Aaron Alexis: Washington Navy Yard Shooting
September 16th, 2013Update: SWAT Team ‘Stood Down’ at Mass Shooting Scene
Is this the most obviously staged mass shooting ever?
Sent in by afterhours.
Via: BBC:
One of the first teams of heavily armed police to respond to Monday’s shooting in Washington DC was ordered to stand down by superiors, the BBC can reveal.
A tactical response team of the Capitol Police, a force that guards the US Capitol complex, was told to leave the scene by a supervisor instead of aiding municipal officers.
The Capitol Police department has launched a review into the matter.
Aaron Alexis, 34, killed 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard.
“I don’t think it’s a far stretch to say that some lives may have been saved if we were allowed to intervene,” a Capitol Police source familiar with the incident told the BBC.
A former Navy reservist, Alexis was working as a technical contractor for the Navy and had a valid pass and security clearance allowing him entry to the highly secure building in south-east Washington DC.
About 8:15 local time (12:15 GMT), Alexis entered Building 197, headquarters for Naval Sea Systems Command, which builds and maintains ships and submarines for the Navy, and opened fire.
Armed with a shotgun and a pistol he took from a guard he had shot, he sprayed bullets down a hallway and fired from a balcony down on to workers in an atrium.
He fired on police officers who eventually stormed the building, and was later killed in the shootout.
Multiple sources in the Capitol Police department have told the BBC that its highly trained and heavily armed four-man Containment and Emergency Response Team (Cert) was near the Navy Yard when the initial report of an active shooter came in about 8:20 local time.
The officers, wearing full tactical gear and armed with HK-416 assault weapons, arrived outside Building 197 a few minutes later, an official with knowledge of the incident told the BBC.
According to a Capitol Police source, an officer with the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), Washington DC’s main municipal force, told the Capitol Cert officers they were the only police on the site equipped with long guns and requested their help stopping the gunman.
When the Capitol Police team radioed their superiors, they were told by a watch commander to leave the scene, the BBC was told.
The gunman, Aaron Alexis, was reported killed after 09:00.
Several Capitol Police sources who spoke to the BBC asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal.
Capitol Police Officer Jim Konczos, who leads the officers’ union, said the Cert police train for what are known as active shooter situations and are expert marksmen.
“Odds are it might have had a different outcome,” he said of Monday’s shooting and the decision to order the Cert unit to stand down. “It probably could have been neutralised.”
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Update: “My ELF Weapon”
Sent in by bretwalda.
Via: Washington Post:
Aaron Alexis carved bizarre phrases on the stock of his shotgun before he killed 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard on Monday, and investigators are hoping the words provide clues to what prompted the shooting, two law enforcement officials said.
The phrases were “Better off this way” and “My ELF weapon,” according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.
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Update: Alexis Described Gang Stalking Scenario
My position on gang stalking is a bit unusual: While I think that most people who claim to be victims of gang stalking are very obviously suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, the U.S. Government has been involved with the development of systems that COULD be used in gang stalking scenarios for decades. As a single example, see something like, The Microwave Scream Inside Your Skull. See any of the dozens of gang stalking sites for hundreds of more references along these lines.
I’ve personally dealt with people who claimed to be victims of gang stalking and they always refuse to involve an objective third party in their investigations. An objective third party, armed with a video camera and an RF meter, could gather quantitative evidence of the gang stalking phenomena. The people I’ve dealt with never follow my advice to focus on gathering quantitative evidence which would be present if the situation was really happening.
So, yes, paranoid schizophrenia is a terrifying condition that explains a lot in the world of gang stalking. And, yes, the U.S. Government has developed directed energy weapons for mind control.
As for what really happened with Aaron Alexis, I have no idea.
Via: The Smoking Gun:
Six weeks before going on a killing spree at the Washington Navy Yard, Aaron Alexis told Rhode Island police that he was being followed by individuals who were using a “microwave machine” to send vibrations into his body that kept him from falling asleep, according to a bizarre police report.
On August 7, Alexis summoned Newport cops to a Marriott hotel where he was staying. During a 6:30 AM interview, the 34-year-old–who said he was a “naval contractor” who traveled often–told officers that voices were harassing him through a hotel wall, adding that he was fearful he could be harmed.
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Update: ‘Military’s Background Check System Failed to Block Gunman with a History of Arrests’
Via: Washington Post:
The military’s beleaguered background check system failed to block suspected Navy Yard gunman Aaron Alexis from an all-access pass to a half-dozen military installations, despite a history of arrests for shooting episodes and disorderly conduct.
Alexis, a military contractor working on a computer project, used his secret-level clearance to gain entry to the Washington Navy Yard on Monday, where officials said he gunned down a dozen people before being killed by police.
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Update: Multiple Shooters?
Via: Yahoo:
There were multiple fatalities Monday morning following a shooting at the Washington Navy Yard, officials said. One gunman died in the shooting, and police are seeking two other possible shooters.
The Navy Yard was placed on lockdown after multiple shots were fired inside a building on the base, the U.S. Navy said. At least 10 people were injured in the shooting, including eight civilians, one Washington Metro police officer and one base officer, D.C. Metro Police said. According to the Associated Press, six people were killed. It’s unclear if that figure includes the gunman.
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Via: CBS:
The U.S. Navy says one person is injured after a shooting at a Navy building in Washington.
Police and emergency crews gathered Monday morning outside the heavily-guarded Naval Sea Systems Command Headquarters building, where the shooting was reported.
The Navy says three shots were fired and that that about 3,000 people work in the building. People inside the building have been directed to stay in place.
CBS affiliate WUSA in Washington, D.C., reports there were multiple shootings.
In a press release, the Navy said the shooting happened at approximately 8:30 a.m. ET.
Naval Sea Systems Command is the largest of the Navy’s five system commands and accounts for a quarter of the Navy’s entire budget.
It builds, buys and maintains the Navy’s ships and submarines and their combat systems.
Teach People About Food Atrocities with an App?
September 16th, 2013Via: Chipotle Mexican Grill – Scarecrow The Game:
Related: The Chipotle Cultivate Foundation
Research Credit: ottilie
Israeli Settlers Torch Hebron Family’s Property for Eighth Time
September 16th, 2013Via: International Solidarity Movement:
On Sunday, July 28, Israeli settlers severely burned land belonging to Hani Abu Haikel and his family in Hebron. Occupation soldiers, though at first trying to help stop the fire, ended up blocking the road so that Palestinian firefighters were delayed in reaching the scene. Several very old olive trees were destroyed in the fire which swept over immense swathes of land very quickly. In the video below, Hani Abu Haikel speaks about the incident and how Israeli settlers, soldiers and police work together to pressure Palestinian families to leave the Israeli-controlled H2 district of occupied Hebron.
Research Credit: almaverdad2
No Child Left Untableted
September 16th, 2013A division of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation is supplying tablet computers and curricula to students in the U.S.
In other words, the world’s most diabolical propagandist is receiving public money (Department of Education’s Race to the Top program—no joke) to provide screen based education to thousands of students in the U.S. This could expand to millions of students in the near future.
The Slashdot post on this contains many related and disturbing links.
Via: New York Times Magazine:
One afternoon, we watched a half-dozen students from nearby schools eat chips and test games on Amplify tablets. The raptly tender way they touched, pinched and stroked the screens awoke in me an urge to yank the gadgets and junk food out of their hands and lead them to a library or a good climbing tree.
Abu Ghraib Torture Victims Ordered To Pay U.S. Contractor’s Legal Fees
September 15th, 2013Via: Huntington Post:
A federal judge on Wednesday ordered four Iraqis who were imprisoned at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison to pay nearly $14,000 in legal fees to defense contractor CACI, an Arlington, Va.-based company that supplied interrogators to the U.S. government during the Iraq War.
The decision in favor of CACI stemmed from a lawsuit filed by the former prisoners in 2008, alleging that CACI employees directed the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. The suit was dismissed in June, when U.S. District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee ruled that because the alleged acts took place on foreign soil, CACI was “immune from suit” in U.S. court.
More Details on Claims SAS Assassinated Diana
September 15th, 2013Via: 7News:
A former soldier told his wife Princess Diana was murdered by the SAS after they shone a light into her driver’s face, according to reports in the British media.
The ex-SAS sergeant, who is only referred to as Soldier N, is reported to have told his then-wife a former member of the elite squad was in charge of an assassination squad.
Princess Diana, Dodi Al Fayed and their driver Henri Paul were killed in the crash in 1997.
The extraordinary claim is reported to have happened after Soldier N had taken Prince William on an advanced driving course in 2008.
It is reported Soldier N’s ex-wife told Scotland Yard last month that her husband had revealed the secret after a conversation about the Prince’s driving course.
The couple are now separated but the conversation occurred while they were still together.
“We were talking about it and I was saying how lovely it was that Princes William and Harry were doing so well and that it was sad that their mum wasn’t here to see it,” the wife said according to a source, reports the Sunday Mirror.
“Then he said one of the guys was responsible for the accident, for the death of Diana. I was shocked. I believed what he said.
“He went on to tell me that it had to be done in a tunnel, that people had been monitoring them – a light was shone in the driver’s eyes.”
When pressed on details, her husband said that the SAS had been following Diana and Dodi Al Fayed on the night they were killed and a night was shone into the Paris tunnel before the car crashed.
He also intimated it was because the royal inner circle disapproved of Diana’s relationship with Fayed.
It is believed the revelations could have been the trigger for Scotland Yard’s reported decision to reopen the case 16 years after Diana’s death.
In separate reports, the Sunday Express claimed it has been revealed Princess Diana’s phone had been bugged and the investigation could unearth recordings of the crash.
Research Credit: GB
Recovery: More Americans Identify Themselves as ‘Lower Class’
September 15th, 2013Via: Los Angeles Times:
Roquemore is among the small but surging share of Americans who identify themselves as “lower class.” Last year, a record 8.4% of Americans put themselves in that category — more than at any other time in the four decades that the question has been asked on the General Social Survey, a project of the independent research organization Norc at the University of Chicago.
The rising numbers surprised some researchers and activists even in light of the bruising economy. For decades, the vast majority of Americans have seen themselves as “middle class” or “working class.” Even during earlier downturns, so few people called themselves lower class that scholars routinely lumped them with working class. Activists for the poor often avoid the term, deeming it an insult.
When people call themselves lower class, “we’ll say, ‘You’re not lower than someone else. You just have less money,'” said Michaelann Bewsee, co-founder of Arise for Social Justice, a Massachusetts low-income rights group. But many don’t consider it insulting today, Bewsee said.
“They’re just reflecting their economic reality,” she said.
Unemployment surged during the downturn. Millions of homes were repossessed in the years since, and millions more people slipped into poverty. And years after the recession ended, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported record shares of households were still struggling, at times, to put adequate food on the table.
Global Credit Situation Worse than Pre-Lehman
September 15th, 2013Via: Telegraph:
Extreme forms of credit excess across the world have reached or surpassed levels seen shortly before the Lehman crisis five years ago, the Bank for International Settlements has warned.
Extreme forms of credit excess across the world have reached or surpassed levels seen shortly before the Lehman crisis five years ago, the Bank for International Settlements has warned.
The Swiss-based `bank of central banks’ said a hunt for yield was luring investors en masse into high-risk instruments, “a phenomenon reminiscent of exuberance prior to the global financial crisis”.
This is happening just as the US Federal Reserve prepares to wind down stimulus and starts to drain dollar liquidity from global markets, an inflexion point that is fraught with danger and could go badly wrong.
“This looks like to me like 2007 all over again, but even worse,” said William White, the BIS’s former chief economist, famous for flagging the wild behaviour in the debt markets before the global storm hit in 2008.
“All the previous imbalances are still there. Total public and private debt levels are 30pc higher as a share of GDP in the advanced economies than they were then, and we have added a whole new problem with bubbles in emerging markets that are ending in a boom-bust cycle,” said Mr White, now chairman of the OECD’s Economic Development and Review Committee.
‘Follow the Money’: NSA Spies on International Payments
September 15th, 2013Via: Spiegel:
The United States’ NSA intelligence agency is interested in international payments processed by companies including Visa, SPIEGEL has learned. It has even set up its own financial database to track money flows through a “tailored access operations” division.
The National Security Agency (NSA) widely monitors international payments, banking and credit card transactions, according to documents seen by SPIEGEL.
The information from the American foreign intelligence agency, acquired by former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden, show that the spying is conducted by a branch called “Follow the Money” (FTM). The collected information then flows into the NSA’s own financial databank, called “Tracfin,” which in 2011 contained 180 million records. Some 84 percent of the data is from credit card transactions.
Further NSA documents from 2010 show that the NSA also targets the transactions of customers of large credit card companies like VISA for surveillance. NSA analysts at an internal conference that year described in detail how they had apparently successfully searched through the US company’s complex transaction network for tapping possibilities.
Their aim was to gain access to transactions by VISA customers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, according to one presentation. The goal was to “collect, parse and ingest transactional data for priority credit card associations, focusing on priority geographic regions.” In response to a SPIEGEL inquiry, however, a VISA spokeswoman ruled out the possibility that data could be taken from company-run networks.
The NSA’s Tracfin data bank also contained data from the Brussels-based Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), a network used by thousands of banks to send transaction information securely. SWIFT was named as a “target,” according to the documents, which also show that the NSA spied on the organization on several levels, involving, among others, the agency’s “tailored access operations” division. One of the ways the agency accessed the data included reading “SWIFT printer traffic from numerous banks,” the documents show.
Oxford Researchers Say 45 Percent of America’s Occupations Will be Automated Within the Next 20 Years
September 15th, 2013Via: MIT Technology Review:
Rapid advances in technology have long represented a serious potential threat to many jobs ordinarily performed by people.
A recent report (which is not online, but summarized here) from the Oxford Martin School’s Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology attempts to quantify the extent of that threat. It concludes that 45 percent of American jobs are at high risk of being taken by computers within the next two decades.
The authors believe this takeover will happen in two stages. First, computers will start replacing people in especially vulnerable fields like transportation/logistics, production labor, and administrative support. Jobs in services, sales, and construction may also be lost in this first stage. Then, the rate of replacement will slow down due to bottlenecks in harder-to-automate fields such engineering. This “technological plateau” will be followed by a second wave of computerization, dependent upon the development of good artificial intelligence. This could next put jobs in management, science and engineering, and the arts at risk.
