What Adam Curry is reading

Peaberry SDR Kit - $129.00 : AE9RB
  Link to Article
  Fri, 21 Dec 2012 06:27
  An HF transceiver kit for Software Defined Radio. The Peaberry SDR is the first and only do-it-yourself transceiver that doesn't require adding sound cards to your computer.
  You choose to build it for the 160m, 80m/40m, 40m/30m/20m or 30m/20m/17m bands. All kits include parts for all bands so you do not need to decide until you are ready to start building.
  48kHz 24-bit digital I/Q interface.48kHz 24-bit stereo speaker48kHz 12-bit microphone.1 watt transmitter.Softrock control interface.Open Source firmware.This is an unassembled kit that contains mostly surface mount components. The parts selection and board layout is optimized for hand assembly with an ordinary soldering iron having a 1/32" tip.
  Construction manual on Make:Projects.More information available on the support forum.Source code and schematic on GitHub.Cases available from KM5H.This product was added to our catalog on Monday 16 July, 2012.
VIDEO
  VIDEO-Michael Moore: America's Desire To Own Guns Tied To Racial Fears | RealClearPolitics
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    Fri, 21 Dec 2012 09:08
    MICHAEL MOORE: I think we're a very frightened people. I think we've been frightened ever since we landed on these shores. We were frightened of the native people.; we were frightened of the slaves we brought over, as we should have been. And those in power have known how to manipulate us with fear. And we've started wars over being told lies about, you know '-- whether it was in the Spanish-American War, the Mexican-American War. You can go through so many of these wars we've been in throughout history '-- right up through the Iraq War '-- where we're just lied to because those in power knew if they just put enough fear out there. And the best kind of fear is the one that has the kernel of truth, so you have 9/11 happened '-- that's a real incident, nearly 3,000 people lose their lives. Very easy at that point to use that fact in a way to tell a fiction.
    ###
    And I was fascinated in that subject when making 'Bowling for Columbine,' of how fear is used to the point where everybody feels like they've got to have a gun in the house. Now, not every house has a gun but we've got over a quarter-billion guns in people's homes. And they're mostly in the suburbs and rural areas where there is virtually no crime and no murder. So why is that? What are they really afraid of? What do they think of '-- who's going to break into the house? Do they think it's little freckled-face Jimmy down the street? I don't think so. I don't think that's who they're afraid of. And it cuts down to the heart of our race problem that we still haven't resolved. And I thought it would be interesting to take a look at that in the movie. (source: Current TV)
    (via Jeff Poor/Daily Caller)
  It's Handguns Now? Soledad O'Brien Repeatedly Asks Democrats About Limiting Handguns
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    Source: MRCTV - News & Politics
    Fri, 21 Dec 2012 09:18
    MRC TV is an online platform for people to share and view videos, articles and opinions on topics that are important to them -- from news to political issues and rip-roaring humor.
    MRC TV is brought to you by the Media Research Center, a 501(c) 3 nonprofit research and education organization. The MRC is located at: 325 South Patrick Street, Alexandria, VA 22314. For information about the MRC, please visit www.MRC.org.
    Copyright (C) 2012, Media Research Center. All Rights Reserved.
  President Obama Nominates John Kerry To Replace Hillary Clinton As Secretary Of State
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    Sat, 22 Dec 2012 14:36
  NRA Statement Interrupted By Protester
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    Sat, 22 Dec 2012 14:31
  Canadian Decodes WWII Carrier Pigeon Message British Military Intelligence Could Not
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    Fri, 21 Dec 2012 15:51
  US Marines Volunteer To Stand Guard At Elementary Schools
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    Fri, 21 Dec 2012 15:47
  Yearly Government Report On Drug Abuse Seems Overly Focused On "Marihuana"
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    Fri, 21 Dec 2012 15:37
  Researchers Want To Name Next Baby Orca Born After Sandy Hook Shooting Victim
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    Fri, 21 Dec 2012 09:14
  Vice President Biden Holds White House Meeting With Law Enforce From Across The Nation
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    Fri, 21 Dec 2012 09:06
Federal Register | Schedule of Fees for Access to NOAA Environmental Data, Information, and Related Products and Services
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  Sun, 23 Dec 2012 11:07
  In this final rule, NESDIS establishes a new schedule of fees for the sale of its data, information, and related products and services to users. NESDIS is revising the fee schedule that has been in effect since 2011 to ensure that the fees accurately reflect the costs of providing access to the environmental data, information, and related products and services. NESDIS is authorized under 15 U.S.C. 1534 to assess fees, up to fair market value, for access to environmental data, information, and products derived from, collected, and/or archived by NOAA. Other than depreciation, costs to upgrade computer hardware and software systems will not be included in the fees charged to users. NESDIS is updating its schedule of fees for access to NOAA Environmental Data, Information, and Related Products and Services as costs of providing access have changed since 2011.
  Effective Date: January 31, 2013.
  Sherida Wright, (301) 713-922 .
  NESDIS operates NOAA's National Data Centers for Climate, Geophysics, Oceans, and Coasts. Through these Data Centers, NESDIS provides and ensures timely access to global environmental data from satellites and other sources, provides information services, and develops science products.
  NESDIS maintains some 1,300 data bases containing over 2,400 environmental variables at three National Data Centers and seven World Data Centers. These centers respond to over 2,000,000 requests for these data and products annually from over 70 countries. This collection of environmental data and products is growing rapidly, both in size and sophistication, and as a result the associated costs have increased.
  Users have the ability to access the data offline, online and through the NESDIS e-Commerce System (NeS) online store. Our ability to provide these data, information, products and services depends on user fees.
  The new fee schedule lists both the current fee charged for each item and the new fee to be charged to users that will take effect beginning January 31, 2013. The schedule applies to the listed services provided by NESDIS on or after this date, except for products and services covered by a subscription agreement in effect as of this date that extends beyond this date. In those cases, the increased fees will apply upon renewal of the subscription agreement or at the earliest amendment date provided by the agreement.
  NESDIS will continue to review the user fees periodically, and will revise such fees as necessary. Any future changes in the user fees and their effective date will be announced through notice in the Federal Register.
  This rule has been determined to be not significant for purposes of E.O. 12866. The provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act (5 U.S.C. 553) requiring notice of proposed rulemaking and the opportunity for public participation are inapplicable because this rule falls within the public property exception of subparagraph (a)(2) of section 553, as it is limited only to the assessment of fees, per 15 U.S.C. 1534, that accurately reflect the costs of providing access to publicly available environmental data, information, and related products. Further, no other law requires that a notice of proposed rulemaking and an opportunity for public comment be given for this rule. Because a notice of proposed rulemaking and an opportunity for public comment are not required to be given for this rule under 5 U.S.C. 553 or by any other law, the requirements of the Regulatory Flexibility Act (5 U.S.C. 601 et seq.) are not applicable. Accordingly, no Regulatory Flexibility Analysis is required and none has been prepared.
  Organization and functions (Government agencies)Michael H. Abreu,
  Chief, Financial Officer (CFO/CAO).
  For the reasons set forth above, 15 CFR part 950 is amended as follows:
  begin regulatory text
  1.The authority citation for part 950 continues to read as follows:
  Authority:(5 U.S.C. 552, 553). Reorganization Plan No. 4 of 1970.
  2.Appendix A to part 950 is revised to read as follows:
  Name of product/data/publication/information/serviceCurrent feeNew fee* Reflects a product no longer offered.NOAA National Data Centers Standard User Fees: Department of Commerce Certification$91.00$86.00General Certification74.0072.00Paper Copy2.002.00Online In-Situ Digital Data6.00(*)Data Poster18.0018.00Shipping Service for orders totaling less than $50.003.004.00for orders totaling $50.00 or more3.004.00Rush Order Fee60.0060.00Super Rush Order Fee100.00100.00Foreign Handling Fee for orders totaling less than $100.0039.0067.00for orders totaling $100.00 or more39.0067.00Additional National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) User Fees: NEXRAD Doppler Radar Color Prints17.0014.00Paper Copy from Electronic Media6.006.00Offline In-Situ Digital Data156.00124.00Microfilm Copy (roll to paper) per frame from existing film14.0014.00Satellite Image Product83.0073.00Offline Satellite Digital Data (average unit size is 1.2 gigabytes) Offline Radar Digital Data (Level II) (average unit size is 4 gigabytes) Offline Satellite, Radar, and Model Digital Data (average unit size is 1 terabyte)984.00615.00Conventional CD-ROM/DVD69.0060.00Specialized CD-ROM/DVD158.00131.00CD-ROM/DVD Copy, Offline35.0030.00CD-ROM/DVD Copy, Online Store17.0015.00Facsimile Service80.0078.00Order Handling9.008.00Non-Digital Order Consultation7.006.00Digital Order Consultation22.0018.00Additional National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) User Fees: NODC Non-Serial Publications22.0027.00NODC Non-Standard Data; Select/Copy to CD, DVD or Electronic Transfer, Specialized, Offline49.0059.00NODC Non-Standard Data; 1-1 Direct Copy to CD, DVD, or Electronic Transfer, Specialized, Offline19.00(*)NODC Digital and Non-Digital Off-the-Shelf Products, Online7.009.00NODC Digital and Non-Digital Off-the-Shelf Products, Offline9.0011.00NODC Order Consultation Fee2.002.00NODC Handling and Packing Fee7.008.00World Ocean Database-World Ocean Atlas 2009 DVDs11.0011.00Additional National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) User Fees: Mini Poster1.001.00Icosahedron Globe.501.00Convert Data to Standard Image5.006.00Single Orbit OLS16.0018.00Single Orbit OLS, Additional Orbits5.005.00Single Orbit OLS'--Subset16.0018.00Single Orbit OLS, Subset- Additional Orbits5.005.00Geolocated Data45.0047.00Subset of Pre-existing Geolocated Data27.0028.00Global DMSP-OLS Nighttime Lights Annual Composite from One Satellite73,614.0074,032.00Most Recent DMSP-OLS Thermal Band/Cloud Cover Mosaics from Multiple Satellites250.00259.00Nightly DMSP-OLS Mosaics, Visible and Thermal Band Data from One Satellite235.00241.00Global DMSP-OLS Nighttime Lights Lunar Cycle Composite from One Satellite6,307.006,531.00Radiance Calibrated Global DMSP-OLS Nighttime Lights Annual Composite from One Satellite81,047.0082,975.00Research Data Series CD-ROM/DVD25.0025.00Custom Analog Plotter Prints60.0060.00NOS Bathymetric Maps and Miscellaneous Archived Publication Inventory7.007.00Global DMSP-OLS Annual Composite of Persistent Nighttime Lights on Monthly Increments from One Satellite8,032.008,305.00Data Poster18.00(*)High Definition Geomagnetic Model19,997.0020,060.00end regulatory text
  [FR Doc. 2012-30519 Filed 12-18-12; 8:45 am]
  BILLING CODE 3510-22-P
Obama Referred To Himself 63 Times During Eulogy For Senator Inouye'... | Weasel Zippers
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  Sat, 22 Dec 2012 17:41
  Stunning.
  Update to this story.
  (Weekly Standard) '-- President Barack Obama used the funeral for Hawaii senator Daniel Inouye to talk about himself. In the short 1,600 word speech, Obama used the word ''my'' 21 times, ''me'' 12 times, and ''I'' 30 times.
  Obama's speech discussed how Inouye had gotten him interested in politics. ''Danny was elected to the U.S. Senate when I was two years old,'' he said.
  Keep reading'...
VENITISM: TURKEY, THE WORLD'S BIGGEST PRISON FOR JOURNALISTS!
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  Sat, 22 Dec 2012 17:11
  Anyone who messes up with Erdogan, Gulen, or Kurdistan is destroyed. 200innocent Turkish journalists are in jails, the highest incarceration rates formembers of the news media in the world. 700 innocent Turkish military officersare also behind bars, wrongfully charged in a series of pseudoplots to topplethe government with weird names such as Ergenekon, Sledgehammer, and Action PlanAgainst Reactionary Forces.Pretrial detention in Turkey is being used as a punishment without trial. Turkeyabuses civil liberties under the pretense of shutting down terroristorganizations. Turkey's terrorism laws aren't being used against terrorists.They're used against innocent military officers, journalists, academics, defenselawyers, and ethnic Kurds accused of imaginary pseudoterrorist conspiracies. Allcharges are attacks on free speech. A poll of http://venitism.blogspot.com showsthat 80% of EU citizens oppose Turkey's membership to EU.
  These freakish abuses are compounded by the routine manner in which disgustingTurkish judges agree to deny defendants bail. Many of the accused innocents havebeen in jail for years, some for a decade, as they await trial. This amounts toroutine summary punishment of the presumed innocent.
  Reporters Without Borders points out Turkey is now the world's biggest prisonfor journalists '' a sad paradox for a country that portrays itself a regionaldemocratic model. The number of detained journalists is unprecedented since theend of military rule but is not surprising given the Turkish judicial system'sstructural problems '' very repressive legislation with broad and vaguely-wordedprovisions that allow all kinds of excesses, and markedly paranoid judicialattitudes that prioritize security concerns to the detriment of defence rightsand freedom of information.
  Reporters Without Borders notes most of the imprisoned journalists arerepresentatives of Kurdish media, a situation that again underscores the factthat freedom of information in Turkey is inextricably linked with the search fora peaceful solution to the issue of its Kurdish minority.
  Turks and Kurds lock horns over Northern Kurdistan. Kurdistan will eventuallybecome an independent nation. Kurdish people are definitely a nation deservingof a sovereign homeland out of the territories where Kurdish people form amajority. Currently, these territories lie in northern Iraq, northwestern Iran,southeastern Turkey and northeastern Syria.
  Twenty million Kurds live in Northern Kurdistan occupied by Turkey, ten millionin Eastern Kurdistan occupied by Iran, seven million in Southern Kurdistanoccupied by Iraq, and three million in Western Kurdistan occupied by Syria. Thewish of forty million Kurds cannot be ignored by civil society. Support anindependent Kurdistan now. Viva Kurdistan!
  Reporters Without Borders says the Turkish authorities have apparently begun toappreciate the scale of the problem. The third judicial reform package has ledin recent months to the conditional release of about fifteen journalists, someof whom had been in prison for years. But their cases are only suspended and aneven bigger number of journalists are still waiting to be released.
  Worse still, there has hardly been any let-up in the pace with which morejournalists are being arrested, jailed and brought to trial. This was seen yetagain last week, when Sadiye Eser, a journalist with the left-wing dailyEvrensel, was arrested. According to Reporters Without Borders' tally, at least61 journalists have been arrested in 2012.
  The Kurdish army is fighting for an autonomous Kurdistan. Abdullah Ocalan, theheroic leader of Kurds, was betrayed by the government of Greece, and Ocalan wascaptured in Kenya in 1999, while being transferred from the Greek embassy to theairport of Nairobi, in a coordinated operation of the intelligence services ofTurkey, USA, and Israel. Ocalan is imprisoned on Imrali island in the MarmaraSea south of Istanbul.
  Disappearances and extrajudicial executions have emerged as new and disturbingpatterns of human rights violations by the Turkish state. Turkey is also usingchemical and biological weapons against the Kurdish army and indignants.
  Although Turkey's media landscape is extensive and diversified, critical andinvestigative journalism is often criminalized '' a tendency that has beenreinforced by a renewed increase in tension surrounding the Kurdish issue. Onlya complete overhaul of the anti-terrorism law and the repeal of about 20repressive articles in the criminal code will be able to address this.
  Turkish preacher Fethullah Gulen is the most influential preacher of Islam inOccident. His followers have founded schools in 140 countries, banks, mediacompanies, hospitals, insurance companies, universities, the largest Turkishnewspaper Zaman, and the ruling party of Turkey AKP.
  The cemaat religious community educates its future leaders throughout the worldin houses of light, a mixture of a shared student residence and a Koran school.Gulen is their guru, an ideologue who tolerates no dissent, and who is onlyinterested in power and influence, not understanding and tolerance. Gulen dreamsof a new age in which Islam will dominate Occident.
  The houses of light are the foundation of the movement, where youngFethullahcis, followers of Gulen, are taught to become loyal servants. Theresidences exist in many countries, including Turkey, the United States, andGermany. There are two dozen in Berlin alone. The cemaat offers schoolchildrenand university students a home, free of charge, and in return it expects them todevote their lives to hizmet, service to Islam.
  Most civil servants are Fethullahcis. Gulen trained and supported them. Whenthese grateful children assume office, they continue to serve Gulen.Fethullahcis hold ninety percent of senior positions in the Turkish policeforce!
  Fethullahci Erdogan was locked for six months in prison for publicly reciting averse declaring the mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, theminarets our bayonets - words considered by a court to be incitement toreligious militancy. Now taking his revenge, Caliph Erdogan has locked manythousands of Turks in prison!
  Reporters Without Borders asserts these legislative reforms will have to beaccompanied by changes in judicial practices in line with the decisions of theEuropean Court of Human Rights '' meaning much less use of preventive detention,respect for the right to information on subjects of public interest, protectionfor journalists' sources and a more independent and transparent judicial system.
  Media that criticize Caliph Erdogan have found themselves in financial troubledue to punitive fines and tax investigations. After the leading newspaperHurriyet connected Erdogan to a charity scandal, the state fined thepublication's corporate owner, the Dogan Group, $523 million for tax evasion,and then fined it again seven months later for $2.5 billion in unpaid taxes andother unspecified irregularities, putting the total amount owed higher than thevalue of the company itself. The campaign served as a warning to other media notto criticize Erdogan, and, alongside arrests and firings of unfriendlyjournalists, it has created a climate of fear.
  Caliph Erdogan has limited the ability of ordinary Turks to question his power.The anxiety produced by Erdogan's actions against journalists, the military, andpoliticians has produced a high degree of self-censorship. Erdogan has empoweredspecial security courts to arrest citizens on suspicion of terrorism withoutevidence or any right to a hearing and has used judicial indictments to targetthose calling for greater autonomy for the Kurds. Erdogan has virtually takenover the Turkish Academy of Sciences, once a bastion of Kemalist orthodoxy.
Rapper Ice T on US gun control (20July12) - YouTube
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  Sat, 22 Dec 2012 17:10
Pope’s child porn 'normal' claim sparks outrage among victims - World news, News - Belfasttelegraph.co.uk
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  Sat, 22 Dec 2012 15:52
  Victims of clerical sex abuse have reacted furiously to Pope Benedict's claim yesterday that paedophilia wasn't considered an ''absolute evil'' as recently as the 1970s.
  In his traditional Christmas address yesterday to cardinals and officials working in Rome, Pope Benedict XVI also claimed that child pornography was increasingly considered ''normal'' by society.
  ''In the 1970s, paedophilia was theorised as something fully in conformity with man and even with children,'' the Pope said.
  ''It was maintained '-- even within the realm of Catholic theology '-- that there is no such thing as evil in itself or good in itself. There is only a 'better than' and a 'worse than'. Nothing is good or bad in itself.''
  The Pope said abuse revelations in 2010 reached ''an unimaginable dimension'' which brought ''humiliation'' on the Church.
  Asking how abuse exploded within the Church, the Pontiff called on senior clerics ''to repair as much as possible the injustices that occurred'' and to help victims heal through a better presentation of the Christian message.
  ''We cannot remain silent about the context of these times in which these events have come to light,'' he said, citing the growth of child pornography ''that seems in some way to be considered more and more normal by society'' he said.
  But outraged Dublin victim Andrew Madden last night insisted that child abuse was not considered normal in the company he kept.
  Mr Madden accused the Pope of not knowing that child pornography was the viewing of images of children being sexually abused, and should be named as such.
  He said: ''That is not normal. I don't know what company the Pope has been keeping for the past 50 years.''
  Pope Benedict also said sex tourism in the Third World was ''threatening an entire generation''.
  Angry abuse victims in America last night said that while some Church officials have blamed the liberalism of the 1960s for the Church's sex abuse scandals and cover-up catastrophes, Pope Benedict had come up with a new theory of blaming the 1970s.
  ''Catholics should be embarrassed to hear their Pope talk again and again about abuse while doing little or nothing to stop it and to mischaracterise this heinous crisis,'' said Barbara Blaine, the head of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests,
  ''It is fundamentally disturbing to watch a brilliant man so conveniently misdiagnose a horrific scandal,'' she added.
  ''The Pope insists on talking about a vague 'broader context' he can't control, while ignoring the clear 'broader context' he can influence '-- the long-standing and unhealthy culture of a rigid, secretive, all-male Church hierarchy fixated on self-preservation at all costs. This is the 'context' that matters.''
  The latest controversy comes as the German magazine Der Spiegel continues to investigate the Pope's role in allowing a known paedophile priest to work with children in the early 1980s.
Doomsday re-scheduled? Archaeological record suggests Mayan Armageddon is Sunday '-- RT
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  Sat, 22 Dec 2012 15:27
  Visitors raise their hands during celebrations for the end of the Mayan cycle known as Bak'tun 13 and the start of the Maya new age, at the Chichen Itza archaeological park, in Yucatan state, Mexico on December 21, 2012. (AFP Photo/Pedro Pardo)
  Just as the world sighs in relief at having escaped the Mayan Armageddon, the ancient prophesy may still hold true. According to one archaeologist, the end could come as early as this Sunday.
  ­Scholars have not yet solved the ancient riddle, as the Maya calendar has not been fully decoded and correlated to the Western, or Gregorian, calendar.
  Therefore the Mayan calendar's cycle, which some argue marks the end of days, might correspond to Sunday instead of the widely-rumored Friday, Carmen Rojas, an archaeologist with Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History has revealed to the Los Angeles Times.
  The Mayan archaeological community believes that the surviving pillars showing the Mayan calendar's dates may have been modified throughout history to suit the cultural or political interests of the day.
  All of these factors made Rojas believe that the thirteenth baktun cycle, which equates to 144,000 days, or 394.26 tropical years, ends on Sunday, while others say it might be off by a full year or more.
John Kerry: Global Warming Is The Next 9/11
  Link to Article
  Source: WT news feed
  Sat, 22 Dec 2012 15:19
  John Kerry has written an op-ed for the Huffington Post comparing the inaction in response to a heating planet to the inaction of President Bush before September 11th.
  Kerry reaches deep into the bag of global warming hysterics to uncork this piece, saying that the fate of the nation hinges upon the passing of some sort of climate change legislation.
  It's ridiculously over the top, but we suppose it might get a few supporters all riled up and ready to fight for the bill this fall. Of course, it's so over the top that it might just turn off a bunch of people:
  On August 6, 2001, President George W. Bush famously received an intelligence briefing entitled, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." Thirty-six days later, al Qaeda terrorists did just that.
  Scientists tell us we have a 10-year window -- if even that -- before catastrophic climate change becomes inevitable and irreversible. The threat is real, and time is not on our side.
