Intrepid Report: Week of August 21, 2017

Intrepid Report Newsletter
We cannot keep publishing without your help. We rely on you to help us pay our monthly expenses. So please Donate Monday Charlottesville By Jack Balkwill The Civil War continues to plague us from a dark corner of our history. We’ve got to make sense of what happened in Charlottesville last week–the corporate media are doing a horrible job of it, largely because they are represented by elites who have no understanding of anything happening outside their servile echoes of capitalist propaganda at any cost to the public interest. Siurana, Charlottesville and Barcelona By Linh Dinh The Muslim conquest of Hispania began in 711 and ended in 1492. In Catalonia, they were expelled by 1154, with their last stronghold the mountainous village of Siurana, which today has but 39 residents, though with several restaurants for tourists. Did Donald Trump really discover fascism? By Dave Alpert Donald Trump ran his presidential candidacy to appeal to the racist, fascist, and misogynist elements residing in the United States. Yet, we see so many surprised and outraged at his response to the violence perpetrated by his people in Charlottesville, Virginia, the weekend of August 11th through the 12th. As David Duke, former Grand Dragon of the KKK stated, Donald Trump is fulfilling his campaign promises. Remove him now By Robert Reich We have endured Donald Trump for 7 months. Although he has had few legislative victories, he has almost single-handedly destroyed the moral authority of the presidency of the United States at home and abroad, brought us to the brink of a nuclear war without consulting anyone, and sown division and hatred. Renegotiating NAFTA: Hold the cheers By Stephen Lendman Trump promised a “stronger and better” deal. The only equitable one is fair, not free, trade benefiting everyone, not business and large investors exclusively. Tuesday Israel continues its attack on Palestinian freedom of expression, arrests man for two words posted on Facebook By Richard Hardigan Talal Samara fingered his prayer beads throughout the interview as he sat in his living room chair, bluish smoke curling upwards from his cigarette. He had recently had surgery, and the doctors had told him that under no circumstances was he allowed to smoke. But the stress of recent events had made this impossible. Politicized injustice in America By Stephen Lendman It’s rife in America, thousands incarcerated and abused for political reasons—notably people of color and Muslims, deplorably treated like fifth column threats. The Saudi-Israeli alliance By Eric Zuesse Two of the U.S. government’s supposed allies are supposedly not allies of each other but enemies of each other, but, away from the glare of the ‘news’ media, they actually work together with each other to control, by means of their secret actual alliance with one-another, a substantial, if not the major, part of U.S. foreign policies—especially regarding Iran, Russia, Syria, Israel, Palestinians, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Turkey, but much else besides. These two secret allies of each other, who largely determine U.S. foreign policies, are the Saud family and the government of Israel. ‘Swamp’s doing fine’: Amid White House turmoil, Trump cozies up to right-wing donors Billionaires Robert Mercer, Joseph Craft, and Diane Hendricks all dined with Trump last week By Jake Johnson His party is publicly rebuking him, corporate executives are rushing to distance themselves from his administration to safeguard their own reputations, and rumors of more White House departures are swirling after Chief Strategist Steve Bannon’s ouster. But it appears that President Donald Trump can still count on one bedrock of stability: major right-wing donors. What happened to all those foreclosed houses? Wall Street bought them—and is now leasing them out and driving up rents. By Jim Hightower We know that millions of American families lost their homes after Wall Street’s 2007 financial crash. But where did all those houses go? Wednesday Trump’s Afghan strategy: Forever war and occupation By Stephen Lendman Trump’s Monday address on Afghanistan didn’t surprise. What a difference an election makes! Covering up the massacre of Mosul By Nicolas J S Davies Iraqi Kurdish military intelligence reports have estimated that the nine-month-long U.S.-Iraqi siege and bombardment of Mosul to oust Islamic State forces killed 40,000 civilians. This is the most realistic estimate so far of the civilian death toll in Mosul. Third collision of U.S. Navy ship with civilian vessel raises suspicions By Wayne Madsen James Bond creator and British intelligence agent, Ian Fleming, famously wrote “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action.” Robert Ludlum’s fictional spy, Jason Bourne, said, “Coincidence is rarely a factor.” Did Donald Trump really discover fascism? Part 2 By Dave Alpert Fascism . . . a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader. (Merriam-Webster) How to remove Trump By Robert Reich With Republicans controlling both houses of Congress, it’s unlikely Trump will be impeached or thrown out of office on grounds of mental impairment. At least any time soon. Thursday Shia insurrection in Saudi Arabia: The battle for Awamiya By Thomas C. Mountain Since May 2017 an ongoing insurgency has been raging in the Shia heartland town of Awamiya in eastern Saudi Arabia and its only thanks to the BBC being allowed to enter the area and film the destruction that the world can see how the House of Saud’s war against the Shia population of Yemeni has now expanded to include the Shia population of eastern Saudi Arabia. Michael & me By Mike Palecek I am an American. Demanding ban on killer robots, tech experts warn of opening ‘this Pandora’s Box’ ‘Lethal autonomous weapons threaten to become the third revolution in warfare,’ robotics and artificial intelligence experts warn By Jessica Corbett More than 100 robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) experts published on Monday an open letter urging the United Nations to ban the development and use of killer robots. Stop suicide by helping Big Pharma, says shady suicide prevention group By Martha Rosenberg Next month, hundreds across the country will participate in “Out of the Darkness” walks to raise awareness about suicide and to support the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP). Bannon offers up Priebus to ‘sing’ to Mueller By Wayne Madsen There are reports that ousted White House chief strategist Steve Bannon wants former White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus to testify to Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Mueller on the chain of events that led to President Donald Trump firing FBI director James Comey. Bannon is apparently aware that it was Kushner and First Daughter Ivanka Trump that convinced the president to fire Comey at a family get-together at Trump’s Bedminister, New Jersey, golf club this past May. According to a Vanity Fair article, presidential aide Stephen Miller, who has cultivated a close relationship with Kushner, was also at the Bedminster meeting. Friday Trump’s defining moments By Lawrence Davidson In the last few weeks President Trump has gone through a series of defining moments, in which his disturbing rhetorical reactions to historical developments have opened a window on his sense of the world and the nation. Racist Games in a venomous culture By Richard John Stapleton Some US white supremacists according to Facebook posts are finding out with DNA tests they have some African genes, and some African Americans are finding out with DNA tests they have European genes. I think this is a good thing, showing how people from around Earth are genetically related. Maybe everyone ought to take a DNA test to combat racism and morbid narcissism. How Pharma keeps health care costs astronomical By Martha Rosenberg In 2009, CBS news reported that drugmakers had spent hundreds of millions of dollars to raise awareness of fibromyalgia which it called, “a murky illness, helping boost sales of pills recently approved as treatments and drowning out unresolved questions—including whether it’s a real disease at all.” Eli Lilly and Pfizer had donated more than $6 million to “nonprofit groups for medical conferences and educational campaigns,” reported CBS. While fibromyalgia, like most diseases given such “awareness” certainly exists, the timing and estimation of how many people “suffer” was totally orchestrated by Pharma and its many patient front groups. Nuclear apocalypse: Trump and Kim should not hold the world hostage By Ramzy Baroud Not too far away from Seattle, Washington, there are eight ballistic-missile submarines carrying the world’s large shipments of nuclear weapons. Dear Trump voter By Robert Reich If you voted for Donald Trump, I get it. Maybe you feel you’ve been so badly shafted by the system that you didn’t want to go back to politics as usual, and Trump seemed like he’d topple that corrupt system.
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