Kurds: US arms not ‘effective’ against ISIS

Kurdish Peshmerga Militia

The Battle for Iraq

• "ISIS have state of-the-art, U.S.-supplied weaponry . . . "
• The U.S. announced there are no plans to send weapons to the Kurds in their battle against ISIS.
• This all makes sense when you understand that the CIA and U.S. allies were flooding Syria with weapons for the Islamist rebels in the first place.

A top Kurdish representative to the U.S. claims that the Obama administration is not doing enough to supply vital advanced weapons to Kurdish peshmerga security forces in their fight against Islamic State militants – amid signs that other nations may be eclipsing the U.S. in their level of support.

Kurdish Peshmerga

"To this point, we have only received light arms, nothing effective against ISIS militants,” Karwan Zebari, director of U.S. congressional affairs for the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), told Fox News.

 

“We need effective equipment to go on the offensive. We need to be going after them,” he said, adding: “There are two heads to this snake that need to be cut off. The one in Iraq is Mosul and the other in Syria is Raqqa,” reports Fox News.

Kurdistan Regional Government Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talabani told Fox News' Bret Baier on "Special Report" that the caliber of the weapons that the Islamic State fighters have is far greater than that of the Kurdish forces.

He noted that the militants are actually fighting with U.S.-supplied weapons, which they seized from Iraqi troops.

"There is a great imbalance in the weaponry because ISIS have state of-the-art, U.S.-supplied weaponry that they were able to take with ease from the Iraq armed forces," he said.

Currently, the U.S. is providing only ammunition for small arms and mortars and has stopped short of arming the Kurds directly. When asked Wednesday if the White House was planning any changes to its policy, a Defense official told Fox News, “The Department of Defense has not provided direct arms to the Kurds and has no plans to do so in the future."

Peshmerga Fighters

They Reclaim Ground from Islamic State: The Battle for Iraq (Dispatch 7)

What does Iran make of Islamic State? | Channel 4 News

Shuhada Al-Islam Brigade - Syria

Kurdish Peshmerga

A Russian - Lebanon Alliance? - Putin Strikes Again

Putin acts while Obama hides

• Standing up to Islamists. Putin is shipping in mountains of weapons to the anti-Islamist governments of Egypt, Syria, Iraq and now to Lebanon.

Vice News says on Wednesday, the Lebanon's Daily Star newspaper reported that the Russian ambassador to Lebanon confirmed that the two nations are in the process of negotiating potential military cooperation. This comes on the heels of Lebanon's request to the US in August for new aircraft to support counterinsurgency operations against the Islamic State and other jihadist groups.

Saudi Arabia recently granted $1 billion to Lebanon to help its fight against the Islamic State, on top of another huge dollop of cash it pledged to the country's military last year.

Fighting from Syria's civil war finally spilled over into the Lebanese town of Arsal in early August, bringing ISIS forces with it. The country's Cabinet convened a special session just days later to chart a plan for getting military assistance from "brotherly and friendly countries." In other words, Lebanon is looking for guns and ammo from just about anyone willing to supply them reports Vice News.


So far, the support from Saudi Arabia, the US, and now Russia has been an extension, adjustment, or renewal of existing policies. Saudi Arabia announced a $3 billion aid package for the Lebanese military at the end of 2013.

The US has reversed its trend of declining military aid to the country with recent emergency shipments of equipment and weapons. News of the negotiations between Russia and Lebanon was preceded by an agreement to revive a Russian grant of helicopters and tanks from 2010.

It's widely known that Iran has been supplying Hezbollah, which more or less rules southern Lebanon as its own fiefdom, for decades. As a Shia proxy for Iran, Hezbollah has been fighting alongside Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces against both rebels and Sunni militant groups like ISIS.

Several of those groups have been threatening to take the fight to Hezbollah, rooting them out of their Lebanese safe haven. This would almost certainly entail significant attacks on Lebanese territory, violations of national sovereignty that the army would want to repel.

