CHICAGO (CBS) – U.S. fighter jets will be actively flying over Chicago on Friday as part of a security drill in the days before the NATO Summit.

The U.S. North American Aerospace Defense (NORAD) Command Region fighters–including Air Force KC-135 tankers, Air Force F-16s, and a Coast Guard HH-65 Dolphin helicopters–will be visible on Friday morning, beginning around 9 a.m..

Residents in the Chicago area can expect flights to continue for approximately two hours.

“Providing the air defense for special security events like this year’s NATO Summit is a part of our day-to-day mission,” said Lt. Gen. Sid Clarke, Continental U.S. NORAD Region commander said in a statement. “Our interagency partnerships are a key component to the air defense shield for events like this.”

Significantly, Minister Davies states in the Notice that “the burden of proving where the products originate will lie with the traders”. The onus lies with the traders because “consumers in South Africa should not be misled into believing that products originating from the OPT are products of Israel.” This will now render Israeli trade with South Africa far more difficult and is a serious setback for Israeli companies wanting to do business in South Africa. This move by the South African government is in line with its commitment not to recognize Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The United States has acknowledged the existence of a fully-fledged military plan to attack Iran, significantly increasing tensions with Tehran ahead of crucial nuclear negotiations next week.

Daniel Shapiro, Washington's ambassador to Israel, warned the Iranian regime that only "a brief window" now existed to settle the impasse over its nuclear programme through democracy.

Issuing one of the most candid assessments yet made by a senior American official, he assured Israel that, if diplomacy failed, the United States was fully prepared to resort to military force to end the threat the Jewish state says it faces from a nuclear-armed Iran.

The corporate media blacks out news that a federal judge has struck down NDAA powers that allow the government to US citizens in jail indefinitely without charge or trial.

Meanwhile, the US congress is hammering out the 2013 that looks to further expand the government's totalitarian powers.

Of course they would be, since they have repeatedly brainwashed the public into believing the government needs to be able to lock up anyone for as long as they want and even torture or assassinate them to keep us safe from the boogey man.

Thanks to a misbegotten ruling from a divided Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, police in nine states have been left at an insurmountable disadvantage when dealing with criminal suspects. At least, that’s what we’re told in a legal brief submitted to the Supreme Court by a coalition of police unions.
The ruling that is fraught with such awful implications, Brooks v. City of Seattle, involved a patently unnecessary Taser attack upon a woman who was seven months pregnant. The unarmed woman, who was not suspected of a violent crime, posed no threat to the three – yes, three – valiant officers who assaulted her. She was uncooperative, but did not offer any violent resistance.

Her sole “offense” was to refuse a demand that she sign a traffic ticket that was eventually dismissed.

WASHINGTON — American spy drones provided intelligence to Turkey’s air force for an errant bombing raid in December that killed 35 civilians instead of Kurdish separatists, a U.S. defense official said May 17.

Britain is colder than winter as the country faces a late spring washout weekend - as it emerged parts of the Arctic and Antarctic are warmer than Britain.

"If all of humanity lived like an average resident of Indonesia, only two-thirds of the planet's biocapacity would be used; if everyone lived like an average Argentinean, humanity would demand more than half an additional planet; and if everyone lived like an average resident of the USA, a total of four Earths would be required to regenerate humanity's annual demand on nature." — World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Living Planet Report 2012 (emphasis added)

I just started reading the "summary" version of WWF's biennial "state of the planet" report (loaded with lots of large print, white space, pretty pictures, and ominous graphics) and already I have a headache.

On page two I was told quite emphatically that "demand on natural resources has doubled since 1966" and that "we are currently using the equivalent of 1.5 planets to support our activities."

LOS ANGELES (CN) - A former substitute teacher says in court that she should not have been fired for explaining in a taped interview that she joined an Occupy L.A. rally because "Zionist Jews" are running the banks and should be "run out of" America.
Patricia McAllister says she was approached for an interview while protesting public education budget cuts at the Occupy rally in front of City Hall on Oct. 12, 2011. At the time, the 60 year old worked as a substitute teacher for the Los Angeles Unified School District.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House endorsed the continued war in Afghanistan on Thursday despite acknowledgment from Republicans and Democrats that the American people are war-weary after more than a decade of conflict.

