Puppet MastersS


Alarm Clock

Hillary's 'no card, no care' act may become reality

Gary
TruthKings
Wed, 16 Mar 2016 21:39 UTC
hillary
© Unknown
As of last night, Hillary Clinton is all but a lock to become the Democratic Presidential Nominee. Her nomination is hugely important because most odds favor Hillary as beating potential GOP Nominee, Donald Trump, in a head to head battle. Hillary Clinton sits poised to make a lot of critical decisions on behalf of the people of the United States. And that's not likely a good thing at all.

Hillary has in the past pushed for a "no card, no care" National Patient ID system. The idea fell flat, not gaining support and seemingly vanishing. Ron Paul was critical in dismantling the idea. That is until now. States could deploy a similar legislation known as REAL ID. This is dangerous territory because it puts at risk the medical information of all Americans. As it stands, you have a right to have your medical information as private. That could all change. REAL ID had been around since 2005 as a reaction to 9-11 when the Government quickly moved in with all types of ideas which infringed on our privacy. From the Department of Homeland Security website. "The Act established minimum security standards for state-issued driver's licenses and identification cards and prohibits Federal agencies from accepting for official purposes licenses and identification cards from states that do not meet these standards. States have made considerable progress in meeting this vital recommendation of the 9/11 Commission and every state has a more secure driver's license today than before the passage of the Act."
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Snakes in Suits

What about Benghazi? Clinton says US 'didn't lose a single person' in Libya


RT
Tue, 15 Mar 2016 20:48 UTC
Hillary Clinton
© Reuters / David Becker
US Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton appeared to overlook the killing of four US citizens during an attack on the US diplomatic mission in Benghazi when insisting Monday that "we did not lose a single person in Libya".

Clinton was US Secretary of State at the time of the Libyan intervention and the attack on the Benghazi site.

On the night of September 11, 2012, Islamic militants attacked the US diplomatic compound in Benghazi, killing Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other US citizens. It emerged that the compound had inadequate security in place, and staff had raised concerns about the issue prior to the attack.

It was the first time since the murder of the then-US Ambassador to Afghanistan in 1979 that a US ambassador was killed in the line of duty. The Benghazi killings sparked an FBI investigation and a Congressional inquiry at which Clinton claimed responsibility for the tragedy.

Comment: Did the Benghazi incident somehow slip her mind, or did she purposely overlook that minor detail to make herself and America look better? Did she also forget about the current state of Libya when she said it resembled a 'functioning state', or did she intentionally overlook that fact, as well as many others regarding Libya in order to look good?

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Red Flag

Venezuela may run out of electricity, will shut down for a week, El Nino blamed

Tyler Durden
Zerohedge
Thu, 17 Mar 2016 21:09 UTC
President Nicolas Maduro
When last we checked in on our favorite socialist paradise, Venezuela, President Nicolas Maduro's opponents "had gone crazy."

Or at least that's how Maduro described the situation in a "thundering" speech to supporters at what he called an "anti-imperialist" rally in Caracas last Sunday.

Meanwhile, thousands of demonstrators held counter-rallies calling for the President's ouster. Maduro angered the opposition - which dealt Hugo Chavez's leftist movement its worst defeat at the ballot box in history in December - last month when he used a stacked Supreme Court to give himself emergency powers he says will help him deal with the country's worsening economic crisis.

"Now that the economic emergency decree has validity, in the next few days I will activate a series of measures I had been working on," he said, following Congress's declaration of a "food emergency."
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Chess

West failed to take into account Assad's Iranian backers as the Western-backed war developed

Robert Fisk
The Independent
Sun, 13 Mar 2016 16:03 UTC
damascus residents
© Getty / Valery SharifulinResidents of Damascus taking advantage of the ceasefire between the Syrian army and rebels

Comment: What Fisk attempts to say in this article, between the lines of course, is that there is not now, and never was, any significant indigenous Syrian rebel army. The actual Syrian state army was fully representative of the majority of Syrians and supported by the majority of Syrians. So who, then, has been attacking the Syrian army and civilians and attempting to overthrow the Syrian government since 2011? "ISIS" the "FSA", "al-Qaeda" "al-Nusra". All of these are monikers for foreign mercenaries trained, armed, paid and shipped into Syria by Western government agents for the express purpose of a completely undemocratic 'regime change' against the will of the majority of the Syrian population. This is a tactic that has been used for almost 100 years by the anglo-American empire builders, in many different countries around the world.


Just before I left Syria last month, a tall and eloquent Franco-Lebanese man walked up to me in a Damascus coffee shop and introduced himself as President Bashar al-Assad's architect. It was his task, he led me to understand, to design the reconstructed cities of Syria.

