BREAKING WORLDWIDE

Tom Hanks is disheartened by America’s presidential election — but the Oscar-winning actor is particularly dismayed by Republican hopeful Donald Trump. Hanks was in Rome to accept the lifetime achievement award at the Rome Film Festival this week when he weighed in on U.S. politics with reporters ahead of the event, according to the Hollywood Reporter. “It strikes me as ‘crapfest 2016,’” the two-time Oscar-winning actor told reporters, according to THR. “Every four years the circus comes to town in the United States. Every four years we decide who’s going to be the leader. Sometimes we’re in an era when it seems that the country is at a crossroads. It’s always at some form of crossroads. Oftentimes there is a fever pitch of fear and anxiety. Sometimes it’s warranted, and other times it’s manufactured.” Despite the seemingly more-contentious-than-usual presidential race, Hanks said he has faith that the American people will make the right decision in November. “I think without a doub...

In this video, Rachel Blevins looks at how the mainstream media has used recent stories about Donald Trump to coverup bombshell stories about Hillary Clinton.

The US military is reportedly in talks with Boeing Defense, Space & Security over the terms of a $3.3 billion contract to purchase 275 AH-64E Apache helicopters. This comes a month after US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter approved the Army’s proposed multiyear procurement plan. Col. Jeffrey Hager, the Apache program manager, told Inside Defense that a signed agreement can be expected by early 2017. The Senate and House versions of the fiscal 2017 National Defense Authorization Act have both been approved, but concerns over the cost efficiency of production and procurement programs has kept any bill from being passed. Loading... The director of defense pricing for the Pentagon's acquisition directorate, Shay Assad, approved the Apache proposal. Assad told Politico in April that his years spent as an executive at Raytheon showed him how companies often overpay for multi-year defense contracts. As a result, Assad claims th...

NATO has rejected air-safety proposals made by Russia which would have ensured all military planes flying in the Baltic region would operate with their transponders switched on. This makes no sense. According to the Wall Street Journal, NATO officials said the proposals “would do little to improve” air safety — a strange response, given that NATO has repeatedly scolded Russia for allegedly flying its military jets over the Baltic with transponders switched off. Headlines about ‘dangerous’ and ‘unsafe’ Russian military flights have been ten-a-penny over the last couple of years. Such stories have become so ubiquitous — and the media so obsessed with blowing them out of proportion — that at one point a woman in Cornwall became convinced that she saw Russian bombers overhead one day when she was out for a driving lesson. One would imagine then, given NATO’s repeated criticisms and concerns over safety in the Baltic region, that they would have welcomed any kind of common-sense prop...

Our day job is to read about Russia-related stuff and then write about it. So imagine our surprise when we learned that "a NATO air chief says he's concerned by Russia's increasing deployment of surface-to-air missile systems in and around Europe." That's huge! Russia deployed the S-400 to Prague? When did this happen? And what is Russia hoping to gain by deploying surface-to-air systems into the heart of NATO-controlled Europe? We had so many questions in need of answers. Originally appeared at russia-insider. loading... In recent years, the Russian military has deployed S-300 and S-400 surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems not only within Russia and Kaliningrad, the Russian city in a territory between Poland and Lithuania, but Crimea and areas encircling the Ukraine, and even Latakia, Syria. A lot of redundant information here. Let's help our friends at Military.com: After editing out the decorative bullshit, we get: In recent years, ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama has vetoed a bill that would have allowed the families of 9/11 victims to sue the government of Saudi Arabia. The move sets Obama up for a possible first veto override by Congress. Both chambers passed the bill by voice vote. The House sent Obama the bill just before the 15th anniversary of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001. Obama says the bill would “upset longstanding international principles regarding sovereign immunity.” The bill would have given 9/11 families the right to sue in U.S. court for any role that elements of the Saudi government may have played in the attacks. Fifteen of the 19 men who carried out the attacks were Saudi nationals.

What, precisely, is the US military for, and what, precisely, can it do? In practical terms, how powerful is it? On paper, it is formidable, huge, with carrier battle groups, advanced technology, remarkable submarines, satellites, and so on. What does this translate to? Military power does not exist independently, but only in relation to specific circumstances. Comparing technical specifications of the T-14 to those of the M1A2, or Su-34 to F-15, or numbers of this to numbers of that, is an interesting intellectual exercise. It means little without reference to specific circumstances. For example, America is vastly superior militarily to North Korea in every category of arms–but the North has nuclear bombs. It can’t deliver them to the US, but probably can to Seoul. Even without nuclear weapons, it has a large army and large numbers of artillery tubes within range of Seoul. It has an unpredictable government. As Gordon Liddy said, if your responses to provocation are wildly out ...

