An Evaluation of Trump & US presidents...

Talk is cheap!

During an appearance on Oprah Winfrey show some 25 years ago, Trump was ambivalent as to whether to run for presidency throughout his conversation.

Trump spoke just like any average American normally speaks - unable to fathom the intricacies of "give & take" [i.e. compromises] in the arena of international politics. They say anything to gain quick name & fame.

Trump (or any other American for that matter), when put into power, does what other past presidents have consistently & repeatedly done; they are unable to execute their thoughts / plans in real life scenario. Because, once put into power, they realise that their hands are tied in the back; the real power holders actually run the whole show from behind according to their preset plans; otherwise they will make the lives of presidents miserable - JFK'd, in extreme case. This scenario is not very different in other countries either!!

We find hardly any difference in his foreign policy compared to his predecessors - no matter what he said during election campaign. He actually broke almost all promises with respect to foreign policies - extended American & NATO's militaristic adventures, re-deploying troops to Iraq & Afghanistan, became more anti-Russian & anti-Chinese as an excuse to increase defence budget (gave 70 million more than asked for!), new nuclear arms development, found new bogeymen (Iran & North Korea) to create heightened tensions to hike arms sales to middle-eastern & far-eastern countries. Portraying Russia as aggressor, he made all EU members to increase their defence spending by 1-2% of their respective GDPs -- whose primarily source of arms procurement is USA. Hostile media is not reporting that America's current economy is at its best compared to last 17 years performance!

Trump is critical of huge American spending for various UN departments or projects but does not cut several billion dollars worth of annual aid (from taxpayers' money) given to Israel! Talk about hypocrisy... but then all US presidents were the same in this regard!

He is just being a good businessman although a bit eccentric in his manners. He is being groomed now, and have started to behave (maturing) as expected - tweets are not coming out as frequently as they used to be. He is too vocal & outspoken (on many sensitive issues eg race, religion, muslims, immigrants, looking down upon non-Americans, etc) compared to his predecessors - none were much good either!

Until and unless America is unshackled from the clutches of five hydra-headed mythological monsters (i.e. the real movers & shakers - that the power that be), namely the Jewish Rothschild family controlled Wall Street banking cartel, the tax-evading multi-national industrial corporations, the intelligence agencies (CIA, NSA, NRO, etc.), the military (war industry), and the Jew-controlled MSM (i.e. mainstream media -- large publishing groups and television stations), there is no great America in the making or coming unfortunately... restored to the state/status of America that its great founding fathers envisioned and enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and its Constitution. This country needs to come out of two-party dictatorship for a real change to take place! And that heavy responsibility falls on the shoulders of its people who vote them to power...

Joke: Tit for Tat...

A guy asked a girl in a library, “Do you mind if I sit beside you?”

The girl answered with a  loud voice, "I DO NOT WANT TO SPEND THE NIGHT WITH YOUUU!!!!!”

All of the students in library started staring at the guy. He was very embarrassed.......

After a couple of minutes, the girl walked quietly to the guy’s table and told him, “I study psychology and I know what a man is thinking.

Let me guess, you were embarrassed, huh?”

The guy responded with a loud voice, “200 DOLLARS FOR ONE NIGHT?!?!?! THAT’S TOO MUCH!!!”

…and all the people in the library looked at the girl in shock......

The guy leaned over and whispered, "I study Management, and I know how to screw people.........."

SpaceX Falcon rocket creates history!

When Falcon Heavy lifted off, it set the record for the most powerful operational rocket in the world by a factor of two. The most powerful rocket in history was NASA's Saturn V rocket, which was used for the Apollo moon landings and was retired in the 1970s.

The more thrust a rocket has, the farther it can travel and the bigger the satellite, spacecraft or other payload it can send into orbit. That opens up a whole range of business opportunities for SpaceX, which has been leading a new era of spaceflight in which companies -- not just governments -- drive the industry forward.

 

With the ability to lift into orbit nearly 64 metric tons (141,000 lb)--- a mass greater than a 737 jetliner loaded with passengers, crew, luggage and fuel-- Falcon Heavy can lift more than twice the payload of the next closest operational vehicle, the Delta IV Heavy, at one-third the cost.

