Ray McGovern and the Sam Adams party have presented the Sam Adams award to Edward Snowden. I am delighted. This from Ray’s account of the event:
In brief remarks from his visitors, Snowden was reassured — first and foremost — that he need no longer be worried that nothing significant would happen as a result of his decision to risk his future by revealing documentary proof that the U.S. government was playing fast and loose with the Constitutional rights of Americans.
Even amid the government shutdown, Establishment Washington and the normally docile “mainstream media” have not been able to deflect attention from the intrusive eavesdropping that makes a mockery of the Fourth Amendment. Even Congress is showing signs of awaking from its torpor.
In the somnolent Senate, a few hardy souls have gone so far as to express displeasure at having been lied to by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and NSA Director Keith Alexander — Clapper having formally apologized for telling the Senate Intelligence Committee eavesdropping-related things that were, in his words, “clearly erroneous” and Alexander having told now-discredited whoppers about the effectiveness of NSA’s intrusive and unconstitutional methods in combating terrorism.
Coleen Rowley, the first winner of the Sam Adams Award (2002), cited some little-known history to remind Snowden that he is in good company as a whistleblower — and not only because of previous Sam Adams honorees. She noted that in 1773, Benjamin Franklin leaked confidential information by releasing letters written by then-Lt. Governor of Massachusetts Thomas Hutchinson to Thomas Whatley, an assistant to the British Prime Minister.
The letters suggested that it was impossible for the colonists to enjoy the same rights as subjects living in England and that “an abridgement of what are called English liberties” might be necessary. The content of the letters was so damaging to the British government that Benjamin Franklin was dismissed as colonial Postmaster General and had to endure an hour-long censure from British Solicitor General Alexander Wedderburn.
There has been a determined attempt by government to justify the need to intercept everybody’s communications, all the time. We have, yet again, had MI5 claim there are many thousand violent Islamic terrorists running around the UK, (yet somehow not managing to kill anybody). The cry of “paedophiles” is raised, as always. I can imagine them suggesting the entire population be shot dead, and justifying it as making sure they get the paedophiles. The tabloids would go with that.
There still had not been a single credible claim by the mainstream media that any named individual has died, despite that contingency being trotted out all the time as the reason Snowden and Manning should not have revealed state crimes and abuse of power. I am hopeful that, with the internet still largely free to the dissemination of information, out next massive whistleblower is only weeks away.
Sign the petition….http://act.rootsaction.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=8711
to reinstate Snowden’s passport.
Thanks to everyone for their contributions to the Chomsky strand, and interesting to see again that what we often think of as substantial differences in opinion are in reality little more than shifts in perspective, resolved in the round.
Ben
I think that the US and its allies expected a quick easy win in Syria, and that they were halted in this by Putin. That doesn’t mean that Putin is the most powerful man in the world. It just means that the US and its allies aren’t ready to take on Russia and whoever else might join in.
All we’re seeing here is a balance of power being restored. What comes of that, we don’t yet know.
The problem, as Western planners know, is that the longer the US delays, the more its power declines and the power of its competitors increase.
Drought, as many have speculated, contributed to the Syrian uprising. The outbreak of polio cases could be due to the suspension of the immunization, or it could be related to the drought, or both.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-from-fermenting-uprising-to-delivering-polio/5356434
“Prior to the current outbreak announced this week, affecting, so far, a reported twenty two children: “The last virologically-confirmed indigenous case was reported on 29 March 1995, although a virologically-confirmed case was also reported in November 1999. Genetic sequencing confirmed its relation to a virus strain circulating in India and it was considered an importation. No polio cases have been confirmed in the Syrian Arab Republic since then”, stated the WHO.(ii)
The Gates Foundation records that: “Polio remains endemic in just three countries – Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan.” The Global Eradication Initiative notes that: “Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan repeatedly re-infect one other, with Afghanistan appearing to receive a higher share of the poliovirus importations.”(iii)”
“All we’re seeing here is a balance of power being restored. What comes of that, we don’t yet know.”
Instead of ‘eleventy-dimensional chess’ I should have said ‘we don’t know’, and that’s the imperfect storm of triangulations, the outcome of which is unknown…… lacking prescience. It’s a game of chance……(what’s the game?)
