national security

• Nepal earthquake toll crosses 3700 (Reuters)
• Greeks Add Pressure on Tsipras to Compromise as Talks Resume (BBG)
• With No Deal on Greek Bailout Aid in Sight, Some in Europe Suggest ‘Plan B’ (WSJ)
• BOJ Shouldn’t Ease Further; Yen Fell Enough: Business Lobby Head (BBG)
• Clinton Foundation admits making mistakes on taxes (Reuters)
• Here’s the Old Nemesis Starting to Spook Bond Traders Again (BBG)
• Deutsche Bank to Trim Investment Banking (WSJ)
• China’s Stocks Rise to Seven-Year High on SOE Merger Speculation (BBG)

The leniency shown former CIA Director (and retired General) David Petraeus by the Justice Department in sparing him prison time for the serious crimes that he has committed puts him in the same preferential, immune-from-incarceration category as those running the financial institutions of Wall Street, where, incidentally, Petraeus now makes millions. By contrast, “lesser” folks – and particularly the brave men and women who disclose government crimes – get to serve time, even decades, in jail. Behold, the virtual immunity enjoyed by the well connected.

While the USA is busy killing US civilians and terrorists with its drone program, Russia is set to deploy its own Orlan-10 drones in the oil- and gas-rich Arctic region (reportedly to monitor the climate situation). As SputnikNews reports, Colonel Aleksandr Gordeev stated "the drones' task is to maintain impartial control of the situation in the Russian sector of the Arctic." So, passive-agressive? However, Russia also chose this week to release rarely-seen images of a US intelligence satellite which as one analyst notes is provocative (but obscure in its intent other than the growing recognition of US space-based surveillance assets).

"I have no way of imagining what the United States will be like in your adulthood and yet I can sense that this country is changing in unsettling ways... Stretch anything far enough and it’ll begin to tear, fragment, break apart.  That, I suspect, may be a reasonable summary of what’s been happening in our twenty-first-century world.  Under stress, things are beginning to crack open... Though you don’t know it yet, you’re already living in an increasingly lopsided world whose stresses only seem to be multiplying. This has been true for the return of plutocracy...It certainly doesn’t look like the American world I’d want to turn over to you."

A government that cannot survive truth and must resort to stamping out truth is not a government that any country wants. But such an undesirable government is the government that Clinton-Bush-Cheney-Obama-Hillary-Lack-Royce have given us. Does it satisfy you? Are you content that in your name and with taxes on your hard-earned and increasingly scarce earnings, Washington in the 21st century has murdered, maimed, and displaced millions of peoples in eight countries, has set America on the path to war with Russia and China, and has declared truth to be an enemy of the state?

"As the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013, Canadian records show, a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation... Since uranium is considered a strategic asset, with implications for national security, the deal had to be approved by a committee composed of representatives from a number of United States government agencies including the State Department, then headed by Mr. Clinton’s wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton... And shortly after the Russians announced their intention to acquire a majority stake in Uranium One, Mr. Clinton received $500,000 for a Moscow speech from a Russian investment bank with links to the Kremlin that was promoting Uranium One stock."

Appalled doesn’t cover it. Disgusted won’t do either. Angry doesn’t come close. Maybe we have yet to learn of a word that would express our feelings on the following topic. There’s a disease, an epidemic, that spreads through out the western world. We are all turning into accomplices to murder. And we still believe we are better than that. Just perhaps not all of us.

Deposed former Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi was sentenced to 20 years in prison today in connection with a crackdown on protesters during demonstrations against his rule in late 2012. Morsi assumed the Presidency in 2012 after Hosni Mubarak was toppled a year earlier during the Arab Spring. Morsi's "democracy" lasted all of 4 months before he granted himself special autocratic powers triggering unrest that would eventually lead the military to assume power.

June 1, 2015 is a very important day for American civil liberties and the Constitution. On that day, Section 215 of the Patriot Act, one of the most egregious pieces of legislation passed in U.S. history, will expire automatically without reauthorization from Congress. Naturally, this is causing a panic attack within the heart of the NSA, FBI and all the authoritarian lackey legislators in Washington D.C. With the chances of a clean reauthorization next to none, these crafty “representatives” and their puppeteers need to figure out a way to sneak it into another piece of legislation. What better way to do this than making it a part of something that ostensibly appears to be reining in surveillance powers. Enter the USA Freedom Act.

The propagandistic American “media” and the crazed neoconservatives have set humanity on the path to destruction. The American people and the entire world need to understand that the threat to life on earth resides in Washington and that until Washington is fundamentally and totally changed, this threat will remain as the worse threat to life on earth. Global Warming can disappear instantly in Nuclear Winter.

• China growth slowest in six years, more stimulus expected soon (Reuters)
• EU charges Google over shopping searches, to probe Android (Reuters)
• A Chinese Paradox: Slow Growth Is Good, Stock Bubbles Welcome (BBG)
• Draghi Seen Dispelling Duration Doubts About QE Program (BBG)
• IEA Sees OPEC Supply Jumping Most in Four Years on Saudi Surge (BBG)
• SEC Reaches Settlement with Former Freddie Mac  (WSJ)
• Kerry says confident Obama can get final deal on Iran (Reuters)
• Regulators Call for Short-Term Loan Changes to Handle ‘Too-Big-to-Fail’ (WSJ)
• Florida Doctor Linked to Sen. Robert Menendez Indicted for Medicare Fraud (WSJ)

The conventional class structure is divided along the lines of income, i.e. the wealthy, upper middle class, middle class, lower middle class and the poor. But this 3.5-class structure did not capture the changing nature of employment, income and wealth/political power; which more appropriately subdivides into America's socio-economic spectrum into nine classes. This is neofeudal, a term we use to describe a society and economy dominated by financialization and the apex of wealth and political power that wealth buys. The classes below this apex are either tax donkeys, Upper Caste technocrats serving the apex, or the lower classes that are bought off with social welfare and various modern iterations of bread and circuses.

The now-discontinued operation, carried out by the DEA’s intelligence arm, was the government’s first known effort to gather data on Americans in bulk, sweeping up records of telephone calls made by millions of U.S. citizens regardless of whether they were suspected of a crime. It was a model for the massive phone surveillance system the NSA launched...

DEA At Center of Yet ANOTHER Spying Scandal

A few months ago, Sony used a ridiculous "hacking" publicity stunt to generate some $40 million more in revenues for what would otherwise have been the latest Seth Rogen "comic" flop, in which the film agency blamed North Korea - which has about ten ultramodern 80386 computers in the entire country - for hacking its firewall, a hack which was subsequently revealed to be the result of disgruntled former employee. Fast forward to today, when moments ago CNN reported that Russian hackers which according to left "tell-tale codes and other markers that they believe point to hackers working for the Russian government", had penetrated the White House computer system.