are not Americans.  Makes me wonder about all the tortured intellectual contortions of the right wing to justify the Presidential candidacy of Ted Cruz.  

Cruz clearly is not eligible to run for President of the United States, he was born in Canada.  I wonder why they are so eager to eliminate the Constitutional requirement that the President and Vice President be natural born citizens.  Who do you suppose the AEI has in waiting?

I won’t hold my breath waiting for a U.S. Treasury Department investigation into the trillions of taxpayer dollars funneled into the pockets of the cheerleaders for war.  But how about investigating this Mr. Szubin?  From Global Research:

Excerpt:

Report Reveals $8.5 Trillion Missing From Pentagon Budget

Yahoo Money’ The Daily Ticker  quoting a Reuters investigation that reveals that $8.5 trillion – that’s trillion with a “T” – in taxpayer money doled out by Congress to the Pentagon since 1996 that has never been accounted for.

You read that right. While Republican politicians  rush to slash food stamps for the 47 million Americans living in poverty – the highest amount in nearly two decades –  Republican U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has the audacity to complain that $20 billion dollars in automatic sequester cuts to the massive and secretive $565.8 billion Defense Department budget are “ too steep, too deep, and too abrupt,” all while the Pentagon and the Defense Department are overseeing massive fraud, waste, and abuse.

Yes, that is what a “Christian” nation does, starve their people to plow trillions of dollars into the “Defense” Department to maim and kill people across the world.  The media in America is trying to turn the people against Vladimir Putin because he is so corrupt, he rewards his crony friends.

The corruption accusation against Putin comes on the heels of their latest failed attempts to slander Putin.  The British and American media have bleated out the charge “Putin ordered the murder of Litvinenko.”  From Consortium News:

Excerpt:

Assessing a Murder Case Against Putin

Once Western media demonizes a foreign leader it becomes hard to assess allegations because if you express doubt, you’re dubbed an “apologist.” But careful analysis is still crucial as Russia Insider editor Alexander Mercouris offers on the British claim that Russian President Putin “probably” ordered a murder in London.

The Judge who headed the Inquiry was obsessed with proving the Russian state murdered Litvinenko.  In order to prove what he always believed he threw legal procedure out of the window and interpreted the evidence how he wanted.

In the end even he could not prove that the Russian state murdered Litvinenko, which is why he could only say they “probably” did.

In reality the facts – if looked at objectively – show the Russian state almost certainly did not murder Litvinenko and played no part in his death.

The Inquiry and its report actually say more about the pathological hostility to Russia of some sections of the British establishment than they do about the Litvinenko case.

Yep, the “Inquiry” says more about the “pathological hostility to Russia” in the Cameron Administration than about Putin.  And who is the only American candidate for President that is sane enough to avoid making wild accusations that Putin is a murderer?  You guessed it, Donald Trump.  From the Daily Mail:

Excerpt:

Donald Trump defends Vladimir Putin over Alexander Litvinenko murder insisting if 'he says he didn't do it...who knows who did it'

Republican presidential nomination speaking following inquiry into killing.  Trump says if Putin denies being responsible then he should be believed, added he will only make up his mind when someone is convicted of crime.  London judge concluded spy's 2006 death was 'probably state sponsored'

Imagine that, an American Presidential candidate that says Putin should be believed if he says he’s innocent until someone proves in a court of law that he is not.  What does that say about American politicians when they don’t believe in the basic tenant of you are innocent until proven guilty.

But people across the world are fed up with the Rupert Murdoch’s global media empire spewing hatred and lies as newsworthy facts.  Case in point, Germany.  From Russia Insider:

Berlin , Germany

Excerpt:

Germans Abandon Major News Sites in Anger Over Slanted Russia Coverage

Triggered by reader disaffection, internet traffic has collapsed for half a dozen major German media websites

Hmmm, what do you suppose happened there?

Der Spiegel – on its way out?

What's going on in the German media is huge.  It is one of the most popular subjects on our site.  The US and UK media have been hugely biased in their coverage of Russia, but German media has been far, far, worse, to the point which strains credulity.

