Puppet MastersS


Propaganda

Obama's NSA review gives the lie to Britain's propaganda

Alan Rusbridger
The Guardian
Thu, 19 Dec 2013 15:50 UTC
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© Satoshi Kambayashi
In the US, the official response to Snowden's revelations celebrates journalism and calls for real change. In Britain, the picture has been rather different

What a relief. It is, after all, possible to discuss the operations of modern intelligence agencies without having to prove one's patriotism, be turned over by the police, summoned by politicians or visited by state-employed technicians with instructions to smash up one's computers.

The 300-page report into the Guardian's revelations about the US National Security Agency commissioned by President Obama and published this week is wide-ranging, informed and thoughtful. It leaps beyond the timid privacy-versus-national security platitudes which have stifled so much of the debate in the UK. It doesn't blame journalism for dragging the subject into the open: it celebrates it.

The five authors of the report are not hand-wringing liberals. They number one former CIA deputy director; a counter-terrorism adviser to George W. Bush and his father; two former White House advisers; and a former dean of the Chicago law school. Not what the British prime minister would call "airy-fairy lah-di-dah" types.

Six months ago the British cabinet secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood, was in the Guardian's London office telling us there had been "enough" debate on the matter of what intelligence agencies got up to. But here are Obama's experts revelling in the debate; exploring the tensions between privacy and national security, yes - but going much further, discussing cryptology; civil liberties; the right of citizens and governments to be informed; relationships with other countries; and the potential damage that unconstrained espionage can cause to trade, commerce and the digital economy.
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Stop

ObamaCare found to restrict where you live and travel


Investors Business Daily
Wed, 18 Dec 2013 18:54 UTC
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© Larry Downing/Reuters

Freedom: It's bad enough that the president's health insurance takeover costs more, breaks his pledge of letting you keep your plan and diminishes choice. It actually restricts your travels too.

'We have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in." Those words from President John F. Kennedy in June 1963, standing at the Berlin Wall, neatly illustrated the moral superiority of the free West over the Soviet bloc.

But Americans are now about to find themselves grappling with their own bureaucratic Berlin Wall. The American Thinker's Stella Paul has exposed the virtually unnoticed fact that within the ObamaCare exchanges so many Americans are being forced into, "most plans only provide local medical coverage."

Paul warns this will have "a profound impact on the real-estate market, particularly the second home sector, and on the travel business." She interviewed one Connecticut retiree whose health required having a winter home in South Carolina. Her $450-per-month, $2,500 deductible, no co-pay Blue Cross policy that had worked well in both states was suddenly canceled.
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Oscar

Obama commutes sentences of eight crack cocaine offenders

Paul Lewis
The Guardian
Thu, 19 Dec 2013 17:27 UTC
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© FreedomOutpost.com
- President: decision was step to rectifying 'unfair system'

- Each had already served more than 15 years in prison

- Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act three years ago

Barack Obama reduced the sentences of eight people convicted of crack cocaine offences on Thursday, using his power of clemency to make statement about what the administration believes is an overly punitive criminal justice system.

The president said that his decision to commute the sentences was a small step toward rectifying an "unfair system" which has resulted in thousands of inmates receiving lengthy terms, raising hopes of a renewed push by the administration to reform the country's criminal justice system.

Three years ago, Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act, a law which significantly narrowed the enormous disparity in sentences for crack and powder cocaine offences. But it did not apply retrospectively. Obama acknowledged on Thursday that "for thousands of inmates, [the law] came too late", and said the eight men and women to whom he offered clemency had each already served more than 15 years in prison.

"If they had been sentenced under the current law, many of them would have already served their time and paid their debt to society," Obama said in a statement. "Instead, because of a disparity in the law that is now recognised as unjust, they remain in prison, separated from their families and their communities, at a cost of millions of taxpayer dollars each year."
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Arrow Down

Spousal rape defending Republican considering running for House

Michael Warren
The Weekly Standard
Thu, 19 Dec 2013 11:27 UTC
Republican state senator Dick Black of Virginia is considering running for the House seat currently represented by retiring Republican Frank Wolf. Black announced on Facebook he was forming an exploratory committee.

When Black was a state delegate, he made a speech saying he "did not know how on earth you could validly get a conviction of a husband-wife rape..."
Watch the video of a campaign ad by one of Black's opponents:


Comment: Maybe Dick Black should talk to some victims of rape in order to get an inkling.
He apparently has little, if any, grasp of what rape IS or the extent to which it potentially impacts a person, whether the rape is perpetrated by a spouse or someone else.
Just what we (don't) need more of: another clueless politician devoid of empathy.

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Handcuffs

Mohammed Morsi faces Egypt terrorism charges


BBC
Fri, 20 Dec 2013 10:28 UTC
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© APMr Morsi is one of thousands of Brotherhood members to have been detained
Egypt's ousted President Mohammed Morsi is to stand trial on charges including conspiring with foreign organisations to commit terrorist acts.

Prosecutors said Mr Morsi had formed an alliance with the Palestinian militant group Hamas and Lebanon's Hezbollah.

Thirty-five others, including former aides and leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, have also been charged.

Since being deposed by the military in July, Mr Morsi has already gone on trial for inciting murder and violence.

