Group items tagged

The DNC convention may be every bit as tension-filled, with Sanders supporters aiming to bring 1 million people to the convention to sway the vote on floor amendments to the Democratic platform.

Russia to U.S. and Allies: You will not win a war by proxies against Syria.

"by Yossef Bodansky excerpt: There is a growing volume of new evidence from numerous sources in the Middle East - mostly affiliated with the Syrian opposition and its sponsors and supporters - which makes a very strong case, based on solid circumstantial evidence, that the August 21, 2013, chemical strike in the Damascus suburbs was indeed a pre-meditated provocation by the Syrian opposition. The extent of US foreknowledge of this provocation needs further investigation because available data puts the "horror" of the Barack Obama White House in a different and disturbing light. On August 13-14, 2013, Western-sponsored opposition forces in Turkey started advance preparations for a major and irregular military surge. Initial meetings between senior opposition military commanders and representatives of Qatari, Turkish, and US Intelligence ["Mukhabarat Amriki"] took place at the converted Turkish military garrison in Antakya, Hatay Province, used as the command center and headquarters of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and their foreign sponsors. Very senior opposition commanders who had arrived from Istanbul briefed the regional commanders of an imminent escalation in the fighting due to "a war-changing development" which would, in turn, lead to a US-led bombing of Syria. The opposition forces had to quickly prepare their forces for exploiting the US-led bombing in order to march on Damascus and topple the Bashar al-Assad Government, the senior commanders explained. The Qatari and Turkish intelligence officials assured the Syrian regional commanders that they would be provided with plenty of weapons for the coming offensive. Indeed, unprecedented weapons distribution started in all opposition camps in Hatay Province on August 21-23, 2013. In the Reyhanli area alone, opposition forces received well in excess of 400 tons of weapons, mainly anti-aircraft weaponry from shoulder-fired missiles to ammunition for light-guns and machine guns. The weapons were distri

"by Yossef Bodansky excerpt: There is a growing volume of new evidence from numerous sources in the Middle East - mostly affiliated with the Syrian opposition and its sponsors and supporters - which makes a very strong case, based on solid circumstantial evidence, that the August 21, 2013, chemical strike in the Damascus suburbs was indeed a pre-meditated provocation by the Syrian opposition. The extent of US foreknowledge of this provocation needs further investigation because available data puts the "horror" of the Barack Obama White House in a different and disturbing light. On August 13-14, 2013, Western-sponsored opposition forces in Turkey started advance preparations for a major and irregular military surge. Initial meetings between senior opposition military commanders and representatives of Qatari, Turkish, and US Intelligence ["Mukhabarat Amriki"] took place at the converted Turkish military garrison in Antakya, Hatay Province, used as the command center and headquarters of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and their foreign sponsors. Very senior opposition commanders who had arrived from Istanbul briefed the regional commanders of an imminent escalation in the fighting due to "a war-changing development" which would, in turn, lead to a US-led bombing of Syria. The opposition forces had to quickly prepare their forces for exploiting the US-led bombing in order to march on Damascus and topple the Bashar al-Assad Government, the senior commanders explained. The Qatari and Turkish intelligence officials assured the Syrian regional commanders that they would be provided with plenty of weapons for the coming offensive. Indeed, unprecedented weapons distribution started in all opposition camps in Hatay Province on August 21-23, 2013. In the Reyhanli area alone, opposition forces received well in excess of 400 tons of weapons, mainly anti-aircraft weaponry from shoulder-fired missiles to ammunition for light-guns and machine guns. The weapons were distri

Soon to be joined by the other two BRICS?

Sy Hersh walks us through his investigation into the reasons behind Obama's last-minute decision to postpone missile (and as it turns out, B52) strikes on Syria. His trail leads through the Benghazi incident and the CIA's running of weapons from Libya to jihadists in Syria (the "rat line") through Turkey engineering a false flag gas attack in Syria to draw Obama into attacking Syria for crossing his "red line" against Syrian use of chemical weapons. Note that Hersh's account of the "red line" events largely fits with the earlier accounts by Yossef Bodansky.  http://oilprice.com/Geopolitics/Middle-East/Syrian-Chemical-Attack-More-Evidence-Only-Leads-to-More-Questions.html http://www.worldtribune.com/2013/09/09/new-granular-evidence-points-to-saudi-involvement-in-syrias-chemical-weapons-terror-attack/ http://www.globalresearch.ca/did-the-white-house-help-plan-the-syrian-chemical-attack Note however that Hersh's account omits Bodansky's evidence that the U.S. State Department and CIA were part of the planning for the false flag attack.

