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Though President Obama touts America as a nation of laws and evenhanded justice, there is a blatant double-standard regarding how people are punished for national security breaches – whistleblowers are harshly punished but the well-connected get a pass, writes John Hanrahan.

There he goes again. In recently proclaiming Hillary Clinton free of any national security breach — even as the FBI was continuing its investigation of her use of a potentially risky private email server for official business while she was Secretary of State — President Barack Obama continued his disturbing pattern of rendering his personal verdict ahead of legal proceedings in high-profile cases involving classified government information.

From Private Chelsea Manning to General David Petraeus to Edward Snowden and now to Hillary Clinton, the President has sounded off with his opinions on guilt or innocence — and on any alleged damage to national security — in advance of either a trial, or an indictment, or completion of an investigation.

Short version: whistleblowers Manning and Snowden clearly guilty; former high government officials Petraeus and Clinton — no problem.

In April 2011 — two years before court martial proceedings began and almost two years before Manning acknowledged being a source for hundreds of thousands of classified documents released by Wikileaks — Obama proclaimed Manning guilty. The materials Manning provided to Wikileaks exposed diplomatic secrets and U.S. military abuses in Iraq and Afghanistan, including showing greater numbers of civilian casualties than admitted publicly by U.S. officials.

Among the most shocking was the classified “collateral murder video” that showed U.S. military personnel in an Apache helicopter in a Baghdad suburb indiscriminately firing on and killing more than a dozen people — including rescuers and two Reuters employees — and wounding others, including two children.

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

Beyond Keystone: Why Climate Movement Must Keep Heat On

November 12, 2015

Beyond Keystone: Why Climate Movement Must Keep Heat On

It took a committed coalition and the increasingly harsh reality of climate change to push President Obama to reject the Keystone XL pipeline. But sustained public pressure will now be needed to force politicians to take the next critical actions on climate.

The key passage — the forward-looking passage — of President Obama’s speech last week rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline came right at the end, after he rehashed all the arguments about jobs and gas prices that had been litigated endlessly over the last few years.

“Ultimately,” he said, “if we’re going to prevent large parts of this Earth from becoming not only inhospitable but uninhabitable in our lifetimes, we’re going to have keep some fossil fuels in the ground rather than burn them and release more dangerous pollution into the sky.”

Chesapeake Climate/Flickr

Demonstators protest the Keystone XL pipeline at the White House in November 2012.

This is a remarkable evolution for the president. He came into office with “Drill Baby Drill” ringing in his ears from the 2008 Republican convention, and baby did he drill. Before his first term was out, he gave a speech in front a stack of oil pipe in Oklahoma in which he laid out his accomplishments:

“Now, under my administration, America is producing more oil today than at any time in the last eight years. That’s important to know. Over the last three years, I’ve directed my administration to open up millions of acres for gas and oil exploration across 23 different states. We’re opening up more than 75 percent of our potential oil resources offshore. We’ve quadrupled the number of operating rigs to a record high. We’ve added enough new oil and gas pipeline to encircle the Earth and then some. So we are drilling all over the place.”

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

The Brexit Balance Sheet

November 12, 2015

The Brexit Balance Sheet

Prime Minister David Cameron’s offer to British citizens to hold a referendum on whether to leave the European Union might have seemed like a reasonably safe gamble just a few years ago. Most people then probably would have voted to stay. That was before the Greek crisis created havoc in the eurozone, and the arrival of hundreds of thousands of refugees caused the EU (although not the United Kingdom) to lose control of some of its borders.

Cameron might actually get other European leaders to agree to his demands for reform, without which he has said he would not campaign to keep his country in the EU. They are not extreme: a guarantee that non-eurozone members gain full access to the single market; less red tape at the EU level; a British exemption from “ever-closer union.” His last demand – fewer benefits for EU migrants – will be the hardest for EU leaders to accept.

Despite this reform push, some British Euroskeptics have criticized Cameron for being too soft. The temptation in Britain simply to abandon what appears to be a sinking ship and go it gloriously alone is growing stronger. This is understandable. The question is whether “Brexit” would be as glorious as its proponents like to imagine.

