It has for years, and the fingerprints all over it aren‘t Trump‘s but the Clintons‘—both Bill‘s and Hillary‘s…. Twenty-one years before Trump’s wall-building promise (and seven years before the 9/11 attacks), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began to replace the chain link fence that separated Nogales, Sonora, in Mexico from Nogales, Arizona, in the United States with a wall built of rusty landing mats from the Vietnam and Persian Gulf wars. Although there had been various half-hearted attempts at building border walls throughout the twentieth century, this was the first true effort to build a barrier of what might now be called Trumpian magnitude.

(…)

(12.8.2016) Der Bundesinnenminister will gemeinsam mit Ärzten überlegen, wie die Bürger besser vor gewalttätigen Menschen geschützt werden können. Zugleich soll die Schweigepflicht nicht aufgeweicht werden. Kann das funktionieren?

Das kann man erst sagen, wenn konkrete Vorschläge auf dem Tisch liegen.

Für die SPD-regierten Länder saß der nordrhein-westfälische Innenminister Ralf Jäger am Tisch. Er rief zur Sachlichkeit in der seit vielen Jahren kontrovers geführten Debatte auf: „Ich finde, ganz unaufgeregt und ganz unideologisch sollten wir uns diesem Szenario nähern“, sagte er.

(…)

The White House does not have evidence suggesting Russia was involved in an air strike that killed Islamic State leader Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, a spokesman said on Wednesday.

Russland hat erneut die türkische Militäroperation in Nordsyrien kritisiert. Auch der Iran und die syrische Regierung verurteilten die Intervention. Indessen erklärten die syrischen Kurden, dass sie den Kontakt zu Moskau ausbauen möchten.

Following two lawsuits against the NYPD for its pervasive, rights-violating surveillance of the city‘s Muslims, the department‘s Inspector General took a look at a sampling of cases from 2010-2015 to see if the Handschu Agreement — crafted in 1985 and heavily modified in 2002 — was being followed. The short answer is „No.“ So is the long answer [PDF].

Plenty of experts have been trying their damnedest to have an „adult conversation“ with Comey, explaining to him why he‘s wrong about the risks of „going dark,“ while others have — in fairly great detail — explained the serious dangers behind Comey‘s approach.

Comey‘s response to these efforts so far has been the equivalent of sticking his fingers in his ears and screaming „nah, nah, nah — can‘t hear you!“ while repeating his „nerd harder“ mantra.

How many times do we need to see the same intentional destruction of a country and its people by the US before we call it what it is – genocide. This is intentional destruction of “nations and peoples” and it is exactly what the term genocide was coined to describe.

The US empire is hollowing itself out. As it fails internally it will be ever more driven to impose control globally. As the 2016 Presidential campaign enters its crucial stage, we are entering the most dangerous period of history since the Cold War. We cannot afford to cling to delusions. We need to oppose US wars; evict US military bases; end mass surveillance and intelligence co-operation; reject neoliberalism and pro-corporate trade deals; and we need to reject the propaganda and discourse of US exceptionalism and apologism. When I say “we”, I mean every single person on the planet (including people in the US itself). The empire has to be beaten back on all fronts, because otherwise there are two horrific options: either it collapses, or worse still it doesn’t.

Und wir reden hier auch nicht von einer krassen Fundichristen-Sekte (naja, wie man‘s nimmt) sondern von einem katholischen Krankenhaus.