VENEZUELA ELECTION PLOT FOILED; US Backed Columbian Rebels Captured With Explosives & Weapons, Otto Reich & Roger Noriega’s Handiwork?
A US backed plot to create pre and post Venezuela election “chaos and violence” was as predictable as the sun coming up…
If the claims against Otto Reich and Roger Noriega are true, which is highly likely, this means the Obama Admin is using right wing Bush Family criminals… yet more proof that cousin Barry Obama is a NeoCon (ie, Fascist).
2013.4.13 Venezuela Foils Election Plot (Reuters, uktelegraph, youtube.com):
Venezuelan officials say they have captured members of paramilitary group bent on disrupting the country’s upcoming presidential election.
2013.3.21 Venezuela Alleges US Plot (Otto Reich & Roger Noriega, Victoria Nuland) (CNN, WTLNews, youtube.com):
Venezuela’s Maduro accuses US of assassination plot.
Judge orders prosecution to prove that Bradley Manning intended to ‘aid the enemy’
A US military judge says the government must prove that Army Private Bradley Manning intended to aid the enemy when he released hundreds of thousands of sensitive files to WikiLeaks.
The official tribunal against the 25-year-old private first class is not slated to start until June, but during pretrial hearings on Wednesday morning, Col. Denise Lind ruled that the government has a burden to prove that the soldier aimed to inflect harm on the United States when he sent materials to the whistleblower site.
Reporting from the media center at Ft. Meade, Maryland, independent journalist Alexa O’Brien writes that the United States government must now prove that Pfc. Manning acted “with reason to believe such info could be used to the injury of the US or to advantage of any foreign nation.” By doing so, Lind is making it much harder for the government to convict Manning on the most serious of the charges: aiding the enemy. If convicted on this count, Manning could theoretically be sentenced to die. Prosecutors, however, have said they would settle for life in prison.
‘They want me dead!’ Venezuelan president claims US murder plot
Acting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro believes there is a US plot to assassinate him during his election campaign. He called on his followers to be “vigilant” and warned conspirators want to prevent his victory in next week’s election.
Presidential candidate Maduro pointed the finger at the former US Ambassador to Venezuela Otto Reich and the ex-ambassador to the Organization of American States, Roger Noriega, outing them as the driving force behind the conspiracy.
“Their goal is to kill me,” said Maduro on Saturday during an electoral campaign speech in the northern state of Bolivar. He called on his supporters to be on maximum alert, warning that the object of the plot was to increase the homicide rate in cities across Venezuela and cause a blackout ahead of the elections.
“Roger Noriega and Otto Reich are involved, as well as the Salvadorian far right that has contracted hit men,” announced Maduro during his speech. He stressed that they wanted him dead because “they know they cannot beat me in fair elections.”
Pope orders Vatican officials to tackle child sex abuse scandals
Pope Francis has directed the Vatican to act decisively on ecclesiastic sex abuse cases and take measures against paedophile priests, saying the Catholic church’s credibility was on the line.
The announcement was quickly dismissed by victims’ advocates as just more talk. “Once again … a top Catholic official says he’s asking another top Catholic official to take action about paedophile priests and complicit bishops,” said Barbara Dorris, an official of Snap, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, a US-based organisation.
“Big deal. Actions speak louder than words. And one of the first actions Pope Francis took was to visit perhaps the most high-profile corrupt prelate on the planet, Cardinal Bernard Law, who remains a powerful church official despite having been drummed out of Boston for hiding and enabling crimes by hundreds of child molesting clerics,” Dorris said in a statement.
Clergy abuse victims have called for swift and bold action from Francis as soon as he was elected pope last month. In the pope’s homeland, Argentina, Roman Catholic activists had characterised him as being slow to act against such abuse while he was head the church there.
Income Tax Protester / Activist Wesley Snipes released from prison
April 6, 2013 by Jack Blood
Filed under Music/Book/Film/Art
IT WILL BE INTERESTING to see If Mr Snipes has been properly reeducated about his place at the table and the issue of “Voluntary” Taxes. If he starts working in propaganda films – we will have your answer. Good Luck Wesley – stay away from the light!
Wesley Snipes is the star of the Blade trilogy
Hollywood star Wesley Snipes has been released from prison in the US after serving time for not paying his taxes.
The 50-year-old actor was jailed in Pennsylvania in 2010 for failing to file income tax returns.
He’ll now remain under house arrest for the next four months in order to complete the three year sentence he was handed.
Snipes has starred in dozens of films but is most famous for the Blade trilogy about a vampire hunter.
Millions of dollars
US prosecutors say the actor failed to file returns for at least a decade and owed millions of dollars in taxes.
It’s not known where exactly he’ll stay while under house arrest. At the time of his conviction he lived in a suburb of Orlando in Florida.
However, documents show he’ll be under the supervision of the New York Community Corrections Office, which oversees people in the Bronx and Brooklyn areas of New York, as well as New Jersey.
At the time of his conviction in April 2008, prosecutors said Snipes had earned more than $37m (£24m) in gross income.
