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Gary Edwards

A Finalized Path to Full, Socialized Medicine in America -- Thanks to Conservatives - F... - 0 views

www.forbes.com/...merica-thanks-to-conservatives

Richard-Salsman TB2-Roberts ObamaCare-TAX

shared by Gary Edwards on 05 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • the kind of “soft despotism” Tocqueville warned of in 1835, a “tyranny of the majority” unique to democracy itself, as it is to every other form of mob rule.
  • Hamiltonian Federalists, adamantly opposed democracy and vigorously defended a constitutionally-limited federal republic, because the first violated individual rights, while the latter protected them.
  • Jeffersonians opposed the new Constitution, condoned slavery, championed Rousseau’s “popular will,” and favored democracy; today their progeny can be found among the liberty-crushing Obama zombies.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 05 Jul 12
       
      I din't agree with this statement!!  Jefferson fully supported the Madison Constitutional design.  If anything though, Jefferson was concerned about the sovereignty and power of the States as a limiting force on the Federal government.  This belief was excercized in 1798 when Jefferson and Madison took their opposition to the horrid  Adams-Federalist "Alien and Sediton Act" directly to the State legislatures.  Jefferson and Madison did not turn to to the federal Congress, that had passed the Act. they went straight to the States legislatures to marshal opposition and counter this first assault on  the Constitution and Bill of Rights (first andammendment).
  • Gary Edwards on 05 Jul 12
     
    Nice summary of the TB2 Roberts Obamacare/Tax supremecist court ruling.  Author Richard Salsman concludes that we now have a Totalitarian government under the rule of men; not the Constitutional Republic and Rule of Law the Founding Fathers left us.   excerpt: Once again American conservatives have struck a lethal blow against freedom, rights and capitalism. The U.S. Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling today, condoning every sordid feature of the 2700-page, rights-violating "ObamaCare" law, ensures that America will move still farther and faster down the path to full, socialized medicine, a path first paved in the 1960s, with Medicare and Medicaid. The lawless ruling was made possible by the vote of Chief Justice John Roberts, an appointee of "compassionate conservative" George W. Bush. With today's ruling the U.S. government can do virtually anything it wishes to its citizens - liberty and rights be damned, without limit. Officially in America we now have a totally arbitrary and limitless government. That is, we have a "total government." In short, we've got totalitarian government. As to how much further liberty we may lose in our lifetimes, it'll depend only on how arbitrary and vicious reigning rulers choose to be, or not. There's no real Rule of Law any more, only the Rule of Men - and these are mostly ignorant, reckless men.
Joseph Skues

Yes, Islam condones wife beatings - 0 views

www.calgaryherald.com/...story.html

islam condones yes

shared by Joseph Skues on 23 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • Joseph Skues on 23 Jan 11
     
    "Recently, Marvin Levant (Dec. 28), Steve Harris (Dec. 30), Syed Soharwardy (Jan. 2), and Riazuddin Ahmed (Jan. 5) debated Islam through the forum of the Herald's letters to the editor. The issue of wife beating and gender inequality in Islam has become convoluted and highly controversial as many Muslims try to sugar-coat the ugly truths and others try to shed some light on the issue. Soharwardy's statement that "Beating one's wife is not only wrong, it is criminal and completely un-Islamic" is incorrect. The Qur'an says that "men are in charge of women because Allah has made one of them (men) to excel the other (women), thus man's superiority over women . . . good women are the obedient ones . . . admonish the rebellious women and banish them, and scourge them (whip them severely to inflict pain) (4:34) . . . smote them (hit or strike with the hand or with a weapon causing pain, beat them . . . (4:62)". Islam does not recognize gender equality. For example, polygamy is accepted in Islam, but polyandry is not. A woman's testimony is considered half as worthy as a man's in court; a son inherits twice as much as a daughter does. Muslim men may marry Muslim, Jewish or Christian women, but Muslim women can marry only Muslim men. In short, sharia law leads to the inhuman treatment of Muslim women by their husbands and others, especially in South Asia and the Middle East. Higher education is emphasized more for sons than for daughters; in cultural honour killings, almost always women are the target for murder. Under sharia, divorced Muslim women get custody of their sons under eight years of age and daughters until puberty, and then the fathers take the children away. Sharia enabled one of the worst fundamentalists, the vile and ruthless military dictator, Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, to put more than 15,000 rape victims in jail because they could not comply with the absurd Islamic condition requiring them to have numerous male witnesses of their victimization. They were char
Paul Merrell

