Infographics on the distribution of wealth in America, highlighting both the inequality and the difference between our perception of inequality and the actual numbers. The reality is often not what we think it is.

Paul Craig Roberts: How Deregulation Resurrected American Economic Insecurity

General David Petraeus and 'dirty wars' veteran behind commando units implicated in detainee abuse torture. - The Pentagon sent a US veteran of the "dirty wars" in Central America to oversee sectarian police commando units in Iraq that set up secret detention and torture centres "to get information" from "insurgents". These units conducted some of the worst acts of torture during the US occupation and accelerated the country's descent into full-scale civil war. Colonel James Steele was a 58-year-old retired special forces veteran when he was nominated by Donald Rumsfeld to help organise the paramilitaries in an attempt to quell a Sunni insurgency, an investigation by the Guardian and BBC Arabic shows. After the Pentagon lifted a ban on Shia militias joining the security forces, the special police commando (SPC) membership was increasingly drawn from violent Shia groups such as the Badr brigades. A second "special adviser", retired Colonel James H Coffman, worked alongside Steele in detention centres that were set up with millions of dollars of US funding. Coffman reported directly to General David Petraeus, sent to Iraq in June 2004 to organise and train the new Iraqi security forces. Steele, who was in Iraq from 2003 to 2005, and returned to the country in 2006, reported directly to Rumsfeld.

John Glaser: Pentagon Ran Torture Centers in Iraq, Atrocities Revealed
PressTV: UN rapporteur calls on US, UK to release Iraq war torture documents - Video

One of the major metrics for the decade-long Afghanistan war is seriously flawed. Rather than fix the problem, the U.S.-NATO military command in Kabul has decided that you simply shouldn’t see the data. - Late last month, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) conceded that it misreported the 2012 statistics on Taliban attacks. Its explanation was that a data-entry error had discounted attacks reported by Afghan forces - so much so that a statistically insignificant change in the level of so-called “enemy initiated attacks” became a 7 percent decline from 2011 levels. ISAF’s response, the Associated Press recounts, is to end public reporting on enemy-initiated attacks. It’ll still record attack levels, according to spokesman Jamie Graybeal, but it won’t publish any of the data it collects - all because it’s [allegedly] losing confidence in the veracity of its information.

Eric Holder argued that using lethal military force against an American in his home country would be "legal" and "justified" in an "extraordinary circumstance" comparable to the September 11 terrorist attacks [inside job].

The president could conceivably have "no choice" but to "authorise" the military to use such force if necessary to protect "the homeland" ["Das Vaterland"], Mr Holder claimed. His statement was described as "more than frightening" by Senator Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, who had demanded to know the Obama administration's position on the subject. "It is an affront the constitutional due process rights of all Americans," said Mr Paul, a 50-year-old favourite of the anti-government Tea Party movement, who is expected to run for president in 2016.

John Glaser: Rand Paul Filibusters Senate, Condemns Obama’s Drone War
PressTV: US may use drone raids inside America: Attorney general
Joseph Kishore: Obama administration claims "right" to assassinate citizens within the US

While it is widely assumed that the too-big-to-fail banks in the US (and elsewhere) are beyond the criminal justice system - based on simple empirical fact - when the Attorney General of the United States openly admits to the fact that he is "concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them," since, "it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy," one has to stare open-mouthed at the state of our union. It appears, just as the proletariat assumed, that too-big-to-fail banks are indeed too-big-to-jail.

A court in New Zealand has ruled that Megaupload boss Kim Dotcom can sue the country's foreign intelligence service for illegally spying on him. - The court rejected a challenge to an earlier ruling allowing him to sue the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) over his treatment. GCSB worked with US officials to investigate Mr Dotcom over allegations of online piracy and money laundering. Mr Dotcom, who denied the charges, is fighting extradition to the US. US officials allege that pirated movies and other content shared through his Megaupload site cost copyright holders more than $500m (£322m) in lost earnings, making it one of the biggest cases of its kind. He faces a jail sentence of up to 20 years if convicted in the US.

