Review finds executions taking up to 20 minutes longer since EU boycott of lethal drugs leads states to employ other methods. ● US death penalty states face a deepening crisis in their struggle to procure medical drugs for use in lethal injections, with new evidence that the increasingly random methods being used are subjecting condemned prisoners to prolonged and possibly excruciating deaths. A Guardian survey of death sentences carried out over the past three years by Texas – the most prolific of all execution states – has found that the procedure now takes on average twice as long as under previous protocols. A study of Texas department of criminal justice records and eyewitness media reports mainly from the Associated Press shows a notable lengthening of the death process following the switch in July 2012 from the conventional three-drug cocktail to a single drug, pentobarbital. Ten executions prior to the change took on average 10 minutes to complete, ranging from nine to 11 minutes between the administration of the lethal injection and the declaration of death. The next 23 executions using only pentobarbital took on average 20 minutes, with the full range between 12 to 30 minutes. Suzanne Basso is scheduled next Wednesday to become the 510th prisoner to be executed by Texas in the modern era. Texas has eight executions set between next week and 29 May. A spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice declined to comment.

Americans Are Starting to Wake Up from their Fear-Induced Haze [It's a bit late for that now, I'm afraid...] The Founding Fathers valued privacy over safety. Indeed, the Revolutionary War was largely started to stop the use of spying by the British. Background here. In other words, the Founding Fathers gave up their safe life with little freedom to strive for real freedom. The American people got spooked after 9/11, even though 9/11 was entirely foreseeable … and even the chair of the 9/11 Commission said that the attack was preventable. But we are now remembering that liberty is more important than some mythical concept of 100% guaranteed safety.

The Syrian army has carried out large-scale military operations against foreign-backed terrorist groups in several areas across the violence-stricken country. ● Syrian army forces managed to kill many Takfiri militants in the suburbs of the country’s northwestern city of Idlib, destroying their weapons and ammunition, Syria’s official news agency SANA reported on Thursday. Meanwhile, a number of extremist militants were killed in the countryside of Aleppo in northwestern Syria. Army units also destroyed terrorist hideouts in the area. The Syrian forces launched similar mop-up operations in the cities of Dara’a, Homs and Dayr al-Zawr. According to the report, scores of foreign-backed militants, including Saudi and Tunisian nationals, were killed in the army operations in the eastern city of Dayr al-Zawr.

linternaute.com: Syrie: ultime séance de pourparlers à Genève avant une pause
Al-Manar News: Syrian Army Launches Large Scale Operations against Armed Mercenaries
Franklin Lamb: Long Odds to Save Their Country: The Syrian Team in Geneva

Actress Confirms Commitment to Apartheid and Ethnic Cleansing by Resigning as Ambassador for Goodwill and Peace in Favor of Company that Illegally Confiscates Land of Indigenous Peoples while posing as Ec0-Friendly Company. || Yesterday, Scarlett Johansson announced that she is ending her relationship with a humanitarian group after being criticized over her support for an Soda Stream, an Israeli company that operates illegally in the West Bank on confiscated lands of the indigenous populations. A statement released by Johansson’s spokesman Wednesday said the 29-year-old actress has “a fundamental difference of opinion” with Oxfam International because the humanitarian group opposes all trade from Israeli settlements, saying they are illegal and deny Palestinian rights. Earlier this month, “The Avengers” and “Her” actress signed on as the first global brand ambassador of SodaStream International Ltd., and she’s set to appear in an ad for the at-home soda maker during the Super Bowl on Feb. 2. SodaStream has come under fire from pro-Indigenous peoples activists for maintaining a large factory in an Israeli settlement in the West Bank, a territory captured by Israel in 1967 and claimed by the indigenous peoples. In response to the criticism, Johansson said last week she was a “supporter of economic cooperation and social interaction between a democratic Israel and Palestine.”

