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They can already hack the iPhone – FBI’s public display is propaganda

FROM THE EDITOR:

Dear readers, if you are a mainstream media watcher and reader, you’ve probably been somewhat aware that the FBI and Apple Co. have been in a controversial conversation where the government wants Appel to create a door in your iPhone security and allow the government to have access to the private data. A dangerous break from our freedom as free people is about to happen if Apple cedes to the government demands. The following article, written by Justin Gardner, brings up a bit of what the controversy is all about.

by Justin Gardner
The apparent battle between Apple and the FBI at least tells us that the post-Snowden privacy debate is still alive. The subject of the controversy is an iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino shooters, and the FBI did not choose this case randomly.
If the surveillance state is to have any hope of gaining their vaunted “backdoor” into the electronic devices of everyone, then preying on the fear of terrorism has the biggest chance of success.
James Comey appears quite earnest about protecting Americans from evil:
“Fourteen people were slaughtered and many more had their lives and bodies ruined,” Comey wrote on the Lawfare blog. “We owe them a thorough and professional investigation under law.
We simply want the chance, with a search warrant, to try to guess the terrorist’s passcode without the phone essentially self-destructing and without it taking a decade to guess correctly,” he wrote. “That’s it. We don’t want to break anyone’s encryption or set a master key loose on the land.”
Apple CEO Tim Cook does not agree:
“The government suggests this tool could only be used once, on one phone. But that’s simply not true,” Cook wrote. “Once created, the technique could be used over and over again, on any number of devices. In the physical world, it would be the equivalent of a master key, capable of opening hundreds of millions of locks — from restaurants and banks to stores and homes. No reasonable person would find that acceptable.”
Comey said the phone’s data might have information leading them to other terrorists, even though indications are that the two shooters were self-radicalized.
However, what if this debate is actually a sideshow? What if the government already has the ability to hack into the iPhone?
As the surveillance state was met with fierce resistance for trying to force companies to install “backdoors” to their encryption, it was looking for other ways to gain the access it desires.
A secret “decision memo” was recently leaked to the press which details a meeting of the National Security Council that took place last November. The meeting of senior officials provided a framework for attempts to work around the “backdoor” issue, and shows that agencies already possess a deep understanding of tech companies’ encryption.
“What the court is ordering Apple to do, security experts say, does not require the company to crack its own encryption, which the company says it cannot do in any case. Instead, the order requires Apple to create a piece of software that takes advantage of a capability that Apple alone possesses to modify the permanently installed “firmware” on iPhones and iPads, changing it so that investigators can try unlimited guesses at the terror suspect’s PIN code with high-powered computers. Once investigators get the PIN, they get the data.
Knake said that the Justice Department’s narrowly crafted request shows both that FBI technical experts possess a deep understanding of the way Apple’s security systems work and that they have identified potential vulnerabilities that can provide access to data the company has. In this case, the government wants Apple’s help in exploiting such weaknesses. But experts say they could find ways to do it themselves, and the NSC “decision memo” could lead to more money and legal authorization for a smorgasbord of similar workarounds.”
Many security experts believe that the FBI and NSA can already hack into an iPhone without Apple’s help, using a number of techniques such as “infrared laser glitching” or “de-capping.” Edward Snowden backed this up last week in a virtual interview with Johns Hopkins University. These techniques, although risky to the chip, are already in use by the most advanced hackers and, very likely, the NSA.
If the government already has its own access to the iPhone, then the FBI’s chosen “debate” with Apple is an exercise in wearing down public resistance to the surveillance state.
The Department of Justice (DoJ) could have used a dozen other cases of locked phones to push this debate. On Tuesday, it was reported that DoJ was pursuing about 12 court orders to force Apple to help extract data from iPhones. But the San Bernardino terror case gave them an opportunity to sway public opinion.
Indeed, as The Intercept reports, authoritarians are salivating at the possibility of trampling over the last defense of tech companies and privacy advocates.
“In Suffolk County, Massachusetts, district attorney’s office spokesperson Jake Wark said prosecutors “can’t rule out” bringing their own case of a locked cellphone before a judge, too. “It may be a question of finding the right case,” he told the Wall Street Journal.
“It’s going to have significant ramifications on us locally,” Matt Rokus, deputy chief of Wisconsin’s Eau Claire Police Department, told the city’s Leader-Telegram newspaper on Monday.
In South Dakota, Minnehaha County State’s Attorney Aaron McGowan told the Sioux Falls Argus Leader that “the court’s ruling could have a significant impact on conducting sensitive criminal investigations.”…
In a new letter to customers posted on Monday, Apple drew attention to the enthusiastic response from other law enforcers: “Law enforcement agents around the country have already said they have hundreds of iPhones they want Apple to unlock if the FBI wins this case.”
Then there is the unusual piece of news that the Apple password on the shooter’s iPhone was changed less than 24 hours after the shooting, which meant that automatic iCloud backups were put on hold. The password was changed by someone at the San Bernardino Health Department at the FBI’s behest.
Apple says that if this had not happened, all the information sought by the FBI might be present on iCloud backups. It now only has backups up to the week of October 19. The FBI claims that it did this to gain “immediate access to the iCloud backup data.” But why would it sacrifice total access to gain immediate access?
After having created the difficulty of gaining the access it wants, government is now attempting to force the tech company to create the backdoor to encryption wanted so badly by the surveillance state.
Federal government is unrelenting in its drive to sacrifice freedom for “security,” and they never let a tragedy go to waste.