Now it turns out that part of the reason is CIA fiddling with German media outlets.  Coming on the heels of the Snowden revelations, this has Germans seriously ticked-off.  Here's the latest revelation from our correspondent in Germany.

Since the publication of Udo Ulfkotte's “Gekaufte Journalisten“ in September – now a #1 Amazon bestseller, in which he charges that the CIA regularly bribes top German journalists, himself included, – German readers' disaffection towards their mainstream media appears to have crossed a point of no return.

Granted, sales of newspapers and magazines have fallen everywhere, not just in Germany. But this is different. This is a boycott that is affecting web traffic. Germans are steering clear of mainstream media websites.

Ha, ha ha.  I love it.  Good for you guys.  Gotta love the German people.  Stick it to them.  Talk about dragon slaying, I hope this trend continues worldwide. But that’s a tall order for Britain and America, two of the most corrupt nations in the world.  When I saw this article in Mint Press where Buzzfeed is being sued for defamation, I thought it was an article from The Onion at first.

Excerpt:

BuzzFeed Faces $11m Defamation Lawsuit From News Agency

Central European News and its founder Michael Leidig claim that an article titled ‘The King of Bullsh*t News’ deliberately set out to damage the business.

CEN and Leidig allege that BuzzFeed maliciously intended to damage the news agency in order to “obtain a greater share of the market for viral news in Great Britain and elsewhere around the world”.

They are seeking $5m each, as well as a further $1.04m for lost business opportunities, and further punitive damages.

“The BuzzFeed story accuses Mr Leidig, an experienced and award-winning journalist, of the worst thing you can accuse a journalist of – fraud,” said Harry Wise, the New York-based lawyer representing CEN and Leidig. 

“It is unfortunate that BuzzFeed refuses to recognise that its story is completely unfounded, and has done terrible damage to Mr Leidig and his company. We look forward to demonstrating those things in court.”

Leidig, CEN’s chief executive, claims that when BuzzFeed originally contacted him about writing a piece it was under the guise of wanting to write a feature on CEN’s “laudable investigative journalism”.

He launched his legal action after failing to get BuzzFeed UK to remove the article.

Ha ha.  Of course I had to read the article that BuzzFeed wrote called “The King of Bullsh*t News” to see what egregious lies they wrote about Central European News and their crackerjack chief executive Leidig.  This excerpt caught my eye.

Excerpt:

In recent years, CEN has become one of the Western media’s primary sources of tantalising and attention-grabbing stories. They’re often bizarre, salacious, gruesome, or ideally all three: If you’ve read a story about someone in a strange country cutting off their own penis, the chances are it came from CEN.

The firm’s business model, like that of many other news agencies, is to sell a regular stream of stories and pictures to other media companies, which publish them under the bylines of their own reporters. In CEN’s case, these include a string of stories from relatively remote parts of China, India, Russia, and other non-Western countries. 

They tend to depict the inhabitants of those countries as barbaric, sex-crazed, or just plain weird. And often they are inaccurate or downright false.

The story is here if you’d like to read it.

Donald Trump is a Dragon slayer, and will be the next President of the United States unless the two parties can figure out a way to stop him.  So far, he is Teflon Don.  Trump has stepped into the belly of the beast, the Republican Party. 

Once the proud Party of Barry Goldwater the GOP is now a parody of itself.  Wanting to legislate every bedroom and boardroom across the world.  Must have strictest of moral values, not for the actual members of the GOP but for everyone else.  Espousing the “Christian/Judeo” values of war, death and destruction, and salvation through starvation the GOP is a sight to behold.

It appears Reason Magazine agrees with me:

Excerpt:

Donald Trump Is the Harbinger of the Republican Party Apocalypse

And the GOP paved the way for its own destruction.

We may be witnessing the collapse of the Republican party, or at least the Republican party as we know it. And if so, then Donald Trump is the harbinger of its apocalypse.

