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Donald Trump is flanked by Dianne Feinstein, right , who literally strikes the hand-clasping pose of “the happy merchant.”

1:21Trump Backs Broad Gun Reforms: In a meeting with lawmakers, President Trump expressed support for a “comprehensive” gun bill that would include stronger background checks and temporarily take guns away from high-risk individuals.Published OnFeb. 28, 2018CreditImage by Tom Brenner/The New York Times.

In a remarkable televised meeting in the Cabinet Room, the president appeared to stun giddy Democrats and stone-faced Republicans by calling for comprehensive gun control that would expand background checks, keep guns from the mentally ill, secure schools and restrict gun sales from some young adults.

ZOG’s forces will have a huge advantage over bolt-action weaponry.

Trump: “I told N.R.A. leaders its time to stop this nonsense” ... “I like taking the guns early ... Take the guns first, go through due process second.”

And if the second amendment can be compromised twice in this way, on the basis of spurious mental diagnosis and age restrictions, then they can violate it again, until eventually, functionally, you don’t have it at all ....“we define an assault weapons as”...

New York Times, “Trump Stuns Lawmakers With Seeming Embrace of Gun Control”, 28 Feb 2018:

In a meeting with lawmakers, President Trump expressed support for a “comprehensive” gun bill that would include stronger background checks and temporarily take guns away from high-risk individuals.Published OnFeb. 28, 2018CreditImage by Tom Brenner/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — President Trump stunned Republicans on live television Wednesday by embracing gun control and urging a group of lawmakers at the White House to resurrect gun safety legislation that has been opposed for years by the powerful National Rifle Association and the vast majority of his party.

In a remarkable meeting in the Roosevelt Room, the president veered wildly from the N.R.A. playbook in front of giddy Democrats and stone-faced Republicans. He called for comprehensive gun control legislation that would expand background checks to weapons purchased at gun shows and on the internet, keep guns from mentally ill people, secure schools and restrict gun sales from some young adults. He even suggested a conversation on an assault weapons ban.

At one point, Mr. Trump suggested that law enforcement authorities should have the power to seize guns from mentally ill or other dangerous people without first going to court. “I like taking the guns early,” he said, adding, “Take the guns first, go through due process second.”

The declarations prompted a frantic series of calls from N.R.A. lobbyists to their allies on Capitol Hill and a statement from the group calling the ideas Mr. Trump expressed “bad policy.” Republican lawmakers issued statements or told reporters that they remained opposed to gun control measures.

“We’re not ditching any Constitutional protections simply because the last person the president talked to today doesn’t like them,” said Senator Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska.

Democrats, too, said they were skeptical that Mr. Trump would follow through.

“The White House can now launch a lobbying campaign to get universal background checks passed, as the president promised in this meeting, or they can sit and do nothing,” said Sen. Murphy, (D) of Connecticut.

At the core of Mr. Trump’s suggestion was the revival of a bipartisan bill drafted in 2013 by Senators Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, and Patrick J. Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Despite a concerted push by President Barack Obama and the personal appeals of Sandy Hook parents, the bill fell to a largely Republican filibuster.

The president’s embrace did not immediately yield converts. Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, said after the meeting that he was unmoved, repeating the Republican dogma that recent shootings were not “conducted by someone who bought a gun at a gun show or parking lot.” Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Republican who sat next to Mr. Trump looking alternately bemused and flustered, emerged from the meeting and declared, “I thought it was fascinating television and it was surreal to actually be there.”

With AR-15s, Mass Shooters Attack With the Rifle Firepower Typically Used by Infantry Troops:

When a gunman walked into Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, he was carrying an AR-15-style rifle that allowed him to fire upon people in much the same way that many American soldiers and Marines would fire their M16 and M4 rifles in combat.

But Mr. Trump suggested that the dynamics in Washington had changed after the school shooting in Florida that claimed 17 lives, in part because of his own leadership in the White House, a sentiment that the Democrats in the room readily appeared to embrace as they saw the president supporting their ideas.

