Volunteers for Planetary Climate Action (VPCA) – October 27, 2014

Share

 Volunteers for Planetary Climate Action (VPCA)
+  Resolving the Atmospheric Emergency  +
October 27, 2014 
 
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
     Hats off to Brett Redmayne-Titley for his brilliant piece directly below.  He certainly has provided some eye-openers for me.
     I’d thought the CDC was wholly a US Govt organization which had been as thoroughy infiltrated by the Fourth Reich as FEMA and WHO.  But no!  No infiltration was necessary because  (though it does have part of its organizational structure inside the USG in order to deceive) it has been controlled by evil connivers since its onset.
     Also he has helped me understand that the recent arrival of more US troops in Africa isn’t on behalf of eradicating Ebola but rather to maintain slave conditions in African diamond mines.
                                                               Power to the Flora,
                                                                 
                                                               Keith Lampe, Ro-Non-So-Te, Ponderosa Pine
                                                               Volunteer
Ebola scare fabricated by US media to make profit
Fri Oct 24, 2014 8:50AM
By Brett Redmayne-Titley

American lies brought to you an Iraq war and hundreds of thousands dead. American lies recently brought us the barbarism of Ukraine. American lies next forced all to bear witness to contrived atrocities in Syria and accept fabricated excuses for hundreds of dead children in Gaza.

American lies now bring you Ebola.

To begin, consider:

– The Center for Disease Control (CDC), the epicenter for all worldwide media information and purported credibility about Ebola, is a for­profit, publicly traded, private corporation with a very dark, sinister and criminal past.

– On April 29, 2010, the CDC acquired the patent and ownership for the Zaire Ebola Virus (ZEBOV). By doing so, it acquired rights for all pending bio­engineered forms of the heinous virus, including vaccines and infection tests.

– A clinical study in 2010 has shown a very promising, effective and simple cure for Ebola to be already available worldwide; Ascorbic acid. Vitamin C.

The CDC tells you no cure currently exists for Ebola. A lie. Attention is required. The plot is deep, the crimes many. The reason, of course, money, profit, greed and power.

The culprit: the enemy of humanity. America. Its weapon, of course; fear. Our antidote; knowledge.

The world knows well that Americans are too easily scared into disproportionate overreaction. So does their government.

Dutifully, your press hid the fact that rational EU and West African countries are no longer using any CDC Ebola infection statistics, because they are wrong. 69 percent of all reported Ebola cases have not been tested to confirm the supposed positive result, which requires blood analysis.

Why? There is no accurate, early warning test for Ebola infection. None. As such, death from Malaria, Cholera, and insect bites are being counted as Ebola victims merely because their symptoms are similar.

Indeed, the US Department of Defense (DOD) manual titled “Joint Project Manager Medical Countermeasures Systems”, dated August 14, 2014, states, “[The PCR Ebola test] should not be used as the sole basis for patient management decisions.”

The report, documented by investigative journalist Jon Rappoport, leads him to conclude that the diagnostic test called PCR, is in reality, “utterly unreliable and useless,” in showing Ebola infection before outward symptoms become obvious.

However this past week, Tom Frieden, the head of the CDC, in referring to the three US cases centered in Texas, called the PCR test “a very accurate test.”

Really?

Worse, for CDC believers, was the front page headline in Monrovia, Liberia’s largest news paper, the “Liberia Observer,” on Sept 9, 2014, that claimed Ebola was being deliberately propagated by US Aid troops.

Titled “Ebola, AIDS Manufactured By Western Pharmaceuticals, US DoD?” the article was authored by Dr. Cyril Broderick, Professor of Plant Pathology at the University of Liberia’s College of Agriculture and Forestry, who states this Ebola is a genetically modified, man­made organism (GMO).

The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has been up to no good with vaccines for a decade across central Africa, most recently manifesting in the last few years into US troops and multiple US wars of exceptionalism. Buried in all this American insurrection have been many reports of secret vaccine programs.

To test a vaccine, however, requires infected human patients who are not always in steady supply. With the CDC owning Ebola, it is a safe conclusion that a steady supply of test subjects was only a few inoculations away. Past evidence indicates this to be true.

The other player in this facade of healthcare is the World Health Organization (WHO). When troops aren’t available, WHO does the dirty work on behalf of CDC, disguised as health care. Their weapon: vaccines.

A Scientific American article on April 16, 2013, “How the CIA’s Fake Vaccination Campaign Endangers Us All,” documents the US Military’s involvement in WHO style vaccine programs in Pakistan and Nigeria despite overwhelming public opposition.

Pakistani Prime Minister’s Inspection Commission (PMIC), headed by Malik Amjad Noon, recommended that Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani immediately suspend the administration of all types of vaccines funded by the aid group GAVI. He did.

Adding further credibility to Ebola being a manufactured event is a report showing that the DOD gave a contract worth USD 140 million dollars to Tekmira, a Canadian pharmaceutical company, to conduct Ebola research involving the injection and infusing of healthy humans with Ebola.

The DOD is listed as a collaborator in a “First in Human” Ebola clinical trial (NCT02041715), which started in January 2014 shortly before an Ebola epidemic was declared in West Africa in March.

It has also been reported from multiple sources that the US government has a viral fever bioterrorism research laboratory in Kenema, Sierra Leone, right near where the first reports of infection became international news just seven months ago.

The first internal symptoms of Ebola are much the same as the old seaman’s disease, scurvy, which is caused by inadequate vitamin C. Though scurvy is not usually fatal , scurvy represents only a partial deficiency of vitamin C, and the body still has substantial vitamin C, not zero, which Ebola causes.

Absent any vitamin C, blood vessels become very weak and start to lose blood, and platelets become ineffective and unable to trigger clots. So death by Ebola is caused by massive internal hemorrhaging; hence the name; hemorrhagic fever.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is openly threatening sellers of natural remedies that might be useful for slowing or stopping Ebola.

The FDA recently threatened three companies with criminal prosecution if they didn’t take steps to dissociate their products from Ebola. One company, the Natural Solutions Foundation, has since claimed that governments are actively seizing its colloidal silver shipments to African nations in order to prevent Ebola victims from ever being treated with it.

Naturally, complicit criminals in national media are barred from telling the public about any possible cure, much less an inexpensive one. Greed and profit mean that media will not tell you about the 2010 study by Prof.

So, while the world waits for big­pharma to concoct another “miracle” vaccine to save us all from the new black plague, people die, and media stokes the embers of manufactured fear and existing treatments are left out of the discussion.

Why?

If, as evidence continues to mount, the Ebola outbreak’s origin was in Sierra Leone, and deliberate, that would have insidious benefits for corrupt and influential corporations in West Africa. As the world’s largest supplier of diamonds, Sierra Leone is on strike, refusing to provide diamonds due to horrible working conditions and slave pay.

The Western slave masters refuse to pay a fair wage for the resources. The idea is to keep the workers remaining a source of cheap slave labor forever. Corporations control military agendas, and the diamond cartels are some of the historically most entrenched. Hence, it is highly plausible that Ebola is the new “reason” for getting troops on the ground in Sierra Leone to end the Diamond Miners’ strikes.

Instead of the 2,000 trained doctors already sent by Cuba, 3,000 additional US troops have been sent to West Africa to combine with thousands already doing the work of the empire in at least a dozen African countries.

Public health is not high on the US agenda. In the conquest of foreign resources, including stealing Nigerian Oil, forcing Sierra Leone back into diamond mining using these troops may be an added bonus.

For Africans who are foolish enough to willingly take a “vaccine,” they may soon become a CDC news statistic.

However, back in the US homeland, the probable epicenter of Ebola, daily news cycles are shaping up the American public for complying with the dictats of a tidy nationwide pandemic.

Duncan, contract Ebola?

Not taking any chances with popular opinion getting in the way, in July, US President Barack Obama signed into law an amendment to Executive Order 13295,  which redefines who can be forcefully quarantined and why.

This adjustment now means that any police officer or ‘health official’ can, without question, and on suspicion alone, quarantine anyone simply for showing any sign of “respiratory illness.” Not just Ebola.

Events continue to move rapidly this past week with the US president fabricating a new Federal government power­point, the aptly named, ‘Ebola Czar.” Of course, Ron Klain, has no track record at all in  healthcare or emergency services, which would seem pre­requisites for this job.

A review of his resume shows that Klain is the consummate insider with a proven track record of doing and saying what he is told, and shutting up in between. The perfect propaganda mouth piece. Long discarded for no reason is the US Posse Comitatus Act (18 U.S.C. §1385, original at 20 Stat. 152) that was passed on June 18, 1878, and updated in 1981, that restricts US Federal troops from operating on US soil.

So naturally, this week it was announced the formation of Ebola “Quick-Strike” teams,” of thirty members each to be ready to respond to the predicted future outbreaks within seventy­-two hours. Presumably, weapons in hand.

As referenced in a previous article, the US Congress has already effected binding legislation to steal the personal savings of its citizens. Contained in Title II of the 2010 Dodd­Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act is the exact language of how American will have little left of their savings when the fiscal collapse arrives at their doors.

In preparation for the admittedly inevitable financial collapse, this past week also saw the latest “stress test” regarding the acknowledged “too big to fail” banks.

Although the names of the three banks were not revealed, it was admitted that one each from the USA, the UK and the EU would participate. The results have not been revealed either, but the timing applied to the bankrupt realities of all three sponsoring nations is conspicuous at best.

The ongoing, duplicitous CDC lie is that Ebola is “difficult to catch.” It is not airborne, but being in close proximity to an Ebola victim is like being next to someone with the flu; contamination from coughs and sneezes go a long way and are infectious.

Plane travel, bus travel, and school class rooms are potential problem environments. On one breath CDC says infections in West Africa are almost out control, but in America CDC minimizes the risk.

BRT/MKA

Brett Redmayne-Titley spent his formative years with his family in Queensland, Australia, Ghana, West Africa, and the Bahamas. Visiting over fifty counties over four decades he has seen the world slowly destroyed by greed, capitalism and empire. Not content to watch from the side lines, Brett has taken up his pen to tell the truth about important stories. On-scene reporting is his specialty. Traveling to the story he has written in-depth, multi-part articles about the Keystone XL Pipeline, Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations, the San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant, the 2012 Democratic National Convention, the police killing of Evan Kwik and many more.  His articles have been published by dozens of on-line news services. More articles by Brett Redmayne-Titley.
***
CDC for-profit company
The CDC Has Ulterior Motives


The CDC has ulterior motives in the diagnosing and subsequent treatment of Ebola. First of all, the CDC is traded on Dunn and Bradstreet. This fact makes the CDC a for-profit corporation.

CENTER OF DISEASE CONTROL
2920 BRANDYWINE RD STE 300
ATLANTA GA

Secondly, and as I have pointed out before, the CDC owns the patent on Ebola and all variances up to 70% of the variance. This means that because the CDC owns Ebola, they will receive a royalty every time a treatment is provided because of the alteration of their intellectual property rights.

These two facts mean that if the CDC moved to block the spread of Ebola, they would cut into their profit motive. On this point, there can be no argument. Are we supposed the humanitarian nature that the CDC would forgo their profit motive in order to serve the public good? Should we trust the CDC? What are the implications?

[link to www.thexxxcommonsenseshow.com

Note: get rid of the xxx’s

Dunn and Bradstreet – [link to creditreports.dnb.com (secure)

 
***
October 25, 2014

NY, New Jersey quarantining travelers from W. Africa

Jon Rappoport
Activist PostA health worker who treated so-called Ebola cases in West Africa has been locked in an iso ward of a medical facility for 21 days, after she arrived back in New Jersey.

She had no symptoms—but after being put in isolation, she developed a fever.

Many people would.

This is now official emergency policy for New York and New Jersey.

Contact with someone who “has Ebola” = 21 days in lockdown.

This is where the irrelevant diagnostic tests come in. That quarantined person, registering positive on an antibody or PCR test, will be labeled “Ebola”—even though the tests say nothing about Ebola, as I’ve described in past articles.

The next step will be locking people up for 21 days, if they came into contact with someone who “might have” Ebola.

Then we could see chains of “might haves.”

The truth is, anyone with a reasonably strong immune system will reject and dispose of the Ebola virus.

And anyone with a very weak immune system is subject to becoming ill, gravely ill, or dying from any number of germs, like the untold number of flu viruses floating around.

But the germ merchants are in charge of the game. They sell fear of germs like hot dogs.

And privately, they call their brokers and load up on shares of vaccine companies and sell short airline stocks.

New York City will sit there and absorb losses from tourism cancellations, just as Toronto took it in 2003, when the dreaded SARS (dud) allowed the World Health Organization to issue an advisory against travel to that city.

The hypnotist casts his spell and the audience succumbs.

The CDC, you can be sure, is in meetings with vaccine manufacturers and the FDA.

“When will the Ebola vaccine be ready for sale? We need to know, so we can try to keep this fear-charade and the quarantines going until then.”

That’s the challenge.

But the vaccine makers have an ace up their sleeves. The US and other governments have already made commitments and guarantees to buy millions of doses of vaccine, in any “public health emergency,” whenever they’re ready to ship—no matter what.

“Fortunately, due to surveillance, tracking, quarantines, and public education, we managed to escape a global holocaust by the skin of our teeth. This time. But we have a new awesome weapon in our vaults: the Ebola vaccine. An injection now, before the next outbreak, will protect you. This time, we gave that vaccine- protection to front-line health workers and others designated ‘at-risk.’ Now we can protect everybody…”

The only minor problem? Explaining away the severe reactions to, and deaths from, the vaccine.

“Uh, well, those people already had latent Ebola, we just didn’t know it because they showed no visible symptoms. They died from Ebola. The vaccine was perfectly safe. After all, prior to its release, we tested it on eleven monkeys in a lab…”

***

Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Finally Admits that Ebola Can Float through the Air … 3 Feet

Frontline Healthcare Workers Must Protect Themselves from Aerosol Transmission of Ebola

Global Research, October 27, 2014
Region: 

     We’ve noted for some time that Ebola can be spread by aerosols to frontline healthcare workers.

The CDC is finally admitting this fact.

The CDC put out a new poster stating:

Droplet spread happens when germs traveling inside droplets that are coughed or sneezed from a sick person enter the eyes, nose, or mouth of another person. Droplets travel short distances, less than 3 feet (1 meter) from one person to another.

A person might also get infected by touching a surface or object that has germs on it and then touching their mouth or nose.

***

Clean and disinfect commonly touched surfaces like doorknobs, faucet handles, and toys, since the Ebola virus may live on surfaces for up to several hours.

Meryl Nass, M.D. – a board-certified internist and a biological warfare epidemiologist and expert in anthrax – comments:

CDC says it doesn’t travel farther than 3 feet.  Well, at least CDC is starting to move the narrative.  Maybe tomorrow it will be 5 feet.  Then 10.  Maybe next month they will tell us why all the victims’ possessions are being incinerated and apartments fumigated.

Just remember: historically, Ebola spread fast in healthcare facilities.

And see this.

Dr. Nass previously argued that the CDC has been lying about aerosol transmission of Ebola, as its own 2009 publication admitted that Ebola:

pose[s] a high individual risk of aerosol-transmitted laboratory infectionsand life-threatening disease that is frequently fatal, for which there are no vaccines or treatments…

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
October 26, 2014
 
Ocean Temperatures

Of all excess heat resulting from people’s emissions, 93.4% goes into oceans. Accordingly, the temperature of oceans has risen substantially.

Globally, the average September ocean temperature marked a record high for that month in 2014, at 0.66°C (1.19°F) above the 20th century average, breaking the previous record that was set just one month earlier. On the Northern Hemisphere, the temperature of the ocean in September 2014 was 0.83 °C (or 1.49 °F) above the 20th century,

The anomaly was 0.84 °C in August 2014, as illustrated by the image below.

The danger is that the Gulf Stream will keep carrying ever warmer water from the North Atlantic into the Arctic Ocean, threatening to unleash huge methane eruptions from the Arctic Ocean’s seafloor, in turn causing even higher temperatures and more extreme weather events, wildfires, etc.

So, what can be done to reduce the risk?

Climate Plan

– Emission Cuts

It is imperative that large emissions cuts are made quickly. The Climate Plan calls for 80% emission cuts by 2020, as one of multiple lines of action that need to be implemented in parallel.

– Greenhouse Gas Removal and Storage

The IPCC points at the need for carbon dioxide removal and also warns about ocean warming continuing for centuries (text below).

Indeed, even if all emissions by people could somehow be brought to an abrupt end, this alone will not stop the rise of ocean temperatures, at least not for a long time. For starters, air temperatures would start rising within days, in response to the disappearance of aerosols that now mask the full wrath of global warming. Furthermore, such a temperature rise would further accelerate feedbacks such as snow and ice decline, methane hydrate destabilization, etc., in turn feeding further temperature rises.

The Climate Plan therefore calls for carbon dioxide removal, as well as for active removal of other greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, and for further lines of action.

– Further Action

Again, merely implementing the above lines of action will not suffice to quickly bring down ocean temperatures. Paleo-climate records show that falls in temperature go hand in hand with falls of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to levels under 280 ppm, as opposed to current carbon dioxide levels that are around 400 ppm.

Raising Funding for Further Action

The Climate Plan calls for comprehensive and effective action that includes additional lines of action. Such additional action will require U.N. supervision, which may make it hard for the necessary action to obtain sufficient funding.

In earlier posts, it was suggested that, besides having fees imposed on facilities that burn fossil fuel and on sales of fossil fuel itself, additional fees could be imposed on commercial international flights. As long as it seems too hard to substantially reduce emissions associated with such flights, it seems appropriate to explore further ways to minimize such flights, e.g. by imposing additional fees that could help fund further action.

There are a number of ways such fees could be implemented. Such fees could be calculated based on the distance traveled or as a percentage of the fare.

Fees could also be calculated on the basis of the traveler’s flying history, e.g. in the form of frequent flyer fees. Such fees could be collected either by the respective airline or airport.

In the box on the right, Ekta Kalra gives further details about how the latter idea could be implemented.

What do you think?

