AFRICOM and the Recolonization of Africa - Cynthia McKinney on GRTV

Source: Corbett Report and GRTV

Established in 2007, the United States African Command (AFRICOM) has been at the heart of the US agenda to secure the continent and its resources America's supposed enemies. Now, many are questioning AFRICOM's role on the continent at all.

Find out more about the race for Africa's riches in this week's GRTV Feature Interview with former congresswoman and 2008 presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney.

NASA To Annouce Alien Planet Discoveries

Source: The Daily Galaxy

Counting Kepler and the other ground- and space-based planet searches underway, scientists have discovered a total of more than 700 confirmed alien planets. They're still on the hunt for a Twin Earth in the habitable zone --roughly the right size and temperature to host life. Tuesday's press conference will begin at 1 p.m. EST and will be webcast on NASA's website. Speakers will include:

Nick Gautier, Kepler project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Francois Fressin, the lead scientist on the new discovery, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass.

David Charbonneau, professor of astronomy at Harvard University, Linda Elkins-Tanton, director of the Carnegie Institution for Science's Department of Terrestrial Magnetism in Washington.

The public can listen in on the alien planet announcement using NASA's News Audio website.

The $600 million Kepler mission is slated to run until at least November 2012, though its science team is hoping for an extension of the mission until 2016 or so.

NASA's Kepler mission has confirmed its first planet in the "habitable zone," the region where liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface. Kepler also has discovered more than 1,000 new planet candidates, nearly doubling its previously known count. Ten of these candidates are near-Earth-size and orbit in the habitable zone of their host star. Candidates require follow-up observations to verify they are actual planets.

The newly confirmed planet, Kepler-22b, is the smallest yet found to orbit in the middle of the habitable zone of a star similar to our sun. The planet is about 2.4 times the radius of Earth. Scientists don't yet know if Kepler-22b has a predominantly rocky, gaseous or liquid composition, but its discovery is a step closer to finding Earth-like planets.

Arrested In My Underwear at a TSA Checkpoint

Source: Adam Kokesh


I know it's kind of silly, but sometimes you don't know how or when you're going to stand up to this bullshit, I just wish more Americans would do it more often.

Kim Jong-il is Dead

Source: Corbett Report and RT

Korean media is reporting that Kim Jong-il died earlier today, although there has been speculation that he has in fact been dead for some time. Whatever the case, this change in dictator/figureheads represents a moment of unease in East Asia as no one knows exactly how this nuclear-armed state will react. James Corbett joins RT to discuss the situation.

Defector: Rumors Circulating Kim Jong-il Assassinated

Source: Prison Planet
Paul Joseph Watson

Dictator’s death could have been result of internal power struggle with country’s military

A prominent North Korean defector and a South Korean politician are contradicting reports that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il died of a heart attack, pointing to rumors that he was assassinated as result of an internal power struggle between the ruling Communist Workers’ Party and the country’s military.

“A rumor is circulating that earlier a high-ranking North Korean official was shot dead. This has yet to be confirmed, but such talk is evidence that discontent was brewing among some people in the North,” political scientist An Chan-il told the Korea Times.

Noting that numerous military officers were dismissed shortly after the anointment of Kim Jung-un as the Stalinist state’s next leader, An said that growing resentment within the ranks could have led to an assassination plot carried out “by those harboring discontent with the way he ruled the country.”

“As their vested interests were hurt due to Kim Jong-il, I would not rule out the possibility that some military officers, who believed their clout and influence had been damaged, could have played a role in his death,” An said.

Rep Chun Yo-ok of the ruling Grand National Party (GNP) also speculated that Kim Jong-Il’s death could have been an act of “homicide,” the result of an internal power struggle.

Although the dictator has been in bad health since he reportedly suffered a stroke in August 2008, recent public appearances suggest Kim Jon-Il’s health was improving.

Rumors have long circulated that not all of the country’s military units held the slavish devotion to their “dear leader” that was portrayed by the state-run media.

Iraq Withdrawal is a Smokescreen: Confronting Obama's Hypocricy

Source: StoptheWarCoalition
John Pilger

Announcing the Iraq war was ended, Barack Obama told US troops on 14 December 2011, "The United States military is the finest fighting force in the history of the world."

What he didn't say is that since 1945 the US military has been directly responsible for the deaths of over 10 million people and that America has in that time overthrown 50 governments, including democracies, and intervened in at least 30 more.

John Pilger has something to say about that.

