One was caught red-handed engaged in nepotism. Another, a lawyer no less, admitted to shoplifting at a Marine barracks store. A third leaked sealed court information to the news media. And a fourth engaged in fraud by turning a government garage into a personal repair shop.

Four cases, all solved in the past month, with suspects who cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars and significant breaches of public trust.

But these weren’t your everyday perps.

All were U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) employees who are supposed to catch other criminals while working for the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and U.S. attorneys’ offices. Instead, they broke the law or violated the rules. And all managed to escape prosecution, despite their proven transgressions.

Following Syrian reports that they’d foiled an Israeli attack near the Golan Heights, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised to launch even more preemptive attacks against Syria into the future.

Netanyahu said Israel was facing “unending” tests, and that they would continue to attack in a “systematic and consistent manner” to ensure that Syria never establishes any capability to threaten Israel.

In practice Israel has been attacking targets in Syria on a regular basis for months now, and indeed has spent much of the Syrian War feigning neutrality while backing rebel groups, and attacking pro-government forces on every pretext, and often with no pretext at all.

In two surprising votes held on Thursday, the Senate rejected bills by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) to block US arms sales to Bahrain and Qatar. The Bahrain vote was 43-56, and the Qatar vote was 42-57.

Sen. Paul has been leading pushes against selling US arms to countries with authoritarian governments. In Thursday’s comments he declared that “dumping more weapons into the Middle East won’t get us any closer to peace.” He also urged the US to “stop sending arms to people who abuse human rights.”

The Senate leadership dismissed such concerns, saying that Bahrain and Qatar would find arms somewhere even if the US didn’t sell them. Emphasis on the importance of the two nations centered on them hosting America’s 5th Fleet and Central Command headquarters, respectively. The White House had threatened to veto either of the measures if they’d passed.

The cell phone video starts at approximately the moment Vallejo Police Department officer David McLaughlin draws his gun from its holster.

Adrian Burrell, a former Marine and documentary filmmaker is holding the phone and standing on his porch on January 22, watching the traffic stop of his cousin, Michael Walton, happening in Burrell's driveway.

"You have a gun, and I have one, but it's in the form of a camera," Burrell recalls thinking. "This is the only thing I can bring to the fight."

When McLaughlin turns and notices he's being filmed, he orders Burrell to "get back."

"Nope," Burrell responds from his porch about 20 to 30 feet away.

It’s difficult not to see signs of this same trajectory in the U.S. since the fall of the Soviet Empire in 1990.

A recent comment by my friend and colleague, Dave Fairtex, on the Roman Empire’s self-destructive civil wars that precipitated the Western Empire’s decline and fall made me rethink what I’ve learned about the Roman Empire in the past few years of reading.

Dave’s comment (my paraphrase) described the amazement of neighboring nations that Rome would squander its strength on needless, inconclusive, self-inflicted civil conflicts over which political faction would gain control of the Imperial central state.

UPDATE: It appears earlier reports that the Front Altair had sunk were, in fact, incorrect. The ship’s captain has said that it is still afloat. VHF radio traffic confirmed that it is damaged but still afloat.

Hours have passed since the suspected attacks, and still, nobody has claimed responsibility. Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has noted how suspicious it is that a Japanese owned vessel would be attacked while Iranian leaders were meeting with the Japanese prime minister in Tehran.

And as one BBG analyst pointed out: “Fingers will certainly be pointed at Iran as the mastermind behind these events. But the potential benefits to the Persian Gulf nation are outweighed by the risks. And even if Tehran isn’t responsible, it will still suffer the consequences.”

Update: The Front Altair, the Marshall Islands flag tanker damaged in Thursday’s attacks, has now sunk, according to Iranian television. Later, others denied these reports.

Either President Donald Trump has a deep misunderstanding about the trade policies that enhance an economy or he is deliberately trying to send the country into a recession. Trump’s obsession with tariffs is proving disastrous in every important way.

The trade deficits are up, main street Americans and their businesses are paying billions to fund the tariffs, and farmers have rotting crops they can’t export to China. That doesn’t sound much like the Utopian “booming” economy the mainstream media is selling us. Additionally, there are perhaps millions of Americans jobs that depend on imports and trade.

Regardless of Trump’s reasons, he’s doing damage to an already bleeding economy. The tariff obsession is a bizarre and counterproductive one and should serve as a warning about the ways in which Trump’s deep misconceptions about trade continue to threaten the country’s economic health.

