Monday, February 28, 2011

Alex Jones Cuts Through The B.S. On The View.

Max Keiser: 'Am I dreaming, or did I just see Alex Jones on “The View.”'

From Max Keiser.

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Widow Says John Wheeler Killed By Hitman

From ABC

PHILADELPHIA - February 21, 2011 (WPVI) -- The widow of the late Pentagon consultant John Wheeler has made some very provocative claims in the wake of his murder and the discovery of his body on the final day of last year.

John Wheeler's widow, Katherine Klyce, says she thinks he was killed by a professional hit man and she is blasting the Newark Police Department for its handling of the investigation...


Anonymous Boycott Of Koch Paper Products

From OpWisconsin


Dear Citizens of the United States of America, It has come to our attention that the brothers, David and Charles Koch--the billionaire owners of Koch Industries--have long attempted to usurp American Democracy. Their actions to undermine the legitimate political process in Wisconsin are the final straw. Starting today we fight back...

Read More.

Turk - Dollar Ready to Collapse, Silver Squeeze to Continue

From King World News

With gold higher and silver up almost $1.30, King World News today interviewed James Turk out of Spain. Turk had this rather frightening warning about the dollar, “The dollar right now is hanging on the precipice. If we break below 77 on the dollar index, look out below. I don’t think people really appreciate how scary the dollar chart is here, or how ominous the implications really are. There’s no predicting how far the dollar could plunge if confidence breaks.”

“You’ve got civil war breaking out in North Africa and you have rebellions happening in the Middle-East. In this kind of geopolitical situation, in the past the US dollar would always rally, but this time it can’t even bounce. You know Eric the other side of this coin is that if the dollar falls off the edge of a cliff, precious metals are going to skyrocket.”

Life In The Police State: TSA Pat Downs, Bag Searches AFTER Passengers Get Off Trains *Video*

Got to watch those Al-Qaeda kids. They are pretty dangerous, especially AFTER they get off the train. I'm really glad Obama and Napolitano have brought in so much 'change.'

From SHTF Plan

Police Join Wisconsin Protesters In State Capitol

From The Understory.

From inside the Wisconsin State Capitol, RAN ally Ryan Harvey reports:

“Hundreds of cops have just marched into the Wisconsin state capitol building to protest the anti-Union bill, to massive applause. They now join up to 600 people who are inside.”

Ryan reported on his Facebook page earlier today:

“Police have just announced to the crowds inside the occupied State Capitol of Wisconsin: ‘We have been ordered by the legislature to kick you all out at 4:00 today. But we know what’s right from wrong. We will not be kicking anyone out, in fact, we will be sleeping here with you!’ Unreal.”


War Über Alles

From Prison Planet.

Paul Craig Roberts
Prisonplanet.com
Feb 26, 2011

The United States government cannot get enough of war. With Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi’s regime falling to a rebelling population, CNN reports that a Pentagon spokesman said that the U.S. is looking at all options from the military side.

Allegedly, the Pentagon, which is responsible for one million dead Iraqis and an unknown number of dead Afghans and Pakistanis, is concerned about the deaths of 1,000 Libyan protesters.

While the Pentagon tries to figure out how to get involved in the Libyan revolt, the commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific is developing new battle plans to take on China in her home territory. Four-star Admiral Robert Willard thinks the U.S. should be able to whip China in its own coastal waters.

The admiral thinks one way to do this is to add U.S. Marines to his force structure so that the U.S. can eject Chinese forces from disputed islands in the East and South China seas.

It is not the U.S. who is disputing the islands, but if there is a chance for war anywhere, the admiral wants to make sure we are not left out...


Read More...

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Interactive 9/11 Memorial Timeline Uses WTC# 5 Photograph as WTC# 7 and Claims Raging Fire

From 9/11 Blogger.

Government Infiltrates Terror Cells Time and Again ... But Fails to Stop Attacks

I'm kind of passed this. I know the War on Terror is a fraud. But for those of you out there who still believe the government is actually trying to protect you, you might want to click on the link below and have a bit of a weekend read.

From Zerohedge.

It's amazing how governments infiltrate terror cells time and again, but then fail to actually stop the attacks...

Friday, February 25, 2011

Citizens - in 10 Minutes

From Max Keiser

Rumsfeld (With Innocent Voice) On Building 7: "I Have No Idea. Never Heard That"

Yeah right...




