He was charged him with abduction, sexual battery, and obscene display in connection with an alleged assault that occurred at Bailey’s Crossroads.
According to the Fairfax County police department, a 28-year-old woman was shopping in a Ross clothing store earlier this month when a man approached her speaking Spanish. As she left the store, the same man pulled up in silver-colored Mercedes and asked her to get in.
The alleged assailant then locked the doors, drove to a location nearby and sexually assaulted her, according to a police statement.
As of Wednesday, Rappoport’s bio has been removed from the Downey McGrath Group website. However, he appears on lobbying registrations for the firm as recently as February. The firm did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
According to an archived version of the bio, which identifies Rappoport as a vice president to the firm, he worked mostly on international trade,financial services, healthcare, energy and environment.
He’s also previously served in senior positions in the U.S. Department of Commerce during the Bush administration and on Capitol Hill for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz), former Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) and ex-Rep. Bob Stump (R-Ariz.)
An attorney for Rappoport did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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CHRIS WALLACE: All right. Let me ask you about something that when we told people that you were going to be on the show, a lot of us wanted to ask you about it. It isn’t pleasant, but you know where I’m headed.
Martin Bashir, the MSNBC anchor, has had some ugly things to say about you. A couple of weeks ago, you made, frankly, I think fairly unobjectionable remarks, saying that — comparing our debt to slavery and saying that eventually we’re going to beholden to our foreign masters.
Mr. Bashir took great exception to that. He called you a, quote, “world-class idiot,” his words. And then he talked about a slave owner named Thistlewood, who used to punish his slaves by having someone defecate — it’s unbelievable — defecate in their mouths.
And then he said this:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARTIN BASHIR, MSNBC ANCHOR: When Ms. Palin invokes slavery, she doesn’t just prove her rank ignorance, she confirms that if anyone truly qualified for a dose of discipline from Thomas Thistlewood, then she would be the outstanding candidate.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Governor, your reaction?
SARAH PALIN: That’s funny, because Bashir has invoked the analogy of slavery also. The definition of slavery is to be beholden to a master. And we will be beholden when that note is due, when we have taken from our children and our grandchildren and borrowed from China and other foreign countries in order to pay for our wants today. So we will be beholden to another master at some point here when that note’s due.
As for the — you know ,the networks condoning those types of statements, because there’s been no punishment of the fella who said these words, that’s hypocrisy. That’s a given, though, when a conservative woman says something that they’re — they take offense, they usually just kind of pooh-pooh it, laugh it off; it’s no big deal.
But as for personally taking shots like that, Chris, everybody in life takes shots. You have a decision to make when you take a shot. Are you going to become bitter or better?
In a case like this, you know, I don’t have to accept his words, his vile, evil comments, so they don’t have to affect me. I move on. And I charge forth.
However, if Mr. Bashir or anybody else in this media elite bubble that they put themselves in were to attack someone who is defenseless, like a vulnerable child, who does not have that podium, that microphone that God has blessed me to be able to express my opinion, if they don’t have that type of platform to defend themselves — well, if you want to see a mama grizzly get riled up and slap that person down, then you come after a vulnerable child.
In this case, he didn’t come after a vulnerable child. I can defend myself and, you know, I can take it.
WALLACE: A few days later, Bashir offered his apology. Here that is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BASHIR: I made some comments which were deeply offensive and directed at Governor Sarah Palin. I wanted to take this opportunity to say sorry to Mrs. Palin. My words were wholly unacceptable.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: First, do you accept his apology?
And secondly, I want to go back to something you brought up. NBC, for instance, put Alec Baldwin off the air for a homophobic slur. They have taken no public action to what Bashir said about you.
PALIN: Well, that’s the executive hypocrisy that is so prevalent in that media elite bubble, where it depends on the target of the vile rants that it doesn’t depend on what their rant itself actually is. And conservative women are a target of them.
As for the apologies, well, obviously, you know, who am I to not accept an apology? Everyone must humble themselves and accept that offer to, you know, of apology.
But as for the apologies, too, next time that they want to say such a thing and then get the attention that they were seeking after they’ve said it, and then they want to call and apologize to me in private, I’d like them to go through, say, Todd first or one of my children first. Leave the message with them. Hear what they have to say about it and then they can come to me.
Germany wants to charge US-based former SS commander ‘Wolf’ with murder http://isbigbrotherwatchingyou.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/d9650__karkoc-ukraine-war-crimes.si.jpg
Published time: November 18, 2013 17:20
Michael Karkoc, AKA ‘Wolf’.
A German prosecutor responsible for hunting down war criminals says murder charges should be filed against 94-year-old Minnesota resident, Michael Karkoc. Mounting evidence suggests the ethnic Ukrainian ordered a village to be burned in 1944.
“We have determined the requirements for murder charges are there,” said a statement from federal prosecutor, Thomas Will. The official will now pass the dossier on Karkoc, who has lived in the US for over 60 years, to state prosecutors, who will decide whether to file charges and request extradition of the former Nazi collaborator.
The news has emerged on the same day as the AP news agency published yet another eyewitness report from a former Karkoc underling, who described his superior ordering SS-collaborator troops to kill over forty people in the village of Chlaniow, as retribution for the killing of a German SS commander.
Karkoc’s family has repeatedly denied the charges.
