MIke Whitney isn't surprised, but is disappointed in Obama

Mike Whitney in Conterpunch: Rampage in Gaza for a Bump in the Polls

Barack Obama has passed his first test with flying colors. He's made himself disappear so Israel can continue its killing spree in Gaza. The last time a president shrunk this small was when Ariel Sharon took his wrecking-ball through Jenin during the second intifada. Bush slipped down a mouse hole so Israel's "Man of Peace" could finish his dirty work unopposed. Now Obama has taken refuge in that same dark hideaway. What a relief it must be for his critics at AIPAC and the far-right think tanks to know that the next Commander in Chief will be every bit as compliant as the last. That's "continuity they can believe in".

Obama has remained serenely detached while American-made F-16's have dumped more than one hundred tons of lethal ordnance on the captive population of Gaza. In fact, the president-elect has spent more time working on his abs at the Semper Fit gym in Honolulu than trying to stop the bloody onslaught which has already resulted in the deaths of over 300 Palestinians, half of who are civilians.

When asked why he hasn't given his opinion on the conflict, Obama spokesman have blandly stated, "There's only one president at a time".

Uh-huh. So why was Obama so quick to condemn Russia's invasion of South Ossetia? Is the yardstick for measuring aggression different in the Caucasus than it is in the Middle East? Or is it because politicians are just too afraid to cross Israel?

"If somebody shot rockets at my house where my two daughters were sleeping at night, I'd do everything in my power to stop them," Obama proclaimed on a recent visit to Israel.

Right. It's too bad Palestinian parents can't claim that same right without being branded as terrorists.

[. . .]

How many ways does this look like a war crime, part 2

Elaine Meinel Supkis continues to educate me by drawing together a host of disparate news items and explaining them in the context of history.

That last post of mine shows the ship that was rammed, trying to bring relief to civilians, civilians who legally, democratically elected a government that has been denounced by our illegally elected one.

As Elaine points out, some countries have asked for humanitarian help to be allowed into Gaza. Several countries have the navies to actually force their way in, and would if they were serious about helping out. But only one country is actually doing anything about it.




That country is Iran.

Their supply ship, carrying 2000 tons of food, medicine, and "other" was to leave today, and get to Gaza in 12 to 14 days.

Elaine halfway expects WWIII to start at that point.

How many ways does this look like a war crime?

Let's see now.
1) the boat was unarmed
2) it was in international waters
3) it was carrying medical supplies
4) it was carrying doctors
5) No attempt was made to contact the boat by radio unti after it was rammed

Sounds pretty convincing to me. I heard someone reporting from the ship today on Flashpoints on KPFA, but I got this link from Bonnie.

The damaged Free Gaza boat Dignity arrives in Lebanon after its encounter with the
Israeli navy. Photograph: Ali Hashisho/Reuters (UK Guardian article)

Free Gaza:

Israeli Gunboats Came Out of the Darkness and Rammed us Three Times

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE date: 12-30-2008

For more information, please contact:
(Gaza) Ewa Jasiewicz, +972 598 700 497 / freelance@mailworks.org
(Cyprus) Lubna Masarwa +357 99 081 767 / lubnna@gmail.com
(Lebanon) Caoimhe Butterley +961 70 875 727 / sahara78@hotmail.co.uk
http://www.FreeGaza.org

(Lebanon, Tuesday 30 December) - Today the Free Gaza ship "Dignity" carefully made its way to safe harbor in Tyre, Lebanon's southern-most port city, after receiving serious structural damage when Israeli warships rammed its bow and the port side. Waiting to greet the passengers and crew were thousands of Lebanese who came out to show their solidarity with this attempt to deliver volunteer doctors and desperately needed medical supplies to war-ravaged Gaza. The Lebanese government has pledged to provide a forensic analysis of what happened in the dark morning, when Israel rammed the civilian ship in international waters, and put the people on board in danger of losing their lives.