The signs of the party’s weakness and disarray are everywhere. Trump is the GOP’s presidential front-runner by most any measure: FiveThirtyEight, which recently published a long essay looking at the GOP’s breakdown as a party, gives him a 55 percent of winning the nomination, based strictly on the polls. Yet the candidate is now in open warfare with two of the right’s most influential media platforms: National Review and Fox News.

Last week, National Review published a special issue devoted to denouncing the candidate, with an unsigned editorial labeling him “a philosophically unmoored political opportunist who would trash the broad conservative ideological consensus within the GOP in favor of a free-floating populism with strong-man overtones.”

Then on Tuesday, Trump announced that, because Fox refused to comply with Trump’s demand that moderator Megyn Kelly—who has feuded with Trump for months—be removed, he would not participate in the network’s forthcoming presidential debate.

National Review isn’t the party, of course, and neither is Fox, but they are important player on the right, and they wield considerable influence within the Republican party.

No Mr. Suderman, I disagree with you, the National Review and Fox News are the Republican Party.  What’s even worse is that the Obama Administration is the bastard child that resulted from the consummation of the two parties into a monolith.  Look at the disastrous foreign policy that has been a continuation of the Bush Administration’s belligerent, ignorance.

From the Russia Insider:

Excerpt:

Lavrov's Snub Was a Signal to More Than Just Nuland

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held a meeting in Zurich, Switzerland, last Wednesday, January 20, with US Secretary of State, John Kerry….

One of the Kerry delegation was Victoria Nuland, Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian affairs.  She is one of several Washington officials directing the war against Russia on the Ukraine front.

In her arsenal, Nuland’s mouth has been used to attack European governments reluctant to join her war, as her “Fuck the EU” remark to US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, revealed at the start of 2014, before President Victor Yanukovich was ousted in Kiev.

The sequence of stills showing Lavrov greeting the US delegation for the press, ahead of the Zurich talks...  Lavrov’s hand  shakes every US official introduced by Kerry (1), except for Nuland.

Her hand was extended (2), then slipped, or slapped past, as Lavrov turned to his left to greet each of the junior US officials lining the wall. As he did so, Lavrov presented Nuland with his right shoulder. Nuland’s mouth fell open (3); the microphones recorded that nothing came out… 

One day later, at the Zurich meeting…   Minutes before the meeting commenced... a Russian cameraman’s warning that the Russian standard was flying on its flag-pole upside down.

These images have been interpreted in the international media as indicators of Russian, also American animus towards each other, as the war to topple the Russian government enters its third year….

Nuland’s moves revealed her belief that she can conduct warfare without risk to herself. Her gape registered shock that she is a target

I sure hope that President Donald Trump purges the State Department and Pentagon of these petulant, ignorant neocons left over from the Bush Administration.  Really, flying the Russian flag upside down, how embarrassing for America.  Victoria Nuland is an international embarrassment as well as a war criminal who belongs on trial in The Hague.

As the celebration of Saint George the Dragon Slayer nears, we remember the story of how Saint George came to slay the Dragon.

Excerpt:

In the fully-developed Western version, which developed as part of the Golden Legend, a dragon makes its nest at the spring that provides water for the city of “Silene” (perhaps modern Cyrene) in Libya or the city of Lydda, depending on the source. Consequently, the citizens have to dislodge the dragon from its nest for a time, to collect water.

To do so, each day they offer the dragon at first a sheep, and if no sheep can be found, then a maiden must go instead of the sheep. The victim is chosen by drawing lots. One day, this happens to be the princess. The monarch begs for her life to be spared, but to no avail.

She is offered to the dragon, but there appears Saint George on his travels. He faces the dragon, protects himself with the sign of the cross, slays the dragon, and rescues the princess. The grateful citizens abandon their ancestral paganism and convert to Christianity….

In the medieval romances, the lance with which St George slew the dragon was called Ascalon, named after the city of Ashkelon in Israel.

So our modern day Saint Georges have an enormous and powerful dragon to slay.  The Dragon has engorged itself on the blood and treasures of nations globally.  But fear not, the Dragon slayers have goodness and righteousness on their side. 

The French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville said “America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”  Donald Trump has vowed to make America great again, and I for one believe him.

By Patricia Baeten