Category Archives: corporate news

It’s Official: U.S. Political, Economic and Legal Systems are (even more) FUBAR

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Some might argue they’ve been FUBAR for some time now. Most of the world knows that power corrupts and the rich (as well as the national security state which protects their interests) are above the law. By paying off the right law makers and law enforcers they figuratively and sometimes literally get away with murder. Now, thanks to two recent court rulings, the wealthy in the U.S. are free to lavish unlimited bribes on politicians and can get away with not just murder but child rape. These are the types of stories that corporate media shills don’t want you to know, but with the internet more people than ever are becoming aware (and justifiably outraged).

 

DuPont Heir Avoids Jail Time for Raping His Children

Judge ruled he “will not fare well” in prison

By John Vibes

Source: Intellihub.com

Weeks ago, we published a report about a member of the DuPont family with a prolonged history of sexually abusing children.  The man in question, 47-year-old Robert H. Richards IV, confessed to molesting both of his children and managed to avoid jail time because the judge said that he would not hold up well in prison.

At the time that we reported this story, it was ridiculed as “conspiracy theory” or “sensationalism”, by people who did not want to believe that this type of blatant systematic corruption exists.

However, now that the mainstream media has finally begun to pick this story up, it has gone viral and sparked outrage world wide.

Richards is a member of both the DuPont family, who built the worldwide chemical empire, and the Richards family, who co-founded the prestigious corporate law firm Richards Layton & Finger.

Richards was able avoid any jail time, thanks to his overpriced lawyers and the prestige of his families.  In 2008, Richards confessed to the fourth-degree rape of his daughter, and only received probation.  Then years later in 2010, he confessed to sexually abusing his son when he was just a toddler.  Now this information is finally coming to light as the result of a civil lawsuit that was recently filed by his ex-wife.

Kendall Marlowe, executive director of the National Association for Counsel for Children, told The News Journal that sex offenders are jailed for the safety of the children they threaten.

“Child protection laws are there to safeguard children, and adults who knowingly harm children should be punished,” she said. “Our prisons should be more rehabilitative environments, but the prison system’s inadequacies are not a justification for letting a child molester off the hook.”

It is actually shocking that the mainstream media has picked up this story at all.  There is a deep history of crime, corruption and pedophilia among aristocratic families.  Luckily, stories like this are actually beginning to get mainstream recognition, but it is unfortunate that most people out there won’t believe that a story is credible until it is seen in one of the state regulated, corporately owned news sources.

John Vibes is an investigative journalist, staff writer and editor for Intellihub News where this article originally appeared. He is also the author of an 65 chapter Book entitled “Alchemy of the Timeless Renaissance” and is an artist with an established record label.

 

Ignorance is Strength, Freedom is Slavery, Money is Speech

By Kathy Malloy

Source: MikeMalloy.com

It was bad enough when the Supremes declared corporations were people in the infamous Citizens United decision. Now they have decided that money is free speech. In other words, money is to be given the same constitutional protection as free speech. The Washington Post explains it this way:

A split Supreme Court Wednesday struck down limits on the total amount of money an individual may spend on political candidates as a violation of free speech rights, a decision sure to increase the role of money in political campaigns.

The 5 to 4 decision sparked a sharp dissent from liberal justices, who said the decision reflects a wrong-headed hostility to campaign finance laws that the court’s conservatives showed in Citizens United v. FEC , which allowed corporate spending on elections.

“If Citizens United opened a door,” Justice Stephen G. Breyer said in reading his dissent from the bench, “today’s decision we fear will open a floodgate.”

So there it is, the final nail in the coffin to free and fair elections. Bye-bye campaign finance rules. “We the people” is now “we the wealthy.” The First Amendment protection of free speech was designed by the framers of our Constitution to protect our right to express our political opinions and exchange information and ideas without fear of governmental reprisal. By definition, it gives this right equally to every American citizen. Now the Roberts Court has decided, a la Orwell, that some people are more equal than others. If James Madison wanted to equate money with free speech, he would’ve drafted it into the Bill of Rights back in 1787. He must be flipping in his grave. His protection of all citizens has become a guarantee that the vast majority of us will no longer have any say in our electoral process.

This decision must make billionaires like Sheldon Adelson laugh so hard they spit gold coins out their noses. Now Adelson can select from a bevy of eager Neocons up on his auction block. And the brothers Koch can purchase any candidate they think will best do their bidding on Capitol (Capital?) Hill. And the 99% of the rest of us? Well, we will march lemming-like to the polls and pull the lever for whichever corporate candidate the 1% has purchased and placed on the ballot. Our elections will now be about as free and fair as those in N. Korea.

