Let’s say you’re like most people and believe the federal government has become too large, too wasteful, too crooked, and too intrusive. Now imagine the morning mail arrives from the money-bleeding U.S. Postal Service ($16 billion in the hole last year) and there’s a letter from the Internal Revenue Service with a stern warning about “penalties for perjury” and a long list of questions and probes about your friends, associates, ideas, and political activities.

Here’s an example, directed from the IRS to the Linchpins of Liberty in Franklin, Tennessee:

“Provide details regarding all training you have provided or will provide. Indicate who has received or will receive the training and submit copies of the training material.”

“Liberty,” it seems, unless it’s a 19th century gift from France standing quietly in New York Harbor, has become a concept that’s now viewed by D.C.’s central planners and tax collectors as a bit too messy, subversive, uncontrolled and individualistic.

Following its review of IRS letters to 11 tea party groups and conservative organizations applying for tax-exempt status, Politico reported that the agency “wanted to know everything – in some cases, it even seemed curious about what members were thinking.”

In fact, it went beyond what people were thinking with the IRS summoning a pro-life group in Iowa to reveal detailed information regarding the content of their prayers.

“Please detail the content of the members of your organization’s prayers,” the IRS asked the Coalition for Life in Iowa. Additionally, the IRS office in Cincinnati asked all board members of the Iowa group to sign a sworn declaration promising not to picket Planned Parenthood.

And from ABC News, listed below is a sample of the questions and requests that ABC News found in roughly half a dozen IRS questionnaires sent to tea party groups” from 2010 to 2012:

“Provide copies of the agendas and minutes of your Board meetings and, if applicable, membership meetings, including a description of legislative and electoral issues discussed, and whether candidates for political office were invited to address the meeting.”

“Submit the following information relating to your past and present directors, officers and key employees: (a) Provide a resume for each.”

“The names of donors, contributors and grantors. The amount of each of the donations, contributions, and grants and the dates you received them.”

“Fully describe your youth outreach program with the local school.”

“Provide a list of all issues that are important to your organization. Indicate your position regarding each issue.”

“Please explain in detail your organization’s involvement with the Tea Party.”

“Provide copies of handbills you distributed at your monthly meetings.”

“The names of persons from your organization and the amount of time they spent on the event or program, or events.” The IRS also asked for “copies of all your current web pages, including blog posts” and “copies of all your newsletters, bulletins, flyers or any other media or literature you have disseminated to your members or others,” plus copies of related information on “Facebook and other social networking sites,” and “copies of stories or articles that have been published about you.”

And this: “Do you have a close relationship with any candidate for political office or political party? If so, describe fully the nature of that relationship.”

On June 29, 2011, IRS staffers told senior agency official Lois Lerner that they were giving special scrutiny to “statements in the case file” by groups that “criticize how the country is being run.” Also targeted were groups that focused on government spending, deficits, government debt, and educating people on ways to “make America a better place to live.”

On Jan. 15, 2012, the IRS widened its target list to include “political action type organizations” involved in education on the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

In his recent column, “In AP, Rosen investigations, government makes criminals of reporters” (May 22, 2013), Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank pointed to the fundamental threats to freedom in the Obama administration’s “broad snooping into Associated Press phone records,” along with the administration’s spying on journalist James Rosen at Fox News and the administration’s identification of Rosen in a search warrant as a “possible co-conspirator” in violation of the Espionage Act.

“To treat a reporter as a criminal for doing his job – seeking out information the government doesn’t want made public – deprives Americans of the First Amendment freedom on which all other constitutional rights are based,” warned Milbank. “Guns? Privacy? Due Process? Equal protection? If you can’t speak out, you can’t defend those rights, either.”

And while White House Press Secretary Jay Carney says that President Obama is “a fierce defender of the First Amendment” and doesn’t think “journalists should be prosecuted for doing their jobs,” Milbank points out that the Obama administration “has launched more leak prosecutions than all previous administrations combined.”

On what’s next, Milbank posted a warning: “If the administration is spying on reporters and accusing them of criminality just for asking questions – well, who knows what else this crowd is capable of doing?”

It’s “a culture of cover-ups and intimidation that is giving the administration so much trouble,” recently asserted Sen. John Cornyn, a member of the Judiciary Committee, referring to the Justice Department’s covert seizure of phone records at The Associated Press.

Charging that “our constitutional rights have been violated,” the President and Chief Executive Officer of The Associated Press, Gary Pruitt, said the government’s surreptitious monitoring of reporters has already had a chilling effect on news-gathering operations.

News sources, understandably, are more likely to be reluctant to call reporters if they think the government is on the line – and that’s especially true if the disclosure is about government transgressions.

“Under their own rules, they are required to narrow this request as narrowly as possible so as to not tread upon the First Amendment,” explained Pruitt on CBS’s Face the Nation, referring to the Obama administration’s phone monitoring.

“And yet they had a broad, sweeping collection, and they did it secretly,” explained Pruitt. “Their rules require them to come to us first, but in this case they didn’t, claiming an exception, saying that would have posed a substantial threat to their investigation. But they have not explained why it would and we can’t understand why it would.”

The end product of this increased monitoring and harassment of the press, this increased threat to reporters and to sources who come forward with information, is that the government is likely to become even more insulated from public scrutiny, more heavy-handed and inept, and more shielded from reform.

Once the government is successful in restricting the news-gathering operations of the press, warned Pruitt, “the people of the United States will only know what the government wants them to know and that’s not what the framers of the Constitution had in mind when they wrote the First Amendment.”

Pruitt has it right about the philosophy of the nation’s Founders, as demonstrated in the letters of Thomas Jefferson.

“Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost,” asserted Jefferson in a January 28, 1786, letter to James Currie (1745-1807), a Virginia physician and frequent correspondent during Jefferson’s residence in France.

“Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter,” wrote Jefferson in 1787 to Edward Carrington, a Lieutenant Colonel in the Continental Army and a Virginia delegate to the Continental Congress from 1786 to 1788.

“Where the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe,” stated Jefferson in 1816 in a letter to Colonel Charles Yancey, a commanding officer in Virginia Militia during the War of 1812.

And regarding those who seek to restrict the freedom of the press, Jefferson wrote this in 1804 to Judge John Tyler on the U.S. Circuit Court in Richmond: “No experiment can be more interesting than that we are now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact, that man may be governed by reason and truth. Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him all avenues of truth. The most effectual hitherto found, is the freedom of the press. It is, therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions.”

Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Communist Party, 1953 to 1964, also understood the importance of the press. “The press,” he proclaimed, “is our chief ideological weapon.”

This article originally appeared on: The New American

[unable to retrieve full-text content]At least five Iranian pilgrims have been killed and 19 others injured after a car bomb hit their bus in north of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, AFP reports.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Forked tongue rhetoric can’t disguise it. Throughout Obama’s tenure, he has governed lawlessly. He’s done so at home and abroad. He spurns rule of law principles and other democratic values.

Nothing suggests change. Business as usual continues. War on humanity is policy. Rogue leaders govern that way. Obama threatens everyone.

On May 23, he spoke at Washington’s National Defense University. He defended what he urged changing four years earlier.

On May 21, 2009, he spoke at the National Archives. He addressed national security. He said America can’t be safe “unless we enlist the power of our most fundamental values.”

“The documents that we hold in this very hall — the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights — these are not simply words written into aging parchment.”

“They are the foundation of liberty and justice in this country, and a light that shines for all who seek freedom, fairness, equality, and dignity around the world.”

“(O)ur government made a series of hasty decisions.”

“(O)ur government trimmed facts and evidence to fit ideological predispositions.”

“(W)e set (aside fundamental) principles as luxuries that we could no longer afford.”

“In other words, we went off course. (Americans) called for a new approach — one that rejected torture and one that recognized the imperative of closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay.”

We must act, he said, “with an abiding confidence in the rule of law and due process; in checks and balances and accountability.”

“(D)ecisions that were made over the last eight years established an ad hoc legal approach.”

He called doing so “neither effective nor sustainable.”

He pledged change. He said he took steps to prohibit torture. He ordered Guantanamo closed, he claimed.

He made other high-minded promises. He “swore an oath to uphold the Constitution,” he said. He systematically spurned it. He did so across the board. He represents the worst of rogue leadership.

His Thursday address reflected same old, same old. It was beginning-to-end demagogic boilerplate. We’ve heard it throughout his tenure. He repeats it ad nauseam.

Promises made are broken. Defending the indefensible doesn’t wash. CODEPINK Women for Peace co-founder Medea Benjamin challenged him.

She interrupted his speech. She did so several times. She called on him to close Guantanamo, release cleared detainees, and stop killer drone attacks.

“Will you apologize for the thousands of Muslims that you killed,” she asked? “Will you compensate the families of innocent victims?”

“Can you tell the Muslims that their lives are as precious as our lives?”

“Can you take the drones out of the hands of the CIA?”

“Can you stop (drone) strikes that are killing people on the basis of suspicious activity?”

“You are commander in chief! You can close Guantanamo today! You can release” all cleared detainees.

“It’s been 11 years. Abide by the rule of law. You’re a constitutional lawyer.”

Speaking truth to power has a price. Benjamin was forcibly removed. She was detained. She was interrogated by Secret Service, military and FBI personnel. She was then released.

Asked why she challenged Obama, she said:

“We have been so disappointed with Obama. We expected him to to make serious changes like taking drones out of the hands of the CIA, stopping the signature strikes, apologizing to innocents who have been killed, families of the innocent, and announcing that he, as Commander-in-Chief, would close Guantanamo, so when he did not I felt compelled to speak out.”

Obama defended drone strikes. He did so disingenuously. Extrajudicial killing is lawless. Weasel words fell short of explaining his failure to close Guantanamo. What he said didn’t wash.

He lied. He blamed Congress for his own transgression. He bears full responsibility. He can close Guantanamo today. He can do so with a stroke of his pen.

As president and commander in chief, he’s fully authorized to do so. Congress has no say. He can order all uncharged prisoners released. Indefinite detention is lawless.

He claimed a nonexistent terror threat. The only ones are those he and complicit allies invent. They’ve done so throughout his tenure. They continued what Bush officials began.

In 2009, Obama promised change. He spurned what he pledged to uphold. He did what core supporters thought impossible. He exceeded the worst of his predecessor.

He turned truth on its head. He claimed extrajudicial murder is legal. On 9/11, America was attacked, he said. Doing so was state-sponsored terrorism. Bin Laden and Al Qaeda were wrongfully blamed.

Days later Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) was introduced. Congress passed it near unanimously. Bush signed it into law. America’s “war on terror” began.

Police state laws were enacted. Multiple direct and proxy wars were launched. They’re lawless. They target humanity. They remain ongoing. Obama continues what he promised to stop.

Rule of law principles don’t matter. Diktat authority is policy. Obama’s weasel words belie his actions. His promises aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. He broke every major one made.

Nothing ahead suggests change. Straightaway in office he promised Guantanamo closure. Nothing whatever’s been done to do so.

Innocent victims remain imprisoned. Indefinite detention is policy. So are lawless military commissions. America maintains a global gulag. Extraordinary renditions fill it. Torture continues.

Drone killing is prioritized. More of the same is planned. No one’s secure anywhere. US citizens are vulnerable. Summary judgment is policy. Attacks can occur anywhere. US soil is unsafe. There’s no place to hide.

Secrecy prevents public disclosure. Promised transparency’s nonexistent. What’s most important continues out of sight and mind. Media scoundrels suppress what demands highlighting.

Obama reflects the worst of rogue leadership. War on terror policy continues. It does so when no threat exists. It’s lawless and unconscionable.

Obama’s heading America for full-blown tyranny and ruin. He threatens humanity. Doublespeak duplicity reflects it. His speech didn’t surprise. Same old, same old remains policy. Nothing he said suggests otherwise.

Following his address, the Center for Constitutional Rights responded as follows:

“(U)nless (Obama) takes immediate steps to resume transfers and ultimately close (Guantanamo), his administration will not escape the ‘harsh judgment’ of history.”

Lifting the ban on Yemeni transfers fell short. So far it’s rhetoric, not policy. “(W)e are disappointed by (Obama’s) comment that cleared men will only be released ‘to the greatest extent possible.’ ”

Obama’s “equivocation is troubling. After eleven years of detention without charge or trial, all of the men President Obama does not intend to give fair trials should be released and reunited with their families.”

“Anything short of that threatens to worsen a potentially deadly crisis unfolding at Guantanamo.”

Targeted drone strikes remain policy. Reasserting the right is “legally flawed and dangerous.”

“Whether or not the United States can use lethal force under the laws of war is not a matter of policy preference — it is a matter of law and facts.

Continuing current policy in any forms “sets a dangerous precedent for future administrations and other countries.”

Hundreds of activists endorsed a New York Times ad. It called on Obama to “Close Guantanamo Now” and “stop the torture.”

“Presidents cannot be allowed to arrogate to themselves the power of judge, jury and executioner.”

“Fundamental civil liberties have been eviscerated.”

“It is up to the people to stand up for principle and morality when their institutions and public officials refuse to do so.”

“End the War Crimes and Violations of Fundamental Rights!”

Nothing Obama said suggests change. Business as usual remains policy. War on humanity continues. No end in sight appears likely.

New world order harshness threatens everyone. It’s a clear and present danger. It’s much too great to ignore.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book is titled “Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs Fridays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour

http://www.dailycensored.com/obama-defending-the-indefensible/

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

A Muslim Rohingya woman (C) breastfeeds her baby at a school sheltering Internally Displaced Persons in the village of Theik Kayk Pyim, Myanmar, on October 11, 2012. (File photo)

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

At least 28 people were killed and 250 wounded in weeklong clashes between Sunni and Alawite Muslims in Tripoli, Lebanon, according to security officials. The violence is another sign of the Syrian conflict spilling over to Lebanon.

Last night, four Sunnis and one Alawite died in clashes, the
Daily Star reported. The casualties raised this week’s death toll
to 28.

Fierce fighting has raged in Tripoli since last Sunday, with
assailants firing rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and machine
guns. The violence is seen as a spillover from the recently
intensified fighting between rebels and government forces in
Qusayr, Syria, near the border with Lebanon.

Most of the clashes in Tripoli were between residents of the
Sunni-majority Bab el-Tebbaneh district and the Alawite-majority
Jabal Mohsen district. A third party in the conflict is the
Lebanese Army, which has so far failed to quell the unrest.

Although the clashes subsided in the morning, the area is still
reportedly controlled by snipers.

The week-long conflict brought life to a halt in Tripoli, home
to 500,000 residents, with schools and shops closed because of the
violence.

This is not the first time Tripoli has witnessed an outbreak of
violence between Sunnis supporting the Syrian rebels and pro-regime
Alawites, the religious branch of Shia Islam to which Syrian
President Bashar Assad belongs. The Lebanese Army deployed in the
city last October to broker a ceasefire.

This article originally appeared on: RT

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Syrian army has regained control of Homs-Ba’albek highway after clashes with foreign-sponsored militants fighting against the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Two prominent Iranian calligraphers have been selected to serve as jury members in the 2013 edition of International Biennial of Calligraphy in Algeria.

Amir Ahmad Falsafi is slated to judge at the two sections of Classic Calligraphy and Modern Calligraphy (Calligraphy-painting) of the festival that will be held in the Algerian capital, Algiers.

At the Modern section, another Iranian artist Mahmoud Zendehroudi will also collaborate with the jurors.

Ahmad Ariamanesh and Ahmad Mazadi are Iranian representatives who will contend for award at the Competition section of the festival.

Considered one of the highest Islamic art forms, calligraphy became an indispensable part of Persian society in the beginning of the Islamic era so that it was not only practiced by professional artists but also by royalty and nobility.

In the 11th century six basic calligraphy styles became popular, which were referred to as, Naskh, Thuluth, Muhaqqaq, Rihani, Tauqi, and Riqa.

Nasta’liq is known as the most attractive Persian calligraphy style, broadly used in copying romantic and epic Persian poetry and literary manuscripts.

The 2013 Algerian calligraphy biennial is slated to kick off today on May 25 and will continue until June 5.

FGP/FGP

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

US President Barack Obama congratulates a graduate during the US Naval Academy graduation ceremony at the Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis, Maryland, on May 24, 2013.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Iranian Reformist presidential candidate Mohammad-Reza Aref says he will accept any final result that comes out of the ballot box in next monthâ„¢s presidential election.

The former first vice president said an epic political event, as advised by the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, will only come about through a widespread turnout in the June 14th vote.

Aref said the Islamic Revolution is based on ethics and those who want to win must not sacrifice ethics as was the case in the previous election.

The Reformist candidate said the national interest, security and stability are of special importance and he will never sacrifice them for short-term political gain.

Earlier this week, Iranâ„¢s Interior Ministry published a list of eight candidates approved by the Guardian Council to run in the countryâ„¢s 11th presidential election slated for June 14.

In addition to Aref, Iranian lawmaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Saeed Jalili, Secretary of the Expediency Council Mohsen Rezaei, President of the Strategic Research Center of the Expediency Council Hassan Rohani, Tehran Mayor Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf, former Telecommunications Minister Mohammad Gharazi and former Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Velayati comprise the approved candidates.

The president of Iran is elected for a four-year term in a national election.

PG/HGH

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

The Syrian army has seized an airport in the strategic border town of al-Qusayr as it presses ahead to liberate the town fully from foreign-backed militants.

The Syrian troops took control of al-Dabaâ„¢a military airport north of Qusayr in Homs province on Saturday, the latest reports from the town said.

The army also regained control of the Baâ„¢ath Party headquarters in Qusayr, killing large numbers of foreign-backed militants.

Earlier in the day, the Syrian forces pounded the positions of the militants with heaviest artillery and rocket barrages.

The Syrian army has kicked off the second phase of its operation in the town after successfully concluding the first phase of battle.

Qusayr, which borders Lebanon, has been the scene of fierce clashes between Syrian forces and militants over the past few days.

Homs Province remains a strategic gain for either side because of its location which connects the capital, Damascus, to the Mediterranean coast.

So far, the army has inflicted losses on the foreign-backed insurgents and destroyed their weaponry and equipment.

The Syrian crisis has dragged on for over two years, and many people, including large numbers of Syrian soldiers and security personnel, have been killed in the foreign-sponsored militancy.

SAB/SS

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Seventeen major retailers, including Macy’s, Target, and Kohl’s, filed an anti-trust suit yesterday in New York City to protest Visa and MasterCard’s lack of transparency when they set credit card swipe fees.

Bloomberg Businessweek reported on the collusion that the credit card companies are said to be engaged in:

The biggest U.S. payment card firms illegally restrained competition for interchange fees by setting default rates and imposing almost identical rules for accepting cards, the retailers said yesterday in a federal court complaint in New York.

The retailers in the suit decided to “opt out” of a $7.5 billion court ruling from last November that would settle, finally and forever, an eight-year legal battle brought by retailers against the credit card giants. The settlement, the largest in anti-trust history, would still allow Visa and MasterCard to adjust fees in the future without disclosure or transparency, according to the new lawsuit. In addition the settlement would require the retailers to sign off on ever filing lawsuits over those fees, thus protecting the card companies from other anti-trust lawsuits in the future. It would, in effect, guarantee the existence of a cartel without interference.

By opting out, the retailers are hopeful that the new lawsuit will be able to force the card companies to be more transparent and to allow banks and other financial institutions to compete by offering other cards with lower fees. Although the world’s largest retailer, Walmart, didn’t join in the suit, observers are predicting it will file its own separate suit against the card companies.

The biggest complaint is that swipe fees have more than tripled since 2004 and now pour more than $50 billion annually into the pockets of Visa and MasterCard and the issuing banks, which use increasingly inexpensive technology to process the transactions. While fees elsewhere have declined – in Europe swipe fees are just one-eighth of those in the United States – fees in the United States have continued to accelerate, bringing such fees to be the second largest expense retailers pay next to salaries, and costing the average American family more than $400 a year.

The National Retail Federation opposes the November settlement

because it does little to address high fees charged in the past and nothing to prevent them from rising higher in the future. The $7.25 billion figure represents less than three months’ worth of swipe fee collections … and the settlement fails to reform the cartel-like system where Visa and MasterCard set a rigid schedule of swipe fees all banks agree to follow while refusing to negotiate with merchants.

The proposal does nothing to disclose the hidden fees or otherwise create transparency that would encourage competition. And retailers would face a long-term ban on future lawsuits over swipe fees, effectively allowing card industry practices to continue unchallenged.

The swipe fees, which average two percent (or $2 out of every $100 transaction), in many cases wipe out any profit a merchant might make on a sale. This forces him to either forgo taking credit cards, or pass on the costs to his customer through higher prices. Either way such fees act as a restraint of trade simply because consumers buy less when prices go up.

As expected, the Electronics Payments Coalition (EPC), which represents Visa, MasterCard, and the banks and credit unions that issue bank cards, says that despite the new lawsuit, the November settlement is likely to be finalized and binding on all in September. Trish Wexler, spokeswoman for the EPC, expected the lawsuit to fail:

They were saying they were going to do this for nearly a year now. I find it hard to understand why they think they could do any better with a new lawsuit using the same old arguments that they’ve already exhausted over the course of this litigation.

Whether the new lawsuit will perform a miracle and eliminate the backroom machinations that are enabling big banks and card companies to continue to fleece the consumer with ever higher fees remains to be seen. What is certain is they will continue to defend this massive and increasing flow of cash for as long as it takes. Marketplace competition is to be avoided at any cost. 

A graduate of Cornell University and a former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American magazine and blogs frequently at www.LightFromTheRight.com, primarily on economics and politics. He can be reached at
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.

This article originally appeared on: The New American

Radio talk-show host Mike Gallagher is the latest “conservative” media personality to endorse amnesty.  Since he revealed his Road to Damascus conversion on this topic a few days ago, Gallagher has been skewered by one-time fans.

Perhaps they should cease the skewering by ceasing to listen to Gallagher – or any other talk-radio figure who favors amnesty. 

More so than the substance of their position, it is the bad faith and condescension with which they argue for their position that justifies this move.

Those of us who affirm American sovereignty and the rule of law have long recognized that a government that wouldn’t lift a finger to prevent millions of immigrants from flooding into the country illegally certainly isn’t going to now round up and deport them all. So those who insist that this is the only alternative to amnesty set up what logicians call a false dichotomy – one of the logical fallacies identified by Aristotle.

Gallagher and his ilk attribute to their opponents a position that the latter do not hold. Worse, their enemies assign to respecters of the rule of law a position that is a species of wishful thinking, and one that the resisters of amnesty have always known, and known better than anyone, is wishful thinking.

Those who ache for America to remain a sovereign nation of laws have always maintained that it is primarily through self-deportation that the illegal immigration issue can be mitigated, though never solved.

This brings us to another point.

Pro-amnesty “conservative” personalities and politicians – along with such accomplices as Barack Obama, Janet Napolitano, and La Raza – talk about the need for a “solution” to this problem of our “broken” system. But genuinely conservative (and, for that matter, Christian) thinkers have always known that in life, there are no solutions. As Thomas Sowell has said, there are only “trade-offs.” 

Amnesty, regardless of how it is packaged, is no more a solution to our problems than is the status quo. It isn’t even a more effective response to our situation. However, even if it was, this would not make it a solution, for it will give way to still more problems in the future – like an increase in illegal immigration, something that, according to border agents, is happening now as a result of all of the talk of amnesty!

For amnesty’s apologists to accuse their opponents of “doing nothing” is more dishonesty, more bad faith, on their part. 

First, even if it was true that those who resist amnesty favored letting things be entirely as they are, this is still not a matter of doing nothing. It just could be the case – it undoubtedly is the case – that here, the problem is less of a problem than is the proposed “solution.”

Second, no one wants for things to remain as they are. Those who resist amnesty want illegal immigrants to be denied all welfare entitlements, social services, employment opportunities, and voting and driving privileges. This way, they will deport themselves. Also, they want the government to satisfy its job description and secure the country’s borders – an obligation that has never been subject to conditions.

Gallagher and his colleagues obviously believe that their listeners are stupid. Why else would they expect them to believe that although in the past the government has not managed to secure the borders and deprive illegal immigrants of all the benefits of citizenship – i.e., enforce its own laws – it will do so now? 

And it is hard not to think that Gallagher and company aren’t themselves a bit dense. They won’t endorse any bill, they insist, unless it promises to secure the border. Even in the midst of all of these government scandals, and despite all of their “limited government” rhetoric, they are still going to accept the government’s “promise” to fulfill its constitutional duty – though it hasn’t done this in nearly half-a-century. 

On second’s thought, maybe it is the substance of their position favoring amnesty that calls for turning off these “conservative” media personalities – at least until they wise up some.

This article originally appeared on: The New American

Republicans in the Texas Legislature have succeeded where Obama Democrats have failed. Both houses of the Texas Legislature have passed SB 346 and it awaits the governor’s signature to become law. SB 346, authored by Senator Kel Seliger (R-Amarillo) and sponsored in the House by Representative Charlie Geren (R-Fort Worth), would greatly expand the definition of what is political activity and force groups to come under political reporting requirements.

The first sentence of SB 346 reads: “AN ACT relating to reporting requirements of certain persons who do not meet the definition of political committee.” The bill would apply to:

A person or group of persons [that] accepts political contributions if its members or donors make a payment, including dues, to the person or group of persons and, at the time of making the payments, the members or donors have reason to know that their payments may be used to make political contributions or political expenditures or may be commingled with other funds used to make political contributions or political expenditures.

The reporting requirements would apply to organizations that meet the $25,000 per year threshold. Amazingly for a bill passed by a legislature dominated by supposedly conservative Republicans, it exempts labor unions using the type of wording one might expect from a labor union of Wisconsin government employees:

This subchapter does not apply to a labor organization or any subordinate entity or associated account of a labor organization.

The Wall Street Journal, in an editorial entitled “Texas Targets Conservatives” in its May 22 issue commented:

The groups, which file under sections 501(c)(4) and 501(c)(6) of the tax code, would also have to disclose their donors, providing a new opportunity for advocacy groups to intimidate businesses and others from participating in elections.

The editorial went on to say the bill appears to be “targeting frequent critic Michael Quinn Sullivan (shown) from Texans for Fiscal Responsibility. Mr. Sullivan is on the black list because his group spreads the word about the voting records of lawmakers.”

Conservatives have mobilized against the bill’s passage, inundating the governor’s office with phone calls. Much of the mobilization of phone calls has been accomplished via social networking groups and the number appears to be substantial. Some social group members have posted that the operators who answer the phone were immediately able to prompt them with the bill number when they called asking the governor to veto it. The decision is now in the hands of Governor Rick Perry, a man who talks like a conservative but whose actions don’t always in agree with his words. Considering the large call volume all week asking for him to veto this bill, his lack of a decision by this time is a cause for concern by the groups who have organized this campaign.

This article originally appeared on: The New American

A whistleblower from the Department of Justice has come forward to expose a campaign by the Obama Administration’s Justice Department (DOJ) to pressure its employees to affirm homosexuality. Matt Staver of the Liberty Council, a Virginia-based conservative legal advocacy group, reported that the DOJ employee provided his group with a brochure, entitled LGBT Inclusion at Work: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Managers, that was e-mailed to all DOJ employees. The DOJ has become a stronghold of homosexual activism over the past few years, and its internal policies regarding embracing LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) behavior will doubtless increasingly permeate the entire federal workforce.

While the seven LGBT-affirming points delineated in the brochure are not overtly put forth as required behavior of DOJ staffers, they certainly come across as strong recommendations for managers – and by cross-pollination, employees – of the federal law enforcement bureaucracy. The memorandum warns DOJ staff to “assume that LGBT employees and their allies are listening to what you’re saying (whether in a meeting or around the proverbial water cooler) and will read what you’re writing (whether in a casual email or in a formal document.” The implication is unmistakeable: DOJ employees are to be forewarned that their language must be “inclusive and respectful” of LGBT persons and might even be used against them if it is not.

The brochure warns that the words “husband” and “wife” are too “gender specific” for a LGBT-affirming work environment, and should be replaced with such terms as “partner,” “significant other,” and “spouse.” Also out are terms like “gay lifestyle” and “sexual preference,” having been determined at the highest levels of homosexual activism to constitute inappropriate or disrespectful attitudes.

The memorandum strongly recommends that DOJ staff acknowledge a homosexual employee’s unique lifestyle in an affirming manner. “DO ask LGBT employees about their weekend, their spouse/partner, or their family/children,” it encourages, just like one would show interest in the lifestyle of a normal, non-homosexual person. “DO acknowledge important events in an LGBT employee’s life,” like a same-sex marriage, the birth of a child, or other normal life functions, “in the same way you would for a heterosexual employee” – “heterosexual” apparently having not yet made the banned-word list.

DOJ managers are encouraged to display “a symbol in your office (DOJ Pride sticker, copy of this brochure, etc.) indicating that it is a ‘safe place’” for homosexuals to congregate. DOJ Pride is the homosexual lobby hard at work in the Department of Justice, and the group responsible for the intimidating memorandum.

Managers are also strongly encouraged to make sure homosexual employees get a foot up on advancing through the ranks of DOJ employees. While lip service is given to “merit” as the sole issue in an employee’s advancement, the focus of the document is clearly on pushing for the treatment of homosexuals as the DOJ’s favored “diversity” group.

“Creating a work environment in which LGBT employees feel welcome and included has been shown to boost the performance and productivity of LGBT and non-LGBT employees alike,” the DOJ Pride-produced epistle claims. Managers, of course, are key to compelling all employees to enthusiastically affirm homosexuality and to ensure that the LGBT culture permeates the entire DOJ atmosphere.

Subtle pressure by supervisors on employees who may be inclined to consider homosexuality as unhealthy and detrimental – Christians, for example – is to be preferred over filing grievances or turning to federal rules implemented for “protected” classes of employees like homosexuals. “Managers have a more direct impact on workplace climate for employees including lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender employees, than nondiscrimination and EEO policies,” the brochure points out.”

No other “classes” of DOJ employee other than LGBT are mentioned in the brochure, and it is clear that any suggestion of moral opposition to their behavior is unacceptable, Liberty Counsel said in a press release exposing the LGBT brochure. “No longer can Christians quietly dissent or remain neutral to same-sex sexual relationships,” Liberty Counsel warned. “Now the DOJ is requiring federal employees to affirm sexual behaviors that every major religion throughout history has deemed immoral.”

The brochure includes quotes from LGBT employees whose behavior others are now required to affirm, including a man who is convinced he is actually a woman. “I want people to understand that I’m real,” the “transgender” man is quoted as saying. “I want to be recognized as the gender I really am…. Just imagine if people were constantly debating YOUR bathroom privileges. Imagine how humiliating that would be.”

Liberty Counsel’s Matt Staver said the DOJ campaign is the latest in the Obama administration’s efforts to force the acceptance of homosexuality on the nation as a whole. “This Administration is pushing the most radical, immoral agenda on the American people,” Staver said. “Christians are not merely required to ‘shut up,’ but now they are being coerced to embrace immorality that goes against their sincerely held religious beliefs.”

Staver said that Liberty Counsel will join with other groups and individuals to “do whatever is required to stand for religious freedom amidst this religiously intolerant Administration.”

^{Photo of Department of Justice headquarters in Washington: AP Images}

This article originally appeared on: The New American

Following a historic vote by the leadership of the Boys Scouts of America (BSA) to allow participation by boys who claim to be homosexual, both gay activist groups and conservative, pro-family organizations expressed disapproval of the Scouting program, but for very different reasons. Sixty-one percent of the roughly 1,400 voting members of the BSA’s national council voted May 23 to allow boys who say they are homosexual to become members. The change will go into effect January 1, 2014.

In July of last year the BSA leadership concluded a two-year closed-door study by re-affirming the group’s ban on homosexual scout leaders, a policy that has been in place for the Boy Scouts’ entire 103-year history. Homosexual activists responded by launching an aggressive campaign to force the BSA to change its policy, which has included convincing some of the BSA’s large-scale corporate donors to drop their financial commitments to the group.

The BSA leadership emphasized that the ban against homosexual Scout leaders would remain in place. Tico Perez, commissioner of the BSA’s National Council, told reporters that prohibition has “served us well for 100 years.”

Response from homosexual spokespersons to the BSA policy change was lukewarm at best, with most noting the continued ban against homosexual leaders. “Today is a historic day for Boy Scouts across the country who want to be a part of this great American institution,” said Chad Griffin of the homosexual activist group Human Rights Campaign. “But the new policy doesn’t go far enough. Parents and adults of good moral character, regardless of sexual orientation, should be able to volunteer their time to mentor the next generation of Americans.”

Zach Wahls, a former Eagle Scout, whose mother is a lesbian and who has taken a lead role in pressuring the BSA to cave in on its values, released a statement saying that the “Boy Scouts of America can do better. We welcome the news that the ban on gay Scouts is history, but our work isn’t over until we honor the Scout Law by making this American institution open and affirming to all.”

