Thursday, May 31, 2012

AE911Truth LA Press Conference w/ Ed Asner at Premiere of 9/11: Experts Speak Out; 5-22-12

Published on May 29, 2012 by ae911truth



This is the major press conference that AE911Truth held at the occasion of the World Premiere of their powerful myth-shattering documentary "9/11: Explosive Evidence -- Experts Speak Out" on May 22, 2012 in Beverly Hills, CA. Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth founder, Richard Gage, AIA and AE911Truth supporter and actor, Ed Asner, teamed up to lay into the media in an effort to hold them accountable for their 10-year silence on the subject of the abundant scientific evidence and eyewitness testimony that pulls the rug from under the official story of the destruction of the three World Trade Center towers on 9/11. This new documentary, introduced by Gage, following the press conference hosts 43 technical and building professionals who cite the evidence and call for a new investigation. It also includes 8 psychology professionals who are well versed in the difficult issues that viewers of this film may face when confronting the evidence.



NARCOTICS: CIA-Pentagon Death Squads and Mexico's 'War on Drugs" Mexico Arrests Three Army Generals

Global Research
Tom Burghardt

Brig. Gen. Roberto Dawe González
Earlier this month, the Mexican government arrested three high-ranking Army generals "including a former second in command at the Defense Ministry," The New York Times reported.

According to multiple press reports, Tomás Ángeles Dauahare, who retired in 2008, was an under secretary at the Defense Ministry during the first two years of President Felipe Calderón's "war" against some narcotrafficking cartels and had even been mentioned as a "possible choice for the top job."

The Times disclosed that in the early 1990s Ángeles "served as the defense attaché at the Mexican Embassy in Washington," a plum position with plenty of perks awarded to someone thought by his Pentagon brethren to have impeccable credentials; that is, if smoothing the way the for drugs to flow can be viewed as a bright spot on one's résumé.

The other top military men detained in Mexico City were "Brig. Gen. Roberto Dawe González, assigned to a base in Colima State, and Gen. Ricardo Escorcia Vargas, who is retired."

Reuters reported that "Dawe headed an army division in the Pacific state of Colima, which lies on a key smuggling route for drugs heading to the United States, and had also served in the violent border state of Chihuahua."

When queried at a May 18 press conference in Washington, "whether and to what extent" these officers participated in the $1.6 billion taxpayer-financed boondoggle known as the Mérida Initiative or had received American training, Pentagon spokesperson Lt. Col. Robert L. Ditchey II tersely told reporters, "We are not going to get into those specifics."

Inquiring minds can't help but wonder what does the Pentagon, or certain three-lettered secret state agencies, have to hide?

CIA-Pentagon Death Squads

Although little explored by corporate media, the CIA and Defense Department's role in escalating violence across Mexico is part of a long-standing strategy by American policy planners to deploy what the late Col. L. Fletcher Prouty called The Secret Team, "skilled professionals under the direct control of someone higher up." According to Prouty, "Team members are like lawyers and agents, they work for someone. They generally do not plan their work. They do what their client tells them to do."

In the context of the misbegotten "War on Drugs," that "client" is the U.S. government and the nexus of bent banks, crooked cops, shady airplane brokers, chemical manufacturers, and spooky defense and surveillance firms who all profit from the chaos they help sustain.

As Narco News disclosed last summer, "A small but growing proxy war is underway in Mexico pitting US-assisted assassin teams composed of elite Mexican special operations soldiers against the leadership of an emerging cadre of independent drug organizations that are far more ruthless than the old-guard Mexican 'cartels' that gave birth to them."

"These Mexican assassin teams now in the field for at least half a year, sources tell Narco News, are supported by a sophisticated US intelligence network composed of CIA and civilian US military operatives as well as covert special-forces soldiers under Pentagon command--which are helping to identify targets for the Mexican hit teams."

Opinion: Canada's mass firing of ocean scientists brings 'silent summer'

EHN Editor’s Note: Canada is dismantling the nation's entire ocean contaminants program as part of massive layoffs at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Among the scientists terminated are ones who have conducted landmark research about global pollutants for decades: Peter Ross, who is among the world’s leading experts on marine mammals and contaminants, Gary Stern, a mercury expert whose work focuses on the Arctic, Michel Lebeuf, who studies the highly contaminated St. Lawrence belugas and Michael Ikonomou, who researches flame retardants and other endocrine-disrupting contaminants in salmon and other ocean life. Ross told EHN that his main concern is the "wholesale axing of pollution research" that will leave Canada, and much of the world, without the scientific knowledge to protect whales, seals, fish and other marine life -- as well as the indigenous peoples who rely on them for their traditional foods. Many scientists say the purpose of the move by the Canadian government is not just cost-cutting but to eliminate environmental rules and protect the oil and gas industry. The following is an essay that Ross wrote Thursday for EHN. -- Marla Cone, Editor in Chief 
Environmental Health News
Peter Ross
Since being hired 13 years ago as a Research Scientist at Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), I have been fortunate to conduct research on such magnificent creatures as killer whales, beluga whales, harbour seals and sea otters. I have visited some of the wildest parts of coastal British Columbia, Arctic Canada and further afield. I have been humbled by the power of Mother Nature as we deployed teams to explore and better understand the lives of creatures beneath the surface of the ocean. I have marveled at the evolutionary adaptations of marine mammals to an existence at the interface of land, sea and atmosphere. And as a scientist, I have come to learn that I possess but rudimentary powers of observation when it comes to the mystery and beauty of a vast ocean. For all of this, I remain eternally grateful.
A blend of challenging field work and cutting-edge laboratories has helped me to look into the lives of fish and marine mammals, and the ways in which some of the 25,000 contaminants on the domestic market affect their health. Our research has drawn on the combined expertise of dedicated technicians, biologists, vessel operators and aboriginal colleagues, ultimately leading to scientific publications now available around the world. This is knowledge that informs policies, regulations, and practices that enable us to protect the ocean and its resources, both for today’s users, and for future generations.
I am thankful for the rich array of opportunities aboard Canadian Coast Guard ships and small craft, alongside Fisheries Officers, chemists, habitat biologists and managers, together with colleagues, technicians, students and members of aboriginal communities. I have enjoyed weaving stories of wonder on such issues as the health of killer whales, effects of flame retardants on beluga whales, hydrocarbons in sea otter habitat, trends in priority pollutants in harbour seals, impacts of current use of pesticides on the health of salmon, the identification of emerging contaminants in endangered species and risk-benefit evaluation of traditional sea foods of First Nations and Inuit peoples. 

