In The News: Iran, Middle East, Ukraine, Approaching Police-State

What an absolute joke. The entire premise of this so-called "framework" with Iran is an insult to anyone with >2 operating brain cells : 

Iran Talks Adjourn To March 17, After 'Framework' Agreed

After two days of intensive talks in Vienna, Iran and six world powers have agreed on an “agenda and a framework” for the next round of negotiations on Iran’s rogue nuclear program.

“We’ve identified the issues we need to address for a comprehensive and final agreement,” said Catherine Ashton, the EU’s top diplomat who convened the talks between Iran and the six powers — the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany.

Ashton will be in Tehran March 9-10, a week before the next round of talks, Reuters reported.

On Wednesday the country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who had previously predicted that the talks would fall short, ordered his government to take precautionary steps in case the talks fail. Meanwhile, the head of the Revolutionary Guards warned the Iranian negotiators against concessions that could tarnish the nation’s pride.

The Iranian ISNA news agency had previously reported that the sides had agreed to a draft agenda for talks, but had not finalized it, and a Western official told Reuters that talks were going “surprisingly well.”

“The focus was on the parameters and the process of negotiations, the timetable of what is going to be a medium- to long-term process,” a European diplomat told the news service. “We don’t expect instant results.”

Iranian President Wants Jerusalem Liberated 'From The Yoke Of Israel'

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani “wishes” for Jerusalem to be liberated “from the yoke of Israel,” according to state-run media reports.

Rouhani expressed his desire during a meeting with Palestinian Parliament Speaker Salim Zanoun, who has been in Tehran for meetings with top officials.

“One of the wishes of the Iranian nation is liberation of the Holy Quds,” the Islamic name for Jerusalem, Rouhani was quoted as saying in the meeting by Iran’s Fars News Agency.

Rouhani went on to express hope that “the Palestinian nation and the entire Muslim world will find a serious solution to this occupation through unity and integrity.”

Zanoun in a separate meeting with Iranian leaders celebrated Iran as a “true supporter of the Palestinians.”

Ukraine: At Least 18 Protesters Dead As Truce Collapses

Fierce clashes between police and protesters — some including gunfire — shattered a brief truce in Ukraine’s besieged capital Thursday, killing at least 19 people.

The deaths came in a new eruption of violence just hours after the country’s embattled president and the opposition leaders demanding his resignation called for a truce and negotiations to try to resolve Ukraine’s political crisis.

The two sides are locked in a decades-long battle over the identity of this nation of 46 million, whose loyalties are divided between Russia and the West. Parts of the country— mostly in its western cities — are in open revolt against President Viktor Yanukovych’s central government.

The latest bout of street violence began Tuesday when protesters attacked police lines and set fires outside parliament, accusing Yanukovych of ignoring their demands to enact constitutional reforms that would limit the president’s power — a key opposition demand. Parliament, dominated by his supporters, was stalling on taking up a constitutional reform to limit presidential powers.

In a statement early Thursday, the Ukrainian Health Ministry said 28 people have died and 287 have been hospitalized during the two days of street violence. Protesters, who have set up a medical care facility in a downtown cathedral, say the numbers of injured are significantly higher — possibly double or triple that.

The clashes this week have been the most deadly since protests kicked off three months ago after Yanukovych shelved an association agreement with the European Union in favor of closer ties with Russia. Russia then announced a $15 billion bailout for Ukraine, whose economy is in tatters.

Joel Rosenberg: Ukraine Is On Fire: Why? At The Core, It's A Battle Against Vladimir Putin

On one side is Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich and his pro-Putin government.

Last fall, Yanukovich abruptly rejected a trade agreement that would have strengthened ties between the former Soviet republic and the European Union. Instead, Yanukovich lurched in the other direction, choosing closer ties to the Kremlin, a decision sealed by a $15 billion package of loan guarantees and discounts on natural gas purchases that Putin offered to sweeten the deal and draw Yanukovich away from the West.

On the other side are Ukraine’s civilian protestors. 

They hate the memories of Soviet domination, fear the Kremlin, desperately want Ukraine to remain an independent nation, want closer ties to Europe and the U.S., and are determined to stop Putin and the Kremlin from seizing control of their destiny.

The key to understanding what’s really happening is understanding who Putin is, what he wants, and why the Ukrainians fear him.

In 2005, the former KGB agent turned Czar-wannabe delivered a major address in which he said that the collapse of the Soviet Union was “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century,” adding that “for the Russian people, it became a real drama. Tens of millions of our citizens and countrymen found themselves outside Russian territory. The epidemic of disintegration also spread to Russia itself.”

What Putin wants is to restore the glory of Mother Russia. If he could rebuild the Soviet Union, he would. Short of that, he wants to bring former Soviet satellite states like Ukraine back under Russian control. The people of Ukraine are fighting back, but the U.S. and E.U. are doing precious little to help them.

Cold War Rematch In Kiev

Crash Of 2014: Like 1929, You'll Never Hear It Coming

Early warnings of a crash are dismissed over and over (“just a temporary correction”). They gradually numb us about the inevitable. Time after time we forget history’s lessons. Until finally a big surprise catches us totally off-guard. Financial historian Niall Ferguson put it this way: Before the crash, our world seems almost stationary, deceptively so, balanced, at a set point. So that when the crash finally hits — as inevitably it will — everyone seems surprised. And our brains keep telling us it’s not time for a crash.

