Puppet MastersS


Stormtrooper

Hundreds of British celebrities are on the payroll as police propagandists


The Guardian
Sun, 29 Dec 2013 06:48 UTC
Image
Our role is to protect you... from thinking for yourselves
Television presenters, former sports stars and an actor from The Bill were among those recruited by police forces to help front safety campaigns and attend awards nights, new figures show.

The list, which reads like the contents of Alan Partridge's contacts book, shows a handful of police forces in England and Wales sought the clout of celebrity status from the likes of ex-newsreader Angela Rippon, former England footballer Jack Charlton and Gladiator "Atlas" over a three-year period.

Forces paid nearly £30,000 to hire the celebrities, although many of the fees were covered by sponsorship.

In some cases, payment took the form of a donation which was passed on to a charity of the celebrity's choosing.

Norfolk police made three separate payments including giving £3,000 to Graham Cole, who plays PC Tony Stamp in the ITV police drama The Bill, to feature in a staff film about "customer service".

In the film, which can be viewed on the force's website, Cole is seen walking through the streets in uniform discussing public perception of the police.
Read More...
No Entry

Sandy Hook Massacre cover-up continues: 'Final' Newtown police report reveals [CENSORED]


The Guardian
Sun, 29 Dec 2013 06:35 UTC
Image
Razed to the ground: Sandy Hook Elementary school is no longer there.
Police released thousands of pages Friday from their investigation into the Newtown massacre, providing the most detailed and disturbing picture yet of the rampage and Adam Lanza's fascination with murder, while also depicting school employees' brave and clearheaded attempts to protect the children.

Among the details: more than a dozen bodies, mostly children, were discovered packed "like sardines" in a bathroom where they had hidden. And the horrors encountered inside the school were so great that when police sent in paramedics, they tried to select ones capable of handling what they were about to witness.

"This will be the worst day of your life," police Sgt William Cario warned one.

The documents' release marks the end of the investigation into the December 14, 2012, shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary that left 20 first-graders and six educators dead.

Lanza, 20, went to the school after killing his mother, Nancy, inside their home. He committed suicide with a handgun as police arrived at the school.

Comment: We're still waiting for answers...

The Sandy Hook Massacre: Unanswered Questions

Sandy Hook cover-up continues: Connecticut State Investigation ends with records sealed, crime scene destroyed, motive 'unknown'

Read More...
Eye 1

At least 13 dead as [Saudi Arabia's Terrorists] target Russia's Volgograd train station


UK Independent
Sun, 29 Dec 2013 06:25 UTC

A "female suicide bomber" has been blamed for an explosion at a train station in southern Russia which has killed at least 13 people.

The country's National Anti-Terrorism Committee issued a statement following the attack at the central railway hub in the city of Volgograd.

The blast occurred at around 12.45pm local times (8.45am GMT), and footage from the scene showed bodies laid out next to ambulances outside.

A spokesman for the nation's top investigative committee said 13 had been confirmed dead so far, though that figure was expected to rise. The Volgograd health department told reporters several dozen people had been injured in the blast.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, which comes two months after another female suicide bomber blew up a bus in the same city, killing six and injuring around 30.

Officials said the attacker in that incident came from Dagestan, where Islamist insurgent activity has grown since the two separatist wars in Chechnya.

Comment: Apart from the ridiculous claim that a "female suicide bomber" was involved rather than a plain old bomb in a bag, apparently the mainstream media has forgotten this:
"Bandar told Putin, "There are many common values ​​and goals that bring us together, most notably the fight against terrorism and extremism all over the world. Russia, the US, the EU and the Saudis agree on promoting and consolidating international peace and security. The terrorist threat is growing in light of the phenomena spawned by the Arab Spring. We have lost some regimes. And what we got in return were terrorist experiences, as evidenced by the experience of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the extremist groups in Libya. ... As an example, I can give you a guarantee to protect the Winter Olympics in the city of Sochi on the Black Sea next year. The Chechen groups that threaten the security of the games are controlled by us"


Read More...
Satellite

Hypocrites: US bars Russian GPS sites for spying fears


Press TV
Sun, 29 Dec 2013 02:34 UTC
Russian monitor station in Brazil
© UnknownA technician from Russia's space agency at a monitor station in Brazil

The United States has barred Russia from building monitor stations on its soil for fears they could help Moscow spy on America, according to a report.

