The shut off of water service for tens of thousands of Detroit residents has generated national and international attention. The scenes of young mothers, children, the elderly, the sick and low-income workers deprived of water for drinking, cleaning and cooking - in what is supposed to be the richest country of the world - have provoked astonishment and revulsion.

This barbaric policy has become a major political question in Detroit. Earlier this week a federal judge overseeing the city's bankruptcy case complained that the shutoffs were producing "a lot of anger" and giving Detroit "a reputation not only in this country but around the world." Opposition generated by the shutoffs, he warned, could threaten the city's plan to impose deeply unpopular cuts to city worker pensions and health care benefits.

The near universal condemnation, which included charges by the UN that the shutoffs were a violation of international human rights, has not led to any shift in policy. In an interview published in the Detroit News Thursday, the city's unelected emergency manager Kevyn Orr, defended the shutoffs.

"I'm very supportive of the water department's and the Board of Water Commissioners' decision to do what every other regulated utility does in the United States, which is, if you use water you've got to pay for it," Orr told the Detroit News .

Ukraine's president, Petro Poroshenko, has claimed that serving Russian military officers are taking part in operations in east Ukraine, after an An-26 transport plane was reportedly shot down near the border.


A statement on the president's website said the aircraft was flying at an altitude high enough to evade any of the weapons that separatists were known to have, and was "probably" attacked from inside Russian territory.


It was not immediately clear how many military personnel were on board the plane, but there were reports that some had managed to parachute to safety and make contact with military HQ in Kiev.

After a lull when all sides appeared to be seeking a way out of the conflict, tension has risen again in recent days as Ukrainian troops have moved to retake towns held by the rebels, and separatist fighters have regrouped in the regional centres of Donetsk and Luhansk.

Russian politicians have demanded targeted strikes on Ukrainian territory after a shell apparently fired by pro-Kiev forces landed in a residential area on the Russian side of the border, killing one person. Russia's foreign ministry warned that the shelling could have "irreversible consequences", while the Ukrainians have been sounding the alarm over what they claim is more overt Russian involvement than ever before.

This is one of the most interesting developments I think we have seen in all of the Obama Presidency. While there is no doubt that Obama has been quietly doing everything he can to take hold of as much power as possible, this has certainly not been actively explored by our wonderful "free" press and "independent" news media.

Now, we are even beginning to see a number of military generals begin to take an active stand against Obama and his policies. Many of these leaders feel very strongly that Obama has created a situation which could lead to the US being run by a ruler, rather than elected official. The first clue we had of Obama's real intentions should have been the firing of General Petraeus when he decided to tell the truth about Obama under oath. Imagine that, an Obama Regime official who actually tells the truth when he gives testimony!

The situation has continued to deteriorate since then. Just listen to this report from the Conservative Tribune:

"Retired US Army Major General Paul E Vallely has been vocal about his belief that American liberty will only be restored through peaceful marches and protests to force the resignations of key political leaders, including President Obama. General Vallely has been joined by Air Force Brigadier General Charles Jones to create a 'citizens council' directly challenging the administration's policy decisions. Obama's treatment of Islamic terrorists, including his trade of several Guantanamo Bay detainees for accused deserter Bowe Bergdahl has drawn fire from two other retired generals, Air Force Major General Bentley Rayburn and four-star Army General Jack Keane."

Although you will notice most of these folks are retired, there has also been at least one current, active duty general to respond to this call. That would be Marine General John Kelly. He has been very outspoken on Obama's refusal to take care of the border crisis, saying it even threatens the existence of the US as a whole. Listen to this, from WND:

"Particularly in regards to the drug trade, murder rates and terrorist activity brewing in Central America, Kelly says, the waves of Latin Americans sweeping through Mexico and illegally into Texas presents a threat to the US every bit as serious as Iran or North Korea.'In comparison to other global threats, the near collapse of societies in this hemisphere with the associated drug and illegal immigrant flow are frequently viewed to be of low importance,' Kelly said in an interview with Defense One. 'Many argue these threats are not existential and do not challenge our national security. I disagree.'"

