Sophie@3. Here is a letter I sent to the Foreign and Commonwealth office last year.
In a statement to the House of Commons on 4th March 2014, the Foreign Secretary deceived the House about the legitimacy of the new regime in Ukraine. He led the House to believe that the Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, had removed President Yanukovich from power on 22 February 2014 in accordance with the Ukrainian constitution and that therefore “it is wrong to question the legitimacy of the new authorities. It is simply untrue that the Rada followed the procedure laid down in the Ukrainian constitution to impeach and remove a president from power.
Article 108 of the Ukraine constitution has four circumstances whereby a President can be replaced, the powers of the President of Ukraine terminate prior to the expiration of term in cases of:
1) resignation;
2) inability to exercise his or her powers for reasons of health;
3) removal from office by the procedure of impeachment;
4) death.
The procedure, laid down in Article 111 of the constitution, is not unlike that required for the impeachment and removal from power of a US president, which could take months.
Thus, Article 111 obliges the Rada to establish a special investigatory commission to formulate charges against the president, seek evidence to justify the charges and come to conclusions about the president’s guilt for the Rada to consider.
Prior to a final vote to remove a president from power, it requires
(a) The Constitutional Court of Ukraine to review the case and certify that the constitutional procedure of investigation and consideration has been followed, and
(b) The Supreme Court of Ukraine must certify that the acts of which the President is accused are worthy of impeachment.
The Rada didn’t follow this procedure at all. No investigatory commission was established and the Courts were not involved. On 22 February 2014, the Rada simply passed a bill removing President Yanukovych from office.
Furthermore, the bill wasn’t even supported by three quarters of the members of the Rada, as required by Article 111 for the removal of a president from office – it was supported by 328 members, when it required 338 (since the Rada has 450 members).
Justifying UK support for the new regime in Kiev in the House of Commons on 4 March 2014, the Foreign Secretary said:
“Former President Yanukovych left his post and then left the country, and the decisions on replacing him with an acting President were made by the Rada, the Ukrainian Parliament, by the very large majorities required under the constitution, including with the support of members of former President Yanukovych’s party, the Party of Regions, so it is wrong to question the legitimacy of the new authorities.”
The Ukrainian President had not resigned, he is still the legitimate President of Ukraine, therefore the Foreign Secretary’s statement was a calculated deception of the House of Commons, designed to give the impression that the procedure prescribed in the Ukrainian constitution for the removal of a president from office had been followed, when it hadn’t.
Because this statement was fundamentally wrong can I be assured that the Foreign Secretary will tell the House of Commons at the earliest opportunity, and through them the British people, that the statement he made on 4th March 2014, was false.
I await your response
Regards Harry Law.

Posted by: harry law | Jun 20 2015 19:15 utc | 4

thanks lw… i appreciate your thoughtfulness..

Posted by: james | Jun 20 2015 19:24 utc | 6

@harry law – thanks. Did you get a reply ?

Posted by: sophie | Jun 20 2015 19:38 utc | 8

immunity against prosecution

That makes more sense than I could get out of the article. If true, pretty crazy stuff going on.
Harry Law – good work!

Posted by: okie farmer | Jun 20 2015 19:55 utc | 10

Thanks Sophie.
In the current world, admitting such staggering hypocrisy is quite easy to get away with.
Not only that but you can use that hypocrisy to further entrench whomevers – abuse of power.
Since the courts, the media and most of the people are whores of power and wilfully turn a blind eye to such self exposing lies.

Posted by: tom | Jun 20 2015 20:05 utc | 12

13
He’s afraid of being seized by outraged Ukrainians who now must surely realize the Nuland-Kohn-Poroshenko Crypto-Zionist Wehrmacht have looted $38 BILLION of their National Treasury gold bullion and shipped it off to some NYC bank vault, replaced with worthless junk bonds, as their national resources are privatized.
He’s afraid of being castrated, dragged to the public square, and hanged.
Wouldn’t you be? Would you put your fate in the hands of La Duce?
Was that a shoe? Is that part of Cirque du Soleil?

