Saturday, June 29, 2013
So much for free enterprise...
Teens Start Rental Car Company That Undercuts Avis And Hertz. Get Sued By City Of San Francisco For “Unfair Business Practices.”
Said three teenagers to themselves last year: “Yeah, sure, we could go to college. But wouldn’t it be more fun to up-end the airport rental car business?”
They opted for the latter.
So positive were they that they had happened on a better business model than Hertz or Avis, that they turned their backs, respectively, on Harvard, Princeton and MIT — the three institutions to which they had gained (or been offered) admission.
The idea was this: At every major airport, acres of cars sit idle, left parked by owners who have jetted off. Why couldn’t these same cars be rented to arriving travelers? Rates could be dramatically cheaper than those charged by traditional car rental companies, since, under this model, the rental company wouldn’t have to pay for or maintain the fleet.
Owners would have a fourfold incentive to participate: free parking, a free car wash, a cut of the rental fee and a guarantee their car would be waiting for them when they returned…
How Flight Car Works:
…Foes of FlightCar, however, have started to shoot back.
It’s easy to see how traditional rental companies might not be amused to have their prices undercut. But San Francisco International is crying foul, as well.
Doug Yakel, public information officer for SFO, tells ABC News that FlightCar refuses to play by the rules that govern other rental car companies. It doesn’t pay the same fees, he says, and it doesn’t abide by the same regulations…
…For example, SFO wants FlightCar to pay it 10 percent of its gross profit and a $20 fee for each rental car transaction — the same as what the airport gets from every other rental car company.
The fact that FlightCar operates from a base outside airport property, Yakel says, makes no difference: SFO has three other rental companies that also operate off-property. According to the complaint, those three paid SFO over $2 million in fees in 2012. FlightCar, too, should pay, thinks Yakel…
Link:
http://libertycrier.com/business/teens-start-rental-car-company-that-undercuts-avis-and-hertz-get-sued-by-city-of-san-francisco-for-unfair-business-practices/
Said three teenagers to themselves last year: “Yeah, sure, we could go to college. But wouldn’t it be more fun to up-end the airport rental car business?”
They opted for the latter.
So positive were they that they had happened on a better business model than Hertz or Avis, that they turned their backs, respectively, on Harvard, Princeton and MIT — the three institutions to which they had gained (or been offered) admission.
The idea was this: At every major airport, acres of cars sit idle, left parked by owners who have jetted off. Why couldn’t these same cars be rented to arriving travelers? Rates could be dramatically cheaper than those charged by traditional car rental companies, since, under this model, the rental company wouldn’t have to pay for or maintain the fleet.
Owners would have a fourfold incentive to participate: free parking, a free car wash, a cut of the rental fee and a guarantee their car would be waiting for them when they returned…
How Flight Car Works:
…Foes of FlightCar, however, have started to shoot back.
It’s easy to see how traditional rental companies might not be amused to have their prices undercut. But San Francisco International is crying foul, as well.
Doug Yakel, public information officer for SFO, tells ABC News that FlightCar refuses to play by the rules that govern other rental car companies. It doesn’t pay the same fees, he says, and it doesn’t abide by the same regulations…
…For example, SFO wants FlightCar to pay it 10 percent of its gross profit and a $20 fee for each rental car transaction — the same as what the airport gets from every other rental car company.
The fact that FlightCar operates from a base outside airport property, Yakel says, makes no difference: SFO has three other rental companies that also operate off-property. According to the complaint, those three paid SFO over $2 million in fees in 2012. FlightCar, too, should pay, thinks Yakel…
Link:
http://libertycrier.com/business/teens-start-rental-car-company-that-undercuts-avis-and-hertz-get-sued-by-city-of-san-francisco-for-unfair-business-practices/
We all have friends who act lke this...
Twenty-Five Rules of Disinformation
WashingtonsBlog
Preface: This handy set of rules covers most of the games which disinformation artists play on the Internet (and offline). When you know the tricks, you’ll be able to spot the games. Even if you’ve read this list before, you might be surprised at how useful it is to brush up on these tricks.
Update: This was originally apparently written by H. Michael Sweeney.
1. Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. Regardless of what you know, don’t discuss it — especially if you are a public figure, news anchor, etc. If it’s not reported, it didn’t happen, and you never have to deal with the issues.
2. Become incredulous and indignant. Avoid discussing key issues and instead focus on side issues which can be used show the topic as being critical of some otherwise sacrosanct group or theme. This is also known as the “How dare you!” gambit.
3. Create rumor mongers. Avoid discussing issues by describing all charges, regardless of venue or evidence, as mere rumors and wild accusations. Other derogatory terms mutually exclusive of truth may work as well. This method works especially well with a silent press, because the only way the public can learn of the facts are through such “arguable rumors”. If you can associate the material with the Internet, use this fact to certify it a “wild rumor” which can have no basis in fact.
4. Use a straw man. Find or create a seeming element of your opponent’s argument which you can easily knock down to make yourself look good and the opponent to look bad. Either make up an issue you may safely imply exists based on your interpretation of the opponent/opponent arguments/situation, or select the weakest aspect of the weakest charges. Amplify their significance and destroy them in a way which appears to debunk all the charges, real and fabricated alike, while actually avoiding discussion of the real issues.
5. Sidetrack opponents with name calling and ridicule. This is also known as the primary attack the messenger ploy, though other methods qualify as variants of that approach. Associate opponents with unpopular titles such as “kooks”, “right-wing”, “liberal”, “left-wing”, “terrorists”, “conspiracy buffs”, “radicals”, “militia”, “racists”, “religious fanatics”, “sexual deviates”, and so forth. This makes others shrink from support out of fear of gaining the same label, and you avoid dealing with issues.
6. Hit and Run. In any public forum, make a brief attack of your opponent or the opponent position and then scamper off before an answer can be fielded, or simply ignore any answer. This works extremely well in Internet and letters-to-the-editor environments where a steady stream of new identities can be called upon without having to explain criticism reasoning — simply make an accusation or other attack, never discussing issues, and never answering any subsequent response, for that would dignify the opponent’s viewpoint.
7. Question motives. Twist or amplify any fact which could so taken to imply that the opponent operates out of a hidden personal agenda or other bias. This avoids discussing issues and forces the accuser on the defensive.
8. Invoke authority. Claim for yourself or associate yourself with authority and present your argument with enough “jargon” and “minutiae” to illustrate you are “one who knows”, and simply say it isn’t so without discussing issues or demonstrating concretely why or citing sources.
9. Play Dumb. No matter what evidence or logical argument is offered, avoid discussing issues with denial they have any credibility, make any sense, provide any proof, contain or make a point, have logic, or support a conclusion. Mix well for maximum effect.
10. Associate opponent charges with old news. A derivative of the straw man usually, in any large-scale matter of high visibility, someone will make charges early on which can be or were already easily dealt with. Where it can be foreseen, have your own side raise a straw man issue and have it dealt with early on as part of the initial contingency plans. Subsequent charges, regardless of validity or new ground uncovered, can usually them be associated with the original charge and dismissed as simply being a rehash without need to address current issues — so much the better where the opponent is or was involved with the original source.
11. Establish and rely upon fall-back positions. Using a minor matter or element of the facts, take the “high road” and “confess” with candor that some innocent mistake, in hindsight, was made — but that opponents have seized on the opportunity to blow it all out of proportion and imply greater criminalities which, “just isn’t so.” Others can reinforce this on your behalf, later. Done properly, this can garner sympathy and respect for “coming clean” and “owning up” to your mistakes without addressing more serious issues.
12. Enigmas have no solution. Drawing upon the overall umbrella of events surrounding the crime and the multitude of players and events, paint the entire affair as too complex to solve. This causes those otherwise following the matter to begin to loose interest more quickly without having to address the actual issues.
13. Alice in Wonderland Logic. Avoid discussion of the issues by reasoning backwards with an apparent deductive logic in a way that forbears any actual material fact.
14. Demand complete solutions. Avoid the issues by requiring opponents to solve the crime at hand completely, a ploy which works best for items qualifying for rule 10.
15. Fit the facts to alternate conclusions. This requires creative thinking unless the crime was planned with contingency conclusions in place.
16. Vanishing evidence and witnesses. If it does not exist, it is not fact, and you won’t have to address the issue.
17. Change the subject. Usually in connection with one of the other ploys listed here, find a way to side-track the discussion with abrasive or controversial comments in hopes of turning attention to a new, more manageable topic. This works especially well with companions who can “argue” with you over the new topic and polarize the discussion arena in order to avoid discussing more key issues.
18. Emotionalize, Antagonize, and Goad Opponents. If you can’t do anything else, chide and taunt your opponents and draw them into emotional responses which will tend to make them look foolish and overly motivated, and generally render their material somewhat less coherent. Not only will you avoid discussing the issues in the first instance, but even if their emotional response addresses the issue, you can further avoid the issues by then focusing on how “sensitive they are to criticism”.
19. Ignore proof presented, demand impossible proofs. This is perhaps a variant of the “play dumb” rule. Regardless of what material may be presented by an opponent in public forums, claim the material irrelevant and demand proof that is impossible for the opponent to come by (it may exist, but not be at his disposal, or it may be something which is known to be safely destroyed or withheld, such as a murder weapon). In order to completely avoid discussing issues may require you to categorically deny and be critical of media or books as valid sources, deny that witnesses are acceptable, or even deny that statements made by government or other authorities have any meaning or relevance.
20. False evidence. Whenever possible, introduce new facts or clues designed and manufactured to conflict with opponent presentations as useful tools to neutralize sensitive issues or impede resolution. This works best when the crime was designed with contingencies for the purpose, and the facts cannot be easily separated from the fabrications.
21. Call a Grand Jury, Special Prosecutor, or other empowered investigative body. Subvert the (process) to your benefit and effectively neutralize all sensitive issues without open discussion. Once convened, the evidence and testimony are required to be secret when properly handled. For instance, if you own the prosecuting attorney, it can insure a Grand Jury hears no useful evidence and that the evidence is sealed an unavailable to subsequent investigators. Once a favorable verdict (usually, this technique is applied to find the guilty innocent, but it can also be used to obtain charges when seeking to frame a victim) is achieved, the matter can be considered officially closed.
22. Manufacture a new truth. Create your own expert(s), group(s), author(s), leader(s) or influence existing ones willing to forge new ground via scientific, investigative, or social research or testimony which concludes favorably. In this way, if you must actually address issues, you can do so authoritatively.
23. Create bigger distractions. If the above does not seem to be working to distract from sensitive issues, or to prevent unwanted media coverage of unstoppable events such as trials, create bigger news stories (or treat them as such) to distract the multitudes.
24. Silence critics. If the above methods do not prevail, consider removing opponents from circulation by some definitive solution so that the need to address issues is removed entirely. This can be by their death, arrest and detention, blackmail or destruction of their character by release of blackmail information, or merely by proper intimidation with blackmail or other threats.
25. Vanish. If you are a key holder of secrets or otherwise overly illuminated and you think the heat is getting too hot, to avoid the issues, vacate the kitchen.
Link:
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/05/twenty-five-rules-of-disinformation.html
WashingtonsBlog
Preface: This handy set of rules covers most of the games which disinformation artists play on the Internet (and offline). When you know the tricks, you’ll be able to spot the games. Even if you’ve read this list before, you might be surprised at how useful it is to brush up on these tricks.
Update: This was originally apparently written by H. Michael Sweeney.
1. Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. Regardless of what you know, don’t discuss it — especially if you are a public figure, news anchor, etc. If it’s not reported, it didn’t happen, and you never have to deal with the issues.
2. Become incredulous and indignant. Avoid discussing key issues and instead focus on side issues which can be used show the topic as being critical of some otherwise sacrosanct group or theme. This is also known as the “How dare you!” gambit.
3. Create rumor mongers. Avoid discussing issues by describing all charges, regardless of venue or evidence, as mere rumors and wild accusations. Other derogatory terms mutually exclusive of truth may work as well. This method works especially well with a silent press, because the only way the public can learn of the facts are through such “arguable rumors”. If you can associate the material with the Internet, use this fact to certify it a “wild rumor” which can have no basis in fact.
4. Use a straw man. Find or create a seeming element of your opponent’s argument which you can easily knock down to make yourself look good and the opponent to look bad. Either make up an issue you may safely imply exists based on your interpretation of the opponent/opponent arguments/situation, or select the weakest aspect of the weakest charges. Amplify their significance and destroy them in a way which appears to debunk all the charges, real and fabricated alike, while actually avoiding discussion of the real issues.
5. Sidetrack opponents with name calling and ridicule. This is also known as the primary attack the messenger ploy, though other methods qualify as variants of that approach. Associate opponents with unpopular titles such as “kooks”, “right-wing”, “liberal”, “left-wing”, “terrorists”, “conspiracy buffs”, “radicals”, “militia”, “racists”, “religious fanatics”, “sexual deviates”, and so forth. This makes others shrink from support out of fear of gaining the same label, and you avoid dealing with issues.
6. Hit and Run. In any public forum, make a brief attack of your opponent or the opponent position and then scamper off before an answer can be fielded, or simply ignore any answer. This works extremely well in Internet and letters-to-the-editor environments where a steady stream of new identities can be called upon without having to explain criticism reasoning — simply make an accusation or other attack, never discussing issues, and never answering any subsequent response, for that would dignify the opponent’s viewpoint.
7. Question motives. Twist or amplify any fact which could so taken to imply that the opponent operates out of a hidden personal agenda or other bias. This avoids discussing issues and forces the accuser on the defensive.
8. Invoke authority. Claim for yourself or associate yourself with authority and present your argument with enough “jargon” and “minutiae” to illustrate you are “one who knows”, and simply say it isn’t so without discussing issues or demonstrating concretely why or citing sources.
9. Play Dumb. No matter what evidence or logical argument is offered, avoid discussing issues with denial they have any credibility, make any sense, provide any proof, contain or make a point, have logic, or support a conclusion. Mix well for maximum effect.