  Facts, as John Adams said, are stubborn things. Here are a few you need to know: Atmospheric carbon-dioxide levels have risen 38% in the industrial era, from 280 to 385 parts per million (ppm). Scientists have warned that anything above 450 ppm -- a warming of 2 degrees Celsius -- will result in an unacceptable risk of catastrophic climate change.
  The truth is that the threat we face is not an abstract concern for the future. It is already upon us and its effects are being felt worldwide, right now. Scientists project that the Arctic will be ice-free in the summer of 2013. Not in 2050, but four years from now.
  Make no mistake: catastrophic climate change represents a threat to human security, global stability, and -- yes -- even to American national security.
  Climate change injects a major new source of chaos, tension, and human insecurity into an already volatile world. It threatens to bring more famine and drought, worse pandemics, more natural disasters, more resource scarcity, and human displacement on a staggering scale. We risk fanning the flames of failed-statism, and offering glaring opportunities to the worst actors in our international system. In an interconnected world, that endangers all of us.
  The individual data points may sometimes be murky. But the pattern they create is irrefutably clear: We don't know if Hurricane Katrina was caused by climate change, but we do know that we are rapidly heading for a world where climate change causes worse Katrinas. We don't know with certainty whether climate change pushed Darfur over the edge, but we do know that it will cause more tension just like we've seen in Darfur.
  Once you accept the science, it's clear that such massive environmental change will create dislocation, destruction, chaos, and conflict. And history teaches us that we are deluding ourselves if we think that we are insulated from world events. Continue at HuffPo '†'
  Don't Miss: 16 Irrefutable Signs That Climate Change Is Real
With no deal, Obama heads to Hawaii
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  Sat, 22 Dec 2012 15:16
  Visitors watch the sun rise at 10,000 feet in Haleakala National Park in Maui, Hawaii. (John McDonnell/Washington Post)
  With financial negotiations all but halted, President Obama was headed out of Washington on Friday evening for his annual winter vacation in Hawaii.
  Obama is likely to have a short trip this year; aides said he is scheduled to return Wednesday, a day after Christmas, to resume discussions with congressional leaders on how to avert the fiscal cliff.
  ''Merry Christmas '' because we didn't get this done, I'll see you next week,'' Obama said after telling reporters he still had hope of striking a deal to prevent taxes from rising on the middle class next year.
  Obama and his family are scheduled to rent a resort on Kailua, on the island of Oahu, as they have done each year of his presidency. Though Secret Service personnel had alerted residents that the Obamas could be on the island until Jan. 6, the president has had his vacations cut short each year '-- over health-care reform in 2009, the extension of the George W. Bush-era tax cuts in 2010 and the extension of a payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance in 2011.
  Last winter, as first lady Michelle Obama and their daughters, Malia and Sasha, jetted off, the president remained in the White House for six days, with only Bo the Portuguese water dog to keep him company, as he and House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) negotiated an extension of the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance.
  Obama usually spends his vacation playing golf, eating at local restaurants with family members and escorting his daughters to island water parks and other activities.
  Some congressional leaders are also scheduled to be in Hawaii to attend a funeral for Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), who died this week.
  If Obama and Congress do not reach an agreement, a mix of rising taxes and mandatory spending cuts are set to kick in next year. Some economists believe the so-called ''fiscal cliff'' could send the nation back toward recession.
  During his remarks at the White House on Friday, Obama recommended that lawmakers enjoy some eggnog and Christmas cookies before getting back to business next week.
Michelle Obama advises American parents on how to talk about Sandy Hook shooting | WashingtonExaminer.com
  Link to Article
  Sat, 22 Dec 2012 14:37
  First Lady Michelle Obama wrote an open letter to parents on how to talk about the Sandy Hook shooting with their children, emphasizing the positive responses of the people involved and the need to ''stand with the people of Newtown.''
  ''We can tell our kids that we're doing everything we can to keep them safe and make sure they feel loved '' and so are their teachers, coaches, faith leaders, Scout leaders and everyone else who plays a role in their lives,'' Mrs. Obama suggested in the letter.
  She also urged parents to encourage their children to be grateful for courageous teachers and first responders and to point to the Sandy Hook students ''who carefully followed instructions and comforted each other amidst the chaos.''
  ''And finally, we can tell them that it's our job now to stand with the people of Newtown '' to pray for them and to find ways, large and small, to show them that they are not alone in their grief,'' Mrs. Obama also wrote. ''It is now up to us to carry the memory of those who were lost in our hearts and to follow their example every day, living our lives as they lived theirs '' with courage, determination, hope and love. Those are the values that give us our strength as Americans and that we return to in times of crisis '' not just because they help us heal, but because they define who we are, as a people and as a nation.''
  You can read the whole letter here.
Presidential Nominations Sent to the Senate | The White House
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  Sat, 22 Dec 2012 14:36
  The White House
  Office of the Press Secretary
  For Immediate Release
  December 21, 2012
  NOMINATIONS SENT TO THE SENATE:
  Ernest W. Dubester, of Virginia, to be a Member of the Federal Labor Relations Authority for a term of five years expiring July 29, 2017. (Reappointment)
  Carol Waller Pope, of the District of Columbia, to be a Member of the Federal Labor Relations Authority for a term of five years expiring July 1, 2014. (Reappointment)
President Obama Honors Nation's Top Scientists and Innovators | The White House
  Link to Article
  Sat, 22 Dec 2012 14:34
  The White House
  Office of the Press Secretary
  For Immediate Release
  December 21, 2012
  President Obama today named twelve eminent researchers as recipients of the National Medal of Science and eleven extraordinary inventors as recipients of the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the highest honors bestowed by the United States Government upon scientists, engineers, and inventors. The recipients will receive their awards at a White House ceremony in early 2013.
  ''I am proud to honor these inspiring American innovators,'' President Obama said. ''They represent the ingenuity and imagination that has long made this Nation great'--and they remind us of the enormous impact a few good ideas can have when these creative qualities are unleashed in an entrepreneurial environment.''
  The National Medal of Science was created by statute in 1959 and is administered for the White House by the National Science Foundation. Awarded annually, the Medal recognizes individuals who have made outstanding contributions to science and engineering. A committee of Presidential appointees selects nominees on the basis of their extraordinary knowledge in and contributions to chemistry, engineering, computing, mathematics, or the biological, behavioral/social, and physical sciences.
  The National Medal of Technology and Innovation was created by statute in 1980 and is administered for the White House by the U.S. Department of Commerce's Patent and Trademark Office. The award recognizes those who have made lasting contributions to America's competitiveness and quality of life and helped strengthen the Nation's technological workforce. Nominees are selected by a distinguished independent committee representing the private and public sectors.
  This year's recipients are listed below.
  National Medal of Science
  Dr. Allen Bard, University of Texas at Austin, TXDr. Sallie Chisholm, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MADr. Sidney Drell, Stanford University, CADr. Sandra Faber, University of California, Santa Cruz, CADr. Sylvester James Gates, University of Maryland, MDDr. Solomon Golomb, University of Southern California, CADr. John Goodenough, University of Texas at Austin, TXDr. M. Frederick Hawthorne, University of Missouri, MODr. Leroy Hood, Institute for Systems Biology, WADr. Barry Mazur, Harvard University, MADr. Lucy Shapiro, Stanford University School of Medicine, CADr. Anne Treisman, Princeton University, NJ
  National Medal of Technology and Innovation
  Dr. Frances Arnold, California Institute of Technology, CADr. George Carruthers, U.S. Naval Research Lab, DCDr. Robert Langer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MADr. Norman McCombs, AirSep Corporation, NYDr. Gholam Peyman, Arizona Retinal Specialists, AZDr. Art Rosenfeld, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, CADr. Jan Vilcek, NYU Langone Medical Center, NY
  Team:
  Dr. Samuel Blum, IBM Corporation, NYDr. Rangaswamy Srinivasan, IBM Corporation, NYDr. James Wynne, IBM Corporation, NY
  Company:
  Raytheon BBN Technologies, MA, *Represented by CEO, Edward Campbell
  Affiliations listed are the awardees' most recently identified employers; some awardees are now retired.
Eagle Country 99.3 FM | Lawrenceburg, IN
  Link to Article
  Fri, 21 Dec 2012 18:18
  An aerial view on Sunday of two homes leveled after an explosion on the Southeastside of Indianapolis. The November 10 damaged homes and led to the evacuation of residents.
  Matt Kryger/The Indianapolis Star from WTHR Chopper 13
  (Indianapolis, Ind.) - Three arrests have been made in connection with a deadly home explosion on Indianapolis' south side last month.
  Two neighbors died when a home in the Richmond Hill subdivision exploded the night of November 10. At a Friday press conference, Marion County Prosecutor Terry Curry announced that homeowner Monserrate Shirley, her boyfriend Mark Leonard, and his brother Bob Leonard have been arrested. Each of the suspects face a list of charges including Murder and Arson.
  Shirley and Mark Leonard were together at Hollywood Casino in Lawrenceburg when they were informed of the blast. Monserrate's 12-year-old daughter was at a friend's house and their cat had been boarded.
  During the press conference, investigators said a manifold directing natural gas to the Monserrate's appliances had been disconnected. Gas built up for the next six to nine hours. The point of ignition was a microwave, programmed to go off 24 hours after being set.
  The blast either damaged or destroyed 80 homes, causing $4 million in damage. Next door neighbors Jennifer and John Longworth died as their home was blown apart.
  Investigators provided other evidence pointing to the blast as intentional and not an accident. Insurance on the home had recently been increased. Mark Leonard allegedly changed the home's thermostat from a digital type to a slide switch so that it would ignite a spark.
  The Leonard brothers had also done research asking a store clerk about different types of gas.
  It may not have been the group's first attempt at leveling the home. Prosecutors said Shirley and Leonard did exact same thing the weekend before: going to Lawrenceburg, boarding the cat, and sending her daughter elsewhere. But, the attempt to cause an explosion failed.
  Photos and financial documents had also been removed from the home.
  Curry said each of the suspects has so far denied any involvement in planning the explosion.
  In news interviews following the explosion that made national headlines, Monserrate had claimed she was a victim like the more than 80 other families whose homes were damaged or completely lost.
  Each of the suspects could face the death penalty, if convicted on the Murder and Arson charges.
  LINKS:
  Indianapolis Explosion Ruled A Homicide
  Homeowner At Casino When Explosion Happened
  31 Homes Destroyed, Damaged In Indy Explosion
President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts
  Link to Article
  Source: White House.gov Press Office Feed
  Fri, 21 Dec 2012 15:53
  The White House
  Office of the Press Secretary
  For Immediate Release
  December 20, 2012
  WASHINGTON, DC '' Today, President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate the following individuals to key Administration posts:
  ' Ernie DuBester '' Member, Federal Labor Relations Authority' Carol Waller Pope '' Member, Federal Labor Relations Authority, and upon appointment to be designated Chair
  The President also announced his intent to appoint the following individuals to key Administration posts:
  ' Ruth David '' Member, National Science Board, National Science Foundation' Maria T. Zuber '' Member, National Science Board, National Science Foundation' Laura Skandera Trombley '' Member, J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board
  President Obama said, ''I am confident that these outstanding individuals will greatly serve the American people in their new roles and I look forward to working with them in the months and years to come.''
  President Obama announced his intent to nominate the following individuals to key Administration posts:
  Ernie DuBester, Nominee for Member, Federal Labor Relations AuthorityErnie DuBester currently serves as a Member on the Federal Labor Relations Authority, a position he has held since 2009. Previously, Mr. DuBester served as a Mediator at the National Mediation Board from 2005 to 2009. From 2001 to 2005, Mr. DuBester was a Professor and Chair of the Dispute Resolution Program at George Mason University School of Law. During that period, he also worked as an Arbitrator of labor and employment matters, which included the handling of Federal sector cases. From 1997 to 2001, Mr. DuBester taught graduate courses in collective bargaining and arbitration at Catholic University School of Law. From 1993 to 2001, Mr. DuBester was a Member of the National Mediation Board, serving as Chairman multiple times. Mr. DuBester served as Legislative Counsel at the AFL-CIO from 1984 to 1993, and he worked at the law firm of Highsaw and Mahoney from 1981 to 1984. From 1975 to 1981, he served as Counsel to the National Labor Relations Board. Mr. DuBester received a B.A. from Boston College, a J.D. from the Columbus School of Law at Catholic University of America, and an LL.M. in Labor Law from the Georgetown University Law Center.
  Carol Waller Pope, Nominee for Member, Federal Labor Relations Authority, and upon appointment to be designated ChairCarol Waller Pope is currently Chairman of the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA), a position she has held since 2009. She was first appointed as a Member of the FLRA in 2000. Prior to her appointment, Ms. Pope worked in the Office of the General Counsel of the FLRA from 1980 to 2000, first as an Attorney in the Boston Regional Office, then as Executive Assistant to the General Counsel, and finally as Assistant General Counsel. Earlier in her career, she served as an Attorney Advisor in the Employee Benefits Division of the Office of the Solicitor at the Department of Labor. Ms. Pope is the recipient of distinguished achievement and leadership awards from the American Bar Association and the Federal Labor and Employment Law Section. She received a B.A. from Simmons College and a J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law.
  President Obama announced his intent to appoint the following individuals to key Administration posts:
  Dr. Ruth David, Appointee for Member, National Science Board, National Science FoundationDr. Ruth David is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Analytic Services Inc., a position she has held since 1998. In this role, she initiated the corporation's ANSER Institute for Homeland Security and later its Applied Systems Thinking Institute. From 1995 to 1998, Dr. David was Deputy Director for Science and Technology at the Central Intelligence Agency. Previously, she worked at Sandia National Laboratories. Dr. David is a Member of the National Academy of Engineering, a Senior Fellow of the Defense Science Board, and a Member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council. Her numerous accolades include the CIA's Distinguished Intelligence Medal and the National Security Agency Director's Distinguished Service Medal. In 2010, she was inducted into the Women in Technology International Hall of Fame. Dr. David received a B.S. from Wichita State University, and an M.S. and Ph.D. from Stanford University.
  Dr. Maria T. Zuber, Appointee for Member, National Science Board, National Science FoundationDr. Maria T. Zuber is the E.A. Griswold Professor of Geophysics and incoming Vice President for Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In addition, she serves as the Principal Investigator of NASA's Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory Mission. Dr. Zuber is the first woman to lead a science department at MIT and the first to lead a NASA planetary mission. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Geophysical Union, where she served as President of the Planetary Sciences Section. She received the MIT James R. Killian Jr. Faculty Achievement Award, the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal, the Geological Society of America G.K. Gilbert Award, and the American Astronautical Society Carl Sagan Memorial Award. Dr. Zuber received a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, and an Sc.M. and Ph.D. from Brown University.
  Dr. Laura Skandera Trombley, Appointee for Member, J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship BoardDr. Laura Skandera Trombley is the President of Pitzer College, a position she has held since 2002. Previously, she was Dean of the Faculty and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Coe College. Dr. Trombley served as an Assistant Provost at S.U.N.Y. Potsdam from 1990 to 1997. She taught at the University of Eichst¤ett in Eichst¤ett, Germany from 1985 to 1988. Dr. Trombley is a member of the Chronicle of Higher Education/New York Times Higher Education Cabinet and the Council of Presidents of the Association of Governing Boards. Dr. Trombley received a B.A. and an M.A from Pepperdine University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California.
Benghazi Attack, Part II: The Report of the Accountability Review Board
  Link to Article
  Fri, 21 Dec 2012 14:21
  DEPUTY SECRETARY BURNS: Thank you very much, Madam Chair, Mr. Berman, members of the committee. Thank you for this opportunity. Secretary Clinton asked me to express how much she regrets not being able to be here today, and I know she has confirmed to you, Madam Chair, her willingness to appear before you in January.Since the terrorist attacks on our compounds in Benghazi, State Department officials and senior members from other agencies have testified in four Congressional hearings, provided more than 20 briefings for members and staff, and submitted thousands of pages of documents, including now the full classified report of the Accountability Review Board. Secretary Clinton has also sent a letter covering a wide range of issues for the record. So today, I'd like to highlight just a few key points.
  The attacks in Benghazi took the lives of four courageous Americans. Ambassador Stevens was a friend and a beloved member of the State Department community for 20 years. He was a diplomat's diplomat, and he embodied the very best of America.
  Even as we grieved for our fallen friends and colleagues, we took action on three fronts.
  First, we took immediate steps to further protect our people and our posts. We stayed in constant contact with embassies and consulates around the world facing large protests, dispatched emergency security teams, received reporting from the intelligence community, and took additional precautions where needed. You'll hear more about all this from my partner Tom Nides.
  Second, we intensified the diplomatic campaign aimed at combating the threat of terrorism across North Africa. We continue to work to bring to justice the terrorists responsible for the attacks in Benghazi. And we are working with our partners to close safe havens, cut off terrorist finances, counter extremist ideology, and slow the flow of new recruits.
  And third, Secretary Clinton ordered an investigation to determine exactly what happened in Benghazi. I want to convey our appreciation to the Accountability Review Board's Chairman and Vice Chairman, Ambassador Thomas Pickering and Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, and also Hugh Turner, Richard Shinnick, and Catherine Bertini.
  The board's report takes a clear-eyed look at serious, systemic problems, problems which are unacceptable, problems for which, as Secretary Clinton has said, we take responsibility, and problems which we have already begun to fix.
  Before Tom walks you through what we're doing to implement fully all of the board's recommendations, I'd like to add a few words based on my own experiences as a career diplomat in the field. I have been a very proud member of the Foreign Service for more than 30 years, and I've had the honor of serving as a chief of mission overseas.
  I know that diplomacy, by its very nature, must sometimes be practiced in dangerous places. As Secretary Clinton has said, our diplomats cannot work in bunkers and do their jobs. When America is absent, there are consequences. Our interests suffer, and our security at home is threatened.
  Chris Stevens understood that as well as anyone. Chris also knew that every chief of mission has the responsibility to ensure the best possible security and support for our people. As senior officials here in Washington, we share that profound responsibility. We have to constantly improve, reduce the risks our people face, and make sure they have the resources they need.
  That includes the men and women of the State Department's Diplomatic Security Service. I have been deeply honored to serve with many of these brave men and women. They are professionals and patriots who serve in many places where there are no Marines at post and little or no U.S. military presence in country. Like Secretary Clinton, I trust them with my life.
  It's important to recognize that our colleagues in the Bureaus of Diplomatic Security and Near East Affairs and across the Department, at home and abroad, get it right countless times a day, for years on end, in some of the toughest circumstances imaginable. We cannot lose sight of that.
  But we learned some very hard and painful lessons in Benghazi. We are already acting on them. We have to do better. We owe it to our colleagues who lost their lives in Benghazi. We owe it to the security professionals who acted with such extraordinary heroism that awful night to try to protect them. And we owe it to thousands of our colleagues serving America with great dedication every day in diplomatic posts around the world.
  We will never prevent every act of terrorism or achieve perfect security, but we will never stop working to get better and safer. As Secretary Clinton has said, the United States will keep leading and keep engaging around the world, including in those hard places where America's interests and values are at stake.
  Thank you very much.
  CHAIRMAN ROS-LEHTINEN: Thank you, sir. Mr. Nides.
  DEPUTY SECRETARY NIDES: Madam Chairman, Congressman Berman, members of the committee, I also thank you for this opportunity.
  I want to reiterate what Bill has said. All of us who have had the responsibility to provide the men and the women who serve this country with the best possible security and support '' from the senior Department leadership setting the priorities to the supervisors evaluating the security needs to the Congress appropriating sufficient funds, we all share this responsibility. Secretary Clinton has said that, as Secretary of State, this is her greatest responsibility and her highest priority.
  Today I will focus on the steps we are taking at Secretary Clinton's direction and will continue to take. As Bill has said, the board report takes a clear-eyed look at the serious, systemic problems for which we take responsibility and that we have already begun to fix.
  We are grateful for the recommendations from Ambassador Pickering and his team. We accept every one of them, all 29 recommendations. Secretary Clinton has charged my office with leading the task force that will ensure that the 29 are implemented as quickly and as completely '' and to pursue steps above and beyond the board's report. The Under Secretary of Political Affairs, the Under Secretary for Management, the Director General of the Foreign Service, and the Deputy Legal Advisor will work with me to drive this forward.
  The task force has already met to translate the recommendations into about 60 specific action items. We've assigned every single one to a responsible bureau for immediate implementation, and several of them will be completed by the end of the calendar year.
  Implementation of each and every recommendation will be underway by the time the next Secretary of State takes office. There will be no higher priority for the Department in the coming weeks and months. And should we require more resources to execute these recommendations, we will work closely with the Congress to ensure that these needs are met.
  And as I said, Secretary Clinton wants us to implement the ARB findings and to do more. So let me offer some very clear specifics.
  For more than 200 years, the United States, like every other country around the world, has relied on host nations to provide the security for our embassies and consulates. But in today's evolving threat environment, we have to take a new, harder look at the capabilities and the commitments of our hosts. We have to re-examine how we operate in places facing emerging threats, where national security forces are fragmented or may be weak.
  So, at Secretary Clinton's direction, we moved quickly to conduct a worldwide review of our overall security posture, with particular scrutiny of a number of high-threat posts. With the Department of Defense, we deployed five interagency security assessment teams, made up of diplomat and military security experts, to 19 posts and into 13 countries, an unprecedented cooperation between the Departments at a very critical time. These teams have provided a roadmap for addressing emerging security challenges.
  We're also partnering with the Pentagon to send 35 additional detachments of Marine security guards '' that's about 225 Marines '' to medium and high-threat posts, where they will serve as visible deterrence to hostile acts. This is on top of the approximately 150 detachments we already deployed.
  We're aligning resources in our 2013 budget request to address physical vulnerabilities and reinforce structures wherever needed to reduce the risk from fire. And let me add we may need your help in ensuring that we have the authority to streamline the usual processes that produce faster results.
  We're seeking to hire more than 150 additional Diplomatic Security personnel, an increase of 5 percent, and to provide them with the equipment and training that they need. And as the ARB recommended, we will target them squarely at securing our high-threat posts.
  I want to second Bill's praise for these brave security professionals. I have served in this Department for only two years, having come from the private sector. However, as I've traveled to places like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, I've seen firsthand how these dedicated men and women risk their lives. We all owe them a debt of gratitude as they go to work every day to protect more than 275 posts around the world.
  As we make these improvements in the field, we're also making changes here in Washington.
  We've named the first-ever Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for High-Threat Posts within the Bureau of Diplomatic Security. We're updating our diplomatic procedures to increase the number of experienced and well-trained staff serving in those posts.
  And we are working to ensure that the State Department makes decisions about where our people operate in the ways that reflects our shared responsibility for our security. Our regional assistant secretaries were directly involved in our interagency security assessment process and they will assume greater accountability for securing their people and posts. We will provide this committee with detailed reports every step we're taking to improve our security and implement the board's recommendation.
