3767-ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? | View Thread

Methane emissions are racing toward nightmare status.

Concentrations of the potent greenhouse gas rose faster and faster in the last decade, and particularly in the last two years, according to two new studies.

“If methane keeps going up, we could easily see a degree Fahrenheit increase, independent of CO2,” by the end of the century says Stanford earth scientist Robert Jackson, a coauthor of both studies. “That would be a worst-case scenario.”

The cause is largely biological. It’s too soon to pin the blame on one factor, whether flooded rice paddies, growing cattle herds, belching landfills, melting permafrost, or gassy wetlands, but agriculture deserves particular attention, the studies show. That doesn’t mean we can ignore the methane contributions of oil and gas exploration, Jackson cautions, but rather that ag deserves “the same level of scrutiny.”

Today, atmospheric methane is up 150 percent from preindustrial levels, so every little bit to reduce emissions counts. Switching up rice varieties, feeding cattle a less gassy diet, and catching emissions from landfills before they’re belched are all important steps, scientists say. Spiking methane isn’t good, but it is a growing opportunity to fight back against changing climate.

Surprise! Trump wants a coal booster and climate change denier to head the Interior Department.

He has reportedly offered the job to Montana Rep. Ryan Zinke. (Previous reports that Trump had chosen Rep.Cathy McMorris Rodgers were premature.)

Zinke has been a defender of public lands and public access to them, which is notable because the Interior Department manages more than 500 million acres of federal lands. He has gone against his party when Republicans have proposed selling off federal land or transferring it to states. Zinke is a lifelong hunter and fisher, and his Twitter bio says he’s a “Teddy Roosevelt fan.”

He is also a fan of coal, which his home state produces a lot of, mostly mined from federal land. In Congress, Zinke opposed a temporary moratorium on coal leasing on federal land as well as renewable energy subsidies. He also supported the Keystone XL pipeline, attacked the Endangered Species Act, and voted to let politically appointed boards manage public lands, positions that helped him earn a paltry 3 percent voting score from the League of Conservation Voters.

When it comes to climate change, Zinke reportedly did believe in humanity’s role back in 2008, but now thinks it isn’t “proven science.” (It is.)

Hey, it could have been worse.

New Report To U.N. Special Rapporteur Blasts Secret U.S. Torture Network

DECEMBER 12, 2016

LAKE ARROWHEAD, CA. 12 December 2016: A groundbreaking report just released to the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture by the activist organization ITHACA reveals the existence of a massive, secret imprisonment and torture system that targets tens of thousands of Americans each year. (Some have estimated it yields annual profits upwards of $40-billion annually to the perpetrators.1)

The report contains affidavits of some 90 individuals documenting violations of the 1984 United Nations Convention Against Torture, including isolation, contraindicated forced drugging, starvation, medical neglect, intimidation, coercion, unnecessary/inappropriate medical procedures, and physical and mental abuse. The victims are not charged or convicted of any crime and are often denied legal representation.

“Our report, Adult Guardianships as a Form of Torture in the United States, uncovers something far worse–owing to its scope and extent– than the secret network of CIA prisons revealed last year by the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee,” comments ITHACA spokeswoman Janet Phelan. “These victims are not terror suspects. They are ordinary US citizens who fell into a system which is geared towards fleecing their assets, with no regard for their well being.”

Unlike the overseas “black sites,” the ITHACA report points out, the domestic torture system barely reaches the public consciousness because it is protected by a fearsome network of judges, attorneys and other court officers, court-appointed guardians, law enforcement, APS social workers, psychologists and medical personnel. Some of the so-called care facilities are little more than prisons that isolate vulnerable seniors from their loved ones—often from all outside contact. Then the victims are “treated” while their finances are drained in a variety of ways, sometimes through documents they are coerced through a variety of “ways” to sign. Once their finances are sufficiently depleted, death often follows swiftly. And the evidence is frequently quickly destroyed by cremation before loved ones have a chance to see the body or get an autopsy.

