Puppet MastersS


Light Sabers

U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers thinks Edward Snowden was helped by Russian intelligence

Image
© APJune 9, 2013: This photo provided by The Guardian newspaper in London shows Edward Snowden.
The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee on Sunday questioned whether Edward Snowden acted alone in leaking details of the National Security Agency's surveillance programs to U.S. and British newspapers last year.

Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., said on NBC's 'Meet the Press' that the former NSA contractor was "a thief whom we believe had some help."

"Let me just say this," Rogers said. "I believe there's a reason he ended up in the hands, the loving arms, of an FSB agent in Moscow. I don't think that's a coincidence."

Comment: It's always easier to blame your enemies, but maybe there's some truth to what the Congressman is saying? Maybe Snowden was helped by high-level insiders, though not necessarily Russian ones?

PRISM for your Mind: NSA, WikiLeaks and Israel


Control Panel

Pat Buchanan: Why Congress is held in contempt

Image
© Fakingnews
"I've got a pen," said President Obama early this week.

"I can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive actions ... that move the ball forward."

"When I can act on my own without Congress, I'm going to do so," the president added Wednesday at North Carolina State.

Thus did Obama signal that he will bypass Congress and use his executive powers to advance his agenda of national transformation.

This dismissal of Congress has gone almost unprotested. In an earlier age it might have evoked talk of impeachment. But not now.

For though Congress may be the first branch of government in the Constitution, with the longest list of enumerated powers in Article 1, its eclipse has been extraordinary.

Congressional powers have eroded or been surrendered. The esteem in which Congress is now held calls to mind Emily Dickinson: "It dropped so low in my regard/I heard it hit the ground."

Congress boasts a 13 percent approval, a surge from its all-time low of 9 percent last fall before the budget deal.

While ex-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates expressed disappointment in Obama and Hillary Clinton in his book "Duty," and was dismissive of Joe Biden, his view of Congress dripped with venom:

"Uncivil, incompetent in fulfilling basic constitutional responsibilities (such as timely appropriations), micromanagerial, parochial, hypocritical, egotistical, thin-skinned, often putting self (and reelection) before country - this was my view of the majority of the United States Congress."

Eye 2

Dave Lee Travis groped breasts of BBC trainee live on Radio 4, jury told

Image
© Andrew Winning/ReutersDave Lee Travis arrives at Southwark crown court in London.
Woman was left terrified by alleged assault and was too frightened to report it to her managers, court hears

A former BBC trainee feared she would have a black mark against her name if she complained to her bosses when Dave Lee Travis groped her breasts live on Radio 4, a jury has heard.

The woman, who was 26 at the time of the incident, told jurors she was frightened by the alleged assault and was too scared to report it to her managers.

"I was on probation [as a trainee newsreader], there was no way I was going to start telling off this big star of Radio 1," said the woman, giving evidence from behind a white curtain in the witness box of Southwark crown court in London on Wednesday.

"If I had gone to the management I imagine it would have been: 'So what? You're a big girl, deal with it.' I think I would have had a black mark against my name on my file - 'this woman can't take a joke she has no sense of humour'."

Bad Guys

UK Home Office staff rewarded with gift vouchers for fighting off asylum cases

Image
© AlamyOfficial guidance for the Home Office, interior pictured, was obtained by the Guardian under freedom of information laws
Incentives for officials who hit target of winning 70% of tribunal cases include vouchers, cash bonuses and extra holidays

Home Office officials are being rewarded with shopping vouchers for helping to ensure failed asylum seekers lose their attempt to stay in the country, new documents reveal.

Official guidance obtained by the Guardian shows that immigration staff have been set a target of winning 70% of tribunal cases in which asylum seekers are appealing against government decisions that they should leave the UK.

These officers are also incentivised by Home Office reward schemes involving gift vouchers, cash bonuses and extra holidays, according to information received under freedom of information laws.

Asked what rewards were given to presenting officers and case owners in the fields of asylum and immigration, the department confirmed high-street vouchers for £25 or £50 were handed out to "recognise positive performance over a short period of time", including when officers "exceed their casework targets for a month".

Critics said it was a new low for officers to be rewarded for outcomes that meant asylum seekers being asked to leave the UK for countries where they claim to be facing persecution or war. The incentives undermine confidence in the fairness of the system, they say.