What was that Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence? Something about what must happen whenever a government becomes destructive of our unalienable rights . . . .

Neil Kramer on Hypnotic Handshakes & Jedi Mind Tricks

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Neil Kramer recently posted an interesting piece on hypnosis, Neural Linguistic Programing and social control. He began his essay with an analysis of the tricks of illusionist Darren Brown. While seemingly magic, they’re actually a skillful use of various psychological reading and manipulation techniques which exploit subconscious and unconscious processes (ie. mirroring, eye accessing cues, cold reading and NLP).  To explain some of the psychological mechanisms behind such “Jedi mind tricks”, he provides the following description of a hypnotic handshake:

Many actions are learned and operate as a single chunk of behavior: shaking hands and tying shoelaces being two good examples. However, if the behavior is diverted or frozen midway, the person literally has no mental space for this. He is stopped in the middle of unconsciously executing a behavior without a corresponding pattern. The mind crashes, suspending itself in trance until either something happens to give a new direction, or it reboots itself. A skilled hypnotist uses that momentary confusion and suspension of normal processes to induce a TDS trance.

By interrupting the pattern of a normal handshake in a particular manner, the hypnotist causes the subject to wonder what is going on. If the handshake continues to develop in a way which is out-of-keeping with expectations, a simple, non-verbal trance is created, which may then be reinforced by the hypnotist. All these responses happen naturally and automatically without telling the subject to consciously focus on an idea.

Also intriguing and relevant to the current moment is Kramer’s analysis of how principles of hypnosis are used by corporate media as a tool for mass control and manipulation:

Confusion is a tool used by hypnotists to put the subject into an altered state. The slumbering brain state induced by injudiciously watching TV and surfing the net achieves exactly the same thing. This is how the Empire implants its messages deep into the minds of the great unwashed masses. To the unconscious observer, the messages are not properly perceived at the point of entry. They are nevertheless permanently recorded in precise detail and influence the individual emotionally, intellectually, and physically with their latent memes.

For this to have impact on a mass scale, people need to also believe that they are finite, separate, the world happens “out there”, and they are essentially powerless. Once this is achieved, the covert messaging is much more readily absorbed. The isolated little human seeks comfort and reassurance wherever he can find it. If the mind is suitably controlled, the thrill of a new gadget, the delight of a new snack food, the consolation of a new TV drama, and the platitudes of government, may constitute all the solace required to get through another day. The prescribed messaging sinks in and no-one is any the wiser.

This deception can be swiftly dismantled with one simple mental gear shift: for the common man to cease regarding his mind as some plain old fiddle churning out the tunes of unseen dubious impresarios – and instead to recognize it as an exquisite Stradivarius violin that is at its greatest when playing the authentic and beautiful music of his own making.

Read the complete essay here: http://neilkramer.com/hypnotic-handshakes-jedi-mind-tricks.html

YouTube user Hypernosis0’s channel features a number of clips deconstructing Darren Brown’s techniques including the following example:

This episode of Stuff They Don’t Want You to Know examines how marketers employ behavioral psychology and neuroscience to encourage consumerism:

Stressed: What Are They Trying To Tell Us?

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By Danny Schechter

Source: Disinfo.com

Ok, I have to admit it, I feel as my faith in economic justice is being tested with these stress tests. Truth is, I  am becoming more stressed than ever.

The reason: despite all the “regulations” in the Dodd Frank Financial “reform” and the Volcker Rule and The Fed’s “oversight:’ the banks seems to have free reign to do what they will despite the financial crisis, and the pathetic “recovery.”

There have been fines and settlements but nothing is settled. None of them have or will go to jail.

Economic conditions continue to stress out millions even as the Fed announces “stress tests” that appear on the surface to be a way of insuring that big banks won’t need more bailouts.

Sad to say, it’s more of the charade. Partially that’s because the banks dominate the Federal Reserve, a private, not public, institution.

And, partially, because when it comes to economic crises, the stories are buried in the business pages and rarely surface as topics of concern on popular talk shows and media that most folks watch.

Even the financial channels like CNBC prefer superficial soundbite chatter to in-depth-interviews according to “Money Honey” Maria Bartiromo who publicly criticized her old network when she took a better deal at Fox.