Michael Karkoc was born in 1919 in Lutsk, currently in western Ukraine, but then a part of Poland. Following the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which carved up Poland between the USSR and Germany, Lutsk was annexed by Soviet troops in 1939.
When Germany invaded the territory during its subsequent war with the Soviet Union, Karkoc, whose combat name was Wolf, first fought for the Germans and then he formed a company in the Ukrainian Self-Defense Legion (USDL).
The SS-directed collaboration unit was engaged in local policing and suppressing anti-Nazi resistance.
In the summer of 1944, resistance fighters killed USDL commander Siegfried Assmuss (who Karkoc described as “irreplaceable” in his memoirs). Ivan Sharko, a soldier who served under Karkoc, told Soviet investigators what happened next, in a 1968-dated file uncovered by AP in the archives of a Ukrainian prosecutor’s office.
“The commander of our company, Wolf, gave the order to cordon off the village [Chlaniow] and check all the houses, and to find and punish the partisans,” said Sharko.
“The legionaries surrounded the homes, set fire to them with matches, or with incendiary bullets, and they shot anyone who was found in the homes or anywhere in the streets. Most of the houses were burned as a result of this action. How many people were killed in all, I don’t know. I personally saw three corpses of peaceful inhabitants who had been killed.”
Between 40 and 80 people are estimated to have died in the massacre, many of them women and children. The testimony matches that of another private in Karkoc’s unit, Vasyl Malazhenski, who told Soviet investigators in 1944 that Karkoc ordered his men to “liquidate all the residents” of Chlaniow.
The interview with Sharko, who died nearly 30 years ago, also links the unit with another “punitive action” in Sagryn the same year. Previous civilian accounts also claimed that Karkoc’s company killed over 20 people in the settlement of Pidhaitsi the year before.
Following the war, Karkoc emigrated to the United States, and took up carpentry, spending the next fifty years living quietly in Minneapolis. On his residency application in 1949 he stated that he performed no military service at all.
Nonetheless, he did little to hide his past. In the mid-1990s he published a memoir, proudly detailing his fights against “Communists”, though he did not describe the murders of any civilians. He has also visited Ukraine, where he was warmly received by nationalists, who see the USDL as part of a struggle against Soviet imperialism.
Since the accusations surfaced this summer, his family has refused to let the media speak to Karkoc.
When presented with the latest testimony from Sharko by AP, Karkoc’s son, Andriy, challenged the reporters to produce more substantial evidence, and called the massacre account “a defamatory and slanderous allegation.”
The United States does not customarily conduct trials of war criminals, though it has previously extradited them to countries such as Poland, Israel and Germany, which still vigorously prosecute World War II participants, no matter how old, as a matter of principle.
Lying on his initial application form could be legally sufficient to earn Karkoc deportation. Alleged Nazi concentration camp guard John Demjanjuk was extradited to Israel on this basis, but after decades of court proceedings in several countries, he died last year. As his appeal to a German court had still not been heard at the time of his death, he was technically never proven guilty.
Published: November 9th, 2013 at 12:10 pm ET By ENENews Email Article 3 comments
AFP, Nov. 7, 2013: Experts warn that any slip-ups could quickly cause the situation to deteriorate. Even minor mishaps will create considerable delays to the already long and complicated decommissioning. If the rods are exposed to the air they would release radiation and could heat up, a process that if left unchecked could lead to a self-sustaining nuclear reaction. TEPCO says that is unlikely, but sceptics say that with so many unknowns in the novel operation, there is potential for a catastrophe. [...] “Any trouble in this operation will considerably affect the timetable for the entire project,” he said. “This is an operation TEPCO cannot afford to bungle.” Hiroaki Koide, assistant professor at Kyoto University Reactor Research Institute in Kyoto, said success was far from guaranteed. “It is not easy work,” he said. The comments reflect an increasingly widespread view that the giant utility is not capable of dealing with the mess its nuclear plant has created.
The Real News, Nov. 8, 2013 — Arjun Makhijani, President of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, Ph.D. in engineering (specialization: nuclear fusion) from the University of California at Berkeley (at 2:30 in): The spent fuel may be difficult to dislodge because it’s no longer in its proper original position. The fuel rods may break, and the fuel may wind up at the bottom of the reactor in the spent fuel pool. There may be an accident of criticality. I haven’t examined their plans in detail, but I do think it is very essential to remove this spent fuel, because in my judgment, the bigger danger is leaving it there and waiting for the earthquake to happen.
RT, Nov.7, 2013 — Kevin Kamps, Beyond Nuclear: The fuel itself could be bent, it could be damaged, it could be corroded. They used salt water at one point to cool the nuclear waste in this pool, which could have corroded the assemblies. They could break apart; they could crumble when they go to try to remove them. Even the director of the nuclear regulation authority of Japan has warned that this process should not be rushed; they should not try to force these assemblies out of their storage channels. But they have to get them out before a bigger earthquake takes the building down, the cooling water would drain away, and the waste with them will catch on fire. There is no radiological containment around the pool and if this waste would catch fire it could be 10 times worse than Chernobyl. That’s how much radioactivity is stored in that pool. Just in terms of the radioactive cesium content. [...] It’s absurd that Tokyo Electric is in charge of this globally significant extracting of the fuel from the pool. If something goes wrong, this could be a global catastrophe that dwarfs what has happened on Fukushima Daiichi thus far. Tokyo Electric has shown its true colors time and time again, its incompetence and its dishonesty, so it’s very frightening that Tokyo Electric is in charge of this.
