Half of All Children Will Be Autistic by 2025, Warns Senior Research Scientist at MIT

From: The Alliance for Natural Health USA

 

Why? Evidence points to glyphosate toxicity from the overuse of Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide on our food.
For over three decades, Stephanie Seneff, PhD, has researched biology and technology, over the years publishing over 170 scholarly peer-reviewed articles ^[1]. In recent years she has concentrated on the relationship between nutrition and health, tackling such topics as Alzheimer’s, autism, and cardiovascular diseases, as well as the impact of nutritional deficiencies and environmental toxins on human health.
At a conference last Thursday, in a special panel discussion about GMOs, she took the audience by surprise when she declared, “At today’s rate, by 2025, one in two children will be autistic.” She noted that the side effects of autism closely mimic those of glyphosate toxicity, and presented data showing a remarkably consistent correlation ^[2] between the use of Roundup on crops (and the creation of Roundup-ready GMO crop seeds) with rising rates of autism. Children with autism have biomarkers indicative of excessive glyphosate, including zinc and iron deficiency, low serum sulfate, seizures, and mitochondrial disorder.
A fellow panelist reported ^[3] that after Dr. Seneff’s presentation, “All of the 70 or so people in attendance were squirming, likely because they now had serious misgivings about serving their kids, or themselves, anything with corn or soy, which are nearly all genetically modified and thus tainted with Roundup and its glyphosate.”
Dr. Seneff noted the ubiquity of glyphosate’s use. Because it is used on corn and soy, all soft drinks and candies sweetened with corn syrup and all chips and cereals that contain soy fillers have small amounts of glyphosate in them, as do our beef and poultry since cattle and chicken are fed GMO corn or soy. Wheat is often sprayed with Roundup just prior to being harvested, which means that all non-organic bread and wheat products would also be sources of glyphosate toxicity. The amount of glyphosate in each product may not be large, but the cumulative effect (especially with as much processed food as Americans eat) could be devastating. A recent study ^[4] shows that pregnant women living near farms where pesticides are applied have a 60% increased risk of children having an autism spectrum disorder.  MORE

LEAKED: Secret Negotiations to Let Big Brother Go Global

From:  Daily Kos

by Don Quijones
WolfStreet.com
December 25, 2014

The ugly ramifications of the Trade in Services Act (TiSA)

By Don Quijones, freelance writer, translator in Barcelona, Spain, and editor at WOLF STREET. Mexico is his country-in-law.  Raging Bull-Shit is his modest attempt to scrub away the lathers of soft soap peddled by political and business leaders and their loyal mainstream media.

Much has been written, at least in the alternative media, about the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), two multilateral trade treaties being negotiated between the representatives of dozens of national governments and armies of corporate lawyers and lobbyists (on which you can read more here, here and here). However, much less is known about the decidedly more secretive Trade in Services Act (TiSA), which involves more countries than either of the other two.

At least until now, that is. Thanks to a leaked document jointly published by the Associated Whistleblowing Press and Filtrala, the potential ramifications of the treaty being hashed out behind hermetically sealed doors in Geneva are finally seeping out into the public arena.  MORE

From:  SMA Inverted 

by Justin Dyke 

At SMA, we’re accustomed to hearing remarkable stories about the application of our inverters and the challenges they meet and exceed. The following story caused a ripple of appreciation even amongst our hard-to-impress Service Line, who has heard just about every story there is.

Inverter derby

Cleaning up the traffic accident on La Jolla Blvd.

The setting: La Jolla Boulevard, mid-day, downtown Los Angeles. A Prius, pulling a flatbed trailer designed with a fully-operational solar system referred to as the Mobile Energy Ecosystem, is traversing the busy roadway. In a perfect storm of unfinished city repairs and illegally parked vehicles, the trailer catches a parked car and the cage housing a Sunny Island and Sunny Boy inverter is knocked off the back. The inverters are dislodged from the cage and dragged nearly 50 feet.

A testament to SMA’s durability and resilience – the Sunny Island, although suffering a nasty case of road rash, remained in full working order. The Mobile Energy Ecosystem, with the original Sunny Island 4548, was completed in August of 2013 and remains in use today.

Disaster sparks inspiration

Cage holding the inverters.

San Diego, along with other portions of the Southwest corridor, saw the single greatest power failure in California history just three years ago, with over 1.4 million people in San Diego without power for almost 12 hours. Charlie Johnson, Founder and CEO of Wipomo Energy Ecosystems, was one of those residents affected by “The Great Blackout” in 2011, costing homeowners and residents more than $12 million in spoiled perishable foods alone.