Snakes in Suits

Hollande's private life is the least of his problems

Image
© Guardian
The president should be regretting not his personal follies but the failure of the French economic model

Of course it matters. A president is not just a professional figure. He is a head of state, briefly the embodiment of his people. If the Queen were sneaking off on a scooter each night to see a toyboy in Pimlico, Britons might regard it as a "purely private affair". But they would be aghast and agog. President Hollande's love life may be private. But is it really of no interest or concern to the French people? Pull the other one.

Behaviour, style, personal relationships may seem tangential to government as a business, but they cannot be divorced from government as an art. Most of the "unanswered" questions swirling around Hollande's press conference struggled to drag his private life into the public domain. Was there a security risk? Was the president vulnerable to attack or kidnap? Was a bodyguard with him at all times? The answers to these questions were trivial.

They were proxies for a different fascination, one that is bound to envelop the private lives of public figures. We all seek in the lives of celebrities some echo of our joys and sorrows. Personal emotion and behaviour may have no imprint on public action. But such is the secrecy of power that we crave any glimpse of the "man behind the mask". In a democracy, "the public interest" is to some degree whatever interests the public.

Hollande has swatted aside his ever deferential press corps with "no comment" on his private life. But he is asking his people to behave differently, to agree a "responsibility pact" to set aside decades of self-indulgence that is in part the legacy of his own French socialist movement. They must come together to liberate employment and accept a reduction in spending and business taxes. His apologists might argue that this is just a matter of laws and austerity. But he is asking for a change in outlook and behaviour. People are less likely to respond if they see the man asking as a fool or an object of ridicule.


Star of David

Prime ministerial bonding: Stephen Harper welcomed as 'great friend' of Israel

Entourage includes 6 cabinet ministers, 30 business people and community leaders

Harper & Netanyahu meet in Israel
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and a sizable entourage have arrived for his first official state visit to Israel. The six-day Middle East tour will include stops in the West Bank and Jordan.

Harper's plane left Ottawa on Saturday evening, with six cabinet ministers on board, along with 30 business people and community leaders.

Harper and his wife, Laureen, were greeted by Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's foreign affairs minister, and by Vivian Bercovici, Canada's ambassador-designate to the Jewish state.

"The total delegation is probably about 250," said the CBC's Terry Milewski from Jerusalem. "That includes the RCMP and the media of course [and] about 21 rabbis by my count, some presidents of various companies also, who are paying their own way. It's a big, big delegation."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made an official speech to the Canadian delegation calling Harper "a great friend of Israel and the Jewish people."

Arrow Down

U.S. Admiral says U.S. losing dominance to China

Image
© WPVets.org
The Obama administration's ballyhooed military "pivot" to Asia is running into some frank talk from the top U.S. commander in the Pacific.

Three years after the Pentagon said it was de-emphasizing Europe in favor of the Asia-Pacific region, Navy Adm. Samuel J. Locklear III said this week that U.S. dominance has weakened in the shadow of a more aggressive China.

"Our historic dominance that most of us in this room have enjoyed is diminishing, no question," Adm. Locklear, chief of U.S. Pacific Command, said Wednesday at a naval conference in Virginia.

Although Adm. Locklear said it is obvious that Chinese military power is growing, he suggested that it is unclear whether China will seek to be a hard adversary to the U.S. in the long term, so Washington should be working overtime on steering Beijing toward a cooperative security posture.

"China is going to rise, we all know that," Adm. Locklear said, as reported by Defense News, which included several quotes from his speech at the annual Surface Navy Association meeting.

"[But] how are they behaving? That is really the question," the admiral said, adding that the Pacific Command's goal is for China "to be a net provider of security, not a net user of security."

His remarks offered insight into the introspection at the Pentagon's highest levels about how the U.S. should tailor its military presence in the region, where Beijing and Moscow - regional powerhouses and former Cold War adversaries to Washington - are keen to challenge U.S. dominance.

Ambulance

Turkey signs law 'criminalizing' medical first aid without govt permit

Police use a water cannon
© AFP Photo / Mete CarkciPolice use a water cannon to try to disperse people protesting against newly proposed restrictions on the use of the internet and against the Turkish government during a protest on the Istiklal Avenue in Istanbul, on January 18, 2014
A medical bill has been signed into law in Turkey that requires doctors to obtain government permission before administering emergency first aid. Critics have blasted the bill as a crackdown on doctors who treat activists injured during protests.

