Puppet MastersS


Snakes in Suits

Dennis Hastert's secret gay 'misconduct' is opposite to his voting record on gay rights

Joan Shipps
Raw Story
Fri, 29 May 2015 17:33 UTC
Dennis Hastert
© Shutterstock
Though he paid millions to keep a man quiet about the nature of their relationship, former House speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) was a reliable opponent of gay civil rights during his tenure in Congress.

On Thursday, a federal grand jury indicted Hastert, alleging that he agreed to pay a man $3.5 million over several years in exchange for the latter's silence about his prior relationship with the lawmaker, the Associated Press reports. According to the indictment, Hastert gave $1.7 million to the man between 2010 and 2014, who Hastert knew from his past career as a high school teacher and wrestling coach, as compensation for Hastert's "past misconduct," and for said misconduct's concealment.

Comment: Hastert is only the tip of the proverbial sexual abuse iceberg.

And these older crimes of his are probably nothing on what he gets up to today.

Revelations from other child rape scandals indicate that the political predator types literally consume children on a regular (ie, weekly) basis.

By the way, Sott.net's Joe Quinn wrote about Hastert's predilection for boys a decade ago.

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Stock Down

The pressure just shifted from Greece to the US and EU

Raúl Ilargi Meijer
The Automatic Earth
Sat, 30 May 2015 17:10 UTC
Image
© JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
With the 3rd US Q1 GDP print coming in at -0.7% (-3% if not for inventories), perhaps the media spotlights - and lively imagination - can move away from Greece for a few weeks. The US has enough problems of its own, it would seem. For one thing, its Q1 GDP is now worse than Greece's. Of course its debt is also much higher, just not to the IMF and ECB. But let's leave that one be for the moment. Though a bit of perspective works miracles at times.

Of course it's not a technical recession yet for the US, which only recently presented a +4% quarter with a straight face, and there's always the 'multiple seasonal adjustment' tool. But still. It's ugly.

Comment: A pressure cooker building indeed.

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Cow

Surprised? Emails reveal Idaho ag-gag bill was drafted by dairy lobby


Sputnik
Fri, 29 May 2015 16:30 UTC
Image
© Flickr/ Susie Blackmon
Dairy industry lobbyists in Idaho helped write legislation that makes it illegal to take photographs or record videos at agricultural facilities, acts which in the past have exposed animal cruelty and unsanitary practices.

Farming groups in multiple states have thrown their support behind the criminalization of recording. But in Idaho, which passed an "ag-gag" law last year, lobbyists actually crafted the bill before handing it off to lawmakers, according to emails obtained by The Intercept.

From The Intercept: "State Sen. Jim Patrick, R-Twin Falls, said he sponsored the bill in response to an activist-filmed undercover video that showed cows at an Idaho plant being beaten by workers, dragged by the neck with chains, and forced to live in pens covered in feces, which activists said made the cows slip, fall and injure themselves. The facility, Bettencourt Dairies, is a major supplier for Burger King and Kraft. The workers who were filmed were fired."

Comment: Gee, what a surprise! This is how our governments operate and has been for a long time.

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Bad Guys

The manufacturing of ISIS for Washington's "New Middle East"

Julie Lévesque
Global Research
Thu, 28 May 2015 14:26 UTC
Image
Libyan Terrorists in Syria
Newly disclosed Pentagon documents prove what we've known for a while now: the Obama administration knew as early as 2012 that weapons were being sent from Benghazi, Libya, to rebels in Syria.

The U.S. government also knew at the time that:
"the Salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood, and [Al Qaeda in Iraq were] the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria."
But did they just "know" or was it part of the plan?

These official documents of the Obama administration add to the large amount of evidence proving that the actual chaos and havoc wreaked by extremist groups in the Middle East was deliberately created by the U.S. and its allies and is not the result of a "failed foreign policy".

Judicial Watch recently revealed:
The DoD documents also contain the first official documentation that the Obama administration knew that weapons were being shipped from the Port of Benghazi to rebel troops in Syria. An October 2012 report confirms:
Weapons from the former Libya military stockpiles were shipped from the port of Benghazi, Libya to the Port of Banias and the Port of Borj Islam, Syria. The weapons shipped during late-August 2012 were Sniper rifles, RPG's, and 125 mm and 155mm howitzers missiles.
During the immediate aftermath of, and following the uncertainty caused by, the downfall of the ((Qaddafi)) regime in October 2011 and up until early September of 2012, weapons from the former Libya military stockpiles located in Benghazi, Libya were shipped from the port of Benghazi, Libya to the ports of Banias and the Port of Borj Islam, Syria. The Syrian ports were chosen due to the small amount of cargo traffic transiting these two ports. The ships used to transport the weapons were medium-sized and able to hold 10 or less shipping containers of cargo.
...

The heavily redacted document does not disclose who was shipping the weapons. (Benghazi Scandal: Obama Administration Knew Weapons Were Being Sent to Al-Qaeda in Syria, New Documents Show, Judicial Watch 18 May 2015)
Although the documents do not reveal who was responsible for sending weapons to Syria, it is quite obvious from the language used in the documents that it was a US initiative and the CIA presence in Benghazi at the time suggests that US intelligence was behind this gun-running operation.