Philip Weiss ■ Scarlett Johansson is getting some backup for her controversial decision to represent SodaStream, a product made in a Jewish colony in the occupied Palestinian territories. And not just from rightwinger Mike Huckabee. NY City Comptroller Scott Stringer, a liberal Democrat, came to her side last night: Proud of environmentalist/humanitarian Scarlett Johansson for standing strong against those seeking to undermine a two-state solution. Stringer was quickly echoed by the soul of J Street, the liberal Zionist lobby group, Rabbi Andy Bachman of Beth Elohim in Brooklyn. [...] Liberal Zionists just don’t want to criticize Johansson. Americans for Peace Now, which supports a boycott of settlement goods, has been silent on Johansson’s SodaStream connection.

Xymphora: I forgot this very good Weiss on Sodastream ■ It happens that the stolen land Sodastream is using is land World Jewry intends to un-steal through legitimizing the stealing process in the current bogus 'negotiations' with Abbas. Thus, the Sodastream issue cuts directly to the deep fraud behind lite Zionism, a fraud generally called the 'two-state solution' (a term no doubt derived from the 'final solution'). Despite what the lite Zionists would like you to think, there are no Good Jews.

An emaciated man whose boat washed up on a remote Pacific atoll this week claims he survived 16 months adrift on the Pacific, floating more than 12,500 kilometers (8,000 miles) from Mexico, a researcher said Friday. ● The man, with long beard and hair, was discovered Thursday when his 24-foot fibreglass boat with propellerless engines floated onto the reef at Ebon Atoll and he was spotted by two locals. "His condition isn't good, but he's getting better," Ola Fjeldstad, a Norwegian anthropology student doing research on Ebon, told Agence France Presse by telephone. Fjeldstad said the man, dressed only in a pair of ragged underpants, claims he left Mexico for El Salvador in September 2012 with a companion, who died at sea several months ago. Details of his survival are sketchy, Fjeldstad added, as the man only speaks Spanish, but he said his name was Jose Ivan. "The boat is really scratched up and looks like it has been in the water for a long time," said the researcher. "He has a long beard and hair." Ivan indicated to Fjeldstad that he survived by eating turtles, birds and fish and drinking turtle blood when there was no rain.

The Guardian: Man claims to have survived 16 months adrift in Pacific

Amid a very low voter turnout, Egypt’s election committee claims 98.1 percent approval of a new, military-backed constitution in the first referendum since the US-backed Army ousted the nation's first freely-elected president. Egypt's High Election Commission announced Saturday that only 38.6 percent of the country's more than 53 million eligible voters took part in the two-day poll.

Kevin Barrett: Jewish Al-Sisi Runs Egypt; Now an Israeli-Occupied Territory
henrymakow.com: Al-Sisi is a Crypto Jew. Coup is disguised Zionist Occupation

truthjihad.com: Phony unanimity proves Egypt’s “constitution” a sham ■ That 98% figure says it all. Whenever 98% of voters supposedly vote for anything, you know the “election” is a sham. Fake unanimity is the hallmark of dictatorships. People like Stalin, Mao, and al-Sisi are always “elected” by near-unanimous “landslides.” Full article

Abu Dharr: Who exactly is General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi? ■ Born to a Moroccan Jewish mother, his maternal uncle was a member of David Ben Gurion’s political party. How did this Sephardi sleeper stay within the loop without being exposed for so long and rising to the top spot in the military? [...] But who is this al-Sisi? At least one American news report wants us to believe he is an “Islamist” — but a moderate one! There are murmurs and rumors in Egypt about al-Sisi’s mother. Who is she? And the available answers are that she is a Moroccan Jewess. In normal circumstances there would be nothing wrong with being Moroccan or Jewish. But we are not dealing with normal circumstances. Someone whose mother is Moroccan and Jewish and then becomes Egypt’s Minister of Defense, and now the ultimate authority, raises serious questions. Add to that the favorable press he is receiving in Israel and we have exclamation marks hugging question marks all over our mind and psyche. This coup leader, illegitimate ruler, and arbitrary chief executive and commander for the last two months, and before that the Defense Minister — who is he? This Mr. al-Sisi has been complicit with the Israelis in killing innocent people in the Sinai Peninsula. Our source in Egypt who is very active politically and very well versed on Egyptian matters investigated al-Sisi’s family lineage. And what he came up with is that there is reason to believe that al-Sisi is a crypto-Muslim.

