Reagan's "Morning in America" created Red Dawn, and a Pentagon-fueled pop culture that trained the masses

Let's be completely clear: I did not consciously know I was a devout militarist in 1988 at the young, impressionable age of 12. When I ordered my G.I. Joe Snowcat tank to indiscriminately fire one of its six missiles at the Cobra soldiers who so often held my LEGO city hostage, I didn't think that if this were real, it would probably leave a smoldering pile of blood and limbs and innocent victims. All I thought was: Awesome!

When I rented Hollywood's first PG-13 rated production, 1984's Red Dawn, and I saw the teen heartthrobs protect America by racking up execution after execution, I didn't know the movie would also become the Guinness world-record holder for violent acts depicted per minute in a film. All I did was cheer.

And when I played Contra on my Nintendo NES, I wasn't questioning the premise of a game named after violent terrorist death squads in Nicaragua that were being funded by the Reagan administration's illegal CIA cash transfers from Iran. I was just punching in up-up-down-down-left-right-left-right-B-A, then happily mowing down anything and everything that moved.

"Propaganda is most effective when it is least noticeable," writes public relations expert Nancy Snow. "In an open society, such as the United States, the hidden and integrated nature of the propaganda best convinces people they are not being manipulated."

(A fertilizer bomb did this? Only in the black-op world where jet fuel can melt 2 skyscrapers...)

On April 19, 1993, in Waco Texas the U.S. government incinerated 86 of it's own citizens for the crime of exercising their constitutional rights of freedom of religion, right to bear arms, and freedom of speech. Timothy McVeigh, who had been at the scene to witness some of the events during the preceding 50 day standoff with U.S. troops, witnessed the inferno erupt on television. Two years later to the day, on April 19, 1995, the Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City was destroyed by a bomb blast. McVeigh was arrested a short time later after being pulled over for driving a car with no license plate and possession of an unlicensed firearm. Several days later he was identified by witnesses as one of two people seen getting out of a Ryder rental truck that was parked in front just before the blast. The other suspect was never identified, and his existence was denied by the government even though he was caught on videotape.

Authorities shot and killed one suspect in Monday's Boston Marathon bombings and police were searching for a second suspect who was on the loose in Watertown, Mass., early Friday morning following a chaotic night that left one police officer dead and another critically wounded in the Boston suburbs.

All public transportation was shut down in the greater Boston area Friday morning, for reasons of public safety, officials said. Residents of Watertown and several surrounding suburbs were asked to stay inside, and businesses were instructed not to open.

"This situation is grave. We are here to protect public safety," Police Commissioner Ed Davis said. "We believe these are the same individuals that were responsible for the bombings Monday at the Boston Marathon" and the killing and wounding of the police officers overnight.

We might never learn the motive behind the Boston Marathon bomb attack on Monday, April 15, which is reported to have killed three people and injured more than 170. It could be as simple as an unhinged individual going postal on tax day or a sinister message to Americans from a foreign national illustrating the proverb "You can run, but you can't hide." In any case, the improvised explosive devices (IED) were amateurish and ineffective at causing maximum casualty. According to investigators, the crude IED were made from rigged pressure cookers loaded with gunpowder, nails plus ball bearings, and triggered by egg timers. The clumsy work suggests an unbalanced individual rather than an organization. Nevertheless, all day Monday and Tuesday the United States and world media talked about a "terrorist attack," and the story became the only story. What matters more, however, is the way the incident will be exploited worldwide by policy makers and their media sycophants.

Britain and France have informed the United Nations that there is credible evidence that Syria used chemical weapons on more than one occasion since December, according to senior diplomats and officials briefed on the accounts.

In letters to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the two European powers said soil samples, witness interviews and opposition sources support charges that nerve agents were used in and around the cities of Aleppo, Homs and possibly Damascus, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

The European accounts are in part aimed at countering accusations by the Syrian government that opposition forces had fired chemical weapons during fighting in the town of Khan al-Asal near Aleppo on March 19, killing 26 people, including Syrian troops.

European diplomats acknowledge that Syrian forces may have been exposed to chemical agents during the attack, but they say it was a "friendly fire" incident in which the troops were hit when a government shell missed its opposition target.

The Syrian government has seized on the incident to make its case that opposition forces have introduced chemical weapons into the civil war.

A day after the alleged attack, Syria's U.N. ambassador, Bashar Jaafari, invited the world body to send an "impartial" technical team to the country confirm the opposition's use of chemical weapons. Russia strongly endorsed the Syrian request.

The U.N. chief agreed to establish a fact-finding team, but the effort has since been bogged down over a dispute about the scope of the investigation, with Russia backing the Syrian request for a limited probe into the Aleppo incident, and key Western powers, including Britain, France and the United States, proposing a broader investigation that examines the possible use of chemical weapons throughout Syria.

U.N. inspectors have not yet been permitted into the country.

President Obama has warned that the use of chemical weapons in Syria would be a "game changer" for the United States. After the Aleppo incident, Obama said that the United States would "investigate thoroughly exactly what happened" and that he had "instructed my teams to work closely with all other countries in the region and international organizations and institutions to find out precisely whether this red line was crossed."

But diplomats say the United States has responded more cautiously. The United States, said one Security Council diplomat, has been "less activist on this" than Britain and France.

James R. Clapper Jr., director of national intelligence, told a Senate panel Thursday that accusations that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons are still being evaluated.