Unleashed from the rule of Brussels, the sirens of Brexit promise, Britain would once again be a beacon of freedom in the world, respected by China, tied to the United States in the bilateral “special relationship,” and all the while retaining friendly commercial ties with the European continent. Business would boom, the City of London would prosper, and Britons never would be slaves, not of the EU or anyone else.

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

How Technology Kills Democracy

November 11, 2015

How Technology Kills Democracy

In shutting down whistleblowing and investigative journalism on national security issues, the U.S. government can use its technology to determine who is speaking to whom and then use that metadata as evidence of leaks, a chilling new reality is that endangers democracy, writes Norman Solomon.

Of all the excuses ladled out for the Obama administration’s shredding of the Fourth Amendment while assaulting press freedom and prosecuting “national security” whistleblowers, none is more pernicious than the claim that technology is responsible.

At first glance, the explanation might seem to make sense. After all, the capacities of digital tech have become truly awesome. It’s easy to finger “technology” as the driver of government policies, as if the president at the wheel has little choice but to follow the technological routes that have opened up for Big Brother.

Now comes New York Times reporter Charlie Savage, telling listeners and viewers of a Democracy Now interview that the surveillance state is largely a matter of technology: “It’s just the way it is in the 21st century.”

That’s a great way to depoliticize a crucial subject — downplaying the major dynamics of the political economy, anti-democratic power and top-down choices — letting leaders off the hook, as if sophistication calls for understanding that government is to be regulated by high-tech forces rather than the other way around.

In effect, the message is that — if you don’t like mass surveillance and draconian measures to intimidate whistleblowers as well as journalists — your beef is really with technology, and good luck with pushing back against that. Get it? The fault, dear citizen, is not in our political stars but in digital tech.

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

Putin & Military Establishment

November 11, 2015

Putin & Military Establishment

The strategy of the Obama Administration regarding Russia and foreign affairs has been a total disaster. They have achieved quite remarkably in bringing back the Cold War and placing the world at risk all for their power-plays that American citizens are ignorant about. This issue in Syria illustrates how once politicians make a mistake, they will never admit it nor will they reverse their policy. The entire Syria strategy was to overthrow the government their to get a pipeline through to Europe to compete with Russia and reduce its economy with regard to natural gas it sells to Europe. This policy has led to ISIS, the refugee invasion of Europe, and a continual support with now troops advising on the ground how to overthrow the Syrian government.. This will lead to war because this is now totally insane and Saudi Arabia is beginning to issue bonds for the government’s budget counted on higher oil prices.

Putin has now announced that he will counter the US-NATO’s missile shield defense program by deploying new strike weapons which are capable of piercing the shield that the Democrats objected to initiated by Ronald Reagan, Putin stated publicly that that he was now developing defenses against ballistic missiles to prevent Obama from attempting to “neutralize” Russia’s nuclear deterrent. Unfortunately, Obama has one year left and that is too much time to screw the world up even more.

What we need is a non-politician with brains and guts. Someone who will stop the bureaucrats in the military establishment from creating World War III. Project Northwoods reveals how these people would even kill American citizens and blame it on someone else just to get their military goals.

The revelation of Northwoods after the Oliver Stone Movie has shed some light on the entire assassination of JFK.

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

Does the Bell Toll for the Fed?

November 9, 2015

Does the Bell Toll for the Fed?

Last week Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen hinted that the Federal Reserve Board will increase interest rates at the board’s December meeting. The positive jobs report that was released following Yellen’s remarks caused many observers to say that the Federal Reserve’s first interest rate increase in almost a decade is practically inevitable.

However, there are several reasons to doubt that the Fed will increase rates anytime in the near future. One reason is that the official unemployment rate understates unemployment by ignoring the over 94 million Americans who have either withdrawn from the labor force or settled for part-time work. Presumably the Federal Reserve Board has access to the real unemployment numbers and is thus aware that the economy is actually far from full employment.

