"It Felt Like Being In The Matrix" - James Risen's Stunning Inside Story

The Intercept: During his extended tenure working for the NYT, James Risen became a legend in the world of investigative and national security journalism: Risen broke some of the most important stories of the post 9/11 era, from the warrantless surveillance against Americans conducted under the Bush-Cheney administration, to black prison sites run by the CIA, to failed covert actions in Iran, stories for which Risen won the Pulitzer among other awards.
But what Risen is perhaps most famous for, is fighting a battle under both the Bush and Obama administrations as they demanded — under threat of imprisonment —the name of one of Risen’s alleged confidential sources. In the end, Risen prevailed and refused to testify and he was not locked up. But during the course of his case, there were rulings that could have far reaching implications for journalists.
But it isn’t just the government that Risen had to fight. He also battled his own editors and other powerful figures at the New York Times. Some of those people pushed the narrative that Iraq had WMDs and they regularly colluded with senior officials at the CIA, NSA, and White House in an effort to kill — or delay publication of — Risen’s stories. This morning, James Risen has written an extensive account of his years at the New York Times and he names names.

Welcome To 2018 - We Are All Connected

To see a world in a grain of sand And to see heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour.
A robin redbreast in a cage Puts all heaven in a rage.
A dove-house fill’d with doves and pigeons Shudders hell thro’ all its regions. A dog starv’d at his master’s gate Predicts the ruin of the state.
A horse misused upon the road Calls to heaven for human blood. Each outcry of the hunted hare A fibre from the brain does tear.
William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

By Michael Krieger: Over the course of 2017, I spent a lot of time detailing where we stand as a species and where I think we’re going. To summarize, I think the positive impact of the internet and social media on humanity is still very much in its infancy. The more connected we become to one another across the planet, the more we’ll realize we have far more in common with one another than we do with the sociopathic oligarchs and politicians in charge of our respective nation-states.
Much of the 20th century was defined by unimaginable human conflict and terror, unleashed upon the public by crazed elites and rulers who were able to successfully manipulate large populations. The key to preventing a repeat of this sort of thing in the 21st century is billions of human beings across the planet communicating and sharing friendship with one another to the point we can no longer be tricked in killing each other.

Are Women Being Paid To Destroy Powerful Men's Lives?

DDJ, TFM and Tommy Sotomayor:

Zakaria Al Kafarneh

If Americans Knew: Palestinian deaths are largely ignored by the lame stream media. We want people to learn about these human beings. Zakaria al Kafarneh was killed December 22nd, 2017; attached is a 1-minute video about him:

Women, The Untouchable

johntheother

The Police Need Our Help

Diana Davison: Half the cases I've worked on this year involve complainants hiding evidence from police and a lack of interest from police in investigating.

Cuckolded And Raped: Forestalling The Fate Of Shahzaman & Shahrayar

By Author Douglas Galbi: When King Shahzaman unexpectedly returned home to his palace, he discovered his wife in the arms of a kitchen boy. Shahzaman was furious and emotionally devastated. Expressing his personal commitment to gender equality, he not only killed the kitchen boy, but his wife as well. Shahzaman then set out to visit his brother King Shahrayar.
At his brother’s palace, Shahzaman was listless and grief-stricken. He couldn’t get over what his wife had done to him. He imagined that no one else had experienced what he had experienced. Shahzaman grew pale, lost weight, looked ill, and neglected everything.
One morning when his brother was out hunting, Shahzaman sat at a window overlooking a garden in his brother’s palace. He agonized over his misfortune and stared at the heavens. Movement below interrupted his melancholy thoughts:

the private gate of his brother’s palace opened, and there emerged, strutting like a dark-eyed deer, the lady, his brother’s wife, with twenty slave girls, ten white and ten black.

Bitcoin’s Birthday

Max and Stacy discuss bitcoin’s ninth birthday as it lives to die another day. They discuss both the genuine promise and the real hype in the cryptocurrency space. Max continues his interview with Michael Pento of PentoPort.com about taxphoria, cryptocurrencies and future market collapses.

Smart Woman Explains How Men Are Being Used By Women

Voltaire

Kosherising The 9/11 Truth Movement

By Gilad Atzmon: I have been correctly accused of remaining silent about 9/11. Although I frequently talk to 9/11 truth groups about various related topics such as Israel, Zionism and Jewish ID politics, I do not contribute to the discourse involving controlled demolitions and airplanes flying into buildings. Engineering, construction and flying are not within my field of research. Though I am aware of many of the details to do with the 9/11 truth movement, I can’t make any original scholarly contributions in this arena.
However, there are a few areas of my study that I think are important in relation to the 9/11 truth movement:
1.     The Mossad’s motto is ‘by way of deception’ and false flag operations are deeply rooted in the Mossad’s modus operandi.
2.    The prime beneficiary of 9/11 has been Israel. It was Zio-cons who pushed for the so-called ‘war against terror.’ In the name of democracy and Coca Cola the English speaking empire has been fighting Zionist conflicts for almost two decades.
3.    Most important, be aware that controlling the opposition is at the core of Zionist survival strategy.

2018 May Be A Frightening Year For The US And Its Israeli Ally

The US and Israel’s secret new anti-Iran plans are unlikely to get them far

Two major developments are expected to unfold in the region in the new year.

By Abdel Bari Atwan: While Russia strives to move Syria on from a stage of war and bloody anarchy to one of peace, stability and reconstruction — by inviting all parties to next month’s Sochi conference to agree a roadmap including a new constitution and presidential and parliamentary elections – the US and Israel are drawing up plans to detonate the region and plunge it into new wars on the pretext of confronting the Iranian threat.
Israel’s Channel 10 has revealed that a secret agreement was reached on 12 December, following talks between Israeli national security advisor Meir Ben-Shabbat and his US counterpart H R McMaster, for the two sides to take action and devise scenarios against Iran on several fronts.

Gas Wars - Will The Eastern Med Be The Scene Of The First Conflict Of 2018?

By Metin Gurcan: The eastern Mediterranean is expected to witness the first conflict of 2018, as developments at the end of 2017 are signaling worsening relationships between Turkey and the Greek Cypriot-Greece-Israel-Egypt bloc. Territorial disputes over natural gas and newly discovered hydrocarbon reserves in the eastern Mediterranean basin are the reason.

Up until a few years ago, the hope was that these hydrocarbon reserves would offer a real opportunity for a peaceful settlement of the Cyprus conflict. But these optimistic hopes vanished with both Turks and Greek Cypriots unilaterally speeding up exploration and drilling operations.
In 2004, the European Union had declared the Greek Cypriots the sole entity representing the island of Cyprus and accepted it as an EU member. Feeling that its hand has been strengthened following the EU decision, the Greek Cypriots claimed the right of natural resources exploration in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) around Cyprus.
Turkey, however, has been insisting that the Greek Cypriot administration in Nicosia cannot unilaterally “adopt laws regarding the exploitation of natural resources on behalf of the entire island,” as it doesn’t represent the Turkish Cypriots. Also, there is a separate disputed EEZ between Turkey and Greece in the eastern Mediterranean — another point of tension in the conflict.