But the Falcon Heavy is essentially three Falcon 9s strapped together, and it'll boast about three times the thrust of the Falcon 9. And, compared to rockets that better rival the Falcon Heavy's power, it's a bargain.

The Delta IV Heavy, which is built by legacy aerospace firm United Launch Alliance and is currently the world's most powerful rocket, can reportedly cost as much as $400 million per launch.

It should also be noted that the Falcon Heavy will out-power the Delta IV Heavy by a factor of two.

Why is it so cheap?

SpaceX says it's been able to undercut the competition on price because of its reusable rocket parts.

The company is the only rocket builder in the world that safely returns first-stage rocket boosters back to Earth.

The first Falcon Heavy flight will even use two refurbished boosters from previous Falcon 9 missions.

Falcon Heavy's first stage is composed of three Falcon 9 nine-engine cores whose 27 Merlin engines together generate more than 5 million pounds of thrust at lift-off, equal to approximately eighteen 747 aircraft. Following lift-off, the two side boosters separated from the center core and returned to landing sites for future re-use. The center core, traveling further and faster than the side boosters, also returned for re-use, but unfortunately crash-landed on a drone ship located in the Atlantic Ocean. At max velocity, the Roadster, Elon Musk's Tesla electric car used a dummy payload, travelled at 11 km/s (7mi/s) and travel 400 million km (250 million mi) from Earth.

Even standing on the launch pad, the Falcon Heavy was impressive. It clocked in at 229.6 feet tall and 39.9 feet wide. When the engines ignited they carried 3,125,735 pounds of rocket alone, in addition to the mass of of the cargo. For this first run, it carried Musk’s Tesla Roadster with a pressure suit called 'Starman' sitting in the car.  There's no scientific reason to send the car to space. But it does serve as self-promotion for Musk, who is also the CEO of Tesla. When asked on Twitter why he wanted to throw away a $100,000 car, he replied, "I love the thought of a car drifting apparently endlessly through space and perhaps being discovered by an alien race millions of years in the future."

Car and spaceman in hanger

On future missions the rocket could carry 140,660 pounds of payload to low-earth orbit, 37,040 to Mars, and 7,720 lbs to Pluto (the longer the journey, the more fuel you need—and fuel takes up weight of its own).

Want to launch something on the Falcon Heavy? There are definitely less expensive ways to get rid of your car. A cargo launch to geostationary orbit will cost you $90 million. The price tag might seem high—but as Reuters reports, it's a fourth the cost of its closest competitor, and can carry payloads twice as massive.

Musk and SpaceX has already begun to turn their attention to their next venture, the BFR. SpaceX has said the rocket will be capable of sending humans to Mars, even though SpaceX is planning to build an entirely different system for Mars travel, called the BFR.

But while we wait for that next leap in technology, the Falcon Heavy will keep launching. It has already won a contract for a Saudi Arabian communications satellite, and is contracted to launch scientific and military satellites (dubbed STP-2 that includes some weather forecasting satellites.) for the Air Force later this year.

SpaceX also said in early 2017 that two space tourists put down a deposit to ride on a Falcon Heavy for a trip around the moon. At the time, SpaceX said that trip could occur in 2018, though the company hasn't offered any updates.

How much does it cost?

The Falcon Heavy has a $90 million sticker price. That's 45% more expensive than the Falcon 9 rocket SpaceX has used for every mission going back to 2012.

Falcon 9 Heavy isn't, however, bigger or more powerful than the mighty Saturn V that was used to launch the Apollo astronauts to the moon in the '60s

and '70s and then to launch the Skylab space station in 1973.

Status: First test flight took place February 6
Height: 229.6 feet (70 meters)
Liftoff thrust: 5 million pounds
Capability: 140,660 pounds (63,800 kilograms) to LEO
(Note: Capability refers to the maximum payload weight the rocket can deliver to Low-Earth Orbit.)
Planned payloads: One Tesla (dummy payload), satellites, cargo, astronauts, tourists

Even after the Falcon Heavy launches, the Saturn V will remain the tallest and most powerful rocket ever, and the only one to help carry humans beyond Earth's orbit. NASA used the Saturn V to send astronauts to the moon in the Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17 spacecraft.

