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Best of the Web: Caught On Tape: Irish bankers laugh about never repaying bailout

Bill Black is interviewed by Real News on the 'Anglo Tapes', which reveal how Anglo Irish Bank executives laughed as they manipulated the Irish Government into a 16 billion dollar bailout in 2008 that they knew neither the government nor the people would ever be able to repay...


Comment: Leaked recordings of Anglo-Irish phone conversation during outbreak of 2008 financial crisis: Banksters joked about defrauding the Irish people


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Best of the Web: Leaked recordings of Anglo-Irish phone conversation during outbreak of 2008 financial crisis: Banksters joked about defrauding the Irish people

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Once again, we have more embarrassing conversations between bankers...

The Irish Independent, a Dublin-based newspaper, has uncovered tapes of an internal phone conversation from September 2008 between two executives at Anglo Irish Bank during its bailout deal and they sound pretty scandalous. The Irish Independent points out that the recordings show they misled the Central Bank.

The executives from the recording have been identified as John Bowe (head of the bank's capital markets) and Peter Fitzgerald (director of retail banking).

However, Bowe "categorically denied" that he misled the Central Bank and Fitzgerald, who wasn't involved in discussions with regulators, said he was unaware of any intention to mislead, the report said.

Either way, the newly revealed recordings are still embarrassing.

Comment: Note that the Irish Independent is no angel in this: part and parcel of the Irish political establishment, this mainstream media outlet sat on the tapes for the longest time...


War Whore

Nobel Peace Prize winner sends four fighter jets to Egyptian army to maintain control over its slaves

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Obama administration agrees to go ahead with F-16 delivery to Egyptian army despite deepening unrest within the country

US officials have agreed to donate four fighter jets to Egypt's army, in the latest indication of international support for the country's interim government despite growing internal unease at the new regime's management of the power transition.

America's donation of the F-16s suggests the Obama administration is coming to terms with the downfall of the former president Mohamed Morsi, after initially displaying an ambiguous attitude to the military's role in the Islamist's ouster. The US gives annual aid worth $1.3bn (£860m) to the Egyptian army. There were concerns in Egypt that this support might be discontinued in the aftermath of Morsi's departure.

The aircraft donation follows a telephone conversation between the European Union's foreign affairs representative, Lady Catherine Ashton, and Egypt's new interim president, Adly Mansour. It follows the issuing of $12bn in grants and loans from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, all conservative Gulf states known for their opposition to Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood.

Che Guevara

Bolivian president Evo Morales joins Latin American allies in offering asylum to NSA leaker Edward Snowden

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© JUAN KARITA/APBolivia's President Evo Morales raises his fist during a welcome ceremony in Cochabamba, Bolivia, Thursday, July 4. Morales said Thursday that the rerouting of his plane in Europe over suspicions that National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden was on board was a plot by the U.S. to intimidate him and other Latin American leaders.
The president of Bolivia has called the rerouting of his flight home from a Moscow summit on the suspicion Snowden was aboard an intimidation tactic against him by the U.S. and European nations.

NSA leaker Edward Snowden has yet another place to go, if only he can get there.

Bolivian President Evo Morales says Snowden is welcome in his country. He said Saturday he is making the offer as a protest against the U.S. and European nations he accuses of temporarily blocking his flight home from a Moscow summit because they suspected his might have Snowden on board.

Stormtrooper

Israeli military is busy with manufacturing the next conflict and focuses on Northern border

An Israeli soldier collapses onto the floor of a house in Lebanon, shot by Hezbollah fighters. As his squad mates clear out the second floor, a medic rushes over, pulling on latex gloves and digging into his first aid kit. Gunfire echoes down the stairs as he starts to work on the wound.

The Israeli military experienced this kind of brutal house-to-house warfare during its inconclusive 2006 war with Hezbollah. As it trains in a mock village in its base in this northern Israeli town, it is recreating similar battle scenarios as it prepares for the next confrontation with the Lebanese militant group. Officials say such a conflict could erupt at any time.

While the world has focused its attention on the turmoil in Egypt following the ouster of President Mohammed Morsi, Israel is keeping a close eye on its northern flank, where officials say the Syrian civil war, and Hezbollah's increasing involvement there, have created a combustible mix that could draw in Israel with little notice.

Clipboard

Best of the Web: Obama supporters sign petition to repeal the Bill of Rights to support the President

Media analyst, political activist, and author Mark Dice asks California beach goers if they'll sign a petition showing support for Obama in his quest to repeal the Bill of Rights.


Comment: Far from showing people willingly signing over their freedom, what this video demonstrates is that appealing to people's sense of freedom through the constitution and the Bill of Rights is a complete waste of time. People either don't know or don't care what these documents and ideals are.

Now, how many of these people would have signed if they were asked to support reducing the real value of wages and increasing home foreclosures in order to increase the elite's wealth?

