sunday sept 29

 


    45 Lies in Obama's UN Speech    link here


Congress seeks to Limit Free Press and Define Journalism with ""Shield Law"" link here

FFIA (Free Flow of Information Act) would ""protect"" journalists from subpoenas--because who needs them when METADATA works even better??  link here


Bagram---The Other GITMO link here
There are about 60 individuals the U.S. government is holding without charge or trial at Bagram (officially known as the Detention Facility at Parwan).

"The detention system and U.S. narrative surrounding it is intentionally dehumanizing and seeks to erase the humanity and histories and individualities of the victims of such policies," says Belal. "By focusing on the accounts of the families of the detainees, we are challenging the U.S. narrative (which is largely based on classified evidence, hearsay, etc.) of these guys being 'bad men' and terrorists by tracing out their histories, gathering their family histories and compiling accounts of their lives."

The United States transferred control of the Bagram facility to the Afghan government in March 2013, after months of delays cause by tensions between the two countries. Despite handing over control, however, the U.S. has continued to hold around 60 individuals under a stated law of war authority – the same legal rationale that applies to the detainees at Guantanamo. All of the U.S.-held detainees at Bagram are non-Afghans, and about two-thirds of them are Pakistani.


NSA Snowden Job Title was Key to Access to Documents link here

NSA Snowden took documents from internal NSA website link here

Q & A with Senator Ron Wyden about NSA link here



Seymour Hersh ""Bin Laden Story One Big Lie"" link here
"Nothing's been done about that story, it's one big lie, not one word of it is true," he says of the dramatic US Navy Seals raid in 2011.
He isn't even sure if the recent revelations about the depth and breadth of surveillance by the National Security Agency will have a lasting effect. Snowden was significant because he provided documentary evidence – although he is skeptical about whether the revelations will change the US government's policy.

Hersh is on full throttle, a whirlwind of amazing stories of how journalism used to be; how he exposed the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, how he got the Abu Ghraib pictures of American soldiers brutalising Iraqi prisoners, and what he thinks of Edward Snowden.

His story of how he uncovered the My Lai atrocity is one of old-fashioned shoe-leather journalism and doggedness. Back in 1969, he got a tip about a 26-year-old platoon leader, William Calley, who had been charged by the army with alleged mass murder.

Instead of picking up the phone to a press officer, he got into his car and started looking for him in the army camp of Fort Benning in Georgia, where he heard he had been detained. From door to door he searched the vast compound....

For students of journalism his message is put the miles and the hours in. He knew about Abu Ghraib five months before he could write about it, having been tipped off by a senior Iraqi army officer who risked his own life by coming out of Baghdad to Damascus to tell him how prisoners had been writing to their families asking them to come and kill them because they had been "despoiled".

"I went five months looking for a document, because without a document, there's nothing there, it doesn't go anywhere."

"The Bush era, I felt it was much easier to be critical than it is [of] Obama. Much more difficult in the Obama era," he said.

MY COMMENTS ON HERSH
On Seymour Hersh-----I respect him a lot, he is a great reporter----but am waiting for more on this story----He was wrong (as far as I know about Bush attacking Iran ""in the near future"" in 2006---so we will see)



Debt Battle---Where's Paul Ryan??


CR  (Continuing [Budget] Resolution) Fatigue link here
If you thought this week was bad, get used to it. The dysfunction in Congress is likely to make Capitol Hill life miserable for at least the next two months — if it doesn’t consume yet another holiday season.


Blah Blah Blah The Government Shutdown is Coming link here
A government shutdown is only [fill in the blank] days, [fill in the blank] hours and [fill in the blank] minutes away. The countdown clock shows the seconds ticking by. The end is near.

Well, maybe that’s true. Maybe the government is going to shut down. The national parks will close. You won’t be able to renew your passport, making it impossible for you to flee to some enlightened land where the government is still open and operating normally. You’ll have to re-schedule your visit to the Washington Monument. (Actually, it is closed for repairs anyway, so don’t blame the shutdown, if there is one.)

Or maybe all of the coverage is just a wee bit exaggerated and premature. Maybe the government won’t shut down at all.

Pardon my blasé attitude about it all, but I’ve seen this movie before, and unless they changed the ending — and it certainly is possible they did — I’m not getting too excited yet.

