Headlines of note for December 2013...

Dec. 16, R.J. Leon, district court judge of D.C, rules against NSA....

NYTimes: Judge Questions Legality of N.S.A. Phone Records

Dec. 17, Snowden speaks...

Folha D'S.Paolo: An Open Letter to the People of Brazil

Dec. 18, the POTUS review group issues its report...

Liberty and Security in a Changing World

Dec. 23, Snowden interview...

Washington Post: Edward Snowden, after months of NSA revelations, says his mission’s accomplished

Norman Solomon: Under Amazon's CIA Cloud - The Washington Post

Dec. 25, Snowden up against the Queen on UK's Channel 4...

Times of India: Snowden urges end to mass surveillance in UK Christmas message

A Christmas Message From Edward Snowden

Dec. 27, another judge...

Wall Street Journal: Judge Backs the NSA's Surveillance

A follow-up to the Wayne Madsen report we reposted last month...

WMR: Multiple plots by U.S., U.K. to kidnap Edward Snowden

In addition to the plot by the MI6 station at the British embassy in Moscow to kidnap National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden there is also evidence that the U.S. planned to "snatch" Snowden from German authorities had he traveled to Berlin to testify before the Bundestag.

Although members of the Green Party in the Bundestag requested Germany to protect Snowden if he traveled from Moscow to testify in person before the German parliament and Russia said Snowden had the right to travel from Russia to Germany, it was decided that Germany could not protect Snowden on German soil.

WMR has obtained information that Snowden's video appearance before the Bundestag was arranged after information was obtained by German parliamentarians that the German Federal Intelligence Service was working with the U.S. CIA and NSA to snatch Snowden from German hands. Snowden was to be returned to the United States for arraignment under Espionage Act criminal charges already brought against the whistleblower.

WMR's editor's report in Russia in November that was later carried by Russian TV News that the British embassy in Moscow had taken the lead in trying to lure Snowden into a trap for exfiltration to the West. The threat against Snowden was confirmed by an anonymous senior official of Russian counterintelligence. The official thanked
"former NSA employees and journalists for publishing such information, but added that operational, technical and other measures to counter intelligence and other illegal activities of foreign secret services on the territory of Russia were  constantly maintained."

WMR can also confirm that the investigation of the British embassy operation by the Russian media and the Federal Security Bureau's counterintelligence branch is ongoing and that further news reports on the operation are forthcoming.

WMR: Russia Vesti (News) in Russian. British MI-6 plot to ensnare Snowden

Pravda: Edward Snowden can be kidnapped from Russia?

PressTV:  Snowden safer in Russia than Brazil - W. Madsen

Russia Beyond The Headlines: Selling Edward Snowden


Glenn Greenwald busted?

Boiling Frogs Post: Omidyar’s PayPal Corporation Said To Be Implicated in Withheld NSA Documents

Twitter war ensues... @ggreenwald v. @sibeledmonds ...

BFP follow-up...

Greenwald-Omidyar Joint Venture: The Blurring Lines Between Being A Source and Being A Journalist

Others are on it...

Cryptome: O/G/R

Corbett Report: John Young Breaks Down the Snowden/NSA Saga

MarshaMitchelEffect: NewCo, PayPal, WikiLeaks, the Blockade and the U.S. Department of Justice

The fissure between establishment media (Greenwald was ever embedded within it) and the growing independent media (funded exclusively by its readers/viewers/listeners) is becoming sharpened. Even as it storms the gate-keepers, however, the latter will for some time remain dependent on old media...

Reuters: Exclusive - Secret contract tied NSA and security industry pioneer

Spiegel: Inside TAO - Documents Reveal Top NSA Hacking Unit

...though for even the most revered of reporters, finding a willing editor can be difficult...

Huffington Post: New Yorker, Washington Post Passed On Seymour Hersh Syria Report

Hersch did eventually find a publisher for the report, in which he calls out Obama/Kerry obfuscation on Ghouta sarin attack...

London Review of Books: Whose sarin?

Are they wisely in retreat now...?

Jerusalem Post: United States suspends non-lethal aid to northern Syria

...though a little too late to stem the monster they helped create...

Al-Monitor: Rise of Islamic Front a disaster for Syria

...so join them..?

Gulf news: US mulls aiding Islamist groups

The Peninsula: Syrian Islamist rebels to meet US officials

Who came up with ISIS..?

Spiegel: Masked Army: Jihadist Group Expands Rapidly in Syria 

 ... as Bandar now vows to help Putin fight Islamist radicals - the same ones he previously threatened to withhold protection from during Sochi Olympics?

DailyStar: Report - Bandar asked Putin to delay Geneva II conference

Intelligence Online: Bandar bin Sultan goes it alone

From Russia to NATO...

Dmitri Rogozin: Life Поздравляем наших друзей из НАТО с Новым годом!)

NATO's reply? Unleashing the dog Bandar?

ZeroHedge: Caught On Tape - Suicide Bombing In Russia's Fifth Largest Train Station Kills 15, One Month Ahead Of Sochi Games

RT: Volgograd trolley blast - Terror attack hits southern Russia day after railway station bombing

Whoever is behind these bombings knows of course that Bandar will be the first to be blamed, in reference to an August Al Monitor article. Perhaps Bandar simply doesn't care.


A belated attempt to ignite the Arab Spring in Algeria?

Rayyisse: Un jeune homme s'immole par le feu dans le pays de bouteflika

How it all began in Tunisia...

The National: Sniper mystery in Kasserine, the town ‘which made Tunisia’s revolution’

Continuing skirmishes in the region...

RT: 14 dead, 130 injured as explosion destroys police office in Egypt

Reuters: Chadian peacekeepers fire on protesters in Central African Republic

Globe and Mail: U.S. aircraft hit by gunfire in South Sudan

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Japan going dark...

Asahi Shimbun: Diet enacts state secrets law despite widespread protests

One of the most controversial points of the bill is that it allows bureaucrats and elected officials to arbitrarily widen their interpretations of what they deem to be state secrets...

Enjoy reports like this while they last...

ENE: Highest ever radiation levels detected outside reactor buildings at Fukushima — People exposed to it would die in 20 minutes

And look forward to more question-mark headlines like this...

Seemorerocks: What Is Happening To Alaska? Is Fukushima Responsible For The Mass Animal Deaths?

Nuclear Hotseat: US Sailors Vs. TEPCO Attorney Charles Bonner

Japan bottom feeding to clean the mess up...

Reuters: Japan's homeless recruited for murky Fukushima clean-up
 

Nuclear Hotseat #129: US Sailors Vs. TEPCO Attorney Charles Bonner - See more at: http://www.nuclearhotseat.com/nuclear-hotseat-129-us-sailors-vs-tepco-attorney-charles-bonner/#sthash.xVBoMbmr.dpuf

Nuclear Hotseat #129: US Sailors Vs. TEPCO Attorney Charles Bonner - See more at: http://www.nuclearhotseat.com/nuclear-hotseat-129-us-sailors-vs-tepco-attorney-charles-bonner/#sthash.xVBoMbmr.dpuf

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Shooter of the month, with the obligatory same-day drill coincidence...

