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Senate drops from intelligence bill requirement to report on drone use

Mark Mazzetti
The New York Times
Mon, 28 Apr 2014 12:28 UTC
Image
© Namatullah Karyab/AFP/Getty Images
An Afghan boy wounded in a US drone strike in Kunar province last year that left 10 civilians, including five children, dead.
The Senate has quietly stripped a provision from an intelligence bill that would have required President Obama to make public each year the number of people killed or injured in targeted killing operations in Pakistan and other countries where the United States uses lethal force.

The move highlights the continued resistance inside the government about making these operations, primarily carried out using armed drones, more accountable to public scrutiny. In a letter to the Senate earlier this month, James R. Clapper, the director of national intelligence, expressed concern that a public report would undermine the effectiveness of the operations.

The provision, passed by the Senate Intelligence Committee last year as part of its authorization bill, required Mr. Obama to make public an annual report on "the total number of combatants killed or injured during the preceding year by the use of targeted lethal force outside the United States by remotely piloted aircraft." The provision was the same for civilians killed or injured. But officials said that the provision encountered almost immediate resistance both from intelligence officials and Republican lawmakers, some who have fought against any changes to the way the targeted killing program has been managed.
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Health

Obamacare killing one-doctor medical practices

Dan Swain
The San Diego Union-Tribune
Mon, 28 Apr 2014 16:02 UTC
Image
© Peggy Peattie/Union-Tribube
Dr. Doug Moir fills out a patient’s medical history on the computer after her visit. Moir has less time for patients since electronic health record software became federally mandated.
Despite the predictions of fortune tellers in politics and think tanks, we won't know for years whether the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare, will ultimately leave people sicker or healthier, richer or poorer.

Yet already the law, coming on top of previous legislation, is speeding the demise of an American small-business institution; the one-doctor medical practice.

Their problems began in the late 1990s. Government cost controls steadily eroded revenues while simultaneously boosting costs, by stacking on requirements for paperwork and accounting.

Some doctors adapted by figuring out ways to see more patients. Others just accepted falling incomes.

Now federal health care policy has delivered a major blow to productivity.
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Star of David

Ted Cruz: John Kerry should resign: 'has proven himself unsuitable for the position he holds'

Elahe Izadi
National Journal
Mon, 28 Apr 2014 11:58 UTC
Image
© Unknown
Senator Ted Cruz his new boss, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Sen. Ted Cruz wants Secretary of State John Kerry to resign over his comment that without a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Israel risks becoming an "apartheid state."

The Texas Republican, who's possibly running for president in 2016, took to the Senate floor Monday to call for Kerry to step down.

"Sadly, it is my belief that Secretary Kerry has proven himself unsuitable for the position he holds," Cruz said. "Therefore, before any further harm is done to our national security interests and to our critical alliance with the nation of Israel, that John Jerry should offer President Obama his resignation and the president should accept it."

Comment: Looks like Israel has another lackey!

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Gift

Beware of USAID agency bearing gifts

Linda S. Heard
Special to Gulf News
Mon, 21 Apr 2014 20:00 UTC
Image
© christophgermann.blogspot.com
USAID's so-called 'democracy promotion programs' are designed to foment dissent against governments unfriendly to Washington.

There is no such thing as a free lunch, as states that are recipients of western aid understand only too well. The naive may believe that foreign aid is a tool to help developing countries; skeptics are convinced it's a quid pro quo enabling wealthy powers to exercise geopolitical policy objectives. In a documentary, filmmaker John Pilger made the case that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are "The New Rulers of the World" on behalf of their largest donor countries - the US, the UK, Germany, France and Japan. But some less powerful nations are alleging that one agency - the US Agency for International Development (USAID) - is acting as a front for the CIA.

When the Bolivian President Evo Morales expelled and shutdown USAID in his country last year for alleged attempts to undermine his leftist government, he wasn't being paranoid after all. As a recent expose by the Associated Press shows USAID's so-called "democracy promotion programs" are designed to foment dissent against governments unfriendly to Washington.

