We can mention the unmentionable: That there is no longer any meaningful limit to the power of the government over our lives. No line beyond which it may not tread. That it lies, spies and tyrannizes. We can admit to ourselves the shoddy – and frightening – reality bubbling up all around us.

By so doing, we can shatter the illusion that this government operates with anything remotely approximating our consent. This is absolutely essential. The 4th of July pantomime requires that we deny the obvious – that we instead pretend we’re free people living in a free country; one in which the government is accountable to the people, one in which the government is limited by law. One in which people can’t simply be dragooned into prisons without due process, held incommunicado, tortured. A country with a president who doesn’t have kill lists – or use the instruments of state power to punish and intimidate his political opponents. One in which citizens must be suspected of a crime before their personal correspondence is filched through and recorded for later use against them. One in which a traveler is free from arbitrary and random searches of his person and effects.back turned One in which the attorney general of the United States isn’t able to get away with providing guns to gangs or brazenly lie about his use of the power of his office to go after political “enemies” rather than pursue justice.

All these things are everyday realities. And the reality is that the America we once celebrated on the Fourth of July is gone, replaced by something dark and ominous. It is painfully obvious – so why pretend otherwise? More to the point, why should we celebrate this ugly transformation? Mourning is what’s called for.

Leslie James Pickering noticed something odd in his mail last September: a handwritten card, apparently delivered by mistake, with instructions for postal workers to pay special attention to the letters and packages sent to his home. “Show all mail to supv” — supervisor — “for copying prior to going out on the street,” read the card. It included Mr. Pickering’s name, address and the type of mail that needed to be monitored. The word “confidential” was highlighted in green. “It was a bit of a shock to see it,” said Mr. Pickering, who with his wife owns a small bookstore in Buffalo. More than a decade ago, he was a spokesman for the Earth Liberation Front, a radical environmental group labeled eco-terrorists by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Postal officials subsequently confirmed they were indeed tracking Mr. Pickering’s mail but told him nothing else.

The US government has refused to stop force-feeding detainees prisoners on hunger strike at Guantánamo Bay during the holy month of Ramadan. In court papers rejecting a petition by four of more than 100 detainees prisoners said to be refusing food, the US said the feedings provided "essential nutritional and medical care" and would not interfere with religious observance of Ramadan, which begins on Monday. Observant Muslims fast daily from sunrise to sunset during Ramadan. Last month, Obama gave a speech in which he promised to work towards closing the base, and to allow the release of many of the 86 prisoners held there who have been cleared for transfer. He described the camp as a moral problem for the nation [not for Obama] that had to be solved.

Barack Obama has conceded to high-level talks between US and German security officials after Angela Merkel demanded a detailed explanation about revelations of widespread American spying on European "allies". The US president agreed to the talks during a telephone call with the German chancellor on Wednesday, in an attempt to allay the concerns of her government. Germany was furious at the revelations in Der Spiegel of US surveillance on European officials. In an interview earlier this week, Merkel said it was "not on". The European Union described the disclosures as shocking. A White House statement said Obama and Merkel had spoken by phone and agreed to the meetings. The two leaders held face-to-face talks in Berlin two weeks ago.

Slouching Towards Washington - Does the U.S. have “friends and allies”? Or does the world merely consist of targets and tools? As we learned today the U.S. National Security Agency has been spying on a series of buildings and offices of the European Union, spying on Internet communications, phone calls and more. NATO headquarters has been used to spy on the EU. Most communications in Germany, where the U.S. has military bases, have also been trawled by the NSA. Some may reduce this to an issue of trust, and that certainly is relevant, but there is more to this: a state cannot have total power without total knowledge. The very quest for total knowledge should tell everyone exactly what kind of creature we are dealing with. It is an imperial state that seeks total power, and empire is the greatest dictator of all.

