Wednesday 25th July 2018

The days of “YouTube” are over and the time of “ThemTube” is upon us. On Monday July 9th on the official YouTube Blog the company announced their plan to promote and fund “authoritative” news. The mainstream media outlets are not getting the views they used to on cable television but what they do have access to is analytics and ratings and they can see that the majority of news consumers are flooding to YouTube because they no longer trust the mainstream outlets and rightly so! In this video Dan Dicks of Press For Truth goes over the latest YouTube announcement that they plan to fund news agencies while promoting outlets they determine to be “authoritative”.

July 19, 2018
Paul Craig Roberts

All day today the presstitute scum at NPR went on and on about President Trump, using every kind of guest and issue to set him up for more criticism as an unfit occupant of the Oval Office, because, and only because, he threatens the massive budget of the military/security complex by attempting to normalize relations with Russia. The NPR scum even got an ambassador from Montenegro on the telephone and made every effort to goad the ambassador into denouncing Trump for saying that Montenegro had strong and aggressive people capable of defending themselves and were not in need of sending the sons of American families to defend them. Somehow this respectful compliment about the Monenegro people was supposed to be an insult. The ambassador refused to be put into opposition to Trump. NPR kept trying, but got nowhere.

As a former Wall Street Journal editor I can say with complete confidence that NPR crossed every line between journalism and advocacy and no longer qualifies as a 501c3 tax-exempt public foundation.

The NPR assault on President Trummp was part of an orchestration. The same story appeared in the Washington Post, long-believed to be a CIA asset. Most likely, it has appeared throughtout the presstitute media. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/07/19/after-being-called-aggressive-by-trump-montenegro-insists-its-a-friend-to-america/

The ability of the military/security complex to control the explanations given to Americans, about which President Eisenhower warned Americans in 1961 to no effect, has produced an American population, a large percentage of which is brainwashed.

For example, in Caitln Johnston’s column, linked below, Kurt Eichenwald, who, in my opinion, is either a brainwashed idiot or a Deep State troll, says that the bottom line is that you either believe “our intelligence community,” which most definitely did not conclude what Eichenwald says they have concluded, “or you support Putin. You are either a patriot, a traitor or an idiot.”

Note that Eichenwald defines a patriot, as do the Democrats, many Republicans, the entirely of the US print and TV media and NPR, as a person who believes the self-serving lies issuing from the military/security complex in support of the $1,000 billion dollars annually taken from unmet US taxpayer needs to put in the pockets of the mega-rich for “defending” American from an orchestrated, but otherwise nonexistent, threat. If you don’t support this theft from the American people, you are, according to Eichenwald, “a traitor or an idiot.”

Caitlain Johnstone tells us how utterly stupid Americans are to fall for the line that it is treason to seek peaceful relations with a nuclear power that can destroy us. This means that presidents John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan were treasonous. This is the official position of the American presstitute media, the Democratic Party, and the military/security complex. It is also the position of a fake entity that misrepresents itself as “the American left.”

This utterly absurd position that to pursue peace is to commit treason is precisely the position that the corrupt American print and TV media and NPR represent. It is the position of the Democratic Party. It is the position of the Republians in Congress, such as the warmongers John McCain and Lindsey Graham who are owned by the military/security complex.

Every American who believes the line that reducing tensions with Russia is treasonous is preparing nuclear Armageddon for themselves, their friends and families, and for the entire world.

Caitlin tells it to you like it is:

Australian politicians and media have joined the global frenzy over US President Donald Trump’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Trump’s apparent acceptance of the “evil” “thug” Putin’s word that Russia didn’t interfere in the US election, over the word of his own intelligence agencies, who are presumed to have the highest level of competence in the world. The Australian media are exploiting the fourth anniversary of the tragic downing of flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine and the grief of the families of the victims to pile on the hysteria and attack anyone who dares to express support for Trump’s desire to achieve peace with Russia. They are abusing the word “facts” to assert that Russia did meddle in the election, and did “murder” Australians on MH17. Following are their claims, which have been retailed in the media with the same breathless certainty as they used in reporting on claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction in 2003; we contrast the claims with evidence and investigations that show them to be unproven or outright false assertions.

