Another Terror Plot Foiled by the FBI

By the FBI who set up the dumb bastard in the first place.

A man who thought he had explosives for an attack has been arrested near the US Capitol as part of anti-terrorism investigation, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI said in a statement on Friday that the arrest was "in connection with a terrorism investigation". It said: "Explosives the suspect allegedly sought to use in connection with the plot had been rendered inoperable by law enforcement and posed no threat to the public."

[...]

Fox News reported that the suspect was of Moroccan descent and had expressed interest in an attack on the Capitol to undercover FBI agents.

The agents posing as al-Qaeda members had provided him with fake explosives that they claim he intended to set off at the Capitol.

  alJazeera

This is how they roll. Set 'em up and knock 'em down. We'll never know how many attempts there might actually be if the FBI weren't out there enticing and entrapping.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Do You Still Think Your Votes Actually Decide Anything?

In the town of Belfast, the seat of Maine’s coastside Waldo county, the caucus resulted in a Ron Paul victory, but when the caucus chairman called the state party to report the results, he was told they already had the vote totals – which showed Romney had won. The caucus chair was puzzled, since he was the designated reporter, and no one else. He was told "Oh, I’ll be sure those numbers are changed." The numbers, however, have not changed. Indeed, all but one of the precincts in Waldo county have the same official tally: zero. According to the participants, Paul swept those precincts: the party establishment’s solution to this "problem" was to simply disappear those voters.

The town of Waterville, in Kennebec county, where over 15,000 registered voters reside, also saw its voters disappeared. Of course we all know it’s sheer coincidence Paul carried that precinct, 21-5, according to the Kennebec GOP.

[...]

Paul’s second place showing in Minnesota set the stage for an upset the GOP establishment could ill afford at that point, and so they took measures to make sure it didn’t happen. 

  Justin Raimondo

OK, how about now?

In Syria

Arabic satellite channels as well as Facebook allow exiled Syrian opposition figures to observe the slogans of demonstrators on the ground so that they can in effect be led by the opposition on the street and reflect their views to the rest of the world. As a result it is safe to say that of the opposition activists and organisers on the ground (those who demonstrate, fight or provide aid to activists), nearly all back the Syrian National Council (SNC) as their representative to the outside world. At this point the SNC has been virtually recognised by outside countries as their main interlocutor with the Syrian opposition - despite the fact that the SNC is torn by divisions, jealousies and suspicion and is under the influence of many different countries. In my view, it is not sufficiently connected to local leaders inside Syria. It has not done enough to assuage the fears of minorities, to offer a plausible post-regime future or to come up with a strategy for removing the regime. But its position more or less reflects the views on the "street".

[...]

Until now there is no direct foreign state assistance to the opposition inside Syria or the Syrian insurgency commonly called the Free Syrian Army. Insurgents purchase their weapons locally from arms dealers and smugglers.

However, there is foreign assistance to the Syrian National Council, which is based in Turkey.

A lot of money to the opposition inside Syria is coming in from Syrians living outside. Some of those are in the SNC and some of those may receive financial assistance from some countries, but most of the money comes from Syrians.

  Nir Rosen for alJazeera

And our influence in the SNC will undoubtedly eventually be backed by the most money and therefore win the day.

Most opposition activists, fighters and supporters on the ground in Syria are in favour of some form of foreign military intervention. The older intellectual opposition figures who are well-known but not significant in this uprising are opposed to foreign intervention.

Surprisingly, the mainstream Syrian opposition on the ground looks to the West for help. This is despite decades of anti-Western attitudes and anger over issues such as Palestine and the American invasion of Iraq. And despite evidence of how disastrous the American intervention in Iraq was and the mixed reviews the NATO intervention in Libya has received. 

If you look at it in terms of the need for money to run the revolution, it takes some of the surprise out of it.

But the Syrian opposition associates notions of resistance and anti-imperialism with the Assad regime and therefore the causes themselves have been discredited and their enemy has been reduced to the regime and the daily struggle for survival.

That, too.

One example is an opposition military commander in Douma who is an Islamist and a former sheikh. "You and your friends supported jihad against America in Iraq, didn't you?" I asked him. "Of course," he said. "And now you want American help in your struggle against the regime?," I asked. "Of course," he answered, "There is a difference between an aggression and occupation and helping an oppressed country."

A very fine distinction in our country, and one we hope not to accentuate. But this can only be to the monetary advantage of the Syrian rebels.

Read this post and another which gives basics and background from Nir Rosen as he reported from two months amongst the demonstrators in Syria to understand what's going on there.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Politics Is Politics

At any level, apparently.

I was talking to the library director yesterday, who said he had been in municipal government for 18 years.

"It's just awful.  You wouldn't believe it.  The public has no idea that those people are not interested in doing what's good for the people.  It's all about favors."

