Puppet MastersS


Question

Baseless rumor? 'Entire family of Kim Jong-un's uncle executed in N. Korea'


RT
Sun, 26 Jan 2014 12:27 UTC
Jang Song-thaek
© AFP Photo / Woohae ChoPeople watch television news showing Jang Song-thaek in court before his excution on December 12, 2013, at the rail station in Seoul on December 13, 2013
All blood relatives of North Korea's erstwhile number two, who was executed a month ago, have apparently suffered the same fate, says the S. Korean Yonhap news agency.

Once all powerful, Jang Song-thaek was the 'regent' while Kim was still too young to govern after Kim Jong-il's death. He was executed on December 12, 2013 at the age of 67, after making an alleged attempt to stage a military coup and dethrone his nephew.

Now Kim Jong-un is believed to have ordered the total elimination of his uncle's biological relatives to demonstrate decisiveness and to clamp down on mutiny with an iron fist, "multiple" sources in Pyongyang told the Seoul-based Yonhap news agency.
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Eye 1

The NSA puts a furry, smiley face on its mission

Michael S. Schmidt
The New York Times
Fri, 24 Jan 2014 08:00 UTC
Cryptokids
© NSA.govThe National Security Agency created a website to teach young people about the agency’s work
The turtle wearing a hat backward, baggy jeans and purple sunglasses looks just like other cartoon characters that marketers use to make products like cereal and toys appealing to children.

But the reptile, known as T. Top, who says creating and breaking codes is really "kewl," is pushing something far weightier: the benefits of the National Security Agency.

"In the world of diplomacy, knowing what your enemy is planning helps you to prepare," the turtle says. "But it is also important that your enemies do not know what you have planned. It is the mission of the National Security Agency and the Central Security Service to learn what it can about its potential enemies to protect America's government communications."

Such an enthusiastic endorsement of the N.S.A.'s mission might seem particularly timely given the criticism directed at the agency since one of its former contractors, Edward J. Snowden, began leaking documents he had stolen from it. But T. Top and a troupe of eight other smiley-faced cartoon characters have been busy promoting the N.S.A.'s mission for the past nine years as part of a governmentwide attempt to make agencies more understandable to the public. With cartoon characters, interactive games and puzzles, the N.S.A.'s CryptoKids website for "future codemakers and codebreakers" tries to educate children about spying duties and recruit them to work for the agency.

Comment: Also see: NSA's Newest Recruiters: Cartoon-Leopard Twins

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X

Thai protester shot dead while giving speech


Al Jazeera
Sun, 26 Jan 2014 06:59 UTC
Thai protesters
© Agence France-PresseProtesters want the prime minister to step down
A Thai anti-government protest leader has been shot in the head while delivering a speech in Bangkok, as demonstrators blocked advance voting for a controversial general election.

Piya Utayo, a spokesman for Thailand's national police, on Sunday identified the dead man as Suthin Tharathin. "At least five other people were injured," he said.

"Suthin Tharathin was shot in the head while giving a speech from the back of a truck," protest spokesman Akanat Promphan told AFP.
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Eye 1

N.Y. mayor at closed AIPAC gala: Part of my job is to defend Israel


Haaretz
Sat, 25 Jan 2014 09:16 UTC
Image
© ReutersNew York Mayor Bill de Blasio
Mayor Bill de Blasio says 'there is no greater ally on earth' than Israel, in speech to Israel lobby that did not appear on public schedule.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio gave a heartfelt speech praising Israel at a private gala event hosted by AIPAC at the Hilton hotel in midtown Manhattan Thursday night, the local website Capital New York reported.

According to an edited audio recording obtained by the site (below), de Blasio said that "part of his job description is to defend Israel" and that it is "elemental to being an American, because there is no greater ally on earth, and that's something we can say proudly."

The Israel lobby's event was closed to journalists and the speech did not appear on the mayor's public schedule, arousing suspicion and making the event all the more intriguing. A reporter with Capital who tried to get into the event was escorted out by security.

De Blasio said in his speech that he had visited Israel three times, most recently with his wife and son, and that he was especially moved by visiting Sderot, on the border with the Gaza Strip and often the target of rocket attacks.

"You can't have an experience like that and not feel solidarity with the people of Israel and know that they're on the front line of fighting against so many challenges."

He closed the speech by announcing that "City Hall will always be open to AIPAC," adding that it is his job to stand by the lobby in Washington.

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Cult

Wall Street venture capitalist Tom Perkins compares criticism of the 1% to Nazi persecution of Jews

Ben Yakas
gothamist.com
Sun, 26 Jan 2014 07:53 UTC
Image
© Associated PressTony Perkins
Today has been a bounty of riches of idiots: first there were the idiots who subway surfed just to feel something, then there were the more creative idiots who took to Brooklyn for the Idiotarod. But the 'idiot of the day' award surely must be awarded to Tom Perkins, a venture capitalist who wrote a letter to the WSJ comparing criticism of the 1% to the Nazi persecution of the Jews during the Holocaust. If you've ever wanted to hear what the world's most expensive miniature violin sounded like, here's your chance.

You can read the full letter to the editor below, so you don't have to give any hate clicks to the WSJ:
Progressive Kristallnacht Coming?

Regarding your editorial "Censors on Campus" (Jan. 18): Writing from the epicenter of progressive thought, San Francisco, I would call attention to the parallels of fascist Nazi Germany to its war on its "one percent," namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the "rich."

From the Occupy movement to the demonization of the rich embedded in virtually every word of our local newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, I perceive a rising tide of hatred of the successful one percent. There is outraged public reaction to the Google buses carrying technology workers from the city to the peninsula high-tech companies which employ them. We have outrage over the rising real-estate prices which these "techno geeks" can pay. We have, for example, libelous and cruel attacks in the Chronicle on our number-one celebrity, the author Danielle Steel, alleging that she is a "snob" despite the millions she has spent on our city's homeless and mentally ill over the past decades.