As more photos and information about the suspected torpedo attacks on two tankers in the Sea of Oman reach the western press, the first aerial footage of one of the tankers has found its way online.

The footage, which aired on Iranian television, shows the Front Altair, one of the two tankers, in flames, but still afloat (earlier reports, now confirmed to have been inaccurate, claimed that one of the tankers had sunk, which would have unleashed an oil spill twice the size of Exxon-Valdez).

Huawei has hit upon a new strategy for fighting back against the US: leveraging its massive suite of technology patents to try and force American competitors to fork over billions of dollars. And its first target is Verizon, one of its biggest American competitors in the race to become a global leader in 5G.

As Reuters reports, Huawei has told Verizon that it should pay licensing fees amounting to more than $1 billion for the more than 230 patents held by the Chinese telecoms giant.

The plan has been percolating since before the White House blacklisted Huawei: Verizon should pay to "solve the patent licensing issue," a Huawei intellectual property licensing executive reportedly wrote in February.

The Democratic National Committee is once again in financial distress, and it could have a big impact on the 2020 election according to Bloomberg. In the first four months of 2019, the party outspent its contributions - tacking on $3 million in new debt as donor enthusiasm has all but dried up.

Gulf of Tonkin 2.0? Regardless of whether Iran is responsible for damage to vessels in the Sea of Oman, Bloomberg's Julian Lee explains, it will still get the blame - and suffer the fallout.

The Department of Justice will interview senior CIA personnel as part of a sweeping investigation into the origins of 'Russiagate,' according to the New York Times, citing anonymous sources briefed on the matter.

Google has fired six of its largest lobbying firms in an attempt to overhaul its global government affairs and policy operations amid greater government scrutiny of its business, according to the Wall Street Journal. Over the last few months, the company has changed its roster of lobbying firms, as well as its Washington policy team, and lost two senior officials who helped build its "influence operation" into one of the largest in the nation's capital. The company had been paying about $20 million annually for lobbying, and the firms that Google has now let go made up about half of that cost.

With the words "Gulf of Tonkin" trending on Twitter this morning at a moment that a senior American defense official told CBS News that "it's highly likely Iran caused these attacks," it appears the general public is not even close to buying the claim that Iran attacked two tankers near the strategic Strait of Hormuz this morning.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javid Zarif pointed out a crucial obvious factor not likely to make it across the US mainstream airwaves or headlines:

"Suspicious doesn't begin to describe what likely transpired this morning," he said.

Amid fast escalating tensions in the Persian Gulf surrounding Thursday morning's mysterious "attacks" on two tankers which US officials are already blaming on Iran, Saudi Arabia has released CCTV footage of this week's previously reported Yemeni Houthi missile attack on a civilian airport terminal in the southern part of the kingdom.

Sun Tzu, the legendary Chinese general of the 6th century BC Zhou Dynasty, famously wrote in the Art of War:

“When you engage in actual fighting, if victory is long in coming, then men’s weapons will grow dull and their ardor will be damped. If you lay siege to a town, you will exhaust your strength.”

Modern day governments understand this principle very well. And that’s lesson #1 I want to discuss today.

On June 12, the Ansar Allah movement (also known as the Houthis) launched a cruise missile at Abha International Airport in southern Saudi Arabia. The movement said that the missile had successfully hit the airport, which has a large military part to it.

Brig. Gen. Yahya Sari, a spokesman for the pro-Ansar Allah part of the Yemeni Armed Forces, said that “advanced U.S. air-defense systems” deployed inside the airport were not able to intercept the missile.

In their turn, the Saudi side said that the missile had hit the arrival hall in the airport injuring 26 civilians, including three women and two children. Most of the injured civilians were treated on the spot. Eight were transported to nearby hospitals.

Elon Musk should have considered a career as a children’s fairytale author. He would have made multiples of his current net worth selling his amazing fantasies and optioning the movie and tv series rights. He’s spent the better part of the last few years spinning fantasies as a means of addressing the growing army of analysts and truthseekers who report the facts about Tesla. He’ll say anything in an attempt to drive the stock price higher. The “funding secured” $420 buyout fraud is just the tip of the iceberg, if not wholly emblematic of Musk’s desperation to succeed.

The datebooks of Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan for 2018 reveal that he cooperated with the Mossad in the fight against the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.

The diaries, which were released in response to a Freedom of Information request, show that Erdan met with Mossad head Yossi Cohen about “the struggle against the boycott.” The request was made by the Hatzlaha movement, an organization promoting a fair society and economy, to all ministers, deputy ministers and ministry directors-general.

