Puppet MastersS


Whistle

State lawmakers proposing bills to rein in federal government surveillance

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Angry over revelations of National Security Agency surveillance and frustrated with what they consider outdated digital privacy laws, state lawmakers around the nation are proposing bills to curtail the powers of law enforcement to monitor and track citizens.

Their efforts in at least 14 states are a direct message to the federal government: If you don't take action to strengthen privacy, we will.

"We need to stand up and protect our liberty," said Republican Missouri state Sen. Rob Schaaf, author of a digital privacy bill.

Police groups, however, say the moves will in some cases hinder efforts to deter or solve crimes. "It would cripple law enforcement's ability to do investigations," said Bart Johnson, executive director of the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

Proponents say the measures will overhaul the definition of digital privacy and help increase oversight of specific surveillance tools that law enforcement agencies have been using in the states that critics say mirrors federal surveillance technology.

The bills include a Colorado proposal that would limit the retention of images from license plate readers, an Oregon bill that would require "urgent circumstances" to obtain cellphone location data and a Delaware plan that increases privacy protections for text messages.

USA

Anglo-American psychopaths' vision of the world: New Afghanistan law legalizes violence against women

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© Paula Bronstein/GettyMost violence against women in Afghanistan is within the family, so the new law means it will be impossible to prosecute cases.
Small change to criminal code has huge consequences in country where 'honour' killings and forced marriage are rife

A new Afghan law will allow men to attack their wives, children and sisters without fear of judicial punishment, undoing years of slow progress in tackling violence in a country blighted by so-called "honour" killings, forced marriage and vicious domestic abuse.

The small but significant change to Afghanistan's criminal prosecution code bans relatives of an accused person from testifying against them. Most violence against women in Afghanistan is within the family, so the law - passed by parliament but awaiting the signature of the president, Hamid Karzai - will effectively silence victims as well as most potential witnesses to their suffering.

"It is a travesty this is happening," said Manizha Naderi, director of the charity and campaign group Women for Afghan Women. "It will make it impossible to prosecute cases of violence against women ... The most vulnerable people won't get justice now."

Under the new law, prosecutors could never come to court with cases like that of Sahar Gul, a child bride whose in-laws chained her in a basement and starved, burned and whipped her when she refused to work as a prostitute for them. Women like 31-year-old Sitara, whose nose and lips were sliced off by her husband at the end of last year, could never take the stand against their attackers.

"Honour" killings by fathers and brothers who disapprove of a woman's behaviour would be almost impossible to punish. Forced marriage and the sale or trading of daughters to end feuds or settle debt would also be largely beyond the control of the law in a country where the prosecution of abuse is already rare.

USA

Best of the Web: Wars to continue, NSA to keep spying on everyone, new anti-smoking campaigns rolled out - but sorry, no money left for the 35% unemployed

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© Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

The Senate failed to move forward on a three-month extension of assistance for the long-term unemployed on Thursday, leaving it unlikely that Congress would approve the measure soon while undercutting a key aspect of President Obama's economic recovery plan.

Fifty-nine senators, including four Republicans, voted to advance the legislation, falling one vote short of the 60 needed to break a Republican filibuster effort.

Republicans and Democrats, many from the nation's most economically depressed states, had been trying to reach a solution that would allow people who have exhausted their unemployment insurance to continue receiving benefits as long as the government offset the $6 billion cost.

Ultimately, how to pay for the program proved too big a hurdle for senators to overcome.

Bulb

Patriot Act architect: No more spying unless my NSA reform bill passes

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© JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images
Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner warned government officials that they risk losing all spying authorization next year if his Freedom Act doesn't pass Congress.

Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner sent another warning shot Tuesday to members of the intelligence community that they risk losing all congressional authority for the National Security Agency's collection of bulk telephone records if his bill restricting the program is not passed.

Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican, told Deputy Attorney General James Cole during a House Judiciary Committee hearing that Congress will not reauthorize Section 215 of the post-9/11 Patriot Act before it sunsets on June 1, 2015, if substantial reforms to government surveillance are not adopted by then. The NSA derives much of its surveillance power from that section of the law. He added that Congress would never have passed or twice reauthorized the Patriot Act, which he authored, had it known the full breadth of the NSA's surveillance muscle.

"Unless Section 215 gets fixed, you, Mr. Cole, and the intelligence community will get absolutely nothing, because I am confident there are not the votes in this Congress to reauthorize it," Sensenbrenner said. "And I can say that without qualification."

