Author: rbeason

The Daily Beast – by Josh Rogin

While the Obama administration struggles to speed up delivery of U.S. military assistance to the government of Iraq, Vladimir Putin has already delivered not only fighter jets but also the pilots needed to fly them, diplomatic sources told The Daily Beast.

On Monday, Russian television trumpeted the arrival of the first five of 12 promised Sukhoi Su-25 combat fighter jets to the Iraqi government, saying it had also sent “trainers” to help the Iraqis use them. Gen. Anwar Hama Ameen,the commander of the Iraqi Air Force, told The New York Times the fighter jets would enter the battle against ISIS within a few days, after which the Russian trainers would leave Iraq. He said Iraq had plenty of pilots with “long experience” flying the Su-25. The Russian ambassador to Iraq also said Russian pilots would not fly missions inside Iraq.   Continue reading “Putin’s Pilots Set to Fly Over Iraq”

New York Daily News

Republican House Speaker John Boehner’s decision to sue the President for failing to execute the laws of our country isn’t as crazy (gasp!) as some think. And it isn’t, as Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called it, “subterfuge.”

It is, after six long years of presidential overreach and run-around, in fact the only logical and responsible next step – and perhaps the kindest both to the country and the President.   Continue reading “Boehner’s lawsuit: A double-edged sword”

Washington’s Blog

It’s been a dramatic day for whistleblowing news.

A month ago, Glenn Greenwald announced that he was going to publish his biggest story yet:  the names of those the NSA has been spying on.

Earlier today, Greenwald tweeted that he would finally publish the story tonight at midnight.    Continue reading “Government Stops Glenn Greenwald from Publishing His Big Snowden Revelation … But Others Will Release ALL of the Snowden Documents to Prevent a War”

Mint Press News – by Matt Peppe

News from the AP about the U.S. government’s secret project to create a Cuban Twitter or “ZunZuneo,” to be used for disseminating propaganda and fomenting unrest in Cuba, spurring young people in that country to overthrow their government, comes as no surprise to anyone with even the most cursory understanding of U.S. policy in Cuba and Latin America in general. It is but a tiny part of a 55-year-old, completely unprovoked, genocidal policy against a nation whose only offense is failing to subordinate itself to the will of the U.S. government.

ZunZuneo was initiated and run by the ostensibly “humanitarian” U.S. Agency for International Development through a series of shell corporations which were not supposed to be traced back to the government. The project is typical of the type of subversion and interference with another nation that the U.S. government has always felt entitled to undertake, regardless of the principles of sovereignty and self-determination fundamental to international law.   Continue reading “America’s Destabiliziation Of Latin America”

The Guardian – by David Hill

Some of the recent media coverage about the fact that more than 50 people in Peru – the vast majority of them indigenous – are on trial following protests and fatal conflict in the Amazon over five years ago missed a crucial point. Yes, the hearings are finally going ahead and the charges are widely held to be trumped-up, but what about the government functionaries who apparently gave the riot police the order to attack the protestors, the police themselves, and – following Wikileaks’ revelations of cables in which the US ambassador in Lima criticized the Peruvian government’s “reluctance to use force” and wrote there could be “implications for the recently implemented Peru-US FTA” if the protests continued – the role of the US government?   Continue reading “Peru now has a ‘licence to kill’ environmental protesters”

Testosterone Pit – by Don Quijones

Something completely out of the ordinary happened in Spain this week: a politician resigned. His name is Willy Meyer and he was, until Wednesday morning at least, a Member of the European Parliament  (MEP) and European Parliamentary leader for Spain’s ostensibly far-left party “Izquierda Union.”

The reason for Meyer’s resignation is that he was caught funneling his parliamentary pension contributions into an EU-sponsored investment fund commonly referred to as a SICAV (standing for Société d’Investissement à Capital Variable) – an investment vehicle that Meyer’s own party has long pledged to ban.   Continue reading “Mini Tax Havens: How Europe’s 1% Gets To Pay Only 1%”

Zero Hedge – by Tyler Durden

A few days ago, when we wrote our “explainer” on the need for Russia to have an alternative pathway for its gas, one which bypasses Ukraine entirely and as the current “South Stream” framework is set up, crosses the Black Sea and enters Bulgaria before passing Serbia and Hungary on the way to the Central European energy hub located in Baumgarten, Austria, we said that “one short month after Putin concluded the Holy Grail deal with Beijing, he not only managed to formalize his conquest of Europe’s energy needs with yet another pipeline, one which completely bypasses Ukraine (for numerous reasons but mostly one: call it a Plan B), but scored a massive political victory by creating a fissure in the heart of the Eurozone, after Austria openly defied its European peers and sided with Putin.”   Continue reading “Russia Reveals “Plan B”: Gazprom Says Gas Transit Via Ukraine May Be Stopped Completely”

The Register – by Iain Thomson

Representative Alan Grayson (D-FL) is pushing for a formal investigation into the activities of General Keith Alexander now that the former head of the NSA has started his own very expensive security consultancy. There is no evidence of any wrongdoing by Gen Alexander.

