Yesterday was not simply a day like any other, and yet an entire system is grinding into motion to ensure that the peculiarities of the day be promptly forgotten: another crazy person lost it and committed unthinkable acts. The act of killing stands in and speaks for the person: look what he has done, of course he must be crazy. Case closed.

What they want you to see is just another Adam Lanza, just another inexplicable act, and when the act speaks for the assailant, words are secondary and there is no need to listen. But this is not, and has never been, a good way to understand reality.

What they want you to forget is the sheer strangeness of what is happening in Los Angeles. Christopher Dorner allegedly killed a police officer and two civilians. This was not a random shooting by a right-wing gun-nut mourning the loss of the "Real America." Here is a man with good things to say about liberal democrats, a supporter of heightened gun control, a former LAPD officer and Navy reservist, targeting his own institution, which he accused of racism, violence, and corruption.

President Obama,

It is my understanding, throughout the duration of your Presidency, that you have persistently authorized drone strikes on innocent Middle Eastern civilians who were supposedly working for, or somehow affiliated with Al-Qaeda. As a further matter, you have gone so far as to publicly announce - in accordance to your Administration's white paper concerning the legalities and justifications concerning your drone policy, which was leaked to NBC - that you have the authority to drone bomb any American citizen.

The Hill wrote, "In the document, the Justice Department concludes that a lethal strike against a senior operational leader of al Qaeda - or an affiliated terrorist group - can occur if a three-part test is met: that a high-level American intelligence official has determined the individual poses an imminent threat, that capture is infeasible, and that the strike is conducted according to the laws of war governing use of force."

Chris Hedges: NDAA Lawsuit Update

Sierra Adamson interviews Chris Hedges at the hearing for the second court of appeals in the Hedges v Obama NDAA lawsuit. Hedges explains what has happened in the lawsuit to date, the next steps and what he sees in America's upcoming future.

CIA Director-designate John Brennan strongly defended the use of drones for fighting terror suspects as he was grilled by the Senate over one of Washington's most-criticized policies.

John Brennan, President Barack Obama's nominee to be the new CIA chief, had a tough time answering some questions posed by the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday. Repeated interruptions by anti-war protesters did not make it any easier for him to explain the advantages of the controversial drone policy.

Brennan assured that any actions the CIA would take "will be legally grounded, will be thoroughly anchored in intelligence, will have the appropriate review process, approval process before any action is contemplated, including those actions that might involve the use of lethal force."

One of those skeptical of Brennan's words is Jayel Aheram, an Iraq War and Marine Corps veteran, activist and writer who, in an interview with RT, expressed his doubt over the possibility and the commitment of the CIA thoroughly to review the situation on the ground from somewhere far away from the United States.

He also questioned the criteria which might be used for such a review, suggesting that "basically anyone over the age of 18 or 16 in a strike zone constitutes a militant. So I could be going to school somewhere in Yemen, going about my day, and if I get obliterated by one of these drone strikes, am I to be considered a militant?"

A "war of religion" is unfolding, with a view to justifying a global military crusade. In the inner consciousness of many Americans, the "holy crusade" against Muslims is justified. While President Obama may uphold freedom of religion, the US inquisitorial social order has institutionalized patterns of discrimination, prejudice and xenophobia directed against Muslims."

Michel Chossudovsky, "America's Holy Crusade against the Muslim World", Global Research, 8/30/2010

Does the US war strategy require other nations to follow the American policy lead of war against all - the terrorism of war instigated by the Clash of Civilizations theory? Stephen Lendman ("America's Permanent War Agenda" 3/01/2010), an American political intellectual and a man of universal conscience puts the history in one nutshell:

"America glorifies wars in the name of peace, what historian Charles Beard (1874 - 1948) called "perpetual war for perpetual peace" in describing the Roosevelt and Truman administrations' foreign policies - what concerned the Federation of American Scientists when it catalogued about 200 post-1945 conflicts in which America was, and still is, the aggressor"

Many contemporary politicians having small wisdom coupled with big common sense information could lead or mislead the masses. People are always the end recipient of the political dramas and onslaughts. Samuel Huntington ("The Clash of Civilizations" 1993, and subsequently, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, 1995), argued many things to many minds. It was a time fraught with political tragedies and unthinkable changes after the demise of the former USSR from the global theater of ideological confrontations. It happened out of the nowhere sending shock waves to the Western political mythologists and self-made experts who would become irrelevant in their mastery of pretensions to pursue the ideological warfare between the USSR and USA.

