Amid accusations the Monsanto corporation enjoys protection from the authorities, a recent report showed the US government has been aggressively lobbying for GM foods all across the world. RT America correspondent Megan Lopez reports.
Worldwide march against Monsanto takes place today
Credits:
photo collage by March Against Monsanto
Today hundreds of thousands of people all around the world are marching to protest the proliferation of genetically modified (GM) food crops. The focus of their ire is the mega-corporation, Monsanto, which controls large portions of the agricultural seed and chemical markets.
The first protests from Japan were streaming live by Revolution News as the day began. Marches and demonstrations are expected to sweep the globe as the day progresses.
The GM crops produced by Monsanto include alfalfa, canola, corn, cotton, soybean and sugarbeet. These crops have been bio-engineered to withstand repeated applications of Roundup, a weed-killer also manufactured by Monsanto.
Between the increased use of herbicides, the inadvertent spread of modified genes, and the potential health risks of consuming GM foods, these crops are believed to pose a grave risk to the environment. A study by the National Institute of Health concluded that “the commercial GMOs in question contain pesticide residues, some of which have been demonstrated as human cellular endocrine disruptors at levels around 1000 times below their presence in some GM feed.
From Alaska to Florida: Americans take to streets against Monsanto and GMOs
RT
Published time: May 25, 2013 19:56
Edited time: May 25, 2013 22:36
Protesters across the US are joining the worldwide rally against biotech giant Monsanto and genetically engineered crops. The mass protest comes shortly after the Senate turned down a bill that would allow states to require the labeling of GM foods.
People hold signs during a demonstration against agribusiness giant Monsanto and genetically modified organisms (GMO) in front of the White House in Washington on May 25, 2013. (AFP Photo / Nicholas Kamm)
Participants in the March Against Monsanto were also demanding the right to know what they’re paying for and what their children eat. The protesters called for labeling of GM foods, which they say could pose a danger to human health, and demand further scientific research of such products.
The March Against Monsanto, New York, May 25, 2013. (Photo by Anastasia Churkina, RT)
RT covers the protest which is getting a mainstream media blackout, with RT’s Anastasia Churkina – who as at the heart of the protest march in New York City – one of dozens of American cities that are staging protests against Monsanto.
“According to our estimates there are over 2,000 here,” she said. “All these people have gathered here today to speak out against this giant biotech corporation that for years has been accused of manipulating and corrupting farmers throughout the world and monopolizing the agriculture industry.”
In Washington DC, a crowd of marchers gathered in front of the White House waving banners and posters.
A crowd of marchers gathered in front of the White House. (Image from twitter user@@gmo917)
Meanwhile, the US-based seed giant maintains that its seeds improve agriculture since it helps farmers to produce more from their land while saving resources such as water and energy. At the same time, Monsanto said on Saturday, they respect people’s rights to express their opinion on the matter, AP reported.
Initially a small movement, the March Against Monsanto campaign turned into a global event with an hundreds of thousands of participants in over 40 countries thanks to the efforts of activists and social networking services.
Attorney General Eric Holder agreed to a review of Justice Department guidelines for investigations involving journalists, President Barack Obama said Thursday.
By Michael Isikoff
National Investigative Correspondent, NBC News
The Justice Department pledged Friday to to review its policies relating to the seizure of information from journalists after acknowledging that a controversial search warrant for a Fox News reporter’s private emails was approved “at the highest levels” of the Justice Department, including “discussions” with Attorney General Eric Holder.
The statement, confirming an NBC News account of Holder’s role, defended the secret warrant to obtain reporter James Rosen’s emails as a legitimate step to obtain evidence as part of an investigation of Stephen Kim. A former intelligence analyst, Kim has since been indicted under the Espionage Act for leaking classified information to Rosen about North Korea. He has denied the charges.
In a 2010 affidavit in support of the search warrant, an FBI agent named Rosen as a possible “co-conspirator” in the case because he “asked, solicited and encouraged” Kim to give him information.
“After extensive deliberations, and after following all applicable laws, regulations and policies, the Department sought an appropriately tailored search warrant under the Privacy Protection Act,” said a department official, referring to a federal law that governs under what circumstances information can be subpoenaed from the news media. “And a federal magistrate judge made an independent finding that probable cause existed to approve the search warrant.”
Nevertheless, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, Holder “understands the concerns that have been raised by the media and has initiated a re-evaluation of existing department policies and procedures.” The official said the department must strike “the appropriate balance” between preventing leaks of classified information and “First Amendment rights,”adding that passage of a new media shield law “and appropriate updates to the department”s internal guidelines” will help achieve that.
Chickens are sold at a a live poultry stall in Kowloon City wet market. Photo: Edward Wong
The H7N9 bird flu virus can be transmitted not only through close contact but by airborne exposure, a team at the University of Hong Kong found after extensive laboratory experiments.
Though the virus appears to have been brought under control recently, the researchers urged the Hong Kong authorities to maintain strict surveillance, which should include not only poultry but humans and pigs.
“We also found that the virus can infect pigs, which was not previously known,” said Dr Maria Zhu Huachen, a research assistant professor at HKU’s School of Public Health.
