Robert Barsocchini ■ Following the standard US playbook, the Obama regime and its accomplices made up crimes to propagandize their populations into accepting illegal aggression and terrorism against Libya in 2011, and now ignore the actual crimes being committed in the Libya shoved, by the West, into “the abyss”. [...] Cockburn...notes that, after lying to fabricate the pretext for aggression, the Western governments and media outlets have fallen mysteriously silent on Libya as the country has spiraled into oblivion. The West thus again all but insists we notice that humanitarian crises play no role in drawing their attention, and that they only trumpet – or invent – human rights violations to cover Western aggression, which is carried out, Cockburn notes, “always in the interests of the country intervening.” The West immediately lost its feigned concern over the “human rights” violations it exaggerated or simply made up regarding Libya because they were never of concern to begin with, and the West made things much worse: the illegal US-led attack instantly killed or led to the deaths of up to hundreds of thousands. [...] When we mute Western government and integrated corporate propaganda (what they say) and look at what they actually do, what is left? The bare reality of a brutal Western terror axis butchering, as it always has, any group of people that could potentially deter Western domination and thus cut into the percentage of global wealth captured by Western predators.

Patrick Martin ■ The Republican Party won control of the US Senate in Tuesday’s midterm elections, taking more than the six Democratic-held seats needed to obtain the 51 required for a majority. Republican candidates defeated incumbent Democratic senators in North Carolina, Arkansas and Iowa and won open Democratic seats in West Virginia, Iowa, South Dakota and Montana. [...] The Republicans also expanded their majority in the House of Representatives, with a net gain of at least eight seats, putting them in full control of both houses of Congress for the first time since 2006, and for the first time in the presidency of Barack Obama. [...] In nearly all the closely contested Senate contests, both the Republican and Democratic candidates were regarded unfavorably by a majority of voters. The same was true in most of the closely contested races for state governor.

Stephen Lendman ■ US Midterm Electoral Results || Ignore scoundrel media who won, who lost horserace rubbish. US electoral politics is too debauched to fix. Big money corrupts it. Democracy is pure fantasy. None whatever exists. Most bums are reelected. New ones replace others. Things change but stay the same. Special interests rule. People have no say. US-style democracy mocks the real thing.

PPP: Congress somewhere below cockroaches, traffic jams, and Nickelback in Americans' esteem
PressTV: GOP, Democrats ‘rigged election process’ to retain control: Carla Howell
Yahoo: GOP takeover: Republicans surge to Senate control
PressTV: Republican control of Senate will cause more “neocon wars in Syria and Iraq”: Ron Paul
RT.com: Republicans take control of US Senate, ousting Democrats in midterms

Israeli Housing Minister Uri Ariel says Israel will eventually replace Al-Aqsa Mosque with a Jewish temple. ● According to the Middle East Monitor, Ariel told Israeli radio station Kol Berama - controlled by the Jewish extremist movement Shas - the status quo could not continue at the Al-Aqsa Mosque as it "was built in the place of the holiest place for Israel". Ariel added that the construction of a third Jewish temple at the site is the primary demand of the Torah "as it is at the forefront of Jewish salvation", the report from Middle East Monitor said. In response to the rising tensions in the city surrounding the holy site, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called "on all Knesset [Israeli parliament] members to calm tensions regarding the Temple Mount and show responsibility and restraint". There are concerns among some Israeli officials that emboldened Israeli actions in relation to the holy site will lead to a third Palestinian intifada - or uprising. Last week, fierce clashes erupted in occupied East Jerusalem after the suspected gunman in the attempted assassination of right-wing Israeli activist Rabbi Yehuda Glick was shot dead by Israeli security forces near his house in the Abu Tor neighbourhood.