Climategate Continues

Will a penalty be called for Keith Briffa’s excessively curved hockey stick?

National Review Online
Andrew Montford
Harold Ambler

Steve McIntyre
Climategate, the 2009 exposure of misconduct at the University of East Anglia, was a terrible blow to the reputation of climatology, and indeed to that of British and American science. Although that story hasn’t been in the news in recent months, new evidence of similar scientific wrongdoing continues to emerge, with a new scandal hitting the climate blogosphere just a few days ago.

And central to the newest story is one of the Climategate scientists: Keith Briffa, an expert in reconstructing historical temperature records from tree rings. More particularly, the recent scandal involves a tree-ring record Briffa prepared for a remote area of northern Russia called Yamal.

For many years, scientists have used tree-ring data to try to measure temperatures from the distant past, but the idea is problematic in and of itself. Why? Because tree-ring data reflect many variables besides temperature. Russian tree growth, like that of trees around the world, also reflects changes in humidity, precipitation, soil nutrients, competition for resources from other trees and plants, animal behavior, erosion, cloudiness, and on and on. But let’s pretend, if only for the sake of argument, that we can reliably determine the mean temperature 1,000 years ago or more using tree cores from a remote part of Russia. The central issue that emerges is: How do you choose the trees?

It was the way Briffa picked the trees to include in his analysis that piqued the interest of Steve McIntyre, a maverick amateur climatologist from Canada. The Climategate e-mails make it clear that McIntyre earned the public scorn of the most powerful U.N. climatologists, including James Hansen, Michael Mann, and Phil Jones, while simultaneously earning their fear and respect in private.

McIntyre noticed a few problems with the way Briffa chose the sampling of Russian trees, and he wrote to Briffa requesting the data Briffa used in a published tree-ring paper. Briffa declined. And so began a four-year saga involving multiple peer-reviewed journals, behind-the-scenes maneuvering by Briffa and his closest confidants, and a Freedom of Information Act request on the part of McIntyre that appears to be on the verge of being granted. Even without the final set of data, however, McIntyre has shown beyond the shadow of doubt that Briffa may have committed one of the worst sins, if not the worst, in climatology — that of cherry-picking data — when he assembled his data sample, which his clique of like-minded and very powerful peers have also used in paper after paper.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Rumors of Romney win greatly exaggerated

Editor's Note:  The Paul camp is the only one to blame for rumors of an early exit.  Paul's email indicating his plans for the remaining 11 states was probably the dumbest, costliest move in this campaign.

The Examiner


The New York Times, Politico, CNN, and most other big media outlets are reporting this morning that Governor Romney has secured the requisite number of delegates needed to gain the Republican nomination for President. There is only one problem with their reports. They are wrong. The GOP nominee will be chosen at the Republican National Convention in Tampa Florida in August.

Mainstream press outlets like to keep their stories simple because apparently their readers do not want to sift through a lot of complexity. Unfortunately, the real delegate selection process in the Republican Party is complicated. Candidates are not chosen at the popular vote beauty contests.

Some delegates are selected at primaries and caucuses and are 'bound' to a particular candidate depending on the party rules in particular states. However, the majority of delegates are selected at state conventions, and those delegates are free to vote for the candidate of their choosing at the national convention as long as one candidate does not receive a plurality on the first ballot. Even this last point in subject to debate as some experts believe that even the so-called bound delegates are free to vote for the candidate of their choosing on the first ballot. This interpretation of federal law is not well publicized by the party insiders that control American elections because it disputes the legitimacy of 'binding' voters to particular candidates.

It is highly unlikely that Governor Romney will have enough delegate votes to be nominated on the first ballot, so this race for the nomination is not over. Congressman Paul continues to rack up delegates even as GOP insiders attempt to adjust their own rules to keep that from happening.

Furthermore, as I reported yesterday, the Paul forces are still considering legal challenges to what they perceive as electioneering shenanigans committed by Romney forces and the Establishment GOP. Paul's supporters may go ahead with the legal challenges even if the Paul campaign is not on board. One such effort is below:

A new group known as Tools for Justice has formed to document voting rights violations and election abuses that may have occurred during the 2012 GOP primaries. This is from their website:
Tools For Justice is working in partnership with WatchtheVote2012.com, RonPaulVoteCount.org, and WTPNetwork.com acting as a private, secure, centralized clearinghouse to support all concerned citizens to enforce our voting rights and restore integrity to the election process by gathering evidence through our members in our private forum.
Therefore, rumors of Congressman Paul's exit from the race were incorrect and rumors of Governor Romney's Coronation are greatly exaggerated.



