Puppet MastersS

Red Flag

NBC News' bombshell Obamacare report disappears due to 'publishing glitch' - and there was something missing from republished version

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© AP Photo/Charles DharapakPresident Barack Obama smiles while speaking at Pathways in Technology Early College High School (P-TECH) in Brooklyn borough of New York, Friday, Oct. 25, 2013, where he highlighted the importance of education in providing skills for American workers in a global economy.
NBC News is claiming that a "publishing glitch" caused its bombshell investigative report on Obamacare to disappear for a period of time. The news outlet has since republished the scathing article, however, a key paragraph was temporarily removed - and no editor's note explaining why was included.

The article in question revealed that the Obama administration knew at least three years ago that millions of Americans would not be able to keep their health insurance under Obamacare. But that didn't stop President Barack Obama and other administration officials from promising the opposite, the report suggests.

At some point Tuesday night, the link to the story started directing readers to a "Error 404โ€ณ page:

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EDITOR'S NOTE: A publishing glitch took down our story on policy cancellations under Obamacare. Republished here: http://t.co/HegN2kyvyV

- NBC News (@NBCNews) October 29, 2013

Vader

MSNBC's blistering montage of the president denying knowledge of recent scandals

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"What did the president know and when did he know it?"

Not much, and not until much later, an MSNBC-created montage of recent scandals recaps.

Among them are Operation Fast and Furious; the Internal Revenue Service's extra scrutiny of conservative groups; Department of Justice subpoenas of Associated Press records; Solyndra; and the disastrous rollout of Obamacare.

Bad Guys

US dollar's 'exorbitant privilege' at risk

The US brought itself close to another self-inflicted fiscal crisis, saved only by an 11th hour agreement. But this solution only
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© picture-alliance/dpa
postpones the problem and could undermine confidence in the dollar as a safe haven.

Since the end of World War II, international investors have looked at the US dollar as a safe bet, reassured by the full faith and credit of Uncle Sam. In hard times, they parked their money in US Treasury bills to ride out the storm. But these days, Washington is not looking as reliable as it once did to some investors.

Democrats and Republicans were only able to reach a deal at the very last minute. Their inability to compromise sooner on a spending bill had caused the federal government to shut down for the first time in 17 years. But the attempt by the Republicans to once again use the debt ceiling as leverage in budget negotiations with President Barack Obama, risking a default on US debt obligations, failed. This could have had a major impact on investor confidence.

Comment: Indeed, many countries are dumping their reliance on the US Dollar Reserve in favor of agreements struck in their own currencies. As confidence erodes, many of these foreign trade dollars will find their way back home - possibly sparking a brutal dollar hyperinflation. No new dollar creation is needed for this to happen.


Bomb

Notorious anti-immigration Arizona sheriff wants fleet of drones

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© Reuters / Laura SegallMaricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio
Yet another law enforcement agency is looking to acquire a fleet of surveillance drones, but don't act too surprised. Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the controversial lawman from Maricopa County, Arizona, is interesting in adding drones to his arsenal.

Arpaio, 81, has made headlines before over his vehement stance against immigration and his thoughts about United States President Barack Obama. Now he's in the news again, and this time because he wants to bring unmanned aerial vehicles to Maricopa County to protect its almost 4-million residents.

"I want two of these drones, unmanned and of course unarmed," Arpaio told local network ABC15.

The US Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation already have drones on the ready that can be deployed during emergency situations, and dozens of small law enforcement agencies and organizations as of late have applied for permits to control unmanned aerial vehicles in a limited airspace. Now Arpaio wants Maricopa County to be on the list of locales cleared for drone use in certain situations, and he's hoping an eye-in-the-sky surveillance tool will help stop crime and catch criminals.

Star of David

Israel benefits as world loses

Paul Balles
Paul Balles

Is there any point in public debate in a society where hardly anyone has been taught how to think, while millions have been taught what to think?

--Peter Hitchens

What started off as Arab Spring has turned morbidly into Arab Fall. What began as a seasonal description became directional and self-destructive. Not only have movements that looked promising failed to benefit anyone but Israel, they have drawn their sponsors exorbitantly toward bankruptcy.

The Israelis and their lobbyists in the United States laugh quietly when they hear someone complain about the $3 billion in annual gifts America sends to Israel. Why is that funny? Because it only represents a tiny portion of what Israel really costs America. Add the total costs of all the wars the US has fought for Israel. The Iraq war alone has cost America $815 billion and it's still not over. It has benefitted no one but Israel - not America and certainly not Iraq. The number of Iraqis slaughtered in the US war and occupation of Iraq: 1,455,590.

Comment: Very succinct description and great summary of the current state of affairs in the Middle East. The pathology of the Israeli leaders is becoming more and more obvious as the death toll rises and costs increase by hundreds of billions every year. When will this stop?


Eye 2

Police perform "simulated drug raid" on 5th graders; child attacked by police dog

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A "drug awareness" event turned out to be more of a "police state" conditioning drill for a group of 5th graders.

Children were subjected to a "simulated raid" of a party so they could witness police searching citizens with dogs and look for reasons to arrest them in a "drug awareness" event. The idea went from bad to worse when one of the children was attacked by the police dog as it sniffed them for drugs.

