Puppet MastersS


Bizarro Earth

US-Israel: Evaluating their toxic relationship

Zarefah Baroud
teleSUR
Sun, 24 Dec 2017 00:00 UTC
trumpStarDavid
© Getty Images/KJN
In 2014, Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old, was shot six times in the back and head by police officer Darren Wilson while fleeing a confrontation in Ferguson, Missouri. The teenager was then left to bleed out in the street. The police officer, who claimed that he feared for his life, was acquitted.

In 2015, Mohammed al-Kasbeh, an unarmed 17-year-old, was shot several times in the back and head by Israeli Colonel Yisrael Shomer while fleeing a checkpoint in Ramallah. He was with a group of other youths who were allegedly throwing stones at an Israeli military vehicle. When the windshield broke, the soldiers exited the vehicle in their gear, fired several shots, then walked up to Mohammed, who was bleeding out on the ground, and proceeded to kick the dying boy. The soldier, who claimed that he feared for his life, was acquitted.

The world is now looking to the United States and the state of Israel as a tightly bound couple whose mutual commitment is poignantly reflected in the recent gesture made by President Donald Trump and his decision to relocate the American embassy to Jerusalem.

The United States and Israel are not an unlikely couple in their provocative union. Coming from similar beginnings, they have allied themselves in the fight to maintain their national aspirations to uphold racism, classism and colonialism/neocolonialism. Manifest Destiny and Zionism have become one and the same.

Comment: The Israeli agenda is camouflaged within the pillars of religious belief, presumptuous destiny and expanding greed -- allowing for generations of Zionist manipulation and mastery.

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Snakes in Suits

Ta-Da! Homeland Security brings you its multibillion dollar comedy show

James Bovard
CounterPunch
Wed, 27 Dec 2017 00:00 UTC
Dept Homeland Sec
© James Bovard/KJN
After the 9/11 attacks, Congress and the Bush administration pretended that unlimited federal spending was one of the best ways to thwart terrorist threats. In 2002, Congress created the Homeland Security Department (DHS), sweeping some of the most inept federal agencies, such as the Secret Service and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), into the new mega-department. Congress also created numerous programs - some run directly by FEMA - to shovel out more than $30 billion in anti-terrorism funding to local and state governments.

As Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) observed a few years ago, "FEMA's lax guidelines and oversight made the agency a virtual rubberstamp for most anything that grant recipients creatively justified as related to homeland security - regardless of how loosely related." Louisiana Homeland Security grant recipients spent $2,400 for a lapel microphone and $2,700 for a teleprompter. Fort Worth, Texas, spent $24,000 of a federal anti-terrorism grant on a latrine-on-wheels. Other Texas local governments spent Homeland Security grants on "a hog catcher for Liberty County, body bags, garbage bags, Ziploc bags and two 2011 Camaros at $31,000 apiece," as a Senate report revealed.

Comment: Tax-payer money up in smoke for useless, asinine, or citizen-invasive projects to reinforce government lies and bureaucratic ineptitude. The terrorism is within the system, not the populace.

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Blue Planet

The Quad: US combs edges of Asia looking for allies to contain Beijing

Tony Cartalucci
New Eastern Outlook
Wed, 27 Dec 2017 00:00 UTC
Chopsticks Uncle
© toonpool.com
There has been a recent buzz promoted around the so-called Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) - a coalition of sorts counting the United States, India, Australia, and Japan as members. Promoted by familiar corporate-financier funded policy think tanks, the Quad is being portrayed as a step past Washington's ill-fated "pivot to Asia" to address its waning power in the region.

Understanding that the US "pivot" was meant to co-opt and coerce Southeast Asia into forming a united front aimed at containing China's economic, diplomatic, and military rise in the region in order to preserve and perhaps even expand US primacy in Asia Pacific, helps explain why it ultimately failed, and goes far in explaining what the Quad is and why it is being so eagerly promoted.

The Pivot's Failure and Declining American Power

Southeast Asia, through the supranational Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) resisted attempts by Washington to realign regional policy to suit US interests at the cost of ASEAN's growing ties with Beijing. There were various components to the pivot including US efforts to undermine, overthrow, and replace with obedient client regimes the governments of several ASEAN states including Myanmar, Thailand, and Malaysia.

