13-03-12 US: ‘They really are, seriously, walking around, shooting little kids.’

Think Progress / By Judd Legum

 133 COMMENTS

Cops Shoot and Kill 16-Year-Old Kid in New York City

An eyewitness says he was “running for his life” when he was shot dead.

March 11, 2013  |  

 

On Saturday night, two undercover police officers shot and killed 16-year-old Kimani Gray. According to the police account, the officers approached Gray when he “ adjusted his waistband in what the police describe as a suspicious manner.” When the police asked him to “show his hands,” they claim Gray turned around and pointed a gun at the officers, who fired 11 rounds. The weapon police say belonged to Gray was not fired.

Although there is no confirmed evidence of wrongdoing by the officers, whose names have not be released, several witnesses cast doubts on the official version of the incident:

1. Eyewitness says Gray was “running for his life” when he was shot dead. “‘He was running for his life, telling the cops, ‘Stop,’ said witness Camille Johnson. ‘They really are, seriously, walking around, shooting little kids.’” [Pix11,  3/10/13]

2. Eyewitness says Gray was adjusting his belt, not shooting his gun, when the shooting began. “Mr. Gray’s sister, Mahnefah Gray, 19, said that a witness to the shooting told her that her brother had been fixing his belt when he was shot.” [New York Times,  3/10/13]

3. Eyewitness says, after he was shot, Gray said “please don’t let me die.” One of the officers responded “Stay down or, we’ll shoot you again.” [New York Times,  3/10/13]

4. Friends says “Kimani had just returned from a baby shower, and was shot only minutes after he was dropped off on East 52nd Street.” [NY1,  3/10/13]

5. Gray’s sister and others say he did not own a gun. “Mr. Gray’s sister, Mahnefah Gray, 19, said that a witness to the shooting told her that her brother had been fixing his belt when he was shot. She, among others who knew Mr. Gray, said they had never known him to have a gun.” Gray’s cousin, Malik Vernon, also “insisted he didn’t own a gun.” [New York Times,  3/10/13; New York Post,  3/11/13]

NY1 does quote an anonymous source saying Gray was “ holding the gun for a friend.” The police were quick to note that Gray had “ four prior arrests.”

13-03-11 Obama's "mission accomplished" - "Iron Dome" photo op

This is not bad enough to rival Bush II "Mission Accomplished" photo op.  But this is still a strange choice for a photo op, a week after publication of the news that the propaganda story of the exceptional success of the US-Israeli co-production "Iron Dome" is most likely a hoax.  As they said of Reagan's and Bush II's equivalents - it still was worth it for the psychological effect... a nice way to describe very costly psych operations on your own civilian authorities and citizens... jz

_________________

Obama to visit Church of Nativity, Iron Dome to be moved to airport for photo-op

Some 50 people, including diplomats, security personnel and White House Representatives, meet top-ranking Israeli officials to prep for U.S. president's visit, which starts March 20.

By Barak Ravid |Mar 11, 2013 |03:01 PM

13-03-11 Israel: Escalating Jewish on Arab civilian violence

Netanyahu’s Violent Fingerprint

The fruits of Netanyahu's policies are now on parade; The recent wave of attacks on Arabs are directly related to the devastating impact of his tenure.

By Gideon Levy 
March 10, 2013 "Information Clearing House" - "Haaretz" - Benjamin Netanyahu’s children attacked an Arab cleaning man on the seaside promenade in Tel Aviv and caused him serious injuries. They attacked an Arab waiter in a Tel Aviv restaurant with chairs and their fists. They attacked an Arab from Upper Nazareth at the shore of Lake Kinneret because they heard him speaking Arabic. Netanyahu’s children waved hate-filled signs against Muslim players of the Beitar Jerusalem soccer team and set fire to its clubhouse. Netanyahu’s children attacked an Arab woman on a Jerusalem light rail train just because she was an Arab.

