White House officials are setting the scene for a confrontational state of the union address on Tuesday night, claiming that President Barack Obama is preparing to “bypass” Congress with executive action on divisive issues "such as economic inequality" [Obama is no champion of the poor.]. ● Key policy objectives, such as increasing the national minimum wage or lowering the cost of access to higher education, are almost impossible to achieve without bipartisan legislation. Republicans view the mounting State of the Union rhetoric as largely about political jockeying, ahead of the midterm elections. “It sounds vaguely like a threat and it's certainly a kind of arrogance,” said Senator Rand Paul, who is increasingly seen as a contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, in an interview on CNN.

The following are psychological operations (PSYOP) leaflets dropped over Afghanistan and Iraq during Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. The leaflets are taken from a booklet released commercially by Giovanni Carmine and Christoph Büchel in 2006. The leaflets are written in Arabic, Dari and Pashto. Accurate translations are welcome.

Peter Hart: Erasing Obama's Record on the Afghan War

Ukraine threatened to impose a state of emergency on Monday after demonstrators occupied the justice ministry and protests demanding the president's resignation spread despite a power-sharing offer. ● Opposition leaders said an olive branch proposal from President Viktor Yanukovych was not enough to end the ex-Soviet country's worst crisis since independence and demanded snap elections this year. The protests began more than two months ago over Yanukovych's rejection of a pact with the European Union under Russian pressure. But they have now turned into an all-out bid to oust him from power. Protesters have already attempted to blockade 14 of the 25 regional administrations, including in southern and eastern parts of the nation of 46 million that predominantly speak Russian and share an historical allegiance to Moscow.

France24: Ukraine warns of possible state of emergency - Video
Russia Today: Ukraine Justice Ministry seized by rioters

In an interview broadcast Sunday night by the German public television network ARD, Edward Snowden warned that there were “significant threats” to his life. US “government officials want to kill me.” ● The former contractor for the National Security Agency, who has exposed dozens of illegal NSA surveillance and spying programs, was speaking from Moscow, where he has been granted temporary political asylum. “These people, and they are government officials, have said they would love to put a bullet in my head or poison me when I come out of the supermarket, and then watch as I die in the shower,” he told ARD’s Hubert Seipel, who said the interview took place last Thursday. Snowden was referring to the scenario detailed by an unnamed military officer who spoke to the Buzzfeed web site last week. “I think if we had the chance, we would end it very quickly,” the officer said. “Just casually walking on the streets of Moscow… he is casually poked by a passerby… He goes home very innocently and next thing you know he dies in the shower.” An unnamed NSA analyst was quoted by Buzzfeed as follows: “In a world where I would not be restricted from killing an American, I personally would go and kill him myself.”

Snowden-Interview: TRANSCRIPT
ARD/tagesschau.de: "USA betreiben Wirtschaftsspionage" - Video
Reuters: Snowden says 'significant threats' to his life
Bill Van Auken: Defend Edward Snowden!

An "independent" federal privacy watchdog has concluded that the National Security Agency’s program to collect bulk phone call records has provided only “minimal” benefits in counterterrorism efforts, is illegal and should be shut down. The findings are laid out in a 238-page report, scheduled for release by Thursday and obtained by The New York Times, that represent the first major public statement by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, which Congress made an independent agency in 2007 and only recently became fully operational.

The Guardian: US withholding Fisa court orders on NSA bulk collection of Americans' data

Eric London: Report confirms illegality of NSA bulk-collection programs ■ The make-up and history of the panel are indications of the panel’s true character. PCLOB was formed in 2004 by Congress as a hollow response to the public opposition engendered by the anti-democratic measures of the Bush administration. But despite the government’s repeated violations of civil liberties over the past decade, the panel had not held hearings on any substantive matter until November 2013. Its five members—whose only “powers” are to make recommendations to the president—are hand picked by the president and confirmed by the Senate. The current members represent the pinnacles of the political establishment: they were respectively appointed from the Department of Justice, the federal judiciary, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Chamber of Commerce. The content of the report makes clear that the authors are motivated not by a genuine desire to defend democratic rights, but rather by a desire to limit the damage that has been done by the Snowden revelations.

