Puppet Masters

Brunei is America's East Pacific cash cow and military base

Wayne Madsen
Strategic Culture Foundation
Sat, 12 Oct 2013 03:15 UTC

Due to the shutting down of the U.S. government over a budget battle, President Barack Obama was forced to pare back and then cancel altogether planned visits to four Southeast Asian nations. The first two casualties were planned trips to two nations, Malaysia and the Philippines, where Obama hoped to cement economic and trade relations under the umbrella of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. With no end in sight to the U.S. government's paralysis, Obama reluctantly canceled his planned attendance at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Bali, Indonesia and the East Asia Summit in Brunei.

Although Obama always enjoys visiting Indonesia, the country of his childhood, it was the cancellation of Obama's planned trip to the oil-rich Sultanate of Brunei that not only prevented Obama from being hosted by Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, one of the world's wealthiest men, but prevented him from cementing ties with a nation that enjoys a special relationship with the United States, particularly the Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency... Brunei's Sultan was to provide Obama and his staff with the entire palace of the Crown Prince for the duration of his visit.

104 current Congressional Republicans who voted to increase debt ceiling under Bush - without hostage threats

Josh Israel
AlterNet
Wed, 09 Oct 2013 21:24 UTC

Could these people be any more blatantly hypocritical?

Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) reiterated on Sunday that House Republicans would not allow a clean vote to raise the debt limit and ensure the full faith and credit of the United States of America. But while now Congressional Republicans demand everything from the destruction of the Affordable Care Act to a constitutional amendment in exchange for allowing the government to pay for what it has already incurred, many of them made no such demands nine years ago when a Republican was in the White House.

Boehner says that Congressional Republicans "are not going to pass a clean debt limit increase" because "it is time to deal with America's problems." But in 2004, he joined with 205 other House Republicans to pass S. 2986, a bill that added $800 billion to the nation's statutory debt ceiling with no strings attached.

Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX), in encouraging his House colleagues to back the bill said:

[A]s we debate this and as we make our final vote, let us not punish our seniors, let us not punish our elderly, let us not punish our military just to score political points. If the debt ceiling is not increased, America cannot pay its bills. We cannot meet existing obligations. We will not ultimately have the cash on hand to pay Social Security benefits, military retirement, Medicare benefits, unemployment benefits and other trust fund obligations. As raw as this recent election was, as bitterly contested as it was, with hurt feelings all around, we need to work together as Americans to take responsibility for our bills.Let us not default on our obligations. Let us not stop the checks to our needy who are counting on us. Let us not use our elderly as political pawns in trade for a seven second sound byte back home. They deserve better. We have a responsibility to pay our bills.

U.S. fires second nuclear commander in a week: Air Force general sacked over 'loss of trust'

Robert Burns
National Post
Fri, 11 Oct 2013 13:31 UTC

Washington - The Air Force said Friday it fired the two-star general in charge of its nuclear missiles in response to an investigation into alleged personal misbehaviour. It was the second sacking this week of a senior commander of nuclear forces.

Maj. Gen. Michael Carey was removed from command of the 20th Air Force, which is responsible for three wings of intercontinental ballistic missiles - a total of 450 missiles at three bases across the country, according to an Air Force spokesman, Brig. Gen. Les Kodlick.

The Air Force cited "loss of trust and confidence" in Carey earlier Friday.

The decision was made by Lt. Gen. James Kowalski, commander of Air Force Global Strike Command. Kowalski is in charge of all Air Force nuclear weapons, including bombers.

On Wednesday, the second-in-command at U.S. Strategic Command, Vice Adm. Tim Giardina, was relieved of command amid an investigation into alleged gambling issues. Strategic Command is responsible for all Air Force and Navy nuclear forces.

"It's unfortunate that I've had to relieve an officer who's had an otherwise distinctive career spanning 35 years of commendable service," Kowalski said in a written statement from his headquarters at Barksdale Air Force Base, La.