None.

People are concerned with practical measures of freedom, not 'high-falutin' ideals. '

Will me and my family have enough to eat today?'

'Have I done enough to ensure we have a roof over our heads for the foreseeable future?'

Only at the point where enough SEE this happening because they can viscerally FEEL this happening to them and the people immediately around them in their social networks are they motivated to DO anything about it.

Then, and only then, when they're educating themselves in open fora like we saw at Occupy Wall Street and Tahrir Square, can there be any meaningful discussion about 'bills of rights'.


Star of David

Abduction of Palestinian in Egypt by Israeli Mossad

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© UFree
UFree network to defend the rights of Palestinian political prisoners and detainees in Israeli jails denounce in a press release, the new flagrant violations committed by Israel. The new violation concerns a Palestinian citizen named Wael Hasan Abu Raida, 35, who was abducted by Israeli Intelligence Agency "Mossad" from Sinai Peninsula in Egypt last month."

It's reported that Abu Raida was in a medical trip (for his son who suffers cancer) in Egypt before he "vanished" and then appeared in Israel. He was contacted by unknown people who led him to Sinai from Cairo then he was taken to Israeli detention centres across borders. According to his family, he was due to obtain the Egyptian nationality.

The abducted civilian appeared before an Israeli magistrate court Wednesday which ordered that he remains in detention for 8 days. According to Faris Abu Hasan, Lawyer for Solidarity Human Rights Organisation, the court imposed blackout on the details of the case or the reasons of the kidnapping for security matters.

Pistol

Egypt massacre: Snipers and death squads, the terror tactics of U.S. 'soft power'

Libya360 Editorial Comment: After Monday's tragic massacre at the Republican Guard headquarters in Cairo, I thought this article was worth reposting. One must question who really was responsible for the shootings...
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© Businessinsider.com
Who has the most to gain by fomenting a civil war in Egypt?

Who benefits if genuine revolution fails?

Unknown Snipers and Western backed "Regime Change"
Unknown snipers played a pivotal role throughout the so-called 'Arab Spring Revolutions' yet, in spite of reports of their presence in the mainstream media, surprisingly little attention has been paid to to their purpose and role.

Eye 1

Le Carré's latest fiction can't do justice to Snowdens' NSA revelations

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© David Cheskin/PA'When I heard William Hague say the innocent had nothing to fear, I distinctly heard Le Carré give a hollow laugh. I thought of the Lawrence family, bugged to get dodgy coppers out of a hole. I thought of British families discovering their dead offspring had their identities stolen by police.
Whistleblower and writer both finger the enemy as their own side. But the full horror of truth always outdoes the imagination

Shocked, or not shocked? The chasm widens. The New York Times this week carried a story from a whistleblower close to Washington's foreign intelligence surveillance court, known as the Fisa court - a secret body set up in 1978 to monitor federal phone taps. It now gives legal cover to intelligence trawling of millions of individuals, at home and abroad.

The recent revelations by another whistleblower, Edward Snowden, accused the court of breaking the fourth amendment to the US constitution. This entitles Americans "to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures". The operative word, as so often, is unreasonable.

The new leak alleges that more than a dozen new "rulings" have been passed by Fisa, declaring categories of data-scooping that were within the "special needs" of security, and thus no different from breath-testing or body-searching at airports. NSA operations such as Prism, Tempora and Boundless Informant - many in collusion with Britain's GCHQ - used covert access to Google, Apple and Facebook to go where they pleased. They could cite not just terrorism but espionage, matters of interest to a foreign power, cyber-attacks and "weapons of mass destruction".

These judgments, all in secret, confirmed the gist of Snowden's evidence - and validated his motive. The reason why a previously loyal ex-soldier broke cover was not to aid an enemy. It was to inform a friend, his own country. He was simply outraged by the lies told to Congress by his bosses about NSA operations. As Harvard's Stephen Walt said, Snowden was performing a public service in drawing attention to a "poorly supervised and probably unconstitutional" activity.

Comment: For more information on the NSA spying scandal see:
Full Disclosure: NSA's Criminal Activity
Ed Snowden's magic thumb drive and other NSA fantasies
Did someone help Ed Snowden punch a hole in the NSA?


Eye 1

Millions in US tax dollars go to Big Data for wiretap capabilities

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© (AFP Photo / Spencer Platt) Ivan Seidenberg (L) , Chairman and CEO of Verizon and and AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson

The US government uses American tax dollars to pay major Internet companies and telecommunications giants like Verizon and AT&T for unprecedented access into millions of phone records and the ability to scour vast online databases.

AT&T charges the government a $325 "activation fee" for each individual wiretap and a daily fee of $10 to maintain it. Verizon, on the other hand, charges government eavesdroppers $775 for the first month of monitoring an individual then $500 in each month that follows, Representative Edward Markey (D-MA) told the Associated Press.