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Gary Edwards

U.S. Treasury Says Financial Crisis Is Over But The Next One May Be Right In Front Of Us - 0 views

problembanklist.com/y-be-right-in-front-of-us-0494

Banksters Federal-Reserve-Bankster-Cartel Obammunism USA-bankruptcy

shared by Gary Edwards on 02 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 02 Mar 12
     
    More great charts, this time courtesy of the US Treasury Department. The charts use select areas of measurement to show a slowly improving economy, with the private sector leading the way. What the charts don't show or discuss is that the Obama economy has been assisted by $3 Trillion in Federal Reserve Bankster Cartel "quantitative easing", and the $5 Trillion in debt that Obama spending has racked up. Throw in the secret $16.1 Trillion the Federal Reserve pumped into the international bankster system, and the question becomes, "Where is all this money going? And why isn't the economy jumping?" The numbers are staggering. One chart provided by Treasury shows a successful TARP program where the Banksters have paid back in full the massive bailout funds. One has to wonder though, are they paying back the taxpayer bailout with newly generated profits? Or are they simply using freshly printed Federal Reserve dollars ($19.1 Trillion by the Federal Reserve's count), passed to them at zero interest? The shell game Obama, the ruling establishment, and the Federal Reserve Bankster Cartel have been playing may be running out of steam. We're now in the money laundering stage where Banksters and trading partners like China are dumping their digital-ions of dollars for real property, corporate assets and hard currencies. The St Louis branch of the Federal Reserve Cartel says as much in their most recent economic study. From the article: ....... The nation's debt load has grown to the point where the U.S. is now threatened with bankruptcy but the economy is not likely to grow fast enough to reduce the need for additional government borrowing. Empirical studies have shown a strong correlation between high levels of debt and reduced economic growth which results in decreased government revenue as explained below.......... An essay published by the St. Louis Federal Reserve on the Federal debt poised the question, "Too Little Revenue or Too Much Spe
Paul Merrell

In Keeping Grip on Data Pipeline, Obama Does Little to Reassure Industry - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ttle-to-reassure-industry.html

surveillance state NSA Obama Obama-speech sound-of-silence

shared by Paul Merrell on 18 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • Google, which briefly considered moving all of its computer servers out of the United States last year after learning how they had been penetrated by the National Security Agency, was looking for a public assurance from President Obama that the government would no longer secretly suck data from the company’s corner of the Internet cloud.Microsoft was listening to see if Mr. Obama would adopt a recommendation from his advisers that the government stop routinely stockpiling flaws in its Windows operating system, then using them to penetrate some foreign computer systems and, in rare cases, launch cyberattacks.
  • Intel and computer security companies were eager to hear Mr. Obama embrace a commitment that the United States would never knowingly move to weaken encryption systems. They got none of that.
  • Perhaps the most striking element of Mr. Obama’s speech on Friday was what it omitted: While he bolstered some protections for citizens who fear the N.S.A. is downloading their every dial, tweet and text message, he did nothing, at least yet, to loosen the agency’s grip on the world’s digital pipelines. White House officials said that Mr. Obama was committed to studying the complaints by American industry that the revelations were costing them billions of dollars in business overseas, by giving everyone from the Germans to the Brazilians to the Chinese an excuse to avoid American hardware and cloud services. “The most interesting part of this speech was not how the president weighed individual privacy against the N.S.A.,” said Fred H. Cate, the director of the Center of Applied Cybersecurity Research at Indiana University, “but that he said little about what to do about the agency’s practice of vacuuming up everything it can get its hands on.”
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  • In fact, behind the speech lies a struggle Mr. Obama nodded at but never addressed head on. It pits corporations that view themselves as the core of America’s soft power around the world — the country’s economic driver and the guardians of its innovative edge — against an intelligence community 100,000 strong that regards its ability to peer into any corner of the digital world, and manipulate it if necessary, as crucial to the country’s security.In public, the coalition was polite if unenthusiastic about the president’s speech. His proposals, the companies said in a statement, “represent positive progress on key issues,” even while “crucial details remain to be addressed on these issues, and additional steps are needed on other important issues.” But in the online chat rooms that users and employees of those services inhabit each day, the president’s words were mocked. “If they really cared about the security of US infrastructure, they’d divulge the vulnerabilities they found or bought from the black market that exploit the security of these systems, so those systems can be fixed, and no one else can exploit them with these exploits,” wrote a user called “higherpurpose” on Hacker News.
  • In an interview, a senior administration official acknowledged that the administration had weighed what the president could say in public about the delicate problems of encryption, or the N.S.A.’s use of “zero day” flaws in software, the name for security holes that have never been seen before. It is a subject the intelligence agencies have refused to discuss in public, and Mr. Obama determined that it was both too secret, and too fluid, to discuss in the speech, officials said.In response to questions, the White House said the president had asked his special assistant for cybersecurity, Michael Daniel, and the president’s office of science and technology policy to study a recent advisory panel’s recommendation that the government get out of the business of corrupting the encryption systems created by American companies.
  • It will not be an easy task. One of the recent disclosures, first reported by Reuters, indicated that the N.S.A. paid millions of dollars to RSA, a major encryption firm, to incorporate a deliberately weakened algorithm into some of its products, giving the government a “back door” to read whatever it wanted. But when the advisory panel concluded that the United States should not “in any way subvert, weaken or make vulnerable generally available commercial software,” the intelligence agencies protested.“Some in the intelligence community saw that as a call for the N.S.A. to get out of cryptography, which is the reason they were created,” the senior official said. He added: “We’ve said that we are very much supportive of U.S. industry and making sure that U.S. industry remains competitive, and able to produce really good products. And N.S.A. has been out there saying they have no interest in breaking encryption that guards global commerce.”
  • But as Mr. Obama himself acknowledged, the United States has a credibility problem that will take years to address. The discovery that it had monitored the cellphone of Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, or that it has now found a way to tap into computers around the world that are completely disconnected from the Internet — using covert radio waves — only fuels the argument that American products cannot be trusted.That argument, heard these days from Berlin to Mexico City, may only be an excuse for protectionism. But it is an excuse that often works.
Paul Merrell

Obama's NSA 'reforms' are little more than a PR attempt to mollify the public | Glenn G... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...orms-bulk-surveillance-remains

surveillance state NSA-reform Obama Obama-speech

shared by Paul Merrell on 21 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • In response to political scandal and public outrage, official Washington repeatedly uses the same well-worn tactic. It is the one that has been hauled out over decades in response to many of America's most significant political scandals. Predictably, it is the same one that shaped President Obama's much-heralded Friday speech to announce his proposals for "reforming" the National Security Agency in the wake of seven months of intense worldwide controversy.The crux of this tactic is that US political leaders pretend to validate and even channel public anger by acknowledging that there are "serious questions that have been raised". They vow changes to fix the system and ensure these problems never happen again. And they then set out, with their actions, to do exactly the opposite: to make the system prettier and more politically palatable with empty, cosmetic "reforms" so as to placate public anger while leaving the system fundamentally unchanged, even more immune than before to serious challenge.
  • In response to political scandal and public outrage, official Washington repeatedly uses the same well-worn tactic. It is the one that has been hauled out over decades in response to many of America's most significant political scandals. Predictably, it is the same one that shaped President Obama's much-heralded Friday speech to announce his proposals for "reforming" the National Security Agency in the wake of seven months of intense worldwide controversy.The crux of this tactic is that US political leaders pretend to validate and even channel public anger by acknowledging that there are "serious questions that have been raised". They vow changes to fix the system and ensure these problems never happen again. And they then set out, with their actions, to do exactly the opposite: to make the system prettier and more politically palatable with empty, cosmetic "reforms" so as to placate public anger while leaving the system fundamentally unchanged, even more immune than before to serious challenge.This scam has been so frequently used that it is now easily recognizable.
  • Paul Merrell on 21 Jan 14
     
