no illusions

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the butcher of bangkok checks the papers of his new recruit

Three years after bloody crack-down: No illusions in Yingluk or Pua Thai

Anyone who cares to open their eyes to see, will understand that Yingluk, Taksin and Pua Thai have made a deal with the military ever since the Pua Thai election victory in 2011. Taksin has stated in the past that he has “no dispute” with the military and his opponents are merely Abhisit’s Democrat Party …

So in their arrogance they believe that whatever they do, Red Shirts will follow like naïve lambs. They can step on the bodies of the Red Shirts and spit in the faces of those who elected the government by ignoring the need for justice, democratic rights and equality and no one will object.

Certainly the reactionary Red Shirts, like those in Chieng-Mai who hate gays and protests by the poor, or those who call the southern Malay Muslim rebels “mere criminals”, will carry on cheering this government.

But there are progressive Red Shirts who need to become more organised and coordinated so that we don’t have to commemorate future anniversaries of blood baths while nothing is done to create justice in society.

Analysis and exhortation from Giles Ji Ungpakorn, driven from Thailand by the KKK – the Koup’s Kangaroo Kourt – more than four years ago but, like his father and unlike Thaksin, not likely ever to cut a deal himself that would allow him to return to Thailand in ‘peaceful co-existence’ with the treasonous mutineers and murderers of the Royal Thai Army.

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the last one dies in prison

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The last of the three brutes who formed Argentina’s
most brutal junta has died in prison

Videla Dies in Prison – a Victory Against Impunity

Videla’s death in prison “is a very important symbolic development,” Víctor Abramovich, executive secretary of the Institute of Public Policies on Human Rights of South America’s Mercosur (Southern Common Market) trade bloc, told IPS.

“Ten years ago this was unthinkable. Today it is the result of a process of regional scope, a process that is moving forward at different speeds, under different laws, but is generating very interesting debates throughout Latin America,” said the representative of the bloc made up of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela.

Abramovich, a former vice president of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, said the fact that the former dictator died in a common jail “reaffirms the principle of equality before the law.”

“This process, which is moving ahead at varying rates, is occurring in Chile, Brazil, Peru, Colombia and Uruguay, as well as Guatemala, where (former dictator José Efraín) Ríos Montt was sentenced to 80 years in prison (on May 10),” he said.

May Thailand become the state that takes a major stride forward in bringing its treasonous mutineers to trial, and may Thailand become a model for Southeast Asia and the region.

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สนามเหลือง หรือ สนามหลวง
the yellow lawn or the great lawn

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Chaiwat Sinsuwong exhorts his yellow-fellow stragglers
to go through the motions

PPT links to an article on the Bangkok ‘elite’ nd their Yellow Shirted rearguard action, or that of their paid substitutes, attempting Yet Once More to overthrow an elected Thai government.

A few hundred Thai Patriotic Front members [PAD/yellow shirts] have been camping in Sanam Luang since May 7, despite an order by the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) to move to another rally site.

The Thai Patriotic Front boasted yesterday that up to 50,000 people would join its rally at Sanam Luang today to demand the Pheu Thai-led government resign.

Chaiwat Sinsuwong, a leader of the group, said the mass rally would begin at 5pm and continue until the government agreed to step down.

If the gathering wore Red Shirts rather than Yellow, and the Royal Thai Army’s proxy Democrats were in power – they’d call out the snipers. As 0n 19 May 2010 – three years ago tommorrow. After dark no doubt, try out their newly supplied US night-vision sniping tools. Not much cover on the Yellow Lawn.

As it is, if they didn’t have solid contacts with the English language propaganda mills in Bangkok, and if PPT didn’t doggedly do its job reporting … nobody’d know they were there.

The Large Yawn at the Yellow Lawn.

The real commemoration will be on Sunday, of the more than 90 Thais – Thais seeking not the extralegal overthrow of the unelected Thai government of that time, but simply to elect a Thai government – who were gunned down by the Royal Thai Army, as they were in 1976 and 1992, once again, three years ago at Kok Wua and finally at Ratchaprasong.

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the tank coup comes to the united states

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the tank coup comes to the united states

U.S. Military ‘Power Grab’ Goes Into Effect

By making a few subtle changes to a regulation in the U.S. Code titled “Defense Support of Civilian Law Enforcement Agencies” the military has quietly granted itself the ability to police the streets without obtaining prior local or state consent, upending a precedent that has been in place for more than two centuries.

Federal military commanders have the authority, in extraordinary emergency circumstances where prior authorization by the President is impossible and duly constituted local authorities are unable to control the situation, to engage temporarily in activities that are necessary to quell large-scale, unexpected civil disturbances.

“It’s no different than the emergency powers clause in the Weimar constitution [of the German Reich]. It’s a grant of emergency power to the military to rule over parts of the country at their own discretion.”

