Tony Cartalucci

Image: Rampant CO2, high global temperatures, rising sea levels. A look into the future? No, this is Mesozoic North America 250-65 million years ago. Climate change has happened long before humanity's emergence, it will happen again, with or without us. The key to preserving what we as humans value, including not only our cities, towns, and countrysides, but also ecosystems and species - is to devise technical, pragmatic solutions to ensure no matter what the climate does, we can not only survive, but thrive.

In reality, the diminutive, corporate-media inflated rally in DC was organized by the very corporate-financier special interests that have been wreaking terrible havoc on both the human population and the environment of this planet for decades. They are demanding action from a government that already represents their interests. Their demands are policies, particularly financial tax schemes that they themselves created and are are best positioned to benefit from while making no discernible impact on the very real environmental threats we collectively face.

It was an exercise in manufacturing consent for policies already long-ago devised and simply waiting for piecemeal implementation.

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Stephen Lendman

Editor: In a bid to shore up the Jewish vote, Democratic candidate Obama in 2008 made a surprise visit to Jerusalem's Western Wall. There he pledged his "unshakeable commitment to Israel's security". He also wore a yarmulke, the idea of which is to cover your head, certainly not in subservience to the Jews, but to show modesty before God.

Now, stooping to new levels of shamelessness and moral vacuity, he'll be back in stolen land again, to receive a piece of shiny metal for his services to the misbegotten Zionist state. Helping Peres murder people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere, Obama has put the phony political entity "Israel" above America and the Jews above everyone else. God apparently does not fit into their lethal scheme at all.

Imagining honoring crimes of war, against humanity and genocide. Imagine calling war on humanity honorable. Imagine granting a nation's highest civilian award for waging it. It shouldn't surprise. Obama will receive Israel's Presidential Medal of Distinction. More on him below.

On February 18, Shimon Peres announced the award. It'll be given during Obama's March visit. It's his first as president. He'll get it at Peres' Jerusalem residence. An Israeli press release said: "It will be the first time in history that a serving president of the United States of America will receive an award of this kind from the president of the State of Israel." Peres' spokesperson added:

"Barack Obama is a true friend of the State of Israel, and has been since the beginning of his public life. As president of the United States, he has stood with Israel in times of crisis." "During his time as president, he has made a unique contribution to the security of the State of Israel, both through further strengthening of the strategic cooperation between the two countries and through the joint development of technology to defend Israel against rockets and terrorism."

In 2012, Peres established the award. Henry Kissinger among others received it. Israelis and non-citizens are eligible. It's given to those "who have made an outstanding contribution to the State of Israel or to humanity, through their talents, services, or in any other form."

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Jacob G. Hornberger

Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar,
was kidnapped in 2003 by the CIA from the streets Milan
and sent to Egypt. (Photograph: EPA / The Guardian)

An appeals court in Italy has just sentenced two former Italian officials, Nicolo Pollari and Marco Mancini, to 10 years and 9 years in jail. Pollari served as head of Italian military intelligence and Mancini was head of counterintelligence.

Their crime? They conspired with the CIA to kidnap a man named Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr off the streets of Milan and rendition him to Egypt to be tortured.

What’s wrong with that? you ask. Well, nothing in the minds of U.S. officials. As everyone knows, ever since 9/11 the U.S. military and the CIA have claimed the authority to kidnap, rendition, torture, kill, and assassinate anyone they want, so long as it’s done as part of the “war on terrorism” and in the name of “national security.”

What about the laws of other nations — laws that make it a criminal offense for people to kidnap people, torture them, murder them, or assassinate them? Oh, they still count for everyone except U.S. military officials and CIA agents. After 9/11, U.S. officials made it clear to the world that the criminal laws of every country on earth would now be subordinate to the actions of the U.S. military and the CIA. The “war on terrorism” now trumped the laws of foreign jurisdictions. Don’t forget, after all, that in the “war on terrorism” the entire world is the battlefield, or so U.S. officials tell us.

That’s why the CIA felt that it could go into Italy, kidnap a man it suspected of being a terrorist, and forcibly transport him against his will to Egypt to be tortured. In the minds of U.S. national-security state officials, their war on terrorism trumped Italian laws that made kidnapping and torture criminal offenses.

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