Everything you need to know that the media is not telling you…
Stefan Molyneux, host of Freedomain Radio – and winner of the 2012 Liberty Inspiration Award – breaks down the unspoken facts about the end of freedom, opportunity and trade in the modern United States. There will be no economic recovery, prepare yourself accordingly.
SYNOPSIS: I Lost My Job is a short documentary film which sets out to explore the phenomenon which is affecting and due to affect many people’s lives – namely, technological unemployment. The documentary also examines what we can do about it as a society through the analysis of a transitional direction.
Particular questions need to be raised about this subject. What are the social consequences of ongoing technological unemployment within our current economic system? How do we handle such a situation when this process is inevitable with the ongoing emergence of machine automation and new technologies taking over repetitive jobs?
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled unanimously that organizations cannot be sued for the torture under the Torture Victim Protection Act.
The decision came in the case of Azzam Mohamad Rahim, who immigrated to the United States in the 1970s and became a U.S. citizen. In 1995, while on a visit to his home village on the West Bank, he was taken into custody by Palestinian Authority intelligence officers; in the following days, he was allegedly imprisoned, tortured, and killed. The U.S. State Department issued a report classifying Rahim’s death as an extra-judicial killing, while in the custody of the Palestinian Authority. .
Rahim’s American family, filed suit against the Palestinian Authority and the PLO under the Torture Victim Protection Act, which authorizes lawsuits against “individuals” who commit acts of torture. The family argued that Congress intended the word “individual” to cover organizations.
Big Government on Steroids: Senate Bill Calls for Black Box Recorders on All New Cars
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
The same Senate bill, 1813, known as MAP-21, that calls for the Secretary of State to revoke or deny a passport to any US citizen that the IRS Commissioner deems as having ‘seriously delinquent tax debt’, also calls for, in section 31406 of the bill. the mandatory installation of ‘black box’ event recorders to be installed in every new passenger vehicle starting with model year 2015:
SEC. 31406. VEHICLE EVENT DATA RECORDERS.
(a) Mandatory Event Data Recorders-
(1) IN GENERAL- Not later than 180 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall revise part 563 of title 49, Code of Federal Regulations, to require, beginning with model year 2015, that new passenger motor vehicles sold in the United States be equipped with an event data recorder that meets the requirements under that part…
Awful: GOP Rep. Wants Tax Hikes For The Poor, Says They ‘Don’t Have Skin In The Game’
Rep. Pat Tiberi (R-OH), a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, defended the House Republican budget at a tax policy summit yesterday — as well as the broader idea that taxes on the wealthy need to be cut while taxes on lower-income Americans should be raised. When asked by ThinkProgress’ Scott Keyes to square the GOP’s explicit desire to cut taxes for the rich with the fact that it’s budget would raise taxes on low-income working Americans, Tiberi responded by saying that to do otherwise would be to “beat up on people who are trying to be successful.” He then made the case for raising taxes on the poor by lamenting that they don’t have any “skin in the game”:
Congress has attempted to sneak legislation that could change the face of the Internet as we know it, and all in the name of national security. First there was SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, but now CISPA (Cyber Intelligence Sharing Protection Act) is threatening the privacy and freedom of US citizens. No online activity will be safe when it comes to these bills because as of now what’s considered a cyber security threat is a large grey area, but David Seaman, journalist and host of The DL Show, joins us to take a closer look at CISPA.
Report estimates 8 million children hurt by foreclosures
By Julie Schmit, USA TODAY
One in 10 U.S. children has been or will be affected by the nation’s surge in foreclosures, a new report says.
By Don Ryan, AP
A foreclosed home in Tigard, Ore.
Five years into the foreclosure crisis, an estimated 2.3 million children have lived in homes lost to foreclosure, according to a report from First Focus, a Washington, D.C-based bipartisan advocacy group focused on families.
Another 3 million children live in homes at risk of foreclosure because home loans are in the foreclosure process or are seriously delinquent. And 3 million children lived or live in rental homes lost to foreclosure or at risk, the report says.
“Children are the often invisible victims of the foreclosure crisis,” said report author Julia Isaacs. She did the study while at the Brookings Institution and is now a senior fellow at the Urban Institute’s Labor, Human Services and Population Center.
http://www.euronews.com/ Nearly a quarter of the workforce unemployed, the cost of borrowing going up – Spain’s financial crisis is often a list of seemingly sterile figures.
The reality behind the numbers though is even more stark.
In Barcelona, like elsewhere in Spain, there is a growing number of people who have no other choice but to live in their cars.
Silvestre lost his job as a baker and with it the means to pay his rent.
“I asked for help at city hall, but they have done nothing,” he said. “We’ve got the chance of a year in a council flat, but if I don’t find work we’re back on the street. So I prefer to stay here. There are more people like us.”
He now scrapes a living collecting scrap paper.
Barcelona’s council reckons there are around 350 people living in this makeshift motor-city.
Angel Miret from Barcelona Social Services said: “We are trying to do what we have to do. We recognise the need for decent housing, so we’re pushing for an increase in council flats and continuing to work with these people.”
In car-parks and old industrial estates there is a new generation living in mobile accommodation with nowhere else to go.
http://www.euronews.com/ There are potentially major financial ramifications to both Spain and Argentina from the decision by the South American country to re-nationalise Repsol subsidiary YPF as Madrid threatened swift economic retaliation.
Last year Spain imported almost 1.8 billion euros worth of Argentine products.
Argentina’s imports from Spain totaled 824 million euros.
Spain is the largest foreign investor there.
Energy firms Repsol, Endesa and Gas Natural are big players, though less so than in the past.
Banks, such as Banco Santander and BBVA, have recently boosted their investments, along with Telecoms and technology firms like Telefonica and Indra. They are all seeking growth in Argentina which is not available in their mature – and recession hit -European markets.
Spanish investments totaled 17.1 billion euros in 2009 – the last year for which figures are available.
In Spain, investors did not seem too worried about corporate consequences of the Repsol affair.
The main Madrid share index saw its third biggest gain of the year on Tuesday.
Repsol fell 6.06 percent, but Banco Santander, BBVA and Telefonica all enjoyed substantial gains.
http://www.euronews.com/ Italy is to shift its focus from austerity to growth – so delaying by a year its plan to balance the budget in 2013.
Prime Minister Mario Monti has decided that reviving economic growth now had to take priority over belt tightening that could plunge the country deeper into recession.
After a cabinet meeting that accepted new economic targets based on a much deeper than originally forecast recession, Monti said: “Italy has found itself – and still finds itself in a difficult situation and we wanted to avoid the same tragic fate as Greece. But rebalancing the Italian economy will take many years.”
“Everything, everything, everything that we are doing now is aimed towards helping growth,” Monti added.
Italy’s new forecasts raise the 2012 deficit target marginally to 1.7 percent of gross domestic product from 1.6 percent, while the 2013 goal is raised to 0.5 percent from 0.1 percent. An almost balanced budget, with a 0.1 percent deficit, is now targeted in 2014.
The reaction from the markets was muted, in contrast to fellow eurozone struggler Spain which saw its borrowing costs soar when Madrid relaxed its deficit targets.
Italian bond yields rose on Wednesday but only modestly. The feeling is that Italy’s main problem is its chronically weak economy, not fiscal slippage.
For investors Italy is also a known quantity. Monti is a familiar figure after serving as a European Commissioner for almost a decade until 2004 and the country’s problems are also well known: it has struggled for many years with a huge state debt and a weak economy.
By contrast, Spain is less of an known quantity. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is a less familiar figure outside his home country than Monti, and doubts persist over whether his four-month-old government can tackle a property crash, a banking system that may need rescuing and Spain’s free-spending regional governments.
Italy’s budget deficit is one of the lowest in the eurozone as a proportion of output, whereas Spain’s is one of the highest.
The CIA is seeking authority to expand its covert drone campaign in Yemen by launching strikes against terrorism suspects even when it does not know the identities of those who could be killed, U.S. officials said.Securing permission to use these “signature strikes” would allow the agency to hit targets based solely on intelligence indicating patterns of suspicious behavior, such as imagery showing militants gathering at known al-Qaeda compounds or unloading explosives.
The practice has been a core element of the CIA’s drone program in Pakistan for several years. CIA Director David H. Petraeus has requested permission to use the tactic against the al-Qaeda affiliate in Yemen, which has emerged as the most pressing terrorism threat to the United States, officials said.
If approved, the change would probably accelerate a campaign of U.S. airstrikes in Yemen that is already on a record pace, with at least eight attacks in the past four months.
With Syria halting military operations as part of a UN-brokered ceasefire, Western powers have been saying they do not trust the government to uphold the armistice. Experts believe the US and its allies are pursuing their own agenda: regime change.
Michel Chossudovsky, Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization, noted that Susan Rice, the US Ambassador to the UN, was wrong in saying that Russia and China had blood on their hands.
“NATO has blood on their hands,” he told RT. “The United States has blood on their hands. Why? Because they have supported an armed insurgency from the onset in March 2011. It is known and documented that this so-called opposition is, in fact, a proxy paramilitary formation, which is supported by the Western military alliance.”
He also noted that there is well-documented evidence to support the fact that most civilian casualties were attributable to terrorist acts by opposition gunmen and paramilitary forces.
Chossudovsky pointed to the hypocritical stance of the NATO member countries.
“On the one hand you have the government of Syria, and on the other you have, in fact, the foot soldiers of NATO,” he said. “In other words, NATO is supporting the rebels, but at the same time, the NATO countries which claim to be members of the international community, are brokering the peace plan.”
And as for the truce, Chossudovsky noted that it was the West that was not interested in seeing it bear fruit.
“The Western powers are not interested in a truce,” he concluded. “They have been seeking from the onset regime change, in other words, toppling the government and destabilizing the country.”
Political analyst Lajos Szaszdi says the US, as well the Gulf States and Turkey, prefer to see the failure of the UN-brokered peace plan put forward by the organization’s Syrian envoy Kofi Annan.
“They have an agenda of their own,” Szaszdi told RT. “They really don’t want peace with the current government of Syria.”
He said Western powers were in fact blatantly helping the opposition with diplomatic efforts, as well as by supplying money, weapons and even special forces to operate inside Syria.
And with recent reports of violence at the country’s border with Turkey, Szaszdi noted that the situation was increasingly volatile in the region.
“It’s a dangerous situation,” he stressed. “Turkey is thinking about how to internationalize the conflict, having NATO involved. And of course, we have to be very careful about this threat because what if the opposition itself, next time, could provoke an incident like the Germans did against Poland in 1939 in September, and appear like they are Syrian troops, when in fact they are members of the Free Syrian Army that want precisely to provoke international intervention.”
He also pointed to the fact that the weapons he said Turkey supplies to the opposition could end up in the hands of the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), rekindling a decades-long conflict within Turkey itself.
The ceasefire came into effect at 6am local time on Wednesday. The government halted all military operations, though Annan criticized it for not withdrawing troops and heavy artillery from major cities. The UN Security Council is set to adopt a resolution that would authorize the deployment of an advanced monitor group to Syria.
The administration is prioritizing drug arrests and trampling on state medical marijuana laws while not doing enough to reduce the harms of drug addiction and misuse.
April 18, 2012 |
Responding to the Obama Administration’s latest national drug control strategy, leading drug policy reform advocates assailed the president for “prioritizing low-level drug arrests” over other policies that even the White House has acknowledged to be more effective in boosting public health and safety.
In an introductory statement (PDF) issued Tuesday, President Barack Obama wrote that his strategy outlines “A Drug Policy for the 21st Century“ that emphasizes addiction treatments over incarceration and life-saving outreach over harsh law enforcement. The White House website even brags about the effectiveness of harm-reduction strategies over mass incarcerations, saying the approach is “grounded in decades of research and scientific study.”
[In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit, for research and/or educational purposes. This constitutes ‘FAIR USE’ of any such copyrighted material.]
Walker signs bill barring workers from collecting damages for employment discrimination
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has signed a bill that prohibits workers from collecting damages in employment discrimination cases.
By: Associated Press report, Associated Press
MADISON — Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has signed a bill that prohibits workers from collecting damages in employment discrimination cases.
Under current state law, employees who prevail in discrimination lawsuits can collect between $50,000 and $300,000 in compensatory and punitive damages. The Republican bill blocks anyone from collecting such damages in employment discrimination suits…..
