Gerald Celente calls the Western media “presstitutes,” an ingenuous term that I often use. Presstitutes sell themselves to Washington for access and government sources and to keep their jobs. Ever since the corrupt Clinton regime permitted the concentration of the US media, there has been no journalistic independence in the United States except for some Internet sites.
Glenn Greenwald points out the independence that RT, a Russian media organization, permits Abby Martin who denounced Russia’s alleged invasion of Ukraine, compared to the fates of Phil Donahue (MSNBC) and Peter Arnett (NBC), both of whom were fired for expressing opposition to …
Their names are Jawhar Nasser Jawhar, 19, and Adam Abd al-Raouf Halabiya, 17. They were once soccer players in the West Bank. Now they are never going to play sports again. Jawhar and Adam were on their way home from a training session in the Faisal al-Husseini Stadium on January 31 when Israeli forces fired upon them as they approached a checkpoint. After being shot repeatedly, they were mauled by checkpoint dogs and then beaten. Ten bullets were put into Jawhar’s feet. Adam took one bullet in each foot. After being transferred from a hospital in Ramallah to King Hussein …
If the government can’t do it, they get the teachers to. It’s an old trick of state regulation, and it only works if the teaching class prefers compliancy over independence. In the British sense, the latest round of co-opting teachers into monitoring students and their immigration credentials has brought the issue to a head.
On Monday, more than 160 academics wrote to The Guardian, claiming that, “A pernicious new turn took place in 2012 when London Metropolitan University lost its ‘highly trusted sponsor’ status, to catastrophic effect for students in the middle of their courses.” According to the letter, British …
So the US leadership is supporting the creation of One Nation Under God in Ukraine. As one of the key groups involved in the militant overthrow of an elected government has stated in its party platform, “a system of the dictatorship of the Nation with regard to the socioeconomic interests of the people” needs to be implemented (more below).
Isn’t that what the military in Egypt proclaimed in its coup to oust another elected official, Morsi?
The American press is fond of patting itself on the back for upholding the first amendment to the US Constitution, that being, among other things, freedom …
Two nuclear heavyweights jostle for position on the banks of the Black Sea
by Jason Hirthler / March 4th, 2014
So Russia has moved to secure Crimea, where its prized Black Sea fleet resides. No surprise there, although Secretary of State John Kerry, the lantern-jawed buffoon that President Obama trots out to justify the indefensible, comically affected indignant outrage and declared Russian behavior to be, “an incredible act of aggression.” Yet neither the swift Russian reply, nor any of the other events in this latest deposing of a democratically-elected leader come as much of a surprise. At least not if history is a useful guide.
Obviously Not a Team Player
What were the causes behind the latest ‘democratic revolution’ in Ukraine? …
Recent events in the Ukraine have taken center stage since the Russian parliament passed legislation approving the deployment of more troops into the Crimea. The rationale is simple: to defend the Russian fleet that makes port in the Black Sea. This is Russia’s only warm water port and has been a point of contention for more than a century. After the Crimean war of the 1850s, Russia lost her rights to base her fleet there. It wasn’t long afterwards, however, that Russia reclaimed that right after Napoleon III’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian war. Since then, Russia has had military ships …
Investigative journalist Robert Parry talks about Russia’s move to invade Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and the role of the US and the west in fomenting crisis there.
Indian police are investigating a deadly incident, in which a woman who went to meet Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi in Assam, but remained outside the venue, was burnt to death by her husband.
The motive for murder was speculated to be a kiss, however, it was made clear that the woman shown on television kissing Rahul Gandhi was not the victim.
The recent North American Leaders Summit in Mexico was seen as a perfect opportunity to try and kick start the trilateral partnership. While there was no headline grabbers or major breakthroughs, the NAFTA partners still moved forward on some crucial issues that centered around North American competitiveness. They developed a shared set of priorities and established a roadmap for enhancing cooperation in areas such as trade, transportation, energy, as well as border facilitation. This includes creating a North American trusted traveler program which is part of ongoing efforts to establish a fully integrated continental security perimeter. During separate bilateral meetings, …
We’ve all become accustomed to hearing about Edward Snowden and the NSA scandal. In fact, it’s almost become a daily ritual: checking major news outlets and discovering new revelations which never seem to fail in shocking us about the extent and invasiveness of what’s been called the “national security apparatus”—at least, the reaction tends to be one of shock, though often without the surprise.