New video footage has emerged on the Internet showing atrocities committed by foreign-backed Takfiri militants who are fighting against the Syrian government. ● The video, which was posted online on Sunday, shows several bodies that reportedly belong to the civilians who were executed by militants from the al-Qaeda-linked group of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). The corpses were found in the western suburb of Aleppo. According to a rival militant group, which shot the video, the victims had been killed by the al-Qaeda-affiliated group over the past few days and buried under the rocks. Another shocking footage posted online in December 2013 which showed militants who had cut off the head of a government soldier in Aleppo. Numerous videos have surfaced over the past two years from Syria showing the militants committing acts of violence against both captured civilian supporters of the government and army troops. Last May, a gruesome video showed a foreign-backed militant in Syria cutting out the heart of a Syrian soldier and biting into it.

Notorious Serbian-Swedish gangster Milo 'Mille' Markovic has been found dead with four bullet wounds to his head in Stockholm. The 52-year-old was shot dead while sitting in a car outside his home in Ulvsunda, in the western part of the Swedish capital, just after 6pm last night, the engine still running. Markovic was unofficially credited as one of the sources for the controversial 2010 biography about the King of Sweden in which the monarch was accused of attending strip clubs and having extramarital affairs. 'It sounded like fireworks,' a witness told Aftonbladet. 'Then I saw two men in dark clothing from afar.' 'They were standing by a car where the sound of fireworks came from. One of them said "he is dead".' Markovic gained fame as the owner of 'porn club' Prive and is said to have been one of the main sources for The Reluctant Monarch, a biography of King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden.

Former education minister Shulamit Aloni laid to rest - Ynet News

Stephen Lendman: She believed anti-semitism is misused. It's done to suppress legitimate Israeli criticism. She was outspoken to the end. She made fundamental rights her core issue. She was true to her values. She challenged Israel's establishment. She stood up against government officials, generals and extremist rabbis against peace, equity and justice. She was fearless. She was unflinching.

She was often a voice in the wilderness. Israel is more ruthless today than ever. In January 2007, she headlined "Yes, There is Apartheid in Israel," saying:

Jewish self-righteousness is taken for granted among ourselves to such an extent that we fail to see what’s right in front of our eyes. It's simply inconceivable that the ultimate victims, the Jews, can carry out evil deeds. Nevertheless, the state of Israel practices its own, quite violent, form of Apartheid with the native Palestinian population. [It] practices a brutal form of Apartheid in the territory it occupies. Its army has turned every Palestinian village and town into a fenced-in, or blocked-in, detention camp. [It turned Occupied Palestine into an open-air prison.] Indeed Apartheid does exist here. And our army is not 'the most moral (one) in the world' as we are told... [Apartheid is] an international crime. [Israel] rob(s) (Palestinians) of their freedom, land and water. We apply collective punishment to millions of People.

After Operation Cast Lead (December 2008 - January 2009), she said the disgraced IDF is no longer Israel's Defense Forces. She keynoted "A Gathering to Protest and to Mourn" Association for Jaffa Arabs program. Standing room only heard her. She pulled no punches calling the IDF a "brutal and hedonistic army of conquest." On her 81st birthday, she discussed the condition of the State of Israel.

What we do in (Gaza) and the West Bank is worse than all pogroms done to Jews. It's hard for me to say a kind word about the state today. We are in great distress morally and socially, as well as in the realms of politics and law. The Right has two left hands. The Left doesn't exist...Since 2000, with the launching of the Second Intifada, we have murdered thousands. We have blood on our hands.

Desertpeace: Zion’s Outspoken Voice Of Reason Silenced By Death