A longtime advocate of renewable energy, Johnson saw potential for a comprehensive energy solution in a concept first developed by a group of undergraduates from University of California, San Diego. Working with electrical engineer Roger Davenport, Johnson augmented the original concept to include an electric vehicle that can add power to a micro-grid, creating yet another energy source for extended blackouts and emergency response— the first Mobile Energy Ecosystem, was created.

The design

The Mobile Energy Ecosystem is designed around a Sunny Island 4548 battery inverter and a Sunny Boy 2500U PV inverter. The modified flatbed, referred to as the “solar slider,” houses eight PhonoSolar modules which feed the Sunny Boy. Its 240V output is transformed to 120V by an autoformer. A “Super Prius,” which has been modified with two 500 watt power inverters that can export energy into the Sunny Island, pulls the trailer.

The decision to use SMA inverters was based on durability and the Sunny Island’s flexible design. “We used SMA products to accomplish this because of the Sunny Island’s versatility – it accepts solar photovoltaic, battery and auxiliary inputs,” said Johnson.

The future

Wipomo is in discussion with various entities to support emergency remote dispatch and communications equipment. Charlie sees a wide range of possible future uses including disaster management and public services such as electronics and tool charging, EV rescue, UV water purification and water pumping.

“The great blackout inspired me to seek a solution to the problem of blackouts, with versatility for short term and long term power outages, manual or automatic emergency power switching, with battery backup or without, and enhanced by electric vehicle power export.”

Mission accomplished.

At SMA, we’re accustomed to hearing remarkable stories about the application of our inverters and the challenges they meet and exceed. The following story caused a ripple of appreciation even amongst our hard-to-impress Service Line, who has heard just about every story there is.

Inverter derby

Cleaning up the traffic accident on La Jolla Blvd.

The setting: La Jolla Boulevard, mid-day, downtown Los Angeles. A Prius, pulling a flatbed trailer designed with a fully-operational solar system referred to as the Mobile Energy Ecosystem, is traversing the busy roadway. In a perfect storm of unfinished city repairs and illegally parked vehicles, the trailer catches a parked car and the cage housing a Sunny Island and Sunny Boy inverter is knocked off the back. The inverters are dislodged from the cage and dragged nearly 50 feet.
A testament to SMA’s durability and resilience – the Sunny Island, although suffering a nasty case of road rash, remained in full working order. The Mobile Energy Ecosystem, with the original Sunny Island 4548, was completed in August of 2013 and remains in use today.

Disaster sparks inspiration

Cage holding the inverters.

San Diego, along with other portions of the Southwest corridor, saw the single greatest power failure in California history just three years ago, with over 1.4 million people in San Diego without power for almost 12 hours. Charlie Johnson, Founder and CEO of Wipomo Energy Ecosystems, was one of those residents affected by “The Great Blackout” in 2011, costing homeowners and residents more than $12 million in spoiled perishable foods alone.
A longtime advocate of renewable energy, Johnson saw potential for a comprehensive energy solution in a concept first developed by a group of undergraduates from University of California, San Diego. Working with electrical engineer Roger Davenport, Johnson augmented the original concept to include an electric vehicle that can add power to a micro-grid, creating yet another energy source for extended blackouts and emergency response— the first Mobile Energy Ecosystem, was created.

The design

The Mobile Energy Ecosystem is designed around a Sunny Island 4548 battery inverter and a Sunny Boy 2500U PV inverter. The modified flatbed, referred to as the “solar slider,” houses eight PhonoSolar modules which feed the Sunny Boy. Its 240V output is transformed to 120V by an autoformer. A “Super Prius,” which has been modified with two 500 watt power inverters that can export energy into the Sunny Island, pulls the trailer.
The decision to use SMA inverters was based on durability and the Sunny Island’s flexible design. “We used SMA products to accomplish this because of the Sunny Island’s versatility – it accepts solar photovoltaic, battery and auxiliary inputs,” said Johnson.

The future

Wipomo is in discussion with various entities to support emergency remote dispatch and communications equipment. Charlie sees a wide range of possible future uses including disaster management and public services such as electronics and tool charging, EV rescue, UV water purification and water pumping.
“The great blackout inspired me to seek a solution to the problem of blackouts, with versatility for short term and long term power outages, manual or automatic emergency power switching, with battery backup or without, and enhanced by electric vehicle power export.”
Mission accomplished.

