UPDATED: Xerxes Is On The Move

Africa, Ancient History, Barack Obama, Celebrity, Government, South-Africa

At a cost of “between $60 million to $100 million,” “President Obama goes to sub-Saharan Africa this month,” reports the usually adoring Washington Post. A good part of the comitatus—“‘the sprawling apparatus’ that encompasses … the emperor’s household and its personnel”—is going along for the ride.

The obscene details via The WaPo:

Military cargo planes will airlift in 56 support vehicles, including 14 limousines and three trucks loaded with sheets of bulletproof glass to cover the windows of the hotels where the first family will stay. Fighter jets will fly in shifts, giving 24-hour coverage over the president’s airspace, so they can intervene quickly if an errant plane gets too close.
The elaborate security provisions — which will cost the government tens of millions of dollars — are outlined in a confidential internal planning document obtained by The Washington Post.

…

This ugly extravaganza is par for the course—and grounds well covered in Cullen Murphy’s book “Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of Rome,” in which Murphy draws the unflattering parallels between the imperial rule of ancient Rome and that of modern America.

The First Family will be stopping in our former hometown of Cape Town. (As if the FLOTUS has not already propagandized from South Africa, during a 2011 trip. Inoculate yourself. Read “Clueless in South Africa With Mrs. Obama.”)

UPDATE (6/14): In case you forgot who Xerxes was, read “‘300’: Defending Civilization Can Be Messy.”

UPDATE II: ‘Thank You For Your Service, Mr. Snowden’

Barack Obama, Ethics, Fascism, Propaganda, Republicans, Russia, Technology, Terrorism, The State

“‘Thank You For Your Service, Mr. Snowden'” is the current column, now on WND. Here’s an excerpt:

“A heroic American whistleblower chooses, oh-so wisely, to expose Uncle Sam’s usurpations to the veteran reporters of the British Guardian and not to the partisan hacks of the American press. This fact tells you all you need to know about US presstitutes.

Confirmation of the degree to which American media has been co-opted by power came on June 10, again, via a British newspaper. The Mail Online divulged that Edward Snowden had ‘first approached the Washington Post with his leaks but the newspaper refused to comply with his publishing demands.’

You see, the Washington Post had to hotfoot it back to Big Brother Obama before it would do its journalistic due diligence. ‘The Post broke the story on PRISM two weeks later, on Thursday, after consulting with government officials,’ confirmed the Mail Online.

Even after being scooped by the Guardian, the Obama embeds at the Washington Post saw fit to inform their readers about PRISM on a purely need-to-know basis, ‘eprinting only four of the 41 PRISM PowerPoint slides,’ and generally misrepresenting the nature of the program known as PRISM. The manufactured-in-America version of PRISM thus contradicts the ‘internal NSA documents’ leaked to the Guardian.

According to the guardian of American freedoms at the Guardian, reporter Glenn Greenwald, the 41-slide PowerPoint presentation he acquired from Snowden has been authenticated as a document ‘used to train intelligence operatives on the capabilities of the program.’ The presentation, pictorials with captions, handed out by the National Security Agency, boasts of having ‘direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple, Yahoo, PalTalk, YouTube in 2010; Skype and AOL, and other servers.’

Contrary to what you’re being told, ‘the world’s largest surveillance organization’ can and does ‘obtain targeted communications without having to request them from the service providers and without having to obtain individual court orders.’ And it is contrary to the Bill of Rights, the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, in particular. It specifies that ‘warrants shall issue’ only ‘upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.’

Tellingly, the tools of Big Media and big government are not apprising you of these facts. Like a tortoise in its shell they’ve retreated from the watersheds that are the AP, the IRS and the NSA scandals, informing you only of what New York and Northeast elites think is important: “Most of you still like Obama” …

The complete column is, “‘Thank You For Your Service, Mr. Snowden.'” Read it on WND.

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UPDATE I: In his unrehearsed conversation with Glenn Greenwald, Snowden demonstrates analytical clarity, the kind you don’t get from his inferior critics. It comes natural for him to distinguish between NSA posturing for the national interest and reality; between intelligence gathered overseas and domestically; between surveillance of the foreign born and the domestic.

Snowden’s desperation—defecting and leaking as a last resort—is corroborated by other whistleblowers. When you blow the whistle through acceptable NSA channels you can expect cover-ups, heavily redacted reports and retaliation. This is what two veteran intelligence officers relayed to Sean Hannity at Fox News.

UPDATE II: From the Facebook thread. Memorial Day is a way to ensure men die for the state, not for their neighbors. It wasn’t always so, but it has become that. It’s the sad truth. Good men serve their countrymen outside the state. For example, Samuel Williams is an American hero. The same goes for the wonderful JOE HORN.

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Is The Big Dog Wagging The Dog?

Barack Obama, Foreign Policy, Lebanon, Middle East, War, WMD

Like the Bush administration before it, the Obama administration is crying “WMD” at a convenient time in the course of the catalogue of Obaminations it has been inflicting on us.

The same lying “intelligence community” that has been spying on millions of us, “‘estimates that 100 to 150 people have died from detected chemical weapons attacks in Syria to date; however, casualty data is likely incomplete,’ Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, said in a statement released by the White House.”

Needless to say that CNN, whose website and TV infotainment hours have never headlined with the AP, IRS or NSA stories—is in its element.

Jessica Yellin is yelling, “Barack is back.”

BBC News fails to offer independent verification of the Sarin news, repeating US talking points about this brief being based on a thing called, in Orwellian speak, “a high confidence assessment”:

Mr Rhodes said US intelligence agencies had concluded Mr Assad’s forces had used chemical weapons, including the nerve agent sarin, based on battlefield reports, “descriptions of physiological symptoms” from alleged victims, and laboratory analysis of samples obtained from alleged victims.

It would appear that nothing much has changed on the ground, except in the US. Is the Big Dog wagging the dog?

All I can say is that you must keep your eye on the Snowden story. Don’t let it die (it’s also the topic of my new column).

The Fed Tapeworm Is ‘Tapering,’ Or So We’re Told

Debt, Economy, Federal Reserve Bank, Inflation

As if Quantitative Easing were not deceptive enough a term, now we have “tapering.”

The money mafia had been “easing” to the tune of $85 billion in monthly bond purchases. If they’ve admitted to this much, you can be sure it’s much more.

Now Federal Reserve watchers are suggesting that the Fed’s “$85 billion a month bond buying program” may be winding down to … “$75 billion a month.”

The consequence of Ben Bernanke’s non-stop monetary stimulus, of course, is a rise in prices, stocks included. Homes too. It should be obvious too that an increase in the price of an item is not the same as an appreciation in it value.