Tuesday; October 22, 2013 – Los Angeles – 10:00 am
The Pete Santilli Show With Special Guest: Dan Johnson (PANDA UNITE)
Dan Johnson is 20 years old, an Eagle Scout, and has been recognized as one of the top 30 impromptu speakers in the United States. He is a Political Science Major at Bowling Green State University, and speaks a moderate amount of Japanese. He was always interested in politics, and was appalled when he saw the direction our country was heading in.
He founded PANDA (People Against the National Defense authorization Act). PANDA is supported by groups across the political spectrum, and is now one of the fastest growing liberty movements in the nation; with over 30 state teams across the country.
Recognized by many as an upcoming expert on the subjects of Liberty vs. National Security, the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, the 2001 AUMF, and the gradual slide toward an American Police State, Dan Johnson has spoken at the Northwest Ohio Conservative Conference, the Oathkeepers Midwest Regional Conference and P.A.U.L. Fest, writes for many online publications including the Huffington Post, Policy Mic, and Western Journalism and has been interviewed on multiple radio shows including Coast to Coast AM, Liberty Roundtable, and Red Ice Radio.
The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is a bill that normally funds the military. However, in 2012, two sections (1021 & 1022) made the NDAA the most dangerous law since the U.S. Civil War. Repeating the mistakes of WWII, when we detained 120,000 Japanese-Americans on race alone, this law authorizes the indefinite military detention of any person suspected of an affiliation with terrorism. This law applies to American citizens in America, non-citizens in America, and American citizens abroad. It doesn’t matter.
No charge. No trial. No day in court. Passed 93-7 in the Senate, 283-136 in the House.
How does it affect you?
The government just redefined a “terrorist.” It’s not someone convicted of blowing up buildings anymore. It’s everyone. According to multiple documents from the FBI, department of Homeland Security, and other agencies, It’s people who are “reverent of individual liberty,” “suspicious of centralized authority,” and “antifederalists.” It’s people who carry cash instead of credit. It’s people who are against fracking. It’s Constitutionalists, Ron Paul supporters, Democrats, Republicans, tea partiers and occupiers. It’s everyone.
What can you do?
The problem is big, but there’s an easy solution. All politics is local. We’ve forgotten that. It’s time to go local. Your police, sheriff, city council, they all took an oath to protect your rights. It’s time to hold them to it. We’ve been fighting this battle for almost two years. And now, we’re created the tools for you to do it too.
If you’re ready to take back your town, it’s time to roll. There are 3 steps: Learn, Build, and Act. Here’s how you do it.
The 2012 NDAA is the most dangerous law since the U.S. Civil War, and America’s politicians don’t want you to find out about it…using every trick in the book to stop you from understanding. Know your enemy, and you can fight it.
About your local government
First, you must know your public servants. Secondly, you must know your process. Research your local government; know when they meet, the rules for public comments, and how to get legislation introduced, voted on, and passed.
Build
Your team
Start small. Hand out a basic flyer to coworkers, family, and friends, and ask them to join you in defending liberty and justice. Gather a core team of at least 4 people, ready to stand with you to stop the NDAA in your community.
Your coalition
Go to local Tea Party meetings, occupy assemblies, and activist groups. Reach out to neighborhood groups, local parties, and activists groups. Show them how this endangers their group. Ask them to join your coalition.
Act
Inform
Flyer your neighborhood with your core team. Write letters to the editor. Create a website: takeback(yourcity).com
Pressure
Meet with your representatives/commissioners/councilmen. Speak out at public comment. Videotape it. Upload the video to this website and inspire the nation. (Upload link coming soon.) The law of war is the backbone of the NDAA. Pressure your officials until they introduce, and vote on, a law blocking it in your community. A prewritten sample is below.
Win
Win. Get your city council, county commission, or sheriff to pass a law blocking the NDAA, protecting activists, families, and businesses everywhere in your city/county. Hold your representatives accountable. They will try to trick you. They will ridicule you. They will try to refer it to committee. They will stall. The police will refuse to enforce it. Go back. Over and over again. Never give up. If they try to weaken your law, stop them. Do not compromise. Do not accept defeat. Know that you are on the cutting edge of the revolution.
That’s how we win. It’s that simple. Learn, Build, Act. You have been looking for something that works. You see the path our country has traveled down. You want a future for your children. You are ready.
We’ll provide extra support when you need it. We’ll provide advice, and you have the power to take back your town. Thousands of people stand behind you.
Joining Pete today was Anthony Antinello, media representative for Adam Kokesh, with an update on Adam’s status while being held a political prisoner in Washington DC.
Broke on: October 4th 2013 by: jeffrey Filed under: Blog
On July 4th Adam Kokesh did the most epic civil disobedience in modern history because he believes in liberty and that
self-defense is a civil right. click here to see the video.
On July 9th his home was raided and ransacked for 5 hours by over 50 officers with a tank and helicopters. click here to see the aftermath.
Since then, Adams team was sabotaged, all the money raised for legal defense was stolen.click here for the details.
Despite all that, he has been podcasting from jail. click here to see the podcast’s.
He and his team are working hard to use this opportunity to spread the message & raise awareness of jury nullification. for more info click here.