There have been 131 confirmed human infections, with 36 deaths, the World Health Organisation said. All but one of the cases was on the mainland. The virus appears to have been brought under control largely due to restrictions at bird markets and there have been no new confirmed cases since May 8.
But Zhu said that although there was no evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission, their study provided evidence that H7N9 was infectious and transmissible in mammals.
In the study, to be published today in the journal Science, ferrets were used to evaluate the infectivity of H7N9. It was found the virus could spread through the air, from one cage to another, albeit less efficiently.
Inoculated ferrets were infected before the appearance of most clinical symptoms. This means there may be more cases than have been detected or reported.
We also found that the virus can infect pigs, which was not previously known … People may be transmitting the virus before they even know that they’ve got it
Dr Maria Zhu Huachen, HKU’s School of Public Health
“People may be transmitting the virus before they even know that they’ve got it,” Zhu said.
Additional tests using pigs, a major host of influenza viruses, showed that they could also get infected with H7N9. Zhu warned that H7N9 may combine with pig viruses to generate new variants.
On a more positive note, it was found that the virus is relatively mild.
“Most of the fatal H7N9 cases had underlying medical conditions, so there are probably some other factors that contribute to this kind of fatality,” Zhu said.
Researchers have crossed two strains of avian flu virus to create one that can be transmitted through the air — and possibly settle on the cilia of lung cells as in this conceptual image.
KARSTEN SCHNEIDER/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
As the world is transfixed by a new H7N9 bird flu virus spreading through China, a study reminds us that a different avian influenza — H5N1 — still poses a pandemic threat.
A team of scientists in China has created hybrid viruses by mixing genes from H5N1 and the H1N1 strain behind the 2009 swine flu pandemic, and showed that some of the hybrids can spread through the air between guinea pigs. The results are published in Science1.
Flu hybrids can arise naturally when two viral strains infect the same cell and exchange genes. This process, known as reassortment, produced the strains responsible for at least three past flu pandemics, including the one in 2009.
There is no evidence that H5N1 and H1N1 have reassorted naturally yet, but they have many opportunities to do so. The viruses overlap both in their geographical range and in the species they infect, and although H5N1 tends mostly to swap genes in its own lineage, the pandemic H1N1 strain seems to be particularly prone to reassortment.
“If these mammalian-transmissible H5N1 viruses are generated in nature, a pandemic will be highly likely,” says Hualan Chen, a virologist at the Harbin Veterinary Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who led the study.
“It’s remarkable work and clearly shows how the continued circulation of H5N1 strains in Asia and Egypt continues to pose a very real threat for human and animal health,” says Jeremy Farrar, director of the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
Flu fears
Chen’s results are likely to reignite the controversy that plagued the flu community last year, when two groups found that H5N1 could go airborne if it carried certain mutations in a gene that produced a protein called haemagglutinin (HA)2, 3. Following heated debate over biosecurity issues raised by the work, the flu community instigated a voluntary year-long moratorium on research that would produce further transmissible strains. Chen’s experiments were all finished before the hiatus came into effect, but more work of this nature can be expected now that the moratorium has been lifted.
The wife of Ibrahim Todashev who was killed Wednesday during a scandalous FBI interrogation in Florida says she was sure her husband participated neither in April’s Boston Marathon bombings nor in a 2011 triple murder that US law-enforcement agents now suggest involved her late husband. “Everything was a setup”, she said.
Reni Manukyan, a 24-year-old assistant hotel-housekeeping manager who married Ibragim Todashev in July 2010, says agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrived at her house in Atlanta and her mom’s house in Savannah, Ga., late Tuesday night, the same time they started questioning her husband at his home in Orlando.
An interesting detail that Ms Manukyan supposedly did not know about was that Todashev had a girlfriend named Tatiana Gruzdeva (this may be her Facebook page), who was arrested by ICE on May 16 and is currently in custody for immigration violations. Whether it was a coincidence or a pre-planned detention by the FBI is debatable.
Ms Manukyan, an Armenian who moved to the US in early 2006, met her husband in 2010 through a mutual friend in Boston. Even though she and Todashev were separated since last November they remained good friends. Up until Tuesday the two had been in regular contact and Ms Manukian even partly supported her husband financially through their joint bank account. The grieving widow last saw her husband last week when he came to visit her in Atlanta.
Judging by Ms Manukyan’s account in one of the popular European social networks she spent past few months in her home-country Armenia where she stayed from March 24 till April 6 visiting her brother and mother, who, allegedly serves in Armenian army. Later on Ms Manukyan went to Russia’s Volgograd to attend her good friend’s wedding and on April 22 she returned back to the US where she is now staying. On March 23 the widow posted a message on her wall saying: “killing my husband Ibragim was another prove that everything is set up about Tsarnaevs brothers as well”.
According to Ms Manukyan, FBI agents who came to question her primarily asked about alleged Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev and her husband’s relationship with him. The widow claimed she was never asked about 2011 Waltham massacre in which three victims—25-year-old Brendan Mess, 31-year-old Erik Weissman and 37-year-old Raphael Teken—were found dead with their throats slit and bodies covered in marijuana and cash.