10. Associate opponent charges with old news. A derivative of the straw man usually, in any large-scale matter of high visibility, someone will make charges early on which can be or were already easily dealt with. Where it can be foreseen, have your own side raise a straw man issue and have it dealt with early on as part of the initial contingency plans. Subsequent charges, regardless of validity or new ground uncovered, can usually them be associated with the original charge and dismissed as simply being a rehash without need to address current issues — so much the better where the opponent is or was involved with the original source.
11. Establish and rely upon fall-back positions. Using a minor matter or element of the facts, take the “high road” and “confess” with candor that some innocent mistake, in hindsight, was made — but that opponents have seized on the opportunity to blow it all out of proportion and imply greater criminalities which, “just isn’t so.” Others can reinforce this on your behalf, later. Done properly, this can garner sympathy and respect for “coming clean” and “owning up” to your mistakes without addressing more serious issues.
12. Enigmas have no solution. Drawing upon the overall umbrella of events surrounding the crime and the multitude of players and events, paint the entire affair as too complex to solve. This causes those otherwise following the matter to begin to loose interest more quickly without having to address the actual issues.
13. Alice in Wonderland Logic. Avoid discussion of the issues by reasoning backwards with an apparent deductive logic in a way that forbears any actual material fact.
14. Demand complete solutions. Avoid the issues by requiring opponents to solve the crime at hand completely, a ploy which works best for items qualifying for rule 10.
15. Fit the facts to alternate conclusions. This requires creative thinking unless the crime was planned with contingency conclusions in place.
16. Vanishing evidence and witnesses. If it does not exist, it is not fact, and you won’t have to address the issue.
17. Change the subject. Usually in connection with one of the other ploys listed here, find a way to side-track the discussion with abrasive or controversial comments in hopes of turning attention to a new, more manageable topic. This works especially well with companions who can “argue” with you over the new topic and polarize the discussion arena in order to avoid discussing more key issues.
18. Emotionalize, Antagonize, and Goad Opponents. If you can’t do anything else, chide and taunt your opponents and draw them into emotional responses which will tend to make them look foolish and overly motivated, and generally render their material somewhat less coherent. Not only will you avoid discussing the issues in the first instance, but even if their emotional response addresses the issue, you can further avoid the issues by then focusing on how “sensitive they are to criticism”.
19. Ignore proof presented, demand impossible proofs. This is perhaps a variant of the “play dumb” rule. Regardless of what material may be presented by an opponent in public forums, claim the material irrelevant and demand proof that is impossible for the opponent to come by (it may exist, but not be at his disposal, or it may be something which is known to be safely destroyed or withheld, such as a murder weapon). In order to completely avoid discussing issues may require you to categorically deny and be critical of media or books as valid sources, deny that witnesses are acceptable, or even deny that statements made by government or other authorities have any meaning or relevance.
20. False evidence. Whenever possible, introduce new facts or clues designed and manufactured to conflict with opponent presentations as useful tools to neutralize sensitive issues or impede resolution. This works best when the crime was designed with contingencies for the purpose, and the facts cannot be easily separated from the fabrications.
21. Call a Grand Jury, Special Prosecutor, or other empowered investigative body. Subvert the (process) to your benefit and effectively neutralize all sensitive issues without open discussion. Once convened, the evidence and testimony are required to be secret when properly handled. For instance, if you own the prosecuting attorney, it can insure a Grand Jury hears no useful evidence and that the evidence is sealed an unavailable to subsequent investigators. Once a favorable verdict (usually, this technique is applied to find the guilty innocent, but it can also be used to obtain charges when seeking to frame a victim) is achieved, the matter can be considered officially closed.
22. Manufacture a new truth. Create your own expert(s), group(s), author(s), leader(s) or influence existing ones willing to forge new ground via scientific, investigative, or social research or testimony which concludes favorably. In this way, if you must actually address issues, you can do so authoritatively.
23. Create bigger distractions. If the above does not seem to be working to distract from sensitive issues, or to prevent unwanted media coverage of unstoppable events such as trials, create bigger news stories (or treat them as such) to distract the multitudes.
24. Silence critics. If the above methods do not prevail, consider removing opponents from circulation by some definitive solution so that the need to address issues is removed entirely. This can be by their death, arrest and detention, blackmail or destruction of their character by release of blackmail information, or merely by proper intimidation with blackmail or other threats.
25. Vanish. If you are a key holder of secrets or otherwise overly illuminated and you think the heat is getting too hot, to avoid the issues, vacate the kitchen.
Link:
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/05/twenty-five-rules-of-disinformation.html
"None of the ‘secrets’ he revealed are even vaguely secret, since the information concerning NSA snooping on foreign powers was already in the public realm, many times over."
Edward Snowden: the Manchurian Candidate
By Richard Cottrell
Points of detail are important.
Edward Snowden is not an NSA sub contractor. He worked for the ‘consultancy’ Booz Allen Hamilton which is a shop front for the CIA, not the NSA. First warning.
Editor’s note: be sure to read Richard’s latest articles, “Edward Snowden’s Flying Circus: Quite the maddest show on Earth” and “Shush: the Afghan War is over. Did anybody tell you?”
Second. None of the ‘secrets’ he revealed are even vaguely secret, since the information concerning NSA snooping on foreign powers was already in the public realm, many times over. The problem is that newspapers and journalists intoxicate themselves with spy stories and rarely bother to sift through all the parallel information. Takes too long.
Third. His hop, skip and jump activities were clearly well planned in advance. Who, exactly, set up the fake exit to Cuba story, which put a truckload of journalists on the wrong (teetotal) flight? Snowden? Pull the other one. He had that sort of power over Aeroflot? Who put the story around anyway? Snowden again? Hey this guy was wasted working for the CIA, he should have been in PR.
Fourth. He got on a plane to Russia without a visa. I have been to Russia many, many times and I can tell you that is an impossible feat without real inside connections.
Fifth. He slipped through the dragnet in Hong Kong because the US consulate gave him the wrong middle name on the charge sheet. Yes, that really is the tooth fairy at the foot of the bed. Pretty isn’t she, with that halo and her little purse.
Sixth. Is this star wars, CIA versus NSA? Very likely. The security services in the US are like pit bull terriers looking for other pit bull terriers’ throats. Again, ‘journalists’ (actually a non-existent race) covering this whodunit remind me of Enid Blyton and those who never saw through the real nature of the set up with Noddy and Big Ears under the toadstool.
Seventh. Snowden is a classic example of the Gladio-style (copyright: Yves Guerin Serac) implant, just like the cops at Scotland Yard and all the dirty washing concerning their undercover activities which is now being – selectively - exposed.
I suspect he is not quite right in the head, will be revealed as living a fantasy life in Hawaii, got profiled and selected for the mission of his life. There are countless examples of believing in the role, the multi-dimensional imposition of one set of unrealities on another. Happens all the time. That’s how the system works. The Manchurian Candidate rings a bell.
Eighth: Is he really in Moscow? Is he actually holed up in the airport lodge? Or is he somewhere else altogether? Is he already an ex-melted down Snowden, so to speak? No habeas corpus necessary. We don’t have the corpse, honestly. It must be somewhere else. Of course. Does it matter anyway? The actor is off the stage, his speaking role is finished and he leaves behind a gloriously unfinished story. You can see how clever it all is.
Ninth. The guy blows the kitchen sink and then gallops around the world like a headless chicken. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Tenth, why does Obama suddenly go live and say, hey this is no big deal, I’m not going to the bottom of the White House rose garden for this one. That’s not strange, it’s a dead (oops) giveaway. Especially with the genuine article, Corporal Bradley Manning, on trial for his life.
Eleventh. Who wants Snowden to be taken alive? Sorry, no blank space available for your suggestions. I think the Boston Bomber syndrome applies here. Or, alternatively, grateful thanks, nice thick wad of the green, and then disappear, like the lost explorer Colonel Fawcett up the Orinoco in the thirties.
We shall see, but this story does not carry a 100% money back guarantee. We must doubt that we are living in an age of any sort of reason when people run after bum steers like this one.
More at EndtheLie.com - http://EndtheLie.com/2013/06/28/edward-snowden-the-manchurian-candidate/#ixzz2XdRYqhEF
By Richard Cottrell
Points of detail are important.
Edward Snowden is not an NSA sub contractor. He worked for the ‘consultancy’ Booz Allen Hamilton which is a shop front for the CIA, not the NSA. First warning.
Editor’s note: be sure to read Richard’s latest articles, “Edward Snowden’s Flying Circus: Quite the maddest show on Earth” and “Shush: the Afghan War is over. Did anybody tell you?”
Second. None of the ‘secrets’ he revealed are even vaguely secret, since the information concerning NSA snooping on foreign powers was already in the public realm, many times over. The problem is that newspapers and journalists intoxicate themselves with spy stories and rarely bother to sift through all the parallel information. Takes too long.
Third. His hop, skip and jump activities were clearly well planned in advance. Who, exactly, set up the fake exit to Cuba story, which put a truckload of journalists on the wrong (teetotal) flight? Snowden? Pull the other one. He had that sort of power over Aeroflot? Who put the story around anyway? Snowden again? Hey this guy was wasted working for the CIA, he should have been in PR.
Fourth. He got on a plane to Russia without a visa. I have been to Russia many, many times and I can tell you that is an impossible feat without real inside connections.
Fifth. He slipped through the dragnet in Hong Kong because the US consulate gave him the wrong middle name on the charge sheet. Yes, that really is the tooth fairy at the foot of the bed. Pretty isn’t she, with that halo and her little purse.
Sixth. Is this star wars, CIA versus NSA? Very likely. The security services in the US are like pit bull terriers looking for other pit bull terriers’ throats. Again, ‘journalists’ (actually a non-existent race) covering this whodunit remind me of Enid Blyton and those who never saw through the real nature of the set up with Noddy and Big Ears under the toadstool.
Seventh. Snowden is a classic example of the Gladio-style (copyright: Yves Guerin Serac) implant, just like the cops at Scotland Yard and all the dirty washing concerning their undercover activities which is now being – selectively - exposed.
I suspect he is not quite right in the head, will be revealed as living a fantasy life in Hawaii, got profiled and selected for the mission of his life. There are countless examples of believing in the role, the multi-dimensional imposition of one set of unrealities on another. Happens all the time. That’s how the system works. The Manchurian Candidate rings a bell.
Eighth: Is he really in Moscow? Is he actually holed up in the airport lodge? Or is he somewhere else altogether? Is he already an ex-melted down Snowden, so to speak? No habeas corpus necessary. We don’t have the corpse, honestly. It must be somewhere else. Of course. Does it matter anyway? The actor is off the stage, his speaking role is finished and he leaves behind a gloriously unfinished story. You can see how clever it all is.
Ninth. The guy blows the kitchen sink and then gallops around the world like a headless chicken. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Tenth, why does Obama suddenly go live and say, hey this is no big deal, I’m not going to the bottom of the White House rose garden for this one. That’s not strange, it’s a dead (oops) giveaway. Especially with the genuine article, Corporal Bradley Manning, on trial for his life.
Eleventh. Who wants Snowden to be taken alive? Sorry, no blank space available for your suggestions. I think the Boston Bomber syndrome applies here. Or, alternatively, grateful thanks, nice thick wad of the green, and then disappear, like the lost explorer Colonel Fawcett up the Orinoco in the thirties.
We shall see, but this story does not carry a 100% money back guarantee. We must doubt that we are living in an age of any sort of reason when people run after bum steers like this one.
More at EndtheLie.com - http://EndtheLie.com/2013/06/28/edward-snowden-the-manchurian-candidate/#ixzz2XdRYqhEF
Off to Getttysburg for the 150th...
There's plenty of articles to read and videos to enjoy throughout this blog while I take a few days off to relive history. See you next week...
OOPS!!! "Welcome to your new world of Global Cooling!"
NASA – CO2 is a Global Coolant
by Bob Nichols
The United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) lowers the Boom on Al Gore’s Big Lie that the humble, beneficial gas – CO2 – causes global warming. NASA states absolutely that Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is a Global Coolant and massively cools the Earth.
You can bet that the NASA scientists designed, built, launched and placed in Earth orbit the satellite machinery to prove it, too.
So, there we have it. In addition, the Earth has not gotten any warmer for 17 years. NASA has finally pulled the plug on Gore’s Big Lie and ended the gigantic, world wide charade on CO2.
This “discovery” about CO2 is nothing new, it’s well known by scientists not employed by the Gore-istas. The Gore-istas probably know it, too; but the money was just too good to pass up. Besides, you don’t have to do anything except sit around, make up wild stories and tell lies. Great “job” if you like that sort of thing.
Why did Gore do it?
If you follow the money, Gore, a career politician, now has a net worth of about $200 million to $300 million dollars, conservatively. That is a stratospheric increase from about $1 million dollars in the year 2000.
They say all politics is local and if we look around in Gore’s home state of Tennessee, there are many Tennessee companies, both private and governmental, that owe their existence to Gore Jr. or his dad, Gore Sr.
Both father and son were elected United States Senators from Tennessee and brought home the “bacon” for many companies and home state jobs. Both were the “go to” politician for various “political problems” of the sponsored companies and industries.
Nothing unusual there, many Senators see that as just part of their job as privatized public servants. In other words, they are bought and paid for many times over as they sell themselves for campaign cash. It’s a devil’s bargain.
Senators on the make have no concern whatsoever for what they are privately hired to do on government time; but, the results can disastrously boomerang on the country and world. Especially so in the very particular cases of the United States nuclear weapons programs (the nuker program.)
The high sounding Toronto Protocol of the United Nations was simply to phase out the use of CFCs word wide. CFC is an abbreviation for a chemical refrigerant manufactured, at the time, by the rich and powerful DuPont Company.
