New poll shows 4-way tie in Iowa as Ron Paul moves to top tier

CBS News

November 15, 2011

The Iowa caucuses are just seven weeks away, but Republican voters in the nation's first presidential nominating state seem as torn as ever over the GOP field.

A new Bloomberg poll of likely caucus participants shows a four-way tie in Iowa, with Rep. Ron Paul joining Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain in the top tier of candidates. Underscoring the uncertainty in the race, 60 percent of respondents said they could be persuaded to back someone other than their first choice for the nomination.

The poll, conducted November 10 - 12 by the West Des Moines-based firm Selzer & Co, shows Cain in the lead with 20 percent, while Paul comes in at 19 percent. Romney wins 18 percent support, and Gingrich earns 17 percent. The margin of error is 4.4 percent.

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CIA operations in Iran underway

Helen Kennedy
New York Daily News
November 15, 2011

In public Sunday, President Obama was at a summit unsuccessfully leaning on Russia and China to back diplomatic efforts to curb Iran’s nuke program.

In private Sunday, there was more evidence of an efficient and brutal covert operation that continues to degrade Iran’s military capabilities.

Iranian officials revealed that one of the 17 men killed in a huge explosion at a munitions depot was a key Revolutionary Guard commander who headed Iran’s missile program. And the IRNA state news agency reported that scientists had discovered a new computer virus in their systems, a more sophisticated version of the Stuxnet worm deployed last year to foul up Iran’s centrifuges.

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California City Deploys Controversial Spy Plane

Dakota Smith
Daily News
November 14, 2011

Lancaster will soon begin filming its citizens from above, as a camera-equipped plane circles over the city under a controversial plan to track potential criminal activity.

The program, unanimously approved by the City Council this week, will utilize a Cessna 172 fixed-wing aircraft equipped with a recording device.

The plane will fly 10 hours a day, from altitudes of 1,000 to 3,000 feet as its pilot watches for robberies, drug deals, car accidents and other incidents. The footage will be sent in real time to the local Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department station.

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Herman Cain Stumbles On Libya Questions

Huffington Post

November 14, 2011

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain struggled to answer a question about U.S. foreign policy toward Libya in an interview with theMilwaukee Journal-Sentinel editorial board Monday.

"Okay, Libya," said Cain, glancing up. "President Obama supported the uprising, correct? President Obama called for the removal of [Muammar] Gaddafi. Just wanted to make sure we're talking about the same thing before I say, 'Yes, I agreed. No, I didn't agree,'" said Cain.

"I do not agree with the way he handled it for the following reason," Cain started, before cutting himself off. "Nope, that's a different one." Cain shifted in his chair, adjusted his jacket and looked up again.

"I got all this stuff twirling around in my head," he added.

Cain repeated he would have "assessed the [Libyan] opposition differently," speaking in generalities about his problem-solving approach.

Cain raised broader questions about the nature of the Libyan opposition. "It's not a clear yes-no answer, because all of those things I think should have been assessed, that's what I'm saying."

"And you don't think they were assessed?" asked an editorial board member.

"I don't know that they were or were not assessed. I didn't see reports of that assessment," Cain responded.

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Major Wars and Suppression of American Freedoms Planned BEFORE 9/11

Washington’s Blog
November 10, 2011

Many things which we’ve been told have only happened recently actually started a long time ago.

For example, the mainstream media claims that Iran is close to building a nuclear weapon. But the Christian Science Monitor notes that the U.S. has been claiming for more than 30 years that Iran was on the verge of nuclear capability.

And the decision to threaten to bomb Iran was made before 9/11.

As another example, journalists from across the spectrum have documented the militarization of police forces in the United States, including, CNN, Huffington Post, Forbes,Esquire, The Atlantic, Salon, and the Cato Institute.

Indeed, police shooting peaceful “occupy” protesters with rubber bullets, tear gas and other projectiles and brutally beating them has brought this issue to the attention of the American public. See this, this and this.

But the militarization of police started long before 9/11 … in the 1980s. As Radley Balkotestified before the House Subcommittee on Crime:

Militarization [of police forces is] a troubling trend that’s been on the rise in America’s police departments over the last 25 years.

***

Since the late 1980s, Mr. Chairman, thanks to acts passed by the U.S. Congress, millions of pieces of surplus military equipment have been given to local police departments across the country.

We’re not talking just about computers and office equipment. Military-grade semi-automatic weapons, armored personnel vehicles, tanks, helicopters, airplanes, and all manner of other equipment designed for use on the battlefield is now being used on American streets, against American citizens.

Academic criminologists credit these transfers with the dramatic rise in paramilitary SWAT teams over the last quarter century.

