Puppet MastersS


Dollars

Taxpayers to foot security bill for Hillary Clinton's Aspen fundraiser


Aspen Times
Fri, 07 Aug 2015 01:09 UTC
hillary clinton
© Aspen Times
Taxpayers should not have to pay for private political events such as the one attended by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Tuesday outside Aspen, the sheriffs of Pitkin and Garfield counties said.

"It's uncalled for," said Garfield County Sheriff Lou Vallario. "It's abuse. It's that political class attitude that thinks they're entitled to consume public resources. It's been a part of their life for so long."

Pitkin County Sheriff Joe DiSalvo agreed, saying that he'd be happy to provide security to public events. But private fundraisers, such as the one Clinton attended Tuesday that cost $2,700 a head to attend, should be paid for by the campaigns, he said.

"If she wants to go to the Red Onion and shake some hands, that's complimentary," DiSalvo said. "But that's not happening."

DiSalvo said he supplied two deputies to escort Clinton and her entourage from Rifle, where her plane landed, to Aspen and back to Rifle. Three other deputies were on hand at Tuesday's fundraiser, held at the home of Soledad and Robert Hurst.

Robert Hurst is the former vice chairman of Goldman Sachs and the current managing director of Crestview Advisors, a New York-based investment firm.

DiSalvo said it cost taxpayers about $5,000 for Clinton's visit, which he admitted was not a lot of money.

"I'm trying to set a precedent here to get paid," he said. "I have no mechanism to make them pay and I'll always help out the Secret Service. But I think the responsible thing to do is ask."

And ask he did.
Read More...
Bad Guys

MH17 investigation is an injustice to all the relatives of the 298 victims


Fort Russ
Tue, 04 Aug 2015 17:35 UTC
Image
The Dutch-Ukrainian MH17 investigation is a legal farce and a procedural human rights injustice for all the relatives of 298 victims - "Nemo iudex in causa sua" or that no one should judge or investigate in his own cause, says Peter Iiskola who is a Finnish international legal expert and judge with diplomatic background.
We are facing a legal farce and a grave injustice for all the relatives of the 298 victims thanks to the fact that Netherlands and Ukraine have forgotten in the case of MH17 that "Nemo iudex in causa sua" or that no one should judge or investigate in his own cause, says Finnish judge and diplomat Peter Iiskola, who is expert in international air and space law.

What makes it even more ridiculous is that Netherlands should know better, as it is the seat for at least eight international Tribunals, says Iiskola.

The MH17 investigation is led by the Netherlands - it is clearly procedurally biased from these general justice principles points of views. Therefore, this investigation should be nullified and replaced with a fair, unbiased and neutral one - or the 298 victims and their families will never find out the legal or the actual truth, and get justice! Now the fundamental human and legal rights are in this way denied, endangered and gravely breached.

This says the Finnish judge and international diplomat Peter Iiskola, who has worked in Iran-United States Arbitration in The Hague, as well as in United Nations and Council of Europe justice and human rights projects, and is also specialized in international air and space law.

Comment: See also: Lavrov: MH17 investigation not independent, comprehensive, or truly international

Read More...
Bad Guys

Yemen: Under-reporting of war deaths - or genocide?

Dr. Judith Brown
Yemen News Today
Fri, 31 Jul 2015 11:41 UTC
yemen
© AFPYemeni men stand amid the ruins of buildings destroyed in an airstrike by Saudi Arabia on the capital, Sana'a, July 16, 2015
The estimates of numbers killed in this terrible war have varied from website to website. On the 31st July FARS news agency reported the number killed as 5,313 people, most of them women and children. Al Jazeera quoted UN statistics on 27th July, stating that 3,640 have died altogether, about half of them civilians deaths. I believe both of these numbers hide the truth, and the number of those who have died is much, much higher.

Systems of recording deaths in Yemen during the war are not straightforward, hence the differences in death counts. Some agencies count deaths that have been reported in the media, but this is a multi-focal war, with both militia activity and air assaults by the coalition happening in all of the areas except Hadramaut, and journalists cannot access all areas where people are being attacked. As the war progresses, deaths in Yemen have become less newsworthy as it has become so commonplace and the Western media have not seriously tried to give the war in Yemen the coverage it deserves. Furthermore, militias and fighting forces have an interest in under-reporting any of their own fighters killed by the other 'side' as militia and military deaths have a propaganda purpose; these deaths can only be estimated.

Comment: Kudos to Dr. Brown for starting this much-needed blog about what's going on in Yemen.

Indeed, the true situation in Yemen has received little-to-no coverage in the mainstream media. People are barely surviving under severe conditions in the country, and there isn't one bit of help coming from the West. In fact, NATO countries have been supplying the Saudis with deadly weapons (such as cluster munitions), which are continuously used against defenseless Yemeni civilians.

