Editor: Michael Collins
Editorial Team & Authors: Tina, steeleweed, nymoley, Raja, actor 212, Graham, Brian Downing, Don Henry Ford, Jr., Numerian, Jack Cluth
Hersh’s story [Whose sarin?] was supposed to appear in the Washington Post, but … the Post passed on the story, saying it did not meet its standards. Hersh’s usual outlet, the New Yorker, also passed on the story.Jack Mirkinson, HuffPost, Dec 9
Seymour Hersh’s article, Whose sarin?, makes the case for a concerted effort by the Obama administration to deliberately deceive Congress and the public regarding the facts of the chemical weapons attack in Syria on August 21. The case derives from current and retired intelligence community sources that detail the attempt to “fix” intelligence in order to blame the Syrian government for the attack.
If believed, the deception would have enabled an act of military aggression against a sovereign nation that was no threat and had not attacked the United States. If we believe Hersh and his sources, the deception is clearly a “high crime” against the Constitution.
Why believe Hersh?
Hersh’s reporting has helped define and set the standards for investigative journalism for over 40 years. He broke the story on the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, scooped the secrets behind the downing of Korean Airlines 007, exposed the lies behind the Iraq invasion, and confirmed what many suspected about Obama’s deception regarding the proposed attack Syria. Continue reading Why Wash Post, New Yorker take a dive of Hersh Syria article
One of the best features of the old Agonist was USER DIARIES. After considerable effort, we’ve restored that function to the new WordPress platform.
All Agonist registered users can now create their own Diary entries. Posts can be on any subject but are subject to respecting the copyright of others and a few other obvious rules.
The goals for Diaries include:
Opening the Agonist up to a broad spectrum of ideas and topics;
Encouraging more communication on these ideas and viewpoints in the Diaries section and on the Main Page; and,
The people of the United States were subject to a deliberate deception by the Obama administration concerning the use of chemical weapons in Damascus, Syria on August 21 according to leading investigative reporter Seymour M. Hersh. No stranger to big stories, Hersh has a successful track record of books and articles based on sources deep in the United States intelligence community.
The article, Whose Sarin, was published in the London Review of Books on Sunday. If we believe Hersh and his sources, the pattern of deliberate lies is so pervasive, there is no reason to believe much of what we hear from the Obama administration without independent verification.
Self-employed Agonistas looking for healthcare coverage – are you having trouble getting into Obamacare? It wasn’t going anywhere for me until this week, when I finally got to see my options.
I struggled for almost 2 months to get my application through. I tried doing it online, then by phone, then online again, then by phone again. Errors that I had corrected kept coming back. My case languished in the black hole called the Advanced Resolution Center. Telephone support people tried to fix it, but old errors kept coming back. Even when the errors seemed to be corrected, my application was endlessly in process.
A couple of days ago, an Obamacare telephone support person showed me a new feature on the site: Now you can delete your application and start again. I protested, of course; I had done that countless times already without success. He explained that before this week, you could not really delete the file (even if you thought you could); the corrupt code was still in there. Now you can just push this button and really truly start over.
I can’t remember what the button is called. “Delete” maybe? It’s on the login page, but it isn’t there right now, because the page is down for maintenance. Whatever the word is, it’s pretty obvious. You can find it on the page you get just after you log in.
Bottom line: Now you can delete your electronically corrupt application and start over. And now there’s a real chance that it will work.
Barack Obama did not tell the whole story this autumn when he tried to make the case that Bashar al-Assad was responsible for the chemical weapons attack near Damascus on 21 August. In some instances, he omitted important intelligence, and in others he presented assumptions as facts. Most significant, he failed to acknowledge something known to the US intelligence community: that the Syrian army is not the only party in the country’s civil war with access to sarin, the nerve agent that a UN study concluded – without assessing responsibility – had been used in the rocket attack. In the months before the attack, the American intelligence agencies produced a series of highly classified reports, culminating in a formal Operations Order – a planning document that precedes a ground invasion – citing evidence that the al-Nusra Front, a jihadi group affiliated with al-Qaida, had mastered the mechanics of creating sarin and was capable of manufacturing it in quantity. When the attack occurred al-Nusra should have been a suspect, but the administration cherry-picked intelligence to justify a strike against Assad.