“They never, ever—in all the interviews that I had and all the interviews that he had—never did they mention anything about a murder,” said Ms Manukyan. “Everything was about the bombing and about him knowing Tamerlan. They would show me a picture of Tamerlan or Tamerlan’s wife or some other guys that I haven’t a clue who they are, but nothing about a murder—nothing ever.”
She also added that even if she was asked about 2011 incident she would have found it very difficult to believe that her husband was involved because he did not have any American associates. Instead, he was mainly friends with other immigrants who moved to the US from Russia. Ms Manukyan also said that given that Todashev did “not do drugs, he did not smoke, and didn’t even drink alcohol,” she finds it extremely daunting that her husband could have been accused of Waltham massacre.
Todashev’s close friend and former roommate Khusen Taramov also claimed Todashov was never questioned about the Waltham murders. “We told each other everything, everything,” Taramov said. “He never said anything about any murder and they never asked him anything about that. Just about the bombings and Tsarnaev.”
Ms Manukyan also claimed she did not believe Todashev could have pulled a knife on the law-enforcement agents. She asserted that her husband had never had a pocket knife and that during interrogation he would have been very far from the kitchen to grab a kitchen knife. The widow also noted that Todashev was recovering from a knee surgery and was still learning to walk properly which made it senseless for him to attack an FBI agent.
Todashev’s father, Abdulbaki Todashev, concurred that his son was disabled by knee surgery earlier this year.
As for Todashev’s relationship with Tsarnaev, Ms Manukyan said that the men were briefly acquainted because they shared some things in common: both came from one country, both were interested in martial arts, and both were living in the Boston area. “They had a chat because they were from the same country,” she said. “It was a small community. They all knew each other.” “I believe Tamerlan only called him once and asked him how he was doing after the surgery,” she claimed.
Wife of man killed by FBI agent says he was never questioned about Waltham triple murder
05/23/2013 2:44 PM
By Wesley Lowery, Globe Staff
ORLANDO — The wife and best friend of the Chechen man shot and killed here by an FBI agent on Wednesday insisted today that authorities never questioned him, or them, prior to the fatal confrontation, about an unsolved triple slaying in Waltham, Mass., just outside of Boston.
Ibragim Todashev, 27, a friend of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was shot and killed after allegedly attacking an FBI agent who was interviewing him along with two Massachusetts State Police troopers.
Todashev acknowledged a role in the 2011 triple homicide when he attacked the agent early Wednesday with a blade, the Globe reported today. Todashev was not considered a suspect in the Marathon terror attacks, law enforcement officials told the Globe.
Todashev’s wife, Reni Manukyan, said her husband could not have been involved in the Waltham murders, and that the subject had never been brought up in FBI interviews.
Manukyan, 24, said today that Todashev told her that his previous interviews with law enforcement dealt with just two subjects: the Boston Marathon bombing and Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
Manukyan, who separated from Todashev in November, said that in her own interview with the FBI, conducted in Georgia where she lives, the unsolved murders were never mentioned.
“It never, ever came up,” she said, wiping tears from beneath her sunglasses. “Everything they asked was about the bombing.”
Middlesex District Attorney Marian T. Ryan issued a statement today defending the pace of the Waltham investigation, a statement that also made clear Ryan’s office believes it is constrained by ethics rules for lawyers from publicly discussing it.
“While we can not discuss details pertaining to the investigation, including evidence, suspects or witnesses, this office and its law enforcement partners have conducted a thorough, far-reaching investigation beginning in 2011 when this horrific crime occurred,’’ Ryan said in the statement. “This investigation has not concluded and is by no means closed.’’
The photo and the FBI lead investigator says that both bombs were in black backpacks – see below — BUT TSARNAEV’S BACKPACK IN EVERY SHOT OF IT IS WHITE — except the shot released by the FBI to identify the “suspects.”
Don’t underestimate the importance of this.
Will someone watching a lot of news please tell me how this is being explained?
Details and photos establishing this follow:
At 2:49 p.m. EDT (18:49 UTC), about two hours after the winner crossed the finish line,[13] but with more than 5,700 runners yet to finish,[14] two bombs detonated on Boylston Street near Copley Square about 180 yards (170 m) apart,[15][16] just before the finish line.[11] The first exploded outside Marathon Sports at 671–673 Boylston Street at 2:49:43 p.m. EDT.[17] At the time of the first explosion, the race clock at the finish line showed 04:09:43.[18] The second bomb was located one block farther west at 755 Boylston Street and exploded at 2:49:57 p.m. EDT,[13][19] about 13 seconds after the first one.[3] fill the sidewalk behind race barricades after the explosions blow metal pellets and nails into victims’ legs. Race tents become makeshift trauma units.
Investigators believe the bombs were hidden in black nylon backpacks and housed inside sealable metal pots called pressure cookers. Pressure cooker bombs can help boost the power of relatively small devices by briefly constraining the blast. And when the cookers do explode, they can add large chunks of metal to the shrapnel spray. The IEDs have been popular with terrorists. Al Qaeda published a how-to recipe in an online Jihadi magazine. Several of the bombs were used in the 2006 attack on trains in Mumbai, India.