Posted by: Chipnik | Jun 20 2015 21:44 utc | 14

Definite: Tsipras announces the change of Greece’s strategic dogma

Posted by: nmb | Jun 21 2015 0:14 utc | 16

Damn, hit enter on accident. Meant to say:
Thank you too for the image you provided of America’s kindly, democracy-loving freedom fighters. Like a proud papa, ZBig probably carried a 3×5 of that photo around in his wallet, pulling it out 20 times a day and shoving it into the face of anyone close enough to grab by the lapel. Back then they said “you must be so proud”, but as the kid turned out to be a drug peddling murder no one really mentions it anymore.

Posted by: guest77 | Jun 21 2015 0:46 utc | 18

Sorry, I know that was a super long post. But really its a pretty amazing document.
As for Sheehan, he became a “controversial” figure in his heyday. He was the victim of one of the most vicious attacks by not just the far right whom Sheehan was taking to court to expose their criminal activities, but also by the phony left (in the form of that self-satisfied prick, David Barsamian and other pathetic imbeciles). His crime seemed to be actually bringing lawsuit against a bunch of people in the Reagan administration and the CIA. I guess people like David Barsamian feel like sqwaking on the radio is plenty of dissent when people are being slaughtered in Nicaragua.
Basamian actually attacked Sheehan for being “powerful and charismatic”. God forbid someone on the left have some charisma! He then opened the phone lines on his radio show to conservatives who told complete and utter lies about Sheehan without Barsamian even saying a word except to ask them where they heard the stories.
“Leftist” solidarity at its finest. As soon as someone actually does something brave to challenge power, pathetic radio blabberers jump all over them for not being, apparently weak and ineffectual enough…
Unreal.

