Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Three Years After his Tragic Death, World Continues to Mourn Michael

As most people flock to the high production values of American television programs, the subtle nuances of British dramas, or the addictiveness of Korean programs, Taiwanese television shows are often sorely overlooked. Still, after nearly three years from its first airing we continue to be haunted by a television moment so poignant that it has captured not only the nation’s audience but the world’s.
I’m talking, of course, about the truck accident that claimed the life of Michael from the series Night Market Life. Achieving well over one million views on YouTube, people keep coming back to relieve that fateful day.
Let us watch and remember.  Michael would have wanted it that way.

Michaaaaaaelllllll!!!                     
Sorry, *sniff* that still gets to me, and I’m not alone.  The video’s comments section is loaded with sensitive reaction and reflection such as “I cry everytime, the emotion is just so intense zomg” and “lol” which I’m led to believe means “languishing over [the] loss [of Michael from Night Market Life].
So as the series appears to be on its last legs, let the memory of Michael’s high speed flight from the grill of a truck flailing his arms like a gecko live on for eternity as perhaps the greatest moment of Taiwanese television ever.
Source: YouTube – littlewhiteegg

Man Forced to Choose Between Mother and Wife Drowning at the Same Time, China Continues to Become the Home of Hypothetical Situations Come to Life

One of the amazing things about China is that with its massive population of 1.3 billion, strange events tend to happen with more frequency than other countries. And they’re usually the kind of strange events imagined during late night drinking sessions. For example, someone falls into a pit of human feces. Who in your neighborhood would be the first person to jump in to save them?  Happened in China.  Your boyfriend stole your money so he could buy you presents.  What would you do? Happened in China.
Now your wife and your mother are both drowning. Who do you save? This also happened in China a few weeks ago, and not everyone agrees with the man’s decision.

What is probably one of the most famous hypothetical questions played itself out in reality in Anhui, China on 22 July.  Wang Fei Guo (28) and his wife of 4 years Xiaoqing took a trip to his family’s home.
The home was located near a lake that was a well known fishing spot and Xiaoqing asked her husband to take her out on the lake. Guo hadn’t been fishing in a long time and agreed.  Guo’s mother tagged along to help work the net for them.
Out on the boat, the inexperienced Xiaoqing stood up too quickly to look into the water, causing his wife to fall into the lake. The mother, seeing this, went to help but also lost her balance, causing the boat to turn over and sending the remaining two people into the lake.
For Guo, this was no problem as he could swim.  However his wife and mother could not and started drowning.  Guo immediately went to his wife, who was the nearest to him.  He grabbed her and took her to hold onto the capsized boat.  Then he went straight for his mother.
After all three got out of the lake the mother was sent to the hospital.  It was reported that if they had been just a little bit slower the mother might not have survived.  Guo’s father was enraged over his son’s decision to save his wife first.
When the story broke out, debate began to swirl on the internet about Guo’s handling of this oft discussed “hypothetical” situation.  Some were critical of the man saying that“you only have one mother in your life, but you can always get another wife,” while others defended him, citing the pragmatic “mother doesn’t have as many years left” argument.
The mother later reportedly said that she absolutely doesn’t blame her son for his decision.  The father also, after cooling down, sympathized: “How do you choose between family and family?”
As is always the case in these dilemmas, there is no perfect answer.  We can’t really fault Guo seeing as everyone made it out alive.  Would you have done the same thing in his situation?
Source: News 163 (Chinese)

Guilty and NEVER Proven Innocent – Every Male Train Rider’s Nightmare in Japan

-trainTales of subway groping are unfortunately commonplace in Japan, and anyone committing such a pathetic and cowardly act deserves every punishment given. But what happens if you are falsely accused? Often filled well beyond capacity, there is a real possibility of such a thing happening if you ride the trains running throughout Japan’s major urban centers. No matter your innocence, with a 99 percent conviction rate should the case go to court, one Tokyo lawyer says the best thing to do if wrongly accused is, run
Attorney Takashi Nozawa provides the following advice to anyone who might find themselves caught up in this nightmarish, no-win situation.

———————
Though this is a personal opinion, the number one thing I cannot recommend is trying to plead your innocence in open court. You need to provide evidence proving way beyond a reasonable doubt that you did not grope the accuser, and you have to do this in a court where there is a 99-percent conviction rate for such cases. Additionally, if you are taken into custody after being indicted, it will take quite some for the court to reach a decision, meaning you will be unable to work, and because of the nature of the accusation, shunned by society. As there is often a lot of publicity generated if charges are proved false, many people think they should fight their accuser in court. However, people would do well to remember that when it comes to false accusations of molestation on the train, in the overwhelming majority of cases, there is no justice.
If caught in such a situation, what should one do?
First off would be to run away from the scene, this is one of the most rational responses when considered from a probability perspective. Your first thought is more than likely wanting to prove your innocence, however, in groping cases this is extremely difficult. If you think about the low chances of the police catching you if you quickly escape from the scene, running away is a rather compelling choice.
What should you do if escape is not an option?
To begin with, it would probably be a good idea to immediately and very angrily deny the accusation on the spot.
The greatest risk faced is that of a third party coming forward and also falsely accusing you of the crime. It is an emotional and scandalous issue, and there is the real possibility of someone who did not see anything stepping forward and adding accusations in order to back up and protect the woman accusing you. Testimony from a third party along the lines of “this person fondled her rear,” especially if it is from someone unrelated to the accuser, is decisive evidence. You must maintain an attitude of indignation and angrily claim your innocence, “I didn’t do it! What are you talking about?!” If you do this, there is the possibility that others involved will think it is too much trouble to deal with you, providing an opportunity to flee the scene.
If the police show up, what you must not do is silently obey and follow them to the station. Try anything to avoid going to the station, though you are innocent, it might be in your best interest to try apologizing for a “misunderstanding” that can be taken care of at the train station master’s office. If you go to the police station and continue to deny the charges, they will often keep you in custody for a period of one week to ten days. During this time you will not be able to go to work and things will not turn out well. You must be prepared to get axed by your company, and the last stages of your fight begin here.
police station
If you are taken into custody on charges of groping, the first thing you need to do is call a lawyer. The lawyer can then call your family to inform them of the situation, and then a family member can call your employer and tell them you have suddenly taken ill and need a few days off. If someone from the company says they would like to visit you at the hospital, the family member can provide evasive answers and say something like the doctor has ordered “quiet rest” with no visitation allowed.
Within about ten days of your arrest, you need to work with your lawyer in contacting the accuser and trying to work out a settlement. If you wait longer, you will use up your paid holidays, and the chances of your employer discovering the truth about your situation increase. If you continue to deny the charges, the police can continue holding you for up to 23 days by saying they are worried you may attempt to flee their jurisdiction or damage evidence.
It is understandable that those accused may not feel fully satisfied with having to make an out-of-court settlement despite the fact that they are innocent, but as a lawyer, what I am trying to get them to agree to is only that they “touched” the accuser, not that they “intentionally touched” her. In other words it was not a case of deliberate indecency; we are just trying to bring the incident to an end by paying “damages based on negligence.” The documentation exchanged with the accuser simply states “damages” of a certain amount will be paid if the accuser agrees to drop the case through her own “generosity.” In the period immediately following the incident, the female accuser is usually angry, however, in the end, most cases are concluded when an agreement on monetary compensation is reached. Once an out-of-court settlement is reached with the accuser, I will meet with the prosecutor in charge of the case and get them to agree that, “though somewhat unclear with regard to actual details regarding the incident, an out-of-court settlement has been reached. Rather than wasting the court’s time by futilely trying this case of supposed willful criminal indecency, it would be easier to dispose of it by simply dismissing the case.”
At any rate, if you are taken into custody on this charge, you should resign yourself to the fact that you will almost certainly be found guilty close to 100 percent of the time, and you should aim for some type of “grey zone” resolution. I know of many cases where people falsely arrested on groping charges were able to hide the fact from their employers, allowing them to get on and continue leading normal lives.
Source: Esuteru via Livedoor News
Photos: lo-la (Top), Pak han (police)

