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Late on Friday, with the US population embracing the upcoming holidays and oblivious of most news emerging from the administration, Obama quietly signed into law the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which authorizes $611 billion for the military in 2017.

In a statement, Obama said that:

Today, I have signed into law S. 2943, the “National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017.” This Act authorizes fiscal year 2017 appropriations principally for the Department of Defense and for Department of Energy national security programs, provides vital benefits for military personnel and their families, and includes authorities to facilitate ongoing operations around the globe. It continues many critical authorizations necessary to ensure that we are able to sustain our momentum in countering the threat posed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and to reassure our European allies, as well as many new authorizations that, among other things, provide the Departments of Defense and Energy more flexibility in countering cyber-attacks and our adversaries’ use of unmanned aerial vehicles.”

Much of the balance of Obama’s statement blamed the GOP for Guantanamo’s continued operation and warned that “unless the Congress changes course, it will be judged harshly by history,” Obama said. Obama also said Congress failed to use the bill to reduce wasteful overhead (like perhaps massive F-35 cost overruns?) or modernize military health care, which he said would exacerbate budget pressures facing the military in the years ahead.

But while the passage of the NDAA – and the funding of the US military – was hardly a surprise, the biggest news is what was buried deep inside the provisions of the Defense Authortization Act.

Recall that as we reported in early June, “a bill to implement the U.S.’ very own de facto Ministry of Truth had been quietly introduced in Congress.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Someone Has Officially Called the CIA’s Bluff over Russia

December 14, 2016

Someone Has Officially Called the CIA’s Bluff over Russia

The scapegoating of Russia is now so widespread, Dirty Wars author and investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill took to The Intercept to call the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on its bluff.

In the article, “Obama Must Declassify Evidence Of Russian Hacking,” Scahill and Jon Schwartz called out U.S. intelligence agencies for their record of deceit, asserting that the American people are not going to simply “take their word for it.”

“U.S. intelligence agencies have repeatedly demonstrated that they regularly both lie and get things horribly wrong,” the article argues. But when it comes to the CIA’s case against Russia’s alleged interference with the latest U.S. presidential elections, it’s impossible to claim the hearsay is based on facts if evidence is not made available to support the agency’s claims.

Nevertheless, Scahill and Schwartz argue, it’s possible that Russia may have pulled some strings. But even if the Kremlin had its reasons and acted on them, America is the country with the long history of election meddling — not Russia.

Take Hillary Clinton’s comments on the Palestinian elections, for instance. A leaked audio recording from 2006 revealed then-senator Clinton advocated doing “something to determine who was going to win” in Palestine’s elections. And yet here she is, hoping to use the “Russia did it” talking point to give censorship a boost. The CIA has its own history of meddling in foreign elections.

In order to give Barack Obama’s administration that extra push to release any “proof” the CIA has that the 2016 U.S. elections were “rigged,” the Intercept’s duo encouraged feds or whistleblowers to use the publication’s secure drop link, where a “patriotic whistleblower” within the U.S. intelligence community may drop the leak that proves Russia is behind President-elect Donald Trump’s win. “[W]e will verify its legitimacy and publish it,” they added.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

4 Year Proposition? – Next President Has To Contend With Obama’s Massive Debt Burden At “Epic Turning Point”

November 7, 2016

4 Year Proposition? – Next President Has To Contend With Obama’s Massive Debt Burden At “Epic Turning Point”

Whoever wins the 2016 presidential election tomorrow night could be in for a rough 4 years in the White House courtesy of the gigantic debt burden amassed by Obama over the previous 8 years. While an accommodative monetary policy, including seemingly unlimited treasury buying by the Fed and foreign governments, has suppressed the budget impact of Obama’s ballooning federal debt balance, as Ed Yardeni told Bloomberg, “one shudders to think what would happen if rates actually ever did go back to normal.”

“We’ve really got ourselves into a pickle here,” said Edward Yardeni, president of Yardeni Research Inc. in New York, who’s been following the bond market since the 1970s. “All these years we’ve been kicking the can down the road, and suddenly we’re seeing a brick wall.”