“It would be so beautiful to have one bill that everyone could support,” Mr. Trump said as Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California and a longtime advocate of gun control, sat smiling to his left. “It’s time that a president stepped up.”

Democrats tried to turn sometimes muddled presidential musings into firm policy: “You saw the president clearly saying not once, not twice, not three times, but like 10 times, that he wanted to see a strong universal background check bill,” said Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota. “He didn’t mince words about it. So I do not understand how then he could back away from that.”

Just what the performance means, and whether Mr. Trump will aggressively push for new gun restrictions, remain uncertain given his history of taking erratic positions on policy issues, especially ones that have long polarized Washington and the country.

The gun-control performance on Wednesday was reminiscent of a similar televised discussion with lawmakers about immigration last year during which the president appeared to back bipartisan legislation to help young immigrants brought to the country illegally as children — only to reverse himself and push a hard-line approach that helped scuttle consensus in the Senate.

Mr. Trump’s comments during the hourlong meeting were at odds with his history as a candidate and president who has repeatedly declared his love for the Second Amendment and the N.R.A., which gave his campaign $30 million. At the group’s annual conference last year, Mr. Trump declared, “To the N.R.A., I can proudly say I will never, ever let you down.”

But at the meeting, the president repeatedly rejected the N.R.A.’s top legislative priority, a bill known as concealed carry reciprocity, that would allow a person with permission to carry a concealed weapon in one state to automatically do so in every state. To the dismay of Republicans, he dismissed the measure as having no chance at passage in the Congress. Republican leaders in the House had paired that N.R.A. priority with a modest measure to improve data reporting to the existing instant background check system.

“You’ll never get it,” Mr. Trump told Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the House Republican whip who was gravely injured in a mass shooting last year but still opposes gun restrictions. “You’ll never get it passed. We want to get something done.”

Mr. Trump also flatly insisted that legislation should raise the minimum age for buying rifles to 21 from 18 — an idea the N.R.A. and many Republicans fiercely oppose. When Mr. Toomey pushed back on an increase in the minimum age for rifles, the president accused him of fearing the N.R.A. — a remarkable slap since the association withdrew its support for Mr. Toomey over his background check bill.

“If there’s a Republican who’s demonstrated he’s not afraid of the N.R.A., that would be me,” Mr. Toomey said after the meeting.

The president appeared eager to challenge the impression that he is bought and paid for by the gun rights group. While calling the N.R.A. membership “well-meaning,” he also said he told the group’s leaders at a lunch on Sunday that “it’s time. We’re going to stop this nonsense. It’s time.”

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What stands logistically in the way is that the Kurds seek a homeland, and that would entail a piece of Syria, which Assad does not want to relinquish. However, the Kurds do seem prepared to negotiate with Assad for the right, somehow, to live alongside the Syrians, within what Assad would like to maintain or re-claim as greater Syria - parts of which Assad was forced to abandon in 2012. We should encourage their reconciliation and alliance; and for other ethnonations to ally with them despite the shit-hole nations of Turkey and Israel in opposition.

The Guardian,  23 Feb 2018: “Why are world leaders backing this brutal attack against Kurdish Afrin?”

Islamist militants – with Turkish army support – are wreaking havoc with a pocket of peace and sanity in the Syrian war.

‘Afrin’s population doubled during the conflict, as hundreds of thousands of mostly Arab refugees had come to shelter with its original, overwhelmingly Kurdish, population.’

Three years ago the world watched a ragtag band of men and women fighters in the Syrian town of Kobane, most armed only with Kalashnikovs, hold off a vast army of Islamist militants with tanks, artillery and overwhelming logistical superiority. The defenders insisted they were acting in the name of revolutionary feminist democracy. The Islamist fighters vowed to exterminate them for that very reason. When Kobane’s defenders won, it was widely hailed as the closest one can come, in the contemporary world, to a clear confrontation of good against evil.

Today, exactly same thing is happening again. Except this time, world powers are firmly on the side of the aggressors. In a bizarre twist, those aggressors seem to have convinced key world leaders and public opinion-makers that Kobane’s citizens are “terrorists” because they embrace a radical version of ecology, democracy and women’s rights.