Posted by: guest77 | Jun 21 2015 3:55 utc | 20

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/21/world/middleeast/cables-released-by-wikileaks-reveal-saudis-checkbook-diplomacy.html?ref=middleeast
BEIRUT, Lebanon — It seems that everyone wants something from Saudi Arabia.
Before becoming the president of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi wanted visas to take his family on a religious pilgrimage. A Lebanese politician begged for cash to pay his bodyguards. Even the state news agency of Guinea, in West Africa, asked for $2,000 “to solve many of the problems the agency is facing.”
They all had good reason to ask, as the kingdom has long wielded its oil wealth and religious influence to try to shape regional events and support figures sympathetic to its worldview.
These and other revelations appear in a trove of documents said to have come from inside the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs and released on Friday by the antiprivacy group WikiLeaks.
While the documents appear to contain no shocking revelations about Saudi Arabia, say, eavesdropping on the United States or shipping bags of cash to militant groups, they contain enough detail to shed light on the diplomacy of a deeply private country and to embarrass Saudi officials and those who lobby them for financial aid. And they allow the curious to get a glimpse of the often complex interactions between a kingdom seen by many as the rich uncle of Middle East and its clients, from Africa to Australia.
~~~

Posted by: okie farmer | Jun 21 2015 5:01 utc | 22

Danny Gonen was killed in occupied Palestine. No one deserves to die, but this is a case of Charlie Hebo on steroids. Charlie Hebo just drew pictures to humiliate and infuriate Muslims. Danny Gonen and all the Israeli settlers in Palestine are showing up in person to expropriate Palestinian land and to rub the Palestinians’ nose in it.
Switching back to Baltimore, Children Injured in Second ‘Random’ US Shooting Spree. The ‘random US shooting spree’. Is this the work of another ‘rebel’ and ‘the South will rise again’? Or an ‘offduty’ Baltimore cop?
I read an amazing recount of another, 193 year old terrorist massacre of parishioners of the Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston. And came upon an amazing quote from a speech by Alexander Stephens, his Cornerstone speech, given in Savannah in 1961. Stephens was the vice-President of the Confederate States of America.

Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the “rock upon which the old Union would split.” He was right. … The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. … Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. … Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.

I have been reading Ilan Pappe’s The ethnic cleansing of Palestine, and the parallels between the Israelis’ – especially Ben Gurion’s – feelings for the Palestinians and all Arabs are not at all unlike the Americans’ perspective on ‘their’ ‘Indians’ and enslaved Africans and their descendents, although the Israeli ‘problem’ mirrors the American ‘Indian’ problem rather than American ‘African-American’ problem. Both ‘discovered’ a ‘land without a people’ in which to flourish. The original inhabitants didn’t make the bar at ‘people’. Though it does seem that the Israelis have imported some Africans of their own lately, to do the work that needs to be done, although they seem now to be in the process of sending them back to Liberia, I mean Ethiopia.
In both countries though, the ‘layered’ structure of discrimination among our human race from the ‘elite’ perspective is obvious. The most obvious, racial, characteristics of us inferiors are now augmented by other ‘religious’ and ‘(un-)intelligence’ characters as well, though their discriminatory powers are still ‘ … based upon [these] great physical, philosophical, and moral truth[s]’.

Posted by: jfl | Jun 21 2015 5:39 utc | 24

http://mondoweiss.net/2015/06/charleston-palestinian-matter
Charleston: Do Black and Palestinian lives matter?
This is part of Marc H. Ellis’s “Exile and the Prophetic” feature for Mondoweiss. To read the entire series visit the archive page.

Do Black lives matter in America? After the murders in Charleston, the historic debate about race in American history rages on a new level.
Do Black lives matter to Jews? Another longstanding debate stretching from the Civil Rights era to the present.
Yet of late a new and dangerous element is being reintroduced into the discussion by BlackLivesMatter and Jews of Conscience that threatens to resolve the issue in a definitive and negative way. The issue revolves around Jews and Palestinians: If Palestinian lives don’t matter to Jews, how can Black lives matter to Jews?
No matter the progress in race relations in America, most Jews interact with African Americans in stylized settings with symbolic backdrops. Martin Luther King Day, Black churches and political solidarity events dot the American landscape. This is happening in Charleston right now. In the coming days we will see more of this kind of interaction.