We need all the help we can get, email kim@adamvstheman.com if you want to volunteer.
Adams trial is coming up on Oct.24th & we are hosting a rally that evening in DC, to help out with that email salvi@adamvstheman.com & RSVP on the FB event page.
Keep an eye on this latest market move, as it indicates where inflation could be heading in the run up to 2014…
MEMORIES OF THE 1986 PRICE CRASH
Like the US debt ceiling saga – with the only possible result being more debt – the ultra-magic triple-digit dollar oil price of US WTI, and of course more for European Brent, needs extraordinary measures to stay that overblown. In the case of the US debt mountain the Fed does the extraordinary (over)blowing, but for oil WTI counts on heavy lifting by leading members of Wall Street’s oil market manipulator clique – often referred to as “investors” – who not so long ago forecast WTI as easily able to attain $ 125 per barrel by December 31st.
So the shading of New York oil prices below $ 99.99 on 21 October was something of an historic event…
Even by mid-morning, New York time, on 21 October the plunge protection team was clearly at work trying to repair the damage – because falling oil prices are a challenge to New Normal.
The nightmare for new normal oil and its unreal pricing – totally unrelated to natural gas and coal prices due to oil being so “noble” – would be a repeat and remake of the 1986 price crash. This featured plenty of the parameters, and the same Mid Eastern and other actors, we have today.
The official story for what happened in 1986, which resulted in a cool 67% or two-thirds reduction of the oil price through 6 months, followed by 13 years of low prices, can be given but doesn’t have to be believed. The story says Saudi Arabia “abandoned its swing producer role”, cutting back its production from a little over 10 million barrels a day (Mbd), close to today’s claimed 11 Mbd, to just 2.3 Mbd by August 1985, because of increasing price weakness signals in the market, or at least clear signs of reduced Saudi revenues. The story continues that Saudi Arabia had been tinkering with pricing options and alternatives, from compensation-offset trade deals, to increased refining action to reduce crude as a percentage of exports, to netback-pricing concepts tying the crude price to the value of refined petroleum products in certain markets, in a global refining system like today’s but more extreme – beset by high costs, overcapacity, outdated technology, and so on.
In fact the most basic problem was soft global demand for crude, which had not recovered from the 1979-83 recession. The Saudi action of hiking its production above 10 Mbd had spurred other OPEC members to increase crude production and offer their own barter-offset and netback-pricing deals for buyers. World supply and stocks of crude and products rose through late 1985 and continued into 1986. The average per-barrel FOB (free on board) price for OPEC crude oil dropped from around $ 23.45 in December 1985 to $ 9.85 in July 1986 and for some crudes, and some buyer markets, it dropped further than that. Prices for crude oil from nonOPEC countries of course followed the same track. A 13-year price decline ensued
ENERGY ECONOMICS VERSUS GEOPOLITICS
Rather similar to today, the US-Saudi prime concern of the day was the Iranian menace, even if Syria’s al-Assad of the day, called Hafez was less of a problem than his son Bashr. In 1985 the Iraq war effort against Iran in their war which started in 1980 was weakening by the day. The war was partly financed by Saudi Arabia and mostly armed by the US, including the supply of chemical weapons to Iraq, but by late 1985 was failing and tapering down. Iran had not been beaten. There was stalemate.
Through the period to late 1985 and into 1986 the Middle East “war risk premium” on oil was often estimated at around $ 10 a barrel, or more. Today’s estimate is about the same. By late 1985 however the taper-down of the Iran-Iraq war was becoming hard to ignore, eroding the risk premium, but Saddam Hussein’s demands for financing, loans and weapons, and even fighting men to throw at Iran were higher than ever. A collapse in oil prices was about the worst thing possible for keeping the war popping – but the war popped its clogs and fizzled out, in major part due to insufficient funding, made worse by falling oil prices!
The impact of the oil price collapse on the US oil sector was dramatic. Crude prices 60% lower reversed the upward trend in US oil production that had operated for the previous 5 years. High-cost wells, made economic by the doubling of oil prices in 1978-1980, became unprofitable and were shut in. US oil imports soared, from 3.2 Mbd in 1985 to over 8 Mbd by the late 1980s, and peaked at 9.1 Mbd in year 2000 except for imports from the Gulf Arab states, which peaked in 2003, according to US EIA data.
Through 1986-99 the collapse of world oil prices had most and first affected OPEC crude. OPEC oil exports to the US grew and overall oil consumption of the US rose from in those 13 years by nearly 4 Mbd, from 15.7 Mbd to 19.5 Mbd.
The energy economics of the crash were drastically simple. When oil prices decline, Saudi Arabia pumps less and the US imports more. When oil prices rise Saudi Arabia pumps more and the US imports less but as the 1986-99 period showed, OPEC producers apart from Saudi Arabia taper down less, or not at all, to try conserving oil revenue totals. Non-OPEC producers can also react this way, even in high cost oil provinces like the North Sea where oil output went on rising as prices crashed and stayed high throughout the 1986-99 period. The USSR’s production through the 1980s was rarely below 11.6 Mbd, and only seriously declined from 1990.