Wayne Brock, the BSA’s chief executive, said the vote to allow gay teens as members represented a “challenging chapter in our history. While people have differing opinions on this policy, kids are better off when they’re in Scouting.”

In an official statement following the vote, the BSA said that regardless of the change to allow homosexual members, “any sexual conduct, whether heterosexual or homosexual, by youth of Scouting age is contrary to the virtues of Scouting,” a statement apparently meant to re-enforce to program’s commitment to moral purity on the part of participants. “Going forward,” the statement continued, “our Scouting family will continue to focus on reaching and serving youth in order to help them grow into good, strong citizens. America’s youth need Scouting, and by focusing on the goals that unite us, we can continue to accomplish incredible things for young people and the communities we serve.”

Such rhetoric was insufficient for most conservative and Christian groups, many of which have supported and even sponsored Scouting programs over the years. Officials of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), which has been a stalwart supporter of Scouting and which had tried to convince the BSA to hold the line against tolerating homosexuality, expressed their deep disappointment in the decision.

SBC Executive Committee President Frank Page, one of the denomination’s officials who had met with BSA officials, told Baptist Press News that he was “deeply saddened” that the BSA has abandoned its “constitutionally protected expressive message that homosexual behavior is incompatible with the principles enshrined in the Scout Oath and Scout Law.” Page said the vote “ushers in a sea-change in the credibility of the Boy Scouts of America as a viable boys’ organization for millions of Americans who believe strongly in the principles of biblical morality. To claim that the Boys Scouts is the nation’s foremost youth program of character development and values-based leadership training suddenly rings hollow.”

SBC President Fred Luter said the vote represented “a sad day in the history of an organization that for years stood on Christian principles,” adding that his prayers would “go out to the parents and churches who have been forced to make decisions about being a part of the Boy Scouts organization. As Southern Baptists, our commitment to the Word of God and Christian values must take priority over what is ‘politically correct.’ ”

Noted SBC ethicist Richard Land predicted that the many Southern Baptist churches which have sponsored scouting programs would look for alternatives. “Frankly, I can’t imagine a Southern Baptist pastor who would continue to allow his church to sponsor a Boy Scout troop under these new rules,” said Land. “I predict there will be a mass exodus of Southern Baptists and other conservative Christians from the Boy Scouts.”

The Associated Press noted that the Assemblies of God, another denomination that has enjoyed a strong partnership with the Boy Scouts over the years, said that it could no longer support the BSA, and would encourage churches dropping Scouting programs to turn instead to the denomination’s home-grown boys program, Royal Rangers.

John Stemberger of OnMyHonor.net – a coalition of Boy Scouts, Eagle Scouts, Scouting leaders, and parents who had worked to convince BSA officials to hold true to Scouting’s “timeless values” – expressed his group’s “great sadness and deep disappointment” upon realizing that “the most influential youth program in America has turned a tragic corner.” Stemberger predicted that the vote to allow homosexuality to gain a foothold in the Boy Scouts would “completely transform it into an unprincipled and risky proposition for parents. It is truly a sad day for Scouting.”

Stemberger lamented that the Boy Scouts organizations “is embarking on a pathway of social experimentation that we believe will place at risk the very youth the organization is entrusted to serve, while rendering as hollow the tenets of the Scout Oath.”

In a subsequent statement Stemberger announced that his group was joining with other like-minded groups and former BSA members for a closed-door meeting in June in Louisville, Kentucky, to discuss the creation of a new “character development” organization for boys. “We have a desire to explore how we might serve families and young people at the highest standard originally intended by Scouting’s founder, Robert Baden-Powell,” he said of the planned meeting.

^{Photo: AP Images}

This article originally appeared on: The New American

Four out of the eight Iranian presidential candidates approved by the countryâ„¢s Guardian Council have officially started campaigning.

Presidential candidate, Saeed Jalili, who is the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, kicked off his campaign on Friday.

Jalili put ethics and foreign policy at top of his agenda as he spoke to his supporters about his programs, beliefs and ideals during his first campaign gathering since his approval as a candidate.

Å“We announced numerous times that our aim is to expand Islamâ„¢s influence and reduce the influence of the imperialists…. now if American puppets believe that this is expansionism and is a step toward creating a big empire, then let them think what they will,” Jalili said.

The candidates have been busy telling Iranians about their policies and the changes they will bring if elected president.

Another Principlist candidate, Ali-Akbar Velayati, who is a senior advisor to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Seyyed Ali Khamenei, also kicked of his campaign.

Independent candidate, Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of the Expediency Council, kicked of his campaign on Friday as he spoke to his supporters about his programs at Laleh Park in Tehran.

Meanwhile, Tehran Mayor, Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf left the capital for Bushehr to kick of his presidential campaign in the southern Iranian city.

Reformist presidential candidate and former First Vice-President Mohammad-Reza Aref started his campaign on Monday at Tehran University.

Former Telecommunications Minister Mohammad Gharazi, the director of the Strategic Research Center of the Expediency Council Hassan Rohani and lawmaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel are expected to start their campaigns in the coming days.

The president of Iran is elected for a four-year term in a national election, and the Guardian Council vets the candidates.

PG/HGH

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Let’s say you’re like most people and believe the federal government has become too large, too wasteful, too crooked, and too intrusive. Now imagine the morning mail arrives from the money-bleeding U.S. Postal Service ($16 billion in the hole last year) and there’s a letter from the Internal Revenue Service with a stern warning about “penalties for perjury” and a long list of questions and probes about your friends, associates, ideas, and political activities.

Here’s an example, directed from the IRS to the Linchpins of Liberty in Franklin, Tennessee:

“Provide details regarding all training you have provided or will provide. Indicate who has received or will receive the training and submit copies of the training material.”

“Liberty,” it seems, unless it’s a 19th century gift from France standing quietly in New York Harbor, has become a concept that’s now viewed by D.C.’s central planners and tax collectors as a bit too messy, subversive, uncontrolled and individualistic.

Following its review of IRS letters to 11 tea party groups and conservative organizations applying for tax-exempt status, Politico reported that the agency “wanted to know everything – in some cases, it even seemed curious about what members were thinking.”

In fact, it went beyond what people were thinking with the IRS summoning a pro-life group in Iowa to reveal detailed information regarding the content of their prayers.

“Please detail the content of the members of your organization’s prayers,” the IRS asked the Coalition for Life in Iowa. Additionally, the IRS office in Cincinnati asked all board members of the Iowa group to sign a sworn declaration promising not to picket Planned Parenthood.

And from ABC News, listed below is a sample of the questions and requests that ABC News found in roughly half a dozen IRS questionnaires sent to tea party groups” from 2010 to 2012:

“Provide copies of the agendas and minutes of your Board meetings and, if applicable, membership meetings, including a description of legislative and electoral issues discussed, and whether candidates for political office were invited to address the meeting.”

“Submit the following information relating to your past and present directors, officers and key employees: (a) Provide a resume for each.”

“The names of donors, contributors and grantors. The amount of each of the donations, contributions, and grants and the dates you received them.”

“Fully describe your youth outreach program with the local school.”

“Provide a list of all issues that are important to your organization. Indicate your position regarding each issue.”

“Please explain in detail your organization’s involvement with the Tea Party.”

“Provide copies of handbills you distributed at your monthly meetings.”

“The names of persons from your organization and the amount of time they spent on the event or program, or events.” The IRS also asked for “copies of all your current web pages, including blog posts” and “copies of all your newsletters, bulletins, flyers or any other media or literature you have disseminated to your members or others,” plus copies of related information on “Facebook and other social networking sites,” and “copies of stories or articles that have been published about you.”

And this: “Do you have a close relationship with any candidate for political office or political party? If so, describe fully the nature of that relationship.”

On June 29, 2011, IRS staffers told senior agency official Lois Lerner that they were giving special scrutiny to “statements in the case file” by groups that “criticize how the country is being run.” Also targeted were groups that focused on government spending, deficits, government debt, and educating people on ways to “make America a better place to live.”

On Jan. 15, 2012, the IRS widened its target list to include “political action type organizations” involved in education on the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

In his recent column, “In AP, Rosen investigations, government makes criminals of reporters” (May 22, 2013), Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank pointed to the fundamental threats to freedom in the Obama administration’s “broad snooping into Associated Press phone records,” along with the administration’s spying on journalist James Rosen at Fox News and the administration’s identification of Rosen in a search warrant as a “possible co-conspirator” in violation of the Espionage Act.

“To treat a reporter as a criminal for doing his job – seeking out information the government doesn’t want made public – deprives Americans of the First Amendment freedom on which all other constitutional rights are based,” warned Milbank. “Guns? Privacy? Due Process? Equal protection? If you can’t speak out, you can’t defend those rights, either.”

And while White House Press Secretary Jay Carney says that President Obama is “a fierce defender of the First Amendment” and doesn’t think “journalists should be prosecuted for doing their jobs,” Milbank points out that the Obama administration “has launched more leak prosecutions than all previous administrations combined.”

On what’s next, Milbank posted a warning: “If the administration is spying on reporters and accusing them of criminality just for asking questions – well, who knows what else this crowd is capable of doing?”

It’s “a culture of cover-ups and intimidation that is giving the administration so much trouble,” recently asserted Sen. John Cornyn, a member of the Judiciary Committee, referring to the Justice Department’s covert seizure of phone records at The Associated Press.

Charging that “our constitutional rights have been violated,” the President and Chief Executive Officer of The Associated Press, Gary Pruitt, said the government’s surreptitious monitoring of reporters has already had a chilling effect on news-gathering operations.

News sources, understandably, are more likely to be reluctant to call reporters if they think the government is on the line – and that’s especially true if the disclosure is about government transgressions.

“Under their own rules, they are required to narrow this request as narrowly as possible so as to not tread upon the First Amendment,” explained Pruitt on CBS’s Face the Nation, referring to the Obama administration’s phone monitoring.

“And yet they had a broad, sweeping collection, and they did it secretly,” explained Pruitt. “Their rules require them to come to us first, but in this case they didn’t, claiming an exception, saying that would have posed a substantial threat to their investigation. But they have not explained why it would and we can’t understand why it would.”

The end product of this increased monitoring and harassment of the press, this increased threat to reporters and to sources who come forward with information, is that the government is likely to become even more insulated from public scrutiny, more heavy-handed and inept, and more shielded from reform.

Once the government is successful in restricting the news-gathering operations of the press, warned Pruitt, “the people of the United States will only know what the government wants them to know and that’s not what the framers of the Constitution had in mind when they wrote the First Amendment.”

Pruitt has it right about the philosophy of the nation’s Founders, as demonstrated in the letters of Thomas Jefferson.

“Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost,” asserted Jefferson in a January 28, 1786, letter to James Currie (1745-1807), a Virginia physician and frequent correspondent during Jefferson’s residence in France.

“Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter,” wrote Jefferson in 1787 to Edward Carrington, a Lieutenant Colonel in the Continental Army and a Virginia delegate to the Continental Congress from 1786 to 1788.

“Where the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe,” stated Jefferson in 1816 in a letter to Colonel Charles Yancey, a commanding officer in Virginia Militia during the War of 1812.

And regarding those who seek to restrict the freedom of the press, Jefferson wrote this in 1804 to Judge John Tyler on the U.S. Circuit Court in Richmond: “No experiment can be more interesting than that we are now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact, that man may be governed by reason and truth. Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him all avenues of truth. The most effectual hitherto found, is the freedom of the press. It is, therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions.”

Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Communist Party, 1953 to 1964, also understood the importance of the press. “The press,” he proclaimed, “is our chief ideological weapon.”

This article originally appeared on: The New American

UK Daily Mail
May 25, 2013

Woolwich murder suspect Michael Adebolajo was approached by MI5 six months ago and asked if he would work for the security service, it was claimed last night.

A childhood friend of the suspected terrorist claimed MI5 started following Adebolajo after a trip to Kenya last year.

Abu Nusaybah said the murder suspect believed MI5 was bugging him and ‘knocking on his door’ asking for information on ‘certain individuals’.

MI5 is already facing criticism after it emerged Adebolajo and fellow suspect Michael Adebowale had been monitored by the security service for eight years.

It is facing an inquiry by MPs amid a raft of devastating revelations about the alleged killers’ known links to Islamist extremism.

Mr Nusaybah, speaking on the BBC’s Newsnight programme last night about Abebolajo’s MI5 claims, said : ‘His wording was, “They are bugging me — they won’t leave me alone.”

Full article here

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This article was posted: Saturday, May 25, 2013 at 7:00 am

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

UK Daily Mail
May 25, 2013

Woolwich murder suspect Michael Adebolajo was approached by MI5 six months ago and asked if he would work for the security service, it was claimed last night.

A childhood friend of the suspected terrorist claimed MI5 started following Adebolajo after a trip to Kenya last year.

Abu Nusaybah said the murder suspect believed MI5 was bugging him and ‘knocking on his door’ asking for information on ‘certain individuals’.

MI5 is already facing criticism after it emerged Adebolajo and fellow suspect Michael Adebowale had been monitored by the security service for eight years.

It is facing an inquiry by MPs amid a raft of devastating revelations about the alleged killers’ known links to Islamist extremism.

Mr Nusaybah, speaking on the BBC’s Newsnight programme last night about Abebolajo’s MI5 claims, said : ‘His wording was, “They are bugging me — they won’t leave me alone.”

Full article here

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This article was posted: Saturday, May 25, 2013 at 7:00 am

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

Only conspiracy kooks produce real evidence

Paul Craig Roberts
Infowars.com
May 25, 2013

Illustration: David Dees

Have you ever wondered how the government’s misinformation gains traction?

What I have noticed is that whenever a stunning episode occurs, such as 9/11 or the Boston Marathon bombing, most everyone whether on the right or left goes along with the government’s explanation, because they can hook their agenda to the government’s account.

The leftwing likes the official stories of Muslims creating terrorist mayhem in America, because it proves their blowback theory and satisfies them that the dispossessed and oppressed can fight back against imperialism.

The patriotic rightwing likes the official story, because it proves America is attacked for its goodness or because terrorists were allowed in by immigration authorities and nurtured by welfare, or because the government, which can’t do anything right, ignored plentiful warnings.

Whatever the government says, no matter how problematical, the official story gets its traction from its compatibility with existing predispositions and agendas.

In such a country, truth has no relevance. Only agendas are important.

A person can see this everywhere. I could write volumes illustrating how agenda-driven writers across the spectrum will support the most improbable government stories despite the absence of any evidence simply because the government’s line can be used to support their agendas.

For example, a conservative writer in the June issue of Chronicles uses the government’s story about the alleged Boston Marathon bombers, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, to argue against immigration, amnesty for illegals, and political asylum for Muslims. He writes: “Even the most high-tech security systems imaginable will inevitably fail as they are overwhelmed by a flood of often hostile and dangerous immigrants.”

The writer accepts all of the improbable government statements as proof that the brothers were guilty. The wounded brother who was unable to respond to the boat owner who discovered him and had to be put on life support somehow managed to write a confession on the inside of the boat.

As soon as the authorities have the brother locked up in a hospital on life support, “unnamed officials” and “authorities who remain anonymous” are planting the story in the media that the suspect is signing written confessions of his guilt while on life support. No one has seen any of these written confessions. But we know that they exist, because the government and media say so.

The conservative writer knows that Dzhokhar is guilty because he is Muslim and a Chechen. Therefore, it does not occur to the writer to wonder about the agenda of the unnamed sources who are busy at work creating belief in the brothers’ guilt. This insures that no juror would dare vote for acquittal and have to explain it to family and friends. Innocent until proven guilty in a court has been thrown out the window. This should disturb the conservative writer, but doesn’t.

The conservative writer sees Chechen ethnicity as an indication of guilt even though the brothers grew up in the US as normal Americans, because Chechens are “engaged in anti-Russian jihad.” But Chechens have no reason for hostility against the US. As evidence indicates, Washington supports the Chechens in their conflict with Russia. By supporting Chechen terrorism, Washington violates all of the laws that it ruthlessly applies to compassionate Americans who give donations to Palestinian charities that Washington alleges are run by Hamas, a Washington-declared terrorist organization.

It doesn’t occur to the conservative writer that something is amiss when martial law
is established over one of America’s main cities and its metropolitan area, 10,000 heavily armed troops are put on the streets with tanks, and citizens are ordered out of their homes with their hands over their heads, all of this just to search for one wounded 19-year old suspect. Instead the writer blames the “surveillance state” on “the inevitable consequences of suicidal liberalism” which has embraced “the oldest sin in the world: rebellion against authority.” The writer is so pleased to use the government’s story line as a way of indulging the conservative’s romance with authority and striking a blow at liberalism that he does not notice that he has lined up against the Founding Fathers who signed the Declaration of Independence and rebelled against authority.

I could just as easily have used a left-wing writer to illustrate the point that improbable explanations are acceptable if they fit with predispositions and can be employed in behalf of an agenda.

Think about it. Do you not think that it is extraordinary that the only investigations we have of such events as 9/11 and the Boston Marathon bombing are private investigations, such as this investigation of the backpacks: http://whowhatwhy.com/2013/05/20/official-story-has-odd-wrinkles-a-pack-of-questions-about-the-boston-bombing-backpacks/

There was no investigation of 9/11. Indeed, the White House resisted any inquiry at all for one year despite the insistent demands from the 9/11 families. NIST did not investigate anything. NIST simply constructed a computer model that was consistent with the government’s story. The 9/11 Commission simply sat and listened to the government’s explanation and wrote it down. These are not investigations.

The only investigations have come from a physicist who proved that WTC 7 came down at free fall and was thus the result of controlled demolition, from a team of scientists who examined dust from the WTC towers and found nano-thermite, from high-rise architects and structural engineers with decades of experience, and from first responders and firefighters who were in the towers and experienced explosions throughout the towers, even in the sub-basements.

We have reached the point where evidence is no longer required. The government’s statements suffice. Only conspiracy kooks produce real evidence.

In America, government statements have a unique authority. This authority comes from the white hat that the US wore in World War II and in the subsequent Cold War. It was easy to demonize Nazi Germany, Soviet Communism and Maoist China. Even today when Russian publications interview me about the perilous state of civil liberty in the US and Washington’s endless illegal military attacks abroad, I sometimes receive reports that some Russians believe that it was an impostor who was interviewed, not the real Paul Craig Roberts. There are Russians who believe that it was President Reagan who brought freedom to Russia, and as I served in the Reagan administration these Russians associate me with their vision of America as a light unto the world. Some Russians actually believe that Washington’s wars are truly wars of liberation.

The same illusions reign among Chinese dissidents. Chen Guangcheng is the Chinese dissident who sought refuge in the US Embassy in China. Recently he was interviewed by the BBC World Service. Chen Guangcheng believes that the US protects human rights while China suppresses human rights. He complained to the BBC that in China police can arrest citizens and detain them for as long as six months without accounting for their detainment. He thought that the US and UK should publicly protest this violation of due process, a human right. Apparently, Chen Guangcheng is unaware that US citizens are subject to indefinite detention without due process and even to assassination without due process.

The Chinese government allowed Chen Guangcheng safe passage to leave China and live in the US. Chen Guangcheng is so dazzled by his illusions of America as a human rights beacon that it has never occurred to him that the oppressive, human rights-violating Chinese government gave him safe passage, but that Julian Assange, after being given political asylum by Ecuador is still confined to the Ecuadoran embassy in London, because Washington will not allow its UK puppet state to permit his safe passage to Ecuador.

Perhaps Chen Guangcheng and the Chinese and Russian dissidents who are so enamored of the US could gain some needed perspective if they were to read US soldier Terry Holdbrooks’ book about the treatment given to the Guantanamo prisoners. Holdbrooks was there on the scene, part of the process, and this is what he told RT: “The torture and information extraction methods that we used certainly created a great deal of doubt and questions in my mind to whether or not this was my America. But when I thought about what we were doing there and how we go about doing it, it did not seem like the America I signed up to defend. It did not seem like the America I grew up in. And that in itself was a very disillusioning experience.” http://rt.com/news/guantanamo-guard-islam-torture-608/

In a May 17 Wall Street Journal.com article, Peggy Noonan wrote that President Obama has lost his patina of high-mindedness. What did Obama do that brought this loss upon himself? Is it because he sits in the Oval Office approving lists of US citizens to be assassinated without due process of law? Is it because he detains US citizens indefinitely in violation of habeas corpus? Is it because he has kept open the torture prison at Guantanamo? Is it because he continued the war that the neoconservatives started, despite his promise to end it, and started new wars?

Is it because he attacks with drones people in their homes, medical centers, and work places in countries with which the US is not at war? Is it because his corrupt administration spies on American citizens without warrants and without cause?

No. It is none of these reasons. In Noonan’s view these are not offenses for which presidents, even Democratic ones, lose their high-minded patina. Obama can no longer be trusted, because the IRS hassled some conservative political activists.

Noonan is a Republican, and what Obama did wrong was to use the IRS against some Republicans. Apparently, it has not occurred to Noonan that if Obama—or any president—can use the IRS against opponents, he can use Homeland Security and the police state against them. He can use indefinite detention against them. He can use drones against them.

All of these are much more drastic measures. Why isn’t Peggy Noonan concerned?

Because she thinks these measures will only be used against terrorists, just as the IRS is only supposed to be used against tax evaders.

When a public and the commentators who inform it accept the collapse of the Constitution’s authority and the demise of their civil liberties, to complain about the IRS is pointless.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts is the father of Reaganomics and the former head of policy at the Department of Treasury. He is a columnist and was previously the editor of the Wall Street Journal. His latest book, “How the Economy Was Lost: The War of the Worlds,” details why America is disintegrating.

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This article was posted: Saturday, May 25, 2013 at 8:17 am

Tags: constitution, domestic news, police state

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

Only conspiracy kooks produce real evidence

Paul Craig Roberts
Infowars.com
May 25, 2013

Illustration: David Dees

Have you ever wondered how the government’s misinformation gains traction?

What I have noticed is that whenever a stunning episode occurs, such as 9/11 or the Boston Marathon bombing, most everyone whether on the right or left goes along with the government’s explanation, because they can hook their agenda to the government’s account.

The leftwing likes the official stories of Muslims creating terrorist mayhem in America, because it proves their blowback theory and satisfies them that the dispossessed and oppressed can fight back against imperialism.

The patriotic rightwing likes the official story, because it proves America is attacked for its goodness or because terrorists were allowed in by immigration authorities and nurtured by welfare, or because the government, which can’t do anything right, ignored plentiful warnings.

Whatever the government says, no matter how problematical, the official story gets its traction from its compatibility with existing predispositions and agendas.

In such a country, truth has no relevance. Only agendas are important.

A person can see this everywhere. I could write volumes illustrating how agenda-driven writers across the spectrum will support the most improbable government stories despite the absence of any evidence simply because the government’s line can be used to support their agendas.

For example, a conservative writer in the June issue of Chronicles uses the government’s story about the alleged Boston Marathon bombers, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, to argue against immigration, amnesty for illegals, and political asylum for Muslims. He writes: “Even the most high-tech security systems imaginable will inevitably fail as they are overwhelmed by a flood of often hostile and dangerous immigrants.”

The writer accepts all of the improbable government statements as proof that the brothers were guilty. The wounded brother who was unable to respond to the boat owner who discovered him and had to be put on life support somehow managed to write a confession on the inside of the boat.

As soon as the authorities have the brother locked up in a hospital on life support, “unnamed officials” and “authorities who remain anonymous” are planting the story in the media that the suspect is signing written confessions of his guilt while on life support. No one has seen any of these written confessions. But we know that they exist, because the government and media say so.

The conservative writer knows that Dzhokhar is guilty because he is Muslim and a Chechen. Therefore, it does not occur to the writer to wonder about the agenda of the unnamed sources who are busy at work creating belief in the brothers’ guilt. This insures that no juror would dare vote for acquittal and have to explain it to family and friends. Innocent until proven guilty in a court has been thrown out the window. This should disturb the conservative writer, but doesn’t.

The conservative writer sees Chechen ethnicity as an indication of guilt even though the brothers grew up in the US as normal Americans, because Chechens are “engaged in anti-Russian jihad.” But Chechens have no reason for hostility against the US. As evidence indicates, Washington supports the Chechens in their conflict with Russia. By supporting Chechen terrorism, Washington violates all of the laws that it ruthlessly applies to compassionate Americans who give donations to Palestinian charities that Washington alleges are run by Hamas, a Washington-declared terrorist organization.

It doesn’t occur to the conservative writer that something is amiss when martial law
is established over one of America’s main cities and its metropolitan area, 10,000 heavily armed troops are put on the streets with tanks, and citizens are ordered out of their homes with their hands over their heads, all of this just to search for one wounded 19-year old suspect. Instead the writer blames the “surveillance state” on “the inevitable consequences of suicidal liberalism” which has embraced “the oldest sin in the world: rebellion against authority.” The writer is so pleased to use the government’s story line as a way of indulging the conservative’s romance with authority and striking a blow at liberalism that he does not notice that he has lined up against the Founding Fathers who signed the Declaration of Independence and rebelled against authority.

I could just as easily have used a left-wing writer to illustrate the point that improbable explanations are acceptable if they fit with predispositions and can be employed in behalf of an agenda.

Think about it. Do you not think that it is extraordinary that the only investigations we have of such events as 9/11 and the Boston Marathon bombing are private investigations, such as this investigation of the backpacks: http://whowhatwhy.com/2013/05/20/official-story-has-odd-wrinkles-a-pack-of-questions-about-the-boston-bombing-backpacks/

There was no investigation of 9/11. Indeed, the White House resisted any inquiry at all for one year despite the insistent demands from the 9/11 families. NIST did not investigate anything. NIST simply constructed a computer model that was consistent with the government’s story. The 9/11 Commission simply sat and listened to the government’s explanation and wrote it down. These are not investigations.

The only investigations have come from a physicist who proved that WTC 7 came down at free fall and was thus the result of controlled demolition, from a team of scientists who examined dust from the WTC towers and found nano-thermite, from high-rise architects and structural engineers with decades of experience, and from first responders and firefighters who were in the towers and experienced explosions throughout the towers, even in the sub-basements.

We have reached the point where evidence is no longer required. The government’s statements suffice. Only conspiracy kooks produce real evidence.

In America, government statements have a unique authority. This authority comes from the white hat that the US wore in World War II and in the subsequent Cold War. It was easy to demonize Nazi Germany, Soviet Communism and Maoist China. Even today when Russian publications interview me about the perilous state of civil liberty in the US and Washington’s endless illegal military attacks abroad, I sometimes receive reports that some Russians believe that it was an impostor who was interviewed, not the real Paul Craig Roberts. There are Russians who believe that it was President Reagan who brought freedom to Russia, and as I served in the Reagan administration these Russians associate me with their vision of America as a light unto the world. Some Russians actually believe that Washington’s wars are truly wars of liberation.

The same illusions reign among Chinese dissidents. Chen Guangcheng is the Chinese dissident who sought refuge in the US Embassy in China. Recently he was interviewed by the BBC World Service. Chen Guangcheng believes that the US protects human rights while China suppresses human rights. He complained to the BBC that in China police can arrest citizens and detain them for as long as six months without accounting for their detainment. He thought that the US and UK should publicly protest this violation of due process, a human right. Apparently, Chen Guangcheng is unaware that US citizens are subject to indefinite detention without due process and even to assassination without due process.

The Chinese government allowed Chen Guangcheng safe passage to leave China and live in the US. Chen Guangcheng is so dazzled by his illusions of America as a human rights beacon that it has never occurred to him that the oppressive, human rights-violating Chinese government gave him safe passage, but that Julian Assange, after being given political asylum by Ecuador is still confined to the Ecuadoran embassy in London, because Washington will not allow its UK puppet state to permit his safe passage to Ecuador.

Perhaps Chen Guangcheng and the Chinese and Russian dissidents who are so enamored of the US could gain some needed perspective if they were to read US soldier Terry Holdbrooks’ book about the treatment given to the Guantanamo prisoners. Holdbrooks was there on the scene, part of the process, and this is what he told RT: “The torture and information extraction methods that we used certainly created a great deal of doubt and questions in my mind to whether or not this was my America. But when I thought about what we were doing there and how we go about doing it, it did not seem like the America I signed up to defend. It did not seem like the America I grew up in. And that in itself was a very disillusioning experience.” http://rt.com/news/guantanamo-guard-islam-torture-608/

In a May 17 Wall Street Journal.com article, Peggy Noonan wrote that President Obama has lost his patina of high-mindedness. What did Obama do that brought this loss upon himself? Is it because he sits in the Oval Office approving lists of US citizens to be assassinated without due process of law? Is it because he detains US citizens indefinitely in violation of habeas corpus? Is it because he has kept open the torture prison at Guantanamo? Is it because he continued the war that the neoconservatives started, despite his promise to end it, and started new wars?

Is it because he attacks with drones people in their homes, medical centers, and work places in countries with which the US is not at war? Is it because his corrupt administration spies on American citizens without warrants and without cause?

No. It is none of these reasons. In Noonan’s view these are not offenses for which presidents, even Democratic ones, lose their high-minded patina. Obama can no longer be trusted, because the IRS hassled some conservative political activists.

Noonan is a Republican, and what Obama did wrong was to use the IRS against some Republicans. Apparently, it has not occurred to Noonan that if Obama—or any president—can use the IRS against opponents, he can use Homeland Security and the police state against them. He can use indefinite detention against them. He can use drones against them.

All of these are much more drastic measures. Why isn’t Peggy Noonan concerned?

Because she thinks these measures will only be used against terrorists, just as the IRS is only supposed to be used against tax evaders.

When a public and the commentators who inform it accept the collapse of the Constitution’s authority and the demise of their civil liberties, to complain about the IRS is pointless.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts is the father of Reaganomics and the former head of policy at the Department of Treasury. He is a columnist and was previously the editor of the Wall Street Journal. His latest book, “How the Economy Was Lost: The War of the Worlds,” details why America is disintegrating.

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This article was posted: Saturday, May 25, 2013 at 8:17 am

Tags: constitution, domestic news, police state

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

Eric Peters
ericpetersautos.com
May 25, 2013

Ever wonder how come there are men (and women) in costumes “policing” the rest of us?

Most people accept this relationship as both given — and eternal. That there have always been men (if not always women) in costumes “policing” the rest of us. But, in fact, it’s a relatively novel thing. Think back to your schooldays. Do you recall any mention of police when you were learning about the colonial era and the American Revolution? There were sheriffs, yes — and the local militia. But these were concerned mostly with keeping the peace — that is, stepping in when someone harmed someone else. Up to and even during the Civil War — a titanic struggle between the fading remnants of the old republican idea and the centralized, omnipotent state that took its place — the idea of police as we know it was essentially unknown.

It is a modern concept — one developed out of the company town idea.

You may or may not recall the company town. It is a place — once upon a time, a very real place — in which the company not only employs nearly everyone but also controls nearly everyone. During work hours and — most relevant in terms of the discussion at hand — the rest of the time, too. This is achieved by paying the workers not in specie, but in “script” or tin coinage or some other form of fiat currency issued by the company — and good at the company stores in the company town where all the company workers live. Even the worker’s homes are company homes. In the company town, everything you did was the company’s business. And to keep it all nicely organized, there were company police.

Read more

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This article was posted: Saturday, May 25, 2013 at 7:27 am

Tags: domestic news, police state

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

Eric Peters
ericpetersautos.com
May 25, 2013

Ever wonder how come there are men (and women) in costumes “policing” the rest of us?

Most people accept this relationship as both given — and eternal. That there have always been men (if not always women) in costumes “policing” the rest of us. But, in fact, it’s a relatively novel thing. Think back to your schooldays. Do you recall any mention of police when you were learning about the colonial era and the American Revolution? There were sheriffs, yes — and the local militia. But these were concerned mostly with keeping the peace — that is, stepping in when someone harmed someone else. Up to and even during the Civil War — a titanic struggle between the fading remnants of the old republican idea and the centralized, omnipotent state that took its place — the idea of police as we know it was essentially unknown.

It is a modern concept — one developed out of the company town idea.

You may or may not recall the company town. It is a place — once upon a time, a very real place — in which the company not only employs nearly everyone but also controls nearly everyone. During work hours and — most relevant in terms of the discussion at hand — the rest of the time, too. This is achieved by paying the workers not in specie, but in “script” or tin coinage or some other form of fiat currency issued by the company — and good at the company stores in the company town where all the company workers live. Even the worker’s homes are company homes. In the company town, everything you did was the company’s business. And to keep it all nicely organized, there were company police.

Read more

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This article was posted: Saturday, May 25, 2013 at 7:27 am

Tags: domestic news, police state

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

John W. Whitehead
lewrockwell.com
May 25, 2014

“[F]orce alone cannot make us safe. We cannot use force everywhere that a radical ideology takes root; and in the absence of a strategy that reduces the well-spring of extremism, a perpetual war — through drones or Special Forces or troop deployments — will prove self-defeating, and alter our country in troubling ways.” ~ Barack Obama, May 23, 2013

President Obama’s declaration that “America is at a crossroads” in the fight against terror, a fight that is increasingly turning inwards, setting its sights on homegrown extremists, should give every American pause.