Scientists Create First Cloned Human Embryo

Source: PopSci
The process that created Dolly the sheep in 1996 has now been proven successful in humans.
Scientists have made an embryonic clone of a person, using DNA from that person’s skin cells. In the future, such a clone could be a source of stem cells, for super-personalized therapies made from people’s own DNA.
It’s unlikely that this clone could develop into a human, say the scientists, a team of biologists from the U.S. and Thailand. The team plans to publish a paper in the future detailing why not, Nature reported. Previously, the team conducted this entire process, including a technique called somatic cell nuclear transfer, in monkeys. Those monkey embryo clones always died before they could grow into adult monkeys.
“While nuclear transfer breakthroughs often lead to a public discussion about the ethics of human cloning, this is not our focus, nor do we believe our findings might be used by others to advance the possibility of human reproductive cloning,” Shoukhrat Mitalipov, the clone research’s lead scientist, said in a statement. Mitalipov is a biologist who studies cells and development at the Oregon Health and Science University.
This is a feat that’s been a long time coming. The world even got a bit of a tease of it nearly a decade ago, in 2004 and 2005, when Woo Suk Hwang of Seoul National University said he’d made human clones. It turned out Hwang was lying.
Now, Mitalipov and his team have made clones using the same basic technique that created Dolly the cloned sheep in 1996. The scientists took skin cells’ nuclei—the centers of the cells, where the cells keep their DNA—and transplanted them into eggs that had their own genetic material removed. They then grew the eggs for a few days, harvested the daughter cells that appeared, and created a cell line, or a colony of cells that reproduces stably. The stem cells in the cell line could become several different types of adult cells, just like natural stem cells.
In the future, stem cells made in this way will compete with another method of creating personalized stem cells. Researchers previously showed they are able to transform adult skin cells directly into stem cells, with no stop for a transfer into an egg along the way. Such cells are called induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPSCs, and they don’t require the creation of embryos.
Want to learn more? Mitalipov and his colleagues published a paper about their work today in the journal Cell. Nature has great reporting on the breakthrough, with a little more scientific nitty-gritty.

Master Of All Remotes: (ONR) has developed a remote controller for military ground, air and undersea unmanned systems

Source: Satnews
This Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD)-prescribed data model is a piece of software that enabled development of the Common Control System, which is comprised of many different common control services. TheUnmanned Aerial Systems (UASControl Segment (UCS) software can be added to any unmanned system to make it able to communicate and work with any other. It will run on any type of platform or hardware, and it can overlay existing systems running on propriety software to make them work with any others.
The groundbreaking UCS-2, or Universal Character Set, computer code-based software acts as a gateway that allows the warfighter to control an entire unmanned system, from the vehicle itself to its payload. The various services within the Common Control System are now available for download by all of the military services through an OSD-sponsored online “store.”
“Some day in the near future you’ll have a sailor controlling an Air Force unit’s unmanned system, or an airman sitting at a desk controlling a naval unmanned system or a Marine controlling an Army platform,” said Chief of Naval Research Rear Adm. Matthew Klunder. “That’s the kind of ability we will have with this new Common Control System—that’s our future.”
Historically, unmanned systems have been developed and fielded as individual items built by different vendors, which has led to increased spending, from $284 million in 2002 to more than $3 billion in fiscal year 2010. They are all uniquely controlled by proprietary software created by numerous vendors, and the data they provide is sent out in unique formats, making it very difficult to control various systems with one master control or sift through all of the information being transmitted.
The common controller will change this and allow systems to work with one another. Getting rid of custom-built components and systems will simplify the systems themselves, as well as purchasing and training processes, thereby reducing costs.
“This opens the aperture for a much wider and more rapid generation of newer technologies and capabilities and for all vendors, including small businesses, to be able to compete for those capabilities,” said Dr. Bobby Junker, who heads ONR’sCommand, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance department. “This is bringing back that entrepreneurial spirit that used to be there with unmanned systems.”
Additionally, all of the data captured by the systems will be saved in a cloud environment that is transparent across the military and easily accessible to and quickly navigable by all service members. “This is all about transparency of data and services across all networks—making data available as transparently as possible to warfighters,” said Junker.
“In the future battle space, I think we’re going to see a lot of unmanned systems in all domains—air, ground, sea and undersea—being used to feed the intelligence community, provide information to the tactical warfighter and act as a virtual wingman,” Klunder said.
ONR is working with the OSD’s Office of Strategic and Tactical SystemsNaval Air Systems CommandNaval Undersea Warfare CenterProgram Executive Office (PEOIntegrated Warfare Systems and PEO Unmanned Aviation and Strike Weapons on this software.
Testing and experimentation were conducted in 2012. ONR validated that UCS can be used to develop common control services that provide total functionality for a particular Common Control System, the Bi-Directional Remote Video Terminal (BDRVT). As a result, ONR was able to provide OSD with a blueprint for all military services to be able to build a BDRVT using UCS-developed common control services. (Source: Katherine H. Crawford, Office of Naval Research.)

How Angelina Jolie was duped by cancer doctors into self mutilation for breast cancer she never had

naturalnews.com

Originally published May 15 2013

cancer

How Angelina Jolie was duped by cancer doctors into self mutilation for breast cancer she never had

by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor

(NaturalNews) In a New York Times op-ed explaining her decision to have both of her breasts surgically removed even though she doesn't have breast cancer, Angelina Jolie cited risk numbers as key to her decision. She said that doctors told her she had an "87% risk of breast cancer." Her solution? Undergo three months of surgical procedures and have her breasts cut out.

Problem solved, right? With her breasts removed, she says her risk of breast cancer is now reduced to a mere 5 percent. The same bizarre logic can also be applied to men who cut off their testicles to "prevent testicular cancer" or people who cut out their colons to "prevent colorectal cancer." But that would be insane, so nobody does that, because one of the most basic principles of medicine is that you don't subject patients to the considerable risks and costs of surgery and anesthesia to remove organs that have no disease!

But the really sad part about all this is that Angelina Jolie was lied to. She didn't have an 87% risk of breast cancer in the first place. All the women reading her NYT op-ed piece are also being lied to. Here's why...

