Headlines of note for November, 2014...

Wall Street Journal: Obama Wrote Secret Letter to Iran’s Khamenei About Fighting Islamic State

Al Monitor: Iran official - Obama’s letters have been answered

From summer 2009 to October 2014, four letters were reported to pass from Obama to Ayatollah Khamenei.  However, according to the transcript provided by Iranian Students’ News Agency, Shamkhani said that there are “contradictions” between the contents of these secret letters and US public positions.

These "contradictions" are becoming public...

Obama says no plans to remove Assad

Asked pointedly if he was actively discussing ways to remove Assad in the context of plans for a political transition in Syria, Obama responded with a simple “No.” 

Obama’s clarity on Syria stood in contrast to an unusual presentation by US Secretary of State John Kerry the next day on how the Islamic State and the government of Syria are actually “co-dependent” or “symbiotic,” that is, they need each other as enemies, and the US must build and back a “moderate center” in Syria.

Kerry is clearly losing is mind; and as he is so fond of saying of others, he "needs to go". Instead of Kerry, however, Chuck Hagel is going...

Reuters: Behind Hagel's ouster, tensions over Syria and Obama's team

Intelligence Online: Assad brings down Chuck Hagel

The above contradicts much of the general impression of Hagel as being among the "doves" (relatively speaking) opposed to the "humanitarian bombers" in Obama's cabinet. (See Webster Tarpley's assessment for instance.) If Hagel, in the bomb Assad camp, was more at odds with Dempsey (the dove, ironically enough, as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), then we can take this unexpected resignation as a good sign, that Obama is finally coming around towards fulfilling one of the reasons he was voted into office to begin with; namely, to reverse the interventionist neo-con policies of the Bush administration. If indeed this reversal is underway, we cannot expect that the neo-con factions will accept it passively. One wonders about this sort of menacing...

Reuters: Woman with gun arrested outside White House after Obama's immigration speech

KCRG: Davenport man arrested near White House with rifle, ammunition in car

On the political front meanwhile, they will - to the extent that they have infiltrated the TEA party - attempt to tap into that well of outrage...

Right Wing Watch: Paul Vallely - Impeach Obama, Put Administration Officials On Trial For Treason

We must note the irony of General Vallely as a guest on Rick Wiles's ministry of Trunews - Vallely being co-author with Satanist Lt. Col. Michael Aquino of From PSYOP to MindWar: The Psychology of Victory. Vallely has been busy making the rounds from NewsMaxTV to the Liberty Brothers Radio Show to the Surprise Tea Party Patriots. It has been some time since he has made an appearance on FOX, but this 2010 op-ed tells us where he's coming from... Time to Get Tough With Iran. Neo-cons of course have been doggedly pursuing Iran since '79.

Back to Obama's letter to Khamenei...

FOXNews: Source says reported letter from Obama to Ayatollah ‘f***s up everything'

Is Obama attempting to bypass the neo-con elements in his own cabinet with his letter to Khamenei? Is there any acknowledgement in the letter of the role these elements had in giving clandestine support to IS? Is this a little too much wishful thinking on our part? Perhaps, but as we've previously reported, Obama has been something of a captive within his presidency from the beginning. Any attempt on his part then to break out of that captivity should be duly noted and encouraged.

Other matters that Obama may have (or should have) discussed in his letter...

Wayne Madsen Report: Two CIA-funded "cults" team up in Middle East

WMR's sources in Turkey and Iran are confirming that links have been established between the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the Iranian exiled terrorist group Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) through Central Intelligence Agency and Israeli Mossad interlocutors.  

There have reportedly been personal contacts between the husband-and-wife leadership of the MEK, Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, and the senior leadership of ISIL. These contacts have been authorized by ISIL's self-proclaimed "caliph" Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. ISIL and the MEK have also jointly approached the Baluchi terrorist group Jundallah, which operates in western Pakistan, on conducting joint terrorist operations against Iran. These contacts have been facilitated by Saudi Arabia, the CIA, and Mossad...

FARSNews: Iraq Intel Report - US Planes Supplying ISIL with Weapons, Foodstuff

Voltairenet: John McCain admitted he is regular contact with Islamic State

Penny for your thoughts: ISIS Supplying Half of all Afghan Heroin Entering Europe

Washington Post: How the Islamic State evolved in an American prison

Telegraph: Does Jihadi John have a body double?

BBC: Syrian 'hero boy' video faked by Norwegian director

Land Destroyer: CNN - Libyan "Rebels" Are Now ISIS

Erdogan is less than pleased with Obama's turnabout on Assad...