At a news conference late Tuesday afternoon in Boston, FBI Special Agent in Charge, Richard Deslauriers, indicated that the range of suspect and motive is “wide open,” and that the investigation is still in its “infancy.” He also mentioned that the FBI had received about 2,000 tips as of noon as agents looked for any photographic or video evidence from witnesses.
Deslauriers also said that both explosive devices appears to have been placed in a black nylon bag or backpack. A law enforcement source told CBS News senior investigative producer Pat Milton that investigators also found pieces of an electronic circuit board possibly indicating a timer was used in the detonation of the bomb.
Dick Eastman note: The FBI released the ONLY picture in which you cannot tell that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is carrying a white backpack over his shoulder!!!! Now we understand their selectivity and their reluctance to show more pictures to aid the manhunt.
Without an arrest three days after the blasts, investigators at about 6 p.m. publicly release images of the two alleged bombing suspects taken from a Lord & Taylor department store surveillance camera.
The man who became known as “Suspect No. 1″ is wearing a black baseball cap, and “Suspect No. 2″ has a white baseball cap on backwards and is carrying a black backpack. Authorities say they suspect the dark backpack was left in front of the Forum Restaurant on Boylston Street on Monday and then exploded — the second blast. Read Full Article Here
2 FBI Agents Involved in Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s Arrest “FALL” Out of Helicopter and Die
Remember that scene in Scarface?
2 FBI Agents Involved in Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s Arrest “FALL” Out of Helicopter and Die
Remember that scene in Scarface?
Two members of the FBI’s elite counterterrorism unit died Friday while practicing how to quickly drop from a helicopter to a ship using a rope, the FBI announced Monday in a statement.
The statement gave few details regarding the deaths of Special Agents Christopher Lorek and Stephen Shaw, other than to say the helicopter encountered unspecified difficulties and the agents fell a “significant distance.”
Last month, the team was involved in the arrest of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings……
Details are few at this point, but it’s being reported via several media outlets that two members of the special FBI Hostage Rescue Team (involved in arresting 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev) have died after “falling from a helicopter” into the ocean.
The Hostage Rescue Team is “part of the Tactical Support Branch of the FBI’s Critical Incident Response Group. It is based at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia.” Source
The statement gave few details regarding the deaths of Special Agents Christopher Lorek and Stephen Shaw, other than to say the helicopter encountered unspecified difficulties and the agents fell a “significant distance.”
A law enforcement source told The Pilot the incident happened about 12 nautical miles off the coast of Virginia Beach. The official blamed bad weather for the incident and said the agents – members of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team, based in Quantico – fell into the water. The official said he believed the agents died as a result of the impact rather than drowning.
Glenn McBride, a spokesman for the state medical examiner’s office, said it could be months before his staff can release a final cause and manner of death for the two agents. He said they must wait for the results of routine toxicology tests.
[...]
In interviews Monday, the founder of the Hostage Rescue Team and other former special agents called the unit “elite” while outlining the difficult training exercises members must endure.
“It’s the most rigorous training regiment in law enforcement, probably in the world,” said Danny Coulson, a former deputy assistant director of the FBI who started the team 30 years ago and served as its first commander. “They have to be able to do any mission, at any time.”
Among other things, members of the Hostage Rescue Team are trained to rappel from helicopters, scuba dive and use explosives to break down doors and walls. When needed, the team can deploy within four hours to anywhere in the U.S.
“It sounds risky, and it absolutely is,” Coulson said. “They have the same skill sets as SEAL Team 6 and Delta Force.”
In all, the team has responded to more than 850 incidents involving terrorism, violent crimes and foreign counterintelligence, according to the FBI’s website.
Last month, the team was involved in the arrest of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings. And in February, it rescued a 5-year-old boy held hostage for six days in an underground bunker in Alabama.
“Whenever things go really wrong, the FBI calls in the Hostage Rescue Team. It’s the government’s 911,” Coulson said.
“I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.”—James A. Baldwin
Just in time for Memorial Day, we’re being treated to a generous serving of praise and grandstanding by politicians, corporations and others with similarly self-serving motives eager to go on record as being pro-military. Patriotic platitudes aside, however, America has done a deplorable job of caring for her veterans. We erect monuments for those who die while serving in the military, yet for those who return home, there’s little honor to be found.
Despite the fact that the U.S. boasts more than 23 million veterans who have served in World War II through Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan, the plight of veterans today, while often overlooked, is common knowledge: impoverished, unemployed, lacking any decent health benefits, homeless, traumatized mentally and physically, struggling with depression, thoughts of suicide, marital stress.
Making matters worse, thanks to Operation Vigilant Eagle, a program launched by the Department of Homeland Security in 2009, military veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are also being characterized as extremists and potential domestic terrorist threats because they may be “disgruntled, disillusioned or suffering from the psychological effects of war.” As a result, these servicemen and women—many of whom are decorated—are finding themselves under surveillance, threatened with incarceration or involuntary commitment, or arrested, all for daring to voice their concerns about the alarming state of our union and the erosion of our freedoms.