–Bruce Afran, civil liberties attorney and constitutional law professor at Rutgers University

18 May

fixed the links above to point to the DoD’s actual ‘instruction’.

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murderers unchained
chains reserved for political, LM prisoners exclusively

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shackles now reserved for victims of the royal thai army
lese majeste inquisition exclusively

Amnesty International Welcomes Unchaining Of Thai Prisoners

It should be noted that although shackles are mostly applied to serious crime prisoners or suspects, those who were charged with lese majeste, such as Mr. Somyot Prueksakasemsuk, are often [always!] shackled when they appear before the judges. The practice has caused uproar among civil rights activists who see it as further punishment of ′prisoners of conscience′.

The practice has caused uproar among civil rights activists … but not among civil rights poseurs and exploiters like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Freedom House, etc …

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yet another opportunity for the Royal Thai Court
to disgrace themselves, once again

PPT notes concerning Somyos and his jailing

Mr. Somyot Phruksakasemsuk (Khun Somyot) has been in detention for over two years, since 30 April 2011. On 23 January 2013, Khun Somyot was convicted in first instance for two violations of the lese-majeste law based on two articles published in Voice of Taksin magazine in 2010. On 1 April 2013, Khun Somyot filed an appeal against the decision of the first instance court. On that day, Khun Somyot also filed his 14th request for bail. The appellate court rejected Khun Somyot’s request for bail on 3 April 2013.

The entire reasoning of the Court of Appeal’s decision to reject Khun Somyot’s request is as follows:

“After consideration, the allegation is a severe crime and affected the morality and feelings of the people, and the first court handed down a verdict of 10 years imprisonment, so if the court granted bail, we don’t believe that he would not flee. Therefore, the court does not approve the bail request during appeal and notifies the applicant promptly.”1

FIDH, MLDI and MD-SEA humbly submit that the Thai courts did not duly consider Khun Somyot’s request for bail based on the national and international laws applicable in Thailand.

The organizations submit the following points in particular:

  • A. The court must meaningfully review all of the individual circumstances of the case in a well-reasoned decision on provisional release.

  • B. The recitation of the “severity of the crime” and “the morality and feeling of people” should not be considered as a basis for the denial of bail.

  • C. The decision not to grant Khun Somyot bail is an arbitrary deprivation of his liberty as it results from the exercise of rights and freedoms guaranteed by Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

1 Court of Appeal of the Kingdom of Thailand, 1 April 2013, Case no. Red Or.272/2556.

The points are obvious but well-argued by international groups of long standing and high repute. I suppose it is always possible that the Royal Thai Court will not digrace themselves once again. We’ll see, won’t we.

Thank you International Federation for Human Rights, Media Legal Defense Institute, and Media Defense Southeast Asia for your continuing efforts seeking justice for Somyot!

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iran is not the problem
israel is the problem

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the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate has proven himself
capable of complicity with any crime
no matter how depraved.
will Bibi order nuclear war?

Nuclear Terror in the Middle East

“Nuclear War Between Israel and Iran: Lethality Beyond the Pale,” published in the journal Conflict & Health by researchers from the University of Georgia and Harvard University. It is the first publicly released scientific assessment of what a nuclear attack in the Middle East might actually mean for people in the region.

Its scenarios are staggering. An Israeli attack on the Iranian capital of Tehran using five 500-kiloton weapons would, the study estimates, kill seven million people — 86% of the population — and leave close to 800,000 wounded. A strike with five 250-kiloton weapons would kill an estimated 5.6 million and injure 1.6 million, according to predictions made using an advanced software package designed to calculate mass casualties from a nuclear detonation.

Estimates of the civilian toll in other Iranian cities are even more horrendous. A nuclear assault on the city of Arak, the site of a heavy water plant central to Iran’s nuclear program, would potentially kill 93% of its 424,000 residents. Three 100-kiloton nuclear weapons hitting the Persian Gulf port of Bandar Abbas would slaughter an estimated 94% of its 468,000 citizens, leaving just 1% of the population uninjured. A multi-weapon strike on Kermanshah, a Kurdish city with a population of 752,000, would result in an almost unfathomable 99.9% casualty rate.

The US needs to end all military aid to any country not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and not open to inspection as to compliance.

The idea of the US spending any of its freshly printed greenbacks on weapons of its own is repugnant enough, let alone its financing others.

The US – why do I even write as though the US cared about life or its desolation and destruction?

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from one extreme to the other
the world turned upside down

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after the attack – israelites in the ruins of their homes

pogrom
A pogrom is a violent mob attack generally against Jews, and often condoned by the forces of law, characterized by killings and/or destruction of homes and properties, businesses, and religious centers. The term, a Russian word, originally entered the English language to describe 19th and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russian Empire; similar attacks against Jews at other times and places also became known as pogroms.