How cancer doctors lie with statistics and use fear to scare women into high-profit procedures

The very idea that breast cancer is a "percent risk" is a complete lie. In reality, everyone has cancer micro-tumors in their bodies, including myself. Cancer is not a disease you just "get" like being randomly struck by lightning. It's something you must "manage" or "prevent" day by day, meal by meal, through a lifestyle choice that involves vitamin D supplementation, nutrition, superfoods, vegetable juices and avoidance of cancer-causing chemicals and radiation.

So when a doctor says you have a "chance" of getting cancer, what he's implying is that you have no control over cancer, and that's an outright lie. Cancer quackery, in other words.

Even Jolie with her BRCA1 gene that's linked to breast cancer can quite easily follow a dietary and lifestyle plan that suppresses BRCA1 gene expression. It's not rocket science. It's not even difficult. It can be done with simple foods that cost a few dollars a day. Those foods include raw citrus, resveratrol (red grapes or red wine), raw cruciferous vegetables, omega-3 oils and much more. Those same foods also help prevent heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer's and other chronic diseases.

Indole-3-carbinol (I3C), by the way, a natural chemical found in cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and cabbage, offers powerful prevention against BRCA1 gene expression. But you don't hear cancer doctors telling women to "eat more cabbage" because that doesn't make the cancer industry any money. You can buy I3C as a potent nutritional supplement from a variety of sources. It's literally cancer prevention in a capsule.

So the whole "chance" argument is pure quackery. There is no chance involved in whether you get cancer. It's all cause and effect. You are either living a pro-cancer lifestyle and therefore growing cancer, or you're living an anti-cancer lifestyle and keeping cancer in check so that it never becomes a problem. Cause and effect is what results in either the growth of cancer tumors or the prevention of cancer tumors. There is no "luck" involved.

It's fascinating, isn't it, that medical doctors don't believe in luck or voodoo on any topic other than cancer. But when it comes to cancer, they want all women to be suckered into the victim mentality that cancer is purely a matter of "luck" and therefore women have no control over their own health outcomes. How dis-empowering! How sick! How incredibly exploitive of women!

If you really want to be informed about breast cancer and the corrupt, dishonest cancer industry, read my related article 10 Facts about the Breast Cancer Industry You're Not Supposed to Know. Or listen to our upcoming FREE Cancer Solutions Summit broadcasting this coming Monday, May 20th.

Why doesn't the cancer industry empower women with a sense of control over their own health?

I find it astonishing that the cancer industry doesn't believe in cause and effect. They would rather scare women with "risk" statistics that imply people have no control over cancer. Empowering women with a sense of control over their own health is the last thing the cancer industry wants to do, because that would cause them to lose customers and lose money.

It's far more profitable to scare all women into a state of such irrational panic that they agree to the most insane things imaginable such as chopping off both their healthy breasts even though they have no cancer. Such women are then convinced they've literally saved their own lives by agreeing to be mutilated by cancer surgeons.

"My chances of developing breast cancer have dropped from 87 percent to under 5 percent," says Jolie. "I can tell my children that they don't need to fear they will lose me to breast cancer."

Will she also tell her children they should mutilate themselves, too, as a form of medical disease prevention? And what happens if she learns she has a risk of brain cancer? Does she chop off her head and call it a cure?

The scam of making women believe there is only ONE way to reduce your "risk" of breast cancer

The other enormous scam in all this is the idea that there's only one way to reduce your "risk" of breast cancer. Even if you believe the fictitious number of "87% risk," why does everyone automatically assume there is one and only one way to lower that risk?

"For any woman reading this, I hope it helps you to know you have options," writes Jolie in the NYT. Yet she utterly fails to offer women any options other than the one she took: check in to a cancer center and let them play "cut-poison-burn" on your body. Jolie's op-ed piece, which reads as if it were written by the public relations department of the Pink Lotus Breast Center, offers nothing in the way of nutrition advice, lifestyle choices, holistic therapies, wellness, alternative medicine... nothing! What an incredible disservice to all the women of America...

In the world of health, nutrition and cancer, there are thousands of ways to prevent cancer and suppress the expression of BRCA1 genes. But Jolie and the cancer industry seem to imply no options exist other than chemotherapy, radiotherapy or surgery. Three options only. Nothing else exists in their world, not nutritional prevention, not vitamin D therapy, not vitamin C potentiated micro-chemotherapy, not ozone therapy, sauna treatments, acupuncture, Chinese herbal medicine, stress reduction or anything else. You are supposed to believe that none of these things exist!

And why? Because the cancer industry wants to funnel women like cattle into their slash-poison-burn system of quack treatments. And Angelina Jolie is their new cheerleader. Scarred and no doubt experiencing the chest and armpit numbness that almost always accompanies mastectomy surgery, she now seeks to "inspire" other women to exercise their own sick "choice" and have their breasts removed, too!

It is the sickest invocation of women's power that I've ever witnessed. This is not empowering women, it's marching them into self-mutilation. And the "risk" is a complete fraud. In truth, Angelina Jolie had a higher risk of dying on the operating table than dying from breast cancer if she simply followed an anti-cancer lifestyle.

Don't be tricked into self-mutilation by cancer industry quacks

In summary:

• The claim that you have a "percent risk" of breast cancer is a big lie which implies you have no control over cancer.

• BRCA1 genes can be kept quiet (suppressed) through proper foods and lifestyle choices. A gene is not a death sentence.

• The implication that there is only ONE way to reduce breast cancer risk is a complete lie. There are thousands of options and strategies for preventing cancer. Never be cornered into surgery by a group of surgeons pushing irrational fear.

• Cancer micro-tumors exist in everyone. Cancer must be "managed" in everyone to keep it in check and avoid the growth of tumors.

• The cancer industry tricks women using unethical fear tactics to scare women with false statistics into high-profit cancer procedures that only cause them harm.

• The claim that cutting off healthy breasts somehow "empowers" women is sick and demented. Women are far more empowered by honest information on nutrition and healthy living that allows them to keep their bodies intact rather than being sliced up by dishonest cancer surgeons.

Listen to our FREE cancer solutions seminar on May 20th, as we launch our New Cancer Solutions Healing Summit featuring incredibly valuable lectures by holistic / alternative cancer doctors who know what they're talking about. It's FREE and all women need to be empowered by this truthful information.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLmSZF-cuF0&feature=player_embedded





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Restaurant's Facebook Goes Nuclear Over Reviews & Gordon Ramsay; Owners Cry Hack

from the nobody-believes-you dept

I guess I can't say for sure how I would react to a negative review (besides reading some Techdirt comments directed at me), but I'd like to think that I have thick enough skin not to make a complete ass out of myself. That's why it always surprises me to see companies that should know better poop their pants over what customers (or non-customers) say on sites like Yelp and Reddit. Whether it's suing customers or issuing DMCA notices, I simply fail to see the logic in pissing off even more people with that kind of behavior. If someone posted a negative review of one of my books for instance, even petulantly, I'd prefer to look at it as an opportunity to both learn from the negative review and appreciate the fact that someone out there cared enough to write something about it at all.

