Latest figures show that 117 million Americans, less than 50 percent of the eligible voters, have taken part in the presidential polls, showing a reduction of about nine percent compared to the 2008 election turnout of 131 million. - Preliminary figures indicate only 95 percent of precincts have so far reported their results and the number could change when more votes are counted. “By and large, people didn’t show up,” Curtis Gans, director of American University’s Center for the Study of the American Electorate said Wednesday, adding that voter turnout in most states this year was even lower than 2004. He went on to say that the 2012 presidential race was riddled with disenfranchising campaign tactics, leaving many voters feeling turned off.

Tony Cartalucci: 2012 US Elections - The People Have Spoken: No Confidence

Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern says the American people do not understand what's really going on in the country because the media deceives them.

"The basic problem with the U.S. political scene has to do with the media. Most Americans do not understand what's really going on because they have far too little chance to hear or read about it and so, they are deceived into thinking that the United States is as our president has said the one indispensable country. Now the opposite of indispensable is dispensable," McGovern said in a phone interview with Press TV's U.S. Desk on Tuesday.

"When the president says something like that, it' so effective, he is ruling out other countries as equals. Now most Americans feel that that's a patriotic or nationalistic thing to feel that our country is first among all the others but not necessarily so," he added. He also described the U.S. as an empire under the "Bush and Obama regimes" as the present U.S. leadership wishes to "continue to dominate as much of the world as it can."

The former analyst said that Americans have to choose between just two candidates, who have "the same vision really and the same policy."

"Netanyahu bet on the wrong president and got us into hot water with Obama," according to the opposition Kadima Party. - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his political allies are scrambling since President Obama’s reelection, after having spent much of the campaign season staunchly pro-Romney. “This is probably not a very good morning for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” said Interior Minister Eli Yishai, a major coalition partner. Netanyahu and his Likud Party had not-so-privately yearned for Obama to get voted out by Republican contender Mitt Romney, in what opposition leader Shaul Mofaz described as “a rude, blunt, unprecedented, wanton and dangerous intervention in the United States election.”

“Netanyahu bet on the wrong president and got us into hot water with Obama,” declared the opposition Kadima Party in a statement. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz openly Netanyahu of “interfering grossly, vulgarly and unreservedly in the campaign.”

Russia Today: Bibi’s bad bet: Netanyahu damaged political chances by backing Romney - Video

BBC survey measures public opinion on 22 countries, places Israel in company of North Korea, ahead of only Iran, Pakistan. - Israel retained its position as one of the world's most negatively-viewed countries, according to BBC's annual poll published Wednesday night. With 50 percent of respondents ranking Israel negatively, Israel keeps company with North Korea, and places ahead of only Iran (55% negative) and Pakistan (51% negative). The 2012 Country Ratings Poll was conducted among 24,090 people worldwide, and asked respondents to rate whether the influence of 22 countries was “mostly positive” or “mostly negative.” Evaluations of the Jewish state, already largely unfavorable in 2011, have worsened in 2012.

GlobeScan.com: BBC POLL 2012 [.pdf]

Just shy of day 900 behind bars, accused whistleblower Pfc. Bradley Manning says he may accept responsibility for giving sensitive items to Wikileaks should the government decide to charge him with lesser offenses during his upcoming court-martial.

Manning, a 24-year-old Army private first class, has been detained under military custody since May 26, 2010 but has yet to be tried. The US government says the soldier supplied Julian Assange’s Wikileaks site with hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables and other materials he is alleged to have had access to while deployed, and if convicted for as much he could be sentenced to life in prison. During pretrial motion hearings in Ft. Meade, Maryland early Wednesday, Manning’s legal counsel told the judge that their client has submitted a plea notice in the case that could greatly influence how next year’s scheduled court-martial plays out. “Bradley Manning did not plead guilty to anything,” FDL’s Kevin Gosztola wrote from outside the court. “This is maneuvering to ensure best possible outcome for him in court martial”.

