Most Americans believe that Russia has attacked Ukraine. This is because the despicable “mainstream” media have reported solely the lies coming out of the White House, totally disregarding what may be the actual truth. At the insistence of President Vladimir Putin, Russia has NOT attacked Ukraine. (If Russia had attacked, its large well equipped and trained army would have won the war in three days.) The truth of the matter is that the U.S. has been financing the corrupt Ukrainian government to attack its Russian-speaking eastern provinces with troops including neo-Nazis bent on exterminating all Russian speakers and Jews. These killers have been shelling Donetsk and Lugansk with heavy artillery and ballistic missiles, killing civilians and destroying vital infrastructure. Still, the militias of these provinces had won the war, leading to a mutually agreed 3-month ceasefire …which has been promptly broken by U.S. puppet Poroshenko. Win or lose, Russian intervention or not, the result will lead to more funding for Washington’s “military-industrial complex.” I urge the reader to click on some of the links in Michael Collins’ important post below.

---

OpEdNews Op Eds 10/25/2014 at 04:38:24   
Ukraine Restarts War on Eastern Regions Sources Say
By Michael Collins (about the author)     Permalink


opednews.com                                                                                Headlined to H2 10/25/14

Novorussia Military Rapid Response Force
(image by Colonel Cassad - English)

The Kiev government of U.S. puppet Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is about to restart the failed attempt to subdue the southeastern region of the country known as Novorussia according to highly credible sources. (Image)

Colonel Igor Strelkov, a native Russian, helped create and led the Novorussian forces during the critical phases of resistance to the Kiev regime. At the height of his success, he left active command and was replaced by local leaders. As Strelkov sees it:

[An] "Endless flow of [Ukraine government] military columns moves towards Donetsk and Makeevka areas and towards Gorlovka area. Troops are being moved at ever increasing pace.

"At the same time they engage in massive use of heavy MLRS fire, heavy artillery and tactical missiles "Tochka-U" (SS-21 Scarab B) [a tactical ballistic missile - see Ukraine Firing Ballistic Missiles - Obama-Kerry Say Nothing].

"The number of victims among the population during this so-called truce is higher than it was in the period of active hostilities one month ago. Igor Strelkov, Important Statement, 20.10.2014 or here (click "Show More" for full text)

Strelkov believes that heavily populated areas of Donetsk and Makeyevka are the targets. The Kiev government will create a false-flag, according to this scenario, with the aim of a "swift and decisive" victory. If things go according to plan, the largest population area of Novorussia will be under putative Ukrainian government control.

The Saker, whose blog Vineyard of the Saker is a leading source of news and analysis on Novorussia, endorsed Strelkov's analysis. Over the past weeks, Saker and other sources outlined the ever-weakening position of the Ukraine central government based on a collapsing economy and a very bleak outlook on the future by citizens. He suggests, "Starting a major war might well be the only way to save the Poroshenko regime which currently is in free-fall." Russia Insider, Oct 23

The Saker notes that a defeat may be as good as a victory for Ukraine if it draws Russia into military assistance for the major population areas under attack. Contrary to the claims of Operation Mockingbird style propaganda machine in the mainstream media, Putin is not an absolute dictator. He faces pro US and EU oligarchs who want give the West whatever it wants in return for their own gains and right-wing nationalists who see Putin's failure to intervene to assist Novorussia as bordering on treason.

Should Ukraine gain a military advantage by devastating civilian areas, the pressure on Putin to intervene will be overwhelming. A Russian intervention would achieve the overall goal of restarting the Cold War and filling the coffers of the U.S. military industrial complex.

Shortly after his election in late May, President Poroshenko beefed up the "anti terrorist operation" (ATO) against the eastern Ukraine, particularly the Donetsk and Lugansk regions. Under his predecessor, interim acting President Olexander Turchynov, ATO troops were greeted on occasion by derisive citizens who stood their ground and cajoled them into abandoning their equipment. When U.S. favorite Poroshenko took over, the ATO, more accurately anti-citizen operation, ramped up with heavy artillery attacks on towns and cities killing and maiming civilians and destroying homes and critical infrastructure.

The rapidly formed Novorussian militias quickly became a highly motivated and effective fighting force aided by supplies spirited across the Russian border. The headlong attacks by Ukraine regular troops and fascist irregulars (punitive battalions) were encircled by Novorussian forces creating cauldrons where Ukraine soldiers had two choices - death or surrender. This successfully repeated tactic resulted in a shift of momentum plus a string of impressive victories for the resistance resulting in a desperately sought ceasefire by Poroshenko in September.

Provoking Russian Military Intervention and the Grand Prize

The U.S. led the effort to create a virulently anti Russian government in Ukraine through years of fieldwork and funding. The Euromaidan protests and extremist government installed after those protests were the culmination of decades of U.S. foreign policy. Finally, the Cold War - military industrial complex patrons and front men achieved their goal. Ukraine was soon to join the European Union, then NATO, and Russia would be contained as a regional, not global power.

To understand how a great power reacts to a hostile power's incursion in its territory, recall the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis after it was discovered that the government of the USSR had placed nuclear missiles in Cuba. We nearly had a nuclear war. What twisted logic occupied the Obama administration and his two war loving secretaries of state, Hillary Clinton and John Kerry? Certainly, they didn't want nuclear war. Obama even said that no U.S. ground troops would not assist the Ukraine government. What Obama did say was Russian action risked a new Cold War. This was echoed throughout the country by a congressional chorus of the usual male hysterics.

And, what does a new Cold War mean? A payday beyond dreams for defense firms and their major investors. As Gore Vidal pointed out, there is just one party, the property (money) party. It has Republican and Democratic wings. However, on the big issues, everyone agrees -- the threat of war, even a cold one, is good for the war business and its major investors. Think of the new Cold War as socialism for the very rich while successive administrations offer the vast majority of citizens a healthy dose of survival of the fittest.

Creative Commons 3.0

http://www.opednews.com/author/author3863.html  
Researcher, writer DC Area Attack on Syria - Struggle for Turkey - Attack on Libya - The Money Party = Survival - End Times - Obama Administration - Politics and Policy - Election fraud - Pennsylvania Sexual Abuse Scandal - (more...)

Who is Vladimir Putin? A monster? If that's what you think, then you believe unresearched smears from the "mainstream media," which accept the government's lies as the truth in order to keep their jobs. In the video below President Putin answers difficult questions from individuals, many of them distinguished, from many countries outside of Russia including the U.S., France, and Ukraine. This may be the only 3-hour video I've ever watched outside a movie theater. For those with less time, after a 5-min introduction Putin has the floor for 35 minutes (with simultaneous English translation). From the 1-1/2 hour mark until the end he is grilled by a diverse audience.

---

http://youtu.be/9F9pQcqPdKo


Putin at Valdai - World Order: New Rules or a Game without Rules (FULL VIDEO)

RT




Streamed live on Oct 24, 2014
Russian President Vladimir Putin is delivering a speech at the plenary session of Valdai International Discussion Club, a forum involving the world leading experts at foreign and domestic policy.

