Puppet MastersS


Eye 1

UK Police State: Changes to stop and search delayed


BBC News
Thu, 06 Mar 2014 01:59 UTC
Image
© BBC NewsOne man told Newsnight's Laura Kuenssberg he had been stopped and searched by police ''at least 100 times''
Plans to limit police stop and search powers in England and Wales have been held up by "regressive" attitudes in Downing Street, senior Conservatives have told BBC Newsnight.

The home secretary wrote to cabinet colleagues in December seeking approval to "reduce significantly" one type of stop and search, Newsnight has learned.

Despite setting a 12 December deadline, the changes are yet
to be announced.

Downing Street said the prime minister accepted reforms needed to take place.

However, officials have refused to say when any decisions might be taken.

Critics say stop and search unfairly targets the black community.

In November, the Equality and Human Rights Commission said that, overall, black people were six times more likely than white people to be stopped, with Asian or other ethnic minority groups two times more likely to be stopped.
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Bomb

NATO Airstrike kills 5, wounds 17 in Afghanistan

Associated Press
The Globe and Mail
Wed, 05 Mar 2014 23:10 UTC
A U.S. F-16, F16 fighter jet
© AP Photo/Burhan OzbilichScurry Scurry NATO bombing and shoosting.
A provincial government official says an early morning NATO airstrike in Afghanistan's central Logar province killed 5 Afghan National Army soldiers and wounded another 17.

The official, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to talk to the media, says the strike occurred at 2 a.m. Thursday.

Comment: Great Job NATO: Sign the Pact or we'll withdraw! Then they kill a bunch of people? Wow, what a great way NOT to get what you want. Something smells fishy about this story though.

It may be a scheme to push Afghanistan into the arms of Russia. Or it could just be shortsighted psychopathy at work.

UPDATE:

NATO has just confirmed that it "accidentally" killed 5 soldiers from Afghanistan. Wow. With these kind of friends, who needs enemies?

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Arrow Down

Watchdogs or dogs of war? "Presstitutes" follow Obama on Ukraine

Margaret Kimberley
Global Research
Wed, 05 Mar 2014 23:35 UTC
The corporate media are a key component of the U.S. imperial machine. Although styling themselves as watchdogs, they are in fact the dogs of war, whose mission is to hide Washington's aggressions behind a fog of lies. War "crimes are committed with impunity in part because presidents get a helping hand from their corporate media partners."
Press
© Global Research
"Their behaviors are an effort to diminish any debates or arguments against the United States government."

Prominent journalists in the United States may as well be on the White House payroll. They are consistent cheerleaders for whoever occupies the oval office and the corporate corner office. They make no attempt to hide their allegiance to power and their lack of interest in informing the public.

The rotten state of affairs becomes all too obvious whenever a president threatens action against another country. Reporters act more like press agents and spring into action shielding and protecting the aggressors.

They make it clear to those few who gain access that questions, criticisms or anything else that smacks of independent thought will not to be tolerated.

The American decision to use Ukraine as a means of attacking Russian influence is the latest effort to prop up the empire, and the corporate media obligingly show their approval.

CNN's Christiane Amanpour was so eager to fly the American foreign policy flag that she pointedly took a colleague to task on air when he was guilty of nothing more than doing his job. Wolf Blitzer is a corporate media stalwart himself so he and everyone watching was surprised when Amanpour jumped down his throat when he quoted a Russian official.
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Bomb

Turncoat Obama knew of CIA shenanigans

RT
RT U.S. News
Wed, 05 Mar 2014 23:10 UTC
jefferson quote
© UnknownRemember, all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.
A US senator who has become one of the most vocal opponents of the US intelligence apparatus has claimed that US President Obama was aware the CIA monitored computers used by staffers who prepared reports on the agency's use of torture in interrogations.

Comment: You cannot have democracy in the dark. Half of the truth is still a lie.

You remember how Obama made all those promises about stuff like this. All that "change". Here is the proof that he is a dirty turn coat. A flat out traitor.

trai·torˈtrātər/noun
  1. 1.a person who betrays a friend, country, principle, etc."they see me as a traitor, a sellout to the enemy"synonyms:betrayer, backstabber, double-crosser, renegade, fifth columnist;


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Mr. Potato

Hypocritical U.S. Sends Warship to Black Sea


Russia Today
Wed, 05 Mar 2014 22:51 UTC
uss taylor black sea
© RTThe USS Taylor, Conventienly in the black sea undergoing "repairs" after running aground. That's like saying it hit a telephone pole, or backed into a tree. Who the hell is driving these things?
Turkey has given a US Navy Warship the green light to pass through the Bosphorus within the next two days as tensions in Ukraine's Crimea region continue to divide world powers.

Turkish sources, speaking with the Hurriyet Daily News on Wednesday, declined to elaborate on the name of the US warship. The same officials told the daily on condition of anonymity that the ship in question was not the USS George H.W. Bush nuclear aircraft carrier as suggested in some news reports, as it did not meet the standards specified by the 1936 Montreux Convention in terms of weight.

Comment: So here's how you know something is up. 1) Useless details. 2) Childishly Coy about Useful Details, 3) The American's Are Doing It.

Russia is like RIGHT next to the Ukraine. They actually lease a Navy Base from the Ukraine. America is really far away from the Ukraine. Like almost 5,000 miles away. They have no business, at all sending a Warship to the Black Sea, ever. If they wanted to De-escalate, as they claim, this situation, sending a Warship was the last thing that would help.