Who would have believed it? Five years after the start of Syria's tragedy - and within six months of this, remember, the regime itself trembled and the Western powers, flush with dangerous pride after destroying Gaddafi, predicted the imminent fall of the Assad dynasty - the Syrian government is preparing to rebuild its towns and cities.

It's worth taking that embarrassing trip down memory lane to the early spring and summer of 2011. The US and French ambassadors visited Homs to sit amid tens of thousands of peaceful demonstrators calling for the overthrow of the Assad government. EU diplomats were telling the political opposition not to negotiate with Assad - a fatal mistake, since the advice was based on the false assumption that he was about to be overthrown - and journalists were gathering with rebels in eastern Aleppo for the inevitable march of liberation on Damascus.

The Assad regime, came the message from the Washington think-tanks and mountebank "experts", had reached - a cliché we should all beware of - the "tipping point". La Clinton announced that Assad "had to go". French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius declared that Assad "did not deserve to live on this planet" - although he failed to name the galaxy to which the Syrian President might retire. And I complied with an Independent request to write Assad's obituary - for future use, you understand - and still it moulders in the paper's archives.
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Eagle

Trump campaign volunteers must sign contract stipulating they will not say anything bad about him - ever

Claire Bernish
Antimedia
Wed, 16 Mar 2016 20:08 UTC
trump pledge
© Bloomberg PoliticsSupporters of Donald Trump pledge to vote for him during a rally in Orlando, Florida on March 5, 2016
If, for unknown reasons, you feel the urge to volunteer for Donald Trump's campaign, be certain you're prepared to make a lifetime commitment never to insult or disparage him, his family, his businesses, products — and, of course, his campaign.

Yes, seriously.

After reports circulated last week of a non-disclosure agreement required of volunteers for the candidate's phone bank located in Trump Tower in Manhattan, the Daily Dot finally managed to procure a copy on Monday. Its contents — though not shocking, considering Trump's litany of complaints against the media — reveal telling control issues, if not outright paranoia.

According to the Daily Dot:
"In addition to forbidding volunteers from disparaging Trump, the contract also includes a sentence that demands volunteers prevent their employees from criticizing Trump, thus making volunteers responsible for the free speech of others for an indeterminate amount of time."
Again. Yes, seriously. These far-beyond-Orwellian strictures found their way into contracts for unpaid volunteers. Now, imagine what fun a Trump presidency might entail.

"I guess he doesn't know about the First Amendment," New York City employment lawyer, Davida Perry, told the Daily Dot. "This is really shocking."
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Bullseye

Modern warfare just changed forever — laser weapons are ready for use

Matt Agorist
The Free Thought Project
Thu, 17 Mar 2016 20:20 UTC
laser weapons
© Lockheed Martin
Washington D.C. — As if autonomous drones launching Hellfire missiles at targets acquired through the collection of metadata weren't horrifying enough, the US military now has its own death rays — no kidding.

Since the days of Nikola Tesla, and his plans of a death ray, the up and coming military industrial complex has salivated over the idea of direct energy weapons. For pennies, the US could lay waste to their enemies instead of using highly expensive missile systems. However, this technology and the resources to build it remained elusive — until now.

Directed energy weapons (DEWs) are systems that emit energy without the means of a projectile, and can use visible light, infra-red or microwave radiation, with lethal effects.

The weapons are said to be particularly useful for targeting large numbers of targets with high precision, and some estimates put the cost of each shot of directed energy at just $1.

"The technologies now exist," said Paul Shattuck, company director for Directed Energy Systems. "They can be packaged into a size, weight, power and thermal which can be fit onto relevant tactical platforms, whether it's a ship, whether it's a ground vehicle or whether it's an airborne platform.

"So everything exists today," he said, "it's just a question of the desire and when is that going to occur."

Comment: Perhaps it is time to bring on the comets.....

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Question

Turkey and Ukraine: Shared grievances and problems are creating a 'misfits alliance'

Martin Berger
New Eastern Outlook
Thu, 17 Mar 2016 19:57 UTC
Erdogan Poroschenko
The residents of Turkey and Ukraine, while facing a dramatically growing number of both domestic and foreign policy challenges have decided to create an "alliance of misfits." The rapidly deteriorating economic situation and an ever increasing danger of civil war in both of these states has brought their officials to the conclusion that they should exploit the fact that these two states lie on a route between the East and West, at the crossroads of geopolitical interests of several great powers.

In March 2015, Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan visited Kiev on an official visit, this step was later followed by the official visit of the Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu to Ukraine in February 2016. Just a month later, the Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko made a trip to Turkey. The exchange of visits of high level officials, according to the official rhetoric of Kiev and Ankara, is aimed at bringing their bilateral relations "to a new strategical level."

