Newsworthy

Democracy in Steep Decline around the World

Pepe Escobar: Why US Won’t Leave Afghanistan

Expansion of Drone Wars

Yemeni Protesters Announce Shadow Government

Pakistan: Dollars, Drones & Development

Iran, Pakistan Urge Stronger Ties

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The CIA’s Secret Sites in Somalia

Officials: NATO Kills 16 Civilians in Afghan Air Strike

Next Up: Pakistan- Ominous signs of a major new war

Why Ahmed Wali Karzai was so controversial

Ahmed Karzai: From dishwasher to drug kingpin

Anger spreads in Egypt as military warns protesters

UK Police Intel Expert: Government, Not Islam, Real Terror Threat

Petraeus at the Head of the CIA: Business as Usual?

What Panetta Saw—and What We Got

Citing Secret Order, Federal Court Dismisses Airline Passenger Lawsuit against DHS & TSA Over Scanners, Virtual Strip Searches & Full-Body ‘Rub-Downs’

Robert Fisk: Even I question the ‘truth’ about 9/11

Video: Aloha Hawaii New World Order

This site depends exclusively on readers’ support. Please help us continue by contributing directly and or purchasing Boiling Frogs showcased products.

This site depends exclusively on readers’ support. Please help us continue by contributing directly and or purchasing Boiling Frogs showcased products.

Hope you all had a nice week. I’ve been nursing my daughter who is recovering from her first strep throat: 103F fever, antibiotics, miserable cough, and of course sleepless nights. Thankfully, this morning she is feeling much better.

I’ve received several e-mails from our readers regarding the identity of ‘The Insider from Turkey,’ and some asking whether that’s ‘me.’ To answer your question: I am not ‘the insider from Turkey.’ This is a pseudo name for an accomplished investigative journalist friend of mine in Turkey. He or she is currently employed by a major publication, and considering her/his area of investigations/reporting for BFP, doesn’t want to lose his/her job, or even worse, end up in jail. As we know, Turkey is now the number one country in jailing reporters and truth tellers. We are expecting another controversial article this week from our insider friend in Turkey; stay tuned!

Also this week, Peter B Collins and I will be recording two highly noteworthy podcast interviews. We’ll have Dr. Aland Mizell on Imam Fethullah Gulen, his CIA ties and joint operations, his infamous US Charter School Empire and more, followed by Elizabeth Gould-Paul Fitzgerald on their recently released groundbreaking book ‘Crossing Zero.’

And now our list of noteworthy articles and developments for this Sunday, April 24: Read more È

I am going to list a few noteworthy articles and commentaries from this past week, and I am going to make it very brief. I am sure you have heard that before. Okay, it will be relatively brief; emphasis on ‘relatively.’ Those of you who have gone through selling your house, while living in it, especially with a kid or two or three …, well, you know how annoying it can be. You get a short notice, you run around trying to organize, clean, put away toys (including those hidden under the sofa, tucked behind the sink …), and then, you have to ‘evacuate’ your house for the potential buyer…Now you have the reason behind the ‘relatively brief’ round up.

I hope you enjoyed our interview with Tom Woods. We also recorded a great interview with Grant Smith on Israel and the Israel Lobby which will be posted next Friday. I don’t know why but I’ve been getting tons of good comments/responses at Facebook, and very little feedback here at BFP. Any ideas as to why? Please let us know.

Here are my noteworthy items from this week: Read more È

A belated happy new year to all our readers and friends here at Boiling Frogs Post. As you can tell I am just coming up for air. The holiday season happens to be the busiest time for my part-time work which involves a retail business, and my full-time motherhood task which has gotten at least three-fold harder during this not-so-terrible-twos stage. You see I say harder, but I’ll never call it ‘terrible’ because despite the tasking aspect it still remains the best and most rewarding role I’ve ever had; ever. My daughter is now 2.5 years old, and I’m happy to report: she is outspoken, highly opinionated, and on her way to becoming a real activist. She is already stopping those engaged in littering in their tracks for an earful lecture, and orders them to stop, ‘Go home, time out, and take bath!’ I am sharing a few of her recent pictures here. Many of you know all about my ‘no venture into my private life’ over here at BFP…except for an occasional relevant experience(s), or, like these here and the ones from last year to mark a new year at Boiling Frogs Post. Again, Happy New Year.

For the past two months I’ve been collecting and saving lots of articles to share with you here at BFP. The collection kept getting larger, the list of links grew longer, and I kept falling behind and unable to post regular BFP Round Ups. Some of those articles were time sensitive so they got discarded as ‘stale and no longer relevant’. Some are still sitting on the list waiting for the addition of my comments and analyses. And here are a few important and interesting ones from the past few weeks without much need for added sound bites:

Obama’s Whistleblower-Hunt: Whistleblowers Long for Bush-Cheney Era Leniency?