Many of us have seen the reports that Citibank, the biggest enchilada of finance, the bank that provided refuge to the likes of Clinton’s Treasury Secretary Robert “the great deregulator” Rubin and Obama Budget director, whiz kid Peter Orzag, who has been in Court lately hiding how much he made from Citi in a divorce proceeding, is in trouble.

Citi failed the Fed’s latest Stress test designed to see if it had adequate reserves to withstand the widely anticipated next financial jolt to the economy.

Washington’s Blog quotes the business news honchos at Bloomberg and then adds context:

“Citigroup Inc.’s capital plan was among five that failed Federal Reserve stress tests, while Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Bank of America Corp. passed only after reducing their requests for buybacks and dividends.

Citigroup, as well as U.S. units of Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, HSBC Holdings Plc and Banco Santander SA, failed because of qualitative concerns about their processes, the Fed said today in a statement. Zions Bancorporation was rejected as its capital fell below the minimum required. The central bank approved plans for 25 banks.”

In reality, Citi “flat lined” – went totally bust – in 2008.  It was insolvent.

And former FDIC chief Sheila Bair said that the whole bailout thing was really focused on bringing a very dead Citi back from the grave.

Indeed, “the big banks – including Citi – have repeatedly gone bankrupt.”

Why didn’t I read that in the news? Didn’t Citi “pass” earlier tests?  I thought they were stronger than ever.

Think again, says Washington:

“So why did the U.S. government give Citi a passing grade in previous stress tests?

Because they were rigged to give all of the students an “A”.

Time Magazine called then Secretary Treasury Tim Geithner a “con man” and the stress tests a “confidence game” because those tests were so inaccurate. (DS: Geither was just rewarded by the industry and named president of the private equity firm, Warburg Pincus.)

But the bigger story is that absolutely nothing was done to address the causes of the 2008 financial crisis, or to fix the system.”

That’s one good reason for all of us to be stressed because we can have absolutely no confidence in the stability of our economy, whatever they say about how it’s all getting better.

Here’s James Kwak of BaselineScenario.com, on the stress test story. He sees it as one more financial fraud:

“Despite the much-publicized black eye to Citigroup’s management, the bottom line of the Federal Reserve’s stress tests is that every other large U.S. bank will be allowed to pay out more cash to its shareholders, either as increased dividends or stock buybacks. And pay out more cash they will: at least $22 billion in increased dividends (that includes all the banks subject to stress tests), plus increased buyback plans.

Those cash payouts come straight out of the banks’ capital, since they reduce assets without reducing liabilities. Alternatively, the banks could have chosen to keep the cash and increase their balance sheets—that is, by lending more to companies and households. The fact that they choose to distribute the cash to shareholders indicates that they cannot find additional, profitable lending opportunities.”

Rather than just speculate with my own I believe well grounded if  cynical suspicions, let me quote a few more experts like Mike Harrison, an expert on Credit Write Downs who wrote earlier,

“I would say the stress tests were a mock exercise to instill confidence in the capital markets. This was important first and foremost because it would induce private investors to pay for bank recapitalization instead of taxpayers. But it was also important for the economy as a whole as the sick banking sector was dragging the whole economy down. The key, however, is that the tests were a mock exercise. Despite the additional capital, banks are still hiding hundreds of billions of dollars in losses in level three, hold to maturity, and off balance sheet asset pools. If asset prices fall and/or the economy weakens, all of this subterfuge would be for nought.”

He quotes Mike Konzcal who did his own line-by-line assessment of the actual numbers the banks report on earlier tests. He noted that banks often have to worry about several liens on the properties they have financed and hold mortgages on.

“So the original loss from second-liens, as reported by the stress tests, was $68.4 billion for the four largest banks. If you look at those numbers again, and assume a loss of 40% to 60%, numbers that are not absurd by any means, you suddenly are talking a loss of between $190 billion and $285 billion. Which means if the stress tests were done with terrible 2nd lien performance in mind, there would have been an extra $150 billion dollar hole in the balance sheet of the four largest banks. Major action would have been taken against the four largest banks if this was the case.”

Are you still with me? What comes to mind is the old adage: ‘what a web we weave when first we practice to deceive.’

Why are they doing this?

Here’s Harrison again, from his posts on the authoritative website, Naked Capitalism:

“The real question is: why is the Obama Administration running victory laps, unrolling the ‘Mission Accomplished’ banner on the credit crisis, as Mike Konczal describes it? I suspect this is just a political stunt to provide cover in the mid-term elections to somehow demonstrate that the Democrats fixed the problem that the Republicans created.