- See more at: http://www.smainverted.com/2014/12/16/road-tested-and-reliable/#sthash.ZJWTsqMv.dpuf

Justin Dyke on 12/16/2014

Road-tested and Reliable

From Justin Dyke on 12/16/2014

- See more at: http://www.smainverted.com/2014/12/16/road-tested-and-reliable/#sthash.ZJWTsqMv.dpuf

Road-tested and Reliable

From Justin Dyke on 12/16/2014

- See more at: http://www.smainverted.com/2014/12/16/road-tested-and-reliable/#sthash.ZJWTsqMv.dpuf

Clegg backs demands for judicial probe into UK torture as Blair Government accused of 'secret policy of complicity'

From:  Mail Online 

By Tom McTague, Deputy Political Editor for MailOnline

Published: 11:09 EST, 11 December 2014

• Clegg said torture 'cannot, will not and is not being used' by UK agencies
• But he said an inquiry might be needed into policy under Blair government
• David Davis said Britain had 'turned a blind eye' to CIA torture 
• Senate report revealed use of torture by the CIA was far worse than feared
• 119 detainees subjected to torture such as beatings and waterboarding
• One detainee, chained half-naked to a floor, died of hypothermia
• Human rights groups call for a full judge-led inquiry into torture 

A full judicial inquiry may be needed to get to the bottom of claims British spies were complicit in the torture of terror suspects in CIA jails, Nick Clegg said today.

The Deputy Prime Minister said torture ‘cannot, will not and is not being used under any circumstances by British agencies' today.

But the publication of a damning report into CIA interrogation techniques yesterday has sparked accusations that the Blair Government was was operating a 'secret policy of complicity' after 9/11.  MORE

Bail-In and the Financial Stability Board: The Global Bankers' Coup

From:  TruthOut 

By Ellen Brown, The Web of Debt Blog

(Photo: Allison Harger)

On December 11, 2014, the US House passed a bill repealing the Dodd-Frank requirement that risky derivatives be pushed into big-bank subsidiaries, leaving our deposits and pensions exposed to massive derivatives losses. The bill was vigorously challenged by Senator Elizabeth Warren; but the tide turned when Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorganChase, stepped into the ring. Perhaps what prompted his intervention was the unanticipated $40 drop in the price of oil. As financial blogger Michael Snyder points out, that drop could trigger a derivatives payout that could bankrupt the biggest banks. And if the G20's new "bail-in" rules are formalized, depositors and pensioners could be on the hook.

The new bail-in rules were discussed in my last post here. They are edicts of the Financial Stability Board (FSB), an unelected body of central bankers and finance ministers headquartered in the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland. Where did the FSB get these sweeping powers, and is its mandate legally enforceable?

Those questions were addressed in an article I wrote in June 2009, two months after the FSB was formed, titled "Big Brother in Basel: BIS Financial Stability Board Undermines National Sovereignty." It linked the strange boot shape of the BIS to a line from Orwell's 1984: "a boot stamping on a human face—forever." The concerns raised there seem to be materializing, so I'm republishing the bulk of that article here. We need to be paying attention, lest the bail-in juggernaut steamroll over us unchallenged.

The Shadowy Financial Stability Board

Alarm bells went off in April 2009, when the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) was linked to the new Financial Stability Board (FSB) signed onto by the G20 leaders in London. The FSB was an expansion of the older Financial Stability Forum (FSF) set up in 1999 to serve in a merely advisory capacity by the G7 (a group of finance ministers formed from the seven major industrialized nations). The chair of the FSF was the General Manager of the BIS. The new FSB was expanded to include all G20 members (19 nations plus the EU).

Formally called the "Group of Twenty Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors," the G20 was, like the G7, originally set up as a forum merely for cooperation and consultation on matters pertaining to the international financial system. What set off alarms was that the new Financial Stability Board had real teeth, imposing "obligations" and "commitments" on its members; and this feat was pulled off without legislative formalities, skirting the usual exacting requirements for treaties. It was all done in hasty response to an "emergency." Problem-reaction-solution was the slippery slope of coups.  MORE

Ohio Residents File Class Action Lawsuit Against State & Fracking Corps

From:  Popular Resistance 

by By Tish O’Dell

 

BROADVIEW HEIGHTS, OH:  Today, residents of Broadview Heights, Ohio, filed a first-in-the-state class action lawsuit against the State of Ohio, Governor John R. Kasich, and Bass Energy, Inc. and Ohio Valley Energy Systems Corp.  The lawsuit was filed to protect the rights of the people of Broadview Heights to self-governance, including their right to ban fracking.

