Tiger mom and her cubs

Which direction is the train moving? [Optical Illusion]

Presidential Medals of Freedom are awarded deplorable recipients

Presidential Medals of Freedom are awarded annually. They mock what they claim to represent. Many go to deplorable recipients.

Previous dishonorees include GHW Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Robert Gates, Henry Kissinger, Tony Blair, Shimon Peres, Margaret Thatcher, Alvaro Uribe, Colin Powell, Madeleine Albright, and Alan Greenspan among others.

Nobel Peace Prize recipients include notorious war criminals. In 1906, Theodore Roosevelt was honored. He once said "I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one."

In 1919, Woodrow Wilson won. He broke his pledge to keep "us out of war." In 1953, George Marshall was honored. He helped create NATO. It's a killing machine. He was involved in aggressive war on North Korea.

Other dishonorees included Kofi Annan, Al Gore, Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, Henry Kissinger, Barack Obama, and the EU. Peacemakers aren't considered.

Intrepid Freedom Awards are made annually. They're "presented to a national or international leader who has distinguished himself in promoting and defending the values of freedom and democracy, the core beliefs of our nation."

Dishonorees include a virtual rogue's gallery of recipients.

They include GW and GHW Bush, Dick Cheney, Leon Panetta, Colin Powell, David Petraeus, Margaret Thatcher, Boris Yeltsin, Newt Gingrich, Bill and Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Silvio Berlusconi, Michael Bloomberg, and Yitzhak Rabin among others.


On May 23, Henry Kissinger will be the latest recipient. More on him below. Ceremonies will take place at New York's Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum. It calls itself "one of America's leading historic, cultural and educational institutions."

It's centered on the Intrepid aircraft carrier (CVS-11). During WW II, it began operating. Today it's an "educational center and a monument to all who have served our nation in uniform."

Few understood their involvement in imperial wars. Annual Intrepid Freedom Award recipients bear much responsibility. Honoring them shames America. Rule of law principles and other democratic values are dishonored.

Kissinger's one of America's worst. On May 27, he'll be 90 years old. He was an early architect of new world order harshness.

He's a notorious war criminal. His legacy includes three to four million Southeast Asian war deaths.

He was instrumental in overthrowing Chile's democratic government. Augusto Pinochet replaced Salvador Allende. A reign of terror followed. It included arrests, killings and torture.

So did privatization of state enterprises, mass layoffs, sweeping deregulation, deep social spending cuts, wage freezes or cuts, unrestricted free market access for western corporations, corporate-friendly tax cuts, trade unionist crackdowns, and harsh repression against opposing a system incompatible with social democracy, civil and human rights.

Kissinger backed Suharto’s brutal dictatorship. His Kopassus special forces terrorized Indonesians. Their record includes kidnappings, rape, torture, targeted killings, sweeping violence, mass murder, and other atrocities against anyone challenging his authority.

He supported his West Papua takeover. He OK'd his East Timor invasion. Over two hundred thousand East Timorese died. Around half a million more were displaced. In his memoirs, former American UN ambassador Daniel Partick Moynihan wrote:

The United States wished things to turn out as they did, and worked to bring this about. 

The Department of State desired that the United Nations prove utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook. 

This task was given to me, and I carried it forward with no inconsiderable success.

In two months, 10% of the population was annihilated. It was prelude for what followed.

Kissinger supported the Khmer Rouge's rise to power and reign of terror. He encouraged a Kurdish revolt against Saddam Hussein. He then abandoned them. He advised Bush and Cheney on Iraq policy.

He backed a 1974 Cypriot fascist coup. He defended Turkey's brutal invasion. He wanted a Washington, DC-based journalist kidnapped and killed.

He was complicit in Operation Condor. Pinochet and other Latin American despots reigned terror against alleged communists and political opponents. Tens of thousands perished.

He backed Pakistan’s "delicacy and tact" in overthrowing Bangladesh’s democratically elected government. Half a million deaths followed.

In 1974, his secret National Security Study Memorandum 200 (NSSM 200) called for drastic global depopulation. Developing nations are resource rich, he said. They're vital to US growth.