  We look to you for the support and guidance as we do this. Obviously, part of this is about resources. We must equip our people with what they need to deliver results and safety, and we'll work with you as needs arise. But Congress has a bigger role than just that. You have visited our posts, you know our diplomats on the ground and the challenges that they face. You know our vital national securities are at stake and that we're all in this together. We look forward to working with you.
  Thank you, Madam Chair, for your support and counsel and for this opportunity to discuss these important matters. And we'd both be happy to answer your questions.
MK-ULTRA Links To the Sandy Hook Assault
  Link to Article
  Fri, 21 Dec 2012 14:20
  My long-distance interest in the Sandy Hook events is based on ongoing work with a team of anti-pedophile journalists and activists who for over a decade have tracked and exposed American pedophile rings from Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam) to Beijing, China. In all cases so far, our team discovered that these frontline pedophiles supply children for sexual services to VIPs traveling in Asia, including diplomats from the highest levels of the White House and State Department, top executives of major corporations, and heads of universities and aid agencies. Nearly all the patrons involved in this cruel pastime have backgrounds in US intelligence ­ the CIA, NSA or State Department intelligence. The individuals are from diverse religious backgrounds ­ Catholic, Jewish and Orthodox - while the core facilitators are often priests with Jesuit order, and to a lesser degree Franciscans and Benedictines. At an orphanage in Cambodia, it took three years for our multinational team ­ against death threats from armed policemen and undisguised hostility from NGOs ­ to realize the expulsion of a pedophile coven, which included a former US ambassador to the United Nations, the celebrated head of a new media program at an Ivy League campus and a renowned correspondent based at the Tokyo American Club. When the police shut down their strong-encryption computer center and satellite uplink, used for sweetheart messaging and exporting child-porn videos, the American pedophiles stripped out all the programs, rendering a room of Apple computers inoperable. Later, at a celebration for the ''liberation'' of the orphans from the grip of these abusive men and their compliant wives, the teachers told me that the average age of the boys and girls who had been invited to sleep over at weekend parties was ''10 years old.'' One member of our team who resided in Cambodia suffered an ''accident'' in a cowardly act of retaliation by that viscous coven ­ with all the fingers on both hands broken and bleeding from his ears as he lay unconscious along a highway. It's taken our brave friend three years to regain his formidable intellectual powers as a former political speechwriter. I use the term ''coven'' because these predators work as families ­ parents, children and grandchildren ­ indoctrinated from infancy that inflicting trauma on helpless children is life's greatest pleasure. Pedophilia is a psychiatric illness that is spreading worldwide because the globalist elite, much like a deranged fraternity from hazing hell, use it to control their peers and underlings through the commission of shameful and often lethal crimes. The photos are enough to prevent defection, informing to the police or sending leaks to the media. The American power elite's predilection for young boys has always been a privilege as shown in past scandals involving White House pages. One of the first postwar American ambassadors to Tokyo was a voracious pursuer of teenage boys inside gay bath houses frequented by rightwing Japanese militarists, the very same war criminals who had committed unspeakable atrocities against civilians ­ for example converting Christian boys schools into male brothels. The shared lust of the former soldiers from both sides corrupted and ultimately reversed the attempt by a victorious Allied Supreme Command to transform Japan into a peaceful democracy. Authoritarian perversion remains in command. In recent years with the rise of Internet file-sharing, a major shift in pedophile profiles has appeared in the increasingly lower age of pedophiles. It is shocking that college-age men, who should be involved in same-age affairs (with either sex ­ we are not being judgmental about preference) are instead eager to abduct kids who are barely out of infancy and videotape brutal rape scenes to share with their online fellows. Today, young men of college age serve as procurers, pimps and producers of child porn for their sugar daddies. These younger pedophiles, at least while in Asia, are often studying abroad on US government fellowships, CIA grants or working for Soros-funded NGOs. In Beijing, I had a verbal sparring match with a young American video producer who was making a documentary on child abductions by Chinese adoption rings. He had no intention of saving kids from these criminals, since his stated ambition was to launch a pornography industry in China. This was the son of a leading faculty member at a Connecticut prep school, which sponsors troubled boys and prepares them for a life of male prostitution with dormitory screenings of videos showing the gang rape of preteen girls ­ with the knowledge and sometimes approval of teachers, according to testimony submitted to court. After first being a victim of sexual assault and then acting as a perpetrator against younger boys or girls, many of these young men develop passive-aggressive personalities. When challenged, they tend react with suppressed rage under a blank expression and then get their revenge with a strange prank against their accusers. Many women might nod in agreement that men are awful creatures, but from our experience in Southeast Asia, there are also many female predators. On an early-morning visit to a Peace Corps camp on the Laotian border, a friend in the U.S. Army was stunned to discover that every American women ­ all graduates of elite East Coast colleges ­ was asleep with a 12-to-14 girl tucked inside her bed. Americans are not alone in this sickness of mind and body ­ Europeans, Australians and Japanese are among the notorious child molesters. Sexual domination of weaker individuals, especially children who cannot defend their rights, is a hallmark of imperialism. There is one more element involved in the pedophile industry: the organized crime groups that finance the purchase or kidnapping of children. These gangsters are not just low-life elements but also include professional gangsters - ''businessmen'' with connections to politicians and bankers. A point that needs mentioning is that during youth, I spent a summer at a prep school in Connecticut on a National Science Foundation program ­ but it had nothing to do with MK-ULTRA. Mind Control in Connecticut: Catcher in the Rye In 1942, at the start of World War II, the Jesuit order opened Fairfield University in southern Connecticut. The new Catholic college was erected on the country estate of Brewster Jennings, then chairman of the Socony Mobil Oil Company, which after a series of mergers became ExxonMobil. After serving as a naval officer in World War I, the Hartford-born oil executive graduated from Yale and became closely associated with the OSS and CIA. He founded the Avalon Foundation, since renamed the Mellon Foundation, which has funded pacification programs inside American society. (Outed spy Valerie Plame worked under cover at the Brewster Jennings ''brass plate'' company, which acted as the CIA's counter-proliferation department.) Although the information remains classified, it had to be OSS chief Bill Donovan who prompted the formation of Fairfield University as an intelligence training center for potential CIA recruits vetted from the elite preparatory schools in Connecticut. During the war in Europe, a noncommissioned office of Russian Jewish descent assigned to U.S. Defense Intelligence worked on Operation Paperclip (the transport of Nazi scientists to U.S. laboratories) and Project Artichoke (smuggling German Jews into Palestine in support of a Zionist state). His name was J.D. ''Jerry'' Salinger. Later, he served in the Counter-Intelligence Corps, debriefing and reassigning Nazi officers, including those who had conducted psychiatric experiments on prisoners of war. At war's end, Salinger lived in Tarrytown, New York, but was soon ordered to move across the state border to Stamford, Connecticut, close to Fairfield University. He resided in a converted barn, out of public view, presumably to continue his special area of intelligence work, the field testing of the MK-ULTRA methods refined by the sadistically clinical Dr. Sidney Gottlieb (the pseudonym of Joseph Schieder), who ran the main mind-control lab at Jesuit-run Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., which is also a finishing school for diplomats in the State Department. In the Connecticut countryside during his ''lost years'', Salinger penned ''The Catcher in the Rye'', which contains the command code-words for MK-ULTRA assassins. The protagonist Holden Caulfield is a study of a paranoiac passive-aggressive character, whose favorite expression is: ''You're killing me.'' CIA Partners with Organized Crime in New England Around 1950, while Salinger was in Stamford, the CIA recruited a South Boston convict nicknamed ''Whitey'' Bulger to supply young runaways for mind-control experiments under the fast-expanding MK-ULTRA programs being set up at 44 universities across the United States. The centers for the New England drug experiments were probably the Whiting Forensic Facility at the Connecticut Valley Hospital in Middleford, Connecticut, and Bridgewater Hospital in Massachusetts, the region's psychiatric facilities for the criminally insane. With CIA backing, Bulger built up his Winter Hill Gang, composed mainly of Irishmen, who strong-armed their way to control over the Boston's gambling scene and drug trafficking. While little is known about the political activities of the Bulger gang, its rise to crime dominance coincided with the expansion of weapons smuggling into Northern Ireland in support of the IRA. A parallel cross-Atlantic traffic in drugs (and illegal immigration in the reverse direction) began at the same time. The predominantly Irish political machine of Boston ­ from the Prohibition Era smuggling tycoon Joseph Kennedy Sr, to House Majority Leader Tip O'Neill ­ gave their blessings to the flourishing organized crime network and voiced support for the patriotic IRA ''freedom fighters,'' who returned the favor to Washington with murderous attacks on American-loathing British figures such as Lord Montbatten. Connecticut, under control of the Patriciarca crime family, was off-limits to Bulger. The day-to-day operations of the Sicilian immigrants were run by Bill Grasso, head of the clan that later produced Connecticut's first female governor. Starting in the 1980s, the DOJ, FBI and CIA launched an all-out war against the Patriciarca mob ­ in order to install their puppet Whitey Bulger as crime boss of New England. FBI agent John Connelly took credit for infiltrating and busting up the Patriarca clan, but later he was exposed as a mole for Bulger. By the early 1990s, Bulger set up his Jai Alai Associates, a betting syndicate based in Connecticut and Florida. Finally, all of New England was safe for CIA smuggling, support for terrorism, money-laundering and mind-control operations. In 2011, Bulger made headlines with his arrest in Malibu, California, where he had lived for more than a decade ''undetected'' despite being on the FBI ''most wanted'' list - on a long vacation thanks to his relationship with the CIA. If there was one point of irritation, however, between the Irish mobster and his controllers, it was his opposition to drug use by teenagers. After seeing first-hand how MK-ULTRA had destroyed the minds of his young recruits, Bulger ordered his gang members never to sell drugs to teenagers. Even a ruthless mobster has more decency that the self-styled ''patriots'' who run the intelligence services. Child Porn Hub for New York and Washington Whatever its genteel image of colonial homes and autumnal foliage, Connecticut has a sleazy underside embedded in its servant pool, welfare households and the chronic unemployed. Bridgeport, with its low-income Puerto Rican population, is a major center for prostitution and recruitment of prostitutes for VIP clients in New York and the nation's capital. The pedophile rings have a social-economic hierarchy ­ at the top are the VIP clients, then the intermediaries, often Catholic priests or social-services managers, further down the ladder the operatives ­ losers recruited from prep schools and college campuses - and finally the supply itself - money-hungry willing parents and the unwillingly abducted children. Newtown, like Fairfield and Stamford, is part of the Diocese of Bridgeport, which got into legal trouble in 2001 due to lawsuits by 23 victims of pedophilia committed by priests. Bishop Edward Egan, then diocese head, was a protector of sexual offender priests, sending them to other areas when parental complaints reached the ears of the police. After the plaintiffs won an out-of-court settlement, the Diocese petitioned the US Supreme Court to quash the thousands of documents detailing the beastly sex crimes. In 2009 Opus Dei honcho Justice Antonin Scalia determined that the court records should not be made public. In this past year's pedophile scandal at Penn State, another Opus Dei leader, former FBI director Louis Freeh, was hired as a consultant by the Nittany Lions football team. His whitewash report put most of the blame on head coach Joe Paterno, while suppressing the names and backgrounds of the wealthy and powerful boosters who were provided sexual services from the young football players. In Connecticut, the Vatican had an interest in wiping the slate clean, and so did the CIA. The clean slate turned out to be a bloody mess. Agency-Spawned Pedophiles The MK-ULTRA program that reached into campuses across Connecticut quickly created a human garbage heap of wrecked minds and twisted souls. The child abuse and drugs routinely administered to young trainees led to a permanent social fixture of sadism and sexual abuse throughout New England from the gutter up to the governing class. In 2011, a Newtown resident named Edwin Wilson was arrested for having a months-long sexual relationship with a 4-year-old girl and producing child-porn videos of their sexual encounters. The arrest was a part of a wide crackdown order the state attorney general, Richard Blumenthal ­ which boosted his successful campaign in the U.S. Senate race. Other cases included: a 24-year-old Hispanic male in Hartford who shot videos of sex with a pre-teen girl; a DJ in Plainfield arraigned on similar charges, an older theater and film teacher accused of using Taft school's equipment to make kiddie porn ­ the list goes on in sickening detail. Fairfield University, where MK-ULTRA was implanted into New England, recently saw two staffers implicated in the rape of 23 Haitian boys during the earthquake relief effort. Adam Lanza fits the profile of a pedophile-ring recruit ­ young enough to approach children at the local schools and in the churches, possessing the computer skills to produce child-porn videos and typically passive-aggressive in personality. The Lanzas attended the Saint Rosa of Lima Church, where eight child parishioners were among the shooting victims. Santa Rosa is the very same order that sponsors the western-state hospital that employed Michael Jackson's physician Dr. Conrad Murray. As in the case of Jackson's Neverland, after a child-sex experiment blossoms, it must be shut down. The Lone Gun-Boy Theory Nancy Lanza kept an arsenal of firearms, and ordered her son to be constantly under watch by older boys. She must have had good reason for being armed to the teeth. Judging from her hoard of rifles and hand guns, she was expecting an all-out assault from a coven of pedophiles, not an attack by a single shooter. The lone gun-boy theory is sheer nonsense ­ her son may have been an accomplice in giving the assailants access to his home but ended up murdered as a patsy. The coven is larger and more powerful than Mrs. Lanza could ever have imagined. Sexual violation is the key to creating intelligence agents and assassins who are impervious to reason and mercy, lacking any original thoughts or moral qualms. Plus a supply of children is needed in Congress and the White House to entertain the satraps and moguls from Colombian drug lords to Israeli weapons dealers and French money launderers, not to mention America's own homegrown pervs. The Motive: Payback for a Double-Cross If the culprits had been Adam Lanza and his pals, then their response to grounding would have been something like posting photos and address of naked children. The method of the shooting ­ point-blank execution-style gun shots ­ indicate that the assailants were professional hit men, probably allied with the Winter Hill Gang. The Sandy Hook assault happened probably because of a split between competing institutions and diverging policies. On one hand, the gangland figures who cooperated with CIA mind-control program that promoted child-sex as a means of ensuring obedience and secrecy were being challenged by politicians playing up parental demands to clean up the scandalous child-sex problem in Connecticut. The dirty FBI agent John Connelly was more of a double agent and go-between for the Feds and not simply a Winter Hill mole as portraying at his sentencing. The arrest of Whitey Bulger was a pure-and-simple double-cross by the FBI and CIA, who had used him as an ally in MK-ULTRA and informant for more than a half-century. In his ambitious drive to win a U.S. senatorial seat, state attorney general and now Senator Blumenthal broke the basic rules of mob cooperation. And now that has led to a war on the streets and in the schools. Unlike the Sicilian crime families who went down easy, the fighting Irish criminals can be counted on to put up a street battle with the same flair as in the movie ''The Gangs of New York.'' The gangsters have no shortage of allies in the pimps, drug dealers, pedophiles, punks and deranged freaks who have been caught up in the sudden dragnet. The police are outnumbered and easily outgunned. It's happened before, as in Fort Apache in the South Bronx. Sandy Hook is just the first installment of a payback. If the Feds push any harder, then Bridgeport and Boston will soon be looking like Belfast during the troubles or Beirut in the bad old days. Stop Drugging the Kids The mass media is under pressure to cover up the incident with sympathetic blather instead of a sustained probe. Forensic evidence is being literally buried. America is moving on ­ where to, nobody knows. The politicians and cops are now silent and glum. Relying on arrests and wiretapping, they have forgotten that the fight against crime begins with addressing social justice, economic fairness and education ­ and in some unfortunate cases, psychiatric care. Was a Senate seat worth the lives of all those children and teachers? Blumenthal, who paints himself as a clone of the erstwhile New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, will have to live with that question for the remainder of his life. Is the CIA satisfied that its mind-control techniques that have created hordes of homicidal monsters from Iraq to Libya and now Connecticut? The lesson of Sandy Hook is that mind-control cannot itself be controlled. Programmed killers are like robots without power-off switches. The process of transforming innocent children into robots through sexual abuse is inhumane and a crime. Whatever MK-ULTRA is called today - since we know it still exists after seeing the Abu Ghraib Prison photos - it must be shut down forever or the murderous nightmare will go on and on. And mind-altering drugs are not just for sinister purposes, since at least 60 percent of U.S. children are on a pharmaceutical dosages long before they can learn how to think. Even parents act as mind-controllers against their own kids. Now, with the investigation terminated, comes the diversionary exercise of ''gun control'', a national effort led by Joe Biden, a member of the Knights of Malta, a politician with an intelligence background who is sworn to protect the interests of the Vatican. Say it ain't so, Joe. Leave intact the right of armed self-defense or the gangsters will take over everything, but get rid of the drugs and end the mind control ­ and America will be a safer place, especially for its children. Yoichi Shimatsu, a science writer based in Hong Kong, provides herbal therapy and health counseling to the victims of the Fukushima radiation crisis.
aangirfan: ADAM LANZA AND CIA PEDOPHILE RINGS
  Link to Article
  Fri, 21 Dec 2012 14:08
  Was Adam Lanza drugged and brainwashed by the CIA?"Adam Lanza fits the profile of a pedophile-ring recruit­ young enough to approach children at the local schools and in the churches, possessing the computer skills to produce child-porn videos and typically passive-aggressive in personality."
  "The Lanzas attended the Saint Rosa of Lima Church, where eight child parishioners were among the shooting victims.
  "Santa Rosa is the very same order that sponsors the western-state hospital that employed Michael Jackson's physician Dr. Conrad Murray. "As in the case of Jackson's Neverland, after a child-sex experiment blossoms, it must be shut down."Richard Blumenthal, US senator from Connecticut, has campaigned for a crackdown on the child sex trade.Blumenthal hails passage of Child Protection Act of 2012
  "The Sandy Hook assault happened probably because of a split between the CIA's gangland figures and politicians playing up parental demands to clean up the scandalous child-sex problem in Connecticut."Fairfield UniversityAccording to Yoichi Shimatsu:MK-ULTRA Links To the Sandy Hook Assault - RenseThe Jesuit order opened Fairfield University in Connecticut on the country estate of oil executive Brewster Jennings.Brewster Jennings became closely associated with the CIA.
  Fairfield University reportedly recruited people for the CIA.
  J D Salinger, of Russian Jewish descent, worked for US intelligence and was involved in bringing Nazi scientists into the USA.
  Salinger lived near Fairfield University in Connecticut.
  Gottlieb
  Dr. Sidney Gottlieb (the pseudonym of Joseph Schieder) ran the main mind-control (MK ULTRA) lab at Jesuit-run Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.
  In Connecticut, Salinger wrote The Catcher in the Rye, "which contains the command code-words for MK-ULTRA assassins."
  Bulger
  The CIA recruited a convict nicknamed 'Whitey' Bulger to supply young runaways for the mind-control experiments, being set up at 44 universities across the United States.
  The CIA and FBI put Bulger in charge of organising crime in Connecticut and the rest of new England.
  "Finally, all of New England was safe for CIA smuggling, support for terrorism, money-laundering and mind-control operations."
  Newtown is part of the Diocese of Bridgeport.
  Bridgeport supplies child prostitutes for VIP clients in New York and Washington.
  The pedophile rings get children from Catholic priests, social-services managers and money-hungry willing parents.
  In Bridgeport, in 2001, the Diocese petitioned the US Supreme Court to quash the thousands of documents detailing sex crimes.
  In 2009 Opus Dei's Justice Antonin Scalia determined that the court records should not be made public.
  "The MK-ULTRA program that reached into campuses across Connecticut quickly created... wrecked minds and twisted souls."
  Dunblane - linked to top pedophile ring
  In 2011, a Newtown resident named Edwin Wilson was arrested for having a months-long sexual relationship with a 4-year-old girl and producing child-porn videos of their sexual encounters. Other cases included: a 24-year-old Hispanic male in Hartford who shot videos of sex with a pre-teen girl; a DJ in Plainfield arraigned on similar charges, an older theater and film teacher accused of using Taft school's equipment to make kiddie porn...Fairfield University recently saw two staffers implicated in the rape of 23 Haitian boys during the earthquake relief effort.
  "Sexual violation is the key to creating intelligence agents and assassins .... Plus a supply of children is needed in Congress and the White House to entertain the satraps and moguls from Colombian drug lords to Israeli weapons dealers and French money launderers, not to mention America's own homegrown pervs."
  The shootings at Sandy Hook were most likely the work of professional hit men, probably allied with Bulger's Winter Hill Gang.
  Bulger was arrested in 2011.
  "In his ambitious drive to win a U.S. senatorial seat, state attorney general and now Senator Blumenthal broke the basic rules of mob cooperation."
  The Sandy Hook assault happened probably because of a split between the CIA's gangland figures and politicians playing up parental demands to clean up the scandalous child-sex problem in Connecticut.
  ~~~
Why the US media ignored Murdoch's brazen bid to hijack the presidency | Carl Bernstein | Comment is free | The Guardian
  Link to Article
  Fri, 21 Dec 2012 13:14
  So now we have it: what appears to be hard, irrefutable evidence of Rupert Murdoch's ultimate and most audacious attempt '' thwarted, thankfully, by circumstance '' to hijack America's democratic institutions on a scale equal to his success in kidnapping and corrupting the essential democratic institutions of Great Britain through money, influence and wholesale abuse of the privileges of a free press.
  In the American instance, Murdoch's goal seems to have been nothing less than using his media empire '' notably Fox News '' to stealthily recruit, bankroll and support the presidential candidacy of General David Petraeus in the 2012 election.
  Thus in the spring of 2011 '' less than 10 weeks before Murdoch's centrality to the hacking and politician-buying scandal enveloping his British newspapers was definitively revealed '' Fox News' inventor and president, Roger Ailes, dispatched an emissary to Afghanistan to urge Petraeus to turn down President Obama's expected offer to become CIA director and, instead, run for the Republican nomination for president, with promises of being bankrolled by Murdoch. Ailes himself would resign as president of Fox News and run the campaign, according to the conversation between Petraeus and the emissary, K T McFarland, a Fox News on-air defense "analyst" and former spear carrier for national security principals in three Republican administrations.
  All this was revealed in a tape recording of Petraeus's meeting with McFarland obtained by Bob Woodward, whose account of their discussion, accompanied online by audio of the tape, was published in the Washington Post '' distressingly, in its style section, and not on page one, where it belonged '' and, under the style logo, online on December 3.
  Indeed, almost as dismaying as Ailes' and Murdoch's disdain for an independent and truly free and honest press, and as remarkable as the obsequious eagerness of their messenger to convey their extraordinary presidential draft and promise of on-air Fox support to Petraeus, has been the ho-hum response to the story by the American press and the country's political establishment, whether out of fear of Murdoch, Ailes and Fox '' or, perhaps, lack of surprise at Murdoch's, Ailes' and Fox's contempt for decent journalistic values or a transparent electoral process.
