Keeping The Sheeple Up To Date With Reality!!!
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
Monday, December 22, 2014
Slimy Baltimore FOX Affiliate Caught Faking "Kill a Cop" Protest Chant
Last night, Baltimore's WBFF aired a video of protesters chanting "kill a cop"– evidence, it claimed, of murderously violent rhetoric on the part of anti-brutality protesters in Washington, D.C. The only problem? The protesters weren't chanting "kill a cop" at all, and there's video evidence to prove it.
The current national pastime appears to be constructing elaborate ways of laying responsibility for recent police shootings at the feet of anti-police-brutality protesters. This, of course, is bullshit. Faced with the daunting task of shifting blame for broad and escalating distrust of police away from the murderous bastards themselves and onto mostly non-violent activists, our insanely cynical news media has been forced to dig deep into their bag of tricks.
The rhetorical line has it that the all-too-recent lack of unequivocal support for police actions up to and including the murder of unarmed civilians in broad daylight has put rank-and-file cops at grave risk. Well you can just imagine how much more vulnerable they are when reckless cop-hating rioters take to the streets and actively call for the murder of police! Why, just listen to these hate-mongers!
What you are hearing there is a protester in Washington, D.C. shout the following chant:
We can't stop!
We won't stop!
'til killer cops are in cell blocks!
Not a particularly provocative chant, all things considered: protesters are announcing their intention to continue organizing until murderous police officers are put in jail. Fair enough!
That is, until Baltimore's local FOX affiliate got their hands on this video. Here's their interpretation of it:
MSM Says:
We can't stop!
We won't stop!
So kill a cop!
By cutting away from the video mid-chant, FOX's segment paints protestors as explicitly calling for the murder of police. They've depicted a non-violent protest about accountability for police brutality as a bloodthirsty mob.
What's significant about this act – other than the fact that it is intended for and will be gobbled up by psychotic paranoid racist conservative white people as evidence of the inherent criminality of black people – is that the woman leading the chant is Tawanda Jones, the sister of Tyrone West, who was murdered by Baltimore City Police on July 18, 2013. The West family's quest for justice for this crime has been overwhelmingly ignored by the city of Baltimore – after 73 weeks' worth of "West Wednesday" actions, the family has still not even been given Tyrone's full autopsy report.
This week Baltimore's corrupt, inept, and ineffectual police department issued a statement in which they all but explicitly promised retaliatory violence for what they've characterized as an "atmosphere of unnecessary hostility" created by politicians and pundits, but of course this line crumbles at the slightest scrutiny: police are killing civilians with impunity, and the media is doing the dirty work of casting those outraged about these killings as the true villains. If there's an atmosphere of unnecessary hostility, it is the direct handiwork of police and their apologists.
Update: Here's a statement from Baltimore Bloc, an affiliated activist group working for justice for Tyrone West's family:
Last night, Fox45 ran a story during their 10 p.m. broadcast about anti-police-brutality demonstrations. During the story they showed a C-SPAN clip of last weekend's mass demonstration in Washington, DC, which featured Tawanda Jones, the sister of Tyrone West, who was murdered by Baltimore City police last July. In the video, Tawanda is leading a chant that is well-known to local activists and attendees at the West family's "West Wednesday" demonstrations: "We won't stop/we can't stop/'til killer cops/are in cell blocks."
Fox45 chose to edit the video to cut out the last bit of the chant ("are in cell blocks"), and described the video as follows: "At this rally in Washington, DC, participants chanted, 'We can't stop, we won't stop, so kill a cop." They then cut away to footage from the aftermath of the murders of two New York police officers, saying, "The anti-police sentiment reached a turning point this weekend in New York, when two officers were gunned down in cold blood."