The Dignity, on a mission of mercy to besieged Gaza, was attacked by the Israeli Navy at approximately 6am (UST) in international waters, roughly 90 miles off the coast of Gaza. Several Israeli warships surrounded the small, human rights boat, firing live ammunition around it, then intentionally ramming it three times. According to ship's captain Denis Healy, the Israeli attack came, ""without any warning, or any provocation."

Caoimhe Butterly, an organizer with the Free Gaza Movement, stated that, "The gunboats gave us no warning. They came up out of the darkness firing flares and flashing huge flood lights into our faces. We were so shocked that at first we didn't react. We knew we were well within international waters and supposedly safe from attack. They rammed us three times, hitting the side of the boat hard. We began taking on water and, for a few minutes, we all feared for our lives. After they rammed us, they started screaming at us as we were frantically getting the life boats ready and putting on our life jackets. They kept yelling that if we didn't turn back they would shoot us."

Cynthia McKinney, former U.S. congresswoman and Green Party presidential candidate, was traveling to Gaza aboard the Dignity in order to assess the impact of Israel's military onslaught against the civilian population of the Gaza Strip. According to McKinney, "Israeli patrol boats...tracked us for about 30 minutes...and then all of a sudden they rammed us approximately three times, twice in the front and once in the side...the Israelis indicated that [they felt] we were involved in terrorist activities."

The Dignity departed from Larnaca Port in Cyprus at 7pm (UST) on Monday 29 December with a cargo of over 3 tons of desperately needed medical supplies donated to Gaza by the people of Cyprus. Three surgeons were also aboard, traveling to Gaza to volunteer in overwhelmed hospitals and clinics. The ship was searched by Cypriot Port authorities prior to departure, and its passenger list was made public.

Israel's deplorable attack on the unarmed Dignity is a violation of both international maritime law and the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which states that "the high seas should be reserved for peaceful purposes."

Delivering doctors and urgently needed medical supplies to civilians is a just such a "peaceful purpose." Deliberately ramming a mercy ship and endangering its passengers is an act of terrorism.

CALL the Israeli Government and demand that it immediately STOP attacking the civilian population of Gaza and STOP using violence to prevent human rights and humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people.

Mark Regev in the Prime Minister's office at:
+972 2670 5354 or +972 5 0620 3264
mark.regev@it.pmo.gov.il

Shlomo Dror in the Ministry of Defence at:
+972 3697 5339 or +972 50629 8148
mediasar@mod.gov.il

Major Liebovitz from the Israeli Navy at:
+ 972 5 781 86248

###
The Free Gaza Movement, a human rights group, sent two boats to Gaza in August 2008. These were the first international boats to land in the port in 41 years. Since August, four more voyages were successful, taking Parliamentarians, human rights workers, and other dignitaries to witness the effects of Israel's draconian policies on the civilians of Gaza.
http://www.FreeGaza.org

Madsen inspects Madoff-invested charity

Wayne Madsen:

Madoff's investors listed.One is of interest: "Chais Family Foundation, a charity that gives away about $12.5 million annually to Jewish causes, the California-based charity group invested entirely with Madoff, and was forced to shut down operations on Sunday after years of donating some $12.5 million annually to Jewish causes in Israel and Eastern Europe." Jewish, Eastern Europe, Israel, and a sudden operational shut down? WMR found an interesting link: Chais donated to an entity called the Washington Institute in McLean, Virginia, which also received funding from the Monterey Fund of Brooklyn, NY, which lists its address as BEAR STEARNS & CO., 1 METROTECH CENTERN 9TH FL., BROOKLYN, NY 11201-3831. Chais was active in marshaling support for Israel among 18-25 year old Jews in the former Soviet Union (also recruitment for Israeli syndicate and Mossad activities, perhaps?) and fighting pro-Palestinian and pro-Iranian attitudes on U.S. college campuses. In other words, Chais was engaged in blatant political activities disguised as 501(c)3 "educational purposes." Recipients of Chais funds also attacked former President Jimmy Carter, as well as Professors Mearsheimer and Walt over their book "The Israel Lobby." There is a Chais Family Auditorium at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Herzliya, Israel. Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv, is the headquarters for the Mossad.