Or, if you're Amy's Baking Company, you can write off all the complaints as coming from "haters" and then make a complete ass of yourself on your company's Facebook page. That restaurant has an interesting history of poor service, garnering poor reviews on Yelp, and even cursing at customers and tossing them out of their establishment for complaining. The woman who runs the place (you'll never guess what her name is) appears to have the business sense of a drunken chimpanzee. In one of the all-time worst decisions of anything ever, they decided to bring in Gordon Ramsay's show Kitchen Nightmares for the stated purpose of proving to their customers that their food is crazy good and the haters are all idiots. Those that have watched the show in the past can probably already hear the freight train of doom headed Amy's way.
On Friday night's episode of Kitchen Nightmares, shouty chef Gordon Ramsay quit for the first time ever in the show's 82-episode history. Amy and Samy Bouzaglo — owners of Amy's Baking Company in Scottsdale, Arizona — blamed everyone for their troubles, including "haters" and "bloggers," but not themselves. The owners did not give service staff tips (pocketing the money instead) and admitted to having fired over 100 employees. Said Ramsay: "After about 100 Kitchen Nightmares, I met two owners I could not help, it is because they are incapable of listening."
I'm not normally one for reality shows, but go watch this. Seriously. The level of crazy in Amy and her husband Samy is as epic as it is entertaining. Right off the bat, Amy breathlessly rails against "haters" and "bloggers" who are apparently to blame for her serving variously under-prepared and over-prepared food, wait times that are measured in hours for customers, and food combinations that would make even an amatuer cook blow their brains out in dismay.
Still, the whole point of the show is to help failing restaurants turn things around, right? So obviously things went poorly on the show, the public reacted, and Amy and Samy learned their lesson and got their shitake mushrooms together.             

Of course they didn't. Instead, their Facebook page went at times all-caps nuclear, with some of the greatest combinations of religiosity, anger, and cursing I've ever witnessed. Some treasures of highlights for you to enjoy.
"We will not bend to the will of these haters and sinners."

"I AM NOT STUPID ALL OF YOU ARE. YOU JUST DO NOT KNOW GOOD FOOD. IT IS NOT UNCOMMON TO RESELL THINGS WALMART DOES NOT MAKE THEIR ELECTRONICS OR TOYS SO LAY OFF!!!!"

"I am keeping note of all names here. We will be pursuing action against you legaly, and against reddit and yelp, for this plot you have come together on. you are all just punks."

"WE ARE NOT FREAKING OUT. WE DO NOT CARE ABOUT A "WITCH HUNT" I AM NOT A WITCH. I AM GODS CHILD. PISS OFF ALL OF YOU. FUCK REDDITS, FUCK YELP AND FUCK ALL OF YOU. BRING IT. WE WILL FIGHT BACK."
Now, it should be noted that Amy and Samy have since claimed that someone hacked their Facebook page. Reading the above posts, which have since been deleted, you may be inclined to think that level of crazy is obviously the work of troublemakers. To that I suggest again watching the episode. Either someone is doing an immensely accurate impression of these two, or it was them and they aren't enjoying the blowback that comes with pissing off everyone.

So, what's the lesson that should be learned here? Is it that you shouldn't treat your customers like garbage? Is it that you shouldn't lash out about poor reviews online, regardless of whether you agree with them or not? Is it that you shouldn't seek out Gordon Ramsay as a way to vindicate yourself? Or is that reacting to bad press from all the above by blowing an o-ring on your company Facebook page and then crying hack only makes you look petty?

None of the above. The lesson here is that you shouldn't go to Amy's Baking Company, because if the food doesn't kill you, I think there's at least a chance Amy will.

New cables 'expose' US govt lobbies worldwide for Monsanto, other GMO corps

Published time: May 14, 2013 20:38
Edited time: May 15, 2013 19:42
Jane Michalek (R) drinks soup during an eat-in protest in front of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition in College Park, Maryland April 8, 2013. (Reuters)
Jane Michalek (R) drinks soup during an eat-in protest in front of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition in College Park, Maryland April 8, 2013. (Reuters)
After US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks showed that the State Department was lobbying worldwide for Monsanto and other similar corporations, a new report based on the cables shows Washington's shilling for the biotech industry in distinct detail.
The August 2011 WikiLeaks revelations showed that American diplomats had requested funding to send lobbyists for the biotech industry to hold talks with politicians and agricultural officials in "target countries" in areas like Africa and Latin America, where genetically-modified crops were not yet a mainstay, as well as some European countries that have resisted the controversial agricultural practice.
After a concerted effort to "closely examine five years of State Department diplomatic cables from 2005 to 2009 to provide the first comprehensive analysis of the strategy, tactics and U.S. foreign policy objectives to foist pro-agricultural biotechnology policies worldwide," nonprofit consumer protection group Food & Water Watch published on Tuesday a report showing in plain detail the depth of the partnership between the federal government and a number of controversial biotech companies that have slowly but surely pushed their GMO products on a number of new countries in recent years.
Protesters against Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) are chained to a vehicle as they block a delivery entrance to a Monsanto seed distribution facility in Oxnard, California September 12, 2012. (Reuters/Mario Anzuoni)
Protesters against Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) are chained to a vehicle as they block a delivery entrance to a Monsanto seed distribution facility in Oxnard, California September 12, 2012. (Reuters/Mario Anzuoni)
At center stage in the report is Monsanto, the St. Louis, Missouri-based makers of genetically-modified crops and genetically-engineered seeds that has continuously generated criticism as of late over its practices both on the growing field and in a court of law. Monsanto is among the most valuable corporations in the US, yet has relentlessly sued small-time farmers across the world over alleged patent violations, often forcing independent agriculturists to go out of business. Legislation signed into law last month provided litigation immunity to GMO companies including Monsanto, and on Monday the Supreme Court sided with the corporation when ruling on a landmark patent infringement case.
The US Department of State is selling seeds instead of democracy,” Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter told reporters. “This report provides a chilling snapshot of how a handful of giant biotechnology companies are unduly influencing US foreign policy and undermining our diplomatic efforts to promote security, international development and transparency worldwide. This report is a call to action for Americans because public policy should not be for sale to the highest bidder.”
Food & Water Watch published their findings this week after combing through the roughly 260,000 State Department cables that the whistleblower website first began publishing in 2010, but notes that their statistics specifically come from memos not classified as 'secret' or higher.
For the most part, wrote the nonprofit, “The State Department strategy sought to foist pro-biotech policies on foreign governments” using a four-prong approach: promote biotech business interests; lobby foreign governments to weaken biotech rules; protect US biotech exports and press developing world to adopt biotech crops.
As the cables are analyzed, though, the efforts the State Department undertook to advocate for Monsanto demonstrate a willingness to put a US-based company’s profits about the interests and health of those residing in foreign nations.
In a cable sent from the Slovakian consulate in 2005, the State Department is told that the local post “will continue its efforts to dispel myths about GMOs and advocate on behalf of Monsanto.” In 2009, a cable out of Madrid, Spain announced that Monsanto had made “urgent requests” to fight off an anti-GMO opposition campaign that posed problems to the biotech industry. Other revelations show pro-GMO efforts waged by the US on behalf of the biotech industry in Hong Kong, the European Union, Egypt and elsewhere.
However, activists in the areas in question and elsewhere are taking note of Monsanto's dangerous and growing influence, with anti-Monsanto demonstrations planned in 36 cities on six continents for spring and summer 2013.
Members of "Occupy" movements in the Midwest protest against Monsanto's agricultural practices in front of the Missouri Botanical Garden during the "Occupy the Midwest" regional conference in St. Louis, Missouri March 16, 2012. (Reuters/Sarah Conard)
Members of "Occupy" movements in the Midwest protest against Monsanto's agricultural practices in front of the Missouri Botanical Garden during the "Occupy the Midwest" regional conference in St. Louis, Missouri March 16, 2012. (Reuters/Sarah Conard)
The State Department’s efforts impose the policy objectives of the largest biotech seed companies on often skeptical or resistant governments and public, and exemplifies thinly veiled corporate diplomacy,” alleged Food & Water Watch.
When Food & Water Watch scoured those cables, they concluded that the State Department was conducting off-the-radar negotiations that didn’t seem to advance democracy or American ideals — instead, rather, it found evidence of lobbying used to advance the agenda of thriving US companies that have already purchased the approval of much of Washington.
It’s not surprising that Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta, Bayer and Dow want to maintain and expand their control of the $15 billion global biotech seed market, but it’s appalling that the State Department is complicit in supporting their goals despite public and government opposition in several countries,” Ronnie Cummins, executive director of Organic Consumers Association, said in the press release accompanying the report. “American taxpayer’s money should not be spent advancing the goals of a few giant biotech companies.” 
Of the 926 State Department cables analyzed by Food & Water Watch, the group found Monsanto appeared in more than 6 percent of the memos, shining light on how a federal agency “worked especially hard to promote the interests” of an outside company.
When reached for comment by Reuters, Monsanto spokesman Tom Helscher said, "We remain committed to sharing information so that individuals can better understand our business and our commitments to support farmers throughout the world as they work to meet the agriculture demands of our world's growing population.” The State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Nancy Brumley, Monsanto Soybean Plant Specialist, ties up a stalk of soybean in the soybean greenhouse at the Monsanto Research facility in Chesterfield, Missouri October 9, 2009. (Reuters)
Nancy Brumley, Monsanto Soybean Plant Specialist, ties up a stalk of soybean in the soybean greenhouse at the Monsanto Research facility in Chesterfield, Missouri October 9, 2009. (Reuters)
As RT reported previously, that so-called “Monsanto Protection Act” signed into law last month was co-authored by a senator that has received thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the company — a revelation that didn’t surprise many given that another important figure in Washington, Justice Clarence Thomas, served as an attorney for the corporation before he was nominated to the high court only to eventually preside over a case involving his former employer. But according to Food & Water Watch, the relationship between Monsanto and the government extends beyond Congress and the Supreme Court. In a statement published on Tuesday to accompany their report, Food & Water Watch wrote that the cables detail “how the US State Department lobbies foreign governments to adopt pro-agricultural biotechnology policies and laws, operates a rigorous public relations campaign to improve the image of biotechnology and challenges commonsense biotechnology safeguards and rules — including opposing genetically engineered (GE) food labeling laws.”
This week’s report comes just one day after Justice Thomas and the Supreme Court sided with Monsanto in reaching a decision in a landmark patent suit. In the case, the high court said that an Indiana farmer infringed on Monsanto’s patent rights by using specially-made seeds he obtained second-hand without signing a contract with the company. That ruling, however, came just days after the company was hit with comparably bad news: on Friday, the US Department of Agriculture ordered an extra round of tests for new GMO breeds being developed by Monsanto and Dow, putting on hold plans to release to the public laboratory-made crops that can withstand heavy dousing of dangerous pesticides. Both companies want to make available crops that are resistant to the chemicals 2,4-D and dicamba, a move that environmentalists fear will prompt farmers to use more of these toxins.
"The danger that 2,4-D and dicamba pose is a real threat to crops…nearly every food crop," Steve Smith, director of agriculture at Red Gold, told Reuters last year.