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Turmeric able to ‘smart kill’ cancer

Chemotherapy and radiation now medically obsolete Radiation now medically obsolete

by Daniel Barker

Turmeric has long been one of the most prized spices from the East, but its benefits extend far beyond the wonderful flavor and color it lends to many recipes. The health-promoting properties of turmeric have been known for millennia, but only recently has it been discovered that the bright orange spice is also a powerful ally in preventing and curing cancer.
It’s been cultivated for more than 5,000 years in the tropics of Asia, where the brown-skinned root with the bright-orange flesh has been valued for the treatment of a number of conditions including “toothache, chest pain, urinary tract infection, flatulence, jaundice, menstrual discomforts, bruises, hemorrhage, and colic.”
The spice made its way to the West through Arab trade routes during the 13th century and has become popular throughout the world. Turmeric is now grown in tropical regions such as India, the Philippines and the Caribbean, and is probably best known as one of the fundamental ingredients of curry dishes.
It has more recently been discovered that turmeric has the potential to replace chemotherapy and radiation in the treatment of certain cancers – and it has been proven to prevent and fight virtually every type of cancer.
From TheTruthAboutCancer.com:
Turmeric’s active ingredient is an extracted compound called curcumin. Studies have shown that curcumin helps prevent several forms of cancer including breast, lung, stomach, liver, and colon because of its anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. It stops the development of cancer by interfering with the cellular signaling aspects of the chronic disease.
Curcumin’s nearly miraculous “smart kill” properties work to inhibit the growth of tumors and the spread of cancer in fundamental ways at the cellular level. It has the laboratory-proven capability to inhibit a particular cancer-promoting enzyme (COX-2), impede blood supply to cancer cells, induce tumor-suppressing genes, stop metastasis (the spread of cancer throughout the body’s organs), kill lymphoma cells and prevent the regrowth of cancer stem cells.
The ability to target cancer stem cells is one of curcumin’s most powerful anti-cancer properties, as a recent study revealed.
From GreenMedInfo.com:
[T]he study describes the wide range of molecular mechanisms presently identified by which curcumin attacks cancer stem cells (CSCs), which are the minority subpopulation of self-renewing cells within a tumor colony, and which alone are capable of producing all the other cells within a tumor, making them the most lethal, tumoriogenic of all cells within most if not all cancers.

Because CSCs are resistant to chemotherapy, radiation, and may even be provoked towards increased invasiveness through surgical intervention, they are widely believed to be responsible for tumor recurrence and the failure of conventional treatment.
It can only be hoped that the FDA and Big Pharma don’t find a way to outlaw curcumin, since it seems to have as much promise as marijuana as a cancer preventative and cure. That statement is made only partly in jest because, as always, if a potential cure for a disease can be found in Nature, the pharmaceutical drug makers have no use for it since it cuts into their profit margins.
When natural cures and preventatives are proven to have merit, the drug industry will typically go to great lengths to denounce and prevent their use, or at least find ways to synthesize and patent them so that they can be sold to the public for enormous profits, whether their versions are safe and effective or not – and often the pharmaceutical versions are neither.
So it’s a good idea to begin introducing turmeric into your diet now (if you haven’t already) – and it happens to be a very versatile spice.
Curries wouldn’t be the same without turmeric – it’s one of the main spices found in most variations of the dish and provides its distinctive color and taste – but it’s also a fantastic ingredient that can be used in many other recipes, including soups, meats, rice dishes, and stews. It’s also great with eggs, potatoes and even smoothies. In addition, you can also pair it with black pepper, which helps make curcumin more effective.
The amazing spice turmeric is yet another proof that Mother Nature provides us with everything we need… (Naturalnews).

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Beyond deportation

OAKLAND, CA - 3JULY14 - In front of Oakland's Federal Building young people from immigrant youth groups protest against the detention and deportation of young migrants and families on the U.S. border, and especially against President Obama's decision to increase border enforcement and deport them more quickly. The Border Patrol has detained an increasing number of children from Central American countries. Copyright David Bacon

