"The FAA said the Lockheed Martin-developed ERAM systems “uses nearly two million lines of computer code to process critical data for controllers, including aircraft identity, altitude, speed, and flight path. The system almost doubles the number of flights that can be tracked and displayed to controllers.”"During the same time, computers have become thousands of times better.
"A current air marshal opined [to Clay] … that TSA is suffering from “a need to justify its existence, and a further need to find reasons to increase its budget.” The air marshal added, “it seemed like every time TSA was up for budgetary funding, we began doing more special mission coverage or VIPR missions.”The same is true for all government.
The evidence seems to suggest TSA will continue feeding the US population with a fear campaign at every opportunity, however unfounded their messages may be."
"'And a lot of these young people… and I love our nation's veterans, but some of them are coming back from war, they don't know the communities and they're ready to do battle.' "You can't say that even though it's obviously true.
"[Interviewer] “So it was racially motivated?Exactly.
“In most cases I don’t think it was. It’s just easier to bust those guys. You give me a squad of narcs and drug dogs, and we’ll go to some affluent white community. I can walk down the streets sniffing cars, do some knock-and-talks, and I assure you we’ll come across some marijuana parties. I guarantee I can come out of there with some drug arrests. But after the first day, after the mayor’s phone rings off the hook—that’s the end of that operation.”"
"Like most popular myths the dominant narrative of the Houthi movement as Iranian proxy in Yemen is based on a kernel of truth: the Houthis share the Iranians’ dim views of American intentions in the Middle East and have sought to take advantage of the Hezbollah model to enhance their political-military effectiveness. "I should have figured that.
"The Houthis built up their military forces from virtually nothing to as many 100,000 troops today through a series of six wars with Yemeni government troops. In the process they have not only become much better trained, but have acquired a vast pool of arms from Yemen’s black market. A United Nations Experts’ report earlier this year cites estimates that Yemen is awash with 40 to 60 million weapons. The Houthis were also getting a continuing stream of modern arms directly from corrupt Yemeni military commanders from 2004 through 2010. "Oops.
"And in their eagerness to conform to the general theme of an Iran vs. US-Saudi proxy war in Yemen, the media’s treatment of alleged Iranian arms to the Houthis has ignored the fact that the Houthis had forged an alliance by early 2014 with a far larger source of arms: former President Ali Abdullah Saleh. It was that alliance that propelled the Houthis into power last September, not their ties with Iran."The US overthrew Saleh in a coup. Iran is a convenient scapegoat.
"In the process, the Houthis acquired a new bonanza of weapons that had been provided by the United States over the previous eight years. According to Pentagon documents acquired under the Freedom of Information Act by Joseph Trevithick, the Defense Department had delivered about $500 million in military hardware to the Yemeni military from 2006 on. The gusher of new US arms included Russian-made helicopters, more than 100 Humvees with the latest armor packages, 100s of pickup trucks, rocket propelled grenades, advanced radios, night vision goggles and millions of rounds of ammunition. "This would be funny if it wasn't getting people killed.
"An attempt to corner the uranium market in the US through a Canadian-owned company, Uranium One, involves more than $35 million “donated” to the Clinton Foundation by one of the principals, as well as Bill Clinton’s personal intervention on the company’s behalf in order to secure mining rights from the dictator of Kazakhstan. Frank Giustra, then head of Uranium One, “donated” an additional $100 million to the Clinton Foundation: in return, his company, which had never been a player in Kazakhstan’s uranium-rich market, was catapulted to the top tier of global energy producers. Giustra sold off his stake in the company in 2007, garnering tens of millions in the process.It's good to be the king.
The company was sold off to Rosatom, a Russian state-owned enterprise, in three transactions, a process that should have triggered oversight by a high-level government watchdog agency that monitors the acquisition of strategic resources by foreign governments. As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton must have played a key role in giving Washington’s imprimatur to the sales, and it’s clear from the record that the buyers made a concerted effort to influence her through huge donations to both the Foundation and the Clinton family’s personal bank account."
