Puppet MastersS


USA

Best of the Web: Obama Kills on Tuesdays: Interview with Croatian author Vedrana Rudan


Sott.net
Sun, 19 Mar 2017 13:24 UTC
Obama noble prize drone deaths
Under Obama, ten times more people were killed by US drones than under the Bush administrations. So far, under Trump, drone strikes have increased even further.

The US is a rogue state from the point of view of millions of people around the world who suffer death and destruction in the guise of American 'freedom and democracy'. Behind the ruse is greed and a lust for power. Will the ordinary people of world finally see the simple truth behind the noble-sounding rhetoric?
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Piggy Bank

Fed up? Janet Yellen's attack on working people is very sad indeed

Mike Whitney
Counterpunch
Fri, 17 Mar 2017 00:00 UTC
Janet Yellen
© DonkeyHotey | CC BY 2.0
Why did the Fed raise its benchmark interest rate when inflation is still running below the Fed's target, workers wages have hardly budged and the economy is not even growing at 1 percent?

Yellen was asked that question at a press conference on Wednesday following the release of the FOMC's statement. Her answer helps to show how the Fed makes its policy decisions based on factors most people would never consider. Here's what she said:

Janet Yellen - "Well, look, our policy is not set in stone. It is data-dependent and we're — we're not locked into any particular policy path...As you said, the data have not notably strengthened."

Translation - So after saying the Fed bases its decisions on the data, Yellen does a quick 180 and says the data hasn't changed. Okay.
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Rocket

Pyongyang declares 'rebirth of rocket industry' after new engine test


RT
Sun, 19 Mar 2017 12:37 UTC
N. Korea geo-stationary satellite
© ReutersFILE PHOTO: A demonstration of a new rocket engine for the geo-stationary satellite at the Sohae Space Center in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang September 20, 2016.
North Korea has performed a ground test of a "new-type" engine, designed to boost country's "capability in the field of outer space." However, in contrast to the usual saber-rattling, Pyongyang did not use the opportunity to tout the potential military use of the tech.

Kim Jong-un attended the test of the "new-type high-thrust engine" at the Sohae satellite-launching site early on Sunday, state KCNA news agency reported. The engine would give the country an opportunity to "consolidate the scientific and technological foundation to match the world-level satellite delivery capability in the field of outer space development," KCNA said, citing country's leader.

The specifications and type of the engine remain a mystery, but the supreme leader was so satisfied with the test that he gave lead developers and scientists a hug and a photo session, and emphasized that the "world will soon witness what eventful significance the great victory won today carries."
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Black Cat 2

US National Insecurity: The CIA is Part of the Problem, Not the Solution

Ekaterina Blinova
Sputnik
Thu, 16 Mar 2017 17:46 UTC
CIA problem
© AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster
The WikiLeaks' CIA dump has exposed a deep systemic crisis within the US intelligence community, according to Israeli commentator and political analyst Avigdor Eskin. Over the past years the image of the CIA has been severely tarnished and it now risks becoming part of the problem, not the solution, for the US national security.

The recent leak of secret CIA documents illustrates a serious crisis within the US intelligence community, Israeli commentator and political analyst Avigdor Eskin believes.

In his latest op-ed for RIA Novosti, Eskin quoted Pete Hoekstra, an IPT Senior Shillman Fellow, who warned that the US intelligence community has found itself amid "a crisis of confidence with the American people."

Moreover, leaks of this magnitude have never happened in any of the largest intelligence services in the world, Eskin highlighted.
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Chess

Trump-Merkel epic meeting: President ignores handshake request from vassal Chancellor

Alex Christoforou
The Duran
Sun, 19 Mar 2017 09:42 UTC
Donald Trump's refusal to shake Angela Merkel's hand sent Twitter into meltdown mode
© Image Tweeted BY @hadyr2esDonald Trump's refusal to shake Angela Merkel's hand sent Twitter into meltdown mode
President Trump tells Angela Merkel: 'At least we have something in common, perhaps'.

Comment: The German Chancellor has promised to do her best to spend what Donald Trump calls a "fair share" on NATO during her first official meeting with the new US President, despite such commitments somewhat contradicting some senior German officials.
NATO's finances featured high on the agenda during the first face-to-face meeting between Trump and Angela Merkel. Trump predictably restated his commitment to making all the allies pay their "fair share" of two percent of GDP to maintain the military alliance.

"I reiterated to Chancellor Merkel our strong support for NATO, as well as the need for our NATO allies to pay their fair share for the cost of defense," Trump said at the joint White House news conference on Friday. "Many nations owe vast sums of money from the past years, and it's very unfair to the US."

Merkel was reassured that "NATO was of prime importance for the US" and promptly pledged to meet Trump's demands and reach the spending target by 2024.

"I was gratified to know that the President underlined how important he thinks NATO," Merkel said. "We committed to this 2 percent goal until 2024 we - last year we increased our defense spending by 8 percent, and we're going to work again and again on this."

Merkel has seemingly softened her stance on the spending issue and did not make mention of her idea to widen the definition of "defense" to somewhat dodge Trump's demands.
US President Donald Trump ignored repeated media prompts to shake hands with German Chancellor Angela Merkel during their meeting in the Oval Office.
Trump greeted Merkel with a handshake outside the building, but during their Oval Office photocall, apparently ignored the calls of the pool of reporters to shake the German leader's hand.

The rebuff even drew an amused expression from the chancellor.

