The US Government Has Constructed a Ubiquitous Surveillance State

(In keeping with the article I just posted about how the Reagan White House helped the fascist state in Guatemala set up death squads and in understanding what the government did in conjunction with the brutally murderous state of Indonesia and so many others, here is a little current events note to make you think about the VERY NEAR future this country is racing to meet)

by Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian

The five right-wing justices hand Obama a victory by accepting his DOJ’s secrecy-based demand for dismissal…

Car bomb attack jolts Syria’s Deir al-Zour

 (While Sec. Kerry suggests more support for the terrorists in Syria, they’re busy setting off car bombs in populated areas targeting the civilian population. What does Kerry want to give them? Passenger planes they can fly into buildings? Envelopes full of Amerithrax they can send to Parliament members and reporters? I mean shit… if you are going to go to bat for terrorists, go to bat for them. Don’t pussyfoot around. Give the terrorists what they need to steal the country from the people and get done with it. We’ve been a morally bankrupt nation run by genocidal maniacs for 6 decades… why fuck around with it? Own it. We are Monsters Inc. and that’s all there is too it.)

from Press TV

A bomb attack has hit eastern Syria as clashes between government forces and foreign-backed terrorists continue across the country, Press TV reports.

The incident occurred on Thursday when a car bomb was detonated in the city of Deir al-Zour.

The number of casualties was not immediately clear.

How Reagan Promoted Genocide (and death squads)

(I have often stated that this neoliberal agenda ALWAYS requires death squads targeting left leaning members of which ever community it was imposed on. Now it is being imposed on us. Here is a little history lesson for you)

Special Report: A newly discovered document reveals that President Reagan and his national security team in 1981 approved Guatemala’s extermination of both leftist guerrillas and their “civilian support mechanisms,” a green light that opened a path to genocide against hundreds of Mayan villages, reports Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry, from Consortium News

Soon after taking office in 1981, President Ronald Reagan’s national security team agreed to supply military aid to the brutal right-wing regime in Guatemala to pursue the goal of exterminating not only “Marxist guerrillas” but their “civilian support mechanisms,” according to a newly disclosed document from the National Archives.

Over the next several years, the military assistance from the Reagan administration helped the Guatemalan army do just that, engaging in the slaughter of some 100,000 people, including what a truth commission deemed genocide against the Mayan Indians in the northern highlands.

Recently discovered documents at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, also reveal that Reagan’s White House was reaching out to Israel in a scheme to circumvent congressional restrictions on military equipment for the Guatemalan military.

IMF Serving “Alternative” Sites Like BLN and Prison Planet, Already Pimping Next Round of Austerity Measures

by Scott Creighton

Phony alternative “libertarians” (read as “neoliberals”) are already out in the forefront calling for even more austerity in the face of the artificial deficit monster’s approach:

“If we can’t even cut federal spending by 2.4 percent without much of the country throwing an absolute hissy fit, then what hope does America have?” Black Listed News

Just for the record… it’s not the fact that they are cutting spending that is causing the few remaining humans a bit of angst these days, it’s WHO IS GOING TO BE DOING THE BLEEDING. Michael, in his article, draws the straw man comparison of people living in debt driving new cars and all the other stereotype misdirection connections that make absolutely no sense at all:

“.. debt addicts may be very proud of their new homes, their new cars, their new clothes and all of their fancy electronic gadgets, but it was all purchased with debt.  When a “day of reckoning” finally arrives, many debt addicts lose absolutely everything and end up in the street” Michael Snyder, BLN

The people who are going to be suffering the most in this first round of real austerity are not the so-called “debt addicts” that put us in this situation. The people who will be hit the hardest are the weakest among us.

Even wild dogs don’t eat their own, which is exactly what Michael Snyder is suggesting we do in order to avoid the dreaded deficit monster. His argument is morally reprehensible and intellectually/historically bankrupt. The deficit that he rails on over and over again isn’t caused by Social Security or teachers or cops or Medicare recipients and Snyder damn well knows it. The ongoing $40 billion dollar a month bailout to the banksters to purchase the bad debts and credit default swaps they created… THAT IS WHAT CAUSED IT. The trillions of dollars we have spent bombing Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan into neoliberal submission, THAT IS WHAT CAUSED IT. Giving BIG BUSINESS a huge tax break so they could survive the coming recession and subsequent depression, THAT IS WHAT CAUSED IT. Those are the “debt addicts” Synder rails against in his screed.