References and related posts

– Four Hiroshima bombs a second: how we imagine climate change
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2013/08/four-hiroshima-bombs-second-how-we-imagine-climate-change.html

– Arctic Methane Release and Rapid Temperature Rise are interlinked
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2013/11/arctic-methane-release-and-rapid-temperature-rise-are-interlinked.html

– NOAA, Global Analysis – September 2014
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2014/9

– NOAA Ocean temperature anomalies
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series

– Climate Plan
http://climateplan.blogspot.com

***

Breaking News – Resolution Calls for a Halt to Covert Aerosol Spraying Programs

Posted by  Chemtrail EvidenceFeatured Sunday, October 26th, 2014

The 2014 U.S. Health Freedom Congress Approves Resolution Call for a Halt to Covert Aerosol Spraying Programs

Hosted by National Health Freedom Coalition

Guest Speaker Clifford Carnicom of the Carnicom Institute

See Resolution here:

http://www.nationalhealthfreedom.org/conferences/2014Conference/WrapupFiles/Resolution5_GeoengineeringSupportingOrgs.pdf

Text of Resolution:

USHFC-2014-Resolution Re: Call for a Halt to Covert Aerosol Spraying Programs, aka Geoengineering
Resolution 5

Calling for a Halt to Covert Aerosol Spraying Programs, aka Geoengineering 2014 U.S. Health Freedom Congress

Hamline University, St. Paul, Minnesota, September 26 and 27, 2014

Submitted by DAMS INC (Dental Amalgam Mercury Solutions)

WHEREAS covert aerosol spraying programs have been underway in the United States, Canada and elsewhere for at least 15 years, as documented by visible evidence in the skies, high resolution photography, filming of the planes doing the spraying and evidence from the materials that have dropped out of the aerosol sprayed skies and analyzed; and
WHEREAS massive spraying programs have dropped millions of tons of the oxides of aluminum, strontium, and barium, and other such metallic compounds plus various sulfur compounds, plus filamentous life forms that can now be detected in the blood of all Americans; and
WHEREAS weather reporters systematically ignore the obvious impacts of aerosol spraying on the appearance of the skies, the loss of sunlight reaching the ground, and the impact of the spraying on the storm system; and
WHEREAS research by independent scientists suggests that there are valid concerns about adverse effects of the aerosol spraying on respiratory health, neurological impacts, and other health impacts, damage to crops, forests, aquatic life and virtually all aspects of our eco-system; and
WHEREAS our current era is marked by “climate change,” frequent extreme weather events, elevated levels of ultraviolet radiation, extreme drought in California that is believed to be geoengineering related, fish and other sea creatures dying off of the west coast of North America in unprecedented numbers, trees dying in what should be pristine and remote areas;
THEREFORE BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED THAT the following Voting Members of the US Health Freedom Congress do affirm and support the position of DAMS Inc., that the massive covert spraying programs such as described above are violation of fundamental human rights and freedoms including our right to privacy, our right to choose medical interventions free of coercion, and our right to be free from medical experimentation that we have not consented to. The secretive and covert nature of massive aerosol spraying programs (aka “geoengineering” programs) such as are described above indicates that serious violations of the democratic process and of basic freedoms are taking place; such violations stand in conflict with all principles of health freedom. Such programs should be stopped immediately and open discussions should be undertaken looking into the health and environmental harm that has already been inflicted.

Name of Organization
AutismOne
Bolen Report, The
Carnicom Institute
DAMS Inc. (Dental Amalgam Mercury Solutions)
DividedLegacy.com
ElectromagneticHealth.org
Focus Autism
Health Choice
IAACN International and American Association of Clinical Nutritionists
National Health Freedom Action (NHFA)
National Health Freedom Coalition (NHFC)
North American Society of Homeopaths (NASH)
North Carolina Citizens for Healthcare Freedom Ohio Sunshine Health Freedom Coalition
Organic Consumers Association
Sunshine Health Freedom Foundation (SHFF)
Texas Health Freedom Coalition
Voice for HOPE – Healers Of Planet Earth
Weston A. Price Foundation (WAPF)

On September 26th and 27th, twenty five leading health freedom organizations and forty additional organizations and participants representing millions of health and freedom-conscious Americans came together. Meeting at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota, they discussed urgent concerns for health freedom and strengthened collaboration within the health freedom movement.

The event began and closed with the Health Freedom Voting Member organizations convening for one hour each day in a circle Round, beginning the first day with introducing their organizations, and closing by giving their response to the weekend work. But the great success of this year’s Congress is attributed to all leaders participating in what is known as Open Space dialogue sessions throughout the weekend; as well as attending an evening social media hands-on workshop; hearing “Stories of Freedom, Stories of Courage”; and attending the Health Freedom Awards Banquet with Keynote Barbara Loe Fisher, President of the National Vaccine Information Center.

Read more:

http://www.nationalhealthfreedom.org/conferences/2014Conference/2014CongressWrapup.html

***
27.10.2014, 16:00, “Michael Marsh” <michaelteamarsh@yahoo.com>:

Open this up: Elana Freeland – Chemtrails, HAARP, and the Full Spectrum Dominance of Planet Earth: What’s Happening In Our Skies and Why? – October 21, 2014

 
This is found on “One Radio Network”, click the archives box, if it doesn’t bring you straight to it.
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

Government Passes Anti-Constitutional Surveillance Law During Ottawa Shooting

Global Research, October 24, 2014
Free The Press Canada 23 October 2014

A terrible tragedy befell the nation’s capital yesterday, when a shooter opened fire at government sites in Ottawa. A full investigation must begin to assemble the details, as the flames of hysteria are fanned in the public consciousness. The words “terror” and “terrorism” have been tossed around so casually, that nowadays any hardened criminal would classify as a terrorist according to the Harper Government and mainstream news sources. For that matter, political activists who take issue with the government’s policies at homeand abroad are referenced in the same manner.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, social media is rife with suspicion that this horrendous event may represent a false flag operation, to assist the government’s dismantling of civil liberty and human rights in the name of war, profit, political posturing and public control.

That’s not to say this wasn’t an act of terrorism. Maybe it was, but surely it’s too early to reach a conclusion when the names of suspects hadn’t been released to hypothesize a motive. Or had they?

At 10:13am EDT, The Globe and Mail‘s Josh Wingrove reported that tactical officers were pointing guns at every parliamentary journalist on site.  (Post since removed from Twitter.)

At 12:11pm EDT, The CBC’s Kady O’Malley reported her group was ordered to leave a local rooftop by police, as they continued to search for a culprit and attempted to secure the area.

By 1:14pm EDT, Ms. O’Malley reported a continuing lockdown that blanketed Ottawa. She was unclear if the event was over, as no further information was available.

While Canadian news personalities were at police gunpoint, American outlets like CBS News and the Associated Press had a full story to sell, complete with the dead shooter’s name.

Before the scene was secure at 10:54am EDT, a joint release was published to identify the culprit. It stated:

    The only problem is no one could update the Google database quick enough with these changes,   

    so the original information still appeared with general search results.
 
    As members of parliament begin to piece this tragedy together, they’re advised to inquire how 
    American intelligence knew the name of a ‘possible terrorist’ as the mayhem was still unfolding. 
    How did Americans know when Canadians didn’t, and how was this information so widespread 
    that American media and Google had access to distribute, but domestic reporters on the scene 

    did not.

“The gunmen has been identified by U.S. officials to CBS News as Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, a Canadian national born in 1982.”

Canadian parliamentary bureau chiefs didn’t posses the same information as their U.S. counterparts and faced the barrel of police guns as a press narrative was provided on their behalf by another country. If this is dubbed an act of terrorism that American sources had knowledge about to pre-report, then why weren’t steps taken to prevent the violence?

Many have questioned how a gunman could enter parliament with a rifle unnoticed, in spite of the massive security and busy lineups. Some are calling for greater state police control and warmed to relinquishing their Charter rights, in an effort to fight the new war on domestic terrorism. Something has to justify police militarization since the War on Drugs has been transformed into a lucrative product of capitalism.

The Liberal Party of Canada campaigned against the Harper Government’s ‘politics of fear’, but when they tasted the fear for real this time, the opponents relented and threw their support behind the Prime Minister. The party press release was carefully worded and commendable under the circumstances, but it does resort to the word “terrorize” and submits to the government’s long term agenda.

All Canadians who pay attention to the news are acutely aware of a creeping police state and the loss of privacy rights in the tradeoff. In fact, one Liberal MP, Joyce Murray, proposed Bill C-622 to gain oversight of CSIS and CSEC, so Canadian law enforcement can’t overstep its bounds to the degree that’s been revealed through Snowden leaks.

This shooting event also occurs at a time when the Mayor of Ottawa is seeking re-election, with a history of accommodating CSEC as a business partner.

The journalist who brought these Snowden leaks to light is in town to promote his new book about the overreaching powers of a surveillance state. Glenn Greenwald will be speaking just a few blocks from Parliament Hill, in the same neighbourhood that’s under lockdown. It’s purely coincidental that he wrote a scathing piece about the Canadian government and co-dependent media’s abuse of the word “terrorism” a day earlier.

Meanwhile, the NDP noticed a different terrorism anomaly regarding the violence in Quebec on the day before as well. The Prime Minister’s Office was accused of planting a foreboding comment in Question Period, that preempted police reports of a “possible terror attack against soldiers”.

Public Safety Minster Steve Blaney reported the Monday event was “clearly linked to terrorist ideology”, but the Toronto Star reported multiple witnesses saw the suspect with his hands in the air, when at least one police officer opened fire. They also say a knife was “lodged into the ground near where the incident occurred”.

    Forsaking journalism ethics, the Toronto Star surprised industry watchers by editing this story 

    without providing a notice to reflect the 
    consequential changes. Now the article claims the suspect was an Islamic radical, who emerged 
    from the vehicle with a knife in his hands. There is no mention of any witnesses who saw his 
    hands in the air and the knife was no longer lodged in the ground. All information from witnesses 
    was removed without explanation, or apology for reporting incorrectly at the onset if indeed the 
    witnesses were mistaken. The French press at TVA still values the eye witness accounts, but no 
    English-speaking media reflect these reports from the scene.

Well, that’s what the original story by Allan Woods, Bruce Campion-Smith, Joanna Smith, Tonda MacCharles and Les Whittington stated. A syndicated copy had to be located at the Cambridge Times, because a newer, edited version at the Toronto Star appeared dramatically altered by Tuesday.

This TorStar article was more than edited and qualifies as being replaced entirely, having lost its tone, facts and spirit from the original published version. It was radically changed to support the government’s narrative and censored independent sources that previously appeared, replacing them with quotes from the Harper administration that focus on the suspect’s motive for Islamic terrorism.

If it wasn’t for smaller newspapers syndicating the Toronto Star‘s original content, there would be no proof of the first comprehensive version. Professional journalists don’t normally condone editors changing the spirit of their work without a disclaimer, especially when five reporters collaborated to produce the same entry. The history created by print newspapers also couldn’t be erased with the click of a button, before the media migrated to internet based reporting that appears to lack mechanisms of accountability.

These two examples oppose each other due to the disparity between facts and there is no footnote to reflect this glaring incongruency. The Toronto Star has been a leader in journalism ethics and wouldn’t alter published pieces to discredit their own reporting without a reason being provided. That is, until they and a bevy of established journalists who remained silent, had a taste of the politics of fear.

It remains to be seen if the New Democratic Party will throw its support behind the Harper Government, as Mulcair deliberates about a public statement that is yet to be released. NDP caucus members who were barricaded in an office describe a loss of safety and feelings of fear though.

Any reasonable person should be afraid when gunshots are flying from hostile individuals, but will the politics of fear be allowed to dictate a terrorism narrative in place of the facts? The Opposition’s privacy and ethics critic, MP Charlie Angus, also describes gunshots around 10am EDT, while American media had solved the event by 10:54am EDT and members of parliament were still being detained without access to the same information.

If the U.S government could assess a terrorist attack on Canadian soil before the Canadian government was aware, then why was it not prevented? On the same token, if the Canadian government was in the middle of mayhem, then how did Americans obtain information that wasn’t available to affected bureaucrats from their own intelligence and law enforcement agencies? What powers does America have over Canada that Canada doesn’t have itself? If a shooting on government property can be solved before it’s even finished, then why wasn’t CSIS, CSEC, DHS and the NSA capable of early intervention? After all, the Wednesday shooter was already placed on the government’s watch list.

The timing is incredible and may very well be motivated by the war against ISIS/ISIL. Canada shed its peacekeeping status for more aggressive combat that generates profits for the Canada Pension Plan and Nigel Wright, with the potential to invite ideological backlash. This is not disputed. An unbiased investigation is required, but the public should be patient for confirmed, judicial facts; bearing in mind political motives, various narratives and the race to sell fear.

On the very day terrorism was alleged in Quebec, the Harper Government passed Bill C-13 without much notice from the peanut gallery. Until Monday, Bill C-13 was one of the most controversial pieces of legislation that was presented under the guise of cyber-bullying, but even the mother of Amanda Todd spoke against the exploitation of her daughter’s death as a tool to create a warrantless surveillance state in this vein.

Due to terrorism accusations made by the Harper Government that took up most of the day, no mainstream news reported the bill’s passage later in the same day. CBC was the only major outlet to mention the bill on Monday, but they neglected to note the House of Commons vote or passage of this legislation at any point in the story. They presented the information as incremental progress while failing to report its successful, parliamentary completion.

This too presents a problem with ethical journalism, but CBC has seen its fair share of challenges since the Harper Government appointed ten Conservative donors to the board of directors, with influence over the public broadcaster’s direction.

Regardless, the only mention of Bill C-13 passing arises from a Saanich News editorial. The smaller publication urges everyone to be vigilant as this legislation completes the last step of approval (ascent) with senate, that is dominated by a Conservative majority.

Surprisingly, the senate passed a first reading of Bill C-13 the very next day. It accomplished that hurdle expediently on Tuesday, but this wasn’t reported by any source whatsoever. Senators then scheduled a second reading in two days’ time, on Thursday, October 23, 2014. The only lapse in this process was the Wednesday parliamentary shooting.

By today Bill C-13 may see the quickest passage through any bureaucracy in the democratic world, without the public or media noticing and while legislators are reeling from the ominous smell of gun smoke. Neither the parliamentary reporters who stared down the barrel of a police gun on Tuesday, nor the members of parliament who were barricaded, would be rested very well.

Plus there’s an RCMP press conference about the Wednesday shooting that will surely distract attention from the new law. In the days ahead, it’s likely they’ll tout Bill C-13 as a way to catch terrorists, also under the guise of cyberbulling and even though being watch listed with preexisting surveillance powers didn’t prevent Michael Zehaf-Bibeau from taking action.

This brings us to what’s at stake. The taboo nobody wants to evaluate. The decision senators will have to make while recovering from a psychologically traumatic breach of personal security.

We’re talking about public data surveillance, or what closely resembles stalking.

There are plenty of ambiguous words used to describe big data monitoring, but few understand what it means or how deeply it’s abused behind the sealed doors at CSEC. Warrantless internet surveillance has the potential to track a target’s GPS movements with updating by the minute. It can penetrate the entire chain of communication between an individual and their contacts, including strangers who make reference to the target by any degree of separation across the world wide web. The technology has predictive behaviour capabilities. Every citizen caught in this widespread dragnet is psychologically assessed through language semantics and assigned a persuasion, to determine if any of them presents a public relations issue, or if the original target has too much influence to garner support for their business, political and/or social beliefs.

Five Eyes governments have established media surveillance programs specifically. They surveil news topics and journalists, to monitor the reporter’s effect on public perception. When anyone posts a news link on any form of social media, all comments are collected and ranked for government and law enforcement dissemination. Canada spent $20 million and hired 3,300 staff to spy on journalists and political opponents since 2012. The European Commission and United Statesdoes the same, in this vacuum of nonexistent legislation to protect the public’s privacy in the modern age. Instead of updating constitutional rights to reflect modern technology, they’ve crafted legislation like Bill C-13 that revokes those rights entirely.

This goes beyond the confines of metadata and only the Privacy Commissioner of Ontario has taken up the cause, likely to the chagrin of political parties that have begun to use similar technology against their opponents during elections. Whatever good this intrusive spying could accomplish is outweighed by the bad. Michael Sona only possessed a list of phone numbers and intentions, let alone mapping of the entire public’s thoughts and updates on the location of political foes by the minute.

If anyone physically tailed a political candidate, volunteer or supporter every minute of the day and night, or attempted to record every one of their exchanges, it would be considered criminal harassment. If that person also tailed every contact who spoke about their target and psychologically assessed them to create charts, it would surpass Hollywood’s fascination with the complex plotting of serial offenders.

But this isn’t fiction and warrantless internet surveillance can be used to harm a civilian, based on their political beliefs. In the United States it’s already used to surveil judges in addition to journalists, adding a difficult challenge to the essence and appearance of democracy. The dialogue is strictly controlled to conceal these uses and they’re couched in the terrorist argument, to discourage the public from searching deeper.

The Harper Government was first to import these tactics to Canada. Then the Liberals and NDP followed suit, claiming they’d be at a disadvantage for electoral purposes. As the public was being shocked into the idea of domestic terrorism, Bill C-13 passed without discussion to transform Canada into a surveillance state that permits this behaviour outright.

Residents have been told if they don’t break the law there is nothing to fear. This subverts any purpose for the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and replaces that document with a Trust Me clause from the government. It replaces the core legal relationship between citizens and law enforcement with unrestrained power and no need for oversight to justify its use. It imperils evidentiary laws that are designed to protect the innocent.

Perhaps lawyers have been quiet about this issue because one of the government surveillance contractors also controls their Quick Law program, as well as court and university databases. Perhaps professors have been quiet because they hire these surveillance companies to monitor their science and research fellows at a prominent Canadian university that partners with CSEC.

To hear what this technology and warrantless surveillance can do to ordinary families when abused, a comprehensive interview with an affected Canadian journalist can be heard at the season premier of The View Up Here. This clip begins at 3:15 (to avoid some technical issues) and surprising revelations develop as the process and ramifications of surveillance are explained by example. The interview further details government censorship of the press in North America, with international consequences. It’s two hours long and worth the investment if the public wishes to retain its right to have beliefs or join like-minded groups with one another.

Beyond the dry language of legislation, this is how the words of Bill C-13 can be utilized by an aggressive government, law enforcement and the Five Eyes intelligence community. Suggested reading provides the history and development of technology and related policies in Canada, the United States and Europe. It was becoming law in Canada when the airwaves were filled with terrorism accusations and the government expected no one to notice. It also relates to media surveillance that could explain a few altered stories, removed posts and political misunderstanding within the party apparatus itself.

***

Canadian Copycat Terror

October, 2014http://www.helpfreetheearth.com

After multiple staged incidents used to ratchet up fear and paranoia in the build-up to US and its allies’ military intervention in Syria and Iraq, at least two live attacks have now been carried out in Canada – precisely as predicted.

The first attack involved a deadly hit-and-run that left one Canadian soldier dead. AP would report in its article, “Terrorist ideology blamed in Canada car attack,” that: A young convert to Islam who killed a Canadian soldier in a hit-and-run had been on the radar of federal investigators, who feared he had jihadist ambitions and seized his passport when he tried to travel to Turkey, authorities said Tuesday.

