Puppet MastersS


USA

10 most corrupt states in the U.S. (Mississippians may want to skip this one)


Viralspell.com
Mon, 11 Aug 2014 19:23 UTC
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© Thehealthymind.com
A new study, conducted jointly by the University of Hong Kong and Indiana University, has found that Mississippi is the most corrupt U.S. state. Personally, given all the negative publicity, I would have expected Louisiana to top such a chart. Boy, would I have been wrong - Louisiana comes in at the far more prestigious second place!

According to Fortune, the researchers have examined more than 25,000 convictions of public officials for various violation of federal corruption laws between 1976 and 2008. The huge number means that data collected for the study include many small cases, which would not have been widely publicized.

As a result, the findings may come as a surprise to many people - some of the states in the top 10 do not necessarily have a reputation for being crooked. Moreover, states which do have a reputation for corruption, such as New Jersey and New York, do not even make the list. The researchers - Cheol Liu and John L. Mikesell - stated that:
"States with higher levels of corruption are likely to favor construction, salaries, borrowing, correction, and police protection at the expense of social sectors such as education, health and hospitals."
The report suggested that the need for correctional officers is higher in corrupt places because "the overall extent of corruption will be higher in states with higher numbers of convictions of public officials". Very interesting...
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Bullseye

Under occupation: The shortest distance between Palestine and Ferguson

Jaime Omar Yassin
Counterpunch.org
Sat, 16 Aug 2014 18:47 UTC
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© Aljazeera.comA man watches as police walk through a cloud of smoke during a clash with protesters August 13, 2014, in Ferguson, Missouri.
The superficially coincidental images coming from both Gaza and Ferguson this month have created some surprising and sudden currents of solidarity. Many have looked on with amazement, for example, as Gazans offer tips via twitter to those who have been involved in the uprising and faced the absurd and excessively militarized response to it by Ferguson police. And participants in "peaceful" vigils and more militant confrontations in Ferguson have invoked Gaza by now a dozens times.

Few have looked at images coming out of Ferguson and not been tempted to draw the same allusions between the 2/3 Black suburb policed by a nearly all-white police force, and Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories. It would be difficult not to draw that comparison at the moment given the spectacle of the massive armory gifted to the FPD by the federal government in the name of stopping "terror" - which has so often been given a Palestinian face in the US - and the revelation that the former police chief of Ferguson studied "counter-terror" measures in Israel in 2011. Ironically, it seems Black Americans are now the target of anti-terror funding and training, which was ostensibly meant to target those from the Muslim and Arab world.

While there is nothing happening within the US anything like the now-cyclical Israeli slaughter of thousands of Gazans, the reality is that life for Black Americans in places like Ferguson does not vary in much from blockaded Gaza, and West Bank Bantustans in off-attack times. The similarities are not just coincidental in terms of the timing of the events - they are in fact, concurrent and historical.

Comment: Here are some of the tweets:

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© Aljazeera.com
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© Aljazeera.com
Two of them even offered advice on how to handle teargas:
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© Aljazeera.com


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Cow

EU, US losing market share: Turkey announces 'We're ready to increase food exports to Russia'


RT
Sat, 16 Aug 2014 18:36 UTC
turkey exports food russia
© Reuters / Alessandro Garofalo
As Moscow banned food imports from the West, Turkey voiced its readiness to increase its exports of agricultural products to Russia, Turkish economy minister has said.

"Turkey is a major supplier of food and agricultural produce to Russia. It is ready to increase its food exports to Russia if necessary," Turkish Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci said in an interview with Itar-Tass.

The two countries have recently reached an agreement to increase the number of Turkish food suppliers to Russia. A delegation from Russia's agricultural watchdog, Rosselkhoznadzor (the Federal Service for Veterinary and Phyto-Sanitary Control), visited Ankara for negotiations in the search for alternative food supply sources following the sanctions imposed on Russia by the EU, Russia's top food supplier, the US, the EU, Australia and Canada.

To reciprocate, on August 6 Russia introduced a full ban for imports of beef and pork (fresh, chilled, refrigerated, pickled, dried or smoked meat), poultry and any poultry edible products, fish, cheese, milk, dairy products, vegetables, including root vegetables and tuber crops, and fruit from Australia, Canada, the EU, the US and Norway.

Moscow is now set to ensure country's food supply security by finding new suppliers in countries that have not joined the sanctions against Russia. Some of the country's closest neighbors, China and Turkey, have been among the first candidates for a lucrative offer to extend their share of the Russia market.
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Sheriff

Police State: To terrify and occupy

Matthew Harwood
CommonDreams
Thu, 14 Aug 2014 12:33 UTC
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© flickr/cc/Thomas HawkRiot police in Oakland in 2010.
Jason Westcott was afraid.

