Puppet MastersS


Bomb

Best of the Web: Cui bono: Who benefits from the Bangkok bombing?

Pepe Escobar
Asia Times
Tue, 18 Aug 2015 21:17 UTC
bangkok bombing
© Reuters
The Guy in the Yellow T-shirt — long shorts, unruly black hair, thick dark glasses — arrived at the Erawan shrine in a tuk-tuk. No one may have noticed him; just another nondescript backpacker in one of the busiest crossroads in Asia. He may have come to pay his respects to the golden statue of Brahma at the center of the shrine - and gaze on the Thai dancers and musicians in the background.

He sits on a bench. Then, slowly, he gets rid of a black backpack. He stands up, checks his mobile. Then he walks away. Stops. Actually seems to be calling someone on his mobile. Then he finally leaves Erawan, hitting the crowded intersection, clutching a white plastic bag, but always checking his phone.

Comment: As Tony Cartalucci asks: "With US foreign policy serving as the singular common denominator between all possible suspects, one may be led to ask, "why Thailand?" What ax has the US to grind against Thailand?" In a word, Thailand seems to be moving away from the U.S. and toward China.

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Heart - Black

Navajo farmers: EPA sent us more contaminated water

Marisa Demarco
KUNM
Mon, 17 Aug 2015 02:49 UTC
Shiprock Chapter President Duane
© Marisa Demarco / KUNMShiprock Chapter President Duane "Chilli" Yazzie
Update Aug. 18, 11:30 a.m.: The EPA said the water for the Navajo Nation came from nearby Bloomfield and met state and federal quality standards. The trucks came from a division of an Aztec, N.M.-based company, Triple S Trucking, that moves non-potable water. The company also hauls fluids to and from oil fields. KUNM awaits comment from Triple S.

***

Farmers in Shiprock say the tankers arriving with desperately needed hydration for their crops contained water that smelled like petroleum, was visibly discolored and had an odd sheen to it.

"The barrels are not clean," said Farm Board Representative Joe Ben Jr. "They are from oil drilling operations."

The deliveries were intended to help crops that are wilting in the sun after the spill at the Gold King Mine in Colorado on Aug. 5 contaminated the San Juan River downstream. Ben halted the distribution of the emergency replacement water. "The EPA has begun to study this water," he said. "In the meantime, our plants are dying."

EPA testing results for the San Juan River were not released until 10 days after the spill.

The farmers are outraged, Ben said, and they have yet to receive one clean gallon from the EPA, which took responsibility for the Animas River spill. "I am at the point where I just don't understand this situation no longer," he said. "There are no resources extended to us."

There are about 450 farmers in the Shiprock area, which is the agricultural hub of the Navajo Nation. "This is a national resource—a treasure," Ben said.

Navajo Nation authorities are not in agreement about the viability of the water that was delivered by Triple S Trucking, the private company hired by the EPA, said Shiprock Chapter President Duane "Chilli" Yazzie.

It's not clear what the long-term plan is yet, Yazzie said, but the Navajo Nation mobilized every available water delivery unit, and the trucks are headed to Shiprock. They are scheduled to arrive this afternoon or evening.

"Right now it's getting to a critical stage," he said. "If the farmers don't get water today. The plants will start withering." Yazzie's seen some of that already on his own farm. "If they have to wait three or four more days, it's probably too late."
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Network

Despite earlier promises US refuses to yield control of the internet


Sputnik
Wed, 19 Aug 2015 01:50 UTC
Image
© Flickr/ Michael Coghlan
Despite plans to hand over control of the Internet to an international body by the end of 2015, the US appears to be getting cold feet. With that deadline fast approaching, the government has extended its oversight role by one year, and could potentially maintain control even longer.

Established in 1988, the goal of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is to coordinate domain names on a global scale. Since its creation, the nonprofit has been overseen by the US Department of Commerce.

Naturally, having an infrastructure as important and vast as the Internet resting under the control of a single government is unsettling, to say the least. So in the interest of international cooperation, the United States agreed to cede its control once its current contract with ICANN expired at the end of September.

Comment: This delay by the US in no surprise. They must keep control of the internet under the guise of cyberwarfare threats. The elites do not want to relinquish control of such a powerful tool as the internet.