Jews mourning the murder of African Americans is heartfelt. What’s missing are the real lives of African Americans. Few Jews interact with African Americans out of the public glare, in their daily lives.
There is a long history of establishment Jews admonishing Black leaders on the very issue which would make the connection of Jews and Blacks in America real. Reverend Jeremiah Wright is the most recent Black church leader to be called on the carpet for “interfering” in the discussion of Israeli power and its claims of democracy. Years earlier, Jesse Jackson felt the brunt of the Jewish establishment for relating to Palestinians on a political level. On the international scene, the South African archbishop and Nobel Laureate, Desmond Tutu, is outspoken in his defense of Palestinians and his description of Israel as practicing apartheid. As with Wright and Jackson, Jewish leaders often describe Tutu in patronizing terms as misguided and worse. Often all three are vilified as anti-Semites.
Why are Jewish leaders so adamant about disciplining Black leaders on the issue of Israel-Palestine? For many years African Americans have wondered aloud whether the way Jews treat Palestinians gives insight into the true nature of the Black-Jewish alliance in America. By acknowledging Palestinian lives as mirroring their own, Black leaders have a lever to begin the discussion of the Black-Jewish relationship on a new, more equal terrain.
Most recently, the issue of Jews, Blacks, Israel and the Palestinians has been addressed by Keith Feldman in his book A Shadow over Palestine: The Imperial Life of Race in America. In a fascinating account of Jewish-Black relations, Feldman traces the vision of the Black Panther party and the thoughts of James Baldwin and June Jordan who linked the unfulfilled promise of liberal democracy in the United States with the perpetuation of settler democracy in Israel and the possibility of Palestine’s decolonization. Feldman, as has others have before him, also traces the disciplining of these connections by American and Jewish power. In sum, the Jewish establishment seeks to keep the Black critique of racism in America and Israel on a conceptual level. Kept on the conceptual level, the symbolism of democracy trumps the real lives of Blacks and Palestinians.
In an interesting confluence, what the Jewish establishment demands of Black leaders, it demands of Jews. Keep Israel conceptual rather than real. As a symbolic marker in Jewish life, PalestinianLivesDon’tMatter.
The task of a new Black-Jewish solidarity is to move that symbolism from the conceptual to the real. Only by focusing on democracy and equal rights in America and Israel-Palestine can Blacks and Jews come closer to that elusive goal where Black and Palestinian lives matter.

Posted by: Lone Wolf | Jun 21 2015 6:03 utc | 26

@guest77@19
Thank you very much for your long post on the “communist” Pope. A fresh breeze is moving through the Catholic Church, similar to the Vatican II from which liberation theology sprung up, creating a tempest of Christian-based revolutions in Latin America and beyond. The British Bullshit Crap question about the Pope being a communist reminds me of a quote from Brazilian Archbishop Hélder Câmara who said,

“Quando dou comida aos pobres chamam-me de santo. Quando pergunto por que eles são pobres chamam-me de comunista.”
“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist.”

Posted by: Lone Wolf | Jun 21 2015 6:29 utc | 28

@19
‘ Is Pope Francis a Communist? ‘
You know, I just had occasion to read the Ten point program of the Communist Party of Thailand (as of 1977) and discovered that John Francis Lee may well be a Communist. Well, that he does share the goals of their ten point program at any rate.

Posted by: jfl | Jun 21 2015 7:05 utc | 30

Lone Wolf @26
You’re channeling JSore, man!

Posted by: okie farmer | Jun 21 2015 7:24 utc | 32

@33
Posted by: JSorrentine | Jul 15, 2014 6:53:48 PM | 33
That’s just top of the stack via ‘JSore site:moonofalabama.org’. You don’t remind me of JSorre. I do remember him going after bevin … I liked bevin. I had an email exchange with him once during the course of which he called me ‘young fella’ … I’m 67. I’m afraid bevin has left us for good …
I was grateful for your Mondoweiss post. I think it’s about time that Jews everywhere outside of Israel realized that ‘Palestinian lives matter’ and disavowed the Israelis as an heretical subsect. Israelis:Judaism::wahabists:Islam

Posted by: jfl | Jun 21 2015 7:45 utc | 34

i find the postings by lone wolf and jfl sad…..mainly because ignorance has blinded you to the possibilities
pay attention…i posted this last week
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2015/06/israel-plans-to-steal-more-syrian-land.html#comments
