The domestic use of stealth drones to survey America from the skies is no joke. The Department of Homeland Security has acknowledged that the US government has used the planes on the home front for years, but why and how is largely unknown. An advocacy group aims to change that: The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit based out of San Francisco, California, filed a Freedom of Information Act request back in April to learn more about domestic drone use in America. Eight months later, the Department of Transportation (and its subdivision that deals directly with domestic drones, the Federal Aviation Administration), has failed to follow through. On Tuesday this week, the EFF responded by formally filing a suit against the DoT, “Demanding data on certifications and authorizations the agency has issued for the operation of unmanned aircraft, also known as drones.”

Electronic Frontier Foundation: Who Is Flying Unmanned Aircraft in the U.S.?

According to a business ethics survey published this week, the number of respondents who reported witnessing illegal corporate political donations has risen by 400 percent since the last survey just two years ago, even as reports of misconduct hit an all-time low.

Just 1 percent of survey takers said in 2009 that they’d witnessed illegal political donations. That number jumped to 4 percent in 2011, according to the National Business Ethics Survey (NBES), sponsored by companies like Walmart, Altria, BP, Raytheon, Aetna and Lockheed Martin, among others. On the plus side, the survey also found that the number of employees who said they witnessed misconduct on the job has reached an all-time low of 45 percent. That number was 10 points higher in the group’s 2007 survey.

Tony Cartalucci: Think-Tanks Explained or, Where National Policy Comes From - Image (above): "Your nation's policy has been brought to you by...." These represent just some of the corporate sponsors of just one single think-tank (the Brookings Institution) that creates both foreign and domestic policy for the United States, extra-legally beyond the nation's legislative branch, as well as the blueprints for America's future wars of conquest. Afterward, all that remains is for "elected representatives" to rubber stamp it and for the corporate-media to sell it to an unsuspecting public.

Dennis Loo: Globalization and the Demolition of Society (Book) - Since the 1980s, advocates of "free market" forces and unrestrained individualism have succeeded in making their views dominant worldwide. In this timely, startlingly honest, wide-ranging, and profound book, Dennis Loo shows that free market fundamentalism - also known as neoliberalism - make us not more secure or prosperous: it tears the social fabric and undermines security, leading inevitably to disasters on the individual, regional, and global levels. Neoliberalism is based on the mantra that market forces should run everything. It aims to eliminate job and income security, the social safety net (including welfare and other social guarantees), unions, pensions, public services, and the governmental regulation of corporations. It consequently undermines the basis for people to voluntarily cooperate with authority as almost everyone is increasingly left by themselves to face gargantuan private interests, with governmental and corporate authority ever more indifferent to the public's welfare. Loo points out that given this trend, the government must rely on ever increasing secrecy, deception, surveillance, fear and force in order to keep people in line, no matter which political party is in power. This is the underlying reason why the Democratic and Republican Parties are less and less distinguishable from each other, and why both parties have been moving politically to the Right. Loo tells this story of two worlds in contention - those who uphold private interest vs. those who defend the public interest - by drawing from everyday life to illustrate and bring alive what might otherwise seem to be disconnected and disparate disturbing developments. He conveys complex topics and questions with remarkable clarity, subtlety, and sophistication. Even after reading only one chapter, you will come away from Globalization and the Demolition of Society looking at the world differently. This book calls for the kind of grassroots mass movements that Arab Spring and its inspired domestic equivalent, the Occupy Movement, exemplify. Loo skillfully weaves together multiple disciplines (sociology, history, political science, criminology, law, economics, and philosophy) and illustrates them with examples from everyday life. He paints a vivid picture of the perils and possibilities that humanity confronts at this juncture of history.

Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev has said the threat of a US military attack against Iran, heavily supported by the US Israeli lobby, is escalating. - Patrushev, who served as Director of Russia’s Federal Security Service, the FSB from 1999 to 2008, believes the United States may get itself involved in yet another war, at least partially due to Israeli influence. "There is a likelihood of a military conflict escalation, to which the Americans are being pushed by Israel," he said in an interview with Interfax. Americans who identify themselves as Jewish (but not necessarily religiously) are estimated at 6,489,000 (2.2% of the population) according to the US Census Bureau. Yet despite these modest numbers, Israel enjoys what could be described as disproportionate influence in US politics due to lobbying groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Some researchers argue that the US decision to invade Iraq, for example, was largely motivated by pressure from these pro-Israeli groups.