Read more

We have indeed reached a crossroads. History may show that from this point forward, we will have left behind any semblance of constitutional government and entered into a militaristic state where all citizens are suspects and security trumps freedom. Certainly, this is a time when government officials operate off their own inscrutable, self-serving playbook with little in the way of checks and balances, while American citizens are subjected to all manner of indignities and violations with little hope of defending themselves. We have moved beyond the era of representative government and entered a new age, let’s call it the age of authoritarianism.

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This article was posted: Saturday, May 25, 2013 at 7:32 am

Tags: constitution, domestic news, terrorism

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

John W. Whitehead
lewrockwell.com
May 25, 2014

“[F]orce alone cannot make us safe. We cannot use force everywhere that a radical ideology takes root; and in the absence of a strategy that reduces the well-spring of extremism, a perpetual war — through drones or Special Forces or troop deployments — will prove self-defeating, and alter our country in troubling ways.” ~ Barack Obama, May 23, 2013

President Obama’s declaration that “America is at a crossroads” in the fight against terror, a fight that is increasingly turning inwards, setting its sights on homegrown extremists, should give every American pause.

Read more

We have indeed reached a crossroads. History may show that from this point forward, we will have left behind any semblance of constitutional government and entered into a militaristic state where all citizens are suspects and security trumps freedom. Certainly, this is a time when government officials operate off their own inscrutable, self-serving playbook with little in the way of checks and balances, while American citizens are subjected to all manner of indignities and violations with little hope of defending themselves. We have moved beyond the era of representative government and entered a new age, let’s call it the age of authoritarianism.

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This article was posted: Saturday, May 25, 2013 at 7:32 am

Tags: constitution, domestic news, terrorism

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

telegraph.co.uk
May 25, 2013

Cameron D’Ambrosio, an 18-year-old aspiring rapper from Methuen, about 30 miles north of Boston, was arrested on May 1 after he posted a note on his Facebook page that included the words “a boston bombinb wait till u see the s I do.”

D’Ambrosio was charged with “communicating terrorist threats” and faces as many as 20 years in prison if he is convicted.

D’Ambrosio’s lawyer and his family members argued at a bail review hearing this week that the teenager, who has also posted several expletive-laden rap videos online, posed no immediate threat and should be granted bail.

Read more

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This article was posted: Saturday, May 25, 2013 at 7:10 am

Tags: domestic news, terrorism

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

telegraph.co.uk
May 25, 2013

Cameron D’Ambrosio, an 18-year-old aspiring rapper from Methuen, about 30 miles north of Boston, was arrested on May 1 after he posted a note on his Facebook page that included the words “a boston bombinb wait till u see the s I do.”

D’Ambrosio was charged with “communicating terrorist threats” and faces as many as 20 years in prison if he is convicted.

D’Ambrosio’s lawyer and his family members argued at a bail review hearing this week that the teenager, who has also posted several expletive-laden rap videos online, posed no immediate threat and should be granted bail.

Read more

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This article was posted: Saturday, May 25, 2013 at 7:10 am

Tags: domestic news, terrorism

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

Dave Larsen
mercurynews.com
May 25, 2013

The increasing computerization of cars allows them to capture and transmit data that can help improve highway and driver safety, federal officials said.

But the technology also raises privacy concerns about the ownership and unintended uses of that data, experts said.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is seeking a law that would require automakers to install “black boxes” in every new car and light truck sold starting September 2014. But unbeknownst to their owners, many vehicles already carry event data recorders, or EDRs. The NHTSA estimates that about 96 percent of all 2013 vehicles have the devices.

Read more

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This article was posted: Saturday, May 25, 2013 at 8:04 am

Tags: domestic news, domestic spying, technology

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

therealnews.com
May 25, 2013

Men in heavy armor carry assault rifles, patrolling streets alongside armored personnel carriers. These are scenes from the manhunt in Watertown, following April 15′s Boston Marathon Bombings. After locking down the area, local, state, and federal agencies sent SWAT teams out in force in search of the remaining suspect. The images from those days are striking, and raise serious questions about how and when the use of paramilitary policing tools should be used.

SWAT teams originated in the late 1960s, but their use greatly expanded in the 1980s as the Reagan administration doubled down on the drug war. In 1988 the Byrne Grant Program passed Congress, allocating substantial funding for anti-drug policing. As money was awarded for drug arrests, resources shifted toward drug raids, increasingly using SWAT teams for this purpose. Meanwhile federal programs were introduced increasing training and cooperation between the military and domestic law enforcement to battle drug crime.

Other Reagan-era policies encouraged the transfer of surplus military hardware to law enforcement, which in the 1990s became firmly established by the Clinton Administration’s 1033 Program, incorporating millions of pieces of equipment designed for war zones into domestic policing agencies.

Read more

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This article was posted: Saturday, May 25, 2013 at 7:43 am

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

therealnews.com
May 25, 2013

Men in heavy armor carry assault rifles, patrolling streets alongside armored personnel carriers. These are scenes from the manhunt in Watertown, following April 15′s Boston Marathon Bombings. After locking down the area, local, state, and federal agencies sent SWAT teams out in force in search of the remaining suspect. The images from those days are striking, and raise serious questions about how and when the use of paramilitary policing tools should be used.

SWAT teams originated in the late 1960s, but their use greatly expanded in the 1980s as the Reagan administration doubled down on the drug war. In 1988 the Byrne Grant Program passed Congress, allocating substantial funding for anti-drug policing. As money was awarded for drug arrests, resources shifted toward drug raids, increasingly using SWAT teams for this purpose. Meanwhile federal programs were introduced increasing training and cooperation between the military and domestic law enforcement to battle drug crime.

Other Reagan-era policies encouraged the transfer of surplus military hardware to law enforcement, which in the 1990s became firmly established by the Clinton Administration’s 1033 Program, incorporating millions of pieces of equipment designed for war zones into domestic policing agencies.

Read more

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This article was posted: Saturday, May 25, 2013 at 7:43 am

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

Infowars.com
May 25, 2013

Yesterday, Obama administration mouthpiece MSNBC had their liberal poster-child Rachel Maddow continue her jihad on Alex Jones, this time inventing false claims that Alex believed the tornadoes in Oklahoma were a conspiracy.

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This article was posted: Saturday, May 25, 2013 at 7:00 am

Tags: mainstream media

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

Infowars.com
May 25, 2013

Yesterday, Obama administration mouthpiece MSNBC had their liberal poster-child Rachel Maddow continue her jihad on Alex Jones, this time inventing false claims that Alex believed the tornadoes in Oklahoma were a conspiracy.

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This article was posted: Saturday, May 25, 2013 at 7:00 am

Tags: mainstream media

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

Daniel Strauss
The Hill
May 25, 2013

Several Republicans say their constituents have come to them with examples of Internal Revenue Service intimidation that goes beyond the agency’s targeting of conservative organizations applying for tax-exempt status.

Lawmakers in the House and Senate say they’ve been told of other examples of bullying since the IRS apologized for targeting Tea Party groups.

“Oh, there’s a slew of them,” said Rep. Patrick Tiberi (R-Ohio), a member of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee. He said several lawmakers on the panel had been given tips about over-aggressive actions by the IRS.

Tiberi is one of several lawmakers who went public this week with allegations of wider abuses by the IRS. He and the other officials acknowledged the complaints from their constituents could be true or false, and said that they intended to look into the matters.

Full article here

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This article was posted: Saturday, May 25, 2013 at 7:01 am

Tags: domestic news, government corruption

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

Daniel Strauss
The Hill
May 25, 2013

Several Republicans say their constituents have come to them with examples of Internal Revenue Service intimidation that goes beyond the agency’s targeting of conservative organizations applying for tax-exempt status.

Lawmakers in the House and Senate say they’ve been told of other examples of bullying since the IRS apologized for targeting Tea Party groups.

“Oh, there’s a slew of them,” said Rep. Patrick Tiberi (R-Ohio), a member of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee. He said several lawmakers on the panel had been given tips about over-aggressive actions by the IRS.

Tiberi is one of several lawmakers who went public this week with allegations of wider abuses by the IRS. He and the other officials acknowledged the complaints from their constituents could be true or false, and said that they intended to look into the matters.

Full article here

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This article was posted: Saturday, May 25, 2013 at 7:01 am

Tags: domestic news, government corruption

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

Part I: Graham Fuller, Uncle Ruslan, the CIA and the Boston Bombings

Graham Fuller (foreground) and Turkish Muslim guru Fetullah Gülen who has dark ties to CIA and fanatical Jihadist groups worldwide.

The open press statement of denial by senior reportedly former CIA official Graham Fuller in April of a link between the Boston Bombings and the CIA, labeling the reports “absurd,” may go down in history as one of the worst intelligence blunders [1] in the past century. The public admission by Fuller, on a website reported tied to the CIA, of his relationship to the Uncle of the alleged but not ever convicted Boston bombers opened a can of worms the CIA might well wish never had been opened.

The public admission by Fuller, on a website reported tied to the CIA, of his relationship to the Uncle of the alleged but not ever convicted Boston bombers [2] opened a can of worms the CIA might well wish never had been opened.

A deeper look into Fuller’s role reveals him to be a key figure in what FBI whistle-blower Sibel Edmonds terms American Deep State rogues. Edmonds worked as an FBI translator from Turkish, Azerbaijani and Farsi languages during and after September 11, 2001 when she uncovered damning email and other evidence of criminal networks linking the actors of 9/11, drug networks out of Turkey and terrorists in and around Al Qaeda together with senior Pentagon and other US Government officials. [3]

Fuller, A Deep State Rogue

Whistleblower Sibel Edwards has revealed extraordinary information on the U.S. government’s support for international terrorist networks and organised crime. She was described as “the most gagged person in the history of the United States” by the American Civil Liberties Union.

As later identified, among the people uncovered by Edmonds’ translation efforts at FBI were notorious neoconservative Richard Perle, Iraq war architect who headed Bush’s Defense Policy Board advisory committee in 2001; Douglas Feith, neocon Under-Secretary of Defense under Bush-Cheney; Anwar Yusuf Turani [4], key figure in the anti-Beijing Uygur separatist operations under the name East Turkistan National Freedom Center in Washington DC. East Turkistan is their name for China’s Xinjiang Province where Uygur riots took place several years ago. Turani modestly calls himself President-in-exile, East Turkistan (Xinjiang), though it’s by no means clear who if anyone elected him.

In her classified translations Edmonds discovered that a criminal network had penetrated the highest levels of the US Government including Pentagon and FBI, and were engaged in illegal sales of weapons, including nuclear, of drugs and more. Criminal activities were being protected by claims of State Secrets, she asserted. Repeated attempts to call attention inside the FBI to what she was convinced was a conspiracy against the United States from within came to no avail. Her gripping account to bring attention to an alarming rogue network inside Washington is the subject of her autobiography, Classified Woman — The Sibel Edmonds Story. [5]

Attorney General John Ashcroft went all the way to the Supreme Court to muzzle her under a little-used Doctrine of State Secrets. Edmonds, suffering under an unprecedented Bush Administration gag order, was banned from revealing the complicity of high-ranking US and Turkish figures uncovered by her and duly reported at FBI before she was fired in 2002 for “blowing the whistle.” She partly got around the Government gag by posting photos with no comment on her website. Others filled in the names. [6]

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

Graham Fuller was one of the 21 American Deep State rogues Edmonds posted.

In 1995, according to investigative journalist Daniel Hopsicker, the uncle of the alleged Boston bombers, Ruslan Tsarnaev, “incorporated the Congress of Chechen International Organizations in Maryland, using as the address listed on incorporation documents 11114 Whisperwood Lane, in Rockville Maryland, the home address of his then-father-in-law.” [7] Father-in-law was Graham Fuller whose daughter was married to Uncle Ruslan.

Chechnya, an autonomous province of Russia deeply involved in oil pipelines from the Caspian Sea, has been the scene of Islamic jihad terrorists since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. In 1995 when Uncle Ruslan founded the Congress of Chechen International Organizations from Graham Fuller’s home, the Islamist Jihad terror war against Moscow was raging full-force in Chechnya. Putin and Russian intelligence have repeatedly claimed the terrorism was being fed from outside.

As more is coming out on the role of Fuller, the evidence points to the conclusion that the Chechnya terrorists were also a project bearing the footprints of the “former” CIA political Islam expert, Graham Fuller. By 1988 Fuller had formally moved from a very senior post at CIA to the neo-conservative think tank, RAND Corporation, where he officially worked on the “Middle East, Central Asia, South and Southeast Asia, and problems of ethnicity and religion.” [8]

While at RAND Fuller played a key role gaining asylum for a Turkish national in the USA. Fetullah Gülen, a Turkish national who was forced to flee in 1999 and seek asylum, won his US residence permit due to the intervention of two senior CIA or former men. One was Graham E. Fuller. [9]

Foreign Policy Journal describes the role of Fuller and the CIA in getting indicted Turkish fugitive Gülen asylum in the USA: “Fethullah Gülen became a green card holder despite serious opposition from FBI and from Homeland Security Department. Former CIA officers (formally and informally) such as Graham Fuller and Morton Abromovitz were some of the prominent references in Gülen’s green card application.” [10]

Jihad Spreads to Central Asia

From his new luxurious heavily-guarded estate in Saylorsburg, a remote part of eastern Pennsylvania, Gülen launched a series of fundamentalist Salafist mosques and madrasses, not only in his native Turkey where he was the alleged power behind Turkey’s AKP regime of Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan, himself a product of Gülen’s schools, but across the Islamic regions of Central Asia as they separated from the Soviet Union in the chaos after 1991. [11]

According to Edmonds, an authority on the subject, “US Islamization Operations in Central Asia via Gülen started in late 1997, early 1998. That brings me to …Graham Fuller.” [12]

Fethullah Gulen, lives in Pennsylvania. From there he runs a $25 billion international network. He is tied to hundreds of Gulen charter schools in the United States itself, 36 of which are located in Texas alone.

A memoir by former head of Turkish intelligence, Osman Nuri Gundes, claims that Fethullah Gülen’s worldwide Islamic movement based in Pennsylvania has been providing cover for the CIA since the mid-1990s, and that in the 90s, the movement “sheltered 130 CIA agents” at its schools in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan alone. [13]

Gülen schools in Russian Chechnya and Dagestan regions, both locations of fanatical Jihadists since 1991, were ultimately banned by Putin. The Russian government has banned all Gülen schools and the activities of the Gülen-linked Nurcu sect in Russia. Over 20 Turkish followers of Gülen were deported from Russia in 2002-2004. In 1999 Uzbekistan closed all Gülen’s Madrasas and shortly afterward arrested eight journalists who were graduates of Gülen schools, and found them guilty of setting up an illegal religious group and of involvement in an extremist organization. In Turkmenistan, government authorities placed Gülen’s schools under close scrutiny and have ordered them to scrap the history of religion from curriculums. [14]

Responsible Turkish journalists I’ve met with relate that Gülen-loyal police tied to Edrogan’s AKP have infiltrated the Turkish police, intelligence services and other key state institution and are systematically arresting, purging or silencing all nationalist military, trade union and other secular figues opposed to creation of an Islamic Sharia state in Turkey, uprooting ninety or more years of Kemalist legal foundations. More than one hundred Turkish journalists have been arrested for writing critically about the actions of Gülen’s AKP.

Gülen’s public profile is as a humble, deeply spiritual Imam of love and brotherhood. His record in practice is anything but. Gülen once stated, “You must move in the arteries of the system without anyone noticing your existence, until you reach all the power centers, until the conditions are ripe.” Sounds a bit like Lenin in the old days. Certain networks in Washington including people in and around Fuller obviously have no problem with that.

Why would the CIA and US agencies want Central Asia? As Obama adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, notes in his now-famous book, The Grand Chessboard, “For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia…America’s global primacy is directly dependent on how long and how effectively its preponderance on the Eurasian continent is sustained…It follows that America’s primary interest is to help ensure that no single power comes to control this geopolitical space and that the global community has unhindered financial and economic access to it.”

Washington has used Turkey and the AKP fundamentalist networks of Gülen to wreak havoc across the post-communist oil and mineral-rich regions of Central Asia. Graham Fuller’s foot prints are all over those covert operations as are Fetullah Gülen’s. In 2008 Fuller published a book titled, “The New Turkish Republic: Turkey as a Pivotal State in the Muslim World.” As Sibel Edmonds describes, the process involved using Turkey with assistance from ’actors from Pakistan, and Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia’ as a proxy, which in turn used Bin Laden and the Taliban and others as a proxy terrorist army before 9/11. [15]

Edmonds notes regarding US operations in Central Asia, “This started more than a decade-long illegal, covert operation in Central Asia by a small group in the US intent on furthering the oil industry and the Military Industrial Complex, using Turkish operatives, Saudi partners and Pakistani allies, furthering this objective in the name of Islam.” [16]

What did Uncle Ruslan Tsarnaev, uncle of the Boston alleged bombers do when he was married to Graham Fuller’s daughter? Ruslan worked for companies connected to Halliburton, doing oil deals in the Caucasus and as “consultant” for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in the former Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan. Russia barred USAID from its soil in late 2012, alleging USAID together with CIA was attempting to influence the internal political processes in the country. [17]

Some are beginning to ask whether the Boston bombing might have been a deception operation carried out by the Rogues associated with Graham Fuller and the network within the CIA and Pentagon, to make it appear Putin was behind the ghastly events. In any case, when Graham Fuller went to the press to publicly denounce CIA links to the Tsarnaevs he made what is likely to go down as one of the greatest snafus in US intelligence history. He lost his cool, and with it, has put the spotlight on the entire CIA-sponsored Islamic Jihadist operations run through Fetullah Gülen across Turkey into Central Asia and Russia and China.

This article originally appeared on: Infowars

Part I: Graham Fuller, Uncle Ruslan, the CIA and the Boston Bombings

Graham Fuller (foreground) and Turkish Muslim guru Fetullah Gülen who has dark ties to CIA and fanatical Jihadist groups worldwide.

The open press statement of denial by senior reportedly former CIA official Graham Fuller in April of a link between the Boston Bombings and the CIA, labeling the reports “absurd,” may go down in history as one of the worst intelligence blunders [1] in the past century. The public admission by Fuller, on a website reported tied to the CIA, of his relationship to the Uncle of the alleged but not ever convicted Boston bombers opened a can of worms the CIA might well wish never had been opened.

The public admission by Fuller, on a website reported tied to the CIA, of his relationship to the Uncle of the alleged but not ever convicted Boston bombers [2] opened a can of worms the CIA might well wish never had been opened.

A deeper look into Fuller’s role reveals him to be a key figure in what FBI whistle-blower Sibel Edmonds terms American Deep State rogues. Edmonds worked as an FBI translator from Turkish, Azerbaijani and Farsi languages during and after September 11, 2001 when she uncovered damning email and other evidence of criminal networks linking the actors of 9/11, drug networks out of Turkey and terrorists in and around Al Qaeda together with senior Pentagon and other US Government officials. [3]

Fuller, A Deep State Rogue

Whistleblower Sibel Edwards has revealed extraordinary information on the U.S. government’s support for international terrorist networks and organised crime. She was described as “the most gagged person in the history of the United States” by the American Civil Liberties Union.

As later identified, among the people uncovered by Edmonds’ translation efforts at FBI were notorious neoconservative Richard Perle, Iraq war architect who headed Bush’s Defense Policy Board advisory committee in 2001; Douglas Feith, neocon Under-Secretary of Defense under Bush-Cheney; Anwar Yusuf Turani [4], key figure in the anti-Beijing Uygur separatist operations under the name East Turkistan National Freedom Center in Washington DC. East Turkistan is their name for China’s Xinjiang Province where Uygur riots took place several years ago. Turani modestly calls himself President-in-exile, East Turkistan (Xinjiang), though it’s by no means clear who if anyone elected him.

In her classified translations Edmonds discovered that a criminal network had penetrated the highest levels of the US Government including Pentagon and FBI, and were engaged in illegal sales of weapons, including nuclear, of drugs and more. Criminal activities were being protected by claims of State Secrets, she asserted. Repeated attempts to call attention inside the FBI to what she was convinced was a conspiracy against the United States from within came to no avail. Her gripping account to bring attention to an alarming rogue network inside Washington is the subject of her autobiography, Classified Woman — The Sibel Edmonds Story. [5]

Attorney General John Ashcroft went all the way to the Supreme Court to muzzle her under a little-used Doctrine of State Secrets. Edmonds, suffering under an unprecedented Bush Administration gag order, was banned from revealing the complicity of high-ranking US and Turkish figures uncovered by her and duly reported at FBI before she was fired in 2002 for “blowing the whistle.” She partly got around the Government gag by posting photos with no comment on her website. Others filled in the names. [6]

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

Graham Fuller was one of the 21 American Deep State rogues Edmonds posted.

In 1995, according to investigative journalist Daniel Hopsicker, the uncle of the alleged Boston bombers, Ruslan Tsarnaev, “incorporated the Congress of Chechen International Organizations in Maryland, using as the address listed on incorporation documents 11114 Whisperwood Lane, in Rockville Maryland, the home address of his then-father-in-law.” [7] Father-in-law was Graham Fuller whose daughter was married to Uncle Ruslan.

Chechnya, an autonomous province of Russia deeply involved in oil pipelines from the Caspian Sea, has been the scene of Islamic jihad terrorists since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. In 1995 when Uncle Ruslan founded the Congress of Chechen International Organizations from Graham Fuller’s home, the Islamist Jihad terror war against Moscow was raging full-force in Chechnya. Putin and Russian intelligence have repeatedly claimed the terrorism was being fed from outside.

As more is coming out on the role of Fuller, the evidence points to the conclusion that the Chechnya terrorists were also a project bearing the footprints of the “former” CIA political Islam expert, Graham Fuller. By 1988 Fuller had formally moved from a very senior post at CIA to the neo-conservative think tank, RAND Corporation, where he officially worked on the “Middle East, Central Asia, South and Southeast Asia, and problems of ethnicity and religion.” [8]

While at RAND Fuller played a key role gaining asylum for a Turkish national in the USA. Fetullah Gülen, a Turkish national who was forced to flee in 1999 and seek asylum, won his US residence permit due to the intervention of two senior CIA or former men. One was Graham E. Fuller. [9]

Foreign Policy Journal describes the role of Fuller and the CIA in getting indicted Turkish fugitive Gülen asylum in the USA: “Fethullah Gülen became a green card holder despite serious opposition from FBI and from Homeland Security Department. Former CIA officers (formally and informally) such as Graham Fuller and Morton Abromovitz were some of the prominent references in Gülen’s green card application.” [10]

Jihad Spreads to Central Asia

From his new luxurious heavily-guarded estate in Saylorsburg, a remote part of eastern Pennsylvania, Gülen launched a series of fundamentalist Salafist mosques and madrasses, not only in his native Turkey where he was the alleged power behind Turkey’s AKP regime of Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan, himself a product of Gülen’s schools, but across the Islamic regions of Central Asia as they separated from the Soviet Union in the chaos after 1991. [11]

According to Edmonds, an authority on the subject, “US Islamization Operations in Central Asia via Gülen started in late 1997, early 1998. That brings me to …Graham Fuller.” [12]

Fethullah Gulen, lives in Pennsylvania. From there he runs a $25 billion international network. He is tied to hundreds of Gulen charter schools in the United States itself, 36 of which are located in Texas alone.

A memoir by former head of Turkish intelligence, Osman Nuri Gundes, claims that Fethullah Gülen’s worldwide Islamic movement based in Pennsylvania has been providing cover for the CIA since the mid-1990s, and that in the 90s, the movement “sheltered 130 CIA agents” at its schools in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan alone. [13]

Gülen schools in Russian Chechnya and Dagestan regions, both locations of fanatical Jihadists since 1991, were ultimately banned by Putin. The Russian government has banned all Gülen schools and the activities of the Gülen-linked Nurcu sect in Russia. Over 20 Turkish followers of Gülen were deported from Russia in 2002-2004. In 1999 Uzbekistan closed all Gülen’s Madrasas and shortly afterward arrested eight journalists who were graduates of Gülen schools, and found them guilty of setting up an illegal religious group and of involvement in an extremist organization. In Turkmenistan, government authorities placed Gülen’s schools under close scrutiny and have ordered them to scrap the history of religion from curriculums. [14]

Responsible Turkish journalists I’ve met with relate that Gülen-loyal police tied to Edrogan’s AKP have infiltrated the Turkish police, intelligence services and other key state institution and are systematically arresting, purging or silencing all nationalist military, trade union and other secular figues opposed to creation of an Islamic Sharia state in Turkey, uprooting ninety or more years of Kemalist legal foundations. More than one hundred Turkish journalists have been arrested for writing critically about the actions of Gülen’s AKP.

Gülen’s public profile is as a humble, deeply spiritual Imam of love and brotherhood. His record in practice is anything but. Gülen once stated, “You must move in the arteries of the system without anyone noticing your existence, until you reach all the power centers, until the conditions are ripe.” Sounds a bit like Lenin in the old days. Certain networks in Washington including people in and around Fuller obviously have no problem with that.

Why would the CIA and US agencies want Central Asia? As Obama adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, notes in his now-famous book, The Grand Chessboard, “For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia…America’s global primacy is directly dependent on how long and how effectively its preponderance on the Eurasian continent is sustained…It follows that America’s primary interest is to help ensure that no single power comes to control this geopolitical space and that the global community has unhindered financial and economic access to it.”

Washington has used Turkey and the AKP fundamentalist networks of Gülen to wreak havoc across the post-communist oil and mineral-rich regions of Central Asia. Graham Fuller’s foot prints are all over those covert operations as are Fetullah Gülen’s. In 2008 Fuller published a book titled, “The New Turkish Republic: Turkey as a Pivotal State in the Muslim World.” As Sibel Edmonds describes, the process involved using Turkey with assistance from ’actors from Pakistan, and Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia’ as a proxy, which in turn used Bin Laden and the Taliban and others as a proxy terrorist army before 9/11. [15]

Edmonds notes regarding US operations in Central Asia, “This started more than a decade-long illegal, covert operation in Central Asia by a small group in the US intent on furthering the oil industry and the Military Industrial Complex, using Turkish operatives, Saudi partners and Pakistani allies, furthering this objective in the name of Islam.” [16]

What did Uncle Ruslan Tsarnaev, uncle of the Boston alleged bombers do when he was married to Graham Fuller’s daughter? Ruslan worked for companies connected to Halliburton, doing oil deals in the Caucasus and as “consultant” for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in the former Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan. Russia barred USAID from its soil in late 2012, alleging USAID together with CIA was attempting to influence the internal political processes in the country. [17]

Some are beginning to ask whether the Boston bombing might have been a deception operation carried out by the Rogues associated with Graham Fuller and the network within the CIA and Pentagon, to make it appear Putin was behind the ghastly events. In any case, when Graham Fuller went to the press to publicly denounce CIA links to the Tsarnaevs he made what is likely to go down as one of the greatest snafus in US intelligence history. He lost his cool, and with it, has put the spotlight on the entire CIA-sponsored Islamic Jihadist operations run through Fetullah Gülen across Turkey into Central Asia and Russia and China.

This article originally appeared on: Infowars

Demonstrators gathered outside the US embassy in London on August 25, 2012.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Demonstrators gathered outside the US embassy in London on August 25, 2012.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Soldiers load the bodies of Filipino marines into a military truck after being recovered from the site of clashes with Abu Sayyaf militants in the southern Philippines on May 25, 2013.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Soldiers load the bodies of Filipino marines into a military truck after being recovered from the site of clashes with Abu Sayyaf militants in the southern Philippines on May 25, 2013.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Iranian-based woman director Anahita Qazvinizadeh has been garnered as the top winner of this year™s Cannes Cinéfondation Award for her short production.

Qazvinizadeh who is currently student at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago (SAIC) received the prize for her film dubbed The Needle.

The 21-minute movie is about a 6th-grade girl caught in a tug of war between divorced parents.

Qazvinizadeh studied Bachelor of Arts at the Tehran University then left the country to continue her education for MFA in studio arts, in Chicago.

Created in 1998 and devoted to the search for new talent, the Cinéfondation selects fifteen to twenty short and medium-length works each year from film schools across the world.

Cinefondation short film competition is held as one of many sidebars in the worldâ„¢s premier celebration of cinema.

Academy Award-winning Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi™s latest film The Past (Le Passé) was also presented at the 66th Cannes International Film Festival.

The movie took part in the Competition section of the event to contend for this yearâ„¢s Palm D’Or.

Paris-set tale screen production, The Past, which shares some similarities with Farhadiâ„¢s Oscar-winning picture A Separation, was warmly welcomed by many critics who followed the film.

Named among the top 100 most anticipated films of 2013, the movie started its public screening at the French movie theaters during recent days.

The 66th Cannes International Film Festival that kicked off on May 15 will run until May 26, 2013.

FGP/FGP

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Iranian-based woman director Anahita Qazvinizadeh has been garnered as the top winner of this year™s Cannes Cinéfondation Award for her short production.

Qazvinizadeh who is currently student at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago (SAIC) received the prize for her film dubbed The Needle.

The 21-minute movie is about a 6th-grade girl caught in a tug of war between divorced parents.

Qazvinizadeh studied Bachelor of Arts at the Tehran University then left the country to continue her education for MFA in studio arts, in Chicago.

Created in 1998 and devoted to the search for new talent, the Cinéfondation selects fifteen to twenty short and medium-length works each year from film schools across the world.

Cinefondation short film competition is held as one of many sidebars in the worldâ„¢s premier celebration of cinema.

Academy Award-winning Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi™s latest film The Past (Le Passé) was also presented at the 66th Cannes International Film Festival.

The movie took part in the Competition section of the event to contend for this yearâ„¢s Palm D’Or.

Paris-set tale screen production, The Past, which shares some similarities with Farhadiâ„¢s Oscar-winning picture A Separation, was warmly welcomed by many critics who followed the film.

Named among the top 100 most anticipated films of 2013, the movie started its public screening at the French movie theaters during recent days.

The 66th Cannes International Film Festival that kicked off on May 15 will run until May 26, 2013.

FGP/FGP

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi rejects Western allegations that Iran has sent military forces to Syria.

Å“The Islamic Republic of Iran has not sent and will not send military forces to Syria,” Vahidi said Wednesday.

Å“If it were not for Iranâ„¢s well-wishing measures and peace-seeking policies aimed at strengthening the peace process in the region, countries supporting terrorists… [would have realized their goal] to start a bloodbath in Syria,” he added.

Turmoil has gripped Syria since March 2011, and many people, including large numbers of Syrian security forces, have been killed in the unrest.

The Iranian official said that those countries accusing others of meddling in Syria have turned the region into a battlefield by committing Å“outrageous war crimes” in Iraq and Afghanistan and supporting Israelâ„¢s atrocities in Palestine and Lebanon, adding that they have no objective but to fuel violence in the Middle East.

Å“The West, in particular the US, seeks to wage wars and intensify regional conflicts to boost their arms sales in order to save their crisis-hit economies.”

They want to repeat the Iraq and Afghanistan scenario in Syria and to destroy the countryâ„¢s economic and industrial infrastructure in a bid to make the Arab country dependent, Vahidi noted.

He advised Western countries to stop their stubbornness, savagery and violent and terrorist acts because the patience of the people of the region has a limit.

The Syrian government says the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country, and there are reports that a very large number of the militants fighting in Syria are foreign nationals.

AR/HGH

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Opposition activists throw rocks during clashes with police in Conakry, on May 24, 2013.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

The Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR) has not pressed criminal charges against International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Christine Lagarde after days of investigation into a corruption case, Press TV reports.

Lagarde walked out of the court after two days of court hearings looking into her involvement in fraud and misappropriation of public funds.

The French court was probing Lagardeâ„¢s handling of a dispute in 2007 that resulted in a 400 million-euro (USD 515 million) payment to former politician and controversial business figure, Bernard Tapie.

On Friday, the former finance minister was given the status Å“assisting witness”. This means she will be regarded as a witness in future related questioning.

The IMF chief was Franceâ„¢s finance minister under the government of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Reports indicate Sarkozy had promised Tapie benefits if he agreed to become a major funder in his 2007 presidential election campaign.

Some say the court’s decision is an unfair one.

Å“Christine Lagardeâ„¢s behavior in this affair is unacceptable, because she allowed one of Franceâ„¢s biggest businessmen to bypass traditional public justice and gave him a private arbitration… her decision greatly favored Mr. Tapie,” Copernic Fondationâ„¢s Pierre Khalfa said.

In 2007, Lagarde asked a panel of judges to arbitrate in a row between Tapie and the partly state-owned Credit Lyonnais over his sale of sports group Adidas in 1993.

She has been accused of Å“numerous anomalies and irregularities.”

The criminal charges are regarded as the second straight scandal for an IMF chief since Lagarde succeeded Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who quitted over allegations of an assault on a hotel maid in New York.

