Puppet MastersS


Attention

Kim Jong-un announces North Korea's new ballistic missile ready for mass production after successful test

N. Korea Pukguksong-2 missile
© Reuters
North Korea's new intermediate-range ballistic missile was successfully tested on Sunday and should now be "rapidly" mass-produced, Kim Jong-un, the country's supreme leader has said, according to state media.

The latest test confirmed the reliable late-stage guidance of the Pukguksong-2 missile's warhead and the functioning of its solid-fuel engine, the KCNA state news agency said.

Kim Jong-un supervised the launch and expressed "great satisfaction" over its results.

"Now that its tactical and technical data met the requirements of the Party, this type of missile should be rapidly mass-produced in a serial way to arm the KPA (Korean People's Army) Strategic Force," Kim said, according to KCNA.

The North Korean leader also described Pukguksong-2 as a "successful strategic weapon", with a "very accurate" hit rate.

Info

Trump's budget plan wants to sell US oil reserves and drill in Alaska

Private security contractors patrol the US Department of Energy's Strategic Petroleum Reserve in Bryan Mound, Texas
© Donna Carson / Reuters Private security contractors patrol the US Department of Energy's Strategic Petroleum Reserve in Bryan Mound, Texas.
US President Donald Trump's budget plan envisages selling America's strategic crude reserves and opening the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to drilling in an attempt to rebalance the budget and boost economic growth.

The US Strategic Petroleum Reserve is the world's largest and has about 688 million barrels of crude. The oil is heavily guarded in underground facilities in Louisiana and Texas.

The reserve was started in 1975 after oil supplies were interrupted during the 1973 - 1974 embargo by Saudi Arabia and other OPEC countries, to mitigate future temporary supply disruptions.

Attention

Suicide bomber behind Manchester Arena attack that killed 22 people

Manchester terror attack Ariana Grande
The explosion at Manchester Arena on Monday was a suicide attack, according to the chief constable of Greater Manchester police, who noted that the perpetrator acted alone in detonating an improvised explosive device that killed 22 people, including children, and injured 59 others.

LIVE UPDATES: Manchester Arena explosion

"The attacker, I can confirm, died at the arena. We believe the attacker was carrying an improvised explosive device which he detonated causing this atrocity," Ian Hopkins, chief constable of Manchester police, told a news conference on Tuesday.

"We believe, at this stage, the attack last night was conducted by one man," he said, adding that an investigation is underway to establish if the man was part of a network.

Comment: Two weeks before a general election where the 'strong and stable' Conservative establishment party are losing ground to the 'weak' and populist Labour party, a terror attack happens. We do hope that everyone is finally coming to a clear understanding of what the point of these terror attacks are.


Info

Pro-war leftism exposed: Democracy Now runs interference for imperialism in Syria

Amy Goodman Democracy Now
© Aditya Ganapathiraju/ flickrSuccessfully co-opted - Amy Goodman, author and host of Democracy Now!
One of the most peculiar features of the United States is the presence of a rabidly pro-war leftism that poses as "independent" politics. Ever since the Obama Administration made it fashionable for so-called liberals to strike a "Grand Bargain" with the GOP, anti-war politics have been non-existent in public life. The non-profit industrial complex hasn't helped the situation. Democracy Now, as the best known non-profit "independent news" organ, is the perfect example of pro-war leftism in motion. The organization's recent coverage of Syria has only encouraged imperialism's war narrative despite the presence of a GOP-led Administration, House, and Senate.

On May 3rd, Democracy Now interviewed Anand Gopal, former fellow at the New America Foundation from 2012-2014. That Democracy Now describes itself as "independent media" yet associates with figures such as Gopal raises question marks about the source's credibility on the issue of war and peace. The New America Foundation can hardly be considered an impartial source. As is the case for most think-tanks in the US and West, the foundation receives patronage from sources directly invested in war. Such sources include the Ford Foundation, the Open Society Foundation, and a consortium of corporate-backed foundations associated with the Wall Street firms CitiGroup and JP Morgan Chase.