All these events took place in Israel within a few days. The attackers were of course not the prime minister’s biological children, but they all were the creation of his spirit, students of his views and pupils of his government’s policies. These Israeli skinheads are the fruits of the nationalistic and racist atmosphere that has grown greatly in recent years, the Netanyahu years.
READ MORE:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article34240.htm

13-03-13 The Supreme Leader is permitted to kill his subjects at will

It's medieval, no other way to describe it.  The supreme leader claims the right to kill his subjects at will, with no due process, but magnanimously promises to avoid using on them weapons that may inflict too many collateral damages. jz

___________

By Stephen Lendman

March 09, 2013 "Information Clearing House" - Chalmers Johnson called the CIA the president's private army. Imperial Rome had its praetorian guard. It served and protected emperors. 

CIA rogues work the same way. They do lots more than that. Extrajudicial killing is prioritized. Much that goes on is secret. Unaccountability keeps Congress and ordinary people uninformed.

Johnson said US presidents have "untrammeled control of the CIA." It's "probably (their) single most extraordinary power."

It puts them beyond checks and balances. What's constitutionally mandated doesn't exist.

CIA originally had five missions. Four dealt with collection, coordination and dissemination of intelligence.

The fifth is vague. It lets agency operatives "perform such other functions and duties related to intelligence affecting the national security as the National Security Council may direct."

This mandate turned "CIA into the personal, secret, unaccountable army of the president." Doing so prioritizes lawless covert operations.

They include overthrowing democratically elected governments, assassinating heads of state and key officials, propping up friendly despots, snatching individuals for "extraordinary rendition," treating them harshly in torture prisons, and using drones as instruments of state terror.

CIA is more active than ever, said Johnson. It's mostly a global Mafia hit squad. It's incompatible with democracy.

Its "bag of dirty tricks (reflects) a defining characteristic of the imperial presidency."

Its "unchecked power" threatens freedom. Its existence "shorten(s) the life of the American republic." It "menace(s) democratic rule."

On March 8, rogue senators approved John Brennan. They did so 63 - 34. He's new CIA chief. Voting followed Rand Paul's filibuster. After 13 hours, he caved.

He omitted explaining what's most important. He refused to condemn drone killing. He ignored Brennan's previous and current role. He focused solely on killing Americans. He stressed doing it domestically.

He took issue with Attorney General Eric Holder. He wrote Paul. He said it's OK to kill Americans domestically under "extraordinary" circumstances.

A brief follow-up letter assuaged Paul, saying:

"It has come to my attention that you have now asked an additional question: 'Does the President have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil?' "

"The answer to that question is no."

He lied. So did Press Secretary Jay Carney. He said Obama "has not and would not use drone strikes against American citizens on American soil."

Targeted assassinations reflect official US policy. They're longstanding. They occur worldwide. No one's safe anywhere. Heads of state are vulnerable. So are US citizens.

A bathroom break ended Paul's filibuster. Serial killer Brennan now heads CIA. He's Obama's maestro of murder. His mandate is kill, kill, kill. Expect him to take full advantage. No one's safe anywhere.

In January, the New York Daily News headlined "Pull back the curtain on drones," saying:

"Brennan, more than any other single official, represents" Washington's lethal drone policy.

"No politically appointed official in US history has played such a prominent role in killing so many people outside of a war zone as John Brennan."

He was heavily involved in Bush/Cheney's torture policy. A classified Senate Intelligence Committee report includes lawless interrogation practices.

Committee chairwoman Diane Feinstein (D. CA) called it "one of the most significant oversight efforts in the history of the United States Senate, and by far the most important oversight activity ever conducted by this committee."

"The report uncovers startling details about the CIA detention and interrogation program and raises critical questions about intelligence operations and oversight."

"I….believe this report will settle the debate once and for all over whether our nation should ever employ coercive interrogation techniques such as those detailed in this report."

She added that creating "longterm, clandestine 'black sites' and (using) 'enhanced-interrogation techniques' were terrible mistakes."

Neither she nor other congressional members do anything to stop them. They continue aggressively under Obama. Feinstein knows but won't say.

Straightaway in office, Obama planned to name Brennan CIA head. At the time, The New York Times called it "politically difficult" to do so.

He chose Leon Panetta and David Petraeus instead. Michael Morell twice served as acting head. On March 8,  Brennan took office.

Most Democrats support him. So do some Republicans. Congressional profiles in courage are few and far between. They're practically non-existent. 

