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Is the US trying to destroy ISIS?

April 24, 2016

Someone asked me to find war lies during the past few years. Perhaps they had in mind the humanitarian pretenses around attacking Libya in 2011 and Iraq in 2014, or the false claims about chemical weapons in 2013, or the lies about an airplane in Ukraine or the endlessly reported Russian invasions of Ukraine. Maybe they were thinking of the “ISIS Is In Brooklyn” headlines or the routine false claims about the identities of drone victims or the supposedly imminent victory in Afghanistan or in one of the other wars. The lies seem far too numerous for me to fit into an essay, though I’ve tried many times, and they are layered over a bedrock of more general lies about what works, what is legal, and what is moral. Just a Prince Tribute selection of lies could include Qadaffi’s viagra for the troops and CNN’s sex-toys flag as evidence of ISIS in Europe. It’s hard to scrape the surface of all U.S. war lies in something less than a book, which is why I wrote a book.

So, I replied that I would look for war lies just in 2016. But that was way too big as well, of course. I once tried to find all the lies in one speech by Obama and ended up just writing about the top 45. So, I’ve taken a glance at two of the most recent speeches on the White House website, one by Obama and one by Susan Rice. I think they provide ample evidence of how we’re being lied to.

In an April 13th speech to the CIA, President Barack Obama declared, “One of my main messages today is that destroying ISIL continues to be my top priority.”

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

The Android Administration: Google’s Remarkably Close Relationship With the Obama White House, in Two Charts

April 22, 2016

Illustration by The Intercept. Photo: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images

THE ANDROID ADMINISTRATION

Google’s Remarkably Close Relationship With the Obama White House, in Two Charts

WHEN PRESIDENT OBAMA announced his support last week for a Federal Communications Commission plan to open the market for cable set-top boxes — a big win for consumers, but also for Google — the cable and telecommunications giants who used to have a near-stranglehold on tech policy were furious. AT&T chief lobbyist Jim Cicconi lashed out at what he called White House intervention on behalf of “the Google proposal.”

He’s hardly the first to suggest that the Obama administration has become too close to the Silicon Valley juggernaut.

Over the past seven years, Google has created a remarkable partnership with the Obama White House, providing expertise, services, advice, and personnel for vital government projects.

Precisely how much influence this buys Google isn’t always clear. But consider that over in the European Union, Google is now facing two major antitrust charges for abusing its dominance in mobile operating systems and search. By contrast, in the U.S., a strong case to sanction Google was quashed by a presidentially appointed commission.

It’s a relationship that bears watching. “Americans know surprisingly little about what Google wants and gets from our government,” said Anne Weismann, executive director of Campaign for Accountability, a nonprofit watchdog organization. Seeking to change that, Weismann’s group is spearheading a data transparency project about Google’s interactions in Washington.

The Intercept teamed up with Campaign for Accountability to present two revealing data sets from that forthcoming project: one on the number of White House meetings attended by Google representatives, and the second on the revolving door between Google and the government.

As the interactive charts accompanying this article show, Google representatives attended White House meetings more than once a week, on average, from the beginning of Obama’s presidency through October 2015. Nearly 250 people have shuttled from government service to Google employment or vice versa over the course of his administration.

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

8 Reasons 9/11 Could NOT Have Been An Inside Job

April 4, 2016

8 Reasons 9/11 Could NOT Have Been An Inside Job

Below, we’ll show that 9/11 could NOT have been an inside job …

I. The 9/11 Commission and Congressional Investigation Into 9/11 All Disproved Any Conspiracy

9/11 was thoroughly and exhaustively investigated by the 9/11 Commission, Congress and U.S. scientific agencies.

This horse has already been beat to death, and anyone who raises questions is a nutjob.

True, the 9/11 Commission didn’t believe that the government told the truth about 9/11, and said the government obstructed their investigation.