"Is Russia going to get a “monopoly” on uranium worldwide? That’s highly unlikely, if not utterly impossible, and yet what this whole episode underscores is that government controls on who can own what only ensure that those who are boldest about bribery ultimately succeed in getting their mitts on the goods: regulations devised to supposedly ensure “national security” wind up achieving the exact opposite."Exactly.
"Word is out that the Clinton Foundation is revising its 990s – the forms nonprofits must submit that show their sources of income. This is a tacit admission that everything that’s about to come out in the Schweizer book is largely true, not to mention the investigative reporting that’s been done by Reuters and others. "So the Clintons are scrubbing them clean.
"So the question now is: will they get away with it? My guess is: yes. That’s because, as I’ve just shown, American foreign policy has been the instrument of the corporate class since the turn of the last century. This is what empires are all about – and, as imperiums go, ours is in a class of corruption all by itself."They'll get away with it, but I doubt Hillary will get elected.
"We must remember that markets do not just manipulate themselves: It takes deliberate wrongdoing by individuals."What does that mean?
"Among the agencies that eventually signed off was the State Department, then headed by Mr. Clinton’s wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton.That's convenient.
As the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013, Canadian records show, a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation. Uranium One’s chairman used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million. Those contributions were not publicly disclosed by the Clintons, despite an agreement Mrs. Clinton had struck with the Obama White House to publicly identify all donors. Other people with ties to the company made donations as well."
"And shortly after the Russians announced their intention to acquire a majority stake in Uranium One, Mr. Clinton received $500,000 for a Moscow speech from a Russian investment bank with links to the Kremlin that was promoting Uranium One stock. "When the New York Times publishes truth about Clinton, you know she's in trouble.
""As president and as commander in chief, I take full responsibility for all our counterterrorism operations," including the one that inadvertently took the lives of the two captives, a grim-faced Obama said in a statement to reporters in the White House briefing room."Is he resigning? Did he fire anybody? What does taking responsibility mean?
"The “indigenous, pre-Arab inhabitants of North Africa,” Berbers, as they are known in the West, have long since had a hand in human trafficking. As part of an agreement he made with Silvio Berlusconi’s government, “Col. Gadhafi had agreed to crack down on the trade in people.” For prior to the dissolution of Libya at the behest of Barack Obama’s Amazon women warriors – Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice and Samantha Power – Libya had a navy. Under the same accord with the Berlusconi government (and for a pretty penny), Gadhafi’s admiralty stemmed the tide of migrants into Europe."Oops.
They plan to wage war on us."However, the video, which shows Marines taking on irate demonstrators with pepper spray, batons and rifles, will only serve to heighten concerns that the U.S. Army and the federal government are preparing for more civil unrest in America in the aftermath of the Ferguson, Missouri riots.The fact that the training exercise has been presented for the consumption of the American public also raises questions as to its intended purpose.In anticipation of Jade Helm, a nationwide military exercise set to begin in July during which troops will operate undercover amongst local populations, there have been numerous instances of troops and National Guard conducting martial law-style drills."
"Legal and illegal immigrants will hit a record high of 51 million in just eight years and eventually account for an astounding 82 percent of all population growth in America, according to new U.S. Census figures."Ouch.
"A video shot from a KNBC helicopter hovering above the arrest captured the scene. KNBC reported that Pusok appeared to be kicked 17 times, punched dozens of times and hit by a baton as well."SOP.
"“Among French economists, Michel Chevalier was probably the most emphatic in the joint antagonism to tariffs and patents, declaring that both ‘stem from the same doctrine and result in the same abuses.’”"A patent drives up the cost of a good, but it does more than that.
"If you tried to contact the IRS with a question about your taxes this year, chances are you didn't get a response. The IRS estimated that it would only answer 17 million of the 49 million calls received this filing season. Taxpayers lucky enough to have the IRS answer their calls waited an average of 34.4 minutes for assistance--nearly double the wait time last year (18.7 minutes)."They did it on purpose.
"How many climate deadlines and incontrovertible tipping points have been noisily proclaimed over the years, only to be quietly forgotten or shamelessly rescheduled, when the deadline passes uneventfully?They'll move it again before then.