The second, most recent attack, involved a shooting in Ottawa injuring several and killing another Canadian soldier on parliament Hill. RT in its article, “Ottawa gunman ‘identified’ as recent Muslim convert, high-risk traveler,” would report that:

While the name of the Ottawa gunman is yet to be announced, a number of officials told numerous media that the shooter is believed to be Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, a recent Muslim convert, allegedly designated as a high-risk traveler.

Michael Zehaf-Bibeau was born in Quebec as Michael Joseph Hall north of Montreal, two US officials told Reuters, claiming that American law enforcement agencies have been advised that the attacker recently converted to Islam. 

AP sources also identified the man to be Zehaf-Bibeau. A Twitter account associated with Islamic State militants tweeted a photo they identified as the Ottawa shooter. The Globe and Mail reports that the shooter was designated a “high-risk traveler” by the Canadian authorities with his passport seized.

Clearly, both suspects were under the watch of not only Canadian authorities, but also US investigators, before the attacks.

Canada’s Attacks – Predictable

Western Security Agencies are Prime Suspects

It was warned last month after security agencies staged scares in both the US and Australia, that suspects under investigation, being walked through planned terrorist attacks by Western security agencies as part of “sting operations” would inevitably be switched to live terrorist attacks.

In mid-September A Rochester man, Mufid A. Elfgeeh, was accused by the FBI of attempting to provide material support to ISIS (undercover FBI agents), attempting to kill US soldiers, and possession of firearms and silencers (provided to him by the FBI). The FBI’s own official press release stated (emphasis added):

According to court records, Elfgeeh attempted to provide material support to ISIS in the form of personnel, namely three individuals, two of whom were cooperating with the FBI. Elfgeeh attempted to assist all three individuals in traveling to Syria to join and fight on behalf of ISIS. Elfgeeh also plotted to shoot and kill members of the United States military who had returned from Iraq. As part of the plan to kill soldiers, Elfgeeh purchased two handguns equipped with firearm silencers and ammunition from a confidential source. The handguns were made inoperable by the FBI before the confidential source gave them to Elfgeeh.

It was warned that only an inoperable firearm stood between Elfgeeh’s arrest and his successful execution of deadly plans hatched by him and his undercover FBI handlers. This script, written by the FBI to entrap Elfgeeh, would be followed almost to the letter in live attacks subsequently carried out in Canada resulting in the death of two Canadian soldiers. Conveniently, both suspects are now dead and little chance remains of ascertaining the truth of who they were in contact with and how they carried out their deadly attacks.

With both suspects having been on both US and Canadian watch lists – it is very likely undercover agents were involved in either one or both cases. While many possibilities exist, Western security agencies should be among the first suspects considered as potential collaborators.

A Modern-Day Operation Gladio 

it’s all about inducing Fear, Obedience, and Control. Before Elfgeeh’s entrapment and later live attacks in Canada, US policymakers and pundits had begun in earnest setting the rhetorical stage for eventual staged attacks. With serial beheadings failing to raise Western public support necessary for an expedient intervention in Syria, more insidious provocations appeared to be in the works. Setting the stage, a CBS/Associated Press story titled, “Former Deputy CIA Director: ‘I Would Not Be Surprised’ If ISIS Member Shows Up To US Mall Tomorrow With AK-47,” would claim immediately after the initial James Foley ISIS execution video that:

“The short-term concern is the Americans that have gone to fight with ISIS and the west Europeans that have gone to fight with ISIS could be trained and directed by ISIS to come to the United States to conduct small-scale attacks,” Morell stated. “If an ISIS  member showed up at a mall in the United States tomorrow with an AK-47 and killed a number of Americans, I would not be surprised.”

Morell warned that over the long-term the extremist group could be planning for a 9/11-style attack that killed thousands of Americans.

The FBI has a long list of foiled terror plots of its own creation. More disturbingly are the plots they conceived but “accidentally” allowed to go “live.” One might recall the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. FBI agents, according to the New York Times, were indeed overseeing the bombers that detonated a device killing six and wounding many more at the World Trade Center.

In their article, “Tapes Depict Proposal to Thwart Bomb Used in Trade Center Blast,” NYT reported:

Law-enforcement officials were told that terrorists were building a bomb that was eventually used to blow up the World Trade Center, and they planned to thwart the plotters by secretly substituting harmless powder for the explosives, an informer said after the blast.

The informer was to have helped the plotters build the bomb and supply the fake powder, but the plan was called off by an F.B.I. supervisor who had other ideas about how the informer, Emad A. Salem, should be used, the informer said.

The account, which is given in the transcript of hundreds of hours of tape recordings Mr. Salem secretly made of his talks with law-enforcement agents, portrays the authorities as in a far better position than previously known to foil the Feb. 26 bombing of New York City’s tallest towers. The explosion left six people dead, more than 1,000 injured and damages in excess of half a billion dollars.

Considering the 1993 bombing and the fact that the FBI literally oversaw the construction and deployment of a deadly bomb that killed 6, it is clear that the FBI can at any time through design or disastrous incompetence, turn one of their contrived entrapment cases into a live terror attack. One can only guess at how many similar FBI operations are currently taking place within the United States involving ISIS sympathizers – any one of which could be turned into a live terror attack provided the weapons handed over to potential terrorists are functioning, just as the bomb was in 1993 when it was driven into the lower levels of the World Trade Center.

It is very likely that the recent attacks in Canada involved at least one “informant” working for the FBI. Because the FBI uses confidential informants to handle suspects, if a plot is switched ”live,” the informant will be implicated as an accomplice and the FBI’s covert role will remain uncompromised.

Image: The FBI has an impressive portfolio of intentionally created, then foiled terror plots. Its methods include allowing suspects to handle both real and inoperable weapons and explosives. These methods allow the FBI to switch entrapment cases “live” at any moment simply by switching out duds and arrests with real explosives and successful attacks. Because the FBI uses “informants,” when attacks go live, these confidential assets can be blamed, obfuscating the FBI’s involvement.

Everything from a mass shooting to a bombing, and even an Operation Northwoods-style false flag attack involving aircraft could be employed to provide Wall Street and London with the support it needs to accelerate its long-stalled agenda of regime change and reordering in both Syria and across the Iranian arc of influence. Readers may recall Operation Northwoods, reported on in an ABC News article titled, “U.S. Military Wanted to Provoke War With Cuba,” which bluntly stated:

In the early 1960s, America’s top military leaders reportedly drafted plans to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support for a war against Cuba. 

Code named Operation Northwoods, the plans reportedly included the possible assassination of Cuban émigrés, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and even orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities.

In addition to Operation Northwoods, the public must also consider NATO’s Operation Gladio, and its larger “stay behind” networks established after World War II across Europe and at the center of multiple grisly assassinations, mass shootings, and terrorist bombings designed to demonize the Soviet Union as well as criminalize and crush support for left-leaning political parties growing in popularity in Western Europe. It would be determined that NATO’s own covert militant groups were killing innocent Western Europeans in order to effect a “strategy of tension” used to instill fear, obedience, and control over Western populations.

That the FBI and Australian authorities had coordinated staged security operations in tandem on opposite ends of the globe to terrify their respective populations into line behind an impending war with Syria, and now two highly suspicious attacks have been carried out using the very script Western security agencies were using to lead suspects through “sting operations,” suggests a new “Operation Northwoods” or “Operation Gladio” of sorts is already being executed.

Staged executions on cue by ISIS in the Middle East of US and British citizens at perfectly timed junctures of the West’s attempt to sell intervention both at home and abroad, and now live shootings just in time to heighten a new “strategy of  tension” reek of staged mayhem for the sole purpose of provoking war. Could grander and ultimately more tragic mayhem be in store? As ABC News’ article on Operation Northwoods and the Military Channel’s documentary on Operation Gladio suggest, there is no line Western special interests will hesitate to cross.

With the West attempting to claim ISIS now has a “global” reach, the US and its partners’ attempts to obfuscate the very obvious state-sponsorship it is receiving will become exponentially more difficult. That the FBI is admittedly stringing along easily manipulated, malevolent patsies who at any time could be handed real weapons and sent on shooting sprees and/or bombings – and now apparently have been – Americans, Canadians, Europeans, and Australians would be foolish to conclude that their real enemy resides somewhere in Syria and not right beside them at home, upon the very seats of Western power. 

by Tony Cartalucci

***

Canada and the War on Terror: The Ottawa Shootings. What Really Happened?

Global Research, October 25, 2014

Prime Minister Steven Harper and the Canadian federal government are using the shooting rampage on Parliament Hill as a justification for imposing surveillance and detainment measures that they were already implementing and going forward with.

On October 22, 2014 a solitary gunman named Michael Zehaf-Bibeau (originally Michael Joseph Hall) from the city of Laval, Quebec went on a shooting spree in downtown Ottawa, the capital of Canada.

Firstly, it was reported that there were shootings in the Rideau Centre which from the northern side of the Mackenzie King Bridge faces National Defence Headquarters (NDHQ), the nerve of Canada’s Department of National Defence (DND). This proved to be false or wrong. The gunman had killed a reservist guard in front of the National War Memorial and then made his way northward to Parliament Hill.

Secondly, it was reported that there were multiple gunmen. As a result all government employees were not allowed to enter or leave their respective buildings throughout the interprovincial National Capital Region, which includes the city of Gatineau. Although the police did the right thing in taking precautions to make sure that there were no other gunmen and declined to give explanations, the public was led to believe that there were multiple shooters. This justified the lockdown and suspension of mobility that took place for hours.

A lot of important questions also remain unanswered. NBC News reported on October 8, 2014 that US intelligence officials told it «that Canadian authorities have heard would-be terrorists discussing potential ISIS-inspired ‘knife and gun’ attacks» inside Canada. Canadian officials, however, dismissed the report. Did US intelligence know something that its Canadian counterparts did not know? Why the contradictions?

Another important question is the following: how could an armed gunman that had already started a rampage make his way into the Centre Bloc of the Canadian Parliament unchallenged? Anyone that has been to Parliament Hill knows that there is a relatively large armed presence on the whole area and, specifically, at the entranceway and doors which is comprised of Canada’s national police force (the Royal Canadian Mounted Police), the local municipal police (the Ottawa Police Services), and two special federal forces (the House of Commons Security Services and Senate Security).

Framing: Media Discourse and Government Policy Links

Also, if he was indeed in touch with terrorist groups, how was he communicating with them?

Complicating the picture is the case of Martin Couture-Rouleau. Couture-Rouleau is a French-Canadian who became a Muslim in 2013. He deliberately hit two Canadian soldiers with his car in St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec on October 20, 2014. One of the soldiers would later die.

Couture-Rouleau would be chased by the police and then gunned down after his hit-and-run attack. Although the fatal hit-and-run murder in St-Jean-sur-Richelieu is a criminal act, it has been presented as terrorism and linked to Canada’s involvement in the fighting in the Middle East.

The two attacks respectively in St-Jean-sur-Richelieu and Ottawa have no connection whatsoever, but have been portrayed as part of some coordinated attack plan. The hit-and-run attacks have been added to the narrative of what happened on October 22 to construct the image of an all-out battle. This is part of what sociologists call a moral panic.

What exactly motivated the gunman in Ottawa? It appears that Michael Zehaf-Bibeau was not part of some intricate plot against Canada by the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). He had a criminal record and appeared to be psychologically deteriorating from increasing narcotics usage. He was troubled by hallucinations and heavy drugs, and became a Muslim relatively recently. According to information coming from people who knew him, it appears that he was upset with «the government» for not leaving him alone. This anger could be tied to the social workers and parole officers in his life and a suffocating feeling of being caught in a downward spiral.

Michael Zehaf-Bibeau had been staying at the Ottawa Mission, a homeless shelter, between two weeks and a month. Before he went on his rampage, he told other people at the homeless shelter to pray because the world was coming to an end. In this context, it is also important to ask: how a psychologically troubled man staying at the Ottawa Mission homeless shelter could get a weapon?

Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, however, has been portrayed to varying degrees as an ISIL member, which is being used to support the narrative that Canadians are under immediate threat from the ISIL by societal actors that sociologists call «moral entrepreneurs». The goals of moral entrepreneurs is to change societal norms, values, laws, and regulations. In this case the moral entrepreneurs want to sell a security agenda.

Although the gunman that attacked Parliament Hill was a French-Canadian (with the last name of his Arab-Canadian father -who had adopted him- and his French-Canadian mother’s maiden name) that spent most of his life as a Roman Catholic  (starting off as a devout Christian and then falling out of practice over the years), he has been portrayed or framed differently. From the start there was a tacit drive to give him an Arab and Muslim persona. Even when his identity was discovered, his Arab-Canadian father who had adopted him was portrayed as his biological father. The adoption of his father’s Arabic last name was tacitly presented as a marker of his Muslim identity, even though he was a Christian when he adopted the Arabic last name alongside his mother’s maiden name for legal reasons.

Very telling was how the media initially described Zehaf-Bibeau. He was referred to as a «Canadian-born man.» This is very deceptive language and discourse that needs to be critically analyzed. When someone is called «Canadian-born» it means that they are not really Canadian, but are merely born in Canada. Referring to a Canadian citizen in these terms conceptually strips them of their Canadian identity and otherizes them as a foreigner that does not belong to the collective.

The Media Reaction

Many Canadians are proud of their media’s reaction and have contrasted it to the sensationalism of US media. Although the media in Canada was much calmer than how the US media would have reacted under similar circumstances if the same incident took place in the United States, it was still emotionally charging the atmosphere with a sense of siege on Ottawa. Headlines and news broadcasts included titles like «Ottawa under attack.» Ottawans were liberally afraid that the ISIL was attacking Canada’s shores.

Speculation about a Middle East connection kept being raised throughout the day. By the time that Prime Minister Harper spoke in the evening, it was clear that he wanted to link the events in St-Jean-sur-Richelieu and Ottawa to the Middle East and the terrorism panic to justify his national  security agenda. When Harper said that Canada would not be intimidated, it was hollow posturing against an enemy being constructed in the imagination of Canadians.

The media coverage, the massive lockdown in Ottawa’s downtown core, and the national measures taken by the federal government created an atmosphere of panic in Ottawa and across Canada. Under this type of atmosphere, people can act unpredictability or abnormally and they are willing to make concessions to the government that they would not normally agree with making. In other words, when societies are gripped by fear many of their members are willing to forfeit their civil liberties and let them be stripped by the authorities.

The New Normal and the Striping of Civil Liberties

When the Rideau Centre was stormed by three armed robbers in 2003 and half the local police force’s fleet was sent after two of them who had  escaped, the same panic did not exist nor did the media give it as much urgency or attention. Arguably the danger to safety was much greater then, even though an important national institution was not being attacked.

Legally speaking, Martin Couture-Rouleau and Michael Zehaf-Bibeau are murderers. Instead of treating them as criminals, the politicized and psychologically-charged terms of «terrorism» and «terrorist» are being applied. All the laws to deal with these criminals are in place in Canada, but new legislation is instead being made that also has the potential to be used against legitimate dissenters who oppose government policy.

Moreover, the police are being militarized under the new security paradigm of fighting terrorism. The day after the attack on Parliament Hill, on October 23, the severity of the police reaction to a homeless man crossing a yellow police line is testimony to the change in security habitus and tensions among the police in Ottawa. The measures that the Harper Government wants to normalize also include control and censorship over the internet, the unconstitutional and illegal act of taking citizenship away, and removing the mobility rights granted by the Canadian Charter of Right and Freedoms. The last measure has already begun with the confiscation of passports.

All Canadians have the right to leave and enter Canada freely, unless they have committed a crime. The government wants to have the legal authority to confiscate passports on mere suspicion without evidence. In the case of Martin Couture-Rouleau, he was detained and had his passport taken away when he wanted to go to Turkey in June or July 2014. The police could not arrest him and had to let him go, because of his views. «We could not arrest someone for having radical thoughts. It’s not a crime in Canada,» RCMP Superintendent Martine Fontaine explained in an October 21, 2014 press conference.

The position of the RCMP says a lot about where the Harper Government wants to go with its new security paradigm. It wants the ability to arrest people for their views.

Revoking Citizenships?

Even more dangerous is the flirtation with the idea of revoking citizenship. Already unconstitutional precedents are being set for removing it among the so-called Western coalition of countries that consistently pay lip service to democracy and then stand shoulder to shoulder with dictatorships like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jordan, and Qatar. For example, the British Parliament took steps to remove British-born Asma Al-Assad’s British citizenship in 2012 simply on the account of the fact that she was Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s wife.

The Canadian legal system does not treat everyone equally and all people are not equal in the court system. Non-citizens are disadvantaged compared to Canadian citizens. In this context, the threat of stripping citizenship away is being viewed instrumentally as a way of circumventing the domestic laws and rights protecting citizens. Without these rights the government can indefinitely detain someone without charge, put them on trial in special security courts where they will not even be told what the evidence against them is, and be prevented from accessing a lawyer. This has been the case of some non-citizens living inside Canada that have been held on security certificates for years.

The idea of taking citizenship away is also a political issue being used to politically cater to segments of different societies in various countries that have xenophobic views and dislike certain strata in their societies for various reasons.

Ignoring the Roots of the Problem

There is an old saying that society gets all the criminals it deserves. What is meant by this is that many criminals arise out of a structural problem in society.

It is no coincidence that Michael Zehaf-Bibeau once asked to be detained to fight his cocaine and crack addiction. Both attackers in St-Jean-sur-Richelieu and Ottawa were drug users and had psychological problems that needed to be helped. In the case of the gunman in Ottawa, he tried reaching out for help and felt a toxic feeling of hopelessness and not belonging.

Instead of looking overseas or blaming outside forces, Canada needs to look inside. The roots of the problem include the declining social services of Canada that have progressively faced government cutbacks and austerity measures. By blaming the ISIL and the internet the government is also refusing to acknowledge this failure and the marginalization of many members of Canadian society that are not getting the help they need.

The Slippery Slope and the Harper Government’s Dirty Hands

There is a call for Canadians to be vigilant against an inflated terrorist threat from the ISIL. This is why Prime Minister Steven Harper and his government are doing their best to portray the events in Canada as an extension of the front in the Middle East. Redefining criminals as terrorists is helping reinforce this perception. Canadians and the citizens of other countries, however, should be vigilant over their rights and freedoms that took centuries of struggle to obtain.

Changing the criterion for the granting of citizenship is a whole different topic, but its removal is a dangerous and slippery slope. Although the claims are that these type of measures are for the greater good or public safety, the historic record has shown that the suspension of civil liberties has been used for ulterior motives.