Turkey’s attack on Syrian Kurds could overturn the entire region.

The region in question is Afrin, defended by the same YPG and YPJ (People’s Protection and Women’s Protection Units) who defended Kobane, and who afterwards were the only forces in Syria willing to take the battle to the heartland of Islamic State, losing thousands of combatants in the battle for its capital, Raqqa.

An isolated pocket of peace and sanity in the Syrian civil war, famous only for the beauty of its mountains and olive groves, Afrin’s population had almost doubled during the conflict as hundreds of thousands of mostly Arab refugees had come to shelter with its original, overwhelmingly Kurdish population.

At the same time its inhabitants had taken advantage of their peace and stability to develop the democratic principles embraced throughout the majority Kurdish regions of north Syria, known as Rojava. Local decisions were devolved to neighbourhood assemblies in which everyone could participate; other parts of Rojava insisted on strict gender parity, with every office having co-chairs, male and female, in Afrin, two-thirds of public offices are held by women.

Turkey’s attack on Syrian Kurds could overturn the entire region.

Today, this democratic experiment is the object of an entirely unprovoked attack by Islamist militias including Isis and al-Qaida veterans, and members of Turkish death squads such as the notorious Grey Wolves, backed by the Turkish army’s tanks, F16 fighters, and helicopter gunships. Like Isis before them, the new force seems determined to violate all standards of behaviour, launching napalm attacks on villagers, attacking dams – even, like Isis, blowing up irreplaceable archaeological monuments. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the president of Turkey, has announced, “We aim to give Afrin back to its rightful owners”, in a thinly veiled warning to ethnically cleanse the region of its Kurdish inhabitants. And only today it emerged that a convoy heading to Afrin carrying food and medicine was shelled by Turkish forces.

Remarkably, the YPG and YPJ have so far held off the invaders. But they have done so without so much as the moral support of a single major world power. Even the US, the presence of whose forces prevents Turkey from invading those territories in the east, where the YPG and YPJ are still engaged in combat with Isis, has refused to lift a finger to defend Afrin. The British foreign secretary Boris Johnson has gone so far as to insist that “Turkey has the right to want to keep its borders secure” – by which logic he would have no objection if France were to seize control of Dover.

The result is bizarre. Western leaders who regularly excoriate Middle Eastern regimes for their lack of democratic and women’s rights – even, as George W Bush famously did with the Taliban, using it as justification for military invasion – appear to have decided that going too far in the other direction is justifiable grounds for attack.

To understand how this happened, one must go back to the 1990s, when Turkey was engaged in a civil war with the military arm of the Kurdistan Workers’ party, or PKK, then a Marxist-Leninist organisation calling for a separate Kurdish state. Whether the PKK was ever a terrorist organisation, in the sense of bombing marketplaces and the like, is very much a matter of contention, but there is no doubt that the guerrilla war was a bloody business, and terrible things happened on both sides. About the turn of the millennium, the PKK abandoned the demand for a separate state. It called a unilateral ceasefire, pressing for peace talks to negotiate both regional autonomy for Kurds and a broader democratisation of Turkish society.

This transformation affected the Kurdish freedom movement across the Middle East. Those inspired by the movement’s imprisoned leader, Abdullah Öcalan, began calling for a radical decentralisation of power and opposition to ethnic nationalism of all sorts.

Turkey starts ground incursion into Kurdish-controlled Afrin in Syria - Read more

The Turkish government responded with an intense lobbying campaign to have the PKK designated a “terrorist organisation” (which it had not been before). By 2001 it had succeeded, and the PKK was placed on the EU, US, and UN “terror list”.

Never has such a decision so wreaked havoc with the prospect of peace. It allowed the Turkish government to arrest thousands of activists, journalists, elected Kurdish officials – even the leadership of the country’s second largest opposition party – all on claims of “terrorist” sympathies, and with barely a word of protest from Europe or America. Turkey now has more journalists in prison than any other country.