I think it could backfire if only because the (real) underemployment rate is still 17%. Nobody wants to hear the “I saved the economy routine” when they’re unemployed and losing their home.”

Now, do you see why we should be stressed too?

News Dissector Danny Schechter edits Mediachannel.org and blogs at newsdissector.net. He investigated financial fraud in The Crime of Our Time (Disinformation). His latest book is Madiba A to Z: The Many Faces of Nelson Mandela (Madibabook.com. Comments to dissector@mediachannel.org

This Is The Reality Of It: “We Are Factually In A Recession. Period.”

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By Max Slavo

Originally posted at SHTFplan.com

We can cite scores of statistics and financials that prove without a shadow of a doubt that the U.S. economy is in a tail spin and won’t be recovering any time soon. Abysmal home sales, continued degradation in the national employment numbers, sky rocketing national debt, and ever rising consumer prices all point to serious problems.

But one number in particular pretty much sums it all up. It depicts not just the worsening state of our economy, but puts the lies and machinations of the U.S. government on full display for the world to see.

You’ll often hear the media cite the U.S. Growth Domestic Product (GDP) as a measure of economic growth. It measures the rate at which our economy grows.

In 2013, for example, our GDP was $17.08 trillion, up from the previous year’s $16.42 trillion. So, all of the goods and services sold throughout the United States (essentially, all of the money spent by Americans) rose about $661 billion dollars year-over-year.

Most people might look at the number, see 4% growth, and say it’s a no-brainer. How can the economy not be growing if the GDP rose?

The answer is simple. And when you look at it from the perspective Karl Denninger of the Market Ticker outlines below, you can’t help but realize that you’ve been purposely duped into believing that things are getting better. Just the opposite is true.

When looking at GDP you absolutely must account for the manufactured credit infused into the system during this same time period. When you do you’ll see just why the economy is not growing in any way, shape or form.

It is, in fact, contracting.

However, The Federal Reserve added $1.112 trillion in credit (unbacked by anything) during the same period of time; that’s a debasement of the units in which GDP is reported of 6.51%.

So the real change in the economy is in fact negative 2.51%.

We are factually in a recession.

Period.

There can be no progress economically or politically until the lies are stopped.  These are not mistakes; both the hosts and guest are fully-aware of The Fed’s balance sheet.

That extra trillion dollars slammed into the system by The Fed pretty much wipes out any growth noted by the Federal government’s statistics, because we never actually earned that money. It’s debt. Not growth!

Incidentally, the other oft cited measure of economic health is the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which currently sits around record all-time highs of 16,000 points, is likewise benefiting from this illusion. Guess where that stock market “growth” came from? Yes, the very same credit being used to prop up the economy (that $85 billion or so in Fed Treasury purchases every month) is also keeping stocks at record highs.

Back on Main Street, where most Americans live, we’re feeling the effects. Do we need to mention that the Patient Affordable Care Act has just forced working Americans to spend up to quadruple on their monthly premiums? Or that millions of Americans who are unemployed and no longer counted in the official statistics have absolutely no income whatsoever because their unemployment insurance has run out? Or that the price of everything from food and energy to rent and clothing is rising?

That kind of thing tends to happen when you debase your currency.

Last week famed contrarian economist John Williams noted that the economy gave a powerful recessionary signal in January that had not been seen since right before the market crash in 2007. Furthermore, one of the leading economic indicators of a recessionary environment is the price of copper because it is so closely associated with global growth. It has dropped significantly in recent months and it could well be signaling a coming crash in stocks just as it did in 2008.

When, not if, this thing buckles again we’re going to be in for an unprecedented period in U.S. history.

The system was on the brink of total collapse in 2008, as evidenced by Representative Brad Sherman on the House floor:

Many of us were told in private conversations that if we voted against this bill on Monday, that the sky would fall, the market would drop two or three thousands points the first day, another couple thousand the second day, and a few members were even told that there would be martial law in America if we voted no.

House Representative Brad Sherman (D-California)
Debate on the House Floor, October 2, 2008


They’ve used up all of the tricks in their magic hat. One misstep here and we’re going down. Any number of domestic or geo-political events could trigger a meltdown in U.S. stock markets and send the broader economy crashing.

What Happened to Flight 370? An Analysis of What Is Known

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By Charles Hugh Smith

Originally posted at OfTwoMinds.com

If we put these together, we can establish a number of logical parameters around each plausible scenario, where plausible scenario means a situation based on previous losses of commercial aircraft.

