The UK government forced the Guardian's London office to delete all of Snowden's material, on threat of seizing it.

Fortunately there were copies elsewhere, but this illustrates the fact that the UK and US governments will go to any lengths of lies and abuse to crush journalism that investigates their nastiest secrets.

It won't remain limited to those issues, because the plutocratic state is in cahoots with corporations that endanger our lives, health, and liberty. We have seen the UK thugs help businesses blacklist workers, while in the US, investigating factory farms is now a crime in many states.

These examples demonstrate that the US or UK will use its repressive power against any journalism that business finds annoying — not that different from China.

The US cooperates with the Egyptian military in return for convenience in attacking other countries.

Note how the New York Times headline, "Ties With Egypt Army Constrain Washington," presumes that the US could not possibly forfeit Egypt's military cooperation — a considerable exaggeration compared with the facts stated.

Hong Kong's government is asking high-ranking thugs who are due to retire soon to stay on the job an extra 90 days, because of a planned Occupy protest.

This suggests to me that Hong Kong plans to repress the protest camp, as the US, UK, and other countries have done.

The UK had a housing bubble, fueled, like the US housing bubble, by enticing people into predatory mortgages, for which the capital was obtained by mortgage-backed securities. This article explains the whole process clearly.

In the US, the bubble popped and mortgage-backed securities lead to the systematic foreclosure fraud.

In the UK, according to this article, the bubble didn't stay popped; rather, the government patched it up and is blowing more mortgage funds into it.

Without the bubble's high prices, there would have been no need for so much money to pour into mortgages. Thus, I think mortgage-backed securities should be banned entirely.

However, the low rate of housing construction in the UK is also responsible.

Any Other 'Statesman' Who Negotiated Peace Like John Kerry Would Be Treated as a Thief.