Florida to drug test public employees but not elected officials, reinforces Scott’s Solantic ties

Source: End The Lie
Madison Ruppert

Florida has become the first state in the America to allow public employees to be randomly tested for a wide variety of drugs, thanks to the Florida legislature and Florida’s Republican governor, Rick Scott.

The glaring problem with this legislation – which was promoted by Governor Scott who actually co-founded Solantic, a company that runs a chain of some 32 urgent care centers, which we will get into later in this article – is that all elected officials are exempt from the law.

When similar legislation aimed at forcing the drug testing of welfare recipients (something Governor Scott also pushed for in Florida) was proposed in Indiana, some astute legislators amended the bill to include elected officials as well. Unsurprisingly, the bill was thrown out post haste.

Therefore, if you want to do mounds of cocaine and hold a taxpayer-funded job, you’d better get elected to some government position; otherwise you’re liable to get your urine tested.

I must point out, however, that the law does not require that state agencies drug test employees, it merely allows such activities.

It allows state agencies to randomly test up to 10% of their employees every three months for illicit drugs, prescription drugs and even alcohol, according to Noel Brinkerhoff with AllGov.

However, how they will test for alcohol is unclear to me, as most tests require the subject to have consumed alcohol recently, meaning it would likely only catch people who were actually drinking on the job.

On the other hand, some illegal substances like cannabis can remain in the system for quite a while but other illegal drugs like methamphetamine and others pass relatively quickly.

Unfortunately, the people of Florida have not been very vocal on this issue, especially the fact that such tests will usually catch people who smoke marijuana, but not others who use much more dangerous drugs which rapidly pass through the system.

Leon Panetta Confirms U.S. Will ‘Take Action’ if Isreal Strikes Iran

Source: End The Lie
Madison Ruppert

With senior Pentagon officials confirming that they have already been drawing up plans to attack Iran as well as Syria, the continued (and accelerating) buildup of military assets in the region, and now United States Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta confirming that the United States would backup Israel in an attack on Iran, the unfortunate prospect of an attack looks even more likely.

While he did indeed confirm that the United States would take a role if Israel moved to strike Iranian nuclear facilities – which are not producing nuclear weapons – he would not explicitly explain the extent to which the United States would be involved.

Similarly, in the past Obama has made statements about “having Israel’s back,” but both Obama and Panetta have not been forthcoming when it comes to details or specifics.

“Obviously Israel is an independent country, and they’ll make whatever decisions they make on their own based on what they think is in their national interests,” Panetta said to Arabic news outlet al Hurra.

“If they should make that decision, then obviously the United States will – would take action to protect our facilities in this area and protect our interests in this area,” Panetta stated.

I find Panetta’s correction from “will” to “would” a bit interesting. It might be an innocent slip but it also might be an indication that an attack on Iran by both the United States and Israel is set in stone at this point.

Iranian Media Continues to be Attacked by Foreign Entities

Source: End The Lie
Madison Ruppert

A string of attacks on Iranian media continues with reports of jamming signals coming from an unknown location interrupting broadcasts for two hours.

According to Iran’s Press TV, broadcasts of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting’s (IRIB) international channels on the Hotbird satellite provider were cut out for two hours by these signals.

High-power jamming signals were transmitted on the 12437 MHz frequency from 9:00 to 11:00 GMT on Saturday, March 10, 2012.

During this time, the broadcasts of the IRIB’s international channels were interrupted on multiple occasions.

The channels that were knocked out were Press TV, Iran’s 24-hour English-language international channel along with Al-Alam, Islamic Republic of Iran News Network, Al-Kowsar, along with Sahar 1 and 2 channels.

The jamming of IRIB signals is one of many recent attacks on Iranian media outlets.

According to Press TV, British technicians operating out of Bahrain jammed IRIB channels, again on the Hotbird satellite, blocking provincial channels along with international stations like Press TV and others.

Hackers out of the United States and Israel have also launched cyber attacks on Press TV’s website, according to Press TV.

While this report is not independently confirmed as far as I know, it is far from unreasonable to believe that such activities are taking place given the previous cyber attacks on Iran.