Who is being forced to pay the price for the banksters and the CEOs and the Vichy politicians? THAT is what is dreadfully wrong with this plan, Michael. Of course, a wealth worshipping Ayn Randian libertarian would probably have a little difficulty with that whole “empathy” and “social justice’ concept. They are a little challenged in the morality department if you know what I mean.

On his website, Michael Snyder makes a reference to this being a really bad economic “adjustment” that is about to happen to us. The “adjustment” term is a reference to the IMF/World Bank neoliberal policies they called “adjustments” that we installed in places like Chile and Argentina and Russia. These “adjustments’ are part and parcel of neoliberal economic policy, not reactions to circumstances.

Of course, his phony alternative message which does nothing but serve the interests of big banking and the IMF/World Bank, is being pimped at Prison Planet as well. That should tell you something about these “alternative” voices out there.

Britain “Unpersons” Citizens Before Killing Them – Orwell Rolls in his Grave

Unperson: An unperson is a person who has been “vaporized”; who has not only been killed by the state, but effectively erased from existence.

Revealed: British Citizens Stripped of Status Then Targeted For Killing

from Common Dreams

The British government has secretly been stripping citizenship status from British nationals it suspects of terrorism, some of whom were later targeted and killed by drone attacks abroad.

According to an report by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and published in the UK’s Independent on Thursday, the investigation “has established that since 2010, the Home Secretary, Theresa May, has revoked the passports of 16 individuals, many of whom are alleged to have had links to militant or terrorist groups.”

Subsequently, at least two of these individuals were targeted and then killed in Somalia by missiles fired from US drones.

According to the investigation:

At least five of those deprived of their UK nationality by the Coalition were born in Britain, and one man had lived in the country for almost 50 years. Those affected have their passports cancelled, and lose their right to enter the UK – making it very difficult to appeal against the Home Secretary’s decision.

In the US, where controversy has surrounding the targeted killing of US citizens abroad, no attempt was made to strip those individuals of their citizenship prior to their assassination. But the program in the UK, by stripping legal standing prior to targeting, seems to be an attempt to avoid the contentious idea that the government would kill its own citizens without trial or due process.

[read the rest, here]

Sandy Hook Shooting: Why all the Affected Phony Emotion from People Talking about Sandy Hook Massacre?

by Scott Creighton

Watch these two examples of really, really BAD ACTING. The first is from VP Joe Biden. The second is the father of a Sandy Hook shooting victim, Neil Heslin. Heslin, you will recall, is the guy who asked the audience a question in the first of these gun-grabbing meetings he attended and when they answered him, the media wrongly claimed he was being “heckled”.  Heslin is seemingly making a living these days running around on behalf of billionaires like Michael Bloomberg waving a picture of his dead son around telling everyone they have to give up their second amendment rights because his kid is dead.

If you want to have a look at the state of the union in this country, look no further than these disgusting displays of phony emotional context. Jenifer Lopez is a better actor than these two hams, but you can’t find anyone anywhere talking about that fact. You also can’t find people willing to stand up and wonder aloud why the hell it is that they HAVE to affect phony emotions while talking about this case.

Austerity USA Begins March 1st: Bipartisan Project to Impoverish the American People

by Shamus Cooke, Portland Indy Media (H/T blues)

U.S. politicians have cried wolf over austerity long enough for the public to ignore them. A perfect time, then, for politicians to actually unleash the wolves. Barring an unlikely last minute deal, here’s a short list of some of the massive, national bi-partisan-created austerity cuts, according to the New York Times.

