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Attention

DOD and Homeland Security are unauditable

Uncle Dave
Dvorak Org
Fri, 18 Jan 2013 12:25 UTC
Pickpockets
© Dvorak.org
How much did Madoff bilk investors out of? And how many years did he get in prison for it? If the books were cooked on purpose (ie, bilking the American public's out of their money), how many years will these people get in prison?

The Government Accountability Office said Thursday that it could not complete an audit of the federal government, pointing to serious problems with the Department of Defense.

Along with the Pentagon, the GAO cited the Department of Homeland Security as having problems so significant that it was impossible for investigators to audit it. The DHS got a qualified audit for fiscal year 2012, and is seeking an unqualified audit for 2013.

The report released by the GAO on Friday indicates serious accounting problems at two of the largest government agencies: the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security. The Department of Defense has a net cost of $799.1 billion to the federal budget, while the Department of Homeland Security has a net cost of $48.7 billion.
[...]

The Department of Defense's inability to get its books in order also comes as Congress is slated to cut $500 billion from its budget over ten years starting March 1.
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Bad Guys

France launches war in Mali in bid to secure resources, stamp out national rights struggles

Roger Annis
Global Research
Sat, 19 Jan 2013 10:53 UTC
Mali
© merriam-webster
France, the former slave power of west Africa, has poured into Mali with a vengeance in a military attack launched on January 11. French warplanes are bombing towns and cities across the vast swath of northern Mali, a territory measuring some one thousand kilometers from south to north and east to west. French soldiers in armoured columns have launched a ground offensive, beginning with towns in the south of the northern territory, some 300 km north and east of the Malian capital of Bamako.

A French armoured convoy entered Mali several days ago from neighbouring Ivory Coast, another former French colony. French troops spearheaded the overthrow of that country's government in 2011.

The invasion has received universal support from France's imperialist allies. The U.S., Canada and Europe are assisting financially and with military transport. To provide a figleaf of African legitimacy, plans have been accelerated to introduce troops from eight regional countries to join the fighting (map here).

"Islamist terrorists" etc., etc.

Comment: Coincidentally this military action comes at the same time that the German central bank has asked for repatriation of its gold, some of which is stored at the Bank of France in Paris.

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Attention

Real life shooting imitates training exercise at Parker medical school


Denver Post
Sat, 21 Jul 2012 09:22 UTC
The tragedy that played out in an Aurora movie theater Friday was ironically paralleled as a classroom learning experience in a medical school in Parker the same day.

Rocky Vista University College of Osteopathic Medicine is in the middle of holding specialized classes in disaster life support for 150 second-year medical students. Along with response to natural disasters like hurricanes and floods and terrorist attacks, one of the scenarios being used to train the students is how to respond if a shooter fires at people in a movie theater and also uses a bomb in the attack.

"The irony is amazing, just amazing," said Rocky Vista Dean Dr. Bruce Dubin.
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Dollars

Former Bachmann aide files complaint with FEC alleging illegal payments

Samantha Kimmey
Raw Story
Fri, 18 Jan 2013 19:16 UTC
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A former aide for one of the GOP's 2012 presidential hopefuls, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), has filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission, reported the Star Tribune.

Peter Waldron alleges that a PAC associated with Bachmann, MichelePAC, used funds to pay a longtime fundraising consultant, Guy Short, who helped start the PAC and was at one point her national political director.

He was paid while others agreed to go without their checks at the end of 2011 - including Waldron, who says he and others are still owed money by the campaign.
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Dollar Gold

HSBC to pay $249 million fine for U.S. mortgage abuse


Raw Story
Fri, 18 Jan 2013 19:08 UTC
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British bank HSBC has agreed to pay $249 million in compensation to home-loan borrowers hurt in the massive US mortgage and foreclosure scandal, US officials said Friday.

The Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency announced the deal, saying HSBC had to compensate borrowers affected by its "deficient practices in mortgage loan servicing and foreclosure processing."

The global banking giant will pay $96 million to eligible borrowers and $153 million in other assistance, including loan modifications, the statement said.
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Crusader

'Pentagon's hand behind French intervention in Mali'


RT.com
Fri, 18 Jan 2013 18:59 UTC
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As French soldiers pour into Mali in the fight to push back the advancing Islamist militants, questions have been raised as to the motives behind the intervention. Author William Engdahl told RT the US was using France as a scapegoat to save face.

RT: At a time when France and the rest of the Eurozone are trying to weather the economic crisis, what's Paris seeking to gain by getting involved in another conflict overseas?

