USAID and CIA “Ghost Money” program to install West-backed technocrats in Afghanistan. ● The chief of staff to Afghanistan’s president drew a salary from two U.S. government contractors in 2002 and early 2003 as he was managing President Hamid Karzai’s office, serving as his spokesman and advising him on foreign affairs, according to documents reviewed by The Daily Beast and subsequent interviews. The contractor salary provided to Said Jawad was part of a U.S. initiative to directly pay high salaries to Western-educated Afghans who helped rebuild a government from scratch in the midst of an ongoing civil war and foreign occupation. While some current and former U.S. officials say these measures were necessary in the first months and years of the Afghan reconstruction to attract top talent to a daunting project, other experts say it’s no different from the kind of corruption the Bush and Obama administration have publicly criticized inside the Afghan government.

“The best way to take control over a people and control them utterly is to take a little of their freedom at a time, to erode rights by a thousand tiny and almost imperceptible reductions. In this way, the people will not see those rights and freedoms being removed until past the point at which these changes cannot be reversed.” ~ Adolf Hitler in "Mein Kampf"

Jonathan Turley ■ Former CIA Director James Woolsey has one wish for the holidays: for Edward Snowden to be tried for treason and “hanged.” That was Woolsey’s response to the suggestion of amnesty for Snowden.Of course, the National Intelligence Director can commit perjury and CIA officials can lie to Congress without nary an investigation let alone prosecution. Intelligence officials can run a torture program in violation of treaties and international law without punishment. CIA officials can openly destroy evidence so that it cannot be used against them in a criminal case and continue in office without penalty. The CIA director can even reveal classified evidence to a filmmaker working on a pro-torture movie. All of that is perfectly correct, but Snowden must die.

Brazil has rejected a contract for Boeing’s F/A-18 fighter jets in favor of the Swedish Saab’s JAS 39 Gripens. The unexpected move to reject the US bid comes amid the global scandal over the NSA’s involvement in economic espionage activities. The announcement for the purchase of 36 fighters was made Wednesday by Brazilian Defense Minister Celso Amorim and Air Force Commander Junti Saito. The jets will cost US$4.5 billion, well below the estimated market value of around US$7 billion.

The PC police and progressive stooges have long taken over the nation's public school systems, and the result has been a complete disaster. Not only have these idiots led our education system down a path of sustained decline - a fact which almost no one discusses - but they have turned our schools into havens of nonsensical tyranny while transforming our children into mind-numbed robots of conformity. The latest outrage, as reported by Britain's Daily Mail newspaper:

A 10-year-old boy was suspended after he pretended to shoot an imaginary bow and arrow at his classmate, the family's attorney said this week. Johnny Jones was disciplined after he playfully responded to his friend's imaginary gun duel during class in October, by making an imaginary bow and arrow using his pencil. Johnny was reported by a girl in his class at the South Eastern School District West in Pennsylvania.

Arthur Topham, publisher of the Canadian-based Radical Press website, is facing criminal charges. His crime: Parodying Zionist Jew Theodore Kaufman’s book “Germany Must Perish!” by changing “Germany” to “Israel” throughout the text. This tiny change produced the satirical masterpiece “Israel Must Perish!” – and led Canada’s Zionist Power Configuration to have him jailed on “hate crime” charges! The 1941 Zionist genocide manifesto Germany Must Perish! makes Mein Kampf look like a Mother Theresa homily by comparison. The mass murder of every German advocated by Kaufman was hailed by Time Magazine as “a sensational idea!” The annihilation of the women, children, and men of Germany was termed “a plan for permanent peace among civilized nations” by the Zionist flagship publication The New York Times.

China will not tolerate the US military buildup in Asia Pacific for supporting regional allies who are in dispute with Beijing over a chain of islands, says investigative journalist Wayne Madsen. ● “The US needs to recognize that China will not tolerate US military presence in its waters just as the United States will not tolerate Chinese naval ships off the coast of Atlantic City in New Jersey,” Madsen said in a phone interview with Press TV on Wednesday. Washington and Beijing have been trading barbs since USS Cowpens and a Chinese warship “nearly collided” in the South China Sea earlier in December. “With President Obama’s ‘pivot’ to Asia where he has redirected a lot of US military assets to East Asia, we’re going to see a lot more confrontations like the one we recently saw between a US Navy cruiser and a Chinese aircraft carrier,” Madsen said.

PressTV: Beijing warns US against meddling in China Sea - Video