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Bad Guys

As Europe erupts over U.S. spying, NSA chief says government must stop media

Glenn Greenwald
The Guardian
Fri, 25 Oct 2013 20:22 UTC
NSA Director General Keith Alexander
© Evan Vucci/AP
NSA Director General Keith Alexander, earlier this month.
With General Alexander calling for NSA reporting to be halted, US and UK credibility as guardians of press freedom is crushed

The most under-discussed aspect of the NSA story has long been its international scope. That all changed this week as both Germany and France exploded with anger over new revelations about pervasive NSA surveillance on their population and democratically elected leaders.

As was true for Brazil previously, reports about surveillance aimed at leaders are receiving most of the media attention, but what really originally drove the story there were revelations that the NSA is bulk-spying on millions and millions of innocent citizens in all of those nations. The favorite cry of US government apologists - - everyone spies! - falls impotent in the face of this sort of ubiquitous, suspicionless spying that is the sole province of the US and its four English-speaking surveillance allies (the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand).
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Vader

Confirmed: EU leaders are faking surprise at NSA spying - they are all in collusion with U.S.

Paul Hamilos
The Guardian
Wed, 30 Oct 2013 07:40 UTC
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The Spanish govt yesterday made a big show of summoning its US ambassador... turns out they were actively cooperating with the NSA all along
Spain colluded in NSA spying on its citizens, Spanish newspaper reports

El Mundo says it has obtained document detailing collaboration between US intelligence agency and foreign countries

The widespread surveillance of Spanish citizens by the US National Security Agency, which caused outrage when it was reported this week, was the product of a collaboration with Spain's intelligence services, according to one Spanish newspaper.

In the latest revelations to emerge from the documents leaked by the US whistleblower Edward Snowden, Spanish agents not only knew about the work of the NSA but also facilitated it, El Mundo reports.

An NSA document entitled "Sharing computer network operations cryptologic information with foreign partners" reportedly shows how the US relies on the collaboration of many countries to give it access to intelligence information, including electronic metadata.

The US classifies co-operation with various countries on four different levels. In the first group are allies: the UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. The second group, of which Spain is a member, includes 19 countries, all of them European apart from Japan and South Korea.
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Nuke

Help wanted in Fukushima: Low pay, high risks and gangsters (=pathological deviants)

Antoni Slodkowski and Mari Saito
Reuters Canada
Fri, 25 Oct 2013 04:29 UTC
fukushima clean up worker
© Reuters
Fukushima clean up worker
Tetsuya Hayashi went to Fukushima to take a job at ground zero of the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. He lasted less than two weeks.

Hayashi, 41, says he was recruited for a job monitoring the radiation exposure of workers leaving the plant in the summer of 2012. Instead, when he turned up for work, he was handed off through a web of contractors and assigned, to his surprise, to one of Fukushima's hottest radiation zones.

He was told he would have to wear an oxygen tank and a double-layer protective suit. Even then, his handlers told him, the radiation would be so high it could burn through his annual exposure limit in just under an hour.

"I felt cheated and entrapped," Hayashi said. "I had not agreed to any of this."

When Hayashi took his grievances to a firm on the next rung up the ladder of Fukushima contractors, he says he was fired. He filed a complaint but has not received any response from labor regulators for more than a year. All the eight companies involved, including embattled plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co, declined to comment or could not be reached for comment on his case.
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Dollar Gold

UK central banker gets ready to blow up the world


The Daily Bell
Tue, 29 Oct 2013 00:35 UTC
Central banks need to 'keep up' with markets says Mark Carney ... The Bank of England, Mark Carney said on Thursday night, is open for business. The governor's message to the City was clear. The days when the Old Lady preached the perils of "moral hazard" without due regard to financial pressures are well and truly over. - Financial Times
Mark Carney
© Wikimedia Commons

This article is truly scary. Like a bullet across the bow, or the crack of a whip, it announces with certainty that the world's top bankers intend to blanket the world with faux currency.

They don't give a hoot. They're out to give us the business and bust the bank. When it's done, there'll be nothing left but a smoking ruin. Reading between the lines, that's what this article says.

Are we exaggerating? Let's see.

Carney was said by his central banking peers to be the "best" central banker of his generation and his recent choice to head the Bank of England was therefore preordained. In fact, we figured that was a bit like being the "best" used car salesman.

But we were wrong. It's worse, much worse. What this article in the Financial Times tells us is that Carney was brought in not just to glad-hand the media and put a sympathetic face on this bloody and miserable facility, but his real brief is to use its powers to the utmost.

He's even talking about printing money for banks in currencies other than sterling!
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Bad Guys

Mainstream economics is in denial: the world has changed

Aditya Chakrabortty
Guardian
Mon, 28 Oct 2013 19:21 UTC
Image
© Alamy
Karl Marx: time he went back on the syllabus?
Despite the crash, the high priests of economics refuse to look at the big picture - and continue to prop up world elites

Rebellions aren't meant to kick off in lecture theatres - but I saw one last Thursday night. It was small and well-read and it minded its Ps & Qs, and I think I shall remember it for some time.

We'd gathered at Downing College, Cambridge, to discuss the economic crisis, although the quotidian misery of that topic seemed a world away from the honeyed quads and endowment plush of this place.

Equally incongruous were the speakers. The Cambridge economist Victoria Bateman looked as if saturated fat wouldn't melt in her mouth, yet demolished her colleagues. They'd been stupidly cocky before the crash - remember the 2003 boast from Nobel prizewinner Robert Lucas that the "central problem of depression-prevention has been solved"? - and had learned no lessons since. Yet they remained the seers of choice for prime ministers and presidents. She ended: "If you want to hang anyone for the crisis, hang me - and my fellow economists."

