Puppet MastersS


Gold Coins

Texas bill to establish gold and silver as legal tender, dealing massive blow to Federal Reserve

Claire Bernish
The Free Thought Project
Mon, 10 Apr 2017 20:42 UTC
Federal Reserve building with burning cash graphic
A bill recently introduced in Texas seeks to obliterate the Federal Reserve's much-maligned monopoly on currency by establishing gold and silver as legal tender — but the groundbreaking legislation, if passed, would also prohibit those precious metals from being seized by State authorities.

If passed, Texans would secure stability by reclaiming their purchasing power — without being subject to the whims of The Fed — an institution widely regarded as a devious manipulator of currencies and markets.

Senator Bob Hall introduced the bill last month, which, the Tenth Amendment Center explains, "declares specifically that certain gold and silver coins are legal tender, and prohibits any tax, charge, assessment, fee, or penalty on any exchange of Federal Reserve notes (dollars) for gold or silver. The bill authorizes the payment of taxes and fees in gold & silver in certain circumstances. It would also prohibit the seizure of gold or silver by state authorities."

Comment: Arizona is also looking into gold: Arizona Senate Committee: Passes bill to treat gold like money, remove capital gains tax

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Nuke

North Korea says American airstrikes on Syria prove its nukes justified


CNBC
Mon, 10 Apr 2017 20:29 UTC
TV screen with NK missile launch
© Kim Hong-Ji | Reuters
North Korea has vowed to bolster its defenses to protect itself against airstrikes like the ones President Donald Trump ordered against an air base in Syria.

The North called the airstrikes "absolutely unpardonable" and said they prove its nuclear weapons are justified to protect the country against Washington's "evermore reckless moves for a war."

The comments were made by a Foreign Ministry official and carried Sunday by North Korea's state-run Korean Central News Agency. The report did not name the official, which is common in KCNA reports.

Comment: Also see: Stocks slide on report China has deployed 150,000 troops to North Korea border

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Clipboard

Trump administration sued for lack of transparency of White House and Mar-a-Lago visitor logs


RT
Mon, 10 Apr 2017 16:55 UTC
WH,Mar-a-Lago,TrumpTower
© Global Look Press / ReutersWhite House • Mar-a-Lago • Trump Tower
Three groups are suing the Trump administration for failing to respond to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to release records concerning White House visitors and Trump's residences in Florida and New York.

The lawsuit, Doyle v. US Department of Homeland Security, was filed in federal district court in New York on Monday by a coalition of three groups: Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, and the National Security Archive. The plaintiffs argue that the Department of Homeland Security violated FOIA "by refusing to search for and provide plaintiffs...with the request records" and not complying with the statutory time limit of their request.

In its FOIA request, the coalition said that it was wanted the information to inform the public of actual or alleged activities of federal government, as it considers those records "a matter of widespread and exceptional media interest in which there exist possible questions about the government's integrity which affect public confidence."

"It is crucial to understand who is potentially influencing the decision-making of the president, particularly when you have a White House that tends to lean toward secret decision-making," Noah Bookbinder, executive director of the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), told The Washington Post.

The FOIA was filed in late January, on the Monday following Trump's inauguration.
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Attention

Damage control: Following missile strike, Tillerson, McMaster speak out

Alexander Mercouris
The Duran
Mon, 10 Apr 2017 00:00 UTC
TillersonHaleyMcMaster
© RT-Getty Images"one for the money" Tillerson • "two for the show" Haley • "three to get ready" McMaster
That Friday's missile strike on Sharyat air base was an impulsive and ill-judged move ordered by an inexperienced and emotional President after seeing television pictures of dead children gained further support on Sunday when US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the President's National Security Adviser General H.R. McMaster both gave television interviews which bore all the hallmarks of a damage limitation exercise.

Tillerson's interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC News was longer and more informative, but McMaster's interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News made essentially the same points. Briefly these are:
(1) that the missile attack on Sharyat air base is intended as a one-off;

(2) that the US will not attack Syria to achieve regime change there, and that President Assad's position will be decided by the Syrians themselves;

(3) that the priority remains the fight against ISIS;

(4) that the missile strike was not intended as an anti-Russian move and the Trump administration still seeks better relations with Russia.