William Engdahl: Well, I think the intervention in Mali is another follow-up to the French role in other destabilizations that we've seen, especially in Libya last year with the toppling of the Gadhafi regime. In a sense this is French neocolonialism in action.
But, interestingly enough, I think behind the French intervention is the very strong hand of the US Pentagon which has been preparing this partitioning of Mali, which it is now looming to be, between northern Mali, where al-Qaeda and other terrorists are supposedly the cause for French military intervention, and southern Mali, which is a more agricultural region. Because in northern Mali recently there have been huge finds of oil discovered, so that leads one to think that it's very convenient that these armed rebels spill over the border from Libya last year and just at the same time a US-trained military captain creates a coup d'état in the Southern capital of Mali and installs a dictatorial regime against one of Africa's few democratically elected presidents.

So this whole thing bears the imprint of US Africom [US Africa Command] and an attempt to militarize the whole region and its resources. Mali is a strategic lynchpin in that. It borders Algeria which is one of the top goals of these various NATO interventions from France, the US and other sides. Mauritania, the Ivory Coast, Guinea, Burkina Faso. All of this area is just swimming in untapped resources, whether it be gold, manganese, copper.
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Snakes in Suits

American CEOs want to raise retirement age to 70


RT.com
Fri, 18 Jan 2013 18:49 UTC
Image
© Reuters / Brian Snyder
Gary Loveman, CEO of Caesars Entertainment.
A group of CEOs is attempting to push the official US retirement age to 70, thereby making fewer Americans eligible to receive benefits such as Social Security and Medicare.

The Business Roundtable (BRT), a group of influential CEOs, on Wednesday unveiled its plan to partially privatize the health insurance program for older Americans and gradually reduce the benefits they currently receive by cutting entitlements. The plan calls for smaller annual Social Security increases, as well as reduced benefits for wealthy retirees.

"America can preserve the health and retirement safety net and rein in long-term spending growth by modernizing Medicare and Social Security in a way that addresses America's new fiscal and demographic realities," Gary Loveman, chairman, president and chief executive of Caesars Entertainment, told CBS News. Loveman is head of the Business Roundtable, which came up with the plan. The millionaire businessman hopes to convince Congress to enact the new measures in an attempt to cut US spending.

The BRT believes the eligibility age for both Medicare and Social Security should increase to 70. Some legislators have already proposed raising it to 67, but congressional Democrats have fought hard to prevent such an increase. Retirees can currently get reduced Social Security benefits starting at age 62, full Social Security benefits at age 66, and Medicare at age 65.
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Alarm Clock

Supreme Court to consider if silence can be evidence of guilt


Reuters
Fri, 11 Jan 2013 15:48 UTC
The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to consider whether a suspect's refusal to answer police questions prior to being arrested and read his rights can be introduced as evidence of guilt at his subsequent murder trial.

Without comment, the court agreed to hear the appeal of Genovevo Salinas, who was convicted of murder and sentenced to 20 years in prison for the December 1992 deaths of two brothers in Houston.

Salinas voluntarily answered police questions for about an hour, but he became silent when asked whether shotgun shells found at the crime scene would match a gun found at his home. An officer testified that Salinas demonstrated signs of deception.

Ballistics testing later matched the gun to the casings left at the murder scene.

Salinas was charged in 1993 but evaded arrest until his capture in 2007.
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Stormtrooper

German government's surveillance software unsettles a nation that prizes privacy

Claudia Bracholdt
Quartz
Thu, 17 Jan 2013 18:05 UTC
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Germans take their privacy seriously and have coined a term - gläserner Bürger, or "the glass citizen" - to describe a dystopic future in which Germans are surveilled around the clock. The news that that Bundeskriminalamt (BKA), Germany's version of the FBI, is testing software by a controversial surveillance firm is sure to raise the glass citizen image yet again.

A leaked document (PDF in German) from the German ministry of the interior, which was published on Wednesday by netzpolitik.org, reveals that BKA has acquired software from Gamma Group for monitoring computer and internet use in "case it will be necessary to use." BKA has also been working on its own surveillance software, which it expects to finish in 2014, according to the document.
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Handcuffs

CIA agents arrested In Tehran


Payvand News
Thu, 17 Jan 2013 17:58 UTC
Iranian News Agency Mehr News Agency published the following story and photos today claiming that several CIA undercover agents have been identified and arrested by the Iranian Intelligence Ministry.

Iranian Intelligence Ministry has said that its agents have discovered a group of CIA undercover agents in what the Ministry defined as 'constant and smart operations.' Part of the operation has been carried out in France and elsewhere.

Image
Matti Waluk, a CIA operator and executive of a CIA intelligence plan was arrested by security and intelligence agents of Iran along with other members of anti-Iran group.
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