U.S. Intelligence Agencies Agree: No Evidence of Iranian Nuclear Weapons Program

Source: End The Lie
Madison Ruppert

Despite the repeated statements made by United States Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta which have clearly indicated that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons and the analysis of the American intelligence community, the heated anti-Iranian rhetoric never seems to let up.

Indeed, it has even been reported by none other than the New York Times that intelligence analysts in America have yet to find any hard evidence indicating that Iran has even decided to construct a nuclear bomb.

American intelligence assessments have continued to be congruent with the 2007 intelligence report which clearly concluded that Iran had in fact completely abandoned their nuclear program years before (scroll to the bottom of the article to read the embedded report).

According to anonymous U.S. officials, this assessment was reinforced by the 2010 National Intelligence Estimate and “it remains the consensus view of America’s 16 intelligence agencies.”

So, how can the governments of the United States and Israel continue to ignore their own intelligence agencies and nonsensically push forward with the effort to go to war with Iran?

If nothing else, it has become painfully clear that our so-called leaders are ignoring any and all contrary evidence which might weaken their war effort and making the relentless push towards war.

False Flag? Examining the Attacks on Israeli Targets in India and Georgia

Source: End The Lie
Madison Ruppert

The first thing I noticed when reading the reports of the bombings of targets remotely related to Israel was that one of the attacks had all of the hallmarks we have come to associate with assassinations carried out by agencies like the Israeli Mossad, American CIA, etc. and/or their proxies like the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) and Jundallah.

In this article we will also be looking at the possible motives for the attacks, if the attacks came out of Iran as individuals like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have claimed, or if indeed they were false flag attacks carried out by Israel itself.

The piece of information that set alarm bells ringing immediately was the mention of a magnetic device being used to attach the explosive to the minivan carrying an unnamed Israeli diplomat’s wife to pick up her children at the American Embassy School in New Delhi.

Delhi Police Commissioner B.K. Gupta reported that the attack occurred soon after 3 PM just a few hundred yards away from the prime minister’s residence.

In the vast majority of assassinations in Iran, usually targeting nuclear scientists, the assailants use a motorcycle and a magnetic bomb.

The most recent murder of a nuclear scientist in Iran followed this same blueprint with reports that the individuals responsible approached and escaped via motorcycle while the bombing itself involved a magnetic explosive attached to the car.

Just days before Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan was killed, Lieutenant General Benny Gantz, the Israeli military chief, hinted at foul play being involved in the many “accidents” and deaths in mentioning the “things that happen to [the Iranian nuclear program] unnaturally.” Similarly, Brigadier General Yoav Mordechai said of the Roshan assassination, “I certainly am not shedding a tear.”

Obviously this makes the link to Israeli/American intelligence and their terrorist proxies purely circumstantial, but nonetheless the evidence indicating that the attacks were actually carried out or ordered by the Mossad and/or CIA is much more compelling than the total lack of evidence linking Iran.

False Flag Looking Even More Likely as Israel Warns American Jews of Iranian Strike on US

Source: End The Lie
Madison Ruppert

Recently I covered the statements of Director of National Intelligence James Clapper regarding the possibility of Iranian attacks on the United States; a prospect which I think is so unlikely that if it were to occur it would likely be a false flag attack.

The possibility of such an attack – which would promptly be blamed on Iran just like the September 11, 2001 attacks were blamed on Osama bin Laden before any semblance of an investigation could take place – was reinforced today by a report from ABC News.

According to ABC News, Israel was internally circulating a security document amongst Israeli facilities in North America and around the world which claims that the threat from Iran against Jewish targets will continue to rise.

“We predict that the threat on our sites around the world will increase … on both our guarded sites and ‘soft’ sites,” the letter said, which was circulated by Eliran Avitan, the head of security for the Consul General for the Mid-Atlantic States.

For those who are unaware, a “guarded site” is a facility protected by the government, such as an embassy or a consulate, while “soft sites” or “soft targets” are typically unguarded, non-government locations.

Soft sites could include synagogues, schools and community centers, along with more general targets like malls, sporting events, etc.

Yoram Cohen, the head of Israel’s internal security apparatus Shin Bet, reportedly disclosed to an audience at a closed forum in Tel Aviv that Iran is trying to strike Israeli targets because Iran believes Israel is attacking their nuclear scientists.

