Hot War with Russia – The Saker

What’s the likelihood of a shooting war with Russia over Ukraine?  What are the military realities that the United States and it’s NATO collaborators see when they consider a real war in behalf of their proxy government in Ukraine?  Leading edge blogger, The Saker, provides an extended analysis that answers these questions convincingly.   Along with George Eliason’s superb analysis, The Saker is taking citizen journalism to new heights. (Image: Thomas Williams)

A short time before The Saker’s post, we got a bit of good news.  The official propaganda organ of corporate America, Associated Press,  ran this headline at 12:38 PM PDT – AP:  Ignoring Putin, Ukraine Insurgents to Hold Vote. It doesn’t take much to read these tea leaves. Putin is being let off the hook as the evil genius behind the people of Eastern Ukraine. After a little bit of corporate media rehab, Obama will be able to accept Putins ongoing offer to negotiate a reasonable ending to the mess that they created (unless the neocons sabatoge it).

Remembering the important lessons of the Cold War
The Saker at The Vineyard of the Saker

Pakistani giant poster of a child looks up at drone operators

The goal is to put a human face on what drone operators are said to call ‘bug splats’

By Dylan Stableford
Yahoo News

In an attempt to put a face on civilian victims of U.S. drone strikes, a group of artists has installed a massive portrait of a girl facing up from a field in Pakistan.

The poster, measuring 90 by 60 feet and made of vinyl, was unrolled with the help of locals two weeks ago in a village in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region in northwest Pakistan, where residents say attacks by the pilotless aircraft are a part of daily life.

Emperor Obama Issues Edicts on the Ukraine

Is anybody listening?

President Barack Obama appears to be at some distance from reality.  He’s issuing statements about the Ukrainian situation as though he were the maximum leader of a vast empire that includes just about everywhere except Russia and China.

The scope of the president’s edicts is remarkable considering the lack of public support, even interest, in using the influence of the United States in this conflict.   In addition, the Obama threats and actions are riddled with inconsistencies.

Libya in Anarchy Two Years after NATO Humanitarian Liberation

By F. William Engdahl
Global Research

In 2011 when Muhammar Qaddafi refused to leave quietly as ruler of Libya, the Obama Administration, hiding behind the skirts of the French, launched a ferocious bombing campaign and a “No Fly” zone over the country to aid the so-called fighters for democracy.

The US lied to Russia and China with help of the (US-friendly) Gulf Cooperation Council about the Security Council Resolution on Libya and used it to illegally justify the war. The doctrine, “responsibility to protect” was used instead, the same doctrine Obama wants to use in Syria. It’s useful top look at Libya two years after the NATO humanitarian intervention.

Cherry-Picking Evil

By Robert C. Koehler
COTO Report

“Because these weapons can kill on a mass scale, with no distinction between soldier and infant, the civilized world has spent a century working to ban them.”

Why does the president need to address a classroom full of third-graders?

On Tuesday night — hallelujah — he stepped back from the brink of war, but in his address to the nation he spent most of his time justifying his earlier aggression toward Syria, detailing the Assad government’s single, heinous deviation from the civilized norms of war.

Obama’s Speech on Syria – Analysis

By Michael Collins
COTO Report

President Barack Obama spoke as if his political future was on the line Wednesday evening during his address to the nation on the Syria crisis. He went through the horrors of the Syrian civil war, blamed the Syrian government for the August 21 chemical weapons attack, and provided verifiable (but, as yet, unverified) statements of fact concerning his certainty that the Syrian government initiated the chemical weapons attack. (Full speech)

Is Obama’s War on Weed Coming to an End?

By Rady Ananda
Activist Post

Attorney General Eric Holder today announced an Obama Administration policy change on mandatory sentences as they relate to drugs. The new policy includes the “compassionate release” of some prisoners and expanding “at-risk” programs for teens.

“Prisons are operating at 40% above capacity,” he told the audience at the American Bar Association’s annual meeting in San Francisco, which was broadcast on C-SPAN.

“Incarceration rates have increased 800% since 1980,” he added, putting over 200,000 people in federal prisons this year. Half of those inmates are incarcerated for drug-related crimes, he said, costing $80 billion a year.

How Congress let Monsanto off the hook

By Michael Collins
COTO Report

Not many people like the messes Congress makes but everybody should see how they’re made.

This article takes a close look at the legislation just passed by Congress and signed by President Obama allowing the Secretary of Agriculture to issue executive orders that bypass regulations, safety, and science for the purpose of speeding genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and genetically engineered seeds (GE) and crops to market.  The way the law is written, Secretary Tom Vilsack can lift restrictions on GMOs for a set period and, it appears, do so without hindrance from the courts.