In November 2012, residents of Broadview Heights overwhelmingly adopted a Home Rule Charter Amendment – proposed by residents – banning all new commercial extraction of gas and oil within the City limits.  The Amendment establishes aCommunity Bill of Rights – which secures the rights of human and natural communities to water and a healthy environment.  The Bill of Rights bans fracking and frack waste disposal as a violation of those rights.

In June 2014, Bass Energy and Ohio Valley Energy filed a lawsuit against the City of Broadview Heights to overturn the Community Bill of Rights.  The corporations are contending that the community does not have the legal authority to protect itself from fracking, and that corporations have the constitutional “right” to frack.

Residents involved in drafting and proposing the Community Bill of Rights attempted to intervene in the lawsuit, to defend the community’s right to self-governance, including the right to say “no” to fracking and other threats.  However, in September, the Court of Common Pleas of Cuyahoga County denied the motion to intervene, ruling that the residents did not have a direct “interest” in this case.

With the court’s denial of intervention, residents decided to move forward with the class action lawsuit.  In filing the lawsuit, Broadview Heights residents argue that the Ohio Oil and Gas Act, known as HB 278, and the industry’s enforcement of the Act, violate the constitutional right of residents to local self-government.

The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) assisted residents of Broadview Heights to draft the Community Bill of Rights.  CELDF is providing its support and expertise to the residents of Broadview Heights with the filing of the class action lawsuit.

CELDF Executive Director, Thomas Linzey, Esq., stated, “This class action lawsuit is merely the first in Ohio, and expected to be one of many filed by people across the United States whose constitutional rights to govern their own communities are routinely violated by state governments working in concert with the corporations that they ostensibly regulate.  The people of Broadview Heights will not stand idly by as their rights are negotiated away by oil and gas corporations, their state government, and their own municipal government.”  The residents of Lafayette, Colorado, filed a similar lawsuit in August of this year.

Through grassroots organizing and public interest law, CELDF works with communities across the country to establish Community Rights to democratic, local self-governance and sustainability. CELDF has assisted nearly 200 communities to ban shale gas drilling and fracking, factory farming, water privatization, and other threats, and eliminate corporate “rights” when they violate community and nature’s rights.  This includes assisting the first communities in the U.S. to establish Rights of Nature in law, as well as the first communities to elevate the rights of communities above the “rights” of corporations.

This is What Community Oriented Policing Looks Like

From:  NationSwell

A team in the Houston Police Department is trying something new when addressing complaints associated with people living on the streets.

The Houston Police Department’s mental health division works out of the second floor of the city’s first Center for Sobriety, which provides assistance and monitoring for people under the influence of alcohol. It’s a fitting location for the unique department, which was formed in 2007 and has centered itself around partnerships with community organizations and mental health case workers to develop a more sensitive, multi-pronged approach for dealing with people with mental illnesses.

Sgt. Steve Wick heads up a small unit inside this department called the Homeless Outreach Team (HOT for short), which is made up of four officers, one sergeant and three mental health case workers. In addition to responding to complaints associated with homelessness, like public intoxication or loitering, this police unit works proactively to get those people off the streets of downtown Houston — preventing complaints from happening in the first place.

This approach to homelessness is not unique to Houston. Departments in Cambridge, Mass. and Colorado Springs, Colo. amongst others, have started units with similar strategies. Sgt. Wick spent a week with the Colorado Springs department learning about their program before starting HOT in Houston.

It’s hard to tell if this approach has lead to a significant decrease in complaints associated with the homeless, but the impact on the street population is evident. According to Wick, HOT has helped place more than 400 people in temporary or permanent housing since 2011.

Read more: http://nationswell.com/houston-homeless-outreach-team-community-oriented-policing/#ixzz3L3rRddU7

December 2014 News Reports

From:  Justice Integrity Project


 

Editor's Choice: Scroll below for December 2014 news in our monthly blend of mainstream and alternative news and views

Dec. 2

WhoWhatWhy, Boston Update: Tsarnaev Tries To Move Bombing Trial Again, Andy Thibault (shown in photo), Dec. 2, 2014. The Boston Marathon bombing is much more important than has been acknowledged, principally because it is the defining domestic national security event since 9/11—and has played a major role in expanding the power of the security state. For that reason, WhoWhatWhy is continuing to investigate troubling aspects of this story and the establishment media treatment of it. We will be exploring new elements of the story regularly as the January trial of the accused co-conspirator Dzhokhar Tsarnaev approaches.