I: Russia ’hacked’ the 2016 US presidential election

It is alleged that Russian intelligence officers/agents “hacked” the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) computers on 5 July 2016 to obtain, and later publish via WikiLeaks, material damaging to Hillary Clinton’s prospects of winning the election. The emails and other material made public included evidence that the DNC had helped Clinton rig the Democratic Party primaries against her opponent Sen. Bernie Sanders. This allegation is routinely presented as the “unanimous” finding of US intelligence agencies.

This charge is demonstrated in many ways to be an unproven allegation, not “fact”:

Independent metadata analysis of the DNC leak’s metadata concluded that the communications had been copied by an insider, not “hacked” remotely. (Metadata is “data about data”, and includes the times of its creation and modification.) Former US National Security Agency (NSA) Technical Director William Binney, now a member of watchdog group Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), endorsed this finding in a 24 July 2017 memorandum co-authored by former IBM Program Manager for Information Technology Skip Folden. They wrote: “In the early evening [of 5 July 2016], Eastern Daylight Time, someone working in the EDT time zone with a computer directly connected to the DNC server or DNC Local Area Network, copied 1,976 megabytes of data in 87 seconds…. That speed is much faster than what is physically possible with a hack. It thus appears that the purported ’hack’ of the DNC by Guccifer 2.0 (the self-proclaimed WikiLeaks source) was not a hack by Russia or anyone else, but was rather a copy of DNC data onto an external storage device.” (Emphasis in original.) Another DNC document, released 15 June 2016 by purported hacker Guccifer 2.0, himself (rather than via WikiLeaks, which has a perfect record for authenticity), “was synthetically tainted with ’Russian fingerprints’”, presumably in an attempt to implicate Russian Intelligence, the analysis found.

“All 17 US intelligence agencies” did not find “the Kremlin” responsible for “hacking” the DNC. Only four agencies were involved in the three major reports issued by the US government on this matter in the waning months of the Obama Administration:

A one-page “Joint Statement from the Department Of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security”, published 7 October 2016, asserted: “The US Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of emails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organisations.” (Emphasis added.) No evidence was provided; and “confident” has no legal meaning, nor is it part of official US intelligence terminology. Then-Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper is an infamous liar—a perjurer, in fact. When asked at a 12 March 2013 Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, “Does the NSA [National Security Agency] collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?”, Clapper stated under oath: “No, Sir. Not wittingly. There are cases where they could inadvertently, perhaps, collect but not, not wittingly.” Whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed three months later that the NSA was (and is) constantly spying on all Americans, and much of the world besides.

A second document, the 29 December 2016 “GRIZZLY STEPPE—Russian Malicious Cyber Activity”, was a Joint Analysis Report (JAR) by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). It, too, used deliberately misleading language to imply firm conclusions where none existed, including by conflating cyber “threat groups” with (Russian) hacker collectives, when in fact the definition of a “threat group” is a set of technical indicators, which any hacker worth his salt can mimic to cover his tracks. Its first page, however, disclaimed: “This report is presented ’as is’ for informational purposes only. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not provide any warranties of any kind regarding any information contained within.” The FBI admitted that it had not even examined the DNC server, but had relied upon forensic analysis purportedly done by the DNC’s cybersecurity company, CrowdStrike. CrowdStrike’s founder and Chief Technology Officer Dmitri Alperovitch is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, a virulently anti-Russian think tank in Washington, DC.

The third, supposedly definitive report, “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections”, was released 6 January 2017 by the perjurer Clapper, and identified as a joint production of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the FBI, and the NSA. Once again, no evidence was provided; the CIA and FBI merely reiterated their “high” confidence of Russia’s guilt. The NSA, however—which, given its all-pervasive surveillance, would have the hard data if it existed—expressed only “moderate” confidence. This report disclaimed: “Judgements are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact.” Even President Barack Obama, in his final press conference in office, 18 January 2018, described “the conclusions of the intelligence community” as “not conclusive”. The report did, however, acknowledge that all the material leaked through WikiLeaks and incriminating Clinton and DNC officials, appeared genuine. Clapper testified to Congress in May 2018 that the report was the work of only around two dozen “hand-picked” analysts from the three agencies.