It is used in cooling systems like refrigerators and air conditioners. CFCs are responsible for killing the Ozone over Antarctica all the way to Australia. Ozone is essential to life on Earth since it blocks deadly Ultraviolet Rays from our Sun and makes the Earth habitable.
Pro-Nukers: Deadly when their Livelihoods are threatened
As far as the Nuke Labs were concerned, though, the Toronto Protocol was a poisoned dagger held to the throat of the entire US Nuclear Weapons Program by its sneaky world wide enemies.
Making uranium suitable for nuke weapons and reactor fuel rods is really hot nasty work. It requires many thousands of “tons” of air conditioning for cooling the machinery, uranium, buildings, computers and people. The air conditioning equipment in the uranium plants is saturated by Uranium Dust and impossible to work on. When it leaks CFC refrigerant gas; it just leaks.
The “close enough for government work” non-solution was to back CFC refrigerant tanker trucks up to the back of the plants and dump as much CFC as was needed into the broken machinery to try to keep it working, leaks and all.
One nuke plant was internationally known to be the point source of 55% of the CFC released to the air in North America. The nuke boys had a serious problem.
The alternative was to shut down the US Nuclear Weapons Program. That would never do. Because of these easy to follow reasons the Nuke Program and the nuclear jobs were in jeopardy from the nuke killing Toronto Protocol on CFCs.
Closing the nuker program down was a non-starter for political reasons. US World Domination is based on thousands of nuclear weapons and the willingness to use them on humans. So, forget any do-gooder “treaties” killing the US nuke weapons program.
The threatening Toronto Anti-CFC Protocol had to be killed or sidetracked. The nuke boys would lose their cushy government jobs if not. Besides that, there was the US world domination thing based on the realistic Fear that the US Military would go Postal and blow another little country away.
Ta-Da! Al Gore to the Rescue of the Nukers!
The Nuke Boys needed a culprit substitute gas to kill the Toronto Protocol and a “Media Personality.” They decided to pick on the lowly gas Carbon Dioxide, symbol CO2; and Gore was the just the Man to lead the anti-CO2 campaign.
All that was necessary was to, literally, fool most of world. That and intimidate the rest. All people had to do was “To Believe;” or, at least not speak up. The finely crafted lie was that CO2 was a heat trapping “Greenhouse Gas” and was causing “Global Warming;” when CO2 is actually a Global Coolant. Not a problem for the New York Times and their ilk. They do stuff like that all the time and it works the same in every country.
Al Gore would be the lead “Media Personality” and was free to make as much money as he could. Above all else, the United States nuclear weapons program would survive and US world domination was assured.
Why Now on the NASA Press Release?
After many years of frustrating failed attempts, weapons physicists and scientists finally figured out how to separate the all important Bomb Grade Uranium from raw Uranium ore in 2010. The lightening speed at which the government moved to capitalize on it was amazing. The job uses far less electricity and makes a fraction of the heat
The US moved to build a new $6 Billion dollar building for uranium laser separation, closed the old plant and fired 1,150 dedicated nuke plant employees. The NASA announcement on CO2 effectively cut Al Gore loose and closed the curtain on the mythology of fictitious global warming; which is now changed to “Global Cooling.”
Welcome to your new world of Global Cooling!
Link:
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2013/06/28/al-gore-lied/
"Snowden and Greenwald have not “aided the enemy” — unless the American people are the government’s enemy. What they have done is embarrass the Obama administration by exposing criminal activity."
Big Brother, not Snowden and Greenwald, Is the Story
Sheldon Richman
“Instead of being adversaries to government power … [the media of Washington, D.C., are] … servants to it and mouthpieces for it.”
So said the Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald, who broke the story of Edward Snowden’s disclosure of NSA spying on the American people, after Greenwald’s confrontation with Meet the Press’s David Gregory. Greenwald needn’t have limited his observation to the D.C. media. Plenty of reporters and cable-news talking heads are playing the same role in the NSA drama.
Indeed, if they spent half the time investigating Obama’s Big Brother operations that they spend sneering at Snowden and Greenwald, Americans might demand that the government stop spying on them.
But to much of the mainstream (and not-so-mainstream) media, Snowden and Greenwald — not the NSA, the Obama administration, and the supine Congress — are the story — a story of villainy.
The examples are endless. The day after Snowden revealed himself as the whistleblower, Joe Scarborough, the former Republican congressman and host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, ordered his director to take the image of “that weasel” off the screen. The other day, his sidekick, Mika Brzezinski, asked, “Is there anything we can do to track him down?” (Emphasis added.) She meant the government.
Brzezinski went on to accuse Snowden of taking the job with NSA contractor Booz Allen Hamilton “to screw over our government.” That’s how one who speaks power to truth spins it. Snowden’s service to the American people is hardly undercut by his having taken the job intending to expose government violations of the Fourth Amendment.
MSNBC’s self-identification as a progressive network is hard to square with its unrelenting assaults on Snowden and Greenwald, and its de-emphasis of NSA surveillance. Andrea Mitchell, who functions as the network’s chief diplomatic stenographer, wondered why the NSA was hiring contractors when it could be recruiting people with the “right value system” from the military. (She’s forgotten that whistleblower Bradley Manning is in the military.) Chris Matthews of Hardball says that any foreign government that won’t turn Snowden over to the U.S. government is “no buddy of ours.”
MSNBC personnel routinely describe Greenwald as “defensive,” which apparently is their code word for people who push back at stupid questions. For example, when Gregory asked Greenwald if he could be indicted for “aiding and abetting” Snowden, and Greenwald asked in return how a journalist could equate reporting with criminal activity, he was treated with disdain. Gregory even questioned Greenwald’s journalistic credentials, as did Paul Farhi of the Washington Post.
I’ve focused on MSNBC because it has so egregiously and persistently circled the wagons around the government. It’s an old story: TV hosts and reporters need access to government officials, but access is jeopardized if they antagonize those officials. Better to play it safe and sneer at Snowden and Greenwald.
You don’t have to work for MSNBC to suck up to power. Op-ed writers from conservative David Brooks to progressive Richard Cohen have tried to portray Snowden as an alienated oddball, as though no one could have a legitimate purpose in unmasking government surveillance. (Brooks thought it relevant to write that Snowden “has not been a regular presence around his mother’s house for years.” Really!) Pundits repeatedly refer to Snowden’s having dropped out of high school, which apparently signals some serious moral or mental defect in the young man. More likely he was bored with the dull and regimented curriculum so typical of government high schools.
Others have tried to read much into Snowden’s stops in Hong Kong and Moscow. He might be a spy, they suggest. But wouldn’t a spy have kept his identity secret while selling his information to “the enemy”? It doesn’t occur to the pundits that Snowden’s priority right now is to stay out of the clutches of the U.S. government. Snowden has no moral obligation to be a martyr. Let’s not forget how Bradley Manning has been treated for his disclosures of government wrongdoing. He faces life imprisonment.
Snowden and Greenwald have not “aided the enemy” — unless the American people are the government’s enemy. What they have done is embarrass the Obama administration by exposing criminal activity.
For the media’s defenders of power against truth, that’s inexcusable.
Link:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/reviews/opinion/item/15850-big-brother-not-snowden-and-greenwald-is-the-story
Sheldon Richman
“Instead of being adversaries to government power … [the media of Washington, D.C., are] … servants to it and mouthpieces for it.”
So said the Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald, who broke the story of Edward Snowden’s disclosure of NSA spying on the American people, after Greenwald’s confrontation with Meet the Press’s David Gregory. Greenwald needn’t have limited his observation to the D.C. media. Plenty of reporters and cable-news talking heads are playing the same role in the NSA drama.
Indeed, if they spent half the time investigating Obama’s Big Brother operations that they spend sneering at Snowden and Greenwald, Americans might demand that the government stop spying on them.
But to much of the mainstream (and not-so-mainstream) media, Snowden and Greenwald — not the NSA, the Obama administration, and the supine Congress — are the story — a story of villainy.
The examples are endless. The day after Snowden revealed himself as the whistleblower, Joe Scarborough, the former Republican congressman and host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, ordered his director to take the image of “that weasel” off the screen. The other day, his sidekick, Mika Brzezinski, asked, “Is there anything we can do to track him down?” (Emphasis added.) She meant the government.
Brzezinski went on to accuse Snowden of taking the job with NSA contractor Booz Allen Hamilton “to screw over our government.” That’s how one who speaks power to truth spins it. Snowden’s service to the American people is hardly undercut by his having taken the job intending to expose government violations of the Fourth Amendment.
MSNBC’s self-identification as a progressive network is hard to square with its unrelenting assaults on Snowden and Greenwald, and its de-emphasis of NSA surveillance. Andrea Mitchell, who functions as the network’s chief diplomatic stenographer, wondered why the NSA was hiring contractors when it could be recruiting people with the “right value system” from the military. (She’s forgotten that whistleblower Bradley Manning is in the military.) Chris Matthews of Hardball says that any foreign government that won’t turn Snowden over to the U.S. government is “no buddy of ours.”
MSNBC personnel routinely describe Greenwald as “defensive,” which apparently is their code word for people who push back at stupid questions. For example, when Gregory asked Greenwald if he could be indicted for “aiding and abetting” Snowden, and Greenwald asked in return how a journalist could equate reporting with criminal activity, he was treated with disdain. Gregory even questioned Greenwald’s journalistic credentials, as did Paul Farhi of the Washington Post.
I’ve focused on MSNBC because it has so egregiously and persistently circled the wagons around the government. It’s an old story: TV hosts and reporters need access to government officials, but access is jeopardized if they antagonize those officials. Better to play it safe and sneer at Snowden and Greenwald.
You don’t have to work for MSNBC to suck up to power. Op-ed writers from conservative David Brooks to progressive Richard Cohen have tried to portray Snowden as an alienated oddball, as though no one could have a legitimate purpose in unmasking government surveillance. (Brooks thought it relevant to write that Snowden “has not been a regular presence around his mother’s house for years.” Really!) Pundits repeatedly refer to Snowden’s having dropped out of high school, which apparently signals some serious moral or mental defect in the young man. More likely he was bored with the dull and regimented curriculum so typical of government high schools.
Others have tried to read much into Snowden’s stops in Hong Kong and Moscow. He might be a spy, they suggest. But wouldn’t a spy have kept his identity secret while selling his information to “the enemy”? It doesn’t occur to the pundits that Snowden’s priority right now is to stay out of the clutches of the U.S. government. Snowden has no moral obligation to be a martyr. Let’s not forget how Bradley Manning has been treated for his disclosures of government wrongdoing. He faces life imprisonment.
Snowden and Greenwald have not “aided the enemy” — unless the American people are the government’s enemy. What they have done is embarrass the Obama administration by exposing criminal activity.
For the media’s defenders of power against truth, that’s inexcusable.
Link:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/reviews/opinion/item/15850-big-brother-not-snowden-and-greenwald-is-the-story
NSA: Blackmail central...
Jon Rappoport
Every director of the NSA is a general or an admiral.
The NSA is organized under the US Dept. of Defense.
Imagine that you are a powerful player who straddles two worlds—the Dept. of Defense and the private sector where corporate defense-contractors live and flourish.
You’ve served many times in both arenas. Your name is Mr. Military Industrial Complex.
Your mission is war.
The reasons for war don’t matter. Reasons can be invented at the drop of a hat. You want endless armed conflict.
That’s how you make your money. That’s how you express your impulses. That’s your single obsession. That’s how you forward Empire.
You don’t have to justify what you do or consult your conscience. Those days, if they ever existed, are long past. You’re a war-monger and you’re proud of it.
Your basic challenge, on behalf of the military industrial complex, is working the political machinery in Washington—the Congress, the president, the two major Parties—in order to make war happen.
One day, you look around and you say, “I have a whole super-agency at my disposal. It’s organized under the Dept. of Defense. It-called the NSA. It spies on everybody all the time.”
You realize you can use the NSA to collect endless amounts of information on Congress, the White House, the president, the press, and the Democratic and Republican leadership.
Well, the NSA is already doing that.
So the question is: will you use that explosive information, that very private information gained through spying, to coerce these politicians to go to war when you want to go to war?
Is the Pope Catholic?
Of course you’ll use it. You’d be a complete fool not to.
In fact, in the long run, this may well be the most important function of NSA.
Yes. Given your overriding mission in life, it is the most important function of NSA.
It’s job number one.
So you’re going to make sure the resources of the NSA are tuned up quite effectively to extract the information you need.
It’s called blackmail.
It’s called extortion.
It’s beautiful.
It’s the natural use of the NSA, within the overall structure of the military industrial complex.
There are always recalcitrant members of Congress and reluctant presidents who could use a push to go to war.
These politicians, the overwhelming majority of them, are criminals. Let’s face it. They’re remarkably indifferent to human life.
They cheat and lie and steal. They have private secrets. They commit acts that would, if exposed, embarrass them and destroy their pathetic careers.
They’re wonderfully fertile targets for spying and blackmail.
You have the spear. The leading point that can penetrate those secrets.
The NSA.
The logic is perfect and complete.
So you really have two enemies or targets. One, the foreign nation you intend to invade, and two, the politicians you need to convince to support that war.
In light of your latter target, the politicians, these words of Sun Tzu (The Art of War) take on new meaning:
“Attack [your enemy] where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.” For example, in a Senator’s hotel suite, with video capability, while he is in the arms of a hooker.
“The general who wins the battle makes many calculations in his temple before the battle.” For example, calculations focusing on politicians’ offshore bank accounts.
In the era of kings and queens, the monarch’s court was rife with intrigue and extortion. We labor under the misapprehension that this has all been cleared up and swept away in the time of “open government.”
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Only means and tools have changed.
Relentless PR projected at the public makes a case for honest, honorable, and embattled politicians. Secondary layers of PR make the case that rabidly morbid partisanship infects political life.
Both of these psyops are cover stories.