Legitgov: Active Shooter Drills in Littleton, Colorado Same Day as School Shooting


Sandy Hook one year on, investigations continue...

MemoryHole: The Sandy Hook School Massacre - A Compendium of Research and Analysis

Brendan Hunt: Analysis - The Sandy Hook Victims and Families - Part One

While some argue there never was an Adam Lanza...

KnowTheLies: Hoax and High Treason… Adam Lanza Never Existed!… Sandy Hook School Was Not an Operating School at Time of Shooting!

The legend has it that the hermetic slayer was an avid gamer, reportedly playing World of Warcraft under the avatar "blarvink"...

Sandy Hook Lighthouse: blarvink - Adam Lanza’s second username revealed

This raises the question, given the latest Snowden-leaks story, whether "Adam Lanza" - real or not - was profiled and/or programmed online...

NPR: Orc And Dagger - U.S., U.K. Reportedly Spied On Gamers Online

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Protest, it's the thing to do...

New Straits Times: Thai political protests spread outside Bangkok

Sky News: Lenin Statue Toppled By Protesters In Kiev

Pussy Riot released...

Sydney Morning Herald: Pussy Riot's latest protest - Mikhail Khodorkovsky for president

Turkish protests and counter-protests, from Istanbul...

Today's Zaman: Man wielding machete attempts to attack protesters in İstanbul

...to the Poconos...?

Pocono Record: Saylorsburg protesters focus on Turkish cleric

Background...

Boiling Frogs Post: Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan Signed an “Action Plan” Against the Gülen Movement

Hurriyet Daily: Gold at center of corruption, money laundering allegations hitting Turkish gov't

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Centenial of infamy...

Global Research: The Federal Reserve: 100 Years of “Financial Terrorism”

Other miscellanea...

NYPost:  Inside the Saudi 9/11 coverup

BenSwann: Congressmen “absolutely shocked” of Foreign State involvement behind 9/11 attacks

TDS: Navy expands sonar testing despite troubling signs

The Week:  Robots are the not-too-distant future of war

PCMag: Google Acquires Boston Dynamics, Maker of Crazy, Walking Robots

Capitol City Proj: Confidential Obamacare Navigator training manual uploaded online

World Net Daily (Corsi): WHY COULDN'T HEALTHCARE.GOV VALIDATE OBAMA'S IDENTITY?

Telegraph: Nelson Mandela signer 'was in necklace murder group'

MsTilaTruth: Why I Sympathize With Hitler Part 1 - True History Unveiled

Do Tila Tequila's anti-Semetic, pro-Hitler views - admixed with anti-Illuminati, anti-GMO, anti-flouride lyrics - represent another tactic to discredit independent media?

RawStory: How Tila Tequila’s warm new embrace of Adolf Hitler is going down at Stormfront

Every time you hear my name it’s going down, goin down X 4
Feeding yo mind with GMOs
while givin yo babies flo flo
not flo rida but flo ride
that shit that burns yo third eye
Jewluminati motherfuckers hate me
Oh no they don’t wanna date me
Nor you nor you nor you too
Worldwide Genocide blame it on the jews

So now they call me a nazi
no bitch I’m just good at yhatzee
Espionage is my middle name HA!
I got you good while rolling through yo hood
Hitler no Hi Tila
Hitler no Hit Tila
Hitler No Hi Tila

Another MKULTRA grrl...?

YahooShine: How Human Barbie Made Even More Headlines in 2013

Merry X-mas...

Interfax Ukraine: Topless FEMEN activist climbs altar in Cologne cathedral during Christmas mass

Al Goldstein R.I.P.

Thursday, December 19th, a pioneer in porno journalism passed...

CBS New York: Al Goldstein, Publisher Of ‘Screw’ Magazine, Dead At 77

 Before founding Screw, he served in the Army; sold insurance; drove a car for the gossip columnist Walter Winchell; got himself jailed in Cuba for taking unauthorized pictures of Fidel Castro’s brother, Raul; and, as a photographer for Pakistan International Airlines, was on hand in 1962 when Kennedy (then the first lady) visited Pakistan.

Leave it to the New York Times to assume St. Peter's judgement at the pearly gates (but with more biographical details of note)... 

Al Goldstein, a Publisher Who Took the Romance Out of Sex, Dies at 77

According to Gay Talese’s book “Thy Neighbor’s Wife,” Mr. Goldstein ran a dime-pitch concession at the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair; sold rugs, encyclopedias and his own blood; drove a cab; and landed a job as an industrial spy, infiltrating a labor union. That experience so appalled him that he wrote an exposé about it for The New York Free Press, a radical weekly. 

The article did not make the splash Mr. Goldstein was hoping for, but he became friends with one of The Press’s editors, Jim Buckley, and persuaded him that there was money to be made covering the growing commercial sex scene, which the establishment press mentioned only to vilify. 

Investing $175 apiece, the two men published the first issue of Screw in November 1968: a 12-page Baedeker to the underworld featuring blue-movie reviews, nude photos, a guide to dirty bookstores and a field test by Mr. Goldstein of an artificial vagina.

More press...

Village Voice: Underground Porn King and Screw Magazine Publisher Al Goldstein Is Dead

The Atlantic: My Mentor, The Pornographer

That's "Rest In Piece" not "Peace" ...

jimbessman: The Great (Al) Goldstein

Some classic SCREW covers..

Vice: Screw Made You

A feature documentary...

PORN KING: The Trials of Al Goldstein

Porno-ops in the DPRK

For the Juche republic of North Korea, there is perhaps no figure to be held in higher regard - besides Kim Jong-un - than Ri Sol-ju, the wife of the dear leader. Her honor has of late come under assault, however, as the South Korean group Blue Union has launched porno rumor balloons into the DPRK...

KoreaBANG: Balloons Carry News of Ri Sol-ju’s ‘Porno’ to North Korea

This was after it was reported that members of the Unhasu Orchestra and Wangjaesan Art Troupe, the former of which Ri Sol-ju was a singer, were executed for scandalous behavior, including the shooting of a porno film...

Asahi Shimbun: Kim Jong Un orders 9 executed to protect wife from scandal

Two recent stories in the DailyNK raise the question of whether the sex scandal is now engulfing the secretive kingdom...

Why Has Ri Been Gone for 48 Days?

Ri Sol Ju, the wife of North Korean leader Kim Jong Eun, has not made any public appearances for 48 days, since it was reported that she attended a concert performed by a Russian orchestra in Pyongyang on October 16th.

That appearance was 24 days after a sex scandal indirectly implicating her broke in September. A Japanese daily reported that nine performers from both Unhasu and Wangjaesan art troupes had been publicly executed for their roles in sexually explicit videos....

