Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh wrote an extensive investigative piece last week featured in the London Review of Books, which details the Obama administration’s “cherry-picking” of intelligence related to the August 21 Damascus chemical attack. “Whose sarin?” was originally intended for the Washington Post, but neither the Post nor Hersh’s usual New Yorker Magazine published it – presumably because its allegations and conclusions are too explosive and embarrassing for those already heavily invested in the accepted narrative of D.C. official sources. Read the following bombshell revelation from the first paragraph: "Most significant, he [Obama] failed to acknowledge something known to the US intelligence community: that the Syrian army is not the only party in the country’s civil war with access to sarin, the nerve agent that a UN study concluded – without assessing responsibility – had been used in the rocket attack. In the months before the attack, the American intelligence agencies produced a series of highly classified reports, culminating in a formal Operations Order – a planning document that precedes a ground invasion – citing evidence that the al-Nusra Front, a jihadi group affiliated with al-Qaida, had mastered the mechanics of creating sarin and was capable of manufacturing it in quantity. When the attack occurred al-Nusra should have been a suspect, but the administration cherry-picked intelligence to justify a strike against Assad." Hersh goes on to detail an intelligence community revolt, involving high-level officers, against the administration claim that only the Assad regime could have been responsible for the August 21 incident.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered security to be stepped up across the country, following two separate bombings in the southern city of Volgograd. | “Russian President Vladimir Putin has given a number of instructions to the National Antiterrorism Committee with the purpose of building up security across Russia,” an unnamed committee representative said on Monday. “The president will receive daily reports from the National Antiterrorism Committee about the measures it has taken, as well as situation reports.” Putin’s announcement came after an emergency meeting was held to discuss two separate bombings which Russian officials have described as terrorist attacks.

Russia Today: Consecutive Volgograd suicide bombing kills at least 14 - Photos, Graphic Video
Russia Today: Volgograd trolley bus blast - LIVE UPDATES

Julian Assange: Surveillance is new strategic weapon owned by single Power. ● There is “no hope” that mass strategic interception – as it is termed by the US – will go away. The whistleblower then drew a historical analogy with how the US has retained nuclear weapons in the past. Assange’s comments were made during a panel discussion of the documentary film ‘Mediastan’ on RT. The panel also included director Johannes Wahlstrom and Afghan journalist Enayat Najafizada, who participated in the movie. The film depicts different stages in undercover WikiLeaks journalists’ trips across Central Asia. “These powers do not give up voluntarily any significant ability to control the world like that,” Assange told RT. He compared any US compulsion to cling onto such abilities as a form of need for global control, pointing out that after the end of the Cold War, the US retained excessive nuclear weapons, despite an enormous anti-nuclear lobby. “Many movies were critical of it – it was a very expensive system to maintain,” he said. “The US could have reduced its numbers without any significant problem, and yet it still has 5000-6000 nuclear weapons,” he said, adding that there was no need for the country to maintain such a large arsenal of nuclear weapons. Assange also pointed out further reasons for not standing down from the clutches of the existing system, describing it as "invisible, intangible, complex, and decreasing in cost by 50 percent every 18 months."

A new technology opens the door to new ways to arrest people. ● As drivers prove their innocence at warrantless police checkpoints this New Year, they will not only be scrutinized over their potential consumption of alcohol. A new technology will enable the police to detect and arrest drivers for having marijuana, narcotics, and “other drugs” in their bloodstreams. The recently unveiled device is a portable saliva swab analyzer, capable of immediately sampling body fluids for the presence of foreign intoxicants. The machines were paid for by grants from the state. “Traditionally, our office has focused on drunken driving cases,” Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer said. “We’re expanding drug collection and aggressively enforcing all impaired-driving laws.”

Congress and the government of United States is totally alien to the interests of the American people and are hurting this nation, Dr. David Duke has told an international audience via PressTV. ● Speaking during an interview conducted from Florida, Dr. Duke was asked about a recent opinion poll, conducted by Time magazine, which found that two-thirds of Americans surveyed agreed that the current Congress is the worst in their lifetime. Nearly three-quarters of respondents — rich and poor, young and old, Democrats and Republicans — agreed this is a “do-nothing” Congress. See the interview on PressTV here.