America`s Global Warfare: Military Redeployment to Asia and The Pacific Threatens China

Source: Global Research
Prof. Michel Chossudovsky

The 2000 Project for the New American Century (PNAC), which was the backbone of the NeoCon's agenda, was predicated on “waging a war without borders”.

The PNAC's declared objectives were to “fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars” in different regions of the world as well as perform the so-called military “constabulary” duties “associated with shaping the security environment in critical regions”. Global constabulary implies a worldwide process of military policing and interventionism, including covert operations and “regime change”.

This diabolical military project formulated by the NeoCons was adopted and implemented from the very outset of the Obama administration. With a new team of military and foreign policy advisers, Obama has been far more effective in fostering military escalation than his White House predecessor, George Bush Junior....

Escalation and Military Redeployment
The Iraq war is "officially over". The thrust of US foreign policy in the wake of the Iraq war is not towards "peace" but towards military escalation and redeployment in all major regions of the World. This process is supported by new military technologies including cyber warfare as well the development of special forces.  

The Pentagon’s global military design is one of world conquest. The emphasis in the wake of Iraq will be placed on the militarization of the Asia Pacific region requiring the redeployment of military capabilities from Europe to South East Asia and the Far East, visibly implying a military build-up directed against the "region’s rising economic and military power", namely The People's Republic of China. To this effect, the US will be reinforcing its military ties with several Asian and Pacific countries including Australia, South Korea, Japan, India, Singapore and  The Philippines:

"The United States has laid bare its concerns about China. Obama last month announced that the United States would post up to 2,500 Marines in the northern Australian city of Darwin by 2016-17, a move criticized by Beijing.

The United States also has some 70,000 troops stationed in Japan and South Korea under longstanding alliances and has offered assistance to the Philippines which launched its newest warship on Wednesday.

Singapore is also a long-standing partner of the United States. The US military already operates a small post in the city-state that assists in logistics and exercises for forces in Southeast Asia. (AFP Report, December 17, 2011, emphasis added)

A report published in Stars and Stripes, December 19, 2011 confirms the Pentagon`s continued resolve to wage a global war, with increasingly advanced weapons systems:

A day after the last U.S. troops left Iraq, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said the U.S. military must redirect its focus of the last 10 years from preparing for continuous deployments to training, with an eye toward the growing strategic importance of the Pacific region.

Corbett Report Radio - The Article Archive

Source: Corbett Report
James Corbett

On tonight’s “Friday Night Highlights” edition of the broadcast we dip into the corbettreport.com archives for some interesting articles that James Corbett has written in the past and that help to situate the latest headlines in their proper context. Join us tonight as we explore the financial collapse, the cashless society and the North American Union.

Works Cited:

The Birth of the Global Dictatorship
Visa Buying Ads in Kids’ Games
A Peek Behind Closed Doors
Chris Harder on The Corbett Report

Washington's Greater Middles East Agenda: War

Source: Global Research
Stephen Lendman

Targeting the Middle East's rich oil and gas resources, Washington plans waring against the region one country at a time to replace independent regimes with client ones.

At issue is achieving total dominance over MENA (Middle East/North Africa) countries and Central Asia to Russia and China's borders. Another key objective is removing or marginalizing their regional influence. 

Russia is Washington's main military rival. Between them, they control about 97% of the world's nuclear arsenal with sophisticated delivery systems able to target strategic global sites.

China also has significant military strength. According to a 2009 Pentagon report, its naval forces alone are formidable.They number at least 260 vessels, including 75 or more major warships and over 60 submarines. 

In addition, Beijing has hundreds of nuclear warheads, sophisticated delivery systems, and other strategic weapons. As a result, it's the region's dominant military power.

During Asia's mid-November Bali summit, Obama sought anti-China coalition partners to enhance Washington's regional position. Key is establishing military superiority. 

Obama said America "is a Pacific power, and we are here to stay." Military spending amounts "will not - I repeat, will not - come at the expense of the Asia Pacific."

It does include escalating military tensions with China. Beijing is very mindful of US belligerence and quest for global dominance.

During his visit, Obama announced boosting America's Australian presence as part of a broader military buildup targeting China and Eastern Russia.

Together with South Korea, America's expanding its Asian footprint on Jeju Island with a strategic naval base for Aegis class attack ships. They're equipped with sophisticated SM-3 interceptor missiles for offense, as well as powerful computers and tracking radar for first-strike capability.