Comment: Where there is damage control...there is damage! Some things are hard to back-peddle.

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Rocket

Rouhani on Syria strikes: Russia was 'in an inch from confrontation' with US


Sputnik
Mon, 10 Apr 2017 12:38 UTC
Rouhani
© Frontpage MagPresident Hassan Rouhani
Russia was "in an inch from the confrontation" with the United States following the US missile strike on the Syrian Ash Sha'irat airfield, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Monday.

"And if it turns out that the terrorists spread the [poison] gas, what the United States will do? If terrorists find out that the United States will support them every time they spread the gas, what will be with the region? Russian officials said they were an inch from the confrontation [with the United States]," Rouhani said, citing Russian officials, as quoted by the ISNA news agency. He also said the missile strike damages the negotiating process and underscored the political track as the only solution to the six-year Syrian crisis.

"As for Syria, the final solution must be political," Rouhani said. "What the US has done has harmed the negotiation process."


Comment: Did the US support the terrorists spreading lethal gas? Does this fit with the resolve to completely eliminate ISIS?


Comment: If Russian intel is correct, the scenario that the Syrian air force hit the terrorist warehouse storing chemical weapons for use in Iraq means those particular weapons are no longer a threat to the Iraqi population and military, including US boots on the ground. Despite the tragedy in Syria, perhaps one was avoided in Iraq.

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Dominoes

Best of the Web: Putin leaves door ajar to work with Trump

M K Bhadrakumar
Rediff
Sat, 08 Apr 2017 00:00 UTC
Putrump
© New Stateman
In the Russian political culture, written word subsumes the spoken word. And when it is the Kremlin's written word, it is the ultimate gospel. Therefore, the articulation of the Russian reaction to the US missile strike on Syria on Thursday on the Kremlin website, here, merits very careful study and analysis.

On the whole, the Kremlin statement can be taken as surprisingly mild under the circumstances.

There is no attempt to defend Syria as an "ally" - an expression used by Presidential spokesman Dmirty Peskov in the press briefing - or voice carte-blanche Russian backing for Damascus to counter US "aggression" (The Russian MOD had claimed that Russia proposes to take "a series of steps... in the immediate future to reinforce and raise the effectiveness of the Syrian armed forces' air defence system".)

Without doubt, President Vladimir Putin leaves the door open to future discussions with the US on the establishment of an international counter-terrorism coalition. The Kremlin says that Thursday's US attack creates "a major obstacle" but it is not an insurmountable obstacle by any means — certainly, it isn't a case of door being slammed shut and key thrown away.

Comment: Interpretation is the mother of invention, a seemingly limitless exercise in prognosis and justification. At this point, theories abound. The above aspects, hopefully, are still within the realm of possibility.

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Chess

Syrian crisis buys Washington and Beijing time to consider North Korea strategy

Jhinuk Chowdhury
RT
Sun, 09 Apr 2017 15:43 UTC
TrumpXi
© South China Morning Post
Washington's preoccupation with Syria kept its summit with China to a 'get to know each other' level with no embarrassing public squabbles, exactly what President Xi had wished for.

As the Chinese President Xi Jinping was preparing for a summit with new US President Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago Florida resort, Trump announced US missile strikes on Syria's Homs airfield. Beijing has been gasping for a right strategy to deal with the unpredictable and less-restrained US under Trump ever since his campaign days, and the attack seems to have delayed the inevitable.

On the campaign trail, Trump attacked China's unfair trade and fiscal practices, and vowed to revive blue collar American jobs and counter China with protectionist measures. Once in office, he took steps considered to be too spontaneous to some, be it repudiating the Transatlantic Pacific Partnership (TPP), or pulling America out of the Paris Accord on climate change.

In the wake of this Trump storm, Syria served as a diversion for Beijing from making any concrete commitments on some of the contentious issues during the summit.

Comment: More here, strategy-wise, than meets the eye, obviously. If the above is an accurate accounting of the summit between Xi and Trump, having a 'no pressure visit' has garnered the US an array of offers it shouldn't refuse.