An important point to consider, however, is that the government is not merely targeting individuals who are voicing their discontent so much as it is locking up individuals trained in military warfare who are voicing feelings of discontent. Under the guise of mental health treatment and with the complicity of government psychiatrists and law enforcement officials, these veterans are increasingly being portrayed as ticking time bombs in need of intervention. In 2012, for instance, the Justice Department launched a pilot program aimed at training SWAT teams to deal with confrontations involving highly trained and often heavily armed combat veterans.
In the four years since the start of Operation Vigilant Eagle, the government has steadily ramped up its campaign to “silence” dissidents, especially those with military backgrounds. Coupled with the DHS’ dual reports on Rightwing and Leftwing “Extremism,” which broadly define extremists as individuals and groups “that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely,” these tactics have boded ill for anyone seen as opposing the government.
One particularly troubling mental health label being applied to veterans and others who challenge the status quo is “oppositional defiance disorder” (ODD). As journalist Anthony Martin explains, an ODD diagnosis
“denotes that the person exhibits ‘symptoms’ such as the questioning of authority, the refusal to follow directions, stubbornness, the unwillingness to go along with the crowd, and the practice of disobeying or ignoring orders. Persons may also receive such a label if they are considered free thinkers, nonconformists, or individuals who are suspicious of large, centralized government… At one time the accepted protocol among mental health professionals was to reserve the diagnosis of oppositional defiance disorder for children or adolescents who exhibited uncontrollable defiance toward their parents and teachers.”
The case of 26-year-old decorated Marine Brandon Raub—who was targeted because of his Facebook posts, interrogated by government agents about his views on government corruption, arrested with no warning, labeled mentally ill for subscribing to so-called “conspiratorial” views about the government, detained against his will in a psych ward for standing by his views, and isolated from his family, friends and attorneys—is a prime example of the government’s war on veterans.
Raub’s case exposes the seedy underbelly of a governmental system that is targeting Americans—especially military veterans—for expressing their discontent over America’s rapid transition to a police state.
On Thursday, August 16, 2012, a swarm of local police, Secret Service and FBI agents arrived at Raub’s home, asking to speak with him about posts he had made on his Facebook page made up of song lyrics, political opinions and dialogue used in a political thriller virtual card game. Among the posts cited as troublesome were lyrics to a song by the rap group Swollen Members and Raub’s views, shared increasingly by a number of Americans, that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were an inside job.
After a brief conversation and without providing any explanation, levying any charges against Raub or reading him his rights, law enforcement officials then handcuffed Raub and transported him first to the police headquarters, then to a medical center, where he was held against his will due to alleged concerns that his Facebook posts were “terrorist in nature.” Outraged onlookers filmed the arrest and posted the footage to YouTube, where it quickly went viral. Meanwhile, The Rutherford Institute came to Raub’s assistance, which combined with heightened media attention, may have helped prevent Raub from being successfully “disappeared” by the government.
Mark Twain once talked about history not necessarily repeating, but he noted that history sure does rhyme.
Richard Nixon was unable to survive one direct hit upon his administration, namely, the Watergate scandal. Conversely, Obama is facing five scandals which dwarf Watergate in terms of criminality, abuse of power, malfeasance of office and outright treason.
The damage inflicted upon the American people by the criminal syndicate occupying the White House is unparalleled in American history. Yet, Obama is going to survive and this article will describe how Obama is this century’s version of the famous escape artist, Houdini.
The Alternative Media Is Doing Its Job
In Part One of this series, I detailed how various researchers have determined that it only takes 10% of the population to passionately hold to an ideal for the ideal to reach critical mass and go viral. I also described how the knowledge that this country is being run by a criminal syndicate is taking hold and we have likely passed the 10% threshold as evidenced by the fact that America is outraged by (1) Benghazi-Gate; (2) IRS-Gate; (3) AP Spy-Gate; (4) Whistleblower-Gate; and even (5) Fast and Furious is beginning to make a second pass. The alternative media is being so effective that it is forcing the MSM to jump off Obama’s ship and claim they do not support him any longer (e.g. MSNBC Chris Mathews).
The Calm Before the Storm
Even the great fence-sitter, Glenn Beck, is beginning to throw words around like “impeachment” in reference to Obama. And this is coming from a man who cannot decide if he is in the MSM or the alternative media. Remember, according to Beck, 9/11 is exactly as the Bush administration claims it was, an al-Qaeda venture. This is the same al-Qaeda that we are allegedly fighting in Afghanistan while supporting in Syria in our effort to oust Assad.
Regardless of the pedigree of many reporters who are now hinting at the fact that we are witnessing the last days of the Obama administration, the President himself seems unbelievably calm.
Obama is calm because he knows that he is going to survive the largest onslaught of simultaneous scandal exposures in our country’s history. There has never been a time in our history in which a sitting president has been besieged with this much exposed fodder aimed at his removal. If Watergate forced Nixon to resign, Obama should have been crushed by the comparative weight of his scandals and he should have already exited the White House. Why hasn’t this happened?
Sacrificial Lambs Buy Time
It is not likely that the Mafioso inhabitant presently residing in the White House will ever leave office prematurely. In fact, I think it is likely that Obama may not leave the Oval Office in 2016 as well.
