By Eric Zuesse Source: The Duran Nobody can give a precise dollar-number to U.S. ‘Defense’ spending because the U.S. ‘Defense’ Department has never been able to pass an audit, and is by far the most corrupt of all federal Departments (and is the ONLY Department that has never passed an audit), and also because much of America’s military […]
Where the $1.3 Trillion Per Year U.S. Military Budget Goes
“I feel lucky and grateful that I’ve had a wonderful life … about having a few months more to enjoy life with my wife and family, and in which to continue to pursue the urgent goal of working with others to avert nuclear war in Ukraine or Taiwan (or anywhere else),”
from thefreeonline on May 04, 2023 by Democracy Now
Slash the Pentagon Budget in Half & Abolish ICBMs: Dan Ellsberg on How to Avoid Nuclear Armageddon,
Watch Full Show Part One After Terminal Cancer Diagnosis, Daniel Ellsberg Reflects on Leaking Pentagon Papers & His Legacy
As we continue our in-depth conversation with Daniel Ellsberg, the famed Pentagon Papers whistleblower talks about his lifelong antiwar activism and responds to the more recent leak of Pentagon documents about the war in Ukraine.
Ellsberg also reflects on the many people who inspired him and says others who look up to his example should know that the sacrifices for building a better world are worth it.
“It can work,” he says. Ellsberg, who was recently diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer and given just months to live, spoke to Democracy Now! last week from his home in Berkeley, California.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, as we continue our conversation with Pentagon Papers whistleblower Dan Ellsberg, who recently announced he’s been diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer. This is another excerpt from the 2009 documentary The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. The clip looks at how the Nixon White House responded to the Pentagon Papers leak. You’ll hear White House counsel John Dean; Egil Krogh, who went to prison for his part in Watergate; but first, President Nixon.
PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON: Just because some guy is going to be a martyr, we can’t be in a position of allowing the fellow to get away with this kind of wholesale thievery, or otherwise it’s going to happen all over the government. I just say that we’ve got to keep our eye on the main ball. The main ball is Ellsberg. We’ve got to get this son of a bitch.
After Terminal Cancer Diagnosis, Daniel Ellsberg Reflects on Leaking Pentagon Papers & His Legacy
JOHN DEAN: The leak of the Pentagon Papers changed the Nixon White House. It really is what some of us have called the beginning of the dark period. I mean, it was rough and tumble before, but it got down and dirty. So it’s really a defining event for the Nixon presidency. And this is when Egil Krogh, Bud Krogh, was selected to head up the so-called Plumbers unit.
EGIL ”BUD” KROGH JR.: I was summoned to the Oval Office by the president. John Ehrlichman and I met with him. There was some suspicion that Dr. Ellsberg had access to the more recent war plans that had been developed by the Nixon administration, and would be able to release those documents. I came from that meeting feeling very strongly that I was dealing with a national security crisis, and I was to take any means necessary to respond to it.
AMY GOODMAN: Again, that’s a former Nixon official, Egil Krogh, an excerpt from The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. Dan, I’m sure this is bringing you back, though you live it every day, them breaking into your psychiatrist’s office. Talk about what that meant to you, and if that was any worse than facing a hundred years in prison.
Daniel Ellsberg on Whistleblowers Julian Assange, Daniel Hale, Reality Winner, Ed Snowden & Others
DANIEL ELLSBERG: I think it’s been misunderstood. Again, another aspect of the Pentagon Papers, it’s been misunderstood this whole time. It’s almost always described as an attempt to smear my reputation or to stigmatize me in some way. Now, I was already an American citizen facing 12 felony counts, a possible 115 years in prison. So they weren’t working with a new surface here entirely. I had been stigmatized quite a bit by that time. But that wasn’t the aim, actually, at all of their sending it in.
As Krogh indicated — and people miss this — what they were worried about was what else I knew — namely, what else I knew and could document that went beyond the Johnson administration into the Nixon administration. The Pentagon Papers themselves ended in 1968, before Nixon came in, so they didn’t incriminate him, except for his role in the ’50s supporting the French — and proposing nuclear weapons at that time, by the way. But he wasn’t mainly involved.
