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The Saker interviews Paul Craig Roberts on the state of U.S. Empire and its plans for global control


The Saker
Tue, 24 Mar 2015 18:23 UTC
Image
I had been wanting to interview Paul Craig Roberts for a long time already. For many years I have been following his writings and interviews and every time I read what he had to say I was hoping that one day I would have the privilege do interview him about the nature of the US deep state and the Empire. Recently, I emailed him and asked for such an interview, and he very kindly agreed. I am very grateful to him for this opportunity.

The Saker

——-

The Saker: It has become rather obvious to many, if not most, people that the USA is not a democracy or a republic, but rather a plutocracy run by a small elite which some call "the 1%". Others speak of the "deep state". So my first question to you is the following. Could you please take the time to assess the influence and power of each of the following entities one by one. In particular, can you specify for each of the following whether it has a decision-making "top" position, or a decision-implementing "middle" position in the real structure of power (listed in no specific order)
  • Federal Reserve
  • Big Banking
  • Bilderberg
  • Council on Foreign Relations
  • Skull & Bones
  • CIA
  • Goldman Sachs and top banks
  • "Top 100 families" (Rothschild, Rockefeller, Dutch Royal Family, British Royal Family, etc.)
  • Israel Lobby
  • Freemasons and their lodges
  • Big Business: Big Oil, Military Industrial Complex, etc.
  • Other people or organizations not listed above?
Who, which group, what entity would you consider is really at the apex of power in the current US polity?
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Cut

White House: Israeli occupation of Palestine must end

Jon Queally
Common Dreams
Tue, 24 Mar 2015 18:09 UTC
In striking choice of words, Obama's chief of staff elevates public rhetoric against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
McDonough
© thehill.com
The White House chief of staff, Denis McDonough, told the lobby group J Street that the US would never support unilateral Israeli annexation of the West Bank.
President Obama's chief of staff Denis McDonough on Monday made a striking announcement on behalf of the administration by telling a crowd of Jewish-American political activists that Israel's military "occupation" of the West Bank must end as he pushed back against comments made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu both before and after his recent reelection victory.

"An occupation that has lasted for almost 50 years must end," said McDonough at the annual J Street conference in Washington, DC. "Israel cannot maintain military control of another people indefinitely."

J Street is billed as the more liberal, pro-Israel lobby group which in recent years has tried to offset the more hawkish American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, known as AIPAC.

Though Israel's domination of the West Bank and its continued building of settlements on captured Palestinian lands has long been considered a violation of international law and is the basis for some much of the ongoing conflict, the U.S. government—including the Obama administration—has widely supported Israel's activities, defended it from international sanctions at the United Nations, provided the Israeli military with a constant flow of aid, and rarely, if ever, employed the term "occupation" despite its commonplace use elsewhere in the world when describing the situation.

Comment: Applaudable sentiments and cracks in the veneer, a welcome mini-change. (Testing the waters?) However, actions speak louder than words. If you are going to use new words, create new actions; create new outcomes. What is the US really prepared to do in curbing Israeli occupation enthusiasm and facilitating a true Palestinian state?

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USA

US Supreme Court refuses challenge to voter ID law, dubbed 'Recipe for Disaster'

Lauren McCauley
Common Dreams
Mon, 23 Mar 2015 21:58 UTC
Gov Walker
© crooksandliars.com
Governor Scott Walker gets his way with the blessing of the Supreme Court.
In a move that will impact hundreds of thousands of voters and may carry national implications, the Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear a challenge to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's restrictive voter identification law.

Immediately after the high court rejected, without comment, to hear the case of Frank v. Walker, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed an emergency motion with the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals asking that the court stop the law from taking immediate effect. In Wisconsin, voting is currently underway in the April 7 general election as absentee ballots have already been sent to voters and early voting began Monday morning. ACLU warned that if the law is immediately enacted, some 300,000 Wisconsin voters will be impacted.

"Imposing a new restriction in the midst of an election will disenfranchise voters who have already cast their ballots," said Dale Ho, director of the ACLU's Voting Rights Project. "It is a recipe for disaster."


Comment: Another source stated "Absentee ballots are already in the hands of voters, therefore, the law cannot be implemented for the April 7 election. The voter ID law will be in place for future elections this decision is final." - Attorney General Brad Schimel

Voting rights advocates warn that Walker's voter ID law, which requires voters to produce one of a few specified forms of photo identification in order to vote, is among the most restrictive in the nation and disproportionately impacts Black and Latino voters, who are more likely to lack the required identifications.