One night last fall, he discovered via Facebook that a friend of a friend was planning with some co-conspirators to break in to his home. They were intent on stealing Wescott's handgun and a couple of TV sets. According to the Facebook message, the suspect was planning on "burning" Westcott, who promptly called the Tampa Bay police and reported the plot.

According to the Tampa Bay Times, the investigating officers responding to Westcott's call had a simple message for him: "If anyone breaks into this house, grab your gun and shoot to kill."

Around 7:30 pm on May 27th, the intruders arrived. Westcott followed the officers' advice, grabbed his gun to defend his home, and died pointing it at the intruders. They used a semiautomatic shotgun and handgun to shoot down the 29-year-old motorcycle mechanic. He was hit three times, once in the arm and twice in his side, and pronounced dead upon arrival at the hospital.

The intruders, however, weren't small-time crooks looking to make a small score. Rather they were members of the Tampa Bay Police Department's SWAT team, which was executing a search warrant on suspicion that Westcott and his partner were marijuana dealers. They had been tipped off by a confidential informant, whom they drove to Westcott's home four times between February and May to purchase small amounts of marijuana, at $20-$60 a pop. The informer notified police that he saw two handguns in the home, which was why the Tampa Bay police deployed a SWAT team to execute the search warrant.

In the end, the same police department that told Westcott to protect his home with defensive force killed him when he did. After searching his small rental, the cops indeed found weed, two dollars' worth, and one legal handgun -- the one he was clutching when the bullets ripped into him.

Welcome to a new era of American policing, where cops increasingly see themselves as soldiers occupying enemy territory, often with the help of Uncle Sam's armory, and where even nonviolent crimes are met with overwhelming force and brutality.

Comment: Goon cops have gone wild all over America

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Eye 1

Cloaks and daggers: Snowden reveals NSA program described as 'last straw' before leak

Lauren McCauley
Common Dreams
Sat, 16 Aug 2014 12:38 UTC
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© -lucky cat-/CC BY-NC-ND 2.0/flickr
In an in-depth interview published by Wired Magazine on Wednesday, Edward Snowden discloses what government activities proved to be the "last straw," prompting the whistleblower to expose the depths of the National Security Agency's secret surveillance operation.

Speaking with investigative journalist James Bamford - who blew the whistle on a government eavesdropping program when stationed in Hawaii during the Vietnam War and later wrote a number of best-selling books about government secrecy and the NSA - Snowden reveals how a botched U.S. government hacking operation caused Syria's 2012 internet blackout.

Comment: For a discussion that pulls fact from fiction in the NSA PRISM arena, check out SOTT Talk Radio:

NSA PRISM: Neither privacy nor security

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Star of David

Moral insanity: Israeli backlash follows UN appointment of Gaza War Crimes Commission

Andrea Germanos
Common Dreams
Sat, 16 Aug 2014 12:34 UTC
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© Oxfam InternationalJust one more result of the ongoing "cleansing" of Gaza
The United Nations Human Rights Council on Monday announced the appointment of experts to carry out an independent commission charged with investigating possible war crimes during the month-long assault on Gaza that has killed nearly 2,000 Palestinians and 67 Israelis.


Comment: Nearly 2,000 have been murdered and around 10,000 injured in only the latest round of cleansing. There is very little chance that any sort of investigation by the corrupt and compliant Western elite will result in real change for Gaza. Even if they confronted Israel the mayhem the Israelis would create in response would only make matters worse for the entire planet.

For more information concerning the Palestinians' desperate situation, read this SOTT Focus:

Genocide in Gaza: Viable Palestinian strategic options in the face of Israeli tactics

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Pistol

Hungary PM sez ​EU sanctions are like 'shooting oneself in the foot'


RT
Fri, 15 Aug 2014 13:13 UTC
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© AFP/Georges GobetHungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has urged a rethink of the European Union's sanctions policy toward Russia, saying the measures are like "shooting oneself in the foot."

"The sanctions policy pursued by the West, that is, ourselves, a necessary consequence of which, has been what the Russians are doing, causes more harm to us than to Russia," Reuters quoted Orban as saying on the radio, he added "in politics, this is called shooting oneself in the foot."

Russia is Hungary's largest trade partner outside of the EU, with exports worth $3.4 billion in 2013. Also it is highly dependent on Russian energy. Earlier this year Hungary agreed a $13 billion deal with Russian power company Rosatom to expand the country's only nuclear power plant.

