This Week in the World Affairs Brief:
EVIDENCE OF SOUTH CAROLINA VOTE TAMPERING
For Newt Gingrich to go from a 15% rating in South Carolina to winning 40% of the vote took much more than manipulated polling. There had to be electronic vote manipulation on a large scale. While no whistleblower has come forth there is the telling evidence that all authorized vote tally watchers were blocked from being in the actual room to observe the vote tally. They were relegated to watching it on a television or behind a soundproof glass wall. Why the secrecy? You can request a one-time free sample of the briefs by sending an email to editor@worldaffairsbrief.com.
Also:
- Obama’s State of the Union
- TSA Detains a Senator
- Why Gas Prices aren’t Coming Down
Daily News
East Africa Is the New Epicenter of America's Shadow War
posted by askousen - Friday, January 27 2012
When Adm. Eric Olson, the former leader of U.S. Special Operations Command, wanted to explain where his forces were going, he would show audiences a photo that NASA took, titled "The World at Night." The lit areas showed the governed, stable, orderly parts of the planet. The areas without lights were the danger zones - the impoverished, the power vacuums, the places overrun with militants that prompted the attention of elite U.S. troops. And few places were darker, in Olson's eyes, than East Africa.
Quietly, and especially over the last two to three years, special operations forces have focused on that very shadowy spot on NASA's map (see below). The successful Tuesday night raid to free two humanitarian aid workers from captivity in Somalia is only the most recent and high-profile example. More and more elite forces have transited through a mega-base in Djibouti that's a staging ground for strikes on al-Qaida allies in the Horn of Africa, especially in Somalia. — Wired.com
Republicans Demand Block Of US IMF Funding To Bail Out Europe
posted by askousen - Friday, January 27 2012
In a letter sent Wednesday to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Chairman Spencer Bachus, Vice Chairman Jeb Hensarling and the chairmen of the Committee's six subcommittees ask for confirmation that the Administration will not use taxpayer funds to subsidize Europe's financial programs through additional contributions to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The IMF has requested up to $500 billion to respond to the Eurozone debt crisis. The U.S. is the IMF's largest member country. — zerohedge.com
VIDEO: Military Helicopters Conduct Covert Exercises Over U.S. Bank Building
posted by askousen - Friday, January 27 2012
Video was captured last night of five military helicopters buzzing over downtown LA, conducting what the LAPD has described as a special ops urban warfare drill.
The footage, captured by CBS Los Angeles, shows a huge Black Hawk helicopter hovering over the US bank building along with four other OH-6 choppers, known as "Little Birds".
CBS reporters noted seeing the Black Hawk conduct a drop off in a nearby park before taking to the sky above LA again.
The helicopters, staged at Dodger Stadium throughout the exercise, were later spotted flying low over the Staples Center as the LA Lakers played inside. — Infowars.com
Symantec: We Didn't Know in 2006 Source Code Was Stolen
posted by askousen - Friday, January 27 2012
"We believe that source code for the 2006-era versions of the following products was exposed," the company subsequently wrote in a statement. The programs that were compromised included pcAnywhere as well as Norton Internet Security and Norton System Works (Norton Utilities and Norton Go Back) and Norton Antivirus Corporate Edition.
Paden said the company doesn't know if the "Lords of Dharmaraja" stole the code from its servers in 2006 or obtained the code from someone else who stole it. One thing is certain, he said, Symantec never gave the Indian government its source code. — Wired.com
Nashville airport video doesn't show 'irate' Sen. Rand Paul
posted by askousen - Friday, January 27 2012
A security video of U.S. Sen. Rand Paul at a Nashville International Airport checkpoint doesn't show him being "irate," as police asserted.
The Kentucky Republican ran afoul of a millimeter-wave screening machine Monday morning that went off as he tried to enter the airport terminal. Transportation Security Administration officials asked him to undergo a pat-down, but he refused.
An incident report describes the police response as encountering "a passenger being irate." But videos released by the Metro Airport Authority late Wednesday show Paul entering the security line at 7:57 a.m. and then alternately sitting and standing in a glass cubicle while being watched by authorities. Paul appears to make a few phone calls as well. — The Tennessean
Senator Lee Slams Obama's Unconstitutional Appointments
posted by askousen - Friday, January 27 2012
Today, Senator Mike Lee formally responded to the President's unconstitutional recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In a statement delivered at a Judiciary Committee business meeting, Lee outlined the unconstitutional nature of the appointments and criticized the justification offered by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel.