A Saturn V also launched Apollo 13, but the spacecraft (not the rocket) had a problem and the astronauts didn't land. The last Saturn V was used to launch Skylab, America's first space station, on May 14, 1973.

Status: Retired in 1973
Height: 363 feet (111 meters)
Liftoff thrust: 7.6 million pounds (3.4 million kilograms)
Capability: 260,000 pounds (118,000 kilograms) to LEO
Payloads: Apollo spacecraft and astronauts, Skylab

Blue Origin -- the space startup created by Amazon's Jeff Bezos -- has a small, reusable rocket to send paying tourists on trips to sub-orbital space. But, the company also has plans for a monstrous new machine that can send people and payloads to Earth's orbit. It'll come in two configurations: one
with two stages and another with an added third stage for extra boost.

Status: First test flight no earlier than 2020
Height: 326 feet (99.4 meters)
Liftoff thrust: 3.9 million pounds (1.8 million kilograms)
Capability: 10,000 pounds (4,500 kilograms) to LEO
Planned payloads: Satellites, humans

United Launch Alliance, has the Delta IV Heavy. This rocket was first tested in 2004 and it's taller than the Falcon Heavy, but SpaceX is promising to take up heavier payloads. The Delta IV Heavy doesn't fly often, but it's been the U.S. military's go-to rocket for sending large national security
satellites into orbit.

Status: Currently operational
Height: 235 feet (71.6 meters)
Liftoff thrust: 2.1 million pounds (1 million kilograms)
Capability: 62,500 pounds (28,000 kilograms) to LEO
Payloads: Satellites

United Launch Alliance is developing a new generation of rockets, dubbed Vulcan after the Roman god of fire. The concept was first announced in 2015, and CEO Tory Bruno has said the most powerful version of the Vulcan could rival the Falcon Heavy's power. The Vulcan can add thrust by strapping extra rocket boosters to the sides of its main column.

Status: First test flight no earlier than 2020
Height: 228 ft (69.5 meters)
Liftoff thrust: 3.8 million pounds (1.7 million kg)
Capability: 80,000 pounds (36,000 kg)

Space Shuttle refers to the reusable spacecraft system that NASA developed to send people and payloads into orbit between 1981 and 2011. The systems consisted of a white winged "Orbiter" with powerful engines that attached to a massive external fuel tank and two rocket boosters on the launch pad. There were five "Orbiters" capable of spaceflight -- Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Endeavour and Atlantis.

Status: Retired in 2011
Height: 184 feet (56.1 meters) including external tank
Capability: 65,000 pounds (2,900 kilograms) to LEO
Liftoff thrust: 7.8 million pounds (3.5 million kg)
Payload: Astronauts, experiments, supplies, other cargo, satellites

What constitutes ‘foreign interference’ in democracy?

US billionaire Soros donated £400k to an anti-Brexit group. The US has always wanted Britain to stay in the EU. Obama warned...

Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan donated £500,000 each to the ‘Britain Stronger in Europe’ group, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley – £250,000 each. If this is not foreign interference… then what is it?

Soros & the £400k Question: What constitutes ‘foreign interference’ in democracy? 

Neil Clark, RT : 9 Feb, 2018

You’d have to have a real sense of humor failure not to laugh. The news that US billionaire Soros donated £400k to an anti-Brexit group came on the day that YouTube said they found no evidence of Russian interference in Brexit.

Repeat After Me (with robotic arm movements): “Unproven Russian involvement in Brexit – terrible! Impose more sanctions on Moscow! A £400k check from an American billionaire for an anti-Brexit campaigning group – that’s no problem; it’s helping our democracy!”

You don’t have to own a brand new £999 state-of-the art Hypocrisy Detector from Harrods, to pick up on the double standards. Just having a few functioning brain cells and thinking for yourself will do. For months in the UK we’ve been bombarded with Establishment-approved conspiracy theories – peddled in all the ’best’ newspapers – that Russia somehow ‘fixed’ Brexit. Getting Britain to leave the EU was all part of a cunning plot by Vladimir Putin, aka Dr. Evil, to weaken Europe and the ‘free world.’