50 Economic Numbers From 2011 That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe

Source: The Economic Collapse

Even though most Americans have become very frustrated with this economy, the reality is that the vast majority of them still have no idea just how bad our economic decline has been or how much trouble we are going to be in if we don't make dramatic changes immediately.  If we do not educate the American people about how deathly ill the U.S. economy has become, then they will just keep falling for the same old lies that our politicians keep telling them.  Just "tweaking" things here and there is not going to fix this economy.  We truly do need a fundamental change in direction.  America is consuming far more wealth than it is producing and our debt is absolutely exploding.  If we stay on this current path, an economic collapse is inevitable.  Hopefully the crazy economic numbers from 2011 that I have included in this article will be shocking enough to wake some people up.

At this time of the year, a lot of families get together, and in most homes the conversation usually gets around to politics at some point.  Hopefully many of you will use the list below as a tool to help you share the reality of the U.S. economic crisis with your family and friends.  If we all work together, hopefully we can get millions of people to wake up and realize that "business as usual" will result in a national economic apocalypse.

The following are 50 economic numbers from 2011 that are almost too crazy to believe....

#1 A staggering 48 percent of all Americans are either considered to be "low income" or are living in poverty.

#2 Approximately 57 percent of all children in the United States are living in homes that are either considered to be "low income" or impoverished.

#3 If the number of Americans that "wanted jobs" was the same today as it was back in 2007, the "official" unemployment rate put out by the U.S. government would be up to 11 percent.

#4 The average amount of time that a worker stays unemployed in the United States is now over 40 weeks.

#5 One recent survey found that 77 percent of all U.S. small businesses do not plan to hire any more workers.

#6 There are fewer payroll jobs in the United States today than there were back in 2000 even though we have added 30 million extra people to the population since then.

#7 Since December 2007, median household income in the United States has declined by a total of 6.8% once you account for inflation.

#8 According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 16.6 million Americans were self-employed back in December 2006.  Today, that number has shrunk to 14.5 million.

#9 A Gallup poll from earlier this year found that approximately one out of every five Americans that do have a job consider themselves to be underemployed.

#10 According to author Paul Osterman, about 20 percent of all U.S. adults are currently working jobs that pay poverty-level wages.

Lew Rockwell on Iran and Warmongering US Dictatorship

Source: RT America


End the "Warfare State."

Congress passed a more than $662 billion dollar defense authorization bill for 2012. It’s headed for the President’s desk. In it, is a provision that imposes sanctions on Iran’s Central Bank. It bans it from the US financial system and bans anyone who does business with it. These are the harshest measures to date on Iran over its nuclear program. Problem is, this could cause a spike in oil prices. One that would benefit Iran financially. Obama administration officials were warning of this, the White House was pressuring Congress to tone them down for that reason. Analysts were telling us that Iran would not be looking for a customer: But a spike in oil prices would of course hurt US oil consumers. One lawmaker quoted by the Wall Street Journal said the risk of a crude price spike is worth it to punish Tehran. But what if you don’t believe that? What choice is there? Do the leaders Americans elect to the White House or Congress really make any difference? And do Americans share the blame in that? We speak to Lew Rockwell, chairman of the Ludwig von Mises Institute and author of: “The Left, the Right and the State.”

Media Monarchy Episode 243

Source: Media Monarchy
James Evan Pilato

"when the lights go on again, when the boys are home again" on episode243 of media monarchy w/ heads held high, paranoid anxiety, selling access & newspurge lights - shower scenes & a scandalous giveaway on holy hexes - takedown sprees & drone rustlers in cyber/space\war - nano tech & girl hunter on food world order + music by sloan, billie joe spears, vaughn monroe & more...

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.

End Of Nations: Canada, the U.S. and the "Security Perimeter"

Source: GRTV and Corbett Report



TRANSCRIPT AND SOURCES:

When Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and US President Barack Obama announced the much-anticipated border agreement between the two countries at a press conference in Washington last week, those mainstream media outlets that bothered to cover the story at all compensated for the lack of details about what specifically is going to be accomplished by this accord by focusing on issues of no practical significance.

Obama's U-Turn On Indefinite Detention Bill A "Historic Tragedy" For Rights

Source: Infowars
Paul Joseph Watson

White House demanded removal of language that would have protected U.S. citizens

Human Rights Watch has labeled President Obama’s U-turn on his decision to veto the NDAA bill, which empowers the government to indefinitely detain Americans without trial, a “historic tragedy for rights,” but should we really be surprised given the fact that it was Obama’s White House which ensured language that would have protected U.S. citizens was removed from the bill in the first place?