Cole refused to offer a position on the bill when pressed by Sensenbrenner, noting that the Justice Department held no stance on NSA legislation pending in Congress.

Smoking

Junk Science: Hundreds of U.K. "health experts" call for smoking ban in cars carrying children

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© AlamyIn a letter to the British Medical Journal, respiratory experts said second-hand smoke was a “major cause of ill health in children”
Around 700 doctors, nurses and other health experts have called on the Government to ban smoking in cars carrying children ahead of a Commons vote on Monday.

In a letter to the British Medical Journal, respiratory experts said second-hand smoke was a "major cause of ill health in children", damaging the lungs, causing sudden infant death and leading to thousands of hospital trips a year.

They claimed those objecting to a change in the law assumed there was a "right to force children to breathe tobacco smoke". Objectors "seem to value this more highly than the children's right to breathe clean air", they added.


Comment: Good luck with that. Open your car window in any city and you'll breathe in much worse than cigarette smoke. Once again so-called "experts" show a profound lack of critical thinking as they push their agenda further and further.


Comment: Some more links to enjoy!
Smokers' lungs used in half of transplants: Improves Survival Rate!
Smoking Does Not Cause Lung Cancer
Smoking Does Not Cause Lung Cancer (According to WHO/CDC Data)
Air pollution causes lung cancer in non-smokers (erm, can't it cause it in smokers too then?)
Government Suppresses Major Public Health Report
Air pollution leading cause of cancer, World Health Organisation warns
5 Health Benefits of Smoking
'World No Tobacco Day'? Let's All Light Up!


Magnify

Propaganda exposed: Fake images in Ukraine

Naked man in Ukraine
© UnknownFalse flag exposed
The images of a naked Ukrainian prisoner in the snow, surrounded by police forces taunting him, have been spread around the world. They show the brutality of the regime that the glorious activists of Maidan Square are trying to overthrow.

There is only one problem: at the end of the footage, Andrei Dubrovik can be spotted wearing a uniform. Yet, Mr. Dubrovik had left the Ministry of the Interior some time back to step in as security chief of the All-Ukrainian Union "Fatherland" (Batkivshchyna) led by oligarch Yulia Tymoshenko.
Andrei Dubrovik
© UnknownAndrei Dubrovik
According to Vremia, this propaganda film was created by television producer Andriy Kozhemyakin, who is also on Mrs. Tymochenko's payroll [1].


Comment: It appears as though the propaganda is getting exposed, but to the rulers it doesn't matter, because the images and videos have already been viewed and believed the world over. Only few will ever discover that it was all just propaganda. Just like the chemical attack in Syria, which was blamed on the Syrian government and turned out to have been perpetrated by the Western armed terrorists.


Newspaper

Climate scientist's lawsuit could wipe out conservative National Review magazine

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© GuardianJunk scientist Michael Mann
The National Review magazine, longstanding house news organ of the establishment right, is facing a lawsuit that could shutter the publication permanently. According to The Week, a suit by a climate scientist threatens to bankrupt the already financially shaky publication and its website, the National Review Online (NRO).

Scientist Michael Mann is suing the Review over statements made by Canadian right-wing polemicist and occasional radio stand-in for Rush Limbaugh, Mark Steyn. Steyn was writing on the topic of climate change when he accused Mann of falsifying data and perpetuating intellectual fraud through his research.

Steyn went on to quote paid anti-climate science operative Rand Simberg - an employee of the right-wing think tank the Competitive Enterprise Institute - who compared Mann to Penn State's convicted child molester Jerry Sandusky.

Mann, Simberg said, is "the Jerry Sandusky of climate science, except that instead of molesting children, he has molested and tortured data."

Mann sued for defamation. Steyn and the Review vowed to fight the suit, given that defamation is notoriously difficult to prove in court.

"My advice to poor Michael is to go away and bother someone else," said Review editor Rich Lowry. "If he doesn't have the good sense to do that, we look forward to teaching him a thing or two about the law and about how free debate works in a free country."

Comment: More on Climategate junk scientist Michael Mann:

Dr. Michael Mann's dishonest political messaging
Yes, Virginia, A Climate Cover-Up
Climategate: Michael Mann's very unhappy New Year
Climategate Junk Scientist Michael Mann Awarded Half a Million in Stimulus Cash


Stop

What about apologizing to Ukraine, Mrs. Nuland?

