Puppet MastersS


Gold Bar

Gold expert: Even if US has all the gold it says it has, most of it is probably low purity (which is why no one is allowed to see it)


RT
Sat, 30 Dec 2017 16:29 UTC
fake gold bricks
© Bodo Marks / Global Look Press
The United States doesn't let anyone see its gold reserves. Even if the Treasury has the number of billions it claims, they are not tradable, warns Singapore's BullionStar precious metals expert Ronan Manly.

The US government claims to hold 8133.5 tonnes of physical gold in its official reserves. Fifty-eight percent is reportedly held in Fort Knox, Kentucky, 20 percent at West Point in New York State, 16 percent is said to be at the US Mint in Denver, Colorado and five percent is held at the NY Fed.

"The entire story around the US gold reserves is opaque and secretive. There has never been a full independent audit of the US gold reserves, and the custodians of the gold, the US Mint and the Federal Reserve of New York will not let anybody into the vaults to view the gold or to count it," Manly told RT.

However, despite the numerous accusations against the US Treasury that it has much less gold than it claims, there is another reason, according to the expert - US gold is of bad quality.

Comment:

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Bell

Regime change op? Economic protests turn political in Iran - weeks after US, Israel sign anti-Iranian pact


Moon of Alabama
Fri, 29 Dec 2017 16:06 UTC
trump netanyahu
© AFP
Yesterday and today saw some small protests in Iran. They are probably the first stage of a large "regime change" operation run by the U.S. and Israel with the help of Iranian terrorist groups.

Earlier this month the White House and the Zionists prepared for a new assault on Iran:
A delegation led by Israel's National Security Adviser met with senior American officials in the White House earlier this month for a joint discussion on strategy to counter Iran's aggression in the Middle East, a senior U.S. official confirmed to Haaretz.
Another report about the meeting quotes Israeli officials on the result:
"[T]he U.S. and Israel see eye to eye the different developments in the region and especially those that are connected to Iran. We reached at understandings regarding the strategy and the policy needed to counter Iran. Our understandings deal with the overall strategy but also with concrete goals, way of action and the means which need to be used to get obtain those goals."
This is probably a result of the above meeting:
Hundreds took to the streets of Iran's second largest city of Mashad on Thursday to protest over high prices, shouting slogans against the government.

Videos posted on social media showed demonstrators in Mashad in northwest Iran, one of the holiest places in Shia Islam, chanting "death to (President Hassan) Rouhani" and "death to the dictator".

The semi-official ILNA news agency and social media reported demonstrations in other cities in Razavi Khorasan Province, including Neyshabour and Kashmar.
A video of that protest in Mashad showed some 50 people chanting slogans with more bystanders just milling around.

Comment: More on the U.S., Israel pact, signed after talks on December 12 between McMaster and his Israeli counterpart, Meir Ben-Shabbat:
Channel 10 reported that the document is designed to translate into "steps on the ground" the ideas laid out by US President Donald Trump in his October 13 speech on Iran, in which he all but ditched the Obama-negotiated Iranian nuclear deal, according to unnamed sources. Trump stopped short of breaching the accord, but "decertified" his support for the agreement, leaving its fate in the hands of Congress.

Specifically, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and president Trump agreed behind closed doors to set up joint teams to handle what they both believe amounts to an 'Iranian threat.'

Four separate teams would be reportedly be set up to curtail Iranian power. The first would deal with "Iranian activity in Syria and Tehran's support for the Hezbollah terror organization." Another division will oversee "diplomatic and intelligence activities" aimed to confront Iran's nuclear weapon "ambitions."

A third group would monitor Iran's ballistic missile program and its purported efforts to build "accurate missile systems" in Syria and Lebanon. Finally, a fourth unit would keep tabs on groundwork for any escalation by Iran and/or Hezbollah.
So is there CIA involvement in this latest round of Iranian protests? Conservative talk radio host John Cardillo seems to think so. And he approves:





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Propaganda

Flashback Putin - Western media's villain for everything they don't like


RT
Sat, 30 Dec 2017 14:20 UTC
Vladimir Putin
© Anton Denisov / RIA NovostiRussian President Vladimir Putin
As the hysterical outpourings of the Western media and their relentless anti-Putin narrative becomes ever more ridiculous. Let's look at why.