II: Russia shot down Flight MH17

As of 24 May 2018 the Russian military, specifically the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade, stands accused by the Dutch and Australian governments of having shot down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine on 17 July 2014. Various Western politicians and media pundits, as well as some relatives of the victims, have gone so far as to accuse Russia, and President Vladimir Putin personally, of “murder”, implying that the aircraft was targeted deliberately. To date, however, the MH17 investigations have not produced conclusive evidence of what happened:

The Dutch-led international Joint Investigation Team (JIT) refuses to release the “classified” evidence by which it claims to have proven the 53rd Brigade responsible. (The other JIT members are Australia, Belgium, Ukraine and Malaysia, but Malaysia was excluded until November 2014, by which time the other members had cemented control of the investigation.) Ukraine’s presence proves that the investigation is not impartial, as Ukraine is the other possible “suspect” in the incident; moreover, each member can veto the release of evidence, which gives Ukraine enormous influence over the investigation. The only publicly available evidence in this regard are several low-resolution photographs and videos collected from social media by the British internet sleuthing group Bellingcat, which has ties to both British Intelligence and the Atlantic Council; and unverifiable alleged telephone intercepts supplied to the JIT by the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU)—as if Russian soldiers on a secret mission would converse on unencrypted telephones. Data supporting then-US Secretary of State John Kerry’s 12 August 2014 claim that US intelligence officers had observed the shoot-down live (“We saw the take-off, we saw the trajectory, we saw the hit, we saw this aeroplane disappear from the radar screens”) remains conspicuously absent. Ukraine claims that all its radars, both civilian and military, were shut down for maintenance on the day.

Malaysian Transport Minister Anthony Loke, when asked how the new Mahathir government would respond to the JIT’s claim, told Singaporean news broadcaster Channel NewsAsia on 30 May 2018: “There is no conclusive evidence to point at Russia, under the JIT evidence. And of course we have to take into account our diplomatic relations, and so on. So any further actions [sanctions etc.] will be based on conclusive evidence.”

The identification of the weapon used as a modern type of Russian “Buk” mobile surface-to-air missile (SAM) system, with a unique warhead known as a type 9N314M, hinges upon three distinctive bowtie-shaped fragments allegedly recovered from the wreckage of MH17. Of the 7,800 pre-formed fragments per warhead, 2,600 (one third) are of the bowtie or “double-T” type, and test detonations show that they leave hundreds of distinctive holes of the same shape. MH17, however, displays no such damage; thus if it had been brought down by a Buk (and not another of the 20-odd types of SAM theoretically available to either side of the Ukrainian civil war), it could only have been an older model without the bowtie fragments. Russia decommissioned and disposed of the last of its older Buks in 2011, but the Ukrainian Armed Forces still use them. Local television broadcasts showed several Ukrainian Buks deployed in the area where MH17 was shot down, a few days prior to the event, and evidence put forward by the Russian Ministry of Defence in late July 2014 showed a high level of activity by “Kupol” radars, a component of the older Buk launch systems, on 17 July when the tragedy occurred. Given Ukraine’s track record of accidentally shooting down a civilian airliner by locking radar on the wrong plane during training exercises (the downing of Siberian Airlines Flight 1812 over the Black Sea in October 2001 killed all 78 aboard), and in view of the tumultuous state of affairs within its military units in the months after the February 2014 coup and the outbreak of civil strife in the Donbass, the Ukrainian military should have been considered as possible perpetrators.

Russia has not blocked international investigation of the MH17 tragedy. To the contrary, Russia co-initiated UN Security Council Resolution 2166, adopted 21 July 2014 (four days after the crash), which set forth requirements for an open and transparent investigation under UN auspices and demanded that “those responsible for this incident be held to account”. Instead, Russia was excluded from the JIT and its evidence ignored. Only a full year later, on 29 July 2015, when the direction of the forthcoming JIT “findings” was already apparent, did Russia exercise its UNSC veto to block a resolution drafted by the JIT countries on setting up an international tribunal to prosecute those allegedly responsible. Russia nonetheless continues to offer cooperation in a proper investigation under UNSC Res. 2166.