Comment: The signs of 'Yankee go home' are everywhere and the tsunami of resentment and retribution is gathering.

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X

US court rejects advocacy group challenge to Trump's voter fraud commission


RT
Wed, 27 Dec 2017 00:44 UTC
gaveltrump
© Outside the Beltway
An electronic privacy advocacy group is "not a voter" and lacks the standing to sue the Trump administration's voter fraud commission over the collection of voter data, a federal judge has ruled.

Judge Stephen Williams, of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, ruled Tuesday that the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) could not show that it was harmed by President Donald Trump's Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, which has requested all states provide voter information such as names, addresses and Social Security numbers.

EPIC had argued that the commission, created by an executive order in May, was violating the 2002 E-Government Act and committing "unlawful agency action." The nonprofit had claimed the commission was required to release an impact assessment on privacy implications. Judge Williams disagreed.
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Attention

A North Korean defector with anthrax antibodies feeds into a convenient biological weapons scare


RT
Wed, 27 Dec 2017 05:15 UTC
woman mask
© CNN.comSouth Korean anthrax scare.
South Korean media have claimed that a North Korean defector was found to have developed antibodies to anthrax before his flight across the border. The report may likely play into the hands of those looking for a pretext for war.

The news was broken by South Korea's Channel A on Tuesday, citing an anonymous intelligence official. "Anthrax antibodies have been found in the North Korean soldier who defected this year," the unnamed official said, without revealing the way in which the soldier might have been exposed to the deadly substance, which could be either direct contact or vaccination.

Little is known about the soldier apart from that he was one of four North Korean military servicemen to defect to South Korea this year. The revelation comes against the backdrop of a series of reports suggesting that North Korea has been developing a program to fit biological weapons on intercontinental missiles. An earlier anonymous report by Japan's Asahi newspaper, that came out last week, claimed that Pyongyang has embarked on "conducting heat and pressure resistance tests to see whether anthrax germs can survive at temperatures of 7,000 degrees, the level an ICBM [inter-continental ballistic missile] encounters when it reenters the Earth atmosphere."

Comment: See also: N. Korean defector reportedly has anthrax antibodies in bloodstream

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Snakes in Suits

GOP Congressman Rooney: 'Purge' the FBI, 'these people' are the 'deep state'

Natasha Bertrand
Business Insider
Wed, 27 Dec 2017 18:00 UTC
Rep Francis Rooney
© MSNBCGOP Rep. Francis Rooney
"People have very high standards of our government agencies," the Florida congressman told MSNBC. He added that recent revelations about the political biases of various FBI employees "undermine" his "confidence that the agencies don't respect the Constitution and will not put the ends before the means."

MSNBC's Hallie Jackson pushed back. "That's a pretty broad brush you're painting with," she said.

Rooney then went on to list examples of the FBI putting the "ends before the means," including "with Hillary Clinton, with her $84 million of potentially illegal campaign contributions" and the Clinton Foundation's supposed involvement with the Uranium One deal.

A pro-President Donald Trump political action committee, The Committee to Defend the President, filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission earlier this month alleging that the Democratic National Committee illegally funneled $84 million through state party chapters back to the Clinton campaign.

Comment: The FBI has all the makings to discredit itself without any help from congressmen. At least some of the representatives are disgusted enough to venture out and call for purges and reform. See also:

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Microscope 2

N. Korean defector reportedly has anthrax antibodies in bloodstream


Sputnik
Tue, 26 Dec 2017 23:30 UTC
petri dish
© AP Photo/ Victor R. Caivano/KJN
A North Korean soldier who defected to South Korea in 2017 was found to have anthrax antibodies in his bloodstream, according to a Tuesday report from Channel A news.

A South Korean intelligence official dropped the revelation. Speaking under the condition of anonymity, he informed local news station Channel A that "anthrax antibodies have been found in the North Korean soldier who defected this year."

It's not known whether the soldier was exposed to or vaccinated against anthrax, and the official did not specify which soldier of the four soldiers who parted ways with Pyongyang this year carried the antibodies. Soldiers defected from North Korea June 12, June 18, November 13 and December 20. The unidentified soldier developed the immunity to anthrax prior to his defection, the official noted.

