I was reading a story tonight about the poison pen letters Donald Trump sent to then Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond about the government-backed wind farms that Trump felt was ruining the scenery of his Scottish golf course. I was struck by one of the many blustering insults Trump hurled in Salmond’s direction: other countries are “laughing at you” for promoting wind farms, Trump declared. This is of course a line Trump has been pushing for decades: that other countries or other people are “laughing at us” for being weak, dumb, etc. etc. It is obviously a notion that occupies

The end result of every Islamist terror attack (or even alleged Islamist terror attack) is: 1. Heightened authoritarian powers for governments. 2. Demonization of law-abiding Muslims. 3. More money for war-profiteers, since more war is always the ultimate response. None of these outcomes advance the attackers’ cause in any way save one: more repression, demonization and war can lead to more ‘radicalisation’ of the people being repressed, demonized and bombed. Thus the responses, which are always the same, always reward the perpetrators of these atrocities by giving them the only thing they can get from the attacks: recruitment tools. “So

You’re al Qaeda. You’re being supported by the United States in your jihad to impose extremist rule on Syria, but you still have a PR problem; too many people remember all that unpleasant business from so long ago when you blew up a few buildings in the US. What can you do? Well, first you change the name of your Syrian branch two or three times. You make sure your spokesmen — who actually get respectfully quoted in the US media! — say moderate things in English but speak with genocidal sectarian fury in Arabic. So far, so good. But

Here’s yet another oddity about our absurd political reality: the news cycle is being consumed with stories about an ongoing effort to undermine our democracy by revealing an ongoing effort to undermine our democracy. Lest we forget, the current “Kremlin rigs US election” scandal is centred on the emails of Clinton campaign poobah John Podesta, which were obtained and released by WikiLeaks. These emails showed the Clinton campaign’s systematic collusion with the Democratic National Collusion to skew the nominating process in her favor with various bits of Nixonian skullduggery (including massive, and successful, efforts to manipulate and co-opt the media

I had a short exchange on Twitter this evening with a national journalist of some note: Kurt Eichenwald of Newsweek. In this brief encounter, I learned a remarkable fact: no one can criticize the CIA in any way — unless you actually work for the CIA! And here I thought the purpose of journalism was to, you know, serve as watchdog on government, “speak truth to power,” question, probe, dig for facts and that kind of thing. But nope, that’s not it at all. It turns out only those in power have the right to question, uh, those in power.

(UPDATED) Michael Flynn Jr. is – or WAS, until an hour or so ago – a member of Donald Trump’s presidential transition team. He also serves as chief of staff for his father, Michael Flynn Sr., who has been picked by Trump to be his National Security Advisor. Michael Flynn Jr. is also running a child sex ring in Trump Tower with Nazis and Klan members coordinated through secret codes published in stories on the Breitbart website. Or so I hear. If that’s not true – if Michael Flynn Jr. really isn’t a child abusing Nazi pimp, then it is

“When the fear comes around again And they call for troops to send To some new war across the sea Will you be free?” Recorded 11 years ago — and the fears keep coming, the troops keep going, new wars keep raging — and we ain’t free. (From the album Wheel of Heaven. Song produced and music played by Nick Kulukundis. Vocals, lyrics: CF.)

A further installment of the ongoing political science series, “My Conversations With the President-Elect.” Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump @jeffzeleny what PROOF do u have DonaldTrump did not suffer from millions of FRAUD votes? Journalist? Do your job! @CNN Chris Floyd @empireburlesque @realDonaldTrump What proof do you have that aliens did not replace DonaldTrump’s brain with a jar of pickles? If it didn’t happen, PROVE IT! Chris Floyd ‏@empireburlesque @realDonaldTrump What PROOF do u have DonaldTrump did not suffer brain damage leading to millions of DUMBSHIT tweets? Prove it, loser! Chris Floyd @empireburlesque @realDonaldTrump #WeakLoserTrump already cracking under pressure. Can’t take

OK, I guess I’d better come clean. It seems that I must be a paid agent of the Kremlin. After all, I write for CounterPunch Magazine — for money! I used to write regularly for Truthout.org — for money! I’ve contributed articles to the Baltimore Gazette. I’ve often quoted and linked to stories from the Black Agenda Report. I’ve regularly quoted and linked to articles by prize-winning AP/Newsweek reporter Robert Parry for years. According to the Washington Post, all of this makes me either a paid Kremlin propagandist or a Kremlin dupe. There is no other alternative. And who says