How Divorce Broke Brendan Fraser

Terrence Popp: Afton Smith seemed like the ideal mate for Brendan Fraser until she decided to take his kids and half his money. Sounds like true love to me.

Democracy Is Fighting To Survive The Rise Of Western Authoritarianism

'The democratic era is approaching its end.'

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts: The European peoples whose governments were paid to sell out the sovereignty of their nations to the EU are experiencing great difficulties in being permitted to govern themselves.
As the result of Italians’ frustration with the self-serving elite who have ruled Italy for decades, the recent democratic elections in Italy brought to power two anti-establishment political parties, Five-Star and Lega (League), that have solid majorities in both houses. However, the Italian president, an operative for the EU, attempted to appoint the prime minister independently of the election results, tried to himself appoint a “technocratic cabinet” that would ignore the democratic outcome, and succeeded in blocking the anti-establishment winners of the election from forming a government for three months.
EU official Gunther Oettinger said that it was “not acceptable” for Italians to vote for anti-establishment parties and threatened Italians with financial destabilization that would “teach them how to vote.”
Previously, in the wake of the international economic crisis brought on by the “banks too big to fail,” the Italians and the Greeks attempted to govern themselves democratically, but it was not permitted. The European Commission appointed Mario Monti, a banker, to be Italy’s prime minister. Monti, a member of Goldman Sachs Board of International Advisers, European Chairman of the Trilateral Commission, and a member of the Bilderberg Group, was appointed by the elite, not elected by the people. His cabinet did not include a single elected politician.

Who Is Being Isolated - Russia Or The USA?

Is Putin really a “pariah” and Russia
“isolated from the international community”?

By S. F. Cohen & J. Batchelor: Baseless and reckless tropes about Russia, Cohen points out, have proliferated in the US political-media establishment during the new Cold War, and even more since Russiagate allegations began to circulate widely two years ago, in mid-2016. The worst of these tropes—in effect an incitement to war—is that “Russia attacked America during the 2016 presidential election.”
But there are others equally unfounded and almost as detrimental to Washington policy-making. Among them, as The Economist and The New York Times recently asserted, are that on today’s “world stage” Russian President Vladimir Putin is a “pariah” and his country “isolated from the international community.” Indeed, the Times insisted, quoting a British intelligence chief, that Russia is “becoming a ‘more isolated pariah.’”

These assertions are so detached from geopolitical realities that they may be expressions of some Putin-Russia Derangement Syndrome, as others have suggested. Consider only last week’s St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, an annual event conceived by the Kremlin as a kind of Russian Davos. By most media accounts, including non-Russian ones, it was the best attended and most successful since 2014, when the West began imposing escalating economic sanctions on the country.

“Far Right” The Musical

Bostock

Modern Men Are So Sad, Says Jilly Cooper

“You can’t flirt any more, it is so sad,”

Via J4MB: A piece in today’s Times by David Sanderson, Arts Correspondent:

Jilly Cooper bemoans the state of modern men. They are, according to the novelist, always crying, growing beards and, if married, frequent visitors to gay dating sites.
Cooper, whose most famous male character is the roguish showjumper and lothario Rupert Campbell-Black, said yesterday that she thought men were now scared of the opposite sex.
“I think the men are so terrified of women it is easier to go with their own sex,” she told the Hay Festival. “Men are crying all the time, they are growing beards — and if you read Shakespeare, nobody cried.”
Cooper, 81, also said that men now had to restrain their behaviour. “You can’t flirt any more, it is so sad,” she said. She was married to her late husband Leo for 52 years and has admitted that the marriage survived affairs on both sides. Her series of semi-erotic novels about upper-class charmers in the showjumping world made her one of Britain’s bestselling authors.

War Of The Womb

"The only thing that's really going to fix things is men taking women's rights away and restoring order. The adults have to take control of the children." Said Turd Flinging Monkey.

Russia's Maddening Patience - Why Doesn't She Strike Back When Attacked?

By Dmitry Orlov: A lot of commentators noticed a curious fact: during the May 9 parade in the Red Square in Moscow, Putin appeared in the presence of Israeli prime minister Netanyahu. Around that same time, Israeli air force was firing rockets at Syrian and Iranian targets in Syria (lots of which the Syrian air defenses shot down) and the Syrians were firing back at Israeli positions on the Golan Heights (which are occupied Syrian territory, so it didn’t count as an attack on Israel proper).
Why didn’t Russia rise to the defense of its ally Syria? Moreover, there was talk of selling Russia’s very powerful S-300 air defense system to Syria, and that offer was subsequently withdrawn. Is this really how an ally behaves?
Or take another example: relations between Russia and the Ukraine has been in a downward spiral ever since the 2014 Kiev putsch which overthrew the constitutional government. There is a festering sore of a military standoff in the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine, a constant drumbeat of Ukrainian provocations against Russia, and Russia has been saddled with economic and political sanctions by the US and the EU supposedly in response to the annexation of Crimea and the unsettled conflict in the Donbass that has claimed some ten thousand lives.

Google Officially Decides To Be Evil + Murderous US Police

"Google is literally involved with killing people
and for some reason also no longer wants
'don't be evil' in their employee handbook!"

The Forgotten Parent: The Targeted Parent Perspective Of Parental Alienation

By Elizabeth Hobson: “This study investigated the targeted parent experience of parental alienation and alienating behaviors. One hundred and twenty-six targeted parents provided narratives in response to an open-ended question at the end of an online survey. Braun and Clarke’s (2006) thematic analysis framework was used to identify themes in the data. Six themes were identified illustrating targeted parents’ experience of parental alienation and alienating behaviors. Targeted parents described physical and emotional distance separating them from their child, emotional and financial costs associated with their engagement with “systems” such as legal systems and child protection systems. They described poor mental health and concern for their child’s psychological well-being. Targeted parents considered alienating behaviors to be a form of family violence. Additionally, targeted parents used active coping behaviors. It was concluded that further research is needed to better understand parental alienation. Mental health and legal professionals must collaborate to optimize support for targeted parents.”

"Yucky" Freedom

Larken Rose: There are still misguided people who point to unpleasant, distasteful, or just less-than-ideal economic situations, and want to blame them on FREEDOM, and want to solve them by way of "government" violence.

The Rise Of Mass Knife Attacks Around The World Shows The Problem Isn't Guns - It's People

Authored by Daisy Luther: In China, where firearms are tightly restricted, it’s probably no surprise that those who want to hurt people found another way to do it. The dramatic rise of knife attacks around the world shows that the problem these days isn’t with guns. It’s with people.
Mass knife attacks have become so common over the years that a Chinese police department recently released a video to teach citizens how to defend themselves against knife-wielding assailants and it has gone viral, with 16 million views in just a few days. It has subtitles and some great advice that even I would be able to follow.

Scamville AKA USA

Max and Stacy discuss high prices in ‘Scamville’ where consumer debt is on course to hit $4 trillion by the end of 2018. They also discuss United Health Group, one of the largest health insurance providers in America, admitting that Medicaid is a better deal for taxpayers and consumers than Obamacare/ ACA policies. In the second-half of the show Max interviews Seth Shapiro of Alpha Networks on his VideoCoin.io platform where blockchain and media meet. They look at the #MeToo movement and how that has opened the door to competitors in the media space.