He wanted useless eaters eliminated. He said "Depopulation should be the highest priority of US foreign policy towards the Third World."

He supported involuntary mass sterilizations. He wanted birth control made a prerequisite for US aid. He wanted hundreds of millions eliminated by 2000.

He supported the worst of Israeli crimes. Earlier, American Jewish Committee executive director David Harris said:

Perhaps Kissinger felt that, as a Jew, he had to go the extra mile to prove to the president that there was no question where his loyalty lay.

Mortimor Zukerman, Kenneth Bialkin and James Tisch once wrote:

Mr. Kissinger consistently played a constructive role vis-a-vis Israel both as national security adviser and secretary of state, especially when the United States extended dramatic assistance to Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

During the first Intifada, he advised Israel to challenge it harshly. He recommended banishing the media and suppressing what went on.

He backed other deplorable schemes. He was mindless of the human toll. He wanted America to benefit at any cost. He waged war on humanity. He still advises on ways to do it.

He deplores peace. He supports war and state terror. "Afghanistan wasn't enough," he said. He endorsed waging war on Islam.

His legacy includes involvement in decades of crimes of war, against humanity and genocide. As National Security Advisor and Secretary of State, he served Nixon and Ford from January 1969 - January 1977.

He advised administrations that followed. In 1982, he founded Kissinger Associates, Inc. He heads it. It's a New York-based international consulting firm.

Former CIA deputy director for intelligence Judith (Jami) Miscik is president. Other noted former US government officials served earlier. They did so in managerial capacities. At least most were complicit in war crimes.

Kissinger's worst of all. He symbolizes imperial lawlessness. He waged war on humanity in and out of government. He's still doing it. On May 27, he'll again be honored. He deserves prison instead.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book is titled How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion and Class War. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening. http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/

Effective Immediately: All Semi-Automatic Pistols Sold In California to Require “Micro Stamp” Ballistic Identification

In a controversial move that some believe will essentially lead to a de facto ban on semi-automatic handguns, Attorney General Kamala Harris announced that, effective immediately, all new semi-automatic firearms sold in the State of California will require a unique microstamp on every shell ejected when a gun is fired.
Microstamping, or ballistic imprinting, is a technology patented in the 1990?s by engineer and NRA member Todd Lizotte. When a gun is fired, a tiny engraving on the firing pin etches a microscopic identifier onto the cartridge as it is expended by the firearm.
The law, which requires every semi automatic gun sold in the state to imprint the gun’s serial number on the cartridge, was signed into law by former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2007 and was delayed due to patent stipulations in the legislation.

The legislation specified that it would take effect only when the technology was available and all private patents had expired.
But at a Los Angeles news conference Friday, Harris announced that micro-stamping had cleared all technological and patenting hurdles and would be required on newly sold semiautomatics, effective immediately.
“The patents have been cleared, which means that this very important technology will help us as law enforcement in identifying and locating people who have illegally used firearms,” Harris said.

According to proponents of the legislation, ballistic micro-stamping will help law enforcement investigators track down firearms used in the commission of crimes:

Attorney Benjamin Van Houten of San Francisco’s Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence said the announcement should send a message to other states, the Obama administration and the gun industry that “this is the future and it’s really critical to helping law enforcement solve gun crimes.”
Implementation of micro-stamping “moves California to the forefront of the nation in combatting gun crime,” said the law’s author, former Assemblyman Mike Feuer, D-Los Angeles, who attended the news conference and is running for city attorney.

It’s not clear exactly how a firearm that has been illegally purchased, such as through straw buyers who purchased semi-automatic rifles to Mexican drug cartels from federal agents in Operation Fast and Furious, could help track down criminals using untraceable guns in the commission of a crime.

In addition to being ineffective in tracking gun crimes, NRA attorney C.D. Michel suggests that with firearm sales across the country already puttingoverwhelming demand on gun manufacturers, the new California law could lead to widespread shortages of handguns in the state:

“This is not going to help solve crimes,” he said. “It’s easily defeated, easily wears out and can be used to lead police down false alleys” if the serial numbers are altered.
Worse yet, Michel said, manufacturers will be unwilling to add this expensive feature to guns sold in a single state, and will instead keep manufacturing weapons for the other states, where demand already far exceeds supply.
The effect, he said, would be a ban on new semiautomatic handguns in California, which the NRA will challenge in court.