The army said it wasn’t a military coup. But when the Republican Guard occupied the television station and convoys of troops and armoured personnel carriers rolled down Cairo’s main boulevards, there could hardly be much doubt. - When Hosni Mubarak was forced out two-and-a-half years ago, the military played its part. But this was the army fulfilling the role that Arab generals carved out so well in the 1950s but many thought was a thing of the past. The deadline it set for President Mohammed Morsi to solve the country’s political crisis passed at 5pm and the nation held its breath. There was an atmosphere of excitement among the anti-Morsi throngs in Tahrir Square, of fatalism at the Muslim Brotherhood’s encampment near the presidential palace. Then the tan-coloured trucks poured over the Nile bridges and along the capital’s flyovers. There was near hysteria in the capital’s upmarket, anti-Brotherhood neighbourhoods, clashes in the outer suburbs, stronger Islamist territory. Finally, at 9pm, came the televised statement the nation had waited all day to hear. Gen Abdulfattah al-Sisi, whom Mr Morsi had himself appointed as defence minister a year ago and who was supposed to have Islamist sympathies, took to the stage.

Johannes Stern & Alex Lantier: Egyptian army coup topples Islamist president Mursi - The removal of the hated Mursi regime has evoked jubilation. However sincere and deeply felt this sentiment may be, the fact is that Mursi’s overthrow has placed the army, not the masses, in power. None of the essential demands that motivated the mass protests—for decent jobs, livable wages, adequate social services, and democratic rights—will be met by the military regime.

Stephen Lendman: Turmoil Rocks Egypt: Morsi's Out - Unconfirmed reports suggest Morsi's under house arrest. Egypt's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) gave him 48 hours to yield. Do so or step down, it said. The deadline came and passed. Reuters reported that SACF said it's "ready to die to defend Egypt's people against terrorists and fools." It did so in response to Morsi. It headlined "The Final Hours." It did so hours after Morsi rejected a power sharing ultimatum. It expired Wednesday morning. Reuters said Egyptian troops control state television. Shoukry Abu Amira heads it. He confirmed it. Armored vehicles patrol outside.

The Guardian: Mohamed Morsi ousted in Egypt's "second revolution" in two years
John Glaser: Morsi Or Not, the US Empire Has A Stranglehold on Egypt

Following Edward Snowden’s revelations of massive spying, today’s scheduled televised questioning of the intelligence agencies by the UK parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) has been cancelled and postponed, with no plausible explanation, until the autumn. - The session was to have been the first ever public and televised questioning of representatives of the various spy agencies--MI5, MI6 and possibly the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). According to Monday’s Guardian, the ISC delayed the event “because it says it is too busy focusing on the murder of Lee Rigby and revelations about GCHQ’s activities.” Rigby was hacked to death in May near London’s Woolwich army barracks, and two men have been charged with his murder. The role of the intelligence services, who knew both suspects intimately and whom they even sought to recruit, is yet to be explained.

The Ethnic Origins of the Communist Revolution and The Greatest Holocaust in the History of Mankind. - Dr. David Duke shares in an illustrated video the introduction for his new academic resource book on the ethnic motivations behind the Bolshevik Revolution and the mass genocides committed by the Soviets. The Secret Behind Communism uses the research of Raphael Lemkin to expose the Bolshevik purposeful genocide against the Ukrainian people that took place in what is today called the Holodomor. He also exposes the Bolshevik war against the Russian intelligentsia and nobility that was an attempt at destroying the natural leadership of the Russian people, so as to render them weaker against their new rulers – an ethnic minority harboring deep racial animosity toward the Russian people for historic anti-Semitism. He shows how almost all reputable historians are of the opinion that the communists killed far more human beings than alleged against Hitler, yet he points out that the genocides of the Red Terror are almost totally ignored by Hollywood and the mass media. This book is a massive resource, offering the reader a real understanding of Communism as an ethnic weapon that has murdered and tortured more human beings than any other ideology in history. One of the most striking parts of the video is the revelation from Ynet News, an Israeli publication, that Genrikh Yagoda killed at least 10 million people in the Bolshevik State. Dr. Duke points out that not one in one thousand people even know his name, yet he has killed twice the number of victims than the Jewish Death toll in the Holocaust — according to leading Jewish Holocaust authority Raul Hilberg, of 5.1 million. He also shows a long, close relationship between communism and Zionism, and how both extremist ideologies have engaged in similar repressive strategies. This is a vital new book, and you can reserve your first copy right off the press by making a donation toward the substantial printing costs to widely distribute this important book! www.davidduke.com [Video]