No Japan was not acting as a lap dog for the US nor were they sent to negotiate with Iran. It was Japan who invited Iran to meet with them BEFORE Trump came to Japan. Trump’s visit had also been established well in advance to coincide with the crowning of the new Japanese Emperor.

Two oil tankers have been significantly damaged in suspected attacks in the Gulf of Oman.

The Japanese-owned Kokuka Courageous with 23 crew members aboard and Norway's Front Altair with 23 people were abandoned after the blasts. Iran and the US say they evacuated the crew.

It is unclear what caused the blasts coming amid high US-Iran tensions.

A senior Iranian official told the BBC: "Iran has no connection with the incident."

The suspected attack in one of the world's busiest oil routes comes a month after four oil tankers were attacked off the United Arab Emirates.

he SAS and other UK Special Forces (UKSF) are poised to receive a new mission countering Russian and other forces around the world.

The plan is called 'Special Operations Concept' and has been drawn up by the senior officer in charge of the special forces, the Director Special Forces (DSF).

According to people familiar with what's in it, part of the concept involves changing both the structure of the military's secretive units and what they do.

The plan is currently being considered by military chiefs, Whitehall insiders tell me, and will soon be sent to ministers and is likely to be approved.

Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke’s new plan on LGBT issues includes forcing schools to include male athletes who identify as transgender girls on female sports teams.

O’Rourke’s plan for “LGBTQ+ Equality,” which he released Wednesday, includes passing the Equality Act, which would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to make “sexual orientation and gender identity” protected characteristics under federal anti-discrimination law.

Among other things, the bill would force public schools to expand female athletic teams to include biological males who identify as transgender girls.

Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders acknowledged a tax increase from his policies and said Americans would be “delighted” to pay extra, in a CNN interview with Anderson Cooper Wednesday.

“I suspect that a lot of people in this country would be delighted to pay more in taxes if they had comprehensive health care as a human right,” Sanders said. The Vermont senator also went on to tell Cooper that he bases his principles on his 50-mile proximity to the Canadian border, where universal health care is law.

What Sanders did not include in his statement was the cost of his programs. The Mercatus Center at George Mason University released a study in 2018 saying Americans can estimate to foot a $32.6 trillion bill over a 10-year period for “Medicare for All,” Fox News reported. Sanders has also omitted cost information on his campaign website.

Former Vice President Joe Biden is still sexualizing young girls, even on the campaign trail. Wednesday morning in Iowa, leading Democratic Party presidential candidate Biden chatted up a grandmother and her grandchildren, including the woman’s 13-year-old granddaughter at the Tasty Cafe in Eldridge, Iowa:

The United States and more than two dozen other countries are asking all nations to immediately halt valuable fuel shipments to North Korea.

A report submitted to the United Nations Security Council Sanctions Committee on North Korea accuses Pyongyang of violating a UN-set UN set cap on fuel imports by conducting dozens of ship-to-ship transfers at sea, which break international sanctions. The details in the report were described to CNN and others by a UN Security Council diplomat with knowledge of the findings.

The US complaint about North Korean smuggling came a day after President Donald Trump said he got another 'beautiful letter' from North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un. The White House is interested in a third summit between the two leaders.

On ABC’s “The View” Wednesday the hosts discussed former Vice President Joe Biden’s health as it related to the 2020 presidential election.

“There’s a lot of things I really hate about primary politics, but one of them is health conspiracies,” co-host Meghan McCain said. “I hate it, it happened with my father, it happened with Michele Bachmann.”

“It happened obviously to Hillary Clinton, it’s now happening to Joe Biden, I think it’s the lowest common denominator, dirtiest form of politics,” McCain continued. “I think on both sides we should stop it, I think it’s disgusting. It’s actually hurtful, can be very harmful to families in that position.”

Obviously McCain takes this kind of talk personally given some of the conspiracy theorizing her late father, Sen. John McCain endured.

Aleksandra Stanic - Serbia is planning to carry out scientific research on the effects of the 1999 NATO campaign in Yugoslavia and to prove that there's a connection between the deplorable public health trends and the damage caused by NATO bombs.

According to Serbian oncologists, the number of cancer patients in the country is on the rise, and the mortality rate among them is increasing. The situation with infertility, autoimmune diseases, and mental disorders in Serbia is also alarming.