Tuesday, May 29, 2012

17 Year Old Honor Student Jailed for Missing School

Daily Bell

A judge threw a 17-year-old 11th grade honor student from Willis High School in jail after she missed school again ... Diane Tran, a 17-year-old honor student in Texas, was forced to spend the night in jail last week after missing too many classes, KHOU-11's Sherry Williams reports. The Willis High School junior, who helps support two siblings, has both a full time and part-time job. She said that she's often too tired to go to school. "She goes from job to job from school," Devin Hill, one of Tran's classmates, told KHOU-11. "She stays up until 7:00 in the morning doing her homework." In an interview with KHOU-11, Tran said she takes AP Spanish, college level algebra and dual credit English and history courses. Her parents divorced and no longer live near her, so she lives with the family that owns the wedding venue where she works on weekends. – Huffington Post

Dominant Social Theme: That'll teach 'er.

Free-Market Analysis: This is a sad story (see above), and one that has given rise to a petition and a good deal of outrage. Why a Judge threw a hard-working young woman into jail is clear enough, but the application of US law in this instance has finally resonated.

The US Justice System, in fact, carries the seeds of its own destruction. The more didactic, dishonest and corrupt it gets, the more it gives rise to this sort of "justice."

And such outcomes inevitably spark outrage.

Here at DB, we haven't been shy about calling for the return of private justice. A justice system in which the state makes the laws, enforces them, prosecutes them, hires the prosecutors, licenses the defense attorneys, pays the judges, builds the jails (and contracts them out to private entities), pays the wardens and the guards and eventually the parole officers ... is not a unbiased system.

The result (in the US): some six million behind bars at any one time and one-out-of-three individuals having some sort of interaction with the criminal justice system by the time they are 25.

“Militants”: media propaganda

Salon
Glenn Goldman

To avoid counting civilian deaths, Obama re-defined "militant" to mean "all military-age males in a strike zone"

Virtually every time the U.S. fires a missile from a drone and ends the lives of Muslims, American media outlets dutifully trumpet in headlines that the dead were ”militants” – even though those media outlets literally do not have the slightest idea of who was actually killed. They simply cite always-unnamed “officials” claiming that the dead were “militants.” It’s the most obvious and inexcusable form of rank propaganda: media outlets continuously propagating a vital claim without having the slightest idea if it’s true.

This practice continues even though key Obama officials have been caught lying, a term used advisedly, about how many civilians they’re killing. I’ve written and said many times before that in American media discourse, the definition of “militant” is any human being whose life is extinguished when an American missile or bomb detonates (that term was even used when Anwar Awlaki’s 16-year-old American son, Abdulrahman, was killed by a U.S. drone in Yemen two weeks after a drone killed his father, even though nobody claims the teenager was anything but completely innocent: “Another U.S. Drone Strike Kills Militants in Yemen”).

This morning, the New York Times has a very lengthy and detailed article about President Obama’s counter-Terrorism policies based on interviews with “three dozen of his current and former advisers.” I’m writing separately about the numerous revelations contained in that article, but want specifically to highlight this one vital passage about how the Obama administration determines who is a “militant.” The article explains that Obama’s rhetorical emphasis on avoiding civilian deaths “did not significantly change” the drone program, because Obama himself simply expanded the definition of a “militant” to ensure that it includes virtually everyone killed by his drone strikes. Just read this remarkable passage:
Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.

Counterterrorism officials insist this approach is one of simple logic: people in an area of known terrorist activity, or found with a top Qaeda operative, are probably up to no good. “Al Qaeda is an insular, paranoid organization — innocent neighbors don’t hitchhike rides in the back of trucks headed for the border with guns and bombs,” said one official, who requested anonymity to speak about what is still a classified program.

This counting method may partly explain the official claims of extraordinarily low collateral deaths. In a speech last year Mr. Brennan, Mr. Obama’s trusted adviser, said that not a single noncombatant had been killed in a year of strikes. And in a recent interview, a senior administration official said that the number of civilians killed in drone strikes in Pakistan under Mr. Obama was in the “single digits” — and that independent counts of scores or hundreds of civilian deaths unwittingly draw on false propaganda claims by militants.

But in interviews, three former senior intelligence officials expressed disbelief that the number could be so low. The C.I.A. accounting has so troubled some administration officials outside the agency that they have brought their concerns to the White House. One called it “guilt by association” that has led to “deceptive” estimates of civilian casualties.


“It bothers me when they say there were seven guys, so they must all be militants,” the official said. “They count the corpses and they’re not really sure who they are.”
For the moment, leave the ethical issues to the side that arise from viewing “all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants”; that’s nothing less than sociopathic, a term I use advisedly, but I discuss that in the separate, longer piece I’ve written. For now, consider what this means for American media outlets. Any of them which use the term “militants” to describe those killed by U.S. strikes are knowingly disseminating a false and misleading term of propaganda. By “militant,” the Obama administration literally means nothing more than: any military-age male whom we kill, even when we know nothing else about them. They have no idea whether the person killed is really a militant: if they’re male and of a certain age they just call them one in order to whitewash their behavior and propagandize the citizenry (unless conclusive evidence somehow later emerges proving their innocence).

What kind of self-respecting media outlet would be party to this practice? Here’s the New York Times documenting that this is what the term “militant” means when used by government officials. Any media outlet that continues using it while knowing this is explicitly choosing to be an instrument for state propaganda — not that that’s anything new, but this makes this clearer than it’s ever been.