Fixing a broken immigration system

by David Bacon
The American Prospect

When President Obama appointed Dollie Gee to the U.S. District Court in 2010, he undoubtedly didn’t expect her to mount a frontal challenge to his administration’s detention and deportation policies. But five years after her elevation as the first Chinese American woman on the federal bench, Gee ruled last summer that holding Central American women and children in private detention lockups was illegal.
Gee didn’t mince words. She called the detentions “deplorable.” And she denounced as “fear-mongering” the claim by Homeland Security lawyers that the detentions would discourage more people from leaving Central America.
Her angry tone shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Gee’s father was an immigrant engineer and her mother a garment worker in a Los Angeles sweatshop. After law school, as a young lawyer, Gee sued employers for discrimination and then worked for the Teamsters Union, helping workers and immigrants win representation elections. For Chinese Americans, today’s detentions contain ugly echoes of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which led to the brutal detention of thousands of Chinese immigrants on Angel Island in San Francisco Bay 128 years ago.
Gee ruled that imprisoning families violated the Flores Settlement, an agreement by the federal government in 1997 that it would release children whenever possible, and hold them in the least restrictive conditions when it could find no one to care for them. But the U.S. appealed Gee’s ruling, handed down in August of last year, and in December the Obama administration announced that it would begin deporting Central American migrants who had arrived after May 2014, and who had lost their appeals before immigration judges. Agents then picked up 121 people, including women and children, and sent them to detention centers in Texas.
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, defended the action. “Our borders are not open to illegal migration,” he said at a press conference. “If you come here illegally, we will send you back consistent with our laws and values.”
The statement captures one side of the administration’s contradictory treatment of Central American immigrants. On the one hand, President Obama acknowledges that families crossing the border are fleeing violence at home in Central America. On the other, he blames people for coming.
The latest wave of women and children from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala began arriving on the U.S. border in 2014, prompting the antiimmigrant Breitbart News Network to launch a campaign of hysteria. Agents at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency, presumably at the behest of conservatives within their ranks, chimed in with allegations that detention centers were being “flooded” by Central American children.
In response, the Obama administration pushed forward construction of two privately run facilities in Texas, designed to hold 1,500 people between them. When immigrant advocates voiced outrage, the administration began processing asylum claims more rapidly, to shorten stays in the centers. At the same time, the administration defended its much broader decision to defer the deportation of family members of legal residents and citizens. When a Texas judge declared that decision illegal in 2014, the administration began a long appeals process that has now brought the case before the Supreme Court. Twenty-six states, almost all with Republican governors, joined the suit against the Obama order.
Both the administration’s threats and detentions have failed to reduce migration, however. Some 58,650 non-Mexicans were picked up on the U.S.-Mexico border during the last three months of 2015. The number of unaccompanied children apprehended was 17,370, compared to 7,987 during the same period the year before, while the number of families went from 7,468 to 21,469.
Blaming the wave of migration on “violence” is far too simple. Modern migration from Central America began with the counterinsurgency wars of the 1980s. The Reagan administration cast as a Cold War threat what were essentially civil conflicts to change societies dominated by wealthy elites, and intervened to support militaries and contras. As U.S.-backed armies and contras waged war on civilians, hundreds of thousands of people fled.
Sergio Sosa, a Guatemalan immigrant who now directs Omaha’s Heartland Workers’ Center, recalls bitterly: “The U.S. was responsible for the coups that happened in Guatemala in 1944 and later in ‘54. Our army was trained at the School of the Americas, and they would come back afterwards and kill our own people. The U.S. used its power and we buried the dead.”
An estimated 500,000 Salvadorans arrived in the U.S. in the 1980s, and tens of thousands more fled Honduras and Guatemala. As a result, thousands of families have been separated for decades.
Many settled in the poorest and most dangerous neighborhoods of big U.S. cities, including Los Angeles, and were recruited into gangs. The Los Angeles police-many of whom were later found guilty of robbery, murder, and selling drugs themselves-launched the notorious Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums (CRASH) program that arrested and deported young immigrants by the thousands.
But instead of convincing young people in L.A. not to join gangs, deportation spread gang culture through Central America. The name of the Trece (13) gang, for instance, refers to 13th Street in Los Angeles, not in Tegucigalpa.

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Obama’s Russian rationale for $1 trillion nuke plan signals news arms race