For example:

9/11 Commission co-chair Lee Hamilton says the Commission was set up to fail, that people should keep asking questions about 9/11, and that the 9/11 debate should continue

The 9/11 Commission chair said the Commission was “set up to fail”

The Commission’s co-chairs said that the CIA (and likely the White House) “obstructed our investigation”

9/11 Commissioner Bob Kerrey said that “There are ample reasons to suspect that there may be some alternative to what we outlined in our version . . . We didn’t have access . . . .”

9/11 Commissioner Timothy Roemer said “We were extremely frustrated with the false statements we were getting”

9/11 Commissioner Max Cleland resigned from the Commission, stating: “It is a national scandal”; “This investigation is now compromised”; and “One of these days we will have to get the full story because the 9-11 issue is so important to America. But this White House wants to cover it up”. When asked in 2009 if he thought there should be another 9/11 commission, Cleland responded: “There should be about fifteen 9/11 commissions”

Some examples of obstruction of justice into the 9/11 investigation include:

An FBI informant hosted and rented a room to two hijackers in 2000. Specifically, investigators for the Congressional Joint Inquiry discovered that an FBI informant had hosted and even rented a room to two hijackers in 2000 and that, when the Inquiry sought to interview the informant, the FBI refused outright, and then hid him in an unknown location, and that a high-level FBI official stated these blocking maneuvers were undertaken under orders from the White House. As the New York Times notes:

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

The US military industrial complex, Wall Street and Big Oil are vying to buy the presidency

March 24, 2016

The US military industrial complex, Wall Street and Big Oil are vying to buy the presidency

A dummies guide to who might own the White House

The Republican primaries have represented a veritable political orgasm in the mainstreaming of xenophobia. And the two leading GOP candidates, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, have been quick to grab as much political capital as possible from recent terrorist attacks, including the coordinated bombings in Brussels on 22nd March 2016.

Within hours, Cruz told his Facebook followers that US police forces needed to specifically patrol “Muslim neighbourhoods” to “prevent” them being radicalised.

Eager not to be outdone, the next day Trump told Good Morning Britain host Piers Morgan that the Brussels attacks occurred because Muslims in Britain, Europe and the United States are “absolutely not reporting” signs of extremism to the authorities.

This escalating trajectory toward xenophobia is no accident, but a product of the networks of power courting both Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.

A close inspection confirms that far from comprising fringe groups, these networks encompass a narrow set of interlocking commercial, ideological, energy and military interests — a nexus illustrating how mainstream centres of power in America are increasingly converging with a binary ‘Us and Them’ worldview.

Gaffney’s finger in Cruz’s pie

Joining Ted Cruz’s team as a national security advisor, we have the notorious anti-Muslim conspiracy theorist, Frank Gaffney, founding president of the Centre for Security Policy (CSP), which this year was designated an extremist hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Centre.

Ted Cruz (right) stares lovingly into the eyes of his new national security adviser, Frank Gaffney

It’s well-known that Frank Gaffney, a former assistant secretary of defence under Reagan, was behind the unreliable opinion poll justifying Trump’s call to ban all Muslim immigration to the United States.

Less well-known are the interests that Gaffney represents.

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

A Desperate China Begged Fed For “Plunge Protection Playbook” As Its Market Crashed

March 21, 2016

A Desperate China Begged Fed For “Plunge Protection Playbook” As Its Market Crashed

Last June, China’s stock market miracle ended in tears.

The SHCOMP’s inexorable, parabolic ascent was to a large degree facilitated by an explosion of margin debt, the likes of which could not be found in any other major market across the globe. For instance, by the end of June, the outstanding balance of margin transactions as a percentage of the SHCOMP’s free float market cap was nearly 14% compared to just 5.5% for the S&P and less than 1% for the TOPIX.

A dramatic unwind in the half dozen backdoor margin lending channels that had funneled an additional CNY1.5 trillion into equities brought the party to a thunderous end and by late July, the market was off by more than 30% from its peak.

Chinese officials had already begun to panic by mid-month and then, on the 27th, the bottom fell out.

A harrowing bout of late day selling led the SHCOMP to post its worst one-day drop since February of 2007 and its second worst single session decline in history as the market collapsed by 8.5%.