Those fighting to defend their loved ones (and sometimes lawyers or others who make the mistake of trying to help) also face retaliation, detailed in the ITHACA report. This can include disbarment for attorneys and loss of licenses for medical and other professionals. In some cases, families are ruined by legal costs trying to save a loved one trapped in the system. (One account details an impoverished woman with a disabled husband threatened with $9000 in legal fees for objecting to a court-appointed guardian who was issued letters of guardianship, in violation of state law, listing false credentials. This threat was used to force her to drop the objection. ) Others grow sick from the hopeless struggle and die of heart attacks or other illness—sometimes under suspicious circumstances. Still others face legal harassment and are forced to leave the country. As detailed in the report, some have faced jail or prison.

The ITHACA report points out a major loophole for potential torturers. There is little hope from the higher courts, despite the fact that many victims and their loved ones should be protected by the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA.) States the report:

The US Supreme Court has taken a position concerning guardianship and probate matters. Known as “the probate exception,” this essentially removes the Supreme Court from any necessity on issuing decisions in matters arising in state probate courts. The difficulty in finding remedies to exhaust is enhanced by the tendencies of probate courts to issue gag orders and restraining orders against litigants, which may bar them from exercising their legal rights to make further reports or otherwise engage justice agencies.

That’s right. The ITHACA report reveals to the U.N. Special Rapporteur that the U.S. legal system is complicit in this alleged wholesale looting and torture of seniors. The local courts have the power—and use the power—to seal records containing damning evidence, have photographs proving potential torture destroyed, issue gag orders to relatives and witnesses, and issue various restraining orders that prevent exposure of violations of the U.N. Convention on Torture.

NOTE TO REPORTERS: The complete report and attachments are available from ITHACA, P.O. Box 50, PMB 207, Lake Arrowhead, CA 92352, Tel.: (541) 708-3534.

Image Credit

_90700018_e73cfe8f-80ca-4e09-9714-2cafd43f7fd8

Celebrations in the streets of Aleppo at the news that the city has been liberated

…by Gordon Duff, Senior Editor and Ian Greenhalgh, Managing Editor

Aleppo has been liberated after almost four years of a barbarous and cruel occupation by the so-called Syrian opposition. The people of Aleppo are celebrating the fact, no longer will they be subjected to the most brutal, murderous regime imaginable.

The Aleppo citadel has seen thousands of years of conflict

What really made Aleppo such a hellhole was not the privations of being a city under siege, nor was it the cruelty and barbarism of the occupying forces – it was the fact that no-one outside Syria was lifting a single finger to help them, they received no aid, no foreign volunteers came to provide medical help, no foreign government did a single thing to alleviate their suffering.

However, the MSM told a very different tale, night after night, the TV news was full of tales of brave aid workers, courageous doctors and all manner of volunteers who were trying to save the people of Aleppo.

They kept telling us that aid convoys were flowing into the city to keep the people from starvation and that ambulances were ferrying the wounded to hospitals in Turkey. All of it was lies, an inversion of reality; the aid convoys were, in reality, supplying the occupying forces with arms and munitions as well as food and other essentials.

The ambulances were also bringing in arms and supplies, the wounded they carried out to be treated in Turkish hospitals were not innocent civilians caught in the crossfire, they were ‘rebel’ fighters injured while fighting against the legitimate Syrian armed forces and their allies.

Aid Convoy Arrives in Efrin, Azaz Areas in Aleppo

Aid Convoy arrives in northern Aleppo, March 2016. The aid was delivered by the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC), in cooperation with Aleppo Governorate and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC).

This use of white trucks belonging to NGOs and aid agencies and clearly marked ambulances belonging to groups like the Red Crescent and Medecins San Frontiers was a cynical ploy to keep the occupying forces supplied without the Syrian and Russian air forces bombing the supply vehicles.

Just imagine the outcry in the western media if a Russian airstrike had taken out a supply convoy, they would have shown us countless scenes of burned out trucks and ambulances while decrying the Russian cruelty in preventing the aid from reaching the poor, innocent people of Aleppo.

No mention would have been made of the real reason for the airstrike, not one syllable uttered about the arms and supplies being ferried to the occupying forces in those ‘aid convoys’.

A Syrian woman telling a reporter the truth about who made the people of Aleppo suffer

The suffering of the people of Aleppo has been at the hands of their occupiers, despite the strenuous efforts of the Western media to blame the Assad government and their Russian allies. Back in February, when the liberation of Aleppo began,Sputnik reported:

“As always, the media began effusively writing about the crowds of people fleeing from the fighting and the advance of government forces. The only thing missing in the picture being painted were the images of the residents of the city’s Western neighborhoods, who welcomed the government troops as liberators.”

