Documents, interviews show agents employed tactics similar to those used in Milwaukee

Aaron Key wasn't sure he wanted a tattoo on his neck. Especially one of a giant squid smoking a joint.

But the guys running Squid's Smoke Shop in Portland, Ore., convinced him: It would be a perfect way to promote their store.They would even pay him and a friend $150 apiece if they agreed to turn their bodies into walking billboards. Key, who is mentally disabled, was swayed. He and his friend, Marquis Glover, liked Squid's. It was their hangout. The 19-year-olds spent many afternoons there playing Xbox and chatting with the owner, "Squid," and the store clerks.

So they took the money and got the ink etched on their necks, tentacles creeping down to their collarbones. It would be months before the young men learned the whole thing was a setup. The guys running Squid's were actually undercover ATF agents conducting a sting to get guns away from criminals and drugs off the street.

The tattoos had been sponsored by the U.S. government; advertisements for a fake storefront. The teens found out as they were arrested and booked into jail.

ATF agents have been exploiting mentally disabled people, allowing children to use drugs, teaching criminals new tricks, and even employing female agents to hit on underaged males as part of their storefront sting operations, a new investigative report charges.

Yesterday, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel published a damning "Watchdog report" on the ATF's activities, conclusions that they say are based on thousands of pages of court documents, police reports, and interviews with dozens of people who were involved in six different ATF operations.

According to the Journal's findings, the ATF routinely uses storefront sting operations, where they open up undercover storefronts in an effort to ferret out guns and drugs.

The high-tech AV-wired fronts take the shape of one of two forms - as stores that sell items like "hip-hop clothing and shoes," cigarettes, and drug paraphernalia, and as pawn shops with reputations for buying anything.

But to make these storefronts seem more legitimate, the ATF apparently regularly employs children and mentally handicapped people, some of whom are later arrested for their involvement in the stings.

In April, the Journal exposed an ATF sting operation that went sour after they used a brain damaged man named Chaucey Wright to hand out fliers to attract people to one of their fake storefronts. The ATF paid Wright - who had an IQ in the 50's - in cigarettes and cash. They never told him the store was a front, although his girlfriend suspected something wasn't right.

Recent studies by psychologists and social scientists in the US and UK suggest that contrary to mainstream media stereotypes, those labeled "conspiracy theorists" appear to be saner than those who accept the official versions of contested events.

The most recent study was published on July 8th by psychologists Michael J. Wood and Karen M. Douglas of the University of Kent (UK). Entitled "What about Building 7? A social psychological study of online discussion of 9/11 conspiracy theories," the study compared "conspiracist" (pro-conspiracy theory) and "conventionalist" (anti-conspiracy) comments at news websites.

The authors were surprised to discover that it is now more conventional to leave so-called conspiracist comments than conventionalist ones: "Of the 2174 comments collected, 1459 were coded as conspiracist and 715 as conventionalist." In other words, among people who comment on news articles, those who disbelieve government accounts of such events as 9/11 and the JFK assassination outnumber believers by more than two to one. That means it is the pro-conspiracy commenters who are expressing what is now the conventional wisdom, while the anti-conspiracy commenters are becoming a small, beleaguered minority.

Perhaps because their supposedly mainstream views no longer represent the majority, the anti-conspiracy commenters often displayed anger and hostility: "The research... showed that people who favoured the official account of 9/11 were generally more hostile when trying to persuade their rivals."

AT&T, under fire for ongoing revelations that it shares and sells customers' communications records to the National Security Agency and other U.S. intelligence offices, says it isn't required to disclose to shareholders what it does with customers' data.

In a letter sent Thursday to the Securities and Exchange Commission, AT&T said it protects customer information and complies with government requests for records "only to the extent required by law."

The telecom giant's letter was a response to a shareholder revolt sparked on Nov. 20 by the New York State Common Retirement Fund, the ACLU of Northern California and others. The groups are demanding that AT&T and Verizon be more transparent about their dealings with the NSA.

In the letter, AT&T said information about assisting foreign intelligence surveillance activities is almost certainly classified. The company said it should not have to address the issue at its annual shareholders meeting this spring.

December 23rd marks the 100^th anniversary of the Federal Reserve. Dissatisfaction with its track record has prompted calls to audit the Fed and end the Fed. At the least, Congress needs to amend the Fed, modifying the Federal Reserve Act to give the central bank the tools necessary to carry out its mandates.