"The increasingly beleaguered [Syrian] regime, having found that its escalation of violence through conventional means is not working, appears quite willing to use chemical weapons against its own people," he said. "We receive many claims of chemical warfare use in Syria each day, and we take them all seriously, and we do all we can to investigate them."

Pervez Musharraf, an unlikely candidate for Pakistan's prime minister and certainly the country's only former military ruler to have appeared twice on Jon Stewart's talk show, took political theater to a new level Thursday with a wild flight from justice that transfixed the nation and ended with the fugitive holed up in his farmhouse savoring a cigar.

The weird saga began with Musharraf, who seized power in a 1999 coup and strode the world stage as Pakistan's top general and president for nine years, appearing in an Islamabad court to face treason charges related to his tenure in office. The case centers on his imposition of emergency rule in November 2007, when he placed scores of judges under house arrest, deposed the chief justice of the Supreme Court and sparked protests that eventually ended with his self-exile.

Hearing the case Thursday, Islamabad High Court Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui essentially declared Musharraf a terrorist, revoked his bail and ordered him arrested. It was the latest setback for the former ruler, who returned home with great bravado last month to run in a historic general election next month, with the proclaimed goal of saving his troubled nation.

Arresting and confining judges "is not an ordinary act, rather it is an act of terrorism," Siddiqui wrote in his order. "This shameful act lowered the honor, prestige and status of the country" in the eyes of the international community, he added.

Rather than turning himself in, Musharraf retreated to an armored sport-utility vehicle, which took off with a member of his security detail hanging on to its side. Only days before, the former strongman had vowed that he was not afraid to face jail or death for returning to Pakistan.

Attorney General Eric Holder (pictured) lies awake at night worrying about the threat to the homeland from home-grown terrorists.

"It's a very serious threat. I think what it says is that the scope, our scope, has to be broadened. We can't think that it's just a bunch of people in caves in some part of the world," Holder told ABC News on Wednesday. "We have to be concerned about the homeland to the same extent that we are worried about the threat coming from overseas."

The threat, as Holder sees it, is increased by the failure of the American people to fear the next attack.

"I worry a little that the American people, from the general population, has become a little complacent that we don't understand or realize that the threats are still real, that the danger is out there, is still tangible, that we still have to be as vigilant as we need to be," Holder told Pierre Thomas of ABC News.

The federal government remains vigilant, Holder proclaims.

A new report looks at 10 U.S. corporations that have used an array of tax loopholes and corporate subsidies to slash their tax bills: Bank of America, Citigroup, ExxonMobil, FedEx, General Electric, Honeywell, Merck, Microsoft, Pfizer, and Verizon.

HIGHLIGHTS OF 10 CORPORATE TAX DODGERS

Bank of America
Had $17.2 billion in profits offshore in 2012 on which it paid no U.S. taxes. Reported it would owe $4.3 billion in U.S. taxes if profits are brought home.

Citigroup
Had $42.6 billion in profits offshore in 2012 on which it paid no U.S. taxes. Reported it would owe $11.5 billion in U.S. taxes if profits are brought home.

ExxonMobil
Paid just a 15% federal income tax rate from 2010-2012, less than half the official 35% corporate tax rate - a tax subsidy of $6.2 billion. Had $43 billion in profits offshore in 2012 on which it paid no U.S. taxes.

FedEx
Made $5.7 billion from 2010-2012 and didn't pay a dime in federal income taxes. Got a tax subsidy of $2.1 billion. Received $10.3 billion in federal contracts from 2006-2012.

General Electric
Made $88 billion from 2002-2012 and paid just 2.4% in taxes for a tax subsidy of $29 billion. Paid no taxes in 4 years. Had $108 billion in profits offshore in 2012 on which it paid no U.S. taxes. Received $21.8 billion in federal contracts from 2006-2012.

The FBI today released images of two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing the bureau still considers to be "armed and extremely dangerous."

At a press conference, FBI special agent in charge Richard DesLauriers referred to the two men as Suspect 1 and Suspect 2 and said Suspect 2 was spotted dropping a bag before a bomb exploded at the second bomb site. The two men appear to be "associated," DesLauriers said.

DesLauriers asked the public for their help identifying the suspects, but asked the public not to approach them. Though the men are considered armed and dangerous, the FBI said they still do not believe there is an imminent danger in the area.

NY Governor Andrew Cuomo's Machiavellian Plot to ignore and subvert the Rights of potentially millions of NY State residents developed another layer late Sunday.

After breaking the story of Amhurst NY Area Resident David Lewis having his lawfully purchase and legally owned firearms confiscated by order of the State Police after a flagrantly illegal and Un-Constitutional review of his medical records , Word came to me in my capacity as in journalist late Sunday that NY Officials have apparently doubled down on their sinister plot and blatant abuse of power.

My sources revealed that two prominent and well regarded Buffalo Area Psychiatrists received subpoenas from State Officials, possibly on Friday April 12th 2013, commanding them to turn over all of their patient files to the State. Details are sketchy at this early stage, but I have been told that both Doctors have in house counsel as well as potentially consulting with the Law Firm of Jim Tresmond, Firearms Law Specialist and the Attorney of Record for Mr Lewis.

What is clear is that those subpoenas would have to have been issued by someone in the State's Attorney's Office. What remains unknown at this point is whether the order or request for the subpoenas originated with the Superintendent of the NY State Police, Joseph D'Amico or from the Office of the the Commissioner of the NY State Division of Criminal Justice Services or one of his lieutenants.