Japan approves TEPCO pumping Fukushima Daiichi Water into the Pacific | nsnbc internati... - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...daiichi-water-into-the-pacific

ocean-environment Fukushima radioactive-discharge

shared by Paul Merrell on 23 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • TEPCO proposed pumping radioactive contaminated groundwater that is pumped up from wells around the crippled reactors, stating that it “plans to” reduce the level of radioactive material in the water before releasing it into the Pacific Ocean.
  • The plan includes the installation of drain pipes, pumping systems, and filtering equipment that would reduce the levels of cesium-137 to less that one becquerel per liter before releasing the water into the Pacific Ocean environment, states TEPCO. TEPCO suggested that it would start-up the release gradually. Japan’s Nuclear Regulator also agreed to that part of TEPCO’s proposal while it is asking TEPCO to assure that it would fully disclose all measurements and ensure that there were no further direct waste-water leaks. A German nuclear engineer who has been consulting for nsnbc since 2013 noted that the announcement to reduce cesium-137 levels to 1 becquerel per liter was deceptive. He added that: “The statement reflects the standard deceptive strategy. That is, to discuss for example cesium and iodine while omitting the fact that the waste-water also would contain plutonium and a cohort of other of the most toxic elements.”
  • TEPCO for its part stated that it wouldn’t begin draining water into the Pacific before local residents, that is Mayors of regional communities, fishermen and others had agreed to the plan. A Japanese journalist who is reporting for nsnbc on condition of anonymity after having received multiple death threats already stressed that the statement implies that money is changing hands, and that those who can’t be bought would be intimidated, blackmailed or otherwise “removed”.
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  • It is noteworthy that TEPCO has had problems with its filtering equipment since it began using it in 2013 and that these problems are recurring. The Fukushima Daiichi NPP has released hundreds of cubic meters of highly contaminated water into the Pacific since the earthquake and subsequent tsunami in 2011 led to the world’s worst nuclear disaster. It is also noteworthy that the TEPCO has established a Tank Farm with over one-thousand tanks. The tanks contain highly radioactive contaminated water. These tanks are not welded tanks but flange tankes with steel bolts and rubber seals. Many of these tanks have begun leaking already. These tanks are connected with swimming-pool grade plastic pipes. Experts repeatedly warned that these tanks were not designed to withstand a major earth quake. A recent study shows that the Fukushima Daiichi NPP is located in an area in which the risk of a major destructive earthquake occurring within a 30-year period, is 26% or above. That is, earthquakes of magnitude five or above on Japan’s earthquake scale that rates six as the strongest and most destructive earthquakes. Many of Japan’s NPPs are located in the most earthquake and tsunami prone regions of Japan, revealed a recent study. (See related article below).
  • Paul Merrell on 23 Jan 15
     
    Fukushima discharges of radioactive wastes have already reached the western shores of the U.S. and Canada. That Japan would allow deliberate discharge of more simply condones murder and environmental devastation.  
Paul Merrell

PressTV - US planning for a post-Israel Middle East - 0 views

www.presstv.ir/...g-for-a-postisrael-middle-east

war & peace Israel

shared by Paul Merrell on 01 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • So what is all the fuss about? It’s a paper entitled: Preparing for a Post-Israel Middle East, an 82-page analysis that concludes that the American national interest in fundamentally at odds with that of Zionist Israel. The authors conclude that Israel is currently the greatest threat to US national interests because its nature and actions prevent normal US relations with Arab and Muslim countries and, to a growing degree, the wider international community. The study was commissioned by the US Intelligence Community comprising 16 American intelligence agencies with an annual budget in excess of $ 70 billion. The IC includes the departments of the Navy, Army, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, Defense Intelligence Agency, Departments of Energy, Homeland Security, State, Treasury, Drug Enforcement Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, National Security Agency, National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, National Reconnaissance Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency commissioned the study.
  • srael, given its current brutal occupation and belligerence cannot be salvaged any more than apartheid South Africa could be when as late as 1987 Israel was the only “Western” nation that upheld diplomatic ties with South Africa and was the last country to join the international boycott campaign before the regime collapsed;
  • Simultaneous with, but predating, rapidly expanding Arab and Muslim power in the region as evidenced by the Arab Spring, Islamic Awakening and the ascendancy of Iran, as American power and influence recedes, the US commitment to belligerent oppressive Israel is becoming impossible to defend or execute consistent given paramount US national interests which include normalizing relations with the 57 Islamic countries; · Gross Israeli interference in the internal affairs of the United States through spying and illegal US arms transfers. This includes supporting more than 60 ‘front organizations’ and approximately 7,500 US officials who do Israel’s bidding and seek to dominate and intimidate the media and agencies of the US government which should no longer be condoned;
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  • The international opposition to the increasingly apartheid regime can no longer be synchronized with American claimed humanitarian values or US expectations in its bilateral relations with the 193 member United Nations. The Draft ends with language about the need to avoid entangling alliances that alienate much of the World and condemn American citizens to endure the consequences.
  • Franklin Lamb, former Assistant Counsel, US House Judiciary Committee and Professor of International Law at Northwestern College of Law in Oregon, earned his Law Degree at Boston University and his LLM, M.Phil., and PhD degrees at the London School of Economics. Following three years at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Lamb was visiting fellow at the Harvard Law School’s East Asian Legal Studies Center.
Paul Merrell