Homeland security, the US Customs and Border Patrol and other police agencies swarmed Livingston, Illinois. They all parked in the field of a grade school. The peacefulness of the town of 850 was broken by all the excitement.

The law officers would not comment about their operation, even to the school superintendent and they were using the school district's land. The site became an immediate attraction for citizens who say the officers were hospitable, inviting the kids to check out the choppers up close.

A spokesman in the U.S. Attorney's Office said he cannot confirm or deny anything about an ongoing investigation. However we could learn more about this case Friday.

Who Benefits?

Everyone agrees that the sniper attack in Ukraine which started the regime change was a false flag attack.

Eric Zuesse claims false flags are continuing to this day in Ukraine:

Writing at professorsblog.com, this great historian, Dr. de Noli, noticed that whereas in "Berlin 27 Feb 1933, Nazis set fire the Reichstag, and Adolf Hitler blames 'pro-Russian gangsters'," a chief instigator of the 22 February 2014 Ukrainian coup was a leading Swedish nazi, Sweden's Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, and that a remarkably similar tactic was used by Bildt and the Obama Administration to start the Ukrainian civil war. De Noli notes that this war was sparked and made inevitable when in "Odessa 2 May 2014, nazis set fire [to the Trade] Union building and Carl Bildt blames 'pro-Russian gangsters'."

In both of the two instances (first, with Hitler, and then with Obama), a "false-flag operation" was employed in order to confuse onlookers regarding which side the perpetrators of these fires and explosions actually were on. For example, in the Odessa event, the thugs wore armbands with anti-nazi insignia but were actually from the two Ukrainian nazi parties, Svoboda and Pravy Sektor. They used those armbands in order to confuse onlookers to think that the people who were setting fire to the anti-nazis were themselves anti-nazis. This was a very carefully planned operation, and you can see here and here, video documentation of the thugs who did it and who are still doing violent false-flag operations inside Ukraine: these people are Ukrainian nazis, not German ones, but they model themselves upon the German original, as you can see from their own insignia, which are shown in those videos, and which insignia vary little from the swastika and the SS symbol. Ukraine's nazis are rather bold about modeling themselves upon Hitler's Nazis - the original nazis.

False flag attacks have been carried out by countries all over the world ... including Russia.

The Association of European Businesses (AEB), a Moscow-based business lobby, said that new US sanctions against Russia have a more severe effect on European than on American business.

The AEB says it "regrets" the US sanctions, and warns that they will stunt economic growth "not only in Russia".

"These sanctions are more focused on the partners of European businesses than on the partners of American companies," the group said in a statement on Thursday.

The US economy is much more isolated from Russia than Europe, which has much closer business ties with its neighbor. The AEB statement warned that sanctions will backfire and will hurt economic growth "not only in Russia, but also in Ukraine and in the EU.

The White House unveiled new sanctions against Russia targeting companies and institutions in the defense, energy and banking sectors of the Russian economy on Wednesday.

In its view, Russia hasn't done enough to de-escalate the conflict in Ukraine.

Russian state-owned finance and energy companies Gazprombank, Vnesheconombank (VEB), Rosneft, and Novatek all came under sanctions. The US also extended sanctions to defense sector companies the Almaz-Antey Corporation and the Kalashnikov Group, made famous for its production of the AK-47.

The AEB says that these businesses "are reliable and long-term partners of many European companies."

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the new sanctions would push US-Russia diplomacy to a "dead end", and warned of the sanctions' boomerang effect.

On Thursday, when a Malaysian Airlines plane was apparently shot down over Ukraine, a Ukrainian Buk anti-aircraft missile battery was operational in the region, the Russian Defense Ministry said, contradicting Kiev's statements.

