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Students and teachers protest in Colorado after proposal to censor "Civil Disobedience Topics" from history

Michael Krieger
Liberty Blitzkrieg
Wed, 24 Sep 2014 01:14 UTC
Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.

- Henry David Thoreau in Civil Disobedience (1849)
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.

- Frederick Douglass
Students
© Jesse A. Paul/The Denver Post
Students from Evergreen High School meet with Jefferson County Schools officials over their concerns about advanced placement history curriculum, Monday, September 22, 2014.
Civil disobedience is as American as apple pie. In fact, one of the most memorable moments in the formation of the republic was the Boston Tea Party, a much celebrated and historic act of civil disobedience.

From colonists dressed as Native Americans dumping East India Company tea into the Boston Harbor, to Henry David Thoreau's Civil Disobedience. From Rosa Parks, to Martin Luther King Jr., civil disobedience has been a significant part of what has made these United States free, and is a tactic that should be elevated and encouraged, rather than censored and demonized.
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Arrow Down

U.S. enters Syrian civil war without Congressional approval


Police State USA
Tue, 23 Sep 2014 21:40 UTC
Missile Launch
© U.S. Navy/Patrick Grieco
Launching of a U.S. ship-based missile.
Last night, at the sole discretion of President Barack Obama, the United States officially entered the Syrian civil war and launched attacks in that sovereign nation. The president had neither obtained authorization from the U.S. Congress, nor permission from the Syrian state's current government.

The offensive, launched in secret on , included a mix of fighter jets and bomber aircraft, accompanied by a barrage of ship-launched Tomahawk missiles, confirmed Pentagon press secretary John Kirby.

Military commanders intended to strike as many as 20 targets in the operation, primarily belonging to the Islamic State group, or "ISIS." The U.S. began attacking that group on August 8th, 2014 - but in Iraq, not Syria.

While the U.S. Congress recently voted to provide armaments to Syrian rebels, it did not vote for direct military strikes. Nonetheless, President Obama acted without reservation and said he would not hesitate to commit more attacks in the future.

Comment: There you have it. Tell us again, what is the difference between Bush and Obama?

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Network

Look out, Western-backed terrorists: Putin considers Russian response to ISIS


NBC News
Mon, 22 Sep 2014 20:55 UTC
putin isis
The next weapon in the fight against Islamic extremists in the Middle East might be Vladimir Putin. The Russian president discussed with his Security Council on Monday potentially contributing to fighting ISIS, according to Russian news agencies. The council "exchanged opinions on possible forms of cooperation with other partners on a plan to counter Islamic State in the framework of international law," Interfax quoted a Kremlin spokesman as saying.


Comment: The council's subtle way of saying the U.S.'s bogus coalition is NOT working within the framework of international law. They're right; it's not.


The United States has been trying to build a broad coalition to thwart ISIS militants in Syria and Iraq, but Russia has not been part of the conversation. "The anti-ISIL coalition is not a club party - we do not expect any invitations and we are not going to buy entry tickets," said Ilya Rogachev, an official in Russia's Foreign Ministry said last week. But Russia is a supporter of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose regime is trying to stave off an insurgency that has included ISIS fighters.

ISIS could potentially threaten Moscow directly, too. The group's ranks include Muslims from Russia's North Caucasus region, who have been waging their own insurgency in the mountainous region following two wars between Moscow and separatists in Chechnya.

Comment: The U.S.'s latest war is a joke: an attack on an enemy they created in order to attack Syria. A Russian response would be a legitimate one - an attack on ALL the terrorists illegally operating in Iraq and Syria, many of whom are directly trained and supported by the U.S. - within the bounds of international law. In other words, it would be an indirect attack on the U.S. and its dirty ops in the region. Which is why the U.S. doesn't want it.

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Black Magic

Where is the outrage! Facts: Syria is 7th (Muslim) country bombed by 2009 Nobel peace prize winner

Tyler Durden
Zerohedge.com
Tue, 23 Sep 2014 20:48 UTC
Nobel peace drone Obama
© Unknown
Authored by Glenn Greenwald, originally posted at The Intercept,

The U.S. today began bombing targets inside Syria, in concert with its lovely and inspiring group of five allied regimes: Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Jordan.

That means that Syria becomes the 7th predominantly Muslim country bombed by the 2009 Nobel Peace Laureate - after Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya and Iraq.

The utter lack of interest in what possible legal authority Obama has to bomb Syria is telling indeed: empires bomb who they want, when they want, for whatever reason (indeed, recall that Obama bombed Libya even after Congress explicitly voted against authorization to use force, and very few people seemed to mind that abject act of lawlessness; constitutional constraints are not for warriors and emperors).

It was just over a year ago that Obama officials were insisting that bombing and attacking Assad was a moral and strategic imperative. Instead, Obama is now bombing Assad's enemies while politely informing his regime of its targets in advance. It seems irrelevant on whom the U.S. wages war; what matters it that it be at war, always and forever.

