POTUS, self-appointed voice of global democracy, is a sham; worse, delusional if he swallows his rhetoric, cruelly opportunistic if, as I believe, he doesn't. The analogy that comes to mind here, fortunately a hypothetical, would be J. Edgar Hoover, at a service for Dr. King. Blood on his hands, Obama the inversion of Mandela at every turn, yet ringing the changes of freedom, democracy, peace, while the Behemoth of global interventionism, like a massive steamroller, plows forward, the Middle East and China flashpoints in a comprehensive hegemonic framework. The world's ranking militarist, in point of "assets," expenditures, arsenals, geostrategic planning, preens before the world audience, speaking power to truth, rather than the reverse, even stooping to the deception of a handshake with Raul Castro knowing full well the contrived symbolism of standing in Mandela's shadow has no bearing whatever on the half-century embargo of Cuba, the sanctions representing a vain attempt at destroying an alternative form of social life which has brought only unnecessary suffering to a proud people.

Showmanship is cheap; if I were Raul I would have spit in his eye, and told him to move on. No, courtesy and protocol have no place where oppressors are involved.

I will quote only sparingly from Obama's address - what's the use, when honeyed words fly on serpent's wings? The striking point is how much he is in denial, his words applied to Mandela (meant really to justify his own actions) become razor-like indictments of his record. There is his use of the word "ubuntu," identified with Mandela, eliciting applause, which signifies that "we are all bound together in ways that are invisible to the eye; that there is a oneness to humanity; that we achieve ourselves by sharing ourselves with others, and caring for those around us." That by itself, the vulgarization of ubuntu - through the use of demonization of all who contest American rulership, worse still, whose sharing and caring by US forces translates as drone missiles on funerals and other "collateral damage" - sets the stage for self-congratulation as a caring leader solicitous of the welfare of all Americans.

A federal judge ruled Monday that the National Security Agency program which collects information on nearly all telephone calls made to, from or within the United States is likely unconstitutional.

U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon found that the program appears to violate the Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches and seizures. He also said the Justice Department had failed to demonstrate that collecting the information had helped to head off terrorist attacks.

Acting on a lawsuit brought by conservative legal activist Larry Klayman, Leon issued a preliminary injunction barring the NSA from collecting so-called metadata pertaining to the Verizon accounts of Klayman and one of his clients. However, the judge stayed the order to allow for an appeal.

Lobbyists and members of Congress have been rated as the least honest and ethical professionals in the United States, according to a new survey.

A Gallup poll published on Monday showed that only 6 percent of Americans rate lobbyists as having "high" or "very high" honesty and ethical standards. In fact, lobbyists earned the lowest place out of the 22 professions on the poll.

The abysmal ranking for lobbyists is not much of a surprise since 7 out of every 10 Americans believe lobbyists have too much power in the US, according to another Gallup poll conducted in April.

US lawmakers were the next in the worst ratings with only 8 percent of people saying their representatives in Congress have high ethical standards.

Down from 9 percent in November, members of Congress continue to fail to impress the public.

José "Pepe" Mujica shot back on Friday at the president of the International Narcotics Control Board, a U.N. agency, for saying that his administration refused to meet with the agency's officials before legalizing marijuana this week.

Mujica batted down the criticism, insisting that his administration is open to discussing the law and accusing the INCB President Raymond Yans of applying a double standard by criticizing Uruguay, even as U.S. states pass laws to legalize recreational marijuana consumption.

"Tell this old guy not to lie," Mujica told reporters, according to Colombian daily El Espectador. "Any guy in the street can meet with me. Let him come to Uruguay and meet with me whenever he wants... He thinks that because he's in an international position, he can tell whatever lie he wants."

Millions of Afghan people suffer from poverty and unemployment while the US spends over 6 billion dollars every month in the war-torn country, Press TV reports.

Senior officials in Washington say they spend more than six billion dollars of taxpayers' money in Afghanistan every month. However, international bodies and charity groups say Afghanistan still remains one of the poorest countries in the world.

Figures show the money is spent on US soldiers, military operations, as well as civilian and military contractors.

Several charity organizations including Oxfam have repeatedly criticized the US and its NATO allies for failing to tackle the poverty across the war-ravaged country. Insecurity, however, continues to grow across the country, with the Afghan population suffering from poverty and unemployment.

It's probably not the kind of recognition he wanted to receive, but President Barack Obama has been awarded PolitiFact's "Lie of the Year" for 2013.

The infamous prize, handed out annually by the fact-checking website PolitiFact, was given to Obama because of his statements claiming that Americans would be able to keep their health insurance under the Affordable Care Act if they liked their plan.