For a free copy of the latest edition of the Australian Alert Service, the weekly publication of the CEC, including the articles “Enemies of peace erupt over Trump-Putin summit”, and “Putin-Trump Helsinki meeting was beneficial for the world”, leave ALL details below, or call Toll-Free on 1800 636 432.

This next article is another take on it I received after the tragedy.

This article first published on July 30, 2014 contradicts the substance of the recently released Dutch Safety Board Report. We are bringing it to the attention of our readers in view of the soon to be released BBC TV documentary, which suggests that the MH17 was shot down by a Ukrainian jet fighter. (GR Ed. M.Ch.)

Summary: Usability testing finds that both voice-only and screen-based intelligent assistants work well only for very limited, simple queries that have fairly simple, short answers. Users have difficulty with anything else.

The electronic-payments industry, which gets a cut from every electronic transaction, wants to kill cash. But wait...

Not so long ago, it seemed that the death of cash was both inevitable and imminent. The war against physical money was advancing on all fronts. Cash, already with technological and generational trends stacked against it, faced an imposing array of enemies, including private banks, fintech firms, telecom behemoths, credit card giants, assorted NGOs, tech magnates like Bill Gates and Tim Cook, a bewildering alphabet soup of UN agencies and many national governments. All wanted (and to a great extent still want) to accelerate the demise of physical money, for their own disparate motives.

But a study released in June by UK-based online payments company Paysafe confirmed that consumers on both sides of the Atlantic continue to cling to physical lucre: 87% of consumers surveyed in the UK, Canada, the US, Germany, and Austria said they had used cash to make purchases in the last month, 83% visited ATMs, and 41% said they are not interested in even hearing about cash alternatives.

Now, even certain branches of government are pushing back against the cashless trend. In Washington D.C., city councilors have introduced a new bill that would make it illegal for restaurants and retailers not to accept cash or charge a different price to customers depending on the type of payment they use. The bill is in response to efforts by retailers in the city and around the country – like the salad chain Sweetgreen – to go 100% cashless.

This article by award winning author Professor David Ray Griffin was first published by Global research in June 2010

There are many questions to ask about the war in Afghanistan. One that has been widely asked is whether it will turn out to be “Obama’s Vietnam.”1 This question implies another: Is this war winnable, or is it destined to be a quagmire, like Vietnam? These questions are motivated in part by the widespread agreement that the Afghan government, under Hamid Karzai, is at least as corrupt and incompetent as the government the United States tried to prop up in South Vietnam for 20 years.

Although there are many similarities between these two wars, there is also a big difference: This time, there is no draft. If there were a draft, so that college students and their friends back home were being sent to Afghanistan, there would be huge demonstrations against this war on campuses all across this country. If the sons and daughters of wealthy and middle-class parents were coming home in boxes, or with permanent injuries or post-traumatic stress syndrome, this war would have surely been stopped long ago. People have often asked: Did we learn any of the “lessons of Vietnam”? The US government learned one: If you’re going to fight unpopular wars, don’t have a draft – hire mercenaries!

There are many other questions that have been, and should be, asked about this war, but in this essay, I focus on only one: Did the 9/11 attacks justify the war in Afghanistan?

This question has thus far been considered off-limits, not to be raised in polite company, and certainly not in the mainstream media. It has been permissible, to be sure, to ask whether the war during the past several years has been justified by those attacks so many years ago. But one has not been allowed to ask whether the original invasion was justified by the 9/11 attacks.

However, what can be designated the “McChrystal Moment” – the probably brief period during which the media are again focused on the war in Afghanistan in the wake of the Rolling Stone story about General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, which led to his resignation – provides the best opportunity for some time to raise fundamental questions about this war. Various commentators have already been asking some pretty basic questions: about the effectiveness and affordability of the present “counterinsurgency strategy” and even whether American fighting forces should remain in Afghanistan at all. But I am interested in an even more fundamental question: Whether this war was ever really justified by the publicly given reason: the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

This question has two parts: First, did these attacks provide a legal justification for the invasion of Afghanistan? Second, if not, did they at least provide a moral justification?

