Little did we know that by 2023 the raging would go beyond paroxysm, Pepe Escobar writes.

It’s idle to dwell on the cringe-worthy visit of the Kiev clown to Crash Test Dummy at the White House, coupled with a “Churchillian” speech at the War Party dominions in Capitol Hill. History will ridicule this Hollywood soap for centuries ahead.

Way more juice is provided by the latest War Party P.R. show, sponsored by Raytheon Productions. After all Lloyd Austin, the current Pentagon head, is a former Raytheon weapons peddler.

After much fanfare, it was established that the Pentagon will provide not a collection, but a single Patriot battery to Kiev – either with four or eight missile launchers, and either the PAC 2 or PAC 3 version.

IN ORDER TO CONTROL ITS EMPIRE, AMERICA HAS MANY ORGANISATIONS/ORGANISMS/“DIPLOMATIKONS” DEDICATED TO MANAGE (DISTORT/FABRICATE) ALL INFORMATION INSIDE AND OUTSIDE THE USA. 

WE’VE SEEN THE FUROUR OF THE US WHEN THEIR DIPLOMATIC CABLES WERE EXPOSED BY WIKILEAKS.

WHEN THE EMPIRE GOOFS, THESE ORGANISMS ARE THERE TO CLEAN UP THE MESS, LIKE IN BENGHAZI. THE MEDIA ARE ALSO USED LIKE SAW-DUST ON THE BLOODY FLOOR IN A BUTCHER SHOP.

APART FROM THE CIA AND OTHER “INTELLIGENCE” DISINFORMATION CHANNELS THESE OVERSEEING OUTLETS CONTROL THE MAINS STREAM MEDIA (MMMM — MEDIOCRE MASS MEDIA DE MIERDA). THESE MEDIA INCLUDE THE NYT AND THE WAPO THAT SUPPORT A FAKE LEFT FASCIST GOVERNMENT AND THE MURDOCH MEDIA THAT MOSTLY SUPPORTS AN ULTRA-RIGHT “LIBERAL” FASCIST ONE. IT’S PERVERSE AS ANYTHING, IT'S VERY DIRTY AND IS MELANGED BELOW THE ILLUSION OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.

Earlier this month, I was in Washington, D.C.’s Union Station. The weather had turned cold and I couldn’t help noticing what an inhospitable place it had become for the city’s homeless and dispossessed. 

Once upon a time, anyone was allowed to be in the train station at any hour. Now, there were signs everywhere announcing that you needed a ticket to be there. Other warning signs indicated that you could only sit for 30 minutes at a time at the food-court tables, while barriers had been placed where benches used to be to make it that much harder to congregate, no less sit down.

By Liz Theoharis
TomDispatch.com

The Senate unanimously backed a plan to use certain confiscated Russian assets to aid Ukraine in its war with Russia.

The United States and other countries targeted Russia and its oligarchs with a host of diplomatic and economic sanctions as punishment after it invaded its neighboring country in February. But U.S. law limited how money from those assets could be used, according to lawmakers.

Three days after it convened for its last public meeting, the House of Representatives select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol has released its long-awaited final report.

The dense 814-page document, accompanied by interview transcripts and video summaries, was published online on Thursday local time.

Read the final report from the select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack here.

Its 100-plus-page executive summary gives an overview of what's inside, presenting 17 specific findings.

Josh Frydenberg as treasurer and Scott Morrison as secret treasurer made a motza for foreign vulture funds in last year’s takeover boom and mega-sell-off of Australian assets. Who knew what when, and why are we flogging essential monopoly services to cuff-linked tax crooks? Callum Foote and Michael West report.

Two months after losing his seat at the federal election, former treasurer Josh Frydenberg landed on his feet with Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs.

Goldman Sachs was a banker to most of the large foreign takeovers that the Treasurer approved during his time. And there were some monsters: Afterpay, AusNet, Spark Infrastructure and Sydney Airport among them. 

BEIJING -- China deplores and firmly opposes the US passing and signing into law the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023, which contains negative content concerning China, a foreign ministry spokesperson said Saturday in a press release.

China has made serious demarches to the United States, the spokesperson said.