• 600,000 food stamp recipients will be cut from the program
• Massive education cuts. According to President Obama: Once these cuts take effect thousands of teachers and educators will be laid off and tens of thousands of parents will have to scramble to find child care for their kids. “
• $12 billion in Medicare cuts (more to come after 2013)
• Federal funds to state governments will be cut, creating even more deficits for states and municipalities, and thus more localized cuts (the states have already made austerity cuts of $337 billion!)
• Also, 700,000 jobs are expected to be loss, while 70,000 kids are also expected to be kicked off of Head Start

And this is just for 2013. The current plan for the austerity “sequester” cuts is $100 billion of federal cuts every year for ten years, equaling massive cuts to jobs, Medicare, education, and completely destroying federally funded social programs.

Why Does the US Chamber of Commerce Want to Train or Replace Your Elected School Board, If They Haven’t Already?

by Bruce Dixon, BAR

A key role in the elite drive to privatize public education is being played by privately owned school “accreditation” agencies, which are immune from public scrutiny, and under the absolute thrall of pro-privatization forces like the US Chamber of Commerce and the Broad Foundation. Are you hearing stories in local corporate media about your school board being “dysfunctional” and your school systems accreditation threatened? It could mean the US Chamber of Commerce and the Broad Foundation just want to replace them.

[read the rest, here]

Death Squads Inc. – Made in America and Coming Home Soon

by Scott Creighton

How soon til the death squads are operating in the United States? I don’t mean the destabilization campaign teams that are clearly already here running the American version of their old Operation Gladio, I mean the real death squads that our government has been setting up in neoliberalized nations via the CIA and Special Forces for a number of decades? The death squads that kick in doors at 3 am and drag out dissidents or political rivals of “made men” in the global elite cabal. Dissidents who end up being tortured to death and brutally killed, their headless bodies turning up under bridges and those are the fortunate ones, the others simply disappear, never too be seen again after being tossed from helicopters into the ocean.

Sec. Kerry is Just as Much of a Warmongering Liar as Clinton Was – What’s the Difference Between Them and the Myth of bin Laden?

by Scott Creighton

Sec. of State John Kerry is out to prove to the global financial elites that the days of plenty for them are still in vogue in his state department just as they were under Sec. Killary.

Recently, John Kerry stated that Syria’s leader, President Assad, “must go”. Cynically, Kerry stated that the people of Syria deserve to live without fear of death or bombings and so he and his UK counterpart were continuing to call for forced regime change in that country. He has also said that we must now openly support the terrorists with arms and munitions in the effort to oust or murder a leader of a sovereign state.

How is that any different than what Bush accused bin Laden of doing? Did the Seals not “execute” bin Laden in Pakistan for his involvement in organizing and funding 9/11? Isn’t that the official story? So how is it that we are training, supporting and now calling to openly arm terrorists using terrorism in Syria and it isn’t the exact same thing bin Laden was accused of doing?

Well, here’s one difference: bin Laden didn’t do it. But we sure are.

US State Department’s “Syriasly” Campaign Reaches New Level of Absurdity

by Tony Cartalucci, BLN

While the West and its Arab partners, the brutally autocratic regimes of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, are now admittedly funneling heavy weapons to Al Qaeda’s stronghold in Daraa, southern Syria, the US State Department and its extensive network of faux NGO’s funded by the same corporate-financier interests that write its policy, have rolled-out a front organization they call “Syriasly.”

Image: This fuax-human rights organization already screams biased, pro-Western propaganda with its Al Qaeda/French colonial green, red, and black logo, aping the so-called “Free Syrian Army’s” flag. That it is a campaign of “STAND” confirms without a doubt that it is manufactured propaganda, directly funded by the special interests who designed and are currently executing the assault on Syria.

….

Syriasly describes itself as:

#Syriasly is a campaign of STAND, the student-led movement to end mass atrocities. Born out of the fight to stop genocide in Darfur, Sudan, STAND is devoted to creating a sustainable student network that actively fights genocide and mass atrocities wherever they may occur. We envision a world in which the international community protects civilians from mass atrocities.

Sporting the French colonial colors that flew over Syria during its Western subjugation, and echoing the now defunct fraud that is the “Responsibility to Protect (R2P)” (and here) which lead to, not prevented, mass nationwide genocide in Libya in the wake of NATO’s brutal bombardment of the North African nation in 2011, “Syriasly” attempts to pose as “student-led.”