    Glenn Greenwald offers his take on Obama's NSA "reform" speech.
Paul Merrell

Government Assessment of the Syrian Government's Use of Chemical Weapons on August 21, ... - 0 views

www.whitehouse.gov/...use-chemical-weapons-august-21

war & peace Syria WMD Obama intelligence-summary must-read

shared by Paul Merrell on 30 Aug 13 - No Cached
  • The United States Government assesses with high confidence that the Syrian government carried out a chemical weapons attack in the Damascus suburbs on August 21, 2013. We further assess that the regime used a nerve agent in the attack. These all-source assessments are based on human, signals, and geospatial intelligence as well as a significant body of open source reporting.Our classified assessments have been shared with the U.S. Congress and key international partners. To protect sources and methods, we cannot publicly release all available intelligence – but what follows is an unclassified summary of the U.S. Intelligence Community’s analysis of what took place.
  • We assess with high confidence that the Syrian government carried out the chemical weapons attack against opposition elements in the Damascus suburbs on August 21. We assess that the scenario in which the opposition executed the attack on August 21 is highly unlikely. The body of information used to make this assessment includes intelligence pertaining to the regime’s preparations for this attack and its means of delivery, multiple streams of intelligence about the attack itself and its effect, our post-attack observations, and the differences between the capabilities of the regime and the opposition. Our high confidence assessment is the strongest position that the U.S. Intelligence Community can take short of confirmation. We will continue to seek additional information to close gaps in our understanding of what took place.
  • We assess with high confidence that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale against the opposition multiple times in the last year, including in the Damascus suburbs. This assessment is based on multiple streams of information including reporting of Syrian officials planning and executing chemical weapons attacks and laboratory analysis of physiological samples obtained from a number of individuals, which revealed exposure to sarin. We assess that the opposition has not used chemical weapons.
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  • The Syrian regime has initiated an effort to rid the Damascus suburbs of opposition forces using the area as a base to stage attacks against regime targets in the capital. The regime has failed to clear dozens of Damascus neighborhoods of opposition elements, including neighborhoods targeted on August 21, despite employing nearly all of its conventional weapons systems. We assess that the regime’s frustration with its inability to secure large portions of Damascus may have contributed to its decision to use chemical weapons on August 21
  • On August 21, a Syrian regime element prepared for a chemical weapons attack in the Damascus area, including through the utilization of gas masks. Our intelligence sources in the Damascus area did not detect any indications in the days prior to the attack that opposition affiliates were planning to use chemical weapons.
  • Multiple streams of intelligence indicate that the regime executed a rocket and artillery attack against the Damascus suburbs in the early hours of August 21. Satellite detections corroborate that attacks from a regime-controlled area struck neighborhoods where the chemical attacks reportedly occurred – including Kafr Batna, Jawbar, ‘Ayn Tarma, Darayya, and Mu’addamiyah. This includes the detection of rocket launches from regime controlled territory early in the morning, approximately 90 minutes before the first report of a chemical attack appeared in social media. The lack of flight activity or missile launches also leads us to conclude that the regime used rockets in the attack.
  • Three hospitals in the Damascus area received approximately 3,600 patients displaying symptoms consistent with nerve agent exposure in less than three hours on the morning of August 21, according to a highly credible international humanitarian organization. The reported symptoms, and the epidemiological pattern of events – characterized by the massive influx of patients in a short period of time, the origin of the patients, and the contamination of medical and first aid workers – were consistent with mass exposure to a nerve agent. We also received reports from international and Syrian medical personnel on the ground.
  • We have identified one hundred videos attributed to the attack, many of which show large numbers of bodies exhibiting physical signs consistent with, but not unique to, nerve agent exposure. The reported symptoms of victims included unconsciousness, foaming from the nose and mouth, constricted pupils, rapid heartbeat, and difficulty breathing. Several of the videos show what appear to be numerous fatalities with no visible injuries, which is consistent with death from chemical weapons, and inconsistent with death from small-arms, high-explosive munitions or blister agents. At least 12 locations are portrayed in the publicly available videos, and a sampling of those videos confirmed that some were shot at the general times and locations described in the footage. We assess the Syrian opposition does not have the capability to fabricate all of the videos, physical symptoms verified by medical personnel and NGOs, and other information associated with this chemical attack. We have a body of information, including past Syrian practice, that leads us to conclude that regime officials were witting of and directed the attack on August 21. We intercepted communications involving a senior official intimately familiar with the offensive who confirmed that chemical weapons were used by the regime on August 21 and was concerned with the U.N. inspectors obtaining evidence. On the afternoon of August 21, we have intelligence that Syrian chemical weapons personnel were directed to cease operations.
  • To conclude, there is a substantial body of information that implicates the Syrian government’s responsibility in the chemical weapons attack that took place on August 21.As indicated, there is additional intelligence that remains classified because of sources and methods concerns that is being provided to Congress and international partners. Syria: Damascus Areas of Influence and Areas Reportedly Affected by 21 August Chemical Attack
  • Paul Merrell on 30 Aug 13
     
    Well, here's what the public gets told, from a President and his intelligence community that have been caught in lie after lie in the NSA scandal this summer. And of course, to "protect sources and methods, we cannot publicly release all available intelligence." One thing is certain: The "high confidence" of the summary does not acknowledge the doubt about that confidence expressed by government officials speaking anonymously to the Associated Press before the report was released. http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ap-sources-intelligence-weapons-no-slam-dunk   I'll have more later. 
Gary Edwards

Google News - 0 views

news.google.com/?ar=1378752090

Obama-Muslim-Brotherhood Obama-Bribes

shared by Gary Edwards on 09 Sep 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 09 Sep 13
     
    An incredible story is unfolding in Egypt where the new military government is digging through volumes of documents seized in raids on the Muslim Brotherhood. The documents are said to show that Barak Obama has been funneling Billions of dollars into the Muslim Brotherhood. excerpt: "Bare Naked Islam has done extensive reporting on the "bribes." The ... Evidence we have obtained lends credibility to the charges of "gifts" (bribes) being taken in U.S. dollars from the U.S. Embassy in Cairo" that were distributed to top ministerial level officials in the Mursi government. Via Almesryoon: "A judicial source stated that over the past few days, a number of complaints have beenfiled with the Attorney General Hisham Barakat. These complaints accuse the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood and leaders of the centrist party of receiving gifts from the American embassy in Cairo. The sponsors of these complaints stated that among these leaders are Mohamed Badie, General Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, Khairat Al-Shater, deputy leader and businessman, Mohamed Beltagy leading the group, Essam el-Erian, deputy head of the Freedom and Justice Party of, and Abu Ela Mady, head of the Wasat Party, Essam Sultan, deputy head of the Wasat Party." The strength of these allegations is seemingly bolstered by another case alluded to by the newspaper in which a document is referenced. This document reportedly reveals monthly "gifts" being paid to Muslim Brotherhood leaders in Egypt by the Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabor Al Thani, Minister of Foreign Affairs to the Mursi government. These monthly payments were said to be denominated in U.S. dollars to each leader. Evidence for such allegations are substantiated by a document we have obtained. It includes the names of several recipients of funds and even includes their signatures acknowledging receipt of the funds. This ledger, obtained from inside the Mursi government, lends additional credibility to the rep
Paul Merrell

