Hamilton Nolan ■ Mark Gorton is a prominent financier and a respected entrepreneur. He founded the music sharing site Limewire, and he runs Tower Research, a famed high-frequency trading firm. Gorton also believes that the "ruthless" secret cabal that assassinated JFK and planned 9/11 could be coming to kill his family. Mark Gorton does not have a reputation as a crackpot. Quite the opposite. He's been favorably profiled in the New York Times for his business acumen and charitable deeds. His experience as the head of Limewire—which disrupted the music industry and then lost a $100 million lawsuit as a result—was closely followed by the press. And when Michael Lewis's blockbuster new book about high frequency trading was published recently, prominent media outlets turned to Gorton to learn what HFT firms are really like. The Huffington Post even dubbed him "the new face of Wall Street." He is a very respected and very wealthy man.

Richard Stengel was sworn in as undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs at the US State Department on Tuesday, 15 April 2014. ● During his career as a journalist, he was a press correspondent in South Africa. Then he became director of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, and finally managing editor of Time Magazine (since 2006). Under his leadership, Time acquired a markedly political profile, in the service of the government’s "noble" causes. In 2008, he served as co-moderator, along with PBS journalist Judy Woodruff, of the debate between the two presidential candidates, John McCain and Barack Obama, whose team he subsequently joined. Upon taking office, Richard Stengel brought up Vladimir Putin’s New York Times op-ed calling out "American exceptionalism", asserting on the contrary that a nation founded on the ideal of ​​liberty must be exceptional. According to him, the primary goal of U.S. propaganda must be to promote the belief in the United States as "the land of freedom."

The sharp escalation of the Ukraine crisis virtually puts the country on the brink of civil war, Russian President Vladimir Putin told German Chancellor Angela Merkel during a telephone call. [The NSA & Obama were listening in on them...] ● Putin and Merkel discussed the upcoming Ukrainian crisis talks between Russia, Ukraine, the EU and the US, scheduled to be held on Thursday in Geneva. Merkel’s press office noted that, despite some differences of opinion, the upcoming talks were the main focus of the telephone conversation. "While there were differences in the interpretation of current events, preparations for the planned meeting in Geneva...were the focus of the talks," Merkel's office said in a statement. Putin meanwhile expressed hope that the Geneva talks will help to de-escalate the situation, and return it to peaceful cooperation.

Those who don’t lay arms, will be destroyed - Ukrainian military op commander
Military seize airfield controlled by anti-govt activists in eastern Ukraine

Right after CIA director Brennan visited Kiev, then this:
Kiev putschists launches "anti-terrorist operation" in the east
Putschist Ukranian "President" Turchynov announces start of "anti-terror operation" in eastern Ukraine
CIA director in Kiev searching for missing mercenaries

Jason Ditz: White House Endorses Ukraine Crackdown on Protesters
Michael Collins: Triumph of the Ill – Ukraine Coup Leaders Turn on People
Johannes Stern: US-backed crackdown threatens civil war in Ukraine

In today's video, Christopher Greene of AMTV reports on a CIA led attack in Ukraine.

‘United Russia’ member Evgeniy Fedorov claims that Viktor Tsoi was assisted by American intelligence officers in writing the ‘Changes’ song. ● According to the parliament member, dozens thousands experts in the USA worked on the songs of the Kino band’s leader. They studied the situation in the USSR in order to pick the correct words and play on the listeners’ sentiment. “Songs for Tsoi were professionally written in Hollywood in Russian… there was a whole CIA department working for him on breaking up the USSR”, - Evgeniy Fedorov said.

El proyecto de ley Incluye condiciones que deberán respetar las mujeres que amamantan a sus hijos, y la niña, sólo se podrá divorciar de su marido, para estar con otro hombre. ● Siguiendo los preceptos más estrictos de la ley islámica, la Sharía, el gobierno de Bagdad ha presentado al Parlamento un proyecto de ley que permitiría el matrimonio a cualquier edad. En éste sólo existiría la autorización de divorciarse a los 9 años, y solo, para unirse a otro hombre, en el caso de las mujeres. Dentro del escandaloso proyecto se adjuntan condiciones como la que dice que mientras una mujer amamante a su bebé, el hombre polígamo puede pasar noche tras noche con cualquiera de sus mujeres.