  The tone of the media's reaction was set from the beginning by the Post's own tin-eared treatment of this huge story: relegating it, like any other juicy tidbit of inside-the-beltway media gossip, to the section of the newspaper and its website that focuses on entertainment, gossip, cultural and personality-driven news, instead of the front page.
  "Bob had a great scoop, a buzzy media story that made it perfect for Style. It didn't have the broader import that would justify A1," Liz Spayd, the Post's managing editor, told Politico when asked why the story appeared in the style section.
  Buzzy media story? Lacking the "broader import" of a front-page story? One cannot imagine such a failure of news judgment among any of Spayd's modern predecessors as managing editors of the Post, especially in the clear light of the next day and with a tape recording '' of the highest audio quality '' in hand.
  "Tell [Ailes] if I ever ran," Petraeus announces on the crystal-clear digital recording and then laughs, "but I won't '... but if I ever ran, I'd take him up on his offer. '... He said he would quit Fox '... and bankroll it."
  McFarland clarified the terms: "The big boss is bankrolling it. Roger's going to run it. And the rest of us are going to be your in-house" '' thereby confirming what Fox New critics have consistently maintained about the network's faux-news agenda and its built-in ideological bias.
  And here let us posit the following: were an emissary of the president of NBC News, or of the editor of the New York Times or the Washington Post ever caught on tape promising what Ailes and Murdoch had apparently suggested and offered here, the hue and cry, especially from Fox News and Republican/Tea Party America, from the Congress to the US Chamber of Commerce to the Heritage Foundation, would be deafening and not be subdued until there was a congressional investigation, and the resignations were in hand of the editor and publisher of the network or newspaper. Or until there had been plausible and convincing evidence that the most important elements of the story were false. And, of course, the story would continue day after day on page one and remain near the top of the evening news for weeks, until every ounce of (justifiable) piety about freedom of the press and unfettered presidential elections had been exhausted.
  The tape of Petraeus and McFarland's conversation is an amazing document, a testament to the willingness of Murdoch and the wily genius he hired to create Fox News to run roughshod over the American civic and political landscape without regard to even the traditional niceties or pretenses of journalistic independence and honesty. Like the revelations of the hacking scandal, which established beyond any doubt Murdoch's ability to capture and corrupt the three essential elements of the British civic compact '' the press, politicians and police '' the Ailes/Petraeus tape makes clear that Murdoch's goals in America have always been just as ambitious, insidious and nefarious.
  The digital recording, and the dead-serious conspiratorial conversation it captures so chillingly in tone and substance ("I'm only reporting this back to Roger. And that's our deal," McFarland assured Petraeus as she unfolded the offer) utterly refutes Ailes' disingenuous dismissal of what he and Murdoch were actually attempting: the buying of the presidency.
  "It was more of a joke, a wiseass way I have," Ailes would later claim while nonetheless confirming its meaning. "I thought the Republican field [in the primaries] needed to be shaken up and Petraeus might be a good candidate."
  The recording deserves to be heard by any open-minded person trying to fathom its meaning to the fullest.
  Murdoch and Ailes have erected an incredibly influential media empire that has unrivaled power in British and American culture: rather than judiciously exercising that power or improving reportorial and journalistic standards with their huge resources, they have, more often than not, recklessly pursued an agenda of sensationalism, manufactured controversy, ideological messianism, and political influence-buying while masquerading as exemplars of a free and responsible press. The tape is powerful evidence of their methodology and reach.
  The Murdoch story '' his corruption of essential democratic institutions on both sides of the Atlantic '' is one of the most important and far-reaching political/cultural stories of the past 30 years, an ongoing tale without equal. Like Richard Nixon and his tapes, much attention has been focused on the necessity of finding the smoking gun to confirm what other evidence had already established beyond a doubt: that the elemental instruments of democracy, ie the presidency in Nixon's case, and the privileges of free press in Murdoch's, were grievously misused and abused for their own ends by those entrusted to use great power for the common good.
  In Nixon's case, the system worked. His actions were investigated by Congress, the judicial system held that even the president of the United States was not above the law, and he was forced to resign or face certain impeachment and conviction. American and British democracy has not been so fortunate with Murdoch, whose power and corruption went unchecked for a third of a century.
  The most important thing we journalists do is make judgments about what is news. Perhaps no story has eluded us on a daily basis (for lack of trying) for so many years as the story of Murdoch's destructive march across our democratic landscape. Only the Guardian vigorously pursued the leads of the hacking story and methodically stuck with it for months and years, never ignoring the underlying context of how Rupert Murdoch conducted his take-no-prisoners business and journalism without regard for the most elemental standards of fairness, accuracy or balance, or even lawful conduct.
  When the Guardian's hacking coverage reached critical mass last year, I quoted a former top Murdoch deputy as follows: "This scandal and all its implications could not have happened anywhere else. Only in Murdoch's orbit. The hacking at News of the World was done on an industrial scale. More than anyone, Murdoch invented and established this culture in the newsroom, where you do whatever it takes to get the story, take no prisoners, destroy the competition, and the end will justify the means."
  The tape that Bob Woodward obtained, and which the Washington Post ran in the style section, should be the denouement of the Murdoch story on both sides of the Atlantic, making clear that no institution, not even the presidency of the United States, was beyond the object of his subversion. If Murdoch had bankrolled a successful Petraeus presidential campaign and '' as his emissary McFarland promised '' "the rest of us [at Fox] are going to be your in-house" '' Murdoch arguably might have sewn up the institutions of American democracy even more securely than his British tailoring.
  Happily, Petraeus was not hungering for the presidency at the moment of the messenger's arrival: the general was contented at the idea of being CIA director, which Ailes was urging him to forgo.
  "We're all set," said the emissary, referring to Ailes, Murdoch and Fox. "It's never going to happen," Petraeus said. "You know it's never going to happen. It really isn't. '... My wife would divorce me."
Obama: Sandy Hook shooting reminds us of big struggles, such as climate change | WashingtonExaminer.com
  Link to Article
  Fri, 21 Dec 2012 10:00
  President Obama may have a gun control agenda in the wake of the Sandy Hook shootings, but it's not distracting him entirely from his other policy ambitions, such as climate change negotiations.
  Obama thanked the Diplomatic Corps for the support offered by their home nations after the Sandy Hook shooting, before rallying the ambassadors to unite against other struggles, such as climate change.
  ''[W]hen you think about the last few days, you're reminded that there's a fundamental human response that transcends cultures and transcends borders,'' Obama said last night. ''And that's what is represented in this room,'' he added recalling the foreign policy efforts of his first term.
  ''At the same time, we're mindful that we've got so much more work to do together,'' the president continued, noting ongoing threats from terrorists, among other issues. ''And all of us have to be concerned about a changing climate that could have a profound impact on every single country here.''
  Here's the full speech:
  THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. (Applause.) Well, good evening, everyone. It is wonderful to see all of you.
  I want to publicly thank Deputy Secretary Bill Burns. For those of you who don't know, Bill is only the second career diplomat in American history to rise to the level of Deputy Secretary. (Applause.) It is a tribute to Bill's extraordinary skills. I first met him when I was a new senator, and I traveled to Moscow. And he was then the ambassador in Moscow, and he immediately impressed me. One of these guys who doesn't speak loud, but actually has something to say. (Laughter.) Which is hard to find in Washington. (Laughter.) In Washington you have a lot of folks who speak loud and have nothing to say. (Laughter.)
  And so we're thrilled obviously with the work that he has done, but Bill I think is representative of our incredible Foreign Service officers. So thanks not only to Bill, but to all the outstanding State Department personnel who are working every day, often at great risk, to advance our interests and our ideals around the world.
  Had Secretary Clinton been able to join us, I was going to congratulate her on her record-breaking travels, visiting 112 nations, just about every one of the countries that are represented here this evening '-- more than 400 travel days; nearly 1 million miles. These are not frequent flyer miles. (Laughter.) She does not get discounts. I suspect she's not going to be flying commercial that much after she leaves the State Department. But she is tireless and extraordinary.
  I spoke with her this past week. We can't wait to have her back. And I know that all of you join me in sending her wishes for a speedy recovery.
  Now, we get together like this every year or so around the holidays -'-- either here or at the White House. It's a chance for me to express my appreciation for the cooperation and partnership between our countries. That includes the hospitality that you and your fellow citizens show every single day to our diplomats and their families -'-- Americans who are serving far from home.
  But tonight, I also want to thank you for something else. This obviously continues to be a very difficult week here in America. We're still grieving and reeling from unspeakable violence that took place in Newtown. I was up there on Sunday. I told the families there that they are not alone; that our entire nation stands with them. But over the past few days what we've also seen is that the entire world stands with them; and so many of your countries, your citizens, your leaders have sent messages to them. And I know they are grateful and certainly I am grateful.
  At our embassies and consulates, people are placing flowers and leaving notes. We've seen candlelight vigils, and makeshift memorials -'-- including a beach in Brazil marked by 26 crosses and a bright American flag. Across the globe, people are going online and posting messages and sending emails and texts of support. I think of the woman, a teacher in Lithuania, who said, ''I send all my love and prayers to the families. It's all I can do from so far away, but my heart is now in Newtown.''
  So this evening, I want you and your fellow citizens back home to know how much this has meant to all of us -'-- to the good people of Newtown, to me, and to the American people. You've stood with us, just as we've stood with you in similar moments -'--whether it's been a Scottish village, an Australian town, most recently the terrible tragedy at a youth camp in Norway.
  Whether it's a tsunami that strikes, or an earthquake that levels communities, or when a young girl is targeted and nearly killed, just for wanting to go to school, we're reminded that terrible things happen in this world, but there are more people of goodwill than people of ill will. And that if we can just remind ourselves of our common humanity, perhaps we can make progress.
  These are moments that pierce through all the noise of our daily lives. And they speak to a larger truth that permeates our work together. You turn on the TV, you open the newspaper, and every day it seems we're bombarded with images of tension and conflict and division and differences. And that sometimes seems to validate those who believe that civilizations are destined to clash.
  But when you think about the last few days, you're reminded that there's a fundamental human response that transcends cultures and transcends borders. And that's what is represented in this room. You look around the room and we reflect this vast tapestry of human experience '-- people from every continent and every culture; North, South, East and West; from all the great faiths, every creed and color; men and women. And we're reminded that whatever differences on the surface, deep down we're bound by a certain set of basic aspirations.
  We want our children to be safe and free from fear. We want people to live in dignity and prosperity, free from want. We want people to be free to think for themselves, and speak their minds and pray as they choose. We want them to surpass or do a little bit better than we did. That's what we want for our children. That's why we're here '-- to serve them to do everything in our power to leave our children, and the next generation a better, safer world.
  And that's why, over the past four years, we've worked together, wherever we can, with your nations in a new era of engagement, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. Strengthening alliances. Forging new partnerships. Confronting the spread of nuclear weapons. Promoting open government, global health and food security, and fighting human trafficking. Ending one war in Iraq. Winding down another war in Afghanistan. Going after terrorist networks that threaten all of our people. Standing up for self-determination and freedom '-- from South Sudan to the Arab Spring to Burma. (Applause.)
  At the same time, we're mindful that we've got so much more work to do together. There still are wars to end. There are still democratic transitions to sustain. Violent extremism remains out there and has to be confronted and deadly weapons still have to be contained. We have to work to ease tensions between nations and uphold human rights. There are still political prisoners that need to be freed and children that deserve a better education. And all of us have to be concerned about a changing climate that could have a profound impact on every single country here.
  This must be our work. And I'm here to say tonight that this spirit of partnership with your nations that defined my first term will remain a core principle of my second term. That's my commitment. That is America's commitment. And that, I think, is one of the ways we can honor all these beautiful children and incredible teachers who were lost this past Friday '-- by building a future that is equal to their dreams, and delivers on the dreams of children all around the world just like them.
  So as we gather this holiday season and look ahead to the New Year, I'd leave you with a simple message, a wish: In the face of violence, let's seek peace. In the face of injustice, let's strive for dignity. In the face of oppression, let's stand for liberty. And in the face of suspicion and mistrust, let's build the empathy and understanding. Let's understand that we need to live together '-- as nations and as peoples and as brothers and sisters, as children of a loving God. I hope all of you have a wonderful holiday season and I look forward to seeing you in the New Year.
  God bless you. God bless America.
Remarks at Holiday Reception for the Diplomatic Corps
  Link to Article
  Fri, 21 Dec 2012 10:00
  DEPUTY SECRETARY BURNS: Good evening. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Ben Franklin Room. Thank you all very much for coming, and thanks especially to James Taylor for joining us earlier. Secretary Clinton is truly sorry that she's unable to be here this evening.ãI've been in this business long enough to know that you never want to stand for too long between an audience and the President of the United States '' (laughter) '' so I will be very brief.ã
  We approach the end of this year with gratitude, some sorrow, and hope '' gratitude for our collective progress in advancing international cooperation and the dignity and universal rights that people across the world so deeply deserve; sorrow for our losses, including those here at home; and hope for the coming year.
  I know the Secretary would want me to extend to each of you her best wishes for the holidays and her heartfelt thanks for the friendship, collegiality, and skill of a Washington Diplomatic Corps that remains as fine a collection of diplomats as there is anywhere in the world.ã
  And now it is my great honor to introduce the President of the United States of America, Barack Obama. (Applause.)
  THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. (Applause.) Well, good evening, everyone. It is wonderful to see all of you.
  I want to publicly thank Deputy Secretary Bill Burns. For those of you who don't know, Bill is only the second career diplomat in American history to rise to the level of Deputy Secretary. (Applause.) It is a tribute to Bill's extraordinary skills. I first met him when I was a new senator, and I traveled to Moscow. And he was then the ambassador in Moscow, and he immediately impressed me. One of these guys who doesn't speak loud, but actually has something to say. (Laughter.) Which is hard to find in Washington. (Laughter.) In Washington you have a lot of folks who speak loud and have nothing to say. (Laughter.)
  And so we're thrilled obviously with the work that he has done, but Bill I think is representative of our incredible Foreign Service officers. So thanks not only to Bill, but to all the outstanding State Department personnel who are working every day, often at great risk, to advance our interests and our ideals around the world.
  Had Secretary Clinton been able to join us, I was going to congratulate her on her record-breaking travels, visiting 112 nations, just about every one of the countries that are represented here this evening -- more than 400 travel days; nearly 1 million miles. These are not frequent flyer miles. (Laughter.) She does not get discounts. I suspect she's not going to be flying commercial that much after she leaves the State Department. But she is tireless and extraordinary.
  I spoke with her this past week. We can't wait to have her back. And I know that all of you join me in sending her wishes for a speedy recovery.
  Now, we get together like this every year or so around the holidays -'-- either here or at the White House. It's a chance for me to express my appreciation for the cooperation and partnership between our countries. That includes the hospitality that you and your fellow citizens show every single day to our diplomats and their families -'-- Americans who are serving far from home.
  But tonight, I also want to thank you for something else. This obviously continues to be a very difficult week here in America. We're still grieving and reeling from unspeakable violence that took place in Newtown. I was up there on Sunday. I told the families there that they are not alone; that our entire nation stands with them. But over the past few days what we've also seen is that the entire world stands with them; and so many of your countries, your citizens, your leaders have sent messages to them. And I know they are grateful and certainly I am grateful.
  At our embassies and consulates, people are placing flowers and leaving notes. We've seen candlelight vigils, and makeshift memorials -'-- including a beach in Brazil marked by 26 crosses and a bright American flag. Across the globe, people are going online and posting messages and sending emails and texts of support. I think of the woman, a teacher in Lithuania, who said, ''I send all my love and prayers to the families. It's all I can do from so far away, but my heart is now in Newtown.''
  So this evening, I want you and your fellow citizens back home to know how much this has meant to all of us -'-- to the good people of Newtown, to me, and to the American people. You've stood with us, just as we've stood with you in similar moments -'--whether it's been a Scottish village, an Australian town, most recently the terrible tragedy at a youth camp in Norway.
  Whether it's a tsunami that strikes, or an earthquake that levels communities, or when a young girl is targeted and nearly killed, just for wanting to go to school, we're reminded that terrible things happen in this world, but there are more people of goodwill than people of ill will. And that if we can just remind ourselves of our common humanity, perhaps we can make progress.
  These are moments that pierce through all the noise of our daily lives. And they speak to a larger truth that permeates our work together. You turn on the TV, you open the newspaper, and every day it seems we're bombarded with images of tension and conflict and division and differences. And that sometimes seems to validate those who believe that civilizations are destined to clash.
  But when you think about the last few days, you're reminded that there's a fundamental human response that transcends cultures and transcends borders. And that's what is represented in this room. You look around the room and we reflect this vast tapestry of human experience -- people from every continent and every culture; North, South, East, and West; from all the great faiths, every creed and color; men and women. And we're reminded that whatever differences on the surface, deep down we're bound by a certain set of basic aspirations.
  We want our children to be safe and free from fear. We want people to live in dignity and prosperity, free from want. We want people to be free to think for themselves, and speak their minds and pray as they choose. We want them to surpass or do a little bit better than we did. That's what we want for our children. That's why we're here -- to serve them to do everything in our power to leave our children, and the next generation a better, safer world.
  And that's why, over the past four years, we've worked together, wherever we can, with your nations in a new era of engagement, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. Strengthening alliances. Forging new partnerships. Confronting the spread of nuclear weapons. Promoting open government, global health and food security, and fighting human trafficking. Ending one war in Iraq. Winding down another war in Afghanistan. Going after terrorist networks that threaten all of our people. Standing up for self-determination and freedom -- from South Sudan to the Arab Spring to Burma. (Applause.)
  At the same time, we're mindful that we've got so much more work to do together. There still are wars to end. There are still democratic transitions to sustain. Violent extremism remains out there and has to be confronted and deadly weapons still have to be contained. We have to work to ease tensions between nations and uphold human rights. There are still political prisoners that need to be freed and children that deserve a better education. And all of us have to be concerned about a changing climate that could have a profound impact on every single country here.
  This must be our work. And I'm here to say tonight that this spirit of partnership with your nations that defined my first term will remain a core principle of my second term. That's my commitment. That is America's commitment. And that, I think, is one of the ways we can honor all these beautiful children and incredible teachers who were lost this past Friday -- by building a future that is equal to their dreams, and delivers on the dreams of children all around the world just like them.
  So as we gather this holiday season and look ahead to the New Year, I'd leave you with a simple message, a wish: In the face of violence, let's seek peace. In the face of injustice, let's strive for dignity. In the face of oppression, let's stand for liberty. And in the face of suspicion and mistrust, let's build the empathy and understanding. Let's understand that we need to live together -- as nations and as peoples and as brothers and sisters, as children of a loving God. I hope all of you have a wonderful holiday season and I look forward to seeing you in the New Year.
  God bless you. God bless America.
  END
Generalized System of Preferences - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  Link to Article
  Fri, 21 Dec 2012 09:58
  The Generalized System of Preferences, or GSP, is a formal system of exemption from the more general rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO), (formerly, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade or GATT). Specifically, it's a system of exemption from the most favored nation principle (MFN) that obliges WTO member countries to treat the imports of all other WTO member countries no worse than they treat the imports of their "most favored" trading partner. In essence, MFN requires WTO member countries to treat imports coming from all other WTO member countries equally, that is, by imposing equal tariffs on them, etc.
  GSP exempts WTO member countries from MFN for the purpose of lowering tariffs for the least developed countries, without also lowering tariffs for rich countries.
  [edit]HistoryThe idea of tariff preferences for developing countries was the subject of considerable discussion within the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTD) in the 1960s. Among other concerns, developing countries claimed that MFN was creating a disincentive for richer countries to reduce and eliminate tariffs and other trade restrictions with enough speed to benefit developing countries.
  In 1971, the GATT followed the lead of UNCTAD and enacted two waivers to the MFN that permitted tariff preferences to be granted to developing country goods. Both these waivers were limited in time to ten years. In 1979, the GATT established a permanent exemption to the MFN obligation by way of the enabling clause. This exemption allowed contracting parties to the GATT (the equivalent of today's WTO members) to establish systems of trade preferences for other countries, with the caveat that these systems had to be "generalized, non-discriminatory and non-reciprocal' with respect to the countries they benefited (so-called "beneficiary" countries). Countries were not supposed to set up GSP programs that benefited just a few of their "friends.'
  Since the early 1990s a historic change affecting developing countries has occurred within the WTO. Namely, WTO rules have been extended to cover both textiles and agricultural products. For nearly all of the WTO's (and GATT's) existence, which started in 1948, textiles and agricultural products were excluded from WTO/GATT coverage because they were so sensitive to GATT's primary promoters, the United States and Europe. That situation has changed, and under new WTO rules, many textile tariffs and quotas already have been eliminated, and liberalization of trade policy also is occurring on the complex agricultural front. In many cases, textiles and agricultural products, including value-added products like flour rather than raw agricultural goods like wheat, are the main products that many of the world's least developed countries are able to export competitively.
  [edit]EffectsFrom the perspective of developing countries as a group, GSP programs have been a mixed success. On one hand, most rich countries have complied with the obligation to generalize their programs by offering benefits to a large swath of beneficiaries, generally including nearly every non-OECD member state. Certainly, every GSP program imposes some restrictions. The United States, for instance, has excluded countries from GSP coverage for reasons such as being communist (Vietnam), being placed on the U.S. State Department's list of countries that support terrorism (Libya), and failing to respect U.S. intellectual property laws.[1]
  Criticism has been leveled noting that most GSP programs are not completely generalized with respect to products, and this is by design. That is, they don't cover products of greatest export interest to low-income developing countries lacking natural resources. In the United States and many other rich countries, domestic producers of "simple" manufactured goods, such as textiles, leather goods, ceramics, glass and steel, have long claimed that they could not compete with large quantities of imports. Thus, such products have been categorically excluded from GSP coverage under the U.S. and many other GSP programs. Critics assert that these excluded products are precisely the kinds of manufactures that most developing countries are able to export, the argument being that developing countries may not be able to efficiently produce things like locomotives or telecommunications satellites, but they can make shirts.
  Supporters note that even in the face of its limitations, it would not be accurate to conclude that GSP has failed to benefit developing countries, though some concede GSP has benefited developing countries unevenly. Some assert that, for most of its history, GSP has benefited "richer developing" countries - in early years Mexico, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia, more recently Brazil and India - while providing virtually no assistance to the world's least developed countries, such as Haiti, Nepal, and most countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The U.S., however, has closed some of these gaps through supplemental preference programs like the African Growth and Opportunity Act and a newer program for Haiti, and Europe has done the same with Everything But Arms.