If this were 1974, I would be advising Obama to pack his bags and I would also be advising him that he should be begging Joe Biden to grant him a pardon for his criminal acts including the facilitation of the murder of Ambassador Stevens. Make no mistake about it, Obama will survive these crises. However, Holder and possibly even DHS director, Janet Napolitano, may not.
Undoubtedly, Obama will offer up the head of Eric Holder as a sacrificial lamb and he will be gone by Labor day, if not much sooner, and this will buy Obama time to enact his endgame strategies which will negate the five Watergate wolves trying to break through his door.
Holder’s departure will bring celebrations in the alternative media and their followers will be dancing in the streets. We will also smell blood and want more removals. But the head of the president will never be touched despite the fact that all of us will soon be screaming for Obama’s scalp. It will just never happen.
What Will Save This President?
There is one game-changing event which will suddenly and irreversibly negate the momentum that the alternative media has achieved in terms of exposing and removing this criminal administration from power.
In the last eight months, I have repeated the mantra that most of what drives this government today is the preservation of the Petrodollar on behalf of the Federal Reserve. I have also detailed how Iran is selling its oil to Russia, China and India for gold, thus threatening the preeminence of the Petrodollar in which the other countries of the world must first purchase dollars from the Federal Reserve for the “privilege” of purchasing oil. This process provides the only backing that our dollar possesses.
Iran, China, Russia and India are destabilizing the dominance of our currency. Before you cheer the fact that the Federal Reserve is about ready to take a much-deserved bloodbath, please realize that you have a job to go to every Monday morning because of this one-sided arrangement and it is all about to end unless Iran can be toppled.
Why Syria?
Have you yet figured out why Obama will survive these crushing scandals and assume power in this country in a manner only reserved for such despots as Stalin? The road to Obama’s immediate survival runs through Damascus.
On the surface, Syria seems so very insignificant on the global chessboard. However, the key to invading Iran and seizing their oil fields is to first control Syria, because the occupation of Syria is an insurmountable checkmate against Russian ground troops’ intervention.
If the US takes over the Syrian revolution that we started through our al-Qaeda proxy forces, the US will gain a huge tactical advantage in the Middle East. The installation of short- and medium-range missile batteries in Syria will serve as a deterrent and a blocking mechanism for Russian ground troops’ ability to intervene in Iran.
If Russia allows the US to control Syria, Russia will lose any chance of preventing a US/NATO takeover of Iran. Russia and China have heavily vested themselves in gold. If Iran is stopped from selling its oil for gold, China, Russia and India will have wasted an enormous amount of the respective GNP’s in acquiring gold. And the acquisition of gold will be for naught if the US is about to re-establish the dominance of the Petrodollar as the world’s reserve currency through a successful invasion of Iran.
For awhile, it appeared as if Russia did not have the stomach for WWIII and they were going to let us topple Assad without so much as a whimper. I have been shocked as I have watched Russia apparently acquiesce to an impending takeover of Syria by US-led forces. However, recent Russian events make it clear that WWIII is on the horizon.
e’re going to get into this more at a later date, but there was some interesting late-breaking news yesterday.
According to numerous reports, the European Commission regulators yesterday raided the offices of oil companies in London, the Netherlands and Norway as part of an investigation into possible price-rigging in the oil markets. The targeted companies include BP, Shell and the Norweigan company Statoil. The Guardian explains that officials believe that oil companies colluded to manipulate pricing data:
The commission said the alleged price collusion, which may have been going on since 2002, could have had a “huge impact” on the price of petrol at the pumps “potentially harming final consumers”.
Lord Oakeshott, former Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman, said the alleged rigging of oil prices was “as serious as rigging Libor” – which led to banks being fined hundreds of millions of pounds.
The inquiry also involves Platts, the world’s largest oil price reporting agency. The concept here is very similar to both the LIBOR scandal, which involved banks manipulating the benchmark rates for interest rates, and to the possible rigging of interest rate swap prices through the manipulation of ISDAfix, the benchmark rate for those instruments, which is also the subject of a regulatory probe.
We wrote about both of those scandals in last month’s Rolling Stone article, “Everything is Rigged.” In that piece, finance professionals talked about the potential for manipulation in other markets that involve voluntary price reporting:
What other markets out there carry the same potential for manipulation? The answer to that question is far from reassuring, because the potential is almost everywhere. From gold to gas to swaps to interest rates, prices all over the world are dependent upon little private cabals of cigar-chomping insiders we’re forced to trust.
The Internal Revenue Service official in charge of the tax-exempt organizations at the time when the unit targeted tea party groups now runs the IRS office responsible for the health care legislation.
Sarah Hall Ingram served as commissioner of the office responsible for tax-exempt organizations between 2009 and 2012. But Ingram has since left that part of the IRS and is now the director of the IRS’ Affordable Care Act office, the IRS confirmed to ABC News today.
Her successor, Joseph Grant, is taking the fall for misdeeds at the scandal-plagued unit between 2010 and 2012. During at least part of that time, Grant served as deputy commissioner of the tax-exempt unit.