Richest 1% hold 46% of the world's wealth

Eileen Kersey
Digital Journal
Fri, 11 Oct 2013 16:34 UTC

We are living through tough economic times but is that really true? News that global wealth has risen by 68 percent over the past 10 years to reach a new all-time high of $241 trillion certainly paints a different picture.

According to Credit Suisse's World Wealth Report global wealth is on the increase and the United States accounts for nearly three quarters of this increase.

The richest people in the world though are Australians -- the average wealth of adult Australians stands at $US219,505 ($233,504).

Reuters reports that average global wealth is now $51,600 per adult. It is the first time since 2007 that average wealth has passed $50,000. It is a new all time high.

Averages of course take into account the poorest and richest people in the world and do not offer a fair representation of economies or the wealth of a nation.

The World Wealth report continues -- inequality remains high, with the top 10% of the world population owning 86% of global wealth, compared to barely 1% for the bottom half of all adults.

Gov genome project to sequence DNA of all US babies at birth

Susanne Posel
Occupy Corporatism
Fri, 11 Oct 2013 11:13 UTC

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has invested $25 million into a project to identify the DNA structure of American infants entitled the 2013 Genomic Sequencing and Newborn Screening Disorders (GSNSD) research program.

Funding for this project is provided by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI).

The initial concerns of the GSNSD are the ethical, legal and social implications of using infant genetic information for scientific study. This endeavor is being facilitated with academic institutions in cities:

- Boston
- San Francisco
- Chapel Hill
- Kansas City

The decoding of infant DNA, called genome sequencing, will create a map of each individual child's genetic make-up to identify health risks that could develop in childhood or later in life.

Eric Green, director of the NHGRI said: "We are at a point now where powerful new genome sequencing technologies are making it faster and more affordable than ever to access genomic information about patients. This initiative will help us better understand how we can appropriately use this information to improve health and prevent disease in infants and children."

Pentagon unit held 'phony' ceremonies for MIAs, using planes that can't fly

Bill Dedman
NBC News
Wed, 09 Oct 2013 19:45 UTC

© Petty Officer 1st Class Barry Hirayama / U.S. Navy
A joint service honor guard escorts a transfer case during an "arrival ceremony" at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Honolulu on April 27, 2012. The Defense Department has acknowledged that human remains were not in fact arriving on that day. The ceremonies are held by the Pentagon's Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command.

A unit of the U.S. Department of Defense has been holding so-called "arrival ceremonies" for seven years, with an honor guard carrying flag-draped coffins off of a cargo plane as though they held the remains of missing American service men and women returning that day from old battlefields.

After NBC News raised questions about the arrival ceremonies, the Pentagon acknowledged Wednesday that no honored dead were in fact arriving, and that the planes used in the ceremonies often couldn't even fly but were towed into position.

The solemn ceremonies at a military base in Hawaii are a sign of the nation's commitment to returning and identifying its fallen warriors. The ceremonies have been attended by veterans and families of MIAs, led to believe that they were witnessing the return of Americans killed in World War II, Vietnam and Korea.

The ceremonies also have been known, at least among some of the military and civilian staff here, as The Big Lie.

GOP will become even more extreme, respected political forecasters say

Steven Rosenfeld
AlterNet
Tue, 08 Oct 2013 19:12 UTC

Focus groups find the GOP in a battle for its political survival.

The Republican factions leading the war on Obamacare, the federal government shutdown - and attacking other Democratic priorities such as preserving safety nets, expanding civil rights and regulating big business - are going to become more extreme and intransigent, top Democratic pollsters have concluded.

"Understand that the base thinks they are losing politically and losing control of the country... and [feel] a little powerless to change course," the analysis by Stan Greenberg, James Carville and Erica Seifert found after a series of focus groups in three red states this summer. "They think Obama has imposed his agenda, while Republicans in DC let him get away with it."

Their Democracy Corps report is an illuminating profile of the GOP's three main factions: the Tea Partiers leading today's brinkmanship, the evangelicals lining up behind them, and overlooked but still significant moderates. At the front of this stampede are right-wingers who believe they are fighting for political survival in an era where white-run America is vanishing and they've lost the culture war.

