I’ve just watched a TV documentary called Unsealed: Conspiracy Files, featuring, among others, Steven Bassett.

The program alleged that the gold in Fort Knox was probably missing, the alien spacecraft at Roswell was real, an alien survived the crash, Wright Patterson was where the remains and much other alien technology was taken. It described the U.S. government’s special bases at which bioweapons were developed, including pandemics like SARS, Ebola, and H1N1.

It highlighted Majestic 12, Operation Paperclip’s forgiveness of Nazi mass murderers and the Utah Data Center at which the National Security Agency is gathering a wide swath of information on all Americans and the citizens of other countries. The program looked at one issue after another, issues well known to us here but many of them never before broached on TV, as far as I’m aware. By the time it ended, my head was swirling.

It was followed by a second program called Unsealed: Alien Files, doing the same work on “alien” encounters. Nick Pope went farther than I’ve ever heard him, describing the modus operandi by which the British Ministry of Defence covered up galactic encounters.

Unfortunately he also feels that the possibility of an alien invasion exists. Even among those who are deemed “experts” on the galactics, a lack of understanding of our true situation is evident.

The galactics around the planet today follow the universal laws and are here to defend the planet against the negative aliens who were here previously and against the Illuminati, who would have reduced the population from seven billion to a mere 500 million – if they’d been allowed to get away with it. Fortunately they’ve been stopped.

These two programs were done in the manner of a typical believe-it-or-not crime expose but the range of issues presented says to me that there’s far more to these two programs than meets the eye.

Are we seeing the beginning of the new programs designed to break the truth to the public? Is it beginning in the manner of the investigative journalism we were once so accustomed and addicted to? I wouldn’t be at all surprised.

It may be that presenting it in this way allows anyone who wishes to to shrug the information off, while getting topics that have been heretofore unmentionable out in front of the public. I can’t imagine a program accusing the U.S. government of producing and launching pandemics being released to the air in years past. I think it would have gotten a person assassinated before the program reached the public.

Checking further I found that the program has had many episodes throughout 2012 and 2013. Various shows were on subjects such as America’s Flying Saucer, Global Depopulation, Secret Government Warehouses, Top Ten Secret Societies, Nazis Today, Time Travel, America’s Alien Wars, Fake World Leaders, Remote Viewing, Stargate Portals, Cloning, HAARP, New World Order, Mind Control, and Bio-Hazard Island.

Excuse me? Global Depopulation? HAARP? Stargate Portals? Bio-Hazard Island? Are no deep, dark secrets off-limits any more?

Well, there was nothing on 9/11. Curious omission.

But apart from that, apparently nothing is off-limits. Where this program differed from the series generally was that all the themes were covered in the one program. I expect it’s a round-up of the series.

What was so different from this series was that it didn’t offer the usual apologies for events, stop at some point and not go too far, or stay away from certain taboo subjects (manmade pandemics, stargate portals, global depopulation, the underground negative-alien wars). It said the things that I wondered would ever show up on the small screen.

It’s definitely a marked departure from everything that has been shown on TV to date, a watershed event in investigative reporting. And gone were the talking heads. Here was evidence being presented.

Welcome to the new world of accountability. Has the anticipated avalanche of truth-telling started? Unless I’m mistaken, it looks like it has. What can we expect on 9/11?

New Vatican Secretary of State, Pietro Parolin

Stephen: The day before his new decree (see above) came into play, Pope Francis has taken steps to remove the power of the man described as the “divisive deputy Pope” from his office.

Tarcisio Bertone Out At Vatican: Pope Selects Diplomat As Top Aide

By Philip Pullella, Reuters, The Huffington Post – August 31, 2012

* Secretary of state known as “deputy pope”
* Parolin, like Francis, known for frugal lifestyle
* Ends Bertone era marked by ethical, financial scandals

VATICAN CITY, Aug 31 (Reuters) – Pope Francis attempted to set a new tone for a Vatican beset by scandals on Saturday by naming a veteran diplomat as secretary of state, a role often called the “deputy pope”.

Archbishop Pietro Parolin’s appointment ends the era of Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who was widely blamed for failing to prevent ethical and financial scandals that marked the eight-year reign of former Pope Benedict, who resigned in February.

Parolin, a 58-year-old Italian who, like Francis, is known for his frugal lifestyle, is currently the Vatican’s nuncio (ambassador) in Venezuela.

The naming of a new secretary of state – who acts as the pope’s prime minister and chief aide – is the most significant appointment by Francis since his election in March.

Although he has no power to rule on doctrinal issues, the secretary of state sits in when the pope is ill.

He sets the tone for the Vatican’s central administration, known as the Curia, and is involved in everything from finances and the appointment of bishops to diplomatic relations with more than 170 countries.

Bertone, 79, who was secretary of state for nearly all of Benedict’s pontificate, was accused of not keeping a close enough watch on the Curia, some of whose members have been accused of corruption and cronyism.

One of the most damaging scandals to hit the Vatican under Bertone was “Vatileaks”, when Benedict’s butler stole documents alleging corruption from the pope’s desk and leaked them to the media.