Well, I guess that's where many of the Washington crowd gets their start.

I already knew that at least at the state level it was the same game from an experience I had while in college when I met with a professor of mine and the aide to a state rep who came to pick up a proposal we had prepared - for what now I cannot remember - hoping to get it before the legislature.  She arrived dressed to the nines and talked about the flower arrangements for a banquet the legislators were having and which the professor was having donated from the horticulture department - something he didn't tell me before the meeting.  Not a word about the proposal was mentioned, and in fact, when she got up to leave, she left it laying on the table.  I picked it up and waggled it in her face.  "Would you like to take this with you?"  I snarled.  I got chewed out by the professor afterward.

The library director said he won't even so much as watch a municipal meeting on the local TV channel any more.  And not only because they're so goddamned boring.

Me neither. 

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The Swiss Are a Tidy People

Scientists at the Swiss space centre at EPFL, the federal institute for technology in Lausanne, want to send a "janitor satellite" into orbit, to sweep up debris and permanently remove it from orbit.

  UK Guardian

Get on it!

I wonder where they plan on putting it.

CleanSpace One would match its trajectory to that of its target using an EPFL-designed ultra-compact motor. When it reaches its target, it will grab the junk with a gripping claw. At speeds of up to 18,000mph, this will not be an easy task, especially if the junk is rotating. CleanSpace One will then head back to Earth and burn up in the atmosphere, along with its attached junk.

Surely not one piece of junk per grab? That could get seriously expensive. I'm pretty sure the US will not contribute.

"We want to offer and sell a whole family of readymade systems, designed as sustainably as possible, that are able to de-orbit several different kinds of satellites," said Volker Gass, the Swiss space centre's director, in a statement on the EPFL website.

I'm telling you, the US will not be buying.

"Space agencies are increasingly finding it necessary to take into consideration and prepare for the elimination of the stuff they're sending into space. We want to be the pioneers in this area."

Okay, I get it. When it gets to be more expensive to dodge the shit than to clean it up, there'll be buyers. But, we'll probably be thinking about building our own cleaners by then.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Enemy of the State

Or...Surpassing George W - Part Whatever.

“The government does not pursue every leak,” said Mark Corallo, who served as the Justice Department’s spokesman in Mr. Bush’s administration. “On balance, it is more important that the media have the ability to report. It’s important to our democracy.”

That does not seem to be the view of the Obama administration, which has brought more prosecutions against current or former government officials for providing classified information to the media than every previous administration combined.

[...]

MR. ASHCROFT authorized a single subpoena for reporters’ testimony or records in his four years in office, Mr. Corallo said. He would not say so, but that subpoena was probably the one that troubled Judge Sack in 2006. The reporters lost. In a dissent, Judge Sack said he feared for the future.

[...]

Consider the most recent prosecution, of John C. Kiriakou, a former C.I.A. agent who is said to have disclosed classified information to journalists in 2008 about the capture and interrogation of an operative of Al Qaeda.

[...]

The criminal complaint in the case says it is based largely on “e-mails recovered from search warrants served on two e-mail accounts associated with Kiriakou.”

Mr. Aftergood said the complaint provided both vivid glimpses of interactions between reporters and sources and proof of a new era in surveillance.

“The Kiriakou complaint is astonishing,” he said, “because you see the government delving into the innards of the news production process.”

[...]

In a second case, against Jeffrey A. Sterling, a former C.I.A. officer accused of providing classified information to another Times reporter, James Risen, for a 2006 book, the government has been more aggressive, insisting that Mr. Risen must testify.

[...]

Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, [...] described a conference in June organized by the Aspen Institute that brought together lawyers, journalists and intelligence officials to talk about government secrecy. The ground rules, she said, were that the identities of those involved were to be kept confidential, but what was said could be reported.

“I was told in a rather cocky manner” by a national security representative [...]: “We don’t need to ask who you’re talking to. We know.”

The solution for reporters, Ms. Dalglish said, is to adopt Mr. Woodward’s methods from the 1970s. “For God’s sake, get off of e-mail,” she said. “Get off of your cellphone. Watch your credit cards. Watch your plane tickets. These guys in the N.S.A. know everything.”

Mr. Corallo, the former Justice Department spokesman, provided corresponding advice to government officials. “Don’t be stupid and use e-mail,” he said. “You have to meet a reporter face to face, hand him an envelope and walk away quickly.”

  NYT

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Deranged

According to news reports Obama’s White House meeting on Valentine’s day with China’s Vice President, Xi Jinping, provided an opportunity for Obama to raise “a sensitive human rights issue with the Chinese leader-in-waiting.” The brave and forthright Obama didn’t let etiquette or decorum get in his way. Afterwards, Obama declared that Washington would “continue to emphasize what we believe is the importance of realizing the aspirations and rights of all people.”