The latest chapter in the saga is the disclosure of a new document coming out of JTRIG (Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group)—a secretive unit inside Britain’s spying agency (GCHQ—Government Communications Headquarters). The document reveals an …
In a nearly $13 billion settlement with the US Justice Department in November 2013, JPMorganChase admitted that it, along with every other large US bank, had engaged in mortgage fraud as a routine business practice, sowing the seeds of the mortgage meltdown. JPMorgan and other megabanks have now been caught in over a dozen major frauds, including LIBOR-rigging and bid-rigging; yet no prominent banker has gone to jail. Meanwhile, nearly a quarter of all mortgages nationally remain underwater (meaning the balance owed exceeds the current value of the home), sapping homeowners’ budgets, the housing market and the economy. …
Follow the Law? Both Parties Reject Simple Integrity
by William Boardman / March 3rd, 2014
It’s not easy to keep a “scandal” going where there’s no scandal
Whatever you hear about tax exempt, 501(c)(4) organizations these days, someone is probably playing politics, or simply lying (for the sake of playing politics). And even if you’re not hearing about it, they’re still lying about it. This is all about bi-partisan deceit designed to defend the flow of dark money from secret donors.
The focal point of the “IRS scandal” these days is a new set of regulations announced by the IRS in November and currently open for public comments, which totaled more than 69,000 before the comment …
Could the rest of the world finally be tiring of endless US wars?
by Daniel Patrick Welch / March 3rd, 2014
Waterloo. Stalingrad. Egomaniacal imperialists think they can conquer the world. But they can’t–at least not forever. So maybe I’ve been looking at this all wrong. Well, not *all* wrong, but from too dark a place. Until now it has been tempting to see the US and its imperial death merchants as being on a roll, a sort of superhuman circus performer who can somehow juggle chainsaws without cutting his own balls off. Look at them go! Full Spectrum Dominance Death Star firing on all cylinders–we can overthrow governments in Syria, Venezuela, and Ukraine at the same time, without breaking a …
The story of Joliet is familiar enough. With its industries gone, a city turns to the casino as a last ditch salvation, but cannot reverse its decline. The details of this disintegration, though, can be interesting. Take two recent crimes. In one, four people, two men and two women, invited two male friends over for some partying, which in America nearly always involves alcohol and/or drugs and the promise of sex, but the two guests ended up being strangled to death, with their corpses serving as an uneven mattress for some macabre screwing. Yes, you read that right, two …
Governments cite “national security” concerns and “official secrets” as their justification for withholding information from the public. Corporations rationalize their secrecy behind concerns about “patent infringement,” shielding their trademarked “proprietary” secrets from competitors. But most of the time, such obfuscation is really derived from the time-honored villains of systemic corruption and what is politely known as CYA in military and bureaucratic slang.
Which brings us to Fukushima.
From the very beginning of this catastrophic emergency — the earthquake/tsunami off the Japanese coast in March of 2011, when nuclear reactors at a power plant were flooded and then exploded and began their meltdowns …
The Pentagon’s budget proposal for next year was announced last week by Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel. In an interview with the New York Times, Hagel argued that to meet today’s national security needs, the Department of Defense (DoD) must shift its focus and capabilities away from “fighting grinding ground conflicts” and towards “new arenas of combat.” To achieve these ends, the budget calls for a realignment of the military that would reduce the total number of ground troops to its lowest level since 1940 and discontinue some military equipment deemed obsolete or unnecessary. According to Hagel, current levels of …
Okay, Okay, the Oscars and the gowns and the capped teeth and the funny fellows with squeaky voices and armchair critics, sure, in the scheme of things (look over DV for proof), is a drop in the proverbial well . . . or proverbial outhouse.
Yet, I am rushing to get this out, since, now, another one of America’s past-times, these giant ghastly loud and garish and ring-toney, and digitized crassly commercial conceptual quagmires, is on the air. The Academy Awards, and all these smug and slim and purely absurd folks – actors, directors, financiers, stand-arounds, gowned and plump with their …
The Syrian civil war, insurrection, rebellion, revolt, uprising, call it what you will, was not home grown in Syria by Syrians with differing outlooks as to how their nation should be governed—as the mainstream media would have you believe—it was part of a strategy pre-planned by vicious, sociopathic foreigners called Neocons, and they began their planning in 1991, following the first invasion of Iraq, code-named: Desert Storm. To date, the major beneficiary of their diabolical planning has been Zionist Apartheid Israel, but that may be coming to an end.
Nothing is quite as nauseating as watching the hypocrisy and hubris with which President Obama ‘warns’ the Russian president not to ‘interfere’ in Ukraine, telling the Russians there would be ‘costs to pay.’ It’s a surreal move, echoed by his equally creepy and out-of-touch consigliore and chief “diplomat,” the morally bankrupt John Kerry. Astonishing in its audacity and lack of regard for history, truth or facts, this bellicose blather seems aimed only at the idiots over whom he presides, the fools and tools in congress and the press, and his bought-and-paid-for lackeys in European capitals….
Rex W. Tillerson, a resident of Bartonville, Texas, like many of his neighbors, was upset with his city council. That’s not unusual. Many residents get upset at their local governing boards. And so they went to a city council meeting to express their concerns that the council was about to award a construction permit.