Oil geopolitics in no way has to converge and comply with the energy economics. Mainly for internal domestic political reasons, Saudi Arabia soon threw in the towel on its production-cutting effort or “price discipline” role, defending prices by producing less. From 1989 to 1991 it hiked average daily output by 3.1 Mbd, to 8.1 Mbd, and throughout the 1990s with prices often down to $ 10 – $ 15 per barrel it held its average output at around 8.1 – 8.4 Mbd. The claimed “target price” agreed by OPEC and promoted by Saudi Arabia, was $ 18 per barrel, but this was rarely attained for a period lasting 13 years from 1986.
WILL IT HAPPEN AGAIN?
Theoretically it would be totally impossible to have a comparable more-than-60% fall of oil prices, today, with prices cut to around $ 40 per barrel, and held at that low level for over a decade. The crash of oil prices in 2008-2009 was a radically rapid decline-and-rebound event.
Today, both Saudi Arabia and Russia work on short national financial and economic fuzes, and the US economic fuze is so short that any massive cut in oil prices – creating a wave of panic in the US domestic oil industry – would likely not bolster economic growth or lead to a big uptick in US oil consumption. In 1986 world oil production and refinery overcapacity was huge, but the overhang is not so large today. The price crash of 2013-14 would therefore be more restrained, and could not feature a cut of oil prices by more than about 33% from present prices.
Nevertheless, today, both Saudi and Russian oil output are at record highs – and US output also. The smaller OPEC producers, and a host of small non-OPEC producers are often at or near record output. The potential for oil stocks growing radically outside the US, and potentially also in the US, certainly exists and reporting disclosure of radically rising crude and refined products stocks will always add further downward pressures on prices if and when they are already falling.
The Middle East war risk premium, assuming it is around $ 10 per barrel can be heavily cut given the basic US-Russian entente or deal to not bomb Syria and remove its chemical weapons, whatever Saudi Arabia might think of that. This would take oil prices to about $ 89 per barrel for WTI. About another $ 10 below that price level we start approaching actual US shale oil producer prices, making further declines less easy, but still possible.
The likely sustainable floor price – meaning a long term depressed price level – could be as high as $ 70 – $ 75 per barrel, after trading swings and plays have turned down.
HELPED OR HINDERED BY THE DOLLAR?
Conventional oil analysts and trader lore says that if the USD declines, oil prices in dollars normally rise “mutatis mutandis” but even if we forgot our Latin, the outlook for the USD plunging – against what? – presents a lot of intellectual problems. Against oil is what the oil bulls hope.
Quoted on Pravda.ru, October 16, scholar Mikhail Khazin said: “Those who are professionally engaged in economic matters, in one voice say that there are not years, but months or even weeks left before the collapse.” To be sure he meant a collapse of the USD and its role in world trade – especially oil trade. Conversely, Khazin said nothing at all about the Russian ruble becoming the world’s new petrodollar, nor the CNY-RMB, nor gold – and we can tell him that oil-gold trades will be hampered by persistent weakness inside the bullion market, upstream corporate debt for miners hitting extremes, but revenues declining, and soft gold mining stock prices being sure and certain for some while forward.
Forecasts that the USD is going to tank – against what? – face so many hurdles in the real world we can bet with the contrarians that the world value of the dollar will rise a little, if not a lot, in coming days and even weeks. Dragging down the oil price.
In a normal world, nothing like New Normal, as pointed out by Alistair Macleod in a long interview with Chris Martenson on ‘Peak Prosperity’, October 19, the role of QE worldwide and whether this concerns the US Fed, the ECB, the BOE or the BOJ, has reached a saturation effect in artificial wealth creation. It is now only a wealth transfer operation. Only those players close to the money spigot will now get the spinoff or “trickle down” from printed money.
This is a deflation crisis, likely or certainly followed by hyperinflation, but presently a deflation crisis. Outside the trickle down, everywhere else in the economy, local and global, we get deflation. Oil prices will therefore deflate – not inflate.
Episode 5 of Sunday Wire Radio Show with host Patrick Henningsen aired Sunday Oct 6th…This week’s theme: ‘Spies, Lies and Common Law’ This week THE SUNDAY WIRE talked with former MI5 whistleblower and author David Shayler, for a frank discussion about 9/11 and 7/7, as well as realities of Common Law in the 21st century, followed by regular contributor and pundit Basil Valentine and his rant on elitists in Britain. The final hour we spoke with Brian Gerrish of the UK Column to discuss the shadow state in Britain and elite’s plans for a OneWorld Government who are now constructing a corporate state in Europe and the US – this show is guaranteed to stimulate the mind!
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Air Force is firing the two-star general in charge of all of its nuclear missiles in response to an investigation into alleged personal misbehavior, officials told The Associated Press on Friday.
Maj. Gen. Michael Carey is being removed from command of the 20th Air Force, which is responsible for three wings of intercontinental ballistic missiles — a total of 450 missiles at three bases across the country, the officials said.
The officials disclosed the matter to the AP on condition of anonymity because it had not been publicly announced.
The decision was made by Lt. Gen. James Kowalski, commander of Air Force Global Strike Command. Kowalski is in charge of all Air Force nuclear weapons, including bombers.
An internal email obtained by the AP on Friday said the allegations against Carey stem from an inspector general probe of his behavior while on an unspecified “temporary duty assignment.” The email said the allegations are not related to the operational readiness of the ICBM force or recent failed inspections of ICBM units.
Kowalski has selected the vice commander of Air Force Global Strike Command, Maj. Gen. Jack Weinstein, to temporarily replace Carey as head of 20th Air Force.