The partial sale of DONG Energy to Goldman Sachs took a shocking turn this morning after Annette Vilhelmsen, the head of government coalition party Socialistisk Folkeparti (SF), announced that she would step down as head of the party and the party would leave the government coalition. ● Vilhelmsen called a meeting this morning after she was unable to obtain a consensus in her party on agreeing to the government’s pending DONG/ Goldman Sachs agreement, which is set to be decided on in parliament later today. “It’s been a dramatic 24 hours. I must admit that there has been disagreement in the party, at a national level and in the parliament group,” Vilhelmsen said at the press conference at Christiansborg. “I couldn’t gather the party.”

The US National Security Agency spied on the communications conducted by other governments before and during the 2009 United Nations climate negotiations conference held in Copenhagen, according to a report based on documents leaked by Edward Snowden. ● A “top secret” document obtained by the Huffington Post reveals that the NSA was keeping tabs on how other countries were communicating before the conference and that the intelligence agency planned to keep its operations running through the meeting. The document was published on an internal NSA site on the first day of the Denmark conference, December 7, 2009, and stated that “analysts here at NSA, as well as our Second Party partners, will continue to provide policymakers with unique, timely, and valuable insights into key countries’ preparations and goals for the conference, as well as the deliberation within countries on climate change policies and negotiation strategies.” The mention of “Second Party partners” is a reference to the Five Eyes group of nations that the US shares intelligence with, a group that includes the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

Israeli forces have razed down an entire Palestinian village in the Jordan Valley region of the occupied West Bank. ● According to reports, the demolition took place in the village of Khirbat Jamal early on Thursday. Over a dozen families living in the area have been displaced after Israeli bulldozers destroyed their homes. The Israeli military is preventing human rights activists from visiting the area and helping the villagers. Demolitions are commonplace in the Jordan Valley as the Tel Aviv regime continues with its policy of settlement expansion in the area. Over 90 percent of the Jordan Valley is under full Israeli military control. On January 9, Israeli military forces backed by bulldozers entered the village of Khirbet Ein Karzaliyah and destroyed the entire village, leaving over two dozen locals homeless.

Sixteen Minutes To Palestine: Infographic of land-theft in Palestine

In its latest report on Iran’s nuclear program, the Iran task force of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) admits that it is divided over the value of the Joint Plan of Action (JPA), the Nov. 24 agreement between Iran and the P5+1, but that if after six months from the date of the JPA’s signing on Jan. 10 no final agreement is reached, the U.S. should support an Israeli attack on Iran if its government decides to carry one out. I’ll reprint the the executive summary below, but here’s the final paragraph: The United States should move immediately to impose new sanctions and consider even tougher actions against Iran if no acceptable final is [sic] agreement is in place 180 days after the JPA’s formal implementation on January 20. At that time, the United States should do nothing that would impinge upon Israel’s ability to decide what actions it must take at that time, and indeed should support Israel if it takes military action.

A New York bill to cut off state funding to the American Studies Association over its Israel boycott has the support of 48 lawmakers. That means that Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who authored the bill, is just 28 members short of garnering a majority of the state assembly to back the legislation targeting the ASA. The legislation would prohibit colleges from giving funds to the ASA or other academic groups that have supported a boycott of universities in countries that host schools given credentials by New York state. If the bill passes, colleges would not be eligible for state aid during the academic year if they violate the legislation. Practically, it would mean that university funds given to students and faculty to travel to ASA events would be cut off.

Video game developer Rovio has confirmed that hackers defaced its Angry Birds site with an image entitled Spying Birds, featuring an NSA logo. The attack followed the publication of leaks that indicated the US spy agency and its British counterpart GCHQ had obtained data released by at least one of the Finnish firm's games.

The company said it did not "collaborate or collude" with any government spy agency. It added it had quickly fixed its site. "The defacement was caught in minutes and corrected immediately," said marketing manager Saara Bergstrom. "The end user data was in no risk at any point. Due to how the internet name resolution works, for most areas it was not visible at all, but some areas take time for the correct information to be updated.