As a final note, the same people inflating fears of terrorism in Canada have also supported it overseas. It should never be forgotten that Prime Minister Steven Harper and his cabinet supported the «terrorists» they now claim to oppose. The Harper Government tacitly encouraged Canadians to go fight in places like Libya and Syria for the sake of assisting Washington’s foreign policy of regime change. Canada even armed the militants linked to Al-Qaeda in Libya with drones and weapons in 2011 and allowed private security firms (mercenaries) to assist them. This should not be overlooked when people question how such a state of affairs has arisen.

ADDENDUM 

Important details have emerged that strengthen the case against the Harper Government as intellectually dishonest opportunists.

(1) The Toronto Star originally reported on October 20, 2014 that multiple witnesses confirmed that Martin Couture-Rouleau’s hands were in the air in surrender when he was shot. Here is a passage from the article:

«Witnesses who spoke with the TVA network Monday afternoon said they saw a man emerge from the flipped vehicle that was lying in a ditch on the side of the road. The man had his hands in the air and was walking toward police when at least one officer opened fire on the suspect. The witnesses said they heard up to seven gunshots.»

Later the article would redact this and be re-edited.

(2) A Canadian investigative journalism webpage (FreeThePressCanada.org), noticed that before the scene was secured in Ottawa at 10:54 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) that the US news network CBS reported the following:

«The gunmen has been identified by U.S. officials to CBS News as Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, a Canadian national born in 1982.»

This was many hours before Canadians were even told the gunman’s identity or that he was alone. The CBS article would even be edited to remove Zehaf-Bibeau’s name or any mention that the US government was aware of it. Although security can be cited for this, it can also be looked at politically as part of a means of keeping the public in suspense and allowing a state of shock to reverberate across Canada so that the Harper Government can justify its foreign policy and security initiatives.

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
October 24, 2014

 The Slippery Slope to Ebola Martial Law

The USSA Army is not a humanitarian organization. It has a centuries-long history of blowing things up and killing people. That is what it does. Its institutional mandate is for the exercise, projection and application of military force. Anyone who believes otherwise is self-deluded, for whatever reason.

That is why the publicly given reasons for sending thousands of USSA Army troops to Liberia, ostensibly to fight the Ebola outbreak there, cannot be true.

Once again, the USSA government, starting with president barack obama, and moving down through the bureaucratic chain of sycophantic lickspittles, toadies and bootlickers, is simply spouting transparently false propaganda.

Francis Boyle, professor of International Law at the University of Illinois, is absolutely correct when he says that the USSA Army is invading Liberia to establish a military base there.

When has the USSA Army ever concerned itself with healing the sick? This is the same organization that killed two to three million people in Vietnam, and untold hundreds of thousands more (or millions?) in a continuing series of wars in the developing world in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. The USSA Army does not alleviate human misery — it causes it.

The USSA Army is intervening in Liberia for military reasons. The centuries-long war against humanity by the USSA military has just entered a new, aggressive phase in West Africa.

Why? Because that is what the USSA military does. It blows things up and it kills large numbers of people. Anyone who believes otherwise is simply self-deluded, against literal reams of historical evidence to the contrary.

Prof. Boyle also points out that there are solid grounds to presume that the Ebola outbreak itself may very likely be due to Ebola viruses from USSA military bio-warfare laboratories that have been established in West Africa in recent years and decades, in violation of international law.

There is great evil at work in this Ebola outbreak and the USSA military is up to its eyeballs in it.

The War Against Humanity Comes Home To The USSA Mainland

Lest the self-deluded think that they will somehow magically avoid the grim fate that the USSA military’s killing machine has unleashed on countless millions of other people all over the world, please note that the USSA Army is now developing special Ebola squads to be deployed within the USSA itself.

The first 30-member, Pentagon Ebola medical team is now training at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas. According to a USSA Military Northern Command spokesman “similar units could be created.

According to another Northern Command spokesman, “Northern Command forces will be prepared to provide direct care for Ebola victims.”

And how will they do that? Forgive me if I am skeptical of the story as put forth by the American military.

Let’s say that someone in your family is reported to the military as having a fever, or a bad cough, or bleeding from the nose or mouth.

Later that day, or the next day, 30 soldiers in bio-hazard suits show up at your house and take away the ill family member, as well as you and the rest of the family for “Ebola treatment.”

Where will they take you for treatment? Who knows? And what kind of “treatment” will the military provide, that civilian hospitals cannot?

There again, who knows? But the mere fact of the military involving itself in a domestic health care mission should raise numerous questions.

Since when has the American military taken a high-profile role in public health policy?

Surely you see the issue, and it is fundamental in every way for the governance of civil society, Ebola or no Ebola.

Will They “Disappear” People?

Is this the way that medical martial law begins, complete with “disappeared” people who are taken away by military “medical” units for “treatment” — and who never return? They just vanish into military “medical care,” never to be seen again?

I raise the question, because this may already have begun. Government agencies may already have started to “disappear” people, under the guise of containing a public health threat.

Unfortunately, it looks like the plan is to use Ebola as a justification for medical martial law, at least in the USSA. The conspicuous involvement of the military at this juncture trends uncomfortably in that direction.

I am reminded of the vision that ayahuasca showed me in early 2012, when I asked it to show what the future held in store. It showed me a clear, unambiguous vision of a concentration camp, a totalitarian or authoritarian, societal control system, that extended even to mind control and rigid spiritual suppression.

The vision I was shown bore a strong, uncomfortable resemblance to this illustration by David Icke.

I know that David Icke has also drunk ayahuasca and it has played a role in his subsequent, extensive writing and public speaking of the last 20+ years. I suspect that David has seen and been told some of the same things as I have by the shamanic plants. This scene comports very well with what I was shown, down to the formidable security fence, the guard or gun towers, the raked gravel, the surrounding forest. In my vision there were also military trucks and overhead, a shimmering, ephemeral grid or net, that was part electronic, part astral, and designed for the full spectrum mental and spiritual suppression and control of human thought. activity and freedom, in all its dimensions, exterior and interior.

It was a grim vision, and yet I can see the elements steadily being set into place.

If people are already “disappearing”, or will soon be “disappeared” by USSA military “medical teams”, will they be taken to places like this, never to be seen or heard of again? Never to leave, whether dead or alive?

The Peculiar Case of the Infected Ebola Doctor in New York City

And then there is the surpassing bizarre case of the medical doctor in New York City, who recently returned from treating Ebola patients in West Africa.

No sooner did he finish treating patients with Ebola than he flew right back to the USSA and spent almost a week galavanting around New York City, until — whoopsie! — he suddenly manifested Ebola symptoms and now has to be medically isolated. In the meanwhile, he rode the subway all over town, went to a bowling alley and more, exposing untold thousands of others to potential infection with Ebola.

How is it possible to go from treating Ebola patients in the West African hot zone, and to then just willy-nilly fly back to the hustle and bustle of New York City and go all over the place for the better part of a week, with no medical quarantine or medical safe guards?

How is that possible, unless the working public health policy of the USSA government is to passively (or actively?) spread the Ebola virus into American society?

None of this makes any sense. We have moved into Bizarro World, and this is just the beginning of the zaniness. Very dark global and national agendas are clearly in play.

Good luck to us all. We’re going to need it.

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
Published on
Saturday, October 25, 2014
by

Indigenous Communities Take Chevron to Global Court for ‘Crimes Against Humanity’

Impacted peoples urge International Criminal Court to investigate corporation’s refusal clean its mess in the Ecuadorian Amazon
 
Chevron’s repeated refusal to clean up its toxic contamination of Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest constitutes an “attack” on civilian populations and should be investigated by the International Criminal Court in the Hague, impacted indigenous and farming communities charged this week in a formal complaint (pdf) to the global body.

“In the context of international criminal law, the decisions made by Chevron’s CEO, John Watson, have deliberately maintained—and contributed to—the polluted environment in which the people of the Oriente region of Ecuador live and die every day,” states the complaint, which was submitted to the ICC’s Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda on Thursday on behalf of approximately 80 affected communities, totaling tens of thousands of people.

In 2011, impacted communities won a judgment in an Ecuadorian court against Texaco (acquired by Chevron in 2001) for its toxic waste dumping in the Lago Agrio region in northeastern Ecuador between 1964 and 1992, which created an ongoing environmental and public health crisis, including high cancer rates and reported birth defects among residents. Last year, Ecuador’s National Court of Justice upheld the verdict but cut the initial mandated payment from $18 billion to $9.5 billion.

Chevron has repeatedly refused to pay the $9.5 billion ordered by Ecuadorian courts and even took the step of removing most of its assets from Ecuador in an apparent effort to avoid paying. Petitioners slam what they call “multiple collateral attacks against the judgment and the lawyers who represented the affected communities.”

After years of legal battles, impacted peoples have not seen any reparations.

“The health conditions imposed on the indigenous and farmer communities that live in the Oriente constitute a serious and sustained attack on the population that has lived there peacefully for centuries,” states the ICC complaint. “The damages, which have been documented and confirmed in countless inspections conducted for the Ecuadorian case, brought various consequences, including water contamination, ground contamination, cancer, forced displacement, extermination of two ethnic groups, and many other disastrous conditions that are described in the annexes to this communication.”

The petition charges that the systemic harm inflicted by Chevron constitutes a “crime against humanity” and therefore is of concern to the international community.

“It is critical that all legal mechanisms be fully utilized to put an end to what is effectively impunity for a major American oil company that is committing human rights crimes against vulnerable populations,” said Pablo Fajardo, lead lawyer for the impacted communities.

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Right-wing Nationalist Parties Dominate Ukrainian Parliamentary Elections

Global Research, October 27, 2014
In-depth Report: 

Parliamentary elections in Ukraine Sunday delivered victories to a number of right-wing nationalist parties in a vote that was boycotted by the vast majority of the electorate in the country’s east. Exit polls indicate that the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko, Ukraine’s president, obtained 23 percent of ballots cast, followed by the People’s Front of current Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, which garnered upwards of 21 percent. Trailing behind these two blocs was the Self Help Party, which reportedly got just over 13 percent of the vote.

Polls closed at 8:00 pm local time, and as of this writing, turnout is estimated at about 40 percent, with large differences between the east and west of the country. If accurate, this would represent a major decline in the overall level of voter participation compared to previous elections. In Ukraine’s 2012 parliamentary race, 57.4 percent of eligible voters cast ballots, according to data available from the Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance.

It is estimated that between three and five million eligible voters concentrated in the east and southeast of the country—between ten and twenty percent of the total electorate—did not participate in the elections. Elections were not held in Donetsk or the Luhansk People’s Republic, which declared the October 26 vote a “farce” and scheduled their own votes for early November.

Even in areas under the central government’s control, turnout was low in regions with widespread popular hostility towards the Kiev regime. The Central Election Committee estimated voter participation in the southwestern city of Odessa at just 13.2 percent, and in Donetsk and Luhansk at 14.6 and 13.1 percent respectively. In May, dozens were killed in Odessa when pro-Kiev fascist forces trapped anti-government protesters in the local trade union building, massacring them and then setting the building alight.

President Poroshenko has said he is prepared to form a government with the all of the “parties of the Maidan,” referring to those political forces that backed the right-wing coup that ousted former President Viktor Yanukovych last February. In addition to his own bloc, the People’s Front, and the Self Help Party, this includes the far-right Radical Party of Oleh Lyaschko, the ultra-nationalist Svoboda Party, and the Fatherland Party of oligarch Yulia Tymoshenko, which respectively won 6.4 percent, 6.3 percent, and 5.6 percent of the vote, according to early estimates.

All of these political formations represent one or another variety of pro-market, anti-Russian, militarist forces. Lyaschko’s Radical Party endorses the nuclear rearming of Ukraine. The lesser-known Self Help Party, which describes its program as rooted in “Christian morality and common sense,” calls for an end to Ukraine’s non-aligned military status, the production and purchase of modern military materiel, and a new military doctrine for the country. Tymoshenko’s Fatherland Party, out of which a number of People’s Front deputies emerged, is notorious for its leader’s call for a “scorched earth” policy against the region’s Russian population.

President Poroshenko has stated that he will begin the formation of a government on Monday, even though early official estimates of the vote will not be released until that very day, with a final tabulation coming next Sunday.

The People’s Front, which will be Poroshenko’s main coalition partner, is pressing for the retention of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk in his present post. Yatsenyuk, who has been overseeing the initial implementation of International Monetary Fund austerity policies in Ukraine, was identified as Washington’s chosen candidate to head the government in a leaked telephone conversation in the lead-up to the ouster of Yanukovych.

Andriy Parubiy, the co-founder of the neo-Nazi Social-National Party in Ukraine and a deputy in Yatsenyuk’s People’s Front, told the press that Yatsenyuk’s continued appointment would be a “demonstration of confidence in our political force.”

The Opposition Bloc, which is largely made up of individuals from former President Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, won 7.6 percent of the ballots cast according to most exit polls. However, an analysis conducted by the Research and Branding group for the television channel “Ukraine” estimated the Opposition Bloc’s vote to be significantly higher, at 11.12 percent, and that of the Self Help Party to be just 10.86 percent. If accurate, this would make the Opposition Bloc the third-place winner in the elections.

For its part, the Opposition Bloc has already declared its readiness to work with “partners” that share its “ideological principles” in the newly formed parliament (Rada). Given the composition of the Rada, this would imply that it is prepared to come to an accommodation with any one of numerous right-wing forces in government so long as it is able to secure political benefits for itself.

Right Sector, the fascist outfit whose members have served as shock troops for the government’s military actions in the east and staged neo-Nazi rallies in Kiev, as well as carrying out violent assaults on critics of the regime, did not reach the five percent threshold to enter the Rada. In an unexpected turn, Lyaschko’s Radical Party, whose emblem is a pitchfork and whose leader is accused of organizing killings in Ukraine’s east, came nowhere near its predicted second-place win.

The Poroshenko government aims to use the election to provide a democratic fig leaf for the imposition of austerity measures demanded by the IMF and European Union, and the crushing of all opposition to its right-wing, nationalist program. He and the Western media are hailing the election as a triumph of Ukrainian democracy and a sign of the population’s “pro-European” orientation. This is part of the effort to lend legitimacy to the civil war being carried out against pro-Russian separatist regions in the east and the implementation of deeply unpopular cuts to social spending.

On Sunday, Poroshenko proclaimed the elections to be a “death sentence” for the Communist Party, which did not meet the threshold to enter the Rada. The government is preparing to outlaw the party.

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

“They Just Want the Money!” The IRS Can Now Seize Accounts on Suspicion Alone

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/26/2014 15:00 -0400

“How can this happen?” Ms. Hinders said in a recent interview. “Who takes your money before they prove that you’ve done anything wrong with it?”

The federal government does.

*  *  *

The topic of civil asset forfeiture has been high on our agenda recently as federal ‘agents’ discover how to steal Americans’ hard-earned cash with zero repurcussions , and decide unilaterally how much cash a ‘common man’ is allowed to carry; but as The NY Times reports, the escalation to The IRS brings a whole new world of possibilities with regard asset confiscation based on no actual crime being proved…

As The NY Times reports,

For almost 40 years, Carole Hinders has dished out Mexican specialties at her modest cash-only restaurant. For just as long, she deposited the earnings at a small bank branch a block away – until last year, when two tax agents knocked on her door and informed her that they had seized her checking account, almost $33,000.

The Internal Revenue Service agents did not accuse Ms. Hinders of money laundering or cheating on her taxes — in fact, she has not been charged with any crime. Instead, the money was seized solely because she had deposited less than $10,000 at a time, which they viewed as an attempt to avoid triggering a required government report.

Her money was seized under an increasingly controversial area of law known as civil asset forfeiture, which allows law enforcement agents to take property they suspect of being tied to crime even if no criminal charges are filed. Law enforcement agencies get to keep a share of whatever is forfeited.

Critics say this incentive has led to the creation of a law enforcement dragnet, with more than 100 multiagency task forces combing through bank reports, looking for bank accounts to seize.

Using a law designed to catch drug traffickers, racketeers and terrorists by tracking their cash, the government has gone after run-of-the-mill business owners and wage earners without so much as an allegation that they have committed serious crimes. The government can take the money without ever filing a criminal complaint, and the owners are left to prove they are innocent. Many give up.

“They’re going after people who are really not criminals,” said David Smith, a former federal prosecutor who is now a forfeiture expert and lawyer in Virginia. “They’re middle-class citizens who have never had any trouble with the law.”

On Thursday, in response to questions from The New York Times, the I.R.S. announced that it would curtail the practice, focusing instead on cases where the money is believed to have been acquired illegally or seizure is deemed justified by “exceptional circumstances.”

But the Institute for Justice, a Washington-based public interest law firm that is seeking to reform civil forfeiture practices, analyzed structuring data from the I.R.S., which made 639 seizures in 2012, up from 114 in 2005. Only one in five was prosecuted as a criminal structuring case.

The practice has swept up dairy farmers in Maryland, an Army sergeant in Virginia saving for his children’s college education and Ms. Hinders, 67, who has borrowed money, strained her credit cards and taken out a second mortgage to keep her restaurant going.

The $10,000 loophole line in the sand…

Under the Bank Secrecy Act, banks and other financial institutions must report cash deposits greater than $10,000. But since many criminals are aware of that requirement, banks also are supposed to report any suspicious transactions, including deposit patterns below $10,000. Last year, banks filed more than 700,000 suspicious activity reports.Owners who are caught up in structuring cases often cannot afford to fight. The median amount seized by the I.R.S. was $34,000, according to the Institute for Justice analysis, while legal costs can easily mount to $20,000 or more.

There is nothing illegal about depositing less than $10,000cash unless it is done specifically to evade the reporting requirement. But often a mere bank statement is enough for investigators to obtain a seizure warrant. In one Long Island case, the police submitted almost a year’s worth of daily deposits by a business, ranging from $5,550 to $9,910. The officer wrote in his warrant affidavit that based on his training and experience, the pattern “is consistent with structuring.” The government seized $447,000 from the business, a cash-intensive candy and cigarette distributor that has been run by one family for 27 years.

read more here…

As one lawyer defending against the IRS’ aggressive ‘stealing’ tactics concludes…

“I don’t think they’re really interested in anything,” Mr. Potashnik said of the prosecutors. “They just want the money.”

Welcome to the land of the free.

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Washington Is Defaming Putin: America’s “Strategic Target” Is the Russian President

Global Research, October 25, 2014

    

    October 24 at the Valdai International Discussion Club meeting in Sochi, Russia’s President 
    Putin correctly and justifiably denounced Washington for destabilizing the world in order to 
    serve its own narrow and selfish interest and the interests of the private interest groups 
    that control Washington at the expense of the rest of the world.  It is about time a world 
    leader denounced the thuggish neocon regime in Washington. Putin described 
    Washington’s double standards with the Roman phrase: “What is allowed for God [the US] 
    is not allowed for cattle [the rest of the world].”

