Agencies & Systems
U.S. government agencies and systems
Since President Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009, an estimated 2,464 people have been killed by drone strikes targeted outside of the United States’ declared war zones; this figure was posted in February 2015 by Jack Serle and the team at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, who maintain a database of all known strikes—based on fieldwork, media reports, and leaked documents—which provides a clearer picture of the scale and impact of the US drone program than the episodic reporting provided by corporate media.
There is good reason to believe the ZIKA VIRUS is yet another giant scam. The headlines advising women in Latin America and Africa not to get pregnant for 2 years smacks of inflicted Birth Control through fear, and is consistent with Agenda 21. Money making for big Pharma and the Medical industry is almost guaranteed. The science is inconclusive to substantiate the fears but the science associated with massive pesticide use is not.
By September 2012, after almost a decade at the task, the U.S. had allocated and spent nearly $25 billion on “training, equipping, and sustaining” the Iraqi security forces, according to a report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. In the end, the U.S. claimed to have trained roughly 950,000 members of the “steady,” “solid,” and well-trained Iraqi security forces.
And yet just two and a half years after the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, that same force collapsed in spectacular fashion to less than 31,000 ISIS militants (according to CIA estimates) and these forces reportedly were so frightened by 800 ISIS militants that they went running, leaving equipment and even their uniforms behind, thus handing over the second largest city in the country, Mosul.
We’ve all heard this one: if a politician wants to disarm the public, he should give up his own security protection. See how he likes it. What is it about politicians that gives them a special right to have armed professionals stalk their perimeter and mumble into their collars?
“The Commission’s report on the potential economic impact of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) comes at a turning point in American trade policy. “We all recognize that trade can be beneficial. The issue is not whether Members of Congress such as myself could pass an Econ 101 class, as President George W. Bush’s Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, Gregory Mankiw, recently put it. Instead, the issue is whether we are going to face up to the fact that our trading system today is much more complex than the simplistic trade model presented in an Econ 101 class.
Two large banks in the US have changed what can be stored in safety deposit boxes: no cash, no coins other than collectibles. Clearly the new rules are targeting people who are saving extra money or buying gold or silver coins in case the economy implodes. Although it would hurt the more wealthy, it prevents the average American from preparing for the economic meltdown by having something negotiable.
The US Government Has an Internet Killswitch — and the Supreme Court Says It’s None of Your Business
The Supreme Court has refused to hear a petition concerning the Department of Homeland Security’s secretive internet and cellphone killswitch program. The author weighs in on what does this mean for your civil liberties.
Nearly 7 million U.S. households struggle with hunger. Yet Americans throw away 40 percent of our food—the equivalent of $165 billion each year—according to the National Resources Defense Council. That’s why U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, (D-Maine) has introduced H.R. 4184, the Food Recovery Act—a bill to address food waste.
Compared with other capitalist countries, the US is unquestionably different when it comes to the level of state violence directed against minorities, Richard Becker reported in January 2015 for Liberation. Using 2011 figures, Becker wrote that, on a per capita basis, “the rate of killing by U.S. police was about 100 times that of English cops in 2011.” Similarly, US police were forty times as likely to kill as German police officers, and twenty times as likely to kill as their Canadian counterparts. This, Becker noted, is probably not the kind of “American exceptionalism” that President Obama had in mind when he addressed graduating West Point cadets in May 2014.
How many times will our justice system refuse to charge police with killing unarmed black people? When will our judicial system deem the death of people of color at the hands of law enforcement to at least be worthy of a trial?
Jeff Berwick masterfully summarizes in general the negative situations in which we find ourselves now and how they will lead us to the positive world we are now creating. A Christmas and New Years message that ties in the religious and pagan bases of the holiday and leads us forward to a better world we can create now.
In service of corporate capital and with vested interests in the regions’ natural resources, the Pentagon and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have been encircling Russia and China with military bases and missile defense systems, Bruce K. Gagnon reported
You would start by examining where a lot of gun violence takes place. I know: this is a breathtaking assumption. It makes the mind reel. In the history of our species, no one has ever suggested a solution for a problem based on where the problem is located. But there’s a first time for everything.
On World Refugee Day 2014, the global total of people who had undergone forced displacement was the highest on record since World War II. A Global Trends report compiled by the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) established a figure of 51.2 million globally displaced people at the end of 2013, an increase of six million from 45.2 million in 2012.
To really control gun violence requires a clear analysis of ALL incidents, where they happen, common elements, and causes. A somewhat tongue-in-cheek expose of governments choosing specific incidents to advance government agenda, and totally disregarding what will identify the TRUE causes of the majority of gun violence. A great expose of the REAL issues.