Elaine explains how "free trade" has killed her town

Elaine Meinel Supkis:

[. . .]

This week, Israel is bombing Gaza to smithereens. But Israeli flower importers are building more and more greenhouses to raise the exact same flowers our own town used to raise in identical greenhouses. But our greenhouses stand empty while Israel’s business grows, just for example. Israel and Columbia where the US spends a fortune ‘fighting drug growers’ has utterly destroyed the Berlin, NY rose growing business.

The deals the US made over and over again were all designed to help other nations not just build businesses which is fine with me, but to build EXPORT businesses focused mainly on exporting to the US. This is killing our nation. The photo at the top of this story, for example, is the door of one of the newest and biggest greenhouses built here in Berlin just one decade ago. It is not merely empty, it is being destroyed by snow, wind, rain and vandalism.

We may as well have planes dropping bombs on us. Our community, which used to have thriving stores of every sort, is now nearly an economic ghost town and all of this has happened not 100 years ago but in the last decade.

[. . .]

New Anthrax Letters Information

from Dr. Meryl Nass's anthraxvaccine.blogspot.com:

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

New details from the genomic forensic analysis

Dr. Jacques Ravel of U Maryland, formerly of the Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR), spoke at the MIT faculty club on December 16, 2008 to discuss the scientific evaluation of the anthrax letters' spores.

I requested but did not receive an invitation to the event (despite my Bachelor's degree in Biology from MIT and some expertise in the subject). The slides were shared with me later, but each is labeled "do not distribute."

So I will not share them. They should be posted soon on an MIT website associated with the program that brought Ravel to MIT.

Of interest, the morphologic variations in spore colonies were not entirely identical between the NY Post and Leahy letters. Slide 16 indicates that 5 variations were found in Leahy's anthrax, and (only) 3 of those 5 variations were found in the Post anthrax. No other samples had these 3 variations but some (of greater than 1,100 samples screened) had 1 or 2.

There were no genetic polymorphisms between the 2 samples or a wild-type Ames.

Also of interest, Professor Ravel pays a lot of attention to the criminal-legal aspects of the case and the rules of evidence for trial.

An early article on the genomic studies in the Times is worth a read for comparison.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

So, the inoculant for production of the material that was used in the attacks didn't come directly from Ivin's flask, now did it?

Damn inconvenient truths!

Hint to the F.B.I.: "Passages" is more than just the title of a self help book from the early 80s.

December 23, 2008 8:58 AM

Meryl Nass, M.D. said...

It is impossible for me to comprehend why or how the FBI can continue to disseminate information that turns out to be dead wrong, once the facts are known or someone carefully parses their claims.

To make a big deal about 4 morphologic findings that were present in the anthrax letters--and then to learn one sample had 3 and the other 5, MEANING THEY WERE NOT IDENTICAL--defies understanding.

IS FBI simply practicing its own version of Hitler's Big Lie? As paraphrased by the OSS: "People will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it."

The case still isn't closed. I'll wager it doesn't close for a very long time. Simplest way to keep the rest of the evidence hidden.

December 23, 2008 8:40 PM

SEC told of Madoff's Ponzi Scheme in 2005

Ms Supkis comes through with the goods. She put the first part of this in her blog. I found the last paragraph here to be most interesting.

This is from page one and two of nineteen pages total in this document.

The World's Largest Hedge Fund is a Fraud

November 7, 2005 Submission to the SeC
Madoff Investment securities, LLC
www.madoff.com

Opening Remarks:
I am the original source for the information presented herein having first presented my rationale, both verbally and in writing, to the SEC's Boston office in May, 1999 before any public information doubting Madoff Investment Securities, LLC appeared in the press. There was no whistleblower or insider involved in compiling this report. I used the Mosaic Theory to assemble my set of observations. My observations were collected first-hand by listening to fund of fund investors talk about their investments in a hedge fund run by Madoff investment Securities, LLC, a SEC registered firm. I have also spoken to the heads of various Wall Street equity derivative trading desks and every single one of the senior managers I spoke with told me that Bernie Madoff was a fraud. Of course, no one wants to take undue career risk by sticking their head up and saying the emperor isn't wearing any clothes but...

