The latest shoddy parody of a 9/11 lawsuit was "settled" yesterday in New York, where Judge Alvin Hellerstein ordered American Airlines to pay Cantor Fitzgerald half a billion dollars. The upshot: The right hand of the financial forces behind 9/11 will slip the left hand some chump change with a nod and a wink.

The New World Order financial elite's death-grip on American government and media is exemplified by its total control of all 9/11 litigation - and of all mainstream news stories "reporting" that litigation.

Virtually all 9/11 litigation has been funneled into the courtroom of Judge Hellerstein, whose many ties to Israel were exposed by Ellen Mariani's lawsuit last year. (Hellerstein slapped sanctions on Mariani's attorneys for pointing out the obvious conflict of interest.)

A few of the cases, like Mariani's, were genuine attempts to get 9/11 justice. But almost all honest cases were weeded out by Hellerstein and his team of coverup criminals before they could be litigated. The vast majority of 9/11 family members were bought off, and the few who resisted, with a few notable exceptions like Mariani, were coerced into silence.

Holy coincidence, Batman! It's another Drill-Gone-Live in unlucky Colorado! In response to the shooting Friday at Arapahoe High School, Peter J. Kuehlen has unearthed two screenshots of 'security consultants' conducting active shooter response drills in the same location -- and on the same day, no less - of the school shooting in Colorado. Peter noted, "On the anniversary of Sandy Hook, they are conducting a Lone Wolf Active Shooter Drill at the exact same location that they claimed yesterday three people lost their lives. Are you kidding me??? They are even telling you black on white. In your face now! Obvious drill is obvious."

Washington has had the US at war for 12 years: Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Pakistan, Yemen, and almost Syria, which could still happen, with Iran waiting in the wings. These wars have been expensive in terms of money, prestige, and deaths and injuries of both US soldiers and the attacked civilian populations. None of these wars appears to have any compelling reason or justifiable explanation. The wars have been important to the profits of the military/security complex. The wars have provided cover for the construction of a Stasi police state in America, and the wars have served Israel's interest by removing obstacles to Israel's annexation of the entire West Bank and southern Lebanon.

As costly and destructive as these wars have been, they are far below the level of a world war, much less a world war against nuclear armed opponents.

The fatal war for humanity is the war with Russia and China toward which Washington is driving the US and Washington's NATO and Asian puppet states. There are a number of factors contributing to Washington's drive toward the final war, but the overarching one is the doctrine of American exceptionalism.

On Dec. 5, a Chinese warship nearly collided with a U.S. Navy guided missile cruiser, according to U.S. Pacific Fleet.

"While lawfully operating in international waters in the South China Sea, USS Cowpens (CG 63) and a PLA Navy vessel had an encounter that required maneuvering to avoid a collision. This incident underscores the need to ensure the highest standards of professional seamanship, including communications between vessels, to mitigate the risk of an unintended incident or mishap," the Pacific Fleet said in a statement.

A U.S. military official confirmed the incident and said the PLA ship tried to get the Cowpens to stop in international waters. No shots were fired, according to the official, who asked not to be identified.

The FDA trans fat ban may be more than simply a health-based initiative.

The proposed Food and Drug Administration rule would ban trans fats (partially hydrogenated oils - PHOs) in processed food. But the Alliance for Natural Health is but one food related organization that feels the FDA ban may actually have been crafted to benefit a new Monsanto GMO product.

According to the group, the government ban impacts not all trans fats - only the artificial ones that are created when vegetable oils and hydrogen are added during processing in order to make the product semi-solid. As it turns out, biotech companies are beginning to promote a GMO-laced soybean oil they say is healthier than oils that have trans fat.

The timing of the FDA trans fat ban is of particular interest to Monsanto and biotech industry watchers, the Alliance for Natural Health noted. The announcement reportedly comes at a time when banning PHOs would no longer irritate the biotech giants, which are also major election donors to both political parties. As previously reported by Off The Grid News, former Monsanto executives and attorneys now hold key positions within a host of federal agencies, including the FDA, USDA, and EPA.

President Obama and his family will leave Washington Dec. 20 for a 17-day holiday vacation in Hawaii.

The White House announced Friday that the Obamas will depart next week after what is expected to be a light work schedule for the president in Washington.

The president and his family traditionally spend their Christmas break in a rented home on Oahu with spectacular ocean views.

The Obama administration, in what's been called an egregious slap in the face to the Vatican, has moved to shut down the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See - a free-standing facility - and relocate offices onto the grounds of the larger American Embassy in Italy.

The new offices will be in a separate building on the property, Breitbart reported.

And while U.S. officials are touting the relocation as a security measure that's a cautionary reaction to last year's attacks on America's facility in Benghazi, several former American envoys are raising the red flag.

It's a "massive downgrade of U.S.-Vatican ties," said former U.S. Ambassador James Nicholson in the National Catholic Reporter. "It's turning this embassy into a stepchild of the embassy to Italy. The Holy See is a pivot point for international affairs and a major listening post for the United States, and ... [it's] an insult to American Catholics and to the Vatican."

When 20 children and 6 adults were murdered in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre we, like most other people, were shocked and horrified at what appeared to be an act of senseless brutality. When a person experiences the tragic and untimely loss of a loved one, particularly in unusual or apparently inexplicable circumstances, the initial intense feelings of grief usually give way to a desire to understand HOW and WHY the tragedy occurred, in an effort to make sense of it and achieve some kind of 'closure'. This is a very normal and natural human reaction. We have an innate need to understand the world around us and how things 'work'. In our modern, technological world, most of what we understand about our world and how it works is provided to us by some authority or other. And most of us accept the conclusion of those authorities as being true. In some cases, those explanations are true.

In relation to the Sandy Hook massacre; while the HOW of the attack has been explained, as yet, there seem to be few authoritative answers as to WHY the massacre occurred. That is to say, WHY a lone gunman decided to walk into a school and murder 20 children and 6 adults. At this point, three weeks after the event, it seems that the world will ultimately have to accept the narrative that a lone, disturbed individual murdered those children because he was, well, disturbed. Specifically, it is claimed that Lanza had 'Asperger's Syndrome', yet according to experts, people with this condition do not run a higher risk of killing others or themselves and indeed that they 'rarely harm others'. The 'disturbed individual' answer is, therefore, a rather unsatisfactory one, but it's an answer nonetheless.

The famed Oxford Union in England has invited talk-radio host Michael Savage to participate in a debate on whether or not fugitive National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden should be called a hero.

There's only one hitch, as Savage pointed out in his reply to the invitation from the Oxford Union's Charles Vaughn.

Syrian rebel commanders from the Islamic Front which seized control of bases belonging to Western-backed rebels last week are due to hold talks with US officials in Turkey in coming days, rebel and opposition sources said on Saturday.

The expected contacts between Washington and the radical fighters reflect the extent to which the Islamic Front alliance has eclipsed the more moderate Free Syrian Army brigades - which Western and Arab powers tried in vain to build into a force able to topple President Bashar Al Assad. The talks could also decide the future direction of the Islamic Front, which is engaged in a standoff with yet more radical Sunni Muslim fighters from the Al Qaeda-linked Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

A rebel fighter with the Islamic Front said he expected the talks in Turkey to discuss whether the United States would help arm the front and assign to it responsibility for maintaining order in the rebel-held areas of northern Syria.