The measure was included in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2014 that was signed into law by President Barack Obama on Thursday, The New York Times reports.

Moscow first broached the idea of erecting the domed antenna structures inside the US nearly two years ago and insists they are designed to improve the accuracy of Russia's version of the Global Positioning System (GPS), the American satellite network that steers guided missiles to their targets and helps passengers with navigation.

The State Department supported the Russian plan as a means to mend strained ties with Moscow.

Comment: Will Russia and other countries around the world start pulling down GPS stations and other Western installations that are used for spying?

Read More...
No Entry

Fox News' Islamophobia in 2013


Media Matters
Sat, 28 Dec 2013 00:00 UTC
Read More...
Cult

"Know Your Role And Shut Your Mouth": How conservative media treated women in 2013

Emily Arrowood, Olivia Kittel, Olivia Marshall and Samantha Wyatt
Media Matters
Thu, 26 Dec 2013 11:06 UTC



Media Matters looks back at the best of the worst of right-wing media's treatment of women in 2013.

On A Woman's Role

Fox Contributor Erick Erickson: "I Understand That Some Women Believe They Can Have It All, And That's The Crux Of The Problem." On the May 30 edition of his WSB radio program The Erick Erickson Show, Fox contributor Erickson expressed his views on female breadwinners:
ERICKSON: [T]he subset of children who are raised in a two-parent, nuclear, heterosexual household, children where the father is the one who is the leader of the family, or the breadwinner of the family, however you want to say it, tend to out-perform those where the mother is the primary provider of the family outside of the home. Those are the facts. All I have done is point them out.

[...]

I understand the reality that some moms are single moms not by their choice. And I understand that some women believe they can have it all, and that's the crux of the problem. I have to tell you, as a man, where women are told that men have so many more advantages in society, we can't have it all. Women, you can't have it all either. Life is a series of compromises and choices. [WSB, The Erick Erickson Show, 5/30/13]
Read More...
Snakes in Suits

Misinformer of the year: CBS News

Eric Boehlert
Media Matters
Thu, 26 Dec 2013 16:58 UTC
Image
© Media Matters
"It is, to put it mildly, surprising that 60 Minutes did not check this discrepancy before broadcast" -- former Meet The Press host Marvin Kalb.

Even now, nearly two months after it aired, almost nothing about CBS News' "exclusive" (and infamous) 60 Minutes report on Benghazi makes sense. From conception, to execution, to the network's stubborn claims that the report met its high standards even as it publicly dissolved, the story on the Benghazi terror attack of 2012 quickly became a case study in how not to practice journalism on the national stage. And in how dangerous it is to lose sight of fair play and common sense when wielding the power and prestige of the country's most-watched news program.

The 60 Minutes Benghazi hoax had it all: a flimsy political premise featuring previously debunked myths, a correspondent with an established agenda, a blinding corporate conflict of interest, and an untrustworthy "witness" who apparently fabricated his story and had once reportedly asked a journalist to pay him for his information. (The fact that the CBS Benghazi report was widely hyped by an array of chronically inaccurate conservative media outlets represented another obvious red flag.)

When the Benghazi hoax first began to reveal itself, a chorus of veteran journalists agreed that CBS had a pressing problem on its hands and that executives needed to address the mounting crisis. Instead CBS for days, led by 60 Minutes correspondent Lara Logan and news chairman Jeff Fager, defended the truly indefensible, until that became unfeasible.

The sad part is the Benghazi hoax wasn't an isolated incident this year at CBS. The colossal blunder certainly created the most controversy. But the type of ethical short cuts used in that report were visible elsewhere on the network. CBS News reports on health care reform, disability fraud, and climate change in 2013 also displayed a disturbing willingness to peddle misinformation under the guise of network news.
Read More...
Newspaper

Media Whoredom: The Year on the Fringe

Ben Dimiero
Media Matters
Sat, 28 Dec 2013 11:04 UTC
Image
© SanJosePeace.org
On a rainy morning in October, Fox News reporter Doug McKelway sat in the passenger seat of a car cruising around the Washington, D.C., Beltway, delivering a live update to Fox & Friends.