This fraudulent reporting by the Western media had the desired effect in governmental circles, as Sputnik noted:

“Deeply moved” by the pictures appearing in Western media, “US Secretary of State John Kerry immediately demanded that Russia halt the bombing of civilians.”
But “the truth,” Vernochet noted, “is far more prosaic, because if the city of Aleppo is completely surrounded by government forces, the rebel supply corridor with Turkey will be cut. Specifically, [it is about] two roads, between Mayer-Azaz and Andan-Aleppo, through which the Salafist- Wahhabists receive reinforcements, weapons, and ammunition from the Turkish deep state.”

As towns in Aleppo province have been liberated, the people have been describing the horror they have been living while their towns were held by “opposition”. Women were forced to veil themselves or be lashed and publicly humiliated. Children were murdered, accused of being “spies”.

The civilian population were deprived of medical aid, medicine, water and electricity. Many areas of Aleppo were held in captivity by US-backed “opposition” groups and these groups behaved exactly like ISIS in their cruelty and enforcement of Islamic Law.

People were often accused of crimes they did not commit and then punished via Islamic Law and Quranic doctrine; hands were chopped off, people were immersed in boiling oil, others were set on fire, women were stoned to death, the list of mediaeval tortures and horrific public executions is very long and sickening indeed.

Harrowing stories such as this one reported today by Al-Alam convey something of the heart-wrenching truth:

Moussa, whose age no one can determine precisely, does not remember life before the war. After his entire family was murdered before his eyes, he walked alone for a day and a half before he was picked up by the Liwa al Quds militia, who then took him to Neirab Camp, a designated safe zone in Aleppo.
“They’re all dead. We were just walking, and the terrorists started to shoot at us,” Moussa said. “We started running until we got to a checkpoint, and they caught us there. They beat my parents and told me to go.”
Moussa said he witnessed his parents being slaughtered before he left, and then had to find his way out of the danger zone with bullets flying around him.
“I was walking in the street, where there were a lot of bodies, and then the snipers started to shoot at me. I ran behind a wall and got to a place where there were no snipers. Then I met a man who took me to Aleppo.”

In stark contrast to this reality, the Western MSM kept feeding us a steady diet of lies about civilians being killed by the ‘Assad regime’ and murderous airstrikes by the Russians that struck civilian targets such as schools and hospitals. In the last few days, this propaganda has stepped up a notch so that now we are being told that the ‘Assad regime’ is committing genocide in Aleppo, rounding up and massacring civilians with utmost cruelty.

They keep citing highly dubious sources for these reports without ever troubling themselves to verify any of them with actual, legitimate journalists and human rights/aid groups on the ground in Aleppo.

This story published today by The Daily Beast is typical of the anti-Assad propaganda being spouted by the Western media: Last Rebels in Aleppo Say Assad Forces Are Burning People Alive

The Syrian Civil Defense, or White Helmets, an internationally renowned team of first responders, said more than 90 bodies of people presumed to be still alive are under debris and that its volunteer staff reported they could hear the voices of children trapped in the rubble of their houses.
A member of the group in Aleppo told al-Arabiya TV on Monday night that men, women, and children were huddling and crying in the streets and at the gates of empty buildings in the few neighborhoods that remained in the hands of the opposition. He described the situation as hopeless, because precision munitions and indiscriminate barrel bombs had destroyed the city’s medical facilities, ambulances, and fuel supply.
Unconfirmed reports, circulated by opposition media, suggest that mass atrocities have already begun, such as the summary executions of 17 in al-Kalaseh neighborhood, 22 in Bostan al-Kasrand, and the immolation of four women and nine children on al-Firdous Street.
While The Daily Beast could not independently confirm these figures, the United Nations Human Rights Office (UNHRO) said that it had reliable evidence that 82 civilians had been shot dead by pro-regime forces — 11 of them women, 13 of them children. UNHRO spokesman Rupert Colville said at a press conference today, “We’re filled with the deepest foreboding for those who remain in this last hellish corner” of East Aleppo.