See also: Best of frenemies: Presidents Trump and Xi to tackle trade, military tensions

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Calculator

40 organizations in 16 countries: Scale of CIA hacking tools revealed by Symantec


RT
Mon, 10 Apr 2017 15:25 UTC
CIA hacker
© Kacper Pempel/Reuters
Hacking tools linked to the CIA in the recent WikiLeaks Vault 7 release were used to target at least 40 organizations in 16 countries, according to internet security firm Symantec.

The techniques detailed in Vault 7 were almost certainly developed and used by the same group, Symantec said Monday. The tech company has corroborated a number of the tool "development timelines" put forward by WikiLeaks.

While Symantec does not specifically mention the CIA - instead referring to the group responsible for the attacks as 'Longhorn' - the latest revelation gives further credence to WikiLeaks' assertion that Vault 7 is part of the intelligence service's "hacking tools".

"The tools used by Longhorn closely follow development timelines and technical specifications laid out in documents disclosed by WikiLeaks," a Symantec statement said.

"The Longhorn group shares some of the same cryptographic protocols specified in the Vault 7 documents, in addition to following leaked guidelines on tacts to avoid detection. Given the close similarities between the tools and techniques, there can be little doubt that Longhorn's activities and the Vault 7 documents are the work of the same group."
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Eye 2

In Syria, Kissinger is Trump's dark half

Nafeez Ahmed
Middle East Eye
Fri, 07 Apr 2017 17:38 UTC
kissinger
Henry Kissinger
By behaving erratically, US leaders can outmanoeuvre their rivals, but Kissinger's 'madman theory' tactics won't defeat IS or Assad in the end
"I really believe that we should have and still should take out his airfields and prevent him from being able to use them to bomb innocent people and drop sarin gas on them."
Those were Hillary Clinton's words just hours before her nemesis, President Donald Trump, ordered air strikes launching 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at the Shayrat airfield in the southeast of Homs, Syria.

Escalation

The Trump administration described the strikes as a "one-off" and insisted there were no plans for escalation. But an escalation is rapidly underway. Russia, despite being given advanced warning of the bombing from the US, has suspended an agreement with the US to avoid mid-air collisions in Syrian airspace. The US government's goals for the Syria strike can be deduced from the background role of one the most powerful diplomats in American history: Henry Kissinger. The former secretary of state, once accused by the late Christopher Hitchens of complicity in US "war crimes" in Latin America and south-east Asia, has been a key advisor to Trump in negotiating US relations with Russia and China.
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Bad Guys

Wag the dog — Donald Trump gets played by Al Qaeda and the American media

Scott Ritter
Huffington Post
Sun, 09 Apr 2017 16:23 UTC
trump
© Yuri Gripas / Reuters
Responsibility for the chemical event in Khan Sheikhoun is still very much in question.

Once upon a time, Donald J. Trump, the New York City businessman-turned-president, berated then-President Barack Obama back in September 2013 about the fallacy of an American military strike against Syria. At that time, the United States was considering the use of force against Syria in response to allegations (since largely disproven) that the regime of President Bashar al-Assad had used chemical weapons against civilians in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta. Trump, via tweet, declared "to our very foolish leader, do not attack Syria - if you do many very bad things will happen & from that fight the U.S. gets nothing!"

President Obama, despite having publicly declaring the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime a "red line" which, if crossed, would demand American military action, ultimately declined to order an attack, largely on the basis of warnings by James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, that the intelligence linking the chemical attack on Ghouta was less than definitive.

President Barack Obama, in a 2016 interview with The Atlantic, observed, "there's a playbook in Washington that presidents are supposed to follow. It's a playbook that comes out of the foreign-policy establishment. And the playbook prescribes responses to different events, and these responses tend to be militarized responses." While the "Washington playbook," Obama noted, could be useful during times of crisis, it could "also be a trap that can lead to bad decisions."

Comment: Another set of facts and conclusions predicting another take on reality. Has Trump been played? Are these the definitive answers? How will we know?

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