Two weeks after fighting for the survival of its signature healthcare reform law before the Supreme Court, the Obama administration will be back in court Tuesday to defend another part of the president’s agenda to make Americans healthier.
The D.C. Court of Appeals is scheduled to hear oral arguments in a case brought by five tobacco companies challenging regulations requiring graphic warning labels on cigarette packs and advertisements starting in September.
Once again, the administration is finding itself accused of overstepping its constitutional authority, this time on First Amendment grounds.
“The graphic images … were neither designed to protect the consumer from confusion or deception, nor to increase consumer awareness of smoking risks; rather, they were crafted to evoke a strong emotional response calculated to provoke the viewer to quit or never start smoking,” federal Judge Richard Leon, a George W. Bush appointee, ruled in February…..
White House abandons push for federal contractors to disclose political giving
By Mike Lillis
The Obama administration has all but abandoned its push to require federal contractors to disclose their political donations.
A year ago, the White House composed a draft executive order that would have forced potential government contractors to reveal their political spending as a condition of submitting bids. But roughly 12 months later, no final order has been issued, and supporters and critics alike say they’ve seen no signs such a change is forthcoming.
“The executive order can potentially come back after the 2012 elections,” said Craig Holman, lobbyist for Public Citizen, a government watchdog group that has been urging the greater transparency. “But I don’t consider it still being contemplated [now].”
Holman said Obama sent clear signals the issue has been pushed to the back burner in January when the president declined to pitch it in his State of the Union address.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported that President-elect Vladimir Putin is poised to undertake the most significant reform Russia has seen in recent years by creating a National Guard from scratch. These special forces, numbering up to 400,000 men, would answer directly to the president and would be charged with protecting the country from internal threats.
As a result, Russia would resemble a classic South American or Middle Eastern dictatorship. Take, for example, Syria, where for decades men from the lower classes have had only two career options — a dead-end job with a state company or joining the troops that guard the president. Ironically, Putin is considering adopting such a system even after the entire world witnessed how the Libyan version of this model failed miserably, while the Syrian version of this model is headed toward a similar demise.
The creation of dedicated security units unconnected to the army or the police — like the infamous Tonton Macoutes under former Haitian President Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier — does not protect citizens from criminals nor external enemies, but protects the leadership from the people. These units are telltale attributes of a dictatorship.
The Putin regime effectively issued a decree granting freedom to the siloviki, as Peter III had granted certain liberties to the nobility. In freeing the hands of the siloviki, they were allowed to extort, steal and even kill. Paradoxically, the government asked for nothing in return, except for the promise to uphold a sort of gentlemen’s agreement: “You are free to rape and pillage as long as you break up anti-government demonstrations.”….
Gasoline prices, which have vexed President Obama politically in recent months, may have reached their peak, according to energy analysts.
Prices at the pump reached nearly $3.94 last Friday, the highest point this year, according to AAA. But prices have decreased slightly over the last five days, reversing increases that began in December of last year.
Analysts say prices could continue to decline.
“What this could potentially mean for motorists is that prices could take a bit of a breather or they might fall,” said Patrick DeHaan, senior petroleum analyst at gasbuddy.com.“Traditionally, every spring we see prices rise like this,” DeHaan added. “They tend to peak in late spring.”
Ben Brockwell, director of data and pricing at the Oil Price Information Service, said gasoline prices have decreased more in the last five days than any time during the past year…..
Bernanke says financial stability a work in progress
By Pedro Nicolaci da Costa
STONE MOUNTAIN, Georgia (Reuters) – The U.S. economy has yet to fully recover from the effects of the financial crisis, and regulators must continue to find new ways to strengthen the banking system, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Monday.
“The heavy human and economic costs of the crisis underscore the importance of taking all necessary steps to avoid a repeat of the events of the past few years,” Bernanke told a group of economists and finance experts at a conference sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
In a speech that did not touch directly on the outlook for economic growth or monetary policy, Bernanke focused on the lingering blind spots for financial authorities trying to prevent a repeat of the 2008-2009 meltdown…..
IRS confident courts will uphold effort to license tax preparers
By Bernie Becker
The IRS is confident that its initiatives to increase regulation of tax preparers will be found legal, despite challenges from opponents.
With a libertarian group filing a lawsuit saying the agency is in the midst of a power-grab, Doug Shulman, the IRS commissioner, said last week that new requirements would help smoke out unscrupulous preparers and were being implemented with care.
“I’m very confident not only is everything we’re doing going to be seen as legal, but more importantly, everything we’re doing, I think, is going to benefit the American people,” Shulman said at the National Press Club on Thursday.
Under the IRS regulations, certain preparers have to pass a new competency test and complete 15 hours of education requirements a year.
According to the most recent figures, roughly 60 percent of taxpayers were using paid preparers.
But while it often takes a government license to cut hair, Shulman said that, before recent IRS efforts, there weren’t basic competency requirements for tax return preparers — even as government reports found some preparers making significant errors.
“I’m the IRS commissioner, so I’m biased that taxes are more important than how your hair looks,” Shulman said Thursday. “I know other people view that differently…..
Want Jobs? Rescue Homeowners – and Spend, Baby, Spend
Richard (RJ) Eskow, Op-Ed:
Another way to get the economy moving is to get financial relief to people who have been financially struggling and have put off needed spending – on vehicles, home improvements, and the like – as well as reasonable amenities. Homeowners owe $800 billion in “negative equity” to banks for non-existent real estate value. That’s an “invisible bailout” funded by the struggling middle class, and delivered by borrowers who were frequently hoodwinked into taking out a mortgage at inflated prices.
Ogaki Kyoritsu Bank To Introduce Japan’s 1st Card-Free ATMs
NIKKEI.com
TOKYO (Nikkei)–Ogaki Kyoritsu Bank (8361) said Wednesday it will in September introduce Japan’s first ATMs that will enable customers to conduct cash withdrawals and other transactions by simply placing their palms over a reader, obviating the need for a card or bank book.
Although ATMs equipped with biometric authentication sensors already exist, those machines still require customers to use cash cards or bank books to withdraw funds….
Like generations of college students, Caprice Taylor needed a job to help pay her school and living expenses. For the 24-year-old student of fashion merchandise management at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City, sales work at a retail clothing shop seemed like a good option.
Taylor was hired last year at Club Monaco, a high-end clothing and apparel retailer owned by Polo Ralph Lauren. But her scheduled shifts at the Manhattan store were not guaranteed. Instead, she was given call-in shifts, which required her to call the store two hours before she was scheduled to arrive to see if she was needed.
Most often, she was not.
For months, Taylor said, she arranged her personal life around work days, waiting in her apartment, only to call in and learn the store wasn’t busy enough. On some weeks, Taylor logged as few as six hours, not earning enough to keep up with her living expenses.
“It puts your day on complete hold,” Taylor said. “It pressures you.”
After four months of unpredictable paychecks, Taylor quit. She later found work at a Polo Ralph Lauren store that does not have on-call shifts. She was lucky to find it. Retail watchers say big-box stores and shopping-mall stalwarts are increasingly hiring workers for on-call shifts, a trend that cuts labor costs for employers, but leaves workers like Taylor struggling to get by…..
Neo-Con’s pet project in Bahrain serves as point of leverage for Saudi-Qatari capitulation.
Tony Cartalucci
BlacklistedNews.com
Like an axe poised above one’s neck at execution, the despotic hereditary regimes of Saudi Arabia and Qatar have the specter of their own US-fueled “Arab Springs” looming over them, ever ready to be triggered. A constant reminder of this is the destabilized Sunni royal family in Bahrain, in the epicenter of Saudi and Qatari power.
Image: A map of eastern Saudi Arabia featuring the island nation of Bahrain situated between Qatar and the Saudi mainland. Bahrain, like Saudi Arabia and Qatar, is a despotic Sunni monarchy – selected by the West to be made an example of and to keep its neighbors in check and on board for the current “Arab Spring” blitzkrieg upturning the rest of the Arab World. (click image to enlarge)
Special report: Rendition ordeal that raises new questions about secret trials
In 2004, Fatima Bouchar and her husband, Abdel Hakim Belhaj, were detained en route to the UK, and rendered to Libya. This is the story of their imprisonment, and the trail of evidence that reveals the involvement of the British government
Ian Cobain
guardian.co.uk
Just when Fatima Bouchar thought it couldn’t get any worse, the Americans forced her to lie on a stretcher and began wrapping tape around her feet. They moved upwards, she says, along her legs, winding the tape around and around, binding her to the stretcher. They taped her stomach, her arms and then her chest. She was bound tight, unable to move.
Bouchar says there were three Americans: two tall, thin men and an equally tall woman. Mostly they were silent. She never saw their faces: they dressed in black and always wore black balaclavas. Bouchar was terrified. They didn’t stop at her chest – she says they also wound the tape around her head, covering her eyes. Then they put a hood and earmuffs on her. She was unable to move, to hear or to see. “My left eye was closed when the tape was applied,” she says, speaking about her ordeal for the first time. “But my right eye was open, and it stayed open throughout the journey. It was agony.” The journey would last around 17 hours.
Bouchar, then aged 30, had become a victim of the process known as extraordinary rendition. She and her husband, Abdel Hakim Belhaj, a Libyan Islamist militant fighting Muammar Gaddafi, had been abducted in Bangkok and were being flown to one of Gaddafi’s prisons in Libya, a country where she had never before set foot. However, Bouchar’s case is different from the countless other renditions that the world has learned about over the past few years, and not just because she was one of the few female victims.
Documents discovered in Tripoli show that the operation was initiated by British intelligence officers, rather than the masked Americans or their superiors in the US. There is also some evidence that the operation may have been linked to a second British-initiated operation, which saw two men detained in Iraq and rendered to Afghanistan. Furthermore, the timing of the operation, and the questions that Bouchar’s husband and a second rendition victim say were subsequently put to them under torture, raise disturbing new questions about the secret court system that considers immigration appeals in terrorist cases in the UK – a system that the government has pledged to extend to civil trials in which the government itself is the defendant.
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) – On Thursday, the Navy simulated a jet crash near Old Pungo Ferry Road in Virginia Beach.
The drill was organized to train Virginia Beach and Chesapeake first responders. The scenario: A navy jet is unable to make the return trip to Oceana and has crashed near Back Bay in Virginia Beach.
The goal was to develop and exercise coordination efforts between the two cities and the Navy’s first responders, according to a news release from NAS Oceana.
CAPT James Webb, the CO of NAS Oceana, said, “We’re totally relying on all the cooperation. The first responders have to come from the surrounding community.”
The drill included numerous emergency services personnel and vehicles responding to the Navy’s fire trainer, which was placed in the parking lot of the old Capt. George’s restaurant.
“There are specific responder issues in dealing with aircraft that they wouldn’t normally face,” NAS Oceana Dist. Fire Chief Kenneth Snyder said.
Like unexploded ordinance and extremely flammable composite materials.
NAS Oceana personnel practice at least annually for the potential of a military aircraft crash, and the drill often involves the city’s first responders, but this is the first time a drill will involve both Chesapeake and Virginia Beach.
Holy coincidence, Batman! Navy held recent drill to prepare for ‘exact’ events of Va. crash 06 Apr 2012 The US Navy held a drill on 15 December to prepare for the ‘exact’ situation that took place Friday, regarding the F/A-18 Navy jet crash. (No link, Fox News, 7PM ET live broadcast)
Navy jet has ‘catastrophic mechanical malfunction,’ hits apartments in Virginia
From Michael Martinez and Barbara Starr, CNN
CNN affiliates WTKR, WAVY and WVEC have more on the story.
(CNN) — A Navy fighter jet experienced a “catastrophic mechanical malfunction” during takeoff Friday over the military community of Virginia Beach, Virginia, and rained a stench of jet fuel shortly before crashing into apartment buildings, according to residents and Navy officials.
The jet carried a student pilot in the front seat and an experienced instructor behind him, and the dumping of jet fuel was “one of the indications that there was a mechanical malfunction,” Navy Capt. Mark Weisgerber told reporters.
The malfunction is being investigated, he said.
The two pilots, a Virginia Beach police officer, an EMS volunteer and three other people were treated at Sentara Virginia Beach General Hospital. One of the pilots was admitted, while the other six patients were released, the hospital’s website said.
Both pilots, who live in Virginia Beach, are “doing well and they suffered minor injuries,” Weisgerber said.