[Spuriously blaming Syria, this NSA offshoot said:] "This attack looks to be similar to the New York Times attacks from last year." The Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) - a group supporting Syrian president Bashar al-Assad - said it carried out an attack on the New York Times last August. After Tuesday's attack, a Twitter account associated with the group posted a link to a saved copy of the spoof Angry Birds image and the message: "A friend hacked and defaced @Angrybirds website after reports confirms its spying on people. The attack was by 'Anti-NSA' Hacker, He sent an email to our official email with the link of the hacked website."

Top-secret documentation collected by Pakistani field officers gives detailed information on 330 US drone strikes that have occurred in Pakistan since 2006. The CIA-run program is estimated to have killed 2,371 people. ● From solitary individuals riding on horseback to mountain hideouts crammed with people, the CIA drone program has had no shortage of targets in the Islamic Republic, according to newly released information obtained by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ). The most complete official record of American drone activity in Pakistan yet published provides an account as to the time and place of each strike, even including in some cases the identity of the homeowners. The document is unique in that it provides a “strike-by-strike account,” opening the window on Pakistan’s view of each incident with that of other authorities.

President defends government's record and accuses opposition of escalating crisis. ● Ukraine's embattled president, Viktor Yanukovych, has accused the opposition of escalating the situation in the country and insisted that his government is doing all it can to solve the crisis. Yanukovych's defiant statement – released on the presidential website – followed an earlier announcement that he is taking sick leave due to an acute respiratory illness and high fever. There was no indication of how long he might be on leave or whether he would be able to do any work. The chief medical officer said the president was suffering from a "severe cold with a high temperature".

A group of nearly 60 prominent American Jewish leaders have strongly criticized New York's new mayor Bill de Blasio for pledging to be a loyal ally of the pro-Israel lobbying group, AIPAC. ● Last week, de Blasio praised Israel at a speech for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the most powerful pro-Israel lobby group in the US, assuring its members that “part of my job description is to be a defender of Israel.” The mayor asserted that strong support for Israel is “elemental to being an American, because there is no greater ally on earth, and that’s something we can say proudly.”

PressTV: Britain: William Hague turns a blind eye to Israeli war crimes

The action group for Palestinians in Syria has said that 73 Palestinian refugees had died of hunger in the besieged Yarmouk refugee camp. The group said in a statement on Monday that the number was registered until Sunday 26/1/2014, adding that 27 of those died over the past 12 days. The group, which monitors and documents the daily field events of Palestinian refugees in Syria, said that the Yarmouk refugee camp has been under siege for 197 days due to the ongoing armed confrontations between Syrian regular army and opposition forces.

The similarities underscore the point that no matter which party is in power, Americans are forced to endure the same empty rhetoric on an annual basis. “Barack Obama has gone from blaming George W. Bush to plagiarizing George W. Bush,” Thiessen told Fox News host Megyn Kelly. Noting how the two speeches were “eerily familiar,” Thiessen pointed to some examples.

”There were lines like ‘Our job is to help Americans build a future of hope and opportunity, a future of hope and opportunity begins with a growing economy, a future of hope and opportunity requires that all citizens have affordable and available healthcare, extending opportunity and hope depends on a stable supply of energy,’ all of that came from the 2007 State of the Union from George W. Bush,” he told Kelly.

Politico’s Dylan Byers added that although Obama didn’t lift any lines directly from Bush’s 2007 speech, the repeated use of the word “opportunity” was an integral characteristic of both speeches, while both also ended with an emotional narrative about a wounded veteran.

A new decree passed by Libya’s parliament banning satellite television stations critical of the government and the 2011 uprising against Gaddafi violates free speech and Libya’s Provisional Constitutional Declaration. The decree was passed January 22, 2014. The government also slashed scholarship funding for students abroad, along with salaries and bonuses to employees who take part in activities “inimical” to the revolution. “You’d think that Libyans learned long ago that suppressing speech, no matter how harsh, does nothing to foster security or peace,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director. “The best way to confront opinions that the government doesn’t like is to challenge them with better ideas that will convince Libyans.”