PressTV: 'US preparing for every option on Iran' - US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro has described Iran as a regional threat, saying Washington will resort to “all necessary means” to stop Tehran's [civilian] nuclear program.

Outrage across the world after footage emerges showing U.S. troops 'urinating on dead Afghan bodies'. - Footage showing American soldiers urinating on dead Afghan bodies has sparked outrage across the world - with Afghanistan's leaders labelling it as a 'recruitment tool for the Taliban'. The 'disgusting' and 'highly reprehensible' 40-second clip shows four men in combat gear standing over the three corpses with their genitals exposed as they relieve themselves. The men can be heard joking 'Have a great day, buddy', 'Golden like a shower' and 'Yeahhhh!' as they groan with relief whilst urinating. It has sparked anger from Afghans, with top negotiator from President Hamid Karzai's High Peace Council Arsala Rahmani, saying it will have a 'very, very bad impact on peace efforts'.

Russia Today: Marines urinating on Taliban video scandal sparks outrage

Obama issued a memorandum Tuesday declaring that the U.S. officers could not be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court. Officers will be armed for 'personal protection.' - President Barack Obama is sending five American military officers to South Sudan. The White House said the U.S. forces will join the United Nations mission in the capital of Juba and focus on strategic planning and operations. Obama issued a memorandum Tuesday declaring that the U.S. officers could not be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court during their deployment because South Sudan is not a party to the ICC. The first of the small group of U.S. forces is expected to depart for South Sudan later this week.

John Glaser: Obama’s Military Incursions Across Africa Lie Under the Radar - In the Obama administration’s “new-and-improved” covert war on terror, Africa is front and center. From the Atlantic shore across the Sahara to the Red Sea, the U.S. has deployed Marines and is militarily assisting a spate of African tyrannies engaged in warfare. Murky notions of al Qaeda-like enemies color the stated mission, but these expansions of empire into Africa are mostly secret.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's command center routinely monitors dozens of popular websites, including Facebook, Twitter, Hulu, WikiLeaks and news and gossip sites including the Huffington Post and Drudge Report, according to a government document. - A "privacy compliance review" issued by DHS last November says that since at least June 2010, its national operations center has been operating a "Social Networking/Media Capability" which involves regular monitoring of "publicly available online forums, blogs, public websites and message boards." The purpose of the monitoring, says the government document, is to "collect information used in providing situational awareness and establishing a common operating picture."

Russia Today: Homeland Security monitoring journalists, bloggers, forum posters, and social networks

Twelve Americans have been reported infected with a mutating and now possibly human-to-human transmitted form of the H1N1 Swine Flu virus called H3N2v. - An investigation undertaken by the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention found that human infections of these viruses followed contact with swine as well as through 'limited human-to-human transmission.' 'While there is no evidence that sustained human-to-human transmission is occurring, all influenza viruses have the capacity to change and it's possible that this virus may become widespread,' the CDC explained through their website. According to the report presented by the CDC, the virus has been found in five states sprawled around the East Coast and Midwest since August of 2011, though in a late November report they listed the first as being in July.

Iran is outraged at the recent assassination of its nuclear scientists, but lacks the political leverage to do anything about it diplomatically and the military and intelligence capacity to defend itself. - Tehran urged the U.N. Security Council and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday to condemn Tuesday’s assassination which resembled previous killings of Iranian nuclear scientists and which are probably being carried out buy the U.S. and Israel. Tehran has called them terrorist attacks aimed at sabotaging their nuclear program, which all evidence suggests is civilian in nature. [...] The U.S. denies any role in the murders, while Israel is slightly more open about it. In August, the German newspaper Der Spiegel leaked an admission by an Israeli intelligence officer that Mossad, Israel’s spy agency, was behind the assassinations. And the French newspaper Le Figaro this week reported that Israeli Mossad intelligence agents are operating in Kurdistan, where they are recruiting Iranian exiles to work against the Iranian regime.

PressTV: Iran urges UN to condemn terror acts
Fars News Agency: Iran's Letter to UN Lambasts Foreign Terror Campaign against Iranian Scientists

According to sources in Iran, a nuclear scientist was killed in Tehran today by a bomb placed on his car by a motorcyclist. It is very clear to most of us who stands behind these continuous attacks on Iran’s scientists and military personnel. However, the discrepancy between Hebrew and English press reporting on the incident is pretty staggering and demands some deliberation.