The decline in the stock market following Friday’s jobs report was attributed to many investors’ fears over the impact of the predicted interest rate increase. Wall Street’s jitters about the effects of a rate increase is another reason to doubt that the Fed will soon increase rates. After all, according to former Federal Reserve official Andrew Huszar, protecting Wall Street was the main goal of “quantitative easing,” so why would the Fed now risk a Christmastime downturn in the stock markets?

Donald Trump made headlines last week by accusing Janet Yellen of keeping interest rates low because she does not want to risk another economic downturn in President Obama’s last year in office. I have many disagreements with Mr. Trump, but I do agree with him that the Federal Reserve’s polices may be influenced by partisan politics.

Janet Yellen would hardly be the first Fed chair to allow politics to influence decision-making. Almost all Fed chairs have felt pressure to “adjust” monetary policy to suit the incumbent administration, and almost all have bowed to the pressure. Economists refer to the Fed’s propensity to tailor monetary policy to suit the needs of incumbent presidents as the “political” business cycle.

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

The Most Devious Liars in the Room

November 5, 2015

The Most Devious Liars in the Room

There were a few different stories coming out over the last few days that reveal the true nature of government and the apparatchiks who use disinformation, devious machinations, fraudulent accounting, and taxpayer money to cover up their criminality, lies, and the true state of the American economy. The use of government accounting tricks to obscure the truth about our dire financial straits is designed to keep the masses sedated and confused.

A few weeks ago, to great fanfare from the fawning faux journalists who never question any Washington D.C. propaganda, they announced the lowest annual deficit of Obama’s reign of error.

For the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 the shortfall was $439 billion, a decrease of 9%, or $44 billion, from last year. The deficit is the smallest of Barack Obama’s presidency and the lowest since 2007 in both dollar terms and as a percentage of gross domestic product.

Jack Lew, the Treasury Secretary, and Obama were ecstatic as they boasted about this tremendous accomplishment. I find it disgusting that our leaders hail a $439 billion deficit as a feather in their cap, when until the mid-2000’s the country had never had an annual deficit above $300 billion. After 183 years as a country, the entire national debt was only $427 billion in 1972. Now our beloved leaders cheer annual deficits above that figure. What a warped, deformed, dysfunctional nation we’ve become.

When the government reported this tremendous accomplishment, there was no way to verify the number against the national debt figures, as the government stopped reporting the daily national debt figure because of the debt ceiling impasse with Congress. The farce of these Kabuki Theater exercises in government incompetence is almost beyond comprehension.

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

Dear Fellow Americans: Do You Have Any Idea What’s Being Done In Your Name In Syria?

November 5, 2015

Dear Fellow Americans: Do You Have Any Idea What’s Being Done In Your Name In Syria?

Americans have some vague understanding that the U.S. wants Syria’s Assad to go, while Russia wants him to stay.

And Americans know that the U.S. “war against ISIS” hasn’t done much, while the Russians have been pounding Syrian targets with jets.

But Americans have no idea that the U.S. is deploying fighter jets designed solely to engage in plane-to-plane dogfighting … in order to counter the Russians.

And we don’t understand that the U.S. is arming the Syrian “rebels” with should-fired anti-aircraft weapons. As the Wall Street Journal reports:

The U.S. and its regional allies agreed to increase shipments of weapons and other supplies to help moderate Syrian rebels hold their ground and challenge the intervention of Russia and Iran on behalf of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, U.S. officials and their counterparts in the region said.

The deliveries from the Central Intelligence Agency, Saudi Arabia and other allied spy services deepen the fight between the forces battling in Syria, despite President Barack Obama’s public pledge to not let the conflict become a U.S.-Russia proxy war.

Saudi officials not only pushed for the White House to keep the arms pipeline open, but also warned the administration against backing away from a longstanding demand that Mr. Assad must leave office.

In the past month of intensifying Russian airstrikes, the CIA and its partners have increased the flow of military supplies to rebels in northern Syria, including of U.S.-made TOW antitank missiles, these officials said. Those supplies will continue to increase in coming weeks, replenishing stocks depleted by the regime’s expanded military offensive.