As of Friday night, three people from one of five apartment buildings heavily damaged in the crash were unaccounted for, down from 30, Virginia Beach Fire Department Battalion Chief Tim Riley said.
No one has been reported missing to authorities, but rescue crews are using a checklist of all occupants in the five buildings in an effort to account for all residents, Riley said.
Witnesses describe horror of jet crash
Rescue crews did an initial search of the five buildings, and as of Friday night, completed 95% of a secondary search, Riley said.
Witness: Pilot apologized for jet crash
“If there is anybody there, chances of survivability would be low,” Riley told reporters, referring to any survivors in the five buildings.
Witness: I saw flames under the plane
No deaths were reported as of Friday night, Riley said…..
Pay with a big bill and you will get the third degree- how did you get this money? do you have a bank statement-are you a terrorist? What you have a job- arrest him quick!!!
North Korea suffers major blow as rocket crashes
By Ju-min Park
(Reuters) – North Korea’s much hyped long-range rocket apparently crashed into the sea a few minutes after launch on Friday, U.S. and South Korean officials said, dealing a blow to the prestige of the reclusive and impoverished state as well as to its new leader.
Pyongyang had defied international pressure from the United States, the United Nations and others to push ahead with the launch timed to celebrate the 100th birthday of Kim Il-sung, the deceased founder of the state.
Even close ally China had warned against the launch and South Korean intelligence officials have said North Korea may be ready to follow it up with a third nuclear test as it did after a rocket launch in 2009.
“South Korean and U.S. intelligence understand that North Korea’s missile launch failed,” a spokesman for the South’s defense ministry told reporters at a briefing.
North Korea said it wanted the Unha-3 rocket to put a weather satellite into orbit, although critics believed it was designed to enhance its capacity to design a ballistic missile to deliver a nuclear warhead capable of hitting the continental United States.
The rocket crashed in a sea that separates the Korean peninsula from China off the west coast of South Korea after flying 120 km (75 miles) from its launch site close to the Chinese border, officials in Seoul, Washington and Tokyo said…..
Rep. Mica: GSA officials spent week in Hawaii for one-hour ribbon cutting
By Pete Kasperowic
Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.) said Wednesday that the ongoing probe into the wasteful spending habits of the General Services Administration (GSA) has uncovered that several GSA officials were flown to Hawaii for a week to attend a one-hour ribbon cutting ceremony.
The announcement from the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee Chairma is the latest in a slow drip of news on GSA’s activities that will culminate in two explosive hearings next week. One of Mica’s subcommittees will hold a hearing Tuesday, and the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee will grill current and former GSA officials on Monday.
Most of the anger from lawmakers has focused on a 2010 junket to Las Vegas that cost more than $800,000, as well as bonuses and expensive gifts given to GSA employees. But Mica said the Hawaii trip is a new low….
[In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit, for research and/or educational purposes. This constitutes ‘FAIR USE’ of any such copyrighted material.]
Tax Bill Is Beginning of Formal Debt Criminalization
by Anthony Wile
The United States Congress is steadily headed to a place where those who owe money to the US government shall be treated criminally.
This phenomenon is advancing domestically and now, increasingly, internationally. The first shot in this latest campaign took place in 2010 when US President Barack Obama signed into law The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act. It demanded, basically, that foreign banks withhold up to 30 percent of the income that an American abroad might earn.
This bill isn’t working so well because overseas banks are not cooperating (a state of affairs that was certainly expected). Thus, there is a need for something else: Senate Bill 1813, recently introduced by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA). This bill, in part, states that taxpayers with unpaid taxes over US$50,000 may find their passports confiscated.
This isn’t criminal per se, but the IRS has recently made noises about “sharing” information with police authorities. The last time it was an institutionalized crime to owe money within the context of the Anglosphere was during the British industrial revolution when there were such things as debtors prisons. Those were eventually disbanded as it was seen as counterproductive (and even inhuman) to put a man in prison for a debt he could not pay.
But both in the US and in Europe, the concept of imprisoning an individual over debt is making a comeback. In the US it is especially clear. There are plenty of people, mostly men, who are behind bars for falling behind on their child support payments….
Obama administration diverts $500M to IRS to implement healthcare reform law
By Sam Baker
The Obama administration is quietly diverting roughly $500 million to the IRS to help implement the president’s healthcare law.
The money is only part of the IRS’s total implementation spending, and it is being provided outside the normal appropriations process. The tax agency is responsible for several key provisions of the new law, including the unpopular individual mandate.
Republican lawmakers have tried to cut off funding to implement the healthcare law, at least until after the Supreme Court decides whether to strike it down. That ruling is expected by June, and oral arguments last week indicated the justices might well overturn at least the individual mandate, if not the whole law.
Former spy chief Omar Suleiman, a pillar of the ousted regime, decided on Friday to run in next month’s presidential vote, in a surprise twist to a contest to elect Hosni Mubarak’s successor.
His change of mind came after hundreds of demonstrators gathered in a Cairo district to urge Suleiman, who served as Mubarak’s vice president before the strongman’s overthrow last year, to contest the poll.
“I was very moved by your strong stand,” Suleiman said in a statement carried by the state news agency MENA.
“The call you issued today was an order, and I am a soldier who has never in my life disobeyed an order … I cannot but reply to the call and join the race despite the obstacles and difficulties,” he said.
The former military man who took over as intelligence chief in 1991 vowed to “make every effort … to achieve the expected changes and complete the aims of the revolution, and live up to the hopes of the Egyptian people.”….
David Cameron defends secret courts and surveillance plans
Prime minister responds to criticisms from Nick Clegg and MPs, saying ‘keeping our country safe’ is paramount
Lizzy Davies and Nicholas Watt
David Cameron has defended plans to create a new generation of secret courts and to extend powers to monitor the public’s emails, phone calls and social media communications, saying the government needed to take every step to keep the country safe.
The prime minister had been asked about criticisms of the proposals leveled by his deputy, Nick Clegg, and the joint committee on human rights.
“On the issue of how we have a court system that can both protect people’s liberties and protect our national security, and on the issue of how we handle data both to protect people’s security but again to make sure we can pursue terrorists and stop terrorist acts taking place, these are difficult issues,” he said. “They are sensitive issues. They require government to have deep, long conversations and work through some very tough issues.”
Update (below): Publisher confirms cyber attack following Raw Story report
A U.S. State Department cable composed in Dec. 2009 sheds yet more light on the murky relationship between the Obama administration and the Ugandan government, pointing to an information sharing agreement that prohibits the Ugandan regime from engaging in certain combat operations against the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) without U.S. permission.
Specifically, the cable states that Ugandan forces may not utilize U.S. intelligence to engage enemies without first consulting U.S. officials. That goes double if their engagement might happen outside “the law of armed conflict” — which is to say, Uganda must seek U.S. permission before committing to operations that could result in war crimes, or face the possibility of being cut off from U.S. support.
“The Ugandan People’s Defense Force (UPDF) uses this intelligence in planning and conducting offensive operations, including both capture and lethal operations, against the LRA in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Southern Sudan, and the Central African Republic (CAR),” the cable explains. “Furthermore, Uganda understands the need to consult with the U.S. in advance if the UPDF intends to use U.S.-supplied intelligence to engage in operations not governed by the law of armed conflict. Uganda understands and acknowledges that misuse of this intelligence could cause the U.S. to end this intelligence sharing relationship.” [Emphasis added.]
The document sheds light on a relationship that played a key role in the arrest of Patrick Komakech, a former child soldier who joined with U.S. activists to raise awareness of LRA leader Joseph Kony’s evil deeds. Komakech and 10 others were taken into custody by Ugandan authorities in 2009 and accused of treason for allegedly attempting to raise an army that would fight and ultimately replace Kony as the central opposition movement against Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.
Komakech was on the run from Ugandan authorities until 2009, when the U.S. non-profit group Invisible Children tipped off authorities to his whereabouts, according to a U.S. State Dept. cable. He was promptly arrested and remains in custody with his alleged co-conspirators, many of whom have professed innocence.
Just a month prior to those arrests, U.S. forces at AFRICOM provided more than $1 million in material support to a Ugandan government strike aimed at crippling the LRA, in a fantastically bungled operation that scattered Kony’s forces and sparked a wave of massacres that left over 900 civilians dead….
How this economic disaster ends is something about which many of us speculate. Two extreme endings are likely — a sudden deflationary collapse or a period of very high inflation/hyperinflation which ultimately cripples commerce and resolves itself in a deflationary collapse. In either case, the deflationary collapse is another Great Depression.
It is important to know which route will occur because of what will happen to asset values along the way. A move directly into a Great Depression will depress severely most asset values, especially common stocks, housing and other hard assets. Bonds, cash and fixed incomes may be beneficiaries in the sense that their purchasing power increases.
If the Great Depression is preceded by hyperinflation, just the opposite will happen, at least through the transition stage. Cash, fixed incomes and bonds will be devalued, perhaps even wiped out, if the hyperinflation is severe. Stocks, housing and other assets are likely to benefit until the Great Depression takes hold. Once the Great Depression period begins, the effects on assets will be as described in the paragraph above. However, those who believed they had adequate savings and retirement incomes may enter the Great Depression destitute…..
Inflation Is Coming The World’s Financial System Is Crumbling. Here’s The Worst-Case.
Last week, House Republicans passed their budget for Fiscal Year 2013 without a single Democrat vote.
This week, President Obama ripped the GOP budget as one that gives more breaks to the rich, burdens the poor and threatens everything from higher education to Medicare to accurate weather forecasts. Obama called the plan a Trojan horse and claims it would lead to “social Darwinism.”
Italy’s leading MIB index plunged 5pc and Spain’s Ibex fell 3pc amid fears that the eurozone’s third and fourth biggest economies were in the grip of a deadly and uncontrollable spiral of debt and recession.
The borrowing costs of both “sinner states” soared. The yield on Italy’s benchmark 10-year bonds jumped to 5.7pc, heading into the danger zone that is considered unsustainably high. The equivalent Spanish debt climbed to 6pc. Meanwhile, the yield on safe-haven German bunds was pushed to an almost record low of 1.6pc. UK gilts benefited, too, dropping to 2pc.
The yields reflected a level of fear on the bond markets not seen since the fraught period before Christmas when traders bet that the eurozone could collapse.
France’s CAC index fell 3.1pc, Germay’s DAX dropped 2.5pc and in London more than £33bn was wiped off the value of Britain’s biggest companies as the FTSE 100 fell 2.2pc. In the US, the Dow fell 1.7pc – its worst day so far this year.
Traders returning from the long Easter weekend were initially reacting to poor Chinese trade data and gloomy comments about the recovery by Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the US Federal Reserve.
North Korea threatens ‘merciless punishment’ as it readies rocket launch
North Korea has threatened retaliation and “merciless punishment” against any country that shoots down the long-range rocket it is preparing to launch this coming week.
By Danielle Demetriou in Tokyo
Japan and South Korea have put their armed forces on standby in response to North Korea’s plans, prepared to shoot down the missile if it passes over their territory.
North Korea was this weekend believed to be at the first stage of launching the rocket, expected between April 12 and 16, claiming that it is part of the centenary celebrations for the birth of the state’s founder Kim Il Sung……
Japan has deployed missile batteries in Tokyo and dispatched destroyers carrying interceptor missiles as it boosts its defenses against a planned North Korean rocket launch this month.
Pyongyang says it will launch a satellite for peaceful scientific research between April 12 and 16 to mark the 100th anniversary on April 15 of the birth of founding leader Kim Il-Sung.
But the United States and its allies say it is a disguised missile test and that the launch would contravene UN sanctions aimed at curbing North Korea’s missile program…..
You’ve heard of UAVs, unmanned remote controlled military aircraft; but what about USVs? Standing for Unmanned Surface Vehicle, a USV is quite simply an unmanned boat, like Zyvex Marine’s Piranha concept. We’ve looked at USVs before, and the Piranha specifically in early 2010; but what was then a prototype under development is now a fully-fledged production craft, having shipped its first unit last November. “Our production facility is closer to rocket science than traditional boat building,” says Zyvex Marine VP Byron Nutley of his boat – the only one in the world, it’s claimed, that is made out of nanomaterials. But does the Piranha have the technological bite to match the hyperbole, and what does this mean for naval warfare?