This is a very dangerous drift in our American thinking. Kristallnacht was unthinkable in 1930; is its descendent "progressive" radicalism unthinkable now?

Tom Perkins

Comment: Again we see that criticism of the elites is equated with being 'fascist'. This is exactly what they've done in France, where popular support for a comedian named Dieudonné making fun of the elites is officially being denounced as 'anti-semitic'.

Of course, from their psychopathic perspective, the masses of ordinary people below them represent a threat to their freedom to enslave, pillage and plunder.

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Cheesecake

JPMorgan gives CEO Jamie Dimon a raise despite shelling out $20 bln in fines


RT
Sun, 26 Jan 2014 05:20 UTC
Jamie Dimon
© Reuters / Larry DowningJamie Dimon pondering which financial scam he can come up with next

It was only a year ago that JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon was getting his pay docked by millions of dollars. Now, though, the company is giving their chief executive a raise.

Despite the fact that JPMorgan was hit with $20 billion worth of fines during 2013, Dimon will receive $1.5 million for the year. That base salary is virtually unchanged from the year before, but the company will also pay him an additional $18.5 million in restricted stock, according to a public filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

According to CNBC, some board members were divided over the possibility of raising Dimon's compensation levels. Those opposed cited the record levels of fines the company was ordered to pay out as a reason to keep his salary where it was, while others believed Dimon deserved a raise due to the difficult landscape he was operating in.

Just last year, Dimon had his pay slashed from $23 million to $11.5 million following revelations in the 'London Whale' scandal that showed the company's traders manipulated bank records in order to cover up $6.2 billion in losses. As a result, JPMorgan agreed to pay nearly $1 billion in fines to settle the case against it.

Comment: No criminal trials, no jail terms, just a nice pay rise. Psychopathic behavior is rewarded in present day society. This does not bode well for the future...

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Snakes in Suits

John Kerry: The Ugly American‏

Daniel McAdams
Ron Paul Institute
Wed, 22 Jan 2014 04:30 UTC
Image
© Unknown
US Secretary of State John Kerry's delusions continued as he arrived in Montreux, Switzerland to open the "Geneva II" talks on the ongoing conflict in Syria. Having successfully bullied UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon into rescinding the invitation previously extended to Iran to attend, Kerry proceeded to bully and blunder his way through the pre-opening of the conference.

"We need to deal with reality here," Kerry said on the eve of the conference. "Bashar Assad will not be part of that transition government."

Kerry's pressure on Ban to uninvite Iran to the conference - though Iran is far more affected by the crisis than the majority of countries invited to participate - was based on Iran's refusal to endorse the pre-condition of support for "regime change" in Syria as the goal of the conference. At least "regime change" was the US interpretation of the Geneva I Communique issued after that conference in 2012.
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Stormtrooper

Best of the Web: Cops Kill More Americans than have been killed in Iraq‏

TheLipTV
YouTube
Tue, 21 Jan 2014 04:26 UTC
Image
Over 5,000 people have been killed in the US by police - more than the number of US soldiers that have fallen during the Iraq war over the last 10 years. The figure seems to reflect the increased militarization of police and, shockingly, means that you are 29 times more likely to be killed by a police officer than by a terrorist. We discuss the figures in this Buzzsaw news clip with Tyrel Ventura and Tabetha Wallace.


Watch the full episode here.

Comment: The question and answer that inevitably surface bear repeating:
What might the end result be if the distinction between police and military ceases to exist? The answer is a police state - and certain segments of our society are already living in one.
Militarization of local police means that now cops kill 8 times more Americans than terrorists do
The Militarization of America
The dangerous militarization of our local police forces
Release Us - Mini film

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Bad Guys

Davos' Elite: Corporations represented at global gathering are cause of crises they claim to want to solve‏

Jon Queally
CommonDreams.org
Wed, 22 Jan 2014 04:17 UTC
Davos mountains
© Twitpic via OxfamLooking down on Davos.
As the World Economic Forum kicks off its global summit in Davos, Switzerland on Wednesday, critics of the annual gathering are eager to show that the well-polished public image of the event should not be allowed to eclipse the nefarious and destructive role played by the many corporate elites that sponsor it.

Even amid seemingly thoughtful discussions about climate change, economic inequality, water scarcity and other key global issues, what's important to remember, says Alex Jensen, an expert on globalization and development at the International Society for Ecology and Culture (ISEC), is that a critical look at any of these crises shows "the complicity of the very corporations that the WEF represents."

Beyond its glossy "veneer," Jensen says, the Davos summit acts as a stage "for multinational corporations, among them human rights abusers, political racketeers, property thieves and international environmental criminals."
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Bomb

Davos billionaires: Oblivious to the coming revolution

Paul B. Farrell
MarketWatch
Sun, 26 Jan 2014 03:17 UTC
Davos Switzerland
© BloombergSnow covered buildings are seen at dusk from the Schatzalp area above the town of Davos, Switzerland.
The world looks different from rarified altitude of a billionaire. Especially if you're one of the 85 richest who control more wealth than the 3.5 billion poorest.

You guys already own half the planet. Keep up the good work, getting richer, by the end of this century your family could be one of the world's 11 trillionaires predicted in the new Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report. Capitalism is the ticket to owning everything.

Cruising at 51,000 feet, Mach 0.85 in your $40 million Gulfstream jet, you know the world belongs to you. A few days at the World Economic Forum in historic Davos, Europe's highest city, high in the Swiss Alps, and your world seemed even bigger. Roots in the Higher Middle Ages. Fabulous ski resort.
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