On the eve of Poroshenko's visit, Turkish and Ukrainian maritime forces held a joint exercise in the Sea of Marmara. It is therefore not surprising that particular stress in this new bilateral partnership has been placed on military cooperation, along with the development of bilateral trade and economic relations, which should lead to the revival of a free trade zone between Ukraine and Turkey, that was brought to a screeching halt back in 2013.
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Chess

Interpreting the withdrawal from Syria, Putin's dual realism

Alexandr Bovdunov
Fort Russ
Thu, 17 Mar 2016 00:00 UTC
Russ withdrawal
© www.india.comCrossing their 'Ts': Task, Troops, Trounce, Talk, Truce, Terminate
On the evening of March 14th, at a special meeting in the Kremlin, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the beginning of the withdrawal of the Russian troops from Syria. The president said that the Russian troops had completed all their tasks, and the withdrawal should "encourage the peace process." Why is Russia now trying to get out of Syria, and that will it do next?

American Victory?

Recall that last month the United States and Russia reached agreement on a cease-fire in Syria, which entered into force two weeks ago. The truce is a result of several months of negotiations that the United States and Russia were engaged in. The US blackmailed Russia with the possibility of a military confrontation with one of their allies (Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia). In the event of a conflict the Americans were ready to side with the Turks and the Saudis. These countries repeatedly made unambiguous hints about the possibility of an invasion of Syria. The objective of the Americans was to apply direct pressure, using threats, to stop the successful offensive of Syrian troops in the north of the country, with the support of the Russian Air Force. Over time they would block the weapons supply lines to the militants from Turkey.

As a result, the offensive was stopped even as operations in Aleppo were in progress. With the city not having been liberated, the Americans succeeded. Fighting has ceased, despite some exchanges of fire. Formally, the withdrawal of Russian troops could be considered an even bigger prize for the Americans. However the restrained reaction of the American leadership shows that this is not so evident.

Comment: The withdrawal of Russia from Syria announcement took most everyone by surprise. The Russian balance of ideologies is something the West hasn't a fog of an idea how to employ or utilize to its advantage, compounded by its greedy need to destroy, divide and conquer. This is one-dimensional thinking compared to Russian blending, mastery and application of its global and peripheral realism strategies. While they are both self-serving methodologies, there is quite a difference in how the world is perceived and how events are thereby directed and unfolded and, ultimately, what is accomplished to the good or detriment of humanity.

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Question

Best of the Web: Pepe Escobar: Did the US and Russia make a bargain over Syria?

Pepe Escobar
Sputnik
Thu, 17 Mar 2016 17:29 UTC
Syria
© Sputnik/ Iliya PitalevSyria. First day of truce
It's spy thriller stuff; no one is talking. But there are indications Russia would not announce a partial withdrawal from Syria right before the Geneva negotiations ramp up unless a grand bargain with Washington had been struck.

Some sort of bargain is in play, of which we still don't know the details; that's what the CIA itself is basically saying through their multiple US Think Tankland mouthpieces. And that's the real meaning hidden under a carefully timed Barack Obama interview that, although inviting suspension of disbelief, reads like a major policy change document.

Obama invests in proverbial whitewashing, now admitting US intel did not specifically identify the Bashar al-Assad government as responsible for the Ghouta chemical attack. And then there are nuggets, such as Ukraine seen as not a vital interest of the US - something that clashes head on with the Brzezinski doctrine. Or Saudi Arabia as freeloaders of US foreign policy - something that provoked a fierce response from former Osama bin Laden pal and Saudi intel supremo Prince Turki.
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Red Flag

If you're dark-skinned and charged with a petty crime, you could easily land on the government's "terrorist watchlist"

John Vibes
Free Thought Project
Wed, 16 Mar 2016 17:04 UTC
restricted access
According to recent reports, people who have been charged with petty crimes have been added to the US government's "terror watch list" without warning.

This filing "error" was discovered last year when a Latino man who spoke very little English was arrested for trespassing and resisting arrest, two misdemeanors. When he had to appear in court, the man's attorney Anisha Gupta was expecting a quick and easy trial because the charges were so small. However, Gupta was informed by the judge that her client was listed on the terrorist watchlist.

"I said to her, 'Judge, I don't think he's on the terrorist watchlist. There are so many errors on the last pages of people's rap sheets, and the judge said, 'Well, counsel, I've never seen this terrorist watchlist thing. We're going to have to check on it. I'm not going to release him,'" Gupta told The Intercept.

"Counsel, he could be a sleeper," the judge allegedly replied.
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