Head of al Qaeda's Syrian branch threatens Russia in audio message | The Long War Journal - 0 views

www.longwarjournal.org/...ns-russia-in-audio-message.php

war & peace Syria al-Qaeda CIA

shared by Paul Merrell on 15 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • The head of Al Nusrah Front, Abu Muhammad al Julani, has released an audio message addressing Russia’s role in the Syrian war. Julani depicts Russia as being “Eastern Crusaders,” calls for reprisal attacks inside Russia, says the jihadists should attack Shiite villages, and argues that groups fighting the Assad regime shouldn’t seek assistance from the West or countries throughout the region. He also offers bounties of several million Euros to anyone who kills Bashar al Assad or Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Julani’s 21-minute audio message, which was released online yesterday, is entitled “The Russian Intervention – The Last Arrow.” It has been translated by the SITE Intelligence Group.
  • Julani urges the “mujahideen in the Caucasus to distract” Russia’s attention from the war in Syria whenever possible by killing Russians in their home country, including soldiers. “If the Russian soldier kills from the masses of [Syria], kill from their masses. And if they kill from our soldiers, kill from theirs,” Julani says, according to SITE. “One for one. We will not be the ones who begin.” The infighting between various factions must come to a stop, Julani argues, so that the jihadists can focus on “breaking” the “Eastern and Western Crusader campaigns.” And the jihadists should mobilize on “all the fronts” throughout Syria in response. “All must start a large battle on the most sensitive areas for the regime, and the battle must be escalated and the Nusayri [Shiite] villages in Latakia targeted.” Latakia is a coastal province that has long been a stronghold for the Assad family. “I call upon all the factions to gather the largest possible amount of shells and rockets and strike the Nusayri [Shiite] villages every day with hundreds of rockets, just as the cursed ones do in the cities and villages of the Sunnis,” Julani says, according to SITE. “Make them taste some of the torture of our people. If they leave the villages and cities of the Sunnis, we will leave them alone and will not attack, for he who treats others the same as he treats himself is not unjust.”
  • Here, Julani is likely discussing the Sunni jihadists’ strategy of attacking Shiite civilian areas in order to force the Assad regime to refrain from attacking predominately Sunni areas. Al Nusrah, Ahrar al Sham and other Sunni jihadist groups have employed this strategy throughout the year by, for example, attacking Shiite villages in northern Syria until Assad, Iranian forces, and Hezbollah lay off of areas in the south where Sunnis, including jihadists, are cornered. Jaysh al Fateh has effectively used this plan to free civilians and some fighters stationed in Zabadani, a small city close to the border with Lebanon. Julani warns other groups in Syria to avoid seeking assistance from “the Western states and the regional states,” saying it will only bring more “humiliation and shame.” Julani does not address this warning to any specific parties, but he could be referring to Al Nusrah’s ally, Ahrar al Sham, which receives assistance from Turkey and Qatar. Al Nusrah itself has likely received support from Gulf nations, Turkey and other actors at times. In fact, al Qaeda ideologues have explicitly condoned such arrangements, arguing that it can advance the jihadists’ cause. Al Qaeda has even said it is permissible on theological grounds to receive support from Iran, which is currently the Sunni jihadists’ foe in Syria and elsewhere. So, while Julani may openly decry this practice, it is one al Qaeda has repeatedly deemed to be acceptable.
  • Paul Merrell on 15 Oct 15
     
    It's good to stay aware of what the CIA's mercenary fores are doing. Sounds a lot like terrorism to me.
Paul Merrell