The basis for Iran coming to the conclusion that their nuclear scientists are being taken out by intelligence agencies like the Israeli Mossad or American CIA is quite strong indeed, but apparently Cohen would rather ignore that fact.

We have witnessed a coherent modus operandi consistent throughout all of the targeted killings of Iranian nuclear scientists, something which can be easily linked back to Israel, likely acting in concert with the CIA and British intelligence.

With the Israeli Vice Prime Minister advocating continued support of what he called the “Iranian opposition” which is a not-so-subtle way of advocating continued support of terrorists in Iran, the Iranians have a right to be concerned.

Yet Again U.S. Department of Defense Can’t Account for Billions in Iraq

Source: End The Lie
Madison Ruppert

Two new audits conducted by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) have discovered that the United States Department of Defense (DOD) cannot account for a whopping $2 billion it was given to fund the reconstruction of Iraq.

To make matters even worse, the DOD is not even providing Iraq with a complete record of the construction projects funded by the United States, making the accounting even more difficult, if not impossible.

Back in 2004, Iraq provided $3 billion to the DOD to fund selected construction projects, but only about one third of those funds have been tracked according to the inspector general’s “January Quarterly Report and Semiannual Report” which was released recently and can be located here (along with other reports released by the inspector general).

The DOD claims that they have “internal processes and controls” in place to track the flow of money, yet they admit the “bulk of the records are missing,” and claim that they are in the process of searching for them.

Claiming you have internal controls while $2 billion is missing is laughable and shows just how ludicrously incompetent our government can be.

However, there is the very real possibility that this has nothing to do with incompetence and instead is yet another example of individuals in government conspiring to cash in.

This very well might be the case given that other documents including monthly reports which document the expenses have mysteriously gone missing as well.

Another indicator that this is something more than mere incompetence is the fact that in June of last year, the New York Federal Reserve refused to disclose details about the billions of dollars the Fed sent to Iraq during the beginning of the invasion.

The inspector general claimed it was not the fault of the New York Fed but instead the Iraqis since “They haven’t been sufficiently responsive.”

Furthermore, earlier that month it was reported that $6.6 billion in fresh $100 bills was sent by plane to Iraq and then could not be accounted for by the DOD.

Pentagon Wants Commando "Mothership" in Middle East

Source: End The Lie
Madison Ruppert

The Pentagon is now pushing to send a massive floating base which will serve as a staging point for commando squads in the Middle East, a move which I think can be easily traced back to the constantly rising tensions with Iran over the Strait of Hormuz and their alleged nuclear weapons program.

Of course, they only say that this is part of the reason, just like they claim that the massively increased American presence in the region is nothing to be concerned about while obviously it is.

The other threats they claim justify this move are al Qaeda in Yemen, Somali pirates, and more.

This move is supposedly being made at the behest of United States Central Command (CENTCOM) which is at the helm of all of the military operations going on throughout the Middle East.

The Navy will be converting an old warship which was going to be decommissioned into a floating staging base for commando operations.

This makes me wonder, why the emphasis on the fact that it is an aging vessel that was going to be decommissioned? Could this perhaps be a set up for a false flag to be blamed on Iran? The possibility is there and should be considered.

The makeshift base has been unofficially dubbed a “mothership” and is capable of launching smaller high-speed boats and the types of helicopters which are typically utilized by the Navy SEALs according to procurement documents brought to my attention by The Washington Post.

This new move is being chalked up to the shift in military focus under the Obama administration’s “new” strategy – which many have rightly pointed out is not actually that new and in fact contains some major contradictions – to a heavier reliance on Special Forces operations in order to make the American military “leaner and more agile” in the face of at least $487 billion in spending cuts at the Pentagon over the next ten years.

I think that this latest deployment should be emphasized because the military refuses to discuss where exactly this new “mothership” will be deployed in the Middle East.

Corbett Report Radio - Geopolitics With Madison Ruppert

Source: Corbett Report
James Corbett

Madison Ruppert of EndTheLie.com is our guest tonight on the program as we go over the latest news and geopolitical updates from around the world, including the recent car bomb assassination of yet another Iranian nuclear scientist, the growing tensions between NATO and Russia, China’s place on the chessboard, and more.