Fear Arrives as Top Cadres Recalled

A Daily NK source has revealed that municipal and provincial Chosun Workers' Party secretaries and cadres from judicial and security organs have been summoned en masse to Pyongyang. Regional heavyweight officials are being kept in the dark about the details of Jang Sung Taek’s elimination in distant Pyongyang, but rumor inside North Korea already is that the staff recall is designed to weed out elements loyal to “the aunt’s husband” and instill fear throughout society.... 

“According to what the Upper (North Korean authorities) is saying, they have called people in for ‘drugs and watching illegal videos,’ but absolutely nobody actually believes that,” the source went on. “There is talk about there being a personal problem with the ‘aunt’s husband’ (Jang Sung Taek), that some of his close associates have been executed, and that his traitorous accomplices are now being rounded up.”... [our emphasis]

Given these recent developments, the reader may want to revisit the comments of Hank Crumpton included in our post: Al Qaeda and DPRK Officials Love Porno...

"I never met a North Korean that did not like pornography."

[Thanks to LF for the tip]

Update - December 12

AP: North Korea executes leader's uncle as a traitor

KOREAN CENTRAL NEWS AGENCY of DPRK: DPRK People Determined to Remain Loyal Only to Kim Jong Un

A sledgehammer blow should be delivered at anyone who goes against the single-minded unity of our people around supreme leader Kim Jong Un...

Headlines of note for November 2013

Nov. 23: Breakthrough? A deal has been reached between the "P5+1" and Iran...

U.S. Department of State: First Step Understandings Regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran's Nuclear Program

In spite of earlier French obstructionism...

Farsnews: Zarif Blasts France for Preventing Iran-Powers Deal

With Israel and Saudi Arabia festering on the sidelines...

AP: Israel, Gulf in 'strange alliance' against Iran

Wall Street Journal: Prince Alwaleed bin Talal - An Ally Frets About American Retreat

"For the first time, Saudi Arabian interests and Israel are almost parallel," he says, his voice rising. "It's incredible."

And plotting sabotage together...?

PressTV: Prince Bandar attends anti-Iran meeting in Israel

Ynet: Report - Israel, Saudi Arabia cooperating on possible attack on Iran

Intelligence Online: Nuclear - Mujahedin tips off the West

Some nation-state psycho-analysis courtesy of...

Steve Pieczenik: Saudi Arabia & Israel - Imminent Military Strike!

Is this indicative of new "redirection" in U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East? It will do good to revisit this Seymour Hersh piece from 2007...

New Yorker: THE REDIRECTION

We must begrudgingly admit that Obama's second term in foreign affairs - with this agreement and with a peace process underway in Syria (even if his hand was forced by Putin) - is turning out much better in some areas than the first...  (continuing drone assassinations and NSA-related embarrassments notwithstanding)

Domestically speaking, however, it is not so good: Obama now has a Gallup favorable rating at 39%, premised on this...

Powerline: LIES OF OBAMACARE, DOCUMENTED

He's chewing the carpet right about now (11/12/13)...

Mediaite: Bill Clinton Scolds Obama - 'The President Should Honor the Commitment' He Made

Beyond the usual government incompetence account of all this, there is an alternate scenario, entertained by some (including detractors on the right and advocates on the left), that Obamacare is a deliberate failure - a failure strategically timed in order to usher in a "single payer," i.e. fully socialized system. This is a conspiracy theory that might get some corroboration from a Project Veritas video (though not necessarily; America's growing underclass naturally develops cadres of experts at gaming the system)...

Ulsterman: Project Veritas Captures Institutionalized Obamacare Fraud

What we found is shocking: navigators, in positions of public trust, told our undercover journalists to lie and defraud the government. Over and over again.

(the Casablanca link is ours)

We can't vouch for the claim made here, which seems a bit overstated, but only offer it as a case in point...

Western Center for Journalism: Revealed - The Man Who Wrote Obamacare

More on Robert Creamer is found at Discover The Networks. It should be noted however that his wife, Rep. Jan Schakowsky has the dubious distinction of residing in the Sibel Edmonds State Secrets Privilege Gallery. She was at the time one of the question marks, but Edmonds later revealed...

Majorityrights: Turkish Gov’t Blackmails Bisexual Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky

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Awaiting "Extraordinary Journalism"...

Information Clearing House: The Extraordinary Pierre Omidyar

Snowden updates...

Wayne Madsen Report:  British embassy has lead on location and apprehension of Snowden

WMR has learned through its Russian sources that Britain's spy-infested embassy in Moscow has taken the lead among the "FIVE EYES" signals intelligence allies to locate the whereabouts of National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden in Russia. In fact, the British government is more keen on capturing Snowden than is the U.S. or the other governments of the FIVE EYES partnership, which also includes Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

Britain's almost apoplectic reaction to Snowden's disclosures was recently on display when Britain's top three intelligence chiefs -- John Sawers of MI-6; Andrew Parker of MI-5; and Iain Lobben of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the British counterpart of NSA, accused Snowden and those who published his leaked documents of aiding Al Qaeda. Former British Defense Secretary Liam Fox went further, accusing those who publish the leaked NSA and GCHQ secrets, including The Guardian, of being terrorists.

Ever since he was granted temporary political asylum by Russia after being held in transit limbo at Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport after his flight from Hong Kong, Snowden's location in Russia has been a closely-guarded secret. Snowden is believed to have the protection of a combination of private security guards and agents of the Russian Federal Security Bureau (FSB).

Last month, Snowden met with four other American national whistleblowers -- Ray McGovern, formerly of the CIA; Colleen Rowley, formerly with the FBI; former NSA official Tom Drake, and former Justice Department prosecutor Jesselyn Radack -- met with Snowden at an undisclosed location in Moscow. The four Americans traveled to Moscow to present Snowden with the Sam Adams Award for Integrity and Intelligence.

After the receipt by Snowden of the award, British MI-6 case officers assigned to the British embassy in Moscow began using NSA and GCHQ "contact chaining" intelligence gathered from surveillance of Facebook and other social networking systems to0 identify Snowden's location. The contact chaining began with the Facebook, Twitter, as well as phone call metadata, information derived from the four American visitors to Moscow. In turn, their contacts in Moscow were identified, thus expanding the chain used to determine Snowden's location and daily schedule.....

WMR is now reporting a man-in-the-middle attack on AOL account following publication of the above report.

Cryptome: 42 Years to Release Snowden Documents

Snowden looking for other venues to quicken that pace?

DW: Ströbele shares details of Snowden visit in Moscow

Serenading Deutschland...

Der Spiegel: Ein Manifest für die Wahrheit (A Manifesto for the Truth)

Notwithstanding a certain level of hypocrisy in Merkel's expression of outrage over US/UK surveillance...