This clamor for new munitions and weapons is understandable, given the alarm that ISIS is raising around the world. But there's another worrying possibility lurking in the distance: the prospect of another Lebanese civil war.

Lebanon is a fractured country with loads of different ethnic groups, religious sects, and tribal clans — the last civil war there dragged on for 15 bloody years, from 1975 to 1990. Since then, the Lebanese military has played an important political role by providing a unifying, specifically national entity, incorporating people from many different backgrounds and affiliations.

Read More . . . .

Lebanon's Illegal Arms Dealers

Warlords of Tripoli
(Part 1/5)
Vice News.  The best reporting on the planet.  Check out all five parts
of this series.

"We Russians like the Middle East."

The Russian naval base in Tartus, Syria.
Tartus hosts a Soviet-era naval supply and maintenance facility, under a 1971 agreement with Ba'athist Syria, which was—until the second year of the Syrian civil war—staffed by Russian naval personnel. Most recently, the facility hosts the Amur class floating workshop PM-138, capable of providing technical maintenance to Russian warships deployed in the Mediterranean.

Beheaded Steven Sotloff was a citizen of Israel

Steven Sotloff - Israeli Citizen

• The headlines scream "American Beheaded. We must go to war".  Come to find out Sotloff was also an Israeli.  The headline "Israeli Beheaded. America must go to war" does not play as well in the ratings driven corporate media. 
• Question of the Day:  Was Sotloff's duel citizenship deliberately kept quite by the politicians and their lap-dog media machine? Does it even matter?  You decide.

The beheading of Steven Sotloff, the American journalist from Miami who had been held hostage by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, suddenly loomed larger for many Israelis on Wednesday when it emerged that he held Israeli citizenship and had lived and studied in the country for a few years. (New York Times)

Family of Steven Sotloff insists Islam

is a peaceful religion

ISIS Leader challenged to a debate

(Editor - Challenging Islamist murderers to a debate.  This ranks as a full TEN on my dumb-fuck meter.  While we are at it maybe we should debate which is more humane: the ovens at Auschwitz or lethal injection? People can't stop living in denial about the harsh world we live in.)


(Reuters) - The family of Steven Sotloff, the second American journalist beheaded by Islamic State militants, said on Wednesday he was “a gentle soul”, and challenged the group’s leader to a debate on the peaceful teachings of the Muslim holy book, the Koran.

Barak Barfi, a friend of Sotloff who is serving as family spokesman, began a prepared statement from the family in English, remembering the slain journalist as a fan of American football who enjoyed junk food, the television series “South Park” and talking to his father about golf.

Barfi ended the statement with off-the-cuff remarks in Arabic, saying “Steve died a martyr for the sake of God.”

He then challenged Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to debate Islam, saying, “Woe to you. You said the month of Ramadan is the month of mercy. Where is your mercy?”

“God does not love the aggressor,” added Barfi, who is an Arabic scholar and research fellow at the New America Foundation think tank in Washington.

He went on, “I am ready to debate you with kind preachings. I have no sword in my hand and I am ready for your answer.”

"I'll debate.  There are a few points
I would like to make."

Danish mosque declares support for Isis - Today's Multicultural Moment

Muslims in Denmark burning the flag.

110 Danish Muslims Fight in Syria

They call you a racist if you oppose immigration.

(The Local.dk)  -  A spokesman for the Aarhus mosque Grimhøjmoskeen has openly declared the mosque’s support of the terrorist organisation Islamic State, or Isis.

 

“An Islamic state will always be what Muslims long for, therefore we cannot help but to support the Islamic State. Even if it makes mistakes, we will just have to wait and see,” mosque spokesman Fadi Abdallah told the online news source Den Korte Avis. 

 

“The conditions aren’t the same down there [in Syria and Iraq, ed.] as they are here. I can fully understand why people are getting killed,” he continued. 

Grimhøjmoskeen has long been accused of promoting an extremist interpretation of Islam. In July, a video emerged of Abu Bilal Ismail, an imam at the mosque, calling on God to “destroy the Zionist Jews”. He has since been officially reported to the police.

