Puppet MastersS


Sherlock

Library of Congress pulls sketchy Iran intel report 'for revisions' after criticism


RT.com
Wed, 23 Jan 2013 13:46 UTC
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© AFP Photo / Atta KenareIranian Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi
The Library of Congress has pulled a report on Iran's intelligence activities from circulation after an American journalism watchdog showed that the widely cited text was playing fast and loose with the facts.

American and international media outlets had jumped in the report's claim that Iranian intelligence was employing 30,000 people, a figure called "ill-supported" by ProPublica, a New York-based non-profit reporting on public interest matters.

The report had been produced by a Pentagon office and posted to a US government intranet site before leaking to the public in early January.

And a massive Iranian intel staff wasn't the only dubious claim brought to light by ProPobulica: the report also alleged, without much evidence, that Vienna was the European hub for the Iranian foreign spy network and that Tehran was gathering information by way of "signals intelligence stations" throughout the Middle East, with many of them in Syria.
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Nuke

Greece's fragile political stability at risk as violence escalates

Helena Smith
Guardian
Wed, 23 Jan 2013 13:38 UTC
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© Photograph: Simela Pantzartzi/EPAPolice officers investigate after a bomb explosion in Athens: the government is said to be 'very, very concerned' about the surge in violence
Attacks targeting politicians, journalists, banks and now a shopping mall stoke fears of growing extremism.

In the space of just a couple of weeks Greece's largest shopping mall has been targeted in a bomb attack, gunmen have fired on the headquarters of the ruling New Democracy party, and gas canisters have been set off outside an array of political party offices, banks and the homes of journalists.

Now three days after the attack on the shopping centre - which sent counter-terrorist officials on a painstaking hunt that has, as yet, borne little fruit - fears are mounting that Greece's fragile political stability could be shattered by extremists determined to exploit fury over unpopular austerity.

"The government is very, very concerned," said a senior aide to one of the coalition's tripartite leaders. "Political stability is essential to getting through the year."
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Play

CEO of JPMorgan says you don't need to know how banking works, it's like an airliner engine, too complex to explain, just shut up and pay us.

Nick Sorrentino
CNBC
Wed, 23 Jan 2013 13:35 UTC
Jamie Dimon in Davos Switzerland today explaining why people don't need to know what's going on in the banking world. It's too "complex." Just know that their fee comes from managing this ball of financial confusion. And that's all you need to know.

There, don't you feel better? I mean it's not like the world bailed out the whole banking system or anything. We should have faith.

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Propaganda

Creating the enemy: Clinton demands U.S. takes lead to combat 'jihadist threat' in north Africa

Chris McGreal
Guardian
Wed, 23 Jan 2013 13:24 UTC
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Hillary Clinton questioned by Congress on Algeria and Mali
Secretary of state tells Senate committee that al-Qaida in the region threatens African allies and poses direct threat to the US.

Hillary Clinton has called for increased US military and political intervention in north Africa, and warned of a long, difficult but necessary struggle against a "spreading jihadist threat" in the region.

The US secretary of state singled out the French-led intervention against armed Islamists in Mali as the most urgent crisis, but said that al-Qaida in the region, newly armed and invigorated by the fallout of the Arab revolutions, also threatens important allies such as oil-rich Nigeria, as well as the fledgling government in Libya.

Clinton, who is expected to leave office shortly, told the Senate foreign relations committee that jihadists in north Africa pose a direct threat to the US, and called for an increased role for the American military command for Africa, known as Africom, as well as providing the resources for governments in the region to defend themselves.

"We now face a spreading jihadist threat. We have driven a lot of the AQ [al-Qaida] operatives out of Afghanistan, Pakistan. We have killed a lot of them, including, of course, Bin Laden. But we have to recognise that this is a global movement," she said.
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Attention

Russia accuses west of arming Mali "Al-qaeda" rebels

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Wed, 23 Jan 2013 13:22 UTC
Lavrov
© Gallo/GettyLavrov says the West ignored the wider implications of training fighters to oust Gaddafi
Define irony? Here is one, or rather two, tries.

Back in the 1970s, it was none other than the US that armed the Taliban "freedom fighters" fighting against the USSR in the Soviet-Afghanistan war, only to see these same freedom fighters eventually and furiously turn against the same US that provided them with arms and money, with what ended up being very catastrophic consequences, culminating with September 11.

Fast forward some 30 or more years and it is again the US which, under the guise of dreams and hopes of democracy and the end of a "dictatorial reign of terror", armed local insurgents in the Libyan war of "liberation" to overthrow the existing regime (and in the process liberate just a bit of Libya's oil) - the same Libya where shortly thereafter these same insurgents rose against their former sponsor, and killed the US ambassador in what has now become an epic foreign policy Snafu.

But it doesn't end there as according to Russia, it is the same US weapons that were provided to these Libyan "freedom fighters" that are now being used in what is rapidly becoming a war in Mali, involving not only assorted French regiments, but extensive US flip flops and boots on the ground.
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Crusader

Pentagon resists budget cuts - without even knowing how much it spends

Michael Shank
Guardian
Wed, 23 Jan 2013 13:18 UTC
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© Photograph: Jason Reed/ReutersThe Government Accountability Office found the Pentagon 'unauditable' due to mismanaged records and a lack of transparency.
GOP hawks who defend the US military's budget from Chuck Hagel's charge of 'bloated' must account for why it isn't audited.