"President Obama used deeply flawed legal reasoning to circumvent the Constitution's clear requirement that the Senate must be in recess in order to make such appointments," said Sen. Lee. "The President's assertion that he may unilaterally determine for himself whether or not the Senate is in recess violates the Constitution's fundamental separation of government powers and the Senate's rightful prerogatives."
"Although some Senate Democrats claim prior 'obstruction' of nominees during this Congress, in reality Senate Republicans have willingly allowed the overwhelming majority of the President's nominations to pass through the Judiciary Committee with little controversy and receive an up or down vote on the floor." — Campaign for Liberty
Taxpayers Lose Another $118.5 Million As Next Obama Stimulus Pet Project Files For Bankruptcy
posted by askousen - Friday, January 27 2012
Remember that one keyword that oddly enough never made it's way into the president's largely recycled SOTU address - "Solyndra"? It is about to make a double or nothing repeat appearance, now that Ener1, another company that was backed by Obama, this time a electric car battery-maker, has filed for bankruptcy. Net result: taxpayers lose $118.5 million. The irony is that while Solyndra may have been missing from the SOTU, Ener1 made an indirect appearance: "In three years, our partnership with the private sector has already positioned America to be the world’s leading manufacturer of high-tech batteries." Uh, no. Actually, the correct phrasing is: "...positioned America to be the world's leading manufacturer of insolvent, bloated subsidized entities that are proof central planning at any level does not work but we can keep doing the same idiocy over and over hoping the final result will actually be different eventually." We can't wait to find out just which of Obama's handlers was may have been responsible for this latest gross capital misallocation. — Tyler Durden/zerohedge.com
Credit Agricole and Societe Generale downgraded by S&P
posted by askousen - Thursday, January 26 2012
Two of France's largest banks have been downgraded by Standard & Poor's as the ratings agency followed up on its earlier downgrade of the country's sovereign rating.
Societe Generale said it was unsurprised by S&P's decision and had been expecting its credit rating to be cut ever since France's sovereign downgrade. — UK Telegraph
NEWT GINGRICH? REALLY?
posted by askousen - Thursday, January 26 2012
Last weekend, Republican voters in South Carolina picked the candidate they want to be the GOP standard bearer for the November elections: Newt Gingrich. Newt Gingrich? Really? What did I miss? Or better, what did Republican voters in South Carolina miss?
What is not lost to virtually everyone who understands national politics is the fact that there is perhaps no State in the union where evangelical Christians have more influence within the State Republican Party than in South Carolina. For example, Greenville, South Carolina, is home to what could be regarded as the flagship university of evangelicalism, Bob Jones University. There are probably more evangelical churches, Christian schools, mission organizations, etc., per square mile in South Carolina than any State in the country. And the vast majority of them are politically active in GOP politics. So, when a GOP Presidential candidate wins South Carolina, you can be absolutely certain that he or she did so with the support and blessing from a sizeable number of evangelical Christians (and pastors) in the State.
In all candor, understanding the power and influence of evangelical Christianity in South Carolina Republican politics, Newt Gingrich's victory in that State last week is extremely difficult for this writer to digest. I cannot think of a candidate that is more reprehensible to the values and principles that born-again Christians claim to embrace than Newt Gingrich! — Chuck Baldwin/News With Views
Gold, Silver, $HUI React to Bernanke Pledge to Hold Rates near Zero "At Least" through Late 2014
posted by askousen - Thursday, January 26 2012
In a press statement regarding today's FOMC meeting, the Fed announced that economic conditions would "likely warrant exceptionally low levels for the federal funds rate at least through late 2014".
If It Doesn't Work, Keep Doing It
As noted in Premature Dollar Obituaries and Mainstream Economists' Monetary Insanity; Keynes-Inspired Great Depression; Lessons Not Learned, this policy decision is highly unlikely to accomplish what Bernanke wants.
Bernanke's policy now boils down to "if it doesn't work, we'll keep doing it until it does". Those on fixed incomes have been crucified by the Fed's policies and will continue to be crucified by the Fed's policies until low interest rates work. — Mish Shedlock/Global Economic Analysis
Gloom gathers over Davos as Merkel digs in her heels on debt
posted by askousen - Thursday, January 26 2012
Angela Merkel yesterday dashed hopes that Germany was preparing
to sanction a significant increase in support to its troubled European neighbours to bring the eurozone sovereign debt crisis to an end...