More than two-thirds of stocks in the index traded limit down that day.

At that point, China was out of ideas. It had been nearly three weeks since Beijing announced it would inject capital into China Securities Finance Corp., effectively giving the PBoC a mandate to not only underwrite brokers’ margin lending businesses but in fact to buy A-shares directly, and nothing seemed to be working to arrest the slide.

Indeed, starting on June 27 (by which time the Shenzhen had fallen by more than 20% from its peak) the PBoC unleashed an eye watering array of measures that encompassed everything from an RRR cut to the easing of regulations to state mandated investments by pension funds to verbal interventions in the form of threats against “malicious” shorts. Nothing was working.

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

Geopolitics, the State, and Cybersecurity in a Globalized World

March 14, 2016

Geopolitics, the State, and Cybersecurity in a Globalized World

Cybersecurity, cc Flickr thierry ehrmann, modified, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

On February 9th of this year, the Obama administration announced that after a seven year observation of the cybersecurity environment, it was going to establish the Cybersecurity National Action Plan (CNAP). The new cybersecurity plan was formulated to counter the ever-morphing threats and hackings in cyberspace that could potentially have grave consequences for both public and private institutions, as well as the security of individual Internet users.

The White House announcement notes that modern society has benefitted tremendously from interconnectedness due to the proliferation of the Internet, emphasizing that “from buying products to running businesses to finding directions to communicating with the people we love, an online world has fundamentally reshaped our daily lives.” However at the same time, the White House brief notes that the shadows casted by the illumination of interconnectedness – often rising out of shadowy “dark nets”- such as terrorism, criminal acts, are real problems as well: “Just as the continually evolving digital age presents boundless opportunities for our economy, our businesses, and our people, it also presents a new generation of threats that we must adapt to meet.”

The White House announcement outlines both short-term actions and long-term goals to combat threats posed by these actors. The effort includes items such as establishing a collaborative Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity, updating and reforming government IT, beefing up critical infrastructural security, and introducing other initiatives to strengthen password security for online accounts via tools such as biometrics.

Although the effort to strengthen cybersecurity is a welcome development to counter the ever-tumultuous nature of cyberspace, it is not without its critics, who note that the initiative still suffers from bureaucratic culture and shortsightedness. This, in turn, may limit its effectiveness in combating the dangers arising from cyberspace.

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

Creating Russia/China Bogeymen

March 8, 2016

Creating Russia/China Bogeymen

Relying on the most unreliable propaganda, Washington’s foreign policy establishment is seeking massive new military spending to counter Russian and Chinese “aggression” — when a more sober analysis would show these “threats” to be wildly exaggerated, as Gilbert Doctorow explains.

Where Russia is concerned – and now also China – one can count on Foreign Affairs magazine to feature articles presenting the bogeymen in a form that the U.S. security and international affairs establishment prefers, irrespective of whether this particular bogeyman has any basis in real-life facts.

These renditions are preferred because they support policy recommendations – and in particular, defense appropriations – which the establishment wants to see approved by the White House and by Congress.

Russian President Vladimir Putin during a state visit to Austria on June 24, 2014. (Official Russian government photo)

I do not mean to suggest that all articles fit this generalization because occasionally dissenting views are allowed some space, especially if they are badly argued. But the great majority does fit this mold and the American people are the big losers by this disservice because the public, including the expert community, is deprived of objective examinations of these very important and powerful countries.

In turn, these distorted analyses actually can turn these countries into existential threats to the United States by provoking dangerous reactions to American policy even when Russia or China had no aggressive intent in the first place.

Because of this imbalance within elite policy circles, there is a cluelessness within the U.S. media and among the popular pundits who are given air time and print pages. Because they tend to repeat what the elite “experts” have been writing, the fault for any clash is blamed on the supposedly volatile Russians and enigmatic Chinese. The fuller context is always missing.