RT reports on Putin’s address here: http://rt.com/news/198924-putin-valdai-speech-president/

RIA Novotsi reports here:  http://en.ria.ru/politics/20141024/194537272/Putin-Global-Security-System-Seriously-Weakened-Deformed.html

Curiously, the Russian media has not, at this time of writing, produced an English translation of Putin’s full remarks.  Perhaps the Russian media do not realize the importance of Putin’s words. Too much of the Russian media is owned by foreign interests who use the access to Russian readers to attack and discredit the Russian government.  It is amazing that the Russian government allows Washington’s propaganda within its own ranks. Perhaps Moscow accepts Washington’s propaganda among Russians in order to protect the broadcasts in the US of RT, RIA, and Voice of Russia. But the balance is uneven. The Russian broadcasts in the West report otherwise unreported news; they do not defame America.

See also:

Putin: world leaders blackmailed:  http://en.ria.ru/world/20141024/194542305/Putin-Says-Reports-Show-World-Leaders-Could-Be-Blackmailed-With.html

Putin: US escalates worldwide conflict: http://en.ria.ru/world/20141024/194540658/Putin-US-Dictatorship-Global-Interference-Lead-to-Escalation-of.html

German MP” sanctions without proof: http://en.ria.ru/interview/20141014/194062719/German-MP-Germany-Has-No-Evidence-of-Who-Shot-Down-MH17.html

I did not see any reporting of Putin’s address in the US print and TV media. Clearly in the US there is an absence of public discussion of US foreign policy and foreign reaction to it. A country in which propaganda and silence rule out awareness and public discussion is not a democracy regardless of what it calls itself.

Washington long ago learned the dark art of silencing truth with defamation. Washington used defamation to overthrow Iran’s elected leader, Mossadegh in 1953, to overthrow Congo’s prime minister Patrice Lumumba in 1960, to overthrow Guatemala’s President Arbenz in 1954, to overthrow Venezuela’s President Hugo Chevez in 2002, a coup that was cancelled by the Venezuelan people and military who threw out Washington’s stooge replacement and reinstalled Chavez, to overthrow Ukraine’s elected President Yanukovych in 2013, to overthrow Honduras President Manuel Zelaya in 2009 , to overthrow  in 2013 Mohamed Morsi, president of the first democratically elected government in Egypt’s history, to overthrow Gaddafi in Libya, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, in ongoing efforts to overthrow Assad in Syria and the government of Iran, and in failed attempts to overthrow Indonesia’s Sukarno, Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam, and Castro in Cuba.

Today Washington’s target is Vladimir Putin. This is the height of folly and hubris. Putin’s public support far exceeds that of any American president in history.  Currently, the level of public support for the Obama regime and the US Congress is far too low to be compatible with a functioning democracy.  If the US is actually a democracy, it is the most dysfunctional democracy in world history.  Practically no one, except the powerful private interest groups who own Washington, supports the US government. Everyone else despises Washington.

As the result of 13 years of murderous destruction of life and property in the Middle East and Africa, a dysfunctional and collapsing US economy, and a display of unrivaled arrogance, Washington has destroyed America’s soft power.  Abroad only the deluded few and those paid by US-financed NGOs still have a good opinion of the United States.

In all world polls, the US ranks as the greatest threat to world peace. Washington has made our country a despised nation, and we the people  have done nothing about it.

You would never know this from the US print or TV media or even from most of the UK and Western European media.  As I reported on October 16, Udo Ulfkotte, a former editor of one of Germany’s most important newspapers, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, has written a best-selling book in which he reports that the CIA owns everyone of significance in the major European media. In his own words Udo Ulfkotte says that he was “taught to lie, to betray and not to tell the truth to the public.”

http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/10/16/cia-owns-everyone-significance-major-media/

As a former Wall Street Journal editor, Business Week columnist, columnist for the Scripps Howard News Service, columnist for a German magazine and French and Italian newspapers, I observed and experienced the gradual impoundment of any dissent from Washington’s line.  It became clear that the path to journalism success in the West was to lie for the Establishment in Washington, largely a private establishment along with the dark off-budget “security” agencies bolstered by the neoconservative ideology of US world hegemony.

Much of Russian media and Putin’s advisors are fully aware of Washington’s media campaign to defame President Vladimir Putin. http://en.itar-tass.com/russia/756160   The internet site Russia Insider today asked the pertinent question: “Is the CIA Running a Defamation Campaign Against Putin?”  As Russia Insider makes clear, the answer is most certainly.

http://russia-insider.com/en/politics_media_watch/2014/10/24/04-54-03pm/cia_running_defamation_campaign_against_putin

Click the URL above and view the front pages of the UK Sun, Daily Mirror, and Daily Express.  I would bet that these are front pages designed in Washington or Langley and are in fact paid ads by the CIA or National Endowment for Democracy or by one of the Republican or Democrat organizations that sponsor Washington’s  overseas propaganda.

Of course, these UK rags can be dismissed as sensational junk comparable to the US versions that are for sale at grocery store checkout counters–”movie star abducted by aliens in UFO.”  So scroll down the page of the above URL and look at the covers of Newsweek and The Economist.  Once these were respected publications.  Today I would bet that no one reads them and that they are dependent on CIA subsidies for their existance.  Nevertheless, they impact the European, Canadian, Australian, and Japanese media and no doubt the media of other countries on the borders of the US empire. These gullible fools still think that America has a free press.

Be sure to notice this section of the report from Russia Insider:

“The issue of manipulation of news by intelligence services has been in the news recently with revelations that the CIA and German Secret Service (GSS) have long-running programs to influence how media executives and top journalists convey and interpret the news, including direct cash payments.

“Here are some examples they point to:

  • Portraying him [Putin] as a scheming dictator trying to rebuild a repressive empire.
  • Claiming he personally ordered the murder of a number of journalists, and personally ordered a KGB defector to be murdered with radiation poisoning.
  • Frequently citing unsubstantiated rumors he is having an affair with a famous gymnast.
  • Allegations that he has stashed away billions for his personal benefit, without providing evidence.
  • Recent article in newsweek claiming he leads a luxurious and lazy lifestyle, sleeping late.
  • Recent article in NYT focusing on a supposed personal arrogance.
  • Hillary Clinton mentioning in speech after speech that he is a bad guy, a bully, that one must confront him forcefully.
  • Mis-quoting him on his regret about the collapse of the Soviet Union.
  • Articles about a supposed super-luxury villa built for him in southern Russia.
  • The over-the top headlines in the western media (they were worst of all in Germany) portraying him personally responsible for murdering the victims of MH17.
  • And soft stuff – magazine covers making him look sinister, monstrous, etc.”

If you are not already aware, I am pleased to introduce you to The Saker, a pseudonym for a high level US military analyst who lives in Florida.  No, it is not me.  Be sure to read Saker’s interview with Russia Insider which is at the bottom of the article:

http://russia-insider.com/en/politics_media_watch/2014/10/24/04-54-03pm/cia_running_defamation_campaign_against_putin

Every day readers ask me what they as individuals can do.  Some possibly are government trolls who hope I will answer “overthrow the government” so that I can be arrested as a terrorist.  My answer to the question is that people are powerless until enough of them are informed.  If people become informed and will take a stand, then the people can force the government back under their control.  If this does not or cannot happen, democracy in America is dead, and our life as a free people protected by the Constitution and law against the power of the state is finished.

Possibly America is already finished and will now finish the rest of the world in its insane neoconservative drive to establish Washington’s hegemony over the entire world.

Russia and China are not going to submit to being Washington’s vassals and India had enough of being a colony under Great Britain. If the crazed hegemons in Washington persist, nuclear war will be the outcome.

***

Churkin: Thousands of deaths and a million homeless could have been avoided in Ukraine

Published time: October 24, 2014
The result of the postponed Ukraine EU association agreement has been “thousands of lives lost and almost a million left homeless,” Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vitaly Churkin said. He also said that warnings from Russia almost a year ago were ignored.

Churkin said at the very start of the conflict that Russia had warned that all parties needed to be included in talks and the rights of all had to be respected, no matter which region they came from. With his pleas not heeded, a vast humanitarian catastrophe has taken place in the eastern part of Ukraine.

“What do we have today? Today Kiev and Brussels have returned to the position, which they needed to start with: suspend the association talks with the EU, which is exactly what the toppled President Viktor Yanokovich wanted,” said Russia’s Ambassador to the UN. “Due to a year of decisions, thousands of people have died, almost a million have been left homeless, a civil war and the destruction of the economy,” said the diplomat, speaking to the ITAR-TASS news agency.

On October 21, Human Rights Watch admitted that Kiev was guilty of breaking international law through the “widespread use of cluster munitions” in fighting between government troops and self-defense forces, according to an investigation carried by the watchdog

“While it was not possible to conclusively determine responsibility for many of the attacks, the evidence points to Ukrainian government forces’ responsibility for several cluster munitions attacks on Donetsk [Donetsk Region, Eastern Ukraine],” says the report.

The accusation was flatly denied by Kiev, with Andrey Lysenko, who is a spokesman for Ukraine’s National Security Council saying on October 22 that “Ukrainian military did not use weapons forbidden by international law. This also applies to cluster munitions.”

Churkin was also skeptical of political developments to try and improve the situation in Ukraine. He pointed out that decisions made at a meeting on April 17, between Russia, the USA, Ukraine and the EU had not been implemented. “Nothing has changed under the old or new Ukrainian elite. There has been no dialogue and there have been no constitutional reforms.”

Russia’s ambassador to the UN feels sorry for those in Ukraine who wanted the “civilized development of their country.” Parliamentary elections take place on October 26, While Churkin believes that campaigning has been mired by cynicism and underhand tactics.

“The political field has been defending itself from opponents both literally and in reality. There has been a cleansing of officials (with links to Yanokovich) and a witch hunt,” he added.

Speaking at the UN Security Council, Churkin says that more must be done to make Kiev accountable for horrendous acts of abduction and murder by Ukraine’s military and private security forces.

He also wants an investigation to take place into the use of prohibited weapons such as cluster bombs and phosphorous bombs, as well as tactical missiles, which were fired indiscriminately into residential areas.

Churkin has also called for greater transparency into the state of the investigation into the downing of flight MH17 on July 17.

“It probably wasn’t an accident that the crash site took incoming fire from the Ukrainian positions, just as it was about to be visited by a group of Dutch experts and OSCE observers. We consider it irresponsible that one of the statements today reiterated an unsupported version of the events,” the Russian diplomat added.

He concluded by saying that he could not understand why some members of the UN Security Council had become nervous about Russian proposals to expand and deepen the investigation into why the airliner crashed.

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Israel Apartheid? Palestinians to be banned from West Bank settlers’ buses

Published time: October 26, 2014 Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon has decided Palestinians working in Israel should only be able to return home to West Bank via a single crossing and should not be allowed to ride the same buses as settlers.

Ya’alon issed a directive banning the workers from the buses during a meeting with settler leaders, who have long been seeking to ban Palestinians from Israel-run transportation in the West Bank, Haaretz reported on Sunday. The measure is scheduled to go into effect next month.

Palestinians won’t be able to take buses going directly from central Israel to the West Bank. They will instead have to use other types of transportation to arrive at the Eyal Crossing, near Qalqilyah.

Palestinian workers have so far been obliged to cross into Israel via that particular checkpoint, but were free to return at multiple locations.

The Civil Administration has been tasked with providing separate buses for Palestinians, so as not to disrupt their movement to and from workplaces.

Supporters of the move argue it’s dictated by security concerns.

“Riding these buses is unreasonable. They are full of Arabs,” Moti Yogev, of the pro-settler Habayit Hayehudi party told Haaretz. “We have heard disturbing testimonies from girls who were harassed by Arabs during the bus ride.”

An Israeli human rights groups B’Tselem has slammed Ya’alon for his plan, saying he was “not content with merely moving Palestinians to the back of the bus, but means to keep them off buses altogether.”

“It is time to stop hiding behind technical arrangements such as the demand that Palestinians return to the West Bank through the same checkpoint they entered Israel, and admit this military procedure is thinly-veiled pandering to the demand for racial segregation on buses,” the group said in a press release.

It was Major General Nitzan Alon, now head of the IDF’s Central Command, who decided the Palestinians and the Israelis could ride the same buses three years ago. Alon believes Palestinian authorized workers pose no security threat as they have to receive their working permits and undergo scrutiny at checkpoints.

Speculations on the possibility of reverting to the separate transportation system have been around for some time. Israel’s Transportation Ministry said it was considering separate bus lines for Palestinians in November 2012.

When new bus lines connecting the West Bank with Israel were launched in March 2013, they sparked rumors that additional buses were introduced specifically for Palestinians. Transport officials denied that was the case.

READ MORE: Israel launches ‘Palestinians only’ buses – reports

***

Israel approves plan to build 1,000 settler homes in E. Jerusalem

Published time: October 27, 2014

The Israeli government has approved plans to build over 1,000 new settler homes in East Jerusalem. It will expand two existing Israeli settlements on part of the territories seized in 1967.

An official in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office declined to comment on the possible political and diplomatic impact. He said on Monday that “The government has decided to advance the planning of more than 1,000 units in Jerusalem – roughly 400 in Har Homa and about 600 in Ramat Shlomo,” as cited by Reuters.

He also said that plans would be “advanced for infrastructure projects in the West Bank that will include roads for the Palestinians.”

It is a sidestep by Netanyahu’s office, as the ultranationalist Jewish Home party and its leader Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, has been pressing the Prime Minister to call for 2,000 new building tenders.

However, Palestinians regard the holy city of Jerusalem as a future capital of their state and strongly oppose any Israeli expansion. According to Reuters, in a statement the Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said that “We strongly condemn the latest Israeli announcement to expand its illegal settlements in and around occupied East Jerusalem, the capital of the State of Palestine.”

“This announcement amounts to evidence of an intent to further commit crimes defined by, and punishable under international law,” he added.

The new plan isn’t welcomed by some Israeli politicians. Israeli Finance Minister Yair Lapid of the centrist Yesh Atid party told Reuters the settlement building “should not be promoted now because there is a crisis with the US and the world.”

“There is never a good time to do such things, now more than ever as Jerusalem is burning,” Lior Amichai of the settlement watchdog Peace Now told AFP. He added that it was unclear at what stage the Israeli plans were, or how close they were to construction.

The international community hasn’t shown any support for Israeli settlement building. Relations with Israel’s traditional ally the US have also become strained over public criticism of US foreign policy by Israeli officials.

Palestine warns about increasing tension

The latest Israeli moves come after Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas sent an “urgent letter” to US President Barack Obama concerning the “dangerous Israeli escalation” in East Jerusalem on Sunday night, reported the Jerusalem Post.

According to a statement released by the president’s office in Ramallah, Abbas warned that a “wider explosion that cannot be controlled,” could be triggered by Israel’s recent measures, including the suggestion to allow Jews to pray at the Temple Mount compound.

The Palestinian President also blamed the Israeli government for the “dangerous escalation”; the recent clashes between Israeli security forces and Palestinian rioters in East Jerusalem this weekend. Hundreds of Palestinians marched in several neighborhoods of the city, throwing stones and firecrackers at Israeli police, and 18 arrests were made, according to Haaretz.

Last week’s clashes marked a new wave of tension that has been running high since June. That’s when three Israeli teenagers were abducted and killed by Palestinian militants in the West Bank, and Israeli extremists responded with the abduction and killing of a Palestinian teenager in East Jerusalem. The riots contributed to the 50-day Gaza war that claimed the lives of over 2,000 people, most of them Palestinians.

————————————————————————————————————————————————————

China launches new World Bank rival

Published time: October 24, 2014
China and India are backing a 21 country $100 billion Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) to challenge to the World Bank and Asian Development Bank.

Memorandum of understanding were signed with 21 Asian countries in Beijing Friday. Australia, Indonesia and South Korea were absent following hidden pressure from Washington.

The development bank was proposed a year ago by Chinese President Xi Jinping, and is to offer financing for infrastructure projects in underdeveloped Asian countries.

Headquartered in Beijing, former chairman of the China International Capital Corp investment bank Jim Liqun, is expected to take a leading role.

The bank will initially be capitalized with $50 billion, most of it contributed by China. The country is planning to increase authorized capital to $100 billion. With that amount the AIIB would be two-thirds the size of the $175 billion Asian Development Bank.

India will be the second largest bank shareholder though Kuwait, Qatar, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Nepal, Oman, and all the countries of the Association of Southeast Asia, except Indonesia are involved.

Australia, Indonesia and South Korea did not participate following US claims of ‘concerns’ about a rival to Western-dominated multilateral lenders.

Japan, China’s main rival in Asia, which dominates the Asian Development Bank along with the United States, did not attend but had not been expected to do so.

Indonesia refused to participate claiming it needs time to discuss China’s proposal.

The Australian Financial Review said US Secretary of State John Kerry had personally asked Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott to “steer clear” from joining AIIB.

“Australia has been under pressure from the US for some time to not become a founding member of the bank and it is understood Mr. Kerry put the case directly to the prime minister when the pair met in Jakarta on Monday following the inauguration of Indonesian President Joko Widodo,” the paper said.

South Korea, one of America’s closest allies in Asia, is alse prevaricating. Its finance ministry said it spoke with China to request more time to consider details such as the AIIB’s governance and operational principles.

US officials have said they do not want to support an initiative Washington thinks is unlikely to promote good environmental, procurement and human rights standards in the way the World Bank and ADB are required to do.

But Chinese officials are convinced the American opposition is an attempt to contain the global rise of China and its ambition to remain the dominant power in Asia.

“You could think of this as a basketball game in which the US wants to set the duration of the game, the size of the court, the height of the basket and everything else to suit itself,” Wei Jianguo, a former Chinese commerce minister, told the Financial Times.

Matthew Goodman, scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC believes the initiatives of a BRICS Bank and AIIB “represent the first serious institutional challenge to the global economic order.”

Chinese Finance Minister Lou Jiwei said the AIIB will set high standards, safeguard policies and improve on bureaucratic, unrealistic and irrelevant policies, according to the Xinhua news agency.

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

“Economic Genocide” in Latin America: The Unspoken Legacy of Wall Street and the IMF

United Nations General Assembly, September 24, 2014: Argentina’s President Fernandez de Kirchner Denounces Economic Terrorism

Global Research, October 25, 2014

Dazzling and supremely erudite, Argentina’s President Cristina Fernandez Kirchner denounced as terrorism the economic policies that have been strangling the developing world during the past century, and are continuing these criminal actions today, the legacy of Milton Friedman’s Chicago Boys’ gangster economic policies.  These policies, implemented by the infliction of “shock therapy,”  institutionalizing torture, murder and disappearances of individuals, groups, and often heads of state who defy these barbaric economic models, are policies which are more accurately described as global economic theft, sanctioned by the theory that “might makes right.”  