And so, when they came out, in fact, he was very calm about it, and properly so. “This will show,” as Kissinger said, “that it’s really the Democrats’ war, after all.” And they realized it didn’t constitute a real threat for them.
And then they realized that they had these terrific secrets that had to be kept secret from the American public because they were so criminal and dangerous — namely, that they were threatening North Vietnam with nuclear weapons, the same way that the criminal threats that are being made against Ukraine right now by Vladimir Putin.
Nixon was making those threats through the Russian ambassador, Dobrynin, and then directly at that time. And that had to be kept secret from the American people at that time, because the American democracy would not have stood for that. So they had to shut me up.
And the problem then was to find out whether I had documents that could document, prove, what I was saying, because people were very reluctant to believe that a president could lie to that degree or could be so criminal to that degree and reckless, unless they had documents to prove it, which I didn’t have and really never did convince the public on this point.
So I failed, in a way, in my name — my major project, which was to convince the public that a lying campaign, an imperial campaign against Vietnam, that had been carried on by four previous presidents, was being carried on by a fifth. I said it, but no one believed it.
Continue reading “Facing imminent Death, Daniel Ellsberg Warns of Nuclear War – Democracy Now –”They didn’t want to believe that the president was lying to them, just as they had allowed themselves to be misled by Truman, Eisenhower, Johnson, Kennedy, Kennedy and Johnson. So, that part did not succeed; however, they had reason to feel, and to fear, that I might turn up with documents that would demonstrate — which did exist.
(Natural News) Central banks are buying gold at a record pace in anticipation of fiat currency collapse. Meanwhile, the commercial banking sector is imploding. Just today, three more banks were halted on the stock exchange as their stock prices collapsed. Those three banks are PacWest Bankcorp, Western Alliance and Metropolitan Bank. More bank failures are […]
Three more banks see stock trading HALTED, financial sector collapse contagion accelerates
from thefreeonline on 3rd May 2023 by Margaret Anna Alice Through the Looking Glass 62,970 views
–I am honoured to share Dr. Tess Lawrie’s reading of my “Mistakes Were Not Made: Anthem for Justice” poem.
Dr. John Campbell interviews Dr. Tess Lawrie –
The Armenian Genocide was not a mistake.
Holodomor was not a mistake.
The Final Solution was not a mistake.
The Great Leap Forward was not a mistake.
The Killing Fields were not a mistake.
Name your genocide—it was not a mistake.
That includes the Great Democide of the 2020s.
To imply otherwise is to give Them the out they are seeking.
It was not botched.
It was not bungled.
It was not a blunder.
It was not incompetence.
It was not lack of knowledge.
It was not spontaneous mass hysteria.
The planning occurred in plain sight.
The planning is still occurring in plain sight.
The philanthropaths bought The $cience™.
The modelers projected the lies.
The testers concocted the crisis.
The NGOs leased the academics.
The $cientists fabricated the findings.
The mouthpieces spewed the talking points.
The organizations declared the emergency.
The governments erected the walls.
The departments rewrote the rules.
The governors quashed the rights.
The politicians passed the laws.
The bankers installed the control grid.
The stooges laundered the money.
The DoD placed the orders.
The corporations fulfilled the contracts.
The regulators approved the solution.
The laws shielded the contractors.
The agencies ignored the signals.
The behemoths consolidated the media.
The psychologists crafted the messaging.
The propagandists chanted the slogans.
The fact-chokers smeared the dissidents.
The censors silenced the questioners.
The jackboots stomped the dissenters.
The tyrants summoned.
The puppeteers jerked.
The puppets danced.
The colluders implemented.
The doctors ordered.
The hospitals administered.
The menticiders scripted.
The bamboozled bleated.
The totalitarianized bullied.
The Covidians tattled.
The parents surrendered.
The good citizens believed … and forgot.
This was calculated.
This was formulated.
This was focus-grouped.
This was articulated.
This was manufactured.
This was falsified.
This was coerced.
This was inflicted.
This was denied.
We were terrorized.
We were isolated.
We were gaslit.
We were dehumanized.
We were wounded.
We were killed.
Don’t let Them get away with it.
Don’t let Them get away with it.