  [edit]See also[edit]References[edit]External links
Presidential Message -- African Growth and Opportunity Act | The White House
  Link to Article
  Fri, 21 Dec 2012 09:57
  The White House
  Office of the Press Secretary
  For Immediate Release
  December 20, 2012
  TO THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES:
  In accordance with section 502(f)(2) of the Trade Act of 1974, as amended (the "1974 Act") (19 U.S.C. 2462(f)(2)), I am providing notification of my intent to terminate the designation of the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis (St. Kitts and Nevis) as a beneficiary developing country under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program. Section 502(e) of the 1974 Act (19 U.S.C. 2462(e)) provides that if the President determines that a beneficiary developing country has become a "high-income" country, as defined by the official statistics of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (i.e., the World Bank), then the President shall terminate the designation of such country as a beneficiary developing country for purposes of the GSP, effective on January 1 of the second year following the year in which such determination is made.
  Pursuant to section 502(e) of the 1974 Act, I have determined that it is appropriate to terminate the designation of St. Kitts and Nevis as a beneficiary developing country under the GSP program because it has become a high-income country as defined by the World Bank. Accordingly, St. Kitts and Nevis' eligibility for trade benefits under the GSP program will end on January 1, 2014.
  BARACK OBAMA
Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jay Carney, 12/20/2012
  Link to Article
  Source: White House.gov Press Office Feed
  Fri, 21 Dec 2012 09:54
  The White House
  Office of the Press Secretary
  For Immediate Release
  December 20, 2012
  James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
  12:53 P.M. EST
  MR. CARNEY: Let me just, if I may, begin by making a few observations that reviews where we are. On Monday, the President, as you know, put forward to Speaker of the House Boehner a compromise proposal that would achieve significant long-term deficit reduction for our country; that would protect the middle class, protect seniors, and help our economy continue to grow and create jobs.
  The difference between the proposal that the President put forward -- which, by every measure, demonstrates his willingness to come at least halfway to the Republicans -- and the proposal that Speaker Boehner had previously put forward was not that great. Unfortunately, the Speaker's response to that proposal thus far has been to walk away from it and to pursue what he called ''Plan B.''
  Plan B, which is the only thing the House of Representatives, the Republicans in the House, are focused on right now is a multi-day exercise in futility at a time when we do not have the luxury of exercises in futility. The Speaker and his lieutenants have spent days trying to twist arms and wrangle votes within their own conference. It's an exercise in Republican vote counting that will not result in anything for the American people. It cannot pass the Senate. The President would veto it if it got to his desk.
  Moreover, as I think you know, plan B represents -- or would represent a major step backward in these discussions and a major step backward for the American people. Its proposals would give, on average, a tax cut for millionaires and billionaires of $50,000 -- hardly what the American people thought they were getting as a result of the debates and the election.
  It would, in the name of protecting millionaires and billionaires, give people making between $200,000 and $500,000 a year, a $260 tax cut. So let's be clear: You're a millionaire or billionaire, you get John Boehner -- Speaker Boehner's plan, you get a $50,000 tax cut. If you're a wealthy American who makes between $200,000 and $500,000 a year, your reward for this exercise, if it were to become law, is a $260 tax cut. And of course, if you make less than that, you get less. And 25 million American families get a tax hike.
  This is not what the American people want. This is not what the American people are looking for. This is -- would be a giant step backward. And it's the wrong way to go.
  There is still an opportunity for compromise on a big deal, a deal that doesn't just resolve the so-called fiscal cliff, but reduces our deficits by, when taken together, $4 trillion over 10 years; that helps our economy grow and create jobs, put people back to work; that protects the middle class and seniors; that strengthens our entitlement programs. That's the deal the President put on the table. And again, by every measure, whether it's on revenue or spending cuts, it demonstrates his good-faith effort and his absolute factual willingness to come halfway towards the Republicans.
  And even if you were to say -- if you're the House Republicans and you simply have no capacity to reach a compromise on a big deal, there is a fallback that has been languishing in the House of Representatives that would extend tax cuts to 98 percent of the American people, and has been languishing there for months and months, would give tax cuts to everyone making under $250,000. It would not give a $50,000 tax cut to millionaires and billionaires. It would not stick it to 25 million working American families. Unfortunately, that's where we are at this moment. I'll take your questions.
  Mr. Feller.
  Q Thanks, Jay. A couple of topics. I'll start with where you started. We know that this bill if it passes the House is not going to be taken up by the Senate, according to Senator Reid. Is it possible -- I'm wondering what the President's next step here is. Is it possible for him to go to the Democrats in the Senate and just say, here's my plan -- you guys pass it and send it back?
  MR. CARNEY: Look, the President is not interested in, well, first of all, strategizing through the media. He is interested in resolving this in a way that's beneficial for the American people. There remains, even at this late date, an opportunity to do something big and good for the American people. But what we know about this exercise -- and we have seen this movie before -- is that when there was the opportunity for a compromise on something big and significant, the Republican leadership walked away and pursued something that was irrelevant to the rest of America, that is only a matter of internal House Republican politics. And it does nothing for the effort to achieve a bipartisan compromise. It produces nothing that will become law. It does nothing but bring us closer to the fiscal cliff. And it does nothing to resolve our long-term deficit challenges.
  That is not what the American people expected to be the reaction of some of their leaders in the wake of this election. They expected, as the President said, that the message they sent on November 6th was that they wanted their leaders to work together, to compromise, to think about the greater good and to do big things in a manner that's balanced, that protects the middle class and helps the economy grow. They certainly didn't send the signal on November 6th that what they really wanted to see five days before Christmas was a bill become law that gives millionaires and billionaires a $50,000 tax cut on average. I guarantee you that is something you could not divine from the exit polls, because it does not exist.
  Q Different topic. Does the President accept the conclusions of the scathing independent report about what happened in Benghazi? And does he still feel that he is ultimately responsible, as he said in one of the debates with Governor Romney?
  MR. CARNEY: The President does accept the report. He believes that Admiral Mullen and Ambassador Pickering have provided an important service to their country in this report. His administration, as you know, is adopting -- and the Secretary of State is adopting all of the recommendations of the report. And some of those recommendations are being acted on and have been acted on already prior to the issuance of the report.
  What happened that day in Benghazi is a tragedy, and we lost the lives of four brave Americans. And we have an obligation to them, to their families, and all other Americans serving abroad to figure out exactly what happened, and learn from those mistakes so that we can prevent this from happening again. That was the purpose of the establishment of the Accountability Review Board.
  As the President said at the time, clearly it is unacceptable and there is a problem that needs to be fixed when four Americans die, as they did in Benghazi. The President's priority is the safety of Americans serving abroad. The board has put forward a set of clear recommendations, and Secretary Clinton said we will have implementation of every recommendation underway by the time the next Secretary of State takes office. I read that sentence not to solicit questions about personnel moves, because I have no personnel announcements to make.
  But the President and Secretary haven't just been waiting for these recommendations. As I said, the administration has worked to review the security posture of all our overseas facilities to ensure that our personnel are safe and secure, and able to do their jobs. And, as you know, again, as you heard from senior members of the State Department today on Capitol Hill, action is already being taken in response to this report.
  Q One quick follow about something the President said yesterday at the lectern about how to approach the issue of gun violence. He said, "We're going to need to look more closely at the culture that all too often glorifies guns and violence." Does the President feel that as part of this review it's the role of government to potentially monitor and change things like video games, music, a broader cultural influence on guns and gun violence?
  MR. CARNEY: The President believes that this is a complex problem, a multifaceted problem that requires a response and a solution that takes that into consideration. In other words, there is not a single piece of legislation that deals with access to guns that will solve this problem. There's not an action that we could take in terms of providing mental health services that would solve this problem. There are a variety of things that we can and should do that could help address this problem.
  When it comes to matters -- cultural matters, I think that that's an area that bears exploration and is one of the areas that the President hopes will be a topic of the conversation that he wants to undertake, and he wants to hear ideas and proposals from a lot of stakeholders, not just experts within his administration or lawmakers on Capitol Hill, but from a broad array of sources of people who might have ideas about how to pursue this.
  I don't have a specific proposal when it comes to cultural matters. But it is certainly the case that we in Washington have the potential, anyway, to help elevate issues that are of concern, elevate issues that contribute to the scourge of gun violence in this country, and that has been the case in the past and it certainly could be in the future. But I don't have a specific prescription on any matter related to that bucket of issues, if you will.
  Q If I could just jump to the fiscal cliff.
  MR. CARNEY: Sure.
  Q Majority Leader Cantor says he has enough votes to pass Speaker Boehner's plan B. Majority Leader Reid says he has no intention of voting on it. At what point does the President insert himself in the process again?
  MR. CARNEY: The idea that the President hasn't been in the process I think is refuted by all the evidence. But the President cannot do the work that Congress has to do. The President cannot force the House to accept what is by any measure a reasonable compromise, a compromise that achieves one of their stated goals -- a dollar of spending cuts for a dollar of revenue; a compromise that contains within it some very tough choices made by the President and by Democrats that address some of the concerns that Republicans say they care most about. And it's balanced, and it protects seniors, and it helps the middle class, and it continues needed investments that will help our economy grow and create jobs.
  Instead of taking the opportunity that was presented to them to continue to negotiate what could be a very helpful, large deal for the American people, the Republicans in the House have decided to run down an alley that has no exit while we all watch. And again, it's something we've seen in the past that produces nothing positive except perhaps copy for Hill reporters; and does not bring us any closer to resolution of either the fiscal cliff or our deficit issues, challenges; and does not help the cause of trying to find a compromise.
  Q Another topic. Senator Hagel has come under some fire recently with his positions on issues like Iran, Iraq, and other issues. Is the President still impressed with Senator Hagel's record? Is he still the kind of person the President would want in a senior Cabinet position?
  MR. CARNEY: I have no announcements to make about personnel matters. I can simply say that Senator Hagel has been a remarkable servant to this country, a recipient of two Purple Hearts. He fought for this country and has served this country admirably in a number of capacities. Beyond that, I think I'll let the President make any announcements about personnel when the time is right.
  Let me move back. Alexis.
  Q Can you follow up on what Mark was asking? After the Republicans run down the alley, from which there is no exit, will the President be standing there or calling them? I think that's what we're asking is, after tonight, what does he do?
  MR. CARNEY: The dangers of throwing out metaphors is that people pick them up. (Laughter.) What I'm confident of is that they don't have at the end of that alley, like, a Batplane to fly out to their own rescue. Do you remember that scene? It was good. It was a good scene. (Laughter.)
  Q -- that's where you going with it.
  MR. CARNEY: (Laughter.) It wasn't where I was going with it.
  Q You've could have gone with Spiderman --
  Q Does the President have a Batplane?
  MR. CARNEY: I can't talk about that. It's classified. (Laughter.)
  Look, the President is ready right now to negotiate a compromise along the lines of the one he put forward. It's available, it's a good deal. At some point, House Republicans need to know how to say yes, and need to recognize that in a compromise, they don't get everything want, but they do, in this compromise, get something very significant that they claim they have always wanted, which is significant deficit reduction -- something they weren't able to get, by the way, when they were in control of both houses of Congress and had a Republican President in office.
  It's right here. The President of the United States, Barack Obama, has put it forward. It's a good, fair deal, and a balanced deal, and they ought to continue to negotiate to try to achieve something big for the American people.
  Short of that, there has been a bill languishing in the House for months now that would extend tax cuts for all but 2 percent of the American people -- all the working Americans, all the middle class -- everybody except the top 2 percent. That would create a lot of certainty if the House were to pass it for the American people. It would avert a significant portion of the cliff. And it would not be something so twisted around that it ends up, as plan B does, doing the opposite of what the goal was supposed to be here, which is rewarding millionaires and billionaires with a big old tax cut, and sticking it to 25 million working American families. That cannot be what the message was that Republicans received from this election, that that's the path they ought to pursue.
  Q Quick follow-up. Does the President see this exercise in the House as any way strengthening Speaker Boehner's hand to make a final deal before the end of the year?
  MR. CARNEY: I hesitate to, on his behalf or even mine, to analyze or try to divine the motivations behind the strategy, if you can call it that, that is being pursued. What we know is that at present it is leading nowhere that is good for the American people; nowhere that brings us closer to a deal or a compromise. And it certainly brings us closer to the fiscal cliff.
  So your colleagues know certainly more than we do, perhaps, about what's behind the strategy, if you can call it that. But it's not, in our eyes, a useful exercise.
  Jackie.
  Q Are you saying that the offer that the President has made is his final word --
  MR. CARNEY: I am not saying that. I am saying that there is an offer on the table from the President, and there was an offer that supposedly, because it was proffered by the Speaker of the House, had the support of his members -- at least a measure of them -- that is not all that far from what the President was offering. And there is, within reason, room to compromise.
  Instead of engaging in that process, unfortunately the Speaker has pursued this so-called plan B option that is, again, an exercise in futility. It does not help anyone. I'm not even sure it helps him. But again, that goes to the previous question about motivations and machinations within the House Republican conference. I don't have -- it's a little too opaque for me to see what's happening.
  Q Is he prepared to go further on both sides of the equation -- spending and revenues?
  MR. CARNEY: I think that I'll leave it at simply that he never said either in private or in public that this was his final offer. He understands that to reach a deal it would require some further negotiation. There is not much further he could go, because after all, unlike his counterparts in this negotiation, he has already gone halfway on both sides of the equation.
  But he remains -- while adhering to his principles -- hopeful that we can get a bigger deal, because it would be of such great benefit to the economy and to the American middle class. And he really believes that that's what the American people want their leaders in Washington to achieve.
  Q Senator Reid has apparently said that the Senate may soon go out and come back next Thursday. If that indeed happens, what then for the President? Will he take a brief trip to Hawaii for the holiday? What?
  MR. CARNEY: Well, I don't have any scheduling announcements to make, and obviously, it's a fairly fluid situation. I think that what Senator Reid is indicating here is that plan B has no prospects in the Senate. The Senate has already voted on and sent to the House a bill that would extend tax cuts for the vast majority of the American people, and do it in a way that is eminently more fair than what plan B represents.
  And what remains the case is that when you talk about a larger deal, one that actually addresses our deficits -- because after all, plan B, this is what is so perplexing about this option that they're pursuing, the plan B option, is that it -- instead of taking a deal that actually would reduce our deficit all told by $4 trillion over 10 years, that would substantially reduce spending in a responsible way, that would address some of the ways that they have demanded health care entitlement spending, they're saying that the better alternative is to take a deal that does none of that. And that just doesn't seem like a great option and it's certainly not one that's going to become law.
  So scheduling, I just don't have for you. We're obviously closely monitoring developments on Capitol Hill. We hope that an opportunity presents itself to achieve something good for the American people, but we can't do their jobs for them.
  Q He's not going tomorrow, right?
  MR. CARNEY: I have no scheduling announcements to make.
  Q First, just a quick follow-up on the question about Senator Hagel. One of the reasons he's been criticized lately is he was quoted saying that, "The Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here'' -- when he was a senator. ''I'm a United States senator. I'm not an Israeli senator." He currently serves in a role for the administration, so I just want to give you an opportunity to address this. Does he deny having said that and does the administration --
  MR. CARNEY: Again, I think you ought to address that question to Senator Hagel. I'm not -- we're not in a process -- and we've been through this before with Ambassador Rice where there's an effort to go after somebody. And we haven't nominated anyone. We have made no personnel announcements, and I'm not going to engage in that.
  What I can tell you is that Senator Hagel fought and bled for his country. He served his country well. He was an excellent senator. And I say that as somebody who covered him as much as somebody who is speaking for the White House. Beyond that, I just don't -- I'm not going to engage in this kind of process.
  Q So moving on to the guns issue -- yesterday the President was given an opportunity to address some of what he has done to try to curb guns, gun violence in the nation during his first term, and he didn't take the opportunity. Why?
  MR. CARNEY: Well, let me just be clear here that the President said very clearly on Sunday that we have not done enough as a nation and we must do more, we must take action. And I think you heard him reiterate his commitment again yesterday when he stood here with Vice President Biden.
  When it comes to measures that were taken in the President's first term, you know -- or you could know if you asked the Department of Justice -- that among the steps taken by this administration to stem illegal firearms trafficking, we have been successfully seeking an increase in sentencing guidelines for firearms trafficking offenses, including increases in offense level for straw purchases and enhancement for trafficking guns across the U.S. border; also establishing a rule under which firearms dealers in the four Southwest border states provide information to ATF on multiple sales of long guns, including assault weapons, in order to give law enforcement agents real-time investigative leads on potential firearms trafficking.
  Now, to anticipate your next question, nobody is suggesting that that is enough. And that is why you heard the President commit himself to take rapid action to move this forward, and already called right away on Congress to ban the sale of military assault weapons, to ban the sale of high-capacity ammunition clips, to pass a law that requires background checks before all gun purchases so that criminals cannot take advantage of legal loopholes to buy a gun from somebody who won't take the responsibility of doing a background check at all; and also to take action to improve coordination between the federal government and state and local law enforcement to keep illegal guns out of the hands of criminals by confirming the head of an agency whose responsibility is to do just that -- the head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
  So not enough has been done; more needs to be done. The President, as you saw yesterday, is committed to doing it and to doing it quickly, and to not just calling on Congress to do these things -- because as he made clear yesterday, this is something that even these steps will not alone address if all of them are achieved by Congress. Much more needs to be done. We have to look at areas of education and mental health, as well as other areas of law enforcement, areas of culture -- as was asked earlier. And that's why the President has asked the Vice President, who, by the way, authored the Crime Bill in 1994, to oversee this effort.
  Q The President sounded defensive in answer to that question yesterday. Does he think that -- do you think that politics got in the way of his own principles on this issue?
  MR. CARNEY: No, I don't. I think that what the President said happens to be true, which is that when he took office we were in an economic financial global meltdown.
  Q You can walk and chew gum -- we hear all these sayings in the office right now.
  MR. CARNEY: Sure. And the President -- his administration did take steps that I -- several of which I just discussed.
  But make no mistake, he believes that we did not do enough. He is committed to doing more. And you saw I think from him yesterday how seriously he plans to address this.
  Jake.
  Q Has the President read the Accountability Review Board report?
  MR. CARNEY: I don't know. I know he has been briefed on it. I don't know if he has read it word for word, but he is a voracious reader, so he may have.
  Q I believe one person has resigned and three have been -- stepped down from their current duties, but are still State Department employees. There might have been an update to that since I last read about it. Is that sufficient for the President? Is that enough accountability from the Accountability Review Board?
  MR. CARNEY: I think by every measure, the report has been assessed to be -- to have been sharply critical and very blunt and clear-eyed about both problems that exist, problems that need to be fixed, and the need for accountability. And actions are already -- have been taken, as you just noted.
  Q I'm not questioning the report. I'm just -- I'm wondering, is that enough?
  MR. CARNEY: Well, again, I think -- independent experts here, Admiral Mullen and Ambassador Pickering, oversaw the Accountability Review Board, which I think everyone is judging to have been quite -- and the recommendations that they have made are being adopted in full. And there has already been, in this very short period of time, actions that demonstrate accountability as being upheld.
  I haven't had a discussion with the President, but I think he is both appreciative of Ambassador Pickering and Admiral Mullen for the service they provided to the nation here; for the depth that they delved into in this report; and the seriousness of their recommendations, the speed with which they acted. And he intends to make sure that the administration, as the Secretary of State has said, begins implementation of all of these recommendations before the next Secretary of State takes office. Some of this has to do -- some of it will have to do with working with Congress to ensure that Congress provides the necessary funds to allow for enhanced security at our diplomatic missions around the world.
  So there is obviously more action that needs to be taken. But this is a very serious report, and the President has indicated that he expects it to be implemented fully.
  Q Again, I'm not besmirching the report, I'm just wondering if the personnel --
  MR. CARNEY: I think I made clear I don't have another answer for you. Four people have already, in one way or another, been held accountable -- fairly senior people.
  Q Is that sufficient for the President? That's the only question.
  MR. CARNEY: I believe the President believes that the recommendations and the actions taken have been the right ones.
  Q Okay. One other thing I wanted to ask about, though -- the mental health ramifications following Sandy Hook, and that is, there have been some interesting personal stories in the media about parents -- often single parents, but not exclusively -- struggling with children who are mentally ill, some of them violently so, most of them not, who do not have enough help from society; they fall through some holes, some cracks in the system. I'm just wondering if the President has seen any of these, have read any of the essays that have been written and caught any of them on television. Because it's actually been remarkable to hear, because normally you don't hear stories like this.
  MR. CARNEY: Well, I haven't had that discussion with him. He is someone who reads widely, and it would surprise me if he hasn't read or seen some of the reports that you're talking about; probably more likely to have read rather than seen, with all due respect to the broadcast media. But the fact is that he believes very strongly that mental health is one of the major areas that needs to be addressed as we take a kind of comprehensive approach to this problem.
  It's why, setting aside the issue of gun violence, but the issue of mental health in general is extremely important to -- in the President's view -- to what our overall approach to health care in this country ought to be, which is why, as you know, he made sure that the health care law that he passed with Congress will ensure 30 million more Americans have access to mental health services. And that law also makes recommended mental health services available without a co-pay or a deductible -- again, part of the effort here to make it clear that issues of mental health are as important both for the individual and for the society as issues of physical health.
  But as it relates to gun violence, there is no question that this is something that needs more exploration and likely more action, which is why the President has taken the action that he has.
  Q You said hereby officials yesterday that the lines of communication remain open, but no one is using them. Is that true today as well?
  MR. CARNEY: I have no communications to report to you. It is certainly true that as the President made clear from here yesterday, that he would like to work with the Republican leadership to achieve a compromise on a big deal. Unfortunately, since the President put forward his compromise, the reaction from House leadership on the Republican side has been to pursue what they have deemed to be plan B, rather than engage on a negotiation to bridge the gap that exists between the President's offer and the Speaker's last offer, which is unfortunate.
  The President would like to see that dynamic changed, but he cannot negotiate on behalf of House Republicans. He cannot bring the House Republican conference to vote on his own. That requires the leadership in the House to act. And unfortunately, they're wasting a lot of time, as I was saying, on an effort that is pointless and futile. And it's really -- I mean, what is remarkable about it, it's not even -- I mean, if it were just symbolic and it took a few hours, but it's taking days, because they're clearly spending an enormous amount of time twisting arms and getting votes together for something that achieves nothing.
  Q Does that lack of communication also include members of the President's senior staff that had been having regular conversations with representatives of the Speaker?
  MR. CARNEY: I have no -- and this is not an effort to be opaque, I am not aware of any additional conversations.
  Q As you may be aware, and maybe the President is aware and maybe the Vice President is aware -- as the country has looked at the renewed interest in gun control, gun purchases are increasing before our very eyes. High-capacity ammunition clips, those sales are also going up. There are some members of the House already who are talking about the flaw they potentially see in the assault weapons ban that Senator Feinstein has of grandfathering in all these purchases.