The finished Piranha hasn’t departed greatly from the prototype. It’s still made of Arovex, Zyvex’s proprietary “nano-enhanced” carbon fiber, a lightweight material that promised significant efficiency gains over boats made from fiberglass or aluminum. But with the production model built Zyvex has coughed up some numbers to support the claims. Most significant of these is that its 54-foot craft has demonstrated a fuel consumption of 12 U.S. gallons (45.4 liters) per hour at a cruising speed of 24 knots (44 km/h). This, Zyvex claims, constitutes a 75-percent fuel saving compared to a “traditional” boat consuming 50 U.S. gallons (189 liters) per hour, allowing ten times the range. That’s a claim almost as bold as it is hazy (what’s a traditional boat?), and in lieu of any precise figure on range, it’s worth repeating the claims made about the prototype: an 8,000-pound boat capable of carrying a 15,000-pound payload a distance of 2,500 miles (4,000 km)…..
Court keeps UK role secret – as No 10 calls for police to question Labour ministers
American intelligence agencies including the CIA and the FBI have won a court ruling allowing them to withhold evidence from British MPs about suspected UK involvement in “extraordinary rendition” – the secret arrests and alleged torture of terror suspects.
A judge in Washington DC granted permission for key US intelligence bodies, including the highly sensitive National Security Agency, to exploit a loophole in US freedom of information legislation which bars the release of documentation to any body representing a foreign government.
Downing Street underlined the gravity of the torture claims yesterday when it urged police to interview former Labour ministers as part of an investigation into the alleged rendition and torture of a Libyan critic of Muammar Gaddafi. Jack Straw, who was Foreign Secretary at the time and is expected to be interviewed by detectives, denies any complicity in rendition – as have his successors at the Foreign Office. Whitehall officials have made clear that the intelligence services believe their operations “were in line with ministerially authorised government policy”.
The CIA’s court victory over British MPs came after the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Extraordinary Rendition – which comprises about 50 backbench MPs and peers – submitted a slew of information requests to US intelligence agencies as part of its investigations into the extent of British complicity in rendition and torture. The US agencies were trying to avoid official embarrassment on both sides of the Atlantic by using a narrow legal exemption to prevent the disclosure of critical papers, said Tony Lloyd, a Labour MP and the vice-chairman of the group. He called the judgment “disappointing”…..
UK ‘exporting surveillance technology to repressive nations’
By Jamie Doward, The Observer
Fears that software similar to that which government wants to use in Britain is being sold to monitor dissidents abroad
Britain is exporting surveillance technology to countries run by repressive regimes, sparking fears it is being used to track political dissidents and activists.
The UK’s enthusiastic role in the burgeoning but unregulated surveillance market is becoming an urgent concern for human rights groups, who want the government to ensure that exports are regulated in a similar way to arms.
Much of the technology, which allows regimes to monitor internet traffic, mobile phone calls and text messages, is similar to that which the government has controversially signaled it wants to use in the UK…..
UK firms in secret talks on joining Burma gold rush
By Jerome Taylor Author Biography , Olivia Lee
British businesses are looking to invest once more in Burma, as Western multinationals prepare for a gold rush inside one of South-east Asia’s least developed – and potentially lucrative – economies.
JCB, Shell, HSBC and Standard Chartered are among the British firms said to be interested in Burma’s potential.
The Independent understands the Foreign Office has held meetings with some British companies that have expressed an interest in investing in Burma. Officially, UK Trade and Investment does not encourage British firms to do business in the country. But a number of key British businesses privately indicate they are considering investing in Burma if reforms are brought in and EU sanctions against the state are lifted.
The first sign of the coming U.S. air raid was when the enemy radar and air-defense missile sites began exploding. The strikers were Air Force F-22 Raptor stealth fighters, flying unseen and faster than the speed of sound, 50,000 feet over the battlefield. Having emptied their weapons bays of super-accurate, 250-pound Small Diameter Bombs, the Raptors turned to engage enemy jet fighters rising in defense of their battered allies on the ground.
That’s when all hell broke loose. As the Raptors smashed the enemy jets with Amraam and Sidewinder missiles, nimble Air Force F-16s swooped in to reinforce the F-22s, launching their own air-to-air missiles and firing guns to add to the aerial carnage.
With enemy defenses collapsing, B-1 bombers struck. Several of the 150-ton, swing-wing warplanes, having flown 10 hours from their base in South Dakota, launched radar-evading Jassm cruise missiles that slammed into ground targets, pulverizing them with their 2,000-pound warheads. Its weapons expended, the strike force streaked away. Behind it, the enemy’s planes and ground forces lay in smoking ruin.
The devastating air strike on April 4 involved real warplanes launching a mix of real and computer-simulated weapons at mock targets scattered across the U.S. military’s vast Joint Pacific Alaska Range Complex near Fort Yukon, a tiny former fur trading post, population 583. “Operation Chimichanga,” as the exercise was reportedly designated, was the first-ever test of a new Air Force long-range strike team combining upgraded Lockheed Martin F-22s and Boeing B-1s carrying the latest air-launched munitions, along with old-school fighters, tankers and radar planes for support.
Officially, Operation Chimichanga was meant “to validate the long-range strike capability of the B-1s as well as the F-22s’ and F-16s’ ability to escort them into an anti-access target area,” according to Lt. Col. Joseph Kunkel, commander of the Alaska-based Raptor squadron with the latest “Increment 3.1″ upgrade.
Unofficially, the exercise was a proof-of-concept for the Air Force’s evolving tactics for battling China over the vast western Pacific. Of course, the Air Force would never say that. In fact, the flying branch has said very little about Operation Chimichanga, aside from an official news story containing few details. We know when and where the exercise took place, which planes were involved and, to a lesser extent, which munitions. The scenario described above is largely a recreation based on these known facts plus years of aerospace reporting and a general understanding of the Air Force’s methods and aims.
While the Alaska test apparently proved that the stealthy strike team can defeat determined enemy forces at long range, it also underscored America’s vulnerability against the fast-growing Chinese military. It takes the latest stealth fighters and upgraded bombers flying as a team to beat China, and thanks to developmental problems America has only so many of those airplanes to work with…..
[In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit, for research and/or educational purposes. This constitutes ‘FAIR USE’ of any such copyrighted material.]
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) last week forced the closure of two non-governmental organizations that promote democracy, mirroring the actions last year of the military-led government in Egypt against the same NGOs.
The first NGO shut down was the U.S.-funded National Democratic Institute (NDI), followed by the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, based in Germany. The UAE did not provide any explanation for the closings.
Both pro-democracy groups had their offices raided and closed in Egypt during 2011. The NDI was created in 1983 and funded through the National Endowment for Democracy.
An official with NDI said the move was disappointing and “arbitrary.” It was pointed out that the NGO had no programs at this time in the UAE, so the closure would have “no serious ramifications for our work.”
On Thursday, the UAE government detained overnight two NDI employees, an American, Patricia David, and a Serb, Slobodan Milic.
On Christmas Day the Obama administration approved $3.5 billion in weapons sales to the UAE royal government, with almost $2 billion going to Lockheed Martin for two Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) batteries, and. $582.5 million going to Raytheon for radar and services.
Scott Walker Wages War on Women
Amanda Terkel
Scott Walker Quietly Repeals Wisconsin Equal Pay Law
WASHINGTON — A Wisconsin law that made it easier for victims of wage discrimination to have their day in court was repealed on Thursday, after Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) quietly signed the bill.
The 2009 Equal Pay Enforcement Act was meant to deter employers from discriminating against certain groups by giving workers more avenues via which to press charges. Among other provisions, it allows individuals to plead their cases in the less costly, more accessible state circuit court system, rather than just in federal court.
In November, the state Senate approved SB 202, which rolled back this provision. On February, the Assembly did the same. Both were party-line votes in Republican-controlled chambers.
SB 202 was sent to Walker on March 29. He had, according to the state constitution, six days to act on the bill. The deadline was 5:00 p.m. on Thursday. The governor quietly signed the bill into law on Thursday, according to the Legislative Reference Bureau, and it is now called Act 219.
Walker’s office did not return repeated requests for comment.
State Sen. Dave Hansen (D-Green Bay) and Rep. Christine Sinicki (D-Milwaukee), the authors of the Equal Pay Enforcement Act, criticized Walker on Thursday for not informing the public of his actions on SB 202.
“We are finally starting to see progress here in Wisconsin, yet like their counterparts across the country, Legislative Republicans want to turn back the clock on women’s rights in the workplace,” said Hansen….
Europe‘s sovereign debt crisis exploded back into life on Tuesday, with markets across the continent rocked by a wave of panic selling amid renewed fears about the impact of savage austerity measures in Spain and Italy.
The mood of uneasy calm seen across Europe since the Greek bailout in February was shattered as financial markets took fright at evidence of a double-dip recession and growing popular opposition to welfare cuts and tax increases.
Italy and Spain, the euro-zone’s third and fourth biggest economies, were at the centre of the market turmoil, with investors demanding an increasingly high premium for holding their bonds.
“Spain is right in the center of a European storm,” admitted finance minister Luis de Guindos, who declined to rule out an eventual bailout but insisted it could be avoided.
In Italy, Mario Monti’s coalition government is facing growing hostility to reforms of its labor market, while the sheer size of the country’s public debt made it an obvious target for nervous traders. The prospect of Greek voters rejecting austerity and the French electorate denying Nicolas Sarkozy a second term as president was also weighing on the markets.
No one can say the U.S. hasn’t been generous towards Israel since it was founded in 1948.
Over a period of 64 years (including the 2013 budget request), the U.S. has given Israel more than $115 billion in military and foreign aid, which averages out to about $4.9 million a day.
American and Israeli officials are currently negotiating a new aid deal that would provide more money for a new missile defense program, Iron Dome. Previous funding requests approved $205 million for the project, and Israel is trying to secure at least that much if not more for future years.
Although some Republicans have tried to portray President Barack Obama as soft on Israel, his budget for Fiscal Year 2013 includes $3.1 billion in military aid for Israel, the most in 13 years.
U.S. Defines Its Demands for New Round of Talks With Iran
By DAVID E. SANGER and STEVEN ERLANGER
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration and its European allies plan to open new negotiations with Iran by demanding the immediate closing and ultimate dismantling of a recently completed nuclear facility deep under a mountain, according to American and European diplomats.
They are also calling for a halt in the production of uranium fuel that is considered just a few steps from bomb grade, and the shipment of existing stockpiles of that fuel out of the country, the diplomats said.
That negotiating position will be the opening move in what President Obama has called Iran’s “last chance” to resolve its nuclear confrontation with the United Nations and the West diplomatically. The hard-line approach would require the country’s military leadership to give up the Fordo enrichment plant outside the holy city of Qum, and with it a huge investment in the one facility that is most hardened against airstrikes.
The US War on Drug Cartels in Mexico Is a Deadly Failure
Mark Karlin, Truthout:
“There is no end game here. The United States is using all its vast powers to do what urban police do in American cities: chase the corner drug dealers out of one area and into another, through the use of temporary intensive ‘enforcement’ – and then chase them back again at a later date…. Meanwhile, in the United States, controlling the demand side appears to be interpreted as throwing people – particularly minority men – in jail for drug offenses, leading to the highest incarceration rate in the world.”
“Afghanistan and the United States signed an agreement on Sunday on night military raids that would hand responsibility for carrying out the operations to Afghan forces but allow continued American involvement. The agreement clears the way for the two countries to move ahead with a more comprehensive long-term partnership agreement, say Afghan and American officials.”
While the Sahel security crisis continues to deteriorate following Tuareg rebels’ declaration of an independent state in Mali’s troubled northern territory [1], recent events in Nigeria indicate a potential for increased regional instability. Boko Haram, a Salafist organization seeking to overthrow the secular administration of Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, has recently killed 38 civilians in a suicide car bomb targeting nearby churches holding Easter services in the northern city of Kaduna [2]. As part of an ongoing campaign of sectarian violence, the group has strived to implement sharia law through the establishment of an Islamic State in northern Nigeria [3]. The group’s belligerent acts of violence claimed more than 500 lives during 2011 [4], prompting President Jonathan to call the current security crisis more dire than that experienced during 1967’s Biafran civil war, adding that jihadi sympathizers have successfully infiltrated his government and security agencies [5].