DNI Clapper: Transparency is the Way Forward - Secrecy News - 0 views

blogs.fas.org/...dni-transparency

surveillance state NSA clapper transparency

shared by Paul Merrell on 06 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • The primary lesson that emerges from the unauthorized disclosures of classified intelligence information by Edward Snowden is that U.S. intelligence agencies must be more transparent in their operations, said Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper yesterday. “The major takeaway for us, certainly for me, from the past several months is that we must lean in the direction of transparency, wherever and whenever we can,” DNI Clapper told the Senate Intelligence Committee. “With greater transparency about these intelligence programs the American people may be more likely to accept them,” he said, promising “further declassification.” Another possibility, he acknowledged, is that even with greater transparency the American people will choose not to accept certain kinds of intelligence programs. “If dealing with reduced capacities is what we need to ensure the faith and confidence of the American people and their elected representatives, then we in the intelligence community will work as hard as we can to meet the expectations before us,” DNI Clapper said.
  • The primary lesson that emerges from the unauthorized disclosures of classified intelligence information by Edward Snowden is that U.S. intelligence agencies must be more transparent in their operations, said Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper yesterday. “The major takeaway for us, certainly for me, from the past several months is that we must lean in the direction of transparency, wherever and whenever we can,” DNI Clapper told the Senate Intelligence Committee. “With greater transparency about these intelligence programs the American people may be more likely to accept them,” he said, promising “further declassification.” Another possibility, he acknowledged, is that even with greater transparency the American people will choose not to accept certain kinds of intelligence programs.
  • Already, the Snowden disclosures have caused “profound damage” to U.S. intelligence, the DNI said. “What Snowden has stolen and exposed has gone way, way beyond his professed concerns with so-called domestic surveillance programs. As a result, we’ve lost critical foreign intelligence collection sources, including some shared with us by valued partners.” “Snowden claims that he’s won and that his mission is accomplished. If that is so, I call on him and his accomplices to facilitate the return of the remaining stolen documents that have not yet been exposed to prevent even more damage to U.S. security,” the DNI said. The use of the word “accomplices” appeared to suggest that the DNI views the journalists who possess and report on the Snowden documents as Snowden’s partners in crime, and even as criminals themselves. “Is it now the official view of the Obama administration that these journalists and media outlets are ‘accomplices’ in what they regard as Snowden’s crimes? If so, that is a rather stunning and extremist statement,” wrote Glenn Greenwald, who first reported on the Snowden releases last June.
Paul Merrell

NSA says it considered collecting phone call location data - Los Angeles Times - 0 views

articles.latimes.com/...a-na-nsa-surveillance-20131003

surveillance state NSA Clapper Alexander Wyden location-data lies

shared by Paul Merrell on 14 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • The National Security Agency collected samples of records showing where Americans were when they made mobile phone calls in 2010 and 2011 to test how it could obtain and process the data in bulk, but decided not to move forward with the plan, intelligence officials disclosed Wednesday.The admission by NSA chief Keith Alexander to a Senate committee solved part of a mystery about the digital spying agency's involvement with data that could reveal the day-to-day movements of — and deeply personal information about — every cellphone user.
  • Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who receives classified briefings as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, had been pressing the NSA to acknowledge its flirtation with bulk collection of U.S. location data. He said in a statement there was more to the story, but did not elaborate."After years of stonewalling on whether the government has ever tracked or planned to track the location of law-abiding Americans through their cellphones, once again, the intelligence leadership has decided to leave most of the real story secret — even when the truth would not compromise national security," Wyden said.
  • The NSA already vacuums up as much mobile phone location data on foreign targets outside the U.S. as it can get, former officials say.The news of the NSA's location data test emerged at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on agency surveillance as the director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper, offered a new rationale for the agency's controversial collection of U.S. calling records in bulk.
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  • "We have heard over and over again the assertion that 54 terrorist plots were thwarted by the use of Section 215 and/or Section 702 authorities," Leahy said, referring to parts of surveillance law. "That's plainly wrong, but we still get it in letters to members of Congress; we get it in statements. These weren't all plots, and they weren't all thwarted. The American people are getting left with an inaccurate impression of the effectiveness of NSA programs."Alexander acknowledged that only in two cases at most could officials say that domestic terrorist activity would not have been detected without the collection of American phone records.But Clapper added that determining "plots foiled" was not the only way to measure the usefulness of the domestic phone database. The records also allow analysts to rule out domestic conspiracies, he said."I would call it the 'peace of mind' metric," he said.
  • Paul Merrell on 14 Feb 14
     
    Alexander says they don't collect location-data on U.S. citizens, then Wyden all but calls him a liar.  And check Clapper's admission that NSA's call metadata program offers nothing but his own "peace of mind."
Paul Merrell

Remarks by Director David H. Petraeus at In-Q-Tel CEO Summit - Central Intelligence Agency - 0 views