RT LIVE http://rt.com/on-air

Subscribe to RT! http://www.youtube.com/subscription_c...
Like us on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/RTnews
Follow us on Twitter http://twitter.com/RT_com
Follow us on Instagram http://instagram.com/rt
Follow us on Google+ http://plus.google.com/+RT

RT (Russia Today) is a global news network broadcasting from Moscow and Washington studios. RT is the first news channel to break the 1 billion YouTube views benchmark.

Category News                      News and Politics
License                                Standard YouTube License

This is an exceptionally comprehensive interview with Paul Craig Roberts on the subjects most important today. Highly recommended by this blogger.

---

Dollar is The Weak Spot for US-Paul Craig Roberts
By Greg Hunter On October 19, 2014

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com                                                                    Original Here

 

Former Treasury Secretary Dr. Paul Craig Roberts says all U.S. financial policy revolves around propping up the dollar.  Dr. Roberts contends, “I’ve always said the whole system is rigged.  It’s a house of cards, and the weak spot is the dollar because they cannot print foreign currencies for which to buy dollars.  So, if there is a worldwide run on the dollar, they lose control then.  In the meantime, they have all these things they can do to counteract the direction of the markets, and I expect them to continue doing that.”

So, if propping up the dollar is the top priority, then suppressing the gold price is a close second.  Could the COMEX or LBMA simply run out of metal sold below mining cost?  Dr. Roberts says, “Well, a lot of people think that, particularly people who think there is no gold left in Fort Knox or in the New York Fed.  They think all that has been lent out and used up.   If they’re right, then the policy they have in naked shorts in gold to drive down the price just increases the demand in Asia for more bullion.  If that is true and they don’t have a way to make those deliveries, then they are producing the crisis for themselves by holding down the gold price.  Whereas, if they let the price rise, it might temper the demand for gold in Asia and remove that problem.”

Dr. Roberts goes on to say, “The reason they want to hold the gold price down is they are afraid of its impact on the dollar.  The reason why they had to suppress the gold price is they had to protect the dollar from quantitative easing (QE) because they were printing trillions and trillions of new dollars.  This was worrying people around the world who hold dollars because the dollar was increasing, but not the goods and services in the American economy.  So, when the gold price took off, the Fed said this endangers QE because if the dollar is declining in value relative to gold, it must also be declining in value relative to other currencies.  Once the exchange rate starts collapsing, we lose control.  So, we’ve got to suppress gold.  I don’t know which side of the equation will play out first.  I don’t know if they will run out of gold to deliver to India and China, or people will say this is a rigged scheme and we are just not participating anymore.”  Roberts adds, “Again, I don’t know how this will play out, but we keep seeing developments that indicate that people are not content to play in rigged markets.”

On the Ukraine crisis, Dr. Roberts says, “Putin is saying, look you are pushing too far.  Because we are reasonable doesn’t mean you can walk all over us.  Don’t get the idea that because we (Russia) haven’t slapped your face that we are going to permit this forever.  You are being very, very aggressive to somebody who can stand up to you, and we are prepared to do that. . . .So, that is the message that he gave.”

On the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, Dr. Roberts says, “We have lost control.  We now have a new enemy that is our own creation.  Not only that, but now the Taliban says it is uniting with the Islamic State.  So, after 13 years, we couldn’t defeat the Taliban, and we are going to bleed to death over there.  We are already bankrupt and busted, and we are talking about carrying this fight on another 30 years.  Who’s going to pay for it?  The Americans working part time jobs at Wal-Mart?  Do they think they can print money for thirty years and the world won’t flee the dollar?”

On the U.S. dollar, is the world getting ready to dump it?  Dr. Roberts, who holds a PhD in economics, says, “I think on the whole, that there is a risk that it could be dumped all at once, but it’s going to be dumped anyhow, even if slowly, and it’s already started.  When you see the Russian/Chinese agreements and the Russian/Indian agreements, what you are witnessing is people moving away from using the dollar to settle trade between one another.”

Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with Dr. Paul Craig Roberts.

(There is much more in the video interview.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJN4TkcvhmU

Dr. Roberts is a prolific writer, and you can get his analysis and articles for free on his website PaulCraigRoberts.org. Dr. Roberts has zero advertising, and if you would like to help him keep the site running, you can donate by clicking here.

Paul Craig Roberts: "Washington is not only totally evil, it is a totally stupid collection of psychopaths. Dmitry Orlov makes the case." Essential reading for all deep thinking Americans.

---

                                                                        Sign up for our FREE Daily Email Newsletter

How to Start a War and Lose An Empire

By Dmitry Orlov

October 21, 2014 "ICH" - A year and a half I wrote an essay on how the US chooses to view Russia, titled The Image of the Enemy. I was living in Russia at the time, and, after observing the American anti-Russian rhetoric and the Russian reaction to it, I made some observations that seemed important at the time. It turns out that I managed to spot an important trend, but given the quick pace of developments since then, these observations are now woefully out of date, and so here is an update.

At that time the stakes weren't very high yet. There was much noise around a fellow named Magnitsky, a corporate lawyer-crook who got caught and died in pretrial custody. He had been holding items for some bigger Western crooks, who were, of course, never apprehended. The Americans chose to treat this as a human rights violation and responded with the so-called “Magnitsky Act” which sanctioned certain Russian individuals who were labeled as human rights violators. Russian legislators responded with the “Dima Yakovlev Bill,” named after a Russian orphan adopted by Americans who killed him by leaving him in a locked car for nine hours. This bill banned American orphan-killing fiends from adopting any more Russian orphans. It all amounted to a silly bit of melodrama.

But what a difference a year and a half has made! Ukraine, which was at that time collapsing at about the same steady pace as it had been ever since its independence two decades ago, is now truly a defunct state, with its economy in free-fall, one region gone and two more in open rebellion, much of the country terrorized by oligarch-funded death squads, and some American-anointed puppets nominally in charge but quaking in their boots about what's coming next. Syria and Iraq, which were then at a low simmer, have since erupted into full-blown war, with large parts of both now under the control of the Islamic Caliphate, which was formed with help from the US, was armed with US-made weapons via the Iraqis. Post-Qaddafi Libya seems to be working on establishing an Islamic Caliphate of its own. Against this backdrop of profound foreign US foreign policy failure, the US recently saw it fit to accuse Russia of having troops “on NATO's doorstep,” as if this had nothing to do with the fact that NATO has expanded east, all the way to Russia's borders. Unsurprisingly, US–Russia relations have now reached a point where the Russians saw it fit to issue a stern warning: further Western attempts at blackmailing them may result in a nuclear confrontation.

The American behavior throughout this succession of defeats has been remarkably consistent, with the constant element being their flat refusal to deal with reality in any way, shape or form. Just as before, in Syria the Americans are ever looking for moderate, pro-Western Islamists, who want to do what the Americans want (topple the government of Bashar al Assad) but will stop short of going on to destroy all the infidel invaders they can get their hands on. The fact that such moderate, pro-Western Islamists do not seem to exist does not affect American strategy in the region in any way.

