Jeremy Scahill on Drone Killings of Americans

CIA Blocks Release of Bin Laden Photos Signifying Bin Laden Killing Likely Never Took Place

The CIA withholds 52 photos requested by JudicialWatch through a Freedom of Information Act request, raising suspicion that Bin Laden was likely never killed in the official “raid”.

http://intellihub.com/2013/05/21/cia-blocks-release-of-bin-laden-photos-signifying-bin-laden-killing-likely-never-took-place/

Holder: We’ve Droned 4 Americans, 3 by Accident. Oops.

In an extraordinary admission, Attorney General Eric Holder has told Congress that U.S. drone strikes since 2009 have killed four Americans — three of whom were “not specifically targeted.”

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/05/4-americans-drone/

Congress Smashes Pentagon’s New Den of Spies

The Defense Clandestine Service was supposed to be the Defense Department’s new squad for conducting “human intelligence” — classic, informant-based spying. The idea was to place up to 1,600 undercover operatives and military attachés around the world, collecting tips on emergent battlefields. The problem was that America already had a human intelligence crew: the CIA. Almost immediately after the Defense Clandestine Service was introduced, an array of outside observers began to loudly question its value.

Add the House Armed Services Committee’s intelligence panel to that list of skeptics. In its revision of next year’s Pentagon budget (.pdf), released Tuesday, the representatives said they would withhold half of the DCS’ funding until the Pentagon proves that the service “provide[s] unique capabilities to the intelligence community.”

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/05/pentagon-den-of-spies/

The Able Archer 83 War Scare: “NATO requested initial limited use of nuclear weapons”

According to a declassified National Security Agency history, American Cryptology During the Cold War, the “period 1982-1984 marked the most dangerous Soviet-American confrontation since the Cuban Missile Crisis.”

The secret history recounts that “Cold War hysteria reached its peak” in the autumn of 1983 with a NATO nuclear-release exercise named Able Archer 83, which — according to a CIA Special National Intelligence Estimate – caused “Soviet air units in Germany and Poland [to assume] high alert status with readying of nuclear strike forces.”

http://nsarchive.wordpress.com/2013/05/21/war-scare-the-real-life-war-game-that-almost-led-to-nuclear-armageddon/

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB426/

Top IRS official will invoke 5th Amendment

A top IRS official in the division that reviews nonprofit groups will invoke the 5th Amendment and refuse to answer questions before a House committee investigating the agency’s improper screening of conservative nonprofit groups.

Lois Lerner, the head of the exempt organizations division of the IRS, won’t answer questions about what she knew about the improper screening — or why she didn’t disclose it to Congress, according to a letter from her defense lawyer, William W. Taylor III. Lerner was scheduled to appear before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday.

http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-76007948/

NYPD Cops Arrest Woman Recording Them

New York City police officers arrested a woman who was video recording them from a public sidewalk as they conducted some type of “vehicle safety checkpoint.”



See the following from the NYPD Patrol Guide under PG 208-03 Arrests – General Processing, effective 01-01-2000 that came as a result of a 1977 Consent Decree between NYPD and the NYCLU. In pertinent part that section reads as follows:

OBSERVERS AT THE SCENE OF POLICE INCIDENTS As a rule, when a police officer stops, detains or arrests a person in a public area, persons who happen to be in or are attached to the area are naturally in position to and are allowed to observe the police officer’s actions. This right to observe is, of course, limited by reasons of safety to all concerned and as long as there is no substantive violation of law. The following guidelines should be utilized by police officers whenever the above situation exists: a. A person remaining in the vicinity of a stop or arrest shall not be subject to arrest for Obstructing Governmental Administration (Penal Law, Section 195.05) unless the officer has probable cause to believe the person or persons are obstructing governmental administration. b. None of the following constitutes probable cause for arrest or detention of an onlooker unless the safety of officers or other persons is directly endangered or the officer reasonably believes they are endangered or the law is otherwise violated: (1) Speech alone, even though crude and vulgar (2) Requesting and making notes of shield numbers or names of officers (3) Taking photographs, videotapes or tape recordings (4) Remaining in the vicinity of the stop or arrest. c. Whenever an onlooker is arrested or taken into custody, the arresting officer shall request the patrol supervisor to the scene, or if unavailable, report the action to the supervisor where the person is taken. This procedure is not intended in any manner to limit the authority of the police to establish police lines, e.g., crowd control at scenes of fires, demonstrations, etc.

