On a cosmic note, for the first time since 1638, a total lunar eclipse occurred on the same date as the winter solstice, December 21st...
NASA: Solstice Lunar Eclipse
"Since Year 1, I can only find one previous instance of an eclipse matching the same calendar date as the solstice, and that is 1638 DEC 21,"* says Geoff Chester of the US Naval Observatory.
This was visible to all 50 of the United States of America. The very next day, the U.S. Congress passed what is arguably the most egregious piece of legislation in its history...
OpenCongress: H.R.2751 - FDA Food Safety Modernization Act
This came as something of a surprise, since the Senate version of the bill (S 510) contained a "glitch" that betrayed the ignorance of our elected Senators, who apparently would be hard pressed to pass a high school civics exam (only the House of Representatives may pass bills raising revenue - see U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 7). So the bill had been declared all but dead, until by stealth the villains got it through.
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Another BP oil spill update: perhaps the best documentary on the subject thus far is the Dec. 10 episode of Conspiracy Theory. There are several scoops herein...
TruTV: Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura Season 2 Episode 7 – Gulf Oil Spill
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The Washington Post regains some credulity by emulating PrisonPlanet.com...
Top Secret America: Monitoring America
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There has been a good deal of suspicion of the WikiLeaks phenomenon among the skeptically inclined in the conspiracy research press (including this outlet). A representative example of this...
Global Research (Michael Chossudovsky): Who is Behind Wikileaks?
Yet there comes a time when one must set aside the healthy skepticism and get down to examining what is being leaked. But don't bother with the New York Times coverage, since these lap-dogs have admitted that they go to their masters in the U.S. government to get final approval before publishing. And it should come as no surprise that the Times along with the network news have focused on those leaks that confirm the U.S. foreign policy, or that make it look as if its policy makers are exercising restraint (the cables that had Saudi Arabia pushing for war with Iran for instance). The cable-grams are a mixed bag, and so one may find things that can confirm ones weltanshauung or not. Of course there is likely disinfo in there, as John Young of Cryptome and even Zbig Brzezinski have suggested. And perhaps Assange has cut deals with certain countries to not release cables relating to them (as Wayne Madsen suggests is the case with Israel). But yet there is a good deal of juicy material in there. Overall, among the major media, the UK Guardian has done a good job of covering the leaks, and many lesser known outlets have done a fine job elaborating on these. So, among the under-reported wikileaks of note...
Guardian: Shell's grip on Nigerian state revealed
Natural News: Wikileaks cable reveals U.S. conspired to retaliate against European nations if they resisted GMOs
Asia Times (Pepe Escobar): What is al-Qaeda really up to?
SibelLeaks as a test: Digging Deeper in Years into Wikileaks Treasure Chest
Eringer confirms: Russia: A Virtual Mafia State
LaRouche waxes incomprehensibly poetic: Some Things Just Leak Out!
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Some things get leaked surreptitiously, and others by acts of Congress. While Ron Paul and Bernie Sanders did not get everything they wanted with their Audit the Fed legislation, they did get a one time release of data related to the bail out programs of the financial crisis, with some startling revelations. Not only were the big U.S. banks bailed out, but a sizable proportion of foreign entities as well...
Bloomberg: Federal Reserve 'May Be Central Bank of the World' After UBS, Barclays Aid
But it didn't stop there, recipients of low-interest loans in the Commercial Paper Funding Facility included such firms as General Electric, Chrysler, Caterpillar, Harley Davidson, McDonalds, Mitzubishi, Toyota and the Republic of Korea! Also, going down the spread sheet, we see quite a few purchases from the insidious Inter-Alpha banks (implicated in the current sovereign debt woes of Europe).
So much for economic Darwinism (aka "free-market capitalism").
More monetary oddities...
Cryptogon: A Billion New $100 Bills Quarantined in Huge Vaults in Fort Worth, Texas and Washington, DC
But wait, the People strike back...!
ZeroHedge: Max Keiser's Plan to Destroy JP Morgan Goes Mainstream
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Now that more and more numbers of the American voting public are finally beginning to realize that their "representatives" are corporate whores pantomiming political discourse as mere side show attractions to obscure the true power-plays, the entrenched interests are getting a bit nervous that their old tricks aren't working the way they used to... And so...
American Free Press: Rothschild-Sponsored Third Party Effort Unveiled
For a good laugh, take a look at this call in program with "no labelers" David Frum and William Galston facing a barrage of verbal abuse from that most insightful species of cable news punditry, the C-Span caller: Congressional Bipartisanship - the calls begin at around 10 mins... eventually Frum starts pounding the table, on the verge of carpet-chewing.+
Addenda
* We would add to the significance of this date in history: the solstice of 1638 came on the eve of a tumultuous period of British history, beginning with the Bishops' Wars of 1639 and '40, then the English Civil Wars through 1651, climaxing with the execution of King Charles in '49 - an event that was also curiously referenced this month...
Independent: 'Off with their heads!' shouted the crowd as Charles and Camilla met rage in Regent Street
And just two days after the eclipse and solstice would come, as Webster Tarpley notes, the 700th anniversary of the conception of the modern nation state...
December 23, 1310: Emperor Henry VII of Luxemburg, Supported by Dante, Arrived in Milan and Started the Process Leading to the Modern State
...something that is becoming perilous in our time...