Bradley Manning Case On AWIP

President Obama wasn’t the only big winner on Tuesday: the Monsanto Co. and the billion-dollar business behind genetically modified foods were victorious in California, where a measure that would've required the labeling of GMOs lost at the polls. - Proposition 37, a state-wide initiative that aimed to increase consumer awareness about the food industry’s growing use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), was defeated by a margin of 53 to 47 percent, with nearly all of the polls accounted for Wednesday morning. Had Prop 37 been approved, foods containing GMOs would have been mandated to make the fact clear on the product’s label. If passed, the law would’ve meant most processed foods would be forced to include notes to consumers that they were "partially produced with genetic engineering" or "may be partially produced with genetic engineering" by 2014. Additionally, the words "genetically engineered" would be required to appear on packaging as well.

Microsoft has announced it intends to "retire" its instant message chat tool and replace it with Skype's messaging tool. - The news comes 18 months after the software giant announced it was paying $8.5bn (£5.3bn) for the communications software developer. Microsoft said Windows Live Messenger (WLM) would be turned off by March 2013 worldwide, with the exception of China. It reflects the firm's determination to focus its efforts on Skype. WLM launched in 1999 when it was known as MSN Messenger. Over time, photo delivery, video calls and games were added to the package's text-based messages. In 2009, the firm said it had 330 million active users.

My friendship with Mohamad began on the second day of a trip to Syria I made in January this year. Following a televised speech by President Bashar al-Assad at Damascus university on January 10th, a contingent of western journalists that arrived at the same time as me were determined to fulfil the reason for their visit: to find anti-government protests and dissidents who would slam the Syrian government. But as they eagerly plotted trips to the Damascus district of Douma, with the day ahead of me I wanted to orientate myself around city and get a sense of where I was. I headed out of the doors of that contingent’s hotel where we had watched the speech, and began my directionless wandering through the capital. Very soon, the sounds of distant chanting would draw me to its direction and in Sabaa Bahrat Square I would find their source. In front of the Central Bank, in the middle of the day about a thousand people had seemingly spontaneously gathered as a response to the President’s first public address in months. The contingent of western journalists were nowhere to be seen, but with the protesters clinging to posters of the President, it seemed to be the opposite of what they were desperately looking for. I was intrigued, and set about trying to get people to agree to speak on camera in English about why they were there. After several “we don’t speak English”, in apparently perfect English, I got the picture. As a westerner, I symbolised what was working to tear their country apart and what they were standing against. After interviewing him briefly, he pulled me up onto the stage and requested the chanting crowd to say something in English. The reply was unanimous "fuck you Al Jazeera....fuck you BBC". I fantasised about the faces of the western journalists had they been amongst the crowd.

Last night, Hawaii not only elected Japan-born Mazie Hirono to be the first ever Asian-American woman elected to the Senate, they also elected Democrat Tulsi Gabbard as the first ever practicing Hindu to the US House of Representatives. Hawaii has been declared a Fox News Disaster Zone. - Thirty-one-year-old Gabbard is the daughter of two conservative Hawaii politicians and first ran for office at age 21. After her first term, she voluntarily served on a 12-month tour of duty with Hawaii's National Guard, and then became the first woman in the history of the Accelerated Officer Candidate School at the Alabama Military Academy to be designated a "distinguished honor graduate." When she's sworn in this January, she'll take her oath of office over a Bhagavad Gita, a sacred text for followers of the Vaishnava branch of Hindu.

Gilad Atzmon: The Islamophobic Harry's Place are upset today. They just don't know how to silence me and my book, even Ali Abunimah didn't help much. With 10 new editions of The Wandering Who coming out, they have a good reason to be concerened. - I guess that my followers will enjoy reviewing the following Zionist Tantrum. I also hope that sooner or later, Harry's Place find the courage to debate me publicly - I guess that first they will have to learn to tell the truth. More precisely, I am still waiting for Harry Place and their AZZ friends to come up with a single quote of me referring critically to Jews as a 'race', 'people' or 'ethnicity'.