Puppet MastersS


Pirates

400 surface-to-air missiles were stolen from Libya and are now 'in the hands of some very ugly people', says whistleblowers' attorney

Jason Howerton
The Blaze
Mon, 12 Aug 2013 10:07 UTC
US consulate compound in Benghazi
© AFP/Getty ImagesThis file photo taken on September 11, 2012 shows an armed man waving his rifle as buildings and cars are engulfed in flames after being set on fire inside the US consulate compound in Benghazi.
A former U.S. attorney representing Benghazi whistleblowers is claiming that 400 surface-to-air missiles were "stolen" and "taken from Libya" and are now "in the hands of some very ugly people." He also said the Obama administration is "deeply concerned" that the weapons may be used to shoot down airliners.

In an interview with WMAL radio, Joe DiGenova explained that the stolen missiles also represent one of the reasons the U.S. State Department shut down 19 embassies across the Middle East last week.

He said the development has the Obama administration "deeply concerned" and on alert.

Even more potentially shocking, DiGenova claimed the missiles are now in the hands of Al Qaeda operatives, according to his sources. His sources include "former intelligence officials who stay in constant contact with people in the Special Ops and intelligence community."
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Megaphone

Best of the Web: Humanity is drowning in Washington's criminality

Paul Craig Roberts
paulcraigroberts.org
Tue, 13 Aug 2013 00:00 UTC
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© Unknown
Americans will soon be locked into an unaccountable police state unless US Representatives and Senators find the courage to ask questions and to sanction the executive branch officials who break the law, violate the Constitution, withhold information from Congress, and give false information about their crimes against law, the Constitution, the American people and those in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Guantanamo, and elsewhere. Congress needs to use the impeachment power that the Constitution provides and cease being subservient to the lawless executive branch. The US faces no threat that justifies the lawlessness and abuse of police powers that characterize the executive branch in the 21st century.

Impeachment is the most important power of Congress. Impeachment is what protects the citizens, the Constitution, and the other branches of government from abuse by the executive branch. If the power to remove abusive executive branch officials is not used, the power ceases to exist. An unused power is like a dead letter law. Its authority disappears. By acquiescing to executive branch lawlessness, Congress has allowed the executive branch to place itself above law and to escape accountability for its violations of law and the Constitution.
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Attention

This is the biggest cluster of Hindenburg Omens since the last stock market crash

Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse Blog
Tue, 13 Aug 2013 22:17 UTC
Hindenburg Omens
© The Economic Collapse Blog
Are we heading for a major stock market decline? Warnings about a crash of the financial markets are quite common these days, and usually they don't materialize. But this time may be different.

A number of top analysts are pointing out the fact that the biggest cluster of "Hindenburg Omens" has appeared since the last stock market crash. And those that have studied this insist that the more "Hindenburg Omens" there are in a cluster, the stronger the signal is.

Meanwhile, another very disturbing sign is the fact that the yield on 10 year U.S. Treasuries is starting to soar again.

On Tuesday it shot up from 2.62% to 2.727%. As I have written about previously, the yield on 10 year U.S. Treasuries is the most important number in the U.S. economy right now. If that number continues to rise, it is going to be very, very bad news for the financial system.

But before I discuss rising interest rates any further, I want to talk about this unusual cluster of Hindenburg Omens that we have just witnessed.
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Dollars

Forget student loans...Introducing day care loans

Michael Krieger
Liberty Blitzkreig
Tue, 13 Aug 2013 21:58 UTC
Now that enough college age Americans have been stuffed with over a trillion dollars in student debt only to get a job a McDonalds and live with their parents, folks in New York City have come up with a brilliant new concept to ensure the production of an entirely new generation of debt slaves. Introducing day care loans...and here's the best part, they are "interest only" from childcare to kindergarden!

Of course it makes sense that these loans would originate in my hometown of NYC, which has in the past 15-20 years fully transformed itself into a corporatized, generic and unaffordable Wall Street whorehouse.