The core truth is harsher. Politicians are, overwhelmingly, creatures who have decided whom to sell their souls to.
That’s who they are. People of this stripe always wander off course in their private lives.
The NSA is there to record the wanderings and compile the secrets.
NSA is the elephant in the infested room called Washington.
It remembers everything.
War is war, and preparing to go to war is also war. The military industrial complex needs the NSA to close the deal.
Spying, blackmail.
This is how politicians’ arms are twisted and war is guaranteed.
Things aren’t left to chance. It isn’t, “Maybe some day we’ll go to war or maybe we won’t.”
The military industrial complex sells death. It’s backed up by the largest spying agency in the world, who has red-hot files on politicians’ scandalous private behavior.
From Russ Tice, former intelligence analyst with 20 years of experience at NSA, the US Air Force, the Office of Naval Intelligence, and the Defense Intelligence Agency, in a June 2013 interview with Boiling Frogs:
“They [NSA] went after [spied on] — and I know this because I had my hands literally on the paperwork for these sort of things — they went after high-ranking military officers; they went after members of Congress, both Senate and the House, especially on the intelligence committees and on the armed services committees and some of the — and judicial…
“They went after lawyers and law firms. All kinds of — heaps of lawyers and law firms. They went after judges. One of the judges is now sitting on the Supreme Court that I had his wiretap information in my hand. Two are former FISA court judges. They went after State Department officials. They went after people in the executive service that were part of the White House — their own people.
“Here’s the big one… this was in summer of 2004, one of the papers that I held in my hand was to wiretap a bunch of numbers associated with a 40-something-year-old wannabe senator for Illinois. You wouldn’t happen to know where that guy lives right now would you? It’s a big white house in Washington, D.C. That’s who they went after, and that’s the president of the United States now.”
Link:
http://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2013/06/28/is-the-nsa-blackmail-inc-for-the-military-industrial-complex/
Government monitoring your credit card transactions...
Multiple Government Agencies Are Keeping Records Of Your Credit Card Transactions
Michael Snyder
Were you under the impression that your credit card transactions are private? If so, I am sorry to burst your bubble. As you will see below, there are actually multiple government agencies that are gathering and storing records of your credit card transactions. And in turn, those government agencies share that information with other government agencies that want it. So if you are making a purchase that you don’t want anyone to know about, don’t use a credit card. This is one of the reasons why the government hates cash so much. It is just so hard to track. In this day and age, the federal government seems to be absolutely obsessed with gathering as much information about all of us as it possibly can. But there is one big problem.
What they are doing directly violates the U.S. Constitution. For those that are not familiar with it, the following is what the Fourth Amendment actually says: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” Unfortunately, the Fourth Amendment is essentially dead at this point. The federal government is investigating all of us and gathering information on all of us all day, every day without end.
Many Americans have never even heard of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, but Judicial Watch has discovered that they are spending millions of dollars to collect and analyze our financial transactions…
Judicial Watch announced today that it has obtained records from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) revealing that the agency has spent millions of dollars for the warrantless collection and analysis of Americans’ financial transactions. The documents also reveal that CFPB contractors may be required to share the information with “additional government entities.”
Judicial Watch was able to obtain some absolutely shocking documents thanks to a Freedom of Information Act request that it filed in April. The following is a summary of some of the things those documents show…
- Overlapping contracts with multiple credit reporting agencies and accounting firms to gather, store, and share credit card data as shown in the task list of a contract with Argus Information & Advisory Services LLC worth $2.9 million
- An “indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity” contract with Experian worth up to $8,426,650 to track daily consumer habits of select individuals without their awareness or consent
- $4,951,333 for software and instruction paid to Deloitte Consulting LLP
- A provision stipulating that “The contractor recognizes that, in performing this requirement, the Contractor may obtain access to non-public, confidential information, Personally Identifiable Information (PII), or proprietary information.”
- A stipulation that “The Contractor may be required to share credit card data collected from the Banks with additional government entities as directed by the Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR).”
How do you feel about the fact that the government has contracts with “multiple credit reporting agencies and accounting firms to gather, store, and share credit card data”?
How do you feel about the fact that your credit card data and other “non-public, confidential information” may be shared with “additional government entities”?
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton put it very well when he said that this “warrantless collection of the private financial information of millions of Americans is mind-blowing. Is there anything that this administration thinks it can’t do?”
But of course the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is not the only one keeping records of your credit card transactions.
We have also recently learned that the NSA is doing it too. The following is from a recent Time Magazine article…
Networks are most likely giving the government “metadata.” That is, the credit card issuers could provide the NSA details such as an account or card number, where and when a purchase was made, and for how much. Even though the exact items purchased aren’t revealed, Brian Krebs, who blogs atKrebsOnSecurity.com, says “merchant category codes” in such data give clues about what was bought.
If the NSA is collecting data at the processor level, “at that point the transaction gets cleared and posts to an account, so, yes, you can track it down to a person,” Aufsesser says.
The NSA conceivably could — and probably would — be able get the names of individual account holders from banks issuing credit cards. ”I don’t see how you would anonymize it,” says Al Pascual, senior analyst for security, risk and fraud for Javelin Strategy & Research.
We are rapidly becoming a “Big Brother society” where the government tracks virtually every move that we make.
And don’t think that you can escape this by not using credit cards or by staying off of the Internet. The truth is that we are being tracked in hundreds of different ways.
For example, have you heard of automated license plate readers?
They are being installed on police vehicles all over the nation, and the amount of information that they are gathering on all of us is frightening.
A computer security consultant named Michael Katz-Lacabe asked the city of San Leandro, California for a record of every time that these license plate readers had scanned his vehicle, and what he discovered absolutely stunned him…
The paperback-size device, installed on the outside of police cars, can log thousands of license plates in an eight-hour patrol shift. Katz-Lacabe said it had photographed his two cars on 112 occasions, including one image from 2009 that shows him and his daughters stepping out of his Toyota Prius in their driveway.
That photograph, Katz-Lacabe said, made him “frightened and concerned about the magnitude of police surveillance and data collection.” The single patrol car in San Leandro equipped with a plate reader had logged his car once a week on average, photographing his license plate and documenting the time and location.
At a rapid pace, and mostly hidden from the public, police agencies throughout California have been collecting millions of records on drivers and feeding them to intelligence fusion centers operated by local, state and federal law enforcement.
Most Americans do not even know that these devices exist, but they have been “collecting millions of records” and feeding them into law enforcement databases all over the nation.
In San Diego alone, more than 36 million license plate scans have been fed into a regional database just since 2010…
In San Diego, 13 federal and local law enforcement agencies have compiled more than 36 million license-plate scans in a regional database since 2010 with the help of federal homeland security grants. The San Diego Association of Governments maintains the database. Like the Northern California database, the San Diego system retains the data for between one and two years.
“License-plate data is clearly identifiable to specific individuals,” said Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “This is like having your barcode tracked.”
Is this the kind of society that we want to become?
Do we really want the police to be taking millions of photographs of us?
Do we really want all of our financial transactions to be fed directly into federal databases?
Do we really want the government to track every phone call we make and every email we send?
As I wrote about recently, it has been documented that literallythousands of companies have been handing over customer data to the NSA.
Is this the kind of legacy that we want to leave for our children and our grandchildren?
Fortunately, it appears that at least some Americans are waking up to all of this.
According to a brand new Rasmussen survey, 56 percent of likely voters in the United States now believe that the federal government is a threat to individual rights…
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 56% of Likely U.S. Voters now consider the federal government a threat to individual rights rather than a protector of those rights. That’s up 10 points from 46% in December.
While 54% of liberal voters consider the feds to be a protector of individual rights, 78% of conservatives and 49% of moderates see the government as a threat.
Overall, only 30% believe the feds today are a protector of individual rights. Fourteen percent (14%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording,click here.)
If the American people do not stand up and demand change, the people that are constantly violating our privacy are going to continue to do so.
Sadly, the vast majority of the politicians in both major political parties seem to think that there is nothing wrong with the status quo. So I wouldn’t expect any major changes in the short-term. But hopefully government surveillance will start to become such a major issue with the American people that the politicians will be forced to start addressing it.
Link:
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/multiple-government-agencies-are-keeping-records-of-your-credit-card-transactions
Michael Snyder
Were you under the impression that your credit card transactions are private? If so, I am sorry to burst your bubble. As you will see below, there are actually multiple government agencies that are gathering and storing records of your credit card transactions. And in turn, those government agencies share that information with other government agencies that want it. So if you are making a purchase that you don’t want anyone to know about, don’t use a credit card. This is one of the reasons why the government hates cash so much. It is just so hard to track. In this day and age, the federal government seems to be absolutely obsessed with gathering as much information about all of us as it possibly can. But there is one big problem.
What they are doing directly violates the U.S. Constitution. For those that are not familiar with it, the following is what the Fourth Amendment actually says: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” Unfortunately, the Fourth Amendment is essentially dead at this point. The federal government is investigating all of us and gathering information on all of us all day, every day without end.
Many Americans have never even heard of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, but Judicial Watch has discovered that they are spending millions of dollars to collect and analyze our financial transactions…
Judicial Watch announced today that it has obtained records from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) revealing that the agency has spent millions of dollars for the warrantless collection and analysis of Americans’ financial transactions. The documents also reveal that CFPB contractors may be required to share the information with “additional government entities.”
Judicial Watch was able to obtain some absolutely shocking documents thanks to a Freedom of Information Act request that it filed in April. The following is a summary of some of the things those documents show…
- Overlapping contracts with multiple credit reporting agencies and accounting firms to gather, store, and share credit card data as shown in the task list of a contract with Argus Information & Advisory Services LLC worth $2.9 million
- An “indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity” contract with Experian worth up to $8,426,650 to track daily consumer habits of select individuals without their awareness or consent
- $4,951,333 for software and instruction paid to Deloitte Consulting LLP
- A provision stipulating that “The contractor recognizes that, in performing this requirement, the Contractor may obtain access to non-public, confidential information, Personally Identifiable Information (PII), or proprietary information.”
- A stipulation that “The Contractor may be required to share credit card data collected from the Banks with additional government entities as directed by the Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR).”
How do you feel about the fact that the government has contracts with “multiple credit reporting agencies and accounting firms to gather, store, and share credit card data”?
How do you feel about the fact that your credit card data and other “non-public, confidential information” may be shared with “additional government entities”?
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton put it very well when he said that this “warrantless collection of the private financial information of millions of Americans is mind-blowing. Is there anything that this administration thinks it can’t do?”
But of course the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is not the only one keeping records of your credit card transactions.
We have also recently learned that the NSA is doing it too. The following is from a recent Time Magazine article…
Networks are most likely giving the government “metadata.” That is, the credit card issuers could provide the NSA details such as an account or card number, where and when a purchase was made, and for how much. Even though the exact items purchased aren’t revealed, Brian Krebs, who blogs atKrebsOnSecurity.com, says “merchant category codes” in such data give clues about what was bought.
If the NSA is collecting data at the processor level, “at that point the transaction gets cleared and posts to an account, so, yes, you can track it down to a person,” Aufsesser says.
The NSA conceivably could — and probably would — be able get the names of individual account holders from banks issuing credit cards. ”I don’t see how you would anonymize it,” says Al Pascual, senior analyst for security, risk and fraud for Javelin Strategy & Research.
We are rapidly becoming a “Big Brother society” where the government tracks virtually every move that we make.
And don’t think that you can escape this by not using credit cards or by staying off of the Internet. The truth is that we are being tracked in hundreds of different ways.
For example, have you heard of automated license plate readers?
They are being installed on police vehicles all over the nation, and the amount of information that they are gathering on all of us is frightening.
A computer security consultant named Michael Katz-Lacabe asked the city of San Leandro, California for a record of every time that these license plate readers had scanned his vehicle, and what he discovered absolutely stunned him…
The paperback-size device, installed on the outside of police cars, can log thousands of license plates in an eight-hour patrol shift. Katz-Lacabe said it had photographed his two cars on 112 occasions, including one image from 2009 that shows him and his daughters stepping out of his Toyota Prius in their driveway.
That photograph, Katz-Lacabe said, made him “frightened and concerned about the magnitude of police surveillance and data collection.” The single patrol car in San Leandro equipped with a plate reader had logged his car once a week on average, photographing his license plate and documenting the time and location.
At a rapid pace, and mostly hidden from the public, police agencies throughout California have been collecting millions of records on drivers and feeding them to intelligence fusion centers operated by local, state and federal law enforcement.
Most Americans do not even know that these devices exist, but they have been “collecting millions of records” and feeding them into law enforcement databases all over the nation.
In San Diego alone, more than 36 million license plate scans have been fed into a regional database just since 2010…
In San Diego, 13 federal and local law enforcement agencies have compiled more than 36 million license-plate scans in a regional database since 2010 with the help of federal homeland security grants. The San Diego Association of Governments maintains the database. Like the Northern California database, the San Diego system retains the data for between one and two years.
“License-plate data is clearly identifiable to specific individuals,” said Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “This is like having your barcode tracked.”
Is this the kind of society that we want to become?
Do we really want the police to be taking millions of photographs of us?
Do we really want all of our financial transactions to be fed directly into federal databases?
Do we really want the government to track every phone call we make and every email we send?
As I wrote about recently, it has been documented that literallythousands of companies have been handing over customer data to the NSA.
Is this the kind of legacy that we want to leave for our children and our grandchildren?
Fortunately, it appears that at least some Americans are waking up to all of this.
According to a brand new Rasmussen survey, 56 percent of likely voters in the United States now believe that the federal government is a threat to individual rights…
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 56% of Likely U.S. Voters now consider the federal government a threat to individual rights rather than a protector of those rights. That’s up 10 points from 46% in December.
While 54% of liberal voters consider the feds to be a protector of individual rights, 78% of conservatives and 49% of moderates see the government as a threat.