by Alex Emmons
The Intercept

The Obama administration has historically insisted that its massive $1 trillion nuclear weapons modernization program does not represent a return to Cold War-era nuclear rivalry between Russia and the United States.
The hugely expensive undertaking, which calls for a slew of new cruise missiles, ICBMs, nuclear submarines, and long-range bombers over the next three decades, has been widely panned by critics as “wasteful,” “unsustainable,” “unaffordable,” and “a fantasy.”
The administration has pointed to aging missile silos, 1950s-era bombers, and other outdated technology to justify the spending, describing the steps as intended to maintain present capabilities going forward — not bulking up to prepare for a future confrontation.
Last year, speaking to NATO allies, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter insisted that “the Cold War playbook … is not suitable for the 21st century.”
But President Obama’s defense budget request for 2017 includes language that makes it clear that nuclear “modernization” really is about Russia after all.
The budget request explicitly cites Russian aggression, saying, “We are countering Russia’s aggressive policies through investments in a broad range of capabilities … [including] our nuclear arsenal.”
In December, Brian McKeon, principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, testified before Congress: “We are investing in the technologies that are most relevant to Russia’s provocations … to both deter nuclear attacks and reassure our allies.”
The public acknowledgement that Russia is the impetus for U.S. modernization has critics concerned the Cold War-era superpowers are now engaged in a “modernization” arms race.
“Both Russia and the United States are now officially and publicly using the other side as a justification for nuclear weapons modernization programs,” said Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project, in a statement emailed to The Intercept.
Early in his presidency, Obama was an outspoken advocate of nuclear disarmament. In April 2009, he pledged his commitment “to achieving a nuclear free world,” together with former Russian President Dimitri Medvedev. Later that month, Obama delivered a celebrated speech in Prague, saying he sought “the security of a world without nuclear weapons.” And he negotiated a 2011 nuclear treaty with Russia, which required both countries to reduce their arsenals to 1,550 operational warheads each.
But according to Obama’s advisers, Russia’s invasion of Crimea halted his disarmament efforts. In a 2014 interview with the New York Times, Gary Samore, one of Obama’s top first-term nuclear advisers, said, “The most fundamental game changer is Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. That has made any measure to reduce the stockpile unilaterally politically impossible.”
Former officials have proposed ways of trimming the trillion-dollar budget. In December, former Defense Secretary William Perry called for the Pentagon not to replace its aging ICBMS, arguing that submarines and bombers were enough to deter nuclear threats.
Retired Gen. Eugene Habiger, the former head of U.S. Strategic Command, which overseas the Pentagon’s nuclear weapons, has argued that U.S. nuclear forces have little to no deterrent effect on Russia and China, and that the U.S. can safely reduce its active arsenal to 200-300 weapons.
Last year, in an effort to cut the costs of nuclear modernization, Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., introduced a bill that would reduce the number of planned missile-bearing submarines from 14 to eight. The bill, which would save an estimated $4 billion per submarine, was co-sponsored by Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont Democrat who is now running for president.
When asked about nuclear modernization at a campaign event in Des Moines, Iowa, Hillary Clinton responded, “Yeah, I’ve heard about that, I’m going to look into that, it doesn’t make sense to me.” Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio, on the other hand, supported the expense, saying, “Deterrence is a friend to peace.”
Religious groups have also voiced opposition to nuclear modernization. “We were pleased with the president’s statement calling for a world without nuclear weapons,” said Mark Harrison, director of the Peace with Justice program at the United Methodist General Board of Church and Society.
David Culp, a legislative representative at the Quaker-affiliated Friends Committee on National Legislation, said, “The increased spending on U.S. nuclear weapons is already provoking similar responses from Russia and China. We are slowly slipping back into another Cold War, but this time on two fronts.”
Contracts are already being signed. In October, the Pentagon awarded Northrop Grumman the contract for the new long-range bomber. The total cost is secret, but expected to exceed $100 billion.

In other related news:

Western bankers are provoking Russian into starting WWIII

by Daniel Barker
Collapse News

Many have speculated about the possibility that the recent drop in oil prices was part of a ploy by Western bankers and governments to punish Vladimir Putin over his actions in Ukraine and challenges of NATO authority.
But there are some who see an even darker agenda. Is it possible that the West is deliberately pushing Russia into starting WWIII?
According to Dave Hodges of The Common Sense Show, it’s not just manipulated oil prices but also the cutting off of liquidity to Russian banks – two moves which he believes are designed to push Russia into a war with the West.
As frightening and reckless as that sounds, there seems to be solid evidence that this is indeed the case.
In a recent article, Hodges first compares the current situation to events leading up to WWII. He argues that Pearl Harbor was also the result of a deliberate plan:
This reminds me of the days before World War II in which the United States followed a doctrine called the eight point plan which was designed to provoke Japan into attacking America so Roosevelt could use this as the excuse to get involved in World War II.
That assertion may cause many to shake their heads in disbelief, but Hodges is not the first to suggest that this may have been the case. Many wars have been the result of manipulation behind the scenes — not just the ones of the 20th century.
Hodges goes on to ask his readership whether there has been any logical explanation for the recent drop in oil prices. A fair question in light of the fact that the price for crude oil has decreased by 50 percent in a matter of just a few months — and at a time of year when they normally spike.
It’s difficult to believe that, even if there were a “glut” of oil, as has been claimed, prices would drop so far and so fast.
And now there seems to be a concerted effort by Western bankers to ditch the ruble as a valid currency. As Hodges points out:
[B]rokers are now advising their clients that any existing Russian Ruble positions will be terminated without any further notice because of concerns related to the lack of Russian “capital controls“. At least that is the excuse that Western banks are using to run from the Ruble. The truth of the matter is that the West has declared war on Russia and its BRICS partners for undermining the Petrodollar.

