Is Barack Obama running for reelection as President of the United States or Prime Minister of Israel? A new Obama campaign video makes it increasingly hard to tell, and even more ominously ratchets further the Israelization of US politics. - False hopes of change: US President Barack Obama was elected in 2008 amid expectations that he would be the president who would at last bring some balance – and less abject subservience – to the US relationship with Israel. I knew this consensus was wrong, as I had documented Obama’s early pandering to extreme Zionists from the moment he decided to seek the US Senate seat he won in 2004, and wrote about it in “How Barack Obama learned to love Israel.” Now as Obama faces a tough reelection – and accusations from Republicans that he is insufficiently subservient to a foreign state – Obama is doubling down with a shocking video in which leaders of a foreign state – many themselves responsible for war crimes – are drafted in to attest to the US president’s commitment to this foreign state and his willingless to do whatever it takes in its service. It’s all part of a “phony war over which US party loves Israel most.” America & Israel: An Unbreakable Bond: The 7-minute film titled America & Israel: An Unbreakable Bond alternates video and audio of Obama speaking before the Israel lobby, AIPAC, and other Zionist groups, and clips of Israeli leaders endorsing Obama’s leadership. It begins and ends with the US flag and the Israeli flag side by side – thus bringing the Israeli flag directly into the US election campaign. Although the clips of Israeli leaders, including President Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, former Mossad chief Efraim Halevy and Ambassador Michael Oren appear to have been taken from interviews, they are cut to look as if they were provided specifically for the purpose of endorsing the president. The film even includes a clip of Danny Ayalon, Israel’s deputy foreign minister from the Yisrael Beitenu party whose extreme anti-Palestinian policies include advocating the transfer of Palestinian citizens of Israel. Obama wants us to know he is proud to have the support of Israeli ethnic cleansers. As such, Obama is legitimizing the role of foreign – although certainly only Israeli leaders – to participate directly in US campaigns. Can we imagine Obama issuing a video in which he is endorsed as pro-Mexican by the President of Mexico, or pro-Canadian by Canada’s prime minister? It’s inconceivable.

America Vanquished, Part 1: America as an Israeli Colony
America Vanquished, Part 2: America under Jewish Rule

The Death of American Democracy - Video
AIPAC: The Voice of America — Part 1: The Orange and the Pea - Video
AIPAC: The Voice of America — Part 2 The Treasonous Dollar Drain - Video

● SOME don't want you to look at the elephant in the room, just keep looking the other way; it is much safer, less controversial and much more "effective"
● SOME never bothered before and were vehemently opposed to joining PSC as a "matter of principle", suddenly they all became interested! They gather their hoards, from up and down the country and flooded the conference to "occupy" PSC by casting their most valuable "omniscient" vote
● SOME "know better" you see, they always know what is best for Palestinians, and for every one else. They know how to define words, how to create political systems, and what kind of governments should others in far away countries elect, and of course this has nothing to do with "authoritarianism", "Stalinism" nor with "cultural supremacy"Furthermore, while
● SOME frantically insist to keep PSC "occupied" with endless futile discussions on "anti-Semitism", "Holocaust denying" and "American Imperialism",
■ OTHERS, continue to create FACTS on the GROUND, for the advancement of their racist supremacist agenda...

In an apparent show of strength, Washington is deploying a second carrier strike group in the Gulf. US officials also confirmed their commitment to maintaining a global fleet of 11 aircraft carriers despite budget pressure to cut the fleet's size. - “That’s the reason we maintain a presence in the Middle East,” AP cited US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, as saying in a speech to about 1,700 sailors aboard the USS Enterprise. “We want them to know that we are fully prepared to deal with any contingency and it’s better for them to try to deal with us through diplomacy.” Panetta added that the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise is on course for the Persian Gulf – and will steam through the Strait of Hormuz in a direct message to Iran, AP reports. The USS Enterprise, along with the other six ships in the carrier strike group, will deploy to the Middle East in March. It means the US will maintain two carrier strike groups in the Persian Gulf region. The warships are expected to support the country’s battle operations in Afghanistan, its anti-piracy efforts and other missions.

At least five people have been killed in two strikes carried out by a US assassination drone in the Pakistani tribal area of North Waziristan, Press TV, reports. - Security officials said on Monday that the American drone targeted a vehicle and a house with two missiles, killing five people at Degan village near Miranshah, the main town of North Waziristan on the Afghan border. The death toll is expected to rise, and the rescue operation is underway in the area, local residents say. The US resumed its assassination drone operations in recent days after it halted the CIA-operated strikes in November 2011, when 24 Pakistani soldiers were killed in NATO attacks on two Pakistani military border checkpoints in Mohmand agency.