Comment: The real terrorists in Syria: Dark truths hidden beneath progressive facades of NATO and its allies
Despite all of the publicly available evidence, so-called "progressives" in the West have been successfully co-opted. Feminists are tacitly supporting Wahhabism and Sharia law when they support the war on Syria. Progressives of all brands are supporting terrorism when they support the war on Syria. Ostensibly progressive shows such as Democracy Now, and iconic "progressive" intellectuals, all serve to co-opt the "progressives" when they parrot unsubstantiated propaganda memes that demonize President Assad, Syria, and Syrians.

Ironically, North American faux-Liberals and faux - progressives are advancing criminal neo-con war-mongering and a neo-con agenda when they support the West's dirty war on Syria. Self-styled "progressives" support refugees but totally ignore the fact that their support for their government's criminal warfare creates the refugees in the first place. Progressives should be opposing the warfare that creates the refugees.



Gear

US strike on Syrian forces and the larger scramble for post-Islamic State Syria

US forces in Syria
The recent strike on a Syrian military convoy within Syrian territory by US military forces represents another incremental escalation by Washington within the region, and another example of American unilateral military aggression worldwide.

The tactical scope of the attack was relatively limited, but strategically, the stakes particularly along Syria's territorial boundaries have been raised significantly.

Regarding the attack, US geopolitical analysts appear unanimous regarding the rhyme and reason behind it.

Foreign Policy magazine in a recent article claimed that the strike "showed American commanders are willing to use force to maintain de facto safe zones in the country's east." The article also attempts to claim these "safe zones" are being used to stand up forces to fight the Islamic State.

Snakes in Suits

Flynn pleads the 5th as Stone, Manafort send documents to Senate

Michael Flynn
© Gary Cameron / Reuters
President Donald Trump's former national security adviser has invoked the Fifth Amendment in response to a Senate request for documents in relation to its Russia probe, with his lawyer saying the request amounted to a fishing expedition.

Responding to the subpoena issued by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Robert Kelner, General Michael Flynn's attorney, cited the "escalating public frenzy against him," the appointment of a special counsel in the probe of alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election, and the sheer scope of the committee's request.

Led by Senators Richard Burr (R-North Carolina) and Mark Warner (D-Virginia), the committee had demanded Flynn produce detailed information about any meetings he may have had with "any Russian official or representative of Russian business interests." They are also seeking details on communications the Trump campaign may have had "in any way related to Russia," between June 16, 2015 - the day Donald Trump announced he was running for president - and January 20, 2017, when Trump was inaugurated.

USA

The Deep State's plot to take over America has succeeded

"You have such a fervent, passionate, evangelical faith in this country...why in the name of God don't you have any faith in the system of government you're so hell-bent to protect? You want to defend the United States of America, then defend it with the tools it supplies you with—its Constitution. You ask for a mandate, General, from a ballot box. You don't steal it after midnight, when the country has its back turned."—Seven Days in May (1964)
Deep State
© Gadfly Online
No doubt about it.

The coup d'etat has been successful.

The Deep State—a.k.a. the police state a.k.a. the military industrial complex—has taken over.

The American system of representative government has been overthrown by a profit-driven, militaristic corporate state bent on total control and global domination through the imposition of martial law here at home and by fomenting wars abroad.

When in doubt, follow the money trail.

It always points the way.

Every successive president starting with Franklin D. Roosevelt has been bought—lock, stock and barrel—and made to dance to the tune of the Deep State.

Even Dwight D. Eisenhower, the retired five-star Army general -turned-president who warned against the disastrous rise of misplaced power by the military industrial complex was complicit in contributing to the build-up of the military's role in dictating national and international policy.

Enter Donald Trump, the candidate who swore to drain the swamp in Washington DC.