@ Jemand: Sheep are a RACE?
@911Truth – Say sid, so how comes WTC1 a 250 yard tall ONE HUNDRED AND TEN STORY story skyscraper ended up as a minuscule 2-3 story pile of rubble at the base in 8 seconds flat (and a hell of a lot of UNIFORM pulverised dust fragments). BTW-the people in the know very conveniently stayed away from the carcinogenic dust. Stop aiding and abetting after the fact, Manchester will no longer be an option.
No satanyahu/plane nonsense, seeing is believing, scroll down to Quiz 2 at the bottom, the minuscule pile of rubble left at the base which had onlookers scratching their heads in disbelief “where did the towers disappear”? But the spell was too strong for Kelly and Pollack and they patriotically carted away the evidence in record time urged by Giuliani & Bloomberg.
OK, I can relax. My Hennesy might be watered down, but there’s more of it. 🙂
http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2013/11/01/theres-no-global-wine-shortage/
++US Secretary of State John Kerry has said that in some cases, US spying has gone too far.
++Mr Kerry is the most senior Obama administration official to have commented directly on an issue that has upset America’s European allies.
He said he will work with the president to prevent further inappropriate acts by the National Security Agency.
His comments come as Asian countries have protested at claims that Australia was involved in a US-led spy network.
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/content/kerry-some-nsa-spying-went-too-far
The poster-boy for redemptive self-awareness…….
Passserby at 2.24 pm. Unfortunately your analysis is correct, and the hamburger-munchers will go home and watch Eastenders, or Frasier, or even Ambassadors if they have nothing better to do on a Wednesday night, and they’ll watch one of the MSM news programmes (which will be the same as the others) and think themselves enlightened. What a world we live in!
For why NSA spying went too far, especially when it came to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, read James Bamford’s Body of Secrets where he talks about its continuing paranoia about communism after the end of the Cold War, particularly East Germany, when she was making her way up in West German politics, (p, 451ff.)
Seems NSA suspected that she was a Stasi and KGB spy, codenamed ANITA, who played ‘Juiet’ in catching wayward communist bloc ‘Romeos’ especially WERNER, apparently her second husband, Joachim Bauer
John Goss: Passserby at 2.24 pm. Unfortunately your analysis is correct, and the hamburger-munchers will go home and watch Eastenders, or Frasier, or even Ambassadors if they have nothing better to do on a Wednesday night, and they’ll watch one of the MSM news programmes (which will be the same as the others) and think themselves enlightened. What a world we live in!
Yes, what a pity the masses aren’t as enlightened as John Goss with his Rothschild theories.
I am amazed, John, that for someone who is on record as advocating total left-wing control of the media, you are actually stupid enough to complain that all the MSN outlets are the same. Truly amazed.
1 November 2013 Last updated at 16:51
Flare-up in Israel-Gaza violence
Funeral of Hamas militant Rabea Baraka in Khan Younis (01/11/13)
Four Palestinian militants have been killed and five Israeli soldiers injured in violence in the Gaza Strip, sources from both sides say.
Gaza ‘terror tunnel’ found in Israel
Footage from inside Gaza tunnel
Note 5 uses of word militant/militants within this short shocking report.
Israel have soldiers.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-24769446
2,000 miles to the east, more blood is spilt, this time by US drone and not by Israeli jets as in Gaza.
1 November 2013 Last updated at 17:52
Taliban say chief Mehsud killed in drone strike
Hakimullah Mehsud Mehsud became leader of the Pakistani Taliban in 2009
Drone death toll
Inside drone country
The leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Hakimullah Mehsud, has been killed in a drone strike, a high-ranking Taliban official has told the BBC.
The strike targeted a vehicle used by Mehsud with four missiles in the north-western region of North Waziristan.
Four other people were killed in the strike, including two of Mehsud’s bodyguards, intelligence sources say.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24776363
Mary Contrary: “2,000 miles to the east, more blood is spilt, this time by US drone and not by Israeli jets as in Gaza.”
Mary, may i offer my deepest condolences to you and your supporters for your loss in Hakimullah Mehsud, the head of the Pakistani Taliban.