Dr. Joseph Bonneau Wins NSA Award, Criticizes NSA | Electronic Frontier Foundation - 0 views

www.eff.org/...ins-nsa-award-criticizes-nsa-0

surveillance state NSA Bonneau NSA-blowback

shared by Paul Merrell on 27 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • "Like many in the community of cryptographers and security engineers, I’m sad that we haven’t better informed the public about the inherent dangers and questionable utility of mass surveillance. And like many American citizens I’m ashamed we’ve let our politicians sneak the country down this path." -- Bonneau On July 18th, Dr. Joseph Bonneau, a software engineer at Google, received the National Security Agency’s award for the best scientific cybersecurity paper.  According to its stated mission, the competition was created to help broaden the scientific foundations of cybersecurity needed in the development of systems that are resilient to cyber attacks. But Bonneau was deeply conflicted about receiving the award, noting on his blog that even though he was flattered to receive the award he didn’t condone the mass surveillance programs run by the NSA:  “Simply put, I don’t think a free society is compatible with an organisation like the NSA in its current form." Bonneau elaborated on his feelings in a Twitter discussion as well as in an interview with Animal during which he said: "I’d rather have it [the NSA] abolished than persist in its current form. I think there’s a question about whether it’s possible to reform the NSA into something that’s more reasonable."
  • Engineers and researchers like Bonneau have a unique and important role to play in fighting back against NSA oversteps. As Michael Hirsh noted in the Atlantic last month, "The government's massive data collection and surveillance system was largely built not by professional spies or Washington bureaucrats but by Silicon Valley and private defense contractors."  As Hirsh explained, tech companies have contributed enormously to wiring up Big Brother -- companies like Palantir Technologies, Eagle Alliance (of Computer Sciences Corp. and Northrup Grumman) and Booz Allen Hamilton. The only way the government gets to spy on everyone is when people who are intelligent and innovative enough to build scalable surveillance technologies decide to help them.
  • Paul Merrell on 27 Nov 13
     
    A courageous stand.
Paul Merrell

Citizenfour's Laura Poitras suing US government over 'harassment' | Film | The Guardian - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...s-us-harassment-edward-snowden

surveillance state DHS FOIA litigation Poitras

shared by Paul Merrell on 14 Jul 15 - No Cached
  • The Oscar-winning documentary film-maker Laura Poitras is suing the US government demanding to know why she has repeatedly been subjected to “Kafkaesque harassment” at airports across the world. Poitras, 51, said she had been held at borders more than 50 times between 2006 and 2012, often for hours at a time. At various times she alleges being told by officials that she was on a “no fly” list, having her electronic equipment confiscated and not returned for 41 days, and being threatened with handcuffs for taking notes. The latter incident took place when she was working on a film about the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Poitras said she was launching the legal action, which demands the release of all documentation held on her tracking, targeting and questioning by agencies over the six year period, following the failure of a 2013 freedom of information request.
  • “I’m filing this lawsuit because the government uses the US border to bypass the rule of law,” said the film-maker in a statement, The Intercept reported. “This simply should not be tolerated in a democracy. I am also filing this suit in support of the countless other less high-profile people who have also been subjected to years of Kafkaesque harassment at the borders. We have a right to know how this system works and why we are targeted.” Poitras has previously said she was placed on the Department of Homeland Security’s watch list in 2006 after returning home to the US following work on My Country, My Country. She says airport security told her officials had assigned her the highest “threat rating” possible, even though she had never been charged with a crime. She was repeatedly stopped until 2012, when the journalist Glenn Greenwald wrote an article about her experiences.
  • Poitras’s reporting on the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, along with work by Greenwald, Ewen MacAskill and Barton Gellman contributed to the Pulitzer prize for public service won jointly by the Washington Post and the Guardian in 2014. Her film on Snowden, Citizenfour, won the 2015 Oscar for best documentary. The director is being represented by lawyers from digital-rights advocacy group the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “The well-documented difficulties Ms Poitras experienced while traveling strongly suggest that she was improperly targeted by federal agencies as a result of her journalistic activities,” senior counsel David Sobel told the Intercept. “Those agencies are now attempting to conceal information that would shed light on tactics that appear to have been illegal. We are confident that the court will not condone the government’s attempt to hide its misconduct under a veil of ‘national security.’”
Gary Edwards

The Daily Bell - Gerald Celente on Multinationalism, Breaking the Chains and Individual... - 0 views