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Mexico and the U.S. reach agreements for orderly repatriation

by the El Reportero’s wire services

The Foreign Ministry of Mexico called historic the negotiation that led to agreements with the U.S. for ‘’decent, safe and orderly repatriation of Mexican nationals’’ it was known here today.
Both sides finished in El Paso, Texas, the review process and signing of the Local Arrangements of Repatriation at the border to ensure the safety and proper reception of the returned Mexicans.
As a result of historical trading, for the first time the agreements include a commitment to carry out the repatriations at certain times (primarily diurnal) and to limit the repatriations to 12 points (11 of them borderly and Mexico City for the flights of the Repatriation Program to the Interior) where there is infrastructure and assistance programs for people who return.
So it says a statement from the Foreign Ministry releasing the analysis of initiatives to improve care for unaccompanied children and teenagers arrested in their attempt to enter the United States.
Both countries agreed to increase to three the weekly flights of the Mexican Interior Repatriation Program (MIRP).
The National Migration Institute received 205,417 repatriations of Mexican people from the United States and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, through its consular network, attended 180,908 cases of protection and assistance, the statement adds.

Nobel Peace prizes visit political prisoners in Guatemala
Nobel Peace Prizes Rigoberta Menchú (1992) and Jody Williams (1997) visited five Guatemalan community leaders, who remain in prison after a year for defending their communities’s rights in the country.
During their visit to the Detention Centre in Zone 18 in the capital, the Nobel Women’s Initiative (NWI) learned details of the delays of the process of securing justice in favor of Rigoberto Juárez, Domingo Baltazar, Arturo Pablo, Francisco Juan and Adalberto Villatoro.
Each conscious prisoner offered details about their fights against the installation of hydro projects in the territories of Santa Eulalia and Santa Cruz Barillas, in the western department of Huehuetenango, as well as their experiences in prison.
This visit encourages us to keep fighting, along with the Nobel Women’s Initiative, it helps us make more contributions and provides us with inputs to do our bit for their release, she added.

Pemex’’s debt is unsustainable; its revenues drop 
The debt accumulated today by Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex, in Spanish) is no longer sustainable, recognized its director, José Antonio González, while the company’’s revenues continue to decline.
González said that despite the debit Pemex has a long-term viability.
It has a large inventory of total reserves, low production cost and the recognized ability and talent of its technicians, said the executive.
However, indicators of the oil company after the first month of the year brought bad news.
The revenues from oil exports dropped by 50 percent a year, due to a fall of 34 percent of oil prices in January.
On that date, Pemex entered just 815 million dollars, compared with the 1,630 million recorded in the same month of 2015.
It was also specified that the volume of oil exports fell 11 percent year to January 2016, totaling 1.12 million barrels per day, compared with the 1.26 reported in the same month of 2015.
By contrast, Pemex increased its imports of natural gas in 47.2 percent per year.
The decision of the government led by President Enrique Peña Nieto to liberalize the imports of gasoline and diesel from next April, represents another blow to this company of the Mexican state.

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Mexican Museum to host Amalia Mesa-Bains

Compiled by the El Reportero’s staff

The Mexican Museum will host a talk by Renowned professor Emeritus of Visual and Public Art at California State University at Monterey Bay.
Dr. Amalia Mesa-Bains, as part of TMM’s public lecture series, will highlight Museum founder, Peter Rodriguez’s extensive career as an artist, collector, curator, and figurehead in the Chicano community. This program is being presented in conjunction with the Vida, Cultura y Color: The Art of Peter Rodríguez exhibition at The Mexican Museum.
TMM is located at the Fort Mason Center, Building D, Marina Boulevard and Buchanan Street, San Francisco. For more information, please call: (415) 202-9700. The lecture is free and open to the public.
Dr. Amalia Mesa-Bains is an educator, artist and cultural critic who has pioneered the documentation and interpretation of long Chicano traditions in Mexican-American art, both through her cultural activism and through her own altar-installations. Her work as an artist has been exhibited in national and international venues. She is a recipient of a distinguished MacArthur Fellowship. She founded and directed the Visual and Public Art department at California State University at Monterey Bay where she is now Professor Emerita.
At The Mexican Museum. Fort Mason Center, 2 Marina Blvd., Bldg. D. On Saturday, Jan. 23, 2016 from 5 p.m. – 6:30 p.m. Free and open to the public.

Two of the most respected musicians from Galicia, Spain in SF
Uxía & Narf unite for the first time to present a joint musical project that features reinterpretations of classics, including poems by Rosalía de Castro and García Lorca, original compositions, and adaptations of traditional alalás, the oldest and best-known form of Galician music.
Building bridges across cultures through music, they create their respective repertoires after more than 20 years of traveling and exchanging experiences with artists from Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, and Guinea-Bissau. The duo unites harmonious vocals and intimate melodies through the shared pursuit of originality and cultural crossroads.
At the Red Puppy, 2698 Folsom St. @ 23rd St., San Francisco, on March 3 at 7:30 p.m. – 10:00 p.m. Admission: $20-25. Doors at 7 p.m. Show at 7:30 p.m. All ages welcome.

Noche Bohemia en la Bahía
Golden Promotion Entertainment presents live, Noche Bohemia en la Bahía, from Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico, Benny Camacho; from Los Angeles California, Korina López, José Montes de Oca; y como talento local a Sergio García Checo. On Saturday, Feb. 27.