Welcome to Denmark

 

East Jutland Police also estimate that of the at least 100 men who have left Denmark to fight in Syria, at least 22 of them come from Grimhøjmoskeen. 

 

“We can definitely say that when you go to that mosque, there is an increased risk of heading off for Syria,” police spokesman Allan Aarslev told TV2 Østylland earlier this year. 

 

A recent report from The Economist calculated that when measured by total population, Denmark has sent the second-highest number of foreign fighters to Syria. Only Belgium has a higher number of foreign fighters per million residents. According to CNN's calculations, the number of Danes who have left to fight in Syria account for just 0.044 percent of the 226,000 Muslims living in Denmark. 

 

One Danish-Turkish resident who has fought in Syria warned last week that Denmark was "high up on [Isis's] list" of foreign targets. 

 

“It is an open war now. Isis has said that all infidels should be battled. They should be eliminated and soon it will be Denmark’s turn,” the jihadist, identified only as ÖA, told Politiken.

 

Isis militants recently released a video showing the brutal killing of American journalist James Foley and according to a still-unconfirmed media report, the same group of Isis jihadists is currently holding a Danish hostage. Another Dane, Daniel Rye Ottosen, was held by the group for 13 months in Syria before being released in June. 

 

Denmark last week approved a military mission to aid Iraqi and Kurdish forces battling Isis in northern Iraq. 

Creeping Sharia
A well-known supermarket chain in Denmark has announced that
employees will no longer be prohibited from wearing the Muslim
headscarf at its stores. 
(islamophobiawatch.co.uk)

Obama Lifts Ban on Libyans Attending U.S. Flight Schools, Training In Nuke Science

Connect The Dots

• Dear Leader Obama conducted an unconstitutional war to overthrow the government of Libya.  Now Obama wants to give flight and nuclear science training to Libyan Islamists.
• We are ruled over by either traitors or mad men.  Pick one.

The Obama administration has lifted longtime restrictions on Libyans attending flight schools in the United States and training here in nuclear science, according to a final amendment of the ban recently approved by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

Less than two years after the deadly terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya that killed four Americans, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is poised to sign off on an amendment reversing the ban, which was enacted following a wave or terrorist attacks in 1980s and prevents Libyans from studying these sensitive trades in the United States.

The original law effectively disqualified all Libyan nationals and those “acting on behalf of Libyan entities” from training in “aviation maintenance, flight operations, or nuclear-related fields,” according to the ban.

DHS said the prohibition is irrelevant now since the United States and Libya have worked to “normalize their relationship,” according to the directive approved by the OMB reports the Washington Free Beacon.

Obama the Traitor
Islamist militias in Libya took control of nearly a dozen commercial
jetliners last month, and Western intelligence agencies recently issued a
warning that the jets could be used in terrorist attacks across North Africa.
.
Intelligence reports of the stolen jetliners were distributed within the
U.S. government over the past two weeks and included a warning
that one or more of the aircraft could be used in an attack later this
month on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against
New York and Washington, said U.S. officials familiar with the reports.

Read more: Washington Times.

“The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is amending its regulations by rescinding the regulatory provisions promulgated in 1983 that terminated the nonimmigrant status and barred the granting of certain immigration benefits to Libyan nationals and foreign nationals acting on behalf of Libyan entities who are engaging in or seeking to obtain studies or training in,” the amendment states.

“The United States Government and the Government of Libya have normalized their relationship and most of the restrictions and sanctions imposed by the United States and the United Nations toward Libya have been lifted,” it says. “Therefore, DHS, after consultation with the Department of State and the Department of Defense, is considering rescinding the restrictions that deny nonimmigrant status and benefits to a specific group of Libyan nationals.”

DHS spokesman S.Y. Lee told the Free Beacon that the Obama administration is reviewing its policies towards Libya “to see how they might be updated to better align with U.S. interests” in light of its revolution.”