As has been the case with California’s 1990?s ban on semi-automatic rifles and larger capacity magazines, the microstamping legislation aims to reduce availability of firearms to law abiding citizens. Because the legislation specifically targets semi-automatic handguns, a staple personal self defense firearm, the vast majority of those affected will be people who simply want to own a handgun to protect themselves and their families.
The law will have almost no effect on a criminal’s ability to gain access to firearms through the black market. This has been proven time and again with semi-automatic rifles and shotguns, which are already illegal in California but are regularly used by gangs and criminals.
It will also be the case with new micro-stamped handguns, which just like non-ballistically identified firearms, can be stolen and moved through back channels without restriction. If anything, criminals will prefer stolen micro-stamped guns over others because when police forensic teams show up, their investigations will be diverted to the original owner of the firearm, not to the criminal who stole it or purchased it through underground dealers.
And for those who think this is restricted to the left-coast, similar legislation is under consideration in New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maryland, Wisconsin, and Illinois. Likewise, a federal push for micro-stamping was attempted in 2008 by both the House and the Senate in the form of the National Gun Crime Identification Act.
Microstamping is yet another purported “common sense approach” that makes no sense in the real world.

Ammo Tax Coming: CA Targets Gun Owners By Passing $92 Million Bullet Tax

Tax this! Tax that! Tax…. gun ammo?
The California Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee recently approved a  measure called AB 187, which puts a 10 percent tax on all ammunition sold in the state. Gee, and I thought California’s high tax and anti-gun policies couldn’t get any worse.  
Assemblymen Rob Bonta and Roger Dickinson support the bill. Both are Democrats. Shocking.
They say that the new revenue will help cities that have high gun violence. “Cities throughout the state, including Oakland, are suffering horrific and increasing gun violence. AB 187 will provide the City of Oakland, and cities in similar circumstances, with sufficient street-level public safety presence to prevent gun violence and attend to it when it does occur,” said Bonta.
Nonsense.
Taxing law-abiding citizens’ ammunition will not curtail gun violence. It will now be more expensive for innocent people to defend themselves against armed criminals. AB 187 only makes criminals, who do not follow laws to begin with, more likely to buy ammunition on the black market to avoid the tax.

California legislators are also currently pushing bills that would let officials in Oakland draft stronger gun control laws, in order to “combat violence”. The thought that this would be effective is laughable. If gun control worked, Chicago would be the safest city in the country. Despite a history of strict gun policies, the Windy City is one of the nation’s most violent and deadly cities.
AB 187 would also fund new mental healthcare services for children in California. “Screening young children for signs of mental illness and addressing any issues early on is the key to a healthier and more productive adult life,” Assemblyman Dickinson said. “A limited tax on ammunition is a small price to pay for better mental healthcare for kids, reduced crime, and safer communities statewide.”
Hey Dickinson, instead of creating new taxes to pay for these important services, how about you stop the out-of-control spending on unnecessary, absurd programs in your state? A few of the (many, many) examples of waste:
-$200,000 was spent on “a tattoo removal program” in Mission Hills, California.
-$3 million was given to researchers at the University of California at Irvine to fund their research on video games such as World of Warcraft. Sounds like a pretty sweet “research job”.
Good grief. 

AB 187 is an addition to Dickinson’s AB 760, which would impose a five cent tax on every round of ammunition sold in California. The tax itself is more expensive than the actual bullets.
California politicians are out of control. They irresponsibly spend their cities into bankruptcy, and then attempt to fix the problem by burdening law-abiding gun owners with new taxes.
The assail on gun owners across the country has become absurd and offensive. Just earlier this week aSecond Amendment supporter was thrown out of a meeting in New Jersey for criticizing gun control. And yesterday, Vice President Joe Biden wrote a letter to a child, saying guns are bad so “use chocolate bullets“.
Where does it all end?

Pic De Jour

Media Now Openly Admitting The Government Controls The News

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.

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.