 

Absolute Beginning Taiko Workshop with Bruce Ghent
Learn the ancient art of Japanese Taiko drumming with Sensei Bruce ‘Mui’ Ghent. The Introductory taiko class will cover basic fundamental skills and history which will prepare students to advance to the next level of classes.
Beginners ages 12-adult, with little or no music experience are welcome. Taiko drumming is a rigorous physical activity. Bring water and wear clothes to exercise in…sweat happens : ) Class is taught with traditional martial arts etiquette and discipline as outlined in the student handbook supplied.
For more information, contact Bruce “Mui” Ghent at bruceghent@gmail.com or visit www.maikazedaiko.com.
March 6-April 10: Sundays, 10:30 a.m.-12 p.m., at the Dance Mission Theater. To register call 415-826-4441 or email dancemissiontheater@yahoo.com.

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Film “Looking For Boyfriend For My Woman”

by the El Reportero’s staff

Busco Novio Para Mi Mujer is a hilarious comedy about Paco (Arath De La Torre) so fed up with his nagging and nitpicking wife Dana (Sandra Echceverria) that he comes up with an ingenious plan to end the unhappy union- find her a boyfriend  by hiring a professional seducer nicknamed “El Taiger” to whisk her off her feet and out of the marriage. But even the best laid plans can backfire when love is involved.
Busco Novio Para Mi Mujer, de Pantelion Films, que lanza el 19 de febrero, estelariza al comediante estrella Arath de La Torre y a Sandra Echeverría.

Hamilton coming to San Francisco for start of national tour
God bless America! Hamilton, the insanely popular hip-hop homage to our founding fathers, will launch its national tour at San Francisco’s Orpheum Theatre in March 2017.
“Hamilton,” the hottest ticket to hit Broadway since The Book of Mormon, has changed the way people see American history, specifically the biography of Alexander Hamilton, not mention the way they hear hip-hop. Created by the endlessly inventive Lin-Manuel Miranda (In the Heights), who also stars in the Broadway production, this is the kind of smash hit that prompted theatergoers to fly across the country in the face of an approaching blizzard just to score tickets.
As the New York Times raved: “A show about young rebels grabbing and shaping the future of an unformed country, Hamilton is making its own resonant history by changing the language of musicals. And it does so by insisting that the forms of song most frequently heard on pop radio stations in recent years — rap, hip-hop, R&B ballads — have both the narrative force and the emotional interiority to propel a hefty musical about long-dead white men whose solemn faces glower from the green bills in our wallets.”
Mana performes in Paraguay for third time
Mana performs on Friday, Feb. 19 in Paraguay for the third time to launch here its 9th album Cama Incendiada.
A magnificent stage in the large stadium of the soccer club Olimpia, in this capital city, would host the famous Mexican group of Latin and pop rock, founded in Guadalajara in 1987.
According to the producer of the show, almost five years following its last performance in Paraguay, Maná returns as part of a tour that also includes Argentina, Uruguay, Chile and the United States.
As supporting group, Mana will have the Paraguayan band ‘Abril’, while a local artist will accompany the Mexican group to sing Me vale, one of the many expected songs during the concert.

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The U.S. is on verge of mass starvation

Estados Unidos ha sido el camino de hambre antes

by Dave Hodges
The Common Sense Show

An estimated seven million people starved to death during the Great Depression. And amazingly, these people had food preparation skills that are basically a lost art in America today (e.g. canning). These are skills that Americans no longer possess. Our collective food preparation skills consists of making sure we have enough gas to get to and from the grocery store.
With a staggering debt looming over the country, how vulnerable are Americans to starvation if and when an economic collapse takes down our economy?
It is not a secret that the world is in a desperate situation when it comes to overall world hunger. In the last year I was able to find statistics, the World Bank cites the disturbing fact that there have been 51 food riots in 37 countries in recent memory due to high food prices and the further escalation of food prices has no end in sight. The World Bank further speculates that the present state of food prices could lead to political instability and this is the kind of stuff that wars are made of. And what is the number one cause of rising food prices according to the World Bank? It is the increasing demand for food from a growing population inside of China. The future military implications should be self-evident where hungry nations invade less hungry nations. But what about the United States? How vulnerable are Americans to the possibility of mass starvation?
A Snapshot of America’s Food Vulnerability
Almost beyond belief, a full 79 percent of the people that use food banks purchase typically buy cheap, unhealthy food and still just have enough to feed their children. The price of food continues to quickly out-pace the paychecks of most middle class families.
According to the New York Times, the typical American family is now worth 36 percent less than it was worth only 12 years ago!
Shockingly, one out of every six men, ranging in ages from 25 to 54, are not employed. Median family income in the United States is 7 percent lower than it was in 2000. The United States is now in 19th place in the world and falling. There is no way that the majority of American families can keep pace with food inflation as the wages of Americans are now inversely correlated with the rising food prices. This is a prescription for disaster.