The IMF’s “conditionalities” were described, in sanitized language, as “structural adjustment programs,” demanding the obliteration of free national education and health care programs, causing the destitution of majorities of citizens in the developing countries, and resulting in the gross indebtedness of collaborating governments to parasitic interests of multinational corporations, banks, hedge funds, vulture funds and their ilk.  The Milton Friedman Chicago Boys policies were described by one of  Friedman’s most brilliant students, the German born economist Andre Gunder Frank, as “economic genocide.”

President Kirchner described her late husband, President Nestor Kirchner’s success in rebuilding Argentina, despite the total bankruptcy into which decades of the Chicago Boys policies had plunged a devastated Argentina.  She described the earlier chaotic situation, in which Argentina had five presidents in one week during 2001, a disaster rivaled, perhaps, only by Bolivia, which, similarly hostage of the Chicago Boys, had three revolutions in one afternoon, finally resulting Bolivia’s progressive presidency of Juan Jose Torres in 1970.  President Torres was overthrown, ten months later, by fascist General Hugo Banzer, with the blessing of Washington, and was then murdered in Argentina in 1975.

The earlier history of Argentina described by President Kirchner, a history common to almost all Latin America Southern Cone governments hostage to the Chicago Boys’ policy of economic genocide, is succinctly summed up by Professor John Dinges in his work “The Condor Years,” (Pages 154-155).

[By 1975],  “Inside the U.S. embassy Legal Attache Robert Scherrer quickly developed information that the Torres murder was part of the new security forces cooperation among the military governments…the bloody reality of mounting repression and the assassination of three prominent figures – the Uruguayan Senators Michelini, Gutierrez and Bolivian President Torres who had sought protection in Argentina… .Slowly, among those reading the most secret intelligence traffic about Latin America – in the embassies, in the CIA, in the Defense Intelligence Agency, the FBI and the State Department there was an awakening to a flow of hard evidence that was soon to become a flood:  that by 1975 the government of Argentina was committing human rights violations on a massive scale never before seen in Latin America, and the six military governments of the Southern Cone were cooperating to assassinate one another’s opponents.”

This was the Argentina in which Presidents Cristina and Nestor Kirchner spent their earliest years.  This was the environment in which the Chicago Boys’ murderous economic policies were forced down the throats of the majority of Argentina’s citizens, utilizing torture, murder and “disappearances” to facilitate the “privatization” of the country’s resources in the organized theft of the nation’s patrimony.  This theft was engineered by one of history’s most deadly mobs of criminals, the Chicago Boys, trained by the sociopath Milton Friedman, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for economics in a decision grossly discrediting the legitimacy of the Nobel Committee.

President Kirchner described the economic and social recovery steered by her husband, President Nestor Kirchner, a program of social and economic inclusiveness which made education widely available to Argentina’s majority, which decreased unemployment while establishing social safety nets, a program in which Argentina’s economy began to thrive, as Nestor Kirchner weaned Argentina’s economy from the IMF ‘debt trap’ (the title of the superb book by economist Cheryl Payer), and made arrangements to pay off the astronomical debts amassed during the previous period of economic domination by the Chicago Boys, (debts for which Nestor Kirchner’s government was in no way responsible). President Cristina Fernandez Kirchner spoke with legitimate pride of Argentina’s success in reducing widespread poverty, despite the financial disaster engineered by the thugs of the international financial system who are currently still attempting to hold Argentina hostage.

President Kirchner voiced the concerns of the greater part of the developing world, which voted on September 9, 2014, for the United Nations General Assembly resolution:  “Toward the Establishment of a Multilateral Legal Framework for Sovereign Debt Restructuring Process.”  Argentina’s Foreign Minister, Hector Timerman (whose father, the great journalist and human rights advocate, Jacobo Timerman, had been imprisoned and tortured for two years in Argentina during that same “dirty war” of 1976 described earlier) introduced that resolution, “establishing an ethical political and legal pathway to end unbridled speculation.”  The resolution was adopted, with 124 nations supporting it, eleven nations opposing it, and forty one abstentions…The scandalous profits made by parasitic “vulture funds” are funneled into campaign and lobbying to prevent change in the current viciously unjust economic architecture.  The Cuban delegate stated the appalling fact that “Developing countries had paid many times the amounts originally received as loans and that devoured resources essential for development.”  The distinguished American economist Joseph Stiglitz  has repeatedly emphasized precisely this same fact.

President Kirchner denounced U.S. Federal Judge Thomas Griesa, whose currently strangling injunctions, prohibiting Argentina’s repayment of 92.4 percent of the debt until the “vulture funds” are paid in full,  would force the return of Argentina’s economy to destitution, totally destroying the new economic and social programs which are empowering Argentina’s majority, and would quickly restore the earlier squalor of the economically colonized Argentina into which Milton Friedman’s thugs and the IMF had forced Argentina to subsist for decades of Kirchner’s earlier life.

In her masterpiece, “The Shock Doctrine,” exposing the criminal thuggery of Friedman’s Chicago Boys, Naomi Klein states:

“In the early nineties, the Argentine state sold off the riches of the country so rapidly and so completely that the project far surpassed what had taken place in Chile a decade earlier.  By 1994, 90 percent of all state enterprises had been sold to private companies, including Citibank, Bank Boston, France’s Suez and Vivendi, Spain’s Repsol and Telefonica.  Before making the sales, (former President) Menem and (former Finance Minister) Cavallo had generously performed a valuable service for the new owners:  they had fired roughly 700,000 of their workers, according to Cavallo’s own estimates; some put the number much higher.  The oil company alone lost 27,000 workers during the Menem years, An admirer of Jeffrey Sachs, Cavallo called this process “shock Therapy.”  Menem had an even more brutal phrase for it: in a country still traumatized by mass torture, he called it “major surgery without anesthetic.”*

“* In January 2006, long after Cavallo and Menem were out of office, Argentines received some surprising news.  It turned out that the Cavallo Plan wasn’t Cavallo’s at all, nor was it the IMF’s:  Argentina’s entire early-nineties shock therapy program was written in secret by JP Morgan and Citibank, two of Argentina’s largest private creditors.  In the course of a lawsuit against the Argentine government, the noted historian Alejandro Olmos Gaona uncovered a jaw-dropping 1,400 page document written by the two U.S. banks for Cavallo in which “the policies carried out by the government from ’92 on are drawn up…the privatization of utilities, the labour law reform, the privatization of the pension system.  It is all laid out with great attention to detail

….Everyone believes that the economic plan pursued since 1992 was Domingo Cavallos’s creation, but that’s not the way it is.”  In the long term, Cavallo’s program in its entirety would prove disastrous for Argentina.

…So many jobs were lost that well over half the country would eventually be pushed below the poverty line.”

As President Fernandez Kirchner charges, today it is obvious that U.S. Federal Judge Griesa’s ruling is an attempt to destabilize Argentina, using a new imperialist tactic devised by the current gangsters of international capitalism who thrive by devouring the lives and patrimony of the majority of citizens of the developing world, and, indeed, impose these tactics upon the “99%” percent of citizens within the countries of the developed world.

President Fernandez Kirchner explicitly denounced as economic terrorists the “vulture funds” which, supported by the United States’ judicial system, are attempting to destabilize and ultimately overthrow her government.  She stated:  “Not only those who place bombs are terrorists, but also those who destabilize the economy of countries, and cause hunger, misery and poverty from the sin of speculation.”

Judge Griesa is attempting, in fact, to fine Argentina $50,000 per day for not complying with his ruling, and declaring Argentina in contempt of court.”  In response to his brutal arrogance, President Kirchner cited a quote from former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who described such “creditors” as immoral, preventing countries from tackling problems of education, health and poverty.

Argentina’s president spoke fiercely of such engineered poverty and destitution as creating fertile breeding ground for terrorist leaders recruiting among those who have lost all hope of lives affording them options for fulfillment and dignity, and her voice echoed, 35 years later, the speech delivered on August 27, 1980 at the United Nations Eleventh Special Session on Economic Development:  “Toward a New International Economic Order”:  Joaquim Chissano, then Foreign Minister of Mozambique addressed the General Assembly, decades ago, and stated:

“The existing economic order is profoundly unjust.  It runs counter to the basic interests of the developing countries…we see the perpetuation of underdevelopment in Africa, Asia and Latin America.  The peoples of those continents are forced to face hunger, starvation, poverty, nakedness, disease and illiteracy increasingly.  We denounce any kind of economic prosperity or independence for part of mankind built on the dependence, domination and exploitation of the rest of mankind…the developing countries have warned the world about the need to take measures to eliminate the main obstacles to emancipation and progress of the peoples struggling for a proper standard of living which would meet the basic needs of life.

…During the colonial period we were branded as rebels and insurgents when we demanded the restitution of our status as human beings.  When we demanded independence we tried to talk peaceably with our masters, but no one would listen.  The dialogue of force was imposed upon us.  We took up arms.  Much blood was spilt.  But only in that way were we able to win.”

Twenty-nine years later, at the 64 Session of the United Nations General Assembly, on September 24, 2008, Stjepan Mesic, President of the Republic of Croatia, and the last President of Yugoslavia stated:

 “Our world is finally still dominated by an economic model which is self-evidently exhausted and has now reached a stage where it is itself generating crises, causing hardship to thousands and hundreds of thousands of people.  If one attempts to save this already obsolete model at any cost, if one stubbornly defends a system based on greed and devoid of any social note worthy of mention, the result can be only one:  social unrest harboring the potential to erupt into social insurgence on a global scale.”

Cristina Fernandez Kirchner, President of Argentina today raises her powerful voice in, once again, the noble call for economic and social justice.  Those who are guilty of perpetuating the injustices she and so many other world leaders abhor walked out of the hall as she spoke.  And those are the ones who may ultimately pay the fatal price for ignoring her warning.

***

Happy Black Thursday: Do Tumbling Buybacks Signal Another Market Crash?

Global Research, October 23, 2014
Region: 

“Frankly, we are so far off the economic rails, the locomotive is stuck in a swamp and the trailing cars are piling up around it.”Anonymous, Comments line, Naked Capitalism

Since the end of the recession in 2009, investors have borrowed a record amount of money to finance their stock acquisitions. According to the Financial Times, margin debt on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) peaked in February, 2014 at $466 billion and has only recently dipped slightly lower. That’s $85 billion more than 2007 at the peak of the bubble. (Below: Margin debt tends to trace the trajectory of the markets fairly closely, although it’s a poor indicator of a market “top”.)

When stocks start see-sawing like they did last week, it’s usually a sign that over-extended investors are dumping their stocks to meet margin calls. The same thing happened in the run-up to the Crash of 1929. Stocks dropped sharply in late October which forced deeply-indebted investors to unload their holdings at firesale prices. The falling prices triggered a panic that sent stocks into freefall wiping out billions of dollars, crashing the markets, and paving the way for the Great Depression. Here’s a brief summary of what happened:

“On September 3, the market dropped sharply only to rise and then drop again. It was like tremors before a big earthquake but nobody heeded the warning. The market had sagged temporarily before, but it always came back stronger. The market dipped sharply again on October 4 (and) October 21 saw an avalanche of selling as many tried to salvage something from their loss. On October 24 — Black Thursday — the panic took on a life of its own as selling orders overwhelmed the Exchange’s ability to keep up with the transactions…

Wall Street financiers tried to inspire confidence by buying as many shares as they could. It worked — temporarily. (But) on Monday the panic started again, and then came Black Tuesday — October 29. The panic on the Exchange floor changed to bedlam. According to one observer,

“They hollered and screamed, they clawed at one another’s collars. It was like a bunch of crazy men. Every once in a while … you’d see some poor devil collapse and fall to the floor.” This was the Crash, although few could see it at the time… Thirty billion dollars had been lost — more than twice the national debt. The nation reeled, and slipped into the depths of the Great Depression. ” (The Wall Street Crash, 1929, Eyewitness to History)

Unsurprisingly, the banks were at the center of that fiasco too, as was their principle agent, the Federal Reserve. In fact, the International Monetary Fund just issued a scathing rebuke of the Fed’s policies saying that zero rates, which have been in effect for over 5 years, have put the financial system at risk again. Here’s more on the IMF report from the Guardian:

“Accommodative policies aimed at supporting the recovery and promoting economic risk taking have facilitated greater financial risk taking,” the IMF said. As evidence it pointed to rising asset prices, smaller premiums on riskier investments and the lack of volatility in financial markets…”

The IMF said there was a trade-off between the upside economic benefits of low interest rates and the money creation process known as quantitative easing and the downside financial stability risks… “market and liquidity risks have increased to levels that could compromise financial stability if left unaddressed.” (IMF warns period of ultra-low interest rates poses fresh financial crisis threat, Guardian)

In other words, fixing the price of money at zero for years-on-end, increases financial instability while doing nothing for the real economy. The IMF is basically admitting that the Fed has created the conditions for another meltdown.

And the excessive risk taking is not limited to margin debt either. It’s visible in financial assets across the board. Take stock buybacks, for example. Buybacks, which add nothing to a company’s productivity or real value, merely juice stock prices so shareholders and executives can cream bigger profits for themselves. What most people don’t know about buybacks is that the fatcat corporate bosses are not recycling profits into share purchases, but taking advantage of the low rates to load on more debt. Check out this eyepopping chart at Zero Hedge which shows the lethal symmetry between corporate borrowing and stock buybacks:

Why is this happening?

It’s happening because the Obama administration reduced the budget deficits thereby choking off the fiscal stimulus the economy needs to grow. That bit of belt-tightening weakened overall demand forcing corporations to look for other ways to boost profits. What many CEOs figured out was that they could increase earnings by cutting costs and shedding workers while, simultaneously, goosing stock prices by taking advantage of the low interest rates and adding more debt. This is the strategy that energized the stock buyback craze, the revenue-shrinking, worker-trimming, industry-gutting plan to enrich the few at the expense of the company, its employees and its future. Check this out from the WSJ:

“Preliminary data showed stock buybacks reached $116.2 billion in the second quarter … down 27% from $159.3 billion recorded for the first quarter of this year, the second highest on record.

For the 12 months ended June, companies raised their stock repurchases to $533 billion, an increase of nearly 27% from a year earlier. Meanwhile, combined buyback and dividend expenditures for the period reached a record of $865.9 billion, with buybacks representing 61.6% of the total.” (Companies reduced stock buybacks in 2nd quarter, Wall Street Journal)

So you want to know why stocks keep soaring higher on so-so economic data?

Buybacks, that’s why. Here’s a clip from an earlier article in the WSJ that underscores the magnitude of the flimflam:

“Last year, the corporations in the Russell 3000, a broad U.S. stock index, repurchased $567.6 billion worth of their own shares—a 21% increase over 2012, calculates Rob Leiphart, an analyst at Birinyi Associates, a research firm in Westport, Conn. That brings total buybacks since the beginning of 2005 to $4.21 trillion—or nearly one-fifth of the total value of all U.S. stocks today.” (Will Stock Buybacks Bite Back?, Wall Street Journal)

If buybacks represent 20 percent of the total value of stocks today, then what’s going to happen when conditions change, that is, when QE ends and rates rise?

Stocks are going to tumble, right?

Right. And if you want to see how destructive this buyback chicanery really is, just check out the details on IBM’s recent earnings debacle. Here’s the story from the New York Times:

“In the first six months of this year, the company spent more than $12 billion … on its own shares … But all these “shareholder friendly” maneuvers have been masking an ugly truth: IBM’s success in recent years has been tied more to financial engineering than actual performance.

That became readily apparent Monday morning when the company announced its earnings, missing analysts’ expectations by a wide margin. The stock fell more than 7 percent to $169.10 by the end of the day, below the average price Mr. Buffett paid since he started buying the stock in 2011.

The company’s revenue hasn’t grown in years. Indeed, IBM’s revenue is about the same as it was in 2008.

But all along, IBM has been buying up its own shares as if they were a hot item. Since 2000, IBM spent some $108 billion on its own shares, according to its most recent annual report. It also paid out $30 billion in dividends. To help finance this share-buying spree, IBM loaded up on debt.

While the company spent $138 billion on its shares and dividend payments, it spent just $59 billion on its own business through capital expenditures and $32 billion on acquisitions. …All of which is to say that IBM has arguably been spending its money on the wrong things: shareholders, rather than building its own business.

“IBM’s financials make it self-evident that its stock-rigging strategy is not about value creation through ‘investment,’ ” David A. Stockman, the director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan… “IBM is a buyback machine on steroids that has been a huge stock-market winner by virtue of massaging, medicating and manipulating” its earnings per share.” (The Truth Hidden by IBM’s Buybacks, Andrew Ross Sorkin, New York Times)

But IBM is no different than anyone else. They’re all doing the same thing; “dissipating corporate assets” and “shrinking their businesses” (Yves Smith) to enrich greedy executives and their voracious shareholders. And who can blame them, after all, these corporations are merely responding to the incentives created by the Fed’s monetary policies. Stock buybacks make perfect sense when credit is easy and the price of money is zero.

So why did stock prices plunge last week?

It’s all about expectations. Investors know that the conditions that have been favorable for stock buybacks are about to change, (The Fed plans to end QE in October.) so they are making their adjustments while prices are still high. That’s why the markets have been gyrating lately. It’s also why buybacks have dropped by 27 percent in the last quarter. Check out this graph from Zero Hedge:

Corporations have been willing to buy their own shares because (a) money is cheap and (b) because they knew the Fed was shrinking the supply of financial assets by buying US Treasuries. Now that the Fed is threatening to turn off the money-spigot, (which will have the same effect as raising rates) the buybacks will slow and stocks will drop. Of course, that’s not the way the analysts at Goldman Sachs see things. They think the slowdown in stock buybacks is just a temporary glitch that coincides with earnings reports. According to Business Insider:

“Goldman Sachs’ David Kostin believes a temporary pullback may explain why the S&P 500 has tumbled from its all-time high of 2,019 on Sept. 19.

“Most companies are precluded from engaging in open-market stock repurchases during the five weeks before releasing earnings,” Kostin notes. “For many firms, the beginning of the blackout period coincided with the S&P 500 peak on September 18. So the sell-off occurred during a time when the single largest source of equity demand was absent…

“We expect companies will actively repurchase shares in November and December,” he writes. “Since 2007, an average of 25% of annual buybacks has occurred during the last two months of the year.” (GOLDMAN: We’re Blaming The Stock Market Sell-Off On A Pullback In Buybacks, Business Insider)

Goldman could be right, but I don’t think so, mainly because increased volatility and ructions in the bond market suggest that market dynamics have changed. It’s a whole different ballgame now. “The VIX Volatility Index topped 30 briefly last week — often seen as an unofficial warning sign, while CNNMoney’s own Fear & Greed Index is still in “Extreme Fear” mode with the current reading is 5.” And the troubles in the bond market are even scarier. Check this out on Bloomberg:

“Corporate bond values are fluctuating the most in more than a year as Wall Street’s biggest banks opt against using their own money to absorb debt being sold by clients.