Liar’s Poker – Obama and Cameron on Syrian WMD

Michael Collins
(Washington, DC, 12/9)  Here we go again.

On, December 3, President Barack Obama warned the Syrian government against using chemical weapons against, among others, NATO-Saudi sponsored fighters trying to overthrow President Bashar Assad.

A few days later, British Prime Minister David Cameron’s foreign secretary claimed that he had evidence the Syrian government plans to use chemical weapons of mass destruction (WMD) against the rebels.

After Obama’s December 3 warning, Syria denied any intent to use the weapons “no matter what the circumstances” as they had after an earlier Obama warning.

U.S. and British government officials are unreliable sources on this subject.

Does the government of President Bashar Assad intend to use chemical WMD?

Rigged Elections for Romney

By Michael Collins

A group of independent researchers caught a pattern of apparent vote flipping during the 2012 Republican primaries that consistently favored Mitt Romney. A form of election fraud, vote flipping occurs when votes are changed from one candidate to another or several others during electronic voting and vote tabulation.  (Image:  Dean  Terry)

Vote flipping is difficult to detect because the vote totals remain the same for each precinct. In one of several possible scenarios, an instruction is given to a precinct level voting machine or to a county-level central tabulator. The corrupted totals from precincts are sent from county election officials to state elections board and published as final results. (Primary documents for this article: Republican Primary Election 2012 Results: Amazing Statistical Anomalies, August 13, 2012and2008/2012 Election Anomalies, Results, Analysis and Concerns, September 2012).

Totalitarianism in the US: An Accident Waiting to Happen

By Numerian
First appeared in The Agonist

Listening to Paul Ryan’s speech at the Republican National Convention, I couldn’t place where I had come across something quite like this before. Then it struck me – Pravda! I used to subscribe to Pravda in high school and college, first to learn Russian, and second, to pursue a college program in Soviet studies. Pravda was a newspaper that specialized in the Big Lie – the Five Year Plan was always ahead of schedule, Soviet industrial capabilities exceeded that of any other country, people were starving on streets all across America. The newspaper was a non-stop stream of lies, just as Paul Ryan’s speech was studded with Big Lies – lies that were easily disprovable, such as Barack Obama did nothing about the Simpson-Bowles recommendations to reduce the budget deficit (Paul Ryan didn’t mention he voted against these recommendations when the House killed any chance of enacting them); or that Obama made it easier for people to live off welfare (the President altered the enrollment rules of welfare at the request of Republican governors); or the Romney favorite – Obama cut over $700 billion of Medicare benefits for individuals (the cuts were imposed on hospitals and insurance companies, not beneficiaries, and Romney has the same cuts in his economic plan). (Image: Wikipedia)

The Obama-nation

By Volaar

The “Honorable Michael B. Mukasey?”  At this juncture I could express shock, disbelief and horror at such a thought after reading former FBI Special Agent Colleen Rowley’s article available via Information Clearinghouse and also at the Huffington Post.  But I won’t.

Rowley takes exception that such a relic from the Bush Administration could be called upon by any academic institution, let alone one involved in the training of professional attorneys, to speak on the subject of ethics and the implementation of unethical, often illegal, policies.

Wash. Blog: Asleep at the Wheel

By Washington’s Blog

Excerpts: Americans have an illogical love affair with their vehicles. There are 209 million licensed drivers in the U.S. and 260 million vehicles. The U.S. has a higher number of motor vehicles per capita than every country in the world at 845 per 1,000 people. Germany has 540; Japan has 593; Britain has 525; and China has 37. The population of the United States has risen from 203 million in 1970 to 311 million today, an increase of 108 million in 42 years. Over this same time frame, the number of motor vehicles on our crumbling highways has grown by 150 million. This might explain why a country that has 4.5% of the world’s population consumes 22% of the world’s daily oil supply. This might also further explain the Iraq War, the Afghanistan occupation, the Libyan “intervention”, and the coming war with Iran.

Just Short of Treason in Georgia and Kansas

By Michael Collins

It’s official. The crazies have arrived for the 2012 presidential race, florid in their deviant and repulsive rhetoric. Andrew B. Adler, editor of The Atlanta Jewish Times, called on Israel’s President Benjamin Netanyahu to “Order a hit on a president in order to preserve Israel’s existence.” This reference to President Barack Obama appeared in the print edition of the paper on January 13 and was first published online by Gawker on the 20th (alternate links here and here).