The designation has created a situation of Orwellian madness, allowing the Turkish government to pour millions into western PR firms to smear anyone who calls for greater civil rights as “terrorists”. Now, in the final absurdity, it has allowed world governments to sit idly by while Turkey launches an unprovoked assault on one of the few remaining peaceful corners of Syria – even though the only actual connection its people have to the PKK is an enthusiasm for the philosophy of its imprisoned leader Öcalan. It cannot be denied – as Turkish propagandists endlessly point out – that portraits of Öcalan, and his books, are common there. But ironically what that philosophy consists of is simply an embrace of direct democracy, ecology, and a radical version of women’s empowerment.

The religious extremists who surround the current Turkish government know perfectly well that Rojava doesn’t threaten them militarily. It threatens them by providing an alternative vision of what life in the region could be like. Above all, they feel it is critical to send the message to women across the Middle East that if they rise up for their rights, let alone rise up in arms, the likely result is that they will be maimed and killed, and none of the major powers will raise an objection. There is a word for such a strategy. It’s called “terrorism” – a calculated effort to cause terror. The question is, why is the rest of the world cooperating?

• David Graeber is professor of anthropology at the LSE and author of Debt: The First 5000 years; he was involved in the Global Justice Movement and Occupy Wall Street

Related Story: Watch for The PKK as a revolutionary group fighting for ethnonationalism

Washington Post, “4 things we learned from the indictment of 13 Russians in the Mueller investigation”, 16 Feb 2018:

This post has been updated.

We have the first indictment in the investigation by Robert S. Mueller III that actually has to do with Russian meddling in the 2016 election. The special counsel on Friday indicted 13 Russians in connection with a large-scale troll farm effort aimed at influencing the election in violation of U.S. law.

The indictment of the Internet Research Agency comes on top of two Trump advisers having pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI — Michael Flynn and George Papadopoulos — and two more being indicted on charges of alleged financial crimes that predated the campaign — Paul Manafort and Rick Gates. Nobody is in custody and Russia does not extradite to the United States, but the document from the secretive Mueller investigation does shed plenty of light where there previously wasn’t any.

So what does the new indictment tell us? Here’s what we can say right away:

1. It doesn’t say the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, but doesn’t rule it out either.

Anybody looking for clues about the collusion investigation into the Trump campaign won’t find much to grab hold of. If anything, the indictment may hearten Trump allies in that it doesn’t draw a line to the campaign — which suggests there was a large-scale effort independent of any possible collusion. Perhaps that’s the real meddling effort, some folks in the White House may be telling themselves right now. Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein even specified that Trump campaign officials who were contacted by the Russian nationals “did not know they were communicating with Russians.”

But that’s about as much insight as anyone can draw; we simply don’t know what else is coming down the pike, and any ties to Trump campaign officials may have been withheld from this indictment to avoid disclosing details of an ongoing investigation. The president hasn’t even been interviewed yet, so we wouldn’t expect any ties to the campaign at this juncture.

Asked whether campaign officials had knowledge of the scheme or were duped, Rosenstein chose his words carefully. “There is no allegation in this indictment that any American had any knowledge,” Rosenstein said.

The words “in this indictment” mean Rosenstein’s comments are pretty narrow.

Update:

In a statement, Trump and the White House suggested that the announcement “further indicates that there was NO COLLUSION between the Trump campaign and Russia.” Again, it doesn’t provide any direct indication.

2. It just got a lot harder for Trump to dismiss Mueller’s probe as a “witch hunt.”

At one point in the indictment, a price tag is put on the effort: $1.25 million in one month, as of September 2016. To put that in perspective, that’s as much as some entire presidential campaigns were spending monthly during the primaries. And that lends credence to the idea that this was a large-scale effort connected to the Russian government.

President Trump has often sought to downplay the idea that Russia interfered in the 2016 election — even suggesting he believed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s assurances that it didn’t happen. This document lays it out in extensive detail.

The argument that this is a “witch hunt,” which Trump has argued and more than 8 in 10 Republicans believe, just became much more difficult to make. And the document would seem to make pretty clear that the Mueller investigation isn’t just targeted at taking down Trump, either.

