This video is self-explanatory.
Mano Singham
Just another Freethought Blogs site
Given the secretive and coercive nature of the national security state, we have come to depend upon whistleblowers to tell us of the abuses that are committed by governments. Governments in turn retaliate by threatening to hand out extremely harsh punishments to those caught divulging information they do not want revealed, though high government officials will freely leak secret information to reporters when it serves their interests and such people not only do not get punished, they are rewarded for such actions and even for their deceptions and lies.
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The Donald Trump administration wants to change the system that allows immigration into the US. At present, being a relative of a citizen or permanent resident counts for quite a lot but they want to change it to a so-called ‘merit-based’ system. This is because while family relationships were considered good qualities when the family members coming in were mostly white and from Europe, demographics in the US have changed and there are now many more people of color and efforts are being made to keep America white by making family relationships less salient. Trump himself has made no secret of the fact that while he talks of merit, in his mind that means ‘white’.
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I have written before about the abuse of taxpayer money by the head of the Environmental Protection Agency Scott Pruitt who seems to not only have delusions of grandeur that makes him want to live in luxury at taxpayer expense, he also seems to be paranoid, demanding all manner of security protections despite being one of the more obscure cabinet members. But what is most dangerous in terms of public policy is that he is a religious extremist.
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UPDATE: Today brings reports of at least another 52 demonstrators in Gaza killed by the IDF and over 2,000 injured.]
Today the Trump administration moves the US embassy to Jerusalem, one more step in dispossessing the Palestinian people and solidifying Israel’s apartheid rule over them, aided by the US. Charles Glass writes about a new book by Norman Finkelstein titled Gaza: An Inquest Into Its Martyrdom that takes a critical look at the crimes that Israel has committed using its Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), focusing on the people who are the worst affected, those living in Gaza.
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Today is Mother’s Day in the US, one of the many days to remember certain people in our lives that the greeting card and other merchandizing industries have seized upon to guilt-trip people into spending money on gifts and cards to avoid feeling guilty that their mothers will think that they do not care about them. Being the curmudgeon that I am, I impressed upon my children when they were young age that I thought celebrating things like Father’s Day (and even my birthday) was nonsense and that I would be disappointed if they fell for the marketing pressure and bought me cards and stuff on those days and that I would be pleased if they ignored them altogether. Despite my urgings, they still call me on Father’s Day and my birthday but they know better than to buy me anything.
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It looks like Donald Trump’s choice to be ambassador to Germany has got off to a great start, peremptorily telling his host nation that they had better get in line or else. As Robert Mackey writes, Richard Grenell took up his post on Tuesday, the day that Trump announced his withdrawal from the Iran deal, and immediately sent out a tweet saying ” As @realDonaldTrump said, US sanctions will target critical sectors of Iran’s economy. German companies doing business in Iran should wind down operations immediately.”
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A member of Justin Trudeau’s cabinet, who happens to be a Sikh who wears the traditional turban, was singled out for extra scrutiny by US officials at the Detroit airport as he was returning to Canada after an official visit to the US.
Officials from the Trump administration issued an apology after a security agent at a Detroit airport repeatedly demanded that a Canadian cabinet minister remove his turban, the minister has revealed.
Navdeep Bains, the country’s minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, described the incident in an interview with the French-language paper La Presse on Thursday.
Bains was returning to Toronto after meetings with Michigan state leaders in April 2017 and had already passed through regular security checks, but because he was wearing a turban, a security agent told him that he would have to undergo additional checks, according to La Presse.
Ray McGovern is a 27-year veteran of the CIA who worked at high levels in the White House of George H. W. Bush, but who has since become a vocal critic of what he sees as the wrong policies of the CIA and the US government. See what happens to him when he protests at the hearing for torture-lover and war criminal Gina Haspel’s nomination to head the CIA. The brutality and sheer excessive force shown to a 78-year old man simply for speaking out is disgusting to see.
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