Al Monitor: Erdogan slams US on Syria again, days after Biden visit

But Erdogan has his own designs on the former Ottoman Empire, as Wayne Madsen reports in ISIL-Ukraine link exposed:

...Erdogan, who has just inaugurated a 1000-room opulent "white palace" in Beştepe, outside of Ankara on a farm that once belonged to the Turkish Republic's founder Mustapha Kemal Ataturk, is increasingly seeing himself as a modern-day Seljuk emperor, according to our sources in Turkey. The new palace encompasses both Seljuk and Ottoman architectural designs. In fact, Erdogan has stated that Ankara is ultimately a "Seljuk capital." The Seljuk Empire, which preceded the Ottoman Empire, ruled over what is today Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and much of the Caucasus, including Chechnia. It is no coincidence that ISIL draws most of its volunteers from countries that made up the Seljuk Empire.


Obama's policies in other regions however show where the neo-cons/new cold warriors remain in ascendancy...

SkyNews:  NATO commander in Ukraine for talks

NYTimes: In Secret, Obama Extends U.S. Role in Afghan Combat

Strategic-Culture: Obama’s preventive coup in Burkina Faso

...and where they have come up short...

Pravda: BRICS came near losing Brazil

...and where they will likely continue to come up short, as the rest of the world gets along quite nicely without "us"...

Fruitnet: Chile seeks closer trade links with Cuba

Fiji Sun: Leaders Happy With Xi Meet Here

RT: Putin - Russia, China close to reaching 2nd mega gas deal


The military challenge to the West becomes more formidable as well...

Xinhuanet: China, Russia pledge to strengthen military cooperation

DW: Spike in Russian military activity is about more than Ukraine

Interfax: Part of Western, Central, Eastern military districts' forces to be attached to Arctic Strategic Command - source

President of Russia: Interview to German TV channel ARD

Moon of Alabama: This "Putin Isolated" Nonsense Is Dangerous


Kiev bitterly loses another piece of the Ukraine...

Novorossia News Agency: Joint statement of the DPR and LPR: Kiev will have to defer to the judgment of Donbass people

Criminal investigation launched in shelling of school in Donetsk

Eurasian Union: Porochenko orders to fortify Kharkov and other cities

Sputnik: Nuland to Join Biden on His Ukraine Visit: State Department

Nuland and Biden fly, women and children die...

Патриотические Силы: Обстрел Донецка. м-н Азотный. Не для слабонервных! Погиб подросток. 18+ (ПСД TV 27.11.2014)

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On October 28, celebrated finance journalist Matt Taibbi  left The Intercept following months of disputes with First Look founder Pierre Omidyar and his immediate officers over the management of the digital journal Racket which Taibbi was to head...

Intercept: The Inside Story Of Matt Taibbi’s Departure From First Look Media

In a little over a week, Taibbi publishes what is perhaps his biggest story on Wall Street fraud - at his previous employer...

Rolling Stone: The $9 Billion Witness: Meet JPMorgan Chase's Worst Nightmare

While this story reiterates much of what we already knew about Wall St. malfeasance leading up to the burst of the housing bubble in 2008, its significance is that it presents all the elements necessary for a prosecutable criminal case against high level officers, including Jaime Dimon, at JPMorgan Chase, in spite of Eric Holder's failure to do so. See also...

Wall Street on Parade: JPMorgan’s $9 Billion Witness Puts Government Testimony by Her Boss into Question

Inquiring minds would like to know, how long was publication of Taibbi's story delayed due to the management dispute? There was a hint of what was to come as early as a tweet on July 10 (but this is inconclusive at to whether or not Taibbi had his whistle-blower yet), and another more definitive on Sept. 25. Well before this, however, as we read in the article of whistle-blower Alayne Fleischmann's epiphany: One day last spring, Fleischmann happened across a video of Holder giving a speech titled "No Company Is Too Big to Jail.".... That's when she decided to break her silence. The video referred to is this: Eric Holder: No such thing as "too big to jail", dated May 5.

Taibbi was with First Look Media for seven months. Knowing that Wall St. fraud has been Taibbi's specialty, and he just starting at "whistle-blower central," Fleischmann must have considered him the obvious journalist to contact, and would have done so in early to mid May, if she acted immediately upon her resolution. Supposing that he could have had her story ready for publication by sometime in June or early July, this gives us a full four months of delay. If this is the case, then in besetting Taibbi and his team with his millions and his micro-management (i.e. 'we're going to roll out this big deal... but that takes money and time'), Omidyar was effectively running interference for Dimon and Holder.