We are crying crocodile tears for Lena, queen of Syria’s own fake news. This may be her last video. We can only hope. While Lena is hiding in her cellar, the residents of Aleppo are in the streets celebrating their liberation, as reported by Al-Alam:

Aleppo streets have erupted in celebrations with people waving flags and shooting in the air as reports said the Syrian Army has taken control of the last militant-held areas in eastern part of the city, Alalam reporter reports from the ground.

Maybe Lena is right and it may well be time to hunt down the rats starting with those who aided in the hell the people of Aleppo were subjected to.

Syrian White Helmets

My list begins with the MI6/CIA organization known as the White Helmets, more fakes whose organization has overseen slaughter for almost 3 years, delivering ammunition and poison gas while begging for cash and putting out doctored videos and staged photographs. This group and all associated with it need to be declared terrorists and war criminals.

RT published a story in October that correctly identified this groups of frauds: Syrian White Helmets a ‘terrorist support group & Western propaganda tool’

Created out of militants who invaded Aleppo, the Western-funded White Helmets is a terrorist support group fraudulently masquerading as a humanitarian organization to undermine Syrian government, says independent researcher and journalist Vanessa Beeley.
The propaganda from the rebel-held eastern Aleppo is produced by a number of organizations and individuals who are sponsored by the West, with the White Helmets being the largest among them, Beeley told RT. But the White Helmets are not the heroes that the mainstream media is trying to make of them.
“This organization is a fraudulent shadow-state construct created by NATO to simply propagate the propaganda that will demonize Assad’s government and also demonize Russian legal intervention in Syria,” said the journalist, who recently returned from Syria.
“From all the information that we’ve received they are acting as terrorist support group,” she added, “in the sense of bringing equipment, arms, even funding, into Syria.”

Beeley emphasized that the White Helmets were “formed by a British [consultant] James Le Mesurier, in 2013. They are trained by him. He has a background in private security work, including connection back to Blackwater, which is one of the best known private security firms that was used by the CIA… as an outreach assassination organization.”
“They’re not trained in Syria,” she added. “They’re trained in Gaziantep in Turkey; and then they’re implanted into areas like east Aleppo, areas that are under heavy conflict.”

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights

Next on our list is Osama Suleiman AKA Abdel Rami Rahman, cheerleader for ISIS and titular head of The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Suleiman has not been to Syria for 15 years, instead he has been living a comfortable existence in a suburb of Coventry, a city in the English Midlands.

Suleiman is the one in the middle

Anonymous published an article back in 2015 that exposed the truth about the SOHR:

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is quoted as though it were the most authoritative source of information to be found in Syria. Such “luminaries” as the Huffington Post,VICE,Reuters, CNN , Fox and nearly all of the mainstream media have been caught citing this website verbatim, without so much as questioning the reliability of this singular source.
Only RT, being a Russian outlet and thus being the butt of a lot of the site’s accusations, seemed at least concerned enough about the authenticity of this source to conduct an investigation into discovering how this authority on all things Syrian had came to existence, and its process for deriving its very-“authentic” information.
Abdel Rahman is the “director” of the SOHR, though it is quite uncertain if he actually has anyone to “direct” as nobody else is known to work for/with him. He works from his two-bedroom Coventry home in the UK; this is why you keep seeing the Mainstream media call him a “London-based monitoring group“. It’s quite funny, really, calling this one man a “London-based monitoring group” in the same vein as The Red Cross.

Aleppo Evacuation May Be Delayed Until Thursday

People walk as they flee deeper into the remaining rebel-held areas of Aleppo, Syria December 13, 2016. REUTERS/Abdalrhman Ismail

December 14, 2016

By Laila Bassam, Tom Perry and Lisa Barrington

ALEPPO, Syria/BEIRUT (Reuters) – The evacuation of rebel-held eastern Aleppo due to start at dawn has been delayed, perhaps until Thursday, with an opposition official blaming Iran and its Shi’ite militias allied to President Bashar al-Assad for the hold-up.

A ceasefire agreement brokered by Russia, Assad’s most powerful ally, and Turkey ended years of fighting in the city and has given the Syrian leader his biggest victory yet after more than five years of war.

Officials in the military alliance fighting in support of Assad could not be reached immediately for comment on why the evacuation was delayed.