“a seaport in return for peace is a fair trade,an opportunity not to be squandered.there would be three principle,s to be held.
the middle road of the righteous,the sharing of water from a spring at tel oram,the asking for forgiveness at journey,s end.
Posted by: e4 | Jun 17, 2015 7:56:59 AM | 19”
so this post about the spring ,an attempt by me to try and bring peace in the i/p conflict gets used as an opportunity to deliberately try to murder israeli,s kids swimming at a spring
this has happened several times in the past when i used to post my visions on mondoweiss
sickening….not because the danny was israeli or whatever but just the mentality that exists there
that spring will be turned into a park and israeli,s have vowed to make a point of visiting it
maybe they will name it “tel oram”
quite interesting
the name tel oram means nothing to me..it just came to me along with a vision i had
that vision was that the people of gaza would be forced to leave gaza due to a diaster and would be moved to the sinai to a tent city where an ancient spring that flowed once called “tel oram” exists..will flow again’…..call it fantasy or whatever.
obama was right in saying that trust for the other has broken down…i do not neccesary agree with some of his american style foreign policy stratergies but considering the warnings we are getting from scientists,even the pope,the warning of “end of time,s ” is not a joke…it is happening right now
people everywhere must unite to solve the death trap we are in.
time to stop wasting time and resources on weapons and wars,and concentrate on survival.
turn weapons into ploughshares
3 companions,7 falling stars,the earth shall open,an ancient spring shall flow again.

Posted by: e4 | Jun 21 2015 8:59 utc | 36

Here’s a twofer:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/06/links-6214.html
Jackrabbit
June 2, 2014 at 9:34 pm
Here’s Moon of Alabama reader, JSorrentine saying much the same thing in a more direct and dramatic way EXCEPT he applies it to ALL of the elite (Deep State, politicians, ceo’s, etc.):
In the minds of the psychotic Western elite, there is no alternative to thinking how they currently do and I don’t mean that lightly.
Do people think that if someone could have just sat the leaders of the British Empire etc down and explained to them the unjustness of colonization that they would have stopped?
That all mankind needed to do to avoid the US Civil War was to rationally explain that slaves WEREN’T really subhuman animals?
What about the Native American genocide? Gee, if only we’d have had Rachel Maddow back then, right? Shucks.
Nope, for whatever reason and there are numerous reasons, the US war criminal elite and their Western minions have demonstrated time and time – exposed hypocrisy after exposed hypocrisy – that they are ALL IN in regards to their current trajectory. They have made their decisions.
Thus, we are not engaged in a polite debate with these war criminals where a fitting charge of “hypocrite!” is going to make them pause or stop what they are doing especially as TPTB have been very skillful in crafting/framing their obvious – and UNDEBATABLE – commissions of war crimes as the subject for polite debate and discussion.
No, we are witnessing the waging of a full-on war of aggression directed by people whom we should not treat as if they are bluffing and by bluffing I mean that TPTB really do rationally understand that they are being hypocritical/criminal and could chose NOT to engage in said actions/crimes if the just understood what was “right” and what was “wrong” as determined by certain bothersome – yet teensy weensy and non-powerful – segments of society.

Posted by: okie farmer | Jun 21 2015 11:54 utc | 38

guest77 posted:
“Old Nazis never die, they join the CIA” – truer words never spoken
this is gross oversimplification. monikers like Crypto-Zionist Wehrmacht need some scholarly subtext. do take the time for pts. 1 & 2.
…
okie farmer,
i’ve only been around here for a year or two, but i do remember JSorrentine’s trenchant, invective laced commentary.

Posted by: john | Jun 21 2015 12:52 utc | 40

The article says nothing of the sort suggested here. Poroshenko did not say Yanukovich’s ouster was illegal. He said it was unconstitutional to remove the title of president from Yanukovich.
That’s all.

Posted by: bksalt | Jun 21 2015 13:09 utc | 42

Germany has kowtowed to little Sisi in planning to extradite an Al Jazeera journalist to Egypt.
Merkel is a loser.

Posted by: dahoit | Jun 21 2015 15:06 utc | 44

And thanks to Harry Law @ #4 (& Sophie) for sharing the letter to the UK Govt and the reply. Asking perps to answer direct questions is still an excellent way to define “activism.”

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Jun 21 2015 15:36 utc | 46

