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Tuesday 9 June 2015

3,800-year-old statuettes found in Peru

© Agence France-Presse
One of the figurines, a woman with many fingers and red dots on her white face, is believed to represent a priestess. The Caral civilisation emerged some 5,000 years ago and lived in Peru's Supe Valley, leaving behind impressive architecture including pyramids and sunken amphitheatres.

Researchers in Peru have discovered a trio of statuettes they believe were created by the ancient Caral civilisation some 3,800 years ago, the culture ministry said yesterday.

The mud statuettes were found inside a reed basket in a building at the ancient city of Vichama in northern Peru, which is today an important archaeological site.

The ministry said they were probably used in religious rituals performed before breaking ground on a new building.

Two of the figures, a naked man and woman painted in white, black and red, are believed to represent political authorities. The third, a woman with 28 fingers and red dots on her white face, is believed to represent a priestess.

The research team, led by archaeologist Ruth Shady, also unearthed two mud figurines of women's faces wrapped in cloth and covered with yellow, blue and orange feathers.

The Caral civilisation emerged some 5,000 years ago and lived in Peru's Supe Valley, leaving behind impressive architecture including pyramids and sunken amphitheatres.

President of country $18 trillion in debt warns Putin about Russian economy

© waterfordwhispersnews.com

Following a record setting patting themselves on the back session, the leaders of the G7 took some time out to discuss Russia with the picturesque surroundings of southern Germany as a backdrop.

Russia, formerly part of what was once called the G8, came under the microscope with the possibility of extending sanctions put in place in the wake of Vladimir Putin's decision to annex Crimea discussed.

American president Barack Obama, currently presiding over a record level of debt of $18 trillion for his nation, urged Putin to consider the economic wrongheadedness of pursuing an interventionist foreign policy.

"We left Iraq, and paved the way for ISIS to take over and now we have to keep pouring more money in for when we inevitably jump back in, and as fun as drone strikes are - they're costly too," Obama said from a podium in southern Germany, appealing to Putin directly by staring into the camera lens.

Seemingly aware of the rank hypocrisy of lecturing a fellow world leader on anything considering America's chequered past on just about everything, Obama continued.

"I say cut your losses, and get out of Crimea before you end up accumulating obscene amount of debts like we have. You don't want to spend the next few years distracting people from the facts, it's exhausting and I should know".

"Have you ever seen $18 trillion piled up? Well, I haven't, because we've spent it already, but I'd imagine it's a scarily high pile. Now Vlad, you don't want that to be you. I look at you, a man with just €250 billion in debt and I admire him. Don't turn into us, leave Crimea," Obama concluded backing out of a pre-planned Crimea a river pun at the last minute.

Why has NASA announced that a meteor is NOT going to hit the Earth in September?

© endoftheamericandream.com

Internet buzz about a giant meteor that is going to strike our planet in September has become so intense that NASA has been forced to issue a statement publicly denying that it is going to happen. NASA insists that the agency knows of "no asteroid or comet currently on a collision course with Earth", and that "no large object is likely to strike the Earth any time in the next several hundred years". To be honest, NASA should perhaps hold off on making such bold statements concerning what will happen in the future considering the fact that the Chelyabinsk meteor that exploded over Russia in 2013 took them totally by surprise. In any event, what we do know is that our region of space is absolutely packed with meteors and asteroids. At this point, approximately 10,000 major near earth objects have been discovered by scientists, and about 10 percent of them are one kilometer or larger in size. If any of those big ones were to hit us, we would be looking at another Tunguska event or worse. Very large meteors have struck our planet before, and they will hit us again. It is only a matter of time.

But of most immediate concern to lots of people out there are the various theories that are floating around about September. The following is an excerpt from an article that appeared in a British news source just this week...

Internet bloggers and Armageddon conspiracists are predicting the "end of days" event to happen between September 22 to 28.

One blogger has worryingly suggested US residents retain their firearms after suggesting that the controversial military operation Jade Helm taking place between July and September in several southern states is in preparation for predicted anarchy that could ensue as the asteroid nears the planet.

Meanwhile, many fringe religious groups and Biblical theorists are claiming the predicted impact will herald the beginning of the Rapture - a seven-year tribulation period.

These theories have become so popular that NASA decided to come out and publicly address them...

A NASA spokesman said: "NASA knows of no asteroid or comet currently on a collision course with Earth, so the probability of a major collision is quite small.

"In fact, as best as we can tell, no large object is likely to strike the Earth any time in the next several hundred years."

So NASA has spoken.

But is NASA correct?

We will just have to wait and see.

An Inquisitr article points to the prophecies about a meteor hitting the Atlantic Ocean near the island of Puerto Rico given by Efrain Rodriguez as the source for these theories about September. But the article unfairly neglects to point out that Efrain Rodriguez never claimed that it would happen in a particular month or during any particular calendar year...

The growing mass hysteria appears to have originated with a self proclaimed "prophet," Rev. Efrain Rodriguez, who claimed he sent a letter to NASA on Nov. 12, 2010, titled "Letter to the Space Agency... meteor heading toward Puerto Rico."

In the letter, he claimed he had received a message from God that an asteroid that would "soon be seen in the alarm systems of NASA" was approaching. He said the asteroid would hit the ocean near Puerto Rico and cause a massive earthquake and tsunami that would devastate the East Coast of the U.S., Mexico, Central, and South America.

Warning against ignoring the message, he instructed NASA to issue an alert "so people can be relocated from the areas that are to be affected."

If we do ever see an east coast tsunami of that magnitude, it would cause death and destruction along the eastern seaboard on a scale that most people cannot even imagine. This is something that I pointed out in my previous article entitled "East Coast Tsunami: If It Happens, MILLIONS Of Americans Could Die".

And it is a fallacy to think that NASA knows about everything that is happening in our region of space and sees anything that is coming toward us well in advance. NASA is not all-powerful. In fact, a large asteroid buzzed our planet just a few months ago and NASA did not even know that is was approaching. So don't put all of your trust in what NASA has to say. Just consider what Professor Brian Cox recently told the ...

In September, Brian Cox said we are at risk of being wiped out by asteroids - and we're not taking the threat seriously.

'There is an asteroid with our name on it and it will hit us,' Professor Cox told MailOnline. In fact, the Earth had a 'near-miss' only a few months ago.

'We didn't see it,' says the 46-year-old. 'We saw it on the way out, but if it had just been a bit further over it would have probably wiped us out. These things happen.'

The bus-sized asteroid, named 2014 EC, came within 38,300 (61,637km) miles of Earth in March - around a sixth of the distance between the moon and our planet.

And it wasn't the only one threatening Earth. Nasa is currently tracking 1,400 'potentially hazardous asteroids' and predicting their future approaches and impact probabilities.

The threat is so serious that former astronaut Ed Lu has described it as 'cosmic roulette' and said that only 'blind luck' has so far saved humanity from a serious impact.

So for NASA to imply that nothing is going to hit us for hundreds of years is absolutely laughable.

One of the things that I have learned is that when you have imperfect knowledge you should not make absolute statements. NASA needs to learn the same lesson.

And of course if a large object was heading toward the earth, NASA probably would not tell us anyway. This is how the U.S. government works. There is far more emphasis on "keeping everyone calm" than there is on being honest with the American people.

That is why in this day and age it is so vitally important to think for ourselves. Just because something is said on the Internet does not make it true. But also just because NASA (or any other government agency) says something does not make it true either.

As always, do your own research and come to your own conclusions.

What we do know for certain is that giant meteors have hit our planet in the past, and it is just a matter of time before it happens again in our future.

Hopefully when the next giant rock comes hurtling toward us, someone will give us some sort of a warning in advance so that we can all get out of the way.

Ex-pastor on probation for sex assault caught molesting another child while wearing ankle monitor

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© AFP

A former Pennsylvania bishop who was sentenced to probation for sexually assaulting a child had his probation revoked this week after he was caught molesting another child.

According to the , then-Higher Call World Outreach Church pastor Duane Youngblood was sentenced to probation in 2008 after he admitted sexually abusing a 15-year-old boy who he was supposed to be counseling.

In December, Youngblood was sentenced to serve up to 48 month in jail over allegations that he sexually assaulted another boy for more than 2 years during counseling sessions at the church.

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And then on Monday, Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge David R. Cashman sentenced Youngblood to serve an additional 54 to 108 months for violating his probation.

"He has lied and he has scammed and he has conned me from the minute he stood before me," Cashman said at Monday's hearing. "A year after he was on probation, he faced new charges. The court has been misled, deceived and lied to so he could prey on children."

The second boy's mother told the court that Youngblood was not remorseful for abusing her son.

"This man, with an ankle [monitoring] bracelet on his leg, was still molesting children," the mother explained. "He betrayed my son, and he betrayed my family. He is not repentant. He is not sorry for what he did. This man used to smile at me."