Similarly, in Ukraine, the fact that the heavy American investment in “freedom and democracy,” or “open society,” or what have you, has produced a government dominated by fascists and a civil war is, according to the Americans, just some Russian propaganda. Parading under the banner of Hitler's Ukrainian SS division and anointing Nazi collaborators as national heroes is just not convincing enough for them. What do these Nazis have to do to prove that they are Nazis, build some ovens and roast some Jews? Just massacring people by setting fire to a building, as they did in Odessa, or shooting unarmed civilians in the back and tossing them into mass graves, as they did in Donetsk, doesn't seem to work. The fact that many people have refused to be ruled by Nazi thugs and have successfully resisted them has caused the Americans to label them as “pro-Russian separatists.” This, in turn, was used to blame the troubles in Ukraine on Russia, and to impose sanctions on Russia. The sanctions would be reviewed if Russia were to withdraw its troops from Ukraine. Trouble is, there are no Russian troops in Ukraine.

Note that this sort of behavior is nothing new. The Americans invaded Afghanistan because the Taleban would not relinquish Osama Bin Laden (who was a CIA operative) unless Americans produced evidence implicating him in 9/11—which did not exist. Americans invaded Iraq because Saddam Hussein would not relinquish his weapons of mass destruction—which did not exist. They invaded Libya because Muammar Qaddafi would not relinquish official positions—which he did not hold. They were ready to invade Syria because Bashar al Assad had used chemical weapons against his own people—which he did not do. And now they imposed sanctions on Russia because Russia had destabilized and invaded Ukraine—which it did not do either. (The US did that.)

The sanctions against Russia have an additional sort of unreality to them, because they “boomerang” and hurt the West while giving the Russian government the impetus to do what it wanted to do all along. The sanctions infringed on the rights of a number of Russian businessmen and officials, who promptly yanked their money out of Western banks, pulled their children out of Western schools and universities, and did everything else they could to demonstrate that they are good patriotic Russians, not American lackeys. The sanctions affected a number of Russian energy companies, cutting them off from Western sources of technology and financing, but this will primarily hurt the earnings of Western energy companies while helping their Chinese competitors. There were even some threats to cut Russia off from the SWIFT system, which would have made it quite difficult to transfer funds between Russia and the West, but what these threats did instead was to give Russia the impetus to introduce its own RUSSWIFT system, which will include even Iran, neutralizing future American efforts at imposing financial restrictions.

The sanctions were meant to cause economic damage, but Western efforts at inflicting short-term economic damage on Russia are failing. Coupled with a significant drop in the price of oil, all of this was supposed to hurt Russia fiscally, but since the sanctions caused the Ruble to drop in tandem, the net result on Russia's state finances is a wash. Oil prices are lower, but then, thanks in part to the sanctions, so is the Ruble, and since oil revenues are still largely in dollars, this means that Russia's tax receipts are at roughly the same level at before. And since Russian oil companies earn dollars abroad but spend rubles domestically, their production budgets remain unaffected.

The Russians also responded by imposing some counter-sanctions, and to take some quick steps to neutralize the effect of the sanctions on them. Russia banned the import of produce from the European Union—to the horror of farmers there. Especially hurt were those EU members who are especially anti-Russian: the Baltic states, which swiftly lost a large fraction of their GDP, along with Poland. An exception is being made for Serbia, which refused to join in the sanctions. Here, the message is simple: friendships that have lasted many centuries matter; what the Americans want is not what the Americans get; and the EU is a mere piece of paper. Thus, the counter-sanctions are driving wedges between the US and the EU, and, within the EU, between Eastern Europe (which the sanctions are hurting the most) and Western Europe, and, most importantly, they drive home the simple message that the US is not Europe's friend.

There is something else going on that is going to become more significant in the long run: Russia has taken the hint and is turning away from the West and toward the East. It is parlaying its open defiance of American attempts at world domination into trade relationships throughout the world, much of which is sick and tired of paying tribute to Washington. Russia is playing a key role in putting together an international banking system that circumvents the US dollar and the US Federal Reserve. In these efforts, over half the world's territory and population is squarely on Russia's side and cheering loudly. Thus, the effort to isolate Russia has produced the opposite of the intended result: it is isolating the West from the rest of the world instead.

In other ways, the sanctions are actually being helpful. The import ban on foodstuffs from EU is a positive boon to domestic agriculture while driving home a politically important point: don't take food from the hands of those who bite you. Russia is already one of the world's largest grain exporters, and there is no reason why it can't become entirely self-sufficient in food. The impetus to rearm in the face of NATO encroachment on Russian borders (there are now US troops stationed in Estonia, just a short drive from Russia's second-largest city, St. Petersburg) is providing some needed stimulus for industrial redevelopment. This round of military spending is being planned a bit more intelligently than in the Soviet days, with eventual civilian conversion being part of the plan from the very outset. Thus, along with the world's best jet fighters, Russia is likely to start building civilian aircraft for export and competing with Airbus and Boeing.

But this is only the beginning. The Russians seem to have finally realized to what extent the playing field has been slanted against them. They have been forced to play by Washington's rules in two key ways: by bending to Washington's will in order to keep their credit ratings high with the three key Western credit rating agencies, in order to secure access to Western credit; and by playing by the Western rule-book when issuing credit of their own, thus keeping domestic interest rates artificially high. The result was that US companies were able to finance their operations more cheaply, artificially making them more competitive. But now, as Russia works quickly to get out from under the US dollar, shifting trade to bilateral currency arrangements (backed by some amount of gold should trade imbalances develop) it is also looking for ways to turn the printing press to its advantage. To date, the dictat handed down from Washington has been: “We can print money all we like, but you can't, or we will destroy you.” But this threat is ringing increasingly hollow, and Russia will no longer be using its dollar revenues to buy up US debt. One proposal currently on the table is to make it impossible to pay for Russian oil exports with anything other than rubles, by establishing two oil brokerages, one in St. Petersburg, the other, seven time zones away, in Vladivostok. Foreign oil buyers would then have to earn their petro-rubles the honest way—through bilateral trade—or, if they can't make enough stuff that the Russians want to import, they could pay for oil with gold (while supplies last). Or the Russians could simply print rubles, and, to make sure such printing does not cause domestic inflation, they could export some inflation by playing with the oil spigot and the oil export tariffs. And if the likes of George Soros decides to attack the ruble in an effort to devalue it, Russia could defend its currency simply by printing fewer rubles for a while—no need to stockpile dollar reserves.

So far, this all seems like typical economic warfare: the Americans want to get everything they want by printing money while bombing into submission or sanctioning anyone who disobeys them, while the rest of the world attempts to resist them. But early in 2014 the situation changed. There was a US-instigated coup in Kiev, and instead of rolling over and playing dead like they were supposed to, the Russians mounted a fast and brilliantly successful campaign to regain Crimea, then successfully checkmated the junta in Kiev, preventing it from consolidating control over the remaining former Ukrainian territory by letting volunteers, weapons, equipment and humanitarian aid enter—and hundreds of thousands of refugees exit—through the strictly notional Russian-Ukrainian border, all the while avoiding direct military confrontation with NATO. Seeing all of this happening on the nightly news has awakened the Russian population from its political slumber, making it sit up and pay attention, and sending Putin's approval rating through the roof.