The Earth League, a group composed mostly of climate personalities nobody has never heard of, have just extended the green point of no return to 2040 – a whopping 25 years from today."
"According to recent court testimony reported by The Baltimore Sun, the city's police have used Stingray devices with a court order more than 25,000 times. It's a massive number, representing an average of nearly nine uses a day for eight years (the BPD acquired the technology in 2007), and it doesn't include any emergency uses of the device, which would have proceeded without a court order."This shows warrants are rubber stamps.
"It is like the presidency of George W. Bush never happened and we went straight from Clinton to Obama. I have gotten e-mail from some of these groups for years. There has never been any mention of how Bush expanded Medicare, started two wars, destroyed the free market to save it, doubled spending for the Dept. of Education, practically doubled the national debt, increased the national security state, sowed the seeds for all of Obama’s bad policies, and gave us the first trillion dollar deficit."But all that was justified.
"“We have a practice of if a topic is considered sensitive, parents should be informed,” superintendent Allyn Hutton told SeaCoastOnline.com."No school should teach about transgenders ever. They should teach reading, writing and arithmetic.
"I’m just John Kasich. If it works, great. If not, I’ll play more golf."He doesn't seem to covet the office. That's a plus.
"California has met the future, and it really doesn’t work. As the mounting panic surrounding the drought suggests, the Golden State, once renowned for meeting human and geographic challenges, is losing its ability to cope with crises. As a result, the great American land of opportunity is devolving into something that resembles feudalism, a society dominated by rich and poor, with little opportunity for upward mobility for the state’s middle- and working classes. "In other words, it's just like socialism everywhere.
"Bates also vehemently denied a Tulsa Worldreport that he was not properly trained. The newspaper reported that while state records show Bates had clocked a required nearly 300 hours of training since 2008, supervisors at the Tulsa County sheriff's officer were told to falsify the records."Like he can be believed.
"The US military has gone all around the globe, striking Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, and Libya, in search of Al Qaeda “safe havens” – and yet the biggest safe haven of them all, the center of the vipers’ nest, has remained sacrosanct. All but four of the 9/11 hijackers were citizens of the Kingdom, and that government has spent billions spreading the fundamentalist Wahabi version of Islam – the religious doctrine that inspires and motivates the terrorists – to the four corners of the earth.Some Saudis are and some aren't. Saudis are individuals like everybody else.
And there is a more direct connection than just ideological affinity at work here: there are 28 pages of the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001 detailing the involvement of foreign governments which we are not allowed to read. Those members of Congress who have read it strongly hint that the Saudi government was heavily involved in the planning and preparations for the attack.
When are we going to stop pretending the Saudis are our allies?"
"Is there a way out? Yes, but it will take a President with guts – and a willingness to break with the Washington consensus — to do it. We must cut our ties to the Saudis, make peace with Iran, stop supporting the Syrian rebels, and tell the Israelis they’re on their own. We must stop blocking the creation of a Palestinian state, stop canoodling with Egypt’s military dictatorship, and – most of all – stop appeasing the real sponsors of terror in Riyadh. Sen. Paul had the right idea when he suggested we ought to be boycotting the Saudis – not because they aren’t feminists, but because they, and not the Iranians, are the principal sponsors of terrorism in the world.I won't hold my breath.
Oh yes, and while we’re at it, let’s release those 28 pages – that will shut down the caterwauling of the foreign policy “experts” faster than you can say 9/11."
"“A U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in discussing briefings on the air war, called it a ‘disaster,’ saying the Saudis don’t have a ‘realistic endgame’ for the bombing."I wonder who else that could be said of.
"No air campaign like this can possibly be conducted without a great deal of planning and coordination. The U.S. role in Yemen has been absolutely essential.Of course. This article exhibits cognitive dissonance. On the one hand, it calls US wars irrational. On the other, it points out that politicians continue profiting from them. That's hardly irrational.
The Saudis could not have launched such a campaign without the U.S. approval and cooperation. The attacks on the people of Yemen, aimed at the Houthis in particular, are very much the responsibility of the U.S. and Obama, who made the decision.
The U.S. is providing essential military components of the campaign."