Say What? Obama claims he reinstated US as world's most respected country

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© AP Photo/ Susan Walsh

During a news briefing, President Barack Obama had some strong words of encouragement for himself: now that former president Bush is gone, the world loves America again! Of course, when you actually survey global citizens, the US is still far from being the most respected nation on Earth.

During the Bush years, America's global popularity took a tumble. According to Pew Research numbers, the US was ranked fairly favorable in 2000, but began to decline every year until 2008. In 2000, 93% of British citizens polled viewed the US positively. Eight years later, that percentage dropped to 53%. German disillusionment was even worse. Beginning with 78% favorability in 2000, only 31% Germans felt the same way by 2008.

Dragging an international coalition into two foreign wars will do that.

But now that the new administration is in charge, all is evidently forgiven. That's what President Obama thinks, at least.

"...Today, once again, the United States is the most respected country on Earth," he said during a news briefing last week. "Part of that, I think, is the work that we did to reengage the world, and that 'We want to work with you as partners, with mutual interest and mutual respect."

Which is all well and good, until you look at the figures for last year.

For the last five years, the Reputation Institute has conducted global surveys, polling thousands, to determine what it calls "The World's Most Reputable Countries." This year's frontrunner: Switzerland. Beautiful, neutral Switzerland.

So right off the bat, Obama's estimations don't add up. Though, in fairness, second place on the list is Canada, which is close to America, geographically.

Following the list down past Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Portugal, Singapore, and others, we find the United States all the way at number 22.

The reason for that low ranking stems from attributes beliefs that the US doesn't rank particularly high on the "high transparency and low corruption" scale. Other questions asked of surveyors include, "would you invest there?" "would you live there?" or even, "would you visit there?"

So, proven wrong on one count, President Obama. The United States is not, in fact, the most respected nation on Earth. It did, however, top a different list. A Gallup poll found that, out of 68 countries considered, the US was ranked the biggest threat to world peace in 2014.

Again, dragging an international coalition into two foreign wars will do that.

U.S. facing dramatic decline in power because of hubris, bellicosity, stupidity

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© AP Photo/ Richard Drew

By the end of George H.W. Bush's presidency, the United States had come out on top as the sole global superpower; however, a lot has changed since then, admitted Patrick J. Buchanan, an American conservative political commentator and publicist, noting that Washington's once unchallenged supremacy is vanishing into thin air.

"With the exception of the Soviet Union, some geostrategists contend, no nation, not defeated in war, has ever suffered so rapid a decline in relative power as the United States. What are the causes of American decline? Hubris, ideology, bellicosity, and stupidity all played parts," Mr. Buchanan pointed out.

The political commentator emphasized that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Washington demonstrated "imperial content" to Russia, "shoving NATO right up into Moscow's face" and carrying out "color-coded" revolutions in the former Soviet Republics.

Such an attitude has logically prompted a backlash from Russia's President Vladimir Putin who promised to revive the "national greatness of Mother Russia," protect its people and "stand up to the arrogant Americans," Mr. Buchanan elaborated.

On the other hand, Washington has seriously miscalculated by considering China a tame partner. The United States moved its manufacturing bases overseas and opened its markets to goods made in China. However, it seems that Beijing has not forgotten the humiliations of the past and is eager now to pay back the West for them.

"What we got, after $4 billion in trade deficits with Beijing, was a gutted US manufacturing base and a nationalistic rival eager to pay back the West for past humiliations. China wants this to be the Chinese Century, not the Second American Century. Is that too difficult to understand?" the author stressed.

Furthermore, Mr. Buchanan underscored that the "great work" of Nixon and Reagan, who meant to split China from Russia in Eurasia's "Heartland" has been undone. Now Moscow and Beijing are much closer to each other and more antagonistic toward Washington than they were during the Cold War.

Still it was the Middle East that cost the United States dearly. By invading Iraq, occupying Afghanistan and toppling Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, Washington let the genie of radical Islamic fanaticism and tribalism out of its bottle. Both North Africa and the Middle East are now engulfed by a Sunni-Shiite sectarian war.

"Since 1992, the US has been swamped with Third World immigrants, here legally and illegally, many of whom have moved onto welfare rolls. Our national debt has grown larger than our GDP. And we have run $11 trillion in trade deficits since Bush I went home to Kennebunkport," Mr. Buchanan highlighted, adding that trillions of dollars have been thrown down the drain during the US' interventions and wars, while tens of thousands of American soldiers have been wounded and killed.

While Washington's political and economic strength is fading, its commitments are greater now, the political commentator noted. US military forces have become bogged down in several regions overseas.

Additionally, if the neocons regain power in 2017 the United States will start supplying weapons to Kiev, putting Europe at risk of a full-scale military conflict, while American Tomahawks and B-2s "will be on the way to Iran."

The United States has found itself in an awkward position, the publicist underscored, with its "present commitments unsustainable" and "retrenchment" as an "imperative."

US warmongering: Will Germans again claim 'they didn't know'?

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Amid knee-slapping and beer-drinking, Germans greeted US President Obama with rapturous applause as he opened the G7 summit in Bavaria at the weekend.

Obama was addressing the crowds in a public square in the historic town of Krün on a sunny morning; with the Bavarian mountains serving a splendid backdrop. Alongside him was his "great friend Angela".

Merkel, the German chancellor, was beaming smiles at every jocular quip from the American president, as if the American NSA spying on her personal communications never happened.

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Obama was on a charm offensive, talking of the "shared history between Germany and the US", and lauding the past "great contributions" from German immigrants in the nation-building of America.

He did briefly mention "the war" - but only fleetingly and in the context of postwar German national progress and the formation of the "successful NATO military alliance". Obama interspersed his lines with folksy references to quaffing a few beers and jokingly expressed his preference for holding the G7 leaders' meetings over the next two days in the outdoors of a beer-garden to enjoy the sunshine.

Obama's charm offensive towards Germany is understandable. He needs the country's backing to extend the economic sanctions against Russia that Washington has corralled the European Union into adopting. The sanctions were applied back in March last year following the reunification of Crimea with Russia, or as the West contends, after Moscow "annexed" Ukrainian territory. The harmful repercussions from this trade war has left a growing number of EU states increasingly wary of the US-led policy. No more so than among German manufacturers, farmers and other businesses who have seen incomes plummet due to the block on trade with Russia.

Without German support for the Washington-led policy of sanctioning Russia, the US-EU "united front" is in danger of collapsing. The same goes for the US-led NATO military alliance. That's why Obama was so keen to ingratiate himself and his country with the German public at the weekend, portraying the pairing as a postcard-picture of "friendship".

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As the pretty Fraüleins, with their plaited hair, together with their strapping menfolk, wearing feathered caps and lederhosen, applauded Obama's rhetoric the scene conjured memories of a previous era when Germans were similarly captivated under the spell of another demagogic leader. This was Bavaria, the homeland of Adolf Hitler, whose rhetoric and nostrums were likewise apt to make the crowds swoon.

Fair enough, Obama hasn't the overt neuroticism of Hitler, nor the fiery ideological extremism. But there is, nevertheless, an unerring consistency in how a German public can seem so gullible and pliable to rhetoric that is fundamentally, dangerously, misleading.

Obama in his bonhomie, avuncular style slipped in an outrageous Big Lie into his public address in Bavaria at the weekend. He cited three challenges facing the leaders of the G7 - the world's nominally most powerful economies. Obama said the challenges comprised "Russian aggression in Ukraine", the terror threat of Islamic extremism, and global climate change.

This is not the first time that Obama has offended common intelligence and truth with the audacious comparison of Russia with international terrorism. He did so before the UN General Assembly and also the G22 summit in Australia last year. What is audacious about Obama's assertion of Russian aggression in Ukraine is that there is absolutely no proof to support that claim. Yet, this baseless accusation has formed the basis of Washington-led sanctions on Russia - sanctions that are impacting woefully on Europe's economy - and it has been invoked to justify reckless NATO militarisation on Russia's borders. Just this weekend, yet another US-led war games drill was being carried out in the Baltic Sea, involving dozens of warships, fighter jets and over 5,600 NATO troops

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Moreover, the aggression in Ukraine that threatens to blow apart the tenuous Minsk ceasefire is all down to the violations by the Neo-Nazi Kiev regime that Washington levered into power through an illegal coup d'état last February. Over the weekend, more civilians were killed in shelling of Donetsk city and surrounding towns in eastern Ukraine. These violations are US-backed war crimes, yet Obama holds forth on non-existent "Russian aggression".

Elsewhere in the world, as Obama was addressing his captive German audience, American-complicit war crimes were being perpetrated with a sinister normalcy.

The American-backed Israeli regime reportedly launched air strikes on the de facto open-air concentration camp of Gaza, with the usual diplomatic collusion of Washington and military support from US warplanes and bombs.

