A new survey has indicated that an overwhelming majority of Americans are not happy with the way things are going in Washington amid the US government shutdown. ● The poll conducted by CBS News said that nearly nine in 10 Americans are unhappy, including 43 percent who are angry. Seventy-two percent of respondents disapprove of how congressional Republicans are handling the budget talks, while 61 percent disapprove of President Barack Obama and the Democrats in Congress. According to the poll, about 70 percent of Americans said they think the priority for Congress should be to get the government running again, rather than trying to block Obama’s healthcare law from taking effect. There are no signs of compromise between Republicans and Democrats in Congress over the issue as the first government shutdown in 17 years drags on.

Syrian President Bashar Assad said that Turkey will pay a “heavy price” for harboring and backing “terrorists” in order to oust him, warning that soon enough the terrorists will turn on Turkey. ● Assad referred to Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan as "bigoted" and accused Turkey of aiding terrorists by allowing them to cross into Syria, Reuters reported, citing an interview with Turkey’s Halk TV. "It is not possible to put terrorism in your pocket and use it as a card because it is like a scorpion which won't hesitate to sting you at the first opportunity," Assad said. "In the near future, these terrorists will have an impact on Turkey and Turkey will pay a heavy price for it."

BBC Newsnight exclusive interview with journalist Glenn Greenwald
on Edward Snowden, the PRISM revelations and mass surveillance

Pauline Neville Jones says there is no way Edward Snowden won't
have had to give up state secrets in Russia [Hat Tip: Paul Craig Roberts]

Wikipedia: "In October 2013 on the BBC's Newsnight, Wark interviewed Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald about his reporting of the NSA and GCHQ cyber-spying programs leaked by Edward Snowden.[16] The interview was seen as openly hostile in which "Wark unabashedly made the case for the prosecution, interrogating Greenwald about his reporting and Edward Snowden."[17] Greenwald later wrote that Wark and other journalists have focused "almost entirely on the process questions surrounding the reporting rather than the substance of the revelations" about NSA surveillance and privacy invasions "and in the process made some quite dubious claims that come straight from the mouths of government officials."[18]" [More here]

Russia Today: Ex-NSA/CIA chief Hayden jokes of putting Snowden on kill list

In an interview which aired on Press TV on Saturday–one day before the AIPAC conference got under way in Washington–former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney revealed what amounts to some pretty startling news regarding the extent of the Israeli lobby’s influence over Congress. During her years in Congress, she stated, candidates for both the House and the Senate were requested to sign pledges of support for Israel, documents in which the candidate promised to vote to provide consistent levels of economic aid to the Zionist state. Refusal to sign the pledge meant no funding for the candidate’s campaign.

Support for Israel is coded into US law!

Israel, alarmed at the prospect of a U.S.-Iranian rapprochement, is reported to be discussing the possibility of an anti-Iran alliance with longtime Arab adversaries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, a project that could have immense ramifications in the Middle East. If talks are under way, they're in large part the result of many secret meetings between Israeli and Arab intelligence chiefs and other senior officials that have been held over several years, often in the Jordanian capital Amman. Senior Israelis have held meetings with prominent figures from a number of Persian Gulf and other Arab states in recent weeks in an attempt to muster a new alliance capable of blocking Iran's drive, Israel's Channel 2 television reported Wednesday.

AFP/Global Post: Most Israelis support Iran strike

On backdrop of reports of progress made in negotiations with Palestinians, prominent religious Zionist rabbis call on public to say special prayer 'for wholeness of the land.' ● Prominent religious Zionist rabbis are calling on the public to say a special prayer "for the wholeness of the land," on the backdrop of reports of progress made in peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians and "the growing pressure on the prime minister to agree to additional withdrawals, Heaven forbid." In a "manifesto" issued by right-wing rabbis and national-religious yeshiva heads, they order worshippers to add to the Amidah prayer, which is said three times a day on weekdays, a segment written by the late former Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu against the plan to "tear our ancestral land."

Redress: Israel’s “men of God” pray for failure of peace talks ■ Israel’s rabbis, the advocates and guardians of Judaism, are asking God to prevent peace from descending on the Holy Land. The Israeli news website Ynet reports that, upon hearing rumours that Israel might relinquish tiny bits of the land it has stolen from the indigenous Palestinians, Israeli rabbis and heads of religious schools known as yeshiva issued a manifesto ordering worshippers to add to the amidah prayer, which is said three times a day on weekdays, a special prayer calling on God to kill the prospects of peace with the Palestinians. According to Ynet, “The collective call to add a segment on the most important part of the morning, afternoon and evening prayer is not a conventional thing. It is usually done only at real times of crisis, like during drought.” However, the “drought” on this occasion is the prospect of peace, slim as it is. So, rather than worry about Iran’s non-existent nuclear weapons, the world had better turn its attention to the time bomb of bigotry that is ticking inside the Middle East’s only nuclear power, the apartheid state of Israel. And with the rabbis urging their flock to pray not for love but for the death of peace, the international community had better move fast.

Jerusalem Post: Overwhelming Israeli support of Gaza op

Press TV has conducted an interview with Paul Craig Roberts, a former assistant secretary of the US Treasury from Atlanta, to share his opinions on the shutdown of the US government following the worsening economic situation in the country. Below you are presented with a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: First of allm, tell us what does this government shutdown in essence mean? Kind of a guide if you can be for us, for non-Americans, as to how many people are affected, what sections of the government, what departments, and if it is a partial shutdown how does that affect the US economy?

Roberts: Well, let me say, let me go to the most general level. What this shows is that the superpower, the exceptional country, the indispensable country is not even capable of governing itself and yet it claims to know what is best for Iran, for Iraq, for Afghanistan, for Somalia, for Libya, for Russia, for china, for the whole world and yet it cannot govern itself. Now this so-called debt ceiling crisis, that is not the real crisis, it would be resolved. In fact, if it is not, Obama under all of the directives that have concentrated power in the executive, doing the war on terror, he can simply declare a national emergency and raise the debt ceiling on his own account.

Paul Craig Roberts: The Real Crisis Is Not The Government Shutdown

● When it emerged that the woman shot dead by police on Capitol Hill was a depressed single mother, questions surfaced as to why police fired a stream of bullets at an unarmed driver who had an eighteen month old baby in the back of her car.
● New details surrounding the death of Miriam Carey are swiftly changing the story’s turn of events: originally, one in which she was accused of being armed and confronted by police heroics during a government shutdown, into one about over-zealous police gunning down an emotionally-troubled woman in front of her child.
● The 34-year old dental hygienist from Connecticut had been hospitalized after suffering previous bouts of depression, which began after the birth of 18-month old Erica. “She had postpartum depression after having the baby,” the victim’s mother, Idella Carey, told ABC News. “A few months later, she got sick. She was depressed…she was hospitalized.”

PressTV: Family of US black woman killed by police wants answers - Video
NYT: Miriam Carey Was in Car Snagged on Curb, When Police Officers Opened Fire
Toronto Star: Capitol Hill shooting: Picture emerges of unarmed mother killed by police
VoR: Chaos, panic envelop Capitol Hill as suspect shot dead by police