The news is causing concern in North Korea's southern neighbor as the bacterial illness can kill an estimated 80 percent of people who are exposed to the bacterium, UPI reported. According to South Korean Defense Ministry spokesperson Choi Hyun-soo, Seoul has yet to obtain a vaccine for anthrax. It expects to have developed a vaccine for its military "by the end of 2019."

Comment: Seems like a bit of convenient timing...Asahi news report and then a walking defector with antibody proof.

See also: A North Korean defector with anthrax antibodies feeds into a convenient biological weapons scare

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Attention

Boris Johnson in Moscow: Panic and agony of a rotting empire

Andre Vitchek
New Eastern Outlook
Tue, 26 Dec 2017 00:00 UTC
LavrovJohnson
© Prensa Latina
It has been all very ugly, aggressive and often distinctly vulgar: the way the British Foreign Secretary has behaved before and during his official visit to Moscow.

Mr. Johnson described Russia as "closed, nasty, militaristic and anti-democratic" concluding that it could not be "business as usual". He did not define what the UK has become, and the Russian hosts were too polite to explain.

The "business as usual" it was not.

During the last few weeks, the behavior patterns of both the UK and US have began increasingly to resemble those of the badly brought up leadership of the provincial Italian mafia: "You do as we tell you, or we'll poke out your eyes... or break your leg... or perhaps we'll kidnap your daughter".

It appears that there is absolutely no shame left in Washington, in London, and in several other 'provincial capitals' of the Empire. Insults are piling on insults and then shot to all corners of the globe. Lies are being spread barefacedly, and bizarre deceptions and fabrications have been manufactured with impressive speed.

Comment: Boris Johnson...the diplomatic culmination of the English Empire, a fool in a suit.

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Arrow Down

State Dept rejects proposal to cease calling West Bank 'occupied'


RT
Wed, 27 Dec 2017 12:18 UTC
westbank
© Al Jazeera/KJN
The State Department has reportedly rejected a request by the US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, to stop referring to Israel's control of the West Bank as an "occupation." The final say is with Donald Trump, though.

The issue is being discussed, and President Trump will ultimately take the final decision, according to Israeli public broadcasting channel Kan. A State Department official said in response to the report that there has been no change in US policy regarding the West Bank, according to the Jerusalem Post.

Friedman's alleged request comes as Washington's attempts to find a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have not borne fruit. World leaders have questioned the US's role as a peace broker in the region after Trump declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel on December 6 - sparking an international backlash and a rebuke by the UN General Assembly. Washington had earlier vetoed a UN Security Council resolution which demanded Trump's decision be withdrawn.

The State Department has previously had to walk back a number of inflammatory statements made by Friedman about the West Bank. In September, he described Israel's military control of Palestinian territories as "an alleged occupation." Later that same month, Friedman said that Israel only occupies 2 percent of the West Bank and that illegal Israeli settlements in the territory are part of the Jewish State - prompting State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert to clarify that "our position on that hasn't changed" and "the comment does not represent a shift in US policy."

Comment: They should call West Bank what it really is. And then give it back.

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Pirates

Chief of Russian General Staff comments on who trained Daesh leaders in Syria


Sputnik
Wed, 27 Dec 2017 00:30 UTC
Daesh
© shiitenews.com/KJN
Chief of the Russian General Staff Valery Gerasimov said that trained by instructors and with a large number of weapons and equipment captured from Iraqi and Syrian armies, Daesh terrorists were de facto a regular army.

Formations of the Islamic State terror group (Daesh) were headed by commanders trained by instructors from countries of the Middle East and the West, Chief of the Russian General Staff Valery Gerasimov said.

"With the beginning of the events in Syria, the General Staff was monitoring the situation, knew the peculiarities of the tactical action of these gangs. We understood that in addition to terrorist actions, they used some tactics. These gangs were headed by commanders who had been specially trained by instructors from a number of countries in the Middle East and from Western countries. There even were former officers of the Iraqi army," Gerasimov told the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper in an interview published Wednesday.

He added that over the period of fighting, militants had also captured a large number of weapons and equipment from Iraqi and Syrian armies. "They had up to 1,500 tanks and armored vehicles alone in their arsenal. Plus, some 1,200 artillery pieces and mortars. It was de facto a regular army," Gerasimov stressed.

Gerasimov noted however, that the Russian army in Syria engaged in hostilities with some 70,000 Daesh terrorists with about 60,000 of them having been eliminated.
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