Guardian: GCHQ and European spy agencies worked together on mass surveillance

Germany and Brazil are taking the initiative to tame the surveillance beasts, NSA and GCHQ...

RT: Germany, Brazil submit UN draft resolution to end mass surveillance

Another area in which it appears Germany will take the lead: taming the robber barons of finance...

Reuters: Merkel, SPD agree to renew German push for transaction tax

Well, Italy was there first, and where it counts...

ZeroHedge: First Ever High Frequency Trading Transaction Tax Introduced In Italy

There to snoop on all of that...

Schweiz am Sonntag: US-Geheimdienst - Abhöranlage in Zürich

Spiegel: Quantum Spying - GCHQ Used Fake LinkedIn Pages to Target Engineers

Huffimgton Post: Top-Secret Document Reveals NSA Spied On Porn Habits As Part Of Plan To Discredit 'Radicalizers'

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Libya descends into complete anarchy, as reported by some who helped create the mess...

Al Jazeera: Libya - on the brink of abyss

BBC: Libya army in Benghazi clashes with Ansar al-Sharia

Middle East Online: Libya jihadists to government - It’s either sharia or chaos!

Saudi Gazette: Libya PM warns foreign forces may act to halt chaos

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Shooter of the month: "CIA" written all over this one...

KTTV-LA: The Gunman: 23-year-old Suspect Paul Ciancia

Some initial reports indicated that a second suspect had been arrested, but Gannon said, "This was a lone shooter,'' and the gunman "was the only person that was armed in this incident.''

Did he say there was not a second suspect?

Infowars: TSA Shooting Narrative Disintegrates

Digital Journal: LAX Shooting - Police trained for 'exact scenario' 3 weeks ago

Dry ice dry runs..?

LATimes: Second suspect in LAX dry-ice bomb case pleads not guilty

The real target is not the TSA, however, but...

SPLC Hatewatch: Alleged LAX Shooter Referenced ‘Patriot’ Conspiracy Theories

... with Alex Jones referenced in ABC and CBS spots, we can see where this is going; to borrow Jones's own narrative: the national security apparatus, having been nurtured post-9/11 by the foreign threat of Islamic extremism, now is to focus domestically upon the patriot "extremist". To facilitate this refocus, we can expect more incidents framing the anti-government and anti-NWO protester as the violent extremist threat over which Americans must surrender more of their constitutional protections. The new threat will be caricatured as "bizarre" and "paranoid" largely from Alex Jones's own narrative, he being the most popular or notorious face of anti-government sentiment. We concur that there will be a continuing shift away from terrorism as perpetrated by Islamists, and more as perpetrated by the sovereign citizen, Christian patriot, constitutionalist and the like, but even implicative to the TEA Party, thus framed in order to the discrediting of independent media and political movements that are more and more successfully channeling the ubiquitous discontent with "the powers that be". As one of the Islamic extremist type - one who incidentally was recently assassinated by drone on the eve of peace talks - Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud recently said in a BBC interview...

These explosions in public places are certainly being carried out by secret agencies as part of a conspiracy to pollute the minds of the people about Taliban and to discourage them to co-operate with Taliban.

Another case in point, if not carried out by the "secret agencies" themselves, then fostered by them...

DailyMail: Was Kenya mall massacre 'mastermind' backed by CIA cash? Disturbing claims by 'double agent who worked with terror suspect for years'

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Police state news: what the new bogeymen can look forward to...

Institute on Medicine as a Profession: Medical, Military, and Ethics Experts Say Health Professionals Designed and Participated in Cruel, Inhumane, and Degrading Treatment and Torture of Detainees; Seek Policies To Assure Conformance With Ethical Principles

And what the American people generally have to look forward to...

Prison Planet: Police, Doctors Force Man To Undergo Humiliating Enemas, Anal Exams And X-rays

Storyleak: Documents Reveal Seattle’s Secretive DHS Funded “Mesh Network” Surveillance Grid

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And so it begins [soon]: extracting the spent fuel rods from their precarious perch atop reactor number 4 at Fukushima Daiichi...

TEPCO: Fuel Removal from Reactor 4 Spent Fuel Pool

Cross your fingers...

Fukushima Diary: Fuel removal of Reactor4 pool to start next week – No quake is allowed for 13 months

Trouble already...

ENENews: Multiple assemblies ‘deformed’ in Fukushima Unit 4 pool — One “bent at a 90-degree angle” — Tepco: Mistake occurred when handling the fuel… 25 years ago

It's a start...

Japan Times: First batch of fuel from Fukushima reactor 4 pool now in different storage site

The damage done...

Ecologist: Fukushima fallout damaged thyroid glands of California babies

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Other toxins - of a more ephemeral sort - stirring across the Pacific...

WikiLeaks: Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP)

Land Destroyer: Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) - Threat To National Sovereignty

Techdirt: Trade Agreements Are Designed To Give Companies Corporate Sovereignty

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Pedo bust - it turns out that Toronto, home of the crack-head mayor, is a major hub...

The Star: Child porn bust - The men who were charged

Aangirfan: POPULAR CHILD MODELS

Kosher pedos in a Brooklyn mikvah...

Vice: THE CHILD-RAPE ASSEMBLY LINE

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Google preppers...

C-NET: Is Google building a hulking floating data center in SF Bay?

Google patents: Water-based data center

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JFK assassination 50 years on - the investigations continue...

MadCow Morning News: Barry Seal, the Dallas get-away plane, and the JFK assassination

WhoWhatWhy: Bush And The JFK Hit, Part 10 - After Camelot

Johnson, Bush and Nixon kill John F. Kennedy.

Tzipi does porno for Zion

Israeli Justice Minister and negotiator Tzipi Livni, aka the "belle of the Knesset," has admitted to sleeping with Palastinian officials during negotiations, and that these encounters were caught on video, according to Al-Watan...

ليفني: مارست الجنس مع عريقات وعبد ربه.. والكاميرات تصور!

Google translation tidied: Livni - I had sex with Erekat and Abed Rabbo... And with cameras!

Livni said that the room in which exercised sex with Palestinian personalities, including Saeb Erekat and Yasser Abed Rabbo, were fitted with cameras that depict the practice, and the videos show Palestinian officials are without clothes and having sex with her, and Livni threatened a number of Arab personalities that the movies would be deployed on YouTube if they have not done what they were ordered to do. 

A prominent Rabbi is reported to have said with Talmudic liberality that officials «have the right to sleep with strangers and have sex, provided that this serves Israel». Tzipi, who began her career with the Mossad, has been rumored in the past to have plied her charms in the Israeli national interest. She has thus led a life deprived of romantic relationships. She explained: 

«that the romantic relationship requires honesty, truthfulness and sincerity between the couple, and I, of course, I could not build such a relationship with a »..« but a relationship short and transient that committed the parties by rules and regulations does not cause any harm or damage»

Alas, where's the romance for a government official, for whom the sex act itself is a regulated transaction!