The 22 dealers that do business with the Fed reduced their net holdings of high-yield bonds by $1.7 billion in the two weeks ended Oct. 8 to a net $6.3 billion, Fed data show. They were joining the crowd in selling, with high-yield bond mutual funds receiving $7.4 billion of withdrawals since mid-September…” (Leveraged Money Spurs Selloff as Record Treasuries Trade, Bloomberg)

Here’s more from Bloomberg:

“High-yield investors are more worried that no one will bid on their bonds than they are about the risk of companies defaulting. At a time when the default rate for below investment-grade companies is holding at about half its historical average, junk-bond investors are increasingly concerned that they’ll be unable to sell when they want to…

“Clients now want to sell any bond they don’t want to hold for the long-term for fear that they will not be able to sell them later,” Bank of America Corp. analysts led by Michael Contopoulos wrote in a note today. The recent volatility “has been a wake-up call for many that dealer balance sheet constraints leads to faster price discovery and gappier price moves.”… (Lonely Bond Buyers Feel Deserted When Junk-Market Rout Heats Up, Bloomberg)

Investors are afraid that they won’t be able to get out when they want to?

Precisely, and that fear is adding to market volatility.

So what happens now?

Well, it looks like things are going to get a whole lot crazier for a while, particularly if economic data is weak, and the Fed winds down QE on schedule. Then we could see a noticeable increase in the violent swings in daily trading. One thing to keep an eye on is yields on high-yield debt which have been gradually rising signaling that investors are less eager to provide cheap credit to marginal corporate borrowers. That’s going to make it more expensive to finance stock buybacks which means that the main driver of the stock market is going to begin to stall. When buybacks drop off, the markets will drift sideways leading to a selloff in the bond market that could spark a race for the exits. Here’s how Jeff Cox sums it up over at CNBC:

“Picture this: The bond market gets spooked by a sudden interest rate scare, sending a throng of buyers streaming toward the exits, only to find a dearth of buyers on the other side. As a result, liquidity evaporates, yields soar, and the U.S. finds itself smack in the middle of another debt crisis no one saw coming…

We saw the imbalance this summer, when global unrest caused sudden outflows from high-yield corporates, and last spring, when a swift, but not unprecedented, move in rates caused a negative knee-jerk reaction in credit spreads. As one trader put it: “The Taper Tantrum was the 30-second preview to a full feature film that might yet play out.” (This is the ‘doomsday’ bond market scenario, Jeff Cox, CNBC)

We’ve already had three dress rehearsals for Cox’s “doomsday scenario” since last summer, (the most recent of which took place last Wednesday when the Dow dropped 460 pts before rebounding.) so there’s no doubt that there’s trouble ahead. Once stocks start to fall, the bond bubble will burst igniting a broader selloff and a swift plunge in prices. That will leave the balance sheets of many corporations and financial institutions deep in the red precipitating a second major financial crisis in less than 7 years.

Sound plausible?

I think so. And the problems can all be traced back to the easy money policies of the Central Bank; our friend, the Fed.

==================================================================================
News Updates from CLG
27 October 2014
Previous edition: Marysville School District Announces SWAT Drill Yesterday, Active Shooting Today. See: Google Filter Instructions for CLG Newsletter.
101st Airborne to control ‘Ebola corps,’ thousands of U.S. soldiers, personnel deployed to Africa –U.S. military presence in West Africa expected to grow to 3,900 in coming weeks 26 Oct 2014 Hundreds of Americans have flown to Liberia in the past few days. Thousands more are on the way. Most are military personnel, snapping a salute when are assigned to their mission — “Operation United Assistance.” The “Iron Knights” from Fort Bliss, in El Paso, will join hundreds of soldiers from the 101st Airborne who departed for Liberia in flights from Kentucky’s Fort Campbell on Thursday and Saturday.
New U.S. operation flies thousands of American soldiers and civilians to Liberia to ‘fight the Ebola outbreak’ but difficult mission may too little too late –Thousands of U.S. soldiers and civilians are headed to West Africa to fight Ebola in ‘Operation United Assistance,’ the U.S.’s latest effort to ‘combat the virus’ –The mission will include 17 Ebola Treatment Units for those infected, but critics say that won’t be enough 26 Oct 2014 Though the Ebola virus has reached the United States, thousands of Americans are taking the fight overseas to Africa in a mission called ‘Operation United Assistance.’ The mission to combat the deadly virus seize oil is stationed in Liberia where other agencies are currently battling the outbreak. This Ebola unit is mainly made up of U.S. troops but also includes doctors, nurses, scientists, aviators, engineers, mechanics, and technicians, most of whom are volunteers from the U.S. Public Health Service, the Washington Post reports. In an announcement made Saturday from Liberia’s capitol of Monrovia, Maj. Gen. Gary Volesky said soldiers were arriving as he spoke.
US Patent Application for Ebola Virus – Five Years Ago Today By Lori Price, www.legitgov.org 26 Oct 2014 Below is a screenshot depicting the US government’s application for the Ebola Bundibugyo (EboBun) virus. PATENT – Human Ebola Virus Species and Compositions and Methods Thereof – US 20120251502 A1 – ABSTRACT: Compositions and methods including and related to the Ebola Bundibugyo virus (EboBun) are provided…Inventive methods are directed to detection and treatment of EboBun infection. [See also: Why does the CDC own a patent on Ebola ‘invention?’ 3 Aug 2014.]
State governors stand firm on Ebola quarantines despite White House pressure 27 Oct 2014 The governors of New York and New Jersey on Sunday stuck to new plans to quarantine health workers returning to their hometowns from countries with Ebola epidemics, despite pressure from the White House, but emphasized that people could stay at home while in isolation. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo struck a more conciliatory tone on Sunday about the new quarantine policy after the White House said that mandatory isolation could impede the Ebola fight…New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie first announced the quarantine policy on Friday, and on Sunday night reiterated that the terms had not changed.
US Ebola Nurse Slams Quarantine Process 26 Oct 2014 An American nurse who treated Ebola patients in West Africa has criticised quarantine rules that are keeping her isolated in a US hospital despite testing negative. Doctors Without Borders worker Kaci Hickox returned to the US from Sierra Leone on Friday and was taken to a New Jersey hospital. She has tested free of the deadly virus, but was told she will be unable to leave quarantine for another 21 days when the disease’s incubation period ends.
Automatic Quarantine in US for Ebola Medics 25 Oct 2014 New York, New Jersey and Illinois are to begin automatically quarantining medical staff who return from areas badly affected by Ebola. The decision by the health authorities follows former Doctors Without Borders medic Craig Spencer testing positive for the disease several days after he returned from Guinea…The US government said it was considering adopting the move for the whole country after it emerged that Dr Spencer had already been checked at the border and declared safe.
Bellevue staffers call in ‘sick’ after Ebola arrives 25 Oct 2014 An extraordinary number of Bellevue Hospital staffers called in sick on Friday rather than treat the city’s first Ebola patient – and those who showed up were terrified to enter his isolation chamber, sources told The Post. “The nurses on the floor are miserable with a ‘why me?’ attitude, scared to death and overworked because all their co-workers called out sick,” one source said. Dr. Craig Spencer is being treated by nurses working in teams of two, “with one serving as a buddy watching the other,” said Health and Hospitals Corporation spokeswoman Ana Marengo, who denied there was a sickout.
New York Ebola Patient Enters Next, More Serious Phase of Illness, Officials Say 25 Oct 2014 The condition of New York City’s first Ebola patient, Dr. Craig Spencer, worsened on Saturday, though he remained awake and communicative, health officials said. Dr. Spencer, 33, was “entering the next and more serious phase of his illness, as anticipated with the appearance of gastrointestinal symptoms,” Ana Marengo, a spokeswoman for the city’s public hospital system, said in a statement. Dr. Spencer has been in isolation at Bellevue Hospital Center since Thursday, when he reported a 100.3 degree fever.
ISIL terrorist leader is CIA agent: Chechen president 22 Oct 2014 Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov says the ISIL terrorist group’s leader, Ibrahim Samarrai, who is known by the alias Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, works for the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and is financially supported by western secret services. [*Duh.*] “Baghdadi should take off his mask and declare loudly and clearly that he is a CIA agent, that he has been recruited,” Kadyrov said on Tuesday, adding, “They (the ISIL militants) are Shaitans (devils) and their sole obsession is to grab as much money as they can lay hands on. They are acting on orders from the West and deliberately exterminating Muslims.” The Chechen leader called on Samarrai to confess to committing atrocities including the massacre of Muslims.
German intel warns ISIS can shoot down passenger planes – report 26 Oct 2014 Islamic State militants in northern Iraq have modern portable air defense systems that are capable of shooting down a passenger plane, Germany’s Bild am Sonntag newspaper reported citing the country’s foreign intelligence agency. According to the media report published on Sunday, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) informed the German Bundestag of the threat at a closed session last week. The German intelligence agency said that the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS [actually I-CIA-SIS]) militants located in northern Iraq have obtained air-defense systems from the captured military arsenal of the Syrian Army, according to the report.
First US military death announced since Isis offensive started in Iraq 24 Oct 2014 Nearly three years after Barack Obama withdrew the US military from its bloody, exhausting second conflict in Iraq, the first US service member has died there in the third US-Iraq war. Marine Lance Corporal Sean P Neal, one of 1,600 troops serving in Iraq to support the Iraqi struggle against Islamic State (Isis) [I-CIA-SIS], died of a “non-combat” injury, the US announced late on Friday. Neal, of Riverside, California, died in Baghdad, more than 7600 miles from his home, on Thursday. Neal, 19, was the first American acknowledged to have died in Operation Inherent Resolve, the US military’s new name for the war Obama launched on August 7.
UK ends Afghan combat operations 26 Oct 2014 The last UK base in Afghanistan has been handed over to the control of Afghan security forces, ending British combat operations in the country. The union flag was lowered at Camp Bastion, while Camp Leatherneck – the adjoining US base – was also handed over to ‘Afghan’ control. The number of deaths of British troops throughout the conflict stands at 453.
Labrador hosts biggest NORAD training exercise since Cold War 25 Oct 2014 The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) are holding their largest training exercise since the Cold War this week in Labrador. The military base in Happy-Valley-Goose Bay is hosting the annual NORAD operation, which involves American and Canadian air force troops training together to defend the north in the face of possible threats…This is the first time that the “Vigilant Shield” exercise has been hosted in Labrador, with over 550 troops participating at 5-Wing Goose bay.
NORAD exercise continues at Goose Bay, despite shooting in Ottawa this week 25 Oct 2014 More than 500 Canadian and American forces personnel gathered this week at 5 Wing Goose Bay for training have been shaken by the killing of a comrade in Ottawa Wednesday, but it didn’t deter them from their duty, says Lt.-Col. Mark Roberts. According to a news release, Vigilant Shield is a bi-national exercise which emphasizes an integrated American and Canadian program to support respective national strategies for North America’s defence. It wraps up Sunday. 
Photos Taken 15 Minutes Prior to Ottawa Shooting Depict Heavy Police Presence –Parliament Buildings surrounded by police 15 minutes before shooting started 25 Oct 2014 An apparent eyewitness who works at the Parliament Building tells his/her account of events unfolding under his/her office window. “I’m a legislative assistant, Here is the view outside my office at 9:30 AM, (about 15 minutes before the ‘crazed’ gunman). Just a shit ton of cops hanging out by west block for no reason. I know two things they aren’t telling the press/public…Wednesday’s there are events hosted at parliament, and security is slack. There was no need for all these police at parliament this morning pre-shooting incident.”
Brother of British jihadi killed in Syria charged under Terrorism Act 26 Oct 2014 The brother of a British man who was killed while fighting in Syria with Islamic State has been charged with preparing terrorist acts. Mustakim Jaman, 23, from Portsmouth and the brother of Ifthekar Jaman, was charged under the Terrorism Act on Sunday, Hampshire police said. Jaman was arrested by the south-east counter-terrorism unit on 14 October on suspicion of being involved in a Syria-related terrorism plot.
White House: Homeland Security Considering ‘Physical Obstacles’ to Deter Fence Jumpers 24 Oct 2014 The Obama  administration said Thursday that a review is underway to potentially enhance security at the White House after the latest fence-jumper incident. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest was asked if they are considering putting in a higher fence to deter people from jumping over. Earnest responded that the homeland security deputy secretary is working with the department’s general counsel to conduct a review about the “security posture” around the White House.
‘We actually drilled for this’ – Providence Regional Medical Center Medical Chief 25 Oct 2014 During a live interview on CNN Saturday, the Chief Medical Officer of Providence Regional Hospital in Everett, Joanne Roberts, expressed her confidence in treating the victims of Friday’s school shooting in Marysville, Washington. “We actually drilled for this. We had already done a drill for a situation exactly like this, two months ago.” In print, we read: “Our Worst Nightmare, But We Were Ready” – Providence Regional Medical Center Everett 24 Oct 2014 “It is our worst nightmare but we were ready.” Those words from Joanne Roberts who is the Chief Medical Officer at Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett after 4 patients were brought in after a shooting at Marysville Pilchuck High School…The 3 who were more severely injured were taken into the trauma rooms where more than 2 dozen doctors were waiting including surgeons and other specialists. “We train for this but its still hard because we have staff members whose children attend that school,” Roberts said. [See also: School Shooting or SWAT Training? By Lori Price, www.legitgov.org 24 Oct 2014.]
3 sheriff’s deputies, bystander shot in series of Calif. shootings; one deputy has died –Motive for shootings ‘unknown’ 24 Oct 2014 A Sacramento County sheriff’s deputy who was shot while investigating a suspicious vehicle has died and the suspect has been taken into custody after an intensive manhunt. Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones says the 47-year-old deputy, Danny Oliver, was killed after he approached a suspicious vehicle and was shot in the forehead. Three deputies and a bystander were shot during a series of shootings Friday that spanned more than 30 miles through two California counties.
 
***

Direct Democracy
The Kobani Riddle

By Pepe Escobar

Kobani – an agricultural region – happens to be at the epicenter of this non-violent experiment in democracy.
Continue

War Without End
12 Years of US DroneStrikes in Yemen

By Iona Craig

The “Yemen model” is one of perpetual violence. The limits of what can be done in the name of “counterterrorist” action often appear boundless. Continue

The True History of Blowback in One Sentence

By William Rivers Pitt

You’re probably wondering why the Canadian Parliament was shot up and your friendly neighborhood police officer is driving a tank. Continue

Western Sponsors Liable for Kiev Basket Case

By Finian Cunningham

Russia is holding Europe and Ukraine to ransom, threatening everyone with hypothermia? 
Continue

Putin Lashes Out At US, West For Destabilizing World

Video

The Russian President delivered a fierce broadside aimed at the United States in a speech for the Valdai Club in Sochi, which is an informal group of scholars. Continue

Citizenfour’s Escape to Freedom in Russia

By Ray McGovern

“I won’t call him a hero, but he’s sure as hell no traitor.” Continue

Stand Tall America, We’re #1! 

By Tom Engelhardt

(When It Comes to Our Military Budget, Knocking Off Wedding Parties, Military Bases, etc.) Continue

Israeli President’s Diagnosis — ‘Israel is a Sick Society’ 

By Philip Weiss

Did you hear that the president of Israel said Israel is a “sick society”? The declaration hasn’t gotten much attention stateside. Continue

Canadian Government Seizes on Ottawa Shooting to Promote Militarist, Anti-democratic Agenda

By Roger Jordan and Keith Jones

The immediate goal is to rally support for Canada’s participation in the new Mideast war and to rush through legislation giving further repressive powers to the national-security apparatus. Continue

Schemers Who Trade our Blood for Sacks of Gold

By Michael Parenti

See how sleek and self-satisfied they look, riding our backs, distracting our minds, filling us with fright about wicked foes. Continue

The Rape of Democracy

By Eric Zuesse

Corruption wins; truth loses. That’s the problem. When there is great inequality of wealth, the truth gets drowned-out by lies. Continue

Washington Is Defaming Putin
Leader Of the Moral World

By Paul Craig Roberts

Washington long ago learned the dark art of silencing truth with defamation. Continue

Compare How U.S. Responds To The Killing Of American Kids Based On Identity Of The Killers

By Glenn Greenwald 

All of the normal rules are inapplicable when the countries in question are the U.S. and Israel. Continue

The Importance of Being Exceptional

By David Bromwich

On the whole, is American exceptionalism a force for good? Continue

Canada Turns Militaristic – Blowback Follows

By Ron Paul

Unfortunately Canada has unlearned the lesson of 1968. Continue

Don’t Let Lunatics Make Our Policies

By Eric Margolis

Why would ISIS, a lightly-armed guerilla force, sit still and make itself an ideal target for US airpower.Continue

The Myth of the Free Press

By Chris Hedges

The mass media blindly support the ideology of corporate capitalism. They laud and promote the myth of American democracy—even as we are stripped of civil liberties and money replaces the vote. Continue

Russell Brand Shows His Irritation With Mediacracy

By Jonathan Cook

‘I don’t trust politicians & corporations in this country’ Continue

Odds Are, You Are Suspicious

By Samia Hossain

When you’re going on a trip, do you come off as nervous? Or are you an unusually calm traveler? Continue

***

October 26, 2014

  • FeaturedWater > as Fuel / QMoGen? >
    GDS Technologies’ Portable Water Generators – Canadian company has a water-powered, portable genset available for sale [“not until Dec. 15” (story)] on their website, in output sizes of 5 kW, 10 kW and 15 kW, at a price of around $1000/kW. Just 4 gallons of tap water will run the 5 kW system relatively quietly for three days. It emits no pollution, no fumes. Suitable for non-grid-tie applications. (PESWiki; October 26, 2014)

October 25, 2014

  • FeaturedBatteries > Graphene >
    Graphene 3D Lab unveils first 3D-printed graphene battery – Graphene can be easily mixed with thermoplastics commonly used in FDM 3D printer. The company is working on designing a mixture of plastics and graphene that can be turned into nanocomposite material filament. The graphene-enhanced materials can be used within any standard FDM 3D printers to fabricate a functioning battery… (PESN; October 25, 2014)

October 24, 2014

==================================================================================

‘Google grown big & bad’: Assange reveals company & its founder’s links to US govt

Published time: October 24, 2014

One of the world’s largest internet companies, Google ‘should be a serious concern’ internationally, WikiLeaks co-founder and Editor-in-chief Julian Assange says, revealing its connections and donations to the White House.

