Corruption – Page 815 – Public Intelligence Blog

2011/03/142011/03/14

Worth a Look: Jesse Ventura on US Government

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, 5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Atrocities & Genocide, Congress (Failure, Reform), Consciousness & Social IQ, Corruption, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Cultural Intelligence, Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Government, Impeachment & Treason, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Justice (Failure, Reform), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Officers Call, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Threats (Emerging & Perennial)

Former Minnesota governor, navy SEAL, and pro rassler Ventura has a new truTVshow investigating but not necessarily debunking conspiracy theories. This companion to the program, a sort of teaser, dissects such famed objects of unending speculation as the JFK, RFK, and MLK assassinations. Ventura concludes that none of those were twisted-loner crimes but rather resulted from conspiracies of varying vastness. Anent the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Ventura asserts that “our government engaged in a massive cover-up” and had “ties to the hijackers.” He ventures that “unanswered questions remain about how the towers were brought down and whether a plane really struck the Pentagon” and that the “Bush Administration either knew about the plan” or “had a hand in it.” Heady, paranoiac stuff, to be sure, but there are even more forthright charges regarding the assassination of Malcolm X, the Jonestown massacre, and the “stolen” elections of 2000, 2004, 2008, and, for that matter, 1980. Believable? Some of it. An action-packed read? You bet. –Mike Tribby

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2011/03/132011/03/13

Al Jazeera: Obama Does Not Get It…

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Sense-Making

Obama does not get it

If independent, democratic, governments are formed in the Middle East, they won't follow Washington's orders.

Lamis Andoni

09 Mar 2011 11:45 GMT

Al Jazeera

Barack Obama, the US president, has still not fully grasped the essence of the revolutions underway in the Arab world. He genuinely seems to believe that the people rallying for democracy in the region are making a pro-Western, if not pro-Israeli, statement.

Read full article….

See Also (all but two best pals of the Obama Administration):

Review: Breaking the Real Axis of Evil–How to Oust the World’s Last Dictators by 2025

2011/03/122011/03/12

Texas Rally to Vote on Secession from US

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence

Commentary: Texas secessionists want a revolution and members

Bud Kennedy

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram

It's almost mid-March.

Do you know where your Texas lawmakers stand?

If you're from Tyler, your state Rep. Leo Berman gave the OK for a rally last Saturday at the Capitol to promote a November vote on whether Texas should secede from the United States.

Read rest of short article….

Phi Beta Iota: Texas is not alone. The most likely states to secede are Vermont and Hawaii, followed by Texas and Alaska. If the US Government continues on its present course, we speculate that at least ten to fifteen states will evaluate, if not execute, secession options that include the recovery of federal lands, the exclusion of federal forces, and complete tax moratoriums.

2011/03/11

New Defense Paradigm: Ignorance is NOT Bliss…

Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Military

The Hill

The defense budget: Ignorance is not bliss

By Winslow T. Wheeler – 03/09/11 11:56 AM ET

Polling from Pew and Gallup reveals major public misconceptions about the defense budget. Fifty-eight percent of Americans know that Pentagon spending is larger than any other nation, but almost none know it is up to seven times that of China. Most had no idea the defense budget is larger than federal spending for education, Medicare or interest on the debt.

The scurrilous in Washington promote the misimpression of an under-funded Pentagon. They imply it is smaller than during the Cold War by saying it was at 8 percent of gross domestic product in the late 1960s, but only 4 percent of GDP now. Therefore, it's gone down and is now low, right?

Some use hyperventilated rhetoric to pressure for more defense dollars. Sadly, this category now must include Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who termed “catastrophic” the recommendations of the Obama deficit commission to merely maintain defense spending at its post-WWII high, and who deemed a “crisis” the idea of a 1 percent – $5 billion – reduction in the 2011 defense budget compared to 2010.

Read full article….

Phi Beta Iota: Lying is not patriotic. Screwing most of the people most of the time is neither patriotic nor sensible. The irresponsibility of the US Government today, across all domains, is breathtakingly insane. It's not stupid–this is the last phrase of legalized looting of the Republic–but it is insane in relation to the Constitution and the values that are supposed to be the foundation of the Republic.

2011/03/102011/03/10

Search: slide designs corruption + RECAP

Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Searches

Corruption works better, or Graphic: Corruption.

Graphic: Corruption Slide 1 Nine Zones of Concern

Graphic: Corruption Slide 2 Empire as Terrorism

Graphic: Corruption Slide 3 Holistic Analysis

There is also the category in the directory:

JOURNAL: Corruption (280)

REVIEWS: Corruption (125)

See Also (Review: Corruption):

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2011/03/102011/03/10

The Real “National Security Budget: $1.2 Trillion

03 Economy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, 11 Society, Budgets & Funding, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Military

US Military Budget False and Real — Click on Image to Enlarge

Tomgram: Chris Hellman, $1.2 Trillion for National Security

Here’s the thing: the House Republicans are going after their version of unsightly pimples on the body politic — the programs they and their billionaire sponsors find ideologically unpalatable — without seriously considering where our money really flows. We at TomDispatch thought we might lend a hand to Congress’s deliberations this week by offering something new: the first real figure on what American taxpayers actually pay for the Pentagon, the U.S. military, homeland security, our distant wars, the care of veterans, intelligence, and every other aspect of our national security and war state.

. . . . . . .

$1.2 Trillion: The Real U.S. National Security Budget No One Wants You to Know About

by Chris Hellman • March 1, 2011 www.tomdispatch.com

What if you went to a restaurant and found it rather pricey? Still, you ordered your meal and, when done, picked up the check only to discover that it was almost twice the menu price.

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2011/03/102011/03/10

Get Real–On Jim Clapper’s Failure to Lead

Corruption, Government

One of the mysteries of the intelligence world is why the redoubtable Charlie Allen of CIA was always so popular with line analysts and so unpopular with management. In the book Long Strange Journey, Patrick Eddington its author recounts his experiences in a course on warning intelligence that Allen initiated when he was the National Intelligence Officer (IO) for Warning. Eddington came away from the course impressed with Allen’s energy, enthusiasm, and, although he did not specifically so, seriousness of purpose. Reading this and remembering my own impressions of Allen the solution to the mystery of Allen’s popularity with the working stiffs became apparent.

Like the actual collectors and analysts, Allen actually treated the production and dissemination of accurate intelligence as important and serious matter. He treated the analysts and their mission as something that really mattered. He raised so much ire among the IC senior management (including CIA) because they did not and, I suspect, still do not take the production of accurate intelligence as important at all compared to what they see as their principal responsibility which is to continually increase the size and budget of their agencies. Allen as a senior himself was looked upon at best a eccentric because his priorities ran against the grain of his fellow seniors. I had hoped that General Clapper (USAF ret.) would recognize the current charade and try to turn things around, but this clearly in not in the cards.