Puppet MastersS


Bullseye

Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely says it's time for Americans to "stand up" to a treasonous and illegal federal government

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© WNDMaj. Gen. Paul E. Vallely
In 1775, an American people preparing to fight for their freedom turned to a retired military officer to lead them.

For more than 15 years, Col. George Washington had been retired to farm the Virginia countryside, until Boston patriots waged their famous tea party and the Battles of Lexington and Concord erupted. Washington, the former fighter of the French and Indian War, determined he could remain on the sidelines no longer.

When Col. Washington (ret.) showed up shortly thereafter at the Second Continental Congress in his dusted-off uniform, the spirit of the American Revolution had at last found a man it could follow.

Today, as the tea party rages again in cities across the U.S., a retired American military commander is drawing attention to a new crop of George Washingtons already leading the charge for freedom.

As WND reported, Maj. Gen. Paul E. Vallely declared it's time for millions of Americans to "stand up" to a federal government that is "conducting treason ... violating the Constitution, violating our laws." He's calling for marches, a legislative vote of "no confidence" in President Obama and congressional leaders, even citizen arrests - drawing inspiration from the 33 million Egyptians who stood up to their government and removed Muslim Brotherhood officials from office.

Now Vallely tells WND the radio interview in which he called for a new American uprising has struck a note with the millions of modern tea partiers who are looking for unifying leadership.

Black Cat 2

Prince Philip involved: Is this why the Profumo file is still secret?

profumo
© GettyMandy Rice-Davies and Christine Keeler found themselves in the centre of scandal in 1963 [GETTY]
Desire not to upset the Royal Family may be behind the Government's continued refusal to release key documents relating to the Profumo affair of 1963, according to a leading British historian. The affair led to the resignation of a minister, John Profumo, the Secretary of State for War, after he lied in response to claims that he had compromised national security by having a relationship with a prostitute also known to a Soviet military attaché.

Speaking to The Independent on Sunday last night, Richard Davenport-Hines, author of An English Affair, published last year, said he believes unfounded allegations made against the Duke of Edinburgh at the time of the scandal may continue to give rise to jitteriness in high places.

Last week, it was confirmed that the papers, mostly of interviews with around 160 witnesses, will not be destroyed, as some had feared, but will remain under lock and key for up to a further 50 years.

Speaking in the House of Lords last year, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, the Lords spokesman for the Cabinet Office, said there were "some sensational personal items" in the files, although he does not know what they are. He added: "At the time, Lord Denning [who conducted the Government's inquiry into the affair] refused to allow the head of the Security Services access to the papers." A very senior civil servant who has seen the papers is known to have also used the word "sensational" to describe them.

Vader

Obamas live like royalty on lavish Hawaiian holiday

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History will record that on the 12th day of his latest Hawaiian vacation, President Obama tweeted about Obamacare.

That was one of the president's few visible acts of official business during his 16-day holiday retreat before he and his family return to Washington on Sunday. The president's winter recess has rivaled just about anyone's dream getaway, filled with endless golf, dinners at high-end restaurants, snorkeling at a closed nature preserve and a private, after-hours visit to a spectacular zoo.

The president's aides say he is always on the job, even in the Pacific paradise. Mr. Obama has received daily presidential briefings complete with the "threat matrix" - secret guidance culled from intelligence agencies about hot spots around the world.

The president also issued a statement about ailing former first lady Barbara Bush, took part in a conference call about Sudan, signed a handful of bills, called senators about a contentious bill and received updates on terrorist attacks in Russia.

Otherwise, the trip has been an unbroken stretch of luxurious living for the president with his family at a beach house in trendy Kailua, an oceanfront neighborhood in Oahu where the homes rent for $3,500 per day - more than many families earn in a month. The Obamas are paying for the $56,000 cost of the rental home, although taxpayers foot the bill for the first family's travel on Air Force One - which, at more than $180,000 per hour, makes for a couple of million-dollar flights.

Top Secret

The Criminal NSA - Is Edward Snowden a hero or traitor?

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© Freedomoutpost.com
Criminal or Whistleblower? Hero or Traitor? Edward Snowden has captured headlines across the country after the former NSA contractor revealed to the UK Guardian the NSAʼs tracking and collection of personal information on hundreds of millions of Americans. For the last week, every major news organization in America has begun a trial in the court of public opinion but what is happening is all about the messenger. Very little has been said about his message. Plus, the question media isnʼt asking, who here actually committed a crime?

Edward Snowden shocked the world when he sat down with the UK Guardianʼs Glenn Greenwald. Snowden revealed to the world that the NSA has an internal government computer system call Prism.

How it works: Under secret court orders the NSA has been collecting two things, foreign online communications including email, chat and VOIP communications and gathering metadata relating to millions of phone calls which could reveal the location of callers but not the content of the calls.

Now that is the most technical explanation. In short, since 2007, phone and tech companies, including reportedly Google, YouTube, Microsoft, Skype, Facebook, Apple, AOL and others have been required to provide back-door access to the NSA. Though the exact details of those companies' agreements and all the ways they share data have not been revealed. Also, that the NSA had been tracing the locations of calls from every Verizon and Sprint customer.