The September parliamentary elections in Russia resulted in a big win for Russian President Vladimir Putin. The ruling United Russia party gained an absolute majority of seats. All other parties represented in the parliament back the national leader. With the broad support he enjoys at home, the Russian president is becoming more and more popular abroad. For instance, US GOP candidate Donald Trump consistently says kind words for Vladimir V. Putin, who is often demonized by American media. Contrary to all predictions, this stance only fuelled the Trump’s popularity among American voters. According to an August 2016 YouGov / Economist poll, only 27 per cent of registered Republicans have a negative view of the Russian president, compared with 66 per cent two years ago. Eighty-five per cent of Republicans say they view Mr. Putin to be a strong leader, while just 18 per cent of Republicans say the same of Barack Obama. Among voters backing Mr. Trump, the Russian president’s approval ra...

After United Russia's landslide election victory, rumors abound Putin now feels he has a mandate to create a single Ministry for State Security from the FSB (Federal Security Service), the FSO (Federal Protective Service) and the SVR (Foreign Intelligence Service) The author is a popular and well informed Russian blogger. The Ministry for State Security (MGB) is set to be inaugurated before the Russian presidential elections in 2018, the newspaper Kommersant writes , referring to a confidential source. The new super-agency will be based at the Federal Security Service, which will take back the functions of the Committee for State Security (KGB) of the USSR. It will consist of the Foreign Intelligence Service and most of the units of the Federal Protective Service, which will continue as the Presidential Security Service, responsible for communication and transportation of high officials. The new ministry will not just investigate criminal cases initiated by the Investigative Com...

The "blame Russia!" narrative is collapsing — again. We knew we were in for a real treat when the United States announced that Russia had bombed a U.N. aid convoy in Syria. What a terrible crime against humanity, timed perfectly to distract from the fact that, for lack of a better term, the U.S. was caught giving air support to ISIS . As always, Russia is guilty until proven deserving of more sanctions. Of course, even a casual news consumer will quickly recognize that the "Russia did it!" narrative is severely lacking. Let's see how Reuters frames this terrible (Russian) crime: Two Russian Sukhoi SU-24 warplanes were in the skies above the aid convoy at the exact time it was struck late on Monday, two U.S. officials told Reuters, citing U.S. intelligence that led them to conclude Russia was to blame. Oh, and look what we have here. The BBC says it was a helicopter attack: But here's the best part of this terrible Russian helicopter/fight...

Bloomberg Politics correspondent  Jennifer Epstein is the bravest, most hard-hitting journalist since William Randolph Hearst; she's a fearless trailblazer who carves massive truth canyons into America's endless plains of bullshit and complacency. Watch her  grill Hillary Clinton without remorse: Are you concerned that this weekend's attack — or, potential incidents in the coming weeks — might be an attempt by ISIS, or ISIS sympathizers, or any other group, maybe Russian, um, to influence the presidential race in some way, and presumably to drive votes to Donald Trump [...]? Experience this historic moment for yourself, compliments of CNN:

Clinton has been using her "dehydration" story for years. This time it won't work. The media is already working around the clock to hush up questions about Hillary's rapidly deteriorating health. She overheated has allergies pneumonia! She'll be back on her feet soon, citizen. End of discussion. Anyone who says otherwise is a Looney Tune. (Remember that just a week ago the media shamed anyone who even suggested that Hillary Clinton might be sick.)  We don't buy it . Commenting on Clinton's latest "medical episode", Dr. Zuhdi Jasser M.D. observed : “What she had was a syncopal episode. She passed out. That’s either cardiovascular or neurologic. Now, her team wants us to believe it is dehydration. She didn’t appear to be dehydrated and that doesn’t get fixed in 90 minutes.” There's a very good reason why Bill has already replaced his wife on the campaign trail : Hillary Clinton is suffering from advanced stages of Parkinson's. And it...

"Reasonable people can — and will — have real questions about [Hillary Clinton's] health," writes the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza, who just last week dismissed any and all speculations regarding Hillary's health as nutty conspiracy theories. What has changed? During a somber 9/11 memorial service in Lower Manhattan, Clinton suffered from what  her staffers described as "overheating". (We thought reptiles like the sun?) As she was escorted back to her armada of black vans, Clinton apparently lost consciousness (and a shoe): From a different angle: Slow motion: Three quick takeaways from this "medical episode": 1. As Cilliza grumpily points out , "reporters — or even a reporter — were not allowed to follow her" to her car. In other words: The press were told to stay in their press pen. They didn't have to. They did it because they're slobbering, obedient ingrates. Without the di...