I am a derivatives expert and have traded or assisted in the trading of several billion $US in options strategies for hedge funds and institutional clients. I have experience managing split-strike conversion products both using index options and using individual stock options, both with and without index puts. Very few people in the world have the mathematical background needed to manage these types of products but I am one of them. I have outlined a detailed set of Red Flags that make me very suspicious that Bernie Madoff's returns arn't real and, if they are real, then they would almost certainly have to be generated by front-running customer order flow from the broker-dealer arm of Madoff Investment Securities, LLC.

Due to the sensitive nature of the case I detail below, its dissemination within the SEC must be limited to those with a need to know. The firm involved is located in the New York Region.

As a result of this case, several careers on Wall Street and in Europe will be ruined. Therefore, I have not signed nor put my name on this report. I request that my name not be released to anyone other than the Branch Chief and Team Leader in the New York Region who are assigned to the case, without my express written permission. The fewer people who know who wrote this report the better. I am worried about the personal safety of myself and my family. Under no circumstances is this report or its contents to be shared with any other regulatory body without my express permission. This report has been written solely for the SEC's internal use.

As far as I know, none of the hedge fund, fund of funds *FOF's) mentioned in my report are engaged in a a conspiracy to commit fraud. I believe they are naîve men and women with a notable lack of derivatives expertise and possessing little or no quantitative finance ability.

There are 2 possible scenarios that involve fraud by Madoff Securities:

1. Scenario #1 (Unlikely): I am submitting this case under Section 21A(e) of the 1934 Act in the event that the broker-dealer and ECN depicted is actually providing the stated returns to the investors but is earning those returns by front-running customer order flow. Front running qualifies as insider-trading since it relies on material, non-public information that is acted upon for the benefit of one party to the detriment of another party. Section 21A(e) of the 1934 Act allows the SEC to pay up to 10% of the total fines levied for insider-trading. We have obtained approval from the SEC's Office of General Counsel, the Chairman's Office, and the bounty program administrator that the Sec is able and willing to pay Section 21A(e) rewards. This case should qualify if insider-trading is involved.

2. Scenario #2 (Highly likely) Madoff Securities is the world's largest Ponzi Scheme. In this case there is no SEC reward payment due the whistle-blower so basically I'm turning this case in because it's the right thing to do. Far better that the SEC s proactive in shutting down a Ponzi Scheme of this size rather than reactive.

Is this document for real? (Looks real to me, but how would I know?) If so, why isn't it front page news?

A really cool article from New Scientist about Music

Just ran across this in a year-end-roundup of articles, this one from February of this year. Very very interesting.

Points out that such things as rhythm, pitch, and timbre exist only inside our brains.

Wikileaks.org

While perusing Catherine Austin Fitts's blog I found this statement:

"Watch for a continued failure of traditional media in 2009 … and a continuing loss of market share due to public disgust at such censorship. Go, Wikileaks!"

I think I've heard of Wikileaks, and maybe even checked it out once. But just now I browsed through it's extensive list of documents, and was amazed. I picked one almost at random,

"The end of the Affair? The BND, CIA and Kosovo's Deep State."

What a story! More about Kosovo, drugs, organized crime, and intelligence services than than you really wanted to know.

My Christmas Suggestion

ok. Here's the thing to do. (I'm suggesting this because this is something I did just last week, and it has caused me long minutes of merriment.)

Check this list on what turns out to be a Monty Python site:

http://www.dailyllama.com/news/2005/llama270.html

You'll see that it's the 50 comedians voted by over 300 comedians and comedy writers to be the top 50 comedians of all time.