In Yemen, the US-backed Saudi bombing of that country continued apace, adding dozens more civilian victims to the death toll of thousands since the blitzkrieg began on March 26. The United Nations estimates that 80 per cent of the Yemeni population - some 20 million people - are now facing desperate shortages of food, water and medical aid from the US, Saudi-imposed naval blockade of that Arab country.

In Afghanistan, the Washington campaign of assassination by aerial drones claimed another 15 victims at the weekend with a strike on the eastern province of Khost. In Iraq, several Iraqi soldiers and Shia militia were killed in a US air strike near Fallujah in what was reported as "friendly-fire". The American bombing of Iraq and Syria is supposedly aimed at the ISIS terror group of Islamic extremists whom the US, Saudi Arabia and NATO member Turkey have covertly "incubated" and fueled, according to the Seumas Milne, in their machinations of illegal regime-change operations across the Middle East.

If there is one country that poses an existential threat to world peace from stoking state and non-state terrorism and outright geopolitical tensions with Russia and China it is the regime in Washington, whose figurehead Barack Obama swans around the globe spouting asinine rhetoric.

All people of the world must recognize the Big Lie that is continually pumped out by Washington and its European puppets. This audacious falsification of reality - blaming others for the litany of crimes that Washington itself is responsible for - is endangering the world by precipitating even more conflict and possibly an all-out global war between nuclear powers.

After the Second World War, the German nation professed that they did not know about the massive crimes that were being carried out by Hitler's Third Reich. While they were applauding his speeches, dressed in lederhosen, plaited hair and quaffing beers in public squares, they would later lament: "We did not know that millions were being exterminated".

This weekend, the German public were similarly applauding Obama as he foisted a pile of ludicrous lies and propaganda in their midst. And yet, all the while, American war crimes and crimes against humanity were being committed unabated all around the world. Germany has an onerous responsibility in Europe to call a halt to Washington's war machine. Are Germans once again going to tell us someday in the future: "We did not know"?

Woman sues police after being beaten by 4 cops for requesting tampon

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The case of Audra West, a Texas hairdresser who was severely beaten in a Florida jail, has received a boost after video emerged showing police officers handling her violently, without physical provocation. The police deny any wrongdoing.

West was on holiday when she was detained at a bar on Fort Lauderdale beach for being drunk in public and resisting arrest in May last year. She was then taken to the North Broward Detention Facility. After spending ten hours in the police station, her period began, and West asked Deputy Kristin Connelly for a tampon.

According to West's lawyer, Gary Kollin, who spoke to RT, Connelly refused the request, asking the detainee to use a "polite" tone. West then rephrased it, but Connelly denied her again, with the inmate then mouthing "F**k you" at the officer.

This was the moment the incident escalated.

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The CCTV footage, which was obtained by Florida's Local 10 channel, shows Connelly put on a pair of latex gloves before marching towards West. Another deputy, Henry Lawrence can be seen trying to stop her from getting to the inmate.

"Don't do it, don't do it," Lawrence apparently told Connelly, according to an eyewitness present in the video, who spoke to Local 10 on condition of anonymity.

But Connelly sidesteps Lawrence, and forcefully jerks West up from her seat, and begins violently swinging her towards a detention room on the far side of the police station waiting room. West appears uncooperative, and at one point attempts to land a punch on Connelly, but misses.

Connelly then pushes her down on the floor, and with the help of three more officers, the door is locked into the room, which has no video feed.

A frightened West emerges three and a half minutes later, escorted by the four deputies.

"I was on the floor on my stomach and Connelly punched me on this side of the face," said West. "And I was being kicked and stepped on from behind, and she was punching me in the face. She punched me in the eye several times."

West was then released without charge. She immediately made a series of photographs, detailing injuries all over her body, and contacted a lawyer, to file a case with internal affairs six days later.

"It was a horrible experience for her. You can see from the photos the severe black eye she received, and the emotional trauma is extreme," said Kollin.

Despite police regulations that state that any violent confrontation with an inmate has to be reported in writing, Connelly had made no such report.

Yet upon receiving West's lawsuit, Connelly filed a counter-claim, saying West resisted arrest, assaulted her, and scratched her face. Upon viewing the CCTV footage, assistant state attorney Mark Horn took West's side, and no proceedings were opened against her.

"I did not see where Audra West presented a physical threat to the deputy before being forcefully dragged out of her chair into a room with four other deputies, where Audra West was allegedly beaten," said Horn to Local 10.

But despite support from Horn, West was unable to win the case against the four deputies. They were all cleared of improper conduct by a commission gathered by Broward Sheriff's Office (BSO), the biggest police force in the US.

"The internal investigation gave the incident a whitewash, and cleared them. Who investigates the police? Other police officers in the same department," Collin said, answering his own question.

Disregarding the release of the video, which had been seen by the disciplinary panel, but not the public, BSO continues to deny responsibility.

"The Professional Standards Committee (PSC), which is made up of a mix of BSO employees and private citizens, reviewed the video and entire IA file and recommended no discipline for all three employees," said a statement from Sheriff Scott Israel "The PSC determined the actions taken were within the policy."

West and Kollin now plan to take the case to a civil court, to obtain compensation, if not punishment for the perpetrators.

"We will take these deputies and the police department into federal court and - I say this confidently - we will obtain monetary damages for Audra," Kollin told RT.

Fascist sympathizer Edward VIII wanted Britain bombed, historian claims

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© Wikipedia
King Edward VIII

Edward VIII wanted Britain to be bombed into an alliance with the Third Reich and blamed "Jews and Reds" for World War II, according to a prominent academic.

The research, carried out by UK-based German historian Karina Urbach, delved into the historical archives of 30 nations, including Germany, Spain and Russia, revealing the fascist sympathies of many European aristocrats.

Writing for The Conversation website ahead of the release of her new book, Go-Betweens for Hitler, Urbach said Edward VIII, who abdicated the throne in 1936 and became the Duke of Windsor, ""

She added: "However, the extent of his betrayal could never be fully verified due to the secrecy of the Royal Archives."

"The Royal Archives have always ensured that letters from German relatives of the royal family in the run up to World War II remain closed.

"Naturally, such censorship has led to endless conspiracy theories."

However, over nearly a decade of painstaking research in European archives, Urbach turned up vital evidence into the secret political lives of pro-fascist aristocrats.

"I have accumulated damning evidence by sifting through 30 archives all over the world that are open," Urbach wrote.

"Intelligence reports and German, Spanish and Russian documents show members of the British royal family were indeed far closer to Nazi Germany than has previously been recognized."

A key portion of the research deals with the relationship between the Duke of Windsor and a trusted German relative, Charles Edward Duke of Coburg - a bitterly anti-Semitic minor German aristocrat who acted as a messenger, it is claimed, between privileged fascists around Europe.

Meetings between Coburg and British royals are even listed in the Court Circular, a record of the British monarchy's meetings and appointments.

Further evidence was found in the Spanish archives.

"In June 1940 Don Javier Bermejillo, a Spanish diplomat and old friend of Windsor - he had known him since the 1920s - reported a conversation he had had with the Duke to his superiors," Urbach said.

The diplomat says he had heard the embittered duke blame "the Jews, the Reds and the Foreign Office" for the approaching war, long before it began.

Windsor wanted to put politicians, including Anthony Eden, "up against a wall," Urbach claims.

Perhaps most troublingly, the records hint at a possible correlation between the Duke's fascist leanings and the start of the German bombing campaign against Britain.

"In another conversation on June 25, 1940," Urbach writes, "Bermejillo reported that Windsor stressed if one bombed England effectively this could bring peace.

"Bermejillo concluded that the Duke of Windsor seemed very much to hope that this would occur: 'He wants peace at any price.'"

The report found its way into the hands of Spain's own fascist dictator, General Franco, according to Urbach. It was "then passed on to the Germans."

"The bombing of Britain started on 10 July," she added.

The War on Free Speech – U.S. Department of Justice Subpoenas Reason.com Over Comment Section

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The United States Department of Justice is using federal grand jury subpoenas to identify anonymous commenters engaged in typical internet bluster and hyperbole in connection with the Silk Road prosecution. DOJ is targeting Reason.com, a leading libertarian website…

The D.C. court was right — the government won’t start issuing grand jury subpoenas every time someone writes “my husband left underwear on the bathroom floor again; I could just kill him.” But they won’t because they don’t have the time, inclination, or the resources.

Instead, they will use their discretion to decide when to bring their vast power into play to pierce the anonymity of internet assholes (or for that matter, people who may have valid points on political matters but express them in the wrong fashion). That discretion is much more likely to be exercised where, as here, the person being trash-talked is a powerful federal judge in the district of that U.S. Attorney’s Office, a judge that the office must appear before every damned day. The power is more likely to be exercised on behalf of establishment political figures, not outsiders. The power is more likely to be exercised when it is consistent with the politics of the administration.

