New York Times

If you believe in and exercise your rights under the Constitution (namely, your right to speak freely, worship freely, associate with like-minded individuals who share your political views, criticize the government, own a weapon, demand a warrant before being questioned or searched, or any other activity viewed as potentially anti-government, racist, bigoted, anarchic or sovereign), you have just been promoted to the top of the government’s terrorism watch list.

Have no fear America, because General Nagata is about to take a "senior" counterterrorism position which means the country will be protected from extremism by the kind of "creative thinking" that sent 60 undertrained fighters into the most dangerous place on earth "ill-prepared for an enemy attack" with "no support from the local population" and "poor intelligence about their foes."

Most of you will be quite familiar with Peter Schiff. Fewer of you will know much about his father, Irwin Schiff, who was posthumously referred to as the “grandfather of the contemporary tax protest movement” in Forbes. Irwin was treated very poorly by his own country, particularly toward the end of his life when, despite being legally blind and dying of cancer, he was not permitted to die in peace amongst family members.

The geopolitical and financial risks facing the global economy are well-known. Hot wars and currency meltdowns garner headlines around the world. But few even hear, much less discuss, four ticking global time-bombs

"[Putin] hopes that when its ally Iran re-enters the global oil and gas market, Russia will somehow share in the profits, perhaps through new pipelines across Syria. He also wants to stop the Saudis from establishing export routes in Syria. Now that Russian energy supremacy in Europe also is at stake, Putin's determination to resolve the Syrian conflict on his terms can only grow."

It’s unfortunate that it took the corporate media all these years to" discover" that the United States and Russia are fighting a geopolitical proxy war in Syria. It remains to be seen how many more years and lost lives it will take for them to also "discover" that this proxy war is being fought over resources and power. It’s a sad state of affairs when the Western media provides humanitarian cover for the U.S. and NATO to fuel a brutal civil war simply to create economic advantages for NATO states and allies while undermining stability in the Middle East - creating the greatest humanitarian catastrophe since World War II. And as millions of refugees continue to pour out of Syria into Europe and abroad, the NATO-dominated public of the E.U. and U.S. remain largely ignorant to the fact their own governments helped create the refugee crisis they so abhor.

“President Obama’s decision to prolong the U.S. led war in Afghanistan only ensures U.S. responsibility for more death and destruction. Veterans For Peace condemns the decision and calls on the U.S. public to say no to more war..."

The verdict is in from Tuesday night’s Democratic presidential debates: Bernie Sanders’ message influenced viewers by leaps and bounds over the next most discussed candidate, Hillary Clinton. Unless, of course, you prefer the convenient swill of pre-planned, pre-packaged, predictable corporate media propaganda that unanimously sang Clinton’s praises while completely ignoring one essential thing - you know, reality.

May Even Be More Widespread Than BEFORE the War STARTED

"Injecting politics into what is supposed to be a fact-finding inquiry leaves a foul taste in the F.B.I.’s mouth and makes them fear that no matter what they find, the Justice Department will take the president’s signal and not bring a case."

It’s getting harder by the day to tell young people that we live in a nation that values freedom and which is governed by the rule of law without feeling like a teller of tall tales. Unless something changes and soon for the young people growing up, there will be nothing left of freedom as we have known it but a fairy tale without a happy ending.