Comment: Is this the real focus or a convenient secondary bonus for PTB? Either/or it is an issue with electoral ramifications and substantive public reactions in its implications and forward march to minimize/eliminate the rights of citizens.

The Wisconsin law, one of the strictest in the nation, was enacted in 2011 but had been mostly blocked by various courts (including the SC). It requires prospective voters to show a current or recently expired Wisconsin driver's license or a similar identification issued to people who do not drive, a military ID, a United States passport, a tribal ID, a recent naturalization certificate or some Wisconsin student IDs.


Comment: Curious why the SC chose to rule now when an election is already underway in Wisconsin. What is the purpose behind the disenfranchisement? Wisconsin is the eighth state with a strict photo ID law that allows no exceptions to a government-issued ID. The others are Georgia, Kansas, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia - about 16% of states. One source suggests the media always casts the voter ID debate as a racial issue and it is not - is it? Or is it also the media doing agenda business and the racial card is an integral part of divide and conquer in the US police state. Do we not see the redefinition?

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Play

Crimea: The Way Back Home - EN Subtitles - Full Documentary (VIDEO)

Sott Editors
Sott.net
Tue, 24 Mar 2015 22:27 UTC
crimea way back home
This is Andrey Kondrashov's documentary on the return of Crimea to Russia, aired in Russia on March 15, and now available with English subtitles. It has been a year since Crimeans took to the polls to vote for returning to their Motherland and leaving wretched Ukraine behind. The Western powers - led, as ever, by the US and UK - are determined to portray this momentous historic event as an imperial land-grab by Russia, and that it caused the subsequent civil war between Kiev and the breakaway provinces in the country's East.

However, as this excellent documentary shows, the Russian government could see that the violent manner in which the elected Ukrainian leader Yanukovich had been ousted from power - with American fingerprints all over it - meant chaos would soon spread throughout Ukraine, and that the majority ethnic Russian population in Crimea would be among the worst hit by neo-Nazi militias terrorizing anyone whom they considered 'insufficiently loyal' to the US-selected regime. When President Yanukovich fled the capital on February 22nd 2014, President Putin set in motion a series of responses that would present the first real (and successful) challenge to American imperial hegemony.

‌



A Rossiya One production, EN subtitles by Vox Populi Evo (VPE). Uploaded to LiveLeak by VPE, in 14 parts, on 22 March 2015
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Take 2

Paid shills: U.S. neocons defend Netanyahu and call Obama's priorities "screwed up"


RT
Mon, 23 Mar 2015 02:27 UTC
Image
© Reuters / Joshua Roberts
Republican hardliners, ignoring newly-reelected Benjamin Netanyahu's pre-polling remark that a Palestinian state would not happen on his watch, accused Barack Obama of dropping the ball regarding Israel and the Islamic State.

US partisan fractures deepened at the weekend following Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's reelection. With peace talks stalled, the Palestinians have attempted to win international recognition of statehood in the UN.

Republicans, however, downplayed the Israeli leader's campaign pledge that a Palestinian state would not happen during his tenure.

Senator John McCain was unfazed by Netanyahu's remarks, instead focusing his vitriol against the Democratic president.

"The least of your problems are what Bibi Netanyahu said in a political campaign. If every politician was held to what they said in a political campaign, obviously that would be a topic of long discussion,"McCain told CNN.


Comment: Yes indeed, and that topic would be: How often do politicians lie on the campaign trail in order to get elected? It would be likely that in McCain's case, that list would be quite lengthy. No wonder he's an Israeli puppy. They like their politicians to have no problems lying to the American public. Poor Bibi, actually being taken to task for what he said on the campaign trail. The nerve of some people!


"The president has his priorities so screwed up that it's unbelievable."
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Bomb

The Petrocurrency War

Gulam Asgar
Oriental Review
Sun, 22 Mar 2015 02:14 UTC
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US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2007 had supposedly asked ex-Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd "how do you get tough on your banker?" This was over concerns about China's growing power and hold on US finances and according to Wikileaks Rudd told Clinton to keep force as a last resort. Do the Chinese trust the Americans? As superpowers, both are wary of each other. The business of America has always been business, not friendship or the interest of others in mind except their very own. That is understandable. About the American hubris- I once read somewhere that hubris was the downfall of a Greek hero in some classical tragedy.

We are entering a new era- the era of a currency war that will test the might of the US economy and the dollar against the might of the Chinese economy and the yuan. The rope in the tug of war will be crude oil. The US economy based hegemony is being challenged by China and therefore it is naturally given that the US will try to maintain its global geopolitical and financial position. Between the giants, the global financial system could end up being completely redefined through a devastating war in the Middle East.