"In a number of countries, including Venezuela and Bolivia, USAID is acting more as an agency involved in covert action, like the CIA, than as an aid or development agency," asserted Mark Weisbrot, an economist with a Washington-based think tank, the Centre for Economic and Policy Research.

In the late 70s, under the headline "Police program is called CIA cover" the New York Times revealed that the USAID police training initiative facilitated the CIA to "plant men with local police in sensitive places around the world" as well as recruit "prime candidates for enrollment as CIA employees."

Comment: When the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was created under the leadership of President John F. Kennedy, it brought together several existing foreign assistance organizations and programs. According to USAID's own history, 50 years later and after several transformations and calls for reform, the agency "began rebuilding with an eye to getting the most bang out of its funding allocations." As a tool for the CIA, Kennedy would be appalled.

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Pirates

Remember Abu Hamza, the one-eyed, hook-handed, firebrand preacher from Finsbury Park Mosque? Turns out he has always worked for the British government


RT
Fri, 09 May 2014 09:00 UTC
Image

"It's a war, innit? All's fair in war, right? So wha' if this geezah's actually one of ours? Serves you righ' for bein' fooled!"
The notorious Islamic radical preacher Abu Hamza secretly worked for British intelligence, his lawyer told a US court during trial on multiple terrorism-related charges. Theories exist that in exchange MI5 had allowed him to preach his message.

The arguments presented by the defense are in stark contrast to the image of Hamza established over more than ten years. Taking the stand on Wednesday, the preacher flatly denied any association with Al Qaeda or other terror groups.

With a hook for a hand, and notorious for his hate-filled speeches outside London's Finsbury Park Mosque, Abu Hamza is intensely disliked by the US government. He stands accused of multiple counts of terrorism, including the plot to organize a Jihadi training camp in the state of Oregon and advocating violence in Afghanistan in 2001. He is further accused of 11 other counts in relation to the taking of 16 hostages in Yemen in 1998.

After spending in excess of £1 million of taxpayer money on trying Hamza in the UK for more than eight years, the British finally extradited him to the US in 2012 after he served six years back in the UK for inciting hatred and advocating murder. In America, he was to face much more serious charges of funneling money and recruits to Al Qaeda elements in Afghanistan, the plot to set up an extremist training camp in the US and involvement in a situation in Yemen that ended in hostages and three dead Britons.

Comment: Indeed, he was in it for the money and the day he could ditch the ridiculous costume and stop playing a role for his employer.

That's the War on Terror for you folks, a lie from start to finish.

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Red Flag

Russia marks 69th anniversary of defeat of Nazism with spectacular Red Square military parade (VIDEO full ceremony)


RT
Fri, 09 May 2014 08:58 UTC
Image
© RIA Novosti/Grigory Sysoev
T 90 tanks during the V-Day Parade on Red Square, Moscow.
Russia has celebrated the 69th anniversary of Victory over Nazi Germany in the Great Patriotic War (WWII) with a traditional May 9 military parade on Moscow's Red Square, which featured 11,000 troops, 149 military vehicles and 69 warplanes.

The clock on the Kremlin's Spasskaya tower rang its chimes at 10:00 AM Moscow time to signal the start of the Victory Day parade.

The right to bring out the official flag of the Russian Federation and the Victory banner this year went to the servicemen of the Preobrazhensky regiment, which has been carrying the honor guard service in Red Square for over 55 years.

The original Victory Banner is the red flag, which was mounted by Soviet troops atop the Reichstag building in Berlin on May 9, 1945 as a symbol of victory over the Nazis.

After Russia's defense minister, Sergey Shoigu, inspected the servicemen gathered for the parade, he reported to the commander-in-chief of the Russian armed forces, the country's president, Vladimir Putin.


Comment: Yesterday, May 8th 2014, the Russian military filmed and broadcast an intensive series of missile drills:



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Penis Pump

'Netanyahu fear-mongering over Iran's nuclear program', says former head of Israel's nuclear program


Press TV
Fri, 09 May 2014 09:01 UTC
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
© Unknown
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

The former head of Israel's nuclear program says Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is fear-mongering about Iran's nuclear energy program for his own political gain.