Even West End musical composer Andrew Lloyd-Webber, who knows quite a bit about phantoms, seemed taken in by it. “By quitting Europe, I fear that we are hastening Putin’s dream of the break-up of the EU – and with it, potentially, western civilisation,” the noble Lord declared in July.

Never mind that we don’t have a single statement from Putin or other senior Kremlin figures saying that they actually supported Brexit. These Establishment Russia-bashers know exactly what The Vlad is thinking.

And never mind that RT and Sputnik, which we are repeatedly told are “propaganda arms of the Russian government,” ran articles by pro- and anti-Brexit writers. The same people who told us Iraq had WMDs in 2003 were absolutely sure it was those dastardly Russkies who had got Britain to vote ‘leave.’ The irony is of course that there was significant foreign interference in Brexit. But it didn’t come from Moscow.

The US has always wanted Britain to stay in the EU. In April 2016, two months before the Referendum, President Obama made it clear what he wanted when he visited the UK. He warned that if Britain exited the EU it would be “at the back of the queue” for trade deals with the US.

Just imagine if Putin had said that. The Russophobes would have spontaneously combusted.

Then of course there was the backing the Remain camp had from the giants of US capital. Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan donated £500,000 each to the ‘Britain Stronger in Europe’ group, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley – £250,000 each.

Again, repeat after me (with robotic arm movements): “This is not foreign interference… This is not foreign interference!”

The point is not whether we are for or against Brexit. Or whether we think George Soros is a malign influence who only acts out of self-interest or an old sweetie-pie with the good of humanity at heart. The point is the double standards that are causing our Hypocrisy Detectors to explode.

Let’s think back to December 2016. Then, the pro-war and fiercely anti-Russian Labour MP Ben Bradshaw told Parliament that it was “highly probable” that Russia had interfered with Brexit.

Fourteen months on, what have we got? On Thursday, the global head of You Tube’s public policy, Juniper Downs, said her company “had conducted a thorough investigation around the Brexit referendum and found no evidence of Russian interference.”

Twitter meanwhile says it detected 49 (yes, 49) accounts from what it claimed to be a “Russian troll factory,” which sent all of 942 messages about Brexit – amounting to less than 0.005% of all the tweets about the Referendum. Twitter said the accounts received “very low levels of engagement” from users. If the Kremlin had planned to use tweets to persuade us to vote ‘leave,’ they didn’t really put much effort into it, did they?

Finally, Facebook said that only three “Kremlin-linked” accounts were found which spent the grand sum of 72p (yes, 72p) on ads during the Referendum campaign. Which amounts to the greater “interference”? 72p or £400K? Erm… tough call, isn’t it?

You might have thought, given his concern with ‘foreign interference’ in British politics, that Ben Bradshaw would have been urging ‘Best for Britain’ to return George Soros’ donation. Au contraire! His only tweets about it were retweets of two critical comments about the Daily Telegraph, and the BBC’s coverage of the story. Conclusion: Those who rail about ‘Russia meddling in Brexit’ but not Soros’ intervention aren’t concerned about ‘foreign interference’ in UK politics, only ‘foreign interference’ from countries they don’t approve of.

Those who are quite happy peddling ludicrous conspiracy theories about Russians shout “conspiracy theorist” (or worse) at those who report factually on proven meddling from others. The Daily Express hit the nail on the head in their Friday editorial which said: “Just what does George Soros think he is doing pouring £400,000 into a campaign to stop Brexit. For a start he is not actually a resident of this country so it has nothing to do with him.”

That really is the rub of the matter. And Bradshaw and co. have no adequate response except to shoot the messenger.

If we look at the affair with an even wider lens, the hypocrisy is even greater. The US has been gripped by an anti-Russian frenzy not seen since the days of Senator Joe McCarthy. The unsubstantiated claim that Russia fixed the election for Donald Trump is repeated by ‘liberals’ and many neocons too, as a statement of fact. “I don’t know that the public understands the gravity of what the Russians were able to do and continue to do here in the United States. They’ve attacked us. They’re trying to undermine our democracy,” film director Rob Reiner said. 

But the number one country round the world for undermining democracy and interfering in the affairs of other sovereign states is the US itself.