Victoria Nuland and Geoffrey R. Pyatt on the Maidan square.
© UnknownVictoria Nuland and Geoffrey R. Pyatt on the Maidan square, Kiev, Ukraine.
Yesterday's leak of the flagrant telephone talk between the US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and the US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey R. Pyatt has already hit the international media headlines. In short, it turned out that the US officials were coordinating their actions on how to install a puppet government in Ukraine.

In this flagrant telephone talk between the US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and the US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey R. Pyatt agreed to nominate Bat'kyvshchina Party leader Arseniy Yatseniuk as Deputy Prime Minister, to bench Udar Party leader Vitaly Klitschko off the game for a while and to discredit neo-Nazi Svoboda party chief Oleh Tiahnybok as "Yanukovych's project". Then Mrs. Nuland informed the US Ambassador that the Washington's hand by the UN Secretary General, Under-Secretary for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman had already instructed Ban Ki-moon to send his special envoy to Kyiv this week "to glue the things". Touching the European role in managing Ukraine's political crisis, she was matchlessly elegant: "Fuck the EU".


Comment: Full video and transcript of the conversation follows below in this article.


Comment: See also:
"F**k The EU" - U.S. State department blasts Europe; revealed as alleged mastermind behind Ukraine unrest
'Nuland apologized, but didn't mention US plans to midwife a new govt in Ukraine'
US will give money to Ukraine if Kiev makes necessary reforms - Nuland
China backs Russia over Ukraine


People 2

China backs Russia over Ukraine

Putin and Xi
© Unknown
The visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to Sochi attend the inaugural ceremony of the 2014 Winter Olympics is invested with political symbolism. It is an expression of solidarity with Russia and with President Vladimir Putin in particular. In the event, Xi's meeting with Putin at Sochi on Thursday turned out to be substantive.

The Kremlin readout brings out that the meeting was marked by exceptional warmth. Putin disclosed that he will be meeting Xi on five occasions this year, which would include two visits to China. The Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov highlighted that Xi took a common stand with Putin with regard to Ukraine. In Peskov's words, "The sides aired much criticism of outside interference.

Both parties have emphasized the unacceptability of any interference from the outside in what is happening and a very serious condemnation of such interference has been voiced." This amounts to Beijing supporting Moscow's concerns over the Ukraine situation. It is a big Chinese move, considering that it is not a Eurasian power and it implies Beijing's censuring of the European Union and the US whose officials have been visiting Ukraine and openly encouraging anti-government protests.

Evil Rays

US will give US tax-payer's money to Ukraine if Kiev makes necessary reforms - Nuland

Victoria Nuland in Kiev
© AFP Photo/Andrew KravchenkoA handout picture released on December 10, 2013 by Ukrainian Union Opposition press services hows US Assistant secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland (R) distributing cakes to protesters on the Independence Square in Kiev on December 10, 2013.
The United States is ready to provide financial support to Ukraine if the country implements the necessary political reforms, senior US diplomat Victoria Nuland said.

"We have had extensive discussions at all meetings concerning support from the international community, including the United States," Nuland, the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs said at a press conference in Kiev on Friday.

"[The United States] is ready to support Ukraine if the will quickly move towards the path of protecting human rights, dignity, a de-escalation of the conflict, and political reforms."

Nuland's offer of support follows the leak of an apparently bugged phone conversation in which the senior US diplomat had choice words for the EU's mediation efforts in Ukraine.

On Thursday, a four-minute video - titled 'Maidan puppets,' referring to Independence Square in Ukraine's capital - was reported in the Kiev Post. In the clip, Nuland is allegedly heard saying "f**k the EU" while speaking with the American Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyat on how to end the crisis in Ukraine.

US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki declined to comment on the tape's contents, but did not deny its authenticity.

"I did not say it was not authentic," she said, adding that Nuland had apologized to her EU counterparts for the reported comments.


Comment: The US has been very obvious in their support of the protests and riots in Ukraine. Divide and conquer is the strategy.


Comment: The comments from Nuland makes it clear how involved the US is in regime change in Ukraine and how they view the leaders of the "riots" as mere usefull idiots. Referring to them as "Klitch," "Yatsy" and "Tiny Bock", says it all.

"F**k The EU" - U.S. State department blasts Europe; revealed as alleged mastermind behind Ukraine unrest
'Nuland apologized, but didn't mention US plans to midwife a new govt in Ukraine'