Think about that for a minute. Washington is now in the second decade of murdering Muslim men, women, and children in six countries. Washington is so concerned with human rights that it drops bombs on schools, hospitals, weddings and funerals, all in order to uphold the human rights of Muslim people.

[...]

One hundred thousand, or one million, dead Iraqis, four million displaced Iraqis, a country with destroyed infrastructure, and entire cities, such as Fallujah, bombed and burnt with white phosphorus into cinders is the proper way to show concern for human rights.

Ditto for Afghanistan. And Libya.

In Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia Washington’s drones bring human rights to the people.

Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and secret CIA prison sites are other places to which Washington brings human rights.

[...]

How many people has China bombed, droned, and sanctioned into non-existence in the 21st century? How many people has China bombed, droned, and sanctioned into non-existence in the 21st century?

[...]

Washington’s concern with human rights does not extend as far as airport security where little girls and grandmothers are sexually groped. Antiwar activists have their homes invaded, their personal possessions carried off, and a grand jury is summoned to frame them up on some terrorist charge. US soldier Bradley Manning is held for two years in violation of the US Constitution while the human rights government concocts fabricated charges to punish him for revealing a US war crime. WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange is harassed endlessly with the goal of bringing him into the human rights clutches of Washington. Critics of Washington’s inhumane policies are monitored and spied upon.

[...]

How is the world so deranged that Washington can murder innocents for years on end and still profess to be the world’s defender of human rights?

  Paul Craig Roberts

I'm not so sure that indicates WORLD derangement. (Not that I don't think the world is deranged.)

The Definition of Insanity

I used to find somewhat baffling this bizarre aspect of American public opinion: time and again, Americans support whatever new war of aggression their government proposes, then come to regret that support and decide the war was a “mistake,” only to demonstrate that they learned no lessons from their “mistake” by eagerly supporting whatever the next proposed war is. Thus did the widespread belief that Vietnam was a “mistake” have no impact on their support for the attack on Iraq, and now — with some polls showing Americans, before their government even proposes it, preliminarily willing to cheer on an attack on Iran — it is clear they have learned nothing from their acknowledged “mistake” in supporting the attack on Iraq. Most Americans continue with this strange mindset: we realize we were wrong to support those past wars you gave us, but we stand ready and eager to support this next one!

[...]

The only thing unusual here is that, with Iran, the American media actually seems out in front of the U.S. Government in the propaganda effort rather than in their normal position of submissively marching behind.

  Glenn Greenwald

They got tired of being number 2, or they're vying for the position of teacher's pet.

Read the whole article for all the latest in the Iran hysteria, the upshot of which is that we (US of Israel) constantly rattle our sabers over Iran while imposing harsh sanctions on its people and then crow about the possibility of an Iranian response to our actions, which would then of course require us to (oh so reluctantly and after much “diplomacy”) go to war against them.

And for more of the same, Justin Raimondo has a post up about an Armed Forces Journal article by Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis (Truth, lies and Afghanistan: How military leaders have let us down ) debunking the Pentagon's lies and laying much of the blame on the US media's embeddedness with the US military. I'm assuming Davis is retiring.

If Americans were able to compare the public statements many of our leaders have made with classified data, this credibility gulf would be immediately observable. Naturally, I am not authorized to divulge classified material to the public. But I am legally able to share it with members of Congress. I have accordingly provided a much fuller accounting in a classified report to several members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, senators and House members.

And good luck with THAT.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Fire Liz Trotta

Fox News commentator Liz Trotta. And shun her as well.

“Defense Secretary Leon Panetta commented on a new Pentagon report on sexual abuse in the military,” Trotta added. “I think they have actually discovered there is a difference between men and women. And the sexual abuse report says that there has been, since 2006, a 64% increase in violent sexual assaults. Now, what did they expect? These people are in close contact, the whole airing of this issue has never been done by Congress, it’s strictly been a question of pressure from the feminists.”

She then noted that the budget of the Defense Department’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office increased from $5 million in 2005 to more than $23 million in 2010.

“So, you have this whole bureaucracy upon bureaucracy being built up with all kinds of levels of people to support women in the military who are now being raped too much,” Trotta remarked.

  Raw Story

Raped “too much.”

What did they expect? What did they expect?!

Despicable woman.

More Funding for the Department of Regime Change

US President Barack Obama’s administration on Monday requested a fund of nearly $800 million to boost political and other reforms in Arab countries undergoing pro-democracy revolutions.

The new fund is part of $51.6 billion requested for the State Department and US Agency for International Development in 2013, which amounts to around 1.4 percent of the government’s entire budget, the State Department said.

  Raw Story

You remember the US AID program.