SZH/HGH

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

The Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR) has not pressed criminal charges against International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Christine Lagarde after days of investigation into a corruption case, Press TV reports.

Lagarde walked out of the court after two days of court hearings looking into her involvement in fraud and misappropriation of public funds.

The French court was probing Lagardeâ„¢s handling of a dispute in 2007 that resulted in a 400 million-euro (USD 515 million) payment to former politician and controversial business figure, Bernard Tapie.

On Friday, the former finance minister was given the status Å“assisting witness”. This means she will be regarded as a witness in future related questioning.

The IMF chief was Franceâ„¢s finance minister under the government of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Reports indicate Sarkozy had promised Tapie benefits if he agreed to become a major funder in his 2007 presidential election campaign.

Some say the court’s decision is an unfair one.

Å“Christine Lagardeâ„¢s behavior in this affair is unacceptable, because she allowed one of Franceâ„¢s biggest businessmen to bypass traditional public justice and gave him a private arbitration… her decision greatly favored Mr. Tapie,” Copernic Fondationâ„¢s Pierre Khalfa said.

In 2007, Lagarde asked a panel of judges to arbitrate in a row between Tapie and the partly state-owned Credit Lyonnais over his sale of sports group Adidas in 1993.

She has been accused of Å“numerous anomalies and irregularities.”

The criminal charges are regarded as the second straight scandal for an IMF chief since Lagarde succeeded Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who quitted over allegations of an assault on a hotel maid in New York.

SZH/HGH

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

May 22, 2013
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America’s merciless war on pubic hair continues, with hair removal — a trim or totally bald — growing in popularity across gender and age groups, especially among the young: a recent study by the Center for Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University found that the younger the woman the more likely she was to wax or shave all of her pubic hair. Meanwhile, alarmed health providers and researchers have launched a counter-offensive, publicizing the wide variety of nasty health effects. Here are 5 unintended consequences of our battle against pubes.

1)The Spread of STI’s: The universe has decided humans need more ways to exchange diseases during sex. Earlier this year, a French médecin observed a surge of pube-less patients bespotted with the Molluscum contagiousm virus (MVC). The dermatologist concluded the MCV was spread amongst people who had shorn their pubic hair with razors carrying the virus (from a different part of their body), and/or bumped hairless uglies with MCV carriers. “Long ago, surgeons figured out that shaving a body part prior to surgery actually increased rather than decreased surgical site infections”, wrote Emily Gibson M.D.

Skin, especially the soft epidermis of your nether regions, is made vulnerable when hair is yanked out, or burned, slashed, or pruned off. “When that irritation is combined with the warm moist environment of the genitals, it becomes a happy culture media for some of the nastiest of bacterial pathogens, namely group A streptococcus, staphylococcus aureus and its recently mutated cousin methicillin resistant staph aureus (MRSA)”, as well as herpes.

2) Injuries: Recently, the journal Urology reported that pubic hair removal injuries increased fivefold between 2002 and 2010! A bit of unsolicited advice- when wielding blades around your genitals avoid going all Edward Scissorhands on yourself; 83% of those wounds were suffered from shaving (and only 56.7% of those reported injuries came from ladies). The study cites lacerations as the most common injury, with rashes coming in second. The report also describes “… the use of the shaving cream lid to control bleeding from a vaginal cut, self-circumcision with scissors, slip and fall on a razor with external genital injury, use of a razor to incise genital lesions, razor handle assault by another person, ritualistic genital cutting, and shaving skin over a spider bite” as some of the anomalous injuries sustained from hacking at the hedges. The study advises self-groomers “don’t shave while under the influence of drugs or alcohol.” Where’s the fun in that? Booooo. Also, do not shave and drive. Like this Floridian (of course) woman.

Severe infections have been hospitalizing the hairless as well: after two separate incidents of women being rushed to the ER due to infections from their Brazilian waxes, the state of New Jersey considered banning the service in 2009. A diabetic woman in Australia nearly died from the life threatening bacterial infection incurred by her Brazilian wax.

3) The expense: In its comprehensive piece about the fiscal cost of being a lady with lady problems and lady expenses, Jezebel wrote that waxes are a conservative $35 (plus tip). I found they were typically between $45-$65, or more. For those that prefer to mow their labia lawn the old fashioned way, $15.95 a month is the estimated cost of shaving supplies, in addition to “soothing gels” and ingrown hair/razor burns solutions. Don’t worry dudes! When enjoying your Dr. Pepper Ten or sipping on Pepsi Max, you too can spend your money on genital vanity. Brands once solely associated with women’s grooming have created products for men. “Who wears short shorts?” You do, bro. Salons are eager to manicure your manhood, offering services like Bliss Spa’s “the Ultimate He-Wax” (!) for a mere $125 (for the record, I think it’s masochistic to seek a brazilian wax from a place called “Bliss”).

This article originally appeared on: AlterNet

May 23, 2013
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How would you like to invest $10,000 and watch it grow over 20 years into $1,461,920? Well that’s what happened at the giant hedge fund, SAC Capital Advisors, which made a 30% return for 20 years in a row.

How is it possible to make such profitable investments again and again and again? The U.S. Attorney for Manhattan, Preet Bharara, believes he has the answer: SAC is cheating … again and again and again. In fact, Bharara suggests that hedge funds that engage in insider trading may be rotten to the core:

“Given the scope of the allegations to date, we are not talking simply about the occasional corrupt individual; we are talking about something verging on a corrupt business model, for the defendants seem to have taken the concept of social networking and turned it into a criminal enterprise. ” [refers to a 2011 hedge fund indictment, not the current case against SAC.]

To date, nine current and former SAC employees face insider trading criminal charges stemming from their work at the firm. Four have pled guilty and two are still fighting their indictments. Now the head of SAC, multi-billionaire Stephen A. Cohen (note the initials), will be subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury. The federal strategy may be to indict the entire hedge fund and shut it down, according to the New York Times.

We do not know as yet to what degree SAC relied on illegally obtained information (or other illicit activities) to amass its extraordinary profits. But we do know this: hedge funds don’t like to gamble. Rather they want to make their billions by betting on sure things. In researching my book, How to Make a Million Dollars an Hour, it became clear that that the hedge fund industry as a whole is up to its eyeballs in a series of unethical maneuvers that sometimes are legal, sometimes are borderline and often are outright criminal.

But aren’t there many (some?) honest and ethical people working in America’s 8,000 hedge funds?

Maybe so, but the overwhelming culture within hedge funds makes cheating a way of life, according to Lynn Stout of UCLA Law School. In her article, ” How Hedge Funds Create Criminals,” Stout claims that hedge funds flash three critical signals that promote unethical behavior:

Signal 1: Authority Doesn’t Care about Ethics. Since the days of Stanley Milgram’s notorious electric shock experiments, science has shown that people do what they are instructed to do. Hedge-fund traders are routinely instructed by their managers and investors to focus on maximizing portfolio returns. Thus, it should come as no surprise that not all hedge-fund traders put obeying federal securities laws at the top of their to-do lists.

Signal 2: Other Traders Aren’t Acting Ethically. Behavioral experiments also routinely find that people are most likely to “follow their conscience” when they think others are also acting prosocially. Yet in the hedge-fund environment, traders are more likely to brag about their superior results than [about] their willingness to sacrifice those results to preserve their ethics.

Signal 3: Unethical Behavior Isn’t Harmful. Finally, experiments show that people act less selfishly when they understand how their selfishness harms others. This poses special problems for enforcing laws against insider trading, which is often perceived as a “victimless” crime that may even contribute to social welfare by producing more accurate market prices. Of course, insider trading isn’t really victimless: for every trader who reaps a gain using insider information, some investor on the other side of the trade must lose. But because the losing investor is distant and anonymous, it’s easy to mistakenly feel that insider trading isn’t really doing harm.

This article originally appeared on: AlterNet

May 24, 2013
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This article first appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books.

Is the very idea of an intelligent self-help book a paradox? It is certainly trying to serve two demanding masters: philosophical speculation and practical action. After all, readers don’t pick up self-help books just to ruminate on life’s dilemmas, but to be guided to solutions. The new series of self-help books published by the London-based School of Life, co-founded by the Swiss-born popular philosopher Alain de Botton, echoes the school’s lofty approach to problems, claiming to be “intelligent, rigorous, well-written new guides to everyday living.” Yet to peruse the School of Life’s calendar of classes is to fall into a vortex of jargon pitched somewhere between the banal banter of daytime talk shows and the schedule for a nightmarish New Age retreat: “How to Have Better Conversations,” “How to Realise Your Potential,” “Developing a Compassionate Mind: One Day Intensive,” “Philosophy Slam,” “Learning How to Say No,” “Getting Better at Online Dating,” “ Resilience: One Day Workshop.” Before long, I was ready to sign up for “How to Stay Calm.”

De Botton himself is a divisive, if not easily dismissed, public intellectual. The author of bestselling books about many of the broad topics the School of Life curriculum covers – love, work, religion, happiness, and philosophy itself – de Botton is often accused of being a purveyor of Philosophy Lite (see, for example, Victoria Beale’s January 3, 2013, attack on him in The New Republic, “ How to Be a Pseudo-Intellectual”). His works are securely aimed at the insecure middlebrow reader, the kind of person who knows that Proust can change her life but maybe would rather read about how Proust can change her life than slog through seven life-changing volumes. Indeed, there is something ersatz, if not quite fraudulent, about de Botton’s entire intellectual enterprise: he often seems like a grad student who shows up to seminar having done just enough of the reading to participate by jumping on other people’s comments, but who never makes an original observation of his own. He is constantly quoting and alluding to great figures – Jane Austen, John Stuart Mill, Stendhal, and Freud, among others, all get name-dropped in his self-help book, How To Think More About Sex (about which more below) – but he tends to meander and summarize after a quotation rather than using it to drive his own argument forward.

De Botton has, however, up until recently, been a great champion of philosophy as a way to work through life’s conundrums. His The Consolations of Philosophy (2000) is a charming and, in its own way, useful book that dissects the lives and ideas of major philosophers like Socrates and Nietzsche and applies them to everyday problems like “unpopularity” and “difficulties.” De Botton claims in Consolations that it is possible to “take on a task at once both profound and laughable: to become wise through philosophy.” In this he has positioned himself in a long line of thinkers about the care and maintenance of the self, such that the editing and writing of “intelligent self-help books” would not seem like such a stretch.

Yet the real issue with de Botton’s new book, and the others in the How To series, is not simply a lack of depth but one of purpose: they are certainly shallow in their philosophy, but they are not particularly useful either. The books are combination platters of soft science, anecdotal case studies (some real, some fictional), and exercises or suggestions about steps the reader could take to further his or her goal. Along with de Botton’s volume purporting to inspire more (but not deeper, note) thought about sex, the School of Life series includes How to Stay Sane, by Philippa Perry; How to Change the World, by John-Paul Flintoff; and How to Find Fulfilling Work, by Roman Krznaric. Krznaric’s volume is by far the most successful, perhaps because he is the only one of the authors who does not seem embarrassed by either his topic or the means of treating it. Perry, a psychotherapist, and Flintoff, a journalist, retain a tone like they should be doing their work by more highfalutin means. And de Botton’s book makes an enraging little study (all the books clock in at around 200 pages) of contemporary assumptions about sex, marriage, and relationships, regarded strictly from the point of view of a bored, married, middle-aged man who maybe dabbles in philosophy and fancies himself an intellectual. It’s like being hit on by a paunchy, balding European guy at an office party who tries to seduce you with, well, quotes from Jane Austen and Stendhal, and empty proclamations about the place of sex, marriage, and relationships in contemporary society.

This article originally appeared on: AlterNet

May 24, 2013
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Former New York Congressman Anthony Weiner is back. Having given up his House seat following being exposed in a 2011 sexting scandal, Weiner bowed out of politics for the last two years.

On May 22nd, Weiner threw his proverbial hat into the New York City mayoral race, one of a half-dozen Democratic candidates seeking to replace Michael Bloomberg in the upcoming election. In a well-plotted campaign, he’s back in the game. He harbors a war chest estimated at $5 million and was required to announce his run or forfeit public matching funds.

In a professionally produced video that launched his campaign, he lays out a profile of his life — his childhood in Brooklyn, his Congressional accomplishments and his “middle class” agenda for the city. Most telling in terms of the scandal that will likely dog his campaign, Weiner opens and closes the video accompanied with his wife, Huma Abedin, an aide to Hillary Clinton.

Weiner’s reemergence on the political scene comes just a couple of weeks after another political figure who was forced from office following a sex scandal, Mark Sanford. The former governor of South Carolina won a race for a House seat against Elizabeth Colbert Busch.

These two races – involving a Democrat and a Republican, in a blue and a red state – signal the further erosion of the culture wars. The Christian right remains absolutist with regard to a woman’s right to an abortion. But some within the Republican right have given ground with regard to gay rights, immigration, teen sex ed and the morning-after pill.

An increasing number of states have legalized marriage equality and the Senate is advancing a somewhat “bipartisan” immigration bill.  These efforts signal the emergence of a new right-of-center “moderate” faction within the Republican Party.

The new Republican moderates seem to recognize that the 2012 election signed a profound shift in the electoral climate.  They seem to acknowledge that the message of Tea Party activists is getting shriller, more fundamentalists. More insightful, they see Republicans as a shrinking political force due to demographics and as capitalist recovery takes place. They wonder how to hold — if not gain — ground in the 2014 Congressional elections. Can it be a replay of what happened in 2010?

***

Americans love a scandal involving the high-and-mighty, whether a politician, celebrity or grandee. It represents all-Americanschadenfreude, the satisfaction or pleasure that comes from someone else’s misfortune. U.S. history is rich with political scandals, many involving sex.  More interesting, time – and changing moral values —has led to the rehabilitation of pols and others brought down by a sex scandal.

This shifting value system is personified by former-President Bill Clinton. His illicit Oval Office tryst with Monica Lewinsky was the grounds for his Impeachment by a Republican-controlled House of Representatives led by Newt Gingrich. Clinton’s value position has been significantly enhanced by the subsequent revelations about Gingrich, who, while leading the charge against the sitting president, was involved in an out-of-wedlock affair with Callista Gingrich, his current wife.

Today, Clinton has been fully rehabilitated. He runs the prestigious Clinton Foundation and his wife, Hillary, who stuck with him through the scandal, served as Secretary of State and has a shot at becoming the next president. One can only wonder whether Weiner, his wife and political confidants reflected on this possibly parallel scenario.

Other pols have not fared so well. Gingrich flubbed the 2012 election. Al Gore, a well-meaning if inept politician — whatever happened to the “Information Superhighway”? — was deflated after his divorce. New York’s former governor, Eliot Spitzer, kept his marriage but has floundered as an entertainment figure, jumping from an online columnist, to talk-show personality, to whatever gives him visibility.

This article originally appeared on: AlterNet

May 24, 2013
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There has been a major shift in media culture as most TV networks have abandoned long-form information programming. In these times, with Twitter playing a big part in disseminating news, TV has to be punchy, quick and visual. The age of media mergers has seen showbiz merging with news biz, and soundbites have become shorter as the newscast story count rises.

Significantly, the best TV criticism of these trends in the US appears in a nightly programme on the Comedy Central channel. But ultimately, there is nothing funny about the way a media system – intended to bolster a democratic discourse – contributes to its decline.

News is increasingly becoming more about the image than the information – an approach to “coverage” that is at its core tabloid in its sensibilities, often intended for a memorable emotional impact that will boost media ratings and revenues. The race for “breaking news” is breaking our ability to understand the context of events.

This all happened as “the press” became “the media” – a time in which branding and on-air personality became paramount. I saw it happening during the 10 years I spent in television news, during which the multi-million-dollar anchors became more newsworthy than what they reported on.

Soon, the “big names” in media began focusing on the “big names” in politics. Landing hyped-up interviews with newsmakers became known–in insider parlance–as “getting the get.” News bookers began to see themselves like big-game hunters on an African safari.

Investigative Work 

When I started my career behind the small screen, each of the main TV networks featured a regularly scheduled documentary to expose wrongdoing and offer deeper analysis. CBS Reports was modelled on the tradition established by news legends like Edward R Murrow. NBC White Paper and ABC Close-Up all offered well-made in-depth programming until faster-paced segments on news magazines displaced the documentaries that were often poorly promoted and, as a result, poorly watched.

As these shows went bye-bye, independent documentary-making drew former journalists like myself, eager to do more substantive investigative work. Other, less political and artsier filmmakers – often graduates of film schools or refugees from Hollywood – brought their dedication to “look” and storytelling into a business that had once been driven by a sense of political mission.

A market slowly emerged on cable channels that went for lurid crime dramas, wildlife shows, adventure series and history programmes mostly on scary bad guys.

And soon, a class hierarchy could be seen among independent filmmakers. American Public Television cultivated a small elite to produce mostly non-controversial docs for well-funded regularly scheduled series. HBO Documentaries were more mixed and commercial – some about news issues, others profiling personalities, and still others using Hollywood techniques to treat docs as non-fiction films. They became a profit centre for a network known for movies. Economically, it is cheaper for cable channels to offer less pricey documentaries they can air over and over.

A proliferating number of film festivals – some market-driven like Sundance, or associated with stars like Tribeca – provided more venues and opportunities to show and sell films.

One of the documentary films I was associated with investigated the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan. It took adding CNN’s Christiane Amanpour as a narrator to give it more credibility and get it on air.

Most independent filmmakers wanted to be in the major league, but only a few made it.

It was only after Michael Moore, a radical print journalist turned filmmaker, proved that documentaries could make money in theatres, that what is still a small but high-profile industry was born. This has brought hard-hitting films, of a kind that could rarely get on television, into theatres where producers hope they can at least recoup their costs.

This article originally appeared on: AlterNet

May 24, 2013
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Sophia and I were dating a week when we created The List. We had a lot in common – we were both writers, lived in the same neighborhood, and had just gotten out of marriages – but it was our shared desire to be sexually experimental that really defined our relationship. I’m hardly this adventurous on my own, but after being married for 10 years and realizing Sophia had a yen to try just about anything, I felt at ease about traveling out of my comfort zone with her.

One night, while sipping wine in my apartment, we started adding items to the list of lascivious things we wanted to do together:

A shopping spree at a sex shop.
A threesome with another woman.
Sex clubs.
Light S&M.
Role playing.
Orgasm control.

I didn’t even know what “orgasm control” was. It sounded frightening.

“Anything else?” I asked.

There was one other thing Sophia wanted on our compendium of carnal delights: an open relationship. Sophia, who was openly bisexual, was convinced monogamy wasn’t for her, even though she’d never tried polyamory herself.

In theory, I loved the idea of an open relationship. In practice, though, I wasn’t so sure. What would happen, I wondered aloud to Sophia, if one of us starts having an emotional relationship with another person? What would happen to us? We both shrugged. “We’ll just cross that bridge when we get there,” she said.

I’d always been a faithful boyfriend and/or spouse and the idea of being able to openly be with other people while still maintaining a romantic, emotional relationship with Sophia seemed to go against everything I’d ever been conditioned on the subject of love and relationships. I had a feeling this would not end well, but I really liked Sophia and I was intrigued about the idea of this List.

We made rules for our open relationship. And then we’d tweak them if they didn’t work. At first we decided to keep our outside dating activities a secret from each other unless something physical happened with another person. A month later we’d think full disclosure might be better. No matter what, though, it was a challenge for me to reconcile my growing feelings for Sophia knowing she was actively seeking out women and men for romantic trysts. I had a couple encounters with other women, but in general I just wanted to be with Sophia. Lounging around my place, Sophia would log on to the dating site we were both on and show me the guys and gals she’d been corresponding with. It would make my stomach swirl with nerves.

To her credit, Sophia was as tactful as one could be in these situations. When she’d tell me about an experience she’d had, I could see she was nervous about how it would affect me. We had a good level of communication, and I wanted to tell her how uncomfortable this whole thing made me. But then I feared she’d tell me it would have to be an open relationship or no relationship. I told myself that I’d adjust.

And there were fun times. Like when we’d go out to lesbian bars in the hope of picking up a woman to bring back to my place. Sometimes we’d meet other male-female couples who were like us. And sometimes they’d end up at my apartment. Once, at my place, a guy laid out a few lines of cocaine on my coffee table. I don’t really do drugs but in my newfound spirit to live out of my comfort zone more, I indulged. As he and I snorted up the white powder and talked about travel, Sophia and the woman had sex on the couch across from us. It was one of the odder nights I’d had in a while.

This article originally appeared on: AlterNet

UK govt. Iraq abuse probe Ëœinadequateâ„¢

This file picture taken on April 7, 2003 shows Iraqis watching British soldiers advance towards central Basra in the south of Iraq.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Afghans clean blood on the floor of a mosque following a bomb blast. (File photo)

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

By JG Vibes

Intellihub.com

Two FBI agents died in a “fall” from a helicopter in Virginia this week.

Days later it has emerged that these agents were involved in the arrest of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings.

During an apparently training mission in the Virginia area 2 FBI agents were killed after falling from a helicopter into the water. 41-year-old Christopher Lorek, and 40-year-old Stephen Shaw both belonged to an experienced hostage rescue team that was involved in the arrest of Boston Marathon suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

Pilot Online reported that:

In interviews Monday, the founder of the Hostage Rescue Team and other former special agents called the unit “elite” while outlining the difficult training exercises members must endure.

“It’s the most rigorous training regiment in law enforcement, probably in the world,” said Danny Coulson, a former deputy assistant director of the FBI who started the team 30 years ago and served as its first commander. “They have to be able to do any mission, at any time.”

Among other things, members of the Hostage Rescue Team are trained to rappel from helicopters, scuba dive and use explosives to break down doors and walls. When needed, the team can deploy within four hours to anywhere in the U.S.

“It sounds risky, and it absolutely is,” Coulson said. “They have the same skill sets as SEAL Team 6 and Delta Force.”

Last month, the team was involved in the arrest of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings.

There have been a series of suspicious deaths surrounding people who were close to the investigation and the arrests. Just yesterday we reported that a former MMA fighter was killed by the FBI when they payed him a visit for “questioning.

As Shepard Ambellas reported, “In what continues to be the most bizarre series of ongoing events, Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighter, Ibragim Todashev, was shot and killed in his apartment by the FBI just before midnight last night. Authorities believed the man to be a friend of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the alleged Boston bombing suspects.”

And if that’s not enough. It was also reported by Infowars.com on April 29, 2013 that the original bombing suspect, Sunil Tripathi, was found dead in Providence River.

We will be keeping a close eye on this story and this case in general as the establishment moves in to cover up their tracks and tie up loose ends.

 Sources:

^http://hamptonroads.com/2013/05/fbi-agents-died-fall-helicopter-va-coast

^http://www.officer.com/news/10946547/fbi-agents-fell-to-deaths-during-training?page=2

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

[unable to retrieve full-text content]The Syrian army has seized al-Daba’a Airport north of the strategic border town of al-Qusayr in Homs province, as it continues battle against foreign-backed militants.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

File photo shows a number of hopefuls registering for Iranâ„¢s upcoming city and rural council elections.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

File photo shows a number of hopefuls registering for Iranâ„¢s upcoming city and rural council elections.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani served as Iranâ„¢s president from 1989 to 1997.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

[unable to retrieve full-text content]The British Queen had been given a pay rise of £5 million for the 2013-2014 financial year.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

[unable to retrieve full-text content]A British peer has said that London’s spy agency MI6 murdered the first democratically-elected Prime Minister of Congo Patrice Lumumba.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

[unable to retrieve full-text content]The Monarchy program is aimed at shedding light on the dark corners of British internal affairs, foreign affairs, and of course, the UK economy.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

[unable to retrieve full-text content]A new document shows that BBC employees have been suspected of 500 crimes a year ranging from sexual assault and drug use to theft and fraud on the corporation’s premises.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

This article originally appeared on: RT

A federal judge has ruled that an Arizona sheriff infamous for his tough approach to immigration law enforcement and his office’s deputies violated the rights of Latinos by profiling them based on their ethnicity.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio — who styles himself as
‘America’s toughest sheriff’ and is known for questioning the
authenticity of President Barack Obama’s birth certificate — was
defeated in court on Friday when a federal judge ruled that his
crackdown on undocumented immigrants violated the civil rights of
Latino residents.

The case against Arpaio was initiated by Manuel de Jesus Ortega
Melendres, a Mexican national with a US tourist visa, who claimed
he was detained illegally by deputies from Arpaio’s office in 2007
after he was stopped in a car near a gathering of Mexican day
laborers.

Four other plaintiffs — all drivers of Latin origin who believe
they were stopped on the basis of their ethnicity and treated worse
than other motorists — testified in the case. No monetary
retribution was sought in the suit; the plaintiffs called for an
end to Arpaio’s discriminatory practices.

“The great weight of the evidence is that all types of
saturation patrols at issue in this case incorporated race as a
consideration into their operations,” Judge G. Murray Snow of
the US District Court wrote in his 142-page ruling, Reuters
reported.

Judge Murray has prohibited the Sheriff’s Office from racial
profiling. Its 800 deputies have been forbidden from stopping a car
because Latinos are passengers, and from arresting people without
substantial evidence a law has been broken.

Human rights activists hailed the ruling: “This is a victory for
everyone. Singling people out for traffic stops and detentions
because they are Latino is unconstitutional and just plain
un-American,” American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) director
Cecillia Wang said.

Tim Casey, the lawyer for the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office,
vowed to appeal the case and denied that the organization he
defended had engaged in racial profiling. He also assured the
Sheriff’s Office would “comply with the letter and spirit of the
court’s decision.”

The ruling against Sheriff Arpaio is seen by many as landmark
decision — Arizona, a US state on the border of Mexico, has long
been at the forefront for the immigration debate, with local
authorities frequently enacting harsh measures to curb illegal
immigration.
 
But federal immigration policy may soon be changing, as a US Senate
panel has recently approved a sweeping immigration reform bill,
which lays out a 13-year path to citizenship for the country’s 11
million illegal immigrants.

This article originally appeared on: RT

A burned-out van is prepared for removal after youths rioted in Husby, northern Stockholm on May 21, 2013.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Afghan policemen and soldiers block the road following an explosion at a fuel warehouse in Kabul. (File photo)

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Horace Mann, one the most prestigious schools in New York City, apologizes for more than 30 years of sexual abuse perpetrated by some of its former staff.

Å“We sincerely apologize for the harm that was caused by the teachers and administrators who abused anyone during their years at Horace Mann School,” Board Chairman Steven Friedman and Head of School Thomas Kelly said in a letter posted on the schoolâ„¢s website on Friday.

The three-page letter added that Å“These unconscionable betrayals of trust never should have happened. But they did, and now we, as a school, must fully accept this reality.”

The school also said that it would eliminate the board position of trustee emeritus in a move to set up an advisory board on student safety.

On April 26, the Bronx District Attorney’s office said a pattern of sexual abuse of students by school employees was uncovered.

The Bronx District Attorney’s office and the New York Police Department launched a probe into the allegations of abuse after New York Times Magazine published an article in 2012, accusing some former instructors of the school of sexually abusing students in 1970s.

Following the investigation, Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson issued a statement, saying, Å“The reported abuse ranges from what may be characterized as inappropriate behavior to child endangerment, actual instances of sexual contact, sexual intercourse and criminal sexual acts.”

He pointed out that the majority of the sexual abuses were reported to have occurred in the 1970s and some school authorities were aware of the abuse, but they did not inform the police.

Friday’s letter apologized for the sexual abuse conducted between 1962 and 1996.

MR/NN

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

A Spanish judge has opened an investigation into Spainâ„¢s Princess Cristina’s corruption case involving her husband.

Examining Magistrate Jose Castro said on Friday that he had asked the tax agency for more information about Cristina, daughter of Spain’s King Juan Carlos, over tax evasion or money laundering between 2007 and 2010.

Inaki Urdangarin who is married to Princess Cristina, the second of King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia’s three children, is charged with fraud, tax evasion, falsifying documents and embezzling 6 million euros in public funds as head of the charitable Noos Foundation.

Urdangarin, 45, has already been questioned twice by Castro since the probe began two years ago.

The magistrate said for the investigation to be completed and to show that justice treats all equally, the princess must be questioned.

Urdangarin was a professional handball player. He retired from professional sport in 2000, and went on to study business administration.

King Juan Carlos, has banned Urdangarin from family functions. The investigation into the alleged financial misdeeds has deeply embarrassed the monarchy in a country hard hit by a financial crisis and sky-high unemployment.

MSH/HN

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Iranian Vice President for International Affairs Ali Saeedlou has participated in the swearing-in ceremony of Ecuadorâ„¢s President Rafael Correa in the South American countryâ„¢s capital, Quito.

Addressing reporters on Friday, the Iranian vice president called for strengthening the amicable bonds between Tehran and Quito.

Å“Both countries have elite people and revolutionary governments and we are happy that the ËœCitizens’ Revolutionâ„¢ – the slogan of Ecuadorâ„¢s president – can continue,” Saeedlou said.

Fifty-year-old Correa, a member of an alliance of left-wing Latin American presidents, won re-election in February with about 57 percent of the vote.

The leftist leader has brought stability to the Latin American state, which saw seven presidents over the course of ten years before Correa came to power.

Major Latin American nations have enhanced their diplomatic and trade ties with Iran in recent years. The promotion of all-out cooperation with Latin American countries has been among the top priorities of the Islamic Republic’s foreign policy over the past few years.

SF/NN/HJL

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Iran has been the target of several cyberattacks over the past few years. (File photo)

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Syrian army soldier walk in a partially destroyed neighborhood in the al-Midan area in Damascus on July 20, 2012.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

The Canadian Federal Court has confirmed that the countryâ„¢s 2011 federal election, which led to the victory of Stephen Harper’s government, was fraudulent.

The court emphasized in a Thursday ruling that it has found in no uncertain terms that widespread election fraud took place during the vote.

The ruling also stated that Å“there was an orchestrated effort to suppress votes during the 2011 election campaign by a person with access to the [Conservative Party’s] CIMS database.”

Accordingly, the Council of Canadians has called on the Conservative Party to investigate the issue. It says anything less at this point would be a cover-up on behalf of the Conservatives.

The Council of Canadians says that the non-cooperation, obstructionism, and attempts to disrupt the Federal Court case by the CIMS makes it look like Prime Minister Harper has something to conceal.

Garry Neil, Executive Director of the Council of Canadians said Å“This Federal Court decision is a major indictment of the Conservative Party of Canada.”

Å“Either senior leaders of the Conservative Party were directly involved in election fraud or they were astoundingly negligent in securing access to their voter database. Illegal or incompetent–just like in the Senate scandal.”

YH/HN

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Hate crimes against Muslims across the UK have been running at more than 10 times the usual rate.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has called on Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi to Å“revise” the Camp David Accords signed by the Tel Aviv regime and Cairo.

Addressing Friday prayers in the Gaza Strip, Haniyeh said, “We ask Egyptian authorities to revise mainly the security articles of the Camp David Treaty even though not cancelling it.”

Å“Zionists (Israelis) try to use the gap created by the treaty, which blocks the military presence in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula in order to de-stabilize Egypt’s security and damage Egypt- Palestine relations,” he said.

The Sinai Peninsula is awash with guns and has become increasingly lawless since the fall of former dictator Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

The Camp David Accords were signed by then Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat and then-Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin on September 17, 1978, following 13 days of secret negotiations at Camp David in Washington D.C.

The deal comprises two agreements, a Framework for Peace in the Middle East, and a Framework for the Conclusion of a Peace Treaty between Egypt and Israel. The latter agreement led to the signing of the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty in 1979 which also took place in the United States.

DB/HN

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

This file photo shows an Iranian Navy vessel launching an indigenous Tondar-class missile.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

UK intelligence service MI5 approached Woolwich killing suspect Michael Adebolajo to offer him a job, a friend of the alleged murderer claimed in a BBC interview. Shortly after his statement, police detained Adebolajo for questioning.

Abu Nusaybah, who claims to be a close friend of Adebolajo, was
promptly arrested on BBC premises following an interview regarding
the brutal killing in Woolwich on Wednesday. During the interview,
Nusayaba stated that Adebolajo told him MI5 had “harassed” him for
information on repeated occasions, and had even attempted to
recruit him.

“But after him saying that he didn’t know these individuals,
what he said was they asked him if he would be interested in
working for them. He was explicit in that he refused to work for
them but he did confirm he didn’t know the individuals,”
Nusayaba said.

The Metropolitan Police said in a statement on Friday that a
31-year-old man had been detained in London under the Terrorism
Act. Police said the arrest was not directly related to Wednesday’s
murder.

MI5 acknowledged on Thursday that Adebolajo had been known to
them for eight years, prompting criticism that they could have
taken steps to prevent the murder of 25-year-old Army Drummer Lee
Rigby.

Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale are suspected of hacking
Rigby to death in broad daylight on Wednesday. The two suspects
were shot by police during their arrest, and are now in hospital
awaiting police questioning. Footage of Adebolajo surfaced showing
him brandishing a bloody cleaver, claiming the attack was an
“eye-for-an-eye” act to avenge Muslims killed abroad by UK
troops.