Wesley Snipes at the premiere of Blade 2
Activist / Comedian Dick Gregory on the Martin Luther King Assassination + (RIP Rev)
April 4, 2013 by Jack Blood
Filed under Commentary
Many folk have heard that the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. made the comment that the U.S. government [was/is] “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today”. This was in context to a speech delivered on April 4, 1967 (which became his Death day) at Riverside Church in New York City – exactly one year before his untimely death. Though not as well-known as his other speeches, this is one of the ones that speak deeply to my soul. Because of a few “blips” in the audio, I tried to include include the entire speech to be read along with the speech. It was, however, longer that what is allowed here.
William Pepper details the responsibility of the US government for the assassination of Martin Luther King after more than 30 years’ investigation. Altho there were 2 snipers and their spotters in place, employed by the US, a 3rd shooter in bushes, a hired off-duty Memphis policeman, fired the fatal shot. Introduced by Rev. Frank Morales. Camera: Joe Friendly
Pepper seeks to keep alive King’s dream of millions coming to Washington to rescue democracy with a Constitutional Convention.
Activist demand Obama Nobel Peace Prize be revoked
In 2009, President Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his effort to strengthen worldwide diplomacy. But critics believe he didn’t deserve it then and doesn’t deserve it now. The activist group Roots Action is spearheading an online petition that has gathered thousands of signatures to take the prize out of the hands of the US president due to his broken promise of closing Guantanamo Bay and his aggressive drone policy abroad. Leah Bolger, a board member for Veterans for Peace, joins us with more about the online campaign.
North Korea’s Kim Jong Un threatens attack on US bases in Pacific
Kim Jong Un said on Wednesday that North Korea would attack U.S. military bases in the Pacific in addition to South Korea if its “enemies … make even the slightest movement,” according to the North’s official KCNA news agency.
The North also hit out over deployment of a U.S. B-52 bomber to South Korea, warning of “all-out action” – the latest of a series of threats issued by Pyongyang.
KCNA news agency said, in its usual flowery rhetoric, that the presence of the bomber showed the U.S. was preparing for “a pre-emptive nuclear strike,” echoing its own earlier threat to do that.
Hugo Chavez vs “The Network”
March 15, 2013 by Jack Blood
Filed under Commentary
By Greg Palast for Vice Magazine
Thursday, March 14, 2013
London, February 2002. A tiny, dark and intense woman waited at the end of a lecture until I was alone, brought her face strangely close to mine and whispered, “President Chavez needs you. Right now. To Caracas. Right now. You must come to see him.”
President Who? All I knew about this Hugo Chavez guy was that he was an Latin-American jefe, led a bungled coup and was filled with a lot of populist bullshit and a lot of oil.
And I also knew that no one at BBC Newsnight was going to blow the budget for me to fly to South America to talk about a nation that 92 percent of our viewers couldn’t find on a map and wouldn’t want to.
“Send me an email.”
“There will be a coup. March 15.”
“The Ides of March. I like that. Aren’t there always coups down there?”
“They’ll kill him, undo everything. He needs you to stop it, he wants to explain it to you because he knows you understand.”
Actually, you’d be surprised at the amount I don’t understand at all. “So talk.”
She did – for four hours – and wore me down into submission. But back at Newsnight I looked like an idiot when March 15 came and went with just a little gunfire in Caracas.
Three weeks later, the President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, was kidnapped and held hostage by the head of Venezuela’s Chamber of Commerce. Suddenly the BBC had to get me on a plane.
When I got to the Presidential Palace, Chavez was already back at his desk, though the bullet holes in the palace’s walls weren’t yet filled in.
Chavez told me that he’d agreed to be taken hostage by gunmen on the condition that his staff and their trapped children would be allowed to escape. He was bundled into a helicopter, and when it swerved out to sea he assumed he would be pushed out: “I was calm. I was ready.”
So who was behind it?
Chavez gave me information on US military attachés who had met with the plotters. While I couldn’t verify any specific US directive to seize him, I didn’t have to: I had grinning photos of George W Bush’s new US Ambassador, Charles Shapiro, congratulating Chavez’ kidnappers.
The question was, why? Why the need to eliminate Chavez, by coup, by bullet, by propaganda, embargo, or, as we later discovered, by screwing with Venezuela’s vote count?
As a purgative for the crappola fed to Americans about Chavez, my foundation, The Palast Investigative Fund, is offering the film, The Assassination of Hugo Chavez, as a FREE download. Based on Palast’s several meetings with Chavez, his kidnappers and his would-be assassins, filmed for BBC Television. DVDs also available. Watch the Video and share the link.
No doubt that for Bush’s oil-o-crats, Chavez’ doubling the royalties paid by Exxon and Chevron was worth the price of a bullet; but it was no more than the amount that Sarah Palin would seize from the oil companies when she ruled Alaska. So what was it?
The answer was in the movie Network.
“AM I GETTING THROUGH TO YOU, MR. BEALE? The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now THEY MUST GIVE IT BACK!
