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Gary Edwards

America Speaking Out : Have your say! - 0 views

www.americaspeakingout.com

America-speaking-Out

shared by Gary Edwards on 31 May 10 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 31 May 10
     
    America deserves a Congress that respects the priorities of the people. Unfortunately, Washington hasn't been listening. Let's change that. America Speaking Out is your opportunity to change the way Congress works by proposing ideas for a new policy agenda. Republicans have offered solutions, and we have our principles, but this is a new venue for us to listen to you. So Speak Out.
Gary Edwards

Professor Hoppe's new book: "The Competition of Crooks") | The God That Failed - 0 views

thegodthatfailed.org/...uner-the-competition-of-crooks

Hans-Hermann-Hoppe Libertarian Democracy

shared by Gary Edwards on 29 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • And perhaps then, finally, will come the realization that democracy – in whose name all these dirty tricks have been done – is nothing more than an especially insidious form of communism, and that the politicians who have wrought this immoral and economic madness and who have thereby enriched themselves personally (never, of course, being liable for the damages they have caused!), are nothing more than a despicable bunch of communist crooks.
  • democracy which is causally responsible for the fatal conditions afflicting us now
  • The number of productive people is constantly decreasing, and the number of people parasitically consuming the income and wealth of this dwindling number of productive people is increasing steadily. This can’t work in the long run.
  • ...20 more annotations...
  • That the whole democratic house of cards has not yet completely collapsed speaks volumes about the still tremendous creative power of capitalism, even in the face of ever-increasing governmental strangulation.
  • And this fact also allows us to conjecture about what economic ‘miracles’ would be possible if we had unimpeded capitalism liberated from such parasitism.
  • the correct realization becomes generally accepted that the only antagonistic conflict of interest in society is the one between tax-payers, i.e. the exploited, and tax-consumers, i.e. the exploiters.:
  • In other words, between the class of people on the one hand who earn their income and assets by producing something that is bought voluntarily and valued accordingly by others; and the class of those on the other hand who produce nothing considered to be of value, but who live instead by living off and enriching themselves from the incomes and assets of other, productive people, forcibly taken via taxation – that is to say all government employees and all recipients of government “welfare assistance”, subsidies and monopolistic privileges.
  • book’s thesis is that the government is a monopolist of ultimate justice and law enforcement and that every monopoly is always bad from the perspective of the consumer – in this case the citizen. Your alternative solution is a private law society.
  • The basic idea is quite simple. Abolish monopoly and encourage competition.
  • I can only go to a state court of law, staffed by judges who themselves are paid from taxes to enforce government regulations.
  • In this way, government-staged robbery, assault, manslaughter, murder, war is “legally” sanctioned.
  • In a private law society, if we had such a conflict, we would instead approach arbitrators who are independent of both parties, and who are competing with other arbitrators for voluntarily paying customers.
  • We would not use an inherently biased judge working for and paid directly by the state, who is therefore partisan, but rather a neutral third party, to adjudicate the normal human legal conflicts arising between existing and recognized property rights and private contract law.
  • the mediation market.
  • My income from my work is my property (not the state’s) and the restaurant is my property (not the state’s).
  • Therefore, any government-imposed tax upon me or use restrictions upon my property (such as a smoking ban) would therefore be judged unlawful, as robbery and expropriation.
  • the state is nothing but a “great band of robbers,” a mafia, only a much larger, more overwhelming and dangerous one.
  • the subject of class consciousness
  • “there’s absolutely no reason in any case why the state should have anything at all to do with the production of money.”
  • And every newly printed bill causes a redistribution of social wealth.
  • More paper money doesn’t make a society richer overall. It’s just more paper. But every new piece of printed paper reduces the purchasing power of all the other previously-existing paper bills
  • these machinations, taking place every day on an almost unimaginable scale, are nothing more than a gigantic case of fraudulent theft.
  • in a competitive environment, a better kind of money would be produced. Why? Because there’ll always be a demand for means of exchange.
  • Gary Edwards on 29 Dec 12
     
    Interview with Hoppe where he once again pushes libertarian thinking forward.  Hoppe puts most of the blame on "democracy" itself, caling it "an insidious form of communism".  Good stuff.  Highlighted parts. excerpt: "That the whole democratic house of cards has not yet completely collapsed speaks volumes about the still tremendous creative power of capitalism, even in the face of ever-increasing governmental strangulation. And this fact also allows us to conjecture about what economic 'miracles' would be possible if we had unimpeded capitalism liberated from such parasitism. If, and when, this insight finally bears fruit will depend upon the class consciousness of the population. There is a Marxist myth, eagerly promoted by the state, of an irreconcilable clash of interests between employers (capitalists) and employees (workers), or between the rich and the poor. As long as this myth prevails in public opinion, nothing at all will change and disaster is inevitable. A fundamental change can only occur if, instead of this, the correct realization becomes generally accepted that the only antagonistic conflict of interest in society is the one between tax-payers, i.e. the exploited, and tax-consumers, i.e. the exploiters.: In other words, between the class of people on the one hand who earn their income and assets by producing something that is bought voluntarily and valued accordingly by others; and the class of those on the other hand who produce nothing considered to be of value, but who live instead by living off and enriching themselves from the incomes and assets of other, productive people, forcibly taken via taxation - that is to say all government employees and all recipients of government "welfare assistance", subsidies and monopolistic privileges. Only when the producer class clearly recognises this, and publicly speaks out; when the producers are finally confident to take the moral high ground and reject the insolent admonitions from the po
Paul Merrell

America's Lead Iran Negotiator Misrepresents U.S. Policy (and International L... - 0 views

goingtotehran.com/-international-law-to-congress

war & peace Iran nuclear-non-proliferation-treaty NNTP Iranian-nukes-myth Obama lies