By a vote of 303-113, lawmakers rejected an amendment that would have swiftly ended combat operations in Afghanistan by limiting funds only to the "safe and orderly withdrawal of U.S. troops and military contractors from Afghanistan."

*hyperlinks and video live at source*

California Governor Jerry Brown claims California has no option but to cut public services to address a state budget deficit of ~ $16 billion:

“You name it, and we’ve got to cut it.”

He lies.

There are three immediate options to completely solve this problem:

California could be its own bank to issue interest-free credit to itself to close the budget deficit, similar to what North Dakota does as the only state with increasing budget surpluses. Governor Brown knows of this option; he vetoed the bill to document the benefits.

This week, Congress is considering two pieces of legislation relating to Iran. The first undermines a diplomatic solution with Iran and lowers the bar for war. The second authorizes a war of choice against Iran and begins military preparations for it. H.Res.568: Eliminating the Most Viable Alternative to War – The House is expected to vote on H.Res. 568. Read the resolution. Section (6) rejects any United States policy that would rely on efforts to contain a nuclear weapons-capable Iran. Section (7) urges the President to reaffirm the unacceptability of an Iran with nuclear-weapons capability and opposition to any policy that would rely on containment as an option in response to Iranian enrichment.

The study by UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) studied the effect of HFCS on rats, who have similar brain chemistry to humans. The rats were trained in a maze for five days before the experimental diet began. The maze had only one exit and contained visual clues so as to help the rats remember the way through the maze to the exit. The rats were separated into two groups, both given HFCS solution as drinking water but one had food fortified with omega-3's. The rats were then tested in the maze 6 weeks after the training period.

It was found that the rats that had been given the omega-3's were much better at finding their way through the maze, indicating that they had remembered the way. However, the rats that had been given only the HFCS had a much reduced ability to find the exit. On closer inspection of the rats brain tissue, it was found that insulin had little or no effect on brain cells in those from the HFCS group. The authors of the study suspect that consuming too much HFCS could block the ability of insulin to regulate how brain cells store sugar for energy requires for processing thoughts.

Key US counter terrorism actions in Yemen
Since 2011 US counter terrorism operations in Yemen have been conducted by both the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency. Attacks are aimed at Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and more recently, Ansar al-Sharia.

US activity may also consist of naval bombardments and air strikes, often in conjunction with, or in support of, the Yemen military.

As Yemen came under severe pressure during the Arab Spring and militants seized control of cities and towns in the south, the US significantly stepped up its attacks, most notably with drone strikes.

Although their presence over there is not a secret (since it was announced about 10 years ago and you can see some by simply pointing Google Earth on Djibouti International Airport, as done in this interesting OSGEOINT analysis) what’s still unclear is what eight U.S. F-15Es are currently doing in the Horn of Africa.

They are reportedly serving in support of Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa, as an Expeditionary Squadron of the 380th Expeditionary Operations Group, based at Al Dhafra, in the United Arab Emirates, and responsible for the “war on terror” in the region, but what’s their actual mission remains a (sort-of) mystery.

Even if the American military presence across the world is usually very well advertised, the U.S. keep a low profile on the operations launched by the Air Force’s Strike Eagles from Eastern Africa.

The reason for such prudence maybe that, along with the Reaper drones, even the F-15Es are conducting air strikes in Yemen (and Somalia).

Ryan Smyth, Contributor
Activist Post

To help explain what the effects of fractional reserve banking are, and to illustrate just how evil it is, I’ve written a simple program that lets you simulate fractional reserve banking and the effects of compound interest.

The Frackin’ Reserve! program simulates what happens in fractional reserve banking, and lets you change the parameters for it. What this lets you do is simulate fractional reserve banking from a variety of perspectives, and see the results in real time.

