Mike Norman Economics

Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte was this week forced to bear a parliamentary vote of no confidence after his foreign minister finally came clean over a dangerous lie he has been telling for two years concerning Russian President Vladimir Putin. Halbe Zijlstra quit in shame on Monday as the country’s foreign minister after admitting that a story he had peddled about personally hearing Putin plotting to create a “greater Russia” was false. That then forced premier Rutte to endure a...

False flag in the works — again?Moon of AlabamaSyria - New 'Chemical Weapons' Fake Planned - Chlorine Though Will Not Do b

The ongoing role of false narratives and historical fallacies. The Nation If America ‘Won the Cold War,’ Why Is There Now a ‘Second Cold War with Russia’? Stephen F. Cohen | Professor Emeritus of Russian Studies, History, and Politics at New York University and Princeton UniversitySee alsoAgenda and hidden agenda. I have remarked on more than one occasion that Western perceptions of the Russian ‘threat’ have historically owed little to the real scale (or even existence) of that threat....

Conservatives have had enough of war, well, the informed moderate ones have. Take a look at the replies, these people could well be by lefties. So, time to get together to put an end to these wars. Danial Larison says these wars serve no strategic purpose for the US, so could they all be neoconservative driven? KVDaniel LarisonOne reason for this indifference is that many of our leaders tell us other comforting lies about these wars: that they are necessary and waged in self-defense. The...

Americans are asleep at the wheel while their government is endlessly at war. As far as they are concerned, it's in a foreign place, somewhere else, and their news media has told them that there are lots of dictators and terrorists out there in the third world. People trust their government, but could the biggest sponsor of international terrorism be Washington and its allies itself? KVDamon Linker This expansion of America's global military footprint began under George W. Bush, but it...

My faith in Yanis Varoufakis has been restored. KV Yanis Varoufakis  “I find arrest is a proportionate response.” That was the judgement delivered in court last Tuesday by Judge Emma Arbuthnot, presiding over the case brought to court by Julian Assange’s lawyers. Their argument had been that the warrant for his arrest ought to be withdrawn because arresting him (after the extradition request from Sweden had been rescinded)  “was no longer proportionate or in the public interest“....

Lopez Obrador, who has run twice for president, led the pack of hopefuls with 27.1 percent in February, according to the survey by pollster Mitofsky published in El Economista newspaper. The former Mexico City mayor gained 3.5 percentage points over Mitofsky’s January poll, putting him nearly 5 percentage points ahead of his closest rival. Lopez Obrador has vowed to combat inequality and corruption, but some international investors are concerned over his questioning of the...

I'll bet Tim Cook is crapping in his pants. Although the FBI, NSA and CIA warned against the use of phones made by Chinese companies, Wikileaks revealed last year that U.S. intelligence agencies have the capability to hack into Google and Apple phones, as well as laptops and televisions. UPIU.S. intel agencies warn against using Chinese brand smartphones Ray Downs

His dossier was more than opposition research, it was part of a full-spectrum information operation. The American ConservativeChristopher Steele: The Real Foreign Influence in the 2016 Election? Peter Van Buren, 24-year US State Department veteran

In 2017, Russia’s Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina told President Vladimir Putin that Russia's banking sector had been provided with all the necessary conditions for operating lenders and payment systems in case of disconnection from SWIFT. According to the regulator, 90 percent of ATMs in Russia were ready to accept the Mir payment system, a domestic version of Visa and MasterCard.... Zero HedgeRussian Deputy PM: Our Banks Are Ready To Turn Off SWIFT Tyler Durden Also Simply...