Earlier, Ms Merkel was even more explicit, arguing that there would be "no point" in promising more money without tackling the causes of the crisis and rejecting, once again, the proposal that European member states should jointly guarantee their debts.
Speaking at the opening of the annual gathering of politicians and business leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the German Chancellor insisted that her government would not be increasing its financial commitment to indebted eurozone nations such as Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Spain and Italy. — UK Independent
US/Israel: Iran NOT Building Nukes
posted by askousen - Thursday, January 26 2012
Exclusive: Recent comments by U.S and Israeli military leaders indicate that the intelligence services of the two countries agree that Iran has not decided to build a nuclear bomb, a crack in the Western narrative that the U.S. press corps won't accept, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern explains. — Consortium News
'Thin-skinned' Obama caught Brewer by surprise
posted by askousen - Thursday, January 26 2012
When Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer met President Barack Obama at Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport on Wednesday, the last thing she expected was a dressing-down of her book.
After Obama departed Air Force One, he and Brewer were observed to be having an intense conversation, with the governor even photographed pointing her finger at the president.
"He was a little thin-skinned," Brewer said in an appearance on News/Talk 92.3 KTAR's Mac & Gaydos Show. — KTAR.com
Iran devalues in bid to stop rial slide
posted by askousen - Thursday, January 26 2012
Iran announced an 8 percent devaluation of the rial on Thursday and said it would enforce a single exchange rate, aiming to stamp out a black market where dollars have soared due to fears over new sanctions imposed by the West.
"I announce it right here at 12,260 rials (to the dollar)," Central Bank Governor Mahmoud Bahmani told state television. — Reuters
Total Federalization of Police Under New Homeland Security Mission
posted by askousen - Wednesday, January 25 2012
A new white paper presented to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence carves out an 'evolving mission' for Homeland Security that moves away from fighting terrorism and towards growing a vast domestic intelligence apparatus that would expand integration with local/state agencies and private-public partnerships already underway via regional fusion centers.
Crafted by the Aspen Institute Homeland Security Group, co-chaired by former DHS chief Michael Chertoff and composed of a who's who of national security figures, the report outlines a total mission creep, as the title "Homeland Security and Intelligence: Next Steps in Evolving the Mission" implies.
Significantly, it puts on paper and into the Congressional record a proposed transition from outwardly dealing with the threats posed by terrorism towards intelligence gathering "focused on more specific homeward-focused areas." — Shock Docs/Infowars.com
Mitch Daniels Ignores Social Conservatives Again
posted by askousen - Wednesday, January 25 2012
Our disagreement with Daniels' speech is not what he said or how he said it, but what he left out, namely, any mention of the conservative social agenda or right to life.
There is a gaping chasm between Obama's pro-abortion social policies and where conservative Americans stand on these issues. It is a divide that has substantial electoral advantages for Republicans and conservatives, particularly in the tier of states around the Great Lakes (where a substantial plurality of voters are pro-life Catholics) and in the South (where a substantial plurality, maybe even a majority, of voters are pro-life Evangelicals).
Yet, at a time when the Obama administration has just announced that Church-related institutions will be required to provide contraceptive coverage for employees in their health-care plans -- guaranteeing a confrontation with the Catholic Church -- and there is growing discrimination against Christians in Egypt and other Muslim countries (which the Obama administration has ignored in the name of realpolitic), Governor Daniels made no mention of the right to life or religious freedom, either here or abroad. — Richard A. Viguerie/Conservative HQ
Wife of alleged CIA leaker resigns from agency
posted by askousen - Wednesday, January 25 2012
A senior CIA analyst resigned Tuesday amid accounts that she had been pressured to step down after her husband - a former agency employee - was charged with leaking classified information to the press.