In the first reaction since news broke, Prime Minister's Office says the two just study together, and are not in a romantic relationship. ● In the first reaction since news broke, Prime Minister's Office says the two just study together, and are not in a romantic relationship. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied his son is dating a non-Jewish Norwegian woman, Channel 10 reported Wednesday. In the first response since news of the purported romance between Yair Netanyahu, 23 and Sandra Leikanger, 25, made waves in Israel, an official in the Prime Minister's Office told Shas leader Aryeh Deri that the two only study together. The PMO denied reports in Norwegian papers that Netanyahu told his counterpart, Prime Minister Erna Solberg, that there was a romantic relationship between the two. A report in the Norwegian newspaper Dagen shows photographs of the pair posing in different locations in Norway. The two reportedly met while Leikanger was studying at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya. ● In an interview Monday, Deri lamented the news, telling an ultra-Orthodox radio station, Kol Barama, that if true, Netanyahu and wife Sara would experience "great heartache." Deri said the criticism was not an attack against the premier, but rather an issue of national concern. "I try not to raise personal criticism, but if, heaven forbid, this is true, it is no longer a personal matter – it is a symbol of the Jewish people." The Shas leader went on to describe the great efforts being made to prevent assimilation, saying, "I have friends who invest tens of millions, hundreds of millions to fight assimilation throughout the world. If, heaven forbid, this is true, woe is us. I hope it is not true…." Other religious politicians came out against the reported relationship, including hardline Likud MK Moshe Feiglin and other members of Shas. The Israeli organization Lehava, which says it aims "to prevent assimilation in the Holy Land," urged Netanyahu on its Facebook page "to prevent this relationship," AFP reported.

DavidDuke.com: How Jewish Supremacists View Gentiles: The Official List of “Humans” - This classification of humans is not merely some Israeli invention—it is based on Halacha, Jewish law as contained in that religion’s “holy books.” It is therefore, represented in all Jewish religious communities all around the world—and offers a fascinating, if horrific, insight into how Jewish Supremacists view all Gentiles, in all nations.

Michael Grimm caught on camera making threat to political reporter after interview following state of union address. ● New York congressman Michael Grimm has been filmed verbally threatening a news reporter after an interview following US president Barack Obama's state of the union address. After refusing to answer a question about an investigation into his 2010 campaign finances, the 43-year-old Republican is seen walking away, before returning to threaten the NY1 broadcaster's political reporter, Michael Scotto. Congressman Michael Grimm does not want to talk about some of the allegations concerning his campaign finances," Scotto says to camera as Grimm leaves. Much of the conversation is inaudible in the recording, but according to a transcript from NY1, Grimm said: "Let me be clear to you, you ever do that to me again I'll throw you off this fucking balcony." Scotto replies: "Why? I just wanted to ask you," before Grimm says, "No, no, you're not man enough, you're not man enough. I'll break you in half. Like a boy."

Little Content and a Lot of Recycled Rhetoric - A rambling, 80+ minute State of the Union Address tonight gave President Obama an opportunity to lay out his foreign policy positions, but 60 minutes into the talk he hadn’t touched the matter at all. ● When he finally did, what followed was a confusing muddle of claims of success and vague expressions of hope for things he’d like to accomplish without any specific plans attached. Bragging about ending the Iraq War, President Obama touted his plan to “end” the Afghan War, while openly talking about an open-ended deployment of US troops on the ground there engaged in “counter-terrorism” operations. A war “ended” and simultaneously endless. He then went on to talk about ending the “permanent war footing” the United States has been on since 9/11, but openly talked up increased increased military spending for “future missions” and intervention abroad.

Joseph Kishore: Obama’s State of the Union address: an empty and reactionary charade
The Guardian: State of the Union: Obama plays politics to tackle 'stalled' progress
Los Angeles Daily News: State of the Union 2014: Transcript of President Obama’s speech

We can defeat the Greatest conspiracy with Knowledge. If the American people know what is in the darkness, we will not fall [for it]. They depend on our ignorance of their conspiracy. They are deceiving us with this conspiracy to control us all.

Please tell everyone about this conspiracy. Our lives depend on getting the word out. We have no power but unity and that by knowledge. All we have to do is tell everyone about this conspiracy, show them this video.

We must NOT elect their presidents. Get out and campaign for RON PAUL. We must get rid of the Federal reserve bank. If you do not know about Ron Paul and the federal reserve bank conspiracy to enslave us, please begin researching this now. We have no time left. Please help everyone know what's happening.