Corporatocracy is distinctly the dominate practice when it comes to doing business with the federal government. The once embryonic relationships between favored companies and agency bureaucrats, have germinated into distinctive hybrid organisms. Grafting into self-generating species resistant and virtually immune from pest control methods can be found in every area of government expenditures. The big daddy of cozy dealing is that preverbal military-industrial-security complex.

Who can forget all the government money spent in Iraq and Afghanistan that went to favored corporations with no bid contracts? A prime example of this practice is the notorious Cheney affiliated company, Halliburton Made $39.5 Billion on Iraq War.

"According to the bipartisan Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the level of corruption by defense contractors may be as high as $60 billion. Disciplined soldiers that would traditionally do many of the tasks are commissioned by private and publicly listed companies.

Even without the graft, the costs of paying for these services are higher than paying government employees or soldiers to do them because of the profit motive involved. No-bid contracting - when companies get to name their price with no competing bid - didn't lower legitimate expenses."

However, this sum is merely chump change when compared to the video report that Rumsfeld Announces $2.3 Trillion Missing from Pentagon. It is one thing to provide contracts to buddy companies, but it quite a different and an outrageous matter to abandon even the appearance of accounting audits of public funds.

Just yesterday, I read this story...

The story goes on to report (in part)

Secretary of State John Kerry has lost faith in his own administration's Syria policy, he told fifteen U.S. Congressmen in a private, off-the-record meeting, according to two of the senators who were in the room.

Kerry also said he believes the regime of Bashar al Assad is failing to uphold its promise to give up its chemical weapons according to schedule; that the Russians are not being helpful in solving the Syrian civil war; and that the Geneva 2 peace talks that he helped organize are not succeeding. But according to the senators, Kerry now wants to arm Syria's rebels - in part, to block the local al Qaeda affiliates who have designs on attacking the U.S. (Kerry's spokesperson denied that he raised the issue of supplying weapons, but did not dispute the overall tenor of the conversation.)

"[Kerry] acknowledged that the chemical weapons [plan] is being slow rolled, the Russians continue to supply arms, we are at a point now where we are going to have to change our strategy," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, who attended Kerry's briefing with lawmakers on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. "He openly talked about supporting arming the rebels. He openly talked about forming a coalition against al Qaeda because it's a direct threat."

Kerry's private remarks were a stark departure from the public message he and other top Obama administration officials repeatedly have given in public. Shortly after the meeting ended, Sens. Graham and John McCain described the meeting to The Daily Beast, The Washington Post, and Bloomberg View. Given newly-released intelligence on the growing al Qaeda presence in Syria, as well as shocking new evidence of Syrian human rights atrocities, the senators said they agreed with Kerry that the time had come for the United States to drastically alter its approach to the Syrian civil war.

Top US officials warn France about a visit to Iran by a French delegation of more than 100 businesspeople seeking to explore business opportunities in the Islamic Republic.

Secretary of State John Kerry called his French counterpart, Laurent Fabius, to express concern about the business delegation. The businesspeople met with top Iranian trade officials on Tuesday.

In testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday, Wendy Sherman, under secretary of state for political affairs and the Obama administration's top negotiator with Iran, said Kerry and other senior US officials believe these trade visits are "not helpful."

"Tehran is not open for business because our sanctions relief is quite temporary, quite limited and quite targeted," Sherman told lawmakers.

"As far as we have seen today, there are not deals getting done, but rather people getting first in line in the hope that someday there will be a deal," she said.

Offending King Hamad can now result in up to seven years in prison, Bahrain announced Tuesday. The news comes just days before the third anniversary of the Shiite-led, Arab Spring-inspired protests against the kingdom's Sunni monarchy.

Bahrain amended its 1976 penal code to carry a minimum one-year and maximum seven-year sentence, including a fine of up to US$26,000, for "publicly offending the king of Bahrain, its national flag or emblem," state news agency BNA reported.

The prison sentence could rise above seven years if the "offense was committed in the presence of the king," BNA added.

Prior to the law change, the same charges against the monarchy carried a minimum sentence of a few days.

Bahrain convicted and jailed two activists for one and four months, respectively, in 2012 for Twitter comments that supposedly insulted King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa. Social media comments are included in the new edict.

National Security Advisor and former UN Ambassador Susan Rice took to Twitter on Monday night to blast Israel for widespread recent criticism of Secretary of State John Kerry by Israeli government officials. The torrent of tweets ran from at 8:14 to 8:17 p.m. Eastern Standard Time and spoke in defense of both Kerry and President Barack Obama, calling recent Israeli criticism of them "totally unfounded and unacceptable."