FREEDOM: Frackin’ Reserve! is licensed under the GPLv3, so you are free to do with it whatever you wish as long as you pass on that same courtesy if you redistribute it. (Yay for freedom!) Feel free to share with whomever you like....

Published reports say Hewlett-Packard is poised to eliminate up to 30,000 jobs to help offset dwindling demand for personal computers as more people connect to the Internet on smartphones and tablets.

Occupy interview speaks with this week's guest Dr. Jacob Remes, mentor and assistant professor of public affairs at SUNY Empire State College about Occupy, the Occupy May Day protests and the history of the labor movement.

Occupy actions on May Day are tied to the generations-long movement for the eight-hour day, to immigrant workers, to police brutality and repression of the labor movement.

American general strikes, or rather American calls for general strikes, like the one Occupy Los Angeles issued last December that has been endorsed by over 150 general assemblies—are tinged with nostalgia.

OASN Link: http://occupyamerica.ning.com/profiles/blogs/occupyinterview-radio-e8-...

FAA investigating “extremely dangerous” incident

Europe is starting to buckle under the strain of the economic crisis as one doom scenario leads to the next. The spectre of a forced exit from the euro looms large. But do we really have cause to be so gloomy? Are there no winners in the present bleak economic landscape? Radio Netherlands Worldwide put four simple questions to three leading Dutch economists.

-1. Are you positive or negative about the future?
-2. What is the biggest problem that needs to be overcome? How will we manage to do it?
-3. Who will be the winners and who will be the losers?
-4. What is the impact of the economic crisis on you personally?

PATRICK BYRNE (pictured) is the chief executive of Overstock, a Utah-based online retailer. But he is better known—indeed, notorious in some circles—for his campaign against Wall Street over what he has long portrayed as an unholy alliance of brokers and hedge funds bent on profiting from the illegal (or “naked”) short-selling of shares, not least those of his own firm.

-
Attack of The Drones

We all know lowering 'bad cholesterol' - known as Low-Density Lipoprotein or LDL - helps the heart.

But scientists say raising levels of 'good cholesterol' may not protect you from cardiac disease.

In a challenge to conventional wisdom, a team from Harvard Medical school found no direct link between raising good cholesterol levels - or HDL - with a lower risk of a heart attack.

THE MONEY MASTERS is a historical documentary that traces the origins of the political power structure. The modern political power structure has its roots in the hidden manipulation and accumulation of gold and other forms of money. The development of fractional reserve banking practices in the 17th century brought to a cunning sophistication the secret techniques initially used by goldsmiths fraudulently to accumulate wealth. With the formation of the privately-owned Bank of England in 1694, the yoke of economic slavery to a privately-owned "central" bank was first forced upon the backs of an entire nation, not removed but only made heavier with the passing of the three centuries to our day. Nation after nation has fallen prey to this cabal of international central bankers.

Abby Martin interviews X, an anonymous hacktivist vigilante about FBI infiltration and the possibility of the US government staging cyber terrorism.

Abby Martin interviews a US Army Colonel about the two war parties and the Pentagon's ever expanding budget in light of terrorism not being a threat to this country.

Goldman Sachs struck a secret deal with Greece to help it mask its vast debts, it emerged yesterday.

The Wall Street giant is claimed to have reaped as much as £192million in fees by entering a complex currency transaction in 2001 that helped Athens borrow cash without putting it on the books as a loan.

The so-called 'swap' deal, while permitted under EU rules, helped Greece meet eurozone limits on government borrowing.

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney used a speech in Iowa yesterday to blame President Obama for a “prairie fire of debt” that is supposedly spreading across the nation. Romney continued the assault today, giving a speech in Florida in front of a giant clock featuring a running total of the nation’s debt.

As ThinkProgress noted yesterday, Romney’s attack ignores that his own economic plan would add more than $10 trillion to the national debt. It also ignores Romney’s record as governor of Massachusetts, which had the nation’s highest per capita debt total when he left office in 2007.