Overall, only 30% believe the feds today are a protector of individual rights. Fourteen percent (14%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording,click here.)
If the American people do not stand up and demand change, the people that are constantly violating our privacy are going to continue to do so.
Sadly, the vast majority of the politicians in both major political parties seem to think that there is nothing wrong with the status quo. So I wouldn’t expect any major changes in the short-term. But hopefully government surveillance will start to become such a major issue with the American people that the politicians will be forced to start addressing it.
Link:
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/multiple-government-agencies-are-keeping-records-of-your-credit-card-transactions
Friday, June 28, 2013
The new liberal Bill of Rights...(by Ben Crystal)
Congress of Liberals
Begun and held on board Warren Buffett’s private jet, on a day that is none of your business, peon.
The Conventions of a number of the Democrats, having at the time of their abrogating the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent protection by or use of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public obedience to the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.
Resolved by the President and his accomplices against the United States of America, in smoky back rooms assembled, two thirds of both Houses ignored, that the following Articles be imposed on the People of the several States, as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all, or any of which Articles, when ratified by three or four Democrats, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz.
Articles in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by liberal hate groups, and ratified by the New York Times editorial board, pursuant to the Communist Manifesto and Rules for Radicals.
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion other than the worship of its authority, or allowing the free exercise thereof; or promoting the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Amendment II
A well regulated Militia, being a threat to the security of the Democrats, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be permitted.
Amendment III
No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, unless the house belongs to someone who didn’t vote for the President.
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, unless Harry Reid heard from some guy that they didn’t pay their “fair share.”
Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury or the Attorney General, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger, or in the event that person has demonstrated resistance to the President and the Democrats; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb, unless that offence involves aforementioned resistance; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, unless the National Security Agency catches them reading Personal Liberty Digest™, or watching FOX News, or buying a copy of Atlas Shrugged, or attending a Tea Party rally; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation, unless a real estate developer determines it would be a good location for a shopping center or homeless shelter or ACORN office.
Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall be presumed guilty by a partisan jury of the corporate media; unless the accused is a cop-killer, or islamofascist terrorist, or a union thug, or might otherwise be considered really cool by the Democrats, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation via notice broadcast on MSNBC or uploaded to the Huffington Post; to be berated by Code Pink; to be mocked by Bill Maher when he’s not enumerating his “mommy issues,” and to be burned in effigy by the Occupy fleabags.
Amendment VII
In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, as long as the American Trial Lawyers’ Association can make an easy buck off it.
Amendment VIII
The People will pay what the government tells them; and will thank the Government for the privilege.
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the President.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the President by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the President, are reserved to the President, or to Hillary Clinton.
Link:
http://personalliberty.com/2013/06/25/the-bill-of-rights-an-updating/
Begun and held on board Warren Buffett’s private jet, on a day that is none of your business, peon.
The Conventions of a number of the Democrats, having at the time of their abrogating the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent protection by or use of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public obedience to the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.
Resolved by the President and his accomplices against the United States of America, in smoky back rooms assembled, two thirds of both Houses ignored, that the following Articles be imposed on the People of the several States, as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all, or any of which Articles, when ratified by three or four Democrats, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz.
Articles in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by liberal hate groups, and ratified by the New York Times editorial board, pursuant to the Communist Manifesto and Rules for Radicals.
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion other than the worship of its authority, or allowing the free exercise thereof; or promoting the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Amendment II
A well regulated Militia, being a threat to the security of the Democrats, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be permitted.
Amendment III
No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, unless the house belongs to someone who didn’t vote for the President.
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, unless Harry Reid heard from some guy that they didn’t pay their “fair share.”
Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury or the Attorney General, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger, or in the event that person has demonstrated resistance to the President and the Democrats; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb, unless that offence involves aforementioned resistance; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, unless the National Security Agency catches them reading Personal Liberty Digest™, or watching FOX News, or buying a copy of Atlas Shrugged, or attending a Tea Party rally; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation, unless a real estate developer determines it would be a good location for a shopping center or homeless shelter or ACORN office.
Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall be presumed guilty by a partisan jury of the corporate media; unless the accused is a cop-killer, or islamofascist terrorist, or a union thug, or might otherwise be considered really cool by the Democrats, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation via notice broadcast on MSNBC or uploaded to the Huffington Post; to be berated by Code Pink; to be mocked by Bill Maher when he’s not enumerating his “mommy issues,” and to be burned in effigy by the Occupy fleabags.
Amendment VII
In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, as long as the American Trial Lawyers’ Association can make an easy buck off it.
Amendment VIII
The People will pay what the government tells them; and will thank the Government for the privilege.
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the President.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the President by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the President, are reserved to the President, or to Hillary Clinton.
Link:
http://personalliberty.com/2013/06/25/the-bill-of-rights-an-updating/
"It is not possible for a true patriot to support a government that destroys the Constitution. The United States is the Constitution. Our country is not the Obama regime, the Bush regime, or some other administration. Our country is the Constitution. The Constitution is our country."
Washington Is Driving The World To The Final War
Paul Craig Roberts
“V For Vendetta,” a film that portrays evil in a futuristic England as a proxy for the evil that exists today in America, ends with the defeat of evil. But this is a movie in which the hero has super powers. If you have not seen this film, you should watch it. It might wake you up and give you courage. The excerpts below show that, at least among some filmmakers, the desire for liberty still exists.
Whether the desire for liberty exists in America remains to be seen. If Americans can overcome their gullibility, their lifelong brainwashing, their propensity to believe every lie that “their” government tells them, and if Americans can escape the Matrix in which they live, they can reestablish the morality, justice, peace, freedom, and liberty that “their” government has taken from them. It is not impossible for Americans to again stand with uplifted heads. They only have to recognize that “their” government is the enemy of truth, justice, human rights and life itself.
Can mere ordinary Americans triumph over the evil that is “their” government without the aid of a superhero? If ideas are strong enough and Americans can comprehend them, good can prevail over the evil that is concentrated in Washington. What stands between the American people and their comprehension of evil is their gullibility.
If good fails in its battle with Washington’s evil, our future is a boot stamping on the human face forever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKvvOFIHs4k&feature=youtu.be
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-gHVGOoE48
If you, an American, living in superpower America lack the courage to stand up to the evil that is “your” government, perhaps the courage of Edward Snowden, Bradley Manning, Julian Assange, and tiny Ecuador will give you heart.
A US senator from New Jersey, Robert Menendez, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told the Ecuadoran government that he would block the import of vegetables and flowers from Ecuador if Ecuador gives asylum to Edward Snowden. The cost to Ecuador would be one billion dollars in lost revenues.
Menendez’s statement–”Our government will not reward countries for bad behavior”–is ironic. It equates bad behavior with protecting a truth-teller and good behavior with betraying a truth-teller. Menendez’s statement is also a lie. The US government only rewards bad behavior. The US government consistently rewards those who conspire against the elected governments of their own countries, setting them up as dictators when Washington overthrows the elected governments.
Menendez’s threat did not work, but the senator did succeed in delivering yet another humiliating blow to Washington’s prestige. The Ecuadoran President, Rafael Correa, beat Menendez to the punch and cancelled the trade pact with the US on the grounds that the pact was a threat to the sovereignty of Ecuador and to moral principles and was being used by Washington to blackmail Ecuador. “Ecuador doesn’t accept pressure or threats from anyone,” added Communications Secretary Fernando Alvarado who then offered Washington foreign aid to provide human rights training to combat torture, illegal executions and attacks on peoples’ privacy.
Washington, exposed with its hand in the cookie jar devouring the privacy of the entire world and prevented by its hubris from acknowledging its illegal behavior and apologizing, has so mishandled the Snowden affair that Washington has done far more damage to itself than occurred from Snowden’s revelations. Washington has proven conclusively that it has no respect for anyone’s human rights, that it has no respect for any country’s sovereignty, that it has no respect for any moral principles, especially those it most often mouths, and that it relies on coercion and violence alone. The rest of the world now knows who its enemy is.
Washington’s presstitutes, by helping Washington demonize Snowden, Glenn Greenwald, Manning, Assange, and Ecuador, have demonstrated to the world that the US media is devoid of integrity and that nothing it reports can be believed. The US print and TV media and NPR comprise a ministry of propaganda for Washington’s immoral agendas.
On June 24, the Stasi State’s favorite whore, the Washington Post, denounced three times democratically-elected Rafael Correa as “the autocratic leader of tiny, impoverished Ecuador,” without realizing that the editorial not only demonstrated the Washington Post’s lack of any ethics whatsoever but also showed the entire world that if “tiny, impoverished Ecuador” can stand up to Washington’s threats, so can the rest of the world.
President Correa replied that the Washington Post “managed to focus attention on Snowden and on the ‘wicked’ countries that support him, making us forget the terrible things against the US people and the whole world that he denounced.” Correa added that Washington’s “world order isn’t only unjust, it’s immoral.”
The reason Washington hates Correa has nothing to do with Snowden. That Ecuador is considering asylum for Snowden is just an excuse. Correa is hated, because in the second year of his first term he repudiated the $3 billion dollar foreign debt that corrupt and despotic prior regimes had been paid to contract with international finance. Correa’s default threat forced the international financial gangsters to write down the debt by 60 percent.
Washington also hates Correa because he has been successful in reducing the high rates of poverty in Ecuador, thus building public support that makes if difficult for Washington to overthrow him from within.
Yet another reason Washington hates Correa is because he took steps against the multinational oil companies’ exploitation of Ecuador’s oil resources and limited the amount of offshore deposits in the country’s banks in order to block Washington’s ability to destabilize Ecuador’s financial system.
Washington also hates Correa for refusing to renew Washington’s lease of the air base in Manta.
Essentially, Correa has fought to take control of Ecuador’s government, media and national resources out of Washington’s hands and the hands of the small rich elite allied with Washington. It is a David vs. Goliath story.
In other words, Correa, like Venezuela’s Chevez, is the rare foreign leader who represents the interests of his own country instead of Washington’s interest.
Washington uses the various corrupt NGOs and the puppet government in Colombia as weapons against Correa and the Ecuadoran government. Many believe that it is only a matter of time before Washington succeeds in assassinating Correa.
American patriots, who feel that they should be on “their” government’s side regardless of the facts, would do well to remember what true patriotism is. For Americans, patriotism has always meant allegiance to the Constitution, not to the government. The oath is to defend the Constitution against enemies domestic and foreign. The Bush and Obama regimes have proven themselves to be the Constitution’s worst enemies. It is not possible for a true patriot to support a government that destroys the Constitution. The United States is the Constitution. Our country is not the Obama regime, the Bush regime, or some other administration. Our country is the Constitution. The Constitution is our country.
Beyond obligations to one’s own country, all humans have a responsibility to human life itself. Washington’s puppet states, such as the NATO countries, Japan, and Colombia, by providing cover and support for Washington’s aggression are enabling Washington to drive the world into World War III.
The temptation of Washington’s money easily overwhelms weak characters such as Tony Blair and David Cameron. But the governments of NATO countries and other accommodating states are not only selling out their own peoples by supporting Washington’s wars of aggression, they are selling out humanity. Washington’s hubris and arrogance grow as Washington bumps off country after country. Sooner or later Russia and China, will realize that they themselves are targets and will draw firmer lines. Arrogance will prevent Washington from acknowledging the lines, and the final war will be launched.
Washington’s hegemonic impulse is driving the world to destruction. The peoples of the world should realize this and force their governments to stop enabling Washington’s aggression.
Link:
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2013/06/28/washington-is-driving-the-world-to-the-final-war-paul-craig-roberts/
Paul Craig Roberts
“V For Vendetta,” a film that portrays evil in a futuristic England as a proxy for the evil that exists today in America, ends with the defeat of evil. But this is a movie in which the hero has super powers. If you have not seen this film, you should watch it. It might wake you up and give you courage. The excerpts below show that, at least among some filmmakers, the desire for liberty still exists.
Whether the desire for liberty exists in America remains to be seen. If Americans can overcome their gullibility, their lifelong brainwashing, their propensity to believe every lie that “their” government tells them, and if Americans can escape the Matrix in which they live, they can reestablish the morality, justice, peace, freedom, and liberty that “their” government has taken from them. It is not impossible for Americans to again stand with uplifted heads. They only have to recognize that “their” government is the enemy of truth, justice, human rights and life itself.
Can mere ordinary Americans triumph over the evil that is “their” government without the aid of a superhero? If ideas are strong enough and Americans can comprehend them, good can prevail over the evil that is concentrated in Washington. What stands between the American people and their comprehension of evil is their gullibility.
If good fails in its battle with Washington’s evil, our future is a boot stamping on the human face forever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKvvOFIHs4k&feature=youtu.be
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-gHVGOoE48
If you, an American, living in superpower America lack the courage to stand up to the evil that is “your” government, perhaps the courage of Edward Snowden, Bradley Manning, Julian Assange, and tiny Ecuador will give you heart.
A US senator from New Jersey, Robert Menendez, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told the Ecuadoran government that he would block the import of vegetables and flowers from Ecuador if Ecuador gives asylum to Edward Snowden. The cost to Ecuador would be one billion dollars in lost revenues.
Menendez’s statement–”Our government will not reward countries for bad behavior”–is ironic. It equates bad behavior with protecting a truth-teller and good behavior with betraying a truth-teller. Menendez’s statement is also a lie. The US government only rewards bad behavior. The US government consistently rewards those who conspire against the elected governments of their own countries, setting them up as dictators when Washington overthrows the elected governments.
Menendez’s threat did not work, but the senator did succeed in delivering yet another humiliating blow to Washington’s prestige. The Ecuadoran President, Rafael Correa, beat Menendez to the punch and cancelled the trade pact with the US on the grounds that the pact was a threat to the sovereignty of Ecuador and to moral principles and was being used by Washington to blackmail Ecuador. “Ecuador doesn’t accept pressure or threats from anyone,” added Communications Secretary Fernando Alvarado who then offered Washington foreign aid to provide human rights training to combat torture, illegal executions and attacks on peoples’ privacy.