“As part of this effort, the Departments of State and Defense requested the Department of Homeland Security consider revising regulations dating from 1983 to permit Libyan nationals, and other foreign nationals acting on behalf of Libyan entities, to engage in studies or training in aviation maintenance, flight operations and/or nuclear-related fields,” Lee said.

“Terrorizing the enemy is, in fact, part of Islam."

Bravo to Choudary
The man gets points from me for being honest, that terrorism is part of Islam.


Controversial London-based thinker and activist, Anjem Choudary, told RT the geopolitical maneuvers of IS in Iraq and Syria are a direct repercussion of a “detrimental” US foreign policy in the Middle East.

The age-old adage that violence begets violence is relevant to any debate on international terrorism. But according to Choudary, a self-proclaimed Islamic scholar, IS aggression particularly illustrates this concept.

Citing the Oxford dictionary, Choudary tells RT’s Oksana Boyko that terrorist activities can be defined as “the use of violence against a community or a section of a community for political purposes."

He continues that acts of terrorism are “precisely what the Americans and the British are doing in Afghanistan and what they did before in Iraq to establish their own military and economic interests, no matter what the cost is to the life and the wealth of the people,” reports RT News.

In an effort to justify the ongoing acts of aggression perpetrated by Jihadi IS militants, the fundamentalist Muslim who claims to be an Imam distinguishes between what he calls “pro-life terrorism”, and terrorism he suggests is “against life.”

“I think there is terrorism, which is pro-life and there is terrorism, which is against life. You know you could terrorize the enemy in order to make sure that the war ends quickly. And I think this is what the Islamic State, are in fact, trying to do to scare off the Americans and their allies in Syria and Iraq.”

“And then there’s terrorism, which is against life – which is like carpet bombing, dropping nuclear weapons, and the shock and awe that we saw in Iraq before.”

When asked whether it’s legal under Sharia Law to hold an individual responsible for alleged crimes perpetrated by a collective or state, Choudary who is a self-appointed lecturer in Sharia Law says: “Terrorizing the enemy is, in fact, part of Islam. This is something that we must embrace and understand as far as the jurisprudence of Jihad is concerned.”

“I think the thing that people need to appreciate is that in war Muslims are not distinguishing in general between civilians and military because those very civilians are those who put the people in charge, and those people in charge – Barack Obama and others – are sending their troops to Muslim countries. They’re not making that distinction.”

Probed on what crime James Foley committed against the wider global Muslim community to justify such a brutal and vicious execution, Choudary argues the general rule for American or international journalists who are “tarnishing the image of Muslims” in the battlefield is that they are undeserving of any “sanctity.”

“Journalists in general from the West, civilians from places like America at the current time, are in a position where there is no sanctity for them in Muslim countries. There’s no one to give them that sanctity. We are uprising against our own regimes, and they are seen as enemies of Muslims.”

Anjem Choudary on Sean Hannity Show | Fox News

Is war with Russia Obama's "October Surprise"?

Brinkmanship

• Dear Leader Obama is deliberately sending American troops into a nation at war with Russia.  Is Obama hoping for an "incident", an attack by some mysterious "Russian connected" faction . . . . all just in time for the election.
• The West is playing a dangerous game of brinkmanship over the Ukraine.

Soldiers from Canada and other NATO countries will take part in joint exercises with the Ukrainian army this month that are likely to further fuel suspicions between Moscow and the West.

A total of 1,300 soldiers will take part in the 10-day drills, which begin on Sept. 16 at the Yavoriv training centre, near the western Ukrainian city of Lviv. The Pentagon said the United States will contribute 200 soldiers to the exercise, which is code-named Rapid Trident. It wasn’t clear Wednesday how many Canadian troops would take part.

A press statement from the U.S. Army’s European Command, which is leading the exercises, said Germany, Britain, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania and Spain would also contribute troops, as well as Georgia, Moldova and Azerbaijan, which are not members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization reports The Globe and Mail.

Though the exercises have taken place annually since 2006 under the auspices of NATO’s Partnership for Peace program, this will be the first time that NATO troops have set foot in Ukraine since the country first fell into a succession of crises late last year.