 

Works Cited:

Was Israel behind yet another assassination of a nuclear scientist?
Iran: a quickly evolving geopolitical imbroglio – Part I / Part II / Part III
Leon Panetta admits Iran is not developing a nuclear weapon
Russia strikes back against US-NATO missile system with their own advanced radar
Syrian state media reports Russian naval flotilla arrival in Tartus
US and NATO are on the March Part I / Part II

The End Of America: House and Senate Pass Final Version of NDAA

Source: End The Lie
Madison Ruppert

Today the United States House of Representatives and Senate both passed their final versions of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2012, or H.R. 1540.

 

This represents the complete destruction of everything that America is supposed to stand for, the most essential of rights have been stripped away and we are left wondering what the traitors in Washington will do next.

It has become painfully clear that the true terrorists are not hiding in caves in Afghanistan shooting at NATO troops with rusted second-hand assault rifles, but instead wear $5,000 suits and stroll happily through the halls of power in the United States.

The House passed their final version of the NDAA with a massive majority of 283 to 136 and the Senate passed it with a vote of 86 to 13, once again proving that our so-called Representatives do not represent us in any way and in fact are traitorous criminals and enemies of freedom.

No longer do we need to fear our country being attacked by foreign forces hell bent on destroying the American way of life, as these forces can be found calling themselves our “Representatives” while living large on the backs of the American people.

The signing of the NDAA with the detention provisions – that is, sections 1031 and 1032 most importantly – intact represents the final nail in the coffin of our once Constitutional Republic.

I can honestly say that I previously thought that the PATRIOT Act would be the worst legislation I would ever see in my lifetime and quite unfortunately, I was wrong. Dead wrong.

As I said when first covering S.1253, the precursor to S.1867 which the Senate passed with a 93% majority, this legislation makes the PATRIOT Act look like the Bill of Rights, and that is not in any way hyperbolic.

I previously exposed the fact that the claim that Obama would veto the NDAA was wholly without merit, and unfortunately I have been proven right once again when the White House withdrew the veto threat completely.

With the detention provisions intact, and thus the power to indefinitely detain American citizens without charge or trial on nothing more than suspicion, the NDAA is the most dangerous legislation to come before the President in recent history.

Corbett Report Radio - Ending The Lie With Madison Ruppert

Source: Corbett Report
James Corbett

Tonight we talk to Madison Ruppert, the editor of EndTheLie.com about the latest news and information from across America and around the world. Inspired by a high school debate project on 9/11 and spurred into action by Clinton’s famous dictum that the US is losing the infowar, Ruppert covers news and information on everything from the big brother police state to world news and economics from a defiantly alternative perspective.

Facebook Page Removed after Uploading Video Exposing Obviously Skewed Barbara Walters Interview with Assad

Source: End The Lie
Madison Ruppert

In a clear act of censorship, after a video was uploaded to the official Facebook page for the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) which exposed the highly manipulated ABC interview with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the page was removed by Facebook.

The video was of a press conference held by the spokesman for the Syrian Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Ministry, Jihad Makdessi, showing how the ABC interview was deceitfully edited.

“The conference showed how the US TV channel ABC manipulated the content of their interview with President Bashar al-Assad and distorted it through editing and omission,” writes SANA.

Syrians on Facebook have apparently already created a new page dedicated to the Syrian TV station, but this instance of Facebook controlling the narrative is hardly something which can be ignored.

The entire interview, conducted by Barbara Walters, is an exercise in Western propaganda which is completely divorced from objective reality and instead based solely on pulling the heart strings of viewers in hopes that they will not go through the effort of verifying any of the claims.

In this article we will also explore just how Walters goes about misrepresenting the truth and misleading the viewer during the interview.

Why you shouldn’t trust the Western media’s picture of Syria

Don't Be Fooled: President Obama Will Not Veto the NDAA

Source: End The Lie
Madison Ruppert

Those who are still relying on President Barack Hussein Obama to veto the National Defense Authorization Act are either easily deceived or simply delusional.