The group has claimed responsibility for the August 2011 bombing of the United Nations headquarters in the Nigerian capital, Abuja [6], and its adoption of sophisticated tactics indicate that Boko Haram is receiving arms and training from abroad. Mainstream outlets can now be seen readying public opinion for an increased presence in Africa under the Right to Protect Doctrine (R2P) by warning of increased terrorist attacks in Europe, following shifts in Islamist activity away from Iraq and Afghanistan, to the “ungoverned spaces” of the Sahel [7]. While the ongoing War on Terror provides the needed justification for the US Africa Command (AFRICOM) to expand its base of operations throughout the Sahel and the troubled regions of east and central Africa, the modus operandi of Boko Haram indicates foreign nurturing in numerous mediums.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has demonstrated an increasingly authoritarian rule as he consolidates power over the country’s institutions and security forces. He has marginalized his political opponents through force and coercion, which has stoked sectarian tensions and even threatened a break-up of the nation. And Obama is supporting all of it.
Maliki, a Shiite, ordered the arrest of his Sunni Vice President Hashemi just as the last U.S. troops left Iraq. The U.S. ambassador to Iraq expressed approval in January of this quest to detain Iraq’s vice president on trumped up terrorism charges, despite a virtual consensus that it was a blatant attempt to eliminate a political rival.
Alaa Mekki, a senior lawmaker with the mostly Sunni Iraqiya bloc, said of the U.S., “Their goal of a united, democratic Iraq is now under threat because of what we describe as the dictatorship attitude.” Angered Kurds and Sunnis say their disenfranchisement has never been greater.
While bilateral initiatives have dominated North American issues over the last couple of years, the trilateral relationship has suffered. With a series of high-level meetings, the U.S., Canada and Mexico are taking steps to boost the NAFTA partnership. First, the defense ministers met to discuss shared continental security threats. This was followed by a leaders summit which pledged to deepen trade, regulatory, energy and security cooperation. The recent meetings have caused some to once again take notice of the incremental efforts to merge all three countries into a North American Union.
In what was hailed as an historic event, U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, Canadian Defense Minister Peter MacKay, Mexican Secretary of National Defense Guillermo Galvan, and Mexican Secretary of the Navy Mariano Mendoza recently held the Inaugural Meeting of North American Defense Ministers. As part of a framework they agreed to, “ Develop a joint trilateral defense threat assessment for North America to deepen our common understanding of the threats and challenges we face. Explore ways to improve our support to the efforts of civilian public security agencies in countering illicit activities in our respective countries and the hemisphere, such as narcotics trafficking. Explore how we can collaborate to increase the speed and efficiency with which our armed forces support civilian-led responses to disasters. Continue to work together to strengthen hemispheric defense forums.” The ministers also committed to enhancing cooperation in the fight against transnational criminal organizations. The trilateral defense meeting is part of the ongoing efforts to establish a fully integrated North American security perimeter.
In another example of the two tiered justice system for the globe’s financial elite, Goldman gets a measly £25,000 fine after getting caught manipulating oil prices.
If a Muslim were caught doing this it would be condemned as an act of Financial Terrorism and be responded to with the swift deployment of predator drones and intercontinental ballistic missiles.
But when the people in the good old boys network get caught they get a fine that was most likely much less than they made off the illegal trades.
But don’t you dare pick up a protest sign and demand accountability for these kind of acts or you just may find yourself beaten and arrested.
You, me and everyone else pay for this kind of crap directly at the gas pump.
Via The ICE Futures Investment Exchange, here is the full text of the sanctions letter.
First Man Arrested With Drone Evidence Vows to Fight Case
Court must decide if police are allowed to use drones to help make arrests
The tiny town of Lakota, N.D., is quickly becoming a key testing ground for the legality of the use of unmanned drones by law enforcement after one of its residents became the first American citizen to be arrested with the help of a Predator surveillance drone.
The bizarre case started when six cows wandered onto Rodney Brossart’s 3,000 acre farm. Brossart, an alleged anti-government “sovereignist,” believed he should have been able to keep the cows, so he and two family members chased police off his land with high powered rifles.
[In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit, for research and/or educational purposes. This constitutes ‘FAIR USE’ of any such copyrighted material.]
Democrats deny parallels between Presidents Obama and Carter
By Alexander Bolton
Democrats say the political prognosis for President Obama is much better than it was at the same point in former President Jimmy Carter’s first term, even though the pace of the nation’s job growth has slowed.
Obama was set back Friday by disappointing jobs numbers but the economy still created jobs at a faster pace than under Carter or former President George H.W. Bush, two of only four presidents to lose re-elections in the last 100 years.
Jobs are growing at a substantially faster clip than they did in 1980, when Carter lost to Ronald Reagan in a landslide, and 1992, when Bush lost narrowly to Bill Clinton.
Obama’s three-month average for 2012 is also better than the job growth former President George W. Bush saw when he was re-elected in 2004.
The economy is creating more jobs than it did in 2000, when former Vice President Al Gore (D-Tenn.) fumbled the handoff of the White House from Clinton, or 2004 when George W. Bush held off a strong challenge from Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.).
But jobs are not growing as fast as 1988, when then-Vice President George H.W. Bush successfully ran on Reagan’s economic record, or 1996, when Clinton won a second White-House term. Bush and Clinton won easily in those years.
While many political experts predicted this year’s presidential election would come down to the economy, the middling nature of the recovery signals that campaign tactics and the candidates’ performances may prove more decisive…..
GOP: Obama, Democrats view energy as ‘hazardous waste’
By Vicki Needham
Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin said President Obama’s policies are the cause of rising gas prices, not a lack of energy resources.
Fallin said Saturday that the problem stems from a lack of leadership and questioned Obama’s role in increasing the nation’s energy output and in the hold up of the Keystone XL pipeline, especially as gas prices hover near an average of $4 a gallon.
In the weekly Republican address, Fallin said “our pro-energy policies stand in stark contrast though to the policies supported by President Obama and the Washington Democrats, who seem to view American-made energy as a hazardous waste rather than a resource.”
“Millions of Americans remain out of work, but President Obama continues to propose job-killing tax hikes and obstruct the basic energy infrastructure projects that would lead to the creation of thousands of new jobs, not to mention more revenue in state budgets,” she said…..
It’s happening right now with the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act — passed two years ago in the wake of our disastrous financial meltdown. Just last week, for example, both parties in the House overwhelmingly approved two bills that already would change Dodd-Frank’s rules on derivatives — those convoluted trading deals recently described by the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission as “the largest dark pool in our financial markets.”
Germany throws weight behind Iran’s nuclear energy program
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle has underlined Iran’s right to develop its nuclear energy program as a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
According to a commentary by the top German diplomat in the Sunday paper Bild am Sonntag, Westerwelle stressed “Iran’s right to have nuclear energy for civilian use.”
Mild winter may have artificially inflated jobs data, economists fear
By Ylan Q. Mui,
As most Americans basked in the warmest, sunniest March in half a century, economists stared at the skies with dread:
Could good weather portend bad news for the economic recovery?
Economists say the mild winter has artificially inflated job growth. February alone stole as many as 72,000 positions from March and future months, according to Macroeconomic Advisers.
Translation: The surge in hiring early in the year may not be as strong as it appeared.
The unusual weather began in January, which was the fourth warmest in more than a century. February ranked in the top 20, according to government data. Weather consulting firm Planalytics said several major cities experienced their warmest March in 118 years, including Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis and Oklahoma City, where temperatures were about 15 degrees higher than average.
For many people, that meant an early debut of open-toed shoes and dinners al fresco, and early mulching and spring cleaning. It also meant more jobs for construction workers and retail employees to keep pace with demand. Planalytics said demand jumped 40 percent last month for lawn mowers, 17 percent for sun care and 5 percent for bottled water…..
Regulators: JP Morgan illegally let Lehman Bros. count customers’ funds as its own
By David S. Hilzenrath,
JP Morgan Chase illegally allowed Lehman Brothers, the investment bank whose 2008 bankruptcy brought the financial system to the brink of collapse, to count customers’ money as its own, according to federal regulators.
The arrangement boosted the amount that Lehman could borrow from JP Morgan, where the customers’ money was deposited, regulators charged Wednesday.
Then, at the height of the financial crisis, JP Morgan refused to release the customer funds for about two weeks, until regulators ordered it to do so, regulators charged.
The charges were spelled out in an enforcement action against JP Morgan by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
American consumers, in short, are hitting a wall. They don’t dare save much less because their jobs are still insecure. They can’t borrow much more. Their home values are still dropping, and many are underwater – owing more on their homes than the homes are worth. The economy has been growing but almost all the gains have gone to the very top. As I’ve noted, this is the most lopsided recovery on record.
Oil drops below $102 per barrel on concerns of economic recovery
NEW YORK (AP) — Oil prices fell Monday on concerns about the economic recovery.
West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark crude, fell $1.92 to $101.39 per barrel. Brent crude, which is used to price oil imported by U.S. refineries, slipped $2.13 to $121.30 per barrel.
The U.S. economy added just 120,000 jobs in March— half as much as each of the previous three months. The government reported the disappointing data on Friday, but Monday was the first day oil markets were open. Stocks also fell.
Credit rating agency Egan Jones downgraded the United States Thursday on concern over the sustainability of public debt. Egan Jones is one of the most important ratings firms in the world; they lowered our credit level from AA+ to AA. The firm reduced America from AAA to AA+ in July 2011, just before Standard & Poor’s did the same.
Egan Jones warned. “Without some structural changes soon, restoring credit quality will become increasingly difficult . . . without some structural changes soon, restoring credit quality will become increasingly difficult.” They added that there was a 1.2% probability of U.S default in the next 12 months. The company cited the fact that the US’s total debt, which now equals its total GDP, is rising and soon will eclipse the national GDP; the company sees the debt rising to 112% of the GDP by 2014.
S.Korea, U.S. Practice Stabilizing N.Korea in Civil War
The annual joint South Korean and U.S. exercises dubbed “Key Resolve” last month for the first time practiced deploying more than 100,000 South Korean troops in North Korea to stabilize the country in case of regime collapse.
The two countries “practiced deploying a large contingent of troops to bring stability in the North in case of civil war in the wake of sudden change there,” a government source said on Thursday. “Seoul and Washington practiced preparing for sudden change in the North for the first time during last year’s Key Resolve drill, but this was the first time we went on the assumption that South Korean troops would be deployed in the North.”
“More Than Three Days Of Nonstop U.S. Backed Air Bombardment Of Southern Yemen”
5 days before talks, Iran rejects key demands
US, Israeli demands on Iran very similar; Barak urges world powers not to “lower the bar” during talks.
With critical talks on the Iranian nuclear program set to begin Friday, Tehran already rejected two key demands on Sunday by the world’s powers: Closing the Fordow underground uranium enrichment facility near Qom and stopping the enrichment of uranium to 20 percent.
Fereydoon Abbasi Davani, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Agency, called the Western diplomats’ demands “irrational,” according to AFP.
AFP quoted Davani as saying in an interview with the Iranian ISNA news agency that the Fordow facility had to be built underground because of the West’s threats to attack the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities.
“If they do not threaten us and guarantee that no aggression will occur, then there would be no need for countries to build facilities underground.
They should change their behavior and language,” he said.
Davani added that Iran would continue to produce uranium enriched to 20%, but not “more than we need, because it is not in our benefit to produce it and keep it.”
Iran claims it needs 20% enriched uranium to produce medical isotopes in its Tehran Research Reactor, while the West believes the 20% enriched uranium is a stepping stone to creating nuclear weapons.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu ridiculed the isotopes claim during his speech to the America Israel Public Affairs Committee Policy Conference last month, saying: “A country that builds underground nuclear facilities, develops intercontinental ballistic missiles, manufactures thousands of centrifuges and absorbs crippling sanctions, is doing all that in order to advance… medical research. So you see, when that Iranian ICBM is flying through the air to a location near you, you’ve got nothing to worry about. It’s only carrying medical isotopes.”
Getting Iran to suspend its high-level uranium enrichment and close the bunker at Fordow are “near-term priorities” for the United States and its allies, a senior US official said on Sunday, confirming an earlier New York Times report.
The BBC Film That Exposed Israel’s Secret Illegal Nuclear Weapons (FULL Documentary)
No More Rule By Slogans And Brands: Public Confidence In The PR State In D.C. Is Collapsing
The brand of Barack Obama is collapsing.
“Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam, Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.” – Percy Bysshe Shelley.
“He who abhors and shuns the light of the Sun,
He who refuses to behold with respect the living creation of God,
He who leads the good to wickedness,
He who makes the meadows waterless and the pastures desolate,
He who lets fly his weapon against the innocent,
An enemy of my faith, a destroyer of Thy principles is he, O Lord!” – Zarathustra.