The drill was originally supposed to take place in July, but was delayed as fighting roared in the east of Ukraine between government forces and Russian-backed rebels. NATO officials say the drill will go ahead this time, despite the ongoing fighting in the other end of the country, and the mounting evidence of direct Russian involvement there.

A NATO official told The Globe and Mail ahead of a summit that begins Thursday in Wales that the alliance believes that there are now at least 3,000 regular Russian troops fighting inside Ukraine, accompanied by more than 100 battle tanks.

Russia, for its part, accuses NATO of deliberately stirring up tensions in Ukraine. Mikhail Popov, the deputy secretary of Russia’s National Security Council, said Tuesday that Moscow would soon draw up a new military doctrine, in response to “the desire of U.S. and NATO leaders to continue their policy of aggravating tensions with Russia.”

The Ukraine Never Existed
Above is a February 1918 article from The New York Times showing a map of the Russian Imperial territories claimed by the new Ukraine People’s Republic at the time.
.
Until recent times Ukraine has never even existed as a nation.  Briefly from 1917–1921 a Ukrainian People's Republic was born but was rapidly re-absorbed back into Russia (Soviet Union).  Even then Ukraine did not claim the Crimea which was still part of Russia.  The modern nation of the Ukraine was born in 1990 as the Soviet Union fell apart. 
.
Call me crazy, but I just can't get worked up about a nation that has only existed for 24 years and has been part of Russia for centuries.

Will the GOP lose the Kansas Senate seat?

GOP Sen. Pat Roberts

GOP Senator at only 37% in the Polls

• At the last minute the Democrat pulls out of four-way Senate race allowing the anti-Roberts vote to settle on an independent candidate. Before the Democrat pulled out the Senator was at a very weak 37% in the last poll.
• To appeal to younger voters, the GOP in its infinite wisdom, nominated a candidate who is nearly 80 years old.

The Hill reports Democrat Chad Taylor has dropped out of the Kansas Senate race, complicating Sen. Pat Roberts’s (R-Kan.) reelection fight.

Taylor, the Shawnee County district attorney, submitted papers to withdraw himself from the ballot shortly before the 5 p.m. CT deadline.

The race is now a three-way battle between Roberts, independent Greg Orman and libertarian Randall Batson, but it's the sudden rise of Orman which has the potential to roil the race.

Taylor’s exit may create more of a headache for Roberts, who has emerged as surprisingly vulnerable in recent weeks, with multiple polls showing him holding just a single-digit lead in the race with Orman surging.

The GOP incumbent emerged from a contentious primary fight with his campaign coffers depleted and his profile in the state bruised due to a heavy focus from his primary opponent on questions of whether he actually lives in Kansas.




National Republicans haven’t yet weighed in on the race, but one report indicated the National Republican Senatorial Committee is facing pressure to send resources down to support Roberts, and there’s talk of a campaign staff shakeup for the incumbent.

Roberts campaign manager Leroy Towns told The Hill that “the team that was successful in the primary is in place,” but that the campaign has brought on new staff, including Alan Cobb, a former lobbyist for Koch Industries and a former strategist for the Koch brothers-linked Americans for Prosperity, and staff from the successful campaign of Ken Selzer, who won the GOP nod for state insurance commissioner.

Though Taylor had so far performed the best against the senator in a four-way matchup, Orman fared better in a head-to-head matchup polled by a Democratic pollster in mid-August, leading Roberts by double digits.

Orman has surged since entering the race, from single-digit support to 20 percent of the vote in the most recent survey.

And though he hasn’t yet said which party he’d caucus with if he’s the deciding vote for control of the Senate, Democrats in the state see Orman as their best option to defeat Roberts — and have been working to pressure Taylor out of the race since the state Democratic Party convention two weeks ago on Aug. 24.

Democrats were wary that Taylor’s baggage concerning a discrimination suit brought against him by two former female employees, as well as his initial refusal to prosecute sexual harassment cases as DA due to budget cuts, would dog him throughout the campaign — and perhaps damage other Democratic candidates up and down the ballot.