Monday, May 28, 2012

Mainstream media calls this "hundreds of protestors" Montréal

12160

James Φοίνιξ



Some ten thousand protesters on foot, bicycle, skateboard or rollerblades, crossed Montreal late Saturday to the deafening din of pots, fog horns and whistles. 

MONTREAL – Perhaps it was the summer-like weather, or the prospect of a new set of negotiations between the government and student groups on the horizon.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Student+protests+weekend+peaceful+defiance/6687923/story.html

Perhaps it had more to do with the festive atmosphere created by the clinking and clanging of thousands of pots and pans that rang out through the city each night, or maybe Montrealers decided they had simply had enough of a handful of violent hooligans besmirching their city’s reputation.

Whatever the reason, the peaceful demonstrations that wound their way through streets across Montreal Island and beyond this weekend were a far cry from the violence and destruction witnessed in recent weeks. Tens of thousands of residents – people of every age, background and political stripe – took to the streets Friday and Saturday to protest both rising tuition fees and the controversial Bill 78 without a single major confrontation with police. Sunday night’s event ended the same way, with police reporting only a single arrest for mischief.





BBC News uses 'Iraq photo to illustrate Syrian massacre'

The Telegraph

The BBC is facing criticism after it accidentally used a picture taken in Iraq in 2003 to illustrate the senseless massacre of children in Syria.


Photographer Marco di Lauro said he nearly “fell off his chair” when he saw the image being used, and said he was “astonished” at the failure of the corporation to check their sources.
The picture, which was actually taken on March 27, 2003, shows a young Iraqi child jumping over dozens of white body bags containing skeletons found in a desert south of Baghdad.
It was posted on the BBC news website today under the heading “Syria massacre in Houla condemned as outrage grows”.
The caption states the photograph was provided by an activist and cannot be independently verified, but says it is “believed to show the bodies of children in Houla awaiting burial”.
A BBC spokesman said the image has now been taken down.

Sunday, May 27, 2012

The Pentagon Contractor Behind Attacks On Reporters Is Embarrassed Now That Everyone Knows

Business Insider
Eloise Lee

After a posting a story today about Camille Chidiac — the man who just admitted he was behind the mysterious websites attacking two USA Today reporters — one of his spokespeople contacted me to talk about his side of the story.

The spokesperson said that Chidiac is embarrassed. 

But he's ready to take all the blame.

He was formerly the co-owner of successful Pentagon contractor Leonie Industries, which specializes in "strategic communications" and Information Operations — known to the public as military propaganda programs.

Earlier this year he registered websites and forums that claimed to be "unofficial fan sites" for two reporters, Tom Vanden Brook and his editor Ray locker, who had written critically about U.S. military information campaigns in the Middle East with which Leonie Industries was involved.

But the websites ended up hosting online discussions slamming the two journalists. Chidiac denies that this was his intention.

"Due to the un-moderated nature of the forums, some of these discussions quickly degenerated from legitimate criticism to immature and irrelevant rhetoric by unknown users," wrote Chidiac.
 
USA Today claimed the online activity was a smear campaign against its journalists.

His spokesperson pointed out that Chidiac did not publish false content; he just re-posted articles written by Vanden Brook to the "fan site" he created.

The thing is, it didn't seem to be much of a fan site.

One of the prominently featured articles was a story by Vanden Brook that contained inaccuracies — suggesting that the public should be wary of the USA Today reporter's credibility.

I asked Chidiac's spokesperson why his client labeled the anonymous websites as "fan sites" — that pretense has people wondering about Chidiac's motivation.

The spokesperson acknowledged they don't know Chidiac's motivation for doing that.
According to Chidiac, the sites were always "intended to create open dialogue in an open forum related to the reporters' past articles."

"I take full responsibility for having some of the discussion forums opened and reproducing their previously published USA Today articles on them.  Even though the USA Today articles written about my family included unfair personal attacks and false statements by the reporters, it did not motivate me to post anything personally nor did I encourage anyone to post anything that was untrue or defamatory in any way," he wrote in a statement.

He currently has a team of professionals representing him, from a defamation lawyer to media management.

The spokesperson asked not to be named, iterating that the story's not about him.

Saturday, May 26, 2012

US envoy’s report on Iran

Russia Today

Top Israeli officials have refused to meet the US envoy to the P5+1 group, who arrived in Jerusalem with a report on recent talks with Iran. The diplomatic démarche comes as relations between the two countries strain over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

­Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman arrived in Israel on May 25, a day after the group of six (Britain, China, France, Russia, and the United States plus Germany) ended their unsuccessful negotiations in Baghdad.

She had intended to brief Israeli officials about negotiations between Iran and the P5+1. But both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak became unexpectedly unavailable to meet her.

Sherman then delivered her report about the fruitless talks to National Security Adviser Yaakov Amidror and Foreign Ministry Director-General Rafi Barak instead, the Debka news agency reported.

No agreement was reached between the world powers and Iran during the talks in Baghdad on May 23-24 because Tehran refused to meet their demands.  The P5+1 wanted Iran to suspend its 20 percent uranium enrichment program, which the group sees as vital to the negotiations process.

Tehran labelled the Western proposal ‘unbalanced’, rejecting it over what it called "unfair demands" which offer little in return.

Even though both sides still hope to hammer out the agreement at a newly-scheduled round of talks in Moscow next month, Israel remains less optimistic about the negotiations.


On the first day of discussions in Baghdad, on May, 23, Defence Minister Ehud Barak said the negotiations only allow Iran to buy time and drive a wedge between Washington and Tel Aviv.
Relations between Israel and United States have become more tense lately, with both countries having different solutions to the conflict with Iran.