Heather Kiriakou had served as a top analyst on some of the most sensitive subjects that the agency tracks, including leadership developments in Iran. Her husband, John, faces a maximum of 30 years in prison after being accused of disclosing details about secret CIA operations as well as the identities of undercover officers. — Washington Post
Ron Paul starts campaign to end the TSA
posted by askousen - Wednesday, January 25 2012
Ron Paul has long opposed the TSA and has campaigned for its abolishment for years. Following an episode on Monday that left his son, Sen. Rand Paul, stranded in a Nashville airport, the presidential hopeful is asking for help to finally end the TSA. — Russia Times
Why did Fox exclude veterans for Ron Paul from recent segments?
posted by askousen - Wednesday, January 25 2012
In fact, Paul was being modest; he could have further detailed that he actually received five times more than Romney, Gingrich, and Santorum (from January 2011 to September 2011) -- put together. You can even throw in military donations for Obama in with the Republican candidates, and Paul still beats all of them. It was the same story for Paul in 2007-2008. In the fourth quarter of 2007 alone, Paul raised $212,000 from active military; Obama was second with $94,000. Mitt Romney's top three donors during the 2012 campaign season came from Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse Group, and Morgan Stanley. Ron Paul's top three? Army, Navy, and Air Force.
So in light of these facts, it is even more shocking that Fox News ran two segments (one Friday and one on Sunday) about which candidate veterans support, and yet failed to have a veteran on who supported Paul, when they had one each for Romney, for Gingrich, and for Santorum in both segments. Fox News did ask one of the veterans about Paul on Friday, to which she replied that she doubted Paul's claim about receiving more money from the military than the other candidates was even true. Fox did not correct her with any facts, and since they didn't have a Paul supporter on no one could dispute what she said. So once again, either Fox is showing their ugly prejudice towards Ron Paul or they are just really inept at doing their job and finding veterans who support him. — Jenn Morrill/examiner.com
Ron Paul react to Obama State of the Union
posted by askousen - Wednesday, January 25 2012
"President Obama claims to want an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules. Yet he remains committed to the same old system of debt, deficits, bailouts, and cronyism that created our economic problems. The President speaks of giving us energy independence from unstable nations, yet he refuses to allow the type of development needed to achieve this goal, while at the same time his administration hands out favors to the politically connected - those given to the likes of Solyndra, who fail to produce jobs or energy but succeed in ripping off the taxpayers. — Chicago Sun Times
Live blog: The GOP responds to Obama
posted by askousen - Wednesday, January 25 2012
Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels is delivering the Republican response to President Obama's State of the Union Address.
10:40 p.m. -- Daniels says: "Republicans will speak for those who believe in the dignity and capacity of the individual citizen; who believe that government is meant to serve the people rather than supervise them; who trust Americans enough to tell them the plain truth about the fix we are in, and to lay before them a specific, credible program of change big enough to meet the emergency we are facing." — The Oval
10K Reasons to Worry About Critical Infrastructure
posted by askousen - Wednesday, January 25 2012
A security researcher was able to locate and map more than 10,000 industrial control systems hooked up to the public internet, including water and sewage plants, and found that many could be open to easy hack attacks, due to lax security practices.
Infrastructure software vendors and critical infrastructure owners have long maintained that industrial control systems (ICSes) - even if rife with security vulnerabilities — are not at risk of penetration by outsiders because they're "air-gapped" from the internet - that is, they're not online.
But Eireann Leverett, a computer science doctoral student at Cambridge University, has developed a tool that matches information about ICSes that are connected to the internet with information about known vulnerabilities to show how easy it could be for an attacker to locate and target an industrial control system. — Wired.com
LA Military Exercises
posted by askousen - Wednesday, January 25 2012
Joint military training exercises will be held evenings in downtown Los Angeles through Thursday, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
The LAPD will be providing support for the exercises, which will also be held in other portions of the greater Los Angeles area, police said. — KFI News
Ron Paul Announces 'End the TSA' Money Bomb
posted by askousen - Wednesday, January 25 2012
Earlier today, my son, Senator Rand Paul, was detained by the TSA in Nashville, prevented from making his flight, and missed his commitment to speak at the March for Life in Washington, D.C.
All because he refused to be the latest victim of the TSA's disgusting full body pat-downs.
I'm proud of my son's stand, but there are many more who receive this kind of treatment every day - and never have a chance to speak out.
My Plan to Restore America stands up for the rights and privacy of every traveler by abolishing the TSA.
Please, make your most generous contribution today to my End the TSA Money Bomb so I can have every possible resource to win this race, abolish the out-of-control TSA, and lead the fight to keep our nation safe - instead of allowing bureaucrats to continue sacrificing our security for this theatrical sham. — infowars.com
Judge: Americans can be forced to decrypt their laptops
posted by derek - Tuesday, January 24 2012
American citizens can be ordered to decrypt their PGP-scrambled hard drives for police to peruse for incriminating files, a federal judge in Colorado ruled today in what could become a precedent-setting case. — Declan McCullagh/CNET
5 killed in fresh protests in Serthar [Tibet]
posted by askousen - Tuesday, January 24 2012
"The Chinese security personnel began to fire indiscriminately at the crowd of Tibetans demonstrating against the Chinese government in the central town of Serthar," the Tibetan said.