“It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity. You are an old man who thinks in terms of national and peoples. THERE ARE NO NATIONS. There are no peoples. There is only ONE HOLISTIC SYSTEM OF SYSTEM, one vast and immense, interwoven, interacting, multi-variate, multi-national dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars. Electro-dollars. Multi-dollars. IT IS THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM OF CURRENCY which determines the totality of life on this planet. Am I getting through to you? ”
Chavez had defied gravity, overpowered the tide. Venezuela earned billions in petro-dollars from the USA – but then, Chavez refused to “give it back”.
Third World nations are not supposed to keep the dollars paid to suck out their oil and mineral blood. For every dollar US consumers pay the Saudis for their oil, about $1.24 is given back as Saudis return the funds by purchasing US Treasury debt or hunks of US banks, CitiCorp for one.
Above: World Capital Flow 2005, from Armed Madhouse by Greg Palast
In 2005, the US spent $227 billion in Latin America, sapping its properties and resources. But the money turned right around and, added to the funds sent to Miami by Latin America’s elite, immediately became a $379 million loan to the US Treasury and financiers.
Argentina leant the US at 4 percent interest, then had to borrow its own money back at 16 percent – the whirring wheel, this grinder, left school teachers in Buenos Aires hunting in garbage cans for food. Riots followed and – in Peru, Ecuador, Argentina and elsewhere – this led to tanks in the street, currency collapse, crisis and the “rescue” by the IMF. Rescue meant forcing the mass sell-off of state industries, from oil to water systems, to the crushing of labour unions and to swallowing the whole bottle of poisons kept by the elite of the Northern Hemisphere for just such occasions.
And that was the plan. Literally. I’ve held the proof in my hands, about five thousand pages of financial agreements, all labelled “confidential” and “not to be distributed except by authorised persons”, which bore benign titles like “World Bank Poverty Reduction Strategy, Argentina.”
Why would the IMF, World Bank and the bankers not want to make their wonderful plans for reducing poverty public? It was for the same reason the finance ministers who signed the documents didn’t even tell their own presidents: they were in fact “reduce-to-poverty” plans, complete resource surrender.
For these deliberately bankrupted nations, it was sign or starve. Until Hugo Chavez came along. Early on, Chavez withdrew $20 billion of Venezuela’s money leant to the US Federal Reserve, to create a giant micro-lending programme for his citizens. Then he went a step too far, establishing what the Wall Street Journal called, “a tropical IMF”.
In 2000 and after, when the IMF and banks moved to financially strangle these nations by making their debts unsalable, Hugo Chavez would roll up in his oil-gilded chariot. He effectively underwrote Argentina’s debt, providing 250million dollars worth of loans, and assistance to Ecuador. After Enron seized Argentina’s water system and Occidental seized Ecuador’s oil fields, Argentina’s President Nestor Kirchner, followed by Ecuador’s Correa, told US banks to go fuck themselves. And the IMF, too.
Then there was the big one: Brazil. The World Bank/IMF “Poverty Reduction Strategy” for Brazil required the nation to close its publicly-owned banks, to sell off its vast oil properties, to give away its power industry and, to please the new foreign owners, slash wages and pensions. But with Chavez prepared to back up its new President, Lula Ignacio de Silva, the mighty little man from the Socialist Workers Party could tell the IMF to stick it where the free market don’t shine.
The late Hugo Chavez wearing the author’s hat
For the first time in contemporary history, resource states refused to give back the money received for their resource. At Chavez’ funeral, Lula, former President Ignacio de Silva of Brazil, praised this as Chavez’ most revolutionary act.
Now, instead of billions flowing North, Latin American capital was staying in Latin America. It is delicious irony that the European and American financiers, fleeing from the economic conflagration they’d ignited in their home countries, are loading their loot onto planes for Brazil. And that Venezuela’s central bank made a mint on its intra-continental loans.
And so, a coup was called for.
In 2002, Chavez’ oil company chief, Ali Rodriguez, told me: “America can’t let us stay in power. We are the exception to the New Globalisation Order. If we succeed, we are an example to all the Americas.”
That you were, Hugo Chavez. That you are, Venezuela. And all the Americas are ready.
LA child sex abuse case involving one of the 115 cardinals currently voting to elect the next Pope is settled for $10 million
A child sex abuse case involving one of the 115 cardinals currently voting to elect the next pope has been settled for almost $10 million.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, its former leader Cardinal Roger Mahony and an ex-priest agreed to settle four child sex abuse cases brought against them, lawyers for the victims said.
Mahony retired from heading the US’ largest archdiocese in 2011, but is currently taking part in the papal Conclave in Rome.
He is accused of helping a confessed paedophile priest evade law enforcement by sending him out of state to a Church-run treatment centre, then placing the priest back in the Los Angeles ministry.
The defrocked priest named in all four cases is Michael Baker, who ultimately was convicted in 2007 and sent to prison on 12 criminal counts of felony oral copulation with a minor involving two boys who reached a previous settlement with the Church.
The news came ahead of the Cardinals’ return to the Sistine Chapel for a second day of voting in the Conclave.
Their schedule included a brief prayer followed by up to two rounds of morning balloting from the 115 Cardinals.