What followed was angry agreement. On the night before the latest growth figures, no one in this 100-strong hall used the word "recovery" unless it was to be sarcastic. Instead, audience members - middle-aged, smartly dressed and doubtless sizably mortgaged - took it in turn to attack bankers, politicians and, yes, economists. They'd created the mess everyone else was paying for, yet they'd suffered no retribution.
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Red Flag

NBC News' bombshell Obamacare report disappears due to 'publishing glitch' - and there was something missing from republished version

Jason Howerton
The Blaze
Tue, 29 Oct 2013 18:58 UTC
Image
© AP Photo/Charles Dharapak
President Barack Obama smiles while speaking at Pathways in Technology Early College High School (P-TECH) in Brooklyn borough of New York, Friday, Oct. 25, 2013, where he highlighted the importance of education in providing skills for American workers in a global economy.
NBC News is claiming that a "publishing glitch" caused its bombshell investigative report on Obamacare to disappear for a period of time. The news outlet has since republished the scathing article, however, a key paragraph was temporarily removed - and no editor's note explaining why was included.

The article in question revealed that the Obama administration knew at least three years ago that millions of Americans would not be able to keep their health insurance under Obamacare. But that didn't stop President Barack Obama and other administration officials from promising the opposite, the report suggests.

At some point Tuesday night, the link to the story started directing readers to a "Error 404″ page:

Image
EDITOR'S NOTE: A publishing glitch took down our story on policy cancellations under Obamacare. Republished here: http://t.co/HegN2kyvyV

- NBC News (@NBCNews) October 29, 2013
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Vader

MSNBC's blistering montage of the president denying knowledge of recent scandals

Mike Opelka
The Blaze
Tue, 29 Oct 2013 18:40 UTC
Image
"What did the president know and when did he know it?"

Not much, and not until much later, an MSNBC-created montage of recent scandals recaps.

Among them are Operation Fast and Furious; the Internal Revenue Service's extra scrutiny of conservative groups; Department of Justice subpoenas of Associated Press records; Solyndra; and the disastrous rollout of Obamacare.
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Bad Guys

US dollar's 'exorbitant privilege' at risk

Spencer Kimball
DW.DE
Thu, 17 Oct 2013 00:00 UTC
The US brought itself close to another self-inflicted fiscal crisis, saved only by an 11th hour agreement. But this solution only
Image
© picture-alliance/dpa
postpones the problem and could undermine confidence in the dollar as a safe haven.

Since the end of World War II, international investors have looked at the US dollar as a safe bet, reassured by the full faith and credit of Uncle Sam. In hard times, they parked their money in US Treasury bills to ride out the storm. But these days, Washington is not looking as reliable as it once did to some investors.

Democrats and Republicans were only able to reach a deal at the very last minute. Their inability to compromise sooner on a spending bill had caused the federal government to shut down for the first time in 17 years. But the attempt by the Republicans to once again use the debt ceiling as leverage in budget negotiations with President Barack Obama, risking a default on US debt obligations, failed. This could have had a major impact on investor confidence.

Comment: Indeed, many countries are dumping their reliance on the US Dollar Reserve in favor of agreements struck in their own currencies. As confidence erodes, many of these foreign trade dollars will find their way back home - possibly sparking a brutal dollar hyperinflation. No new dollar creation is needed for this to happen.

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Bomb

Notorious anti-immigration Arizona sheriff wants fleet of drones


RT
Tue, 29 Oct 2013 16:11 UTC
Image
© Reuters / Laura Segall
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio
Yet another law enforcement agency is looking to acquire a fleet of surveillance drones, but don't act too surprised. Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the controversial lawman from Maricopa County, Arizona, is interesting in adding drones to his arsenal.

Arpaio, 81, has made headlines before over his vehement stance against immigration and his thoughts about United States President Barack Obama. Now he's in the news again, and this time because he wants to bring unmanned aerial vehicles to Maricopa County to protect its almost 4-million residents.

"I want two of these drones, unmanned and of course unarmed," Arpaio told local network ABC15.

The US Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation already have drones on the ready that can be deployed during emergency situations, and dozens of small law enforcement agencies and organizations as of late have applied for permits to control unmanned aerial vehicles in a limited airspace. Now Arpaio wants Maricopa County to be on the list of locales cleared for drone use in certain situations, and he's hoping an eye-in-the-sky surveillance tool will help stop crime and catch criminals.
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Star of David

Israel benefits as world loses

Dr. Paul J. Balles
intifada-palestine.com
Sat, 26 Oct 2013 15:39 UTC
Paul Balles

Paul Balles

Is there any point in public debate in a society where hardly anyone has been taught how to think, while millions have been taught what to think?
--Peter Hitchens

What started off as Arab Spring has turned morbidly into Arab Fall. What began as a seasonal description became directional and self-destructive. Not only have movements that looked promising failed to benefit anyone but Israel, they have drawn their sponsors exorbitantly toward bankruptcy.

The Israelis and their lobbyists in the United States laugh quietly when they hear someone complain about the $3 billion in annual gifts America sends to Israel. Why is that funny? Because it only represents a tiny portion of what Israel really costs America. Add the total costs of all the wars the US has fought for Israel. The Iraq war alone has cost America $815 billion and it's still not over. It has benefitted no one but Israel - not America and certainly not Iraq. The number of Iraqis slaughtered in the US war and occupation of Iraq: 1,455,590.

Comment: Very succinct description and great summary of the current state of affairs in the Middle East. The pathology of the Israeli leaders is becoming more and more obvious as the death toll rises and costs increase by hundreds of billions every year. When will this stop?

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