Nusayaba claimed that when he became acquainted with Adebolajo,
the murder suspect did not exhibit any extremist Islamist
tendencies. However, following a trip to Kenya last year where
Adebolajo was allegedly taken into custody by the Kenyan military
and was tortured and sexually abused, Nusayaba said he changed.

“He was not his bubbly self,” Nasayaba said, adding that
he became less talkative following the trip.

Relatively little is known about the two suspects who committed
the atrocity in Woolwich on Wednesday, which was condemned in the
UK press as “Baghdad-style violence.” It was confirmed that
Adebolajo and Adebolawe are UK citizens from devout Christian
families of Nigerian descent, who later converted to Islam.

He was also known to hand out radical Islamist leaflets that
decried UK military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Police raided Adebolajo’s family home in Lincolnshire following
the killing. The family reportedly moved away from London over
concerns their son was becoming more radicalized.

There have been a number of arrests in London in connection with
Wednesday’s murder. Detectives took a 29-year-old woman at a
residential address in south London into custody on suspicion of
conspiracy to commit murder on Thursday. A 29-year-old male was
also arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder.

This article originally appeared on: RT

A Pakistani police official looks for evidences at the site of a bomb explosion (file photo)

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

A customer shops for a pistol at a store in Tinley Park, Illinois. (file photo)

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Portuguese demonstrate in a massive Labor Day rally against the governmentâ„¢s tough austerity measures in Lisbon, May 1, 2013.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

A US judge has found that Arizona lawman Joe Arpaio has violated the constitutional rights of Latino drivers in an attempt to prevent illegal immigration.

Arpaio was sued by several Hispanic drivers who said his deputies stopped them because of their race.

Judge Murray Snow said on Friday that Arpaioâ„¢s office must stop Å“using race or Latino ancestry as a factor in determining to stop any vehicle in Maricopa County with a Latino occupant,” among other orders.

The ruling against the Maricopa County sheriff came eight months after a seven-day trial in 2012.

Snow added in his ruling that Å“the evidence demonstrates that the MCSO [Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office] specifically equated being a Hispanic or Mexican (as opposed to Caucasian or African-American) day laborer with being an unauthorized alien.”

He also ordered the MCSO to end activities, including Å“using race or Latino ancestry as a factor in making law enforcement decisions” and Å“detaining Latino occupants of vehicles… for a period longer than reasonably necessary.”

Arpaio, who styles himself as Å“toughest sheriff” of the US denied the allegations.

His lawyer Tim Casey said that the sheriff’s office Å“has never used race and will never use race in its law-enforcement decisions.” He also vowed to appeal the decision.

Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) hailed the ruling after it was made public.

Cecillia Wang, director of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project said, Å“This is an important victory that will resound far beyond Maricopa County.”

She added that it is illegal to single out people for traffic stops and detentions Å“simply because they’re Latino.”

Almost one third of Arizona’s residents were not born in the US. Over 450,000 illegal immigrants are estimated to be in Arizona, which borders Mexico.

MR/NN

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

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This article originally appeared on: RT

May 9, 2013
 |

This article is the first of a two-part series examining who is being left behind in the wake of charter school proliferation and the complicated web of profiteering that is driving the movement. Part I details many of the ways in which charter schools fail poor children, children of color and students with disabilities even as charter school supporters appropriatecivil rights rhetoric. Part II will focus on the big business of charter schools.

On the heels of news that Philadelphia will be closing 23 schools for the 2013-2014 academic year, Chicago has made an even more startling announcement: Chicago Public Schools has proposed closing 54 schools for the next academic year. The idea is to replace them with charter schools, an initiative that Democratic Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has supported enthusiastically.

Enthusiasm for charter schools primarily comes from them being hailed as a panacea that could solve longstanding disparities in education quality, and possibly even turn around longstanding divides like racial disparity and economic inequality.

Without irony, the charter school movement has adopted the banner of the civil rights movement to create an aura of moral authority. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan praised pro-charter propaganda film Waiting for Superman for ushering in a “Rosa Parks moment.” And a Goldman Sachs banker famously called charter schools the “civil rights struggle of my generation.”

Ultimately, however, not only do charter schools fail children of color and students with disabilities, they often actively work against them as they try to transform students into what they imagine is the status quo. From outrageous fees to strict disciplinary codes, charter schools continuously work to target students they don’t want.

Charter Schools Not a Clear Success Story

There is little evidence that charter schools are the silver bullet touted by supporters, let alone a beacon of racial empowerment. Though charter school research is new and fairly underdeveloped, the one large-scale study to date, a 2009 project conducted by Stanford’s conservative, pro-charter Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) found that a majority of charters do not outperform public schools, with more than a third actually doing worse.

Another study came out just last week helmed by the nonprofit Broader, Bolder Approach to Education, which works to address the ways social and economic inequality can affect education and academic performance. It studied the effects of school closure and charter school proliferation on three cities: Chicago, Washington DC and New York. It found that the triumphalism of the charter movement was entirely unfounded, and that the quality of education for the most vulnerable children became worse in the wake of closings and charter school growth.

How Charters Discriminate Against Disable Students

Beyond test scores as measures of achievement, there are other ways in which charter schools may be undermining equality of opportunity. Because they are, technically speaking, public entities that receive federal funding, charter schools are bound by all federal civil rights legislation prohibiting schools to discriminate on the basis of disability, race and/or socioeconomic status. State and local bodies that govern charters are tasked with guarding against discrimination.

But the truth is that charter schools may be discriminating. A June 2012 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office reported that during the 2009-2010 academic year, about 11 percent of traditional public school students were identified as disabled. In charter schools, that number dropped to 8 percent. Plus, the study noted, “[The] proportion of charter schools that enrolled high percentages of students with disabilities was lower overall. Specifically, students with disabilities represented 8 to 12 percent of all students at 23 percent of charter schools compared to 34 percent of traditional public schools.”

This article originally appeared on: AlterNet

Iranâ„¢s Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs Hossein Amir-Abdollahian

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

British Foreign Secretary William Hague has let Tel Aviv know London does not care about Å“some animosities” against the Israeli regime in British media following a complaint by a top Israeli official.

Yuval Steinitz, a close confidant of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, had told The Daily Telegraph that Tel Aviv is Å“concerned about … what we see as some animosities and some incitement in Britain, in the media, made by NGOs against Israel”.

He had expressed hopes that Hague could help address the issue in an upcoming visit to Tel Aviv.

However, the British secretary snubbed Steinitz, saying the blame lies with the regime itself.

“Israel has lost some of its support in Britain and in other European countries over time – this is something I’ve often pointed out to Israeli leaders – because of settlement activity, which we condemn,” Hague told Sky News.

“We strongly disagree with settlements on occupied land. Israel is a country we work with in many ways but we do disapprove of settlements,” he added.

Hague said the settlements are a Å“severe threat to a two-state solution” in the occupied territories.

Despite the western support for the Israeli war crimes against the Palestinians, especially in the Gaza Strip, London and other European governments have recently frowned on the Israeli regimeâ„¢s further expansion of its settlements.

Following the Palestinians success to gain a Å“non-member observer entity” status in the United Nations based on a UN General Assembly vote last November, the regime announced a set of retaliatory moves including a new settlement building plan in the E1 area of Israeli occupied lands that would cut the Palestinians lands in two.

Back in December, British Foreign Office listed the Israeli regimeâ„¢s human rights record as one “of particular concern” in its quarterly report on human rights, over the Zionist entity’s brutal attack on the Gaza Strip in November and its new settlement expansion plans.

The move against the regime came after Londonâ„¢s warnings that the regime’s illegal settlements, especially the new buildings planned in E1 area, alienate its international allies.

AMR/HE

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Austrian Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger has called on the European Union not to lift arms embargo on Syria and instead start a political process to establish peace in the Arab country.

During a Friday interview with The Associated Press in Vienna, Spindelegger said that the EU’s arms embargo on militants fighting against the Syrian government should be extended to maintain the safety of UN peacekeepers in the Golan Heights.

Lifting the EU embargo “would give us real problems on the Golan Heights,” Spindelegger noted.

Austria has 377 soldiers in the 900-strong UN peacekeeping force deployed in the occupied Golan Heights.

Spindelegger stated that the UN peacekeepers could be targeted if European Union foreign ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday decide to allow EU states to send weapons to the militants.

The Austrian foreign minister went on to say that a supply of more weapons into Syria could worsen the crisis, threaten a US-Russian peace initiative and create more divisions in the UN Security Council.

“We believe there are enough weapons in Syria,” Spindelegger said. “We support a cease-fire, not weapons deliveries.”

So far European foreign ministers have failed to reach an agreement on whether to lift an arms embargo on the foreign-backed militants in Syria.

Austria, Germany, Sweden and other states have expressed concerns that arming the militants would spread the deadly conflict, but France and Britain are pushing the 27-nation bloc to allow EU members to ship weapons to the militants.

The Syrian crisis has dragged on for over two years, and many people, including large numbers of Syrian soldiers and security personnel, have been killed in the foreign-sponsored militancy.

The Syrian government says that the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country, and there are reports that a very large number of the militants are foreign nationals.

On May 18, Syrian President Bashar Assad said militants from 29 different countries are fighting against the government in different parts of the country.

Å“Recent credible reports show that there are approximately 29 nationalities of foreign fighters engaged in terrorism activities within Syriaâ„¢s borders,” Assad told Argentine journalists in Damascus.

GJH/DB/HN

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Extra police forces have been called in to help quash protests in Stockholm, Sweden. (File photo)

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

May 23, 2013
 |

Do you want to know how cold it can get in Antarctica in midwinter? Go to a city council meeting in Greeley, Colorado, any time regulation of the oil and gas industry is on the agenda. You’ll get an idea. Last week, the room temperature felt near absolute zero from the iciness of the council’s reaction to citizen petitions to rein in industry designs on their neighborhood, a place called Fox Run.

What was up for debate was a proposal to approve permits for 16 horizontally fracked oil wells on a small parcel of undeveloped land, itself about 16 acres within the city. The 16 wells would be only 350 feet from the back door of some residences. These wells, according to the oil company, would be fracked four at a time, meaning the citizens of these neighborhoods could expect heavy industrial activity out their back door for up to three or four months a year, 24/7, over half a decade, perhaps. We’re talking literally tens of thousands of truck trips to deliver water, chemicals, steel pipe and a variety of heavy industrial machinery via a single point of ingress.

Envision, if you will, the Saturday afternoon barbeque, with the excited voices of children at play competing with the drone and earth rattle of drilling next door as unknown quantities of who-knows-what are spewed onto the festivities. This scene could be played out over and over again as money is made for the few and public health and social wellbeing are sacrificed by the many. That was the argument most often made by the homeowners.

Add to this that some local businesses would actually be only 200 feet from the wells. It happens that the man who owns the 16 acres for the drilling site also owns the street-front buildings in which these businesses are housed. They had all voluntarily agreed to the reduced setback, and no one suspected collusion in these robust economic times. As the owner said–employing small town, Daddy Warbucks logic–these people couldn’t tell him what to do with his land. That would be a takings, and he would have to be compensated, royally. In his mind, his individual rights were superior to the public’s.

His understanding is almost certainly wrong, for the U.S. Supreme Court has affirmed over and over again that the protection of the public’s health and well-being is superior to property rights, but no use to talk to this scion of private-property-rights-uber-alles. The only thing keeping the takings assertion alive for the oil boys and rent-seeking land owners is that government refuses to look at the health implications of fracking systematically, even though a host of scientific and public policy leaders at all levels of government and academia are asking for them. The EPA is studying the impacts on water. A draft of this study is to be released in 2014, but the agency has scrubbed any analysis of air impacts as a result of oil industry pressure.

In the end, despite roughly 45 people speaking in opposition to the permit, and only about 7 in favor–four of them owners of the permits and the property involved–in an audience of about 150 people, the city council voted 7-0 in favor of the oil company and private enrichment over repeated calls for caution and deferral until the health impacts of fracking are better understood.

Of the opposition, many are homeowners in Fox Run, some are tearfully concerned about their children, all are concerned about the air impacts. A doctor, head of the pulmonary unit at the Greeley Hospital, tried to appeal to the council’s better angels. Another woman explained that Fox Run is home to two city-chartered apartments for the disabled, 40 units in all. These units were built with $4 million in public money from HUD. Ranging in age from 20 to 70, many of these citizens are wheel chair bound, and the majority use oxygen, in the newer unit all but one. The impacts on them might prove frightful she reasoned.

This article originally appeared on: AlterNet

May 23, 2013
 |

This was a week that exemplified the historic moment in which we live.  We will look back at these times and see the seeds of a national revolt against concentrated wealth that puts profits ahead of people and the planet.

Mike Lux, who authored a history of the movements of the 1960s, wrote this week that when he researched his book he “was struck by the fact that so many big things happened so close together.” Comparing that moment to today he writes, “We are living in such a moment in history right now, that organizers and activists are sparking off each other and inspiring each other, that there is something building out there that will bring bigger change down the road.”

That is how we felt as we watched and participated in this week’s unfolding.  We began the week prepared to focus our attention on the amazing teacher, student and community actions that were occurring in defense of schools.  In Philadelphia, there was a giant walk-out of schools last Friday as students demanded their schools remain open and be adequately funded.  The photos of young people fighting for the basic necessity of education were an inspiration.

That was followed by three days of protests in Chicago that were equally inspiring, students organized and communities came together to fight for education.  Though corporate-mayor Rahm Emanuel’s carefully selected board voted to close 50 elementary schools and one high school (while the city funds the building of a new basketball stadium), the Chicago activists say they are not done. They are just getting started.  It is that kind of persistence that wins transformation.  These school battles are part of a national plan to replace community schools with corporatized charter schools. The battles of Chicago, Philadelphia and other cities are all of our battles.

Then there were the college students, who inspired us with their bravery especially because they were not fighting for themselves but for the students who come after them.  At Cooper Union, students are in their second week of occupying the school president’s office. As the sit-in grew to more than 100, they garnered increasing community support.  The school is about to begin to charge tuition, ending the nearly two century mission of its founder for free higher education. The students protesting will get free tuition; they are protesting for the students who follow. While they are sitting in, they are painting the president’s offices black and will continue to do so until he resigns his $750,000 a year job. Thousands have signed a “no confidence” petition against the president and board chairman.

We believe that a country that really believed in its youth and was building for its future would provide free post-high school education, college or vocational school, to young adults rather than leaving them crippled by massive debt.

As the week went on, more Americans stood up and showed their power.  On Monday, people who have lost their homes to foreclosure or are threatened with foreclosure, along with their allies, began an occupation of the Department of Justice. Some of them joined us first as guests on our radio show on We Act Radio. Afterwards, we went to Freedom Plaza where they rallied.  The coalition was a great mix of people of different ages, races and regions who were angry, organized and prepared.  They marched down Pennsylvania Ave. to the Department of Justice to demand that Attorney General Eric Holder prosecute the bankers who collapsed the economy and stole their homes.

They blocked the doors at the Department of Justice and put up tents emblazoned with “Foreclose on Banks Not on People,” put up a home with “Bank Foreclosed” over it and blocked the streets with orange mesh saying “Foreclosure and Eviction Free Zone.”  As evening came, they moved their tents onto DOJ property, brought in a big couch and prepared to stay the night — and some did.  By the third day of protests, they moved to Covington and Burling, the corporate law firm that spawned Eric Holder and where the DOJ official in charge of prosecuting the banks, Lenny Breuer, who did not prosecute a single big bank now gets a $4 million annual salary. In Congress the DOJ could not justify their claim that prosecuting the big banks would hurt the economy.

This article originally appeared on: AlterNet

The Nigerian army says it has razed a number of important camps used by the militant group Boko Haram in the northeast of the country.

Brigadier General Chris Olukolade, the director of Defense Information, said the camps were used to coordinate attacks on nearby local communities.

“These camps were mini-enclaves from which the insurgents planned their operations and from there they attacked neighbouring communities, going to municipalities and returning there,” Olukolade said.

“Most of their planning and activities was coordinated from these camps,” he added.

In the mean time, the authorities said on Friday that three women and six children abducted by Boko Haram have been freed.

“Efforts of the troops’ operation around the Sambisa forest resulted in freedom for nine of the women and children that were held hostage in that camp,” Olukolade told journalists.

He added that two children and one woman are missing.

On May 7, Boko Haram members launched attacks on military barracks, police stations, and a prison in the town of Bama in northeastern Nigeria, killing 55 people and facilitating the escape of over 100 inmates from the prison.

Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for a number of deadly shooting attacks and bombings in various parts of Nigeria since 2009.

On Tuesday, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross’ regional delegation for Niger and Mali said at least 2,400 people had fled violence in northern Nigeria and were being provided with emergency supplies in Diffa in the southeast of Niger.

IA/HN

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

China’s Prime Minister Li Keqiang has made Switzerland his first stop on his European tour and sealed the framework of a free-trade agreement.

Li sealed the deal on Friday and hoped it would be felt beyond Switzerland’s borders.

“This free-trade deal is the first between China and a continental European economy, and the first with one of the 20 leading economies of the globe,” the Chinese premier said.

“This has huge meaning for global free-trade,” he added.

Swiss President Ueli Maurer also described the agreement as a “real milestone.”

“It will give a legal framework to our cooperation,” Jean-Daniel Pasche, the head of Switzerland’s main watch federation said.

After the European Union and the US, China is Switzerland’s third biggest trading partner.

Bilateral trade between China and Switzerland which mainly includes imports and exports of watches, medicines, textiles, and dairy products is worth $26bn.

To take effect, the preliminary agreement needs to be cleared by both chambers of the Swiss parliament.

Li Keqiang has been on his first foreign trip since May 20. On May 20, Li visited India and is due to visit Germany on Saturday.

IA/HN

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

This file photo shows the armed militants operating in Syria.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Lebanese army’s soldiers sit on armored personal carriers (APC) mounted with anti-aircraft heavy machine gun on May 24, 2013 in a street of Jabal Mohsen in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Over 50 international footballers have joined anti-apartheid protesters in London to demand that the European footballâ„¢s governing body, UEFA, calls off the planned under-21 European football championships in Israel, Press TV reports.

The hundred-strong protesters, who gathered in central London where UEFA is holding its annual congress, said the body is complicit in whitewashing the Israeli regimeâ„¢s crimes if it allows Tel Aviv to host the tournament.

Meanwhile, Palestinian footballer and hunger striker Mahmoud Sarsak and Jewish comedian Alexei Sayle used the rally to hand a letter to the UEFA president Michel Platini, calling for cancelation of the under-21 event.

Å“Israel exercises apartheid and exercises a program of injustice against Palestinian sportsmen and women, carries out an extensive arrest policy of Palestinians with a sporting ambition and hope of representing their country in international events,” Sarsak told Press TV.

Å“Israel tries to kill our sporting hope by bombing stadium and sports facilities,” he added.

Sayle also condemned the move as part of efforts toward normalization of Israeli crimes.

Participants in the protest, organized by Innovative Minds campaign group who carried placards reading Å“End Israeli Apartheid” and Å“Kick Israeli Racism out of UEFA”.

They said the European football body should prevent the regime from hosting the under-21 tournament if it seriously seeks to end racism in football because the regime is an epitome of racism and a boycott by UEFA would send a strong message to racists.

AMR/HE

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

A French court has named the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as Å“assisting witness” in an investigation into a payout made when she was Franceâ„¢s finance minister.

The Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR) assigned Christine Lagarde the status on Friday after two long days of questioning on her role in a 400-million-euro ($520 million) pay-off to disgrace former Minister of City Affairs Bernard Tapie, who has served two years in prison for corruption.

Å“My status as assisted witness is not a surprise to me, since I always acted in the interests of the state and in conformity with the law,” Lagarde said after the second day of questioning in the case.

Prosecutors suspect that Tapie received favorable treatment in return for giving support to Nicolas Sarkozy in the 2007 and 2012 presidential elections.

The prosecution suggests Lagarde was somewhat responsible for Å“numerous anomalies and irregularities,” which could lead to charges for complicity in fraud and misappropriation of public funds.

Å“My explanations came as a response to the doubts that had been brought up regarding the decisions I had taken at the time,” Lagarde added.

Lagarde said she would now return to Washington Å“to pursue my mission as managing director of the IMF.”

Although Lagarde avoided being placed under formal investigation, Friday’s decision by the special court means that the IMF chief will be called upon to testify at a later stage.

The case stretches back to 1993 when Lagarde went ahead with arbitration between Tapie and to then state-owned bank Credit Lyonnais, over the botched sale of sports company Adidas.

Tapie claimed the bank had defrauded him after it resold his stake for a much higher sum and argued that the state should compensate him.

Critics said the state should not have paid the 400-million euro compensation to the convicted Tapie, who at that time was bankrupt, since he would not have been able financially to take the case through the courts.

With the payout, Tapie was able to repay his huge debts and relaunch his business career.

YH/HN

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

A worker cleans the street in front of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) building in Washington, DC. (File photo)

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

The Iranian ambassador to the United Nations has dismissed claims about Iranâ„¢s military presence in Syria and the shipment of arms to the country, urging a peaceful solution to the ongoing crisis in the Arab country.

Å“Despite the unfounded allegations, no Iranian military forces or advisors are present in Syria, but, unfortunately, certain regional countries are interfering in Syriaâ„¢s internal affairs and fanning the flame of the conflict in the country by sending arms to extremist and terrorist groups,” Mohammad Khazaei said.

He stressed that Iran welcomes any measure aimed at finding a peaceful solution to the unrest in Syria and noted that Tehran will host a third meeting with the same objective in the coming days.

The Friends of Syria Conference will be held in the Iranian capital under the banner of Å“Political Solution, Regional Stability” on May 29. Iran had held two other meetings on the crisis in the Arab country in November and August 2012.

Khazaei emphasized that the involvement of other countries in the issue of Syria at regional and international scenes should be aimed at supporting a peaceful solution to the ongoing crisis by the Syrian people, and should also prevent the interference of other states in the countryâ„¢s internal affairs.

He reiterated that the political future of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad should be determined only through holding elections in the country.

He also strongly condemned Israelâ„¢s recent airstrike on a research center in Syria, stressing that it was a blatant violation of the international law and UN regulations.

On May 5, Syria said the Israeli regime had carried out an air attack targeting a research center in a suburb of Damascus, following heavy losses inflicted upon al-Qaeda-affiliated groups by the Syrian army. According to Syrian media reports, the strike hit the Jamraya Research Center. The Jamraya facility had been targeted in another Israeli airstrike in January.

The May 5 Israeli aggression was Tel Avivâ„¢s second raid on Syria in three days.

It was reasonably expected of the Security Council and other UN bodies to roundly condemn the Israeli regimeâ„¢s air raid on Syria, the Iranian ambassador said.

Turmoil has gripped Syria for over two years now, and many people, including large numbers of Syrian soldiers and security personnel, have been killed in the foreign-sponsored militancy.

SF/NN/HJL

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

It has been revealed that Britain was just six hours away from running out of its gas supply in March.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

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Pakistan has released the leader of the banned Pakistani militant group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Malik Mohammad Ishaq from prison.

Malik Ishaq was released in the Punjabi capital Lahore on Thursday without being prosecuted.

He was arrested and held in custody in February. His group was outlawed by the Pakistani government shortly after his arrest.

Most terrorist organizations like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Sipah-e-Sahaba are believed to be enjoying the support of external powers.

Ishaqâ„¢s imprisonment was a precautionary measure during Pakistanâ„¢s election. He has orchestrated numerous terrorist attacks against Shia Muslims in Pakistan. Most of the attacks have been in the city of Quetta in southwestern Pakistan where more than 180 Shias have been killed since January.

Pakistan held elections on May 11. Nawaz Sharifâ„¢s Pakistan Muslim League-N Party won the National Assembly elections.

IA/HN

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

At least 15 children have been killed in a school van gas cylinder blast in eastern Pakistan, reports say.

The incident took place at about 7:40 a.m. (local time) Saturday when the school van was heading towards a school in Gujrat, a district in Pakistan’s eastern province of Punjab.

According to local media, there were an estimated 25 people on board and the students were aged between 8 and 12.

Police said initial investigation showed the blast was an accident caused by the gas cylinder of the van.

Many vehicles in Pakistan are powered by compressed natural gas due to cheap price.

Gas cylinder blasts frequently occur in the country because of the poor manufacturing quality of gas cylinders.

MSH/HN

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

[unable to retrieve full-text content]US Secretary of State John Kerry has once again announced the United States’ full support for the Israeli regime, calling Tel Aviv the closest ally of Washington in the region.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

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This article originally appeared on: World Socialist Web Site

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This article originally appeared on: World Socialist Web Site

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This article originally appeared on: World Socialist Web Site

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This article originally appeared on: World Socialist Web Site

[unable to retrieve full-text content]At least 15 children have been killed in a school van gas cylinder blast in eastern Pakistan, reports say.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Former Guatemalan President Alfonso Portillo (left) speaks to the press as he is led by police to an aircraft that will fly him to the United States from Guatemala City, May 24, 2013.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

The March Against Monsanto will see hundreds of thousands in 40 countries unite to challenge biotechnology corporations and protest against genetically modified foods, which despite bans in some countries due to health hazards remain legal in many others.

3:00 GMT: Watch RT’s Anastasia Churkina report on the
upcoming global protest.

Video:
/files/news/1f/32/00/00/original_monsanto-guest-churkina.asf

2:44 GMT: Activists begin gathering for Sydney protest
hours before the scheduled time.

2:14 GMT: Nick Bernabe, one of the organizers of the
protest in California told RT that activists “want to spread
awareness and we want to start from the ground up.”

“The easiest thing you can do to know what’s in your food is
to grow your own food,” he said. “We start there. At the
very top we want labeling and a ban, but I think we should work
from the ground up to have the best results.”

2:20 GMT: Hundreds of people gathered for an event in
Bellingen, New South Wales, Australia.

1:51 GMT: 

1:48 GMT:

1:36 GMT: On the eve of the global protest against GMO,
the US Senate overwhelmingly rejected a bill that would allow states to decide if
genetically modified food products should be labeled.

Since the FDA has not made scientific conclusions, the opponents
of the measure argued, GMOs should not be labeled.

“I believe we must rely on the FDA’s science-based
examination before we make conclusions about food ingredients
derived from genetically modified foods,” said Sen. Debbie
Stabenow (D-Mich.), who chairs the Agriculture Committee.

1:00 GMT: We are beginning our extensive coverage of the
global protest organized by the ‘March Against
Monsanto’ movement. An estimated 200,000 activists are expected
participate in the massive campaign spanning six continents, 40
nations, and at least 48 US states.

Video:
/files/news/1f/32/00/00/original_monst250513_503025_1.mp4

This article originally appeared on: RT

Amnesty International has issued a report saying that freedom of expression is still restricted in Turkey.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

President Barack Obama is the biggest threat to press freedom, one of the hallmarks of a true democracy, the United States has seen since former President Nixon, according to attorney James Goodale, widely seen as “the father of reporters’ privileges.”

Goodale is best known for using the First Amendment of the US
Constitution to successfully defend the New York Times after the
paper published the Pentagon Papers in 1971. The documents, leaked
by Defense Department employee Daniel Ellsberg, revealed that four
presidents had deliberately misled US citizens regarding the
countries’ intentions in Vietnam. The Nixon administration sought
to block the publication of the documents, citing national security
and the Espionage Act. 

The case is especially relevant today as the Obama
administration seeks to punish WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for
publishing diplomatic cables leaked by US Army soldier Bradley
Manning. The New York Times, the Guardian, and other outlets would
also go on to publish the same information revealed by Manning but
have not been targeted for punishment by the government
prosecutors. 

Speaking with RT, Goodale also gave his opinion on the recent
scandals that saw the US Department of Justice tap phones used by
reporters, at least once going as far as to issue a search warrant
for a Fox News correspondents’ email account. All, presumably, as
part of an attempt to intimidate potential leakers and media
personnel into remaining silent on issues that plague the nation.
 

Goodale’s book, “Fighting for the Press: The Inside Story of the
Pentagon Papers and Other Battles,” is available now. 

RT: In your new book you indicate that former US
President Richard Nixon was out to destroy the New York Times, but
you also argue that if President Obama succeeds at prosecuting
Julian Assange he will be worse than Nixon for press freedom, why
so? 

James Goodale: Let me say one thing about Nixon. He was
out to destroy the New York Times, he was out to destroy Brookings
Institution, and a lot of other institutions in the United States.
President Obama is not out to destroy the Times. What we’re talking
about is a discreet area, which is the relationship of the press to
national security. In the Pentagon Papers area of national
security, Nixon was terrible. He also happened to be terrible in
the whole First Amendment area. Obama, by contrast, is okay in the
First Amendment area but not okay in national security. Why?

Because Obama has pursued six leakers, that’s the first bad
thing he’s done. The second bad thing he’s done is pursued
[reporter and leak recipient] James Risen. He’s also suing Julian
Assange. If he’s pursuing Julian Assange as a co-conspirator and
succeeds he’ll be worse than Nixon because Nixon tried to go after
the New York Times and its reporters saying they were
co-conspirators but Nixon failed. 

RT: In this context you view Julian Assange as the
publisher, similar to the New York Times, similar to the Guardian,
and all the other news outlets that then published what Julian
Assange exposed through WikiLeaks. US officials maintain that
Assange compromised national security by publishing classified
documents. As you know, in America, sometimes the First Amendment
is trumped by national security issues when information is
disclosed when information is published that could threaten
soldiers on the battlefield, or threaten the lives of soldiers here
at home. Do you believe, honestly, that Assange should face no
consequences whatsoever? 

JG: Yes, that’s right. The same claims were made about
the New York Times when it published the Pentagon Papers. It was
destroying national security, it was destroying lives. The First
Amendment, in that case, trumped the claim of the Nixon
administration. Now here, you have to ask yourself, ‘Well what is
the First Amendment claim?’ The claim is that Assange can’t be
punished if, in fact, there’s no clear and present danger to the
country. If you look at the stuff that Assange published I would
argue there’s no clear and present danger to the country. It’s been
three years, where is the danger? You’re still here and I’m still
here. All claims sound terrible when it comes to national
security…In my book I look backwards at the Pentagon Papers and
there was no damage to national security. You have to look at these
claims with a jaundiced eye because after a period of time, you can
look at them, and there’s no danger. 

RT: As you mentioned the Obama administration has
prosecuted more alleged leakers under the Espionage Act than all
previous administrations combined. Do you believe that leakers such
as Bradley Manning should be subject to some
discipline? 

JG: Yes, I do. I would think that if you started leaking
information for the organization you work for then you ought to be
fired. I think every organization ought to have a control over its
employees, and therefore I think that the 20 years to which Bradley
Manning has agreed probably is a good sentence. I think the
question with Bradley Manning right now is, is he agreed to 20
years but the government wants to give him life. I just wonder if
that’s appropriate but I do believe every organization ought to be
able to discipline its employees. 

RT: Then do you fault the Department of Justice for
trying to find out who the leakers are, because as you well know
there’s been a scandal with the DoJ secretly obtaining the phone
records from Associated Press journalists and they also obtained
the warrant to search the email of a Fox News reporter. Do you
defend the US government in trying to find out who the leakers
are? 

JG: Well I think there is two things. We’ve got six
leaker prosecutions, three in the whole history of the United
States before then. Everyone leaks in Washington because everyone
has got access to national security information. I think the Obama
administration has got to dial it back. He’s dialed it back on
drones but six [leak prosecutions] is too many. Once you start
getting everybody, some of these cases start to blow up in your
face. 

Then the second question is how you go about it. I don’t think,
when the government is concerned about the behavior of its own
employees, that it ought to take the press and throw them into the
middle of it, which is what they have done in what we call
Rosengate. James Rosen is the reporter for Fox News who was the
subject of a search warrant, on a theory that he was a
co-conspirator with a gentleman named Kim. I mean, when I look at
you, you don’t look like a co-conspirator to me. But if you were to
start covering some Washington stories, which inevitably involve
national security information, you’re subject to be called a
co-conspirator. Legally I could give you the whole song and dance
but just for your viewers, and common sense, we know reporters
aren’t co-conspirators and we know their records shouldn’t be
subject to search warrants. Come on — lay off, President
Obama. 

RT: Do you think they’re doing this to intimidate US
journalists from seeking information and publishing these reports
on national security issues? 

JG: Sure, if they did that to your colleague here you
could be intimidated. They’re also trying to intimidate those who
leak and, as I said, I think they should use some discretion there
because when the president speaks to you, he’s leaking. Have you
ever thought about that? Every piece of information in Washington,
particularly the information which he has his hands on, is
classified…So the impact is we have less information, we have less
power, and the government — by keeping the information secret —
they become more powerful. That’s not good for any of us. 