In this paranoid world, Obamacare is Armageddon, the setting for the final battle between good and evil, and the rallying cry that unites the party's factions.

Cheney, Rumsfeld and other psycho war criminals joke about waterboarding while America burns

Joan Walsh
Salon
Wed, 09 Oct 2013 18:49 UTC

Don and Dick, snakes in suits

Talk about torture.

As the nation is dragged toward a debt-ceiling crisis by a band of radical Republicans determined to invalidate laws they don't like but don't have the power to repeal, party elders got together for a lighthearted roast of accused war criminal Dick Cheney in New York Tuesday night. The ad in Commentary read:

"He was White House chief of staff. He was House minority whip. He was secretary of defense. He was vice president of the United States. Now ... he will be the main course."

Ben Smith at BuzzFeed has the exclusive details. Read them.

Apparently guests shared details of the off-the-record gala, which featured humor from Donald Rumsfeld, Michael Mukasey and spoiled nepotista (and party wrecker) Liz Cheney, who wants to be the first Wyoming senator who's actually from Virginia. There were lighthearted waterboarding jokes, and someone - reportedly Sen. Joe Lieberman - rocked the house by saying "something to the effect that it's nice that we're all here at the Plaza instead of in cages after some war crimes trial," one of Smith's sources told him.

If only.

Comment: Just to be clear: it is blatantly obvious that whether democrats or republicans, those who rule America for the past 40 or so years, are psychopaths. By their fruits we know it.

Chomsky: For almost 70 years the U.S. has been the world leader in spreading destruction and misery across the planet

Noam Chomsky
AlterNet
Mon, 07 Oct 2013 17:37 UTC

Despite Obama's noble words, America has imposed vicious dictatorships and supported horrendous crime

The recent Obama-Putin tiff over American exceptionalism reignited an ongoing debate over the Obama Doctrine: Is the president veering toward isolationism? Or will he proudly carry the banner of exceptionalism?

The debate is narrower than it may seem. There is considerable common ground between the two positions, as was expressed clearly by Hans Morgenthau, the founder of the now dominant no-sentimentality "realist" school of international relations.

Throughout his work, Morgenthau describes America as unique among all powers past and present in that it has a "transcendent purpose" that it "must defend and promote" throughout the world: "the establishment of equality in freedom."

The competing concepts "exceptionalism" and "isolationism" both accept this doctrine and its various elaborations but differ with regard to its application.

One extreme was vigorously defended by President Obama in his Sept. 10 address to the nation: "What makes America different," he declared, "what makes us exceptional," is that we are dedicated to act, "with humility, but with resolve," when we detect violations somewhere.

Priest: Obama admin. denied Mass to Catholics

David Brody
CBN News
Tue, 08 Oct 2013 17:13 UTC

How about trying this one on for size? Here is the press release headline from Congressman Tim Huelskamp's office this afternoon:

Obama Administration Denies Mass to Catholics

Apparently, a priest was denied access to a military chapel this weekend. Father Ray Leonard serves at Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay in Georgia but because of the government shutdown, he wasn't allowed to go to celebrate Mass this past weekend.

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Artex

Puppet Masters

Brunei is America's East Pacific cash cow and military base

104 current Congressional Republicans who voted to increase debt ceiling under Bush - without hostage threats

U.S. fires second nuclear commander in a week: Air Force general sacked over 'loss of trust'

Richest 1% hold 46% of the world's wealth

Gov genome project to sequence DNA of all US babies at birth

Pentagon unit held 'phony' ceremonies for MIAs, using planes that can't fly

GOP will become even more extreme, respected political forecasters say

Cheney, Rumsfeld and other psycho war criminals joke about waterboarding while America burns

Chomsky: For almost 70 years the U.S. has been the world leader in spreading destruction and misery across the planet

Priest: Obama admin. denied Mass to Catholics

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