No farmer in their right mind wants to poison pollinators. When I spoke with one Iowa corn farmer in January and told him about the upcoming release of a Purdue study confirming corn as a major pesticide exposure route for bees, his face dropped with worn exasperation. He looked down for a moment, sighed and said, "You know, I held out for years on buying them GE [genetically modified or engineered] seeds, but now I can't get conventional seeds anymore. They just don't carry 'em."

This leaves us with two questions: 1) What do GE seeds have to do with neonicotinoids and bees? and 2) How can an Iowa corn farmer find himself feeling unable to farm without poisoning pollinators? In other words, where did U.S. corn cultivation go wrong?

The short answer to both questions starts with a slow motion train wreck that began in the mid-1990s: Corn integrated pest management (IPM) fell apart at the seams. Rather, it was intentionally unraveled by Bayer and Monsanto.

The panel recommended adding $848.9 million for Israel’s missile defense, including $680 million for the Iron Dome system and $111.4 million for a system called David’s Sling.

A 12-year veteran Broward Sheriff's deputy was arrested Wednesday in a witness tampering case, the Sheriff's Office confirmed.

Economists warned that the Greek financial system could crumble within weeks or days unless the European Central Bank steps up support.

President Karolos Papoulias told party leaders that banks had lost €700m in withdrawals on Monday alone as citizens rush to pre-empt capital controls and a much-feared return to the Drachma.

He cited central bank warnings that "great fear" might soon escalate to panic. The leaked details lend credence to claims that capital flight by both savers and firms have reached €4bn a week since the triumph of anti-bailout parties on May 6.

The estranged wife of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. died from asphyxiation due to hanging, an autopsy revealed on Thursday, in an apparent suicide at the family's suburban New York home.

Election Fraud Revealed Against Ron Paul - Interview with an Arizona Congressional District Delegate

Gwen Hinze
EFF

Fifty leading U.S. legal scholars cast fresh doubt on the constitutionality of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement in an open letter to the Senate Finance Committee today. (Press Release). At issue is whether the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) had authority to enter into the controversial IP enforcement agreement on behalf of the United States when the Deputy U.S. Trade Ambassador signed ACTA in October 2011.

The law professors say no, and call on the Senators to “exercise your constitutional responsibility to ensure that the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is submitted to the Senate for approval as an Article II treaty, or to the Congress as an ex-post Congressional-Executive Agreement.” ...

Last night was a typical, boring Tuesday, with little earth-shattering news to drive TV viewers to cable news. It was also May sweeps, with the season finale of “NCIS: LA,” “America’s Got Talent” on NBC and “Dancing With the Stars” on ABC drawing an astonishing 39 million viewers between them at 9 PM.

Unfortunately for CNN, “Piers Morgan Tonight” was the apparent victim of the busy night, drawing only 39,000 viewers 25-54 at 9 PM. To say those ratings are anomalous would be something of an understatement.

The bank runs that we are watching right now in Greece are shocking, but they are only just the beginning. Since May 6th, nearly one billion dollars has been withdrawn from Greek banks. For a small nation like Greece, that is an absolutely catastrophic number. At this point, the entire Greek banking system is in danger of collapsing.

The following is my prescription for Greece....

1 - Default on all debts.

2 - Leave the euro.

3 - Issue drachmas that are debt-free and that do not come from a central bank. Instead, have the Greek government create them and spend them directly into circulation.

4 - Enjoy a return to prosperity.

The G8 Summit is fast approaching and now the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) has released information that one of the most pressing topics at the summit will be African food security.

An excerpt from a CFR article details that;

The leaders of the Group of Eight world economies–Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States–are set to meet at the Camp David U.S. presidential retreat in Maryland May 18-19.

While African food security is slated to be at the top of their agenda, the Peterson Institute’s C. Randall Henning says the eurozone crisis is likely to dominate the group’s discussions. “The non-Europeans at the G8 should impress upon [Europe] the necessity of developing a growth agenda and moving toward a European-wide solution to the banking problems in a preemptive way,” Henning says.

The Iranian military must be enjoying the latest spectacle of Pentagon waste and bungling.