RT: As a result of the AP and Fox News scandals the
New Yorker has launched Strongbox, an online drop box that allows
anyone to send leaked documents without their identities ever being
known. So this way if the Justice Department asks anyone from the
New Yorker magazine ‘Where did you get this information? Who
was your source?’ the New Yorker says ‘We don’t know.’ Don’t
you find it interesting that the New Yorker is now using the First
Amendment practices of Julian Assange to protect the Bradley
Manning’s of the world? 

JG: It doesn’t surprise me at all, because that’s what
the New Yorker should be doing in the digital age. That’s what
publishers do. After the Julian Assange story broke the New York
Times said they were going to set one up and I think the Wall
Street Journal, too. Now Obama is saying he wants to get Assange,
but Assange is just like the New Yorker, the Wall Street Journal.
Obama might as well go get the New York Times, and that’s what I’m
here to say I’m scared about. 

RT: During his speech on Thursday President Obama did
say that he’s troubled by the possibility that the Department of
Justice investigations into leaks may “chill the type of journalism
that holds government accountable.” As a result, he’s calling on
Congress to pass a Media Shield law to guard against government
overreach. Do you think that will help to do anything or is it just
rhetoric?

JG: I think it’s probably both. What he said was he wants
Chuck Schumer, our Senator in New York, to put the bill in. So
Schumer gets up and says ‘Look, I’m going to put it in but first
we’re going to make an exception so it doesn’t cover WikiLeaks’ and
the second thing he said is that it won’t cover national security.
I will say, in defense of Schumer, that the old bill on which this
is placed didn’t completely eliminate all national security leaks
but it had a provision in there that made it very difficult to
justify so I question whether that is worth the camel. But gee
whiz, we’re not going to protect Julian Assange when the New Yorker
is doing the same thing. 

RT: There have certainly been some cases where
journalists have abused their power. A recent example is that
Bloomberg reporters are facing a scandal after being accused of
accessing private data on the Bloomberg terminal to further their
reporting. Do you see this is as big deal?

JG: Yes I think that’s a big deal. It’s a little bit like
 the Rupert Murdoch scandal in London when the papers were
hacking in [to a murder victim’s cell phone]. This isn’t hacking, I
suppose, but it is the same effect. You’ve got to have privacy for
your emails but I’m not defending the Bloomberg journalists. I
think we’ve got to realize that we’re in a new, digital world and
we’ve got to get clear on what the rules are because it’s so easy
to cheat. 

RT: You’ve been called the father of reporters’
privileges. What do you see as the current threats to press freedom
in the United States?

JG: It, frankly, is President Obama and Rosengate because
this is the first time the — I hate to use the term ‘Espionage
Act,’ we’ll say national security act for your viewers — has been
used to get reporters. I mean, that really is frightening because
it’s usually used to get leakers. Rosen is a leakee, to use legal
phraseology. If the Obama administration, or at least his Justice
Department, thinks they can use criminal laws to get journalists
because they’re co-conspirators, honestly that is one of the worst
things I’ve come across in all the years I’ve been doing
this. 

RT: In closing, I mentioned your book at the beginning
of the interview, what do you hope that readers get from your
book?

JG: Well, the purpose of the book is to learn the lesson
from the Pentagon Papers, which is to say any president who messes
with national security is going to be in deep yogurt. Wake up,
America. Wake up, President Obama. President Obama, don’t go after
Julian Assange and call him a co-conspirator, that’s bad for
everybody. 

This article originally appeared on: RT

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says Rwanda is the key to ensuring peace and stability in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Ban made the remarks in the Rwandan capital Kigali on Friday, a day after he started a visit to the Great Lakes region of Africa to promote a new deal to end the long-running conflict in mineral-rich eastern Congo, which shares a border with Rwanda.

In February, 11 African countries signed a UN-mediated peace agreement to end the crisis in the east of the DRC, which led to the establishment of a special brigade of UN peacekeepers with a mandate to attack rebel groups.

That deal “is the best chance for peace in many years,” Ban told reporters in Kigali.

“I am appealing to all leaders to play their part… Rwanda is critical to the framework’s success,” he added.

The UN and Kinshasa have accused neighboring Rwanda and Uganda of helping the rebels in Congo.

Rwanda and Uganda have repeatedly denied the charges that they are backing the March 23 movement (M23), but Kigali and Kampala have never publicly condemned the militia, which is strengthening its grip over the provinces of North Kivu and South Kivu in the eastern Congo and could seriously threaten the writ of the Congolese government in the region.

From Kigali, Ban travelled to Entebbe in Uganda, where he met Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.

The UN secretary general said the Ugandan president assured him that peace talks between M23 and the Congolese government would continue in Kampala.

“The people of DRC have suffered too much for too long. They are tired of war, tired of poverty, tired of impunity,” Ban told reporters at a press conference in Entebbe.

“All across Africa, countries are on the rise to reach their potential. There is no reason that DRC cannot follow suit,” he added.

“We count on the continued leadership of President Museveni and other regional leaders,” the UN chief stated.

On Thursday, Ban toured the flashpoint Congolese city of Goma, where he said the deployment of the 3,000-strong “offensive” peacekeeping force would become fully operational “in a matter of weeks.”

The UN force, which was approved by the Security Council in March, will have troops from Tanzania, Malawi, and South Africa.

Several armed groups, including the M23 rebels, are active in the east of the DRC and fighting for control of the countryâ„¢s vast mineral resources, such as gold, the main tin ore cassiterite, and coltan (columbite-tantalite), which is used to make many electronic devices, including cell phones.

The M23 rebels seized Goma on November 20 after UN peacekeepers gave up the battle for the frontier city of one million people. M23 fighters withdrew from the city on December 1 under a ceasefire accord.

The M23 rebels defected from the Congolese Army in April 2012 in protest over alleged mistreatment in the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC). They had previously been integrated into the Congolese army under a peace deal signed in 2009.

Since early May 2012, nearly 3 million people have fled their homes in the eastern Congo. About 2.5 million have resettled in Congo, but more than 460,000 have crossed into neighboring Rwanda and Uganda.

Congo has faced numerous problems over the past few decades, such as grinding poverty, crumbling infrastructure, and a war in the east of the country that has dragged on since 1998 and left over 5.5 million people dead.

GJH/HGL

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says Rwanda is the key to ensuring peace and stability in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Ban made the remarks in the Rwandan capital Kigali on Friday, a day after he started a visit to the Great Lakes region of Africa to promote a new deal to end the long-running conflict in mineral-rich eastern Congo, which shares a border with Rwanda.

In February, 11 African countries signed a UN-mediated peace agreement to end the crisis in the east of the DRC, which led to the establishment of a special brigade of UN peacekeepers with a mandate to attack rebel groups.

That deal “is the best chance for peace in many years,” Ban told reporters in Kigali.

“I am appealing to all leaders to play their part… Rwanda is critical to the framework’s success,” he added.

The UN and Kinshasa have accused neighboring Rwanda and Uganda of helping the rebels in Congo.

Rwanda and Uganda have repeatedly denied the charges that they are backing the March 23 movement (M23), but Kigali and Kampala have never publicly condemned the militia, which is strengthening its grip over the provinces of North Kivu and South Kivu in the eastern Congo and could seriously threaten the writ of the Congolese government in the region.

From Kigali, Ban travelled to Entebbe in Uganda, where he met Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.

The UN secretary general said the Ugandan president assured him that peace talks between M23 and the Congolese government would continue in Kampala.

“The people of DRC have suffered too much for too long. They are tired of war, tired of poverty, tired of impunity,” Ban told reporters at a press conference in Entebbe.

“All across Africa, countries are on the rise to reach their potential. There is no reason that DRC cannot follow suit,” he added.

“We count on the continued leadership of President Museveni and other regional leaders,” the UN chief stated.

On Thursday, Ban toured the flashpoint Congolese city of Goma, where he said the deployment of the 3,000-strong “offensive” peacekeeping force would become fully operational “in a matter of weeks.”

The UN force, which was approved by the Security Council in March, will have troops from Tanzania, Malawi, and South Africa.

Several armed groups, including the M23 rebels, are active in the east of the DRC and fighting for control of the countryâ„¢s vast mineral resources, such as gold, the main tin ore cassiterite, and coltan (columbite-tantalite), which is used to make many electronic devices, including cell phones.

The M23 rebels seized Goma on November 20 after UN peacekeepers gave up the battle for the frontier city of one million people. M23 fighters withdrew from the city on December 1 under a ceasefire accord.

The M23 rebels defected from the Congolese Army in April 2012 in protest over alleged mistreatment in the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC). They had previously been integrated into the Congolese army under a peace deal signed in 2009.

Since early May 2012, nearly 3 million people have fled their homes in the eastern Congo. About 2.5 million have resettled in Congo, but more than 460,000 have crossed into neighboring Rwanda and Uganda.

Congo has faced numerous problems over the past few decades, such as grinding poverty, crumbling infrastructure, and a war in the east of the country that has dragged on since 1998 and left over 5.5 million people dead.

GJH/HGL

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Presidential candidate Ali-Akbar Velayati says the Iranian people should play an active role in managing the countryâ„¢s sports affairs.

Å“Responsibility for managing Iranâ„¢s sports affairs should be transferred to the people, and the administration should support the process,” Velayati said in a speech at the Heidarnia Sports Complex in Tehran on Friday.

The former foreign minister stated that trust between the administration and the sports society will be restored if the countryâ„¢s officials fulfill their pledges to athletes.

The presidential candidate also called for the strengthening of the Sports and Youth Ministry in order to Å“support and respect athletes from the beginning to the end of their athletic careers and during their retirement.”

Earlier this week, Iranâ„¢s Interior Ministry announced the list of candidates approved by the Guardian Council to run in the countryâ„¢s 11th presidential election, which will be held on June 14.

In addition to Velayati, the Guardian Council approved MP Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, Supreme National Security Council Secretary Saeed Jalili, Expediency Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei, Hassan Rohani, the director of the Strategic Research Center of the Expediency Council, former First Vice President Mohammad-Reza Aref, Tehran Mayor Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf, and former Telecommunications Minister Mohammad Gharazi. The eight candidates were approved after a 10-day vetting process.

The president of Iran is elected for a four-year term in a national election, and the Guardian Council vets the candidates.

MHB/HGL

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Presidential candidate Saeed Jalili says he will remain faithful to the ideals of Iran’s Islamic Revolution of 1979 if elected president.

Å“Anyone who becomes the next Iranian president must continue on the path of the Islamic Revolution and must use all available resources to achieve the objectives of the revolution,” Jalili said in a speech at the Shiroudi Sports Complex in Tehran on Friday.

The secretary of the Supreme National Security Council stated that Å“Iran is an influential regional power,” and the next president must continue to tread the path of the late Imam Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, by expanding the influence of Islam across the world and diminishing the domination of the Å“global arrogance,” which is a term used in Iran to describe the imperialist powers.

Earlier this week, Iranâ„¢s Interior Ministry announced the list of candidates approved by the Guardian Council to run in the countryâ„¢s 11th presidential election, which will be held on June 14.

In addition to Jalili, the Guardian Council approved MP Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, former Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Velayati, Expediency Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei, Hassan Rohani, the director of the Strategic Research Center of the Expediency Council, former First Vice President Mohammad-Reza Aref, Tehran Mayor Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf, and former Telecommunications Minister Mohammad Gharazi. The eight candidates were approved after a 10-day vetting process.

The president of Iran is elected for a four-year term in a national election, and the Guardian Council vets the candidates.

MHB/HGL

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Have you ever wondered how the government’s misinformation gains traction?

What I have noticed is that whenever a stunning episode occurs, such as 9/11 or the Boston Marathon bombing, most everyone whether on the right or left goes along with the government’s explanation, because they can hook their agenda to the government’s account.

The leftwing likes the official stories of Muslims creating terrorist mayhem in America, because it proves their blowback theory and satisfies them that the dispossessed and oppressed can fight back against imperialism.

The patriotic rightwing likes the official story, because it proves America is attacked for its goodness or because terrorists were allowed in by immigration authorities and nurtured by welfare, or because the government, which can’t do anything right, ignored plentiful warnings.

Whatever the government says, no matter how problematical, the official story gets its traction from its compatibility with existing predispositions and agendas.

In such a country, truth has no relevance. Only agendas are important.

A person can see this everywhere. I could write volumes illustrating how agenda-driven writers across the spectrum will support the most improbable government stories despite the absence of any evidence simply because the government’s line can be used to support their agendas.

For example, a conservative writer in the June issue of Chronicles uses the government’s story about the alleged Boston Marathon bombers, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, to argue against immigration, amnesty for illegals, and political asylum for Muslims. He writes: “Even the most high-tech security systems imaginable will inevitably fail as they are overwhelmed by a flood of often hostile and dangerous immigrants.”

The writer accepts all of the improbable government statements as proof that the brothers were guilty. The wounded brother who was unable to respond to the boat owner who discovered him and had to be put on life support somehow managed to write a confession on the inside of the boat.

As soon as the authorities have the brother locked up in a hospital on life support, “unnamed officials” and “authorities who remain anonymous” are planting the story in the media that the suspect is signing written confessions of his guilt while on life support. No one has seen any of these written confessions. But we know that they exist, because the government and media say so.

The conservative writer knows that Dzhokhar is guilty because he is Muslim and a Chechen. Therefore, it does not occur to the writer to wonder about the agenda of the unnamed sources who are busy at work creating belief in the brothers’ guilt. This insures that no juror would dare vote for acquittal and have to explain it to family and friends. Innocent until proven guilty in a court has been thrown out the window. This should disturb the conservative writer, but doesn’t.

The conservative writer sees Chechen ethnicity as an indication of guilt even though the brothers grew up in the US as normal Americans, because Chechens are “engaged in anti-Russian jihad.” But Chechens have no reason for hostility against the US. As evidence indicates, Washington supports the Chechens in their conflict with Russia. By supporting Chechen terrorism, Washington violates all of the laws that it ruthlessly applies to compassionate Americans who give donations to Palestinian charities that Washington alleges are run by Hamas, a Washington-declared terrorist organization.

It doesn’t occur to the conservative writer that something is amiss when martial law
is established over one of America’s main cities and its metropolitan area, 10,000 heavily armed troops are put on the streets with tanks, and citizens are ordered out of their homes with their hands over their heads, all of this just to search for one wounded 19-year old suspect. Instead the writer blames the “surveillance state” on “the inevitable consequences of suicidal liberalism” which has embraced “the oldest sin in the world: rebellion against authority.” The writer is so pleased to use the government’s story line as a way of indulging the conservative’s romance with authority and striking a blow at liberalism that he does not notice that he has lined up against the Founding Fathers who signed the Declaration of Independence and rebelled against authority.

I could just as easily have used a left-wing writer to illustrate the point that improbable explanations are acceptable if they fit with predispositions and can be employed in behalf of an agenda.

Think about it. Do you not think that it is extraordinary that the only investigations we have of such events as 9/11 and the Boston Marathon bombing are private investigations, such as this investigation of the backpacks: http://whowhatwhy.com/2013/05/20/official-story-has-odd-wrinkles-a-pack-of-questions-about-the-boston-bombing-backpacks/ ^[1]

There was no investigation of 9/11. Indeed, the White House resisted any inquiry at all for one year despite the insistent demands from the 9/11 families. NIST did not investigate anything. NIST simply constructed a computer model that was consistent with the government’s story. The 9/11 Commission simply sat and listened to the government’s explanation and wrote it down. These are not investigations.

The only investigations have come from a physicist who proved that WTC 7 came down at free fall and was thus the result of controlled demolition, from a team of scientists who examined dust from the WTC towers and found nano-thermite, from high-rise architects and structural engineers with decades of experience, and from first responders and firefighters who were in the towers and experienced explosions throughout the towers, even in the sub-basements.

We have reached the point where evidence is no longer required. The government’s statements suffice. Only conspiracy kooks produce real evidence.

In America, government statements have a unique authority. This authority comes from the white hat that the US wore in World War II and in the subsequent Cold War. It was easy to demonize Nazi Germany, Soviet Communism and Maoist China. Even today when Russian publications interview me about the perilous state of civil liberty in the US and Washington’s endless illegal military attacks abroad, I sometimes receive reports that some Russians believe that it was an impostor who was interviewed, not the real Paul Craig Roberts. There are Russians who believe that it was President Reagan who brought freedom to Russia, and as I served in the Reagan administration these Russians associate me with their vision of America as a light unto the world. Some Russians actually believe that Washington’s wars are truly wars of liberation.

The same illusions reign among Chinese dissidents. Chen Guangcheng is the Chinese dissident who sought refuge in the US Embassy in China. Recently he was interviewed by the BBC World Service. Chen Guangcheng believes that the US protects human rights while China suppresses human rights. He complained to the BBC that in China police can arrest citizens and detain them for as long as six months without accounting for their detainment. He thought that the US and UK should publicly protest this violation of due process, a human right. Apparently, Chen Guangcheng is unaware that US citizens are subject to indefinite detention without due process and even to assassination without due process.

The Chinese government allowed Chen Guangcheng safe passage to leave China and live in the US. Chen Guangcheng is so dazzled by his illusions of America as a human rights beacon that it has never occurred to him that the oppressive, human rights-violating Chinese government gave him safe passage, but that Julian Assange, after being given political asylum by Ecuador is still confined to the Ecuadoran embassy in London, because Washington will not allow its UK puppet state to permit his safe passage to Ecuador.

Perhaps Chen Guangcheng and the Chinese and Russian dissidents who are so enamored of the US could gain some needed perspective if they were to read US soldier Terry Holdbrooks’ book about the treatment given to the Guantanamo prisoners. Holdbrooks was there on the scene, part of the process, and this is what he told RT: “The torture and information extraction methods that we used certainly created a great deal of doubt and questions in my mind to whether or not this was my America. But when I thought about what we were doing there and how we go about doing it, it did not seem like the America I signed up to defend. It did not seem like the America I grew up in. And that in itself was a very disillusioning experience.” http://rt.com/news/guantanamo-guard-islam-torture-608/ ^[2]

In a May 17 Wall Street Journal.com article, Peggy Noonan wrote that President Obama has lost his patina of high-mindedness. What did Obama do that brought this loss upon himself? Is it because he sits in the Oval Office approving lists of US citizens to be assassinated without due process of law? Is it because he detains US citizens indefinitely in violation of habeas corpus? Is it because he has kept open the torture prison at Guantanamo? Is it because he continued the war that the neoconservatives started, despite his promise to end it, and started new wars?

Is it because he attacks with drones people in their homes, medical centers, and work places in countries with which the US is not at war? Is it because his corrupt administration spies on American citizens without warrants and without cause?

No. It is none of these reasons. In Noonan’s view these are not offenses for which presidents, even Democratic ones, lose their high-minded patina. Obama can no longer be trusted, because the IRS hassled some conservative political activists.

Noonan is a Republican, and what Obama did wrong was to use the IRS against some Republicans. Apparently, it has not occurred to Noonan that if Obama—or any president—can use the IRS against opponents, he can use Homeland Security and the police state against them. He can use indefinite detention against them. He can use drones against them.

All of these are much more drastic measures. Why isn’t Peggy Noonan concerned?

Because she thinks these measures will only be used against terrorists, just as the IRS is only supposed to be used against tax evaders.

When a public and the commentators who inform it accept the collapse of the Constitution’s authority and the demise of their civil liberties, to complain about the IRS is pointless.

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

ABC.net.au
May 24, 2013

Police in Stockholm called in reinforcements after rioters set cars and a school ablaze in a fifth night of rioting, described as the worst in years.

About 30 cars have been torched and eight people, mostly aged in their early 20s, have been detained overnight.

Police said they needed to call in extra back-up from the cities of Malmo and Gothenburg.

The riots are mainly young people protesting over a growing divide between the rich and poor.

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

Ramsey Cox
The Hill
May 24, 2013

“In today’s high-tech world, we must ensure that all forms of communication are protected,” Paul said. “Yet government has eroded protecting the Fourth Amendment over the past few decades, especially when applied to electronic communications and third party providers.”

The Fourth Amendment protects citizens from unreasonable search and seizure and requires that warrants only be issued when there is probable cause of wrongdoing.

Paul’s Fourth Amendment Preservation and Protection Act, S. 1037, would require specific warrants granted by judges in order to obtain electronic communications.

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

Alex Rodriguez
L.A. Times
May 24, 2013

President Obama’s commitment to scaling back the use of unmanned aircraft to kill suspected terrorists could pave the way for improved relations between the United States and Pakistan, analysts and political leaders said Friday.

But the Pakistani government maintained its insistence that the drone campaign does more harm than good and should be shut down.

Obama’s decision to continue using targeted killings abroad while imposing restrictions that could significantly reduce the frequency of drone strikes comes at a particularly sensitive time for Islamabad as it prepares for a new civilian government led by Nawaz Sharif, who served as prime minister in the 1990s.

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

upi.com
May 24, 2013

U.S. prosecutors asked a judge to defer indefinitely notifying a Fox News reporter his email was being monitored in a national security probe, records indicate.

Court documents unsealed this week show U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Ron Machen argued in 2010 the normal practice of notifying people of such monitoring within 30 days should not apply to James Rosen, who was being investigated in a national security leak case, The Hill reported Friday.

A separate court order allowed Machen to prevent Google from notifying Rosen his Gmail account was being monitored, the report said.

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

VOA News
May 24, 2013

At least four people have been killed in a new Taliban attack in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul.

Taliban militants, backed by a suicide bomber, attacked a United Nations compound Friday evening and set off several explosions. In the ensuing gunbattle with security forces, at least one policeman was killed. Kabul’s police chief, General Mohammad Ayub Salangi, told VOA three of the attackers also were killed. At least 10 other people were wounded.

The blasts shook a busy area of Kabul, sending a plume of smoke over the city and causing chaos.

The general said the violence began when militants attacked a house next to the U.N. mission in Afghanistan. The Taliban said the target was a compound used by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

This was the second major attack in Kabul in a little more than a week. On May 16, a suicide car bombing killed 15 people, including six Americans and nine Afghan civilians. Two of the Americans were soldiers.

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This article was posted: Friday, May 24, 2013 at 6:01 pm

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

upi.com
May 24, 2013

Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev was a lone wolf who appeared to be radicalized before he traveled to Russia last year, investigators said.

Citing officials briefed on the investigation, ABC News reported Friday Tsarnaev – who was killed three days after he and his brother allegedly carried out bomb attacks that killed three people and injured 270 others at the marathon finish line – went to Dagestan intending to contact militants but did not join them.

The investigation into Tsarnaev’s background suggests he was mostly self-radicalized before he went to Dagestan but may have been further radicalized once there. He does not appear to have been affiliated with any international terror organization, such as al-Qaida, or controlled by anyone in Dagestan, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

Infowars.com
May 24, 2013

Rep. Steve King. Photo: Congressional Pictorial Directory

Republican Congressman Steve King isn’t one to mince words, especially when it comes to the immigration reform bill. So the Tweet he posted Thursday calling out “illegal aliens” who were in attendance during the committee meeting shouldn’t have surprised anyone.

So far we’ve heard a lot about the Gang of Eight and how they’ve heroically banded together and reached a bipartisan agreement to create the ultimate Path to Citizenship for the 11.5 million illegal aliens within our borders. You almost hear angels singing in the background every time their names are mentioned.

But there’s a flip side to every coin and soon, as the bill makes its way to the House, the alternative-Gang of Eight, the anti-amnesty team, will be fielding their own A-team led by Rep. Steve King of Iowa and his second-in-command, Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas.

Together the two make a formidable team, but they’re not alone. They’ll be accompanied by Rep. Mo Brooks (Ala.), Rep. Lamar Smith (Texas), Lou Barletta (Pa.), Rep. Steve Stockman of Texas, Rep. John Flemin (La.) and Rep. Paul Gosar (Ariz.)

King takes a strong stand against the current immigration initiative on his website and he believes our first and foremost focus should be on securing and controlling our borders:

“It is troubling that the levels of illegal immigration continue to rise and that the Rule of Law is not being enforced. I believe we only encourage illegal immigration by discussing amnesty for the 12-20 million illegal immigrants living in the United States today. I adamantly oppose amnesty, regardless of the guise under which it is presented. Amnesty pardons immigration lawbreakers and rewards them with the objective of their crime–citizenship.”

King also introduced the Birthright Citizenship Act of 2011 to limit birthright citizenship, requiring a child born in the U.S. to have at least one parent who is a U.S. citizen before that child can also be considered a legal citizen of the United States. The bill was reintroduced in 2013 and is currently in committee, but it would have put a serious crimp in the plans of those illegal aliens who come here to deposit their anchor babies.

“I do not believe it is in the best interest of our nation to continue tolerating the practice of illegal aliens giving birth to children in the U.S. in order to obtain citizenship for the child, then moving back to their country of origin with the hopes of achieving uninhibited access to our country for as many family members as possible.”

On May 12, in an exclusive interview at Breitbart, King addressed the question, “How are you going to solve the problem of eleven million illegal immigrants?” King answered, “Why do I have to do anything to solve a problem that people created willingly for themselves?”

“They choose to come here illegally and live in the shadows. They are happy enough to take the risk of sneaking into the United States or overstaying their visa, sneaking around and using fraudulent documents to get a job or tapping into welfare and living here in the shadows for the balance of their lives. That was their best option; the worst would be prison or deportation.”

“The answer to that question is: I don’t have to do anything to fix that problem.”

“I have no moral obligation to make it easier for people to stay here if they are people who broke the law to get here. That moral question isn’t answered by anyone; I don’t have to fix that problem. The more uncomfortable it gets for them to stay, the less problems we have. The less uncomfortable it gets, the more problems.”

During Wednesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, DREAMers, undocumented illegal aliens who vehemently believe they’re above all those silly legal requirements and should be granted immediate amnesty, were in the audience, which prompted King to Tweet”

“#Immigration: Illegal aliens in House Judiciary Committee room during hearing today. How can we secure border if we can’t secure our room?”

Juliet Garibay, one of the DREAMers in attendance, picked up on King’s Tweet and fired back with:

Yes @stevekingia undocumented immigrants were present at #HJC hearing & we will continue to be #11milliondreams

According to ABC News, King said there was an immigration officer in the room during the meeting but he was “prohibited from enforcing immigration law by the existing leadership.” “Even if he has someone that he knows is here illegally and they’re in jail, he can’t deport them,” King responded.

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

Jane Perlez
New York Times
May 24, 2013

The Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, bluntly told a North Korean envoy Friday that his country should return to diplomatic talks designed to rid North Korea of its nuclear weapons, according to a state-run Chinese news agency.

“The denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and lasting peace on the peninsula is what the people want and also the trend of the times,” Mr. Xi said in a meeting at the Great Hall of the People with Vice Marshal Choe Ryong-hae, a personal envoy of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, the China News Service reported.

Vice Marshal Choe, who has been in Beijing for three days on a mission to repair the prickly relationship between North Korea and China, handed Mr. Xi a letter from Mr. Kim. The contents were not disclosed.

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Arthur Martin
dailymail.co.uk
May 24, 2013

Internet giants were last night slammed for refusing to remove extremist websites.

Search engines such as Google and Yahoo must do more to shut down hate-filled sites in the wake of the Woolwich attack, MPs said.

Thousands of videos which help to radicalise impressionable young men are easily available on YouTube. And within hours of the execution of Drummer Lee Rigby, 25, vile messages praising the attack and encouraging further outrages appeared on Twitter.

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

The spokesman of the so-called Syrian National Coalition (SNC) has repeated his call for the overthrow of the legitimate government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Louay Safi made the remarks in Istanbul on Friday.

Safi also accused Assadâ„¢s government of not being serious about an international peace conference on the Syrian crisis that is likely to take place in Geneva in June.

Earlier in the day, Russia said the Syrian government agreed to attend the Geneva conference.

Å“We note with satisfaction that we have received an agreement in principle from Damascus to attend the international conference, in the interest of Syrians themselves finding a political path to resolve the conflict, which is ruinous for the nation and region,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said.

However, Safi was not satisfied with that announcement.

“We would like to hear from the spokesman of the Syrian government. Why is Russia speaking on behalf of Syria?” he said.

“This has been related to us through the Russians, I have no idea why the Syrians are silent,” the SNC spokesman added.

At a meeting in Moscow on May 7, Russia and the U nited States reached an agreement to convene an international conference on Syria, which would serve as a follow-up to an earlier Geneva meeting held in June 2012.

Some reports say the meeting will be held on June 10, but Lukashevich said such reports Å“cannot be taken seriously” since the ranks of the Syrian opposition groups remain so divided.

On May 13, the US and Britain said they had found common ground with Russia on how to proceed on Syria.

At a meeting in Washington, US President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron promised to make diplomatic efforts to find a political solution to the two-year crisis in Syria.

“Syria’s history is being written in the blood of her people, and it is happening on our watch,” Cameron told reporters at a joint press conference with Obama.

“The world urgently needs to come together to bring the killing to an end. None of us have any interest in seeing more lives lost, in seeing chemical weapons used,” the British prime minister stated.

Cameron, who held “very substantive, very purposeful and very useful” talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on May 10, said he believed Washington, London, and Moscow had found “common ground” on the crisis.

Obama agreed with Cameron, saying, Å“As a leader on the world stage, Russia has an interest, as well as an obligation,” to work on resolving the crisis.

The Syria crisis began in March 2011, and many people, including large numbers of soldiers and security personnel, have been killed in the violence.

The Syrian government says that the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country, and there are reports that a very large number of the militants are foreign nationals.

GJH/HGL

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

The bill states that even if future research shows that GMOs or GE seeds cause significant health problems, cancer, etc, anything, that the federal courts no longer have any power to stop their spread, use, or sales.

There are of course arguments to be made that not enough research has been done yet to accurately determine the effects that GMOs have on human and animal health (though the research already done should make you stop and think). This bill sidesteps that completely though, and simply states that even if there are problems, that the federal courts can no longer do anything about it. And this bill is now law, thanks to President Obama and the U.S. Congress.

Some other interesting things to keep in mind:

– The bill was apparently written by freshman Sen. Roy Blunt in collusion with Monsanto, with them helping to craft the exact language of the document.

– “The Center for Responsive Politics notes that Sen. Blunt received $64,250 from Monsanto to go towards his campaign committee between 2008 and 2012. The Money Monocle website adds that Blunt has been the largest Republican Party recipient of Monsanto funding as of late.”

– Many members of Congress were apparently unaware that the “Monsanto Protection Act” was a part of the spending bill that they were voting on.

– Obama had no problem signing it into law (not really a surprise, he’s been rather soft on GMO policy).

– The bill will only remain in effect for a limited time, but it’s a bad sign. With the ease that this bill passed, it’ll be interesting to see what future bills look like.

As the Daily News asks, “Who’s more powerful, the world’s largest producer of genetically modified crops or the U.S. government?”

“On Tuesday, Pres. Obama inked his name to H.R. 933, a continuing resolution spending bill approved in Congress days earlier. Buried 78 pages within the bill exists a provision that grossly protects biotech corporations such as the Missouri-based Monsanto Company from litigation.”

“In light of approval from the House and Senate, more than 250,000 people signed a petition asking the president to veto the spending bill over the biotech rider tacked on, an item that has since been widely referred to as the ‘Monsanto Protection Act.’”

“But Obama ignored [the petition],” as the IB Times notes, “instead choosing to sign a bill that effectively bars federal courts from being able to halt the sale or planting of GMO or GE crops and seeds, no matter what health consequences from the consumption of these products may come to light in the future.”

GMOs, while they may cause problems for human health, are primarily a problem for other reasons, mostly to do with crop/genetic diversity and overly complex industrial systems. And also the fact that they often don’t even work the way that they are “supposed” to.

When taken in context though, GMOs are really just another in a long line of environmentally damaging practices that people have done for short term gain/profit. From the large-scale deforestation of the world’s old-growth forests, to sustenance farming, to modern imported-fertilizer/pesticide/herbicide/fossil-fuel dependent industrial agricultural, the trend has been consistent, GMOs are just another in that line of attempts to temporarily maintain/raise crop yields. Regardless of the type of agriculture or the location, there are limits to how long any land can remain productive, applying imported fertilizers, or utilizing GMOs, only provides, at best, a temporary halt to the land’s transition to non-productive “wasteland”, and to desertification.

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

“Control the oil, and you control nations. Control the food, and you control the people.”*
-Henry Kissenger

Genetic Engineering is the direct manipulation of the coding sequence, or genome, within the cell of an organism. It proceeds by taking genetic information found within the DNA molecule and tampering with it, by inserting new genetic information. The organism that develops from this newly formed DNA strand will typically have different traits and characteristics from those which would have formed from the untampered DNA.

The application of this technology has resulted in tobacco resistant to a virus, the Flavr Savr tomato, with its lengthened shelf life, and a variety of crops developed to be resistant to herbicides.

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Length (59:32)

Click to download the audio (MP3 format)

The public generally resists knowingly consuming foods made from genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Much of the controversy around GMOs rests in the ability of biotech companies like Monsanto to patent them and charge royalties for their use.