Rebel sources said the ceasefire remained in place despite the delay in the evacuation plan.

“What is stopping the agreement presently is Iranian obstinacy. But the deal still stands, the ceasefire stands until now,” said a commander with the rebel Nour al-Din al-Zinki group, speaking in a voice message to Reuters from eastern Aleppo.

Sources on Tuesday had given different expected start times for the evacuation. A military official in the pro-Assad alliance had said the evacuation was due to start at 5 a.m. (0300 GMT), while opposition officials had been expecting a first group of wounded people to leave earlier.

However, none had left by dawn, according to a Reuters witness waiting at the agreed point of departure. Twenty buses were waiting there with their engines running but showed no sign of moving into Aleppo’s rebel-held eastern districts.

“There is certainly a delay,” said Rami Abdulrahman, director of the Syrian Observatory, a war monitor.

Officials with Aleppo-based rebel groups accused Shi’ite militias backed by Iran of obstructing the Russian-brokered deal. The pro-opposition Orient TV cited its correspondent as saying the plan may be delayed until Thursday.

People in eastern Aleppo have been packing their bags and burning personal possessions as they prepare to leave, fearing looting by the Syrian army and its Iranian-backed militia allies when they restore control.

In what appeared to be a separate development from the planned evacuation, Russian defense ministry said 6,000 civilians and 366 fighters had left rebel-held districts of Aleppo over the past 24 hours.

RAPID ADVANCES

The evacuation was the culmination of two weeks of rapid advances by the Syrian army and its allies that drove insurgents back into an ever-smaller pocket of the city under intense air strikes and artillery fire.

By taking full control of Aleppo, Assad has proved the power of his military coalition, aided by Russia’s air force and an array of Shi’ite militias from across the region.

Rebels groups have been supported by the United States, Turkey and Gulf monarchies, but the support they have enjoyed has fallen far short of the direct military backing given to Assad by Russia and Iran.

Russia’s decision to deploy its air force to Syria 18 months ago turned the war in Assad’s favor after rebel advances across key areas of western Syria. In addition to Aleppo, he has won back insurgent strongholds near Damascus this year.

The government and its allies have focused the bulk of their firepower on fighting rebels in western Syria rather than Islamic State, which this week managed to take back the ancient city of Palmyra, once again illustrating the challenge Assad faces reestablishing control over all Syria.

Russia regards the fall of Aleppo as a major victory against terrorists, as it and Assad characterize all the rebel groups, both Islamist and nationalist, fighting to oust him.

But at the United Nations, the United States said the violence in the city, besieged and bombarded for months, represented “modern evil”.

The once-flourishing economic center with its renowned ancient sites has been pulverized during the war, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people, created the world’s worst refugee crisis and allowed the rise of Islamic State.

As the battle for Aleppo unfolded, global concern has risen over the plight of the 250,000 civilians who were thought to remain in its rebel-held eastern sector before the sudden army advance began at the end of November.

Tens of thousands of them fled to parts of the city held by the government or by a Kurdish militia, and tens of thousands more retreated further into the rebel enclave as it rapidly shrank under the army’s lightning advance.

The rout of rebels from their shrinking territory in Aleppo sparked a mass flight of terrified civilians and insurgents in bitter weather, a crisis the United Nations said was a “complete meltdown of humanity”. There were food and water shortages in rebel areas, with all hospitals closed.

“SHOT IN THEIR HOMES”

On Tuesday, the United Nations voiced deep concern about reports it had received of Syrian soldiers and allied Iraqi fighters summarily shooting dead 82 people in recaptured east Aleppo districts. It accused them of “slaughter”.

“The reports we had are of people being shot in the street trying to flee and shot in their homes,” said Rupert Colville, a U.N. spokesman. “There could be many more.”

The Syrian army has denied carrying out killings or torture among those captured, and Russia said on Tuesday rebels had “kept over 100,000 people in east Aleppo as human shields”.

Fear stalked the city’s streets. Some survivors trudged in the rain past dead bodies to the government-held west or the few districts still in rebel hands. Others stayed in their homes and awaited the Syrian army’s arrival.

For all of them, fear of arrest, conscription or summary execution added to the daily terror of bombardment.