An Even Bigger Scandal: Why Are IRS Audits Being Used To Punish Obama’s Political Enemies?

Obama Using IRS Audits To Attack His Enemies?Is it right for Barack Obama to use IRS audits to punish his political enemies?  As crazy as that sounds, there is a mounting body of evidence that indicates that this is actually happening.  And if this can be proven, it is a much, much larger scandal than the IRS giving "extra scrutiny" to the applications of conservative non-profit groups.  Let me be clear - if Barack Obama has been using IRS audits to punish his political enemies, that is an impeachable offense.  Of all of the other scandals that are out there right now, this is the one that could actually bring down the presidency of Barack Obama.  That is how serious this is.  As you will read about below, there is a huge amount of circumstantial evidence that political enemies of Barack Obama have been singled out for IRS audits.  We need to find out who initiated these audits.  Whether you are a Republican, a Democrat or an Independent, this kind of abuse of government power should sicken and horrify you.  If it can be proven that Barack Obama has been using IRS audits to attack his enemies, every single U.S. citizen should be calling for him to resign.  This is something that is beyond politics - this is a direct threat to the very integrity of our system.
The recent revelation that the IRS has been specifically targeting patriot groups and Tea Party organizations for "extra scrutiny" has opened up the floodgates.  In recent days, a large number of highly respected people have come forward claiming that they were the subject of IRS audits that were politically motivated.
For example, Larry Conners, a respected local news anchor at KMOV Channel 4 in St. Louis, Missouri says that he was hit with an IRS audit almost immediately after he conducted an interview with Barack Obama in April 2012...
Shortly after I did my April 2012 interview with President Obama, my wife, friends and some viewers suggested that I might need to watch out for the IRS.
I don't accept "conspiracy theories", but I do know that almost immediately after the interview, the IRS started hammering me.
At the time, I dismissed the "co-incidence", but now, I have concerns ... after revelations about the IRS targeting various groups and their members.
Originally, the IRS apologized for red-flagging conservative groups and their members if they had "Tea Party" or "patriot" in their name.
Today, there are allegations that the IRS focused on various groups and/or individuals questioning or criticizing government spending, taxes, debt or how the government is run ... any involved in limiting/expanding government, educating on the constitution and bill of rights, or social economic reform/movement.
In that April 2012 interview, I questioned President Obama on several topics: the Buffet Rule, his public remarks about the Supreme Court before the ruling on the Affordable Care Act. I also asked why he wasn't doing more to help Sen. Claire McCaskill who at that time was expected to lose. The Obama interview caught fire and got wide-spread attention because I questioned his spending.
I said some viewers expressed concern, saying they think he's "out of touch" because of his personal and family trips in the midst of our economic crisis.
The President's face clearly showed his anger; afterwards, his staff which had been so polite ... suddenly went cold.
That's to be expected, and I can deal with that just as I did with President George H. Bush's staff when he didn't like my questions.
Journalistic integrity is of the utmost importance to me. My job is to ask the hard questions, because I believe viewers have a right to be well-informed. I cannot and will not promote anyone's agenda - political or otherwise - at the expense of the reporting the truth.
What I don't like to even consider ... is that because of the Obama interview … the IRS put a target on me.
Can I prove it? At this time, no.
But it is a fact that since that April 2012 interview ... the IRS has been pressuring me.
Reverend Franklin Graham, the son of Reverend Billy Graham, recently wrote a letter to Barack Obama claiming that the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan's Purse were both hit with IRS audits very shortly after they ran full-page ads supporting North Carolina's Marriage amendment.  In fact, both organizations were notified about the audits on the same day.  The following is from a recent article posted on redstate.com...
The man known as America’s pastor was among those targeted by the Internal Revenue Service after the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association ran newspaper advertisements promoting traditional marriage and biblical values.
“I am bringing this to your attention because I believe that someone in the Administration was targeting and attempting to intimidate us,” wrote Franklin Graham in a letter to President Obama. “This is morally wrong and unethical – indeed some would call it ‘un-American.’”
Graham is president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association as well as the international charity Samaritan’s Purse. Both organizations received word of audits on the same day – not long after they ran full –page ads supporting North Carolina’s Marriage amendment.
The ads encouraged voters to “cast our ballots for candidates who base their decisions on biblical principles and support the nation of Israel.”
The ad concluded with the words, “Vote for biblical values this November 6, and pray with me (Billy Graham) that America will remain one nation under God.”
Graham said on Sept. 6, 2012 they received notification that the IRS would audit their taxes.
“In light of what the IRS admitted to on Friday, May 10, 2013, and subsequent revelations from other sources, I do not believe that the IRS audit of our two organizations last year is a coincidence – or justifiable,” Graham wrote.
You can find a full copy of Franklin Graham's letter to Barack Obama right here.
The Blaze is reporting on another example of this phenomenon.  A respected Catholic professor that had written things critical of the Obama administration was hit with an IRS audit that she believes was politically motivated...
On Wednesday, Dr. Anne Hendershott, a devout Catholic and a noted sociologist, professor and author, exclusively told The Blaze that she believes she may have been one of the IRS’s targets.
According to Hendershott, the IRS audited her in 2010 and demanded to know who was paying her and “what their politics were.”
It all started with a phone call she received at her home in May of that year — a call during which Hendershott was told she would be audited. A letter that followed on May 19, 2010 solidified the IRS’s request to meet her in person two months later in July.
Unfortunately, these are not just isolated incidents.  In fact, attorney Cleta Mitchell recently told Newsmax that she has seen a systematic pattern of politically motivated IRS harassment that only began once Barack Obama entered the White House...
In the case of one such client, she and her family subsequently became targets for audits to their personal and business tax returns, and were even visited by three different government agencies. She also knows of other groups who had surprise visits from the FBI after they applied for IRS status.
Mitchell said she doesn't believe the president or the White House was uninvolved in the IRS activities, as the administration has claimed.
"I've thought for some time that this is politically motivated and that's the reason it was happening. And, as I said, I've been doing this for more than 20 years and I've never seen anything like this until 2009, 2010. And the only thing that changed was we had a different administration," she said.
There are some that have been trying to bring awareness to these politically motivated audits for quite some time.  One of these individuals is a former classmate of Obama's named Wayne Allyn Root...