The most vulnerable to starvation within the present economic climate are the children as an amazing twenty six percent of all children are living below the poverty level. And we certainly cannot ignore the fact that 50 million Americans are on some form of Federal Food Stamps. With these kind of distressing statistics, a significant number of Americans are vulnerable to politically motivated “food blackmail” in these times of economic distress.
Disruption to transportation would prove catastrophic
The critical element which could most impact the number of Americans who would vulnerable to starvation has to do with disruptions in our transportation system. For the purpose of efficiency and to maximize profits “Just in time (JIT)” food deliveries take place at grocery outlets several times per day. Without these JIT deliveries, we would see immediate shortages occurring on day one of any disruption to the delivery of our food to its final destination.
Although, about 10 percent of all Americans live near substantial food supplies, my previous investigations have revealed the fact that transportation disruption would be life-threatening to most Americans and the effects would be realized within two days. Most Americans are, at most, nine meals away starvation, which is the amount of food that the average person has stored according to FEMA.
The Obama Administration Makes a Bad Situation Worse
The BLM have been busy trying to illegally seize every farm and every ranch that it can in the west. At one time, I wrote that out of 52 ranchers who lived and operated near Cliven Bundy’s ranch, 51 of these ranchers were forced to move off of their lands. Now, with Cliven Bundy’s arrest, the number has dropped to 52 out of 52 as the Bundy’s will no doubt be forced to sell with most of the Bundy males sitting in jail without the possibility of making bail.
Why does the BLM and its first cousins at the EPA want to drive farmers and ranchers off of their land. To get a clearer picture of this issue, let’s take a brief look at Executive Order 13603:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/03/16/executive-order-national-defense-resources-preparedness
With the stroke of his pen, Obama has total and absolute control over all food where his EO 13603 states:
1. e) “Food resources” means all commodities and products, (simple, mixed, or compound), or complements to such commodities or products, that are capable of being ingested by either human beings or animals, irrespective of other uses to which such commodities or products may be put, at all stages of processing from the raw commodity to the products thereof in vendible form for human or animal consumption. “Food resources” also means potable water packaged in commercially marketable containers, all starches, sugars, vegetable and animal or marine fats and oils, seed, cotton, hemp, and flax fiber, but does not mean any such material after it loses its identity as an agricultural commodity or agricultural product. (f) “Food resource facilities” means plants, machinery, vehicles (including on farm), and other facilities required for the production, processing, distribution, and storage (including cold storage) of food resources, and for the domestic distribution of farm equipment and fertilizer…”

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A history of Corporate Rule and Popular protest – Part 4 and FINAL

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR:

Dear readers, Did you know that we are actually ruled by corporations, and that our country is a corporation, and that its officers (police, army, courts, etc) are actually agents of a corporation that are there to serve you or me?
In this following article, written by Richard Heinberg, sometime ago, you will discover a piece of history that probably you have never been exposed to during your lifetime and education. Due to the length of this piece, El Reportero will publish it in several parts. THIS IS PART 4 AND LAST OF A SERIES.

CAUSE FOR HOPE?

por Richard Heinberg

These circumstances are, in their details, unprecedented; but in broad outline we are seeing the re-enactment of a story that goes back at least to the beginning of civilization. Those with power are always looking for ways to protect and extend it, and to make their power seem legitimate, necessary or invisible so that popular protest seems unnecessary or futile. If protest comes, the powerful always try to deflect anger away from themselves. The leaders of the new populist movement appear to have a good grasp of both the current circumstances and the historical ground from which these circumstances emerge. They seem to have realized that, in order to succeed, the new populism will have to:
• avoid being co-opted by existing political parties;
• heal race, class and gender divisions and actively resist any campaign to scapegoat disempowered social groups;
• avoid being identified with an ideological category–”communist”, “socialist” or “anarchist”–against which most of the public is already well inoculated by corporate propaganda;
• direct public discussion toward the most vulnerable link in the corporate chain of power: the legal basis of the corporation;
• internationalize the movement so that corporations cannot undermine it merely by shifting their base of operations from one country to another.
As Lawrence Goodwyn noted in his definitive work, The Populist Moment , the original Populists were “attempting to construct, within the framework of American capitalism, some variety of cooperative commonwealth”. This was “the last substantial effort at structural alteration of hierarchical economic forms in modern America.”
In announcing the formation of the Alliance for Democracy, in an article in the Aug. 14, 1996 issue of The Nation, activist Ronnie Dugger compiled a list of policy suggestions which comprise some of the core demands of the new populist movement. These include: a prohibition of contributions or any other political activity by corporations; single-payer national health insurance with automatic universal coverage; a doubling of the minimum wage, indexed to inflation; a generic low-interest-rate national policy, entailing the abolition of the Federal Reserve System; statutory reversal of the court-made law that corporations are “persons”; establishment of a national public oil company; limitations on ownership of newspapers, magazines, radio and TV stations to one of any kind per person or owning entity; and the halving of military spending. The new populists are, in Ronnie Dugger’s words, “ready to resume the cool eyeing of the corporations with a collective will to take back the powers they have seized from us”.
The new populism draws some of its inspiration from the work of the Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy (POCLAD), a populist “think-tank” that explores the legal basis of corporate power. POCLAD believes that it is possible to control–and, if necessary, dismantle–corporations by amending or revoking their charters.
Since the largest corporations are now transnational in scope, the new populism must confront their abuses globally. The International Forum on Globalization (IFG) was founded for this purpose in 1994, as an alliance of 60 activists, scholars, economists and writers (including Jerry Mander, Vandana Shiva, Richard Grossman, Ralph Nader, Helena Norberg-Hodge, Jeremy Rifkin and Kirkpatrick Sale), to stimulate new thinking and joint action along these lines.
In a position statement drafted in 1995, the International Forum on Globalization said that it: “views international trade and investment agreements, including the GATT, the WTO, Maastricht and NAFTA, combined with the structural adjustment policies of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, to be direct stimulants to the processes that weaken democracy, create a world order in the control of transnational corporations and devastate the natural world. The IFG will study, publish and actively advocate in opposition to the current rush toward economic globalization, and will seek to reverse its direction. Simultaneously, we will advocate on behalf of a far more diversified, locally controlled, community-based economics.