Vladimir Putin wants to cut off your internet. At least, if you are a reader of the New York Times, you may well believe this. The NYT recently reported that "Russian submarines and spy ships are aggressively operating near the vital undersea cables that carry almost all global Internet communications."

The NYT didn't bother to expand on how a submarine might go about acting 'aggressively' in the presence of inert under sea cables in international waters. Indeed, later in the article they admit that there is "no evidence of any cable cutting." So the real story here is in fact: Russian submarine in the sea.

That doesn't sound like a terribly catchy headline though does it?

Comment: Nothing had changed since the publication of this article two years back. Western governments continue to blame Russia for every thing ( Trump's election as US president, Brexit, Catalonia referendum etc.) they don't like, while Putin continue to resolve the mess Western nations creating in Middle East and other areas of the world.

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Arrow Down

Russian bank sanctioned by U.S. over Crimea now out of business due to asset stripping


Meduza
Fri, 29 Dec 2017 16:02 UTC
Severnyi Kredit logo
© Severnyi KreditSevernyi Kredit
Russia's Central Bank has revoked the license of "Severnyi Kredit" (Northern Credit) bank, which has been targeted by U.S. sanctions since June 2017 because of the bank's work in Crimea. The Central Bank determined that Severnyi Kredit has completely exhausted its capital reserves.

In late December, the bank's acting head signed an agreement for the acquisition of a large portfolio of securities, but an audit soon found that Severnyi Kredit lacks the documents confirming its ownership of these securities, leading to charges that Severnyi Kredit's management committed large-scale asset stripping.
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Passport

NY Gov. Cuomo goes against Trump's policy to pardon 18 illegal immigrants facing deportation

Leah Barkoukis
Townhall
Thu, 28 Dec 2017 03:05 UTC
NY Gov Cuomo
© Brendan McDermid / ReutersNew York Governor Andrew Cuomo
Gov. Andrew Cuomo pardoned 61 people on Wednesday, 18 of whom were immigrants facing deportation over their prior criminal charges.

The New York Democrat said his pardon, a direct rebuke of President Trump's immigration enforcement, was related to their rehabilitation efforts since their convictions.

"These New Yorkers have proved their rehabilitation, in some cases for decades, but have been unable to gain legal status or fully reenter society due to the stigma of conviction," Cuomo said in a statement. "While the federal government continues to target immigrants and threatens to tear families apart with deportation, these actions take a critical step toward a more just, more fair and more compassionate New York."

According to Cuomo's chief counsel Alphonso David, the pardons were directed toward those who committed low-level offenses.

Comment: See also: The invisible wall or how Trump slows immigration without laying a brick

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Eye 2

Iraq-raping Neocons now sucking up to "progressives" to gain support

Caitlin Johnstone
Medium
Thu, 28 Dec 2017 15:20 UTC
max boot tweet
© Max Boot/Twitter
The invasion of Iraq was unforgivable. It remains unforgivable. It will always be unforgivable. Its architects should be tried in The Hague and imprisoned, and nobody who helped inflict that unfathomable evil upon our world should ever be employed anywhere they could do any more damage or mislead anyone else. All behaviors of the mainstream media, US intelligence agencies and US defense agencies should be viewed through the lens of those unforgivable lies and murders forevermore, and nobody should ever take them at their word about anything ever again.

Instead what has actually happened is that nothing whatsoever has changed since the invasion, Americans still take it on faith that Vladimir Putin, Bashar al-Assad and Kim Jong Un are world-threatening enemies in sore need of ousting, and bloodthirsty psychopaths like Max Boot who have been consistently wrong about everything are still hailed as experts worth listening to.

Oh yeah, and now they're being adored as progressive heroes.
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Heart - Black

A most unlikely martyr: Matriarch Hamda Zubeidat, killed in the night by Israeli grenades

Yumna Patel
Mondoweiss
Thu, 28 Dec 2017 00:00 UTC
Hamda Zubeidat, Jericho, Palestine
© Unknown
The events that transpired on the night of December 12 were nothing short of a complete shock to the Palestinian residents of the village of al-Zubeidat, located just off a main road in the Jordan Valley area of the central occupied West Bank.