Like many other people, I am following the story of what happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 with keen interest. Much of what we’ve been told doesn’t add up, deepening the mystery.

It seems to me that we can already draw a number of conclusions from the known data by pursuing a logic-based analysis of what is possible and what can be excluded as illogical.

Let’s start with what is known:

1. The Malaysian authorities have been evasive to the point of misdirection, in other words, they’ve hidden the facts to serve an undisclosed agenda.

What is the agenda driving their evasion? What is known is that Malaysian security is obviously lax. This fact has caused Malaysian authorities to lose face, i.e. be humiliated on the global stage. Malaysia is an Asian nation, and maintaining face in Asia is of critical importance. We can conclude that one reason the Malaysian authorities are dissembling is to hide their gross incompetence.

It is also suspected that Malaysia is a safe haven for potentially dangerous Islamic groups. (Follow the threads from Pakistan’s secret nuclear proliferation program to Malaysia for documentation of this possibility.) The Malaysian government may have an informal quid pro quo along these lines: you are welcome to set up shop as long as you don’t cause any trouble here or do anything to cause Malaysia to lose face.

This provides another logical source of Malaysian evasion: if there is indeed a terrorist connection to the loss of the aircraft, this would focus the global spotlight on Malaysian tolerance of potentially dangerous groups.

That the Malaysian military was unable to effectively monitor the aircraft or coordinate with civilian air traffic control (ATC) also suggests incompetence at the most sensitive levels. Revealing this would also cause a loss of face.

Summary: Malaysian authorities have not been truthful or timely in their reporting. The logical conclusion is that they’re hiding data to protect national pride and the true state of their abysmal security.

2. Additional information is available but is not being shared with the public. To take one example, the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) on Flight 370 was functioning and automatically sent data on four critical systems, including the engines. This data has not been released by Malaysian Airlines.

It also appears that the pilot of another 777 airliner heading to Japan contacted the pilot in Flight 370 and reported the transmission was garbled.

Even with the transponder off, the aircraft would appear on primary (military) radar. The Malaysian military tracked Flight 370 but is dissembling. Clearly the authorities are not revealing the full extent of what is known.

3. Satellite imagery did not detect a high-altitude explosion. This excludes all scenarios in which the aircraft crashes into another plane, explodes in mid-air, etc.

4. Flight 370 changed course and altitude, and then maintained the new bearing for hundreds of miles and an additional hour of flight after losing contact with ATC (air traffic control). This limits scenarios in which decompression causes everyone on board to lose consciousness or a catastrophic electrical fire incapacitating the flight deck to an emergency that enabled the pilots to set a new course before losing consciousness or control of the aircraft.

5. The Malaysian military reported Flight 370’s altitude as 29,500 feet. This conflicts with eyewitness accounts from fishermen reporting a large aircraft at a much lower altitude around 1,000 meters (3,000 feet). If the radar altitude is correct, this suggests the aircraft was not experiencing decompression, as the pilots would descend as an emergency response to decompression. If the fishermen’s report is accurate, then decompression would not be an issue.

6. Mobile phone data suggests the passengers’ phones were still functioning after the aircraft lost contact with air traffic control (ATC) and the transponder was turned off/failed.

7. Releasing data from the U.S. intelligence space-based network would reveal U.S. capabilities. The Strait of Malacca is a key shipping lanes chokepoint, and is thus of strategic interest to the U.S. and other nations with space-based assets. U.S. authorities have already revealed that U.S. coverage of the area is “thorough.”

This confirms that U.S. communications monitoring and space-based assets cover the seas around the Strait of Malacca. Given what is known about these monitoring and space-based assets, it is likely that the U.S. intelligence agencies have additional data but are not revealing them, as this would provide direct evidence of U.S. capabilities.

We can surmise that the U.S. maintains thermal imaging capabilities that can detect more than large explosions. We can also surmise that the communications monitoring networks picked up any signals from the aircraft or related to the aircraft.

That the head of the C.I.A. publicly professed ignorance is interesting. What course of action would one pursue if one wanted to keep U.S. capabilities secret? Publicly proclaim ignorance.

This is not to suggest that the U.S. “knows where flight 370 is;” it is simply to note that this is not “open ocean” comparable to the mid-Atlantic where Air France Flight 447 went down five years ago. This is a strategic chokepoint of great interest to the U.S., and therefore it is likely that U.S. networks and space-based assets collected data that would either exclude certain possibilities or make other possibilities more likely.

What can we logically conclude from the most reliable and trustworthy data available?