In the 15 years since planes crashed into the Twin Towers and Pentagon, the United States has spent hundreds of billions of dollars to beef up its domestic security, chased terrorists across two different continents and undertaken the longest war in its history. Yet for all of its efforts, Americans today feel that they are as or more vulnerable to terrorism than ever. According to a Pew survey released this week, fully 71 percent of the country says that terrorists’ ability to launch a major attack on the U.S. is as great or greater than it was 15 years ago. Forty percent of the public says the chances of a major attack are higher than they were around 9/11.

During the first Annual Summit organized by the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in Beijing, China has shown her intention to take over the global leadership in infrastructure investment. By the end of this year, AIIB would have more than 100 members, making it the first lending institution in multilateral loans in history, under the control of the most important emerging countries. It is expected that China will eventually drop the dollar, as it is the only way to break away from US hegemony in international finance. China is already ahead of the US in the race of financing infrastructure at the global level. International Finance is going through transformation, in spite of the strong resistance by the powerful American controlling power. Last year, high officials from Washington had tried to sabotage the launch of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank – AIIB, but failed to do so. In fact, countries that had formerly declared their allegiance to t...

During the first Annual Summit organized by the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in Beijing, China has shown her intention to take over the global leadership in infrastructure investment. By the end of this year, AIIB would have more than 100 members, making it the first lending institution in multilateral loans in history, under the control of the most important emerging countries. It is expected that China will eventually drop the dollar, as it is the only way to break away from US hegemony in international finance. China is already ahead of the US in the race of financing infrastructure at the global level. International Finance is going through transformation, in spite of the strong resistance by the powerful American controlling power. Last year, high officials from Washington had tried to sabotage the launch of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank – AIIB, but failed to do so. In fact, countries that had formerly declared their allegiance to the...

The author is a leading Russian economist, publicist, and TV and radio host. ( Wikipedia - Russian only ) Sometimes referred to as the "Russian Paul Krugman", he writes prolifically, and has a very large audience in Russia. His articles typically receive hundreds of thousands of views. He is known for explaining complex economic ideas in clear terms non-specialists can understand. He is a former senior economist in the presidential administration and a frequent speaker at international conferences. Recently, the Fed decided not to change interest rates. Various reasons were given, but as we know, there are two “parties” in the US, one which favors monetary easing, and the other, tightening, and each has arguments for their case. Economists are divided on how to proceed. They disagree on precisely this: which economic policies can facilitate growth in our times? A brief look at the last 50 years provides some context. In the 70s, household incomes fell, most of all...

History speaks volumes about what is likely to happen when we challenge Russia or China within their traditional spheres of influence If you believe United States presidential wars with Russia and China (not declared by Congress) are necessary to fulfill a divine mission to bring freedom, justice, dignity, and civilization to the Russian and Chinese peoples, then you should vote for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. If you believe like former Democratic Secretary of State Dean Acheson that “[i]n the final analysis, the United States is the locomotive of mankind and the rest of the world the caboose,” an arrogance that begot the gruesome Vietnam War, then you should vote for Hillary Clinton. Her bellicose, jingoistic foreign policy views bugled in a speech before the American Legion on August 31, 2016 confirms that her presidency would bow to Mars (the God of War), not to Minerva (the Goddess of Wisdom). Ms. Clinton sermonized that America is an “exce...

The biggest difference between the two major-Party U.S. Presidential candidates is that Hillary Clinton wants to continue the Obama-Administration’s policy of regime-change in nations that aren’t hostile towards Russia (such as Iraq, Libya, Ukraine and now Syria), and that Donald Trump doesn’t. Trump wants to focus U.S. national-security policies instead upon eliminating jihadists (a problem that the U.S. and Saudi governments actually gave birth to in Pakistan and Afghanistan starting in 1979, in order to cripple the Soviet Union — which ended in 1991). Trump says that the Cold War is over , but Hillary says «Russia must pay a price». However, neither candidate has provided any fleshed-out position on the matter. Hillary Clinton doesn’t need to do so, because she has already shown by her actions in public office, that she has consistently favored overthrowing heads-of-state who were either neutral or else downright friendly toward Russia, of which there have been four cases that...

According to the recently released FBI report on Hillary’s server investigation, the FBI found evidence that Hillary’s crooked aide and lawyer Cheryl Mills destroyed evidence and committed obstruction of justice. Despite the evidence, the FBI has done absolutely nothing. In an interview with the New York Post, Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton said the FBI saw massive document destruction and intent to withhold material evidence by Cheryl Mills, but did nothing and ignored the evidence and even let Mills sit in on Hillary’s interview as one of Hillary’s lawyers. Mills ultimately decided which emails of Hillary’s were “personal” and which were “work-related.” “The smoking gun is on page 16 of the FBI’s 47-page report. It details how Mills ultimately made the determinations about which emails should be preserved before she and Clinton decided to delete the rest as “personal.” Paul Sperry writes. “It’s absolutely outrageous, the FBI saw massive document destruction and clear intent to wit...