More infighting and rumors of infighting. Fort Russ has number of pieces reporting Nalivaychenko removed as SBU director; see also here. There are also reports of the disbanding of the Tornado volunteer battalion and its assorted misdeeds. DC’s comprador of choice, Poroshenko, continues to consolidate his hold on the various armed formations said to be at the disposal of the existing Kiev authorities.

Posted by: rufus magister | Jun 22 2015 0:37 utc | 48

@okie farmer@37
Lone Wolf @33
JSorrentine was a poster here for years. I think b might have banned him.
Great. And I am channeling him? Don’t know what to think of your analogy. As per jfl@34 link to one of his posts, Mr. JSore used to curse several times per paragraph, not a habit in my posting. He used the word “fucking” 14 times in 5 short paragraphs, and the word “fuck” twice. So, I am still confused at your analogy, even more if as you said he was banned. What are you comparing/suggesting?

Posted by: Lone Wolf | Jun 22 2015 3:14 utc | 50

Israeli minister’s wife tweets racist joke about President Obama

A racist message on Tweeter about US President Barack Obama by the wife of Israel’s Interior Minister Silvan Shalom has caused uproar on social media.
“Do u know what Obama Coffee is? Black and weak,” Judy Shalom Nir-Mozes tweeted on Sunday.
She was forced to delete her tweet immediately and do apologize for the offensive message.

I guess she was inspired by Dylann Roof and his soul brothers? Just touchin’ base with her fundamentalist homies in the US. Racism comes as ‘naturally’ to the Israeli sect as it does to the White Supremecist sect in the US … or as it did to that Aryan sect that was so popular in Germany seventy or eighty years ago.
A good comment in reply was included in the report …

“How human garbage works … Delete plus fake apology. Clearly found the racist joke funny enough to share. Trash,” another user wrote.

Posted by: jfl | Jun 22 2015 4:26 utc | 52

jsore was iranian

Posted by: mcohen | Jun 22 2015 4:56 utc | 54

90% of anti israel,s post,s are by arab,s and iranians and a few turks and pakistani,s….a lot live in europe ..thats why no one bothers to argue with them…it is all bullshit…..same old crap day in day out
locations,ip addresses,proxy servers nothing is private…
the clever one,s are too busy making money and pursuing the life
get rich or die trying
what a waste
here,s a good joke for you jfl the murcunt
what do you call a cash register ?
a jewish piano

Posted by: mcohen | Jun 22 2015 8:13 utc | 56

@3 If you did basic fact checking instead of just swallowing the Sputnik pulp, you’d probably discover that it’s truth and lies mixed, so typical for our media. And the actual phrase “Poroshenko admits that the overthrow of Yanukovich was illegal” is 100% fake. What Poroshenko did:
1) In February a group of deputies proposed a law “on striping Yanukovich of presidential title” and it caused constitutional doubts, because the title should be for life time; this is not about the change of president after Yanukovich fleed to his sponsors, but about his title only
2) On 17 June this was voted and enacted by the Parliament
3) Poroshenko signed this, but also asked the Constitutional Court to verify if this law is compliant with Ukrainian constitution; this is exactly what president is expected to do and acts he thinks may be challenged in future
I know it doesn’t look familiar to the Russian absolute monarchy model, where Putin just passes anything he wants through the Duma regardless of any legal concerns, but this is actually very refreshing news from Ukraine that their parliamentary system really seems to be working as it does in other countries.

Posted by: Arbat | Jun 22 2015 10:43 utc | 58

@okie farmer@55
Sorry if you took it wrong, I apologize. I was trying to be clever and jokey – failed.
No, you didn’t fail, and there is no need to apologize because there is no offense taken. I’ve been at fora for decades now, I am not thin-skinned, but one thing I learned is perceptions about posters differ significantly, some might think a poster is a dick, others he’s enlightened. For that reason I just wanted to clarify who was I channeling to, since reading his jfl-linked post full of profanity, and then learned he had been banned, left me thinking where was the analogy. Now is all clear, and all is well that ends well. Peace, love, and all that jazz.

Posted by: Lone Wolf | Jun 22 2015 16:10 utc | 60

@19
Laudato Si’ sounds nice but … Peruvian Archbishop Has Stock in Controversial Mining Company

Under his leadership the Archdiocese of Lima [Archbishop : Peruvian Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani] became an investor in the stocks of one of the most controversial mining companies, Yanacocha, which sparked the mobilization of large-scale environmental social movement in the country.
Cipriani’s ventures with for-profit industries is sharply contrasted with the current turn that the Vatican is taking under the leadership of Pope Francis who is instead embracing the more frugal aspects of Catholicism.