Link : http://gawker.com/slimy-baltimore-fox-affiliate-caught-faking-kill-a-cop-1674040381This editing and the anchor's words deliberately link not only the anti-brutality movement in general, but specific local activists to the murders of police, thereby endangering the safety and lives of those activists. Tawanda Jones and the West family have led over 70 demonstrations since last summer, and every single one has been peaceful. The West family has repeatedly called for non-violence in the movement and for an end to all types of violence, including the violence by Baltimore police that took their beloved Tyrone from them. They have never condoned or called for violence against police officers.Baltimore Bloc has participated in every West Wednesday and has close ties to the West family. We know them to be peaceful, honorable, and consistent in their message of non-violence. Fox45 has targeted them for slander, and has placed them in grave danger by accusing them of encouraging the murders of law enforcement officers. The media is putting ratings above the safety of the community and fanning the anti-democratic and anti-Black flames lit by the statements from elected officials and union spokespeople over the last several days. This is irresponsible and violent, and we demand an on-air retraction and apology from Fox45, and for Fox to conduct live, unedited interview with Tawanda Jones so she can speak for herself. We also ask for support from the rest of the local media in decrying this unethical and dishonest propaganda disguised as journalism.
Decision to reopen Russian Base In Cuba south of Havana follows Russia forgiving 90% of Cuba's unpaid Soviet-era debts
The Russian radar station in Lourdes, south of Havana, was the Soviet Union's largest foreign base, and will now be reopened. Photograph: Cristobal Herrera/AP
Russia has quietly reached an agreement with Cuba to reopen a Soviet-era spy base on America's doorstep, amid souring relations between Moscow and Washington.
The deal to reopen the signals intelligence facility in Lourdes, south of Havana, was agreed in principle during president Vladimir Putin's visit to the island as part of a Latin American tour last week, according to the newspaper Kommersant.
Opened in 1967, the Lourdes facility was the Soviet Union's largest foreign base, a mere 155 miles from the US coast. It employed up to 3,000 military and intelligence personnel to intercept a wide array of American telephone and radio communications, but Putin announced its closure in 2001 because it was too expensive – Russia had been paying $200m (£117m) a year in rent – and in response to US demands.
After Putin visited Cuba on Friday, the Kremlin press service said the president had forgiven 90% of Cuba's unpaid Soviet-era debts, which totalled $32bn (£18.6bn) – a concession that now appears to be tied to the agreement to reopen the base.
"Lourdes gave the Soviet Union eyes in the whole of the western hemisphere … For Russia, which is fighting for its lawful rights and place in the international community, it would be no less valuable than for the USSR," Vyacheslav Trubnikov, former head of Russia's foreign intelligence service told Kommersant.
The move appears to be part of Moscow's campaign to reassert itself as a geopolitical rival to the United States and comes as the west is set to expand sanctions against Russia over its role in the Ukraine conflict. European Union leaders are expected to implement further asset freezes and stop lending to Russia at a summit on Wednesday, while the United States is reportedly considering its own unilateral sanctions against the Russian financial and defence industries.
During Putin's Latin American tour, he also signed agreements to establish positioning stations in Argentina, Brazil and Cuba for Glonass, Russia's answer to the United States' global positioning system (GPS). He also made a surprise stop to discuss placing a Glonass station in Nicaragua, where president Daniel Ortegacalled Putin's first visit to the country a "ray of light"."The goal of Putin's visit to Cuba, Nicaragua and Argentina was to strengthen geopolitical connections with Latin America in response to the United States' attempts to isolate Russia," Alexei Pushkov, the chairman of the foreign affairs committee in Russia's parliament, tweeted after the trip.
Reopening the Lourdes base marks another low in US-Russian relations, although some experts argue the significance of the move is largely symbolic. Moscow-based defence analyst Pavel Felgenhauer called the reported re-establishment of the Lourdes base a "PR move" to show Washington the "middle finger" and said it was prompted in part by the expansion of western influence in Ukraine. Russian officials have worried that Ukraine, which recently signed an association agreement with the EU, will become the latest former Soviet republic to join Nato.
"There's not much radio chat left of any importance, it's all going to coded channels, so I think the intel-gathering value would be much less than 20 years ago," he said. However, the base could be useful for stealing commercial secrets, Felgenhauer admitted, "because when individuals chatter they're not always so attentive of secure lines."
But Ruslan Pukhov, the director of the Centre for the Analysis of Strategies and Technologies in Moscow, said the base does have military value and that negotiations with Cuba were likely mostly completed before the Ukraine crisis even started in November. The reopening follows Russia's attempts to break its "strategic solitude" by improving military cooperation with other countries and said it could share information from the base with US rivals like China, he said.