More buzz on this story...

Al Bawaba: Lie back and think of Israel! Sex diplomat Tzipi Livni under fire for her rumoured pro-Palestinian bedroom romps

Headlines of note for October 2013

Glenn Greenwald's Snowden series continues to trickle...

Guardian: NSA and GCHQ target Tor network that protects anonymity of web users

And then halts, for a new venture...

BuzzFeed: Glenn Greenwald Will Leave Guardian To Create New News Organization

Raising red flags...

Rancid Honeytrap: A Harbinger of Journalism Saved

Others are eking it out...

Spiegel: Fresh Leak on US Spying - NSA Accessed Mexican President's Email

Embassy Espionage: The NSA's Secret Spy Hub in Berlin

Monde: Comment la NSA espionne la France

El Mundo: La NSA espió 60 millones de llamadas en España en sólo un mes

Panorama.it: Papa Francesco intercettato - ecco come gli 007 spiano il Vaticano da anni

Washington Post: NSA infiltrates links to Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide, Snowden documents say

The Hill: NSA admits tracking locations of cellphones in the United States

The Local: Author and NSA critic denied entry into US

The fall-out...

DW: NSA affair could block EU-US free trade talks

Germany and Brazil want UN vote on NSA spying

Cryptome: Privacy and Cybersecurity Illusions Have to Go

Strategic Culture (Wayne Madsen): NSA’s Global Economic Intelligence Net

Madsen is the unsung hero among journalists covering the NSA. Unlike Glenn Greenwald and James Bamford, he won't be invited to comment on cable news or to produce PBS NOVA reports. Perhaps his "pithy comments" page might have something to do with this. The following story however goes into levels of detail and import that have yet to be found in the pages of the Guardian, Washington Post, N.Y.Times,Der Spiegel, etc., and is worth quoting at length...

Wayne Madsen Report: NSA has only itself to blame for leaks

At the outset of the English-speaking signals alliance after World War II, there were only five countries involved in carrying out signals intelligence operations: the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. This alliance was based on the UK-USA Agreement of 1946 that had its actual roots during World War II and the BRUSA (Britain-U.S.) agreement of 1943.

During the Cold War era, the four non-U.S. English-speaking SIGINT alliance countries, known as "Second Parties," as opposed to the U.S. (the First Party), managed to keep their operations largely secret. Soon, agreements to share signals intercepts with NSA, were concluded with "Third Parties." Third parties were non-English speaking countries that were allies of the United States. The sharing was largely one-way, with Third Parties providing more to NSA than what they received in return. NSA "product" was usually highly-sanitized analysis reports. Third Parties originally included countries like Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, and West Germany. Later, such countries as Japan, South Korea, Turkey, Greece, Italy, Spain, and Portugal joined the Third Party partners. 

France, which withdrew from NATO's military structure in 1967 and which carried out intelligence operations against the United States, was kept distant from the NSA partnership. However, France gradually became a Third Party, especially after French President Nicolas Sarkozy returned France to NATO's military fold in 2009.

Israel, which was considered a hostile intelligence nation by U.S. counterintelligence agencies until the Obama administration, was never even considered for Third Party status by NSA. The premeditated Israeli attack on the NSA intelligence collection ship, USS Liberty in 1967, Mossad's penetration of NSA operations via a spy ring at RCA Corporation in 1995-6, and the damage down by Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, discovered in 1995, ensured that Israel would never have official access to NSA's intelligence. NSA carefully covered its intercept operations mounted against Israel by having NSA Hebrew linguists described as being proficient in "Special Arabic."

Keeping Israel removed from NSA operations all changed under the Obama administration when a Memorandum of Understanding was drafted between NSA and the Israel SIGINT National Unit (also known as Unit 8200 or Yehida Shmoneh-Matayim) to share highly-classified SIGINT data. France's relationship with NSA graduated from Third Party to a category that can be described as Third Party plus. NSA SIGINT and Communications Intelligence or COMINT material was marked with the special caveat REL TO USA, FRA if it was authorized to be released to France. Likewise, Israel appeared to have received a Third Party plus status since NSA material authorized for release to Israel received a handling category of REL to USA, ISR. 

While NSA's control over its "FIVE EYES" English speaking partners was relatively without major incident, aside from a spat with New Zealand in the 1980s over its policy of refusing to allow U.S. nuclear-powered warships into its waters, the same was not the case with Israel and France.

The TOP SECRET//COMINT//REL to USA, ISR (but not releasable tol FIVE EYES) MOU with ISNU not only permitted NSA SIGINT, including raw intercept traffic, to be shared with Israel but also stipulated that SIGINT collected by the FIVE EYES alliance could also be shared with the Israelis. However, the other four members of FIVE EYES were not included in the releasing authority granted by the NSA-ISNU memorandum. ISNU was merely "requested" in the MOU to protect the SIGINT handling laws and regulations of the FIVE EYES countries. [Excerpt of the MOU below].

The nature of ISNU's special relationship with NSA was highlighted by the description of the duties of SUSLAIS (Senior U.S. Liaison Adviser Israel) in the MOU. The SUSLAIS, similar to the SUSLO (Senior U.S. Liaison Officer), officially attached to the U.S. embassy in London but assigned to work closely with the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in Cheltenham, England, was to handle any discovery by the Israelis of raw data on U.S. persons foud in raw intercept traffic provided to ISNU. The MOU does not make it clear what kind of access, if any, the SUSLAIS has to ISNU facilities located at Camp Moshe Dayan at Glilot Junction, north of Tel Aviv and near Herzliya.

ISNU was also charged with requesting permission from NSA, presumably through the SUSLAIS, before releasing NSA SIGINT data to any other party, which would include the Mossad, Shin Bet, or other Israeli government agencies. The MOU also refers to a special NSA-ISNU shared communications network codenamed CHIPPEWA.

Israel had been caught over the past decade trafficking in stolen or forged passports from Australia, Britain, New Zealand, and Canada. However, the NSA and the Obama administration concluded that Israel could be trusted with highly-classified SIGINT and COMINT from the intelligence agencies of countries subjected to Israeli intelligence operations.

It was not long before Israel began taking advantage of its new relationship with NSA and its Second and Third Party partners. In April 2013, the French discovered that "cyber-attacks" were taking place against the French Presidential communications network.The French Directorate for External Security (DGSE) requested and received a meeting with senio0r NSA officials at NSA Headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland. The meeting, held on April 12, 2013, was attended by Bernard Barbier, the Technical Director of DGSE, and Patrick Pailloux, the Director of the National Information Systems Security (ANSSI) unit of France. The information on the attack is contained in an overall TOP SECRET//SI//NOFORN, meaning No Foreign Nationals memo issued by NSA for the visit. DGSE and ANSSI first informed NSA director Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander about the cyber-attacks in January 2013 during a visit by Alexander to Paris. Alexander was prepared to send two NSA Threat Operations Center analysts to France to investigate. DGSE and ANSSI told Alexander about the cyber-attacks without going through the SUSLAF (Senior U.S. Liaison Activity France) or NSA's FAD (Foreign Affairs Directorate). Rather than receiving NSA analysts in France, DGSE and ANSSI opted, instead, to visit Fort Meade.