"Despite Iran's call for peace, it is being credited for also being involved in the Yemen conflict - but on the opposite side. According to a Wall Street Journal report, the US army has foiled smuggling attempts from Iran to Yemen intended to transfer equipment to Houthi rebel fighters. "Americans are killing and dying in another civil war.
"The cases include those of 32 defendants sentenced to death. Of those, 14 have been executed or died in prison, the groups said under an agreement with the government to release results after the review of the first 200 convictions."SOP.
"Executive management at FBI Headquarters assigned responsibility for the anthrax investigation (code named “AMERITHRAX”) to the Washington Field Office (WFO), dubbing it the single most important case in the FBI at that time. In October 2002, in the wake of surging media criticism, White House impatience with a seeming lack of investigative progress by WFO, and a concerned Congress that was considering revoking the FBI’s charter to investigate terrorism cases, Defendant FBI Director Mueller reassigned Plaintiff from the FBI’s San Diego Field Office to the Inspection Division at FBI Headquarters and placed Plaintiff in charge of the AMERITHRAX case as an “Inspector.” While leading the investigation for the next four years, Plaintiff’s efforts to advance the case met with intransigence from WFO’s executive management, apathy and error from the FBI Laboratory, politically motivated communication embargos from FBI Headquarters, and yet another preceding and equally erroneous legal opinion from Defendant Kelley – all of which greatly obstructed and impeded the investigation."No surprise, but this should be interesting.
"Kalashnikov, a former member of the Ukrainian parliament and a very vocal and visible critic of the Kiev regime, was found shot to death in his home. This time, the authorities are having a hard time spinning it as a “suicide,” although they haven’t come right out and said it was murder. Kalashnikov had recently been campaigning for the right of Ukrainians to celebrate the victory of the Allies during World War II – a controversial topic in Ukraine, where sympathy for the Third Reich and its Ukrainian collaborators is rife among supporters of the current government. He had reportedly received numerous death threats because of his stand."It makes sense Obama would ally with neo-nazis. They both believe in using violence to advance their interests.
"What makes the article timely is the report that Canada will be sending 200 soldiers to western Ukraine to join 800 Americans and 75 Brits on a yearlong assignment to train the Ukrainian army."This is in direct violation of the ceasefire agreement.
""Putin is not the hardest of the hard-liners in Russia," write the authors. "Russia’s establishment falls into … a pragmatic camp, which is currently dominant thanks principally to Putin’s support, and a hard-line camp" the one Putin adviser calls "the hotheads."US policy of war and aggression always bolsters the radicals.
The hotheads believe the way to respond to U.S. encroachments is to invoke the doctrine of Yuri Andropov, "challenge the main enemy," and brandish nuclear weapons to terrify Europe and split NATO.
Russian public opinion is said to be moving toward the hotheads."
"As of now, the Minsk II cease-fire of February seems to be holding. The Ukrainian army and pro-Russian rebels have both moved their heavy weapons back from the truce lines, though there have been clashes and casualties."Hard to believe.
"Or would we start up the escalator to a war with Russia that few Europeans, but some Americans and Russians, might welcome today?"Fortunately the Europeans have cooler heads.
"OMG how frightening!” one YouTube commenter responded, while others insisted the patrols were a routine occurrence. "It's more frightening as it becomes more normal.
"Indeed, as I point out in my new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, it really doesn’t matter what you call them—the 1%, the elite, the controllers, the masterminds, the shadow government, the police state, the surveillance state, the military industrial complex—so long as you understand that no matter which party occupies the White House in 2017, the unelected bureaucracy that actually calls the shots will continue to do so."NSA is in charge.
"Task force detectives were joined in the investigation and raid by agents with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the federal Drug Enforcement Administration."All this manpower and tax money spent for month only nets three arrests and will have zero impact on the drug supply and use.As always, taxpayers lose and rulers win.
"In one of her first arguments before the jury after entering a not-guilty plea, Clarke said that her client is indeed responsible for the “senseless, horrific, misguided acts.” But in committing these crimes, she argued that he was acting under the direction of his older brother Tamerlan, who was killed in a shootout with authorities soon after the bombing.I wondered the same thing. The only people who gained from that is the government.