The Muslim Brotherhood named Mahmoud Ezzat (above) as its interim “general guide” hours after authorities arrested the movement’s senior leader, sources said.
By Ayman Mohyeldin, Correspondent, NBC News
CAIRO – Egypt’s embattled Muslim Brotherhood on Tuesday named a hardline new “general guide” hours after authorities arrested the movement’s senior leader, sources said.
The temporary appointment of Mahmoud Ezzat, a 69-year-old doctor, came amid a deepening crackdown on the Islamist movement of ousted President Mohammed Morsi.
Egyptian Interior Ministry via Reuters
Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Badie sits in a police vehicle after being arrested by security forces in Cairo.
“In the media, Ezzat has been personified as the Brotherhood’s ‘iron man,’ embodying its reputation for top-down decision-making,” U.S.-based think tank the Washington Institute said in an online bio.
Ezzat will be filling in for Mohammed Badie, 70, who was detained at an apartment in northeast Cairo early on Tuesday. His arrest followed the deaths of 25 police officers in a militant ambush in Sinai and a court ruling announcing the possibility that the jailed ex-President Hosni Mubarak could soon walk free from prison.
According to the Washington Institute, Ezzat “is currently a professor in Zagazig University’s College of Medicine, where his colleagues have included [former] President Morsi.”
Badie’s arrest is a blow to Muslim Brotherhood at a time when authorities are cracking down on its leaders and mid-ranking officials across the country.
Also on Tuesday, the Egyptian military said it had killed a journalist working for state-run newspaper Al Ahram and wounded another at a military checkpoint near the city of Alexandria during the dusk-to-dawn curfew.
The two journalists were driving towards a checkpoint but failed to heed warnings to slow down or stop, the military said in a statement. After warning shots were ignored, driver Tareq Abdul Raouf, a reporter with Al Ahram newspaper. That forced the vehicle to swerve and ram into a light pole, which injured a second passenger, journalist Hamed Fathy El Berbery, who is with another state-run newspaper Al Gomhouria.
An Egyptian court has ordered Hosni Mubarak to be set free for the first time in more than two years; meanwhile, police arrested a key spiritual leader in the nation. NBC’s chief foreign correspondent, Richard Engel, says these two political shifts could mean the new military-backed government wants to impose a Mubarak-like system.
“No excessive gunfire was opened on the car in question nor any killing of those in it intended,” the statement said, calling on people to adhere to the curfew to facilitate the work of security services.
Journalists are exempt from the curfew, which the government ordered after security forces broke up two pro-Morsi protest camps last week. Around 900 people, including more than 100 soldiers and police, have been killed since then.
The court ruling potentially paving the way for former authoritarian president Mubarak’s release poses a dilemma for the military-backed government.
Mubarak has been in detention since April 2011 and is widely despised for widespread abuses and repression during his 29 years in power.
He was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison last year for failing to stop the killing of some 900 protesters in the 18-day uprising which ended his rule. His sentence was overturned on appeal and he is now being retried, along with his security chief and six top police commanders.
NBC News’ F. Brinley Bruton and Reuters contributed to this report.
Muhammad Hamed / Reuters
Security forces backed by bulldozers forcefully closed pro-Morsi sit-ins, setting off clashes that killed hundreds of people.
Oscar Pistorius has been indicted on charges of murder and illegal possession of ammunition for the shooting death of the double-amputee Olympian’s girlfriend on Valentine’s Day.
A Pretoria court on Monday set March 3 as the trial date for Pistorius, who says he shot Reeva Steenkamp by mistake, believing she was an intruder in his home. Prosecutors say he killed her after an argument. The prosecution submitted a list of more than 100 witnesses.
Pistorius was in court for the indictment, and was seen crying and holding hands with his siblings before proceedings started.
He faces a life sentence with a minimum of 25 years in prison if convicted of premeditated murder.
JOHANNESBURG — Oscar Pistorius, the Paralympic and Olympic track star, was expected to be formally indicted on Monday when he returned to court in South Africa to face charges of murdering his girlfriend in a case that seized headlines last February when he admitted opening fire, saying he believed he was shooting an intruder at his upscale home.
Mr. Pistorius last appeared in court for a procedural hearing in June, when the National Prosecuting Authority said it expected to prepare an indictment. The full trial is expected to begin early next year.
Since the shooting in the early hours of Feb. 14, Mr. Pistorius, a double amputee and competitive runner, has denied the prosecution’s charge of premeditated murder.
According to lawyers from both sides, Mr. Pistorius’s girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, was shot and killed in a locked bathroom at his home in a gated compound in Pretoria, the South African capital.
Defense lawyers have depicted the shooting as a tragic accident in which Mr. Pistorius, 26, believed that an intruder had entered his home. Ms. Steenkamp, 29, a model and a law school graduate, was spending the night there. According to defense testimony, Mr. Pistorius opened fire through a locked bathroom door, not realizing that Ms. Steenkamp was on the other side. She was hit by at least three bullets.
Before the shooting, Mr. Pistorius and Ms. Steenkamp were depicted as a gilded couple, featured in celebrity news coverage.
News reports in South Africa over the weekend said Mr. Pistorius may also face new charges on Monday of recklessly firing a weapon in public related to accusations that he discharged a weapon in a restaurant in January and fired a gun from a car while driving home from a vacation. Those reports have not been confirmed by the defense or the prosecution.