www.thedailybell.com/...ins-and-Individual-Renaissance

gerald-celente Globalist-Elites

shared by Gary Edwards on 04 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • Gerald Celente: As I said, they're in a trap and it's a tapering trap, the quantitative easing trap. They can't keep printing more money because it's going to devalue the currency. And by the way, this is complicated, because it's not only the United States that's doing it; most of the central banks are doing it. China, the Europeans – they're all pumping money into their systems to keep them afloat. They're all in a trap. A time comes when you just can't keep doing it anymore. You can only take heroin so much before it kills you. This is monetary methadone and it's not going to cure the problem so they're going to have to stop. When it stops, that's when we go back into a recession and/or a depression.
  • Is it a depression? Is it a depression if you live in Greece or Spain or Portugal? Is it a depression if you're among the over 12% unemployed in Italy? When you look at John Williams's ShadowStats, in the US we're looking at about 22% unemployment. So yes, it's a depression for a lot of people. And then again, median household income in the US, accounting for inflation, is 10% below 1999 levels. That's a fact. So if you're earning 10 percent less for your family than you were in 1999 and the costs have skyrocketed since then, particularly in healthcare, food, rent, property, gas and other costs, do you think you're living in a depression? Daily Bell: Is central banking an art, a science or just a fraud?
  • Gerald Celente: Neither. It's a criminal operation. Throughout the 1800s, one of the major issues of every presidential election was whether or not to have a central bank. They fought it successfully not to have one until 1913. These are private banks that are running our country and many others. This goes back to the scriptures; it's Christ chasing the moneychangers out of the temple. The moneychangers have just got new names – Deutsche Bank, Societe Generale, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and, of course, JPMorgan Chase got that name because you're going to have to chase them to get your money because they just put a limit on how much you can withdraw or deposit each month in certain accounts, with a limit of $50,000.
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  • Daily Bell: It seems like people don't believe in central banking anymore so why does it continue? What holds it up in a so-called democracy where people have a vote? Gerald Celente: Most people don't even know what a central bank is and they still believe the lie that the Federal Reserve is a quasi-government institution when it's not. It's a totally private bank. Most people don't even know that. So most people are uninformed and like in all countries, they follow their leaders. Very few people rebel. There was an incident that happened in late October in the States. Hillary Clinton was speaking in Buffalo, delivering her model for what is required to solve complex problems. There was a heckler in the crowd who she admonished by saying, "... which doesn't include yelling. It includes sitting down and talking." What patronizing bullshit. You know what happened? The audience of 6,500 stood up and gave her a standing ovation that extended on and on. So it's the people. The people can blame the politicians all they want, but as I see it, it's the people's responsibility for the state of their nation.
  • Daily Bell: What's the employment picture like going forward in the US?
  • Gerald Celente: Lower paying jobs, less benefits, more temporary jobs and I think the question at the end is rather than going forward in the US it should be what's going forward in Slavelandia, because that's what it's become. You get out of college and you're an indentured servant. For the rest of your life you have to pay off your debt for your degree in worthlessness, for the most part. There are degrees that are worth something but not a lot of them. Where are you going to work? Name the company – Macy's? Starbucks? You can become a barista. Are they going to start teaching Shipping & Handling 101 in college? What are they going to do? Who are you going to work for? What are you going to do – stock shelves? This is better than slavery because when they had the plantation you had to take care of the slaves. Now you can just use them up and send them home. It's kind of like Bangladesh right here in the good 'ol USA.
  • Daily Bell: How about the rest of the world? Give us a global summary.
  • Gerald Celente: The global summary is this: Everybody can see what happened when the Federal Reserve talked about tapering several months ago. All of a sudden you saw the emerging markets start to crash; they dropped about 11% in a year before the Fed reversed its policy because all the hot, low-interest rate money that was leaving the US was flowing into the emerging markets, where you could borrow the money cheaply. So when they started to talk about tapering the hot money started flowing out of these countries, such as India, Brazil. They were really suffering from it and so were their stock markets. So without the cheap money flowing from the central banks, the entire global economy goes on stall and then it turns negative. You can see what's going on in China now; they're facing a banking crisis. Real estate prices in cities like Shanghai and Beijing have gone up over 20% in a year and no matter how the government tries to deflate it, the housing bubble keeps growing. The banks also have a lot of bad loans they're carrying. Now the Chinese government is trying to restrain that free-flow of cheap money, and what happens to their stock market when they do? It dives and the contagion spreads to other Asian equity markets. They all start dropping. It's all tied to cheap money and when the cheap money spigot begins to tighten up the global economy goes down. As I've made very clear, when the interest rates go up the economies go down – it's as simple as that. They've run out of this game. Compare this with the Great Depression, when it began essentially in 1930. This recession begin in 2008. It's now 2013 – we're only in 1935.
  • Daily Bell: China and the BRICS seem to be making noises about setting up their own monetary infrastructure without the dollar. Will that happen?
  • Gerald Celente: Yes, they are making noise, but reality is another issue, and the currency issue is complicated. The dollar goes down but where are you going to go, the euro? We were talking briefly about what's going on in Europe. There's financial market propaganda boasting that the worst of the eurozone crisis is over. They're bragging that The GDP of Spain was just reported to have gone up 0.1% and they made a big deal out of it. "The recession's over" is the B.S. message. No, the recession is not over! They're cooking the numbers to make a rotten situation look less rotten. In countries like Greece and Spain, youth unemployment is running above 50% and overall unemployment around 30%. The recession continues unabated, and there's absolutely no way out of this and they can't print their way out. Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain, Ireland are doing terrible – what would anyone substitute euros for dollars? And what other currency choices are there, the yuan? As I mentioned, China has plenty of its own problems. They've been dumping a lot of cash into that society to keep it going. You know what China's greatest fear is? It's not the Spratly Islands or the South and China Sea territorial problems that are going on between them, the Philippines, Vietnam or the Japanese. China's greatest fear is its people. They've got 1.2 billion of them and if they're hungry or not happy there's going to be a lot of problems.