“There’s been so much borrowing going on that’s been enabled by extremely low interest rates, one shudders to think what would happen if rates actually ever did go back to normal,” Yardeni said. “The impact on the interest expense would be significant, and could really bring deficit concerns back to the fore.”

Outlays for the three largest entitlement programs—Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid—rose by $29 billion (or 3 percent), $27 billion (or 5 percent), and $19 billion (or 5 percent), respectively. Spending for Medicaid grew largely because of new enrollees added through expansions of coverage authorized by the Affordable Care Act. With that growth, Medicaid spending has risen by almost 40 percent in the past three years.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Russia Advising its citizens How to Prepare for Nuclear War Warning US Intends to Attack

October 16, 2016

Russia Advising its citizens How to Prepare for Nuclear War Warning US Intends to Attack

Just as Obama keeps ratcheting up the allegations that Russia will hack the elections to ensure Trump wins, in Russia they are warning their citizens that war is coming and it maybe nuclear. They are warning that NATO is retrofitting tactical aircraft for the use of nuclear weapons, “which is sign of preparation for war with Russia”. A whole website has gone up in Russia dedicated to the World War III and one offering advice and how to prepare.

ABC News is reporting that Russian Television Warns of Nuclear War Amid US Tensions. US mainstream press is not questioning what is going on when we have a President who got the Noble Peace Prize. They are not looking at Obama floating all sorts of stories that a Trump victory will be proof of a Russian cyber attack. The Washington Post pitches the story that Russia wants war. Meanwhile The Daily Mail reports that the Kremlin calls Joe Biden’s threat to ‘cyber strike’ Russia ‘unprecedented’ and pledges to protect itself from the “aggressive, unpredictable United States”. CNN has reported that Russia and the US have moved past a Cold War to unpredictable confrontation.

Personally, I was just a kid in 1962. But I remember walking with my friends discussing the Cuban Missile Crisis which last for a 13-day period (October 16–28, 1962). That was the closest we had come to World War III until today. Confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union concerning Soviet ballistic missile deployment in Cuba even mad kids pay attention. Along with being televised worldwide, it was the closest the Cold War came to escalating into a full-scale nuclear war. A 8,6 year plot from that event completed the 51.6 year wave terrifyingly on schedule – 2014.

That is when the new Cold War began with sanctions imposed on Russia. It has not worked and only escalated the entire confrontation. Sorry to say, this is on time.

Why Is Obama Threatening Russia With World War 3 Right Before The Election?

October 16, 2016

Why Is Obama Threatening Russia With World War 3 Right Before The Election?

It sure seems like an odd time to be provoking a war with Russia. As I write this, we stand just a little bit more than three weeks away from one of the most pivotal elections in U.S. history, and Barack Obama has chosen this moment to strongly threaten the Russians. As I wrote about on Friday, Reuters is reporting that Obama is contemplating “direct U.S. military action” against Syrian military targets, and the Russians have already indicated that any assault on Syrian forces would be considered an attack on themselves. The rapidly deteriorating crisis in Syria has already caused tensions with Russia to rise to the highest level since the end of the Cold War, but now Obama is adding fuel to the fire by publicly considering “an unprecedented cyber covert action against Russia”. Apparently Obama believes that Russian hackers are interfering in the election and so he wants payback. The following comes from an NBC News article entitled “CIA Prepping for Possible Cyber Strike Against Russia“…

The Obama administration is contemplating an unprecedented cyber covert action against Russia in retaliation for alleged Russian interference in the American presidential election, U.S. intelligence officials told NBC News.

Current and former officials with direct knowledge of the situation say the CIA has been asked to deliver options to the White House for a wide-ranging “clandestine” cyber operation designed to harass and “embarrass” the Kremlin leadership.