That ranks up there with this wonderful liar who he worked for...

Army Deploys Psy-Ops on U.S. Senators

America is one big Psy-Op. The military, the media, the corporations, they all control the zombie public too busy working to know what is what or who is who...

We all know that, nonetheless...


From Cryptogon and Rolling Stone


The U.S. Army illegally ordered a team of soldiers specializing in "psychological operations" to manipulate visiting American senators into providing more troops and funding for the war, Rolling Stone has learned – and when an officer tried to stop the operation, he was railroaded by military investigators...

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Poem For A Tired Blogger...

The corridors of power are cheering
At their new found war appearing
The lies they come a leaking
As the military budgets are peaking
The mental malaise, and the thoughtless haze
As the workers go about their corporate tweaking
Assange will be extradited
For a condom that was never sighted
And Obama can still do his PR smile
As long as his Wall Street brothers stay awhile
The mental midgits will have their way
Until their pompous power fades away
Until then watch them blame it on the left
All the destruction and the theft...

Scott Walker "Thought About" Planting "Troublemakers" In the Wisconsin Protest

Listen to a prank call from someone impersonating David Koch talk to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. The bit about infiltrating the protesters with "troublemakers" comes around 4.22 in the second video. The Governor also praises the New York Times. Figures. America is owned by cynical conservatives and bought off democrats. They can lean back and relax...it's all in their hands.

From Prison Planet.

During a prank phone call in which he believed he was talking to billionaire philanthropist David Koch, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker admitted that state authorities had “thought about” using troublemakers to infiltrate the crowds demonstrating against his effort to eliminate collective bargaining rights, proving once again that the use of agent provocateurs to discredit legitimate protesters is a common political ploy...



Wednesday, February 23, 2011

TSA Screeners At JFK Admit To Stealing $160K From Passengers

From The Consumerist.

It must be tempting to be a TSA screener, seeing bags full of expensive goodies going through your scanner and knowing how easy it would be to make those bags disappear. Two TSA agents at JFK Airport in NYC gave into that temptation, swiping at least $160,000 from travelers.

The two thieves were caught earlier today when they were arrested for the Jan. 30 theft of $39,000 from a single passenger's bag. Police say they have subsequently fessed up to $160,000 worth of stolen cash.

Monday, February 21, 2011

Afghan Officials Allege that 65 Civilians Were Killed in U.S. Military Operation

From Cryptogon and The Washington Post.

Afghan government officials alleged Sunday that a U.S. military operation in the remote mountains of northeastern Afghanistan killed 65 innocent people, including 22 women and more than 30 children, the most serious allegation of civilian casualties in months.
The governor of Konar province, Fazlullah Wahidi, said that NATO forces launched the operation four days ago in the Ghaziabad district, a desolate area near the province’s northern border with Pakistan, where a lethal mix of insurgent groups operate.
“According to locals in the area, American helicopters have been constantly bombing the village and have caused tremendous civilian casualties,” Wahidi said in an interview. He said he received his information from residents “trapped” in the village.
American commanders went into crisis mode Sunday, launching an investigation into the incident to find out what happened and prevent the episode from damaging relations with the Afghan government.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Madison Protests Hit Largest Numbers On Saturday; Rockers On Their Way To Join






The hypocrisy is astounding of those who wish that all the debts built up by fraud, military adventurism, corporate socialism, and wall street bailouts now be paid for solely by ordinary workers while the Wall Street tycoons are still raking it in. Gee, I guess because I can see the obvious that must make me a communist.

International corporations, banks, special interests who often have little real relationship to the U.S. are however spared in many cases from paying their fair share.



From Huffington Post


None of it - not the ear-splitting chants, the pounding drums or the back-and-forth debate between 70,000 protesters - changed the minds of Wisconsin lawmakers dug into a stalemate over Republican efforts to scrap union rights for almost all public workers...

...Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello and other musicians will be in Madison on Monday to show support for the protesters rallying against Governor Walker.

According to a press release for the event:

On Monday, Tom Morello, Wayne Kramer, Street Dogs and other musicians will join teachers, students, community members, religious leaders in the state capitol to rally against Gov. Walker's radical proposals against workers and their union. They will call for policies that support the middle class and leaders who will respect the freedom of working people to collectively call for a better life....