Between Fleischmann's decision to go public - if it was in May - and the time of publication came a much belated interview by criminal investigators, as Taibbi notes, "in late summer". Further questions as to who knew what when are raised by this timing. Did Holder's Department of Justice take a sudden interest in her allegations knowing that Taibbi's story was immanent? If so, how did Holder's DoJ know of it? The NSA? Omidyar? Presuming the foreknowledge of the story, was the DoJ's interest then an effort to head it off by giving Fleischmann the confidence that the DoJ was finally going to act? To resolve these questions, we will need a definitive answer as to when she contacted Taibbi. In spite of detailed questions relating to the time-line of the story in a Democracy Now interview of Taibbi and Fleischmann, the question remains unanswered (nor is it answered in an interview with Max Keiser on RT). The answer would satisfy another question regarding her motivation. Was it her conscience that drove her to the press after patiently but fruitlessly waiting for prosecutors to act, or is she pursuing a whistle-blower defense just as she comes under the scrutiny of an investigation? The latter possibility is raised by...

Willyloman: Matt Taibbi’s “Ball Washing” of Alayne Fleischmann Who Spent Two Years Crafting Toxic Assets for Chase

The answer to the timing question will add more or less fuel to the fire of charges that have beset Omidyar's media venture from the beginning. The very nomenclature is curious for its double-entendre, in that it would invite the charges: "First Look Media," to insure that the targets of its "adversarial journalism" get the first look, and hence a heads up for damage control - e.g., the timing of Holder's resignation announcement in late September is quite convenient for him in light of what was coming; while, "The Intercept" intercepts the journalistic football, so to speak, running it in the opposite direction from the goal line that is the public interest - see Cryptome's drip-rate tally of the Edward Snowden leaks; and, "The Racket" - whose racket?

On an unrelated issue, but supportive of the charges: notice that we haven't read anything in this quarter of a billion news venture about the ongoing turmoil in Ukraine. Is Omidyar turning a blind eye to what he helped stoke?...

Pando: Omidyar-funded candidate takes seat in new Ukraine parliament

More on Omidyar...

Rancid Honeytrap: I Read the New York Magazine Omidyar Article So You Don’t Have To

But news-media moguls running interference for financial criminals is nothing new...

Steve Pieczenik: Ben Bradlee, Washington Post - A Formidable, Charming Adversary in the Maryland Savings and Loan Crisis of the Late 1980s!


As a side note, on Oct. 1 Taibbi tweeted a congratulations to his father Mike Taibbi upon retirement from NBC. While the son has far outstripped the father as a journalist, we would agree with Not Dove Zakheim that Mike's career was nothing to celebrate. We note the irony of a hit-piece from early in his career against the noise rock group Missing Foundation, a group whose symbol - a negated upside down martini glass - signified  "the party's over," namely the fraudulent Wall St. boom of the 1980's and the disparate income gap it engendered (but which pales in comparison to today). Their music rallied for squatter's rights vs. slum-lord property rights and against police brutality, but Mike's effort to cover the story was a classic case of killing the messenger, replete with the kinds of unfounded slanders that were popular among yellow-journalists at the time...

Sensitive Skin: Missing Foundation and Mike Taibbi’s "Cult of Rage"

Some 23 years later, his coverage of Occupy Wall Street was not quite so yellow, but unremarkable.


Meanwhile, the kind of rage that MF had channeled so primordially in 1988 explodes again following the grand jury verdict in Fergusson, MO...

Reddit: Live Feed for riot and protest in Ferguson, MO. Scanner reports, news links

LiveStream: I am Mike Brown Live from Ferguson, MO

And elsewhere...

NBCBayArea: Ferguson Protesters Set Fires, Vandalize Shops and Assault Cops in Oakland: Police

Reuters: Scores arrested as Ferguson protests spread to other U.S. cities

ZeroHedge: The REAL Looting Is Happening On Wall Street … Not In Ferguson


Irregularities in the investigation and in the grand jury proceedings do give protestors plenty to doubt as for the justice of the case...

Washington Post: Unorthodox police procedures emerge in grand jury documents

Empty Wheel: Ferguson/Wilson Grand Jury Return Thoughts and Working Materials

Think Progress: Experts Blast Ferguson Prosecutor’s Press Conference, Legal Strategy

MSNBC: Shocking mistake in Darren Wilson grand jury

Bedlam Magazine: Ferguson Prosecuting Attorney Raised Funds for Officer Darren Wilson

Certain discrepancies however between widely reported eye-witness accounts and previously unreported eye-witness accounts as heard in court raise the specter, once again (as with the Trayvon Martin case), of a media-manipulated provocation...

