Puppet MastersS


Vader

IRS role in Obamacare

Jeanne Sahadi
CNN
Tue, 28 May 2013 17:00 UTC
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In the wake of the Tea Party targeting scandal, Republicans say the IRS should hit the brakes on implementing Obamacare provisions. But the IRS has a central role in making sure the new law works.
The IRS has a big target on its back these days. Its leaders have been pummeled on Capitol Hill over inappropriate targeting of Tea Party groups applying for tax-exempt status.

And some Republicans say they want the IRS to stop issuing and enforcing rules related to Obamacare at least until a federal investigation of the case is over.

Republicans have tried repeatedly to repeal the Affordable Care Act. And it's unclear whether the IRS scandal will let them slow-walk the law's implementation.

Regardless, the push adds to the pressure the IRS is under to help ensure that the law's implementation will not be a "train wreck," as some have contended it could be.

This much is known for sure: The IRS is charged with playing a key role in implementing health reform.
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Bad Guys

African Union accuses ICC of 'hunting' Africans


BBC
Tue, 28 May 2013 16:56 UTC
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© AFP PhotoKenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta won elections in March
The African Union (AU) has accused the International Criminal Court (ICC) of "hunting" Africans because of their race.

It was opposed to the ICC trying Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta on charges of crimes against humanity, said Ethiopia's Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn.

The AU would raise its concerns with the UN, he added.

Mr Kenyatta, who was elected in March, is due to be tried in July.

He denies the charges, which arise from accusations that he fuelled violence after disputed elections in 2007.
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Chess

Saudi king appoints his son national guard minister


Associated Press
Mon, 27 May 2013 16:48 UTC
Mitab
© Unknown
Saudi Arabia's king has converted the national guard command into the National Guard Ministry and appointed his son Mitab, the commander of the guard, as National Guard Minister.

The national guard serves as an elite force to protect the regime.

A royal decree issued Monday gave no reasons for the move. It was not clear what changes this would make on the ground.
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Propaganda

U.S. civil liberties going backwards: Obama's using 1917 Espionage Act to go after reporters

Michael Barone
National Review
Mon, 27 May 2013 16:31 UTC
President Woodrow Wilson
© UnknownPresident Woodrow Wilson
The president uses the overly broad and little-used WWI-era law to go after reporters.

There is one problem with the entirely justified if self-interested media squawking about the Justice Department's snooping into the phone records of multiple Associated Press reporters and Fox News's James Rosen.

The problem is that what the AP reporters and Rosen did arguably violates the letter of the law.

The search warrant in the Rosen case cites Section 793(d) of Title 18 of the U.S. Code. Section 793(d) says that a person lawfully in possession of information that the government has classified as secret who turns it over to someone not lawfully entitled to posses it has committed a crime. That might cover Rosen's source.

Section 793(g) is a conspiracy count that says that anyone who conspires to help the source do that has committed the same crime. That would be the reporter.

It sounds as though this law criminalizes a lot of journalism. You might wonder how such a law ever got passed and why, for the last 90 years, it has very seldom produced prosecutions and investigations of journalists.
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Sherlock

The Sharyl Attkisson approach to journalism

Dylan Byers
Politico
Fri, 24 May 2013 16:13 UTC
Attkisson
© CBS PhotoProducers at CBS News once nicknamed Attkisson 'Pit Bull.'
Sharyl Attkisson has problems.

The Obama administration won't answer the CBS News correspondent's questions because her investigations - into Benghazi, Fast and Furious, Solyndra - often reflect negatively on it. Some colleagues at CBS News, where she has worked for two decades and earned multiple Emmy awards, dismiss her work because they perceive a political agenda. And now, she says, someone may have hacked into her computers.

Attkisson's one piece of solace may come from finally gaining some like-minded colleagues in the media. For years, Attkisson has been one of the few mainstream reporters pursuing critical stories about the Obama administration. Today, as "scandal season" takes hold in Washington, she has seen her longstanding skepticism of the White House and the Justice Department become the conventional attitude among a formerly deferential Beltway press corps.
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Sheriff

Woolwich murder: Theresa May vows to get tough on extremist websites

Patrick Wintour
Guardian
Sun, 26 May 2013 13:28 UTC
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© AFP/Getty ImagesThe family of Drummer Lee Rigby on Sunday visited the site of his murder in Woolwich.
Home secretary outlines measures to prevent radicalisation of British Muslims, including pre-emptive censorship of jihadist sites

A dramatic battery of measures to prevent radicalisation of British Muslims was outlined on Sunday by the home secretary, Theresa May, including tougher pre-emptive censorship of internet sites, a lower threshold for banning extremist groups and renewed pressure on universities and mosques to reject so-called hate preachers.

May also signalled that she was prepared to do battle with Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, over his veto of the communications data bill.

After four days in which ministers have been praised in some quarters for avoiding a kneejerk response to the killing of soldier Lee Rigby outside his Woolwich barracks in south London, Whitehall swung into action. It has promised a new taskforce, chaired by the prime minister, and a root and branch review of Prevent, the government strategy to combat radicalisation.