The D.C. court implies that we can trust federal prosecutors to use the grand jury power to pierce the anonymity of political firebrands even when their rhetoric is clearly protected by the First Amendment. That the government will investigate anonymous political rhetoric in even-handed fashion, whether that rhetoric comes from a magazine known to be friendly to the government and its establishment, or one that is, like Reason, prone to question both.

– From the excellent Popehat article: Department Of Justice Uses Grand Jury Subpoena To Identify Anonymous Commenters on a Silk Road Post at Reason.com

Readers of Liberty Blitzkrieg will be well aware of the gradual erosion by the state of the civil liberties of the American public. Such attacks are generally sufficiently under the radar, so that the average citizen has no idea what is happening until it’s too late. I have written about such calculated assaults on many occasions, but the holy grail target of the status quo is the First Amendment of the Constitution, which enshrines a right to the freedom of religion, speech, the press, and the right to peaceably assemble and petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Many aspects of the First Amendment have been neutered in practice. For example, the right to assemble peacefully is often prevented in practice by the need for permits and other hindrances. Meanwhile, on college campuses, where activism is historically most vibrant, many schools have embraced the Orwellian concept of “free speech zones” in order to prevent free speech. See:

 

Statists Declare War on Free Speech – College Students Banned from Handing Out Constitutions in Hawaii

California Student Banned from Handing Out Constitutions on Campus

In the first article, we learned that:

Administrators further clarified their level of respect for students’ free speech rights, making comments like, “This isn’t really the ’60s anymore,” and “people can’t really protest like that anymore,” according to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

Administrators also maintained that university policy took precedent over Constitutional rights, according to the complaint.

Moving along, what about a free press? While the press in America is technically “free,” with six companies owning 90% of all media, the public, in practice, is essentially force-fed status quo propaganda 24/7.

This reality has resulted in an explosion in web-based alternative media, which at this moment in time, represents the greatest thorn in the side of the status quo. Naturally, the state can’t directly confront alternative media due to its extraordinary popularity, so it is seemingly starting to target its edges via the comment section.

Today’s must read piece examines this coming threat, and was published on a blog called Popehat, which sports the tagline: A Group Complaint about Law, Liberty, and Leisure. Here’s an excerpt from its About page:

Since a number of Popehat’s authors are attorneys, work in closely related fields, or have strong interests in politics, law is also a relative constant in the site’s focus.  Nevertheless, though it may seem to be at times, this is not a “law blog” as such.  Ultimately, the subject of Popehat is whatever the author of a given post wishes to discuss, aided by a good community of readers and commenters, whose thoughts and feedback are greatly appreciated.

Believe it or not, some of us actually have jobs. Our employers have nothing whatsoever to do with this site. The views, rants, and tequila hallucinations uttered here do not represent the views of our employers and/or secure psychiatric facilities. Also, nothing on this blog is meant to give you legal advice. Seriously. Apparently we have to tell some of you that.

Yesterday, I came across an article at Popehat with extremely significant implications. It regards federal grand jury subpoenas recently issued to libertarian publication Reason, by the U.S. Justice Department, for information about people who made anonymous comments on the site. Since author Ken White described the situation better than I ever could, here are excerpts from the article:

The United States Department of Justice is using federal grand jury subpoenas to identify anonymous commenters engaged in typical internet bluster and hyperbole in connection with the Silk Road prosecution. DOJ is targeting Reason.com, a leading libertarian website whose clever writing is eclipsed only by the blowhard stupidity of its commenting peanut gallery.

Why is the government using its vast power to identify these obnoxious asshats, and not the other tens of thousands who plague the internet?

Because these twerps mouthed off about a judge.

Last week, a source provided me with a federal grand jury subpoena. The subpoena1, issued by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, is directed to Reason.com in Washington, D.C.. The subpoena commands Reason to provide the grand jury “any and all identifying information”2 Reason has about participants in what the subpoena calls a “chat.”

Several commenters on the post found the sentence unjust, and vented their feelings in a rough manner. The grand jury subpoena specifies their comments and demands that Reason.com produce any identifying information on them:

Screen Shot 2015-06-09 at 11.24.01 AM

Screen Shot 2015-06-09 at 11.24.09 AM

The grand jury subpoena specifies that it is seeking “evidence in regard to an alleged violation of: Title 18, United States Code, Section 875.” In other words, the U.S. Attorney’s Office is looking for evidence of violations of the federal law against interstate threats. That’s the same statute that was at issue in the Supreme Court’s decision in Elonis v. U.S. last week, in which the Court decided that to be a “true threat” in violation of Section 875, the speaker must have some level of knowledge or intent that the hearer will take the threat seriously.

This is interesting, because just last week I highlighted 20 comments on a Wall Street Journal article, some of which were far more violent and aggressive. See: “Revolution is Coming” – The Top 20 Responses to Jon Hilsenrath’s Idiotic WSJ Article.

Did the WSJ also receive subpoenas? Now, back to Popehat:

Since the comments are about a judge, if they are “true threats” they could conceivably also violate Title 18, U.S.C., section 115(a), which prohibits threatening federal judges.

The subpoena raises a few questions:

First, are Those Comments True Threats?

Are the Reason.com Comments “True Threats?” No. NO. AND HELL NO!

True Threats” are those threats that are outside the protection of the First Amendment; they are not mere political hyperbole or bluster. For instance, in 1967, when Mr. Watts said that if he were drafted the first man he’d want in his rifle sights was President Lyndon B. Johnson, that wasn’t a true threat:it was conditional political hyperbole. In other words, it was mere angry bluster of the sort no reasonable person would take to be a serious threat.3

What of these comments on Reason.com, then? I submit that they are very clearly not true threats — that this is not even a close call.

The “threats” do not specify who is going to use violence, or when. They do not offer a plan, other than juvenile mouth-breathing about “wood chippers” and revolutionary firing squads. They do not contain any indication that any of the mouthy commenters has the ability to carry out a threat. Nobody in the thread reacts to them as if they are serious. They are not directed to the judge by email or on a forum she is known to frequent.

There are no factors like that in this case. Consider this purported “threat”: 

Screen Shot 2015-06-09 at 11.26.43 AM

Is it the position of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York that a reasonable reader would conclude that “Rhywun” is in league with the Dark Ones, able to bring into existence a hot place in the afterlife for an errant judge? Ridiculous. If that’s a threat, then so is “go to Hell.”

So: the government has used the grand jury to subpoena a news magazine for the identity of anonymous commenters who have engaged in political rhetoric that is clearly protected by the First Amendment.

Can they get away with this?

Regrettably, The Government Can Probably Abuse the Grand Jury Subpoena Power This Way

Reason.com — or the anonymous commenters — could file an action in federal court seeking to quash this subpoena. We know how that would likely come out, because someone recently did it. During the 2012 election cycle a juvenile but prolific Twitter personality named “Mr. X” tweeted “I want to fuck Michelle Bachman in the ass with a Vietnam era machete.” The government subpoenaed Twitter for Mr. X’s identifying information; Mr. X filed a motion to quash the subpoena. The United States District Court for the District of Columbia rejected the motion.

But here’s where Mr. X learned the difference between individual rights and government power. The court conceded that the tweet was almost certainly not an actionable true threat:

Yet the court found that the government had a “compelling interest” in investigating all threats, however ridiculous:

The court conceded that this could produce absurd results, but hand-waved that concern away:

The Court is aware that this conclusion may seem to produce absurd results. Under this line of reasoning, the government could presumably subpoena any Web site any time any anonymous user made any post containing a mere scintilla of violence. The government could require Twitter to divulge the identity of a teenager who tweets, “My parents are so mean! I want to toss them in a ditch.” Anonymity on the Internet would be sufficiently compromised to warrant this Court’s concern.11 But we are nowhere near that slippery slope. Here, an individual has made a statement that threatens an established candidate for the presidential nomination of one of our two major political parties, and the government has a strong public interest in investigating that threat, however outlandish.

Read that over and over again, until you realize how incredibly absurd and dangerous that court argument is.

Should The Government Exercise Power To Identify Anonymous People Over Clear Bluster?

The D.C. court was right — the government won’t start issuing grand jury subpoenas every time someone writes “my husband left underwear on the bathroom floor again; I could just kill him.” But they won’t because they don’t have the time, inclination, or the resources.

Instead, they will use their discretion to decide when to bring their vast power into play to pierce the anonymity of internet assholes (or for that matter, people who may have valid points on political matters but express them in the wrong fashion). That discretion is much more likely to be exercised where, as here, the person being trash-talked is a powerful federal judge in the district of that U.S. Attorney’s Office, a judge that the office must appear before every damned day. The power is more likely to be exercised on behalf of establishment political figures, not outsiders. The power is more likely to be exercised when it is consistent with the politics of the administration.