"Any country that is supporting us, whether it's Cuba, Nicaragua, or Venezuala, is welcome, and we are not as poor as in the 1990s, we are ready to pay for this," Pukhov said. "Since we have very big problems with spy satellites, which are full of Western components, and our spy ships are not in good shape and can't get close to US shores, this base is extremely important for us."
Similarly, the placement of Glonass stations in new countries is important for the commercial future of the project, which has become a "kind of fetish for Russian political establishment," Pukhov said. Notably, the United States has refused to host a Glonass station, although Russia has continued to offer. On Wednesday, Russian space systems head Gennady Raikunov suggested placing a Glonass station on the Alaskan coast in comments at the Farnborough Airshow in Hampshire, Russian news agency Interfax reported.
Link : http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/16/russia-reopening-spy-base-cuba-us-relations-sour
90 Pounds Of Cocaine Found On Cargo Ship Owned By Anti-Drug Senator’s Family
A cargo ship connected to Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell was recently stopped and searched before departing from Colombia. During the search, Colombian Coast Guard agents seized roughly 90 pounds of cocaine.
The drugs were found on the Ping May, which is a vessel operated by the Foremost Maritime Corporation, a company owned by Mitch McConnell’s in-laws, the Chao family. This connection is not only relevant because of the family connection, but also because the Chao family has often made large donations to McConnell’s campaigns.
In fact, the Chao family has been funding McConnell since the late 1980s. Years later, in 1993, McConnell married Elaine Chao and secured the Chao family as one of his primary sources for investments.
A gift worth somewhere between 5 and 25 million dollars from the Chao Family made McConnel one of the richest senators in the country in 2008.
The Foremost Maritime Corporation is currently operating 16 dry bulk cargo ships, most of which are currently still in service.
What makes this case even more interesting is that McConnell is well known as a staunch prohibitionist. In 1996, McConnell sponsored “The Enhanced Marijuana Penalties Act”, a bill designed to increase the mandatory minimum sentencing for people caught with marijuana.
Luis Gonzales, an official with the Colombian Coast Guard in Santa Marta told The Nation that the Ping May’s crew were questioned as part of the investigation, but that they have yet to file any charges in the case.
The war on drugs is an insult to the intelligence of the American people. There are mountains of evidence proving that the biggest importers of harmful, addictive, mind diminishing street drugs is the government. The drug laws that exist do not apply to the government agencies that bring these substances to our country. They are only designed to keep everyone else from this extremely lucrative business and give the establishment another reason to oppress people.
We have seen this all before during alcohol prohibition, where the government, law enforcement and organized crime were all working together and making an unbelievable amount of money in the black market. When black markets are created the crime rate goes up, taxes go up, prices go up and the police become more corrupt, all of this is inevitable. These are in fact the very consequences that any type of prohibition intends to create.
To solve these problems all that we have to do is end all prohibitions, this would cripple the black market and drastically reduce violence. This would also drastically reduce the reach of police and the state in general, which is why it is looked at as such an impossibility. Drug laws don’t do anything to prevent drug problems in our society, they only encourage violence, raise prices and criminalize half of the population.
Read more at http://thefreethoughtproject.com/90-pounds-cocaine-cargo-ship-owned-anti-drug-senators-family/#pYRMSfDTC6YSRVry.99
Monday, December 8, 2014
Comedian Paul Mooney Gives One of the Most Interesting Perspectives on Why Black People Can’t be Racists
Comedian Paul Mooney discusses anti-African racism in America.
This is a clip from the documentary film “Clean Mic: Laughing Until It Hurts”
Sunday, December 7, 2014
Congressmen admit to not reading NDAA before voting for it: 'I trust the leadership'
US House members admitted they had not read the entire $585 billion, 1,648-page National Defense Authorization Act, which predominantly specifies budgeting for the Defense Department, before it was voted on Thursday in Congress.
“Of course not. Are you kidding?” Rep. Jim Moran (D-Virginia) said when asked by CNSNews if he had perused the entire bill, which was just posted online late Tuesday night before it was ultimately passed in by the House by a vote of 300-119 about 36 hours later.