While Establishment journos and pundits have been foaming at the mouth over ‘Russiagate’ and getting terribly excited over ‘smoking guns’ which turn out – surprise, surprise – to be damp squibs, there’s been less attention paid to the boasts of former Vice President Joe Biden on how he got the allegedly ‘independent’ Ukrainian government to sack its prosecutor general in a few hours. “I looked at them and said: ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money…"

“I said, ‘I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars,” Biden said during a meeting of the US’ Council on Foreign Relations. “Well, son of a b***h. He got fired.”

Again, just imagine the furore if a leading Russian government figure boasted about how he used financial inducements to get another country’s Prosecutor General to be sacked. Or if a tape was leaked in which the Russian Ambassador and a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson could be heard discussing who should or shouldn’t be in the new ‘democratic’ government of another sovereign state. But we had the US Ambassador to Ukraine and the US Assistant Secretary of State doing exactly that in 2014 – and the ‘Russia is interfering in the Free World!’ brigade were as silent as a group of Trappist monks.

It’s fair to say that Orwell would have a field day with the doublespeak that’s currently on show. The cognitive dissonance is there for all to see. Repeat After Me: Unproven Russian interference – Bad. Proven interference from other external sources – Good. What’s your problem?

Jokes: Doctor vs Engineer

*An engineer was removing the engine parts from a motorcycle*.

_*Suddenly he saw a famous heart surgeon in his shop*.
*He went to him & said.. "Look at this engine*...
*I opened its heart, took the valves out, repaired and put them back*..
*So why do I get such a small salary*?
*and you get huge sums*_....!

_*The doctor smiled at the engineer and came close to his ear and said*....
*Try the same when the engine is running*_."

👌👏 *Classic!*🙏🏻

_Continuation

*The engineer smiled back came close to doctors ear and said*
_  *I can pick any dead engine and make it alive* . . . . .
 *can you*_ ???

👌👏 *Not only Classic but Epic*_ 😂😂👍

The nature of modern imperialism...

Modern imperialism is carried out under the sugar-coated pretexts of human rights concerns, ensuring freedoms, responsibility to protect, etc...

Modern imperialism goes on trial, and is found guilty

Neil Clark, RT : 3 Feb, 2018

Benghazi, Libya, Feb 28, 2016

Imperialism – which today is usually referred to by the euphemism ‘liberal interventionism’ – went on Trial at the Waterside Theatre in Derry, Northern Ireland this week.

Five passionate and well-informed speakers, who included the former British Ambassador to Syria Peter Ford, detailed the carnage and chaos that has been unleashed around the globe by the aggressive, warmongering policies of the US and its closest allies.

The event could have been called ‘War on Trial.’ It might have been called ‘Regime Change on Trial.’ Or ‘Economic Sanctions on Trial.’ But it was – thanks to organizer Gregory Sharkey – called ‘Imperialism on Trial’ and, as the first speaker, the writer and broadcaster John Wight declared, that in itself was highly significant. 

For the truth is the ‘I’ word is the elephant in the room in contemporary discourse. We’re not supposed to acknowledge its existence. Imperialism, according to the dominant Establishment narrative, ended when the European empires gave their colonies independence in the 1950s and 60s. In fact, the ‘old’ imperialism was only replaced by a new variant which is even more destructive, and certainly more dishonest. At least the British Empire admitted it was an empire.

Today’s US-led neo-liberal empire, which has Britain as its junior partner, does no such thing. Entire countries have been destroyed, with millions killed, and it’s been done under a ‘progressive’ banner trumpeting concern for ‘human rights’ and ‘enhancing freedoms.’

In an electrifying address, Wight lambasted the pro-imperial propaganda to which we are relentlessly subjected to in the West. How absurd is it, he asked, that NATO troops are on Russia’s borders, while Russian troops have been fighting in Syria the same ISIS/Al-Qaeda terrorist groups who have been killing British citizens back home? Citing Marx, Wight reminded the audience of how the ideas of the ruling class become the dominant ideas, and the demonization of Russia is a classic example of this. Ordinary Britons don’t regard Putin as a ‘threat’ as they go about their daily business, but they do – rightly – regard the terrorist groups that Russia has been fighting as a danger to them. But the ruling class hate Russia because it has thwarted its imperial ambitions.