The D.C. court implies that we can trust federal prosecutors to use the grand jury power to pierce the anonymity of political firebrands even when their rhetoric is clearly protected by the First Amendment. That the government will investigate anonymous political rhetoric in even-handed fashion, whether that rhetoric comes from a magazine known to be friendly to the government and its establishment, or one that is, like Reason, prone to question both.

A Note On The U.S. Attorney’s Office Reaction To My Inquiries About This Story

On Friday, June 5th, the day after a source sent me the subpoena, I decided to call Niketh Velamoor, the Assistant U.S. Attorney who issued the subpoena. My purpose was to tell him that I would not print the subpoena if he could convince me that he had specific evidence demonstrating that to do so would put a life in danger. Mr. Velamoor — who said he could not discuss grand jury investigations, which is the standard AUSA statement — said that it was unreasonable to expect the government to be able to prove such a threat before it identified the commenters. That answered my question on the point.

Mr. Velamoor was suspicious and defensive. At one point he told me that he “believed” that there was a gag order prohibiting this subpoena from being released by its recipients, and that whoever gave it to me must have violated that order, and that he would be “looking into it” and how I got it.

Such gag orders do exist. However, I note that two days earlier on June 2, 2015, Mr. Velamoor signed the cover letter on the subpoena, which contained the Department of Justice’s standard language about secrecy:

The Government hereby requests that you voluntarily refrain from disclosing the existence of the subpoena to any third party. While you are under no obligation to comply with our request, we are requesting you not to make any disclosure in order to preserve the confidentiality of the investigation and because disclosure of the existence of this investigation might interfere with and impede the investigation.

In other words, two days before he told me that he believed there was a gag order on the subpoena, Mr. Velamoor told Reason.com that it was notrequired to keep the subpoena secret.

Perhaps Mr. Velamoor misspoke. Perhaps Mr. Velamoor misremembered. Perhaps Mr. Velamoor didn’t secure the gag order until after he issued the subpoena.

Or perhaps Mr. Velamoor, bless his heart, was lying in an attempt to intimidate me.

This falls into the very important category of know your rights.

In any case, Mr. Velamoor has provided me with no such order, despite a request.

Whatever the answer, consider this: Mr. Velamoor, and government attorneys like him, will be the ones deciding whether the federal government will use the grand jury to pierce the anonymity of your comments. No doubt in some cases they will exercise that power on genuinely frightening threats. But other times will be like this one, where the government subpoenaed the identity of people indulging in crass but obvious bluster.

They will target political speech.

Does that make you feel safer?

Why Does This Matter To You?

If, like most of us, you’re a lawyer with lawyer-friends and “a swarm of asshole lawbloggers” (Yes, I have such a swarm, and I’m KING BEE!) willing to stand at your back to defend your right to use silly hyperbole in criticizing government officials, it probably doesn’t matter at all.

But some of you aren’t. You may have opinions, even strong opinions, but you’re lower forms of life, maggots, pukes, nothing but grabasstic pieces of amphibian shit. You aren’t lawyers, ready and prepared to defend yourself from the Very Special Hell that is a federal investigation of statements like:

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Dumb creatures that you are, you might even write something in the heat of the moment, while commenting on a charged political issue on Facebook, or Twitter, or Reason, without phrasing it properly:

See how far that gets YOU, dumb brute, when you’re summoned by a wet-behind-the-ears mutton-headed Assistant United States Attorney to answer to the Grand Jury for the Southern District of New York after your Facebook comment to the effect that Eli Manning should defenestrated through a plate glass window because the Giants are a piece of shit team that will never win another Super Bowl as long as that piece of shit Eli Manning, who should be defenestrated through a plate glass window, is quarterback.

Or how much it will cost you to hire a lawyer to defend yourself against an obviously meritless investigation, for speaking your mind in a manner that no one, except a wet-behind-the-ears mutton-headed Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, who should be defenestrated through a plate glass window for wasting taxpayer dollars on a frivolous investigation of mere internet braggadocio and hyperbole, would read as anything other than mere internet braggadocio and hyperbole about the wrong people. People like Eli Manning, or a federal judge who issued an incredibly harsh sentence in a very political case?

Of course, Reason and “Rhywun” may be under a gag order asserted on the “because I said so” non-existent authority of a wet-behind-the-ears mutton-headed Assistant United States Attorney, for whom a special place should be reserved in Hell, so don’t expect answers.

But ask whether that’s an internet, or for that matter a country, in which you wish to live.

First they came for the comment section, and I said nothing…

In Liberty,
Michael Krieger

Logistics 101: Where Does ISIS Get Its Guns?

Since ancient times an army required significant logistical support to carry out any kind of sustained military campaign. In ancient Rome, an extensive network of roads was constructed to facilitate not only trade, but to allow Roman legions to move quickly to where they were needed, and for the supplies needed to sustain military operations to follow them in turn.


Image: The other half of the war is logistics. Without a steady stream of supplies, armies no matter how strong or determined will be overwhelmed and defeated. What explains then ISIS' fighting prowess and the immense logitical networks it would need to maintain it? 

In the late 1700's French general, expert strategist, and leader Napoleon Bonaparte would note that, "an army marches on its stomach," referring to the extensive logistical network required to keep an army fed, and therefore able to maintain its fighting capacity. For the French, their inability to maintain a steady supply train to its forces fighting in Russia, and the Russians' decision to burn their own land and infrastructure to deny it from the invading forces, ultimately defeated the French.

Nazi Germany would suffer a similar fate when it too overextended its logical capabilities during its invasion of Russia amid Operation Barbarossa. Once again, invading armies became stranded without limited resources before being either cut off and annihilated or forced to retreat. 

And in modern times during the Gulf War in the 1990's an extended supply line trailing invading US forces coupled with an anticipated clash with the bulk of Saddam Hussein's army halted what was otherwise a lighting advance many mistakenly believed could have reached Baghdad had there been the political will. The will to conquer was there, the logistics to implement it wasn't.

The lessons of history however clear they may be, appear to be entirely lost on an either supremely ignorant or incredibly deceitful troupe of policymakers and news agencies across the West.

ISIS' Supply Lines

The current conflict consuming the Middle East, particularly in Iraq and Syria where the so-called "Islamic State" (ISIS) is operating and simultaneously fighting and defeating the forces of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran, we are told, is built upon a logistical network based on black market oil and ransom payments.

The fighting capacity of ISIS is that of a nation-state. It controls vast swaths of territory straddling both Syria and Iraq and not only is able to militarily defend and expand from this territory, but possesses the resources to occupy it, including the resources to administer the populations subjugated within it.

For military analysts, especially former members of Western armed forces, as well as members of the Western media who remember the convoys of trucks required for the invasions of Iraq in the 1990s and again in 2003, they surely must wonder where ISIS' trucks are today. After all, if the resources to maintain the fighting capacity exhibited by ISIS were available within Syrian and Iraqi territory alone, then certainly Syrian and Iraqi forces would also posses an equal or greater fighting capacity but they simply do not.

And were ISIS' supply lines solely confined within Syrian and Iraqi territory, then surely both Syrian and Iraqi forces would utilize their one advantage - air power - to cut front line ISIS fighters from the source of their supplies. But this is not happening and there is a good reason why.

Image: Recent maps showing ISIS' territory show obvious supply lines leading from Jordan and Turkey. Should Syria and its allies manage to cut these supply lines, one wonders just how long ISIS' so-far inexplicable winning streak would last.

ISIS' supply lines run precisely where Syrian and Iraqi air power cannot go. To the north and into NATO-member Turkey, and to the southwest into US allies Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Beyond these borders exists a logistical network that spans a region including both Eastern Europe and North Africa.

Terrorists and weapons left over from NATO's intervention in Libya in 2011 were promptly sent to Turkey and then onto Syria - coordinated by US State Department officials and intelligence agencies in Benghazi - a terrorist hotbed for decades.

The London Telegraph would report in their 2013 article, "

CIA 'running arms smuggling team in Benghazi when consulate was attacked'

," that:

[CNN] said that a CIA team was working in an annex near the consulate on a project to supply missiles from Libyan armouries to Syrian rebels.

Weapons have also come from Eastern Europe, with the New York Times reporting in 2013 in their article, "

Arms Airlift to Syria Rebels Expands, With Aid From C.I.A.

," that:

From offices at secret locations, American intelligence officers have helped the Arab governments shop for weapons, including a large procurement from Croatia, and have vetted rebel commanders and groups to determine who should receive the weapons as they arrive, according to American officials speaking on the condition of anonymity.

And while Western media sources continuously refer to ISIS and other factions operating under the banner of Al Qaeda as "rebels" or "moderates," it is clear that if billions of dollars in weapons were truly going to "moderates," they, not ISIS would be dominating the battlefield.