Moran said he did not plan to read the entire bill before voting because “I trust the leadership.”
“Do you think [House Speaker John] Boehner and [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid have read it?”asked CNSNews.
“I know their staff has,” Moran responded.
When pressed directly about his knowledge of every aspect of the massive National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2015, House Speaker Boehner (R-Ohio) assured CNSNews he was aware of all aspects of the multi-faceted, complex bill.
“I’ve been through almost every part of that bill, as it was being put together,” he said. “So, trust me, I am well aware of what’s in that bill.”
House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Maryland) also indirectly acknowledged the near impossibility for anyone to read such a comprehensive bill. He told CNSNews he had not read the full text, but understands its contents.
“The committees have gone over it, it’s been in conference, and I have an outline of exactly what it does,”he said. “So, I know what it does.”
Upon taking control of the US House in 2010, Republicans maintained that they would allow the public to read full text of bills at least three days before they are voted on in the Lower Chamber. This promise materialized, in part, from a quote by then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2010, when her Democratic Party controlled the House and help shepherd the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, through Congress.
“We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what’s in it, away from the fog of the controversy,”Pelosi infamously stated of the hot-button legislation. While she may have been alluding to what she believed to be the bill’s future popularity, following the rancor and oft-disputed claims - “death panels”- surrounding the debate over what the legislation meant for a sensitive issue like health care, the line was used as a political cudgel to help the GOP regain the House later that year.
Yet, Republicans voted on the 2015 NDAA after the full bill had been available to read - for both the public and members of Congress - just 36 hours prior, as pointed out by InfoWars.
The legislation will now get a vote in the Senate, likely next week.
The NDAA is annual legislation that directs budgeting and expenditures for the US military. The bill passed in the House on Thursday “authorizes $521 billion in base discretionary spending for Defense Department activities, as well as $64 billion for overseas contingency operations,” according to The Hill.
The legislation authorized $6.6 billion for operations against Islamic State, the extremist group that is the target of US-led airstrikes in Syria and Iraq. That funding to combat Islamic State includes authorization of the deployment of 1,500 additional US forces and funding to train and supply Iraqi security forces over the next two years.
"I really wish to emphasize that the train-and-equip mission is just that. It in no way, shape, manner or form authorizes the use of military force," said Rep. Adam Smith (D-Washington), the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee.
The 2015 NDAA targeted US soldiers with cuts to benefits and other services.
“The bill also reduces benefits for troops and their families. It would raise the copay by $3 for most pharmaceuticals under Tricare, the military health insurance plan,” The Hill added.
The legislation also included cuts to subsidies for military commissaries, where US service members buy groceries, by $100 million.
In addition, such massive, must-pass bills are chocked full of “pork,” or just about anything a House member, especially those with clout, can pass by House leadership and the various committees that have domain over the bill’s attributes.
For example, as RT reported Wednesday, the 2015 NDAA includes a handful of land deals including one that gives a foreign mining company 2,400 acres of national forest in Arizona that is cherished ancestral homeland to Apache natives.
“Since time immemorial people have gone there. That’s part of our ancestral homeland," Terry Rambler, chairman of the San Carlos Apache Tribe, told The Huffington Post. "We’ve had dancers in that area forever - sunrise dancers - and coming-of-age ceremonies for our young girls that become women. They’ll seal that off. They’ll seal us off from the acorn grounds, and the medicinal plants in the area, and our prayer areas.”
Previously, the House refused an amendment to the NDAA of 2014 that would have repealed acontroversial provision placed in the NDAA of 2012 that has ever since provided the executive branch with the power to arrest and detain indefinitely any US citizen thought to be affiliated with Al-Qaeda or associated organizations. The House also rejected last year an amendment that would have expedited the shut-down of the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
In January of 2014, the US Supreme Court decided against weighing in on a challenge to Section 1021(b)(2) of the 2012 NDAA, which can be interpreted in a way that allows for the government to detain without trial any American citizen accused of committing a “belligerent act” against the country “until the end of hostilities.”