Grant announced today that he would retire June 3, despite being appointed as commissioner of the tax-exempt office May 8, a week ago.
As the House voted to fully repeal the Affordable Care Act Thursday evening, House Speaker John Boehner expressed “serious concerns” that the IRS is empowered as the law’s chief enforcer.
“Fully repealing ObamaCare will help us build a stronger, healthier economy, and will clear the way for patient-centered reforms that lower health care costs and protect jobs,” Boehner, R-Ohio, said.
In Wake of US-Israeli Attack on Syria, UN Reveals Terrorists Not Government Used Sarin Gas
So-called “red line” both drawn and then crossed by US-Saudi-Israeli axis and their terrorist proxies.
May 6, 2013 (LD) – The reasoning behind recent US-Israeli attacks on Syria has been undermined further as the UN reveals Western-backed terrorists, not the Syrian government, deployed sarin gas during the 2 year conflict. Reuters reported in their article, “U.N. has testimony that Syrian rebels used sarin gas: investigator,” that:
U.N. human rights investigators have gathered testimony from casualties of Syria’s civil war and medical staff indicating that rebel forces have used the nerve agent sarin, one of the lead investigators said on Sunday.
The United Nations independent commission of inquiry on Syria has not yet seen evidence of government forces having used chemical weapons, which are banned under international law, said commission member Carla Del Ponte.
“Our investigators have been in neighboring countries interviewing victims, doctors and field hospitals and, according to their report of last week which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated,” Del Ponte said in an interview with Swiss-Italian television.
Why the Small Amounts of Sarin Cited by Washington, Riyadh, and Tel Aviv are a Set Up
The small amounts of sarin gas reportedly used would defy any tactical or strategic sense had they been deployed by the Syrian government to tip the balance in the destructive 2-year conflict. According to the US military’s own assessments of chemical weapon use during the 1980′s Iran-Iraq War, only under ideal conditions and with massive amounts of chemical agents can tactical and strategic outcomes be achieved – and that conventional weapons were still, by far, superior to chemical weapons of any kind.
A document produced by the US Marine Corps, titled, “Lessons Learned: The Iran-Iraq War” under “Appendix B: Chemical Weapons,” provides a comprehensive look at the all-out chemical warfare that took place during the devastating 8 year Iranian-Iraqi conflict. Several engagements are studied in detail, revealing large amounts of chemical agents deployed mainly to create areas of denial, not mass casualties.
The effectiveness and lethality of chemical weapons is summarized in the document as follows (emphasis added):
Chemical weapons require quite particular weather and geographic conditions for optimum effectiveness. Given the relative nonpersistence of all agents employed during this war, including mustard, there was only a brief window of employment opportunity both daily and seasonally, when the agents could be used. Even though the Iraqis employed mustard agent in the rainy season and also in the marshes, its effectiveness was significantly reduced under those conditions. As the Iraqis learned to their chagrin, mustard is not a good agent to employ in the mountains, unless you own the high ground and your enemy is in the valleys.
We are uncertain as to the relative effectiveness of nerve agents since those which were employed are by nature much less persistent than mustard. In order to gain killing concentrations of these agents, predawn attacks are best, conducted in areas where the morning breezes are likely to blow away from friendly positions.
Chemical weapons have a low kill ratio. Just as in WWl, during which the ratio of deaths to injured from chemicals was 2-3 percent, that figure appears to be borne out again in this war although reliable data on casualties are very difficult to obtain. We deem it remarkable that the death rate should hold at such a low level even with the introduction of nerve agents. If those rates are correct, as they well may be, this further reinforces the position that we must not think of chemical weapons as “a poor man’s nuclear weapon.” While such weapons have great psychological potential, they are not killers or destroyers on a scale with nuclear or biological weapons.
Clearly, the minute amounts of sarin the West has accused the Syrian government of using, makes no tactical, political, or strategic sense. However, these small amounts of sarin gas, now suspected to be the work of Western-backed terrorists, would have been perfect for establishing a pretext for Western military intervention, and in fact, have been in part cited by the US and Israel in their latest, unprovoked aerial assault on Damascus.
The terrorists operating in Syria possess the means and motivation to carry out such an operation, as do their Western sponsors.
Where Did Western-backed Terrorists Obtain Sarin?
A number of methods could have lent sarin gas to terrorists operating in Syria – from Turkey, Israel, and the US simply handing select units the chemical agent in a clandestine operation, to Libyan terrorists confirmed to have been flooding into Syria for the past 2 years, bringing looted chemical stockpiles with them after NATO’s disastrous invasion in 2011 left them in the hands of a sectarian extremist regime.
Image: (via the Guardian) “Chemical containers in the Libyan desert. There are concerns unguarded weapons could fall into the hands of Islamist militants. Photograph: David Sperry/AP”
….
Indeed, Libya’s arsenal had fallen into the hands of sectarian extremists with NATO assistance in 2011 in the culmination of efforts to overthrow the North African nation . Since then, Libya’s militants led by commanders of Al Qaeda’s Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) have armed sectarian extremists across the Arab World, from as far West as Mali, to as far East as Syria.