Don’t let Them get away with it.
See my Substack post for more context : • https://margaretannaalice.substack.co…
It was filmed by Mark Lawrie, director of “A Letter to Dr Andrew Hill,” my #1 red-pilling video.
Ivermectin Covid Tess Lawrie / Craig Kelly Posts Facebook – This is the … isadauber.blogspot.com
Few hours after martyrdom of Palstinian hunger striker Sheikh Khader Adnan in Israeli jail, political cartoonist Carlos Lattouf shared a cartoon of the Palestinian prisoner on his Twitter account, with a caption: “Rest in power.”
from thefreeonline on 5rd May 2023 by Al Jazeera
A timeline of major events in the life of Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan, who died after an epic Hungerstrike in a racist apartheid Israeli Prison
Published On 2 May 20232 May 2023
Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan, who was affiliated with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group, has died in an Israeli prison after nearly three months on a hunger strike, Israeli prison officials said.
Reporting from Ramallah in the West Bank on Tuesday, Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim said Adnan’s family had been warning that, after 80 days without food, his life was in danger.
INSERT: “Israel, has been severely weakened by an ongoing political crisis over a proposed judicial power grab by the Israeli government. Problems have also arisen with Israel’s approach to the status quo at the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, a holy site where neighboring Jordan” maintains custodianship, and have caused major rows between Amman and Tel Aviv in recent months. .. Robert Inlakesh.
Adnan’s lawyer said Adnan’s condition had been deteriorating and they had asked Israeli authorities to hospitalise him.
A medic from the group Physicians for Human Rights Israel, who had visited the father of nine in prison this week, warned that he “faces imminent death” while calling for him to be “urgently transferred to a hospital”, the AFP news agency reported.
The Israel Prison Service said Adnan “refused to undergo medical tests and receive medical treatment” and “was found unconscious in his cell”.
Adnan, 45, began his strike shortly after being arrested on February 5.
see also.. The death of a well-known Palestinian prisoner on hunger strike
Over the years, he has been repeatedly arrested by Israel and became a symbol of steadfastness in the face of Israel’s occupation when he began staging lengthy hunger strikes just more than a decade ago.
Adnan was arrested 12 times and spent about eight years in Israeli prisons, most of it under so-called “administrative detention”, in which Israel holds Palestinians on “secret evidence” for renewable six-month intervals without trial or charges
Here is a timeline of major events in Adnan’s life:
Israel arrested Adnan for the first time in March 1999 and kept him in “administrative detention” for four months.
In November, the Palestinian Authority arrested Adnan for leading a student demonstration against then-French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin at Bir Zeit University. The arrest led to his first hunger strike, which lasted 10 days.
Adnan was detained by Israeli security forces in 2002 and kept under “administrative detention” for a year. Six months after his release in 2003, he was arrested again and placed in solitary confinement.
Adnan married Randa in 2005. Before the wedding, he sat her down and explained the perilous future that would lie ahead if she married him.
“He told me that his life was not normal, that he might be around for 15 days and then be gone again for a long time. But I always dreamed of marrying someone strong, someone who struggles in defence of his country,” she told Al Jazeera.
“I am proud of him whether he is under the ground or above it.”
Adnan was arrested in August and kept in detention for 15 months.
Video Duration 01 minutes 55 seconds 01:55Adnan death puts Israel’s administrative detention in spotlight
Adnan became a father when his wife Randa gave birth to a girl, whom he named Maali after his sister. His second daughter Beesan was born two years later.
Adnan and Randa also had a boy, Abdel Rahman, and a set of triplets. At the time of his death, Adnan was the father of nine children.
Israeli forces arrested Adnan on December 17 at their home in Arrabeh, near Jenin, in the occupied northern West Bank. His family were not given a reason for his arrest.
He went on a hunger strike on December 18.
Adnan’s family, his lawyer, and doctors who visited Adnan during his detention told Human Rights Watch that his health had deteriorated seriously and that Israeli authorities had shackled him to his hospital bed.