Obama said "the the Senate has recognized in John the qualities I value so much - his determination to keep America safe, his commitment to working with Congress, his ability to build relationships with foreign partners, and his fidelity to the values that define us as a nation."

He added that CIA's now headed by one of its own. Under Brennan, Murder, Inc. elevates to a higher level. He reflects ideological extremism. He's comfortable committing state terror.

Appointing him sanitizes crimes of war and against humanity. They're too grave to ignore. Committing them is official US policy.

Expect drone wars to continue. They'll expand worldwide. So will targeted assassinations. 

Rule of law principles don't matter. Imperial priorities take precedence. Counterterrorism takes no prisoners. 

State-sponsored terror's in good hands with John Brennan. Obama authorized him to kill.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book is titled "Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity." http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html - Visit his blog site at www.sjlendman.blogspot.com . 

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour

13-03-11 Left, right, and center - unprecedented corruption of the US government system and the political class

In the political class judges are of course included as "honorables"... But the article below also points out some of the historically unprecedented aspects and magnitude of the corruption. JZ

_____________________________

Iraq May Be Broken, But It Is Our Political Class That Is Bankrupted

Virtually nothing has been learned, and now history is repeating itself

By George Galloway

March 10, 2013 "Information Clearing House" - "The Independent" --   The finest of all journalists in the English-speaking world, Claud Cockburn, said:

“Believe nothing until it has been officially denied.” This basic rubric of the trade was all but abandoned a decade ago in the run-up to the war on Iraq, when every official claim was assumed to be true and those who denied it were treated as bad, or even mad. One honourable exception was Cockburn’s son, Patrick, in The Independent, an exception continued in his magisterial look back in anger in this newspaper over the past week. If journalism is history’s first draft, then Patrick Cockburn’s work on Iraq will prove to be close to the finished article.

I mention this not just because I remain bitter at the role of the fourth estate in helping to bring about such slaughter and, a decade later, such ongoing misery in Iraq. But because virtually nothing has been learned, and history is repeating itself over and over again – in Libya, Mali, Syria.

Bob Dylan said in “Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again” that “you have to pay to get out of, going through all this twice...”. For the most part, the bill continues to be paid by others, and elsewhere. For now.

Even for someone with my experience, such militarised mendacity can still take the breath away. How many times did you read and listen in the past few days to pontificating pundits tell you that Hugo Chavez had “wrecked” the Venezuelan economy, without a whiff of self-consciousness about the state of our own and that of the United States? That Chavez’s Venezuela was a “divided” society; as if Bush, Obama, Cameron, and Osborne led governments of national unity?

To briefly recap; a huge right-wing conspiracy was mounted 10 years ago to manufacture a case to wage aggressive war (pace Nuremberg, the “ultimate crime”) upon Iraq. It involved government ministers (some still swilling around profitably in the detritus they created); intelligence agencies and the spin doctors controlling them; craven parliamentarians scarcely worthy of the name; and a veritable army of scribblers, autocue readers, laptop bombardiers and think-tankers.

Add a sprinkling of useful idiots calling themselves “liberals”, and the blue touchpaper was lit. A million died, thousands of them British and American. Millions spread as refugees around the world. A country was dismembered, never to be reassembled. Extremism cascaded around the world, blowing itself up even aboard London buses.

The whole “humanitarian” show is best remembered in the pictures from Abu Ghraib. A female American soldier, cigarette dangling from her curling lip, leading a hooded naked Iraqi prisoner like a dog on a chain. Piling naked helpless Iraqi prisoners on top of each other and forcing them to commit indecent acts, videoing it all for the entertainment of the barracks later. Those tempted to imagine this was American exceptionalism should read the proceedings of the London court this week where, inter alia, we learned of the Iraqi corpse who may or may not have walked into British custody alive, but who surely was handed back to his family minus his penis. It doesn’t get much uglier than this, especially when it’s all dressed up in the livery of liberal “intervention”.

Millions of us knew that it would end this way, even before it became clear that the entire conspiracy was built on the tower – bigger than Babel – of lies around “weapons of mass destruction”. There were none. But the weapons of mass deception deployed by the conspirators remain in fine fettle. And none of them has even been properly inspected yet. No one has been held to account; not a single head has rolled. Except those of a million Iraqis.