  • Again, what do you substitute the dollar for, Brazil's real or the Indian rupee? Remember, we saw what happened when the hot money started leaving the emerging market countries. The South African rand is also under pressure. The BRIC nations can speak as much as they want and they may have the greatest intention to create another reserve currency, but the fact is their economies are not robust or independent enough to create one at this time. As I said, talk is one thing, facts are another and although the world is less dependent on the dollar it is still by far the major reserve currency of the world and I don't see that rapidly changing unless there's a catastrophe that would cause it to happen. However, over the years, I do expect a new reserve model to develop.
  • Daily Bell: Let's talk about military action, particularly in Syria where Al Qaeda types have been fighting on the side of the US and NATO. Why does the US want to destabilize Syria and what country will be next – Iran? Russia?
  • Gerald Celente: We wrote about this in the Trends Journal going back to 2011. After Libya fell, Syria was the only port that the Chinese and the Russians had in the Mediterranean – the Port of Tartus. And also, Syria's only real ally in that area is Iran and, of course, Hezbollah in Lebanon. So with Syria out of the way there's nothing in the Middle East other than Iran to stop the continued spread of US influence and control in that area. It's really more about that than anything we see – again, having more control over that area for the US to do as it wants, with Iran really being the main target.
  • When President Obama backed off his red line threat and didn't attack Syria that was a tipping point. And, as important, the vast majority of Americans opposed the attack plan. That was a significant statement. The country said it was tired of war – and so are a lot of other nations.
  • Gerald Celente: Again, talk about morality and the recent Amnesty International report that said the United States was breaking international law in its use of drones to kill people that were convicted of nothing in addition to innocent people. How much more immoral could you get?
  • I can tell you how much immoral. How about starting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq – in Iraq with the proof that a war was started that killed at least a half a million people that was started under fake reasons; lies that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and ties to al Qaeda. An Afghan war that's the longest war in American history, the war in Libya that they called a time-limed, scope-limited kinetic action that's destroyed the entire nation. You want to talk about immorality? How about the "too big to fail"? The government mandated immoral act of stealing money from the American people to give it to the banks, financiers and favored corporations? They say the fish rots from the head down and that's it; the fish has rotted in America for a long time. It didn't start with Obama. It goes back to Bush, Clinton, and keeps going back. Society gets the message from the top and, as I see it, they're simply following their leaders. For example, if their leader can start wars, rob people, take their money, why shouldn't I? Why should I operate on a moral level when immorality is condoned at the top?
  • Most recently, the United States government, in virtually every fashion of behavior, has been fascist. I don't say that by throwing the word out loosely. It's called the merger of corporate state and powers. It goes back to "too big to fail." Under capitalism there's no such thing. You're not too big to fail; you fail. Big, small, medium, you fail – it's capitalism.
  • Not anymore. You have your money taken from you by government order and it's transferred to the people who are the most favored by those in power. That's the only reason why the stock market keeps going up and why the multinationals are doing so well. That's where the $85 billion a month that the Federal Reserve is using in their quantitative easing is going. Then when you look at the other levels of immorality, as I mentioned, why shouldn't people feel as though they can do anything the government is doing? That's why it just keeps getting worse and worse. It's reflected in the music, the politics, every element of culture – both pop culture and political culture.
  • Under the dictates of the eurozone and globalization, the love of one's culture and pride of nation is denounced as "populism."
  • Daily Bell: Let's talk hard money. Can you give us an update on the price action of gold and silver? How about equity? Where is the stock market headed? We think the big boys are trying to rev it up and go for one last killing. Your thoughts?
  • Gerald Celente: The stock market will continue to rise as long as interest rates stay low. That's the best estimate you could give. They keep all of this quantitative easing that, for example, benefits the big private equity firms. Look what's going on in the United States with Blackstone Group. They own 40,000 homes. Where are they getting the money? Deutsche Bank is loaning them tons of money because they're getting money with overnight rates near zero, and they in turn loan it to the "bigs" really cheaply so it is just another example of what's keeping the whole stock market scam going.
  • As long as the money stays cheap the stock market keeps going up. As the money stays cheap gold and silver go up, and you're seeing gold making a bit of a rebound lately because of, again going back to the employment numbers in the States – there is no recovery, the jobs stink, they're not creating enough jobs. The tapering keeps going on, which is a devaluation of the currency, and quantitative easing continues. As long as money stays cheap gold goes up. Now, gold may go down when quantitative easing and tapering slow down. However, that's only going to be temporary because when that happens the bond market's going to explode, when interest rates go up, there's going to be another financial crisis. My best analysis at this time is the second quarter of 2014. The 'experts' are saying the stock market is booming. It has gone from a 14,000 high in 2007 to mid-15,000 now. Accounting for inflation, the stock market has to be about 15,750 just to be back at the 2007 level.
  • Daily Bell: There are other trends, of course, ones you often mention. You spoke to us last time about the New Millennium Renaissance.
  • Gerald Celente: Back to the renaissance... To me, that's the only thing that's going to change the future. We need a cultural, artistic and moral redevelopment, a restoration. Every issue that we've been talking about so far is based on human behavior and the human spirit – morality or immorality. Until morality is restored and the human spirit rises, nothing's going to change. As I was mentioning before, the fish rots from the head down. If you see the people at the head acting immorally, and from the head all the way down, why shouldn't you or I act immorally? What license do they have to steal that we don't? What license do they have to kill that we shouldn't?
Paul Merrell