No Internet Security Bill likely until 2014

Would Feds Punish the District for Shutdown Showdown? link here

District officials have been warned that bucking requirements to suspend nonessential services if the federal government shuts down could result in arrests or hefty fines, but prospects of federal prosecution or a punishment from Capitol Hill appear slim.

“The reality of how so-called shutdowns work are that, retroactively, we pay every federal employee, including the ones that stay home. So from a practical standpoint in these short-term shutdowns, there is no money being saved by sending people home,” said Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif. “I rather doubt that Congress would take punitive actions against the District of Columbia for keeping their personnel on.”

Decode DC Podcast---Budget Battles and Budget Games

GOP still won't call Obamacare the law link here
Republicans often refer to President Obama’s signature healthcare law either as “ObamaCare” or a healthcare “bill” — subtly implying that it’s not truly permanent.
SYRIA CHEMICAL WEAPONS link here

On Friday, the U.N. said chemical or biological weapons might have been deployed three more times after the Aug. 21 attack.

U.N. officials in Syria say in the next few days, they will investigate incidents reported just days after in Bahhariyeh Aug. 22, in Jobar Aug. 24, and in Ashrafiah Sahnaya Aug. 25. 

Altogether, seven incidents were reported this year where chemical weapons might have been used. The three earlier events happened in March and April. 

Inspectors plan to launch their investigation by Tuesday and hope to have a report completed by late October, the United Nations said. 

GOP plans to let guns on Military Bases after DC Navy Yard Shooting link here

The bill is a response to this month's shooting spree on a Washington, D.C., naval base that left 13 dead.

House Republicans on Thursday introduced legislation that would end the ban on carrying firearms on military bases in response to this month's shooting spree on a Washington, D.C., naval base that left 13 dead, including the shooter.

Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas) proposed the Safe Military Bases Act, H.R. 3199, along with six other House Republicans. Stockman said the bill would reverse the Clinton-era gun policy that he said has led to two mass shootings on bases.

"Our disarmed military bases are vulnerable targets for terrorists, as we saw in Fort Hood and the Navy Yard," Stockman said Thursday. "Despite that, soldiers trained to use guns cannot carry on base.

Pensions---How Wall St Robs State Public Workers link here

2011 Debt Ceiling fight leads to S & P Downgrade BECAUASE OF POLITICS link here


NSA---Telco Exec released from jail after 4 years link here
However, it was only later that it started to come out that Nacchio was alone among all of the major telco execs to tell the NSA to get lost when they came calling, demanding the ability to basically tap Qwest's entire network. For years, Nacchio has insisted that the entire lawsuit against him was retaliation for his refusal. When he first made those claims, it sounded far fetched and ridiculous. However, in the intervening years, as more and more details of the NSA's activities have become clear, Nacchio's initial arguments seem a hell of a lot more plausible.





Larry Ellison of Oracle---after 9/11 promoted National ID Cards link here

Friday september 27

America and Iran Presidents speak!!!! first time since 1979!!!! Obama and Rouhani  link here

Meanwhile Iran pulls strings in Syria link here


How Webcam Spy was caught link here
The sextortionist who snapped nude pictures of Miss Teen USA Cassidy Wolf through her laptop's webcam has been found and arrested, the FBI revealed yesterday. 19-year old Jared James Abrahams, a California computer science student who went by the online handle "cutefuzzypuppy," had as many as 150 "slave" computers under his control during the height of his webcam spying in 2012.

Wolf went to the FBI, and the Bureau's LA cyber squad swung into action. On March 29, the FBI looked at Wolf's laptop and found evidence of both DarkComet and another RAT known as Blackshades, which confirmed how the attacker had taken his photos. But who was he? The IP addresses behind the attacker's e-mails resolved back only to a VPN provider which purposely kept no logs. But the RATs themselves had connected back to the attacker by accessing no-ip.org, a service which allows users to mask source IP addresses, and no-ip.org did keep records. The FBI obtained them.

Pentagon purging Bin Laden Raid Data link here (Conservative website, with links to Benghazi, 2nd Amendment, Hilary, RINOs, etc----see my other blog for posts about Benghazi, 2nd Amendment, GOP and other topics)

Seymour Hersh writes that Obama is worse than Bush, but more complicated, and Bin Laden death was a lie link here (Hersh was also predicting imminent war with Iran under Bush around 2006---he is very good but I dont trust everything)



Iowa Senator Tom Harkin cursed??? I am shocked---I would never expect anything more severe than ""darn"" from him

What do Democrats think on the other side of the Capitol about the possibility that Congress would have to ultimately swallow a one-year delay of the health care law?