The Zionist Britain Israel Communications & Research Centre (Bicom) has collaborated with the state-controlled British Office of Communications (Ofcom) to ban the alternative English-language channel Press TV in the UK, a political analyst says.

“With anti-Iran sabotage activities high on its agenda, Bicom has worked closely with Ofcom towards eliminating a critical voice: Press TV,” Ismail Salami, Iranian author and Middle East expert, wrote in an article published on Press TV on Sunday. Ofcom revoked Press TV's license and removed the channel from the Sky platform on January 20 for what it claimed to be the news network's breach of the Communications Act. The British media regulator also served Press TV's London office with an order to pay a 100,000-pound fine. “An office with intimate ties to the [British] Royal Family, Ofcom has issued the verdict under the sway of some influential parties in the government and the Bicom firm to boot,” Salami added. He went on to explain the activities and objectives of the Israeli-sponsored company, pointing out that as a “London-based” organization “tasked with inseminating the Zionist political ideology, Bicom also funds those who are in one way or another involved with anti-Iran activities.” “Apart from garnering support for the Zionist regime among Britons, the office also serves as a bridge between the Mossad and MI6,” with its current head, Lorna Fitzsimons, a member of the parliamentary lobby group Labor Friends of Israel (LFI), Salami elucidated.

The Iranian author also pointed to the October 2011 scandal over Adam Werritty -- an “influential member” of Bicom and “an unofficial chief of staff” to the former British Defense Minister Liam Fox -- and his efforts to subvert the Islamic Republic of Iran. “Werritty was financially backed by murky sources such as Bicom. And he was considered an influential member of the organization and a highly regarded agent for Mossad,” he noted.

Gilad Atzmon: Liam Fox Is Not a ‘Useful Idiot’
Gilad Atzmon: This Is How Israel Runs The British Press
Ismail Salami: Unfolding a plot: Mossad at work
Craig Murray: Matthew Gould and the Plot to Attack Iran
Jonathon Blakeley: Atlantic Bridge, Liam Fox, Adam Werritty & Israel

Stephen Lendman: UK Government Suppresses Truth
AWIP: Britain bans Iran-based TV channel

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has slammed the United States for a wide range of rights violations in the country, including torture, child labor, overcrowded prisons and a flawed judicial system. - According to a recent report by the New York-based HRW, the US has the largest incarcerated population with some 2.3 million inmates serving time in prisons across the country. American courts sometimes impose very long sentences tainted by racial disparities, the report added. Pointing to the detention of 368,000 immigrants in 2010, the report highlighted the increasing number of non-citizens being held in immigration detention facilities. The HRW criticized Washington's counter-terrorism policies, citing detentions without charge at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and flawed military commissions. The rights group also slammed the effective blockage of any lawsuit seeking redress for torture victims in US custody. In review of the country's cruel punishments, the report finds that there are 34 US states that continue implementing the death penalty, as 39 people were executed in the United States in 2011. The report also examines issues such as poverty and extreme criminal punishments as well as child labor in the United States. Some 46 million Americans live in poverty, the largest number in 52 years.

An international human rights group says Iraq's Shiite-led government has cracked down harshly on dissent during the past year of Arab Spring uprisings, turning the country into a "budding police state" as autocratic regimes crumbled elsewhere in the region. - Human Rights Watch says in its World Report 2012, which covers 2011, that Iraq is slipping back into authoritarianism as security forces abuse protesters, harass journalists, torture detainees and intimidate activists. The New York-based group says that the U.S. failed to leave behind a stable democracy in Iraq when American soldiers exited nine years after toppling the oppressive regime of Saddam Hussein.

AWIP: Iraq's Maliki accused of detaining hundreds of political opponents

Germany has the economic strengths America once boasted -- Germany with its manufacturing base and export prowess is the U.S. of yesteryear, an economic power unlike any of its European neighbors. It has thrived on principles America seems to have lost. - Every summer, Volkmar and Vera Kruger spend three weeks vacationing in the south of France or at a cool getaway in Denmark. For the other three weeks of their annual vacation, they garden or travel a few hours away to root for their favorite team in Germany's biggest soccer stadium. The couple, in their early 50s, aren't retired or well off. They live in a small Tudor-style house in this middle-class town about 30 miles northwest of Frankfurt. He's a foreman at a glass factory; she works part time for a company that tracks inventories for retailers. Their combined income is a modest $40,000. Yet the Krugers have a higher standard of living than many Americans who have twice that income. Their secret: little debt, frugal habits and a government that is intensely focused on high production, low inflation and extensive social services. That has given them job security and good medical care as well as well-maintained roads, trains and bike paths. Both of their adult children are out on their own, thanks in part to Germany's job-training system and heavy subsidies for university education.