Military Creating an Army of Fake People on the Internet

From Revolutionary Politics


Software will allow 10 personas per user, replete with background , history, supporting details, and cyber presences that are technically, culturally and geographacilly consistent. Individual applications will enable an operator to exercise a number of different online persons from the same workstation and without fear of being discovered by sophisticated adversaries. Personas must be able to appear to originate in nearly any part of the world and can interact through conventional online services and social media platforms.

The request was for 50 licenses, which means the Air Force hoped to create up to 500 fake Internet people. The request was filled in June, which means these fake people could be roaming the 'net right now...

U.S. Ally Bahrain Mows Down Protesters, CNN Reporter Caught In Gunfire

From Prison Planet and CNN.

Graphic Videos Of Protester Killings In Middle East.

I believe this does have news value and so I am posting it for that reason only. The first video is of protesters being shot in Bahrain. The second of a boy shot in Libya. These videos and images bring home the reality of what is going on better then statistics can. One might also wonder, are these scenes the precursor to scenes we will soon see everywhere if the precarious western financial system continues to fall off of its hinges?

(Warning: graphic and violent content)

From Zerohedge



Mubarak and Ben Ali comas: What would Tacitus say?

From Infowars and The Times.

So the story is that Mubarak and Ben Ali are now both desperately ill — indeed, it is said, in a coma. And there have been a handful of sharp comments, wondering what the “Deposed Dictator Syndrome” (DDS) actually is — and how convenient it might be as a protective device against assassination.
I couldn’t help thinking how Roman it all looked. There is a whole series of similar scenarios, brilliantly concocted by the brilliant Tacitus (I say ‘concocted’ because he cant possibly have known what went on). They are all centred on the grimy last moments of autocrats and dictators.
The basic rule for Tacitus is that despots don’t die a natural death...

Saturday, February 19, 2011

The Age Of Fake

If anything defines the generation that is currently robbing, deceiving, surveilling, controlling, imprisoning, manipulating, and murdering people all around the globe in the name of the War on Terror, corporate oligarchy, and the financial mafia, it is their fakeness. You could refer to them as fakeians, since they are some kind of souless, consciousless creatures who believe that PR and deception creates the truth that the world must accept. They believe no lie is too big if it brings them more power. Their entire lives and power is based an total fiction. I thought of that idea when I saw this episode of the Keiser Report.

TSA Source: Armed Agent Slips Past DFW Body Scanner

See? The things are useless, just as an Israeli airport security expert has also said.

Like the Swine Flu scam, and the War on Terror in general, the body scanners are about manipulating people to make money for corporations or otherwise gain power. Until everyone realizes that their government and the corporate powers which run things today are a bunch of liars and con artists, until people realize their government is run for the most part by a sack of corrupt morons, until people realize their government verges on a total joke, things won't improve. Doesn't matter if you are liberal or conservative.


From NBC


An undercover TSA agent was able to get through security at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport with a handgun during testing of the enhanced-imaging body scanners, according to a high-ranking, inside source at the Transportation Security Administration.
The source said the undercover agent carried a pistol in her undergarments when she put the body scanners to the test. The officer successfully made it through the airport's body scanners every time she tried, the source said.

Friday, February 18, 2011

Where Are The Handcuffs?

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Exiled Tunisian leader Ben Ali in serious condition after stroke

mmm...not just Mubarak but also Ben Ali also has a stroke.

From Digital Journal


Former Tunisia's President Ben Ali, who is in exile in Saudi Arabia, has suffered a stroke and was reported to be in a grave condition in a hospital, according to a family friend...

The Bahrain Army Just Started Firing Machine Guns Right Into The Protesters

From Business Insider


...the army in Abharain have started firing live ammo directly at protesters, who were marching towards a hospital, which housed other injured protesters.
It's clear that unlike in Egypt -- where for the most part the Army was not violent in one direction or another -- the Bahrain royal family has control of its military, and is using it to crack down on protesters, a situation that will make things potentially more bloody.
Of course, Bahrain is a big pivot point for the region. If it falls, Saudi Arabia could conceivably go, which is why they're panicking there...


Read more

Returning National Guard Troops Set To Smash Wisconsin Protest?

From Prison Planet.


Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Friday, February 18, 2011

Coincidence or not, the fact that hundreds of National Guard troops are returning to Wisconsin today fresh from battling insurgents in Iraq is sure to alarm union protesters who labeled Governor Scott Walker’s move to put the Guard on alert last week a “threat” designed to intimidate demonstrators who are currently massed around the Capitol in Madison.

