From the Archive: Official Washington operates with a reverse “meritocracy,” the more clueless the pundits are the more esteem they seem to get – as long as they conform to the latest “group think.” Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen is a prime example, Robert Parry noted in 2007. By Robert Parry (Originally published on June 19, 2007) Granted it would be…

Submitted by Sarah Lazare via TheAntiMedia.org,

State Department spokesperson John Kirby is raising eyebrows after he released a recap of 2015 “success stories” in which he credits the United States for bringing “peace” and “security” to Syria and “stepping up” to help the country’s people at a difficult time.

The UK Government has responded to a petition that called for Donald Trump to be blocked from coming to Britain, after it garnered over 500,000 signatures. The petition was set up in response to Mr Trump’s call for a halt on Muslims entering the United States and so far over 565,000 people have signed the petition. Ministers have previously criticised Trumps remarks but disagreed with banning him. The statement on the UK Government and Parliament website says:     For good reasons the Government does not routinely comment on individual immigration and exclusion decisions.

A little over a week ago, Portugal announced that for the second time in less than two years, Lisbon would be forced to bailout a large lender. 

This time around it was Banif, the country’s seventh-largest banking group which ran into trouble when it couldn’t repay a previous government cash injection (so really, this was a bailout of a bailout). 

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,

The decline of middle class capital is partly self-inflicted.

Conventional explorations of why the middle class is shrinking focus on economic issues such as the decline of unions and manufacturing, the increasing premiums paid to the highest-paid workers and the rising costs of higher education and healthcare.