Oh, the people have no jobs…let them volunteer. Marie Antoinette
We’ve moved beyond John Locke as our social model to the attitude of Marie Antoinette. The White House acts as though there’s not a massive job problem.
The White House will not insist that an emerging budget deal include an extension of the unemployment benefits program set to expire at the end of the year, press secretary Jay Carney said on Friday. Roll Call Dec 6
The White House wants the unemployed to know that it feels their pain:
[White House Press Secretary] Carney said that it would be “terrible to tell more than a million families across the country just a few days after Christmas that they’re out of benefits,” but that the White House was agnostic on how the extension happened. Roll Call Dec 6
Terrible to tell millions “a few days after Christmas” that they’re totally screwed, forgotten, cast aside, left without help… Actually, Mr. Carney should consider this. If it’s “terrible” to tell people this, just imagine how terrible it is to live it. But Carney and the others inside the Beltway don’t need to worry. They are supported by the socialism for the Mandarin class…guaranteed income no matter how badly you behave.
“The vehicle that they use to do that is less important than the fact that they do it,” Carney said.Roll Call Dec 6
It’s always something, as Roseannadanna used to say. “Great news” about the “recovery” is a hot button for me. I’m always willing to accept signs of a recovery that will deliver real jobs for real people. In the absence of that, “fake recovery” news is welcomed, in a cynical way, since it indicates a lack of preparation for a big fall. So, ya know… 3.6% GDP growth for 3Q. That sounded great. Pulling back the curtain, Toto style, Robert Oak of Economic Populist explains why reflexive optimism, no matter how brief, is unwarranted.
Q3 2013 real GDP had a blow out revision and is now 3.6%. Originally GDP was reported to be 2.8% for the third quarter. As estimated, dramatically increasing inventory accumulation was the main cause of the large upward revision to GDP. Changes in inventories accounted for 46.5% of Q3 GDP. The increasing trade deficit shaved off 0.23 percentage points, as predicted. Actual economic demand is weaker in the third quarter in comparison to the 2nd. Additionally large inventory accumulation can imply a slowing economy.
The world has lost it’s greatest son of this past century. “I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can only rest for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not ended.”
My favourite quote “The important thing is to give happiness to people.”
Leading climatologist James Hansen et al. just published an excellent article at the open source journal PLOS ONE. In an email, Hansen said: “The paper was written to provide the scientific basis for legal actions against federal and state governments, in the United States and other nations, for not doing their job of protecting the rights of young people. The legal actions being filed by Our Children’s Trust ask the courts to require the government to provide a plan for how they will reduce fossil fuel emissions consistent with stabilizing climate.”
In addition to evidence to sue government, the material is equally valid for suits against climate change deniers. Here’s an excerpt from the full article available at the link below.
“The fallacy of this logic (major problems begin with global warming of 2–3°C) emerged recently as numerous impacts of ongoing global warming emerged and as paleoclimate implications for climate sensitivity became apparent. Arctic sea ice end-of-summer minimum area, although variable from year to year, has plummeted by more than a third in the past few decades, at a faster rate than in most models [21], with the sea ice thickness declining a factor of four faster than simulated in IPCC climate models [22]. The Greenland and Antarctic Continue reading James Hansen – The legal case against climate change inaction, denial
Dec 4 (Reuters) – Iran on Wednesday named seven Western oil companies it wants back in its vast oil and gas fields if international sanctions are lifted and said it would outline investment terms in April next year.
Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh named the seven in order: Total of France, Royal Dutch Shell, Italy’s ENI, Norway’s Statoil, Britain’s BP and U.S. companies Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips .
Speaking to reporters at an OPEC meeting, Zanganeh said he was already talking with some companies, although so far not those from the United States.
“We had no limitations for U.S. companies. Twenty years ago there were limitations against them from their own administration. For doing projects in Iran, we have no limitations,” Zanganeh said.
What do you think Iran got for this opening? One can only imagine.
Hersh’s story [Whose sarin?] was supposed to appear in the Washington Post, but … the Post passed on the story, saying it did not meet its standards. Hersh’s usual outlet, the New Yorker, also passed on the story. Jack Mirkinson, HuffPost, Dec 9 
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