Washington, exposed with its hand in the cookie jar devouring the privacy of the entire world and prevented by its hubris from acknowledging its illegal behavior and apologizing, has so mishandled the Snowden affair that Washington has done far more damage to itself than occurred from Snowden’s revelations. Washington has proven conclusively that it has no respect for anyone’s human rights, that it has no respect for any country’s sovereignty, that it has no respect for any moral principles, especially those it most often mouths, and that it relies on coercion and violence alone. The rest of the world now knows who its enemy is.
Washington’s presstitutes, by helping Washington demonize Snowden, Glenn Greenwald, Manning, Assange, and Ecuador, have demonstrated to the world that the US media is devoid of integrity and that nothing it reports can be believed. The US print and TV media and NPR comprise a ministry of propaganda for Washington’s immoral agendas.
On June 24, the Stasi State’s favorite whore, the Washington Post, denounced three times democratically-elected Rafael Correa as “the autocratic leader of tiny, impoverished Ecuador,” without realizing that the editorial not only demonstrated the Washington Post’s lack of any ethics whatsoever but also showed the entire world that if “tiny, impoverished Ecuador” can stand up to Washington’s threats, so can the rest of the world.
President Correa replied that the Washington Post “managed to focus attention on Snowden and on the ‘wicked’ countries that support him, making us forget the terrible things against the US people and the whole world that he denounced.” Correa added that Washington’s “world order isn’t only unjust, it’s immoral.”
The reason Washington hates Correa has nothing to do with Snowden. That Ecuador is considering asylum for Snowden is just an excuse. Correa is hated, because in the second year of his first term he repudiated the $3 billion dollar foreign debt that corrupt and despotic prior regimes had been paid to contract with international finance. Correa’s default threat forced the international financial gangsters to write down the debt by 60 percent.
Washington also hates Correa because he has been successful in reducing the high rates of poverty in Ecuador, thus building public support that makes if difficult for Washington to overthrow him from within.
Yet another reason Washington hates Correa is because he took steps against the multinational oil companies’ exploitation of Ecuador’s oil resources and limited the amount of offshore deposits in the country’s banks in order to block Washington’s ability to destabilize Ecuador’s financial system.
Washington also hates Correa for refusing to renew Washington’s lease of the air base in Manta.
Essentially, Correa has fought to take control of Ecuador’s government, media and national resources out of Washington’s hands and the hands of the small rich elite allied with Washington. It is a David vs. Goliath story.
In other words, Correa, like Venezuela’s Chevez, is the rare foreign leader who represents the interests of his own country instead of Washington’s interest.
Washington uses the various corrupt NGOs and the puppet government in Colombia as weapons against Correa and the Ecuadoran government. Many believe that it is only a matter of time before Washington succeeds in assassinating Correa.
American patriots, who feel that they should be on “their” government’s side regardless of the facts, would do well to remember what true patriotism is. For Americans, patriotism has always meant allegiance to the Constitution, not to the government. The oath is to defend the Constitution against enemies domestic and foreign. The Bush and Obama regimes have proven themselves to be the Constitution’s worst enemies. It is not possible for a true patriot to support a government that destroys the Constitution. The United States is the Constitution. Our country is not the Obama regime, the Bush regime, or some other administration. Our country is the Constitution. The Constitution is our country.
Beyond obligations to one’s own country, all humans have a responsibility to human life itself. Washington’s puppet states, such as the NATO countries, Japan, and Colombia, by providing cover and support for Washington’s aggression are enabling Washington to drive the world into World War III.
The temptation of Washington’s money easily overwhelms weak characters such as Tony Blair and David Cameron. But the governments of NATO countries and other accommodating states are not only selling out their own peoples by supporting Washington’s wars of aggression, they are selling out humanity. Washington’s hubris and arrogance grow as Washington bumps off country after country. Sooner or later Russia and China, will realize that they themselves are targets and will draw firmer lines. Arrogance will prevent Washington from acknowledging the lines, and the final war will be launched.
Washington’s hegemonic impulse is driving the world to destruction. The peoples of the world should realize this and force their governments to stop enabling Washington’s aggression.
Link:
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2013/06/28/washington-is-driving-the-world-to-the-final-war-paul-craig-roberts/
"President Obama - who, in 2006, criticized the Bush Administration for using the NSA to spy on Americans - has launched a campaign against whistleblowers who disclose illegal and illicit activities committed by the federal government."
When government goes rogue: Obama imprisons whistleblowers who expose crimes
by: J. D. Heyes
Is there a fine - or a not-so-fine - line between the public's right to know and keeping classified information classified? That is the question swirling around NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden's recent disclosure that the spy agency he worked for was conducting blanket surveillance on American citizens, in apparent violation of its charter to focus on foreign-based threats.
Following his exposure of the NSA's activities the Guardian, a British newspaper, earlier this month, the Obama Administration has since charged Snowden under the Espionage Act, which was passed in 1917 as the United States prepared to enter World War I. The law was aimed at preventing disclosure of top secret information that could help an enemy, but not just during wartime; some - mostly members of Congress and the Big Government establishment - now argue that Snowden, in disclosing the NSA's activities, broke that law.
But it is interesting to note that, even before Snowden made his disclosures, President Obama - who, in 2006, criticized the Bush Administration for using the NSA to spy on Americans - has launched a campaign against whistleblowers who disclose illegal and illicit activities committed by the federal government.
Do as I say, not as I do
"...President Bush is not above the law," then-Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois said on the floor of the Senate, as his chamber considered the nomination of Gen. Michael Hayden to become head of the CIA. "No president is above the law."
Unless, of course, he is president.
Per McClatchy Newspapers:
President Barack Obama's unprecedented initiative, known as the Insider Threat Program, is sweeping in its reach. It has received scant public attention even though it extends beyond the U.S. national security bureaucracies to most federal departments and agencies nationwide, including the Peace Corps, the Social Security Administration and the Education and Agriculture departments. It emphasizes leaks of classified material, but catchall definitions of "insider threat" give agencies latitude to pursue and penalize a range of other conduct.
How's that for a man who once claimed his is the most open, ethical administration in U.S. history, even as his NSA was intercepting and spying on every Americans' electronic communications? You can't make this stuff up.
Under the "insider" program, according to McClatchy - whose journalists will now, most likely, join the ranks of Fox News, CBS and The Associated Press to be targeted by Obama's Justice Department - some Executive Branch agencies are using the wide latitude to pursue disclosures of any information - not just classified materials, government documents reveal:
They also show how millions of federal employees and contractors must watch for "high-risk persons or behaviors" among co-workers and could face penalties, including criminal charges, for failing to report them. Leaks to the media are equated with espionage.
Chilling whistleblowing, but that is the goal, isn't it?
A June 1, 2012 Defense Department communique regarding the program encapsulates the Obama Administration's intolerance for leaks of any sort: "Hammer this fact home...leaking is tantamount to aiding the enemies of the United States."
That apparently includes blowing the whistle on any government program or operation that violates both the U.S. Constitution and the trust of the American people.
McClatchy reports that, in the wake of the Snowden disclosure, the president and his staff will most likely hasten the implementation of the insider threat program because again, the administration considers disclosure of illegal activity improper, not the actual activity itself.
'I'm waiting for a time when you turn in a friend and get a reward'
"Leaks related to national security can put people at risk," Obama said on May 16, in trying to defend his administration's vigorous criminal investigations into a series of leaks - not all of which, admittedly, have been whistleblowing efforts.
"They can put men and women in uniform that I've sent into the battlefield at risk. They can put some of our intelligence officers, who are in various, dangerous situations that are easily compromised, at risk," he said. "So I make no apologies, and I don't think the American people would expect me as commander in chief not to be concerned about information that might compromise their missions or might get them killed."
Well, true - but those same "American people" want to be assured that you have our backs when it comes to protecting our privacy, Mr. President. And apparently, you don't.
What's more, national security experts, as well as current and former U.S. officials familiar with the way government works, are afraid the Insider Threat Program will, at its worse, discourage the kind of whistleblowing Snowden's revelations represent, which in turn will harm the public's right to know and national security overall.
"It was just a matter of time before the Department of Agriculture or the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) started implementing, 'Hey, let's get people to snitch on their friends.' The only thing they haven't done here is reward it," Kel McClanahan, a Washington lawyer who specializes in national security law, told McClatchey. "I'm waiting for the time when you turn in a friend and you get a $50 reward."
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/040992_President_Obama_whistleblowers_Ed_Snowden.html#ixzz2XZ5fAEFA
by: J. D. Heyes
Is there a fine - or a not-so-fine - line between the public's right to know and keeping classified information classified? That is the question swirling around NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden's recent disclosure that the spy agency he worked for was conducting blanket surveillance on American citizens, in apparent violation of its charter to focus on foreign-based threats.
Following his exposure of the NSA's activities the Guardian, a British newspaper, earlier this month, the Obama Administration has since charged Snowden under the Espionage Act, which was passed in 1917 as the United States prepared to enter World War I. The law was aimed at preventing disclosure of top secret information that could help an enemy, but not just during wartime; some - mostly members of Congress and the Big Government establishment - now argue that Snowden, in disclosing the NSA's activities, broke that law.
But it is interesting to note that, even before Snowden made his disclosures, President Obama - who, in 2006, criticized the Bush Administration for using the NSA to spy on Americans - has launched a campaign against whistleblowers who disclose illegal and illicit activities committed by the federal government.
Do as I say, not as I do
"...President Bush is not above the law," then-Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois said on the floor of the Senate, as his chamber considered the nomination of Gen. Michael Hayden to become head of the CIA. "No president is above the law."
Unless, of course, he is president.
Per McClatchy Newspapers:
President Barack Obama's unprecedented initiative, known as the Insider Threat Program, is sweeping in its reach. It has received scant public attention even though it extends beyond the U.S. national security bureaucracies to most federal departments and agencies nationwide, including the Peace Corps, the Social Security Administration and the Education and Agriculture departments. It emphasizes leaks of classified material, but catchall definitions of "insider threat" give agencies latitude to pursue and penalize a range of other conduct.
How's that for a man who once claimed his is the most open, ethical administration in U.S. history, even as his NSA was intercepting and spying on every Americans' electronic communications? You can't make this stuff up.
Under the "insider" program, according to McClatchy - whose journalists will now, most likely, join the ranks of Fox News, CBS and The Associated Press to be targeted by Obama's Justice Department - some Executive Branch agencies are using the wide latitude to pursue disclosures of any information - not just classified materials, government documents reveal:
They also show how millions of federal employees and contractors must watch for "high-risk persons or behaviors" among co-workers and could face penalties, including criminal charges, for failing to report them. Leaks to the media are equated with espionage.
Chilling whistleblowing, but that is the goal, isn't it?
A June 1, 2012 Defense Department communique regarding the program encapsulates the Obama Administration's intolerance for leaks of any sort: "Hammer this fact home...leaking is tantamount to aiding the enemies of the United States."
That apparently includes blowing the whistle on any government program or operation that violates both the U.S. Constitution and the trust of the American people.
McClatchy reports that, in the wake of the Snowden disclosure, the president and his staff will most likely hasten the implementation of the insider threat program because again, the administration considers disclosure of illegal activity improper, not the actual activity itself.
'I'm waiting for a time when you turn in a friend and get a reward'
"Leaks related to national security can put people at risk," Obama said on May 16, in trying to defend his administration's vigorous criminal investigations into a series of leaks - not all of which, admittedly, have been whistleblowing efforts.
"They can put men and women in uniform that I've sent into the battlefield at risk. They can put some of our intelligence officers, who are in various, dangerous situations that are easily compromised, at risk," he said. "So I make no apologies, and I don't think the American people would expect me as commander in chief not to be concerned about information that might compromise their missions or might get them killed."
Well, true - but those same "American people" want to be assured that you have our backs when it comes to protecting our privacy, Mr. President. And apparently, you don't.
What's more, national security experts, as well as current and former U.S. officials familiar with the way government works, are afraid the Insider Threat Program will, at its worse, discourage the kind of whistleblowing Snowden's revelations represent, which in turn will harm the public's right to know and national security overall.
"It was just a matter of time before the Department of Agriculture or the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) started implementing, 'Hey, let's get people to snitch on their friends.' The only thing they haven't done here is reward it," Kel McClanahan, a Washington lawyer who specializes in national security law, told McClatchey. "I'm waiting for the time when you turn in a friend and you get a $50 reward."
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/040992_President_Obama_whistleblowers_Ed_Snowden.html#ixzz2XZ5fAEFA
"...the tiny little "mini-bubble" that we have seen in housing this year is rapidly coming to an end."
Mike Snyder
Did you actually think that mortgage rates were going to stay at all-time lows forever? Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke was able to grossly distort the market for a while by buying up massive amounts of government bonds and mortgage-backed securities, but there was no way in the world that the market was going to stay that distorted forever. It simply does not make sense to give American families 30 year mortgages at a fixed interest rate of less than four percent when the real rate of inflation is somewhere around eight to ten percent and the mortgage delinquency rate in the United States is 9.72 percent. If we actually did have "free markets" and they were behaving rationally, mortgage rates would be far, far higher. Well, now that the Fed has indicated that they are going to be starting to "taper" QE at some point, bond yields have skyrocketed and this is rapidly pushing up mortgage rates. According to Freddie Mac, we just witnessed the largest weekly increase in mortgage rates in 26 years. Sadly, this is only just the beginning. Unless the Federal Reserve intervenes, mortgage rates are going to continue to try to revert to normal.
When mortgage rates go up, so do monthly payments. All of a sudden, families that could afford the monthly payments on a $300,000 mortgage are no longer able to do so. This is why when mortgage rates rise, it tends to push housing prices down.
