Puppet MastersS


Snakes in Suits

Rand Paul mocks Ashley Judd as 'an attractive woman' who doesn't deserve to run

David Edwards
Raw Story
Sun, 10 Feb 2013 12:21 UTC
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Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is dismissing actress Ashley Judd as an "attractive woman" who does not deserve to be a Kentucky senator because she owns a home in Scotland.

During an interview with Paul on Sunday, CNN's Candy Crowley pointed out that a recent attack ad created by Karl Rove's Crossroad GPS suggested that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was threatened by the possibility that Judd could take his Senate seat.

"Is he at this point looking weak?" Crowley wondered.

"You know, when I heard Ashley Judd might run for office, I thought maybe it was [the Bristish] Parliament because she lives in Scotland half of the year," Paul smirked. "But no, I think really part of politics is making sure that people know about who you're running against."
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Cell Phone

Software that tracks people on social media created by defence firm

Ryan Gallagher
Guardian
Sun, 10 Feb 2013 12:13 UTC
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Exclusive: Raytheon's Riot program mines social network data like a 'Google for spies', drawing ire from civil rights groups

A multinational security firm has secretly developed software capable of tracking people's movements and predicting future behaviour by mining data from social networking websites.

A video obtained by the Guardian reveals how an "extreme-scale analytics" system created by Raytheon, the world's fifth largest defence contractor, can gather vast amounts of information about people from websites including Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare.

Raytheon says it has not sold the software - named Riot, or Rapid Information Overlay Technology - to any clients.

But the Massachusetts-based company has acknowledged the technology was shared with US government and industry as part of a joint research and development effort, in 2010, to help build a national security system capable of analysing "trillions of entities" from cyberspace.
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Pistol

Learning from America's history of assassinations

Gary Hart
Huffington Post
Sun, 10 Feb 2013 11:31 UTC
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It is unfortunate that senior administration officials making life and death decisions today on when, where, and against whom drone strikes should be launched did not live through, as I did, the period of 1975-76 when Congressional investigations, including the famous Church committee, discovered plots by our government to assassinate foreign leaders. In the case of Fidel Castro those plots had an almost demented insistence and caused the CIA to partner with the Mafia to achieve its objectives, ordered by at least two administrations.

Profound Constitutional and moral issues were raised by these plots and their discoveries. For a new and very young senator, it was shocking to discover that a sewer of still unknown dimensions was flowing underneath the city on a hill. Such a discovery causes you to suspect almost everyone and everything (in my case not enough) and to believe that expediency will trump principle on almost every occasion.

The drone assassination policy is the product of the confluence of the notion of preemption, terrorism as war not crime, and a mistaken notion that "national security" can be defined so broadly that any action is justified. At least one prominent Air Force general desperately wanted to initiate large-scale nuclear attacks on the Soviet Union in the 1940s. Presumably, the preemption doctrine would have justified massive bombing raids on the Imperial palace and Japanese Ministry of War if we had known they were planning Pearl Harbor. These and more actions are possible if you totally put aside what the United States of America claims to stand for.
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Star of David

Israel commits crimes without punishment

Stephen Lendman
Information Clearing House
Sun, 10 Feb 2013 11:24 UTC
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Israel is a rogue state. It's a serial abuser. It commits crimes without punishment. It tolerates no criticism.

Last May, it suspended contact with the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

On April 30, Haaretz headlined "Israel joins UN list of states limiting human rights organizations."

Censure followed an earlier Ministerial Committee on Legislation approval to restrict foreign governments from funding NGOs. It should have been for crimes against humanity. Israel commits them daily.

It spurns fundamental rule of law principles. It rejects Fourth Geneva's de jure applicability. It's defied dozens of UN resolutions. It ignored the International Court of Justice's 2004 condemnation of its Separation Wall.

It refused cooperation with the Goldstone Commission on Cast Lead. In 2012, it denied UN investigators entry to collect testimonies on its lawless settlements.
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War Whore

U.S. officials confess to targeting Iran's civilian population

Franklin Lamb
Information Clearing House
Sun, 10 Feb 2013 11:04 UTC
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Tehran, Iran
Azadeh, a graduate law student from Tehran University, on the sidelines of Iran's Third Annual Hollywoodism (http://www.hollywoodism.org), reminded her interlocutors of the obvious damming admissions last week by two US politicians:

"It would be a defense lawyer's worst nightmare wouldn't it? I mean to have one's clients, in this case the Vice-President of the United States and the outgoing Secretary of state, confess so publicly to serial international crimes against a civilian population?"

The confessions and the crimes, she correctly enumerated to her audience, were those admitted to by US Vice-President Joe Biden and outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton this past week.

Both of the US officials, in discussing US relations with the Islamic Republic, openly admitted that the US-led sanctions against Iran (and Syria) are politically motivated and constitute a "soft-war" against the nearly 80 million people of Iran (23 million people in Syria) in order to achieve regime change.

Mrs. Clinton was the first of the dynamic duo to be heard from. She acknowledged that the harsh US sanctions were intended to target and send the people of Iran a message. "So we hope that the Iranian people will make known their concerns... so my message to Iranians is do something about this."
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USA

Ex-Gitmo prosecutor slams drone policy: 'Since 9/11 we've been the constrained and the cowardly'

Arturo Garcia
Raw Story
Sat, 09 Feb 2013 10:45 UTC
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A former chief prosecutor for the Guantanamo Bay prison facility sounded off on both President Barack Obama's administration's use of drone strikes and the apparent acceptance of the practice by the American people.