AP: Ferguson grand jury papers full of inconsistencies

LATimes: Ferguson grand jury witnesses often cited fear in testifying


Whatever the circumstances of the Fergusson case, it isn't as if police brutality weren't an epidemic. They are more and more proving themselves to be of a predatory nature...

Cleveland Plain Dealer: 12-year-old boy shot by Cleveland police has died

KCTV: 80-year-old man says police beat him

Davy V.: Greenacres, Florida Police officer Jared Nash Breaks 15-Year Old Girl's Arm in School Over Cell Phone

PrisonPlanet: Cop Thrashes Mother In Front of 8-year-old Son After ‘Yelling’ Incident


In the Fergusson aftermath, questions are raised as to the stoking of fires by the police...

Popular Resistance: Did Police Set Autos On Fire During Ferguson Protests?

... and media: we are going with the original WaPo headline here (a mockingbird's mea culpa)...

Fergusson Decision and its Aftermath More a Media Event Than Organic Moment

As for those reporters who aren't "in the loop"...

RT: ‘They might be armed’- 2 journos attacked in Ferguson riots, police refuse to help

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Pedo news...

WMR: The "Grand Old Pedophile" party returns to power in DC

Nebraska's new GOP Senator, Ben Sasse, was a proctor and tutor for the House of Representatives pages who helped cover up a sex scandal involving Representatives Mark Foley (R-FL) and Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) in the late 1990s. Sasse will now represent in the Senate a state with a long history of promoting pedophilia and child prostitution involving top Republicans. In the 1980s, Nebraska and its iconic Boy's Town orphanage were "ground zeros" in the infamous Franklin Credit Union scandal involving rising GOP African-American star Lawrence King...

Sasse also served as chief of staff for Representative Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE) at the same time that another rising GOP staffer, Ryan Loskarn, was honing his political skills under Representatives Wally Herger (R-CA) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN). Loskarn then moved to the Senate where he served as the chief of staff for Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), who was just re-elected in the Republican electoral sweep. Earlier this year, Loskarn allegedly committed suicide in his parents' Maryland home after he had earlier been arrested for possession and distribution of child pornography. The arrest appeared to have been a part of an international investigation of child pornography launched by the Toronto police as part of Operation Spade. Several politicians in Canada, the United States, and Europe were caught up in the arrest of the proprietors of Azov Films of Toronto and Stafford, Virginia, which is close to Washington, DC and was a leading distributor of child pornography images and videos...

The return of GOP pedophiles and their enablers to positions of influence in the Senate was heralded by the October 31 arrest by Washington, DC police of Michael Centanni, a top GOP conservative fund raiser. Centanni, like Loskarn, was arrested after an investigation of Gnutella "peer-to-peer" file sharing by child porn customers of Azov Films by agents of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Homeland Security Department. Centanni is a major figure in the annual Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) conference in Washington and was a partner at the GOP political fundraising company Base Connect, which occupies an office next to the upscale Madison Hotel in downtown Washington. Police discovered a hidden camera in the bathroom of Centanni's home which was pointed at the shower...


Meanwhile, across the pond...

Mirror: 'I watched Tory MP MURDER a boy during depraved Westminster VIP paedophile party'

DailyMail: Paedophile orgies in luxury flats and claims three boys were murdered by VIPs: Special report into the growing stench of a cover-up by the Establishment 

Aangirfan: SATANIC RITUAL ABUSE OF CHILDREN


CBS: CIA prototype of Osama bin Laden doll up for auction

Telegraph: Kim Jong-un photobombed by stuffed animals in compromising position


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Spook news...

Washington Post: CIA Director John Brennan considering sweeping organizational changes

The article evinces ignorance of CIA history, as Allen Dulles had advocated for and to some degree implemented the integration of the operational and analytic sides. Needless to say, Dulles is not the DCI we would like to see emulated - a Bill Colby or Stansfield Turner would be preferable (or better yet, Kennedy's proposed 'smashing into a thousand pieces'). Certain of the disasters and atrocities of the Dulles era can arguably be attributed at least in part to this integration, as any checks and balances of "afference" against "efference" (to speak in poli-sci/neuro-biological terms) were thereby lessened. Insofar as the counter-terrorism center integrates these functions, moreover, the same may be said for the current era...