Instead of putting an end to the corruption, however, Trump has paved the way for lobbyists, corporations, the military industrial complex, and the Deep State to feast on the carcass of the dying American republic.

Just recently, for instance, Trump—boasting about the "purchase of lots of beautiful military equipment because nobody makes it like the United States—agreed to sell Saudi Arabia more than $110 billion in military weapons and "tanks and helicopters for border security, ships for coastal security, intelligence-gathering aircraft, a missile-defense radar system, and cybersecurity tools."

This is how you keep the Deep State in power.

The rich will get richer, the military will get more militaristic, America's endless wars will get more endless, and the prospect of peace will grow ever dimmer.

As for the terrorists, they will keep on being played for pawns as long as Saudi Arabia remains their breeding ground and America remains the source of their weapons, training and know-how (15 of the 19 terrorists—including Osama bin Laden—who carried out the 9/11 attacks were from Saudi Arabia).

Follow the money. It always points the way.

Attention

Donald Trump's hostility towards Iran is irrational and extremely dangerous

Donald Trump
Donald Trump's comments about Iran invert reality and demonstrate a level of hostility to the country which is extremely dangerous.

As someone with experience of writing about Russian affairs I have long since come to realize that there is little about the pathological hostility to Russia of so many elite people in the West is grounded in reality.

Like many people who think like me, I have sometimes wondered whether some of the highly intelligent and well informed people who profess this hostility actually believe all the terrible things they say about Russia. I have gradually come round to the view that in many cases they don't, since believing many of things they profess to believe about Russia in the face of so many publicly available facts that tell the contrary is simply impossible. That means that in the West hostility to Russia is leavened by a great deal of cynicism.

Comment: More analysis on Trump's speech:


Info

False allegations: Trump says he never mentioned Israel during meeting with Russian officials

Donald Trump
© Ariel Schalit / Reuters
President Donald Trump has once again defended himself against allegations of sharing US intelligence data provided by Israel with Russian officials during recent a meeting in Washington.

Trump said he "never mentioned the word or the name Israel" during his conversation with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and the Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak on May 10.

"So you have another story wrong," he told the media during a brief press appearance alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem.

Star of David

Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine: The future Jewish power center of the world?

Hasidic Community
© The ForwardHasidic Community
The chief Rebbe of Dnepropetrovsk and the Dnepropetrovsk region Shmuel Kamenetsky, one of the most influential religious figures in the post Soviet space, organizes the International Judaic University (IJU), at which the dogmas of "Habad-Lubavitch" will be taught. According to the Rebbe, 50,000-60,000 Jews live in Dnepropetrovsk, the number of worshipers of the main synagogue of Dnepropetrovsk - about 30,000. The Jewish diaspora of Dnepropetrovsk is the second in numbers in Ukraine, but the communitarian center "Menora" - with an area of nearly 122,000 sq.m - is the largest such construction in the post Soviet space in Europe, and possibly, in the world. (The Moscow Jewish communal center in Maryina Roshcha has an area of only 17,000 sq.m).

Dnepropetrovsk Jews are Hasidic. Hasidism, the doctrine of Ashkenazi Jews, was born on the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and extended together with Jews across all Russia. The word "Hasid" itself is close with the word "kind". Hasidism - righteousness, the doctrine of piety. In Hasidism there are various directions, at the head of which stands Tzadik (teachers, righteous persons, saints). According to the doctrine of Hasidism, God is present everywhere, in each phenomenon and event. The task of the person is to merge with divine light. Hasidim consider joy as the greatest virtue, consider singing and dancing as a way to serve the supreme. It is exactly from here that Jewish music and dances originate. Hasidim consider it correct to comprehend God through emotions. Generally, the doctrine looks certainly positive, but don't be in a hurry to get in line eager to get into the Kingdom of Heaven through this door. As is known, this road is opened only (with rare exception) for representatives of people chosen by God. I won't go into details, as the danger of belief in your national exclusiveness is a subject for a whole book, or perhaps not just one.

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