www.cia.gov/...in-q-tel-summit-remarks.html

surveillance state CIA Patraeus internet of things CIA-targets NSA-targets

shared by Paul Merrell on 30 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • In any event, our partnership with In-Q-Tel is essential to helping identify and deliver groundbreaking technologies with mission-critical applications to the CIA and to our partner agencies.
  • As you know, our Agency has a global charter to collect intelligence. It’s our job to ensure that challenges that arise in any corner of the world are not surprises to the President or to other policymakers. Certainly, we will continue relentlessly to pursue terrorists and support the troops in several different theaters. That is imperative, and the last year has seen considerable achievement in the fight against al-Qa‘ida and its affiliates. But, to use the kids’ soccer analogy, we cannot turn the counterterrorist fight into a game of magnetball, in which the leadership is always focused on the counterterror mission. Everyone can’t flock to the ball and lose sight of the rest of the field—the whole rest of the world. And it’s an enormous field to cover:  again, the whole world, with proliferation of weapons and technology, cyber threats, counterintelligence threats, the next developments in the evolution of the Arab Spring, Iran, North Korea, China, illegal narcotics, emerging powers, non-state organizations, and even lone wolves. Our duty is nothing less than to be on top of every potential foreign challenge and opportunity facing the United States—and we now have to do it without the steady budget growth we saw in the years after 9/11. And this is why my job is so intellectually stimulating.
  • First, given the digital transparency I just mentioned, we have to rethink our notions of identity and secrecy. In the digital world, data is everywhere, as you all know well. Data is created constantly, often unknowingly and without permission. Every byte left behind reveals information about location, habits, and, by extrapolation, intent and probable behavior. The number of data points that can be collected is virtually limitless—presenting, of course, both enormous intelligence opportunities and equally large counterintelligence challenges. We must, for example, figure out how to protect the identity of our officers who increasingly have a digital footprint from birth, given that proud parents document the arrival and growth of their future CIA officer in all forms of social media that the world can access for decades to come. Moreover, we have to figure out how to create the digital footprint for new identities for some officers. As you all know, exploiting the intelligence opportunities—which is an easier subject to discuss in an unclassified setting than the counterintelligence challenges—will require a new class of in-place and remote sensors that operate across the electromagnetic spectrum. Moreover, these sensors will be increasingly interconnected.
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  • The current “Internet of PCs” will move, of course, toward an “Internet of Things”—of devices of all types—50 to 100 billion of which will be connected to the Internet by 2020. As you know, whereas machines in the 19th century learned to do, and those in the 20th century learned to think at a rudimentary level, in the 21st century, they are learning to perceive—to actually sense and respond. Key applications developed by our In-Q-Tel investment companies are focused on technologies that are driving the Internet of Things. These include: Item identification, or devices engaged in tagging; Sensors and wireless sensor networks—devices that indeed sense and respond; Embedded systems—those that think and evaluate; And, finally, nanotechnology, allowing these devices to be small enough to function virtually anywhere.
  • Items of interest will be located, identified, monitored, and remotely controlled through technologies such as radio-frequency identification, sensor networks, tiny embedded servers, and energy harvesters—all connected to the next-generation Internet using abundant, low cost, and high-power computing—the latter now going to cloud computing, in many areas greater and greater supercomputing, and, ultimately, heading to quantum computing. In practice, these technologies could lead to rapid integration of data from closed societies and provide near-continuous, persistent monitoring of virtually anywhere we choose. “Transformational” is an overused word, but I do believe it properly applies to these technologies, particularly to their effect on clandestine tradecraft. Taken together, these developments change our notions of secrecy and create innumerable challenges—as well as opportunities.
  • Paul Merrell on 30 Dec 13
     
    I missed this gem before, from March 1, 2012. Speech by then-CIA chief Gen. David Patraeus to a group of reps. from ICT startups who are employed by CIA through its In-Q-Tel technology development non-profit corp. See https://www.iqt.org/about-iqt/ Patraeus announces that the Internet of Things (devices of all kinds) is becoming an intelligence target. And that boils down to everything from your clock radio to your home's climate control system and more becoming a potential intelligence source. If the CIA is investing in this, you can bit your bippy that NSA is too; Patraeus mentions that "partner agencies" are also receiving applications via the In-Q-Tel investments.  Finally, Patraeus also acknowledges that the intelligence mission extends far beyond counter-terrorism, offering some detail. So it seems that before the Snowden leaks his the press, the intelligence mission was not all about counter-terrorism.
Paul Merrell

Europe faces 'shooting conflict' if Russia enters east Ukraine, says Hague | World news... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...ct-russia-ukraine-putin-crimea

war & peace Ukraine Russia UK UK-foreign-policy

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • Europe would face the "great danger of a real shooting conflict" if Russian forces moved beyond Crimea to enter the main part of eastern Ukraine, William Hague has said as he accused Vladimir Putin of a major miscalculation.As the foreign secretary warned of another "frozen conflict" in Europe, the energy secretary, Ed Davey, said gas prices could increase if the Ukraine crisis escalated into a military conflict.But the foreign secretary, who said Putin had implemented carefully prepared plans to assume control of Crimea, acknowledged none of the options on the table – diplomatic pressure and economic sanctions – would be able to remove Russian forces from the Black Sea peninsula.
  • The warning from Hague came shortly after Davey told Britain's energy companies not to seek to make profits from the Ukraine crisis, though he acknowledged gas prices would increase if the crisis escalated.
  • Hague said he believed Putin would eventually be seen to have made a "big miscalculation" as the EU pivots away from Russia, particularly in the energy sphere. But he admitted that none of the proposed EU measures against Russia, to be introduced on a graduated basis if Moscow refuses to change tack, would remove Russian forces from Crimea.The foreign secretary said: "None of these things force a Russian withdrawal from Crimea. That is well understood. But they will raise the cost to Russia over time."But the foreign secretary, who rejected next Sunday's planned referendum in Crimea, said there was no "tacit acceptance" of the Russian occupation of Crimea. Some of the sanctions identified in the first phase of the EU's action will be triggered if Moscow refuses to discuss the long-term future of Crimea with Ukraine.
Gary Edwards

Pentagon does about-face on key Benghazi witness, makes Marine colonel available to tal... - 0 views

www.dailymail.co.uk/...l-available-talk-Congress.html

Benghazi Benghazi-coverup

shared by Gary Edwards on 20 Jul 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 20 Jul 13
     
    .."Col. George Bristol was in charge of Special Operations Forces in Northern Africa on the night of the Benghazi, Libya terror attack .. The Dept. of Defense had refused to tell Congress where to find him, claiming that he was retired and entitled to protection under privacy laws .. After pressure from Sen. Lindsey Graham, the Pentagon has changed its mind - now acknowledging that Bristol is not yet retired .. Questions remain about why commandos were not sent to Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012, even though a team was standing by to board a plane"
Gary Edwards

Doug Hagmann: The Embassy Threat, Proxy War - America Conservative 2 Conservative - 0 views

americac2c.com/...n-the-embassy-threat-proxy-war

Benghazi Syria WWIII

shared by Gary Edwards on 04 Aug 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 04 Aug 13
     
    The real story behind Benghazi, Syria and WWIII. excerpt: "Benghazi exposed .... It was shortly after the September 11, 2012 attack in Benghazi that I wrote in explicit detail the actual reason for that attack. Thanks to a highly placed source in the intelligence venue, readers learned the truth ten months before the corporate media finally acknowledged that the compound in Benghazi was the operations center for a large CIA weapons smugglin... where Libya was being used as a weaponsstorage depot to arm the anti-Assad "rebels." The attack at Benghazi was described by this administration and the Clinton State Department as a spontaneous protest over an internet video, although that narrative was proven to be a lie. It was a lie they continued to stick with to hide the fact that the U.S., in conjunction with other NATO allies, were actually doing the work of Saudi Arabia. But why - who benefits? To understand the answer to that question, we must look at what Saudi Arabia is and how the Saudi royals came to power. Much like the U.S., the nation of Saudi Arabia itself is a captured operation, established by a cabal of globalists for the sake of oil. It would be helpful to understand the role Aramco and other oil interests played in the establishment of the Saudi power structure. As the Obama regime continued forward to advance this Saudi-globalist agenda, Russia's Putin warned the U.S. that the insanity of destabilizing Syria was not in their best interests, and certainly not in ours. When the warnings were not heeded, proxy groups for Russia, Syria and Iran, in the form of Ansar al Sharia and AQIM launched a deadly assault on the CIA operations center in Benghazi. The continued pressure of possibly exposing the true nature of the activities in Benghazi, from the illegal arms trafficking in violation of international law to the attack itself, became a serious annoyance to the globalist planners and the Obama subjects to the Saudi royals. The assistanc
Gary Edwards

Coup d'etat -- Paul Craig Roberts - PaulCraigRoberts.org - 1 views

www.paulcraigroberts.org/...coup-detat-paul-craig-roberts

NSA-Patriot-Act-NDAA

shared by Gary Edwards on 07 Aug 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 07 Aug 13
     
