Puppet MastersS


War Whore

America's gift to the world: 277 Million Boston Bombings

Robert Scheer
Truth Dig
Tue, 23 Apr 2013 15:47 UTC
hillary clinton laos cluster bombs
© AP/Brendon SmialowskiThen-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton looks at a memorial about cluster bombing during a tour of the Cooperative Orthotic Prosthetic Enterprise (COPE) Center in Vientiane, Laos, in 2012.
The horror of Boston should be a reminder that the choice of weaponry can be in itself an act of evil. "Boston Bombs Were Loaded to Maim" is the way The New York Times defined the hideousness of the weapons used, and President Obama made clear that "anytime bombs are used to target innocent civilians, it is an act of terror." But are we as a society prepared to be judged by that standard?

The president's deployment of drones that all too often treat innocent civilians as collateral damage comes quickly to mind. It should also be pointed out that the U.S. still maintains a nuclear arsenal and, as our killing and wounding hundreds of thousands of innocent Japanese demonstrated, those weapons are inherently, by the president's definition, weapons of terror. But it is America's role in the deployment of antipersonnel land mines, and our country's refusal to sign off on a ban on cluster munitions agreed to by most of the world's nations, that offers the most glaring analogy with the carnage of Boston.

To this day, antipersonnel weapons - the technologically refined version of the primitive pressure cooker fragmentation bombs exploded in Boston - maim and kill farmers and their children in the Southeast Asian killing fields left over from our country's past experiment in genocide. An experiment that as a sideshow to our obsession with replacing French colonialism in Vietnam involved dropping 277 million cluster bomblets on Laos between 1964 and 1973.
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Chess

Framed? Ricin suspect released from jail, detention and preliminary hearing cancelled after FBI finds no evidence

Jeff Amy
Brietbart
Tue, 23 Apr 2013 15:28 UTC
FBI ricin search
© Unknown
The Mississippi man charged with sending poisoned letters to President Barack Obama, a U.S. senator and a state judge was released from jail on Tuesday, federal official said, though the reason for the release wasn't immediately clear.

Jeff Woodfin, chief deputy with the U.S. Marshals Service in Oxford, Miss., said Paul Kevin Curtis has been released from custody. Woodfin said he doesn't know if there were any conditions on the release.

The development comes hours after officials canceled a detention and preliminary hearing without explaining the reason for the change.

His lawyer Christi McCoy, who has been pushing for the charges to be dropped, said in a text message Tuesday that she could only confirm that her client has been released.
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Attention

Here we go again - Preparing for major terrorism exercises in three U.S. cities

David Ruppe
ABC News
Tue, 23 Apr 2013 00:07 UTC
US Great Seal
© Wikimedia Commons
The federal government has begun preparing three U.S. cities for large-scale, 10-day terrorism-response exercises scheduled this month. Beginning sometime between May 7 and May 29, local, state and top level federal authorities will respond to simulated weapons of mass destruction attacks in three cities - Denver, Portsmouth, N.H., and the Washington, D.C.-area.

Denver or Portsmouth will face either a simulated biological or a chemical weapons attack. The D.C. metropolitan area will respond to a radiological attack drill - which could range from simply an exposed container of radioactive material to a small nuclear detonation.
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Stormtrooper

Innocent family ripped from their home at gunpoint; Police storm the property looking for terrorists


Youtube
Sat, 20 Apr 2013 23:33 UTC
On Friday, April 19, 2013, during a manhunt for a bombing suspect, police and federal agents spent the day storming people's homes and performing illegal searches. While it was unclear initially if the home searches were voluntary, it is now crystal clear that they were absolutely NOT voluntary. Police were filmed ripping people from their homes at gunpoint, marching the residents out with their hands raised in submission, and then storming the homes to perform their illegal searches.

https://www.facebook.com/PoliceStateUSA

This was part of a larger operation that involved total lockdown of the suburban neighbor to Boston. Roads were barricaded and vehicle traffic was prohibited. A No-Fly Zone was declared over the town. People were "ordered" to stay indoors. Businesses were told not to open. National Guard soldiers helped with the lockdown, and were photographed checking IDs of pedestrians on the streets. All the while, police were performing these disgusting house-to-house searches.

Comment: Police state anyone?! Welcome to the good old U.S.A!

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Smoking

New York City proposes raising minimum age for cigarette purchases from 18 to 21


Washington Post
Mon, 22 Apr 2013 18:34 UTC
cigarette packs
© Mark Lennihan, file/Associated PressIn this March 18, 2013 file photo cigarette packs are displayed for sale at a convenience store in New York. No one under 21 would be able to buy cigarettes in New York City under a proposal unveiled Monday, April 22, 2013 to make the city the most populous place in America to set the minimum age that high.
No one under 21 would be able to buy cigarettes in the city under a proposal unveiled Monday to make it the most populous place in America to set the minimum age that high.

Extending a decade of moves to crack down on smoking in the nation's largest city, the measure aims to stop young people from developing a habit that remains the leading preventable cause of death, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said as she announced the plan. Eighty percent of the city's smokers started lighting up before they were 21, officials say.

"The point here is to really address where smoking begins," she said, flanked by colleagues and the city's health commissioner. With support in the council and Mayor Michael Bloomberg's backing, the proposal has the political ingredients to pass.

But it may face questions about its effectiveness and fairness. A retailers' representative suggested the measure would simply drive younger smokers to neighboring communities or corner-store cigarette sellers instead of city stores, while a smokers' rights advocate called it "government paternalism at its worst."