Mr. Pistorius, nicknamed the Blade Runner for the prosthetics he uses to compete, had a reputation for his outsized triumphs, not just against other disabled athletes but against able-bodied competitors.
He won two gold medals and a silver at last September’s Paralympic Games in London. In the 2012 Olympics the month before, he reached the 400-meter semifinal and competed in the 4×400-meter relay.
Lydia Polgreen reported from Johannesburg and Alan Cowell from London.
The driver of a speedboat that slammed into a construction barge on the Hudson River — hurling a bride-to-be and her fiance’s best man into the water — has been charged with vehicular manslaughter, authorities said Saturday.
Jojo John, 35, of Nyack was also charged with three counts of vehicular assault at his hospital bedside as he recovers from Friday night’s crash, Rockland County Sheriff’s Department Chief William Barbera said.
John’s bail was set at $ 250,000 and he will be transported to the Rockland County Jail after he is released from the hospital, Barbera said. John is suspected of operating the boat while intoxicated, according to Barbera.
Earlier Saturday, authorities pulled a woman’s body from the water that matches the description of 30-year-old Lindsey Stewart. The bride-to-be was hurled into the water after the accident near the Tappan Zee Bridge, about a half-hour’s drive north of New York City.
Stewart, of Piermont, worked for an insurance company. She was set to be married Aug. 10. Her fiance, art teacher Brian Bond, was among four others injured in the crash.
Rescuers are still trying to locate one other passenger, her fiance’s best man, 30-year-old Mark Lennon.
“The search has been suspended this evening and the tides have a lot to do with that,” Barbera said. “We’ll start again first thing in the morning.”
Officials were working to confirm that it was the body found earlier Saturday was Stewart’s.
The crash happened shortly after the boat, a 21-foot Stingray, left the village of Piermont for a short trip across the river to Tarrytown on Friday night, authorities said.
Authorities did not have further updates Saturday evening on the conditions of the four injured or the nature of their injuries.
Stewart’s mother, Carol, said earlier Saturday that she was praying for a miracle.
Bond, 35, was knocked unconscious in the crash but later woke and was able to call 911, Carol Stewart said.
Lindsey Stewart’s stepfather, Walter Kosik, said the couple have known each other since they were young children and used to go to church together.
“They have been friends the whole time, and they fell in love about 3 1/2 years ago,” Kosik said.
They were to be married at the Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Pearl River, with a reception at a vineyard in Hillburn, he said.
Barbera declined to identify the other people aboard the boat. He said the barge, one of several loaded with construction material for an upcoming replacement of the bridge, was equipped with lights, but it was still difficult to see on the water late at night.
The New York State Thruway Authority, which is overseeing the bridge project, said it was reviewing safety procedures.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families during this difficult time,” the authority said in a statement. It added that the lighting on the barges appeared to be functioning normally.
Stewart’s former English teacher at Pearl River High School, who remained in contact with her through Facebook, called the accident “heartbreaking.”
“She was one of my students and a bright, sweet girl loved by everyone,” she said. “I knew that she was getting married, and to Brian. To happen to two such special kids – it just shouldn’t happen.”
More than 6,000 statements were examined and cutting edge DNA techniques were used to scrutinise evidence, the Daily Mail reported.
Police also compiled video of the scene using police and press photographs taken on the night.
Winston Silcott and two other men were jailed for the crime in 1987 but later had their convictions quashed on the grounds they were considered unsafe.
Detectives are understood to have had their confidence buoyed by the conviction in January of Gary Dobson and David Norris for the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence.
The officers believe that if such a long standing and legally complex case can be resolved then justice can also finally be secured for Pc Blakelock.
Pc Blakelock, 40, was attacked as he tried to protect firefighters who were tackling a supermarket blaze at the height of the riot on October 6, 1985.
After stumbling, the father of three was surrounded by a mob screaming “Kill the pig”.
He was stabbed dozens of times and the machete-wielding killers then tried to decapitate him. A later trial heard the mob intended to parade the constable’s head on a pole to taunt other officers.
Winston Silcott, Mark Braithwaite and Engin Raghip were convicted in March 1987 of Pc Blakelock’s murder but all three convictions were quashed four and a half years later, after forensic tests on pages of key interview records suggested they had been fabricated.
Silcott accepted £50,000 compensation from the Home Office but remained in prison for an unrelated murder and was released in 2003. None of the three men originally convicted is the suspect in the new case.
It was revealed on the 25th anniversary of his murder, in October 2010, that 10 men had been arrested in London and Suffolk for questioning over the crime.
All were aged in their 40s or 50s and had lived in the Tottenham area at the time of the riot.
New forensic tests were carried out on Pc Blakelock’s flame-retardant overalls, which for years had been on show to criminologists and trainee police officers at Scotland Yard’s “Black Museum”.
The garment and more than a dozen murder weapons – several machetes and a kitchen knife found embedded up to the hilt in the constable’s neck – were analysed using updated DNA techniques for the first time.
Glen Smyth, former chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, welcomed the decision to put a new suspect on trial.
He told the Daily Mail: “The brutal murder of Keith Blakelock shocked the Met to its core.
“The attack on him was motivated by evil and hatred, and committed by people who have no regard for human life.”