This line of defense has outraged many of Tsarnaev’s relatives, who have tried to convince him to dismiss Clarke and ask for a lawyer who will argue his innocence. “Why do we even need defense attorneys if they just tell the jury he is guilty?” his aunt asks. “What’s the point?”"
"This is no less true of the relationship between American invasions, occupations, wars, raids, interventions, and drone assassination campaigns, and the growth of terror outfits (and the fragmentation of states) in the Middle East. That someone should draw a lesson or two from all this and not do essentially the same things over and over again may seem reasonable enough on the face of it, but evidently not in Washington. "It's all about money.
"“According to the two senior officials, Netanyahu said during the meeting that he feared that the ‘Iranians will keep to every letter in the agreement if indeed one is signed at the end of June.’That's because Iranian nukes was never the issue.
“One official said: ‘Netanyahu said at the meeting that it would be impossible to catch the Iranians cheating simply because they will not break the agreement.'”"
"The real issue is Iran’s very existence – its size, its resources, its position as the epicenter of Shi’ite power in the region."Iran is on the rise because the US has weakened Sunnis and handed Iraq to Shia.
"What Israel really feared was not Iran’s non-existent nuclear threat but rather its ongoing support for the beleaguered Palestinians.I hate to agree with Obama. I guess I shouldn't though. I should be happy he got something right.
Iran became the last Mideast nation giving strong backing to creation of a Palestinian state. The Arab states opposing Israel have been silenced: Syria, Libya and Iraq crushed by war and torn asunder, Egypt and Jordan bought off with huge bribes. The Saudis have secretly allied themselves to Israel. So only Iran was left to champion Palestine.
That is why Israel made such a determined effort to push the US into war with Iran. With the feeble Arab states largely demolished or gelded, Israel’s hold on the Occupied West Bank and Golan would be unchallenged."
"Washington’s Mideast Raj forms one of the enduring pillars of American global power. Though America consumes less and less Mideast oil each year, its control of the flow of oil from Arabia to Europe, Japan, China and the other parts of the Asian economy gives it huge strategic leverage. Japan and Germany both vividly remember they lost WWII because of lack of oil.Ironic.
The 1979 Iranian Revolution gravely threatened this sweetheart arrangement. Iran demanded that its Arab neighbors follow Islam’s calls to share wealth, avoid ostentation, live modestly, and care for the needy – in short, the very opposite of the flamboyant Saudis and Gulf Arabs."
"Washington faces a major dilemma over the isolation of Iran. If sanctions are substantially lifted, Iran will increase oil and gas exports and begin rebuilding its industrial base and obsolete military forces. Europe, Russia, China and India are all eager to resume doing business with Iran.True.
But lifting sanctions will make Iran stronger and even more of a political threat to America’s Mideast satraps – who want the Persian genii bottled up. Claims that Mideast states like Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE fear a nuclear arm race are spurious. Save Egypt and Jordan, all are next door to Iran. Nuclear weapons have no use in such close quarters. Egyptians lack food, never mind nuclear arms."
"Israel and the U.S. know from their intelligence services that Iran has no active nuclear weapons program, but they are not about to let truth get in the way of their concerted effort to marginalize Iran. And so they fantasize before the world about an Iranian nuclear weapons program that must be stopped at all costs – including war."I distrust the US too.
That's just what you would expect from socialism."But after spending hundreds of millions of dollars and deploying nearly 3,000 troops to build Ebola treatment centers, the United States ended up creating facilities that have largely sat empty: Only 28 Ebola patients have been treated at the 11 treatment units built by the United States military, American officials now say.Nine centers have never had a single Ebola patient.“My task was to convince the international organizations, ‘You don’t need any more E.T.U.s,’ ” said Dr. Hans Rosling, a Swedish public health expert who advised Liberia’s health ministry, referring to Ebola treatment units.“I warned them, ‘The only thing you’ll show is an empty E.T.U.,’ ” he added. “ ‘Don’t do it.’ ”The American response, it turns out, was outpaced by the fast-moving and unpredictable disease."