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Alarm Clock

The seamless web of liberty

Ron Paul
The Ron Paul Institute
Mon, 17 Aug 2015 22:44 UTC
Image
© New York Daily NewsAmerica's most famous immigrant, The Statue of Liberty, was constructed in Paris starting in 1883, then taken apart and shipped to America in pieces. Here, back in 1883, the Statue of Liberty's completed head was displayed in a park in Paris.
Many people think the Internal Revenue Service was violating civil liberties when it harassed tea party groups. After all, the groups were targeted because they wanted to exercise their civil liberty to challenge government policies. However, the specific issue in the IRS case was the groups' application for tax-exempt status, which seems to be an aspect of economic liberty. In fact, the IRS case demonstrates that there is no meaningful distinction between civil and economic liberties. A true friend of the free society defends both civil and economic liberties.

Many "civil libertarians" who oppose government laws interfering in the personal choices of consenting adults support laws preventing consenting adults from working for below the minimum wage. Other civil libertarians support government programs forcing consenting adults to purchase health insurance. Many liberals who join libertarians in opposing the NSA's warrantless wiretapping fail to protest Obamacare's assault on medical privacy. Even worse are those "First Amendment defenders" who cheer on government actions preventing religious individuals from operating their businesses in accord with the teachings of their faith.
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Newspaper

Haaretz op-ed declares 'It is time to admit it - Israeli policy is what it is: Apartheid'

Bradley Burston
Haaretz
Mon, 17 Aug 2015 18:43 UTC
Image
Palestinians wait to be processed through a checkpoint at 'the wall', 440km engulfing Gaza and sealing it off like a prison
What I'm about to write will not come easily for me. I used to be one of those people who took issue with the label of apartheid as applied to Israel. I was one of those people who could be counted on to argue that, while the country's settlement and occupation policies were anti-democratic and brutal and slow-dose suicidal, the word apartheid did not apply. I'm not one of those people any more. Not after the last few weeks. Not after terrorists firebombed a West Bank Palestinian home, annihilating a family, murdering an 18-month-old boy and his father, burning his mother over 90 percent of her body — only to have Israel's government rule the family ineligible for the financial support and compensation automatically granted Israeli victims of terrorism, settlers included.

I can't pretend anymore. Not after Israel's Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, explicitly declaring stone-throwing to be terrorism, drove the passage of a bill holding stone-throwers liable to up to 20 years in prison. The law did not specify that it targeted only Palestinian stone-throwers. It didn't have to.

Just one week later, pro-settlement Jews hurled rocks, furniture, and bottles of urine at Israeli soldiers and police at a West Bank settlement, and in response, Benjamin Netanyahu immediately rewarded the Jewish stone-throwers with a pledge to build hundreds of new settlement homes. This is what has become of the rule of law. Two sets of books. One for Us, and one to throw at Them. Apartheid.

We are what we have created. We are what we do, and the injury we do in a thousand ways to millions of others. We are what we turn a blind eye to. Our Israel is what it has become: Apartheid.
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Bad Guys

Another 'message to Russia' - US deploys tanks and artillery to Bulgaria


Sputnik News
Tue, 18 Aug 2015 14:49 UTC
US Army tank NATO
© AP Photo/ The U.S. Army
The US military has deployed new tanks, artillery and vehicles to Bulgaria as part of its operation to "reassure allies" in the region.

The US military sent four Abrams tanks, three artillery cannons and six light armored reconnaissance vehicles to Bulgaria on Monday in what one Heritage Foundation fellow called a "message to Russia," Military Times reported.

The tanks, artillery and vehicles were sent to the Novo Selo training range in eastern Bulgaria, where they will join 160 US Marines stationed at the base as part of US operations in the country. The US has previously announced plans to stockpile growing volumes of equipment including tanks and artillery in the Baltic states which border Russia.

Comment: The US might be positioning to attack Russia in the future, but, under the false pretext of 'mutual defense', it invaded Europe a long time ago.

Also see: US stooge NATO leading fascist charge towards attack on Russia

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Bad Guys

Bizarro world! Government agents help KKK member build a 'death ray' - then bust him for it


RT
Mon, 17 Aug 2015 13:10 UTC
Glendon Scott Crawford
© CBS6 Albany / YouTube
The lawyer of an American accused of constructing a "death ray" machine to kill Muslims and President Barack Obama claims his client could have never constructed such a complicated device without help of undercover government agents.

Ku Klux Klan member Glendon Scott Crawford, 51, is being tried for assembling a remote-operated X-ray machine he called 'Hiroshima on a light switch'. A prosecutor told jurors on Monday the accused intended to put it to use against American Muslims and the president, Reuters reports.

Crawford's lawyer Kevin Luibrand made a statement in opening arguments at US District Court in Albany, New York State, that his client has no expertise to make the X-ray device, which has been assembled with government's help by supplying the necessary components through some kind of "criminal" sources.