When the Chilcot Inquiry was announced, I denounced it in Parliament as a parade of establishment duffers, two of whom at least had been among the intellectual authors of the disaster, one of whom had described Bush and Blair as the Roosevelt and Churchill de nos jours. I pointed out that there was not a single legal personality on the Inquiry, or a soldier. And not a Douglas Hurd or a Menzies Campbell among them either. That no one could be summoned, nor their papers either. That no one would be testifying under oath. That must have been three years ago now. Little did I know that the Chilcot report would be as slow in coming as the judgement day.

Iraq is broken now, and as Cockburn’s recent reports show, Iraqi hearts haven’t mended either. It was a disaster, the greatest British policy failure since the First World War.

But for as long as its lessons are not learned, the Iraqis will not be the last such victims. The Iraq war bankrupted the British and American political class. They no longer speak for the people they claim to represent. Few believe any longer anything they say. Long before Leveson summed up the venality of much of the media – the echo chamber of that class – the people were abandoning that media in droves. Like our other institutions – the banks and the police, to name but two – their credibility stands in ruins. Devastated even more starkly than were Fallujah, Amariyah and Baghdad.

Saddam’s presidential palaces turned out to be bare, but not as bereft as the democratic political leaders who propelled him to the gallows. The trap door has opened for them. And they are still falling.

George Galloway is the Respect MP for Bradford West

Twitter: @georgegalloway

13-03-11 Los Angeles - rampant corruption in the DA office and the US court

Exclusive Report: Court Docs Forged         March 11, 2013      Ex-Prosecutor Exposes Judicial Conflict, Evidence Fabrication In Court Documents & More  Steven J. Ipsen Former Los Angeles County Prosecutor Exclusive Report Here Los Angeles, CA.    On February 19, 2013 an Emergency Petition for Writ of Mandamus was filed with the  9th Circuit Court of Appeals by former L A County Prosecutor Steven J. Ipsen  Exhibit 1 to the Writ describes the case.    On March 7, 2013 Chief Judge Alex Kozinski  of the 9th Circuit and the US District Court Central District of California received an additionalEmergency Application to Vacate the Court’s Orders in the same case. Case about Civil Rights of Prosecutors Who Were Fighting Corruption within L A County Government   The original lawsuit outlines how Deputy DA Prosecutors  had been discriminated and retaliated against by their employer,  Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley, in the case first known as One Unnamed Deputy District Attorney , et al. v County of Los Angeles, DA Steve Cooley, et.al. (CV 09-7931 )

13-03-10 Now it's official - Banks Are Above the Law

Finally, we have it loud and clear - the banks are above the law.  The evidence that large US banks operate as crime organizations has been abundant for some years now.  In recent years it also became apparent that the US justice system, state and US courts patronized such system.

But now its official.  Effectively, Eric Holder announced indemnity for both past and future criminality by banks.This brings up the question, why bother to call banking executives to testify before congress?  If they lie, they would not be prosecuted anyway... jz

Banking executives appearing before congress.
_________________________
Economy Blog for Our Future /
By Robert Borosage

Outrage: Some Banks Are Too Big to Prosecute


Attorney General Eric Holder admits that the biggest banks are not just too big too fail, but above the law.



Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com

March 7, 2013

For years, the Obama Administration has been pummeled for failing to bring criminal charges against a single major Wall Street bank or a single leading Wall Street banker for what the FBI termed an “epidemic of fraud” that blew up the entire economy. Investigations revealed the banks committed routine fraud in peddling mortgage securities they knew were garbage, trampled basic property laws, laundered money from Iran, Libya and Mexican drug lords, conspired to game the basic measure of interest rates and more. Yet, time after time, the Justice Department and regulatory agencies settled for sweetheart deals, with no admission of guilt, no banker held accountable, and fines that were the equivalent in earnings of a speeding ticket to the average family.

Yesterday Attorney General Holder stated openly what was already apparent. The Justice Department believes that Too Big to Fail Banks are Too Big to Jail. Criminal indictments against banks or leading bankers might endanger the economy and thus were too big a risk.