While the Israeli English outlet Ynet reports on the incident in a pretty cold manner, it goes as far as reporting on “mysterious explosion in Iranian capital”, the Hebrew Ynet is happy to suggest that Israel is probably behind all those ‘mysterious attacks’.

The Hebrew publication ends its coverage of the story stating that yesterday Chief of Staff - Major General Benny Gantz, said that 2012 would be a “critical year for Iran”. he refered specifically to “continued pressure (on Iran) from the international community and the things that happen to them unnaturally". It doesn’t take a genius to gather that if General Ganz speaks about future “unnatural” events, he must be closely familiar with the details of such events!!!

While the English Ynet, operates as a Hasbara outlet, spreading Israeli propaganda for the Goyim and English speaking Jews, the Hebrew version, is there to boost the Israeli morale. And as it happens, Israeli love to see their ‘enemies’ being, terrorised, slaughtered and murdered.

The true ‘mysterious’ nature of the Jewish state and its relation with the world is indeed a disturbing one and a reason for serious concern.

PressTV: Santorum: Death of Iran experts wonderful
Frank Gardner/BBC: Iran and the undeclared campaign
Alex Lantier: Iranian nuclear scientist assassinated in Tehran
AWIP: Another nuclear scientist killed in Iran; Israel accused

A week after a man killed a security guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington in 2009, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano cited the murder as proof that nonprofit institutions were at risk of attack and could be helped by federal security grants. - In an event announcing $1.7 billion in Department of Homeland Security grants, Napolitano noted that 63 percent of nonprofit grant recipients were "affiliated with Jewish organizations." The following year, according to the Jewish Federations of North America, that number grew. In 2010, 94 percent of the department's nonprofit security funding went to Jewish groups that are, in the words of the Department of Homeland Security, "at high risk of terrorist attack." That included $222,000 for Jewish nonprofits in Missouri.

Israeli violations of international law and humanitarian law in the OPT continued during the reporting period (05 – 11 January 2012) - Shooting: During the reporting period, IOF wounded 4 Palestinian civilians, including a woman, in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. In the West Bank, during the reporting period, IOF used excessive force to disperse peaceful demonstrations organized in protest to Israeli settlement activities and the construction of the annexation wall in the West Bank. As a result, 3 Palestinian civilian was wounded. Dozens of Palestinian civilians and international human rights defenders suffered from tear gas inhalation. IOF also arrested 5 Palestinian civilians, including a woman. In the Gaza Strip, on 06 January 2012, a Palestinian woman was wounded by the Israeli gunfire while she was grazing animals in the central Gaza Strip. On the same day, IOPF fired 3 artillery shells at Palestinian areas in the northern Gaza Strip. No casualties were reported, but Palestinian civilians, especially women and children, were extremely terrified. Incursions: During the reporting period, IOF conducted at least 68 military incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank, during which they arrested 20 Palestinian civilians, including two children and a university professor. In the Gaza Strip, IOF conducted one limited incursion into the north and leveled areas of Palestinian land which they had already razed. Restrictions on Movement: Israel had continued to impose a tightened siege on the OPT and imposed severe restrictions on the movement of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem.

The New Year has seen an increase in attacks against innocent Palestinian children living under the occupation. These attacks go unnoticed and unmentioned in the Western media, but they can be seen on this site…The following video is the picture that the zionists want you to believe is the truth about Israel (I call it zionism’s seven deadly sins), but the reality appears afterwards … NO ONE GIVES ISRAEL THE RIGHT TO KILL OR HARM CHILDREN, THE 8th DEADLY SIN.

Cygnus X, one of the most active regions in the Milky Way
(NASA/Reuters/ScanPix)

Most of the stars in the Milky Way have Earthlike planets meaning there are billions of potentially habitable worlds in our galaxy, a new study claims.

By scouring millions of stars in the night sky over six years, researchers found that the majority of the 100 billion stars in the Milky Way have planets similar to Earth or Mercury, Venus or Mars, the other similar planets in our solar system. They estimated that in our galaxy there are about 10 billion stars with planets in the "habitable zone" – the distance from the star where solid planets can be found – many of which could in theory be capable of supporting life. Dr Martin Dominik, a German research fellow at St Andrews University, said: "Even if life existed on only one planet in each galaxy there would still be 100 billion in the universe. "We still don't have the evidence of life on another planet, and we could be unique, but confronted with these numbers it seems highly unlikely. "There are a small number of planets which we think could harbour life, a small number of candidates with what we believe might be the right conditions."