Six weeks of bombing hasn't budged ISIS in Iraq, but it has caused ISIS recruitment to soar. That's all predictable: the U.S. has known for years that what fuels and strengthens anti-American sentiment (and thus anti-American extremism) is exactly what they keep doing: aggression in that region. If you know that, then they know that. At this point, it's more rational to say they do all of this not despite triggering those outcomes, but because of it. Continuously creating and strengthening enemies is a feature, not a bug, as it is what then justifies the ongoing greasing of the profitable and power-vesting machine of Endless War.

If there is anyone who actually believes that the point of all of this is a moral crusade to vanquish the evil-doers of ISIS (as the U.S. fights alongside its close Saudi friends), please read Professor As'ad AbuKhalil's explanation today of how Syria is a multi-tiered proxy war. As the disastrous Libya "intervention" should conclusively and permanently demonstrate, the U.S. does not bomb countries for humanitarian objectives. Humanitarianism is the pretense, not the purpose.
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Quenelle

Why the Ukraine will never take back Crimea - despite its bluster

The Saker
Russia Insider
Tue, 23 Sep 2014 20:47 UTC
jet
The Ukrainian Defense Minister Valerii Geletei is hardly a credible figure.

Not only did he recently declare that Russia had threatened the Ukraine with nuclear strikes, he even told a Ukrainian journalist that Russia had already executed two tactical nuclear strikes on the city of Lugansk (apparently to explain why the Ukrainian forces had to retreat from there). The Junta later denied the story and blamed it on the journalist who first published it.

Despite these antics, Geletei nonetheless caught the world's attention when he promised the Ukrainian Rada that the Ukraine would retake Crimea and organize a victory parade in Sevastopol. The Rada (Ukraine's parliament) greeted that promise with a standing ovation.

The truth is that this will never happen. Here is why:
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Bad Guys

US journalist: The United States is playing a very dangerous game with Russia and China


Press TV
Mon, 22 Sep 2014 17:51 UTC
Image
© Unknown
The United States' recklessly aggressive posture towards Russia and China has put them in a position where they are wondering when Washington will attack them, an American political commentator says.

Don DeBar, an anti-war activist and radio host in New York, made the remarks in a phone interview with Press TV on Monday while commenting on a retired US Navy admiral's assertion that the US should keep its nuclear weapons in European countries in the wake of Russian activities in Ukraine.

"Withdrawing our relatively few weapons would be the absolute wrong signal at this moment," former NATO chief James Stavridis said last week.

DeBar said that "the United States is playing a very dangerous game with Russia, and with China, by the way, but particularly with Russia."

"Aside from the decision that was made long time ago to implement the so-called missile-defense [system] in Europe and to move NATO up to the borders of Russia, and even aside from the overthrow of the Ukrainian government that took place with the backing of the United States earlier this year, and the civil war, the war that's have been going on in Ukraine on the border of Russia now for six months or more, and even despite the obvious determination of Russia to stand up at this point and say enough and no further, the United States now is contemplating or has announced its intensions to bomb targets in Syria in the face of the Syrian government's sovereignty basically," he added.


Comment: See: US starts bombing Syria - Real target is Assad

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Stormtrooper

Obama blamed for the rise of ISIL by Republican Senators McCain and Graham


Press TV
Tue, 23 Sep 2014 16:20 UTC
McCain, Graham
© politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com
Two US senators say the ISIL terrorist group "poses a direct threat to the United States" and have blamed President Barack Obama for the crisis that the group has created in Iraq and Syria.

Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham wrote in the National Review on Monday that the rise of ISIL is the result of Obama's refusal to attack Syria last September.

They also argued that ISIL was able to flourish because Obama did not leave behind a residual American force in Iraq in 2011, rejected the idea of training and arming Syrian rebels sooner, and decided not to order airstrikes against the group in Iraq last fall.

"As a result, the situation in Iraq and Syria has descended into a crisis that poses a direct threat to the United States. Worse yet, our options for countering this threat are fewer and far worse than they were just a few years ago," they wrote.

"If we fail to learn from the mistakes of the past few years - if we fail to pursue an aggressive, realistic strategy for victory, the ISIS threat will only grow stronger," they added, using another acronym for ISIL.

On Monday, the US and its allies started airstrikes against ISIL in Syria. The US military has already conducted some 174 airstrikes against ISIL targets in Iraq since mid-August.

The ISIL terrorists, some of whom have been trained by the US in Jordan and Turkey to destabilize the Syrian government, control Raqqa and sections of Aleppo in the north and Hasakeh in the northeast as well as most of Deir Ezzor in the east.

The terror group sent back its militants into Iraq in June, quickly seizing vast expanse of land straddling the border between the two countries.

The ISIL terrorists are notorious for carrying out horrific acts of violence, including public decapitations.

Comment: Whether or not leaving a large military force behind in Iraq (insult to injury considering what the U.S. did to that country) would have made any difference as to the rise and machinations of a militant ISIL, the fact remains that you can birth an entity for a particular effect with no assurances and no control over what it becomes. Plan gone awry or plan still on course...? The US and its allies in the region have been financially and militarily helping the militant groups fighting against Syrian government forces in past years. ISIL, which first grew in number and power in Syria, has expanded its terror attacks into Iraq and is now wreaking havoc in both countries. The U.S. and its cohorts...mea culpa. The fact of the matter is that whether ISIL behaved as to the original concept or deviated into the "hell-on-wheels" it has become, the U.S. now has a self-fulfilled "reason" to bomb Syria - - an outcome of which hypocritical war-mongers McCain and Graham are secretly delighted.