Right wing Republican Mike O’Neal, speaker of the Kansas House of Representatives, forwarded an email referring to the president that quoted (approximately) Psalm 109.8: “Let his days be few and brief; and let others step forward to replace him.” The Lawrence Journal World noted that the very next verse, 109.9, indicates how the president should be replaced: “Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.” (Image SND)

The First Amendment is ignored when reactionary mayors want to stop the free speech and assemblies of Occupy Wall Street. However, free speech is expanded beyond the limits of the law when religious extremists in Atlanta and Kansas step well outside of the boundaries of U.S. Code.

Ron Paul’s 2002 Predictions set against later headlines

Is he really that smart or is the US government truly this corrupt?

Fast, Furious and Outrageous

By Volaar

Wayne Madsen has learned from his contacts within the Beltway intelligence community that Jared Lee Loughner is an “MK-ULTRA” programmed assassin and that US District Judge John Roll and Congresswoman Gabriel Giffords were targetted for assassination.  The reason for the decision to target Judge Roll and Congresswoman Giffords has to do with their knowledge

Blagojevich gets 14 years, but what about these guys?

By Michael Collins

(Washington, DC) Former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich just got 14 years in prison. He wheeled and dealed to leverage contributions and other favors based on his position as governor. He was indicted by former special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald (who tanked the Valerie Plame case).

Maybe it was the former governor’s colorful (and to some vulgar) language captured on audio tapes or his brash style. Regardless of the motives, the time, money and attention wasted on his indictment and trial stands in stark contrast to the crimes never prosecuted, crimes that resulted in death, unnecessary illness and suffering, and the loss of trillions of dollars caused by the perpetrators of the current economic crisis. (Image: michaelpickard)

While prosecutors pick easy targets like Blagojevich, serious crimes go unprosecuted.

President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard Cheney lied about the basis for invading Iraq. As a result, they are responsible for the deaths of soldiers resulting from that invasion and occupation.

Siegelman Nov. 2 Showdown Hurts Obama, Not Rove

By Andrew Kreig
Justice Integrity Project

A legal showdown of historic proportion unfolds Nov. 2 in an Alabama federal court. Squared off in Courtroom B4 beginning at 10 a.m. in Montgomery were the Obama Justice Department and its most important domestic defendant, former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, once the leading Democrat in his state.

Siegelman wants the government to provide documents proving that Middle District U.S. Attorney Leura Canary really withdrew from the case, as she claimed. The government contends he is not entitled to confidential government documents. After five years Siegelman has finally won a hearing on a request for documents that are central to his 2006 convictions on corruption charges. Middle District U.S. Magistrate-Judge Charles S. Coody, sitting under the authority of the district’s Chief Judge Mark E. Fuller, presides in the courthouse shown below.

Revulsion, resistance & angry words from Tripoli University

By Franklin Lamb
The Peoples Voice

The people I had hoped most to be able to find upon returning to Libya were eight students from Fatah University (now renamed Tripoli University) who became my friends during three months in Libya this summer. They had all been strongly opposed to what NATO was doing to their country (NATO bombs destroyed some classrooms at the University during final exams in late May) and I was very keen to sit with them again if possible since the August 23rd fall of Tripoli when most of them scattered given the uncertainties of what would happen and we lost contact.

Thanks to Ahmad who was waiting for me we re-united quickly. Some excerpts and impressions from yesterday’s all night gathering with Ahmad, Amal, Hind, Suha, Mohammad and Rana:

“I know Sanad al-Ureibi”, Ahmad said disgustedly about the 22 year old who is claiming he fired two bullets at close range into Muammar Gadhafi on October 22nd.

Humiliation and Death as a Tool of National Policy

By Michael Collins

“It’s not acceptable to kill a person without trying him,” said Louay Hussein, a Syrian opposition figure in Damascus. “I prefer to see the tyrant behind bars.” New York Times, October 20

The New York Times reported that a NATO jet and drones disabled vehicles in a convoy carrying Muammar Gaddafi near the besieged town of Sirte on October 20. Loyalists in the remaining vehicles scattered becoming easy prey for the emboldened fighters of the new Libyan state.

Reuters expanded the narrative on the 21st by reporting that Gaddafi fled from his jeep, hid in a drainage pipe, and emerged with an automatic weapon and side arm. He was manhandled and slapped by the soldiers of the new Libya. He allegedly asked the crowd, “Don’t you know right from wrong?” They took exception to the question and shot him twice in the head. He was transported to Misurata, scene of one of the few decisive victories by the former rebels. Gaddafi’s corpse was placed on a bare mattress and put on display for the public on the 22nd. It remains there today, although it is now reportedly covered by a blanket (Reuters, October 23).

There’s a new sheriff in town, NATO.