Wayne Madsen Misses the Point Big-Time on Phillip Marshall Mystery

by Scott Creighton

UPDATE: A reader, Mike, links us to another interview given by Madsen on this issue over at Kevin Barrett’s podcast. It reads like an infomercial because that’s exactly what it is. And here is the jist of it:

“BARRETT: Hmm. Wow. What an interesting history.So somebody who’s been this involved with, well, CIA, DEA, the drug smuggling, the dark side or overworld of the government, maybe is not supposed to be doing 9/11 truth books. Is that the message that was sent by this killing?” Barrett

You see, the MSM was ignoring this story in spite of the fact that it could be used to help push their gun control agenda. A former DEA and CIA agent and respected pilot “goes off” killing his family with the household firearm? How could they miss it? But they did. But the truth advocacy crowd (or what’s left of it) didn’t miss it, and suddenly Wayne comes out of hiding behind his pay-wall (H/T Blues) and does the “truther” circuit pushing this drivel which clearly misses the point of the Turkey – Iran/Contra connection?

Also of note, I noticed this: the interview seems to be following a script. At one point, Madsen starts talking about Philip’s personal life and it’s almost word for word the same thing he said in the Prison Planet interview. See if this sounds familiar.

MADSEN. …On two occasions that the cleaners were there, there were SUVs spotted in the driveway, people combing the house inside and outside. One night was with five or six guys with flashlights looking around the grounds behind the house, they were in the house. One vehicle with State of California tags, even though the Sheriff said it was a county matter and it had no state involvement in the investigation. And there was another SUV, license undetermined, with an array of communication antennas bristling from the roof of the vehicle, so there was a lot of attention after the yellow tape was removed and it was no declared as no longer as a crime scene. There was also an attempted break-in. I was there on the 13th of February, and looked around the house, spoke to a bunch of the people who lived in the neighborhood, and that evening the home was broken in to, somebody got through a sliding door in the back of the house and was after something. Also members of his estranged family showed up the next day and rifled through various drawers and boxes in the garage looking for something. It seems like Phillip Marshall had something somebody wanted, and something that somebody was willing to kill for, and he told a friend of his, after his last book he wrote that came out, I believe in November, and he was actually on a interview on AM Coast-to-Coast with Susan Lindauer, who many people may be familiar with also…

BARRETT: Yeah, she’s been on my show many times.

MADSEN: Yeah, so he was on Coast-to-Coast with Susan Lindauer, and y’know, his book The Big Bamboozle, about how, y’know, the Bush family, Cheney, the Saudi Government, they were all complicit in 9/11; he also added the Neo-Cons in that.

BARRETT: Let’s not forget the Neo-Cons…

MADSEN: Yeah, right. And more importantly, he told a friend of his that he was working on a fourth book, and he said “you’re really going to be shocked to see what I have in this fourth book.” Now what that book was nobody seems to know what the subject was, nobody seems to know, but…”  source

It reads almost like the exact conversation Wayne had with the interviewer on Prison Planet. Hit’s the same points, comes to the same “Bush and Neo-cons did it” point. here’s the big sales pitch to the “truther” investigators out there…

MADSEN:… but I believe the murder of Marshall and his family had something to do with his next book.

BARRETT: Wow, yeah, I would think so too, although the Kennedy assassination did happen fifty years ago, and Iran-Contra was, what, thirty some years or so ago, and 9/11 was just a little over a decade ago, and since he’s worked on that issue, and it’s, y’know, the people who did 9/11 are all still in power. I think are lot of the JFK criminals have probably retired, or passed to their eternal punishment, but…so I wouldn’t wonder if it wasn’t something 9/11 related.

Also of note is Wayne talking about this “new book” as the motive behind the killing. He has no information on a new book. He tells you so. It’s gossip at best and God knows where that gossip came from. Could have come from some of Wayne’s old co-workers at the NSA for all we know.

Disinformation specialist deal in leading people in the wrong direction. They often toss out a bunch of bullshit hoping to get independent researchers to look anywhere, everywhere, but at the real evidence or the real motive. For example Judy Wood or the Sorcha Faal link between LIBOR and the Aurora Massacre. It might seem tasty, but it will eventually go nowhere except round and round.