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

New transatlantic data transfer deal sealed with ‘written assurances’ of US spying limitations

February 3, 2016

New transatlantic data transfer deal sealed with ‘written assurances’ of US spying limitations

The US and the EU have agreed on new rules for sharing personal data across the Atlantic that will allegedly better protect Europeans’ privacy from US intelligence agencies after the previous Safe Harbour mechanism was deemed inadequate.

TrendsNSA leaks

“We have agreed with our US partners a new framework that will ensure the right checks and balances for our citizens,” said digital commissioner Andrus Ansip at a press conference in Strasbourg. The vital deal, called the ‘Privacy Shield’ was reached months after the so-called Safe Harbour agreement was annulled by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in October last year.

The new “Privacy Shield”, the EU Commission believes, abides by the ECJ requirements to ensure stronger obligations that American companies, such as Facebook and Google, protect the personal data of Europeans. The new framework is expected to be in place in three months.

“The US side has clarified that they do not carry out indiscriminate mass surveillance of Europeans,” said Ansip, claiming that the US intelligence activities underwent “substantial internal reviews.” Furthermore, the American side has provided written assurances ruling out indiscriminate mass surveillance of personal data.

“We have for the first time received detailed written assurances from the United States on the safeguards and limitations applicable to US surveillance programs,” noted Ansip.

According to justice commissioner Vera Jourova, written assurances would include guarantees from the office of the director of national intelligence in the White House.

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

Stocks Slump After Saudis Threaten Nukes Against “Nefarious” Iran

January 19, 2016

Stocks Slump After Saudis Threaten Nukes Against “Nefarious” Iran

Earlier this month, a black swan landed in the Mid-East when Saudi Arabia executed prominent Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr along with 46 other “terrorists.”

Most of those executed were not Shiites but that didn’t matter. Al-Nimr was a key voice among Saudi Arabia’s dissident Shiite minority and his death reverberated across the Shiite community, sparking mass protests from Bahrain to Pakistan.

Al-Nimr was executed on a Saturday. By Sunday evening the Saudi embassy in Tehran was ransacked and burned and Riyadh had cut diplomatic ties with Iran. The other Gulf monarchies followed suit and by the end of the following week, the stage was set for widespread sectarian strife.

As we wrote in the aftermath of al-Nimr’s execution, the ordeal couldn’t have come at a worse time for the Obama administration. With the countdown to Implementation Day for the nuclear deal under two weeks, the last thing The White House needed was to be thrust into the middle of a dispute between a traditional ally (the Saudis) and a new “friend” (the Iranians).

The Sunni world (not to mention the Israelis) already feared that the lifting of international sanctions against Iran and the attendant cash windfall would strengthen Tehran just as the Ayatollah looks to preserve and expand the so-called Shiite crescent by consolidating his influence in Iraq and bolstering the Assad government in Syria. The money, some critics say, will invariably be channeled to Hezbollah and Iran’s Shiite militias which effectively function as Iraq’s only effective security force. Additionally, the nuclear deal’s opponents wonder if Iran will plow its newfound wealth into the country’s famous ballistic missile program, which is alive and well as demonstrated by the test-firing of the Emad in October.

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

In Latest NSA Spying Scandal, World Learns Obama Lied Again; Congress Furious it Was Spied On

December 30, 2015

In Latest NSA Spying Scandal, World Learns Obama Lied Again; Congress Furious it Was Spied On

In January 2014, during the scandalous aftermath of Edward Snowden’s NSA snooping revelations, one which revealed the US had been spying on its closest allies for years, Obama banned U.S. eavesdropping on leaders of close friends and allies and promised he would begin reining in the vast collection of Americans’ phone data in a series of limited reforms.

Below are the key highlights from his January 17, 2014 speech:

Our capabilities help protect not only our nation, but our friends and our allies, as well. But our efforts will only be effective if ordinary citizens in other countries have confidence that the United States respects their privacy, too. And the leaders of our close friends and allies deserve to know that if I want to know what they think about an issue, I’ll pick up the phone and call them, rather than turning to surveillance. In other words, just as we balance security and privacy at home, our global leadership demands that we balance our security requirements against our need to maintain the trust and cooperation among people and leaders around the world.