Comment: Is Edward Snowden a hero? A debate with journalist Chris Hedges & law scholar Geoffrey Stone


Hourglass

The last gasp of American democracy

The National Security Agency director, Gen. Keith Alexander
© AP/Manuel Balce CenetaHe got the memo: The National Security Agency director, Gen. Keith Alexander, testifies on Capitol Hill last Dec. 11 at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on "Continued Oversight of U.S. Government Surveillance Authorities."
This is our last gasp as a democracy. The state's wholesale intrusion into our lives and obliteration of privacy are now facts. And the challenge to us - one of the final ones, I suspect - is to rise up in outrage and halt this seizure of our rights to liberty and free expression. If we do not do so we will see ourselves become a nation of captives.

The public debates about the government's measures to prevent terrorism, the character assassination of Edward Snowden and his supporters, the assurances by the powerful that no one is abusing the massive collection and storage of our electronic communications miss the point. Any state that has the capacity to monitor all its citizenry, any state that has the ability to snuff out factual public debate through control of information, any state that has the tools to instantly shut down all dissent is totalitarian. Our corporate state may not use this power today. But it will use it if it feels threatened by a population made restive by its corruption, ineptitude and mounting repression. The moment a popular movement arises - and one will arise - that truly confronts our corporate masters, our venal system of total surveillance will be thrust into overdrive.

The most radical evil, as Hannah Arendt pointed out, is the political system that effectively crushes its marginalized and harassed opponents and, through fear and the obliteration of privacy, incapacitates everyone else. Our system of mass surveillance is the machine by which this radical evil will be activated. If we do not immediately dismantle the security and surveillance apparatus, there will be no investigative journalism or judicial oversight to address abuse of power. There will be no organized dissent. There will be no independent thought. Criticisms, however tepid, will be treated as acts of subversion. And the security apparatus will blanket the body politic like black mold until even the banal and ridiculous become concerns of national security.

I saw evil of this kind as a reporter in the Stasi state of East Germany. I was followed by men, invariably with crew cuts and wearing leather jackets, whom I presumed to be agents of the Stasi - the Ministry for State Security, which the ruling Communist Party described as the "shield and sword" of the nation. People I interviewed were visited by Stasi agents soon after I left their homes. My phone was bugged. Some of those I worked with were pressured to become informants. Fear hung like icicles over every conversation.

"We have been left with a fictitious shell of democracy and a totalitarian core. And the anchor of this corporate totalitarianism is the unchecked power of our systems of internal security."

Attention

The Fascist origin and essence of privatization

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© Rashmanly.com
Preface by Washington's Blog:

We documented in 2009 that fascism and our current crony capitalist economy are indistinguishable.

We noted in 2011 that America's public resources are being raped and pillaged ... just like those of small debt-saddled countries like Greece.

The following short - but important - piece by Eric Zuesse shows that looting and privatization of public resources was a hallmark of fascist Germany and Italy ... and America today.

Washington's Blog is non-partisan. We believe that the war between liberals and conservatives is a false divide-and-conquer dog-and-pony show created by the powers that be to keep the American people divided and distracted. See this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this.

We can argue it either way, because we are ideologically neutral: allowing the private sector to own and manage resources is good ... or allowing the public sector to do so is healthy.

Here's the key: If these resources had always been in the private sector, that would be fine ... that would be free market capitalism.

But if they were purchased on the people's dime with our blood, tears, sweat and taxpayer funds - and then sold to the big boys for pennies on the dollar - that's not capitalism ... that's looting. Unfortunately, that's exactly what the Nazis, Italian fascists, and modern American "leaders" are doing.

- By Eric Zuesse:

Sheriff

FBI changes "Law Enforcement" to "National Security" as Primary Mission

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The FBI's creeping advance into the world of counterterrorism is nothing new. But quietly and without notice, the agency has finally decided to make it official in one of its organizational fact sheets. Instead of declaring "law enforcement" as its "primary function," as it has for years, the FBI fact sheet now lists "national security" as its chief mission. The changes largely reflect the FBI reforms put in place after September 11, 2001, which some have criticized for de-prioritizing law enforcement activities. Regardless, with the 9/11 attacks more than a decade in the past, the timing of the edits is baffling some FBI-watchers.

"What happened in the last year that changed?" asked Kel McClanahan, a Washington-based national security lawyer.

McClanahan noticed the change last month while reviewing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from the agency. The FBI fact sheet accompanies every FOIA response and highlights a variety of facts about the agency. After noticing the change, McClanahan reviewed his records and saw that the revised fact sheets began going out this summer. "I think they're trying to rebrand," he said. "So many good things happen to your agency when you tie it to national security."

Camera

Life in the electronic concentration camp: The many ways that you're being tracked, catalogued and controlled

"[A security camera] doesn't respond to complaint, threats, or insults. Instead, it just watches you in a forbidding manner. Today, the surveillance state is so deeply enmeshed in our data devices that we don't even scream back because technology companies have convinced us that we need to be connected to them to be happy." - Pratap Chatterjee, journalist
Surveillance State
© Louie Psihoyos/CorbisWatching you: the state will gain wider powers of access to the data of communication companies.