The Bush regime's response to 9/11 and the Obama regime's validation of this response have destroyed accountable democratic government in the United States. So much unaccountable power has been concentrated in the executive branch that the US Constitution is no longer an operable document. Whether a person believes the official story of 9/11 which rests on unproven government assertions or believes the documented evidence provided by a large number of scientists, first responders, and structural engineers and architects, the result is the same. 9/11 was used to create an open-ended "war on terror" and a police state. It is extraordinary that so many Americans believe that "it can't happen here" when it already has. We have had a decade of highly visible evidence of the construction of a police state:

• the PATRIOT Act, illegal spying on Americans in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act,
• the initiation of wars of aggression - war crimes under the Nuremberg Standard - based on intentional lies,
• the Justice Department's concocted legal memos justifying the executive branch's violation of domestic and international laws against
• torture, the indefinite detention of US citizens in violation of the constitutionally protected rights of habeas corpus and due process,
• the use of secret evidence and secret "expert witnesses" who cannot be cross-examined against defendants in trials,
• the creation of military tribunals in order to evade federal courts, secret legal memos giving the president authority to launch preemptive cyber attacks on any country without providing evidence that the country constitutes a threat, and the Obama regime's murder of US citizens without evidence or due process.

As if this were not enough, the Obama regime now creates new presidential powers by crafting secret laws, refusing to disclose the legal reasoning on which the asserted power rests. In other words, laws now originate in secret executive branch memos and not in acts of Congress. Congress? We don't need no stinking Congress.

Despite laws protecting whistleblowers and the media and the US Military Code which requires soldiers to report war crimes, whistleblowers such as CIA agent John Kiriakou, media such as Julian Assange, and soldiers such as Bradley Manning are persecuted and prosecuted for revealing US government crimes. The criminals go free, and those who report the crimes are punished.

Bulgarian Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov's dramatic announcement Tuesday on the Bulgarian investigation of the July 2012 terror bombing of an Israeli tourist bus was initially reported by Western news media as suggesting clear evidence of Hezbollah's responsibility for the killings.

But more accurate reports on the minister's statement and the only details he provided reveal that the alleged link between the bomb suspects and Hezbollah was merely an "assumption" rather than a conclusion based on specific evidence.

Tsvetanov was quoted by various Western news outlets as saying, "We have established that the two were members of the militant wing of Hezbollah." The minister also said, "There is data showing the financing and connection between Hezbollah and the two suspects," according to the BBC and Jerusalem Post.

Goldman Sachs reaps $400M "bountiful harvest" by gambling on America's food staples

While people around the globe struggled to put food on the table in 2012, banking giant Goldman Sachs reaped a bountiful harvest. According to a new report by the UK-based anti-poverty group, World Development Movement (WDM), Goldman Sachs made approximately $400M in profits last year by betting on the prices of food staples like wheat, corn and soy.

"Goldman Sachs is the global leader in a trade that is driving food prices up while nearly a billion people are hungry," says WDM campaigner Christine Haigh. "The bank lobbied for the financial deregulation that made it possible to pour billions into the commodity derivative markets, created the necessary financial instruments and is now raking in the profits. Speculation is fueling volatility and food price spikes, hurting people who struggle to afford food across the world."

A former manager for one of the biggest US defense contractors says he was removed from his job after accusing his higher-ups of defrauding the government.

Cornelius Hosch, the one-time head of counter-IED intelligence for BAE Systems Information Solutions' eastern Afghanistan office, sued his former employer in federal court on Tuesday.

Hosch, a US Army veteran with nearly 20 years of experience in the military, says his problems with BAE began after he alerted his supervisor to what he considered fraud in December 2011, just days after he started his employment with the company.

During his tenure with BAE, Hosch says the company overcharged the US government for services they were contracted to do.

The Fourth Amendment no longer means what you once thought it did: A new report reveals that the government has shrugged off concerns over the alleged constitutional infringements of its own citizens near international crossings.

An internal review of the US Department of Homeland Security's procedures regarding the suspicionless search-and-seizure of phones and laptops near the nation's border has reaffirmed the agency's ability to bypass Fourth Amendment-protected rights [.pdf].

In a two page executive summary published quietly last month to the official DHS website, the agency explains that a civil rights and civil liberties impact assessment of the office's little-known power to collect personal electronics near international crossings has passed an auditor's interpretation of what does and doesn't violate the US Constitution.

Since 2009, the DHS has been legally permitted to seize and review the contents of personal electronic devices, including mobile phones, portable computers and data discs, even without being able to cite any reasonable suspicion that those articles were involved in a crime.