1. The pilots were conscious when they turned off the transponder (or the transponder failed) around 1:30 a.m. and when they changed course soon after. The aircraft was under the control of the pilots long enough for them to set a new course.

2. The aircraft flew an additional hour or more on the new westward course at cruising altitude.

3. No distress signal was sent during this 1+ hour flight after whatever event caused the the pilots to change course.

If we put these together, we can establish a number of logical parameters around each plausible scenario, where plausible scenario means a situation based on previous losses of commercial aircraft.

1. Pilot suicide. If the pilot had decided to commit suicide by crashing the plane, why not ditch the aircraft in the South China Sea? Why change course and fly for another hour?

Alternatively, the Malaysian military’s reports are completely false and they were tracking an unknown aircraft near Pulau Perak at 2:15 a.m. (previously reported as 2:40 a.m.)

How many unindentified large aircraft are flying around Pulau Perak at 2:15 a.m. on a typical night? The possibility that the radar signal was not Flight 370 seems remote.

2. Mechanical failure that caused decompression or an electrical fire that incapacitated the flight deck. If such an emergency occurred, it enabled the pilots to change course and altitude.

Assuming a decompression event, we could expect the pilots to descend rapidly. If Flight 370 was indeed at 29,500 feet at 2:15 a.m., that suggests the aircraft was still capable of flight at cruising altitude. So either the pilots were still flying the aircraft or the decompression event enabled them to change course and set the autopilot before losing consciousness.

If the aircraft was being flown by autopilot, it could have flown for many more hours, given its fuel load, which raises the question: if the pilots were unconscious at 2:15 a.m., why did the aircraft suddenly crash 10 minutes later?

If an emergency had crippled the aircraft’s electrical system, it’s unlikely the plane could have continued flying at cruising altitude for an additional hour. If a catastrophic electrical fire crippled the flight deck, how could the plane continue flying at cruising altitude for another hour, given that the battery backup would last at best 30 minutes?

In other words, the additional hour of flight time on a new course does not logically align with an emergency decompression or fire that led to the flight deck and pilots being incapacitated. A decompression event would have led to either A. a rapid controlled descent or B. the pilots unconscious/unable to take control and the autopilot flying the aircraft on the new course for many hours.

Alternatively, a catastrophic electrical fire would have either brought the aircraft down within minutes of the event or at best provided 30 minutes on emergency battery power. Neither jives with an additional hour of flight at cruising altitude.

This leads to the conclusion that the aircraft was still being flown by the pilots, i.e. conscious decisions were being made by either the pilots or someone who had seized control of the flight deck.

If a mechanical emergency had crippled the aircraft, it seems unlikely that the pilots could change course and altitude but not be able to send a distress signal. If the pilots had lost consciousness but the rest of the plane’s systems were nominal, the autopilot would have continued flying the aircraft until the fuel ran out, many hours beyond 2:15 a.m.

That suggests there was conscious control of the aircraft and that those in charge made a decision sometime after 2:15 a.m. that led to the loss of the aircraft. This scenario strongly suggests human action or error as the operative emergency rather than mechanical failure.

Either that, or some key data that has been released as fact is actually false.

Late breaking news: if the satellite images released by China (taken one day after Flight 370 went missing) are in fact photos of wreckage, then the Malaysian military was obviously not tracking Flight 370 to the west an hour later.

The blurry photo does not reveal much, but several features are noteworthy:

1. The three pieces are very large, which means they must be intact sections of the wings or fuselage. It is unlikely these would still be floating hours after a crash. We might also wonder, what sort of impact would create three large pieces rather than a debris field?

2. The three pieces are close together. Unless the aircraft landed intact in the water and sank in one piece, there would likely be a field of much smaller floating debris.

3. What else could this be? The large size of the pieces is certainly consistent with the scale of a 777.

4. Why did China withhold the imagery for three days? Did their own search ships reach the coordinates identified by the satellite?

5. The ocean currents and the location of the presumed debris do not compute. Ocean currents in the area are 2 kilometers/hour. Presumed debris is 141 miles from last known position This doesn’t compute: the satellite image was taken 11 am Sunday 33 hours after MH370 presumably crashed; debris would only drift 33 hr X 2 KM=66 KM or about 40 miles from the last known position of HM370. Debris was 140 miles to the east–100 miles beyond what’s possible in terms of debris drifting with currents from the presumed crash site.

In summary, these images open additional questions. There is no substitute for actually finding the aircraft or debris.