  What I'm curious about is if this administration is open to the concept suggested by others of a federal buy-back program of, under some circumstance, purchasing back -- as some states have -- ammunition clips, certain types of weapons, other things like that as part of way to deal with two things that are happening. The President wants limited access, reduced violence. But these weapons are being purchased in very large numbers in anticipation of something changing.
  MR. CARNEY: What I can tell you is that the effort that the Vice President will oversee will examine a variety of proposals and will do so quickly. I don't know whether that's one of them. I haven't heard that discussed, but this process is ongoing.
  Q Does it sound like something the administration might--
  MR. CARNEY: Well, I would hesitate to speculate on any specific hypothetical legislation beyond the ones that we've discussed -- the areas where the President himself yesterday said he would like to see action on. I think that the point you make about possible problems in legislation like the assault weapons ban or -- the fact is, as we've seen in the past, that any single piece of legislation will not solve the problem. And that doesn't mean we shouldn't pursue them. It doesn't mean we shouldn't improve them. But we need to recognize from the outset, as the President said, we'll never stop all gun violence in America, but we need to reduce it. We need to take action to do everything we can to prevent the kinds of appalling atrocities like the one we saw in Connecticut on Friday.
  But beyond that, beyond the specific proposals that he wants to see Congress act on right away, others are being discussed and will be discussed in the effort led by the Vice President.
  Q Let me follow up on Jake for a second. The report on Benghazi said a lot of things, but one of the phrases that came up over and over was ''systematic failure.'' It also said while there was no clear warning of this specific attack, there were warning signs that should have sounded alarm bells. Does the President accept both of those things as being true, that there was systematic failure in all this and that there should have been a better and more nimble and more aware response to warning bells that came before that attack?
  MR. CARNEY: Well, I think the President accepts the report and wants every recommendation implemented. I think he believes that the report and the work done is extremely helpful, and he appreciates the efforts of both Ambassador Pickering and Admiral Mullen.
  Clearly, as the report demonstrates, but we knew before, there was not security adequate enough in Benghazi to prevent the deaths of four brave Americans, including our Ambassador. So we needed to find out, in that effort, what went wrong, why, and what we needed to do and hold accountable people who should be held accountable, and then take actions to ensure that we're doing everything we can to protect our diplomats overseas -- but also be mindful of the fact that Secretary Clinton has said that we cannot hermetically seal our diplomats because they would not be able to do their jobs. There is risk inherent in the work that they do on behalf of their country, on behalf of the American people, and taking risks is, unfortunately, part of the job. But we can certainly do better, as the report demonstrates and the President insists that we do.
  Q And just to clarify what Jake asked, all the accountability that is required has been achieved -- is that correct?
  MR. CARNEY: Again, I think that the President believes that --
  Q You just said the President wants people held accountable who were responsible for this systematic failure. And I'm just asking, has that all been achieved?
  MR. CARNEY: Beyond the actions already taken, I mean, I would refer you to the State Department about whether other actions are being contemplated. I think that it's been fairly sophisticated in its analysis, blunt in its criticism, effective in its prescriptions, and the President accepts and endorses all of that.
  I would note, if I may, because nobody has asked, but there has been also in that report a discussion of the interagency process of which there had been a great deal of reporting and, as it turns out, much of it inaccurate, because it says -- and I quote -- ''the interagency response was timely and appropriate but there was simply not enough time, given the speed of the attacks, for armed U.S. military assets to have made a difference. Senior-level interagency discussions were underway soon after Washington received initial word of the attacks and continued through the night.'' And as you know, when the President was notified, that was the first thing he ordered, was that the Defense Department, the CIA and others do everything they can as quickly as they could to assist.
  ''The board found no evidence of any undue delays in decision-making, or denial of support from Washington or from the military combatant commanders. Quite the contrary: the safe evacuation of all U.S. government personnel from Benghazi twelve hours after the initial attack and subsequently to Ramstein Air Force Base was the result of exceptional U.S. government coordination and military response, and helped save the lives of two severely wounded Americans. In addition, at the State Department's request, the Defense Department also provided a Marine FAST team, a Fleet Anti-terrorism Security Team, as additional security support for Embassy Tripoli on September 12th.''
  Q Jay, on that question of accountability, though, when Ben I think made the point that before the election, the President in a debate said he took responsibility for Benghazi; before the election Secretary Clinton did a series of interviews I think in Peru where she said she took responsibility. But now, after the election, after the report comes out, we hear about three or four State Department people taking the fall. How is it that they're taking responsibility when the President and Secretary of State say --
  MR. CARNEY: So let me just get this straight -- the President and Secretary of State order immediately an Accountability Review Board headed by two individuals who are admired broadly across the political spectrum in Washington who have served their country admirably in a diplomatic service and in the military. That report is extremely detailed, it is very critical of both inadequacies in our security and in decisions and actions that were taken. Immediately, accountability has been brought to bear with regard to four individuals who are very senior. And your question is, why aren't they -- this is the State Department -- the Secretary of State said she understood that State Department embassy security was on her watch and action has been taken.
  Q Okay. But those people are taking the fall. I'm just asking, since the Secretary of State --
  MR. CARNEY: They're not taking the fall.
  Q Well, what are they doing? Somebody resigned, other people --
  MR. CARNEY: Taking the fall suggests that this isn't accountability and responsibility. That's what it is. What are you suggesting?
  Q I'm just asking a question as to whether -- as was asked already -- about whether the accountability ends with those people. People at higher levels said before the election that the buck stopped with them.
  MR. CARNEY: Well, I'm not sure what you're suggesting.
  Q Did they say that before the election?
  MR. CARNEY: There were some individuals who made a lot of reporting that turned out to be entirely false, based on the paragraph I just read, Ed.
  Q Sure.
  MR. CARNEY: And the facts in the report are the facts. The accountability is being taken. And I think it demonstrates the President's seriousness on this issue -- a seriousness that is not just limited to steps we need to take to improve our security for our diplomats around the world, but also the steps that we are continuing to take to make sure that the individuals who took the lives of four brave Americans are brought to justice. And that effort continues.
  Q Question about Secretary Clinton. The public learned last Saturday that she had fallen and got a concussion. Did the -- but that had happened days earlier. When was the President informed, when was the White House informed that she had fallen and got a concussion? Was it Saturday?
  MR. CARNEY: I don't have a day for you. I know that the President spoke with Secretary Clinton on Saturday, but I don't have any more information --
  Q But had that been revealed to the White House sooner and you just hadn't told the public? Or did it --
  MR. CARNEY: Again, I think the State Department has been informing the public about the fact that she was ill and then that she fell. And the President spoke with the Secretary on Saturday. But I don't have any more information for you on it.
  Q Is he speaking with her regularly? The question of if she is unable --
  MR. CARNEY: Well, I just told you, he spoke with her on Saturday.
  Q On Saturday, but --
  MR. CARNEY: I don't have another conversation to read out to you.
  Q Okay, well, the question is she's still the Secretary of State until someone else is nominated and confirmed. And there are a lot of foreign policy issues all around the world from Syria to Iran, North Korea, et cetera. She couldn't testify on Capitol Hill because she's ill. Is he talking to her on a regular basis to figure out if somebody else is going to fill in? On a regular basis now, is she able to do her job?
  MR. CARNEY: Well, again, I would refer questions about her health to the State Department. There are obviously enormously able people at the State Department, including the Deputy Secretary of State both for policy and for administration, and a number of very able advisors to the President on matters of national security and foreign policy.
  And the President has spoken with Secretary Clinton. She is ill and recovering. But the State Department remains under her watch and ably administrated by Secretary Burns and Secretary Nides and others. I just don't have any more information on that for you.
  Q Has he spoken with her since Saturday?
  MR. CARNEY: I just said that he spoke to her on Saturday. I don't have any other calls to read out.
  Q But not since?
  MR. CARNEY: Not that I'm aware of.
  Q The NRA, the National Rifle Association, will make its first public comments during a news conference scheduled for tomorrow. I'm curious, given the announcement made by the President yesterday, if the President has spoken to the NRA to invite them to be a part of this task force that he's set up led by the Vice President, or if the Vice President has done that yet.
  MR. CARNEY: Well, the President is not issuing invitations. I think as you saw yesterday, the Vice President is overseeing this effort with Cabinet secretaries and others. I think the President -- I'm not aware of any conversations that have taken place with members or representatives of the leadership of the NRA.
  I would simply echo what the President said, and this is in the end, an organization like that is made up of members who are mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters. Everyone in America has a stake in doing something to end the scourge of gun violence in our country that, as we saw in Newtown, Connecticut, is a threat to the most vulnerable citizens, the most vulnerable Americans, the children who it should be our first duty to protect.
  Q So given they have those shared sensitivities, and mothers and fathers, why not engage them in the task force?
  MR. CARNEY: Who said that we weren't? I'm saying that I haven't -- I'm not aware of any invitations. Again, the President just spoke yesterday about the effort that Vice President Biden is undertaking on the President's behalf and that process will be ongoing.
  I certainly believe that it is the President's view and the Vice President's view that any stakeholder in this -- which should be everyone -- who wants to help in an effort to take steps that would help end this problem is welcome -- constructive steps. What we have seen, as the President noted, is a number of individuals who have publicly talked about how they are viewing this differently in the wake of the tragedy in Newtown -- I'm referring now to elected officials -- that their previously held positions when it came to opposing measures like the assault weapons ban and others, that they are reevaluating those positions or changing them because of a recognition that we need to do something. And that is certainly, I think, reflective of what's been happening around the country in response to this terrible tragedy.
  Q And given the fact that the President also said that he spoke to Americans during -- he eulogized the victims of the tragedy, and again yesterday, not just as President but as a father, I'm curious -- you're a father as well. In conversations you may have had with the President, what was the conversation he had with his own daughters about what happened, given that this one touches so close to home?
  MR. CARNEY: Well, that's an excellent question, but it's not one that I would talk about. He might at some time, as he has on occasion, discussed some of the conversations he has as a parent with his children. But I wouldn't do that on his behalf.
  Q What does he encourage parents to tell their children?
  MR. CARNEY: Well, again, I wouldn't speak for him on that. I think that all of us as parents look to our fellow parents for guidance, sort of a communal effort deciding how to discuss this, especially with younger children and even teenagers. And it's not easy, as those of us who are parents know.
  Peter.
  Q Thanks so much, Jay. Two people now -- Susan Rice and Chuck Hagel -- have come under pretty intense criticism, even before they had been nominated for any Cabinet posts. Does the White House have any obligation to provide a support structure in defense of some of these people whose names have been mentioned as potential Cabinet nominees in the interim or while they're in this limbo waiting for a formal announcement?
  MR. CARNEY: I'm not aware of an obligation to do anything beyond what we've been doing, which is, in the case of Ambassador Rice, who has performed with excellence as our United Nations Ambassador and is enormously qualified for any foreign policy assignment, national security assignment that she might be given by this President or any other, and then in the case of Senator Hagel, who has served admirably both in uniform and as a senator, to make clear our views on that. But what we're not going to do is engage in a process that is a side-door way of talking about decisions on personnel that the President has not made, nor announced. But I admire the effort.
  Q Jay, Attorney General Holder mentioned the prospect of executive orders on the gun violence issue. To what extent has the White House already examined prospects for executive orders on this?
  MR. CARNEY: I think the process that's underway will look at a variety of avenues to help bring about the change that we need. Beyond that, I don't have a way to answer that question further. But there are specific things already that the President has called on Congress to do and will continue to call on Congress to do. There will be other efforts that will require congressional action, I suspect.
  But it doesn't -- as we said from the beginning, it does not begin and end with congressional action. There are numerous other things that we need to do as a nation, and that we in Washington can do. And that's part of the reason -- that is the reason why the President has asked the Vice President to undertake this effort.
  Q You know of some of the executive -- possibly executive order options that were considered after the Tucson shootings. Are they still in the hopper?
  MR. CARNEY: I'm not going to give you a sneak preview of actions that we might be evaluating or considering. We're not -- beyond the four legislative items that I mentioned earlier that the President has called on Congress to act on as soon as possible, we're not at a point of putting forward more proposals that we would like to see taken or that we plan to take.
  Margaret, and then Steve.
  Q There are memorial services planned for the late Senator Inouye in town and also in his home state, and I'm wondering whether the President has plans to attend or speak at either, and what the message is that he wants to convey beyond his formal statements already made about Senator Inouye's legacy.
  MR. CARNEY: Well, I have no scheduling announcements to make from here at this time. Obviously, the President served with Inouye. He was raised -- born and raised in Hawaii, and has enormous regard for Senator Inouye's remarkable career and that -- he served for so long that I think a lot of Americans have no idea the extent of his heroism and his service. And I think it's entirely fitting that we will hear a lot about that in the coming days. He is certainly someone the President will miss, and someone whose service the President greatly appreciates and admires.
  Q I have a fiscal cliff question, also, believe it or not.
  MR. CARNEY: Can't believe that.
  Q There is something -- you had talked about the initial weekend negotiations, and you said that there had supposedly been an offer or counteroffer by the Speaker prior to plan B that you said must have had at least some support from his caucus, and I'm wondering if you wanted to elaborate on that. If you believe that you put that out, why do you believe you're not -- that you're not talking about that anymore right now?
  MR. CARNEY: Well, I think that we can speculate, but in the end we don't whip votes in the House Republican conference. And we engage with -- the President engages with the leaders of the other party in Congress in an effort to reach compromises that are good for the country, good for the middle class and good for the economy, and that is the effort that he undertook in his conversations with the Speaker that included a series of proposals and counterproposals and new offers.
  And unfortunately, that process stopped when it seemed possible that it might bear fruit. And we hope that it is renewed because, as the President said yesterday, it's certainly the case that after the year we've had and some of the things that have happened to this country in recent weeks and months, at the very least we should be doing the things we can do to help the country and help the middle class. And this is eminently doable. The deal is there; they should take this opportunity, we believe. And it's obviously up to them, but in terms of analyzing their politics, I can't see that clearly into the process.
  Q When you say it's eminently doable, do you think that the votes exist in the House Republican caucus?
  MR. CARNEY: Well, again, I think that there is an entirely reasonable deal available that achieves goals that they say they have long sought that would be extremely good for the economy, for the middle class, for job creation, that is balanced, that protects seniors. This is what we all talked about wanting to achieve. And the President has demonstrated in the offers he's made and the statements he's made and the questions he's answered that he is willing to make tough decisions, but that he believes that's the right thing to do for the country. And he hopes and expects that Republicans will do the same.
  I think Scott and then -- sorry, Steve, I think I said you, and then Scott.
  Q Thanks. The White House threatened to veto the Defense Authorization bill because of provisions on detaining transfers which would make it all but impossible to close Guantanamo Bay. The bill has gone through the conference and the language is still in there. Does that veto threat still stand?
  MR. CARNEY: Well, I certainly have no updates on it for you.
  Q A lot of people on the Hill think that the President would maybe do a signing statement but not a veto.
  MR. CARNEY: Well, I mean, what we put out is still our position, and I don't have any updates on it for you.
  Scott.
  Q Just to follow on Major a bit, so the President said specifically yesterday, calling on Congress to ban the sale of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Some of the language in the bills on the Hill are ''transfer and possession.'' So he --
  MR. CARNEY: Well, we would have to look at legislative language. I mean, what has -- when people talk about a renewal of the assault weapons ban, they're talking about the portion of the Crime Bill that was passed in 1994 and, sadly, expired in 2004, which was a price of getting it done, as you probably remember. And I believe that -- the Crime Bill and the assault weapons ban portion of it included the ban on the sale.
  But whatever bill comes forward we're going to evaluate. He believes that we should take action on the so-called assault weapons ban.
  Q Okay. One last thing. The OMB, I guess, has been sending out memos to some of the agencies about possible furloughs as a result of sequestration. How should federal workers sort of be dealing with this right now?
  MR. CARNEY: Well, what's happening is part of good governance and it is the responsibility of OMB to give these notifications. We remain, as I've been discussing, focused on reaching agreement on a balanced deficit reduction plan that prevents us from going over the fiscal cliff and avoids sequestration. And we believe even now that that agreement is within reach if there is a partner with whom to agree.
  But with less than two weeks left before a potential sequestration order -- and you know when I say sequestration, to the extent that anybody out there is watching -- you can hear the remotes just turning off -- (laughter) -- sequestration. With less than two weeks left -- I know it's very -- I revealed my -- (laughter) -- they don't work like that anymore. I meant this.
  Q -- pretty good with the bunny ears. (Laughter.)
  Q I understood what you were saying. (Laughter.)
  MR. CARNEY: Thank you, Jackie, thank you.
  As I was saying, OMB is taking further steps with just two weeks left to ensure that the administration is ready to issue such an order should Congress fail to act. So this is simply the responsible thing to do. It should not be read as predictive of any outcome. If we were five minutes away from achieving a deal it would still be the responsible thing to do.
  Thank you all very much.
  END 1:50 P.M. EST
MSNBC's Tour(C): In A ''Perverse Way'' NRA Wants Massacres And For Mentally Ill To Have Access To Guns'...
  Link to Article
  Source: Weasel Zippers
  Fri, 21 Dec 2012 09:51
  Then again, nobody expects Tour(C) to say something even half-intelligent.
  Via RCP:
  MSNBC'S TOURE: We have to remember that the NRA does not really represent gun owners. They really represent gun and ammunition manufacturers. So, they're not going to do anything tomorrow, or at any point, that would hurt their business, the billion dollar business that they represent
  I would love it if they understand that gun safety overall is good for their business in the long run. But then, even if they say that, these moments appear bad for the NRA, and they sort of run and hide as if they know that these moments appear bad. But NRA membership booms in these moments, gun sales boom in these moments. Bushmaster sales are booming. In the wake of the Gabby Giffords shooting, glocks boomed. So, in a perverse way '-- they would never admit this publicly '' but in a perverse way these moments are actually good for them. So, then, how do we expect them to not want these moments? [...]
  They've fought for the mentally disabled to have guns. They have fought for that. So, they do want that. They have fought for the mentally ill to have access to guns. That is absolutely true.
White House Praises Time As An ''Excellent Magazine'' After Picking Obama For Its ''Person Of The Year'''...
  Link to Article
  Source: Weasel Zippers
  Fri, 21 Dec 2012 09:51
  The regime's propaganda rag of choice.
  Via Politico 44:
  White House press secretary Jay Carney had a special prop in the West Wing briefing room on Thursday: a copy of the latest Time Magazine featuring President Obama on the cover.
  ''The Time 'Person of the Year,'' Carney said, smiling as he held it up. ''Excellent magazine.''
Sandy Hook massacre: Official story spins out of control | Veterans Today
  Link to Article
  Fri, 21 Dec 2012 08:57
  Teddy bears left at a memorial for the child victims of the Sandy Hook massacre
  The massacre of 20 children and 7 adults at the Sandy Hook elementary school last Friday was one more in a long line of atrocious mass murders committed in the USA. By now, five days later, an official version of events has more or less solidified to explain the chain of events. The familiar 'lone gunman' narrative has once more stoked the hot-button issue of gun control and left the general population as clueless as ever as to why people suddenly 'go postal' and target the most vulnerable members of society.
  On closer inspection, however, there is clearly more to many of these mass shootings than meets the eye. Very often the earliest reports present information that directly contradicts key foundations of the final 'official' analysis of events. Granted, confusion is natural when a story breaks, but some of the initial reports conflict so completely with the lone gunman narrative that I'm going to compile them here and then try to put this tragedy in a more objective context. In his speech at the Sandy Hook Interfaith Prayer Vigil in Newtown, Connecticut on Sunday night, President Obama quoted the following biblical passage:
  ''So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.''
  ~ 2 Corinthians 4:18
  The traumatised Newtown community deserves the facts without the spin. Everyone touched by this brutal event deserves to know what really happened, so let's fix our eyes on what remains unseen'...
  A 20-year-old 'tech geek' named Adam Lanza is supposed to have snapped early last Friday, December 14th, shot dead his mother Nancy Lanza, loaded her car up with her guns and ammo, then driven it across town to his former school, the Sandy Hook Elementary School, shot dead 27 people in two classrooms and an adjoining hallway, then turned one of his guns on himself.
  That's how most will now remember the shooting, but is that actually what happened?
  All the child victims were first-graders between the ages of 6 and 7. If there's any saving grace to be found in this event, it's that it was all over within minutes. Police were reportedly on the scene ''instantaneously'', according to Connecticut State Police Commander, Lt. Vance and by then the shooting had ended. Listed among the slain school teachers and administrative staff was the school principal, 47-year-old Dawn Hochsprung. Right here we encounter our first problem:
  The Newtown BeeDecember 14, 2012
  Sandy Hook School Principal Dawn Hochsprung told The Bee that a masked man entered the school with a rifle and started shooting multiple shots '' more than she could count '' that went ''on and on.''
  (C) The Newtown Bee
  How could the principal have survived to give this statement to local press describing what happened '... if she was one of the first to be killed? Incidentally, The Newtown Bee's article was taken down on Monday December 17th. Of course, a plausible explanation is that a reporter mistook another teacher for the principal.
  We were initially told that two handguns '' a Glock and a Sig Sauer '' were found next to the body of the dead shooter, while a third weapon, a .223-caliber rifle was also recovered ''in the trunk of a car'' later, in the school's parking lot. All of the weapons were allegedly legally bought and registered in Nancy Lanza's name. The car was later identified as a black Honda, also registered in her name. More weapons have since been introduced to the story but we'll get back to those later on.
  Besides anonymous 'law enforcement officials' telling the media that Adam Lanza was a former pupil at the school, they also said his mother was currently a teacher there, that she was found among the dead and that her son had specifically sought out her classroom first. But when it emerged that teaching staff at the school had never heard of a Nancy Lanza, it was suggested that she was a substitute teacher whose name therefore mightn't appear on staff lists.
  But this claim too has disappeared down the memory hole because it's now known that Nancy had no connection with the school. Adam Lanza was in fact home-schooled. Nancy Lanza has since been painted as a ''survivalist'' who loved firearms, taught her sons how to shoot and was ''stockpiling'' because she was ''worried about economic collapse.''
  Daily Mail, UKDecember 16, 2012
  Last night it also emerged Nancy was a member of the Doomsday Preppers movement, which believes people should prepare for end of the world.
  Her former sister-in-law Marsha said she had turned her home 'into a fortress'. She added: 'Nancy had a survivalist philosophy which is why she was stockpiling guns. She had them for defense.
  'She was stockpiling food. She grew up on a farm in New Hampshire. She was skilled with guns. We talked about preppers and preparing for the economy collapsing.'