The Obama brand is collapsing and nothing can save it. This was inevitable because the Obama brand is all surface and no substance. Barack Obama is a pseudo president of a propaganda state that has committed atrocities against innocent people in America and around the world. Obama’s name, image, authority, and charisma were all artificially created by the mind controllers in the mass media.
As the legendary journalist John Pilger said in April 2009, “No one knew what the new brand actually stood for.” Since it stands for nothing, the Obama brand is falling into oblivion. Obama, who was sold as the defender of the rule of law and the rights of the American people, is now being exposed to be a liar and a fraud…..
Meet the ALEC Staffers Who Help Corporations Write Our Laws
Zaid Jilani, Republic Report:
“ALEC is accustomed to hiding its agenda and its legislation behind closed doors. At secretive conferences and over e-mail chains the public never sees, the organization allows its corporate donors to manufacture bills and then send them to be passed in state legislatures without the public ever knowing about their origin. But these ALEC staffers can’t hide who they are, and what they do for an organization that harms almost every area of American life.”
Sheriff Arpaio says Obama’s birth certificate is forged
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said President Barack Obama’s birth certificate is not authentic.
Arpaio revealed the findings of a investigation into the president’s birth certificate at a 1 hour and 20 minute news conference Thursday, calling the certificate “suspect.”
Arpaio’s team of investigators said they found that the long-form birth certificate was created electronically and never existed in paper form.
The president’s Selective Service card was also questioned.
Arpaio’s investigators claimed the document has “failed every test we put it through.”
At Thursday’s news conference, investigators said they will request a criminal investigation. They also said they have identified a person of interest in the forgery of the birth certificate.
Arpaio said he is not accusing the president of the crime. He said they will investigate who is behind the “possible forgery and fraud.”
“I haven’t decided where to go with this yet,” Arpaio said. “I just wanted to get the facts of this situation. We haven’t accused anyone of anything.”
The controversy over the certificate has been widely debunked, but it remains alive in the eyes of some conservatives, namely members of the Tea Party who urged Arpaio to look into the matter.
For the past six months, Arpaio’s “Cold Case Posse” has been investigating the authenticity of those documents to see if there’s been any fraud or forgery involved.
“We conducted a very professional investigation; we have come up with I feel some probable cause, some evidence,” Arpaio said Wednesday.
Arpaio said the investigation was done at no cost to taxpayers.
“Just let me say the results may be interesting without using the word ‘shocked,'” Arpaio said prior to the conference. “I think it will reveal some information no one else has really developed in a professional law enforcement manner.”
The Cold Case Posse comprises volunteers who are former police officers and lawyers.
Arpaio is facing problems of his own, including a federal grand jury probe over alleged abuse of power and Justice Department accusations of racial profiling.
[In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit, for research and/or educational purposes. This constitutes ‘FAIR USE’ of any such copyrighted material.]
Payola for the Most Profitable Corporations in History
And Why Taxpayers Shouldn’t Stand for It Any More
By Bill McKibben
April 06, 2012 — Along with “five dollar a gallon gas,” the energy watchword for the next few months is: “subsidies.” Last week, for instance, New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez proposed ending some of the billions of dollars in handouts enjoyed by the fossil-fuel industry with a “Repeal Big Oil Tax Subsidies Act.” It was, in truth, nothing to write home about — a curiously skimpy bill that only targeted oil companies, and just the five richest of them at that. Left out were coal and natural gas, and you won’t be surprised to learn that even then it didn’t pass.
Still, President Obama is now calling for an end to oil subsidies at every stop on his early presidential-campaign-plus-fundraising blitz — even at those stops where he’s also promising to “drill everywhere.” And later this month Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders will introduce a much more comprehensive bill that tackles all fossil fuels and their purveyors (and has no chance whatsoever of passing this Congress).
Whether or not the bill passes, those subsidies are worth focusing on. After all, we’re talking at least $10 billion in freebies and, depending on what you count, possibly as much as $40 billion annually in freebie cash for an energy industry already making historic profits. If attacking them is a convenient way for the White House to deflect public anger over rising gas prices, it is also a perfect fit for the new worldview the Occupy movement has been teaching Americans. (Not to mention, if you think about it, the Tea Party focus on deficits.) So count on one thing: we’ll be hearing a lot more about them this year.
Issa, Grassley hammer White House for stonewalling on ‘Fast and Furious’ witness
By Michael Volpe
The Obama administration is stonewalling two lawmakers’ requests to interview a former member of the National Security staff in connection with the failed Operation Fast and Furious gun-walking program, according to a March 28 letter obtained by The Daily Caller.
California Rep. Darrell Issa and Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, both Republicans, requested a response by April 4 to their letter, which asks for an interview with Kevin O’Reilly, that former staffer. But the White House, according to the letter, is blocking access to him.
Through staff, both Grassley and Issa confirmed to TheDC on Thursday that April 4 came and went without any response from the Obama administration.
In their letter to White House Counsel Karen Ruemmler, Grassley and Issa cited a cryptic email exchange between O’Reilly and William Newell, the special agent in charge of the Phoenix office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives at the time Fast and Furious was implemented. The emails, their letter suggests, indicate that Newell was going around his chain of command to personally brief the White House about developments in the gun-walking program.
“You didn’t get this from me,” Newell wrote to O’Reilly in a Sept. 3, 2010 email about Fast and Furious, according to the letter from Issa and Grassley.
“Just don’t want ATF HQ to find out,” Newell wrote in am earlier email, “especially since this is what they should be doing (briefing you!).”
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which Issa chairs, has not yet made complete copies of those emails available to reporters.
Greek mourners: it was not suicide, it was financial murder – video
Athenians gather in the spot where a 77-year-old man shot himself dead over debts on Wednesday and a woman reads the man’s suicide letter to the crowd. Later in the evening the vigil turns to chaos when riot police use teargas on protesters. Mourners say the police attacks were unprovoked
Ireland: Bailed Out Banks are in Process of Going Bust Again
By David McWilliam
April 06, 2012 “Information Clearing House” — Ernest Hemingway was once asked how did he go bankrupt. The great man thought for a second and then replied: “I went bankrupt in two ways, gradually and then suddenly.”
When we see the figures coming from the various banks, it is not difficult to see that something similar is happening in Ireland. Whether the banks end up bust again, the second time in three years, will depend on how the ECB reacts but it looks like the banks, having been bailed out and having received huge government capital injections, could now be in the process of going bust.
As Mr Hemingway observed, people and entities go bust gradually, at first — this is the phase we are in. Then they go bust overnight. History suggests that after that happens, the economy will recover because we have to start again.
Interestingly, the reason that the banks might be going bust gradually is because the ECB is giving them money at 1pc so that they can mask the inconsistencies in their business model for another year or two. But when that money runs out or the ECB’s policy reverses, which it must eventually, where will they get the cash to operate?
April 06, 2012 “Information Clearing House” — In writing about the relentless collapse of Western economies, I frequently point to “forty years of plummeting wages” for Western workers, in real dollars. However, where I have been remiss is in quantifying the magnitude of this collapse in Western wages.
On several occasions I have glibly referred to how it now takes two spouses working to equal the wages of a one-income family of forty years ago. Unfortunately that is now an understatement. In fact, Western wages have plummeted so low that a two-income family is now (on average) 15% poorer than a one-income family of 40 years ago.
Using the year 2000 as the numerical base from which to “zero” all of the numbers, real wages peaked in 1970 at around $20/hour. Today the average worker makes $8.50 hour – more than 57% less than in 1970. And since the average wage directly determines the standard of living of our society, we can see that the average standard of living in the U.S. has plummeted by over 57% over a span of 40 years.
There are no “tricks” here. Indeed, all of the tricks are used by our governments. The green line shows average wages, discounted by inflation calculated with the same methodology for all 40 years. Obviously that is the only way in which we can compare any data over time: through applying identical parameters to it each year.
Then we have the blue line: showing wage data discounted with our “official” inflation rate. The problem? The methodology used by our governments to calculate inflation in 1975 was different from the method they used in 1985, which was different than the method they used in 1995, which was different than the method they used in 2005.
Only 120,000 jobs added in March, missing economic expectations
By Vicki Needham
The economy added 120,000 jobs in March, well below what economists had predicted, while the unemployment rate ticked down slightly to 8.2 percent.
The number is nearly half the 210,000 expected and ends the streak of three straight months in which the economy added more than 200,000 jobs, according to a Labor Department report released Friday.
The news isn’t what the White House would want to see just as the labor market seemed to be improving at a faster pace.
With the economy remaining a top issue for voters, any perception that its growth is slowing down could hurt President Obama’s reelection effort.
Republicans immediately pounced on the news, attacking Obama’s economic policies.
Mitt Romney, the front-runner for the Republican nomination, used the numbers to criticize the president.
It was deep into the night, somewhere over Siberia, in a Moscow to Beijing flight (BRIC to BRIC?) when the thought, like a lightning bolt, began to take hold.
What the hell is wrong with those Arabs?
Maybe it was the narcotic effect of that perennially dreadful Terminal F at Sheremetyevo airport – straight out of a Brejnev gulag. Maybe it was the anticipation of finding more about the Russia-China joint naval exercise scheduled for late April.
Or it was simply another case of “you can take the boy out of the Middle East, but you can’t take the Middle East out of the boy”.
With friends like these … It all had to do with that Friends of Syria (fools for war?) meeting in Istanbul. Picture Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal – who seems to have a knack for sending US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton into rapture – feverishly arguing that the House of Saud, those paragons of democracy, had “a duty” to weaponize the Syrian “revolutionary” opposition.
And picture al-Faisal ordering an immediate ceasefire by the Bashar al-Assad government, guilty – according to the House of Saud – not only of cruel repression but crimes against humanity.
No; this was not a Monty Python sketch.
To make sure he was milking the right cow, al-Faisal also said that the Gulf Counter-revolution Club (GCC), also known as Gulf Cooperation Council, wanted to get further into bed with the United States. Translation, if any was needed; the US-GCC tag team, as expressed by the weaponization of the Syrian “rebels”, is meant to body slam Iran…..
When the U.S. wants to fund, train, arm or otherwise align itself with a Terrorist group or state sponsor of Terror — as it often does — it at least usually has the tact to first remove them from its formal terrorist list (as the U.S. did when it wanted to support Saddam in 1982 and work with Libya in 2006), or it just keeps them off the list altogether despite what former Council on Foreign Relations writer Lionel Beehner described as “mounds of evidence that [they] at one time or another abetted terrorists” (as it has done with close U.S. allies in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, along with the El Salvadoran death squads and Nicaraguan contras armed and funded in the 1980s by the Reagan administration). But according to a new, multi-sourced report from The New Yorker‘s Seymour Hersh, the U.S. did not even bother going through those motions when, during the Bush years, it trained the Iranian dissident group Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) at a secretive Department of Energy site in Nevada:
It was here that the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) conducted training, beginning in 2005, for members of the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, a dissident Iranian opposition group known in the West as the M.E.K. . . . The M.E.K.’s ties with Western intelligence deepened after the fall of the Iraqi regime in 2003, and JSOC began operating inside Iran in an effort to substantiate the Bush Administration’s fears that Iran was building the bomb at one or more secret underground locations. Funds were covertly passed to a number of dissident organizations, for intelligence collection and, ultimately, for anti-regime terrorist activities. Directly, or indirectly, the M.E.K. ended up with resources like arms and intelligence. Some American-supported covert operations continue in Iran today, according to past and present intelligence officials and military consultants.
Babar Ahmad: This interview is the last chance of ending my nightmare
Uploaded by StoptheWarCoalition on Apr 6, 2012
On 5 April 2012, Barbar Ahmad became the first prisoner in a British jail to be interviewed on television from behind bars in this BBC broadcast. He has been held for eight years in a UK jail without charge or trial, during which time he has been fighting extradition to the United States under controversial “war on terror” legislation. If he has done anything wrong, as a British citizen he asks that he be tried in his own country. MP Caroline Lucas, who has called for a public inquiry, says, “Babar Ahmad’s case shames us all.” To learn more about Babar Ahmad’s case, go to http://freebabarahmad.com
Kurdish opposition quits Syrian National Council
By Lauren Williams
The Daily Star
ISTANBUL: The Syrian Kurdish opposition bloc has walked away from the Syrian National Council, exposing deep and problematic rifts within the umbrella opposition group just days after international leaders granted the body extra recognition after attempts to unify.