Wight said that opponents of imperialism should never go on the back foot when confronted by supporters of criminal wars of aggression, such as the Iraq War – which has led to the deaths of around 1 million people and the rise of ISIS. He mentioned that these people hate the fact that there are now alternative media channels such as RT which challenge the dominant neocon/neoliberal narrative.

“Alternative media and those who go on it are under attack because they have the temerity to ask the most subversive question in the English language which is: Why? Why did we go to war in Iraq? Why are there sanctions on Cuba? Why are we going after Iran but are close friends with the Saudis? This question is so powerful. We are attacked because we ask the question, why? I am reminded of the African proverb that until lions have their own historians, tales of the hunt will always glorify the hunter. Now with the alternative media, the lions have their historians. We can put the case for the Syrian people; we can put the case for the Venezuelan people; we can put the case why Russia should not be our enemy.”

Speaking next, Peter Ford, the former British Ambassador to Syria and Bahrain, drew on his firsthand experience of many years as a diplomat and UN official based in the Middle East, to explain the current geopolitical situation.

“People who are not regular readers of the Morning Star might be forgiven for thinking that imperialism ended when the colonies became free. Nothing could be further from the truth. We now have a new more insidious but more powerful form of imperialism – one which hides behinds words in order to extend its hegemony. Expressions like ‘protecting our allies,’ ‘countering weapons of mass destruction’ or ‘defending human rights’ – and this one applies as much to the left as the right.”

“We on the left have to be particularly alert to ‘liberal interventionism’: this is actually the new version of ‘carrying the white man’s burden,” Ford continued. “In each case we are intervening in less developed parts of the world which are generally not able to strike back. Consider the appalling war in Yemen – one of the poorest and weakest countries in the world. It used to be a British colony but independence has not made it free. When the Yemenis dared to get rid of their pro-Saudi government, the Saudis, with British and American backing, started bombing and blockading Yemen. Conditions under siege and bombardment have led to a terrible epidemic of cholera.”

Any genuine humanitarians would be greatly concerned with the dire situation in Yemen, but guess what? The ‘liberal interventionists’ who egged on ‘humanitarian interventions’ elsewhere have been silent.

Looking at the global picture, Ford described how the US Empire operates.

“The Americans have nearly 800 bases around the world, spread over about 70 countries and territories. You show me a country with an American base and I’ll show you a de facto colony or vassal state. It’s almost mediaeval: You have to pay homage to the sovereign – America. That is our (the British) condition today. We are equivalent to a vassal state,” he said.

In my address, I stressed how important it was to see the US-led attacks, interventions and destabilization campaigns against sovereign states of the past 20 years as part of the same war, one waged for total global domination. Independent, resource-rich countries usually with socialist/socialistic governments and economies which weren’t controlled by global corporations, have been targeted, one-by-one. In each case, the leaders of the countries concerned were relentlessly demonized. They were called dictators, even though in the case of Hugo Chavez and Slobodan Milosevic they had won numerous democratic elections and operated in countries where opposition parties freely operated.

The ‘target states’ were subject to draconian sanctions which created economic hardship and a ‘pressure cooker’ environment, which usually resulted in street protests against the government, egged on by the US. The governments were then told ‘the world is watching you’ and ordered not to respond, even when violence was used by protestors. The same strategy was deployed in Yugoslavia in 2000, Ukraine in 2014, and Venezuela in 2017. In Afghanistan and Iraq, we had a full-scale invasion (based on the ‘fake news’ that Saddam possessed WMDs) and in Libya (and Yugoslavia) a NATO bombing campaign.

There has been endless war for the past twenty years and it won’t end until we understand what’s been going on and demand a new foreign policy in place of the current racist one which holds that the US and its closest allies have the right to say who should or shouldn’t be in charge of other countries, but denies the same rights to the ‘inferior’ countries targeted. 

Intrepid journalist Eva Bartlett, who had travelled all the way from Canada, came next and began by describing her experiences in the DPRK, another country that’s under threat of attack from the US.

“Many people believe that what is happening in North Korea is about a madman with a bad haircut and an itchy finger on the nuclear button. But no, it’s not about Trump,” she said to laughter from the hall. 