  It's not difficult to see that their efforts to insinuate that Nancy Lanza was somehow responsible for this massacre by being an irresponsible mother also serve to rile the large contingent of gun owners in the country, particularly the far-right who see a conspiracy on the government's part to ''take back our guns.'' More on that later, but for now I just want to note that all of the Lanza family members seemed to live more or less normal middle-class lives. Yes, the parents were divorced, but it was apparently amicable and both put their own needs second to those of their children (and anyway, divorce in the US these days is decidedly 'normal middle class').
  Despite ''family insiders'' claiming that he was a ''deeply disturbed kid'', Adam Lanza, like so many other alleged 'lone(r) gunmen' before him, does not fit the profile of a mass-murdering maniac. His 24-year-old brother, Ryan Lanza, said he hadn't seen his brother since 2010. This fact brings into question Ryan's claim that his younger brother may have had his identity card on his person at the school shooting. Although perhaps the question that needs to be asked here is, why would a person bother to carry identification with them after going to the trouble of dressing up in a bullet-proof vest, mask and black camouflage gear and going on a killing spree '...
  The live emergency services audio feed from the scene reveals some interesting observations from first responders that have been completely overlooked by the mainstream media. Note that the unedited version lasts over two hours, so the abridged version I'm going to quote from has a compressed sequence of events that are not in real time. In this abridged version, we hear at 1.38'² a report that gunfire is still being heard, even though the shooting was supposed to have ended by the time police arrived. The next report at 2.35'² says that the shooting has stopped and the school is ''in lockdown''. At 3.23'², the police relay a teacher's report that she saw ''two shadows running past the gym''. This is followed by another officer on the scene who says, ''Yeh, we got 'em, they're coming at me! '... [inaudible] '... coming up the driveway real slowly!'' That same officer at 5.40'² says he has them ''proned out'', which presumably means he has apprehended them and they are laid out on the ground, before another officer comes on to say, ''be aware that we do have a second [inaudible] '...''
  Later on, at 19.10'², an officer who sounds out of breath, like he's just given chase, reports what I think sounds like ''these guys'' followed certainly by ''multiple weapons, including long rifles and shotgun''. If these were found so early on, why were they not included in the initial press reports which stated that three firearms had been found '' the above mentioned Glock, Sig Sauer and Bushmaster AR-15 rifle? Further conflicting, and possibly planted evidence was thrown into the mix by 'law enforcement officials' when they published video footage of a long weapon being retrieved from the trunk of a car. Look closely and you'll see that it's a shotgun, not a rifle. In addition, this 'discovery' was made late in the day (it's dark outside), while the Bushmaster rifle was first reported found ''in the trunk of a car'' much earlier in the day. This would logically suggest that the rifle and shotgun were found in the trunks of two different cars.
  Besides the above two suspects ''proned out'' in front of the school, another suspected gunman was apprehended after he gave chase, this time in the woods next to the school:
  YouTube - Veterans Today -
  The police are clearly chasing someone whom they appear to apprehend in the middle of the woods next to the school, a fact confirmed by several eyewitnesses:
  YouTube - Veterans Today -
  This fleeing suspect, wearing camouflage gear, a bulletproof vest and armed with four guns, has since disappeared from media coverage. Who was this person and how did he know what ''it'' was when he protested that ''I didn't do it''?
  Perhaps most astonishingly, this suspect arrested in the woods was named in an Associated Press report as 24-year-old Ryan Lanza. The original report has long since vanished of course, but you can see it referenced here. This was despite the fact that Ryan had already been named as the deceased suspect inside the school, lying next to two handguns.
  Ryan Lanza was actually at work in Hoboken, New Jersey, that morning when his name and photo began circulating in the media. And so, for most of Friday, the 'lone shooter' was erroneously reported as ''Ryan Lanza, confirmed dead.'' At the same time, we were being told that Ryan's girlfriend and a room-mate were reported missing, also from Hoboken, New Jersey.
  So this isn't just a case of mistaken identity, as later claimed when it was suggested that Adam had a piece of identification belonging to his brother on his person. Not one, but BOTH Lanza brothers were being placed by 'law enforcement officials' at the scene of the shooting. It could be that Ryan's quick reflexes to leave his workplace to get on a bus to go back to his apartment while protesting innocence via his Facebook page may have saved his life.
  Now remember, all of this confusion somehow resulted from a single guy going into a school and shooting children and teachers and then shooting himself, all within three to five minutes. Surely it should have been fairly easy to rapidly and concretely identify the details of such a crime and a rough layout of the scene?
  What it's starting to look like is that the Lanzas were framed for this mass shooting in advance. Long before any suspects were named, and even as we were being told that Nancy Lanza was among the dead at the school, we were told that police were investigating a murder in '... Hoboken, New Jersey, where a body had been found at the home of '... Ryan Lanza! An older ''confirmed'' version of events had RYAN, not Adam, travelling to Hoboken that morning to murder his father before going to the school in Newtown, Connecticut. Other variants had Ryan OR Adam going to both their divorced parents' homes and killing them before going to the school.
  The narrative has now settled on the younger brother killing his mother in Newtown then going to the school. So what about the rest of it? Do we just put it down to 'keen' journalism that was having a field day last Friday as media outlets sought to bring us the latest 'breaking news'? Confusion and 'Chinese whispers' undoubtedly play a part in the early stages of national media events, but I think back to those news anchors reading scripts about Osama Bin Laden within minutes of the first plane being hit on 9/11 and I think, 'Wait a minute!' All these misleading reports had to have been issued by someone or some people ''confirming'' to Associated Press and other media outlets that the Ryans's father had been murdered [he wasn't even aware that the shooting at the school had taken place until journalists turned up on his doorstep], or that Ryan's girlfriend had gone missing from Hoboken, or that either Ryan or Adam were pulled out of the adjacent woods in handcuffs yelling ''I DIDN'T DO IT'' to assembled parents. These aren't just 'little details' that can be confused for other details, these are detailed narratives. So how, or why, would any member of the press come up with such details? They strike me as a set of alternative scenarios that might have found their way into the official narrative had facts on the ground turned out differently.
  Watch this snippet of State Police Lt. Paul Vance at the press conference he gave the day after the shootings. His answer is as bizarre as it is revealing. When asked whether Nancy Lanza had any connection with the school, he replied defensively about something that is both unrelated and arguably the most significant fact that completely undermines the official narrative: the arrest of a second gunman in the woods:
  YouTube - Veterans Today -
  Most of the initial mainstream media reports have since been rewritten to fit 'new' facts proclaimed by 'law enforcement officials'. Here's an example from Business Insider. The following excerpts are the opening paragraphs from the 'same' article, one earlier original version, followed by the later revised version:
  The massacre [...] was reportedly perpetrated with a .233 caliber rifle, a Glock pistol and a Sig Sauer pistol.
  The Bushmaster rifle was found in the trunk of the shooter's car. The Sig Sauer and Glock pistols were the only weapons used in the shooting, according to CBS. Now the question is what kind of magazine would allow a shooter to fire ''100'" rounds in such a short period.
  Indeed, I was wondering the same thing. How could two pistols do so much damage? The report was updated as follows:
  The massacre in Connecticut that's taken the lives of at least 26 people was reportedly perpetrated with a .223 caliber rifle, a Glock pistol and a Sig Sauer pistol, according to NBC:
  The shooter was using one Sig Sauer and one Glock pistol, according to CNN. Later details emerged that the primary weapon was the Bushmaster ''assault-style'' rifle.
  Altogether, though, it doesn't matter what type of weapon the shooter used. The bottom line is that it was likely a magazine fed, semi-automatic, with enough rounds to shoot ''100 shots'' in a matter of minutes, as quoted in USA Today.
  What actually happened may not matter to some, but surely a journalist's role is to at least try to find out?
  The three guns Adam Lanza is supposed to have brought to the school with him. (C) New York Daily News. The rifle was left in the trunk, leaving 'Adam Lanza' just the two handguns to let off ''hundreds of rounds'''... firing .233 caliber bullets that belonged to the rifle'... which was left in the car
  This Associated Press/Newsday article on Saturday, December 15th, reported that ''Only the rifle was used on the victims'', a statement that is supported by Dr. H. Wayne Carver II, Connecticut state's chief medical examiner. Of the seven autopsies he personally performed on Sandy Hook victims, all of them had ''three to 11 wounds apiece''. He also said that the 'gunman' used a military-style rifle rigged to quickly reload, and that the 'shooter' was able to reload so quickly because he had ''taped two magazines together.'' Even before the State Chief Medical Examiner had given these statements, it had been stated that spent shell casings from .233-caliber (rifle) bullets were found inside the school.
  So all the victims' wounds were the result of rifle-fire, specifically from ''the rifle'', the one we were told in early reports was found in the trunk of a car in the parking lot! This is simply not credible.
  Remember that only ''the rifle'' was used on all the victims. If only this rifle was used, and if we try to make this claim fit into the (admittedly fluid) official version of events, then the alleged lone gunman would have had to leave the school, place the rifle back in his trunk, then return inside the school and shoot himself. No one reported any such maneuver on the part of any gunman or gunmen. What we do have, however, is live emergency services radio feed in which we hear that two men have been apprehended and are ''proned out'' AND live video footage supported by eyewitness testimony showing what appears to be a THIRD man being arrested by police in the woods.
  We can see how the authorities' hands are tied because they need to fit all the facts into the usual 'lone gunman' narrative. For that, there can only be ONE rifle and a couple of handguns. The problem is that they have already claimed to find that solitary Bushmaster rifle in the trunk of a car in the school parking lot, so the earliest police reports of a cache of long arms being found inside the school will no longer fit with the lone gunman narrative, especially as they're now saying that he had already opened fire as he burst into the school.
  Could ''scrawny'' 20-year-old Adam Lanza have stormed the school, solo Rambo-style, while carrying ''multiple long arms, including rifles and shotguns''? Only one person was wounded. Everyone else who was shot was killed. How could Adam Lanza achieve such deadly accuracy, in such a short length of recorded time?
  Initial reports put the beginning of the shooting in the school administrators' office, where someone, reportedly the school principal, had a confrontation with the gunman(men). We know this because someone supposedly turned on the school intercom system, alerting the teaching staff to the loud swearing and commotion in the principal's office and probably saving many more children from being gunned down as teachers took measures to hide the children in closets.
  Similarly heavily armed men wearing black combat gear from head to toe'... their job is to kill 'terrorists' to keep us safe, which they do by terrorising us all
  One brave teacher, Kaitlin Roig, bundled a bunch of children into a bathroom and locked the door. What's interesting about her testimony to ABC News is that when police arrived and asked her to open the door, she refused, saying that ''if they were really cops, they'd know where to find keys to open the door.'' In addition, she requested that they slide their badges under the door.
  Now, this is generally a smart thing to do in any and all interactions with the police, especially in the U.S. But to have the wherewithal to do so under such traumatic circumstances strongly suggests that Ms. Roig had logically deduced by that point that multiple perpetrators were involved, and that they were either impersonating police officers or were indistinguishable from SWAT team police commandos, either in the way they dressed or the way they behaved upon entering the building. It also reminds us just how narrow the time window of the actual shooting was. The shooting appears to have barely ended when men knocked on that bathroom door and told Ms. Roig they were police.
  There are also conflicting reports about how the gunmen entered the building. We were told initially that they came in through the main front entrance and proceeded straight to the administrators'/principal's offices. But Sandy Hook elementary school has a security system with a video monitor, which allows staff to screen visitors before buzzing them in. A ''masked gunman dressed in black tactical combat gear'' from head to toe would kinda raise red flags, don't you think?
  Another possible anomaly is that Victoria Soto, one of the teachers killed at the school, appears to have had an 'in memoriam' Facebook page created in her name four days before the shooting.
  Regarding this alleged 'LIBOR scandal' connection between this shooting and the Aurora theater shooting, there is as yet zero evidence to support the claim that either father of Lanza or Holmes were going to testify to anyone about anything, so for now this must remain just another rumor. I rather think that this is being spread to create the impression of a direct link that can be easily refuted, as in a straw man argument. The obvious and direct link staring everyone in the face is that the official accounts of these events are hocus-pocus. The glaring connection between these two shootings, the Sikh Temple shooting and the Fort Hood shooting is that multiple gunmen were reported at the time by eyewitnesses, but they are now all officially claimed to have been carried out by 'lone gunmen'. This logically tells us that the real perpetrators are being protected with cover stories of what really happened because if the truth were known, some section of the U.S. government would be implicated.
  Wade Michael Page, the 'lone gunman' in the Sikh Temple shooting in Wisconsin in August this year, was a highly decorated U.S. army psychological operations specialist, according to the Pentagon. But what happened to the three other gunmen seen by witnesses? It can't surely be coincidence that Wade was (former?) military psy-ops. The thought has crossed my mind more than once during the aftermath of the Connecticut shooting. Others too have suggested this was a 'false-flag' event, or that Lanza was some sort of Manchurian Candidate.
  But maybe there's a simpler explanation (albeit more outrageous) than that? Was that really Adam Lanza they found inside the school? Do we even know for a fact that one of the gunmen was found dead inside the school? What we have instead are reports of two or three masked gunmen, apparently all dressed similarly in black tactical gear from head to toe, being wilfully forgotten about at best, or protected by the Federal Government at worst. Based on the authorities' persistent but futile efforts to connect the Lanzas to this school, the multiple eyewitness reports of two shooters, the Connecticut State Medical Examiner's report that all the victims were riddled with bullets from a rifle that we're simultaneously being asked to believe was in the trunk of a car the whole time, similar reports of multiple shooters in previous mass shootings in recent years and the media focusing the emotional outcry onto the hot-button topic of gun control '... I'm left wondering if this was actually the work of some highly trained professional hit team?
  Was the massacre at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, a psy-op, using what amounts to a 'death squad' and a carefully planned mission to terrorise people on behalf of the government, in combination with perception management to shape the narrative and vector the emotional fallout?
  Gun control isn't really the issue here. Control '' period '' is the issue. The U.S. government would long since have taken measures, quietly, to limit the supply of weapons, the 2nd Amendment of the constitution be damned (it's ''just a goddamned piece of paper'', remember?), if it was really concerned with limiting civilian access to weapons. That we've seen gun sales increase in the last few days to the point where Wal-Mart is all out of assault rifles is wholly unsurprising.
  The psychopaths in power have absolutely no compunction about using state terrorism, in this case organising the deliberate massacre of innocent children, to control people. In effect, this is little different from the U.S. government calls counter-insurgency or counter-terrorism in foreign countries, where it attacks innocent civilians to create the impression that they were killed by 'communists', 'terrorists', 'insurgents' or 'militants', with the aim of generating public support for the illusion that the common people need a strong, ruthless government to protect them from the 'evil-doers'. When the common people buy into this manipulation, the end result, as history shows repeatedly, is an overt and brutal police state.
  Related Posts:Short URL: http://www.veteranstoday.com/?p=233288
  The views expressed herein are the views of the author exclusively and not necessarily the views of VT or any other VT authors, affiliates, advertisers, sponsors or partners. Legal NoticePosted by Niall Bradley on Dec 20 2012, With 0 Reads, Filed under Civil Liberties and Freedom. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
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MEDICAL EXAMINER REPORT ON SANDY HOOK SCHOOL MASSACRE - YouTube
  Link to Article
  Fri, 21 Dec 2012 08:53
michael harris, former republican candidate for governor of arizona and gop campaign finance chairman - Google Search
  Link to Article
  Fri, 21 Dec 2012 07:54
  PressTV - Israeli death squads involved in Sandy Hook bloodbath ...www.presstv.ir/detail/.../israeli-squads-tied-to-newtown-carnage/- Cached3 days ago ... Today, Michael Harris, former Republican candidate for governor of Arizona andGOP campaign finance chairman, in an internationally ...Daily Kos: IRANIAN PRESS TV: Israeli Death Squads hit Sandy Hookwww.dailykos.com/.../-IRANIAN-NEWSIRANIAN-PRESS-TV-Israeli-Death- Squads-hit-Sandy-Hook- Cached2 days ago ... Iran's Press TV website quoted Michael Harris, former Republican candidate forgovernor of Arizona and GOP campaign finance chairman, ...Iranian Regime: Israeli Death Squads Involved in Sandy Hook ...www.thegatewaypundit.com/.../iranian-regime-israeli-death-squads-involved- in-sandy-hook-school-massacre/- Cached1 day ago ... Today, Michael Harris, former Republican candidate for governor of Arizona andGOP campaign finance chairman, in an internationally ...Rep. Mike Harris blames Israelis for school shooting ...illuminatiwatcher.com/?p=4903
  1 day ago ... Today, Michael Harris, former Republican candidate for governor of Arizona andGOP campaign finance chairman, in an internationally ...Israeli Death Squads Involved In Sandy Hook Bloodbath ... - Daily Paulwww.dailypaul.com/.../israeli-death-squads-involved-in-sandy-hook- bloodbath-intelligence-analyst- Cached2 days ago ... Today, Michael Harris, former Republican candidate for governor of Arizona andGOP campaign finance chairman, in an internationally ...Mini-Me: Israeli Death Squads Behind Sandy Hook, Aurora Mass ...www.phibetaiota.net/.../mini-me-israeli-death-squads-behind-sandy-hook- aurora-mass-murders-michael-harris-former-republican-candidate-for- ...
  Today, Michael Harris, former Republican candidate for governor of Arizona andGOP campaign finance chairman, in an internationally televised news ...Oh, it's the EEEEEEVIL Jooooos! | Opinion - Conservativebeforeitsnews.com/opinion.../oh-its-the-eeeeeevil-jooooos-2545566.html
  4 hours ago ... Today, Michael Harris, former Republican candidate for governor of Arizona andGOP campaign finance chairman, in an internationally ...Israeli death squads involved in Sandy Hook bloodbath, page 1www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread909225/pg1- CachedMichael Harris, former Republican candidate for governor of Arizona and GOPcampaign finance chairman, in an internationally televised news ...Iran: Newtown massacre was Israeli conspiracy - Israel News ...www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4321777,00.html- Cached2 days ago ... Iran's Press TV website quoted Michael Harris, former Republican candidate forgovernor of Arizona and GOP campaign finance chairman, ...Iran's Press TV: Newton Attack Committed By Israeli Death Squad ...www.nationalreview.com/.../irans-press-tv-newton-attack-committed-israeli- death-squad-jonah-goldberg
  2 days ago ... Today, Michael Harris, former Republican candidate for governor of Arizona andGOP campaign finance chairman, in an internationally ...
Twelfth Bough: missing
  Link to Article
  Fri, 21 Dec 2012 07:51
  Where are the crime scene photos from Newtown?
  Beslan massacre - victimshttp://uppompeii1.uppompeii.com/2011/09/01/suffer-the-little-children-to-come-unto-me-remember-beslan.aspxBeslan massacre - victimshttp://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=84833Gareth Williams' body removed from crime scenehttp://truthaholics.wordpress.com/2012/05/06/sex-spies-and-seven-suspicious-deaths-the-murky-waters-of-the-intelligence-world-coincidence-or-conspiracy/A double murder suicide crime scene in central Florida -- body being removed from the scenehttp://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/double-murder-suicide-911-call-central-florida-s-1/nLnFh/TEAM NATO + ISRAEL drone victimsREAL BLOOD. REAL CHILDREN.REAL MOTHER saying goodbye to her REAL SONkilled in IRAQ by the US thanks to the WAR that we started there based on LIES from the NEOCONSREAL CHILDREN. REALLY DEAD. NOT PHOTOSHOPPED.THEIR DEATHS PAID FOR BY US TAXPAYERSPhotos of Nancy Lanza's body being removed from her house?Photos of the bloody bedroom where her son allegedly shot her in the face?Photos of the children's bodies being removed from the school in the middle of the night?Photos of the no doubt incredibly bloody crime scene where all these people were shot from three to eleven times at close range by a rifle?Nicole Brown Simpson crime scene.http://www.bobaugust.com/photo.htmMaybe they will have to demolish the school?
John Friend's Blog: Calling bullshit on the Sandy Hook hoax!
  Link to Article
  Fri, 21 Dec 2012 07:33
  At this point, it is safe to say that the official narrative of the Sandy Hook school shooting is fraudulent, and a major coverup and PSYOP is underway. On Monday, the Huffington Post reported that the Connecticut State Police have "indefinitely seized" all crime scenes connected to the shooting, namely the Sandy Hook Elementary School and the Newton, CT home of the Lazna's. How convenient for the perps and PSYOP experts.Connecticut State Police announced Monday they will be holding all crimes scenes connected to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting for the foreseeable future, while they investigate the horrific mass murder.
  "[We have] seized the crime scenes under search warrant [and are] holding on to them indefinitely," Connecticut State Police spokesman Lt. J. Paul Vance told reporters at a midmorning news briefing.
  Vance said it could take months for investigators to complete their examination of the crime scene at the school -- where police say 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot and killed 26 children and adults -- and the Newtown, Conn., home -- where investigators say Lanza killed his mother, 52-year-old Nancy Lanza.
  "State police crime detectives have been working 24 hours a day since this tragedy occurred ... [They are] processing the evidence. Every single round of ammo will be analyzed for evidence -- each singular round," Vance said, referring to the task as a "painstaking process."
  Vance declined to detail any of the evidence investigators have recovered to date, but did say Adam Lanza's electronic devices are being examined for clues to a possible motive.
  "The computer crime unit [is] working nonstop examining any evidence seized, whether it be cell phones or computers ... We will certainly dissect [them]," he said.
  Police say Lanza forced his way into the school around 9:40 a.m. Friday, about 30 minutes after the school day began. Lanza fired his weapons at least 100 times. The victims -- 12 girls, eight boys and six adult women -- were shot up close multiple times, police said.
  Authorities have since confirmed that two adults who suffered gunshot wounds survived and are recovering at the hospital. Their names have not yet been released.
  Investigators are still determining a timeline in the case to establish when Lanza's mother was killed.
  Keep in mind this is the same Lt. J. Paul Vance who said that all relevant information relating to this case is coming strictly from the local, state, and federal authorities, and that independent journalists and bloggers publishing "disinformation" on social media sites may be prosecuted under federal law.A few questions come to mind: why would it take "months for investigators to complete their examination of the crime scene at the school"? If "state police crime detectives have been working 24 hours a day since this tragedy occurred", why will it still take months to complete? Why have no photos from the crime scene been released? (See Twelfth Bough's excellent post, missing and the comments). Why haven't any of the allegedly murdered children's parents or relatives asked any tough questions of the authorities?
  Why are very bad actors being used to play the role of the parents of some of the supposedly murdered children, like Robbie Parker, the alleged father of Emilie Parker, a 6-year-old girl who we were told was killed at Sandy Hook Elementary? Does this guy look or sound like a father who's daughter was just brutally murdered?