"We used to be the land of the free and the home of the brave," Col. Morris Davis told Current TV host Cenk Uygur on Friday. "Since 9/11, we've been the constrained and the cowardly."

Uygur mentioned that an unidentified "recent poll" showed that the practice of using drones to target suspected "imminent threats" has actually been met with support.

"The American people say, 'Ehhh, well if the government calls them suspected terrorists, well then we agree that we should drone stroke them,'" Uygur said. "What's happening with the American people where we seem to be, you know, killing democracy to thunderous applause?"
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Whistle

9/11 researcher found dead: Wrote book implicating Bush administration in the 9/11 attacks


Before It's News
Thu, 07 Feb 2013 20:34 UTC
Phillip Marshall wrote about conspiracy. Was he a victim of one? '9/11 Truther' Phillip Marshall and his entire family were recently found dead of gunshot wounds in what authorities are calling a murder suicide. Marshall was a former airline pilot and a '9/11 Conspiracy Theorist' and book writer who believed that the Bush administration, with cooperation from Saudi intelligence, had committed the 'false flag' terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001. Marshall was also a former CIA and DEA pilot during the Iran/Contra Scandal.

Marshall lived in fear for his life while writing his 9/11 Truther book implicating the United States government and George W. Bush in the 'false flag' attacks. Has the US government begun an all out assault on whistle blowers and so-called truthers? That would certainly put at least 50% of Beforeitsnews readers and reporters/contributors in jeapardy of a drone strike or 'accident' for merely seeking truth. The excellent videos below share that many Americans believe that this was another HIT upon a man who knew too much and was willing to share his information with the world. Why'd THEY kill his family, and dog, too? Was that REALLY NECESSARY George Bush?

The story below is from The Mail Online and The Santa Barbara View.

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Murder suicide: Philip Marshall is accused of shooting his children Alex, right, and Macaila Marshall, left, before turning the gun on himself
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Megaphone

Who's going to step up? President Obama must be impeached

Dave Lindorff
thiscantbehappening.net
Sun, 10 Feb 2013 10:12 UTC
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Killer drones, coming soon to a country near you...
If the Constitution is to have any relevance, and if America is to remain a free society, then there is really no alternative: there must be a bill of impeachment drawn up and submitted in the House, and there must at least be a hearing on that bill in the House Judiciary Committee.

The disclosure, by NBC, of a so-called "white paper" by the White House offering the legal justification for the executing of American citizens solely on the authority of the executive branch and the president exposes a White House so blatantly in violation of the Constitution that it simply demands such a hearing.

As Juan Cole explains clearly in an essay in Informed Comment, there are five ways that the white paper authorizing executive execution of Americans violates the Constitution. These, he explains, are:
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Dollar

Meet the 31 corporations and banks who dodged $128 billion in U.S. taxes

Jason Easley
Politicus USA
Thu, 07 Feb 2013 23:37 UTC
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Sen. Bernie Sanders released a report today directly taking on the Business Roundtable, by outing 31 banks and corporations who have dodged $128 billion in taxes.

According to the report, the 31 corporations and banks have dodged $128 billion in taxes by setting up offshore tax havens. They have received $6.5 billion in tax refunds, and $2.5 trillion in taxpayer bailout money. While stuffing their pockets with trillions of taxpayer dollars, the Business Roundtable has called for the deficit to be reduced by raising the eligibility age for Medicare and Social Security to 70, cut Social Security and veterans' benefits, and increase taxes on working families.

The reason why congressional Republicans are adamantly opposed to generating new revenue through closing these loopholes is that doing so would force these tax dodgers to pay their fair share. For Republicans, the concept of fairness only applies to making sure the wealthy get more by doing less. One of the reasons why Republicans continue to lose elections is because they insist on protecting corporations and banks at the expense of the American people.


Comment: While the author wants to blame the Republicans the truth is that the Democrats are just as guilty in their compliance towards banks and corporations. The two party system in the U.S. has sold out the working class and poor.


Instead of passing the burden of deficit reduction on to workers, seniors, the poor, and the middle class, how about we start with getting the 31 corporations and banks listed below to pay their taxes?
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USA

Extrajudicial killing: Official U.S. policy

Stephen Lendman
Information Clearing House
Fri, 08 Feb 2013 17:20 UTC
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Since taking office, Obama headed America toward full-blown tyranny. He enforces Bush administration police state laws. He added more of his own. He governs like a tinpot despot.

He targets free expression, dissent, whistleblowing, and other constitutional freedoms. He usurped diktat authority.

He spurns civil protections, judicial fairness, and other fundamental rights. Abuse of power is institutionalized.

By executive order, he authorized anyone indefinitely detained with or without charge on his say. He promised to close Guantanamo but keeps it open. He operates a secret global torture prison network.

In January, Law Professor Jonathan Turley called America "no longer the land of the free," saying:
"An authoritarian nation is defined not just by the use of authoritarian powers, but by the ability to use them."

"If a president can take away your freedom or your life on his own authority, all rights become little more than a discretionary grant subject to executive will."
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