TOLEDO, Ohio, Sept 3 (Reuters) - The White House on Monday denied an Israeli newspaper report that accused Washington of secretly negotiating with Tehran to keep the United States out of a future Israel-Iran war.The Jewish state also played down the front-page report in its biggest-selling daily, Yedioth Ahronoth, which followed unusually public disagreement between the allies about how to tackle Iran's controversial nuclear program."It's incorrect, completely incorrect," White House spokesman Jay Carney told Reuters while accompanying President Barack Obama on a campaign trip in Ohio. "The report is false and we don't talk about hypotheticals."

The United States has indirectly informed Persian Gulf, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Monday.   According to the report, Washington used covert back-channels in Europe to clarify that the US does not intend to back Israel in a strike that may spark a regional conflict.

The United States has indirectly informed Persian Gulf, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Monday.   According to the report, Washington used covert back-channels in Europe to clarify that the US does not intend to back Israel in a strike that may spark a regional conflict.

In return, Washington reportedly expects Iran to steer clear of strategic American assets in the Persian Gulf, such as military bases and aircraft carriers.

Upset by how the Republican Party establishment “disrespected” them during the Republican National Convention, over 300 Ron Paul supporters joined a conference call on Sunday night to discuss plans to urge Paul to run as a third-party candidate on the Libertarian Party ticket.  Speculation about Paul’s intentions will intensify even more because Paul will appear on NBC’s “The Tonight Show” with Jay Leno on Tuesday night to make an announcement, presumably about whether he will make a third-party run or support Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson.

The conventional wisdom on voting is that you should always vote because it is your "patriotic duty," and that your vote should be for one of the two major political parties, otherwise you’re "throwing your vote away." I disagree. I think people should vote their values, which might mean voting for an "unelectable" third party candidate, or perhaps not voting at all.

I know that ousting Obama might seem like the most urgent goal, and that conservatives of all colors, shapes, and sizes ought now unite in this common purpose. But let’s think this through, because there are a number of reasons why it might be a bad strategy.

But more to the point are the ideological issues involved. If we care about these ideological issues, if we have strong beliefs about what’s best for this country and how best to achieve it, then we must ask ourselves this: does the "anybody but Obama" stance support and further our cause--the cause of liberty? How far will it take us toward the goals of restoring personal freedom and having sane fiscal policies, respectful foreign policies, and limited, non-corrupt representation of the people, by the people, and for the people? All the evidence points to "not very far."

While Iran, Russia, and China are all pretty scary, the ominous word “sequestration” is what is keeping right-wing hawks and their friends in the defence industry up at night. While they have been rallying their forces for most of the past year, their campaign to avoid the “spectre of sequestration”, as they often refer to it, shifted into high gear on Capitol Hill this week, as top industry executives were summoned to testify to the urgency of the threat. At stake is could be as much as 600 billion dollars in Pentagon funding – much of which would presumably be spent on lucrative procurement contracts for new weapons systems – over the next 10 years, as well as what the hawks see as the further erosion of U.S. global military dominance.

The sequestration spectre arises from a 2011 agreement, codified in the Budget Control Act, between President Barack Obama and Republican Congressional leaders for cutting the yawning U.S. federal deficit over the next decade. The Act provides that if Congress cannot agree on a specific plan that would cut 1.2 trillion dollars in the budget by the end of this year, then the cuts would take place automatically beginning in 2013, with half of the total taken from the Pentagon and the rest from non-defence programmes.

I’ve been on deadline in the past week or so, so I haven't had a chance to weigh in on Eric Holder’s predictable decision to not pursue criminal charges against Goldman, Sachs for any of the activities in the report prepared by Senators Carl Levin and Tom Coburn two years ago. Last year I spent a lot of time and energy jabbering and gesticulating in public about what seemed to me the most obviously prosecutable offenses detailed in the report – the seemingly blatant perjury before congress of Lloyd Blankfein and other Goldman executives, and the almost comically long list of frauds committed by the company in its desperate effort to unload its crappy “cats and dogs” mortgage-backed inventory.

In the notorious Hudson transaction, for instance, Goldman claimed, in writing, that it was fully "aligned" with the interests of its client, Morgan Stanley, because it owned a $6 million slice of the deal. What Goldman left out is that it had a $2 billion short position against the same deal. If that isn’t fraud, Mr. Holder, just what exactly is fraud?