“People are saying the troops have lists of families of fighters and are asking them if they had sons with the terrorists. (They are) then either left or shot and left to die,” said Abu Malek al-Shamali in Seif al-Dawla, one of the last rebel-held districts.

Terrible conditions were described by city residents.

Abu Malek al-Shamali, a resident in the rebel area, said dead bodies lay in the streets. “There are many corpses in Fardous and Bustan al-Qasr with no one to bury them,” he said.

(Reporting by Laila Bassam in Aleppo and Tom Perry, John Davison and Lisa Barrington in Beirut; Writing by Angus McDowall in Beirut; Editing by Peter Millership, Paul Tait and Giles Elgood)

(oann.com)

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 12/14/2016 10:08:04 AM
	BRIEFLY Stuff that matters WHAT THE FRACK Shutterstock Methane emissions are racing toward nightmare status. Concentrations of the potent greenhouse gas rose faster and faster in the last decade, and particularly in the last two years, according to two new studies. “If methane keeps going up, we could easily see a degree Fahrenheit increase, independent of CO2,” by the end of the century says Stanford earth scientist Robert Jackson, a coauthor of both studies. “That would be a worst-case scenario.” The cause is largely biological. It’s too soon to pin the blame on one factor, whether flooded rice paddies, growing cattle herds, belching landfills, melting permafrost, or gassy wetlands, but agriculture deserves particular attention, the studies show. That doesn’t mean we can ignore the methane contributions of oil and gas exploration, Jackson cautions, but rather that ag deserves “the same level of scrutiny.” Today, atmospheric methane is up 150 percent from preindustrial levels, so every little bit to reduce emissions counts. Switching up rice varieties, feeding cattle a less gassy diet, and catching emissions from landfills before they’re belched are all important steps, scientists say. Spiking methane isn’t good, but it is a growing opportunity to fight back against changing climate. Amy McDermott Dec 11, 2016 (GRIST)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 12/14/2016 10:19:05 AM
	BRIEFLY Stuff that matters HEART LAND REUTERS/Jim Urquhart Surprise! Trump wants a coal booster and climate change denier to head the Interior Department. He has reportedly offered the job to Montana Rep. Ryan Zinke. (Previous reports that Trump had chosen Rep.Cathy McMorris Rodgers were premature.) Zinke has been a defender of public lands and public access to them, which is notable because the Interior Department manages more than 500 million acres of federal lands. He has gone against his party when Republicans have proposed selling off federal land or transferring it to states. Zinke is a lifelong hunter and fisher, and his Twitter bio says he’s a “Teddy Roosevelt fan.” He is also a fan of coal, which his home state produces a lot of, mostly mined from federal land. In Congress, Zinke opposed a temporary moratorium on coal leasing on federal land as well as renewable energy subsidies. He also supported the Keystone XL pipeline, attacked the Endangered Species Act, and voted to let politically appointed boards manage public lands, positions that helped him earn a paltry 3 percent voting score from the League of Conservation Voters. When it comes to climate change, Zinke reportedly did believe in humanity’s role back in 2008, but now thinks it isn’t “proven science.” (It is.) Hey, it could have been worse. Katie Herzog9 hours ago (GRIST)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 12/14/2016 10:30:37 AM
	New Report To U.N. Special Rapporteur Blasts Secret U.S. Torture Network DECEMBER 12, 2016 LAKE ARROWHEAD, CA. 12 December 2016: A groundbreaking report just released to the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture by the activist organization ITHACA reveals the existence of a massive, secret imprisonment and torture system that targets tens of thousands of Americans each year. (Some have estimated it yields annual profits upwards of $40-billion annually to the perpetrators.1) The report contains affidavits of some 90 individuals documenting violations of the 1984 United Nations Convention Against Torture, including isolation, contraindicated forced drugging, starvation, medical neglect, intimidation, coercion, unnecessary/inappropriate medical procedures, and physical and mental abuse. The victims are not charged or convicted of any crime and are often denied legal representation. “Our report, Adult Guardianships as a Form of Torture in the United States, uncovers something far worse–owing to its scope and extent– than the secret network of CIA prisons revealed last year by the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee,” comments ITHACA spokeswoman Janet Phelan. “These victims are not terror suspects. They are ordinary US citizens who fell into a system which is geared towards fleecing their assets, with no regard for their