Only a few weeks ago, the US attempted to ramp up the pressure on Iran by deploying to the Persian Gulf at the Al Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates, just across the gulf from Iran, a squadron of the Air Force’s spanking new and never battle-tested supersonic F-22 stealth fighter-bombers.

The problem is that those F-22 Raptors are duds. They may fly fast, and may even be hard to spot on radar (though that claim has been debunked by many experts), but they have a fatal defect in their life-support system. Pilots who fly them have been having their oxygen supply cut off with disturbing regularity, leading to deaths, crashes and to forced landings by pilots who realized they were getting dopey or losing consciousness.

Adverse effects identified in the study, published in the British Medical Journal, include liver problems, acute kidney failure, muscle weakness and cataracts.

Two weeks ago, a patent filing by General Motors was uncovered that proposed using data collected from its OnStar service to tailor public advertisements to individual drivers.

Like the billboards Tom Cruise encountered in Minority Report, the OnStar-linked ads would be tailored to passing motorists based on personal information they’d shared with their telematics service.

Perusing the patent’s text, nightmare scenarios flooded our thoughts. Kids in the backseat? Be prepared to see ads for Happy Meals and nearby amusement parks.

A new academic paper by a researcher from the North Carolina State University has examined the link between BitTorrent downloads and music album sales. Contrary to what’s often claimed by the major record labels, the paper concludes that there is absolutely no evidence that unauthorized downloads negatively impact sales. Instead, the research finds that more piracy directly leads to more album sales.

Forrester analyst Nate Elliott has this to say:

One global consumer goods company told us recently that Facebook was getting worse, rather than better, at helping marketers succeed. And companies in industries from consumer electronics to financial services tell us they’re no longer sure Facebook is the best place to dedicate their social marketing budget – a shocking fact given the site’s dominance among users.

Britain's Prime Minister says the Eurozone must make up or break up. David Cameron told business leaders that the beleagured single currency countries are at a crossroads which demands urgent action to avoid sparking a global depression.

Ottawa police are reviewing how 911 dispatchers handle calls after a 74-year-old man who was beaten in a home invasion called for help — only to be arrested and thrown in jail for more than two months.

Ron Paul supporters took over the Nevada GOP earlier this month, so Mitt Romney and the Republican National Committee have opened dialogue with the libertarian about his philosophy and policy priorities. No, just kidding, they're pouring money into a "shadow state party" and trying to make the official party irrelevant.

The Las Vegas Sun's Jon Ralston reports that national Republican party, which has already called Romney the "presumptive nominee," is transferring money to the joint effort called Team Nevada, and maybe the Washoe County party, which is still in good standing with DC headquarters the and Romney's campaign.

...over a guy who can only attract 200 people to rallys.

Over the past five months, investigative journalist James O’Keefe and his Project Veritas team have exposed systemic lapses at precincts in New Hampshire, Minnesota, Vermont and Washington, D.C.

*hyperlinks and video live at source*

Pulitzer-winner Mark Fiore’s two-minute animation shows what is self-evident: anything done within a system that creates and uses debt as a so-called “monetary system” can only produce increasing aggregate debt.

So-called “austerity” is a symptom of a government that surrendered its power to create debt-free money for the direct payment of public goods and services. The really great news is that this problem literally only exists on paper.

This basic test of civic economic competence will be passed when the 99% command three simple areas of facts for monetary and credit reform:

The US does not have a money supply; we have its Orwellian opposite as a debt supply. This is because the US leading banks won legal right through passage of the 1913 Federal Reserve Act to have private banks and the Fed create debt for what we use as money, and then charge the 99% for its use.

Shares in Spanish bank Bankia have continued their dramatic decline on concerns over the firm's finances.

The share price was down another 25% on Thursday, taking losses for May to 50%.

Spain denied a report in the El Mundo newspaper that customers had taken more than 1bn euros ($1.3bn; £800m) out of the bank, which is set to be part-nationalised, over the past week.

Mr Cameron raised eyebrows at Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday when he warned the eurozone it "either has to make up or it is looking at a potential break-up".