The list:

1. Peter Cook 2. John Cleese 3. Woody Allen 4. Eric Morecambe 5. Groucho Marx 6. Tommy Cooper 7. Laurel and Hardy 8. Billy Connolly 9. Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer 10. Richard Pryor 11. Chris Morris 12. Tony Hancock 13. Bill Hicks 14. Peter Sellers 15. Steve Martin 16. Ronnie Barker 17. Steve Coogan 18. Charlie Chaplin 19. Eddie Izzard 20. Paul Merton 21. Eric Idle 22. Peter Kay 23. Larry David 24. Rowan Atkinson 25. Bob Hope

26. Harry Hill 27. Victoria Wood 28. Spike Milligan 29. Christopher Guest 30. Michael Palin 31. French and Saunders 32. Eddie Murphy 33. Bob Monkhouse 34. Rik Mayall 35. Steven Wright 36. Ken Dodd 37. Les Dawson 38. Chic Murray 39. Stephen Fry 40. Joan Rivers 41. Joyce Grenfell 42. Phil Silvers 43. Jackie Mason 44. Eric Sykes 45. Robin Williams 46. Paul Whitehouse 47. Bill Cosby 48. Mike Myers 49. Ricky Gervais 50. Mel Brooks

Notice how many of them you've never heard of.

One by one, search for them on YouTube. Watch some videos. Hilarity ensues. Fresh, unadulterated hilarity. You will be discovering for the first time humorosity that has been causing guffaws around the world, all without you even suspecting it.

In this way I found Vic and Jim. Songs like Cottage Cheese, and Ask Mr. Potato. Oh, and Tommy Cooper, a guy who does bad magic wearing a fez. And a host of others.

Follow my instructions, and you will enjoy this Christmas—one you'll remember for a long time.

-steve

Mike Whitney thinks we need higher wages

http://www.counterpunch.org/:

More Pay is the Only Way

By MIKE WHITNEY

Wages, wages, wages. It all gets down to wages.

A strong, resilient economy, that can withstand the periodic buffeting of cyclical downturns, must be built on a rock-solid foundation of wages that keep pace with production. If wages stagnate, as they have for the last 30 years, the only way a consumer-driven economy can grow is through the expansion of personal debt, which isn’t so hot in the long run.

Consider this: the US economy is 72 per cent consumer spending. That means the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) cannot grow if salaries don't keep up with the price of living. Low Income Families (LOF)--that is, any couple making less than $80,000--represent 50 per cent of all consumer spending. These LOF's spend everything they earn just to maintain their present standard of living. So, how can these families help to grow the economy if they're already spending every last farthing they earn?

They can't! Which is why wages have to go up, up, up. The cost to short-term profits is small potatoes compared to the turmoil created by a deep recession, which is what the world is facing right now due to misguided economic policies. The present crisis could have been averted if there was a better balance between management and labor. But the unions are weak and have little political power, so salaries have languished while Wall Street has turned the government into a revolving door for industry reps. and corporate stooges who apply their anti-labor doctrine with ruthless zeal. As a result, real wealth has been replaced by chopped up bits of mortgage paper, stitched together by Ivy League MBAs, and sold to investors as priceless gemstones.

This is the system that Bernanke seeks to resurrect with his multi-trillion dollar transfusion; a system that shifts a larger and larger amount of the nation's wealth to a smaller and smaller group of elites.

Kofi Annan wants to pay me $200,000

Often I'm amazed by the sheer gall and nerve of spam. But occasionally in an altogether perverse twist of logic I find myself delighted. This one is simply brilliant. Who better than Kofi Annan himself to apologize and try to set right the crimes of those Nigerian Bank Spammers?

Oh, and he wants to keep it secret! We wouldn't want the spammers to find out about it!

From: "Mr. Kofi Annan"
Date: Tue Dec 23, 2008 12:45:22 AM US/Pacific
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject: UNITED NATIONS SCAMMED VICTIMS REIMBURSEMENTS PROGRAMME.
Reply-To: mrkofiannan57@yahoo.it

UNITED NATIONS SCAM VICTIMS COMPENSATIONS PAYMENTS.
SCAMMED VICTIM/$200,000 BENEFICIARIES.
REF/PAYMENTS CODE:06654 $200,000 USD.