Middle East Monotor: Israel to build temple in place of Al-Aqsa, minister says

The Israeli military's killing of hundreds of Palestinian civilians during its summer 2014 military aggression against the Gaza Strip amounts to war crimes, Amnesty International says. "It appears that the attacks directly and deliberately targeted civilians or civilian objects, which would constitute war crimes," the London-based rights group said in a new report on Wednesday. It said it has examined eight cases in which Israeli airstrikes targeted homes in Gaza “without warning.” “Israeli forces have brazenly flouted the laws of war by carrying out a series of attacks on civilian homes, displaying callous indifference to the carnage caused,” Philip Luther, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at Amnesty International, said. “The report exposes a pattern of attacks on civilian homes by Israeli forces which have shown a shocking disregard for the lives of Palestinian civilians, who were given no warning and had no chance to flee,” he added.

AI: Israeli forces displayed ‘callous indifference’ in deadly attacks on family homes in Gaza

Nebojsa Malic ■ Since last November, I have made so many appearances on RT, I've had people ask me if I work for them. I wish! In actuality, I am a guest commentator, who just happens to get re-invited a ton. Maube because I am right more often than not? Certainly not because I'm telegenic...On Tuesday I was a guest on the episode of CrossTalk about the elections in the Ukraine, which aired today. Three days prior, I chimed in about V. V. Putin's remarks at the Valdai Club forum in Sochi. He identified the Empire-possessed U.S. (and its EU appendage) as the source of instability, violence and chaos in the world. I've said as much myself back in February, so it's no wonder I concur. The Anglosphere media, predictably, did not.

Neil Clark ■ Don’t watch RT! || As RT UK launches, attacks on the channel in the British media have stepped up…The latest is a piece by Mr. Cyril Waugh-Monger, a very important newspaper columnist for the NeoCon Daily, a patron of the Senator Joe McCarthy Appreciation Society and author of 'Why the Iraq War was a Brilliant Idea' and 'The Humanitarian Case for Bombing Syria.' Dear socially inferior person reading this article. My name is Cyril Waugh-Monger (I'm called 'Mr Terribly Pompous Neo-Con' by my friends) and I’m here to tell you why on no account should you watch RT and why you should be making complaints to Ofcom about this dreadful channel so that in the interests of 'free speech' and 'democracy' we can get it off air.

The most important thing to remember about economic sanctions is that they are used by a nation against another to achieve political, not financial goals. Thus America's use of sanctions on countries like Iraq, Iran, Syria, and now Russia are all intended to put pressures on those nations to force them to capitulate to U.S. will. But for the first time in decades, U.S. sanctions against another nation have been met with unforeseen consequences. And on Oct. 31, the victim of this collateral damage is choosing to not go after the originator of the economic 'weapons of mass destruction', but after the one country that the sanctions were intended to be primarily focused upon. In a formal complaint made on the last day of October to the World Trade Organization (WTO), the European Union is seeking assistance from the global institution to intervene against Russian tariffs placed upon EU products, and try to reverse the effects of retaliatory sanctions put upon them for standing with the U.S. in their proxy war against the Eurasian state.

There are more than 500 contests slated to occur from coast-to-coast this Election Day, but Americans are by and large not watching the individual races, but rather which party will prevail with regards to winning the Senate. ● The results of Tuesday’s midterm elections will indeed impact the political landscape on a local level, with Senate, House and gubernatorial contests occurring nationwide. Towards the tail end of a tumultuous year for the Obama administration, however, the president’s own Democratic Party is expected to bear the brunt of dismay otherwise directed at the White House and, as a result, likely lose control of Congress’ upper chamber. On the eve of Election Day, pollsters at Gallup ranked United States President Barack Obama’s approval rating at a dismal 41 percent, and concerns over how his office has handled the crises concerning Ebola, immigration and the so-called Islamic State, among other issues, has without a doubt proved to so far be costly to the Democratic Party. As a result, onlookers to Tuesday’s elections say the left may lose control of the US Senate for the first time since 2007, which in turn would leave a Republican majority in that chamber as well as the House of Representatives.