I trust you and your MFM supporters are now in deep mourning so that we expect Radio GOB will only be reciting Quranic prayers, and that we may not see you around for a few days.
For reference: “Major incidents of terrorism-related violence in Pakistan – 2013”
http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/pakistan/database/majorincidents.htm
Giuliani is a very unlucky chap, Kedem. He was in Harrogate on 6th July 2005 at an anti-terrorism conference. He popped up in London on the morning of 7/7, as did Bibi, staying not far from where the Aldgate bomb went off. It’s one of those amazing coincidences…
Here’s one for all you skywatchers out there. Looks like the sun is going mainstream.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulhudson/posts/Real-risk-of-a-Maunder-minimum-Little-Ice-Age-says-leading-scientist
How do you ‘ring fence’ £38bn of ‘toxic’ debt which will eventually cost us, the taxpayers, £4.5bn to get rid of?
Funny money in funny banks and a funny government in a funny country.
Friday 01 Nov 2013 RBS: the good, the bad and the ugly
It’s five years on from the height of the financial crisis, when RBS was on the brink of bankruptcy and had to be bailed out with £45bn of taxpayers’ money. http://blogs.channel4.com/siobhan-kennedy/rbs-good-bad-ugly/552
Dr Cable meanwhile pours oil onto troubled waters. It’ll all be OK. Nothing to worry your heads about.
‘Cable said: “I welcome the announcement today that RBS will be creating a new internal bad bank and selling its US bank.
“This will enable it to focus on business lending in the UK. It is clear that for many years RBS has handicapped our recovery by failing to provide the credit that businesses need.”’
http://www.mortgageintroducer.com/mortgages/248027/5/Industry_in_depth/Cable_welcomes_RBS_business_bank_ambitions.htm
Nice to see Mike in a friendly engagement with Kedem Forever, who on this page alone has referred to yids, Jew devils, and Jewish rats, and on previous pages calls for the mass extermination of Jews. Absolute silence from the Murrayistas. Can you imagine the outcry if language even half as disgusting was used against Muslims?
That kind of language, in my book, is completely unacceptable, Anon. I’m with you there. But the “unluckiness” of Giuliani still stands.
Grant Shapps aka Michael Green was door stepped today by Michael Crick and challenged on the fiction of his software sales activities How to Corp Ltd. Shapps was cringemaking.
http://blogs.channel4.com/michael-crick-on-politics/constitute-offence-fraud-police-drop-case-shapps/3588 includes video.
Reminder. Shapps was a keen member of B’nai B’rith youth organisation.
‘But politics was young Grant’s calling from an early age and he joined the Jewish youth organisation BBYO – for which he became national president.
Fellow BBYO member Simon Johnson, who became director of the Football Association, remembers meeting an ambitious 13-year-old Shapps:
“I remember him saying very clearly ‘my name is Grant, I’m from Pinner, and my ambition is to be a Conservative cabinet minister’.
“At the height of Thatcherism in the 1980s that was a very brave thing for him to say – it exposed him to a lot of mickey-taking.’
Profile of Grant Shapps http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-19511778
Anon; My 3:06 was an aside to Kedem. I also respond to Hab while holding my nose.
Weird synchronicity in these 21st century alliances. House of Sod/Israel is like a political centaur with both ends representing a horse’s ass.
to my 8:43
http://consortiumnews.com/2013/10/29/neocons-push-israeli-saudi-alliance/
A marriage of convenience, Ben. The big bogeyman for both is Iran, now on the cusp of becoming the most powerful regional player (with strong backing from Russia and China). I wonder how determined Israel is to provoke a response from Syria, and will it bring a Russian-made response?
“Ah, it’s statred dribbling out onto the net… must be time for a Houseparty in Crinkly Bottom with Mr Blobby, Deal or no deal?”
Paul Gambaccini.
Cameron is backing Wales with tax-backs. Of course you do not need to have a high IQ or even a better education, like almost everybody who contributes to this blog, to know that this sudden flow of money into Wales is really about Scotland. Oh look Scotland at how good it has suddenly become to be part of the British parliamentary system. Well I live in Birmingham. All expenditure is capped by central government year on year. If you are Scottish do not suck on this loaded lozenge. There is no spare money in the treasury coffers. I am opposed to dismantling the UK because I believe in internationalist co-operation. But I believe also that Scotland, like other regions get a raw deal. Solution: independence.