This is to bring to your notice that I am delegated from the United
Nations To HSBC Bank of London to pay 150 Nigerian 419 scam victims
$200,000 USD (two Hundred Thousand Dollars) each. You are listed and
approved for this payment as one of the scammed victims to be paid this
amount, get back to as soon as possible for the immediate payments of your
200,000 USD compensations funds.

On this faithful recommendations, want you to know that during the last
U.N. meetings held at Abuja, Nigeria, it was alarmed so much by the rest
of the world in the meetings on the lose of funds by various foreigners to
the scams artists operating in syndicates all over the world today. In
other to retain the good image of the country, the President of the
Country is now paying 150 victims of this operators $200,000 USD each in
accordance with the U.N. recommendations. Due to the corrupt and
inefficient Banking Systems in Nigeria, the payments are to be paid by
HSBC Bank of London as corresponding paying bank under funding assistance
by The Rabo Bank, London for funds remittance.

According to the number of applicants at hand, 114 Beneficiaries has been
paid, half of the victims are from the United States, we still have more
36 left to be paid the compensations of $200,000 USD each. Your
particulars was mentioned by one of the Syndicates who was arrested in
Lagos, Nigeria as one of their victims of the operations, you are hereby
warned not to communicate or duplicate this message to him for any reason
what so ever as the U.S. secret service is already on trace of the
criminal. So keep it secret till they are all apprehended. Other victims
who have not been contacted can submit their application as well for
scrutiny and possible consideration.

You can receive your compensations payments via any of this options you
Choose, DRAFT/CHEQUE PAYMENTS, ATM CASH CARD. I shall feed you with
further modalities as soon as I hear from you my personal email is
kofiannan@mr.kofiannan.int.tf

Yours faithfully
Mr. Kofi Annan.

Mike Connell, Republican IT Go-To Guy, dies in plane crash

Blogged by Brad Friedman on 7/24/2008 3:59PM

Rove Threatened GOP IT Guru If He Does Not 'Take the Fall' for Election Fraud in Ohio, Says Attorney

Letter Sent to Attorney General Mukasey Requesting 'Protection for Mr. Connell and His Family From This Reported Attempt to Intimidate a Witness' After Tip from 'Credible Source'

UPDATE: OH AG Reportedly Asked to Provide Immunity Protection...

Karl Rove has threatened a GOP high-tech guru and his wife, if he does not "'take the fall' for election fraud in Ohio," according to a letter sent this morning to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, by Ohio election attorney Cliff Arnebeck.

The email, posted in full below, details threats against Mike Connell of the Republican firm New Media Communications, which describes itself on its website as "a powerhouse in the field of Republican website development and Internet services" and having "played a strategic role in helping the GOP expand its technological supremacy."

[. . .]

Amazing how unlucky people get just before they're supposed to testify.

December 19th, 2008

MIKE CONNELL, GOP 'IT GURU', DIES IN SOLO PLANE CRASH

Key Witness in OH '04 Election Fraud Case, Built WH Email System, More, Said Threatened by Rove

Described as a "high IQ Forrest Gump" for his consistent proximity to Republican "crime scenes" Connell was killed in a solo plane crash in Ohio on Friday night. Connell had built the Ohio '04 election night reporting website, and sites for Bush, McCain and the Swiftboaters. He also created network firewalls for key Congressional committees and developed the email system which "lost" thousands of White House emails. He had reportedly been threatened by Karl Rove over the summer, just prior to being forced to testify by a federal judge in Ohio in a 2004 election fraud lawsuit..

Cord Meyers and his wife, Mary Pinchot Meyer

This is the promise, and the problem, with the internet, and Google, and Wikipedia. Too much information, too available, too immediately.

The previous post about Operation Mockingbird got me reading. The first director of that CIA program was Cord Meyers. Hmmm. That name sounded familiar. Check him out. Then read the entry about his wife, Mary Pinchot Meyer. Her dad was Amos Pinchot. He's worth a look, too.

