World leaders — heads of state especially — tend to be tactful people, whatever else might be said about them. When they discover that one of their number happens to be incredibly arrogant and psychopathic (and some leading psychopaths are skilled charmers; they’re not necessarily blatant about their aggressive intents like Hitler was), they don’t generally publicize the discovery of this unpleasant fact, because doing so would be worse than tactless: it would be downright stupid — it would jeopardize lots of the interdependencies that nations have with one-another. It would be counterproductive.

Dick Cheney’s endless lies: Why his Playboy interview may be his most shameless yet

The most obvious sign that Cheney is either lying to Rosen or himself — or, most likely, both — is the simple fact that he’s doing the interview in the first place. Indeed, after spending most of his eight years in the White House endeavoring to shield his deeds and words from scrutiny, it seems lately that the once-taciturn vice president cannot shut up.

(*Playboy is having a hard time selling magazines these days
http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/playboy-bunny-dish-stale-article... . Do they really think an interview with Dick is going to boost sales ? )

The plan, code-named “Homeland Security,” seeks to try to neutralize two potentially grave but homegrown threats to Mr. Bush’s long-anticipated run for president: the likely challenge from a charismatic young Republican senator from Miami, Marco Rubio, who is expected to seek the Republican nomination himself, and a demographic drift within Florida that could doom Mr. Bush there in a fall campaign against a Democrat.

The Bush effort in Florida, where Barack Obama prevailed in the last two elections, will pour enormous resources and energy over the next year into a state that many thought Mr. Bush, its governor from 1999 to 2007, would be able to count on as a bedrock of support.
***
“The political leadership of Florida is going to be with Jeb Bush.”

In Europe nary a day seems to go by without some mention or rumor of a bank run or bank closure. Ground Zero of the current troubles is Greece, whose broken financial system is now wholly dependent on regular infusions of euros from the ECB. The moment those infusions stop – something the ECB has warned could happen at any time – the country’s banking system collapses. On Wednesday Greek banks saw deposit outflows of €300 million, the highest in a single day since a February deal with the euro zone that staved off a banking collapse.

It happens so often you wonder whether it is due to total ineptness or a deliberate policy to undermine our efforts overseas. It’s most likely a result of corruption and unintended consequences, combined with a foreign policy that makes it impossible to determine who are our friends are and who are our enemies. One would think that so many failures in arming others to do our bidding in our effort to control an empire would awaken our leaders and the American people and prompt policy changes.

Neoconservative pundit Robert Kagan and his wife, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, run a remarkable family business: she has sparked a hot war in Ukraine and helped launch Cold War II with Russia – and he steps in to demand that Congress jack up military spending so America can meet these new security threats. This extraordinary husband-and-wife duo makes quite a one-two punch for the Military-Industrial Complex, an inside-outside team that creates the need for more military spending, applies political pressure to ensure higher appropriations, and watches as thankful weapons manufacturers lavish grants on like-minded hawkish Washington think tanks.

U.S. troops were evacuating a southern Yemen air base Saturday after al-Qaeda seized a nearby town amid growing violence in the war-torn nation, multiple media outlets reported. Military forces, including Special Forces commandoes, were leaving the Al Anad air base near the southern city of al-Houta, the Associated Press and CNN reported citing unnamed officials. About 100 American troops and Special Forces members are stationed there.

Jon Rappoport
Activist Post

“Give up your dreams, if you must. Cease dreaming altogether. Call those dreams and ambitions and visions…delusions. Then you will be ready. Then you can truly serve humanity. You can fall back into the arms of the many who will receive you with love. You’ll become an empty vessel through which miracles are channeled. One day Oprah will interview you.” (The Underground, Jon Rappoport)

In a BBC documentary, “Google and the World Brain,” the question of author-copyright is explored. Google has scanned and published out-of-print books that are still covered by copyright.

Interviewed, Kevin Kelly (twitter) (also here and here), the co-founder of Wired, makes a startling remark. In his view the whole issue of copyright is archaic. He explains that all authors draw their ideas from previous authors and therefore don’t own their own ideas.

For over 40 years Monsanto’s patented glyphosate formula, better known as Roundup, has become a staple for farmers, gardeners, and landscapers. Monsanto has gone so far as to create genetically modified crops capable of withstanding massive amounts of the pesticide without dying. These “Roundup Ready” crops, such as corn, soy, and canola, have since come to dominate America’s agricultural industry.

But over the years, many researchers have questioned whether these heavily sprayed crops are safe for human consumption. As time goes on, it appears that some institutions are beginning to change their tune on the popular pesticide.

Pandering and fear mongering together with hatred for Arabs and the left are the ingredients of Netanyahu’s secret potion, and it now appears that many voters were indeed seduced.