Syrian Kurdish opposition leader Abdul-Baki Yousef, a leading member of the Kurdish Yakiti party in Syria and former member of the Kurdish National Council, charged host country Turkey with “pressuring the SNC” to omit the demands of the Kurdish opposition members in the final constitution document outlining a transition plan for Syria.
The fiercely divided SNC pulled the document together at the last minute under pressure to unite from the “Friends of Syria” group.
The Friends group – which includes Turkey, the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Gulf states – recognized the SNC as “a legitimate representative of the Syrian people,” falling well short of the recognition as the legal government in exile they had hoped for after the first Friends of Syria meeting in Tunis in February.
“Our goal was to unify with the opposition and come up with a patriotic agreement that makes an umbrella for the whole opposition, but unfortunately the Turkish sponsor was very sensitive toward the Kurdish issue,” Yousef told The Daily Star. “We accuse the Turkish government of putting pressure on the council.”
Yousef said that negotiations ahead of the conference had outlined recognition of the Kurds, but claimed that those points had been removed in the final covenant.
President Obama signals Iran that US would endorse nuclear program if Ayatollah Ali Khamenei backs up claim that Islamic Republic won’t purse atom bomb, US paper reports
Yitzhak Benhorin
WASHINGTON – US President Barack Obama
has signaled Tehran that the Washington would accept an civilian nuclear program in Iran if Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei can back up his recent claim that his nation “will never pursue nuclear weapons,” the Washington Post reported Friday.
According to the report, the verbal message was sent through Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who met with Khamenei last week. A few days prior to leaving for the trip, Erdogan held a two-hour meeting with Obama on the sidelines of the nuclear security summit in Seoul, in which they discussed what the Turkish leader would tell Khamenei about the nuclear issue.
From the air, the terrain of the Department of Energy’s Nevada National Security Site, with its arid high plains and remote mountain peaks, has the look of northwest Iran. The site, some sixty-five miles northwest of Las Vegas, was once used for nuclear testing, and now includes a counterintelligence training facility and a private airport capable of handling Boeing 737 aircraft. It’s a restricted area, and inhospitable—in certain sections, the curious are warned that the site’s security personnel are authorized to use deadly force, if necessary, against intruders.
It was here that the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) conducted training, beginning in 2005, for members of the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, a dissident Iranian opposition group known in the West as the M.E.K. The M.E.K. had its beginnings as a Marxist-Islamist student-led group and, in the nineteen-seventies, it was linked to the assassination of six American citizens. It was initially part of the broad-based revolution that led to the 1979 overthrow of the Shah of Iran. But, within a few years, the group was waging a bloody internal war with the ruling clerics, and, in 1997, it was listed as a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department. In 2002, the M.E.K. earned some international credibility by publicly revealing—accurately—that Iran had begun enriching uranium at a secret underground location. Mohamed ElBaradei, who at the time was the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear monitoring agency, told me later that he had been informed that the information was supplied by the Mossad. The M.E.K.’s ties with Western intelligence deepened after the fall of the Iraqi regime in 2003, and JSOC began operating inside Iran in an effort to substantiate the Bush Administration’s fears that Iran was building the bomb at one or more secret underground locations. Funds were covertly passed to a number of dissident organizations, for intelligence collection and, ultimately, for anti-regime terrorist activities. Directly, or indirectly, the M.E.K. ended up with resources like arms and intelligence. Some American-supported covert operations continue in Iran today, according to past and present intelligence officials and military consultants.
Leaked Video Shows US Contractors Randomly Killing Civilians
Employees of the US military contracting group Academi (formerly Xe, Blackwater USA and Blackwater Worldwide) are seen in new leaked video shooting their machine guns at random while driving through the streets of Baghdad, crashing into other cars and even running over a pedestrian without hesitation.
Academi received a $250 million contract by the Obama administration to provide military services in Afghanistan.
20-Year Veteran to Face Jail Time for Act of Civil Disobedience
Retired Naval Commander Leah Bolger will appear in court Thursday, April 12, 2012 on charges stemming from her arrest on October 26th, 2011. Bolger, who is a peace activist and the President of Veterans For Peace, interrupted a public hearing of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, commonly known as the Super Committee.
[In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit, for research and/or educational purposes. This constitutes ‘FAIR USE’ of any such copyrighted material.]
U.S. Pressing Interpol to Deny Egypt’s Request to Arrest NGO Workers
By Sara Sorcher
The Obama administration is petitioning Interpol to deny Egypt’s request for the arrest of American and other nongovernmental workers accused of illegally operating democracy programs and stirring unrest, in a push to prevent further escalation of the planned prosecution that sparked the worst crisis in U.S.-Egypt relations in three decades.
According to people familiar with the case, State Department counsel Harold Koh and Justice Department Deputy Assistant Attorney General Bruce Swartz are trying to convince Interpol to dismiss as “politically motivated” Egypt’s request for worldwide notices seeking the arrest of some personnel from several nongovernmental organizations that receive U.S. funding.
Cairo’s continued plans to prosecute the NGO workers is a sharp rebuke to the U.S., which has been pressing Egypt to drop the criminal charges against 43 nongovernmental workers—17 of them Americans—from the Washington-based National Democratic Institute, International Republican Institute, Freedom House, and International Center for Journalists.
Tensions between Washington and Cairo eased on March 1 when seven American democracy workers were allowed to leave Egypt after their institutions paid some $5 million in “bail” to lift the travel ban against them. These Americans—including IRI’s Sam LaHood, son of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood—still face charges in a trial slated to resume on Tuesday, but are not currently wanted for arrest in Egypt.
Shortly after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton signed off on military aid to Cairo, Egypt asked Interpol to issue so-called red notices for other nongovernmental workers who were not in Egypt at the time, or in some cases, who never worked there at all. As many as 10 of them are Americans. Among them are prominent figures in Washington, like Freedom House’s Charles Dunne, a former U.S. diplomat who also served on the National Security Council under President George W. Bush.
If convicted, they could face a hefty financial penalty and up to five years in an Egyptian prison.
The State and Justice departments, as well as Interpol headquarters in France and its bureau in Washington, all declined to comment on Egypt’s request for the red notices, which are usually viewed as precursors to filing extradition papers. “The United States is making known in every relevant forum, and before every relevant agency, its objection to these politically motivated trials in Egypt,” State Department spokesman Edgar Vasquez told National Journal.
The surveillance state: growing under a coalition that pledged to reverse it
Proposals for real-time monitoring of email and social media show the government has caved in to the security services
James Ball
guardian.co.uk,
If the government were to suggest monitoring every building that each person in the UK visits, and making a note of every conversation they had, the policy would be seen as electoral suicide. Assurances that the actual content of conversations wouldn’t be recorded would be unlikely to help.
It’s a telling sign of how many real-world freedoms have been sacrificed online, then, that a government that just two years ago pledged to “reverse the rise of the surveillance state” feels able to propose real-time monitoring of all email and social media communications.
The information stored would include the sender and recipient of an email, the time it was sent, and details of the computer it was sent from. This would build a profile of who contacts whom, with what frequency, and from where.
The government says such measures are essential to counter organized crime and terrorism, citing that 95% of organized crime investigations and “every” major counter-terrorism investigation use communications data. However, this statistic does not show if such information was essential or even useful to these investigations – merely that investigators chose to get hold of communications records on almost every occasion, usually via warrant or use of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa).
According to many economists, the days of the US dollar are numbered. As the currency weakens many countries that use the dollar are searching for alternatives. China is expected to be the top world economy in a matter of years. To add insult to injury, the BRICS countries have decided to lose the dollar and use their own currencies. So what does this mean for the US dollar? Gerald Celente, publisher of The Trends Journal, joins us for more.
IMF chief calls on US for more cash
WASHINGTON: IMF managing director Christine Lagarde implored the United States to help back-stop debt-ridden European countries Tuesday, wading neck-deep into bubbling US political waters.
Speaking in the US capital, Lagarde said the 187-nation International Monetary Fund needed more firepower to tackle financial crises raging around the globe, arguing it was in the US interest to pitch in and help Europe.
“Americans might ask themselves: why should what happens in the rest of the world concern us? Don’t we have our own problems?” she said, according to prepared remarks.
“The answer is simple: In today’s world, we cannot afford the luxury of staying in our own mental backyards.”
“If the European economy falters, the American recovery and American jobs would be in jeopardy. So America has a large stake in how Europe fare — and how the world fares.”
Legarde’s comments came 64 years to the day after president Harry Truman signed the Marshall Plan, an unprecedented loan to rebuild post-war Europe.
But her comments will be anathema to politicians in Washington, as the country hurtles toward elections this November.
US officials, including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, have for months trod a thin line between supporting the IMF’s efforts to bolster its resources and actually kicking in some more cash.
Washington has yet to ratify 2010 reforms which would see it send $63 billion more to the IMF’s coffers, under a new quota agreement.
“MF Global is worth more to its Creditors Dead than it was Alive” says Fund Manger Mark Melin
Welcome to Capital Account. [Lauren blows a whistle on set] Is this what the too big to fail banks should really be worried about? A new emerging market for whistle blowers! First Greg Smith, now a congressional budget officer, who’s next? Earlier this week, Greg Smith, a Goldman Sachs employee, made his resignation public on the pages of the New York Times in an op-ed, accusing his firm of “toxic” practices that put profit first at the expense of customers and possibly the US economy. And Lan T. Pham, the CBO officer, alleges that she was fired for not accepting the wall street party line…pressured not to be so pessimistic about banking and the housing outlooks. In just one of many hard-hitting excepts from her letter, the CBO officer says “I was repeatedly pressured by the CBO Assistant Director, Deborah Lucas…not to write nor discuss issues in the banking sector and mortgage markets that might suggest weakness in these sectors and their consequences on the economy and households…” She was encouraged to push the policies of a Morgan Stanley VP and provided Goldman Sachs analyses as well. That sounds familiar doesn’t it?
Despite those who are speaking out, is there just no winning against the too big to fail banks? Remember, when judge Jed Rakoff rejected the SEC’s 285 million dollar settlement with citigroup over toxic mortgage debt. It was because citigroup wasn’t forced to admit liability. Well, now a federal appeals court has stopped just short of rejecting his rejection, saying he overstepped his authority. Come on! What’s it going to take to see some admission of guilt for conch? And speaking of the need to admit guilt, what ever happened to Jon “the Don” Corzine? The MF Global brokerage trustee says they know where some more money is — they want to distribute another $685 million dollars to customers, while another trustee has been asked by US lawmakers to abort his mission to pay out bonuses to MF Global executives. But just who are these trustees? We’ll expose this and more.
Russia’s FM warns against arming Syrian opposition
AIDA SULTANOVA
BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) – Russia’s foreign minister warned other nations again Wednesday not to arm the Syrian opposition, saying it would only escalate hostilities.
Speaking on a trip to Azerbaijan, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the Syrian opposition wouldn’t be able to overwhelm government forces even if it was supplied with weapons from abroad. He warned that a foreign military intervention would lead to even more disastrous consequences for Syria, where President Basher Assay’s forces have violently cracked down on a yearlong uprising in which more than 9,000 people have died.
“Even if they arm the Syrian opposition to the teeth, it won’t be able to defeat the Syrian army,” Lavrov said. “The carnage will go on for many years.”
Israel issues tender for hundreds of new apartments in East Jerusalem
Housing Ministry seeks to expand controversial neighborhood of Har Homa; critics on the left claim expansion of the neighborhood will harm chances of reaching a peace agreement.
By Nir Hasson
Israel’s Housing Ministry published on Tuesday tenders for the construction of hundreds of new housing units in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Homa, located beyond the Green Line.
The five tenders published by the ministry include 827 new housing units, most of which, 632, are to be part of a new section of the neighborhood called Har Homa Gimel, which is slated to be built on an empty hill.
(Reuters) – The United States would not be safe from retaliation if Iran is attacked by Washington, the Iran newspaper quoted a senior Revolutionary Guards commander on Tuesday as saying.
“In the face of any attack, we will have a crushing response. In that case, we will not only act in the boundaries of the Middle East and the Persian Gulf, no place in America will be safe from our attacks,” Massoud Jazayeri was quoted as saying by the daily.