The NSA memo on the French visit only authorized for release to France (REL TO FRA) information on the visit of the two French officials to NSA. The unclassified reason for the visit was "Computer Network Defense."

The NSA organization charged with conducting cyber-attacks, Tailored Access Operations or TAO denied that the operations against the French Presidential network was their work. TAO, which includes personnel with the joint NSA-CIA Special Collection Service (SCS), inquired among "First Parties," that is the CIA, and "Second Parties," the UK's GCHQ and the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) whether they were responsible for hacking the French network as they "were the most likely suspects," but they denied any involvement. The memo then states something vitally critical" "TAO did not ask either the Mossad or ISNU whether they were involved as France is not an approved target for joint discussion." In other words, NSA's compartmented security controls did not permit Israel to know anything about any NSA, GCHQ, or CSEC cyber-espionage against France. However, it is clear that NSA officials believed that Israel might have been the culprit behind the attacks on the French presidential network...

For another interpretation of the Snowden affair...

Rense (Yoichi Shimatsu): Saving Agent Snowden From His Handlers Greenwald and Omidyar

In a nutshell the Snowden case was used by the British military intelligence in partnership with a CIA faction opposed to the heavy-handed Pentagon-NSA eavesdropping programs that threaten to knock over sensitive operations, for instance, joint operations with Qatar and Saudi intelligence to direct Al Qaeda units in Libya, Syria and Afghanistan. Since assassination targets could include American, British and other allied European officers who know too much, the Agency prefers to operate without its communications with field agents and MK-ULTRA types being monitored by lads like Snowden or any of the many generals who have a grudge against the CIA...

A case in point?...

Telegraph: Iranian cyber warfare commander shot dead in suspected assassination

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In our September headlines summary, we had noted an intriguing comment made by Zbigniew Brzezinski, in his Le Monde interview, on the situation internal to the United States being a factor in his reluctant support for the Obama administration's plan (with the condition of congressional approval) for punitive military action against the Assad regime in Syria. With Russia's diplomatic intervention to prevent war, however, and with it the prevention of the diversion away from those internal concerns to which Brzezinski alluded, these domestic factors now have come to the fore, forcing the U.S. government to face the music, as it were, an existential crisis of the United States itself, in its capacity to honor its ever burgeoning debt.

The Week: US debt default - is world facing 'economic Armageddon'?

Signs of the times in D.C...

Cryptogon: U.S. Capitol Shooting

N.Y. Daily News: Man sets himself on fire at National Mall, one witness says his accomplice filmed the entire ordeal

Todd Zwillich: House Stenographer Rant During Govt Shutdown Vote

D-Day re-enactments outside the White House...

PrisonPlanet: Riot Police Use Force Against Elderly Vets Outside White House

CrimeFileNews: Why The DC Cops Stood Down During The Face Off With Our Veterans

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More accusations against Prince Bandar in Ghouta chemical attack...

Voice of Russia: Saudi black op team responsible for Damascus chemical attack – Russian diplomatic source

Bandar already making good on his threat to Putin to remove his "protection" in the Caucasus...

Al Jazeera: Female suicide bomber blamed for Russia blast

Next to take it out on the U.S...?

Silvia Cattori: Saudi-US Row - Prince Bandar bin ‘Sulking’ Tries Old Bribe and Threat Trick Again

Civil wars continue and spread throughout the Middle East and North Africa...

Al-Alam: Syria terrorists shell Kafteen village, massacre 30 civilians

Voice of America: Syria Spillover Violence in Lebanon Raises Alarms

All Africa: Sudan's Turabi Warns of Civil War and Calls On Bashir to Step Down

Reuters: Militants shoot down military helicopter in northern Iraq-police

Brought down by a shoulder-fired missile perhaps? Where might they have obtained that?

NYTimes: Algeria - Troops Find Large Cache of Weapons Near Libyan Border

Prompted by the deaths of several hundreds of African migrants in the Mediterranean - migrants who if not for the NATO action of 2011 would have found gainful employment in Qadaffi's Libya...

Le Monde: Face à "l'afflux" de migrants, le sénateur UMP Philippe Marini "regrette le régime Kadhafi en Libye"

sic: the tweet states "...regrette la disparition du regime Kadhafi en Libye" - Marini regrets the demise of the Qadaffi regime in Libya; but it was his UMP cohort Sarkozy who led the charge in toppling Qadaffi.

RT: Gunmen attack Russian embassy in Libya's Tripoli

Telegraph: Libyan PM Ali Zeidan 'arrested' at gunpoint and released

Boots on the ground...

Guardian: US special forces raids target Islamist militants in Libya and Somalia

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WWIII triggers at large...?

PrisonPlanet: Top Nuke Commanders Terminated Following Missing Nuclear Warheads Report

Other firings, following the Camp Bastion debacle of Sept. last year...

Washington Post: Two Marine generals fired for security lapses in Afghanistan

It is the first time since the Vietnam War that a general, let alone two, has been sacked for negligence after a successful enemy attack. But the assault also was unprecedented...

So was Benghazi. The Wa-Po article however neglects to mention one crucial detail, which demonstrates to whom U.S. military forces are subject...

Inquisitr: U.S. Marine Generals Fired Over Taliban Attack On Prince Harry

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Perilous Fukushima Daiichi beset by the elements...

ENENews: Footage shows minute-long quake shaking Fukushima nuclear plant... Fukushima Official: “It was fairly big, and rattled quite a bit” 

Fukushima Diary: Fukushima plant area had collapse and subsidence due to the last Typhoon / No press release

Expect even less press releases in the future...

RT: Fuk-‘hush’-ima - Japan’s new state secrets law gags whistleblowers, raises press freedom fears

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Miscellania...

Political Vel Craft: Hungary Kills The Rothschild Banks - Ordered To Vacate Country

Voltairenet: Torture is still in practiced in Guantanamo

BoilingFrogsPost: U.S. Government: Documents Pertaining to Awlaki Being an Asset on “An Agency” Payroll Are All Classified

Infowars: FBI Boston Bombing Coverup Accelerates

Steve Pieczenik: Ambassador Samantha Power -  The “Hellish Power” Who Bombs her Way Out of Genocide!

Farm Wars: Intestinal Disease, Immune Disease and GMOs

GMOs and Neurological Disease: ADHD, Autism, Alzheimer’s, Schizophrenia, Bipolar

The Fall of FEMEN

To the old adage, bad publicity is the best publicity, it might be added - bad publicity from bare-breasted beauties is even better. So it goes with every personage and institution that has been the object of a FEMEN protest. Of late, however, with the release of the film, Ukraine is not a Brothel, FEMEN itself has become the subject of the sort of unmasking publicity that cannot be so good...