“I feel like a million bucks. I feel absolutely vindicated. I knew this was going on,” Wayne Allyn Root told WND.
Root, the Libertarian Party vice-presidential candidate in 2008 who has claimed Obama was strangely unknown to him and his fellow Columbia University classmates, recounted his story to WND last October of becoming the target of unusual audits, beginning in January 2011, despite a “spotless” 30-year tax record.
He charged in October that the order to audit him came from Obama himself, and he is even more convinced now.
“I believe this is not rogue agents, who would be risking their pension and careers,” he said.
In October, Root said the order to audit him “must have come from the highest levels of government.”
“Obama is using the power of the IRS and other government agencies to punish his political opposition and intimidate and silence his critics,” Root charged at the time.
In that same article, a number of other examples of this phenomenon were cited...
Last year, billionaire Frank VanderSloot became the target of investigations by both the IRS and the Labor Department after he gave $1 million to a super PAC that supported Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. The GOP’s biggest donor, Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, said a federal criminal investigation into his company’s business practices was politically motivated. Another casino giant, Steve Wynn, also has been investigated.
This week, Root has received many emails from people who identify as conservative and believe the IRS has been harassing them for political reasons.
What happened to businessman Frank VanderSloot is particularly noteworthy.  The following is from an article that Rob Bluey authored last year...
On April 20, President Obama’s campaign named VanderSloot to the first presidential “enemies list” since the Nixon era. Eight private citizens were singled out for their donations to Romney. They committed no crimes, sought no attention, and yet they became the subject of Obama’s scorn.
VanderSloot is now facing persecution from the federal government. Kimberly Strassel reveals in The Wall Street Journal that two federal agencies — the Internal Revenue Service and Labor Department — both launched investigations of VanderSloot after his name appeared on Obama’s enemies list.
No matter what you think of Obama's politics, shouldn't we all be deeply alarmed that he has an "enemies list"?
With each passing day, the similarities between Barack Obama and Richard Nixon become more glaring.
And Obama has even joked about sending the IRS after people that he does not like.  When Obama found out that he was not going to be receiving an honorary doctorate from Arizona State University, he made the following statement...
"President [Michael] Crowe and the Board of Regents will soon learn all about being audited by the IRS."
The IRS is not supposed to be used as a weapon, and the White House is not allowed to use information gathered by the IRS for political gain either.  But apparently last year someone at the IRS was leaking tax information to someone within the Obama campaign.  The following is from a recent article by Matt K. Lewis...
A little over a year ago, I reported that, ”It is likely that someone at the Internal Revenue Service illegally leaked confidential donor information showing a contribution from Mitt Romney’s political action committee to the National Organization for Marriage, says the group.”
Now — on the heels of news the IRS’s apology for having targeted conservative groups — NOM is renewing their demand that the Internal Revenue Service reveal the identity of the people responsible.
“There is little question that one or more employees at the IRS stole our confidential tax return and leaked it to our political enemies, in violation of federal law,” said NOM’s president Brian Brow, in a prepared statement. “The only questions are who did it, and whether there was any knowledge or coordination between people in the White House, the Obama reelection campaign and the Human Rights Campaign. We and the American people deserve answers.”
The IRS has been doing all sorts of things that they should not be doing.  They are a rogue agency that is completely out of control.
In fact, one new lawsuit alleges that the IRS stole the health records of approximately 10 million Americans...
The Internal Revenue Service is now facing a class action lawsuit over allegations that it improperly accessed and stole the health records of some 10 million Americans, including medical records of all California state judges.
According to a report by Courthousenews.com, an unnamed HIPAA-covered entity in California is suing the IRS, alleging that some 60 million medical records from 10 million patients were stolen by 15 IRS agents. The personal health information seized on March 11, 2011, included psychological counseling, gynecological counseling, sexual/drug treatment and other medical treatment data.     "This is an action involving the corruption and abuse of power by several Internal Revenue Service agents," the complaint reads. "No search warrant authorized the seizure of these records; no subpoena authorized the seizure of these records; none of the 10,000,000 Americans were under any kind of known criminal or civil investigation and their medical records had no relevance whatsoever to the IRS search. IT personnel at the scene, a HIPPA facility warning on the building and the IT portion of the searched premises, and the company executives each warned the IRS agents of these privileged records," it continued.
And guess what?
The IRS is going to be the primary government agency in charge of implementing Obamacare.
Will we soon see the IRS use health information to attack the political enemies of the man or woman sitting in the White House?
Unfortunately, thanks to new "Big Brother" technology that the IRS has been implementing, pretty soon there will be very little about us that the IRS does not know.  The following is from a recent article by Richard Satran of U.S. News & World Report...
Consumers are already familiar with Internet "cookies" that track their movements and send them targeted ads that follow them to different websites. The IRS has brought in private industry experts to employ similar digital tracking—but with the added advantage of access to Social Security numbers, health records, credit card transactions and many other privileged forms of information that marketers don't see.
"Private industry would be envious if they knew what our models are," boasted Dean Silverman, the agency's high-tech top gun who heads a group recruited from the private sector to update the IRS, in a comment reported in trade publications.
So what is the IRS going to do with all of this information?
Well, the following are just a few of the things that they have already said that they plan to do with it...
• Charting and analyzing social media such as Facebook
• Targeting audits by matching tax filings to social media or electronic payments
• Tracking individual Internet addresses and emailing patterns
• Sorting data in 32,000 categories of metadata and 1 million unique "attributes"
• Machine learning across "neural" networks
• Statistical and agent-based modeling
• Relationship analysis based on Social Security numbers and other personal identifiers
So are you alarmed by all of this?
You should be.
As I discussed in my previous article entitled  "100 Years Old And Still Killing Us: America Was Much Better Off Before The Income Tax", Congress should close the doors of the IRS and throw away the key.  It is a deeply, deeply corrupt government agency that has gotten wildly out of control.
After what you have just read above, is there anyone out there that would disagree with me?
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Media Now Openly Admitting The Government Controls The News