We believe that the creation of a more equitable economic order–based on principles of diversity, democracy, community and ecological sustainability–will require new international agreements that place the needs of people, local economies and the natural world ahead of the interests of corporations.”
Leaders of the new populism appear to realize that anti-corporatism is not a complete solution to the world’s problems; that the necessary initial focus on corporate power must eventually be supplemented by a more general critique of centralizing and unsustainable technologies, money-based economics and current nation-state governmental structures, by efforts to protect traditional cultures and ecosystems, and by a renewal of culture and spirituality.
It would be foolish to underestimate the immense challenges to the new populism from the current US administration and from the jingoistic, bellicose post-September 11 public sentiment fostered by the corporate media. Nevertheless, POCLAD, the Alliance for Democracy and the IFG (along with dozens of human rights, environmental and anti-war organizations around the world) provide important rallying points for citizens’ self-defense against tyranny in its most modern, invisible, effective and even seductive forms.

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Mother beats cancer with juice after told she had only 2 weeks

by Harold Shaw

When you become a parent, life changes a lot. Suddenly, you’re responsible for another life and you realize that you can’t afford to do a lot of things that you used to. Obviously, there are pros and cons, but one constant is that every parent feels a burning need to be there for their daughter or son. Particularly while the child is young, it falls on the mother and father to help their offspring understand this world and how to get by in it.
If you had two young siblings, a girl of six and a boy of five, they would definitely be your main concern, so much so that you couldn’t imagine life without them. But what if you were told that you had stomach cancer? That it had spread to your lymph nodes, neck and almost all of your abdomen and you may have less than a month to spend with your children and husband?
A woman who refused to give up
This was the case of Natasha Grindley, a 37-year-old mom from Liverpool whose condition was deemed terminal by hospital doctors. In July 2014, healthcare advisers told Natasha that it was very possible that she would die before the end of the month. However, as a mother of two young siblings, she felt that she was yet to be beat. While doctors were hesitant to call the illness for what it was, the nursery teacher accepted her diagnosis and, together with her husband, started reading on cancer research.
Along with caring for her 5-year-old son Liam and 6-year-old daughter Gabriella, the couple made it their obsession to find alternative therapies for cancer. They accepted doctors’ advice to begin chemotherapy, but they knew that there must also be other things they could do. On its own, chemo can cause even more cancer. In a couple of days, Natasha became acquainted with renowned author Deliciously Ella and started fighting cancer with proper nutrition.
More than just “alternative”
Even though her health was rapidly declining, Natasha’s radical change to her diet helped her immensely. Contrary to everyone’s expectations, she started looking better while on chemo. Her friends were simply amazed at her glow. Moreover, the newly acquired diet changed her outlook and improved her emotional state.
“I used the foods to power up my immune system and that helps me because my blood is then ready for chemo,” Natasha said, as reported by the Daily Mail. “I noticed that every time I made a change to my diet, I saw a positive difference in how I felt.”
The mom’s secret is, actually, no secret to the world of nutrition. Many before her managed to stop or even cure cancer with major diet changes and juicing. What they all have in common is adjusting their diet to minimize artificial sugars and potentially harmful meat products while increasing their intake of organic vegetables, particularly carrots. Continuing to defy the predictions of her clinical diagnosis, Natasha hopes to spread the knowledge she managed to gain in the darkest moments of her life and teach others about the power that nutrition holds.
Two years from a two weeks’ notice
Now it’s been two years since Mrs. Grindley was told that she had no more than two weeks left with her family. Ever since, the nursery teacher’s dedication and gratefulness to alternative treatments led her to complete a higher education degree in nutrition and start her own Facebook page. Backing up her experience with scientific arguments, the mother now hopes others will benefit from the power that diet has in curing various illnesses.
Neither doctors nor Natasha claim that cancer can solely be cured through diet, but changing one’s food habits has proven to be at the root of numerous positive benefits, particularly in those cases where patients have to deal with terminal diseases. The harder it is on the body, the more pressure is put on the immune system, and a diet rich in fresh, organic produce is what powers an immune system to fight. How many servings of vegetables and fruit do you eat a day? (Natural News).

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