Friday, December 5, 2014
Congress gives Native American lands to foreign mining company with new NDAA
Congress is poised to give a foreign mining company 2,400 acres of national forest in Arizona that is cherished ancestral homeland to Apache natives. Controversially, the measure is attached to annual legislation that funds the US Defense Department.
This week, the House and Senate Armed Services Committees quietly attached a provision to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would mandate the handover of a large tract of Tonto National Forest to Resolution Copper, a subsidiary of the Australian-English mining company Rio Tinto, which co-owns with Iran a uranium mine in Africa and which is 10-percent-owned by China.
The “Carl Levin and Howard P. ‘Buck’ McKeon National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015” - named after the retiring chairmen of the Senate and House Armed Services panels - includes the giveaway of Apache burial, medicinal, and ceremonial grounds currently within the bounds of Tonto. News of the land provision was kept under wraps until late Tuesday, when the bill was finally posted online.
The land proposed to be given to Resolution Copper, in exchange for other lands, includes prime territory Apaches have used for centuries to gather medicinal plants and acorns, and it is near a spot known as Apache Leap, a summit that Apaches jumped from to avoid being killed by settlers in the late 19th century.
Lands included in the plan will stop 1,500 feet short of Apache Leap and will not initially include an area known as Oak Flats, though, when it comes to the oaks, contradictory legal parameters are but a minor hurdle for a company like Resolution Copper to eventually drill there.
The House may vote on the NDAA as soon as this week with rules included that would bar the Senate from amending the legislation. On Wednesday night, a last-minute effort to strip the land provision from the NDAA failed in the House Rules Committee, which voted to give one hour for debate over the NDAA in the House.
Terry Rambler, chairman of the San Carlos Apache Tribe, told The Huffington Post he was saddened by news of the proposal, yet not all that surprised.
“Of all people, Apaches and Indians should understand, because we’ve gone through this so many times in our history,” Rambler said.
“The first thing I thought about was not really today, but 50 years from now, probably after my time, if this land exchange bill goes through, the effects that my children and children’s children will be dealing with,” Rambler added.
“Since time immemorial people have gone there. That’s part of our ancestral homeland," Rambler said."We’ve had dancers in that area forever - sunrise dancers - and coming-of-age ceremonies for our young girls that become women. They’ll seal that off. They’ll seal us off from the acorn grounds, and the medicinal plants in the area, and our prayer areas.”
Arizona Sen. John McCain was instrumental in adding to the NDAA the land deal that had been pursued by Rio Tinto for a decade, according to HuffPo. Some in Congress were reportedly concerned with the deal, but it ultimately materialized thanks to economic assurances. Rio Tinto claims mining in Tonto will generate $61 billion in economic activity and 3,700 direct and indirect jobs over 40 years.
Rambler said whether Rio Tinto’s economic assertions are true or not, it may not matter.
“It seems like us Apaches and other Indians care more about what this type of action does to the environment and the effects it leaves behind for us, while others tend to think more about today and the promise of jobs, but not necessarily what our creator God gave to us,” he said.
Rambler said he was particularly concerned with long-term ramifications, including the company’s intent to use “block cave” mining, which means digging under the ore, causing it to collapse.
“What those mountains mean to us is that when the rain and the snow comes, it distributes it to us,”Rambler said. “It replenishes our aquifers to give us life.”
Resolution Copper has said its mining plan for the area has been filed with the National Forest Service and that it will comply with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) that supposedly protects federal lands.
But Rambler said NEPA is no match for Resolution Copper’s intent.
“This is what will happen - the law in one area says there will be consultation, but the law in another area of the bill says the land exchange will happen within one year of enactment of this bill,” Rambler said. “So no matter what we’re doing within that one year, the consultation part won’t mean anything after one year. Because then it’s really theirs after that.”
Basically, NEPA will only protect lands that remain in federal hands. The rest is fair game, according to federal law.
“We would only have to do NEPA on any activity that would take place on remaining federal land,” said Arizona Bureau of Land Management official Carrie Templin.
The 2015 NDAA contains other land deals, including one that would subject 70,000 acres of Tongass National Forest in Alaska to logging and another provision that would give 1,600 acres from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State for purposes of industrial development, a plan that has spurred tribal protest.
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