This Act, in total disregard of facts, hypes up the "China threat" narrative, blatantly interferes in China's internal affairs, and attacks and discredits the Communist Party of China (CPC), said the spokesperson, adding that this is a serious political provocation against China.

In modern capitalism, it seems as if stories of companies and managers who engage in fraud and swindle their investors occur like the changing of the seasons.

In fact, these scandals can be traced back to the origins of publicly traded companies, when the first stockbrokers bought and sold company shares and government securities in the coffee houses of London’s Exchange Alley during the 1700s.

By Amy Froide 
University of Maryland, Baltimore County

So, the threatened railway workers strike is over. President Joe Biden used his authority over interstate commerce to impose a settlement. As we all watch CNN and FOX News breath a sign of relief, let’s see if there is a lesson to be learned in these events.

Let’s take a brief look at the background to the dispute. The American railway system was deregulated in the 1980s. And, as always seems to happen, consolidation and profit-taking followed close upon the deregulation. What was once over 30 operating railroad companies was reduced to just seven through buyouts and mergers. These seven firms have all worked to increase their profits by reducing staffing, increasing and intensifying the workload of the remaining workers, and drawing back investment in safety equipment and other costly projects while increasing prices and rates.

THIS IS LITTLE KNOWN, THOUGH IT IS WELL-KNOWN, BUT PEOPLE IN THE WEST TEND TO DISMISS THIS AS "HISTORY". SURE IT IS HISTORY BUT THIS HAS TENTACLES INTO THE PSYCHES OF TODAYS. SO :

Apparently Forward is a site of "Jewish obedience". As part of a series devoted to monuments to Nazi collaborators around the world, they stopped in Ukraine. We can say that they have been served. This article appeared in January 2021, more than a year before the Russian Special Military Operation. A trip to neo-Nazi Ukraine... Better to warn right away: it makes you dizzy. (XP)

In the years since the Maidan uprising brought a new government to Ukraine in 2014, numerous memorials to Nazi collaborators and Holocaust perpetrators have been erected, sometimes up to a new one every week.

Throwing good money after bad is never a sound political strategy, especially at a time when the US public is feeling the strain of an economy in crisis.

The one thing every observer of US domestic politics must concede is that Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi know how to work Congress. For four decades, Biden walked the halls of the US Senate, strong-arming colleagues to line up votes for legislation, with Pelosi team-tagging in the House of Representatives.

BY SCOTT RITTER

In the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi did the same thing. Now, as president and House speaker, respectively, Biden and Pelosi pulled out all the stops to get one last piece of legislation across the finish line—the passage of an additional $45 billion in assistance for Ukraine.

Insanity of Christmas

Ignominy of the Empire

Madness of Uncle Joe,

Madness of Obama, of Trump, of the Bushes and that of James Monroe

Madness of all the Presidents, setting precedents, botching experiments, lauding decadence, hiding evidence, pushing nasty sentiments, through beliefs in silly testaments, killing dissidents

Stupidity of NATO, idiocy of NATO, lunacy of NATO, grand folly of NATO, Imbecility of NATO, deadliness of NATO, 

Cretins of the kingdoms, morons of Europe, imbeciles of empire,

Dumb loonies of hell fire

Believe in the Devil’s justice

War is peace

Eternity is tomorrow

Humanity is stupid

Information is rabid

Media are warble

Hypocrisy is normal

Deceit is immortal

Our games are paranormal

But we claim to be normal

And moral

And non mortal

President Joe Biden delivered a Christmas address on Thursday but did not speak the name of “Jesus” or “Christ.”

“How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given,” Biden began, as he delivered his address to reporters at the White House.

The president spoke about a “child” born on Christmas but did not speak the child’s name.

“We look to the sky to a lone star, shining brighter than all the rest guiding us to the birth of a child, a child that Christians believe to be the Son of God,” he said.

Biden also spoke several times about the “light” and “peace” at the heart of Christmas.

They can’t work toward peace in Ukraine because it will serve Putin. They can’t work toward peace in Yemen because it will serve Iran. They can’t end the occupation of Syria because it will serve Assad. They can’t stop military expansionism because it will serve China.

Or, maybe they’re just warmongers.

 by Caitlin Johnstone