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While growing up a child refugee in Britain he acquired the accent that would have him nicknamed among the infam four, ‘the Beatles’, heard promoting the mania of their terror campaign…

The Infam Four: El Shafee Elsheikh ( far right), one of the four infamous ISIS murderers, identified as a “child refugee” accepted into Britain. The other three were also admitted into Britain through legal immigration channels.

TNO, One of the four ISIS murderers infamous for appearing in the “Jihadi John” decapitation videos has been revealed as a former “child refugee” granted “asylum” in Britain through that country’s open doors “asylum” policy.

The former “child refugee” has been named as El Shafee Elsheikh, whose family managed to swindle their way into Britain—and UK citizenship—by claiming to be “refugees” from the Sudan in the 1990s.

Elsheikh was one of four nonwhite invaders in Britain who went off to join ISIS in Syria when that “caliphate” was at its height.

The group to which Elsheikh belonged (named as Alexandar Kotey, Aine Davis, and Mohammed Emwazi) was nicknamed the “Beatles” by the media because of their British accents.

Emwazi was born Muhammad Jassim Abdulkarim Olayan al-Dhafiri in Kuwait, and moved to Britain as a six-year-old with his family in 1994. He was dubbed “jihad John” and was the most famous of the group, doing the speaking on the numerous decapitation videos they produced.

Emwazi was killed in an air strike in November 2015.

Davis—the mixed race grandson of Jamaican trombonist in the 1980s UK “Ska” band, The Specials—was arrested in Turkey while planning a new attack and sentenced to seven-and-a-half years’ jail for membership of terrorist organization in May 2017.

In 2014 Davis’s wife, Amal El-Wahabi, 27, became the first woman in the UK to be jailed for terrorism offences connected to Syria after she was caught paying a smuggler to take €20,000 in cash to Turkey for her husband.

Kotey is also of mixed-race origin—Ghanaian and Greek-Cypriot—and he, along with Elsheikh, were arrested by Kurdish fighters in the east of Syria at the beginning of 2018.

The two were identified and handed over to American Special Operations forces, who confirmed their identities using fingerprints and other biometric measurements.

Together, the four nonwhites—all of who were initially based in London—beheaded atr least 27 hostages and tortured many more.

It is still not clear what is going to Kotey and Elsheikh. They could be put on trial in the US for killing American hostages, or they could be returned to the UK for trial.

Some reports have said that the two have had their UK citizenship stripped—something that is only possible if they have been naturalized as British nationals, and have citizenship of another nation.

No matter what their eventual fate, one thing is clear: the open borders “asylum” policy and the promotion of mass Third World immigration by successive UK governments has proven to be a disaster, and may yet destroy Britain forever.

Beheading of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians in Libya by ISIL functionaries.

“UN: ISIL holds several thousand blank passports”

NKWorld, 9 Feb 2018:

The United Nations has warned that fighters belonging to the Islamic State militant group may be using blank Syrian passports to cross borders.

The UN Security Council on Thursday released a report prepared by experts on the militant group and other terrorist organizations. It is based on information collected from local UN staff and governments of member states.

The report says the group has collected travel and identification documents from fighters coming from outside Syria and Iraq for potential use in travel. It also says the group has thousands of blank Syrian passports. It adds that they may be used by fighters seeking to return home or relocate.

Croatian Tomislav Salopek in 2016

The report also says the group continues to try to maintain and expand its influence despite recent setbacks in Iraq and Syria. It says the group is sending fighters and weapons to Libya and Somalia.

It also notes that the group obtains funds through systematic human trafficking.

The report says the group commands between 1,000 and 4,000 fighters in Afghanistan, including Afghan defectors from the Taliban as well as militant Islamist groups in Pakistan and Uzbekistan.

It warns that the Islamic State group continues to pose a significant and evolving threat around the world.

Arrow points to Millenial Filipino ISIL recruit

New Observer, “8,606 Fake Refugees Invade Europe in first 37 Days of 2018”:

At least 8,606 nonwhites pretending to be “refugees” invaded Europe in the first 37 days of 2018, meaning that 232 invaders landed every day, according to new figures released by the United Nations’ International Organization of Migration (IOM).