CLICK HERE for the Sentinel Federal Appeals Court Ruling of August 9, 2012 This commentary came from the fellow who sent this to me. I think it is spot-on. Miss Barnhardt, I thought you might be interested in reading the actual opinion of the In Re Sentinel Group case, which I have attached in PDF. It was very hard to find for some reason, and I had to access my Westlaw account in order to get it. I think it would be well worth your time to read it, as I am afraid that it appears to confirm what you have been saying. The entire case reads like an after-the-fact rationalization of a predetermined conclusion. Years ago when I was with a different firm, I worked on numerous major institutional fraud and auditing cases, and I cannot recall a ruling even remotely similar - let alone from a federal court of appeals.

Please pay particular attention to the section on equitable subordination, on pages 6 through 8. Unbelievably, the court acknowledged in that section that even though some of the bankers lied under oath during the trial, that fact did not prove "sufficiently egregious" actions on the part of the bank. I will quote the opinion: "Instead of finding that their testimony [i.e. their lies] justified a finding of egregious bank behavior, the district court essentially found that the bank officials were such artless liars that they couldn't have been concealing deliberate wrongdoing." See page 7, column 2.

So in other words, a U.S. Court of Appeals has found that if a banker lies under oath during a trial, that fact proves that the bank was innocent of any misconduct with respect to the subject matter of those lies. Did we get transported to bizarro world without knowing it?

(Reuters) - A ruling in the case of failed futures brokerage Sentinel Management Group could make it more difficult for customers to recoup money lost in the much larger collapse of MF Global, according to Sentinel's bankruptcy trustee. A federal appeals court on Thursday upheld a ruling that puts Bank of New York Mellon ahead of former customers of Sentinel in the line of those seeking the return of money lost in the 2007 failure of the suburban Chicago-based futures broker.The appeals court affirmed an earlier district court ruling that the bank had a "secured position" on a $312 million loan it gave to Sentinel, which turned out to have been secured by customer money.

Former money manager Ann Barnhardt, who in November of 2011 made the decision to cease operations of her brokerage firm and return funds to her customers citing “systemic” problems within the entire financial industry, has issued a new warning about the stability of US banks and the safety of individual deposit accounts. The warning, stemming from a recent federal appeals court ruling surrounding customer funds lost during the 2007 collapse of Chicago futures broker Sentinel, indicates that individuals who lose deposited funds because a financial institution improperly manages that money, even if those funds are supposed to be “segregated” from other operations of the firm, are essentially left with no recourse if the firm goes belly-up. According to the court, a misallocation of those customer funds, “is not, on its own, sufficient to rule as a matter of law that Sentinel acted ‘with actual intent to hinder, delay, or defraud’ its customers.”

The implications of the ruling, according to Barnhardt, will affect the monies of all private individuals who have seen their deposit accounts wiped out in the collapse of firms like John Corzine’s MF Global and put all deposit account holders in the country at risk should their bank be faced with a financial windstorm: The NFA in collusion with the banksters, government and judiciary have achieved their goal. The entire concept of “customer segregated funds” is officially, completely, legally dead. Guys, it is OVER. I know that many of you are still cowering in normalcy bias, unable to deal with reality, unable to face the world as it is, but you have GOT to snap out of it. The marketplace is DESTROYED. You CANNOT be in these markets. All legal protections are now officially gone.

Britain's role in supplying information to an American military "kill list" in Afghanistan is being subjected to legal challenge amid growing international concern over targeted strikes against suspected insurgents and drug traffickers.An Afghan man who lost five relatives in a missile strike started proceedings against the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) and the Ministry of Defence demanding to know details of the UK's participation "in the compilation, review and execution of the list and what form it takes".

Soca refused to discuss its intelligence work, but the agency and the MoD said they worked "strictly within the bounds of international law". Its role in the operation to compile a "kill list" was first explained in a report to the US Senate's committee on foreign relations.The report described how a new task force targeting drug traffickers, insurgents and corrupt officials was being set up at Kandahar air field in southern Afghanistan. "The unit will link the US and British military with the DEA [Drug Enforcement Agency], Britain's Serious and Organised Crime Agency, and police and intelligence agencies from other countries." The 31-page report from 2009 acknowledged the precise rules of engagement were classified.