Hello. My name is Arthur Topham and I am the owner, publisher and editor of the online alternative News site RadicalPress.com which has been operating in Canada for the past sixteen years. Over the last eight years I have been involved in legal battles with the Canadian government, first the Canadian Human Rights Commission and now the federal legal system over alleged offences that purportedly violate Canada's "Hate Propaganda" laws (Sections 318 - 320) of the Canadian Criminal Code (CCC).

Is it me or is the run up to this General Election being ­dominated by negative, lacklustre campaigning and politicians with a mental age of five?
***
All the personal insults politicians lob at each other, all the spin and jibes, might be a jolly good jape at Prime ­Minister’s Questions, but tearing clumps out of each other isn’t a strategy to fight an ­election. Nor to get the voters on side.

(*It's the same damned thing , on this side of the bloody pond , there , Mate .)

“The people again chose a government that is based on intimidating people. They selected a racist that, on election day, told the media the Arabs are flocking to the polls like mice. What would you say if in Germany people said the Jews are flocking to the polls like mice?” Yonaton Geffen charged.

The legal battles over the existing ban on the planting of GM maize in Mexico continue to unfold with a string of four important court victories by the Acción Colectiva del Maíz...

Stephen King says Maine Gov. Paul LePage should "man up and apologize" after the governor claimed the author has moved away and doesn't pay income taxes in Maine.

LePage used his radio address this week to make his case for eliminating Maine's income tax. He said states without an income tax, such as Florida, have lured away Maine residents, including King.

King spends winters in Florida but told the Portland Press Herald (http://bit.ly/1Bb7e3i ) on Friday that he and his wife paid about $1.4 million in Maine state taxes in 2013 and figured it was about the same for 2014.

King says his foundation also gives $3 to $5 million grants annually, mostly in Maine.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is fueling chatter about his 2016 plans with a speech planned Monday at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va.

One aide to the likely Republican presidential candidate told The Daily Caller “you’ll want to be there” for the speech but didn’t reveal what Cruz plans to say while appearing at the Christian university founded by the late Jerry Falwell.
***
Should he enter the race, Cruz is expected to offer himself as a conservative alternative candidate to GOP establishment favorites like Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

(*I'm J.E.B. , and I approve this submission )

Lest we think that 2016 will be any different than the "canned" primary and general election campaigns of the past few decades...

The Commission on Presidential Debates is a private corporation headed by the former chairmen of the Republican and Democratic parties. The CPD is a duopoly which allows the major party candidates to draft secret agreements about debate arrangements including moderators, debate format and even participants. The result is a travesty riddled with sterile, non-contentious arguments which consistently exclude alternative voices that Americans want to hear.

Could a deal to normalize Western relations with Iran and set limits on Iran’s development of nuclear technology lead to a more peaceful and less-weaponized Middle East? That’s what supporters of the Iran negotiations certainly hope to achieve. But the prospect of stability has at least one financial analyst concerned about its impact on one of the world’s biggest defense contractors.

Private citizen Joel Harding has used both his connections and training as an SF to create a private foreign IO (IO = Information Operations) army which today is over 40,000 strong with the sole purpose of destroying publications, journalists, and people that “he deems” as supporting Russian propaganda and people engaged in “Russian active measures.”Add into this that Harding wrote the white paper the doctrine of US Army Cyber Defense is based in, he pioneered the field of cyber warfare, developed the means and methods of the NSA and you have one of the most formidable practitioners on the planet. People spread throughout mainstream media that came after him were taught or mentored by him, his colleagues, and belong to the groups and associations he leads.

NB WRH's own Mike Rivero gets an honorable mention as a likely target to be discredited by Harding's psi-war,IO army (although the author incorrectly spelt his name "Mike Rivera"): "All conspiracies aside it wouldn’t feel right without adding Alex Jones and Michael Rivera."

Dinner attendees got books autographed by killer

Every year, about more than 9.2 million people from around the world enter America’s Green Card lottery. If they are one of about 50,000 names picked at random, they get a free pass to legally resettle in the U.S. But there’s also another way to get the doors to the U.S. to open: cough up half-a-million dollars. And the Chinese are taking full advantage of it.

Fear defeated hope in Tuesday’s election, disfiguring our future.

When the astounding results of Israel’s general elections began trickling in on Tuesday night, I was seated in Israel Public Television’s new white-and-blue studio. The sense of shock that pervaded the freshly decorated stage was palpable. Suddenly my iPhone lit up with a new WhatsApp text. It was from the daughter of a dear friend, a university student, informing me that she intended to renew her European passport. This country has no future, she wrote. If I want to lead a normal life, I have to leave.

Although officials didn’t spell it out explicitly, the formulation aims to reverse the burden of proof for extending the sanctions, which include bans on the sales of arms or sophisticated equipment for the oil and gas industry, along with measures that effectively stop Russia and its largest banks from using western capital markets.

