The Ugly American (and Friends) In Geneva Daniel McAdams ronpaulinstitute.org January 24, 2014
US Secretary of State John Kerry’s delusions continued as he arrived in Montreux, Switzerland to open the “Geneva II” talks on the ongoing conflict in Syria. Having successfully bullied UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon into rescinding the invitation previously extended to Iran to attend, Kerry proceeded to bully and blunder his way through the pre-opening of the conference. “We need to deal with reality here,” Kerry said on the eve of the conference. “Bashar Assad will not be part of that transition government.” Kerry’s pressure on Ban to uninvite Iran to the conference — though Iran is far more affected by the crisis than the majority of countries invited to participate — was based on Iran’s refusal to endorse the pre-condition of support for “regime change” in Syria as the goal of the conference. At least “regime change” was the US interpretation of the Geneva I Communique issued after that conference in 2012. However the US appears to be purposely misinterpreting the statement made after the Geneva I conference. According to the Communique signed after that conference, there is no demand that Assad must leave office. At most, the agreement calls for: The establishment of a transitional governing body which can establish a neutral environment in which the transition can take place. That means that the transitional governing body would exercise full executive powers. It could include members of the present government and the opposition and other groups and shall be formed on the basis of mutual consent. If anyone is violating the letter and spirit of the Geneva Communique, it is the US/Saudi side. The US government demanding that Assad must go clearly violates this statement in the Communique: The sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Syria must be respected.
Therefore if any country should be disqualified from participation in Geneva II on the basis of refusing to observe to the Communique issued at the end of Geneva I, it should be the US and any other nation demanding the overthrow of the current Syrian government as a precondition to further talks. That would of course also include the Saudis, who win the chutzpah award for foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal’s statement that Assad can have no role in the political transition in Syria because his hands are “stained in blood.” This from an official whose government has spent billions of petrodollars injecting foreign radical jihadists and human organ-eaters into Syria to battle the government there. Likewise the Qataris, who have also spent billions on their rent-a-jihadist fight against Syria and who most recently have spent an as-yet untold amount hiring a group of attorneys to “discover” evidence of Syrian government torture on the eve of the Geneva II conference. The timing of the release of this information is a practice that recalls the chemical attack in East Ghouta on the eve of the arrival of a UN chemical weapons inspection team at the invitation of the Syrian government. That attack and the US claim that is was without a doubt perpetrated by the Syrian government, drove the US to the brink of a military attack on Syria last summer. Though doubts persisted as to Syrian government culpability at the time — and the US administration provided no evidence — the US and its “Friends of Syria” allies would brook no dissent. Just weeks ago, however, a study conducted by a team of experts from MIT concluded that due to the primitive design of the chemical munition rockets, it would have been physically impossible for them to have been fired from Syrian government-held territory as the US government had claimed. How long before we hear the same conclusion over this latest Qatari-funded “discovery”? Which is not to say that there has not been brutality committed by both sides, we should not forget. One need not endorse the current Syrian government to appreciate Syrian foreign minister Walid alMoualem’s retort to John Kerry’s arrogant claim to decide who should or should not govern Syria: No one, Mr. Kerry, in the world has the right to give legitimacy or to withdraw legitimacy from a president, a government, a constitution or a law or anything in Syria, except Syrians. Indeed. And so it begins, Geneva II. Start making plans or III, IV, and so on, because this conference is a farce.
Obama Blames Unpopularity On Limbaugh, Fox News For Making Him Into A ‘caricature’ Joe Saunders bizpacreview.com January 24, 2014
The New Yorker on Thursday released excerpts of the much-discussed interview with President Obama that didn’t make it into print, and there was one stop-the-presses bombshell that will shock everyone who thought they understood the man: Obama thinks he’s been caricatured by Fox News and Rush Limbaugh! In parts of the interview by New Yorker editor that didn’t make it into the magazinebut were posted Thursday, Obama told New Yorker’s David Remnick he’s not getting the credit he deserves for being a sport. Apparently, he’s tired of hearing how well former House Speaker Tip O’Neil (a thoroughly unpleasant lib) and Ronald Reagan (one of the greatest presidents in history) got along. “But had Tip O’Neill not seen it to be in his interests to do a deal with Ronald Reagan because he had a whole bunch of conservative … Democrats whose districts had been won by Reagan, and had Reagan not been looking at polls from his advisers telling him that Social Security was a very popular program and that he couldn’t be seen as antagonistic toward it, it wouldn’t have mattered how many drinks Reagan and Tip O’Neill had together,” Obama told Remnick. So Obama had to be president before he learned American politics really revolves around self-interest. He apparently also had to become president to find out men and women elected to Congress actually represent the people who voted for them. “I think probably, just from a purely political point of view, the bigger challenge that I’ve had has to do with the fact that there is a core group of Republican House members in particular who know that I lost their districts by 25 or 30 points, and that there is a Republican base of voters for whom compromise with me is a betrayal.”