While the US prefers warnings and sanctions to pressure Iran away from any suspected atomic weapon development, Israel threatens military action.

On the talks’ opening day, Ehud Barak reaffirmed Israel’s position, saying a military strike against Iranian facilities is not out of the question.

What’s more, a day later, a source in Washington DC said the Israeli leadership had backtracked on a promise not to attack Iran before America’s November presidential election, according to the Debka report.

The possible use of force against Iran has been discussed by Israel and its western allies for months. Israel insists on the right to strike if and when it sees fit, saying it will not seek anyone’s consent.
There is a fear that, if such an attack happens, Iran would retaliate against any forces it sees as enemies, which could result in a major regional war, dragging in other countries as well.

Israel will only accept Iran developing its civilian nuclear industry is if it shuts down all its uranium enrichment sites and uses imported fuel, Barak said. Essentially, that is what the P5+1 group offered Iran this time.  But Tehran still insisted it did not intend to create a nuclear bomb and, as "proof", agreed on the eve of negotiations to the resumption of UN nuclear monitoring at Iran’s sites, including Parchin.


Webster Tarpley: West Is behind Syrian Violence



More bombing in Damascus; Is Syria headed to a civil war in spite of the UN ceasefire. Clashes have erupted between pro and anti Assad groups in northern Lebanon and news of a group of Lebanese pilgrims abducted by anti-government armed groups in Syria. Is Syrian violence spreading into the neighboring country and is the a deliberate attempt to do just that?


What is New in the Israel/Palestine Conflict

Peter Falk

Mohamed Boazizif: The spark that ignited
Arab Spring
Undoubtedly transfixed by the extraordinary developments throughout the Arab world since Mohamed Boazizi’s self-immolation on December 17, 2010: from Tahrir Square to the NATO intervention in Libya to bloody confrontations in Syria, Yemen, Bahrain to the eerie quiet in Algeria to the relative and temporary calm in Morocco, there has been a widespread few have noticed that the Israeli/Palestine conflict has changed its character in fundamental respects during the last couple of years.

                      For some the first of these transformative developments may have been realized for somewhat longer, but now almost everybody knows, except for those in high places, especially in Washington and Tel Aviv who seem to have a political need not to know. The stark fact is that both Israel and Palestine have no hope that international negotiations between governmental representatives of the two sides has any chance of reaching an agreement that will end the conflict. Israelis, especially those backing the Netanyahu government never desired or believed in the possibility of a diplomatic solution. The ‘peace process’ that started in Oslo back in 1993 has steadily deteriorated the Palestinian prospects while enhancing those of Israel; it has been worse than gridlock for the Palestinians and a smokescreen for Israelis to carry out their expansionist plans while pretending to be pursuing a political compromise based on withdrawing from land occupied in 1967. The sequel to Oslo has been a pathetic enterprise, taking the form of ‘the quartet’ (U.S., European Union, Russia, and the UN) setting forth a roadmap that was supposed to lead the Palestinians to a state of their own drawn along the borders of the green line, but in practice has been a charade that Israel has scoffed at while representatives of the Palestinian Authority seemed to believe that it was worth playing along, although working within the confines of the occupation to establish governmental institutions that could claim statehood by unilateral self-assertion. The PA did seize this option last September when President Mahmoud Abbas made his historic plea to the UN General Assembly, but was stymied by exertion of U.S. geopolitical muscle on Israel’s behalf. At this point even the PA seems to have abandoned its effort to challenge a supposed status quo that is more realistically comprehended as a toxic mixture of annexation and apartheid should no longer be called ‘occupation.’

            Apparently to please Washington, and to a lesser extent the EU, neither Tel Aviv nor the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah have openly repudiated diplomacy, and continue to give lip service to a readiness to talk yet again, although the PA has at least the dignity to insist that no further negotiations can occur until Israel agrees to halt settlement expansion in the West Bank. To demand that Israel discontinue unlawful activities that impact upon what is being discussed should be regarded as a no brainer, but it is treated by the world media as though the Palestinians were seeking a huge concession from the Israelis, and in a way it is, if we acknowledge that the Netanyahu government is essentially a regime under the control of the settlers.

            The second of these under observed developments in the conflict is a definite shift toward nonviolence by the Palestinians. In different sites of struggle the Palestinians have confirmed the declarations of their leaders that resistance no longer primarily refers to armed struggle and suicide bombings, but is based on a range of nonviolent undertakings that challenge the legitimacy of Israeli policies, above all its oppressive policies and structures of abuse and exploitation in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza.

Friday, May 25, 2012

Obama hails police state methods in Chicago

World Socialist Website
Patrick Martin

President Barack Obama on Monday praised the performance of Chicago city officials and the Chicago Police Department after a week of violence, repression and frame-ups directed against antiwar demonstrators in the city.

Footage of Police Van Running Over Demonstrators



Speaking at the conclusion of the NATO summit, Obama paid tribute to Mayor Rahm Emanuel, his political crony and former White House chief of staff, and added, referring to the thousands of police mobilized against protesters, “Chicago’s finest did a great job under significant pressure and a lot of scrutiny.”

What was this “great job?”

• Downtown Chicago was effectively shut down for four days, Friday through Monday, not by the protesters, never more than 5,000 people, but by a huge mobilization of police and paramilitary forces who frequently outnumbered the demonstrators. The entire area around McCormick Place, site of the summit, was under lockdown.

• Police arrested well over 100 demonstrators in the course of the week, including more than 60 Sunday, a day of tense confrontations in which police continually vented their hostility towards the demonstrators, who were opposing the US-NATO war in Afghanistan and other imperialist military interventions.