The “optics” of all this, as they like to say at the White House, are rather ominous. We are coming up on the 70th anniversary of victory in World War II—a momentous occasion for Russians, who pride themselves on defeating Hitler almost single-handedly. At the same time, the US (Russia's self-appointed arch-enemy) has taken this opportunity to reawaken and feed the monster of Nazism right on Russia's border (inside Russia's borders, some Russians/Ukrainians would say). This, in turn, makes the Russians remember Russia's unique historical mission is among the nations of the world: it is to thwart all other nations' attempts at world domination, be it Napoleonic France or Hitleresque Germany or Obamaniac America. Every century or so some nation forgets its history lessons and attacks Russia. The result is always the same: lots of corpse-studded snowdrifts, and then Russian cavalry galloping into Paris, or Russian tanks rolling into Berlin. Who knows how it will end this time around? Perhaps it will involve polite, well-armed men in green uniforms without insignia patrolling the streets of Brussels and Washington, DC. Only time will tell.

You'd think that Obama has already overplayed his hand, and should behave accordingly. His popularity at home is roughly the inverse of Putin's, which is to say, Obama is still more popular than Ebola, but not by much. He can't get anything at all done, no matter how pointless or futile, and his efforts to date, at home and abroad, have been pretty much a disaster. So what does this social worker turned national mascot decide to do? Well, the way the Russians see it, he has decided to declare war on Russia! In case you missed it, look up his speech before the UN General Assembly. It's up on the White House web site. He placed Russia directly between Ebola and ISIS among the three topmost threats facing the world. Through Russian eyes his speech reads as a declaration of war.

It's a new, mixed-mode sort of war. It's not a total war to the death, although the US is being rather incautious by the old Cold War standards in avoiding a nuclear confrontation. It's an information war—based on lies and unjust vilification; it's a financial and economic war—using sanctions; it's a political war—featuring violent overthrow of elected governments and support for hostile regimes on Russia's borders; and it's a military war—using ineffectual but nevertheless insulting moves such as stationing a handful of US troops in Estonia. And the goals of this war are clear: it is to undermine Russia economically, destroy it politically, dismember it geographically, and turn it into a pliant vassal state that furnishes natural resources to the West practically free of charge (with a few hand-outs to a handful of Russian oligarchs and criminal thugs who play ball). But it doesn't look like any of that is going to happen because, you see, a lot of Russians actually get all that, and will choose leaders who will not win any popularity contests in the West but who will lead them to victory.

Given the realization that the US and Russia are, like it or not, in a state of war, no matter how opaque or muddled, people in Russia are trying to understand why this is and what it means. Obviously, the US has seen Russia as the enemy since about the time of the Revolution of 1917, if not earlier. For example, it is known that after the end of World War II America's military planners were thinking of launching a nuclear strike against the USSR, and the only thing that held them back was the fact that they didn't have enough bombs, meaning that Russia would have taken over all of Europe before the effects of the nuclear strikes could have deterred them from doing so (Russia had no nuclear weapons at the time, but lots of conventional forces right in the heart of Europe).

But why has war been declared now, and why was it declared by this social worker turned national misleader? Some keen observers mentioned his slogan “the audacity of hope,” and ventured to guess that this sort of “audaciousness” (which in Russian sounds a lot like “folly”) might be a key part of his character which makes him want to be the leader of the universe, like Napoleon or Hitler. Others looked up the campaign gibberish from his first presidential election (which got silly young Americans so fired up) and discovered that he had nice things to say about various cold warriors. Do you think Obama might perhaps be a scholar of history and a shrewd geopolitician in his own right? (That question usually gets a laugh, because most people know that he is just a chucklehead and repeats whatever his advisers tell him to say.) Hugo Chavez once called him “a hostage in the White House,” and he wasn't too far off. So, why are his advisers so eager to go to war with Russia, right now, this year?

Is it because the US is collapsing more rapidly than most people can imagine? This line of reasoning goes like this: the American scheme of world domination through military aggression and unlimited money-printing is failing before our eyes. The public has no interest in any more “boots on the ground,” bombing campaigns do nothing to reign in militants that Americans themselves helped organize and equip, dollar hegemony is slipping away with each passing day, and the Federal Reserve is fresh out of magic bullets and faces a choice between crashing the stock market and crashing the bond market. In order to stop, or at least forestall this downward slide into financial/economic/political oblivion, the US must move quickly to undermine every competing economy in the world through whatever means it has left at its disposal, be it a bombing campaign, a revolution or a pandemic (although this last one can be a bit hard to keep under control). Russia is an obvious target, because it is the only country in the world that has had the gumption to actually show international leadership in confronting the US and wrestling it down; therefore, Russia must be punished first, to keep the others in line.

I don't disagree with this line of reasoning, but I do want to add something to it.

First, the American offensive against Russia, along with most of the rest of the world, is about things Americans like to call “facts on the ground,” and these take time to create. The world wasn't made in a day, and it can't be destroyed in a day (unless you use nuclear weapons, but then there is no winning strategy for anyone, the US included). But the entire financial house of cards can be destroyed rather quickly, and here Russia can achieve a lot while risking little. Financially, Russia's position is so solid that even the three Western credit ratings agencies don't have the gall to downgrade Russia's rating, sanctions notwithstanding. This is a country that is aggressively paying down its foreign debt, is running a record-high budget surplus, has a positive balance of payments, is piling up physical gold reserves, and not a month goes by that it doesn't sign a major international trade deal (that circumvents the US dollar). In comparison, the US is a dead man walking: unless it can continue rolling over trillions of dollars in short-term debt every month at record-low interest rates, it won't be able to pay the interest on its debt or its bills. Good-bye, welfare state, hello riots. Good-bye military contractors and federal law enforcement, hello mayhem and open borders. Now, changing “facts on the ground” requires physical actions, whereas causing a financial stampede to the exits just requires somebody to yell “Boo!” loudly and frighteningly enough.

Second, it must be understood that at this point the American ruling elite is almost entirely senile. The older ones seem actually senile in the medical sense. Take Leon Panetta, the former Defense Secretary: he's been out flogging his new book, and he is still blaming Syria's Bashar al Assad for gassing his own people! By now everybody else knows that that was a false flag attack, carried out by some clueless Syrian rebels with Saudi help, to be used as an excuse for the US to bomb Syria—you know, the old “weapons of mass destruction” nonsense again. (By the way, this kind of mindless, repetitive insistence on a fake rationale seems like a sure sign of senility.) That plan didn't work because Putin and Lavrov intervened and quickly convinced Assad to give up his useless chemical weapons stockpile. The Americans were livid. So, everybody knows this story—except Panetta. You see, once an American official starts lying, he just doesn't know how to stop. The story always starts with a lie, and, as facts emerge that contradict the initial story, they are simply ignored.

So much for the senile old guard, but what about their replacements? Well, the poster boy for the young ones is Hunter Biden, the VP's son, who went on a hookers-and-blow tour of Ukraine last summer and inadvertently landed a seat on the board of directors of Ukraine's largest natural gas company (which doesn't have much gas left). He just got outed for being a coke fiend. In addition to the many pre-anointed ones, like the VP's son, there are also many barns full of eagerly bleating Ivy League graduates who have been groomed for jobs in high places. These are Prof. Deresiewicz's “Excellent Sheep.”