    Wow! excerpt: "The American people have suffered a coup d'etat, but they are hesitant to acknowledge it. The regime ruling in Washington today lacks constitutional and legal legitimacy. Americans are ruled by usurpers who claim that the executive branch is above the law and that the US Constitution is a mere "scrap of paper." An unconstitutional government is an illegitimate government. The oath of allegiance requires defense of the Constitution "against all enemies, foreign and domestic." As the Founding Fathers made clear, the main enemy of the Constitution is the government itself. Power does not like to be bound and tied down and constantly works to free itself from constraints. The basis of the regime in Washington is nothing but usurped power. The Obama Regime, like the Bush/Cheney Regime, has no legitimacy. Americans are oppressed by an illegitimate government ruling, not by law and the Constitution, but by lies and naked force. Those in government see the US Constitution as a "chain that binds our hands." The South African apartheid regime was more legitimate than the regime in Washington. The apartheid Israeli regime in Palestine is more legitimate. The Taliban are more legitimate. Muammar Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein were more legitimate. The only constitutional protection that the Bush/Obama regime has left standing is the Second Amendment, a meaningless amendment considering the disparity in arms between Washington and what is permitted to the citizenry. No citizen standing with a rifle can protect himself and his family from one of the Department of Homeland Security's 2,700 tanks, or from a drone, or from a heavily armed SWAT force in body armor. Like serfs in the dark ages, American citizens can be picked up on the authority of some unknown person in the executive branch and thrown in a dungeon, subject to torture, without any evidence ever being presented to a court or any information to the person's relatives of his/her wherea
Paul Merrell

IPS - Lavrov Reveals Amended Draft Circulated at "Last Moment" | Inter Press Service - 0 views

www.ipsnews.net/...raft-circulated-at-last-moment

war & peace arms-control-law Iran Iranian nukes myth Kerry Obama Israel France Saudis whodunnit

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • Nov 15 2013 (IPS) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov revealed a crucial detail Thursday about last week’s nuclear talks with Iran in Geneva that explains much more clearly than previous reports why the meeting broke up without agreement. Lavrov said the United States circulated a draft that had been amended in response to French demands to other members of the six-power P5+1 for approval “literally at the last moment, when we were about to leave Geneva.” Lavrov’s revelation, which has thus far been ignored by major news outlets, came in a news conference in Cairo Thursday that was largely devoted to Egypt and Syria. Lavrov provided the first real details about the circumstances under which Iran left Geneva without agreeing to the draft presented by the P5+1.
  • The full quote from Lavrov’s press conference is available thanks to the report from Voice of Russia correspondent Ksenya Melnikova. Lavrov noted that unlike previous meetings involving the P5+1 and Iran, “This time, the P5+1 group did not formulate any joint document.” Instead, he said, “There was an American-proposed draft, which eventually received Iran’s consent.” Lavrov thus confirmed the fact that the United States and Iran had reached informal agreement on a negotiating text. He further confirmed that Russia had been consulted, along with the four other powers in the negotiations with Iran (China, France, Germany and the UK), about that draft earlier in the talks –- apparently Thursday night, from other published information. “We vigorously supported this draft,” Lavrov said. “If this document had been supported by all [members of the P5+1], it would have already been adopted. We would probably already be in the initial stages of implementing the agreements that were offered by it.”
  • Then Lavrov revealed for the first time that the U.S. delegation had made changes in the negotiating text that had already been worked out with Iran at the insistence of France without having consulted Russia. “But amendments to [the negotiating draft] suddenly surfaced,” Lavrov said. “We did not see them. And the amended version was circulated literally at the last moment, when we were about to leave Geneva.” Lavrov implies that the Russian delegation, forced to make a quick up or down decision on the amended draft, did not realise the degree to which it was likely to cause the talks to fail. “At first sight, the Russian delegation did not notice any significant problems in the proposed amendments,” Lavrov said. He made it clear, however, that he now considers the U.S. maneuvre in getting the six powers on board a draft that had been amended with tougher language – even if softened by U.S. drafters — without any prior consultation with Iran to have been a diplomatic blunder.
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  • “[N]aturally, the language of these ideas should be acceptable for all the participants in this process – both the P5+1 group and Iran,” Lavrov said. The crucial details provided by Lavrov on the timing of the amended draft shed new light on Secretary of State John Kerry’s claim in a press conference in Abu Dhabi on Monday of unity among the six powers on the that draft. “We were unified on Saturday when we presented a proposal to the Iranians.” Kerry said, adding that “everybody agreed it was a fair proposal.” Kerry gave no indication of when on Saturday that proposal had been approved by the other five powers, nor did he acknowledge explicitly that it was a draft that departed from the earlier draft agreed upon with Iran. Lavrov’s remarks make it clear that the other members of the group had little or no time to study or discuss the changes before deciding whether to go along with it.
  • Although the nature of the changes in the amended draft remain a secret, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has charged that they were quite far-reaching and that they affected far more of the draft agreement that had been worked out between the United States and Iran than had been acknowledged by any of the participants. In tweets on Tuesday, Zarif, responding to Kerry’s remarks in Abu Dhabi, wrote, “Mr. Secretary, was it Iran that gutted over half of US draft Thursday night?” Zarif’s comments indicated that changes of wording had nullified the previous understanding that had been reached between the United States and Iran on multiple issues.
  • Zarif’s tweet, combined with remarks by President Hassan Rouhani to the national assembly Sunday warning that Iran’s rights to enrichment are “red lines” that could not be crossed, suggests further that the language of the original draft agreement dealing with the “end game” of the negotiating process was also changed on Saturday. Kerry himself alluded to the issue in his remarks in Abu Dhabi, using the curious formulation that no nation has an “existing right to enrich.” One of the language changes in the agreement evidently related to that issue, and it was aimed at satisfying a demand of Israeli origin at the expense of Iran’s support for the draft. Now the Obama administration will face a decision whether to press Iran to go along with those changes or to go back to the original compromise when political directors of the six powers and Iran reconvene Nov. 20. That choice will provide the key indicator of how strongly committed Obama is to reaching an agreement with Iran.
  • Paul Merrell on 16 Nov 13
     
    The article adds more detail than quoted. The picture that emerges is that John Kerry and French foreign minister Laurent Fabius carried water for the Israelis and Saudis to blow up the negotiation at the last moment, after all sides had preliminarily agreed to a text, by substituting a new and very substantially different text without consulting the other P-5+1 members or Iran. That is a down and dirty negotiation tactic; no wonder the negotiation failed. It should be kept in mind that the Israeli and Saudi governments' real goal is not halting Iran's development of a nuclear industry but is instead to persuade or trick the U.S. into bombing Iran back into the Stone Age, as the U.S. did to Iraq in the early 1990s under Emperor Bush 1 with a repeat performance by Emperor Bush II a decade later.  As to Kerry's preposterous claim that no nation has a right to enrich uranium, in reality every nation has that right jus cogens, with the only limitations being on nations that are members of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which nations still retain the right to enrich up to 20 percent as Iran has been doing. Claims to the contrary are either misinformed or mere false propaganda. See http://armscontrollaw.com/2013/11/07/scope-meaning-and-juridical-implication-of-the-npt-article-iv1-inalienable-right/
Gary Edwards