well being.” Unlike the overseas “black sites,” the ITHACA report points out, the domestic torture system barely reaches the public consciousness because it is protected by a fearsome network of judges, attorneys and other court officers, court-appointed guardians, law enforcement, APS social workers, psychologists and medical personnel. Some of the so-called care facilities are little more than prisons that isolate vulnerable seniors from their loved ones—often from all outside contact. Then the victims are “treated” while their finances are drained in a variety of ways, sometimes through documents they are coerced through a variety of “ways” to sign. Once their finances are sufficiently depleted, death often follows swiftly. And the evidence is frequently quickly destroyed by cremation before loved ones have a chance to see the body or get an autopsy. Those fighting to defend their loved ones (and sometimes lawyers or others who make the mistake of trying to help) also face retaliation, detailed in the ITHACA report. This can include disbarment for attorneys and loss of licenses for medical and other professionals. In some cases, families are ruined by legal costs trying to save a loved one trapped in the system. (One account details an impoverished woman with a disabled husband threatened with $9000 in legal fees for objecting to a court-appointed guardian who was issued letters of guardianship, in violation of state law, listing false credentials. This threat was used to force her to drop the objection. ) Others grow sick from the hopeless struggle and die of heart attacks or other illness—sometimes under suspicious circumstances. Still others face legal harassment and are forced to leave the country. As detailed in the report, some have faced jail or prison. The ITHACA report points out a major loophole for potential torturers. There is little hope from the higher courts, despite the fact that many victims and their loved ones should be protected by the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA.) States the report: The US Supreme Court has taken a position concerning guardianship and probate matters. Known as “the probate exception,” this essentially removes the Supreme Court from any necessity on issuing decisions in matters arising in state probate courts. The difficulty in finding remedies to exhaust is enhanced by the tendencies of probate courts to issue gag orders and restraining orders against litigants, which may bar them from exercising their legal rights to make further reports or otherwise engage justice agencies. That’s right. The ITHACA report reveals to the U.N. Special Rapporteur that the U.S. legal system is complicit in this alleged wholesale looting and torture of seniors. The local courts have the power—and use the power—to seal records containing damning evidence, have photographs proving potential torture destroyed, issue gag orders to relatives and witnesses, and issue various restraining orders that prevent exposure of violations of the U.N. Convention on Torture. NOTE TO REPORTERS: The complete report and attachments are available from ITHACA, P.O. Box 50, PMB 207, Lake Arrowhead, CA 92352, Tel.: (541) 708-3534. (1)Estimate on pg. 53 of “Guardianship: How Judges and Lawyers Steal Your Money,” by M. Larsen, Copyright 2015, M. Larsen. ISBN No.: 0692586210. Image Credit
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 12/14/2016 3:09:56 PM
	Aleppo Evacuation May Be Delayed Until Thursday People walk as they flee deeper into the remaining rebel-held areas of Aleppo, Syria December 13, 2016. REUTERS/Abdalrhman Ismail December 14, 2016 By Laila Bassam, Tom Perry and Lisa Barrington ALEPPO, Syria/BEIRUT (Reuters) – The evacuation of rebel-held eastern Aleppo due to start at dawn has been delayed, perhaps until Thursday, with an opposition official blaming Iran and its Shi’ite militias allied to President Bashar al-Assad for the hold-up. A ceasefire agreement brokered by Russia, Assad’s most powerful ally, and Turkey ended years of fighting in the city and has given the Syrian leader his biggest victory yet after more than five years of war. Officials in the military alliance fighting in support of Assad could not be reached immediately for comment on why the evacuation was delayed. Rebel sources said the ceasefire remained in place despite the delay in the evacuation plan. “What is stopping the agreement presently is Iranian obstinacy. But the deal still stands, the ceasefire stands until now,” said a commander with the rebel Nour al-Din al-Zinki group, speaking in a voice message to Reuters from eastern Aleppo. Sources on Tuesday had given different expected start times for the evacuation. A military official in the pro-Assad alliance had said the evacuation was due to start at 5 a.m. (0300 GMT), while opposition officials had been expecting a first group of wounded people to leave earlier. However, none had left by dawn, according to a Reuters witness waiting at the agreed