Although previously speculated, the United States did in fact strong arm at least one nation to prevent them from offering Edward Snowden asylum or aiding him

Why are these added sugars bad?

When empires weaken, they don’t merely withdraw. Rather, they leave behind a trail of broken promises and confusion.

When columnist Thomas L. Friedman suggests the U.S. should arm ISIS – thus joining the Saudi-Israeli regional war on Iran and the Shiites – it seems time to question the sanity of U.S. opinion- and policy-makers. But that is where the muddled U.S. post-9/11 strategy has led, explains Daniel Lazare.

On 17 December 2014, President Obama declared that 55 years of embargo didn’t work in bringing ‘freedom’ to Cuba. He proposed reestablishing diplomatic relations with the southern neighbor. An emotion of joy shook the world, especially Latin America. Raul Castro received wires and calls of congratulations. Cubans cheered “we won, we won!” – The US Congress right wing was not quite ready for this initiative and, indeed, there was no concrete mention of how and when the ‘blockade’ would be lifted.

Two days after Obama’s bold initiative, on 19 December 2015, he went to the Washington Press Club to tell a horde of puppet journalists, conservative politicians and onlookers that soft measures, like reestablishing diplomatic relations with Havana might be more successful in bringing the desired regime change to Cuba than more years of isolation. He couldn’t have been more direct and more honest about his intention. The Cuban Government and whoever else listened didn’t miss the point.

The death of Danny Schechter, “the News Dissector,” at age 72 from cancer marks a sad moment for independent journalism. Schechter’s was a strong voice against the empty platitudes and blatant hypocrisies that have come to define modern American media and politics, as he explained in an article last year.

The word “Oligarchy” has finally come home. For years, it was a term only used in connection with those big bad and sleazy Mafioso-type businessmen in Russia. Russia had Oligarchs; we didn’t. That became a big difference between the official narrative of what separated our “land of the free and the home of the brave” from “them” in the post-Soviet period.

The city of Sacramento is in the fourth year of a record drought – yet the Nestlé Corporation continues to bottle city water to sell back to the public at a big profit, local activists charge. The Nestlé Water Bottling Plant in Sacramento is the target of a major press conference on Tuesday, March 17, by a water coalition that claims the company is draining up to 80 million gallons of water a year from Sacramento aquifers during the drought. The coalition, the crunchnestle alliance, says that City Hall has made this use of the water supply possible through a “corporate welfare giveaway,” according to a press advisory.

The news came as attorneys for three Homan Square victims announced that they would file the first civil rights lawsuit over the facility with the aim of shutting down the complex likened by attorneys and activists to the domestic law enforcement equivalent of a CIA “black site.”

Scientists will compete to create an improved wearable alcohol biosensor contest sponsored by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAA) or really the National Institutes of Health (NIH) FYI, the NIAA is a component of the NIH. If you guessed Homeland Security is behind this, give yourself a gold star. Click here & here to read more. Don't forget wherever DHS goes Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) is sure to follow. MADD has a close relationship with Homeland Security, click here & here to read more.

A group of House lawmakers is moving to strip the armed services’ civilian leaders of the power to revoke combat valor awards in response to Army Secretary John McHugh unilaterally canceling the Silver Star, one of the military’s highest honors, for a former Green Beret officer.

Mr. McHugh took the action against Maj. Mathew Golsteyn, who braved repeated enemy fire in Afghanistan, even though he has not been charged with any offenses. The Army now is seeking to release him with a less-than-honorable discharge. The officer plans to fight the move, his attorney says.

The secretary acted after the CIA informed the Army that Maj. Golsteyn, during a polygraph exam for a job application, told of killing a terrorist who was making improvised explosive devices (IEDs), the weapon that has killed more Americans in Afghanistan than any other. The Army also removed Maj. Golsteyn from the elite ranks of the Green Berets.

B. Todd Jones, the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, announced he is stepping down Friday after nearly four years on the job. His announcement comes following a controversial ATF proposal to ban certain bullets that could pierce bullet-proof vests and be fired from an AR-15 rifle. But public outcry and Congressional pressure led the agency to abandon its efforts.

The Department of Defense is planning upcoming military exercises to take place in several Western states, including: California, Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico. The military exercises are going to take place in civilian areas, not on military bases.

The upcoming exercises may be in direct conflict with the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 which limits the powers of the federal government in using its military personnel to enforce the state laws.

Federal drug agents may be racially profiling and unjustly seizing cash from travelers in the nation’s airports, bus stations and train stations. A new report released by the Office of the Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Justice examined the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)’s controversial use of “cold consent.”

Does this logic make sense to you? Sure, it’s the White House, but come on. What if we applied this logic to the rest of society? How does anyone protect anything without building expensive full-scale replicas?