Chancellor George Osborne has repeatedly warned against speculating about eurozone break-up, saying it would cause instability amid Greece's ongoing inability to form a government able to push through austerity plans.

But he told MPs earlier on Thursday that the Greek elections had "let the genie out of the bottle" and "some of the things we were happy to say in private we are now also willing to say in public because the issue is out there".

Michael Snyder, Contributor
Activist Post

Don't you wish that someone had told you the truth before you went to college? Don't you wish that someone had told you that college has become a giant money-making scam that is designed to drain as much money out of students and parents as possible?

Yes, college can be a profitable endeavor if you pick your field of study wisely, if you can get someone else to pay for at least some of it, and if you can actually get a good job in that field when you graduate. But most high school students are never told to weigh the pros and the cons before they run off to college. The typical high school student is simply told to get into the "best school" that he or she can and to take out whatever loans are "necessary" to pay for that education. Our high school students are assured that those student loans will be paid back easily once they get "good jobs" following graduation.

During a class on Sabbath halacha relating to religious physicians, the spiritual leader of Shas said that while doctors are expected to do everything in their power – even if it requires violating the Sabbath – in order to save Jews whose lives are in danger, the same does not apply for gentiles.

Brandon Smith, Contributor
Activist Post

After being immersed in the world of alternative economic analysis for several years, it sometimes becomes easy to forget that most people do not track forex markets, or debt to GDP ratio, or true unemployment, or hunch over IMF white-papers highlighting subsections which expose the trappings of the globalist ideology. Sometimes, you just assume the average person knows what the heck you are talking about. This is, of course, a mistake. However, it is a mistake that is borne from the inadequacy of our age and our culture, and is not necessarily a product of weak character, either of the analyst, or the casual reader.

The great frustration of being actively involved in the Liberty Movement is the fact that many people are rarely on the same page (or even the same book) during political and economic discussion...

Anthony Gucciardi
Activist Post

Following the news that drugs like Tylenol can actually lead to death when taken correctly in low dose form, new information has found that one of the most widely used antibiotics also has a very concerning death link. The pharmaceutical, known as azithromycin, has been linked to an increased likelihood of sudden death in adults — especially those with heart disease or a high risk for the condition.

Of course heart disease is rampant among the population, meaning that a large percentage of individuals therefore have an increased risk of sudden death when taking this popular drug to treat infection. While the odds of sudden death affecting the patient are not very high, the findings led researchers to urge doctors to reconsider prescribing the drug...

The Ministry of Defence have claimed they were dummies.

The paper proves that Goldman Sachs does naked short selling. They will sell and short stocks they don't even have nor are able to get. In other words, just like the fractional reserve banking of creating money out of thin air with key strokes. Goldman Sachs pretended to own or had in their hands, stocks which they didn't have. They would short the stocks and do trades on non-existent stocks. They also did this to affect the stock price on the market. So they could make some stocks Fail. They even use that word in the documents accidentally released.

Well it is that time of year that seems to come around every six months. Another debt ceiling battle is looming and all the special interest groups are putting their talking heads forward. House Speaker John Boehner, who got his job in our Congress through the implementation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, has remembered all of his lines as the games kick off.

Boehner said that the phony right will not consider another raise in the debt ceiling unless it is paid for with spending cuts or tax reform. And what reform is Boehner proposing? Well he wants the Bush era tax cuts made permanent. He says that to end the cuts would represent the largest tax hike in history.

The U.S. ambassador to Israel, Daniel Shaprio, told a closed conference in Tel Aviv that the United States has completed preparations for a military strike on Iran. His comments were recorded by a reporter and aired on Israel’s Channel 2 TV on Wednesday night.

Daniel Shaprio (center) sat on the NSC as senior director for the Middle East before Obama appointed him ambassador to Israel.

“It would be preferable to resolve this diplomatically, and through the use of pressure, than to use military force,” Shapiro said. “But that does not mean that option isn’t available. Not just available, it’s ready. The necessary planning has been done to ensure that it’s ready.”
Shaprio’s comments were not intended for public consumption, the Times of Israel reports.