… a violent mob attack generally against Jews … except now in Palestine where it is generally a violent mob attack by Zionist Israeli Jews against the indigenous Palestinian population.

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dozens of [Zionist Israeli Jewish] settlers torch over 15 dunams of [Palestinian] land in Nablus village and prevent locals from extinguishing flames.

Settlers torch fields near Nablus

Jewish extremists torch cars, desecrate mosque in Israel

15 May

Clashes at Al-Aqsa mosque compound

16 May

Israeli forces uproot olive tree saplings near Nablus

Settlers attack northern West Bank town

17 May

Israel plans to legalize 4 settler units in occupied West Bank

In a reply to a Supreme Court petition by the Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now, the regime of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it had adopted measures in recent weeks to legalize retroactively four West Bank settlements, which were constructed without official authorization, the court document showed on Thursday.

Peace Now said in a statement that the “intention to legalize outposts as new settlements is… blatant reassurance to settler interests.”

More than half a million Israelis live in over 120 illegal settlements built since Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East al-Quds in 1967.

The UN and most countries regard the Israeli settlements as illegal because the territories were captured by Israel in a war in 1967 and are hence subject to the Geneva Conventions, which forbids construction on occupied lands.

Al Nakba (and Canada)

In a letter by Einstein to the Zionist, Shepard Rifkin, executive director for “American Friends of the Fighters for the Freedom of Israel”, dated April 10, 1948 (the date is very important, it’s only a month before the illegal creation of the Zionist state in Palestine), he wrote:

Mr. Shepard Rifkin
Dear Sir:

When a real and final catastrophe should befall us in Palestine the first responsible for it would be the British and the second responsible for it the Terrorist organizations build up from our own ranks.

I am not willing to see anybody associated with those misled and criminal people.

Sincerely yours,
(Signed, ‘A. Einstein’)

It didn’t require more than three lines to solve this “complex” matter, and it seems that Einstein was very confident in naming the culprits for the “catastrophe in Palestine”, as he precisely described it. One month after that letter, the Palestinian Arabs began to call the day of the creation of the Israeli occupation state, which consisted of the robbery of their homeland and existence, as AL NAKBA (Cataclysm or Catastrophe). That was 65 years ago.

Gaza: a Lie Agreed Upon

In New Guinea there is a word for a truth that everybody knows but nobody speaks: Mokita. In the official discourse surrounding Palestine—Gaza in particular—politicians, President Obama, and the media speak from a phony script full of false vocabulary, false assertions, and deliberate omissions…all lies agreed upon.

Everyone in the world knows who the bad guys are in Palestine
and who form the other pole of the Zionist/Imperial Axis outside of Palestine.

The last of the Semites

The Palestinian people … continue to affirm … that the Israeli government does not speak for all Jews, that it does not represent all Jews, and that its colonial crimes against the Palestinian people are its own crimes and not the crimes of “the Jewish people”, and that therefore it must be criticised, condemned and prosecuted for its ongoing war crimes against the Palestinian people. This is not a new Palestinian position, but one that was adopted since the turn of the 20th century and continued throughout the pre-WWII Palestinian struggle against Zionism.

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historic concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide

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the us government is public enemy number one

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it is not going to get easier to force our government to serve our nation as time goes by

Yes, they’ll jail us for decades for speaking freely (1st amendment).

They’ll also keep us imprisoned ‘pre-trial’ for, say, seven years (6th amendment) …

US Supreme Court attacks right to a speedy trial

… and they’ll bankrupt us for organizing to defend ourselves (1st & 8th amendment) …

IRS targeted groups that criticized the government, IG report says

… and of course they’ll murder us outright if they happen to be feelin’ that way with no warnin’ …

Our nation consists of ourselves and our constitution. Our government, in rebellion against both, is now public enemy number one and everyday in everyway it is getting bolder and stronger and more dangerous.

15 May

The criminalization of political dissent in America

The drive towards the establishment of an American police state, initiated under the Bush administration, has shifted into high gear under Obama. For nearly twelve years, the phony “war on terror” has been used as the overarching pretext for illegal imperialist war abroad and a methodical assault on democratic rights at home. The basic structure of authoritarian rule is now emerging into plain view.

Tens of thousands of drones are slated to be launched over the US mainland in the coming years, with thousands already buzzing overhead. These high-tech aircraft are able to monitor meetings and demonstrations, access wireless networks and record the movements of citizens. Obama’s recent appointee for the position of CIA director, John Brennan, expressly refused at his confirmation hearings to rule out the possibility that these drones could be armed and used for carrying out assassinations within the US.

