The Obama political operation that once buried Hillary Rodham Clinton’s White House ambitions is now rapidly converging around her possible 2016 presidential bid, conferring on Mrs. Clinton enormous early advantages in money, expertise and voter targeting techniques. ● On Thursday, Priorities USA Action, a “super PAC” that played an important role in helping re-elect President Obama, announced that it was formally aligning itself with Mrs. Clinton and would begin raising money to fend off potential opponents for 2016. The group — the largest Democratic super PAC in the country — also named new directors, appointments that will cement the group’s pro-Clinton tilt and thrust veterans of Mr. Obama’s political and fund-raising operation into the center of the post-Obama Democratic Party. The move is perhaps the earliest start to big-dollar fund-raising in support of a nonincumbent presidential candidate, providing a fund-raising portal for wealthy Clinton supporters eager to help her White House prospects — and to the legions of others eager to ingratiate themselves with Mrs. Clinton and her inner circle.

“Israel is the only country in the Middle East which has long anchored itself in the ideals of freedom, democracy and the rule of law” - 2 Minute Snip of Harper Speech - Transcript + full version here and here.

Walid al-Moallem - Syria Foreign Minister ■ It is regrettable, Ladies and Gentlemen, that seated amongst us today in this room, are representatives of countries that have the blood of Syrians on their hands, countries that have exported terrorism along with clemency for the perpetrators, as if it was their God given right to determine who will go to heaven and who will go to hell. Countries that have prevented believers from visiting holy places of worship whilst abetting, financing and supporting terrorists. Countries that gave themselves the authority to grant and deny legitimacy to others as they saw fit, never looking at their own archaic glasshouses before throwing stones at acclaimed fortified towers. Countries that shamelessly lecture us in democracy, in development and in progress whilst drowning in their own ignorance and medieval norms. Countries that have become accustomed to being entirely owned by kings and princes who have the sole right to distribute their national wealth granting their associates whilst denying those who fall out of favor.

Ladies and Gentlemen, how is what has happened and continues to plague Syria, meeting these aspirations? How can a Chechen, Afghani, Saudi, Turkish or even French and English terrorists deliver on the aspirations of the Syrian people, and with what? An Islamic state that knows nothing of Islam except perverse Wahhabism? Who declared anyway that the Syrian people aspire to live thousands of years in the past?

"We have to acknowledge that there is a huge campaign against the Syrian government for the last three years and the aim is not the Syrian government, the aim is the destruction of Syria, the destruction of the Syrian people for only the benefit of Israel. That is the true story of what is happening in Syria." (3:46)

Stephen Lendman: Malicious Syria Bashing: Part I, Part II
Daniel McAdams: The Ugly American (and Friends) in Geneva
Alex Lantier: US advances trumped-up torture charges against Syria
Brandon Turbeville: 5 Reasons The Latest Report On Syria War Crimes Might Not Be True
Shaaban: Some points in Geneva1 communique still valid, reality requires change in priorities
Al-Moallem : Counterterrorism priority for all Syrians - No foreign solution can be imposed on Syrians

Syria Report: Al-Qaeda Get British and German Ambulances - Video [08 Oct 2013]

Video of riot police stripping detained protester naked in the snow at tempatures below 0 while taking pictures of him. Reports of police torture continue in Kyiv, Ukraine. | Google translation | Ukrainskaya Pravda applied to the press-service of the Interior troops seeking comment, tell who is the head of the 228, whose helmet is one of the security officials. Press-Secretary of the internal troops Andrey Safronov said that only now saw this video and promised within hours to answer our questions. According to "Ukrainian truth", spokesman of the MINISTRY OF INTERNAL AFFAIRS Olga Bilyk, "initiated by the internal investigation, has already begun". "The appropriate action would be taken against policemen in the actions of these violations," said Bilyk.

HuffPo: 29 images of Kiev protests resembling a war zone
Stephen Lendman: Western Manipulated Violence in Ukraine

Supporters of the Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Party, which controls the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan, continue to block a supply route for the US-led NATO forces stationed in neighboring Afghanistan, Press TV reports. ● The PTI activists, who are against the deadly US drone strikes in Pakistan, have blocked one of the main NATO routes on the outskirts of the province’s capital, Peshawar, since November 2013. Protesters spend days and nights stopping all travelling trucks and checking them to ensure they are not carrying supplies for US-led forces in Afghanistan, before clearing them to pass through the province. The continuation of the blockage comes as the protesters and their leaders in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have been under intense pressure from the European Union, Washington as well as the Pakistani government to open the supply line.

American whistleblower Edward Snowden says he would have no chance to get a fair trial in case he decides to come back to the United States. ● "The hundred-year old law under which I’ve been charged... forbids a public interest defense," the former National Security Agency contractor said during an online question-and-answer session on the "Free Snowden" website on Thursday. "This is especially frustrating, because it means there's no chance to have a fair trial, and no way I can come home and make my case to a jury," Snowden said. The leaker, who has revealed the US spy agency’s surveillance programs since last summer, is currently staying in Russia after Moscow granted him one-year political asylum. He is charged with espionage charges inside the United States. "Returning to the US, I think, is the best resolution for the government, the public, and myself, but it's unfortunately not possible in the face of current whistleblower protection laws, which, through a failure in law, did not cover national security contractors like myself," Snowden said.

xrepublic.tv: U.S. Attorney General Holder Says He Is Ready To Negotiate With Edward Snowden - Video
Russia Today: Snowden Q&A: Indiscriminate mass surveillance is the biggest problem we face

ADL to Economist: Apologize for "anti-Semitic" cartoon implying Jewish control of US government. ● The cartoon, inside an article on Iran’s nuclear program, depicts US President Barack Obama shackled to Congress, represented by the Congressional seal, while reaching out to Iranian President Hassan Rohani, who himself is being held back by the ayatollahs and militants burning the American flag. The Congressional seal is based on the United States’ Great Seal, and, as shown in the cartoon, includes bald eagle clutching arrows in one talon and an olive branch in the other. The actual seal includes several stars around the border, which also appear in the Economist cartoon. What does not appear on the seal – but does in the cartoon – is a Star of David, implying that Congress is controlled by Jews with a pro-Israel agenda. [This is a fact. Jews do Control Congress.] The magazine has removed the caricature from the article itself, replacing it with a split image of Obama and Rohani. Nonetheless, it remains in a prominent location on the website’s Middle East page.

The US Central Intelligence Agency has used a secret prison in Poland in order to torture the suspects that it captured following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. ● According to former CIA officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity with The Washington Post, two senior CIA officers sealed a deal with Polish intelligence officials that allowed the CIA to use a secret prison – a remote villa in the Polish lake district – in exchange for $15 million. The CIA had already begun using the secret prison before delivering the money which was in a pair of large cardboard boxes that had flown from Germany to the US embassy in Polish capital, Warsaw, via diplomatic pouch. The CIA prison in Poland was the first of a trio of the agency’s so-called “black sites,” or secret prisons, in Europe used for interrogating and torturing prisoners captured in covert operations.