With the House passing a revised version of the bill last night and the Senate set to follow, Obama could sign the legislation into law before the end of the week after the White House dropped its threat to veto the National Defense Authorization Act, which under Section 1031 empowers the government to arrest Americans and hold them in a detention camp with no legal recourse.

“By signing this defense spending bill, President Obama will go down in history as the president who enshrined indefinite detention without trial in US law,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “In the past, Obama has lauded the importance of being on the right side of history, but today he is definitely on the wrong side.”

HRW describes Obama’s about-face as a “historic tragedy for rights”.

The ACLU strikes a similar tone, warning “it will damage both his legacy and American’s reputation for upholding the rule of law,” if Obama signs the bill.

HRW and the ACLU’s opposition to the bill is commendable, but in none of their press releases does it point out that it was Obama’s White House itself which demanded language be removed from the original version of the bill that would have protected U.S. citizens from its most dangerous provisions.

Obama’s veto threat was never about stopping detention without trial of American citizens, it was about ensuring that the federal government didn’t completely hand such powers over to the U.S. military, and enshrining into law Obama’s unconstitutional policy of targeting Americans as terrorists without the legal requirement to offer any proof.

Corbett Report Radio - Back To The Land

Source: Corbett Report
James Corbett

The tyrannical legislation continues stacking up in the USA as we go over the latest regarding the America-destroying NDAA bill and the internet-destroying SOPA Act. Then in the second half of the program we take your calls and delve into FoodWorldOrder.com with our Thursday night guest, James Evan Pilato.

Works Cited:

Syria crisis: Russia circulates surprise UN resolution
Cops target climate-sceptic bloggers in three countries
Indefinite detention bill passes in Senate On Bill of Rights Day
In Less than 24 Hours Congress Could Vote to Change the Internet Forever
Bill Summary & Status HR3261
Facebook sends user a CD collecting his entire social networking history
12/15 binge & purge: nanotech, girlhunter & more

Syria Coverage Update: BBC Reporter Was Detained and Prevented from Covering US-NATO-Syrian Operations in Turkey!

Source: Boiling Frogs Post

US Media Remains Mute on ‘Already-Confirmed’ Operations 

 

It’s now been exactly 24 days since I reported on the ongoing joint US-NATO secret training camp in the USAir Force base in Incirlik, Turkey, which began operations in April- May 2011 to organize and expand the dissident base in Syria. I broke that story on November 21, here at Boiling Frogs Post, based on information provided to me by multiple sources including highly credible insiders in Turkey and government insiders here in the US. 18 days later Iranian Press TV ran the story with further confirmation based on intensive coverage and confirmation by the Turkish media. Impressively, despite far more serious pressure from the government, reporters in Turkey provided detailed coverage of the story I broke here in the US.

 

One extensively reported story had to do with BBC reporter John Simpson, who went to Turkey to follow up on the story we broke at Boiling Frogs Post, but was placed under surveillance, prevented from following up on the story of the US-NATO-Turkish-Syrian Rebel operation Center in Southern Turkey, stopped from interviewing Riad al Assad, and how BBC quickly excused the scandalous incident. Every major newspaper in Turkey covered this event. Sabah and Radikal were among dozens of TV and newspaper outlets in Turkey covering it.

Here is the spin placed on the story by BBC to make the incident look like ‘protecting Colonel Riad al Assad’ [All Emphasis Mine]:

The colonel’s name sounds close to but not quite the same as that of the President he wants to overthrow, Bashar al-Assad.He is based in a refugee camp at Apaydin, 9 miles (14km) from the town of Antakya and very close to the Syrian border. But he is not allowed to leave the camp, and cannot receive visitors.

To a considerable extent, this is for his own protection. The Turks seem to regard Colonel Asad as a potentially important figure for the future, and are determined that nothing untoward should happen to him.

As a result, getting to see Colonel Asad is remarkably difficult. No Turkish official wanted to help us, or indeed even speak about him on the record.

As we were filming his camp from a distance a group of Turkish soldiers briefly detained us. Yet the colonel is predictably keen to talk, and in the end we interviewed him via the internet.

Obama at Fort Bragg: A Hypocritical Embrace of a Criminal War

Source: Global Research
Bill Van Auken

President Barack Obama used his speech to US troops at Fort Bragg, North Carolina Wednesday to embrace the nine-year war in Iraq that he had ostensibly opposed and to declare the destruction of the country a “success.”