The bottom line is that people around the world, regardless of their nationality, should know that the United States is not spying on ordinary people who don’t threaten our national security, and that we take their privacy concerns into account in our policies and procedures. This applies to foreign leaders as well.

The president lied, and the privacy concerns of “people around the world” have clearly never once been taken into account in Obama’s policies and procedures.

Just three days prior, on January 14 2014, Vermont Senator and current Democratic presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders had written an email to then NSA Chief Keith Alexander asking if the NSA has or is currently spying “on members of Congress or other American elected officials.”

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

CISA: “Just Another Example Of Corruption”

December 21, 2015

CISA: “Just Another Example Of Corruption”

Last week, Congress passed CISA by hiding it in the middle of a sure-to-pass spending bill, and Obama signed it into law … even though the Department of Homeland Security had previously said that the bill will HURT national security and destroy privacy (numerous experts agreed).

And – just like with previous spying laws – the government has a secret interpretation of CISA which will make it even worse.

So why was the bill passed?

As the American public is starting to learn – and politicians from both side of the aisle admit – corruption has thoroughly destroyed America.

The highest-level NSA whistleblower in history – William Binney – the high-level NSA executive who created the agency’s mass surveillance program for digital information, 36-year NSA veteran widely regarded as a “legend” within the agency, who served as the senior technical director within the agency, and managed thousands of NSA employees – explains that corruption is what’s motivating mass surveillance against the American people … and it’s what’s making us vulnerable to terrorism.

Washington’s Blog asked Binney what he thought of CISA, and he said:

This is just another example of the White House, leadership (if you want to call it that) in Congress, the intelligence committees, and the intelligence agencies manipulating the system to get what they want (more money and more knowledge to control).

Clearly, CISA would not stand on it’s own; so, they had to sneak it through buried inside a massive funding bill at the end of the year.

Again, we see just another example of corruption in our government in Washington DC. They don’t have the courage or backbone to stand for what they want out in the open where there can be an honest debate like we are suppose to have in a democracy.

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

On Conspiracy Theories

December 18, 2015

On Conspiracy Theories

“In many nations, rational people end up believing crazy things, including (false) conspiracy theories. Those crazy thoughts can lead to violence, including terrorism. Many terrorist acts have been fueled by false conspiracy theories, and there is a good argument that some such acts would not have occurred in the absence of such theories. The key point—and, in a way, the most puzzling and disturbing one—is that the crazy thoughts are often held by people who are not crazy at all.”

Cass Sunstein- White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs

If you don’t know who Cass Sunstein is, or what he does now would be a good time to do some research. Not only because of his position with the White House and the power that entails, but because he understands quite clearly what problems are posed by people who, in his own words are, “…neither ignorant, not ill-educated. On the contrary they can be spectacularly well informed…”

Conspiracy theories are, in short, the belief that others conspire in secret to commit criminal acts. They do, no secret there. In fact the majority of prisoners in Federal Penitentiaries are serving time not for a specific crime, but for conspiracy to commit a felony, more simply discussing their intentions with another person in secret. It must be difficult indeed to simultaneously prosecute large numbers of people for the very activity that you are assigned to debunk and then somehow explain to people that it’s dangerous to believe in them. Yes, yes, you can imagine them saying, other people do engage in conspiracies, but we never would and you’d have to be crazy to even consider it.

Point taken, Mr. Sunstein.

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

CISA Is Now The Law: How Congress Quietly Passed The Second Patriot Act

December 18, 2015

CISA Is Now The Law: How Congress Quietly Passed The Second Patriot Act

Back in 2014, civil liberties and privacy advocates were up in arms when the government tried to quietly push through the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, or CISA, a law which would allow federal agencies – including the NSA – to share cybersecurity, and really any information with private corporations “notwithstanding any other provision of law.” The most vocal complaint involved CISA’s information-sharing channel, which was ostensibly created for responding quickly to hacks and breaches, and which provided a loophole in privacy laws that enabled intelligence and law enforcement surveillance without a warrant.