MH370: Satellite images show possible crash debris in South China sea

Malaysian military now reveals it tracked MH370 to the Malacca strait

Radar Blips Baffle Officials in Malaysian Jet Inquiry

The Mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370

Malaysian plane sent out engine data before vanishing

Update 3/14: Confirmed automatic maintenance data uploads transferred from the missing plane to a database of engine maker Rolls Royce indicate flight 370 may have continued flying for at least four hours after the tower lost contact with it. This has led some researchers to speculate on possible destinations such as military bases like the ones on Coco Island or Diego Garcia. As for the motive, one possibility was recently posted at 4key.net.

Update 3/17: A plausable scenario posted at Washington’s Blog.

Update 3/19: More info about the Freescale Semiconductor connection: http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/465557/Malaysian-plane-20-on-board-worked-for-ELECTRONIC-WARFARE-and-radar-defence-company

Update 3/22: More clues pointing towards Diego Garcia: http://salonesoterica.wordpress.com/2014/03/22/malaysia-air-flight-370-is-no-doubt-at-diego-garcia-why-would-they-do-this/

Update 3/29: Important questions about MH 370 that need to be answered: http://www.globalresearch.ca/disappearance-of-malaysian-airlines-flight-mh-370-the-trillion-question-to-the-u-s-and-its-intelligence-services/5375780

What Caused a Cluster of Rare Birth Defects in Washington State?

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Last month, NBC and a number of other corporate news sites reported on cluster of extremely rare and severe birth defects in Yakima, Benton and Franklin counties in Washington State. The reports stated there have been over two dozen cases of anencephaly (a condition which blocks the development of parts of the brain and skull) and spina bifida (a related condition in which the neural tube fails to close properly). The national average rate of anencephaly is 2.1 per 10,000. In Yakima, Benton and Franklin counties between 2010 and 2013 the average was 8.4 per 10,000.

In the NBC coverage of the story, the reporter quoted CDC health scientist Jim Kucik, who claimed “A group of birth defects can appear to be related, when it’s actually just coincidence”. Other possibilities mentioned in the article included: lack of folic acid, complications related to obesity and diabetes, and exposure to fumonisins, grain molds and/or pesticides. Surprisingly, and suspiciously (especially for NBC which is partly owned by GE, a nuclear power manufacturer), there was no mention made of the fact that anencephaly was one of the most common birth defects among the offspring of radiation-poisoned survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb explosions (see: Radiation Effects Research Foundation), and that the Yakima-Benton-Franklin Tri-Cities area happens to be near the Hanford Nuclear Plant.

In 2012 it was revealed that a giant double-walled storage tank containing radioactive materials was leaking. Exactly how much radioactive waste was released into the environment and for how long was never clarified. A more recent AP article analyzed (possibly leaked) new documents that showed “…subsequent surveys of the other double-walled tanks performed for the U.S. Department of Energy by one of its Hanford contractors found at least six shared defects with the leaking tank that could lead to future leaks”. Similar concerns about the storage of nuclear waste and the threat of leaks arose last month in New Mexico when 17 workers at an underground nuclear dump in New Mexico were exposed to radiation. But the situation at Hanford is particularly serious because it stores about two-thirds of the nation’s high-level radioactive waste. Authorities are so concerned about information about its dangers getting out, at least two Hanford whistleblowers have recently been fired.

If the birth defects are in fact a result of radioactive groundwater contamination from Hanford, it wouldn’t be the first time residents living near the plant have been poisoned. In December of 1949 they were exposed to between 7,000 and 12,000 curies of airborne iodine-131 during Operation Green Run (see: Toxipedia.org). The result was numerous cases of down-winder residents being afflicted with thyroid disorders, many of whom shared their experiences through public comment letters to the CDC for a thyroid disease study in 1999.

Hanford.I-131.exposure_map

Onion Classics

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There’s not many humor sites that skewer American culture as adeptly and consistently as The Onion. I recently delved deep into their video archives where I found a few gems (marginally more absurd than reality):

Whoops. That last clip was actually from MSNBC. Maybe they’re trying to compete with The Onion?

Upper 1 Percent Plan Total Control of Internet News

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internet-censorship

By Wayne Madsen

Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.

With the impending demise of World Wide Web “net neutrality,” which has afforded equal access for website operators to the Internet, the one percent of billionaire investors are busy positioning themselves to take over total control of news reporting on the Internet.