Under federal law, no one under 18 can buy tobacco anywhere in the country. Four states and some localities have raised the age to 19, and at least two communities have agreed to raise it to 21.
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Bad Guys

Bloomberg says interpretation of Constitution will 'have to change' after Boston bombing

Jill Colvin
Politicer
Mon, 22 Apr 2013 12:24 UTC
Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.
© John Moore/Getty ImagesMayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.
In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday the country's interpretation of the Constitution will "have to change" to allow for greater security to stave off future attacks.

"The people who are worried about privacy have a legitimate worry," Mr. Bloomberg said during a press conference in Midtown. "But we live in a complex word where you're going to have to have a level of security greater than you did back in the olden days, if you will. And our laws and our interpretation of the Constitution, I think, have to change."

Mr. Bloomberg, who has come under fire for the N.Y.P.D.'s monitoring of Muslim communities and other aggressive tactics, said the rest of the country needs to learn from the attacks.

"Look, we live in a very dangerous world. We know there are people who want to take away our freedoms. New Yorkers probably know that as much if not more than anybody else after the terrible tragedy of 9/11," he said.

"We have to understand that in the world going forward, we're going to have more cameras and that kind of stuff. That's good in some sense, but it's different from what we are used to," he said.
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Handcuffs

Over half of Guantanamo Bay prisoners now on hunger strike as number increases

Kim Sengupta
The Independent
Sun, 21 Apr 2013 16:38 UTC
Guantanamo protest
© Unknown
Mass protest prompted by site authorites' Koran search - seen by inmates as 'religious desecration'

Over half of all detainees at the US-run Guantanamo Bay military prison are now taking part in a hunger strike, with many being force-fed, a US military spokesman confirmed today.

The number of prisoners on hunger strike has risen to 84, an increase of 32 since last Wednesday, with 16 now receiving "enteral feedings," a process involving being force-fed via tubes.
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Handcuffs

Canadian government uses Boston bombing to pass bill to limit civil liberties

Steven Chase
The Globe and Mail
Mon, 22 Apr 2013 16:17 UTC
Vic Toews
© Adrian Wyld/The Canadian PressPublic Safety Minister Vic Toews rises in the House of Commons.
The Harper government is using the Boston Marathon bombing to expedite the passage of a relatively slow-moving bill that would restrict civil liberties in the name of fighting terrorism.

Some of the measures in S-7, the Combating Terrorism Act, have previously been law but expired because they were so-called sun-set provisions introduced in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.

The Conservative have cleared time in their legislative agenda Monday and Tuesday to conduct third-reading debate on S-7, legislation that would authorize police to pre-emptively detain Canadians and hold them for up to three days without charging them.

The bill would also allow authorities to imprison a Canadian for up to 12 months if they refuse to answer questions posed by a judge in what are called investigative hearings.

Comment: As we have witnessed in the USA with the Patriot act after 9/11, here it is the Canadian government exploiting recent events to continue diminishing civil liberties.

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Chess

What's next for Boston Marathon suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev: 5 legal questions

Josh Gerstein
Politico
Sun, 21 Apr 2013 16:13 UTC
tsarnaev
© Reuters“No Miranda warning to be given” now, the DOJ official said.
With Dzhokhar Tsarnaev taken alive, the focus now turns to how the Obama administration is going to seek to bring the Boston Marathon bombing suspect to justice.

Lawyers have already made one potentially critical decision: He hasn't been read his Miranda rights, at least for now. This means that FBI investigators may have a shot at trying to question him about other potential plots he may be aware of and whether anyone other than his deceased brother was involved in last Monday's bombing or Thursday night's crime spree.

But if Tsarnaev's injuries leave him incapacitated for a protracted period of time, the Miranda issue may be of less significance.

As soon as he's coherent, he's likely to go before a judge or magistrate, even in the hospital. The judicial officer will formally advise Tsarnaev of the preliminary charges used to detain him and tell of his right to an attorney, even if investigators haven't done that by then.

On Sunday, Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis said Tsarnaev was still in stable but serious condition and has not been questioned yet. "He's in no condition to be interrogated at this point in time," Davis said on "Fox News Sunday." "He's progressing, though, and we're monitoring the situation carefully."

One tricky issue now is how prosecutors and the FBI will balance the duty to get Tsarnaev before a judge promptly with their desire to do the initial public-safety interview.

Meanwhile, a host of other questions are already bubbling up, from whether he'll be tried in civilian or military court to whether he'll face the death penalty for crimes that include killing three people in the explosions and a police officer on the MIT campus.
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Briefcase

Merkel says euro members must be prepared to cede sovereignty

Noah Barkin
Reuters
Mon, 22 Apr 2013 16:12 UTC
Merkel
© unknown
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday that euro zone members must be prepared to cede control over certain policy domains to European institutions if the bloc is truly to overcome its debt crisis and win back foreign investors.

Speaking at an event hosted by Deutsche Bank in Berlin alongside Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Merkel also defended her approach to the crisis against critics who argue she has put too much emphasis on austerity, saying Europe must find a way to deliver both growth and solid finances.

The comments came two months before European leaders are due to gather in Brussels to discuss moving towards a so-called "fiscal union".

Expectations are low, in part because an easing of the crisis has reduced pressure on leaders to produce a big leap forward in integration, but also due to differences between Germany and its partners, notably France, over the next steps.
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