At around 8 pm, dozens of Israeli soldiers and military jeeps raided the village in full force, allegedly in search of young men who had been throwing rocks at Israeli settlers who share the main road with Palestinians.

"They were showering the village with stun grenades," Tawfiq Zubeidat, 40, told Mondoweiss, "indiscriminately, without any care or concern."

About an hour into the raid, around 9 pm, soldiers arrived to Tawfiq's family compound in the northern area of the village where his mother Hamda, in her late 70's, was trying to fall asleep despite the frightening sounds of the raid on the other end of al-Zubeidat.
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Newspaper

Trump holds forth on Russia investigation, AG Sessions, China and more in NYT interview

Leah Barkoukis
Town Hall
Fri, 29 Dec 2017 14:31 UTC
trump
© Win McNamee/Getty Images"By the time I've rattled every capital on Earth, y'all will have this much desire for the US to get entangled with y'alls issues."
In an impromptu interview with the 'failing' New York Times, as he likes to call it, President Trump spoke about the Russia probe, his Attorney General Jeff Sessions, China being caught illegally delivering oil to North Korea, and more.

Speaking to a reporter at his golf club in West Palm Beach Thursday, Trump said he'd "been soft" on China regarding trade to hopefully encourage the country to rein in North Korea's weapons program. That may change, however, after U.S. spy satellites captured images of China illegally oil to North Korea.

"Oil is going into North Korea. That wasn't my deal!" Trump said. "If they're helping me with North Korea, I can look at trade a little bit differently, at least for a period of time. And that's what I've been doing. But when oil is going in, I'm not happy about that."

Comment: China denies reports of Chinese ships selling oil to North Korea

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Newspaper

China criticizes US, German embassies for 'interference' in its internal affairs


ABC News
Thu, 28 Dec 2017 00:00 UTC
Chinese activist Wu Gan
© AP Photo/Kin CheungPro-democracy activists hold pictures of Chinese activist Wu Gan near the Chinese central government's liaison office in Hong Kong, Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2017. Activist Wu Gan who calls himself the "Ultra Vulgar Butcher" for mocking and pressuring Chinese officials, was given an eight-year prison sentence on charges of subversion, the harshest punishment in a sweeping crackdown on rights campaigners. The placard with Chinese words that reads "Rights is innocent, free Wu Gan now."
China's foreign ministry accused the American and German embassies on Thursday of interfering in its affairs after they objected to the prosecutions of an activist and a lawyer who handled sensitive cases.

Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters a joint statement by the embassies calling for Wu Gan's release and for lawyer Xie Yang to be allowed to return to work was irresponsible.

Wu, who criticized Chinese officials online, was sentenced Tuesday to eight years in prison on subversion charges. Xie was convicted of inciting subversion but spared a prison term after he admitted committing the offense.
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Star of David

Delusional Roger Cohen: Zionism didn't have to turn out so badly for Palestinians

Philip Weiss
Mondoweiss
Sat, 30 Dec 2017 14:23 UTC
Roger Cohen
Roger Cohen
The theme of Roger Cohen's recent memoir of his cosmopolitan family was that Jews are insecure in the west and therefore Jewish sovereignty is a just and necessary answer.

He restates these ideas emphatically in a review of Simon Schama's book, The Story of the Jews, which the New York Times Book Review aptly titles "Millenniums of Tribulation." The story of the Jews is never-ending persecution and expulsion, and assimilation won't save us either.

At the end, Cohen acknowledges that Palestinians have had to be exiled to make room for the Jewish state, and it hasn't been any fun for them since. But -- anti-Zionism is sometimes anti-Semitism.
In the end the price of Jewish statehood has been heavy: the exile of another people, the Palestinians. More than a half-century of occupation of the West Bank has corroded Israeli democracy. This was not inevitable and is still not irreparable. No doubt, these themes will be prominent in Schama's next volume. At a time of facile anti-Zionism spilling sometimes into outright anti-Semitism, Schama has made an eloquent and a far-reaching case for why Jews needed a small piece of earth they could call home.
This argument is unconvincing. As Donald Johnson writes:
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