The Federal Reserve is the only central bank with a dual mandate. It is charged not only with maintaining low, stable inflation but with promoting maximum sustainable employment. Yet unemployment remains stubbornly high, despite four years of radical tinkering with interest rates and quantitative easing (creating money on the Fed's books). After pushing interest rates as low as they can go, the Fed has admitted that it has run out of tools.

The pages of human history are not only long, they are largely redacted and distorted in a way that not only bolsters the official history of the righteous rule of the 'elite', but simultaneously covers up their long-term corruption and criminality. Those same pages are also replete with, and at times defined by, iconic and notable figures who rose to positions of either power or notoriety (or both) by either chance or design.

Some historical figures are lauded as heroes or even saviors, while others are remembered only as a warning of what can happen when human potential goes horribly awry. Yet, more often than not, when the true details of their lives are subjected to close and objective scrutiny, even the lauded heroes of history fall from grace to one degree or another.

There are however, a vanishingly small group of historical figures who, when scrutinized in the same way, provoke precisely the opposite effect; they are revealed to be true, and largely unsung, heroes. This details of their lives, and their deaths, tell a story of their ultimately unrealized potential to not only change human society for the better but to serve as role models for us all.

Unfortunately, the lives of most of these individuals were dramatically cut short by an assassins bullet or some equally fatal plot hatched by the established authorities of the day who realised the very real threat posed to their rule by the unchecked emergence of a true champion of the people.

Michael Collins, JFK, RFK, MLK, Ghandi, Lumumba, Lennon, Moro, Sadat, Palme, Diana, Rafik Hariri, Benazir Bhutto, Anna Lindh, Yasser Arafat...this is a short-list of great or potentially great leaders who were assassinated in the 20th century.

Earlier this year on SOTT Talk Radio, we looked at the lives and deaths of these individuals and others who were 'taken out' simply because they had the power and intent to make our world a better place for all.

Running Time: 02:04:00

Download: MP3

'NSA leaks' continue to pour out thick and fast courtesy of Ed Snowden and the Guardian newspaper. Are we really learning anything new? Do we really think The Guardian and Washington Post would publish stuff they weren't 'allowed' to publish? Who is Ed Snowden really and why do some whistleblowers become famous while others are bumped off quietly?

Earlier this year we discussed the 'NSA privacy scandal' on SOTT Talk Radio. Check it out:

Running Time: 02:33:00

Download: MP3

Part 1

Atzmon and O'Keefe scrutinize the role of language in political discussion and Palestine solidarity discourse in particular. In this segment they examine Zionism, Israel, Jewish tribalism and the usage of the 'J word'.

Resolution passed authorising French and African troops to use force to protect civilians amid reports of dozens killed in Bangui

A major French military intervention in the Central African Republic (CAR) is expected within days after the UN security council authorised French and African troops Thursdayto use force to protect civilians as the world races to prevent a sectarian war.

At least 105 people were killed during the heaviest clashes for months between rival militias in the capital, Bangui, according to Reuters. Family members crowded into a mosque in the capital where 53 bodies were laid out, most of which appeared to have been clubbed or hacked to death.

The CAR has been heading towards sectarian warfare since March when mainly Muslim rebels, aided by mercenaries from Chad and Sudan, seized power in a coup in this predominantly Christian nation.

Crackles of gunfire erupted at around 6am in Bangui on Thursday and could still be heard sporadically nearly three hours later close to the city's international airport. There were other reports of arms fire from suburbs north and east of the city. Even the president's and prime minister's homes were looted.

Sylvain Groulx of Médecins Sans Frontières, said he had seen more than 20 bodies lying on a street and a further eight in a hospital morgue. His staff were treating up to 70 casualties "and that tally is going up". He said: "I'm worried what kind of reprisals there will be later. Nobody is moving and it's a real ghost town."

The World Trade Organisation has sealed its first global trade deal after almost 160 ministers who had gathered on the Indonesian island of Bali agreed to reforms to boost world commerce.

The agreement, which was criticised by anti-poverty charities, came after intense lobbying by India over measures to protect its poorest farmers. A last-minute compromise between the US and Cuba was also needed over references in the final draft to the continuing trade embargo of the Caribbean island.