An Obama administration official said the military pressure is needed to push Mr. Assad from power.

“Assad is not going to feel any pressure to make concessions if there is no viable opposition that has the capacity, through the support of its partners, to put pressure on his regime,” the official said.

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

War, Repression and International Gangsterism: U.S. State Policy From Benghazi to Baltimore

November 5, 2015

War, Repression and International Gangsterism: U.S. State Policy From Benghazi to Baltimore

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A mere two months after clashes between black youth and police in Baltimore following the murder of Freddie Gray while in police custody, President Obama’s Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the indictment of twenty-four year old Raymon Carter for his alleged involvement in the torching of a CVS pharmacy. The national government’s intervention into the case had an unmistakable message – if you engage in “unauthorized” forms of resistance – in this case, crimes against property – expect to confront the full power of the national government.

U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein made it even clearer: “Anyone in the future who participates in a ‘riot’ should know that police, prosecutors and citizens will track them down and send them to prison.”

This aggressive and speedy move on the part of the DOJ to criminalize poor, black kids in Baltimore differed sharply from the DOJ approach to high government officials, armed servants of the state at the local level and the big banks and investment firms. For the officials involved in torture under the Bush Administration, the financial gangsters who engineered the 2008 economic crisis, and the killer cops across the country who have yet to experience one indictment from Obama’s DOJ after months of “investigations,” DOJ-granted impunity has been the operative principle in practice.

But Obama’s DOJ has not been the only state institution involved in providing cover and impunity for repression and criminality in the service of the capitalist oligarchy.

Impunity for State Terrorism: the Real Story of Benghazi

What might seem oppositional and important in the game of U.S. politics is usually insignificant and diversionary. Hillary Clinton’s appearance before the House Select Committee, ostensibly established to conduct a bi-partisan investigation into the events that led to the death of Christopher Stevens and three other U.S. citizens on September 11, 2012, was a case in point.

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

It’s Always the Same War

November 5, 2015

It’s Always the Same War

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, left, U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry give a news conference after a meeting in Vienna on Oct 30. (Ronald Zak / AP)

Barack Obama originally ran for president as the anti-war candidate. Now, as his second term winds down, the two George W. Bush/Obama wars are winding up, with a third in Syria. U.S. military forces are deployed elsewhere around the globe, as in drone striking in Yemen and Somalia, adding to the global conflagration. The United States is engaged in endless war.

The crisis of war and the millions fleeing these infernos has reached levels unprecedented since World War II, prompting the United Nations and International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to issue what they called an “unprecedented joint warning” for states to end wars, respect international law and aid the 60 million refugees made homeless from recent conflicts.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said: “The continuing violence is a clear indication that a political solution to the conflict in Syria is desperately needed. The fighting must stop now. There is no military solution to the crisis, not in Syria or anywhere else. From Afghanistan to the Central African Republic, from Ukraine to Yemen, combatants and those who control them are defying humanity’s most basic rules.”

ICRC President Peter Maurer added: “When humanitarian law and principles are disregarded, when humanitarian needs are trumped by political agendas, when access to the wounded and sick is denied, and when security concerns lead to a suspension of operations, people are abandoned, the notion of protection loses its meaning, and humanity is flouted. We ask that states reaffirm our shared humanity by concrete action and uphold their responsibility to respect and ensure respect for international humanitarian law.”

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

U.S. Prepares War Against Russia in Syrian Battlefield

November 5, 2015

U.S. Prepares War Against Russia in Syrian Battlefield

On Tuesday November 3rd, U.S. Defense Department spokesperson Laura Seal told The Daily Beast that twelve F-15C air-to-air combat planes are being sent to the Incirlik Turkey Air Base for deployment in Syria against Russia’s Su-30 air-to-air combat planes. Neither the F-15C nor the Su-30 can destroy ground-targets, only air-targets — enemy planes.

In other words: U.S. President Barack Obama is telling Russian President Vladimir Putin that unless Putin is willing to go to war against the United States, he must stop what he’s now doing in Syria. Obama is saying this in the only language whose meaning cannot be denied or misinterpreted: sending in counter-force to specifically what Russia has already sent into Syria.