"Twenty years after the bombing of Yugoslavia, we are seeing an increase in oncological diseases, primarily systemic ones, such as lymphomas and leukaemia, and then solid cancerous tumours. And the most tragic thing is that, compared with the European average, we have 2.5 times more children with cancer".

Israel and Hezbollah have not engaged in an outright military confrontation since the 34-day devastating war in the summer of 2006, but a fresh conflict is possible, with regional tensions running high.

Maj-Gen. Amir Baram, the head of the Israeli Defence Forces’ (IDF) Northern Command, has warned that Lebanon would pay a heavy price in case of a new armed conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.

“We will continue to act to thwart its [Hezbollah’s] efforts to threaten our security, covertly and overtly as required, and if war is imposed on us, we will exact a heavy price from this organisation and those who give it backing, wherever necessary,” the military commander said on Tuesday at a memorial dedicated to the 13th anniversary of the 2006 Lebanon War.

Following a wave of criticism of YouTube and Facebook’s stringent content policy as well as Patreon’s crackdown on conservative content creators, Peterson has announced that the new platform won’t ban anyone unless ordered to do so by the court.

Canadian public thinker and staunch defendant of free speech Jordan Peterson has announced the launch of a new online community, following an exodus from the crowdfunding platform Patreon.

The new subscription-based platform is called Thinkspot and is billed as “an intellectual playground for censorship-free discourse”.

Britain's Home Secretary has revealed he has signed a request for the extradition of WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange to the US, where he is accused of violating the Espionage Act.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today program, Sajid Javid said that he signed and certified the papers on Wednesday, with the order going before the UK courts on Friday.

He’s rightly behind bars. There’s an extradition request from the US that is before the courts tomorrow but yesterday I signed the extradition order and certified it and that will be going in front of the courts tomorrow.

Julian Assange’s extradition to the US would be a deathblow for all truth seekers, George Galloway told RT, warning that anyone who fails to support Assange will one day share the same fate as the persecuted Wikileaks co-founder.

Britain’s Home Secretary Sajid Javid revealed on Thursday that he had signed a request for the extradition of Assange to the US, where he is accused of violating the Espionage Act. The order will go before the UK courts on Friday.

Galloway, a former MP who has campaigned tirelessly for Assange’s freedom, quipped that the "dark" episode shows that Theresa May’s "zombie" government was "not content with all the other disasters for which it’s responsible."

He insisted that Assange’s supporters would "never give up" the fight to stop his extradition to the US and secure his safe release from UK custody.

The Pentagon’s military posture based on post-Cold War dominance will not work against new Russian and Chinese strategies and must be urgently updated, or the US risks losing a war against either power, a new report warns.

America needs a “new way of war,” according to a report authored by Chris Dougherty of the Center for New American Security (CNAS) and published on Wednesday.

“For the first time in decades, it is possible to imagine the United States fighting—and possibly losing—a large-scale war with a great power,” Dougherty warns.

While the US remains stuck in the “implicit and explicit mental framework” for military strategy and operations that emerged during the 1991 Gulf War, he adds, China and Russia have been devising new strategies and weapons to defeat the US in war should that become necessary.

US president Donald Trump says he is considering slapping sanctions on Russia’s Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline project, insisting that the US has a much “better” alternative for Europe.

“[It’s] something that I’ve been looking at and I’m thinking about,” the US president said, answering a reporter’s question about using sanctions to block the project.

He added that he was the one who’d brought up “the pipeline problem,” referring to his earlier attacks against Russia’s energy supplies to Europe, and Germany in particular, as it is the entry point of the new export gas pipeline.

In a new book named "Deadly Dust - Made in the USA: Uranium Weapons Contaminating the World" German author Frieder Wagner gives a detailed account of how the US has contaminated vast territories using depleted uranium (DU) ammunition and the cover-up strategy of the military, industry and governments, as well as those in the media and politics.

Earlier this week, the French president called for the creation of a "real European army" to defend Europe against "China, Russia, and even the United States."

French historian Dr. Edouard Husson has taken issue with Emmanuel Macron's interpretation of history in his remarks in Verdun on Tuesday, including Macron's call to protect Europe from Russia, which the president said was "on our borders and has shown that it can be a threat."

In an op-ed in Atlantico, Husson, former vice-chancellor of the Sorbonne, wrote that he was "surprised, to say the least" to hear the confrontational remarks by the president, "just days before the reception of President Putin as part of the commemorations" dedicated to the end of the Great War.