Finished? Bet you're surprised. My first thought upon seeing her name was, hmmm, wasn't the guy who dammed up Hetch Hetchy in Yosemite named Pinchot? Arch enemy of John Muir? Yep. Her Uncle Gifford.

The twists and turns that the intertwining threads of these stories make are like something out of some PBS mystery. Cord—his dad was Cord, his grandfather was Cord. That's odd enough. His grandfather, by the way, was a chairman of the New York Democratic Committee.

Cord was a Marine who lost an eye fighting in WWII in the Pacific. A preppy a real estate developer. A World Government Fan. Aid to Harrold Stassen. A founder of the United World Federalists, which included members Albert Einstein, Kurt Vonnegut, Sen. Alan Cranston, Mortimer Adler, E.B. White, and Oscar Hammerstein. Began working for the CIA, only to become a target of the FBI and Senator McCarthy. (J Edgar Hoover thought he was a Red.) His boy was hit by a car and killed. Soon after their divorce his wife was shot and killed. Retired as CIA head in London and became a columnist. Was claimed by E. Howard Hunt to have organized the Kennedy Assasination.

Mary, on the other hand, was the daughter of a lady journalist for the The Nation and The New Republic and a guy who was a founder of the Progressive party. She went to Vassar. Met John F. Kennedy at a dance when she was 18. Became friends with Jackie Kennedy when the Kennedys moved in nearby. Her sister married Ben Bradlee of The Washington Post. Mary became friends with Robert Kennedy and his family when they moved into John's house when he moved to the White House. In 1961 she became one of Kennedy's lovers—one whose opinions on policy he supposedly actually listened to. Her diary became quite a hot item.

LSD? Timothy Leary? Possible CIA hit? This story has everything.

Two facets of the CIA story: Jesse Ventura, Operation Mockingbird

Rule of Law. What was it? Oh yeah. Wasn't there something about the CIA not being allowed to operate within the US?

from http://mprofaca.cro.net/ciapress1.html:

"Operation Mocking Bird"
Daniel Sheehan: CIA Agents Infest U.S. Mass Media

From: jad@Turing.ORG (John DiNardo)
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 12:42:08 GMT
(transcript from a tape recording of a broadcast
by Pacifica Radio Network station WBAI-FM (99.5)
505 Eighth Ave., 19th Fl. New York, NY 10018 (212) 279-0707)

GARY NULL: Daniel, earlier on, one of our guests was talking about -- and I'd like for you to follow through on this theme -- that what we're told in the media (and what we're told officially from Government sources) and what is the truth are frequently at varying degrees against each other. Give us one specific ...
DANIEL SHEEHAN: That's absolutely true. There has been a major campaign on the part of the Central Intelligence Agency, for example, to place Central Intelligence Agency agents, trained agents, IN various news media posts. We've found the documents on this. It was called "Operation Mocking Bird". And they placed Central Intelligence Agency operatives in places like TIME Magazine and LIFE Magazine, the New York Times, inside CBS and ABC News.
Originally, the intent of "Operation Mocking Bird" was to make certain that these major media outlets reflected an adequately anti-communist perspective. And then, of course, as they became entrenched and in-place, any time the Central Intelligence Agency wanted a story killed or distorted they would just contact their agents inside. Now they have bragged openly in private memos back and forth inside the Agency about how proud they are of having really important "assets" inside virtually every major news media in the United States. And I've encountered this repeatedly.
For example, the Chief National Security Correspondent for TIME Magazine, Bruce Van Voorst[sp], is a regular Central Intelligence Agency officer. It turns out that Ben Bradlee from the Washington Post was a regular Central Intelligence Agency officer prior to coming to his post at the Washington Post.

And then there's this 9 minute video:

Former Governor Jesse Ventura exposes he was interrogated by more than 20 CIA agents during his term of office in Minnesota. Despite the CIA's mission statement which states they are not to be operational within the Unites States, Ventura stated that he had embedded CIA agents working in high level positions of the Minnesota state government. Ventura also said that when these agents retired, their replacements were already chosen for him by the CIA.