If it were not the case that both the F-15C and the Su-30 are equipped only for air-to-air-combat, then the meaning of Obama’s move here wouldn’t be so clear and unambiguous. Ms. Seal made her point even clearer by volunteering to tell The Daily Beast’s reporter David Axe, “I didn’t say it wasn’t about Russia.” Axe then commented in his article, that this statement of hers “hinted at its [the deployment’s] true purpose.” But one would need to be a fool in order to deny it. The only real question here is why Obama has made this decision, which is quite likely to be fateful. So: that’s the subject: Why did he do this?

On 11 October 2015, CBS’s “60 Minutes” aired a segment, “Steve Kroft questions President Obama on topics including Russia’s incursion in Syria”, and the U.S. President was challenged there by Mr. Kroft regarding whether he’s “weak” on the Syria matter:

Steve Kroft: A year ago when we did this interview, there was some saber-rattling between the United States and Russia on the Ukrainian border. Now it’s also going on in Syria. You said a year ago that the United States — America leads. We’re the indispensible nation. Mr. Putin seems to be challenging that leadership.

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

SPLC Unhinged: Almost Everyone Is a “Conspiracy Theorist”

November 2, 2015

SPLC Unhinged: Almost Everyone Is a “Conspiracy Theorist”

Quick, do something! There are John Birch Society types ready to spread “conspiracy theories” from the “margins” into the “mainstream,” and they seem to be hiding under practically every bed in America! At least that’s the impression given in a new “intelligence report” by the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization whose slanderous vitriol against conservatives and Christians was recently implicated in federal court in a recent terrorismcase. In its report the SPLC reputedly aims to expose false conspiracy theories that are being churned out by right-wing radicals. But, ironically, while expressing outrage over “conspiracy theories” on the “right,” the SPLC report sounded like an expanded version of Hillary Clinton’s bizarre conspiracy theory about a “vast right-wing conspiracy.” To hear the SPLC tell it, practically everyone in America to the right of Obama is participating in a giant conspiracy to spread conspiracy theories. For what purpose is never explained, although apparently it is all very bad for “democracy.”

Though the SPLC clings to a mantle of respectability given to it for claiming to right wrongs, the mainstream American Family Association has labeled the SPLC an “anti-Christian hate group.” Meawhile civil rights attorney and Southern Center for Human Rights President Stephen Bright, echoing investigations and a federal judge, blasted SPLC founder Morris Dees as a “con man and fraud” who exploits naive poor people to enrich himself. In keeping with critics’ accusations against the SPLC, the intelligence report reads like it’s based on either a fevered imagination or blatant deception, driven by hate against those with whom it disagrees. So far, though, the report has been largely ignored.

The controversial outfit, sounding almost unhinged, railed against parents concerned about the Obama-backed Common Core education scheme, Americans alarmed about Obama’s gun-control scheming, alternative media, talk radio, cable television, politicians who give voice to the concerns of their constituents, and much more.

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

Seymour Hersh’s News Report Banned in U.S., is Finally Confirmed in Turkey

October 31, 2015

Seymour Hersh’s News Report Banned in U.S., is Finally Confirmed in Turkey

The news-report that the famed investigative journalist Seymour Hersh could not find an American publisher for, and that was consequently published only in Britain, has now been publicly confirmed by a research study into the matter, a study whose findings were made public on October 21st by a committee of Turkey’s parliament and published that day in Turkey’s leading newspaper, «Zaman».

The question being investigated here was who caused the sarin gas attack in Ghouta, Syria, on 21 August 2013, that killed over a thousand victims, and that U.S. President Barack Obama has used as his basis for going to war to bring down Syrian President Bashar al-Assad?