"If you like your health care plan, you can keep it,"

Obama said on numerous occasions over the years. Soon after cancellation notices began arriving in American mailboxes this fall - more than four million people have seen their coverage cancelled at this point, largely due to the fact that their coverage did not reach the ACA's minimum requirements - Obama denied that such a promise was made, saying he actually meant that plans could be kept only if they hadn't changed since the health care law was passed.

Obama's explanation didn't pass muster, however, especially since he'd been captured on video promising that health care plans would stay in place at least two dozen times. Facing public backlash, Obama apologized and unveiled a one-year plan to allow insurers keep selling existing plans that are about to be cancelled.

A Kenyan senator who posted an image of himself with Nelson Mandela on his Facebook account has been caught out after it was exposed as a photoshopped picture.

The image was posted on Mike Sonko's Facebook page last Friday along with the caption: "A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination".

The original picture however is Mandela smiling with the boxer Muhammad Ali. The photoshopped image features Mike Sonko wearing a pair of sunglasses, looking toward the camera.

The photo has also been edited to feature an outdoor background.

He tagged 10 other people in the image, which has been shared almost 700 times on Facebook.

A bill to restrict funding to leftist nonprofit organization won the government's approval Sunady, passing the Ministerial Committee for Legislation by an 8-4 vote. The ministers supporting it belonged to Likud, Yisrael Beiteinu and Habayit Hayehudi, while the four opponents were Tzipi Livni (Hatnuah), and Yesh Atid's Yair Lapid, Jacob Perry and Yael German.

The approved version changed two clauses in the original proposal: That a leftist nonprofit would be penalized even if only one member of its board violated one of the clauses for which sanctions are imposed, and that sanctions would be imposed on organizations working against "the Jewish-democratic identity of the state." The latter clause would have included negating, even implicitly, Israel's existence as a Jewish state, or calling for the separation of religion and state.

In an unusual move, it was agreed that the bill would be debated again by the ministerial panel after it passes its preliminary reading in the Knesset.

Under the revised bill, certain nonprofits that receive donations from a foreign entity would be required to pay a 45 percent tax on the contributions. The law would apply to groups that work for or call on others to boycott Israel, stop investing in Israel, or impose sanctions on the state or its citizens. It would also apply to groups calling to prosecute IDF soldiers for war crimes, subsequently exposing such alleged acts, or calling to investigate them.

Bachelet wins election after promising profound changes in society in response to years of street protests
Chile's once and future president, Michelle Bachelet, won Sunday's runoff election after promising profound changes in society in response to years of street protests.

With 90% of the votes counted, Bachelet had an unbeatable 62% to 38% for the centre-right's Evelyn Matthei, who conceded defeat.

A moderate socialist, Bachelet served as president in 2006-2010, then ran the United Nation's women's agency from New York as her successor, conservative Sebastian Pinera, was confronted with widespread demonstrations for change.

She has a new centre-left coalition and promises to finance education with higher corporate taxes, reduce the wealth gap, protect the environment and reform the constitution.

But concerns that turnout would be low had worried Bachelet, who needed a strong mandate to make good on her promises.

"This is an important day and I hope people can come and participate and through their vote give a clear expression of the kind of Chile where they want to continue to live," Bachelet said after voting in her Santiago neighborhood of La Reina. "The changes we need can't be produced through skepticism."

"Diet, injections, and injunctions will combine, from a very early age, to produce the sort of character the authorities consider desirable."

~ Bertrand Russell, The Impact of Science on Society.

Anyone who has taken even a cursory look at what passes for human food these days can't but conclude that it is literally unfit to eat. Aspartame, BPA, fluoride, MSG, preservatives, cloned or irradiated meats, factory farming, GMOs, artificial colors, artificial flavors, nanoparticles - the list of franken-foods that we are asked to happily shove down our throats is ever-expanding and ever-more horrifying. It seems every day there's a different news story about how our food supply is being perverted in ways that take us further and further away from what actually nourishes our bodies, and therefore ever further from being able to think, move and generally function as we should.

One would be forgiven, therefore, for seeing some sort of agenda behind this perversion of our food. How else can we explain the corruption of the most essential ingredient for mental, emotional and physical health, if not by positing a grand conscious conspiracy on the part of the 'elite' to control the global population? A population that isn't able to think and do, isn't able to rebel, right? Surely a population that is addicted to food additives - and even addictive natural foods that alter our perceptions, like gluten, casein and sugar, and make us dependent on these foods - is a population that is easily molded to the machinations of a ruling class.