What is most striking about the American police state is not the mega-corporations running amok in the halls of Congress, the militarized police crashing through doors and shooting unarmed citizens, or the invasive surveillance regime which has come to dominate every aspect of our lives. No, what has been most disconcerting about the emergence of the American police state is the extent to which the citizenry appears content to passively wait for someone else to solve our nation's many problems. Unless Americans are prepared to engage in militant nonviolent resistance in the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi, true reform, if any, will be a long time coming.

Yet as I detail in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, if we don't act soon, all that is in need of fixing will soon be unfixable, especially as it relates to the police state that becomes more entrenched with each passing day. By "police state," I am referring to more than a society overrun by the long arm of the police. I am referring to a society in which all aspects of a person's life are policed by government agents, one in which all citizens are suspects, their activities monitored and regulated, their movements tracked, their communications spied upon, and their lives, liberties and pursuit of happiness dependent on the government's say-so.

That said, how can anyone be expected to "fix" what is broken unless they first understand the lengths to which the government with its arsenal of technology is going in order to accustom the American people to life in a police state and why being spied on by government agents, both state and federal, as well as their partners in the corporate world, is a problem, even if you've done nothing wrong.

Indeed, as the trend towards overcriminalization makes clear, it won't be long before the average law-abiding American is breaking laws she didn't even know existed during the course of a routine day. The point, of course, is that while you may be oblivious to your so-called law-breaking - whether it was collecting rainwater to water your lawn, lighting a cigarette in the privacy of your home, or gathering with friends in your backyard for a Sunday evening Bible study - the government will know each and every transgression and use them against you.

Popcorn

Nigel Farage's UKIP rocks political system across the pond

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© ReutersMay 3, 2013: UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage poses for a photograph with a pint of beer in the Marquis of Granby pub, in Westminster.
The often stale British political system is being rocked by its very own Tea Party.

The UK Independence Party (UKIP), formed in 1993 opposing Britain's entry into the European Union, failed to make an electoral dent for a long time. However UKIP has built up steam in recent years and is spearheading a seismic shift in the British political spectrum.

In this year's local elections - the British version of midterms -- UKIP took a stunning 23 percent of the vote, up from the 3.1 percent they won in the 2010 national election. Their leader, Nigel Farage, is buoyed by their recent success.

"We want to take back our country, we want to take back our government, and we want to take back our birthright," Farage told FoxNews.com in forthright language rarely seen in British politics.

Farage has good reason to be confident of UKIP's potential. Since he took the party's helm for a second time in 2010, the party has been revitalized, capitalizing on dissatisfaction with the Conservative Party's shift to the center under current Prime Minister David Cameron.
"The sense of frustration the Tea Party feels about the remoteness about the bureaucratic class of the Washington beltway is similar to our frustration with being dealt with by Brussels." - Nigel Farage, UK Independence Party
Cameron has radically overhauled the "Tories," embracing nationalized health care, fighting for gay marriage, and changing the party logo from the flame of liberty to an environmentally conscious tree. This, UKIP argues, makes them indistinguishable from the left-wing Labour Party and Liberal Democrats.

Arrow Down

Revolving door 2014: Former Head of the Federal Communications Commission joins Carlyle

Carlyle Group
© Peu Report
What better way to kick off 2014 than with the first (and most certainly not last) egregious example of USA banana republic revolving door crony capitalism. In this case, the crony in question is former head of theFederal Communications Commission (FCC), Julius Genachowski, who was earlier today named Managing Director and partner in the U.S. Buyout team for private equity giant Carlyle Group. Carlyle is so giddy about its latest example of regulatory capture, they issued a glowing press release on the matter. Here are some excerpts:
Tech & Media Business Executive and Former Head of U.S. Federal Communications Commission Will Focus on Global Technology, Media and Telecom Investments

Will Help Carlyle Further Capitalize on Internet and Mobile Revolution

Washington, DC - Global alternative asset manager The Carlyle Group (NASDAQ: CG) today named Julius Genachowski a Managing Director and partner in the U.S. Buyout team. He will focus on investments in global technology, media and telecom, including Internet and mobile. Mr. Genachowski is returning to the private sector after serving as Chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission for four years, departing last May. He is an accomplished leader and expert in technology, media and telecom and brings to Carlyle almost 20 years of experience in the space. Mr. Genachowski joins Carlyle today and will be based in Washington, DC.

Since leaving the FCC, Mr. Genachowski has taught a joint class at Harvard's Business and Law Schools, and served as a Senior Fellow at the Aspen Institute, the non-partisan education and policy organization. Over the course of his career, he has been a Special Adviser at General Atlantic, a board member and advisor to several public and private companies, and a law clerk to United States Supreme Court Justice David Souter.

Since inception, Carlyle has deployed on a global basis more than $18 billion in equity in investments in the technology, media and telecom sectors. Investments include Syniverse Technologies, Nielsen, Dex Media, AMC Entertainment, Insight Communications, CommScope and SS&C Technologies.
Congrats Mr. Genachowski, this is your big payday.