On Monday, the military trial of five 9/11 suspects was put on hold as allegations surfaced that the FBI had enlisted a member of the defense team as a secret informant. This brazen violation of basic democratic norms is a further exposure of an extra-judicial process that has been illegal from the start. Defense attorneys filed a motion late Sunday night calling for a halt to the proceedings, a review of the FBI’s involvement and the appointing of new independent attorneys for the defendants. James Harrington, a civilian attorney for Ramzi bin al-Shibh, one of the five accused, told the judge, “We have an impossible situation in terms of representing our client… on any issue.” Harrington added, “To say this is a chilling experience for all of us is a gross understatement.” Harrington explained that the defense security officer serving bin al-Shibh’s defense team had an “ongoing” arrangement with the FBI.

John Chuckman ■ Can you have democracy for only one carefully-defined group? Can you have democracy without the restraints of a Bill of Rights upon an abusive majority? Can you have democracy which holds millions in perpetual isolation and subjects them to countless abuses? Can you have democracy where you prefer dealing with juntas and kingdoms to democratic governments in neighboring states? Can you have democracy which constantly threatens war on those who do not threaten it? Can you have democracy which conducts witch-hunts on a grand scale, just re-naming the witches as terrorists? Can you have democracy which interferes in the internal affairs of other democratic states? And, in the end, can you have democracy founded on the Orwellian principle that “all animals are equal, but some are more equal”?

From a British diplomatic source I learn that Britain has lobbied the United States against the publication of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on torture and extraordinary rendition. The lobbying has been carried out “at all levels” – White House, State Department and CIA. The British have argued that at the very least the report must be emasculated before publication. The British argument is that in a number of court cases including the Belhadj case, the British government has successfully blocked legal action by victims on the grounds that this would weaken the US/UK intelligence relationship and thus vitally damage national security, by revealing facts the American intelligence service wish hidden.

Former LAPD narcotics investigator Michael C. Ruppert -- best known as an investigative journalist and peak oil awareness advocate -- is dead. While details are sketchy, various sources and his Facebook page say that he committed suicide. He was 63 years old. ● In the mid-1990s, Ruppert worked as an LAPD narcotics investigator, before he experienced, first hand, government corruption. He uncovered evidence that pointed to the CIA being involved in drug dealing... and would publicly confront agency director John Deutch during a town hall meeting. Deutch did not handle the confrontation very well... and was ultimately terminated from the CIA as a result. After his time with the LAPD, Ruppert went on to become an investigator and journalist, establishing a newsletter called From The Wilderness, a watchdog publication that exposed governmental corruption, including his experience with CIA drug dealing activities. The newsletter would evolve into a website under the same name, covering vast range of conspiracy theories, including international politics, peak oil, civil liberties, drugs, economics, and the nature of the 9/11 conspiracy.

Documents from the Canadian government show that the nation’s military and diplomats have been secretly working on plans to invade Syria for quite some time, cobbling together five distinct scenarios that they could use to justify such an attack. ● Canadian officials have publicly insisted for months they have “no plans” to be brought into the Syrian Civil War, but the internal documents, classified and heavily redacted, detail preparations for both an intervention and a long-term presence to back pro-West rebels as an alternative to al-Qaeda. Canada has no history of unilateral interventions of this sort, so it is likely that the planning presumes the nation getting sucked into a war in Syria as some part of a NATO occupation, though the redactions in the documents make it entirely unclear. The preparations also reveal that Canada has been working at training myriad rebel factions in “leadership skills” in anticipation of eventually backing them as a new government.

Ontario’s privacy commissioner has discovered that the mental-health information of some Canadians is accessible to the FBI and U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. ● Ann Cavoukian said Monday that some Ontario police services routinely uploaded attempted suicide calls to the Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC), to which U.S. border guards and the FBI have access. Cavoukian began investigating how U.S. law enforcement had access to such personal information after last fall's news that some Canadian travellers with a history of mental-health issues had been denied entry into the U.S.