[L]ocal police departments are awash in billions of dollars of military hardware and training provided by the Department of Homeland Security. When local police are mobilized to respond to a political protest, they now do so in coordination with the federal military and intelligence agencies. It is not a rarity for armored vehicles, body armor and military equipment to be deployed.

Under the precedent set by the recent events in Boston, the authorities now have the power to subject an entire city to a military siege, with the population ordered to “shelter in place,” while businesses and transportation are shut down and heavily armed SWAT teams are deployed to conduct warrantless house-to-house searches without regard for basic rights.

A person can be designated a “terrorist” on the secret, unreviewable say-so of the president, without notice and without a trial. Under the “material support” for terrorism laws signed into law as part of the PATRIOT Act of 2001, a person may be jailed simply for offering vaguely-defined “material support” to any person or group labeled as “terrorist.”

Under the National Defense Authorization Acts of 2011 and 2012, as tested in the case of Jose Padilla, the US government asserts the power to subject a designated “terrorist” to arbitrary arrest and detention without trial.

[I]n the cases of Anwar Al-Awlaki, Samir Khan and Abdulrahman Al-Awlaki, the US government tested out its asserted power to murder “terrorists” outright, even if they are US citizens.

Under these precedents, it would not be necessary to officially suspend the Constitution in order for the US government to meet future domestic opposition with military lockdowns, curfews, house-to-house searches, mass arrests, torture and even assassination. With political dissent labeled as “terrorism” or “material support for terrorism,” Congress, the president, the courts, the military, and the so-called “free press” could continue in their present roles.

http://robinlea.com/pub/images/nation-in-distress.jpg

as time goes by, it is not going to get easier to force our government to serve our nation

Of course the US government is not only the enemy of us Americans …

14 May

Syria Endgame Approaching Fast

18 May

Washington gets explicit: its ‘war on terror’ is permanent

“Asked at a Senate hearing today how long the war on terrorism will last, Michael Sheehan, the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, answered, ‘At least 10 to 20 years.’ . . . A spokeswoman, Army Col. Anne Edgecomb, clarified that Sheehan meant the conflict is likely to last 10 to 20 more years from today – atop the 12 years that the conflict has already lasted. Welcome to America’s Thirty Years War.”

… the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate is the font of desolation, division, death, and destruction worldwide.

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Turkish protesters blame
USNato/Gulf Oil Oligarch/Israeli Axis for blasts

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relatives cry as pallbearers carry the coffin of Fehmi Karaca
one of scores killed and well over a hundred injured by terrorist bombers
in the town of Reyhanli

Turkish protesters blame govt. for blasts

Hundreds of people have gathered in the southern Turkish province Hatay to protest against Saturday’s twin car bombings, which killed 46 people and injured over a hundred others in the town of Reyhanli.

On Sunday, the protesters held banners calling on the United States to stop its intervention and meddling in Syria.

The protesters are blaming the Turkish government for the incident because of its support for armed groups inside Syria.

Deadly Bombs Spark Protests In Turkish Border City

Turkey has taken in more than 400,000 Syrian refugees, many of whom have settled in Hatay, and has thrown its full weight behind the armed opposition fighting to overthrow Assad, although it denies supplying weapons.

Fighters are able to cross back and forth across the frontier virtually unchallenged, unsettling many on the Turkish side of the border, who say more and more radical groups are joining the opposition ranks.

“We have a message for our people: We will rid our city of the jihadist murderers,” read one of the protesters’ banners.

“Hands off Syria,” read another, with a picture of Turkey’s Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and U.S. President Barack Obama wearing military helmets with a fighter jet in the foreground.

“We don’t have a problem with the Syrian refugees who come here to shelter, but we are against the jihadists and murderers on our streets,” one man in the crowd shouted.

“The people of Reyhanli were not alone,” the crowd shouted back, before breaking into chants calling on Erdogan to resign.

People all over the world see through the lies spewed forth by the USNato/Gulf Oil Oligarch/Israeli Axis in order to effect the desolation and destruction of yet another Arab/Islamic nation in the Middle East.

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cameron d’ambrosio looking at 20 years
for opening his mouth

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cameron d’ambrosio looking at 20 years

Massachusetts high school student charged as terrorist for Facebook post

Teenager Cameron D’Ambrosio faces up to 20 years in prison on “terror” charges for making reference to the Boston Marathon bombings in a Facebook post.

The “terror” allegations against D’Ambrosio are remarkable for what is not alleged.

  • D’Ambrosio did not have any weapons or bombs.
  • He did not have any plans to acquire weapons or bombs, and he did not attempt to acquire any.
  • He did not have any accomplices and there was no conspiracy.
  • There were no victims, real or intended.
  • He did not threaten anyone in particular.
  • He had no contact, affiliation, or membership in a terrorist group.
  • There was no plan to carry out an attack in a particular place, or with a particular device, or on a particular date.