• The violent dispersal of the protesters late Sunday afternoon was entirely one-sided, as described by the Chicago Sun-Times—a staunchly pro-police tabloid—which headlined its account, “Riot Gear Cops Rain Down Blows on Protesters.” The beatings were so widespread and indiscriminate that one of the newspaper’s own reporters was among those bloodied. At least 25 demonstrators were injured, with a dozen requiring hospital treatment.

• Most ominously, five protesters were arrested in police raids targeting individuals supposedly preparing “terrorist” attacks on the NATO summit. The same two informants fingered all five men, after the undercover cops had circulated widely among the protesters looking for anyone they could instigate or entrap.

Indefinite Detention, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama



Media Blackout As Obama Appoints First Ever Assassination Czar




Thursday, May 24, 2012

Filmmakers had access to Osama bin Laden intelligence, documents show

The Examiner
Jim Kouri 
Oscar-winning director Bigelow is filming history's
longest presidential campaign commercial, say critics
of Obama's politicizing the killing of Osama bin Laden
A Washington, DC-based group that investigates, exposes, and combats government corruption at the highest levels, surprised members of the news industry by obtaining documents that one source said "were almost as hard to get from the Obama administration as buying a winning lottery ticket at the local grocery store."

What is revealed in these records is disturbing, even shocking, say a number of counterterrorism and political experts who spoke with the Law Enforcement Examiner
The noted -- and feared by a number of politicos -- public-interest organization, Judicial Watch, reported on May 21 that its officials obtained records from the U.S. Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency regarding meetings and communications between Obama-run federal agencies and veteran filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow
Bigelow, the ex-wife of director James Cameron (Titanic), garnered an Oscar for her direction of The Hurt Locker, an acclaimed motion picture about a U.S. Army bomb disposal unit in Iraq at the height of the insurgency.  
According to the newly obtained records, the Obama Defense Department granted Bigelow and her screenwriter Mark Boal access to a “planner, Operator and Commander of SEAL Team Six,” the special forces unit that killed the world's most famous and most wanted terrorist, Osama bin Laden, in a daring covert operation inside Pakistan on May 1, 2011. 

Report: Turkey set to indict IDF officers over killing of Gaza flotilla activists

Harretz
Barak Ravid

Turkish daily says Ankara's prosecutor readies 144-page document that accuses top Israeli officers, including former army chief Gabi Ashkenazi, of ordering intentional killing, wounding of Turkish nationals on Mavi Marmara; charges still need to be approved by Istanbul district prosecutor.

Turkey’s chief prosecutor is expected to charge retired Israeli defense officials, including former army chief Gabi Ashkenazi, for ordering the intentional killing of activists during a 2010 Israel Defense Forces raid of a Gaza-bound aid flotilla, a report said on Wednesday. 

According to the Turkish daily Sabah, Ankara's chief prosecutor Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya is due to file a 144-page indictment targeting Ashkenazi, former Military Intelligence chief Amos Yadlin, former Israel Navy chief Eliezer Maron, and former head of Israel Air force's intelligence wing Avishai Levy over the raid on the Mavi Marmara, which resulted in the deaths of nine Turkish nationals. 

The report indicated that Turkey intended to charge the former officials for ordering IDF troops to intentionally kill, wound, and abduct Turkish activists, as well as encourage their torture and loot their belongings. 

Turkey issued warrants against all four former Israeli officers, and they could be arrested on arrival in Turkey, the report added. 
Israel's raid of the Gaza-bound flotilla proved a watershed moment in Israel-Turkey relations, with the once staunch allies trading blame over responsibility for the incident. 

Turkey has insisted that Israel apologize for the raid and its consequences, as well as pay reparations to the families of those killed; Israel has, thus far, refused to do so. 

Islamophobia: Washington’s "New Colonialism"

Global Research
Dr. Ismail Salami

Relatives sat in shock in a van carrying the
bodies of their kin wrapped in blankets

Western media however reduced the number of the killers to one.

The bodies were reportedly wrapped in blankets and were set on fire.

US President Barack Obama said he was deeply saddened, "I offer my condolences to the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives, and to the people of Afghanistan, who have endured too much violence and suffering. This incident ... does not represent the exceptional character of our military and the respect that the United States has for the people of Afghanistan."

As contradictory as these words seem, the very 'exceptional character' of the US military had earlier urged them to burn copies of the Holy Quran, an incident which saddened the hearts of Muslims all across the world.

These and earlier incidents are not coincidental and well attest to a prevailing mindset in the US military and a dominant policy in Washington. It is clear that the US government has commenced a large-scale campaign against Islam with the express intention of debilitating the Muslim community.

In fact, the war on Islam started in 2001 when the then US president George Bush made a crass reference to his so-called war on terror as ‘crusade’. He warned Americans that "this crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take awhile." Bush’s politically untoward remark rang alarm bells in Europe and the Muslim world although it went barely noticed in the American community who took the word for its sound rather than for its meaning.

Gradually, Washington instilled a sensation of anti-Islamism in America and Europe by attributing the nine-eleven tragedy and ensuing terrorist operations to the Muslims. Soheib Bensheikh, Grand Mufti of the mosque in Marseille, France said Bush’s use of the word ‘crusade’ was most unfortunate and that “It recalled the barbarous and unjust military operations against the Muslim world" by Christian knights.

A delusional man who was overwhelmed with the idea of a messianic mission, George Bush wittingly or unwittingly dragged the world to the margins where a clash of civilizations was imminent.

The legacy of hatred which was started by George Bush was later continued in the form of classes and organized trainings.