In case of a widespread walkout in response to his “budget repair bill,” Walker told reporters last week that he would use National Guard troops to be “prepared…for whatever the governor, their commander-in-chief, might call for. … I am fully prepared for whatever may happen.”

Ostensibly, Walker’s announcement was a signal that he is prepared to replace state workers with National Guard troops, deploying them for example as prison guards. However, protesters cried foul, claiming that Walker was invoking the Guard as an intimidation tactic to suppress dissent.

Making Fortune on Poverty: JP Morgan’s Big Food Stamp Business

From Max Keiser.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Veteran and CIA Analyst Ray McGovern Carried Away And Beaten As Witch Clinton Smiles Talking About Egyptian Rights Abuses. America Is Over. Bye Bye.

Listen to the witch praise the protesters in Egypt as her thugs beat up a protester right in front of her. Go to the link for the photos of bloodied Ray McGovern. Luckily he sustained no serious injuries.


From Prison Planet and Partnership for Civil Justice.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Anonymous Hack Brings Security Firm To Its Knees

From NPR


The hacktivist group Anonymous is at it again. This time, it has humiliated a Internet security firm that threatened to out the group's hierarchy...

...Earlier this month, HBGary Federal's CEO Aaron Barr said the company, which specializes in analyzing vulnerabilities in computer security for companies and even some government agencies, had undertaken an investigation of Anonymous and had used social media to unmask the group's most important people...

...Barr said an HBGary representative was set to give a presentation at a security conference in San Francisco, but as soon as Anonymous got wind of their plans, it hacked into HBGary's servers, riffled through their e-mails and published them to the web. The group defaced HBGary's website and published the user registration database of another site owned by Greg Hoglund, owner of HBGary.

Amazingly, reports ArsTechnica, Anonymous managed all this by exploiting, easy and everyday security flaws...

...Forbes reports that HBGary has become "toxic," its clients and partners cutting ties. It reports that CEO Barr also canceled the talk at the B-Sides conference, which was supposed to be about Anonymous.

The Takedown of Hosni Mubarak

From Infowars.

Major Scientific Report Vindicates Unanswered Questions In Anthrax Conspiracy

From Prison Planet.


Independent panel finds that science linking Ivins to government anthrax spores was inconclusive.

Steve Watson
Prisonplanet.com
Feb 16, 2011

A newly released report produced by a panel of independent scientists asserts that there was not enough scientific evidence for the FBI to convict their prime suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks, vindicating those who have consistently pointed to a deeper conspiracy behind the case.

Fox News Caught In Shocking Dirty Tricks Stunt Against Ron Paul

This is the disgusting world of outright lies and propaganda which is the mainstream American media. Fox blatantly showed a false video clip of booing from the same event a year earlier in an effort to make Ron Paul look bad.

The real footage was not of boos, but of cheers and chants of "Ron Paul, Ron Paul"...(go to video at 4:15 for the real one)

In actuality it wasn't Ron Paul, but Trump who got booed in the real clip.

Can't have that.

These are the scumbags that think they run America. These are their works.


From Prison Planet.


We Are Change Confronts David Horowitz

Who are these strange people who are so cynical that they believe that the truth behind the murder of millions means nothing?


Journalist: Would you agree there should be another [9/11] Investigation?

Horowitz: I don't know, you know? I haven't looked at any of the evidence.

Journalist: Would you be interested in looking at the evidence?

Horowitz: No.


FBI: 100 Percent Chance of WMD Attack

Well if the FBI sends one of their "informants" to mix the chemicals and build the bombs for them as they've done in the past, well of course then they know it WILL happen.

From Newsmax


...“The notion of probability of a WMD attack being low or high is a moot point because we know the probability is 100 percent,” Majidi says. “We’ve seen this in the past, and we will see it in the future. There is going to be an attack using chemical, biological or radiological material.”

Even a WMD attack that does not kill a great number of people would have a crushing psychological impact.

“A singular lone wolf individual can do things in the dark of the night with access to a laboratory with low quantities of material and could hurt a few people but create a devastating effect on the American psyche,” Majidi says.

As described by Majidi, who was previously the chemistry division leader at Los Alamos National Laboratory, the WMD Directorate was established in 2006 to coordinate all elements of the FBI that deal with WMD cases.

Regarding a subject that is full of hype and misinformation, it is rare for an official who is an expert in the field and has full access to current classified information to talk about it for publication.

