Everything we were told is wrong
The Gun Range Myth
We've screened and edited over 100 hours of commentary on the Sandy Hook (Newtown) shooting. Our written commentary appears below after the videos. The key issues in this story are best covered in the videos that appear on these pages.
Puppet Masters
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The data can also be used to study patterns of behaviour to reveal personal information
The data can also be used to study patterns of behaviour to reveal personal information
Details of the giant database of location-tracking information, and the sophisticated ways in which the NSA uses the data to establish relationships between people, have been revealed by the Washington Post, which cited documents supplied by whistleblower Edward Snowden and intelligence officials.
Comment: There's no question that the American public should be outraged that their rights to privacy are being violated, but the question stands whether the NSA program has the capabilities to perform all that is alleged above. After all, if people are convinced that they are being monitored all the time, they will be more willing to accept the lines that the PTB have drawn against their freedoms.
© Yuya Shino/Reuters
Nakagawa, chairman of the Upper House Special Committee on National Security, is surrounded by lawmakers during a vote on a state secrets act at the parliament in Tokyo
Nakagawa, chairman of the Upper House Special Committee on National Security, is surrounded by lawmakers during a vote on a state secrets act at the parliament in Tokyo
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, keen to beef up Japan's security amid rising concerns about China's military assertiveness, has said the law is needed to the smooth operation of a new National Securities Council and to persuade foreign countries such as close ally the United States to share intelligence.
I actually asked this question ('have you been living under a rock?) to someone recently who proudly proclaimed that he had never heard of Bitcoin, almost expressing gratification in his ignorance of a game-changing model.
Bitcoin is on fire. Mainstream media coverage is everywhere.
© Toshifumi Kitamura/AFP/Getty Images
Shinzo Abe, Japan's prime minister.
Shinzo Abe, Japan's prime minister.
The upper house of the Diet gave final approval of the measures in Tokyo late yesterday after opposition parties first forced a no-confidence vote in Abe's government in the lower house. The wrangling over the bill forced the government to extend the parliamentary session, due to end yesterday, for two more days.
The bill, which forms part of Abe's broader push to strengthen Japan's defense policy in the face of China's military assertiveness, stiffens penalties for bureaucrats who leak secrets and journalists who publish them. It gives government officials the power to define what constitutes a state secret under categories from defense to diplomacy, terrorism and safety threats.
"There is rationale in the secrecy bill, but the government has been too hasty and has lacked efforts to provide a framework for information disclosure which is the flip side of secrecy," said Hidenori Suezawa, a financial market and fiscal analyst at SMBC Nikko Securities Inc.
© Unknown
July 18, 1918: Born Rolihlahla Mandela in a small village in the eastern Cape of South Africa.
1944: Joins the African National Congress (ANC).
1944: Marries first wife Evelyn Mase.
1948: South African government introduces the racial segregation policy of apartheid.
December 1952: Sentenced to nine months hard labour, suspended for two years, for civil disobedience campaign. Opens first black law firm with Oliver Tambo.
1956: Charged with high treason as part of a round-up of 156 activists.
US Army colonel, former War College instructor and former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell Lawrence Wilkerson tells Real News: "I don't know if our grandchildren will live in a democratic republic."
The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, in a new report published in the London Review of Books, wrote that the administration of President Obama was aware of the fact that the militants fighting against the Syrian government had the ability to make chemical weapons but did not inform the public about it.
"Barack Obama did not tell the whole story this autumn when he tried to make the case that Bashar al-Assad was responsible for the chemical weapons attack near Damascus on 21 August. In some instances, he omitted important intelligence, and in others he presented assumptions as facts," he wrote in the article.
© Greg Nash
James Clapper
James Clapper
"Lying to Congress is a federal offense, and Clapper ought to be fired and prosecuted for it," the Wisconsin Republican said in an interview with The Hill.
He said the Justice Department should prosecute Clapper for giving false testimony during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing in March.
During that hearing, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked Clapper whether the National Security Agency (NSA) collects data on millions of Americans. Clapper insisted that the NSA does not - or at least does "not wittingly" - collect information on Americans in bulk.
Nelson Mandela, who died yesterday at age 95, was a South African anti-apartheid revolutionary who served as President of South Africa from 1994-1999.
During the 1950's, while working as an anti-apartheid lawyer, Mandela was repeatedly arrested for 'seditious activities' and 'treason.' In 1963 he was convicted of sabotage and conspiracy to overthrow the government, and sentenced to life imprisonment. Mandela served 27 years in prison before an international lobbying campaign finally won his release in 1990.
In 1994, Mandela was elected President and formed a Government of National Unity in an attempt to defuse ethnic tensions. As President, he established a new constitution and initiated the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate past human rights abuses and to uncover the truth about crimes of the South African government, using amnesty as a mechanism.
Nelson Mandela was a powerful and inspirational leader who eloquently and forcefully spoke truth to power. As tributes are published over the coming days, the corporate media will paint a sanitized portrait of Mandela that leaves out much of who he was. We expect to see 'safe' Mandela quotes such as "education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world" or "after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb."
Comment:
Sandy Hook cover-up continues: Connecticut State Investigation ends with records sealed, crime scene destroyed, motive 'unknown'
SOTT Talk Radio: The Sandy Hook Massacre, What Really Happened?