You thought the Bush-Cheney administration was bad? Think again; especially if you happen to be a whistleblower. Despite its awful record, the current administration witch-hunt like pursuit of whistleblowers and truth-tellers has many whistleblowers and truth-telling advocates longing for the Bush era climate. After all, everything is relevant, right? There was the bad, now it is the worse, or probably worst ever. Despite all the threats and muscle-flexing not a single whistleblower, including myself, got arrested or even pursued criminally under the previous regime. With Obama the era of threats has changed into an era of Punishment-Imprisonment and in some cases even torture. Here is one of the latest:

Former CIA officer indicted for leaks to reporter 
Peter Haldis, RCFP

A former CIA officer was indicted last month for allegedly providing a New York Times reporter with classified information. He is the latest in a string of leakers prosecuted by the Obama administration.

Jeffrey Sterling, 43, of O’Fallon, Mo., was indicted on 10 counts, including six counts of unauthorized disclosure of national defense information and one count of obstruction of justice. He was arrested Thursday in St. Louis.Sterling was indicted Dec. 22, 2010, and the indictment was unsealed Thursday.

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Sterling is the fifth leaker to be prosecuted by the Obama administration. The others include: former National Security Agency official Thomas Drake, who allegedly sent classified information to an unknown newspaper reporter; Stephen Kim, a former Department of State analyst who allegedly leaked an intelligence report to an unidentified reporter; Bradley Manning, a U.S. Army private alleged to have leaked classified information to Wikileaks; and Shamai Leibowitz, a former FBI linguist who was convicted in May 2010 of charges related to the leaking of classified information to an unidentified blogger and sentenced to 20 months in prison.

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 ‘Rent-A-Generals’ Consulting Firms: An Industry in Its Own

Last month I came across the following coverage at War Is Business by Corey Pein. This Monday Peter and I will be interviewing Mr. Pein, meanwhile if you haven’t seen this great website check it out now, and put it in your ‘Favorite’ list of websites. I am really looking forward to this interview, too many topics of interest to cover!

‘Rent-A-Generals’ & ‘the Militarization of Economy’ 
By Corey Pein, War Is Business

This man is William B Burdeshaw, a retired US Army Brigadier General and founder of what the Boston Globe, in its must-read investigation of rampant corruption in Pentagon procurement, calls “one of the oldest ‘rent-a-general’ consulting firms� in the country.

His company, Burdeshaw Associates Ltd, is essentially a fixer for corporations looking to land military contracts. The firm is apparently so good at this, its influential “associates�—mostly retired, high-ranking officers—can sell the Pentagon things it didn’t even know it needed.

Read Globe reporter Bryan Bender describe how Burdeshaw cleverly wrung $109 million from the Pentagon for the firm’s client, Northrop Grumman, which wanted to build a remote-controlled helicopter called the Fire Scout. Read more È

This site depends exclusively on readers’ support. Please help us continue by contributing directly and or purchasing Boiling Frogs showcased products.

James Babb recounts the creation of the grassroots effort We Won’t Fly, and how he and cofounder George Donnelly, two regular dads, founded the group to oppose the full-body airport “porno�-scanners on grounds of privacy, ineffectiveness and health, and demand that the airlines make their maximum lobbying effort in support of customers’ rights and liberties. He discusses the ineffective and dangerous aspects of the TSA Security Theater as a top-down and lumbering bureaucracy, and the intimidation and humiliation of passengers for this false sense of security. Mr. Babb talks about the goal of his group, alternatives to flying, their next Opt Out project, and more!

James Babb is the co-founder of We Won’t Fly, an informal collaborative effort opposing the full-body airport “porno�-scanners on grounds of privacy, ineffectiveness and health. As an independent, grassroots effort, We Won’t Fly is not affiliated with any political party, corporation, politician or think tank. The group has pledged to stop flying ‘until the porno-scanners are history.’

Here is our guest James Babb unplugged!

Interview with James Babb [ 1:01:28 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This site depends exclusively on readers’ support. Please help us continue by contributing directly and or purchasing Boiling Frogs showcased products.

By Donny Aldridge- Singer, Songwriter & Political Satirist

A friend sent me the following music clip; too real yet too funny. Enjoy it, let it be another reminder of how low we’ve stooped as a society, and keep up the spirit of resistance.
 

This site depends exclusively on readers’ support. Please help us continue by contributing directly and or purchasing Boiling Frogs showcased products.

My last ‘Boiling Frogs Beltway Buzz’ seems to have caused some unexpected reaction. First, it started several e-mails from the media asking whether they could contact my sources on Jefferson-Franklin being placed on the DHS-TSA Watch List, or, whether I’d recorded my interview with John Pistole. I mean serious inquiries people! Next, I was bombarded with hundreds of e-mails from readers asking whether this was a satirical piece or factual, or, expressing outrage over our Founding Fathers being placed on the Terror Watch List. I was truly taken aback. I didn’t know whether to laugh or to sit down and sob!! I even e-mailed a few BFP partners and asked whether I should add an update spelling out the nature of my ‘Boiling Frogs Beltway Buzz’ series; a mixture of hard facts and satirical comments too close to the ugly truths involving the sorry state of our nation’s governance. Finally this: A Personal Appeal from Wikipedia editors and authors: Read more È