Majidi says the kind of threat that keeps him awake at night is one from a lone wolf. That’s because the FBI, along with the CIA and foreign partners, has developed a number of ways to detect plots by al-Qaida and other foreign terrorists. Besides intercepting their communications and infiltrating their organizations, the FBI gets reports when people purchase materials that could be used in a WMD attack. These techniques are known as trip wires...

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

20 Something Journalist Amongst Suited Pro-Establishment Zombies Asks Real Questions Not Allowed In Anti-Truth America

This is a better perspective of the engagement with the political demons which occurred. I am posting it as well since I believe it is a better video and also includes drugged up stooge Limbaugh. I like the moronic idiot who calls out "thank you for all you have done for this country." Ha Ha Ha. I guess that woman has an I.Q. of something like -569. God Bless America.

From 9/11 Blogger.

Plastic Blue Haired Republican Nazi Zombies And Rove Freaked Out By Well Meaning Hecklers Whose Only Fault Is That They For Some Reason "Love" America

From We Are Change.

Almost Dead Slime Devil Cheney Gets A Few Words Of Truth

From Youtube.

Anguished Last Words From Mark, Deep In The Heart of Doomed Bush/Obama/Wall Street/Pentagon America


A Disillusioned 99'er Shares His Disappointment With The American Dream, Welcomes Death


From Zerohedge.

...It is with a heavy heart that I have set my death in motion, but what I am facing is not living. So off I go, I have made peace with God and placed my burden on Jesus and He forgives me. This nation has become evil to the core, with cold-hearted politicians and tycoons squeezing what little Main Street Americans have left. It is not the America into which I was born -- the land of the free and the home of the brave with kind folks who help neighbors -- it is now land of the Tycoon-haves and the rest of us have-nots who march into hopelessness and despair.

Every unemployed person I have met over these past two years have been saintly. Sharing what little they have, and being charitable -- being kind and patient and supportive. Isn't it amazing that we Americans who suffer so much, have not taken to the streets in violence, riots or gotten out the guillotines and marched on tycoons and Washington in revolt as would happen in most other nations? But rather we plead with deaf politicians to please help us. We don't demand huge sums -- just 300 bucks a week, barely enough to cover housing for most. Most of all we say, please help us get a job, please allow us dignity.

I can't help but juxtapose our plight to the tycoons and politicians. They are never satisfied with their enormous wealth, and always want more millions no matter whom it hurts. They STEAL from pension funds, banks, the people and government, and little Wall Street investors. Then rather than face punishment, they become petty kings in this world. They are disloyal to America, unpatriotic, and serve their own foreign UN-American greedy causes and demand more and more and more. I feel that this is not the nation into which I was born. I was born in America, the land of the free and the home of the brave. America, where people give as much as they receive. America, where all people work for the common good, and try to leave a better and more prosperous nation for the next generation. America, where people help their neighbors and show charity and mercy. This new America is alien to me -- it is an America of greed and corruption and avarice and mean spirited selfishness and hatred of the common good -- it is an America of savage beasts roaring and tearing at the weak, and bullying the humble and peacemakers and poor and those without means to defend themselves. I am not welcome here anymore. I don't belong here anymore. It's as if some evil beast controls government, the economy, and our lives now...

Monday, February 14, 2011

Jihadi who helped train 7/7 bomber freed by US after just five years; Release prompts claim Islamist was US informant while assisting London terrorist

Ok cut through all the nice wording and what do we have here? The guy who trained the 7/7 bombers was working for the U.S. With every, yes EVERY terror cell there seems to be a connection back to the same authorities who we are supposed to believe are fighting terror. Usually this is called an informant. Usually it is he who is directly responsible for organizing the activities. It is as plain as day. War is a racket, and the War on Terror as well.


From The Guardian.


An American jihadist who set up the terrorist training camp where the leader of the 2005 London suicide bombers learned how to manufacture explosives, has been quietly released after serving only four and a half years of a possible 70-year sentence, a Guardian investigation has learned.

The unreported sentencing of Mohammed Junaid Babar to "time served" because of what a New York judge described as "exceptional co-operation" that began even before his arrest has raised questions over whether Babar was a US informer at the time he was helping to train the ringleader of the 7 July tube and bus bombings...