Independent: The man who made Femen - New film outs Victor Svyatski as the mastermind behind the protest group and its breast-baring stunts

IBTimes: Femen Founder is a Man - Who Calls Women 'Weak Bitches'

Guardian: If Femen was set up by a man, where does that leave its topless protests?

With the pathetic attempt to seize the narrative in "MODEL DON'T GO TO BROTHEL" that was only met with a punch in the nose...

Model 'punches' Femen protesters who storm catwalk during Paris fashion week

They are now a laughing stock.

Headlines of note for September 2013

Doves take the British Parliament...

Daily Mail: The humbling of David Cameron: On a momentous night, Tory rebellion forces Prime Minister to rule out military strike against Syria... and plunges him into a deep political crisis

The House of Commons has not voted against the Government on an issue of war and peace since February 27, 1782, when politicians voted against further war with America...

There is a certain irony in this; just as in the American Revolution, the only substantial ally of the U.S. is France...

Libération: Obama et Hollande affichent leur entente au sujet de la Syrie

In an interview with Le Monde, Obama's mentor (during his mystery years at Columbia) Zbigniew Brzezinski repeats the vacuous argument that we must bomb Syria in order to preserve the reputation of the U.S. and the West at large on the world stage...

Syrie : "Il faut un certain degré de patience et une vision plus large"

That reputation however has already been soiled; the international goodwill following the election of Obama has long dried up, as it becomes increasingly clear to the world that Anglo-American imperial arrogance continues unswayed through neo-liberal stratagems (of which the neo-conservative Bush Doctrine was but an ideological tributary), and the only "change" has been in tactics (drones rather than "boots on the ground") and stylistics (Obama's metro-sexual "cool" vs. Bush's cowboy swagger). The NSA revelations courtesy of Edward Snowden have brought the distrust of not only the U.S. government but of its telecommunication industry to a head; and with this distrust a vacuum of moral authority has opened, with Vladimir Putin eager to seize the moment, convincingly enough to induce Matt Drudge to declare: Putin is the leader of the free world... - apparently inspired by these comments of Putin on the eve of the G-20 meetings...

RT:  Putin to (Nobel Prize winner) Obama: 'Think about future Syria victims'

With the onslaught of recent scandals, moreover, the distrust is simmering domestically as well beyond the partisan divide. Brzezinski acknowledges in his Le Monde interview that the Obama administration is motivated in its push to war not merely by external concerns, but by internal factors...

Depuis le début de la crise, je ne soutiens pas la politique menée par les Etats-Unis. Mais étant donné les réalités de la situation, intérieure aussi bien que géopolitique, dans laquelle se trouvent les Etats-Unis, je n'ai pas d'autre choix que de soutenir la décision du président de procéder à une action limitée de représailles et d'obtenir le soutien du Congrès.

Since the beginning of the crisis, I did not support the policy of the United States. But given the realities of the situation, domestic as well as geopolitical, which find themselves in the United States, I have no choice but to support the president's decision to conduct a limited retaliatory action and obtain the support of Congress. [Google trans., with some rephrasing and our emphasis]

Thanks in large part to the British rejection, Obama's march to the brink has thus been halted - temporarily at least. Given those "interior" concerns, however, he has in turn taken the uncharacteristic measure of conforming to constitutional mandate, cognizant that he himself is at the brink of impeachment...

National Review: GOP Rep.: House Would Impeach Obama if We Brought It for Vote


The situation is fluid...

Monday, September 9th: at a press conference with British Foreign Secretary William Hague, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry - prompted by a question from CBS reporter Margaret Brennan - offers the hypothetical suggestion that Assad could give up his chemical weapons to avoid U.S. military action. What ensued from these "off the cuff" remarks was a tectonic re-alignment of the diplomatic stand-off between the U.S. and Syria backed by Russia...

Lobe Log: Kerry Gaffe on Syria Takes on Life of its Own

The "gaffe" came at a very opportune time however for the Obama administration, when it was effectively caught between a rock and a hard place in its push for bombing Syria - facing a likely no vote from Congress, the choice for the administration was either bomb without the consent of Congress and potentially face impeachment, or not bomb and accept humiliation. With a series of stories surfacing particularly on Russia's RT implicating the U.S. in fabricating evidence...

'CIA fabricated evidence to lure US into war with Syria'

Intl experts have strong proof images of chemical victims fabricated – Moscow

RT sources: Syrian rebels plan chem attack on Israel from Assad-controlled territories

International Business Times: Assad not Responsible for Ghouta Gas Attack, Says Freed Hostage Pierre Piccinin

Infowars: Rush Limbaugh Suspects Obama Conspired With Al-Qaeda to Frame Bashar al-Assad

It would appear then that Obama was offered a face-saving way out of potentially devastating revelations by Putin at the G-20 summit in St. Petersburg the previous week...

Al Monitor: Obama, Putin previously discussed plan to secure Syria chemical arms

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that he and President Obama had “indeed discussed” the idea during a meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in St. Petersburg, Russia last week.

He and Obama agreed “to instruct Secretary of State [John Kerry] and Foreign Minister [Sergey Lavrov] to get in touch” and “try to move this idea forward..."

Putin's trump card may have been incriminating intelligence, or simply "the debt bomb"...

Boiling Frogs Post: Did Putin Quietly Play the Debt Card Over Syria?

As a side note, that Kerry's reverie was prompted by a CBS reporter is perhaps no accident, given certain relationships that exist...

Fire Andrea Mitchell: Ben Rhodes — brother of CBS News president David Rhodes — instrumental in changing Benghazi talking points


Sept. 16: The UN report on the August 21 chemical attack in Ghouta is released, establishing that the weapons used were not substantially improvised, as was the case in previous attacks according to Russian claims...

McClatchy: Russia gave UN 100-page report in July blaming Syrian rebels for Aleppo sarin attack

The case for assigning blame in the Ghouta attack to the Syrian government has perhaps been more convincingly made by the Brown Moses blog (though it should be noted that for a time Brown Moses hosted a Free Syrian Army donation banner) than by the U.S. government...

Washington's Blog: Congress Members Who Have Seen Classified Evidence About Syria Say It Fails to Prove Anything

The assumption however is that only Assad would have such finished weapons in his stockpile, perhaps being of binary construction, as speculated by chemical weapons expert Dan Kaszeta... Unless, of course, they came from somewhere else... Libya? A flashback to this Wayne Madsen Report...

December 10-11, 2012 -- From Libya with Love: Chemical weapons in Syria, in the hands of the rebels

The Obama administration has managed to accomplish something that is a self-fulfilling prophecy: "Al Qaeda" now possesses weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The WMDs are chemical weapons canisters obtained from well-guarded Libyan warehouses that were opened up to Salafist rebels, many affiliated with "Al Qaeda" cells, during the NATO-supported military attack on the government of Muammar Qaddafi.