McKelway was there to report on the arrival of what was supposed to be thousands of truckers protesting the Obama administration, an event that Fox and other conservative outlets had already given a significant publicity boost.

"What are you seeing there? Are there truckers all over the place, Doug?" asked Fox & Friends co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck.

Struggling against a janky satellite connection, McKelway explained, somewhat awkwardly, "We had expected to see literally dozens if not hundreds of trucks preparing for this protest. Instead, we saw maybe two, maybe three."

"So far, it's a light turnout ... but you never know. It could surge," co-host Brian Kilmeade reassured viewers.

It never did.

While the failed "Truckers Ride for the Constitution" was portrayed by conservative outlets like Fox as a gathering of Americans with reasoned objections to the Obama administration, it was actually co-organized by a fringe conspiracy theorist who apparently believes, among other things, that President Obama and Osama bin Laden are literally the same person.

That the rally had become mainstream news in the first place despite the outlandish views of its organizers -- to the extent that Fox News had a reporter driving around attempting to offer live reports on it -- was emblematic of the way fringe figures and conspiracy theories permeated the media in 2013.

Comment: See also:
Alex Jones: The Pied Piper of Extremism Who Brands "Truth-Seeking" as Mental Illness
Alex Jones: Conspiracy Inc.

Further discussion on our forum:
Alex Jones - COINTELPRO? Fascist Tool?

Read More...
Eye 1

New NYC mayor inherits massive counterterror force

Tom Hays and Colleen Long
Yahoo.com
Sat, 28 Dec 2013 00:00 UTC
ny mayor
© Associated Press/Richard Drew
At a recent briefing in lower Manhattan, the New York Police Department gave an auditorium full of private security executives plenty to worry about.

One of the NYPD's intelligence analysts warned that New Yorkers have gone to fight in the Syrian civil war and could come back radicalized against the West. A high-ranking officer described drills testing the NYPD's ability to respond to a dirty bomb attack. And a detective offered a detailed analysis of the deadly siege at a shopping mall in Nairobi, brashly challenging the Kenyan government's claim that the gunmen were dead.

The presentations demonstrated the nation's largest police department's determination to stay at the forefront of counterterrorism, even as the man who spearheaded the effort - Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly - is headed out the door.

Kelly, whose 12-year tenure ends this month without a major successful terror attack on his watch, repeatedly has suggested that anyone considering remaking one of the defining initiatives of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration should proceed with caution.

Comment: See? It's easy, natural even!

You fuel a conflict in Syria, send your groomed patsies over there, then when they come back, you use them as "home-grown, Syria-radicalized trrists" and order more armored police tanks from your friends at the defense contractors! Cool!

Read More...
Eiffel Tower

France may ban black comedian and half its citizens for "anti-Semitic" jibes and gestures

Tom Heneghan
Yahoo! News
Fri, 27 Dec 2013 00:00 UTC
Image
© LeMonde
France is considering banning performances by a black comedian whose shows have repeatedly insulted the memory of Holocaust victims and could threaten public order, Interior Minister Manuel Valls said on Friday.

He said his ministry is studying legal ways to ban shows by Dieudonne M'bala M'bala, a comedian repeatedly fined for hate speech who ran in the 2009 European Parliament elections at the head of an "Anti-Zionist List" including far-right activists.

Valls announced the move after Jewish groups complained to President Francois Hollande about Dieudonne's trademark straight-arm gesture, which they call a "Nazi salute in reverse" and link to a growing frequency of anti-Semitic remarks and acts in France.

"Dieudonne M'bala M'bala doesn't seem to recognize any limits any more," Valls said in a statement announcing the legal review aimed at banning his public appearances.

"From one comment to the next, as he has shown in several television shows, he attacks the memory of Holocaust victims in an obvious and unbearable way," he said.

Comment: If France does ban performances by Dieudonne, the reason probably isn't why this author states. See:

Is a new revolution quietly brewing in France?

Read More...