Wednesday, May 15, 2013 11:51

A trio of Obama scandals has forced the corporate media admit its own reports are nothing more than the government-controlled talking points and not the product of a free and open press.
If you have been following the news lately you’ll notice there are 3 government scandals that the media is focusing on 1) The DOJ spying on the AP reporters 2) Benghazi gate 3) IRS targeting of activist groups.
While each of these are truly a damning indictment of the widespread corruption in our now gone rogue federal government, combing these three stories reveals an even bigger story which is recurring open admission by the media that the news they report is being controlled government.
Government Censorship - Protecting You From Reality
These three scandals have led the media to rebel against the Obama administration in a way that it has not done in the past while at the same time forcing the media to admit some damning facts about the way news is truly originated in America.
The media’s reporting on the scandals has provided the public insights into the operations of the incestuous relationship between the press and the government.
Such revelations clearly suggest the corporate media is telegraphing to the public the American government has just gone way too far out of control.
These three scandals forced the corporate media to admit openly what has long been dismissed as merely conspiracy theory —  that the corporate media is now openly admitting that they are in fact controlled stenographers that do nothing more than echo pre-scripted narratives outlined in talking points created by the rulers of America’s shadow government.
To be absolutely clear, that is not hyperbole nor is it speculation. It’s a fact that the corporate media is now openly admitting their reporting on the Benghazi scandal over the last 8 months has been merely the parroting of statements given by government officials who were merely echoing talking points issued by the CIA.
By now just about every news organization has repeatedly reported the story about how those CIA issued talking points were edited 12 times by various people in the shadow government before they were given to figureheads to relay to the press who in turned echoed them to the masses.
This is a direct admission that the false narrative about Benghazi that has been shoved down our throat as fact by the corporate media was nothing more than CIA issued talking points.
Since subliminal manipulation the consciousness of the masses is now a science that the government has completely mastered, let make make sure you have been deprogrammed before continuing.
Wake up – Every news outlet in the country is admitting 8 months of news reports about Benghazi were nothing more than the parroting of CIA issued talking points.
Stop.
 Let it sink in.
This is not hyperbole and not sensationalism.
The entire corporate media is now openly admitting what they presented to us as objective independent news reports was nothing more than echoing of list CIA talking points.
Does that not at all disturb anyone?
Most people that are disturbed are merely disturbed by the fact the talking points were lies.
That is what the media is telling us the scandal is.
But the real scandal here, and the one no one seems to have a problem with, is that the media is echoing an actual list government talking points to the public and manipulating the public into believing those talking points were the result of objective independently verified investigative journalism.
Yes the real scandal is that the government is entirely controlling the news and the media is doing nothing more regurgitating an official narrative crafted by spooks in the shadow government.
Those spooks operate in secret and disseminate their propaganda operation instructions to public figure heads behind the scenes who in turn relay that information to the media who then relays it to the public.
Information Operations, Google it.
But the media wants us to believe that the scandal is that CIA’s talking points were lies and that’s the only scandal the media wants you to see.
The media not dare look in the mirror and point onto itself.
Surely they represent themselves to the public as fact checkers who vet and verify all information in their reports.
But nothing can be further from the truth because as we clearly see here even an amateur who made a measly attempt to independently verify the statements issued by the government would have easily outed the falsehoods in their claims.
Instead, the only scandal the media sees here is the fact the CIA’s talking points were deliberately falsified so Obama didn’t catch heat  sothat he could be reelected.
Now look, I don’t disagree that is in fact a scandal and the media by all rights should continue to investigate and expose the truth about that scandal.
But for the well-being of this nation and the protection of its citizen’s that media needs to be held just as accountable because if they didn’t take the government at its word despite a continual track record of lies and deception America would be a much safer place today and the citizens of this nation and humanity as a whole would have a much brighter, safer and secure future.
Instead the media’s incestuous relationship with the government has lead to illegal overseas wars and ongoing bombings in several nations that have claimed the lives of an untold number of numerous people all being perpetuated by an ever-expanding police state that looks more and more like an Orwellian totalitarian nightmare with each day that passes.
Of course the damage the media has allowed to occur will continue to reverberate destructive echoes of carnage upon the masses for generations to come.
The IRS scandal illustrates this point even further. The media has ignored for years complaints from activist groups saying they were unfairly being shaken down by the IRS. Those complaints were ignored even while members of congress of provided evidence to back up the allegations. But what we saw was a corporate media controlled by the American Gestapo that dared not step off script and report anything beside the talking points the government gave them. The same goes with the destruction of the constitution through an escalating campaign of post 9/11 hogwash from the Patriot Act, the NDAA, and drones to draconian measure containing to be pushed by the propaganda machine to implement measures such as CISPA, real-time total surveillance, and the inevitable disarming of the public.
The reason for this is clear but I fear if those in the media do not find the courage to be brave now it wil soon be too late.
News organizations know if they step out of line they their access to their “inside sources” and be blacklisted by the government. For individuals in those organization committing such acts of bravery are career ending moves. When the media steps out of line and reports anything that contradicts official government narrative we see them get targeted by the government, both covertly and overtly. We saw it with the coalition of journalist that sued the government for being targeted through the NDAA and with WikiLeaks.
This of course ties into the third scandal which is the Associated Press being spied on by the Gestapo for daring to report information that wasn’t explicitly authorized in talking points issued by the shadow government.
Yes, every now and then we see outlets such as the Associated Press, The New York Times, or the Washington Post do so-called investigative journalism that adds we are supposed to believe steps outside the boundaries and conflicts with the official narrative. But don’t be fooled. Yes the media reports them as “leaks” coming from “inside sources speaking on the condition of anonymity” but nothing could be further from the truth. Those reports are nothing more than statements given by officials from the same Gestapo who are quoted on the condition of anonymity and those leaks are authorized.
Just look at what is happening to the Associated Press right now. They dared contradict the talking points narrative. Instead they implicated the CIA as being involved in planning a Yemen based terror plot which Al Qaeda operatives were going to attack American airplanes and now they are being targeted by the Gestapo for leaking that information.
Look at the reporting on Benghazi. I did several investigative reports which debunked the government’s narrative soon after the attacks. Many of the details I uncovered in my reporting still to this day are not being discussed by the corporate media so even the reports we are now being given by corporate media about the scandal are still being controlled by talking points or we would hearing much different information about the scandal from the media.
Of course this is typical of a media that simply echoes government talking points. Just look at the reporting on drone strikes, which in every case echoes government statements that militants were killed despite hundreds of foreign news reports on the bombings showing drone bombings repeatedly kill innocent woman and children. The examples are numerous. Iraq’s WMDs, Libya, the BP oil spill, Fukushima and even now we see the same thing in Syria.
Despite the corporate media’s track record, be it unwittingly or knowingly or some combination thereof for various reasons, of acting as an obedient mouthpiece in the propaganda machine this all appears to be changing in the wake of the latest scandals rocking the Obama administration.
This is all evidenced by the fact the media is admitting its reporting is based on government generated talking points which as stated before was never before admitted or discussed openly beyond what has long been labeled the fringe conspiracy theorist crowd.
What is being signaled by this revelation to the public is the government has gone far too rogue and we ought to be wary that what we once accepted as credible news is nothing more than a well-orchestrated campaign of propaganda.
Yet even in the wake of the media’s rebellion we should not get to overzealous as government handlers will soon work to stamp out those who are working to resist the machine.
Mass media news organizations will be forced in one way or another to get their reporting back on script.
For those in the media who read this, the time to act is now. We cannot continue to allow the information that is communicated to the masses by the media, which is the public’s tool to keep the government in check and prevent it from becoming overbearing on the people, to be controlled by a few rich and powerful figureheads working as icy manipulators of a well oiled propaganda machine that for a secret shadow government.