More than six months ago, WhoWhatWhy raised the issue of whether leaks by law enforcement to a cooperative media had already sunk accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s right to a fair trial in Boston. His legal team clearly had the same concerns, and in July asked the court to move the trial to another city. U.S. District Judge George O’Toole denied the motion in September. The defendant failed to show that the extensive media coverage had “so inflamed and pervasively prejudiced” the pool of potential jurors to render “a fair and impartial jury” impossible, the judge wrote. Now, in a second motion for a change of venue filed Dec. 1, Tsarnaev’s legal team is arguing that the need to move the trial has grown more urgent, in part because of the continuing stream of news stories.

Washington Post, What America’s police departments don’t want you to know, Eugene Robinson, Dec. 1, 2014. Michael Brown’s death was part of a tragic and unacceptable pattern: Police officers in the United States shoot and kill civilians in shockingly high numbers. How many killings are there each year? No one can say for sure, because police departments don’t want us to know. According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report, in 2013 there were 461 “justifiable homicides” by police—defined as “the killing of a felon by a law enforcement officer in the line of duty.” In all but three of these reported killings, officers used firearms.  The true number of fatal police shootings is surely much higher, however, because many law enforcement agencies do not report to the FBI database. Attempts by journalists to compile more complete data by collating local news reports have resulted in estimates as high as 1,000 police killings a year. There is no way to know how many victims, like [Michael] Brown, were unarmed. By contrast, there were no fatal police shootings in Great Britain last year. Not one. In Germany, there have been eight police killings over the past two years. In Canada—a country with its own frontier ethos and no great aversion to firearms—police shootings average about a dozen a year.

 

Washington Post, Ashton Carter to be nominated as next defense secretary, Craig Whitlock and Missy Ryan, Dec. 2, 2014. President Obama will nominate Ashton B. Carter, 60, a physicist with long experience at the Pentagon, as his new secretary of defense. If confirmed by the Senate Carter would succeed Chuck Hagel, the former Nebraska senator who is being pushed aside by the White House after less than two years in the job. Hagel, a Republican, fell out of favor with Obama and the president’s inner circle as the U.S. military became embroiled in a new war in the Middle East, a challenge that is expected to preoccupy the Obama administration for the remainder of its term. Although Carter has more experience as a technocrat than as a wartime leader, his extensive national security credentials and the support for his nomination in Congress made him an appealing choice.

Dec. 1

Washington Post, U.S. weighs a new front to create safe zone in Syria, Karen DeYoung, Dec. 1, 2014. The Obama administration is weighing the opening of a new front in the air war against the Islamic State in Syria, part of an offensive to push back militants along the western portion of Syria’s border with Turkey and create a relatively safe zone for U.S.-backed Syrian rebel forces to move in. Under the plan, U.S. aircraft flying from Turkey’s Incirlik air base would target positions the militants currently hold along the border north of Aleppo, eastward toward the besieged town of Kobane. Turkish special forces would move into the area to assist targeting and help Syrian opposition fighters consolidate their hold on the territory. President Obama, who has not yet approved the proposal, was briefed on its parameters at a meeting with his senior national security advisers last Wednesday. The plan, which was developed over the past several weeks during extensive meetings between U.S. and Turkish diplomatic and military officials, also was a subject of discussion between Vice President Biden and Turkey’s top political leaders during Biden’s visit to Istanbul 10 days ago.

Politico, Secret showdown in CIA leak case, Josh Gerstein, Dec. 1, 2014. Prosecutors and defense lawyers in the case of a former CIA officer accused of leaking top-secret information to a New York Times reporter had a secret showdown in federal court recently over what to do about a half-dozen prosecution witnesses whose own employment records show violations of the rules and arguably even the laws governing handling of classified information. The six witnesses set to testify against alleged leaker Jeffrey Sterling took secret documents home themselves without authorization, according to a recent court filing.

AL.com, A new 'Discovery' on the Stephen Nodine case: guest opinion, Quin Hillyer, Dec. 1, 2014. Stephen Nodine isn't a sympathetic figure. But when legal errors have been made, authorities should make redress. On Wednesday, Dec. 3, the Discovery Channel will air a documentary on the murder/suicide case that ensnared Nodine, the former Mobile County Commissioner, in 2010.