...Further inquiries uncovered allegations from a top US terrorism lawyer who has reviewed sealed evidence in the case which suggests Babar could have been working for the US authorities before his arrest in April 2004.

Swine flu vaccine linked to 900 percent increased risk of developing narcolepsy

From Prison Planet and Natural News.

Ethan A. Huff
Natural News
Feb 13, 2011

The World Health Organization (WHO) is currently investigating reports from 12 different countries claiming that the H1N1 (swine flu) vaccination is responsible for causing narcolepsy, a disorder involving extreme chronic fatigue and the tendency to fall asleep suddenly and without warning. One of the reports from Finland, for instance, found that children who received the swine flu vaccine were 900 percent more likely to develop narcolepsy than non-vaccinated children.

“Since August 2010, following widespread use of vaccines against influenza (H1N1) 2009, cases of narcolepsy, especially in children and adolescents, have been reported from at least 12 countries,” said WHO. ” Officials admit the concerns are valid and say they will look into them further, but WHO continues to recommend swine flu vaccines anyway, including GlaxoSmithKline’s (GSK) Pandemrix.

The Finnish study, which was released by Finland’s National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), stopped short of fully blaming the vaccines, adding a caveat about a possible “joint effect of the vaccine and some other factor(s).” But the vaccine is clearly correlated to the condition, and by all preliminary appearances, seems to be a primary causative factor.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

The Guardian censored Wikileaks cables that did not support liberal imperialist agenda against Iran

From Max Keiser.


This is the glaring hole in the entire so-called Twitter Revolution narrative. We said at the time that not only did less than half of one percent of the population even have a Twitter account, but that the so-called opposition did not have the widespread support that many hyper imperial Western commentators were alleging via their ‘anonymous’ sources. And that’s not to say that there weren’t protests, I’m just saying that the protests were not as deep, wide and organic as what we’ve seen in Tunisia and Egypt.

So when the wikileaks cables were first published, the very first cables released dealt with Iran and painted a very anti-Iranian picture. I was surprised by this and did suspect that a case for war was being built. Now we learn it was the Guardian which refused to print the negative information regarding the opposition groups in Iran that the newspaper itself had painted as charismatic, freedom-loving democrats.

I’m not sure why Assange always goes to the mainstream imperial press and expects a different outcome. Maybe next time, he will come to us first!


Patriot Act fails on House floor — but it will be back

What? Can it be? Some good news? Not really...see the last line...

From Prison Planet and Raw Story

A plan that would have seen the House of Representatives extend controversial provisions of the Patriot Act with little debate failed Tuesday night, as a group of Republicans joined a majority of Democrats in voting no.
The House voted 277 to 148 for the Patriot Act extension — 23 votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to pass it under a procedure that allows bills that aren’t controversial to pass quickly.
But it appears the bill was controversial enough to convince some two dozen tea party-backed Republican freshmen to join a majority of Democrats in voting against it...

The measure is now expected to return to the House floor for a regular vote that would require a simple majority to pass. If House members vote then as they did Tuesday, the extension will pass easily.


WIKILEAKS: USA fears Saudi oil may have been overstated by 40%

From Prison Planet and The Guardian


The US fears that Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest crude oil exporter, may not have enough reserves to prevent oil prices escalating, confidential cables from its embassy in Riyadh show.
The cables, released by WikiLeaks, urge Washington to take seriously a warning from a senior Saudi government oil executive that the kingdom’s crude oil reserves may have been overstated by as much as 300bn barrels – nearly 40%...

Pharmacy Mistakenly Gives Pregnant Woman Abortion Pill

From 7 News.

FT. LUPTON, Colo. -- She is six weeks pregnant and when she went to the pharmacy to pick up an antibiotic her doctor had prescribed, the pharmacist gave her an abortion drug by mistake.
Mareena Silva might lose her unborn child because of the prescription drug error, which occurred last Thursday.
"I took it because I thought it was mine," Silva said...

Monday, February 7, 2011

Shaffer On The Saudis, CIA, ISI And 9/11

From 9/11 Blogger.

Top UN Officials Have Public Meltdown over Call for New 9/11 Investigation

From Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth

Richard Falk, retired Princeton University professor of international law and a United Nations-appointed human rights expert on the Human Rights Council, was blasted by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon for suggesting in his January 11 blog entry that there was a cover-up regarding some aspects of the official account of 9/11. Falk mentioned “the reluctance to address the sort of awkward gaps and contradictions in the official explanations” that David Ray Griffin documents in his books. Falk also wrote, “What may be more distressing than the apparent cover-up is the eerie silence of the mainstream media … What must we learn from all this? Don’t connect dots without evidence.”