"The EU should not only compensate producers somehow, be they Polish, Slovak, Hungarian or Greek, who now have to suffer losses, but the entire sanctions policy should be reconsidered," the Hungarian Prime Minister said, saying he is already looking for support to force through changes.

Despite the negative sentiment on Tuesday, Hungary's Agriculture Ministry stressed the Russian embargo won't significantly affect the Hungarian economy as the banned products account for less than a third of Hungarian agricultural exports to Russia, being only one percent of total national farming exports.
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Shopping Bag

Poll: Most Russians see sanctions as tool to weaken nation, but feel no effect


RT
Fri, 15 Aug 2014 12:26 UTC
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© RIA Novosti/Alexandr Kryazhev
Almost all Russian citizens claim that they feel no effect from the sanctions against their country and most maintain that the campaign seeks to weaken Russia and its position in global politics.

According to the results of the latest poll released by the VTIOM agency on Friday, 92 percent of Russians said that the Western sanctions had not touched their interests in any way, 4 percent replied that they had noticed an increase in retail prices and only 4 percent declined to answer or reported actual problems, such as frozen bank accounts or the loss of a job in a foreign-based company.

Further, 62 percent of respondents said the sanctions would not have any effect on Russia. Fifteen percent said that after the start of the sanctions campaign the life in the country had only become better and the same number claimed life in Russia had deteriorated.

The poll was conducted among about 1,600 people in 42 different Russian regions on August 9 and 10.

The research also shows that of all Russians who knew about the sanctions, 45 percent could not say what the particular steps taken by Western nations and their allies against Russia were. Nineteen percent were aware of visa bans on certain Russian officials, 15 percent said they knew about restrictions in the banking sector and 10 percent knew about the sanctions in the export-import sphere.
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Dollar Gold

Russia steps away from dollar and euro, seeks safe haven in gold


RT
Fri, 15 Aug 2014 17:15 UTC
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© RIA Novosti/Mihail Kutusov
Russia is taking steps to ensure that it protects itself from any future dollar or euro sanctions. Moscow boasts the world's 5th biggest foreign exchange reserves and the 6th largest gold reserves. In total, the assets amount to over $1.5 trillion.

While the West is continuing to try and punish Russia via economic sanctions, the response of the Russian Central Bank has been to diversify away from the euro and dollar - and to buy up more gold.

As the geopolitical situation in Ukraine deteriorates, Russia is moving to protect itself from currency risks associated with the euro and the greenback.

In the first half of 2014, Russia's Central Bank reduced its foreign currency reserves by 2.5 percent.

"Due to the worsening geopolitical situation, the Central Bank actively redistributed foreign exchange reserves, replacing US Treasury bonds with gold," Alfa Bank's chief economist, Natalya Orlova, told Kommersant.

Instead of buying euros and dollars, Russia's Central Bank is eyeing the Chinese yuan and the Japanese yen.
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Windsock

EU's "Anti-Putin" alliance fraying: Germany, Slovakia, Greece, Czech Republic urge end to Russian sanctions

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Sat, 16 Aug 2014 11:19 UTC
Putin
© AFP/Ria Novosti/Alexey Druzhinin
Last week Germany reported that in the second quarter, its GDP declined by 0.2%, worse than Wall Street consensus. This happened a few shorts days after Italy reported a second consecutive decline in its own GDP, becoming the first European country to enter a triple-dip recession. What's worse, Europe's slowdown took place before the brunt of Russian sanctions hit. Surely in the third quarter the GDP of Germany, a nation whose exports accounts for 41% of GDP, will be even worse, with whisper numbers of -1% being thrown casually around, but one thing is certain: Europe is about to enter its third recession since the Lehman collapse just as we forecast at the end of 2013, a "triple-dip" which may become an outright depression unless Draghi injects a few trillion in credit money (which will do nothing but delay the inevitable and make it that much worse once the can can no longer be kicked), and unless normal trade ties with Russia are restored.

Which means one thing: for Europe to resume the status quo, it needs to break away from the "western" alliance and the sanctions imposed upon the Kremlin which solely benefit the populist agenda of Washington, and certainly not Europe proper, which it is now quite clear, is far more reliant on Russia than vice versa. It is also something Putin apparently was aware of from the very beginning.

And now, that realization is starting to spread to Europe's own countries, which - while the new cold war was only one of rhetoric were perfectly happy to go for the ride - but now that trade war has finally broken out, suddenly increasingly more want out.

Comment: Once again Putin has shown his mastery of the situation. Despite the agitation of his own countrymen, patience and carefully calibrated responses to the hysterical West's actions are paying off.

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