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Alarm Clock

Private license plate scanners amassing vast databases open to highest bidders


RT
Thu, 06 Mar 2014 01:58 UTC
cars
© Reuters / Seth Wenig

Automated license plate readers used by car repo companies, for example, collect billions of personal records per year, which contribute to vast databases that can be used by law enforcement, insurance companies, banks, and the like, with few limits.

BetaBoston, working with the Boston Globe, detailed one Boston repo company's data collection abilities, reporting that New England Associates Inc. can collect $200 to $400 for each vehicle found by an automated reader attached to an unmarked car. The company says it can typically add 8,000 license plate scans to its database in Texas each day.

Digital Recognition Network, which works with New England Associates, says it collects plate scans of 40 percent of all US vehicles per year.

According to the company's own disclosures, Digital Recognition Network operates in conjunction with around 400 repossession outfits across the US, has increased tenfold its plate scans since September 2010, and adds 70 million scans a month.
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Bad Guys

Obama wants projects in parks, more onshore drilling

Clare Foran
National Journal
Tue, 04 Mar 2014 19:37 UTC
Yosemite National Park in California
© Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesA view of Half Dome and the Yosemite Valley at Yosemite National Park in California.

President Obama's budget proposal for fiscal 2015 highlights conservation as a priority while laying the groundwork for expanded oil and gas drilling on public lands, reflecting an administration belief that it can promote energy development without sacrificing environmental protection.

The budget blueprint unveiled Tuesday by the White House would provide permanent funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a federal program that diverts revenues from offshore oil and gas production to conservation initiatives. The program has been around since 1964, but as Interior Secretary Sally Jewell pointed out during a press call on Tuesday, "ever since the fund has been around, with the exception of one year, it has been shorted in the appropriations process."

Obama's conservation requests follow an announcement by the president during his State of the Union address that he would "use [his] authority to protect more of our pristine federal lands for future generations."
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Newspaper

Spinning Yarns: Ukraine crisis resurrects Cold War ghosts as U.S. warns Russia, Poland appeals to NATO

Karen DeYoung
The Washington Post
Mon, 03 Mar 2014 00:00 UTC
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Cold War shadows loomed ever larger over the crisis in Ukraine on Monday, as the United States and Russia traded bitter accusations at the United Nations, the Obama administration sought to mobilize international outrage against Moscow, and nervous Eastern Europeans sought Western protection.

With no substantive response to his demands that Russia withdraw its troops from the autonomous Ukrainian region of Crimea, President Obama said Moscow was "on the wrong side of history" and threatened "a whole series of steps - economic, diplomatic - that will isolate Russia and will have a negative impact on Russia's economy and its status in the world."

U.S. officials noted with approval the fall of Russian stock values and the ruble when markets opened Monday.

Obama met for more than two hours with his National Security Council on Monday evening to discuss "what steps we can take with our international partners to further isolate Russia and reinforce that the Russians still have an opportunity to take immediate steps to de-escalate the situation or they face further political and economic repercussions," a senior administration official said.


Comment: The U.S. has already taken steps to further its own interests:
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland says Washington has spent $5 billion trying to subvert Ukraine
An important second listen to the "F--k the EU" Ukraine recording

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Take 2

The Fashion for Hypocrisy

Craig Murray
CraigMurray.org
Mon, 03 Mar 2014 00:28 UTC
Image
© BringingTruth.com
Hypocrisy seems to be massively in fashion. This from William Hague renders me speechless: "Be in no doubt, there will be consequences. The world cannot say it is OK to violate the sovereignty of other nations."

Then today we have the British Establishment at a closed event in Westminster Abbey in memory of Nelson Mandela. Prince Harry, David Cameron, all the toffs. I was never more than a footsoldier in the anti-apartheid movement, but I trudged through the rain and handed out leaflets in Dundee and Edinburgh. I suspect very few indeed of the guests at this posh memorial service did that. David Cameron was actively involved in Conservative groups which promoted precisely the opposite cause.

My first appointment in the Foreign Office was to the South Africa (Political) desk in 1984. The official British government line was that the ANC was a terrorist organization. I faced hostility and disapproval even when I tried to get action on appalling human rights abuses like the case of Oscar Mpetha (thanks here to Tony Gooch and Terry Curran, they know why). I got in big trouble for asking how many black guests had been received in the High Commissioner's residence in Pretoria.
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Dollars

Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill and the myth of income inequality

Douglas Valentine
CounterPunch.org
Mon, 03 Mar 2014 00:00 UTC
Image
© APAmerican journalists Jeremy Scahill, right, and Glenn Greenwald
Quite righteously, Glenn Greenwald and his sidekick Jeremy Scahill see nothing wrong with Pierre Omidyar having $8 billion, and not using it to house, feed, clothe and heal the poor. No harm, no foul.

Omidyar's "political views and donations are of no special interest to me," Greenwald explained.

Those views and "donations" (apart from those that pay his salary) have "no affect whatsoever on my journalism or the journalism of The Intercept," he added humbly, from the heart.

Noting that Omidyar worked hard for every cent in his piggy bank, Greenwald recently assured his nervous followers that the Omidyar Network's political views and activities "have no effect whatsoever (italics added) on what he and his recycled mainstream media cohorts at The Intercept report, how they report it, or what they say.

But do Greenwald and Scahill really have editorial freedom? Could they, for example, investigate and write a story on something as farfetched as income inequality in America?

I hear you laughing, and wondering why a winner of the Polk Award and a guy who'd been on the Bill Maher Show would risk their reputations by treading into such a dubious arena.

Comment: Wolf in sheep's clothing? Billionaire neoliberal Pierre Omidyar

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