The planned American missile defense shield is “a copper basin” that will cover NATO states and pose a threat to neutral European countries, believes Russian Vice Premier Dmitry Rogozin. - “The Americans call the deployment of the missile defense system in Europe 'an umbrella'. It's not an umbrella, it's a copper basin that will cover both NATO member countries and neutral states,” Rogozin said in an interview with Echo Moskvy radio station. The Russian idiom “to get covered by a copper basin” is similar to the English expression, “to go out of the window”. In this context, what is going out of the window is national security. Rogozin, Moscow’s outgoing NATO envoy, also underlined that a defense shield should be limited to the territory for which the initiator of this shield is responsible. “But if it crawls into someone else’s territory, it’s no longer a defense, but an offense,” noted the Russian deputy PM who is in charge of the country’s defense complex. “What kind of defense system is it that spreads to the territory of states that do not want to be controlled by anyone and don’t want the range of any missiles to lie within their soil?” Rogozin asked. The planned deployment of the American-NATO defense system in Europe has long been a bone of contention in relations between Moscow and Washington. The Russian side is worried that the system, located close to Russia’s borders, may pose a threat to its national security as long as the US fails to provide any legally binding guarantees to the contrary.

TV2 Nyhetene: Denne norske spionradaren får Putin og Medvedev til å se rødt

Assad's popularity, Arab League observers, US military involvement: all distorted in the west's propaganda war. - When coverage of an unfolding drama ceases to be fair and turns into a propaganda weapon, inconvenient facts get suppressed. So it is with the results of a recent YouGov Siraj poll on Syria commissioned by The Doha Debates, funded by the Qatar Foundation. Qatar's royal family has taken one of the most hawkish lines against Assad – the emir has just called for Arab troops to intervene – so it was good that The Doha Debates published the poll on its website. The pity is that it was ignored by almost all media outlets in every western country whose government has called for Assad to go. The key finding was that while most Arabs outside Syria feel the president should resign, attitudes in the country are different. Some 55% of Syrians want Assad to stay, motivated by fear of civil war – a spectre that is not theoretical as it is for those who live outside Syria's borders. What is less good news for the Assad regime is that the poll also found that half the Syrians who accept him staying in power believe he must usher in free elections in the near future. Assad claims he is about to do that, a point he has repeated in his latest speeches. But it is vital that he publishes the election law as soon as possible, permits political parties and makes a commitment to allow independent monitors to watch the poll.

Every week, I watch videos of the weekly anti-occupation protests all over the West Bank, documented by excellent video journalists like TamimiPress, HaithamKatib, Davivreeb, YisraelPNM and many others. Every week there is new material to comment on. In every video you would see a brutal act by an Israeli soldier that requires accountability, but typically the act passes away at the end of the day without any of the soldiers being held accountable for their crimes. Often, we find human rights organizations compiling video footage and working to hold the criminal soldiers accountable; B’tselem is one of the leading human rights centers in this field. In the video above, by YisraelPNM, the video description notes that in minute 6:38 of the video, a masked soldier is seen holding a rifle capable of firing metal bullets coated with rubber or another kind of live ammunition. The point here is that the soldier, unlike any of his colleagues, is wearing a full face mask in order to hide his identity in case he were to be held accountable if he seriously injured or killed a Palestinian unarmed protestor.

Khalid Amayreh: "Jewish state" is euphemism for Jewish fascism
IMEMC: Trial Of Dr. Dweik Delayed Until Tuesday
PCHR: Weekly Report On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory

Too Much Radiation to Cover Up - As I’ve pointed out since day one, the Japanese government and Tepco have covered up the extent of the radiation released by Fukushima and its health effects on the Japanese and others. See this and this. The New York Times notes:

The government inspectors declared Onami’s rice safe for consumption after testing just two of its 154 rice farms. Then … more than a dozen [farmers] found unsafe levels of cesium. An ensuing panic forced the Japanese government to intervene, with promises to test more than 25,000 rice farms in eastern Fukushima Prefecture, where the plant is located. [...]

Montreal Gazette: Radioactive iodine in rainwater: Public was in the dark

Croatians voted Sunday in favor of joining the European Union despite a poor turnout for the referendum — a sign of how much the debt-stricken 27-nation bloc has lost its appeal within countries aspiring to join. - Croatia's state referendum commission said that with nearly all ballots counted, about 66 percent of those who took part in the referendum answered "yes" to the question: "Do you support the membership of the Republic of Croatia in the European Union?" About 33 percent were against, while the rest of the ballots were invalid. About 47 percent of eligible voters took part in the referendum, illustrating voters' apathy toward the EU. That compares to 84 percent who voted in a referendum for Croatia's independence from the former Yugoslavia in 1992.