Babchenko alive ?Murdered? Russian journalist turns up alive

[Matt Grantham]

Still not able to broach the question of the american medias ability to have a critique of events beyond simple parroting of official Us sources? did the media cover the supposed OPCW being denied access to Syrian sites days before the the February attack I do avoid the media like the plague so I am likely to miss things But from what I have heard there  is barely a mention of the supposed weapons inspection protocols that were in place and how Syria managed to get around that

 As for OPCW's speculation that the Syrians are somehow hiding nuclear weapons well the lessons of Iraq would have seemingly left us suspicious of official international regulatory bodies speculations on what they think could be going on

 Maybe I missed something but I am still awaiting for the positive evidence that the Syrians were responsible for Ghouta

[Richard Rubio]

http://www.gulf-times.com/story/594603/Jagger-says-Ortega-waging-dirty-war-in-Nicaragua

Even Bianca Jagger is fully condemning the violence of the Nicaraguan Sandinista Government, of course, Robert Parry helped "expose" the Contras, if what he reported was true. Now, that government is shooting and killing protesters.

[Tim Nickerson]

Cylinders were dropped from the air, nobody else could. Pretty compelling evidence, the Syrian regime has used barrel bombs, so screw them.  They are a terrorist nation. If one is calling Robert Parry, Consortium News, and all of those informative, antiwar.com, Alex Jones and so....then have at it.

Russia screws its own people, Putin may be the richest man in the world, it's a kleptocracy, it could demographically change to Islam as well. Rogue regime.

Russia doesn't even have a free press, whatever we hear is their state media and those as Robert Parry, Seymour Hirsch who write up on them. Russia is not a free nation. If anyone is telling lies, it's Russia like that airliner that got shot down by a missile.

Oswald was a communist. Nothing people say changes that, no solid connections to the CIA have been found.

If Russia is so great to live in, good.  Helped the Nazis start World War II, as if they were a counter weight to Nazism, they collaborated with them.

Freedom House Turns Partisan
In assessing the state of democracy in free nations, it favors the Left.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/02/freedom-house-left-progressive-bias-2018-report-united-states-great-britain-israel-denmark-poland/

[Tim Nickerson]

http://www.gulf-times.com/story/594603/Jagger-says-Ortega-waging-dirty-war-in-Nicaragua

Even Bianca Jagger is fully condemning the violence of the Nicaraguan Sandinista Government, of course, Robert Parry helped "expose" the Contras, if what he reported was true. Now, that government is shooting and killing protesters.

Some of what Robert Parry reported over the years was true but a great deal of it was not.

[Matt Grantham]

Some of what Robert Parry reported over the years was true but a great deal of it was not.

 Spoke to him in person on stage after he spoke and confronted him about his position on 9/11 In retrospect I think I kind of scared him though I did my best to be polite I kind of regret I should have taken my place as a mere audience member No real point other than I disagreed with him as well My point is in regard to the range of voices being heard on foreign policy I am no Democrat by any means and as of the last election I saw Trump as having a more cautious foreign policy towards Russia and would have voted for him if I had only the two choices

 I also question whether any categorizing clear definition along a right and left spectrum has been slowly dissolving for a couple of decades now, maybe longer I cannot find Stephen Cohen speaking about Russia for the life of me, and I never even considered him a radical Whatever the left was it is hopelessly fractured in revealing some of its now obvious hysterical underpinnings

 That being said one's political ideology should generally not be a factor in events that lend themselves to empirical examination

[Richard Rubio]

Freedom House Turns Partisan
In assessing the state of democracy in free nations, it favors the Left.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/02/freedom-house-left-progressive-bias-2018-report-united-states-great-britain-israel-denmark-poland/

If you want to call Russia, China and North Korea more free than India or Ukraine, be my guest. It's good for general ball park figures.  Also, should we see how often, National Review is wrong on things? They don't have a perfect record either and I can name particular cases.

Amnesty International has skewed views; but they still produce valuable information from time to time.

[Tim Nickerson]

If you want to call Russia, China and North Korea more free than India or Ukraine, be my guest. It's good for general ball park figures.  Also, should we see how often, National Review is wrong on things? They don't have a perfect record either and I can name particular cases.

Amnesty International has skewed views; but they still produce valuable information from time to time.

Did you just equate Russia with North Korea? 

[Richard Rubio]

Did you just equate Russia with North Korea? 

First off, what National Review probably takes issue with, are European countries getting ranked higher than the US in the Freedom Index.  I agree with this.  I would think UK is not "freer" than the US. I agree that Freedom House like Amnesty International are flawed in their methodology. But they are probably useful to repeat myself, in a general way.

Per North Korea and Russia,  they equate as far as being "unfree nations", we are talking about that map after all and I posted one of Freedom House's maps from a few years ago. So, currently, are North Korea, Russia and Iran for example, graded as unfree? Yes.  Are a few countries like Ukraine graded as "semi-free", yes,  is the US, Sweden and so on, graded as free countries? Yes.

For the record, Turkey has been moved into the "unfree" category, with the recent clampdown per the alleged coup that took place there about 2 years ago.

2018 map:



When Reagan called NK, Iran and the USSR the axis of evil, was he equating them? Of course not.

For the record, it's interesting that Mongolia is listed as freedom, just because of its locale.

For the record, at the Freedom House website, there are exact grades they give nations, interactive maps as well.... so this shows how they equate or don't.

I disagree if the US is rated lower than say, some European country or even Canada, but in a general way, it's still a "useful" map.

Interactive Map: https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2018