Bush's Very Own Duck and Cover Exercise

The 21st century is eight years old. US children who are also eight years old have never lived under any president other than Bush. Astounding but true.

I've been searching everywhere for a short, succinct version of this video—what's destined to become the video encapsulation of the 21st century, as we've experienced it thus far. I Googled. I watched. I Googled some more. I finally reached the end of my search at Madsen's site—an animated gif of the crux of the event.

Didn't you think Canada was a sovereign nation?

I did, until I heard about this.


CNN, via Truthout:

Canadian Leader Suspends Parliament to Stay in Power

Thursday 04 December 2008

by: CNN.com

Canadian Prime Minister Steven Harper suspended the Canadian Parliament to prevent a no-confidence vote.
(Photo: Reuters)

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Thursday that Canada's governor general has allowed him to suspend Parliament, postponing a no-confidence vote from his opponents that he was likely to lose.

Harper called on his opponents to work with his government on measures to aid the nation's economy when Parliament returns on January 26.

"The first order of business will be the presentation of a federal budget," Harper told reporters outside the governor general's residence in Ottawa, Canada.

"Those who were elected here to serve the interest of Canada as a whole should work together - at least to some degree - on planning an economic plan for Canada."

Had Governor General Michaelle Jean - who represents Britain's Queen Elizabeth II as head of state - denied Harper's request, Monday's vote would have likely brought down Harper's government, less than two months after his Conservative Party strengthened its minority position in federal elections.

[. . .]

Did you get that? Britain's Queen's Representative, at Harper's request, allowed him to disbanded the parliament until January 26 of next year. Am I reading this right?

As Crisis Mounts, Ecuador Declares Foreign Debt Illegitimate and Illegal

Alternet: (via Cryptogon)

By Daniel Denvir. Posted November 26, 2008.

A special debt audit commission released a report charging that much of Ecuador's foreign debt was illegitimate or illegal.

Amidst the spreading global financial crisis, a special debt audit commission released a report charging that much of Ecuador's foreign debt was illegitimate or illegal. The commission recommended that Ecuador default on $3.9 billion in foreign commercial debts--Global Bonds 2012, 2015 and 2030--the result of debts restructured in 2000 after the country's 1999 default.

Although Ecuador currently has the capacity to pay, dropping oil prices and squeezed credit markets are putting President Rafael Correa's plans to boost spending on education and health care in jeopardy. Correa has pledged to prioritize the "social debt" over debt to foreign creditors.

The commission accused Salomon Smith Barney, now part of Citigroup Inc., of handling the 2000 restructuring without Ecuador's authorization, leading to the application of 10 and 12 percent interest rates. The commission evaluated all commercial, multilateral, government-to-government and domestic debt from 1976-2006.

[. . .]

Significantly, the commission singled out foreign debt for being "illegitimate" rather than simply illegal. Social movements have long declared most foreign debt to be illegitimate, but Ecuador's use of legitimacy as a legal argument for defaulting would set a major precedent; indeed, the mere formation of a debt auditing commission does so. Osvaldo Leon, of the Latin American Information Agency (ALAI), says that it remains to be seen if other countries in Latin America will follow suit.

[. . .]

Former Constituent Assembly President Alberto Acosta echoed Correa, saying that the proposal could provide the legal basis for the prosecution of Ecuadorian officials involved in the negotiation of illegal or illegitimate debt. He also said that it was perfectly reasonable to take a debt's legitimacy into account. "The United States itself has embraced the concept of illegitimate debt in encouraging countries to forgive the debt accrued in Iraq under Saddam Hussein." In fact, the U.S. originated the concept of foreign debt after the Spanish-American war. The U.S. refused to pay Cuba's outstanding debt to Spain, arguing that it was created by agents of Spain in Spain's self-interest, a matter in which Cubans had no say.