Lawsuit Filed Calling for Ban on Fracked Oil Bomb Trains

From:  EcoWatch 

by Anastasia Pantsios

Earthjustice has filed a lawsuit on behalf of Sierra Club and ForestEthics, challenging the Department of Transportation’s rejection of their July request for an immediate ban of DOT-111 rail tanker cars carrying volatile crude oil from the Bakken shale formation.

A fireball follows the derailment of two trains, one carrying Bakken crude oil, outside Casselton, North Dakota last December. Photo credit: U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) called in 2012 for an immediate ban for these tankers, which are prone to puncture in the case of accidents, crashes and rollovers, causing explosions and fires. Two-thirds of the rail cars carrying crude oil through the U.S. are DOT-111s. The industry has insisted that discontinuing their use or phasing them out rapidly would be too costly, asking for four years to phase out the older cars and up to six years for the newer ones. This lawsuit challenges the Department of Transportation’s assertion that they have responded sufficiently to the dangers posed by the cars.

The court filing said, “Petitioners ask the Court to set aside and remand the Secretary’s denial of the petition to ban shipping Bakken crude oil in unsafe tank cars because the Secretary failed to consider pertinent evidence and several relevant factors, including the Secretary’s past findings that the surge in crude-by-rail shipments of Bakken crude in dangerous tank cars poses imminent hazards and emergency unsafe conditions, the number of rail accidents and oil spills likely to occur during the time it will take to stop shipping Bakken crude in the most hazardous tank cars through rulemaking, Canada’s more expeditious phase out of the most hazardous tank cars and the safety hazards of allowing the industry to more than double the crude oil fleet before removing the most dangerous tank cars from crude-by-rail shipping.”

MORE

Our CIA, Empowered by JFK Murder Cover-up, Blocks Senate Torture Report

From:  Justice Integrity Project 

by Andrew Kreig 

The CIA's obstruction of all three major government probes of President Kennedy's 1963 assassination helps explain the agency's success thus far in blocking Senate oversight of CIA-run torture.

The agency this fall is fighting publication of a Senate report on torture while it also avoids for the most part adverse news coverage and government inquiry regarding Kennedy's death.

The CIA has sought on national security grounds major edits in the Senate probe of agency torture of terror suspects.

The agency's delaying tactics would lack credibility if not for previous cover-ups of alleged CIA crimes. This fall marks the 50th anniversary of the Warren Commission’s dubious claim that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone to kill JFK. Serious questions remain about the agency's role in the cover-up and the killing.

The CIA-friendly Obama White House is deferring to the agency in a torture scandal that began during the Bush administration, and prompted a Senate probe beginning in 2009.

“Continued White House foot-dragging on the declassification of a much-anticipated Senate torture report is raising concerns that the administration is holding out until Republicans take over the chamber and kill the report themselves,” according to Dan Froomkin, writing “Is Obama Stalling Until Republicans Can Bury the CIA Torture Report?” for First Look / Intercept. “Senator Dianne Feinstein’s intelligence committee sent a 480-page executive summary of its extensive report on the CIA’s abuse of detainees to the White House for declassification more than six months ago.”

Froomkin’s analysis might puzzle those who believe in conventional wisdom about Obama: That he and his White House operate far to the left of the CIA-friendly Feinstein, the California Democrat shown at right who chairs the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

But the senator and her staffers became angry earlier this year because CIA Director John Brennan initially refused to apologize after his team was caught spying on agency staff, who represent the  elected senators who ostensibly oversee the agency. McClatchy reported the reasons in, CIA admits it broke into Senate computers; senators call for spy chief’s ouster.

Brennan, a well-connected career CIA officer who was a White House advisor during Obama's first term, is shown below at far right in an official photo of his nomination ceremony Jan. 7, 2013. Former Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican was nominated at the same time to become secretary of defense, and is at the left of the president.

My opinion column below, the 22st segment in the Justice Integrity Project's “JFK Assassination Readers Guide” series, amplifies my recent lecture carried on C-SPAN3's American History TV, The JFK Murder 'Cover-up' Still Matters. 

Many of the previous segments in our series provided updated research tools regarding JFK-focused books, films and archives. But the historian at some point needs to provide also conclusions, as my Cornell professor Alan Bloom taught long ago in assigning his class Friedrich Nietzsche's Use and Abuse of History. 