In line with this Islamophobic policy funded by Washington and the powerful Zionist groups in the country, the US military has long been involved in fomenting anger and hatred against the Muslims by teaching its future leaders that a “total war” against the Muslims would be necessary to protect America.

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Police captain to be punished over OWS support?

Russia Today



Retired Captain Ray Lewis served within the ranks of the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Police Department for nearly a quarter of a century. Now he is at odds against the force’s higher ups, however, over his role with Occupy Wall Street.

Captain Lewis became a regular at protest and rallies since the infancy of the Occupy movement last year. Regularly donning his Philadelphia PD uniform, Lewis was caught at demonstrations across the country demanding for changes within the system. Speaking with RT, though, the 24-year veteran of the force says it hasn’t been easy.

After first involving himself with OWS, Lewis says he received a letter from the department condemning his uniformed protests. “They want to make sure that no other officers join me in promoting this Occupy movement,” he tells RT. According to the captain, the aesthetic of a uniformed officer rallying against the backbone of the law enforcement industry is the reason behind the department’s demands.

“It is my belief that they were pressured by corporate America, because the one sign I carry on a daily basis is to ask people to watch the documentary Inside Job,” says Lewis. “Inside Job is a scathing, indicting film of banks, specifically in the 2008 financial collapse, and anybody who watches that documentary will fully understand the corruption of our banks in this country.”

The ties between the police and the nation’s financial institutions might not be clear cut, but Lewis attests that it is certainly there.

“In Philadelphia, the Fraternal Order of Police — a lot of cops want to be the president of that union — and they have elections. And these elections are run just like any other political election: they are based on money. A lot of advertising goes into these elections and those cops don’t pay for that advertising out of their back pockets. This advertising is paid for by corporations, banks, financial institutions.

“Subsequently, when you are elected, you are beholden to those financial institutions. And when I come out condemning those financial institutions, if the president of the [union] wants to get continuing contributions, he better pay heed to the banks,” explains Lewis. Now, he says, his benefits with the Philly PD could be revoked if the department decides to pursue an investigation into his role with the protest movement.

Lewis says that the union’s response to his participation in the Occupy movement wasn’t exactly what he had expected. He tells RT he “was taken aback” when he received a letter in the mail from high higher-ups at the Fraternal Order of Police.

“They threatened me with having a hearing, perhaps to expel me,” he says. “I was surprised that they took that extent, without even giving me the courtesy of a phone call and finding out exactly what I was doing; what I was about.”

After going public with his grievances over his demands, Lewis was let off the hook — for now. He says that the way the department acted over his involvement with the Occupy movement should be a chilling wake up call to the rest of the country, though.

“When they come out and say what I’m doing is illegal or improper and give me an order to immediately cease and desist wearing my uniform…or they will take any and all unnecessary action to stop me, what’s so egregious about this is it sends the message to officers that they can violate people’s First Amendment rights,” he says.

Today Lewis says he has yet to be expelled but is still sure that the department will continue to investigate his role with OWS. As for the movement itself, he says he has no expectations but is still behind it 100 percent.

“It’s not going to do any good wondering where it’s going to go,” he says. “I’d rather spend my time and my positive energy on determining what path I can take, what can I do to further the goals of the movement.”

IQ Foods: Processed Food Lowers IQ in Children, Nutritious Food Raises It

Natural Society
Anthony Gucciardi

Processed foods are the staple of far too many diets, particularly in the United States where 105 million people have either diabetes or prediabetes. These processed foods are filled with white sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, aspartame, artificial food colorings, and a wide variety of other toxic substances. Interestingly enough, research shows that these are some of the worst IQ foods. Given the makeup of processed foods, is it any wonder that children are suffering from IQ reduction upon introducing these foods into their diet?

IQ Foods: The Findings

British researchers uncovered the connection between processed foods and reduced IQ. They followed what 14,000 children ate and drank at the ages of 3, 4, 7, and 8.5 years of age, with answers submitted via parents through questionnaires. The researchers found that if children were consuming a processed diet at age 3, IQ decline could begin over the next five years. The study found that by age 8, the children had suffered the IQ decline.

On the contrary, children who ate a nutrient-rich diet were found to increase their IQ over the 3 year period. The foods considered nutrient-rich by the researchers were most likely conventional fruits and vegetables. If children were to eat a wide variety of organic produce, superfoods, mineral-rich plants, and perhaps even consume a food-based multivitamin, the researchers would most likely see a substantial IQ increase. This eating plan would also benefit the children — or even adults — in other aspects of their lives as well, such as better overall health & well-being.

Processed foods have been known to wreak havoc on the body for quite some time. One joint American and Spanish study has even found that junk food products, particularly those containing trans fats, can make healthy young men infertile by damaging their sperm. Another study, conducted by scientists from the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and the University of Granada, reported that both junk food and fast food consumption can bring on depression. The link was so strong, in fact, that those who consumed fast food were 51% more likely to be depressed. It isn’t surprising that some of the worst IQ foods are the same foods that cause numerous health complications.

Afghan parliament committees reject partnership pact with US

PressTV


A member of the National Assembly of Afghanistan says the recent strategic partnership agreement signed between the US and Afghanistan has so far been rejected by two parliamentary committees.

Qorban-Ali Erfani said Tuesday that the agreement is being considered by various committees of the assembly and has already been rejected by two of them including the judicial committee for being against the national interests of Afghanistan.

US President Barack Obama and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai signed the Strategic Partnership Agreement in Kabul on May 1, which extends the US presence in Afghanistan to another decade beyond 2014.