SWAT teams were originally designed to be used in violent, emergency situations like hostage takings, acts of terrorism, or bank robberies. From the late 1960s to the early 1980s, that’s primarily how they were used, and they performed marvelously.

But beginning in the early 1980s, they’ve been increasingly used for routine warrant service in drug cases and other nonviolent crimes. And thanks to the Pentagon transfer programs, there are now a lot more of them.

Many other things which we’ve been told happened after 9/11 actually occurred beforehand as well.

For example:

• The Afghanistan war was planned before 9/11 (see this and this)

• The decision to launch the Iraq war was made before 9/11. Indeed, former CIA director George Tenet said that the White House wanted to invade Iraq long before 9/11, and inserted “crap” in its justifications for invading Iraq. Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill – who sat on the National Security Council – also says that Bush planned the Iraq war before 9/11. Top British officials say that the U.S. discussed Iraq regime change even before Bush took office. And in 2000, Cheney said a Bush administration might “have to take military action to forcibly remove Saddam from power.”

• Cheney apparently even made Iraqi’s oil fields a national security priority before 9/11. And the Sunday Herald reported: “Five months before September 11, the US advocated using force against Iraq … to secure control of its oil.” (remember that Alan Greenspan,John McCain, George W. Bush, Sarah Palin, a high-level National Security Council officerand others all say that the Iraq war was really about oil.)

• The Patriot Act was planned before 9/11. Indeed, former Counter Terrorism Czar Richard Clarke told Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig:
  

  After 9/11 the government drew up the Patriot Act within 20 days and it was passed.

  The Patriot Act is huge and I remember someone asking a Justice Department official how did they write such a large statute so quickly, and of course the answer was thatit has been sitting in the drawers of the Justice Department for the last 20 years waiting for the event where they would pull it out.

  (4:30 into this video).

• Cheney dreamed of giving the White House the powers of a monarch long before 9/11

• Cheney and Rumsfeld actively generated fake intelligence which exaggerated the threat from an enemy in order to justify huge amounts of military spending long before 9/11. And see this

• The government’s spying on Americans began before 9/11 (confirmed here and here. And see this)

• It was known long before 9/11 that torture doesn’t work to produce accurate intelligence … but is an effective way to terrorize people

• And – sadly – America played dirty games to justify and win wars before 9/11

Note: 9/11 itself is beyond the scope of this essay, although the Co-Chair of the Congressional Inquiry into 9/11 – and former head of the Senate Intelligence Committee – calls for a new 9/11 investigation, Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg says that the government has ordered the media not to cover 9/11, and high-level officials are eager to spill the beans about what happened on 9/11 … but no one in Washington or the media wants to hear.

Obama Seeks Help From Russia and China on Iran

November 12, 2011: President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev listen to translation during their meeting at the APEC Summit in Honolulu
.

Fox News

November 13, 2011

HONOLULU –  Searching for help, President Barack Obama lobbied the skeptical leaders of Russia and China on Saturday for support in keeping Iran from becoming a nuclear-armed menace to the world, hoping to yield a "common response" to a crisis that is testing international unity.

Yet Obama's talk of solidarity with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Chinese President Hu Jintao was not publicly echoed by either man as Iran moved anew to the fore of the international stage -- and to the front of the fierce U.S. presidential race.

Obama, at home in Hawaii and holding forth on a world stage, also sought to show aggressiveness in fixing an economy that has weakened his standing with voters. He pushed Hu about American impatience with China's economic policy, touted the makings of a new pacific trade zone and showered attention on the lucrative Asia-Pacific export market.

The United States' vast worries about Iran grew starker with a report this week by the U.N. atomic agency that asserted in the strongest terms yet Iran is conducting secret work with the sole intent of developing nuclear arms. The U.S. claims a nuclear-armed Iran could set off an arms race among rival states and directly threaten Israel.

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Ron Paul Gets 89 Seconds To Speak In CBS Debate

Ron Paul Silenced by CBS?

Marc Fortier
Exeter Patch
November 13, 2011

Both Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann are crying foul after what they said were unfair efforts to limit their air time during CBS’ Republican presidential debate on Saturday night.

In an email sent out after the debate entitled “What a Joke,” the Paul campaign ripped CBS for allowing the Texas Congressman only a minute and a half of air time in the 90 minute debate.

“It literally made me sick watching the mainstream media once again silence the one sane voice in this election,” said Campaign Manager John Tate. “The one dissenter to a decade of unchecked war. The one candidate who stands for true defense and actual constitutional government. Ron Paul was silenced, in perhaps the most important debate of the cycle.”

Full article here

Video: Ron Paul Gets 89 Seconds In Tv Portion Of CBS Debate

http://www.infowars.com/ron-paul-gets-89-seconds-to-speak-in-cbs-debate/