In this instance, the torture issue is one of the better-documented of the inherently secret power struggles within the intelligence/defense communities. Another recent example is the forced resignation of last week of Hagel, a Republican, for unexplained reasons we shall illuminate in a separate column.

The torture report is particularly important. It centers on core values of United States democracy.One is the ability of elected leaders to oversee a hidden government represented by the CIA, as reported in previous segments of this series.

Moreover, rendition and torture of suspects -- often without the protections of a criminal process or prisoner-of-war status -- undermines both the morality and effectiveness of United States war-making that the CIA increasingly undertakes in covert operations.

With that background, we examine three big secrets that decipher the Senate-CIA-White House impasse:

Secret number One:  Obama is a product of the intelligence community's centrist wing, but also fears it. The CIA and its allied front organizations, including the Ford Foundation when it was run by Lyndon Johnson's former National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy, fostered the careers of both of Obama's parents and the young Obama. The future president's first job after college graduation in 1983 was with the CIA front company Business International Corp. My book Presidential Puppetry: Obama, Romney and Their Masters, documented this family background, in part by citing pioneering researchers whose findings are ignored by the mainstream media.

Second, Obama, like his White House predecessors, is undoubtedly aware that the Warren Commission’s account of the Kennedy killing was a cover-up, and that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s ostensible killer, Jame Earl Ray, was a patsy imprisoned in a set-up scenario similar to Oswald's.Our JFK Readers Guide has documented that the CIA acts at times on behalf of a “High Cabal” of private sector potentates, and has been implicated in the Warren Commission whitewash if not the killing. Government personnel who opposed JFK's policies relied on the mob, Cuban exile community and government allies on a need-to-know basis to deliver government control to the president's CIA-friendly Vice President Johnson, whom some best-selling authors now allege to have helped plan JFK's murder.

Transportation More: Reuters Top News Fracking North Dakota Railroads Oil Trains Have Made Life Miserable In A North Dakota Town Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/r-why-a-small-north-dakota-town-is-taking-on-big-rail-2014-11#ixzz3K9pKFGzK

From:  Business Insider 

Ernest Scheyder, Reuters

A two-mile Canadian Pacific train loaded with oil

 

ENDERLIN, N.D. (Reuters) - After her shift at the TraXside Cafe in the southeast North Dakota hamlet of Enderlin, all Karla Souer wants to do is go home. Unfortunately for the 38-year-old waitress the commute, which should only last a minute or two, can take a half-an-hour. That's because, chances are, there's a Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd <cp.to> train blocking the tracks somewhere on her route.

She has a lot of company. Partly thanks to North Dakota's energy boom, twenty-eight of the railroad's trains now traverse the city every day. Each carry hundreds of tank cars filled with oil or grain. Some idle as long as four hours, inconveniencing motorists, stranding pedestrians and posing logistical challenges for ambulances and firefighters.

Desperate for a solution, Enderlin's city councilors last month banned train breaks longer than 10 minutes. The railroad has, in turn, sued the city of nearly 900 in federal court. Canadian Pacific contends the order violates interstate commerce laws. The railroad's lawyers also asked a judge to grant a temporary injunction.

MORE 

VIDEO — “Keystone PipeLIES Exposed” highlights KXL’s little known fake ‘facts’

From:  Citizen Action Monitor 

One WHOPPER! – KXL will be climate neutral

No 989 Posted by fw, February 26, 2014

“The film…highlights little known facts about the KXL pipeline project such as the corporate exemption for tar sands oil from the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund and the limits on taxes due for foreign oil imported to foreign trade zones like Port Arthur. The film also includes footage from major tar sands oil spills in the U.S. and Canada that were only briefly in the headlines despite the enormous damages they caused.” —PRWatch (Center for Media and Democracy)

An embedded version of the 23:17-minute video, below, is followed by PRWatch’s informative press release. To access the original post, click on the following linked title.

Keystone PipeLIES Exposed: New Film Refutes Jobs, Security, Gas Price, Tax, Safety, and Climate Claims  by PR Watch Admin, February 25, 2014

[Keystone PipeLIES Exposed, produced by Center for Media and Democracy PLUS, February 24, 2014 — This film debunks the claims of proponents of the Keystone XL pipeline regarding jobs, energy security, gas prices, safety, and climate change. More information about this film and research project, Keystone PipeLIES Exposed at pipeliesexposed.org

Mainstream Media Blackout of the Trans-Pacific Trade Agreement

From:  Nation of Change 

November 21, 2014  

by Christina Sarich 

Why won’t Fox, NBC, CNN, or ABC cover the TPP? These media empires (even Facebook has boosted news feeds of the top 100 media outlets, owned by only six mega-corporations to control public opinion) have decided that the public should be kept in the dark about ‘NAFTA on steroids’ so that biotech corporations can completely take over ‘free-trade’ with Pacific Rim nations.