Recent revelations have revealed

 that as early as 2012 the United States Department of Defense not only anticipated the creation of a "Salafist Principality" straddling Syria and Iraq precisely where ISIS now exists, it welcomed it eagerly and contributed to the circumstances required to bring it about.

Just How Extensive Are ISIS' Supply Lines? 

While many across the West play willfully ignorant as to where ISIS truly gets their supplies from in order to maintain its impressive fighting capacity, some journalists have traveled to the region and have video taped and reported on the endless convoys of trucks supplying the terrorist army.

Were these trucks traveling to and from factories in seized ISIS territory deep within Syrian and Iraqi territory? No. They were traveling from deep within Turkey, crossing the Syrian border with absolute impunity, and headed on their way with the implicit protection of nearby Turkish military forces. Attempts by Syria to attack these convoys and the terrorists flowing in with them have been met by Turkish air defenses. 

Germany's international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) published the first video report from a major Western media outlet illustrating that ISIS is supplied not by "black market oil" or "hostage ransoms" but billions of dollars worth of supplies carried into Syria across NATO member Turkey's borders via hundreds of trucks a day.

Image: German national broadcaster DW reported on convoys of hundreds of trucks per day crossing into Syria from NATO-member Turkey with impunity, enroute to ISIS terrorists, finally explaining the source of the terrorist army's fighting capacity. The trucks were reported by DW to have originated from deep within Turkish territory - most likely NATO air bases and ports. 

The report titled, "

'IS' supply channels through Turkey,

" confirms what has been 

reported by geopolitical analysts

 since at least as early as 2011 - that ISIS subsides on immense, multi-national state sponsorship, including, obviously, Turkey itself.

Looking at maps of ISIS-held territory and reading action reports of its offensive maneuvers throughout the region and even beyond, one might imagine hundreds of trucks a day would be required to maintain this level of fighting capacity. One could imagine similar convoys crossing into Iraq from Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Similar convoys are likely passing into Syria from Jordan.

In all, considering the realities of logistics and their timeless importance to military campaigns throughout human history, there is no other plausible explanation to ISIS's ability to wage war within Syria and Iraq besides immense resources being channeled to it from abroad.

If an army marches on its stomach, and ISIS' stomachs are full of NATO and Persian Gulf State supplies, ISIS will continue to march long and hard. The key to breaking the back of ISIS, is breaking the back of its supply lines. To do that however, and precisely why the conflict has dragged on for so long, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and others would have to eventually secure the borders and force ISIS to fight within Turkish, Jordanian, and Saudi territory - a difficult scenario to implement as nations like Turkey have created defacto buffer zones within Syrian territory which would require a direct military confrontation with Turkey itself to eliminate.

With Iran joining the fray with an alleged deployment of thousands of troops to bolster Syrian military operations, overwhelming principles of deterrence may prevent Turkey enforcing its buffer zones.

What we are currently left with is NATO literally holding the region hostage with the prospect of a catastrophic regional war in a bid to defend and perpetuate the carnage perpetrated by ISIS within Syria, fully underwritten by an immense logistical network streaming out of NATO territory itself.

We're moderate, see? Syrian 'rebels' parade the severed heads of ISIS members

Image
Rebel groups battling the Islamic State in Syria have proudly paraded the severed heads of their defeated enemies, in the latest sign that all sides in the conflict are resorting to shocking barbarism.

A coalition of anti-Assad forces were stationed in the town of Azaz, close to the Turkish border, when ISIS militants prepared to carry out a suicide bomb attack followed by a massive assault.

But the rebels were tipped off about the attack in advance and were prepared for the jihadis when they arrived - slaughtering them in the streets of the Azaz before posing with the extremists' severed heads and displaying their mutilated corpses in the centre of the city.

Large crowds of cheering locals took to the streets of Azaz in the aftermath of the failed attack, which was actually under the control of ISIS for several months in 2013.

The ritual humiliation and public exhibition of the butchered corpses was in fact highly symbolic - with the jihadis' severed heads displayed in exactly the same location that ISIS themselves would show off the bodies of those they had brutally executed after Friday prayers.

Describing the attack, one anonymous rebel fighter told VICE News: 'Last night, [ISIS] sent a suicide truck to Sawran, which is the frontline now next to Azaz, but we had info of the operation,'

'So they targeted the truck with a missile... Then the fighters following the truck were caught,' he added.

On the subject of the subsequent beheadings of ISIS fighters, the rebel soldier said: 'It is not the way we act... but it's sort of revenge for all the civilians and leaders they killed.'


The news comes as US-led aircraft bombed ISIS fighters while the jihadis were battling rival Syrian rebels, including Al-Qaeda loyalists, in a first such intervention, a monitoring group said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights described the overnight raids in northern Aleppo as an intervention on the side of the rival rebels, which include forces who have been targeted previously by US-led strikes.

'The coalition carried out at least four strikes overnight targeting IS positions in the town of Suran,' the UK-based Observatory said.

The US military, in a statement, said an air raid near Aleppo destroyed an ISIS ant-aircraft artillery piece and a jihadist fighting position.

'It's the first time that the international coalition has supported non-Kurdish opposition forces fighting the Islamic State,' Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

He said at least eight IS fighters were killed in the strikes and another 20 were injured.

Syria expert Thomas Pierret said the raids showed Washington was intent on preventing IS from expanding in Aleppo province, which is currently largely divided between regime and rebel control.

'Washington seems really determined to stop IS from advancing against the rebels in Aleppo,' said Pierret, a professor at the University of Edinburgh.


The strikes showed Washington's 'pragmatism', he said, noting that Al Qaeda affiliate 'Al-Nusra only constitutes a small part of the rebel forces that are fighting IS,' in Aleppo, with moderate forces holding more territory.

Syrian state TV said government forces launched air strikes near Suran on 'terrorists', the term used by Damascus for all those fighting President Bashar al-Assad. It gave no further details.

ISIS captured Suran a week ago and has been fighting an alliance of rebels including Al-Nusra and Islamist Ahrar al-Sham in the surrounding area.

Both Al Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham have been targeted in US-led raids and like ISIS, Al-Nusra is blacklisted as a 'terrorist organisation' by Washington.

Edinburgh police disclose bizarre 2012 appearance of 'Big Cat' in Scottish capital

Image

© Paul Keehn
'Buckinghamshire panther', 2009

A police officer has revealed he saw a big cat while he was on board a police helicopter assisting in the search for a missing woman.

Inspector Nick Whyte said he could not believe what he was seeing when he picked up a large heat source on the aircraft's infrared camera equipment.

The helicopter was flying over Arthur's Seat, a hill in Holyrood Park, Edinburgh at the time.

Insp Whyte told the the animal was three times the size of a female police officer who was on the ground.

The police helicopter had been sent up to help try and find a vulnerable mum after the discovery of a two-day-old baby found abandoned near St Leonards Police Station in the city.

Image
Speaking to the newspaper for the first time about the incident in the early hours of one morning in 2012, Insp Whyte said the helicopter was flying above the area where the baby was found when they picked up a "large" heat source.

He said: "it turns out it was a big cat - we think a puma or something like that.

".

"It wasn't a domestic cat, because on the same part of the screen you could see the female police officer and this thing was, you know, three times the size of her. It was huge.

Image


Arthur's Seat in central Edinburgh, capital of Scotland

".

".

".

"."

Insp Whyte added he believed the mother was later found alive and well.


Comment: Holyrood Park is a park in the center of Edinburgh. There was nowhere for this creature to go without being seen by others: the park is surrounded by urban areas on all sides.

Its sudden appearance, and disappearance, its 'supernatural' size, and the creature's being so close to someone who couldn't see it are tell-tale signs of this being a paranormal 'Big Cat' event, a common phenomenon in British cryptozoological science.

That local authorities kept the case under wraps for several years (and 'lost' the evidence) suggests they may have been royally spooked by what they saw!

Putin: Ukraine crisis created deliberately by West's unprofessional actions

Image

© REUTERS/ Gleb Garanich

The conflict in Ukraine was created intentionally and follows "unprofessional actions" by the West, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.

"I believe that this crisis was created deliberately and it is the result of our partner's unprofessional actions," Putin said in an interview with Italian newspaper ahead of his visit to Milan.

The president added that the coverage of the situation surrounding Ukraine has been "absolutely unacceptable."

The West has been accusing Russia of meddling in Ukraine's internal affairs and supporting independence fighters in the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk, where Kiev launched a special military operation in April, 2014. The United States and the European Union have also criticized Moscow over the reunification of Crimea with Russia in March, 2014.

Russia has repeatedly stressed that it is not involved in the situation in Ukraine, also pointing to the fact that 96 percent of Crimean residents voted for rejoining Russia at a referendum following a declaration of independence from Ukraine.

"I would like to emphasize once more: this was not our choice, we did not seek it, we are simply forced to respond to what is happening."