Sec.-Gen. Ki-Moon condemned these remarks as “preposterous”.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

WILL NEW YORK CITY BE THE NEXT CAIRO? - The New York Times and “living within our means” - by Bill Van Auken

From Fubar and Grill

On the eve of New York Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo’s budget announcement, the New York Times published a lengthy editorial headlined “Within Our Means,” demanding that all New Yorkers tighten their belts in order to close the state budget gap.
The budget presented by Cuomo on Tuesday includes drastic across-the-board austerity measures, cutting billions of dollars in local school funding and Medicaid appropriations, while proposing to lay off some 10,000 state workers.
This is all to the good, as far as the Times is concerned, but only as a first installment. Cuomo and the state legislature, the editorial declares, “will have to make very difficult decisions about how to close a $10 billion budget deficit—which state offices to shutter, which services and aid to cut, which employees to lay off and which taxes to raise. There are no easy fixes left.”
Noting that half of the state’s operating budget goes to education and health care—the areas hardest hit by Cuomo’s budget ax—the Times affirms indifferently, “So, the state’s most vulnerable citizens—the poor, the sick, the elderly and schoolchildren—will inevitably bear the largest burden.”
The newspaper assures its readers, however, that there is plenty of “room to cut,” arguing that the deficit is largely a function of the state government’s “profligacy and its eagerness to reward unions and other special interests.” To illustrate its point, it cites the provision of “optional benefits” such as dental coverage to such “special interest” groups as the children of families subsisting on less than $15,000 a year.
There is no room for sentimentality about such things, the Times makes clear. “We need to live within our means,” the editorial states, while expressing the hope that ways can be found “to cut spending equitably.”
To demonstrate its commitment to equity, the newspaper makes a few concrete proposals. “The best place to look for savings is in programs for the elderly and the disabled,” it writes. It suggests that the state “restrict allowed home visits,” leaving those unable to leave their apartments to die on their own.
It adds proposals to carry out mass layoffs of teachers and state employees, while freezing their salaries, cutting their pensions and increasing their health care contributions. “Freezes are a painful fact of life across the private sector these days,” the newspaper notes.
Cautioning against taking the idea of equity too far, the Times warns, “With the economy still struggling this is not the time to impose major new taxes.”
This editorial gives voice to the firmly held views of a ruling elite in New York City which, in terms of its corruption, defense of social inequality and political reaction, is a match for Hosni Mubarak and his cronies in Cairo. Only outright sociopaths could make the case that in New York, of all places, the prime area to look for money to close the deficit gap is the meager assistance provided to the disabled and the homebound elderly.
This city’s mayor is Michael Bloomberg, a man whose personal fortune exceeds $18 billion. He and his fellow billionaire New Yorkers—men like David Koch, John Paulson, Ronald Perelman, Carl Icahn, Stephen Schwarzman, Rupert Murdoch—could personally cover the state deficit ten times over and still rank among the super-rich.
They bestride a city that is the most unequal in the country and among the most unequal in the world. According to one recent study, if New York City were a country it would rank 15th from the bottom in terms of income equality among 134 nations, roughly on a par with Honduras. To talk about “cutting spending equitably” in this environment is not just farcical, it is criminal...