“Cardinal Cirpriani has always sided with businesses and the government in office,” said anthropologist and Director of Noticias SER, Javier Torres Seoane.”We have never heard him defending a community that is confronting a mine or a company for pollution. His voice is not on the side of indigenous peoples or farming communities.”

… jmb sure can talk the talk! can he walk the walk as well? Here’s one archbishop/red hat in obvious need of replacement. Right back on the home turf, too. It’s almost like a direct challenge to jmb, isn’t it? Put up or shut up.

Posted by: jfl | Jun 24 2015 1:13 utc | 62

@60
That link was – as I said – just the top of the stack returned by my query. I never liked JSore myself. He was always ‘fuck this’ and ‘fuck that’ and ‘you are all assholes’ … in fact, I had forgotten who he was … JSorrentine … until okie farmer brought him up. Sic transit gloria … eh? The same fate awaits us all.

Posted by: jfl | Jun 24 2015 1:59 utc | 64

@65 I can clearly see that whatever happens in Ukraine or whatever Poroshenko does will be ridiculed and turned into some dumb conspiracy theory on this forum. I have proven that the source you relied on was lying and I provided a legal basis of Poroshenko request to the Constitution Court, but I can see it’s quite pointless here…

Posted by: Arbat | Jun 24 2015 14:55 utc | 66

Thanks for the kind words. JSore was not banned I don’t think. I think he got fed up with the “feedback” and moved off into the ether of Information Clearing House where no one responds to anything anyone types…

Posted by: guest77 | Jun 24 2015 23:03 utc | 68

This Shadow Government Agency Is Scarier Than the NSA

If you have a telephone number that has ever been called by an inmate in a federal prison, registered a change of address with the Postal Service, rented a car from Avis, used a corporate or Sears credit card, applied for nonprofit status with the IRS, or obtained non-driver’s legal identification from a private company, they have you on file.
They are not who you think they are. They are not the NSA or the CIA. They are the National Security Analysis Center (NSAC), an obscure element of the Justice Department that has grown from its creation in 2008 into a sprawling 400-person, $150 million-a-year multi-agency organization employing almost 300 analysts, the majority of whom are corporate contractors. [A list of contractors known to be associated with NSAC can be viewed here.]
Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force Contractors
Since October 2001, the following companies have done contract work for the Foreign Terrorist…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 25 2015 1:18 utc | 70

Arbat —
Very kind of you to provide the ref. to Novoe Vremya. The verbal tap dance by the mid-level flunky was sort of amusing, but I found this earlier item describing the filing most informative. It contained a few more details than the original Interfax report. Here’s my favorite bit from what they quote of the filing:

[T]he Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine exceeded its constitutional authority and acted contrary to the provisions… of the Constitution of Ukraine….

Novoe Vremya continues:

Poroshenko stressed that the change or extension of such an approach is possible through changes to the Constitution, as an exception to the constitutional norms are established by the Constitution itself, rather than other regulations.

He seems to be suggesting papering over these irregularities by changing the Constitution, perhaps retroactively. Rather like telling a lie, and then telling another one to cover up the first one.
Given the difficulties in establishing the truth, I always like to spread the news whenever I do find it.

Posted by: rufus magister | Jun 26 2015 3:55 utc | 72

@63
Looks like the peace-loving US/DE are indeed going to further the Ukrainians’ pursuit of nuclear weapons …
Poroshenko Signs Law to Allow Foreign Troops in Ukraine

‘ … the new amendments established provisions that would allow the deployment of nuclear weapons on the condition that Ukraine monitor their stay in its territory. ‘

Posted by: jfl | Jun 26 2015 12:13 utc | 74

Suicide bomber attack on mosque in Kuwayt. And the government of Kuwayt is NOT “Happy”.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2015/Jun-26/303897-explosion-at-a-shiite-mosque-in-kuwait-reports.ashx
The chickens are coming home to roost. The Gulf states support ISIS but it seems ISIS has an different agenda that the supporters of that same ISIS.
ISIS has support from wealthy individuals in the Gulf as well. I presume the same individuals who have supported Osama Bin Laden. And Bin Laden’s ultimate end goal was to overthrow the saudi government.
Unemployment under saudi shiites is at ~ 50% and are paid off by the saudi government with handouts. ISIS’ game plan seems to be fomenting (more) unrest in the region. Or is ISIS that desparate that it attempts to create more “unrest” ?
No wonder the kuwayti government is more than a bit worried.