All D’Ambrosio did was post the lyrics to a rap song on Facebook.

  • Alex David Rosario, a Michigan high school student, was charged with “domestic terrorism” in January for allegedly threatening to shoot fellow Subway employees, which he claimed was a joke.
  • In February, two high school girls in Louisiana were arrested and charged with 10 counts of “terrorism” for emailing threats to students and faculty “to see if they could get away with it.”
  • Teenager Abdella Ahmad Dounisi was arrested last year in Chicago for allegedly attempting to join a Syrian militant group that the US government claims is linked to Al Qaeda. While the US government is working hand-in-glove with similar groups in its drive for regime-change in Syria … *

These prosecutions mark a further step in the steady drive to transform the “war on terror” into a domestic war against opposition and dissent …

The US government already asserts that a person designated as a “terrorist” by the president is subject to

  • abduction and detention without trial (tested in the case of Jose Padilla and codified by the 2011 National Defense Authorization Act),
  • trial before a military commission (pursuant to the Military Commissions Act),
  • torture (tested in the case of Bradley Manning), or even
  • assassination (tested in the cases of Anwar Al-Awlaki, Samir Khan, and Abdulrahman Al-Awlaki).

Moreover, under the Patroit Act of 2001, it is a crime to offer any kind of vaguely defined “material support” to any person designated as a “terrorist.”

Lawyers who provide legal advice to individuals designated as “terrorists” may themselves be subject to arrest.

In a unanimous 1969 decision in Brandenburg v. Ohio, the US Supreme Court overturned the conviction of a KKK leader who openly called for violence against politicians in a speech. The KKK leader was convicted under an Ohio statute that made it a crime to “advocate … the duty, necessity, or propriety of crime, sabotage, violence or unlawful methods of terrorism as a means of accomplishing industrial or political reform.”

I guess you have to apply to the CIA for a list of approved terrorist groups to join? Perhaps that’s what Tamerlan Tsarnaev did?

More likely Tamerlan was activley recruited by the CIA.

And I guess the KKK are still OK in calling for the assassination of ‘the right kind’ of politicians?

And of course it’s OK for Hollywood to sell those same lyrics Cameron was busted for repeating, and for the MSM to continue to hype them on the radio. In those cases the “terrorism” is cleansed by the sacred dollars exchanged. It is high-church-capitalist dogma that sacred dollars cleanse everything they touch.

Is it “terrorism” to renounce that dogma?

It’s those of us speaking freely who need to ‘watch what we say’.

And all of our ‘friends‘ on Facebook, associating with us terrorists as they are.

14 May

* Syria: The Casualty Count

Time magazine has a piece about a video which shows a Syrian insurgency fighter cutting the heart and liver from a man and then eating it.

The man has been seen in other videos. He is known as Abu Sakkar of Baba Amro, Homs, also known as Khaled Al Hamad. He was a senior commander of the “moderate” Al Farouq brigade. “Was” because he is now dead. And no, he did not die of food poisoning. The Farouq brigade is part of the Free Syrian Army which is supported by the United States.

If it were terrorists they were looking for they could arrest hundreds, if not thousands, at CIA headquarters in Langley, McLean, Fairfax County, Virginia, a few miles west of Washington, DC.

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the bungler, the bundler, and the baglady billionaire

http://robinlea.com/pub/images/the-bungler-the-bundler-and-the-baglady-billionaire.jpg

the bungler, the bundler, and the baglady billionaire

Who’s running the ‘show’? The bungler, the bundler, and the baglady billionaire.

(3) Last week, the Obama administration announced its choice to lead the Federal Communications Commission: Tom Wheeler, who is not only a former telecom lobbyist but also a huge bundler for the Obama campaign … “given his background, it is almost certain that [Wheeler] raised money [for Obama] from people whose companies he would regulate, creating potential [outright!] conflicts of interest.”

Last week, President Obama named another big bundler of his, the billionaire heiress Penny Pritzker, to be his Commerce Secretary … At this point, the only surprising thing is that there are any more bundlers left for Obama to appoint to important administration positions.”

“Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power.”

Benito Mussolini

Another apt Italian quote comes from Sicily rather than Northern Italy, “A fish rots from the head” … but it’s the whole fish that rots. Looks like the whole school is rotten at this point.

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corporate robber barons’ dealings exposed

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corporate robber barons’ dealings exposed

Bloomberg ‘spying’ accusations draw scrutiny of US banking official

On Friday, it emerged that journalists at the wire service had been caught using Bloomberg’s $20,000-a-year terminals – which are used widely on Wall Street to monitor financial information – to “spy” on Goldman Sachs employees.