The agreement is yet to be approved by the 249-member Afghan Parliament.

Meanwhile, an informed source says that the Afghan government and US Embassy in Kabul are lobbying Afghan lawmakers to encourage them to support the agreement, including by promising financial assistance and US Green Cards to Afghan parliamentarians.

Referring to the recent NATO summit meeting in Chicago on May 20-21, Erfani said the meeting was completely useless.

He stated that although participants talked about the withdrawal of their forces from Afghanistan, ceding responsibility for security affairs to Afghan forces and training them, “such remarks will only be useful when they are followed in practice, which does not seem to be the case.”

The lawmaker said the United States has paid no attention to rebuilding the Afghan army in the past 11 years and has so far avoided providing it with advanced weaponry, including modern planes and helicopters.

All these propaganda, he said, is aimed at influencing the public opinion, but the United States does not aim to make the Afghan army completely self-sufficient. 



THE FRAMEWORK FOR SUPPRESSING INFORMATION: Public Opinion in America's 21st Century Police State

Global Research
Professor James F. Tracy

The police state’s framework for suppressing information and opinion arguably threatens all forms of independent thought and appears poised to intensify as the “war on terror” continues. As the recent emergence of US plans for indoctrination in reeducation camps reveals, Western governments’ actual enemy is the capacity for a people to exercise critical thought en route to intervening in and altering political-economic processes.

Public opinion—defined by 19th century English political thinker William MacKinnon as “that sentiment on any given subject which is entertained by the best informed, most intelligent, and most moral persons in the community”—is fundamentally at odds with police state prerogatives also exemplified in recent US Department of Homeland Security documents.

The technocratic mindset of agencies such as the DHS and Federal Bureau of Investigation that oversee federal, state, and local policing procedures seeks to short-circuit and quell dissent by identifying transgressive thought that deviates from an assumed normalcy, then interlinking it with perceived threats or violent actions against the state. In a grand governmental exercise of Freudian-style projection, the DHS’s usage of inflammatory terms such as “terrorist” and “extremist” are routinely utilized to emphasize the nature and degree of various activist groups’ alleged deviant ideologies. This practice proceeds in light of the fact that most every “terrorist” act within the US since 9/11 has been carefully guided by the FBI or, as was the case with the initial “underwear bomber, Western intelligence agencies likely working in concert.

A November 2011 DHS document, “Domestic Terrorism and Homegrown Violent Extremism Lexicon”, is the agency’s recent codification of terms intended to instruct and aid government officials in recognizing “threats of terrorism against the United States by facilitating a common understanding of the terms and conditions that describe terrorist threats to the United States [sic].”

Then, in a fashion that will be familiar to those who understand the tactics of groups such as the Southern Poverty Law Center, an untenable array of activist pursuits spanning the political spectrum—“Anarchist Extremists”, “Animal Rights Extremists”, “Anti-Abortion Extremists”, “Environmental Rights Extremists”—are libelously lobbed together and defined alongside designations including “Racist Skinhead Extremists”, “Homegrown Violent Extremist”, “Radicalization”, and “Terrorism”.

As with the phalanx of totalitarian-like legislation such as the PATRIOT Acts that potentially pit the militarized security state against the US population, through intentional ambiguity Homeland Security’s definitions of “terrorism” and “radicalization” come perilously close to classifying critical thought and expression of almost any sort as terrorism.

“Terrorism” is defined as “any act that is dangerous to human life, critical infrastructure, or key resources ... and appears to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion [sic]” (author’s emphasis). Under such a definition social protest—speech protected under the First Amendment—is impermissible. After all, any effective protest seeks through various ways to effectively petition authorities for a redress of grievances.

The curious term “radicalization” will be of special interest to academics and journalists capable of engaging with and examining controversial issues and concerns that their students or readers may become passionate enough to weigh in on in some consequential way. According to DHS, a person is “radicalized” through indoctrination “from a non-violent belief system to a belief system that includes the willingness to actively advocate, facilitate, or use violence as a method to effect societal or political change.”

Alongside DHS’s vague definition of terrorism and the broader prerogatives of police state ideology and practice, “violence” may be conceived in a number of ways, such as a person with of a certain racial demarcation peacefully sitting in the front of a segregated bus, or a concerned citizen occupying the lobby of a zombie bank.

In reality the actual target of such policing metrics is the small percentage of the population that have somehow escaped the enforced process of “de-radicalization”—those who, in other words, still possess the capacity to think and act critically on meaningful political matters.

Indeed, it is not beyond reason to point out that America is one serious terrorist attack or mass civil disturbance away from the implementation of policies to seriously limit or curtail the traffic of ideas, made all the more easy for authorities through the internet’s centralized configuration. Society will then be left with the corporate media and their custom inability (or refusal) to honestly examine and publicize the corrupt nature and practices of the national security state.

With alternative media outlets providing a broad spectrum of analyses and perspectives the tiny demarcation between critical thinking and terrorism outlined in the government’s missives is understandable. Minds not fully regulated and that risk awakening (radicalization) through an intellectual epiphany triggered by a professor, journalist, or author prone to encouraging thought crimes may become "radicalized" and carry out “terrorist” activities. They may, for example, recognize and critique the “war on terror” as an extravagant and monstrous deception.

Moreover, individuals capable of possessing, articulating, and acting upon meaningful ideas and information—of exercising an informed and self-determined opinion in furtherance of their shared security and welfare—have no need for a police state to "protect" them, which in all likelihood is why critical thought and public opinion are the New World Order’s greatest enemies.

James F. Tracy is Associate Professor of Media Studies at Florida Atlantic University.