 

The IOM figures show that 7,795 of the nonwhites invaded Europe by sea, and 811 by land as of 7 Feb 2018.

At least 186,768 nonwhites invaded Europe this way in 2017, and 392,879 in 2016, the IOM added.

The main nationalities of the invaders are, in descendant order, as follows:

To Italy: Nigeria, Guinea, Cote d’Ivoire, Bangladesh, Mali, and Eritrea;

To Greece: Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Pakistan, and Algeria;

To Spain: Morocco, Algeria, Guinea, Cote d’Ivoire, Gambia, and Syria;

To Bulgaria: Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Turkey, and Pakistan.

In the period from 1 February 1 to 7, 11 nonwhites invaders landed in Cyprus, and in the same period, 10 nonwhites demanded “refuge” in Hungary.

At the same time, 29 nonwhites demanded “refuge” in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

In 2017, at least 92 percent of the invaders landed by sea (172,362) to Italy, Greece, Spain and Cyprus. The remaining 14,406 invaded Europe by using land routes to the Spanish enclaves Ceuta and Melilla in North Africa (6,293) and from Turkey to Greece (5,551) and Bulgaria (2,562).

The IOM also revealed in its “Flows Compilation Report” for Decemebr 2017 that under the “EU Relocation Scheme”—through which that organization moves nonwhites from the countries of landing to other EU nations, another 106,000 nonwhites were moved from their landing points in Greece and Italy to elsewhere in Europe.

To date, 25 countries have committed to make places available under the scheme, namely Austria (50) Belgium (1,530), Bulgaria (1,070), Croatia (316), Cyprus (205), Czech Republic (50), Estonia (396), Finland (2,128), France (6,940), Germany (13,250), Ireland (1,152), Latvia (627), Liechtenstein (10), Lithuania (1,160), Luxembourg (545), Malta (205), the Netherlands (2,825), Norway (1,500), Poland (100), Portugal (3,218), Romania (2,182), Slovakia (60), Slovenia (579), Spain (2,500), Sweden (3,777) and Switzerland (1,530) with an overall number of 47,905 places.

An additional 54,000 nonwhites claiming to be Syrians were flown out of Turkey for “resettlement” in Europe.

The Russia Investigations: Trump Reportedly Wanted To Fire Mueller; D.C. Dumbstruck. A journalist describes Robert Mueller, pictured in 2007 when he was FBI director, as “about as apolitical and nonpartisan a figure as you could find in Washington.” (photo credit Susan Walsh/AP).

NPR, “Mueller’s Reputation In Washington Is ‘Stunningly Bipartisan,’ Journalist Says”, 1 Feb 2018:

As the investigation into the Trump campaign and Russian interference in the 2016 election forges on, Robert Mueller, the Justice Department special counsel leading the investigation, has managed to stay largely out of public view.

Journalist Garrett Graff says that is in keeping with Mueller’s personality: “This is not someone who in any way has tried to grab the spotlight, but instead has kept his head down and worked hard throughout his career.”

Graff’s 2011 book, The Threat Matrix, explores the transformation of the FBI under Mueller’s leadership. Appointed by President George W. Bush, Mueller took over as director of the FBI one week before the Sept. 11 attacks. After Mueller completed his 10-year term as FBI director, President Barack Obama reappointed him for a two-year term, which required a special act of Congress.

“Bob Mueller is probably about as apolitical and nonpartisan a figure as you could find in Washington, particularly at the levels of government in which he has served,” Graff says. “This is someone who really, truly believes in truth, justice [and] in the American way, in a way that very few people in American life today anymore do.”

Interview Highlights

On Mueller’s bipartisan record

We know him most recently, obviously, as the FBI director, but his tenure in government really dates back to the Reagan years. And he’s been appointed or held top jobs in the administrations of all five of the last presidents, and was appointed to the Justice Department, the head of the criminal division, under George H.W. Bush’s administration, then was appointed a U.S. attorney by Bill Clinton, then appointed the acting deputy attorney general by George W. Bush, and then later FBI director — a position he was reappointed to, in an unprecedented move, by President Obama and confirmed by the U.S. Senate by a vote 100-0, a stunningly bipartisan track record in today’s times.