Iran would not strike any country first, he said.
Tehran is locked in a dispute with the West over its nuclear program.
Israel and the United States have threatened military action against Iran unless it abandons activities which the West suspects are intended to develop nuclear weapons…..
CNN’s Dana Bash On GSA “American Idle” GSA Video: “This Is Just Really Remarkable”
Uploaded by GOPICYMI
CNN’s Dana Bash reports on the video made by GSA employees bragging about the use of taxpayer money for lavish parties and talent shows
Federal judge refuses to halt separation hearing for ‘tea party Marine’
Despite a coalition of lawyers filing suit to stop the proceedings, a “tea party Marine” facing discharge from the Marine Corps for criticizing President Barack Obama will have to go through with a separation hearing on Thursday.
On Wednesday a federal judge refused to stop the separation hearing for Sgt. Gary Stein, a Camp Pendleton Marine facing an “‘other than honorable’ discharge from the military for posting criticisms of the commander in chief on his ‘Armed Forces Tea Party’ Facebook page,” Fox 5 in San Diego reported.
Guns will use electromagnetic radiation
Rays will attack victims’ central nervous system
Have all your Jedi fantasies finally come true?
WHILE many believed it to be an April Fool’s Day joke, Vladimir Putin has confirmed Russia has been testing mind-bending psychotronic guns that can effectively turn people into zombies.
The futuristic weapons – which attack their victims’ central nervous system – are being developed by scientists and could be used against Russia’s enemies and even its own dissidents by the end of the decade.
Mr Putin has described the guns, which use electromagnetic radiation like that found in microwave ovens, as entirely new instruments for achieving political and strategic goals.
Plans to introduce the super-weapons were announced by Russian defence minister Anatoly Serdyukov.
While the technology has been around for some time, MrTsyganok said the guns were recently tested for crowd control purposes.
National Responder Support Camp (NRSC)
Solicitation Number: HSFE70-12-R-0033
Agency: Department of Homeland Security
Office: Federal Emergency Management Agency
Location: Logistics Branch
Goto the bottom and download the pdf of the final draft dated March 2012 (Draft HSFE70-12-R-0033.pdf (1,390.63 Kb) Description: Draft Soliciation)
Here are my issues with this RFP:
1) Page 14 (C.3.5)- Daily logs. I guess you could say this is legit but then added with the rest I don’t like it at all.
2) Page 19 (C.6.0)- This deals with the ID cards that must be issued.
3) Page 22 shows what reports are required and to whom they go to, how often, and what is to be covered.
4) Page 26 (E.3) Starts the performance evaluation and modes of surveillance to ensure reports are accurate.
5) Page 69 Section J- This starts getting into some of the requirements.
6) Page 74 starts the “Scenario’s”.
7) Page 75 has the gender separation and the separate area for security personnel
This is a large file and probably has a lot more than what I covered.
[In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit, for research and/or educational purposes. This constitutes ‘FAIR USE’ of any such copyrighted material.]
Report: Obama Blaming Israel for Rising Fuel Prices
The Obama administration is blaming Israel for the recent rise in global crude oil prices, says its “posturing” on Iran brought the rise.
By Elad Benari
The Obama administration is blaming Israel for the recent rise in global crude oil prices, according to a Sunday report in The World Tribune. The rise in fuel prices is deemed as harming the U.S. economy and has also hurt Obama in the polls as he seeks re-election in November.
The report cited a leading U.S. analyst, Robert Satloff, who returned from talks with Israeli officials.
Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said, according to The World Tribune, that the Israeli leadership saw Washington as attributing the higher gas prices to “Israel’s posturing” on Iran.
“They think the Iranians should be held responsible for the higher gasoline prices,” Satloff was quoted as having said.
He added that the officials told him the Obama administration was staging a campaign to undermine Israel.
Bill in Congress could suspend your passport if you owe taxes to the IRS
Written By Kenneth Schortgen Jr
There is a new bill in Congress that is expected to pass that would allow the government to suspend your travel outside the country if you owe taxes to the IRS.
Not since the beginning of the US Civil War have we seen a grab for power by a single individual like we are seeing today being perpetrated by Barack Obama. On April 27, 1861, following the onset of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus in response to riots, local militia actions, and the threat that the border slave state of Maryland would secede from the Union, leaving the nation’s capital, Washington, D.C., surrounded by hostile territory.
Following the arrest of Maryland secessionist John Merryman, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Roger B. Taney defied Lincoln’s order and issued a writ of habeas corpus demanding that the U.S. Military bring Merryman before the Supreme Court. The military refused to honor the writ and the Supreme Court then declared Lincoln’s action in suspending habeas corpus to be unconstitutional.
Lincoln then attempted an executive coup in issuing a secret warrant for Chief Justice Taney’s arrest. The warrant was given to US Marshalls but was never executed.
On February 14, 1862, Lincoln ordered most prisoners released, putting an end to court challenges for the time being. He again suspended habeas corpus on his own authority in September that same year, however, in response to resistance to his calling up of the militia.
The suspension of habeas corpus in defiance of the Supreme Court should be considered no little matter.
Feds Attempt to Install Embedded Monitor In Sheriff Arpaio’s Office As His Cold Case Posse Continues Their Obama Investigation
…. The Justice Department has cut off negotiations with Sheriff Joe Arpaio and officials with the Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff’s Office in its effort to install an independent monitor to rein in the unconstitutional tactics used by officers there.
Arpaio, who calls himself “America’s Toughest Sheriff,” defied the Justice Department suggestion that it could sue the county and the sheriff’s office to force the issue.
“I am the constitutionally and legitimately elected Sheriff and I absolutely refuse to surrender my responsibility to the federal government,” he said in a letter the Justice Department today. “And so to the Obama administration, who is attempting to strong arm me into submission only for its political gain, I say, ‘This will not happen, not on my watch!….
ATHENS (Dow Jones)–A 77-year-old Greek man took his life in Athens’ central Syntagma Square early Wednesday, leaving a note behind that linked his tragic act to the country’s deepening economic crisis, police said, at a time national suicide rates have been on the rise.
The man shot himself with a handgun several hundred meters from the entrance to the Greek parliament building in a grassy area to one side of the Greek capital’s main square during the busy morning rush hour.
The spot became the focus of an impromptu anti-austerity rally later Wednesday as about a thousand people gathered there lighting candles and placing flowers and sympathy notes at the site.
“Hopefully it will be the last death of an innocent citizen. I hope the rest (of the deaths) will be of political traitors,” said one note signed by T.L.
In the suicide note, the former pharmacist likened Greece’s current crisis to the deep poverty the country suffered during the World War II German occupation.
“I have no other way to react apart from finding a dignified end before I start sifting through garbage for food,” said the note which was found by the man’s daughter.
Eyewitnesses said the man was in apparent despair over his financial debts, shouting just moments before killing himself: “So I won’t leave debts for my children.”
The police haven’t disclosed the identity of the man or other details as they investigate the incident.
The also evoked sympathetic responses from a series of Greek politicians who blamed the austerity for the incident.
Today’s award for the most euphemistic lead paragraph goes to the New York Times. Paraphrasing Hillary Clinton, the Times says the U.S. has agreed to “send communications equipment to help rebels organize and evade Syria’s military.”
It might be nice if there were communications equipment whose use is inherently confined to evasive maneuvers. But I’m not aware of any. Inevitably, the equipment we’re giving the rebels will help them organize as they attack Syria’s military, not just as they retreat. It may even help them attack Syrian civilians who share the Alawite ethnicity of Syrian president Bashar al Assad. (Rebel attacks on Alawite civilians took place during the siege of Homs.) What’s more, according to the Syrian National Council, this “communications equipment” is going to include night-vision goggles–and I doubt it’s just nighttime evasions that the rebels have in mind.
As I’ve said before, the Syrian situation is such a mess that I don’t claim to have a solution. And I guess that limits how indignant I can get about solutions that other people are pushing, including those that my government is pursuing. But could we at least be honest about we’re doing? The U.S., by giving the rebels this communications equipment, is now officially helping Syrians kill other Syrians. That’s a big step.
$10 million is offered for the capture of a militant who allegedly conspired in four-day attack on Mumbai, India.
ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN – Pakistan was stung on Tuesday by the U.S. State Department’s announcement of a $10 million reward for the capture or conviction of the founder of a Pakistani militant group that allegedly carried out the November 2008 terrorist attacks on Mumbai, India’s largest city.
The size of the bounty for Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, founder of the Lashkar-e-Taiba organization, is on par with what the United States is offering for Mullah Mohammad Omar, the leader of Afghanistan’s Taliban.
To their consternation, Pakistani officials didn’t learn of the U.S. decision until newspaper websites in India, Pakistan’s archenemy, reported it early Tuesday. That prompted analysts in Islamabad to conclude that it was a pressure tactic by Washington aimed at forcing Pakistan to reopen NATO supply routes to Afghanistan that were suspended last fall after a friendly-fire incident in which U.S. forces killed two dozen Pakistani soldiers.
“The U.S. has upped the ante. It’s as if they’re saying: You blocked the NATO supplies, so we’ve done this,” said Imtiaz Gul, the director of the Center for Research and Security Studies, an independent research center in Pakistan. “It’s a very strong message.”
Pakistani militant leader thumbs nose at U.S. bounty
RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (AP)
One of Pakistan’s most notorious extremists taunted the United States during a defiant news conference close to the country’s military headquarters Wednesday, a day after the U.S. slapped a $10 million bounty on him
Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the 61-year-old founder of the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, has been accused of orchestrating the 2008 attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai that killed 166 people, including six American citizens. He operates openly in Pakistan, giving public speeches and appearing on television talk shows.
“I am here, I am visible. America should give that reward money to me,” he told reporters Wednesday, mocking Washington for placing a bounty on a man whose whereabouts are no mystery. “I will be in Lahore tomorrow. America can contact me whenever it wants to.”
Pakistan pushed back against the U.S. in its first official response to the bounty, saying Washington needed to provide “concrete evidence” if it wants the government to act against Saeed.
Analysts have said Pakistan is unlikely to arrest Saeed because of his alleged links with the country’s intelligence agency and the political danger of doing Washington’s bidding in a country where anti-American sentiment is rampant.
Saeed has used his high-profile status in recent months to lead a protest movement against U.S. drone strikes and the resumption of NATO supplies for troops in Afghanistan sent through Pakistan. Islamabad closed its borders to the supplies in November in retaliation for American airstrikes that accidentally killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.
We had reported on the show that a group of political activists and journalists testified in a New York Court about why they’re suing the Obama administration over the National Defense Authorization Act or NDAA. Chris Hedges, author and Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter is also one of the plaintiffs; he joins the show to discuss.
We Are EMR Guinea Pigs
Uploaded by minivanjack
A global “Smart Grid” program is being implemented which is blasting homes and businesses with more electromagnetic radiation than human beings have ever been subject to in human history. It is utterly preposterous to assume this will not lead to major human epidemics.
We must now face the very serious problem that the institutions, government, corporations and foundations, that are supposed to be serving our interests are deliberately violating, exploiting, endangering and assaulting us.
This video exposes electromagnetic radiation (EMR) as a major danger and violation to all current and future generations.
Sponsored by FreedomTaker (d’o’t’c’o’m)
[In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit, for research and/or educational purposes. This constitutes ‘FAIR USE’ of any such copyrighted material.]
The Hunger Site – Your click helps to feed the hungry
Wheatgrass Kits.com
FAIR USE NOTICE
The material on this site is provided for educational and informational purposes. It may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. It is being made available in an effort to advance the understanding of scientific, environmental, economic, social justice and human rights issues etc. It is believed that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have an interest in using the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. The information on this site does not constitute legal or technical advice.
Any materials (ie. graphics, articles , commentary) that are original to this blog are copyrighted and signed by it's creator. Said original material may be shared with attribution. Please respect the work that goes into these items and give the creator his/her credit. Just as we share articles , graphics and photos always giving credit to their creators when available. Credit and a link back to the original source is required.
If you have an issue with anything posted here or would prefer we not use it . Please contact me. Any items that are requested to be removed by the copyright owner will be removed immediately. No threats needed or lawsuit required. If there is a problem and you do not wish your work to be showcased then we will happily find an alternative from the many sources readily available from creators who would find it amenable to having their work presented to the subscribers of this feed.
Thank you for your time and attention, blessings to all :)
Family Survival Protocol - Microcosm News 