Comment: So government agents decided (for some reason) to play 'cat and mouse' with a KKK member, while simultaneously helping him build an alleged 'death ray'. Maybe they thought it could be good research and development, or maybe they're just getting bored creating (and "foiling") the average terrorist plots.

Also see:



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Radar

Is Israel preparing for a ground incursion of Syrian territory on the road to war with Iran?

Brandon Turbeville
Activist Post
Tue, 18 Aug 2015 00:00 UTC
Image


According to reports coming from both Israel and Europe, the Israeli Defense Forces appear to be preparing for a ground incursion of Syrian territory in the Golan Heights area.

Whatever the plans of the IDF, the Israeli military clearly engaged in wide-scale maneuvers on the border with Syria on Sunday which simulated an incursion into Syrian territory and the evacuation of Israelis currently residing in border towns.

Yoav Zitun of YNetNews describes the drills by writing,
Military exercises in the area over the last two weeks have focused primarily on a scenario of offensive operations inside Syrian territory in response to possible action from the Syrian border such as the infiltration of dozens of terrorists armed with anti-tank weapons, machine guns, grenades and light weapons into one of the communities along the border.

The exercises included possible IDF responses to such infiltrations with troops firing at fixed points on the Syrian side of the border. Simultaneously, officials expect a barrage of mortar bombs to be fired at communities in the Golan Heights during such a scenario.

Commanders in the field put theoretical defensive plans into action using aircraft and combat helicopters alongside tank-fire, artillery guns and even hundreds of reserve fighters who participated in the exercise.

Comment: Obama recently warned Congress of the potential for the US economy to take a nose-dive if they should vote no on the Iran nuclear deal with the possibility for war with Iran being the end result. Given Israel's recent uptick in rhetoric towards Iran, and now its preparations to attack Iran's ally Syria, failure to make the deal with Iran may just be a part of the larger plan; to become part of the narrative to explain the coming economic crash - as well as justification to make more war on the nations of the world. In other words, all this may actually be coordinated at some level with the US and Israel finally seeing the dark at the end of the tunnel.

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Snakes in Suits

Why freedom and central planning can never coexist

Brandon Smith
Activist Post
Mon, 17 Aug 2015 00:00 UTC
freedom tape
© twitter.comWhat you can't see...you can't say.
The average person is a statist, whether he realizes it or not. It is important that liberty activists recognize and accept this fact because the truth of our limitations as a movement determines the kinds of solutions into which we should ultimately put our time and energy. The fantasy of a final grand march of an awake and aware majority on the doorsteps of power is just that: a fantasy. Some people might argue that given more time, such an event could be organized or could happen spontaneously. But these people seem to forget that the immediacy of any crisis inspires awareness and cuts the bindings of complacency for only a certain percentage of any given population. With "more time" often comes more complacency, not less.

So, history becomes a kind of balancing act, with crisis generating the necessity of intelligent and moral action in some people but rarely, if ever, in most people (even during the American Revolution, in which patriots represented a stark minority). The reason that the culture of freedom consistently plateaus and remains stuck at underdog status is because human beings are, first, often acclimated to the idea that crises are things that only happen to other people, and, second, they are obsessed with the idea that governments should retain prohibitory and administrative power over the public as a means to "prevent" crisis from occurring (the sheepdog and sheep mentality).


Comment: Quote from William Casey, CIA director, 1981: "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false."


Comment: This situation only applies in a pathocracy (that is, when psychopaths have taken over a government and state/corporate functions), the US being the foremost example of such a state.

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Heart - Black

Japanese PM Shinzo Abe's speech on WWII riddled with duplicity and imperial ambitions

Peter Symonds
World Socialist Web Site
Mon, 17 Aug 2015 14:57 UTC
Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
© AFP Photo / Kazuhiro NogiJapan's Prime Minister, and US regional puppet, Shinzo Abe.

Last Friday's speech by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to mark 70 years since Japan's surrender in World War II was a carefully contrived exercise. It sought to maintain a veneer of pacifism and contrition for the past crimes of Japanese militarism even as his government expands the country's armed forces and ends constitutional constraints on Japanese participation in new US-led wars of aggression.

Every word and phrase in the speech was sifted and weighed for months by a government-appointed committee of academics, officials and political advisers. Abe's cabinet formally approved the statement before it was delivered and released in Japanese and English, followed several hours later by a Chinese translation.

Governments and the media around the world carefully scrutinised the speech for any hint that Abe retreated from the words pronounced in 1995 by then Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama on the 50th anniversary of the war's end, and repeated a decade later by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in 2005. Murayama expressed "feelings of deep remorse" and a "heartfelt apology" for Japan's "colonial rule and aggression."
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