In the latest move by billionaires to monopolize the Internet, Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington and billionaire Nick Berggruen announced the creation of World Post, a news and views website that will be officially launched at the World Economic Forum conclave of one percenters in Davos, Switzerland.

Among the announced contributors to World Post are Microsoft owner Bill Gates, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The move by Huffington and Berggruen follows the creation of the “investigative” news website First Look, Inc. by PayPal’s billionaire founder Pierre Omidyar. First Look plans to distribute the remaining cache of National Security Agency (NSA) documents originally leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden to journalist and lawyer Glenn Greenwald.

Another billionaire who has joined the rush to seize part of the Internet is hedge fund tycoon George Soros. Soros has backed two media operations, Pro Publica, which promised to disclose many Snowden documents but has not followed through, and Project Syndicate, which paves the Internet with editorials backing all of Soros’s global initiatives.

Greenwald and his associates have published only one percent of the estimated 50,000 documents downloaded by Snowden from classified NSA databases. In a recent interview by Israel’s Channel Ten, Greenwald made it very clear that he would release more documents concerning NSA surveillance of Israeli leaders based on what the Obama administration does with regard to convicted and jailed Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard. There are increasing calls for Pollard’s release from prison and permission for him to move to Israel.

Greenwald stated to Israeli television that the slow pace of document release would continue and that he agreed with Israel on the issue of Pollard: “I think you are absolutely right to contrast the Jonathan Pollard case with revelations of American spying on their closest allies within the Israeli government, because it does underlie, underscore exactly the hypocrisy that lies at the center of so much of what the U.S. government does.”

Pollard is serving a life sentence in the Butner, North Carolina, federal penitentiary for disclosing a cache of documents that resulted in a number of U.S. intelligence assets in the Middle East being compromised to Mossad. The Mossad approached the U.S. assets and offered them a deal: cooperate with Mossad or risk being outed to their governments as CIA assets. In either case, the assets faced a certain death sentence: disclosure of work for Israel or the United States would have been met with the same fate of execution as spies.

A number of American journalists are now coming out in support of clemency for Pollard to placate Israel over the NSA spying reports leaked by Greenwald. First Look’s initial operating budget is $250 million. Along with Greenwald, journalists such as The Nation’s Jeremy Scahill; Dan Froomkin, formerly with The Washington Post; and Entertainment Weekly.com’s Bill Gannon jumped ship to sign on to First Look. The hiring of an entertainment editor who once worked for Lucas Films, the producer of Star Wars movies, raised eyebrows among those who believed Greenwald and Omidyar intended First Look to be a no-nonsense news operation. It now seems certain that First Look will be no different than Disney Corporation’s running of ABC News.

There have been some outrageous examples of corporate parents spiking stories by their news divisions in order to avoid bad publicity. In 2006, ABC News was pressured by Disney and its then-CEO Michael Eisner to kill an investigation of pedophiles being employed by Disney World in Orlando. The end of net neutrality will stymie and possibly eliminate investigative reporting on the Internet as we now know it.

The formation of the two newest media companies follows Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ acquisition of The Washington Post. It is believed that Bezos will begin to streamline the newspaper with more focus on Internet distribution than the print run.

Under President Obama, the Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission have done little to advance the cause of net neutrality. In fact, the regulatory agencies have gone the other way in order to facilitate the creation of a multi-tiered Internet that will permit high bandwidth access in a “pay to play” scheme. In other words, only billionaires like Omidyar, Berggruen, Bezos, and others will have access to the top tier of the Internet to distribute varnished “news” reports.

Those media organizations without deep pockets will be relegated to the slower tiers of the Internet, sharing limited bandwidth with pornography, quack medicine, and get-rich-quick scam operators.

Rupert Murdoch’s British Sky Broadcasting and Virgin Media, formerly owned by Sir Richard Branson, have been at the forefront of establishing a “two-speed Internet.”

It is painfully clear that the top one percent are feverishly engaged in an orgy of carving up the Internet after the collapse of net neutrality for the benefit of corporatism and oligarchic control over news dissemination.

It is noteworthy that Obama’ old friend from Columbia and Harvard and his first FCC chairman, Julius Genachowski, has just joined a new firm after offering only lukewarm support for net neutrality. Genachowski now works for the eternally dubious Carlyle Group.

There is little wonder why one of World Post’s first contributors will be Google’s Schmidt, the frequent habitué of the Davos and Bilderberg secret conclaves of financial and political vipers who run the world. The journalists who have joined the frenzy to climb into the one percenters’ Internet top tier deserve nothing but condemnation from their peers.

Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report.