Comment: The arming of Libyan terrorists in 2011 to overthrow and murder Qaddafi was just the first step of many in implementing Washington's chaos strategy for a "New Middle East." As these fanatic foot soldiers of the American empire move north and east, we can identify Washington's ultimate plan of bringing chaos to the doorstep of both China and Russia.

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TV

South Front Crisis News 29 May 2015: Poroshenko business attacked, massive bombing of Yemen continues

Ilya, Yan Erik, Chris, Michael, Bernard and Pierre
South Front
Fri, 29 May 2015 15:50 UTC
south front
An unknown group attacked the company "Roshen" building in Kiev with a grenade launcher last night. There are no casualties, building is damaged. The owner of the company is the President Petro Poroshenko. We remember, so-called "democratic" leader of Ukraine didn't and doesn't want to sell his business despite the law prohibiting Ukrainian president has a business. In this case, Poroshenko isn't the president, but one of the most powerful oligarch in Ukraine.

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Handcuffs

Saudi Arabia marks its 90th execution this year, setting gruesome record


Sputnik
Sat, 30 May 2015 15:44 UTC
Image
© Flickr/ Yasser Abusen
Amid a number of human rights complaints over the practice, Saudi Arabia's latest execution brings 2015's total to 90. Already equaling the total number from 2014, the kingdom continues to break its own record.

"With the year yet to pass its midpoint, the Gulf Kingdom has raced towards this choking toll at an unprecedented rate. This alarming surge in executions surpasses even the country's own previous dreadful records," Said Boumedouha, Deputy Middle East and North Africa programme director at Amnesty International, told Newsweek.

Nearly half of Saudi Arabia's executions this year relate to minor drug-related charges. The latest, carried out in Riyadh on Thursday, was no different, despite the fact that the use of capital punishment for such minor offenses is considered a breach of international law.

Comment: This is worse than what ISIS is doing! Psychopathic insanity.

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Heart - Black

Afghan drug production grew 50-fold since US invasion


Sputnik
Thu, 28 May 2015 14:34 UTC
Image
© AP Photo/ Abdul Khaliq
Illegal drug production in Afghanistan has increased by a factor of 50 and continues to rise since a US-led operation was launched in the country in 2001, the Russian Federal Drug Control Service (FDCS) chief said Thursday.

The amount of land being used in opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan hit a record number of 224,000 hectares last year.

"The drug production in Afghanistan is the major problem for Eurasia and Central Asia, with its level increasing 50 times since the launch on October 7, 2001 of US operation Enduring Freedom and continues to rise," Victor Ivanov said.

Comment: Must keep the drug money flowing.

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Bad Guys

Coercion: US to arm China's Pacific neighbors to counter Beijing's growing influence


Sputnik
Fri, 29 May 2015 14:23 UTC
Image
© AP Photo/ Bullit Marquez
United States lawmakers are looking to arm and train American allies in the Pacific as a countermeasure to what legislators claim is Beijing's increasingly aggressive behavior in the region.

The Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) has added a "China Sea Initiative" to the 2016 defense bill. The legislation was drafted, in part, to address China's ongoing construction of artificial islands in the South China Sea as a part of its ambitious land-reclamation campaign.

SASC Chairman Senator John McCain inserted the initiative to offer support - in the form of training and weapons - to allied countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

Comment: US keeps claiming it wants a world free of 'coercion' yet uses it for it's own means.

War threat against Russia and China rises as U.S. economy declines

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Snakes in Suits

Kiev tried to exclude DPR, LPR from Contact Group


Sputnik
Sat, 30 May 2015 14:16 UTC
Image
© Sputnik/ Viktor Tolochko
Contrary to the Minsk agreements, Ukrainian government tried to exclude the representatives of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics from the contact group on Ukrainian reconciliation, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday.

The Minister told Rossiya-24 television channel that the launch in early May of the four working sub-groups of the contact group, that would oversee the implementation of the Minsk peace agreement, opens an important opportunity to discuss a broad range of issues. But even this initiative did not go without problems.

"There was a huge battle, because despite the Minsk Agreements, to which Donetsk and Luhansk are indispensable part, Kiev tried to reduce the contact group and its sub-groups to a trilateral format Russia-Ukraine-OSCE so that LPR and DPR would be only invited to hear the results of the agreements if Kiev wishes to do so."

Comment: Once again this shows Kiev has no plans to make peace with east Ukraine.

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Radar

Russian jets force US Navy destroyer away from territorial waters


Sputnik
Sat, 30 May 2015 12:49 UTC
Image
© AFP 2015/ US NAV
Russian Navy Su-24 jets forced US Navy destroyer USS Ross to go into neutral waters in the Black Sea, a source in Crimea's security forces told RIA Novosti.

The US Navy ship was noticed heading directly toward Russian waters after leaving the Romanian port of Costanta. The incident comes on the same day as fugitive Georgian ex-leader Mikheil Saakashvili's appointment as governor of Ukraine's Black Sea-bordering Odessa region.

"The ship's crew acted provocatively and aggressively, which caused alarm among operators of monitoring stations and Black Sea Fleet ships carrying out assignments in the Black Sea. Scrambled Su-24 attack jets demonstrated a readiness to forcibly suppress border violations and defend the country's interest," the source said.

Comment: Looks like the US keeps trying to push Russia's buttons.

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