Russia has had to deal with a range of sanctions imposed against it by the West over the Ukrainian crisis. In response to the restrictive measures Russia has introduced a one-year food ban against countries that have introduced anti-Russia sanctions.

The Ukrainian crisis started in 2014 when pro-EU forces, including radical nationalists, backed by Western powers, ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych after he did not sign an association agreement with the European Union.

Following the appointment of new pro-Western and increasingly nationalist leadership in Kiev, it was proposed that the country join NATO in recent months, and drop its non-aligned status.

Russian President also said that concerns over a possible repetition of the Crimean scenario in the ongoing conflict in southeastern Ukraine (Donbass) are ungrounded because Crimea's residents voted to rejoin Russia while people in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions opted for independence.

"The Crimean scenario does not reflect Russia's position; it reflects the position of the people who live in Crimea," Putin said.

"All our actions...were aimed not at tearing away this territory from Ukraine but at giving the people living there an opportunity to express their opinion on how they want to live their lives."

Putin emphasized that, in contrast to Crimea residents, people in Ukraine's Donetsk and Lugansk regions have demanded sovereignty from Ukraine as they refused to recognize the new Kiev government, which came to power as a result of a coup in February.

"And if somebody wants these territories to remain part of Ukraine, they should prove to those people that their lives would be better, more comfortable and safer within a unified state; that they would be able to provide for themselves and ensure their children's future within this state."

Donetsk and Lugansk residents held independence referendums in May, 2014. As a result, the self-proclaimed people's republics of Donetsk and Lugansk (DPR and LPR) were established. DPR and LPR fighters have been countering attacks from Kiev forces, which launched a special military operation against residents of southeast Ukraine in April, 2014.

"But it is impossible to convince these people by means of weapons. These issues, issues of this kind can only be resolved by peaceful means," Putin stressed.

Putin noted that Russia is doing everything possible to influence independence supporters in Ukraine's southeast in seeking a peaceful resolution of the Ukrainian conflict, and is calling on its EU and US partners to make the same effort in relation to Kiev.

"On our part, we take every effort, and will continue to do so, in order to influence the authorities of the unrecognized self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk republics. But not everything depends on us. Our European and US partners should exert influence on the current Kiev administration. We do not have the power, as Europe and the United States do, to convince Kiev to carry out everything that was agreed on in Minsk."

Putin also stressed that the European Union could and should provide more substantial funds to crisis-hit Ukraine.

He described the situation in the contested Donbass region in eastern Ukraine as a "humanitarian disaster."

"Our European colleagues have taken on certain obligations, in particular they promised to help restore the banking system in these territories. Finally, since we are talking about what can or must be done, and by whom, I believe that the European Union could surely provide greater financial assistance to Ukraine," the Russian president stressed.

The deep political crisis in Ukraine has had a devastating impact on the country's economy and finances, pushing the former Soviet republic to the brink of a default.

"The problem is that representatives of Kiev's current authorities do not even want to sit at the same negotiating table with them [Donbass representatives]. And we can do nothing about that. Only our European and American partners can use their influence there. And it is unnecessary to threaten us with sanctions. We have nothing to do with this," Putin stressed.

Pentagon admits its dumb strategy of Russian sanctions is ineffective and makes no sense

Image

© Flickr/ Michael Baird

Anti-Russian sanctions are ineffective and will not force Moscow to reverse its political course, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said after a conference with top US diplomats and military brass in Stuttgart.

US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter says it would be better to admit that anti-Russian sanctions are not effective and Moscow will not abandon its political course under pressure.


The West did not recognize Crimea's reunification with Russia after the last year's coup in Ukraine

"What's clear is that sanctions are working on the Russian economy," Bloomberg cites Carter as saying after a conference with top US diplomats and military officials in Stuttgart, Germany. "What's not apparent is that that effect on his economy is deterring [Russian President Vladimir] Putin from following the course that was evidenced last year in the Crimea."

The West has also accused Russia of meddling in Ukraine's internal affairs and aiding Ukrainian independence supporters, but these allegations have not been supported by any proved factual evidence.

"There are other things we need to be doing in recognition of the fact that, at the moment at least, Vladimir Putin does not seem to be reversing course nor does he give any sign in what he says of an intention to do so," Carter stated. "Therefore, we need to adapt in a long-term sense to that reality."

"Russia is positioning itself, in its rhetoric and in its actions — and it's not like they're hiding this — to be adversarial. So we have to clearly recognize that fact," the secretary added.


An official from the US delegations said the participants of the meeting assessed the effectiveness of anti-Russian sanctions, and discussed measures to deter Russia and provide additional military support to European countries.

The US, as well as the European Union and a number of their allies, have introduced several rounds of sanctions against Russia over its position over the Ukrainian crisis.

The measures targeted Russia's banking, energy and defense sectors. The West says the sanctions are aimed at making Moscow change its stance with regard to Ukraine.

Russia has repeatedly denied any involvement in the Ukrainian crisis, stressing that sanctions are counterproductive and threaten international stability.

Despite G7 propaganda, it's clear Russia has better things to do than start WW3

Image

© Reuters/Stephen Crowley
Leaders from the Group of Seven (G7) industrial nations hold a working dinner in the Bavarian village of Kruen, Germany June 7, 2015

Vladimir Putin said this weekend that "Russia would attack NATO only in a mad person's dream." Unfortunately, there are a lot of mad people working in western politics and media.

If the G7 were based on GDP, adjusted for purchasing power, it would be comprised of the USA, China, India, Japan, Russia, Germany and Brazil. Such a lineup would have remarkable clout. Members would boast 53% of the globe's entire GDP and the planet's 3 genuine military superpowers would be represented.

The problem for Washington is that this putative G7 might actually be a forum for a real debate about the world order.

Instead of a real G7, we have a farce. An American dominated talking shop where the US President allows 'friendly' foreign leaders to tickle his belly for a couple of days. There is no dissent. Washington's dominance goes unquestioned and everyone has a jolly time. Especially since they kicked out Russia last year - Vladimir Putin was the only guest who challenged the consensus.

However, the problem is that this 'convenient' G7 is way past its sell-by-date. The days when its members could claim to rule the world economically are as distant as the era of Grunge and Britpop. Today, the G7 can claim a mere 32% of the global GDP pie. Instead of heavyweights like China and India, we have middling nations such as Canada and Italy, the latter an economic basket case. Canada's GDP is barely more than that of crisis-ridden Spain and below that of Mexico and Indonesia.

Yet, the Prime Minister of this relative non-entity, Stephen Harper, was strutting around Bavaria all weekend with the confidence of a man who believed his opinion mattered a great deal. Of course, Harper won't pressure Obama. Rather, he prefers to - metaphorically - kiss the ring and croon from the same hymn sheet as his southern master.

NATO and the G7 - 2 sides of 1 coin?

There was lots of talk of "Russian aggression" at the G7. This was hardly a surprise given that 6 of the 7 are also members of NATO, another body at which they can tug Washington's forelock with gay abandon. Obama was at it, David Cameron parroted his guru's feelings and Harper was effectively calling for regime change in Russia. It apparently never occurred to the trio that resolving their issues with Russia might be easier if Putin had been in Bavaria? The knee-jerk reaction to remove Russia from the club was hardly conducive to dialogue.

Meanwhile, Matteo Renzi stayed fairly quiet. It has been widely reported that the Italian Prime Minister privately opposes the EU's anti-Russia sanctions due to the effects on Italy's struggling economy. Also, Renzi's next task after the G7 summit is to welcome Putin to Rome.

With that visit in mind, Putin gave an interview to Italy's Il Corriere della Sera where he essentially answered the questions that Obama, Cameron and Harper could have asked him if they hadn't thrown their toys out of the pram and excluded Russia from the old G8. Putin stressed that one should not take the ongoing "Russian aggression" scaremongering in the West seriously, as a global military conflict is unimaginable in the modern world. The Russian President also, fairly bluntly, stated that "we have better things to be doing" (than starting World War 3).

Putin also touched on a point many rational commentators have continuously made. "Certain countries could be deliberately nurturing such fears," he added, saying that hypothetically the US could need an external threat to maintain its leadership in the Atlantic community. "Iran is clearly not very scary or big enough" for this, Putin noted with irony.

A world of 'goodies' and 'baddies'

For Washington to maintain its huge military spending, it has to keep its citizens in a state of high alarm. Otherwise, they might insist that some of the armed forces' cash is diverted to more productive things like hospitals and schools. These services, of course, are not very profitable for weapons manufacturers or useful for newspaper and TV editors looking for an intimidating narrative.

Following the collapse of the USSR, Russia was too weak and troubled to be a plausible enemy. Aside from its nuclear arsenal - the deployment of which would only mean mutual destruction - the bear's humbled military was not a credible threat. Instead, the focus of warmonger's venom shifted to the Middle East and the Balkans, where Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, Slobodan Milosevic and Osama Bin Laden kept the general public's attention occupied for roughly a decade and a half. However, they are now all dead and pro-war propaganda needs a new bad guy to play the Joker to America's Batman.