"Watch your thoughts, for they become words. Watch your words, for they become actions. Watch your actions, for they become habits. Watch your habits, for they become character. Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny." ~ unknown

"If a man empties his purse into his head no one can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest." ~ Benjamin Franklin

The Achuar of Peru’s Pastaza River in the northern Amazon have sent many oil companies packing. Now GeoPark, a company based in Chile, thinks it can succeed where Talisman, Oxy, and ARCO failed.

The Achuar remain as committed as ever to resisting extractive industries in their ancestral territory, helping defend its biodiversity and the global climate. Now they’ve asked international civil society to stand with them as they defend their sacred rainforests from an attack on their ancestral way of life.

The Murray Darling Royal Commission happening in South Australia this month is painting a dark picture of how the Murray Darling Basin Plan came to be. We’ve heard shocking statements from scientists from the Wentworth Group, the CSIRO and ex-Murray Darling Basin Authority staff. But it is Richard Beasley SC, Counsel assisting the Commissioner, who summed it up perfectly:

The scientific community knew at least 4000GL was needed to be returned to the river to give it a fighting chance. Despite this, as former MDBA water planner David Bell told the commission, the final figure of 2750GL was plucked out of the air to be more politically palatable. “The general consensus [within the MDBA] became that the SDL had to be a number beginning with ‘2’,” he said.

His evidence at the Commission called into question the Murray Darling Basin Authority’s independence, showing the organisation could not be trusted to implement the Murray Darling Basin Plan.

Former CSIRO scientist Dr Matthew Colloff said the MDBA’s interference throughout the course of developing the plan “compromised” the CSIRO’s scientific integrity, and undermined their independence.

Former MDBA environmental water director Maryanne Slattery told the commission the Basin Plan numbers no longer represented actual water.

The Authority has also been described as a “politically motivated” organisation, which had developed a “dishonest culture” just this week.

It comes as little surprise that the Murray Darling Basin Plan was not underpinned by reliable scientific advice at the time, but what is shocking is that the Liberal Government and the Murray Darling Basin Authority are attempting to hide from the Royal Commission’s scrutiny. They have shamefully applied to the High Court to block Government and MDBA officials from having to appear at the Royal Commission.

We can see there is not enough water coming down the River by looking at the dying Coorong, and the dredges at the Murray mouth. River communities are already seriously concerned that they are on the cusp of the next big drought.

River communities, and we South Australians at the bottom end of the river, expect more than this, and deserve better.

Let’s keep fighting for a thriving River.

Sarah.

Once again the Independent Commission Against Corruption has uncovered evidence of a Liberal MP’s dodgy dealings with property developers. Daryl Maguire has quit the Liberals and has finally let go of his seat.

But politicians who use their power for personal gain belong in court. Tell the Premier you support stronger anti-corruption laws.

ICAC is expert at identifying corrupt activities by public officials but their findings don’t always translate into criminal charges. It’s time for new, stronger laws to make sure corrupt politicians actually go to gaol.

I’ve introduced a bill to NSW Parliament that would make it easier to send politicians to court if they are found to have acted corruptly by the ICAC. The bill is based on recommendations by ICAC which have been ignored by the government up to this point.

Sign the petition to support my bill.

If you would like to discuss this issue with me further, please feel free to contact me directly either by email balmain@parliament.nsw.gov.au or call 02 9660 7586.

Yours sincerely,

Jamie Parker MP Member for Balmain http://www.jamieparker.org/

P.S. If you believe that shonky politicians belong in court, sign the petition now.

Until next time,
dream big dreams,
plan out how to achieve them,
be continually executing your plans,
enlist people to your causes,
travel and/or read widely, preferably both,
all the while observing what you observe
rather than thinking what you are told to think,
think well of your fellow man,
take time to help your fellow man,
he sorely needs it and it will help you too,
eat food that is good for your body,
exercise your body,
take time to destress,
and do the important things
that make a difference -
they are rarely the urgent ones!

Most of the content herein has been copied from someone else. Especially the images. My goodness some people are talented at creating aesthetics! The small bits that are of my creation are Copyright 2014-2018 © by Tom Grimshaw - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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