See also Hersh's article in December 2013, establishing that the White House had "cooked" the alleged evidence offered in support of Obama's claim that Syria had been responsible for the attack. It also establishes Obama's prior knowledge that the "rebel" forces had sarin weapons. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n24/seymour-m-hersh/whose-sarin

"The Red Line and the Rat Line: Seymour M. Hersh on Obama, Erdoğan and the Syrian rebels excerpt/intro: In 2011 Barack Obama led an allied military intervention in Libya without consulting the US Congress. Last August, after the sarin attack on the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, he was ready to launch an allied air strike, this time to punish the Syrian government for allegedly crossing the 'red line' he had set in 2012 on the use of chemical weapons.​＊ Then with less than two days to go before the planned strike, he announced that he would seek congressional approval for the intervention. The strike was postponed as Congress prepared for hearings, and subsequently cancelled when Obama accepted Assad's offer to relinquish his chemical arsenal in a deal brokered by Russia. Why did Obama delay and then relent on Syria when he was not shy about rushing into Libya? The answer lies in a clash between those in the administration who were committed to enforcing the red line, and military leaders who thought that going to war was both unjustified and potentially disastrous. Obama's change of mind had its origins at Porton Down, the defence laboratory in Wiltshire. British intelligence had obtained a sample of the sarin used in the 21 August attack and analysis demonstrated that the gas used didn't match the batches known to exist in the Syrian army's chemical weapons arsenal. The message that the case against Syria wouldn't hold up was quickly relayed to the US joint chiefs of staff. The British report heightened doubts inside the Pentagon; the joint chiefs were already preparing to warn Obama that his plans for a far-reaching bomb and missile attack on Syria's infrastructure could lead to a wider war in the Middle East. As a consequence the American officers delivered a last-minute caution to the president, which, in their view, eventually led to his cancelling the attack."

According to this translated-from-Russian Pravda report, the investigation of the Boris Nemtsov assassination in Russia is closing in on the commander of a Ukrainian battalion, Adam Osmayev, as the person who set in motion the assassination by a professional hit team that had also been tasked to assassinate Vladimir Putin. In other words, a false flag attack on Nemtsov to make Russia look bad, to be followed up by killing the Russian Prime Minister.  The pseudonym reportedly used by Osmayev in Ukraine is Dzhokar Dudayev. That is the name of the first President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, a breakaway state in the North Caucasus. Wikpedia says, "Dudayev was killed on 21 April 1996, by two laser-guided missiles when he was using a satellite phone, after his location was detected by a Russian reconnaissance aircraft, which intercepted his phone call." http://goo.gl/67qPVR  In comments by the translator that I did not highlight, she speculates that the trail may lead further to the CIA and SBU, which is roughly the Ukrainian equivalent of the CIA. See also this 2014 article, http://www.interfax.com/newsinf.asp?id=488090 (.) That article reports, inter alia, that the CIA had personnel working within the SBU between 2006-10 and that CIA had been provided with the personnel files of Ukraine "special services" officers. If true, that would mean that CIA had penetrated SBU long before the coup and may in fact have been in control of SBU. Approximately the first paragraph of this article was reported by the Kyev Post, without mention of the CIA officials working within SBU. http://goo.gl/9HX1n

Correction: I misunderstood the translation. The plot to kill Putin happened in 2012 and Adam Osmayev was allegedly tied to it. I have no information that the other defendants in the present incident were involved with that. Also, Dzhokar Dudayev is not a pseudonym used by Osmayev but instead the name of his militia battalion in Ukraine. It's composed of "international" volunteers, one might suspect largely of Chechnyans. I'll be bookmarking another article soon that makes more sense of all this. Osmayev is himself Chechnyan.

"The words of Alexis de Tocqueville in Book Four, Chapter VI of Democracy America are particularly poignant: I had remarked during my stay in the United States, that a democratic state of society, similar to that of the Americans, might offer singular facilities for the establishment of despotism... I think, then, that the species of oppression by which democratic nations are menaced is unlike anything which ever before existed in the world: our contemporaries will find no prototype of it in their memories. I seek in vain for an expression which will accurately convey the whole of the idea I have formed of it, the old words despotism and tyranny are inappropriate: the thing itself is new, and since I cannot name, I must attempt to define it. I seek to trace the novel features under which despotism may appear in the world. The first thing that strikes the observation is an innumerable multitude of men, all equal and alike, incessantly endeavoring to procure the petty and paltry pleasures with which they glut their lives. Each of them, living apart, is as a stranger to the fate of all the rest,--his children and his private friends constitute to him the whole of mankind; as for the rest of his fellow-citizens, he is close to them, but he sees them not;--he touches them, but he feels them not; he exists but in himself and for himself alone; and if his kindred still remain to him, he may be said at any rate to have lost his country. Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications, and to watch over their gate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent, if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly la

"An elective despotism was not the government we fought for." - James Madison

Looks like the Syrian Army is preparing to clean out the rat's nest of Al-Nusrah that have occupied Syria's Golan Heights border with Israel. That would cut off the Al-Nusrah supply line from Israel. That will probably involve Israel coming to the aid of Al-Nusrah with airstrikes. Israel officially regards all fire it receives in the Golan Heights as being the Syrian Army's responsibility and attacks it, so all Al-Nusrah has needed to do to bring in Israeli airstrikes on the Syrian Army is to lob a few mortar rounds over the border.

"(Editor's note: This list was originally published in August 2016 and has gone viral on the web. WND is running it again as American voters cast their ballots for the nation's next president on Election Day.) How many people do you personally know who have died mysteriously? How about in plane crashes or car wrecks? Bizarre suicides? People beaten to death or murdered in a hail of bullets? And what about violent freak accidents - like separate mountain biking and skiing collisions in Aspen, Colorado? Or barbells crushing a person's throat? Bill and Hillary Clinton attend a funeral Apparently, if you're Bill or Hillary Clinton, the answer to that question is at least 33 - and possibly many more. Talk-radio star Rush Limbaugh addressed the issue of the "Clinton body count" during an August show. "I swear, I could swear I saw these stories back in 1992, back in 1993, 1994," Limbaugh said. He cited a report from Rachel Alexander at Townhall.com titled, "Clinton body count or left-wing conspiracy? Three with ties to DNC mysteriously die." Limbaugh said he recalled Ted Koppel, then-anchor of ABC News' "Nightline," routinely having discussions on the issue following the July 20, 1993, death of White House Deputy Counsel Vince Foster. In fact, Limbaugh said, he appeared on Koppel's show. "One of the things I said was, 'Who knows what happened here? But let me ask you a question.' I said, 'Ted, how many people do you know in your life who've been murdered? Ted, how many people do you know in your life that have died under suspicious circumstances?' "Of course, the answer is zilch, zero, nada, none, very few," Limbaugh chuckled. "Ask the Clintons that question. And it's a significant number. It's a lot of people that they know who have died, who've been murdered. "And the same question here from Rachel Alexander. It's amazing the cycle that exists with the Clintons. [Citing Townhall]: 'What it

Details of how a federal Judge came to rule that the insideous NDAA law is un Constitutional. excerpt: Posted on May 18, 2012 By Chris Hedges In January, attorneys Carl Mayer and Bruce Afran asked me to be the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit against President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta that challenged the harsh provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). We filed the lawsuit, worked for hours on the affidavits, carried out the tedious depositions, prepared the case and went to trial because we did not want to be passive in the face of another egregious assault on basic civil liberties, because resistance is a moral imperative, and because, at the very least, we hoped we could draw attention to the injustice of the law. None of us thought we would win. But every once in a while the gods smile on the damned. U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest, in a 68-page opinion, ruled Wednesday that Section 1021 of the NDAA was unconstitutional. It was a stunning and monumental victory. With her ruling she returned us to a country where-as it was before Obama signed this act into law Dec. 31-the government cannot strip a U.S. citizen of due process or use the military to arrest him or her and then hold him or her in military prison indefinitely. She categorically rejected the government's claims that the plaintiffs did not have the standing to bring the case to trial because none of us had been indefinitely detained, that lack of imminent enforcement against us meant there was no need for an injunction and that the NDAA simply codified what had previously been set down in the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force Act. The ruling was a huge victory for the protection of free speech. Judge Forrest struck down language in the law that she said gave the government the ability to incarcerate people based on what they said or wrote. Maybe the ruling won't last. Maybe it will be overturned. But we and other Americans are

The Court's decision is here. http://sdnyblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/12-Civ.-00331-2012.05.16-Opinion-Granting-PI.pdf

The Obama Executive Orders are frightening steps on the road to the destruction of our beloved Constitution and the implementation of totalitarian tyranny. The thing is, neither Obama or Congress can issue an executive order or pass a law that compromises the Constitution, including the rights and liberty of individual citizen and the States. The Constitution is a document of strictly "enumerated powers" - NOT "implied powers". These executive orders are un Constitutional!!!!!! excerpt: President Barack Hussein "kill list" Obama has offered over 900 Executive Orders (EO), and he is not even through his first term. He is creating a wonderland of government controls covering everything imaginable, including a list of "Emergency Powers" and martial law EOs. And while Obama is busy issuing EOs to control everything inside the US, he has been issuing EOs to force us to submit to international regulations instead of our US Constitution. And comments by North Carolina governor Beverly Perdue and former OMB director Peter Orszag only contribute to this pattern. Is it now time to start connecting the dots? Obama signed EO 13603 on March 22, 2012. Then he signed EO 13617 on June 25, 2012, declaring a national emergency. Then he signed EO 13618 on July 6, 2012. In EO 13603, entitled, "National Defense Resources Preparedness," Obama says (among other things) that [we must]: be prepared, in the event of a potential threat to the security of the United States, to take actions necessary to ensure the availability of adequate resources and production capability, including services and critical technology, for national defense requirements; Obama has the power, through this EO, to "nationalize" (not seize) private assets in order to protect national interests. Further, the EO effectively states that he can: 1. "identify" requirements for emergencies 2. "assess" the capability of the country's industrial and technological base 3. "be prepared" t

Obama preparing for an even more massive war. Sending in aircraft very substantially increases the number of necessary targets, to take out Syria's formidable aircraft defense system. And of course the announcement that Syria's missiles are targeted vastly increases Syria's incentives to retaliate as soon as they realize a military strike on them is under way, else they lose the ability to retaliate.

Interview with Bernie Sanders about his possible run for the White House. There's a lot of difference between socialism and democratic socialism. Sanders is at least a civil libertarian, one of the few honest people in Congress, who frequently worked closely with other civil libertarians such as Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, and Peter Defazio. And he's anti-war, anti-surveillance society, anti-bankster, and anti-insurance industry, the banksters in disguise who have the only industry in the U.S. that is exempt from anti-trust laws. If he runs, he'll likely get my vote regardless of whether he runs as a Democrat or as an Independent.  But I'd love to see him run as an Independent. 

 By our Constitution's Treaty Clause, the Charter of the United Nations is binding law in the U.S. In Article 2 cl. 4, it provides: "All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state[.]" http://www.un.org/en/documents/charter/ Mr. Obama cares nothing about the Rule of Law. He is threatening war against Iran and launching drone strikes into the territory of at least three other nations, all in violation of the U.N. Charter and the Constitution's Treaty Clause. These are impeachable offenses against the People and the Constitution Obama has sworn to defend.  If the President of the United States ignores the law, threatens war, and actually violates the territory of other nations, 

The Aleppo region is well to the north of Tartus, where the Russians have there only  naval base in the Mediterranean, but Russia has a vested interest in Syria surviving intact. Look for a Russian move soon to blunt the planned attack on Aleppo. You can bet that the Russian, Iranian, and Syrian governments are working together on a strategy.  

The Washington Post has reported that "on July 15 [2001], the secret surveillance court allowed the NSA to resume bulk collection under the court's own authority. The opinion, which remains highly classified, was based on a provision of electronic surveillance law, known as "pen register, trap and trace," that was written to allow law enforcement officers to obtain the phone numbers of incoming and outgoing calls from a single telephone line." .  The seminal case on pen registers is the Supreme Court's 1979 Smith v. Maryland decision, bookmarked here and the Clerk's syllabus highlighted, with the Court's discussion on the same web page. We will be hearing a lot about this case decision in the weeks and months to come.  Let it suffice for now to record a few points of what my antenna are telling me:  -- Both technology and the law have moved on since then. We are 34 years down the line from the Smith decision. Its pronouncements have been sliced and diced by subsequent decisions. Not a single Justice who sat on the Smith case is still on the High Bench.   -- In Smith, a single pen register was used to obtain calling information from a single telephone number by law enforcement officials. In the present circumstance, we face an Orwellian situation of a secret intelligence agency with no law enforcement authority forbidden by law from conducting domestic surveillance perusing and all digital communications of the entire citizenry. -- The NSA has been gathering not only information analogous to pen register results but also the communications of American citizens themselves. The communications themselves --- the contents --- are subject to the 4th Amendment warrant requirement. Consider the circuitous route of the records ordered to be disclosed in the Verizon FISA order. Verizon was ordered to disclose them to the FBI, not to the NSA. But then the FBI apparently forwards the records to the NSA, who has both the "pen register