Cardinal Bertone

That coincided with tumult at the Vatican bank, which Italian magistrates are investigating on suspicion of money laundering.

The former president of the bank, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, was close to Bertone. The board of the bank, officially known as the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR), ousted Gotti Tedeschi last year, saying he was incompetent. He says he was pushed out because he wanted the bank to be more transparent.

Saturday’s appointment was the pope’s fourth move to overhaul the Vatican’s central administration.

A month after his election, he set up an advisory board of eight cardinals to help him govern the 1.2 billion-member Roman Catholic Church and reform the Curia.

He has also set up another commission to advise him on how to reform the Vatican bank, ordered tighter supervision of the financial institute and set up a third commission of external experts to advise him on economic affairs, improve transparency and enforce accounting principles.

Parolin was the Vatican’s deputy foreign minister for seven years until 2009 and has also served in Nigeria and Mexico.

Thanks to Lance

From RT.com – August 30, 2013

http://rt.com/business/swiss-banks-disclose-assets-196/

About a hundred Swiss banks will avoid prosecution by divulging the names of US clients who have allegedly avoided tax by using secret accounts.

The banks could face fines of up to 50 percent of the asset value if they provide full disclosure.

The settlement will apply to second-tier Swiss banks and will be open to banks not already under a US criminal investigation. This rules out the second-largest Swiss bank, Credit Suisse; the largest European bank HSBC Holdings Plc and Julius Baer Group Ltd, as well as several regional banks.

Under the deal, each bank will set its own non-prosecution or deferred-prosecution agreement with the US authorities. “The program is intended to enable every Swiss bank that is not already under criminal investigation to find a path to resolution,” the US Department of Justice said in a statement.

The fines are set to reach up to 50 percent of the aggregate value of any undeclared accounts held by wealthy Americans, depending on the time the accounts were opened. To decide whether they can afford paying billions of dollars in fines and participate in the deal, Swiss banks will have to assess the cost of potential penalties versus the risk of US prosecution.

“It’s a choice between two evils,” a tax lawyer with Poledna Boss Kurer AG in Zurich, Walter Boss, told Reuters. If they don’t cooperate with the US, the US might indict them,” he stated.

It’s hoped the breakthrough agreement with the world’s largest off-shore financial center with about $2.2 trillion of assets will boost the US campaign against tax evasion by citizens hiding their funds abroad. It means, Switzerland will finally cease to be a “secret banking heaven” for Americans out of reach of US tax authorities.

“This program will significantly enhance the Justice Department’s ongoing efforts to aggressively pursue those who attempt to evade the law by hiding their assets outside of the United States,” US Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement.

“In addition to strengthening our partnership with the Swiss government, the program’s requirement that Swiss banks provide detailed account information will improve our ability to bring tax dollars back to the US Treasury from across the globe,” he added.

Some unidentified Swiss banks who are not cooperating with the US justice system, could face punishment, the Attorney General has warned, saying that the agreement creates “significant risks for individuals and banks that continue to fail to cooperate, including for those Swiss banks that facilitated US tax evasion but fail to cooperate now, for all US taxpayers who think that they can continue to hide income and assets in offshore banks, and for those advisors and others who facilitated these crimes.”

The Swiss Bankers Association said the deal “enables all banks in Switzerland to settle their US past quickly and conclusively and creates the necessary legal certainty.”

In May, the Swiss government agreed to meet US demands and disclose bank client names in a bid to resolve the long-standing tax-evasion dispute between the two countries.

Over a dozen Swiss banks are said to be under the US investigation, with the authorities searching for funds hidden in bank accounts in giants like Credit Suisse. The US Attorney’s Office has been reportedly investigating Credit Suisse over mortgage-backed securities sold by the bank. In November, the bank settled the case without admitting wrongdoing and it agreed to a $120-million settlement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission over civil charges stemming from the bank’s sale of risky mortgage bonds to investors before the crisis.

Earlier this year the Swiss government also ordered its third largest private bank, Julius Baer, to hand over data on US clients.

In January Switzerland’s oldest private bank, Wegelin & Co, said it would close down for good after over 250 years, following its guilty plea to charges of helping prosperous Americans hide more than $1.2 billion from the Internal Revenue Service through secret accounts.

The US authorities’ biggest success so far came in 2009 when Switzerland’s largest bank, UBS, agreed to give away some 4,450 client names and paid a $780 million settlement after admitting to selling tax-evasion services to Americans.

Russia Today – August 31, 2013

http://rt.com/news/snowden-prize-whistleblower-germany-255/

Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden has been awarded the biennial “whistleblower prize” in Germany, worth some $3,900, in recognition of his “bold efforts” to expose the monitoring of communications data by his former employer.

The prize, last awarded in 2011, was officially bestowed upon the 30-year-old at a ceremony in Berlin which took place Friday, prompting a nine-minute congratulatory video message from Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald on Saturday.

“If I ran the committee, making the choice of who was to receive this award, it would take me probably one and a half seconds at most to have come to the conclusion that he is the only person deserving of the award this year,” said Greenwald, who published Snowden’s leaks, in the honorific speech released in response to the news.