The Patriot's Declaration - Voice of Essential Liberty - 0 views

patriotpost.us/...19

patriot Patriot-Post Patriotism Liberty-Amendments

shared by Gary Edwards on 29 Aug 13 - No Cached
  • that fiscal responsibility be enumerated in our Constitution by way of a Balanced Budget Amendment, including zero base-line accounting principles, to be put before the states and the people;
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 29 Aug 13
       
      If, under the "Enumerated Powers Act/Amendment", ALL legislation requires the siting of specific Constitutional authority, wouldn't that negate the need for a Balanced Budget Amendment?  Tons of outrageous stuff in the Federal Budget would need to be examined and properly "enumerated".  And that would put an end to it?  Just asking :)
  • that said Amendment contain a provision requiring a three-fifths majority of votes by members of Congress to raise direct or indirect taxes, and acknowledgment that the legislature has no authority to raise taxes for purposes that are not expressly authorized by the Constitution;
  • that said Amendment contain a provision that direct taxes be levied at an equal ratio to all Americans, ensuring that the cost-burden of government is shared equally by all, and consistent with Article I, Section 9, which provides "No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed" which would unduly single out individuals or minority groups for undue punishment;
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • that said Amendment contain a provision that the withholding of taxes by an employer is the option of the taxpayer;
  • EIGHTH
  • that said Amendment acknowledge the interdependence of economic freedom and political freedom by provision that any bill before Congress must enumerate its implications against the exercise of free enterprise;
  • NINTH
  • Legislature Accountability Amendment
  • that a
  • to establish term limits for all members of Congress, similar to that of the 22nd Amendment, Section 1, limiting terms for the Executive, be put before the states and the people; and,
  • TENTH
  • Rule of Law
  • because
  • established through the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God, entitles the People to unalienable Rights including Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, and severely limits the government from any infringement upon those rights, then any member of the executive, legislative or judicial branch in violation of the Rule of Law established through our Constitution, is subject to impeachment and criminal prosecution.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 29 Aug 13
       
      YES!!! Now we're talking tough.
  • THUS, be it known that for the support of this Declaration in defense of the Rule of Law established by our Constitution, it is, with firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, that we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor
  • Note to signers: The Patriot Declaration is not a petition. It is a "Declaration of Cause and Necessity" and stands on its own as an resolution of intent for all who sign it, as due notice for those who would abandon their oath to "Support and Defend the Constitution" and abuse their office to the detriment of individual liberty and states rights.
  • Preamble to the Patriot Declaration
  • Patriot Declaration
  • THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED,
  • We the People of these United States, in order to restore a more perfect Union, re-establish Justice, re-insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, pledge to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America, as established at great cost in lives and treasure by our Founders and defended by generations since, and we demand that those in the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of our national government, likewise honor their oaths, and commit to undertake the following actions to restore constitutional integrity and Rule of Law:
Gary Edwards

Revealed: Obama's Immense Shadow Army & Its Shocking Takeover Plan - 1 views

www.libertynews.com/...rmy-its-shocking-takeover-plan

shared by Gary Edwards on 26 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 26 Oct 13
     
    Is the ObamaCare train wreck a wreck by design? Another notch in the Bankster belt marking another step in the bankrupting of America? Revealed: Obama's Immense Shadow Army & Its Shocking Takeover Plan October 26, 2013  //  By: Eric Odom  //   The ObamaCare train wreck - it's awful, possibly purposeful, certainly useful for team Obama and its growing army of community activists and organizers. In a previous report, we explored the question, "What if the ObamaCare debacle is really a diversion, using a military term a "feint" - a tactical distraction to draw our attention, our focus and our fire away from the real point of attack on liberty?" Remember that horrible train wreck in Spain not long ago, captured on video? As tragic as it was, watching the crash and its gruesome aftermath was almost irresistible, wasn't it? Well, what if the disastrous rollout of the President's signature legislative achievement - what if this spectacular slow motion ObamaCare train wreck has been and is being allowed to happen so that what's going on around the bend from the fiery crash site gets little attention, from the public, from the media or from Congressional investigators? Think about it, friends. How could Barack Obama and his celebrated team of incredibly proficient, plugged in techies - the team that twice got him elected - be behind the utterly disastrous launch of the ObamaCare online storefront, healthcare.gov - arguably the biggest website failure in history? How could so much money have been spent to produce such a problem-plagued site that apparently was doomed in its developmental confusion? And how to fix this monumental mess, well, there doesn't seem to be any clear plan…other than hope. And now we learn that many, if not most, of the people actually signing up for ObamaCare through the website are enrolling in Medicaid, not signing up for private insurance policies they pay for, but adding their names onto government roll
  • Gary Edwards on 26 Oct 13
     
    There is no doubt in my mind that corporations (and their Chamber of Commerce boot licking lackys) believe that employer provided healthcare benefits was a HUGE MISTAKE. The key feature of ObamaCare is that of ENDING the HMO-Employee Healthcare profit draining quagmire these corporations somehow stumbled into. (Hint: they traded healthcare benefits for wide open government assisted Globalization - the new world order Merchantilism). IMHO, the insurance companies know full well that the entire HMO-Employee Healthcare bandwagon is going to end. Not because of socialism; because of profit hungry out of control mercantilism. So they are trying to cut the best deal possible with the government. The merchantilist doesn't care that their employees are going to suffer. They only care that this cost and the blame for losing the benefit is moved from their books to the government. Nor does the merchantilist care about protecting our borders. They want cheap labor. Even if the social cost of that cheap labor lands on the government and destroys the nation. That's why the merchantilist and his Bankster financiers support Open Borders. The merchantilist could care less about the trade deficit and the massive transfer of American manufacturing jobs overseas. As long as they can sell their junk back into the USA market without a 33% import tax these bastardos are happy to destroy their country. I wonder whose army and navy will secure their investments when the USA no longer can? Are their private armies enough? Just wondering.
Paul Merrell

U.S. officials scrambled to nab Snowden, hoping he would take a wrong step. He didn't. ... - 0 views