The CIA's and Pentagon's propaganda machinery have covered up the presence of Libyan chemical weapons in Syria by claiming the government of Bashar al Assad has started mixing precursor chemicals in preparation for deploying nerve and mustard gas weapons on the battlefield against Syrian rebels...

Were they shipped from Benghazi? This fellow might know...

Washington Free Beacon: Congressman - CIA Employee Who Refused to Sign Non-Disclosure on Benghazi Suspended

In any case, the Syrian government got the precursors of the chemical weapons it does possess from Deutschland...

Spiegel: German Chemicals for Syria - Merkel Denies Military Use

Whatever its origin, that sarin was used in Ghouta is not in significant doubt; the question is why was it necessary to stage the atrocity exhibition...

Global Research: The Chemical Attacks in East Ghouta Used to Justify a Military Intervention in Syria

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Yet another case of the disappearing death-squad...

Liberal America: Possible Second And Third Gunman At Washington Navy Yard

The chief reports they are still searching for the, possible, 2 other shooters. These shooter are described as one white male 40-50 years of age, in a khaki military style uniform with some sort of beret. The second shooter is described as a black male also between the age of 40 and 50 years old, 5ft 10 inches tall, 180 pounds with gray sideburns, wearing a olive military style uniform. 

While the patsy was chipped...

Activist Post: ‘My ELF Weapon’ - More Proof Navy Yard Shooter Targeted with Mind Control Weapons

And to insure a double-digit body-count...

BBC: Navy Yard - Swat team 'stood down' at mass shooting scene

The Hill: Radios failed during Navy Yard attack, emergency responders say


Then there is the VA's oops-we-did-it-again extermination program...

CBS: Veterans dying from overmedication

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Terror in Kenya...

Cryptome: Nairobi Mall Attack

Land Destroyer: Kenyan Bloodbath - Reaping the "Benefits" of US AFRICOM Collaboration

Aangirfan: MI6 INVOLVED IN MALL SHOOTING?

WND (Corsi): Egypt eyes Obama's brother for terror list

On that note, Al Shabaab is using Masonic Lodge names and numbers in Charlotte NC (home of the 2012 Democratic National Convention) as code for their target list...

Kenyan Daily Post: Codes used by AL SHABAAB to identify targets - All KENYANS need to READ THIS and BEWARE!

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The Guardian's Glenn Greenwald continues churning out the NSA stories...

Revealed: how US and UK spy agencies defeat internet privacy and security

NSA shares raw intelligence including Americans' data with Israel

UK detention of Reprieve activist consistent with NSA's view of drone opponents as 'threats' and 'adversaries'

As do others...

O Globo: Documentos da NSA apontam Dilma Rousseff como alvo de espionagem

NSA accused of spying on Brazilian oil company Petrobras

The Hindu: NSA planted bugs at Indian missions in D.C., U.N.

Spiegel: Belgacom Attack - Britain's GCHQ Hacked Belgian Telecoms Firm

NYTimes: N.S.A. Gathers Data on Social Connections of U.S. Citizens

Naval Research Laboratory (via Cryptome): User Authentication from Web Browsing Behavior

Toward the Attribution of Web Behavior

Washington Post: Obama administration had restrictions on NSA reversed in 2011

How Snowden did it...

Ars Technica: Sysadmin security fail - NSA finds Snowden hijacked officials’ logins

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After Wikileaks, after Snowden, and with Russia's assuming the lead on Syria...

NYTimes (V.V.Putin): A Plea for Caution From Russia

...the U.S. has lost its standing as the world's unilateral super-power, its claim to "American exceptionalism" and with it any pretense to moral authority... It's getting so bad, world leaders now turn their backs to the U.S...

VOANews: Brazil's Rousseff Calls off State Visit to US Over Spying

While scolding it at the UN...

UN: At UN debate, Brazilian President urges protection of Internet users

“Tampering in such a manner in the affairs of other countries is a breach of international law and an affront to the principles that must guide relations among them, especially among friendly nations,” she declared.

GlobalPost: Bolivian President Evo Morales accuses US of 'harboring terrorists'

Or hold it under suspicion...

Spiegel: NSA Affair - Germans Conduct Helicopter Flyover of US Consulate

Under orders from Germany's domestic intelligence agency, a federal police helicopter conducted a flyover of the US Consulate in Frankfurt, the government in Berlin has confirmed. Officials were apparently searching for surveillance equipment.

Over time, the U.S. will lose its lead in those areas where it remained an economic powerhouse; in telecommunications...

Bloomberg: NSA Spying Seen Risking Billions in U.S. Technology Sales

Economy Watch: Brazil, Argentina To Team Up Against US Cyber-Spying

In arms sales (Is the worry that U.S. contractors would install hack-able back-doors to weapons systems, such as was the case with encryption products?)...

AFP: US spying on Brazil halts talks on warplane purchase

With the almighty dollar: Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke had been hinting for months that the time was soon coming to wind down quantitative easing, when against all market expectations he balked - just as the expected war was nixed...

Goldbroker.com: Bernanke’s « Syrian Moment » 

These two events are linked and should be understood as some attempts at imposing the US dollar as the world reserve currency and, thus, preserving this paper-money monetary system.

But the opposite is happening : the dollar is being rejected massively, there’s a loss of global confidence in the dollar, and the United States is more and more isolated...

Finally, with its bullying and duplicitous designs to impose GMO's on the world on behalf of U.S. biotech companies, in agriculture...

Blacklisted News: Total GMO Ban To Be Considered By Russia Within Weeks

Reuters: Washington state testing alfalfa for GMO contamination

Biotech alfalfa is approved for commercial production in the United States. But many foreign and domestic buyers require that supplies not be genetically modified, and the possible presence of GMO modified alfalfa in export supplies could result in lost sales for U.S. farmers.

Just this summer, Japan and South Korea temporarily stopped buying some U.S. wheat because an experimental biotech variety was found growing in a field of conventional wheat in Oregon...

These force-feeding efforts are undeterred however...

MintPress News: Trans Pacific Partnership Might Include International Ban On GMO Labeling

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Miscellania...

Commemorating another episode in history in which, like the diplomatic events of this month, the Russians saved the Americans from themselves...

Tarpley: American Banker Wharton Barker’s First-Person Account Confirms - Russian Tsar Alexander II Was Ready for War with Britain and France in 1862-1863 to Defend Lincoln and the Union – Americans “Will Understand”

In the not so distant future we will have cognition factories...

Science News: Tiny human almost-brains made in lab

Looks can be deceiving, but this looks not quite natural...

Seemorerocks: Rain in Colorado

Now we're really "out there"...

NASA: NASA Spacecraft Embarks on Historic Journey Into Interstellar Space