Russia, on the other hand, has sent two planes with 46 tons of humanitarian aid, containing mostly food, to the country. Iran sent its second ship carrying humanitarian aid, loaded with 8,000 tons of rice and 1,000 tons of sugar, back in early June. Delivering aid to Yemen has proven difficult due to a blockade imposed by Saudi Arabia:
One of the first measures taken by Saudi Arabia, when announcing its war against Yemen, was a full-scale naval blockade. For a nation that imports over 90% of its food, that was a devastating move, and one Saudi officials assured wouldn't keep the food out of the country. [...]

The poorest country in the Middle East, Yemen didn't have a lot of excess food lying around in the first place, and the shipping delays have meant shortages in most of the major cities. As the inspection process continues to delay if not outright prevent ships from delivering food, expect inconvenience and high prices to quickly turn into an outright humanitarian calamity.

Saudi officials defend the blockade as necessary for their military operation, and continue to cite the specter of Iranian weapons, even though not a single weapon has been found in the searches. The US Navy is involved in some of the vessel searches as well, meaning America is playing a direct role in prevent food from reaching the besieged populace.
See also: U.S., British and Saudis thwart Freedom and Democracy in Yemen - again

Read More...
Play

South Front Crisis News: Drunk Ukrainian child-killer officer gets medal, Russia ready to help Syria


South Front
Thu, 06 Aug 2015 16:46 UTC
south front
Ukrainian Senior Lieutenant Marian Rak who drunkenly ran an armored vehicle over pedestrians, killing an 8-year-old girl earlier this year has been awarded a state medal. The military claims that President Petro Poroshenko honored the soldier for his outstanding leadership. Rak was of the two drunk Ukrainian soldiers who, driving a heavy armored vehicle, ran over three people on the sidewalk: 5-month-old baby in a stroller, 8-year-old girl Polina and their mother. Polina died on the spot, while the mother and the baby were taken to the hospital. Now, all know how to become an Ukrainian hero: drink alcohol, kill children.

Read More...
Pistol

Obama administration push for increased regulation sparks doubling of gun production

Tim Devaney
The Hill
Thu, 23 Jul 2015 16:08 UTC
gun in pants
© Shutterstock
Gun production has more than doubled over the course of the Obama administration, according to a new report from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The manufacturing boom has come in the face of the president's push to expand background checks and place new restrictions on guns in the wake of high-profile shootings like the recent mass-killing in Charleston, S.C., and the 2012 massacre at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school.

The numbers paint a picture of gun owners who are concerned about new restrictions on their Second Amendment rights, activists say.

"The ATF report confirms what we already know, that Barack Obama deserves the 'Gun Salesman of the Decade' award," said Erich Pratt, spokesman for the Gun Owners of America. "People have been rushing to buy firearms because they're afraid that Obama will take away their Second Amendment rights."

The ATF's annual firearms commerce report tracks the number of guns manufactured in the United States, which provides an indication of gun sales around the country.

The number of guns manufactured increased by 18 percent during the George W. Bush administration, while the Clinton administration actually saw a 9 percent reduction.

But under President Obama, gun production has spiked 140 percent to 10.8 million firearms in 2013, the most recent year for which data is available.

Comment: Maybe a backhanded push by the PTB to make the US tinderbox even more combustible? Still, owning a gun (or ten) is moot if no ammunition is available. Various government departments appear to be buying it all

Read More...
Eye 1

The US Congress is controlled, bribed and blackmailed by the NSA

Alex Thomas
Intellihub
Wed, 05 Aug 2015 05:09 UTC
Image
© EFF/FLICKR

"I don't believe we should put up with being controlled by Big Brother."

After 27 long years of government denial and cover ups, famed investigative reporter Duncan Campbell, the man who first revealed the surveillance dragnet known as ECHELON in a 1988 magazine article, has been vindicated after files from the Snowden cache confirmed the existence of the program.

Writing in the Intercept, Dan Froomkin details the extraordinary circumstances that surrounded ECHELON and the conspiracy of silence that kept it "secret" for so long.

"As Campbell writes today, in a first-person article in The Intercept, the archive of top-secret documents provided to journalists by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden contains a stunning 2005 document that not only confirms ECHELON's existence as "a system targeting communications satellites" - it shows how the program was kept an official secret for so long," wrote Froomkin.

Comment: The NSA has not, in fact, "gone off track". It has and will continue to do what it was designed to do: a malevolent power unto itself it seeks to grow its totalitarian aim of control over everyone and everything. The NSA doesn't secure anything but its own ends and means. Like a secret society with varying inner circles, there are probably only a relative few who know and understand why the apparatus is in place and what its function truly is. Connect this intent with all the many profound changes that we are experiencing on the planet - including the 'cosmic' - and we might come to some further idea of just how far this Goliath of a control system is willing to go.