The new charges carry the death penalty. Prosecutors describe the new charges as "the biggest case of conspiracy in the country's history".
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Light Saber

Whistleblower Karen Hudes: 'How the global elite rule the world'


21st Century Wire
Thu, 03 Oct 2013 00:00 UTC
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Who really rules the world? This question is complex, but not impossible to understand...

In 2012, the Swiss Federal Institute in Zurich (SFI) released a comprehensive study entitled, "The Network of Global Corporate Control" which demonstrates how this relatively small consortium of corporations, and overwhelmingly dominated by mainly banks, actually run the world's corporate daisy chain. According to their study, approximately 147 corporations form a "super entity" and have control 40% of the world's corporate economy. The centre of the cartel includes the following giants: Barclays, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Vanguard Group, UBS, Deutsche Bank, Bank of New York Mellon Corp, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America Corp, and Société Générale.

Of course, it's even deeper and more complex than that, but if you want to try an tame this beast intellectually, you have to start somewhere.World Bank whistleblower Karen Hudes provides us with a glimpse into this mega-corporate mesh means that these giants command an overwhelming amount of power and influence over global markets and economic - as well as political affairs...
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Bad Guys

British PM Cameron bound in servitude to Israel

Stuart Littlewood
Press TV
Thu, 05 Dec 2013 04:10 UTC
cameron
British Prime Minister David Cameron
Whenever a Western leader expresses adoration and undying support for the Zionist regime, the Jewish Chronicle can be relied on to make the most of it. This week it reports on UK Prime Minister David Cameron's Chanucah/Hanukkah reception in Downing Street when he lit a menorah (that elegant 9-branch candlestick) with the Chief Rabbi.

According to the JC, Cameron took the opportunity to say he didn't have much faith in the interim nuclear agreement struck with Iran.

He told assembled Jewish leaders: "I know there will be great skepticism, I know there will be great worry. I share that skepticism, I share that worry. I don't have any starry-eyed view of what this Iranian regime offers."

He went on to announce: "I am with you and with the Israeli people, genuinely. As far as I'm concerned, an enemy of Israel is an enemy of mine. A threat to Israel is a threat to us all.

Comment: "A threat to Israel is a threat to us all." Is anyone else just a little weary of hearing subservient Zionist bootlickers like Cameron spout this easily refuted garbage?

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Whistle

Witchhunt? Virginia Governor McDonnell

Rosalind S. Helderman, Carol D. Leonnig and Sari Horwitz
The Washington Post
Wed, 18 Dec 2013 00:00 UTC
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© Ricky Carioti/Washington PostMaureen and Bob McDonnell
Federal prosecutors told Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell last week that he and his wife would be charged in connection with a gift scandal, but senior Justice Department officials delayed the decision after the McDonnells' attorneys made a face-to-face appeal in Washington, according to people familiar with the case.

Dana J. Boente, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, told the McDonnells' legal teams that he planned to ask a grand jury to return an indictment no later than this past Monday, people familiar with the conversations said.

McDonnell (R) and his wife, Maureen, would have been charged with working together to illegally promote a struggling dietary-supplement company in exchange for gifts and loans from its chief executive, the people said.

The plan to seek the felony charges this week changed, however, after attorneys for the state's first couple met with Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole on Dec. 12.
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Attention

Senate passes $630 billion military budget bill


Press TV
Fri, 20 Dec 2013 02:27 UTC
pentagon
The Pentagon building is the headquarters of the US Department of Defense, located in Arlington, Virginia and is the symbol of the US military.
The United States Senate has approved a massive $632.8 billion worth of military spending, including $80.7 billion for the war in Afghanistan and $17.6 billion for nuclear weapons programs.

The Senate Thursday passed the National Defense Authorization Act, 84-15. The House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the bill last week on a strong bipartisan vote. The spending measure for the 2014 fiscal year will now go to President Barack Obama for his signature.

The House and Senate Armed Services Committees had each passed their own version of the bill in June. During late November, Republicans and Democrats on the committees worked out a compromise bill that incorporated elements of their competing versions.

The bill would authorize everything from overall spending on wars and military salary to procurement of weapons systems and military-related foreign policy issues.

Comment: There's plenty of money in the coffers, apparently, for war, plunder and pillage - and it's always the most vulnerable who pay the price and suffer the consequences.

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Cult

Hollande seeks European cannon fodder and money for wars in Africa


Press TV
Fri, 20 Dec 2013 08:26 UTC
Hollande
© UnknownThe cost of military adventures are staggering! Someone has gotta pay.
French President Francois Hollande has renewed calls for a 'European presence' in the Central African Republic, saying he expects Poland to provide military support for the French troops in the African country.

"At the moment there are some ongoing contacts sometimes to a very good extent. I have Poland in mind ... to provide troops for operations that could add up to ours. If the decision is confirmed tomorrow, then the operation will be considered a European one, opening the way to European financing," Hollande said at the end of the first day of European Union summit talks on Thursday.

The French president also welcomed logistical backing from some European countries including Belgium, Britain, Germany and Poland.
"What I would like to see, politically, is a European presence.That it not be said that 'France is alone,'" he said at a news conference.

Comment: Hollande wants money and cannon fodder from the other European nations, in what is a colonial French aggression to secure resources for French corporations. Remember Hollande won the UNESCO peace prize and is just as eager for war as Obama, another peace prize winner . And like the US, France is virtually bankrupt, so the only way forward for the pathocrats in power is to steal resources where they are and if they can con someone else to pay for the military nightmare, the better.

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