The bill, which was drawn up by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), punishes health care professionals with up to three years in prison or a fine of almost $1 million if they administer emergency first aid without government authorization.

It also bans doctors from practicing outside state medical institutions and aims to stop them from opening private clinics.

President Abdullah Gul signed the legislation into law Friday. It has prompted a flurry of accusations from rights groups, condemning it as an attempt to criminalize emergency health care and deter doctors from treating protesters.

The US-based Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) attacked the legislation as an attempt to quash dissent in Turkey, following last year's violent protests.

Pistol

MLK assassinated by US Government: King Family civil trial verdict

Coretta Scott King: "We have done what we can to reveal the truth, and we now urge you as members of the media, and we call upon elected officials, and other persons of influence to do what they can to share the revelation of this case to the widest possible audience." - King Family Press Conference, Dec. 9, 1999.
Image
© Dick DeMarsico/New York World-Telegram
The assassination of Dr. King is just one OBVIOUS crime from among ~100 of the US "1% oligarchy" of crucial importance. The crimes center in wars, money, and media; and call for arrests of obvious "leaders" orchestrating these crimes, or a Truth & Reconciliation process.

Dr. Martin Luther King's family and personal friend/attorney, William F. Pepper, won a civil trial that found US government agencies guilty in the wrongful death of Martin Luther King. The 1999 trial, King Family versus Jowers and Other Unknown Co-Conspirators, is the only trial ever conducted on the assassination of Dr. King. The King Center fully documents the case, with full trial transcript.

The King family's attempts for a criminal trial were denied, as suspect James Ray's recant of a guilty plea were denied. Mr. Ray said that his government-appointed attorney told him to sign a guilty plea to prevent the death penalty for his part in delivering the murder weapon for Dr. King's assassination, and to prevent arrests of his father and brother as probable co-conspirators. Mr. Ray produced a letter from his attorney stating the promise that Mr. Ray would receive a trial. When Mr. Ray discovered that he was solely blamed for Dr. King's assassination and would never receive a trial, the King family's and Mr. Ray's subsequent requests for a trial were denied.

The US government also denied the King family's requests for independent investigation of the assassination.

Therefore, and importantly, the US government has never presented any evidence subject to challenge that substantiates their claim that Mr. Ray assassinated Dr. King.

US corporate media did not cover the trial, interview the King family, and textbooks omit this information. Journalist and author, James Douglass:
"I can hardly believe the fact that, apart from the courtroom participants, only Memphis TV reporter Wendell Stacy and I attended from beginning to end this historic three-and-one-half week trial. Because of journalistic neglect scarcely anyone else in this land of ours even knows what went on in it.

After critical testimony was given in the trial's second week before an almost empty gallery, Barbara Reis, U.S. correspondent for the Lisbon daily Publico who was there several days, turned to me and said, "Everything in the U.S. is the trial of the century. O.J. Simpson's trial was the trial of the century. Clinton's trial was the trial of the century. But this is the trial of the century, and who's here?" "

Red Flag

Obama vows to use his executive authority for "year of action": Isn't that a Dictatorship?

Image
© Polyskeptic.com
President Obama vowed to use his executive authority to usher in a "year of action" even if Congress remains gridlocked, he said in his weekly address.

"Where Congress isn't acting, I'll act on my own to put opportunity within reach for anyone who's willing to work for it," the president said.

Obama pointed to a recent trip to North Carolina to announce the formation of a new public-private manufacturing institute as evidence of how he could act alone to spur economic activity.

"It's a partnership between companies, colleges, and the federal government focused on making sure American businesses and American workers win the race for high-tech manufacturing and the jobs that come with it - jobs that can help people and communities willing to work hard punch their ticket into the middle class," Obama said.

In recent weeks, the White House has stressed that Obama would use a mixture of executive action and the bully pulpit - a "pen and phone strategy" - to rally the nation around his economic agenda.

On Thursday, Obama held a conference at the White House with university presidents and nonprofit groups designed to improve college access for low-income students.