Abdulhakim Belhadj, head of the Tripoli Military Council and the former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, “met with Free Syrian Army leaders in Istanbul and on the border with Turkey,” said a military official working with Mr Belhadj. “Mustafa Abdul Jalil (the interim Libyan president) sent him there.”
Syrian rebels held secret talks with Libya’s new authorities on Friday, aiming to secure weapons and money for their insurgency against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, The Daily Telegraph has learned.
At the meeting, which was held in Istanbul and included Turkish officials, the Syrians requested “assistance” from the Libyan representatives and were offered arms, and potentially volunteers.
“There is something being planned to send weapons and even Libyan fighters to Syria,” said a Libyan source, speaking on condition of anonymity. “There is a military intervention on the way. Within a few weeks you will see.”
Image: Libyan Mahdi al-Harati of the US State Department, United Nations, and the UK Home Office (page 5, .pdf)-listed terrorist organization, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), addressing fellow terrorists in Syria. Harati is now commanding a Libyan brigade operating inside of Syria attempting to destroy the Syrian government and subjugate the Syrian population. Traditionally, this is known as “foreign invasion.”
Some Syrians are more frank about the assistance the Libyans are providing. “They have heavier weapons than we do,” notes Firas Tamim, who has traveled in rebel-controlled areas to keep tabs on foreign fighters. “They brought these weapons to Syria, and they are being used on the front lines.” Among the arms Tamim has seen are Russian-made surface-to-air missiles, known as the SAM 7.
Libyan fighters largely brush off questions about weapon transfers, but in December they claimed they were doing just that. “We are in the process of collecting arms in Libya,” a Libyan fighter in Syria told the French daily Le Figaro. “Once this is done, we will have to find a way to bring them here.”
Key to encircling and containing China, US sets proxies in motion for color revolution in Malaysian streets.
Image: US-proxy Anwar Ibrahim leads a Bersih rally in Malaysia. While Bersih has attempted to claim it is “independent” and simply pursusing “fair and clean elections,” it is clearly a vehicle for returning Anwar Ibrahim back into power. Additionally, Bersih shares the same ties to the US State Department’s National Endowment for Democracy (NED) as its crypto-leader Anwar Ibrahim – representing a dangerous and seditious conflict of interest.
….
May 15, 2013 (AltThaiNews) – US-funded opposition fronts have vowed to overthrow the Malaysian government via disruptive and potentially violent street protests in the wake of general elections that saw their leader Anwar Ibrahim soundly defeated despite massive support from Western media, NGOs, and direct government intervention. Free Malaysia Today (FMT) reported in their article, “‘BN will be toppled this year’,” that:
Pro-Pakatan Rakyat groups have vowed to overthrow the Barisan Nasional government this year through a massive street rally.
Speakers at a forum held yesterday unanimously agreed that waiting for five years until the next
general election was too long, and vowed to overthrow BN this year through “force”.
FMT also added that:
Electoral watchdog group Bersih 2.0 steering committee member Hishamuddin Rais pointed out that it was useless to take their unhappiness to the courts as he claimed the justice system was being controlled by the government.
“That is why we must take to the streets. We have to come out. What Najib likes is wrong, and what he doesn’t like is what we have to do,” he said.
“We will mobilise a big group and rally on the streets. This is not a threat, this is a promise,” he stressed.
Bersih, of course, is a US State Department-funded opposition front aimed to bolster US-proxy candidate Anwar Ibrahim, formerly of the IMF and World Bank, and a frequent visitor to the insidious National Endowment for Democracy (NED) in Washington D.C. It is in fact, NED that funds Bersih through its subsidiary, the National Democratic Institute (NDI). The Malaysian Insider reported on June 27, 2011 that Bersih leader Ambiga Sreenevassan:
“…admitted to Bersih receiving some money from two US organisations — the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and Open Society Institute (OSI) — for other projects, which she stressed were unrelated to the July 9 march.”
A visit to the NDI website revealed indeed that funding and training had been provided by the US organization – before NDI took down the information and replaced it with a more benign version purged entirely of any mention of Bersih. For funding Ambiga claims is innocuous, the NDI’s rushed obfuscation of any ties to her organization suggests something far more sinister at play.
Photo: NDI’s website before taking down any mention to Malaysia’s Bersih movement. (click image to enlarge)
….
In addition to Bersih, other faux-electoral monitors are also directly funded by the US government. While the Western media attempts to portray such organizations as “independent,” the Merdeka Center for Opinion Research, for example, is likewise funded directly by the US through NED.
Anwar Ibrahim himself was Chairman of the Development Committee of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 1998, held lecturing positions at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, was a consultant to the World Bank, and a panelist at the Neo-Con lined National Endowment for Democracy’s “Democracy Award” and a panelist at a NED donation ceremony – the very same US organization funding and supporting Bersih and so-called “independent” election monitor Merdeka – paints a picture of an opposition running for office in Malaysia, not for the Malaysian people, but clearly for the corporate financier interests of Wall Street and London.
Though the virus appears to have been brought under control recently, the researchers urged the Hong Kong authorities to maintain strict surveillance, which should include not only poultry but humans and pigs.
e’re going to get into this more at a later date, but there was some interesting late-breaking news yesterday.