Personal attacks in Israel directed at Sec Kerry totally unfounded and unacceptable.
- Susan Rice (@AmbassadorRice) February 4, 2014

One of the most significant geopolitical events of 2013 was the failed push for war in Syria by the Obama Administration. It didn't merely fail as a result of a war weary public (although that played a key role), it also failed due to the fact our clownish "leaders" were attempting to offer military support to rebels with a large al-Qaeda element.

So the pathetic "sell" by the U.S. establishment was to push the nation into a conflict allied with the very terrorist group against which we are fighting the "war on terror," and have given up so many of our civil liberties to wage. Ridiculous, yet they tried anyway. That is how stupid they think the public is.

What that failed attempt at war mongering demonstrated to anyone paying attention is that our foreign policy is a complete joke and total sham. We publicly claim to support "democracy" and "freedom" around the world, yet in reality support some of the most oppressive regimes out there.

No relationship highlights this hypocrisy as clearly as our extremely close alliance with the Saudi regime, one of the last "absolute monarchies" on the planet. Not only that, but increasing evidence points to its direct involvement in the 9/11 attacks. But it gets worse. A lot worse. The regime has just passed a series of Medieval laws to crack down on all dissent. In a nutshell: Dissent = Terrorism.

More than two years after they were acquitted of the murder of the British exchange student Meredith Kercher, Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito face another Italian court verdict on Thursday that could uphold their original convictions and eventually pave the way for an extradition battle with the United States.

In the latest chapter of legal proceedings resulting from the brutal 2007 killing, the appeals court in Florence is due to rule on whether the former lovers should once again have their murder convictions overturned, or whether those guilty verdicts still stand.

At 10.15am on Thursday, after Knox's defence completed their closing arguments, the court - comprising two judges and a panel of jurors, known as lay judges - retired to begin its deliberations. Knox is in her home town of Seattle, while Sollecito was in court. His father, Francesco Sollecito, said on Wednesday they were "obliged to have faith in our justice system" and so would "see it through" to the end.

Capitol Hill's most powerful special interests resorted again to underhanded tactics.

Today, the Senate passed the $1 trillion dollar Farm Bill with a vote of 68 to 32 (the House gave its approval last Wednesday). As you may recall, the most recent version of this cumbersome bill had serious ramifications for farmers, GMO labeling, and consumer access to locally sourced foods.

What that earlier version didn't have was an amendment that will expose Americans, and especially children, to dangerous amounts of fluoride residue - yet such an amendment was somehow snuck into the final, 949-page Farm Bill just forty-eight hours before it went to vote.

Section 10015, which was slipped in behind closed doors by Dow AgroScience's lobbyists, overturns an EPA ruling that pesticide residues must be included in calculations of safe levels of fluoride exposure. By removing pesticide residues from the equation, this amendment almost guarantees that Americans will be exposed to higher levels of toxic fluoride, while thinking they're consuming safe levels.

Benjamin Netanyahu has been criticised by right-wing politicians in Israel who have accused the country's prime minister of failing to set an example for the Jewish people by not preventing his son from dating a non-Jewish girl.

Yair Netanyahu, a 23-year-old student, is thought to be dating a Norwegian woman after the pair met at the prestigious Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel, which they both attend.

According to a report in the Norwegian newspaper Dagen, when the Israeli leader met Norwegian premier Erna Solberg at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, he mentioned that Yair had a Norwegian girlfriend, 25-year-old Sandra Leikanger, and that the couple had visited Norway last summer.

The newspaper also published photos posted on Ms Leikanger's Facebook page appearing to show the pair posing together at various sites in Norway.

"It's a big problem," Nissim Ze'ev, a politician representing the ultra-orthodox Shas party, told the Jerusalem Post. "As the prime minister of Israel and the Jewish people, he must display national responsibility via the values he presents inside his own household.

Conservative radio host Mark Levin exploded with fury on Tuesday as he spoke of the "constitutional crisis" in the United States and the "impotent" GOP establishment, which he says won't put up a real fight. He also suggested a way for House Republicans to "get back in the game" and reassert its authority.

"I know it's hard to believe we've come to this point, particularly when we have mainstream media commentators who act like this is no big deal - in fact, think this is justified because Congress is obstructing the president's agenda," Levin said of the federal government's overreach and related scandals.

That's when the radio host lost his composure.

"Congress has the power to obstruct the president's agenda! That's the whole point! Particularly a president like this," he screamed. "That's their job!"

Levin went on to say that the U.S. doesn't hold an election every four years so the country can have a "king."

"And our Constitution is never up for election regardless!" he said.