In an interview with Israel's Ynet, Israeli Brigadier General Uzi Eilam criticized Netanyahu's policies on Iran and said he is making a fuss over the Islamic Republic's nuclear energy program for personal political advantages.
"Netanyahu and other politicians have struck terrible, unnecessary fear into the hearts of the Israeli public," said Eilam, who headed the Israel Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC) from 1976-1985.
"Netanyahu is using the Iranian threat to achieve a variety of political objectives," he added.
He said that Israel should give the diplomatic process alongside sanctions a serious chance, warning that a possible attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would "be the opening salvo in all-out war."
"What good would bombing do?... Bombing would achieve the direct opposite of what we desired," he added.
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Pistol

'Kill all Russians!' Kiev militia attacks unarmed civilians in Donetsk Republic city of Mariupol


RT
Fri, 09 May 2014 08:38 UTC

Armed Ukrainian men have surrounded Mariupol City Council building. Reports suggest they were deployed to dismantle barricades, but as anti-Kiev activists tried to negotiate, the armed men opened fire.

In footage from the scene, a group of armed men is seen guarding barricades and the building, freed of protesters. They shoot in the air from time to time. As a man approaches them and tries to speak, a military-clad man aims his weapon at the ground and starts shooting, close to the protester's feet.

"The man tried to prevent them from dismantling barricades, military started shooting. First two shot were in the air, the third - in his foot," local "0629" news website reported. It said the man was taken to a hospital.

A crowd of locals gathered outside the building as, they said they heard the shooting. According to media estimates, by 14:00 local time nearly 200 people came to the city council. They chanted anti-government slogans and shouted at police accusing them of letting armed men freely shoot in the city.

Image

One of the local residents gunned down by the Kiev militia
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Stock Down

Fall of the dollar hidden by false East/West paradigm

Brandon Smith
Alt-Market.com
Wed, 07 May 2014 01:07 UTC
obama putin
© unknown
Despite popular belief, very few things in our world are exactly what they seem. That which is painted as righteous is often evil. That which is painted as kind is often malicious. That which is painted as simple is often complex. That which is painted as complex often ends up being disturbingly two dimensional. Regardless, if a person is willing to look only at the immediate surface of a thing, he will never understand the content of the thing.

This fact is nowhere more evident than in the growing "tensions" between the elites of the West and the elites of the East over the crisis in Ukraine.

I am continually astonished at the refusal of many otherwise intelligent people to consider the evidence or even the possibility that there is, in reality, no fundamental political or philosophical conflict between the power brokers of the East and the West. As I outlined in great detail in Russia Is Dominated By Global Banks, Too, the truth is they are both working toward the same goal; and both ultimately benefit from an engineered and theatrical display of international brinksmanship.
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Propaganda

Ukraine crisis: Mayor of second city Gennady Kernes fights for life after murder attempt is predictably blamed on Kremlin by Western propaganda

Kim Sengupta
The Independent
Tue, 29 Apr 2014 07:33 UTC
Image
© AP
Kharkiv Mayor Gennady Kernes had emergency surgery after yesterday’s shooting.
The day began with the police station and administration building Konstantinovska being overrun; next the airport at Kramatorsk was attacked with rocket propelled grenades and then the mayor of Kharkiv was shot in the back. It ended in a vicious ambush on a demonstration in Donetsk. While America and the European Union impose new sanctions on Russia, violence and turmoil continues unabated in eastern Ukraine.

The attempted murder of Gennady Kernes, the mayor of the country's second-largest city, raised fears that prominent public figures were being targeted for assassination. Last night he was "fighting for his life", said his spokesman, after emergency surgery, with blame for the shooting leveled at both the Kremlin and extreme right wing groups.

Mr Kernes, a colourful character who regularly posted photographs of himself on social media taking part in sporting activities, was gunned down while he was out cycling, jogging, or swimming according to differing accounts of what took place. Valeriy Boyko, the director of Surgery institute in Kiev, where he was being treated, said the mayor "had suffered a very serious wound with a number of organs damaged".
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