Thanks to the readers here who have left all the comments on this thread, I am more convinced than before that this is simply disinformation being deliberately peddled by a former NSA agent about a former CIA agent and his reported death.

UPDATE: Wow. There is almost nothing in the MSM about this guy’s death. At this time you would think that would be crazy with the way they are pushing the “mental illness” and gun control issue, but when you Google his name and click on “NEWS” there is almost NOTHING. What does that tell you? Seems like the ONLY article about it is the one cited in the InfoWars article from the Daily Mail. How is it that at a time when the MSM and the politicians are using ANY incident involving a gun to ramp up for gun control legislation, they missed a case where a father with “mental health issues” slaughtered his two beautiful kids and killed himself?  Very odd indeed.

—–

I have to admit, I missed this one altogether. Not a lot of press out there on the “truther gone crazy” story of Phillip Marshall supposedly killing his two beautiful kids and their dog before turning the gun on himself back in late January.

A reader alerted me to this just recently and another posted a video from none other than InfoWars featuring Wayne Madsen talking about this case. And while I watched it, so many red flags popped up it was silly. But the most amazing thing, and maybe it shouldn’t have been considering it’s on DisInfoWars, was the fact that Wayne seems to hit all around the obvious motive if this was a hit, and completely misses the point.

Sleeveless Obama Brand on Display at Oscars – “Five Broken Cameras” Loses

by Scott Creighton

Argo won Best Picture last night appeasing the CIA and their ongoing Operation Mockingbird campaign to no end. But the sickening propaganda didn’t stop there. No, they had to use the moment to propagandize another product of theirs… Obama™

The Academy Awards suddenly turned into the Michelle Obama Oscars when Jack Nicholson told the audience a special guest was joining him to present Best Picture.

“Argo” won the award, which the First Lady read off an envelope while being paged in to Los Angeles’ Dolby Theatre.

“[These films] taught us that love can beat all odds,” Obama said. “They reminded us that we can overcome any obstacle if we dig deep enough and fight hard enough and find the courage within ourselves.” Huffington Post

We are supposed to be honored and pleased when our royalty takes time out of their important lives to make an appearance at one of these ridiculously idiotic pageants. Bill Clinton showed up at the Golden Globes and received his mandatory standing ovation from Vichy Hollywood for all the “good’ he has done in the world.

U.S. Special Forces Ordered Out of Key Province for Torturing and Murdering Innocent People

(Just yesterday a big story came out in the Independent to be broadcast today on BBC1 claiming the Afghan Army was torturing and killing people in Afghanistan. Turns out, that may have just been a smokescreen from the BBC to cover today’s news.)

from Reuters

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has given U.S. special forces two weeks to leave a key battleground province after some U.S. soldiers there were found to have tortured or even killed innocent people, the president’s spokesman said on Sunday.

The decision by Karzai could further complicate negotiations between the United States and Afghanistan over the presence of Americans troops in the country once most NATO forces leave by the end of 2014.

Speaking at a news conference in Kabul, Karzai’s spokesman Aimal Faizi said villagers in Wardak province had lodged a series of complaints about operations conducted by U.S. special forces and a group of Afghans working with them.

The decision was reached at a Sunday meeting of the Afghan National Security Council, chaired by Karzai, Faizi said.

“The Ministry of Defense was assigned to make sure all U.S. special forces are out of the province within two weeks,” he said.

“After a thorough discussion, it became clear that armed individuals named as U.S. special forces stationed in Wardak province were engaging in harassing, annoying, torturing and even murdering innocent people,” Faizi added.

[read the rest, here]

“First of all, I THINK, there’s never been a drone used on an American citizen on American soil.”

by Scott Creighton

“First of all, I think, there’s never been a drone used on an American citizen on American soil.”

“The administration (the OBAMA administration)  has not carried out drone strikes inside the United States and has no intention of doing so.”

President Obama couldn’t bring himself to say that a drone has never been used against a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil.

Seems like an easy statement to make, right? No drones used against citizens in this country?

Think again jackasses. There is a REASON they couch their statements in such a legalese manner.