Group items tagged

"If one lives by the vulnerable server, one dies by the vulnerable server. As the week unfolds, America is witnessing the ultimate unmasking of the Democrat Party, an entity whose self-aggrandizing claims of unity, fairness and intellectual honesty have been revealed as utterly fraudulent by a flood of DNC emails released by WikiLeaks. Moreover, a stunning level of hypocrisy attends the entire exposure, as DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz is sent packing for this breach of confidential party information, while Hillary Clinton, whose equally accessible private server contained far more critical top-secret information, officially became the party's standard-bearer. But not to worry, assured FBI Director James Comey, who insisted there was no direct evidence that Clinton's server had been hacked by hostile actors - before adding it was possible that hostile actors "gained access" to Clinton's accounts. Clinton was equally adept at making semantical distinctions. "If you go by the evidence, there is no evidence that the system was breached or hacked successfully," Clinton said. "And I think that what's important here is follow the evidence. And there is no evidence. And that can't be said about a lot of other systems, including government systems.""

"James Robart, the U.S. district judge in Washington State, offered little explanation for his decision to stop President Trump's executive order temporarily suspending non-American entry from seven terror-plagued countries. Robart simply declared his belief that Washington State, which in its lawsuit against Trump argued that the order is both illegal and unconstitutional, would likely win the case when it is tried. Now the government has answered Robart, and unlike the judge, Justice Department lawyers have produced a point-by-point demolition of Washington State's claims. Indeed, for all except the most partisan, it is likely impossible to read the Washington State lawsuit, plus Robart's brief comments and writing on the matter, plus the Justice Department's response, and not come away with the conclusion that the Trump order is on sound legal and constitutional ground. Beginning with the big picture, the Justice Department argued that Robart's restraining order violates the separation of powers, encroaches on the president's constitutional and legal authority in the areas of foreign affairs, national security, and immigration, and "second-guesses the president's national security judgment" about risks faced by the United States. Indeed, in court last week, Robart suggested that he, Robart, knows as much, or perhaps more, than the president about the current state of the terrorist threat in Yemen, Somalia, Libya, and other violence-plagued countries. In an exchange with Justice Department lawyer Michelle Bennett, Robart asked, "How many arrests have there been of foreign nationals for those seven countries since 9/11?" "Your Honor, I don't have that information," said Bennett. "Let me tell you," said Robart. "The answer to that is none, as best I can tell. So, I mean, you're here arguing on behalf of someone [President Trump] that says: We have to protect the United States from these individuals coming from these countries, and there's no support for that."

"Why does Paul Ryan scare the president so much? Because Obama has broken his promises, and it's clear that the GOP ticket's path to prosperity is our only hope." The Newsweek article by Niall Ferguson that changed an election.

I'm reserving judgment on this deal until I can read it. I am deeply suspicious of the mainstream media coverage of the deal, which is driven entirely by the White House and by spokesmen of AIPAC-founded organizations known to represent the views of the right-wing pro-war Israeli government (although not identified as such). As reported in the NY Times, Washington Post, Al-Jazeera-America, and the Jerusalem Post, the deal so lopsidedly disfavors Iran -- along with other factors -- as to provoke the suspicion that I'm reading propaganda rather than accurate reporting. Certainly, the accounts make no effort at all to present the Iranian government's reaction. Not a single sentence. The Iranian Press so far has only a few paragraphs that read as though they might have been garnered from what has been published by western mainstream media, although I did see a statement attributed to an anonymous Iranian government official who said that the deal recognizes Iran's right to enrich uranium. Obviously there is not yet an official statement by the Iranian government.  The mystery at this point is why America's Israel-Firsters fought to scuttle this negotiation so hard but are suddenly bubbling with enthusiasm for the interim deal. My strong sniff is that Obama has secretly promised the Israeli government a carrot that they could not refuse. Keep in mind that this entire charade is not in reality about Iranian nuclear weapons plans that do not exist. It's been about whether the U.S. will buckle to Israeli and American Zionist pressure to commence a war against Iran. So did Obama just secretly agree to launch that war via a false flag excuse? Something else? What is that carrot? Something reeks here.

Until the late 1940s, the U.S. had a "War Department." But in 1949, having just completed the largest foreign war in U.S. history, the War Department ironically was renamed as the "Defense Department." Ever since, the U.S. has waged nothing but foreign wars, none that could literally be characterized as necessary to defend the U.S. As John Pilger eloquently encapsulates in this article, perhaps it's past time to return the Department to the "Department of Wars of Aggression."  

What that Obama promise? Oh yeah, no American boots on the ground in Syria. 