The two leaders shook hands outside the White House on Thursday
© Jim Bourg / ReutersThe two leaders shook hands outside the White House on Thursday
AP footage of the leaders' encounter inside the Oval Office captures someone off-screen repeatedly calling out "Handshake!" amid the clicking of cameras.
See also: 'Immigration is a privilege, not a right,' Trump lectures Merkel in first meeting

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Footprints

Hideous witch scares residents by threatening to "come out of the woods"


12160
Sat, 18 Mar 2017 20:45 UTC
Hilary Clinton scarry
Hillary Clinton said Friday she's "ready to come out of the woods" and help Americans find common ground.

Clinton's gradual return to the public spotlight following her presidential election loss continued with a St. Patrick's Day speech in her late father's Pennsylvania hometown of Scranton.

"I'm like a lot of my friends right now, I have a hard time watching the news," Clinton told an Irish women's group.

But she urged a divided country to work together to solve problems, recalling how, as first lady, she met with female leaders working to bring peace to Northern Ireland.

Comment: Clinton has no capacity to 'shine light' on anything. She embodies the darkness of the world elite, which is why she lost. She should retire from public life with a little dignity, but it's apparent she has none.

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Black Magic

Banks are evil - it's time to get painfully honest about this

Adam Taggart
Peak Prosperity
Fri, 17 Mar 2017 20:48 UTC
evil bankers
© Barandash Karandashich/Shutterstock
I don't talk to my classmates from business school anymore, many of whom went to work in the financial industry.

Why?

Because, through the lens we use here at PeakProsperity.com to look at the world, I've increasingly come to see the financial industry -- with the big banks at its core -- as the root cause of injustice in today's society. I can no longer separate any personal affections I might have for my fellow alumni from the evil that their companies perpetrate.

And I'm choosing that word deliberately: Evil.

In my opinion, it's long past time we be brutally honest about the banks. Their influence and reach has metastasized to the point where we now live under a captive system. From our retirement accounts, to our homes, to the laws we live under -- the banks control it all. And they run the system for their benefit, not ours.
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War Whore

Lawrence Wilkerson former chief of staff for Colin Powell: U.S. creating new foes, too many to handle

Whitney Webb
Mint Press News
Fri, 17 Mar 2017 20:36 UTC
U.S. soldiers board a U.S. military aircraft in Bagram, north of Kabul, Afghanistan.
© AP/Musadeq SadeqU.S. soldiers board a U.S. military aircraft in Bagram, north of Kabul, Afghanistan.
No empire has lasted forever. As history as shown, every imperialistic society has eventually succumbed to its own vices, be it misallocation of resources, concentration of wealth in the hands of a small elite minority or the overextension of its military.

While analysts and academics from around the world have noted that the United States is no exception to this rule, some who previously worked within the U.S. war machine have come out in recent years to warn the public that the U.S. is not just an empire in decline, but an empire on the edge of collapse.

One of the more notable insiders to warn of the impending collapse of the U.S. empire is Lawrence Wilkerson, a former U.S. Army colonel and chief of staff for Colin Powell under the George W. Bush administration. For the past several years, Wilkerson has come out swinging against the military-industrial complex he once served, calling the U.S. "the death merchant of the world" and expressing his dissatisfaction with "the corporate interests that we go abroad to slay monsters for."
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Yoda

Crimea PM: Putin should be president for life

Andrew Osborn
Reuters
Sat, 18 Mar 2017 20:35 UTC
Putin Aksyonov
© REUTERS/Maxim Shipenkov/PoolRussian President Vladimir Putin (L) and Crimean Prime Minister Sergei Aksyonov attend a festive concert marking the first anniversary of the Crimean treaty signing in central Moscow, March 18, 2015.
The Russian-backed prime minister of Crimea said on Saturday that Vladimir Putin should be made president of Russia for life and that the Soviet Union would never have collapsed had Putin been in charge.

Sergei Aksyonov, marking the third anniversary of the day he signed off on Russia's annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula, said Russia needed continuous strong leadership to contend with multiple external threats.

"If our president Vladimir Vladimirovich (Putin) was in charge of things when the Soviet Union existed, the Soviet Union would not have fallen apart," said Aksyonov, who said a few days ago that Russia needed a monarchic style of government.

"Vladimir Vladimirovich must be president for life," Aksyonov told the Rossiya 24 channel.
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Star of David

UN group cowers to Israeli & US complaints - takes down report finding Israel guilty of apartheid


If Americans Knew
Sat, 18 Mar 2017 20:13 UTC
Antonio Guterres
Antonio Guterres
JTA reports:
A United Nations affiliate removed a report accusing Israel of apartheid from the internet following a request from the secretary-general of the international body.

Antonio Guterres asked the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, or EWCWA, to remove the report, which was published Wednesday and says it "establishes, on the basis of scholarly inquiry and overwhelming evidence, that Israel is guilty of the crime of apartheid," Reuters reported Friday.

Rima Khalaf, the commission's chief, resigned because of Gutteres' pressure to remove the report, according to Reuters.

As of shortly after noon Friday, a previous link to the report yielded an error message and the report was not listed among the publications on the website for the ESCWA, an agency based in Beirut, Lebanon that is comprised of 18 Arab member states, including what is identified as the State of Palestine.

A U.N. spokesman had said earlier that the report was published without consulting the international body's Secretariat and "does not reflect the views of the secretary-general."

The United States and Israel sharply criticized the report.

"The United States is outraged by the report," Nikki Haley, the U.S. envoy to the U.N., said Wednesday in a statement. "The United Nations Secretariat was right to distance itself from this report, but it must go further and withdraw the report altogether."

Israel's U.N. ambassador, Danny Danon, said in a statement: "The attempt to smear and falsely label the only true democracy in the Middle East by creating a false analogy is despicable and constitutes a blatant lie."

Comment: Read what Desmond Tutu had to say about the apartheid State of Israel:

Desmond Tutu calls for global boycott of Israel

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