The United States is seeking to shut down Venezuela’s emergency food aid program, according to the Wall Street Journal. The stated goal of U.S. policy is combatting the corruption of the Venezuelan government. The unstated reality is that the Trump administration is doing exactly what it accuses the Maduro government of doing: weaponizing access to food.

The growth of intelligence agencies in the 21st century has been powered by the development of new technologies, created by start-ups, which are powered by intelligence agencies. This unvirtuous circle of money and espionage is a new and daunting challenge for civil liberties and human rights groups.

Deflation eats credit-dependent, mass-consumption economies alive from the inside.

Forty-three percent of Americans think socialism would be a good thing for the United States, while a slim majority — 51 percent — of those surveyed in a Gallup Poll released on May 20 think it would be a bad thing. The figures contrast markedly with a Roper/Fortune survey taken in 1942, in which 25 percent of those polled described socialism as a good thing, 40 percent as a bad thing, and 34 percent did not have an opinion.

The hot-air figures the U.S. used for its regime change efforts in Venezuela failed to do their job. The New York Times declares their movement "deflated".

If the U.S. economy is “booming” and very bright days are ahead, then why are many large U.S. corporations laying off thousands of workers?  Layoffs are starting to come fast and furious now, and this is happening even though the coming recession has not even officially started yet.  Of course many are convinced that we are actually in a recession at this moment.  In fact, according to John Williams of shadowstats.com if the government was actually using honest numbers they would show that we have been in a recession for quite some time.  But the narrative that the mainstream media keeps feeding us is that the U.S. economy is “doing well” and that the outlook for the future is positive.  Well, if that is true then why are big companies laying off so many workers right now?

“The Fourth Amendment was designed to stand between us and arbitrary governmental authority. For all practical purposes, that shield has been shattered, leaving our liberty and personal integrity subject to the whim of every cop on the beat, trooper on the highway and jail official. The framers would be appalled.”—Herman Schwartz, The Nation We’ve all been there before. You’re driving along and you see a pair of flashing blue lights in your rearview mirror. Whether or not you’ve done anything wrong, you get a sinking feeling in your stomach.

Individuals from all corners of the political spectrum have been stirred up by the recent bans of various figures including Alex Jones and Louis Farrakhan. Some have praised these bans for providing good constraints on what they deem "fake news" or “hate speech.” Others have attacked these bans for being influenced by nefarious motives that are contra free speech. The debate regarding the extent to which social media sites may regulate speech has been going on for years now. Perhaps it is time for a reassessment.

New details have emerged about the recently revealed dossier(s) Monsanto, now owned by Bayer, compiled to sway public opinion on herbicides. The dossier(s) included people from 7 European states and potentially beyond, according to a new report by RT. Monsanto files reportedly listed prominent public figures who were opinionated on either side of the herbicide debate. The list included “stakeholders in France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom, as well as regarding stakeholders related to EU institutions.”

Opposition to Amazon's sale of its facial recognition technology to US police forces is set to come to a head at its annual general meeting on Wednesday. Shareholders will vote twice on the matter. First, over whether the company should stop offering its Rekognition system to government agencies. And second, over whether to commission an independent study into whether the tech threatens people's civil rights.

A case out of Missouri is highlighting yet again the stupidity and vindictiveness that defines civil asset forfeiture. In January 2017, law enforcement seized $626,000 from two menas they passed through the state on their way to California. According to the state highway patrol, the men presented contradictory stories about their origin, destination, and the plans for the money found during the traffic stop.

A Pennsylvania school district is in hot water after the star shooter in their active shooting drill training video was depicted wearing a keffiyeh. The keffiyeh, or kufiya, is a traditional scarf, often worn on the head, in the Middle East. The scarf, and variants of it, is commonplace throughout the Middle East.

The White House is continuing its march to war with Iran, but resistance is growing—most recently by a group of 62 organizations that issued an open letter to Congress on Tuesday calling for the representative body to exercise its power and stop U.S. aggression.  "When a nuclear-armed country like the United States is involved, there is always a chance that conventional war could escalate into a nuclear war, with millions of deaths, nuclear winter, and mass starvation." —Dr. Gwen DuBois In the letter, the 62 groups call on Congress to "fulfill its constitutional duty and enact further constraints to unequivocally prevent the administration from launching an unauthorized war."

In a harbinger of what's to come as the US-China trade war gets worse by the day, a Chinese company has told all of its employees to boycott American products and halt international travels to the U.S., reported The Epoch Times. Jinggang Motor Vehicle Inspection Station notified all employees last Thursday, May 16 that the use of iPhones, driving in American automobiles, eating at American fast food restaurants, using American household products, and even traveling to the U.S. was forbidden by a new company policy; any employee who violated the new rules would be fired.

A college professor and charity worker is facing up to 20 years in prison for leaving food and water for immigrants near the border, and also providing a safe house for them to stay the night. Scott Warren, was arrested by border patrol and charged with two counts of harboring illegal aliens and one count of conspiracy to transport and harbor illegal aliens. The conspiracy charge is a federal felony that carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.

A bipartisan letter signed by nearly 400 US Congress members is calling on President Trump to remain militarily engaged within Syria, while claiming to be “deeply concerned” about extremists in the country. President Trump had announced a pullout from Syria in December, but had already disavowed it repeatedly by February. Still, lawmakers want to keep emphasizing how enthusiastic about the Syrian War they are and push Trump into escalating it against various other parties.

Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it. That is the point at which the negation of Catholicism and the negation of Liberalism meet and keep high festival, and the end learns to justify the means.

Google tracks a lot of what you buy, even if you purchased it elsewhere, like in a store or from Amazon.

Nearly seven years ago, Colorado citizens—tired of the war on drugs and wise to the near-limitless benefits of cannabis—made US history by voting to legalize recreational marijuana. Now, this state has once again placed themselves on the right side of history as they voted this month to decriminalize magic mushrooms. But this was just the beginning and their momentum is spreading—faster and stronger, toward decriminalizing all plant-based psychedelics. Now, a major city in California is following suit, but not just with psilocybin—Oakland is calling for decriminalization of other psychedelics like mescaline cacti, ayahuasca and ibogaine.

Utility companies won’t admit it but their wireless “Smart” Meters have been nothing but trouble from the jump.  Tens of millions have been installed in the U.S. and around the world and people everywhere (including elected officials) have been fighting to get them off their homes and out of their communities (see 1, 2, 3).  These meters have been associated with so many problems (including fires and explosions) that there was even a documentary produced about them. Now utility companies are warning the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) that auctioning off more 5G spectrums for unlicensed and untested WiFi applications will make their horrible “Smart” Meters even worse.  This is on top of the Telecom Industry saying that they have no scientific evidence that 5G is even safe and plenty of researchers saying it’s not.