For millennia, farmers have saved seeds and replanted them year after year. Now, farmers on top of other stresses around climate, controlling pests and coping with global competition must contend with a model of agriculture that increases their overhead while compromising the sustainability of their yields.

How do the laws of supply and demand economics come into play when there seems to be no public appetite (pardon the pun) for this technology?

This week’s episode of the Global Research News Hour features contributions by Saskatchewan-based writer, researcher and former Saskatchewan Green Party leader Sandra Finley, bio-diversity activist Vandana Shiva, and writer and geo-political analyst William Engdahl.

Sandra Finley touches on her observations in the changes in farming and community life in rural Saskatchewan as a result of the introduction of modern chemical intensive agriculture methods. As well, she outlines the corrosive effect biotech partnerships are having on research in our universities.

Vandana Shiva, scientist, author, ecologist and outspoken critic of GMOs speaks about impacts in the developing world, particularly India, where farmers have had biotech seeds imposed on them and in desperation are taking their own lives by the tens of thousands.

William Engdahl is the author of the 2007 book Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation. He outlines GMO agriculture’s links to eugenics, the Rockefellers and a motivation to corner the market on food production.

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

Length (59:32)

Click to download the audio (MP3 format)

The Global Research News Hour, hosted by Michael Welch, airs on CKUW 95.9FM in Winnipeg Thursdays at 10am CDT. The programme is now broadcast weekly (Monday, 5-6pm ET) by the Progressive Radio Network in the US, and is available for download on the Global Research website.

References

* F. William Engdahl, 2007, Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation, p. xiv

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

The number and value of overdue student loans has reached an all-time high in the US as nearly a third of 20- to 24-year-olds are currently unemployed, according to a report by the Department of Education.

With continued concern regarding rising college costs, the
amount of outstanding student loans has now reached $1 trillion,
making that the largest category of consumer debt in the US aside
from home mortgages.

According to the new report, eleven per cent of school loans – one
hundred and ten billion dollars’ worth – are now seriously
delinquent, meaning at least 90 days past due. That is a sharp
increase from the 6 per cent reported in the first quarter of
2003.

The long-term consequences of the school loan repayment burden can
include a graduate’s choice of jobs, as well as the ability to buy
a home.

A tight job market and a continued increase in the cost of higher
education leave many to question the very value of obtaining a
college degree, as opposed to more vocationally oriented
training.

“Today’s economy puts young
graduates in a difficult position,” Jack Buckley,
commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, which
published the report, said in a statement.

“A college diploma no longer
guarantees a direct pathway to the middle class, making it harder
to justify the expense of a degree.”

Still, as Bloomberg reports, the employment rate for college
graduates in the US is 87 per cent, as compared with 64 per cent
for those with only a high school school diploma.

One item which seems to have been eclipsed in recent partisan
wrangling in Congress is a looming rate increase in federal student
loans, which is set to double to 6.8 per cent on July 1 assuming
there is no intervention. That rate increase would impact the more
than 7.4 million students who can currently apply for a 3.4
interest loan.

On Thursday, the House voted along party lines to push forward a
Republican initiative to intervene in the interest rate increase,
though the specifics of the plan is sure to have the student loan
debate take center stage in coming weeks.

The new bill would allow student lending rates to reset every
year, tied to the interest rate of a 10-year US Treasury note, plus
2.5 percentage points for federal Stafford loans. According to the
Congressional Budget Office, that means that the projected rate
increase on those loans would rise to 5 per cent in 2014, and 7.7
per cent in 2023.

“Who’s going to set interest rates, politicians here or the
markets?” asked Representative John Kline, Republican of
Minnesota.

The legislation would cap Stafford loans at 8.5 per cent, with a
higher maximum of 10.5 per cent for graduate loans.

Democrats, who are thus far opposing the Republican plan, prefer
to extend the current Stafford subsidized rate – subsidized meaning
that interest is not accrued while a student is enrolled – at a
cost of $8.3 billion to the federal government, which would in
theory be paid for by closing tax loopholes.

According to The New York Times, some Democrats want to take
things even further. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has proposed
locking in a 4 per cent rate for all student loans, and allowing
graduates with higher interest rate loans to refinance at that
rate.

President Obama has already put forth his own proposal, which,
like the Republican plan would tie student loan rates to the
Treasury’s borrowing costs, but would then fix that rate for the
life of the loan, rather than resetting each year. The
administration’s plan would also cap loan repayments at 10 per cent
of a student’s income.

Delinquency rates on existing student loan debt suggests that,
whatever solution Congress ultimately selects to follow, it will
have to make loan repayments feasible as higher education costs
continue to increase while wages have stayed roughly the same for
several decades.

In addition to the Republican-sponsored bill HR1911, there are
at least eight other bills aimed at modifying or freezing interest
rates on federal school loans before the July 1 deadline.

The White House on Wednesday threatened to veto the Republican
bill, arguing that it would not guarantee low rates due to its
yearly reset.

Meanwhile, Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of Edvisors.com, says the
fight over subsidized loan rates “is a distraction from the real
problem, which is the amount of debt, not the cost of
debt.”

Kantrowitz may well have a point. According to the San Francisco
Chronicle, a recent study from Fidelity found that “70 per cent of
the class of 2013 is graduating with college-related debt —
averaging $35,200 — including federal, state and private loans, as
well as debt owed to family and accumulated through credit
cards.”

This article originally appeared on: RT

Fast-food workers continued demonstrating for better conditions Friday, protesting a Wendy’s shareholder meeting just one week after the New York Attorney General announced an investigation into claims of widespread wage theft in the industry.

Two labor rights groups, Fast Food Forward and the Coalition of
Immokalee Workers, organized rallies Thursday and Friday outside
the Sofitel Hotel in midtown Manhattan, where Wendy’s executives
had gathered for an annual conference. The crowd chanted “$15
and a Union,” reiterating their basic demand for higher wages
and the right to organize without fear of retaliation. 

Hourly workers in the roughly 5,900 Wendy’s locations across the
US often earn between $7.25 per hour, the federal minimum wage
standard, and $7.45, according to the Village Voice. An average
fast food worker earns approximately $11,300 annually, a sum far
below the national poverty line. 

“I’m tired of working all week, going to cash my check, and
the check bounces,” Marcus Rose, a Wendy’s worker in Brooklyn,
told the Voice. “A lot of people have children out here, but
don’t have enough money to put clothes on their
back.” 

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) also called on Wendy’s
to join Taco Bell, McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway and Chipotle to
provide better wages for the Florida farmworkers who supply the
major chains with tomatoes. 

Wendy’s released a statement claiming, “All of our Florida
tomato suppliers participate in the Fair Food Program, and are
required to operate in a way that is safe and lawful for all our
workers ” – a misleading assertion, according to Gerardo Reyes
Chavez of the CIW. 

“Wendy’s is not participating in the Fair Food Program but
its CEO has claimed in front of its shareholders that it does,”
Chavez told the Nation’s Restaurant News. “Wendy’s has not
signed a Fair Food agreement with the CIW. Wendy’s is not paying a
penny premium to increase workers’ pay, and Wendy’s has not
committed to using its purchasing power to eradicate abuses in the
fields together with growers and farm workers.” 

This week’s rallies follow recent protests in Detroit, Chicago,
St. Louis, Washington, DC and New York calling on all major fast
food brands to boost wages. 

Addressing the unrest, New York State Attorney General Eric
Schneiderman announced last week that his office has opened an
investigation into at least one chain, which went unnamed, for wage
theft. The assertions of abuse, echoed by fast-food workers across
the country, allege that many restaurant franchises have forced
employees to pay out of their own pocket when the register is
short, denied overtime pay, made employees work off the clock, and
refused to allow breaks. 

An astounding 84 per cent of New York fast-food workers reported
being victims of wage theft and a national poll of 4,500 workers
found that two-thirds experience some kind of wage theft at least
once a week.  

New York City councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito, who represents
low-income neighborhoods in New York’s Harlem and Bronx sections,
told protesters last week the demonstrations were evidence of a
“hidden crime wave” that has abused the working poor for
years. 

“This is a crime wave that is not being engaged in by petty
thieves, but by a multibillion-dollar industry,” she said.

This article originally appeared on: RT

The “economic therapy” imposed under IMF-World Bank jurisdiction is in large part responsible for triggering famine and social devastation in Ethiopia and the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, wreaking the peasant economy and impoverishing millions of people.

With the complicity of branches of the US government, it has also opened the door for the appropriation of traditional seeds and landraces by US biotech corporations, which behind the scenes have been peddling the adoption of their own genetically modified seeds under the disguise of emergency aid and famine relief.

Moreover, under WTO rules, the agri-biotech conglomerates can manipulate market forces to their advantage as well as exact royalties from farmers. The WTO provides legitimacy to the food giants to dismantle State programmes including emergency grain stocks, seed banks, extension services and agricultural credit, etc.), plunder peasant economies and trigger the outbreak of periodic famines.

Crisis in the Horn

More than 8 million people in Ethiopia — representing 15% of the country’s population — had been locked into “famine zones”. Urban wages have collapsed and unemployed seasonal farm workers and landless peasants have been driven into abysmal poverty. The international relief agencies concur without further examination that climatic factors are the sole and inevitable cause of crop failure and the ensuing humanitarian disaster. What the media tabloids fails to disclose is that — despite the drought and the border war with Eritrea — several million people in the most prosperous agricultural regions have also been driven into starvation. Their predicament is not the consequence of grain shortages but of “free markets” and “bitter economic medicine” imposed under the IMF-World Bank sponsored Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP).

Ethiopia produces more than 90% of its consumption needs. Yet at the height of the crisis, the nationwide food deficit for 2000 was estimated by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) at 764,000 metric tons of grain representing a shortfall of 13 kilos per person per annum.1 In Amhara, grain production (1999-2000) was twenty percent in excess of consumption needs. Yet 2.8 million people in Amhara (representing 17% of the region’s population) became locked into famine zones and are “at risk” according to the FAO. 2 Whereas Amhara’s grain surpluses were in excess of 500,000 tons (1999-2000), its “relief food needs” had been tagged by the international community at close to 300,000 tons.3 A similar pattern prevailed in Oromiya, the country’s most populated state where 1.6 million people were classified “at risk”, despite the availability of more than 600,000 metric tons of surplus grain.4 In both these regions, which include more than 25% of the country’s population, scarcity of food was clearly not the cause of hunger, poverty and social destitution. Yet no explanations are given by the panoply of international relief agencies and agricultural research institutes.

The Promise of the “Free Market”

In Ethiopia, a transitional government came into power in 1991 in the wake of a protracted and destructive civil war. After the pro-Soviet Dergue regime of Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam was unseated, a multi-donor financed Emergency Recovery and Reconstruction Project (ERRP) was hastily put in place to deal with an external debt of close to 9 billion dollars that had accumulated during the Mengistu government. Ethiopia’s outstanding debts with the Paris Club of official creditors were rescheduled in exchange for far-reaching macro-economic reforms. Upheld by US foreign policy, the usual doses of bitter IMF economic medicine were prescribed. Caught in the straightjacket of debt and structural adjustment, the new Transitional Government of Ethiopia (TGE), led by the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) — largely formed from the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (PLF) — had committed itself to far-reaching “free market reforms”, despite its leaders’ Marxist leanings. Washington soon tagged Ethiopia alongside Uganda as Africa’s post Cold War free market showpiece.

While social budgets were slashed under the structural adjustment programme (SAP), military expenditure — in part financed by the gush of fresh development loans — quadrupled since 1989.5 With Washington supporting both sides in the Eritrea-Ethiopia border war, US arms sales spiralled. The bounty was being shared between the arms manufacturers and the agribusiness conglomerates. In the post-Cold War era, the latter positioned themselves in the lucrative procurement of emergency aid to war-torn countries. With mounting military spending financed on borrowed money, almost half of Ethiopia’s export revenues was earmarked to meet debt-servicing obligations.

A Policy Framework Paper (PFP) stipulating the precise changes to be carried out in Ethiopia had been carefully drafted in Washington by IMF and World Bank officials on behalf of the transitional government, and was forwarded to Addis Ababa for the signature of the Minister of Finance. The enforcement of severe austerity measures virtually foreclosed the possibility of a meaningful post-war reconstruction and the rebuilding of the country’s shattered infrastructure. The creditors demanded trade liberalization and the full-scale privatization of public utilities, financial institutions, State farms and factories. Civil servants including teachers and health workers were fired, wages were frozen and the labor laws were rescinded to enable State enterprises “to shed their surplus workers”. Meanwhile, corruption became rampant. State assets were auctioned off to foreign capital at bargain prices and Price Waterhouse Cooper was entrusted with the task of coordinating the sale of State property.

In turn, the reforms had led to the fracture of the federal fiscal system. Budget transfers to the State governments were slashed leaving the regions to their own devices. Supported by several donors, “regionalization” was heralded as a “devolution of powers from the federal to the regional governments”. The Bretton Woods institutions knew exactly what they were doing. In the words of the IMF, “[the regions] capacity to deliver effective and efficient development interventions varies widely, as does their capacity for revenue collection”. 6

Wrecking the Peasant Economy

Patterned on the reforms adopted in Kenya in 1991 (see Box 9.1 ), agricultural markets were wilfully manipulated on behalf of the agribusiness conglomerates. The World Bank demanded the rapid removal of price controls and all subsidies to farmers. Transportation and freight prices were deregulated serving to boost food prices in remote areas affected by drought. In turn, the markets for farm inputs including fertiliser and seeds were handed over to private traders including Pioneer Hi-Bred International which entered into a lucrative partnership with Ethiopia Seed Enterprise (ESE), the government’s seed monopoly.7

At the outset of the reforms in 1992, USAID under its Title III program “donated” large quantities of US fertilizer “in exchange for free market reforms”:

[V]arious agricultural commodities [will be provided] in exchange for reforms of grain marketing… and [the] elimination of food subsidies…The reform agenda focuses on liberalization and privatization in the fertilizer and transport sectors in return for financing fertilizer and truck imports…. These program initiatives have given us [an] “entrée” …in defining major [policy] issues… 8

While the stocks of donated US fertiliser were rapidly exhausted; the imported chemicals contributed to displacing local fertiliser producers. The same companies involved in the fertiliser import business were also in control of the domestic wholesale distribution of fertiliser using local level merchants as intermediaries.

Increased output was recorded in commercial farms and in irrigated areas (where fertilizer and high yielding seeds had been applied). The overall tendency, however, was towards greater economic and social polarisation in the countryside, marked by significantly lower yields in less productive marginal lands occupied by the poor peasantry. Even in areas where output had increased, farmers were caught in the clutch of the seed and fertilizer merchants.

In 1997, the Atlanta based Carter Center — which was actively promoting the use of biotechnology tools in maize breeding — proudly announced that “Ethiopia [had] become a food exporter for the first time”.9 Yet in a cruel irony, the donors ordered the dismantling of the emergency grain reserves (set up in the wake of the 1984-85 famine) and the authorities acquiesced.

Instead of replenishing the country’s emergency food stocks, grain was exported to meet Ethiopia’s debt servicing obligations. Close to one million tons of the 1996 harvest was exported, an amount which would have been amply sufficient (according to FAO figures) to meet the 1999-2000 emergency. In fact the same food staple which had been exported (namely maize) was re-imported barely a few months later. The world market had confiscated Ethiopia’s grain reserves.

In return, US surpluses of genetically engineered maize (banned by the European Union) were being dumped on the horn of Africa in the form of emergency aid. The US had found a convenient mechanism for “laundering its stocks of dirty grain”. The agribusiness conglomerates not only cornered Ethiopia’s commodity exports, they were also involved in the procurement of emergency shipments of grain back into Ethiopia. During the 1998-2000 famine, lucrative maize contracts were awarded to giant grain merchants such as Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) and Cargill Inc. 10

Laundering America’s GM Grain Surpluses

US grain surpluses peddled in war-torn countries also served to weaken the agricultural system. Some 500,000 tons of maize and maize products were “donated” in 1999-2000 by USAID to relief agencies including the World Food Programme (WFP) which in turn collaborates closely with the US Department of Agriculture. At least 30% of these shipments (procured under contract with US agribusiness firms) were surplus genetically modified grain stocks. 11

Boosted by the border war with Eritrea and the plight of thousands of refugees, the influx of contaminated food aid had contributed to the pollution of Ethiopia’s genetic pool of indigenous seeds and landraces. In a cruel irony, the food giants were at the same time gaining control — through the procurement of contaminated food aid — over Ethiopia’s seed banks. According to South Africa’s Biowatch: “Africa is treated as the dustbin of the world…To donate untested food and seed to Africa is not an act of kindness but an attempt to lure Africa into further dependence on foreign aid.” 12

Moreover, part of the “food aid” had been channelled under the “food for work” program which served to further discourage domestic production in favour of grain imports. Under this scheme, impoverished and landless farmers were contracted to work on rural infrastructural programmes in exchange for “donated” US corn.

Meanwhile, the cash earnings of coffee smallholders plummeted. Whereas Pioneer Hi-Bred positioned itself in seed distribution and marketing, Cargill Inc established itself in the markets for grain and coffee through its subsidiary Ethiopian Commodities.12 For the more than 700,000 smallholders with less than 2 hectares that produce between 90 and 95% of the country’s coffee output, the deregulation of agricultural credit combined with low farmgate prices of coffee had triggered increased indebtedness and landlessness, particularly in East Gojam (Ethiopia’s breadbasket).

Biodiversity up for Sale

The country’s extensive reserves of traditional seed varieties (barley, teff, chick peas, sorghum, etc) were being appropriated, genetically manipulated and patented by the agribusiness conglomerates: “Instead of compensation and respect, Ethiopians today are …getting bills from foreign companies that have “patented” native species and now demand payment for their use.”13 The foundations of a “competitive seed industry” were laid under IMF and World Bank auspices.14 The Ethiopian Seed Enterprise (ESE), the government’s seed monopoly joined hands with Pioneer Hi-Bred in the distribution of hi-bred and genetically modified (GM) seeds (together with hybrid resistant herbicide) to smallholders. In turn, the marketing of seeds had been transferred to a network of private contractors and “seed enterprises” with financial support and technical assistance from the World Bank. The “informal” farmer-to-farmer seed exchange was slated to be converted under the World Bank programme into a “formal” market oriented system of “private seed producer-sellers.” 15

In turn, the Ethiopian Agricultural Research Institute (EARI) was collaborating with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in the development of new hybrids between Mexican and Ethiopian maize varieties.16 Initially established in the 1940s by Pioneer Hi-Bred International with support from the Ford and Rockefeller foundations, CIMMYT developed a cosy relationship with US agribusiness. Together with the UK based Norman Borlaug Institute, CIMMYT constitutes a research arm as well as a mouthpiece of the seed conglomerates. According to the Rural Advancement Foundation (RAFI) “US farmers already earn $150 million annually by growing varieties of barley developed from Ethiopian strains. Yet nobody in Ethiopia is sending them a bill.” 17

Impacts of Famine

The 1984-85 famine had seriously threatened Ethiopia’s reserves of landraces of traditional seeds. In response to the famine, the Dergue government through its Plant Genetic Resource Centre —in collaboration with Seeds of Survival (SoS)— had implemented a programme to preserve Ethiopia’s biodiversity.18 This programme — which was continued under the transitional government — skilfully “linked on-farm conservation and crop improvement by rural communities with government support services”. 19 An extensive network of in-farm sites and conservation plots was established involving some 30,000 farmers. In 1998, coinciding chronologically with the onslaught of the 1998-2000 famine, the government clamped down on seeds of Survival (SoS) and ordered the programme to be closed down. 20

The hidden agenda was to eventually displace the traditional varieties and landraces reproduced in village-level nurseries. The latter were supplying more than 90 percent of the peasantry through a system of farmer-to-farmer exchange. Without fail, the 1998-2000 famine led to a further depletion of local level seed banks: “The reserves of grains [the farmer] normally stores to see him through difficult times are empty. Like 30,000 other households in the [Galga] area, his family have also eaten their stocks of seeds for the next harvest.”21 And a similar process was unfolding in the production of coffee where the genetic base of the arabica beans was threatened as a result of the collapse of farmgate prices and the impoverishment of small-holders.

In other words, the famine — itself in large part a product of the economic reforms imposed to the advantage of large corporations by the IMF, World Bank and the US Government — served to undermine Ethiopia’s genetic diversity to the benefit of the biotech companies. With the weakening of the system of traditional exchange, village level seed banks were being replenished with commercial hi-bred and genetically modified seeds. In turn, the distribution of seeds to impoverished farmers had been integrated with the “food aid” programmes. WPF and USAID relief packages often include “donations” of seeds and fertiliser, thereby favouring the inroad of the agribusiness-biotech companies into Ethiopia’s agricultural heartland. The emergency programs are not the “solution” but the “cause” of famine. By deliberately creating a dependency on GM seeds, they had set the stage for the outbreak of future famines.

This destructive pattern — invariably resulting in famine — is replicated throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. From the onslaught of the debt crisis of the early 1980s, the IMF-World Bank had set the stage for the demise of the peasant economy across the region with devastating results. Now, in Ethiopia, fifteen years after the last famine left nearly one million dead, hunger is once again stalking the land. This time, as eight million people face the risk of starvation, we know that it isn’t just the weather that is to blame.

Notes

1. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Special Report: FAO/WFP Crop Assessment Mission to Ethiopia, Rome, January 2000.
2. Ibid
3. Ibid
4. Ibid
5. Philip Sherwell and Paul Harris, “Guns before Grain as Ethiopia Starves, Sunday Telegraph, London, April 16, 2000.
6. IMF, Ethiopia, Recent Economic Developments, Washington, 1999.
7. Pioneer Hi-Bred International, General GMO Facts, http://www.pioneer.com/usa/biotech/value_of_products/product_value.htm#.
8. United States agency for International Development (USAID), “Mission to Ethiopia, Concept Paper: Back to The Future”, Washington, June 1993
9. Carter Center, Press release, Atlanta, Georgia, January 31, 1997.
10. Declan Walsh, America Find Ready Market for GM Food, The Independent, London, March 30, 2000, p. 18).
11. Ibid.
12. Maja Wallegreen, “The World’s Oldest Coffee Industry In Transition”, Tea & Coffee Trade Journal, November 1, 1999.
13. Laeke Mariam Demissie, A vast historical contribution counts for little; West reaps Ethiopia’s genetic harvest, World Times, October, 1998).
14. World Bank, Ethiopia-Seed Systems Development Project, Project ID ETPA752, 6 June 1995.
15. Ibid
16. See CIMMYT Research Plan and Budget 2000-2002 http://www.cimmyt.mx/about/People-mtp2002.htm#).
17. Laeke Mariam Demissie, op. cit
18. “When local farmers know best”, The Economist, 16 May 1998)
19. Ibid
20. Laeke Mariam Demissie, op. cit.
21. Rageh Omaar, “Hunger stalks Ethiopia’s dry land”, BBC, London, 6 January, 2000.
22. An earlier version of this article was published in The Ecologist, September 2000.

The URL of this article is: http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO109B.html

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

by Nick Bernabe

The March Against Monsanto was started by a handful of millenials with a passion for change, a passion that we all have within us. Many people make the mistake of looking for someone to make change for them when the real change in this world comes from within. The top-down approach for making the world a better place, i.e. electing politicians to do our bidding has come and gone, with little success. There’s a revolution happening right before our eyes, and before I had the opportunity to help with the world-wide March Against Monsanto, I was largely oblivious to this sea change that is coming. The rules of change, of activism, of consciousness, and of helping people are being rewritten by you and me, one connection at a time. The new revolution of good is coming from the grass-roots and making its way upward; this bottom-up effect is exactly what those who would like to see us silent are afraid of.

How the March AgainstMonsanto can and will change the world. The beginning of the Food Revolution.

The March does not and cannot end on May 25, 2013. For many of the participants in the March Against Monsanto, this is their first protest or march that they have ever taken part of. This movement has awakened a very large group of people that care about their food supply and care about other people’s food supply. These courageous marchers have put aside all of their political and ideological differences to stand in solidarity for what is right.How do we carry on this March Against Monsanto, this new food revolution passed the 25th?

Capture the momentum of this movement and harness it at the local level. Keep your local march network alive and growing.

After the March, take real steps to improve your food fate locally. Remember that people on a low or fixed income don’t have a choice to eat organic with their given incomes.

It’s not enough to simply tell people to eat organic, or vote for initiatives that will label GMOs. The very first thing you can do is plant your own garden. If you have the space, plant a garden larger than what you need to feed your family and help someone that is less fortunate with some fresh homegrown food from your garden. What if you don’t have a yard to plant in? One option is growing indoors. There is a growing industry of indoor gardeners that are starting to change the way we think about gardening through the use of

hydroponics . You should be able to find a local hydroponics store near you and get it all set up and growing food for a couple hundred dollars. There are also plenty of online retailers of indoor growing equipment; try Craigslist if you’re on a tight budget. What if you don’t have a yard and growing indoors in not an option for you? At this point we need to look to our fellow local activists from the March Against Monsanto.

Community gardens are a great way to bring in a fresh and organic food source into an urban area. Find a plot of land that is vacant or belongs to the local city, find out who is on charge of it and get the ball rolling on starting a community garden. Enlist some people that you have met though the march to help you physically, technically, and financially. Look to the local community to crowd source labor and resources. If none of these are an option for you, there’s still hope for you within the food revolution. Share cropping is a way of getting some space to grow a garden that you can secure for free or a very low cost. Many urban sharecroppers will offer free food from the garden to the land owner in exchange for offering them some space to grow a garden. Share cropping is just like a community garden on a smaller scale. If you live in an area where there are many small yards with space available, think about setting up a sharecropping co-op where food can be traded and shared for little or no money. Always remember that the low income community is at the highest risk of GMO and chemical exposure from their food. Look into new technologies and techniques when setting up your new gardens. Vertical gardeningis great way to maximize limited space a make your garden virtually maintenance free. There’s an ancient technique of hydroponics that is just being rediscovered and developed: aquaponics.

Activism

There are many forms of activism that we can use to improve our food fate and continue the food revolution. The March Against Monsanto is a perfect example of a mass movement that disseminates information to millions of people, awakening the masses to the injustices of the world. Activism can be done on a much smaller scale and many different ways. As I detailed earlier, the networks are being rebuilt in a new, more just way. Utilize your new local network of activists to keep pressure on local politicians and hold them to their promises. Organize mass emailing and mass calling to their offices when a critical vote is about to be made. Let them hear your voice amplified by your entire network. Build relationships with other activists from other causes, reach out to other interests and help support them, and they will support you. Spreading awareness is key to the food revolution; many people don’t know what GMOs are, let alone know the negative effects on their health and environment that they cause.

Support alternative media

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

May 22, 2013
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Despite issuing a highly publicized memorandum in 2009 stating, “Science and the scientific process must inform and guide decisions of my Administration,” it remains clear that federal lawmakers and the White House continue to willfully ignore science in regards to the cannabis plant and the federal policies which condemn it to the same prohibitive legal status as heroin. In fact, in 2011 the Obama administration went so far as to reject an administrative petition that called for hearings to reevaluate pot’s safety and efficacy, pronouncing in the Federal Register, “Marijuana does not have a currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States or a currently accepted medical use with severe restrictions. At this time, the known risks of marijuana use have not been shown to be outweighed by specific benefits in well-controlled clinical trials that scientifically evaluate safety and efficacy.” (The Administration’s flat-Earth position was upheld in January by a three-judge panel for the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.)
 
Nevertheless, scientific evaluations of cannabis and the health of its consumers have never been more prevalent. Studies are now published almost daily rebuking the federal government’s allegations that the marijuana plant is a highly dangerous substance lacking any therapeutic utility. Yet, virtually all of these studies — and, more importantly, their implications for public policy — continue to be ignored by lawmakers. Here are just a few examples of the latest cannabis science that your federal government doesn’t want you to know about.

Frequent cannabis smokers possess no greater lung cancer risk than do either occasional pot smokers or non-smokers

Subjects who regularly inhale cannabis smoke do not possess an increased risk of lung cancer compared to those who either consume it occasionally or not at all, according to data presented in April at the annual meeting of the American Academy for Cancer Research.
 
Investigators from the University of California, Los Angeles analyzed data from six case-control studies, conducted between 1999 and 2012, involving over 5,000 subjects (2,159 cases and 2,985 controls) from around the world.
 
They reported, “Our pooled results showed no significant association between the intensity, duration, or cumulative consumption of cannabis smoke and the risk of lung cancer overall or in never smokers.”
 
Previous case-control studies have also failed to find an <a target=_blank href="http://norml.org/news/2009/05/14/marijuana-smoking-not-associated-with-cancers-of-the-head-or-neck association between cannabis smoking and head and neck cancers or cancers of the upper aerodigestive tract.

Nevertheless, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration continues to maintain, “Marijuana smokers increase their risk of cancer of the head, neck, lungs and respiratory track.”
 
Consistent use of cannabis associated is associated with reduced risk factors for Type 2 diabetes

Will the pot plant one day play a role in staving the ongoing epidemic of Type 2 diabetes? Emerging science indicates that it just might.
 
According to trial data published this month in the American Journal of Medicine, subjects who regularly consume cannabis possess favorable indices related to diabetic control compared to occasional consumers or non-consumers.
 
Investigators at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre in Boston, assessed self-report data from some 5,000 adult onset diabetics patients regarding whether they smoked or had ever smoked marijuana. Researchers reported that those who were current, regular marijuana smokers possessed 16 percent lower fasting insulin levels and reduced insulin resistance compared to those who had never used pot. By contrast, non-users possessed larger waistlines and lower levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL or ‘good’) cholesterol — both of which are risk factors for type 2 diabetes.
 
Similar benefits were reported in occasional cannabis consumers, though these changes were less pronounced, “suggesting that the impact of marijuana use on insulin and insulin resistance exists during periods of recent use,” researchers reported.
 
The recent findings are supportive of the findings of 2012 study by a team of UCLA researchers, published in the British Medical Journal, which reported that adults with a history of marijuana use had a lower prevalence of type 2 diabetes and possess a lower risk of contracting the disease than did those with no history of cannabis consumption, even after researchers adjusted for social variables (ethnicity, level of physical activity, etc.) Concluded the study, “[This] analysis of adults aged 20-59 years … showed that participants who used marijuana had a lower prevalence of DM (Diabetes Mellitus) and lower odds of DM relative to non-marijuana users.”
 
Diabetes is the third leading cause of death in the United States after heart disease and cancer.

This article originally appeared on: AlterNet

The front cover of the May edition of National Geographic has an intriguing headline. Just over a large photo of a baby of several months are the words: “THIS BABY WILL LIVE TO BE 120.” Wow. In smaller type an asterisk points out: “It’s not just hype. New science could lead to very long lives.”

The article inspires additional respect for the advances of science, genetics, nutrition and other research and opens new possibilities for human development. But in contemplating this new breakthrough in the quest for longer life it is useful to examine the world into which our new babies are entering.

I’m not just writing about the nuclear weapons, drone warfare, torture memos, global hunger, or the plethora of needless inequality and injustice that exists through the world. There’s also the impending catastrophe of global warming – something few of us worried about a generation ago, but now the very health and welfare of new generations is at stake.

 A day after finishing the National Geographic article, I picked up the New York Times and on page one under a two-column headline was an example of the other half of the contradiction of increased longevity:

 “Heat-Trapping Gas Passes Milestone, Raising Fears.”

The article was chilling:

“The level of the most important heat-trapping gas in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide, has passed a long-feared milestone, scientists reported Friday, reaching a concentration not seen on the earth for millions of years. Scientific instruments showed that the gas had reached an average daily level above 400 parts per million [ppm].”

 Commenting on the event, former Vice President Al Gore wrote: “We are reaping the consequences of our recklessness.”

 “We’ve known for a long time that we’d pass the 400ppm mark; the trouble is, we’re passing it without any real national or international effort to slow down the production of CO2. So it’s an entirely grim landmark. Before we can get back to 350ppm [the goal of the activist movement against climate change] we actually have to stop increasing carbon concentrations. That’s a political task; it’s why we’re trying to build a movement strong enough to stand up to the fossil fuel industry. Their current business plans… take us to 600 or 700ppm, and they’re spending $675 billion a year looking for yet more coal and gas and oil.”

I can’t help but think about the children who are coming into the world today with a climate spinning out of control to the extent that the great majority of all life on earth is jeopardized. As far as those who may live 120 years are concerned, greenhouse gas concentration is projected to reach about 650ppm by the end of their lifespan.

 A certain amount of deleterious climate change has already begun and will be with us for thousands of years. This toxic process will continue to become much worse until the key carbon producing industrialized nations implement an extensive worldwide emergency campaign to replace the use of fossil fuel (oil, coal, natural gas) with renewable energy resources (solar, wind, geothermal, etc.).

 This is not so much a scientific problem. It is mainly a political problem. Science understands climate change, recognizes what must be done to prevent an impending catastrophe, and is ready to act. The political system of industrialized societies also understands climate change by now, recognizes what must be done, and refuses to act. Why is this?