This week is apparently "Red Ribbon Awareness week," in which children across the country are told how important it is to keep up the status quo with drug prohibition. The Clay County Courthouse set up a police state demonstration for a group of 5th graders which involved a simulated police raid of a party involving searches and seizures using a vicious police dog.

With the goal of "educating the Clay County fifth-graders on drug awareness," police crashed into a simulated party to search the attendees for narcotics. The children involved were told to hold very still while they were searched by police and their K-9.

Bad Guys

War crime: Rebels conduct new chemical weapons attack in Syria near Turkish border

UN arms expert in Syria
© AFPA United Nations (UN) arms expert collects samples on August 29, 2013, as they inspect the site where rockets had fallen in Damascus' eastern Ghouta suburb during an investigation into a suspected chemical weapons strike near the capital.
The rebels used chemical weapons in north-eastern Syria near the border with Turkey on Tuesday, a Lebanese TV channel Al-Mayadeen reported.

The toxic shell exploded near a Kurdish defense forces' checkpoint close to the border with Turkey in the city of Ras al-Ayn al-Hasakah.

The attack was reported by Kurdish defense forces who are conducting military operations against the rebels in the region.

They are quoted as saying they saw toxic yellow smoke that followed the shell explosion, while some of them had symptoms of severe chemical intoxication accompanied by nausea.

The reported chemical attack comes amid the second day of fierce fighting in the town.

The Kurdish forces have successfully repelled several attacks by armed groups of extremists of the Nusra Front ( Jabhat al-Nusra), and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, killing 28 militants.

Comment: Will the UN respond and demand and enforce a stop to the West's support of the terrorists?


Family

Punishing pension savers

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Closed empty branch of Bank of Cyprus
Just a few short months ago, the Cyprus "bail-in" plan, which forcibly extracted assets from almost anyone with a bank account while the island nation fought to stave off creditors, seemed to forge a new frontier for cash-strapped governments.

Unfortunately, as Russia and Poland have recently demonstrated, overwhelming pension obligations and the demographic realities of a shrinking labor force could all too easily lead governments to raid the one remaining stash: private savings for retirement.

Penalizing saving and thrift is terrible policy at any time. It is particularly self-defeating at a time when governments are finding it increasingly difficult to fulfill the promises they made to retirees. Raiding pensions not only discourages savings, it doubles down on the difficulty of caring for the nation's aging population.

Cyprus and Poland are examples of what happens to deeply indebted countries in crisis. The "bail-in" in Cyprus from earlier this year eventually required up to a 47.5 percent haircut on depositors as part of the deal to shore up troubled banks. This forced savers, including small savers, to pay for the risky bets that sophisticated parties took.

Comment: The raiding by governments of savings and pension funds is increasing in attempts to preserve borrowing power and balance sheets. Promises of protection of payment will prove empty. Savers and pensioners the world over need to prepare now.


Dollars

Long Green: Squandering taxpayers' money on the Green Climate Fund

The US has some of the world's most boring looking money - it's all green. So we have terms like "greenbacks" for dollars, and "long green", meaning lots of money.

I offer this as context for what I found when I got to wondering what had happened to the United Nations "Green Climate Fund". You may recall that the Green Climate Fund was set up by the UN as the only result of the recent Rio de Janeiro Cancun conference on climate idiocy. When the Fund is going full throttle, it is supposed to disburse no less than $200 billion ($200,000,000,000) dollars each and every year to the developing countries.

It turns out that, unlike those of us skeptics who are falsely accused of receiving big bucks from big oil, the "Green Climate Fund" has already raked in millions of dollars to spend on fighting the evil forces of carbon. They have a catchy slogan, viz: "The urgency and seriousness of climate change call for ambition in financing adaptation and mitigation". Ambition in financing? What's not to like?

Now, I've worked for development organizations before. The rule of thumb is that no more than 15% of the funds should go for administration, the rest needs to go to the eventual intended recipients of the largesse.

Climate Fund
© WattsUpWithThat

Red Flag

Did China just join the War on Terror? Tiananmen car crash may have been suicide attack, officials claim

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© ReutersSmoke rises from the scene of Monday's crash at the Forbidden City, in which a sport utility vehicle mounted the pavement and burst into flames.
Police investigating incident at Forbidden City in which five people died say they are seeking two Muslim Uighur suspects


Police investigating Monday's car crash at Beijing's Forbidden City are searching for information on two suspects from the Muslim Uighur minority. A day after a car ploughed through a crowd, crashed and burst into flames, killing five people and injuring 38, government sources have said the "major incident" may have been a suicide attack.

"It looks like a premeditated suicide attack," a government source told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Two bystanders, including a Filipino woman, were killed when a sport utility vehicle veered inside a barrier separating a crowded pavement from a busy avenue and then drove toward Tiananmen Gate, which stands opposite Tiananmen Square. Three passengers inside the car were also killed.

The 38 injured were among the crowds in front of the gate, where a large portrait of Mao Zedong hangs near the southern entrance to the former imperial palace. Three other Filipinos and a Japanese man were among the injured, police said, but there were no immediate details on their conditions.