There just isn't much that such people, young or old, can be made to respond to. International embarrassment, military defeat, humanitarian catastrophe—all these things just bounce off them and stick to you for bringing them up and being overly negative about their rose-colored view of themselves. The only hit they can actually feel is a hit to the pocketbook.

Which brings us all the way back to my first point: “Boo!”


Dmitry Orlov is currently working on a new book that will be out later this year.  Orlov says, “The new book is about communities and what makes them resistant to adverse events such as financial collapse.”  Orlov adds, “The U.S., as a whole, is not resistant to shocks, but some parts of America are.”  You can find Dmitry Orlov at ClubOrlov.com. 

The government "of the people, by the people, and for the people" appears to be fast morphing into the government that terrorizes the people, impoverishs the people, and is set to randomly murder some of them. -- The blogger

---

The Entry of Ebola into the US Has Hallmarks of a Planned Happening

---

October 21, 2014 | Original Here                                            Go here to sign up to receive email notice of this news letter

The Entry of Ebola into the US Has Hallmarks of a Planned Happening

Paul Craig Roberts

More information is available that suggests the the government had advance information that ebola was coming to the US and that the government expects a much larger outbreak of the disease in the US than it admits.

Keep in mind that Washington is evil and has been killing people in seven countries for thirteen years based entirely on lies. Keep in mind that Washington has a long list of countries that it has destabilized. Most recently Washington overthrew the elected government in Ukraine and is currently working on the remaining independent governments in the Middle East, Russia, and China as Tony Cartalucci’s article documents: http://www.globalresearch.ca/turmoil-in-hong-kong-terrorism-in-xinjiang-americas-covert-war-on-china/5409079 For six case studies of how Washington overthrows governments read The Brothers.

Here is a report from Natural News:
http://www.naturalnews.com/047118_ebola_pandemic_us_government_american_cities.html

The U.S. government knew about the outbreak in advance, but didn’t warn the public

It’s now clear that the U.S. government has long known this outbreak was coming but did nothing to warn the public.

In early September, the government sought to purchase 160,000 Ebola hazmat suits from a U.S. supplier. http://www.naturalnews.com/046884_ebola_pandemic_hazmat_suits_biological_protection.html
 
Furthermore, according to this report on SHTFplan.com, “Disaster Assistance Response Teams were told to prepare to be activated in the month of October.” http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/report-disaster-teams-were-told-months-ago-they-would-be-activated-in-october_10012014
 
Don’t you find it strange that while the government itself was gearing up for an October disaster, the public wasn’t told a thing about any of this?

---

This post was broadcast by Paul Craig Roberts to those subscribed to his blog. His message was: "From the nurses description of the lack of any ebola protocols among the staff and the absence of isolation and protective suiting, it will be a miracle if large numbers of people were not infected. If you think you can have any confidence in health authorities, disabuse yourself of the idea by reading the nurses' statement."

---

THE BLOG

Statement by RN’s at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital as provided to National Nurses United

National Nurses United, 10/15/14

This is an inside story from some registered nurses at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas who have familiarity with what occurred at the hospital following the positive Ebola infection of first the late Thomas Eric Duncan and then a registered nurse who cared for him Nina Pham.

The RNs contacted National Nurses United out of frustration with a lack of training and preparation. They are choosing to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation.

The RNs who have spoken to us from Texas Health Presbyterian are listening in on this call and this is their report based on their experiences and what other nurses are sharing with them. When we have finished with our statement, we will have time for several questions. The nurses will have the opportunity to respond to your questions via email that they will send to us, that we will read to you.

We are not identifying the nurses for their protection, but they work at Texas Health Presbyterian and have knowledge of what occurred at the hospital.

They feel a duty to speak out about the concerns that they say are shared by many in the hospital who are concerned about the protocols that were followed and what they view were confusion and frequently changing policies and protocols that are of concern to them, and to our organization as well.

When Thomas Eric Duncan first came into the hospital, he arrived with an elevated temperature, but was sent home.

On his return visit to the hospital, he was brought in by ambulance under the suspicion from him and family members that he may have Ebola.

Mr. Duncan was left for several hours, not in isolation, in an area where other patients were present.

No one knew what the protocols were or were able to verify what kind of personal protective equipment should be worn and there was no training.

Subsequently a nurse supervisor arrived and demanded that he be moved to an isolation unit– yet faced resistance from other hospital authorities.

Lab specimens from Mr. Duncan were sent through the hospital tube system without being specially sealed and hand delivered. The result is that the entire tube system by which all lab specimens are sent was potentially contaminated.

There was no advance preparedness on what to do with the patient, there was no protocol, there was no system. The nurses were asked to call the Infectious Disease Department.  The Infectious Disease Department did not have clear policies to provide either.

Initial nurses who interacted with Mr. Duncan nurses wore a non-impermeable gown front and back, three pairs of gloves, with no taping around wrists, surgical masks, with the option of N-95s, and face shields.  Some supervisors said that even the N-95 masks were not necessary.

The suits they were given still exposed their necks, the part closest to their face and mouth.  They had suits with booties and hoods, three pairs of gloves, no tape.

For their necks, nurses had to use medical tape, that is not impermeable and has permeable seams, to wrap around their necks in order to protect themselves, and had to put on the tape and take it off on their own.

Nurses had to interact with Mr. Duncan with whatever protective equipment was available, at a time when he had copious amounts of diarrhea and vomiting which produces a lot of contagious fluids.

Hospital officials allowed nurses who had interacted with Mr. Duncan to then continue normal patient care duties, taking care of other patients, even though they had not had the proper personal protective equipment while caring for Mr. Duncan.

Patients who may have been exposed were one day kept in strict isolation units. On the next day were ordered to be transferred out of strict isolation into areas where there were other patients, even those with low-grade fevers who could potentially be contagious.

Were protocols breached? The nurses say there were no protocols.

Some hospital personnel were coming in and out of those isolation areas in the Emergency Department without having worn the proper protective equipment.

CDC officials who are in the hospital and Infectious Disease personnel have not kept hallways clean; they were going back and forth between the Isolation Pod and back into the hallways that were not properly cleaned, even after CDC, infectious control personnel, and doctors who exited into those hallways after being in the isolation pods.
Advance preparation

Advance preparation that had been done by the hospital primarily consisted of emailing us about one optional lecture/seminar on Ebola. There was no mandate for nurses to attend trainings, or what nurses had to do in the event of the arrival of a patient with Ebola-like symptoms.

This is a very large hospital. To be effective, any classes would have to offered repeatedly, covering all times when nurses work; instead this was treated like the hundreds of other seminars that are routinely offered to staff.

There was no advance hands-on training on the use of personal protective equipment for Ebola. No training on what symptoms to look for. No training on what questions to ask.

Even when some trainings did occur, after Mr. Duncan had tested positive for Ebola, they were limited, and they did not include having every nurse in the training practicing the proper way to don and doff, put on and take off, the appropriate personal protective equipment to assure that they would not be infected or spread an infection to anyone else.

Guidelines have now been changed, but it is not clear what version Nina Pham had available.

The hospital later said that their guidelines had changed and that the nurses needed to adhere to them.  What has caused confusion is that the guidelines were constantly changing.  It was later asked which guidelines should we follow? The message to the nurses was it’s up to you.

