Defense and intelligence employees spend their time at work buying illegal porn, NSA isn’t doing a thing about it. Daily Beast

FDA Imposes a Slow-Motion Ban on E-Cigarettes, ensuring smokers have no access to the only effective smoking cessation device.

Federal Judge Rules Lawsuit Against Torture Program Psychologists Can Proceed.  How about including the torturers themselves, too?

FBI Told Cops to Recreate Evidence from Secret Cell-Phone Trackers

Health Insurers’ Shift More Costs to Taxpayers in Obamacare Exchanges

Last gasps of Obamacare

Will Conservatives Rally Behind Trump?

How the TSA Ruins Lives

The “altruistic” origins of Big Pharma

Building a Beer Pipeline in Belgium

How to Survive the Death of the Sun

Yikes. Cop Block

Reuters: “Andrei Kelin, a department head at Russia’s Foreign Ministry, said the proposed NATO deployment was a source of concern for Moscow. Russia once held sway in eastern Europe as the Soviet-era overlord.

“This would be a very dangerous build-up of armed forces pretty close to our borders,” Kelin told the Interfax news agency. “I am afraid this would require certain retaliatory measures, which the Russian Defence Ministry is already talking about.”

Jeff Tucker reveals the neoconservative roots of the Donald’s politics of “National Greatness”. FEE

According to John Ehrlichman, Nixon’s former policy advisor.  It’s true purpose remains that of weapon of tyranny. Boulder Weekly

The US and NATO are massing troops and war gear along Russia’s borders, so now Russia plans on massing troops on the other side of that border.  If a shooting war breaks out, the blame lies with NATO and the US for instigating the most avoidable war in history.

Mike Ludwig of Truth Out has a wonderful article exploring the reasons why the Drug War is still around despite the fact that most people agree it’s been a total failure.  He points to the global consensus now versus 18 years ago, when the UN pushed the dangerous, reckless idea of a “drug-free world” within 10 years.  Now, many UN members have admitted that the Drug War has been a blood-soaked disaster, and are looking for alternatives to Prohibition.  The taboo on marijuana use is slowly evaporating as more states look to legalize medical and recreational use.  So the question of the persistence of the Drug War in the face of the rising consensus against it has an answer that I haven’t heard enough from people who write on the subject.  The answer is this: The War on Drugs is jobs program.  Forty years of waging that war domestically as well as internationally has given the green light for the creation of the vast bureaucracy needed to effectively enforce Prohibition.  Now, that bureaucracy needs Prohibition to maintain its power.  Indeed, all levels of government benefit from this backdoor into its citizens lives and liberties.  Just think: without the Drug War, how many 3am, no-knock raids would occur by a militarized gang of cops?  How many drug-sniffing dogs would the police employ?  How many machine guns, tanks, and other weapons of war would find their way into local police departments?  How much civil asset forfeiture would take place with a Drug War to provide the excuse?  The answer is obvious.  But it is also obvious how much government at all levels benefits from the Drug War.  Just think of the billions spent yearly in the U.S. on enforcing Prohibition.  Think of the thousands of employees that serve Prohibition, and of all the various departments that have a finger in the pie.  It’s mind-boggling, to think of all the power and jobs hinging on continuation of the Drug War.

THIS is why the Drug War exists now; to fuel a Surveillance/Police State, to give the excuse for tactics that have no place in a free society.  They know the Drug War is a failure at preventing drug use, they don’t care.  For the State, the Drug War has succeeded enormously, because it has provided them with exactly what they’ve always wanted: power.  The bureaucracy that now exists due to the Drug War will fight tooth and nail to prevent the death of its Golden Goose.

70% of Americans take one prescription drug, almost half take two, and it’s leaching into drinking water and fish. Alternet

For a government $21 trillion in debt, US leaders appear pretty sanguine about provoking World War 3 with Russia.  Case in point: the United States, via NATO, is sending 4,200 troops, 250 tanks, and tons of other expensive war gear to the borders of Russia, ostensibly to “deter Russian aggression”.  The massive deployment is called the “European Reassurance Initiative“, the biggest since the end of the Cold War.  Add to this the recent announcement that NATO is considering thousands of additional troops stationed in Poland and the Baltics, and an impartial observer has to ask: for God’s sake, why?

The US and NATO are encircling Russia with thousands of troops and taxpayer billions’ worth of war gear.  How would US citizens respond of Russia did the same along our border with Mexico or Canada?  Putin has an 83% approval rating in Russia, not because he’s such a great leader, but because the US and NATO continually threaten him, and he pushes back.  Citizens adore this in a leader, which is why governments always exaggerate outside threats, it brings them greater power.  Both Russia and the US need each other, in this sense, because both provide the excuse for a bloated, all-powerful government.

“Russian aggression” is a myth, a publicity campaign designed by the political class to pave the way for a new Cold War, and paint Russia as the aggressor as thousands of US and NATO soldiers are lined along Russia’s borders.  The US is clearly the aggressor, intent on provoking a reaction from Russia that can be spun as a preemptive strike, whereupon the US war machine can unleash all those expensive tanks, bombs and other expensive war goodies.

As Pat Buchanan writes in his latest piece at The American Conservative:

“But how are Russian troops deploying inside Russia “provocative,” while U.S. troops on Russia’s front porch are not?”

It’s a task for D.C. spin doctors to sell Russian military exercises within their own borders as a provocation, while thousands of US and NATO troops along their border somehow aren’t.

American citizens only have to ask themselves this: how would we feel if Russia did this to us?  If an outside threat from a nuclear-armed nation were this immediate, we’d put whatever domestic quibbles we had with the current administration on the back burner, and grant our government enormous power to deter that threat.  This is why Castro could stay in power for decades, his power was built off real and perceived American aggression.  The same applies to Putin, his power is only enhanced by US intervention along Russia’s border.  But the US Warfare State needs Russia as an enemy to justify the out-of-control military spending spree, a Russia absent from the list of official Things To Be Afraid Of would leave an awkwardly large space.  A space that wouldn’t be filled so easily by just milking the “terrorist” threat.

And so Russia is our enemy because that’s what we’re told, and our government surrounds Russia with the intent of provoking a first strike that will usher in a massive, bloody shoot-out.  But how long can an Empire built on perpetual war last?