The sources did not elaborate on the exact measures the CIA was considering, but said the agency had already begun opening cyber doors, selecting targets and making other preparations for an operation.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

President Obama Threatens President Putin with Nuclear War

October 16, 2016

President Obama Threatens President Putin with Nuclear War

“It’ll be at a time of our choosing,” says U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, on NBC’’s “Meet the Press,” to be aired on Sunday, October 16th.

Interviewer Chuck Todd had asked him, “Why would he [Obama] send a message out to Putin?” Biden pursed his lips, paused, and said, with a grim look on his face, “We sent him the message.” Of course that didn’t answer Todd’s question, which was “Why?” Biden and Todd both remained silent for another tense moment. Then, Biden picked up again: “We have the capacity to do it, and, uh,” and Todd interrupted him there with “He’ll know it?” Biden replied: “He’ll know it, and it’ll be at a time of our choosing, and under circumstances that have the greatest impact. Uh, the capacity to do, to fundamentally alter the election, is not what people think; and, uh, I tell you what: to the extent that they do [‘do’ presumably meaning: fundamentally alter the election], we will be proportionate in what we do. And, uh,” Todd again interrupted his interviewee, and said, “So, a message is going to be sent. Will the public know?” Biden replied, “Hope not.”

Of course, that “Hope not” could mean many things. It might mean: A blitz nuclear attack in line with our government’s belief that we now enjoy Nuclear Primacy (an idea that was first published by the Council on Foreign Relations in 2006, and which has never yet been renounced by the U.S. government, during the decade since). That would be very much a public response, which Biden would “hope not” to be ’necessary’. In other words: Biden might have meant, there: “I hope it won’t have to be that.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Russia Slams “Unprecedented, Insolent” US Cyber Threats, Vows Retaliation

October 16, 2016

Russia Slams “Unprecedented, Insolent” US Cyber Threats, Vows Retaliation

In a striking report released on Friday night by NBC, the Obama administration was reportedly “contemplating an unprecedented cyber covert action” (it remains unclear how the action is covert if Biden announced it to the world via an interview with Chuck Todd), a “wide-ranging clandestine cyber operation designed to harass and “embarrass” the Kremlin leadership”, in retaliation for alleged interference in the American presidential election, and has asked the CIA to draft plans for a “wide-ranging “clandestine” cyber operation designed to harass and “embarrass” the Kremlin leadership.”

As we reported last night, Vice President Joe Biden said that Washington is ready to respond to hack attacks allegedly conducted by Russia and designed to interfere with the upcoming US elections.

“Why haven’t we sent a message yet to Putin,” Chuck Todd, host of the “Meet the Press” show on NBC, asked Joe Biden.

“We are sending a message [to Putin]… We have a capacity to do it, and…”

“He’ll known it?” Todd interfered.

“He’ll know it. It will be at the time of our choosing, and under the circumstances that will have the greatest impact,” the US vice president replied.

The NBC sources did not elaborate on the exact measures the CIA was considering, but said the agency had already begun opening cyber doors, selecting targets and making other preparations for an operation. “Former intelligence officers told NBC News that the agency had gathered reams of documents that could expose unsavory tactics by Russian President Vladimir Putin”, NBC added.

To be sure, this “leak” of what effectively amount to a cyberwar warning was a calculated move meant to provoke further escalation in tensions between the two nations and a trial balloon to gauge Russia’s response.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Obama Enters the Media Wars – Why His Recent Attack on Free Speech is So Dangerous and Radical

October 16, 2016

Obama Enters the Media Wars – Why His Recent Attack on Free Speech is So Dangerous and Radical

Control of the news media is an instrumental, key feature to any totalitarian government. In contrast, the primary reason this experiment known as the United States has lasted so long under relatively free conditions is due to the preservation of free speech (and press) via the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

In case you haven’t read it in a while, here’s the text:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Nowhere in there do I see an exception for “conspiracy theories,” but apparently Constitutional scholar Barack Obama has an alternative interpretation.