M15 will also deliver a preliminary report to the intelligence and security committee on how it failed to realise that Michael Adebolajo, one of the Woolwich suspects, represented a serious threat to national security, even though the services had been tracking him for years and at one point sought to recruit him.
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Magnify

French ponder similarities between London, Paris attacks on soldiers

Kim Willsher
LA Times
Sun, 26 May 2013 13:24 UTC
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© Francois Guillot / AFP / Getty Images / May 25, 2013Police investigators and forensic experts work at the site where a man armed with a knife or box cutter attacked a French soldier patrolling a subway station on Saturday, stabbing him in the neck
French anti-terrorist investigators are hunting for a man who stabbed a soldier in the throat at a busy Paris shopping and transport center.

Detectives are also examining whether there is a link between the attack and the killing of a British soldier who was hacked to death in London on Wednesday.

The 23-year-old French soldier, Pfc. Cedric Cordier, was patrolling the busy underground corridors beneath the La Defense arch in the French capital's business district with two other soldiers when an attacker approached him from behind shortly before 6 p.m. on Saturday, authorities said. They said Cordier was stabbed in the neck with a knife or cutter that narrowly missed his carotid artery.

The soldier, a member of the Gap 4th Rifle Regiment, was taken to a hospital, where doctors said his life was not in danger. The attacker, who fled into a nearby shopping center, was described as of North African appearance and around 30 years old. He was still being sought on Sunday.

The area where the attack occurred adjoins the busy La Defense train station, and is monitored by video cameras run by the city transport network. Investigators are now going through footage from the cameras.

French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, who visited Cordier in the hospital a few hours after Saturday's attack, said it was clear the victim was targeted because he was a soldier. Le Drian and Interior Minister Manuel Valls issued a joint statement condemning what they described as a "cowardly attack" on the soldier.

Comment: While you are all pondering the blatant efforts by French and British 'intelligence' agencies to manipulate you, ponder this:

Police state now! Monitoring Internet chatter the 'vital frontline in war against popular protest movements'

and this:

Anglo-French arms industry forces EU to lift official embargo on sending Weapons of Mass Destruction to Al Qaeda in Syria

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V

'March Against Monsanto' protests attract millions worldwide

Arturo Garcia
Raw Story
Sat, 25 May 2013 13:12 UTC
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© RT
Protesters in more than 50 countries mobilized on Saturday for a series of demonstrations against agricultural business titan Monsanto, far surpassing the organizer's expectations, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

"If I had gotten 3,000 people to join me, I would have considered that a success," activist Tami Canal told the newspaper. Instead, she said the "March Against Monsanto," which originated as a call to action via Facebook on Feb. 28, drew about two million people to demonstrations in 436 cities in 52 countries.

"It was empowering and inspiring to see so many people, from different walks of life, put aside their differences and come together today," Canal said to the Sun-Times. "We will continue until Monsanto complies with consumer demand. They are poisoning our children, poisoning our planet. If we don't act, who's going to?"

Besides protesting the company's practice of making genetically-modifying seeds, protesters vowed to make their voices heard against the U.S. Senate after it rejected an amendment introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) that would have allowed states to require labels on foods made with modified ingredients.
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Pistol

Anglo-French arms industry forces EU to lift official embargo on sending Weapons of Mass Destruction to Al Qaeda in Syria

Ian Traynor
The Guardian
Tue, 28 May 2013 05:07 UTC
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Weapons 'r' us
Europe's sanctions regime against Syria was plunged into uncertainty after Britain, backed by France, forced a lifting of the EU arms embargo on what it identifies as the moderate opposition to President Bashar al-Assad.

Britain claimed victory in a long day of acrimonious negotiations, winning an easing of the arms embargo. The vast majority of EU states opposed the shift, but assented in order to preserve a semblance of unified policy.

A meeting of EU foreign ministers descended into recrimination with a vast majority against lifting the arms embargo, but William Hague, the foreign secretary, blocked a compromise deal. Austria, the biggest opponent of the British aim, reacted bitterly, stating that the EU negotiations had collapsed and that the Europe-wide sanctions regime would collapse at midnight on Friday.

Hague sounded satisfied, however, although others said 25 of 27 EU governments opposed the Anglo-French policy.

Comment: Hawks, doves, whatever. All of these countries have been funnelling weapons and mercenaries to Syria since the conflict began. That is is how it has been sustained. It would have ended as soon as it began if it weren't for Western dollars and weapons. The EU giving way to the armaments industry is merely the conclusion of a false debate to legitimise its 3-year-long proxy war against Syria.

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Snakes in Suits

Imperial envoy John McCain makes surprise visit to Al-Qaeda allies in Syria

Dan Roberts
The Guardian
Tue, 28 May 2013 04:55 UTC
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John McCain spends Memorial Day with Al Qaeda in Syria... treason much?
Hawkish war veteran's meeting coincides with new French reports of chemical weapons use by regime forces

Pressure on the White House to arm Syrian rebel groups is intensifying after a surprise visit by hawkish US senator John McCain and fresh reports of chemical weapons attacks.

The Republican war veteran met rebel leaders inside Syria to discuss their calls for heavy weapons and a no-fly zone to help them topple President Bashar al-Assad and bring the bitter civil war to a conclusion.

McCain's office confirmed to the Guardian that he had slipped into the country in recent days but declined to comment on the outcome of his talks with the rebel groups or whether it had hardened his views on arming them.

The Arizona senator has been leading efforts in Congress in recent weeks to force Barack Obama to intervene in Syria following reports of alleged chemical weapons use by forces loyal to Assad.
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