The party is planning to launch a campaign targeting Republicans in the state for “failing on morality,” one Democratic activist said, and Taylor’s baggage could undermine that message.

Read more: The Hill.

It's NOT about ISIS. It's about Islam

Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn in the movie Kingdom of Heaven (2005)

Militant Islam is Nothing New

This is not a quick Gulf War but a 1,400 year old war

between Islam and Civilization itself.

By Gary;

Let's start with the fact that we are not dealing with ISIS.  We are dealing with Islam itself.

ISIS is not an aberration.  Not an accident.  There is no real difference between ISIS and other Muslims.  Just try to build a new Buddhist Temple or a Christian Church in U.S. "allied" Muslim countries like Turkey, Saudi Arabia or Pakistan and see what happens.

From day one Islam attacked the Roman and Persian Empires conquering the Middle East, Africa and Spain. 

For the next 1,400 years Islam has attacked everyone in its path from Hindus to Chinese to Russians to the French.

Unfortunately we have been brainwashed by World War II TV shows and movies into thinking Hitler's war was the most import event in our history. 

To me Hitler is an afterthought. The real story of the 20th century is the pre-World War One powder keg of the Balkans being liberated from Islam, the resulting Great World War . . . and this is key . . . the Turkish declared Jihad against the British and French conquest of the Middle East which re-awakened and inflamed Arab nationalism and Islam. 

The Middle East has never stopped burning.  The Arabs revolted against their French colonial masters in Syria and later in Algeria.  Against British rule the Arabs revolted both in Palestine and in Iraq.

With the founding of Israel the followers of Islam went totally insane.  The attacks against Christians, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists have continued to this day all over Africa and Asia.

Also see: Islamic State gets funding from Turkey

There Are Only Three Choices

1)  Submit to Islam.   Simply give up. Submit to Islam and continue to import millions more Muslims into our countries.

2)  Conquer the Islamists.  This is a total fantasy created by brainless politicians and defense contractors looking to make money off war.  The U.S. was never able to control South Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan. 

Sending a Christian army back into the Middle East only acts as a recruiting tool for Islam. 

3)  Containment.  Like a virus Islam, wherever it exists, should be contained.  It worked during the Cold War with Communism.  First of all, end the importation of Muslims into the West.

Next, take advantage of differences between local Muslims.  Back the secular Baath government of Syria that protects the Christians and arm the Kurds.

There is no quick fix folks.  We are but a link in a long chain of peoples in history being attacked by Islam.  So don't get too worked up, but we need to settle in for the long war.

Remember that the CIA, Saudi Arabia and Turkey are funding and arming ISIS.

Beheading the Knights Templar
kk
Saladin commanded that the other captive barons were to be spared and treated humanely. However all of the 200 knights of the Templar and Hospitaller Military Orders taken prisoner were executed at Saladin's orders, with the exception of the Grand Master of the Temple.The executions were by beheading. Saint Nicasius, a Knight Hospitaller venerated as a Christian martyr, is said to have been one of the victims.
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"Saladin ordered that they should be beheaded, choosing to have them dead rather than in prison. With him was a whole band of scholars and sufis and a certain number of devout men and ascetics, each begged to be allowed to kill one of them, and drew his sword and rolled back his sleeve. Saladin, his face joyful, was sitting on his dais, the unbelievers showed black despair" – Imad ed-Din, Saladin's Secretary
.
See more Battle of Hattin



The Liberation of European Christians
Jihadist Muslim Turks (in red and tan) controlled much of the Balkans.
The Muslims were twice beating at the gates of Vienna, Austria in wars.
.
The Turks had conquered all of the Balkans reducing the Christian population to
near slaves in their own nations.  In war after war the Austrians and Russians
slowly pushed the Muslims out and liberated Christians peoples.
.
The final liberation of the Balkans from Islam did not happen until
1913.  The unsuccessful war to fully liberate the Greek people lasted
until 1922.
.
See more
100th Anniversary of the Balkan Wars of Liberation Against Islamic Rule
and
Greco - Turkish War (1919 - 1922)

Poor economy impacts Brazil's elections

President Dilma Rousseff

A 34% - 34% tie for President

• The economic slide of Brazil, the #7 economy on earth, has put the President in a tie in the October elections.  Brazil joins Europe in a slowing economy.