And guess who he blames for that Republican base? “Another way of putting it, I guess, is that the issue has been the inability of my message to penetrate the Republican base so that they feel persuaded that I’m not the caricature that you see on Fox News or Rush Limbaugh, but I’m somebody who is interested in solving problems and is pretty practical, and that, actually, a lot of the things that we’ve put in place worked better than people might think.” Actually, the “caricature” of Obama conservatives share, whether they’re in broadcast or at the local bar, is that the president is a narcissistic neophyte who — when he isn’t trying to force changes that are abhorrent to sensible people in this country abhor — is in way over his head. The New Yorker probably didn’t intend it, lest it be accused of committing something related to journalism, but these “bonus quotes” just prove how true that picture is.
Show Me Your Papers. Please: Police State Check Points In London, Super Bowl Infowars.com January 25, 2014
Because terrorism. Show Me Your Papers. Please: Police State Check Points in London, Super Bowl VIDEO BELOW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uF1HhtDIsyM
RNC Calls NSA Surveillance Unconstitutional Kurt Nimmo Infowars.com January 24, 2014
GOP conveniently forgets it supported programs during Bush years On Friday the Republican National Committee passed a resolution denouncing the NSA’s unconstitutional surveillance programs. The resolution renounces “the secret surveillance program called PRISM targets, among other things, the surveillance of communications of U.S. citizens on a vast scale and monitors searching habits of virtually every American on the internet.” House Republican Jim Sensenbrenner, an author of the Patriot Act and the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee when Section 215 of that bill was passed, said NSA surveillance is “an abuse of that law.” He said “based on the scope of the released order, both the administration and the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) court are relying on an unbounded interpretation of the act that Congress never intended.” Instead of repealing the Patriot Act, the RNC has called for legislation to amend Section 215, the state secrets privilege, and the FISA Amendments Act to “make it clear that blanket surveillance of the Internet activity, phone records and correspondence — electronic, physical, and otherwise-of any person residing in the U.S. is prohibited by law and that violations can be reviewed in adversarial proceedings before a public court,” as stipulated by the Fourth Amendment. The RNC resolution is highly partisan. The NSA dragnet of communications began during the Bush administration and was supported by a majority of Republicans at that time.
In December, Obama’s Director for National Intelligence, James Clapper, declassified documents revealing “the existence of collection activities authorized by President George W. Bush” including vacuum collection of internet and phone metadata under the “Terrorist Surveillance Program” (TSP). The Bush administration was intimately involved in the unconstitutional collection of data by the NSA. President George W. Bush personally issued authorizations for the programs every 30 and 60 days. The secret FISA court now authorizes the massive surveillance of American citizens and Obama is not required to issue authorization. Hypocrisy by establishment politicians is nothing new. However, although the resolution is a welcome move and a small step in the right direction, it is a startling and some would say immensely hypocritical turnaround for Republicans. In 2006, the RNC attacked Democrats for their opposition to NSA surveillance programs and characterized a judge’s ruling that the programs are unconstitutional as “a blow to America’s national security.” The Bush administration argued, as the Obama administration now argues, that the surveillance programs are constitutional. EndGame Blue Print to Global Enslavement VIDEO BELOW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-CrNlilZho&ob=av3e The Obama Deception The Truth About Barry Soetoro AKA Barack Obama VIDEO BELOW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAaQNACwaLw Fall of the Republic Obama's Final Destruction Of America VIDEO BELOW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VebOTc-7shU
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