If rates continue to go up, it is going to become increasingly difficult to sell your house. Less people will be able to afford the monthly payments as rates rise. Many families will have to end up reducing their selling prices.
And right now we are watching rates rise at a rate that we have not seen since the 1980s. According to Freddie Mac, the average rate of interest on a 30 year fixed-rate mortgage jumped by more than half a percentage point just last week...
The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rose from 3.93 percent last week to 4.46 percent this week; the highest it has been since the week of July 28, 2011. This represents the largest weekly increase for the 30-year fixed since the week ended April 17, 1987.
A year ago, the 30 year rate was sitting at 3.66 percent.
The monthly payment on a $300,000 mortgage at that rate would be $1374.07.
Currently, the 30 year rate is sitting at 4.46 percent.
The monthly payment on a $300,000 mortgage at that rate would be $1512.93.
If the 30 year rate rises to 7 percent, the monthly payment on a $300,000 mortgage would be $1995.91.
Does 7 percent sound crazy to you?
It shouldn't.
As the chart posted below demonstrates, a 7 percent mortgage was considered "normal" a decade ago...
As you can see, mortgage rates have nowhere to go but up.
And as they go up, they are going to absolutely crush any semblance of a "housing recovery".
Meanwhile, Americans continue to get poorer.
This week we learned that real per capita disposable income plunged at an annualized rate of 9.21 percent in the first quarter of 2013.
That is absolutely astounding. We haven't seen anything like that since the darkest days of the last recession.
If Americans do not have money to spend, that is going to hurt every industry - including housing.
And already we are seeing pain in the housing market. For example, the number of mortgage applications has fallen by 29 percent over the last eight weeks.
And rising rates are also causing a lot of families to turn to adjustable rate mortgages.
Remember those?
They played a major role in the last housing crash, and according to CNBC they are now making a comeback...
After hovering around record lows for the past few years, mortgage rates are rising dramatically. That has consumers not only shopping more but also considering adjustable rate mortgages, which offer lower rates and lower monthly payments.
These ARMs, many requiring interest payments only, were popular during the latest housing boom but quickly fell out of favor when safer, fixed-rate loan rates fell to record lows.
So what does all of this mean?
It means that the tiny little "mini-bubble" that we have seen in housing this year is rapidly coming to an end.
It also means that it is going to become far more difficult to buy or sell a house. Monthly payments are going to go up substantially, and many homeowners are going to find that they are not going to be able to sell their homes for what they had anticipated.
If you are already in the process of buying a house, hopefully you locked in a really good rate while you could. Those record low mortgage rates sure were nice, and we will probably never see them again.
Now we are headed for a very painful "adjustment" thanks to Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve. They should never have distorted the housing market so much, and now we are all going to suffer the consequences.
Link:
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/soaring-mortgage-rates-are-going-to-make-it-far-more-difficult-to-buy-or-sell-a-house
Coming soon to a bank near you...
New EU Plan Will Make Every Bank Account In Europe Vulnerable To Cyprus-Style Wealth Confiscation
Mike Snyder
Did you actually believe that they were not going to use the precedent that they set in Cyprus? On Thursday, EU finance ministers agreed to a shocking new plan that will make every bank account in Europe vulnerable to Cyprus-style bail-ins. In other words, the wealth confiscation that we just witnessed in Cyprus will now be used as a template for future bank failures all over Europe. That means that if you have a bank account in Europe, you could wake up some morning and every penny in that account over 100,000 euros could be gone. That is exactly what happened in Cyprus, and now EU officials plan to do the same thing all over Europe. For quite a while EU officials insisted that Cyprus was a "special case", but now we see that was a lie. International outrage over what happened in Cyprus has died down, and now they are pushing forward with what they probably had planned all along. But why have they chosen this specific moment to implement such a plan? Are they anticipating that we will see a wave of bank failures soon? Do they know something that they aren't telling us?
Amazingly, this announcement received very little notice in the international media. The fact that bank account confiscation will now be a permanent part of the plan to bail out troubled banks in Europe should have made headline news all over the globe. The following is how CNN described the plan...
European Union finance ministers approved a plan Thursday for dealing with future bank bailouts, forcing bondholders and shareholders to take the hit for bank rescues ahead of taxpayers.
The new framework requires bondholders, shareholders and large depositors with over 100,000 euros to be first to suffer losses when banks fail. Depositors with less than 100,000 euros will be protected. Taxpayer funds would be used only as a last resort.
According to this new plan, bondholders will be the first to be required to "contribute" when a bank bailout is necessary.
Do you want to guess what that is going to do to the price of European bank bonds?
Shareholders of the bank will be the next in line to get hit when a bank bailout happens.
After that, they will go after those that have more than 100,000 euros in their bank accounts.
EU officials say that such a plan is needed because bailing out banks with taxpayer money was creating too many problems...
The European Union spent the equivalent of a third of its economic output on saving its banks between 2008 and 2011, using taxpayer cash but struggling to contain the crisis and - in the case of Ireland - almost bankrupting the country.
But a bailout of Cyprus in March that forced losses on depositors marked a harsher approach that can now, following Thursday's agreement, be replicated elsewhere.
Oh wonderful - the "Cyprus solution" can now be "replicated" everywhere in Europe.
This plan will now be submitted to the European Parliament for final approval. The goal is to have this plan finalized by the end of this year.
If you have a bank account in Europe with over 100,000 euros in it, get your money out now.
I am not sure how else to say it.
In Cyprus, there were retirees and small businesses that lost hundreds of thousands of euros overnight.
Do not let that happen to you.
And without a doubt, we are going to see a lot of banks fail in Europe over the next few years. This will especially be true once the next great financial crisis strikes.
But even though we haven't even gotten to the next great financial crisis yet, the economic depression in Europe just continues to get even worse. Just consider these facts...
-Car sales in Europe have hit a 20 year low.
-Overall, the unemployment rate in the eurozone is sitting at 12.2 percent. That is a brand new all-time record high.
-An average of 134 retail outlets are shutting down in Italy every single day. Overall, 224,000 retail establishments have closed down in Italy since 2008.
-It is being projected that Italy will need to ask for an EU bailout within 6 months.
-Consumer confidence in France has dropped to an all-time low.
-The unemployment rate in France is up to 10.4 percent. That is the highest that it has been in 15 years.
-Government is now responsible for 57 percent of all economic output in France.
-In May, household lending in Europe declined at the fastest pace in 11 months.
-During the first quarter, disposable income in the UK declined at the fastest pace in 25 years.
-It is being projected that the unemployment rate in Spain will hit 28.5 percent next year.
-Just a few years ago, the percentage of bad loans in Spain was under 2 percent. Now it is sitting at 10.87 percent.
-The national debt in Spain has grown by 19.1 percent over the past 12 months alone.
-The Greek government says that the Greek economy will shrink by 4.5 percent this year.
-It is being projected that the unemployment rate in Greece will rise to 30 percent in 2014.
And it certainly does not help that China has essentially declared a trade war on Europe. That is not going to help struggling European industries at all.
I hope that more Americans will start paying attention to what is happening in Europe. The crippling economic problems that are sweeping across that continent will come here too.
And at some point there is a very good chance that we will also see Cyprus-style bank account confiscation in this country.
So don't put all of your eggs in one basket. It is good to have your assets spread around a bunch of different places. That makes it much harder for them to be wiped out all at once.
What we are watching in Europe right now is really unprecedented in modern times. They are declaring open season on large bank deposits. In the end, a lot of people in Europe are going to lose a lot of money.
Make sure that you are not one of them.
Link:
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/new-eu-plan-will-make-every-bank-account-in-europe-vulnerable-to-cyprus-style-wealth-confiscation
Mike Snyder
Did you actually believe that they were not going to use the precedent that they set in Cyprus? On Thursday, EU finance ministers agreed to a shocking new plan that will make every bank account in Europe vulnerable to Cyprus-style bail-ins. In other words, the wealth confiscation that we just witnessed in Cyprus will now be used as a template for future bank failures all over Europe. That means that if you have a bank account in Europe, you could wake up some morning and every penny in that account over 100,000 euros could be gone. That is exactly what happened in Cyprus, and now EU officials plan to do the same thing all over Europe. For quite a while EU officials insisted that Cyprus was a "special case", but now we see that was a lie. International outrage over what happened in Cyprus has died down, and now they are pushing forward with what they probably had planned all along. But why have they chosen this specific moment to implement such a plan? Are they anticipating that we will see a wave of bank failures soon? Do they know something that they aren't telling us?
Amazingly, this announcement received very little notice in the international media. The fact that bank account confiscation will now be a permanent part of the plan to bail out troubled banks in Europe should have made headline news all over the globe. The following is how CNN described the plan...
European Union finance ministers approved a plan Thursday for dealing with future bank bailouts, forcing bondholders and shareholders to take the hit for bank rescues ahead of taxpayers.
The new framework requires bondholders, shareholders and large depositors with over 100,000 euros to be first to suffer losses when banks fail. Depositors with less than 100,000 euros will be protected. Taxpayer funds would be used only as a last resort.
According to this new plan, bondholders will be the first to be required to "contribute" when a bank bailout is necessary.
Do you want to guess what that is going to do to the price of European bank bonds?
Shareholders of the bank will be the next in line to get hit when a bank bailout happens.
After that, they will go after those that have more than 100,000 euros in their bank accounts.
EU officials say that such a plan is needed because bailing out banks with taxpayer money was creating too many problems...
The European Union spent the equivalent of a third of its economic output on saving its banks between 2008 and 2011, using taxpayer cash but struggling to contain the crisis and - in the case of Ireland - almost bankrupting the country.
But a bailout of Cyprus in March that forced losses on depositors marked a harsher approach that can now, following Thursday's agreement, be replicated elsewhere.
Oh wonderful - the "Cyprus solution" can now be "replicated" everywhere in Europe.
This plan will now be submitted to the European Parliament for final approval. The goal is to have this plan finalized by the end of this year.
If you have a bank account in Europe with over 100,000 euros in it, get your money out now.
I am not sure how else to say it.
In Cyprus, there were retirees and small businesses that lost hundreds of thousands of euros overnight.
Do not let that happen to you.
And without a doubt, we are going to see a lot of banks fail in Europe over the next few years. This will especially be true once the next great financial crisis strikes.
But even though we haven't even gotten to the next great financial crisis yet, the economic depression in Europe just continues to get even worse. Just consider these facts...
-Car sales in Europe have hit a 20 year low.
-Overall, the unemployment rate in the eurozone is sitting at 12.2 percent. That is a brand new all-time record high.
-An average of 134 retail outlets are shutting down in Italy every single day. Overall, 224,000 retail establishments have closed down in Italy since 2008.
-It is being projected that Italy will need to ask for an EU bailout within 6 months.
-Consumer confidence in France has dropped to an all-time low.
-The unemployment rate in France is up to 10.4 percent. That is the highest that it has been in 15 years.
-Government is now responsible for 57 percent of all economic output in France.
-In May, household lending in Europe declined at the fastest pace in 11 months.
-During the first quarter, disposable income in the UK declined at the fastest pace in 25 years.
-It is being projected that the unemployment rate in Spain will hit 28.5 percent next year.
-Just a few years ago, the percentage of bad loans in Spain was under 2 percent. Now it is sitting at 10.87 percent.
-The national debt in Spain has grown by 19.1 percent over the past 12 months alone.
-The Greek government says that the Greek economy will shrink by 4.5 percent this year.
-It is being projected that the unemployment rate in Greece will rise to 30 percent in 2014.
And it certainly does not help that China has essentially declared a trade war on Europe. That is not going to help struggling European industries at all.
I hope that more Americans will start paying attention to what is happening in Europe. The crippling economic problems that are sweeping across that continent will come here too.
And at some point there is a very good chance that we will also see Cyprus-style bank account confiscation in this country.
So don't put all of your eggs in one basket. It is good to have your assets spread around a bunch of different places. That makes it much harder for them to be wiped out all at once.
What we are watching in Europe right now is really unprecedented in modern times. They are declaring open season on large bank deposits. In the end, a lot of people in Europe are going to lose a lot of money.
Make sure that you are not one of them.
Link:
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/new-eu-plan-will-make-every-bank-account-in-europe-vulnerable-to-cyprus-style-wealth-confiscation
More on LBJ and JFK Assassination...
Jeff Morley
Roger Stone is the first JFK assassination author to have worked in the White House and among the few who have personal acquaintances with JFK’s sucessors.
As a former aide to President Reagan and confidante of RIchard Nixon, Stone brings unique practical experience and personal contacts at the highest levels of American politics to a subject that has often been written about by people with neither.
Stone’s background doesn’t mean that his interpretation of November 22, 1963, is necessarily correct, but he cannot be dismissed as “conspiracy theorist” who is deluded about the realities of American politics and power.
To the contrary, he has far more first-hand experience with those Washington realities than an academic like John McAdams or a prosecutor like VIncent Bugliosi. I think Stone’s indictment of Lyndon Johnson deserves to be taken more seriously than anyone else’s precisely because of his White House experience.
In an email interview with JFK Facts, Stone opened up about his sources, why he wrote the book, and what he really thinks of Chris Matthews.
Q. To some liberal pundits, anyone who shows an abiding interest in the JFK assassination is seriously lacking in understanding of the realities of American politics, if not clinically mentally ill. I’m thinking of Cass Sunstein, Vince Bugiiosi, and Chris Matthews, for example. What’s your reaction to such pronouncements?
RS: I have been in the mainstream of American politics and have been a senior campaign staffer to three Presidents, having worked on eight national Republican Presidential campaigns. Long before I began my book, the House Select Committee on Assassinations essentially debunked the Warren Commission Report. The Assassination Records Review Board declassified enough documents to bolster the conclusions of the House Committee; there was a conspiracy to kill JFK. Oswald did not act alone — in fact I don’t think he acted at all.