The battery was deployed at a site from which it could have fired a missile at the airliner, the ministry said in a statement. It said radiation from the battery's radar was detected by the Russian military.

"The Russian equipment detected throughout July 17 the activity of a Kupol radar, deployed as part of a Buk-M1 battery near Styla [a village some 30km south of Donetsk]," the ministry said in a statement.

The ministry said the radar could be providing tracking information to another battery deployed in the region, which was at a firing distance from the plane's flight path.

Earlier Kiev said it could not have fired a missile at the passing civilian plane because it had no Buk missile launchers deployed in the region. At the same time the Ukrainians said the militias had no Buk systems in their hands, according to a statement from the country's Prosecutor General.

After the Russian ministry came out with the statement, Bogdan Senyk, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Defense Ministry reiterated Kiev's position, saying that "anti-aircraft missiles have not been deployed during the anti-terrorist operation ... they are all in place."

The other day at the Texas driver's license center, while paying for my required in-person renewal, the clerk said it was time to take my fingerprints.

What?

Really. Quietly, earlier this year, the Texas Department of Public Safety began requiring full sets of fingerprints from everyone who obtains a new driver's license or photo identification card. This applies to those who come in as required for periodic renewals, but it doesn't apply to mail-in renewals.

The Watchdog won't let this change go unnoticed. Previously, DPS took only a thumbprint.

Until now, if a person never got arrested, most likely his or her fingerprints would never get recorded and placed in a government database.

Some occupations, such as those in law enforcement, the military and medical care, require fingerprints. But under the new system, everybody who has a driver's license - as they cycle through their 12-year in-person renewal requirement - will be fingerprinted. Your grandmother will be fingerprinted, along with your 16-year-old new driver.

A computer lab staffed by students in an Israeli university is playing a key role in the war of information in the Gaza conflict.

Inspired by the role of social media during the Arab Spring and boosted by the support of the Israeli government and Israel Defence Force, student volunteers at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya, a private university north of Tel Aviv, are waging their own propaganda war countering online anti-Israeli sentiment.

Staffed by approximately 400 student volunteers the project which goes by the name "Israel Under Fire", claims to have succeeded in closing anti-Israeli pages on Facebook and challenging propaganda from Hamas, the organisation that governs the Gaza Strip and whose military arm is firing rockets at Israel.

According to Igal Raich, a 23-year-old IDC student who volunteers in what is called "The Advocacy Room", the project aims to counter what is perceived as a false representation of Israel in international and social media through Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

"It is run by students who are all volunteers," said Raich, who grew up in Canada before moving to Israel to study and also served in the Israeli military. "The school gave us a computer lab to work from and from nine in the morning until eight at night it is constantly full with student volunteers."

It has been common knowledge to anyone paying attention within the alternative news community for years, but once again the media is now admitting that the US military and intelligence agencies are indeed running massive propaganda campaigns that cover a vast array of online networks.

How many times now has such 'conspiracy nonsense' now been reported years later by the mega media as undeniable fact? In the case of the US intelligence propaganda machine that even the New York Times has covered in an article entitled 'The Real War on Reality', we are seeing just that. The New York Times report goes on to detail information uncovered from hacked data regarding the military operation to stage 'grassroots' responses and organizations in order to deceive via psyop. Professor of philosophy Peter Ludlow writes for the Times:

"The hack also revealed evidence that Team Themis was developing a "persona management" system - a program, developed at the specific request of the United States Air Force, that allowed one user to control multiple online identities ("sock puppets") for commenting in social media spaces, thus giving the appearance of grass roots support. The contract was eventually awarded to another private intelligence firm."

This cyber warfare is clearly not just in the capacity of 'improving international reputation' as military commanders are claiming on record (just like there is 'no such thing' as domestic spying and it's only for terrorists). Instead, we're talking about running a major network of computers that are constantly running code specifically written to post to social media and news comment pages. Something that was revealed all the way back in 2011 by RawStory and brushed off in the name of national security by the military.