Phi Beta Iota: The FBI has two walk-ins on 9/11 in advance of the event, one in Newark, NJ and the other in Orlando, FL. In both instances, because the FBI did not recognize any of the names being reported, it blew off the walk-in. Something similar appears to have happened here, BUT there is also yet another instance of a US person being in the employ of the US Government (similar to the botched car bomb attack on the World Trade Center) and their activities being a) sanctioned by one US agency and b) not being reported to other US agencies or to allies. The US secret world is HOSED strategically, operationally, tactically, and technically….. it is cultural “unfit for duty.” We continue to believe that an Open Source Agency and a Multinational Decision-Support Centre with reach-back to at least 90 countries is the way to kick-off 21st Century Intelligence. See the Virtual Cabinet series at the Huffington Post for the larger context within which we believe US intelligence must be reinvented.
Thomas Friedman wrote in a recent New York Times article, “Third Party Rising“, that he is “astounded” by the level of disgust with Washington D.C. and the two party system he has found among industry leaders in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. He says he knows of “at least two serious groups” on the East and West coasts “’developing third parties’ to challenge our stagnating two-party duopoly that has been presiding over our nation’s steady incremental decline.”
He predicts that “barring a transformation of the Democratic and Republican Parties, there is going to be a serious third party candidate in 2012, with a serious political movement behind him or her one definitely big enough to impact the election’s outcome”.
Friedman cites the harsh indictment of the two major parties by Stanford political scientist Larry Diamond: “We basically have two bankrupt parties bankrupting the country”. Diamond published similar views back in 2008 in a Huffington Post article, Can American Democracy Recover? He cited “a broad and deepening sense among Americans not only that the country is moving in the wrong direction, but that there is something seriously wrong and corrupt with our democracy”. He provides the following specifics:
Phi Beta Iota: We learned this when we went across America for the American Committee on Foreign Relations (ACFR) in the years following 9/11 delivering our lecture, “9/11, U.S. Intelligence, and the Real World.” Americans are not stupid–mainstream media personalities like Friedman are not stupid either, just oblivious. They live in their own world with the Kissingers and CNN faces so bent on being polite they cannot muster a tough question or get a grip on the whole. As we said years ago, Washington may not be interested in reality but reality is assuredly interested in Washington. It's game time.
Not only is income and wealth in America more concentrated in fewer hands than it’s been in 80 years, but those hands are buying our democracy as never before – and they’re doing it behind closed doors.
Hundreds of millions of secret dollars are pouring into congressional and state races in this election cycle. The Koch brothers (whose personal fortunes grew by $5 billion last year) appear to be behind some of it, Karl Rove has rounded up other multi-millionaires to fund right-wing candidates, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is funneling corporate dollars from around the world into congressional races, and Rupert Murdoch is evidently spending heavily.
No one knows for sure where this flood of money is coming from because it’s all secret.
Phi Beta Iota: The FACTS are that Al Gore took the bribe offer delivered by Warren Christopher to roll over and play dead on the Florida high crimes and misdemeanors, and then Barack Obama took the bribe to receive $300 million still unaccounted for dollars in order to “play” President. What is happening right now is–we hope–the last act in the theater of democracy. It is time to flush both criminally irresponsible parties down the toilet, carry out Electoral Reform, and get back to being a Republic Of, By, and For We the People–respecting the Constitution and if necessary demanding the wholesale resignation of the Supreme Court Justices that confirmed corporate personality.
I continue to hear military and civilian IC folks belittle Open Source. I passed this around to show them what can be done and all I get is the response, “this should be classified”. They cannot believe it is from purely open source data…..link provided due to size of document…
The Haqqani network, which has the backing of elements within the Pakistani security establishment, is one of Afghanistan’s most experienced and sophisticated insurgent organizations.
Although the Haqqani network is officially subsumed under the larger Taliban umbrella organization led by Mullah Omar and his Quetta Shura Taliban, the Haqqanis maintain distinct command and control, and lines of operations.
Siraj Haqqani, the son of the famous anti-Soviet fighter Jalaluddin Haqqani, is the current leader of the Haqqani network. Siraj is more extreme than his father and maintains closer ties to al-Qaeda and other foreign extremists in Pakistan.
The Haqqani network maintains a safe haven in North Waziristan, Pakistan, across Afghanistan’s southeastern border. The Pakistani Army has consistently refused to launch a military operation in North Waziristan despite the presence of al-Qaeda senior leadership.
Elements within the Pakistani security establishment continue to view the Haqqani network as a useful ally and proxy force to represent their interests in Afghanistan. To this end, Haqqani forces have repeatedly targeted Indian infrastructure and construction projects in Afghanistan.
Phi Beta Iota: It is now known that Pakistan successfully fooled the most experienced CIA officers in the world, leading them to believe for decades that the Pakistani ISI elements dealing with the Taliban were “renegades” whose misbehavior was not sanctioned by the government. We now know that every move, every word was sanctioned, and we now can calculate that at least half of the money from CIA intended for Afghanistan was siphoned off to fund Pakistani priorities and private bank accounts. If CIA cannot figure this out while it is happening, why should we trust them to figure anything else out? A major reason CIA did NOT know what it needed to know was because then and now it refuses to actually deal in depth with anyone lacking clearances or US citizenship. The one decent initiative CIA had, apart from Project GEORGE, was the Global Futures Partnership. Both died in infancy. Nothing has changed.
Even if voters pass Proposition 19 on Nov. 2, which would legalize use of marijuana in California, the Justice Department will continue to enforce federal drug laws there, Attorney General Eric Holder said Friday.
Phi Beta Iota: States have the right to secede from the Union–they also have the right to nullify federal regulations within the state. Over in Virginia, suit has been filed against the mandatory purchase of health insurance. What we are seeing is the coming end to both the Federal Reserve and the Federal Empire. The federal government is supposed to be a service of common concern to the United STATES of America, but over time, the “top two” parties have conspired to exclude the other 63 parties and their members from both politics and governance, and to exclude the Governors and state from governance. The world is changing. The spectacle of an Attorney General who is obviously loosely-educated and has no clue that he is a servant of the people, not their master, more or less sums up the state of the federal government…..dead in the water and sinking fast. IOHO.
ALERT READER observes:
Thanks, also a note to your posting on States rights….look what is happening in the foreclosure world, 49 States are now looking into the legal issues while the feds say there is nothing wrong….
FARMINGVILLE, N.Y. — You've heard of Megan's Laws, designed to keep sex offenders from striking again. Now there's a law created in the hope of preventing animal abusers from inflicting more cruelty – or moving on to human victims.
Suffolk County, on the eastern half of Long Island, moved to create the nation's first animal abuse registry this week, requiring people convicted of cruelty to animals to register or face jail time and fines.
“We know there is a very strong correlation between animal abuse and domestic violence,” said Suffolk County legislator Jon Cooper, the bill's sponsor. “Almost every serial killer starts out by torturing animals, so in a strange sense we could end up protecting the lives of people.”
Phi Beta Iota: Would you hire a known animal abuser to walk your dogs? What is interesting about this is not the context, but the fact of. What can be tracked will be tracked. There will be PerpFax service just like CarFax. No place to hide–and virtual justice will also be done, as people who buy their way out of high crimes are “outed” everywhere they go. Non-violent shaming and shunning…now there's an ancient concept coming back to life.