As many as 1,165 people starved to death in NHS hospitals over the past four years fuelling claims nurses are too busy to feed their patients. - The Department of Health branded the figures 'unacceptable' and said the number of unannounced inspections by the care watchdog will increase. According to figures released by the Office for National Statistics following a Freedom of Information request, for every patient who dies from malnutrition, four more have dehydration mentioned on their death certificate. Critics say nurses are too busy to feed patients and often food and drink are placed out of reach of vulnerable people. In 2011, 43 patients starved to death and 291 died in a state of severe malnutrition, while the number of patients discharged from hospital suffering from malnutrition doubled to 5,558.

The main question now is who will become Venezuela's new leader. Some analysts suggest it will be hard for the US-backed opposition to overturn Chavez's policies. However, Pepe Escobar, who's an investigative journalist and Asia Times Correspondent covering Latin America, says the demonization of Hugo Chavez in the US will continue after his death. [Dputamadre/Saif al Islam]

RT: 'Farewell, Comandante:’ Venezuelans throng to view Chávez’s body in state
Stephen Lendman: Media Scoundrels Pillory Chávez Before He's Buried
PressTV: Paris demo refuses to accept demonization of Chávez - Video
The Guardian: South American leaders fly in to mourn Chávez
John Hilley: Chávez - media savaging in life and death
Pepe Escobar: El comandante has left the building
Bill Van Auken: Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez dead
Tariq Ali: Tariq Ali: Hugo Chávez and me
Stephen Lendman: Chavismo Lives!

John Forbes Kerry, the current United States Secretary of State, is a blue-blooded patrician oligarch and member of the infamous Yale Skull and Bones secret society. Kerry has already signaled that he will be more aggressive and ruthless than his predecessor, Hillary Rodham Clinton, when it comes to implementing the US program of destroying the sovereign and independent nation states of the world, and replacing them with micro states, mini states, rump states, failed states, warlords, and chaos. Accordingly, Kerry wants to increase aid to the Syrian rebels, whom his own department has branded as terrorists. [Continue Reading Exclusively at PressTV]

Al-Manar News: Kerry: “A Lot of Countries Training” Syria Militants

According to a news update on John Hilley’s blog, Ward is now on probation and the Friends of Israel are doing the surveillance and monitoring. In other words Israel’s stooges have been appointed censors and educators. If reports are true, UK Liberal Democrats have appointed the pro-Israel lobby as “probation officers and educators”. They will judge if David Ward is “salvageable” and lay down precise language rules. - British MP David Ward, champion of the oppressed, is to be put on probation and “re-educated” after ruffling Jewish feathers with his controversial “use of language”. Ward, you’ll remember, wrote on his website:

I am saddened that the Jews, who suffered unbelievable levels of persecution during the holocaust, could within a few years of liberation from the death camps be inflicting atrocities on Palestinians in the new State of Israel and continue to do so on a daily basis in the West Bank and Gaza.

Chiefs of the Holocaust Educational Trust and the Board of Deputies of British Jews loudly complained that Ward “deliberately abused the memory of the holocaust” and his remarks were “sickening” and “offensive”. The Liberal Democrat Chief Whip, Alistair Carmichael, agreed that Ward’s remarks were “wholly inappropriate” and that singling out “the Jews” in that way crossed a red line.

Gilad Atzmon: Holocaust Day Backfires
Gilad Atzmon: Lib Dem MP David Ward Told the Truth

Iceland Spar - thought to be the material used
in Viking sunstones

A crystal found in a shipwreck could be similar to a sunstone - a mythical navigational aid said to have been used by Viking mariners, scientists believe. - The team from France say the transparent crystal may have been used to locate the Sun even on cloudy days. This could help to explain how the Vikings were able to navigate across large tracts of the sea - well before the invention of the magnetic compass. However, a number of academics treat the sunstone theory with scepticism. The team from the University of Rennes in France say they found the crystal while examining the wreck of a British ship sunk off the island of Alderney - in the English Channel - in 1592. An oblong crystal the size of a cigarette packet was next to a pair of dividers - suggesting it was part of the navigational equipment. It has now been shown that it is of Iceland spar - a form of calcite known for its property of diffracting light into two separate rays. Testing a similar crystal, the scientists proved that by rotation it was possible to find the point where the two beams converge - indicating the direction of the Sun. They say it works on cloudy days, and when the Sun has set.

KpopStarz: Legendary Viking Sunstone Found – What's Next, Atlantis?
Yahoo: Mythical Viking sunstone may have existed after all