Brazil's economy, once an emerging-market darling, fell into recession, according to government data released Friday, as millions of new middle class citizens tightened their belts and further dampened a credit-driven spending spree.

The results are a blow to President Dilma Rousseff, who faces an increasingly tough reelection in October. A new poll released late Friday showed her biggest rival pulling into a dead heat with her in a first-round vote - and is 10 percentage points ahead of the Rousseff in an expected runoff ballot.

 

The government's statistics bureau reported that gross domestic product dropped 0.6 percent in the second quarter, in large part because of soft consumer spending. First-quarter results also were revised downward from 0.2 percent growth to a 0.2 percent drop, showing a two-quarter slide that most economists use to define a recession reports the Associated Press.

"Of course I'm spending a lot less!" said Maria Sousa, a 25-year-old doing some window shopping but no buying at a mall in Rio de Janeiro. "I'm feeling less confident about my financial situation and I'm thinking more about trying to save than spend."

The economic indicators are the last thing Rousseff's struggling re-election campaign needed.

 

The slump gives more ammunition to Rousseff's rivals ahead of the Oct. 5 presidential election vote, particularly for environmentalist Marina Silva, who is now leading polls and tapping into the widespread frustrations of many Brazilians with a sputtering economy and poor public services, angst that fueled last year's massive anti-government protests.

 

The race is certain to go into a second-round runoff on Oct. 26, as no candidate has the support win an outright majority of ballots to avoid that.

 

"For Rousseff, who has watched her lead in opinion polls evaporate in recent weeks, this is the worst possible news; it's the last thing she wanted," said Shearing. "There is not much that can be done for the economy ahead of the election. It's like turning around the proverbial tanker; it's going to take a long time."

 

Respected polling group Datafolha said Friday night that Rousseff and Silva are now even, each capturing 34 percent of voter intentions in the first round.

But when asked about a second-round runoff, Silva opened a wide lead over Rousseff, taking 50 percent to the incumbent's 40 percent.

 

The poll, aired Friday on Globo TV, was based on 2,874 interviews carried out across Brazil on Thursday and Friday. The margin of error was 2 percentage points.

 

Earlier Friday, Rousseff's team argued that Brazil's souring economic scenario wasn't their fault - and questioned whether the country is in recession.

 

They blamed the slowdown on continuing global economic weakness that has dampened appetite for Brazil's exports and a severe drought that has sent energy prices soaring for industry and consumers alike, as most of the country is powered by hydroelectricity.

Read the full article . . . .

The Brazilian Senate Chamber
.
Election Envy
The United States is going through yet another cycle of pretend elections where the same two corrupt bought and paid for Washington D.C. funded parties "magically" win 100% of all seats in Congress.  Meanwhile every other democratic nation on earth holds multi-party free elections.
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The Congress of Brazil is a favorite example of mine showing free elections.  Nearly 97,000,000 people voted in their last election.  That resulted in 15 different political parties represented in their Senate and 21 parties in their Chamber of Deputies.  Simply, nearly every faction of Brazilian society has representation in their Congress.
ll
It is long past time that American elections be opened up so the people's representatives actually represent the people and not the Billionaire Cartels of businesses and unions that buy elections.  A popular method around the world is proportional representation.  If a party gets 20% of the vote it gets 20% of the seats in the legislature.
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If this system had existed in 2010 we might have seen an actual Tea Party winning 20% of the seats in the House and setting up its own Tea Party National Committee and Congressional Caucus.  Instead it is the same old corrupt two party monopoly business as usual.
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Freedom.  Maybe some day we will try it in American elections.
..
See more National Congress of Brazil.