The letters to Soca's director general, Trevor Pearce, and the defence secretary, Philip Hammond, point to the Geneva conventions, which say that persons taking no active part in hostilities are protected from "violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds".They also draw on the International Committee of the Red Cross, which has said anyone accompanying an organised group who is not directly involved in hostilities "remains civilian assuming support functions".The legal letters, the first step towards seeking judicial review, say "drug traffickers who merely support the insurgency financially could not legitimately be included in the list" under these principles. The lawyers believe that, even if Isaf had targeted the right man, it may have been unlawful for others to have been killed in the missile strike.

 Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz’s invitation to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to attend an emergency Islamic summit in Makkah later this month caught many observers by surprise. The invitation was extended at a time when relations between the two key Gulf powers have reached a new low over the very issue the summit is designed to deal with — Syria. More surprising was Tehran’s response. Ahmadinejad is said to have accepted the invitation and is preparing to lead his country’s delegation to the summit of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) which will be held on August 15-16.

Saudi Arabia has threatened to shoot down any Israeli aircraft over its airspace en route to or from Iran, the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported on Thursday. The message was passed via senior U.S. officials during recent talks in Jerusalem.

Israeli bombers flew through Saudi airspace in July 1981 in an operation to destroy Iraq's Osirak nuclear power station. No aircraft were shot down during that air raid.

Last week we learned that President Obama signed an intelligence “finding” directing the CIA to covertly assist rebels in Syria. The administration seems determined to fight yet another war in Syria that has nothing to do with American national interests. We already know that a similar “finding” was signed under the latest Bush administration directing US intelligence to undermine the Iranian government and promote regime change there. Neoconservatives have long demanded that we overthrow the Syrian government before moving on to war against Iran. This bellicosity continues regardless of which party is in the White House.

Resolution 487 (1981) Adopted by the Security Council at its 2288th meeting on 19 June 1981 The Security Council, Having considered the agenda contained in document S/Agenda/2280, Having noted the contents of the telegram dated 8 June 1981 from the Foreign Minister of Iraq (S/14509), Having heard the statements made to the Council on the subject at its 2280th through 2288th meetings, Taking note of the statement made by the Director-General of the International Atomic Emergency Agency (IAEA) to the Agency's Board of Governors on the subject on 9 June 1981 and his statement to the Council at its 2288th meeting on 19 June 1981,

Further taking note of the resolution adopted by the Board of Governors of the IAEA on 12 June 1981 on the "military attack on the Iraq nuclear research centre and its implications for the Agency" (S/14532), Fully aware of the fact that Iraq has been a party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons since it came into force in 1970, that in accordance with that Treaty Iraq has accepted IAEA safeguards on all its nuclear activities, and that the Agency has testified that these safeguards have been satisfactorily applied to date, Noting furthermore that Israel has not adhered to the non-proliferation Treaty, Deeply concerned about the danger to international peace and security created by the premeditated Israeli air attack on Iraqi nuclear installations on 7 June 1981, which could at any time explode the situation in the area, with grave consequences for the vital interests of all States,

Considering that, under the terms of Article 2, paragraph 4, of the Charter of the United Nations: "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, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations", 1. Strongly condemns the military attack by Israel in clear violation of the Charter of the United Nations and the norms of international conduct; 2. Calls upon Israel to refrain in the future from any such acts or threats thereof; 3. Further considers that the said attack constitutes a serious threat to the entire IAEA safeguards regime which is the foundation of the non-proliferation Treaty;

Israel's top ministerial forum, comprised of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's top eight minister, had not held a serious discussion concerning the Iranian standoff since late last year, an unnamed Israeli official told the Reuters news agency on Thursday. "The octet hasn't held a proper discussion of Iran for months - since October, as far as I can recall," said the official, who had been briefed on the closed-door sessions.

"It's possible that, since then, Iran came up during other sessions, but I wouldn't count those as serious discussions. You can't make any concrete decisions or policy advances in an hour-long chat on the sidelines of a different agenda." In addition, the official said the octet remained split on the issue, while Israel's top military and intelligence echelon were "entirely against" launching a unilateral strike on distant and well-fortified Iranian targets that would pose an unprecedented challenge to their forces.

What had been whispered up to a week or two ago is now publicly audible. The possibility of Israel attacking nuclear facilities in Iran in coming months, before the November presidential elections in the U.S., is a topic of detailed public debate. In the past 72 hours, three former top guns of Israeli intelligence discussed the subject with unnerving candor. Two of them expressed opposition to a unilateral Israeli attack under present circumstances.