It is not up to the nurses to be setting the policy, nurses say, in the face of such a virulent disease. They needed to be trained optimally and correctly in how to deal with Ebola and the proper PPE doffing, as well as how to dispose of the waste.

In summary, the nurses state there have been no policies in cleaning or bleaching the premises without housekeeping services. There was no one to pick up hazardous waste as it piled to the ceiling. They did not have access to proper supplies and observed the Infectious Disease Department and CDC themselves violate basic principles of infection control, including cross contaminating between patients. In the end, the nurses strongly feel unsupported, unprepared, lied to, and deserted to handle the situation on their own.

We want our facility to be recognized as a leader in responding to this crisis. We also want to recognize the other nurses as heroes who put their lives on the line for their patients every day when they walk in the door.

National Nurses United Urges You to Take Action Now!

Sign the Petition and Tell President Obama - Protect Our Nurses!

For those who don’t know, “RT” stands for “Russia Today,” a news channel headquartered in Russia. “Russia Today America” is run by Americans, who are not interfered with by Russians. The proof of this is Abby Martin, hosting her own show “Breaking the Set,” closed on 3 March 2014 with a minute-long statement condemning the Russian military intervention in Ukraine. Those of us who have done our “homework” know that this was a lie (possibly unknown to Abby at the time). In fact the U.S. government lies about anything of importance to its citizens …and these lies are repeated by the so called “mainstream media” without the slightest attempt of verification. So did Russia Today fire Abby? Nope! In fact RT issued a statement saying: "Contrary to the popular opinion, RT doesn't beat its journalists into submission, and they are free to express their own opinions, not just in private but on the air." (Find the preceding quote in Wikipedia.) In the first part of the video below American patriots Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren and former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under Reagan, Paul Craig Roberts, take on what’s really happening in America today. Sen. Warren concludes “When the going got tough (Obama’s team) protected Wall Street, not families who were losing their homes.”

---

http://youtu.be/4L8QpysFwI0


Boom Bust: Paul Craig Roberts on the revolving door in Washington and Martenson on the collapse in oil prices 

Inde Pendent




Published on Oct 14, 2014

Over the weekend, US Senator Elizabeth Warren admonished President Obama for "catering to Wall Street and dismissing Main Street" following the 2008 recession. In an interview with Salon, Senator Warren argued the Obama Administration protected Wall Street. Not families who were losing their homes. Shes certainly right on the housing front, considering 32% of working-age adults are living in doubled-up households. Erin weighs in. Then, Erin sits down with Paul Craig Roberts chairman of the Institute for Political Economy and former assistant secretary to the Treasury in the Reagan Administration to talk about bank fraud and the revolving door between Washington and Wall Street.

After the break, Erin talks to Chris Martenson co-founder of PeakProsperity.com to discuss the recent drop in oil prices. Martenson believes oil is only temporarily headed lower because he says cheap oil is in short supply. And in The Big Deal, Erin is joined by Edward Harrison to further the discussion of oil prices.

Category              News & Politics
License                Standard YouTube License

Most Americans believe that Russia attacked Ukraine because the “mainstream media” -- even your revered commentators on PBS – have said so. Why would they lie? Because they know they would quickly lose their comfy jobs if they dared the reveal the truth to the American people. This leaves James Risen (preceding post) as perhaps the last journalist to defy the government by actually telling the truth …and he might yet go to prison for it. RE today’s re-post, most Americans are smart enough to realize that Russia possesses a military thousands of times better trained and armed than Ukraine. Duh! It has been estimated that the Russian Army would have been in Kiev in two or three days had they attacked ...as the “presstitute” U.S. media continues to allege that they have. Read this article and decide who the true aggressor has been ...and still is.

---

“Pardon Us For Our Country’s Existence in the Middle of Your Military Bases” – Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov’s Speech at the UN

By Carla Stea                                                                                                                                  Region: Russia and FSU
Global Research, October 14, 2014                                                             Theme: United Nations, US NATO War Agenda
Original Here                                                                                                                  In-depth Report: UKRAINE REPORT

In a courageous and brilliant speech to the United Nations General Assembly on September 27, 2014, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov pierced the veil of obfuscation that characterizes too many speeches at the United Nations, and delivered a scathing denunciation of Western imperialism, imperialism that can only be accurately described as global theft.  Lavrov, on behalf of the Russian Federation implicitly warned that US/NATO is risking global war in embarking on its campaign to seize and dominate huge territories, while inexorably and ruthlessly determined to conquer and subjugate Russia, having learned nothing from the historic reality that Napolean’s effort to dominate Russia led to the collapse of Napoleonic France, and Hitler’s attempt to subjugate Russia led to the obliteration of his Third Reich.

Perhaps this third attempt to conquer and subjugate Russia may lead not only to war encompassing huge territories of the globe, but, dialectically, may be the catalyst leading to the ultimate decline of capitalism, an economic system which thrives almost entirely on imperialism, and is undergoing a possibly terminal crisis, as described by the French economist, Thomas Piketty in his best-selling work “Capital in the 21 Century.”  In desperation, dysfunctional Western capitalism is lashing out recklessly and irrationally, unwilling and unable to preclude the disastrous consequences of its myopic policies.  And one possible consequence of current US/NATO policies is thermonuclear war.

    Lavrov stated:  “The U.S.-led Western alliance that portrays itself as a champion of democracy, rule of law and human rights within individual countries, acts from directly opposite positions in the international arena, rejecting the democratic principle of sovereign equality of states enshrined in the UN Charter and trying to decide for everyone what is good or evil.”

    “Washington has openly declared its right to unilateral use of force anywhere to uphold its own interests.  Military interference has become a norm – even despite the dismal outcome of all power operations that the U.S. has carried out over the recent years.”

    “The sustainability of the international system has been severely shaken by NATO bombardment of Yugoslavia, intervention in Iraq, attack against Libya and the failure of operation in Afghanistan.  Only due to intensive diplomatic efforts the aggression against Syria was prevented in 2013.  There is an involuntary impression that the goal of various ‘color revolutions’ and other projects to change unsuitable regimes is to provoke chaos and instability.”

    “Today Ukraine has fallen victim to such an arrogant policy.  The situation there has revealed the remaining deep-rooted systemic flaws of the existing architecture in the Euro-Atlantic area.  The West has embarked upon the course towards ‘vertical structuring of humanity’ tailored to its own hardly inoffensive standards.  After they declared victory in the Cold War and the ‘end of history,’ the U.S. and EU have opted for expanding the geopolitical area under their control without taking into account the balance of legitimate interests of all peoples of Europe […] NATO enlargement to the East continued in spite of the promises to the contrary given earlier.  The instant switch of NATO to hostile rhetoric and to the drawdown of its cooperation with Russia even to the detriment of the West’s own interests, and additional build up of military infrastructure at the Russian borders – made obvious the inability of the alliance to change the genetic code it embedded during the Cold War era.”

    “The U.S. and EU supported the coup d’etat in Ukraine and reverted to outright justification of any acts by the self-proclaimed Kiev authorities that opted for suppression by force of the part of the Ukranian people that had rejected the attempts to impose the anti-constitutional way of life to the  entire country and wanted to defend its rights to the native language, culture and history.  It is precisely the aggressive assault on these rights that compelled the population of Crimea to take the destiny in its own hands and make a choice in favor of self-determination.  This was an absolutely free choice no matter what was invented by those who are responsible in the first place for the internal conflict in Ukraine.”