Fire the Liar | War Is A Crime .org - 0 views

warisacrime.org/fire-liar

surveillance state Clapper VIPS lies Obama

shared by Paul Merrell on 24 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • Obama Urged to Fire DNI Clapper December 11, 2013 (Editor Note)  Last March – before Edward Snowden revealed the NSA’s sweeping collection of phone and other data – Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said no such operation existed. Now, a group of ex-national security officials urge President Obama to fire Clapper. MEMORANDUM FOR: The President FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) SUBJECT: Fire James Clapper
  • We wish to endorse the call by Rep. James Sensenbrenner Jr., Chair of the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, Committee on the Judiciary, that Director of National Intelligence James Clapper should be removed and prosecuted for lying to Congress. “Lying to Congress is a federal offense, and Clapper ought to be fired and prosecuted for it,” the Wisconsin Republican said in an interview with The Hill. “The only way laws are effective is if they’re enforced.” Sensenbrenner added, “If it’s a criminal offense — and I believe Mr. Clapper has committed a criminal offense — then the Justice Department ought to do its job.”
  • This brief Memorandum is to inform you that we agree that no intelligence director should be able to deceive Congress and suffer no consequences. No democracy that condones such deceit at the hands of powerful, secretive intelligence directors can long endure. It seems clear that you can expect no help from Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, to which Clapper has apologized for giving “clearly erroneous” testimony, and who, at the height of the controversy over his credibility, defended him as a “direct and honest” person. You must be well aware that few amendments to the U.S. Constitution are as clear as the fourth:
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  • “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” Even the cleverest lawyers cannot square with the Fourth Amendment many of the NSA activities that Clapper and Feinstein have defended, winked at, or lied about. Only you can get rid of James Clapper. We suspect that a certain awkwardness — and perhaps also a misguided sense of loyalty to a colleague — militate against your senior staff giving you an unvarnished critique of how badly you have been served by Clapper. And so we decided to give you a candid reminder from us former intelligence and national security officials with a total of hundreds of years of experience, much of it at senior levels, in the hope you will find it helpful. Statements by DNI Clapper re Eavesdropping on Americans
  • Mr. President, are you not also troubled by those misleading statements? We strongly believe you must fire Jim Clapper for his lies to the Congress and the American people and that you must appoint someone who will tell the truth. * * * For the Steering Group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
  • Paul Merrell on 24 Dec 13
     
    Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity call on Obama to sack Director of National Intelligence James Clapper for perjured testimony to Congress and lying to the public, with a nice collection of Clapper's lies. And Sen. Diane Feinstein gets a share of their wrath.  In my book both Clapper and Gen. Keith Alexander must be fired in disgrace else the message to the intelligence community is that there is no penalty for lying to Congress and the People, which can only encourage further lies.  Moreover, it send a message to the People that the President is more loyal to his henchmen than he is to the public's interest.
Paul Merrell