Chris Horner was in the room when BP, Enron, Al Gore and Clinton met to discuss by-passing the Constitutional advise and consent role role of the Senate and signing the Kyoto Treaty with "Cap and Trade" mandates.  Enron and BP invented "Cap and Trade".  And now Obama promises to punish BP by passing a USA "Cap and Trade" energy tax on US citizens.  Right.  Figure that one out!  Excellent article. Tim Carney has a column at the Washington Examiner detailing BP's lobbying influence, which begs the following history lesson and first-hand account for voters, generally unaccustomed to such sleaze, to fully appreciate the game presently being played out in Washington. President Obama announced in Pittsburgh last week that BP's Gulf oil spill demands his wrath in the form of the Kerry-Lieberman "cap-and-trade" energy tax. Hearing this, your reaction may have been to wonder just how making energy more expensive for everyone-seniors, the poor, it's all good-is a proper response. And the truth is that our young ideological president's effort to make sure this crisis doesn't go to waste is actually much worse than it seems on its face. BP, joined by Enron, invented carbon cap-and-trade in the mid-1990s. Yeah. That cap-and-trade. I know, because I was in the room. And BP has been lobbying for it aggressively and at great expense ever since, some eight figures of which has gone to green pressure groups. Specifically, in May 1997 I met with senior officials from BP, Niagara Mohawk Power, and others… "others" like the Union of Concerned Scientists and their ilk… in the Washington offices of a white-shoe New York law firm, putting our collective heads together strategizing on how to get the U.S. roped into a global warming treaty, and get "cap-and-trade" imposed domestically, too.

And yes, President Obama promised no American boots on the ground in the "war against ISIL." No American troops will drive those thousands of MRAPS in Iraq or Syria; the vehicles are being fitted with remote control devices and will be driven by CIA personnel stationed in the U.S. who will concurrently operate protective drones. And of course, their target will be ISIL. Mr. Obama has no intention of giving in to Saudi Arabia's demand that the Assad regime be removed first, John Kerry's deal with the Saudis notwithstanding. Fauugh! 

We probably won't know for a few days because the vote is so close in early returns, but there's broad agreement nonetheless that Netanyahu's Likud Party is in the best position to form the new ruling coalition. So most likely, Netanyahu continues as Israel's PM. If he remains as PM, I see no way that Obama and the U.N. Security Council can duck making a response that is more than a wrist slap and fairly swiftly. This will set the Muslim world afire and ramp up the Boycott, Sanctions, and Divestment movement enormously both in the E.U. and the U.S. I'd guess that unless Obama decides to get out ahead of the global reaction, the first action will be taken by individual European nations imposing labeling on all imports originating from Israeli settlements and very conceivably economic sanctions againt Israeli imports. That's likely to mushroom fairly quickly to E.U. action. Netanyahu's statements also robs the Israel Lobby in the U.S. of its "negotiated solution" script that has been their bedrock sound-bite since the 1970s. I've linked The Guardian article because it includes the most outrageous quotes, but this has broken into mainsream U.S. media. You can watch the video (with English subtitles) at The New York Times. . I'll add some more in a comment.   I've b  Barring a blunt repudiation of his promise that there would be no two-state solution (which Netanyahu will not do without a gun aimed at his head) neither Israel nor the U.S. will be able to maintain the fig leaf of a negotiated agreement between Israel and the Palestine LIberation Authority establishing a Palestinian state. 

Glenn Greenwald tags Hillary pandering to the Chicken Hawk Party

There were promises of transparency and of a new kind of collaborative politics where establishment figures listened to ordinary Americans. We were going to see net spending cuts, tax cuts for nearly all Americans, an end to earmarks, legislation posted online for the public to review before it is signed into law, and a line-by-line review of the federal budget to remove wasteful programs. These weren't the tea-party platforms I heard discussed in Nashville last weekend. They were the campaign promises of Barack Obama in 2008.

A true complication for the Obama Administration and Israeli government, if the Palestinian unity deal sticks. At Israel's urging, the U.S. formally designated Hamas as a Terrorist Organization™ shortly after it won a valid election to lead government in the Gaza Strip, imposing sanctions and criminal penalties on any person or legal entity that aids Hamas. With Gaza and the West Bank organized under a single government that includes Hamas, Obama may have to decide whether to end the Hamas terrorist designation or abandon attempts to broker a settlement of the Israel-Palestine question.  

Thierry Meysann makes the case that Sen. John McCain, working with  was the guiding force behind the Arab Spring, the overthrow of Qadaffi in Libya, and the invasion of Syria by mercenary Islamists, working with a Zionist but deliberately misnomered front group. Thierry goes on to show that McCain played a key role in the creation and deployment of ISIL.  

According to The Independent, John Kerry's State Department is busily stifling the report of the U.K.'s four-year Iraq Inquiry into how the U.K. was drawn into the Iraq War, on secrecy grounds. Obama's campaign promise to have the most transparent U.S. administration in history is long forgotten. Government secrecy trumps any investigation into war crimes by prior presidents, even though the U.S. agreed by treaty to investigate and prosecute all war crimes committed by U.S. officials.  Not only that, the Obama Administration now includes a criminal conspiracy to suppress evidence of the commission of war crimes.

A promise to the NED-funded Venezuelan opposition by the U.S. State Department that Obama will step up his Venezuela regime-change efforts after the end of this weekend's Summit of the Americas conference. 

Cute. The Ukrainian government needs $17 billion to service its debt to the banksters. The IMF agrees to hand over another $3 billion loan, while Obama promises another $1 billion, not nearly what is needed (Russia had offered $15 billion, an offer withdrawn in light of the coup instigated by the U.S. Now the austerity measures and privatization that always accompanies IMF loans begin. One of the first announced was to cut pensioners' monthly checks in half. Meanwhile, Iceland's economy continues to rebound after having refused to bail out its banksters and putting them in prison instead.