Bloomberg chief executive Daniel Doctoroff later issued a statement in which he said reporters’ access to the terminals had been restricted following a complaint.

Bloomberg gets a large chunk of its revenue from the sale of terminals to banks and other financial institutions. More than 300,000 bankers, dealers and financial employees subscribe to the service across the globe.

Almost all users are identified by name, and their terminals are often highly tailored to give them access to the financial information they need.

As such, access to the types of information certain subscribers are looking up could give a reporter invaluable insight.

Information being looked at by journalists could include what type of bonds or securities were being eyed by high-profile subscribers. Reporters could also see how often and when users logged in.

Goldman Sachs was alerted to the practice after a Bloomberg reporter in Hong Kong asked the bank about a partner’s employment status, noting that they had not logged into the terminal for some time.

In a memo to staff on Friday, Doctoroff admitted it had been a “mistake” to allow reporters to have access to “limited customer relationship management data”.

Reporters had access to the same sort of tracking information Bloomberg amasses on its customers’ use of its network that Google, and Facebook and the rest routinely amass on their customers’ usage. That would be us, wily-nily, in the case of the all-pervasive Googlepus. And at Facebook eight friends are enough to hang them all.

It’s spying when journalists do it – they might tell the public, spill the ‘invaluable insight’ – but of course its business as usual when Google and Facebook do it – or when Bloomberg does it to its customers itself.

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we will not be derailed again

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tanks ‘exercising’ for another – not a coup but – ‘a military intervention’ ?
red-blooded redshirted kon thai chiangrai greet the rta’s beamish boy at the airport :
‘why did you order the people killed?’

Red shirts, courts, coup and truth

[A] story … reports on support for misogynist and ultra-royalist cartoonist Chai Rachawat. The cartoonist was so incensed by a speech where premier Yingluck Shinawatra finally spoke with some conviction about democracy that he engaged in a childish tantrum.

Mentioning that “her brother’s government was brought down by a coup and his parties were dissolved by independent agencies, but without saying why” is a half-truth.

In fact, if she’d told the truth, she would have said that the coup was planned in the palace and the “independent agencies” were military junta appointed agencies that were anything but independent. If she had spoken these truths, the royalists would have been as mad as cut snakes.

see Flash ! This just in …. Coup ‘derailed democracy’ for an account of what PM Yingluck actually said at the 7th Ministerial Conference of the Community of Democracies, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, 29 April 2013.

There’s no doubt about who the treasonous mutineers actually are …

With Thai Army tanks on night-time manoeuvres coup rumours persist in Bangkok

Whether the talk of a coup is just the usual Bangkok rumour mongering – something that seems to be a constant and well-founded worry whenever Thailand’s political situation reaches a crisis point, with these crises usually arriving when the Thai Army and other shadowy elements in the Thai elites fail to recognise the legitimacy of a democratically elected government – is hard to tell.

But with 18 coups and several massacres of unarmed civilians under their belt the Thai Army, a military force which has an extraordinarily close relationship with the USA, can never be fully counted out of attempting to subvert Thai democracy once more.

And who is waiting in the wings, desperate for power once again? One Abhisit Vejjajiva.

… as ever, the Royal Thai Army and their political, potemkin store-front managers – the Democrat Party.

Redshirts Protest Abhisit’s Northern Tour

Earlier today, around 150 Redshirts protesters, led by groups such as UDD Chiang Rai ′52 and Chiang Rai For Thaksin ′49, were waiting for Mr. Abhisit at the entrace of the airport. The groups said Mr. Abhisit is not welcomed here because of his role in 2010 violent crackdown on Redshirts protesters.

Mr. Abhisit and his entourage managed to leave the airport via secondary exits. The Redshirts then followed his convoy to Payao province, where they joined other Redshirts who were holding separate protest near Mr. Abhisit′s speech venue.

Here in Chiangrai there is no confusion on who the bad guys are. Our question remains :

“You ordered the people killed. Why?”

The Royal Thai Army will try to do whatever it tries to do. Put me down with PM Yingluck and democracy. They’ve thrown their last coup. We will not be derailed again.

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smiting the israel lobby in the usa is the key

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smiting the israel lobby in the usa is the key

JVP supports San Francisco bus advertising campaign

In its press release of May 9, 2013, incorrectly titled, “Bay Area Jewish Community Condemns Deceptive Apartheid Ads”, the San Francisco Jewish Community Relations Council, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the American Jewish Committee (AJC) smear the ad as “deceitful” “morally reprehensible” and “inflammatory” because it characterizes Israel’s military regime as “apartheid.”

National group Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) states unequivocally that calling Israeli control over the Occupied Palestinian Territory “apartheid” is a widely accepted and legitimate political statement. JVP absolutely rejects the attempts to label as hate speech the ad placed by American Muslims for Palestine.