Comment: Very good question.

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Eye 2

Ex-cop says Royal family member was investigated as part of paedophile ring before cover-up

Jon Stone
The Independant
Mon, 23 Mar 2015 01:59 UTC
Image
© Getty Image
A member of the Royal family was claimed to be part of a suspected paedophile ring under investigation by police in the late 1980s, a former police officer has said.

The former Metropolitan Police officer says he was told by a detective sergeant that the investigation into the ring, which was also claimed to include an MP, was shut down for national security reasons.

"I was in a car with two other vice squad officers. ... The detective sergeant said he had just had a major child abuse investigation shut down by the CPS regarding a royal and an MP," he told the Sunday Mirror newspaper.

"He did not mention names, but he said the CPS had said it was not in the public's interest because it 'could destabilise national security'."


Comment: Which means the people may rise up against the nation.


The police officer identified the two colleagues, the newspaper said.

Comment: Hopefully more light will continue to be shone on this despicably evil behavior!

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Megaphone

Russian MP to UK over Crimea demand: "Look at the Falklands"


RT
Mon, 23 Mar 2015 01:54 UTC
Image
© Reuters / Marcos Brindicci
Russian sovereignty over Crimea is more legitimate than the UK's sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, the chair of the foreign relations committee in the Russian parliament said in response to Philip Hammond's criticism of the Crimea referendum.

"London should pause and chill out. All Western opinion polls in Crimea say the absolute majority supports reunification with Russia," Aleksey Pushkov tweeted on Sunday.

"Take notice, London. Crimea has much more reasons to be part of Russia than the Falklands to be part of Britain," he added.


Comment: He's absolutely right. The West likes to pretend that everything they do is morally correct and everything their enemies do is evil. But, the Russians know their history, and they're not afraid to call the UK out on their double standards.


Pushkov was responding to British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, who earlier on Sunday called Crimea's referendum to join Russia held in March 2014 a "flagrant breach of Ukrainian and international law" and demanded that Russia returned the peninsula to Ukraine.
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Donut

Another GMO: Research aims to create gluten-free grains amid rise of celiac disease


RT
Tue, 24 Mar 2015 00:01 UTC
Image
© Reuters/Bogdan Cristel
Kansas farmers are funding a genetic research project aimed at developing gluten-free grains, as an increasing number of Americans are being diagnosed with an autoimmune condition preventing them from safely digesting wheat, barley and rye.

The Kansas Wheat Commission earmarked $200,000 for the first two years of the project, which is seeking to catalog the DNA sequences of wheat which can trigger reactions in people suffering from celiac disease. The research is being led by Engrain, a Kansas-based company specializing in improving baked goods.

"If you know you are producing a crop that is not tolerated well by people, then it's the right thing to do," Chris Miller, senior director of research for Engrain and the project's lead researcher, told AP.

Comment: More reasons to avoid grain products!

For more on this topic:

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Bad Guys

No surprise: Israel and US 'boycott' UN session on Gaza conflict


RT
Mon, 23 Mar 2015 22:57 UTC
Image
© Reuters/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
A Palestinian woman sits near her house, that witnesses said was destroyed by Israeli shelling during a 50-day war last summer, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.
Israeli and American representatives were conspicuously absent from the UN Human Rights Council session on the Palestinian territories on Monday. The session aimed to look into the Gaza conflict which killed 2,200 people in 50 days in 2014.

"I note the representative of Israel is not present," Council President Joachim Ruecher said as the session kicked off Monday in Geneva.

Tel Aviv refused to comment as to why its representatives did not take part.

The US, however, said that one of the points on the UN session agenda - concerning human rights violations against the Palestinians - lacked legitimacy.

"Our non-participation in this debate underscores our position that Item 7 lacks legitimacy, as it did last year when we also refrained from speaking. The United States strongly and unequivocally opposes the very existence of Agenda Item 7 and any HRC resolutions that come from it," Keith Harper, US ambassador to the Council, said in a statement.

He added that the United States remains "deeply troubled" by the item directed against Israel "and by the many repetitive and one-sided resolutions under that agenda item. No other nation has an entire agenda item set aside to deal with it."


Comment: It is so obvious what is going on in Gaza that it boggles the mind why the US pretends not to see it.


Comment: It seems the US has to support Israel on this human rights abuse issue because it is also guilty of spreading death and destruction all around the world.

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