President Obama will not veto the NDAA Fiscal Year 2012, also known as S.1867 and H.R.1540, and there is simply no debating it.

For those who are unaware, S.1867/H.R.1540, or the NDAA, would allow the military to round up and indefinitely detain American citizens without charge or trial on suspicion of being a terrorist or linked to terrorists.

The best possible case scenario under this bill is that Americans like myself who are opposed to the disturbing turn our government is taking would be held as so-called Civilian Internees, and this scenario is far from a positive one.

The fact that Obama will not veto this legislation becomes painfully obvious when one realizes that Senator Carl Levin of Michigan actually revealed on the Senate floor that it was the Obama administration that requested that the language preventing section 1031 from being applied to U.S. citizens be removed.

You can see Senator Levin, who was involved with secretly drafting the bill with Senator John McCain, admit this in the following video:

Even if the Obama administration wasn’t behind pushing to have the NDAA apply to American citizens, which Levin clearly revealed on the Senate floor, his word is far from reliable.

The Entire United States is Now a War Zone: S.1867 Passes The Senate With Massive Support

Source: Activist Post
Madison Ruppert

This is one of the most tragic events I have written about since establishing End the Lie over eight months ago: the horrendous bill that would turn all of America into a battlefield and subject American citizens to indefinite military detention without charge or trial has passed the Senate.

To make matters even worse, only seven of our so-called representatives voted against the bill, proving once and for all (if anyone had any doubt remaining) that our government does not work for us in any way, shape, or form.

S.1867, or the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for the fiscal year of 2012, passed with a resounding 93-7 vote.

That’s right, 93 of our Senators voted to literally eviscerate what little rights were still protected after the PATRIOT Act was hastily pushed in the wake of the tragic events of September 11^th, 2001.

The NDAA cuts Pentagon spending by $43 billion from last year’s budget, a number so insignificant when compared to the $662 billion still (officially) allocated, it is almost laughable.

The bill also contained an amendment which enacts strict new sanctions on Iran’s Central Bank and any entities that do business with it, a move which will likely have brutal repercussions for the Iranian people – just like the sanctions on Iraq did.

Not a single Senator voted against this amendment, which was voted on soon before the entirety of S.1867 was passed, despite the hollow threats of a veto from the Obama White House.

Based simply on historical precedent, I trust Obama’s promises as much as I trust the homeless man who told me he was John F. Kennedy.

I wish that I could believe that the Obama administration would strike down this horrific bill but I would be quite ignorant and naïve if I did so.

Furthermore, the White House’s official statement doesn’t even say that they will veto the bill. In fact, it says, “the President’s senior advisers [will] recommend a veto.”

As Glenn Greenwald points out, the objection isn’t even about opposing the detention of accused terrorists without a trial, instead it is the contention that, “whether an accused Terrorist is put in military detention rather than civilian custody is for the President alone to decide.”

Obama’s opposition has nothing to do with the rule of law or protecting Americans, in fact, Senator Levin disclosed and Dave Kopel reported that, “it was the Obama administration which told Congress to remove the language in the original bill which exempted American citizens and lawful residents from the detention power”.

Why Is The American Establishment Media Sanitizing Reality?

Source: Activist Post
Madison Ruppert

The December 5^th, 2011 cover of Time Magazine represents a disturbing truth: the American corporate-controlled establishment media presents a picture of the world that is meant to placate and pacify the people of the United States in favor of presenting reality as it is.

While the covers of the European, Asian, and South Pacific editions have an image of chaos in the streets in Egypt with “Revolution Redux” in bold white letters in the center, the American edition is a cartoon with the headline “Why Anxiety is Good for You.”

Is this just a meaningless marketing tactic or does it exemplify the greater trend in how the American corporate media presents the world to the people of the United States?

I tend towards the latter, given the fact that this is something that is inescapable when consuming media marketed to people in the United States.

When I have the unfortunate pleasure of turning on the radio and listening to National Public Radio, I never cease to be amazed by the topics they choose to cover.

While much of the economies of the world are in shambles, uprisings both real and manufactured are occurring around the globe, brutal police crackdowns are taking place in the United States and the federal government is attempting to legalize indefinite military detention of civilians, even American citizens, without trial or charge, they opt for fluff stories with little-to-no meaning whatsoever.