Continue reading “Arrests, hunger strikes, protests – the life of Khader Adnan”“Since 2015 the government has tried to prolong its life with political coups, massacres, black propaganda, methods of war, threats and blackmail, and has now launched a new coup d’état in the face of the elections on May 14- This operation serves to steal the vote and the will of the people”.
from thefreeonline on 2nd May 2o23 info from kurdiscat
Erdogan is facing mounting challenges to defend his post. His main rival Kilicdaroglu is making progress in the polls, as the opposition controls the narrative.
Erdogan controls most media, the police, the army and has an extreme far-right following. In the past he was happy to jail hundreds of thousands, happy to fan race hatred and even bomb Kurdish cities like Nusaybin to rubble in 2015, happy to invade and occupy Syria 3 times and order a blatant genocide in Afrin – all to build his now dictatorial power.
Turkish Hitler Erdogan celebrates in UK Palace after murdering 8 Kurdish children
Turkey still has a now rotten system of democracy and justice . Will Erdogan go one step further? For example force the High Court to ban the opposition parties, HDP and Green Party, before the election? Could his fascist supporters launch a new false flag atrocity, blame the Kurds so he can cancel the election and declare Martial Law?
Or will he finally be forced out of his Presidential Palaces? Will Turkey then become another US pawn, putting Sweden in NATO, blocking Russian access to the Black Sea, and triggering World War Three?
Turkish Hitler increased Nudem’s jail to 29 years.. for Singing in Kurdish!.
The Kilicdaroglu skeptics claim Erdogan will rather steal the elections than swallow a career-ending defeat. Turkish elections did indeed experience wide-spread cheating in the past, always engineered by AKP and its allies.
The a macro raid, now 2 weeks before the election date in Turkey, disguised as an operation against the PKK which has been on a self declared ceasefire since the earthquake. 150 arrests have been made, including lawyers and journalists.
Just before the most anticipated elections, with their intrinsic symbolism (one hundred years since the foundation of the Republic of Turkey, ten since the largest opposition movement to Erdogan’s authority, Gezi Park), the Turkish government has made a clean sweep, jailing and silencing much of the left-wing opposition in the country’s Kurdish-majority south and east.
see also: The 1001 Crimes of Adolf Erdogan : #1002.. Abuses Little Girl on Stage
The police operation provoked protests in Diyarbakır, Istanbul, Bursa, Izmir, Mardin, Mersin, Van and many other cities.
126 arrests (part of a long list of prison sentences, at least 216) in 21 provinces, from the most affected Amed/ Diyarbakir to Van, from Izmir to Urfa: searches and confiscations of computers and documents in 186 offices and private homes.
No details: As reported by Human Rights Watch Europe, the archive of the terrorist investigation coordinated by the Diyarbakir Prosecutor’s Office is not accessible.
Turkey president Erdogan’s first palace worth $500m
Handcuffs on the wrists of 25 lawyers, a dozen artists, at least ten journalists from various publications, from Mesopotamia News Agency to Yeni Yasam and JinNews.
The rest are politicians and local administrators linked to the Green Left Party and the HDP, the Peoples’ Democratic Party that has for years brought together the broad spectrum of Turkish and Kurdish leftist movements.
The accusation is not new: belonging to a terrorist organization, specifically the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Erdogan: Systematic Torture, Rape of Political Prisoners
Everything happened in the morning (April 25), in coordinated operations aimed at the left of the country, as if the thousands of arrests in recent years are not enough, the dozens of commissioners of the local authorities and – still ongoing – a pending trial by the Constitutional Court for the HDP ban.
Among those arrested were party vice president Özlem Gündüz and central committee member Mahfuz Güleryüz.
A new “coup d’état”, as defined by the HDP in a note: “Since 2015 the government, which tries to prolong its life with political coups, massacres, black propaganda, methods of war, threats and blackmail, has launched a new coup d’état in the face of the elections on May 14.
This operation serves to steal the vote and the will of the people”.
FOR THIS reason, according to the party, not only the party representatives ended up in prison, but also “the lawyers who will protect the ballot boxes and the journalists who will inform the public”.
ANF | 1,200 women subjected to violence in occupied Afrin
The Green Left Party, a formation that will present itself in the elections to replace the HDP, is in the same line, threatened with closure.