“Google is steadily becoming the Internet for many people. Its influence on the choices and behavior of the totality of individual human beings translates to real power to influence the course of history,” Assange writes in his article, an extract from which is published in Newsweek.

Based on Assange’s personal encounter with Google’s chairman Eric Schmidt, the story of the corporation’s connections with the US government is intertwined with Schmidt’s personality.

Graduating with a degree in engineering from Princeton, Schmidt joined Sun Microsystems, a company that sold computers and software, in 1983, and over the years had become part of its executive leadership.

Sun had significant contracts with the US government, but it was not until he was in Utah as CEO of Novell that records show Schmidt strategically engaging Washington’s overt political class,” Assange writes.

Referring to federal campaign finance records, Assange says “two lots of $1,000” to a Utah senator in 1999 was the future Google CEO’s first donation, with “over a dozen other politicians and PACs, including Al Gore, George W. Bush, Dianne Feinstein, and Hillary Clinton…on the Schmidt’s payroll” in the following years.

Ahead of his interview with Google executive chairman in 2011, Assange was “too eager to see a politically unambitious Silicon Valley engineer, a relic of the good old days of computer   science graduate culture on the West Coast,” but says Schmidt “who pays regular visits to the White House” is not the type.

When visiting Assange, who was living under house arrest in England at the time, to quiz him “on the organizational and technological underpinnings of WikiLeaks,” Eric Schmidt was accompanied by Jared Cohen, the Director of Google Ideas, who also works for the Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank specializing in US foreign policy.

While describing Schmidt’s politics as “surprisingly conventional, even banal,” Assange says the man behind Google “was at his best when he was speaking (perhaps without realizing it) as an engineer.”

Talking about Cohen, the WikiLeaks co-founder names him “Google’s director of regime change.”

According to Assange’s research, “he was trying to plant his fingerprints on some of the major historical events in the contemporary Middle East,” including his interference with US politics in Afghanistan and Lebanon.

“Nobody wants to acknowledge that Google has grown big and bad. But it has,” Assange says, providing not only data on its direct connections with the White House, but also remembering the PRISM program scandal, when the company was “caught red-handed making petabytes of personal data available to the US intelligence community.”

Google is “luring people into its services trap,” and “if the future of the Internet is to be Google, that should be of serious concern to people all over the world,” Assange concludes.

***

‘Facebook a gift to intelligence agencies’ – Laura Poitras

Published time: October 25, 2014

Investigative journalist Laura Poitras says she is worried about intelligence agencies using the all-too-easily-accessible data gathered from social networks – as people share their personal information voluntarily and governments only need to ask.

Poitras, who helped NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden expose illegal activities of the organization, still believes that people should be worried about the amount of power governments have to conduct surveillance searches of what they are doing online.

“Facebook is a gift to intelligence agencies. People volunteer all their social information,” she told the Washington Post in an interview.

Users should be wary about the information that the likes of Facebook and Google have compiled on them, Poitras warns. Still she does believe that these technology companies pose less of a threat than governments.

“On technology companies, we should be concerned, but we are consenting to that relationship – and they don’t have the same powers. They can help the government find out who your sources are, but they don’t have the power to investigate people,” she said.

READ MORE: Defiant Apple, Facebook, other firms to inform public of govt surveillance requests

To try and overcome the problem of unwanted government surveillance, she advocates the greater use of encryption tools, especially for journalists, but does understand that they can often be hard to use for those without specialist knowledge of computer systems. Poitras told the Washington Post she believes this could change in the future.

“I think what we’re going to see is a market for privacy that’s going to emerge. I think technology companies will come forward and offer tools that are easier to use. I mean, [email   encryption tool] PGP is not easy, but it could be, and I think it will be,” she said.

The investigative journalist also touched on the Freedom of the Press Foundation, which was setup in December 2012 to support free speech and the freedom of the press. It also offers encryption tools, which can be downloaded online, as well as a service called SecureDrop.

READ MORE: Facebook demands DEA stop using fake profiles in investigations

SecureDrop is an open-source whistleblower submission system, which any news organization can install to securely receive information and documents from whistleblowers and sources, according to the Foundation’s website. She also says that the organization can give guidance on what products can be trusted and which should be avoided.

“I think one of the really exciting things about the organization is that we have a technology board who has all sorts of experience in the free software movement who actually know how   to determine what are the good forms of encryption and how to handle peer review,” Poitras added.

Poitras also talked about the release of her new film, Citzenfour, which potrays the eight days that she spent in Hong Kong with Snowden, after he began leaking sensitive NSA documents. The film opened on Friday in selected cinemas in New York, Washington, DC, and Los Angeles.

==================================================================================

Silencing Dissent: US Political Prisoners Mumia Abu-Jamal and Jeremy Hammond in the Sacrifice Zone of Empire

Global Research, October 26, 2014
Dissident Voice 25 October 2014

Recently, two cases concerning the constitutional rights of people in prison came to public light. They involve two U.S. political prisoners: Mumia Abu-Jamal who is serving a life sentence at a facility in Frackville, Pennsylvania and Jeremy Hammond, who is serving a ten year sentence at a federal prison in Manchester, Kentucky.

On Monday October 20, it was reported that Hammond, a young Chicago based computer programmer, had been held in solitary confinement for the last 10 days. In November 2013, he was sentenced after he plead guilty for violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for allegedly revealing more than five million emails from the private intelligence firm Strategic Forecasting (Stratfor).

The Courage Foundation, an international organization dedicated to the protection of truth-tellers, published a statement on their site, noting the organization’s belief that Hammond’s solitary confinement is retaliatory punishment for filing complaints against the prison for withholding his mail.

The next day, another news story surfaced concerning world-renowned political prisoner, Mumia Abu-Jamal. He had been convicted for the killing of a Philadelphia police officer in 1982 in a highly biased trial.

On Tuesday October 21, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett signed a bill that is said to protect victims from possible mental anguish supposedly caused by any action by an inmate or former offender. Under this new law called “Revictimization Relief Act,” prisoners in the state of Pennsylvania can now be sued for speaking out from behind bars.

This legislation was apparently passed as a way to silence Abu-Jamal (photo, right), one of the state’s most famous prisoners. The measure was put forward after Abu-Jamal delivered a recorded commencement speech for his fellow alumni at Vermont’s Goddard College earlier this month. The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania criticized the bill, saying it cannot “pass constitutional muster under the First Amendment.”

In a recorded phone interview with Noelle Hanrahan of Prison Radio, former Black Panther Abu-Jamal called the bill “a blatant, naked violation” of both the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and of the United States that grants the right of free speech to all people. In the same interview, he said, “the press ignores prisoners, as a rule. Most of what happens in prisons are never or rarely reported in the press.” This bill furthered the censorship and reduced the ability for someone like him to speak to the public at all.

Abu-Jamal and Hammond, two men with very different backgrounds share much in common. Both were placed in prolonged solitary confinement, which the UN Special Rapporteur on torture called “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and may amount to torture.”

Since his arrest in March 2010, Hammond was regularly cut off from contact with his friends and family and was more than once in solitary. Abu-Jamal has spent the last 30 years in prison, almost all of it in solitary confinement on Pennsylvania’s death row before prosecutors agreed in 2011 to reduce the sentence.

They both have always held strong commitment to social justice. Hammond revealed secret collusion of corporations and the state to engage in unconstitutional spying on human rights activists. At his sentencing hearing he stated his motivation:

The acts of civil disobedience and direct action that I am being sentenced for today are in line with the principles of community and equality that have guided my life. I hacked into dozens of high profile corporations and government institutions, understanding very clearly that what I was doing was against the law, and that my actions could land me back in federal prison. But I felt that I had an obligation to use my skills to expose and confront injustice—and to bring the truth to light.

Prior to serving his sentence, Abu-Jamal was a renowned activist and journalist and has since published several books and hundreds of articles and columns from behind bars. They are both prisoners of conscience. Their commitment to justice is not the only thing that binds them together. They both have seen hidden views inside the prison industrial complex even before they entered it and have been punished for unveiling to the public what they saw.

In the book Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, journalists Joe Sacco and Chris Hedges documented their travel to forgotten corners of impoverished and extracted parts of America, which they called “sacrifice zones.” Their account started with the Western plains, where lives of Native Americans were sacrificed and their lands offered up for predatory capitalism’s promise of progress and development.

Prisons are now becoming sacrifice zones offered up for the ambition of empire. They are more and more being privatized for immoral corporate profiteering. The young, the poor and people of color have become prime targets. In his book Punishment and Inequality in America, Bruce Western explores the recent explosion of mass incarceration in the U.S. He addressesthe unequal ratio of prison population between whites and blacks. Over two million prisoners are composed of disproportionate numbers of minorities and people with little education. He documented how almost 60 percent of black male high school dropouts have spent time in prison in their early thirties.

Those behind bars are made invisible. They are often stripped of their constitutional rights and cut off from communication with the outside world. This is one of the places where our youth’s future is locked up for state sanctioned racism and sacrificed for capitalism’s bottomless greed.

From the margins where injustice shapes the landscape of everyday life, individuals like Hammond and Abu-Jamal expose the lies of the government and hypocrisy of the criminal justice system. From the darkness inside, they cast a light on what those in power don’t want us to see.

For instance, Hammond shared his personal experience as a prisoner at the Metropolitan Correctional Center during Hurricane Sandy. He described how when the storm hit, they lost power and prisoners were left behind with no hot water, heat, mail or phones. He described how the government abandoned them.

“Very frightening to consider what would happen to us prisoners – already disenfranchised, silenced, marginalized and forgotten – in the event of a more devastating natural disaster. There’s a universal consensus here – ‘they’d probably leave us to die.’”

Whatever happens behind closed doors will eventually expand as the corporate state’s addiction to power has no limit. It is this spreading hidden oppression that Abu-Jamal has been warning about from prison for decades. Months before Edward Snowden leaked the shocking news of mass surveillance of U.S. citizens, Abu-Jamal had presciently noted that the American prison experience is expanding into the outside world:

… if you look inside the bars, you’re looking at millions of men and women and juveniles… But even beyond that, I mean, how free are we today, those who claim to be non-prisoners? Your computers are being read by others in government. Your letters, your phone calls are being intercepted. We live now in a national security state, where the United States is fast becoming one of the biggest open-air prisons on earth.

Hammond and Abu-Jamal, a generation apart sit behind bars in this sacrifice zone. They represent those who are silenced for speaking truth to power. They have not only revealed insidious levels of surveillance and deep state racism, but have also highlighted the growing level of illegitimate governance that inflicts violence and perpetuates cruelty and misery.

These sacrifice zones of the corporate state are expanding. The recent shooting of an unarmed young black man in Ferguson revealed the insidious disease of white supremacy and how easily U.S. cities can turn into a military occupied police state. With unprecedented persecution of whistle-blowers, the Obama administration continues to threaten press freedom and engage in extrajudicial killing through drone attacks for anyone who is on the receiving end of U.S. imperial foreign policy.

The world is quickly becoming one big open-air prison. The NSA is inflicting mass surveillance by working hand in hand with private companies like Google and Verizon to infiltrate all forms of communication. The U.S. continues to send weapons to aid Israeli government’s assaults on Gaza against Palestine civilians. From the creation of ISIS and the crisis in Ukraine, the U.S. empire is desperately attempting to stave off the imminent end of the petrodollar monopoly game by spreading terror around the world and at home.

It is time to stop the operation of a heartless corporate industrial complex that chews up innocent lives and destroys the environment in order to maximize profits at any cost. We must resist this aggression and its blatant violation of civil liberties before it devours all that is sacred to us. What is sacred should never be sacrificed.

==================================================================================
From: Richard Sauder <dr.samizdat1618@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Oct 26, 2014 at 9:43 PM
Subject: Harmaline Wonderland of Gnomes, Elves, Faeries and Sprites

Hi Pondo,

Here is my latest blog post. You are welcome to post it or link to it.

Harmaline Wonderland of Gnomes, Elves, Faeries and Sprites

http://eventhorizonchronicle.blogspot.com/2014/10/harmaline-wonderland-of-gnomes-elves.html

best regards,
Richard Sauder

===================================================================================

On Thu, Oct 23, 2014 at 9:58 PM, Penelope Delevoryas <penwren55@yahoo.com> wrote:

Hi, Pondo,
Thanks for your last excellent posts.  Here is an exerpt from one of the ebola articles and explains the reason for the ¨epidemic¨:
Washington’s response to the Ebola crisis has followed that template. Last month, Obama ordered 3,000 US troops into Liberia, ostensibly to build Ebola treatment facilities. Last week another 1,000 troops were added to the deployment, which is intended to pave the way for a permanent base for the Pentagon’s Africa Command (AFRICOM) in the region.
==================================================================================
From: Rick Davis <rdavis@yin.or.jp>
Date: Sun, Oct 26, 2014 at 7:23 PM
Subject: News Links, October 25-27, 2014                                                 News Links, October 25-27, 2014

 
The rice crop is in!
## Global Ponzi meltdown/House of Cards ##
What Unilever just Said About Consumers Around the World: “It’s Really Tough out There”
What is it with these consumer-products companies that need to sell a lot of cheap stuff to a lot of consumers around the world? Over the last few days, one after the other reported what are more or less unvarnished quarterly revenue and earnings debacles.
Bank auto lending has grown at a compounded annual rate of 20% since 2007, “significantly outpacing” the growth of even red-hot mortgages, credit cards, and lines of credit, according to the ratings agency report released Thursday. In seven years, vehicle loans have jumped from $16.2- billion to $64-billion.
Half of American workers earn less than $28,031 per year and household income now back to levels last seen two decades ago.
## Gold ##

Saga government to subsidize excess baggage fee on China-bound flight (Japan)

## Fault lines/flashpoints/powder kegs/military/war drums ##

Libya is falling apart with a collection of rival militias both Islamist and secular taking over various cities and regions, and the government itself controlling little more than a hotel at the town of Tobruk.
US Official: Bombing Oil Pipelines in Syria a ‘Viable Option’
India closer to real-time surveillance of India-Sino border
Surveillance cameras with a depth of view extending over 20 kilometers into Chinese territory have been equipped by the Indo-Tibetan Border Police a month after the People’s Liberation Army entered the disputed regions of Demchok and Chumar in Ladakh, reports the New Delhi-based Times of India.
The Western media will make a big deal out of this, but will almost certainly not remind the public about how Ferdinand Marcos fled the Philippines. — RF
Now we have open admissions that Putin has bested his opponents. Whatever you may think of the Russians, they are master chess players and tough fighters. — RF
The Ukraine has not replied to a single query on Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 that crashed in the country’s east after apparently being shot down, Russia’s Permanent Representative at the UN Vitaly Churkin has said.
US-Israel relations in ‘crisis’ after Moshe Ya’alon snubbed
Israel’s relations with its key ally, the United States, have hit a new low after the Obama administration snubbed Moshe Ya’alon, the hard-line Israeli defence minister, on a visit to Washington as punishment for past criticisms of White House policy.
## Global unrest/mob rule/angry people/torches and pitchforks ##
Climate Change Linked to Rising Violence: Report
The slide in oil prices has raised speculation that oil companies in the U.S. could be forced to cut back on production, but a market slump in another commodity is also putting pressure on producers. Coal markets are currently experiencing a supply glut that is showing no signs of recovery.
Even as relations between Russia and the U.S. have sunk to a post-Cold War low over the crisis in Ukraine, the two powers have come together to press their shared interest in resisting more stringent safety guidelines, said the diplomats. The U.S. is the world’s biggest nuclear-power generator, while Russia exports more reactors than anyone else.
We have very serious problems in our natural gas supply. Even if we do not have any political friction with Ukraine or Russia, in the days when temperatures drop below -5 °C our natural gas demand will not be met.
## Infrastructure scavenging ##
Metal thieves target sewer grates
## Got food? ##
GCC food imports demand forecast to hit $53bn by 2020
The GCC’s regional food import bill will rise to over $53 billion by 2020 as its soaring population has resulted in imported products accounting for up to 90 percent of all food supplies, it has been announced.
California – A Food Powerhouse in Peril
## Environment/health ##
A newly discovered microbe appears to be releasing massive amounts of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, as permafrost succumbs to rising global temperatures.
## Intelligence/propaganda/security/internet/cyberwar ##
Now Everyone Wants to Sell You a Magical Anonymity Router. Choose Wisely
Treating Putin Like a Lunatic
Official Washington treats whatever comes out of Russian President Putin’s mouth as the ravings of a lunatic, even when what he says is obviously true or otherwise makes sense, as the New York Times has demonstrated again.
SOCOM Wants To Start Data Mining the Open Web
US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) is building an open-source data-mining program that will run automatic keyword searches across a variety of websites and databases, allowing its operators to build a better picture of their operating environment in as close to real time as possible.
New technologies pluck out voices at distance
Elon Musk warns against unleashing artificial intelligence ‘demon’## Systemic breakdown/collapse/unsustainability ##
A Pink Slip for the Progress Fairy

Although a bit long, this is very interesting and informative if you are interested in the process of collapse. Although I agree that “this time is different” certainly cannot be a reason for supposing that industrial civilization won’t collapse like all previous civilizations, in the case of industrial civilization there are some unprecedented differences (call them “this-time-is-different factors” if you like) that could accelerate collapse and make it much worse. First, there are far more humans than before, making for a population that is both dense and highly mobile. That is why Ebola could readily expand into a global pandemic. It’s also why a crop failure, or just the inability to deliver food when and where it’s needed, could starve millions in no time. Second, industrial civilization is global in scale, and everything is tightly networked and optimized. The system is complex and fragile. Trade and finance are woven into this system, which is becoming increasingly digitized, making it highly vulnerable to power outages, server problems, hacking and other sabotage, natural disasters, or many other kinds of disruptive events. Third, industrial civilization has found and largely consumed the high-grade resources, forcing us to move on to lower-grade, more expensive resources. Fourth, ecosystems are under heavy attack and being rapidly degraded. Fifth, climate change is putting further stress on societies and economies. Sixth, economies are wheezing under a crushing debt load that grows heavier daily. Because the economy grows by expanding debt, governments have no choice but to keep piling it on. These and other factors create a toxic brew that could explode into planetary chaos at any time, resulting in catastrophic disruption and the deaths of billions. Have a nice day! — RF
Tokyo govt to issue foreign currency debt
The Tokyo metropolitan government said it will switch part of its planned ¥20 billion’s worth of debt securities for retail investors into Australian dollar-denominated notes.
## UK ##
A generation of Britons is destined to spend years languishing in low-paid jobs barely above the minimum wage, with the number in poorly paid work at a historic high, a major report will reveal this week.
UK power margins tighten further for winter, but gas stocks high
## US ##
May the gods have mercy on us. — RF

And finally…

=================================================================================

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *