Glenn Greenwald Rebuttal To Washington Post’s Walter Pincus

"That you decided to write an entire column grounded solely in baseless innuendo is between you and your editors. But your assertion of several factually false claims about me, Laura Poitras, and others is not. [...] Our NSA stories have been published and discussed in countless countries around the world, where they have sparked shock, indignation and demands for investigation. So revealingly, it is only American journalists who have decided to focus their intrepid journalistic attention not on the extremist and legally dubious surveillance behavior of the US government and serial deceit by its top officials, but on those who revealed all of that to the world." Continue reading

Continue ReadingGlenn Greenwald Rebuttal To Washington Post’s Walter Pincus

Kim Dotcom: All Megaupload servers ‘wiped out without warning in data massacre’

"Kim Dotcom has accused the US government and Leaseweb, one of the hosting providers of former file-sharing site Megaupload, of deleting millions of personal files 'without warning.' The information stored on the dormant servers – 'petabytes of pictures, backups, personal & business property' – was what Dotcom called evidence in the case US authorities launched against him in January 2012. Dotcom is wanted in the US on criminal charges for facilitating copyright fraud on a massive scale. 'This is the largest data massacre in the history of the Internet,' Dotcom wrote on Twitter." Continue reading

Continue ReadingKim Dotcom: All Megaupload servers ‘wiped out without warning in data massacre’

World Service Authority Issues World Passport to Edward Snowden

"Edward Snowden is an alleged National Security Agency whistleblower who exposed the mass monitoring of U.S. citizens. Deprived of his United States Passport, he is currently immobilized in a Moscow Airport Transit Lounge with no ongoing ticket to any nation. This is a flagrant violation of Article 13 (2) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states the following: (Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.) The World Service Authority (WSA), a Washington D.C. corporation and executive branch of the World Government of World Citizens, has issued Mr. Snowden a World Passport so he can travel without limitation." Continue reading

Continue ReadingWorld Service Authority Issues World Passport to Edward Snowden

Michel Chossudovsky: US controlling both sides of Egypt coup

"Press TV has conducted an interview with Michel Chossudovsky, Center for Research on Globalization from Montreal about the coup d'état by the Egyptian military that has deposed the elected Morsi government after large anti-government protests arose." Continue reading

Continue ReadingMichel Chossudovsky: US controlling both sides of Egypt coup

Why Sir John Templeton renounced US citizenship – AKA why the US shot itself in the foot

"The media is prone to depict Templeton as a tax cheat. The reason? Had he been a U.S. citizen when he died, the U.S. government would have received approximately 100 million in estate taxes. I am not aware of Templeton ever publicly stating his reasons for renouncing U.S. citizenship. Nobody knows for sure. But, I suspect that the correlation between his renouncing U.S. citizenship in 1964 and the enactment of the CFC (Controlled Foreign Corporation and SubPart F) rules in 1962 did play a role. The 1962 changes in the Internal Revenue Code meant that Templeton may have been forced to choose between U.S. citizenship and his mutual fund business." Continue reading

Continue ReadingWhy Sir John Templeton renounced US citizenship – AKA why the US shot itself in the foot

WSJ Report: Larry Summers “Hellbent” on Becoming Fed Chairman

"Larry Summers, a former top economic adviser to President Obama, is speaking, writing, consulting, advising, teaching and still in frequent contact with the president, and some of his friends say he is more than a little interested in the Fed job, reports WSJ. But WSJ fails to point out that Summers may in reality not be that smart or caring. The Harvard endowment, when Summers was president of Harvard, lost substantial sums because of risky derivative positions that blew up on them. Iris Mack, then working for Harvard Management, which managed the endowment, warned Summers about the position in an email. He refused to lower the risk and Mack was fired." Continue reading

Continue ReadingWSJ Report: Larry Summers “Hellbent” on Becoming Fed Chairman

Is Actor Johnny Revilla Stateless?

"Actor Johnny Revilla, who starred in 'The Strangers', now sits as a representative of the Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW) Family Club in the Philippine House of Representatives, after taking oath on the 26th of June, 2014, could face up to seven years of imprisonment if he is a U.S. citizen. Documentation obtained from the Philippine Bureau of Immigration shows that he travelled using an American passport from 2002 up to 2009. According to OFW Family Club Rep. Roy Seneres of OFW, the former Philippine Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, Johnny cannot be a citizen of the Philippines if he is a citizen of America. Yet, such is not the case." Continue reading

Continue ReadingIs Actor Johnny Revilla Stateless?

Before Sir John Marks Templeton, there was Cleveland Ferguson

"A few years before Templeton made his famous move to the Bahamas, another American went and made a name for himself by discussing his desire to give up his citizenship and resettle on that famous island of warm breezes and low taxes. Meet Mr. Cleveland Ferguson, Bahamian immigrant and disabled Korean War veteran. If Mr. Ferguson had been able to afford his day in court, he might have won early recognition of the fact finally recognised by a court in 2010: that no formal declaration of war is necessary to allow renunciations under that provision (now renumbered to § 349(a)(6)), as long as there exist hostilities." Continue reading

Continue ReadingBefore Sir John Marks Templeton, there was Cleveland Ferguson

US – Sri Lankans “Asked” to Register with their Banks — What if they don’t do so voluntarily?

"This newspaper notice was placed in a Sri Lankan newspaper last month by the Sri Lanka Banker’s Association, requesting the voluntary ‘registration’ of U.S. Persons with their banks to facilitate the identification of U.S. Persons under FATCA. The voluntary registration was, apparently, not required by the Sri Lanka Central Bank, and Sri Lanka has not (yet) publicly signed an IGA or waived Sri Lankan banking secrecy to allow banks to directly enter into agreements with the IRS. Certainly, the notice for voluntarily registering oneself harkens back to 1939 for some of us, and exemplifies the positive discrimination that FATCA requires." Continue reading

Continue ReadingUS – Sri Lankans “Asked” to Register with their Banks — What if they don’t do so voluntarily?