Bartlett told how we’re encouraged to see North Korea as a threat but no context is usually given, nor is there mention of the utter devastation caused by US bombing back in the 1950s. Down the decades, there have been regular threats from leading US figures to obliterate North Korea.

“What the North Koreans are doing is defending themselves,” Bartlett said.

Having seen what has happened to Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and other countries targeted by the US in recent years, who can possibly blame them?

In addition to visiting the DPRK in 2017, Bartlett has also been to Syria seven times since the conflict started there in 2011. She described her experiences in the country and explained how the situation on the ground was often very different from the dominant imperialist narrative which holds the Syrian government and President Assad responsible for every evil. She gave as an example the liberation of eastern Aleppo from terrorists in December 2016, which was portrayed as a terrible thing by much of the Western media and the political establishment.

“Corporate media described Aleppo as falling, while Syrians were celebrating the full liberation of the city and Christians were able to celebrate Christmas for the first time in years,” she said.

The final speaker of the evening was the legendary George Galloway who dazzled us with his oratory, humor, and sheer bloody brilliance. Galloway quoted Dr. Samuel Johnson, saying that “the grimmest dictatorship of them all is the dictatorship of the prevailing orthodoxy. And that’s the dictatorship under which we live. We can argue about the color of the paint on the walls of Westminster, but on the things that really matter the parameters are very narrow. Neoliberal economics and neoconservative imperialist politics abroad – that’s the prevailing orthodoxy. So anyone who challenges it must by definition be portrayed as – and turned into – an outlaw. Isn’t that the world in which we live?”

Reminding people on the pivotal role the Soviet Red Army had played in the defeat of the Nazis, he declared “we live in an era where we’re encouraged to hate and fear Russia. But I will never, ever hate Russia and remain silent while others generate hate against her.”  

At time of writing the video of Imperialism on Trial on the RTUK Facebook page

has had 35K views. The event was such a success that a ‘Roadshow’ is already being planned. The ‘I word’ needs to be openly discussed. Because if we don’t speak out forcefully and fearlessly against modern imperialism, and call it out for what it is, we could well be heading for Armageddon.

Russian doping allegation overturned!

This whole doping allegation was nothing more than a political ploy to demonize and embarrass Russia on the world stage ....as was stated by a reporter who questioned one of the committee reps in an interview yesterday "How is this whole process fair when over 3000 other athletes had no doping testing whatsoever" ....when you consider that with the fact there is no oversight over who handles the samples or their security from being tampered with .....the judge in this case made the right decision ....so this means these 28 Russian athletes should now be able to compete under their own Russian Flag since they have been cleared of any doping allegations now.

Dear international olympic committee, you have suspended the entire russian olympic team (even those who had never tested positive for performance enhancing drugs) because you claim that the abuse was so widespread within some circles that it would be impossible for others higher up not to have known about the violations. Does that mean you are now going to suspend the entire team, due to the fact that the sexual abuse of athletes was clearly so widespread that it would be impossible for others higher up (USA Gymnastics, USOC) not to have known about these criminal acts? using the olympics as a political tool of nato, against Russia, is not only disgusting, it invalidates your entire organization - an organization that has a history and reputation that will outlive your selfish abuse of one of humanities rare places of agreement and kinship. you might ruin these olympics, but you won't destroy international relations through sport.

Victory of reason: Olympic ban reversal shows how inept the 'Russian doping' saga is

RT : 2 Feb, 2018

Today's decision by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to uphold the appeals by Russian athletes could be described in one phrase: Sanity prevailed.

Ever since "the Russian doping scandal" began in the spring of 2016, the world of sport has been divided into two camps: On one side, the “believers," those who came to trust the allegations of what was described as "systematic state-sponsored subversion of the drug testing processes by the government of Russian Federation" as voiced in the McLaren Report of 2016 and later repeated and expanded on by Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, who fled Russia for the United States.

The "believers" were and are opposed by the "skeptics," those who demanded to see more concrete proof of guilt, other than Rodchenkov's testimony.

Here are the big questions skeptics were asking – and so, indeed, should anybody who doesn't automatically believe in everything the New York Times is writing.

