Puppet MastersS


Airplane

Useless NATO war games in progress over Baltic Sea


RT
Mon, 01 Aug 2016 16:45 UTC
b-52 bomber
© Staff Sgt. Kate ThorntonA KC-135 Stratotanker from RAF Mildenhall, England, refuels a B-52 Stratofortress from Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, in support of Operation Polar Roar over Scotland, Aug. 1, 2016
Three B-52 strategic bombers and two B-2 stealth bombers flew together from the US to the North and Baltic Seas, before being "intercepted" by other NATO aircraft in an ambitious aerial exercise.

"Exercises like POLAR ROAR enhance cooperation and reinforce NATO's credible and visible posture in preserving a safe and secure environment," said General Kevin Huyck, Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations at the NATO Allied Air Command (AIRCOM) in a statement.

The bombers lifted off from different bases in Missouri, North Dakota and Louisiana, before meeting up over the Atlantic, and undertaking an uninterrupted flight over Europe, where they refueled mid-air, a key component of the exercise.

Once there, they were treated like intruders by local NATO jets, as part of the alliance's air policing training.


Comment: What nonsense. There is no one from whom to protect the Baltic states. Hyped threats of Russian aggression are wholly illusory. A real threat Europe faces is state-sponsored terrorism. Last time we checked, though, proxy terror groups don't have an air force. The real purpose of these exercises is to keep NATO relevant (when it's not), keep Europeans afraid (when they shouldn't be), threaten Russia (which is stupid), and justify bigger military budgets (which are only designed to make war whores rich).

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Stock Down

Trade Minister Bulent Tufenkci - Coup attempt 'cost Turkish economy $100bn'


RT
Tue, 02 Aug 2016 16:38 UTC
Turkey coup
© Baz Ratner / ReuterPeople walk past Turkish police officers sitting on a Leopard 2 tank in Istanbul, Turkey, July 16, 2016.
The failed bid to overthrow the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has cost Turkey $100 billion (300 billion lira), according to Customs and Trade Minister Bulent Tufenkci.

"When we consider all those warplanes, helicopters, weapons, bombs and buildings, the cost is 300 billion liras minimum according to our calculations," the minister told Turkish media in Ankara. He stressed the figure is likely to rise after more detailed calculations are made.

Tufenkci said the full picture should be seen in a medium-term context even if some investors stayed away in the short-term, adding that the rebels had made Turkey look like a third world country.

"They are not coming after the images revealed tanks were deployed on the streets, parliament was bombed," Tufenkci said, pointing out that some foreign orders had been cancelled in the wake of the coup.
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Megaphone

Russian expert Stephen Cohen: Trump wants to stop Cold War with Russia, but media just parrots Killary narrative

Tim Hains
Real Clear Politics
Sat, 30 Jul 2016 16:38 UTC
trump putin
Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies at NYU and Princeton, spoke with CNN's 'Smerconish' Saturday morning about Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and the 'New Cold War.'

Cohen says the media at large is doing a huge disservice to the American people by ignoring the substance of Trump's arguments about NATO and Russia, and buying the Clinton campaign's simplistic smear that Trump is a Russian "Manchurian candidate."

"That reckless branding of Trump as a Russian agent, most of it is coming from the Clinton campaign," Cohen said. "And they really need to stop."

"We're approaching a Cuban Missile Crisis level nuclear confrontation with Russia," he explained. "And there is absolutely no discussion, no debate, about this in the American media."

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Light Sabers

Trump warns presidential election will be "rigged", calls Killary "the devil"


RT
Tue, 02 Aug 2016 16:33 UTC
trump
© Eric Thayer / Reuters
Donald Trump says November's US presidential election "is going to be rigged," making the claim twice on Monday. The property tycoon also called his rival Hillary Clinton "the Devil," adding that the system was also rigged against Bernie Sanders.

The Republican presidential candidate first spoke at a town hall event in Columbus, Ohio, where he said that election on November 8 might be "rigged."

"I'm afraid the election is going to be rigged, I have to be honest," the Republican nominee told the crowd, as cited by AP. He added that he has been hearing "more and more" that the election may not be contested fairly, though he did not give any further details.
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Bad Guys

What democracy? House of Lords may stall Brexit process to force second referendum


RT
Tue, 02 Aug 2016 16:17 UTC
House of Lords
© Alastair Grant / Reuters
The House of Lords could stall the process of Britain leaving the European Union - and may even attempt to scrap it, a Tory peer has said. Baroness Wheatcroft says the unelected Lords is likely to delay any Bill to leave the EU, buying time for a movement in favor of a second referendum to build momentum.

Downing Street dismissed Wheatcroft's comments, repeating its vague mantra "Brexit means Brexit." The peer's remarks come as a high-profile Brexit campaigner admitted the EU referendum result was a shock to the Leave campaign, which did not expect to win. Former Sunday Telegraph editor Patience Wheatcroft said she hoped a pause in introducing Article 50 could lead to a second referendum and an eventual vote to stay in the EU.

"If it comes to a Bill, I think the Lords might actually delay things. I think there's a majority in the Lords for remaining," she told the Times. "I would hope, while we delayed things, that there would be sufficient movement in the EU to justify putting it to the electorate, either through a general election or a second referendum."

Responding to Wheatcroft's comments, a spokeswoman for the PM said everyone should get behind Brexit. "The PM has been very clear that Brexit means Brexit and we are going to make a success of it. That work to prepare for those negotiations is now under way and that will continue to be a priority for this government. Parliament supported the referendum on the EU. "The British people have made their decision and everybody should be focused on getting behind that and making a success of Brexit."