My book is not disparate from many other groundbreaking works like James Douglass’, The Unspeakable; Phillip Nelson’s LBJ: the Mastermind of the JFK Assassination; Barr McClellan’s Blood Money & Power; Craig Zirbel’s Texas Connection; and Glen Sample and Mark Collom’s The Men on the Sixth Floor. I seek to build on these seminal works.
Yes, I believe that LBJ spearheaded a conspiracy funded by Texas Oil and assisted by elements of the CIA and the Mob. Yes, I think LBJ’s unique relationships with J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, defense contractors, Texas Oil, and organized crime allowed him to spearhead a conspiracy. All had a stake in Kennedy’s death.
Candidly, I have know Chris Matthews for 30 years and have been on his TV show, Hardball. He is an egomaniac and pompous asshole who isn’t nearly as smart as he thinks he is. Liberals like Daniel Patrick Moynihan have done a disservice to the public by pigeonholing anyone who questions the Warren Commission conclusion as a “nut.” If this is true two-thirds of the people in America are “nuts.”
Q. Where were you on the day it happened? Some people on the political right were known to have cheered the news? Did you hear any of that?
RS: I was 11 years old. I was in the Lewisboro (NY) Elementary School. Lots of my young classmates were crying. When the teacher asked why I wasn’t crying I said, “I’m a Republican.” Yet when I saw the photo in the New York Daily News of young John-John Kennedy saluting his father’s casket a few days later, I too wept.
Q. Your book reports on your conversations about JFK with Richard Nixon and John Mitchell about the assassination. How did you get these men to open up about such a sensitive topic?
I worked as a political advisor to President Nixon in his post-presidential years and spent many hours with him talking politics. Nixon liked a dry martini and he liked to talk politics. He was circumspect and never overtly said “LBJ did it” but he did say a number of things that more than indicate he believed this. My book details this. Nixon recognized Jack Ruby and knew him since 1947 as a “Johnson Man.” Upon seeing Ruby kill Oswald on national TV Nixon recognized him — and understood what had really happened in Dallas.
I first met John Mitchell at the Republican National Convention in 1968 when I was a volunteer assigned to the messenger pool. He wrote me a letter of recommendation to Mort Allyn to secure me a post in the Nixon White House Press operation. I had little contact with him during Nixon’s re-election because I was the youngest staff member at CREEP (Committee to Re-Elect the President) and my boss, Herbert L. “Bart” Porter, and his boss Jeb Magruder, both warned me that “direct contact with Mr. Mitchell was out of the chain of command.”
By 1976, Mitchell was out of prison and quietly helping me line up Republicans for Ronald Reagan, convincing former Kentucky Governor Louie Nunn, to serve on the “Citizens For Reagan” being chaired by Senator Paul Laxalt. Mitchell had a small office in Georgetown. We used to drink at a bar in Georgetown called the Guards. Mitchell confirmed that many of the same things Nixon said to me he had also said to Mitchell. Mitchell shared his own conversations with Nixon.
Also beneficial were my interviews of Ambassador John Davis Lodge who confirmed that his brother Henry Cabot Lodge, JFK’s Ambassador to Vietnam, had knowledge of the involvement of the CIA and Lyndon Johnson in JFK’s murder. I also interviewed long time Nixon aide Nick Ruwe who probably spent more waking hours with “RN” than any other individual, as well as John P. Sears, whose insights into Nixon and his thinking were invaluable.
I also had the opportunity to talk to Governor Jesse Ventura who’s research confirmed the link between the Bay of Pigs, JFK’s assassination and the downfall of Nixon in Watergate.
Q: In his memoir Bob Haldeman speculated that when Nixon spoke of “the whole Bay of Pigs thing” he was actually referring to JFK’s assassination. Did Nixon ever use that phrase in your conversations?
RS: Nixon ran a covert CIA operation to assassinate Fidel Castro when he was Vice President. Some of the CIA operatives and assassins involved in these plans, altered but not canceled after JFK’s surprise election, ended up working for the CIA in the Bay of Pigs fiasco. These same men, E. Howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis were involved in the JFK assassination. They would surface again in Watergate.
It is important to recognize that in 1963 Nixon was completely out of power and considered politically washed up. Like LBJ, Nixon still burned to be President but he was considered finished. Nixon understood the connection between the Bay of Pigs and the Kennedy assassination and came to understand Johnson’s role in Kennedy’s murder. After his comeback election in 1968, Nixon demanded all CIA records on the JFK assassination seeking them for leverage and insurance.
In my book I make the case that Watergate, like the JFK assassination, was a coup d’etat a in which the CIA participated. Once CIA veteran James McCord was brought in on the Watergate burglary plan, the CIA knew what Nixon’s minions were up to. The Bay of Pigs, the JFK assassination and Watergate are thus inextriplicably linked.
Nixon’s effort to get the CIA to instruct the FBI to back off the Watergate investigation was a threat to expose the CIA involvement in the murder of JFK, which he knew grew out of the Bay of Pigs Invasion failure.
Q. When did you decide to write this book? And why?
RS: I have worked on this book for at least 10 years and have worked on it intensely for the last two years. I am greatly indebted to my researcher and co-writer, Mike Colapietro. Some will say that I have some partisan angle as my motive for writing this book. In fact, Republicans Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush, Earl Warren, Arlen Specter and John McCloy don’t come off well in the book. All play some role in the events of November 22, 1963.
Many people have asked me why I waited until now to write my book. When I told Mitchell I would write a book about the JFK assassination “someday,” he said, “on the 50th anniversary” and I agreed. I have honored that commitment.
Q. For some conservative commentators (I’m thinking Thom Mallon, James Swanson, and Gerald Ford), JFK conspiracy theories are a hobbyhorse that deluded leftists use to denigrate America and American power? Does your book denigrate America?
The evidence of a conspiracy is so overwhelming now that the vast majority of Americans believe they have not been told the truth by the government about the JFK assassination. It is important to note that John F. Kennedy was murdered not just because of his plans to wind down the Vietnam War, his entreaties for better relations with the Soviets and his efforts to repeal the oil depletion allowance but also because of his double cross of the mob after their support in the 1960 election and concern by many at the Pentagon about JFK’s drug use. Kennedy was in fact hopped up on intravenously injected meth during the 1960 debates as well as the Cuban Missile Crisis. JFK was no saint.
Q. I have always been personally skeptical about the “LBJ did it” theory because I don’t see much evidence that Johnson or his cronies knew about the existence of Lee Oswald, much less had contact with him or the ability to manipulate him. If LBJ organized the death of JFK what is your theory/evidence about who organized the patsy role for Oswald?
While Johnson was the primary mover of the assassination there is no doubt that the conspirators including the Dallas Police Department, the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office, both perhaps unwittingly as well as the Secret Service and the FBI, as well as rogue elements of the CIA. The agency set Oswald up as a patsy when fingerprint evidence demonstrates conclusively that the shooter from the sixth story window of the Texas Schoolbook Depository building was in fact Malcolm “Mac” Wallace, a longtime LBJ henchman whose ties to Johnson are thoroughly established and documented in my book.
Interestingly, LBJ acknowledged to both his mistress, Madeline Brown and his Chief of Staff, Marvin Watson, that the CIA was involved in Kennedy’s murder — not exactly his Warren Commission’s conclusion. LBJ was facing political ruin and prosecution and jail for corruption when he insisted on JFK’s visiting Texas and when Gov. John Connally insisted on visiting the Trade Mart and on the motorcade through Dealy Plaza.
I also delve in the LBJ the man. He was a monster. Power hungry, crude, vulgar, abusive, sadistic,vicious and often drunk, this is a man who reveled in his aides’ discomfort by conducting meetings while sitting on the toilet defecating. He had at least three illegitimate dhildren, two of whom are still living. I tie LBJ to at least eight political murders in his ascent to political power and his quest for money. Johnson’s capacity for lying, cheating and crime knew no bounds, which is why Jacqueline Kennedy said, “I never liked Lyndon Johnson and I never trusted him” and why Robert Kennedy described him as “an animal.” LBJ was a murderer, and perhaps even a functional lunatic.
“The difference between me and LBJ was, we both wanted to be President but I wouldn’t kill for it” Nixon told me in 1989.
Q. Correct me if I am wrong but I think you are the only White House employee since JFK’s death who has ever written a book about JFK’s death. Why do you think that is?
RS: I have been a participant in mainstream American politics for 40 years. I had unique access to a number of individuals who played pivotal roles in the entire drama. While I understand that many JFK assassination researchers believe the President was killed by “the establishment” or the “military – industrial complex,” which would include munitions manufacturers, defense contractors, Texas oil, the CIA, the FBI and numerous ambitious politicians. What these researchers don’t understand is that “the establishment” is not monolithic. Members of the establishment don’t necessarily move in concert. The establishment is racked with its own intramural contests, rivalries and struggles for political power. While it may be true that many establishment figures either knew about Kennedy’s murder in advance or at least acquiesced in it, they were not conspirators themselves. Because I have seen these struggles firsthand I believe I am uniquely qualified to write this book.
Q. When will your book reach stores and Amazon?
My book will be in stores November 6, 2013. Amazon will ship pre-orders at that time. I will do a book signing at the Barnes and Noble in Dallas on November 22, 2013, as well as book signings in DC, Santa Monica and Ridgewood, New Jersey outside of New York City.
Link:
http://jfkfacts.org/assassination/poll/why-roger-stones-jfk-book-cant-be-dismissed/#comments
Yeah, what country is this??? We do live in East Germany...
Shock Video Shows Police Forcibly Drawing Blood
Man screams “what country is this” as cops strap him down
Paul Joseph Watson
Shock video out of Georgia shows police strapping down citizens accused of drunk driving before using a needle forcibly draw blood as the victim screams, “what country is this?”
Atlanta News, Weather, Traffic, and Sports | FOX 5
The policy of police obtaining a warrant to draw blood from those merely suspected of being drunk at a DUI checkpoint or a routine traffic stop has been in place for years across many states, but to actually see it in action is disturbing.
The clip shows individuals being strapped down on a padded table at the Gwinnett County jail. Even those who show no resistance whatsoever are forcibly restrained and have their heads pressed down by an officer using his elbow.
“We all are American citizens and you guys have me strapped to a table like I’m in Guantanamo f***ing Bay,” complains another victim of the blood draw.
Mike Choroski, the man seen screaming “what country is this” as officers hold him down and take his blood without consent, is still awaiting trial, claiming that he is not guilty and there was no accident involving his vehicle.
“I’m a taxpaying American who refused something….I refused to do this….what happened to me in that room was unnessesary and nobody should have to do that,” said Choroski.
“Holding down and forcing somebody to submit to this is really intrusive in terms of that level of invasive procedure into someone’s body is ridiculous for investigating a misdemeanour,” Attorney David Boyle told Fox 5 Atlanta, describing the forced blood draws as an “unreasonable search” under the 4th Amendment.
Despite the fact that citizens can lose their drivers license for a year if they refuse a standard breathlyser test, cops can then get a warrant to forcibly draw blood, “for every DUI stop, even if there’s no accident or injury.”
In Gwinnett County, Georgia police have carried out more than 100 forced blood draws since January.
“I’m stunned, I did not know that this was legal, I did not know they could take your blood without your consent,” said a Fox 5 anchor in response to the clip, opining that the process was a violation of the 4th Amendment.
Georgia is one of numerous states that enforce “no refusal” checkpoints where police can forcibly draw blood. In 2005, the Supreme Court ruled that it is not unconstitutional for the state to hold down Americans and forcefully withdraw blood. A January 2013 ruling affirmed that a warrant must be obtained for the process, although police could dispense with the warrant requirement in an “emergency”.
Link:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/shock-video-shows-police-forcibly-drawing-blood.html
Man screams “what country is this” as cops strap him down
Paul Joseph Watson
Shock video out of Georgia shows police strapping down citizens accused of drunk driving before using a needle forcibly draw blood as the victim screams, “what country is this?”
Atlanta News, Weather, Traffic, and Sports | FOX 5
The policy of police obtaining a warrant to draw blood from those merely suspected of being drunk at a DUI checkpoint or a routine traffic stop has been in place for years across many states, but to actually see it in action is disturbing.
The clip shows individuals being strapped down on a padded table at the Gwinnett County jail. Even those who show no resistance whatsoever are forcibly restrained and have their heads pressed down by an officer using his elbow.
“We all are American citizens and you guys have me strapped to a table like I’m in Guantanamo f***ing Bay,” complains another victim of the blood draw.
Mike Choroski, the man seen screaming “what country is this” as officers hold him down and take his blood without consent, is still awaiting trial, claiming that he is not guilty and there was no accident involving his vehicle.
“I’m a taxpaying American who refused something….I refused to do this….what happened to me in that room was unnessesary and nobody should have to do that,” said Choroski.
“Holding down and forcing somebody to submit to this is really intrusive in terms of that level of invasive procedure into someone’s body is ridiculous for investigating a misdemeanour,” Attorney David Boyle told Fox 5 Atlanta, describing the forced blood draws as an “unreasonable search” under the 4th Amendment.
Despite the fact that citizens can lose their drivers license for a year if they refuse a standard breathlyser test, cops can then get a warrant to forcibly draw blood, “for every DUI stop, even if there’s no accident or injury.”
In Gwinnett County, Georgia police have carried out more than 100 forced blood draws since January.
“I’m stunned, I did not know that this was legal, I did not know they could take your blood without your consent,” said a Fox 5 anchor in response to the clip, opining that the process was a violation of the 4th Amendment.
Georgia is one of numerous states that enforce “no refusal” checkpoints where police can forcibly draw blood. In 2005, the Supreme Court ruled that it is not unconstitutional for the state to hold down Americans and forcefully withdraw blood. A January 2013 ruling affirmed that a warrant must be obtained for the process, although police could dispense with the warrant requirement in an “emergency”.
Link:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/shock-video-shows-police-forcibly-drawing-blood.html
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