This is the unfortunate nature of the “infotainment” industry that appeals to the lowest common denominator instead of attempting to inform and educate their audience.

The debatable aspect of this grim fact is if it is simply a result of sacrificing information and content in favor of ratings or if it is a calculated agenda to dumb down the American people.

I tend to fall into the camp of people who believe that this has been too pervasive and relentless to be the product of just doing whatever it takes to get ratings.

Take, for instance, the recent study that found that viewers of Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News were actually less informed about current events than people who watched no news at all.

While this probably seems like a somewhat obvious conclusion to anyone who has sat down and watched Fox News, the fact that it was actually shown in a study is quite surprising.

Chavez Brings First Shipment of Gold To Venezuela From Foreign Vaults as Global Economy Slides

Source: End The Lie
Madison Ruppert

In August Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez announced that he would be repatriating the foreign-held gold reserves in American and European banks and they received the first shipment of gold from European countries on Friday.

The Venezuelan central bank reports that about $300 million in gold was brought in to Caracas by plane and they plan to bring 160 tons held abroad back to Venezuela.

The president of the central bank, Nelson Merentes said that the first shipment came from “various European countries” by way of France and called the arrival of the gold bullion a “historic” moment for his country, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Hugo Chavez said, “Now [the gold] will go to a place from which it should have never left: the central bank vaults [in Caracas]; not those in London or in Europe, but our own land.”

This is likely quite a good move as Western banks are becoming increasingly exposed to massive amounts of derivatives and sovereign debt crises that are wracking several economies.

These crises very well might be engineered by central banks and their “too big to fail” cronies just as the crash in 2008 was, and Chavez might preempting a possible gold run by demanding physical delivery of his gold now before there is no gold to deliver.

While Merentes would not give the specific number of tons of gold brought shipped to Venezuela on Friday, he said that the shipment was worth roughly $300 million.

This comes as U.S. stocks see the worst Thanksgiving drop since 1932 and all indicators show the European sovereign debt crisis continuing to worsen.

Why does the U.S. want a total media blackout on long-term Afghan deal?

Source: End The Lie
Madison Ruppert

During a press conference yesterday, Safia Sediqi, loya jirga (which in the Pashto language means “grand council”) spokeswoman, said that Washington wants a complete media blackout over the conditions set forth in the new strategic long-term deal with Afghanistan, according to Press TV and BBC Persian.

Called by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the loya jirga began in the Afghan capital of Kabul on Wednesday and will run for four days.

The discussion will focus on the Afghan-American relationship, specifically the possibility of long-term American basis on Afghan soil after the U.S.-led coalition forces are supposedly going to withdraw in 2014.

Both political and religious figures in Afghanistan have been vocal in their opposition to American plans for long-lasting or very possibly permanent military bases on sovereign Afghan territory.

As I previously reported, the people of Afghanistan are increasingly seeing the foreign troops as occupying forces that are not protecting their security, which is reflected in the utter failure that the decade-long battle in Afghanistan has been.

As Press TV points out, the U.S. has not met its goals after 10 years and the security situation is abysmal despite nearly 150,000 U.S.-led foreign troops deployed around the nation.

The state-funded BBC Persian news network reports that the most common complaint amongst loya jirga participants is that they have not been provided with information about the terms and conditions of the long-term deal.

Sharifullah Sahak, an Afghan employee of The New York Times covering Kabul and provinces said via Twitter just four hours ago at the time of writing, “Loya Jirga members with different views saying government should sign the strategic pact for 10, 20, even for 50 years with US.”

Save The Internet and Boycott These Companies

Source: End The Lie
Madison Ruppert

The following are companies that signed this letter which was written in support of the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, which is the House’s equivalent of the PROTECT IP Act, which I have previously exposed as China-style internet censorship on steroids.

I encourage everyone to not only boycott these companies but flood them with letters, e-mails and phone calls telling them why exactly you are boycotting them.

SOPA would put completely legitimate sites, like End the Lie and countless other alternative news outlets at risk of being shut down, along with literally any site that freely allows users to post content.

That includes YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, Blogger, Craigslist, Dropbox and literally any website or service that allows users to upload content.