As reported by AFP:

Pittsburgh (AFP) – President Barack Obama on Thursday decried America’s “wild, wild west” media environment for allowing conspiracy theorists a broad platform and destroying a common basis for debate.

Recalling past days when three television channels delivered fact-based news that most people trusted, Obama said democracy require citizens to be able to sift through lies and distortions.

“We are going to have to rebuild within this wild-wild-west-of-information flow some sort of curating function that people agree to,” Obama said at an innovation conference in Pittsburgh.

“There has to be, I think, some sort of way in which we can sort through information that passes some basic truthiness tests and those that we have to discard, because they just don’t have any basis in anything that’s actually happening in the world,”Obama added.

“That is hard to do, but I think it’s going to be necessary, it’s going to be possible,” he added.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Obama Warned to Defuse Tensions with Russia

October 4, 2016

Obama Warned to Defuse Tensions with Russia

A group of ex-U.S. intelligence officials is warning President Obama to defuse growing tensions with Russia over Syria by reining in the demonization of President Putin and asserting White House civilian control over the Pentagon.

ALERT MEMORANDUM FOR: The President

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

SUBJECT: PREVENTING STILL WORSE IN SYRIA

We write to alert you, as we did President George W. Bush, six weeks before the attack on Iraq, that the consequences of limiting your circle of advisers to a small, relatively inexperienced coterie with a dubious record for wisdom can prove disastrous.* Our concern this time regards Syria.

Barack Obama, President of the United States of America, addresses the general debate of the General Assembly’s seventy-first session. 20 September 2016 (UN Photo)

President Barack Obama addresses the General Assembly’s seventy-first session on Sept. 20, 2016 (UN Photo)

We are hoping that your President’s Daily Brief tomorrow will give appropriate attention to Saturday’s warning by Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova: “If the US launches a direct aggression against Damascus and the Syrian Army, it would cause a terrible, tectonic shift not only in the country, but in the entire region.”

Speaking on Russian TV, she warned of those whose “logic is ‘why do we need diplomacy’ … when there is power … and methods of resolving a problem by power. We already know this logic; there is nothing new about it. It usually ends with one thing – full-scale war.”

We are also hoping that this is not the first you have heard of this – no doubt officially approved – statement. If on Sundays you rely on the “mainstream” press, you may well have missed it. In the Washington Post, an abridged report of Zakharova’s remarks (nothing about “full-scale war”) was buried in the last paragraph of an 11-paragraph article titled “Hospital in Aleppo is hit again by bombs.” Sunday’s New York Times totally ignored the Foreign Ministry spokesperson’s statements.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Neil Young Slams Obama, Bayer, Says Fuck Monsanto!

September 23, 2016

Neil Young Slams Obama, Bayer, Says Fuck Monsanto!

Photo © Brian Bruner / Brian Bruner Photography

In addition to providing a stunning performance during the 31st Farm Aid concert in Bristow, VA Neil Young stole the show at the press conference before the event began.

While Farm Aid has always been focused on saving family farmers who are in distress, decades of corporate control and monopolization of the American food supply has forced the organization to also move toward helping restart the tradition of family farming and facilitating the good food movement. Obviously, GMOs have become a major issue as a result. So when it came time for Young to speak at the press conference, the godfather of grunge didn’t hold back.

Speaking fresh on the heels of the Bayer/Monsanto merger, Young spoke about the growing concern over corporate control over the food supply and the fact that this merger is a frightening new development in the corporate war on American agriculture. He also took aim at Barack Obama who has supported, facilitated, and pushed corporate control since the day he took office.