    “The attempts to distort the truth and to hide the facts behind blanket accusations have been undertaken at all stages of the Ukranian crisis.  Nothing has been done to track down and prosecute those responsible for February bloody events at Maidan and massive loss of human lives in Odessa, Mariupol and other regions of Ukraine.  The scale of appalling humanitarian disaster provoked by the acts of the Ukrainian army in the South-Eastern Ukraine has been deliberately understated.  Recently, new horrible facts have been brought to light when mass graves were discovered in the suburbs of Donetsk.  Despite UNSG Resolution 2166 a thorough and independent investigation of the circumstances of the loss of Malaysian airliner over the territory of Ukraine has been protracted.  The culprits of all these crimes must be identified and brought to justice.  Otherwise the national reconciliation in Ukraine can hardly be expected.”

In total contempt for truth and international law, Kiev’s escalation of the Ukranian crisis is being relentlessly prepared, in an ultimate act of deceit, as Ukranian President Poroshenko assumes military regalia, threatening Russia’s survival, and, indeed the survival of his own bankrupt country, and is now speaking of all-out war with Russia.

Last month Washington pledged and delivered 53 million dollars of US taxpayer’s money to provide military aid to the Kiev regime, which is using the ceasefire arranged by Russian President Putin and the OSCE as an opportunity to acquire more sophisticated and deadly weapons and prepare for another barbarous onslaught against civilians in east and southeastern Ukraine, where the massacre of almost 4,000 citizens of East Ukraine and the desperate plight of more than one million refugees  followed the “secret” visit to Kiev, (under a false name) of CIA Director John Brennan last April.

But perhaps the most brazen announcement of US/NATO intent to inflict further carnage upon the citizens of East Ukraine , whose rejection of the Nazi infested and Western controlled regime in Kiev has resulted in Kiev’s campaign of extermination of its dissident Ukrainian citizens, is the return to Kiev this month of the US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian affairs, Victoria Nuland.  Ms. Nuland was made world famous (or world infamous) by her February declaration “Fuck the EU” while, on behalf of her neocon sponsors in Washington, she engineered the destabilization and overthrow of Ukraine’s democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovich, plunging Ukraine into the civil war that holds the potential of engulfing the world in a conflagration which will be known as World War III.

In her October 7, 2014 speech to the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kiev, Ms. Nuland boasted:  “Ukraine this year has received $290 million in U.S. financial support plus a billion dollar loan guarantee.  And now you have what so many of you stood on the Maidan for, you have an association agreement with Europe and a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement.”  That “Association Agreement” holds Ukraine virtual hostage to NATO and the IMF, whose imposition of “austerity measures” will further degrade the living standards of the already impoverished Ukranians.  Ms. Nuland brings a Trojan Horse into Ukraine, unctuously flattering gullible Ukranian students, who will ultimately provide cannon fodder for the war which US/NATO is inciting.

Further on in his September 27 address to the UN General Assembly, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov states:

    “Let me recall a history of not so far ago.  As a condition for establishing diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union in 1933 the U.S. government demanded of Moscow the guarantees of non-interference into domestic affairs of the U.S. and obligations not to take any actions with a view to changing political or social order in America.  At that time Washington feared a revolutionary virus and the above guarantees were put on record on the basis of reciprocity.  Perhaps, it makes sense to return to this topic and reproduce that demand of the U.S. government on a universal scale.  Shouldn’t the General Assembly adopt a declaration on the inadmissibility of interference into domestic affairs of sovereign states and non-recognition of coup d’etat as a method of the change of power?  The time has come to totally exclude from the international interaction the attempts of illegitimate pressure of some states on others.  The meaningless and counterproductive nature of unilateral sanctions is obvious if we took an example of the U.S. blockade of Cuba.”

“The policy of ultimatums and philosophy of supremacy and domination do not meet the requirements of the 21 century and run counter to the objective process of development of a polycentric and democratic world order.”

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution "prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to peaceably assemble or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances" Nowadays, the presstitute media prefer to keep their lucrative jobs by reporting what the government wishes to be reported (usually lies). Only true patriots like James Risen risk imprisonment to stay the course that our Founding Fathers laid out for us.

---

http://youtu.be/ZIBgwrveVag

James Risen Prepared to “Pay Any Price” to Report on War on Terror Amid Crackdown on Whistleblowers

democracynow




Published on Oct 14, 2014

http://democracynow.org - We spend the hour with veteran New York Times investigative reporter James Risen, the journalist at the center of one of the most significant press freedom cases in decades. In 2006, Risen won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting about warrantless wiretapping of Americans by the National Security Agency. He has since been pursued by both the Bush and Obama administrations in a six-year leak investigation into that book, "State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration." Risen now faces years in prison if he refuses to testify at the trial of a former CIA officer, Jeffrey Sterling, who is accused of giving him classified information about the agency's role in disrupting Iran’s nuclear program, which he argues effectively gave Iran a blueprint for designing a bomb. The Obama administration must now decide if it will try to force Risen’s testimony, despite new guidelines issued earlier this year that make it harder to subpoena journalists for their records. Risen's answer to this saga has been to write another book, released today, titled "Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War." "You cannot have aggressive investigative reporting in America without confidential sources — and without aggressive investigative reporting, we can’t really have a democracy," Risen says. "I think that is what the government really fears more than anything else." Risen also details revelations he makes in his new book about what he calls the "homeland security-industrial complex."

Watch the full 45-minute interview with James Risen on Democracy Now!:
http://www.democracynow.org/appearanc...

Democracy Now!, is an independent global news hour that airs weekdays on 1,200+ TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch our livestream 8-9am ET at http://democracynow.org.

Please consider supporting independent media by making a donation to Democracy Now! today: http://owl.li/ruJ5Q

FOLLOW DEMOCRACY NOW! ONLINE:
Facebook: http://facebook.com/democracynow
Twitter: https://twitter.com/democracynow
YouTube: http://youtube.com/democracynow
SoundCloud: http://soundcloud.com/democracynow
Daily Email: http://democracynow.org/subscribe
Google+: https://plus.google.com/+DemocracyNow
Instagram: http://instagram.com/democracynow
Tumblr: http://democracynow.tumblr
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/democracynow

Paul Craig Roberts (posted yesterday): "The CDC specifies a face mask, which the nurse had along with the other CDC specified gear. The use of face masks is based on the supposition that the virus is not airborne. Perhaps covering up for itself, CDC’s Dr. Tom Frieden attributed the nurse’s infection to 'a breach of safety protocol.' In fact, the problem might be that respirators are required in place of face masks. If the CDC misunderstands the nature of the disease and persists in misunderstanding, the disease could get out of control in the US." Update: Dr Frieden now says that the infected nurse followed the protocol and that further research will be done to determine how the virus is spreading.