From CBS:

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Gear

CIA Director Brennan confirmed as reporter Michael Hastings next target

Kimberly Dvorak
San Diego 6
Mon, 12 Aug 2013 16:25 UTC

This week Elise Jordan, wife of famed journalist Michael Hastings, who recently died under suspicious circumstances, corroborated this reporter's sources that CIA Director, John Brennan was Hastings next exposé project (CNN clip).


Last month a source provided San Diego 6 News with an alarming email hacked from super secret CIA contractor Stratfor's President Fred Burton. The email (link here) was posted on WikiLeaks and alleged that then Obama counter-terrorism Czar Brennan, was in charge of the government's continued crackdown or witch-hunt on investigative journalists.

After providing the Stratfor email to the CIA for comment, the spymaster's spokesperson responded in lightning speed. Two emails were received; one acknowledging Hastings was working on a CIA story and the other said, "Without commenting on information disseminated by WikiLeaks, any suggestion that Director Brennan has ever attempted to infringe on constitutionally-protected press freedoms is offensive and baseless."
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Eye 1

Best of the Web: Surveillance state! Secrecy, deception and the real war on reality

Peter Ludlow
The New York Times
Wed, 14 Aug 2013 11:00 UTC
internet Surveillance graphic
© AP

If there is one thing we can take away from the news of recent weeks it is this: the modern American surveillance state is not really the stuff of paranoid fantasies; it has arrived.

The revelations about the National Security Agency's PRISM data collection program have raised awareness - and understandably, concern and fears - among American and those abroad, about the reach and power of secret intelligence gatherers operating behind the facades of government and business.

But those revelations, captivating as they are, have been partial - they primarily focus on one government agency and on the surveillance end of intelligence work, purportedly done in the interest of national security. What has received less attention is the fact that most intelligence work today is not carried out by government agencies but by private intelligence firms and that much of that work involves another common aspect of intelligence work: deception. That is, it is involved not just with the concealment of reality, but with the manufacture of it.

The realm of secrecy and deception among shadowy yet powerful forces may sound like the province of investigative reporters, thriller novelists and Hollywood moviemakers - and it is - but it is also a matter for philosophers. More accurately, understanding deception and and how it can be exposed has been a principle project of philosophy for the last 2500 years. And it is a place where the work of journalists, philosophers and other truth-seekers can meet.
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Arrow Up

Saudi prince defects: 'Brutality, oppression as govt scared of Arab revolts'


RT.com
Mon, 12 Aug 2013 14:40 UTC
Prince Khalid Bin Farhan Al-Saud
© RT.comPrince Khalid Bin Farhan Al-Saud

Saudi Arabia, a major supporter of opposition forces in Syria, has increased crackdown on its own dissenters, with 30,000 activists reportedly in jail. In an exclusive interview to RT a Saudi prince defector explained what the monarchy fears most.

"Saudi Arabia has stepped up arrests and trials of peaceful dissidents, and responded with force to demonstrations by citizens," Human Rights Watch begins the country's profile on its website.

Political parties are banned in Saudi Arabia and human rights groups willing to function legally have to go no further than investigating things like corruption or inadequate services. Campaigning for political freedoms is outlawed.

One of such groups, which failed to get its license from the government, the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA), was cited by AFP as saying the kingdom was holding around 30,000 political prisoners.

Saudi Prince Khaled Bin Farhan Al-Saud, who spoke to RT from Dusseldorf, Germany, confirmed reports of increased prosecution of anti-government activists and said that it's exactly what forced him to defect from his family. He accused the monarchy of corruption and silencing all voices of dissent and explained how the Saudi mechanism for suppression functioned.