Young stated:

We have just begun. This is a revolution. And we will look back on this one way or the other in ten or fifteen years and see what folks like this are doing. We recently have seen giant corporations that are selling for billions and billions of dollars that are joining together and we heard just a few minutes ago about how somebody was eating bad food and got sick and had to take a lot of drugs and now they are eating good food and are starting to not take so many drugs. And you have to notice that one of the biggest drug companies on the planet and one the largest pesticide providers on the planet, Monsanto and Bayer, have just joined together.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

A Pleasant Lull

September 10, 2016

A Pleasant Lull

A pleasant lull lies over the land where today fewer people labor honestly — and some labor gruelingly for too little — while a matrix of rackets sustains the illusion that our living arrangements have a future. Is Quarterback Colin Kaepernick on the minds of the millions moiling around their backyard barbeques? I applaud his refusal to stand for the national anthem, though not for the reasons he stated. Rather, because I’m sick of vulgar symbolism in a dark moment of a fraying culture that demands more than cheap talk and lame gestures.

In case you’re wondering, the reason we’re subject to all these repetitions of The Star Spangled Banner is not for love-of-country but something quite the opposite: the fear that its promises are empty. Ever wonder why every public official in the land has to wear a flag lapel pin? Should it be necessary for the president of the US to signal his devotion to duty? Wouldn’t we normally just assume this to be the case? No, it signals the widespread and generalized anxiety that the national condition is dire and that we don’t have the confidence or the clarity to face the challenges of the time. President Obama might as well wear a crucifix or a bulb of garlic in his lapel.

In this presidential election year especially, Labor Day serves as a sort of collective deep breath before the plunge into a season of political anguish. The number of potential voters disgusted with the choice between two clueless monsters of egotism must be epic. If WalMart held a sale on bullshit filters, they might stand a chance of turning a Q3 profit. Otherwise, expect economic performance to be increasingly frightening even if The New York Times and CNN continue to spin out tales of unicorns jumping rainbows.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Obama Again Sounds Climate Change Alarm But Continues Supporting Fossil Fuel Industry

September 10, 2016

Obama Again Sounds Climate Change Alarm But Continues Supporting Fossil Fuel Industry

President Barak Obama on a hike in Hawaii.

On September 8, The New York Times published an interview with President Barack Obama in which he discussed the rapidly approaching, and already present, dangers of climate change, along with the threats that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump would pose to the environment as president.

Reflecting on his climate legacy in the interview, President Obama reinforced his concerns about and dedication to acting on climate change, but his rhetoric fails to match up with his broader record, which notably includes overseeing the United States’ rise to the top spot among fossil fuel producers worldwide.

Indeed, in the interview, President Obama referred to climate change trends as “terrifying,” a statement which is hard to argue with considering the overwhelming scientific evidence. The Times also mentions the president’s successes in putting the Clean Power Plan in place and his role in committing the United States to the Paris climate agreement.

President Obama also attempted to explain why getting through to people on climate change can be so challenging, as The Times noted:

“What makes climate change difficult is that it is not an instantaneous catastrophic event,” he said. “It’s a slow-moving issue that, on a day-to-day basis, people don’t experience and don’t see.”

Climate change, Mr. Obama often says, is the greatest long-term threat facing the world, as well as a danger already manifesting itself as droughts, storms, heat waves and flooding. More than health care, more than righting a sinking economic ship, more than the historic first of an African-American president, he believes that his efforts to slow the warming of the planet will be the most consequential legacy of his presidency.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Greenspan: “This Is The Worst Period I Recall; There’s Nothing Like It”

June 25, 2016

Greenspan: “This Is The Worst Period I Recall; There’s Nothing Like It”

During a CNBC inteview today, when discussing the historic Brexit vote outcome, Alan Greenspan unleashed a fiery sermon that could have been prepared just by reading a random selection of posts from this website, the former Fed chairman told his shocked hosts that the current period, far from the raging “Obama recovery” spun every day by adaministration propaganda appratchicks and one that prompted the Fed to unleash a ridiculous rate hike cycle in December just as the US is sliding into a recession, and is instead the “worst period” he has seen, surpassing even the infamous Black Monday in severity.

“This is the worst period, I recall since I’ve been in public service. There’s nothing like it, including the crisis — remember October 19th, 1987, when the Dow went down by a record amount 23 percent? That I thought was the bottom of all potential problems. This has a corrosive effect that will not go away. I’d love to find something positive to say.”

