Masters of the Universe: Goldman Sachs Hires Former E.U. President Bro. José Manuel Barroso As Advisor

Having cornered the central banker market, with its alumni manning key positions at most central banks, Goldman has decided to tip its cards into its next zone of interest: geopolitics, and has done so by hiring none other than the former head of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker’s predecessor and one-time Nigel Farage nemesis, Jose Manuel Barroso as an advisor and non-executive chairman of its international business.

Vice News: Russian Civilians Suffer from Bloody Military Campaign (VIDEO)

Two weeks after the separatist rebels of the Donetsk People’s Republic fled their stronghold of Sloviansk, Ukraine’s anti­-terror operation continues. In the neighboring region of Luhansk, the Ukrainian military has been battling with separatists for control of Luhansk city and its strategically important airport — but with both sides using artillery, homes are being destroyed and people are being killed. Meanwhile near Donetsk, fighting has reached outlying villages as the military looks to encircle separatist forces inside the city, who vow to make their last stand among its 1 million inhabitants.

Kelly McParland: Good news, the Americans hate the F-35 too (The Jet that Ate the Pentagon)

Good news: Foreign Policy magazine may solve the dilemma for you. The Washington-based magazine demonstrates that Canadian opponents aren’t alone in thinking the “fifth generation fighter” (which sounds significant but really only means there were four earlier ones, kind of like owning a “fifth generation Oldsmobile”) is a disaster waiting to happen. In “The Jet that Ate the Pentagon” it pretty much dismembers the argument for the plane, largely on the basis that it will be insanely expensive (even more insanely than the costs known at present, and which the federal government sought valiantly to disguise by letting Defence Minister Peter MacKay be in charge). And besides the expense, it says, the planes don’t work very well, and aren’t likely to.

Syria: The Red Line and the R.t Line, by Sermour M. Hersh

In 2011 Barack Obama led an allied military intervention in Libya without consulting the US Congress. Last August, after the sarin attack on the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, he was ready to launch an allied air strike, this time to punish the Syrian government for allegedly crossing the ‘red line’ he had set in 2012 on the use of chemical weapons.​