The leaders of America’s four main pro-Israel Jewish organizations, AIPAC, AJC, ADL and the Conference of Jewish Presidents, slammed US secretary of state, John Kerry (a crypto-Jewish) for criticizing the opponents of US-Iran direct nuclear talks during his speech at the Ploughshares Fund Gala on October 28, 2013.
http://rehmat1.com/2013/11/01/jewish-lobby-slams-john-kerry-on-iran/
Still battling the bots. Hopefully winning. Touch wood… Will be back.
Do some individuals here suffer from MPD or what?
*******
Jemand – 1 Nov, 2013 – 8:21 am
Funny what sorts of accusations get flung when one posts a simple link to a news item regarding the comments of an international sports star asking for one person’s opinion. Mary seems to think that people harbour paranoia that homosexuality is being embedded into Aboriginal works of art – kooky!
And we see that Jives still hasn’t learnt anything new to share with the class. Just the same old vacuous abuse based on personal resentment that he lacks a competitive intellectual advantage.
Jemand (Stormy-J)- 25 Oct, 2013 – 4:34 am
<b?@Fedup, being a drunkard, jobless or an Islamist is not mutually exclusive. It’s obvious that you’re all three – drunk, jobless, AND an Islamist.
Jemand – 27 Oct, 2013 – 3:33 am
Jives, if you had finished school you would understand that we don’t take legal advice from grocery store shopkeepers. Nor do we allow them to build bridges or satellites, prosecute lawsuits nor conduct exploratory surgery within the cavernous void of your skull looking for something resembling a brain. Try reading up on Dunning-Kruger.
*******
That is indeed the breath of fresh air, the to the point of comments and the astute commentary that tickles my testicles, the way a Rabbi sucks the dick of a freshly circumcised baby.
That, and Feinstien’s willingness to exempt the über-alles-Klasse, to which she herself belongs [hence her anger at the NSA spying on Merkel].
Time to make that jump and move to Haifa.
@ kedem forever
When I saw this, I finally realized that someone willingly made sure JFK did not have a human shield to protect his back.
Someone had to know shots would be fired @ JFK from the back of the vehicle…, but not the deadly one. Such shots take real marksmen; men who have and are trained to take out targets from various angles, moving with various speeds and in various directions.
A marksman operates as part of a 2, 3, 4 member team [spotter/s, protection, etc.].
The moment the first shot rang out the driver of the 1st car in the motorcade should have hit the pedal to the metal and sped off. He did the opposite and the open top automobile became the scene of what every future president would see filmed from an angle nobody else has ever seen [a href=” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTTMjaYMXFs”>TY Bill Hicks].
My money is on Cord Meyer as 1 piece of the puzzle in a wide, wide web.
25 more years [down the road to oblivion], and we will finally know a bit more. How very, ff-ing convenient.
Apologies 4 ff-ed up links.
That, and Feinstien’s willingness to exempt the über-alles-Klasse, to which she herself belongs [hence her anger at the NSA spying on Merkel].
Time to make that jump and move to Haifa.
@ kedem forever
When I saw this, I finally realized that someone willingly made sure JFK did not have a human shield to protect his back.
Someone had to know shots would be fired @ JFK from the back of the vehicle…, but not the deadly one. Such shots take real marksmen; men who have and are trained to take out targets from various angles, moving with various speeds and in various directions.
A marksman operates as part of a 2, 3, 4 member team [spotter/s, protection, etc.].
The moment the first shot rang out the driver of the 1st car in the motorcade should have hit the pedal to the metal and sped off. He did the opposite and the open top automobile became the scene of what every future president would see filmed from an angle nobody else has ever seen [a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTTMjaYMXFs”>TY Bill Hicks].
My money is on Cord Meyer as 1 piece of the puzzle in a wide, wide web.
25 more years [down the road to oblivion], and we will finally know a bit more. How very, ff-ing convenient.