Comment: Hear that? The Bexit vote wasn't legally binding and it will really be up to the 'Lords' and UK courts to determine whether or not the UK will actually leave the EU or not. What a sham.

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No Entry

You are not free: Spanish court axes Catalonia's independence plans


RT
Mon, 01 Aug 2016 14:33 UTC
catalonia
© Albert Gea / Reuters
Spain's constitutional court has suspended Catalonia's pro-independence roadmap, which was passed by the region's parliament last week. It followed allegations from Madrid that Catalonia violated the Spanish constitution by allowing a vote on the plan.

Magistrates accepted an appeal by the Spanish government on Monday, which claimed that Catalonia's Committee to Study the Constitutive Process - the group responsible for designing the region's strategy towards independence - violated the Spanish constitution when it allowed parliament to vote on the roadmap on Wednesday, Reuters reported.

The Catalan Chamber will now have 20 days to communicate the court's decision to its members and present any appeals.

Comment: Common sense: constitutions can be wrong. Kosovo and Crimea are precedents, one internationally recognized as 'legal', the other not. We'll just have to see how far the Spanish authorities are willing to go to enforce their will over the democratic will of Catalonians.

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Info

France closed 20 mosques and prayer halls since December for preaching radical Islam


RT
Tue, 02 Aug 2016 16:03 UTC
Muslims pray at a mosque in Paris
© Zohra Bensemra / Reuters
French authorities have closed around 20 mosques and prayer halls considered to be preaching radical Islam since December, according to the country's interior minister. He went on to promise that "there will be others."

"There is no place...in France for those who call for and incite hatred in prayer halls or in mosques, and who don't respect certain republican principles, notably equality between men and women," Bernard Cazeneuve said following a meeting with leaders of the French Council of the Muslim Religion on Monday, as quoted by AFP.

"That is why I took the decision a few months ago to close mosques through the state of emergency, legal measures or administrative measures. About 20 mosques have been closed, and there will be others," he continued.
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Cult

Is Europe doomed by the EU's vassalage to Washington?

Paul Craig Roberts
Institute for Political Economy
Wed, 27 Jul 2016 15:13 UTC
EU vassals washington
"One Ring to rule them all . . . and in the darkness bind them."
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

World War II resulted in Europe being conquered, not by Berlin but by Washington.

The conquest was certain but not all at once. Washington's conquest of Europe resulted from the Marshall Plan, from fears of Stalin's Red Army that caused Europe to rely on Washington's protection and to subordinate Europe's militaries to Washington in NATO, from the replacement of the British pound as world reserve currency with the US dollar, and from the long process of the subordination of the sovereignty of individual European countries to the European Union, a CIA initiative implemented by Washington in order to control all of Europe by controlling only one unaccountable government.

With few exceptions, principally the UK, membership in the EU also meant loss of financial independence. As only the European Central Bank, an EU institution, can create euros, those countries so foolish as to accept the euro as their currency no longer have the power to create their own money in order to finance budget deficits.

The countries that joined the euro must rely on private banks to finance their deficits. The result of this is that over-indebted countries can no longer pay their debts by creating money or expect their debts to be written down to levels that they can service. Instead, Greece, Portugal, Latvia, and Ireland were looted by the private banks.

The EU forced the pseudo-governments of these countries to pay the northern European private banks by suppressing the living standards of their populations and by privatizing public assets at pennies on the dollar. Thus retirement pensions, public employment, education and health services have been cut and the money redirected to private banks. Municipal water companies have been privatized with the result being higher water bills. And so on.

As there is no reward, only punishment, for being a member of the EU, why did governments, despite the expressed wishes of their peoples, join?
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Dollar Gold

Kremlin mum on Clinton's alleged investment in Russia except 'if it was, it was good'


Sputnik
Tue, 02 Aug 2016 15:53 UTC
Skolkovo
© Artiom Korotaev/TASS
Moscow is not commenting on the publication claiming that the US presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton has allegedly been engaged in attracting US investment in the Russian Skolkovo Innovation Center while being US secretary of state, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday.

On July 31, The Wall Street Journal reported that US presidential candidate from the Democratic Party Clinton, while serving as the 67th secretary of state, was attracting US investment in the Russian Skolkovo Innovation Center, a move that might "have substantially undermined U.S. national security."

During Clinton's tenure, the US State Department promoted the establishment and development of the Russian version of Silicon Valley.
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Jet5

Russian media reports Moscow may launch massive airstrikes to take back bodies of helicopter crew


FARS News Agency
Tue, 02 Aug 2016 15:39 UTC
Russian helicopter shot down
A Russian daily said Moscow might launch massive airstrikes on the terrorists in areas controlled by Fatah al-Sham Front (the newly formed al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist group previously known as al-Nusra Front) if the militants don't give back the bodies of the slain helicopter crew that was shot down on Monday.

According to Moskovskij Komsomolets newspaper, Russia is to warn the terrorists to return the bodies of the crew killed in the Monday helicopter downing in Idlib or wait for massive airstrikes on their positions.

The daily added that the operations to transfer the bodies of the Russian pilots to Hmeimim air base in Lattakia will be complicated and the Russian forces should launch intensive attacks against the terrorist-held regions to make them withdraw and then advance in that area to return the corpses.

A Russian Mi-8 helicopter was shot down in Idlib by ground fire following the delivery of humanitarian supplies to Aleppo, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Monday. Three crew and two officers from Russia's Reconciliation Center died, according to a Kremlin statement.
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