Is it feasible that the "systematic state-sponsored doping program" would include only some Russian athletes of international caliber, but not the others? Wouldn't those not listed feel enraged and upset? The doping, after all, gives an unfair advantage, and in individual sport, that little bit more translates into medals and material prizes. Yet, not a single Russian athlete who participated in the Sochi Olympics went on to support Rodchenkov’s claims.

Rodchenkov himself, by all accounts, is a larger-than-life personality. Even those in Russia who directly suffered from his allegations admit that he was/is a very gifted biochemist – but one that is extremely full of himself. In all his testimonies, one line is consistent: "I devised this and that and I implemented it... me, me, me." That begs the question: How come top Russian athletes did not stop performing at the highest levels after Rodchenkov departed for the United States? If their results were "fueled by doping," surely they would drop massively without Rodchenkov's magic concoctions?

Stories about "steroid cocktails mixed with Chivas Regal" and "KGB/FSB agents swapping urine samples through hidden doors" are good for the pages of the New York Times and for CNN panels, but also the least believable. Russian skiers and skaters seethe with anger when hearing such tales. "I never drunk, or sipped on, or gurgled Scotch whisky in my life. I just hate the smell of it!" one Russian athlete said angrily.

Over the last few years, the Russians paid big bucks to sign the best coaches in winter sports. The best, essentially meaning, they made their names coaching other, foreign athletes to victories. One such coach is Markus Cramer from Germany, the former trainer of triple Olympic champion Dario Cologna. Cramer insists that a doping program cannot be implemented without the athletes' coach being in the know – and he has zero evidence of that happening. Which leaves two distinct possibilities: Either Cramer is lying or there's simply no doping, at least in Russian cross country skiing. Nobody has ever questioned Cramer's integrity, certainly not publicly.

Yet all of the above is dwarfed by that 800-pound-gorilla-in-the-room issue concerning "Russian doping" that proponents of the theory refuse to consider – no Russian international winter sport athlete was caught doping in recent years, certainly not since the Sochi Olympics two years ago. Zilch. Nada.

Top winter sport athletes – skiers, skaters, lugers etc. – spend most of their time training and competing abroad, mostly in Europe. A few people outside the immediate winter sporting circles realize that, unlike, say, in soccer or basketball, where athletes mostly compete at home, the winter sport World Cups and World Championships are a constant "travelling circus" – one week here, next one there. A consequence of this, is the fact that they are constantly being checked on and tested by international anti-doping officials from WADA.

Moreover, all top athletes, Russians included, are registered on The Anti-Doping Administration and Management System or ADAMS. One of its functions is constant reporting of an athlete’s whereabouts, so anti-doping officers know where to find this or that athlete. While all the information regarding testing is considered to be very private, anecdotally, a top athlete is subjected to no less than 40 (forty!) urine and blood tests per year – some a lot more than that. That was the case before the Sochi Olympics, and that remains the case now.

Just to repeat: Zero Russians were caught. And now it's time to ask the really big question: Either the Russians learned how to hide their doping practice so well that no amount of testing, anywhere, anytime could catch them; or there is no proverbial black cat in that room and, therefore, simply nobody to catch.
Imagine for a second that Russians – even without that "evil genius Rodchenkov" – are so good at covering their tracks, then how about the others? Wouldn't they be also tempted? The logic dictates that in that case, the entire international sport system is tainted – but nobody ever suggested that, not even hinted as much.

Those must have been the questions members of the CAS panel asked themselves while weighing their decisions.
There is a major difference between the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and CAS. The former is, essentially, a private organization, free to set its own rules, standards and admission norms. It is also an organization increasingly dependent on sponsors and paying partners. The biggest of which happens to be US-based media companies.

CAS, however, is an impartial arbitration, a court that in practice operates under the Swiss law (" … i­n the context of ordinary arbitration, the parties are free to agree on the law applicable to the merits of the dispute. Failing such agreement, Swiss law applies"). Unlike the IOC, it does not have to balance interests and demands of its sponsors against those of athletes.

For all the talk of "proven corruption of the Sochi 2014 Games," there's actually no evidence thereof – and today's decision by CAS is ample proof of that.