“That’s bullshit. That’s not going to happen,” offered Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa. “The exchanges open on Tuesday, and we’re going to go ahead with it.”

“You can’t have nullification of laws by blackmail around here. That’s what they’re trying — they’re trying to nullify a law upheld by the Supreme Court, not through overturning the law, but through blackmail of shutting down the government because they don’t have the votes to overturn the law,” Harkin continued. “Have we come to that in the country? God help us all.”

Niels Lesniewski contributed to this report.

NSA claims no record of interview with Journalist link here

another great Maysoon Zayid article   link here
Mahmoud Abbas has had a very big week. On Tuesday, the Palestinian president met with President Obama and reiterated his commitment to securing a peace deal within the nine months allotted to him by Secretary of State John Kerry. Abbas received a pat on the back and a hearty handshake from POTUS who, in return, reiterated his commitment to turning a blind eye to Israel’s compulsive settlement building. Then on Thursday, Abu Mazen had the unenviable task of following up his famous 2011 UNGA appearance, where he stole the show by declaring Palestinian statehood.

(Father's comments below reminds me of Gilad Shalit's father saying that if he were Palestinian he too would kidnap israeli soldiers) article below 

On September 21, 20-year-old Israeli soldier Tomer Hazan was killed by his co-worker in Qalqilya. Before Israel could collectively punish the encircled city, the culprit’s father came forward to condemn his own son and denounced his offspring's act as criminal. He was quoted in The Times of Israel as saying, “I am telling you this from the bottom of my heart… if the military would today give me an M-16 [assault rifle], I would go and shoot my son in the head.” One day later, an Israeli soldier was killed by a Palestinian sniper in Hebron and all hell broke loose. Clashes at the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem between Israelis and Palestinians reached a crescendo this week, making matters even worse.

The Second Intifada is said to have been sparked by Ariel Sharon and his army entourage's visit to the Al Aqsa compound on September 28, 2000. What set off an uprising 13 years ago is now just your average Friday. I know it confuses people but the Abrahamic religions share a common origin story and therefore often share religious sites like the Patriarchs Tomb in Hebron or Jerusalem's Al Aqsa, also known as the Temple Mount. Those who argue that Al Aqsa is not that important to Islam and that Muslims only cared about it when Israel gained control are not well-read people. It is Islam's third holiest site. The Dome of the Rock protects the rock that Abraham didn’t sacrifice his son on and that Muhammad is believed to have ascended to heaven from. That big gold dome graces posters, postcards, and cablenews backdrops set in Jerusalem—much to the chagrin of the Israeli extremists who insist on storming the compound and shouting about rebuilding the Temple and bringing on Armageddon. These are not folks coming to solemnly worship during the several visiting hours open to non-Muslims. This is incitement.

link here   WE NEED MORE PEOPLE TO UNDERSTAND THE OTHER SIDE!!!
‘He’s no hero. He’s a coward,’ says Abdullah Amar of son Nidal, who killed IDF soldier Tomer Hazan and planned to use the corpse to extort his brother’s release.

Gilad Shalit's father link here MARCH 2012 article
The father of an Israeli soldier held in captivity for more than five years by Hamas has said he would fight Israeli soldiers if he were a Palestinian

Noam Shalit, who announced earlier this year that he would be standing for the opposition Labour party in the next Israeli elections, has provoked outrage among the Israeli right with the comments. His son, Gilad, was released in a prisoner swap in October 2011.

Shalit added that the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers by Hamas militants was comparable to the techniques used by Israeli paramilitary fighters the Haganah against the British, arguing "we also kidnapped British soldiers when we were fighting for our freedom".

I listen to FAIR Media Watch's podcast Counterspin---where CBS' Bob Schieffer is mentioned almost every episode

THIS from Wikipedia entry ---He is considered to be a model for lapdog journalists world-wide, and is well respected among Pentagon officials and public relations experts for his abilities at information control.  (emphasis mine) link here

Climate Change Data from NOAA link here

Wednesday sept 25

UN Iran President Rouhani text of speech link here

Obama UN speech text link here

45 Lies in Obama's UN Speech  link here


2013 Brazil DILMA ROUSSEFF UN speech link here
2011---great speech wrong year!!! Brazil Pres DILMA ROUSSEFF UN Speech text here link here


Planning Nairobi mall attack link here
The plot was hatched weeks or months ago on Somali soil, by the Shabab’s “external operations arm,” officials say. A team of English-speaking foreign fighters was carefully selected, along with a target: Nairobi’s gleaming Westgate mall.