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Gold Coins

Royal Mint launches online gold bullion trading service


The Independent
Mon, 22 Sep 2014 17:35 UTC
Image
© AFP/Getty
The Royal Mint has launched its own online bullion trading service in a bid to entice investors away from shares and into gold sovereigns.

In a move that could spark a new gold rush, customers anywhere in the world will be able to buy unlimited quantities of gold coins directly from the Mint.

The gold will be stored in the Mint's high-security vault and guarded by Ministry of Defence personnel. The initiative is designed to overcome some of the key objections to investing in physical gold,including worries about shipping, storage and finding a trustworthy broker.

Citing World Gold Council figures showing there might be £4bn worth of untapped demand for gold investment in the UK, Shane Bissett, the Royal Mint's director of commemorative coin and bullion, said: "The Royal Mint can help make this option a much more accessible opportunity. We want to help expand the bullion market in the UK, particularly as coins offer a relatively affordable introduction - and believe we are well placed to do so."

Comment: It might be a good idea to purchase physical gold and take delivery as many banks and countries are doing.

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Bad Guys

Campbell commends Afghan deal that would extend US troop presence

Richard Sisk
Military News
Mon, 22 Sep 2014 20:31 UTC
Image
© U.S. Army
Warmonger John F. Campbell, commander of the NATO-led military coalition in Afghanistan.
U.S. Army Gen. John F. Campbell, commander of U.S and NATO troops in Afghanistan, hailed the presidential power-sharing agreement announced Sunday as a major step toward clearing the way for a continued presence of U.S. and allied forces next year.

In a statement, Campbell congratulated Afghan President-elect Ashraf Ghani Ammadzai and rival Abdullah Abdullah on the deal to form a National Unity Government. Both candidates have committed to keeping coalition forces in Afghanistan.

Campbell also praised the Afghan National Security Forces for remaining neutral during the long and bitter dispute over the presidential election results.

"Their achievements, through two elections and protracted political uncertainty, are enormous," Campbell said in an email to Military.com. "We remain committed to assisting the Afghan National Security Forces as they continue to serve and secure the Afghan people."

Following announcement of the agreement, retired Adm. James Stavridis, the former NATO commander, tweeted that the pledges of Ghani and Abdullah to work together would translate into "a Bilateral Security Agreement to keep a residual force and avoid the mistakes of Iraq."

In a statement, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen urged Ghani and Abdullah to come to "the conclusion of the necessary security agreements with the United States and NATO as soon as possible."

For more than a year, the allies have been pressing for a Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) with the U.S. to keep troops in Afghanistan past the end of this year and a similar agreement with NATO, but current President Hamid Karzai refused to sign. Karzai has been in power since shortly after the U.S. invasion in 2001.

Comment: NATO must be quite happy with the new Afghan "National Unity Government" that is conveniently willing to sign the BSA, allowing the destruction of Afghanistan to continue, which will most likely cost the lives of hundreds and thousands more innocent civilians.

See also the following articles which offer a glimpse into NATO's "commitment" to the improvement of the situation in Afghanistan in the past 13 years: And this important fact shouldn't go unnoticed either: Afghanistan heroin users skyrocket 1000% despite US investment of $7.5 billion to 'eradicate' opium production
So, the US invests $7.5 billion to eradicate opium production, but the exact opposite has happened. What a surprise! Opium production resumed in Afghanistan only when the US destroyed everything else in the country; remember that it was banned under the Taliban. And now that the heroin industry is flourishing where is all that drug money going? Golly, could it be used to fund US black ops!?


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Toys

Shaking in our boots! U.S. announces 'new' terror group scarier than ISIS!


RT
Tue, 23 Sep 2014 17:07 UTC
Ayman al-Zawahiri
© AFP Photo / SITE
Evil Professor al-Magoo, shortly after training the Holy Teen Terror for operation "The Revenge of Khorasan."
New intelligence has emerged warning Washington that its upcoming confrontation with the Islamic State may leave it blind to a more sinister and direct threat from a much lesser known terrorist group that has arisen from the ashes of the Syrian war.

Very little information is being released at the moment by anyone within American intelligence circles, but the group calling itself Khorasan is said by officials to have concrete plans for striking targets in the United States and Europe as a chosen modus operandi - more so than the Islamic State (IS), formerly known as ISIS.


Comment: Oh, no! Concrete plans! SOTT's inside sources have revealed the nature of this sinister plot. In response to the West's 'boots-on-the-ground' approach in the Middle East, Khorosan is threatening a 'boots-in-the-water' plan for Western leaders and politicians. An anonymous intelligence source sent us this photograph of the weapons being supplied to the group to use against Obama et al. during Khorosan's 'concrete plan':
concrete boots



Comment: How convenient. Nothing like creating a new terrorist group out of thin air after being thoroughly exposed for creating the current ones!

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