"There is no independent judiciary, as both police and the prosecutor's office are accountable to the Interior Ministry. This ministry's officials investigate 'crimes' (they call them crimes), related to freedom of speech. So they fabricate evidence, don't allow people to have attorneys", the prince told RT Arabic. "Even if a court rules to release such a 'criminal', the Ministry of Interior keeps him in prison, even though there is a court order to release him. There have even been killings! Killings! And as for the external opposition, Saudi intelligence forces find these people abroad! There is no safety inside or outside the country."
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Question

On my own: Vladimir Putin walks alone through the streets of St Petersburg

Neela Debnath
The Independent, UK
Fri, 09 Aug 2013 10:21 UTC

Russian President Vladimir Putin cut a lonely figure today after he was spotted wandering by himself through the streets of St Petersburg.

The Russian leader was seen pensively walking through the city following the funeral of his Judo instructor Anatoly Rakhlin. Putin marched on wearing a moody look and avoiding eye contact, while his aides and security rushed to catch up with him.

Putin is known to be a master in the dojo when it comes to Judo and it is clear that the death of Rakhlin has affected him deeply. Rakhlin had reportedly been battling a long illness and considered himself to be a second father to the President.

Putin's behaviour today contrasts sharply with the more macho persona he usually likes to portray in the media. He is known for his outlandish displays of prowess, from piano playing to bear hunting there is nothing that is beyond him.

Most recently Putin was seen delving into the depths below to inspect the ruins of Russian sailing frigate which sunk in 1869.
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Dollar

Banks Sue to Prevent Foreclosure Relief for Homeowners

Elizabeth Warmerdam
Courthouse News Service
Fri, 09 Aug 2013 11:19 UTC
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Three banks sued Richmond, Calif., challenging a city plan to use eminent domain to seize houses with underwater mortgages and refinance them at deep discounts for the owners, who would keep them rather than lose them to foreclosure.

Wells Fargo Bank and Deutsche Bank sued Richmond in one federal lawsuit, and The Bank of New York Mellon sued the city in a separate, similar complaint.

The banks claim the city's homeowner-rescue plan will cost the banks and their investors tens of millions of dollars.

Wells Fargo Bank and Deutsche Bank, in their capacities as trustees for hundreds of mortgage securities trusts, sued Richmond and Mortgage Resolutions Partners (MRP) to try to stop the City Council from implementing its "elaborate profit-driven scheme."

The Bank of New York Mellon, also as a trustee, sued Richmond, MRP, and Gordian Sword, a Delaware LLC.
"Following a scheme devised by a mortgage investment firm that stands to profit handsomely from the deal, the City of Richmond has made clear that it imminently plans to seize residential mortgages - mortgages that are current on their payments - at deep discounts and then refinance the properties at reduced loan values," Bank of New York Mellon says in its complaint. "The borrowers would retain their homes with a lower debt load. The city and the investment firm each would receive certain fees generated by the refinancing transactions, and then the firm and its investors would profit from reselling federally guaranteed loans.

"And the trusts and their investors, including pension funds and other institutional investors, who held current, performing loans that had financed the purchase of the homes in the City would be left holding the bag, losing tens of millions of dollars in loan principal."
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Handcuffs

George Galloway in bid to raise funds for film about former PM, 'The Killing of Tony Blair'

Nick Renaud-Komiya
The Independent
Sun, 11 Aug 2013 00:00 UTC
The film project is, Galloway hopes, the first step in a campaign to get Blair tried for war crimes in an international court.
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The outspoken politician George Galloway will turn his hand to film making following an announcement that he intends to produce a feature-length documentary entitled The Killing of Tony Blair.
The Respect MP for Bradford West is appealing to the public to help finance the project through the crowd-funding website Kickstarter.

The film project is, Galloway hopes, the first step in a campaign to get Blair, the former Labour Prime Minister, tried for war crimes in an international court.

The 58-year-old has acknowledged that the film's title was chosen for "shock value", but in response to claims it is in bad taste he said that Blair's was a "shocking story".

The title, Galloway said, refers to three types of "killing" which he pins on Blair's shoulders.
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