IRS as a Political Hit Squad


When the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) admits to violations of law by targeting limited government advocate organizations, you know that the non-divulged crimes are much worse.

(Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
(Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

OpEd

by Sartre
Intellihub.com

May 15, 2013
The discloser in the mainstream media is a pleasant astonishment. The usual pattern of protecting “Big Government” is still intact, while the noise and agency diversion on the abuses of the IRS avoid the fundamental problem with federal taxation, based upon a system of deductions, exemptions, incentives and grants. The extortion and intimidation in the enforcement of the tax code is the entrusted role assigned to the IRS by the political hacks that administer the social engineering experiment that is fundamentally changing America.
The politicalization of the system is premeditated. The revelation that Obama governance resulted in IRS scrutiny went beyond Tea Party, targeting of conservative groups broader than thought, should not be shocking. The sycophants in federal employment have a deranged hostility towards any voice that defends and promotes constitutional federalism. Foxnews reports:
“The internal IG timeline shows a unit in the agency was looking at Tea Party and “patriot” groups dating back to early 2010. But it shows that list of criteria drastically expanding by the time a June 2011 briefing was held. It then included groups focused on government spending, government debt, taxes, and education on ways to “make America a better place to live.” It even flagged groups whose file included criticism of “how the country is being run.”
By early 2012, the criteria were updated to include organizations involved in “limiting/expanding government,” education on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and social economic reform.”
The game of citing partisan hypocrisy in describing respective “enemy lists” avoids the necessary task of replacing the taxation labyrinth, designed to select winners and losers. Every administration uses the bureaucracy to punish political foes and most presidencies intentionally engage in illegal retribution, but all share the virtual immunity from prosecution for their misdeeds. What can we reasonably expect from this Obama scandal? It certainly has the hallmark of being a far more severe constitutional violation than those committed in the heyday of the LBJ, Nixon and Clinton outlaws.
Now be forewarned, that the IRS is charged with overseeing compliance under Obamacare. Giving a mandate for expansion under this current cloud of criminality is the height of arrogance. Notwithstanding, the irreversible loss in credibility, the wholesale revamping of the method of taxation should be examined and a trustworthy replacement adopted. However, before reviewing one such alteration, it must be pointed out, that collecting taxes to finance governmental operations is not the primary purpose of the current system.
Perpetual trillion dollar deficits demonstrate that raising revenue to pay for federal programs lacks the ability to balance budgets. The principal function of the Internal Revenue Service is to facilitate the tax avoidance practices of corporatist transnational conglomerates. The retaliatory mission against working class citizens is ostensibly a disciplinary process to maintain control over the finances of producing contributors. Inhibiting upward mobility for the populace, while accelerating elite’s wealth accumulation, is the destructive result of the tax code.
The Hill offers a solution in the article, House GOP seeks to abolish IRS, replace income tax with consumption tax.
“The FairTax Act, from Rep. Rob Woodall (R-Ga.), would abolish the 16th Amendment, which was ratified 100 years ago this February. That amendment gives Congress the power to impose income taxes without having to spend the revenues evenly among the states.
Woodall’s bill, H.R. 25, would replace the current tax system with a 23 percent consumption tax on all new goods and services. He said Thursday that this change would eliminate the need for a complicated tax code, and would be the kind of tax reform that helps reinvigorate the economy.”
The merits or criticism of a consumption tax and certainly any final amount of the levy certainly deserves a vigorous national debate. However, the need for eliminating the byzantine complexity and inherent inequity in the present punitive tax collection system should be unanimous.
Obviously, the prospect that the establishment ruling class would allow the slaughter of their cash-cow is zero. The entire existence of the Tea Party movement grew out of a desire to restore the principle of no taxation without representation. Yet, the efforts out of the authoritarian globalists are to ramp up even more draconian measures to monitor and intrude into every financial affair of normal people.
The only prudent political response to this intolerable obliteration of our eternal right to the pursuit of happiness is to require a return to the pre income tax system of revenue collection. Just listen to the screams, from those progressive socialists, who demand that the State must use their penalizing power to force egalitarian redistribution upon every wealth creator or economic producer.
The calculated fear factor imbedded into the Internal Revenue Service goes well beyond targeting just conservative groups. Every self-respecting American shares a vested interest in restoring a constitutional government. As it stands now, the prospect of achieving even a reasonable prospect of legitimate authorities is incompatible as long as the IRS is allowed to run amok over the masses who are attempting to petition and redress their government.
USA Today reports, Obama calls purported IRS targeting “outrageous”, from the latest Obama presidential press conference.
“Obama says first learned about the IRS controversy from news reports. He called the purported targeting of conservative groups by IRS personnel “outrageous and there is no place for it.” The IRS has to have “absolute integrity, ” Obama adds.
“You don’t want the IRS ever being perceived to be biased,” Obama said.
The president adds that his administration will get to the bottom of what happened at the IRS. “I have no patience for it. I will not tolerate it.”
How can anyone believe that Obama has clean hands or that some faction within the Internal Revenue Service was operating without his knowledge? Well Mr. President, prove the meaning in your words and put forth the political capital to pass the H.R. 25 legislation.
*****
Sartre is a contributor to Intellihub.com and writes for BATR