 The political system dominating today’s world – from progressive social democratic to reactionary dictatorial – is intimately bound to the capitalist economic system. This system is based on profit, competition and the marketplace, with little long-term planning. These days our financialized capitalist structure is focused on short-term gain – calculated quarterly, monthly and even daily.

 Halting climate change is an urgent, expensive and long-term venture that may, in the end, require reductions in consumption within the rich countries – an anathema to capital. Higher profits may not be guaranteed in the beginning years (unless subsidized by government, which goes against today’s prevailing conservative ideology). Worldwide competition and the marketplace are extremely unpredictable and risky in an endeavor of this kind. This means the capitalist class is holding back until its profits can be assured. Thus, the political system is dragging its feet, and the ppm rises higher and higher.

 Over the last 150 years the United States has pumped more greenhouse producing gases into the atmosphere than any other country – by far. In the last couple of years China (with four times the population) has exceeded the U.S. annual total but cannot come near to America’s aggregate amount. As such – and because Washington insists on being recognized as the leading global nation-state – the U.S. has an important responsibility in regard to fighting climate change.

 In reality, the U.S. has not only ignored that responsibility but in effect has thumbed its nose at the rest of the world and its peoples in the process. Until the American government begins to fulfill its obligations there cannot be the extensive worldwide emergency campaign required to save the Earth.

Democratic President Barack Obama has a fairly good understanding of the dangers of climate change. He mentioned the subject in his political campaigns of 2008 and 2012 and in his 2013 State of the Union message – usually by advocating “market-based” initiatives (i.e., what’s good for business is good for America). But in his five years in office he has done nothing of real significance to halt global warming. Congress, of course, is a prime delinquent as well. The fossil fuel industry has many representatives and senators on its campaign contribution payroll.

 For every presidential gesture in opposition to fossil fuel consumption, such as increasing gas mileage standards or a recommendation to cut a small portion of outdated federal subsidies for oil and gas companies, there are many more moves in the opposite direction. Obama has ordered greatly increased oil drilling on land and offshore, championing hydro-fracking to expand production of natural gas, and promoting illusions about “clean” coal and nuclear power.

Internationally, the White House has been an obstruction, not a leader, in terms of curbing fossil fuels. Its representatives to the annual UN meetings on climate change have invariably stalled progress. The White House simply refuses to engage in a confrontation with the go-it-slow American corporate and financial oligarchy.

The Obama Administration has been so derelict that it appears to be embarrassed about it in international circles. On an official trip to climate conscious Sweden May 14, Secretary of State Kerry referred to climate change as a “life and death” challenge. At a joint press conference with Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, he confessed: “I have to say that I regret that my own country – and President Obama knows this and is committed to changing it – needs to do more and we are committed to doing more.” Who’s been in charge for the last five years?

Obama is lucky because the only viable “alternative” the American people have in their two-party right and center right system is a Republican Party composed of hypocrites, ignoramuses and lackeys to big business. Many Republican politicians are well aware of the greenhouse danger, but would rather shut their mouths than buck the big boys. Actually, neither party will even consider taking appropriate action until the corporations, banks and Wall St. give the go-ahead.

This is not acceptable. There’s too much at stake. There’s so little time. We need a determined mass movement, as we had in America in the 1960s and early ‘70s, to break through this roadblock by every means at our disposal.

 In the long run – if there is to be a long run – we must build a society where people come before profits, and where the masses of people come before the 1% who possess enormous wealth at the expense of all others. That’s the only way to avoid the global catastrophe that awaits future generations of children.

I do not entertain the slightest illusion that capitalism can pull this off. Sooner or later the system must be changed.

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

The circumstances surrounding the fatal shooting of Ibragim Todashev remain murky, and the FBI has little interest in revealing too much information as the suspect’s death might be a case of excessive force, associate law professor Sahar Aziz told RT.

So was there a knife?

According to the preliminary FBI account, Todashev, a
28-year-old Chechen immigrant living in Orlando, Florida, became
violent and lunged at an FBI special agent with a knife while being
questioned about his ties to alleged Boston Marathon bomber
Tamerlan Tsarnaev and an unsolved 2011 triple murder in the Boston
suburb of Waltham. The agent, reacting to an “imminent
threat,” shot Todashev dead.

Later in the day, FBI officials backed away from that version of
events, leaving no clear official account of what happened moments
before Todashev was killed on Wednesday.

Witnesses report hearing multiple shots that night, and while an
autopsy reportedly completed by Thursday, the report will not be
released until a criminal investigation into the event is
completed.

At the time of the shooting, up to half a dozen law-enforcers,
including two Massachusetts State Police troopers and an FBI agent
from the agency’s Boston division, were present at the condo not
far from Universal Studios.

The FBI claims that moments before Todashev “just went
crazy” and attacked the agent, he had agreed to sign a
confession which would have implicated both him and Tamerlan in the
unsolved killings in which three male victims brutally had their
throats slit. The murders took place on September 11, 2011, the ten
year anniversary of the World Trade Center attack.

While law enforcement sources initially said Todashev stabbed the
agent with a knife, there was later “confusion” over what
object he actually used to attack his questioner, ABC news
reports.

“Definitely no one said that he had pulled a gun but there was
some media talk about whether he had pulled a knife, and then the
FBI retracted that and said we don’t know exactly what
happened,” said Sahar Aziz, and Associate Law Professor at
Texas Wesleyan University.
 
“So there is definitely a question of whether shooting him was a
use of excessive force. Because even if, for example, he had
punched the officer, it could possibly be unreasonable or
unnecessary to shoot someone in defense of being punched. Usually
you are supposed to use commensurate force,” she told RT.

‘He just wanted everything to be over’

The FBI first began surveillance and later questioned Todashev
several days after the April 15 Boston attack took place. From all
accounts, he had cooperated with investigators up until his
death.

Todashev had reportedly purchased a plane ticket before the
bombings occurred to return to his native Chechnya, but canceled
his trip at the FBI’s request.

“He had a ticket to New York. From there, he was going to
go home [to Chechnya],” WESH Orlando quoted his friend and
roommate Kushen Taramov as saying. “[The FBI was] pushing him to
stay, saying, ‘we want to interview one last time.'” Taramov
said Todashev canceled the ticket at the FBI’s insistence.

When news of the shooting first broke, Taramov said he and Todashev
had been interviewed by FBI agents for nearly three hours on
Tuesday in connection with the Boston Marathon bombings.

“(The FBI) took me and my friend, the suspect that got killed.
They were talking to us, both of us, right? And they said they need
him for a little more, for a couple more hours, and I left, and
they told me they’re going to bring him back. They never brought
him back.”

Taramov, who noted that Todashev had been interviewed on multiple
occasions following the Boston attack, denies law enforcement
accounts that his friend simply went crazy and attacked.

“He didn’t flip out,” Taramov, said. “I think
something went wrong there. I think they just shot him. 
He didn’t do anything. I know him. He just wanted
everything to be over.”

Todashev did have a history of violence. According to records from
the Orange County Sheriff Office, Todashev had been charged earlier
this month with aggravated battery for allegedly fighting with a
father and son over a parking space in a mall parking lot in
Kissimmee, Florida. Todashev said he acted in self-defense.

While living in Boston, he was also arrested in February 2010
after getting into a fight with strangers. One witness stated
Todashev “was clearly the aggressor,” according to police
reports.

However, his father, Abdulbaki Todashev, described his son as
“a very calm” man, saying his son would not become
aggressive without reason.

“Never in his life would he attack anyone unprovoked,”
the elder Todashev stressed.

Todashev’s estranged wife, Reniya Manukyan, said her husband was
cooperating with the FBI and had nothing to hide. “He wasn’t
involved. So he was not even nervous [to talk with the
FBI],” local NBC affiliate News Channel 5 cites her as
saying.

Manukyan said their common Chechen roots and an interest in
mixed martial arts brought her husband into contact with Tsarnaev,
but “they weren’t friends or anything.” “He expected that
they were going to come and question him because they both come
from the same place from Chechnya,” she explained.

She also denies her husband’s role in the 2011 triple homicide,
though she does confirm he traveled back to Boston in the summer of
2011. DNA from that crime scene is currently being tested and
compared with Todashev’s DNA.

Later, in an angry post on Vkontakte, Russia’s most popular
social network, Manukyan blasted the FBI with an expletive-strewn
post, claiming: “ Killing my husband Ibragim was another
[proof] that everything is a setup about Tsarnaev brothers as
well. ”

Many questions with no answers, yet

Early on Wednesday morning, officials at the FBI headquarter in
Washington dispatched a shooting-response unit to Florida to help
investigators determine what had occurred.

The following day, scores of FBI employees could be seen coming
and going from the condo where Todashev was killed.

In addition to the FBI’s review team, a separate Shooting
Incident Review Group committee will analyze the incident. The
independent committee, which includes up to 13 members of the FBI,
will evaluate whether use of force was justified. No new
information will likely surface until those investigations are
concluded.

But apart from the use of deadly force, several other questions
have been raised regarding the death of Todashev.

If Todashev had a history of violence, was being interviewed in
connection with a recent terrorist event, and was believed to have
played a role in a related triple homicide, why was he being
interviewed in his home at midnight and not at a law enforcement
facility?

How did a knife or other unidentified object come into his
possession during the course of the several hour interview?

If law enforcers are unwilling to state emphatically that the
object in question was even a knife, was lethal force necessary to
subdue him while vastly outnumbered by several agents?

Todashev had yet to be charged with a crime and had every right
to refuse being questioned without having a lawyer present. From
all accounts, he had been willing to cooperate with the FBI on
multiple occasions. He also chose not to return home to Chechnya
although he had already purchased tickets and no warrant had been
issued for his arrest. If he felt cornered or pressured into making
a confession, why would he attack half a dozen law enforcers rather
than ask for a lawyer?

And last but not least – was the final interrogation
videotaped?

“We know very little about what happened because the only
source of information is the FBI and presumably it’s not in their
self-interest to reveal too much information [since] there’s now an
investigation into his death because this could possibly be a case
of excessive force in violation of his constitutional rights,”
Sahar Aziz argues.
 
Whatever happened that night, Taramov recalled an ominous
conversation he had with Todashev just hours before his death.

“We had a feeling, worst case scenario something like that was
going to happen…He felt inside he was going to get shot,”
Taramov said.

“I told him, ‘everything is going to be fine, don’t worry about
it.’ He said, ‘I have a really bad feeling.'”

This article originally appeared on: RT

Following a historic vote by the leadership of the Boys Scouts of America (BSA) to allow participation by boys who claim to be homosexual, both gay activist groups and conservative, pro-family organizations expressed disapproval of the Scouting program, but for very different reasons. Sixty-one percent of the roughly 1,400 voting members of the BSA’s national council voted May 23 to allow boys who say they are homosexual to become members. The change will go into effect January 1, 2014.

In July of last year the BSA leadership concluded a two-year closed-door study by re-affirming the group’s ban on homosexual scout leaders, a policy that has been in place for the Boy Scouts’ entire 103-year history. Homosexual activists responded by launching an aggressive campaign to force the BSA to change its policy, which has included convincing some of the BSA’s large-scale corporate donors to drop their financial commitments to the group.

The BSA leadership emphasized that the ban against homosexual Scout leaders would remain in place. Tico Perez, commissioner of the BSA’s National Council, told reporters that prohibition has “served us well for 100 years.”

Response from homosexual spokespersons to the BSA policy change was lukewarm at best, with most noting the continued ban against homosexual leaders. “Today is a historic day for Boy Scouts across the country who want to be a part of this great American institution,” said Chad Griffin of the homosexual activist group Human Rights Campaign. “But the new policy doesn’t go far enough. Parents and adults of good moral character, regardless of sexual orientation, should be able to volunteer their time to mentor the next generation of Americans.”

Zach Wahls, a former Eagle Scout, whose mother is a lesbian and who has taken a lead role in pressuring the BSA to cave in on its values, released a statement saying that the “Boy Scouts of America can do better. We welcome the news that the ban on gay Scouts is history, but our work isn’t over until we honor the Scout Law by making this American institution open and affirming to all.”

Wayne Brock, the BSA’s chief executive, said the vote to allow gay teens as members represented a “challenging chapter in our history. While people have differing opinions on this policy, kids are better off when they’re in Scouting.”

In an official statement following the vote, the BSA said that regardless of the change to allow homosexual members, “any sexual conduct, whether heterosexual or homosexual, by youth of Scouting age is contrary to the virtues of Scouting,” a statement apparently meant to re-enforce to program’s commitment to moral purity on the part of participants. “Going forward,” the statement continued, “our Scouting family will continue to focus on reaching and serving youth in order to help them grow into good, strong citizens. America’s youth need Scouting, and by focusing on the goals that unite us, we can continue to accomplish incredible things for young people and the communities we serve.”

Such rhetoric was insufficient for most conservative and Christian groups, many of which have supported and even sponsored Scouting programs over the years. Officials of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), which has been a stalwart supporter of Scouting and which had tried to convince the BSA to hold the line against tolerating homosexuality, expressed their deep disappointment in the decision.

SBC Executive Committee President Frank Page, one of the denomination’s officials who had met with BSA officials, told Baptist Press News that he was “deeply saddened” that the BSA has abandoned its “constitutionally protected expressive message that homosexual behavior is incompatible with the principles enshrined in the Scout Oath and Scout Law.” Page said the vote “ushers in a sea-change in the credibility of the Boy Scouts of America as a viable boys’ organization for millions of Americans who believe strongly in the principles of biblical morality. To claim that the Boys Scouts is the nation’s foremost youth program of character development and values-based leadership training suddenly rings hollow.”

SBC President Fred Luter said the vote represented “a sad day in the history of an organization that for years stood on Christian principles,” adding that his prayers would “go out to the parents and churches who have been forced to make decisions about being a part of the Boy Scouts organization. As Southern Baptists, our commitment to the Word of God and Christian values must take priority over what is ‘politically correct.’ ”

Noted SBC ethicist Richard Land predicted that the many Southern Baptist churches which have sponsored scouting programs would look for alternatives. “Frankly, I can’t imagine a Southern Baptist pastor who would continue to allow his church to sponsor a Boy Scout troop under these new rules,” said Land. “I predict there will be a mass exodus of Southern Baptists and other conservative Christians from the Boy Scouts.”

The Associated Press noted that the Assemblies of God, another denomination that has enjoyed a strong partnership with the Boy Scouts over the years, said that it could no longer support the BSA, and would encourage churches dropping Scouting programs to turn instead to the denomination’s home-grown boys program, Royal Rangers.

John Stemberger of OnMyHonor.net – a coalition of Boy Scouts, Eagle Scouts, Scouting leaders, and parents who had worked to convince BSA officials to hold true to Scouting’s “timeless values” – expressed his group’s “great sadness and deep disappointment” upon realizing that “the most influential youth program in America has turned a tragic corner.” Stemberger predicted that the vote to allow homosexuality to gain a foothold in the Boy Scouts would “completely transform it into an unprincipled and risky proposition for parents. It is truly a sad day for Scouting.”

Stemberger lamented that the Boy Scouts organizations “is embarking on a pathway of social experimentation that we believe will place at risk the very youth the organization is entrusted to serve, while rendering as hollow the tenets of the Scout Oath.”

In a subsequent statement Stemberger announced that his group was joining with other like-minded groups and former BSA members for a closed-door meeting in June in Louisville, Kentucky, to discuss the creation of a new “character development” organization for boys. “We have a desire to explore how we might serve families and young people at the highest standard originally intended by Scouting’s founder, Robert Baden-Powell,” he said of the planned meeting.

^{Photo: AP Images}

This article originally appeared on: The New American

An Israeli soldier scuffles with a Palestinian man in the occupied West Bank. (file photo)

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

When President Obama delivered a major speech on America’s drone program and the ongoing existence of the Guantanamo prison, the majority of those most affected by the latter – the prisoners themselves – were, ironically, unable to hear his speech.

Until six weeks ago, the majority of prisoners were spending
most of their time communally, in Camp Six of the prison, where
they were able to watch TV and would have seen President Obama’s
speech. Six weeks ago, however, after an early morning raid, the
majority of the prisoners were moved to solitary cells, where they
have remained ever since – as punishment for embarking on a
prison-wide hunger strike, now in its fourth month.

Yesterday, Navy Captain Robert Durand, a spokesman for the
Guantánamo prison, told Reuters that the prisoners “follow all
coverage of Guantánamo closely,” although he conceded that only
“about two dozen had unrestricted access to television in
communal settings.“

The irony is lost on the military – and appears to be lost on
the Obama administration too. The men’s decision not to eat – and
to risk starving themselves to death – was initially prompted by
guards manhandling the prisoners’ copies of the Qur’an, but it soon
tapped into a deeper despair about their indefinite detention.

President Obama promised to close Guantánamo within a year when
he took office in January 2009, but met opposition from Congress,
which prevented him from closing the prison by bringing prisoners
to a facility on the US mainland, and also prevented him from
bringing any of the men to the US to face trials.

Throughout 2009, an inter-agency task force appointed by the
President reviewed all the prisoners’ cases, and recommended that,
of the 166 men still held, 86 should be released. However, in
January 2010, following a failed bomb plot, hatched in Yemen, to
blow up a plane bound for Detroit, the President himself imposed a
ban on releasing any cleared Yemenis, even though 56 of the 86
prisoners cleared for release are Yemenis.

In the last two years, Congress has imposed further
restrictions, in successive versions of the National Defense
Authorization Act (NDAA), preventing the release of prisoners if
there is a single claim that anyone previously transferred to their
home country has “subsequently engaged in any terrorist
activity,” and also preventing the release of prisoners to any
other country unless the Secretary of Defense issues a certificate
to ensure that any freed prisoner “cannot engage or re-engage in
any terrorist activity.” 

The ban imposed by President Obama unjustly condemned the
Yemenis to indefinite detention on the basis of their nationality
alone, while the restrictions imposed by Congress partly echoed
that, whilst also making the unreasonable demand that no one should
be freed from a prison if there was a possibility that they might
one day engage in acts of terrorism against their former
jailers.

To add insult to injury, judges in the court of appeals in
Washington D.C., a deeply conservative court charged with reviewing
the men’s hard-won habeas corpus petitions, which were granted by
the Supreme Court in 2008, were upset that, between 2008 and 2010,
dozens of prisoners had their habeas corpus petitions granted by
the lower courts, leading to their release. The court rewrote the
rules, insisting that any information presented as evidence by the
government should be treated as accurate unless it could be proved
otherwise. Since then no habeas petitions have been granted, and,
despite appeals from the prisoners, the Supreme Court has refused
to get involved.

Abandoned by all three branches of the US government, the
prisoners’ hunger strike was a desperate way of trying to get the
world to notice them and to remember them, and it worked. In the
last few months, the world’s media has woken up to the horrors of
Guantánamo, and the President has been bombarded with criticism –
from senior lawmakers, including Sen. Carl Levin, the chair of the
Senate Armed Services Committee and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the
chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, as well as from the
United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and
the European Parliament. Critical editorials have graced the pages
of the New York Times and the Washington Post, op-eds written by
prisoners have appeared in the New York Times and the Observer, and
nearly a million people have signed petitions calling for the
release of prisoners and the closure of the prison.

On Thursday President Obama delivered a series of promises in
response to the criticism directed at him. These appear to show the
way forward – and to bring hope to the men at Guantánamo for the
first time since 2009 – but they will need close monitoring, and
relentless pressure, to make sure they lead to meaningful
action.

Firstly, the President said, “I am appointing a new, senior
envoy at the State Department and Defense Department whose sole
responsibility will be to achieve the transfer of detainees to
third countries.”

Secondly, he said, “I am lifting the moratorium on detainee
transfers to Yemen, so we can review them on a case by case
basis.”

Thirdly, he said, “To the greatest extent possible, we will
transfer detainees who have been cleared to go to other
countries.”

On the first point, it is disappointing that the President has
not decided to appoint an official within the White House to deal
with Guantánamo, and it is also disappointing that the individual
is only to be tasked with “the transfer of detainees to third
countries” rather than the closure of the prison. However, it
is progress. In January, it was revealed that the previous envoy,
Daniel Fried, had been reassigned, and that no one had been
appointed to take his place.

What needs to happen now is for this individual to be named as
swiftly as possible, and for he or she to begin to transfer the 30
cleared prisoners who are not Yemenis. If Congress remains
obstructive, the President and the Secretary of Defense must use a
waiver provision that exists in the NDAA, which allows them to
bypass Congress if they regard it as being “in the national
security interests of the United States.”

On the second point, lifting the ban on releasing Yemenis is
crucial, but there now needs to be immediate action to facilitate
the men’s release. Again, the waiver will be needed if Congress
refuses to cooperate, but otherwise there should be no obstacles to
the successful release of the 56 men. Prior to President Obama’s
speech, current and former administration officials told the Wall
Street Journal that the transfers to Yemen “would begin slowly,
starting with two or three detainees, to ensure Yemen can keep
track of the detainees and prevent them from joining militant
groups.” The beginning of this process, the official said,
“could still be months away.”

The Wall Street Journal also noted that recent steps taken by
the Yemeni government “may make it easier for the Pentagon to
sign the waiver,” adding, “President Abed Rabbo Mansour
Hadi’s government, which has increased counter-terrorism
cooperation with the US, has pledged to monitor the detainees
closely and put them through an intensive rehabilitation
program.”

The Wall Street Journal also noted that “US and Yemeni
officials have held negotiations in recent weeks about restarting
the transfers, including promising to share information about
former detainees. The Yemeni government has said multiple
ministries will monitor the ex-detainees to guard against
activities that are potentially threatening to the US and to ensure
they receive counselling, job training and other aid to help their
reintegration into society.”
On the third point, plans to free the 30 non-Yemeni prisoners
cleared for release need to begin immediately, involving the
President’s new envoy and, if necessary, the waiver mentioned
above. The first to be released should be Shaker Aamer, the last
British resident in the prison, but there are also five Tunisians,
a Saudi, four Afghans and others whose release should not be a
complicated matter.

The cases of others – including the last three Uighurs (Muslims
from China’s Xinjiang province), four Syrians, the last Tajik and
the last Palestinian – are more complicated, because it is unsafe
for them to be repatriated, and new homes need to be found for
them. This is also the case with most, if not all of the last five
Algerians. The plight of these men is complicated by the fact that
the US refuses to resettle any of these men, but it is anticipated
that third countries can be found if the Obama administration
provides full backing to the President ‘s new envoy.

There is more that still needs doing, of course. The 80 other
prisoners in Guantánamo also need justice, and will not be
reassured that the President stated in his speech, “Where
appropriate, we will bring terrorists to justice in our courts and
military justice system,” and specifically referred to some of
the 80 men as those “who we know have participated in dangerous
plots or attacks, but who cannot be prosecuted – for example
because the evidence against them has been compromised or is
inadmissible in a court of law.”

46 of the remaining 80 men were consigned to indefinite
detention without charge or trial in an executive order issued by
the President two years ago, on the basis of the “compromised”
evidence mentioned by the President. At the time, these men were
promised periodic reviews of their cases, but those have not yet
taken place. These need to be initiated, and they need to allow
objective analysis of that “compromised” evidence – because that
will reveal that much of it is worthless, consisting of false
statements made by prisoners subjected to torture or other abuse,
or who were bribed with food or the promise of additional “comfort
items.”

For the others, recommended for trial by the task force, only
seven currently face charges in the much-criticized military
commissions at Guantánamo, and most of the men in this category
should also receive objective reviews of their cases. This is
particularly important because judges recently ruled that most of
the charges relied upon by the government – providing material
support for terrorism, and conspiracy – are not war crimes, and
threw out two of the only convictions secured in the military
commissions’ stumbling history.

Mostly, however, as outlined above, the men at Guantánamo need
to see meaningful progress from the President who promised “hope
and change” back in 2008, and then failed to deliver it – and for
86 of these men, that means, as soon as possible, that they should
be given their freedom, and not just subjected to the fine words
that President Obama is so good at delivering, as a substitute for
action. 

Andy Worthington for
RT

Andy Worthington is a freelance
investigative journalist, author and filmmaker, who has been
researching and writing about Guantánamo since 2006. He is also the
co-founder of the “Close Guantánamo” campaign. See his website
here.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

This article originally appeared on: RT

RT
May 24, 2013

One of the methods used to extract information from Muslim inmates in Guantanamo was to apply sexual interrogation techniques, Terry Holdbrooks, former guard at the camp has told RT.

Such degradation methods, the former US soldier said, were used on innocent men. Holdbrooks, who wrote a book about GITMO prisoners, claims that it is the inmates’ religious perseverance in the face of pain and humiliation made him convinced that US was not fighting for the right cause.

RT: What did you experience at the detention camp that changed you?

Terry Holdbrooks: To be honest with you I would not even know where to begin with that. Initially seeing religion practiced the way that the detainees practice Islam is a really life changing experience in itself. I have not really seen any kind of any serious devotion, the faith like that growing up in the US.

The torture and information extraction methods that we used certainly created a great deal of doubt and questions in my mind to whether or not this was my America. But when I thought about what we were doing there and how we go about doing it, it did not seem like the America I signed up to defend. It did not seem like the America I grew up in, I grew to believe in. And that in itself was a very disillusioning experience. There was a great deal of personal growth that took there as well.

RT: Could you describe the relationship between the guards and detainees at Guantanamo back when you were serving (and how has it changed since then)?

TH: I suppose that if we’re going to take a stroll down the memory lane, Brandon Neely was there first. He was there when it was camp x-ray. It was essentially dog cages, nothing more. It was dog kennels, I suppose you can say. When I was there camp Delta was in full swing. Delta housed about 612 men that would be the general population of the camps.

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

RT: Were you given any orders as how to treat the inmates?

TH: Our interaction with the detainees was such that we were told not to talk to them, not to treat them as humans, to not engage in conversation with them whatsoever. And the army sort of made a mistake by allowing somebody who is inclined to sociology and to studying people by leaving me with individuals from all over the world unsupervised for eight hours. I was very low in rank so I was delegated all the work, while those who were higher in rank were sitting in the air-conditioned shacks, nurturing their hangovers. So the instructions I was given were simple — don’t interact, don’t talk, they are not humans.

RT: There have been reports of torture and other human rights violations happening at the prison camp. Could you tell us what you saw?

TH: We can begin with experiences I had the pleasure of having. Myself, Eric Sarr and another Guantanamo guard were involved in this. Eric was a linguist and he was working with an interrogator.

We took the detainee into interrogation and throughout the interrogation the interrogator took off her clothing. She essentially gave the detainee a lap dance, tried to arouse him and then let him believe that he had menstrual blood on him. We then took the detainee back to his cell and were told that he was not allowed to have shower privileges nor fresh water for days. The idea behind this being that if he could not clean himself he would not be able to pray, if he could not pray, he could not practice Islam. Essentially it was an idea to break him down spiritually.

Omar Khadr and a number of other detainees, I remember hearing just few moments ago Shaker Aamer, they were privileged to something we called the frequent flyer program, where we would essentially move them every two hours. Whether we were moving them from camp Delta to camp Echo or moving them from Bravo block to Charlie block, be it a little move or a big move, the idea is that every two hours they would be moved and they would not be able to sleep. This was essentially to wear down their psyche and make them more probable to give out their information during interrogation.

But what has questioned me ever since I first saw it, it seemed that most of these men were innocent and as numbers are starting to show, we’ve sent over 600 of them home, so they must have been innocent; if we knew that we were purchasing men that were innocent, why were we trying to interrogate innocent men? What were we hoping to get from them?

Some of the tactics I saw practiced in Guantanamo, I just want to never want to relive again and then a great deal of regret takes place and then I did not take the most productive use of some years after Guantanamo. I tried to drown away some of those memories and that is something you cannot do. You have to confront it.

<!–

–>

This article was posted: Friday, May 24, 2013 at 4:53 pm

Tags: 9/11

–>

This article originally appeared on: Infowars

RT
May 24, 2013

One of the methods used to extract information from Muslim inmates in Guantanamo was to apply sexual interrogation techniques, Terry Holdbrooks, former guard at the camp has told RT.

Such degradation methods, the former US soldier said, were used on innocent men. Holdbrooks, who wrote a book about GITMO prisoners, claims that it is the inmates’ religious perseverance in the face of pain and humiliation made him convinced that US was not fighting for the right cause.

RT: What did you experience at the detention camp that changed you?

Terry Holdbrooks: To be honest with you I would not even know where to begin with that. Initially seeing religion practiced the way that the detainees practice Islam is a really life changing experience in itself. I have not really seen any kind of any serious devotion, the faith like that growing up in the US.

The torture and information extraction methods that we used certainly created a great deal of doubt and questions in my mind to whether or not this was my America. But when I thought about what we were doing there and how we go about doing it, it did not seem like the America I signed up to defend. It did not seem like the America I grew up in, I grew to believe in. And that in itself was a very disillusioning experience. There was a great deal of personal growth that took there as well.

RT: Could you describe the relationship between the guards and detainees at Guantanamo back when you were serving (and how has it changed since then)?

TH: I suppose that if we’re going to take a stroll down the memory lane, Brandon Neely was there first. He was there when it was camp x-ray. It was essentially dog cages, nothing more. It was dog kennels, I suppose you can say. When I was there camp Delta was in full swing. Delta housed about 612 men that would be the general population of the camps.

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

RT: Were you given any orders as how to treat the inmates?

TH: Our interaction with the detainees was such that we were told not to talk to them, not to treat them as humans, to not engage in conversation with them whatsoever. And the army sort of made a mistake by allowing somebody who is inclined to sociology and to studying people by leaving me with individuals from all over the world unsupervised for eight hours. I was very low in rank so I was delegated all the work, while those who were higher in rank were sitting in the air-conditioned shacks, nurturing their hangovers. So the instructions I was given were simple — don’t interact, don’t talk, they are not humans.

RT: There have been reports of torture and other human rights violations happening at the prison camp. Could you tell us what you saw?

TH: We can begin with experiences I had the pleasure of having. Myself, Eric Sarr and another Guantanamo guard were involved in this. Eric was a linguist and he was working with an interrogator.

We took the detainee into interrogation and throughout the interrogation the interrogator took off her clothing. She essentially gave the detainee a lap dance, tried to arouse him and then let him believe that he had menstrual blood on him. We then took the detainee back to his cell and were told that he was not allowed to have shower privileges nor fresh water for days. The idea behind this being that if he could not clean himself he would not be able to pray, if he could not pray, he could not practice Islam. Essentially it was an idea to break him down spiritually.

Omar Khadr and a number of other detainees, I remember hearing just few moments ago Shaker Aamer, they were privileged to something we called the frequent flyer program, where we would essentially move them every two hours. Whether we were moving them from camp Delta to camp Echo or moving them from Bravo block to Charlie block, be it a little move or a big move, the idea is that every two hours they would be moved and they would not be able to sleep. This was essentially to wear down their psyche and make them more probable to give out their information during interrogation.

But what has questioned me ever since I first saw it, it seemed that most of these men were innocent and as numbers are starting to show, we’ve sent over 600 of them home, so they must have been innocent; if we knew that we were purchasing men that were innocent, why were we trying to interrogate innocent men? What were we hoping to get from them?

Some of the tactics I saw practiced in Guantanamo, I just want to never want to relive again and then a great deal of regret takes place and then I did not take the most productive use of some years after Guantanamo. I tried to drown away some of those memories and that is something you cannot do. You have to confront it.

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This article was posted: Friday, May 24, 2013 at 4:53 pm

Tags: 9/11

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

Joel Gehrke
Washington Examiner
May 24, 2013
President Obama explained Thursday that the terrorist threats currently faced by the United States bear a closer resemblance to the attacks sustained at the end of the twentieth century than the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

The president cited the Boston bombing and the Fort Hood shooting among other other examples of the contemporary danger.

“The scale of this threat closely resembles the types of attacks we faced before 9/11,” Obama told the National Defense University Thursday, recalling the Lockerbie bombing and other attacks in the 1980s and 1990s. “We learned that left unchecked, these threats can grow. But if dealt with smartly and proportionally, these threats need not rise to the level that we saw on the eve of 9/11.”

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This article was posted: Friday, May 24, 2013 at 5:18 pm

Tags: 9/11

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

CBS Seattle
May 24, 2013

An Oregon woman was told by a 911 dispatcher that authorities wouldn’t be able be able to help her as her ex-boyfriend broke into her place because of budget cuts.

Oregon Public Radio reports that an unidentified woman called 911 during a weekend in August 2012 while Michael Bellah was breaking into her place. Her call was forwarded to Oregon State Police because of lay-offs at the Josephine County Sheriff’s Office only allows the department to be open Monday through Friday.

“Uh, I don’t have anybody to send out there,” the 911 dispatcher told the woman. “You know, obviously, if he comes inside the residence and assaults you, can you ask him to go away? Do you know if he’s intoxicated or anything?”

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This article was posted: Friday, May 24, 2013 at 5:47 pm

Tags: financial, police state