Denver Post:  Mark Udall to consider all options to reveal CIA torture report


Wall Street Journal: Americans’ Cellphones Targeted in Secret U.S. Spy Program

Intercept: Secret Malware in European Union Attack Linked to U.S. and British Intelligence

Cryptome (Bill Blunden): Et tu Poitras?

Voltairenet: Iranian version of U.S. drone captured in 2011 already flying

Columbia Reports: Convicted Israeli trainer of Colombia paramilitaries claims CIA ties

Y-net: The Rummenigge file opens - Mossad's top agent in Lebanon speaks for the first time

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Miscellania...

Y-net: Government passes controversial Jewish nationhood bill

Buenos Aires Herald: Swiss accounts - 60B pesos in evasion

DailyMail: Human remains unearthed in FOUR new mass graves in Mexico as desperate hunt continues for missing 43 students

McClatchy: Mexican president burned in effigy as tens of thousands mark day of protest

Organizing Notes: Rosetta Mission Helps Prepare for Mining the Sky

Space.com: Rosetta’s Comet Sounds Like This (Magnetic Oscillations)

ESA: Our Lander's Asleep


RT: Chelyabinsk meteor #2? Massive flash over Russia’s Urals stuns locals and scientists


Dutchsinse: MULTIPLE AMAZING HD VIDEOS OF THE HAWAII LAVA FLOW + NEW COLOR COMPOSITES


ENENews: NHK - Attempt to stop flow of highly radioactive liquid at Fukushima “in doubt” — AP - Much of it is pouring in trenches going out into Pacific — Experts: Amount entering ocean “increasing by 400 tons daily” — Problem “so severe” it’s consuming nearly all workers at site — Top Plant Official: “Little cause for optimism”

KING 5 News - US nuclear workers’ brains eaten away, hallucinating, mental capacity of preschooler — Wife films frightened, trembling husband on deathbed — It’s indescribable what they’ve done and they don’t care — They want you to die — Gov’t Experts: It’s allergies from cats or feathers… or B-12 deficiency — Doctor: Quit helping workers get help


UWToday: UW study shows direct brain interface between humans


Nature: Gut–brain link grabs neuroscientists


Farm Wars: GE Crops, Glyphosate, and the Deterioration of Health in the US

Factor GMO: $ 25 Million GMO and Pesticide Safety Study Launched in London

Common Dreams: Monsanto, Dow Chemical File Lawsuit to Destroy Maui County's GMO Ban

Honolulu Civil Beat: Judge Invalidates Partial Ban on GMOs in Hawaii County


Matercare: Catholic Doctors Speak - Tetanus vaccination campaign is all about population control

Boiling Frogs Post: WHO exposed in Prenatal Mass Murder Operation in Kenya


RT: Topless Femen deface Christian cross in Vatican (GRAPHIC VIDEO)


JFK Assassination 51 years on...

Video Rebel: Israel Killed JFK And Has Ruled America Ever Since

Radio Fetzer: Judyth Vary Baker (see our comment)

Newsmax: Mafia Hit Man Confesses to Killing President Kennedy

If so, he was but a cog, while the orders came from on high...

Nostalgia and Now: LBJ - JFK Assassination Kept Him Out of Prison

Another LBJ infamy...

Consortium News: Behind the USS Liberty Cover-up

JFKFacts: CIA intrigue enveloped Bradlee and Angleton


Mockingbirds today...

Sharyl Attkisson: Docs - Adviser Tells Attorney General Holder How to Manipulate Press on Fast and Furious

And for those who don't play...

PJMedia: Email Proves that White House, DOJ Targeted Reporter Sharyl Attkisson


Activist Post: Who Trusts This Government to Regulate the Internet?

Aangirfan: HUMMINGBIRD HITS YOUR BLOG 

The boost in mainstream sites is not across the board - dinosaurs like CNN, FOX, NBC, etc. are continuing to implode - but the dip is common among nearly all of the larger independent news outlets, with the exception of First Look Media (if it should be counted among them). Hummingbird purports to detect the intent of the user, but the Alexa data could suggest that this isn't a purely afferent, or passive, detection, but an efferent "shaping" of intent. In answering user's queries, is Hummingbird relying on a rating system that deems certain sites as more reliable by its own preemptive estimation? Is Google telling you then, 'what you really wanted is this...'? What has long been feared of the revoking of net neutrality then may be taking place regardless of attempts to enforce or regulate it.