Of course, what he is referring to was a market shock which was the result of a massive capital account imbalance resulting from the aftermath of the Louvre Accord coupled with the then trendy Portfolio Insurance (in which everyone was on the same side of the boat, much like now) and not so much an all out economic malaise. Which, however, does beg the question when a Black Monday-like market crash is coming?

Rhetorical questions aside, Greenspan was referring to the unprecedented combination of economic stagnation, deteriorating demographics, insolvent entitlement programs, social inequity and wealth division, and of course, a historic debt overhang which could and should have been cleared out in the crash of 2008 but instead was preserved to avoid wiping out the same “equityholders” who also happen to be the Fed’s direct and indirect stakeowners.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

DANGER: Obama Ignores Russia’s Valid National Security Worries

June 18, 2016

DANGER: Obama Ignores Russia’s Valid National Security Worries

When the democratically elected President of Ukraine was violently overthrown in February 2014 and replaced by a rabidly anti-Russian regime, not only the residents in the areas of Ukraine that had voted heavily for him (Crimea having voted 75% for him, and Donbass having voted 90% for him) were terrified by what they viewed to be a bloodthirsty new regime, but Russians were, too, because the dictators who were installed made clear their hatred of Russians and even of speakers of the Russian language — one of their first legislative initiatives was to outlaw the Russian language, but the blatant hatred there made the proposal die in Ukraine’s parliament because this new regime needed outside support, and outlawing a language spoken by around half of the nation’s population would have sparked international condemnation.

Shortly after Crimeans voted overwhelmingly on 16 March 2014 to separate from Ukraine and to rejoin Russia, of which Crimea had been a part until the Soviet dictator Nikita Khrushchev arbitrarily transferred Crimea to Ukraine in 1954, the top military commander at NATO, U.S. General Philip Breedlove, said that because Russia had protected Crimeans from invasion by the newly installed Ukrainian regime, which was threatening Crimeans if they were to hold a referendum to separate from Ukraine, “now it is very clear that Russia is acting much more like an adversary than a partner”, and he speculated sarcastically about the “next place where Russian-speaking people may need to be incorporated” into Russia — as if the people of Crimea didn’t have good reason to fear the new regime, and as if speakers of the Russian language in all countries were in the same situation and needed the same protection; and as if NATO itself had any right to comment about this matter at all, since Ukraine isn’t even a member-nation of NATO anyway.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Ticking Closer to Nuclear Midnight

May 29, 2016

Ticking Closer to Nuclear Midnight

Exclusive: President Obama embraced Japanese survivors of the Hiroshima bomb, but his policies, such as heightening tensions with Russia, have raised the potential for a far worse nuclear catastrophe, explains Jonathan Marshall.

Even if you’ve never won an office raffle, a sports pool or a lottery, consider yourself supremely lucky. Unlike the atomic bomb victims who were recognized by President Barack Obama’s visit to Hiroshima, you’ve never experienced the horrors of nuclear war.

That’s nothing any of us should take for granted, says former Defense Secretary William Perry. On at least three occasions, he noted recently, the U.S. military received false alarms of a Soviet nuclear attack. At least twice the Soviet military went on high alert from similar alarms. And anyone who lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 survived “as much by good luck as by good management,” he added.

A scene from “Dr. Strangelove,” in which the bomber pilot (played by actor Slim Pickens) rides a nuclear bomb to its target in the Soviet Union.

The consequences of an accidental nuclear war would be staggering. Thousands of U.S. and Russian warheads, some of them orders of magnitude larger than the one that wiped out Hiroshima, are primed for launch on warning. Besides wiping out tens or hundreds of millions of people in urban centers, they would put a large fraction of the world’s population at risk from starvation.

A 2013 report by Physicians for Social Responsibility concluded that even a limited regional nuclear exchange — say between India and Pakistan — could “cause significant climate disruption worldwide” and jeopardize food supplies to as many as two billion people.

Many authorities believe the threat of accidental war is even greater today than during most of the Cold War.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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