Spying on Strom Thurmond is peanuts.

See also:

NSA documents obtained by Snowden confirm existence of ECHELON spying program

Read More...
Light Saber

Lavrov: MH17 investigation not independent, comprehensive, or truly international


RT
Thu, 06 Aug 2015 16:24 UTC
Image
Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says there are a lot of questions regarding the investigation into the downed MH17 Malaysia Airlines plane in eastern Ukraine, adding that it is "not independent, not comprehensive and not truly international."

Russia's top diplomat was speaking to the Singapore-based Channel News Asia and mentioned that one of Moscow's main gripes is that its experts are not being given full access to the information that is being used in the investigation, which is being conducted by the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) - made up of Australia, Belgium, the Netherlands, Ukraine, and Malaysia.

"The representative of the Russian Civil Aviation Organization is participating in these procedures, but the information we receive through this representative is not complete. We are being given less information than those who started the investigation," Lavrov said during a visit to the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur.

Lavrov was adamant in saying that Russia wants "the truth to be established and the culprits to be brought to justice." However, the Russian foreign minister admits that he is becoming frustrated as the investigation was "not independent, was not comprehensive and not truly international."

Read More...
Quenelle - Golden

Top Russian official continues to hammer US for mass slaughter of Japanese civilians at Hiroshima and Nagasaki


RT
Thu, 06 Aug 2015 15:35 UTC
hiroshima
Speaking at a roundtable meeting in the Moscow Institute of International Relations on Wednesday, Sergey Naryshkin said the US nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not necessary for the military campaign against Japan. He added that the thousands of civilians killed by the atomic bombs had not been involved in crimes of the Japanese military.

The lower house speaker suggested that the participants of the roundtable imagine the situation in which Nazi Germany completely destroyed the population of one or several European cities, for example by means of chemical weapons.

"Would this have been included in charges pressed during the Nuremberg trial? Of course, it would!" he said.

Comment: This is the main reason that the West hates Russia - they don't want to be held accountable for the atrocities that they've committed:

Read More...
Brick Wall

Russia bans Western intelligence front National Endowment for Democracy, officially labeled "undesirable" in Russia

F. William Engdahl
New Eastern Outlook
Mon, 03 Aug 2015 15:46 UTC
Image
Vladimir Putin! Now you've really done it. You have had the temerity to declare our National Endowment for Democracy (NED), America's most important Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) to be "undesirable." Where will this end? Don't you respect our right, as a US Government-financed NGO, to meddle in internal Russian affairs? After all, we are the most important NGO of the world's Sole Superpower. We can go wherever we want and do whatever we like. We are truly upset!

This is the clear reaction of Washington to the decision by the Russian Prosecutor General's Office on July 28 to declare the activities of the US National Endowment for Democracy as "undesirable in the territory of Russia." The official statement stated that, "the National Endowment for Democracy used Russian commercial and non-commercial organizations under its control to take part in campaigns aimed at denying the legitimacy of results of Russian elections; organize political actions designed to influence the authorities' decisions and discredit the service in the Russian Armed Forces." It further elaborated, "In pursuit of these goals, the fund allocated about 2.5 million US dollars to Russian commercial and non-commercial organizations in 2013-2015."

Under Russia's law on Undesirable NGOs, adopted by the Duma or parliament and signed into law by President Putin this May, any foreign or international non-governmental organization could become "undesirable" if it threatened the foundations of Russia's constitutional order, the country's defense capability and the security of the Russian state.
Read More...
Quenelle - Golden

Russian senator urges international tribunal into US-Vietnam war, says courts 'must look into all US wars'


RT
Thu, 06 Aug 2015 15:21 UTC
Vietnam
© RIA NovostiSouth Vietnam. A Vietnamese woman with her wounded son on her back in a village captured by American Forces.
Deputy head of the Federation Council's committee for foreign affairs has said an international court must look into all US wars, in particular the Vietnam campaign that killed thousands of civilians and caused significant damage to many innocent people.

Senator Andrey Klimov (Perm Region) made this proposal in an interview with "Govorit Moskva" radio dedicated to the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Klimov supported the idea of holding an international tribunal over these events, but added that the US campaign against Vietnam deserved equal attention from international lawyers.

"There is another anniversary [this year]. 1975 saw the end of an almost 10-year war between the United States and Vietnam, that was, by the way illegal," Klimov said in the interview. "Casualties were not simply enormous there, even though no one had declared war back then. For 10 years they tormented Vietnam, using torture and concentration camps, and burned people alive with napalm," he said.
Read More...