The building’s blueprints were studied, down to the ventilation ducts. The attack was rehearsed and the team dispatched, slipping undetected through Kenya’s porous borders, often patrolled by underpaid — and deeply corrupt — border guards.

A day or two before the attack, powerful belt-fed machine guns were secretly stashed in a shop in the mall with the help of a colluding employee, officials say. At least one militant had even packed a change of clothes so he could slip out with fleeing civilians after the killings were done.



UN weapons inspectors back in Syria link here


Islamist rebels in Syria reject National Coalition link here

Eleven Islamist rebel groups in Syria have announced they do not recognise the authority of the main opposition alliance, the National Coalition.

A joint statement says: "All groups formed abroad without having returned to the country do not represent us."

They also call for the opposition to unite under an "Islamic framework".

Islamist rebel forces have become increasing prominent in the conflict in Syria, and they are believed to command tens of thousands of fighters.

The signatories include members of the Free Syrian Army as well as more radical Islamists - among them the powerful al-Nusra Front, which has links to al-Qaeda.

It comes amid fighting on the ground between the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), an offshoot of al-Qaeda, and more moderate rebel forces, especially in areas along Syria's northern and eastern borders.

Where did Syria's chemical weapons come from?? link here
In the wake of a recent Russian-U.S. deal averting American airstrikes, Syria hasbegun to answer questions about its chemical weapons stockpile. One thing inspectors don’t have the mandate to ask is where those weapons came from in the first place. But evidence already out there suggests Syria got crucial help from Moscow and Western European companies.



Iraq 1988 Halabja Chemical Weapons attack trial sues western countries who supplied Iraq's Chemical weapons link here

Twenty Iraqi Kurds have taken legal action to expose French firms who supplied poison gas to Saddam Hussein in 1988. The plaintiffs were among the victims of a chemical weapon attack that killed 5,000 in the town of Halabja during the Iran-Iraq war.

“The French companies we have targeted notable made equipment for producing chemical agents, reactors and columns and steel tanks to contain toxic agents to be used to make gas,” said lawyer David Père. “We want the individuals and companies that knowingly helped Saddam Hussein’s regime acquire chemical weapons which were used to commit crimes against humanity to be forced to face up to their responsibilities.”



GITMO funds denied for new prison link here
The Pentagon has rejected a military request that it spend $195.7 million to renovate the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, an official with the United States Southern Command said on Tuesday. The Obama administration has been trying to close the prison, but Congress has prevented it from doing so. (MORE BELOW!!!)Citing facilities that were built to be temporary a decade ago and are deteriorating, Gen. John F. Kelly, the head of the Southern Command who oversees Guantánamo, requested money in March to rebuild structures associated with the complex. The request included $49 million to replace a semi-secret prison where a small number of “high-value” detainees like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described architect of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, are housed.
While the money was denied sometime during the summer, it was publicly disclosed on Tuesday by a Southcom spokesman, Col. Greg Julian of the Army, in response to a question from The New York Times. He said the request had been rejected “because of a lack of Congressional support to use the overseas contingency funding that we sought to complete those projects. So now we are working on various measures to mitigate some of the conditions of the facilities.”




OBAMA CAN CLOSE GITMO!!! here  here  here
In January, the State Department reassigned the special envoy who had been in charge of trying to persuade countries to take Guantanamo inmates approved for release, Daniel Fried, and did not replace him. That was widely seen as a signal that Obama was giving up on closing the prison any time soon. 

Obama has blamed Congress for interfering with his plan to close Guantanamo. Starting in 2011, Congress began restricting transfers out, saying the Defense Department first had to certify a number of things, including that the destination country was not a state sponsor of terrorism and would take action to make sure the individual would not threaten the United States.

Starting last year, Congress let some restrictions be waived if it was in the "national security interests" of the United States. Obama has not used the waiver or certification provisions.

Two years ago, Obama signed an executive order establishing extra review procedures for Guantanamo detainees to determine if continued detention were warranted, but the Periodic Review Boards have not been used.

This option looks fairly simple, since it involves carrying out the president's own executive order. But there may have been no rush to establish more reviews boards since prisoners cleared by earlier review boards are still being held.