The residents were upset that the Cross Timbers Water Supply Corp. planned to build a 160-foot tall water tower. That tower would be adjacent to an 83-acre horse farm Tillerson and his wife owned, and not far from their residence. The residents protested, and then filed suit …
IPS — The Barack Obama administration has demanded that Iran resolve “past and present concerns” about the “possible military dimensions” of its nuclear programme as a condition for signing a comprehensive nuclear agreement with Tehran.
Administration officials have suggested that Iran must satisfy the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) regarding the allegations in the agency’s report that it has had a covert nuclear weapons programme in the past.
But the record of negotiations between Iran and the IAEA shows Tehran has been ready for the past two years to provide detailed responses to all the charges of an Iranian nuclear weapons work, …
The Square, a documentary about Egypt’s January 2011 uprising, provides glimpses of most of the players but gives short shrift to the Muslim Brotherhood, the main player that was then targeted by the deep state headed by the military.
The Square, the Academy Award-nominated Egyptian-American documentary film by Jehane Noujaim, depicts events in Egypt from January 2011 focusing on Tahrir Square. It is neither “Egyptian” nor “American” in any meaningful sense, as the Egyptian “government” has banned it, Noujaim’s mother is American, and she was raised more in Kuwait, has lived in Boston since 1990, and as such is far …
Geo-politically important Sri Lanka is among several countries, including Syria, under scrutiny at the 25th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva (March 3-28).
High Commissioner Navi Pillay of the Human Rights Council (HRC) will introduce a resolution recommending that Sri Lanka promote reconciliation and accountability with the minority Tamil people. Pillay will ask the HRC to establish “an international inquiry mechanism to further investigate the alleged violations of international human rights and humanitarian law and monitor any domestic accountability processes.” ((Among concrete recommendations by the High Commissioner she requires of the government to: “(a) Finalize laws dealing …
Yesterday the United States lost the propaganda war on Ukraine. President Obama made a reluctant and senseless statement which Washington Post entitled “There will be costs”.
He pronounced standard phrases like “the Ukrainian people deserve the opportunity to determine their own future”, proposed Russia to be a “part of an international community’s effort to support the stability and success of a united Ukraine”, lamented over the alleged “violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity” and assured that “the United States supports his government’s efforts and stands for the sovereignty, territorial integrity and democratic future of Ukraine”.
Have you ever been caught tapping a friend’s phone calls? Called out for the exploitative maltreatment your employees? Are you a multi-billionaire prone to going through the pockets of black youth in the hopes of finding marijuana?
Consider talking about your concern for the environment, particularly the effects of climate change. Leading governments, corporations, and political figures under fire for civil and human rights violations are giving it a whirl.
Greening Injustice
After the New York Times, via documents provided by former security contractor Edward Snowden, revealed on February 16 that the NSA had spied on Indonesia and U.S. attorneys representing the …
BREAKING: Putin, Xi, Maduro, and Castro arrive in Quebec to negotiate a transitional government and protect the breakaway province from reprisal by “English-speaking cultural hegemony.” Putin accuses Obama of ‘interfering’ as riots grip Toronto and Montreal, aided by covert Russian and Chinese training and funding. Lavrov is caught on tape vowing to “Fuck those Limey bastards.” Saintly Obama does nothing, saying ‘it’s none of our damn business. We’re all about freedom, above the border as well as below.”
The situation is quickly spinning out of control as what Putin describes as ‘peaceful protesters’ arm themselves with Molotov cocktails, sniper rifles, and …
On February 6, 2014, the Washington Free Beacon reported that a bill was introduced into the US House of Representatives that would cut off federal funding to any academic institution that boycotts the State of Israel. Ironically, the bill’s language begins with the words, “Israel is a vital American ally and a fellow democracy that fosters free speech….” The legislation (and similar legislation in some US statehouses) continues by demanding that federal funds (or state funding in the statehouse bills) be withdrawn from universities and organizations “significantly funded by the university” that adopts a policy or issues a statement …
Mt. Gox, the oldest Bitcoin exchange recently shut down, leaving customers high and dry. This Tokyo based company that once dominated the crypto-currency trading scene is reported to be filing for bankruptcy protection. Indications are that they are insolvent, with more than 744,000 Bitcoins missing worth around $423 million at current rates. At a press conference held on Friday night, Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpeles appeared in front of the camera bowing deeply. He spoke in Japanese, claiming that a “weakness in the system caused the bitcoins to disappear.” …
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is still one of the most powerful lobby organizations in the country, but fortunately, it is starting to lose its iron-clad grip on our policymakers. AIPAC lost the fight to stop Chuck Hagel from being confirmed as Secretary of Defense; it lost the push for the US military to attack Syria, and it is losing its effort to derail nuclear talks with Iran. In the old days, AIPAC bragged that it could, within 24 hours, get the signatures of 70 Senators on a napkin if it really wanted to. This year, AIPAC …