shared by Paul Merrell on 14 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • Last month, while testifying to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Wendy Sherman—Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs and the senior U.S. representative in the P5+1 nuclear talks with Iran—said, with reference to Iranians, “We know that deception is part of the DNA.”  This statement goes beyond orientalist stereotyping; it is, in the most literal sense, racist.  And it evidently was not a mere “slip of the tongue”:  a former Obama administration senior official told us that Sherman has used such language before about Iranians. 
  • Putting aside Sherman’s glaring display of anti-Iranian racism, there was another egregious manifestation of prejudice-cum-lie in her testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that we want to explore more fully.  It came in a response to a question from Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida) about whether states have a right to enrich under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).  Here is the relevant passage in Sherman’s reply:  “It has always been the U.S. position that Article IV of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty does not speak about the right of enrichment at all [and] doesn’t speak to enrichment, period.  It simply says that you have the right to research and development.”  Sherman goes on to acknowledge that “many countries such as Japan and Germany have taken that [uranium enrichment] to be a right.”  But, she says, “the United States does not take that position.  We take the position that we look at each one of these [cases].”  Or, as she put it at the beginning of her response to Sen. Rubio, “It has always been the U.S. position that Article IV of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty does not speak about the right of enrichment at all” (emphasis added). 
  • Two points should be made here.  First, the claim that the NPT’s Article IV does not affirm the right of non-nuclear-weapons states to pursue indigenous development of fuel-cycle capabilities, including uranium enrichment, under international safeguards is flat-out false.  Article IV makes a blanket statement that “nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination.”  And it’s not just “countries such as Japan and Germany”—both close U.S. allies—which affirm that this includes the right of non-weapons states to enrich uranium under safeguards.  The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) countries and the Non-Aligned Movement (whose 120 countries represent a large majority of UN members) have all clearly affirmed the right of non-nuclear-weapons states, including the Islamic Republic of Iran, to pursue indigenous safeguarded enrichment.  In fact, just four countries in the world hold that there is no right to safeguarded enrichment under the NPT:  the United States, Britain, France, and Israel (which isn’t even a NPT signatory).  That’s it.  Moreover, the right to indigenous technological development—including nuclear fuel-cycle capabilities, should a state choose to pursue them—is a sovereign right.  It is not conferred by the NPT; the NPT’s Article IV recognizes states’ “inalienable right” in this regard, while other provisions bind non-weapons states that join the Treaty to exercise this right under international safeguards.       
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  • There have been many first-rate analyses demonstrating that the right to safeguarded enrichment under the NPT is crystal clear—from the Treaty itself, from its negotiating history, and from subsequent practice, with at least a dozen non-weapons states building fuel-cycle infrastructures potentially capable of supporting weapons programs.  Bill Beeman published a nice Op Ed in the Huffington Post on this question in response to Sherman’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee testimony, see here and, for a text including references, here.  For truly definitive legal analyses, see the work of Daniel Joyner, for example here and here.  The issue will also be dealt with in articles by Flynt Leverett and Dan Joyner in a forthcoming special issue of the Penn State Journal of Law and International Affairs, which should appear within the next few days.         From any objectively informed legal perspective, denying non-weapons states’ right of safeguarded enrichment amounts to nothing more than a shameless effort to rewrite the NPT unilaterally.  And this brings us to our second point about Sherman’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee testimony. 
  • Sherman claims that “It has always been the U.S. position that Article IV of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty does not speak about the right of enrichment at all [and] doesn’t speak to enrichment, period.”  But, in fact, the United States originally held that the right to peaceful use recognized in the NPT’s Article IV includes the indigenous development of safeguarded fuel-cycle capabilities.  In 1968, as America and the Soviet Union, the NPT’s sponsors, prepared to open it for signature, the founding Director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, William Foster, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—the same committee to which Sherman untruthfully testified last month—that the Treaty permitted non-weapons states to pursue the fuel cycle.  We quote Foster on this point:   “Neither uranium enrichment nor the stockpiling of fissionable material in connection with a peaceful program would violate Article II so long as these activities were safeguarded under Article III.”  [Note:  In Article II of the NPT, non-weapons states commit not to build or acquire nuclear weapons; in Article III, they agree to accept safeguards on the nuclear activities, “as set forth in an agreement to be negotiated and concluded with the International Atomic Energy Agency.”] 
  • Thus, it is a bald-faced lie to say that the United States has “always” held that the NPT does not recognize a right to safeguarded enrichment.  As a matter of policy, the United States held that that the NPT recognized such a right even before it was opened for signature; this continued to be the U.S. position for more than a quarter century thereafter.  It was only after the Cold War ended that the United States—along with Britain, France, and Israel—decided that the NPT should be, in effect, unilaterally rewritten (by them) to constrain the diffusion of fuel-cycle capabilities to non-Western states.  And their main motive for trying to do so has been to maximize America’s freedom of unilateral military initiative and, in the Middle East, that of Israel.  This is the agenda for which Wendy Sherman tells falsehoods to a Congress that is all too happy to accept them.    
  • Paul Merrell on 14 Nov 13
     
    What should be the reaction of Congress upon discovering that the U.S. lead negotiator with Iran in regard to its budding peaceful use of nuclear power lies to Congress about the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty's applicability to Iran's actions? 
Gary Edwards

Feds confiscate investigative reporter's confidential files during raid | The Daily Caller - 3 views

dailycaller.com/...confidential-files-during-raid

Audrey-Hudson Whistleblower-Protection-Act

shared by Gary Edwards on 26 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • A veteran Washington D.C. investigative journalist says the Department of Homeland Security confiscated a stack of her confidential files during a raid of her home in August — leading her to fear that a number of her sources inside the federal government have now been exposed. In an interview with The Daily Caller, journalist Audrey Hudson revealed that the Department of Homeland Security and Maryland State Police were involved in a predawn raid of her Shady Side, Md. home on Aug. 6. Hudson is a former Washington Times reporter and current freelance reporter. A search warrant obtained by TheDC indicates that the August raid allowed law enforcement to search for firearms inside her home.
  • But without Hudson’s knowledge, the agents also confiscated a batch of documents that contained information about sources inside the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration, she said. Outraged over the seizure, Hudson is now speaking out. She said no subpoena for the notes was presented during the raid and argues the confiscation was outside of the search warrant’s parameter. “They took my notes without my knowledge and without legal authority to do so,” Hudson said this week. “The search warrant they presented said nothing about walking out of here with a single sheet of paper.”
  • After the search began, Hudson said she was asked by an investigator with the Coast Guard Investigative Service if she was the same Audrey Hudson who had written a series of critical stories about air marshals for The Washington Times over the last decade. The Coast Guard operates under the Department of Homeland Security.
  • Paul Merrell on 26 Oct 13
     
    If reality is as stated, the reporter has a pretty strong civil rights case against the government officials who knowingly participated in the theft and retention of the reporter's notes, two distinct conspiracies. Under the 4th Amendment, officers executing a search and seizure warrant may lawfully seize the items particularly described in the warrant and any other evidence of crime that is in plain view during the search. It's a big push of credibility to argue that reading documents stored in a bag in search for a gun falls within the "plain view" doctrine. The officer could instead just reach his hand into the bag and feel around for a gun. Quite a few extra steps involved in removing the documents and reading them simply to determine whether the bag contains a gun. Add in the facts that: [i] the supposed recognition of government documents argument does not explain why the officers seized personal handwritten notes too; and [ii] the evidence that the officer who discovered the docs had learned that the reporter was one who had called the conduct of his agency into question, and it comes out smelling a lot more like an attempt to discover the reporters' sources than a legitimate search for guns when the bag was searched.   Only one side heard from so far, of course. But this sounds more like low-level government officials who were ignorant of their legal obligations than a White House-driven scandal. But I wouldn't want to be the government lawyer who authorized the retention of the seized notes and other documents. They should have been returned without retaining copies the instant the lawyer learned of the circumstances of their seizure. There's not only a 4th Amendment liberty interest but also a 1st Amendment freecdom to communicate anonymously right protecting those documents and notes. 
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  • Gary Edwards on 26 Oct 13
     
    I listened to an interview with Audrey Hudson last night. It seems to me the key fact is in this clip; "But without Hudson's knowledge, the agents also confiscated a batch of documents that contained information about sources inside the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration, she said." Audrey had written a series of articles describing how the Homeland Security and Transportation agency had been lying about air marshalls and the post 911 program to secure passenger flights. The documents that were stolen listed her sources - the whistle blowers inside the Homeland Security administration who leaked information about the lies and the many problems with the program that the Obama administration was covering up. This sounds to me like another example of Obama hunting down and persecuting whistleblowers. A direct violation of the 1989 - 2007 Whistleblower Protection Act. Not surprisingly, Ms Hudson had not tried to contact any of her whistleblowing sources for fear that the NSA would be watching and that this persecution would happen. Interestingly, the warrant was to seize a "potato launcher". No kidding! It seems Ms. Hudson's husband had, at one time been a licensed arms dealer. He lost that license having sold a gun with faulty paperwork. This event had occurred years earlier, and Mr. Hudson had long since moved on and was currently working for the Coast Guard as an outside contractor/consultant. So they seized the toy "potato launcher", as described in the warrant. But they also ransacked the home looking for the key documents that listed Ms Hudson's inside Homeland Security sources behind her air marshal scandal articles. These documents were the only items seized - other than the "potato launcher" that was the only item listed in the warrant. Seems we've been here before. From wikipedia, the story of Friedrich Gustav Emil Martin Niemöller: ........................... Arrested on 1 July 1937, N
  • Gary Edwards on 26 Oct 13
     
    "But without Hudson's knowledge, the agents also confiscated a batch of documents that contained information about sources inside the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration, she said."
  • Paul Merrell on 26 Oct 13
     
    What troubles me the most about this event, assuming the truth of what's reported, is how well known the limitations on execution of a search warrant are within the law enforcement community. If it happened as described, it seems very unlikely that the officer who grabbed the documents did not know he was violating the 4th Amendment. Ditto for the lawyer or other official(s) who learned of what went down shortly thereafter, but kept the documents anyway. There's an arrogance that goes with government and corporate officials who don't have to personally pay damage awards. With no personal monetary liability (in reality, since the government or corporation picks up the tab), it becomes a matter of personal ethics and whether the misbehavior will anger or please the boss. If the ethics are weak, that becomes a pretty simple choice.
Paul Merrell

Netanyahu 'spat in our face,' White House officials said to say | The Times of Israel - 0 views

www.timesofisrael.com/face-white-house-officials-say

war & peace corruption Netanyahu AIPAC Congress Boehner

shared by Paul Merrell on 24 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • he White House’s outrage over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to speak before Congress in March — a move he failed to coordinate with the administration — began to seep through the diplomatic cracks on Friday, with officials telling Haaretz the Israeli leader had “spat” in President Barack Obama’s face.
  • “We thought we’ve seen everything,” the newspaper quoted an unnamed senior US official as saying. “But Bibi managed to surprise even us.
  • “There are things you simply don’t do. He spat in our face publicly and that’s no way to behave. Netanyahu ought to remember that President Obama has a year and a half left to his presidency, and that there will be a price,” he said. Officials in Washington said that the “chickenshit” epithet — with which an anonymous administration official branded Netanyahu several months ago — was mild compared to the language used in the White House when news of Netanyahu’s planned speech came in. In his address the Israeli leader is expected to speak about stalled US-led nuclear negotiations with Iran, and to urge lawmakers to slap Tehran with a new round of tougher sanctions in order to force it to comply with international demands. The Mossad intelligence service on Thursday went to the rare length of issuing a press statement to deny claims, cited by Kerry, that its chief Tamir Pardo had told visiting US politicians that he opposed further sanctions.
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  • The Washington Post reported that Netanyahu’s apparent disrespect for the US leadership was particularly offensive to Secretary of State John Kerry, who over the past month had made frenzied efforts on Israel’s behalf on the world stage — making dozens of calls to world leaders to convince them to oppose a UN Security Council resolution which would have set a timeframe for the establishment of a Palestinian state. “The secretary’s patience is not infinite,” a source close to Kerry told the Post. “The bilateral relationship is unshakable. But playing politics with that relationship could blunt Secretary Kerry’s enthusiasm for being Israel’s primary defender.”
  • Israel is scheduled to hold elections on March 17. Netanyahu confirmed Thursday that he would address Congress in early March. He was initially slated to speak on February 11, but changed the date so he could attend the AIPAC conference.
  • “I look forward to the opportunity to express before the joint session Israel’s vision for a joint effort to deal with [Islamist terrorism and Iran’s nuclear program], and to emphasize Israel’s commitment to the special bond between our two democracies,” Netanyahu said, according to the statement.
  • Paul Merrell on 24 Jan 15
     
    Netanyahu is getting pounded in the Israeli press for offending Obama. It is hihgly significant that Netanyahu changed the date for his speech to Congress to coincide with the annual AIPAC conference.  During the AIPAC conference, hundreds of Isarel-firsters descend on Washington, D.C., get their marching orders and scripts, and fan out to descend on the offices of members of Congress. Then nearly all members of Congress will reciprocate by attending Netanyahu's speech to the AIPAC conference and giving him many standing ovations as he addresses the joint session of Congress. (24 standing ovations on his last speech to Congress). It is a sickening display of disloyalty to America but you don't get to stay in Congress if you speak out against AIPAC because AIPAC will arrange for your opponent in the next election to get very big bucks and you will be subjected to merciless rumor warfare.   But in any event, this will be an all-out effort to get Congress to enact more sanctions against Iran. Netanyu's goal will be a veto proof super-majority. If he gets that and Congress overrides Obama's veto, that will be the end of the negotiations with Iran. And Netanyahu's read is that if he can take credit for scuttling the Iran negotations, that will translate into votes in the Israeli election scheduled for two weeks after his speech to Congress. 
Gary Edwards

Boston And More Government Lies : Personal Liberty Digest™ - 0 views

personalliberty.com/...oston-and-more-government-lies

Boston Government-Lies False-Flag

shared by Gary Edwards on 02 May 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 02 May 13
     
    "However, now we - at least those of us who pay attention - know, thanks to Glenn Beck, the Saudi person of interest is not just some innocent bystander after all. Just hours after the April 15 bombing, Abdul Rahman Ali Alharbi was put on a terror watch list and had an event file created that indicated he was armed and dangerous; and actions began that would lead to his deportation. Alharbi, who is related to a number of terrorists now residing in Gitmo and/or listed as part of al-Qaida, was admitted to the United States under a "special advisory opinion," indicating someone pulled some strings for him. His strings go a long way - all the way to the White House, where Alharbi was a frequent visitor (seven times since 2009). His file contained one prior event, indicating he was already in the terrorism watch list system. Yet even though he's marked as a terrorist, he was allowed in. Perhaps that explains Michelle Obama's hospital visit. Alharbi and the Obamas are friends. After news of his possible deportation leaked, government officials backtracked. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano refused to answer questions from a Congressman about Alharbi. An Immigration and Customs Enforcement official told Beck a different Saudi was in custody but not connected to the bombing. Someone altered Alharbi's file on April 17 in a way that disassociated him from the bombing, according to Beck, but an original had been printed out and saved. The change happened around the time that first Secretary of State John Kerry and then President Barack Obama met with the Saudi foreign minister - a meeting that wasn't on Obama's schedule. There are photographs on the Internet that purport to show Alharbi with two other Saudis near the bomb site. If the government will lie about who Alharbi is and whether his is a suspect, what else about the official narrative is a lie? Despite initial claims by the FBI that included a request to help identify the two men
Gary Edwards

BENGHAZI - THE BIGGEST COVER-UP SCANDAL IN U.S. HISTORY? - WAS BENGHAZI A CIA GUN-RUNNI... - 0 views

www.libertynews.com/...r-insurgents-fighting-in-syria

Benghazi Benghazigate Benghazi-coverup

shared by Gary Edwards on 09 May 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 09 May 13
     
    "LibertyNEWS.com - Editorial Team Special Report It's never fun to admit you've been lied to and duped. There is no comfort in realizing a high-level group in government has conned you. The wound created from such a realization would be deep and painful when paired with extraordinary insult when you realize the cons are people you not only trusted, but people who are tasked with protecting your rights, your liberty, your life. When these people betray you, you're in trouble - big trouble. Unfortunately, we believe America is being betrayed by powerful individuals tasked with our protection. These people are found in the White House, the Congress, the CIA and other government entities - and they're lying to you. Then they're covering it up on an epic scale, in a never-before-seen manner. Here are the basics of what the schemers in government and the complicit media would like for us all to focus on and buy into: Why wasn't there better security at the consulate (keep this misleading word in mind) in Benghazi? Why didn't authorization come to move special forces in for protection and rescue? Why was an obscure video blamed when everyone knew the video had nothing to do with it? Did Obama's administration cover-up the true nature of the attacks to win an election? Truth is, as we're starting to believe, the above questions are convenient, tactical distractions. And truth is, answers to these questions, if they ever come, will never lead to revelations of the REAL TRUTH and meaningful punishment of anyone found responsible. Rep. Darrell Issa knows this, members of the House Committee investigating the Benghazi attacks know this, the White House knows this, and much of the big corporate media infrastructure knows it, too. How do they know it? Because they know the truth. They know the truth, but cannot and/or will not discuss it in public. Here are the basics that we (America, in general) should be focusing on, but aren't: Why do media
Gary Edwards

Guest Post: The Linchpin Lie: How Global Collapse Will Be Sold To The Masses | Zero Hedge - 0 views

www.zerohedge.com/...l-collapse-will-be-sold-masses

Globalists Zero-Hedge New-World-Order Rand-Corporation

shared by Gary Edwards on 01 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 01 Feb 13
     
    Stunning guest post at Zero Hedge that attempts to explain it all - Why things happen and who is behind the curtain pulling the strings.  And what are they trying to do?  Excellent piece exposing the Globalists and how they work.  The question of why war and debt is so important to the Globalist one world - new world order viewpoint is also explained. excerpt: "In our modern world there exist certain institutions of power.  Not government committees, alphabet agencies, corporate lobbies, or even standard military organizations; no, these are the mere "middle-men" of power.  The errand boys.  The well paid hitmen of the global mafia.  They are not the strategists or the decision makers.  Instead, I speak of institutions which introduce the newest paradigms.  Who write the propaganda.  Who issue the orders from on high.  I speak of the hubs of elitism which have initiated nearly every policy mechanism of our government for the past several decades.  I am talking about the Council On Foreign Relations, the Tavistock Institute, the Heritage Foundation (a socialist organization posing as conservative), the Bilderberg Group, as well as the corporate foils that they use to enact globalization, such as Monsanto, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, the Carlyle Group, etc. Many of these organizations and corporations operate a revolving door within the U.S. government.  Monsanto has champions, like Donald Rumsfeld who was on the board of directors of its Searle Pharmaceuticals branch, who later went on to help the company force numerous dangerous products including Aspartame through the FDA.  Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan have a veritable merry-go-round of corrupt banking agents which are appointed to important White House and Treasury positions on a regular basis REGARDLESS of which party happens to be in office.  Most prominent politicians are all members of the Council on Foreign Relations, an organization which has openly admitted on multiple occasions that thei
Gary Edwards

Stasi in the White House - Paul Craig Roberts - 0 views

www.thedailybell.com/...berts-Stasi-in-the-White-House

Paul-Craig-Roberts End-of-America Obammunism Stassi ruling-class-elites

shared by Gary Edwards on 25 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • On June 19, 2013, US President Obama, hoping to raise himself above the developing National Security Agency (NSA) spy scandals, sought to associate himself with two iconic speeches made at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. Fifty years ago, President John F. Kennedy pledged: "Ich bin ein Berliner." In 1987, President Ronald Reagan challenged: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." Obama's speech was delivered to a relatively small, specially selected audience of invitees. Even so, Obama spoke from behind bullet proof glass.
  • Obama's speech will go down in history as the most hypocritical of all time. Little wonder that the audience was there by invitation only. A real audience would have hooted Obama out of Berlin.
  • Obama spoke lofty words of peace, while beating the drums of war in Syria and Iran. Witness Obama's aggressive policies of surrounding Russia with missile bases and establishing new military bases in the Pacific Ocean with which to confront China.
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • This is the same Obama who promised to close the Guantanamo Torture Prison, but did not; the same Obama who promised to tell us the purpose for Washington's decade-long war in Afghanistan, but did not; the same Obama who promised to end the wars, but started new ones; the same Obama who said he stood for the US Constitution, but shredded it; the same Obama who refused to hold the Bush regime accountable for its crimes against law and humanity; the same Obama who unleashed drones against civilian populations in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen; the same Obama who claimed and exercised power to murder US citizens without due process and who continues the Bush regime's unconstitutional practice of violating habeas corpus and detaining US citizens indefinitely; the same Obama who promised transparency but runs the most secretive government in US history.
  • The tyrant's speech of spectacular hypocrisy elicited from the invited audience applause on 36 occasions.
  • Here was Obama, who consistently lies, speaking of "eternal truth."
  • Here was Obama, who enabled Wall Street to rob the American and European peoples and who destroyed Americans' civil liberties and the lives of vast numbers of Iraqis, Afghans, Yemenis, Libyans, Pakistanis, Syrians − and others, speaking of "the yearnings of justice."
  • Obama equates demands for justice with "terrorism."
  • Here was Obama, who has constructed an international spy network and a domestic police state, speaking of "the yearnings for freedom."
  • Here was Obama, president of a country that has initiated wars or military action against six countries since 2001 and has three more Muslim countries − Syria, Lebanon, and Iran − in its crosshairs and perhaps several more in Africa, speaking of "the yearnings of peace that burns in the human heart," but clearly not in Obama's heart.
  • Obama has turned America into a surveillance state that has far more in common with Stasi East Germany than with the America of the Kennedy and Reagan eras. Strange, isn't it, that freedom was gained in East Germany and lost in America?
  • At the Brandenburg Gate, Obama invoked the pledge of nations to "a Universal Declaration of Human Rights," but Obama continues to violate human rights both at home and abroad.
  • Obama has taken hypocrisy to new heights. He has destroyed US civil liberties guaranteed by the Constitution.
  • In place of a government accountable to law, he has turned law into a weapon in the hands of the government.
  • He has intimidated a free press and prosecutes whistleblowers who reveal his government's crimes. He makes no objection when American police brutalize peacefully protesting citizens.
  • Obama kept Bradley Manning in solitary confinement for nearly a year assaulting his human dignity in an effort to break him and obtain a false confession. In defiance of the US Constitution, Obama denied Manning a trial for three year
  • Obama sends in drones or assassins to murder people in countries with which the US is not at war, and his victims on most occasions turn out to be women, children, farmers and village elders.
  • His government intercepts and stores in National Security Agency computers every communication of every American and also the private communications of Europeans and Canadians, including the communications of the members of the governments, the better to blackmail those with secrets.
  • On Obama's instructions, London denies Julian Assange free passage to his political asylum in Ecuador. Assange has become a modern-day Cardinal Mindszenty.
  • Gary Edwards on 25 Jun 13
     
    Wow.  I remember Paul Craig Roberts writing on the backpage of NewsWeek Magazine, back in the late 1960's.  Wow, we've come a long way since the days of protesting the Vietnam War, the socialism behind LBJ's Great Society, and the outrageous coup d'état that took place with the in-your-face-America assassination of JFK.  The circle is almost complete. The American Constitution hangs by a thread.  The anger and heart ache of Paul Craig Roberts says it all. I wonder who will win this years "Dancing with the Stars" competition?
Paul Merrell

Former Terrorist Group To Enjoy Close Ties to Rumored Trump Cabinet « LobeLog - 0 views

lobelog.com/-ties-to-rumored-trump-cabinet

Trump-administration terrorist-ties Giuliani bolton

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Nov 16 - No Cached
  • Donald Trump’s rumored picks for key foreign-policy positions have already set off alarm bells about the future administration’s embrace of war hawks and Islamophobes. Today, Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin pointed out that former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, who is currently reported to be under consideration for an appointment to secretary of state or attorney general, potentially violated the law when he made paid speaking appearances for the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), when the State Department listed the Iranian dissident group as a foreign terrorist organization. Giuliani isn’t the only likely member of the future administration to have maintained close ties and advocated on behalf of the former terrorist group, which assassinated six Americans in Iran between 1973 and 1976. John Bolton (another rumored choice for secretary of state), Clare Lopez (who is reportedly short-listed for deputy national security adviser), and Newt Gingrich (who allegedly turned down an offer of secretary of state but has shown interest in serving as a policy adviser in the Trump administration) have all advocated for the former terrorist group and praised its cultish leader, Maryam Rajavi. Shortly after the overthrow of the Shah, the group experienced a falling out with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and fled into exile. Over the following years, the group’s leaders, Maryam and Massoud Rajavi, aligned with Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war (7,000 members fought alongside Saddam Hussein, against Iran) and shifted toward increasingly cultish behavior, mandating divorces and celibacy for their soldiers while cultivating a cult of personality around themselves.
  • Massoud Rajavi hasn’t been seen since overseeing the surrender of MEK forces to the U.S. following the 2003 invasion of Iraq. This summer, the former head of Saudi Arabia’s intelligence agency, Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud referred to Massoud Rajavi as “the late Massoud Rajavi,” suggesting that he may be deceased. Turki’s participation at an MEK event, meanwhile, was a tacit acknowledgement of Saudi Arabia’s support of the group. Indeed, forming opportunistic alliances has been a hallmark of the MEK. In 2012, U.S. officials told NBC News that Israel’s national intelligence agency, Mossad, was training and arming the MEK to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists. The group seeks to portray itself as a government-in-exile and the secular, democratic alternative to Iran’s theocratic government. But the MEK’s lack of influence inside Iran and skepticism about their allegations regarding Iran’s nuclear program—for example, photographic evidence the MEK provided last year allegedly showing evidence of “Lavizan-3,” a secret uranium enrichment facility in the suburbs of Tehran, turned out to be a stock photo from an Iranian safe company – haven’t prevented the group from gaining footholds in Washington through campaign contributions and lucrative speaking gigs for politicians who praise Rajavi and call for regime change in Iran at MEK rallies. The MEK is known for paying generous sums to former officials who speak at their events. Lee Hamilton, a former chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee who headed the Woodrow Wilson Center for 12 years, told InterPress Service that he was paid “a substantial amount” to appear on an MEK panel in 2011. Giuliani, Bolton, Lopez, and Gingrich have all sung the praises of Maryam Rajavi, called for the U.S. to work towards regime change in Tehran, and treated the MEK as a legitimate Iranian government in exile.
  • peaking at an MEK rally outside Paris last year, Giuliani, who had taken speaking fees from the group when it was on the foreign terrorist organization (FTO) list, told the audience: I will not support anyone for President of the United States who isn’t clear on that slogan behind me. What does it say? It says “Regime Change.” … I will not support a candidate who does not have the moral fiber and the courage to stand up to the Ayatollah and tell him “We are going to do everything we can to get you out and you are never going to become a nuclear power.” Bolton, who also advocated for the group when it was on the FTO list, told an MEK audience outside Paris last summer: There is only one answer here: To support legitimate opposition groups that favor overthrowing the military theocratic dictatorship in Tehran, and it should be the declared policy of the United States of America and all of its friends to do just that at the earliest opportunity. Gingrich, who also spoke for the group before it was delisted, told the 2016 gathering in Paris: There are no moderates in the dictatorship. The dictatorship cannot be trusted. The [nuclear] agreement made with it is insane.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • He concluded by praising the commitment of Rajavi’s followers, saying: I want you to know that the message I will take home to America is that there are thousands and thousands of Iranians who are prepared, who are ready, who are committed to and who believe that we can truly bring democracy to Iran. Lopez, who serves as a vice president at the Center for Security Policy, a far-right think tank headed by anti-Muslim conspiracy theorist Frank Gaffney, and as executive director of the long-time MEK advocacy group, the Iran Policy Committee, from 2005 to 2006, wrote that Prince Turki’s surprising appearance marked a watershed moment for the MEK. She wrote: …[T]he implications of official Riyadh government support for the largest, most dedicated, and best-organized Iranian opposition movement will reverberate through the Middle East. Although not openly stated by bin Faisal, the new NCRI-Riyadh alliance may be expected to involve funding, intelligence sharing, and possible collaboration in operations aimed at the shared goal of overthrowing the current Tehran regime. If Lopez, Giuliani, Bolton, or Gingrich serve in the Trump administrations, the MEK will have the highest level access its ever enjoyed in the U.S. government, a remarkable journey for a fringe Islamic-Marxist group that, until 2012, was on the State Department’s terrorism list for its role in assassinating Americans.
Gary Edwards

Can Americans Escape the Deception? - 0 views

www.paulcraigroberts.org/...can-americans-escape-deception

Paul-Craig-Roberts

shared by Gary Edwards on 11 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 11 Jul 12
     
    I've been reading Paul Craig Roberts since high school, when i used to clip his backpage columns in NewsWeek magazine. These days, you have to go to his blog to get the truth. But what a truth it is! Incredible, forceful but presented only as PCR can do. His wake up call to America is not about Republicans or Democrats. It's about our liberty and the all out assault our government, socialist and conservatives alike, has launched on the Constitution. Amerika! This is what it comes to. It's also why i'm a libertarian. Read it and weep. Excerpt is from the 9/11 section. excerpt: In a real investigation, the 9/11 evidence would not have been illegally destroyed, and the investigation would have been conducted by experts, not by government agencies assigned a cover-up and by political hacks. The NIST report is abject nonsense. It explains nothing. It is a fabricated computer simulation of a non-event. The co-chairmen and legal counsel of the 9/11 Commission later wrote books in which they stated that information was withheld from the commission, the military lied to the commission, and the commission "was set up to fail." Yet, these astounding admissions by the leaders of the 9/11 Commission had no impact on Congress, the presstitute media, or the public. All heads were in the sand. Please, whatever you do, don't make us emotional weaklings face the facts. More than one hundred firefighters, police, first responders, and building maintenance personnel report hearing and experiencing scores of explosions in the twin towers, including powerful explosions in the sub-basements prior to the collapse of the towers. Distinguished scientists, authors of many peer-reviewed scientific papers, report finding unreacted nano-thermite in the dust from the towers, tested it for its explosive and high-heat producing ability, and reported the unequivocal results. Seventeen hundred architects and engineers have testified in a petition to Congress that the th
  • Paul Merrell on 12 Jul 12
     
    For a detailed and fully referenced study of how 9-11 Commission Executive Director Philip Zelikow's conflict of interest and how he kept Commission members in the dark and sabotaged the Commission report, see http://tinyurl.com/6tdfc56
Gary Edwards

Voices Without A Vote - YouTube - 0 views

www.youtube.com/watch

Liberty-in-the-breach liberty Libertarian-Conservative

shared by Gary Edwards on 21 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 21 Sep 12
     
    Produced in San Diego County by local college students, and local high schoolers.....can you believe it....in California!!   A group of high school students in San Diego California made this video expressing their concerns about the importance of the upcoming election.  Excellent stuff!  They make a sincere plea for voters to stand up and defend the Constitution, Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuCaWYvpVZg "The teenagers who speak in this video belong to http://www.im2moro.org. These young people realize that if they don't stand up and speak out for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness today, they will be living in a very different America tomorrow."
Gary Edwards

"War is a Racket" by General Smedly Butler - 1 views

www.lexrex.com/...warisaracket.htm

Smedly-Butler

shared by Gary Edwards on 16 Sep 13 - Cached
  • by MAJOR GENERAL SMEDLEY D. BUTLER, USMC - Retired TWO-TIME Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient FULL TEXT ON LINE FREE
  • GET THE NEW PAPERBACK EDITION including two bonus titles.
  • Paul Merrell on 16 Sep 13
     
    An accidental find, the full text online of USMC Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler's 1935 book, War Is a Racket. Butler served in the Marine Corps from 1899 to 1931 and at the time of his retirement was the most-decorated Marine in history, for both valor and accomplishments. Following his retirement, he became a vehement anti-war activist and public speaker.  This book is easily his most-cited and most-quoted published work. You can capture the flavor from an article he published in a magazine that included the following lines: "I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler#Lectures  I look forward to reading this book. The book was reprinted in 2003 and is available from the linked web site, together with two bonus titles. 
  • Gary Edwards on 18 Sep 13
     
    "WAR IS A RACKET" - free online book CHAPTER ONE WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes. In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows. How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle? Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few - the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill. And what is this bill? This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations. For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it. Now that I see the international war clouds g
Paul Merrell

Edward Snowden : The Greatest Human Rights Challenge Of Our Time - 0 views

www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37145.htm

surveillance state NSA Snowden NSA-blowback

shared by Paul Merrell on 18 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • Six months ago, I stepped out from the shadows of the United States Government's National Security Agency to stand in front of a journalist's camera. I shared with the world evidence proving some governments are building a world-wide surveillance system to secretly track how we live, who we talk to, and what we say. I went in front of that camera with open eyes, knowing that the decision would cost me family and my home, and would risk my life. I was motivated by a belief that the citizens of the world deserve to understand the system in which they live. My greatest fear was that no one would listen to my warning. Never have I been so glad to have been so wrong.
  • There is a huge difference between legal programs, legitimate spying, legitimate law enforcement - where individuals are targeted based on a reasonable, individualized suspicion - and these programs of dragnet mass surveillance that put entire populations under an all-seeing eye and save copies forever. These programs were never about terrorism: they're about economic spying, social control, and diplomatic manipulation. They're about power.
  • Many Brazilian senators agree, and have asked for my assistance with their investigations of suspected crimes against Brazilian citizens. I have expressed my willingness to assist wherever appropriate and lawful, but unfortunately the United States government has worked very hard to limit my ability to do so -- going so far as to force down the Presidential Plane of Evo Morales to prevent me from traveling to Latin America! Until a country grants permanent political asylum, the US government will continue to interfere with my ability to speak. Six months ago, I revealed that the NSA wanted to listen to the whole world. Now, the whole world is listening back, and speaking out, too. And the NSA doesn't like what it's hearing. The culture of indiscriminate worldwide surveillance, exposed to public debates and real investigations on every continent, is collapsing.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Only three weeks ago, Brazil led the United Nations Human Rights Committee to recognize for the first time in history that privacy does not stop where the digital network starts, and that the mass surveillance of innocents is a violation of human rights. The tide has turned, and we can finally see a future where we can enjoy security without sacrificing our privacy. Our rights cannot be limited by a secret organization, and American officials should never decide the freedoms of Brazilian citizens. Even the defenders of mass surveillance, those who may not be persuaded that our surveillance technologies have dangerously outpaced democratic controls, now agree that in democracies, surveillance of the public must be debated by the public.
  • My act of conscience began with a statement: "I don't want to live in a world where everything that I say, everything I do, everyone I talk to, every expression of creativity or love or friendship is recorded. That's not something I'm willing to support, it's not something I'm willing to build, and it's not something I'm willing to live under." Days later, I was told my government had made me stateless and wanted to imprison me. The price for my speech was my passport, but I would pay it again: I will not be the one to ignore criminality for the sake of political comfort. I would rather be without a state than without a voice. If Brazil hears only one thing from me, let it be this: when all of us band together against injustices and in defense of privacy and basic human rights, we can defend ourselves from even the most powerful systems.
  • Paul Merrell on 18 Dec 13
     
    Edward Snowden speaks to the people of Brazil with a message of hope. We'll see how it plays out. But for those of us in the U.S. or one of the other "5 eyes" nations, some words of particular importance: "These programs were never about terrorism: they're about economic spying, social control, and diplomatic manipulation. They're about power." 
Gary Edwards

Google: Applied Research Associates - Directed Energy and 911 - 0 views

www.google.com/cse

911 Directed-Energy Tesla The-Sullivan-Effect Dr-Judy-Wood Applied-Research-Associates

shared by Gary Edwards on 13 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 13 Sep 14
     
    Forensic engineer and scientis Dr Judy Wood argues that the evidence of the 911 building collapse points to a directed energy source capable of turning the buildings to dust. Not thermal or heat. Not a thermal explosive style controlled demolition. Nor was it a structural collapse from the impact of the planes. Dr Wood rules out the official story and let's the facts speak for themselves and the facts point directly at Applied Research Associates, and Directed Energy Weapons having been used on 911 to bring down several buildings. What an incredible story. There is an interview of Dr Judy Wood on CoasttoCoastAM.com. If you want to listen, leave me a note and I will send the link. If you have note heard this woman speak, or read her book, "What happened to the Buildings on 911?", you are in for one special, eye opening treat.
Paul Merrell

Gazprom still remains best option for Europe - journalist - News - VoR Interviews - The... - 0 views

voiceofrussia.com/...ion-for-Europe-journalist-4430

U.S.-foreign-policy Europe Russia Gazprom Obama lies

shared by Paul Merrell on 07 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • Paul Merrell on 07 Jun 14
     
    "According to the Oxfam charity organization, strained relations between Russia and the West because of the situation in Ukraine highlighted the need for Europe to reassess its energy priorities, and speaking at the G7 summit in Brussels yesterday, US President Barack Obama announced that the G7 is going to strenghthen energy security in Central and Eastern Europe. Pepe Escobar, Asia Times roving correspondent, shared his opinion about this development with Radio VR. Speaking at the G7 summit in Brussels yesterday, US President Barack Obama announced that the G7 is going to strengthen energy security in Central and Eastern Europe because of the situation in Ukraine. What kind of security measures can be taken here? Seriously, he doesn't even know what he is talking about and he has absolutely no clue about new energy policy, because the Europeans themselves still don't have a unified energy policy. Their energy policy is to complain about Gazprom, because they consider themselves hostages of Gazprom. They tried to diversify, for instance with the Nabucco pipeline project, which was a soap opera that lasted for years and in the end totally collapsed, because they couldn't agree on anything. So, the myth that the Americans are trying to sell to the American and the European public opinion is that there is a shale gas and they can start exporting it virtually tomorrow. This is completely absurd. Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/2014_06_06/Gazprom-still-remains-best-option-for-Europe-journalist-4430/" Pepe Escobar riffs on the reasons that Europe is utterly dependent on Russian fossil fuels and why Obama's proposal to supply Europe with shale gas is the product of sheer ignorance. Escobar is being over-polite. Obama knows that many winters will pass before American shale gas can be shipped to Europe in amounts that even approach Europe's requirements. With what are Europeans to cook their meals and heat their homes in the meantime? Short story: Obama is fl
Paul Merrell

Netanyahu speech scandal blows up, and 'soiled' Dermer looks like the fall guy - 0 views

mondoweiss.net/...netanyahu-scandal-soiled

war & peace Netanyahu Congress Republicans backlash Iranian-nukes-myth

shared by Paul Merrell on 30 Jan 15 - No Cached
  •      In the last 24 hours the controversy over the planned speech by Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu to both houses of Congress on March 3 to rebut the president’s policy on Iran has blown up to a new level. Muted outrage over the invitation has turned into open rage. The opposition to the speech by major Israel supporters across the political spectrum, liberal J Street, center-right Jeffrey Goldberg, and hard-right Abraham Foxman, all of whom say the speech-planners have put the US-Israel relationship at risk by making it a political controversy in the U.S., has been conveyed to the Democratic establishment. The New York Times and Chris Matthews both landed on the story last night, a full week after it broke, to let us know what a disaster the speech would be if it’s ever delivered. So these media are acting to protect the special relationship by upping the pressure to cancel the speech. With even AIPAC washing its hands of the speech, it sure looks as if Israel supporters want an exit from this fiasco. Jettisoning Israeli ambassador Ron Dermer or cancelling the speech would seem like a small price to pay in the news cycle next to a spectacle in which leading Democrats are forced to line up against Netanyahu in Washington, even as they file in and out of the AIPAC policy conference and praise Israel to the skies.
  • n the last 24 hours the controversy over the planned speech by Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu to both houses of Congress on March 3 to rebut the president’s policy on Iran has blown up to a new level. Muted outrage over the invitation has turned into open rage. The opposition to the speech by major Israel supporters across the political spectrum, liberal J Street, center-right Jeffrey Goldberg, and hard-right Abraham Foxman, all of whom say the speech-planners have put the US-Israel relationship at risk by making it a political controversy in the U.S., has been conveyed to the Democratic establishment. The New York Times and Chris Matthews both landed on the story last night, a full week after it broke, to let us know what a disaster the speech would be if it’s ever delivered. So these media are acting to protect the special relationship by upping the pressure to cancel the speech. With even AIPAC washing its hands of the speech, it sure looks as if Israel supporters want an exit from this fiasco. Jettisoning Israeli ambassador Ron Dermer or cancelling the speech would seem like a small price to pay in the news cycle next to a spectacle in which leading Democrats are forced to line up against Netanyahu in Washington, even as they file in and out of the AIPAC policy conference and praise Israel to the skies. Here are the developments
  • Paul Merrell on 30 Jan 15
     
    Bibi's s**t is hitting the fan. I've been wondering since the day his planned speech was announced whether it might boomerang so strongly that he would find an excuse not to speak to Congress this go-round. It's starting to look more and more like that is the way it will play out. I' betting that it will be an excuse rather than an apology because Bibi is the kind of guy who would rather choke than admit that he's made a mistake.   But how this will play out will be better reflected in likely-voter polls in the run-up to the Israeli election. If those polls show strong signs that the speech will cost him the election, then watch Bibi withdraw from the speech. 
Paul Merrell

Canadian Spies Collect Domestic Emails in Secret Security Sweep - The Intercept - 0 views

firstlook.org/...ony-express-email-surveillance

surveillance state Canada CSE bulk-collection email

shared by Paul Merrell on 27 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • Canada’s electronic surveillance agency is covertly monitoring vast amounts of Canadians’ emails as part of a sweeping domestic cybersecurity operation, according to top-secret documents. The surveillance initiative, revealed Wednesday by CBC News in collaboration with The Intercept, is sifting through millions of emails sent to Canadian government agencies and departments, archiving details about them on a database for months or even years. The data mining operation is carried out by the Communications Security Establishment, or CSE, Canada’s equivalent of the National Security Agency. Its existence is disclosed in documents obtained by The Intercept from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. The emails are vacuumed up by the Canadian agency as part of its mandate to defend against hacking attacks and malware targeting government computers. It relies on a system codenamed PONY EXPRESS to analyze the messages in a bid to detect potential cyber threats.
  • Last year, CSE acknowledged it collected some private communications as part of cybersecurity efforts. But it refused to divulge the number of communications being stored or to explain for how long any intercepted messages would be retained. Now, the Snowden documents shine a light for the first time on the huge scope of the operation — exposing the controversial details the government withheld from the public. Under Canada’s criminal code, CSE is not allowed to eavesdrop on Canadians’ communications. But the agency can be granted special ministerial exemptions if its efforts are linked to protecting government infrastructure — a loophole that the Snowden documents show is being used to monitor the emails. The latest revelations will trigger concerns about how Canadians’ private correspondence with government employees are being archived by the spy agency and potentially shared with police or allied surveillance agencies overseas, such as the NSA. Members of the public routinely communicate with government employees when, for instance, filing tax returns, writing a letter to a member of parliament, applying for employment insurance benefits or submitting a passport application.
  • Chris Parsons, an internet security expert with the Toronto-based internet think tank Citizen Lab, told CBC News that “you should be able to communicate with your government without the fear that what you say … could come back to haunt you in unexpected ways.” Parsons said that there are legitimate cybersecurity purposes for the agency to keep tabs on communications with the government, but he added: “When we collect huge volumes, it’s not just used to track bad guys. It goes into data stores for years or months at a time and then it can be used at any point in the future.” In a top-secret CSE document on the security operation, dated from 2010, the agency says it “processes 400,000 emails per day” and admits that it is suffering from “information overload” because it is scooping up “too much data.” The document outlines how CSE built a system to handle a massive 400 terabytes of data from Internet networks each month — including Canadians’ emails — as part of the cyber operation. (A single terabyte of data can hold about a billion pages of text, or about 250,000 average-sized mp3 files.)
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • The agency notes in the document that it is storing large amounts of “passively tapped network traffic” for “days to months,” encompassing the contents of emails, attachments and other online activity. It adds that it stores some kinds of metadata — data showing who has contacted whom and when, but not the content of the message — for “months to years.” The document says that CSE has “excellent access to full take data” as part of its cyber operations and is receiving policy support on “use of intercepted private communications.” The term “full take” is surveillance-agency jargon that refers to the bulk collection of both content and metadata from Internet traffic. Another top-secret document on the surveillance dated from 2010 suggests the agency may be obtaining at least some of the data by covertly mining it directly from Canadian Internet cables. CSE notes in the document that it is “processing emails off the wire.”
  • Paul Merrell on 27 Feb 15
     
    " CANADIAN SPIES COLLECT DOMESTIC EMAILS IN SECRET SECURITY SWEEP BY RYAN GALLAGHER AND GLENN GREENWALD @rj_gallagher@ggreenwald YESTERDAY AT 2:02 AM SHARE TWITTER FACEBOOK GOOGLE EMAIL PRINT POPULAR EXCLUSIVE: TSA ISSUES SECRET WARNING ON 'CATASTROPHIC' THREAT TO AVIATION CHICAGO'S "BLACK SITE" DETAINEES SPEAK OUT WHY DOES THE FBI HAVE TO MANUFACTURE ITS OWN PLOTS IF TERRORISM AND ISIS ARE SUCH GRAVE THREATS? NET NEUTRALITY IS HERE - THANKS TO AN UNPRECEDENTED GUERRILLA ACTIVISM CAMPAIGN HOW SPIES STOLE THE KEYS TO THE ENCRYPTION CASTLE Canada's electronic surveillance agency is covertly monitoring vast amounts of Canadians' emails as part of a sweeping domestic cybersecurity operation, according to top-secret documents. The surveillance initiative, revealed Wednesday by CBC News in collaboration with The Intercept, is sifting through millions of emails sent to Canadian government agencies and departments, archiving details about them on a database for months or even years. The data mining operation is carried out by the Communications Security Establishment, or CSE, Canada's equivalent of the National Security Agency. Its existence is disclosed in documents obtained by The Intercept from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. The emails are vacuumed up by the Canadian agency as part of its mandate to defend against hacking attacks and malware targeting government computers. It relies on a system codenamed PONY EXPRESS to analyze the messages in a bid to detect potential cyber threats. Last year, CSE acknowledged it collected some private communications as part of cybersecurity efforts. But it refused to divulge the number of communications being stored or to explain for how long any intercepted messages would be retained. Now, the Snowden documents shine a light for the first time on the huge scope of the operation - exposing the controversial details the government withheld from the public. Under Canada's criminal code, CSE is no
Gary Edwards

Generals conclude Obama backed al-Qaida - 0 views

www.wnd.com/...conclude-obama-backed-al-qaida

Benghazi

shared by Gary Edwards on 13 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 13 Mar 15
     
    Petrodollars. Obama has lost Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Yemen to Al-Queda / Muslim Brotherhood extremists. He has nearly lost Egypt and Syria. They hang by a thread. We could see this as an Islamic revolution trying to overtake the despots that have ruled the middle East since the WWI break up of the Ottoman Empire, and shamelessly enriched themselves in petrodollars in the process. Or, we could look at this as religious war between Sunni and Shiite Islamic factions, with Iran leading the Shiites, and the Saudis leading the Sunnis. Except, that divide doesn't seem to gel with the idea of a Shiite Muslim Brotherhood alliance with a Sunni Al-Queda. For sure though, Iran has taken over the formerly Sunni led Iraq and is now executing any and all Sunni rebels. Including all of Saddam Hussein's Revolutionary Guard members now fighting in northern Irag and Syria as ISIL. With the help, air cover and weapons provided by Obama, the Muslim Brotherhood has taken over Libya, and nearly took Egypt. The only way of looking at this mess and making sense of it is through the lens of petrodollars and pipelines. Gadafi, Saddam Husein, the Shah of Iran, and Bashir in Syria all have one thing in common: they were selling oil and accepting payment in something other than petrodollars. They were building pipelines for the shipment of non petrodollar oil. I don't expect Iraq or Lybian oil to ever return to market. Civil war will keep that oil in the ground; making the petrodollar bankers and oligarchs very very wealthy, and the USA-NATO military industrial complex very busy profiting from the sale of war making machinery. ..................................... "The Obama White House and the State Department under the management of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton "changed sides in the war on terror" in 2011 by implementing a policy of facilitating the delivery of weapons to the al-Qaida-dominated rebel militias in Libya attempting to oust Moammar Gadhafi from powe
Paul Merrell

"Support MH17 Truth": OSCE Monitors Identify "Shrapnel and Machine Gun-Like Holes" indi... - 0 views

www.globalresearch.ca/...5394324

war & peace Ukraine MH17 whodunnit Su-25-attack

shared by Paul Merrell on 02 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • The facts speak clear and loud and are beyond the realm of speculation: The cockpit shows traces of shelling! You can see the entry and exit holes. The edge of a portion of the holes is bent inwards. These are the smaller holes, round and clean, showing the entry points most likely that of a 30 millimeter caliber projectile. (Revelations of German Pilot: Shocking Analysis of the “Shooting Down” of Malaysian MH17. “Aircraft Was Not Hit by a Missile” Global Research, July 30, 2014)
  • Based on detailed analysis Peter Haisenko reached  the conclusion that the MH17 was not downed by a missile attack: This aircraft was not hit by a missile in the central portion. The destruction is limited to the cockpit area. Now you have to factor in that this part is constructed of specially reinforced material The OSCE Mission It is worth noting that the initial statements by OSCE observers (July 31) broadly confirm the findings of Peter Haisenko: Monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe reported that shrapnel-like holes were found in two separate pieces of the fuselage of the ill-fated Malaysia Airlines aircraft that was believed to have been downed by a missile in eastern Ukraine. Michael Bociurkiw of the OSCE group of monitors at his daily briefing described part of the plane’s fuselage dotted with “shrapnel-like, almost machine gun-like holes.” He said the damage was inspected by Malaysian aviation-security officials .(Wall Street Journal, July 31, 2014)
  • The monitoring OSCE team has not found evidence of a missile fired from the ground as conveyed by official White House statements. As we recall, the US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power stated –pointing a finger at Russia– that the Malaysian MH17 plane was “likely downed by a surface-to-air missile operated from a separatist-held location”: The team of international investigators with the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) are uncertain if the missile used was fired from the ground as US military experts have previously suggested, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported. (Malay Mail online, emphasis added) The initial OSCE findings tend to dispel the claim that a BUK missile system brought down the plane. Evidently, inasmuch as the perforations are attributable to shelling, a shelling operation conducted from the ground could not have brought down an aircraft traveling above 30,000 feet.
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  • Peter Haisenko’s study is corroborated by the Russian Ministry of Defense which pointed to a Ukrainian Su-25 jet in the flight corridor of the MH17, within proximity of the plane. Ironically, the presence of a military aircraft is also confirmed by a BBC  report conducted at the crash site on July 23. All the eyewitnesses  interviewed by the BBC confirmed the presence of a Ukrainian military aircraft flying within proximity of Malaysian Airlines MH17 at the time that it was shot down: 
  • Eyewitness #1: There were two explosions in the air. And this is how it broke apart. And [the fragments] blew apart like this, to the sides. And when … Eyewitness #2: … And there was another aircraft, a military one, beside it. Everybody saw it. Eyewitness #1: Yes, yes. It was flying under it, because it could be seen. It was proceeding underneath, below the civilian one. Eyewitness #3: There were sounds of an explosion. But they were in the sky. They came from the sky. Then this plane made a sharp turn-around like this. It changed its trajectory and headed in that direction [indicating the direction with her hands]. BBC Report below
  • The original BBC Video Report published by BBC Russian Service on July 23, 2014 has since been removed from the BBC archive.  In a bitter irony, The BBC is censoring its own news productions. Media Spin The media is now saying that a missile was indeed fired but it was not the missile that brought down the plane, it was the shrapnel from the missile which punctured the plane and then led to a loss of pressure.  According to Ukraine’s National security spokesman Andriy Lysenko in a contradictory statement, the MH17 aircraft “suffered massive explosive decompression after being hit by a shrapnel missile.”  (See IBT, Australia) In an utterly absurd report, the BBC quoting the official Ukraine statement  says that:
  • The downed Malaysia Airlines jet in eastern Ukraine suffered an explosive loss of pressure after it was punctured by shrapnel from a missile. They say the information came from the plane’s flight data recorders, which are being analysed by British experts. However, it remains unclear who fired a missile, with pro-Russia rebels and Ukraine blaming each other. Many of the 298 people killed on board flight MH17 were from the Netherlands. Dutch investigators leading the inquiry into the crash have refused to comment on the Ukrainian claims.
  • The shrapnel marks should be distinguished from the small entry and exit holes “most likely that of a 30 millimeter caliber projectile” fired from a military aircraft. These holes could not have been caused by a missile attack as hinted by the MSM. While the MSN is saying that the “shrapnel like holes” can be caused by a missile (see BBC report above), the OSCE has confirmed the existence of what it describes as “machine gun like holes”, without however acknowledging that these cannot be caused by a missile. In this regard, the GSh-302 firing gun operated by an Su-25 is able to fire 3000 rpm which explains the numerous entry and exit holes. According to the findings of Peter Haisenko: If we now consider the armament of a typical SU 25 we learn this: It is equipped with a double-barreled 30-mm gun, type GSh-302 / AO-17A, equipped with: a 250 round magazine of anti-tank incendiary shells and splinter-explosive shells (dum-dum), arranged in alternating order. The cockpit of the MH 017 has evidently been fired at from both sides: the entry and exit holes are found on the same fragment of it’s cockpit segment (op cit)
  • The accusations directed against Russia including the sanctions regime imposed by Washington are based on a lie. The evidence does not support the official US narrative to the effect that the MH17 was shot down by a BUK missile system operated by the DPR militia.
  • Paul Merrell on 02 Aug 14
     
    Looks like John Kerry may be about to get caught in another major lie. 
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