point of departure. Twenty buses were waiting there with their engines running but showed no sign of moving into Aleppo’s rebel-held eastern districts. “There is certainly a delay,” said Rami Abdulrahman, director of the Syrian Observatory, a war monitor. Officials with Aleppo-based rebel groups accused Shi’ite militias backed by Iran of obstructing the Russian-brokered deal. The pro-opposition Orient TV cited its correspondent as saying the plan may be delayed until Thursday. People in eastern Aleppo have been packing their bags and burning personal possessions as they prepare to leave, fearing looting by the Syrian army and its Iranian-backed militia allies when they restore control. In what appeared to be a separate development from the planned evacuation, Russian defense ministry said 6,000 civilians and 366 fighters had left rebel-held districts of Aleppo over the past 24 hours. RAPID ADVANCES The evacuation was the culmination of two weeks of rapid advances by the Syrian army and its allies that drove insurgents back into an ever-smaller pocket of the city under intense air strikes and artillery fire. By taking full control of Aleppo, Assad has proved the power of his military coalition, aided by Russia’s air force and an array of Shi’ite militias from across the region. Rebels groups have been supported by the United States, Turkey and Gulf monarchies, but the support they have enjoyed has fallen far short of the direct military backing given to Assad by Russia and Iran. Russia’s decision to deploy its air force to Syria 18 months ago turned the war in Assad’s favor after rebel advances across key areas of western Syria. In addition to Aleppo, he has won back insurgent strongholds near Damascus this year. The government and its allies have focused the bulk of their firepower on fighting rebels in western Syria rather than Islamic State, which this week managed to take back the ancient city of Palmyra, once again illustrating the challenge Assad faces reestablishing control over all Syria. Russia regards the fall of Aleppo as a major victory against terrorists, as it and Assad characterize all the rebel groups, both Islamist and nationalist, fighting to oust him. But at the United Nations, the United States said the violence in the city, besieged and bombarded for months, represented “modern evil”. The once-flourishing economic center with its renowned ancient sites has been pulverized during the war, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people, created the world’s worst refugee crisis and allowed the rise of Islamic State. As the battle for Aleppo unfolded, global concern has risen over the plight of the 250,000 civilians who were thought to remain in its rebel-held eastern sector before the sudden army advance began at the end of November. Tens of thousands of them fled to parts of the city held by the government or by a Kurdish militia, and tens of thousands more retreated further into the rebel enclave as it rapidly shrank under the army’s lightning advance. The rout of rebels from their shrinking territory in Aleppo sparked a mass flight of terrified civilians and insurgents in bitter weather, a crisis the United Nations said was a “complete meltdown of humanity”. There were food and water shortages in rebel areas, with all hospitals closed. “SHOT IN THEIR HOMES” On Tuesday, the United Nations voiced deep concern about reports it had received of Syrian soldiers and allied Iraqi fighters summarily shooting dead 82 people in recaptured east Aleppo districts. It accused them of “slaughter”. “The reports we had are of people being shot in the street trying to flee and shot in their homes,” said Rupert Colville, a U.N. spokesman. “There could be many more.” The Syrian army has denied carrying out killings or torture among those captured, and Russia said on Tuesday rebels had “kept over 100,000 people in east Aleppo as human shields”. Fear stalked the city’s streets. Some survivors trudged in the rain past dead bodies to the government-held west or the few districts still in rebel hands. Others stayed in their homes and awaited the Syrian army’s arrival. For all of them, fear of arrest, conscription or summary execution added to the daily terror of bombardment. “People are saying the troops have lists of families of fighters and are asking them if they had sons with the terrorists. (They are) then either left or shot and left to die,” said Abu Malek al-Shamali in Seif al-Dawla, one of the last rebel-held districts. Terrible conditions were described by city residents. Abu Malek al-Shamali, a resident in the rebel area, said dead bodies lay in the streets. “There are many corpses in Fardous and Bustan al-Qasr with no one to bury them,” he said. (Reporting by Laila Bassam in Aleppo and Tom Perry, John Davison and Lisa Barrington in Beirut; Writing by Angus McDowall in Beirut; Editing by Peter Millership, Paul Tait and Giles Elgood) (oann.com)
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