On Mueller’s military service

Part of what makes Bob Mueller such a fascinating character is he has dedicated his life sort of time and again to public service. ... Mueller and a handful of other colleagues ... [signed] up for Vietnam after college. This was early in the 1960s, so it was before Vietnam became the cultural touchpoint that it did later.

White House Touts ‘Unprecedented’ Cooperation Amid Mueller Interview Talks

Second Lt. Marine Corps Bob Mueller ended up leading a platoon in the jungles of Vietnam for a year and really distinguished himself in combat. He received a Bronze Star with valor for his leadership in an ambush that his unit suffered in the fall of 1968, and then was actually shot himself in a separate incident in April 1969 where he received, of course, the Purple Heart and was quickly back on patrol, serving out the remainder of his year.

He came into the F.B.I. in part, in the summer of 2001 because he was known inside the department as a computer-guy. He had help found the Justice Department’s first real computer crime unit. And, the FBI in the summer of 2001 had this incredibly outdated computer system…

On how the FBI changed after the Sept. 11 attacks

Bob Mueller, in the days after Sept. 11, sees this incredible sea change in the mission of the FBI, which until then for most of its first 90 years had primarily been a law enforcement agency focused domestically on solving crimes after the fact. And on Sept. 11, we saw an international plot that focused on a suicide attack with catastrophic results, and that that necessitated this top-to-bottom change in the way that the United States approached counterterrorism issues, that after-the-fact investigation was going to be inadequate in the face of these threats.

So Mueller was given a mission by [former Attorney General] John Ashcroft and President Bush to not just investigate attacks afterwards, but to stop plots in the first place, to disrupt the attack before it happened.

It led to this massive reorganization that Bob Mueller spent the next 12 years of his tenure working on, to move the FBI from what was traditionally a domestic law enforcement agency into something that is more akin to an international intelligence agency.

On how Mueller’s investigation into the Trump campaign is similar to other FBI investigations

This is, in many ways, a perfectly standard and routine FBI investigation. The FBI, as an investigative agency, takes down corrupt organizations, that’s what it’s designed to do, go after street gangs, drug cartels, organized crime families, and the way that they do that is by starting on the outside and working their way in. And so that can either mean starting at the bottom of an organization, or starting with ancillary charges and working their way inwards, the equivalent of getting Al Capone for tax evasion.

Bill Bailie, The Nation Revisited # 136 February 2018:

The British Aerospace Industry

Hundreds of jobs at BAE Systems are threatened by a lack of orders. Unfortunately, the Typhoon multi-role aircraft is not suitable for use on our new aircraft carriers which require planes capable of short take-off and vertical landing. Instead of developing our own aircraft we have ordered fourteen F35B’s from Lockheed Martin at a cost of £2.5 billion. We will eventually buy 48 planes, the cost of which will escalate as the pound falls against the dollar. We must also consider the cost of putting British aerospace engineers on the dole.

Our former Defence Minister, Michael Fallon, suggested that we support America by sending our new aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth to North Korea before she is properly commissioned and without aircraft. Perhaps he wants to ram the first North Korean ship that we encounter?

The government has wasted billions of pounds on two aircraft carriers with no means of launching or landing aircraft. Nuclear ships use steam to power ‘cat and trap’ equipment, but our new ships are diesels which generate no steam. We, therefore, have to use STOVL aircraft which are not readily available.

When we get our expensive American planes we will be capable of fighting all over the world but what we really need are more destroyers and frigates to defend the homeland. We are a European country with no empire to defend.

       
Michael Heseltine resigned from the Cabinet over the Westland helicopter affair in 1986. Margaret Thatcher wanted to sell the company to America but he insisted on keeping it in Britain. Today, Westland is part of Leonardo, an Italian company employing 3,300 workers in the UK

Airbus is a French company which employs 15,000 workers in the UK. They have just signed an order for thirty-six A320 superjumbos with the Emirates.