m.washingtonpost.com/...3-bf76-447a5df6411f_story.html

surveillance state Russia NSA Snowden capture-efforts

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • While Edward Snowden was trapped in the transit zone of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport last year, U.S. officials were confronting their own dearth of options in the White House Situation Room. For weeks, senior officials from the FBI, the CIA, the State Department and other agencies assembled nearly every day in a desperate search for a way to apprehend the former intelligence contractor who had exposed the inner workings of American espionage then fled to Hong Kong before ending up in Moscow.
  • “The best play for us is him landing in a third country,” Monaco said, according to an official who met with her at the White House. The official, who like other current and former officials interviewed for this article discussed internal deliberations on the condition of anonymity, added, “We were hoping he was going to be stupid enough to get on some kind of airplane, and then have an ally say: ‘You’re in our airspace. Land.’ ” U.S. officials thought they saw such an opening on July 2 when Bolivian President Evo Morales, who expressed support for Snowden, left Moscow aboard his presidential aircraft. The decision to divert that plane ended in embarrassment when it was searched in Vienna and Snowden was not aboard.
  • Several U.S. officials cited a complication to gathering intelligence on Snowden that could be seen as ironic: the fact that there has been no determination that he is an “agent of a foreign power,” a legal distinction required to make an American citizen a target of espionage overseas. If true, it means that the former CIA employee and National Security Agency contractor, who leaked thousands of classified files to expose what he considered rampant and illegal surveillance of U.S. citizens, is shielded at least to some extent from spying by his former employers.
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  • In interviews, U.S. officials acknowledged that they had no specific intelligence that Snowden would be on Morales’s plane. But the Bolivian leader’s remark was enough to set in motion a plan to enlist France, Spain, Italy and Portugal to block the Bolivian president’s flight home.
  • State Department and CIA officials pressured countries seen as potential destinations to turn Snowden away, reducing his options to a handful hostile toward the United States. Among them was Bolivia, whose president had signaled publicly that he would consider giving Snowden asylum.
  • The lack of a warrant deeming Snowden a foreign agent would also cast doubt on the claims of some of his critics. U.S. officials, including Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, have speculated that Snowden had Russian help in stealing U.S. secrets and probably works with the FSB now. Snowden has acknowledged that he was approached by Russian intelligence upon his arrival, but he has said he rejected the pitch and did not bring any classified files with him. He insisted in a recent NBC television interview that he has “no relationship” with the Russian government.
  • As it crossed Austria, the aircraft made a sudden U-turn and landed in Vienna, where authorities searched the cabin — with Morales’s permission, officials said — but saw no sign of Snowden.
  • Austrian officials said they were skeptical of the plan from the outset and noted that Morales’s plane had taken off from a different airport in Moscow than where Snowden was held. “Unless the Russians had carted him across the city,” one official said, it was unlikely he was on board. Even if Snowden had been a passenger, officials said, it is unclear how he could have been removed from a Bolivian air force jet whose cabin would ordinarily be regarded as that country’s sovereign domain — especially in Austria, a country that considers itself diplomatically neutral. “We would have looked foolish if Snowden had been on that plane sitting there grinning,” said a senior Austrian official. “There would have been nothing we could have done.”
  • Wizner declined to discuss where Snowden lives, or how he secured an apartment in a city where such transactions require government involvement — except to indicate that Snowden’s Russian attorney, Anatoly Kucherena, has helped with such arrangements. Snowden’s relationship with Kucherena, who has close ties to Putin and serves on an FSB advisory board, has fueled speculation that he is working with the Russian government.
  • Paul Merrell on 16 Jun 14
     
    Lots of detail on the Feds' efforts to capture Snowden and to persuade the Russians to extradite him.
Paul Merrell

Eric Cantor's Opponent Beat Him By Calling Out GOP Corruption | - 0 views

www.republicreport.org/...dave-brat-cantor

U.S. banksters Brat Cantor corruption

shared by Paul Merrell on 13 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • “All of the investment banks, up in New York and D.C., they should have gone to jail.” That isn’t a quote from an Occupy Wall Street protester or Senator Elizabeth Warren. That’s a common campaign slogan repeated by Dave Brat, the Virginia college professor who scored one of the biggest political upsets in over a century by defeating Majority Leader Eric Cantor in the Republican primary last night. The national media is buzzing about Brat’s victory, but for all of the wrong reasons.
  • Did the Tea Party swoop in and help Brat, as many in the Democratic Party are suggesting? Actually, the Wall Street Journal reports no major Tea Party or anti-establishment GOP group spent funds to defeat Cantor. Did Cantor, the only Jewish Republican in Congress, lose because of his religion, as some have suggested? There’s no evidence so far of anti-Semitism during the campaign. Was Cantor caught flatfooted? Nope; Cantor’s campaign spent close to $1 million on the race and several outside advocacy groups, including the National Rifle Association, the National Realtors Association and the American Chemistry Council (a chemical industry lobbying association) came in and poured money into the district to defeat Brat. The New York Times claims that Brat focused his campaign primarily on immigration reform. Brat certainly made immigration a visible topic in his race, but Republic Report listened to several hours of Brat stump speeches and radio appearances, and that issue came up far less than what Brat called the main problem in government: corruption and cronyism. Brat told Internet radio host Flint Engelman that the “number one plank” in his campaign is “free markets.” Brat went on to explain, “Eric Cantor and the Republican leadership do not know what a free market is at all, and the clearest evidence of that is the financial crisis … When I say free markets, I mean no favoritism to K Street lobbyists.” Banks like Goldman Sachs were not fined for their role in the financial crisis — rather, they were rewarded with bailouts, Brat has said.
  • rat, who has identified with maverick GOP lawmakers like Representative Justin Amash of Michigan, spent much of the campaign slamming both parties for being in the pocket of “Wall Street crooks” and D.C. insiders. The folks who caused the financial crisis, Brat says, “went onto Obama’s rolodex, the Republican leadership, Eric’s rolodex.” During several campaign appearances, Brat says what upset him the most about Cantor was his role in gutting the last attempt at congressional ethics reform. “If you want to find out the smoking gun in this campaign,” Brat told Engelman, “just go Google and type the STOCK Act and CNN and Eric Cantor.” (On Twitter, Brat has praised the conservative author Peter Schweizer, whose work on congressional corruption forced lawmakers into action on the STOCK Act.) The STOCK Act, a bill to crack down on insider trading, was significantly watered down by Cantor in early 2012. The lawmaker took out provisions that would have forced Wall Street “political intelligence” firms to register as traditional lobbyists would, and removed a section of the bill to empower prosecutors to go after public officials who illegally trade on insider knowledge. And Brat may be right to charge that Cantor’s moves on the STOCK Act were motivated by self interest. Cantor played a leading role in blocking legislation to fix the foreclosure crisis while his wife and his stock portfolio were deeply invested in mortgage banks.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Most self-described Tea Party Republicans, including Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, have railed against Washington in a general sense without calling out the powerful – often Republican-leaning — groups that wield the most power. Not Brat. “Eric is running on Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable principles,” Brat told a town hall audience, later clarifying that he meant the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the largest lobbying trade group in the country. He also called out the American Chemistry Council for funding ads in his race with Cantor, telling a radio host that his opponent had asked his “crony capitalist friends to run more ads.” Brat repeats his mantra: “I’m not against business. I’m against big business in bed with big government.” Indeed, Cantor has been a close ally to top lobbyists and the financial industry. “Many lobbyists on K Street whose clients include major financial institutions consider Cantor a go to member in leadership on policy debates, including overhauling the mortgage finance market, extending the government backstop for terrorism insurance, how Wall Street should be taxed and flood insurance,” noted Politico following Cantor’s loss last night. In 2011, Cantor was caught on video promising a group of commodity speculators that he would roll back regulations on their industry. 
  • There are many lessons to be learned from the Cantor-Brat race. For one, it’s worth reflecting on the fact that not only did Cantor easily out raise and outspend Brat by over $5 million to around $200,000 in campaign funds, but burned through a significant amount on lavish travel and entertainment instead of election advocacy. Federal Election Commission records show Cantor’s PAC spent at least $168,637 on steakhouses, $116,668 on luxury hotels (including a $17,903 charge to the Beverly Hills Hotel & Bungalows) and nearly a quarter million on airfare (with about $140,000 in chartered flights) — just in the last year and a half! But on the policy issues and political ramifications of this race, it’s not easy to box Brat into a neat caricature of an anti-immigration zealot or Tea Party demagogue, or, in TIME’s hasty reporting, a “shopworn conservative boilerplate.” If Brat ascends to Congress, which is quite likely given the Republican-leaning district that he’ll run in as the GOP nominee, he may actually continue taking on powerful elites in Washington.  
  • Paul Merrell on 13 Jun 14
     