Read full article »»

New Sleaze Allegations Tarnish JPMorgan Chase's 'Teflon Don'

A withering 45-page report authored by GrahamFisher analyst Joshua Rosner, JPMorgan Chase: Out of Control, paints the organization as a criminal enterprise. According to Rosner: "Even without the inclusion" of some $16 billion [£10.41bn] in "litigation expenses" arising from JPM's foreclosure scandals, "since 2009, the Company has paid more than $8.5 billion [£5.53bn] in settlements for the various regulatory and legal problems discussed in this report. These settlement costs, which include a small number of recent settlements of older issues, represent almost 12% of the net income generated between 2009-2012."

Amongst the patently illegal schemes hatched by JPM detailed in Rosner's report we find the following:

● Bank Secrecy Act violations
● Money laundering for drug cartels
● Sanctions busting
● Violations of the Commodities Exchange Act
● The execution of fictitious trades where the customer, with JPM's full knowledge, is on both sides of the deal
● SEC enforcement actions relating to CDO and RMBS misrepresentations
● Foreclosure fraud and abuse
● Failure to properly segregate customer funds and then failing to report it
● Consumer abuses related to check overdraft penalties
● Violations of NY State's ERISA Act, the result of JPM investments in failing structured investment vehicles (SIVs)
● Credit card collection practices, "eerily similar" to JPM's foreclosure abuses
● Violations of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act; i.e., illegally foreclosing on the homes of soldiers, including those stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq
● Illegal flood insurance commissions
● Municipal bond market manipulation, including $8 million in bribes paid to "close friends" of Jefferson County, Alabama commissioners for sewer system bonds that eventually bankrupted the county
● Violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act related to bid rigging and payments associated with "seeing competitors' bids in 93 municipal bond deals"
● Repeated obstruction and refusal to hand over documents to the OCC related to their investigation of JPM's role in the Madoff fraud

Will any of this change? It's doubtful.

Rosner writes: "JPM appears to have taken a page out of the Fannie Mae playbook in which the company perfected the art of cozying up to elected officials, dominating trade associations, employing political heavyweights and their former staffers and creating the image of American Flag-waving, apple-pie-eating, good corporate-citizen, all of which supported an 'implied government guarantee' and seemingly lowered their cost of funding. Additionally, rather than being driven by the strength of its operations and management, many of the JPM's returns appear to be supported by an implied guarantee it receives as a too-big-to-fail institution."

In other words, as with other well-connected "Families" that come to mind, "too-big-to-fail-and-jail" is bankster code for "we can do whatever the fuck we want."

http://antifascist-calling.blogspot.com/2013/05/new-sleaze-allegations-tarnish-jpmorgan.html?m=1

Pentagon Engaging in a Power Grab Against the Civilian Leadership

Military Tries to Take More Power Away from Civilian Leadership

The Long Island Press reports:

For the average citizen watching events such as the intense pursuit of the Tsarnaev brothers on television, it would be difficult to discern between fully outfitted police SWAT teams and the military.

The lines blurred even further Monday as a new dynamic was introduced to the militarization of domestic law enforcement. By making a few subtle changes to a regulation in the U.S. Code titled “Defense Support of Civilian Law Enforcement Agencies” [See p. 16 (3) here] the military has quietly granted itself the ability to police the streets without obtaining prior local or state consent, upending a precedent that has been in place for more than two centuries.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/05/the-pentagon-has-engaged-in-a-power-grab-against-the-civilian-leadership.html

Who Died and Made the Sixth Floor Museum the King of Dealey Plaza?