Beijing based Tibetan writer, Woeser has also independently confirmed that five Tibetans were killed in the protests today. Woeser identified one of the dead as Bobo, a Tibetan man in his mid-thirties.
Sources say the whole of Serthar is under virtual martial law with large numbers of Chinese security personnel maintaining a strict surveillance all over the town.
All the shops and restaurants and public amenities in the region have been forced to shut down. — phayul.com
How To Avoid Voting For A Globalist Puppet
posted by askousen - Tuesday, January 24 2012
The number of Republican candidates vying in the primaries of this election is a bit absurd, and after witnessing the half-hearted or outright fake performances by most of them, I can see quite clearly that the state of Montana is being targeted by Neo-Con interests posing as Constitutionalists in an attempt to neutralize the extraordinary advance of the Liberty Movement here. What struck me most sharply was the fact that almost every candidate vying for the governor's slot had taken on elements of the Liberty Movement philosophy. The elections of 2012 and the immense success of the Ron Paul campaign have so far proven without a doubt that the anti-globalist, anti-totalitarian, anti-collectivist stance is now part of a growing majority in America. Just as we have forced Neo-Con candidates in the Presidential primaries to at least pretend that they care about freedom (quite a change from the Bush years), so too are Republican impostors forced to mimic us in the battle for state offices. — alt-market.com
Romney Regains His Footing
posted by askousen - Tuesday, January 24 2012
One of the mysteries of this primary campaign is how Mr. Gingrich came to be regarded as an exceptional debater based on an ability to draw standing ovations from partisan audiences by attacking the press and insulting moderators who ask questions that he doesn't want to answer. Another head-scratcher is why he wins praise as the conservative alternative to Mr. Romney despite criticizing the former governor primarily from the left and in language indistinguishable from the Obama campaign's.
Mr. Gingrich regularly derides his rival as a "Massachusetts moderate," but last night it was the former speaker who praised Medicare Part D and defended agriculture subsidies. Score this debate for Mr. Romney. We'll find out at the next one on Thursday whether Mr. Gingrich can recover. — WSJ
Japan's Fiscal Pressure Grows on Tax-Boost Plan
posted by askousen - Tuesday, January 24 2012
Japan's government said it will probably miss its goal of balancing the budget by 2020 even with its proposed doubling of the sales tax, underscoring the scale of the nation's fiscal challenges.
The primary budget deficit, which excludes the cost of servicing debt, will be the equivalent of 3.1 percent of gross domestic product for the year through March 2021, the Cabinet Office said in Tokyo today. Hours after the release, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda reiterated his call for opposition lawmakers to engage in talks on boosting the sales levy.
Addressing the shortfall through faster growth may be a limited option for Japan, where the central bank has already cut the key interest rate near zero and the traditional boost from a trade surplus last year evaporated -- for the first time since 1980. Absent structural changes that boost incentives to spend and invest, today's report signals further fiscal tightening will be needed to rein in the world's largest public debt. — Bloomberg
Pro-Gingrich super PAC builds shadow campaign
posted by askousen - Tuesday, January 24 2012
"It is new territory," said Gregg Phillips, an Austin-based strategist and political director for Winning Our Future, the pro-Gingrich group.
...Winning Our Future can't exactly run away from the moniker "money machine," either. On Monday, news broke that Miriam Adelson, wife of billionaire casino owner Sheldon Adelson, would give another $5 million to the pro-Gingrich group - enough to finance a formidable ground game in Florida, where Gingrich and Romney are competing fiercely to win the state's Jan. 31 primary. The news underscored the potential for super PACs in general, and Winning Our Future in particular, to play game-changing roles in the Republican nomination.
The contest in many ways has already been defined by the activities of super PACs, independent committees that have spent millions on political ads to help their candidates - and hurt their opponents. The groups have proliferated since the Supreme Court decided in 2010 that, unlike traditional campaigns, super PACs may collect unlimited contributions from individuals and companies to exercise their right to free speech. — Washington Post