    The Cantor defeat was not a Tea Party upset victory as claimed by MSM, according to this article. Instead, Brat's stump speeches were about crony capitalism, bankster corruption of Congress, and libertarian principles. So if this article is correct, then MSM would rather claim that Cantor was a victim of the Tea Party than acknowledge the issues that Brat actually raised, Congressional corruption and big government/big corporation cronyism.  Very interesting food for thought.
Paul Merrell

Palestinians hint at end to security pact with Israel unless settlement construction st... - 0 views

www.independent.co.uk/...onstruction-stops-9352991.html

Israel Palestine security-pact

shared by Paul Merrell on 13 May 14 - No Cached
  • With Israeli-Palestinian relations deteriorating, a senior Palestinian official is warning that its security forces will stop helping the Israeli army to thwart attacks unless settlement construction in the occupied West Bank is halted. “The Israelis are undermining all agreements and keeping only the security co-ordination to the maximum,” said Yasser Abed Rabbo, an adviser to President Mahmoud Abbas and secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organisation executive committee.“If they pursue the same policy through continuous settlement activity, and lately though destroying the peace process they are paving the way for the destruction of what remains of our relationship – the security co-ordination.”
  • Paul Merrell on 13 May 14
     
    Palestinian President Abbas has made it clear during the last couple of months that one option being seriously considered is dissolving the State of Palestine and the Palestine Authority, forcing Israel to acknowledge its rule over Palestine. That would be the end of the so-called 2-state solution of the Palestinian Question. 
Paul Merrell

Groups Call for Public Disclosure of the Legal Rationale for US Force Against ISIS - 0 views

www.pogo.org/...all-for-public-disclosure.html

war & peace ISIL war-powers constitution Obama legal-memos

shared by Paul Merrell on 20 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • OpenTheGovernment.org urges you to press for public disclosure of all Office of Legal Counsel memoranda and other legal opinions setting forth the legal rationale for the United States to use military force against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Congress cannot meaningfully exercise its Constitutional power to authorize force if the Executive uses secret legal opinions to extend past authorizations in ways that Congress never anticipated or intended. The Obama administration has stated that it already has the authority it needs to launch airstrikes against ISIS in Syria, but has given shifting, incomplete explanations of the source of that authority.
  • Last week, administration officials stated that Congress did not need to vote to authorize strikes against ISIS (also commonly known as ISIL or the Islamic State) because the President could rely on the post-September 11, 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF). An administration official acknowledged that ISIS had publicly split with Al Qaeda, but said that the AUMF still applied to ISIS based on its past relationship with Al Qaeda, its role in the Iraq war, and ISIS’s “position – supported by some individual members and factions of AQ-aligned groups – that it is the true inheritor of Usama bin Laden’s legacy.”1But the 2001 AUMF does not authorize force against all anti-American terrorist organizations that are arguably “the true inheritors of Usama bin Laden’s legacy.” It authorizes force against “those nations, organizations, or persons [the President] determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons.”2
  • The Obama administration has said that “2002 Iraq AUMF would serve as an alternative statutory for military action in Iraq—but this is inconsistent with prior administration statements that the basis”6 Iraq war has ended, and that the 2002 AUMF “is no longer used for any U.S. Government activities.”7Administration officials have also cited the President’s power under Article II of the Constitution to act in self-defense of the United States to attack ISIS—but this contradicts its repeated assurances that ISIS does not pose an imminent risk of attack on U.S. soil.8Instead of trying to explain the case for war in confusing and often anonymous soundbites, the Executive Branch should publicly release the OLC memos and other binding written analyses that explain the purported legal basis for strikes against ISIS, and its legal interpretation of the AUMF more generally.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • The leadership of ISIS had no known role in the September 11 attacks, and the administration’s recent statements acknowledge that the group first affiliated with Al Qaeda in 2004. The Obama administration has argued for some time that the 2001 AUMF authorized military action against “associated forces” of Al Qaeda even if those affiliates had no role in the September 11 attacks, but has also assured Congress that there were meaningful limits on what constituted an “associated force.” Department of Defense General Counsel Stephen Preston testified to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in May that to be an “associated force,” a group had to be both (1) an organized, armed group that has entered the fight alongside al-Qa’ida or the Taliban and (2) a co-belligerent with al-Qa’ida or the Taliban in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners.(3) Al Qaeda specifically disavowed conducting operations with ISIS earlier this year.4 York Times, the administration has said it has no secret intelligence that the groups have reconciled,5 is difficult to understand how it could remain an “associated force.”
  • When the United States enters a war, the public and Congress need to know who the enemy is, and under what legal authority U.S. forces are operating. It would be unacceptable in a democracy for Congress to authorize force in secret. It is equally unacceptable for the Executive Branch to secretly interpret and expand past Congressional authorizations. Accordingly, we hope you will use the upcoming committee hearing to press for full disclosure of the relevant OLC opinions.
Paul Merrell

After Two Years, White House Finally Responds to Snowden Pardon Petition - With a "No" - 0 views

firstlook.org/...sponds-snowden-pardon-petition

surveillance state Snowden pardon petititon Obama

shared by Paul Merrell on 30 Jul 15 - No Cached
  • The White House on Tuesday ended two years of ignoring a hugely popular whitehouse.gov petition calling for NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden to be “immediately issued a full, free, and absolute pardon,” saying thanks for signing, but no. “We live in a dangerous world,” Lisa Monaco, President Obama’s adviser on homeland security and terrorism, said in a statement. More than 167,000 people signed the petition, which surpassed the 100,000 signatures that the White House’s “We the People” website said would garner a guaranteed response on June 24, 2013. In Tuesday’s response, the White House acknowledged that “This is an issue that many Americans feel strongly about.”
  • The White House on Tuesday ended two years of ignoring a hugely popular whitehouse.gov petition calling for NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden to be “immediately issued a full, free, and absolute pardon,” saying thanks for signing, but no. “We live in a dangerous world,” Lisa Monaco, President Obama’s adviser on homeland security and terrorism, said in a statement. More than 167,000 people signed the petition, which surpassed the 100,000 signatures that the White House’s “We the People” website said would garner a guaranteed response on June 24, 2013. In Tuesday’s response, the White House acknowledged that “This is an issue that many Americans feel strongly about.”
  • Monaco then explained her position: “Instead of constructively addressing these issues, Mr. Snowden’s dangerous decision to steal and disclose classified information had severe consequences for the security of our country and the people who work day in and day out to protect it.” Snowden didn’t actually disclose any classified information — news organizations including the Guardian, Washington Post, New York Times and The Intercept did the disclosing. And the Obama administration has yet to specify any “severe consequences” that can be independently confirmed.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • The Snowden response was one of 20 responses to what the White House called “our We the People backlog.” The White House had been criticized for avoiding uncomfortable topics despite their popular support. On Twitter, the responses to the Snowden response, some from signers of the petition, were highly critica
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