Posted by: Willy2 | Jun 26 2015 13:39 utc | 76

Wayout at 77 —
I think you overestimate the stability of the junta. The most pessimistic assessments about the junta proved untrue. Poroshenko rode out the discontent over the ceasefire after Debaltsevo, his presumed legitimacy as the elected President is an important regime asset. He seems sufficiently useful to the Washington Consensus to enjoy a decent shelf-life; so far he seems to enjoy Euro-American support.
The Kiev authorities have seen more popular discontent (including evading conscription), and for now the IMF is willing to provide enough cash to keep things going.
Conveniently, Kyiv Post has this, from a report on the arrest of officers and men of the “Tornado” battalion.

Authorities argue that the arrests are part of their efforts to introduce law and order among volunteer units. Critics of the government portray this as part of a broader crackdown on the volunteer movement, which is seen as a challenge to President Petro Poroshenko’s power.
The Tornado scandal follows authorities’ conflicts with the Aidar Battalion and the nationalist Right Sector’s Ukrainian Volunteer Corps and their fitful efforts to integrate them into the chain of military command.
Volunteer units must be made to obey the law, political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko said by phone. “There must the rule of law,not the rule of the assault rifle.”

If I could paraphrase Willy2 at 76, no wonder Poroshenko is more than a bit worried about being pushed aside.

Posted by: rufus magister | Jun 27 2015 0:29 utc | 78

Wayout at 78 —
Should the problems be on a larger scale, the earlier outcomes are not certain. The rule of the rifle is far from over.
Poroshenko has made some headway in solidifying his control. But nothing irreversible. See the “Tornado” battalion — it was not disarmed, as was intended, merely moved to a different base after a number of arrests. Other rightist figures continue to decry what they see as the incompetence of Poroshenko’s crew, and as Kyiv Post noted, efforts to gain control over the volunteers are “fitful” — much of the control is only on paper.
As the political and economic situation deteriorates, the number of discontented amongst the ranks of the volunteer militias, of the populace, and of the other oligarchs will grow. Poroshenko has already alienated Kolomoisky, conscription is going badly, and he has faced demonstrations in Kiev over economic problems.
The junta cannot assume infinite reserves of cash and good will from the West (might be different if they were Sunni, but they’re Uniate and Orthodox). The U.S. House labelled Azov as Nazis and blocked aid.
Further, the regime and its components keep making noises about taking the Crimea and refusing to negotiate with “terrorists.” Such rhetoric, combined with pressure from the volunteers, could easily lead to renewed fighting, with unknown impacts on the political situation.
DC seems to be setting up a Croatian-style buildup, leading to a sudden, sweeping strike. But what builds up first, the UAF’s capabilities, or the masses and other oligarchs discontent? What if that strike, like other recent UAF efforts, fails, especially if launched before the UAF is fully up to speed, due to far-right pressure?
Here’s something from a well-informed observer a little closer to the scene than either of us. Russia Insider quotes former DPR PM Borodai, and then follow with a short analysis:

“To be honest, I expect that the Minsk 2 agreements will not be observed, in the same manner as the Minsk 1 agreements were not,” Borodai said in an interview this week in a Moscow restaurant surrounded by former rebel commanders.
“And at the end of the day the Ukrainian army will launch an offensive. This is a very probable development … I am not sure that it will end without a big war, as Russia cannot tolerate this sore on its borders forever.”
The ceasefire is more or less nonexistent already. A few days ago, the OSCE admitted on camera that the Ukrainian army was shelling rebel positions — or “random houses”, as is often the case — from Mariupol.
Kiev has already made it clear that it will not negotiate with “terrorists” — and Zakharchenko continues to insist that too much blood has been spilled for a reunification to occur.
In other words, both sides have no interest in agreeing to Minsk. Which probably means a “big war”.

The item provides a link to the OSCE report, for the curious.
It’s also wishful thinking to presume that the future will be a mere rote repetition of the past. Who Knows what Tomorrow may Bring?
Musically, a great recent cover of a great old Traffic tune. Visually, not too bad for a smart phone video.

Posted by: rufus magister | Jun 27 2015 13:24 utc | 80

“Foreign direct investment in Israel dropped by 50% in 2014 and expert says it’s due to the Gaza war and BDS”
http://mondoweiss.net/2015/06/foreign-investment-dropped

Posted by: Willy2 | Jun 30 2015 12:40 utc | 82