---

Second US Ebola diagnosis deeply concerning, health officials admit

---

 Tom Dart in Houston
 The Guardian, Sunday 12 October 2014                                                                                      Original Here

---

To watch this video, you will need to go to the original

Federal health officials in the US admitted on Sunday they were deeply concerned by a “breach in protocol” after it was revealed that a healthcare worker who treated Thomas Eric Duncan in Dallas had become the second person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the US.
 
Four days after Duncan died in an isolation unit, after arriving in Dallas last month from Liberia, secondary tests confirmed that a female employee at Texas Health Presbyterian hospital has the virus, in the first case of Ebola transmission in the US and the second outside Africa.

Texas officials earlier said preliminary tests showed the worker had been exposed to Ebola, but they were awaiting confirmation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Confirmation followed on Sunday afternoon.

The White House said President Barack Obama had been updated about the case.

Hospital officials said the employee had worn full protective clothing during all contact with Duncan. Dr Tom Frieden, the CDC director, warned in a media briefing on Sunday that other hospital staff could also have been exposed to the virus and may show symptoms in the coming days.

“The healthcare workers who cared for this individual may have had a breach of the same nature,” Frieden said. “It is certainly very concerning and it tells us there is a need to enhance training and make sure protocols are followed.

“The protocols work … but we know that even a single lapse or breach can result in infection.”

The White House said Obama had asked the CDC to move as quickly as possible in investigating the apparent breach of infection control procedures, and told federal authorities to take more steps to make sure hospitals and healthcare providers are ready to follow the proper procedures in dealing with an Ebola patient.

The woman infected by Ebola in Dallas, who was identified in media reports as a nurse, treated Duncan after he fell gravely ill and was admitted to hospital on 28 September, his second visit to the hospital.

Hospital chief clinical officer Dr Daniel Varga said in a statement: “Individuals being monitored are required to take their temperature twice daily. As a result of that procedure, the caregiver notified the hospital of imminent arrival and was immediately admitted to the hospital in isolation.

“The entire process, from the patient’s self-monitoring to the admission into isolation, took less than 90 minutes. The patient’s condition is stable.”

The Texas health commissioner David Lakey said the test that confirmed the woman’s infection was conducted in a laboratory in Austin and came back positive on Saturday evening, but showed lower levels of the virus than in Duncan’s case.

“It’s deeply concerning that this infection occurred,” Frieden said. “We can’t let any hospital let its guard down.”

The woman was not among the 48 people officials are monitoring during the virus’s 21-day incubation period who may have contact with Duncan and are so far asymptomatic. Lakey said health officials were working to identify people who may have had contact with her once she started showing symptoms and as a result became contagious.

Frieden said that so far they had found only one such person, who was “under active monitoring”, but “it is possible that other individuals were exposed”.

He said that the woman had “extensive contact … on multiple occasions” with Duncan following his second visit to the hospital, where he was admitted and isolated.

Teresa Romero, a 44-year-old Spanish nurse, contracted Ebola after caring for a priest who had been repatriated from west Africa. She is being treated in a Madrid hospital and has told El Pais that she believes she may have made a mistake when taking off her protective suit, perhaps touching her face with her gloves.

Frieden said the second patient in Dallas has been interviewed but so far “that worker has not been able to identify a specific breach” which may have resulted in her exposure. The CDC said that on Friday the worker, who had been self-monitoring for Ebola symptoms, reported a low-grade fever and was referred for testing. She was promptly isolated, officials said.

 CDC chief Tom Frieden at a news conference in Atlanta. Photograph: John Amis/AP

After a series of missteps in Duncan’s case, federal and Texas officials have sought to quell public fears about the threat of the virus and the ability of government agencies to contain it. But news that one of its workers has contracted Ebola despite taking precautions puts the hospital under further pressure.

On 26 September, Duncan went to the hospital for treatment but was sent away with antibiotics after hospital staff seemingly failed to consider that he might have Ebola despite being made aware of his travel history. Medical records obtained by the Associated Press indicated that Duncan was feverish with a temperature of 103F on that visit. He then fell gravely ill and was rushed to the hospital on 28 September, where he was isolated. His diagnosis was confirmed on 30 September.

He was staying with Louise Troh, his partner, in an apartment less than a mile from the hospital. Relatives of Duncan’s family have indicated in statements to the media that they are unhappy with the hospital’s failure correctly to diagnose the 42-year-old during his first visit and dissatisfied with the standard of treatment he received once the case was confirmed. They are believed to be considering legal action against the hospital.

After being criticised for their sluggish response to Duncan’s diagnosis, which left several quarantined family members stuck in the apartment for several days before they were taken to a home at an undisclosed location and a hazardous-materials cleaning crew arrived to decontaminate the unit, Dallas officials were at pains in a Sunday morning media briefing to stress they have acted more decisively this time to clean and control access to the nurse’s residence.

Mayor Mike Rawlings said a team “has cleaned up the common areas and decontaminated the common areas and decontaminated any of the open areas of an apartment complex … they sprayed with a decontaminant, a clean-up agent and right now police are standing by to make sure no one enters. Furthermore, we have knocked on every door in that block and helped every single person who came to the door, explained what has happened.”

Rawlings also said a pet was believed to be inside the healthworker’s apartment, but was not believed to be exhibiting signs of Ebola and would be taken care of. This week, a dog belonging to the Spanish nurse infected with the disease was destroyed.

Rawlings said that reverse 911 calls had been made to nearby residents to inform them of the diagnosis and that officials would return to knock on doors again on Sunday and talk to any people they had missed. Printed materials were left at every door, Rawlings said.

Media images showed a police officer blocking the entrance to a small apartment building less than four miles northeast of downtown Dallas and four miles south of the hospital where Duncan died. Similar images showed a yellow barrel containing hazardous waste sitting on the front lawn of the building. 

 Police confer as a barrel for disposal of hazardous waste sits outside the apartment of the health worker.
Photograph: Louis DeLuca/AP

A neighbour, Cliff Lawson, 57, told Reuters he was woken at 6am by two Dallas police officers, who told him “don’t panic”.

“I went back to bed after that. There’s nothing you can do about it. You can’t wrap your house in bubble wrap,” Lawson said.

During a briefing, Varga declined to provide a detailed timeline of events leading to the worker’s hospitalisation, citing patient privacy rights. He said the hospital was tracking 18 of its employees for possible exposure in the wake of Duncan’s admission and that the current patient had not been considered as high risk.

The hospital has a 24-bed intensive care unit which it is using exclusively as an Ebola care unit. Varga said the hospital was not accepting any more emergency patients.

Enhanced screenings of travellers arriving at five major US airports from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea began at New York’s JFK on Saturday. Newark, Washington Dulles, Atlanta and Chicago O’Hare will follow suit on Thursday.

More than 4,000 people in the three west African countries have died from the current Ebola outbreak, according to the CDC.

At the Sunday morning press conference held at the hospital, Dallas County judge Jenkins sought to calm public fears. He said: “I want to stress an important fact. You cannot contract Ebola other than from bodily fluids of a symptomatic Ebola victim. You cannot contract Ebola by walking by people in the street or from contacts who are not symptomatic. There is nothing about this case that changes that basic premise of science.

“And so it’s important that while this is obviously bad news, it is not news that should bring about panic. We have a strategy to monitor this and we will go to that strategy to keep the community safe.”