“I’ve been very deeply distressed in my visit to the Holy Land, it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa.”

“People are scared in this country [the US], to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful – very powerful. Well, so what? For goodness sake, this is God’s world! We live in a moral universe. The apartheid government was very powerful, but today it no longer exists. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Pinochet, Milosevic, and Idi Amin were all powerful, but in the end they bit the dust.”

–Archbishop Desmond Tutu,
Apartheid in the Holy Land, The Guardian, 29 April 2002

“I am aware that many of our Jewish brothers and sisters who were so instrumental in the fight against South African apartheid are not yet ready to reckon with the apartheid nature of Israel and its current government … But I cannot ignore the Palestinian suffering I have witnessed, nor the voices of those courageous Jews troubled by Israel’s discriminatory course.”

–Archbishop Desmond Tutu,
Justice requires action to stop subjugation of Palestinians, Tampa Bay Times, April 30, 2012

Everyone in the world knows who the bad guys are in Palestine : the Zionist colonists.

Everyone in the world knows why the Zionists have been able continually to flaunt countless UN resolutions ; to dispossess ; to expropriate ; to effect embargos against ; and to murder. main, and imprison Palestinians in their own homeland : blind support from the United States of America.

It’s time to end the latter in order to end the former. Everyone in the world knows that.

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Thai generals outclassed by Burmese generals

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oh ! to be among the burmese ‘barbarians’


Daw Aung San Suu Kyi wants to amend the Burmese military constitution …

Aung San Suu Kyi Says Burma to Amend ‘World’s Most Difficult’ Constitution

Aung San Suu Kyi announced Burma will amend its constitution to change the role of the military in politics, strengthen federalism and reform the judiciary, in Rangoon on Friday.

… she’s a lady.

PM Yingluck wants to amend the Thai military consitution …

Thai King cartoonist calls PM Yingluck a whore for statement at democracy meet

At the democracy conference, Yingluck namely made a statement of the obvious, that elements of the 2006 anti democracy coup, still exists in Thailand today namely through the independent units, such as the courts.

… she’s a slut.

Chai Rachawat, a cartoonist that translated two of Thailand‘s King novels into cartoon illustrated books, and heavily sold throughout Thailand, have called Thailand PM, Yingluck Shinawatra worse than a whore, for her statement at the Mongolian conference on democracy.

Only in Thailand would the puerile insults of a cartoonist push the PM’s proposals for resuscitating democracy below the fold, but in the Thailand what’s below the belt elsewhere on this earth is business as usual for the royalist ‘elite’.

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all movements that have made a contribution to progress …
have been led by the army

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prem tinsulanonda – josé efraín ríos montt

The Dictator in His Labyrinth

“We could not respect the Constitution because all was a rot and falling by itself. So we had to issue the Fundamental Statue of Government.”

“From 1944 to 2013, all movements that in one way or another have made a contribution to progress … have been led by the Army.”

The quote is from the one on the right.

12 May

Former Leader of Guatemala Is Guilty of Genocide Against Mayan Group

GUATEMALA CITY — A Guatemalan court on Friday found Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt, the former dictator who ruled Guatemala during one of the bloodiest periods of its long civil war, guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity.

Judge Yasmín Barrios sentenced General Ríos Montt, 86, to 80 years in prison. His co-defendant, José Mauricio Rodríguez Sánchez, who served as the director of intelligence under the general, was acquitted of the same two charges.

Efraín Ríos Montt

He attended the School of the Americas in 1951. …

One down in Guatemala … but not yet one in Thailand.

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Vic Pittman tells it like it is

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the joker :
the nobel peace prize laureate’s trigger man
and some of his handiwork

Cowardice Redefined, The New Face of American Serial Killers

(SAN BLAS, Mexico) – A little after 10:00 p.m., and a serial killer is getting ready to make his move. He has watched and waited for this moment for some time.

He watches his victim get out of a cab and dig in his pockets for money. Two of his children run out to the porch to greet their daddy. The killer presses a button and watches as the victim, the taxi driver and the two children are vaporized. Other people in the house, the man’s wife, parents and three other children are badly injured and burnt by the high explosive.

The house next door partially collapses, killing an elderly woman and injuring her grandson. But this is just the beginning.

Neighbors and emergency personnel arrive and begin trying to help the victims. There is chaos … children screaming, people wailing and the cries of the burnt and injured. Several people are trapped under rubble.

When enough people have gathered, the killer presses the button again. Fifteen seconds later, all those at the scene are vaporized or blown to shreds. The killer high-fives his partner. In two hours he will be off work! They are planning on driving in to Las Vegas, have some cocktails maybe pick up some girls.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

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think the joker got one – or more – of these?