Here’s what Holder said:
“I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy,” he said. “And I think that is a function of the fact that some of these institutions have become too large.”

READ MORE:
http://www.alternet.org/outrage-some-banks-are-too-big-prosecute?akid=10154.1117888.WidAoL&rd=1&src=newsletter805801&t=3

13-03-10 The culture of lying - military style...

  

Patriot missile system                               Iron Dome missile system

Public images of this type were used in experts analysis            

In recent decades, some of the largest hoaxes are in the development of military systems, reporting their efficacy, and their pricing.

The current example, below, is from Israel.  The Iron Dome system was developed at great cost by Israel, with substantial US support.  Its main effect so far has been to placate the public, regarding potential war with Iran, through misconception of some protection from anticipated retaliatory barrage of missiles from Gaza, Lebanon, or elsewhere...

Similar conclusions were drawn after the First Gulf War (1990--1), regarding performance of the anti-ballistic Patriot missile system.  The Patriot missiles were reported by the US military exceptional, but analysts from MIT found it to be close to zero.  At the time Pentagon tried to pressure the President of MIT to suppress the publication of the paper (I think it was published in Nature or Science, top, refereed science journals).  All sources were public records (TV clips of the purported hits, released by the military).  Pentagon claimed that through analysis of public records, the scientists derived data that was classified and harmful to national security, if released. MIT refused to yield, and it won an ovation in the editorial for that stand.  

I wonder what would have happened today in the US under the same circumstances...

Haaretz

How many rockets has Iron Dome really intercepted?

While IDF figures put the Iron Dome missile defense system's success rate at 84 percent, three scientists claim the real figure could be much lower than that.
"Iron Dome’s intercept rate, defined as destruction of the rocket's warhead, was relatively low, perhaps as low as 5%, but could well be lower."

READ MORE:
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/how-many-rockets-has-iron-dome-really-intercepted.premium-1.508277

Opposing opinion:

Where have all the Gaza rockets gone?

If only 10 percent of the rockets fired from Gaza were intercepted by the Iron Dome system, where did the nearly 430 rockets that apparently fell nowhere vanish?

READ MORE:

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/where-have-all-the-gaza-rockets-gone.premium-1.510341

__________
Here is how Wikipedia, a US government organ, summarized the story, pertaining to the Patriot missile system, under "Theodore Postol":

Theodore A. Postol (born 1946) is a professor of Science, Technology, and International Security at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

...

Patriot missiles in Operation Desert Storm

Main article: Patriot missile success rate

The Patriot Missile was used in Operation Desert Storm to intercept descent-phase SCUD missiles fired by Iraq. The U.S. Army claimed a success rate of 80% in Saudi Arabia and 50% in Israel, claims that were later reduced to 70% and 40%. But President George H. W. Bush claimed a success rate of more than 97 percent during a speech at Raytheon's Patriot manufacturing plant in Andover, Massachusetts during the Gulf War, declaring, the "Patriot is 41 for 42: 42 Scuds engaged, 41 intercepted!"^[1]

In April 1992, Postol told a House committee that "the Patriot's intercept rate during the Gulf War was very low. The evidence from these preliminary studies indicates that Patriot's intercept rate could be much lower than 10 percent, possibly even zero."^[2]

The House Government Operations Subcommittee on Legislation and National Security later reported,

The Patriot missile system was not the spectacular success in the Persian Gulf War that the American public was led to believe. There is little evidence to prove that the Patriot hit more than a few Scud missiles launched by Iraq during the Gulf War, and there are some doubts about even these engagements. The public and the Congress were misled by definitive statements of success issued by administration and Raytheon representatives during and after the war.^[3]

Postol later went on to criticize the Army's "independent" Analysis of Video Tapes to Assess Patriot Effectiveness as being "seriously compromised" by the "selective" and "arbitrary" use of data.^[4] The Army ultimately downgraded its assessment of the systems' effectiveness.

__________

Some of the largest hoaxes of this type took place under Presidents Regan and Bush II. I would have to take the time to find the references

13-03-07 US: Status note

"America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards."

- Claire Wolfe, 101 Things to Do 'Til the Revolution (1999) !!!