The United States Attorney General can not only seek court orders against “foreign infringing sites,” meaning any website with a non-U.S. domain name, but can also demand that internet service providers (ISPs) would have to cut off access to the site by not resolving domain name requests.

Furthermore, if served with one of the Attorney General’s court orders, search engines would have to remove any links to the site, payment networks would have to stop all payments to the site from U.S. customers and advertising networks would be forced to stop serving advertisements about the website or for the website.

But wait, it gets even worse. SOPA would require that within five days of receiving an allegation by a copyright holder, payment services and advertising networks would have to cut off all business with the site either U.S. based or foreign.

All the copyright holder has to do is allege that the site is “dedicated to the theft of property,” and if the payment provider and advertising networks don’t cease business within five days, the copyright holder can file a private lawsuit against the site compelling the payment service and others to cut off relations.

Is the Israeli Mossad Conducting a Covert Assault on Iran?

Source: End The Lie

Madison Ruppert

The blast in Iran that killed 17 people and injured another 15, including a leading Iranian missile researcher, at the Bid Ganeh base is now being linked to the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad.

This comes after the Israeli intelligence site, arguably a pure disinformation source, DEBKAfile claimed that the explosion was caused by a failed attempt at affixing a nuclear warhead to a Shahab intermediate range ballistic missile.

It now appears that this wasn’t the case, at least according to a Western intelligence official cited by Time and the former director of an Iranian state-run organization closely linked to the Iranian regime, also anonymous, quoted by the British Guardian.

The former Iranian official told the Guardian, “I believe that Saturday’s explosion was part of the covert war against Iran, led by Israel.”

The Israeli press seems to be echoing this sentiment, regardless of the fact that Iranian officials say that it was a purely accidental event that occurred when Revolutionary Guard troops were transporting munitions.

The anonymous Western intelligence official quoted by Time also rejects the Iranian’s explanation that it was an accident.

“Don’t believe the Iranians that it was an accident,” he told Time, while also claiming that other acts of sabotage are being planned in an attempt to slow the alleged Iranian nuclear weapons program.

If Mossad agents were indeed behind the blast, one could say that it was quite a successful operation.

Among the 17 killed in the blast was Major General Hassan Moqqadam, an individual that the Iranian state media has characterized as a pioneering researcher in Iranian missile development along with Mostafa Izadi, an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander who was in charge of “ensuring self-sufficiency” in Iranian armaments.

Losing both of these individuals might be a considerable setback for the Iranian missile and weapons programs, especially given the international sanctions leveled against them which are likely to become increasingly harsh as time goes on.

It is worth noting that Moqqadam, also spelled Moghaddam, was allegedly trained in ballistic science in China and North Korea, according to the Guardian which would implicate both countries in the alleged Iranian nuclear missile program.

The American Surveillance State Puts Orwell to Shame

Source: End The Lie
Madison Ruppert

Recently I published a relatively long article entitled, The invisible surveillance state: DHS and the end of America as we know it, which breaks down the invisible prison-like system that is the United States has become and how the Department of Homeland Security is diverting public funds into programs that would make Orwell’s Big Brother look like a joke.

Some of this information is nothing short of unbelievable. It seems so ludicrous that it is easily dismissed as conspiracy theory or paranoia. Unfortunately, everything I detailed is heavily documented to the point that it is simply irrefutable.

I really wish the high-tech American police state was just a conspiracy theory, but it is not and we are doing ourselves, and our nation, a disservice by pretending otherwise.

Furthermore, we would be making a grave mistake to not take this behemoth system seriously and to confront the egregious breaches of privacy that it creates.

This is not something we can wish away with logic like, “Well, as long as I’m not doing anything wrong, why should I care?”

Nor is it something that we can reconcile with logic like, “Well, as long as it is stopping the terrorists and keeping us safe, why should I care?”

These systems rob you of your right to privacy regardless of your criminal status and in doing so essentially criminalize the act of being in America.

Just by being an American citizen nowadays you are subject to constant surveillance, indefinite detainment without charges via the PATRIOT Act and all that would come along with being a full-fledged criminal. Only, here you don’t have to do anything wrong.