An almost mandatory option: in the event of a negative ruling by the Constitutional Court, the HDP would have neither the means nor the time to launch a replacement party in a short time.
They’re not the only ones protesting: yesterday’s press releases came from the Progressive Bar Association, the Press Workers Union and the Confederation of Revolutionary Trade Unions.
And from the prison, where he has been detained since November 2016, the ex-leader of the People’s Democratic Party, Selahattin Demirtas, also spoke, who with a post on Twitter pointed the finger at the gray eminence of the Islamist government of the ‘AKP, Interior. Minister Süleyman Soylu.
Reporters Without Borders calls on Turkey to release Kurdish journalists. The journalists were among more than 100 people, including lawyers and local politicians, who were arrested in a major police operation on 25 April.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan: a dictator in all but name seeks complete control
Will Turkey-Syria earthquake doom Erdogan’s dreams of re-election?https://thefreeonline.com/2023/02/15/will-turkey-syria-earthquake-doom-erdogans-dreams-of-re-election/
Turkish President Erdogan demands rejection of homosexuality after arresting LGBT activists Eng/Esp https://thefreeonline.com/2021/02/09/turkish-president-erdogan-demands-rejection-of-homosexuality-after-arresting-lgbt-activists-eng-esp/
War Crimes: Erdogan gave Putin #Turkstream 2 pipeline for Russian okay to Bomb, invade and genocide Afrin https://thefreeonline.com/2021/06/13/war-crimes-erdogan-gave-putin-turkstream-2-pipeline-for-russian-okay-to-bomb-invade-and-genocide-afrin/
5 Hunger Strikers suicide as Erdogan ignores over 300
Erdogan’s Military Imperialism Knows No Boundshttps://thefreeonline.com/2021/11/20/erdogans-military-imperialism-knows-no-bounds/
Erdogan’s March to Dictatorship in Turkey | The New Yorker
Erdogan celebrates end of Women’s Rights with 18 more femicides and 20 suspicious deaths in June https://thefreeonline.com/2021/07/07/erdogan-celebrates-end-of-womens-rights-with-18-more-femicides-and-20-suspicious-deaths-in-june/
The rival forcing Turkey’s Erdogan to reformulate his Sunni religious
Thousands of Turkey coup prisoners ‘raped, starved and hogtied’
Erdogan refuses to release 268,000 prisoners *50,000 -political, as virus hits prisons https://thefreeonline.com/2020/03/20/erdogan-refuses-to-release-268000-prisoners-50000-political-as-virus-hits-prisons/
NATO okays Turkish genocide of 170K trapped Afrin refugees in Tell Rifaat/Shebha enclave
Erdogan: ‘Aggravated Life in jail’ for Journo and ex deputy .. for criticising him!.. 339 torture cases!.. 22,321 Kurds arrested!… https://thefreeonline.com/2020/11/11/erdogan-aggravated-life-in-jail-for-journo-and-ex-deputy-for-criticising-him-339-torture-cases-22321-kurds-arrested/
#Turkey: 3rd dead Hunger Striker of #GrupYorum, still banned by Erdogan. Gökçek is dead!! https://thefreeonline.com/2020/05/08/turkey-thousands-pay-tribute-to-gokcek-of-grup-yorum/
Women are disappearing in occupied Afrin. Abducted, Murdered, Raped, some sold as slaves of Erdogan’s Militias https://thefreeonline.com/2021/01/01/women-are-disappearing-in-occupied-afrin-abducted-murdered-raped-some-sold-as-slaves-of-erdogans-militias/
Turkish Hitler Vows to Massacre Syrian Kurds; + seeks Life in Jail for 237 Journalists
Turkey’s Erdogan Cuts off Water to One Million Syrian Civilians in the Blazing Summer Heat https://thefreeonline.com/2020/08/25/turkeys-erdogan-cuts-off-water-to-one-million-syrian-civilians-in-the-blazing-summer-heat/
Turkey to spend extra $13 million for dictator Erdoğan’s Wonderful new Palace near Lake Van. https://thefreeonline.com/2021/01/20/turkey-to-spend-extra-13-million-for-dictator-erdogans-wonderful-new-palace-near-lake-van/