You likely haven’t heard of the TPP or Trans Pacific Trade Agreement for this reason, but it hasn’t slowed the rising opposition to its sinister ‘fast-track’ plans among our elected officials, which would bypass many of the legal requirements for a normal trade agreement, and allowing the implementation of TPP with minimal debate. More than 550 groups, representing millions of people, have urged President Obama to vote against the TPP, but so far, those requests have fallen on deaf ears.

The US government touts the TPP as “an ambitious, 21st century trade agreement” with Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam. “When complete, TPP will unlock opportunities for American workers, families, businesses, farmers, and ranchers by providing increased access to some of the fastest growing markets in the world.”  MORE

A practical way to curb the abuse of Presidential power

From:  The American Opportunity

The President is abusing his executive authority.  He will not be the last President to do so. We must permanently restore checks on Presidential power.
Our "Regulation Freedom Amendment strategy to mobilize states to force Congress to require that Congress approve major new federal regulations can unite conservatives and attract both independents and Democrats.
One key goal right now is to get as many as we can of the more than 4000 Republican state legislators, as well as  Republican Governors, Attorney Generals other  statewide officials together with a few courageous Members of Congress,  virtually all of whom dislike what the President is doing, to endorse and urge Congress to propose the Regulation Freedom Amendment to end his power to dictate regulations from Washington.
In some states we can also find Democratic legislators who don't want to be labeled "rubber stamps for federal regulators".
We have 150 legislators, 2 Governors, a former President of the NRA, a former Chair of the National Federation of Republican Women, the Chair of Americans for Tax Reform, the General Counsel of the RNC, the National Taxpayers Union, and many others who support the Amendment.  That makes persuading legislators to support the Amendment easy.  We can send interested people a list of our endorsements.
With the increased attention and resources our growing list of endorsements will generate, we can  mobilize the "anti-Washington regulator" majorities in 33 states and near majorities in 4 more to pass resolutions and enact state laws that strengthen the states' power and put pressure on Congress to end the President's power to dictate regulations from Washington.
This strategy has a chance of focusing  the debate on an issue that unites us and where voters favor our position by 2-1 margins.
It could also deter regulators soon, as early as 2015, as the effort gains momentum, even before an Amendment is proposed.
The first steps for anyone who wants to help are:
1)  to endorse the Amendment and
2) Whether they can endorse or not to forward an email to friends, especially business and political leaders asking them to take a look at the Amendment.
3) Then we can ask people who have endorsed the Amendment to call or email a state legislator or other elected official and ask them to consider an endorsement.
Please pass this email on to help persuade your friends, business leaders, political leaders and state legislators you know to endorse the Regulation Freedom Amendment..
Here is the text of the Regulation Freedom Amendment:
"Whenever one quarter of the Members of the U.S. House or the U.S. Senate transmit to the President their written declaration of opposition to a proposed federal regulation, it shall require a majority vote of the House and Senate to adopt that regulation."
For more information, please contact us.  Thanks for your interest.

Climate Disruption Depression and 2013 Emissions Set New Records

From:  Truth Out 

By Dahr Jamail

"The impact of industrially packaged quanta of energy on the social environment tends to be degrading, exhausting, and enslaving, and these effects come into play even before those which threaten the pollution of the physical environment and the extinction of the (human) race."

- Austrian philosopher Ivan Illich, 1973 article in Le Monde

This month's dispatch surveys global calls for massive carbon dioxide cuts from the European Union (EU) and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that are still not enough to truly mitigate the impacts of anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD) or stem the massive wildlife disruptions that are now occurring globally, and highlights other glaring signs of an increasingly unstable climate across the globe.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has concluded that, "Coal will nearly overtake oil as the dominant energy source by 2017 . . . without a major shift away from coal, average global temperatures could rise by 6 degrees Celsius by 2050, leading to devastating climate change."

A recently announced EU plan to cut carbon dioxide emissions 40 percent by 2030 was called "too weak" by IPCC Vice Chair Professor Jim Skea, who added that this goal will commit future governments to "extraordinary and unprecedented" emissions cuts.  MORE