Bombardier is a Canadian company that employs 25,000 workers making trains and aircraft in the UK and Northern Ireland. 

The industry is led by BAE, a British company which employs 82,5000 workers making ships, tanks, missiles and aircraft. These companies employ British workers and pay their taxes. They are a vital part of our economy.

The Far Right

The first fascist movement in Britain was the British Fascists, founded by Miss Rotha Lintorn-Orman in 1923. They were fiercely anti-communist and pro-monarchist. Arnold Leese, a former BF councillor for Stamford, called them “Tories with knobs on.” In 1929 he founded a rival movement called the Imperial Fascist League which was openly anti-Semitic. According to folklore, when Ron Hargrave applied to join the IFL Arnold Leese first measured his head with a tape measure and told him to report back in a week’s time. When he returned Leese said, “A lot of people here don’t like the look of you but I have decided to let you in.”

       
        Ron Hargrave guarding the platform for JT in 1960.

In 1932 Oswald Mosley founded the British Union of Fascist which quickly became a mass movement but in 1940 it was banned and over a thousand Blackshirts were rounded up and thrown into prison under Defence Regulation 18B. After the war, he founded Union Movement to fight for ‘Europe a Nation’. He died in 1980 and UM was wound up in the nineties. Union Movement was never far-right but because it opposed Commonwealth immigration it was branded as such by the media.

The National Front was founded in 1967 to stop immigration, start repatriation, and get Britain out of the Common Market. It peaked in 1979 and its successor movement the BNP peaked in 2010. Both movements were eclipsed by UKIP which is now in steep decline.

The term ‘far-right’ includes everything from traditional conservatives to neo-Nazis. They command about ten to fifteen percent of the vote in most of Europe. Britain’s first-past-the-post system keeps them out of Parliament but in Germany, the AFD has won 94 seats in the Bundestag, in Austria the Freedom Party is part of the coalition government, and in the United States, Donald Trump, a billionaire Zionist warmonger, has promised to build a wall on the Mexican border and make America great again.

There is a crying need for a sensible patriotic movement to fight for Britain in Europe. Ukip and the remnants of the NF and the BNP are stuck in the past and incapable of change. Most of their members have got one foot in the grave and it’s only a matter of time before a new party emerges to cater for the younger generation.

Readers who are suffering from mental health problems, including paranoia, should ask their doctor for help. Conspiracy theory can be cured by talking therapy. If you think that “they are out to get you”, do not despair. The first step is to admit that you have a problem.

What is Nationalism?

We are familiar with Irish, Scottish and Welsh nationalism but less so with English nationalism. My generation was brought up on imperialism which embraced the four nations of the British Isles and even included Australians, New Zealanders, South Africans, and Canadians. We were all subjects of the British Empire.

I was proud to salute the Union Jack in the school playground on Empire Day but the Second World War had already destroyed the British Empire. One of the first men to realise it was Oswald Mosley who proclaimed ‘Europe a Nation’ in his book ‘The Alternative’ in 1947. Those of us who share his vision of a united continent with a progressive government are European Socialists.

Nationalism is a mixed blessing. At its best, it’s a love of country, but at its worst, it’s a fear and hatred of foreigners. Celebrating sporting achievements and holidays is a harmless expression of patriotism but beating up immigrants is entirely negative.

Some people believe in a ‘Confederation of Europe’, in which fiercely independent nation-states would co-exist with each other. But history tells a different story. The German Nazis murdered the Austrian leader Englebert Dollfuss, and the Italian Fascists invaded Greece, which was a fascist state under General Metaxas. Nationalist states do not live happily with their neighbours; they invariably attack them.

Little states tend to swagger and act tough, but great empires are self-confident. In the Roman Empire every citizen was protected by the declaration: “Civis Romanus Sum”- I am a Roman Citizen. In 1850 Lord Palmerston stated in Parliament that every citizen of the British Empire should enjoy the same protection. Britain is going through a painful divorce from the European Union but we will still be Europeans, and when the current outbreak of tribalism has subsided, it will only be necessary to say “I am a European”.

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