Now I want to know why The Sixth Floor got Robert Groden thrown in the slammer.

Groden is a best-selling author whose books argue that the killing of the president in Dallas a half century ago was a conspiracy. On weekends, when tourists, including plenty of assassination buffs, flock to downtown to visit Dealey Plaza where it happened, Groden sets up a table there and lectures and sells books and videos. After ticketing, arresting and jailing him on multiple occasions over the years, the city of Dallas has backed off, apparently agreeing with Groden's lawyers that he was never breaking the law in the first place.

http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2013/05/who_died_and_made_the_sixth_fl.php

Military Says No Presidential Authorization Needed To Quell “Civil Disturbances”

A recent Department of Defense instruction alters the US code applying to the military’s involvement in domestic law enforcement by allowing US troops to quell “civil disturbances” domestically without any Presidential authorization, greasing the skids for a de facto military coup in America along with the wholesale abolition of Posse Comitatus.

The instruction (embedded at the end of this article), which was originally released in February yet has only come to light this week, outlines DoD policy regarding, “DoD support to Federal, State, tribal, and local civilian law enforcement agencies, including responses to civil disturbances within the United States.”

http://www.infowars.com/military-says-no-presidential-authorization-needed-to-quell-civil-disturbances/

New Documents Reveal How a 1980s Nuclear War Scare Became a Full-Blown Crisis

During 10 days in November 1983, the United States and the Soviet Union nearly started a nuclear war. Newly declassified documents from the CIA, NSA, KGB, and senior officials in both countries reveal just how close we came to mutually assured destruction — over a military exercise.

That exercise, Able Archer 83, simulated the transition by NATO from a conventional war to a nuclear war, culminating in the simulated release of warheads against the Soviet Union. NATO changed its readiness condition during Able Archer to DEFCON 1, the highest level. The Soviets interpreted the simulation as a ruse to conceal a first strike and readied their nukes. At this period in history, and especially during the exercise, a single false alarm or miscalculation could have brought Armageddon.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/05/able-archer-scare/

NAZI WEALTH TODAY

In November 1942, the top Nazis decided it was unlikely that Germany would win the war.

In May 1943, the Nazi leaders adopted a plan to 'go underground'

By August 1944, Martin Bormann was ready to transfer the Nazi's stolen wealth (gold, money, stocks, paintings, bearer bonds, blue chips...) into 750 new corporations in countries such as Belgium, Holland, Sweden, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Argentina.

Martin Bormann also made use of I.G. Farben to hide the Nazi loot.

http://aangirfan.blogspot.com/2013/05/nazi-wealth-today.html?m=1

Read online Martin Bormann Nazi in Exile by Paul Manning....
http://www.animalfarm.org/mb/mb.shtml

US Supreme Court finds for Monsanto in seed patent battle

The US Supreme Court ruled in favor of Monsanto Monday over an Indiana farmer accused of having pirated the genetically-modified crops developed by the agribusiness giant.

The high court's unanimous decision focuses specifically on seed production, but experts say it may also have implications on intellectual property law in medicine, biotechnology and software.

The nine justices ruled that laws limiting patents do "not permit a farmer to reproduce patented seeds through planting and harvesting without the patent holder's permission."

http://www.legitgov.org/US-Supreme-Court-finds-Monsanto-seed-patent-battle

Obama Administration Secretly Spied on the Associated Press

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and the Obama Administration have been spying on the Associated Press without their knowledge.

The establishment news service is typically viewed as a repeater of officialdom, so it came as a bit of a shock to the organization who called it a "massive and unprecedented intrusion."

http://www.activistpost.com/2013/05/obama-administration-secretly-spied-on.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+ActivistPost+(Activist+Post)&m=1