Wells Dixon, a senior attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, suggested the administration could use court rulings to help get prisoners released. Two members of China's Muslim Uighur minority were resettled in El Salvador in April 2012, four years after a U.S. District Court in Washington ruled there were no grounds to hold them.

When prisoners challenge their detention in federal court, the government could decide not to contest the case, paving the way for a court order effecting the prisoner's release, said Dixon. He said that could happen in any of the more than 100 detainee "habeus corpus" cases filed in federal court.

Obama could instruct the Justice Department to stop contesting those cases.
here
The impromptu comments were a little surprising for their rhetoric, sounding more like a 2007 campaign speech than the words of someone who has been U.S. president for four-plus years. As the New Yorker's Amy Davidson put it, "He spoke as if he had happened upon the place, like a bystander."


link here

U.S. Military to Stop Releasing Tally of Guantánamo Prisoners on Hunger Strike

The U.S. military says it will stop reporting the number of prisoners on hunger strike at Guantánamo Bay after its official tally has dropped to just 19 prisoners. Eighteen of the prisoners are listed for force-feeding with nasal tubes. The hunger strike against indefinite detention began in February. At its peak, the military counted 106 participants, while prisoner attorneys said the number was higher, with nearly all 166 prisoners taking part. The strike forced President Obama to publicly address his failure to deliver on a promise to close Guantánamo. Last month, two prisoners were moved to Algeria in the first transfer out of Guantánamo in nearly a year.

Bahrain jails American link here

GREAT ARTICLE from Maysoon Zayid on Anthony Bourdain in Palestine

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/09/19/watching-anthony-bourdain-in-palestine.html

Tuesday sept 24

AP leak investigation Yemen Al Qaeda bomb plot double agent 
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/24/us/fbi-ex-agent-pleads-guilty-in-leak-to-ap.html?_r=0

A former F.B.I. agent has agreed to plead guilty to leaking classified information to The Associated Press about a foiled bomb plot in Yemen last year, the Justice Department announced Monday. In a twist, the former agent had already been under investigation in a separate child pornography case, and he has also agreed to a guilty plea in it.

Federal investigators said they were able to identify the man, Donald Sachtleben, a former bomb technician, as a suspect in the leak case only after secretly obtaining A.P. reporters’ phone logs, a move that set off an uproar among journalists and members of Congress of both parties when it was disclosed in May.

“This prosecution demonstrates our deep resolve to hold accountable anyone who would violate their solemn duty to protect our nation’s secrets, and to prevent future, potentially devastating leaks by those who would wantonly ignore their obligations to safeguard classified information,” said Ronald C. Machen Jr., the United States attorney for the District of Columbia.

The 43-month sentence for leak-related offenses is the longest ever imposed by a federal civilian court in such a case, although a military judge last month sentenced Chelsea Manning, formerly known as Pfc. Bradley Manning, to 35 years in prison for leaking archives of documents to WikiLeaks.

Article from May 
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/govt-obtains-wide-ap-phone-records-probe




UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY
UN General Assembly web videos http://webtv.un.org/
CSPAN coverage link here


Iran, Syria will dominate UN General Assembly link here

Weapons inspectors will return to Syria link here
Russia's government says UN chemical weapons inspectors are expected to return to Syria on Wednesday.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said they would investigate alleged chemical weapons attacks at Khan al-Assal, Sheikh Maqsoud and Saraqeb.
The inspectors had been preparing to do so when chemical weapons were fired at suburbs of Damascus on 21 August, killing hundreds of people.
Last week, they confirmed the nerve agent sarin was used in that attack.



A  History of ""Red Lines"" on Chemical Weapons
http://www.wnyc.org/story/history-weapons-red-lines/
Agent Orange in Vietnam was considered a defoliant, clearing trees, NOT technically a chemical attack directly on humans


German Elections link here
Chancellor Angela Merkel's triumphant conservative party is considering who to team up with to form a new German coalition after their election victory.
Her conservative bloc got 41.5% - their best result since 1994, but just short of a clear majority.
The election was a shock for their liberal partners, the Free Democrats (FDP), who failed to get any seats.
A coalition with the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) is seen as most likely - but only after hard bargaining.


old radio show on Constitution (2006) On Point With Tom Ashbrook
http://onpoint.wbur.org/2006/12/04/correcting-the-constitution