No matter how much Congress softens the sequestration's austerity footprint, everyone in government will have to nip-and-tuck in order to balance budgets. And that will include the Pentagon - something that Secretary of Defense nominee Chuck Hagel and even the Bowles-Simpson commission support.

We cannot afford to continue a clear and present double-standard in Washington, DC while also keeping the government accountable to its taxpayers. On one side of the discretionary spending spectrum, Republicans are absolutely religious about each government dollar doled out, and are quite keen to see sequestration cuts - to "entitlement" programs. On the other side, cuts to defense spending and oversight of the Pentagon is not up for discussion.

In fact, Republicans, joined by some conservative Democrats, are now going further. They will fight to ensure that no defense cuts whatsoever be included in any deal to forestall the automatic sequestration.
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Sheriff

UN official calls on British government to investigate undercover police scandal

Paul Lewis and Rob Evans
Guardian
Wed, 23 Jan 2013 13:15 UTC
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© Photograph: Philipp EbelingMark Kennedy, an undercover police officer who infiltrated a group of environmental protesters.
Maina Kiai says he is 'deeply concerned' about use of officers such as Mark Kennedy to infiltrate non-violent groups.

A senior United Nations official has called on the British government to launch a judge-led public inquiry into the "shocking" case of Mark Kennedy and other undercover police officers who have been infiltrating protest groups.

Maina Kiai, a UN special rapporteur, said the scandal involving undercover police cultivating intimate sexual relationships with political activists over long periods of time had been as damaging as the phone-hacking controversy that prompted the Leveson inquiry.

He said he was "deeply concerned" about the UK's use of undercover police officers in non-violent groups exercising their democratic rights to protest.
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Red Flag

Google report reveals continued rise in U.S. government requests for data

Dominic Rushe
Guardian
Wed, 23 Jan 2013 13:09 UTC
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© Photograph: Britta Pedersen/EPAGoogle said it complies to some degree with 90% of requests made under the ECPA.
Transparency report shows officials bypassing judicial approval under controversial Electronic Communications Privacy Act.

Google has revealed the full scale of the US government's use of controversial legislation that bypasses judicial approval to access the online information of private citizens.

According to its latest transparency report, the number of requests for private data Google received from US officials had increased by 136% by the end of 2012 from the second half of 2009, when the search firm first started collecting data.

In the US, 68% of requests were made under Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) subpoenas, which, unlike wiretaps or physical search warrants, typically circumvent the need for officials to make their case to a judge. Google said it complies to some degree with 90% of those requests.

This is the first time Google has disclosed the legal processes used by US officials to gather electronic information.
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Wall Street

The Untouchables: How the Obama administration protected Wall Street from prosecutions

Glenn Greenwald
Guardian
Wed, 23 Jan 2013 12:55 UTC
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© Photograph: Jason Reed/ReutersEric Holder talks to DOJ Criminal Chief Lanny Breuer in 2010.
A new PBS Frontline report examines a profound failure of justice that should be causing serious social unrest.

PBS' Frontline program on Tuesday night broadcast a new one-hour report on one of the greatest and most shameful failings of the Obama administration: the lack of even a single arrest or prosecution of any senior Wall Street banker for the systemic fraud that precipitated the 2008 financial crisis: a crisis from which millions of people around the world are still suffering. What this program particularly demonstrated was that the Obama justice department, in particular the Chief of its Criminal Division, Lanny Breuer, never even tried to hold the high-level criminals accountable.

What Obama justice officials did instead is exactly what they did in the face of high-level Bush era crimes of torture and warrantless eavesdropping: namely, acted to protect the most powerful factions in the society in the face of overwhelming evidence of serious criminality. Indeed, financial elites were not only vested with impunity for their fraud, but thrived as a result of it, even as ordinary Americans continue to suffer the effects of that crisis.
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USA

Oklahoma Republican congressman blames gun violence on Prozac and 'welfare moms'

David Ferguson
Raw Story
Wed, 23 Jan 2013 12:46 UTC
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James Lankford
Oklahoma Republican congressman Rep. James Lankford said at a town hall meeting in Oklahoma City earlier this month that blame for gun violence in the U.S. falls on the shoulders of "welfare moms" who commit fraud. According to video published by Think Progress on Tuesday, Lankford was answering a question from a constituent who was concerned that "psychotropic drugs" are to blame for recent tragedies involving high powered assault weapons and multiple deaths.

The constituent, a woman in a gray, zippered polar fleece and jeans, can be seen in a video of the event asking the congressman, "My question is regarding the guns and is Washington at all aware of the psychotropic drugs that these children are taking? I guarantee it, 100 percent, that's our big problem. I'm a little afraid of what I'm hearing about the psychiatric, uh, bent, as far as running people through nurses and psychologists because they want to put 'em on drugs."

Her statement falls in line with theories put forth by pro-gun advocate and professional conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, proprietor of InfoWars.com and who infamously blamed the shootings in Aurora, Colorado and Newtown, Connecticut on "CIA mass murder pills" like Prozac and other antidepressants during a bizarre, rambling interview with CNN's Piers Morgan.
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