The Nobel Peace Prize Laureate himself is still stuck on the obverse,

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war criminals judged

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barack obama – dianne feinstein – john brennan

Judgment Sheet
IN THE PESHAWAR HIGH COURT, PESHAWAR
JUDICIAL DEPARTMENT
Writ Petition No. 1551-P/2012.

Under the Constitution of Pakistan, 1973 particularly Article 199 thereof put this Court under tremendous obligation to safeguard & protect the life & property of the citizen of Pakistan and any person for the time being in Pakistan, being fundamental rights, hence, this Court is constrained to hold as follows: -

  1. “That the drone strikes, carried out in the tribal particularly areas North & (FATA) South Waziristan by the CIA & US Authorities, are blatant violation of Basic Human Rights and are against the UN Charter, the UN General Assembly Resolution, unanimously, the adopted provision of Geneva Conventions thus, it is held to be a War Crime, cognizable by the International Court of Justice or Special Tribunal for War Crimes, constituted or to be constituted by the UNO for this purpose.

  2. That the drone strikes carried out against a handful of alleged militants, who are not engaged in combat with the US Authorities or Forces, amounts to breach of International Law and Conventions on the subject matter, therefore, it is held that these are absolutely illegal & blatant violation of the Sovereignty of the State of Pakistan because frequent intrusion is made on its territory / airspace without its consent rather against its wishes as despite of the protests lodged by the Government of Pakistan with USA on the subject matter, these are being carried out with impunity.

  3. That the civilians casualties, as discussed above, including considerable damage to properties, livestock, wildlife & killing of infants/ suckling babies, women and preteen children, is an uncondonable crime on the part of US Authorities including CIA and it is held so.

  4. That in view of the established facts & figures with regard to civilians casualties & damage caused to the properties, livestock of the citizens of Pakistan, the US Government is bound to compensate all the victims’ families at the assessed rate of compensation in kind of US dollars.

  5. The Government of Pakistan and its Security Forces shall ensure that in future such drone strikes are not conducted & carried out within the sovereign territory of Pakistan. Proper warning be administered in this regard and if that does not work, the Government of Pakistan and State Institutions particularly the Security Forces shall have the right being under constitutional & legal obligations to shutdown the drones, attacking Pakistani territories or when these enter the airspace of Pakistan Sovereign territory.

  6. The Government of Pakistan is directed to take the matter seriously before the Security Council of the UNO and in case it does not succeed there if VETTO power is unduly exercised by the US Authorities then, urgent meeting of the General Assembly be requisitioned through a written request to resolve this menace in an effective manner.*

  7. The Government of Pakistan shall also file a proper complaint, giving complete details of the losses sustained by the Pakistani civilians citizens both to life & properties due to drone strikes, making a request to the UN Secretary General to constitute an independent War Crime Tribunal which shall have the mandate to investigate & enquire into all these matters and to give a final verdict as to whether the same amounts to War Crime or not and in the former case to direct the US Authorities / Government to immediately stop the drone strikes within the airspace / territory of Pakistan and to immediately arrange for the complete & full compensation for the victims’ families of the civilians of Pakistan both for life & properties at the rate & ratio laid down under the international standards.

  8. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is directed to prepare draft resolution / complaints and requisition for doing the needful within a minimum possible time in line of the above guidelines given by the Court, also asking & requiring the Security Council and the General Assembly, as the case may be, to pass a resolution condemning the drone strikes, flown by the CIA / US Authorities and violating the sovereign territory of Pakistan in violation of UN Charter and various Conventions of the UNO, referred to above.

  9. In case the US Authorities do not comply with the UNO Resolution, whether passed by the Security Council or by the General Assembly of UNO, the Government of Pakistan shall severe all ties with the USA and as a mark of protest shall deny all logistic & other facilities to the USA within Pakistan.

The welcome news from emptywheel. But …

… expect stone silence from the US press and the Obama administration even though it is likely a number of people now realize they could be facing huge problems arising from the policies they have developed and implemented.

11 May

* From CIA Drone Strikes on Trial in Pakistan. Check the Statement by Ambassador Masood Khan, Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the United Nations at the Open Meeting of the Security Council on Joint Briefing by the Chairmen of the Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee, CTC and the 1540 Committee. (New York, 10 May 2013) for any hint he’s “take[n] the matter seriously before the Security Council of the UNO”. I find none. In fact you’d never know from his speech that thousands of Palistanis have been killed and tens or hundreds of thousands are being terrorized, as he speaks, by the omnipresent and lethal drone aircraft of a belligerent, foreign, terrorist nation.

Ambassador Masood Khan, Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the United Nations at the Open Meeting of the Security Council seems to be in contempt of the Peshawar High Court. He certainly has nothing but contempt for the Pakistanis in Waziristan and their suffering under the reign of terror of US drones.

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