Hersh’s article, in the London Review of Books, on 17 April 2014, was titled «The Red Line and the Rat Line: Seymour M. Hersh on Obama, Erdoğan and the Syrian rebels». Hersh found that (quoting here the key parts, and providing [in brackets], from me, the necessary clarifications so that the reader can more easily understand what Hersh was saying):

A US intelligence consultant told me that a few weeks before 21 August he saw a highly classified briefing prepared for [Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Martin] Dempsey and the defense secretary, Chuck Hagel, which described ‘the acute anxiety’ of the [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan administration about the [U.S.-Turkey-Saudi-Qatari-backed] rebels’ dwindling prospects. The analysis warned that the Turkish leadership had expressed ‘the need to do something that would precipitate a US military response’. [In other words: Turkey’s leader, Erdoğan, ‘expressed’ to the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, that they needed to do something that would ‘precipitate a US military response’ against the man Erdoğan wanted to bring down, Assad. He was advising what’s called by the intelligence-services a ‘false-flag attack.’ Erdoğan wanted a false-flag attack, so as to enable U.S.

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

It’s On: Obama Sends Destroyer To Chinese Islands, China Vows Military Response

October 26, 2015

It’s On: Obama Sends Destroyer To Chinese Islands, China Vows Military Response

For anyone who might still be somehow unaware, the US is currently in a superpower staring match with both Russia and China. The conflict in Syria has put Moscow back on the geopolitical map (so to speak), creating an enormous amount of tension with Washington whose regional allies have been left to look on in horror as Russian airstrikes and an Iranian ground incursion dash hopes of ousting President Bashar al-Assad.

Meanwhile, in The South China Sea, Beijing has built 3,000 acres of new sovereign territory atop reefs in the Spratlys and although the reclamation effort itself isn’t unique, the scope of it most certainly is and Washington’s friends in the South Pacific are crying foul.

Beijing has continually insisted that it doesn’t intend to use the islands as military outposts, but the construction of runways and ports seems to tell a different story and so, Washington felt compelled to check things out over the summer by sending a Poseidon spy plane complete with a CNN crew to the area. Once the PLA spotted the plane the situation escalated quickly with the Chinese Navy telling US pilots to “Go Now!”

After that, an intense war of words developed with Defense Secretary Ash Carter insisting that the US would sail and fly anywhere it pleased and Beijing assuring the US that sailing within 12 nautical miles of the islands would prompt a harsh response from the PLA.

For weeks, the US was rumored to have been planning a freedom of navigation exercise in the Spratlys which, as we’ve pointed out several times this month, amounts to sailing by the islands just to see if China will shoot.

Jim Sciutto

✔@jimsciutto

Just in: @USNavy prepared to sail w/i 12mi of China’s manmade islands in #SouthChinaSea “w/i 24hrs”, has POTUS approval -Def. Official

3:23 PM – 26 Oct 2015

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

Something Happened

October 26, 2015

Something Happened

Ben Bernanke’s memoir is out and the chatter about it inevitably turns to the sickening moments in September 2008 when “the world economy came very close to collapse.” Easy to say, but how many people know what that means? It’s every bit as opaque as the operations of the Federal Reserve itself.

There were many ugly facets to the problem but they all boiled down to global insolvency — too many promises to pay that could not be met. The promises, of course, were quite hollow. They accumulated over the decades-long process, largely self-organized and emergent, of the so-called global economy arranging itself. All the financial arrangements depended on trust and good faith, especially of the authorities who managed the world’s “reserve currency,” the US dollar.

By the fall of 2008, it was clear that these authorities, in particular the US Federal Reserve, had failed spectacularly in regulating the operations of capital markets. With events such as the collapse of Lehman and the rescue of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, it also became clear that much of the collateral ostensibly backing up the US banking system was worthless, especially instruments based on mortgages. Hence, the trust and good faith vested in the issuer of the world’s reserve currency was revealed as worthless.

The great triumph of Ben Bernanke was to engineer a fix that rendered trust and good faith irrelevant. That was largely accomplished, in concert with the executive branch of the government, by failing to prosecute banking crime, in particular the issuance of fraudulent securities built out of worthless mortgages. In effect, Mr. Bernanke (and Barack Obama’s Department of Justice), decided that the rule of law was no longer needed for the system to operate. In fact, the rule of law only hampered it.

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

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