Kim Jong-un looked promising for a while. Nevertheless, the problem here is that North Korea is too unpredictable and could very feasibly retaliate to provocations. Such a reaction could lead to a nuclear attack on Seoul, for instance, or draw Washington into a conflict with China. Even for neocons, this is too risky. Another candidate was Syria's Basher Al-Assad. Unfortunately, for the sabre rattlers, just as they imagined they had Damascus in their sights, Putin kyboshed their plan. This made Putin the devil as far as neocons are concerned and they duly trained their guns in his direction.

Russia - a Middle East/North Africa battleground?

In the media, it is noticeable how many neocon hacks have suddenly metamorphosed from Syria 'experts' into Russia analysts in the past 2 years. Pando's Mark Ames (formerly of Moscow's eXILE) highlighted this strange phenomenon in an excellent recent piece. Ames focused on the strange case of Michael Weiss, a New York activist who edits the anti-Russia Interpreter magazine (which is actually a blog). The Interpreter is allegedly controlled by Mikhail Khodorkovsky and a shadowy foundation called Herzen (not the original Amsterdam-based Herzen) of which no information is publicly available.

Weiss was a long-time Middle East analyst, who promoted US intervention to oust Assad. Suddenly, shortly before the initial Maidan disturbances in Kiev, he re-invented himself as a Russia and Ukraine 'expert,' appearing all over the US media (from CNN to Politico and The Daily Beast) to deliver his 'wisdom.' This is despite the fact that he appears to know very little about Russia and has never lived there. The managing editor of The Interpreter is a gentleman named James Miller, who uses the Twitter handle @millerMENA (MENA means Middle East, North Africa). Having been to both, I can assure you that Russia and North Africa have very little in common.

Weiss and Miller are by no means unusual. Pro-War, neocon activists have made Russia their bete noir since their Syria dreams were strangled in infancy. While most are harmless enough, this pair wields considerable influence in the US media. Naturally, this is dressed up as concern for Ukraine. In reality, they care about Ukraine to about the same extent that a carnivore worries about hurting the feelings of his dinner.

Russia's military policy is "not global, offensive, or aggressive," Putin stressed, adding that Russia has"virtually no bases abroad," and the few that do exist are remnants of its Soviet past. Meanwhile, it would take only 17 minutes for missiles launched from US submarines on permanent alert off Norway's coast to reach Moscow, Putin said, noting that this fact is somehow not labeled as"aggression" in the media.

Decline of the Balts

Another ongoing problem is the Baltic States. These 3 countries have been unmitigated disasters since independence, shedding people at alarming rates. Estonia's population has fallen by 16% in the past 25 years, Latvia's by 25% and Lithuania's by an astonishing 32%. Political leaders in these nations use the imaginary 'Russian threat' as a means to distract from their own economic failings and corruption. They constantly badger America for military support which further antagonizes the Kremlin, which in turn perceives that NATO is increasing its presence on Russia's western border. This is the same frontier from which both Napoleon and Hitler invaded and Russians are, understandably, paranoid about it.

The simple fact is that Russia has no need for the Baltic States. Also, even if Moscow did harbor dreams of invading them, the cost of subduing them would be too great. As Russia and the US learned in Afghanistan and America in Iraq also, in the 21st century it is more-or-less impossible to occupy a population who don't want to be occupied. The notion that Russia would sacrifice its hard-won economic and social progress to invade Kaunas is, frankly, absurd.

The reunification of Crimea with Russia is often used as a 'sign' that the Kremlin wishes to restore the Soviet/Tsarist Empire. This is nonsense. The vast majority of Crimean people wished to return to Russia and revoke Nikita Khrushchev's harebrained transfer of the territory to Ukraine. Not even the craziest Russian nationalist believes that most denizens of Riga or Tallinn wish to become Russian citizens.

Putin recalled that it was French President Charles de Gaulle who first voiced the need to establish a "common economic space stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok." As NATO doubles down on its campaign against Moscow, that dream has never looked as far off.

DHS is training EMS and firefighters for urban warfare



DHS's new "First Responder Guide For Improving Survivability In IED or Active Shooter Incidents"
describes in great detail how firefighters and EMS personnel are being trained by DHS and work alongside law enforcement.

In it's "First Responder"guide, DHS claims active shooter incidents and IED's in America are increasing.

A collaborative group of public safety organizations—including fire, law enforcement, pre-hospital care, trauma care, and the military—convened in Hartford, Connecticut, in the spring of 2013 to develop consensus regarding strategies to increase survivability in mass-casualty shootings (commonly referred as the Hartford Consensus). The group states that "no one should die from uncontrolled bleeding" and developed the acronym THREAT to address these situations: 

Threat suppression [eliminate or kill suspects], 

Hemorrhage control, 

Rapid Extrication to safety, 

Assessment by medical providers, and 

Transport to definitive care. 

Active Shooter and Intentional Mass-Casualty Events: The Hartford Consensus II:

"Law enforcement officers and other emergency responders who lack extensive medical training are prime targets for a training program based on the T.H.R.E.A.T. concept." 

Law Officer magazine:

"If you aren't already conducting training in T.H.R.E.A.T., TECC or other similar adaptation of TCCC in your agency, you are behind the curve. That will be a bad place to be when your community comes under attack."

This group of so-called 'experts' I call them DHS paid advocates, say that EMS, fire, and rescue response must be more fully integrated and their traditional role limitations revised.

In other words become more like the military.

According to the DHS First Responder guide:

"Concerned international and national first responder associations, such as the International Association of Chiefs of Police, International Association of Fire Fighters, International Association of Fire Chiefs, National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians, and the National Tactical Officers Associations, have shown great interest in this topic."

"The United States Fire Administration (USFA) advocates that EMS, fire, and law enforcement personnel quickly establish unified command at scenes of IED and active shooter incidents."

"The protocols and procedures should also address non-traditional roles of EMS and fire personnel.' 

"These roles include the use of properly trained, armored (not armed) medical personnel who are accompanied by law enforcement into areas of mitigated risk ('warm zones'). 

"The National Tactical Officers Association (NTOA) states that there is a need for all police officers to have basic Tactical Emergency Medical Support (TEMS) medical training in order to potentially save the lives of victims, bystanders, police officers, and suspects in the event they are wounded." 

Suspects being wounded? Is that a joke we all know what happens to suspects in America and itdoesn't involve being wounded.

The NTOA reaches approx.40,000 cops and claims their magazine "The Tactical Edge" has a 10,000 circulation but reaches every officer. How many firefighters and EMS are reading this crap?

"

Tactical Emergency Medical Support

" (TEMS) trains every cop, firefighter and EMS personnel to think, look and act like a soldier!

Below is a couple of pictures of "Tactical Medical Support (TEMS) Teams", THIS is the future of America's EMS & firefighters:

The TEMS 

presentation

 looks like they're training a navy SEAL team!

NTOA "supports the efforts of the

 Committee for Tactical Emergency Casualty Care

 (C-TECC) and others to foster the development of standardized taxonomy and evidence based clinical practice guidelines tailored to the law enforcement mission."  

"First responders should develop inter-domain (EMS, fire, and law enforcement) TTPs—including use of ballistic vests, better situational awareness, and application of concealment and cover concepts— and train first responders on proper use of the TTPs." "The incorporation of ballistic vests and the concepts of concealment and cover into the EMS and fire professions, when active shooter threats and situations warrant, will better protect first responders."

A '

warm zone

', is defined as an area of indirect threat that has been swept by law enforcement and cleared of any immediate threats.

There are various models and approaches for introducing EMS and fire personnel into 'warm zones', including the 

Rescue Task Force

 (RTF) model. Which was started by the U.S. marines yet another combat program making its way into firefighting and EMS.

DHS now controls EVERY cop, firefighter and EMS responder in America!

Why is DHS is using combat jargon and techniques like 'warm zones' to train first responders? Is it for civil unrest?

According to DHS's "

First Responder Guide

" DHS controls much, much more than previously thought:

- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

- National Security Staff, Legal Affairs Directorate  

- Office of Personnel Management 

- U.S. Agency for International Development 

- U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, National Institutes of Health 

- U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Office of the General Counsel 

- U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Food and Drug Administration

- U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

- U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response 

- U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of the General Counsel 

- U.S. Department of Defense 

- U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs 

- U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Division 

- U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation 

- U.S. Department of Justice, National Security Division

- U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Foreign Litigation

- U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety & Health Administration

- U.S. Department of State

- U.S. Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Office of Emergency Medical Services 

- U.S. Department of Transportation, Office of the Under Secretary for Policy
- U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Health Administration Office of Emergency Management