Last week it was reported that Alexander, who retired from his role at the NSA and US Cyber Command in March, has set up a business called IronNet Cybersecurity Inc and was pitching for business with financial institutions. He was advertising his services costing $1m a month, although he later offered a discount that would bring his fee down to $600,000.   Continue reading “What is ex-NSA spyboss selling for $1m a month, asks US congressman”

Mint Press News – by Katie Rucke

Under the First Amendment, the U.S. government cannot outright ban literature in the United States, but as Mark Crispin Miller, author and professor of media studies at New York University, explained, books can be hidden from public view or written off as conspiracy theory in order to prevent people from reading them.

While censorship is often conducted by corporations and governments to prevent words, images or ideas from entering the mainstream, censorship of literature has been around as early as 399 B.C. and has affected intellectuals and philosophers such as Socrates.   Continue reading “Banned But Not Forgotten: Book Censorship In The U S”

Crime File News

Phoenix, AZ—Politicians and their appointed police chiefs across this nation demand nearly total control of police related information.

It’s epidemic in the larger cities controlled by Democratic Party mayors.  They see the value of leaving their citizens with a false sense of security and public safety as they spin any and all information accordingly.   Continue reading “Police, Media Relations and Disinformation”

Infowars – by Paul Joseph Watson

University of California Professor Darrell Y. Hamamoto warns that the influx of illegal immigrants into the United States is part of a plan to create a new underclass of people who can be re-educated in order to create a subservient underclass.

Hamamoto, a Professor of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Davis, exclusively contacted Infowars to express his shock at what he sees as a clear “plan to destroy national sovereignty” through mass uncontrolled illegal immigration.   Continue reading “UC Professor: Immigration Influx Is About ‘Re-Education’ Of Society”

Natural Society – by Christina Sarich

In an appalling attempt to patent yet another seed, Monsanto has resorted to fraud to try to gain rights to a tomato which contains a naturally occurring resistance to a fungal disease called botrytis. The tomato is not genetically modified, but Monsanto manipulated documents to make the plant look ‘invented’ by biotech when the plant’s true maker is Mother Nature, herself.

Representatives of No Patents on Seeds! have called attention to this shady play of the biotech industry to try to outrun their failing genetic experiments. The original tomatoes used for this patent came from the international gene bank in Gatersleben, Germany, and they have shown this resistance for ages, well before biotech started monkeying with our food supply.   Continue reading “Monsanto Tries to Patent & Control Natural, Non-GMO Tomatoes”

USA Today – by Jim Michaels

WASHINGTON – The first contingent of U.S. military advisers arrived in Iraq Tuesday to assess conditions and begin assisting Iraqi security forces after Islamist militants have seized several key cities.

The Pentagon said 90 American personnel arrived from outside the country, and 40 were already in Iraq as part of the U.S. Embassy’s defense staff.

The advisers are part of up to 300 military personnel authorized by President Obama last week in response to the crisis in Iraq, where a Sunni extremist group, called the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), has taken control of Mosul, Iraq’s second-biggest city, and other towns in recent weeks.   Continue reading “U.S. military advisers begin work in Iraq”

WND – by F. Michael Maloof

WASHINGTON – The well-organized army of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, claims it has access to nuclear weapons and a will to use them to “liberate” Palestine from Israel as part of its “Islamic Spring,” according to a WND source in the region.

Franklin Lamb, an international lawyer based in Beirut and Damascus, said the move is part of the ISIS aim of creating a caliphate under strict Islamic law, stretching from the Mediterranean Sea to Iraq.   Continue reading “Iraq invaders threaten nuke attack on Israel”

Natural News – by Elizabeth Renter

You don’t have to look far to find information on foods and herbs that have detoxifying properties. And while many of them may be effective, few of these claims have been put to the test in a lab. Broccoli is one vegetable that has been tested and passed with flying colors, indicating it can help rid the body of potentially harmful toxins and help detoxify the body as a whole.

Published in the journal Cancer Prevention Research, a recent study indicates there is something in broccoli (and it’s sprouts) that can “rapidly” and “sustainably” detox airborne pollutants from the body.   Continue reading “Good News: Compound in Broccoli Proven to Rid Body of Toxic Pollutants”

World News – by Dallas Darling

The “too big to fail” premise has become a popular slogan in U.S. political and economic theories. According to proponents, the theory ascertains that some institutions are so large and important and vital that they must be supported at all costs. However, from corporations and financial institutions to government bureaucracies and social programs, over-taxation, cronyism, inefficiency and moral ineptitude is causing many to question and challenge such a preposterous notion. In reality, universal truths and historical cycles reveal just the opposite. What some perceive to be as too big to fail always becomes “too big not to fail.” And bailouts create more problems and cause more hard hardships.   Continue reading “Is U.S. Stuck in ‘Too Big To Fail’ Illusions?”

Mint Press – by Brandon Baker, Eco Watch

Research from Environment America shows that 2012 was a bigger year for toxic chemical dumping than most of us could have imagined.

Industrial facilities across the U.S. dumped more than 206 million pounds of toxic chemicals into waterways in 2012, according to the “Wasting Our Waterways” report. The figures about the nation, as a whole, are stark, as are figures about individual regions and companies. For instance, Tyson Foods Inc. alone dumped more than 18.5 million pounds—about 9 percent of the nationwide total.   Continue reading “Report Exposes Companies That Dumped 206 Million Pounds Of Toxic Chemicals Into U.S. Waterways”