Obama exploited a captive audience of 3,000 soldiers assembled at the largest US Army base in the world as part of a cynical attempt to use the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, which is to be completed by the end of this month, to promote his own reelection campaign.

The speech appeared to have been written by someone who threw out Abraham Lincoln’s famous adage and adopted the view that you can “fool all of the people all of the time.”

The Democratic president presented the complete withdrawal of American forces as an “extraordinary achievement” for his administration, while telling the troops that it was necessary to “remember everything that you did to make it possible.”

The reality is that the withdrawal of America’s armed forces from Iraq is not the deliberate outcome of US policy, but rather the unavoidable result of Washington’s failure to negotiate a new Status of Forces agreement to permit the administration’s favored plan, which was to leave behind as many as 20,000 troops.

That failure was based on the refusal of the Iraqi government, and indeed all of the major political forces in the country, to accede to Washington’s demand for blanket immunity for US troops from Iraqi law. Mass popular opposition, based on the bitter experiences of the Iraqi people over nearly nine years of US occupation, with all of its death and brutality, made any such agreement impossible.

Even as Obama used the Fort Bragg speech to wrap himself in the American flag and associate himself with the US military—he referred to himself as “commander-in-chief” three times, while his wife Michelle introduced him to the military audience by that title—he sought to promote the illusion among his liberal Democratic base that the withdrawal represents the fulfillment of a 2008 campaign pledge.

This is a bare-faced lie. Obama won the 2008 election in large measure due to the deep-going hostility among the American electorate to the wars begun under the Bush administration. He pledged to end the war in Iraq within 16 months of coming to office. Once in the White House, however, he retained Bush’s secretary of defense, Robert Gates, and largely ceded policy decisions to the Pentagon brass.

US To Leave Iraq Airspace Clear For Strategic Israeli Route To Iran

Source: Washington Times

Rowan Scarborough

The U.S. military’s fast-approaching Dec. 31 exit from Iraq, which has no way to defend its airspace, puts Israel in a better place strategically to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Iraq has yet to assemble a force of jet fighters, and since the shortest route for Israeli strike fighters to Iran is through Iraqi airspace, observers conclude that the U.S. exit makes the Jewish state’s mission planning a lot easier.

Army Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan, the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, said the Iraqi military will maintain radars to monitor the country’s airspace, but it has not taken possession of American F-16s to guard that space.

“The country has a capable and improving capability to see the airspace, a viable system to provide command and control, but no system to defeat incoming air threats until it gets either the F-16s or ground-based systems or, optimally, some of both,” Gen. Buchanan told The Washington Times.

Iraq made the first payment in September for 18 F-16s that will not arrive until next fall at the earliest. This means Israel would have a theoretical window of about 12 months if it wants to fly over Iraq unimpeded by the Iraqi air force.

Retired Air ForceGen. Thomas McInerney, who advocates a U.S. strategic bombing raid to destroy Iran’s nuclear sites, agreed that Iraq’s open airspace would make it easier for an Israeli mission.

“Yes, it will be,” he said. “However, it will be much easier for Iranian forces to get to Israel through Iraq via land and air.”

Gen. McInerney said he thinks there is a good chance that Iran, stretched economically by Western sanctions and fearing threats from Israel, will launch a war against the Jewish state through Iraq.

“Our departing Iraq will be a huge strategic mistake,” he said of the Dec. 31 deadline for all U.S. forces to leave.

Drone Detention, Canada Kyoto, Teen Toking - New World Next Week

Source: Corbett Report and Media Monarchy


Welcome to New World Next Week - the video series from Corbett Report & Media Monarchy that covers some of the most important developments in alternative news & open source intelligence. This week:

Story #1: Drones Assist In Corralling North Dakota Cattle Rustlers
Related: Iran Captures CIA Drone
Video: Obama Appeals to Iran to Give Back Downed Drone
Update: Cyberwar on US Drones? Another Spy Craft Crash, Now In Seychelles

Story #2: Canada to Withdraw from Kyoto Protocol
Update: Canada, Out of Kyoto, Must Still Cut Emissions Says UN
Related: Interview w/ Donna Laframboise of NoFrakkingConsensus.com

Story #3: Survey Says Teen Smoking & Drinking at Historic Lows, Marijuana Use High
Related: Dutch Police Complain It's Their Right to Smoke Cannabis While Off-Duty