Do these former security chiefs know something which remains opaque to the public? Former IDF intelligence officers continue to have access to security system briefings, even though they are not brought into the actual planning process of a secret military operation. No less importantly, they know how to analyze disclosed, public data − and developments of the past weeks teaches them that the likelihood of an Israeli decision in favor of an attack is now higher than it has been previously. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who apparently continues to want to attack Iran, is now operating against two layers of significant opposition − at home and overseas. In the domestic arena, the IDF general staff and the Mossad are staffed with senior officers who harbor doubts about the wisdom of a unilateral attack in this period; retired security officials, such as the trio which spoke out in past days, reinforce this skepticism.

In terms of overseas pressure, Netanyahu has had to ward off a series of messages and signals casting doubt about the desirability of an attack. One was the visit of U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta last week.

In his report on the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest jobs and unemployment report, statistician John Williams (shadowstats.com) writes: “The July employment and unemployment numbers published today, August 3rd, were worthless and likely misleading.

Instead, Let’s just apply common sense. According to the BLS, there were 163,000 new nonfarm payroll jobs created in July. This figure is about 13,000 more jobs than is needed to keep pace with population growth. Therefore, the unemployment rate should have declined fractionally. Instead, the unemployment rate (U3) rose from 8.2% to 8.3%. In case you missed the point, new jobs, a net figure, rose and so did the unemployment rate!

Moreover, the alternative, but much less reported, jobs report from the Household Survey found that the economy lost 195,000 jobs in July.

"Every ambitious would-be empire clarions it abroad that she is conquering the world to bring it peace, security and freedom, and is sacrificing her sons only for the most noble and humanitarian purposes. That is a lie, and it is an ancient lie, yet generations still rise and believe it! ... If America ever does seek Empire, and most nations do, then planned reforms in our domestic life will be abandoned, States Rights will be abolished -- in order to impose a centralized government upon us for the purpose of internal repudiation of freedom, and adventures abroad. The American Dream will then die -- on battlefields all over the world -- and a nation conceived in liberty will destroy liberty for Americans and impose tyranny on subject nations."

George S. Boutwell(1818-1905) American statesman, Secretary of the Treasury under President Ulysses S. Grant, Governor of Massachusetts, Senator and Representative from Massachusetts and the first Commissioner of Internal Revenue under President Abraham Lincoln.)

Paul Craig Roberts

At the Nuremberg Trials of the defeated Germans after World War II, the US government established the principle that naked aggression–the American way in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Pakistan, and Yemen–is a war crime. Therefore, there is a very strong precedent for the State Department to round up those neoconservatives who are fomenting more war crimes. But don’t expect it to happen. Today, war criminals run the State Department and the entire US Government. They are elected to the presidency, the House, and the Senate, and appointed to the federal courts as judges. American soldiers, such as Bradley Manning, who behave as the State Department expects German soldiers to have behaved, are not honored, but are thrown into dungeons and tortured while a court marshall case is concocted against them.

A new poll finds 80% of Americans think Iran has a nuclear weapons program and that it is a threat to the US and its NATO allies. The poll, commissioned by The Israel Project, asked likely voters and found “72% of Democrats, 81% of independents and 89% of Republicans were convinced the Iranians were building nuclear weapons.” This is a monumental success of war propaganda. And these results are largely consistent with other recent polls: one produced back in February by the Council on Foreign Relations and the Program on International Policy Attitudes found “An overwhelming majority of U.S. citizens believe that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons and poses a serious threat to U.S. national security.”

Contrast these beliefs with the facts: The consensus in the whole of the intelligence community in the US (and Israel) is that Iran has no nuclear weapons program and has yet to demonstrate any intention of starting one anytime soon. But false beliefs persist even when there has been ample reassurances from elite sources in politics, the military, and the news media that Iran has no weapons program. A matter of months ago, the Obama administration marched out their minions, from Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey, all of whom reiterated the fact that Iran has no nuclear weapons program, despite constant rhetoric to the contrary.

In February the New York Times ran a front page story entitled “U.S. Agencies See No Move by Iran to Build a Bomb.” It reported: “Recent assessments by American spy agencies are broadly consistent with a 2007 intelligence finding that concluded that Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program years earlier. The officials said that assessment was largely reaffirmed in a 2010 National Intelligence Estimate, and that it remains the consensus view of America’s 16 intelligence agencies.” Again in March, they reported “top administration officials have said that Iran still has not decided to pursue a weapon, reflecting the intelligence community’s secret analysis.” Another in the Los Angeles Times was similarly headlined, “U.S. does not believe Iran is trying to build nuclear bomb.”