British Spies Allowed to Access U.S. Data Without a Warrant - NationalJournal.com - 0 views

www.nationaljournal.com/...ata-without-a-warrant-20141028

surveillance state NSA GCHQ intelligence-sharing must-read litigation

shared by Paul Merrell on 01 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • British authorities are capable of tapping into bulk communications data collected by other countries' intelligence services—including the National Security Agency—without a warrant, according to secret government documents released Tuesday. The agreement between the NSA and Britain's spy agency, known as Government Communications Headquarters or GCHQ, potentially puts the Internet and phone data of Americans in the hands of another country without legal oversight when obtaining a warrant is "not technically feasible."   The data, once obtained, can be kept for up to two years, according to internal policies disclosed by the British government. GCHQ was forced to reveal that it can request and receive vast quantities of raw, unanalyzed data collected from foreign governments it partners with during legal proceedings in a closed court hearing in a case brought by various international human-rights organizations, including Privacy International, Liberty U.K., and Amnesty International. The suit challenges certain aspects of GCHQ's surveillance practices.
  • It is well known that the NSA and GCHQ closely share intelligence data with one another, as part of a long-standing surveillance partnership. Some details of the agencies' spy pact were exposed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden last year, including the existence of GCHQ's Tempora program, which taps into fiber-optic cables to scoop up online and telephone traffic across the Web for up to 30 days. But this is the first time the British government has disclosed that it does not require a warrant to access data collected and maintained by its American counterparts. The revelation appears to counter statements made by an oversight committee of the British Parliament in July of last year that "in each case where GCHQ sought information from the U.S., a warrant for interception, signed by a minister, was already in place."   It is unclear whether any restrictions on Britain's access to NSA surveillance data is imposed by the U.S. However, documents provided by Snowden to The Guardian last year reveal that the NSA shares raw intelligence data with Israel without removing information about U.S. citizens.
  • In a statement, the NSA said it works with a number of partner countries to further its "foreign intelligence mission." But it did not specify whether it was aware of or condoned Britain's apparent warrantless access of its data. "Whenever NSA shares intelligence information, we comply with all applicable rules, including rules designed to safeguard U.S. person information," the agency said. "NSA does not ask its foreign partners to undertake any intelligence activity that the U.S. government would be legally prohibited from undertaking itself." American privacy advocates quickly condemned any warrantless access of U.S. communications data by British authorities.   "The 'arrangement' disclosed today suggests that the two countries are circumventing even the very weak safeguards that have been put in place," Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement to National Journal. "It underscores both the inadequacy of existing oversight structures and the pressing need for [surveillance] reform."
  • Paul Merrell on 01 Nov 14
     
    Note that this came out in a court case; it is not a Snowden leak. 
Paul Merrell

Hillary Clinton tackles ISIL, previews economic message - Gabriel Debenedetti - POLITICO - 0 views

www.politico.com/...ey-hillary-clinton-115473.html

Auction 2016 Hillary war & peace women's-rights

shared by Paul Merrell on 26 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • Hillary Clinton on Tuesday dismissed the idea of putting American or Western troops on the ground to combat the Islamic State militant group, instead favoring “air force, but also army soldiers from the region, and particularly from Iraq,” in fighting what she said would be a “long-term struggle.” The former secretary of state also said that she was “obviously” considering a run for president in 2016, but that her decision would come “all in good time.”
  • While lauding the technology field in general, Clinton also was careful to touch on subjects that can be sensitive in any industry, including rising CEO pay. She also called for a higher minimum wage, pay fairness, and paid leave policies.
  • Clinton said the National Security Agency should be more transparent about its activities, insisted that she “can never condone” the actions of NSA leaker Edward Snowden, and offered support for net neutrality. She also spoke at length about the important role women can play in the technology industry, intertwining that theme with an economic one. On the effort against ISIL, Clinton suggested during the Q&A with journalist Kara Swisher that there was little use in inserting U.S. combat troops into the fight and essentially backed the president’s strategy so far. “It’s a very hard challenge, because you can’t very well put American or Western troops in to fight this organism,” she said, in her clearest statement yet on the topic. “You have to use, not only air force but also army soldiers from the region and particularly from Iraq. … A lot of the right moves are being made, but this is a really complicated and long-term problem.”
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  • And while Clinton did not explicitly mention her political future during her speech, she did nod to her 2008 concession speech that mentioned cracks in the glass ceiling by saying that now it is time to “crack every last glass ceiling.”
  • The likely Democratic 2016 front-runner, who has been criticized by Republicans for her lack of public appearances in recent weeks, is scheduled for at least half a dozen high-profile events between now and March 23, including some highly paid speeches and one speech at a New York gala for her family’s foundation. The foundation has been under scrutiny for accepting funds from foreign governments since Clinton left the State Department in 2013. Clinton’s schedule features multiple events that will draw attention to her work on women’s rights, which is expected to be a major theme for her 2016 campaign.
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