Till then, life just goes along quietly, hypnotizing us, making us vulnerable, till a shocker like Lehman Brothers upsets the balance. Then, says Ferguson, the crash is “accelerating suddenly, like a sports car ... like a thief in the night.” It hits. Shocks us wide awake.

One moment we’re playing musical chairs, excited, in denial, convinced we can pocket a few more winnings before the inevitable. Convinced we know when, where, how to exit. Then the “thief in the night” suddenly attacks, catches us by surprise. Even then, in our denial, we may keep telling ourselves it’s just another short-term correction in a hot bull market. Until suddenly, it’s more than an accelerating sports car ... it’s a Mack truck roaring loudly.

Yes, you will read new warnings, like “ Soros doubles a bearish bet on the S&P 500, to the tune of $1.3 billion.” You may double down too. Or do nothing. You may listen to Hulbert, Gross, Gundlach, Ellis, Shilling, Roubini and Schiff. And still do nothing. Or something. You will listen, take it all in, and do what you always do. Your way, based not so much on all the warnings, the facts, evidence, predictions. Rather you’ll make your own decisions based on some inner consensus of voices that always guides you from deep inside your brain.

But when the Mack truck suddenly shifts into high gear ... accelerating rapidly ... finally catching all of us by surprise... none of this will matter ... you’ll never hear it coming ... till too late ... few did in 1929, in spite of all the warnings ... you didn’t hear in 2000 ... nor in 2008 ... nobody will in 2014 ... the Mack truck will finally catch all by surprise, once again.

Shrinking Freedom

A free press is usually the hallmark of a free society and, while any conservative knows the press is controlled by Obama sycophants and socialist quislings, at least we still have the freedom to set up alternative media through the free market. This is why we have Fox News, talk radio, and a whole slew of conservative leaning blogs and online news magazines.

Not for long.

We not only have a snooping government that is in bed with the media, education and the pop culture -- much like the USSR and her satellites used to be; and we not only have a government that is reaching into more and more aspects of our personal and professional lives, taking more of our money and controlling more of the economy.

We now have a government that intends to embed itself into newsrooms across the country to "monitor" the news -- making sure media outlets disseminate stories the FCC qua government qua Obama deems important, like those about the environment, women, and minorities. No longer will it be all the news that's fit to print but all the news Uncle Sam wants to print.

The MSM doesn't seem to be at all fazed by this announcement. Sadly, that's not a surprise. Having an FCC monitor really won't change its content much at all. If anything, it will provide the MSM with a government stamp of approval justifying its concentration of regime-supporting stories about stranded polar bears, melting arctic ice, extreme weather, CO2 emissions, the war on women, contraception deniers, income inequality, LGBT rights, etc. Already, as it is, they don't report the truth about the economy or the government, so not much will change there.

Why is the FCC doing this? Doesn't it already control most of the press? Yes, but it isn't enough to own the MSM. Too much unpleasant and damaging information still gets out to the public -- we saw that admission by Obama in his Super Bowl interview with Bill O'Reilly. To be truly effective, the government has to monopolize the media -- so that the media becomes an extension of the government under penalty of law. For those of us who lived during the Cold War, it's a realization that the war didn't end -- that after a brief experiment with freedom under Yeltsin and an ongoing interlude with capitalism in China, communism still lives and has come to the US. Any Cold War that will be fought between left and right, west and east, freedom and oppression, will be fought within our own borders.

Why Is The U.S. Administration Putting Government Monitors In Newsrooms?

The Obama administration’s Federal Communication Commission (FCC) is poised to place government monitors in newsrooms across the country in an absurdly draconian attempt to intimidate and control the media.

Before you dismiss this assertion as utterly preposterous (we all know how that turned out when the tea party complained that it was being targeted by the IRS), this bombshell of an accusation comes from an actual FCC commissioner.

FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai reveals a brand new Obama administration program that he fears could be used in “pressuring media organizations into covering certain stories.”

As Commissioner Pai explains in the The Wall Street Journal:

"Last May the FCC proposed an initiative to thrust the federal government into newsrooms across the country. With its 'Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs,' or CIN, the agency plans to send researchers to grill reporters, editors and station owners about how they decide which stories to run. A field test in Columbia, S.C., is scheduled to begin this spring.

"The purpose of the CIN, according to the FCC, is to ferret out information from television and radio broadcasters about 'the process by which stories are selected' and how often stations cover "critical information needs,' along with 'perceived station bias' and 'perceived responsiveness to underserved populations.'"

That’s right, the Obama administration has developed a formula of what it believes the free press should cover, and it is going to send government monitors into newsrooms across America to stand over the shoulders of the press as they make editorial decisions.

This poses a monumental danger to constitutionally protected free speech and freedom of the press.

Every major repressive regime of the modern era has begun with an attempt to control and intimidate the press.

As Thomas Jefferson so eloquently said, "Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost."

Also see:

Three Terrible Stories From The Week In 'Protecting And Serving'

DHS Contracted To Purchase 704 Millions Rounds Of Ammo

How A Fanatical Environmentalist Deliberately Caused UK Flooding