  Why can't the supposed Connecticut Chief Medical Examiner, Dr. H. Wayne Carver, answer basic questions about his investigations? What is with his bizarre behavior? Does this guy sound like a legitimate medical professional?I have watched almost all of the videos on CNN commemorating the victims of the recent Sandy Hook school shooting, which includes many interviews with the parents of the allegedly murdered kids at the school. And I have to tell you, I don't buy it. I think these people are actors. This is a PSYOP guys. These people are frauds! Don't believe me? Watch some of the videos here under the "REMEMBERING THE VICTIMS" section on CNN and come back and tell me you think these people are legitimate. Maybe the children really were murdered, and their real parents were replaced by these scripted actors playing their fake family for the public? Who knows? But, there is something very fishy going on with this entire school shooting...It's been well established at this point that the official version of the Sandy Hook shootings is 100% bogus. If the media and government are lying to us (as always) about the events leading up to and during the school shooting, why should we trust them when they say all these children and teachers really were murdered? I have come to the same conclusion regarding the "victims" on 9/11: since the official conspiracy theory explaining that event is 100% bogus, why do people still believe "3,000 Americans were murdered" on that fateful day? (See The Vicsim Report from September Clues)
  Why do we recognize that virtually everything the government and media says about monumental events such as 9/11 and the recent Sandy Hook school shooting are false, yet still believe that the victims of these tragedies are legitimate? Why do we take at face value these obviously scripted and emotion-targeting sob stories recounted by the alleged "victims'" family members and relatives?
  It's important to keep in mind what Professor George J. Stein wrote in his 1995 essay "Information Warfare":
  Information warfare, in its largest sense, is simply the use of information to achieve our national objectives. Like diplomacy, economic competition, or the use of military force, information in itself is a key aspect of national power and, more importantly, is becoming an increasingly vital national resource that supports diplomacy, economic competition, and the effective employment of military forces. Information warfare in this sense can be seen as societal-level or nation-to-nation conflict waged, in part, through the worldwide internetted and interconnected means of information and communication. [...]
  Information warfare, in its essence, is about ideas and epistemology- big words meaning that information warfare is about the way humans think and, more important, the way humans make decisions. And although information warfare would be waged largely, but not entirely, through the communication nets of a society or its military, it is fundamentally not about satellites, wires, and computers. It is about influencing human beings and the decisions they make. [...]
  A major new factor in information war is the worldwide infosphere of television and broadcast news. Information warfare at the strategic level is the "battle off the battlefield" to shape the political context of the conflict. It will define the new "battlespace." We face an "integrated battlefield," not in the usual sense of having a global positioning system (GPS) receiver in every tank or cockpit but in the Clausewitzian sense that war is being integrated into the political almost simultaneously with the battle. Many people suspect that the national command authorities (NCA) are in danger of becoming increasingly "reactive" to a "fictive" universe created by CNN, its various international competitors, or even a terrorist with a video camera. This media-created universe we live in is fictive rather than "fictional" because although what we see on CNN is "true," it is just not the whole, relevant, or contextual truth. Nevertheless, this fictive universe becomes the politically relevant universe in which the government or the armed forces are supposed to "do something." [...]
  Fictive or fictional operational environments, then, whether mass-targeted or niche-targeted, can be generated, transmitted, distributed, or broadcast by governments or all sorts of players through increasingly diversified networks. [...]
  Let us take just one example of how current technologies could be used for strategic-level information warfare. If, say, the capabilities of already well-known Hollywood technologies to simulate reality were added to our arsenal, a genuinely revolutionary new form of warfare would become possible. Today, the techniques of combining live actors with computer-generated video graphics can easily create a "virtual" news conference, summit meeting, or perhaps even a battle that would exist in "effect" though not in physical fact. Stored video images can be recombined or "morphed" endlessly to produce any effect chosen. This moves well beyond traditional military deception, and now, perhaps, "pictures" will be worth a thousand tanks. [...]
  I call bullshit on this entire Sandy Hook shooting hoax. We are being fed a pack of carefully scripted lies by evil people with a pre-determined agenda. They manufacture our reality, targeting our emotions and gullible nature, in order to advance their political and social agenda. Don't be deceived. Ask questions, demand answers, and never accept anything at face value that is presented to you on the teLIEvision.
Rex Features - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  Link to Article
  Fri, 21 Dec 2012 07:20
  Rex Features Ltd. is a British photographic press agency and photo library, based in London, UK. It supplies a daily service of news, celebrity, features, and stock photos to newspapers, magazines, TV, book publishing, web and all other media in the UK and in more than 35 countries worldwide.
  [edit]Rex Features Ltd -- Company profileRex was founded in 1954 by husband-and-wife team Frank Selby (b. Salusinszky Ferenc, Budapest, January 12, 1918) and Elizabeth Selby (b. Elisabeth Guttmann, Berlin, April 1, 1925). The couple retired as joint Managing Directors in 2008, but continue to take an interest in the firm.
  In addition to a daily news and entertainment feed, relied upon by newspapers and magazines worldwide, the Press Agency produces a constant stream of new features, comprising ready-made packages of pictures and words, on an extremely wide range of topics, as well as lifestyle, travel, wildlife and other creative and stock imagery.
  REX represents many major picture sources including the leading UK celeb-society photographers Richard Young and Dave Fisher, the French agency Sipa Press, top US celebrity agency Startraks and Berliner, film stills archives The Everett Collection and Snap Photo Library, The Associated Newspapers archive (Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, Evening Standard), television stills libraries including the ITV Archive and the Fremantle Media TV archive, many ITV ''reality'' and talent shows such as Britain's Got Talent, Dancing On Ice, The X Factor, I'm A Celebrity - Get Me Out Of Here, plus hundreds of freelance photographers and agencies around the world. Rex's website allows professional users access to more than 5,000,000 images, with more than 3000 new images added every day. While its daily production is fully digital, Rex's service is backed by a physical archive stretching back to the early days of photography and containing about 15 million images encompassing a vast range of subjects.
  [edit]Origins and early yearsBoth Frank and Elizabeth are from Hungarian roots, and journalism ran in both families'--Frank's father Imre Salusinszky was editor-in-chief of Az Est, Hungary's leading newspaper group based in Budapest, while Elizabeth's father, Heinrich (Henry) Guttmann, was a prominent journalist and book author[1] writing on industry and other topics for German newspapers and magazines. His particular personal interest was in the history of photography. To illustrate his articles, Guttmann amassed a large collection of photographs, illustrations and engravings which was later acquired by the groundbreaking Picture Post magazine to form the nucleus of its own picture library; some of a subsequent collection is now contained in the Rex Features picture library. Guttmann, a Jew and a communist sympathiser, realising the threat posed by the rise of the Nazis, left Germany in 1925 with his baby daughter, for Paris where he continued working until 1931. After a brief return to Germany to tidy up his affairs, he settled in London.
  Frank travelled to Britain in 1938 to study at Cambridge, but WWII interrupted his plans and he served in the British Army for the duration of the war. After demobilization he went into the import-export business. The teenage Elizabeth had meanwhile been working for the Free French resistance organization at its HQ in London. After the war she began helping her father to "package" his feature articles, trading as Rex Features, and after she and Frank married in 1948 they merged their respective skills to establish Rex as a full-fledged photo agency.
  In early 1954 the couple were asked by a small Paris news agency to sell its pictures in the UK, and so Rex Features as an international agency was born. Elizabeth ran the business in the front room of the family house in northwest London, while Frank went out to sell to the newspapers and magazines whose offices were then still concentrated in and around Fleet Street in central London. Word of Rex's efficient and reliable service quickly spread; by the 1960s, Rex represented a growing roster of photographers including the renowned showbiz photographer Dezo Hoffmann, and was providing a regular supply of features, news and celebrity pictures to the press in Britain and overseas.
  [edit]Middle period '' near disaster and a growth spurtIn 1963 the firm opened its first modest rented offices in a garret overlooking London's central fruit and vegetable market in Covent Garden. Later there was a move to Gough Square, just off Fleet Street, and again to nearby East Harding Street where in February 1979 a small fire started by an electrical fault caused extensive smoke damage to the company's stock and equipment. Despite rumours in the press industry that Rex was ''finished'', the company continued doing business as usual during the nine months it took to hand-clean or replace many thousands of filing envelopes, millions of B/W prints and colour slides, and other equipment and documents. In November 1979, the company moved into offices in Vine Hill.
  In 1981 Rex raised its profile dramatically with its coverage of the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer. Its fast and comprehensive service beat many more widely known agencies into the pages of newspapers and magazines around the world. Picture editors came to rely on Rex for deadline material of all types, particularly of Royalty and celebrities, as well as for its multi-faceted photo library.
  [edit]Later success and present-day prominenceRex has notched up many celebrity and news exclusives over the years, including such high-profile hits as: Liz Taylor and Richard Burton smooching at his 50th birthday party; the first picture of Prince Charles holding hands with Camilla Parker Bowles; the first pictures of Mick Jagger together with Luciana Morad and their son Lucas; world exclusive pictures of Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess in his coffin; coverage of the world's first arm transplant operation; pictures transmitted back from Mt. Everest of the discovery of the mummified remains of mountaineer George Mallory; photos of a baby's corpse dumped in a street gutter in a Chinese city, which caused an international outcry.
  In 2008 Rex Features acquired the prestigious Los Angeles-based Berliner Group of photographic companies, with the aim of strengthening Rex's presence in the USA and guaranteeing a reliable supply of high-quality celebrity portraiture and coverage of ''red carpet'' events from the US.
  Over the past 57 years Rex Features has established itself as one of the leading sources of editorial photography, with contributors and sales agents throughout the world. Its website is frequently cited[citation needed] by leading newspaper and magazine editors as ''the best in the business'' for clarity and ease of use. The company now owns a substantial building in London's historic Clerkenwell district, where it employs around 80 staff looking after the interests of its hundreds of photographers and many thousands of clients.[citation needed] Rex also has offices in New York and Los Angeles.
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Sandy Hook school shooting: President Obama prepares to address Newtown at emotional memorial service
  Link to Article
  Fri, 21 Dec 2012 06:35
  President led interfaith service in Newtown, Connecticut Sunday night'We can't tolerate this anymore. These tragedies must end. And to end them we must change,' Mr Obama said at memorialPresident questioned if we are 'prepared to say that such violence visited on our children is somehow the price of our freedom'Mourners waited in drizzling rain for hours to access eventA number of families whose children attend Sandy Hook Elementary School were frustrated after being denied seats even though visitors were waved into auditoriumBy Meghan Keneally and Michael Zennie In Newtown, Connecticut
  PUBLISHED: 20:03 EST, 16 December 2012 | UPDATED: 04:28 EST, 18 December 2012
  In the wake of Friday's unspeakable tragedy, it is hard to imagine that anyone would be smiling in Newtown, Connecticut.
  But when the President visited the small New England town where a crazed gunman took 27 innocent lives, he managed to lift the hearts and spirits of some grieving families, who took brief solace in his mere presence.
  Mr Obama also told mourners that the U.S. was not doing enough to protect its children and pledged a huge effort to 'prevent more tragedies like this.'
  In one emotional meeting, a heart-broken President embraced Robbie Parker, father-to-father, over the senseless death of his six-year-old daughter Emilie.
  But it was smiles all around when he gathered her younger sisters and some other children around to chat with them and pose for a photo - a brief moment of joy among the sadness.
  SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO
  All smiles: President Obama is able to temporarily lift the spirits of young victim Emilie Parker's siblings and some other guests while meeting with the families before speaking at the interfaith service
  Presidential embrace: Mr Obama talked to grieving father Robbie Parker about the loss of his daughter Emilie Parker, pictured right in a photo released by the family
  Family photo: Mr Obama joined the parents and their two remaining daughters
  Loving family: Robbie Parker, pictured with his wife and three daughters with Emilie on the far right
  He took the time to reach out to another grieving family as he held the granddaughter of school principal Dawn Hochsprung tightly in his arms, as he marveled over the brave actions of the woman who lost her life trying to prevent the gunman from entering the building.
  Her daughter Cristina Hassinger tweeted a picture with the poignant caption: 'My mom would be SO proud to see President Obama holding her granddaughter. But not as proud as I am of her'.
  The personal approach to the evening continued when Mr Obama used scripture in an effort to comfort the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
  President Obama hugged the granddaughter of heroic principal Dawn Hochsprung who was shot to death trying to protect the students
  'You are not alone in your grief,' President Obama said. 'All across this land our world too has been torn apart. All across this land we wept with you and pulled our children tight. Newtown, you are not alone.'
  In one of the most religious speeches of his presidency, Mr Obama talked about how the ultimate goal for a society is to protect their children.
  'If we don't get that right, we don't get anything right. By that measure, can we truly say as a nation that we are doing our obligations?' he said.
  'We gather here in memory of 20 beautiful children and six remarkable adults. They lost their lives in a school that could have been any school in a quiet town full of good and decent people that could have been any town in America.
  'All across this land of ours, we have wept with you. We've pulled our children tight, and you must know whatever measure of comfort we can provide, we will provide it.'
  As expected, he made several references to the prospective- and likely- legal battles that will come as politicians fight for tougher restrictions on guns in the wake of the shooting. That said, he was clear to avoid specific plans, but took aim at the arguments made by activists who point to the Second Amendment's right to bear arms as a reason to keep guns accessible.
  'Are we prepared to say that such violence visited upon our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?' he said.
  Yet the President also made clear that the cause of gun violence is a 'complex' range of issues, perhaps an acknowledgment to those who are against stronger gun control.
  'We will be told that the causes of such violence will be complex and that is true. No single law, no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society,' he said.
  'But that can't be an excuse for inaction. Surely we can do better than this,' the President added.
  A particularly poignant moment came in the speech when Mr Obama read the first names of all 20 children who died in the shooting.
  'We can't accept events like this as routine. Are we really prepared to say that we're powerless in the face of such carnage?' he said, referring to the four other mass shootings that have taken place since Mr Obama was elected.
  Emotional: President Obama spoke slowly and deliberately during the memorial service on Sunday night
  'We've pulled our children tight': A mother holds her child during the memorial service
  Remembering those not there: A woman brought a class photo that included some of the victims
  Touching: The most poignant portion of the speech came when President Obama read the names of each of the 20 young victims
  In his introduction, Connecticut governor Dannel Malloy said that Mr Obama told him privately that Friday was the most difficult day of his term in office
  In his introduction, Connecticut governor Dannel Malloy said that Mr Obama told him privately that Friday was the most difficult day of his term in office.
  Deep sobs and sniffles filled the room throughout the service - but tears did not truly begin until Jason Graves took the podium to offer a Muslim prayer on behalf of the Al Hedeya Islamic Center of Newtown.
  Mr Graves' voice choked and crackled as he assured the mourners that God's love was there for anyone asked for it.
  Adults and children sitting in the audience, who initially turned their faces away as a prayer was recited in Arabic, were reduced to deep sorrowful cries.
  The service started nearly an hour late because the President was delayed by spending more time than expected meeting with the families of the victims from Friday's shooting.
  Lining up: People wait in line to enter Newtown High School for a memorial vigil attended by President Barack Obama
  Showing he stands with Connecticut: The President flew to Newton on Sunday afternoon and spent hours meeting with victims families prior to the memorial service
  The community of Sandy Hook comfort each others before President Barack Obama speaks about the 26 people who were shot dead, including twenty children, after gunman Adam Lanza opened fire in the school
  People pray at Mountainside Assembly of God Church in Coal Township during a interfaith prayer vigil, Sunday, Dec. 16, 2012, for the victims of Newtown, Connecticut
  Once the family visits were finished, the President entered into the packed auditorium where decorations were kept very sparse.
  Along with the American and Connecticut flags on stage, a table in front of the podium was filled with candles to memorialize the victims, and a pianist played solemn songs on a grand piano.
  Yesterday morning Robbie Parker fought back tears as he spoke lovingly for the first time of his deceased daughter at a press conference, telling of how he had been teaching her Portuguese and their final conversation was one where she said that she loved him.
  Political players: President Obama shakes the hand of state senate minority leader John McKinney when he walked into the auditorium
  Warmth in cold times: The Red Cross provided blankets for attendees to wrap around themselves and stuffed animals for many of the children who were in the audience
  Attention: Mourners listen to a memorial service over a loudspeaker outside Newtown High School
  President Barack Obama reflects during an interfaith vigil for families of the victims as well as families from Sandy Hook Elementary School
  Several families whose children were at Sandy Hook Elementary school during the shooting were denied access to the auditorium where President Barack Obama spoke tonight because organizers allowed hundreds of people from outside the community in first.
  'We're very disappointed,' said one mother who was forced to watch the president on a video screen in the gym.
  Hans Barth, who had two children at the school on the day of the horrific shooting, said he brought his son and daughter to the memorial service with the president hoping that it would help them confront the horror they experienced on the day of the shooting.
  'They're in shock right now,' he said.
  Vigil: Kate Suba, left, Jaden Albrecht, center, and Simran Chand pay their respects at one of the makeshift memorials
  A Newtown High School teacher who was helping seat people inside the gym said the organizers were aware that several of the Sandy Hook families had been left out, but, she said organizers had already managed to find seats in the auditorium for 40 additional families from the elementary school.
  Families lined up started as early as 3.30pm or 4pm, even though President Obama did not take the stage until shortly before 8pm.
  Mr Barth said he could not understand why the organizers allowed the auditorium to fill with people from outside the community at the expense of families who endured the tragedy firsthand.
  'They didn't even differentiate between us. This place is full of Sandy-Hookers. The other people coming in before us, I didn't even recognize a single face,' he said.
  Michelle Capozza and her mother Maggie traveled from Westin, Connecticut to show their support for the Newtown victims.
  'We thought it was beautiful, we really felt that people loved him. It was really everything we came here to see,' Michelle said.
  Packed house: Sharon Bertrand, center, listens with her daughter Daysha, 13, left, and son Juan, to a memorial service over a loudspeaker outside Newtown High School
  Memories: New London, Connecticut resident Rachel Pullen, center, kisses her son Landon DeCecco at a memorial
  Pausing to reflect: A 3-year-old girl is accompanied by her father while lighting a candle outside of Newton High School while President Obama spoke at the memorial service
  Remembrance: Attendees release paper lanterns during a vigil for victims of the Sandy Hook School shooting yesterday in Omaha, Nebraska
  Luz Rodriguez brought her small daughter from Bridgeport to hear the president speak.
  She said she wanted her child, the nearly same age as the small victims of the shooting, to hear
  Obama's uplifting message and she thought it was important to come pay respects.
  'It was very moving, very powerful,' she said.
  Ms Rodriguez said she believes that there should be tougher gun control laws, but she doesn't blame the president for not explicitly pushing for new restrictions.
  'It wasn't the right time,' she said.
  Those families were some of the hundreds of people huddled in a miserable drizzle as they waited in line at Newtown High School to see President Barack Obama preside over an interfaith worship ceremony on Sunday night.
  Heart wrenching: Family friends comforted one another in the High School auditorium
  All ages of victims: Because of the many school age children who were killed, their friends and school mates made up a large portion of the audience
  Several members of the audience clutched red cross blankets around their shoulders as they huddled together, many of them breaking down in tears throughout the service.
  The same blankets were handed out while the attendees waited in the long line that wrapped around the building and snaked through the parking lot before heading inside to get settled for the service.
  The President reportedly wrote much of the speech himself, but he did work with the same speech writer who helped him write the remarks in Tuscon, Arizona after the shooting which left Congresswoman Gabby Giffords in critical condition.
  The speechwriter also helped on the eulogy that the President gave for Senator Ted Kennedy's funeral.
  Outgoing Senator Joe Lieberman, Senator Richard Blumenthal and Senator-elect Christopher Murphy were all in attendance.
  Emotional hugs: The first responders were greeted with embraces from friends as they walked in the auditorium
  Standing ovation: The entire room got to their feet when the responders entered
  While the President met with victims' families, the Senators circulated the auditorium, talking to their grieving constituents.
  President Obama's initial press conference on Friday just hours after the shooting took place was one of the most emotional of his four years in office.
  At one point, he was so overcome by the thought of the 20 dead children who had 'their whole lives ahead of them' that the typically-stoic President had to pause for a poignant 12 seconds to regain his composure before continuing.
  Support: For many neighbors, this was the first time that they saw one another since the shooting
  Even at that point, he shortened the remarks from their expected length because he could not make it through.
  On Saturday, he dedicated his weekly radio and internet address to a discussion of the shooting, saying that it was time to 'take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this'.
  He is not the only one bringing up the issue of gun control- even though he did not go so far as to give any specifics of how he would take such action.
  His visit to Connecticut on Sunday night comes as politicians begin to discuss possible legislation to ban rifles and assault weapons with high-capacity clips like those used by shooter Adam Lanza during the massacre.
  President Obama openly wept as he spoke of the mindless shooting, saying, 'Our hearts are broken today'
  Shocked: The President said he felt not as a President, but as a 'parent'... and that he 'knows theres not a parent in America who doesnt feel the same overwhelming grief that I do
  Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein had the opposite response to Mr Gohmert, announcing on Meet The Press that she plans to introduce a bill that would 'aim at limiting the sale, transfer and possession of assault weapons, along with the capacity of high-capacity magazines.
  She said that her bill- along with a similar bill in the House of Representatives- will be proposed on the first day of the next Congress when politicians return after the holidays.
  The nation's addiction to guns will likely be addressed in coming weeks as new numbers reveal that more than 2 million guns were purchased in America in November.
  On Black Friday alone, the FBI was asked to process 154,000 background checks for prospective gun owners.
  WATCH THE VIDEO HERE
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Sandy Hook Shooting Victim's Family Is Victimized AGAIN!
  Link to Article
  Fri, 21 Dec 2012 06:18
  Uncool. Uncool and absolutely shameless.
  Noah Pozner is one of many Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims who was laid to rest this week, but at least one despicable individual doesn't think his family has suffered enough!
  A fraudulent website was set up in the boy's name earlier this week, in an attempt to steal money from the heartbroken masses world-wide who thought they could assist the victim's grieving family.
  Noah's uncle, Alex Haller, notified the FBI as soon as he stumbled upon the scam website directing donations to an unknown address.
  Alex admitted this faux charitable website is added pain for an already stressed family. He said:
  "These scammers are taking away from families and the spirits of dead kids."
  The mastermind behind this sham isn't immediately known, but Anderson Cooper confronted Noel Alba, a woman who lives at the unknown address, and she denied any involvement.
  How a person finds it within themselves to capitalize off any tragedy is beyond us, but'... this?! Preying on a family greiving over the senseless murder of a beautiful 6-year-old-boy?!
  Diabolical. Contemptible. Disgraceful. Vile. Reprehensible. Immoral. Heinous'... Our thesaurus has many words to describe this behavior and we are reluctant to choose just one.
  The Pozner family has reclaimed NoahPozner.org and legitimate donations can be made on his behalf.
  [Image via NoahPozner.org.]
  Tags: alex haller, anderson cooper, charity, death, donation, fraud, icky poo, legal matters, noah pozner, noel alba, rip, sad sad, sandy hook elementary, scam, tragedy