Evil Wall Streeters Welcomed As Chief of Staff At This White House. - All three of President Barack Obama’s chiefs of staff earned millions of dollars after passing through the revolving doors that lie between the Democratic Party and Wall Street. Yet Obama is positioning himself as Wall Street’s foe in the 2012 election, aided by millions of dollars in political donations from Wall Street companies, including Goldman Sachs. Rahm Emanuel and Bill Daley, and now Jacob Lew, are all career Democrats who have taken lucrative trips through those revolving doors, eliciting jeers from Republicans who say Obama is running an administration of crony capitalists.

AWIP: Ex-Citigroup exec replaces ex-JPMorgan banker...

Sheldon and Miriam Adelson wrote a personal check to Newt Gingrich's super PAC for $5 million late last Friday afternoon, and could send more -- though there are no promises. That's the description offered by a person close to the billionaire couple who is familiar with their thinking and the couple's long-standing relationship with Gingrich. The money is being spent in part to fuel a massive advertising campaign in South Carolina attacking Mitt Romney, who had attacked Gingrich aggressively in Iowa. Sheldon Adelson, who has houses in Malibu and Las Vegas, made his fortune in the international gambling business. His personal money was sent without condition to the super PAC because Gingrich "is an old friend in a time of need," said the source, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the topic.

Immigrants are for sale in this country. Sold to private prison corporations who are locking them up for obscene profits! Here are the top 3 things YOU need to know about the Private Prison money scheme: The victims: Private prisons don't care about who they lock up. At a rate of $200 per immigrant a night at their prisons, this is a money making scheme that destroys families and lives. The players: CCA (Corrections Corporation of America), The Geo Group and Management and Training corporations—combined these private prisons currently profit more than $5 billion a year. The money: These private prisons have spent over $20 million lobbying state legislators to make sure they get state anti-immigrant laws approved and ensure access to more immigrant inmates. Be a part of the movement to follow the players, the money and the victims of this money making scheme @ immigrantsforsale.org

Loggers in Brazil captured an eight-year-old girl from one of the Amazon's last uncontacted tribes and burned her alive as part of a campaign to force the indigenous population from its land. - The child was said to have wandered away from her village, where around 60 members of the Awá tribe, who live in complete isolation from the modern world, and fallen into the hands of the loggers. Luis Carlos Guajajaras, a local leader from a separate tribe, told a Brazilian news website that they tied to her a tree and set her alight as a warning to other natives, who live in a protected reserve in the north-eastern state of Maranhão. "She was from another tribe, they live deep in the jungle, and have no contact with the outside world. It would have been the first time she had ever seen white men. We heard that they laughed as they burned her to death," he said. Reports of the killing, which was said to have happened in October or November last year, were seconded by the Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI), a Catholic group which said it had seen footage of her charred remains.

The US's Guantanamo Bay is marking its 10th anniversary, despite Obama’s repeated promises to close the infamous prison. Human rights groups and the inmates themselves are organizing events to mark the occasion and respond to the broken promises. - Guantanamo detainees are marking the anniversary of their imprisonment with a peaceful three-day demonstration. Starting on Tuesday some of the prisoners are refusing to return to their cells for the nightly lockdown and are attempting to sleep in the recreation areas, while others are refusing food, the Washington Post reports. Amnesty International staged a demonstration in Brussels on Wednesday marking ten years since the first detainees arrived at Guantanamo Bay. The group placed cut-outs of detainees in their bright orange uniforms in a shopping arcade. Similar protests have taken place in London, Paris, Toronto, Paris and Berlin. A large rally has been organized in front of the White House by a coalition of human rights organizations and activists, including the Center for Constitutional Rights, Witness Against Torture, Amnesty International, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, and September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. Following the rally, the demonstrators marched down Pennsylvania Avenue to the US Supreme Court, led by 171 people dressed in orange jumpsuits representing the men still detained at Guantanamo. Obama has been criticized for not having a plan on how to close the detention facility, or at least for what to do with terror suspects. The president even signed a new law authorizing the indefinite detention of terror suspects.

Jason Ditz: Gitmo Prison Camp Enters Its Second Decade
Tom Carter: Lawsuit demands that Obama administration release Guantanamo torture tapes