Pc Blakelock’s widow Elizabeth said at the time of the October 2010 arrests: “I desperately hope this leads to something. It will bring the closure that we have never been able to get.
“There’s never, ever been a day goes past when I do not think of Keith and this has been hanging over us every day for the past 25 years.”
Mohammed al Hariri is known as the mafia don of the Zaatari Refugee camp. He is the man who gets things done.
Peter Breslow/NPR
Mohammed al Hariri is known as the mafia don of the Zaatari Refugee camp. He is the man who gets things done.
Peter Breslow/NPR
In chaotic situations, certain people rise to the top, and that is certainly the case for Mohammed al-Hariri, a former air conditioning repairman who commands enormous deference on the windblown streets of Zaatari refugee camp.
In less than a year, the Zaatari camp in Jordan has grown into an instant city, with 120,000 residents who have fled the war in Syria, sheltered in trailers and tents. Officially, aid workers manage the camp. But Hariri is the de facto boss, a mafia don to Syrian refugees who seek his help.
At 48, he keeps his gray beard trimmed, and his steely hair, which stands high on his head, appears blow-dried. His shoes are clean and polished, remarkable on the dusty streets. He is deceptively small, almost delicate, but there is nothing gentle about the way he has built an empire in the camp, living in relative luxury.
“This is the kitchen,” he says, as he gives a tour of his living compound. “It’s a humble kitchen as you can see.”
The well-stocked pantry is hardly humble by refugee standards. Hariri has a private water tank and bathroom. Artificial turf in his courtyard gives relief from the sand and rocks. His children watch cartoons in a separate air-conditioned trailer. Another trailer is a storage room filled with blankets and food. Three small refrigerators hum in the storeroom.
Hariri freely admits tapping into electricity from an Italian hospital nearby and helps others get free power, too.
“Look, everyone does it,” he says, jabbing a cigarette in the air as his temper rises. “But know this,” he continues, “we are in the 21st century, even animals in a barn have electricity.”
Hariri can deliver more than electricity to upgrade the refugee trailers that line the dirty streets. He offers a tour of his section of the camp: His workmen have created decorative fountains out of concrete and stone in shaded courtyards behind corrugated metal front gates. The clear pools and bubbling water cools the desert air.
“A cup of coffee by the fountain in the evening, it’s an extraordinary thing,” he says, juggling calls from two Nokia cells phones, “and you enjoy the wonderful weather of Zaatari.”
Friction With Aid Workers
Hariri makes no apologies for running what aid officials consider a criminal racket. He insists he serves his people. He gets them what they want. He rages against the aid worker he considers stingy and heartless.
“They are thieves and robbers and they are corrupt,” he says, though he offers no specifics.
Before he became the boss here, he says he taught air-conditioner repair in a technical school in the Syrian town of Dera’a. When the protests started against President Bashar Assad, he immediately joined a rebel brigade and became commander of a special unit in the Falcons of the Tribe of Mohammed. Hariri says he specialized in mines.
In August of last year, he fled to Jordan and saw how he could be another kind of leader. His first lesson came on the day he arrived, the 60th refugee in Zaatari. He asked for extra blankets. An aid worker told him he would need a special coupon. His response: “Give me the stuff now or I will separate your head from your body.”
He got the blankets, and then began building his empire. Ask how he does it, and he won’t give a straight answer. There are rumors in Zaarati that he can have people killed. “I could, if I wanted to,” he says, dismissively, “but I would never let it get to that point.”
He claims he can solve problems in the camp, stop the riots that have resulted in injuries to Jordanian security police.
Solutions are what everyone is looking for in Zaatari. Aid workers want to stop the violent protests, the looting, the trafficking and the stealing of electricity. The refugees want dignity and safety in a camp that is now as big as a city.
“He’s acquired wealth and he is powerful,” acknowledges Kilian Kleinschmidt, a burly German aid worker who manages Zaatari for the U.N. refugee agency. He was sent to the camp by the U.N. to restore order because he has a reputation for solving impossible problems. Zaatari is the most daunting challenge of Kleinschmidt’s career.
Kleinschmidt introduces himself as the mayor here, and a few weeks ago he agreed to meet Hariri.
“We made a deal that we wouldn’t work against each other,” says Kleinschmidt, “because we are two powerful men, so, if we would work against each other, the camp would explode.”
Kleinschmidt thinks more like a mayor than a manager for 120,000 Syrian refugees. He’s promised to put in streetlights. His aim is to get every refugee out of the tents and into trailers by the end of the year. He says he understands these refugees, the toughest he’s ever met.
“They rebelled against authority. Authority was something negative,” he explains, describing the Syria revolt.
He wants camp residents to recognize that authority can be something positive, if it’s directed in the right way.
“If it becomes good governance, that is one of the contributions to the rebuilding of Syria,” he says.
His deal with Hariri is a step to bring illegal activities out of the dark.
“We will establish the rules and continue to work together,” he says. “We are testing each other. He tests me and I test him.”
Back in his shaded courtyard, Hariri continues to see a stream of visitors. Two women sit in plastic chairs and pour out their troubles. One says her daughter is about to give birth, she wants to go back to Syria to be at her side. The other’s husband is stuck at the Jordanian border; the Jordanian police won’t let him pass. Can Hariri get him in?
Hariri snaps open one of his cell phones and barks out orders.
“OK, it’s been solved,” he says to the women. They are grateful and relieved.