The average income of the top one percent has more than doubled since 2002 alone, rising by 119 percent. Meanwhile, over the past two decades, the median hourly wage in New York City has fallen by nearly 9 percent, while the share of total income earned by those on the bottom half of the economic ladder—50 percent of the population—has been cut in half, from 15.8 percent in 1990 to 7.9 percent today.
The top one percent runs the city, with Bloomberg, one of their own, at the helm. This elite rests on a wider layer of millionaires, which, according to a survey produced last summer, consists of some 667,000 people. No doubt they include not a few of the higher-paid columnists and editorial writers at theTimes. According to the FPI study, the number of millionaires in New York City rose by 18 percent in 2009 over the previous year, a staggering rise that can be explained only by the massive amount of money poured into Wall Street in the wake of the September 2008 financial meltdown.
It is worth recalling that at the time of the bank bailout, the Times editorial board wasn’t talking about living “within our means.” Instead, it was demanding that the government make available hundreds of billions of dollars to cover the bad bets of the major financial institutions and protect the fortunes of their biggest investors.
“It is painfully clear that the financial system will not rebound on its own from the excessive lending and borrowing of the Bush years and the credit collapse in their wake,” the Times editorialized at the time. “The one-bailout-at-a-time approach hasn’t worked. And modest steps are no longer an option.”
Thus, the same newspaper that proclaimed there could be no “modest steps” in bailing out the banks now insists there can be “no easy fixes,” i.e., that the working people must pay the cost.
The Times editorial sums up the outlook of the liberal Democratic Party establishment, including the Obama administration, and reflects the wealth-besotted social layer for which it speaks—a layer that looks on the working class with contempt and hatred.
The drastic cutbacks now being introduced, coming on top of the sharp decline in living standards for the majority of the population, near-record unemployment and historic levels of social inequality, will inevitably ignite a social firestorm.
New York City will see social struggles on a scale now being witnessed in Egypt. Millions of workers will fight to defend their jobs, their living standards, their children’s education and their basic social rights against the rapacity of New York’s billionaire pharaohs...

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Bush Cancels Visit To Switzerland Due To Threat Of Torture Prosecution, Rights Groups Say

From Huffington Post.

GENEVA, Feb 5 (Reuters) - Former U.S. President George W. Bush has cancelled a visit to Switzerland, where he was to address a Jewish charity gala, due to the risk of legal action against him for alleged torture, rights groups said on Saturday.

Bush was to be the keynote speaker at Keren Hayesod's annual dinner on Feb. 12 in Geneva. But pressure has been building on the Swiss government to arrest him and open a criminal investigation if he enters the Alpine country.

Criminal complaints against Bush alleging torture have been lodged in Geneva, court officials say...

Senior US Marine Says “Multiple Platoons” Are Headed To Egypt

From Business Insider.

A senior member of the US Marine corps is telling people "multiple platoons" are deploying to Egypt, a source tells us.
There is a system within the US Marines that alerts the immediate families of high-ranking marines when their marine will soon be deployed to an emergency situation where they will not be able to talk to their spouses or families.
That alert just went out, says our source.
This senior Marine told our source that the Pentagon will deploy "multiple platoons" to Egypt over the next few days and that the official reason will be ‘to assist in the evacuation of US citizens."
Our source was told that "the chances they were going over there went from 70% yesterday to 100% today."


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Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Iceland Proves Ireland Did ‘Wrong Things’ Sacrificing Taxpayers

From Bloomberg

Feb. 1 (Bloomberg) -- On his second day as head of Iceland’s third-largest bank, Arni Tomasson faced a crisis: The firm he had been asked by regulators to run was out of cash.

It was Oct. 8, 2008, at the height of the global financial meltdown, and Iceland’s bank assets in the U.K. had been frozen, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its March issue. Customers flocked to branches of Tomasson’s Glitnir Banki hf to withdraw money, even though the government had guaranteed their deposits. By the end of the day, the vaults were empty, says Tomasson, recalling the drama two years later.

The only way Glitnir and other lenders could avoid a panic the next morning was to get more cash, which they were having trouble doing. A container of crisp kronur sat on the tarmac at Reykjavik’s airport awaiting payment, Tomasson says. The British company that printed the bills, De La Rue Plc, was demanding sterling, and the central bank couldn’t access its U.K. account.

“Everybody was panicked -- depositors, creditors, banks around the world,” Tomasson says. “The effort by all of us at the time was to make sure life could go on as normal.”

Tomasson, 55, got the cash he needed that night after the central bank managed to open an emergency line of credit with a European lender. Now, he’s sitting in an office in Reykjavik, handling about $24 billion of claims by creditors as life in Iceland’s capital returns to normal.

Unlike other nations, including the U.S. and Ireland, which injected billions of dollars of capital into their financial institutions to keep them afloat, Iceland placed its biggest lenders in receivership. It chose not to protect creditors of the country’s banks, whose assets had ballooned to $209 billion, 11 times gross domestic product.

Krona Devaluation

The crisis almost sank the country. The krona lost 58 percent of its value by the end of November 2008, inflation spiked to 19 percent in January 2009 and GDP contracted by 7 percent that year. Prime Minister Geir H. Haarde resigned after nationwide protests. With the economy projected to grow 3 percent this year, Iceland’s decision to let the banks fail is looking smart -- and may prove to be a model for others...