Ironically, in its earlier version, CISA had drawn the opposition of tech firms including Apple, Twitter, Reddit, as well as the Business Software Alliance, the Computer and Communications Industry Association and many others including countless politicians and, most amusingly, the White House itself.

In April, a coalition of 55 civil liberties groups and security experts signed onto an open letter opposing it. In July, the Department of Homeland Security itself warned that the bill could overwhelm the agency with data of “dubious value” at the same time as it “sweep[s] away privacy protections.” Most notably, the biggest aggregator of online private content, Facebook, vehemently opposed the legislation however a month ago it was “surprisingly” revealed that Zuckerberg had been quietly on the side of the NSA all along as we reported in “Facebook Caught Secretly Lobbying For Privacy-Destroying “Cyber-Security” Bill.”

Even Snowden chimed in:

Edward Snowden ✔@Snowden

Shameful: @Facebook secretly backing Senate’s zombie #CISA surveillance bill while publicly pretending to oppose it. https://boingboing.net/2015/10/24/petition-facebook-betrayed-us.html …

5:43 PM – 25 Oct 2015

Following the blitz response, the push to pass CISA was tabled following a White House threat to veto similar legislation. Then, quietly, CISA reemerged after the same White House mysteriously flip-flopped, expressed its support for precisely the same bill in August.

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

US calls on Turkey to withdraw ‘unauthorized’ troops from Iraq

December 17, 2015

US calls on Turkey to withdraw ‘unauthorized’ troops from Iraq

The US has urged Turkey to withdraw its “unauthorized” military forces from northern Iraq, calling on Ankara to respect the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

US Vice President Joe Biden has spoken to Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi regarding Turkey’s troop deployments.

“The Vice President reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to Iraqi sovereignty and territorial integrity and called on Turkey to do the same by withdrawing any military forces from Iraqi territory that have not been authorized by the Iraqi government,” the White House said in a statement.

The call between Biden and al-Abadi came two days after the Vice President’s talk with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

Stressing Washington’s commitment to close cooperation with both Iraq and Turkey in the fight against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), Biden urged Ankara to continue its dialogue with Baghdad.

“The Vice President reiterated that any foreign military presence in Iraq must be with the full consent of the Iraq government,” read a statement from the White House on December 14.

Relations between Ankara and Baghdad began to unravel following Turkey’s December 4 deployment of about 150 soldiers backed by artillery and around 25 tanks to Camp Bashiqa, a base near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul that is controlled by IS. The move was protested by both the Iraqi government and thousands of its citizens across the country.

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

House Democrat Warns Obama’s Actions Could Lead To “Devastating Nuclear War”

December 2, 2015

House Democrat Warns Obama’s Actions Could Lead To “Devastating Nuclear War”

It was so much easier when Obama was running a military “sneakers on the ground” campaign in Iraq and Syria where there was no official confirmation of the thousands of “military advisors” engaging directly with various known and unknown adversaries. However, a recent surge of media reports by mainstream publications exposing America’s illicit troops operating in the middle eastern combat zones has made a total mockery of the latest US attempt at clandestine ops, and as a result earlier today the White House was forced to admit it would backtrack on its countless promises there would be “no boots on the ground” in Iraq.

Did we say countless, we actually counted some of them – there are at least 16 specific instances in just the past two years in which Obama promised to not do what he just did:

Remarks before meeting with Baltic State leaders, Aug. 30, 2013

“In no event are we considering any kind of military action that would involve boots on the ground, that would involve a long-term campaign. But we are looking at the possibility of a limited, narrow act that would help make sure that not only Syria, but others around the world, understand that the international community cares about maintaining this chemical weapons ban and norm. So again, I repeat, we’re not considering any open-ended commitment. We’re not considering any boots-on-the-ground approach.”

Remarks in the Rose Garden, Aug. 31, 2013

“After careful deliberation, I have decided that the United States should take military action against Syrian regime targets. This would not be an open-ended intervention. We would not put boots on the ground. Instead, our action would be designed to be limited in duration and scope.”

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

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